The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 / The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy

by H. P. Blavatsky

Section II. Adam=Adami.

Names such as Adam-Adami, used by Dr. Chwolsohn in his Nabathean Agriculture and derided by M. Renan, may prove little to the profane. To the Occultist, however, once that the term is found in a work of such immense antiquity as that above cited, it proves a good deal. It proves, for instance, that Adami was a manifold symbol, originating with the Âryan people, as the root word shows, and having been taken from them by the Semites and the Turanians—as many other things were.

Adam-Adami is a generic compound name as old as language is. The Secret Doctrine teaches that Ad-i was the name given by the Âryans to the first speaking race of mankind, in this Round. Hence the terms Adonim and Adonai (the ancient plural form of the word Adon), which the Jews applied to their Jehovah and Angels, who were simply the first spiritual and ethereal sons of the Earth, and the God Adonis, who in his many variations stood for the “First Lord.” Adam is the Sanskrit Âdi-Nâth, also meaning First Lord, as Âd-Îshvara, or any Ad (the First) prefixed to an adjective or substantive. The reason for this is that such truths were a common inheritance. It was a revelation received by the first mankind before that time which, in biblical phraseology, is called “the period of one lip and word,” or speech; knowledge expanded by man's own intuition later on, still later hidden from profanation under an adequate symbology. The author of the Qabbalah, according to the philosophical writings of Ibn Gebirol, shows the Israelites using Ad-onaï (A Do Na Y), “Lord,” instead of Eh'yeh, “I am,” and YHVH, and adds that, while Adonaï is rendered “Lord” in the Bible,

The lowest designation, or the Deity in Nature, the more general term Elohim, is translated God.[1031]

A curious work was translated in 1860 or thereabout, by the Orientalist Chwolsohn, and presented to ever-incredulous and flippant Europe under the innocent title of Nabathean Agriculture. In the opinion of the translator that archaic volume is a complete initiation into the mysteries of the Pre-Adamite nations, on the authority of undeniably authentic documents. It is an invaluable compendium, the full epitome of the doctrines, arts and sciences, not only of the Chaldæans, but also of the Assyrians and Canaanites of the pre-historic ages.[1032] These Nabatheans—as some critics thought—were simply the Sabæans, or Chaldæan star-worshippers. The work is a retranslation from the Arabic, into which language it was at first translated from the Chaldæan.

Masoudi, the Arabian historian, speaks of these Nabatheans, and explains their origin in this wise:

After the Deluge [?] the nations established themselves in various countries. Among these were the Nabatheans, who founded the city of Babylon, and were those descendants of Ham who settled in the same province under the leadership of Nimrod, the son of Cush, who was the son of Ham and great-grandson of Noah. This took place at the time when Nimrod received the governorship of Babylonia as the delegate of Dzahhak named Biourasp.[1033]

The translator, Chwolsohn, finds that the assertions of this historian are in perfect accord with those of Moses in Genesis; while more irreverent critics might express the opinion that for this very reason their truth should be suspected. It is useless, however, to argue the point, which is of no value in the present question. The weather-beaten, long-since-buried problem, and the difficulty of accounting, on any logical ground, for the phenomenal derivation of millions of people of various races, of many civilized nations and tribes, from three couples—Noah's sons and their wives—in 346 years[1034] after the Deluge, may be left to the Karma of the author of Genesis, whether he is called Moses or Ezra. That which is interesting in the work under notice, however, are its contents, the doctrines enunciated in it, which are again, if read Esoterically, almost all of them identical with the Secret Teachings.

Quatremère suggested that this book might have been simply a copy made under Nebuchadnezzar II from some Hamitic treatise, “infinitely more ancient,” while the author maintains, on internal and external evidence, that its Chaldæan original was written out from the oral discourses and teachings of a wealthy Babylonian landowner, named Qû-tâmy, who [pg 475] had used for those lectures still more ancient materials. The first Arabic translation is placed by Chwolsohn so far back as the thirteenth century b.c. On the first page of this “revelation,” the author, or amanuensis, Qû-tâmy, declares that “the doctrines propounded therein, were originally told by Saturn ... to the Moon, who communicated them to her idol,” and the idol revealed them to her devotee, the writer—the Adept Scribe of that work—Qû-tâmy.

The details given by the God for the benefit and instruction of mortals, show periods of incalculable duration and a series of numberless kingdoms and Dynasties that preceded the appearance on Earth of Adami (the “red-earth”). These periods, as might have been expected, have roused the defenders of the chronology of the biblical dead-letter meaning almost to fury. De Rougemont was the first to make a levée-in-arms against the translator. He reproaches him with sacrificing Moses to anonymous authors.[1035] Berosus, he urges, however great were his chronological errors, was at least in perfect accord with the prophet with regard to the first men, since he speaks of Alorus-Adam, of Xisuthrus-Noah, and of Belus-Nimrod, etc. Therefore, he adds, the work must be an apocryphon to be ranged with its contemporaries—the Fourth Book of Esdras, the Book of Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles, and the Book of Hermes—every one of these dating no further back than two or three centuries B.C. Ewald came down still harder on Chwolsohn, and finally M. Renan, who in the Revue Germanique[1036] asks him to show reason why his Nabathean Agriculture should not be the fraudulent work of some Jew of the third or fourth century of our era? It can hardly be otherwise—argues the romancer of the Vie de Jésus, since, in this in-folio on Astrology and Sorcery:

We recognize in the personages introduced Qû-tâmy, all the patriarchs of the biblical legends, such as Adam-Adami, Anouka-Noah, and his Ibrahim-Abraham, etc.

But this is no reason, since Adam and others are generic names. Meanwhile it is humbly submitted that, all things considered, an apocryphon—if even of the third century a.d., instead of the thirteenth century b.c., is old enough to appear genuine as a document, and so satisfy the demands of the most exacting archæologist and critic. For even admitting, for argument's sake, that this literary relic has been compiled by “some Jew of the third century of our era”—what of that? Leaving the credibility of its doctrines for a moment aside, why should [pg 476] it be less entitled to a hearing, or less instructive as reflecting older opinions, than any other religious work, also a “compilation from old texts” or oral tradition—of the same or even a later age? In such case we should have to reject and call “apocryphal” the Kurân—three centuries later, though we know it to have sprung, Minerva-like, direct from the brain of the Arabian prophet; and we should have to pooh-pooh all the information we can get from the Talmud, which, in its present form, was also compiled from older materials, and is not earlier than the ninth century of our era.

This curious “Bible” of the Chaldæan Adept and the various criticisms upon it (as in Chwolsohn's translation) are noticed, because it has an important bearing upon a great portion of the present work. With the exception of the contention of M. Renan, an iconoclast on principle—so pointedly called by Jules Lemaître “le Paganini du néant”—the worst fault found with the work is, it would seem, that the apocryphon pretends to have been communicated as a revelation to an Adept by, and from, the “idol of the Moon,” who received it from “Saturn.” Hence, very naturally, it is “a fairy tale all round.” To this there is but one answer: It is no more a fairy tale than the Bible, and if one falls, the other must follow it. Even the mode of divination through “the idol of the Moon” is the same as that practised by David, Saul and the High Priests of the Jewish Tabernacle by means of the Teraphim.

The Nabathean Agriculture is a compilation indeed; it is no apocryphon, but the repetition of the tenets of the Secret Doctrine under the exoteric Chaldæan form of national symbols, for the purpose of “cloaking” the tenets, just as the Books of Hermes and the Purânas are like attempts by Egyptians and Hindûs. The work was as well known in antiquity as it was during the Middle Ages. Maimonides speaks of it, and refers more than once to this Chaldæo-Arabic MS., calling the Nabatheans by the name of their co-religionists, the “star-worshippers,” or Sabæans, but yet failing to see in the disfigured word “Nabathean” the mystic name of the caste devoted to Nebo, the God of Secret Wisdom, which shows on its face that the Nabatheans were an Occult Brotherhood.[1037] The Nabatheans who, according to the Persian [pg 477] Yezidi, originally came to Syria from Busrah, were the degenerate members of that fraternity; still their religion, even at that late day, was purely kabalistic.[1038] Nebo is the Deity of the Planet Mercury, and Mercury is the God of Wisdom, or Hermes, or Budha, which the Jews called Kokab (ככב), “the Lord on high, the aspiring,” and the Greeks Nabo (Ναβώ), hence Nabatheans. Notwithstanding that Maimonides calls their doctrines “heathenish foolishness” and their archaic literature “Sabæorum fœtum,” he places their “agriculture,” the Bible of Qû-tâmy, in the first rank of archaic literature; and Abarbanel praises it in unmeasured terms. Spencer,[1039] quoting the latter, speaks of it as that “most excellent oriental work,” adding that by Nabatheans, the Sabæans, the Chaldæans, and the Egyptians, in short all those nations against whom the laws of Moses were most severely enacted, have to be understood.

Nebo, the oldest God of Wisdom of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, was identical with the Hindû Budha and the Hermes-Mercury of the Greeks. A slight change in the sexes of the parents is the only alteration. As Budha was the Son of Soma (the Moon) in India, and of the wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter), so Nebo was the son of Zarpanitu (the Moon) and of Merodach, who became Jupiter, after having been a Sun-god. As Mercury the Planet, Nebo was the “overseer” among the seven Gods of the Planets; and as the personification of the Secret Wisdom he was Nabin, a seer and a prophet. Moses is made to die and disappear on the mount sacred to Nebo. This shows him to have been an Initiate, and a priest of that God under another name; for this God of Wisdom was the great Creative Deity, and was worshipped as such. And this not only at Borsippa in his gorgeous Temple, or Planet-tower; he was likewise adored by the Moabites, the Canaanites, the Assyrians, and throughout the whole of Palestine. Then why not by the Israelites? “The planetary temple of Babylon” had its “Holy of Holies” within the shrine of Nebo, the Prophet-God of Wisdom. We are told in the Hibbert Lectures:

The ancient Babylonians had an intercessor between men and the gods ... and Nebo, was the “proclaimer” or “prophet,” as he made known the desire of his father Merodach.[1040]

Nebo is a Creator, like Budha, of the Fourth, and also of the Fifth, Race. For the former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter, the Solar-Lunar Dynasty, or the men of these Races and Round. Both are [pg 478] the Adams of their respective creatures. Adam-Adami is a personation of the dual Adam: of the paradigmatic Adam-Kadmon, the Creator, and of the lower Adam, the terrestrial, who, as the Syrian Kabalists have it, had only Nephesh, the “breath of life,” but no Living Soul, until after his Fall.

If, therefore, Renan persists in regarding the Chaldæan Scriptures—or what remains of them—as apocryphal, it is quite immaterial to truth and fact. There are other Orientalists who may be of a different opinion; and even were they not, it would still really matter very little. These doctrines contain the teachings of Esoteric Philosophy, and this must suffice. To those who understand nothing of symbology it may appear astrolatry, pure and simple, or to him who would conceal the Esoteric Truth, even “heathenish foolishness.” Maimonides, however, while expressing scorn for the Esotericism in the religion of other nations, confessed Esotericism and Symbology in his own, preached silence and secrecy upon the true meaning of Mosaic sayings, and thus came to grief. The Doctrines of Qû-tâmy, the Chaldæan, are, in short, the allegorical rendering of the religion of the earliest nations of the Fifth Race.

Why then should M. Renan treat the name “Adam-Adami” with such academical contempt? The author of the Origins of Christianity evidently knows nothing of the origins of Pagan symbolism or of Esotericism either, otherwise he would have known that the name Adam-Adami was a form of a universal symbol, referring, even with the Jews, not to one man, but to four distinct humanities or mankinds. This is very easily proven.

The Kabalists teach the existence of four distinct Adams, or the transformation of four consecutive Adams, the emanations from the Dyooknah, or Divine Phantom, of the Heavenly Man, an ethereal combination of Neshamah, the highest Soul or Spirit; this Adam having, of course, neither a gross human body, nor a body of desire. This Adam is the Prototype (Tzure) of the second Adam. That they represent our Five Races, is certain, as everyone can see by their description in the Kabalah. The first is the Perfect Holy Adam, “a shadow that disappeared” (the Kings of Edom), produced from the divine Tzelem (Image); the second is called the Protoplastic Androgyne Adam of the future terrestrial and separated Adam; the third Adam is the man made of “dust” (the first, Innocent Adam); and the fourth, is the supposed forefather of our own race—the Fallen Adam. See, however, [pg 479] the admirably clear description of these in Isaac Myer's Qabbalah. He gives only four Adams, because of the Kings of Edom, no doubt, and adds:

The fourth Adam ... was clothed with skin, flesh, nerves, etc. This answers to the Lower Nephesh and Guff, i.e., body, united. He has the animal power of reproduction and continuance of species.[1041]

This is the human Root-Race.

It is just at this point that the modern Kabalists—led into error by the long generations of Christian Mystics who have tampered with the kabalistic records wherever they could—diverge from the Occultists in their interpretations, and take the later thought for the earlier idea. The original Kabalah was entirely metaphysical, and had no concern with animal, or terrestrial, sexes; the later Kabalah has suffocated the divine ideal under the heavy phallic element. The Kabalists say: “God made man male and female.” Says the author of the Qabbalah:

Among the Qabbalists, the necessity to continued creation and existence is called the Balance.[1042]

And being without this “Balance,” connected with Maqom (the mysterious “Place”),[1043] even the First Race is not, as we have seen, recognized by the Sons of the Fifth Adam. From the highest Heavenly Man, the Upper Adam who is “male-female” or Androgyne, down to the Adam of dust, these personified symbols are all connected with sex and procreation. With the Eastern Occultists it is entirely the reverse. The sexual relation they consider as a “Karma” pertaining only to the mundane relation of man, who is dominated by Illusion, a thing to be put aside, the moment that the person becomes “wise.” They considered it a most fortunate circumstance if the Guru (teacher) found in his pupil an aptitude for the pure life of Brahmâchârya. Their dual symbols were to them but the poetical imagery of the sublime correlation of creative cosmic forces. And this ideal conception is found beaming like a golden ray upon each idol, however coarse and grotesque, in the crowded galleries of the sombre fanes of India and other mother-lands of cults.

This will be demonstrated in the following Section.

Meanwhile, it may be added that, with the Gnostics, the second Adam also emanates from the Primeval Man, the Ophite Adamas, in [pg 480] “whose image he is made”; the third, from this second—an Androgyne. The latter is symbolized in the sixth and seventh pairs of the male-female Æons, Amphain-Essumen (Ἀμφαὶν Ἐσσουμὲν), and Vananin-Lamertade (Οὐανανίν Λαμερτάδε)—Father and Mother[1044]—while the fourth Adam, or Race, is represented by a Priapean monster. The latter—a Post-Christian fancy—is the degraded copy of the Ante-Christian Gnostic symbol of the “Good One,” or “He, who created before anything existed,” the Celestial Priapus—truly born from Venus and Bacchus when that God returned from his expedition into India, for Venus and Bacchus are the post-types of Aditi and the Spirit. The later Priapus, one, however, with Agathodæmon, the Gnostic Saviour, and even with Abraxas, is no longer the glyph for abstract creative Power, but symbolizes the four Adams, or Races, the fifth being represented by the five branches cut off from the Tree of Life on which the old man stands in the Gnostic gems. The number of the Root-Races was recorded in the ancient Greek temples by the seven vowels, of which five were framed in a panel in the Initiation Halls of the Adyta. The Egyptian glyph for it was a hand with five fingers spread out, the fifth or little finger being only half-grown, and also five “N's”—hieroglyphs standing for that letter. The Romans used the five vowels A E I O V in their fanes; and this archaic symbol was adopted during the Middle Ages as a motto by the House of the Hapsburgs. Sic transit gloria!

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Section III. The “Holy of Holies.” Its Degradation.

The Sanctum Sanctorum of the Ancients, also called the Adytum—the recess at the West end of the Temple which was enclosed on three sides by blank walls and had its only aperture or door hung over with a curtain—was common to all ancient nations.

A great difference is now found between the secret meaning of this symbolical place as given in the Esotericism of the Pagans and in that of the later Jews, though its symbology was originally identical throughout the ancient races and nations. The Gentiles placed in the Adytum a sarcophagus, or a tomb (taphos), in which was the Solar God to whom the temple was consecrated, holding it, as Pantheists, in the greatest veneration. They regarded it, in its Esoteric meaning, as the symbol of resurrection, cosmic, solar, or diurnal, and human. It embraced the wide range of periodical, and (in time) punctual, Manvantaras, or the reäwakenings of Kosmos, Earth, and Man to new existences; the Sun being the most poetical and also the most grandiose symbol of such Cycles in Heaven, and man—in his reïncarnations—on Earth. The Jews—whose realism, if judged by the dead-letter, was as practical and gross in the days of Moses as it is now[1045]—in the course of their estrangement from the Gods of their Pagan neighbours, consummated a national and levitical polity, by the device of setting forth their Holy of Holies as the most solemn sign of their Monotheism—exoterically, while seeing in it but a universal phallic symbol—esoterically. While the Kabalists knew but Ain Suph and the “Gods” of the Mysteries, the Levites had no tomb, no God in their Adytum but the “Sacred” Ark of the Covenant—their “Holy of Holies.”

When the esoteric meaning of this recess is made clear, however, the profane will be better able to understand why David danced “uncovered” before the Ark of the Covenant, and was so anxious to appear vile for the sake of his “Lord,” and base in his own sight.[1046]

The Ark is the navi-form Argha of the Mysteries. Parkhurst, who has a long dissertation upon it in his Greek dictionary, and who never breathes a word about it in his Hebrew lexicon, explains it thus:

Archê (Ἀρχὴ) in this application answers to the Hebrew Rasit or wisdom, ... a word which had the meaning of the emblem of the female generative power, the Arg or Arca, in which the germ of all nature was supposed to float or brood on the great abyss during the interval which took place after every mundane cycle.

Quite so; and the Jewish Ark of the Covenant had precisely the same significance; with the supplementary addition that, instead of a beautiful and chaste sarcophagus (the symbol of the Matrix of Nature and Resurrection), as in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Pagans, they had the Ark made still more realistic in its construction by the two Cherubs set up on the coffer or Ark of the Covenant, facing each other, with their wings spread in such a manner as to form a perfect Yoni (as now seen in India). Besides which, this generative symbol had its significance enforced by the four mystic letters of Jehovah's name, namely, IHVH (יהוה); Jod (י) meaning the membrum virile; Hé (ה), the womb; Vau (ו), a crook or a hook, a nail, and Hé (ה) again, meaning also “an opening”; the whole forming the perfect bisexual emblem or symbol or I(e)H(o)V(a)H, the male and female symbol.

Perhaps also, when people realize the true meaning of the office and title of the Kadesh Kadeshim, the “holy ones,” or “the consecrated to the Temple of the Lord”—the “Holy of Holies” of these “holy ones” may assume an aspect far from edifying.

Iacchus again is Iao or Jehovah; and Baal or Adon, like Bacchus, was a phallic God.

“Who shall ascend into the hill [the high place] of the Lord?” asks the holy king David, “Who shall stand in the place of his Kadushu (קדשו)?”[1047] Kadesh may mean in one sense to “devote,” “hallow,” “sanctify,” and even to “initiate”or to “set apart”; but it also means the ministry of lascivious rites—the Venus-worship—and the true interpretation of the word Kadesh is bluntly rendered in Deuteronomy, xxiii. 17; Hosea, iv. 14; and Genesis, xxxviii. 15-22. The “holy”Kadeshim of the Bible were identical, as to the duties of their office, with the Nautch-girls of the later Hindû pagodas. The Hebrew Kadeshim, or Galli, lived [pg 483] “by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove,” or the bust of Venus-Astarte.[1048]

The dance performed by David round the Ark was the “circle-dance,” said to have been prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries. Such was the dance of the daughters of Shiloh,[1049] and the leaping of the prophets of Baal.[1050] It was simply a characteristic of the Sabæan worship, for it denoted the motion of the Planets round the Sun. That the dance was a Bacchic frenzy is apparent. Sistra were used on the occasion, and the taunt of Michal and the King's reply are very expressive.[1051]

The Ark, in which are preserved the germs of all living things necessary to repeople the Earth, represents the survival of life, and the supremacy of Spirit over Matter, through the conflict of the opposing powers of Nature. In the Astro-theosophic chart of the Western Rite, the Ark corresponds with the navel, and is placed at the sinister side, the side of the woman (the Moon), one of whose symbols is the left pillar of Solomon's Temple—Boaz. The umbilicus is connected (through the placenta) with the receptacle in which are fructified the embryos of the race. The Ark is the sacred Argha of the Hindûs, and thus the relation in which it stands to Noah's Ark may be easily inferred when we learn that the Argha was an oblong vessel, used by the high priests as a sacrificial chalice in the worship of Isis, Astarte, and Venus-Aphrodite, all of whom were Goddesses of the generative powers of Nature, or of Matter—hence representing symbolically the Ark containing the germs of all living things.[1052]

Mistaken is he who accepts the kabalistic works of to-day, and the interpretations of the Zohar by the Rabbis, for the genuine kabalistic lore of old![1053] For no more to-day than in the day of Frederick von Schelling does the Kabalah accessible to Europe and America contain much more than

Ruins and fragments, much distorted, remnants still of that primitive system which is the key to all religious systems.[1054]

The oldest system and the Chaldæan Kabalah were identical. The latest renderings of the Zohar are those of the Synagogue in the early centuries—i.e., the Thorah (or Law), dogmatic and uncompromising.

The “King's Chamber” in Cheops' Pyramid is thus an Egyptian “Holy of Holies.” On the days of the Mysteries of Initiation, the Candidate, representing the Solar God, had to descend into the Sarcophagus, and represent the energizing ray, entering into the fecund womb of Nature. Emerging from it on the following morning, he typified the resurrection of Life after the change called Death. In the Great Mysteries his figurative “death” lasted two days, when with the Sun he arose on the third morning, after a last night of the most cruel trials. While the Postulant represented the Sun—the all-vivifying orb that “resurrects” every morning but to impart life to all—the Sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle. This, in Egypt; its form and shape changed with every country, provided it remained a vessel, a symbolic “navis” or boat-shaped vehicle, and a “container,” symbolically, of germs or the germ of life. In India, it is the “Golden” Cow through which the Candidate for Brâhmanism has to pass if he desires to be a Brâhman, and to become Dvi-ja, “born a second time.” The crescent-form Argha of the Greeks was the type of the Queen of Heaven—Diana, or the Moon. She was the Great Mother of all Existences, as the Sun was the Father. The Jews, previous to, as well as after, their metamorphosis of Jehovah into a male God, worshipped Astoreth, which made Isaiah declare: “Your new moons and ... feasts my soul hateth”;[1055] in saying which, he was evidently unjust. Astoreth and the New Moon (the crescent Argha) Festivals, had no worse significance as a form of public worship than had the hidden meaning of the Moon in general, which was kabalistically connected directly with, and sacred to, Jehovah, as is well known; with the sole difference, however, that one was the female and the other the male aspect of the Moon, and of the star Venus.

The Sun (the Father), the Moon (the Mother), and Mercury-Thoth (the Son), were the earliest Trinity of the Egyptians, who personified them in Osiris, Isis, and Thoth (Hermes). In the Gnostic Gospel Pistis Sophia, the seven Great Gods, divided into two Triads and the highest God (the Sun), are the lower Triple Powers (Τριδυνάμεις), whose powers [pg 485] reside respectively in Mars, Mercury and Venus; and the higher Triad—the three “Unseen Gods,” who dwell in the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn.[1056]

This requires no proof. Astoreth was in one sense an impersonal symbol of Nature, the Ship of Life carrying throughout the boundless Sidereal Ocean the germs of all being. And when she was not identified with Venus, like every other “Queen of Heaven” to whom cakes and buns were offered in sacrifice, Astoreth became the reflection of the Chaldæan “Nuah, the Universal Mother” (the female Noah, considered as one with the Ark), and of the female Triad, Ana, Belita and Davkina; called, when blended into one, “Sovereign Goddess, Lady of the Nether Abyss, Mother of Gods, Queen of the Earth, and Queen of Fecundity.” Later, Belita or Tamtu[1057] (the sea), the Mother of the City of Erech (the great Chaldæan Necropolis), became Eve; and now she is Mary the Virgin, in the Latin Church, represented as standing on the Crescent Moon, and, at times on the Globe, to vary the programme. The Navis, or ship-like form of the crescent, which blends in itself all those common symbols of the Ship of Life, such as Noah's Ark, the Yoni of the Hindûs, and the Ark of the Covenant, is the female symbol of the Universal “Mother of the Gods,” and is now found under its Christian symbol in every Church, as the “nave” (from navis).[1058] The Navis, the Sidereal Vessel, is fructified by the Spirit of Life—the male God; or, as the learned Kenealy, in his Apocalypse, very appropriately calls it—the Holy Spirit. In Western religious symbology the crescent was the male, the full Moon the female, aspect of that universal Spirit. The mystic word ALM, which the prophet Mahomet prefixed to many chapters of the Korân, alludes to her as the Alm, the Immaculate Virgin of the Heavens.[1059] And—the sublime ever falling into the ridiculous—it is from this root Alm that we have to derive the word Almeh—the Egyptian dancing-girls. The latter are “virgins” of the same type as the Nautchees in India, and the (female) Kadeshim, the “holy ones” of the Jewish temples—consecrated to Jehovah, who represented both sexes—whose holy functions in the Israelite fanes were identical with those of the Nautchees.

Now Eustathius declares that IO (ΙΩ) means the Moon, in the dialect [pg 486] of the Argians; it was also one of the names of the Moon in Egypt. Says Jablonski:

ΙΩ, Ioh, Ægyptiis Lunam significat neque habent illi, in communi sermonis usu, aliud nomen quo Lunam designent præter IO.

The Pillar and Circle (IO), which with Pythagoras was the perfect number contained in the Tetraktys,[1060] became later a preëminently phallic number—amongst the Jews, foremost of all, with whom it is the male and female Jehovah.

This is how a scholar explains it:

I find, on the Rosetta stone of Uhlemann, the word mooth (also in Seiffarth), the name of the moon, used as a cycle of time, hence the lunar month, from the hieroglyph [Symbol: half circle], with [Symbol: five-pointed star] and [Symbol: circle with middle dot] as determinatives, given as the Coptic I O H, or I O H. The Hebrew הוי may also be used as I O H, for the letter vau (ו) was used for o and for u, and for v or w. This, before the Massora, of which the point (·) was used as וֹ = o, וּ = u, and ו = v or w. Now I had worked it out by original search that the great distinctive function of the god-name Jehovah was designative of the influence of the moon as the causative of generation, and as of its exact value as a lunar year in the natural measure of days, as you will fully see,... And here comes this linguistic same word from a source far more ancient; viz., the Coptic, or rather from the old Egyptian in time of the Coptic.[1061]

This is the more remarkable when Egyptology compares this with the little which it knows about the Theban Triad—composed of Ammon, Mooth (or Moot), and their son Khonsoo. This Triad was, when united, contained in the Moon as their common symbol; and when separated, it was Khonsoo who was the God Lunus, being thus confounded with Thoth and Phtah. His mother Moot—the name signifying “Mother,” by the bye, and not the Moon, which was only her symbol—is called the “Queen of Heaven,” the “Virgin,” etc., as she is an aspect of Isis, Hathor, and other Mother Goddesses. She was less the wife than the mother of Ammon, whose distinct title is the “husband of his mother.” In a statuette at Boulaq, Cairo, this Triad is represented as a mummy-god holding in his hand three different sceptres, and bearing the lunar disk on his head, the characteristic tress of hair showing the design of representing it as that of an infant God, or the “Sun,” in the Triad. He was the God of Destinies in Thebes, and appears under two aspects (1) as Khonsoo, the Lunar God, and Lord of Thebes, Nofir-hotpoo, “he who is in absolute repose,” and (2) as “Khonsoo p. iri-sokhroo,” or “Khonsoo, who executes Destiny”; the former preparing [pg 487] the events and conceiving them for those born under his generative influence, the latter putting them into action.[1062] Under theogonic permutations Ammon becomes Horus, Hor-Ammon, and Moot(h)-Isis is seen suckling him in a statuette of the Saïtic period.[1063] In his turn, in this transformed Triad, Khonsoo becomes Thoth-Lunus, “he who operates salvation.” His brow is crowned with the head of an ibis decorated with the lunar disk and the diadem called Io-tef (IO-tef).[1064]

Now all these symbols are certainly found reflected in (some believe them identical with) the Yave, or Jehovah of the Bible. This will be made plain to anyone who reads The Source of Measures, or “The Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery,” and understands its undeniable, clear, and mathematical proofs that the esoteric foundations, or the system used in the building of the Great Pyramid, and the architectural measurements in the Temple of Solomon (whether the latter be mythical or real), Noah's Ark, and the Ark of the Covenant, are the same. If anything in the world can settle the dispute that the old, as much as the later Post-Babylonian, Jews, and especially the former, built their Theogony and Religion on the very same foundation as did all the Pagans, it is the work in question.

And now it may be as well to remind the reader of what we said of IAO in Isis Unveiled:

No other deity affords such a variety of etymologies as Iaho, nor is there any name which can be so variously pronounced. It is only by associating it with the Masoretic points that the later Rabbins succeeded in making Jehovah read “Adonaï”—or Lord. Philo Byblus spells it in Greek letters ΙΕΥΩ—IEVO. Theodoret says that the Samaritans pronounced it Iabé (Yahva), and the Jews Yaho; which would make it as we have shown, I—Ah—O. Diodorus states that “among the Jews they relate that Moses called the God IAO.” It is on the authority of the Bible itself, that we maintain that, before his initiation by Jethro, his father-in-law, Moses had never known the word Iaho.[1065]

The above receives corroboration in a private letter from a very learned Kabalist. In our first volume,[1066] it is stated that exoterically Brahma (neuter), so flippantly and so often confused by the Orientalists [pg 488] with Brahmâ (the male), is sometimes called Kâla-hansa, the “Swan in Eternity,” and the Esoteric meaning of Aham-sa, is given as “I [am] he,” So-ham being equal to Sah “he,” and Aham “I”—a mystic anagram and permutation. It is also the “four-faced” Brahmâ, the Chatur-mukham (the Perfect Cube) forming itself within, and from, the Infinite Circle; and again the use of the 1, 3, 5, and 7/7 = 14, as the Esoteric Hierarchy of the Dhyân Chohans, is explained. On this, the said correspondent comments in the following manner:

Of the 1, 3, 5, and twice 7, intending, and very especially, 13514, which on a circle may be read as 31415 (or π value), I think there cannot be a possibility of doubting; and especially when considered with symbol marks on Sacr',[1067] “Chakra,”or Circle of Vishnu.

But let me carry your description a step further: You say, “The One from the Egg, the Six, and the Five,[1068] give the numbers 1065, the value of the First-born.”If it be so, then in 1065 we have the famous Jehovah's name, the Jve or Jave, or Jupiter, and by change of ה to נ, or h to n, then נוי or the Latin Jun or Juno, the base of the Chinese riddle, the key measuring numbers of Sni (Sinai) and Jehovah coming down on that Mount, which numbers (1065) are but the use of our ratio of 113 to 355, because 1065 = 355 × 3 which is circumference to a diameter of 113 × 3 = 339. Thus the first born of Brahmâ-Prajâpati (or any Demiurgus) indicates a measuring use of a circular relation taken from the Chakra (or Vishnu) and, as stated above, the Divine Manifestation takes the form of Life and the First-born.

It is a most singular thing: At the entrance passage to the King's Chamber the measurement from the surface of the Great Step[1069] and the Grand Gallery to the top of the said Gallery is, by the very careful measures of Piazzi Smyth, 339 inches. Take a as a centre and with this radius describe a circle; the diameter of that circle will be 339 × 2 = 678, and these numbers are those of the expression and the raven, in the “dove and raven”scenes or pictures of the Flood of Noah; (the radius is taken to show division into two parts, which are 1065 each) for 113 (man) × 6 = 678, and the diameter to a circumference of 1065 × 2—so we have here an indication of cosmic man on this high grade or step, at the entrance of the King's Chamber (the Holy of Holies)—which is the womb. Now this passage is of such a height that a man to enter it must stoop. But a man upright is 113, and broken, or stooping, he becomes 113/2 = 56·5 or 5·65 x 10 (יהוה), or Jehovah. That is, he personifies[1070] him [pg 489]as entering the Holy of Holies. But by Hebrew Esotericism the chief function of Jehovah was child giving, etc., and that because, by the numbers of his name, he was the measure of the lunar year, which cycle of time—because by its factor of 7 (seven) it ran so coördinately with the periods of the quickening, viability, and gestation—was taken as the causative of the generative action and therefore was worshipped and besought.

This discovery connects Jehovah still more with all the other Creative and Generative Gods, Solar and Lunar, and especially with “King” Soma, the Hindû Deus Lunus, the Moon, because of the Esoteric influence attributed to this Planet in Occultism. There are other corroborations of this, however, in Hebrew tradition itself. Adam is spoken of in the More Nevochim (or “Guide of the Perplexed”—truly!) of Maimonides in two aspects; as a man, like all others born of a man and a woman, and—as the Prophet of the Moon; the reason of which is now made apparent, and has to be explained.

Adam, as the supposed great “Progenitor of the Human Race,” is, as Adam Kadmon, made in the image of God—a priapic image, therefore. The Hebrew words Sacr' and N'cabvah are, literally translated, Lingam (Phallus) and Yoni (Cteïs), notwithstanding their translation in the Bible “male and female.”[1071] As said there, “God creates ‘man in his own image,’ in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”—the androgyne Adam Kadmon. Now this kabalistic name is not that of a living man, nor even of a human or divine Being, but of the two sexes or organs of procreation, called in Hebrew with that usual sincerity of language preëminently biblical, Sacr' and N'cabvah[1072]; these two being, therefore, the image under which the “Lord God” appeared usually to his chosen people. That this is so, is now undeniably proven by almost all the symbologists and Hebrew scholars as well as by the Kabalah. Therefore Adam is in one sense Jehovah. This makes plain another general tradition in the East mentioned in Gregorie's Notes and Observations upon several Passages in Scripture,[1073] and quoted by Hargrave Jennings in his Phallicism:

That Adam was commanded by God that his dead body should be kept above ground till a fulness of time should come to commit it ... to the middle of the earth by a priest of the Most High God....

Therefore,

Noah daily prayed in the Ark before the “Body of Adam”—[1074]

or before the Phallus in the Ark, or Holy of Holies, again. He who is a Kabalist and accustomed to the incessant permutation of biblical names, once they are interpreted numerically and symbolically, will understand what is meant.

The two words of which Jehovah is composed, make up the original idea of male-female, as birth-originator, for the י was the membrum virile and Hovah was Eve. So ... the perfect one, as originator of measures, takes also the form of birthorigin, as hermaphrodite one; hence, the phallic use of form.[1075]

Besides, the same author shows and demonstrates numerically and geometrically that (a) Arets, “earth,” Adam, “man,” and H-adam-h, are cognate with each other, and are personified in the Bible under one form, as the Egyptian and Hebrew Mars, God of Generation;[1076] and (b) that Jehovah, or Jah, is Noah, for Jehovah is Noah in Hebrew would be ינח or literally in English, Inch.

The above affords, then, a key to the said traditions. Noah, a divine permutation, the supposed Saviour of Humanity, who carries in his Ark or Argha (the Moon), the germs of all living things, worships before the “Body of Adam,” which body is the image of the Creator, and a Creator itself. Hence Adam is called the “Prophet of the Moon,” the Argha or “Holy of Holies” of the Yod (י). This also shows the origin of the Jewish popular belief that the face of Moses is in the Moon—i.e., the spots in the Moon. For Moses and Jehovah are kabalistically once more permutations, as has been shown. Says the author of The Source of Measures:

There is one fact in regard to Moses and his works too important to be omitted. When he is instructed by the Lord as to his mission, the power name assumed by the Deity is, I am that I am, the Hebrew words being

אהיה אשר אהיה ;

a various reading of יהוה. Now, Moses is משה, and equals

345.

Add the values of the new form of the name Jehovah, 21 + 501 + 21 = 543, or, by a reverse reading, 345; thus showing Moses to be a form of Jehovah in this combination. 21 ÷ 2 = 105, or, reversed, 501, so that the asher or the that in I am-that-I am is simply a guide to a use of 21 or 7 × 3.501^2 = 251 +, a very valuable pyramid number, etc.[1077]

For a clearer explanation for the benefit of Non-Kabalists we put it thus: “I am that I am” is in Hebrew:

Âhiyé is ה י ה א, or 5 10 5 1.

Asher is ר ש א, or 200 300 1.

Âhiyé is ה י ה א, or 5 10 5 1.

Add the numbers of these separate words and you have:

אהיה (21) אשר (501) אהיה (21).

This relates to the process of descending in Fire on the Mount to make Man, etc., and is explained to be but a check and use of the numbers of the mountains; for on one side we have 10 + 5 + 6 = 21, down the middle 501, and on the other side 6 + 5 + 10 = 21.[1078]

The “Holy of Holies,” both kabalistic and rabbinical, is thus shown as an international symbol, and common property. Neither had originated with the Hebrews; but owing to the too realistic handling of the half-initiated Levites, the symbol had acquired with them a significance which it scarcely has with any other people to this day, and which it was originally never meant to have by the true Kabalist. The Lingam and Yoni of the modern average Hindû is, on the face of it, of course, no better than the rabbinical “Holy of Holies”—but it is no worse; and this is a point gained on the Christian traducers of the Asiatic religious Philosophies. For, in such religious myths, in the hidden symbolism of a creed and philosophy, the spirit of the tenets propounded ought to decide their relative value. And who will say, that, examined either way, this so-called “Wisdom,” applied solely to the uses and benefit of one little nation, has ever developed in it anything like national ethics. The Prophets are there, to show the walk in life of the chosen but “stiff-necked” people before, during, and after, the days of Moses. That they have had at one time the Wisdom-Religion and the use of its universal language and symbols is proved by the same Esotericism existing to this day in India with regard to the “Holy of Holies.” This, as said above, was and still is the passage through the “Golden” Cow in the same stooping position as was necessitated by the Gallery of the Pyramid, which identified man with Jehovah in Hebrew Esotericism. The whole difference lies in the spirit of the interpretation. With the Hindûs as with the ancient Egyptians that spirit was and is entirely metaphysical and psychological; with [pg 492] the Hebrews it was realistic and physiological. It pointed to the first sexual separation of the human race—Eve giving birth to Cain-Jehovah, as shown in The Source of Measures; to the consummation of terrestrial physiological union and conception—as in the allegory of Cain shedding Abel's blood, Habel being the feminine principle; and to child-bearing—a process shown to have begun in the Third Race, or with Adam's Third Son, Seth, with whose Son Henoch, men began to call themselves Jehovah or Jah-hovah, the male Jod and Havah or Eve, to wit, male and female beings.[1079] Thus the difference lies in the religious and ethical feeling, but the two symbols are identical. There is no doubt that, with the fully initiated Judæan Tanaim, the inner sense of the symbolism was as holy in its abstraction as with the ancient Âryan Dvijas. The worship of the “God in the Ark” dates only from David; and for a thousand years Israel knew of no phallic Jehovah. And now the old Kabalah edited and reëdited, has become tainted with it.

With the ancient Âryans the hidden meaning was grandiose, sublime and poetical, however much the external appearance of their symbol may now militate against the claim. The ceremony of passing through the Holy of Holies—now symbolized by the Cow, but in the beginning through the temple Hiranya-garbha, the Radiant Egg, in itself a symbol of Universal, Abstract Nature—meant spiritual conception and birth, or rather the re-birth of the individual and his regeneration; the stooping man at the entrance of the Sanctum Sanctorum, ready to pass through the Matrix of Mother Nature, or the physical creature ready to re-become the original Spiritual Being, pre-natal Man. With the Semite, that stooping man meant the fall of Spirit into Matter, and that fall and degradation were apotheosized by him with the result of dragging Deity down to the level of man. For the Âryan, the symbol represented the divorce of Spirit from Matter, its merging into and return to its primal Source; for the Semite, the wedlock of Spiritual Man with Material Female Nature, the physiological taking preëminence over the psychological and the purely immaterial. The Âryan views of the symbolism were those of the whole Pagan world; the Semite interpretations emanated from, and were preëminently those of a small tribe, thus marking its national features and the idiosyncratic defects that characterize many of the Jews to this day—gross realism, selfishness, and sensuality. They had made a bargain, through their father Jacob, [pg 493] with their tribal deity, self-exalted above all others, and a covenant that his “seed shall be as the dust of the earth”; and that deity could have no better image henceforth than that of the symbol of generation, and as representation a number and numbers.

Carlyle has wise words for both these nations. With the Hindû Âryan—the most metaphysical and spiritual people on earth—religion has ever been, in his words,

An everlasting lode-star, that beams the brighter in the heavens the darker here on earth grows the night around him.

The religion of the Hindû detaches him from this Earth; therefore, even now, the cow-symbol is one of the grandest and most philosophical among all others in its inner meaning. To the “Masters” and “Lords” of European potencies, the Israelites, certain words of Carlyle apply still more admirably; for them

Religion is a wise prudential feeling grounded on mere calculation—

and it was so from its beginnings. Having burdened themselves with it, Christian nations feel bound to defend and poetize it, at the expense of all other religions.

But it was not so with the ancient nations. For them the passage-entrance and the sarcophagus in the King's Chamber meant regeneration—not generation. It was the most solemn symbol, a Holy of Holies, indeed, wherein were created Immortal Hierophants and “Sons of God”—never mortal men and sons of lust and flesh, as now in the hidden sense of the Semite Kabalist. The reason for the difference in the views of the two races is easy to account for. The Âryan Hindû belongs to the oldest races now on Earth; the Semite Hebrew to the latest. The former is nearly one million years old; the latter is a small sub-race some 8,000 years of age and no more.[1080]

But phallic worship has developed only with the gradual loss of the keys to the inner meaning of religious symbols, and there was a day when the Israelites had beliefs as pure as the Âryans have. But now Judaism, built solely on phallic worship, has become one of the latest [pg 494] creeds in Asia, and theologically a religion of hate and malice toward everyone and everything outside itself. Philo Judæus shows what was the genuine Hebrew faith. The Sacred Writings, he says, prescribe what we ought to do, commanding us to hate the heathen and their laws and institutions. True, they did hate Baal or Bacchus worship publicly, but left its worst features to be followed secretly. It is with the Talmudic Jews that the grand symbols of Nature were the most profaned. With them, as now shown by the discovery of the key to the correct Bible reading, Geometry, the fifth Divine Science—“fifth” in the series of the Seven Keys to the universal Esoteric Language and Symbology—was desecrated, and by them applied to conceal the most terrestrial and grossly sexual mysteries, wherein both Deity and Religion were degraded.

We are told that it is just the same with our Brahmâ-Prajâpati, with Osiris and all other Creative Gods. Quite so, when their rites are judged exoterically and externally; the reverse when their inner meaning is unveiled, as we see. The Hindû Lingam is identical with Jacob's “Pillar”—most undeniably. But the difference, as said, seems to consist in the fact that the Esoteric significance of the Lingam was too truly sacred and metaphysical to be revealed to the profane and the vulgar; hence its superficial appearance was left to the speculations of the mob. Nor would the Âryan Hierophant and Brâhman, in their proud exclusiveness and the satisfaction of their knowledge, go to the trouble of concealing its primeval nakedness under cunningly devised fables; whereas the Rabbi, having interpreted the symbol to suit his own tendencies, had to veil the crude significance; and this served a double purpose—that of keeping his secret to himself and of exalting himself in his supposed monotheism over the Heathen, whom his Law commanded him to hate[1081]—a commandment now gladly accepted by the Christian too, in spite of another and later commandment, “Love one another.” Both India and Egypt had and have their sacred lotuses, symbolic of the same “Holy of Holies”—the lotus growing in the water, a double feminine symbol—the bearer of its own [pg 495] seed and root of all. Virâj and Horus are both male symbols, emanating from Androgyne Nature, one from Brahmâ and his female counterpart Vâch, the other, from Osiris and Isis—never from the One Infinite God. In the Judæo-Christian systems it is different. Whereas the lotus, containing Brahmâ, the Universe, is shown growing out of Vishnu's Navel, the Central Point in the Waters of Infinite Space, and whereas Horus springs from the lotus of the Celestial Nile—all these abstract pantheistic ideas are dwarfed and made terrestrially concrete in the Bible. One is almost inclined to say that in the esoteric they are grosser and still more anthropomorphic, than in their exoteric rendering. Take as an example the same symbol, even in its Christian application—the lilies in the hand of the Archangel Gabriel.[1082] In Hindûism—the “Holy of Holies” is a universal abstraction, whose dramatis personæ are Infinite Spirit and Nature; in Christian Judaism, it is a personal God, outside of that Nature, and the human womb—Eve, Sarah, etc.; hence, an anthropomorphic phallic God, and his image—man.

Thus it is maintained, that with regard to the contents of the Bible, one of two hypotheses has to be admitted. Either behind the symbolic substitute Jehovah, there was the Unknown, Incognizable Deity, the kabalistic Ain Suph; or, the Jews have been from the beginning no better than the dead-letter Lingam-worshippers[1083] of the India of to-day. We say it was the former; and that, therefore, the secret or esoteric worship of the Jews was the same Pantheism that the Vedântin Philosophers are reproached with to-day; Jehovah was a substitute for purposes of an exoteric national faith, and had no importance or reality in the eyes of the erudite Priests and Philosophers—the Sadducees, the most refined and the most learned of all the Israelite sects, who stand as a living proof of it, with their contemptuous rejection of every belief, save the Law. For how could those who invented the stupendous scheme now known as the Bible, or their successors who knew, as all Kabalists do, that it was so invented for a popular “blind”—how could they, we ask, feel reverence for such a phallic symbol and a number, as Jehovah is shown most undeniably to be in the kabalistic works? How could anyone worthy of the name of a Philosopher, and knowing the real secret meaning of their “Pillar of Jacob,” their Bethels, oil-anointed Phalli, and their “Brazen Serpent,” worship such a gross symbol, and minister unto it, seeing in it their “Covenant”—the [pg 496] Lord Himself! Let the reader turn to Gemara Sanhedrim and judge. As various writers have shown, and as brutally stated in Hargrave Jennings' Phallicism:

We know from the Jewish records that the Ark contained a table of stone; and if it can be demonstrated that that stone was phallic, and yet identical with the sacred name Jehovah or Yehovah, which, written in unpointed Hebrew with four letters, is J-E-V-E or J-H-V-H (the H being merely an aspirate and the same as E). This process leaves us the two letters I and V (or in another of its forms U); then if we place the I in the U we have the “Holy of Holies”; we also have the Linga and Yoni and Argha of the Hindûs, the Iswarra [Îshvara] or “supreme Lord”; and here we have the whole secret of its mystic and arc-celestial import, confirmed in itself by being identical with the Linyoni [?] of the Ark of the Covenant.[1084]

The biblical Jews of to-day do not date from Moses but from David—even admitting the identity of the old and genuine with the later and remodelled Mosaic scrolls. Before that time their nationality is lost in the mists of pre-historic darkness, the veil from which is now withdrawn as much as we have space to do. It is only to the days of the Babylonian captivity that the Old Testament may be referred by the most lenient criticism as the approximately correct views that were current about the days of Moses. Even such fanatical Christians and worshippers of Jehovah as the Rev. Mr. Horne, have to admit the numerous changes and alterations made by the later compilers of the “Book of God,” since it was found by Hilkiah,[1085] and since

The Pentateuch arose out of the primitive or older documents, by means of a supplementary one.

The Elohistic texts were re-written 500 years after the date of Moses; the Jehovistic 800, on the authority of the biblical chronology itself. Hence, it is maintained that the deity, represented as the organ of generation in his pillar-form, and as a symbol of the double-sexed organ in the numeral value of the letters of his name—the Yod, י or “phallus,” and Hé, ה, the “opening,” or the “womb,” according to kabalistic authority—is of a far later date than the Elohim-symbols and is borrowed from the Pagan exoteric rites; and Jehovah is thus on a par with the Lingam and Yoni found on every roadside in India.

Just as the Iao of the Mysteries was distinct from Jehovah, so was the later Iao and Abraxas, or Abrasax, of some Gnostic sects identical with the God of the Hebrews, who was the same as the Egyptian Horus. [pg 497] This is undeniably proven on “Heathen” as on the Gnostic “Christian” gems. In Matter's collection of such gems there is a “Horus”—

Seated on the lotus, inscribed ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ ΙΑΩ (Abrasax Iao)—an address exactly parallel to the so frequent ΕΙΣ ΖΕΥΣ ΣΑΡΑΠΙ (Eis Zeus Sarapi) on the contemporary Heathen gems, and therefore only to be translated by “Abraxas is the One Jehovah.”[1086]

But who was Abraxas? As the same author shows:

The numerical or Kabbalistic value of the name Abraxas directly refers to the Persian title of the god “Mithras,” Ruler of the year, worshipped from the earliest times under the appellation of Iao.[1087]

Thus, he was the Sun, in one aspect, the Moon or the Lunar Genius, in another, that Generative Deity whom the Gnostics saluted as “Thou that presidest over the Mysteries of the Father and the Son, who shinest in the night-time, holding the second rank, the first Lord of Death.”

It is only in his capacity of the Genius of the Moon—the latter being credited in the old cosmogony with being the parent of our Earth—that Jehovah could ever be regarded as the Creator of our Globe and its Heaven, namely, the Firmament.

The knowledge of all this will be no proof, however, to the average bigot. Missionaries will go on with the most virulent attacks on the religions of India, and Christians read with the same benighted smile of satisfaction as ever these preposterously unjust words of Coleridge:

It is highly worthy of observation that the inspired writings received by Christians are distinguishable from all other books pretending to inspiration, from the Scriptures of the Brahmins, and even from the Koran, in their strong and frequent recommendation of truth [!!].

---

Section IV. On the Myth of the “Fallen Angels” in its Various Aspects.

A. The Evil Spirit: Who, And What?

Our present quarrel is exclusively with Theology. The Church enforces belief in a Personal God and a Personal Devil, while Occultism shows the fallacy of such a belief. For the Pantheists and Occultists, as much as for the Pessimists, “Nature” is no better than “a comely mother, but stone cold”; but this is true only so far as regards external Physical Nature. They both agree that, to the superficial observer, she is no better than an immense slaughter-house wherein butchers become victims, and victims executioners in their turn. It is quite natural that the pessimistically inclined profane, once convinced of Nature's numerous shortcomings and failures, and especially of her autophagous propensities, should imagine this to be the best evidence that there is no Deity in abscondito within Nature, nor anything divine in her. Nor is it less natural that the Materialist and the Physicist should imagine that everything is due to blind force and chance, and to the survival of the strongest, even more often than of the fittest. But the Occultists, who regard Physical Nature as a bundle of most varied illusions on the plane of deceptive perceptions; who recognize in every pain and suffering but the necessary pangs of incessant procreation; a series of stages toward an ever-growing perfectibility, which is visible in the silent influence of never-erring Karma, or Abstract Nature—the Occultists, we say, view the Great Mother otherwise. Woe to those who live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the future of all that vegetates without change. And how can there be any change for the better without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage? Is [pg 499] it not those only who have learnt the deceptive value of earthly hopes and the illusive allurements of external nature who are destined to solve the great problems of life, pain, and death?

If our modern Philosophers—preceded by the mediæval scholars—have helped themselves to more than one fundamental idea of antiquity, Theologians have built their God and his Archangels, their Satan and his Angels, along with the Logos and his staff, entirely out of the dramatis personæ of the old heathen Pantheons. They would have been welcome to these, had they not cunningly distorted the original characters, perverted the philosophical meaning, and, taking advantage of the ignorance of Christendom—the result of long ages of mental sleep, during which humanity was permitted to think only by proxy—tossed every symbol into the most inextricable confusion. One of their most sinful achievements in this direction, was the transformation of the divine Alter Ego into the grotesque Satan of their Theology.

As the whole philosophy of the problem of evil hangs upon the correct comprehension of the constitution of the Inner Being of Nature and Man, of the divine within the animal, and hence also the correctness of the whole system as given in these pages, with regard to the crown piece of evolution—Man—we cannot take sufficient precautions against theological subterfuges. When the good St. Augustine and the fiery Tertullian call the Devil the “monkey of God,” we can attribute it to the ignorance of the age they lived in. It is more difficult to excuse our modern writers on the same ground. The translation of Mazdean literature has afforded Roman Catholic writers the pretext for proving their point in the same direction once more. They have taken advantage of the dual nature of Ahura Mazda and of his Amshaspands in the Zend Avesta and the Vendîdâd, to emphasize still further their wild theories. Satan is the plagiarist and the copyist by anticipation of the religion which came ages later. This was one of the master strokes of the Latin Church, its best trump-card after the appearance of Spiritualism in Europe. Though only a succès d'estime, in general, even among those who are not interested in either Theosophy or Spiritualism, yet the weapon is often used by the Christian (Roman Catholic) Kabalists against the Eastern Occultists.

Now even the Materialists are quite harmless, and may be regarded as the friends of Theosophy, when compared to some fanatical “Christian”—as they call themselves, “Sectarian” as we call them—Kabalists, on the Continent. These read the Zohar, not to find in it ancient [pg 500] Wisdom, but, by mangling the texts and meaning, to discover in its verses Christian dogmas, where none could ever have been meant; and, having fished them out with the collective help of Jesuitical casuistry and learning, the supposed “Kabalists” proceed to write books and to mislead less far-sighted students of the Kabalah.[1088]

May we not then be permitted to drag the deep rivers of the Past, and thus bring to the surface the root idea that led to the transformation of the Wisdom-God, who had first been regarded as the Creator of everything that exists, into an Angel of Evil—a ridiculous horned biped, half goat and half monkey, with hoofs and a tail? We need not go out of the way to compare the Pagan Demons of either Egypt, India, or Chaldæa with the Devil of Christianity, for no such comparison is possible. But we may stop to glance at the biography of the Christian Devil, a piratical reprint from the Chaldæo-Judæan mythology.

The primitive origin of this personification rests upon the Akkadian conception of the Cosmic Powers—the Heavens and the Earth—in eternal feud and struggle with Chaos. Their Silik-Muludag (? Murudug), “the God amongst all the Gods,” the “merciful guardian of men on Earth,” was the son of Hea (or Ea) the great God of Wisdom, called by the Babylonians Nebo. With both peoples, as also in the case of the Hindû Gods, their deities were both beneficent and maleficent. As evil and punishment are the agents of Karma, in an absolutely just retributive sense, so Evil was the servant of the Good.[1089] The reading of the Chaldæo-Assyrian tiles has now demonstrated this beyond a shadow of doubt. We find the same idea in the Zohar. Satan was a Son and an Angel of God. With all the Semitic nations, the Spirit of the Earth was as much the Creator in his own realm as the Spirit of the Heavens. They were twin brothers and interchangeable in their functions, when not two in one. Nothing of that which we find in Genesis is absent from the Chaldæo-Assyrian religious beliefs, even in the little that has hitherto been deciphered. The great “Face of the Deep” of Genesis is traced in the Tohu Bohu (“Deep” or “Primeval Space”), or Chaos, of the Babylonians. Wisdom, the Great Unseen God—called in Genesis [pg 501] the “Spirit of God”—lived, for the older Babylonians as for the Akkadians, in the Sea of Space. Toward the days described by Berosus, this Sea became the Visible Waters on the face of the Earth—the crystalline abode of the Great Mother, the Mother of Ea and all the Gods, which became, still later, the great Dragon Tiamat, the Sea Serpent. Its last stage of development was the great struggle of Bel with the Dragon—the Devil!

Whence the Christian idea that God cursed the Devil? The God of the Jews, whosoever he was, forbids cursing Satan. Philo Judæus and Josephus both state that the Law (the Pentateuch and the Talmud) undeviatingly forbid one to curse the Adversary, and also the Gods of the Gentiles. “Thou shalt not revile the Gods,” quoth the God of Moses,[1090] for it is God who “hath divided [them] unto all nations”;[1091] and those who speak evil of “Dignities” (Gods) are called “filthy dreamers” by Jude.

For even Michael the Archangel ... durst not bring against him [the Devil] a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.[1092]

Finally the same is repeated in the Talmud:[1093]

Satan appeared one day to a man who used to curse him daily, and said to him: “Why dost thou this?” Consider that God himself would not curse me, but merely said: “The Lord rebuke thee, Satan.”[1094]

This piece of Talmudic information shows plainly (a) that St. Michael is called “God” in the Talmud, and somebody else the “Lord,” and (b) that Satan is a God, of whom even the “Lord” is in fear. All we read in the Zohar and other kabalistic works on Satan shows plainly that this “personage” is simply the personification of the abstract Evil, which is the weapon of Karmic Law and Karma. It is our human nature and man himself, as it is said that “Satan is always near and inextricably interwoven with man.” It is only a question of that Power being latent or active in us.

It is a well-known fact—to learned Symbologists at all events—that in every great religion of antiquity, it is the Logos Demiurge—the Second Logos, or the first emanation from the Mind, Mahat—who is made to strike, so to say, the key-note of that which may be called the correlation of Individuality and Personality in the subsequent scheme [pg 502] of evolution. It is the Logos who is shown, in the mystic symbolism of Cosmogony, Theogony, and Anthropogony, playing two parts in the drama of Creation and Being—that of the purely human Personality and the divine Impersonality of the so-called Avatâras, or divine Incarnations, and of the Universal Spirit, called Christos by the Gnostics, and the Fravarshi (or Ferouer) of Ahura Mazda in the Mazdean Philosophy. On the lower rungs of Theogony the Celestial Beings of lower Hierarchies had each a Fravarshi, or a Celestial “Double.” It is the same, only still more mystic, reässertion of the kabalistic axiom, “Deus est Demon inversus”; the word “Demon,” however, as in the case of Socrates, and in the spirit of the meaning given to it by the whole of antiquity, standing for the Guardian Spirit, an “Angel,” not a Devil of Satanic descent as Theology would have it. The Roman Catholic Church shows its usual logic and consistency by accepting St. Michael as the Ferouer of Christ. This Ferouer was his “Angel Guardian,” as proved by St. Thomas,[1095] who, however, calls the prototypes and synonyms of Michael, such as Mercury for example, Devils!

The Church positively accepts the tenet that Christ has his Ferouer as any other God or mortal has. Writes De Mirville:

Here we have the two heroes of the Old Testament, the Verbum [?] (or secondJehovah), and his Face [“Presence,” as the Protestants translate], both making but one, and yet being two, a mystery which seemed to us unsolvable before we had studied the doctrine of the Mazdean Ferouers, and learnt that the Ferouer was the spiritual potency, at once image, face, and guardian of the Soul which finally assimilates the Ferouer.[1096]

This is almost correct.

Among other absurdities, the Kabalists maintain that the word Metatron, being divided into meta-thronon (μετὰ, θρόνον), means “near the throne.”[1097] It means quite the reverse, as meta means “beyond” and not “near.” This is of great importance in our argument. St. Michael, then, the “quis ut Deus,” is the translator, so to speak, of the invisible world into the visible and the objective.

They maintain, furthermore, along with the Roman Catholic Church, that in the Biblical and Christian Theology there does not exist a “higher celestial personality, after the Trinity, than that of the Archangel, [pg 503] or the Seraphim, Michael.” According to them, the conqueror of the Dragon is the Archisatrap of the Sacred Militia, the Guardian of the Planets, the King of the Stars, the Slayer of Satan and the Powerful Rector. In the mystic Astronomy of these gentlemen, he is the Conqueror of Ahriman, who having upset the Sidereal Throne of the usurper, bathes in his stead in the Solar Fires; and, Defender of the Christ-Sun, he approaches so near his Master, “that he seems to become one with him.”[1098] Owing to this fusion with the Word (Verbum) the Protestants, and among them Calvin, ended by losing sight entirely of the duality, and saw no Michael “but only his Master,” writes the Abbé Caron. The Roman Catholics, and especially their Kabalists, know better; and it is they who explain to the world this duality, which affords them the means of glorifying the chosen ones of the Church, and of rejecting and anathematizing all those Gods who may be in the way of their dogmas.

Thus the same titles and the same names are given in turn to God and the Archangel. Both are called Metatron, “both have the name of Jehovah applied to them when they speak one in the other” (sic), for, according to the Zohar, the term signifies equally the Master and the Ambassador. Both are the Angel of the Face, because, as we are informed, if on the one hand the “Word” is called “the Face [or the Presence] and the Image of the Substance of God,” on the other, “when speaking of the Saviour to the Israelites, Isaiah [?] tells them” that “the Angel of his Presence saved them in their affliction”—“so he was their Saviour.”[1099] Elsewhere Michael is called very plainly the “Prince of the Faces of the Lord,” the “Glory of the Lord.” Both Jehovah and Michael are the “Guides of Israel[1100] ... Chiefs of the Armies of the Lord, Supreme Judges of the Souls and even Seraphs.”[1101]

The whole of the above is given on the authority of various works by Roman Catholics, and must, therefore, be orthodox. Some expressions are translated to show what subtle Theologians and Casuists mean by the term Ferouer,[1102] a word borrowed by some French writers from the Zend Avesta, as said, and utilized in Roman Catholicism for a purpose [pg 504] Zoroaster was very far from anticipating. In Fargard xix (verse 14), of the Vendîdâd it is said:

Invoke, O Zarathushtra! my Fravarshi, who am Ahura Mazda, the greatest, the best, the fairest of all beings, the most solid, the most intelligent, ... and whose soul is the holy Word (Mâthra Spenta).[1103]

The French Orientalists translate Fravarshi by Ferouer.

Now what is a Ferouer, or Fravarshi? In some Mazdean works it is plainly implied that Fravarshi is the inner, immortal Man, or the Ego which reïncarnates; that it existed before the physical body and survives all such bodies it happens to be clothed in.

Not only man was endowed with a Fravarshi, but gods too, and the sky, fire, waters, and plants.[1104]

This shows as plainly as can be shown that the Ferouer is the “spiritual counterpart” of either God, animal, plant, or even element, i.e., the refined and the purer part of the grosser creation, the soul of the body, whatever the body may happen to be. Therefore does Ahura Mazda recommend Zarathushtra to invoke his Fravarshi and not himself (Ahura Mazda); that is to say, the impersonal and true Essence of Deity, one with Zoroaster's own Âtmâ (or Christos), not the false and personal appearance. This is quite clear.

Now it is on this divine and ethereal prototype that the Roman Catholics have seized so as to build up the supposed difference between their God and Angels and the Deity and its aspects, or the Gods of the old religions. Thus, while calling Mercury, Venus, Jupiter (whether as Gods or Planets) Devils, they at the same time make of the same Mercury the Ferouer of their Christ. This fact is undeniable. Vossius[1105] proves that Michael is the Mercury of the Pagans, and Maury and other French writers corroborate him, and add that according to great Theologians Mercury and the Sun are one, (?) and no wonder, they think, since Mercury being so near the Wisdom and the Verbum (the Sun), must be absorbed by and confounded with him.[1106]

This “Pagan” view was accepted from the first century of our era, as shown in the original Acts of the Apostles (the English translation being worthless). So much is Michael the Mercury of the Greeks and other nations, that when the inhabitants of Lystra mistook Paul and [pg 505] Barnabas for Mercury and Jupiter, saying, “The Gods have come down to us in the likeness of men”—the text adds: “And they called Barnabas Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the leader of the Word (Logos),” and not “the chief speaker,” as erroneously translated in the Authorized, and repeated even in the Revised, English Bible. Michael is the Angel of the vision in Daniel, the Son of God, “who was like unto a Son of Man.” It is the Hermes-Christos of the Gnostics, the Anubis-Syrius of the Egyptians, the Counsellor of Osiris in Amenti, the Leontoid Michael-Ophiomorphos (ὀφιομόρφος) of the Ophites, who wears on certain Gnostic jewels a lion's head, like his father Ildabaoth.[1107]

Now to all this the Roman Catholic Church tacitly consents, many of her writers even avowing it publicly. Unable to deny the flagrant “borrowing” of their Church, who “spoiled” her seniors of their symbols, as the Jews had “spoiled” the Egyptians of their jewels of silver and gold, they explain the fact quite coolly and seriously. Thus the writers who have hitherto been timid enough to see, in this repetition by Christian dogmas of old Pagan ideas, “a legendary plagiarism perpetrated by man,” are gravely assured that, far from such a simple solution of the almost perfect resemblance, it has to be attributed to quite another cause—“to a pre-historical plagiarism, of a superhuman origin.”

If the reader would know how, he must again kindly turn to the same volume of De Mirville's work.[1108] Please note that this author was the official and recognized defender of the Roman Church, and was helped by the learning of all the Jesuits. There we read:

We have pointed out several demi-gods, and also “very historical” heroes of the Pagans, who were predestined from the moment of their birth, to ape, while at the same time they dishonoured, the nativity of the hero, who was quite God, before whom the whole earth had to bow; we have traced them being born as he was, from an immaculate mother; we have seen them strangling serpents in their cradles, fighting against demons, performing miracles, dying as martyrs, descending to the nether world and rising again from the dead. And we have bitterly deplored that timid and shy Christians should feel compelled to explain all such identities on the ground of coincidence of myth and symbol. They forget apparently these words of the Saviour, all that came before me are thieves and robbers—a word which explains all without any absurd negation and which I have commented on in these words, “The Evangel is a sublime drama, parodied and played before its appointed time by ruffians.”

The “ruffians” (les drôles), are of course Demons whose manager is [pg 506] Satan. Now this is the easiest and the most sublime and simple way of getting out of the difficulty! The Rev. Dr. Lundy, a Protestant De Mirville, followed the happy suggestion in his Monumental Christianity, and so did Dr. Sepp of Munich in his works written to prove the divinity of Jesus and the Satanic origin of all other Saviours. So much greater the pity that a systematic and collective plagiarism which went on for several centuries on the most gigantic scale, should be explained by another plagiarism, this time in the fourth Gospel. For the sentence quoted from it, “All that ever came before me,” etc., is a verbatim repetition of words written in the Book of Enoch. In the Introduction to Archbishop Laurence's translation from an Ethiopic MS. in the Bodleian Library, the editor, author of the Evolution of Christianity, remarks:

In revising the proof-sheets of the Book of Enoch, we have been still further impressed by relationship with New Testament Scripture. Thus, the parable of the sheep, rescued by the good Shepherd from hireling guardians and ferocious wolves, is obviously borrowed by the fourth Evangelist from Enoch lxxxix, in which the author depicts the shepherds as killing and destroying the sheep before the advent of their Lord, and thus 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.[1109]

It is too late in the day to claim that it is Enoch who borrowed from the New Testament, instead of vice versâ. Jude (14, 15) quotes verbatim from Enoch a long passage about the coming of the Lord with his ten thousand saints, and naming the prophet specifically acknowledges the source.

In ... perfecting the parallelism between prophet and apostle, [we] have placed beyond controversy that, in the eyes of the author of an Epistle accepted as Divine revelation, the Book of Enoch was the inspired production of an antediluvian patriarch....

The cumulative coincidence of language and ideas in Enoch and the authors of New Testament Scripture, ... 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, judgment, 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.[1110]

“Antediluvian,” truly; but if the phraseology of the text dates hardly a few centuries or even millenniums before the historical era, then it is no longer the original prediction of the events to come, but is, in its turn, a copy of some scripture of a pre-historic religion.

In the Krita age, Vishnu, in the form of Kapila and other (inspired teachers) ... imparts ... true wisdom [as Enoch did]. In the Tretâ age he restrains the wicked, in the form of a universal monarch [Chakravartin, the “Everlasting King” of Enoch[1111]] and protects the three worlds [or Races]. In the Dvâpara age, in the person of Veda-vyâsa, he divides the one Veda into four, and distributes it into hundreds (Shata) of branches.[1112]

Truly so; the Veda of the earliest Âryans, before it was written, went forth into every nation of the Atlanto-Lemurians, and sowed the first seeds of all the now existing old religions. The off-shoots of the never dying Tree of Wisdom have scattered their dead leaves even on Judæo-Christianity. And at the end of the Kali, our present Age, Vishnu, or the “Everlasting King,” will appear as Kalki, and reëstablish righteousness upon earth. The minds of those who live at that time shall be awakened, and become as pellucid as crystal.

The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time [the Sixth Race] shall be as the seeds of other human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita age of purity;

i.e., it shall be the Seventh Race, the Race of “Buddhas,” the “Sons of God,” born of immaculate parents.

B. The Gods Of Light Proceed From The Gods Of Darkness.

Thus it is pretty well established that Christ, the Logos, or the God in Space and the Saviour on Earth, is but one of the echoes of this same antediluvian and sorely misunderstood Wisdom. Its history begins by the descent on Earth of the “Gods” who incarnate in mankind, and this is the “Fall.” Whether Brahmâ hurled down on Earth by Bhagavân in the allegory, or Jupiter by Cronus, all are the symbols of the human races. Once having touched this Planet of dense Matter, the snow-white wings of even the highest Angel can no longer remain immaculate, or the Avatâra (or incarnation) be perfect, as every such Avatâra is the fall of a God into generation. Nowhere is the metaphysical [pg 508] truth more clear, when explained Esoterically, or more hidden from the average comprehension of those who instead of appreciating the sublimity of the idea can only degrade it—than in the Upanishads, the Esoteric glossaries of the Vedas. The Rig Veda, as Guignault characterized it, “is the most sublime conception of the great highways of humanity.” The Vedas are, and will remain for ever, in the Esotericism of the Vedânta and the Upanishads, “the mirror of the Eternal Wisdom.”

For upwards of sixteen centuries the new masks, forced over the faces of the old Gods, have screened them from public curiosity, but they have finally proved a misfit. Yet the metaphorical Fall, and the as metaphorical Atonement and Crucifixion, have led Western Humanity through roads knee-deep in blood. Worse than all, they have led it to believe in the dogma of the Evil Spirit distinct from the Spirit of all Good, whereas the former lives in all Matter and preëminently in man. Finally it has created the God-slandering dogma of Hell and eternal perdition; it has spread a thick film between the higher intuitions of man and divine verities; and, most pernicious result of all, it has made people remain ignorant of the fact that there were no fiends, no dark demons in the Universe before man's own appearance on this, and probably on other Earths. Hence the people have been led to accept, as the problematical consolation for this world's sorrows, the thought of original sin.

The philosophy of that Law in Nature, which implants in man as well as in every beast a passionate, inherent, and instinctive desire for freedom and self-guidance, pertains to Psychology and cannot be touched on now, for to demonstrate this feeling in higher Intelligences, to analyze and give a natural reason for it, would necessitate an endless philosophical explanation for which there here is no room. Perhaps the best synthesis of this feeling is found in three lines of Milton's Paradise Lost. Says the “Fallen One”:

Here we may reign secure; and in my choice,

To reign is worth ambition, though in hell!

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!

Better be man, the crown of terrestrial production and king over its opus operatum, than be lost among the will-less Spiritual Hosts in Heaven.

We have said elsewhere that the dogma of the first Fall rested on a few verses in Revelation, which are now shown to be a plagiarism from Enoch by some scholars. These have given rise to endless theories [pg 509] and speculations, which have gradually acquired the importance of dogma and inspired tradition. Every one sought to explain the verse about the seven-headed dragon with his ten horns and seven crowns, whose tail “drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth,” and whose place, with that of his Angels, “was found no more in heaven.” What the seven heads of the Dragon (or Cycle) mean, and its five wicked kings also, may be learned in the Addenda which close Part III of this Volume.

From Newton to Bossuet speculations were incessantly evolved in Christian brains with regard to these obscure verses. Says Bossuet:

The star that falls is the heresiarch Theodosius.... The clouds of smoke are the heresies of the Montanists.... The third part of the stars are the martyrs, and especially the doctors of divinity.

Bossuet ought to have known, however, that the events described in Revelation were not original, and may, as shown, be found in other and Pagan traditions. There were no scholastics nor Montanists during Vedic times, nor yet far earlier in China. But Christian Theology had to be protected and saved.

This is only natural. But why should truth be sacrificed in order to protect from destruction the lucubrations of Christian Theologians?

The “princeps aeris hujus,” the “Prince of the Air,” of St. Paul, is not the Devil, but the effects of the Astral Light, as Éliphas Lévi correctly explains. The Devil is not the “God of this period,” as he says, for it is the Deity of every age and period since Man appeared on Earth, and Matter in its countless forms and states had to fight for its evanescent existence against other disintegrating Forces.

The “Dragon” is simply the symbol of the Cycle and of the “Sons of Manvantaric Eternity,” who had descended on Earth during a certain epoch of its formative period. The “clouds of smoke” are geological phenomena. The “third part of the stars of heaven,” cast down to the Earth, refers to the Divine Monads—the Spirits of the Stars in Astrology—that circumambulate our Globe; i.e., the human Egos destined to perform the whole Cycle of Incarnations. The sentence, “qui circumambulat terram,” however, is again referred to the Devil in Theology, the mythical Father of Evil being said to “fall like lightning.” Unfortunately for this interpretation, the “Son of Man,” or Christ, is expected, on the personal testimony of Jesus, to descend on Earth likewise, “as the lightning cometh out of the East,”[1113] just in [pg 510] the same shape and under the same symbol as Satan, who is seen to fall “as lightning ... from heaven.”[1114] All these metaphors and figures of speech, preëminently Oriental in their character, must have their origin searched for in the East. In all the ancient Cosmogonies Light comes from Darkness. In Egypt, as elsewhere, Darkness was “the principle of all things.” Hence Pymander, the “Thought Divine,” issues as Light from Darkness. Behemoth[1115] is the principle of Darkness, or Satan, in Roman Catholic Theology, and yet Job says of him that Behemoth is “the chief [principle] of the ways of God”—“Principium viarum Domini Behemoth!”[1116]

Consistency does not seem to be a favourite virtue in any portion of Divine Revelation, so-called—not as interpreted by Theologians, at any rate.

The Egyptians and the Chaldæans referred the birth of their Divine Dynasties to that period when creative Earth was in her last final throes in giving birth to her pre-historic mountain ranges, which have since disappeared, her seas and her continents. Her face was covered with “deep Darkness and in that [Secondary] Chaos was the principle of all things” that developed on the Globe later on. Our Geologists have now ascertained that there was such a terrestrial conflagration in the early geological periods, several hundred millions of years ago.[1117] As to the tradition itself, every country and nation had it, each under its respective national form.

It is not alone Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia or Mexico, that had its Typhon, Python, Loki, and its “falling” Demon, but China also. The Celestials have a whole literature upon the subject. It is said that in consequence of the rebellion against Ti of a proud Spirit, who said he was Ti himself, seven Choirs of Celestial Spirits were exiled upon Earth, which “brought a change in all Nature, Heaven itself bending down and uniting with Earth.”

In the Y-King, one reads:

The flying Dragon, superb and rebellious, suffers now, and his pride is punished; he thought he would reign in Heaven, he reigns only on the Earth.

Again, the Tchoon-Tsieoo says allegorically:

One night the stars ceased shining in darkness, and deserted it, falling down like rain upon the Earth, where they are now hidden.

These stars are the Monads.

Chinese Cosmogonies have their “Lord of the Flame” and their “Celestial Virgin,” with little “Spirits to help and minister to her; and big Spirits to fight those who are the enemies of other Gods.” But all this does not prove that the said allegories are presentments or prophetic writings which all refer to Christian Theology.

The best proof one can offer to Christian Theologians that the Esoteric statements in the Bible—in both Testaments—are the assertion of the same idea as in our Archaic Teachings, to wit, that the “Fall of the Angels” referred simply to the Incarnation of Angels “who had broken through the Seven Circles”—is found in the Zohar. Now the Kabalah of Simeon Ben Iochaï is the soul and essence of the allegorical narrative, as the later Christian Kabalah is the “dark cloaked” Mosaic Pentateuch. And it says (in the Agrippa MSS.):

The Wisdom of the Kabalah rests in the Science of the Equilibrium and Harmony.

Forces that manifest without having been first equilibrized perish in Space [“equilibrized” meaning differentiated].

Thus perished the first Kings [the Divine Dynasties] of the Ancient World, the self-produced Princes of Giants. They fell like rootless trees, and were seen no more; for they were the Shadow of the Shadow [to wit, the Chhâyâ of the Shadowy Pitris].[1118]

But those that came after them, who shooting down like falling stars were enshrined in the Shadows—prevailed to this day [Dhyânîs, who by incarnating in those “empty Shadows,” inaugurated the era of mankind].

Every sentence in the ancient Cosmogonies unfolds to him who can read between the lines the identity of the ideas, though under different garbs.

The first lesson taught in Esoteric Philosophy is, that the Incognizable Cause does not put forth evolution, whether consciously or unconsciously, but only exhibits periodically different aspects of Itself to the perception of finite minds. Now the Collective Mind—the Universal—composed of various and numberless Hosts of Creative Powers, however infinite in Manifested Time, is still finite when contrasted with the Unborn and Undecaying Space in its supreme essential aspect. That which is finite cannot be perfect. Therefore there are inferior [pg 512] Beings among those Hosts, but there never have been any Devils or “disobedient Angels,” for the simple reason that they are all governed by Law. The Asuras (call them by any other name you will) who incarnated, followed in this a law as implacable as any other. They had manifested prior to the Pitris, and as Time (in Space) proceeds in Cycles, their turn had come—hence the numerous allegories. The name “Asura” was first given by the Brâhmans indiscriminately to those who opposed their mummeries and sacrifices, as did the great Asura called Asurendra. It is to those ages, probably, that the origin of the idea of the Demon, as opposer and adversary, has to be traced.

The Hebrew Elohim, called “God” in the translations, who create “Light,” are identical with the Âryan Asuras. They are also referred to as the “Sons of Darkness,” as a philosophical and logical contrast to Light Immutable and Eternal. The earliest Zoroastrians did not believe in Evil or Darkness being coëternal with Good or Light, and they give the same interpretation. Ahriman is the manifested Shadow of Ahura Mazda (Asura Mazda), himself issued from Zeruâna Âkerne, the “Boundless [Circle of] Time,” or the Unknown Cause. They say of the latter:

Its glory is too exalted, its light too resplendent for either human intellect or mortal eye to grasp and see.

Its primal emanation is Eternal Light, which, from having been previously concealed in Darkness, was called to manifest itself and thus was formed Ormazd, the “King of Life.” He is the “First-born” in Boundless Time, but, like his own antetype (preëxisting spiritual idea), has lived within Darkness from all Eternity. The six Amshaspands—seven with himself, the Chief of all—the primitive Spiritual Angels and Men, are collectively his Logos. The Zoroastrian Amshaspands create the World in six Days or periods also, and rest on the seventh; but in the Esoteric Philosophy, that seventh is the first period or “Day,” the so-called Primary Creation in Âryan Cosmogony. It is that intermediate Æon which is the Prologue to Creation, and which stands on the borderland between the Uncreated Eternal Causation and the produced finite effects; a state of nascent activity and energy as the first aspect of the Eternal Immutable Quiescence. In Genesis, on which no metaphysical energy has been spent, but only an extraordinary acuteness and ingenuity to veil the Esoteric Truth, Creation begins at the third stage of manifestation. “God” or the Elohim are the “Seven Regents” of Pymander. They are identical with all the other Creators. [pg 513] But even in Genesis that period is hinted at by the abruptness of the picture, and the “Darkness” that was on the face of the Deep. The Elohim are shown to “create”—that is to say, to build or to produce the two Heavens or “double” Heaven (not Heaven and Earth); which means, in so many words, that they separated the upper manifested (Angelic) Heaven, or plane of consciousness, from the lower or terrestrial plane; the (to us) Eternal and Immutable Æons from those Periods that are in space, time and duration; Heaven from Earth, the Unknown from the Known—to the profane. Such is the meaning of the sentence in Pymander, which says that:

Thought, the divine, which is Light and Life [Zeruâna Âkerne] produced through its Word, or first aspect, the other, operating Thought, which being the God of Spirit and Fire, constructed Seven Regents enclosing within their Circle the World of Senses named “Fatal Destiny.”

The latter refers to Karma; the “Seven Circles” are the seven planets and planes, as also the seven Invisible Spirits, in the Angelic Spheres, whose visible symbols are the seven planets,[1119] the seven Rishis of the Great Bear and other glyphs. As said of the Âdityas by Roth:

They are neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, nor dawn, but the eternal sustainers of this luminous life which exists as it were behind all these phenomena.

It is they—the “Seven Hosts”—who, having “considered in their Father [Divine Thought] the plan of the operator,” as says Pymander, desired to operate (or build the world with its creatures) likewise; for, having been born “within the Sphere of Operation”—the manifesting Universe—such is the Manvantaric Law. And now comes the second portion of the passage, or rather of two passages merged into one to conceal the full meaning. Those who were born within the Sphere of Operation were “the brothers who loved him well.” The latter—the “him”—were the Primordial Angels; the Asuras, the Ahriman, the Elohim, or “Sons of God,” of whom Satan was one—all those Spiritual Beings who were called the “Angels of Darkness,” because that Darkness is absolute Light, a fact now neglected if not entirely forgotten in Theology. Nevertheless, the spirituality of those much abused “Sons of Light” which is Darkness, must be evidently as great, in comparison with that of the Angels next in order, as the ethereality of the latter would be when contrasted with the density of the human body. The former are the “First-born,” and therefore so near to the confines of [pg 514] Pure Quiescent Spirit as to be merely the “privations”—in the Aristotelian sense—the Ferouers or the ideal types of those who followed. They could not create material, corporeal things; and, therefore, were said in process of time to have “refused” to create, as “commanded” by “God”—otherwise, to have “rebelled.”

Perchance, this is justified on the principle of the scientific theory which teaches us as to the effect of two sound waves of equal length meeting:

If the two sounds be of the same intensity, their coincidence produces a sound four times the intensity of either, while their interference produces absolute silence.

While explaining some of the “heresies” of his day, Justin Martyr shows the identity of all the world religions at their starting points. The first Beginning opens invariably with the Unknown and Passive Deity, from which emanates a certain Active Power or Virtue, the Mystery that is sometimes called Wisdom, sometimes the Son, very often God, Angel, Lord, and Logos.[1120] The latter is sometimes applied to the very first Emanation, but in several systems it proceeds from the first Androgyne or Double Ray produced at the beginning by the Unseen. Philo depicts this Wisdom as male and female. But though its first manifestation had a beginning—for it proceeded from Oulom[1121] (Aiôn, Time), the highest of the Æons when emitted from the Father—it had remained with the Father before all creations, for it is part of him.[1122] Therefore Philo Judæus calls Adam Kadmon by the name “Mind”—the Ennoia of Bythos in the Gnostic System. “The Mind, let it be named Adam.”[1123]

As the old Magian books explain it, the whole event becomes clear. A thing can only exist through its opposite—Hegel teaches us; and only a little philosophy and spirituality are needed to comprehend the origin of the later dogma, which is so truly satanic and infernal in its cold and cruel wickedness. The Magians accounted for the Origin of Evil in their exoteric teachings in this way. “Light can produce nothing but Light, and can never be the origin of Evil”; how then was Evil produced, since there was nothing coëqual or like the Light in its production? Light, say they, produced several Beings, all of them spiritual, luminous, and powerful. But a Great One (the “Great Asura,” Ahriman, Lucifer, etc.) had an evil thought, contrary to the Light. He doubted, and by that doubt he became dark.

This is a little nearer to the truth, but still wide of the mark. There was no “evil thought” that originated the opposing Power, but simply Thought per se; something which, being cogitative, and containing design and purpose, is therefore finite, and must thus find itself naturally in opposition to pure Quiescence, the as natural state of absolute Spirituality and Perfection. It was simply the Law of Evolution that asserted itself; the progress of Mental Unfolding, differentiated from Spirit, involved and entangled already with Matter, into which it is irresistibly drawn. Ideas, in their very nature and essence, as conceptions bearing relation to objects, whether true or imaginary, are opposed to Absolute Thought, that Unknowable All of whose mysterious operations Mr. Spencer predicates that nothing can be said, but that “it has no kinship of nature with Evolution”[1124]—which it certainly has not.[1125]

The Zohar gives it very suggestively. When the “Holy One” (the Logos) desired to create man, he called the highest Host of Angels and spake unto them what he wanted, but they doubted the wisdom of this desire and answered: “Man will not continue one night in his glory”—for which they were burnt (annihilated?), by the “Holy” Lord. Then he called another, lower Host, and said the same. And they contradicted the “Holy One”: “What is the good of Man?”—they argued. Still Elohim created Man, and when Man sinned there came the Hosts of Uzza and Azael, and twitted God: “Here is the Son of Man that thou hast made”—they said. “Behold, he sinned!” Then the Holy One replied: “If you had been among them [Men] you would have been worse than they.” And he threw them from their exalted position in Heaven even down on to the Earth; and “they were changed [into Men] and sinned after the women of the earth.”[1126] This is quite plain. No mention is made in Genesis (vi) of these “Sons of God” receiving punishment. The only reference to it in the Bible is in Jude:

And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.[1127]

And this means simply that the “Angels,” doomed to incarnation, are in the chains of flesh and matter, under the darkness of ignorance, till the “Great Day,” which will come as always after the Seventh Round, after the expiration of the “Week,” on the Seventh Sabbath, or in the Post-Manvantaric Nirvâna.

How truly Esoteric and consonant with the Secret Doctrine is Pymander, the Thought Divine, of Hermes, may be inferred from its original and primitive translations in Latin and Greek only. On the other hand how disfigured it has been later on by Christians in Europe, is seen from the remarks and unconscious confessions made by De St. Marc, in his Preface and Letter to the Bishop of Ayre, in 1578. Therein, the whole cycle of transformations from a Pantheistic and Egyptian into a Mystic Roman Catholic treatise is given, and we see how Pymander has become what it is now. Still, even in St. Marc's translation, traces are found of the real Pymander—the “Universal Thought” or “Mind.” This is the translation from the old French translation, the original being given in the foot-note[1128] in its quaint old French:

Seven men [principles] were generated in Man.... The nature of the harmony of the Seven of the Father and of the Spirit. Nature ... produced seven men in accordance with the natures of the Seven Spirits ... having in them, potentially, the two sexes.

Metaphysically, the Father and the Son are the “Universal Mind” and the “Periodical Universe”; the “Angel” and the “Man.” It is the Son and the Father at one and the same time; in Pymander, the active Idea and the passive Thought that generates it; the radical keynote in Nature which gives birth to the seven notes—the septenary scale of the Creative Forces, and to the seven prismatic aspects of colour, all born from the one White Ray, or Light—itself generated in Darkness.

C. The Many Meanings Of The “War In Heaven.”

The Secret Doctrine points out, as a self-evident fact, that Mankind, collectively and individually, is with all manifested Nature the vehicle [pg 517] (a) of the Breath of One Universal Principle, in its primal differentiation; and (b) of the countless “breaths” proceeding from that One Breath in its secondary and further differentiations, as Nature with its many “mankinds” proceeds downwards toward the planes that are ever increasing in materiality. The Primary Breath informs the higher Hierarchies; the secondary—the lower, on the constantly descending planes.

Now there are many passages in the Bible which prove on their face, exoterically, that this belief was at one time universal; and the two most convincing are Ezekiel, xxviii and Isaiah, xiv. Christian Theologians are welcome to interpret both as referring to the great War before Creation, the Epos of Satan's Rebellion, etc., if they so choose, but the absurdity of the idea is too apparent. Ezekiel addresses his lamentations and reproofs to the King of Tyre; Isaiah—to King Ahaz, who indulged in the worship of idols, as did the rest of the nation with the exception of a few Initiates (the Prophets, so-called), who tried to arrest it on its way to exotericism—or idolatry, which is the same thing. Let the student judge.

In Ezekiel, it is said:

Son of Man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God [as we understand it, the “God” Karma]; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said I am a God, ... yet thou art a man.... Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee: ... and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, ... and they shall bring thee down to the pit [or Earth-life].[1129]

The origin of the “prince of Tyrus” is to be traced to the “Divine Dynasties” of the iniquitous Atlanteans, the Great Sorcerers. There is no metaphor in the words of Ezekiel, but actual history this time. For the voice in the prophet, the voice of the “Lord,” his own Spirit, which spake unto him, says:

Because ... thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God(s) [Divine Dynasties], in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man.... Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee: with thy wisdom ... thou hast increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches. Behold, therefore ... strangers ... shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom ... They shall bring thee down ... and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.[1130]

All such imprecations are not prophecy, but simply reminders of the fate of the Atlanteans, the “Giants on Earth.”

What can be the meaning of this last sentence if it is not a narrative of the fate of the Atlanteans? Again, “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty,”[1131] may refer to the “Heavenly Man” in Pymander, or to the Fallen Angels, who are accused of having fallen through pride on account of the great beauty and wisdom which became their lot. There is no metaphor here, except in the preconceived ideas of our Theologians, perhaps. These verses relate to the Past and belong more to the Knowledge acquired at the Mysteries of Initiation than to retrospective clairvoyance! Says the voice, again:

Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God [in the Satya Yuga]; every precious stone was thy covering: ... the workmanship of thy tabrets and thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub; ... thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.... Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. Therefore I will cast thee ... out of the mountain of God, and ... destroy thee.[1132]

The “Mountain of God” means the “Mountain of the Gods” or Meru, whose representative in the Fourth Race was Mount Atlas, the last form of one of the divine Titans, so high in those days that the ancients believed that the Heavens rested on its top. Did not Atlas assist the Giants in their War against the Gods (Hyginus)? Another version shows the fable as arising from the fondness of Atlas, son of Iapetus and Clymene, for Astronomy, and from his dwelling for that reason on the highest mountain peaks. The truth is that Atlas, the “Mountain of the Gods,” and also the hero of that name, are the Esoteric symbols of the Fourth Race, and his seven daughters, the Atlantides, are the symbols of its seven sub-races. Mount Atlas, according to all the legends, was three times as high as it is now; for it has sunk at two different times. It is of a volcanic origin, and therefore the voice within Ezekiel says:

Therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee.[1133]

Surely it does not mean, as seems to be the case from the translated texts, that this fire was to be brought from the midst of the Prince of Tyrus, or his people, but from Mount Atlas, symbolizing the proud Race, learned in Magic and high in arts and civilization, whose last remnant was destroyed almost at the foot of the range of those once gigantic mountains.

Truly, “thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more”;[1134] [pg 519] as the very name of the Race and its fate is now annihilated from man's memory. Bear in mind that almost every ancient king and priest was an Initiate; that from toward the close of the Fourth Race there had been a feud between the Initiates of the Right and those of the Left Path; finally, that the Garden of Eden is referred to by other personages than the Jews of the Adamic Race, since even Pharaoh is compared to the fairest tree of Eden by this same Ezekiel, who shows:

All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, ... comforted in the nether parts of the earth. [For] they also went down into hell with him [Pharaoh][1135]

—unto the nether parts, which are in fact the bottom of the ocean, whose floor gaped wide to devour the lands of the Atlanteans and themselves. If one bears all this in mind and compares the various accounts, then one will find out that chapters xxviii and xxxi of Ezekiel do not relate to Babylon, Assyria, nor yet to Egypt, since none of these have been so destroyed, having simply fallen into ruins on the surface, not beneath the earth—but indeed to Atlantis and most of its nations. And he will see that the “Garden of Eden” of the Initiates was no myth, but a locality now submerged. Light will dawn upon him, and he will appreciate such sentences as these at their true Esoteric value: “Thou hast been in Eden; ... thou wast upon the holy mountain of God”[1136]—for every nation had and many still have holy mountains; some Himâlayan Peaks, others Parnassus and Sinai. They were all places of Initiation and the abodes of the Chiefs of the communities of ancient and even modern Adepts. And again:

Behold, the Assyrian [why not Atlantean, Initiate?] was a cedar in Lebanon; ... his height was exalted above all the trees.... The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: ... so that all the trees of Eden ... envied him.[1137]

Throughout all Asia Minor, the Initiates were called the “Trees of Righteousness,” and the Cedars of Lebanon, as also were some kings of Israel. So were the great Adepts in India, but only the Adepts of the Left Hand. When Vishnu Purâna narrates that “the world was over-run with trees,” while the Prachetasas, who “passed 10,000 years of austerity in the vast ocean,” were absorbed in their devotions, the allegory relates to the Atlanteans and the Adepts of the early Fifth [pg 520] Race—the Âryans. Other “trees [Adept Sorcerers] spread, and over-shadowed the unprotected earth; and the people perished ... unable to labour for ten thousand years.” Then the Sages, the Rishis of the Âryan Race, called Prachetasas, are shown “coming forth from the deep,”[1138] and destroying by the wind and flame issuing from their mouths the iniquitous “Trees” and the whole vegetable kingdom; until Soma (the Moon), the sovereign of the vegetable world, pacifies them by making alliance with the Adepts of the Right Path, to whom he offers as bride Mârishâ, the “offspring of the trees.”[1139] This hints at the great struggle between the “Sons of God” and the Sons of the Dark Wisdom—our forefathers; or the Atlantean and the Âryan Adepts.

The whole history of that period is allegorized in the Râmâyana, which is the mystic narrative in epic form of the struggle between Râma—the first king of the Divine Dynasty of the early Âryans—and Râvana, the symbolical personation of the Atlantean (Lankâ) Race. The former were the incarnations of the Solar Gods; the latter, of the Lunar Devas. This was the great battle between Good and Evil, between White and Black Magic, for the supremacy of the divine forces over the lower terrestrial, or cosmic powers.

If the student would understand better the last statement, let him turn to the Anugîtâ episode of the Mahâbhârata, where the Brâhmana tells his wife:

I have perceived by means of the Self the seat abiding in the Self—(the seat) where dwells the Brahman free from the pairs of opposites, and the moon, together with the fire [or the sun], upholding (all) beings (as) the mover of the intellectual principle.[1140]

The Moon is the deity of the mind (Manas) but only on the lower plane. Says a Commentary:

Manas is dual—Lunar in the lower, Solar in its upper portion.

That is to say, it is attracted in its higher aspect towards Buddhi, and in its lower descends into, and listens to the voice of, its animal Soul [pg 521] full of selfish and sensual desires; and herein is contained the mystery of an Adept's and of a profane man's life, as also that of the post mortem separation of the divine from the animal Man. The Mahâbhârata—every line of which has to be read Esoterically—discloses in magnificent symbolism and allegory the tribulations of both Man and Soul. Says the Brâhmana in the Anugîtâ:

In the interior (within the body), in the midst of all these (life-winds) [? principles], which move about in the body and swallow up one another,[1141] blazes the Vaishvânara fire[1142] sevenfold.[1143]

But the chief “Soul” is Manas or mind; hence, Soma, the Moon, is shown as making an alliance with the solar portion in it, personified as the Prachetasas. But of the seven keys that open the seven aspects of the Râmâyana, as of every other Scripture, this is only one—the metaphysical.

The symbol of the “Tree” standing for various Initiates was almost universal. Jesus is called the “Tree of Life,” as are also all the Adepts of the Good Law, while those of the Left Path are referred to as the “withering trees.” John the Baptist speaks of the “axe” which “is laid to the root of the trees”;[1144] and the king of Assyria's armies are called “trees.”[1145]

The true meaning of the Garden of Eden has been sufficiently given in Isis Unveiled. Now the writer has more than once heard surprise expressed that Isis Unveiled should contain so few of the doctrines now taught. This is quite erroneous. For the allusions to such teachings are plentiful, even if the teachings themselves were withheld. The time had not arrived then, as the hour has not struck even now, to say all. “No Atlanteans, or the Fourth Race which preceded our Fifth Race, are mentioned in Isis Unveiled,” wrote a critic on Esoteric Buddhism one day. I, who wrote Isis Unveiled, maintain that the Atlanteans are mentioned as our predecessors. For what can be plainer than the following statement, when speaking of the Book of Job:

In the original text, instead of “dead things,” it is written dead Rephaim (giants, or mighty primitive men), from whom “Evolution” may one day trace our present race.[1146]

It is invited to do so now, now that this hint is explained quite openly; but Evolutionists are as sure to decline nowadays as they did ten years ago. Science and Theology are against us: therefore we question both, and have to do so in self-defence. On the strength of hazy metaphors scattered throughout the prophets, and in St. John's Revelation, a grand but reëdited version of the Book of Enoch, on these insecure grounds Christian Theology has built its dogmatic Epos of the War in Heaven. It has done more: it has used the symbolical visions, intelligible only to the Initiates, as pillars upon which to support the whole bulky edifice of its religion; and now the pillars have been found very weak reeds, and the cunning structure is foundering. The entire Christian scheme rests upon this Jakin and Boaz—the two contrary forces of Good and Evil, Christ and Satan, αἱ ἀγαθαὶ καὶ αἱ κακαὶ δυνάμεις. Take away from Christianity its main prop of the Fallen Angels, and the Eden Bower vanishes, with its Adam and Eve, into thin air; and Christ, in the exclusive character of the One God and Saviour, and the Victim of Atonement for the sin of animal-man, becomes forthwith a useless, meaningless myth.

In an old number of the Revue Archéologique, a French writer, M. Maury, remarks:

This universal strife between good and bad spirits seems to be only the reproduction of another more ancient and more terrible strife, which, according to an ancient myth, took place before the creation of the universe, between the faithful and the rebellious legions.[1147]

Once more, it is a simple question of priority. Had John's Revelation been written during the Vedic period, and were not one sure now of its being simply another version of the Book of Enoch and the Dragon legends of Pagan antiquity—the grandeur and the beauty of the imagery might have biassed the critics' opinion in favour of the Christian interpretation of that first War, whose battle-field was starry Heaven, and the first slaughterers—the Angels. As the matter now stands, however, one has to trace Revelation, event by event, to other and far older visions. For the better comprehension of the apocalyptic allegories and of the Esoteric epos we ask the reader to turn to Revelation, and to read chapter xii, from verse 1 to verse 7.

This has several meanings, and much has been found out with regard to the astronomical and numerical keys of this universal myth. That which may be now given, is a fragment, a few hints as to its secret [pg 523] meaning, as embodying the record of a real war, the struggle between the Initiates of the two Schools. Many and various are the still existing allegories built on this same foundation stone. The true narrative—that which gives the full Esoteric meaning—is in the Secret Books, but the writer has had no access to these.

In the exoteric works, however, the episode of the Târaka War, and some Esoteric Commentaries, may offer a clue perhaps. In every Purâna the event is described with more or less variations which show its allegorical character.

In the Mythology of the earliest Vaidic Âryans as in the later Paurânic narratives, mention is made of Budha, the “Wise,” one “learned in the Secret Wisdom,” who is the planet Mercury in his euhemerization. The Hindû Classical Dictionary credits Budha with being the author of a hymn in the Rig Veda. Therefore, he can by no means be “a later fiction of the Brâhmans,” but is a very old personation indeed.

It is by enquiring into his genealogy, or theogony rather, that the following facts are disclosed. As a myth, he is the son of Târâ, the wife of Brihaspati, the “gold coloured,” and of Soma, the (male) Moon who, Paris-like, carries this new Helen of the Hindû Sidereal Kingdom away from her husband. This causes a great strife and war in Svarga (Heaven). The episode brings on a battle between the Gods and the Asuras. King Soma finds allies in Ushanas (Venus), the leader of the Dânavas; and the Gods are led by Indra and Rudra, who side with Brihaspati. The latter is helped by Shankara (Shiva), who, having had for his Guru Brihaspati's father, Angiras, befriends his son. Indra is here the Indian prototype of Michael, the Archistrategus and the slayer of the “Dragon's” Angels—since one of his names is Jishnu, “leader of the celestial host.” Both fight, as some Titans did against other Titans in defence of revengeful Gods, the one party in defence of Jupiter Tonans (in India, Brihaspati is the planet Jupiter, which is a curious coincidence); the other in support of the ever-thundering Rudra. During this war, Indra is deserted by his body-guard, the Storm-Gods (Maruts). The story is very suggestive in some of its details.

Let us examine some of them, and seek to discover their meaning.

The presiding Genius, or “Regent” of the planet Jupiter is Brihaspati, the wronged husband. He is the Instructor or Spiritual Guru of the [pg 524] Gods, who are the representatives of the Procreative Powers. In the Rig Veda, he is called Brahmanaspati, the name “of a deity in whom the action of the worshipped upon the gods is personified.” Hence Brahmanaspati represents the materialization of the “Divine Grace,” so to say, by means of ritual and ceremonies, or the exoteric worship.

Târâ,[1148] his wife, is, on the other hand, the personification of the powers of one initiated into Gupta Vidyâ (Secret Knowledge), as will be shown.

Soma is the Moon astronomically; but in mystical phraseology it is also the name of the sacred beverage drunk by the Brâhmans and the Initiates during their mysteries and sacrificial rites. The Soma plant is the asclepias acida, which yields a juice from which that mystic beverage, the Soma drink, is made. Alone the descendants of the Rishis, the Agnihotris, or Fire-priests, of the great Mysteries knew all its powers. But the real property of the true Soma was (and is) to make a “new man” of the Initiate, after he is “reborn,” namely once that he begins to live in his Astral Body;[1149] for, his spiritual nature overcoming the physical, he would soon snap it off and part even from that etherealized form.[1150]

Soma was never given in days of old to the non-initiated Brâhman—the simple Grihasta, or priest of the exoteric ritual. Thus Brihaspati, “Guru of the Gods” though he was, still represented the dead-letter form of worship. It is Târâ, his wife, the symbol of one who, though wedded to dogmatic worship, longs for true Wisdom, who is shown as initiated into his mysteries by King Soma, the giver of that Wisdom. Soma is thus made to carry her away in the allegory. The result of this is the birth of Budha, Esoteric Wisdom—Mercury, or Hermes, in Greece and Egypt. He is represented as “so beautiful,” that even the husband, though well aware that Budha is not the progeny of his dead-letter worship—claims the “new-born” as his Son, the fruit of his ritualistic and meaningless forms.[1151] Such is, in brief, one of the meanings of the allegory.

The War in Heaven refers to several events of this kind on various and different planes of being. The first is a purely astronomical and cosmical fact pertaining to Cosmogony. Mr. John Bentley thought that with the Hindûs the War in Heaven was only a figure referring to their calculations of time periods.[1152]

This served as a prototype, he thinks, for the Western nations to build their War of the Titans upon. The author is not quite wrong, but neither is he quite right. If the sidereal prototype refers indeed to a pre-manvantaric period, and rests entirely on the knowledge which the Âryan Initiates claim they have of the whole programme and progress of cosmogony,[1153] the War of the Titans is but a legendary and deified copy of the real war that took place in the Himâlayan Kailâsa (Heaven) instead of in the depths of cosmic interplanetary Space. It is the record of the terrible strife between the “Sons of God” and the “Sons of the Shadow” of the Fourth and the Fifth Races. It is on these two events, blended together by legends borrowed from the exoteric account of the War waged by the Asuras against the Gods, that every subsequent national tradition on the subject has been built.

Esoterically, the Asuras, transformed subsequently into evil Spirits and lower Gods, who are eternally at war with the Great Deities—are the Gods of the Secret Wisdom. In the oldest portions of the Rig Veda, they are the Spiritual and the Divine, the term Asura being used for the Supreme Spirit and being the same as the great Ahura of the Zoroastrians.[1154] There was a time when the Gods Indra, Agni, and Varuna themselves belonged to the Asuras.

In the Taittirîya Brâhmana, the Breath (Asu) of Brahmâ-Prajâpati became alive, and from that Breath he created the Asuras. Later on, after the War, the Asuras are called the enemies of the Gods, hence—“A-suras,” the initial a being a negative prefix—or “No-Gods”; the “Gods” being referred to as Suras. This then connects the Asuras and their “Hosts,” enumerated further on, with the “Fallen Angels” of the Christian Churches, a Hierarchy of Spiritual Beings to be found in every Pantheon of ancient and even modern nations—from the Zoroastrian down to that of the Chinaman. They are the Sons of the primeval Creative Breath at the beginning of every new Mahâ Kalpa, or Manvantara, in the same rank as the Angels who had remained “faithful.” These were the allies of Soma (the parent of the Esoteric Wisdom) as against Brihaspati (representing ritualistic or ceremonial worship). Evidently they have been degraded in Space and Time into opposing Powers or Demons by the ceremonialists, on account of their rebellion against hypocrisy, sham-worship, and the dead-letter form.

Now what is the real character of all those who fought along with them? They are:

(1) Ushanas, or the “Host” of the Planet Venus, become now in Roman Catholicism Lucifer, the Genius of the “day star,”[1155] the Tsaba, or Army of “Satan.”

(2) The Daityas and Dânavas are the Titans, the Demons and Giants whom we find in the Bible[1156]—the progeny of the “Sons of God” and the “Daughters of Men.” Their generic name shows their alleged character, and discloses at the same time the secret animus of the Brâhmans; for they are the Kratu-dvishas—the “enemies of the sacrifices” or exoteric shams. These are the “Hosts” that fought against Brihaspati, the representative of exoteric popular and national religions; and Indra—the God of the visible Heaven, the Firmament, who, in the early Veda, is the highest God of cosmic Heaven, the fit habitation for an extra-cosmic and personal God, higher than whom no exoteric worship can ever soar.

(3) Then come the Nâgas,[1157] the Sarpas, Serpents or Seraphs. These, again, show their character by the hidden meaning of their glyph. In [pg 527] mythology they are semi-divine beings with a human face and the tail of a dragon. They are therefore, undeniably, the Jewish Seraphim (compare Serapis, Sarpa, Serpent); the singular being Saraph, “burning, fiery.” Christian and Jewish angelology distinguishes between the Seraphim and the Cherubim or Cherubs, who come second in order: Esoterically, and kabalistically, they are identical; the Cherubim being simply the name for the images or likenesses of any of the divisions of the celestial Hosts. Now, as said before, the Dragons and Nâgas were the names given to the Initiate-hermits, on account of their great Wisdom and Spirituality and their living in caves. Thus, when Ezekiel[1158] applies the adjective Cherub to the King of Tyre, and tells him that by his wisdom and his understanding there is no secret that can be hidden from him, he shows the Occultist that it is a “Prophet,” perhaps still a follower of exoteric worship, who fulminates against an Initiate of another school and not against an imaginary Lucifer, a fallen Cherub from the stars, and then from the Garden of Eden. Thus the so-called “War” is, in one of its many meanings, also an allegorical record of the strife between the two classes of Adepts—of the Right and of the Left Path. There were three classes of Rishis in India, who were the earliest Adepts known; the Royal, or Râjarshis, kings and princes, who adopted the ascetic life; the Divine, or Devarshis, or the sons of Dharma or Yoga; and the Brahmarshis, descendants of those Rishis who were the founders of Gotras of Brâhmans, or caste-races. Now, leaving the mythical and astronomical keys for one moment aside, the secret teachings show many Atlanteans who belonged to these divisions; and there were strifes and wars between them, de facto and de jure. Nârada, one of the greatest Rishis, was a Devarshi; and he is shown in constant and everlasting feud with Brahmâ, Daksha, and other Gods and Sages. Therefore we may safely maintain that whatever the astronomical meaning of this universally accepted legend may be, its human phase is based on real and historical events, disfigured into a theological dogma only to suit ecclesiastical purposes. As above so below. Sidereal phenomena, and the behaviour of the celestial bodies in the Heavens, were taken as a model, and the plan was carried out below, on Earth. Thus, Space, in its abstract sense, was called the “realm of divine knowledge,” and by the Chaldees or Initiates Ab Soo, the habitat (or father, i.e., the source) of knowledge, because it is in Space [pg 528] that dwell the intelligent Powers which invisibly rule the Universe.[1159]

In the same manner, and on the plan of the Zodiac in the upper Ocean or the Heavens, a certain realm on Earth, an inland sea, was consecrated and called the “Abyss of Learning”; twelve centres on it, in the shape of twelve small islands, representing the Zodiacal Signs—two of which remained for ages the “mystery Signs”[1160]—were the abodes of twelve Hierophants and Masters of Wisdom. This “Sea of Knowledge” or learning[1161] remained for ages there, where now stretches the Shamo or Gobi Desert. It existed until the last great glacial period, when a local cataclysm, which swept the waters South and West and so formed the present great desolate desert, left only a certain oasis, with a lake and one island in the midst of it, as a relic of the Zodiacal Ring on Earth. For ages the Watery Abyss—which, with the nations that preceded the later Babylonians, was the abode of the “Great Mother,” the terrestrial post-type of the “Great Mother Chaos” in Heaven, the parent of Ea (Wisdom), himself the early prototype of Oannes, the Man-Fish of the Babylonians—for ages, then, the “Abyss” or Chaos was the abode of Wisdom and not of Evil. The struggle of Bel and then of Merodach, the Sun-God, with Tiamat, the Sea and its Dragon—a “War” which ended in the defeat of the latter—has a purely cosmic and geological meaning, as well as a historical one. It is a page torn out of the history of the Secret and Sacred Sciences, their evolution, growth and death—for the profane masses. It relates (a) to the systematic and gradual drying up of immense territories by the fierce Sun at a certain pre-historic period, one of the terrible droughts which ended by a gradual transformation of once fertile lands abundantly watered into the sandy deserts which they are now; and (b) to [pg 529] the as systematic persecution of the Prophets of the Right Path by those of the Left. The latter, having inaugurated the birth and evolution of the sacerdotal castes, have finally led the world into all those exoteric religions, which have been invented to satisfy the depraved taste of the “hoi polloi” and the ignorant for ritualistic pomp and the materialization of the ever-immaterial and Unknowable Principle.

This was a certain improvement on the Atlantean sorcery, the memory of which lingers in the remembrance of all the literary and Sanskrit-reading portion of India, as well as in the popular legends. Still it was a parody on, and the desecration of, the Sacred Mysteries and their Science. The rapid progress of anthropomorphism and idolatry led the early Fifth, as it had already led the Fourth Race, into sorcery once more, though on a smaller scale. Finally, even the four “Adams” (symbolizing, under other names, the four preceding Races) were forgotten, and, passing from one generation into another, each loaded with some additional myths, were at last drowned in that ocean of popular symbolism called the Pantheons. Yet they exist to this day in the oldest Jewish traditions: the first as the Tzelem, the “Shadow-Adam,” the Chhâyâs of our doctrine; the second, the “Model” Adam, the copy of the first, and the “male and female” of the exoteric Genesis; the third, the “Earthly Adam” before the Fall, an androgyne; and the fourth, the Adam after his “fall,” i.e., separated into sexes, or the pure Atlantean. The Adam of the Garden of Eden, or the forefather of our Race—the fifth—is an ingenious compound of the above four. As stated in the Zohar, Adam, the first Man, is not found now on Earth, he “is not found in all Below.” For where does the lower Earth come from? “From the Chain of the Earth, and from the Heaven Above,” i.e., from the superior Globes, those which precede and are above our Earth.

And there came out from it [the Chain] creatures differing one from the other. Some of them in garments [solid] (skins), some in shells (Q'lippoth), ... some in red shells, some in black, some in white, and some from all the colours.[1162]

As in the Chaldæan Cosmogony of Berosus and the Stanzas just given, some treatises on the Kabalah speak of creatures with two faces, some with four, and some with one face; for “the highest Adam did not come down in all the countries, or produce progeny and have many wives,” but is a mystery.

So is the Dragon a mystery. Truly says Rabbi Simeon Ben Iochaï, [pg 530] that to understand the meaning of the Dragon is not given to the “companions” (students, or Chelâs), but only to the “little ones,” i.e., the perfect Initiates.[1163]

The work of the beginning the companions understand; but it is only the little ones who understand the parable on the work in the Principium by the Mystery of the Serpent of the Great Sea.[1164]

And those Christians, who may happen to read this, will also understand by the light of the above sentence who their “Christ” was. For Jesus states repeatedly that he who “shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein”; and if some of his sayings have been meant to apply to children without any metaphor, most of the references to the “little ones” in the Gospels, relate to the Initiates, of whom Jesus was one. Paul (Saul) is referred to in the Talmud as the “little one.”

The “Mystery of the Serpent” was this: Our Earth, or rather terrestrial life, is often referred to in the Secret Teachings as the Great Sea, the “Sea of Life” having remained to this day a favourite metaphor. The Siphra Dtzenioutha speaks of Primeval Chaos and the Evolution of the Universe after a Destruction (Pralaya), comparing it to an uncoiling serpent:

Extending hither and thither, its tail in its mouth, the head twisting on its neck, it is enraged and angry.... It watches and conceals itself. Every thousand Days it is manifested.[1165]

A commentary on the Purânas says:

Ananta-Shesha is a form of Vishnu, the Holy Spirit of Preservation, and a symbol of the Universe, on which it is supposed to sleep during the intervals of the Daysof Brahmâ. The seven heads of Shesha support the Universe.

So the Spirit of God “sleeps,” or is “breathing” over the Chaos of Undifferentiated Matter, before each new “Creation,” says the Siphra Dtzenioutha. Now one Day of Brahmâ is composed, as already explained, of one thousand Mahâ Yugas; and as each Night, or period of rest, is equal in duration to this Day, it is easy to see what this sentence in the Siphra Dtzenioutha refers to—viz., that the Serpent manifests [pg 531] “once in a thousand days.” Nor is it more difficult to see whither the initiated writer of the Siphra is leading us, when he says:

Its head is broken in the waters of the Great Sea, as it is written: Thou dividest the sea by thy strength, thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.[1166]

It refers to the trials of the Initiates in this physical life, the “Sea of Sorrow,” if read with one key; it hints at the successive destruction of the seven Spheres of a Chain of Worlds in the Great Sea of Space, when read with another key; for every sidereal globe or sphere, every world, star, or group of stars, is called in symbolism a “Dragon's Head.” But however it may read, the Dragon was never regarded as Evil, nor was the Serpent either—in antiquity. In the metaphors, whether astronomical, cosmical, theogonical or simply physiological (or phallic), the Serpent was always regarded as a divine symbol. When mention is made of “the [Cosmic] Serpent which runs with 370 leaps,”[1167] it means the cyclic periods of the great Tropical Year of 25,868 years, divided in the Esoteric calculation into 370 periods or cycles, as one solar year is divided into 365 days. And if Michael was regarded by the Christians as the Conqueror of Satan, the Dragon, it is because in the Talmud this fighting personage is represented as the Prince of Waters, who had seven subordinate Spirits under him—a good reason why the Latin Church made him the patron saint of every promontory in Europe. In the Siphra Dtzenioutha the Creative Force “makes sketches and spiral lines of his creation in the shape of a Serpent.” It “holds its tail in its mouth,” because it is the symbol of endless eternity and of cyclic periods. Its meanings, however, would require a volume, and we must end.

Thus the reader may now see for himself what are the several meanings of the “War in Heaven,” and of the “Great Dragon.” Thus the most solemn and dreaded of Church dogmas, the alpha and omega of the Christian faith, and the pillar of its Fall and Atonement, dwindles down to a Pagan symbol, in the many allegories of these pre-historic struggles.

[pg 532]

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Section V. Is Plerôma Satan's Lair?

The subject is not yet exhausted, and has to be examined from still other aspects.

Whether Milton's grandiose description of the three days' Battle of the Angels of Light against those of Darkness justifies the suspicion that he must have heard of the corresponding Eastern tradition—it is impossible to say. Nevertheless, if not himself in connection with some Mystic, then it must have been through some one who had obtained access to the secret works of the Vatican. Among these there is a tradition concerning the “Beni Shamash”—the “Children of the Sun”—relating to the Eastern allegory, with far more minute details in its triple version, than one can get either from the Book of Enoch, or the far more recent Revelation of St. John concerning the “Old Dragon” and his various Slayers, as has been just shown.

It seems inexplicable to find, to this day, authors belonging to mystical societies who yet continue in their preconceived doubts as to the “alleged” antiquity of the Book of Enoch. Thus, while the author of the Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and Quiches is inclined to see in Enoch an Initiate converted to Christianity (!!),[1168] the English compiler of Éliphas Lévi's works, The Mysteries of Magic, is also of a like opinion. He remarks that:

Outside the erudition of Dr. Kenealy, no modern scholarship attributes any more remote antiquity to the latter work [the Book of Enoch] than the fourth century b.c.[1169]

Modern scholarship has been guilty of worse errors than this one. It seems but yesterday that the greatest literary critics in Europe denied the very authenticity of that work, together with the Orphic Hymns, and even the Book of Hermes or Thoth, until whole verses from the latter were discovered on Egyptian monuments and tombs of the [pg 533] earliest dynasties. The opinion of Archbishop Laurence is quoted elsewhere.

The “Old Dragon” and Satan, which have now become singly and collectively the symbol of, and the theological term for, the “Fallen Angel,” are not so described either in the original Kabalah (the Chaldæan Book of Numbers) or in the modern. For the most learned, if not the greatest of modern Kabalists, namely Éliphas Lévi, describes Satan in the following glowing terms:

It is that Angel who was proud enough to believe himself God; brave enough to buy his independence at the price of eternal suffering and torture; beautiful enough to have adored himself in full divine light; strong enough to still reign in darkness amidst agony, and to have made himself a throne out of his inextinguishable pyre. It is the Satan of the republican and heretical Milton ... the prince of anarchy, served by a hierarchy of pure spirits(!!).[1170]

This description—one which reconciles so cunningly Theological dogma and Kabalistic allegory, and even contrives to include a political compliment in its phraseology—is, when read in the right spirit, quite correct.

Yes, indeed; it is this grandest of ideals, this ever-living symbol—nay apotheosis—of self-sacrifice for the intellectual independence of humanity; this ever Active Energy protesting against Static Inertia—the principle to which Self-assertion is a crime, and Thought and the Light of Knowledge odious. As Éliphas says with unparalleled justice and irony:

It is this pretended hero of tenebrous eternities, who, slanderously charged with ugliness, is decorated with horns and claws, which would fit far better his implacable tormentor.[1171]

It is he who has been finally transformed into a Serpent—the Red Dragon. But Éliphas Lévi was yet too subservient to his Roman Catholic authorities—one may add, too jesuitical—to confess that this Devil was mankind, and never had any existence on Earth outside of that mankind.[1172]

In this, Christian Theology, although following slavishly in the steps of Paganism, has only been true to its own time-honoured policy. It [pg 534] had to isolate itself, and to assert its authority. Hence it could not do better than turn every Pagan Deity into a Devil. Every bright Sun-God of antiquity—a glorious Deity by day, and its own Opponent and Adversary by night, named the Dragon of Wisdom, because it was supposed to contain the germs of night and day—has now been turned into the antithetical Shadow of God, and has become Satan on the sole and unsupported authority of despotic human dogma. After which all these producers of light and shadow, all the Sun- and the Moon-Gods, have been cursed, and thus the one God chosen out of the many and Satan have both been anthropomorphized. But Theology seems to have lost sight of the human capacity for discriminating and finally analyzing all that is artificially forced upon its reverence. History shows in every race and even tribe, especially in the Semitic nations, the natural impulse to exalt its own tribal deity above all others to the hegemony of the Gods, and proves that the God of the Israelites was such a tribal God, and no more, even though the Christian Church, following the lead of the “chosen” people, is pleased to enforce the worship of that one particular deity, and to anathematize all the others. Whether originally a conscious or an unconscious blunder, nevertheless, it was one. Jehovah has ever been in antiquity only a God “among” other “Gods.”[1173] The Lord appears to Abraham, and while saying, “I am the Almighty God,” yet adds, “I will establish my covenant ... to be a God unto thee” (Abraham); and unto his seed after him[1174]—but not unto Âryan Europeans.

But, then, there was the grandiose and ideal figure of Jesus of Nazareth to be set off against a dark background, to gain in radiance by the contrast; and a darker one the Church could hardly invent. Lacking the Old Testament symbology, ignorant of the real connotation of the name of Jehovah—the Rabbinical secret substitute for the Ineffable and Unpronounceable Name—the Church mistook the cunningly fabricated shadow for the reality, the anthropomorphized generative symbol for the one Secondless Reality, the ever Unknowable Cause of All. As a logical sequence the Church, for purposes of duality, had to invent an anthropomorphic Devil—created, as taught by her, by God himself. Satan has now turned out to be the monster fabricated by the Jehovah-Frankenstein—his father's curse and a thorn in the divine side, a monster, than whom no earthly Frankenstein could have fabricated a more ridiculous bogey.

The author of New Aspects of Life describes the Jewish God very correctly from the kabalistic standpoint as:

The Spirit of the Earth, which had revealed itself to the Jew as Jehovah.[1175]... It was that Spirit again who, after the death of Jesus, assumed his form and personated him as the risen Christ

—the doctrine of Cerinthus and several Gnostic sects with slight variation, as one can see. But the author's explanations and deductions are remarkable:

None knew ... better than Moses, ... [and] so well as he, how great was the power of those [Gods of Egypt] with whose priests he had contended, ... the gods of which Jehovah is claimed to be the God [by the Jews only].

Asks the author:

What were these gods, these Achar of which Jehovah, the Achad, is claimed to be the God ... by overcoming them?

To which our Occultism answers: Those whom the Church now calls the Fallen Angels and collectively Satan, the Dragon—overcome, if we have to accept her dictum, by Michael and his Host, that Michael being simply Jehovah himself, one of the subordinate Spirits at best. Therefore, the author is again right in saying:

The Greeks believed in the existence of ... daimons. But ... they were anticipated by the Hebrews, who held that there was a class of personating spirits which they designated demons, “personators.”... Admitting with Jehovah, who expressly asserts it, the existence of other gods, which ... were personators of the One God, were these other gods simply a higher class of personating spirits, ... which had acquired and exercised greater powers? And is not personation the key to the mystery of the spirit state? But once granting this position, how are we to know that Jehovah was not a personating spirit, a spirit which arrogated to itself that it was, and thus became, the personator of the one unknown and unknowable God? Nay, how do we know that the spirit calling itself Jehovah, in arrogating to itself his attributes did not thus cause its own designation to be imputed to the One who is in reality as nameless as incognizable?[1176]

Then the author shows that “the spirit Jehovah is a personator” on its own admission. It acknowledged to Moses “that it had appeared to the patriarchs as the God Shaddai” and the “God Helion.”

With the same breath it assumed the name of Jehovah; and it is on the faith of the assertion of this personator that the names El, Eloah, Elohim, and Shaddai, have been read and interpreted in juxtaposition with Jehovah as the “Lord God Almighty.” [Then when] the name Jehovah became ineffable, the designation Adonai, “Lord,” was substituted for it, and ... it was owing to this substitution [pg 536]that the “Lord” passed from the Jewish to the Christian “Word” and World as a designation of God.[1177]

And how are we to know, the author may add, that Jehovah was not many spirits personating even that seemingly one—Jod or Jod-He?

But if the Christian Church was the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma, it was because, as shown in Isis Unveiled, the Devil—the powerful Enemy of God (?!!) had to become the corner stone and pillar of the Church. For, as a Theosophist, M. Jules Baissac, truly observes in his Satan ou le Diable:

Il fallait éviter de paraître autoriser le dogme du double principe en faisant de ce Satan créateur une puissance réelle, et pour expliquer le mal originel, on profère contre Manes l'hypothèse d'une permission de l'unique Tout-Puissant.[1178]

The choice and policy were unfortunate, anyhow. Either the personator of the lower God of Abraham and Jacob ought to have been made entirely distinct from the mystic “Father” of Jesus, or—the “Fallen” Angels should have been left unslandered by further fictions.

Every God of the Gentiles is connected with, and closely related to, Jehovah—the Elohim; for they are all One Host, whose units differ only in name in the Esoteric Teachings. Between the “Obedient” and the “Fallen” Angels there is no difference whatever, except in their respective functions, or rather in the inertia of some, and the activity of others, among those Dhyân Chohans, or Elohim, who were “commissioned to create,” i.e., to fabricate the manifested world out of the eternal material.

The Kabalists say that the true name of Satan is that of Jehovah turned upside down, for “Satan is not a black God but the negation of the white Deity,” or the Light of Truth. God is Light and Satan is the necessary Darkness or Shadow to set it off, without which pure Light would be invisible and incomprehensible.[1179] “For the Initiates,” says Éliphas Lévi, “the Devil is not a person but a creative Force, for Good [pg 537] as for Evil.” The Initiates represented this Force, which presides at physical generation, under the mysterious form of God Pan—or Nature; whence the horns and hoofs of that mythical and symbolic figure, as also the Christian “goat” of the “Witches' Sabbath.” With regard to this too, Christians have imprudently forgotten that the “goat” was also the victim selected for the atonement of all the sins of Israel, that the scape-goat was indeed the sacrificial martyr, the symbol of the greatest mystery on earth—the “fall into generation.” Only, the Jews have long forgotten the real meaning of their (to the non-initiated) ridiculous hero, selected from the drama of life in the Great Mysteries enacted by them in the desert; and the Christians have never known it.

Éliphas Lévi seeks to explain the dogma of his Church by paradoxes and metaphors, but succeeds very poorly in the face of the many volumes written by pious Roman Catholic Demonologists under the approbation and auspices of Rome, in this nineteenth century of ours. For the true Roman Catholic, the Devil or Satan is a reality; the drama enacted in the Sidereal Light according to the seer of Patmos—who desired, perhaps, to improve upon the narrative in the Book of Enoch—is as real, and as historical a fact as any other allegory and symbolical event in the Bible. But the Initiates give an explanation which differs from that given by Éliphas Lévi, whose genius and crafty intellect had to submit to a certain compromise dictated to him from Rome.

Thus, the true and “uncompromising” Kabalists admit that, for all purposes of Science and Philosophy, it is enough that the profane should know that the Great Magic Agent—called by the followers of the Marquis de St. Martin, the Martinists, the Astral Light, by the mediæval Kabalists and Alchemists the Sidereal Virgin and the Mysterium Magnum, and by the Eastern Occultists Æther, the reflection of Âkâsha—is that which the Church calls Lucifer. That the Latin scholastics have succeeded in transforming the Universal Soul and Plerôma—the Vehicle of Light and the receptacle of all forms, a Force spread throughout the whole Universe, with its direct and indirect effects—into Satan and his works, is no news to any one. But now they are prepared to give out to the above-mentioned profane even the secrets hinted at by Éliphas Lévi, without adequate explanation, for the latter's policy of veiled revelations could only lead to further superstition and misunderstanding. What, indeed, can a student of Occultism, who is a beginner, gather from the following highly poetical sentences [pg 538] of Éliphas Lévi, which are as apocalyptic as the writings of any of the Alchemists?

Lucifer [the Astral Light] ... is an intermediate force existing in all creation; it serves to create and to destroy, and the Fall of Adam was an erotic intoxication which has rendered his generation a slave to this fatal Light, ... every sexual passion that overpowers our senses is a whirlwind of that Light which seeks to drag us towards the abyss of death. Madness, hallucinations, visions, extasies, are all forms of a very dangerous excitation due to this interior phosphorus[?]. Thus light, finally, is of the nature of fire, the intelligent use of which warms and vivifies, and the excess of which, on the contrary, dissolves and annihilates.

Thus man is called upon to assume a sovereign empire over this [Astral] Light and conquer thereby his immortality, and is threatened at the same time with being intoxicated, absorbed, and eternally destroyed by it.

This Light, therefore, inasmuch as it is devouring, revengeful, and fatal, would thus really be hell-fire, the serpent of the legend; the tormented errors of which it is full, the tears and the gnashing of teeth of the abortive beings it devours, the phantom of life that escapes them, and seems to mock and insult their agony, all this would be the Devil or Satan indeed.[1180]

There is no false statement in all this; nothing save a superabundance of ill-applied metaphors, as, for instance, in the application of the myth of Adam to the illustration of the astral effects. Âkâsha,[1181] the Astral Light, can be defined in a few words; it is the Universal Soul, the Matrix of the Universe, the Mysterium Magnum from which all that exists is born by separation or differentiation. It is the cause of existence; it fills all the infinite Space, is Space itself, in one sense, or both its sixth and seventh principles.[1182] But as the finite in the Infinite, as regards manifestation this Light must have its shadowy side—as already remarked. And as the Infinite can never be manifested, hence the finite world has to be satisfied with the shadow alone, which its actions draw upon humanity and which men attract and force into [pg 539]activity. Hence, while the Astral Light is the Universal Cause in its unmanifested unity and infinity, it becomes, with regard to mankind, simply the effects of the causes produced by men in their sinful lives. It is not its bright denizens—whether they are called Spirits of Light or Darkness—that produce Good or Evil, but mankind itself that determines the unavoidable action and reaction in the Great Magic Agent. It is mankind which has become the “Serpent of Genesis,” and thus causes daily and hourly the Fall and Sin of the “Celestial Virgin”—which thus becomes the Mother of Gods and Devils at one and the same time; for she is the ever-loving, beneficent Deity to all those who stir her Soul and Heart, instead of attracting to themselves her shadowy manifested essence, called by Éliphas Lévi—the “fatal light” which kills and destroys. Humanity, in its units, can overpower and master its effects; but only by the holiness of their lives and by producing good causes. It has power only on the manifested lower principles—the shadow of the Unknown and Incognizable Deity in Space. But in antiquity and reality, Lucifer, or Luciferus, is the name of the Angelic Entity presiding over the Light of Truth as over the light of the day. In the great Valentinian Gospel Pistis Sophia it is taught that of the three Powers emanating from the Holy Names of the three Triple Powers (Τριδυνάμεις), that of Sophia (the Holy Ghost according to these Gnostics—the most cultured of all), resides in the planet Venus or Lucifer.

Thus to the profane, the Astral Light may be God and Devil at once—Demon est Deus inversus—that is to say, through every point of Infinite Space thrill the magnetic and electrical currents of animate Nature, the life-giving and death-giving waves, for death on earth becomes life on another plane. Lucifer is divine and terrestrial Light, the “Holy Ghost” and “Satan,” at one and the same time, visible Space being truly filled with the differentiated Breath invisibly; and the Astral Light, the manifested effects of the two who are one, guided and attracted by ourselves, is the Karma of Humanity, both a personal and impersonal entity—personal, because it is the mystic name given by St. Martin to the Host of Divine Creators, Guides and Rulers of this Planet; impersonal, as the Cause and Effect of Universal Life and Death.

The Fall was the result of man's knowledge, for his “eyes were opened.” Indeed, he was taught Wisdom and the Hidden Knowledge by the “Fallen Angel,” for the latter had become from that day his [pg 540] Manas, Mind and Self-consciousness. In each of us that golden thread of continuous Life—periodically broken into active and passive cycles of sensuous existence on Earth, and super-sensuous in Devachan—is from the beginning of our appearance upon this Earth. It is the Sûtrâtmâ, the luminous thread of immortal impersonal Monadship, on which our earthly “lives” or evanescent Egos are strung as so many beads—according to the beautiful expression of the Vedântic Philosophy.

And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the “Lord of Phôsphoros”—brimstone was a Theological improvement—and Lucifer, or “Light-Bearer,” is in us: it is our Mind, our Tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent Liberator and Saviour from pure animalism. Without this principle—the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine principle Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine Mind—we would be surely no better than animals. The first man Adam was made only a living soul (Nephesh), the last Adam was made a quickening spirit[1183]—says Paul, his words referring to the building or creation of man. Without this quickening spirit, or human mind or soul, there would be no difference between man and beast; as there is none, in fact, between animals with respect to their actions. The tiger and the donkey, the hawk and the dove, are each one as pure and as innocent as the other, because irresponsible. Each follows its instinct, the tiger and the hawk killing with the same unconcern as the donkey eats a thistle, or the dove pecks at a grain of corn. If the Fall had the significance given to it by Theology; if that Fall occurred as a result of an act never intended by Nature—a sin, how about the animals? If we are told that they procreate their species in consequence of that same “original sin,” for which God cursed the Earth—hence everything living on it—we will put another question. We are told by Theology, as also by Science, that the animal was on Earth far earlier than man. We ask the former: How did it procreate its species, before the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had been plucked off? As said:

The Christians—far less clear-sighted than the great Mystic and Liberator whose name they have assumed, whose doctrines they have misunderstood and travestied, and whose memory they have blackened by their deeds—took the Jewish Jehovah as [pg 541]he was, and of course strove vainly to reconcile the Gospel of Light and Libertywith the Deity of Darkness and Submission.[1184]

But it is sufficiently proven now that all the soi-disant evil Spirits who are credited with having made war on the Gods, are identical as personalities; that, moreover, all the ancient religions taught the same tenet, save the final conclusion, which differs from the Christian. The seven primeval Gods had all a dual state, one essential, the other accidental. In their essential state they were all the Builders or Fashioners, the Preservers and the Rulers of this World; and in the accidental state, clothing themselves in visible corporeality, they descended on the Earth and reigned on it as Kings and Instructors of the lower Hosts, who had incarnated once more upon it as men.

Thus, Esoteric Philosophy shows that man is truly the manifested deity in both its aspects—good and evil, but Theology cannot admit this philosophical truth. Teaching as it does the dogma of the Fallen Angels in its dead-letter meaning, and having made of Satan the corner-stone and pillar of the dogma of redemption—to do so would be suicidal. Having once shown the rebellious Angels distinct from God and the Logos in their personalities, to admit that the downfall of the disobedient Spirits means simply their fall into generation and matter, would be equivalent to saying that God and Satan were identical. For since the Logos, or God, is the aggregate of that once divine Host accused of having fallen, it would naturally follow that the Logos and Satan are one.

Yet such was the real philosophical view in antiquity of the now disfigured tenet. The Verbum, or the “Son,” was shown in a dual [pg 542] aspect by the Pagan Gnostics—in fact, he was a duality in full unity. Hence, the endless and various national versions. The Greeks had Jupiter, the son of Cronus, the Father, who hurls him down into the depths of Kosmos. The Âryans had Brahmâ (in later theology) precipitated by Shiva into the Abyss of Darkness, etc. But the Fall of all these Logoi and Demiourgoi from their primitive exalted position, contained in all cases one and the same Esoteric signification; the Curse, in its philosophical meaning, of being incarnated on this Earth; an unavoidable rung in the Ladder of Cosmic Evolution, a highly philosophical and fitting Karmic Law, without which the presence of Evil on Earth would have to remain for ever a closed mystery to the understanding of true Philosophy. To say, as the author of Esprits Tombés des Paiens does, that since—

Christianity is made to rest on two pillars, that of evil (πουηροῦ), and of good (ἀγαθοῦ); on two forces, in short (ἀγαθαὶ καὶ κακαὶ δυνάμεις): hence, if we suppress the punishment of the evil forces, the protecting mission of the good powers will have neither value nor sense

—is to utter the most unphilosophical absurdity. If it fits in with, and explains, Christian dogma, it obscures the facts and truths of the primitive Wisdom of the ages. The cautious hints of Paul have all the true Esoteric meaning, and it took centuries of scholastic casuistry to give them the false colouring in their present interpretations. The Verbum and Lucifer are one in their dual aspect; and the “Prince of the Air” (princeps aeris hujus) is not the “God of that period,” but an everlasting principle. When the latter was said to be ever circling around the world (qui circumambulat terram), the great Apostle referred simply to the never-ceasing cycles of human incarnations, in which evil will ever predominate unto the day when Humanity is redeemed by the true divine Enlightenment which gives the correct perception of things.

It is easy to disfigure vague expressions written in dead and long-forgotten languages, and palm them off on the ignorant masses as truths and revealed facts. The identity of thought and meaning is the one thing that strikes the student in all the religions which mention the tradition of the Fallen Spirits, and in those great religions there is not one that fails to mention and describe it in one or another form. Thus, Hoang-ty, the Great Spirit, sees his Sons, who had acquired active wisdom, falling into the Valley of Pain. Their leader, the Flying Dragon, having drunk of the forbidden Ambrosia, fell to the Earth [pg 543] with his Host (Kings). In the Zend Avesta, Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), surrounding himself with Fire (the “Flames” of the Stanzas), seeks to conquer the Heavens,[1185] when Ahura Mazda, descending from the solid Heaven he inhabits, to the help of the Heavens that revolve (in time and space, the manifested worlds of cycles including those of incarnation), and the Amshaspands, the “seven bright Sravah,” accompanied by their stars, fight Ahriman, and the vanquished Devas fall to the Earth along with him.[1186] In the Vendîdâd the Daêvas are called “evil-doing,” and are shown to rush away “into the depths of the ... world of hell,” or Matter.[1187] This is an allegory which shows the Devas compelled to incarnate, once that they have separated themselves from their Parent Essence, or, in other words, after the Unit had become multiple, after differentiation and manifestation.

Typhon the Egyptian Python, the Titans, the Suras and the Asuras, all belong to the same legend of Spirits peopling the Earth. They are not “Demons commissioned to create and organize this visible universe,” but the Fashioners or “Architects” of the Worlds, and the Progenitors of Man. They are the Fallen Angels, metaphorically—the “true mirrors” of the “Eternal Wisdom.”

What is the complete truth as well as the Esoteric meaning about this universal myth? The whole essence of truth cannot be transmitted from mouth to ear. Nor can any pen describe it, not even that of the Recording Angel, unless man finds the answer in the sanctuary of his own heart, in the innermost depths of his divine intuition. It is the great Seventh Mystery of Creation, the first and the last; and those who read St. John's Apocalypse may find its shadow lurking under the seventh seal. It can be represented only in its apparent, objective form, like the eternal riddle of the Sphinx. If the Sphinx threw herself into the sea and perished, it is not because Œdipus had unriddled the secret of the ages, but because, by anthropomorphizing the ever-spiritual and the subjective, he had dishonoured the great truth for ever. Therefore, we can give it only from its philosophical and intellectual planes, unlocked with three keys respectively—for the last four keys of the seven that throw wide open the portals to the Mysteries of Nature are in the hands of the highest Initiates, and cannot be divulged to the masses at large—not in this century, at any rate.

The dead-letter is everywhere the same. The dualism in the Mazdean religion was born from exoteric interpretation. The holy Airyaman, the “bestower of weal,”[1188] invoked in the prayer called Airyama-ishyô, is the divine aspect of Ahriman, “the deadly, the Daêva of the Daêvas,”[1189] and Angra Mainyu is the dark material aspect of the former. “Keep us from our hater, O Mazda and Ârmaita Spenta,”[1190] has, as a prayer and invocation, an identical meaning with “Lead us not into temptation,” and is addressed by man to the terrible spirit of duality in man himself. For Ahura Mazda is the Spiritual, Divine, and Purified Man, and Ârmaita Spenta, the Spirit of the Earth or materiality, is the same as Ahriman or Angra Mainyu in one sense.

The whole of the Magian or Mazdean literature—or what remains of it—is magical, occult, hence allegorical and symbolical, even its “mystery of the law.”[1191] Now the Mobed and the Parsî keep their eye on the Baresma during the sacrifice—the divine twig off Ormazd's “Tree” having been transformed into a bunch of metallic rods—and wonder why neither the Amesha Spentas, nor “the high and beautiful golden Haômas, nor even their Vohu-Manô (good thoughts), nor their Râta (sacrificial offering),” help them much. Let them meditate on the “Tree of Wisdom,” and by study assimilate, one by one, the fruits thereof. The way to the Tree of Eternal Life, the white Haôma, the Gaokerena, is through one end of the Earth to the other; and Haôma is in Heaven as it is on Earth. But to become once more a priest of it, and a “healer,” man must heal himself, for this must be done before he can heal others.

This proves once more that, in order to be dealt with, with at least an approximate degree of justice, the so-called “myths” have to be closely examined from all their aspects. In truth, every one of the seven keys has to be used in its right place, and never mixed with the others—if we would unveil the entire cycle of mysteries. In our day of dreary soul-killing Materialism, the ancient Priest-Initiates have become, in the opinion of our learned generations, the synonyms of clever impostors, kindling the fires of superstition in order to obtain an easier sway over the minds of men. This is an unfounded calumny, generated by scepticism and uncharitable thoughts. No one believed more than they did in Gods—or, we may call them, the spiritual and [pg 545] now invisible Powers, or Spirits, the Noumena of the phenomena; and they believed simply because they knew. And though after being initiated into the Mysteries of Nature, they were forced to withhold their knowledge from the profane, who would have surely abused it, such secrecy was undeniably less dangerous than the policy of their usurpers and successors. The former taught only that which they well knew. The latter, teaching what they do not know, have invented, as a secure haven for their ignorance, a jealous and cruel Deity, who forbids man to pry into his mysteries under the penalty of damnation; as well they may, for his mysteries can at best be only hinted at in polite ears, never described. Turn to King's Gnostics and their Remains, and see for yourself what was the primitive Ark of the Covenant, according to the author, who says:

There is a Rabbinical tradition ... that the Cherubim placed over it were represented as male and female, in the act of copulation, in order to express the grand doctrine of the Essence of Form and Matter, the two principles of all things. When the Chaldeans broke into the Sanctuary and beheld this most astounding emblem, they naturally enough exclaimed, “Is this your God, of whom you boast, that He is such a lover of purity!”[1192]

King thinks that this tradition “savours too much of Alexandrian philosophy to demand any credit,” to which we demur. The shape and form of the wings of the two Cherubim standing on the right and left sides of the Ark, these wings meeting over the “Holy of Holies,” are an emblem quite eloquent in itself, not to speak of the “holy” Jod within the Ark! The Mystery of Agathodæmon, whose legend states, “I am Chnumis, Sun of the Universe, 700,” can alone solve the mystery of Jesus, the number of whose name is “888.” It is not the key of St. Peter, or the Church dogma, but the Narthex—the Wand of the Candidate for Initiation—that has to be wrenched from the grasp of the long-silent Sphinx of the ages. Meanwhile:

The augurs, who, upon meeting each other, have to thrust their tongues into their cheeks to suppress a fit of laughter, may be more numerous in our own age than they ever were in the day of Sylla.

---

Section VI. Prometheus, the Titan.

His Origin In Ancient India.

In our modern day there is not the slightest doubt in the minds of the best European symbologists that the name Prometheus possessed the greatest and most mysterious significance in antiquity. While giving the history of Deucalion, whom the Bœotians regarded as the ancestor of the human races, and who was the son of Prometheus, according to the significant legend, the author of the Mythologie de la Grèce Antique remarks:

Thus Prometheus is something more than the archetype of humanity; he is its generator. In the same way that we saw Hephæstus moulding the first woman [Pandora] and endowing her with life, so Prometheus kneads the moist clay, of which he fashions the body of the first man whom he will endow with the soul-spark.[1193]After the flood of Deucalion, Zeus, they said, had commanded Prometheus and Athena to call forth a new race of men from the mire left by the waters of the deluge,[1194] and, in the day of Pausanias, the slime which the hero had used for this purpose was still shown in Phocis.[1195] On several archaic monuments we still see Prometheus modelling a human body, either alone or with Athena's help.[1196]

The same author reminds us of another equally mysterious personage, though one less generally known than Prometheus, whose legend offers remarkable analogies with that of the Titan. The name of this second ancestor and generator is Phoroneus, the hero of an ancient poem, now unfortunately no longer extant, the Phoroneidæ. His legend was localized in Argolis, where a perpetual flame was preserved on his altar as a reminder that he was the bringer of fire upon earth.[1197] A benefactor of men, like Prometheus, he had made them participators [pg 547] of every bliss on earth. Plato[1198] and Clemens Alexandrinus[1199] say that Phoroneus was the first man, or the “father of mortals.” His genealogy, which assigns to him the river Inachos as his father, reminds us of that of Prometheus, which makes that Titan the son of the Oceanid Clymene. But the mother of Phoroneus was the nymph Melia: a significant descent which distinguishes him from Prometheus.[1200]

Melia, Decharme thinks, is the personification of the “Ash-tree,” whence, according to Hesiod, issued the race of the age of Bronze,[1201] and which with the Greeks is the celestial tree common to every Âryan mythology. This Ash is the Yggdrasil of Norse antiquity, which the Norns sprinkle daily with the waters from the fountain of Urd, that it may not wither. It remains verdant till the last days of the Golden Age. Then the Norns—the three sisters who gaze respectively into the Past, the Present, and the Future—make known the decree of Orlog or Fate (Karma), but men are conscious only of the Present.

[But when] Gultweig (gold-ore) comes, the bewitching enchantress ... who, thrice cast into the fire, arises each time more beautiful than before and fills the souls of gods and men with unappeasable longing, then the Norns ... enter into being, and the blessed peace of childhood's dreams passes away, and sin comes into existence with all its evil consequences [and Karma].[1202]

The thrice-purified Gold is—Manas, the Conscious Soul.

With the Greeks, the Ash-tree represented the same idea. Its luxuriant boughs are the Sidereal Heaven, golden by day and studded with stars by night—the fruits of Melia and Yggdrasil, under whose protecting shadow humanity lived during the Golden Age without desire as without fear. “That tree had a fruit, or an inflamed bough, which was lightning”—Decharme guesses.

And here steps in the killing Materialism of the age, that peculiar twist in the modern mind, which, like a Northern blast, bends all on its way, and freezes every intuition, allowing it no hand in the physical speculations of the day. After having seen in Prometheus no more than “fire by friction,” the learned author of the Mythologie de la Grèce Antique perceives in this “fruit” a trifle more than an allusion to terrestrial [pg 548] fire and its discovery. It is no longer fire, owing to the fall of lightning setting some dry fuel in a blaze, and thus revealing all its priceless benefits to palæolithic men—but something more mysterious this time, though still as earthly!

A divine bird, nestled in the branches [of the celestial Ash-tree], stole that bough [or the fruit] and carried it down on the earth in its bill. Now the Greek word Φορώνευς is the rigid equivalent of the Sanskrit word bhuranyu, “the rapid,” an epithet of Agni, considered as the carrier of the divine spark. Phoroneus, son of Melia or of the celestial ash, thus corresponds to a conception far more ancient, probably, than that one which transformed the pramantha [of the old Âryan Hindûs] into the Greek Prometheus. Phoroneus is the [personified] bird, that brings the heavenly lightning to the earth. Traditions relating to the birth of the race of Bronze, and those which made of Phoroneus the father of the Argolians, are an evidence to us that this thunderbolt [or lightning], as in the legend of Hephæstus or Prometheus, was the origin of the human race.[1203]

This still affords us no more than the external meaning of the symbols and the allegory. It is now supposed that the name of Prometheus has been unriddled. But the modern Mythologists and Orientalists see in it no longer what their fathers saw on the authority of the whole of classical antiquity. They only find therein something far more appropriate to the spirit of the age, namely, a phallic element. But the name of Phoroneus, as well as that of Prometheus, bears not one, nor even two, but a series of esoteric meanings. Both relate to the seven Celestial Fires; to Agni Abhimânin, his three sons, and their forty-five sons, constituting the Forty-nine Fires. Do all these numbers relate only to the terrestrial mode of fire and to the flame of sexual passion? Did the Hindû Âryan mind never soar above such purely sensual conceptions; that mind which is declared by Prof. Max Müller to be the most spiritual and mystically inclined on the whole globe? The number of those fires alone ought to have suggested an inkling of the truth.

We are told that one is no longer permitted, in this age of rational thought, to explain the name of Pro-metheus as the old Greeks did. The latter, it seems:

Basing themselves on the apparent analogy of προμηθεύς with the verb προμανθύνειν, saw in him the type of the “foreseeing” man, to whom, for the sake of symmetry, a brother was added—Epi-metheus, or “he who takes counsel after the event.”[1204]

But now the Orientalists have decided otherwise. They know the real meaning of the two names better than those who invented them. [pg 549] The legend is based upon an event of universal importance. It was built to commemorate

A great event which must have strongly impressed itself upon the imagination of the first witnesses, and its remembrance has never since faded out from popular memory.[1205]

What was this? Laying aside every poetical fiction, all those dreams of the Golden Age, let us imagine—argue the modern scholars—in all its gross realism, the first miserable state of humanity, the striking picture of which was traced for us after Æschylus by Lucretius, and the exact truth of which is now confirmed by Science; and then we may understand better that a new life really began for man, on that day when he saw the first spark produced by the friction of two pieces of wood, or from the veins of a flint. How could men help feeling gratitude to that mysterious and marvellous being which they were henceforth enabled to create at their will, and which was no sooner born, than it grew and expanded, developing with singular power.

This terrestrial flame, was it not analogous in nature to that which sent them from above its light and heat, or which frightened them in the thunderbolt? Was it not derived from the same source? And if its origin was in heaven, must it not have been brought down some day on earth? If so, who was the powerful being, the beneficent being, God or man, who had conquered it? Such are the questions which the curiosity of the Âryans offered in the early days of their existence, and which found their answer in the myth of Prometheus.[1206]

The Philosophy of Occult Science finds two weak points in the above reflections, and proceeds to point them out. The miserable state of Humanity described by Æschylus and Lucretius was no more wretched then, in the early days of the Âryans, than it is now. That “state” was limited to the savage tribes; and the now-existing savages are not a whit more happy or unhappy than their forefathers were a million years ago.

It is an accepted fact in Science that “rude implements, exactly resembling those in use among existing savages,” are found in river-gravels and caves, geologically “implying an enormous antiquity.” So great is that resemblance that, as the author of The Modern Zoroastrian tells us:

If the collection in the Colonial Exhibition of stone celts and arrow-heads used by the Bushmen of South Africa were placed side by side with one from the British Museum of similar objects from Kent's Cavern or the Caves of Dordogne, no one but an expert could distinguish between them.[1207]

And if there are Bushmen existing now, in our age of the highest civilization, who are no higher intellectually than the race of men which inhabited Devonshire and Southern France during the Palæolithic age, why could not the latter have lived simultaneously with, and have been the contemporary of, other races as highly civilized for their day as we are for ours? That the sum of knowledge increases daily in mankind, “but that intellectual capacity does not increase with it,” is shown when the intellect, if not the physical knowledge, of the Euclids, Pythagorases, Pâninis, Kapilas, Platos, and Socrates, is compared with that of the Newtons, Kants, and the modern Huxleys and Hæckels. On comparing the results obtained by Dr. J. Barnard Davis, the Craniologist,[1208] with regard to the internal capacity of the skull—its volume being taken as the standard and test for judging of the intellectual capacities—Dr. Pfaff finds that this capacity among the French (certainly in the highest rank of mankind) is 88.4 cubic inches, being thus “perceptibly smaller than that of the Polynesians generally, which, even among many Papuans and Alfuras of the lowest grade, amounts to 89 and 89.7 cubic inches”; which shows that it is the quality and not the quantity of the brain that is the cause of intellectual capacity. The average index of skulls among various races having been now recognized to be “one of the most characteristic marks of difference between different races,” the following comparison is suggestive:

The index of breadth among the Scandinavians [is] at 75; among the English at 76; among Holsteiners at 77; in Bresgau at 80; Schiller's skull shows an index of breadth even of 82 ... the Madurese also 82!

Finally, the same comparison between the oldest skulls known and the European, brings to light the startling fact that:

Most of these old skulls, belonging to the stone period, are above rather than below the average of the brain of the now living man in volume.

Calculating the measures for the height, breadth, and length in inches from the average measurements of several skulls, the following sums are obtained:

1. Old Northern skulls of the stone age: 18.877 ins.

2. Average of 48 skulls of the same period from England: 18.858 ins.

3. Average of 7 skulls of the same period from Wales: 18.649 ins.

4. Average of 36 skulls of the stone age from France: 18.220 ins.

The average of the now living Europeans is 18.579 inches; of Hottentots, 17.795 inches!

These figures show plainly that:

The size of the brain of the oldest populations known to us is not such as to place them on a lower level than that of the now living inhabitants of the Earth.[1209]

Besides which, they show the “missing link” vanishing into thin air. Of these, however, more anon: we must return to our direct subject.

As the “Prometheus Vinctus” of Æschylus tells us, the race which Jupiter so ardently desired “to quench, and plant a new one in its stead” (v. 241), suffered mental, not physical misery. The first boon Prometheus gave to mortals, as he tells the Chorus, was to hinder them “from foreseeing death” (v. 256); he “saved the mortal race from sinking blasted down to Hades' gloom” (v. 244); and then only, “besides” that, he gave them fire (v. 260). This shows plainly the dual character at any rate of the Promethean myth, if Orientalists will not accept the existence of the seven keys taught in Occultism. This relates to the first opening of man's spiritual perceptions, not to his first seeing or “discovering” fire. For fire was never discovered, but existed on Earth since its beginning. It existed in the seismic activity of the early ages, volcanic eruptions being as frequent and constant in those periods as fog is in England now. And if we are told that men appeared so late on Earth that all but a few volcanoes were already extinct, and that geological disturbances had made room for a more settled state of things, we answer: Let a new race of men—whether evolved from Angel or Gorilla—appear now on any uninhabited spot of the Globe, with the exception perhaps of the Sahara, and a thousand to one it would not be a year or two old before “discovering fire,” through lightning setting the grass or something else in flames. This assumption, that primitive man lived ages on Earth before he was made acquainted with fire, is one of the most painfully illogical of all. But old Æschylus was an Initiate, and knew well what he was giving out.[1210]

No Occultist acquainted with symbology and the fact that Wisdom came to us from the East, will for a moment deny that the myth of Prometheus has reached Europe from Âryâvarta. Nor is he likely to deny that in one sense Prometheus represents “fire by friction.” Therefore, he admires the sagacity of M. F. Baudry, who shows in “Les Mythes du Feu et du Breuvage Céleste”[1211] one of the aspects of [pg 552] Prometheus and his origin from India. He shows the reader the supposed primitive process to obtain fire, still in use to-day in India to light the sacrificial flame. This is what he says:

This process, such as it is minutely described in the Vedic Sûtras, consists in rapidly turning a stick in a socket made in the centre of a piece of wood. The friction develops intense heat and ends by setting on fire the particles of wood in contact. The motion of the stick is not a continuous rotation, but a series of motions in contrary senses, by means of a cord fixed to the stick in its middle; the operator holds one of the ends in each hand and pulls them alternately.... The full process is designated in Sanskrit by the verb manthâmi, mathnáni, which means “to rub, agitate, shake and obtain by rubbing,” and is especially applied to rotatory friction, as is proved by its derivative mandala, which signifies a circle.... The pieces of wood serving for the production of fire have each their name in Sanskrit. The stick which turns is called pramantha; the discus which receives it is called arani and aranî: “the two aranis” designating the ensemble of the instrument.[1212]

It remains to be seen what the Brâhmans will say to this. But even supposing that Prometheus, in one of the aspects of his myth, was conceived as the producer of fire by means of the Pramantha, or as an animate and divine Pramantha, would this imply that the symbolism had no other than the phallic meaning attributed to it by modern symbologists? Decharme, at any rate, seems to have a correct glimmering of the truth; for he unconsciously corroborates all that the Occult Sciences teach with regard to the Mânasa Devas, who have endowed man with the consciousness of his immortal soul—that consciousness which hinders man “from foreseeing death,” and makes him know he is immortal.[1213] “How did Prometheus come into possession of the [divine] spark?” he asks.

Fire having its abode in heaven, it is there he must have gone to find it before he could carry it down to men, and, to approach the gods, he must have been a god himself.[1214]

The Greeks held that he was of the Divine Race, “the son of the Titan Iapetos”;[1215] the Hindûs, that he was a Deva.

But celestial fire belonged in the beginning to the gods alone; it was a treasure they reserved for themselves ... over which they jealously watched.... “The prudent son of Iapetus,” says Hesiod, “deceived Jupiter by stealing and concealing in the cavity of a narthex, the indefatigable fire of the resplendent glow.”[1216] ... Thus the gift made by Prometheus to men was a conquest made from heaven. Now according to Greek ideas [in this identical with those of the Occultists], this possession forced from Jupiter, this human trespassing upon the property of the gods, had to be followed by an expiation.... Prometheus, moreover, belongs to that race of Titans who had rebelled[1217] against the gods, and whom the master of Olympus had hurled down into Tartarus; like them, he is the genius of evil, doomed to cruel suffering.[1218]

What is most revolting in the explanations that follow, is the one-sided view taken of this grandest of all myths. The most intuitional among modern writers cannot, or will not, rise in their conceptions above the level of the Earth and cosmic phenomena. It is not denied that the moral idea in the myth, as presented in the Theogony of Hesiod, plays a certain part in the primitive Greek conception. The Titan is more than a thief of the celestial fire. He is the representation of humanity—active, industrious, intelligent, but at the same time ambitious, which aims at equalling divine powers. Therefore it is humanity punished in the person of Prometheus, but it is only so with the Greeks. With them, Prometheus is not a criminal, save in the eyes of the Gods. In his relation with the Earth, he is, on the contrary, a God himself, a friend of mankind (φιλάνθρωπος), which he has raised to civilization and initiated into the knowledge of all the arts; a conception which found its most poetical expounder in Æschylus. But with all other nations Prometheus is—what? The Fallen Angel, Satan, as the Church would have it? Not at all. He is simply the image of the pernicious and dreaded effects of lightning. He is the “evil fire” (mal feu)[1219] and the symbol of the divine reproductive male organ.

Reduced to its simple expression, the myth we are trying to explain is then simply a [cosmic] genius of fire.[1220]

It is the former idea (the phallic) which was preëminently Âryan, if we believe Adalbert Kuhn[1221] and F. Baudry. For:

The fire used by man being the result of the action of pramantha in the arani, the Âryas must have ascribed [?] the same origin to celestial fire, and they must have[1222] imagined [?] that a god armed with the pramantha, or a divine pramantha, caused a violent friction in the bosom of the clouds, which gave birth to lightning and thunderbolts.[1223]

This idea is supported by the fact that, according to Plutarch's testimony,[1224] the Stoics thought that thunder was the result of the struggle of storm-clouds, and lightning a conflagration due to friction; while Aristotle saw in the thunderbolt only the action of clouds which clashed with each other. What was this theory, if not the scientific translation of the production of fire by friction?... Everything leads us to think that, from the highest antiquity, and before the dispersion of the Âryas, it was believed that the pramantha lighted the fire in the storm-cloud as well as in the aranis.[1225]

Thus, suppositions and idle hypotheses are made to stand for discovered truths. Defenders of the biblical dead-letter could not help the writers of missionary tracts more effectually than do materialistic Symbologists in thus taking for granted that the ancient Âryans based their religious conceptions on no higher thought than the physiological.

But it is not so, and the very spirit of Vedic Philosophy is against such an interpretation. For if, as Decharme himself confesses:

This idea of the creative power of fire is explained ... by the ancient assimilation of the human soul to a celestial spark[1226]

—as shown by the imagery often made use of in the Vedas when speaking of Arani, it would mean something higher than simply a gross sexual conception. A Hymn to Agni in the Veda is cited as an example:

Here is the pramantha; the generator is ready. Bring the mistress of the race (the female aranî). Let us produce Agni by attrition, according to ancient custom.

This means no worse than an abstract idea expressed in the tongue of mortals. The female Aranî, the “mistress of the race,” is Aditi, the Mother of the Gods, or Shekinah, Eternal Light—in the World of Spirit, the “Great Deep” and Chaos; or Primordial Substance in its first remove from the Unknown, in the Manifested Kosmos. If, ages later, the same epithet is applied to Devakî, the Mother of Krishna, or [pg 555] the incarnated Logos; and if the symbol, owing to the gradual and irrepressible spread of exoteric religions, may now be regarded as having a sexual significance, this in no way mars the original purity of the image. The subjective had been transformed into the objective; Spirit had fallen into Matter. The universal kosmic polarity of Spirit-Substance had become, in human thought, the mystic, but still sexual, union of Spirit and Matter, and had thus acquired an anthropomorphic colouring which it had never had in the beginning. Between the Vedas and the Purânas there is an abyss of which they are the poles, like as are the seventh principle, the Âtmâ, and the first or lowest principle, the Physical Body, in the septenary constitution of Man. The primitive and purely spiritual language of the Vedas, conceived many decades of millenniums earlier than the Paurânic accounts, found a purely human expression for the purpose of describing events which took place 5,000 years ago, the date of Krishna's death, from which day the Kali Yuga, or Black Age, began for mankind.

As Aditi is called Surârani, the Matrix or “Mother” of the Suras or Gods, so Kuntî, the mother of the Pândavas, is called in the Mahâbhârata Pândavârani[1227]—and the term is now physiologized. But Devakî, the antetype of the Roman Catholic Madonna, is a later anthropomorphized form of Aditi. The latter is the Goddess-mother, or Deva-mâtri, of seven Sons (the six and the seven Âdityas of early Vedic times); the mother of Krishna, Devakî, has six embryos conveyed into her womb by Jagad-dhâtri, the “Nurse of the World,” the seventh, Krishna, the Logos, being transferred to that of Rohinî. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the mother of seven children, of five sons and two daughters (a later transformation of sex), in Matthew's Gospel.[1228] No one of the worshippers of the Roman Catholic Virgin would object to reciting in her honour the prayer addressed by the Gods to Devakî. Let the reader judge.

Thou art that Prakriti [essence], infinite and subtile, which formerly bore Brahmâ in its womb.... Thou, eternal being, comprising, in thy substance, the essence of all created things, wast identical with creation; thou wast the parent of the tri-form sacrifice, becoming the germ of all things. Thou art sacrifice, whence all fruit proceeds; thou art the Aranî, whose attrition engenders fire.[1229] As Aditi, thou art the parent of the gods.... Thou art light [Jyotsnâ, the morning twilight],[1230]whence day is begotten. Thou art humility [Samnati, a daughter of Daksha], the [pg 556]mother of wisdom; thou art Niti, the parent of harmony (Naya);[1231] thou art modesty, the progenitrix of affection [Prashraya, explained by Vinaya]; thou art desire, of whom love is born.... Thou art ... the mother of knowledge [Avabodha]; thou art patience [Dhriti], the parent of fortitude [Dhairya].[1232]

Thus Aranî is shown here to be the same as the Roman Catholic “Vase of Election.” As to its primitive meaning, it was purely metaphysical. No unclean thought traversed these conceptions in the ancient mind. Even in the Zohar—far less metaphysical in its symbology than any other symbolism—the idea is an abstraction and nothing more. Thus, when the Zohar says:

All that which exists, all that which has been formed by the ancient, whose name is holy, can only exist through a male and female principle.[1233]

It means no more than that the divine Spirit of Life is ever coalescing with Matter. It is the Will of the Deity that acts; and the idea is purely Schopenhauerian.

When Atteekah Kaddosha, the ancient and the concealed of the concealed, desired to form all things, it formed all things like male and female. This wisdom comprises all when it goeth forth.

Hence Chokmah (male Wisdom) and Binah (female Consciousness or Intellect) are said to create all between the two—the active and the passive principles. As the eye of the expert jeweller discerns under the rough and uncouth oyster shell the pure immaculate pearl, enshrined within its bosom, his hand touching the shell but to get at its contents, so the eye of the true Philosopher reads between the lines of the Purânas the sublime Vedic truths, and corrects the form with the help of the Vedântic Wisdom. Our Orientalists, however, never perceive the pearl under the thick coating of the shell and—act accordingly.

From all that has been said in this Section, one sees clearly that, between the Serpent of Eden and the Devil of Christianity, there is an abyss. Alone the sledge hammer of Ancient Philosophy can kill this dogma.

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Section VII. Enoïchion-Henoch.

The history of the evolution of the Satanic Myth would not be complete if we omitted to notice the character of the mysterious and cosmopolitan Enoch, variously called Enos, Hanoch, and finally Enoïchion by the Greeks. It is from his book that the first notions of the Fallen Angels were taken by the early Christian writers.

The Book of Enoch is declared apocryphal. But what is an apocryphon? The very etymology of the term shows that it is simply a secret book, i.e., one that belonged to the catalogue of temple-libraries under the guardianship of the Hierophants and Initiated Priests, and was never meant for the profane. Apocryphon comes from the verb crypto (κρύπτω), “to hide.” For ages the Enoïchion, the Book of the Seer, was preserved in the “city of letters” and secret works—the ancient Kirjath-sepher, later on, Debir.[1234]

Some of the writers interested in the subject—especially Masons—have tried to identify Enoch with Thoth of Memphis, the Greek Hermes, and even with the Latin Mercury. As individuals, all of these are distinct one from the other; professionally—if one may use this word, now so limited in its sense—one and all belong to the same category of sacred writers, of Initiators and Recorders of Occult and ancient Wisdom. Those who in the Korân[1235] are generically termed the Edris, or the “Learned,” the Initiated, bore in Egypt the name of “Thoth,” the inventor of Arts, Sciences, of writing or letters, of Music and Astronomy. Among the Jews Edris became “Enoch,” who, according to Bar-Hebræus, “was the first inventor of writing,” books, Arts, and Sciences, the first who reduced to a system the progress of the planets.[1236] In Greece he was called Orpheus, and thus changed his [pg 558] name with every nation. The number seven being attached to, and connected with, each of those primitive Initiators,[1237] as well as the number 365, of the days in the year, astronomically, it identifies the mission, character, and the sacred office of all these men, but certainly not their personalities. Enoch is the seventh Patriarch; Orpheus is the possessor of the Phorminx, the seven-stringed lyre, which is the seven-fold mystery of Initiation. Thoth, with the seven-rayed Solar Discus on his head, travels in the Solar Boat (the 365 degrees), jumping out every fourth (leap) year for one day. Finally, Thoth-Lunus is the septenary God of the seven days, or the week. Esoterically and spiritually, Enoïchion means the “Seer of the Open Eye.”

The story about Enoch, told by Josephus, namely, that he had concealed his precious Rolls or Books under the pillars of Mercury or Seth, is the same as that told of Hermes, the “Father of Wisdom,” who concealed his Books of Wisdom under a pillar, and then, discovering the two pillars of stone, found the Science written thereon. Yet Josephus, notwithstanding his constant efforts in the direction of Israel's unmerited glorification, and though he does attribute that Science (of Wisdom) to the Jewish Enoch—writes history. He shows these pillars as still existing during his own time.[1238] He tells us that they were built by Seth; and so they may have been, only neither by the Patriarch of that name, the fabled son of Adam, nor by the Egyptian God of Wisdom—Teth, Set, Thoth, Tat, Sat (the later Sat-an), or Hermes, who are all one—but by the “Sons of the Serpent-God,” or “Sons of the Dragon,” the name under which the Hierophants of Egypt and Babylon were known before the Deluge, as were their forefathers, the Atlanteans.

What Josephus tells us, therefore, with the exception of the application made of it, must be true allegorically. According to his version the two famous pillars were entirely covered with hieroglyphics, which, after their discovery, were copied and reproduced in the most secret corners of the inner temples of Egypt, and thus became the source of its Wisdom and exceptional learning. These two “pillars,” however, are the prototypes of the two “tables of stones” hewn by Moses at the command of the “Lord.” Hence, in saying that all the great Adepts and Mystics of antiquity—such as Orpheus, Hesiod, Pythagoras and Plato—got the elements of their Theology from those [pg 559] hieroglyphics, he is right in one sense, and wrong in another. The Secret Doctrine teaches us that the Arts, Sciences, Theology, and especially the Philosophy of every nation which preceded the last universally known, but not universal, Deluge, had been recorded ideographically from the primitive oral records of the Fourth Race, and that these were the inheritance of the latter from the early Third Root-Race before the allegorical Fall. Hence, also, the Egyptian pillars, the tablets, and even the “white oriental porphyry stone” of the Masonic legend—which Enoch, fearing that the real and precious secrets would be lost, concealed before the Deluge in the bowels of the Earth—were simply the more or less symbolical and allegorical copies from the primitive Records. The Book of Enoch is one of such copies, and is, moreover, a Chaldæan, and now very incomplete, compendium. As already said, Enoïchion means in Greek the “Inner Eye,” or the Seer; in Hebrew, with the help of Masoretic points, it means the “Initiator” and “Instructor” (חֲנוֹךּ). Enoch is a generic title; and, moreover, his legend is that of several other prophets, Jewish and Heathen, with changes of made-up details, the root-form being the same. Elijah is also taken up into Heaven “alive”; and the Astrologer, at the court of Isdubar, the Chaldæan Hea-bani, is likewise raised to Heaven by the God Hea, who was his patron, as Jehovah was of Elijah, whose name means in Hebrew “God-Jah,” Jehovah (אֶלְיָה),[1239] and again of Elihu, which has the same meaning. This kind of easy death, or euthanasia, has an Esoteric meaning. It symbolizes the “death” of any Adept who has reached the power and degree, and also the purification, which enable him to “die” in the Physical Body, and still live and lead a conscious life in his Astral Body. The variations on this theme are endless, but the secret meaning is ever the same. The Pauline expression,[1240] “that he should not see death” (ut non videret mortem), has thus an Esoteric meaning, but nothing supernatural in it. The mangled interpretation given of some biblical hints to the effect that Enoch, “whose years will equal those of the world” (of the solar year, 365 days), will share with Christ and the prophet Elijah the honours and bliss of the last Advent and of the destruction of Antichrist[1241]—signify Esoterically, that some of the Great Adepts will return in the Seventh Race, when all Error will be made away with, and the advent of Truth will be heralded by those Shishta, the holy “Sons of Light.”

The Latin Church is not always logical, nor prudent. She declares [pg 560] the Book of Enoch an apocryphon, and has gone so far as to claim, through Cardinal Cajetan and other luminaries of the Church, the rejection from the Canon of even the Book of Jude, who, otherwise, as an inspired apostle, would quote from and thus sanctify the Book of Enoch, which is alleged to be an apocryphal work. Fortunately, some of the dogmatics perceived the peril in time. Had they accepted Cajetan's resolution, they would have been forced to reject likewise the Fourth Gospel; as St. John borrows literally from Enoch, and places a whole sentence from him, in the mouth of Jesus![1242]

Ludolph, the “father of Ethiopic literature,” commissioned to investigate the various Enochian MSS. presented by Pereisc, the traveller, to the Mazarine Library, declared that “no Book of Enoch could exist among the Abyssinians”! Further researches and discoveries worsted this too dogmatic assertion, as all know. Bruce and Ruppel did find the Book of Enoch in Abyssinia, and what is more, brought it to Europe some years later, and Bishop Laurence translated it. But Bruce despised it, and scoffed at its contents; as did all the rest of the Scientists. He declared it a Gnostic work, concerning the Age of Giants who devour men—and bearing a strong resemblance to the Apocalypse.[1243] Giants! another fairy-tale!

Such, however, has not been the opinion of all the best critics. Dr. Hanneberg places the Book of Enoch along with the Third Book of the Maccabees—at the head of the list of those whose authority stands the nearest to that of the canonical works.[1244]

Verily, “where doctors disagree...”!

As usual, however, they are all right and all wrong. To accept Enoch as a biblical character, a single living person, is like accepting Adam as the first man. Enoch was a generic title, applied to, and borne by, scores of individuals, at all times and ages, and in every race and nation. This may be easily inferred from the fact that the ancient Talmudists and the teachers of Midrashim are not agreed generally in their views about Hanokh, the Son of Yered. Some say Enoch was a great Saint, beloved by God, and “taken alive to heaven,” i.e., one who reached Mukti or Nirvâna, on Earth, as Buddha did and others still do; and others maintain that he was a sorcerer, a wicked magician. This shows only that “Enoch,” or its equivalent, was a term, even during the days of the later Talmudists, which meant [pg 561] “Seer,” “Adept in the Secret Wisdom,” etc., without any specification as to the character of the title-bearer. Josephus, speaking of Elijah and Enoch,[1245] remarks that:

It is written in the sacred books they [Elijah and Enoch] disappeared, but so that nobody knew that they died.

It means simply that they had died in their personalities, as Yogîs die to this day in India, or even some Christian monks—to the world. They disappear from the sight of men and die—on the terrestrial plane—even for themselves. A seemingly figurative way of speaking, yet literally true.

“Hanokh transmitted the science of (astronomical) calculation and of computing the seasons to Noah,” says the Midrash Pirkah;[1246] R. Eliezar referring to Enoch that which others did to Hermes Trismegistus, for the two are identical in their Esoteric meaning. “Hanokh” in this case, and his “Wisdom,” belong to the cycle of the Fourth Atlantean Race,[1247] and Noah to that of the Fifth.[1248] In this case both represent the Root-Races, the present one and the one that preceded it. In another sense, Enoch disappeared, “he walked with God, and he was not, for God took him”; the allegory referring to the disappearance of the Sacred and Secret Knowledge from among men; for “God” (or Java Aleim—the high Hierophants, the Heads of the Colleges of Initiated Priests[1249]) took him; in other words, the Enochs or the Enoïchions, the Seers and their Knowledge and Wisdom, became strictly confined to the Secret Colleges of the Prophets with the Jews, and to the Temples with the Gentiles.

Interpreted with the help of merely the symbolical key, Enoch is the type of the dual nature of man—spiritual and physical. Hence he occupies the centre of the Astronomical Cross, as given by Éliphas Lévi from a secret work, which is a Six-pointed Star, the “Adonai.” In the upper angle of the upper Triangle is the Eagle; in the left lower angle stands the Lion; in the right, the Bull; while between the Bull and the Lion, over them and under the Eagle, is the face of Enoch or Man.[1250] Now the figures on the upper Triangle represent the Four Races, omitting the First, the Chhâyâs or Shadows, and the “Son [pg 562] of Man,” Enos or Enoch, is in the centre, where he stands between the Fourth and the Fifth Races, for he represents the Secret Wisdom of both. These are the four Animals of Ezekiel and of the Revelation. This Double Triangle which, in Isis Unveiled, is faced by the Hindû Ardhanârî, is by far the best. For in the latter, only the three (for us) historical Races are symbolized; the Third, the Androgynous, by Ardha-nârî; the Fourth, symbolized by the strong, powerful Lion; and the Fifth, the Âryan, by that which is its most sacred symbol to this day, the Bull (and the Cow).

A man of great erudition, a French savant, M. de Sacy, finds several most singular statements in the Book of Enoch, “worthy of the most serious examination,” he says. For instance:

The author [Enoch] makes the solar year consist of 364 days, and seems to know periods of three, of five, and of eight years, followed by four supplementary days, which, in his system, appear to be those of the equinoxes and solstices.[1251]

To which he adds, later on:

I see but one means to palliate them [these “absurdities”]; it is to suppose that the author expounds some fanciful system which may have existed before the order of Nature had been altered at the period of the Universal Deluge.[1252]

Precisely so; and the Secret Doctrine teaches that this “order of nature” has been thus altered, and the series of the Earth's humanities too. For, as the angel Uriel tells Enoch:

Behold, I have showed thee all things, O Enoch; and all things have I revealed to thee. Thou seest the sun, the moon, and those which conduct the stars of heaven, which cause all their operations, seasons, and arrivals to return. In the days of sinners the years shall be shortened.... The moon shall change its laws....[1253]

In those days also, years before the Great Deluge that carried away the Atlanteans and changed the face of the whole Earth (because “the Earth [or its axis] became inclined”), Nature, geologically, astronomically, and cosmically in general, could not have been the same, just because the Earth had inclined. To quote from Enoch:

And Noah cried with a bitter voice, Hear me; hear me; hear me; three times. And he said,... The earth labours and is violently shaken. Surely, I shall perish with it.[1254]

This, by the way, looks like one of those many “inconsistencies,” if the Bible is read literally. For, to say the least, this is a very strange [pg 563] fear in one who had “found grace in the eyes of the Lord” and been told to build an Ark! But here we find the venerable Patriarch expressing as much fear as if, instead of a “friend” of God, he had been one of the Giants doomed by the wrathful Deity. The Earth had already inclined, and the deluge of waters had become simply a question of time, and yet Noah seems to know nothing of his intended salvation.

A decree had come indeed; the decree of Nature and the Law of Evolution, that the Earth should change its Race, and that the Fourth Race should be destroyed to make room for a better one. The Manvantara had reached its turning point of three and a half Rounds, and gigantic physical Humanity had reached the acme of gross materiality. Hence the apocalyptic verse that speaks of a commandment gone forth that they may be destroyed, “that their end may be”—the end of the Race:

For they knew [truly] every secret of the angels, every oppressive and secret power of the Satans, and every power of those who commit sorcery, as well as of those who make molten images in the whole earth.[1255]

And now a natural question. Who could have informed the apocryphal author of this powerful vision—no matter to what age he may be assigned before the day of Galileo—that the Earth could occasionally incline her axis? Whence did he derive such astronomical and geological knowledge if the Secret Wisdom, of which the ancient Rishis and Pythagoras had drunk, is but a fancy, an invention of later ages? Has Enoch read prophetically perchance in Fréderic Klée's work on the Deluge the lines:

The position of the terrestrial globe with reference to the sun has evidently been, in primitive times, different from what it is now; and this difference must have been caused by a displacement of the axis of rotation of the earth.

This reminds one of that unscientific statement made by the Egyptian priests to Herodotus, namely, that the Sun has not always risen where it rises now, and that in former times the ecliptic had cut the equator at right angles.[1256]

There are many such “dark sayings” scattered throughout the Purânas, Bible and other Mythologies, and to the Occultist they divulge two facts; (a) that the Ancients knew as well as, and perhaps better than, the moderns do, Astronomy, Geognosy and Cosmography in general; and (b) that the behaviour of the Globe has altered more [pg 564] than once since the primitive state of things. Thus, Xenophantes—on the blind faith of his “ignorant” religion, which taught that Phaeton, in his desire to learn the hidden truth, made the Sun deviate from its usual course—asserts somewhere that, “the Sun turned toward another country”; which is a parallel—slightly more scientific, however, if not as bold—of Joshua stopping the course of the Sun altogether. Yet it may explain the teaching of the Northern Mythology that before the actual order of things the Sun arose in the South, and its placing the Frigid Zone (Jeruskoven) in the East, whereas now it is in the North.[1257]

The Book of Enoch, in short, is a résumé, a compound of the main features of the history of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Races; a very few prophecies from the present age of the world; a long retrospective, introspective and prophetic summary of universal and quite historical events—geological, ethnological, astronomical, and psychic—with a touch of Theogony out of the antediluvian records. The Book of this mysterious personage is referred to and quoted copiously in the Pistis Sophia, and also in the Zohar and its most ancient Midrashim. Origen and Clement of Alexandria held it in the highest esteem. To say, therefore, that it is a Post-Christian forgery is to utter an absurdity and to become guilty of an anachronism, for Origen, among others, who lived in the second century of the Christian era, mentions it as an ancient and venerable work. The secret and sacred Name and its potency are well and clearly though allegorically described in the old volume. From the eighteenth to the fiftieth chapter, the Visions of Enoch are all descriptive of the Mysteries of Initiation, one of which is the Burning Valley of the “Fallen Angels.”

Perhaps St. Augustine was quite right in saying that the Church rejected the Book of Enoch out of her canon owing to its too great antiquity (ob nimiam antiquitatem).[1258] There was no room for the events noticed in it within the limit of the 4004 years b.c. assigned to the world from its “creation”!

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Section VIII. The Symbolism of the Mystery-Names Iao and Jehovah, with their Relation to the Cross and Circle.

When the Abbé Louis Constant, better known as Éliphas Lévi, said in his Histoire de la Magie that the Sepher Jetzirah, the Zohar, and the Apocalypse of St. John, are the masterpieces of the Occult Sciences, he ought, if he had wished to be correct and clear, to have added—in Europe. It is quite true that these works contain “more significance than words”; and that their “expression is poetical,” while “in numbers” they are “exact.” Unfortunately, however, before any one can appreciate the poetry of the expressions, or the exactness of the numbers, he will have to learn the real significance and meaning of the terms and symbols employed. But man will never learn this so long as he remains ignorant of the fundamental principle of the Secret Doctrine, whether in Oriental Esotericism, or in the kabalistical Symbology—the key, or value, in all their aspects, of the God-names, Angel-names, and Patriarch-names in the Bible, their mathematical or geometrical value, and their relations to manifested Nature.

Therefore, if, on the one hand, the Zohar “astonishes” the mystic, by the profundity of its views and the great simplicity of its images, or the other hand, that work misleads the student by such expressions as those used with respect to Ain Suph and Jehovah, notwithstanding the assurance that:

The book is careful to explain that the human form with which it clothes God is but an image of the Word, and that God should not be expressed by any thought, or any form.

It is well known that Origen Clement, and the Rabbis confessed that the Kabalah and the Bible were veiled and secret books; but few know [pg 566] that the Esotericism of the kabalistic books in their present reëdited form is simply another and still more cunning veil thrown upon the primitive symbolism of these secret volumes.

The idea of representing the hidden Deity by the circumference of a circle, and the Creative Power—male and female, or the Androgynous Word—by the diameter across it, is one of the oldest symbols. It is upon this conception that every great Cosmogony has been built. With the old Âryans, the Egyptians, and the Chaldæans, the symbol was complete, as it embraced the idea of the eternal and immovable Divine Thought in its absoluteness, separated entirely from the incipient stage of the so-called “creation,” and comprised psychological and even spiritual evolution, and its mechanical work, or cosmogonical construction. With the Hebrews, however, though the former conception is to be distinctly found in the Zohar, and the Sepher Jetzirah, or what remains of the latter—that which has been subsequently embodied in the Pentateuch proper, and especially in Genesis, is simply this secondary stage, to wit, the mechanical law of creation, or rather of construction; while Theogony is hardly, if at all, outlined.

It is only in the first six chapters of Genesis, in the rejected Book of Enoch, and the misunderstood and mistranslated poem of Job, that true echoes of the Archaic Doctrine may now be found. The key to it is lost now, even among the most learned Rabbis, whose predecessors in the early period of the Middle Ages, in their national exclusiveness and pride, and especially in their profound hatred of Christianity, preferred to cast it into the deep sea of oblivion, rather than to share their knowledge with their relentless and fierce persecutors. Jehovah was their own tribal property, inseparable from, and unfit to play a part in, any other but the Mosaic Law. Violently torn out of his original frame, which he fitted and which fitted him, the “Lord God of Abraham and Jacob” could hardly be crammed without damage and breakage into the new Christian Canon. Being the weaker, the Judeans could not help the desecration. They kept, however, the secret of the origin of their Adam Kadmon, or male-female Jehovah, and the new tabernacle proved a complete misfit for the old God. They were, indeed, avenged!

The statement that Jehovah was the tribal God of the Jews and no higher, will be denied like many other things. Yet the Theologians are not in a position to tell us, in that case, the meaning of the verses in Deuteronomy, which say quite plainly:

When the Most High [not the “Lord,” or “Jehovah” either] divided to the [pg 567]nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds ... according to the number of the children of Israel.... The Lord's[Jehovah's] portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.[1259]

This settles the question. So impudent have been the modern translators of Bibles and Scriptures, and so damaging are these verses, that, following in the steps traced for them by their worthy Church Fathers, each translator has rendered these lines in his own way. While the above-cited quotation is taken verbatim from the English Authorized Version, in the French Bible,[1260] we find the “Most High” translated by “Souverain” (Sovereign!!), the “sons of Adam” rendered by “the children of men,” and the “Lord” changed into the “Eternal.” For impudent sleight-of-hand, the French Protestant Church seems thus to have surpassed even English ecclesiasticism.

Nevertheless, one thing is patent: the “Lord's [Jehovah's] portion” is his “chosen people” and none else, for, Jacob alone is the lot of his inheritance. What, then, have other nations, who call themselves Âryans, to do with this Semitic Deity, the tribal God of Israel? Astronomically, the “Most High” is the Sun, and the “Lord” is one of his seven planets, whether it be Iao, the Genius of the Moon, or Ildabaoth-Jehovah, the Genius of Saturn, according to Origen and the Egyptian Gnostics.[1261] Let the “Angel Gabriel,” the “Lord” of Iran, watch over his people, and Michael-Jehovah, over his Hebrews. These are not the Gods of other nations, nor were they ever those of Jesus. As each Persian Dev is chained to his planet,[1262] so each Hindû Deva (a “Lord”) has its allotted portion, a world, a planet, a nation or a race. Plurality of worlds implies plurality of Gods. We believe in the former, and may recognize, but will never worship the latter.[1263]

It has been repeatedly stated in this work that every religious and philosophical symbol had seven meanings attached to it, each pertaining to its legitimate plane of thought, i.e., either purely metaphysical or astronomical; psychic or physiological, etc. These seven meanings and their applications are difficult enough to learn when taken by themselves; but the interpretation and the right comprehension of [pg 568] them become tenfold more puzzling, when, instead of being correlated, or made to flow consecutively out of, and to follow, each other, each, or any one of these meanings, is accepted as the one and sole explanation of the whole symbolical idea. An instance may be given, as it admirably illustrates the statement. Here are two interpretations, given by two learned Kabalists and scholars, of one and the same verse in Exodus. Moses beseeches the Lord to show him his “glory.” Evidently it is not the crude dead-letter phraseology as found in the Bible that is to be accepted. There are seven meanings in the Kabalah, of which we may give two as interpreted by the said two scholars. One of them translates while explaining:

“Thou canst not see My face;... I will put thee in a cleft of the rock and I will cover thee with My hand while I pass by. And then I will take away Mine hand, and thou shalt see My a'hoor,” i.e., My back.[1264]

And then the translator adds in a gloss:

That is, I will show you “My back,” i.e., My visible universe, My lower manifestations, but, as a man still in the flesh, thou canst not see My invisible nature. So proceeds the Qabbalah.[1265]

This is correct, and is the cosmo-metaphysical explanation. And now speaks the other Kabalist, giving the numerical meaning. As it involves a good many suggestive ideas, and is far more fully given, we may allow it more space. This synopsis is from an unpublished MS., and explains more fully what was given in Section III, on the “Holy of Holies.”[1266]

The numbers of the name “Moses” are those of “I am that I am,” so that the names Moses and Jehovah are at one in numerical harmony. The word Moses is משה (5 + 300 + 40), and the sum of the values of its letters is 345; Jehovah—the Genius par excellence of the Lunar Year—assumes the value of 543, or the reverse of 345.

In the third chapter of Exodus, in the 13th and 14th verses, it is said: And Moses said, ... Behold I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them. The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses,

I Am That I Am.

The Hebrew words for this expression are âhiyé asher âhiyé, and in the value of the sums of their letters stand thus:

אהיה אשר אהיה

21 501 21

... This being his [God's] name, the sum of the values composing it, 21, 501, [pg 569]21 is 543, or simply a use of the simple digit numbers in the name of Moses, ... but now so ordered that the name of 345 is reversed, and reads 543.

So that when Moses asks, “Let me see Thy face or glory,” the other rightly and truly replies, “Thou canst not see my face ... but thou shalt see me behind”—the true sense, though not the precise words; for the corner and the behind of 543 is the face of 345. This is

For check and to keep a strict use of a set of numbers to develop certain grandresults, for the object of which they are specifically employed.

As the learned Kabalist adds:

In other uses of the numbers, they saw each other face to face. It is strange that if we add 345 to 543 we have 888, which was the Gnostic Cabbalistic value of the name Christ, who was Jehoshua or Joshua. And so also the division of the 24 hours of the day gives three eights as quotient.... The chief end of all this system of Number Checks was to preserve in perpetuity the exact value of the Lunar Year in the Natural measure of Days.

These are the astronomical and numerical meanings in the secret Theogony of sidereo-cosmical Gods invented by the Chaldæo-Hebrews,—two meanings out of seven. The other five would astonish the Christians still more.

The series of Œdipuses who have endeavoured to interpret the riddle of the Sphinx, is long indeed. For many ages she has been devouring the brightest and the noblest intellects of Christendom; but now the Sphinx is conquered. In the great intellectual struggle which has ended in the complete victory of the Œdipuses of Symbolism, it is, however, not the Sphinx, who, burning with the shame of defeat, has had to bury herself in the sea, but verily the many-sided symbol, named Jehovah, whom Christians—the civilized nations—have accepted for their God. The Jehovah symbol has collapsed under the too close analysis, and is—drowned. Symbologists have discovered with dismay that their adopted Deity was only a mask for many other Gods, a euhemerized extinct planet, at best, the Genius of the Moon and Saturn with the Jews, of the Sun and Jupiter with early Christians; that the Trinity—unless they accepted the more abstract and metaphysical meanings given to it by the Gentiles—was, in truth, only an astronomical triad, composed of the Sun (the Father), and the two planets Mercury (the Son) and Venus (the Holy Ghost), Sophia, the Spirit of Wisdom, Love and Truth, and Lucifer, as Christ, the “bright and morning star.”[1267] For, if the Father is the Sun (the “Elder Brother,” [pg 570] in the Eastern Inner Philosophy), the nearest planet to it is Mercury (Hermes, Budha, Thoth), the name of whose Mother on Earth was Maia. Now this planet receives seven times more light than any other; a fact which led the Gnostics to call their Christos, and the Kabalists their Hermes (in the astronomical meaning), the “Seven-fold Light.” Finally, this God was Bel—the Sun being Bel with the Gauls; Helios, with the Greeks; Baal, with the Phœnicians; El, in Chaldæan, hence El-ohim, Emanu-el, and El, “God,” in Hebrew. But even the kabalistic God has vanished in the rabbinical workmanship, and one has now to turn to the innermost metaphysical sense of the Zohar to find in it anything like Ain Suph, the Nameless Deity and the Absolute, so authoritatively and loudly claimed by the Christians. But it is certainly not to be found in the Mosaic books, at any rate by those who try to read without a key to them. Ever since this key was lost, Jews and Christians have tried their best to blend these two conceptions, but in vain. They have only succeeded in finally robbing even the Universal Deity of Its majestic character and primitive meaning.

As was said in Isis Unveiled:

It would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between the mystery-god Ιαω, adopted from the highest antiquity by all who participated in the esoteric knowledge of the priests, and his phonetic counterparts, whom we find treated with so little reverence by the Ophites and other Gnostics.[1268]

In the Ophite gems of King,[1269] we find the name of Iao repeated, and often confounded with that of Ievo, while the latter simply represents one of the Genii antagonistic to Abraxas.... But the name Iao neither originated with, nor was it the sole property of the Jews. Even if it had pleased Moses to bestow the name upon the tutelary “Spirit,” the alleged protector and national deity of the “chosen people of Israel,” there is yet no possible reason why other nationalities should receive Him as the Highest and One-living God. But we deny the assumption altogether. Besides, there is the fact that Iaho or Iao was a “mystery name”from the beginning, for יהיה and יה never came into use before the time of king David. Anterior to his time, few or no proper names were compounded with Iah or Jah. It looks rather as though David, being a sojourner among the Tyrians and Philistines,[1270] brought thence the name of Jehovah. He made Zadok high priest, from whom came the Zadokites or Sadducees. He lived and ruled first at Hebron (חברון), Habir-on or Kabeir-town, where the rites of the four (mystery-gods) were celebrated. Neither David nor Solomon recognized either Moses or the law of Moses. They aspired to build a temple to יהוה, like the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules and Venus, Adon and Astarte.

Says Fürst: “The very ancient name of God, Yâho, written in the Greek Ιαω, appears, apart from its derivation, to have been an old mystic name of the Supreme [pg 571]Deity of the Shemites. Hence it was told to Moses when he was initiated at Hor-eb—the Cave—under the direction of Jethro, the Kenite (or Cainite) priest of Midian. In an old religion of the Chaldæans, whose remains are to be found among the Neo-Platonists, the highest Divinity, enthroned above the seven Heavens, representing the Spiritual Light-Principle, ... and also conceived of as Demiurgus,[1271] was called Ιαω (יהו), who was, like the Hebrew Yâho, mysterious and unmentionable, and whose name was communicated to the Initiated. The Phœnicians had a Supreme God, whose name was triliteral and secret, and he was Ιαω.”[1272]

The cross, say the Kabalists, repeating the lesson of the Occultists, is one of the most ancient—nay, perhaps, the most ancient of symbols. This has been demonstrated at the very beginning of the Proem in Volume I. The Eastern Initiates show it coëval with the circle of Deific Infinitude and the first differentiation of the Essence, the union of Spirit and Matter. This interpretation has been rejected, and the astronomical allegory alone has been accepted and made to fit into cunningly imagined terrestrial events.

Let us demonstrate this statement. In Astronomy, as said, Mercury is the son of Cœlus and Lux—of the Sky and Light, or the Sun; in Mythology he is the progeny of Jupiter and Maia. He is the “Messenger” of his Father Jupiter, the Messiah of the Sun; in Greek, his name Hermes means, among other things, the “Interpreter”—the Word, the Logos, or Verbum. Now Mercury is born on Mount Cyllene among shepherds, and is the patron of the latter. As a psychopompic Genius, he conducted the Souls of the Dead to Hades and brought them back again, an office attributed to Jesus after his Death and Resurrection. The symbols of Hermes-Mercury (Dii Termini) were placed along, and at the turning points of, highways, as crosses are now placed in Italy, and they were cruciform.[1273] Every seventh day the priests anointed these Termini with oil, and once a year hung them with garlands, hence they were the anointed. Mercury, when speaking through his oracles, says:

I am he whom you call the Son of the Father [Jupiter] and Maia. Leaving the King of Heaven [the Sun] I come to help you, mortals.

Mercury heals the blind and restores sight, mental and physical.[1274] He was often represented as three-headed and called Tricephalus, [pg 572] Triplex, as one with the Sun and Venus. Finally, Mercury, as Cornutus[1275] shows, was sometimes figured under a cubic form, without arms, because “the power of speech and eloquence can prevail without the assistance of arms or feet.” It is this cubic form which connects the Termini directly with the cross, and it is the eloquence or the power of speech of Mercury which made the crafty Eusebius say, “Hermes is the emblem of the Word which creates and interprets all,” for it is the Creative Word; and he shows Porphyry teaching that the Speech of Hermes—now interpreted “Word of God” (!) in Pymander—a Creative Speech (Verbum), is the Seminal Principle scattered throughout the Universe.[1276] In Alchemy “Mercury” is the radical “Moyst” Principle, Primitive or Elementary Water, containing the Seed of the Universe, fecundated by the Solar Fires. To express this fecundating principle, a phallus was often added to the cross (the male and female, or the vertical and the horizontal united) by the Egyptians. The cruciform Termini also represented this dual idea, which was found in Egypt in the cubic Hermes. The author of Source of Measures tells us why.[1277]

As shown by him, the cube unfolded becomes in display a cross of the Tau, or the Egyptian, form; or again, “the circle attached to the Tau gives the ansated cross” of the old Pharaohs. They had known this from their priests and their “King-Initiates” for ages, and also what was meant by “the attachment of a man to the cross,” which idea “was made to coördinate with that of the origin of human life, and hence the phallic form.” Only the latter came into action æons and ages after the idea of the Carpenter and Artificer of the Gods, Vishva-karmâ, crucifying the “Sun-Initiate” on the cruciform lathe. As the same author writes:

The attachment of a man to the cross ... was made use of in this form of display by the Hindûs.[1278]

But, it was made “to coördinate” with the idea of the new rebirth of man by spiritual, not physical regeneration. The Candidate for Initiation was attached to the Tau or astronomical cross with a far grander and nobler idea than that of the origin of mere terrestrial life.

On the other hand, the Semites seem to have had no other or higher purpose in life than that of procreating their species. Thus, geometrically, [pg 573] and according to the reading of the Bible by means of the numerical method, the author of The Source of Measures is quite correct.

The entire [Jewish] system seems to have been anciently regarded as one resting in nature, and one which was adopted by nature, or God, as the basis or law of the exertion practically of creative power—i.e., it was the creative design, of which creation was practically the application. This seems to be established by the fact that, under the system set forth, measures of planetary times serve coördinately as measures of the size of planets, and of the peculiarity of their shapes—i.e., in the extension of their equatorial and polar diameters.... This system [that of creative design] seems to underlie the whole Biblical structure, as a foundation for its ritualism and for its display of the works of the Deity in the way of architecture, by use of the sacred unit of measure in the Garden of Eden, the Ark of Noah, the Tabernacle, and the Temple of Solomon.[1279]

Thus, on the very showing of the defenders of this system, the Jewish Deity is proved to be, at best, only the manifested Duad, never the One Absolute All. Geometrically demonstrated, he is a number; symbolically, a euhemerized Priapus; and this can hardly satisfy a mankind thirsting after the demonstration of real spiritual truths, and the possession of a God with a divine, not anthropomorphic, nature. It is strange that the most learned of modern Kabalists can see in the cross and circle nothing but a symbol of the manifested creative and androgyne Deity in its relation to, and interference with, this phenomenal world.[1280] One author believes that:

However man [read, the Jew and Rabbi] obtained knowledge of the practical measure, ... by which nature was thought to adjust the planets in size to harmonize with the notation of their movements, it seems he did obtain it, and esteemed its possession as the means of his realization of the Deity—that is, he approached so nearly to a conception of a Being having a mind like his own, only infinitely more powerful, as to be able to realize a law of creation established by that Being, which must have existed prior to any creation (kabalistically called the Word).[1281]

This may have satisfied the practical Semite mind, but the Eastern Occultist has to decline the offer of such a God; indeed, a Deity, a Being, “having a mind like that of man, only infinitely more powerful,” is no God that has any room beyond the cycle of creation. He has nought to do with the ideal conception of the Eternal Universe. He is, at best, one of the subordinate creative powers, the Totality of which [pg 574] is called the Sephiroth, the Heavenly Man, and Adam Kadmon, the Second Logos of the Platonists.

This very same idea is clearly found at the bottom of the ablest definitions of the Kabalah and its mysteries, e.g., by John A. Parker, as quoted in the same work:

The key of the Kabala is thought to be the geometrical relation of the area of the circle inscribed in the square, or of the cube to the sphere, giving rise to the relation of diameter to circumference of a circle, with the numerical value of this relation expressed in integrals. The relation of diameter to circumference, being a supreme one connected with the god-names Elohim and Jehovah (which terms are expressions numerically of these relations, respectively—the first being of circumference, the latter of diameter), embraces all other subordinations under it. Two expressions of circumference to diameter in integrals are used in the Bible: (1) The perfect, and (2) The imperfect. One of the relations between these is such that (2) subtracted from (1) will leave a unit of a diameter value in terms, or in the denomination of the circumference value of the perfect circle, or a unit straight line having a perfect circular value, or a factor of circular value.[1282]

Such calculations can lead one no further than to unriddle the mysteries of the third stage of Evolution, or the “Third Creation of Brahmâ.” The initiated Hindûs know how to “square the circle” far better than any European. But of this more anon. The fact is that the Western Mystics commence their speculation only at that stage when the Universe “falls into matter,” as the Occultists say. Throughout the whole series of kabalistic books we have not met with one sentence that would hint in the remotest way at the psychological and spiritual, as well as at the mechanical and physiological secrets of “creation.” Shall we, then, regard the evolution of the Universe as simply a prototype, on a gigantic scale, of the act of procreation; as “divine” phallicism, and rhapsodize on it as the evilly-inspired author of a late work of this name has done? The writer does not think so. And she feels justified in saying so, since the most careful reading of the Old Testament—esoterically, as well as exoterically—seems to have carried the most enthusiastic enquirers no further than a certainty on mathematical grounds that from the first to the last chapter of the Pentateuch every scene, every character or event are shown connected, directly or indirectly, with the origin of birth in its crudest and most brutal form. Thus, however interesting and ingenious the rabbinical methods, the writer, in common with other Eastern Occultists, must prefer those of the Pagans.

It is not, then, in the Bible that we have to search for the origin of the cross and circle, but beyond the Flood. Therefore, returning to Éliphas Lévi and the Zohar, we answer for the Eastern Occultists and say that, applying practice to principle, they agree entirely with Pascal, who says that:

God is a circle, the centre of which is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

Whereas the Kabalists say the reverse, and maintain it, solely out of their desire to veil their doctrine. By the way, the definition of Deity by the circle is not Pascal's at all, as Éliphas Lévi thought. It was borrowed by the French Philosopher from either Mercury Trismegistus or Cardinal Cusa's Latin work, De Doctâ Ignorantiâ, in which he makes use of it. It is, moreover, disfigured by Pascal, who replaces the words “Cosmic Circle,” which stand symbolically in the original inscription, by the word Theos. With the Ancients both words were synonymous.

A. Cross And Circle.

In the minds of the ancient Philosophers something of the divine and the mysterious has ever been ascribed to the shape of the circle. The old world, consistent in its symbolism and with its Pantheistic intuitions, uniting the visible and the invisible Infinitudes into one, represented Deity and its outward Veil alike—by a circle. This merging of the two into a unity, and the name Theos being given indifferently to both, is explained, and becomes thereby still more scientific and philosophical. Plato's etymological definition of the word theos (θεός) has, been given elsewhere. In his Cratylus, he derives it from the verb the-ein (θέειν), “to move,” as suggested by the motion of the heavenly bodies which he connects with Deity. According to the Esoteric Philosophy, this Deity, during its “Nights” and its “Days,” or Cycles of Rest and Activity, is the “Eternal Perpetual Motion,” the “Ever-Becoming, as well as the ever universally Present, and the Ever-Existing.” The latter is the root-abstraction; the former is the only possible conception in the human mind, if it disconnects this Deity from any shape or form. It is a perpetual, never-ceasing evolution, circling back in its incessant progress through æons of duration into its original status—Absolute Unity.

It was only the minor Gods who were made to carry the symbolical attributes of the higher ones. Thus, the God Shoo, the personification [pg 576] of Ra, who appears as the “Great Cat of the Basin of Persæa in An”[1283] was often represented in the Egyptian monuments seated and holding a cross, symbol of the four Quarters, or the Elements, attached to a circle.

In that very learned work, The Natural Genesis, by Gerald Massey, under the heading, “Typology of the Cross,” there is more information to be had on the cross and circle than in any other work we know of. He who would fain have proofs of the antiquity of the cross is referred to these two volumes. The author says:

The circle and cross are inseparable.... The Crux Ansata unites the circle and cross of the four corners. From this origin the circle and the cross came to be interchangeable at times. For example, the Chakra, or Disk of Vishnu, is a circle. The name denotes the circling, wheeling round, periodicity, the wheel of time. This the god uses as a weapon to hurl at the enemy. In like manner, Thor throws his weapon, the Fylfot, a form of the four-footed cross [Svastika], and a type of the four quarters. Thus the cross is equivalent to the circle of the year. The wheel emblem unites the cross and circle in one, as does the hieroglyphic cake and the Ankh-tie ☥.[1284]

Nor was the double glyph sacred with the profane, but only with the Initiates. For Raoul Rochette shows that:[1285]

The sign ♀ occurs as the reverse of a Phœnician coin, with a Ram as the obverse.... The same sign, sometimes called Venus' Looking-Glass, because it typified reproduction, was employed to mark the hind-quarters of valuable brood mares of Corinthian and other beautiful breeds of horses.

This proves that so far back as those early days the cross had already become the symbol of human procreation, and that oblivion of the divine origin of cross and circle had begun.

Another form of the cross is given from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society:[1286]

At each of the four corners is placed a quarter arc of an oviform curve, and when the four are put together they form an oval; thus the figure combines the cross with the circle round it in four parts, corresponding to the four corners of the cross. The four segments answer to the four feet of the Swastica cross and the Fylfot of Thor. The four-leaved lotus flower of Buddha, is likewise figured at the centre of this cross, the lotus being an Egyptian and Hindu type of the four quarters. The four quarter arcs, if joined together, would form an ellipse, and the ellipse is also [pg 577]figured on each arm of the cross. This ellipse therefore denotes the path of the earth.... Sir J. Y. Simpson copied the following specimen, [Symbol: Oval, with large letter “Z” inside, with horizontal crossbar] which is here presented, as the cross of the two equinoxes and the two solstices placed within the figure of the earth's path. The same ovoid or boat-shaped figure appears at times in the Hindu drawings with seven steps at each end as a form or a mode of Meru.

This is the astronomical aspect of the double glyph. There are six more aspects, however, and an attempt may be made to interpret a few of these. The subject is so vast that it would require in itself alone many volumes.

But the most curious of these Egyptian symbols of cross and circle, spoken of in the above cited work, is one which receives its full explanation and final colour from Âryan symbols of the same nature. Says the author:

The four-armed Cross is simply the cross of the four quarters, but the cross-sign is not always simple.[1287] This is a type that was developed from an identifiable beginning, which was adapted to the expression of various ideas afterwards. The most sacred cross of Egypt that was carried in the hands of the Gods, the Pharaohs, and the mummied dead, is the Ankh ☥ the sign of life, the living, an oath, the covenant.... The top of this is the hieroglyphic Ru [Symbol: Horizontal oval] set upright on the Tau-cross. The Ru is the door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet. This denotes the birthplace in the northern quarter of the heavens, from which the Sun is reborn. Hence the Ru of the Ankh-sign is the feminine type of the birthplace, representing the north. It was in the northern quarter that the Goddess of the Seven Stars, called the “Mother of the Revolutions,” gave birth to time in the earliest cycle of the year. The first sign of this primordial circle and cycle made in heaven is the earliest shape of the Ankh-cross [Symbol: Horizontal oval with tail to the right], a mere loop which contains both a circle and the cross in one image. This loop or noose is carried in front of the oldest genitrix, Typhon of the Great Bear; as her Ark, the ideograph of a period, an ending, a time, shown to mean one revolution. This, then, represents the circle made in the northern heaven by the Great Bear which constituted the earliest year of time, from which fact we infer that the loop or Ru of the North represents that quarter, the birthplace of time when figured as the Ru of the Ankh symbol. Indeed this can be proved. The noose is an Ark or Rek type of reckoning. The Ru of the Ankh-cross was continued in the Cypriote R, [Symbol: Circle with horizontal line beneath], and the Coptic Ro, [Symbol: Figure like a Rho].[1288] The Ro was carried into the Greek cross [Symbol: Large Greek Rho with letter Chi beneath it], which is formed of the Ro and Chi or R-k.... The Rek, or Ark, was the sign of all beginning (Arche) on this account, and the Ark-tie is the cross of the North, the hind part of heaven.[1289]

Now this, again, is entirely astronomical and phallic. The Paurânic version in India gives the whole matter another colour. Without [pg 578] destroying the above interpretation, it is made to reveal a portion of its mysteries with the help of the astronomical key, and thus offers a more metaphysical rendering. The Ankh-tie [Symbol: Horizontal oval with tail to the right] does not belong to Egypt alone. It exists under the name of Pâsha, a cord which the four-armed Shiva holds in the hand of his right back arm.[1290] The Mahâdeva is represented in the posture of an ascetic, as Mahâyogî, with his third eye [Symbol: Vertical oval with dot in the middle], which is “the Ru [Symbol: Horizontal oval with dot in the middle], set upright on the Tau-cross” in another form. The Pâsha is held in the hand in such a way that the first finger and hand near the thumb make the cross, or loop and crossing. Our Orientalists would have it to represent a cord to bind refractory offenders with, because, forsooth, Kâlî, Shiva's consort, has the same as an attribute!

The Pâsha has here a double significance, as also has Shiva's Trisûla and every other divine attribute. This dual significance lies in Shiva, for Rudra has certainly the same meaning as the Egyptian Ansated Cross in its cosmic and mystic meaning. In the hand of Shiva, the Pâsha becomes lingyonic. Shiva, as said before, is a name unknown to the Vedas. It is in the White Yajur Veda that Rudra appears for the first time as the Great God, Mahâdeva, whose symbol is the Lingam. In the Rig Veda he is called Rudra, the “howler,” the beneficent and the maleficent Deity at the same time, the Healer and the Destroyer. In the Vishnu Purâna, he is the God who springs from the forehead of Brahmâ, who separates into male and female, and he is the parent of the Rudras or Maruts, half of whom are brilliant and gentle, others, black and ferocious. In the Vedas, he is the Divine Ego aspiring to return to its pure, deific state, and at the same time that Divine Ego imprisoned in earthly form, whose fierce passions make of him the “roarer,” the “terrible.” This is well shown in the Brihadâranyaka Upanishad, wherein the Rudras, the progeny of Rudra, God of Fire, are called the “ten vital breaths (prâna, life), with the heart (manas), as eleventh,”[1291] whereas as Shiva, he is the destroyer of that life. Brahmâ calls him Rudra, and gives him, besides, seven other names, signifying seven forms of manifestation, and also the seven powers of nature which destroy but to recreate or regenerate.

Hence the cruciform noose, or Pâsha, in the hand of Shiva, when he [pg 579] is represented as an ascetic, the Mahâyogin, has no phallic signification, and, indeed, it requires an imagination strongly bent in this direction to find such a signification even in an astronomical symbol. As an emblem of “door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet” it signifies the “strait gate” that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven, far more than the “birthplace” in a physiological sense.

It is a cross in a circle and Crux Ansata, truly; but it is a cross on which all the human passions have to be crucified before the Yogî passes through the “strait gate,” the narrow circle that widens into an infinite one, as soon as the Inner Man has passed the threshold.

As to the mysterious seven Rishis in the constellation of the Great Bear; if Egypt made them sacred to “the oldest genitrix, Typhon,” India has connected these symbols ages ago with Time or Yuga-revolutions, and the Saptarshis are intimately connected with our present age-the dark Kali Yuga.[1292] The great Circle of Time, on the face of which, Indian fancy has represented the Porpoise, or Shishumâra, has the cross placed on it by nature in its division and localization of stars, planets and constellations. In Bhâgavata Purâna,[1293] it is said:

At the extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed toward the south, and whose body is in the shape of a ring [circle], Dhruva [the ex-pole star] is placed; along its tail are Prajâpati, Agni, Indra, Dharma, etc.; across its loins the seven Rishis.[1294]

This is then the first and earliest cross and circle, formed by the Deity, symbolized by Vishnu, the Eternal Circle of Boundless Time, Kâla, on whose plane lie crossways all the Gods, creatures, and creations born in Space and Time-who, as the Philosophy has it, all die at the Mahâpralaya.

Meanwhile it is the seven Rishis who mark the time and the duration of events in our septenary Life-cycle. They are as mysterious as their supposed wives, the Pleiades, of whom only one-she who hides-has proven virtuous. The Pleiades, or Krittikâs, are the nurses of Kârttikeya, the God of War (the Mars of the Western Pagans), who is called the Commander of the Celestial Armies, or rather of the Siddhas—Siddha-sena (translated Yogîs in Heaven, and holy Sages on the Earth)—which would make Kârttikeya identical with Michael, the “Leader of [pg 580] the Celestial Hosts” and, like himself, a virgin Kumâra.[1295] Verily he is the Guha, the “Mysterious One,” as much so as are the Saptarshis and the Krittikâs, the seven Rishis and the Pleiades, for the interpretation of all these combined reveal to the Adept the greatest mysteries of Occult Nature. One point is worth mention in this question of cross and circle, as it bears strongly upon the elements of Fire and Water, which play such an important part in the circle and cross symbolism. Like Mars, who is alleged by Ovid to have been born of his mother Juno alone, without the participation of a father, or like the Avatâras (Krishna, for instance)—in the West as in the East—Kârttikeya is born, but in a still more miraculous manner, begotten by neither father nor mother, but out of a seed of Rudra-Shiva, which was cast into the Fire (Agni) and then received by the Water (Ganges). Thus he is born from Fire and Water—a “boy bright as the Sun and beautiful as the Moon.” Hence he is called Agnibhû (son of Agni) and Gangâputra (son of Ganges). Add to this the fact that the Krittikâ, his nurses, as the Matsya Purâna shows, are presided over by Agni, or, in the authentic words, “the seven Rishis are on a line with the brilliant Agni,” and hence “Krittika has Âgneya as a synonym”[1296]—and the connection is easy to follow.

It is, then, the Rishis who mark the time and the periods of Kali Yuga, the age of sin and sorrow. As the Bhâgavata Purâna tells us:

When the splendour of Vishnu, named Krishna, departed for heaven, then did the Kali age, during which men delight in sin, invade the world....

When the seven Rishis were in Maghâ, the Kali age, comprising 1,200 [divine] years [432,000 common years] began; and, when, from Maghâ, they shall reach Pûrvâshâdhâ, then will this Kali age attain its growth, under Nanda and his successors.[1297]

This is the revolution of the Rishis—

When the two first stars of the seven Rishis (the Great Bear) rise in the heavens, and some lunar asterism is seen at night, at an equal distance between them, then the seven Rishis continue stationary in that conjunction for a hundred years,

—as a hater of Nanda makes Parâshara say. According to Bentley, it was in order to show the quantity of the precession of the equinoxes that this notion originated among the Astronomers.

This was by assuming an imaginary line, or great circle, passing through the poles of the ecliptic and the beginning of the fixed Maghâ, which circle was supposed to cut some of the stars in the Great Bear.... The seven stars in the Great Bear being called the Rishis, the circle so assumed was called the line of the Rishis; and, being invariably fixed to the beginning of the lunar asterism Maghâ, the precession would be noted by stating the degree, etc., of any movable lunar mansion cut by that line or circle, as an index.[1298]

There has been, and there still exists, a seemingly endless controversy about the chronology of the Hindûs. Here is, however, a point that could help to determine—approximately at least—the age when the symbolism of the seven Rishis and their connection with the Pleiades began. When Kârttikeya was delivered to the Krittikâ by the Gods to be nursed, they were only six, whence Kârttikeya is represented with six heads; but when the poetical fancy of the early Âryan Symbologists made of them the consorts of the seven Rishis, they were seven. Their names are given, and these are Amba, Dulâ, Nitatui, Abrayanti, Maghâyanti, Varshayanti, and Chupunika. There are other sets of names which differ, however. Anyhow, the seven Rishis were made to marry the seven Krittikâ before the disappearance of the seventh Pleiad. Otherwise, how could the Hindû astronomers speak of a star which no one can see without the help of the strongest telescopes? This is why, perhaps, in every such case the majority of the events described in the Hindû allegories is fixed upon as “a very recent invention, certainly within the Christian era.”

The oldest Sanskrit MSS. on Astronomy begin their series of Nakshatras, the twenty-seven lunar asterisms, with the sign of Krittikâ, and this can hardly make them earlier than 2,780 b.c. This is according to the “Vedic Calendar,” which is accepted even by the Orientalists, though they get out of the difficulty by saying that the said Calendar does not prove that the Hindûs knew anything of Astronomy at that date, and assure their readers that, Calendars notwithstanding, the Indian Pandits may have acquired their knowledge of the lunar mansions headed by Krittikâ from the Phœnicians, etc. However that may be, the Pleiades are the central group of the system of sidereal symbology. They are situated in the neck of the constellation Taurus, regarded by Mädler and others, in Astronomy, as the central group of the system of the Milky Way, and in the Kabalah and Eastern Esotericism, as the sidereal septenate born from the first manifested side of the upper triangle, the concealed [triangle]. This manifested side is Taurus, the symbol of One [pg 582] (the figure 1), or of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph (א) “bull” or “ox,” whose synthesis is Ten (10), or Yod (י), the perfect letter and number. The Pleiades (Alcyone, especially), are thus considered, even in Astronomy, as the central point around which our universe of fixed stars revolves, the focus from which, and into which, the Divine Breath, Motion, works incessantly during the Manvantara. Hence, in the sidereal symbols of the Occult Philosophy, it is this circle with the starry cross on its face which plays the most prominent part.

The Secret Doctrine teaches us that everything in the Universe, as well as the Universe itself, is formed (“created”) during its periodical manifestations—by accelerated Motion set into activity by the Breath of the Ever-to-be-unknown Power—unknown to present mankind, at any rate—within the phenomenal world. The Spirit of Life and Immortality was everywhere symbolized by a circle; hence the serpent biting its tail, represents the Circle of Wisdom in Infinity; as does the astronomical cross—the cross within a circle—and the globe, with two wings added to it, which then became the sacred Scarabæus of the Egyptians, its very name being suggestive of the secret idea attached to it. For the Scarabæus is called in the Egyptian papyri, Khopirron and Khopri from the verb khopron, “to become,” and has thus been made a symbol and an emblem of human life and of the successive “becomings” of man, through the various peregrinations and metempsychoses, or reïncarnations, of the liberated soul. This mystical symbol shows plainly that the Egyptians believed in reïncarnation and the successive lives and existences of the Immortal Entity. As this, however, was an Esoteric Doctrine, revealed only during the Mysteries, by the Priest-hierophants and the King-initiates to the Candidates, it was kept secret. The Incorporeal Intelligences (the Planetary Spirits, or Creative Powers) were always represented under the form of circles. In the primitive Philosophy of the Hierophants these invisible circles were the prototypic causes and builders of all the heavenly orbs, which were their visible bodies or coverings, and of which they were the souls. It was certainly a universal teaching in antiquity.[1299] As Proclus says:

Before the mathematical numbers, there are the self-moving numbers; before the figures apparent—the vital figures, and before producing the material worlds which move in a circle, the Creative Power produced the invisible circles.[1300]

“Deus enim et circulus est,” says Pherecydes, in his Hymn to Jupiter. This was a Hermetic axiom, and Pythagoras prescribed such a circular prostration and posture during the hours of contemplation. “The devotee must approach as much as possible the form of a perfect circle,” prescribes the Secret Book. Numa tried to spread the same custom among the people, Pierius tells his readers; and Pliny says:

During our worship, we roll up, so to say, our body in a ring—totum corpus circumagimur.[1301]

The Vision of the prophet Ezekiel reminds one forcibly of this mysticism of the circle, when he beheld a “whirlwind” from which came out “one wheel upon the earth” whose work “was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel”—“for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.”[1302]

“[Spirit] whirleth about continually, and ... returneth again according to his circuits”—says Solomon,[1303] who is made in the English translation to speak of the “wind,” and in the original text to refer both to the spirit and the sun. But the Zohar, the only true gloss of the Kabalistic Preacher—in explanation of this verse, which is, perhaps, rather hazy and difficult to comprehend—says:

It seems to say that the sun moves in circuits, whereas it refers to the Spirit under the sun, called the Holy Spirit, that moves circularly, toward both sides, that they [It and the sun] should be united in the same Essence.[1304]

The Brâhmanical “Golden Egg,” from within which emerges Brahmâ, the Creative Deity, is the “Circle with the Central Point” of Pythagoras, and its fitting symbol. In the Secret Doctrine the concealed Unity—whether representing Parabrahman, or the “Great Extreme” of Confucius, or the Deity concealed by Phtah, the Eternal Light, or again the Jewish Ain Suph, is always found to be symbolized by a circle or the “nought” (absolute No-Thing and Nothing, because [pg 584] it is Infinite and the All); while the God-manifested (by its works) is referred to as the Diameter of that Circle. The symbolism of the underlying idea is thus made evident: the right line passing through the centre of a circle has, in the geometrical sense, length, but neither breadth nor thickness; it is an imaginary and feminine symbol, crossing eternity, and made to rest on the plane of existence of the phenomenal world. It is dimensional, whereas its circle is dimensionless, or, to use an algebraical term, it is the dimension of an equation. Another way of symbolizing the idea is found in the Pythagorean sacred Decad which synthesizes, in the dual numeral Ten (the one and a circle or cipher), the Absolute All manifesting itself in the Word or Generative Power of Creation.

B. The Fall Of The Cross Into Matter.

Those who would feel inclined to argue upon this Pythagorean symbol by objecting that it is not yet ascertained, so far, at what period of antiquity the nought or cipher occurs for the first time—especially in India—are referred to Isis Unveiled.[1305]

Admitting for argument's sake that the ancient world was not acquainted with our modes of calculation or Arabic figures—though in reality we know it was—yet the circle and diameter idea is there to show that it was the first symbol in Cosmogony. Before the Trigrams of Fo-hi, Yang, the unity, and Yin, the binary, explained cunningly enough by Éliphas Lévi,[1306] China had her Confucius, and her Tao-ists. The former circumscribes the “Great Extreme” within a circle with a horizontal line across; the latter place three concentric circles beneath the great circle, while the Sung Sages showed the “Great Extreme” in an upper circle, and Heaven and Earth in two lower and smaller circles. The Yangs and the Yins are a far later invention. Plato and his school never understood the Deity otherwise, notwithstanding the many epithets applied by him to the “God over all” (ὁ ἐπὶ πᾶσι θεός). Plato, having been initiated, could not believe in a personal God—a gigantic shadow of man. His epithets of [pg 585] “Monarch” and “Law-giver of the Universe” bear an abstract meaning well understood by every Occultist, who, no less than any Christian, believes in the One Law that governs the Universe, and recognizes it at the same time as immutable. As Plato says:

Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws, ideas and principles, there is an Intelligence or Mind (νοῦς), the first principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas are grounded, ... the ultimate substance from which all things derive their being and essence, the First and efficient Cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty and excellency, and goodness, which pervade the Universe.

This Mind is called, by way of preëminence and excellence, the Supreme Good,[1307] “The God” (ὁ θεός), and the “God over all.” These words apply, as Plato himself shows, neither to the “Creator” nor to the “Father” of our modern Monotheist, but to the Ideal and Abstract Cause. For, as he says: “This θεός, the God over all, is not the truth or the intelligence, but the Father of it,” and its Primal Cause. Is it Plato, the greatest pupil of the archaic Sages, a Sage himself, for whom there was but a single object of attainment in this life—Real Knowledge—who would have ever believed in a Deity that curses and damns men for ever, on the slightest provocation?[1308] Surely not he who considered only those to be genuine Philosophers and students of truth who possessed the knowledge of the really-existing in opposition to mere seeming; of the always-existing in opposition to the transitory: and of that which exists permanently in opposition to that which waxes, wanes, and is developed and destroyed alternately.[1309] Speusippus and Xenocrates followed in his footsteps. The One, the original, had no existence, in the sense applied to it by mortal men. The τίμιον (the honoured) dwells in the centre as in the circumference, but it is only the reflection of the Deity—the World Soul[1310]—the plane of the surface of the circle. The cross and circle are a universal conception—as old as the human mind itself. They stand foremost on the list of the long series of, so [pg 586] to say, international symbols, which expressed very often great scientific truths, besides their direct bearing upon psychological, and even physiological mysteries.

It is no explanation to say, as does Éliphas Lévi, that God, the universal Love, having caused the male Unit to dig an abyss in the female Binary, or Chaos, thereby produced the world. In addition to the grossness of the conception, it does not remove the difficulty of conceiving it without losing one's veneration for the rather too human-like ways of the Deity. It is to avoid such anthropomorphic conceptions that the Initiates never used the epithet “God” to designate the One and Secondless Principle in the Universe; and that—faithful in this to the oldest traditions of the Secret Doctrine the world over—they deny that such imperfect and often not very clean work could ever be produced by Absolute Perfection. There is no need to mention here other still greater metaphysical difficulties. Between speculative Atheism and idiotic Anthropomorphism there must be a philosophical mean, and a reconciliation. The Presence of the Unseen Principle throughout all Nature, and the highest manifestation of it on Earth—Man, can alone help to solve the problem, which is that of the mathematician whose x must ever elude the grasp of our terrestrial algebra. The Hindûs have tried to solve it by their Avatâras, the Christians think they have done so—by their one divine Incarnation. Exoterically—both are wrong; Esoterically both of them are very near the truth. Alone, among the Apostles of the Western religion, Paul seems to have fathomed—if not actually revealed—the archaic mystery of the cross. As for the rest of those who, by unifying and individualizing the Universal Presence, have synthesized it into one symbol—the central point in the crucifix—they show thereby that they have never seized the true spirit of the teaching of Christ, but rather that they have degraded it in more than one way by their erroneous interpretations. They have forgotten the spirit of that universal symbol and have selfishly monopolized it—as though the Boundless and the Infinite could ever be limited and conditioned to one manifestation individualized in one man, or even in a nation!

The four arms of the [Symbol: cross like the letter “X”], or decussated cross, and of the Hermetic cross, pointing to the four cardinal points—were well understood by the mystical minds of the Hindûs, Brâhmans and Buddhists, hundreds of years before it was heard of in Europe, for that symbol was and is found all over the world. They bent the ends of the cross and made [pg 587] of it their Svastika, 卐 now the Wan of the Mongolian Buddhist.[1311] It implies that the “central point” is not limited to one individual, however perfect; that The Principle (God) is in Humanity, and Humanity, as all the rest, is in It, like drops of water are in the ocean, the four ends being toward the four cardinal points, hence losing themselves in infinity.

Isarim, an Initiate, is said to have found at Hebron, on the dead body of Hermes, the well known Smaragdine Tablet, which, it is said, contained the essence of Hermetic Wisdom. Upon it were traced, among others, the sentences:

Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the gross....

Ascend ... from the earth to heaven and then descend again to earth.

The riddle of the cross is contained in these words, and its double mystery is solved—to the Occultist.

The philosophical cross, the two lines running in opposite directions, the horizontal and the perpendicular, the height and breadth, which the geometrizing Deity divides at the intersecting point, and which forms the magical as well as the scientific quaternary, when it is inscribed within the perfect square, is the basis of the Occultist. Within its mystical precinct lies the master-key which opens the door of every science, physical as well as spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of life circumscribes the four points of the cross, which represent in succession, birth, life, death, and immortality.[1312]

“Attach thyself,” says the Alchemist, “to the four letters of the tetragram disposed in the following manner. The letters of the ineffable name are there, although thou mayest not discern them at first. The incommunicable axiom is kabalistically contained therein, and this is what is called the magic arcanum by the masters.”[1313]

Again:

The Tau, Τ, and the astronomical cross of Egypt, [Symbol: Circle with cross within] are conspicuous in several apertures of the remains of Palenque. In one of the basso-relievos of the Palace of Palenque, on the west side, sculptured as a hieroglyphic right under the seated figure, is a Tau. The standing figure, which leans over the first one, is in the act of covering its head with the left hand with the veil of initiation; while it extends its right with the index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The position is precisely that of a Christian bishop giving his blessing, or the one in which Jesus is often represented while at the Last Supper.[1314]

The Egyptian Hierophant had a square head-dress which he had to wear always during his functions. These square hats are worn unto this day by the Armenian priests. The perfect Tau—formed of the perpendicular (descending male ray) and the horizontal line (Matter, female principle)—and the mundane circle were attributes of Isis, and it was only at death that the Egyptian cross was laid on the breast of the mummy. The claim that the cross is purely a Christian symbol introduced after our era, is strange indeed, when we find Ezekiel stamping the foreheads of the men of Judah who feared the Lord,[1315] with the signum Thau, as it is translated in the Vulgate. In the ancient Hebrew this sign was formed thus [Symbol: Cross, tilted towards the northeast], but in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics as a perfect Christian cross ☦ (Tat, the emblem of stability). In the Revelation, also, the “Alpha and Omega”—Spirit and Matter—the first and the last, stamps the name of his Father on the foreheads of the elect. Moses[1316] orders his people to mark their door-posts and lintels with blood, lest the “Lord God” should make a mistake and smite some of his chosen people, instead of the doomed Egyptians. And this mark is a Tau!—the identical Egyptian handled cross, with the half of which talisman Horus raised the dead, as is shown on a sculptured ruin at Philæ.

Enough has been said in the text about the Svastika and the Tau. Verily may the cross be traced back into the very depths of the unfathomable archaic ages! Its mystery deepens rather than clears, as we find it on the statues of Easter Island, in old Egypt, in Central Asia, engraved on rocks as the Tau and Svastika, in Pre-Christian Scandinavia, everywhere! The author of the Source of Measures stands perplexed before the endless shadow it throws back into antiquity, and is unable to trace it to any particular nation or man. He shows the Targums handed down by the Hebrews, obscured by translation. In Joshua[1317] read in Arabic, and in the Targum of Jonathan, it is said: “The king of Ai he crucified upon a tree.”

The Septuagint rendering is of suspension from a double word or cross. (Wordsworth on Joshua.) ... The strangest expression of this kind is in Numbers(xxv. 4) where, by Onkelos (?) it is read: “Crucify them before the Lord (Jehovah) against the sun.” The word here is יקע, to nail to, rendered properly (Fuerst) by the Vulgate, to crucify. The very construction of this sentence is mystic.[1318]

So it is, but the spirit of it has been ever misunderstood. “To crucify before (not against) the Sun” is a phrase used of Initiation. It [pg 589] comes from Egypt, and primarily from India. The enigma can be unriddled only by searching for its key in the Mysteries of Initiation. The Initiated Adept, who had successfully passed through all the trials, was attached, not nailed, but simply tied on a couch in the form of a Tau, Τ, in Egypt, of a Svastika without the four additional prolongations (☩ not 卐) in India, plunged in a deep sleep—the “Sleep of Siloam,” as it is called to this day among the Initiates in Asia Minor, in Syria, and even higher Egypt. He was allowed to remain in this state for three days and three nights, during which time his Spiritual Ego was said to “confabulate” with the “Gods,” descend into Hades, Amenti, or Pâtâla—according to the country—and do works of charity to the invisible Beings, whether Souls of men or Elemental Spirits; his body remaining all the time in a temple crypt or subterranean cave. In Egypt it was placed in the Sarcophagus in the King's Chamber of the Pyramid of Cheops, and carried during the night of the approaching third day to the entrance of a gallery, where at a certain hour the beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of the entranced Candidate, who awoke to be initiated by Osiris and Thoth, the God of Wisdom.

Let the reader who doubts the statement consult the Hebrew originals before he denies. Let him turn to some most suggestive Egyptian bas reliefs. One especially from the temple of Philæ, represents a scene of initiation. Two God-Hierophants, one with the head of a hawk (the Sun), the other ibis-headed (Mercury, Thoth, the God of Wisdom and Secret Learning, the assessor of Osiris-Sun), are standing over the body of a Candidate just initiated. They are in the act of pouring on his head a double stream of “water” (the Water of Life and of New-birth), the streams being interlaced in the shape of a cross and full of small ansated crosses. This is allegorical of the awakening of the Candidate who is now an Initiate, when the beams of the morning Sun, Osiris, strike the crown of his head; his entranced body being placed on its wooden Tau so as to receive the rays. Then appeared the Hierophant-Initiators, and the sacramental words were pronounced, ostensibly to the Sun-Osiris, in reality to the Spirit-Sun within, enlightening the newly-born man.

Let the reader meditate on the connection of the Sun with the cross from the highest antiquity, in both its generative and spiritually regenerative capacities. Let him examine the tomb of Bait-Oxly, in the reign of Ramses II, where he will find the crosses in every shape and position; as also on the throne of that sovereign, and finally on a fragment [pg 590] representing the adoration of Bakhan-Alearé, from the Hall of the ancestors of Totmes III, now preserved in the National Library of Paris. In this extraordinary sculpture and painting one sees the disk of the Sun beaming upon an ansated cross placed upon a cross of which those of the Calvary are perfect copies. The ancient MSS. mention these as the “hard couches of those who were in [spiritual] travail, the act of giving birth to themselves.” A quantity of such cruciform “couches,” on which the Candidate, thrown into a dead trance at the end of his supreme Initiation, was placed and secured, were found in the underground halls of the Egyptian Temples after their destruction. The worthy and holy Fathers of the Cyril and Theophilus types used them freely, believing they had been brought and concealed there by some new converts. Alone Origen, and after him Clemens Alexandrinus and other ex-initiates, knew better. But they preferred to keep silent.

Again, let the reader read the Hindû “fables,” as the Orientalists call them, and remember the allegory of Vishvakarmâ, the Creative Power, the Great Architect of the World, called in the Rig Veda the “All-seeing God,” who “sacrifices himself to himself.” The Spiritual Egos of mortals are his own essence, one with him, therefore. Remember that he is called Deva-vardhika, the “Builder of the Gods,” and that it is he who ties the Sun, Sûrya, his son-in-law, on his lathe—in the exoteric allegory, but on the Svastika, in Esoteric tradition, for on Earth he is the Hierophant-Initiator—and cuts away a portion of his brightness. Vishvakarmâ, remember again, is the son of Yoga-siddhâ, i.e., the holy power of Yoga, and the fabricator of the “fiery weapon,” the magic Agneyastra.[1319] The narrative is given more fully elsewhere.

The author of the kabalistic work so often quoted from, asks:

The theoretical use of crucifixion then, must have been somehow connected with the personification of this symbol [the structure of the Garden of Paradise symbolized by a crucified man]. But how? And as showing what? The symbol was of the origin of measures, shadowing forth creative law or design. What, practically, as regards humanity, could actual crucifixion betoken? Yet, that it was held as the effigy of some mysterious working of the same system, is shown from the very fact of the use. There seems to be deep below deep as to the mysterious workings of these number values—[the symbolization of the connection of 113: 355, with 20612: 6561, by a crucified man]. Not only are they shown to work in the cosmos but, ... by sympathy, they seem to work out conditions relating to an unseen and spiritual world, and the prophets seem to have held knowledge of the [pg 591]connecting links. Reflection becomes more involved when it is considered that, the power of expression of the law, exactly, by numbers clearly defining a system, was not the accident of the language, but was its very essence, and of its primary organic construction; therefore, neither the language, nor the mathematical system attaching to it, could be of man's invention, unless both were founded upon a prior language which afterwards became obsolete.[1320]

The author proves these points by further elucidation, and reveals the secret meaning of more than one dead-letter narrative, by showing that probably, איש, man, was the primordial word:

The very first word possessed by the Hebrews, whoever they were, to carry the idea, by sound, of a man. The essential of this word was 113 [the numerical value of that word] from the beginning, and carried with it the elements of the cosmical system displayed.[1321]

This is demonstrated by the Hindû Vittoba, a form of Vishnu, as has already been stated. The figure of Vittoba, even to the nail-marks on the feet,[1322] is that of Jesus crucified, in all its details save the cross. That man was meant is proved to us further by the fact of the Initiate being reborn after his crucifixion on the Tree of Life. This “Tree” has now become exoterically—through its use by the Romans as an instrument of torture and the ignorance of the early Christian schemers—the tree of death!

Thus, one of the seven Esoteric meanings intended by this mystery of crucifixion by the mystic inventors of the system—the original elaboration and adoption of which dates back to the very establishment of the Mysteries—is discovered in the geometrical symbols containing the history of the evolution of man. The Hebrews—whose prophet Moses was so learned in the Esoteric Wisdom of Egypt, and who adopted their numerical system from the Phœnicians, and later from the Gentiles, from whom also they borrowed most of their Kabalistic Mysticism—most ingeniously adapted the cosmic and anthropological symbols of the “Heathen” nations to their peculiar secret records. If Christian sacerdotalism has lost the key of this to-day, the early compilers of the Christian Mysteries were well versed in Esoteric Philosophy and the Hebrew Occult Metrology, and used it dexterously. Thus they took the word Aish, one of the Hebrew word-forms for man, and used it in conjunction with that of Shânâh or lunar year, so mystically connected with the name of Jehovah, the supposed “Father” of [pg 592] Jesus, and embosomed the mystic idea in an astronomical value and formula.

The original idea of the “man crucified” in space certainly belongs to the ancient Hindûs. Moor shows this in his Hindû Pantheon in the engraving that represents Vittoba. Plato adopted it in his decussated cross in space, the [Symbol: cross like the letter “X”], the “second God who impressed himself on the universe in the form of the cross”; Krishna is likewise shown “crucified.”[1323] Again it is repeated in the Old Testament in the queer injunction to crucify men before the Lord, the Sun—which is no prophecy at all, but has a direct phallic significance. In that same most suggestive work on the kabalistic meanings, we read again:

In symbol, the nails of the cross have for the shape of the heads thereof a solid pyramid, and a tapering square obeliscal shaft, or phallic emblem, for the nail. Taking the position of the three nails in the man's extremities and on the cross, they form or mark a triangle in shape, one nail being at each corner of the triangle. The wounds, or stigmata, in the extremities are necessarily four, designative of the square.... The three nails with the three wounds are in number 6, which denotes the 6 faces of the cube unfolded [which make the cross or man-form, or 7, counting three horizontal and four vertical squares], on which the man is placed; and this in turn points to the circular measure transferred on to the edges of the cube. The one wound of the feet separates into two when the feet are separated, making three together for all, and four when separated, or 7 in all—another and most holy [with the Jews] feminine base number.[1324]

Thus, while the phallic or sexual meaning of the “crucifixion nails” is proven by the geometrical and numerical reading, its mystical meaning is indicated by the short remarks upon it, as given above, in its connection with, and bearing upon, Prometheus. He is another victim, for he is crucified on the Cross of Love, on the rock of human passions, a sacrifice to his devotion to the cause of the spiritual element in Humanity.

Now, the primordial system, the double glyph that underlies the idea of the cross, is not of “human invention,” for Cosmic Ideation and the spiritual representation of the Divine Ego-man are at its basis. Later, it expanded into the beautiful idea adopted by, and represented in, the Mysteries, that of regenerated man, the mortal, who, by crucifying the man of flesh and his passions on the Procrustean bed of torture, became reborn as an Immortal. Leaving the body, the animal-man, behind him, tied on the Cross of Initiation like an empty chrysalis, the Ego-Soul became as free as a butterfly. Still [pg 593] later, owing to the gradual loss of spirituality, the cross became in Cosmogony and Anthropology no higher than a phallic symbol.

With the Esotericists from the remotest times, the Universal Soul or Anima Mundi, the material reflection of the Immaterial Ideal, was the Source of Life of all beings and of the Life-Principle of the three kingdoms. This was septenary with the Hermetic Philosophers, as with all Ancients. For it is represented as a sevenfold cross, whose branches are respectively, light, heat, electricity, terrestrial magnetism, astral radiation, motion, and intelligence, or what some call self-consciousness.

As we have said elsewhere, long before the cross or its sign were adopted as symbols of Christianity, the sign of the cross was used as a mark of recognition among Adepts and Neophytes, the latter being called Chrests—from Chrestos, the man of tribulation and sorrow. Says Éliphas Lévi:

The sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong to them exclusively. It is also kabalistic, and represents the opposition and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by the occult verse of the Paternoster ... that there were originally two ways of doing it, or, at least two very different formulas to express its meaning: one reserved for the priests and initiates; the other given to neophytes and the profane. Thus, for example, the initiate, carrying his hand to his forehead, said, To thee; then he added, belong; and continued, carrying his hand to the breast, the kingdom; then to the left shoulder, justice; to the right shoulder, and mercy. Then he joined the two hands, adding, throughout the generating cycles—Tibi sunt Malchut et Geburah et Chesed per Æonas—an absolutely and magnificently kabalistic sign of the cross, which the profanations of Gnosticism made the militant and official Church completely lose.[1325]

The “militant and official Church” did more: having helped herself to what had never belonged to her, she took only that which the “Profane” had—the kabalistic meaning of the male and female Sephiroth. She never lost the inner and higher meaning since she never had it—Éliphas Lévi's pandering to Rome notwithstanding. The sign of the cross adopted by the Latin Church was phallic from the beginning, while that of the Greeks was the cross of the Neophytes, the Chrestoi.

[pg 594]

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Section IX. The Upanishads in Gnostic Literature.

We are reminded in King's Gnostics and their Remains that the Greek language had but one word for vowel and voice. This has led the uninitiated to many erroneous interpretations. On the simple knowledge, however, of this well-known fact a comparison may be attempted, and a flood of light thrown upon several mystic meanings. Thus the words, so often used in the Upanishads and the Purânas, “Sound” and “Speech,” may be collated with the Gnostic “Vowels” and the “Voices” of the Thunders and Angels in Revelation. The same will be found in Pistis Sophia, and other ancient Fragments and MSS. This was remarked even by the matter-of-fact author of the above mentioned work.

Through Hippolytus, an early Church Father, we learn what Marcus—a Pythagorean rather than a Christian Gnostic, and a Kabalist most certainly—had received in mystic revelation. It is said that Marcus had it revealed unto him that:

The seven heavens[1326] ... sounded each one vowel, which, all combined together, formed a single doxology, “the sound whereof being carried down [from these seven heavens] to earth, becomes the creator and parent of all things that be on earth.”[1327]

Translated from the Occult phraseology into still plainer language this would read: The Sevenfold Logos having differentiated into seven Logoi, or Creative Potencies (Vowels), these (the Second Logos, or “Sound”) created all on Earth.

Assuredly one who is acquainted with Gnostic literature can hardly help seeing in St. John's Apocalypse, a work of the same school of thought. For we find John saying:

Seven thunders uttered their voices ... [and] I was about to write ... [but] I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.[1328]

The same injunction is given to Marcus, the same to all other semi and full Initiates. The very sameness of the expressions used, and of the underlying ideas, always betrays a portion of the Mysteries. We must always seek for more than one meaning in every mystery allegorically revealed, especially in those in which the number seven and its multiplication seven by seven, or forty-nine, appear. Now when, in Pistis Sophia, the Rabbi Jesus is requested by his disciples to reveal to them the “Mysteries of the Light of his Father”—i.e., of the Higher Self enlightened by Initiation and Divine Knowledge—Jesus answers:

Do ye seek after these mysteries? No mystery is more excellent than they; which shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights, unto the place of Truth and Goodness, unto the place where there is neither male nor female, neither form in that place but Light, everlasting, not to be uttered. Nothing therefore is more excellent than the mysteries which ye seek after, saving only the mystery of the seven Vowels and their forty and nine Powers, and their numbers thereof. And no name is more excellent than all these (Vowels).[1329]

As says the Commentary, speaking of the “Fires”:

The Seven Fathers and the Forty-nine Sons blaze in Darkness, but they are the Life and Light and the continuation thereof through the Great Age.

Now it becomes evident that, in every Esoteric interpretation of exoteric beliefs expressed in allegorical forms, there is the same underlying idea—the basic number seven, the compound of three and four, preceded by the divine three ([triangle]) making the perfect number ten.

Also, these numbers apply equally to divisions of time, to cosmography, metaphysical and physical, as well as to man and everything else in visible Nature. Thus these seven Vowels with their forty-nine Powers are identical with the three and the seven Fires of the Hindûs and their forty-nine Fires; identical with the numerical mysteries of the Persian Simorgh; identical with those of the Jewish Kabalists. The latter, dwarfing the numbers (their mode of “blinds”), made the duration of each successive Renewal, or what we call in Esoteric parlance Round, 1,000 years only or of the seven Renewals of the Globe 7,000 years, instead of, as is more likely, 7,000,000,000, and assigned to the total duration of the Universe 49,000 years only.[1330]

Now, the Secret Doctrine furnishes a key which reveals to us on the Indisputable grounds of comparative analogy that Garuda, the allegorical and monstrous half-man and half-bird—the Vâhana or vehicle on which Vishnu, as Kâla or “Time,” is shown to ride—is the origin of all such allegories. He is the Indian Phœnix, the emblem of cyclic and periodical time, the “Man-lion” (Sinha), of whose representations the so-called Gnostic gems are so full.[1331]

Over the seven rays of the lion's crown, and corresponding to their points, stand often the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet, ΑΕΗΙΟΥΩ, testifying to the Seven Heavens.[1332]

This is the Solar Lion and the emblem of the Solar Cycle, as Garuda[1333] is that of the Great Cycle, the Mahâ Kalpa, coëternal with Vishnu, and also, of course, the emblem of the Sun and Solar Cycle. This is shown by the details of the allegory. At his birth, Garuda, on account of his “dazzling splendour,” is mistaken for Agni, the God of Fire, and was thence called Gaganeshvara, “Lord of the Sky.” Its representation as Osiris, on the Abraxas (Gnostic) gems, and by many heads of allegorical monsters, with the head and beak of an eagle or a hawk—both solar birds—denotes Garuda's solar and cyclic character. His son is Jatâyu, the cycle of 60,000 years. As well remarked by C. W. King:

Whatever its primary meaning [of the gem with the solar lion and vowels] it was probably imported in its present shape from India (that true fountain head of Gnostic iconography).[1334]

The mysteries of the seven Gnostic Vowels, uttered by the Thunders of St. John, can be unriddled only by the primeval and original Occultism of Âryâvarta, brought into India by the primeval Brâhmans, who had been initiated in Central Asia. And this is the Occultism we study and try to explain, as much as is possible, in these pages. Our doctrine of seven Races, and seven Rounds of life and evolution around our Terrestrial Chain of Spheres, may be found [pg 597] even in Revelation.[1335] When the seven “Thunders,” or “Sounds,” or “Vowels”—one meaning out of the seven for each such vowel relates directly to our own Earth and its seven Root-Races in each Round—“had uttered their voices,” but had forbidden the Seer to write them, and made him “seal up those things,” what did the Angel, “standing upon the sea and upon the earth,” do?

He lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, ... that there should be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God [of the Cycle] should be finished.[1336]

This means, in Theosophic phraseology, that when the Seventh Round is completed, then Time will cease. “There shall be time no longer”—very naturally, since Pralaya shall set in and there will remain no one on Earth to keep a division of time, during that periodical dissolution and arrest of conscious life.

Dr. Kenealy and others believed that the calculations of the cyclic seven and forty-nine were brought by the Rabbins from Chaldæa. This is more than likely. But the Babylonians, who had all those cycles and taught them only at their great initiatory mysteries of astrological Magic, got their wisdom and learning from India. It is not difficult, therefore, to recognize in them our own Esoteric Doctrine. In their secret computations, the Japanese have the same figures in their cycles. As to the Brâhmans, their Purânas and Upanishads are good proof of it. The latter have passed entirely into Gnostic literature; and a Brâhman needs only to read Pistis Sophia[1337] to recognize his forefathers' property, even to the phraseology and similes used. Let us compare. In Pistis Sophia the disciples say to Jesus:

Rabbi, reveal unto us the mysteries of the Light [i.e., the “Fire of Knowledge or Enlightenment”], ... forasmuch as we have heard thee saying that there is [pg 598]another baptism of smoke, and another baptism of the Spirit of Holy Light [i.e.the Spirit of Fire].[1338]

As John says of Jesus:

I indeed baptize you with water; ... but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.

The real significance of this statement is very profound. It means that John, a non-initiated ascetic, can impart to his disciples no greater wisdom than the Mysteries connected with the plane of Matter, of which Water is the symbol. His Gnosis was that of exoteric and ritualistic dogma, of dead-letter orthodoxy;[1339] while the wisdom which Jesus, an Initiate of the Higher Mysteries, would reveal to them, was of a higher character, for it was the “Fire” Wisdom of the true Gnosis or real Spiritual Enlightenment. One was Fire, the other the Smoke. For Moses, the Fire on Mount Sinai and the Spiritual Wisdom; for the multitudes of the “people” below, for the profane, Mount Sinai in (through) Smoke, i.e., the exoteric husks of orthodox or sectarian ritualism.

Now, having the above in view, read the dialogue between the sages Nârada and Devamata in the Anugîtâ,[1340] an episode from the Mahâbhârata, the antiquity and importance of which one can learn in the “Sacred Books of the East,” edited by Prof. Max Müller.[1341] Nârada is discoursing upon the “breaths” or the “life-winds,” as they are called in the clumsy translations of such words as Prâna, Apâna, etc., whose full Esoteric meaning and application to individual functions can hardly be rendered in English. He says of this science that:

It is the teaching of the Veda, that the fire verily is all the deities, and knowledge (of it) arises among Brâhmanas, being accompanied by intelligence.[1342]

By “fire,” says the Commentator, he means the Self. By “intelligence,” the Occultist says, Nârada meant neither “discussion” nor “argumentation,” as Arjuna Mishra believes, but “intelligence” truly, or the adaptation of the Fire of Wisdom to exoteric ritualism for the profane. This is the chief concern of the Brâhmans, who were the first to set the example to other nations who thus anthropomorphized [pg 599] and carnalized the grandest metaphysical truths. Nârada shows this plainly and is made to say:

The smoke of that (fire) which is of excellent glory (appears) in the shape of ... darkness [verily so!]; (its) ashes, ... [are] passion; and ... goodness is that in connection with it, in which the offering is thrown.[1343]

That is to say, that faculty in the disciple which apprehends the subtle truth (the flame) which escapes heavenward, while the objective sacrifice remains as a proof and evidence of piety only to the profane. For what else can Nârada mean by the following?

Those who understand the sacrifice understand the Samâna and the Vyâna as the principal (offering). The Prâna and Apâna are portions of the offering, ... and between them is the fire. That is the excellent seat of the Udâna as understood by Brâhmanas. As to that which is distinct from these pairs, hear me speak about that. Day and night are a pair, between them is the fire.... That which exists and that which does not exist are a pair, between them is the fire....[1344]

And after every such contrast Nârada adds:

That is the excellent seat of the Udâna as understood by Brâhmanas.

Now many people do not know the full meaning of the statement that Samâna and Vyâna, Prâna and Apâna—which are explained to be “life-winds,” but which we say are principles and their respective faculties and senses—are offered up to Udâna, the soi-disant principal “life-wind,” which is said to act at all the joints. And so the reader who is ignorant that the word “Fire” in these allegories means both the “Self” and the higher Divine Knowledge, will understand nothing in this, and will entirely miss the point of our argument, as the translator and even the editor, the great Oxford Sanskritist, F. Max Müller, have missed the true meaning of Nârada's words. Exoterically, this enumeration of “life-winds” has, of course, the meaning, approximately, which is surmised in the foot-notes, namely:

The sense appears to be this: The course of worldly life is due to the operations of the life-winds which are attached to the self and lead to its manifestations as individual souls [?]. Of these, the Samâna and Vyâna are controlled and held under check by the Prâna and Apâna.... The latter two are held in check and controlled by the Udâna, which thus controls all. And the control of this, which is the control of all five, ... leads to the supreme self.[1345]

The above is given as an explanation of the text, which records the words of the Brâhmana, who narrates how he reached the ultimate Wisdom of Yogism, and in this wise reached All-knowledge. Saying [pg 600] that he had “perceived by means of the self the seat abiding in the self,”[1346] where dwells the Brahma free from all; and explaining that that indestructible principle was entirely beyond the perception of senses—i.e., of the five “life-winds”—he adds that:

In the midst of all these (life-winds) which move about in the body and swallow up one another, blazes the Vaishvânara fire sevenfold.[1347]

This “Fire,” according to Nîlakantha's commentary, is identical with the “I,” the Self, which is the goal of the ascetic; Vaishvânara being a word often used for the Self. Then the Brâhmana goes on to enumerate that which is meant by the word “sevenfold,” and says:

The nose [or smell], and the tongue [taste], and the eye, and the skin, and the ear as the fifth, the mind, and the understanding, these are the seven tongues of the blaze of Vaishvânara.[1348]... Those are the seven (kinds of) fuel for me.[1349]... These are the seven great officiating priests.[1350]

These seven priests are accepted by Arjuna Mishra in the sense of meaning “the soul distinguished as so many [souls, or principles] with reference to these several powers”; and, finally, the translator seems to accept the explanation, and reluctantly admits that “they may mean” this; though he himself takes the sense to mean:

The powers of hearing etc. [the physical senses, in short], which are presided over by the several deities.

But whatever it may mean, whether in scientific or orthodox interpretations, this passage on page 259 explains Nârada's statements on page 276, and shows them referring to exoteric and esoteric methods and contrasting them. Thus the Samâna and the Vyâna, though subject to the Prâna and the Apâna, and all the four to Udâna in the matter of acquiring the Prânâyâma (of the Hatha Yogî, chiefly, or the lower form of Yoga), are yet referred to as the principal offering, for, as rightly argued by K. Trimbak Telang, their “operations are more practically important for vitality”; i.e., they are the grossest, and are offered in the sacrifice, in order that they may disappear, so to speak, in the quality of darkness of that fire or its smoke—mere exoteric ritualistic form. But Prâna and Apâna, though shown as subordinate [pg 601] (because less gross or more purified), have the Fire between them; the Self and the Secret Knowledge possessed by that Self. So for the good and evil, and for “that which exists and that which does not exist”; all these “pairs”[1351] have Fire between them, i.e., Esoteric Knowledge, the Wisdom of the Divine Self. Let those who are satisfied with the smoke of the Fire remain wherein they are, that is to say within the Egyptian darkness of theological fictions and dead-letter interpretations.

The above is written only for the Western students of Occultism and Theosophy. The writer presumes to explain these things neither to the Hindûs, who have their own Gurus; nor to the Orientalists, who think they know more than all the Gurus and Rishis, past and present, put together. These rather lengthy quotations and examples are necessary, if only to point out to the student the works he has to study so as to derive benefit and learning from comparison. Let him read Pistis Sophia in the light of the Bhagavad Gîtâ, the Anugîtâ and others; and then the statement made by Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel will become clear, and the dead-letter “blinds” disappear at once. Read the following and compare it with the explanation from the Hindû scriptures just given.

And no Name is more excellent than all these, a Name wherein be contained all Names, and all Lights, and all the [forty-nine] Powers. Knowing that Name, if a man quits this body of matter,[1352] no smoke [i.e., no theological delusion],[1353] no darkness, nor Power, nor Ruler of the Sphere [no Personal Genius or Planetary Spirit called God] of Fate [Karma] ... shall be able to hold back the Soul that knoweth that Name.... If he shall utter that Name unto the fire, ... the darkness shall flee away.... And if he shall utter that name unto ... [pg 602]all their Powers, nay, even unto Barbelo,[1354] and the Invisible God, and the three triple-powered Gods, so soon as he shall have uttered that name in those places, they shall all be thrown one upon the other, so that they shall be ready to melt and perish, and shall cry aloud, O Light of every light that is in the boundless lights, remember us also and purify us![1355]

It is easy to see what this Light and Name are: the Light of Initiation and the name of the “Fire-Self,” which is no name, no action, but a Spiritual, Ever-living Power, higher even than the real “Invisible God,” as this Power is Itself.

But if the able and learned author of the Gnostics and their Remains has not sufficiently allowed for the spirit of allegory and mysticism in the fragments translated and quoted by him, in the above named work, from Pistis Sophia—other Orientalists have done far worse. Having neither his intuitional perception of the Indian origin of the Gnostic Wisdom still less of the meaning of their “gems,” most of them, beginning with Wilson and ending with the dogmatic Weber, have made most extraordinary blunders with regard to almost every symbol. Sir M. Monier Williams and others show a very decided contempt for the “Esoteric Buddhists” as Theosophists are now called; yet no student of Occult Philosophy has ever mistaken a cycle for a living personage and vice versâ, as is very often the case with our learned Orientalists. An instance or two may illustrate the statement more graphically. Let us choose the best known.

In the Râmâyana, Garuda is called “the maternal uncle of Sagara's 60,000 sons”; and Amshumat, Sagara's grandson, “the nephew of the 60,000 uncles” who were reduced to ashes by the look of Kapila—the Purushottama, or Infinite Spirit, who caused the horse which Sagara was keeping for the Ashvamedha sacrifice to disappear. Again, Garuda's son[1356];—Garuda being himself the Mahâ Kalpa or Great Cycle—Jatâyu, the king of the feathered tribe (when on the point of being slain by Râvana who carries off Sîtâ) says, speaking of himself: “It is 60,000 years O king, that I am born”; after which, turning his back on the Sun—he dies.

Jatâyu is, of course, the cycle of 60,000 years within the Great Cycle of Garuda; hence he is represented as his son, or nephew, ad libitum, since the whole meaning rests on his being placed in the line of [pg 603] Garuda's descendants. Then, again, there is Diti, the mother of the Maruts, whose descendants and progeny belonged to the posterity of Hiranyâksha, “whose number was 77 crores (or 770 millions) of men,” according to the Padma Purâna. All such narratives are pronounced “meaningless fictions” and absurdities. But—truth is the daughter of time, verily; and time will show.

Meanwhile, what could be easier than an attempt, at least, to verify Paurânic chronology? There are many Kapilas; but the Kapila who slew king Sagara's progeny—60,000 men strong—was undeniably Kapila, the founder of the Sânkhya philosophy, since it is so stated in the Purânas; although one of them flatly denies the imputation without explaining its Esoteric meaning. It is the Bhâgavata Purâna[1357] which says that:

The report is not true that the sons of the king were scorched by the wrath of the sage. For how can the quality of darkness, the product of anger, exist in a Sage whose body was goodness and who purified the world—the earth's dust, as it were, attributed to heavens! How should mental perturbation distract that sage, identified with the Supreme Spirit, who has steered here (on earth) that solid vessel of the Sânkhya (philosophy), with the help of which he who desires to obtain liberation crosses the dreaded ocean of existence, that path to death?[1358]

The Purâna is in duty bound to speak as it does. It has a dogma to promulgate and a policy to carry out—that of great secrecy with regard to mystical divine truths divulged for countless ages only at Initiation. It is not in the Purânas, therefore, that we have to look for an explanation of the mystery connected with various transcendental states of being. That the story is an allegory is seen upon its very face: the 60,000 “sons,” brutal, vicious, and impious, are the personification of the human passions that a “mere glance of the Sage”—the Self who represents the highest state of purity that can be reached on Earth—reduces to ashes. But it has also other significations, cyclic and chronological meanings, a method of marking the periods when certain Sages flourished, found also in other Purânas.

Now it is as well ascertained as any tradition can be, that it was at Hardwar, or Gangâdvâra, the “door or gate of the Ganges,” at the foot of the Himâlayas, that Kapila sat in meditation for a number of years. Not far from the Sewalik range, the pass of Hardwar is called to this day “Kapila's Pass,” and the place also is named “Kapilasthen” by the ascetics. It is there that the Ganges, Gangâ, emerging from its mountainous gorge, begins its course over the sultry plains of India. [pg 604] And it is clearly ascertained by geological survey that the tradition which claims that the ocean washed the base of the Himâlayas ages ago, is not entirely without foundation, for distinct traces of this still remain.

The Sânkhya Philosophy may have been brought down and taught by the first, and written out by the last Kapila.

Now Sâgara is the name of the ocean, and especially of the Bay of Bengal, at the mouth of the Ganges, to this day in India.[1359] Have Geologists ever calculated the number of millenniums it must have taken the sea to recede the distance it is now from Hardwar, which is at present 1,024 feet above its level? If they had, those Orientalists who show Kapila flourishing from the first to the ninth century a.d., might change their opinions, if only for one of two very good reasons. Firstly, the true number of years which have elapsed since Kapila's day is unmistakably in the Purânas, though the translators may fail to see it; and secondly, the Kapila of the Satya, and the Kapila of the Kali Yugas, may be one and the same individuality, without being the same personality.

Kapila, besides being the name of a personage, of the once living Sage and the author of the Sânkhya Philosophy, is also the generic name of the Kumâras, the celestial Ascetics and Virgins; therefore the very fact of the Bhâgavata Purâna calling that Kapila—whom it had showed just before as a portion of Vishnu—the author of the Sânkhya Philosophy, ought to have warned the reader of a “blind” containing an Esoteric meaning. Whether he was the son of Vitatha, as the Harivamsha shows him to be, or of any one else, the author of the Sânkhya cannot be the same as the Sage of the Satya Yuga—at the very beginning of the Manvantara, when Vishnu is shown in the form of Kapila, “imparting to all creatures true Wisdom”; for this relates to that primordial period when the “Sons of God” taught to the newly created men those arts and sciences, which have since been cultivated and preserved in the sanctuaries by the Initiates. There are several well-known Kapilas in the Purânas. First the primeval Sage, then Kapila one of the three “secret” Kumâras, and Kapila son of Kashyapa and Kadrû—the “many-headed serpent”[1360]—besides Kapila the great Sage and Philosopher of the Kali Yuga. The latter, being an Initiate, a “Serpent of Wisdom,” a Nâga, was purposely blended with the Kapilas of the former ages.

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Section X. The Cross and the Pythagorean Decad.

The early Gnostics claimed that their Science, the Gnosis, rested on a square, the angles of which represented respectively Sigê (Silence), Bythos (Depth), Nous (Spiritual Soul or Mind), and Aletheia (Truth).

It is they who were the first to reveal to the world that which had remained concealed for ages; namely, the Tau, in the shape of a Procrustean bed, and Christos as incarnating in Chrestos, he who became for certain purposes a willing candidate for a series of tortures, mental and physical.

For them the whole of the Universe, metaphysical and material, was contained within, and could be expressed and described by the digits contained in the number 10, the Pythagorean Decad.

This Decad, representing the Universe and its evolution out of Silence and the Unknown Depths of the Spiritual Soul, or Anima Mundi, presented two sides or aspects to the student. It could be, and was at first, applied to the Macrocosm, after which it descended to the Microcosm, or man. There was, then, the purely intellectual and metaphysical, or the “Inner Science,” and the as purely materialistic or “surface science,” both of which could be expounded by and contained in the Decad. It could be studied, in short, both by the deductive method of Plato, and the inductive method of Aristotle. The former started from a divine comprehension, when the plurality proceeded from unity, or the digits of the Decad appeared, only to be finally reäbsorbed, lost in the infinite Circle. The latter depended on sensuous perception alone, when the Decad could be regarded either as the unity that multiplies, or matter which differentiates; its study being limited to the plane surface, to the cross, or the seven which proceeds from the ten, or the perfect number, on Earth as in Heaven.

This dual system was brought, together with the Decad, by Pythagoras from India. That it was that of the Brachmans and Iranians, as [pg 606] they are called by the ancient Greek Philosophers, is warranted to us by the whole range of Sanskrit literature, such as the Purânas and the Laws of Manu. In these Laws or Ordinances of Manu, it is said that Brahmâ first creates the “ten Lords of Being,” the ten Prajâpati or Creative Forces; which ten produce seven other Manus, or, rather, as some MSS. have it, Munîn (instead of Manûn) “devotees,” or holy beings, which are the seven Angels of the Presence in the Western religion. This mysterious number seven, born from the upper Triangle △, the latter itself born from the apex thereof, or the Silent Depths of the Unknown Universal Soul (Sigê and Bythos), is the sevenfold Saptaparna plant, born and manifested on the surface of the soil of mystery, from the threefold root buried deep under that impenetrable soil. This idea is fully elaborated in one of the Sections of Volume I, Part II, Section III, “Primordial Substance and Divine Thought,” which the reader should notice carefully, if he would grasp the metaphysical idea involved in the above symbol. In man as in nature, according to the Cis-Himâlayan Esoteric Philosophy, which is that of the Cosmogony of the original Manu, it is the septenary division that is intended by Nature herself. The seventh principle (Purusha) alone is the Divine Self, strictly speaking; for, as said in Manu, “he [Brahmâ] having pervaded the subtile parts of those six, of unmeasured brightness,”[1361] created or called them forth to “Self”-consciousness or the consciousness of that One Self. Of these six, five elements (or principles, or Tattvas, as Medhâtithi, the commentator thinks) “are called the atomic destructible elements”;[1362] these are described in the above-named Section.[1363]

We have now to speak of the mystery language, that of the prehistoric races. It is not a phonetic, but a purely pictorial and symbolical tongue. It is known at present in its fulness to the very few, having become with the masses for more than 5,000 years an absolutely dead language. Yet most of the learned Gnostics, Greeks and Jews, knew it, and used it, though very differently. A few instances may be given.

On the plane above, the number is no number but a nought—a circle. On the plane below, it becomes one—which is an odd number. Each letter of the ancient alphabets had its philosophical meaning and raison d'être. The number one (1) signified with the Alexandrian [pg 607] Initiates a body erect, a living standing man, he being the only animal that has this privilege. And, by adding to the “I” a head, it was transformed into a “P,” a symbol of paternity, of the creative potency; while “R” signified a “moving man,” one on his way. Hence Pater Zeus had nothing sexual or phallic either in its sound or the form of its letters; nor had Πατὴρ Δεὺς (according to Ragon).[1364] If we turn now to the Hebrew alphabet, we shall find that while one or Aleph (א) has a bull or an ox for its symbol, ten, the perfect number, or one of the Kabalah, is a Yod (י, y, i, or j), and means, as the first letter of Jehovah, the procreative organ, and the rest.

The odd numbers are divine, the even numbers are terrestrial, devilish, and unlucky. The Pythagoreans hated the Binary. With them it was the origin of differentiation, hence of contrasts, discord, or matter, the beginning of evil. In the Valentinian Theogony, Bythos and Sigê (Depth, Chaos, Matter born in Silence) are the primordial Binary. With the early Pythagoreans, however, the Duad was that imperfect state into which the first manifested being fell when it got detached from the Monad. It was the point from which the two roads—the good and the evil—bifurcated. All that which was double-faced or false was called by them “binary.” One was alone good and harmony, because no disharmony can proceed from One alone. Hence the Latin word Solus in relation to the One and Only God, the Unknown of Paul. Solus, however, very soon became Sol—the Sun.

The Ternary is the first of the odd numbers, as the triangle is the first of the geometrical figures.[1365] This number is truly the number of mystery par excellence. To study it on the exoteric lines one has to read Ragon's Cours Philosophique et Interprétatif des Initiations, on the Esoteric—the Hindû symbolism of numerals; for the combinations which were applied to it are numberless. It is on the Occult properties of the three equal sides of the triangle that Ragon based his studies and founded the famous Masonic Society of the Trinosophists—those who study three sciences; an improvement upon the ordinary three Masonic degrees, given to those who study nothing except eating and drinking at the meetings of their Lodges. As the founder writes:

The first line of the triangle offered to the apprentice for study is the mineral kingdom, symbolized by Tubalc [Symbol: Three dots in a triangle] [Tubal-Cain].

The second side on which the companion has to meditate, is the vegetable kingdom, symbolized by Schibb [Symbol: Three dots in a triangle] [Schibboleth]. In this kingdom begins the generation of the bodies. This is why the letter G is presented radiant before the eyes of the adept [?!].

The third side is left to the master mason, who has to complete his education by the study of the animal kingdom. It is symbolized by Maoben [Symbol: Three dots in a triangle] (son of putrefaction).[1366]

The first solid figure is the Quaternary, the symbol of immortality. It is the Pyramid, for the Pyramid stands on a triangular base, and terminates with a point at the top, thus yielding the Triad and the Quaternary or the 3 and 4.

The Pythagoreans taught the connection and relation between the Gods and the numbers, in a science called Arithmomancy. The Soul is a number, they said, which moves of itself and contains the number 4; and spiritual and physical man is number 3, as the Ternary represented for them not only the surface but also the principle of the formation of the physical body. Thus animals were Ternaries only, man alone being a Septenary, when virtuous; a Quinary when bad, for:

Number Five was composed of a Binary and a Ternary, and of these the Binary threw everything in the perfect form into disorder and confusion. The perfect man, they said, was a Quaternary and a Ternary, or four material and three immaterial elements; and these three Spirits or Elements we likewise find in Five when it represents the microcosm. The latter is a compound of a Binary directly relating to gross Matter and of three Spirits. Since, as Ragon says:

This ingenious figure is the union of two Greek breathings placed over vowels which have or have not to be aspirated. The first sign (῾) is called the “strong” or superior “spiritus,” the Spirit of God aspired (spiratus) and breathed by man. The second sign (᾿) the lower, is the soft “spiritus” representing the secondary spirit; ... the whole embraces the whole man. It is the universal quintessence, the vital fluid or life.[1367]

The more mystic meaning of the number Five is given in an excellent article by Mr. T. Subba Row, in Five Years of Theosophy, in an article entitled “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac,” in which he gives some rules that may help the enquirer to ferret out “the deep significance of ancient Sanskrit nomenclature in the old Âryan myths and allegories.” Meanwhile, let us see what has been hitherto stated about [pg 609] the constellation Capricornus in Theosophical publications, and what is known of it generally. Every one knows that ♑ is the tenth sign of the Zodiac, into which the Sun enters at the winter solstice, about December 21st. But very few are those who know—even in India, unless they are initiated—the real mystic connection which seems to exist, as we are told, between the names Makara and Kumâra. The first means some amphibious animal, flippantly called the “crocodile,” as some Orientalists think, and the second is the title of the great patrons of Yogins, according to the Shaiva Purânas, the sons of, and even one with, Rudra (Shiva), who is a Kumâra himself. It is through their connection with Man that the Kumâras are likewise connected with the Zodiac. Let us try to find out what the word Makara means.

Says the author of “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac”:

Makara ... contains within itself the clue to its correct interpretation. The letter ma is equivalent to number 5, and kara means hand. Now in Sanskrit Tribhujam means a triangle, bhujam or karam (both synonymous) being understood to mean a side. So, Makaram or Panchakaram means a Pentagon.[1368]

Now the five-pointed star or pentagon represents the five limbs of man.[1369] Under the old system, we are told, Makara was the eighth instead of the tenth sign.[1370]

The sign in question is intended to represent the faces of the universe, and indicates that the figure of the universe is bounded by Pentagons.[1371]

The Sanskrit writers “speak also of Ashtadisha or eight faces bounding Space,” referring thus to the Loka-pâlas, the eight points of the compass, the four cardinal and the four intermediate points.

From an objective point of view the “microcosm” is represented by the human body. Makaram may be taken to represent simultaneously both the microcosm and the macrocosm, as external objects of perception.[1372]

But the true Esoteric sense of the word Makara is not, in truth, “crocodile” at all, even when it is compared with the animal depicted on the Hindû Zodiac. For it has the head and the fore-legs of an antelope and the body and tail of a fish. Hence the tenth sign of the Zodiac has been taken variously to mean a shark, a dolphin, etc.; as it is the Vâhana of Varuna, the Ocean God, and is often called, for this [pg 610] reason, Jala-rûpa or “water-form.” The dolphin was the vehicle of Poseidon-Neptune with the Greeks, and one with him, Esoterically; and this “dolphin” is the “sea-dragon” as much as the crocodile of the Sacred Nile is the Vehicle of Horus, and Horus himself. Says the mummy-form God with the crocodile's head:

I am the fish [and seat] of the great Horus of Kem-oor.[1373]

With the Peratæ Gnostics it is Chozzar (Neptune) who converts the dodecagonal pyramid into a sphere, “and paints its gate with many colours.”[1374] He has five androgyne ministers—he is Makara, the Leviathan.

As the rising Sun was considered the Soul of the Gods sent to manifest itself to men every day, and as the crocodile rose out of the water at the first sunbeam, that animal came finally to personify a solar-fire devotee in India, as it personified that Fire, or the highest Soul with the Egyptians.

In the Purânas, the number of the Kumâras changes according to the exigencies of the allegory. For Occult purposes their number is given in one place as seven, then as four, then as five. In the Kûrma Purâna it is said of them:

These five [Kumâras], O Brâhman, were Yogins who acquired entire exemption from passion.

Their very name shows their connection with the said constellation Makara, and with some other Paurânic characters connected with the zodiacal signs. This is done in order to veil what was one of the most suggestive glyphs of the primitive Temples. The Kumâras are mixed up, astronomically, physiologically, and mystically in general, with a number of Paurânic personages and events. Hardly hinted at in the Vishnu, they figure in various dramas and events throughout all the other Purânas and sacred literature; so that the Orientalists, having to pick up the threads of connection hither and thither, have ended by proclaiming the Kumâras “due chiefly to the fancy of the Purânic writers.” But—

Ma—we are told by the author of the “Twelve Signs of the Zodiac”—is “five”; kara, a “hand” with its five fingers, as also a five-sided sign or a Pentagon. The Kumâra (in this case an anagram for Occult purposes), as Yogîs, are five in Esotericism, because the last two names have ever been kept secret; they are the fifth order of Brahma-devas, and the five-fold Chohans, having the Soul of the five Elements in [pg 611] them, Water and Ether predominating, and therefore their symbols were both aquatic and fiery.

Wisdom lies concealed under the couch of him who rests on the Golden Lotus (Padma) floating on the Water.

In India this is Vishnu, one of whose Avatâras was Buddha, as claimed in days of old. The Prachetasas, the worshippers of Nârâyana—who, like Poseidon, moved or dwelt over not under the Waters—plunged into the depths of the Ocean for their devotions and remained therein 10,000 years; and the Prachetasas are ten exoterically, but five, Esoterically. Prachetâs is, in Sanskrit, the name of Varuna, the Water God, Nereus, an aspect of Neptune, the Prachetasas being thus identical with the “five ministers” of the male-female Chozzar (Χωζζάρ or Χορζάρ), or Poseidon, of the Peratæ Gnostics. These are respectively called Ou, Aoai, Ouô, Ouôab and ... (Οὔ, Ἀοαὶ, Οὐώ, Οὐωάβ ...),[1375] the fifth, a triple name (making seven in all) being lost[1376]—i.e., kept secret. Thus much for the “aquatic” symbol; the “fiery” connecting them with the fiery symbol—spiritually. For purposes of identity, let us remember that as the mother of the Prachetasas was Savarnâ, the daughter of the Ocean, so was Amphitrite the mother of Neptune's mystic “ministers.”

Now the reader is reminded that these “five ministers” are symbolized both in the Dolphin, who had overcome the chaste Amphitrite's unwillingness to wed Poseidon, and in Triton their son. The latter, whose body above the waist is that of a man and below a dolphin, a fish, is, again, most mysteriously connected with Oannes, the Babylonian Dag, and further also with the Matsya (Fish) Avatâra of Vishnu, both teaching mortals Wisdom. The Dolphin, as every Mythologist knows, was placed, for his service, by Poseidon, among the constellations, and became with the Greeks, Capricornus, the Goat, whose hind part is that of a dolphin, and is thus identical with Makara, whose head is also that of an antelope and the body and tail those of a fish. This is why the sign of the Makara was borne on the banner of Kâmadeva, the Hindû God of Love, identified, in the Atharva Veda, with Agni, the Fire-god, the son of Lakshmî, as correctly given by the Harivamsha. For Lakshmî and Venus are one, and Amphitrite is the early form of Venus. Now Kâma, the Makara-ketu, is Aja, the “unborn,” [pg 612] and Âtmâ-bhû, the “self-existent,” and Aja is the Logos in the Rig Veda, as he is shown therein to be the first manifestation of the One; for “Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind,” that “which connects entity with non-entity”—or Manas, the fifth, with Âtmâ, the seventh, Esoterically—say the Sages. This is the first stage. The second, on the following plane of manifestation, shows Brahmâ—whom we select as a representative for all the other First Gods of the nations—causing to issue from his body his Mind-born Sons, “Sanandana and others,” who, in the fifth “creation,” and again in the ninth (for purposes of a “blind”) become the Kumâra. Let us close by reminding the reader that goats were sacrificed to Amphitrite and the Nereids on the sea-shore—as goats are sacrificed to this day to Durgâ Kâlî, who is only the black side of Lakshmî (Venus), the white side of Shakti—and by suggesting what connection these animals may have with Capricornus, in which appear twenty-eight stars in the form of a goat, which goat was transformed by the Greeks into Amalthæa, Jupiter's foster-mother. Pan, the God of Nature, had goat's feet, and changed himself into a goat at the approach of Typhon. But this is a mystery which the writer dares not dwell upon at length, not being sure of being understood. Thus the mystical side of the interpretation must be left to the intuition of the student. Let us note one more thing in relation to the mysterious number Five. It symbolizes at one and the same time the Spirit of Life Eternal and the spirit of life and love terrestrial—in the human compound; and, it includes divine and infernal magic, and the universal and the individual quintessence of being. Thus, the five mystic words or vowels uttered by Brahmâ at “creation,” which forthwith became the Panchadasha (certain Vedic Hymns, attributed to that God), are in their creative and magical potentiality, the white side of the black Tântric five Ma-kâras, or the five m's. Makara, the constellation, is a seemingly meaningless and absurd name; yet, even besides its anagrammatical significance in conjunction with the term Kumâra, the numerical value of its first syllable and its Esoteric resolution into five has a very great and Occult meaning in the mysteries of Nature.

Suffice it to say that, as the sign of Makara is connected with the birth of the spiritual Microcosm, and the death or dissolution of the physical Universe—its passage into the realm of the Spiritual,[1377] so the [pg 613] Dhyân Chohans, called in India Kumâras, are connected with both. Moreover, in the exoteric religions, they have become the synonyms of the Angels of Darkness. Mâra is the God of Darkness, the Fallen One, and Death;[1378] and yet it is one of the names of Kâma, the First God in the Vedas, the Logos, from whom have sprung the Kumâras, and this connects them still more with our “fabulous” Indian Makara, and the crocodile-headed God in Egypt.[1379] The Crocodiles in the Celestial Nile are five, and the God Toom, the Primordial Deity, creating the heavenly bodies and living beings, calls forth these Crocodiles in his fifth “creation.” When Osiris, the “Defunct Sun,” is buried and enters into Amenti, the sacred Crocodiles plunge into the abyss of primordial Waters—the “Great Green One.” When the Sun of Life rises, they reëmerge out of the sacred river. All this is highly symbolical, and shows how primeval Esoteric truths found their expression in identical symbols. But, as Mr. T. Subba Row truly declares:

The veil that was dexterously thrown over certain portions of the mystery connected with these [Zodiacal] signs by the ancient philosophers, will never be lifted up for the amusement or edification of the uninitiated public.[1380]

Nor was number Five less sacred with the Greeks. The “Five Words” of Brahmâ have become with the Gnostics the “Five Words” written upon the Âkâshic (Shining) Garment of Jesus at his glorification—the words “Zama Zama Ôzza Rachama Ôzai” (ΖΑΜΑ ΖΑΜΑ ΩΖΖΑ ΡΑΧΑΜΑ ΩΖΑΙ), translated by the Orientalists “the robe, the glorious robe of my strength.” These words were, in their turn, the anagrammatic “blind” of the five mystic Powers represented on the robe of the “resurrected” Initiate after his last trial of three days' trance; the five becoming seven only after his “death,” when the Adept became the full Christos, the full Krishna-Vishnu, i.e., merged in Nirvâna. The E Delphicum, a sacred symbol, was the numeral five, again; and how sacred it was is shown by the fact that the Corinthians, according to Plutarch, replaced the wooden numeral in the Delphic Temple by a bronze one, and this one was transmuted by Livia Augusta into a facsimile in gold.[1381]

It is easy to recognize in the two “Spiritus”—the Greek signs (!) [pg 614] spoken of by Ragon—Âtmâ and Buddhi, or Divine Spirit and its Vehicle, the Spiritual Soul.

The Six or the Senary is dealt with later in this Section, while the Septenary will be fully treated in the course of this Volume in the Section on “The Mysteries of the Hebdomad.”

The Ogdoad or Eight symbolizes the eternal and spiral motion of cycles, the 8, ∞, and is symbolized in its turn by the Caduceus. It shows the regular breathing of the Kosmos presided over by the Eight Great Gods—the Seven from the primeval Mother, the One and the Triad.

Then comes the number Nine, or the triple Ternary. It is the number which reproduces itself incessantly under all shapes and figures in every multiplication. It is the sign of every circumference, since its value in degrees is equal to 9, i.e., to 3 + 6 + 0. It is a bad number under certain conditions, and very unlucky. If number 6 was the symbol of our Globe ready to be animated by a divine Spirit, 9 symbolized our Earth informed by a bad or evil Spirit.

Ten, or the Decad, brings all these digits back to unity, and ends the Pythagorean table. Hence this figure, [Symbol: Circle with line through the middle]—unity within zero—was the symbol of Deity, of the Universe, and of Man. Such is the secret meaning of “the strong grip of the lion's paw, of the tribe of Judah” (the “master mason's grip”) between two hands, the joint number of whose fingers is ten.

If we now give our attention to the Egyptian cross, or the Tau, we may discover this letter, which was so exalted by Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews, to be mysteriously connected with the Decad. The Tau is the Alpha and the Omega of Secret Divine Wisdom, which is symbolized by the initial and the final letters of Thot (Hermes). Thot was the inventor of the Egyptian alphabet, and the letter Tau closed the alphabets of the Jews and the Samaritans, who called this character the “end” or “perfection,” “culmination” and “security.” Hence, Ragon tells us, the words Terminus, “end,” and Tectum, “roof,” are symbols of shelter and security—which is rather a prosaic definition. But such is the usual destiny of ideas and things in this world of spiritual decadence, though at the same time of physical progress. Pan was at one time Absolute Nature, the One and Great All; but when history catches a first glimpse of him, Pan has already tumbled down into a godling of the fields, a rural God; history will not recognize him, while theology makes of him the Devil! Yet his seven-piped [pg 615] flute, the emblem of the seven forces of Nature, of the seven planets, the seven musical notes, of all the septenary harmony in short, shows well his primordial character. So with the cross. Far earlier than the Jews had devised their golden candlestick of the Temple with three sockets on one side and four on the other, and made of number seven a feminine number of generation[1382]—thus introducing the phallic element into religion—the more spiritually-minded nations had made of the cross (as 3 + 4 = 7) their most sacred divine symbol. In fact, circle, cross, and seven—the latter being made a base of circular measurement—are the first primordial symbols. Pythagoras, who brought his wisdom from India, left to posterity a glimpse into this truth. His School regarded number 7 as a compound of numbers 3 and 4, which they explained in a dual manner. On the plane of the noumenal world, the Triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image, “Father-Mother-Son”; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane. Some students, in view of the sacredness of the Tetraktys and the Tetragrammaton, mistake the mystic meaning of the Quaternary. The latter was with the Ancients only a secondary “perfection,” so to speak, because it related only to the manifested planes. Whereas it is the Triangle, the Greek Delta (Δ), which was the “vehicle of the unknown Deity.” A good proof of it lies in the name of the Deity beginning with Delta. Zeus was written Δεύς (Deus) by the Bœotians, thence the Deus of the Latins. This, in relation to the metaphysical conception, with regard to the meaning of the septenary in the phenomenal world; but for purposes of profane or exoteric interpretation, the symbolism changed. Three became the ideograph of the three material Elements—Air, Water, Earth; and four became the principle of all that which is neither corporeal nor perceptible. But this has never been accepted by the real Pythagoreans. Viewed as a compound of 6 and 1, the Senary and the Unity, number 7 was the invisible centre, the Spirit of everything, as there exists no [pg 616] hexagonal body without a seventh property being found as the central point in it, as, for instance, crystals and snow-flakes in so-called “inanimate” nature. Moreover, number seven, they said, has all the perfection of the unit—the number of numbers. For as absolute unity is uncreated, and impartite, hence number-less, and no number can produce it, so is the seven; no digit contained within the Decad can beget or produce it. And it is four which affords an arithmetical division between unity and seven, for it surpasses the former by the same number (three), as it is itself surpassed by the seven, since four is by as many numbers above one, as seven is above four.[1383]

“With the Egyptians number 7 was the symbol of life eternal,” says Ragon, and adds that this is why the Greek letter Z, which is but a double 7, is the initial letter of Zaô, “I live,” and of Zeus, the “father of all living.”

Moreover, figure 6 was the symbol of the Earth during the autumn and winter “sleeping” months, and figure 7 during spring and summer, as the Spirit of Life animated her at that time—the seventh or central informing Force. We find the same in the Egyptian mythos and symbol of Osiris and Isis, personifying Fire and Water metaphysically, and the Sun and the Nile physically. The number of the solar year, 365 in days, is the numerical value of the word Neilos (Nile). This, together with the Bull, with the crescent and the ansated cross between its horns, and the Earth under its astronomical symbol (♁), are the most phallic symbols of later antiquity.

The Nile was the river of time with the number of a year, or year and a day (364 + 1 = 365). It represented the parturient water of Isis, or Mother Earth, the moon, the woman, and the cow, also the workshop of Osiris, representing the T'sod Olaum of the Hebrews. The ancient name of this river was Eridanus, or the Hebrew Iardan, with the Coptic or old Greek suffix. This was the door of the Hebrew word Jared, or source, or descent ... of the river Jordan, which had the same mythical use with the Hebrews that the Nile had with the Egyptians,[1384] it was the source of descent, and held the waters of life.[1385]

It was, to put it plainly, the symbol of the personified Earth, or Isis regarded as the womb of that Earth. This is shown clearly enough; and Jordan—the river so sacred now to Christians—held no more sublime or poetical meaning in it than the parturient waters of the Moon—Isis, or Jehovah in his female aspect. Now, as shown by the [pg 617] same scholar, Osiris was the Sun, and the river Nile, and the year of 365 days; while Isis was the Moon, the bed of that river, or Mother Earth “for the parturient energies of which water was a necessity,” as also the lunar year of 354 days, “the time-maker of the periods of gestation.” All this then is sexual and phallic, our modern scholars seeming to find in these symbols nothing beyond a physiological or phallic meaning. Nevertheless, the three figures 365, or the number of days in a solar year, have but to be read with the Pythagorean key to find in them a highly philosophical and moral meaning. One instance will be sufficient. It can read:

The Earth (3)—animated by (6)—the Spirit of Life (5).

Simply because 3 is equivalent to the Greek Gamma (Γ) which is the symbol of Gaia, the Earth, while the figure 6 is the symbol of the animating or informing principle, and the 5 is the universal quintessence which spreads in every direction and forms all matter.[1386]

The few instances and examples brought forward reveal only one small portion of the methods used to read the symbolical ideographs and numerals of antiquity. The system being of an extreme and complex difficulty, very few, even among the Initiates, could master all the seven keys. Is it to be wondered, then, that the metaphysical gradually dwindled down into the physical Nature; that the Sun, once upon a time the symbol of Deity, became, as æons glided by, that of its creative ardour only; and that thence it fell into a glyph of phallic significance? But surely, it is not those whose method, like Plato's, was to proceed from universals down to particulars, who could ever have begun by symbolizing their religions by sexual emblems! It is quite true, though uttered by that incarnated paradox Éliphas Lévi, that “man is God on Earth, and God is man in Heaven.” But this could not, and never did apply to the One Deity, only to the Hosts of Its incarnated beams, called by us Dhyân Chohans, by the Ancients Gods, and now transformed by the Church into Devils on the left, and into the Saviour on the right side!

But all such dogmas grew out of the one root, the root of Wisdom, which grows and thrives on the Indian soil. There is not an Archangel that could not be traced back to its prototype in the sacred land of Âryâvarta. These prototypes are all connected with the Kumâras who appear on the scene of action by “refusing”—as Sanatkumâra and Sananda—to “create progeny.” Yet they are called the “creators” [pg 618] of (thinking) man. More than once they are brought into connection with Nârada—another bundle of apparent incongruities, yet a wealth of philosophical tenets. Nârada is the leader of the Gandharvas, the celestial singers and musicians; Esoterically, the reason for this is explained by the fact that the Gandharvas are “the instructors of men in the Secret Sciences.” It is they, who “loving the women of the Earth” disclosed to them the mysteries of creation; or, as in the Veda, the “heavenly” Gandharva is a deity who knew and revealed the secrets of heaven and divine truths, in general. If we remember what is said of this class of Angels in Enoch and in the Bible, then the allegory is plain; their leader, Nârada, while refusing to procreate, leads men to become Gods. Moreover, all of these, as stated in the Vedas, are Chhandajas, “will-born,” or incarnated, in different Manvantaras, of their own will. They are shown in exoteric literature as existing age after age; some being “cursed to be reborn,” others incarnating as a duty. Finally, as the Sanakadikas, the seven Kumâras who went to visit Vishnu on the “White Island” (Shveta-dvîpa), the Island inhabited by the Mahâ Yogins—they are connected with Shâka-dvîpa and the Lemurians and Atlanteans of the Third and Fourth Races.

In the Esoteric Philosophy, the Rudras (Kumâras, Âdityas, Gandharvas, Asuras, etc.) are the highest Dhyân Chohans or Devas as regards intellectuality. They are those who, owing to their having acquired by self-development the five-fold nature—hence the sacredness of number five—became independent of the pure Arûpa Devas. This is a mystery very difficult to realize and understand correctly. For we see that those who were “obedient to law” are, equally with the “rebels,” doomed to be reborn in every age. Nârada, the Rishi, is cursed by Brahmâ to incessant peripateticism on Earth, i.e., to be constantly reborn. He is a rebel against Brahmâ, and yet has no worse fate than the Jayas—the twelve great Creative Gods produced by Brahmâ as his assistants in the functions of creation. For the latter, lost in meditation, only forgot to create; and for this, they were equally cursed by Brahmâ to be born in every Manvantara. And still they are termed—together with the rebels—Chhandajas, or those born of their own will in human form.

All this is very puzzling to one who is unable to read and understand the Purânas except in their dead-letter sense.[1387] Hence we find [pg 619] the Orientalists refusing to be puzzled, and cutting the Gordian knot of perplexity by declaring the whole scheme “figments ... of Brâhmanical fancy and love of exaggeration.” But to the student of Occultism, the whole is pregnant with deep philosophical meaning. We willingly leave the rind to the Western Sanskritist, but claim the essence of the fruit for ourselves. We do more: we concede that in one sense much in these so-called “fables” refers to astronomical allegories about constellations, asterisms, stars, and planets. Yet, while the Gandharva of the Rig Veda may there be made to personify the fire of the Sun, the Gandharva Devas are entities both of a physical and psychic character, while the Apsarasas (with other Rudras) are both qualities and quantities. In short, if ever unravelled, the Theogony of the Vedic Gods will reveal fathomless mysteries of Creation and Being. Truly says Parâshara:

These classes of thirty-three divinities ... exist age after age, and their appearance and disappearance is in the same manner as the sun sets and rises again.[1388]

There was a time, when the Eastern symbol of the cross and circle, the Svastika, was universally adopted. With the Esoteric, and for the matter of that exoteric, Buddhist, the Chinaman and the Mongolian, it means the “ten thousand truths.” These truths, they say, belong to the mysteries of the Unseen Universe and Primordial Cosmogony and Theogony.

Since Fohat crossed the Circle like two lines of flame [horizontally and vertically], the Hosts of the Blessed Ones have never failed to send their representatives upon the Planets they are made to watch over from the beginning.

This is why the Svastika is always placed—as the ansated cross was in Egypt—on the breast of the defunct Mystics. It is found on the heart of the images and statues of Buddha, in Tibet and Mongolia. It is the seal placed also on the hearts of the living Initiates, burnt into the flesh for ever with some. This, because they have to keep these truths inviolate and intact, in eternal silence and secrecy to the day they are perceived and read by their chosen successors—new Initiates—“worthy of being entrusted with the ten thousand perfections.” So degraded, however, has it now become, that it is often placed on the headgear of the “Gods,” the hideous idols of the sacrilegious Bhons—the Dugpas or Sorcerers, of the Tibetan borderlands—until found out by a Galukpa, and torn off together with the head of the “God,” [pg 620] though it would be better were it that of the worshipper which was severed from his sinful body. Still, it can never lose its mysterious properties. Throw a retrospective glance, and see it used alike by the Initiates and Seers, as by the Priests of Troy, for many specimens of it have been found by Schliemann on the site of that old city. One finds it with the old Peruvians, the Assyrians, Chaldæans, as well as on the walls of the old-world Cyclopean buildings; in the catacombs of the New World, and in those of the Old (?), at Rome, where—because the first Christians are supposed to have concealed themselves and their religion—it is called Crux Dissimulata.

According to De Rossi the Swastika from an early period was a favourite form of the cross employed with an occult signification which shows the secret was not that of the Christian cross. One Swastika cross in the catacombs is the sign of an inscription which reads “ΖΩΤΙΚΩ ΖΟΤΙΚΗ [? ΖΩΤΙΚΗ], Vitalis Vitalia,” or life of life.[1389]

But the best evidence to the antiquity of the cross is that which is brought forward by the author of The Natural Genesis himself:

The value of the cross as a Christian symbol is supposed to date from the time when Jesus Christ was crucified. And yet in the “Christian” iconography of the catacombs no figure of a man appears upon the Cross during the first six or seven centuries. There are all forms of the cross except that—the alleged starting-point of the new religion. That was not the initial but the final form of the Crucifix.[1390]During some six centuries after the Christian era the foundation of the Christian religion in a crucified Redeemer is entirely absent from Christian art! The earliest known form of the human figure on the cross is the crucifix presented by Pope Gregory the Great to Queen Theodolinde of Lombardy, now in the Church of St. John at Monza, whilst no image of the Crucified is found in the catacombs at Rome earlier than that of San Giulio, belonging to the seventh or eighth century.... There is no Christ and no Crucified; the Cross is the Christ even as the Stauros (Cross) was a type and a name of Horus the Gnostic Christ. The Cross, not the Crucified, is the primary symbol of the Christian Church. The Cross, not the Crucified, is the essential object of representation in its art, and of adoration in its religion. The germ of the whole growth and development can be traced to the cross. And that cross is pre-Christian, is pagan and heathen, in half a dozen different shapes. The Cult began with the cross, and Julian was right in saying he waged a “Warfare with the X”; which he obviously considered had been adopted by the A-Gnostics and Mytholators to convey an impossible significance.[1391] [pg 621]During centuries the cross stood for the Christ, and was addressed as if it were a living being. It was divinized at first and humanized at last.[1392]

Few world-symbols are more pregnant with real Occult meaning than the Svastika. It is symbolized by the figure 6. Like that figure, it points, in its concrete imagery, as does the ideograph of the number, to the Zenith and the Nadir, to North, South, West, and East; one finds the unit everywhere, and that unit reflected in all and every unit. It is the emblem of the activity of Fohat, of the continual revolution of the “Wheels,” and of the Four Elements, the “Sacred Four,” in their mystical, and not alone in their cosmical meaning; further, its four arms, bent at right angles, are intimately related, as shown elsewhere, to the Pythagorean and Hermetic scales. One initiated into the mysteries of the meaning of the Svastika, say the Commentaries, “can trace on it, with mathematical precision, the evolution of Kosmos and the whole period of Sandhyâ.” Also “the relation of the Seen to the Unseen,” and “the first procreation of man and species.”

To the Eastern Occultist the Tree of Knowledge, in the Paradise of man's own heart, becomes the Tree of Life Eternal, and has nought to do with man's animal senses. It is an absolute mystery that reveals itself only through the efforts of the imprisoned Manas, the Ego, to liberate itself from the thraldom of sensuous perception, and see in the light of the one eternal present Reality. To the Western Kabalist, and far more now to the superficial Symbologist, nursed in the lethal atmosphere of Materialistic Science, the chief explanation of the mysteries of the cross is—its sexual element. Even the otherwise spiritualistic modern commentator discerns this feature in the cross and Svastika before all others.

The cross was used in Egypt as a protecting talisman and a symbol of saving power. Typhon, or Satan, is actually found chained to and bound by the cross. In the Ritual, the Osirian cries, “The Apophis is overthrown, their cords bind the South, North, East, and West, their cords are on him. Har-ru-bah has knotted him.”[1393]These were the Cords of the four quarters, or the cross. Thor is said to smite the head of the serpent with his hammer, ... a form of Swastika or four-footed cross.... In the primitive sepulchres of Egypt the model of the Chamber [pg 622]had the form of a cross.[1394] The pagoda of Mathura ... the birth-place of Krishna, was built in the form of a cross.[1395]

This is perfect, and no one can discern in it that “sexual worship,” with which the Orientalists love to break the head of Paganism. But how about the Jews, and the exoteric religions of some Hindû sects, especially the rites of the Vallabâchâryas? For, as said, Shiva-worship, with its Lingam and Yoni, stands too high philosophically, its modern degeneration notwithstanding, to be called a simple phallic worship. But the Tree- or Cross-worship[1396] of the Jews, as denounced by their own Prophets, can hardly escape the charge. The “sons of the sorcerers, the seed of the adulterer,”[1397] as Isaiah calls them, never lost an opportunity of “enflaming themselves with idols under every green tree”[1398]—which denotes no metaphysical recreation. It is from these monotheistic Jews that the Christian nations have derived their religion, their “God of Gods, the One living God,” while despising and deriding the worship of the Deity of the ancient Philosophers. Let such believe in and worship the physical form of the cross, by all means.

But to the follower of the true Eastern Archaic Wisdom, to him who worships in spirit nought outside the Absolute Unity, that ever-pulsating great Heart that beats throughout, as in, every atom of Nature, each such atom contains the germ from which he may raise the Tree of Knowledge, whose fruits give Life Eternal and not physical life alone. For him, the cross and circle, the Tree or the Tau—even after every symbol relating thereto has been referred to and read, one after another—still remain a profound mystery in their Past, and it is to that Past alone that he directs his eager gaze. He cares little whether it be the Seed from which grows the genealogical Tree of Being, called the Universe. Nor is it the Three in One, the triple aspect of the Seed—its form, colour, and substance—that interest him, but rather the Force which directs its growth, the ever mysterious, as the ever unknown. For this vital Force, that makes the Seed germinate, burst open and throw out shoots, then form the trunk and branches, which, in their turn, bend down like the boughs of the Ashvattha, the holy Tree of Bodhi, throw their seed out, take root and [pg 623] procreate other trees—this is the only Force that has reality for him, as it is the never-dying Breath of Life. The Pagan philosopher sought for the cause, the modern is content with only the effects and seeks the former in the latter. What is beyond, he does not know, nor does the modern A-gnostic care; thus rejecting the only knowledge upon which he can with full security base his Science. Yet this manifested Force has an answer for him who seeks to fathom it. He who sees in the cross, the decussated circle of Plato, the Pagan, not the antitype of circumcision, as Christian (St.) Augustine did,[1399] is forthwith regarded by the Church as a heathen; by Science, as a lunatic. This, because, while refusing to worship the God of physical generation, he confesses that he can know nothing of the Cause which underlies the so-called First Cause, the Causeless Cause of this Vital Cause. Tacitly admitting the All-Presence of the Boundless Circle and making of it the Universal Postulate upon which the whole of the Manifested Universe is based, the Sage keeps a reverential silence concerning that upon which no mortal man should dare to speculate. “The Logos of God is the revealer of man, and the Logos (the Verb) of man is the revealer of God,” says Éliphas Lévi in one of his paradoxes. To this, the Eastern Occultist would reply: On this condition, however, that man should be dumb on the Cause that produced both God and its Logos. Otherwise, he becomes invariably the reviler, not the revealer, of the Incognizable Deity.

We have now to approach a mystery—the Hebdomad in Nature. Perchance, all that we may say, will be attributed to coincidence. We may be told that this number in Nature is quite natural—as indeed we say it is—and has no more significance than the illusion of motion which forms the so-called “strobic circles.” No great importance was given to these “singular illusions” when Professor Sylvanus Thompson exhibited them at the meeting of the British Association in 1877. Nevertheless we should like to learn the scientific explanation why seven should ever form itself as a preeminent number—six concentric circles around a seventh, and seven rings within one another round a central point, etc.—in this illusion, produced by a swaying saucer, or any other vessel. We give the solution refused by Science in the Section which follows.

---

Section XI. The Mysteries of the Hebdomad.

We must not close this Part on the Symbolism of Archaic History, without an attempt to explain the perpetual recurrence of this truly mystic number, the Hebdomad, in every scripture known to the Orientalists. As every religion, from the oldest to the latest, reveals its presence, and explains it on its own grounds agreeably with its own special dogmas, this is no easy task. We can, therefore, do no better or more explanatory work than to give a bird's-eye view of all. The numbers, 3, 4, 7, are the sacred numbers of Light, Life, and Union—especially in this present Manvantara, our Life-Cycle; of which number seven is the special representative, or the factor number. This has now to be demonstrated.

If one should ask a Brâhman learned in the Upanishads, which are so full of the Secret Wisdom of old, why “he, of whom seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the Moon-plant,” is Trisuparna, as Bopaveda is credited with saying;[1400] and why the Somapa Pitris should be worshipped by the Brâhman Trisuparna—very few could answer the question; or, if they knew, they would still less satisfy one's curiosity. Let us, then, hold to what the old Esoteric Doctrine teaches. As says the Commentary:

When the first Seven appeared on Earth, they threw the seed of everything that grows on the land into the soil. First came Three, and Four were added to these as soon as stone was transformed into plant. Then came the second Seven, who, guiding the Jîvas of the plants, produced the middle [intermediate] natures between plant and moving living animal. The third Seven evolved their Chhâyâs.... The fifth Seven imprisoned their Essence.... Thus man became a Saptaparna.

A. Saptaparna.

Such is the name given in Occult phraseology to man. It means, as shown elsewhere, a seven-leaved plant, and the name has a great significance in the Buddhist legends. So it had, also, under disguise, in the Greek myths. The T, or τ (Tau), formed from the figure 7, and the Greek letter Γ (Gamma), was, as stated in the last Section, the symbol of life, and of Life Eternal: of earthly life, because Γ (Gamma) is the symbol of the Earth (Gaia)[1401]; and of Life Eternal, because the figure 7 is the symbol of the same life linked with Divine Life, the double glyph expressed in geometrical figures being:

[Symbol: a triangle over a square]

—a Triangle and a Quaternary, the symbol of Septenary Man.

Now, the number six has been regarded in the Ancient Mysteries as an emblem of physical Nature. For six is the representation of the six dimensions of all bodies—the six directions which compose their form, namely, the four directions extending to the four cardinal points, North, South, East, and West, and the two directions of height and thickness that answer to the Zenith and the Nadir. Therefore, while the Senary was applied by the Sages to physical man, the Septenary was for them the symbol of that man plus his immortal Soul.[1402]

J. M. Ragon gives a very good illustration of the “hieroglyphical senary,” as he calls our double equilateral triangle.

The hieroglyphical senary is the symbol of the commingling of the philosophical three fires and three waters, whence results the procreation of the elements of all things.[1403]

The same idea is found in the Indian double equilateral triangle. For, though it is called in that country the sign of Vishnu, yet in truth it is the symbol of the Triad, or Tri-mûrti. For, even in the exoteric rendering, the lower triangle, [Symbol: triangle], with the apex downward, is the symbol of Vishnu, the God of the Moist Principle and Water, Nârâyana being the Moving Principle in the Nârâ, or Waters;[1404] while the [pg 626] triangle, with its apex upward, [Symbol: triangle], is Shiva, the Principle of Fire, symbolized by the triple flame in his hand.[1405] It is these two interlaced triangles, wrongly called “Solomon's Seal”—which also form the emblem of our Society—that produce the Septenary and the Triad at one and the same time, and are the Decad. Whatever way this [Symbol: 6-point star] is examined, all the ten numbers are contained therein. For with a point in the middle or centre, [Symbol: 6-point star with middle dot], it is a sevenfold sign or Septenary; its triangles denote number three, or the Triad; the two triangles show the presence of the Binary; the triangles with the central point common to both yield the Quaternary; the six points are the Senary; and the central point, the Unit; the Quinary being traced by combination, as a compound of two triangles, the even number, and of three sides in each triangle, the first odd number. This is the reason why Pythagoras and the ancients made the number six sacred to Venus, since:

The union of the two sexes, and the spagyrization of matter by triads, are necessary to develop the generative force, that prolific virtue and tendency to reproduction which is inherent in all bodies.[1406]

Belief in “Creators,” or the personified Powers of Nature, is in truth no polytheism, but a philosophical necessity. Like all the other Planets of our system, the Earth has seven Logoi—the emanating Rays of the one “Father-Ray”—the Protogonos, or the Manifested Logos, he who sacrifices his Esse (or “Flesh,” the Universe) that the World may live and every creature therein have conscious being.

Numbers 3 and 4 are respectively male and female, Spirit and Matter, and their union is the emblem of Life Eternal in Spirit on its ascending arc, and in Matter as the ever resurrecting Element—by procreation and reproduction. The spiritual male line is vertical [Symbol: bar]; the differentiated matter-line is horizontal; the two forming the cross or ☩. The 3 is invisible; the 4 is on the plane of objective perception. This is why all the Matter of the Universe, when analyzed to its ultimates by Science, can be reduced to four Elements only—Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen; and why the three primaries, the noumena of the four, or graduated Spirit or Force, have remained a terra incognita, and mere speculations, mere names, to exact Science. Her servants must believe in and study first the primary causes, before they can hope to fathom the nature, and acquaint themselves with the potentialities, of [pg 627] the effects. Thus, while the men of Western learning had, and still have, the four, or Matter, to toy with, the Eastern Occultists and their disciples, the great Alchemists the world over, have the whole septenate to study from.[1407] As those Alchemists have it:

When the Three and the Four kiss each other, the Quaternary joins its middle nature with that of the Triangle [or Triad, i.e., the face of one of its plane surfaces becoming the middle face of the other], and becomes a Cube; then only does it [the Cube unfolded] become the vehicle and the number of Life, the Father-Mother Seven.

Now we are taught that all these earliest forms of organic life also appear in septenary groups of numbers. From minerals or “soft stones that hardened,” to use the phraseology of the Stanzas, followed by the “hard plants that softened,” which are the product of the mineral, for “it is from the bosom of the stone that vegetation is born”;[1408] and then to man—all the primitive models in every kingdom of Nature begin by being ethereal, transparent, films. This, of course, takes place only in the first beginning of life. With the next period they consolidate, and at the seventh begin to branch off into species, all except men, the first of the mammalian animals[1409] in the Fourth Round.

Virgil, versed as every ancient poet was, more or less, in Esoteric Philosophy, sang of evolution in the following strains:

Principio cælum ac terras camposque liquentes

Lucentemque globum Lunæ, Titaniaque astra

Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus

Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.

Inde hominum pecudumque genus vitæque volantum

Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus.[1410]

“First came three, or the Triangle.” This expression has a profound meaning in Occultism, and the fact is corroborated, in Mineralogy, Botany, and even in Geology—as has been demonstrated in the Section on “The Chronology of the Brâhmans”—by the compound number seven, the three and the four, being contained in it. Salt in solution proves this. For when its molecules, clustering together, begin to deposit themselves as a solid, the first shape they assume is that of triangles, of small pyramids and cones. It is the figure of Fire, whence the word “Pyramis”; while the second geometrical [pg 629] figure in manifested Nature is a Square or a Cube, 4 and 6; for, as Enfield says, “the particles of earth being cubical, those of fire are pyramidal”—truly. The pyramidal shape is that assumed by the pines—the most primitive tree after the fern period. Thus the two opposites in cosmic Nature—fire and water, heat and cold—begin their metrographical manifestations, one by a trimetric, the other by a hexagonal system. For the stellate crystals of snow, viewed under a microscope, are all and each of them a double or a treble six-pointed star, with a central nucleus, like a miniature star within the larger one. Says Mr. Darwin—showing that the inhabitants of the sea-shore are greatly affected by the tides:

The most ancient progenitors in the kingdom of the Vertebrata ... apparently consisted of a group of marine animals.... Animals living either about the mean high-water mark, or about the mean low-water mark, pass through a complete cycle of tidal changes in a fortnight.... Now it is a mysterious fact that in the higher and now terrestrial Vertebrata ... many normal and abnormal processes have one or more weeks [septenates] as their periods ... such as gestation of mammals, the duration of fevers.[1411]

The eggs of the pigeon are hatched in two weeks [or 14 days]; those of the fowl in three; those of the duck in four; those of the goose in five; and those of the ostrich in seven.[1412]

This number is closely connected with the Moon, whose Occult influence is ever manifesting itself in septenary periods. It is the Moon which is the guide of the Occult side of terrestrial Nature, while the Sun is the regulator and factor of manifested life. This truth has ever been evident to the Seers and the Adepts. Jakob Böhme, by insisting on the fundamental doctrine of the seven properties of everlasting Mother Nature, proved himself thereby a great Occultist.

But to return to the consideration of the septenary in ancient religious symbolism. To the metrological key of the symbolism of the Hebrews, which reveals numerically the geometrical relations of the Circle (All-Deity) to the Square, Cube, Triangle, and all the integral emanations of the divine area, may be added the theogonic key. This key explains that Noah, the Deluge-Patriarch, is in one aspect the permutation of the Deity (the Universal Creative Law), for the purpose [pg 630] of the formation of our Earth, its population, and the propagation of life on it, in general.

Now bearing in mind the septenary division in divine Hierarchies, as in cosmic and human constitutions, the student will readily understand that Jah-Noah is at the head of, and is the synthesis of the lower cosmic Quaternary. The upper Sephirothal Triad, △—of which Jehovah-Binah (Intelligence) is the left, female, angle—emanates the Quaternary, □. The latter, symbolizing by itself the Heavenly Man, the sexless Adam Kadmon, viewed as Nature in the abstract, becomes a septenate again by emanating from itself the additional three principles, the lower terrestrial or manifested physical Nature, Matter and our Earth—the seventh being Malkuth, the “Bride of the Heavenly Man”—thus forming, with the higher Triad, or Kether, the Crown, the full number of the Sephirothal Tree—the 10, the Total in Unity, or the Universe. Apart from the higher Triad, the lower creative Sephiroth are seven.

The above is not directly to our point, though it is a necessary reminder to facilitate the comprehension of what follows. The question at issue is to show that Jah-Noah, or the Jehovah of the Hebrew Bible, the alleged Creator of our Earth, of man and all upon it, is:

(a) The lowest Septenary, the Creative Elohim—in his cosmic aspect.

(b) The Tetragrammaton or the Adam Kadmon, the “Heavenly Man” of the four letters—in his theogonic and kabalistic aspects.

(c) The Noah—identical with the Hindû Shishta, the human Seed, left for the peopling of the Earth from a previous creation, or Manvantara, as expressed in the Purânas, or the pre-diluvian period as rendered allegorically in the Bible—in his cosmic character.

But whether a Quaternary (Tetragrammaton) or a Triad, the biblical Creative God is not the Universal 10, unless blended with Ain Suph (as Brahmâ with Parabrahman), but a septenary, one of the many septenaries of the Universal Septenate. In the explanation of the question now in hand, his position and status as Noah may best be shown by placing the 3, △, and 4, □, on parallel lines with the cosmic and human principles. For the latter, the old familiar classification is made use of.

As an additional demonstration of the statement, let the reader turn to kabalistic works.

“Ararat = the mount of descent = הר-י-רד, Hor-Jared. Hatho mentions it out of composition by Arath = ארת. Editor of Moses Cherenensis says: ‘By this, they say, is signified the first place of descent (of the ark).’ ” (Bryant's Anal., vol. iv. pp. 5, 6, 15.) Under “Berge,” mountain, Nork says of Ararat: “אררט, for ארת (i.e., Ararat for Arath) earth, Aramaic reduplication.” Here it is seen that [pg 632]Nork and Hatho make use of the same equivalent, in Arath, ארש, with the meaning of earth.[1413]

Noah thus symbolizing both the Root-Manu and the Seed-Manu, or the Power which developed the Planetary Chain, and our Earth, and the Seed-Race, the Fifth, which was saved while the last sub-races of the Fourth, Vaivasvata Manu, perished, the number seven will be seen to recur at every step. It is Noah who, as Jehovah's permutation, represents the septenary Host of the Elohim, and is thus the Father or Creator (the Preserver) of all animal life. Hence the verses of Genesis: “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male [3], and the female [4]; of fowls also of the air by sevens,”[1414] etc., followed by all the sevening of days and the rest.

B. The Tetraktys In Relation To The Heptagon.

Thus number seven, as a compound of 3 and 4, is the factor element in every ancient religion, because it is the factor element in Nature. Its adoption must be justified, and it must be shown to be the number par excellence, for, since the appearance of Esoteric Buddhism, frequent objections have been made, and doubts expressed as to the correctness of these assertions.

And here let the student be told at once, that in all such numerical divisions the One universal Principle—although referred to as (the) one, because the Only One—never enters into the calculations. It stands, in its character of the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Universal Abstraction, entirely by Itself and independent of every other Power whether noumenal or phenomenal. Says the author of the article “Personal and Impersonal God”:

This entity is neither matter nor spirit; it is neither Ego nor non-Ego; and it is neither object nor subject.

In the language of Hindû philosophers it is the original and eternal combination of Purusha [Spirit] and Prakriti [Matter]. As the Advaitîs hold that an external object is merely the product of our mental states, Prakriti is nothing more than illusion, and Purusha is the only reality; it is the one existence which remains in the universe of Ideas. This ... then, is the Parabrahman of the Advaitîs. Even if there were to be a personal God with anything like a material Upâdhi (physical basis of whatever form), from the standpoint of an Advaitî there will be as much reason to doubt his noumenal existence, as there would be in the case of any other object. In their opinion, a conscious God cannot be the origin of the universe, as his Ego would be the effect of a previous cause, if the word conscious conveys but its ordinary meaning. They cannot admit that the grand total of all the states of consciousness in the universe is their deity, as these states are constantly changing, and as cosmic idealism ceases during Pralaya. There is only one permanent condition in the Universe, which is the state of perfect unconsciousness, bare Chidâkâsham (the field of consciousness) in fact.

When my readers once realize the fact that this grand universe is in reality but a huge aggregation of various states of consciousness, they will not be surprised to find that the ultimate state of unconsciousness is considered as Parabrahman by the Advaitîs.[1415]

Although itself entirely out of human reckoning or calculation, yet this “huge aggregation of various states of consciousness” is a septenate, in its totality entirely composed of septenary groups—simply because “the capacity of perception exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter,”[1416] or the seven properties, or states of matter. And, therefore, the series from one to seven, begins in the Esoteric calculations with the first manifested principle, which is number one if we commence from above, and number seven when reckoning from below, or from the lowest principle.

The Tetrad is esteemed in the Kabalah, as it was by Pythagoras, the most perfect, or rather sacred number, because it emanated from the One, the first manifested Unit, or rather the Three in One. And the latter has ever been impersonal, sexless, incomprehensible, though within the possibility of the higher mental perceptions.

The first manifestation of the eternal Monad was never meant to stand as the symbol of another symbol, the Unborn for the Element-born, or the one Logos for the Heavenly Man. Tetragrammaton, or the Tetraktys of the Greeks, is the Second Logos, the Demiurgos.

The Tetrad, as Thomas Taylor thinks, is, however, the animal itself of Plato who, as Syrianus justly observes, was the best of the Pythagoreans; subsists at the extremity of the intelligible triad, as is most satisfactorily shown by Proclus in the [pg 634]third book of his treatise on the theology of Plato. And between these two triads [the double triangle], the one intelligible, and the other intellectual, another order of gods exists, which partakes of both extremes.[1417]...

The Pythagorean world, according to Plutarch,[1418] consisted of a double quaternary.

This statement corroborates what is said about the choice, by the exoteric theologies, of the lower Tetraktys. For:

The quaternary of the intellectual world [the world of Mahat] is T'Agathon, Nous, Psyche, Hyle; while that of the sensible world [of Matter], which is properly what Pythagoras meant by the word Kosmos, is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The four elements are called by the name of rhizômata, the roots or principles of all mixed bodies.[1419]

That is to say, the lower Tetraktys is the root of illusion, of the World of Matter; and this is the Tetragrammaton of the Jews, and the “mysterious deity,” over which the modern Kabalists make such a fuss!

This number [four] forms the arithmetical mean between the monad and the heptad; and this comprehends all powers, both of the productive and produced numbers; for this, of all numbers under ten, is made of a certain number; the duad doubled makes a tetrad, and the tetrad doubled [or unfolded] makes the hebdomad [the septenary]. Two multiplied into itself produces four; and retorted into itself makes the first cube. This first cube is a fertile number, the ground of multitude and variety, constituted of two and four [depending on the monad, the seventh]. Thus the two principles of temporal things, the pyramis and cube, form and matter, flow from one fountain, the tetragon [on earth, the monad, in heaven].[1420]

Here Reuchlin, the great authority on the Kabalah, shows the cube to be “matter,” whereas the pyramid or the triad is “form.” With the Hermesians the number four becomes the symbol of truth only when amplified into a cube, which, unfolded, makes seven, as symbolizing the male and female elements and the element of Life.[1421]

Some students have been puzzled to account for the vertical line,[1422] which is male, becoming, in the cross, a four-partitioned line (four being a female number), while the horizontal (the line of matter) becomes three-divisioned. But this is easy of explanation. Since the middle face of the “cube unfolded” is common to both the vertical and the horizontal bar, or double-line, it becomes neutral ground so to say, and belongs to neither. The spirit line remains triadic, and the matter line two-fold—two being an even and therefore a female number also. Moreover, according to Theon in his Mathematica, the Pythagoreans, who gave the name of Harmony to the Tetraktys, “because it is a diatessaron in sesquitertia,” were of opinion that:

The division of the canon of the monochord was made by the tetraktys in the duad, triad, and tetrad; for it comprehends a sesquitertia, a sesquialtera, a duple, a triple, and a quadruple proportion, the section of which is 27. In the ancient musical notation, the tetrachord consisted of three degrees or intervals, and fourterms of sounds called by the Greeks diatessaron, and by us a fourth.[1423]

Moreover, the quaternary though an even, therefore a female (“infernal”) number, varied according to its form. This is shown by Stanley.[1424] The four was called by the Pythagoreans the Key-Keeper of Nature; but in union with the three, which made it seven, it became the most perfect and harmonious number—nature herself. The four was “the masculine of feminine form,” when forming the cross; and seven is the “Master of the Moon,” for this Planet is forced to alter her appearance every seven days. It is on number seven that Pythagoras composed his doctrine on the Harmony and Music of the Spheres, calling a “tone” the distance of the Moon from the Earth; from the Moon to Mercury half a tone, from thence to Venus the same; from Venus to the Sun one and a half tones; from the Sun to Mars a tone; from thence to Jupiter half a tone; from Jupiter to Saturn half a tone; and thence to the Zodiac a tone; thus making seven tones—the diapason harmony.[1425] All the melody of Nature is in those seven tones, and therefore is called the “Voice of Nature.”

Plutarch explains[1426] that the most ancient Greeks regarded the Tetrad as the root and principle of all things, since it was the number of the elements which gave birth to all visible and invisible created things.[1427] [pg 636] With the brothers of the Rosy Cross, the figure of the cross, or cube unfolded, formed the subject of a disquisition in one of the Theosophic degrees of Peuvret, and was treated according to the fundamental principles of light and darkness, or good and evil.[1428]

The intelligible world proceeds out of the divine mind [or unit] after this manner. The Tetraktys, reflecting upon its own essence, the first unit, productrix of all things, and on its own beginning, saith thus: Once one, twice two, immediately ariseth a tetrad, having on its top the highest unit, and becomes a Pyramis, whose base is a plain tetrad, answerable to a superficies, upon which the radiant light of the divine unity produceth the form of incorporeal fire, by reason of the descent of Juno (matter) to inferior things. Hence ariseth essential light, not burning but illuminating. This is the creation of the middle world, which the Hebrews call the Supreme, the world of the [their] deity. It is termed Olympus, entirely light, and replete with separate forms, where is the seat of the immortal gods, deûm domus alta, whose top is unity, its wall trinity, and its superficies quaternity.[1429]

The “superficies” has thus to remain a meaningless surface, if left by itself. Unity only “illuminating” quaternity, the famous lower four has to build for itself also a wall from trinity, if it would be manifested. Moreover, the Tetragrammaton, or Microprosopus, is “Jehovah” arrogating to himself very improperly the “Was, Is, Will Be,” now translated into the “I am that I am,” and interpreted as referring to the highest abstract Deity; while Esoterically and in plain truth, it means only periodically chaotic, turbulent, and eternal Matter, with all its potentialities. For the Tetragrammaton is one with Nature, or Isis, and is the exoteric series of androgyne Gods such as Osiris-Isis, Jove-Juno, Brahmâ-Vâch, or the Kabalistic Jah-Hovah; all male-females. Every anthropomorphic God, in old nations, as Marcellus Ficin well observed, has his name written with four letters. Thus with the Egyptians, he was Teut; the Arabs, Alla; the Persians, Sire; the Magi, Orsi; the Mahometans, Abdi; the Greeks, Teos; the ancient Turks, Esar; the Latins, Deus; to which John Lorenzo Anania adds the German Gott; the Sarmatian Bouh; etc.[1430]

The Monad being one, and an odd number, the Ancients therefore said that the odd were the only perfect numbers; and—selfishly, perhaps, yet as a fact—considered them all as masculine and perfect, being applicable to the celestial Gods, while even numbers, such as two, four, six, and especially eight, as being female, were regarded as imperfect, and given only to the terrestrial and infernal Deities. Virgil records [pg 637] the fact by saying, “Numero deus impare gaudet.” “The God is pleased with an odd number.”[1431]

But number seven, or the Heptagon, the Pythagoreans considered to be a religious and perfect number. It was called Telesphoros, because by it all in the Universe and mankind is led to its end, i.e., its culmination.[1432] The doctrine of the Spheres ruled by the seven Sacred Planets[1433] shows, from Lemuria to Pythagoras, the seven Powers of terrestrial and sublunary Nature, as well as the seven great Forces of the Universe, proceeding and evolving in seven tones, which are the seven notes of the musical scale.

The Heptad [our Septenary] was considered to be the number of a virgin, because it is unborn [like the Logos or the Aja of the Vedântins]:

Without a father ... or a mother, ... but proceeding directly from the monad, which is the origin and crown of all things.[1434]

And if the Heptad is made to proceed from the Monad directly, then it is, as taught in the Secret Doctrine of the oldest schools, the perfect and sacred number of this Mahâmanvantara of ours.

The Septenary, or Heptad, was sacred indeed to several Gods and Goddesses; to Mars, with his seven attendants, to Osiris, whose body was divided into seven and twice seven parts; to Apollo, the Sun, amid his seven planets, and playing the hymn to the seven-rayed on his seven-stringed harp; to Minerva, the fatherless and the motherless, and others.[1435]

Cis-Himâlayan Occultism with its sevening, and because of such sevening, must be regarded as the most ancient, the original of all. It is opposed by some fragments left by Neo-Platonists; and the admirers of the latter, who hardly understand what they defend, say to us: See, your forerunners believed only in triple man, composed of Spirit, Soul, and Body. Behold, the Târaka Râja Yoga of India limits that division to 3, we, to 4, and the Vedântins to 5 (Koshas). To this, we of the Archaic school ask:

Why then does the Greek poet say that it is not four but seven who sing the praise of the Spiritual Sun?

Ἑπτά με κ.τ.λ.

Seven sounding letters sing the praise of me,

The immortal God, the almighty Deity.

Why again is the triune Iao, the Mystery God, called the “fourfold,” and yet the triadic and tetradic symbols come under one unified name with the Christians—the Jehovah of the seven letters? Why again in the Hebrew Shebâ is the Oath (the Pythagorean Tetraktys) identical with number 7? Or, as Mr. Gerald Massey has it:

Taking an oath was synonymous with “to seven,” and the 10 expressed by the letter Jod, was the full number of Iao-Sabaoth [—the ten-lettered God].[1436]

In Lucian's Auction:

Pythagoras asks, “How do you reckon?” The reply is, “One, Two, Three, Four.” Then Pythagoras says, “Do you see? In what you conceive Four there are Ten, a perfect Triangle and our Oath [Tetraktys, Four!—or Seven in all].”[1437]

Why again does Proclus say:

The Father of the golden verses celebrates the Tetraktys as the fountain of perennial nature?[1438]

Simply because those Western Kabalists who quote the exoteric proofs against us have no idea of the real Esoteric meaning. All the ancient Cosmologies—the oldest Cosmographies of the two most ancient people of the Fifth Root-Race, the Hindû Âryans and the Egyptians, together with the early Chinese races, the remnants of the Fourth or Atlantean Race—based the whole of their Mysteries on number 10; the higher Triangle standing for the invisible and metaphysical World, the lower three and four, or the Septenate, for the physical Realm. It is not the Jewish Bible that brought number seven into prominence. Hesiod used the words, “the seventh is the sacred day,” before the Sabbath of “Moses” was ever heard of. The use of number seven was never confined to any one nation. This is well testified by the seven vases in the Temple of the Sun, near the ruins of Babian in Upper Egypt; the seven fires burning continually for ages before the altars of Mithra; the seven holy fanes of the Arabians; the seven peninsulas, the seven islands, seven seas, mountains, and rivers of India; and of the Zohar; the Jewish Sephiroth of the seven splendours; the seven Gothic deities; the seven worlds of the Chaldæans and their seven Spirits; the seven constellations mentioned by Hesiod and Homer; and all the interminable sevens which the Orientalists find in every MS. they discover.[1439]

What we have to say finally is this: Enough has been brought forward to show why the human principles were and are divided in the Esoteric Schools into seven. Make it four and it will either leave man [pg 639] minus his lower terrestrial elements, or, if viewed from a physical standpoint, make of him a soulless animal. The Quaternary must be the higher or the lower—the celestial or terrestrial Tetraktys; to become comprehensible, according to the teachings of the ancient Esoteric School, man must be regarded as a septenary. This was so well understood, that even the so-called Christian Gnostics adopted this time-honoured system.[1440] This remained for a long time a secret, for though it was suspected, no MSS. of that time spoke of it clearly enough to satisfy the sceptic. But there comes to our rescue the literary curiosity of our age—the oldest and best preserved Gospel of the Gnostics, Pistis Sophia. To make the proof absolutely complete, we shall quote from an authority, C. W. King, the only Archæologist who has had a faint glimmer of this elaborate doctrine, and the best writer of the day on the Gnostics and their gems.

According to this extraordinary piece of religious literature—a true Gnostic fossil—the human Entity is the Septenary Ray from the One,[1441] just as our School teaches. It is composed of seven elements, four of which are borrowed from the four kabalistical manifested worlds. Thus:

From Asiah it gets the Nephesh, or seat of the physical appetites [vital breath, also]; from Jezirah, the Ruach, or seat of the passions [? !]; from Briah, the Neshamah or reason; and from Aziluth it obtains the Chaiah, or principle of spiritual life. This looks like an adaptation of the Platonic theory of the Soul's obtaining its respective faculties from the Planets in its downward progress through their spheres. But the Pistis-Sophia, with its accustomed boldness, puts this theory into a much more poetical shape (§ 282). The Inner Man is similarly made up of four constituents, but these are supplied by the rebellious Æons of the Spheres, being the Power—a particle of the Divine light (“Divinæ particula auræ”) yet left in themselves; the Soul [the fifth] “formed out of the tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their torments”; the Ἀντιμῖμον Πνεύματος, Counterfeit of the Spirit (seemingly answering to our Conscience) [the sixth]; and lastly the Μοῖρα, Fate[1442] [Karmic [pg 640]Ego], whose business it is to lead the man to the end appointed for him: if he hath to die by the fire, to lead him into the fire; if he hath to die by a wild beast, to lead him unto the wild beast—[the seventh]![1443]

C. The Septenary Element In The Vedas.

It Corroborates the Occult Teaching Concerning the Seven Globes and the Seven Races.

We have to go to the very source of historical information, if we would bring our best evidence to testify to the facts enunciated. For, though entirely allegorical, the Rig Vedic hymns are none the less suggestive. The seven Rays of Sûrya, the Sun, are therein made parallel to the seven Worlds, of every Planetary Chain, to the seven Rivers of Heaven and Earth, the former being the seven creative Hosts, and the latter the seven Men, or primitive human groups. The seven ancient Rishis—the progenitors of all that lives and breathes on Earth—are the seven friends of Agni, his seven “Horses,” or seven “Heads.” The human race has sprung from Fire and Water, it is allegorically stated; fashioned by the Fathers, or the Ancestor-sacrificers, from Agni; for Agni, the Ashvins, the Âdityas,[1444] are all synonymous with those “Sacrificers,” or the Fathers, variously called Pitaras (or Pitris), Angirasas,[1445] and Sâdhyas, “Divine Sacrificers,” the most Occult of all. They are all called Deva-putra Rishayah or the “Sons of God.”[1446] The “Sacrificers,” moreover, are collectively the One Sacrificer, the Father of the Gods, Vishvakarman, who performed the great Sarva-medha ceremony, and ended by sacrificing himself.

In these Hymns the “Heavenly Man” is called Purusha, the “Man,”[1447] from whom Virâj was born[1448]; and from Virâj, the (mortal) man. It is Varuna—lowered from his sublime position to be the chief of the Lords—Dhyânîs or Devas—who regulates all natural phenomena, who “makes [pg 641] a path for the Sun, for him to follow.” The seven Rivers of the Sky (the descending Creative Gods), and the seven Rivers of the Earth (the seven primitive Mankinds), are under his control, as will be seen. For he who breaks Varuna's laws (Vratâni, or “courses of natural action,” active laws), is punished by Indra[1449] the Vedic powerful God, whose Vrata, or law or power, is greater than the Vratâni of any other God.

Thus, the Rig Veda, the oldest of all the known ancient records, may be shown to corroborate the Occult Teachings in almost every respect. Its Hymns, which are the records written by the earliest Initiates of the Fifth (our) Race concerning the Primordial Teachings, speak of the Seven Races (two still to come), allegorizing them by the seven “Streams”[1450] and of the Five Races (Panchakrishtayah) which have already inhabited this world[1451] on the five Regions (Panchapradishah)[1452] as also of the three Continents that were.[1453]

It is only those scholars who will master the secret meaning of the Purusha Sukta—in which the intuition of the modern Orientalists has chosen to see “one of the very latest hymns of the Rig Veda”—who may hope to understand how harmonious are its teachings and how corroborative of the Esoteric Doctrines. He must study, in all the abstruseness of their metaphysical meaning, the relations therein between the (Heavenly) Man (Purusha), sacrificed for the production of the Universe and all in it,[1454] and the terrestrial mortal man[1455] before he realizes the hidden philosophy of the verse:

15. He [“Man,” Purusha, or Vishvakarman] had seven enclosing logs of fuel, and thrice seven layers of fuel; when the Gods performed the sacrifice, they bound the Man as victim.

This relates to the three septenary primeval Races, and shows the antiquity of the Vedas, which knew of no other sacrifice, probably, in [pg 642] these earliest oral teachings; and also to the seven primeval groups of Mankind, as Vishvakarman represents divine Humanity collectively.[1456]

The same doctrine is found reflected in the other old religions. It may, it must, have come down to us disfigured and misinterpreted, as in the case of the Parsîs who read it in their Vendîdâd and elsewhere, though without understanding the allusions therein contained any better than do the Orientalists; yet the doctrine is plainly mentioned in their old works.[1457]

Comparing the Esoteric Teaching with the interpretations by Prof. James Darmesteter, one may see at a glance where the mistake is made, and the cause that produced it. The passage runs thus:

The Indo-Iranian Asura [Ahura] was often conceived as sevenfold; by the play of certain mythical [?] formulæ and the strength of certain mythical [?] numbers, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians had been led to speak of seven worlds,[1458] and the supreme god was often made sevenfold, as well as the worlds over which he ruled. The seven worlds became in Persia the seven Karshvare of the earth: the earth is divided into seven Karshvare, only one of which is known and accessible to man, the one on which we live, namely, Hvaniratha; which amounts to saying that there are seven earths.[1459] Parsi mythology knows also of seven heavens. Hvaniratha itself is divided into seven climes. (Orm. Ahr. § 72.)[1460]

The same division and doctrine is to be found in the oldest and most revered of the Hindû scriptures—the Rig Veda. Mention is made therein of six Worlds, besides our Earth: the six Rajamsi above Prithivî, the Earth, or “this” (Idam) as opposed to “that which is yonder” (i.e., the six Globes on the three other planes or Worlds).[1461]

The italics are ours to point out the identity of the tenets with those [pg 643] of the Esoteric Doctrine, and to accentuate the mistake that is made. The Magi or Mazdeans only believed in what other people believed in: namely, in seven “Worlds” or Globes of our Planetary Chain, of which only one is accessible to man, at the present time, our Earth; and in the successive appearance and destruction of seven Continents or Earths on this our Globe, each Continent being divided, in commemoration of the seven Globes (one visible, six invisible), into seven islands or continents, seven “climes,” etc. This was a common belief in those days when the now Secret Doctrine was open to all. It is this multiplicity of localities in septenary divisions, which has made the Orientalists—who have, moreover, been further led astray by the oblivion of their primitive doctrines of both the uninitiated Hindûs and Parsîs—feel so puzzled by this ever-recurring seven-fold number as to regard it as “mythical.” It is this oblivion of first principles which has led the Orientalists off the right track and made them commit the greatest blunders. The same failure is found in the definition of the Gods. Those who are ignorant of the Esoteric Doctrine of the earliest Âryans, can never assimilate or even understand correctly the metaphysical meaning contained in these Beings.

Ahura Mazda (Ormazd) was the head and synthesis of the seven Amesha Spentas, or Amshaspands, and, therefore, an Amesha Spenta himself. Just as Jehovah-Binah-Elohim was the head and synthesis of the Elohim, and no more; so Agni-Vishnu-Sûrya was the synthesis and head, or the focus whence emanated in physics and also in metaphysics, from the spiritual as well as from the physical Sun, the seven Rays, the seven Fiery Tongues, the seven Planets or Gods. All these became supreme Gods and the One God, but only after the loss of the primeval secrets; i.e., the sinking of Atlantis, or the “Flood,” and the occupation of India by the Brâhmans, who sought safety on the summits of the Himâlayas, for even the high table-lands of what is now Tibet became submerged for a time. Ahura Mazda is addressed only as the “Most Blissful Spirit, Creator of the Corporeal World” in the Vendîdâd. Ahura Mazda in its literal translation means the “Wise Lord” (Ahura “lord” and Mazda “wise”). Moreover, this name of Ahura, in Sanskrit Asura, connects him with the Mânasaputras, the Sons of Wisdom who informed the mindless man, and endowed him with his mind (Manas). Ahura (Asura) may be derived from the root ah “to be,” but in its primal signification it is what the Secret Teaching shows it to be.

When Geology shall have found out how many thousands of years ago the disturbed waters of the Indian Ocean reached the highest plateaux of Central Asia, when the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf made one with it, then only will they know the age of the existing Âryan Brâhmanical nation, and also the time of its descent into the plains of Hindûstan, which did not take place till millenniums later.

Yima, the so-called “first man” in the Vendîdâd, as much as his twin-brother Yama, the son of Vaivasvata Manu, belongs to two epochs of Universal History. He is the Progenitor of the Second human Race, hence the personification of the Shadows of the Pitris, and the Father of the Postdiluvian Humanity. The Magi said, “Yima,” as we say “man” when speaking of mankind. The “fair Yima,” the first mortal who converses with Ahura Mazda, is the first “man” who dies or disappears, not the first who is born. The “son of Vîvanghat”[1462] was, like the son of Vaivasvata, the symbolical man, who stood in Esotericism as the representative of the first three Races and the collective Progenitor thereof. Of these Races the first two never died[1463] but only vanished, absorbed in their progeny, and the Third knew death only towards its close, after the separation of the sexes and its “Fall” into generation. This is plainly alluded to in Fargard ii of the Vendîdâd. Yima refuses to become the bearer of the law of Ahura Mazda, saying:

“I was not born, I was not taught to be the preacher and the bearer of thy law.”[1464]

And then Ahura Mazda asks him to make his men increase and “watch over” his world.

He refuses to become the priest of Ahura Mazda, because he is his own priest and sacrificer, but he accepts the second proposal. He is made to answer:

“Yes!... Yes, I will nourish, and rule, and watch over thy world. There shall be, while I am king, neither cold wind nor hot wind, neither disease nor death.”

Then Ahura Mazda brings him a golden ring and a poniard, the emblems of sovereignty.

Thus, under the sway of Yima, three hundred winters passed away, and the earth was replenished with flocks and herds, with men and dogs and birds and with red blazing fires.

Three hundred winters mean three hundred periods or cycles. [pg 645] “Replenished,” mark well; that is to say, all this had been on it before; and thus is proven the knowledge of the doctrine about the successive Destructions of the World and its Life-Cycles. Once the “three hundred winters” were over, Ahura Mazda warns Yima that the Earth is becoming too full, and men have nowhere to live. Then Yima steps forward, and with the help of Spenta Ârmaita, the female Genius, or Spirit of the Earth, makes that Earth stretch out and become larger by one-third, after which “new flocks and herds and men” appear upon it. Ahura Mazda warns him again, and Yima makes the Earth by the same magic power to become larger by two-thirds. “Nine hundred winters” pass away, and Yima has to perform the ceremony for the third time. The whole of this is allegorical. The three processes of stretching the Earth, refer to the three successive Continents and Races issuing one after and from the other, as explained more fully elsewhere. After the third time, Ahura Mazda warns Yima in an assembly of “celestial gods” and “excellent mortals” that upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, and all life will perish. This is the old Mazdean symbolism for the “Flood,” and the coming cataclysm to Atlantis, which sweeps away every Race in its turn. Like Vaivasvata Manu and Noah, Yima makes a Vara—an Enclosure, an Ark—under the God's direction, and brings thither the seed of every living creature, animals and “Fires.”

It is of this “Earth” or new Continent that Zarathushtra became the law-giver and ruler. This was the Fourth Race in its beginning, after the men of the Third began to die out. Till then, as said above, there had been no regular death, but only a transformation, for men had no personality as yet. They had Monads—“Breaths” of the One Breath, as impersonal as the source from which they proceeded. They had bodies, or rather shadows of bodies, which were sinless, hence Karma-less. Therefore, as there was no Kâma Loka—least of all Nirvâna or even Devachan—for the “Souls” of men who had no personal Egos, there could be no intermediate periods between the incarnations. Like the Phœnix, primordial man resurrected out of his old into a new body. Each time, and with each new generation, he became more solid, more physically perfect, agreeably with the evolutionary law, which is the Law of Nature. Death came with the complete physical organism, and with it—moral decay.

This explanation shows one more old religion agreeing in its symbology with the Universal Doctrine.

Elsewhere the oldest Persian traditions, the relics of Mazdeism of the still older Magians, are given, and some of them explained. Mankind did not issue from one solitary couple. Nor was there ever a first man—whether Adam or Yima—but a first mankind.

It may, or may not, be “mitigated polygenism.” Once that both Creation ex nihilo (an absurdity) and a superhuman Creator or Creators (a fact) are made away with by Science, polygenism presents no more difficulties or inconveniences—rather fewer from a scientific point of view—than monogenism does.

In fact, it is as scientific as any other claim. For in his Introduction to Nott and Gliddon's Types of Mankind, Agassiz declares his belief in an indefinite number of “primordial races of men created separately”; and remarks that, “whilst in every zoological province animals are of different species, man, in spite of the diversity of his races, always forms one and the same human being.”

Occultism defines and limits the number of primordial races to seven, because of the seven “Progenitors,” or Prajâpatis, the evolvers of beings. These are neither Gods, nor supernatural Beings, but advanced Spirits from another and lower Planet, reborn on this Planet, and giving birth in their turn in the present Round to present Humanity. This doctrine is again corroborated by one of its echoes—among the Gnostics. In their anthropology and genesis of man they taught that “a certain company of seven Angels,” formed the first men, who were no better than senseless, gigantic, shadowy forms—“a mere wriggling worm” (!) writes Irenæus,[1465] who takes, as usual, the metaphor for reality.

D. The Septenary In The Exoteric Works.

We may now examine other ancient scriptures and see whether they contain the septenary classification, and, if so, to what degree.

Scattered about in thousands of other Sanskrit texts, some still unopened, others yet unknown, as well as in all the Purânas, as much as, if not much more than, even in the Jewish Bible, the numbers seven and forty-nine (7 × 7) play a most prominent part. In the Purânas they are found from the seven Creations, in the first chapters, down to the seven Rays of the Sun at the final Pralaya, which expand into [pg 647] seven Suns and absorb the material of the whole Universe. Thus the Matsya Purâna has:

For the sake of promulgating the Vedas, Vishnu, in the beginning of a Kalpa, related to Manu the story of Narasimha and the events of seven Kalpas.[1466]

Then again the same Purâna shows that:

In all the Manvantaras, classes of Rishis[1467] appear by seven and seven, and having established a code of law and morality depart to felicity.[1468]

The Rishis, however, represent many other things besides living sages.

In Dr. Muir's translation of the Atharva Veda, we read:

1. Time carries (us) forward, a steed, with seven rays, a thousand eyes, undecaying, full of fecundity. On him intelligent sages mount; his wheels are all the worlds.

2. Thus Time moves on seven wheels; he has seven naves; immortality is his axle. He is at present all these worlds. Time hastens onward the first God.

3. A full jar is contained in Time. We behold him existing in many forms. He is all these worlds in the future. They call him “Time in the highest Heaven.”[1469]

Now add to this the following verse from the Esoteric Volumes:

Space and Time are one. Space and Time are nameless, for they are the incognizable That, which can be sensed only through its seven Rays—which are the seven Creations, the seven Worlds, the seven Laws, etc.

Remembering that the Purânas insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time and Space,[1470] and that even the Rabbinical symbol for God is Maqom, “Space,” it becomes clear why, for purposes of a manifesting Deity—Space, Matter, and Spirit—the one central Point became the Triangle and Quaternary—the perfect Cube—hence seven. Even the Pravaha Wind—the mystic and occult force that gives the impulse to, and regulates the course of the stars and planets—is septenary. The Kûrma and Linga Purânas enumerate seven principal winds of that name, which winds are the principles of Cosmic Space.[1471] They are [pg 648] intimately connected with Dhruva[1472] (now Alpha), the Pole-Star, which is connected in its turn with the production of various phenomena through cosmic forces.

Thus, from the seven Creations, seven Rishis, Zones, Continents, Principles, etc., in the Âryan Scriptures, the number has passed through Indian, Egyptian, Chaldæan, Greek, Jewish, Roman, and finally Christian mystic thought, until it landed in, and remained indelibly impressed on, every exoteric theology. The seven old books stolen out of Noah's Ark by Ham, and given to Cush, his son, and the seven Brazen Columns of Ham and Cheiron, are a reflection and a remembrance of the seven primordial Mysteries instituted according to the “seven secret Emanations,” the seven Sounds, and seven Rays—the spiritual and sidereal models of the seven thousand times seven copies of them in later æons.

The mysterious number is once more prominent in the no less mysterious Maruts. The Vâyu Purâna shows, and the Harivamsha corroborates, concerning the Maruts—the oldest as the most incomprehensible of all the secondary or lower Gods in the Rig Veda:

That they are born in every Manvantara [Round], seven times seven (or forty-nine); that, in each Manvantara, four times seven (or twenty-eight) obtain emancipation, but their places are filled up by persons reborn in that character.[1473]

What are the Maruts in their Esoteric meaning, and who those persons “reborn in that character”? In the Rik and other Vedas, the Maruts are represented as the Storm Gods and the friends and allies of Indra; they are the “Sons of Heaven and of Earth.” This led to an allegory that makes them the children of Shiva, the great patron of the Yogîs:

The Mahâ Yogî, the great ascetic, in whom is centred the highest perfection of austere penance and abstract meditation, by which the most unlimited powers are attained, marvels and miracles are worked, the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired, and union with the great spirit of the universe is eventually gained.[1474]

In the Rig Veda the name Shiva is unknown, but the corresponding God is called Rudra, a name used for Agni, the Fire-God, the Maruts being called therein his sons. In the Râmâyana and the Purânas, their mother, Diti—the sister, or complement, and a form of Aditi—anxious [pg 649] to obtain a son who would destroy Indra, is told by Kashyapa, the Sage, that if, “with thoughts wholly pious and person entirely pure,” she carries the babe in her womb “for a hundred years,”[1475] she will have such a son. But Indra foils her in the design. With his thunderbolt he divides the embryo in her womb into seven portions, and then divides every such portion into seven pieces again, which become the swift-moving deities, the Maruts.[1476] These Deities are only another aspect, or a development, of the Kumâras, who are patronymically Rudras, like many others.[1477]

Diti, being Aditi—unless the contrary is proven to us—Aditi, we say, or Âkâsha in her highest form, is the Egyptian seven-fold Heaven. Every true Occultist will understand what this means. Diti, we repeat, is the sixth principle of metaphysical Nature, the Buddhi of Âkâsha. Diti, the Mother of the Maruts, is one of her terrestrial forms, made to represent, at one and the same time, the Divine Soul in the ascetic, and the divine aspirations of mystic Humanity toward deliverance from the webs of Mâyâ, and consequent final bliss. Indra is now degraded, because of the Kali Yuga, when such aspirations are no more general but have become abnormal through a general spread of Ahamkâra, the feeling of Egotism, or “I-am-ness” and ignorance; but in the beginning Indra was one of the greatest Gods of the Hindû Pantheon, as the Rig Veda shows. Surâdhipa the “chief of the gods,” has fallen down from Jishnu, the “Leader of the Celestial Host”—the Hindû St. Michael—to an opponent of asceticism, the enemy of every holy aspiration. He is shown married to Aindrî (Indrânî), the personification of Aindriyaka, the evolution of the element of senses, whom he married “because of her voluptuous attractions”; after which he began sending celestial female demons to excite the passions of holy men, Yogîs, and “to beguile them from the potent penances which he dreaded.” Therefore, Indra, now characterized as “the god of the firmament, the personified atmosphere”—is in reality the cosmic principle Mahat, and the fifth human principle, Manas in its dual aspect—as connected with Buddhi, and as allowing itself to be dragged down by the Kâma principle, [pg 650] the body of passions and desires. This is demonstrated by Brahmâ telling the conquered God that his frequent defeats were due to Karma, and were a punishment for his licentiousness, and the seduction of various nymphs. It is in this latter character that he seeks, to save himself from destruction, to destroy the coming “babe,” destined to conquer him—the babe, of course, allegorizing the divine and steady will of the Yogî, determined to resist all such temptations, and thus destroy the passions within his earthly personality. Indra succeeds again, because flesh conquers spirit.[1478] He divides the “embryo” (of new divine Adeptship, begotten once more by the Ascetics of the Âryan Fifth Race) into seven portions (a reference not alone to the seven sub-races of the new Root-Race, in each of which there will be a Manu,[1479] but also to the seven degrees of Adeptship), and then each portion into seven pieces—alluding to the Manu-Rishis of each Root-Race, and even sub-race.

It does not seem difficult to perceive what is meant by the Maruts obtaining “four times seven” emancipations in every Manvantara, and by those persons who are re-born in that character, viz., of the Maruts in their Esoteric meaning, and who “fill up their places.” The Maruts represent (a) the passions that storm and rage within every Candidate's breast, when preparing for an ascetic life—this mystically; (b) the Occult potencies concealed in the manifold aspects of Âkâsha's lower principles—her body, or Sthûla Sharîra, representing the terrestrial, lower atmosphere of every inhabited Globe—this mystically and sidereally; (c) actual conscious existences, beings of a cosmic and psychic nature.

At the same time, Marut in Occult parlance is one of the names given to those Egos of great Adepts who have passed away, and are known also as Nirmânakâyas; of those Egos for whom—since they are beyond illusion—there is no Devachan, who, having either voluntarily renounced Nirvâna for the good of mankind, or who not yet having [pg 651] reached it, remain invisible on Earth. Therefore are the Maruts[1480] shown, firstly, as the sons of Shiva-Rudra, the Patron Yogî, whose Third Eye (mystically) must be acquired by the Ascetic before he becomes an Adept; then, in their cosmic character, as the subordinates of Indra and his opponents, under various characters. The “four times seven” emancipations have a reference to the four Rounds, and the four Races that preceded ours, in each of which Maruta-Jîvas (Monads) have been re-born, and would have obtained final liberation, if only they had chosen to avail themselves of it. But instead of this, out of love for the good of mankind, which would struggle still more hopelessly in the meshes of ignorance and misery were it not for this extraneous help, they are re-born over and over again “in that character,” and thus “fill up their own places.” Who they are, “on Earth”—every student of Occult Science knows. And he also knows that the Maruts are Rudras, among whom also the family of Tvashtri, a synonym of Vishvakarman, the great Patron of the Initiates, is included. This gives us an ample knowledge of their true nature.

The same for the septenary division of cosmos and the human principles. The Purânas, along with other sacred texts, teem with allusions to this. First of all, the Mundane Egg which contained Brahmâ, or the Universe, was externally invested with seven natural elements, at first loosely enumerated as Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and three secret elements; then the “World” is said to be “encompassed on every side” by seven elements, also within the Egg—as explained:

The world is encompassed on every side, and above, and below, by the shell of the egg (of Brahmâ) [Andakatâha].[1481]

Around the shell flows Water, which is surrounded with Fire; Fire by Air; Air by Ether; Ether by the Origin of the Elements (Ahamkâra); the latter by Universal Mind, or “Intellect,” as Wilson translates. It relates to Spheres of Being as much as to Principles. Prithivî is not our Earth but the World, the Solar System, and means the “broad,” the “wide.” In the Vedas—the greatest of all authorities, though needing a [pg 652] key to be read correctly—three terrestrial and three celestial Earths are mentioned as having been called into existence simultaneously with Bhûmi, our Earth. We have often been told that six, not seven, appears to be the number of spheres, principles, etc. We answer that there are, in fact, only six principles in man; since his body is no principle, but the covering, the shell of a principle. So with the Planetary Chain; therein, speaking Esoterically, the Earth—as well as the seventh, or rather fourth plane, one that stands as the seventh, if we count from the first triple kingdom of the Elementals that begin its formation—may be left out of consideration, being (to us) the only distinct body of the seven. The language of Occultism is varied. But supposing that three Earths only, instead of seven, are meant in the Vedas, what are those three, since we still know of but one? Evidently there must be an Occult meaning in the statement under consideration. Let us see. The “Earth that floats” on the Universal Ocean of Space, which Brahmâ divides in the Purânas into seven Zones, is Prithivî, the World divided into seven principles—a cosmic division, looking metaphysical enough, but, in reality, physical in its Occult effects. Many Kalpas later, our Earth is mentioned, and again, in its turn, is divided into seven Zones according to the law of analogy which guided ancient Philosophers. After which we find on it seven Continents, seven Isles, seven Oceans, seven Seas and Rivers, seven Mountains, seven Climates, etc.[1482]

Furthermore, it is not only in the Hindû scriptures and philosophy that one finds references to the seven Earths, but in the Persian, Phœnician, Chaldæan, and Egyptian cosmogonies, and even in Rabbinical literature. The Phœnix[1483]—called by the Hebrews Onech ענק, from Phenoch, Enoch, the symbol of a secret cycle and initiation, and by the Turks, Kerkes—lives a thousand years, after which, kindling a flame, it is self-consumed; and then, reborn from itself, [pg 653] it lives another thousand years, up to seven times seven,[1484] when comes the Day of Judgment. The “seven times seven,” or forty-nine, are a transparent allegory, and an allusion to the forty-nine Manus, the seven Rounds, and the seven times seven human Cycles in each Round on each Globe. The Kerkes and the Onech stand for a Race Cycle, and the mystical Tree Ababel, the “Father Tree” in the Kurân, shoots out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phœnix; the “Day of Judgment” meaning a minor Pralaya. The author of the Book of God and the Apocalypse believes that:

The Phœnix is ... very plainly the same as the Simorgh of Persian romance; and the account which is given us of this last bird yet more decisively establishes the opinion that the death and revival of the Phœnix exhibit the successive destruction and reproduction of the world, which many believed to be effected by the agency of a fiery deluge [and also a watery one in its turn]. When the Simorgh was asked her age, she informed Caherman that this world is very ancient, for it has been already seven times replenished, with beings different from men, and seven times depopulated:[1485] that the age of the human race in which we now are, is to endure seven thousand years, and that she herself had seen twelve of these revolutions, and knew not how many more she had to see.[1486]

The above, however, is no new statement. From Bailly, in the last century, down to Dr. Kenealy, in the present, these facts have been noticed by a number of writers; but now a connection can be established between the Persian oracle and the Nazarene prophet. Says the author of the Book of God:

The Simorgh is in reality the same as the winged Singh of the Hindûs, and the Sphinx of the Egyptians. It is said that the former will appear at the end of the world ... [as a] monstrous lion-bird.... From these the Rabbins have borrowed their mythos of an enormous Bird, sometimes standing on the earth, sometimes walking in the ocean ... while its head props the sky; and with the symbol, they have also adopted the doctrine to which it relates. They teach that there are to be seven successive renewals of the globe; that each reproduced system will last seven thousand years [?]; and that the total duration of the Universewill be 49,000 years. This opinion, which involves the doctrine of the preëxistence of each renewed creature, they may either have learned during their Babylonian captivity, or it may have been part of the primeval religion which their priests had preserved from remote times.[1487]

It shows rather that the initiated Jews borrowed, and their non-initiated [pg 654] successors, the Talmudists, lost, the sense, and applied the seven Rounds, and the forty-nine Races, etc., wrongly.

Not only their priests, but those of every other country. The Gnostics, whose various teachings are the many echoes of the one primitive and universal doctrine, put the same numbers, under another form, in the mouth of Jesus in the very occult Pistis Sophia. We say more: even the Christian editor or author of Revelation has preserved this tradition and speaks of the seven Races, four of which, with part of the fifth, are gone, and two have to come. It is stated as plainly as can be. Thus saith the angel:

And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings; five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come.[1488]

Who, in the least acquainted with the symbolical language of old, will fail to discern in the five Kings that have fallen, the four Root-Races that were, and part of the Fifth, the one that is; and in the other, that “is not yet come,” the Sixth and Seventh coming Root-Races, as also the sub-races of this, our present Race? Another still more forcible allusion to the seven Rounds and the forty-nine Root-Races in Leviticus, will be found elsewhere, Part III.[1489]

E. Seven In Astronomy, Science, And Magic.

Again, number seven is closely connected with the Occult significance of the Pleiades, those seven daughters of Atlas, “the six present, the seventh hidden.” In India they are connected with their nursling, the war God, Kârttikeya. It was the Pleiades (in Sanskrit, Krittikâs) who gave this name to the God, Kârttikeya being the planet Mars, astronomically. As a God he is the son of Rudra, born without the intervention of a woman. He is a Kumâra, a “virgin youth” again, generated in the fire from the Seed of Shiva—the Holy Spirit—hence called Agni-bhû. The late Dr. Kenealy believed that, in India, Kârttikeya is the secret symbol of the Cycle of the Naros, composed of 600, 666, and 777 years, according to whether solar or lunar, divine or mortal, years are counted; and that the six visible, or the seven actual [pg 655] sisters, the Pleiades, are needed for the completion of this most secret and mysterious of all the astronomical and religious symbols. Therefore, when intended to commemorate one particular event, Kârttikeya was shown, of old, as a Kumâra, an Ascetic, with six heads—one for each century of the Naros. When the symbolism was needed for another event, then, in conjunction with the seven sidereal sisters, Kârttikeya is seen accompanied by Kaumârî, or Senâ, his female aspect. He is then riding on a peacock, the bird of Wisdom and Occult Knowledge, and the Hindû Phœnix, whose Greek relation with the 600 years of the Naros is well known. A six-rayed star (double triangle), a Svastika, a six and occasionally seven-pointed crown, is on his brow; the peacock's tail represents the sidereal heavens; and the twelve signs of the Zodiac are hidden on his body; for which he is also called Dvâdasha-kara, the “twelve-handed,” and Dvâdashâksha, “twelve-eyed.” It is as Shakti-dhara, however, the “spear-holder,” and the conqueror of Târaka, Târaka-jit, that he is shown to be most famous.

As the years of the Naros are, in India, counted in two ways, either by one hundred “years of the gods” (divine years), or one hundred “mortal years,” we can see the tremendous difficulty the non-initiated have in arriving at a correct comprehension of this cycle, which plays such an important part in St. John's Revelation. It is the truly apocalyptic cycle, because of its being of various lengths and relating to various pre-historic events, and in none of the numerous speculations about it have we found any but a few approximate truths.

Against the duration claimed by the Babylonians for their divine ages, it has been urged that Suidas shows the Ancients counting days for years, in their chronological computations. It is to Suidas and his authority that Dr. Sepp appeals in his ingenious plagiarism—which we have already exposed—of the Hindû figures 432. These they give in thousands and millions of years, the duration of their Yugas, but Sepp dwarfed them to 4,320 lunar years,[1490] “before the birth of Christ,” as “foreordained” in the sidereal, in addition to the invisible, heavens, and proved “by the apparition of the Star of Bethlehem.” But Suidas had no other warrant for this assertion than his own speculations, and he was not an Initiate. He cites, as a proof, Vulcan, and shows him reigning 4,477 years, or 4,477 days, as he thinks, or again rendered in [pg 656] years, 12 years, 3 months, and 7 days; he has, however, 5 days in his original—thus committing an error even in such an easy calculation.[1491] True, there are other ancient writers guilty of like fallacious speculations; Calisthenes, for instance, who assigns to the astronomical observations of the Chaldæans only 1,903 years, whereas Epigenes recognizes 720,000 years.[1492] The whole of these hypotheses made by profane writers are due to a misunderstanding. The chronology of the Western peoples, ancient Greeks and Romans, was borrowed from India. Now, it is said in the Tamil edition of Bagavadam that 15 solar days make a Paccham; two Pacchams, or 30 days, make a month of mortals, which is only one day of the Pitara Devatâ or Pitris. Again, 2 of these months constitute a Rûdû, 3 Rûdûs make an Ayanam, and 2 Ayanams a year of mortals, which is only a day of the Gods. It is from such misunderstood teachings that some Greeks have imagined that all the initiated priests had transformed days into years!

This mistake of the ancient Greek and Latin writers became pregnant with results in Europe. At the close of the past and the beginning of the present century, Bailly, Dupuis, and others, relying upon the purposely mutilated accounts of Hindû chronology, brought from India by certain unscrupulous and too zealous missionaries, built quite a fantastic theory on the subject. Because the Hindûs had made of half a revolution of the moon a measure of time; and because a month composed of only fifteen days, of which Quintus Curtius speaks,[1493] is found mentioned in Hindû literature, therefore, it becomes a verified fact that their year was only half a year, when it was not called a day! The Chinese, also, divided their Zodiac into twenty-four parts, and hence their year into twenty-four fortnights, but such computation did not, nor does it, prevent them having an astronomical year just the same as ours. They also have a period of 60 days—the Southern Indian Rûdû—to this day in some provinces. Moreover, Diodorus Siculus[1494] calls “thirty days an Egyptian year,” or that period during which the moon performs a complete revolution. Pliny and Plutarch[1495] both speak of it; but does it stand to reason that the Egyptians, who knew Astronomy as well as any other nation, made the lunar month [pg 657] consist of 30 days, when it is only 28 days with fractions? This lunar period had an Occult meaning surely as well as had also the Ayanam and the Rûdû of the Hindûs. The year of 2 months' duration, and the period of 60 days also, was a universal measure of time in antiquity, as Bailly himself shows in his Traité de l' Astronomie Indienne et Orientale. The Chinamen, according to their own books, divided their year into two parts, from one equinox to the other;[1496] the Arabs anciently divided the year into six seasons, each composed of two months; in the Chinese astronomical work called Kioo-tche, it is said that two moons make a measure of time, and six measures a year; and to this day the aborigines of Kamschatka have their years of six months, as they had when visited by Abbé Chappe.[1497] But is all this any reason for claiming that when the Hindû Purânas say a solar year, they mean one solar day!

It was the knowledge of the natural laws which make of seven the root nature-number, so to say, in the manifested world, or at any rate in our present terrestrial life-cycle, and the wonderful comprehension of its workings, that unveiled to the Ancients so many of the mysteries of Nature. It is these laws, again, and their processes on the sidereal, terrestrial, and moral planes, which enabled the old Astronomers to calculate correctly the duration of the cycles and their respective effects on the march of events; to record beforehand—to prophesy, it is called—the influence which they would have on the course and development of the human races. The Sun, Moon, and Planets being the never-erring time-measurers, whose potency and periodicity were well known, became thus respectively the great ruler and rulers of our little system in all its seven domains, or “spheres of action.”[1498]

This has been so evident and remarkable, that even many of the modern men of Science, Materialists as well as Mystics, have had their attention called to this law. Physicians and Theologians, Mathematicians and Psychologists, have repeatedly drawn the attention of the world to this fact of periodicity in the behaviour of “Nature.” These numbers are explained in the Commentaries in the following words:

The Circle is not the “One” but the “All.”

In the higher [Heaven], the impenetrable Rajah,[1499] it [the Circle] becomes One, because [it is] the indivisible, and there can be no Tau in it.

In the second [of the three Rajamsi, or the three “Worlds”], the One becomes Two [male and female], and Three [with the Son or Logos], and the Sacred Four [the Tetraktys, or Tetragrammaton].

In the third [the lower World or our Earth], the number becomes Four, and Three, and Two. Take the first two, and thou wilt obtain Seven, the sacred number of life; blend [the latter] with the middle Rajah, and thou wilt have Nine, the sacred number of Being and Becoming.[1500]

When the Western Orientalists have mastered the real meaning of the Rig Vedic divisions of the World—the two-fold, three-fold, six- and seven-fold, and especially the nine-fold division—the mystery of the cyclic divisions applied to Heaven and Earth, Gods and Men, will become clearer to them than it is now. For:

There is a harmony of numbers in all nature; in the force of gravity, in the planetary movements, in the laws of heat, light, electricity, and chemical affinity, in the forms of animals and plants, in the perceptions of the mind. The direction, indeed, of modern natural and physical science is towards a generalization which shall express the fundamental laws of all, by one simple numerical ratio. We would refer to Professor Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, and to Mr. Hay's researches into the laws of harmonious colouring and form. From these it appears that the number seven is distinguished in the laws regulating the harmonious perception of forms, colours, and sounds, and probably of taste also, if we could analyze our sensations of this kind with mathematical accuracy.[1501]

So much so, indeed, that more than one Physician has stood aghast at the septenary periodical return of the cycles in the rise and fall of various complaints, and Naturalists have felt themselves at an utter loss to explain this law.

The birth, growth, maturity, vital functions, healthy revolutions of change, diseases, decay and death, of insects, reptiles, fishes, birds, mammals, and even of man, are more or less controlled by a law of completion in weeks [or seven days].[1502]

Dr. Laycock, writing on the “Periodicity of Vital Phenomena,”[1503] records a “most remarkable illustration and confirmation of the law in insects.”[1504]

To all of which Mr. Grattan Guinness remarks very pertinently, as he defends biblical chronology:

And man's life ... is a week, a week of decades. “The days of our years are three-score years and ten.” Combining the testimony of all these facts, we are bound to admit that there prevails in organic nature a law of septiform periodicity, a law of completion in weeks.[1505]

Without accepting the conclusions, and especially the premises of the learned founder of “The East London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions,” the writer accepts and welcomes his researches in [pg 660] the Occult chronology of the Bible; just as, while rejecting the theories, hypotheses, and generalizations of Modern Science, we bow before its great achievements in the world of the Physical, or in all the minor details of material Nature.

There is most assuredly an Occult “chronological system in Hebrew scripture,” the Kabalah being its warrant; moreover there is in it “a system of weeks,” based on the archaic Indian system, which may still be found in the old Jyotisha.[1506] And there are in it cycles of the “week of days,” of the “week of months,” of years, of centuries, and even of millenniums, and more, of the “week of years of years.”[1507] But all this can be found in the Archaic Doctrine. And if the common source of the chronology in every scripture, however veiled, is denied in the case of the Bible; then it will have to be shown how, in face of the six days and the seventh (a Sabbath), we can escape connecting the Genetic with the Paurânic Cosmogonies. For the first “week of creation” shows the septiformity of its chronology and thus connects it with Brahmâ's “seven creations.” The able volume from the pen of Mr. Grattan Guinness, in which he has collected in some 760 pages every proof of this septiform calculation, is good evidence. For if the biblical chronology is, as he says, “regulated by the law of weeks,” and if it is septenary, whatever the measures of the creation week and the length of its days may be, and if, finally, “the Bible system includes weeks on a great variety of scales,” then this system is shown to be identical with all the Pagan systems. Moreover, the attempt to show that 4,320 years, in lunar months, elapsed between the “Creation” and the “Nativity,” is a clear and unmistakable connection with the 4,320,000 years of the Hindû Yugas. Otherwise, why make such efforts to prove that these figures, which are preëminently Chaldæan and Indo-Âryan, play such a part in the New Testament? This we shall now prove still more forcibly.

Let the impartial critic compare the two accounts—the Vishnu Purâna and the Bible—and he will find that the “seven creations” of Brahmâ are at the foundation of the “week of creation” in Genesis. [pg 661] The two allegories are different, but the systems are both built on the same foundation-stone. The Bible can be understood only by the light of the Kabalah. Take the Zohar, the “Book of Concealed Mystery,” however now disfigured, and compare. The seven Rishis and the fourteen Manus, of the seven Manvantaras, issue from Brahmâ's head; they are his “Mind-born Sons,” and it is with them that begins the division of mankind into its Races from the Heavenly Man, the manifested Logos, who is Brahmâ Prajâpati. Speaking of the “Skull” (Head) of Macroprosopus, the Ancient One[1508] (in Sanskrit Sanat is an appellation of Brahmâ), the Ha Idra Rabba Qadisha, or “Greater Holy Assembly,” says that in every one of his hairs is a hidden fountain issuing from the concealed brain.

And it shineth and goeth forth through that hair unto the hair of Microprosopus, and from it [which is the manifest Quaternary, the Tetragrammaton] is his brain formed; and thence that brain goeth forth into thirty and two paths [or the Triad and the Duad, or again 432].

And again:

Thirteen curls of hair exist on the one side and on the other of the skull [i.e., six on one and six on the other, the thirteenth being also the fourteenth, as it is male-female]; ... and through them commenceth the division of the hair [the division of things, of mankind and the races].[1509]

“We six are lights which shine forth from a seventh (light),” saith Rabbi Abba; “thou art the seventh light”—the synthesis of us all—he adds, speaking of Tetragrammaton and his seven “companions,” whom he calls the “eyes of Tetragrammaton.”[1510]

Tetragrammaton is Brahmâ Prajâpati, who assumed four forms, in order to create four kinds of supernal creatures, i.e., made himself four-fold, or the manifest Quaternary;[1511] after that, he is re-born in the seven Rishis, his Mânasaputras, “Mind-born Sons,” who became later, nine, [pg 662] twenty-one, and so on, and who are all said to be born from various parts of Brahmâ.[1512]

There are two Tetragrammatons: the Macroprosopus and the Microprosopus. The first is the absolute perfect Square, or the Tetraktys within the Circle, both abstract conceptions, and is therefore called Ain—Non-being, i.e., illimitable or absolute “Be-ness.” But when viewed as Microprosopus, or the Heavenly Man, the Manifested Logos, he is the Triangle in the Square—the sevenfold Cube, not the fourfold, or the plane Square. For it is written in “The Greater Holy Assembly”:

And concerning this, the children of Israel wished to inquire in their hearts [know in their minds], like as it is written, Exod. xvii. 7: “Is the Tetragrammaton in the midst of us, or the Negatively Existent One?”[1513]

—where they distinguished between Microprosopus, who is called Tetragrammaton, and between Macroprosopus, who is called Ain, the Negatively Existent.[1514]

Therefore, Tetragrammaton is the Three made four and the Four made three, and is represented on this Earth by his seven “Companions,” or “Eyes”—the “seven eyes of the Lord.” Microprosopus is, at best, only a secondary manifested Deity. For “The Greater Holy Assembly” elsewhere says:

We have learned that there were ten (Rabbis) [Companions] entered into (the Assembly) [the Sod, “mysterious assembly or mystery”] and that seven came forth[1515][i.e., ten for the unmanifested, seven for the manifested Universe].

1158. And when Rabbi Schimeon revealed the Arcana, there were found none present there save those [seven] (companions). And Rabbi Schimeon called them the seven eyes of Tetragrammaton, like as it is written, Zach. iii. 9: “These are the seven eyes [or principles] of Tetragrammaton” [—i.e., the four-fold Heavenly Man, or pure Spirit, is resolved into septenary man, pure Matter and Spirit].[1516]

Thus the Tetrad is Microprosopus, and the latter is the male-female Chokmah-Binah, the second and third Sephiroth. The Tetragrammaton is the very essence of number seven, in its terrestrial significance. Seven stands between four and nine—the basis and foundation, astrally, of our physical world and man, in the kingdom of Malkuth.

For Christians and believers, this reference to Zechariah and especially to the Epistle of Peter,[1517] ought to be conclusive. In the old symbolism, “man,” chiefly the Inner Spiritual Man is called a “stone.” Christ is the corner-stone, and Peter refers to all men as “lively” (living) stones. Therefore a “stone with seven eyes” on it can only mean a man whose constitution (i.e., his “principles”) is septenary.

To demonstrate more clearly the seven in Nature, it may be added that not only does the number seven govern the periodicity of the phenomena of life, but that it is also found dominating the series of chemical elements, and equally paramount in the world of sound and in that of colour as revealed to us by the spectroscope. This number is the factor, sine quâ non, in the production of occult astral phenomena.

It is needless to refer in detail to the number of vibrations constituting the notes of the musical scale; they are strictly analogous to the scale of chemical elements, and also to the scale of colour as unfolded by the spectroscope, although in the latter case we deal with only one octave, while both in music and chemistry we find a series of seven octaves represented theoretically, of which six are fairly complete and in ordinary use in both sciences. Thus, to quote Hellenbach:

It has been established that, from the standpoint of phenomenal law, upon which all our knowledge rests, the vibrations of sound and light increase regularly, that they divide themselves into seven columns, and that the successive numbers in each column are closely allied; i.e., that they exhibit a close relationship which not only is expressed in the figures themselves, but also is practically confirmed in chemistry as in music, in the latter of which the ear confirms the verdict of the figures.... The fact that this periodicity and variety is governed by the number seven is undeniable, and it far surpasses the limits of mere chance, and must be assumed to have an adequate cause, which cause must be discovered.

Verily, then, as Rabbi Abba said:

We are six lights which shine forth from a seventh (light); thou [Tetragrammaton] art the seventh light (the origin of) us all.

For assuredly there is no stability in those six, save (what they derive) from the seventh. For all things depend from the seventh.[1518]

The ancient and modern Western American Zuñi Indians seem to have entertained similar views. Their present-day customs, their traditions and records, all point to the fact that, from time immemorial, their institutions, political, social and religious, were, and still are, shaped according to the septenary principle. Thus all their ancient towns and villages were built in clusters of six, around a seventh. It is always a group of seven, or of thirteen, and always the six surround the seventh. Again, their sacerdotal hierarchy is composed of six “Priests of the House” seemingly synthesized in the seventh, who is a woman, the “Priestess Mother.” Compare this with the “seven great officiating priests” spoken of in the Anugîtâ, the name given to the “seven senses,” exoterically, and to the seven human principles, Esoterically. Whence this identity of symbolism? Shall we still doubt the fact of Arjuna going over to Pâtâla, the Antipodes, America, and there marrying Ulûpî, the daughter of the Nâga, or rather Nargal, king? But to the Zuñi priests.

These receive, to this day, an annual tribute of corn of seven colours. Undistinguished from other Indians during the rest of the year, on a certain day they come out—six priests and one priestess—arrayed in their priestly robes, each of a colour sacred to the particular God whom the priest serves and personifies; each of them representing one of the seven regions, and each receiving corn of the colour corresponding to that region. Thus, the white represents the East, because from the East comes the first sun-light; the yellow corresponds to the North, from the colour of the flames produced by the Aurora Borealis; the red, the South, as from that quarter comes the heat; the blue stands for the West, the colour of the Pacific Ocean, which lies to the West; black is the colour of the nether underground region—darkness; corn with grains of all colours on one ear represents the colours of the upper region—of the firmament, with its rosy and yellow clouds, shining stars, etc. The “speckled” corn, each grain containing all the colours, is that of the “Priestess-Mother”—woman containing in herself the seeds of all races past, present and future; Eve being the mother of all living.

Apart from these was the Sun—the Great Deity—whose priest was the spiritual head of the nation. These facts were ascertained by Mr. F. Hamilton Cushing, who, as many are aware, became a Zuñi, lived with them, was initiated into their religious mysteries, and has learned more about them than any other man now living.

Seven is also the great magic number. In the Occult Records the weapon mentioned in the Purânas and the Mahâbhârata—the Âgneyâstra or “fiery weapon” bestowed by Aurva upon his Chelâ Sagara—is said to be constructed of seven elements. This weapon—supposed by some ingenious Orientalists to have been a “rocket” (!)—is one of the many thorns in the side of our modern Sanskritists. Wilson exercises his penetration over it, on several pages in his Specimens of the Hindû Theatre, and finally fails to explain it. He can make nothing out of the Âgneyâstra, for he argues:

These weapons are of a very unintelligible character. Some of them are occasionally wielded as missiles; but, in general, they appear to be mystical powers exercised by the individual—such as those of paralyzing an enemy, or locking his senses fast in sleep, or bringing down storm, and rain, and fire, from heaven.[1519]... They are supposed to assume celestial shapes, endowed with human faculties.... The Râmâyana calls them the sons of Krishâshva.[1520]

The Shastra-devatâs, “Gods of the divine weapons,” are no more Âgneyâstras, the weapons, than the gunners of modern artillery are the cannon they direct. But this simple solution did not seem to strike the eminent Sanskritist. Nevertheless, as he himself says of the armiform progeny of Krishâshva, “the allegorical origin of the Âgneyâstra weapons is, undoubtedly, the more ancient.”[1521] It is the fiery javelin of Brahmâ.

The seven-fold Âgneyâstra, like the seven senses and the seven principles, symbolized by the seven priests, are of untold antiquity. How old is the doctrine believed in by Theosophists, the following Section will tell.

F. The Seven Souls Of The Egyptologists.

If one turns to those wells of information, The Natural Genesis and the Lectures of Mr. Gerald Massey, the proofs of the antiquity of the doctrine under analysis become positively overwhelming. That the belief of the author differs from ours can hardly invalidate the facts. He views the symbol from a purely natural standpoint, one perhaps a [pg 667] trifle too materialistic, because too much that of an ardent Evolutionist and follower of the modern Darwinian dogmas. Thus he shows that:

The student of Böhme's books finds much in them concerning these Seven “Fountain Spirits,” and primary powers, treated as seven properties of Nature in the alchemistic and astrological phase of the mediæval mysteries....

The followers of Böhme look on such matter as the divine revelation of his inspired Seership. They know nothing of the natural genesis, the history and persistence of the “Wisdom”[1522] of the past (or of the broken links), and are unable to recognize the physical features of the ancient “Seven Spirits” beneath their modern metaphysical or alchemist mask. A second connecting link between the theosophy of Böhme and the physical origins of Egyptian thought, is extant in the fragments of Hermes Trismegistus.[1523] No matter whether these teachings are called Illuminatist, Buddhist, Kabalist, Gnostic, Masonic, or Christian, the elemental types can only be truly known in their beginnings.[1524] When the prophets or visionary showmen of cloudland come to us claiming original inspiration, and utter something new, we judge of its value by what it is in itself. But if we find they bring us the ancient matter which they cannot account for, and we can, it is natural that we should judge it by the primary significations rather than the latest pretensions.[1525] It is useless for us to read our later thought into the earliest types of expression, and then say the ancients meant that![1526] Subtilized interpretations which have become doctrines and dogmas in theosophy have now to be tested by their genesis in physical phenomena, in order that we may explode their false pretensions to supernatural origin or supernatural knowledge.[1527]

But the able author of The Book of the Beginnings and of The Natural Genesis does—very fortunately, for us—quite the reverse. He demonstrates most triumphantly our Esoteric (Buddhist) teachings, by showing them identical with those of Egypt. Let the reader judge [pg 668] from his learned lecture on “The Seven Souls of Man.”[1528] Says the author:

The first form of the mystical Seven was seen to be figured in heaven by the seven large stars of the Great Bear, the constellation assigned by the Egyptians to the Mother of Time, and of the seven Elemental Powers.[1529]

Just so, for the Hindûs place their seven primitive Rishis in the Great Bear, and call this constellation the abode of the Saptarshi, Riksha and Chitra-shikhandinas. And their Adepts claim to know whether it is only an astronomical myth, or a primordial mystery having a deeper meaning than it bears on its surface. We are also told that:

The Egyptians divided the face of the sky by night into seven parts. The primary Heaven was sevenfold.[1530]

So it was with the Âryans. One has but to read the Purânas about the beginnings of Brahmâ and his Egg, to see this. Have the Âryans then, taken the idea from the Egyptians? But, as the lecturer proceeds:

The earliest forces recognized in Nature were reckoned as seven in number. These became Seven Elementals, devils [?], or later divinities. Seven properties were assigned to Nature—as matter, cohesion, fluxion, coagulation, accumulation, station, and division—and seven elements or souls to man.[1531]

All this was taught in the Esoteric Doctrine, but it was interpreted and its mysteries unlocked, as already stated, with seven, not two or, at the utmost, three keys; hence the causes and their effects worked in invisible or mystic as well as in psychic Nature, and were made referable to Metaphysics and Psychology as much as to Physiology. As the author says:

A principle of sevening, so to say, was introduced, and the number seven supplied a sacred type that could be used for manifold purposes.[1532]

And it was so used. For:

The seven souls of the Pharaoh are often mentioned in the Egyptian texts.... Seven souls, or principles in man were identified by our British Druids.... The [pg 669]Rabbins also ran the number of souls up to seven: so, likewise, do the Karens of India.[1533]

And then, the author, with several misspellings, tabulates the two teachings—the Esoteric and the Egyptian—and shows that the latter had the same series and in the same order.

[Esoteric] Indian.	Egyptian.
1. Rûpa, body or element of form.	1. Kha, body.
2. Prâna, the breath of life.	2. Ba, the soul of breath.
3. Astral body.	3. Khaba, the shade.
4. Manas, or intelligence.[1534]	4. Akhu, intelligence or perception.
5. Kâma Rûpa, or animal soul.	5. Seb, ancestral soul.
6. Buddhi, or spiritual soul.	6. Putah, the first intellectual father.
7. Âtmâ, pure spirit.	7. Atmu, a divine, or eternal soul.[1535]

Further on, the lecturer formulates these seven (Egyptian) Souls, as (1) The Soul of Blood—the formative; (2) The Soul of Breath—that breathes; (3) The Shade or Covering Soul—that envelopes; (4) The Soul of Perception—that perceives; (5) The Soul of Pubescence—that procreates; (6) The Intellectual Soul—that reproduces intellectually; and (7) The Spiritual Soul—that is perpetuated permanently.

From the exoteric and physiological standpoint this may be very correct; it becomes less so from the Esoteric point of view. To maintain this, does not at all mean that the “Esoteric Buddhists” resolve men into a number of elementary spirits, as Mr. G. Massey, in the same lecture, accuses them of maintaining. No “Esoteric Buddhist” has ever been guilty of any such absurdity. Nor has it been ever imagined that these shadows “become spiritual beings in another world,” or “seven potential spirits or elementaries of another life.” What is maintained is simply that every time the immortal Ego incarnates it becomes, as a total, a compound unit of Matter and Spirit, which together act on seven different planes of being and consciousness. Elsewhere, Mr. Gerald Massey adds:

The seven souls [our “principles”] ... are often mentioned in the Egyptian texts. The moon-god, Taht-Esmun, or the later sun-god, expressed the seven nature-powers that were prior to himself, and were summed up in him as his seven souls [we say “principles”].... The seven stars in the hand of the Christ in Revelation, have the same significance.[1536]

And a still greater one, as these stars represent also the seven keys of the Seven Churches or the Sodalian Mysteries, kabalistically. However, we will not stop to discuss, but add that other Egyptologists have also discovered that the septenary constitution of man was a cardinal doctrine with the old Egyptians. In a series of remarkable articles in the Sphinx, of Munich, Herr Franz Lambert gives incontrovertible proof of his conclusions from the Book of the Dead and other Egyptian records. For details the reader must be referred to the articles themselves.

Böhme, the prince of all the mediæval seers, says:

We find seven especial properties in nature whereby this only Mother works all things [which he calls fire, light, sound (the upper three) and desire, bitterness, anguish, and substantiality, thus analyzing the lower in his own mystic way]; whatever the six forms are spiritually, that the seventh [the body or substantiality], is essentially. These are the seven forms of the Mother of all Beings, from whence all that is in this world is generated.[1537]

And again:

The Creator hath, in the body of this world, generated himself as it were creaturelyin his qualifying or Fountain Spirits, and all the stars are ... God's powers, and the whole body of the world consisteth in the seven qualifying or fountain spirits.[1538]

This is rendering in mystical language our theosophical doctrine. But how can we agree with Mr. Gerald Massey when he states that:

The Seven Races of Men that have been sublimated and made Planetary [?] by Esoteric Buddhism,[1539] may be met with in the Bundahish as (1) the earth-men; (2) water-men; (3) breast-eared men; (4) breast-eyed men; (5) one-legged men; (6) bat-winged men; (7) men with tails.[1540]

Each of these descriptions, allegorical and even perverted in their later form, is, nevertheless, an echo of the Secret Doctrine teaching. They all refer to the pre-human evolution of the “Water-men terrible and bad” by unaided Nature through millions of years, as previously described. But we deny point-blank the assertion that “these were never real races,” and point to the Archaic Stanzas for our answer. It is easy to infer and to say that our “instructors have mistaken these shadows of the Past, for things human and spiritual”; but that “they are neither, and never were either,” it is less easy to prove. The assertion must ever remain on a par with the Darwinian claim that man and the ape had a common pithecoid ancestor. What the lecturer takes for a “mode of expression” and nothing more, in the Egyptian Ritual, we take as having quite another and an important meaning. Here is one instance. Says the Ritual, the Book of the Dead:

“I am the mouse.” “I am the hawk.” “I am the ape.”... “I am the crocodile whose soul comes from men.”... “I am the soul of the gods.”[1541]

The last sentence but one is explained by the lecturer, who says parenthetically, “that is, as a type of intelligence,” and the last as meaning, “the Horus, or Christ, as the outcome of all.”

The Occult Teaching answers: It means far more.

It gives first of all a corroboration of the teaching that, while the human Monad has passed on Globe A and others, in the First Round, through all the three kingdoms—the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal—in this our Fourth Round, every mammal has sprung from Man, if the semi-ethereal, many-shaped creature with the human Monad in it, of the first two Races, can be regarded as Man. But it must be so called; for, in the Esoteric language, it is not the form of flesh, blood, and bones, now referred to as man, which is in any way the Man, but the inner divine Monad with its manifold principles or aspects.

The lecture referred to, however, much as it opposes Esoteric Buddhism and its teachings, is an eloquent answer to those who have tried to represent the whole as a new-fangled doctrine. And there are many such, in Europe, America, and even India. Yet, between the Esotericism of the old Arhats, and that which has now survived in India among the few Brâhmans who have seriously studied their Secret Philosophy, the difference does not appear so very great. It seems centred in, and limited to, the question of the order of the evolution of cosmic and other principles, more than anything else. At all events it is no greater divergence than the everlasting question of the filioque dogma, which since the eighth century has separated the Roman Catholic from the older Greek Eastern Church. Yet, whatever the differences in the forms in which the septenary dogma is presented, the substance is there, and its presence and importance in the Brâhmanical system may be judged by what one of India's learned meta-physicians and Vedântic scholars says of it:

The real esoteric seven-fold classification is one of the most important, if not the most important classification, which has received its arrangement from the mysterious constitution of this eternal type. I may also mention in this connection that the four-fold classification claims the same origin. The light of life, as it were, seems to be refracted by the treble-faced prism of Prakriti, having the three Gunams for its three faces, and divided into seven rays, which develop in course of time the seven principles of this classification. The progress of development presents some points of similarity to the gradual development of the rays of the spectrum. While the four-fold classification is amply sufficient for all practical purposes, this real seven-fold classification is of great theoretical and scientific importance. It will be necessary to adopt it to explain certain classes of phenomena noticed by occultists; and it is perhaps better fitted to be the basis of a perfect system of psychology. It is not the peculiar property of the “Trans-Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine.” In fact, it has a closer connection with the Brâhmanical [pg 673]Logos than with the Buddhist Logos. In order to make my meaning clear I may point out here that the Logos has seven forms. In other words, there are seven kinds of Logoi in the Cosmos. Each of these has became the central figure of one of the seven main branches of the ancient Wisdom-Religion. This classification is not the seven-fold classification we have adopted. I make this assertion without the slightest fear of contradiction. The real classification has all the requisites of a scientific classification. It has seven distinct principles, which correspond with seven distinct states of Prajñâ or consciousness. It bridges the gulf between the objective and subjective, and indicates the mysterious circuit through which ideation passes. The seven principles are allied to seven states of matter, and to seven forms of force. These principles are harmoniously arranged between two poles, which define the limits of human consciousness.[1542]

The above is perfectly correct, save, perhaps, on one point. The “seven-fold classification” in the Esoteric System has never (to the writer's knowledge) been claimed by any one belonging to it, as “the peculiar property of the ‘Trans-Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine’ ”; but only as having survived in that old School alone. It is no more the property of the Trans-, than it is of the Cis-Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine, but is simply the common inheritance of all such Schools, left to the Sages of the Fifth Root-Race by the great Siddhas[1543] of the Fourth. Let us remember that the Atlanteans became the terrible sorcerers, now celebrated in so many of the oldest MSS. of India, only toward their “Fall,” whereby the submersion of their Continent was brought on. What is claimed is simply that the Wisdom imparted by the “Divine Ones”—born through the Kriyâshaktic powers of the Third Race before its Fall and separation into sexes—to the Adepts of the early Fourth Race, has remained in all its pristine purity in a certain Brotherhood. The said School or Fraternity being closely connected with a certain island of an inland sea—believed in by both Hindûs and Buddhists, but called “mythical” by Geographers and Orientalists—the less one talks of it, the wiser he will be. Nor can one accept the said “seven-fold classification” as having “a closer connection with the Brâhmanical Logos than with the Buddhist Logos,” since both are identical, whether the one Logos is called Îshvara or Avalokiteshvara, Brahmâ or Padmapâni. These are, however, [pg 674] very small differences, more fanciful than real, in fact. Brâhmanism and Buddhism, both viewed from their orthodox aspects, are as inimical and as irreconcilable as water and oil. Each of these great bodies, however, has a vulnerable place in its constitution. While even in their esoteric interpretation both can agree but to disagree, once that their respective vulnerable points are confronted, every disagreement must fall, for the two will find themselves on common ground. The “Achilles' heel” of orthodox Brâhmanism is the Advaita philosophy, whose followers are called by the pious “Buddhists in disguise”; as that of orthodox Buddhism is Northern Mysticism, as represented by the disciples of the philosophies of the Yogâchârya School of Âryâsangha and the Mahâyâna, who are twitted in their turn by their co-religionists as “Vedântins in disguise.” The Esoteric Philosophy of both these can be but one if carefully analyzed and compared, as Gautama Buddha and Shankarâchârya are most closely connected, if one believes tradition and certain Esoteric Teachings. Thus every difference between the two will be found one of form rather than of substance.

A most mystic discourse, full of septenary symbology, may be found in the Anugita[1544] There the Brâhmana narrates the bliss of having crossed beyond the regions of illusion:

In which fancies are the gadflies and mosquitoes, in which grief and joy are cold and heat, in which delusion is the blinding darkness, in which avarice is the beasts of prey and reptiles, in which desire and anger are the obstructors.

The sage describes the entrance into and exit from the forest—a symbol for man's life-time—and also that forest itself:[1545]

In that forest are seven large trees [the senses, mind and understanding, or Manas and Buddhi, included], seven fruits, and seven guests; seven hermitages, seven (forms of) concentration, and seven (forms of) initiation. This is the description of the forest. That forest is filled with trees producing splendid flowers and fruits of five colours.

The senses, says the commentator:

Are called trees, as being producers of the fruits ... pleasures and pains ...; the guests are the powers of each sense personified—they receive the fruits above described; the hermitages are the trees ... in which the guests take shelter; the seven forms of concentration are the exclusion from the self of the [pg 675]seven functions of the seven senses, etc., already referred to; the seven forms of initiation refer to the initiation into the higher life, by repudiating as not one's own the actions of each member out of the group of seven.[1546]

The explanation is harmless, if unsatisfactory. Says the Brâhmana, continuing his description:

That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of four colours. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of three colours, and mixed. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of two colours, and of beautiful colours. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of one colour, and fragrant. That forest is filled [instead of with seven] with two large trees producing numerous flowers and fruits of undistinguished colours [mind and understanding—the two higher senses, or theosophically, Manas and Buddhi]. There is one fire [the Self] here, connected with the Brahman,[1547] and having a good mind [or true knowledge, according to Arjuna Mishra]. And there is fuel here, (namely) the five senses [or human passions]. The seven (forms of) emancipation from them are the seven (forms of) initiation. The qualities are the fruits.... There ... the great sages receive hospitality. And when they have been worshipped and have disappeared, another forest shines forth, in which intelligence is the tree, and emancipation the fruit, and which possesses shade (in the form of) tranquillity, which depends on knowledge, which has contentment for its water, and which has the Kshetrajña[1548] within for the sun.

Now, all the above is very plain, and no Theosophist, even among the least learned, can fail to understand the allegory. And yet, we see great Orientalists making a perfect mess of it in their explanations. The “great sages” who “receive hospitality” are explained as meaning the senses, “which, having worked as unconnected with the self are finally absorbed into it.” But one fails to understand, if the senses are “unconnected” with the “Higher Self,” in what manner they can be “absorbed into it.” One would think, on the contrary, that it is just because the personal senses gravitate and strive to be connected with the impersonal Self, that the latter, which is Fire, burns the lower five and purifies thereby the higher two, “mind and understanding,” or the higher aspects of Manas[1549] and Buddhi. This is quite apparent from the [pg 676] text. The “great sages” disappear after having “been worshipped.” Worshipped by whom if they (the presumed senses) are “unconnected with the self”? By Mind, of course; by Manas (in this case merged in the sixth sense) which is not, and cannot be, the Brahman, the Self, or Kshetrajña—the Soul's Spiritual Sun. Into the latter, in time, Manas itself must be absorbed. It has worshipped “great sages” and given hospitality to terrestrial wisdom; but once that “another forest shone forth” upon it, it is Intelligence (Buddhi, the seventh sense, but sixth principle) which is transformed into the Tree—that Tree whose fruit is emancipation—which finally destroys the very roots of the Ashvattha tree, the symbol of life and of its illusive joys and pleasures. And therefore, those who attain to that state of emancipation have, in the words of the above-cited Sage, “no fear afterwards.” In this state “the end cannot be perceived because it extends on all sides.”

“There always dwell seven females there,” he goes on to say, carrying out the imagery. These females—who, according to Arjuna Mishra, are the Mahat, Ahamkâra and five Tanmâtras—have always their faces turned downwards, as they are obstacles in the way of spiritual ascension.

In that same [Brahman, the Self] the seven perfect sages, together with their chiefs, ... abide, and again emerge from the same. Glory, brilliance and greatness, enlightenment, victory, perfection and power—these seven rays follow after this same sun [Kshetrajña, the Higher Self].... Those whose wishes are reduced [the unselfish]; ... whose sins [passions] are burnt up by penance, merging the self in the self,[1550] devote themselves to Brahman. Those people who understand the forest of knowledge [Brahman, or the Self], praise tranquillity. And aspiring to that forest, they are [re-] born so as not to lose courage. Such, indeed, is this holy forest.... And understanding it, they [the sages] act (accordingly), being directed by the Kshetrajña.

No translator among the Western Orientalists has yet perceived in the foregoing allegory anything higher than mysteries connected with sacrificial ritualism, penance, or ascetic ceremonies, and Hatha Yoga. But he who understands symbolical imagery, and hears the voice of Self within Self, will see in this something far higher than mere ritualism, however often he may err in minor details of the Philosophy.

And here we must be allowed a last remark. No true Theosophist, from the most ignorant up to the most learned, ought to claim infallibility for anything he may say or write upon Occult matters. The [pg 677] chief point is to admit that, in many a way, in the classification of either cosmic or human principles, in addition to mistakes in the order of evolution, and especially on metaphysical questions, those of us who pretend to teach others more ignorant than ourselves—are all liable to err. Thus mistakes have been made in Isis Unveiled, in Esoteric Buddhism, in Man, in Magic: White and Black, etc., and more than one mistake is likely to be found in the present work. This cannot be helped. For a large or even a small work on such abstruse subjects to be entirely exempt from error and blunder, it would have to be written from its first to its last page by a great Adept, if not by an Avatâra. Then only should we say, “This is verily a work without sin or blemish in it!” But so long as the artist is imperfect, how can his work be perfect? “Endless is the search for truth!” Let us love it and aspire to it for its own sake, and not for the glory or benefit a minute portion of its revelation may confer on us. For who of us can presume to have the whole truth at his fingers' ends, even upon one minor teaching of Occultism?

Our chief point in the present subject, however, has been to show that the septenary doctrine, or division of the constitution of man, was a very ancient one, and was not invented by us. This has been successfully done, for we are supported in this, consciously and unconsciously, by a number of ancient, mediæval, and modern writers. What the former said, was well said; what the latter repeated, has generally been distorted. An instance: Read the Pythagorean Fragments, and study the septenary man as given by the Rev. G. Oliver, the learned Mason, in his Pythagorean Triangle, who speaks as follows:

The Theosophic Philosophy ... counted seven properties [or principles] in man—viz.:

(1) The divine golden man.

(2) The inward holy body from fire and light, like pure silver.

(3) The elemental man.

(4) The mercurial ... paradisiacal man.

(5) The martial soul-like man.

(6) The venerine, ascending to the outward desire.

(7) The solar man,

They had also seven fountain spirits or powers of nature.[1551]

Compare this jumbled account and distribution of Western Theosophic Philosophy with the latest Theosophic explanations by the [pg 678] Eastern School of Theosophy, and then decide which is the more correct. Verily:

Wisdom hath builded her house,

She hath hewn out her seven pillars.[1552]

As to the charge that our School has not adopted the sevenfold classification of the Brâhmans, but has confused it, this is quite unjust. To begin with, the “School” is one thing, its exponents (to Europeans) quite another. The latter have first to learn the A B C of practical Eastern Occultism, before they can be made to understand correctly the tremendously abstruse classification based on the seven distinct states of Prajñâ or Consciousness; and, above all, to realize thoroughly what Prajñâ is, in Eastern metaphysics. To give a Western student that classification is to try to make him suppose that he can account for the origin of consciousness, by accounting for the process by which a certain knowledge, though only one of the states of that consciousness, came to him; in other words, it is to make him account for something he knows on this plane, by something he knows nothing about on the other planes; i.e., to lead him from the spiritual and the psychological, direct to the ontological. This is why the primary, old classification was adopted by the Theosophists—of which classifications in truth there are many.

To busy oneself, after such a tremendous number of independent witnesses and proofs have been brought before the public, with an additional enumeration from theological sources, would be quite useless. The seven capital sins and seven virtues of the Christian scheme are far less philosophical than even the seven liberal and the seven accursed sciences—or the seven arts of enchantment of the Gnostics. For one of the latter is now before the public, pregnant with danger in the present as for the future. The modern name for it is Hypnotism; used as it is by scientific and ignorant Materialists, in the general ignorance of the seven principles, it will soon become Satanism in the full acceptation of the term.

[pg 679]

---

Part III. Addenda. Science And The Secret Doctrine Contrasted.

The knowledge of this nether world—

Say, friend, what is it, false or true?

The false, what mortal cares to know?

The true, what mortal ever knew?

---

Section I. Archaic, or Modern Anthropology?

Whenever the question of the Origin of Man is offered seriously to an unbiassed, honest, and earnest man of Science, the answer comes invariably: “We do not know.” De Quatrefages with his agnostic attitude is one of such Anthropologists.

This does not imply that the rest of the men of Science are neither fair-minded nor honest, as such a remark would be questionably discreet. But it is estimated that 75 per cent. of European Scientists are Evolutionists. Are these representatives of Modern Thought all guilty of flagrant misrepresentation of the facts? No one says this—but there are a few very exceptional cases. However, the Scientists, in their anti-clerical enthusiasm and in despair of any alternative theory to Darwinism except that of “special creation,” are unconsciously insincere in “forcing” a hypothesis the elasticity of which is inadequate, and which resents the severe strain to which it is now subjected. Insincerity on the same subject is, however, patent in ecclesiastical circles. Bishop Temple has come forward as a thorough-going supporter of Darwinism in his Religion and Science. This clerical writer goes so far as to regard Matter—after it has received its “primal impress”—as the unaided evolver of all cosmic phenomena. This view only differs from that of Hæckel, in postulating a hypothetical Deity at “the back of beyont,” a Deity which stands entirely aloof from the interplay of forces. Such a metaphysical entity is no more the Theological [pg 682] God than is that of Kant. Bishop Temple's truce with materialistic Science is, in our opinion, impolitic—apart from the fact that it involves a total rejection of the biblical cosmogony. In the presence of this display of flunkeyism before the materialism of our “learned” age, we Occultists can but smile. But how about loyalty to the Master such theological truants profess to serve—Christ, and Christendom at large?

However, we have no desire, for the present, to throw down the gauntlet to the clergy, our business being now with materialistic Science alone. The latter, in the person of its best representatives, answers to our question, “We do not know;” yet the majority of them act as though Omniscience were their heirloom, and they knew all things.

For, indeed, this negative reply has not prevented the majority of Scientists from speculating on the question, each seeking to have his own special theory accepted to the exclusion of all others. Thus, from Maillet in 1748, down to Hæckel in 1870, theories on the origin of the human race have differed as much as the personalities of their inventors themselves. Buffon, Bory de St. Vincent, Lamarck, E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Gaudry, Naudin, Wallace, Darwin, Owen, Hæckel, Filippi, Vogt, Huxley, Agassiz, etc., each has evolved a more or less scientific hypothesis of genesis. De Quatrefages arranges these theories in two principal groups—one based on a rapid, and the other on a very gradual transmutation; the former favouring a new type (man) produced by a being entirely different, the latter teaching the evolution of man by progressive differentiations.

Strangely enough, it is from the most scientific of these authorities that has emanated the most unscientific of all the theories upon the subject of the Origin of Man. This is now so evident, that the hour is rapidly approaching when the current teaching about the descent of man from an ape-like mammal will be regarded with less respect than the formation of Adam out of clay, and of Eve out of Adam's rib. For

It is evident, especially after the most fundamental principles of Darwinism, that an organized being cannot be a descendant of another whose development is in an inverse order to its own. Consequently, in accordance with these principles, man cannot be considered as the descendant of any simian type whatever.[1553]

Lucae's argument versus the Ape-theory, based on the different flexures of the bones constituting the axis of the skull in the cases of man and the anthropoids, is fairly discussed by Schmidt. He admits that:

The ape as he grows becomes more bestial; man ... more human—

and seems, indeed, to hesitate a moment before he passes on:

This flexure of the cranial axis may, therefore, still be emphasized as a human character, in contradistinction to the apes; the peculiar characteristic of an order can scarcely be elicited from it; and especially as to the doctrine of descent, this circumstance seems in no way decisive.[1554]

The writer is evidently not a little disquieted by his own argument. He assures us that it upsets any possibility of the present apes having been the progenitors of mankind. But does it not also negative the bare possibility of the man and the anthropoid having had a common—though, so far, an absolutely theoretical—ancestor?

Even “Natural Selection” itself is with every day more threatened. The deserters from the Darwinian camp are many, and those who were at one time its most ardent disciples are, owing to new discoveries, slowly but steadily preparing to turn over a new leaf. In the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society for October, 1886, we may read as follows:

Physiological Selection.—Mr. G. J. Romanes finds certain difficulties in regarding natural selection as a theory for the origin of species, as it is rather a theory of the origin of adaptive structures. He proposes to replace it by what he calls physiological selection, or segregation of the fit. His view is based on the extreme sensitiveness of the reproductive system to small changes in the conditions of life, and he thinks that variations in the direction of greater or less sterility must frequently occur in wild species. If the variation be such that the reproductive system, while showing some degree of sterility with the parent form, continues to be fertile within the limits of the varietal form, the variation would neither be swamped by intercrossing nor die out on account of sterility. When a variation of this kind occurs, the physiological barrier must divide the species into two parts. The author, in fine, regards mutual sterility, not as one of the effects of specific differentiation, but as the cause of it.[1555]

An attempt is made to show the above to be a complement of, and sequence to, the Darwinian theory. This is a clumsy attempt at best. [pg 684] The public will soon be asked to believe that Mr. C. Dixon's Evolution without Natural Selection is also Darwinism—expanded, as the author certainly claims it to be!

But it is like splitting the body of a man into three pieces, and then maintaining that each piece is the identical man he was before, only—expanded. Yet the author states:

Let it be clearly understood that not one single syllable in the foregoing pages has been written antagonistic to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. All I have done is to explain certain phenomena ... the more one studies Darwin's works, the more one is convinced of the truth of his hypothesis [! !].[1556]

And before this, he alludes to:

The overwhelming array of facts which Darwin gave in support of his hypothesis, and which triumphantly carried the theory of Natural Selection over all obstacles and objections.[1557]

This does not prevent the learned author, however, from upsetting this theory as “triumphantly,” and from even openly calling his work Evolution without Natural Selection, or, in so many words, with Darwin's fundamental idea knocked to atoms in it.

As to Natural Selection itself, the utmost misconception prevails among many present-day thinkers, who tacitly accept the conclusions of Darwinism. It is, for instance, a mere device of rhetoric to credit Natural Selection with the power of originating species. Natural Selection is no entity; it is merely a convenient phrase for describing the mode in which the survival of the fit and the elimination of the unfit among organisms are brought about by the Struggle for Existence. Every group of organisms tends to multiply beyond the means of subsistence; the constant battle for life—the “struggle to obtain enough to eat and to escape being eaten” added to the environmental conditions—necessitates a perpetual weeding out of the unfit. The élite of any stock, thus sorted out, propagate the species and transmit their organic characteristics to their descendants. All useful variations are thus perpetuated, and a progressive improvement is effected. But Natural Selection—in the writer's humble opinion, “Selection, as a Power”—is in reality a pure myth; especially when it is resorted to as an explanation of the Origin of Species. It is merely a representative term expressive of the manner in which “useful variations” are stereotyped when produced. Of itself, “it” can produce—nothing, and only operates on the rough material presented to “it.” The real question at issue is: What cause—combined with other secondary causes—produces [pg 685] the “variations” in the organisms themselves? Many of these secondary causes are purely physical—climatic, dietary, etc. Very well. But beyond the secondary aspects of organic evolution, a deeper principle has to be sought for. The Materialist's “spontaneous variations,” and “accidental divergencies” are self-contradictory terms in a universe of “Matter, Force and Necessity.” Mere variability of type, apart from the supervisory presence of a quasi-intelligent impulse, is powerless to account for the stupendous complexities and marvels of the human body, for instance. The insufficiency of the Darwinists' mechanical theory has been exposed at length by Dr. Von Hartmann among other purely negative thinkers. It is an abuse of the reader's intelligence to write, as does Hæckel, of blind indifferent cells, “arranging themselves into organs.” The Esoteric solution of the origin of animal species is given elsewhere.

Those purely secondary causes of differentiation, grouped under the head of sexual selection, natural selection, climate, isolation, etc., mislead the Western Evolutionist and offer no real explanation whatever of the “whence” of the “ancestral types” which served as the starting point for physical development. The truth is that the differentiating “causes” known to Modern Science only come into operation after the physicalization of the primeval animal root-types out of the astral. Darwinism only meets Evolution at its midway point—that is to say, when astral evolution has given place to the play of the ordinary physical forces with which our present senses acquaint us. But even here the Darwinian Theory, even with the “expansions” recently attempted, is inadequate to meet the facts of the case. The cause underlying physiological variation in species—one to which all other laws are subordinate and secondary—is a sub-conscious intelligence pervading matter, ultimately traceable to a reflection of the Divine and Dhyân-Chohanic wisdom.[1558] A not altogether dissimilar conclusion has been arrived at by so well known a thinker as Ed. von Hartmann, who, despairing of the efficacy of unaided Natural Selection, regards Evolution as being intelligently guided by the Unconscious—the Cosmic Logos of Occultism. But the latter acts only mediately through Fohat, or Dhyân-Chohanic energy, and not quite in the direct manner which the great pessimist describes.

It is this divergence among men of Science, their mutual, and often their self-contradictions, that gives the writer of the present volumes the courage to bring to light other and older teachings—if only as hypotheses for future scientific appreciation. So evident, even to the humble recorder of this archaic teaching, though not in any way very learned in Modern Sciences, are the scientific fallacies and gaps, that she has determined to touch upon all these, in order to place the two teachings on parallel lines. For Occultism, it is a question of self-defence, and nothing more.

So far, The Secret Doctrine has concerned itself with metaphysics, pure and simple. It has now landed on Earth, and finds itself within the domain of physical Science and practical Anthropology, or those branches of study which materialistic Naturalists claim as their rightful domain, coolly asserting, furthermore, that the higher and more perfect the working of the Soul, the more amenable it is to the analysis and explanations of the Zoologist and the Physiologist alone.[1559] This stupendous pretension comes from one, who, to prove his pithecoid descent, has not hesitated to include the Lemuridæ among the ancestors of man; these have been promoted by him to the rank of Prosimiæ, indeciduate mammals, to which he very incorrectly contributes a decidua and a discoidal placenta.[1560] For this Hæckel was taken severely to task by de Quatrefages, and criticised by his own brother Materialists and Agnostics—Virchow and du Bois-Reymond, as great, if not greater authorities than himself.[1561]

Such opposition notwithstanding, Hæckel's wild theories are, to this day, still called by some scientific and logical. The mysterious nature of Consciousness, of Soul, of Spirit in Man being now explained as a mere advance on the functions of the protoplasmic molecules of the lively Protista, and the gradual evolution and growth of human mind and “social instincts” toward civilization having to be traced back to their origin in the civilization of ants, bees, and other creatures—the chances left for an impartial hearing of the doctrines of Archaic Wisdom are few indeed. The educated profane are told that:

The social instincts of the lower animals have, of late, been regarded for various reasons as clearly the origin of morals, even of those of man [?], ...

—and that our divine consciousness, our soul, intellect, and aspirations have worked their “way up from the lower stages of the simple cell-soul” of the gelatinous Bathybius—[1562] and they seem to believe it. For such men, the Metaphysics of Occultism must produce the effect that our grandest oratorios produce on the Chinaman—sounds that jar upon their nerves.

Yet, are our Esoteric teachings about “Angels,” the first three pre-animal human Races, and the downfall of the Fourth, on a lower level of fiction and self-delusion than the Hæckelian “plastidular,” or the inorganic “molecular souls of the Protista”? Between the evolution of the spiritual nature of man from the above amœbian souls, and the alleged development of his physical frame from the protoplastic dweller in the ocean slime, there is an abyss which will not easily be crossed by any man in the full possession of his intellectual faculties. Physical Evolution, as Modern Science teaches it, is a subject for open controversy; spiritual and moral development on the same lines is the insane dream of a crass Materialism.

Furthermore, past as well as present daily experience teaches that no truth has ever been accepted by learned bodies unless it has dovetailed with the habitually preconceived ideas of their professors. “The crown of the innovator is a crown of thorns”—said Geoffroy St. Hilaire. It is only that which fits in with popular hobbies and accepted notions that as a general rule gains ground. Hence the triumph of the Hæckelian ideas, notwithstanding that they are proclaimed by Virchow, du Bois-Reymond, and others as the “testimonium paupertatis of Natural Science.”

Diametrically opposed as may be the materialism of the German Evolutionists to the spiritual conceptions of Esoteric Philosophy, radically inconsistent as is their accepted anthropological system with the real facts of Nature—the pseudo-idealistic bias now colouring English thought is almost more pernicious. The pure Materialistic Doctrine admits of a direct refutation and an appeal to the logic of facts. The Idealism of the present day, not only contrives to absorb, on the one hand, the basic negations of Atheism, but lands its votaries in a tangle of unreality, which culminates in a practical Nihilism. Argument with such writers is almost out of the question. Idealists, [pg 688] therefore, will be still more antagonistic than even the Materialists to the Occult teachings now given. But as no worse fate can befall the exponents of Esoteric Anthropogenesis at the hands of their foes than being openly called by their old and time-honoured names of “lunatics” and “ignoramuses,” the present archaic theories may be safely added to the many modern speculations, and bide their time for their full or even partial recognition. Only, as the very existence of these archaic theories will probably be denied, we have to give our best proofs and stand by them to the bitter end.

In our race and generation the one “temple in the universe” is in rare cases—within us; but our body and mind have been too defiled by both “sin” and “science” to be outwardly anything better now than a fane of iniquity and error. And here our mutual position—that of Occultism and Modern Science—ought to be once for all defined.

We, Theosophists, are willing to bow before such men of learning as the late Prof. Balfour Stewart, Messrs. Crookes, de Quatrefages, Wallace, Agassiz, Butlerof, and others, though, from the stand-point of the Esoteric Philosophy, we may not agree with all they say. But nothing will make us consent to even a show of respect for the opinions of such other men of Science as Hæckel, Carl Vogt, or Ludwig Büchner, in Germany, or even Mr. Huxley and his co-thinkers in Materialism in England—the colossal erudition of the first named, notwithstanding. Such men are simply the intellectual and moral murderers of future generations; especially Hæckel, whose crass Materialism often rises to the height of idiotic naivetés in his reasonings. One has but to read his Pedigree of Man, and Other Essays (Aveling's Translation) to feel a desire that, in the words of Job, his remembrance should perish from the Earth, and that he “shall have no name in the streets.” Hear the creator of the mythical Sozura deriding the idea of the origin of the human race “as a supernatural [?] phenomenon,” as one—

That could not result from simple mechanical causes, from physical and chemical forces, but requires the direct intervention of a creative personality.... Now the central point of Darwin's teaching ... lies in this, that it demonstrates the simplest mechanical causes, purely physico-chemical phenomena of nature, as wholly sufficient to explain the highest and most difficult problems. Darwin puts in the place of a conscious creative force, building and arranging the organic bodies of animals and plants on a designed plan, a series of natural forces working blindly (as we say) without aim, without design. In place of an arbitrary act of operation, we have a necessary law of Evolution.... [So had Manu and Kapila, and, at [pg 689]the same time, guiding, conscious and intelligent Powers]. Darwin very wisely ... had put on one side the question as to the first appearance of life. But very soon that consequence, so full of meaning, so wide-reaching, was openly discussed by able and brave scientific men, such as Huxley, Carl Vogt, Ludwig Büchner. A mechanical origin of the earliest living form was held as the necessary sequence to Darwin's teaching ... we are at present only concerned with a single consequence of the theory, the natural origin of the human race through almighty Evolution.[1563]

To this, unabashed by such a scientific farrago, Occultism replies: In the course of Evolution, when the physical triumphed over the spiritual and mental evolution, and nearly crushed it under its weight, the great gift of Kriyâshakti remained the heirloom of only a few elect men in every age. Spirit strove vainly to manifest itself in its fulness in purely organic forms (as has been explained in Part I of this Volume), and the faculty, which had been a natural attribute in the early humanity of the Third Race, became one of the class regarded as simply phenomenal by Spiritualists and Occultists, and as scientifically impossible by Materialists.

In our modern day the mere assertion that there exists a power which can create human forms—ready-made Sheaths within which can incarnate the conscious Monads or Nirmânakâyas of past Manvantaras—is, of course, absurd, ridiculous! That which is regarded as quite natural, on the other hand, is the production of a Frankenstein's monster, plus moral consciousness, religious aspirations, genius, and a feeling of his own immortal nature within himself—by “physico-chemical forces,” guided by blind “Almighty Evolution.” As to the origin of that man, not ex nihilo, cemented by a little red clay, but from a living divine Entity consolidating the Astral Body with surrounding materials—such a conception is too absurd even to be mentioned, in the opinion of the Materialists. Nevertheless, Occultists and Theosophists are ready to have their claims and theories compared as to their intrinsic value and probability with those of the modern Evolutionists—however unscientific and superstitious these theories may at the first glance appear. Hence the Esoteric teaching is absolutely opposed to the Darwinian evolution, as applied to man, and partially so with regard to other species.

It would be interesting to obtain a glimpse of the mental representation of Evolution in the scientific brain of a Materialist. What is Evolution? If asked to define the full and complete meaning of the [pg 690] term, neither Huxley nor Hæckel will be able to do so any better than does Webster:

The act of unfolding; the process of growth, development; as the evolution of a flower from a bud, or an animal from the egg.

Yet the bud must be traced through its parent-plant to the seed, and the egg to the animal or bird that laid it; or at any rate to the speck of protoplasm from which it expanded and grew. And both the seed and the speck must have the latent potentialities in them for the reproduction and gradual development, the unfolding of the thousand and one forms or phases of evolution, through which they must pass before the flower or the animal is fully developed? Hence, the future plan—if not a design—must be there. Moreover, that seed has to be traced, and its nature ascertained. Have the Darwinians been successful in this? Or will the Moneron be cast in our teeth? But this atom of the Watery Abysses is not homogeneous matter; and there must be something or somebody that had moulded and cast it into being.

Here Science is once more silent. But since there is no self-consciousness as yet in speck, seed, or germ, according to both Materialists and Psychologists of the modern school—Occultists agreeing in this for once with their natural enemies—what is it that guides the force or forces so unerringly in this process of Evolution? “Blind force”? As well call “blind” the brain which evolved in Hæckel his Pedigree of Man and other lucubrations. We can easily conceive that the said brain lacks an important centre or two; for whoever knows anything of the anatomy of the human, or even of any animal, body, and is still an Atheist and a Materialist, must be “hopelessly insane,” according to Lord Herbert, who rightly sees in the frame of man's body and the coherence of its parts, something so strange and paradoxical that he holds it to be the “greatest miracle of nature.” Blind forces and “no design” in anything under the Sun! When no sane man of Science would hesitate to say that, even from the little he knows and has hitherto discovered of the forces at work in Kosmos, he sees very plainly that every part, every speck and atom, are in harmony with their fellow atoms, and these with the whole, each having its distinct mission throughout the life-cycle. But, fortunately, the greatest, the most eminent Thinkers and Scientists of the day are now beginning to rise against this “Pedigree,” and even against Darwin's Natural Selection theory, though its author had never, probably, contemplated such widely stretched conclusions. The Russian scientist N. T. Danilevsky, [pg 691] in his remarkable work, Darwinism, a Critical Investigation of the Theory, upsets such Darwinism completely and without appeal, and so does de Quatrefages in his last work. Our readers are recommended to examine the learned paper by Dr. Bourges, a member of the Paris Anthropological Society, read by its author at a recent meeting of that society and called “Evolutionary Psychology; the Evolution of Spirit, etc.” In it he completely reconciles the two teachings—namely of physical and spiritual evolution. He explains the origin of the variety of organic forms—which are made to fit their environments with such evidently intelligent design—by the existence and the mutual help and interaction of two Principles in manifested Nature, the inner conscious Principle adapting itself to physical Nature and the innate potentialities of the latter. Thus the French scientist has to return to our old friend Archæus, or the Life-Principle—without naming it—as Dr. Richardson has done in England in his Nerve-Force. The same idea was recently developed in Germany by Baron Hellenbach, in his remarkable work, Individuality in the Light of Biology and Modern Philosophy.

We find the same conclusions arrived at in yet another excellent volume by a deep thinking Russian, N. N. Strachof, who says in his Fundamental Conceptions of Psychology and Physiology:

The most clear, as the most familiar, type of development may be found in our own mental or physical evolution, which has served others as a model to follow.... If organisms are entities ... then it is only just to conclude and assert that the organic life strives to beget psychic life; but it would be still more correct and in accordance with the spirit of these two categories of evolution to say, that the true cause of organic life is the tendency of spirit to manifest in substantial forms, to clothe itself in substantial reality. It is the highest form which contains the complete explanation of the lowest, never the reverse.

This is admitting, as Bourges does in the Mémoire above mentioned, the identity of this mysterious, integrally acting and organizing Principle with the Self-Conscious and Inner Subject, which we call the Ego and the world at large the Soul. Thus all the best Scientists and Thinkers are gradually approaching the Occultists in their general conclusions.

But such metaphysically inclined men of Science are out of court and will hardly be listened to. Schiller, in his magnificent poem on the Veil of Isis, makes the mortal youth who dared to lift the impenetrable covering fall down dead, after beholding the naked Truth in the face of the stern Goddess. Have some of our Darwinians, so tenderly [pg 692] united in natural selection and affinity, also gazed at the Saïtic Mother bereft of her veils? One might almost suspect it after reading their theories. Their great intellects must have collapsed while gauging too closely the uncovered face of Nature, leaving only the grey matter and ganglia in their brains to respond to “blind” physico-chemical forces. At any rate Shakspere's lines apply admirably to our modern Evolutionist, who symbolizes that “proud man,” who—

Drest in a little brief authority;

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,

As make the angels weep![1564]

These have nought to do with the “Angels.” Their only concern is with the human ancestor, the pithecoid Noah who gave birth to three sons—the tailed Cynocephalus, the tailless Ape, and the “arboreal” Palæolithic man. On this point, they will not be contradicted. Every doubt expressed is immediately set down as an attempt to cripple scientific enquiry. The insuperable difficulty at the very foundation of the Evolution theory, namely, that no Darwinian is able to give even an approximate definition of the period at which, and the form in which, the first man appeared, is smoothed down to a trifling impediment, which is “really of no account.” Every branch of knowledge is in the same predicament, we are informed. The Chemist bases his most abstruse calculations simply

Upon a hypothesis of atoms and molecules, of which not one has ever been seen, isolated, weighed, or defined. The electrician speaks of magnetic fluids which have never tangibly revealed themselves. No definite origin can be assigned either to molecules or magnetism. Science cannot and does not pretend to any knowledge of the beginnings of law, matter, or life.[1565]

And, withal, to reject a scientific hypothesis, however absurd, is to commit the one unpardonable sin! We risk it.

---

Section II. The Ancestors Mankind is Offered by Science.

The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all others, and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment of the place which man occupies in Nature, and of his relations to the universe of things.[1566]

The world stands divided this day and hesitates between Divine Progenitors—be they Adam and Eve or the Lunar Pitris—and Bathybius Hæckelii, the gelatinous hermit of the briny deep. Having explained the Occult theory, it may now be compared with that of Modern Materialism. The reader is invited to choose between the two after having judged them on their respective merits.

We may derive some consolation for the rejection of our Divine Ancestors, in finding that the Hæckelian speculations receive no better treatment at the hands of strictly exact Science than do our own. Hæckel's Phylogenesis is no less laughed at by the foes of his fantastic evolution, by other and greater Scientists, than our primeval Races will be. As du Bois-Reymond puts it, we may believe him easily when he says that the

Ancestral trees of our race sketched in the Schöpfungsgeschichte are of about as much value as are the pedigrees of the Homeric heroes in the eyes of the historical critic.

This settled, everyone will see that one hypothesis is as good as another. And as we find Hæckel himself confessing that neither Geology in its history of the past nor the ancestral history of organisms will ever “rise to the position of a real ‘exact’ science,”[1567] a large margin is thus left to Occult Science to make its annotations and lodge its protests. The world is left to choose between the teachings of Paracelsus, [pg 694] the “father of modern chemistry,” and those of Hæckel, the “father of the mythical Sozura.” We demand no more.

Without presuming to take part in the quarrel of such very learned Naturalists as du Bois-Reymond and Hæckel à propos of our blood relationship to

Those ancestors [of ours] which have led up from the unicellular classes, Vermes, Acrania, Pisces, Amphibia, Reptilia to the Aves

—we may put a brief question or two, for the information of our readers. Availing ourselves of the opportunity, and bearing in mind Darwin's theories of Natural Selection, etc., we would ask Science—with regard to the origin of the human and animal species—which theory of Evolution of the two herewith described is the more scientific, or the more unscientific, if so preferred.

(1) Is it that of an Evolution which starts from the beginning with sexual propagation?

(2) Or that teaching which shows the gradual development of organs; their solidification, and the procreation of each species, at first by simple easy separation from one into two or even several individuals; then a fresh development—the first step to a species of separate distinct sexes—the hermaphrodite condition; then again, a kind of parthenogenesis, “virginal reproduction,” when the egg-cells are formed within the body, issuing from it in atomic emanations and becoming matured outside of it; until, finally, after a definite separation into sexes, the human beings begin procreating through sexual connection?

Of these two, the first “theory”—or rather, a “revealed fact”—is enunciated by all the exoteric Bibles, except the Purânas, preëminently by the Jewish Cosmogony. The second is that which is taught by the Occult Philosophy, as has been explained.

An answer is found to our question in a volume just published by Mr. Samuel Laing—the best lay exponent of Modern Science.[1568] In Chapter viii of his latest work, A Modern Zoroastrian, the author begins by twitting “all ancient religions and philosophies” for “assuming a male and female principle for their gods.” At first sight, he says:

This distinction of sex appears as fundamental as that of plant and animal.... The Spirit of God brooding over Chaos and producing the world is only a later edition, revised according to monotheistic ideas, of the far older Chaldean legend which describes the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos by the coöperation of great gods, male and female.... Thus, in the orthodox Christian creed we are taught to repeat “begotten, not made,” a phrase which is absolute nonsense, or [pg 695] non-sense—that is, an instance of using words like counterfeit notes, which have no solid value of an idea behind them. For “begotten” is a very definite term, which implies the conjunction of two opposite sexes to produce a new individual.[1569]

However we may agree with the learned author as to the inadvisability of using wrong words, and the terrible anthropomorphic and phallic element in the old Scriptures—especially in the orthodox Christian Bible—nevertheless, there may be two extenuating circumstances in the case. Firstly, all these “ancient philosophies” and “modern religions” are—as has been sufficiently shown in these two Volumes—an exoteric veil thrown over the face of Esoteric Truth; and—as the direct result of this—they are allegorical, i.e., mythological in form; but still they are immensely more philosophical in essence than any of the new scientific theories, so-called. Secondly, from the Orphic Theogony down to Ezra's last remodelling of the Pentateuch, every old Scripture, having in its origin borrowed its facts from the East, has been subjected to constant alterations by friend and foe, until of the original version there has remained but the name, a dead shell from which the spirit had been gradually eliminated.

This alone ought to show that no religious work now extant can be understood without the help of the Archaic Wisdom, the primitive foundation on which they were all built.

But to return to the direct answer expected from Science to our direct question. It is given by the same author, when, following his train of thought on the unscientific euhemerization of the powers of Nature in ancient creeds, he pronounces a condemnatory verdict upon them in the following terms:

Science, however, makes sad havoc with this impression of sexual generation being the original and only mode of reproduction, and the microscope and dissecting knife of the naturalist introduce us to new and altogether unsuspected [?] worlds of life.

So little “unsuspected,” indeed, that the original a-sexual “modes of reproduction” must have been known to the ancient Hindûs, at any rate—Mr. Laing's assertion to the contrary notwithstanding. In view of the statement in the Vishnu Purâna, quoted by us elsewhere, that Daksha “established sexual intercourse as the means of multiplication,” only after a series of other “modes,” which are all enumerated therein,[1570] it becomes difficult to deny the fact. This assertion, moreover, is found, note well, in an exoteric work. Next, Mr. Laing goes on to tell us that:

By far the larger proportion of living forms, in number at any rate if not in size, have come into existence, without the aid of sexual propagation.

He then instances Hæckel's Moneron, “multiplying by self-division.” The next stage the author shows in the nucleated cell, “which does exactly the same thing.” The following stage is that in

Which the organism does not divide into two equal parts, but a small portion of it swells out ... and finally parts company and starts on a separate existence, which grows to the size of the parent by its inherent faculty of manufacturing fresh protoplasm from surrounding inorganic materials.[1571]

This is followed by a many-celled organism which is formed by

Germ-buds reduced to spores, or single cells, which are emitted from the parent.... We are now at the threshold of that system of sexual propagation, which has [now] become the rule in all the higher families of animals.... This organism, having advantages in the struggle for life, established itself permanently ... and special organs developed to meet the altered conditions. Thus at length the distinction would be firmly established of a female organ or ovary containing the egg or primitive cell from which the new being was to be developed, and a male organ supplying the fertilizing spore or cell.... This is confirmed by a study of embryology, which shows that in the human and higher animal species the distinction of sex is not developed until a considerable progress has been made in the growth of the embryo.... In the great majority of plants, and in some of the lower families of animals ... the male and female organs are developed within the same being, and they are what is called hermaphrodites. Another transition form is Parthenogenesis, or virginal reproduction, in which germ-cells, apparently similar in all respects to egg-cells, develop themselves into new individuals, without any fructifying element.[1572]

Of all this we are as perfectly well aware as we are aware that the above was never applied by the very learned English popularizer of Huxley-Hæckelian theories to the genus homo. He limits this to specks of protoplasm, plants, bees, snails, and so on. But if he would be true to the theory of descent, he must be as true to ontogenesis, in which the fundamental biogenetic law, we are told, runs as follows:

The development of the embryo (ontogeny) is a condensed and abbreviated repetition of the evolution of the race (phylogeny). This repetition is the more complete, the more the true original order of evolution (palingenesis) has been retained by continual heredity. On the other hand, this repetition is the less complete, the more by varying adaptations the later spurious development (cænogenesis) has obtained.[1573]

This shows us that every living creature and thing on Earth, including man, evolved from one common primal form. Physical man must have passed through the same stages of the evolutionary process in the various modes of procreation as other animals have done; he must have divided himself; then, hermaphrodite, have given birth parthenogenetically (on the immaculate principle) to his young ones; the next stage would be the oviparous—at first “without any fructifying element,” then “with the help of the fertilitary spore”; and only after the final and definite evolution of both sexes, would he become a distinct “male and female,” when reproduction through sexual union would grow into universal law. So far, all this is scientifically proven. There remains but one thing to be ascertained; viz., the plain and comprehensively described processes of such ante-sexual reproduction. This is done in the Occult books, a slight outline of which has been attempted by the writer in Part I of this Volume.

Either this, or—man is a distinct being. Occult Philosophy may call him that, because of his distinctly dual nature. Science cannot do so, once that it rejects every interference save mechanical laws, and admits of no principle outside Matter. The former—Archaic Science—allows the human physical frame to have passed through every form, from the lowest to the very highest, its present one, or from the simple to the complex—to use the accepted terms. But it claims that in this Cycle, the Fourth, the frame having already existed among the types and models of Nature from the preceding Rounds—it was quite ready for man from the beginning of this Round.[1574] The Monad had but to step into the Astral Body of the Progenitors, in order that the work of physical consolidation should begin around the shadowy prototype.[1575]

What would Science say to this? It would answer, of course, that as man appeared on Earth as the latest of the mammalians, he had no [pg 698] need, any more than these mammals, to pass through the primitive stages of procreation as above described. His mode of procreation was already established on Earth when he appeared. In this case, we may reply: Since to this day not the remotest sign of a link between man and the animal has yet been found, then (if the Occult Doctrine is to be repudiated) he must have sprung miraculously in Nature, like a fully armed Minerva from Jupiter's brain; and in such case the Bible is right, along with other national “revelations.” Hence the scientific scorn, so freely lavished by the author of A Modern Zoroastrian upon ancient philosophies and exoteric creeds, becomes premature and uncalled for. Nor would the sudden discovery of a “missing-link”-like fossil mend matters at all. For neither one such solitary specimen nor the scientific inductions therefrom, could insure its being the long-sought-for relic, i.e., that of an undeveloped, still a once-speaking, Man. Something more would be required as a final proof. Besides this, even Genesis takes up man, her Adam of dust, only where the Secret Doctrine leaves her “Sons of God and Wisdom” and picks up the physical man of the Third Race. Eve is not “begotten,” but is extracted out of Adam in the manner of “Amœba A,” contracting in the middle and splitting into Amœba B—by division.[1576]

Nor has human speech developed from the various animal sounds. Hæckel's theory that “speech arose gradually from a few simple, crude animal sounds,” as such “speech still remains amongst a few races of lowest rank,”[1577] is altogether unsound, as argued by Professor Max Müller, among others. He contends that no plausible explanation has yet been given as to how the “roots” of language came into existence. A human brain is necessary for human speech. And figures relating to the size of the respective brains of man and ape show how deep is the gulf which separates the two. Vogt says that the brain of the largest ape, the gorilla, measures no more than 30·51 cubic inches; while the average brains of the flat-headed Australian natives—the lowest now of the human races—amount to 99·35 cubic inches! Figures are awkward witnesses and cannot lie. Therefore, as truly observed by Dr. F. Pfaff, whose premises are as sound and correct as his biblical conclusions are silly:

The brain of the apes most like man does not amount to quite a third of the brain of the lowest races of men: it is not half the size of the brain of a new-born child.[1578]

From the foregoing it is thus very easy to perceive that in order to prove the Huxley-Hæckelian theories of the descent of man, it is not one, but a great number of “missing links”—a true ladder of progressive evolutionary steps—that would have to be first found and then presented by Science to thinking and reasoning humanity, before it would abandon belief in Gods and the immortal Soul for the worship of quadrumanic ancestors. Mere myths are now greeted as “axiomatic truths.” Even Alfred Russel Wallace maintains with Hæckel that primitive man was a speechless ape-creature. To this Prof. Joly answers:

Man never was, in my opinion, this pithecanthropus alalus whose portrait Hæckel has drawn as if he had seen and known him, whose singular and completely hypothetical genealogy he has even given, from the mere mass of living protoplasm to the man endowed with speech and a civilization analogous to that of the Australians and Papuans.[1579]

Hæckel, among other things, often comes into direct conflict with the “science of languages.” In the course of his attack on Evolutionism[1580] Prof. Max Müller stigmatized the Darwinian theory as “vulnerable at the beginning and at the end.” The fact is, that only the partial truth of many of the secondary “laws” of Darwinism is beyond question—M. de Quatrefages evidently accepting natural selection, the struggle for existence, and transformation within species, as proven not once and for ever, but only pro tempore. But it may not be amiss, perhaps, to condense the linguistic case against the “ape ancestor” theory:

Languages have their phases of growth, etc., like all else in Nature. It is almost certain that the great linguistic families pass through three stages.

(1) All words are roots and are merely placed in juxtaposition (Radical languages).

(2) One root defines the other, and becomes merely a determinative element (Agglutinative).

(3) The determinative element (the determinating meaning of which has long lapsed) unites into a whole with the formative element (Inflected).

The problem then is: Whence these roots? Prof. Max Müller argues that the existence of these ready-made materials of speech is a proof that man cannot be the crown of a long organic series. This potentiality of forming roots is the great crux which Materialists almost invariably avoid.

Von Hartmann explains it as a manifestation of the “Unconscious,” and admits its cogency versus mechanical Atheism. Hartmann is a fair representative of the Metaphysician and Idealist of the present age.

The argument has never been met by the non-pantheistic Evolutionists. To say with Schmidt: “Forsooth we are to halt before the origin of language!”—is an avowal of dogmatism and of speedy defeat.[1581]

We respect those men of Science who, wise in their generation, say: The Prehistoric Past being utterly beyond our powers of direct observation, we are too honest, too devoted to the truth—or what we regard as truth—to speculate upon the unknown, giving out our unproven theories along with facts absolutely established in Modern Science.

The borderland of [metaphysical] knowledge is, therefore, best left to time, which is the best test as to truth.[1582]

This is a wise and an honest sentence in the mouth of a Materialist. But when a Hæckel, after just saying that “historical events of past time,” having “occurred many millions of years ago,[1583] ... are for ever removed from direct observation,” and that neither Geology nor Phylogeny[1584] can or will “rise to the position of a real ‘exact’ science,” then insists on the development of all organisms—“from the lowest vertebrate to the highest, from amphioxus to man”—we ask for a weightier proof than he can give. Mere “empirical sources of knowledge,” so extolled by the author of Anthropogeny—when he has to be satisfied with the qualification for his own views—are not competent to settle problems lying beyond their domain; nor is it the province of exact Science to place any reliance on them.[1585] If “empirical”—and [pg 701] Hæckel himself declares so repeatedly—then they are no better, nor any more reliable, in the sight of exact research, when extended into the remote past, than are our Occult teachings of the East, both having to be placed on the same level. Nor are his phylogenetic and palingenetic speculations treated any more favourably by the real Scientists, than are our cyclic repetitions of the evolution of the great in the minor races, and the original order of Evolution. For the province of exact, real Science, materialistic though it be, is to carefully avoid anything like guess-work, speculation which cannot be verified; in short, all suppressio veri and all suggestio falsi. The business of the men of exact Science is to observe, each in his chosen department, the phenomena of Nature; to record, tabulate, compare and classify the facts, down to the smallest minutiæ which are presented to the observation of the senses with the help of all the exquisite mechanism that modern invention supplies, not by the aid of metaphysical flights of fancy. All that he has a legitimate right to do, is to correct by the assistance of physical instruments the defects or illusions of his own coarser vision, auditory powers, and other senses. He has no right to trespass on the grounds of Metaphysics and Psychology. His duty is to verify and to rectify all the facts that fall under his direct observation; to profit by the experiences and mistakes of the Past in endeavouring to trace the working of a certain concatenation of cause and effect, which—but only by its constant and unvarying repetition—may be called a Law. This it is which a man of Science is expected to do, if he would become a teacher of men and remain true to his original programme of natural or physical Sciences. Any side path from this royal road becomes speculation.

Instead of keeping to this, what does many a so-called man of Science do in these days? He rushes into the domain of pure Metaphysics, while deriding them. He delights in rash conclusions and calls them “a deductive law from the inductive law” of a theory based upon and drawn out of the depths of his own consciousness—that consciousness being perverted by, and honeycombed with, one-sided Materialism. He attempts to explain the “origin” of things, which are yet embosomed only in his own conceptions. He attacks spiritual beliefs and religious traditions millenniums old, and denounces everything, save his own hobbies, as superstition. He suggests theories of the Universe, a cosmogony developed by blind, mechanical forces of Nature alone, far more miraculous and impossible than even one based [pg 702] upon the assumption of fiat lux ex nihilo—and tries to astonish the world by his wild theory; and this theory, being known to emanate from a scientific brain, is taken, on blind faith, as very scientific and as the outcome of Science.

Are these the opponents Occultism should dread? Most decidedly not. For such theories are treated no better by real Science than are our own by empirical Science. Hæckel, hurt in his vanity by du Bois-Reymond, is never tired of publicly complaining of the latter's onslaught on his fantastic theory of descent. Rhapsodizing on “the exceedingly rich storehouse of empirical evidence,” he calls those “recognized Physiologists” who oppose every speculation of his drawn from the said “storehouse”—ignorant men, and declares:

If many men, and among them even some Scientists of repute—hold that the whole of phylogeny is a castle in the air, and genealogical trees [from monkeys?] are empty plays of phantasy, they only in speaking thus demonstrate their ignorance of that wealth of empirical sources of knowledge to which reference has already been made.[1586]

We open Webster's Dictionary and read the definitions of the word “empirical”:

Depending upon experience or observation alone, without due regard to modern science and theory.

This applies to the Occultists, Spiritualists, Mystics, etc. Again:

An empiric; one who confines himself to applying the results of his own observations only [which is Hæckel's case]; one wanting science ... an ignorant and unlicensed practitioner; a quack; a charlatan.

No Occultist or “Magician,” has ever been treated to any worse epithets. Yet the Occultist remains on his own metaphysical grounds, and does not endeavour to rank his knowledge, the fruits of his personal observation and experience, among the exact Sciences of modern learning. He keeps within his legitimate sphere, where he is master. But what is one to think of a rank Materialist, whose duty is clearly traced before him, who uses such an expression as this:

The origin of man from other mammals, and most directly from the catarrhine ape, is a deductive law, that follows necessarily from the inductive law of the Theory of Descent.[1587]

A “theory” is simply a hypothesis, a speculation, and not a law. To say otherwise is one of the many liberties taken now-a-days by Scientists. They enunciate an absurdity, and then hide it behind the shield of Science. A deduction from theoretical speculation is nothing [pg 703] more than a speculation on a speculation. Sir William Hamilton has already shown that the word theory is now used

In a very loose and improper sense ... that it is convertible into hypothesis, and hypothesis is commonly used as another term for conjecture, whereas the terms “theory”and “theoretical” are properly used in opposition to the terms practice and practical.

But Modern Science puts an extinguisher on the latter statement, and mocks at the idea. Materialistic Philosophers and Idealists of Europe and America may be agreed with the Evolutionists as to the physical origin of man, yet it will never become a general truth with the true Metaphysician; and the latter defies the Materialists to make good their arbitrary assumptions. That the ape-theory theme[1588] of Vogt and Darwin, on which the Huxley-Hæckelians have of late composed such extraordinary variations, is far less scientific—because clashing with the fundamental laws of that theme itself—than ours can ever be shown to be, is very easy of demonstration. Let the reader only turn to the excellent work on Human Species by the great French Naturalist de Quatrefages, and our statement will at once be verified.

Moreover, between the Esoteric teaching concerning the Origin of Man and Darwin's speculations, no man, unless he is a rank Materialist, will hesitate. This is the description given by Mr. Darwin of “the early progenitors of man.”

They must have been once covered with hair, both sexes having beards; their ears were probably pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail, having the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies were also acted on by many muscles which now only occasionally reäppear, but are normally present in the Quadrumana.... The foot was then prehensile, judging from the condition of the great toe in the fœtus; and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, and frequented some warm forest-clad land. The males had great canine teeth, which served them as formidable weapons.[1589]

Darwin connects man with the type of the tailed catarrhines:

And consequently removes him a stage backward in the scale of evolution. The English naturalist is not satisfied to take his stand upon the ground of his own doctrines, and, like Hæckel, on this point places himself in direct variance with one of the fundamental laws which constitute the principal charm of Darwinism.

And then the learned French Naturalist proceeds to show how this fundamental law is broken. He says:

In fact, in the theory of Darwin, transmutations do not take place, either by chance or in every direction. They are ruled by certain laws which are due to the organization itself. If an organism is once modified in a given direction, it can undergo secondary or tertiary transmutations, but will still preserve the impress of the original. It is the law of permanent characterization, which alone permits Darwin to explain the filiation of groups, their characteristics, and their numerous relations. It is by virtue of this law that all the descendants of the first mollusc have been molluscs; all the descendants of the first vertebrate have been vertebrates. It is clear that this constitutes one of the foundations of the doctrine. It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct types can be referred to a common ancestor, but the one cannot be the descendant of the other.

Now man and apes present a very striking contrast in respect to type. Their organs ... correspond almost exactly term for term: but these organs are arranged after a very different plan. In man they are so arranged that he is essentially a walker, while in apes they necessitate his being a climber.... There is here an anatomical and mechanical distinction.... A glance at the page where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton and the skeletons of the most highly developed apes is a sufficiently convincing proof.

The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of the logical application of the law of permanent characterizations, is that man cannot be descended from an ancestor who is already characterized as an ape, any more than a catarrhine tailless ape can be descended from a tailed catarrhine. A walking animal cannot be descended from a climbing one. This was clearly understood by Vogt.

In placing man among the primates, he declares without hesitation that the lowest class of apes have passed the landmark (the common ancestor), from which the different types of this family have originated and diverged. [This ancestor of the apes, Occult Science sees in the lowest human group during the Atlantean period, as shown before.] We must, then, place the origin of man beyond the last ape [corroborating our doctrine], if we wish to adhere to one of the laws most emphatically necessary to the Darwinian theory. We then come to the prosimiæ of Hæckel, the loris, indris, etc. But these animals also are climbers; we must go further, therefore, in search of our first direct ancestor. But the genealogy by Hæckel brings us from the latter to the marsupials. From men to the kangaroo the distance is certainly great. Now neither living nor extinct fauna show the intermediate types which ought to serve as landmarks. This difficulty [pg 705]causes but slight embarrassment to Darwin.[1590] We know that he considers the want of information upon similar questions as a proof in his favour. Hæckel doubtless is as little embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical pithecoid man.

Thus, since it has been proved that, according to Darwinism itself, the origin of man must be placed beyond the eighteenth stage, and since it becomes, in consequence, necessary to fill up the gap between marsupials and man, will Hæckel admit the existence of four unknown intermediate groups instead of one? Will he complete his genealogy in this manner? It is not for me to answer.[1591]

But see Hæckel's famous genealogy, in The Pedigree of Man, called by him the “Ancestral Series of Man.” In the “Second Division” (eighteenth stage) he describes—

Prosimiæ, allied to the Loris (Stenops) and Makis (Lemur), without marsupial bones and cloaca, with placenta.[1592]

And now turn to de Quatrefages' The Human Species,[1593] and see his proofs, based on the latest discoveries, to show that the Prosimiæ of Hæckel have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. They cannot be the ancestors of the apes even, let alone man, according to a fundamental law of Darwin himself, as the great French Naturalist shows. But this does not dismay the “animal theorists” in the least, for self-contradiction and paradoxes are the very soul of modern Darwinism. Witness—Mr. Huxley; having himself shown, with regard to fossil man and the “missing link,” that:

Neither in Quaternary ages nor at the present time does any intermediary being fill the gap which separates man from the Troglodyte;

and that to “deny the existence of this gap would be as reprehensible as absurd,” the great man of Science denies his own words in actu by supporting with all the weight of his scientific authority that most “absurd” of all theories—the descent of man from an ape!

Says de Quatrefages:

This genealogy is wrong throughout, and is founded on a material error.

Indeed, Hæckel bases his descent of man on the seventeenth and eighteenth stages, the Marsupialia and Prosimiæ—(genus Hæckelii?). Applying the latter term to the Lemuridæ—hence making of them animals with a placenta—he commits a zoological blunder. For after [pg 706] having himself divided mammals according to their anatomical differences into two groups—the indeciduata, which have no decidua (or special membrane uniting the placentæ), and the deciduata, those who possess it—he includes the Prosimiæ in the latter group. Now we have shown elsewhere what other men of Science had to say to this. As de Quatrefages says:

The anatomical investigations of ... Milne Edwards and Grandidier upon the animals ... place it beyond all doubt that the Prosimiæ of Hæckel have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. They are indeciduata. Far from any possibility of their being the ancestors of the apes, according to the principles laid down by Hæckel himself, they cannot even be regarded as the ancestors of the zonoplacental mammals ... and ought to be connected with the Pachydermata, the Edentata, and the Cetacea.[1594]

And yet Hæckel's inventions pass with some as exact Science!

The above mistake, if indeed it be one, is not even hinted at in Hæckel's Pedigree of Man, translated by Aveling. If the excuse may stand good that at the time the famous “genealogies” were made, “the embryogenesis of the Prosimiæ was not known,” it is familiar now. We shall see whether the next edition of Aveling's translation will have this important error rectified, or if the seventeenth and eighteenth stages will remain as they are to blind the profane, as one of the real intermediate links. But, as the French Naturalist observes:

Their [Darwin's and Hæckel's] process is always the same, considering the unknown as a proof in favour of their theory.

It comes to this. Grant to man an immortal Spirit and Soul; endow the whole animate and inanimate creation with the monadic principle gradually evolving from latent and passive into active and positive polarity—and Hæckel will not have a leg to stand upon, whatever his admirers may say.

But there are important divergencies even between Darwin and Hæckel. While the former makes us proceed from the tailed catarrhine, Hæckel traces our hypothetical ancestor to the tailless ape, though, at the same time, he places him in a hypothetical “stage” immediately preceding this—Menocerca with tails (nineteenth stage).

Nevertheless, we have one thing in common with the Darwinian school, that is the law of gradual and extremely slow Evolution, embracing many million years. The chief quarrel, it appears, is with regard to the nature of the primitive “ancestor.” We shall be told that the Dhyân Chohan, or the “progenitor” of Manu, is a hypothetical [pg 707] being unknown on the physical plane. We reply that it was believed in by the whole of Antiquity, and is by nine-tenths of the present humanity; whereas not only is the pithecoid man, or ape-man, a purely hypothetical creature of Hæckel's creation, unknown and untraceable on this Earth, but further its genealogy—as invented by him—clashes with scientific facts and all the known data of modern discovery in Zoology. It is simply absurd, even as a fiction. As de Quatrefages demonstrates in a few words, Hæckel “admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical pithecoid man”—a hundred times more difficult to accept than any Deva ancestor. And it is not the only instance in which he proceeds in a similar manner in order to complete his genealogical table. In fact he very naïvely admits his inventions himself. Does he not confess the non-existence of his Sozura (fourteenth stage)—a creature entirely unknown to Science—by confessing over his own signature, that:

The proof of its existence arises from the necessity of an intermediate type between the thirteenth and the fourteenth stages[!].

If so, we might maintain with as much scientific right, that the proof of the existence of our three ethereal Races, and of the three-eyed men of the Third and Fourth Root-Races, “arises also from the necessity of an intermediate type” between the animal and the Gods. What reason would the Hæckelians have to protest in this special case?

Of course there is a ready answer: Because we do not grant the presence of the Monadic Essence. The manifestation of the Logos as individual consciousness in the animal and human creation is not accepted by exact Science, nor does it cover the whole ground, of course. But the failures of Science and its arbitrary assumptions are far greater on the whole than any “extravagant” Esoteric doctrine can ever furnish.[1595] Even thinkers of the school of Von Hartmann have become tainted with the general epidemic. They accept the Darwinian Anthropology (more or less), though they also postulate the individual Ego as a manifestation of the Unconscious (the Western presentation of the Logos or Primeval Divine Thought). They say the evolution of the physical man is from the animal, but that mind in its various phases is altogether a thing apart from material facts, though organism, as a Upâdhi, is necessary for its manifestation.

Plastidular Souls, And Conscious Nerve-Cells.

But one can never see the end of such wonders with Hæckel and his school, whom the Occultists and Theosophists have every right to consider as materialistic tramps trespassing on private metaphysical grounds. Not satisfied with the paternity of Bathybius (Hæckelii), “plastidular souls” and “atom-souls”[1596] are now invented, on the basis of purely blind mechanical forces of matter. We are informed that:

The study of the evolution of soul-life shows us that this has worked its way up from the lower stages of the simple cell-soul, through an astonishing series of gradual stages in evolution, up to the soul of man.[1597]

“Astonishing,” truly—based as this wild speculation is on the consciousness of the “nerve cells.” For as he tells us:

Little as we are in a position, at the present time, to explain fully the nature of consciousness,[1598] yet the comparative and genetic observation of it clearly shows, that it is only a higher and more complex function of the nerve cells.[1599]

Mr. Herbert Spencer's song on consciousness—is sung, it seems, and may henceforth be safely stored up in the lumber room of obsolete speculations. Where, however, do Hæckel's “complex functions” of his scientific “nerve-cells” land him? Once more right into the Occult and mystic teachings of the Kabalah about the descent of Souls as conscious and unconscious Atoms; among the Pythagorean Monad and the Monads of Leibnitz, and the “Gods, Monads, and Atoms” of our Esoteric teaching;[1600] into the dead letter of Occult teachings, left to [pg 709] the amateur Kabalists and professors of ceremonial Magic. For this is what he says, in explaining his newly-coined terminology:

Plastidule-Souls. The plastidules or protoplasmic molecules, the smallest, homogeneous parts of the protoplasm are, on our plastid theory, to be regarded as the active factors of all life-functions. The plastidular soul differs from the inorganic molecular soul in that it possesses memory.[1601]

This he develops in his mirific lecture on the “Perigenesis of Plastidule, or the Wave-motions of Living Particles.” It is an improvement on Darwin's theory of “Pangenesis,” and a further approach, a cautious move, towards “Magic.” The former is a conjecture that:

Some of the actual identical atoms which formed part of ancestral bodies are thus transmitted through their descendants for generation after generation, so that we are literally “flesh of the flesh” of the primeval creature who has developed into man

—explains the author of A Modern Zoroastrian.[1602] The latter, Occultism, teaches that—(a) the life-atoms of our (Prâna) Life-Principle, are never entirely lost when a man dies. That the atoms best impregnated with the Life-Principle, an independent, eternal, conscious factor, are partially transmitted from father to son by heredity, and are partially drawn once more together and become the animating principle of the new body in every new incarnation of the Monads. Because (b), as the Individual Soul is ever the same, so are the atoms of the lower principles (the body, its astral, or life-double, etc.), drawn as they are by affinity and Karmic law always to the same individuality in a series of various bodies.[1603]

To be just and, to say the least, logical, our modern Hæckelians ought to pass a resolution that henceforth the “Perigenesis of the Plastidule,” and other similar lectures, should be bound up with those on “Esoteric Buddhism” and “The Seven Principles in Man.” Thus the public will have a chance, at any rate, of comparing the two teachings and then of judging which is the more or the less absurd, even from the standpoint of materialistic and exact Science.

Now the Occultists, who trace every atom in the Universe, whether an aggregate or single, to One Unity, the Universal Life; who do not recognize that anything in Nature can be inorganic; who know of no [pg 710] such thing as dead Matter—the Occultists are consistent with their doctrine of Spirit and Soul when speaking of memory in every atom, of will and sensation. But what can a Materialist mean by the qualification? The law of biogenesis, in the sense applied to it by the Hæckelians, is the result of the ignorance on the part of the man of Science of Occult Physics. We know and speak of “life-atoms,” and of “sleeping-atoms,” because we regard these two forms of energy—the kinetic and the potential—as produced by one and the same force, or the One Life, and regard the latter as the source and mover of all. But what is it that furnished with energy, and especially with memory, the “plastidular souls” of Hæckel? The “wave motion of living particles” becomes comprehensible on the theory of a Spiritual One Life, of a universal Vital Principle independent of our Matter, and manifesting as atomic energy only on our plane of consciousness. It is that which, individualized in the human cycle, is transmitted from father to son.

Now Hæckel, modifying Darwin's theory, suggests “more plausibly,” as the author of A Modern Zoroastrian thinks:

That not the identical atoms, but their peculiar motions and mode of aggregation have been thus transmitted [by heredity].[1604]

If Hæckel, or any other Scientist, knew more than any of them does know of the nature of the atom, he would not have improved the occasion in this way. For he only states, in more metaphysical language than Darwin, one and the same thing. The Life-Principle, or Life Energy, which is omnipresent, eternal, indestructible, is a Force and a Principle as noumenon, while it is Atoms, as phenomenon. It is one and the same thing, and cannot be considered as separate except in Materialism.[1605]

Further, Hæckel enunciates concerning the Atom-Souls that which, at first sight, appears as occult as the Monad of Leibnitz:

The recent contest as to the nature of atoms, which we must regard as in some form or other the ultimate factors in all physical and chemical processes, seems to be capable of easiest settlement by the conception that these very minute masses possess, as centres of force, a persistent soul, that every atom has sensation and the power of movement.[1606]

He does not say a word concerning the fact that this is Leibnitz' theory, and one that is preëminently Occult. Nor does he understand the term “soul” as we do; for, with Hæckel it is simply, along with consciousness, the product of the grey matter of the brain, a thing which, as the cell-soul

Is as indissolubly bound up with the protoplasmic body as is the human soul with the brain and spinal cord.[1607]

He rejects the conclusions of Kant, Herbert Spencer, of du Bois-Reymond and Tyndall. The latter expresses the opinion of all the great men of Science, as of the greatest thinkers of this and past ages, in saying that:

The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Were our minds and senses so ... illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings ... electric discharges ... we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem.... The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable.

But the complex function of the nerve-cells of the great German Empiric, or, in other words, his consciousness, will not permit him to follow the conclusions of the greatest thinkers of our globe. He is greater than they. He asserts this, and protests against all:

No one has the right to hold that in the future we shall not be able to pass beyond these limits of our knowledge that to-day seem impassable.[1608]

And he quotes from Darwin's introduction to The Descent of Man the following words, which he modestly applies to his scientific opponents and himself:

It is always those who know little, and not those who know much, that positively affirm that this or that problem will never be solved by Science.

The world may rest satisfied. The day is not far off when the “thrice great” Hæckel will have shown, to his own satisfaction, that the consciousness of Sir Isaac Newton was, physiologically speaking, but the reflex action (or minus consciousness) caused by the perigenesis of the plastidules of our common ancestor and old friend, the Moneron [pg 712] Hæckelii. Though, the said Bathybius has been found out and exposed as a pretender simulating the organic substance it is not, and though among the children of men, Lot's wife alone—and even this, only after her disagreeable metamorphosis—could claim as her forefather the pinch of salt it is; all this will not dismay him in the least. He will go on asserting, as coolly as he has always done, that it was only the peculiar mode and motion of the ghost of the long-vanished atoms of our Father Bathybius, which—transmitted across æons of time into the cell-tissue of the grey matter of the brains of every great man—caused Sophocles and Æschylus, and Shakspere as well, to write their tragedies, Newton, his Principia, Humboldt, his Cosmos, etc. It also prompted Hæckel to invent Græco-Latin names three inches long, pretending to mean a good deal, and meaning—nothing.

Of course we are quite aware that the true, honest Evolutionist agrees with us; and that he is the first to say that not only is the geological record imperfect, but that there are enormous gaps in the series of hitherto discovered fossils, which can never be filled. He will tell us, moreover, that “no Evolutionist assumes that man is descended from any existing ape or any extinct ape either,” but that man and apes originated probably æons back, in some common root stock. Still, as de Quatrefages points out, he will urge as an evidence corroborating his claim this wealth of absent proofs as well, saying that:

All living forms have not been preserved in the fossil series, the chances of preservation being few and far between ... [even primitive man] burying or burning his dead.

This is just what we ourselves claim. It is just as possible that the future may have in store for us the discovery of the giant skeleton of an Atlantean, thirty feet high, as of the fossil of a pithecoid “missing link”; only the former is more probable.

---

Section III. The Fossil Relics of Man and the Anthropoid Ape.

A. Geological Facts Bearing On The Question Of Their Relationship.

The data derived from scientific research as to “primeval man” and the ape lend no countenance to theories deriving the former from the latter. “Where, then, must we look for primeval man?”—still queries Mr. Huxley, after having vainly searched for him in the very depths of the Quaternary strata.

Was the oldest Homo sapiens Pliocene or Miocene, or yet more ancient? In still older strata do the fossilized bones of an ape more anthropoid, or a man more pithecoid than any yet known, await the researches of some unborn palæontologist? Time will show.[1609]

It will—undeniably—and thus vindicate the Anthropology of the Occultists. Meanwhile, in his eagerness to vindicate Mr. Darwin's Descent of Man, Mr. Boyd Dawkins believes that he has all but found the “missing link”—in theory. It was due to Theologians more than to Geologists that, till nearly 1860, man had been considered as a relic no older than the Adamic orthodox 6,000 years. As Karma would have it, though, it was left to a French Abbé—Bourgeois—to give this easy-going theory even a worse blow than had been given to it by the discoveries of Boucher de Perthes. Everyone knows that the Abbé discovered and brought to light good evidence that man was already in existence during the Miocene period, for flints of undeniably human making were excavated from Miocene strata. In the words of the author of Modern Science and Modern Thought:

They must either have been chipped by man, or, as Mr. Boyd Dawkins supposes, by the dryopithecus or some other anthropoid ape which had a dose of intelligence so much superior to the gorilla or chimpanzee, as to be able to fabricate tools. But in this case the problem would be solved and the missing link discovered, for such an ape might well have been the ancestor of Palæolithic man.[1610]

Or—the descendant of Eocene man, which is a variant offered to the theory. Meanwhile, the dryopithecus with such fine mental endowments is yet to be discovered. On the other hand, Neolithic and even Palæolithic man having become an absolute certainty, and as the same author justly observes:

If 100,000,000 years have elapsed since the earth became sufficiently solidified to support vegetable and animal life, the Tertiary period may have lasted for 5,000,000; or for 10,000,000 years, if the life-sustaining order of things has lasted, as Lyell supposes for at least 200,000,000 years—[1611]

why should not another theory be tried? Let us carry man, as a hypothesis, to the close of Mesozoic times—admitting argumenti causâ that the (much more recent) higher apes then existed! This would allow ample time for man and the modern apes to have diverged from the mythical “ape more anthropoid,” and even for the latter to have degenerated into those that are found mimicking man in using “branches of trees as clubs, and cracking cocoa-nuts with hammer and stones.”[1612] Some savage tribes of hillmen in India build their abodes on trees, just as the gorillas build their dens. The question, which of the two, the beast or the man, has become the imitator of the other, is scarcely an open one, even granting Mr. Boyd Dawkins' theory. The fanciful character of this hypothesis, is, however, generally admitted. It is argued that while in the Pliocene and Miocene periods there were true apes and baboons, and man was undeniably contemporaneous with the former of these times—though, as we see, orthodox Anthropology still hesitates, in the teeth of facts, to place him in the era of the dryopithecus, which latter—

Has been considered by some anatomists as in some respects superior to the chimpanzee or the gorilla ... [1613]

yet, in the Eocene there have been no other fossil primates unearthed and no pithecoid stocks found save a few extinct lemurian forms. And we find it also hinted that the dryopithecus may have been the “missing link,” though the brain of the creature no more warrants the theory than does the brain of the modern gorilla. (See also Gaudry's speculations.)

Now we would ask who among the Scientists is ready to prove that there was no man in existence in the early Tertiary period? What is it that prevented his presence? Hardly thirty years ago his existence any farther back than six or seven thousand years was indignantly denied. Now he is refused admission into the Eocene age. Next century it may become a question whether man was not contemporary with the “flying dragon,” the pterodactyl, the plesiosaurus and iguanodon, etc. Let us listen, however, to the echo of Science.

Now, wherever anthropoid apes lived it is clear that, whether as a question of anatomical structure, or of climate and surroundings, man, or some creature which was the ancestor of man, might have lived also. Anatomically speaking, apes and monkeys are as much special variations of the mammalian type as man, whom they resemble bone for bone, and muscle for muscle, and the physical animal man is simply an instance of the quadrumanous type specialized for erect posture and a larger brain[1614].... If he could survive, as we know he did, the adverse conditions and extreme vicissitudes of the Glacial period, there is no reason why he might not have lived in the semi-tropical climate of the Miocene period, when a genial climate extended even to Greenland and Spitzbergen.[1615]

When most of the men of Science who are uncompromising in their belief in the descent of man from an “extinct anthropoid mammal;” will not accept even the bare tenability of any other theory than an ancestor common to man and the dryopithecus, it is refreshing to find in a work of real scientific value such a margin for compromise. Indeed, it is as wide as it can be made under the circumstances, i.e., without immediate danger of getting knocked off one's feet by the tidal wave of science-adulation. Believing that the difficulty of accounting—

For the development of intellect and morality by evolution is not so great as that presented by the difference as to physical structure[1616] between man and the highest animal—

the same author says:

But it is not so easy to see how this difference of physical structure arose, and how a being came into existence which had such a brain and hand, and such undeveloped capabilities for an almost unlimited progress. The difficulty is this: the difference in structure between the lowest existing race of man and the highest existing ape is too great to admit of the possibility of one being the direct descendant of the other. The negro in some respects makes a slight approximation towards the Simian type. His skull is narrower, his brain less capacious, his muzzle more projecting, his arm longer than those of the average European man. Still he is essentially a man, and separated by a wide gulf from the chimpanzee or the gorilla. Even the idiot or crétin, whose brain is no larger and intelligence no greater than that of the chimpanzee, is an arrested man, not an ape.

If, therefore, the Darwinian theory holds good in the case of man and ape, we must go back to some common ancestor from whom both may have originated.... But to establish this as a fact and not a theory we require to find that ancestral form, or, at any rate, some intermediate forms tending towards it ... in other words ... the “missing link.” Now it must be admitted that, hitherto, not only have no such missing links been discovered, but the oldest known human skulls and skeletons which date from the Glacial period, and are probably at least 100,000 years old, show no very decided approximation towards any such pre-human type. On the contrary, one of the oldest types, that of the men of the sepulchral cave of Cro-Magnon,[1617] is that of a fine race, tall in stature, large in brain, and on the whole superior to many of the existing races of mankind. The reply of course is that the time is insufficient, and if man and the ape had a common ancestor, that as a highly developed anthropoid ape, certainly, and man, probably, already existed in the Miocene period, such ancestor must be sought still further back at a distance compared with which the whole Quaternary period sinks into insignificance.... All this is true, and it may well make us hesitate before we admit that man ... is alone an exception to the general law of the universe, and is the creature of a special creation. This is the more difficult to believe, as the ape family which man so closely resembles [?] in physical structure contains numerous branches which graduate into one another, but the extremes of which differ more widely than man does from the highest of the ape series. If a special creation is required for man, must there not have been special creations for the chimpanzee, the gorilla, the orang, and for at least 100 different species of apes and monkeys which are all built on the same lines?[1618]

There was a “special creation” for man, and a “special creation” for the ape, his progeny; only on other lines than ever bargained for by Science. Albert Gaudry and others give some weighty reasons why man cannot be regarded as the crown of an ape-stock. When one finds that not only was the “primeval savage” (?) a reality in the Miocene times, but that, as de Mortillet shows, the flint relics he has [pg 717] left behind him were splintered by fire in that remote epoch; when we learn that the dryopithecus, alone of the anthropoids, appears in those strata, what is the natural inference? That the Darwinians are in a quandary. The very man-like gibbon is still in the same low grade of development, as it was when it coëxisted with man at the close of the Glacial period. It has not appreciably altered since the Pliocene times. Now there is little to choose between the dryopithecus and the existing anthropoids—gibbon, gorilla, etc. If, then, the Darwinian theory is all-sufficient, how are we to “explain” the evolution of this ape into man during the first half of the Miocene? The time is far too short for such a theoretical transformation. The extreme slowness with which variation in species supervenes renders the thing inconceivable—more especially on the “natural selection” hypothesis. The enormous mental and structural gulf between a savage acquainted with fire and the mode of kindling it, and a brutal anthropoid, is too great to bridge even in idea, during so contracted a period. Let the Evolutionists push back the process into the preceding Eocene, if they prefer to do so; let them even trace both man and dryopithecus to a common ancestor; the unpleasant consideration has, nevertheless, to be faced that in Eocene strata the anthropoid fossils are as conspicuous by their absence, as is the fabulous pithecanthropus of Hæckel. Is an exit out of this cul de sac to be found by an appeal to the “unknown,” and a reference, with Darwin, to the “imperfection of the geological record”? So be it; but the same right of appeal must then be equally accorded to the Occultists, instead of remaining the monopoly of puzzled Materialism. Physical man, we say, existed before the first bed of the Cretaceous rocks was deposited. In the early part of the Tertiary age, the most brilliant civilization the world has ever known flourished at a period when the Hæckelian man-ape is conceived as roaming through primeval forests, and Mr. Grant Allen's putative ancestor as swinging himself from bough to bough with his hairy mates, the degenerated Liliths of the Third Race Adam. Yet there were no anthropoid apes in the brighter days of the civilization of the Fourth Race; but Karma is a mysterious law, and no respecter of persons. The monsters bred in sin and shame by the Atlantean Giants, “blurred copies” of their bestial sires, and hence of modern man, according to Huxley, now mislead and overwhelm with error the speculative Anthropologist of European Science.

Where did the first men live? Some Darwinists say in Western [pg 718] Africa, some in Southern Asia, others again believe in an independent origin of human stocks in Asia and America from a simian ancestry. Hæckel, however, advances gaily to the charge. Starting from his prosimia, “the ancestor common to all other catarrhini including man”—a “link” now, however, disposed of for good by recent anatomical discoveries—he endeavours to find a habitat for the primeval pithecanthropus alalus.

In all probability it [the transformation of animal into man] occurred in Southern Asia, in which region many evidences are forthcoming that here was the original home of the different species of man. Probably Southern Asia itself was not the earliest cradle of the human race, but Lemuria, a continent that lay to the south of Asia, and sank later on beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean. The period during which the evolution of the anthropoid apes into ape-like men took place was probably the last part of the Tertiary period, the Pliocene age, and perhaps the Miocene age, its forerunner.[1619]

Of the above speculations, the only one of any worth is that referring to Lemuria, which was the cradle of mankind—of the physical sexual creature who materialized through long æons out of the ethereal hermaphrodites. Only, if it is proved that Easter Island is an actual relic of Lemuria, we must believe that according to Hæckel the “dumb ape-men,” just removed from a brutal mammalian monster, built the gigantic portrait-statues, two of which are now in the British Museum. Critics are mistaken in terming Hæckelian doctrines “abominable, revolutionary, immoral”—though Materialism is the legitimate outcome of the ape-ancestor myth—they are simply too absurd to demand disproof.

B. Western Evolutionism: The Comparative Anatomy Of Man And The Anthropoid In No Way A Confirmation Of Darwinism.

We are told that while every other heresy against Modern Science may be disregarded, this, our denial of the Darwinian theory as applied to man, will be the one “unpardonable” sin. The Evolutionists stand firm as rock on the evidence of similarity of structure between the ape and man. The anatomical evidence, it is urged, is quite overpowering in this case; it is bone for bone, and muscle for muscle, even the brain conformation being very much the same.

Well, what of that? All this was known before King Herod; and the writers of the Râmâyana, the poets who sang the prowess and valour of Hanumân, the Monkey-God, “whose feats were great and wisdom never rivalled,” must have known as much about his anatomy and brain as does any Hæckel or Huxley in our modern day. Volumes upon volumes have been written upon this similarity, in antiquity as in more modern times. Therefore, there is nothing new given to the world or to philosophy in such volumes as Mivart's Man and Apes, or Messrs. Fiske and Huxley's defence of Darwinism. But what are those crucial proofs of man's descent from a pithecoid ancestor? If the Darwinian theory is not the true one, we are told, if man and ape do not descend from a common ancestor, then we must explain the reason of:

(i) The similarity of structure between the two; the fact that the higher animal world—man and beast—is physically of one type or pattern.

(ii) The presence of rudimentary organs in man, i.e., traces of former organs now atrophied by disuse. Some of these organs, it is asserted, could not have had any scope for employment, except in a semi-animal, semi-arboreal monster. Why, again, do we find in man those “rudimentary” organs—as useless as its rudimentary wing is to the apteryx of Australia—the vermiform appendix of the cæcum, the ear muscles,[1620] the “rudimentary tail” with which children are still sometimes born, etc.?

Such is the war cry; and the cackle of the smaller fry among the Darwinians is louder, if possible, than even that of the scientific Evolutionists themselves!

Furthermore, the latter—with their great leader Mr. Huxley, and such eminent Zoologists as Mr. Romanes and others—while defending the Darwinian theory, are the first to confess the almost insuperable difficulties in the way of its final demonstration. And there are as great men of Science as the above-named, who deny, most emphatically, the uncalled-for assumption, and loudly denounce the unwarrantable exaggerations on the question of this supposed similarity. It is sufficient to glance at the works of Broca, Gratiolet, Owen, Pruner-Bey, and finally at the last great work of de Quatrefages, Introduction à [pg 720]l'Étude des Races Humaines, Questions Générales, to discover the fallacy of the Evolutionists. We may say more: the exaggerations concerning this alleged similarity of structure between man and the anthropomorphous ape have become so glaring and absurd of late, that even Mr. Huxley has found himself forced to protest against the too sanguine expectations. It was that great Anatomist personally who called the “smaller fry” to order, by declaring in one of his articles that the differences between the structure of the human body and that of the highest anthropomorphous pithecoid, were not only far from being trifling and unimportant, but were, on the contrary, very great and suggestive:

Every bone of a gorilla bears marks by which it might be distinguished from the corresponding bone of a man.[1621]

Among the existing creatures there is not one single intermediate form that could fill the gap between man and the ape. To ignore that gap, he added, “would be no less wrong than absurd.”

Finally, the absurdity of such an unnatural descent of man is so palpable in the face of all the proofs and evidence as to the skull of the pithecoid compared to that of man, that de Quatrefages resorted unconsciously to our Esoteric theory by saying that it is rather the apes that can claim descent from man than vice versâ. As proven by Gratiolet, with regard to the cavities of the brain of the anthropoids—in which species that organ develops in an inverse ratio to what would be the case were the corresponding organs in man really the product of the development of the said organs in the apes—the size of the human skull and its brain, as well as the cavities, increase with the individual development of man. His intellect develops and increases with age, while his facial bones and jaws diminish and straighten, thus becoming more and more spiritualized; whereas with the ape it is the reverse. In its youth the anthropoid is far more intelligent and good-natured, while with age it becomes duller; and, as its skull recedes and seems to diminish as it grows, its facial bones and jaws develop, the brain being finally crushed, and thrown entirely back, to make with every day more [pg 721] room for the animal type. The organ of thought—the brain—recedes and diminishes, entirely conquered and replaced by that of the wild beast—the jaw apparatus.

Thus, as wittily remarked in the French work, a gorilla could with perfect justice address an Evolutionist, claiming its right of descent from him. It would say to him: We, anthropoid apes, form a retrogressive departure from the human type, and therefore our development and evolution are expressed by a transition from a human-like to an animal-like structure of organism; but in what way could you, men, descend from us—how can you form a continuation of our genus? For, to make this possible, your organization would have to differ still more than ours does from the human structure, it would have to approach still closer to that of the beast than ours does; and in such a case justice demands that you should give up to us your place in nature. You are lower than we are, once that you insist on tracing your genealogy from our kind; for the structure of our organization and its development are such that we are unable to generate forms of a higher organization than our own.

This is where the Occult Sciences agree entirely with de Quatrefages. Owing to the very type of his development man cannot descend from either an ape or an ancestor common to both apes and men, but shows his origin to be from a type far superior to himself. And this type is the “Heavenly Man”—the Dhyân Chohans, or the Pitris so-called, as shown in the first Part of this Volume. On the other hand, the pithecoids, the orang-outang, the gorilla, and the chimpanzee can, and, as the Occult Sciences teach, do, descend from the animalized Fourth human Root-Race, being the product of man and an extinct species of mammal—whose remote ancestors were themselves the product of Lemurian bestiality—which lived in the Miocene age. The ancestry of this semi-human monster is explained in the Stanzas as originating in the sin of the “mind-less” races of the middle Third Race period.

When it is borne in mind that all forms which now people the Earth are so many variations on basic types originally thrown off by the Man of the Third and Fourth Round, such an evolutionist argument as that insisting on the “unity of structural plan” characterizing all vertebrates, loses its edge. The basic types referred to were very few in number in comparison with the multitude of organisms to which they ultimately gave rise; but a general unity of type has, nevertheless, been preserved throughout the ages. The economy of Nature does [pg 722] not sanction the coëxistence of several utterly opposed “ground plans” of organic evolution on one planet. Once, however, that the general drift of the Occult explanation is formulated, inference as to detail may well be left to the intuitive reader.

Similarly with the important question of the “rudimentary” organs discovered by Anatomists in the human organism. Doubtless this line of argument, when wielded by Darwin and Hæckel against their European adversaries, proved of great weight. Anthropologists, who ventured to dispute the derivation of man from an animal ancestry, were sorely puzzled how to deal with the presence of gill-clefts, with the “tail” problem, and so on. Here again Occultism comes to our assistance with the necessary data.

The fact is that, as previously stated, the human type is the repertory of all potential organic forms, and the central point from which these latter radiate. In this postulate we find a true “evolution” or “unfolding”—in a sense which cannot be said to belong to the mechanical theory of Natural Selection. Criticizing Darwin's inference from “rudiments,” an able writer remarks:

Why is it not just as probably a true hypothesis to suppose that man was first created with these rudimentary sketches in his organization, and that they became useful appendages in the lower animals into which man degenerated, as it is to suppose that these parts existed in full development, activity and practical use, in the lower animals out of whom man was generated?[1622]

Read for “into which man degenerated,” “the prototypes which man shed in the course of his astral developments,” and an aspect of the true Esoteric solution is before us. But a wider generalization is now to be formulated.

So far as our present Fourth Round terrestrial period is concerned, the mammalian fauna are alone to be regarded as traceable to prototypes shed by Man. The amphibia, birds, reptiles, fishes, etc., are the resultants of the Third Round, astral fossil forms stored up in the auric envelope of the Earth and projected into physical objectivity subsequent to the deposition of the first Laurentian rocks. “Evolution” has to deal with the progressive modifications, which Palæontology shows to have affected the lower animal and vegetable kingdoms in the course of geological time. It does not, and from the nature of things cannot, touch on the subject of the pre-physical types which served as the basis for future differentiation. Tabulate the general [pg 723] laws controlling the development of physical organisms it certainly may, and to a certain extent it has acquitted itself ably of the task.

To return to the immediate subject of discussion. The mammalia, whose first traces are discovered in the marsupials of the Triassic rocks of the Secondary period, were evolved from purely astral progenitors contemporary with the Second Race. They are thus post-human, and, consequently, it is easy to account for the general resemblance between their embryonic stages and those of Man, who necessarily embraces in himself and epitomizes in his development the features of the group he originated. This explanation disposes of a portion of the Darwinist brief.

But how to account for the presence of the gill-clefts in the human fœtus, which represent the stage through which the branchiæ of the fish are developed;[1623] for the pulsating vessel corresponding to the heart of the lower fishes, which constitutes the fœtal heart; for the entire analogy presented by the segmentation of the human ovum, the formation of the blastoderm, and the appearance of the “gastrula”stage, with corresponding stages in lower vertebrate life and even among the sponges; for the various types of lower animal life which the form of the future child shadows forth in the cycle of its growth?... How comes it to pass that stages in the life of fishes, whose ancestors swam [æons before the epoch of the First Root-Race] in the seas of the Silurian period, as well as stages in that of the later amphibian, reptilian fauna, are mirrored in the “epitomized history”of human fœtal development?

This plausible objection is met by the reply that the Third Round terrestrial animal forms were just as much referable to types thrown off by Third Round Man, as that new importation into our planet's area—the mammalian stock—is to the Fourth Round Humanity of the Second Root-Race. The process of human fœtal growth epitomizes not only the general characteristics of the Fourth, but of the Third Round terrestrial life. The diapason of type is run through in brief. Occultists are thus at no loss to “account for” the birth of children with an actual caudal appendage, or for the fact that the tail in the human fœtus is, at one period, double the length of the nascent legs. The potentiality of every organ useful to animal life is locked up in Man—the Microcosm of the Macrocosm—and abnormal conditions may not unfrequently result in the strange phenomena which Darwinists [pg 724] regard as “reversion to ancestral features.”[1624] Reversion, indeed, but scarcely in the sense contemplated by our present-day empiricists!

C. Darwinism And The Antiquity Of Man: The Anthropoids And Their Ancestry.

The public has been notified by more than one eminent modern Geologist and man of Science, that:

All estimate of geological duration is not merely imperfect, but necessarily impossible; for we are ignorant of the causes, though they must have existed, which quickened or retarded the progress of the sedimentary deposits.[1625]

And now another man of Science, as well known (Croll) calculating that the Tertiary age began either fifteen or two-and-a-half million years ago—the former being a more correct calculation, according to Esoteric Doctrine, than the latter—there seems in this case, at least, no very great disagreement. Exact Science, refusing to see in man a “special creation” (to a certain degree the Secret Sciences do the same), is at liberty to ignore the first three, or rather two-and-a-half Races—the spiritual, the semi-astral, and the semi-human—of our teachings. But it can hardly do the same in the case of the Third, at its closing period, the Fourth, and the Fifth Races, since it already divides mankind into Palæolithic and Neolithic man.[1626] The Geologists of France place man in the Mid-Miocene age (Gabriel de Mortillet), and some even in the Secondary period, as de Quatrefages suggests; [pg 725] while the English savants do not generally accept such antiquity for their species. But they may know better some day. For, as says Sir Charles Lyell:

If we consider the absence or extreme scarcity of human bones and works of art in all strata, whether marine or fresh-water, even in those formed in the immediate proximity of land inhabited by millions of human beings, we shall be prepared for the general dearth of human memorials in glacial formations, whether recent, pleistocene, or of more ancient date. If there were a few wanderers over lands covered with glaciers, or over seas infested with icebergs, and if a few of them left their bones or weapons in moraines or in marine drifts, the chances, after the lapse of thousands of years, of a geologist meeting with one of them must be infinitesimally small.[1627]

The men of Science avoid pinning themselves down to any definite statement concerning the age of man, as indeed they are hardly able to make any, and thus leave enormous latitude to bolder speculations. Nevertheless, while the majority of the Anthropologists carry back the existence of man only into the period of the post-glacial drift, or what is called the Quaternary period, those of them who, as Evolutionists, trace man to a common origin with the monkey, do not show great consistency in their speculations. The Darwinian hypothesis demands, in reality, a far greater antiquity for man, than is even dimly suspected by superficial thinkers. This is proven by the greatest authorities on the question—Mr. Huxley, for instance. Those, therefore, who accept the Darwinian evolution, ipso facto hold very tenaciously to an antiquity of man so very great, indeed, that it falls not so far short of the Occultist's estimate.[1628] The modest thousands of years of the Encyclopædia Britannica and the 100,000 years, to which Anthropology in general limits the age of Humanity, seem quite microscopical when compared with the figures implied in Mr. Huxley's bold speculations. The former, indeed, makes of the original race of men ape-like cave-dwellers. The great English Biologist, in his desire to prove man's pithecoid origin, insists that the transformation of the primordial ape [pg 726] into a human being must have occurred millions of years back. For in criticizing the excellent cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull, notwithstanding his assertion that it is overlaid with “pithecoid bony walls,” coupled with Mr. Grant Allen's assurances that this skull—

Possesses large bosses on the forehead, strikingly [?] suggestive of those which give the gorilla its peculiarly fierce appearance[1629]—

still Mr. Huxley is forced to admit that, in the said skull, his theory is once more defeated by the—

Completely human proportions of the accompanying limb-bones, together with the fair development of the Engis skull.

In consequence of all this we are notified that these skulls—

Clearly indicate that the first traces of the primordial stock whence man has proceeded, need no longer be sought by those who entertain any form of the doctrine of progressive development in the newest Tertiaries; but that they may be looked for in an epoch more distant from the age of the elephas primigenius than that is from us.[1630]

An untold antiquity for man is thus, then, the scientific sine quâ non in the question of Darwinian Evolution, since the oldest Palæolithic man shows as yet no appreciable differentiation from his modern descendant. It is only of late that Modern Science has with every year begun to widen the abyss that now separates her from ancient Science, as that of Pliny and Hippocrates; none of the old writers would have derided the Archaic Teachings with respect to the evolution of the human races and animal species, as the present day Scientist—Geologist or Anthropologist—is sure to do.

The pendulum of thought oscillates between extremes. Having now finally emancipated herself from the shackles of Theology, Science has embraced the opposite fallacy; and in the attempt to interpret Nature on purely materialistic lines, she has built up that most extravagant theory of the ages—the derivation of man from a ferocious and brutal ape. So rooted has this doctrine now become, in one form and another, that the most Herculean efforts will be needed to bring about its final rejection. The Darwinian Anthropology is the incubus of the Ethnologist, [pg 728] a sturdy child of modern Materialism, which has grown up and acquired increasing vigour, as the ineptitude of the theological legend of Man's “creation” became more and more apparent. It has thriven on account of the strange delusion that—as a Scientist of repute puts it:

All hypotheses and theories with respect to the rise of man can be reduced to two [the evolutionist and the biblical exoteric account].... There is no other hypothesis conceivable [!!].

The anthropology of the Secret Volumes is, however, the best possible answer to such a worthless contention.

The anatomical resemblance between man and the higher ape, so frequently cited by Darwinists as pointing to some former ancestor common to both, presents an interesting problem, the proper solution of which is to be sought for in the Esoteric explanation of the genesis of the pithecoid stocks. We have given it as far as it was useful, by stating that the bestiality of the primeval mindless races resulted in the production of huge man-like monsters—the offspring of human and animal parents. As time rolled on, and the still semi-astral forms consolidated into the physical, the descendants of these creatures were modified by external conditions, until the breed, dwindling in size, culminated in the lower apes of the Miocene period. With these the later Atlanteans renewed the sin of the “Mindless”—this time with full responsibility. The resultants of their crime were the apes now known as anthropoid.

It may be useful to compare this very simple theory—and we are willing to offer it merely as a hypothesis to the unbelievers—with the Darwinian scheme, so full of insurmountable obstacles, that no sooner is one of them overcome by a more or less ingenious hypothesis, than ten worse difficulties are forthwith discovered behind the one disposed of.

---

Section IV. Duration of the Geological Periods, Race Cycles, and the Antiquity of Man.

Millions of years have sunk into Lethe, leaving no more recollection in the memory of the profane than the few millenniums of the orthodox Western chronology as to the Origin of Man and the history of the primeval races.

All depends on the proofs found for the antiquity of the Human Race. If the still-debated man of the Pliocene or even the Miocene period was the Homo primigenius, then Science may be right (argumenti causâ) in basing its present Anthropology—as to the date and mode of origin of Homo sapiens—on the Darwinian theory.[1631] But if the skeletons of man should at any time be discovered in the Eocene strata, while no fossil ape is found there, and the existence of man is thus proved to be prior to that of the anthropoid—then Darwinians will have to exercise their ingenuity in another direction. Moreover, it is said in well-informed quarters that the twentieth century will be still in its earliest teens when such undeniable proof of man's priority will be forthcoming.

Even now much evidence is being brought forward to prove that the dates hitherto assigned for the foundations of cities, civilizations and various other historical events have been absurdly curtailed. This was done as a peace-offering to biblical chronology. The well-known Palæontologist Ed. Lartet writes:

No date is to be found in Genesis, which assigns a time for the birth of primitive humanity.

But Chronologists have for fifteen centuries endeavoured to force the Bible facts into agreement with their systems. Thus, no less than one hundred and forty different opinions have been formed about the single date of “Creation.”

And between the extreme variations there is a discrepancy of 3,194 years, in the reckoning of the period between the beginning of the world and the birth of Christ. Within the last few years, archæologists have had also to throw back by nearly 3,000 years the beginnings of Babylonian civilization. On the foundation cylinder deposited by Nabonidus, the Babylonian king, conquered by Cyrus—are found the records of the former, in which he speaks of his discovery of the foundation stone that belonged to the original temple built by Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, of Accadia, the conqueror of Babylonia, who, says Nabonidus, lived 3,200 years before his own time.[1632]

We have shown in Isis Unveiled that those who based history on the chronology of the Jews—a race which had none of its own and rejected the Western till the twelfth century—would lose their way, for the Jewish account could only be followed through kabalistic computation, and only then with key in hand. We characterized the late George Smith's chronology of the Chaldæans and Assyrians, which he had made to fit in with that of Moses, as quite fantastic. And now, in this respect at least, later Assyriologists have corroborated our denial. For, whereas George Smith makes Sargon I (the prototype of Moses) reign in the city of Akkad about 1600 b.c.—probably out of a latent respect for Moses, whom the Bible makes to flourish 1571 b.c.—we now learn from the first of the six Hibbert Lectures delivered by Professor A. H. Sayce, of Oxford, in 1887, that:

Old views of the early annals of Babylonia and its religions have been much modified by recent discovery. The first Semitic Empire, it is now agreed, was that of Sargon of Accad, who established a great library, patronized literature, and extended his conquests across the sea into Cyprus. It is now known that he reigned as early as b.c. 3,750.... The Accadian monuments found by the French at Tel-loh must be even older, reaching back to about b.c. 4,000.

In other words, to the fourth year of the World's creation agreeably with Bible chronology, and when Adam was in his swaddling clothes. Perchance, in a few years more, the 4,000 years may be further extended. The well-known Oxford lecturer remarked in his disquisitions upon “The Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians,” that:

The difficulties of systematically tracing the origin and history of the Babylonian Religion were considerable. The sources of our knowledge of the subject were almost wholly monumental, very little help being obtainable from classical or Oriental writers. Indeed, it was an undeniable fact that the Babylonian priesthood intentionally swaddled up the study of the religious texts in coils of almost insuperable difficulty.

That they have confused the dates, and especially the order of events “intentionally,” is undeniable, and for a very good reason: their writings and records were all Esoteric. The Babylonian priests did no more than the priests of other ancient nations. Their records were meant only for the Initiates and their disciples, and it is only the latter who were furnished with the keys to the true meaning. But Professor Sayce's remarks are promising. For he explains the difficulty by saying that as:

The Nineveh library contained mostly copies of older Babylonian texts, and the copyists pitched upon such tablets only as were of special interest to the Assyrian conquerors, belonging to a comparatively late epoch, this added much to the greatest of all our difficulties—namely, our being so often left in the dark as to the age of our documentary evidence, and the precise worth of our materials for history.

Thus one has a right to infer that some still fresher discovery may lead to a new necessity for pushing the Babylonian dates so far beyond the year 4,000 b.c., as to make them pre-cosmic in the judgment of every Bible worshipper.

How much more would Palæontology have learned had not millions of works been destroyed! We talk of the Alexandrian Library, which has been thrice destroyed, namely, by Julius Cæsar 48 b.c., in a.d. 390, and lastly in the year a.d. 640 by the general of Kaliph Omar. What is this in comparison with the works and records destroyed in the primitive Atlantean Libraries, wherein records are said to have been traced on the tanned skins of gigantic antediluvian monsters? Or again in comparison with the destruction of the countless Chinese books by command of the founder of the Imperial Tsin dynasty, Tsin Shi Hwang-ti, in 213 b.c.? Surely the brick-clay tablets of the Imperial Babylonian Library, and the priceless treasures of the Chinese collections, could never have contained such information as one of the aforesaid “Atlantean” skins would have furnished to the ignorant world.

But even with the extremely meagre data at hand, Science has been able to see the necessity of throwing back nearly every Babylonian [pg 732] date, and has done so quite generously. We learn from Professor Sayce that even the archaic statues at Tel-loh, in Lower Babylonia, have suddenly been assigned a date contemporary with the fourth dynasty in Egypt.[1633] Unfortunately, dynasties and pyramids share the fate of geological periods; their dates are arbitrary, and depend on the whims of the respective men of Science. Archæologists know now, it is said, that the afore-mentioned statues are fashioned out of green diorite, that can only be got in the Peninsula of Sinai; and

They accord in the style of art, and in the standard of measurement employed, with the similar diorite statues of the pyramid builders of the third and fourth Egyptian dynasties.... Moreover, the only possible period for a Babylonian occupation of the Sinaitic quarries must be placed shortly after the close of the epoch at which the pyramids were built; and thus only can we understand how the name of Sinai could have been derived from that of Sin, the primitive Babylonian moon-god.

This is very logical, but what is the date fixed for these dynasties? Sanchuniathon's and Manetho's synchronistic tables—or whatever remained of these after holy Eusebius had the handling of them—have been rejected; and still we have to remain satisfied with the four or five thousand years b.c., so liberally allotted to Egypt. At all events one point is gained. There is, at last, a city on the face of the Earth which is allowed, at least, 6,000 years, and it is Eridu. Geology has discovered it. According to Professor Sayce again:

They are now also able to obtain time for the silting up of the head of the Persian Gulf, which demands a lapse of between 5,000 and 6,000 years since the period when Eridu, now twenty-five miles inland, was the seaport at the mouth of the Euphrates, and the seat of Babylonian commerce with Southern Arabia and India. More than all, the new chronology gives time for the long series of eclipses recorded in the great astronomical work called “The Observations of Bel”; and we are also enabled to understand the otherwise perplexing change in the position of the vernal equinox, which has occurred since our present zodiacal signs were named by the earliest Babylonian astronomers. When the Accadian calendar was arranged and the Accadian months were named, the sun at the vernal equinox was not, as now, in Pisces, or even in Aries, but in Taurus. The rate of the precession of the equinoxes being known, we learn that at the vernal equinox the sun was in Taurus from about 4,700 years b.c., and we thus obtain astronomical limits of date which cannot be impugned.[1634]

It may make our position plainer if we state at once that we use Sir C. Lyell's nomenclature for the ages and periods, and that when we [pg 733] talk of the Secondary and Tertiary age, of the Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene periods—this is simply to make our facts more comprehensible. Since these ages and periods have not yet been allowed fixed and determined durations, two-and-a-half and fifteen million years being assigned at different times to one and the same age (the Tertiary); and since no two Geologists or Naturalists seem to agree on this point—Esoteric Teachings may remain quite indifferent to the appearance of man in the Secondary or the Tertiary age. If the latter age may be allowed even so much as fifteen million years' duration—well and good; for the Occult Doctrine, jealously guarding its real and correct figures so far as concerns the First, Second, and two-thirds of the Third Root-Race, gives clear information upon one point only—the age of Vaivasvata Manu's humanity.[1635]

Another definite statement is that during the so-called Eocene period the Continent to which the Fourth Race belonged, and on which it lived and perished, showed the first symptoms of sinking, and that it was in the Miocene age that it was finally destroyed—save the small island mentioned by Plato. These points have now to be checked by scientific data.

A. Modern Scientific Speculations About The Ages Of The Globe, Animal Evolution, And Man.

May we not be permitted to throw a glance at the works of specialists? The work on World-Life: Comparative Geology, by Prof. A. Winchell, furnishes us with curious data. Here we find an opponent of the nebular theory smiting with all the force of the hammer of his odium theologicum on the rather contradictory hypotheses of the great stars of Science, in the matter of sidereal and cosmic phenomena based on their respective relations to terrestrial durations. The “too imaginative physicists and naturalists” do not fare very easily under this shower of their own speculative computations placed side by side, and cut rather a sorry figure. Thus he writes:

Sir William Thompson, on the basis of the observed principles of cooling, concludes that no more than 10 million years [elsewhere he makes it 100,000,000] can have elapsed since the temperature of the earth was sufficiently reduced to sustain vegetable life.[1636] Helmholz calculates that 20 million years would suffice for the [pg 734]original nebula to condense to the present dimensions of the sun. Prof. S. Newcomb requires only 10 millions to attain a temperature of 212° Fahr.[1637] Croll estimates 70 million years for the diffusion of the heat....[1638] Bischof calculates that 350 million years would be required for the earth to cool from a temperature of 2,000° to 200° Centigrade. Reade, basing his estimate on observed rates of denudation, demands 500 million years since sedimentation began in Europe.[1639] Lyell ventured a rough guess of 240 million years; Darwin thought 300 million years demanded by the organic transformations which his theory contemplates, and Huxley is disposed to demand 1,000 millions [!!].... Some biologists ... seem to close their eyes tight and leap at one bound into the abyss of millions of years, of which they have no more adequate estimate than of infinity.[1640]

Then he proceeds to give what he takes to be more correct geological figures: a few will suffice.

According to Sir William Thompson “the whole incrusted age of the world is 80,000,000 years”; and agreeably with Prof. Houghton's calculations of a minimum limit for the time since the elevation of Europe and Asia, three hypothetical ages for three possible and different modes of upheaval are given, varying from the modest figure of 640,730 years, through 4,170,000 years to the tremendous figure of 27,491,000 years!!

This is enough, as one can see, to cover our claims for the four Continents and even the figures of the Brâhmans.

Further calculations, the details of which the reader may find in Prof. Winchell's work,[1641] bring Houghton to an approximation of the sedimentary age of the globe—11,700,000 years. These figures are found too small by the author, who forthwith extends them to 37,000,000 years.

Again, according to Croll,[1642] 2,500,000 years “represents the time since the beginning of the Tertiary age” in one work; and according to another modification of his view, 15,000,000 only have elapsed since the beginning of the Eocene period,[1643] this, being the first of the three Tertiary periods, leaves the student suspended between two-and-a-half and fifteen millions. But if one has to hold to the former moderate figures, then the whole incrusted age of the world would be 131,600,000 years.[1644]

As the last Glacial period extended from 240,000 to 80,000 years ago (Prof. Croll's view), therefore, man must have appeared on Earth from 100,000 to 120,000 years ago. But, as says Prof. Winchell with reference to the antiquity of the Mediterranean race:

It is generally believed to have made its appearance during the later decline of the continental glaciers. It does not concern, however, the antiquity of the Black and Brown races, since there are numerous evidences of their existence in more southern regions, in times remotely pre-glacial.[1645]

As a specimen of geological certainty and agreement, these figures also may be added. Three authorities—Messrs. T. Belt, F.G.S., Robert Hunt, F.R.S., and J. Croll, F.R.S.,—in estimating the time that has elapsed since the Glacial epoch, give figures that vary to an almost incredible extent:

Belt: 20,000 years.

Hunt: 80,000 years

Croll: 240,000 years[1646]

No wonder that Mr. Pengelly confesses that:

It is at present and perhaps always will be impossible to reduce, even approximately, geological time into years or even into millenniums.

A wise word of advice from the Occultists to the gentlemen Geologists; they ought to imitate the cautious example of Masons. As chronology, they say, cannot measure the era of the creation, therefore, their “Antient and Primitive Rite” uses 000,000,000 as the nearest approach to reality.

The same uncertainty, contradictions and disagreement reign on all other subjects.

The scientific authorities on the Descent of Man are again, for all practical purposes, a delusion and a snare. There are many Anti-Darwinists in the British Association, and Natural Selection begins to lose ground. Though at one time the saviour, which seemed to rescue the learned theorists from a final intellectual collapse into the abyss of fruitless hypothesis, it begins to be distrusted. Even Mr. Huxley is showing signs of truancy, and thinks “natural selection not the sole factor”:

We greatly suspect that she [Nature] does make considerable jumps in the way of variation now and then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the gaps which appear to exist in the series of known forms.[1647]

Again, C. R. Bree, M.D., argues in this wise in considering the fatal gaps in Mr. Darwin's theory:

It must be again called to mind that the intermediate forms must have been vast in numbers.... Mr. St. George Mivart believes that change in evolution may occur more quickly than is generally believed; but Mr. Darwin sticks manfully to his belief, and again tells us “natura non facit saltum.”[1648]

Herein the Occultists are at one with Mr. Darwin.

Esoteric teaching fully corroborates the idea of Nature's slowness and dignified progression. “Planetary impulses” are all periodical. Yet this Darwinian theory, correct as it is in minor particulars, agrees no more with Occultism than with Mr. Wallace, who, in his Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, shows pretty conclusively that something more than Natural Selection is requisite to produce physical man.

Let us, meanwhile, examine the scientific objections to this scientific theory, and see what they are.

Mr. St. George Mivart is found arguing that:

It will be a moderate computation to allow 25,000,000 for the deposit of the strata down to and including the Upper Silurian. If, then, the evolutionary work done during this deposition only represents a hundredth part of the sum total, we shall require 2,500,000,000 (two thousand five hundred million) years for the complete development of the whole animal kingdom to its present state. Even one quarter of this, however, would far exceed the time which physics and astronomy seem able to allow for the completion of the process.

Finally, a difficulty exists as to the reason of the absence of rich fossiliferous deposits in the oldest strata—if life was then as abundant and varied, as, on the Darwinian theory, it must have been. Mr. Darwin himself admits “the case at present must remain inexplicable; and this may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views” entertained in his book.

Thus, then, we find a remarkable (and on Darwinian principles all but inexplicable) absence of minutely graduated transitional forms. All the most marked groups—bats, pterodactyles, chelonians, ichthyosaurians, amoura, etc.—appear at once upon the scene. Even the horse, the animal whose pedigree has been probably best preserved, affords no conclusive evidence of specific origin by significant fortuitous variations; while some forms, as the labyrinthodonts and trilobites, which seemed to exhibit gradual change, are shown by further investigation to do nothing of the sort.... All these difficulties are avoided if we admit that new forms of animal life of all degrees of complexity appear from time to time with comparative suddenness, being evolved according to laws in part depending on surrounding conditions, in part internal—similar to the way in which crystals (and, perhaps from recent researches, the lowest forms of life) build themselves up according to the internal laws of their component substance, and in harmony and correspondence with all environing influences and conditions.[1649]

“The internal laws of their component substance.” These are wise words, and the admission of the possibility is prudent. But how can these internal laws be ever recognized, if Occult teaching be discarded? As a friend writes, while drawing our attention to the above speculations:

In other words, the doctrine of Planetary Life-Impulses must be admitted. Otherwise, why are species now stereotyped, and why do even domesticated breeds of pigeons and many animals relapse into their ancestral types when left to themselves?

But the teaching about Planetary Life-Impulses has to be clearly defined and as clearly understood, if present confusion is not to be made still more perplexing. All these difficulties would vanish as the shadows of night disappear before the light of the rising Sun, if the following Esoteric Axioms were admitted:

(a) The existence and the enormous antiquity of our Planetary Chain;

(b) The actuality of the Seven Rounds

(c) The separation of human Races (outside the purely anthropological division) into seven distinct Root-Races, of which our present European Humanity is the Fifth;

(d) The antiquity of man in this (Fourth) Round; and finally

(e) That as these Races evolve from ethereality to materiality, and from the latter back again into relative physical tenuity of texture, so every living (so-called) organic species of animals, with vegetation included, changes with every new Root-Race.

Were this admitted, if even only along with other, and surely, on maturer consideration, no less absurd, suppositions—if Occult theories have to be considered “absurd” at present—then every difficulty would be made away with. Surely Science ought to try and be more logical than it now is, as it can hardly maintain the theory of man's descent from an anthropoidal ancestor, and deny in the same breath any reasonable antiquity to such a man! Once Mr. Huxley talks of “the vast intellectual chasm between the ape and man,” and “the present enormous gulf between them,”[1650] and admits the necessity of extending scientific allowances for the age of man on Earth for such slow and progressive development, then all those men of Science who are of his way of thinking, at any rate, ought to come to at least some approximate figures, and agree upon the probable duration of those [pg 738] Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene periods of which so much is said, and about which nothing definite is known—even if they dare not venture beyond. But no two Scientists seem to agree. Every period seems to be a mystery in its duration, and a thorn in the side of the Geologists; and, as just shown, they are unable to harmonize their conclusions even with regard to the comparatively recent geological formations. Thus, no reliance can be placed on their figures when they do give any, for with them it is all either millions or simply thousands of years!

That which is said may be strengthened by the confessions made by themselves and the synopsis of these, to be found in that “Circle of Sciences,” the Encyclopædia Britannica, which shows the mean accepted in the geological and anthropological riddles. In that work the cream of the most authoritative opinions is skimmed off and presented; nevertheless, we find in it a refusal to assign any definite chronological date, even to such comparatively speaking late epochs as the Neolithic era, though, for a wonder, an age is established for the beginnings of certain geological periods; at any rate for some few, the duration of which could hardly be any more shortened, without an immediate conflict with facts.

Thus, it is surmised in the great Encyclopædia that:

One hundred million years have passed ... since the solidification of our earth, when the earliest form of life appeared upon it.[1651]

But it seems quite as hopeless to try to convert the modern Geologists and Ethnologists, as it is to make Darwinian Naturalists perceive their mistakes. About the Âryan Root-Race and its origins, Science knows as little as of the men from other Planets. With the exception of Flammarion, and of a few Mystics among Astronomers, even the habitableness of other Planets is mostly denied. Yet such great Adept Astronomers were the Scientists of the earliest races of the Âryan stock, that they seem to have known far more about the races of Mars and Venus than the modern Anthropologist knows of those of the early stages of the Earth.

Let us leave Modern Science aside for a moment and turn to Ancient Knowledge. As we are assured by Archaic Scientists that all such geological cataclysms—from the upheaval of oceans, deluges, and [pg 739] shifting of continents, down to the present year's cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, and even the extraordinary weather and seeming shifting of seasons which are perplexing all European and American Meteorologists—are due to, and depend on the Moon and Planets; aye, that even modest and neglected constellations have the greatest influence on the meteorological and cosmical changes, over, and within our Earth—let us give one moment's attention to our sidereal despots, the rulers of our globe and men. Modern Science denies any such influence; Archaic Science affirms it. We will see what both say with regard to this question.

B. On Chains Of Planets And Their Plurality.

Did the Ancients know of Worlds besides their own? What are the data of the Occultists in affirming that every Globe is a Septenary Chain of Worlds—of which only one member is visible—and that these are, were, or will be, “man-bearing,” just as is every visible Star or Planet? What do they mean by “a moral and physical influence” exerted on our Globe by the Sidereal Worlds?

Such are the questions often put to us, and they have to be considered from every aspect. To the first of the two queries the answer is: We believe it because the first law in nature is uniformity in diversity, and the second is analogy. “As above, so below.” The time is gone by for ever when our pious ancestors believed that our Earth was in the centre of the Universe, and the Church and her arrogant servants could insist that the supposition that any other Planet could be inhabited should be regarded as blasphemy. Adam and Eve, the Serpent and Original Sin, followed by Atonement through Blood, have been too long in the way of progress, and universal truth has thus been sacrificed to the insane conceit of us little men.

Now what are the proofs thereof? Beyond inferential evidence and logical reasoning, there are none for the profane. To the Occultists, who believe in the knowledge acquired by countless generations of Seers and Initiates, the data offered in the Secret Books are all-sufficient. The general public needs other proofs, however. There are some Kabalists, and even some Eastern Occultists, who, failing to find uniform evidence upon this point in all the mystic works of the nations, hesitate to accept the teaching. Even such “uniform evidence” will be forthcoming presently. Meanwhile, we may approach the subject [pg 740] from its general aspect, and see whether belief in it is so very absurd, as some Scientists along with other Nicodemuses would have it. Unconsciously, perhaps, in thinking of a plurality of inhabited “Worlds,” we imagine them to be like the Globe we inhabit, and to be peopled by beings more or less resembling ourselves. And in so doing we are only following a natural instinct. Indeed, so long as the enquiry is confined to the life-history of this Globe, we can speculate on the question with some profit, and ask ourselves, with some hope of at least asking an intelligible question, what were the “Worlds” spoken of in all the ancient scriptures of Humanity? But how do we know (a) what kind of beings inhabit the Globes in general; and (b) whether those who rule Planets superior to our own do not exercise the same influence on our Earth consciously, that we may exercise unconsciously, say on the small planets (planetoids or asteroids) in the long run, by our cutting the Earth in pieces, opening canals, and thereby entirely changing our climates. Of course, like Cæsar's wife, the planetoids, cannot be affected by our suspicion. They are too far, etc. Believing in Esoteric Astronomy, however, we are not so sure of that.

But when, extending our speculations beyond our Planetary Chain, we try to cross the limits of the Solar System, then indeed we act as do presumptuous fools. For—while accepting the old Hermetic axiom, “as above, so below”—as we may well believe that Nature on Earth displays the most careful economy, utilizing every vile and waste thing in her marvellous transformations, and withal never repeating herself, so we may justly conclude that there is no other Globe in all her infinite systems so closely resembling this Earth, that the ordinary powers of man's thought should be able to imagine and reproduce its semblance and containment.[1652]

And indeed we find in the romances as in all the so-called scientific fictions and spiritistic “revelations” from Moon, Stars, and Planets, merely fresh combinations or modifications of the men and things, the passions and forms of life, with which we are familiar, though even on the other Planets of our own System nature and life are entirely different from those prevailing on our own. Swedenborg was preeminent in inculcating such an erroneous belief.

But even more. The ordinary man has no experience of any state of consciousness other than that to which the physical senses link him. Men dream; they sleep the profound sleep which is too deep for its dreams to impress the physical brain; and in these states there must still be consciousness. How, then, while these mysteries remain unexplored, can we hope to speculate with profit on the nature of Globes which, in the economy of Nature, must needs belong to states of consciousness other and quite different from any which man experiences here?

And this is true to the letter. For even great Adepts (those initiated of course), trained Seers though they be, can only claim thorough acquaintance with the nature and appearance of Planets and their inhabitants belonging to our Solar System. They know that almost all the Planetary Worlds are inhabited, but—even in spirit—they can have access only to those of our System; and they are also aware how difficult it is, even for them, to put themselves into full rapport even with the planes of consciousness within our System, differing as they do from the states of consciousness possible on this Globe; such, for instance, as those which exist on the Chain of Spheres on the three planes beyond that of our Earth. Such knowledge and intercourse are possible to them because they have learned how to penetrate to planes of consciousness which are closed to the perceptions of ordinary men; but were they to communicate their knowledge, the world would be no wiser, because men lack that experience of other forms of perception which alone could enable them to grasp what they might be told.

Still the fact remains that most of the Planets, like the Stars beyond our System, are inhabited, a fact which has been admitted by the men of Science themselves. Laplace and Herschel believed it, though they wisely abstained from imprudent speculation; and the same conclusion has been worked out and supported with an array of scientific considerations by C. Flammarion, the well-known French Astronomer. The arguments he brings forward are strictly scientific, and are such as appeal even to a materialistic mind, which would remain unmoved by such thoughts as those of Sir David Brewster, the famous Physicist, who writes:

Those “barren spirits” or “base souls,” as the poet calls them, who might be led to believe that the earth is the only inhabited body in the universe, would have no difficulty in conceiving the earth also to have been destitute of inhabitants. What is more, if such minds were acquainted with the deductions of geology, they would [pg 742]admit that it was uninhabited for myriads of years; and here we come to the impossible conclusion that during these myriads of years there was not a single intelligent creature in the vast domains of the Universal King, and that before the protozoic formations there existed neither plant nor animal in all the infinity of space.[1653]

Flammarion shows, in addition, that all the conditions of life—even as we know it—are present on some at least of the Planets, and points to the fact that these conditions must be much more favourable on them than they are on our Earth.

Thus scientific reasoning, as well as observed facts, concurs with the statements of the Seer, and the innate voice in man's own heart in declaring that life—intelligent, conscious life—must exist on other worlds than ours.

But this is the limit beyond which the ordinary faculties of man cannot carry him. Many are the romances and tales, some purely fanciful, others bristling with scientific knowledge, which have attempted to imagine and describe life on other Globes. But one and all they give but some distorted copy of the drama of life around us. It is either, with Voltaire, the men of our own race under a microscope, or, with de Bergerac, a graceful play of fancy and satire; but we always find that at bottom the new world is but the one we ourselves live in. So strong is this tendency that even great natural, though non-initiated, Seers, fall victims to it when untrained; witness Swedenborg, who goes so far as to dress the inhabitants of Mercury, whom he meets with in the spirit-world, in clothes such as are worn in Europe!

Commenting on this tendency, Flammarion says:

It seems as if in the eyes of those authors who have written on this subject, the Earth were the type of the Universe, and the man of Earth, the type of the inhabitants of the Heavens. It is, on the contrary, much more probable, that, since the nature of other planets is essentially varied, and the surroundings and conditions of existence essentially different, while the forces which preside over the creation of beings and the substances which enter into their mutual constitution are essentially distinct, it would follow that our mode of existence cannot be regarded as in any way applicable to other globes. Those who have written on this subject have allowed themselves to be dominated by terrestrial ideas, and have therefore fallen into error.[1654]

But Flammarion himself falls into the very error which he here condemns, for he tacitly takes the conditions of life on Earth as the standard by which to determine the degree to which other Planets are adapted for habitation by “other humanities.”

Let us, however, leave these profitless and empty speculations, which, though they seem to fill our hearts with a glow of enthusiasm and to enlarge our mental and spiritual grasp, do but in reality cause a factitious stimulation, and blind us more and more to our ignorance not only of the world we inhabit, but even of the infinitude contained within ourselves.

When, therefore, we find “other worlds” spoken of in the Bibles of Humanity, we may safely conclude that they not only refer to other states of our Planetary Chain and Earth, but also to other inhabited Globes—Stars and Planets; withal, that no speculations were ever made about the latter. The whole of antiquity believed in the Universality of Life. But no really initiated Seer of any civilized nation has ever taught that life on other Stars could be judged by the standard of terrestrial life. What is generally meant by “Earths” and “Worlds,” relates (a) to the “rebirths” of our Globe after each Manvantara and a long period of Obscuration; and (b) to the periodical and entire changes of the Earth's surface, when continents disappear to make room for oceans, and oceans and seas are violently displaced and sent rolling to the poles, to cede their emplacements to new continents.

We may begin with the Bible—the youngest of the World-scriptures. In Ecclesiastes, we read these words of the King-Initiate:

One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever.... The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun.[1655]

Under these words it is not easy to see the reference to the successive cataclysms by which the Races of mankind are swept away, or, going further back, to the various transitions of the Globe during the process of its formation. But if we are told that this refers only to our world as we now see it, then we shall refer the reader to the New Testament, where St. Paul speaks of the Son (the manifested Power) whom God hath appointed heir of all things, “by whom also he made the worlds” (plural).[1656] This “Power” is Chokmah, the Wisdom and the Word.

We shall probably be told that by the term “worlds,” the stars, heavenly bodies, etc., were meant. But apart from the fact that “stars” were not known as “worlds” to the ignorant editors of the Epistles, even if they must have been thus known to Paul, who was an Initiate, a “Master-Builder,” we can quote on this point an eminent Theologian, Cardinal Wiseman. In his work (i. 309) treating of the indefinite period of the six days—or shall we say “too definite” period of the six days—of creation and the 6,000 years, he confesses that we are in total darkness as to the meaning of this statement of St. Paul, unless we are permitted to suppose that allusion is made in it to the period which elapsed between the first and second verses of chapter i of Genesis, and thus to those primitive revolutions, i.e., the destructions and the reproductions of the world, indicated in chapter i of Ecclesiastes; or, to accept, with so many others, and in its literal sense, the passage in chapter i of Hebrews, that speaks of the creation of “worlds”—in the plural. It is very singular, he adds, that all the cosmogonies should agree to suggest the same idea, and preserve the tradition of a first series of revolutions, owing to which the world was destroyed and again renewed.

Had the Cardinal studied the Zohar his doubts would have been changed into certainties. Thus saith the “Idra Suta”:

There were old worlds which perished as soon as they came into existence; worlds with and without form called Scintillas—for they were like the sparks under the smith's hammer, flying in all directions. Some were the primordial worlds which could not continue long, because the “Aged”—his name be sanctified—had not as yet assumed his form,[1657] the workman was not yet the “Heavenly Man.”[1658]

Again in the Midrash, written long before the Kabalah of Simeon Ben Iochai, Rabbi Abahu explains:

The Holy One, blessed be his name, has successively formed and destroyed sundry worlds before this one[1659].... Now this refers both to the first races [the “Kings of Edom”] and to the worlds destroyed.[1660]

“Destroyed” means here what we call “obscuration.” This becomes evident when we read the explanation given further on:

Still when it is said that they [the worlds] perished, it is only meant thereby that they [their humanities] lacked the true form, till the human [our] form came into [pg 745]being, in which all things are comprised and which contains all forms ...—it does not mean death, but only denotes a sinking down from their status [that of worlds in activity].[1661]

When, therefore, we read of the “destruction” of the Worlds, the word has many meanings, which are very clear in several of the Commentaries on the Zohar and in Kabalistic treatises. As said elsewhere, it means not only the destruction of many Worlds which have ended their life-career, but also that of the several Continents which have disappeared, as also their decline and geographical change of place.

The mysterious “Kings of Edom” are sometimes referred to as the “Worlds” that had been destroyed; but it is a “cloak.” The Kings who reigned in Edom before there reigned a King in Israel, or the “Edomite Kings,” could never symbolize the “prior worlds,” but only the “attempts at men” on this Globe—the Pre-Adamite Races, of which the Zohar speaks, and which we explain as the First Root-Race. For as, speaking of the six Earths (the six “Limbs” of Microprosopus), it is said that the seventh (our Earth) came not into the computation when the six were created (the six Spheres above our Globe in the Terrestrial Chain), so the first seven Kings of Edom are left out of calculation in Genesis. By the law of analogy and permutation, in the Chaldæan Book of Numbers, as also in the Books of Knowledge and of Wisdom, the “seven primordial worlds” mean also the “seven primordial” races (sub-races of the First Root-Race of the Shadows); and, again, the Kings of Edom are the sons of “Esau, the father of the Edomites”;[1662] i.e., Esau represents in the Bible the race which stands between the Fourth and the Fifth, the Atlantean and the Âryan. “Two nations are in thy womb,” said the Lord to Rebekah; and Esau was red and hairy. From verse 24 to 34, chapter xxv of Genesis contains the allegorical history of the birth of the Fifth Race.

Says the Siphra Dtzenioutha:

And the Kings of ancient days died and their chiefs [crowns] were found no more.

And the Zohar states:

The Head of a nation that has not been formed at the beginning in the likeness of the White Head: its people is not from this Form.... Before it [the White Head, the Fifth Race or Ancient of the Ancients] arranged itself in its [own, or [pg 746]present] Form ... all Worlds have been destroyed; therefore it is written: and Bela, the Son of Beor, reigned in Edom [Gen., xxxvi. Here the “Worlds”stand for Races]. And he [such or another King of Edom] died, and another reigned in his stead.

No Kabalist who has hitherto treated of the symbolism and allegory hidden under these “Kings of Edom” seems to have perceived more than one aspect of them. They are neither the “worlds that were destroyed,” nor the “Kings that died”—alone; but both, and much more, to treat of which there is no space at present. Therefore, leaving the mystic parables of the Zohar, we will return to the hard facts of materialistic Science; first, however, citing a few from the long list of great thinkers who have believed in the plurality of inhabited Worlds in general, and in Worlds that preceded our own. These are, the great mathematicians Leibnitz and Bernouilli, Sir Isaac Newton himself, as may be read in his Optics; Buffon, the Naturalist; Condillac, the Sceptic; Bailly, Lavater, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and, as a contrast to the two last named—suspected at least of Mysticism—Diderot and most of the writers of the Encyclopædia. Following these come Kant, the founder of modern Philosophy; the poet Philosophers, Goethe, Krause, Schelling; and many Astronomers, from Bode, Fergusson and Herschel, to Lalande and Laplace, with their many disciples in more recent years.

A brilliant list of honoured names indeed; but the facts of physical Astronomy speak even more strongly than these names in favour of the presence of life, of even organized life, on other Planets. Thus in four meteorites which fell respectively at Alais in France, in the Cape of Good Hope, in Hungary, and again in France, on analysis, there was found graphite, a form of carbon known to be invariably associated with organic life on this Earth of ours. And that the presence of this carbon is not due to any action occurring within our atmosphere is shown by the fact that carbon has been found in the very centre of a meteorite; while in one which fell at Argueil, in the south of France, in 1857, there was found water and turf, the latter being always formed by the decomposition of vegetable substances.

And further, examining the astronomical conditions of the other Planets, it is easy to show that several are far better adapted for the development of life and intelligence—even under the conditions with which men are acquainted—than is our Earth. For instance, on the Planet Jupiter the seasons, instead of varying between wide limits as [pg 747] do ours, change by almost imperceptible degrees, and last twelve times as long as ours. Owing to the inclination of its axis the seasons on Jupiter are due almost entirely to the eccentricity of its orbit, and hence change slowly and regularly. We shall be told, that no life is possible on Jupiter, as it is in an incandescent state. But not all Astronomers agree with this. For instance, what we state is declared by M. Flammarion; and he ought to know.

On the other hand Venus would be less adapted for human life such as exists on Earth, since its seasons are more extreme and its changes of temperature more sudden; though it is curious that the duration of the day is nearly the same on the four inner planets, Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Mars.

On Mercury, the Sun's heat and light are seven times what they are on the Earth, and Astronomy teaches that it is enveloped in a very dense atmosphere. And as we see that life appears more active on Earth in proportion to the light and heat of the Sun, it would seem more than probable that its intensity is far, far greater on Mercury than here.

Venus, like Mercury, has a very dense atmosphere, as also has Mars, and the snows which cover their poles, the clouds which hide their surface, the geographical configuration of their seas and continents, the variations of seasons and climates, are all closely analogous—at least to the eye of the physical Astronomer. But such facts and the considerations to which they give rise have reference only to the possibility of the existence on these Planets of human life as known on Earth. That some forms of life such as we know are possible on these Planets, has been long since abundantly demonstrated, and it seems perfectly useless to go into detailed questions of the physiology, etc., of these hypothetical inhabitants, since, after all, the reader can arrive only at an imaginary extension of his familiar surroundings. It is better to rest content with the three conclusions which M. Flammarion, whom we have so largely quoted, formulates as rigorous and exact deductions from the known facts and laws of Science.

i. The various forces which were active in the beginning of evolution gave birth to a great variety of beings on the several worlds; both in the organic and inorganic kingdoms.

ii. The animated beings were constituted from the first according to forms and organisms in correlation with the physiological state of each inhabited globe.

iii. The humanities of other worlds differ from us, as much in their inner organization as in their external physical type.

Finally the reader who may be disposed to question the validity of these conclusions as being opposed to the Bible, may be referred to an Appendix in M. Flammarion's work dealing in detail with this question, since in a work like the present it seems unnecessary to point out the logical absurdity of those churchmen who deny the plurality of worlds on the ground of biblical authority.

In this connection we may well recall those days when the burning zeal of the Primitive Church opposed the doctrine of the Earth's rotundity, on the ground that the nations at the Antipodes would be outside the pale of salvation; and again, we may remember how long it took for a nascent Science to break down the idea of a solid firmament, in the grooves of which the stars moved for the special edification of terrestrial humanity.

The theory of the Earth's rotation was met by a like opposition—even to the martyrdom of its discoverers—because, besides depriving our orb of its dignified central position in space, the theory produced an appalling confusion of ideas as to the Ascension—the terms “up” and “down” being proved to be merely relative, thus complicating not a little the question of the precise locality of Heaven![1663]

According to the best modern calculations, there are no less than 500,000,000 Stars of various magnitudes, within the range of the best telescopes. As to the distances between them, they are incalculable. Is, then, our microscopical Earth—a “grain of sand on an infinite sea-shore”—the only centre of intelligent life? Our own Sun, itself 1,300,000 times larger than our Planet, sinks into insignificance beside the giant Sun, Sirius, and the latter in its turn is dwarfed by other luminaries in infinite Space. The self-centred conception of Jehovah as the special guardian of a small and obscure semi-nomadic tribe, is tolerable beside that which confines sentient existence to our microscopical Globe. The primary reasons were without doubt: (a) astronomical ignorance on the part of the early Christians, coupled with an exaggerated appreciation of man's own importance—a crude form of selfishness; and (b) the dread that, if the hypothesis of millions [pg 749] of other inhabited Globes were accepted, the crushing rejoinder would ensue: “Was there then a Revelation to each World?”—involving the idea of the Son of God eternally “going the rounds,” as it were. Happily it is now unnecessary to waste time and energy in proving the possibility of the existence of such Worlds. All intelligent persons admit it. That which now remains to be demonstrated is, that if it is once proven that there are inhabited Worlds besides our own, with humanities entirely different from each other as from our own—as maintained in the Occult Sciences—then the evolution of the preceding Races is half proved. For where is that Physicist or Geologist who is prepared to maintain that the Earth has not changed scores of times, in the millions of years which have elapsed in the course of its existence; and that changing its “skin,” as it is called in Occultism, the Earth has not had each time her special Humanities adapted to such atmospheric and climatic conditions as were entailed by such change? And if so, why should not our preceding four and entirely different Mankinds have existed and thrived before our Adamic Fifth Root Race?

Before closing our debate, however, we have to examine the so-called organic evolution more closely. Let us search well and see whether it is quite impossible to make our Occult data and chronology agree—up to a certain point—with those of Science.

C. Supplementary Remarks On Esoteric Geological Chronology.

It seems possible to calculate the approximate duration at any rate of the geological periods from the combined data of Science and Occultism now before us. Geology is, of course, able to determine one thing with almost certainty—the thickness of the several deposits. Now, it also stands to reason that the time required for the deposition of any stratum on a sea-bottom must bear a strict proportion to the thickness of the mass thus formed. Doubtless the rate of the erosion of land, and of the sorting out of matter on to ocean beds, has varied from age to age, and cataclysmic changes of various kinds have broken the “uniformity” of ordinary geological processes. Provided, then, that we have some definite numerical basis on which to work, our task is rendered less difficult than it might at first sight appear. Making [pg 750] due allowance for variations in the rate of deposit, Professor Lefèvre gives us the relative figures which sum up geological time. He does not attempt to calculate the lapse of years since the first bed of the Laurentian rocks was deposited, but postulating that time as x, he presents us with the relative proportions in which the various periods stand to it. Let us premise our estimate by stating that, roughly speaking, the Primordial rocks are 70,000 ft., the Primary 42,000 ft., the Secondary 15,000 ft., the Tertiary 5,000 ft., and the Quaternary some 500 ft. in thickness:

Dividing into a hundred parts the time, whatever its actual length, that has passed since the dawn of life on this earth [lower Laurentian strata], we shall be led to attribute to the Primordial age more than half of the whole duration, say 53.5; to the Primary 32.2; to the Secondary 11.5; to the Tertiary 2.3; to the Quaternary 0.5 or one-half per cent.[1664]

Now, as it is certain, on Occult data, that the time which has elapsed since the first sedimentary deposits is 320,000,000 years, we are able to construct the following table:

Rough Approximations of Length of Geological Periods in Years.

Primordial (Laurentian, Cambrian, Silurian): 171,200,000.

Primary (Devonian, Coal, Permian): 103,040,000.

Secondary (Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous): 36,800,000.

Tertiary (Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene): 7,360,000.

Quaternary: 1,600,000.[1665]

Such estimates harmonize with the statements of Esoteric Ethnology in almost every particular. The Tertiary Atlantean part-cycle, from [pg 751] the “apex of glory” of that Race in the early Eocene to the great Mid-Miocene cataclysm, would appear to have lasted some three-and-a-half to four million years. If the duration of the Quaternary is not, as seems likely, rather over-estimated, the sinking of Ruta and Daitya would be Post-Tertiary. It is probable that the results here given allow somewhat too long a period to both the Tertiary and Quaternary, as the Third Race goes very far back into the Secondary age. Nevertheless, the figures are most suggestive.

But the argument from geological evidence being in favour of only 100,000,000 years, let us compare our claims and teachings with those of exact Science.

Mr. Edward Clodd,[1666] in referring to M. de Mortillet's work Matériaux pour l'Histoire de l'Homme, which places man in the Mid-Miocene period,[1667] remarks that:

It would be in defiance of all that the doctrine of evolution teaches, and moreover win no support from believers in special creation and the fixity of species, to seek for so highly specialized a mammalian as man at an early stage in the life-history of the globe.

To this, one could answer: (a) the doctrine of evolution, as inaugurated by Darwin and developed by later evolutionists, is not only the reverse of infallible, but it is repudiated by several great men of Science, e.g., de Quatrefages, in France, Dr. Weismann, an ex-evolutionist in Germany, and many others, the ranks of the Anti-Darwinists growing stronger with every year;[1668] and (b) truth to be worthy of its name, and remain truth and fact, hardly needs to beg for support from any class or sect. For were it to win support from believers in special creation, it would never gain the favour of the evolutionists, and vice versâ. Truth must rest upon its own firm foundation of facts, and take its chance of recognition, when every prejudice in the way is disposed of. Though the question has been already fully considered in its main aspect, it is, nevertheless, advisable to combat every so-called “scientific” objection as we go along, [pg 752] when making what are regarded as heretical and anti-scientific statements.

Let us briefly glance at the divergencies between orthodox and Esoteric Science, on the question of the age of the globe and of man. With the two respective synchronistic tables before him, the reader will be enabled to see at a glance the importance of these divergencies; and to perceive, at the same time, that it is not impossible—nay, it is most likely—that further discoveries in Geology and the finding of fossil remains of man will force Science to confess that it is Esoteric Philosophy which is right after all, or, at any rate, nearer to the truth.

Parallelism of Life.

Scientific Hypotheses: Science divides the period of the Globe's history, since the beginning of life on Earth (or the Azoic age), into five main divisions or periods, according to Hæckel.[1669]

Esoteric Theory: Leaving the classification of the geological periods to Western Science, Esoteric Philosophy divides only the Life-periods on the Globe. In the present Manvantara the actual period is separated into seven Kalpas and seven great human Races. Its first Kalpa, answering to the Primordial Epoch is the age of the Primeval.

Scientific: Primordial Epoch: Laurentian, Cambrian, Silurian. The Primordial epoch, Science tells us, is by no means devoid of vegetable and animal life. In the Laurentian deposits are found specimens of the Eozoon canadense—a chambered shell. In the Silurian are discovered sea-weeds (algæ), molluscs, crustacea, and lower marine organisms, also the first trace of fishes. The Primordial epoch shows algæ, molluscs, crustacea, polyps, and marine organisms, etc. Science teaches, therefore, that marine life was present from the very beginnings of time, leaving us, however, to speculate for ourselves as to how life appeared on Earth. If it rejects the biblical “creation” (as we do), why does it not give us another, approximately plausible hypothesis?

Esoteric: “Primeval”[1670]: Devas or Divine Men, the “Creators” and Progenitors.[1671] The Esoteric Philosophy agrees with the statement made by Science (see preceding), demurring, however, to one particular. The 300,000,000 years of vegetable life (see “Brâhmanical Chronology”) preceded the “Divine Men,” or Progenitors. Also, no teaching denies that there were traces of life within the Earth, besides the Eozoon canadense, in the Primordial Epoch. Only, whereas the said vegetation belonged to this Round, the zoological relics now found in the Laurentian, Cambrian, and Silurian systems, so called, are the relics of the [pg 753] Third Round. At first astral like the rest, they consolidated and materialized pari passu with the new vegetation.

Scientific: Primary: Devonian,[1672] Coal, Permian. “Fern-forests, sigillaria, coniferæ, fishes, first trace of reptiles.” Thus saith Modern Science.

Esoteric: “Primary”: Divine Progenitors (Secondary Groups), and the two and a half Races. The Esoteric Doctrine repeats that which was said above. These are all relics of the preceding Round.[1673]

Once, however, the prototypes are projected out of the Astral Envelope of the Earth, an indefinite amount of modification ensues.

Scientific: Secondary: Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous. This is the age of Reptiles, of the gigantic megalosauri, ichthyosauri, plesiosauri, etc. Science denies the presence of man in this period. But it has still to explain how men came to know of these monsters and describe them before the age of Cuvier! The old annals of China, India, Egypt, and even of Judea are full of them, as demonstrated elsewhere. In this period also appear the first marsupial mammals[1674]—insectivorous, carnivorous, phytophagous; and, as Prof. Owen thinks, a herbiferous hoofed mammal.

Science does not admit the appearance of man before the close of the Tertiary period.[1675] Why? Because man has to be shown younger than the higher mammals. But Esoteric Philosophy teaches us the reverse. And as Science is quite unable to come to anything like an approximate conclusion as to the age of man, or even as to the geological periods, the Occult teaching is, therefore, more logical and reasonable, even if accepted only as a hypothesis.

Esoteric: “Secondary”: According to every calculation the Third Race had already made its appearance, as during the Triassic there were already a few mammals, and it must have separated before their appearance.

This, then, is the age of the Third Race, in which the origins of the early Fourth may be perhaps also discoverable. We are, however, here left entirely to conjecture, as no definite data are yet given out by the Initiates.

The analogy is but a poor one, still it may be argued that, as the early mammalia and pre-mammalia are shown in their evolution merging from one kind into a higher one, anatomically, so are the [pg 754] human races in their procreative processes. A parallel might certainly be found between the monotremata, didelphia (or marsupialia) and the placental mammals, divided in their turn into three orders[1676] like the First, Second, and Third Root-Races of men.[1677] But this would require more space than can be now allotted to the subject.

Scientific: Tertiary[1678]: Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene. No man is yet allowed to have lived during this period.

Says Mr. E. Clodd, in Knowledge: “Although the placental mammals and the order of primates to which man is related, appear in Tertiary times, and the climate, tropical in the Eocene age, warm in the Miocene, and temperate in the Pliocene, was favourable to his presence, the proofs of his existence in Europe before the close of the Tertiary epoch ... are not generally accepted here.”

Esoteric: “Tertiary”: The Third Race has now almost utterly disappeared, carried away by the fearful geological cataclysms of the Secondary age, leaving behind it but a few hybrid races.

The Fourth, born millions of years [pg 755] before[1679] the said cataclysm took place, perished during the Miocene period,[1680] when the Fifth (our Âryan Race) had had one million years of independent existence.[1681] How much older it is from its origin—who knows? As the “historical” period began with the Indian Âryans, with their Vedas for their multitudes,[1682] and far earlier in the Esoteric Records, it is useless to establish here any parallels.

Geology has now divided the periods and placed man in the Quaternary.

Scientific: Quaternary: Palæolithic Man, Neolithic Man, Historical Period.

Esoteric: “Quaternary”: If the Quaternary period is allowed 1,500,000 years, then only does our Fifth Race belong to it.

Yet—mirabile dictu—while the non-cannibal Palæolithic man, who must have certainly antedated cannibal Neolithic man by hundreds of thousands of years,[1683] is shown to be a remarkable artist, Neolithic man is made out to be almost an abject savage, his lake dwellings notwithstanding.[1684] For see what a learned Geologist, Mr. Charles Gould, tells the reader in his Mythical Monsters:

Palæolithic men were unacquainted with pottery and the art of weaving, and apparently had no domesticated animals or system of cultivation; but the Neolithic lake-dwellers of Switzerland had looms, pottery, cereals, sheep, horses, etc. Implements of horn, bone, and wood were in common use among both races, but those of the older are frequently distinguished by their being sculptured with great [pg 756]ability, or ornamented with life-like engravings of the various animals living at the period; whereas there appears to have been a marked absence of any similar artistic ability[1685] on the part of Neolithic man.[1686]

Let us give the reasons for this.

(1) The oldest fossil man, the primitive cave-men of the old Palæolithic period, and of the Pre-Glacial period (of whatever length, and however far back), is always the same genus man, and there are no fossil remains proving for him

What the Hipparion and Anchitherium have proved for the genus horse—that is, gradual progressive specialization from a simple ancestral type to more complex existing forms.[1687]

(2) As to the so-called Palæolithic hatchets:

When placed side by side with the rudest forms of stone hatchets actually used by the Australian and other savages, it is difficult to detect any difference.[1688]

This goes to prove that there have been savages at all times; and the inference would be that there might have been civilized people in those days as well, cultured nations contemporary with those rude savages. We see such a thing in Egypt 7,000 years ago.

(3) An obstacle which is the direct consequence of the two preceding: Man, if no older than the Palæolithic period, could not possibly have had the actual time necessary for his transformation from the “missing link” into what he is known to have been even during that remote geological time, i.e., even a finer specimen of manhood than many of the now existing races.

The above lends itself naturally to the following syllogism: (1) The primitive man (known to Science) was, in some respects, even a finer man of his genus than he is now. (2) The earliest monkey known, the lemur, was less anthropoid than the modern pithecoid species. (3) [pg 757] Conclusion: Even though a missing link were found, the balance of evidence would remain more in favour of the ape being a degenerated man, made dumb by some fortuitous circumstances,[1689] than in favour of the descent of man from a pithecoid ancestor. The theory cuts both ways.

On the other hand, if the existence of Atlantis be accepted, and the statement be believed that in the Eocene age—

Even in its very first part, the great cycle of the Fourth Race men, the Atlanteans, had already reached its highest point,[1690]

then some of the present difficulties of Science might easily be made to disappear. The rude workmanship of the Palæolithic tools proves nothing against the idea that, side by side with their makers, there lived nations highly civilized. We are told that:

Only a very small portion of the earth's surface has been explored, and of this a very small portion consists of ancient land surfaces or fresh water formations, where alone we can expect to meet with traces of the higher forms of animal life. And even these have been so imperfectly explored, that where we now meet with thousands and tens of thousands of undoubted human remains lying almost under our feet, it is only within the last thirty years that their existence has even been suspected.[1691]

It is very suggestive also that along with the rude hatchets of the lowest savage, explorers meet with specimens of workmanship of such artistic merit as could hardly be found, or expected, in a modern peasant belonging to any European country—unless in exceptional cases. The “portrait” of the “Reindeer Feeding,” from the Thayngin grotto in Switzerland, and those of the man running, with two horses' heads sketched close to him—a work of the Reindeer period, i.e., at least 50,000 years ago—are pronounced by Mr. Laing to be not only exceedingly well done, but the former, the “Reindeer Feeding,” is described as one that “would do credit to any modern animal painter”—by no means exaggerated praise, as anyone may see, by glancing at the sketch given below from Mr. Gould's work. Now, since we have our greatest painters of Europe side by side with the modern Esquimaux, who also have a tendency, like their Palæolithic ancestors of the Reindeer period, the rude and savage human species, to be constantly [pg 758] drawing with the point of their knives sketches of animals, scenes of the chase, etc., why could not the same have happened in those days? Compared with the specimens of Egyptian drawing and sketching—7,000 years ago—the “earliest portraits” of men, horses' heads, and reindeer, made 50,000 years ago, are certainly superior. Nevertheless, the Egyptians of those periods are known to have been a highly civilized nation, whereas the Palæolithic men are called savages of the lower type. This is a small matter seemingly, yet it is extremely suggestive as showing how every new geological discovery is made to fit in with current theories, instead of fitting the theories to include the discovery. Yes; Mr. Huxley is right in saying, “Time will show.” It will, and it must vindicate Occultism.

Meanwhile, the most uncompromising Materialists are driven by necessity into the most Occult-like admissions. Strange to say, it is the most materialistic—those of the German school—who, with regard to physical development, come the nearest to the teachings of the Occultists. Thus, Professor Baumgärtner believes that:

The germs for the higher animals could only be the eggs of the lower animals; ... besides the advance of the vegetable and animal world in development, there occurred in that period the formation of new original germs [which formed the basis of new metamorphoses, etc.] ... the first men who proceeded from the germs of animals beneath them, lived first in a larva state.

Just so; in a larva state, we say too, only from no “animal” germ; and that larva was the soulless astral form of the pre-physical Races. And we believe, as the German professor does, with several other men of Science in Europe now, that the human races—

Have not descended from one pair, but appeared immediately in numerous races.[1692]

Therefore, when we read Force and Matter, and find that Emperor of Materialists, Büchner, repeating after Manu and Hermes, that:

Imperceptibly the plant glides into the animal, the animal into the man[1693]

—we need only add “and man into a spirit,” to complete the kabalistic axiom. The more so, since we read the following admission:

Evolved by spontaneous generation ... that whole rich and multiform organic world ... has developed itself progressively, in the course of endless periods of time, by the aid of natural phenomena.[1694]

The whole difference lies in this: Modern Science places her materialistic theory of primordial germs on Earth, and the last germ of life on this Globe, of man, and everything else, between two voids. Whence the first germ, if both spontaneous generation and the interference of external forces, are absolutely rejected now? Germs of organic life, we are told, by Sir William Thompson, came to our Earth in some meteor. This helps in no way, and only shifts the difficulty from this Earth to the supposed meteor.

These are our agreements and disagreements with Science. About the “endless periods” we are, of course, at one even with materialistic speculation; for we believe in Evolution, though on different lines. Professor Huxley very wisely says:

If any form of the doctrine of progressive development is correct, we must extend by long epochs the most liberal estimate that has yet been made of the antiquity of man.[1695]

But when we are told that this man is a product of the natural forces inherent in Matter—Force, according to modern views, being but a quality of Matter, a “mode of motion,” etc.—and when we find Sir William Thompson repeating in 1885 what was asserted by Büchner and his school thirty years ago, we fear all our reverence for real Science is vanishing into thin air! One can hardly help thinking that Materialism is, in certain cases, a disease. For when men of Science, in the face of magnetic phenomena and the attraction of iron particles through insulating substances, like glass, maintain that the said attraction is due to “molecular motion,” or to the “rotation of the molecules of the magnet,” then, whether the teaching comes from a “credulous” Theosophist innocent of any notion of Physics, or from an eminent man of Science, it is equally ridiculous. The individual who asserts such a theory in the teeth of fact, is only one more proof that: “When people have not a niche in their minds into which to shoot facts, so much the worse for the facts.”

At present the dispute between the spontaneous generationists and their opponents is at rest, having ended in the provisional victory of the latter. But even they are forced to admit, as Büchner did, and Messrs. Tyndall and Huxley still do—that spontaneous generation must have occurred once, under “special thermal conditions.” Virchow refuses even to argue the question; it must have taken place some time in the history of our planet; and there's an end of it. This seems to look [pg 760] more natural than Sir William Thompson's hypothesis just quoted, that the germs of organic life fell on our Earth in some meteor; or the other “scientific” hypothesis coupled with the recently adopted belief that there exists no “vital principle” whatever, but only vital phenomena, which can all be traced to the molecular forces of the original protoplasm. But this does not help Science to solve the still greater problem—the origin and the descent of Man, for here is a still worse plaint and lamentation.

While we can trace the skeletons of Eocene mammals through several directions of specialization in succeeding Tertiary times, man presents the phenomenon of an unspecialized skeleton which cannot fairly be connected with any of these lines.[1696]

The secret could be soon told, not only from the Esoteric but even from the standpoint of every religion the world over, without mentioning the Occultists. The “specialized skeleton” is sought for in the wrong place, where it can never be found. Scientists expect to discover it in the physical remains of man, in some pithecoid “missing link,” with a skull larger than that of the ape's, and with a cranial capacity smaller than in man, instead of looking for that specialization in the super-physical essence of his inner astral constitution, which can hardly be excavated from any geological strata! Such a tenacious, hopeful clinging to a self-degrading theory is the most wonderful feature of the day.

Meanwhile, there are specimens of engravings made by Palæolithic “savages”: Palæolithic meaning the “earlier Stone-age” man, one supposed to have been as savage and brutal as the brutes he lived with. [pg 761] Leaving the modern South Sea islander, or even any Asiatic race, aside, we defy any grown-up schoolboy, or even a European youth, one who has never studied drawing, to execute such an engraving or even a pencil sketch as good. Here we have the true artistic raccourci, and correct lights and shadows without any plane model before the artist, who copied direct from nature, thus exhibiting a knowledge of anatomy and proportion. The artist who engraved this reindeer belonged, we are asked to believe, to the primitive “semi-animal” savages (contemporaneous with the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros), whom some over-zealous Evolutionists once sought to picture to us as distinct approximations to the type of their hypothetical “pithecoid man”!

This engraved antler proves as eloquently as any fact can do, that the evolution of the Races has ever proceeded in a series of rises and falls, that man is, perhaps, as old as incrustated Earth, and—if we can call his divine ancestor “man”—is far older still.

Even de Mortillet himself seems to experience a vague distrust of the conclusions of modern Archæologists, when he writes:

The pre-historic is a new science, far, very far, from having said its last word.[1697]

According to Lyell, one of the highest authorities on the subject, and the “father” of Geology:

The expectation of always meeting with a lower type of human skull, the older the formation in which it occurs, is based on the theory of progressive development, and it may prove to be sound; nevertheless we must remember that as yet we have no distinct geological evidence that the appearance of what are called the inferior races of mankind has always preceded in chronological order that of the higher races.[1698]

Nor has such evidence been found to this day. Science is thus offering for sale the skin of a bear, which has hitherto never been seen by mortal eye!

This concession of Lyell's reads most suggestively with the subjoined utterance of Professor Max Müller, whose attack on Darwinian Anthropology from the standpoint of language has, by the way, never been satisfactorily answered:

What do we know of savage tribes beyond the last chapter of their history? [Compare this with the Esoteric view of the Australians, Bushmen, as well as of Palæolithic European man, the Atlantean offshoots retaining a relic of a lost culture, which throve when the parent Root-Race was in its prime.] Do we ever get an insight into their antecedents? Can we ever understand what after all is everywhere the most important and the most instructive lesson to learn—how they have come to be what they are?... Their language proves, indeed, that these so-called [pg 762]heathens, with their complicated systems of mythology, their artificial customs, their unintelligible whims and savageries, are not the creatures of to-day or yesterday. Unless we admit a special creation for these savages, they must be as old as the Hindûs, the Greeks and Romans [far older] ... They may have passed through ever so many vicissitudes, and what we consider as primitive, may be, for all we know, a relapse into savagery or a corruption of something that was more rational and intelligible in former stages.[1699]

Professor George Rawlinson, M.A., remarks:

“The primeval savage” is a familiar term in modern literature, but there is no evidence that the primeval savage ever existed. Rather all the evidence looks the other way.[1700]

In his Origin of Nations, he rightly adds:

The mythical traditions of almost all nations place at the beginning of human history a time of happiness and perfection, a “golden age” which has no features of savagery or barbarism, but many of civilization and refinement.[1701]

How is the modern Evolutionist to meet this consensus of evidence?

We repeat the question asked in Isis Unveiled:

Does the finding of the remains in the cave of Devon prove that there were no contemporary races then who were highly civilized? When the present population of the Earth has disappeared, and some Archæologist belonging to the “coming race” of the distant future shall excavate the domestic implements of one of our Indian or Andaman Island tribes, will he be justified in concluding that mankind in the nineteenth century was “just emerging from the Stone age”?[1702]

Another strange inconsistency in scientific theories is that Neolithic man is shown as being far more of a primitive savage than Palæolithic. Either Lubbock's Pre-historic Man, or Evans' Ancient Stone Implements must be at fault, or—both. For this is what we learn from these works and others:

(1) As we pass from Neolithic to Palæolithic man, the stone implements become rude lumbering makeshifts, instead of gracefully shaped and polished instruments. Pottery, and other useful arts disappear as we descend the scale. And yet the latter could engrave such a reindeer!

(2) Palæolithic man lived in caves which he shared with hyænas and lions,[1703] whereas Neolithic man dwelt in lake-villages and buildings.

Every one who has followed even superficially the geological discoveries of our day, knows that a gradual improvement in workmanship is found, from the clumsy chipping and rude chopping of the early Palæolithic hatchets, to the relatively graceful stone celts of that part of the Neolithic period immediately preceding the use of metals. But this is in Europe, only a few portions of which were barely rising from the waters in the days of the highest Atlantean civilization. There were rude savages and highly civilized people then, as there are now. If 50,000 years hence, pigmy Bushmen are exhumed from some African cavern together with far earlier pigmy elephants, such as were found in the cave deposits of Malta by Milne Edwards, will that be a reason for maintaining that in our age all men and all elephants were pigmies? Or if the weapons of the Veddhas of Ceylon are found, will our descendants be justified in setting us all down as Palæolithic savages? All the articles which Geologists now excavate in Europe can certainly never date earlier than the close of the Eocene age, since the lands of Europe were not even above water before that period. Nor can what we have said be in the least invalidated by theorists telling us that these quaint sketches of animals and men by Palæolithic man, were executed only toward the close of the Reindeer period—for this explanation would be a very lame one indeed, in view of the Geologists' ignorance of even the approximate duration of periods.

The Esoteric Doctrine teaches distinctly the dogma of the risings and falls of civilization; and now we learn that:

It is a remarkable fact that cannibalism seems to have become more frequent as man advanced in civilization, and that while its traces are frequent in Neolithic times they become very scarce or altogether disappear in the age of the mammoth and the reindeer....[1704]

—another evidence of the cyclic law and the truth of our teachings. Esoteric history teaches that idols and their worship died out with the Fourth Race, until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African negroes, etc.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols; all the modern Hindû writings do.

In the early Egyptian tombs, and in the remains of the pre-historic cities excavated by Dr. Schliemann, images of owl- and ox-headed goddesses, and other symbolical figures or idols, are found in abundance. But when we ascend into Neolithic times, such idols are no longer found, or, if found, it is so rarely that archæologists still dispute as to their existence ... the only ones which may be said with some certainty to have been idols are one or two discovered by M. de [pg 764]Braye in some artificial caves of the Neolithic period ... which appear to be intended for female figures of life size.[1705]

And these may have been simply statues. Anyhow, all this is one among the many proofs of the cyclic rise and fall of civilization and religion. The fact that no traces of human relics or skeletons are so far found beyond Post-Tertiary or Quaternary times—though Abbé Bourgeois' flints may serve as a warning[1706]—seems to point to the truth of another Esoteric statement, which runs thus:

Seek for the remains of thy forefathers in the high places. The vales have grown into mountains and the mountains have crumbled to the bottom of the seas.

Fourth Race mankind, thinned after the last cataclysm by two-thirds of its population, instead of settling on the new continents and islands that reäppeared—while their predecessors formed the floors of new oceans—deserted that which is now Europe and parts of Asia and Africa for the summits of gigantic mountains, the seas that surrounded some of the latter having since “retreated” and made room for the table lands of Central Asia.

The most interesting example of this progressive march is perhaps afforded by the celebrated Kent's Cavern at Torquay. In that strange recess, excavated by water out of the Devonian limestone, we find a most curious record preserved for us in the geological memoirs of the Earth. Under the blocks of limestone, which heaped the floor of the cavern, were discovered, embedded in a deposit of black earth, many implements of the Neolithic period of fairly excellent workmanship, with a few fragments of pottery—possibly traceable to the era of the Roman colonization. There is no trace of Palæolithic man here. No flints or traces of the extinct animals of the Quaternary period. When, however, we penetrate still deeper through the dense layer of stalagmite beneath the black mould into the red earth, which, of course, itself once formed the pavement of the retreat, things assume a very different aspect. Not one implement fit to bear comparison with the finely-chipped weapons found in the overlying stratum is to be seen; only a host of the rude and lumbering little hatchets (with which the monstrous giants of the animal world were subdued and killed by little man, we have to think?) and scrapers of the Palæolithic age, mixed up confusedly with [pg 765] the bones of species now either extinct or emigrated, driven away by change of climate. It is the artificer of these ugly little hatchets, you see, who sculptured the reindeer over the brook, on the antler as shown above! In all cases we meet with the same evidence that, from historic to Neolithic and from Neolithic to Palæolithic man, things slope downwards on an inclined plane from the rudiments of civilization to the most abject barbarism—in Europe again. We are made also to face the “Mammoth age”—the extreme or earliest division of the Palæolithic age—in which the great rudeness of implements reaches its maximum, and the brutal (?) appearance of contemporary skulls, such as the Neanderthal, points to a very low type of humanity. But they may sometimes point also to something else; to a race of men quite distinct from our (Fifth Race) Humanity.

As said by an Anthropologist in Modern Thought:

The theory, scientifically based or not, of Peyrère may be considered to be equivalent to that which divided man in two species. Broca, Virey, and a number of the French anthropologists have recognized that the lower race of man, comprising the Australian, Tasmanian, and Negro race, excluding the Kaffirs and the Northern Africans, should be placed apart. The fact that in this species, or rather sub-species, the third lower molars are usually larger than the second, and the squamosal and frontal bones are generally united by suture, places the Homo aferon the level of being as good a distinct species as many of the kinds of finches. I shall abstain on the present occasion from mentioning the facts of hybridity, whereon the late Professor Broca has so exhaustively commented. The history, in the past ages of the world, of this race is peculiar. It has never originated a system of architecture or a religion of its own.[1707]

It is peculiar, indeed, as we have shown in the case of the Tasmanians. However it may be, fossil man in Europe can neither prove nor disprove the antiquity of man on this Earth, nor the age of his earliest civilizations.

It is time that the Occultists should disregard any attempts to laugh at them, scorning the heavy guns of the satire of the men of Science as much as the pop-guns of the profane, since it is impossible, so far, to obtain either proof or disproof, while their theories can stand the test better than can the hypotheses of the Scientists, at any rate. As to the proof of the antiquity which they claim for man, they have Darwin himself and Lyell with them. The latter confesses that they, the Naturalists—

Have already obtained evidence of the existence of man at so remote a period that there has been time for many conspicuous mammalia, once his contemporaries, to die out, and this even before the era of the earliest historical records.[1708]

This is a statement made by one of England's great authorities upon the question. The two sentences that follow are as suggestive, and may well be remembered by students of Occultism, for with all others he says:

In spite of the long lapse of prehistoric ages during which he [man] must have flourished on earth, there is no proof of any perceptible change in his bodily structure. If, therefore, he ever diverged from some unreasoning brute ancestor, we must suppose him to have existed at a far more distant epoch, possibly on some continents or islands now submerged beneath the ocean.

Thus lost continents are officially suspected. That worlds, and also races, are periodically destroyed by fire (volcanoes and earthquakes) and water, in turn, and are periodically renewed, is a doctrine as old as man. Manu, Hermes, the Chaldæans, all antiquity, believed in this. Twice already has the face of the Globe been changed by fire, and twice by water, since man appeared on it. As land needs rest and renovation, new forces, and a change for its soil, so does water. Thence arises a periodical redistribution of land and water, change of climates, etc., all brought on by geological revolution, and ending in a final change in the axis of the Earth. Astronomers may pooh-pooh the idea of a periodical change in the behaviour of the Globe's axis, and smile at the conversation given in the Book of Enoch between Noah and his “grandfather” Enoch; the allegory is, nevertheless, a geological and an astronomical fact. There is a secular change in the inclination of the Earth's axis, and its appointed time is recorded in one of the great Secret Cycles. As in many other questions, Science is gradually moving toward our way of thinking. Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., F.G.S., writes in the Popular Science Review:

If it be necessary to call in extra-mundane causes to explain the great increase of ice at this glacial period, I would prefer the theory propounded by Dr. Robert Hooke in 1688; since, by Sir Richard Phillips and others; and lastly by Mr. Thomas Belt, C.E., F.G.S.; namely, a slight increase in the present obliquity of the ecliptic, a proposal in perfect accord with other known astronomical facts, and the introduction of which involves no disturbance of the harmony which is essential to our cosmical condition as a unit in the great solar system.[1709]

The following, quoted from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S., delivered in March, 1885, on “The Extinct Lake of Bovey Tracey,” shows the hesitation, in the face of every evidence in favour of Atlantis, to accept the fact.

Evergreen figs, laurels, palms, and ferns having gigantic rhizomes have their existing congeners in a sub-tropical climate, such, it cannot be doubted, as prevailed in [pg 767]Devonshire in Miocene times, and are thus calculated to suggest caution when the present climate of any district is regarded as normal.

When, moreover, Miocene plants are found in Disco Island, on the west coast of Greenland, lying between 69° 20´ and 70° 30´ N. lat.; when we learn that among them were two species found also at Bovey (Sequoia couttsiæ, Quercus lyelli); when, to quote Professor Heer, we find that “the ‘splendid evergreen’ (Magnolia inglefieldi) ‘ripened its fruits so far north as on the parallel of 70°’ ” (Phil. Trans., clix. 457, 1869); when also the number, variety, and luxuriance of the Greenland Miocene plants are found to have been such that, had land continued so far, some of them would in all probability have flourished at the Pole itself, the problem of changes of climate is brought prominently into view, but only to be dismissed apparently with the feeling that the time for its solution has not yet arrived.

It seems to be admitted on all hands that the Miocene plants of Europe have their nearest and most numerous existing analogues in North America, and hence arises the question: How was the migration from one area to the other effected? Was there, as some have believed, an Atlantis?—a continent, or an archipelago of large islands, occupying the area of the North Atlantic. There is perhaps nothing unphilosophical in this hypothesis; for since, as geologists state, “the Alps have acquired 4,000, and even in some places more than 10,000 feet of their present altitude since the commencement of the Eocene period” (Lyell's Principles, 11th ed., p. 256, 1872), a Post-Miocene[?] depression might have carried the hypothetical Atlantis into almost abysmal depths. But an Atlantis is apparently unnecessary and uncalled for. According to Professor Oliver, “A close and very peculiar analogy subsists between the Flora of Tertiary Central Europe and the recent Floras of the American States and of the Japanese region; an analogy much closer and more intimate than is to be traced between the Tertiary and recent Floras of Europe. We find the Tertiary element of the Old World to be intensified towards its extreme eastern margin, if not in numerical preponderance of genera, yet in features which especially give a character to the Fossil Flora.... This accession of the Tertiary element is rather gradual and not abruptly assumed in the Japan islands only. Although it there attains a maximum, we may trace it from the Mediterranean, Levant, Caucasus, and Persia ... then along the Himâlaya and through China.... We learn also that during the Tertiary epoch, counterparts of Central European Miocene genera certainly grew in North-West America.... We note further that the present Atlantic Islands' Flora affords no substantial evidence of a former direct communication with the mainland of the New World.... The consideration of these facts lead me to the opinion that botanical evidence does not favour the hypothesis of an Atlantis. On the other hand, it strongly favours the view that at some period of the Tertiary epoch North-Eastern Asia was united to North-Western America, perhaps by the line where the Aleutian chain of islands now extends.” (Nat. Hist. Rev., ii. 164, 1862, Art., “The Atlantis Hypothesis in its Botanical Aspect.”)

See, however, on these points, “Scientific and Geological Proofs of the Reality of Several Submerged Continents.”

But nothing short of a pithecoid man will ever satisfy the luckless [pg 768] searchers after the thrice hypothetical “missing link.” Yet, if beneath the vast floors of the Atlantic, from the Teneriffe Pic to Gibraltar, the ancient emplacement of the lost Atlantis, all the submarine strata were to be broken up miles deep, no such skull as would satisfy the Darwinists would be found. As Dr. C. R. Bree remarks, no missing links between man and ape having been discovered in various gravels and formations above the Tertiary strata, if these forms had gone down with the continents now covered with the sea, they might still have been found—

In those beds of contemporary geological strata which have not gone down to the bottom of the sea.[1710]

Yet they are as fatally absent from the latter as from the former. Did not preconceptions fasten vampire-like on man's mind, the author of The Antiquity of Man would have found a clue to the difficulty in that same work of his, by going ten pages back (to p. 530) and reading over a quotation of his own from Professor G. Rolleston's work. This Physiologist, he says, suggests that as there is considerable plasticity in the human frame, not only in youth and during growth, but even in the adult, we ought not always to take for granted, as some advocates of the development theory seem to do, that each advance in physical power depends on an improvement in bodily structure, for why may not the soul, or the higher intellectual and moral faculties play the first instead of the second part in a progressive scheme?

This hypothesis is made in relation to evolution not being entirely due to “natural selection”; but it applies as well to the case in hand. For we, too, claim that it is the “Soul,” or the Inner Man, that descends on Earth first, the psychic Astral, the mould on which physical man is gradually built—his Spirit, intellectual and moral faculties awakening later on as that physical stature grows and develops.

“Thus incorporeal spirits to smaller forms reduced their shapes immense,” and became the men of the Third and the Fourth Races. Still later, ages after, appeared the men of our Fifth Race, reduced from what we should call the still gigantic stature of their primeval ancestors, to about half that size at present.

Man is certainly no special creation. He is the product of Nature's gradual perfective work, like any other living unit on this Earth. But this is only with regard to the human tabernacle. That which lives and thinks in man and survives that frame, the masterpiece of evolution—is [pg 769] the “Eternal Pilgrim,” the Protean differentiation in Space and Time of the One Absolute “Unknowable.”

In his Antiquity of Man[1711] Sir Charles Lyell quotes—perhaps in rather a mocking spirit—what Hallam says in his Introduction to the Literature of Europe:

If man was made in the image of God, he was also made in the image of an ape. The framework of the body of him who has weighed the stars and made the lightning his slave, approaches to that of a speechless brute who wanders in the forests of Sumatra. Thus standing on the frontier land between animal and angelic natures, what wonder that he should partake of both![1712]

An Occultist would have put it otherwise. He would say that man was indeed made in the image of a type projected by his progenitor, the creating Angel-Force, or Dhyân Chohan; while the wanderer of the forest of Sumatra was made in the image of man, since the framework of the ape, we say again, is the revival, the resuscitation by abnormal means, of the actual form of the Third Round and of the Fourth Round Man as well, later on. Nothing is lost in Nature, not an atom: this is at least certain on scientific data. Analogy would appear to demand that form should be equally endowed with permanency.

And yet what do we find? Says Sir William Dawson, F.R.S.:

It is farther significant that Professor Huxley, in his lectures in New York, while resting his case as to the lower animals mainly on the supposed genealogy of the horse, which has often been shown to amount to no certain evidence, avoided altogether the discussion of the origin of men from the apes, now obviously complicated with so many difficulties that both Wallace and Mivart are staggered by them. Professor Thomas in his recent lectures (Nature, 1876), admits that there is no lower man known than the Australian, and that there is no known link of connection with the monkeys; and Hæckel has to admit that the penultimate link in his phylogeny, the ape-like man, is absolutely unknown (History of Creation).... The so-called “tallies” found with the bones of Palæocosmic men in European caves, and illustrated in the admirable works of Christy and Lartet, show that the rudiments even of writing were already in possession of the oldest race of men known to archæology or geology.[1713]

Again, in Dr. C. R. Bree's Fallacies of Darwinism, we read:

Mr. Darwin justly says that the difference physically and, more especially, mentally, between the lowest form of man and the highest anthropomorphous ape, is enormous. Therefore, the time—which in Darwinian evolution must be almost inconceivably slow—must have been enormous also during man's development from [pg 770]the monkey[1714]. The chance, therefore, of some of these variations being found in the different gravels or fresh-water formations above the tertiaries, must be very great. And yet not one single variation, not one single specimen of a being between a monkey and a man has ever been found! Neither in the gravel, not the drift-clay, nor the fresh-water beds and gravel and drift, nor in the tertiaries below them, has there ever been discovered the remains of any member of the missing families between the monkey and the man, as assumed to have existed by Mr. Darwin. Have they gone down with the depression of the earth's surface and are they now covered with the sea? If so, it is beyond all probability that they should not also be found in those beds of contemporary geological strata which have notgone down to the bottom of the sea; still more improbable that some portions should not be dredged from the ocean-bed like the remains of the mammoth and the rhinoceros, which are also found in fresh-water beds and gravel and drift!... The celebrated Neanderthal skull, about which so much has been said, belongs confessedly to this remote period [bronze and stone ages], and yet presents, although it may have been the skull of an idiot, immense differences from the highest known anthropomorphous ape.[1715]

Our Globe being convulsed each time that it reäwakens for a new period of activity, like a field which has to be ploughed and furrowed before fresh seed for its new crop is thrown into it—it does seem quite hopeless that fossils belonging to its previous Rounds should be found in the beds of either its oldest or its latest geological strata. Every new Manvantara brings along with it the renovation of forms, types and species; every type of the preceding organic forms—vegetable, animal and human—changes and is perfected in the next, even to the mineral, which has received in this Round its final opacity and hardness; its softer portions formed the present vegetation; the astral relics of previous vegetation and fauna were utilized in the formation of the lower animals, and in determining the structure of the primeval Root-Types of the highest mammalia. And, finally, the form of the gigantic ape-man of the former Round has been reproduced in this one by human bestiality, and transfigured into the parent form in the modern anthropoid.

This doctrine, even imperfectly delineated as it is under our inefficient pen, is assuredly more logical, more consistent with facts, and far more probable, than many “scientific” theories; that, for instance, of the first organic germ descending on a meteor to our Earth—like Ain Suph on its Vehicle, Adam Kadmon. Only, the latter descent is allegorical, as every one knows, and the Kabalists have never offered this figure of [pg 771] speech for acceptance in its dead-letter garb. But the germ-in-the-meteor theory, as coming from such high scientific quarters, is an eligible candidate for axiomatic truth and law, a theory people are in honour bound to accept, if they would be on a right level with Modern Science. What the next theory necessitated by the materialistic premisses will be—no one can tell. Meanwhile, the present theories, as anyone can see, clash far more discordantly among themselves than even with those of the Occultists outside the sacred precincts of learning. For what is there, next in order, now that exact Science has made even of the life-principle an empty word, a meaningless term, and insists that life is an effect due to the molecular action of the primordial protoplasm? The new doctrine of the Darwinists may be defined and summarized in the few words, from Mr. Herbert Spencer:

The hypothesis of special creations turns out to be worthless—worthless, by its derivation; worthless, in its intrinsic incoherence; worthless, as absolutely without evidence; worthless, as not supplying an intellectual need; worthless, as not satisfying a moral want. We must, therefore, consider it as counting for nothing in opposition to any other hypothesis respecting the origin of organic beings.[1716]

[pg 772]

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Section V. Organic Evolution and Creative Centres.

It is argued that Universal Evolution, otherwise the gradual development of species in all the kingdoms of Nature, works by uniform laws. This is admitted, and the law is enforced far more strictly in Esoteric than in Modern Science. But we are also told, that it is equally a law that:

Development works from the less to the more perfect, and from the simpler to the more complicated, by incessant changes, small in themselves, but constantly accumulating in the required direction[1717].

It is from the infinitesimally small that the comparatively gigantic species are produced.

Esoteric Science agrees with this, but adds that this law applies only to what is known to it as the Primary Creation—the evolution of Worlds from Primordial Atoms, and the Pre-primordial Atom, at the first differentiation of the former; and that during the period of cyclic evolution in Space and Time, this law is limited and works only in the lower kingdoms. It did so work during the first geological periods, from simple to complex, on the rough material surviving from the relics of the Third Round, which relics are projected into objectivity when terrestrial activity recommences.

No more than Science, does the Esoteric Philosophy admit “design” or “special creation.” It rejects every claim to the “miraculous,” and accepts nothing outside the uniform and immutable laws of Nature. But it teaches a cyclic law, a double stream of Force (or Spirit) and of Matter, which, starting from the Neutral Centre of Being, develops by its cyclic progress and incessant transformations. The primitive germ from which all vertebrate life has developed throughout the ages, being distinct from the primitive germ from which vegetable and animal life [pg 773] have evolved, there are side laws whose work is determined by the conditions in which the materials to be worked upon are found by them, and of which Science—Physiology and Anthropology especially—seems to be little aware. Its votaries speak of this “primitive germ,” and maintain that it is shown beyond any doubt that:

The design [and the “designer”], if there be any [in the case of man, with the wonderful structure of his limbs, and his hand especially], must be placed very much farther back, and is, in fact, involved in the primitive germ, from which all vertebrate life certainly, and probably all life, animal or vegetable, have been slowly developed.[1718]

This is as true of the “primitive germ” as it is false that that “germ” is only “very much farther back” than man is; for it is at an immeasurable and inconceivable distance, in Time, though not in Space, from the origin even of our Solar System. As the Hindû philosophy very justly teaches, the “Aniyâmsam Anîyasâm,” can be known only through false notions. It is the “Many” that proceed from the “One”—the living spiritual germs or centres of forces—each in a septenary form, which first generate, and then give the primary impulse to the law of evolution and gradual slow development.

Limiting the teaching strictly to this our Earth, it may be shown that, as the ethereal forms of the first Men are first projected on seven zones by seven Dhyân-Chohanic Centres of Force, so there are centres of creative power for every root or parent species of the host of forms of vegetable and animal life. This is, again, no “special creation,” nor is there any “design,” except in the general “ground-plan” worked out by the Universal Law. But there are certainly “designers,” though these are neither omnipotent nor omniscient in the absolute sense of the term. They are simply Builders, or Masons, working under the impulse given them by the ever-to-be-unknown (on our plane) Master Mason—the One Life and Law. Belonging to this sphere, they have no hand in, nor possibility of working on any other, during the present Manvantara, at any rate. That they work in cycles and on a strictly geometrical and mathematical scale of progression, is what the extinct animal species amply demonstrate; that they act by design in the details of minor lives (of side animal issues, etc.) is sufficiently proved by natural history. In the “creation” of new species, departing sometimes very widely from the parent stock, as in the great variety of the genus Felis—like the lynx, the tiger, the cat, etc.—it is the “designers” [pg 774] who direct the new evolution by adding to, or depriving the species of certain appendages, either needed or becoming useless in the new environments. Thus, when we say that Nature provides for every animal and plant, whether large or small, we speak correctly. For it is these terrestrial Spirits of Nature, who form the aggregated Nature—which, if it fails occasionally in its design, is neither to be considered blind, nor to be taxed with the failure; since, belonging to a differentiated sum of qualities and attributes, it is in virtue of that alone conditioned and imperfect.

Were there no such thing as evolutionary cycles, as an eternal spiral progress into Matter with a proportionate obscuration of Spirit (though the two are one) followed by an inverse ascent into Spirit and the defeat of Matter—active and passive by turn—how could we explain the discoveries of Zoology and Geology? How is it that, on the dictum of authoritative Science, one can trace the animal life from the mollusc up to the great sea-dragon, from the smallest land-worm up again to the gigantic animals of the Tertiary period; and that the latter were once crossed is shown by the fact of all those species decreasing, dwindling down and becoming dwarfed. If the seeming process of development working from the less to the more perfect, and from the simpler to the more complex, were a universal law indeed, instead of being a very imperfect generalization of a mere secondary nature in the great cosmic process, and if there were no such cycles as those claimed, then the Mesozoic fauna and flora ought to change places with the latest Neolithic. It is the plesiosauri and the ichthyosauri that we ought to find developing from the present sea- and river-reptiles, instead of these giving place to their dwarfed modern analogies. It is, again, our old friend, the good-tempered elephant, that would be the fossil antediluvian ancestor, and the mammoth of the Pliocene age who would be in the menagerie; the megalonyx and the gigantic megatherium would be found instead of the lazy sloth in the forests of South America, in which the colossal ferns of the carboniferous periods would take the place of the mosses and the present trees—dwarfs, even the giants of California, in comparison with the Titan-trees of past geological periods. Surely the organisms of the megasthenian world of the Tertiary and the Mesozoic ages must have been more complex and perfect than those of the microsthenian plants and animals of the present age? The dryopithecus, for instance, is more perfect anatomically, is more fit for a greater development of brain power, than the modern gorilla [pg 775] or gibbon. How is all this, then? Are we to believe that the constitution of all those colossal land- and sea-dragons, of the gigantic flying reptiles, was not far more developed and complex than the anatomy of the lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and even of the whales—in short, of all those animals with which we are acquainted?

Let us admit, however, for argument's sake, that all those cycles, races, septenary forms of evolution, and the tutti quanti of Esoteric teaching, are no better than a delusion and a snare. Let us agree with Science and say that man—instead of being an imprisoned “spirit,” and his vehicle, the shell or body, a gradually perfected and now complete mechanism for material and terrestrial uses, as claimed by the Occultists—is simply a more developed animal, whose primal form emerged from one and the same primitive germ on this Earth as the flying dragon and the gnat, the whale and the amoeba, the crocodile and the frog, etc. In this case, he must have passed through the identical developments and through the same process of growth as all the other mammals. If man is an animal, and nothing more, a highly intellectual “ex-brute,” he should at least be allowed to have been a gigantic mammal of his kind, a “meganthropus” in his day. This is exactly what Esoteric Science shows to have taken place in the first three Rounds, and in this, as in most other things, it is more logical and consistent than Modern Science. It classifies the human body with the brute creation, and maintains it in the path of animal evolution, from first to last, while Science leaves man a parentless orphan born of sires unknown, an “unspecialized skeleton” truly! And this mistake is due to a stubborn rejection of the doctrine of cycles.

A. The Origin And Evolution Of The Mammalia: Science And Esoteric Phylogeny.

Having dealt almost exclusively with the question of the origin of man in the foregoing criticism of Western Evolutionism, it may not be amiss to define the position of the Occultists with regard to the differentiation of species. The pre-human fauna and flora have been already dealt with generally in the Commentary on the Stanzas, and the truth of much of modern biological speculation has been admitted, e.g., the derivation of birds from reptiles, the partial truth of “natural selection,” and the transformation theory generally. It now remains to clear up the mystery of the origin of those first mammalian faunæ [pg 776] which M. de Quatrefages so brilliantly endeavours to prove contemporary with the Homo primigenius of the Secondary Age.

The somewhat complicated problem relating to the “Origin of Species”—more especially of the varied groups of fossil or existing mammalian faunæ—will be rendered less obscure by the aid of a diagram. It will then be apparent to what extent the “factors of organic evolution,” relied upon by Western Biologists,[1719] are to be considered as adequate to meet the facts. The line of demarcation between ethereo-spiritual, astral and physical evolution must be drawn. Perhaps, if Darwinians deigned to consider the possibility of the second process, they would no longer have to lament the fact that:

We are referred entirely to conjecture and inference for the origin of the mammals![1720]

At present the admitted chasm between the systems of reproduction of the oviparous vertebrates and mammalia constitutes a hopeless crux to those thinkers who, with the Evolutionists, seek to link all existing organic forms in a continuous line of descent.

Let us take, for instance, the case of the ungulate mammals, since it is said that in no other division do we possess such abundant fossil material. So much progress has been made in this direction, that in some instances the intermediate links between the modern and Eocene ungulates have been unearthed; a notable example being that of the complete proof of the derivation of the present one-toed horse from the three-toed anchitherium of the old Tertiary. This standard of comparison between Western Biology and the Eastern Doctrine could not, therefore, be improved upon. The pedigree here utilized, as embodying the views of Scientists in general, is that of Schmidt, based on the exhaustive researches of Rütimeyer. Its approximate accuracy—from the standpoint of evolutionism—leaves little to be desired:

Ungulate Mammals

At this, the midway point of evolution, Science comes to a standstill.

The root to which these two families lead back is unknown.[1721]

The Root According to Occultism

Schmidt's diagram represents the realm explored by Western Evolutionists, the area in which climatic influences, “natural selection,” and all the other physical causes of organic differentiation are present. Biology and Palæontology find their province here in investigating the many physical agencies which so largely contribute, as has been shown by Darwin, Spencer and others, to the “segregation of species.” But even in this domain the sub-conscious workings of the Dhyân-Chohanic wisdom are at the root of all the “ceaseless striving towards perfection,” though its influence is vastly modified by those purely material causes which de Quatrefages terms the “milieu” and Spencer the “environment.”

The “midway point of evolution” is that stage where the astral prototypes definitely begin to pass into the physical, and thus become subject to the differentiating agencies now operative around us. Physical causation supervenes immediately on the assumption of the “coats of skin”—i.e., the physiological equipment in general. The [pg 778] forms of men and of other mammals previous to the separation of the sexes[1722] are woven out of astral matter, and possess a structure utterly unlike that of the physical organisms which eat, drink, digest, etc. The known physiological contrivances requisite for these functions were almost entirely evolved subsequently to the incipient physicalization of the seven Root-Types out of the astral—during the “midway halt” between the two planes of existence. Hardly had the “ground-plan” of evolution been limned out in these ancestral types, than there supervened the influence of the accessory terrestrial laws, familiar to us, resulting in the whole crop of mammalian species. Æons of slow differentiation were, however, required to effect this end.

The second diagram represents the domain of the purely astral prototypes previous to their descent into gross matter. Astral matter, it must be noted, is fourth-state matter, having, like our gross matter, its own “protyle.” There are several protyles in Nature, corresponding to the various planes of matter. The two sub-physical elemental kingdoms, the plane of mind, Manas, or fifth-state matter, as also that of Buddhi, sixth-state matter, are each and all evolved from one of the six protyles which constitute the basis of the Object-Universe. The three “states” so-called of our terrestrial matter, known as the “solid,” “liquid,” and “gaseous,” are only, in strict accuracy, sub-states. As to the former reality of the descent into the physical, which culminated in physiological man and animal, we have a palpable testimony in the fact of the so-called spiritualistic “materializations.”

In all these instances a complete temporary mergence of the astral into the physical takes place. The evolution of physiological man out of the astral races of the early Lemurian age—the Jurassic age of Geology—is exactly paralleled by the “materialization” of “spirits” (?) in the séance room. In the case of Professor Crookes' “Katie King,” the presence of a physiological mechanism—heart, lungs, etc.—was indubitably demonstrated!

This, in a way, is the Archetype of Goethe. Listen to his words:

Thus much we should have gained ... all the nine perfect organic beings ... [are] formed according to an archetype which merely fluctuates more or less in its very persistent parts and, moreover, day by day, completes and transforms itself by means of reproduction.

This is a seemingly imperfect foreshadowing of the Occult fact of the differentiation of species from the primal astral Root-Types. Whatever the whole posse comitatus of “natural selection,” etc., may effect, the fundamental unity of structural plan remains practically unaffected by all subsequent modifications. The “unity of type” common, in a sense, to all the animal and human kingdoms, is not, as Spencer and others appear to hold, a proof of the consanguinity of all organic forms, but a witness to the essential unity of the “ground-plan” Nature has followed in fashioning her creatures.

To sum up the case we may again avail ourselves of a tabulation of the actual factors concerned in the differentiation of species. The stages of the process itself need no further comment here, for they follow the basic principles underlying organic development, and we do not need to enter on the domain of the biological specialist.

Factors Concerned in the Origin of Species, Animal and Vegetable.

Basic astral prototypes pass into the physical, the Dhyân-Chohanic impulse, constituting Lamarck's “inherent and necessary” law of development. It lies behind all minor agencies: variation transmitted by Heredity, Natural Selection, Sexual Selection Physiological Selection, Isolation. Correlation of Growth, Adaptation to Environment. (Intelligent as opposed to Mechanical Causation.)

B. The European Palæolithic Races: Whence, And How Distributed.

Is Science opposed to those who maintain that, down to the Quaternary period, the distribution of the human races was widely different from what it is now? Is Science against those who, further, maintain that the fossil men found in Europe-although they have almost reached a plane of sameness and unity which continues till this day, regarded [pg 780] from the fundamental physiological and anthropological aspects—still differ, sometimes greatly, from the type of the now existing populations? The late M. Littré admits this in an article published by him in the Revue des Deux Mondes (March 1st, 1859) on the Mémoire called Antiquités Celtiques et Antediluviennes by Boucher de Perthes (1849). Littré therein states that: (a) in these periods when the mammoths, exhumed in Picardy in company with man-made hatchets, lived in the latter region, there must have been an eternal spring reigning over all the terrestrial globe;[1723] nature was the contrary of what it is now, and thus is left an enormous margin for the antiquity of those “periods”; he then adds (b):

Spring, Professor of the Faculty of Medicine at Liège, found in a grotto near Namur, in the mountain of Chauvaux, numerous human bones “of a race quite distinct from ours.”

Skulls exhumed in Austria offer a great analogy with those of negro races in Africa, according to Littré, while others, discovered on the shores of the Danube and the Rhine, resemble the skulls of the Caribs and of the ancient inhabitants of Peru and Chili. Still, the Deluge, whether Biblical or Atlantean, is denied. But further geological discoveries made Gaudry write conclusively:

Our forefathers were positively contemporaneous with the rhinoceros tichorrhinus, the hippopotamus major.

And he added that the soil called diluvial in geology—

Was formed partially at least after man's apparition on earth.

Upon this, Littré pronounced himself finally. He then showed the necessity, in face of “the resurrection of so many old witnesses,” of rehandling all the origins, all the durations, and added that there was an age hitherto unknown to study—

Either at the dawn of the actual epoch, or, as I believe, at the beginning of the epoch which preceded it.

The types of the skulls found in Europe are of two kinds, as is well known: the orthognathous and the prognathous, or the Caucasian and the Negroid types—such as are now found only among the African and the lower savage tribes. Professor Heer—who argues that the facts of [pg 781] Botany necessitate the hypothesis of an Atlantis—has shown that the plants of the Neolithic lake-villagers are mainly of African origin. How did these plants appear in Europe if there were no former point of union between Europe and Africa? How many thousand years ago did the seventeen men live whose skeletons were exhumed in the department of the Haute Garonne, in a squatting posture near the remains of a coal fire, with some amulets and broken crockery around them, and in company with the ursus spelæus, the elephas primigenius, the aurochs (regarded by Cuvier as a distinct species), the megaceros hibernicus—all antediluvian mammals? Certainly they must have lived in a most distant epoch, but not in one which carries us further back than the Quaternary. A much greater antiquity for man has yet to be proved. Dr. James Hunt, the late President of the Anthropological Society, puts it at nine million years. This man of Science, at any rate, makes some approach to our Esoteric computation, if we leave out of the computation the first two semi-human, ethereal Races, and the early Third Race.

The question, however, arises—who were these Palæolithic men of the European Quaternary epoch? Were they aboriginal, or were they the outcome of some immigration dating back into the unknown past? The latter is the only tenable hypothesis, as all Scientists agree in eliminating Europe from the category of possible “cradles of mankind.” Whence, then, radiated the various successive streams of “primitive” men?

The earliest Palæeolithic men in Europe—about whose origin Ethnology is silent, and whose very characteristics are but imperfectly known, though expatiated on as “ape-like” by imaginative writers such as Mr. Grant Allen—were of pure Atlantean and “Africo”-Atlantean stocks.[1724] (It must be borne in mind that by this time the Atlantean Continent itself was a dream of the past.) Europe in the Quaternary epoch was very different from the Europe of to-day, being then only in process of formation. It was united to Northern Africa—or rather to what is now Northern Africa—by a neck of land running across the present Straits of Gibraltar—Northern Africa thus constituting as it were an extension of the present Spain, while a broad sea filled the great basin of the Sahara. Of the vast Atlantis, the main bulk of which sank in the Miocene, there remained only Ruta and [pg 782] Daitya and a stray island or so. The Atlantean connections of the forefathers[1725] of the Palæolithic cave-men are evidenced by the upturning of fossil skulls in Europe, reverting closely to the type of the West Indian Carib and ancient Peruvian—a mystery indeed for all those who refuse to sanction the “hypothesis” of a former Atlantic continent to bridge what is now an ocean. What are we also to make of the fact that while de Quatrefages points to that “magnificent race,” the tall Cro-Magnon cave-men, and to the Guanches of the Canary Islands, as representatives of one type, Virchow also allies the Basques with the latter in a similar way? Professor Retzius independently proves the relationship of the aboriginal American dolichocephalous tribes and these same Guanches. The several links in the chain of evidence are thus securely joined together. Legions of similar facts could be adduced. As to the African tribes—themselves diverging offshoots of Atlanteans modified by climate and conditions—they crossed into Europe over the peninsula which made the Mediterranean an inland sea. Fine races were many of these European cave-men, as the Cro-Magnon, for instance. But, as was to be expected, progress is almost non-existent through the whole of the vast period allotted by Science to the Chipped-Stone age.[1726] The cyclic impulse downwards weighs heavily on the stocks thus transplanted—the incubus of the Atlantean Karma is upon them. Finally, Palæolithic man makes room for his successor—and disappears almost entirely from the scene. Professor André Lefèvre asks in this connection:

Has the Polished succeeded the Chipped-Stone Age by an imperceptible transition, or was it due to an invasion of brachycephalous Kelts? But whether the deterioration produced in the populations of La Vézère was the result of violent crossings, or of a general retreat northwards in the wake of the reindeer, is of little moment to us.

He continues:

Meantime the bed of the ocean has been upheaved, Europe is now fully formed, her flora and fauna are fixed. With the taming of the dog begins the pastoral life. [pg 783]We enter on those polished stone and bronze periods, which succeed each other at irregular intervals, which even overlap one another in the midst of ethnical migrations and fusions, at once more confused and of shorter duration than less advanced and more rudimentary ages. The primitive European populations are interrupted in their special evolution, and without perishing, become absorbed in other races, engulfed, as it were, by the successive waves of migration overflowing from Africa, possibly from a lost Atlantis [? far too late by æons of years] and from prolific Asia. On the one hand came the Iberians, on the other Pelasgians, Ligurians, Sicanians, Etruscans—all forerunners of the great Âryan Invasion [Fifth Race].[1727]

---

Section VI. Giants, Civilizations, and Submerged Continents Traced in History.

When statements such as are comprised in the above heading are brought forward, the writer is, of course, expected to furnish historical instead of legendary evidence in support of such claims. Is this possible? Yes; for evidence of such a nature is plentiful, and has simply to be collected and brought together in order to become overwhelming in the eyes of the unprejudiced.

Once the sagacious student gets hold of the guiding thread he may find out such evidence for himself. We give facts and show landmarks; let the wayfarer follow them. What is adduced here is amply sufficient for this century.

In a letter to Voltaire, Bailly finds it quite natural that the sympathies of the “grand old invalid of Ferney” should be attracted to the representatives of “knowledge and wisdom,” the ancient Brâhmans. He then adds a curious statement. He says:

But your Brâhmans are very young in comparison with their archaic instructors.[1728]

Bailly, who knew nought of the Esoteric teachings, nor of Lemuria, believed, nevertheless, unreservedly in the lost Atlantis, and also in several pre-historic and civilized nations which had disappeared without leaving any undeniable trace. He had studied the ancient classics and traditions extensively, and he saw that the Arts and Sciences known to those we now call the “ancients,” were—

Not the achievements of any of the now or even then existing nations, nor of any of the historical peoples of Asia....

and that, notwithstanding the learning of the Hindûs, their undeniable priority in the early part of their race had to be referred to a people [pg 785] or a race still more ancient and more learned than were even the Brâhmans themselves.[1729]

Voltaire, the greatest sceptic of his day, the materialist par excellence, shared Bailly's belief. He thought it quite likely that:

Long before the empires of China and India, there had been nations cultured, learned, and powerful, which a deluge of barbarians overpowered and thus replunged into their primitive state of ignorance and savagery, or what they call the state of pure nature.[1730]

That which with Voltaire was the shrewd conjecture of a great intellect, was with Bailly a “question of historical facts.” For, he wrote:

I make great case of ancient traditions preserved through a long series of generations.

It was possible, he thought, that a foreign nation should, after instructing another nation, so disappear that it should leave no traces behind. When asked how it could have happened that this ancient, or rather archaic, nation should not have left at least some recollection in the human mind, he answered that Time was a pitiless devourer of facts and events. But the history of the Past was never entirely lost, for the Sages of old Egypt had preserved it, and “it is so preserved to this day elsewhere.” The priests of Saïs said to Solon, according to Plato:

You are unacquainted with that most noble and excellent race of men, who once inhabited your country, from whom you and your whole present state are descended,[1731]though only a small remnant of this admirable people is now remaining.... These writings relate what a prodigious force your city once overcame, when a mighty warlike power, rushing from the Atlantic sea, spread itself with hostile fury over all Europe and Asia.[1732]

The Greeks were but the dwarfed and weak remnant of that once glorious nation.[1733]

What was this nation? The Secret Doctrine teaches that it was the [pg 786] latest seventh sub-race of the Atlantean, already swallowed up in one of the early sub-races of the Âryan stock, one that had been gradually spreading over the continent and islands of Europe, as soon as they had begun to emerge from the seas. Descending from the high plateaux of Asia, where the two races had sought refuge in the days of the agony of Atlantis, it had been slowly settling and colonizing the freshly emerged lands. The immigrant sub-race had rapidly increased and multiplied on that virgin soil; had divided into many family races, which in their turn divided into nations. Egypt and Greece, the Phœnicians, and the Northern stocks, had thus proceeded from that one sub-race. Thousands of years later, other races—the remnants of the Atlanteans—“yellow and red, brown and black,” began to invade the new continent. There were wars in which the new comers were defeated, and they fled, some to Africa, others to remote countries. Some of these lands became islands in course of time, owing to new geological convulsions. Being thus forcibly separated from the continents, the result was that the undeveloped tribes and families of the Atlantean stock fell gradually into a still more abject and savage condition.

Did not the Spaniards in the Cibola expeditions meet with white savage chiefs; and has not the presence of African negro types in Europe in the pre-historic ages been now ascertained? It is this presence of a foreign type associated with that of the negro, and also with that of the Mongolian, which is the stumbling-block of Anthropology. The individual who lived at an incalculably distant period at La Naulette, in Belgium, is an example. Says an Anthropologist:

The caves on the banks of the Lesse, in South-Eastern Belgium, afford evidence of what is, perhaps, the lowest man, as shown by the Naulette jaw. Such man, however, had amulets of stone, perforated for the purpose of ornament; these are made of a psammite now found in the basin of the Gironde.[1734]

Thus Belgian man was extremely ancient. The man who was antecedent to the great flood of waters—which covered the highlands of Belgium with a deposit of lehm or upland gravel thirty metres above the level of the present rivers—must have combined the characters of the Turanian and the Negro. The Canstadt, or La Naulette, man may have been black, and he had nothing to do with the Âryan type whose remains are contemporary with those of the cave bear at Engis. The denizens of the Aquitaine bone-caves belong to a far later period of history, and may not be as ancient as the former.

If the statement be objected to on the ground that Science does not deny the presence of man on Earth from an enormous antiquity, though that antiquity cannot be determined, since such presence is conditioned by the duration of geological periods, the age of which is not ascertained; if it is argued that the Scientists object most decidedly to the claim that man preceded the animals, for instance; or that civilization dates from the earliest Eocene period; or again, that there have ever existed giants, three-eyed and four-armed and four-legged men, androgynes, etc.—then the objectors are asked in their turn, “How do you know? What proof have you besides your personal hypotheses, each of which may be upset any day by new discoveries?” And these future discoveries are sure to prove that, whatever this earlier type of man known to Anthropologists may have been in complexion, he was in no respect apish. The Canstadt man, the Engis man, alike possessed essentially human attributes.[1735] People have looked for the missing link at the wrong end of the chain; and the Neanderthal man has long since been dismissed to the “limbo of all hasty blunders.” Disraeli divided man into the associates of the apes and the angels. Reasons are here given in favour of an “angelic theory”—as Christians would call it, as applicable to at least some of the races of men. At all events, if man be held to exist only since the Miocene period, even then humanity as a whole could not be composed of the abject savages of the Palæolithic age, as they are now represented by the Scientists. All they say is mere arbitrary speculative guess-work, invented by them to answer to, and fit in with, their own fanciful theories.

We speak of events hundreds of thousands of years old, nay, even millions of years old—if man date from the geological periods[1736]—not of any of those events which happened during the few thousand years of the pre-historic margin allowed by timid and ever-cautious history. Yet there are men of Science who are almost of our way of thinking. From the brave confession of the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, who says that:

Traditions, whose traces recur in Mexico, in Central America, in Peru, and in Bolivia, suggest the idea that man existed in these different countries at the time of the gigantic upheaval of the Andes, and that he has retained the memory of it—

down to the latest Palæontologists and Anthropologists, the majority of scientific men is in favour of just such an antiquity. Àpropos of Peru, has any satisfactory attempt been made to determine the ethnological affinities and characteristics of the race which reared those Cyclopean erections, the ruins of which display the relics of a great civilization? At Cuelap, for instance, such are found, consisting—

Of a wall of wrought stones, 3,600 feet long, 560 broad, and 150 feet high, constituting a solid mass with a level summit. On this mass was another, 600 feet long, 500 broad, and 150 feet high, making an aggregate height of 300 feet. In it were rooms and cells.[1737]

A most suggestive fact is the startling resemblance between the architecture of these colossal buildings and that of the archaic European nations. Mr. Fergusson regards the analogies between the ruins of “Inca” civilization and the Cyclopean remains of the Pelasgians in Italy and Greece, as a coincidence—

The most remarkable in the history of architecture.... It is difficult to resist the conclusion that there may be some relation between them.

The “relation” is simply explained by the derivation of the stocks who devised these erections, from a common centre in an Atlantic continent. The acceptance of the latter can alone assist us to approach a solution of this and similar problems in almost every branch of Modern Science.

Dr. Lartet, treating upon the subject, settles the question by declaring that:

The truth, so long contested, of the coëxistence of man with the great extinct species [elephas primigenius, rhinoceros tichorrhinus, hyæna spelæa, ursus spelæus, etc.], appears to me to be henceforth unassailable and definitely conquered by science.[1738]

It is shown elsewhere that such is also de Quatrefages' opinion. He says:

Man has in all probability seen Miocene times[1739] and consequently the entire Pliocene epoch. Are there any reasons for believing that his traces will be found further back still?... He may then have been contemporaneous with the earliest mammalia, and go back as far as the Secondary period.[1740]

Egypt is far older than Europe as now traced on the map. Atlanto-Âryan [pg 789] tribes began to settle on it when the British Islands[1741] and France were not even in existence. It is well known that “the tongue of the Ægyptian Sea,” or the Delta of lower Egypt, became firm land very gradually, and followed the highlands of Abyssinia; unlike the latter, which arose suddenly, comparatively speaking, it was very slowly formed, through long ages, from successive layers of sea-slime and mud, deposited annually by the soil brought down by a large river, the present Nile. Yet even the Delta, as a firm and fertile land, has been inhabited for more than 100,000 years. Later tribes, with still more Âryan blood in them than their predecessors, arrived from the East, and conquered it from a people whose very name is lost to posterity, except in the Secret Books. It is this natural barrier of slime, which sucked in slowly and surely every boat that approached those inhospitable shores, that was, till within a few thousand years b.c., the best safeguard of the later Egyptians, who had managed to reach it through Arabia, Abyssinia, and Nubia, led on by Manu Vînâ in the day of Vishvâmitra.[1742]

So evident does the antiquity of man become with every day, that even the Church is preparing for an honourable surrender and retreat. The learned Abbé Fabre, professor at the Sorbonne, has categorically declared that pre-historic Palæontology and Archæology may, without any harm to the Scriptures, discover in the Tertiary beds as many traces as they please of Pre-Adamite man.

Since it disregards all creations anterior to the last deluge but one [that which produced the diluvium, according to the Abbé], Bible revelation leaves us free to admit the existence of man in the grey diluvium, in Pliocene, and even Eocene strata. On the other hand, however, geologists are not all agreed on regarding the men who inhabited the globe in these primitive ages as our ancestors.[1743]

The day on which the Church shall find that its only salvation lies in the Occult interpretation of the Bible may not be so far off as some imagine. Already many an Abbé and ecclesiastic has become an ardent Kabalist, and as many appear publicly in the arena, breaking a lance with Theosophists and Occultists in support of the metaphysical interpretation [pg 790] of the Bible. But they commence, unfortunately for them, at the wrong end. They are advised, before they begin to speculate upon the metaphysical in their Scriptures, to study and master that which relates to the purely physical—e.g., its hints on Geology and Ethnology. For such allusions to the septenary constitution of the Earth and Man, to the seven Rounds and Races, abound in the New as in the Old Testament, and are as visible as the Sun in the heavens to him who reads both symbolically. To what do the laws in chapter xxiii of Leviticus apply? What is the philosophy of reason for all such hebdomadal offerings and symbolical calculations as:

Ye shall count ... from the morrow after the Sabbath ... that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete.... And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish, etc.[1744]

We shall be contradicted, no doubt, when we say that all these “wave” and “peace” offerings were in commemoration of the seven “Sabbaths” of the Mysteries. These Sabbaths are seven Pralayas between seven Manvantaras, or what we call Rounds; for “Sabbath” is an elastic word, meaning a period of rest of whatever nature, as explained elsewhere. And if this is not sufficiently conclusive, then we may turn to the verse which adds:

Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days [forty-nine, 7 × 7, stages of activity, and forty-nine stages of rest, on the seven Globes of the Chain, and then comes the rest of Sabbath, the fiftieth]; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord.[1745]

That is, ye shall make an offering of your flesh or “coats of skin,” and, divesting yourselves of your bodies, ye shall remain pure spirits. This law of offering, degraded and materialized with ages, was an institution that dated from the earliest Atlanteans; it came to the Hebrews viâ the “Chaldees,” who were the “wise men” of a caste, not of a nation, a community of great Adepts come from their “Serpent-holes,” who had settled in Babylonia ages before. And if this interpretation from Leviticus (full of the disfigured Laws of Manu) is found too far-fetched, then turn to Revelation. Whatever interpretation profane mystics may give to the famous chapter xvii, with its riddle of the woman in purple and scarlet; whether Protestants nod at the Roman Catholics, when reading “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth,” or Roman Catholics glare at the Protestants, the Occultists pronounce, in their impartiality, that these words have applied from the first to all and every exoteric Churchianity—“ceremonial [pg 791] magic” of old, with its terrible effects, and now the harmless, because distorted, farce of ritualistic worship. The “mystery” of the woman and of the beast, are the symbols of soul-killing Churchianity and of Superstition.

The beast that ... was, and is not, ... and yet is. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains [seven Continents and seven Races] on which the woman sitteth—

the symbol of all the exoteric, barbarous, idolatrous faiths which have covered that symbol “with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs” who protested and do protest.

And there are seven kings [seven Races]; five are fallen [our Fifth Race included], and one is [the Fifth continues], and the other [the Sixth and the Seventh Races] is not yet come; and when he [the Race “king”] cometh, he must continue a short space.[1746]

There are many such apocalyptic allusions, but the student has to find them out for himself.

If the Bible combines with Archæology and Geology to show that human civilization has passed through three more or less distinct stages, in Europe at least; and if man, both in America and Europe, as much as in Asia, dates from geological epochs—why should not the statements of The Secret Doctrine be taken into consideration? Is it more philosophical or logical and scientific to disbelieve, with Mr. Albert Gaudry, in Miocene man, while believing that the famous Thenay flints[1747] “were carved by the dryopithecus monkey”; or, with the Occultist, that the anthropomorphous monkey came ages after man? For if it is once conceded, and even scientifically demonstrated, that:

There was not in the middle of the Miocene epoch a single species of mammal identical with species now extant[1748]

—and that man was then just as he is now; only taller, and more athletic than we are[1749]—then where is the difficulty? That they could hardly be the descendants of monkeys, which are themselves not traced before the Miocene epoch,[1750] is, on the other hand, testified to by several eminent Naturalists:

Thus, in the savage of quaternary ages, who had to fight against the mammoth with stone weapons for arms, we find all those craniological characters generally considered as the sign of great intellectual development.[1751]

Unless man emerged spontaneously, endowed with all his intellect and wisdom, from his brainless catarrhine ancestor, he could not have acquired such brain within the limits of the Miocene period, if we are to believe the learned Abbé Bourgeois.

As to the matter of giants, though the tallest man hitherto found in Europe among fossils is the “Mentone man” (6ft. 8in.), others may yet be excavated. Nilsson, quoted by Lubbock, states that:

In a tomb of the Neolithic age ... a skeleton of extraordinary size was found in 1807.

It was attributed to a king of Scotland, Albus McGaldus.

And if in our own day we occasionally find men and women from 7ft. to even 9ft. and 11 ft. high, this only proves—on the law of atavism, or the reäppearance of ancestral features of character—that there was a time when 9ft. and 10ft. was the average height of humanity, even in our latest Indo-European race.

But as the subject has been sufficiently treated elsewhere, we may pass on to the Lemurians and the Atlanteans, and see what the old Greeks knew of these early races and what the moderns now know.

The great nation mentioned by the Egyptian priests, from which descended the forefathers of the Greeks of the age of Troy, and which, as averred, had fought with the Atlantic race, was then, as we see, assuredly no race of Palæolithic savages. Nevertheless, even in the days of Plato, with the exception of priests and initiates, no one seems to have preserved any distinct recollection of the preceding races. The earliest Egyptians had been separated from the latest Atlanteans for ages upon ages; they were themselves descended from an alien race, and had settled in Egypt some 400,000 years before,[1752] but their Initiates had preserved all the records. Even so late as the time of Herodotus, they had still in their possession the statues of 341 kings who had [pg 793] reigned over their little Atlanto-Aryan sub-race.[1753] If we allow only twenty years as an average figure for the reign of each king, the duration of the Egyptian Empire has to be pushed back, from the days of Herodotus, about 17,000 years.

Bunsen allowed the great Pyramid an antiquity of 20,000 years. More modern Archæologists will not give it more than 5,000, or at the utmost 6,000 years, and generously concede to Thebes, with its hundred gates, 7,000 years from the date of its foundation. And yet there are records which show Egyptian priests—Initiates—journeying in a north-westerly direction, by land, viâ what became later the Straits of Gibraltar; turning North and travelling through the future Phœnician settlements of Southern Gaul; then still further North, until reaching Carnac (Morbihan) they turned to the West again and arrived, still travelling by land, on the north-western promontory of the New Continent.[1754]

What was the object of their long journey? And how far back must we place the date of such visits? The Archaic Records show the Initiates of the second sub-race of the Âryan family moving from one land to the other for the purpose of supervising the building of menhirs and dolmens, of colossal Zodiacs in stone, and places of sepulchre to serve as receptacles for the ashes of generations to come. When did this occur? The fact of their crossing from France to Great Britain by land may give an idea of the date when such a journey could have been performed on terra firma.

It was when:

The level of the Baltic and of the North Sea was 400 feet higher than it is at the present day. The valley of the Somme was not hollowed to the depth it has now attained; Sicily was joined to Africa, Barbary to Spain. Carthage, the Pyramids of Egypt, the palaces of Uxmal and Palenque were not yet in existence, and the bold navigators of Tyre and Sidon, who at a later date were to undertake their perilous voyages along the coasts of Africa, were yet unborn. What we know with certainty is that European man was contemporaneous with the extinct species of the quaternary epoch ... that he witnessed the upheaval of the Alps[1755] and the extension [pg 794]of the glaciers, in a word that he lived for thousands of years before the dawn of the remotest historical traditions. It is even possible that man was the contemporary of extinct mammalia of species yet more ancient ... of the elephas meridionalis of the sands of St. Prest, or at the least of the elephas antiquus, assumed to be prior to the elephas primigenius, since their bones are found in company with carved flints in several English caves, associated with those of the rhinoceros hæemitechus and even of the machairodus latidens, which is of still earlier date. M. Ed. Lartet is also of opinion that there is nothing really impossible in the existence of man as early as the Tertiary period.[1756]

If “there is nothing impossible” scientifically, in the idea, and it may be admitted that man was already in existence as early as the Tertiary period, then it is just as well to remind the reader that Mr. Croll places the beginning of that period 2,500,000 years back; but there was a time when he assigned to it 15,000,000 years.

And if all this may be said of European man, how great is the antiquity of the Lemuro-Atlantean and of the Atlanto-Âryan man? Every educated person who follows the progress of Science, knows how all vestiges of man during the Tertiary period are received. The calumnies that were poured on Desnoyers in 1863, when he announced to the Institute of France that he had made a discovery

In the undisturbed Pliocene sands of St. Prest near Chartres, proving the coëxistence of man and the elephas meridionalis—

were equal to the occasion. The later discovery, in 1867, by the Abbé Bourgeois, that man lived in the Miocene epoch, and the reception it was given at the Pre-historic Congress held at Brussels in 1872, proves that the average man of Science will see only that which he wishes to see.[1757]

The modern Archæologist, though speculating ad infinitum upon the dolmens and their builders, knows, in fact, nothing either of them or of their origin. Yet these weird and often colossal monuments of unhewn stones—which consist generally of four or seven gigantic blocks placed together—are strewn over Asia, Europe, America, and Africa, in groups or rows. Stones of enormous size are found placed horizontally and variously upon two, three, four, and as in Poitou, upon six and seven blocks. People name them “devil's altars,” druidic stones, and giant tombs. The stones of Carnac in Morbihan, Brittany—nearly a mile in length and numbering 11,000 ranged in eleven rows—are [pg 795] twin sisters of those at Stonehenge. The conical menhir of Loch-maria-ker, in Morbihan, measures twenty yards in length and nearly two yards across. The menhir of Champ Dolent (near St. Malo) rises thirty feet above the ground, and is fifteen feet in depth below. Such dolmens and pre-historic monuments are met with in almost every latitude. They are found in the Mediterranean basin; in Denmark (among the local tumuli from twenty-seven to thirty-five feet in height); in Shetland; in Sweden, where they are called Ganggriften (or tombs with corridors); in Germany, where they are known as the giant tombs (Hünengräben); in Spain, where is the dolmen of Antiguera near Malaga; in Africa; in Palestine and Algeria; in Sardinia, with the Nuraghi and Sepolture dei Giganti, or tombs of giants; in Malabar; in India, where they are called the tombs of the Daityas (Giants) and of the Râkshasas, the Men-demons of Lankâ; in Russia and Siberia, where they are known as the Koorgan; in Peru and Bolivia, where they are termed the Chulpas or burial places, etc.

There is no country from which they are absent. Who built them? Why are they all connected with serpents and dragons, with alligators and crocodiles? Because remains of “Palæolithic man” were, it is thought, found in some of them, and because, in the funeral mounds of America, bodies of later races were discovered with the usual paraphernalia of bone necklaces, weapons, stone and copper urns, etc., they are, therefore, ancient tombs! But surely the two famous mounds—one in the Mississippi valley and the other in Ohio—known respectively as the “Alligator Mound” and the “Great Serpent Mound,” were never meant for tombs.[1758] Yet one is told authoritatively that the mounds, and the mound or dolmen builders, are all “Pelasgic” in Europe, antecedent to the Incas in America, yet not of “extremely distant times.” They are built by “no race of dolmen builders,” who never existed save in the earlier archæological fancy (opinion of De Mortillet, Bastian, and Westropp). Finally Virchow's opinion of the giant tombs of Germany is now accepted as an axiom. Says that German Biologist:

The tombs alone are gigantic, and not the bones they contain.

And Archæology has but to bow and submit to the decision.[1759]

That no gigantic skeletons have been hitherto found in the “tombs” is no reason for saying that the remains of giants were never in them. Cremation was universal till a comparatively recent period—some 80,000 or 100,000 years ago. The real giants, moreover, were nearly all drowned with Atlantis. Nevertheless, classical writers, as we have shown elsewhere, often speak of giant skeletons being excavated in their day. Moreover, human fossils may be counted on the fingers, as yet. No skeleton ever yet found is older than between 50,000 or 60,000 years,[1760] and man's size was reduced from 15 to 10 or 12 feet, from the time of the third sub-race of the Âryan stock, which sub-race—born and developed in Europe and Asia Minor under new climates and conditions—had become European. Since then, as we have said, it has been steadily decreasing. It is truer, therefore, to say that the tombs alone are archaic, and not necessarily the bodies of men occasionally found in them; and that those tombs, since they are gigantic, must have contained giants,[1761] or rather the ashes of generations of giants.

Nor were all such cyclopean structures intended for sepulchres. It is with the so-called Druidical remains, such as Carnac in Brittany and Stonehenge in Great Britain, that the travelling Initiates above alluded to had to do. And these gigantic monuments are all symbolic records of the World's history. They are not Druidical, but universal. Nor did the Druids build them, for they were only the heirs of the cyclopean lore left to them by generations of mighty builders and—“magicians,” both good and bad.

It will always be a subject of regret that History, rejecting à priori the actual existence of giants, has preserved to us so little of the records of antiquity concerning them. Yet in nearly every Mythology—which after all is Ancient History—the giants play an important part. In the old Norse Mythology, the giants, Skrymir and his brethren, against whom the sons of the Gods fought, were potent factors in the histories of deities and men. The modern exegesis, that [pg 797] makes these giants the brethren of the dwarfs, and reduces the combats of the Gods to the history of the development of the Âryan Race, will only receive credence amongst the believers in the Âryan theory as expounded by Max Müller. Granting that the Turanian races were typified by the dwarfs (Dwergar), and that a dark, round-headed, and dwarfish race was driven northward by the fair-faced Scandinavians, or Æsir, the Gods being like unto men, there still exists neither in history nor in any other scientific work any anthropological proof whatever of the existence in Time or Space of a race of giants. Yet that such exist, relatively and de facto side by side with dwarfs, Schweinfurth can testify. The Nyam-Nyam of Africa are regular dwarfs, while their next neighbours, several tribes of comparatively fair-complexioned Africans, are giants when confronted with the Nyam-Nyams, and very tall even among Europeans, for their women are all above six and a half feet high.

In Cornwall and in ancient Britain the traditions of these giants are, on the other hand, excessively common; they are said to have lived even down to the time of King Arthur. All this shows that giants lived to a later date amongst the Celtic than among the Teutonic peoples.

If we turn to the New World, we have traditions of a race of giants of Tarija on the eastern slopes of the Andes and in Ecuador, who combated Gods and men. These old beliefs, which term certain localities “Los Campos de los Gigantes,” the “Fields of Giants,” are always concomitant with the existence of Pliocene mammalia and the occurrence of Pliocene raised beaches. “All the giants are not under Mount Ossa,” and it would be poor Anthropology indeed that would restrict the traditions of giants to Greek and Bible mythologies. Slavonian countries, Russia especially, teem with legends about the Bogaterey (mighty giants) of old; and Slavonian folklore, most of which has served for the foundation of national histories, the oldest songs, and the most archaic traditions, speaks of the giants of old. Thus we may safely reject the modern theory that would make of the Titans mere symbols standing for cosmic forces. They were real living men, whether twenty or only twelve feet high. Even the Homeric heroes, who, of course, belonged to a far more recent period in the history of the races, appear to have wielded weapons of a size and weight beyond the strength of the strongest men of modern times.

Not twice ten men the mighty bulk could raise,

Such men as live in these degenerate days.

If the fossil footprints at Carson, Nevada, U.S.A., are human, they indicate gigantic men, and of their genuineness there can remain no doubt. It is to be deplored that the modern and scientific evidence for gigantic men should rest on footprints alone. Over and over again, the skeletons of hypothetical giants have been identified with those of elephants and mastodons. But all such blunders before the days of Geology, and even the traveller's tales of Sir John Mandeville, who says that he saw giants fifty-six feet high, in India, only show that belief in the existence of giants has never, at any time, died out of the thoughts of men.

That which is known and accepted is, that several races of gigantic men have existed and left distinct traces. In the Journal of the Anthropological Institute[1762] such a race is shown as having existed at Palmyra and possibly in Midian, exhibiting cranial forms quite different from those of the Jews. It is not improbable that another such race existed in Samaria, and that the mysterious people who built the stone circles in Galilee, hewed Neolithic flints in the Jordan valley, and preserved an ancient Semitic language quite distinct from the square Hebrew character, were of very large stature. The English translations of the Bible can never be relied upon, even in their modern revised forms. They tell us of the Nephilim, translating the word by “giants,” and further adding that they were “hairy” men, probably the large and powerful prototypes of the later satyrs so eloquently described by patristic fancy; some of the Church Fathers assuring their admirers and followers that they had themselves seen these “satyrs”—some alive, others “pickled” and “preserved.” The word “giants” being once adopted as a synonym of Nephilim, the commentators have since identified them with the sons of Anak. The filibusters who seized on the Promised Land found a preëxisting population far exceeding their own in stature, and called it a race of giants. But the races of really gigantic men had disappeared ages before the birth of Moses. These tall people existed in Canaan, and even in Bashan, and may have had representatives in the Nabatheans of Midian. They were of far greater stature than the undersized Jews. Four thousand years ago their cranial conformation and large stature separated them from the children of Heber. Forty thousand years ago their ancestors may have been of still more gigantic size, and four hundred thousand years earlier they must have been in proportion to men in our days as the Brobdingnagians [pg 799] were to the Lilliputians. The Atlanteans of the middle period were called the “Great Dragons,” and the first symbol of their tribal deities, when the “Gods” and the Divine Dynasties had forsaken them, was that of a giant serpent.

The mystery veiling the origin and the religion of the Druids is as great as that of their supposed fanes to the modern Symbologist, but not to the initiated Occultists. Their priests were the descendants of the last Atlanteans, and what is known of them is sufficient to allow the inference that they were Eastern priests, akin to the Chaldæans and Indians, though little more. It may be inferred that they symbolized their deity as the Hindûs do their Vishnu, as the Egyptians did their Mystery God, and as the builders of the Ohio great Serpent Mound worshipped theirs—namely under the form of the “Mighty Serpent,” the emblem of the eternal deity Time—the Hindû Kâla. Pliny called them the “Magi of the Gauls and Britons.” But they were more than that. The author of Indian Antiquities finds much affinity between the Druids and the Brâhmans of India. Dr. Borlase points to a close analogy between them and the Magi of Persia;[1763] others will see an identity between them and the Orphic priesthood of Thrace—simply because they were connected, in their Esoteric Teachings, with the universal Wisdom Religion, and thus presented affinities with the exoteric worship of all.

Like the Hindûs, the Greeks and Romans—we speak of the Initiates—the Chaldees and the Egyptians, the Druids believed in the doctrine of a succession of “worlds,” as also in that of seven “creations” (of new continents) and transformations of the face of the Earth, and in a seven-fold night and day for each Earth or Globe. Wherever the serpent with the egg is found, there this tenet was surely present. Their Dracontia are a proof of it. This belief was so universal that, if we seek for it in the Esotericism of various religions, we shall discover it in all. We shall find it among the Âryan Hindûs and Mazdeans, the Greeks, the Latins, and even among the old Jews and early Christians, whose modern stocks hardly comprehend now what they read in their Scriptures. In the Book of God we read:

The world, says Seneca, being melted and having reëntered into the bosom of Jupiter, 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. [pg 800]Afterwards we see a new world spring from him, perfect in all its parts. Animals are produced anew. An innocent race of men is formed.

And again, speaking of a mundane dissolution as involving the destruction or death of all, he 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 Sun shall be deprived of its light; 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 into their original chaos.[1764]

One might imagine oneself reading the Paurânic account by Parâshara of the great Pralaya. It is nearly the same thing, idea for idea. Has Christianity nothing of the kind? It has, we say. 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 kept in store, reserved unto fire ... the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless we ... look for new heavens and a new earth.[1765]

If the interpreters choose to see in this a reference to the creation, the deluge, and the promised coming of Christ, when they shall live in a New Jerusalem in Heaven, this is no fault of “Peter.” What the writer of the Epistle meant was the destruction of this Fifth Race of ours by subterranean fires and inundations, and the appearance of new continents for the Sixth Root-Race. For the writers of the Epistles were all learned in symbology if not in science.

It has been mentioned elsewhere that the belief in the septenary constitution of our Chain was the oldest tenet of the early Iranians, who got it from the first Zarathushtra. It is time to prove it to those Parsîs who have lost the key to the meaning of their Scriptures. In the Avesta the Earth is considered septempartite and tripartite at one and the same time. This is regarded by Dr. Geiger as an incongruity, for the following reasons, which he calls discrepancies. The Avesta speaks of the three thirds of the Earth because the Rig Veda mentions:

Three earths.... Three strata or layers, one lying above the other, are said to be meant by this.[1766]

But he is quite mistaken, as are all exoteric profane translators. The Avesta has not borrowed the idea from the Rig Veda, but simply repeats the Esoteric Teaching. The “three strata or layers” do not refer to our Globe alone, but to three layers of the Globes of our Terrestrial Chain—two by two, on each plane, one on the descending, the other on the ascending arc. Thus, with reference to the six Spheres or Globes above our Earth, the seventh and the fourth, the Earth is septempartite, while with regard to the planes over our plane—it is tripartite. This meaning is carried out and corroborated by the text of the Avesta, and even by the speculations—most laborious and unsatisfactory guess-work—of the translators and commentators. It thus follows that the division of the Earth, or rather the Earth's Chain, into seven Karshvars is not in contradiction with the three “zones,” if this word is read “planes.” As Geiger remarks, this septenary division is very old—the oldest of all—since the Gâthas already speak of the “septempartite earth.”[1767] For:

According to the statements of the later Parsî Scriptures, the seven Kêrshvars are to be considered as completely disconnected parts of the earth [which they surely are. For] between them there flows the ocean, so that it is impossible, as stated in several passages, to pass from one Kêrshvar to another.[1768]

The “Ocean” is Space, of course, for the latter was called “Waters of Space” before it was known as Ether. Moreover, the word Karshvar is consistently rendered as Dvîpa, and Hvaniratha is rendered by Jambudvîpa (Neryosangh, the translator of the Yasna).[1769] But this fact is not taken into account by the Orientalists, and therefore we find even such a learned Zoroastrian and Parsî by birth as the translator of Dr. Geiger's work, passing unnoticed and without a word of comment sundry remarks of the former on the “incongruities” of this kind abounding in the Mazdean Scriptures. One of such “incongruities” and “coïncidences” concerns the similarity of the Zoroastrian with the Indian tenet with regard to the seven Dvîpas—islands, or continents, rather—as met with in the Purânas, namely:

The Dvîpas form concentric rings, which, separated by the ocean, surround Jambudvîpa, which is situated in the centre, [and] according to the Iranian view, [pg 802]the Kêrshvar Qaniratha is likewise situated in the centre of the rest, they form no concentric circles, but each of them [the six other Karshvars] is a peculiar individual space, and so they group themselves round [above] Qaniratha.[1770]

Now Qaniratha—better Hvaniratha—is not, as believed by Geiger and his translator, “the country inhabited by the Irânian tribes,” and “the other names” do not mean “the adjacent territories of foreign nations in the North, South, West, and East,” but signify our Globe or Earth. For that which is meant by the sentence which follows the last quoted, namely, that:

Two, Vorubarshti and Voruzarshti, lie in the North; two, Vidadhafshu and Tradadhafshu, in the South; Savahi and Arzahi in the East and West

—is simply the very graphic and accurate description of the Chain of our Planet, the Earth, represented in the Book of Dzyan (11) thus:

The Mazdean names given above have only to be replaced by those used in the Secret Doctrine to present us with the Esoteric tenet. The “Earth” (our world) is tripartite, because the Chain of the Worlds is situated on three different planes above our Globe; and it is septempartite because of the seven Globes or Spheres which compose the Chain. Hence the further meaning given in Vendidâd (xix. 39), showing that:

Qaniratha alone is combined with imat, “this” (earth), while all other Karshvares are combined with the word “avat,” “that” or those—upper earths.

Nothing could be plainer. The same may be said of the modern comprehension of all other ancient beliefs.

The Druids, then, understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus, when, all other fires being extinguished on the first of November, their sacred and inextinguishable fires alone remained to illumine the horizon, like those of the Magi and the modern Zoroastrians. And like the early Fifth Race and later Chaldees, like the Greeks, and again like the Christians—who do the same to this day, without suspecting [pg 803] the real meaning—they greeted the Morning Star, the beautiful Venus-Lucifer.[1771] Strabo speaks of an island near to Britannia:

Where Ceres and Persephone were worshipped with the same rites as in Samothrace and this island was Sacred Ierna[1772]—

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—

but in a series of reïncarnations in this same world; for as Diodorus says, they declared that the souls of men, after determinate periods, would pass into other bodies.[1773]

These tenets came to the Fifth Race Âryans from their predecessors of the Fourth Race, the Atlanteans. They had piously preserved the teachings, which told them how their parent Root-Race, becoming with every generation more arrogant, owing to the acquisition of superhuman powers, had been gradually gliding toward its end. Those records reminded them of the giant intellect of the preceding races as well as of their giant size. We find the repetition of those records in every age of history, in almost every old fragment which has descended to us from antiquity.

Ælian preserved an extract from Theophrastus written during the days of Alexander the Great. It is a dialogue between Midas, the Phrygian, and Silenus. The former is told of a continent that had existed in times of old, so immense, that Asia, Europe and Africa seemed like poor islands compared with it. It was the last to produce animals and plants of gigantic magnitudes. There, said Silenus, men grew to double the size of the tallest man in his (the narrator's) time, and they lived till they were twice as old. They had wealthy cities with temples, and one of such cities held more than a million of inhabitants in it, gold and silver being found there in great abundance.

Grote's suggestion that Atlantis was but a myth arisen from a mirage—clouds on a dazzling sky taking the appearance of islands on a golden sea—is too disingenuous to be further noticed.

A. Some Statements About The Sacred Islands And Continents In The Classics, Explained Esoterically.

All that which precedes was known to Plato, and to many others. But as no Initiate had the right to divulge and declare all he knew, posterity got only hints. Aiming more to instruct as a Moralist than as a Geographer and Ethnologist or Historian, the Greek Philosopher merged the history of Atlantis, which covered several million years, into one event which he located on one comparatively small island 3,000 stadia long by 2,000 wide (or about 350 miles by 200, which is about the size of Ireland); whereas the priests spoke of Atlantis as a continent vast as “all Asia and Lybia” put together.[1774] But, however altered in its general aspect, Plato's narrative bears the impress of truth upon it.[1775] It was not he who invented it, at any rate, since Homer, who preceded him by many centuries, also speaks in his Odyssey of the Atlantes—who are our Atlanteans—and of their island. Therefore the tradition was older than the bard of Ulysses. The Atlantes and the Atlantides of Mythology are based upon the Atlantes and the Atlantides of History. Both Sanchuniathon and Diodorus have preserved the histories of those heroes and heroines, however much their accounts may have become mixed up with the mythical element.

In our own day we witness the extraordinary fact that such comparatively recent personages as Shakspere and William Tell are all but denied, an attempt being made to show one to be a nom de plume, and the other a person who never existed. What wonder then, that the two powerful Races—the Lemurians and the Atlanteans—have been merged into and identified, in time, with a few half mythical peoples, who all bore the same patronymic.

Herodotus speaks of the Atlantes—a people of Western Africa—who [pg 805] gave their name to Mount Atlas: who were vegetarians, and “whose sleep was never disturbed by dreams”; and who, moreover,

Daily cursed the sun at his rising and at his setting because his excessive heat scorched and tormented them.

These statements are based upon moral and psychic facts and not on physiological disturbance. The story of Atlas gives the key to this. If the Atlanteans never had their sleep disturbed by dreams, it is because that particular tradition is concerned with the earliest Atlanteans, whose physical frame and brain were not yet sufficiently consolidated, in the physiological sense, to permit the nervous centres to act during sleep. With regard to the other statement—that they daily “cursed the sun”—this again had nothing to do with the heat, but with the moral degeneration that grew with the Race. It is explained in our Commentaries.

They [the sixth sub-race of the Atlanteans] used magic incantations even against the Sun—

failing in which they cursed it. The sorcerers of Thessaly were credited with the power of calling down the Moon, as Greek history assures us. The Atlanteans of the later period were renowned for their magic powers and wickedness, their ambition and defiance of the Gods. Thence the same traditions, taking form in the Bible, about the antediluvian giants and the Tower of Babel, and found also in the Book of Enoch.

Diodorus records another fact or two: the Atlanteans boasted of possessing the land in which all the Gods had received their birth; as also of having had Uranus for their first King, he being also the first to teach them Astronomy. Very little more than this has come down to us from antiquity.

The myth of Atlas is an allegory easily understood. Atlas is the old Continents of Lemuria and Atlantis, combined and personified in one symbol. The poets attribute to Atlas, as to Proteus, a superior wisdom and a universal knowledge, and especially a thorough acquaintance with the depths of the ocean; for both Continents bore Races instructed by divine Masters, and both were transferred to the bottom of the seas, where they now slumber until their next reäppearance above the waters. Atlas is the son of an ocean nymph, and his daughter is Calypso—the “watery deep.” Atlantis has been submerged beneath the waters of the ocean, and its progeny is now sleeping its eternal sleep on the ocean floors. The Odyssey makes of him the guardian and the “sustainer” of the huge pillars that separate the Heavens from the Earth. He is their [pg 806] “supporter.” And as both Lemuria, destroyed by submarine fires, and Atlantis, submerged by the waves, perished in the ocean deeps,[1776] Atlas is said to have been compelled to leave the surface of the Earth, and join his brother Iapetus in the depths of Tartarus.[1777] Sir Theodore Martin is right in interpreting this allegory as meaning:

[Atlas] standing on the solid floor of the inferior hemisphere of the universe, and thus carrying at the same time the disc of the earth and the celestial vault—the solid envelope of the superior hemisphere.[1778]

For Atlas is Atlantis, which supports the new continents and their horizons on its “shoulders.”

Decharme, in his Mythologie de la Grèce Antique, expresses a doubt as to the correctness of Pierron's translation of the Homeric word ἕχει by sustinet, as it is not possible to see:

How Atlas can support or bear at once several pillars situated in various localities.

If Atlas were an individual it would be an awkward translation. But, as he personifies a Continent in the West said to support Heaven and Earth at once,[1779] i.e., the feet of the giant tread the earth while his shoulders support the celestial vault—an allusion to the gigantic peaks of the Lemurian and Atlantean Continents—the epithet “supporter” becomes very correct. The term conservator for the Greek word ἕχει, which Decharme, following Sir Theodore Martin, understands as meaning φυλάσσει and ἐπιμελεῖταυ, does not render the same sense.

The conception was certainly due to the gigantic mountain chain running along the terrestrial border or disc. These mountain peaks plunged their roots into the very bottom of the seas, while they raised their heads heavenward, their summits being lost in the clouds. The ancient continents had more mountains than valleys on them. Atlas and the Teneriffe Peak, now two of the dwarfed relics of the two lost Continents, were thrice as lofty during the day of Lemuria and twice as high in that of Atlantis. Thus, the Lybians called Mount Atlas the “Pillar of Heaven,” according to Herodotus,[1780] and Pindar qualified the later Ætna as the “Celestial Pillar.”[1781] Atlas was an inaccessible island peak in the days of Lemuria, when the African continent had not yet [pg 807] been raised. It is the sole Western relic which survives, independent, belonging to the Continent on which the Third Race was born, developed and fell,[1782] for Australia is now part of the Eastern Continent. Proud Atlas, according to Esoteric tradition, having sunk one-third of its size into the waters, its two parts remained as an heirloom of Atlantis.

This again was known to the priests of Egypt and to Plato himself, the solemn oath of secrecy, which extended even to the mysteries of Neo-Platonism, alone preventing the whole truth from being told.[1783] So secret was the knowledge of the last island of Atlantis, indeed—on account of the superhuman powers possessed by its inhabitants, the last direct descendants of the Gods or Divine Kings, as it was thought—that to divulge its whereabouts and existence was punished by death. Theopompus says as much in his ever-suspected Meropis, when he speaks of the Phœnicians as being the only navigators in the seas which wash the Western coast of Africa; who did it with such mystery that very often they sunk their own vessels to make the too inquisitive foreigners lose all trace of them.

There are Orientalists and Historians—and they form the majority—who, while feeling quite unmoved at the rather crude language of the Bible, and some of the events narrated in it, show great disgust at the “immorality” in the Pantheons of India and Greece.[1784] We may be told that before them Euripides, Pindar, and even Plato, express the same disgust; that they too felt irritated with the tales invented—“those miserable stories of the poets,” as Euripides phrases it.[1785]

But there may have been another reason for this, perhaps. To those who knew that there was more than one key to Theogonic Symbolism, it was a mistake to have expressed it in a language so crude and misleading. For if the educated and learned Philosopher could discern the kernel of wisdom under the coarse rind of the fruit, and knew that the latter concealed the greatest laws and truths of psychic and physical nature, as well as the origin of all things—not so with the uninitiated profane. For him the dead-letter was religion; the interpretation—sacrilege. And this dead-letter could neither edify nor make him more perfect, seeing that such an example was given him by his Gods. But to the Philosopher—especially the Initiate—Hesiod's Theogony is as historical as any history can be. Plato accepts it as such, and gives out as much of its truths as his pledges permitted.

The fact that the Atlantes claimed Uranus for their first king, and that Plato commences his story of Atlantis by the division of the great Continent by Neptune, the grandson of Uranus, shows that there were continents before Atlantis and kings before Uranus. For Neptune, to whose lot the great Continent fell, finds on a small island only one human couple made of clay—i.e., the first physical human man, whose origin began with the last sub-races of the Third Root-Race. It is their daughter Clito that the God marries, and it is his eldest son Atlas who receives for his part the mountain and the continent which were called by his name.[1786]

Now all the Gods of Olympus, as well as those of the Hindû Pantheon and the Rishis, were the septiform personations (1) of the Noumena of the Intelligent Powers of Nature; (2) of Cosmic Forces; (3) of Celestial Bodies; (4) of Gods or Dhyân Chohans; (5) of Psychic and Spiritual Powers; (6) of Divine Kings on Earth, or the incarnations of the Gods; and (7) of Terrestrial Heroes or Men. The knowledge how to discern among these seven forms the one that is intended, belonged at all times to the Initiates, whose earliest predecessors had created this symbolical and allegorical system.

Thus while Uranus, or the Host representing this celestial group, reigned and ruled over the Second Race and their then Continent, Cronus or Saturn governed the Lemurians; and Jupiter, Neptune[1787] and others fought in the allegory for Atlantis, which was the whole Earth [pg 809] in the day of the Fourth Race. Poseidonis, or the last island of Atlantis—the “third step” of Idas-pati, or Vishnu, in the mystic language of the Secret Books—lasted till about 12,000 years ago.[1788] The Atlantes of Diodorus were right in claiming that it was their country, the region surrounding Mount Atlas, where “the Gods were born”—i.e., “incarnated.” But it was after their fourth incarnation that they became, for the first time, human kings and rulers.

Diodorus speaks of Uranus as the first king of Atlantis, confusing, either consciously or otherwise, the Continents; but as we have shown, Plato indirectly corrects the statement. The first astronomical teacher of men was Uranus, because he is one of the seven Dhyân Chohans of that Second Period or Race. Thus also in the second Manvantara, that of Svârochisha, among the seven sons of the Manu, the presiding Gods or Rishis of that race, we find Jyotis,[1789] the teacher of Astronomy (Jyotisha), one of the names of Brahmâ. And thus also the Chinese revere Tien (or the Sky, Ouranos), and name him as their first teacher of Astronomy. Uranus gave birth to the Titans of the Third Race, and it is they, personified by Saturn-Cronus, who mutilated him. For as it is the Titans who fell into generation, when “creation by will was superseded by physical procreation,” they needed Uranus no more.

And here a short digression must be permitted and pardoned. In consequence of the last scholarly production of Mr. Gladstone in the Nineteenth Century, “The Greater Gods of Olympos,” the ideas of the general public about Greek Mythology have been still further perverted and biassed. Homer is credited with an inner thought, which is regarded by Mr. Gladstone as, “the true key to the Homeric conception,” whereas this “key” is merely a “blind.”

[Poseidon] is indeed essentially of the earth earthy ... strong and self-asserting, sensual and intensely jealous and vindictive—

but this is because he symbolizes the Spirit of the Fourth Root-Race, the Ruler of the Seas, that Race which lives above the surface of the seas,[1790] which is composed of the giants, the children of Eurymedon, the race which is the father of Polyphemus, the Titan, and the one-eyed Cyclops. Though Zeus reign over the Fourth Race, it is Poseidon who rules, and who is the true key to the triad of the Cronid [pg 810] Brothers, and to our human races. Poseidon and Nereus are one; the former the Ruler or Spirit of Atlantis before the beginning of its submersion, the latter, after. Neptune is the titanic strength of the living Race, Nereus, its Spirit, reïncarnated in the subsequent Fifth or Âryan Race; and this is what the Greek scholar of England has not yet discovered, or even dimly perceived. And yet he makes many observations upon the “artfulness” of Homer, who never names Nereus, at whose designation we arrive only through the patronymic of the Nereids!

Thus the tendency of even the most erudite Hellenists is to confine their speculations to the exoteric images of Mythology and to lose sight of their inner meaning; and it is remarkably illustrated in the case of Mr. Gladstone, as we have shown. While almost the most conspicuous figure of our age as a statesman, he is at the same time one of the most cultured scholars to whom England has given birth. Grecian literature has been the beloved study of his life, and he has found time amid the bustle of public affairs to enrich contemporary literature with contributions to Greek scholarship, which will make his name famous through coming generations. At the same time, as his sincere admirer, the present writer cannot but feel a deep regret that posterity, while acknowledging his profound erudition and splendid culture, will yet, in the greater light which must then shine upon the whole question of Symbolism and Mythology, judge that he has failed to grasp the spirit of the religious system which he has often criticized from the dogmatic Christian standpoint. In that future day it will be perceived that the Esoteric key to the mysteries of the Christian as well as of the Grecian Theogonies and Sciences, is the Secret Doctrine of the pre-historic nations, which, along with others, he has denied. It is that doctrine alone which can trace the kinship of all human religious speculations, or even of so-called “revelations,” and it is this teaching which infuses the spirit of life into the lay figures on the Mounts of Meru, Olympus, Walhalla, or Sinai. If Mr. Gladstone were a younger man, his admirers might hope that his scholastic studies would be crowned by the discovery of this underlying truth. As it is, he but wastes the golden hours of his declining years in futile disputations with that giant free-thinker, Col. Ingersoll, each fighting with the weapons of exoteric temper, drawn from the arsenals of ignorant Literalism. These two great controversialists are equally blind to the true Esoteric meaning of the texts which they hurl at each other's [pg 811] heads like iron bullets, while the world alone suffers by such controversies; since the one helps to strengthen the ranks of Materialism, and the other those of blind Sectarianism of the dead-letter. And now we may return once more to our immediate subject.

Many a time Atlantis is spoken of under another name, one unknown to our commentators. The power of names is great, and has been known since the first men were instructed by the Divine Masters. And as Solon had studied it, he translated the “Atlantean” names into names devised by himself. In connection with the continent of Atlantis, it is desirable to bear in mind that the accounts which have come down to us from the old Greek writers contain a confusion of statements, some referring to the great Continent and others to the last small island of Poseidonis. It has become customary to take them all as referring to the latter only, but that this is incorrect is evident from the incompatibility of the various statements as to the size, etc., of “Atlantis.”

Thus, in the Critias, Plato says, that the plain surrounding the city was itself surrounded by mountain chains, and the plain was smooth and level, and of an oblong shape, lying north and south, three thousand stadia in one direction and two thousand in the other; they surrounded the plain by an enormous canal or dike, 101 feet deep, 606 feet broad, and 1,250 miles in length.[1791]

Now in other places the entire size of the island of Poseidonis is given as about the same as that assigned here to the “plain around the city” alone. Obviously, one set of statements refers to the great Continent, and the other to its last remnant—Plato's island.

And, again, the standing army of Atlantis is given as upwards of a million men; its navy as 1,200 ships and 240,000 men. Such statements are quite inapplicable to a small island state, of about the size of Ireland!

The Greek allegories give to Atlas, or Atlantis, seven daughters—seven sub-races—whose respective names are Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Asterope, Merope, Alcyone, and Celæno. This ethnologically—as they are credited with having married Gods and with having become the mothers of famous heroes, the founders of many nations and cities. Astronomically, the Atlantides have become the seven Pleiades (?). In Occult Science the two are connected with the destinies of nations, those destinies being shaped by the past events of their early lives according to Karmic Law.

Three great nations claimed in antiquity a direct descent from the kingdom of Saturn or Lemuria, confused with Atlantis several thousands of years before our era; and these were the Egyptians, the Phœnicians (Sanchuniathon), and the old Greeks (Diodorus, after Plato). But the oldest civilized country of Asia—India—can likewise be shown to claim the same descent. Sub-races, guided by Karmic Law or destiny, repeat unconsciously the first steps of their respective mother-races. As the comparatively fair Brâhmans—when invading India with its dark-coloured Dravidians—have come from the North, so the Âryan Fifth Race must claim its origin from northern regions. The Occult Sciences show that the founders, the respective groups of the seven Prajâpatis, of the Root-Races have all been connected with the Pole Star. In the Commentary we find:

He who understands the age of Dhruva[1792] who measures 9090 mortal years, will understand the times of the Pralayas, the final destiny of nations, O Lanoo.

Moreover there must have been a good reason why an Asiatic nation should locate its great Progenitors and Saints in Ursa Major, a northern constellation. It is 70,000 years, however, since the Pole of the Earth pointed to the further end of Ursa Minor's tail; and many more thousand years since the seven Rishis could have been identified with the constellation of Ursa Major.

The Âryan Race was born and developed in the far North, though after the sinking of the Continent of Atlantis its tribes emigrated further South into Asia. Hence Prometheus is the son of Asia, and Deucalion, his son, the Greek Noah—he who created men out of the stones of mother Earth—is called a northern Scythe, by Lucian, and Prometheus is made the brother of Atlas and is tied down to Mount Caucasus amid the snows.[1793]

Greece had her Hyperborean as well as her Southern Apollo. Thus nearly all the Gods of Egypt, Greece, and Phœnicia, as well as those of other Pantheons, are of a northern origin and originated in Lemuria, towards the close of the Third Race, after its full physical and physiological [pg 813] evolution had been completed.[1794] All the “fables” of Greece would be found to be built on historical facts, if that history had only passed to posterity unadulterated by myths. The “one-eyed” Cyclopes, the giants fabled as the sons of Cœlus and Terra—three in number, according to Hesiod—were the last three sub-races of the Lemurians, the “one-eye” referring to the wisdom-eye;[1795] for the two front eyes were fully developed as physical organs only in the beginning of the Fourth Race. The allegory of Ulysses, whose companions were devoured while the king of Ithaca himself was saved by putting out the eye of Polyphemus with a fire-brand, is based upon the psycho-physiological atrophy of the “third eye.” Ulysses belongs to the cycle of the heroes of the Fourth Race, and, though a “Sage” in the sight of the latter, must have been a profligate in the opinion of the pastoral Cyclopes.[1796] His adventure with the latter—a savage gigantic race, the antithesis of cultured civilization in the Odyssey—is an allegorical record of the gradual passage from the Cyclopean civilization of stone and colossal buildings to the more sensual and physical culture of the Atlanteans, which finally caused the last of the Third Race to lose their all-penetrating spiritual eye. The other allegory, which makes Apollo kill the Cyclopes to avenge the death of his son Asclepius, does not refer to the three sub-races represented by the three sons of Heaven and Earth, but to the Hyperborean Arimaspian Cyclopes, the last of the race endowed with the “wisdom-eye.” The former have left relics of their buildings everywhere, in the South as much as in the North; the latter were confined to the North solely. Thus Apollo—pre-eminently the God of the Seers, whose duty it is to punish desecration, killed them—his shafts representing human passions, fiery and lethal—and hid his shaft behind a mountain in the Hyperborean regions.[1797] Cosmically and astronomically this Hyperborean God is the Sun personified, which during the course of the Sidereal Year—25,868 years—changes the climates on the Earth's surface, making frigid regions of [pg 814] tropical, and vice versâ. Psychically and spiritually his significance is far more important. As Mr. Gladstone pertinently remarks in his “Greater Gods of Olympos”:

The qualities of Apollo (jointly with Athenê) are impossible to be accounted for without repairing to sources, which lie beyond the limit of the traditions most commonly explored for the elucidation of the Greek mythology.[1798]

The history of Latona (Leto), Apollo's mother, is most pregnant in various meanings. Astronomically, Latona is the polar region and the night, giving birth to the Sun, Apollo, Phœbus, etc. She is born in the Hyperborean countries, wherein all the inhabitants were priests of her son, celebrating his resurrection and descent to their country every nineteen years at the renewal of the lunar cycle.[1799] Latona is the Hyperborean Continent, and its Race—geologically.[1800]

When the astronomical meaning cedes its place to the spiritual and divine—Apollo and Athene transforming themselves into the form of “birds,” the symbol and glyph of the higher divinities and angels—then the bright God assumes divine creative powers. Apollo becomes the personification of seership, when he sends the astral double of Æneas to the battle field,[1801] and has the gift of appearing to his seers without being visible to other persons present,[1802] a gift, however, shared by every high Adept.

The King of the Hyperboreans was, therefore, the son of Boreas, the North Wind, and the High Priest of Apollo. The quarrel of Latona with Niobe—the Atlantean Race—the mother of seven sons and seven daughters, personifying the seven sub-races of the Fourth Race and [pg 815] their seven branches[1803] allegorizes the history of the two Continents. The wrath of the “Sons of God,” or of “Will and Yoga,” at seeing the steady degradation of the Atlanteans was great;[1804] and the destruction of the children of Niobe by the children of Latona—Apollo and Diana, the deities of light, wisdom and purity, or the Sun and Moon astronomically, whose influence causes changes in the Earth's axis, deluges and other cosmic cataclysms—is thus very clear.[1805] The fable about the never-ceasing tears of Niobe, whose grief causes Zeus to change her into a fountain—Atlantis covered with water—is no less graphic as a symbol. Niobe, let it be remembered, is the daughter of one of the Pleiades, or Atlantides, the grand-daughter of Atlas therefore,[1806] because she represents the last generations of the doomed Continent.

A true remark, that of Bailly, which says that Atlantis had an enormous influence on antiquity. He adds:

If these mythical names are mere allegories, then all that they have of truth comes from Atlantis; if the fable is a real tradition—however altered—then the ancient history is wholly their history.[1807]

So much so, that all ancient writings—prose and poetry—are full of the reminiscences of the Lemuro-Atlanteans, the first physical Races, though the Third and the Fourth in number in the evolution of Fourth Round Humanity on our Globe. Hesiod records the tradition about the men of the Age of Bronze, whom Jupiter had made out of ash-wood and who had hearts harder than diamond. Clad in bronze from head to foot, they passed their lives in fighting. Monstrous in size, endowed with a terrible strength, invincible arms and hands descended from their shoulders, says the poet.[1808] Such were the giants of the first physical Races.

The Iranians have a reference to the later Atlanteans in Yasna, ix. 15. Tradition maintains that the “Sons of God,” or the great Initiates of the Sacred Island, took advantage of the Deluge to rid the Earth of all the Sorcerers among the Atlanteans. The said verse addresses Zarathushtra as one of the “Sons of God.” It says:

Thou, O Zarathushtra, didst make all demons [Sorcerers], who before roamed the world in human forms, conceal themselves in the earth [helped them to submersion].

The Lemurians, and also the early Atlanteans, were divided into two distinct classes—the “Sons of Night” or Darkness, and the “Sons of the Sun” or Light. The old books tell us of terrible battles between the two, when the former, leaving their land of Darkness, whence the Sun departed for long months, descended from their inhospitable regions and “tried to wrench the Lord of Light” from their better-favoured brothers of the equatorial regions. We may be told that the Ancients knew nothing of the long night of six months' duration in the polar regions. Even Herodotus, more learned than the rest, only mentions a people who slept for six months in the year, and remained awake the other half. Yet the Greeks knew well that there was a country in the North where the year was divided into a day and night each of six months' duration, for Pliny distinctly says so.[1809] They speak of the Cimmerians and of the Hyperboreans, and draw a distinction between the two. The former inhabited the Palus Mæotis—between 45° and 50° latitude. Plutarch explains that they were but a small portion of a great nation driven away by the Scythians—which nation stopped near the Tanais, after having crossed Asia.

These warlike multitudes lived formerly on the ocean shores, in dense forests, and under a tenebrous sky. There the pole is almost touching the head, there long nights and days divide the year.[1810]

As to the Hyperboreans, these peoples, as expressed by Solinus Polyhistor:

Sow in the morning, reap at noon, gather their fruits in the evening, and store them during the night in their caves.[1811]

Even the writers of the Zohar knew this fact, as it is written:

In the Book of Hammannunah, the Old [or the Ancient], we learn ... there are some countries of the earth which are lightened, whilst others are in darkness; these have the day, when for the former it is night; and there are countries in which it is constantly day, or in which at least the night continues only some instants.[1812]

The island of Delos, the Asteria of Greek Mythology, was never in Greece, for this country, in that day, was not yet in existence, not even in its molecular form. Several writers have shown that it represented a country or an island, far larger than the small dots of land which became Greece. Both Pliny and Diodorus Siculus place it in the Northern Seas. One calls it Basilea, or “Royal”;[1813] the other, Pliny, names it Osericta,[1814] a word which, according to Rudbeck,[1815] had

A significance in the northern languages, equivalent to the Island of the Divine Kings or God-kings—

or again the “Royal Island of the Gods,” because the Gods were born there, i.e., the Divine Dynasties of the Kings of Atlantis proceeded from that place. Let Geographers and Geologists seek for it among that group of islands discovered by Nordenskiöld on his “Vega” voyage in the Arctic regions.[1816] The Secret Books inform us that the climate has changed in those regions more than once, since the first men inhabited those now almost inaccessible latitudes. They were a Paradise before they became Hell; the dark Hades of the Greeks, and the cold Realm of Shades where the Scandinavian Hel, the Goddess-Queen of the country of the dead, “holds sway deep down in Helheim and Niflheim.” Yet it was the birthplace of Apollo, who was the brightest of Gods, in Heaven—astronomically—as he was the most enlightened of the Divine Kings who ruled over the early nations, in his human meaning. The latter fact is borne out in the Iliad, wherein Apollo is said to have [pg 818] appeared four times in his own form (as the God of the Four Races) and six times in human form,[1817] i.e., as connected with the Divine Dynasties of the earlier unseparated Lemurians.

It is those early mysterious peoples, their countries—which have now become uninhabitable—as well as the name given to “man” both dead and alive, which have furnished an opportunity to the ignorant Church Fathers for inventing a Hell, which they have transformed into a burning instead of a freezing locality.[1818]

It is, of course, evident that it is neither the Hyperboreans, nor the Cimmerians, the Arimaspes, nor even the Scyths—known to and communicating with the Greeks—who were our Atlanteans. But they were all the descendants of their last sub-races. The Pelasgians were certainly one of the root-races of future Greece, and were a remnant of a sub-race of Atlantis. Plato hints as much in speaking of the latter, whose name, it is averred, came from pelagus, the “great sea.” Noah's Deluge is astronomical and allegorical, but it is not mythical, for the story is based upon the same archaic tradition of men—or rather of nations—who were saved during the cataclysms, in canoes, arks, and ships. No one would presume to say that the Chaldæan Xisuthrus, the Hindû Vaivasvata, the Chinese Peirun—the “Beloved of the Gods,” who rescued him from the flood in a canoe—or the Swedish Belgamer, for whom the Gods did the same in the North, are all identical as personages. But their legends have all sprung from the catastrophe which involved both the Continent and the Island of Atlantis.

The allegory about the antediluvian giants and their achievements in sorcery is no myth. Biblical events are revealed indeed. But it is neither by the voice of God amid thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai, nor by a divine finger tracing the record on tablets of stone, but simply through tradition viâ Pagan sources. It was not surely the Pentateuch that Diodorus was repeating when he wrote about the Titans—the giants born of Heaven and Earth, or, rather, born of the [pg 819] Sons of God who took to themselves for wives the daughters of men who were fair. Nor was Pherecydes quoting from Genesis when giving details on those giants which are not to be found in the Jewish Scriptures. He says that the Hyperboreans were of the race of the Titans, a race which descended from the earliest giants, and that it was that Hyperborean region which was the birthplace of the first giants. The Commentaries on the Sacred Books explain that the said region was the far North, the Polar Lands now, the Pre-Lemurian earliest Continent, embracing once upon a time the present Greenland, Spitzbergen, Sweden, Norway, etc.

But who were the Nephilim of Genesis (vi. 4)? There were Palæolithic and Neolithic men in Palestine ages before the events recorded in the Book of the Beginnings. The theological tradition identifies these Nephilim with hairy men or satyrs, the latter being mythical in the Fifth Race, and the former historical in both the Fourth and Fifth Races. We have stated elsewhere what the prototypes of these satyrs were, and have spoken of the bestiality of the early and later Atlantean Race. What is the meaning of Poseidon's amours under such a variety of animal forms? He became a dolphin to win Amphitrite; a horse, to seduce Ceres; a ram, to deceive Theophane, etc. Poseidon is not only the personation of the Spirit and Race of Atlantis, but also of the vices of these giants. Gesenius and others devote an enormous space to the meaning of the word Nephilim and explain very little. But Esoteric Records show these hairy creatures to be the last descendants of those Lemuro-Atlantean Races, which begot children on female animals, of species now long extinct; thus producing dumb men, “monsters,” as the Stanzas have it.

Now Mythology, built upon Hesiod's Theogony, which is but a poetized record of actual traditions, or oral history, speaks of three giants, called Briareus, Cottus, and Gyges, living in a dark country where they were imprisoned by Cronus for their rebellion against him. All the three are endowed by myth with a hundred arms and fifty heads, the latter standing for races, the former for sub-races and tribes. Bearing in mind that in Mythology every personage almost is a God or Demi-god, and also a king or simple mortal in his second aspect,[1819] and that both stand as symbols for lands, islands, powers of nature, elements, nations, races and sub-races, the Esoteric Commentary will [pg 820] become comprehensible. It says that the three giants are three polar lands which have changed form several times, at each new cataclysm, or disappearance of one continent to make room for another. The whole Globe is convulsed periodically; and has been so convulsed, since the appearance of the First Race, four times. Yet, though the whole face of the Earth was transformed thereby each time, the conformation of the Arctic and Antarctic Poles has but little altered. The polar lands unite and break off from each other into islands and peninsulas, yet remain ever the same. Therefore Northern Asia is called the “Eternal or Perpetual Land,” and the Antarctic the “Ever-living” and the “Concealed”; while the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Pacific and other regions disappear and reäppear in turn, into and above the Great Waters.

From the first appearance of the great Continent of Lemuria, the three polar giants have been imprisoned in their circle by Cronus. Their gaol is surrounded by a wall of bronze, and the exit is through gates fabricated by Poseidon—or Neptune—hence by the seas, which they cannot cross; and it is in that damp region, where eternal darkness reigns, that the three brothers languish. The Iliad makes it Tartarus.[1820] When the Gods and Titans rebelled in their turn against Zeus—the deity of the Fourth Race—the Father of the Gods bethought himself of the imprisoned giants that they might help him to conquer the Gods and Titans, and to precipitate the latter into Hades; or, in clearer words, to have Lemuria hurled amid thunder and lightning to the bottom of the seas, so as to make room for Atlantis, which was to be submerged and perish in its turn.[1821] The geological upheaval and deluge of Thessaly was a repetition on a small scale of the great cataclysm; and, remaining impressed on the memory of the Greeks, was merged by them into, and confused with, the general fate of Atlantis. So, also, the war between the Râkshasas of Lankâ and the Bhârateans, the mèlée of the Atlanteans and Âryans in their supreme struggle, or the conflict between the Devs and Izeds, or Peris, became, ages later, the struggle of Titans, separated into two inimical camps, and still later the war between the Angels of God and the Angels of Satan. Historical facts became theological dogmas. Ambitious scholiasts, men of a small sub-race born but yesterday, and one of the latest [pg 821] issues of the Âryan stock, took upon themselves to overturn the religious thought of the world, and succeeded. For nearly two thousand years they impressed thinking humanity with the belief in the existence of Satan.

But as it is now the conviction of more than one Greek scholar—as it was that of Bailly and Voltaire—that Hesiod's Theogony is based upon historical facts,[1822] it becomes easier for the Occult Teachings to find their way into the minds of thoughtful men, and therefore are these passages from Mythology brought forward in our discussion upon modern learning in this Addendum.

Such symbols as are found in all the exoteric creeds are so many landmarks of pre-historic truths. The sunny, happy land, the primitive cradle of the earliest human races, has become several times since then Hyperborean and Saturnine;[1823] thus showing the Golden Age and Reign of Saturn from multiform aspects. It was many-sided in its character indeed—climatically, ethnologically and morally. For the Third, Lemurian Race must be physiologically divided into the early androgynous and the later bi-sexual race; and the climate of its dwelling-places and continents into that of an eternal spring and eternal winter, into life and death, purity and impurity. The cycle of legends is ever being transformed on its journey by popular fancy. Yet it may be cleansed from the dross it has picked up on its way through many nations, and through the countless minds which have added their own exuberant additions to the original facts. Leaving for a while the Greek interpretations, we may seek for some more corroborations of the latter in the scientific and geological proofs.

[pg 822]

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

It may not be amiss—for the benefit of those who resolve the tradition of a lost Miocene Atlantis into an “antiquated myth”—to append a few scientific admissions on this point. Science, it is true, is largely indifferent to such questions. But there are Scientists ready to admit that, in any case, a cautious agnosticism as to geological problems concerning the remote past is far more philosophical than à priori denial, or even hasty generalizations on insufficient data.

Meanwhile two very interesting instances, that have been lately met with, may be pointed out as “confirming” certain passages in the letter of a Master, published in Esoteric Buddhism. The eminence of the authorities will not be questioned (we italicize the corresponding passages):

Extract from Esoteric Buddhism, p. 70.

(1.)

The sinking of Atlantis (the group of continents and isles) began during the Miocene period ... and it culminated first in the final disappearance of the largest continent, an event coincident with the elevation of the Alps, and second with that of the last of the fair islands mentioned by Plato.

Extract from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S.

(1.)

Was there, as some have believed, an Atlantis—a continent or archipelago of large islands occupying the area of the North Atlantic? There is, perhaps, nothing unphilosophical in the hypothesis. For since, as geologists state, “The Alps have acquired 4,000 and even in some places more than 10,000 feet of their present altitude since the commencement of the Eocene epoch” (Lyell's Principles, p. 256, 2nd Ed.)—a Post-Miocene depression might have carried the hypothetical Atlantis into almost abysmal depths.[1824]

Extract from Esoteric Buddhism, pp. 64, 65.

(2.)

Lemuria ... should no more be confounded with the Atlantis Continent than Europe with America. Both sank and were drowned with their high civilizations and “gods”; yet between the two catastrophes a period of about 700,000 years elapsed, Lemuria flourishing and ending her career just about that lapse of time before the early part of the Eoceneage, since its Race was the Third. Behold the relics of that once great nation in some of the flat-headed aborigines of your Australia.

Extract from an article in the Popular Science Review, v. 18, by Professor Seemann, Ph.D., F.L.S., V.-P.A.S.

(2.)

It would be premature to say, because no evidence has yet been adduced, that men may not have existed in the Eocene age, especially as it can be shown that a race of men, the lowest we know of, co-exists with that remnant of the Eocene flora which still survives on the continent and islands of Australia.

Extract from The Pedigree of Man, p. 81.

Hæckel, who fully accepts the reality of a former Lemuria, also regards the Australians as direct descendants of the Lemurians. Persistent forms of both [his Lemurian] stems are in all probability still surviving, of the former in the Papuans and Hottentots, of the latter in the Australians and in one division of the Malays.

With regard to a former civilization, of which a portion of these degraded Australians are the last surviving offshoot, the opinion of Gerland is strongly suggestive. Commenting upon the religion and mythology of the tribes, he writes:

The statement that Australian civilization [?] indicates a higher grade, is nowhere more clearly proved than here [in the province of religion] where everything resounds like the expiring voices of a previous and richer age.... The idea that the Australians have no trace of religion or mythology is thoroughly false. But this religion is certainly quite deteriorated.[1825]

As to Hæckel's view of the relationship between the Australians and the Malays, as two branches of a common stock, he is in error when he classes the Australians with the rest. The Malays and Papuans are a mixed stock, resulting from the intermarriages of the low Atlantean sub-races with the seventh sub-race of the Third Root-Race. Like the Hottentots, they are of indirect Lemuro-Atlantean descent. It is a most suggestive fact—to those concrete thinkers who demand a physical proof of Karma—that the lowest races of men are now rapidly dying out; a phenomenon largely due to an extraordinary sterility setting in among the women, from the time that they were first approached by the Europeans. A process of decimation is taking place all over the Globe, among those races, whose “time is up”—among just those stocks, be it remarked, which Esoteric Philosophy regards as the senile representatives of lost archaic nations. It is inaccurate to maintain that the extinction of a lower race is invariably due to cruelties or abuses perpetrated by colonists. Change of diet, drunkenness, etc., have done much; but those who rely on such data as offering an all-sufficient explanation of the crux, cannot meet the phalanx of facts now so closely arrayed. Even the Materialist Lefèvre says:

Nothing can save those that have run their course. It would be necessary to extend their destined cycle.... The peoples that have been relatively most spared, those who have defended themselves most valiantly, Hawaiians or Maories, have been no less decimated than the tribes massacred or tainted by European intrusion.[1826]

True; but is not the phenomenon here confirmed, an instance of the operation of Cyclic Law, difficult to account for on materialist lines? Whence the “destined cycle” and the order here testified to? Why does this (Karmic) sterility attack and root out certain races at their “appointed hour”? The answer that it is due to a “mental disproportion” between the colonizing and aboriginal races is obviously evasive, since it does not explain the sudden “checks to fertility” which so frequently supervene. The dying out of the Hawaiians, for instance, is one of the most mysterious problems of the day. Ethnology will sooner or later have to recognize, with Occultists, that the true solution has to be sought for in a comprehension of the workings of Karma. As Lèfevre remarks:

The time is drawing near when there will remain nothing but three great human types.

The time is before the Sixth Root-Race dawns; the three types are [pg 825] the white (Âryan, Fifth Root-Race), the yellow, and the African negro—with their crossings (Atlanto-European divisions). Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans, Australians, Polynesians, etc.—all are dying out. Those who realize that every Root-Race runs through a gamut of seven sub-races with seven branchlets, etc., will understand the “why.” The tide-wave of incarnating Egos has rolled past them to harvest experience in more developed and less senile stocks; and their extinction is hence a Karmic necessity. Some extraordinary and unexplained statistics as to race extinction are given by de Quatrefages.[1827] No solution, except on Occult lines, is able to account for these.

But we have digressed from our direct subject. Let us hear now what Professor Huxley has to say on the subject of former Atlantic and Pacific Continents.

He writes in Nature:

There is nothing, so far as I am aware, in the biological or geological evidence at present accessible, to render untenable the hypothesis that an area of the Mid-Atlantic or Pacific sea-bed as big as Europe, should have been upheaved as high as Mont Blanc, and have subsided again any time since the Palæozoic epoch, if there were any grounds for entertaining it.[1828]

That is to say, then, that there is nothing to militate against positive evidence of the fact; nothing, therefore, against the geological postulates of the Esoteric Philosophy. Dr. Berthold Seemann assures us in the Popular Science Review that:

The facts which botanists have accumulated for reconstructing these lost maps of the globe are rather comprehensive; and they have not been backward in demonstrating the former existence of several large tracts of solid land in parts now occupied by great oceans. The many striking points of contact between the present floras of the United States and Eastern Asia, induced them to assume that, during the present order of things, there existed a continental connection between South-Eastern Asia and Western America. The singular correspondence of the present flora of the Southern United States with that of the lignite flora of Europe induces them to believe that, in the Miocene period, Europe and America were connected by a land passage, of which Iceland, Madeira, and the other Atlantic islands are remnants; that, in fact, the story of an Atlantis, which an Egyptian priest told to Solon, is not purely fictitious, but rests upon a solid historical basis.... Europe of the Eocene period received the plants which spread over mountains and plains, valleys and river-banks (from Asia generally), neither exclusively from the South nor from the East. The West also furnished additions, and if at that period these were rather meagre, they show, at all events, that the bridge was already building, which, at a later period, was to facilitate communication between the two [pg 826]continents in such a remarkable manner. At that time some plants of the Western Continent began to reach Europe by means of the island of Atlantis, then probably just [?] just rising above the ocean.[1829]

And in another number of the same review[1830] Mr. W. Duppa Crotch, M.A., F.L.S., in an article entitled “The Norwegian Lemming and its Migrations,” alludes to the same subject:

Is it probable that land could have existed where now the broad Atlantic rolls? All tradition says so: old Egyptian records speak of Atlantis, as Strabo and others have told us. The Sahara itself is the sand of an ancient sea, and the shells which are found upon its surface prove that, no longer ago than the Miocene period, a sea rolled over what is now desert. The voyage of the “Challenger” has proved the existence of three long ridges[1831] in the Atlantic Ocean,[1832] one extending for more than three thousand miles, and lateral spurs may, by connecting these ridges, account for the marvellous similarity of the fauna of the Atlantic islands.[1833]...

The submerged continent of Lemuria, in what is now the Indian Ocean, is considered to afford an explanation of many difficulties in the distribution of organic life, and, I think, the existence of a Miocene Atlantis will be found to have a strong elucidative bearing on subjects of greater interest [truly so!] than the migration of the lemming. At all events, if it can be shown that land existed in former ages where the North Atlantic now rolls, not only is a motive found for these apparently suicidal migrations, but also a strong collateral proof that what we call instincts are but the blind and sometimes even prejudicial inheritance of previously acquired experience.

At certain periods, we learn, multitudes of these animals swim to sea and perish. Coming, as they do, from all parts of Norway, the powerful instinct which survives throughout ages as an inheritance from their progenitors impels them to seek a continent, once existing but now submerged beneath the ocean, and to court a watery grave.

In an article containing a criticism of Mr. A. R. Wallace's [pg 827] Island Life—a work devoted largely to the question of the distribution of animals, etc.—Mr. Starkie Gardiner writes:

By a process of reasoning supported by a large array of facts of different kinds, he arrives at the conclusion that the distribution of life upon the land as we now see it has been accomplished without the aid of important changes in the relative positions of continents and seas. Yet if we accept his views, we must believe that Asia and Africa, Madagascar and Africa, New Zealand and Australia, Europe and America, have been united at some period not remote geologically, and that seas to the depth of 1,000 fathoms have been bridged over; but we must treat as “utterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command” [! !], the supposition that temperate Europe and temperate America, Australia, and South America, have ever been connected, except by way of the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, and that lands now separated by seas of more than 1,000 fathoms depth have ever been united.

Mr. Wallace, it must be admitted, has succeeded in explaining the chief features of existing life distribution, without bridging the Atlantic or Pacific, except towards the Poles, yet I cannot help thinking that some of the facts might perhaps be more easily explained by admitting the former existence of the connection between the coast of Chili and Polynesia[1834] and Great Britain and Florida, shadowed by the sub-marine banks which stretch between them. Nothing is urged that renders these more direct connections impossible, and no physical reason is advanced why the floor of the ocean should not be upheaved from any depth. The route by which [according to the Anti-Atlantean and Lemurian hypotheses of Wallace] the floras of South America and Australia are supposed to have mingled, is beset by almost insurmountable obstacles, and the apparently sudden arrival of a number of subtropical American plants in our Eocenes necessitates a connection more to the South than the present 1,000 fathom line. Forces are unceasingly acting, and there is no reason why an elevating force once set in action in the centre of an ocean should cease to act until a continent is formed. They have acted and lifted out from the sea, in comparatively recent geological time, the loftiest mountains on earth. Mr. Wallace himself admits repeatedly that sea-beds have been elevated 1,000 fathoms, and islands have risen up from the depths of 3,000 fathoms; and to suppose that the upheaving forces are limited in power, is, it seems to me, to again quote from Island Life, “utterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command.”[1835]

The “father” of English Geology—Sir Charles Lyell—was a uniformitarian in his views of continental formation. We find him saying:

Professors Unger (Die Versunkene Insel Atlantis) and Heer (Flora Tertiaria Helvetiæ) have advocated on botanical grounds the former existence of an Atlantic Continent during some part of the tertiary period, as affording the only plausible [pg 828]explanation that can be imagined of the analogy between the Miocene flora of Central Europe, and the existing flora of Eastern America. Professor Oliver, on the other hand, after showing how many of the American types found fossil in Europe are common to Japan, inclines to the theory, first advanced by Dr. Asa Gray, that the migration of species, to which the community of types in the Eastern States of North America, and the Miocene flora of Europe is due, took place when there was an overland communication from America to Eastern Asia between the fiftieth and sixtieth parallels of latitude, or south of Behring's Straits, following the direction of the Aleutian islands. By this course they may have made their way, at any epoch, Miocene, Pliocene, or Postpliocene, antecedently to the Glacial epoch, to Amoorland, on the East coast of Northern Asia.[1836]

The unnecessary difficulties and complications here incurred in order to avoid the hypothesis of an Atlantic Continent, are really too apparent to escape notice. If the botanical evidences stood alone, scepticism would be partially reasonable; but in this case all branches of Science converge to one point. Science has made blunders, and has exposed itself to greater errors than it would be exposed to by the admission of our two now invisible Continents. It has denied even the undeniable, from the days of the Mathematician Laplace down to our own, and that only a few years ago.[1837] We have Professor Huxley's authority for saying that there is no à priori improbability whatever against possible evidences supporting the belief. But now that the positive evidence is brought forward, will that eminent Scientist admit the corollary?

Touching on the problem in another place Sir Charles Lyell tells us:

Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian priests, we gather much information from writers of the Grecian sects, who borrowed almost all their tenets from Egypt, and amongst others that of the former successive destruction and renovation of the world [continental, not cosmic, catastrophes]. We learn from Plutarch that this was the theme of one of the hymns of Orpheus, so celebrated in the fabulous ages of Greece. It was brought by him from the banks of the Nile; and we even find in his verses, as in the Indian systems, a definite period assigned for the duration of every successive world. The returns of great catastrophes were determined by the period of the Annus Magnus, or great year, a cycle composed of the revolutions of the sun, moon, and planets, and terminating when these return together [pg 829]to the same sign whence they were supposed at some remote epoch to have set out.... We learn particularly from the Timæus of Plato that the Egyptians believed the world to be subject to occasional conflagrations and deluges. The sect of Stoics adopted most fully the system of catastrophes destined at certain intervals to destroy the world. These, they taught, were of two kinds—the cataclysm, or destruction by deluge, which sweeps away the whole human race, and annihilates all the animal and vegetable productions of nature, and the ecpyrosis, or conflagration, which destroys the globe itself [submarine volcanoes]. From the Egyptians they derived the doctrine of the gradual debasement of man from a state of innocence [nascent simplicity of the first sub-races of each Root-Race]. Towards the termination of each era the gods could no longer bear with the wickedness of men [degeneracy into magical practices and gross animality of the Atlanteans], and a shock of the elements, or a deluge, overwhelmed them; after which calamity, Astræa again descended on the earth to renew the golden age [dawn of a new Root-Race].[1838]

Astræa, the Goddess of Justice, is the last of the deities to forsake the Earth, when the Gods are said to abandon it and to be taken up again into heaven by Jupiter. But, no sooner does Zeus carry from Earth Ganymedes—the object of lust, personified—than the Father of the Gods throws down Astræa on the Earth again, on which she falls upon her head. Astræa is Virgo, the constellation of the Zodiac. Astronomically it has a very plain significance, and one which gives the key to the occult meaning. But it is inseparable from Leo, the sign that precedes it, and from the Pleiades and their sisters, the Hyades, of which Aldebaran is the brilliant leader. All these are connected with the periodical renovations of the Earth, with regard to its continents—even Ganymedes, who in astronomy is Aquarius. It has already been shown that while the South Pole is the “Pit” (or the infernal regions figuratively and cosmologically), the North Pole is geographically the First Continent; while astronomically and metaphorically the Celestial Pole, with its Pole Star in Heaven, is Meru, or the Seat of Brahmâ, the Throne of Jupiter, etc. For in the age when the Gods forsook the Earth and were said to ascend into Heaven, the ecliptic had become parallel with the meridian, and part of the Zodiac appeared to descend from the North Pole to the north horizon. Aldebaran was in conjunction then with the Sun, as it was 40,000 years ago, at the great festival in commemoration of that Annus Magnus, of which Plutarch spoke. Since that Year—40,000 years ago—there has been a retrograde motion of the equator, and about 31,000 years ago Aldebaran was in conjunction with the vernal equinoctial point. The part assigned to Taurus, even [pg 830] in Christian Mysticism, is too well known to need repetition. The famous Orphic Hymn on the great periodical cataclysm divulges the whole Esotericism of the event. Pluto, in the Pit, carries off Eurydice, bitten by the Polar Serpent. Then Leo, the Lion, is vanquished. Now, when the Lion is “in the Pit,” or below the South Pole, then Virgo, as the next sign, follows him, and when her head, down to the waist, is below the southern horizon—she is inverted. On the other hand, the Hyades are the rain or Deluge constellations; and Aldebaran—he who follows, or succeeds the daughters of Atlas, or the Pleiades—looks down from the eye of Taurus. It is from this point of the ecliptic that the calculations of the new cycle were commenced. The student has to remember also, that when Ganymedes—Aquarius—is raised to heaven—or above the horizon of the North Pole—Virgo or Astræa, who is Venus-Lucifer, descends head downwards below the horizon of the South Pole, or the Pit; which Pit, or the Pole, is also the Great Dragon, or the Flood. Let the student exercise his intuition by placing these facts together; no more can be said. Lyell remarks:

The connection between the doctrine of successive catastrophes and repeated deteriorations in the moral character of the human race, is more intimate and natural than might at first be imagined. For, in a rude state of society, all great calamities are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.... In like manner in the account given to Solon by the Egyptian priests of the submersion of the island of Atlantis under the waters of the ocean, after repeated shocks of an earthquake, we find that the event happened when Jupiter had seen the moral depravity of the inhabitants.[1839]

True; but was it not owing to the fact that all Esoteric truths were given out to the public by the Initiates of the temples under the guise of allegories? “Jupiter,” is merely the personification of that immutable Cyclic Law, which arrests the downward tendency of each Root-Race after attaining the zenith of its glory.[1840] We must admit allegorical teaching, unless we hold with Prof. John Fiske's singularly dogmatic opinion that a myth:

Is an explanation by the uncivilized mind, of some natural phenomenon; not an allegory, not an esoteric symbol, for the ingenuity is wasted [!!] which strives to detect in myths the remnants of a refined primeval science—but an explanation. Primitive men had no profound science to perpetuate by means of allegory [how does Mr. Fiske know?], nor were they such sorry pedants as to talk in riddles when plain language would serve their purpose.[1841]

We venture to say the language of the initiated few was far more “plain,” and their Science-Philosophy far more comprehensive and satisfying alike to the physical and spiritual wants of man, than even the terminology and system elaborated by Mr. Fiske's master—Herbert Spencer. What, however, is Sir Charles Lyell's “explanation” of the “myth”? Certainly, he in no way countenances the idea of its “astronomical” origin, as asserted by some writers.

The two interpreters are entirely at variance with one another. Lyell's solution is as follows. A disbeliever in cataclysmal changes from the absence (?) of any reliable historical data on the point, as well as from a strong bias to the uniformitarian conceptions of geologic changes,[1842] he attempts to trace the Atlantis “tradition” to the following sources:

(1) Barbarous tribes connect catastrophes with an avenging God, who is assumed in this way to punish immoral races.

(2) Hence the commencement of a new race is logically a virtuous one.

(3) The primary source of the geologic basis of the tradition was Asia—a continent subject to violent earthquakes. Exaggerated accounts would thus be handed down the ages.

(4) Egypt, being herself free from earthquakes, nevertheless based her not inconsiderable geologic knowledge on these cataclysmal traditions.

An ingenious “explanation,” as all such are! But proving a negative is proverbially a difficult task. Students of Esoteric Science, who know what the resources of the Egyptian priesthood really were, need no such laboured hypothesis. Moreover, while an imaginative theorist is always able to furnish a reasonable solution of problems which, in one branch of Science, seem to necessitate the hypothesis of periodical cataclysmic changes on the surface of our planet, the impartial critic who is not a specialist, will recognize the immense difficulty of explaining away the cumulative evidences—namely, the archaeological, ethnological, geological, traditional, botanical, and even biological—in favour of former continents now submerged. When each science is fighting for its own hand, the cumulative force of the evidence is almost invariably lost sight of.

In the Theosophist we wrote:

We have as evidence the most ancient traditions of various and wide-separated peoples—legends in India, in ancient Greece, Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, and all the principal isles of Polynesia, as well as the legends of both Americas. Among savages, and in the traditions of the richest literature in the world—the Sanskrit literature of India—there is an agreement in saying, that, ages ago, there existed in the Pacific Ocean, a large Continent, which by a geological upheaval was engulfed by the sea[1843] [Lemuria]. And it is our firm belief ... that most, if not all, of the islands from the Malayan Archipelago to Polynesia, are fragments of that once immense submerged Continent. Both Malacca and Polynesia, which lie at the two extremities of the ocean, and which, since the memory of man, never had nor could have any intercourse with, or even a knowledge of each other, have yet a tradition common to all the islands and islets, that their respective countries extended far, far into the Sea; that there were in the world but two immense continents, one inhabited by yellow, the other by dark men; and that the Ocean, by command of the Gods, and to punish them for their incessant quarrelling, swallowed them up. Notwithstanding the geographical fact that New Zealand, and Sandwich and Easter Islands, are at a distance from each other of between 800 and 1,000 leagues, and that, according to every testimony, neither these nor any other intermediate islands, for instance, the Marquesan, Society, Fiji, Tahitian, Samoan, and other islands, could, since they became islands, ignorant as their people were of the compass, have communicated with each other before the arrival of Europeans; yet they one and all maintain that their respective countries extended far toward the West, on the Asian side. Moreover with very small differences, they all speak dialects evidently of the same language, and understand each other with little difficulty, have the same religious beliefs and superstitions, and pretty much the same customs. And as few of the Polynesian islands were discovered earlier [pg 833]than a century ago, and the Pacific Ocean itself was unknown to Europe until the days of Columbus, and these islanders have never ceased repeating the same old traditions since the Europeans first set foot on their shores, it seems to us a logical inference that our theory is nearer to the truth than any other. Chance would have to change its name and meaning, were all this due but to chance alone.[1844]

Professor Schmidt, writing in defence of the hypothesis of a former Lemuria, declares:

A great series of animal-geographical facts is explicable only on the hypothesis of the former existence of a Southern Continent of which the Australian mainland is a remnant.... [The distribution of species] points to the vanished land of the south, where perhaps the home of the progenitors of the Maki of Madagascar may also be looked for.[1845]

Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his Malay Archipelago, arrives at the following conclusion after a review of the mass of evidence at hand:

The inference that we must draw from these facts is undoubtedly that the whole of the islands eastwards beyond Java and Borneo do essentially form a part of a former Australian or Pacific Continent, although some of them may never have been actually joined to it. This continent must have been broken up not only before the Western Islands were separated from Asia, but probably before the extreme south-eastern portion of Asia was raised above the waters of the ocean, for a great part of the land of Borneo and Java is known to be geologically of quite recent formation.[1846]

According to Hæckel:

Probably Southern Asia itself was not the earliest cradle of the human race; but Lemuria, a continent that lay to the South of Asia, and sank later on beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean.[1847]

In one sense Hæckel is right as to Lemuria—the “cradle of the human race.” That Continent was the home of the first physical human stock—the later Third-Race Men. Previous to that epoch the Races were far less consolidated and physiologically quite different. Hæckel makes Lemuria extend from Sunda Island to Africa and Madagascar and eastwards to Upper India.

Professor Rütimeyer, the eminent Palæontologist, asks:

Need the conjecture that the almost exclusively graminivorous and insectivorous marsupials, sloths, armadilloes, ant-eaters and ostriches, once possessed an actual point of union in a Southern Continent of which the present flora of Terra del Fuego and Australia must be the remains—need this conjecture raise difficulties at [pg 834]a moment when, from their fossil remains, Heer restores to our sight the ancient forests of Smith's Sound and Spitzbergen?[1848]

Having now dealt generally with the broad scientific attitude on the two questions, it will, perhaps, conduce to an agreeable brevity, if we sum up the more striking isolated facts in favour of that fundamental contention of Esoteric Ethnologists—the reality of Atlantis. Lemuria is so widely accepted, that further pursuit of the subject is unnecessary. With regard, however, to the former, it is found that:

(1) The Miocene floræ of Europe have their most numerous and striking analogues in the floræ of the United States. In the forests of Virginia and Florida are found the magnolias, tulip-trees, evergreen oaks, plane trees, etc., which correspond with European Tertiary flora, term for term. How was the migration effected, if we exclude the theory of an Atlantic Continent bridging the ocean between America and Europe? The proposed “explanation” to the effect that the transition was by way of Asia and the Aleutian Islands is a mere uncalled-for theory, obviously upset by the fact that a large number of these floræ only appear East of the Rocky Mountains. This also negatives the idea of a Trans-Pacific migration. They are now superseded by European continents and islands to the North.

(2) Skulls exhumed on the banks of the Danube and Rhine bear a striking similarity to those of the Caribs and Old Peruvians (Littré). Monuments have been exhumed in Central America, which bear representations of undoubted negro heads and faces. How are such facts to be accounted for except on the Atlantean hypothesis? What is now N.W. Africa was once connected with Atlantis by a network of islands, few of which now remain.

(3) According to Farrar the “isolated language” of the Basques has no affinities with the other languages of Europe,[1849] but with:

The aboriginal languages of the vast opposite continent [America] and those alone.[1850]

Professor Broca is also of the same opinion.

Palæolithic European man of the Miocene and Pliocene times was a [pg 835] pure Atlantean, as we have previously stated. The Basques are, of course, of a much later date than this, but their affinities, as here shown, go far to prove the original extraction of their remote ancestors. The “mysterious” affinity between their tongue and that of the Dravidian races of India will be understood by those who have followed our outline of continental formations and shiftings.

(4) Stones have been found in the Canary Islands bearing sculptured symbols similar to those found on the shore of Lake Superior. Berthollet was induced by such evidence to postulate the unity of race of the early men of the Canary Islands and America.[1851]

The Guanches of the Canary Islands were lineal descendants of the Atlanteans. This fact will account for the great stature evidenced by their old skeletons, as well as by those of their European congeners, the Cro-Magnon Palæolithic men.

(5) Any experienced mariner has but to navigate the fathomless ocean along the Canary Islands to ask himself the question when or how that group of volcanic and rocky little islands has been formed, surrounded on every side by that vast watery space. Frequent questions of this kind led finally to the expedition of the famous Leopold von Buch, which took place in the first quarter of the present century. Some Geologists maintained that the volcanic islands had been raised right from the bottom of the ocean, the depth of which in the immediate vicinity of the island varies from 6,000 to 18,000 feet. Others were inclined to see in these groups—including Madeira, the Azores, and the islands of Cape de Verde—the remnants of a gigantic but submerged continent which had once united Africa with America. The latter men of Science supported their hypothesis by a mass of evidence in its favour, drawn from ancient “myths.” Hoary “superstitions,” such as the fairy-like Atlantis of Plato, the Garden of the Hesperides, Atlas supporting the world on his shoulders, all of them mythoi connected with the Peak of Teneriffe, did not go far with sceptical Science. The identity of animal and vegetable species, showing either a previous connection between America and the remaining groups of the islands—the hypothesis of their having been drifted from the New to the Old World by the waves was too absurd to stand long—found more serious consideration. But it is only quite lately, and after Donnelly's book had been published several years, that the theory has had a greater chance than ever of becoming an [pg 836] accepted fact. Fossils found on the Eastern Coast of South America have now been proved to belong to the Jurassic formations, and are nearly identical with the Jurassic fossils of Western Europe and Northern Africa. The geological structure of both coasts is also almost identical; the resemblance between the smaller marine animals dwelling in the more shallow waters of the South American, the Western African, and the South European coasts, is also very great. All such facts are bound to bring Naturalists to the conclusion that there has been, in distant pre-historic ages, a continent which extended from the coast of Venezuela, across the Atlantic Ocean, to the Canarese Islands and North Africa, and from Newfoundland nearly to the coast of France.

(6) The great resemblance between the Jurassic fossils of South America, North Africa, and Western Europe is a striking enough fact in itself, and admits of no explanation, unless the ocean is bridged with an Atlantis. But why, also, is there so marked a similarity between the fauna of the (now) isolated Atlantic islands? Why did the specimens of Brazilian fauna dredged up by Sir C. Wyville Thompson resemble those of Western Europe? Why does a resemblance exist between many of the West African and West Indian animal groups? Again:

When the animals and plants of the Old and New World are compared, one cannot but be struck with their identity; all, or nearly all, belong to the same genera, while many, even of the species, are common to both continents ... indicating that they radiated from a common centre [Atlantis].[1852]

The horse, according to Science, originated in America. At least, a large proportion of the once “missing links” connecting it with inferior forms have been exhumed from American strata. How did the horse penetrate into Europe and Asia, if no land communication bridged the oceanic interspaces? Or if it is asserted that the horse originated in the Old World, how did such forms as the hipparion, etc., get into America in the first instance on the migration hypothesis?

Again:

Buffon had ... remarked the repetition of the African in the American fauna, how, for example, the llama is a juvenescent and feeble copy of the camel, and how the puma of the New represents the lion of the Old World.[1853]

(7) The following quotation runs with No. 2, but its significance is such and the writer cited is so authoritative, that it deserves a place to itself:

With regard to the primitive dolichocephalæ of America, I entertain a hypothesis still more bold, namely, that they are nearly related to the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and to the Atlantic populations of Africa, the Moors, Tuaricks, Copts, which Latham comprises under the name of Egyptian-Atlantidæ. We find one and the same form of skull in the Canary Islands, in front of the African coast, and in the Carib islands, on the opposite coast which faces Africa. The colour of the skin on both sides of the Atlantic is represented in these populations as being of a reddish-brown.[1854]

If, then, Basques and Cro-Magnon Cave-Men are of the same race as the Canarese Guanches, it follows that the former are also allied to the aborigines of America. This is the conclusion necessitated by the independent investigations of Retzius, Virchow, and de Quatrefages. The Atlantean affinities of these three types become patent.

(8) The sea-soundings undertaken by H.M.S. “Challenger” and the “Dolphin,” have established the fact that a huge elevation some 3,000 miles in length, projecting upwards from the abysmal depths of the Atlantic, extends from a point near the British Islands southwards, curving round near Cape de Verde, and running in a south-easterly direction along the West African coast. This elevation averages some 9,000 feet in height, and rises above the waves at the Azores, Ascension, and other places. In the ocean depths around the neighbourhood of the former the ribs of a once massive piece of land have been discovered.[1855]

The inequalities, the mountains and valleys of its surface could never have been produced in accordance with any known laws for the deposition of sediment, nor by submarine elevation; but, on the contrary, must have been carved by agencies acting above the water-level.[1856]

It is most probable that necks of land formerly existed knitting Atlantis to South America, somewhere above the mouth of the Amazon, to Africa near Cape de Verde, while a similar point of juncture with Spain is not unlikely, as contended for by Donnelly.[1857] Whether the latter existed or not, is of no consequence, in view of the fact that what is now N.W. Africa was—before the elevation of the Sahara and the rupture of the Gibraltar connection—an extension of Spain. Consequently no difficulty can be raised as to how the migration of the European fauna, etc., took place.

Enough has now been said from the purely scientific standpoint, and it is needless, in view of the manner in which the subject has already [pg 838] been developed on the lines of Esoteric Knowledge, to swell the mass of testimony further. In conclusion, the words of one of the most intuitive writers of the day may be cited as admirably illustrative of the opinions of the Occultist, who awaits in patience the dawn of the coming day:

We are but beginning to understand the past; one hundred years ago the world knew nothing of Pompeii or Herculaneum; nothing of the lingual tie that binds together the Indo-European nations; nothing of the significance of the vast volume of inscriptions upon the tombs and temples of Egypt; nothing of the meaning of the arrow-headed inscriptions of Babylon; nothing of the marvellous civilizations revealed in the remains of Yucatan, Mexico, and Peru. We are on the threshold. Scientific investigation is advancing with giant strides. Who shall say that one hundred years from now, the great museums of the world may not be adorned with gems, statues, arms, and implements from Atlantis, while the libraries of the world shall contain translations of its inscriptions, throwing new light upon all the past history of the human race, and all the great problems which now perplex the thinkers of to-day.[1858]

And now to conclude.

We have concerned ourself with the ancient records of the nations, with the doctrine of chronological and psychic cycles, of which these records are the tangible proof; and with many other subjects, which may, at first sight, seem out of place in this Volume. But they are necessary in truth. In dealing with the secret annals and traditions of so many nations, whose very origins have never been ascertained on more secure grounds than inferential suppositions, in giving out the beliefs and philosophy of more than pre-historic races, it is not quite as easy to deal with the subject matter as it would be if only the philosophy and evolution of one special race, were concerned. The Secret Doctrine was the common property of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with which history refuses to deal, and to which Esoteric Teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of Geology and Anthropology. The birth and evolution of the Sacred Science of the Past are lost in the very night of Time, and that even which is historic—i.e., that which is found scattered hither and thither throughout ancient classical literature—is, in almost every case, attributed by modern criticism to lack of observation in the ancient writers, or to superstition born out of the ignorance of antiquity. It is, therefore, impossible to treat this subject as one would the ordinary [pg 839] evolution of an art or science in some well-known historical nation. It is only by bringing before the reader an abundance of proofs all tending to show that in every age, under every condition of civilization and knowledge, the educated classes of every nation made themselves the more or less faithful echoes of one identical system and its fundamental traditions—that he can be made to see that so many streams of the same water must have had a common source from which they started. What was this source? If coming events are said to cast their shadows before, past events cannot fail to leave their impress behind them. It is, then, by those shadows of the hoary Past and their fantastic silhouettes on the external screen of every Religion and Philosophy, that we can, by checking them as we go along and comparing them, trace out finally the body that produced them. There must be truth and fact in that which every people of antiquity accepted and made the foundation of its religions and its faith. Moreover, as Haliburton said:

Hear one side, and you will be in the dark; hear both sides, and all will be clear.

The public has hitherto had access to, and has heard but one side, or rather the one-sided views of two diametrically opposed classes of men, whose primâ facie propositions or respective premises differ widely, but whose final conclusions are the same—the men of Science and Theology. And now our readers have an opportunity of hearing the other, and so of learning the defendants' justification and the nature of our arguments.

If the public is to be left to its old opinions—namely, on one side, that Occultism, Magic, the legends of old etc., are all the outcome of ignorance and superstition; and on the other, that everything outside the orthodox groove is the work of the devil—what will be the result? In other words, had no theosophical and mystic literature obtained a hearing for the last few years, the present work would have had but a poor chance of impartial consideration. It would have been proclaimed—and by many will still be proclaimed—a fairy tale woven out of abstruse problems, poised in, and based on the air; built of soap-bubbles, bursting at the slightest touch of serious reflection, with no foundation to stand upon. Even the ancient “superstitious and credulous” classical writers have no word of reference to it in clear and unmistakable terms, and the symbols themselves fail to yield a hint of the existence of such a system. Such would be the verdict of all. But when it becomes undeniably proven that the claim of the modern [pg 840] Asiatic nations to a Secret Science and an Esoteric History of the world is based on fact; that though hitherto unknown to the masses and a veiled mystery even to the learned—because they have never had the key to a right understanding of the abundant hints thrown out by the ancient classics—it is still no fairy tale, but an actuality; then the present work will become but the pioneer of many more such books. The statement that hitherto even the keys discovered by some great scholars have proved too rusty for use, and that they are but the silent witnesses that there do exist mysteries behind the veil which are unreachable without a new key, is borne out by too many proofs to be easily dismissed. An instance may be given as an illustration out of the history of Freemasonry.

In his Maçonnerie Occulte, Ragon, an illustrious and learned Belgian Mason, rightly or wrongly reproaches the English Masons with having materialized and dishonoured Masonry, once based upon the Ancient Mysteries, by adopting, owing to a mistaken notion of the origin of the craft, the name of “Free Masonry” and “Free Masons.” The mistake is due, he says, to those who connect Masonry with the building of Solomon's Temple. He derides the idea, and says:

The Frenchman knew well, when he adopted the title of Freemason, that it was no question of building the smallest wall, but that, initiated into the Mysteries veiled under the name of Freemasonry, which could only be the continuation or the renovation of the ancient Mysteries, he was to become a “Mason” after the manner of Apollo or Amphion. And do not we know that the ancient initiated poets, when speaking of the foundation of a city, meant thereby the establishment of a doctrine? Thus Neptune, God of reasoning, and Apollo, God of hidden things, presented themselves as masons before Laomedon, Priam's father, to help him to build the city of Troy—that is to say, to establish the Trojan religion.[1859]

Such veiled sentences with double meaning abound in ancient classical writers. Therefore, if an attempt had been made to show that, for instance, Laomedon was the founder of a branch of Archaic Mysteries, in which the earth-bound material soul, the Fourth Principle, was personified in Menelaus' faithless wife, the fair Helen, and if Ragon had not come to corroborate what we asserted, we might have been told that no classical author speaks of it, and that Homer shows Laomedon building a city, not founding an Esoteric Worship or Mysteries. Who are those left now, save a few Initiates, who understand the language and correct meaning of such symbolical terms?

But though we have pointed to many a misconceived symbol bearing [pg 841] on our thesis, there still remains more than one difficulty to be overcome. Most important among several such obstacles is that of chronology. But this could hardly be helped. Wedged in between theological chronology and that of the Geologists, backed by all the materialistic Anthropologists, who assign dates to man and nature which fit in with their own theories alone—what could the writer do except what she has done? Since Theology places the Deluge 2448 b.c., and the World's Creation only 5890 years ago; and since the accurate researches by the methods of “exact” Science, have led the Geologists and Physicists to assign to the incrusted age of our Globe between ten million and one thousand million of years[1860] (a trifling difference, verily!); and since the Anthropologists, to vary their divergence of opinion as to the appearance of man, ask for between 25,000 and 500,000 years—what can one who studies the Occult Doctrine do, but bravely present the Esoteric calculations before the world?

But to do this, corroboration by even a few “historical” proofs has been necessary, though all know the real value of the so-called “historical evidence.” For, whether man appeared on Earth 18,000 or 18,000,000 years ago, can make no difference to profane history, since it only begins about a couple of thousand years before our era, and since, even then, it grapples hopelessly with the clash and din of contradictory and mutually-destroying opinions around it. Nevertheless, in view of the respect in which the average reader has been brought up for exact Science, even that short Past would remain meaningless, unless the Esoteric Teachings were corroborated and supported on the spot—whenever possible—by references to historical names of a so-called historical period. This is the only guide that can be given to the beginner before he is permitted to start among the, to him, unfamiliar windings of that dark labyrinth called the pre-historic ages. This necessity has been complied with. It is only hoped that the desire to do so, which has led the writer to be constantly bringing ancient and modern evidence as a corroboration of the archaic and quite unhistoric Past, will not bring on her the accusation of having sorely jumbled up, without order or method, the various and widely-separated periods of history and tradition. But literary form and method had to be sacrificed to the greater clearness of the general exposition.

To accomplish the proposed task, the writer has had to resort to the rather unusual means of dividing each Volume into three Parts; the [pg 842] first of which only is the consecutive, though very fragmentary, history of the Cosmogony and the Evolution of Man on this Globe. In treating of Cosmogony and then of the Anthropogenesis of mankind, it was necessary to show that on religion, from the very earliest, has ever been based entirely on fiction, that none was the object of special revelation, and that it is dogma alone which has ever been killing primeval truth; finally, that no human-born doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and antiquity, can compare in sacredness with the religion of Nature. The Key of Wisdom that unlocks the massive gates leading to the arcana of the innermost sanctuaries can be found hidden in her bosom only; and that bosom is in the countries pointed to by the great seer of the past century, Emanuel Swedenborg. There lies the Heart of Nature, that shrine whence issued the early races of primeval humanity, and which is the cradle of physical man.

Thus far have proceeded the rough outlines of the beliefs and tenets of the archaic, earliest Races, contained in their hitherto secret scriptural Records. But our explanations are by no means complete, nor do they pretend to give out the full text, or to have been read by the help of more than three or four keys out of the sevenfold bunch of Esoteric interpretation; and even this has only been partially accomplished. The work is too gigantic for any one person to undertake, far more to accomplish. Our main concern has been simply to prepare the soil. This, we trust we have done. These two Volumes only constitute the work of a pioneer who has forced his way into the well-nigh impenetrable jungle of the virgin forests of the Land of the Occult. A commencement has been made in felling and uprooting the deadly upas trees of superstition, prejudice, and conceited ignorance, so that these two Volumes should form for the student a fitting prelude for other works. Until the rubbish of the ages is cleared away from the minds of the Theosophists to whom these pages are dedicated, it is impossible that the more practical teaching contained in the Third Volume should be understood. Consequently, it entirely depends upon the reception with which Volumes I and II shall meet at the hands of Theosophists and Mystics, whether the last Volume will ever be published.

Satyât nâsti paro dharmah.

THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH.

End of Volume II.

[Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected.]

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