Just, though mysterious, leads us on unerring
Through ways unmark'd from guilt to punishment;
and such are now the ways on which the great European nations move onward. Every nation and tribe of the Western Âryans, like their Eastern brethren of the Fifth Race, has had its Golden and its Iron Age, its period of comparative irresponsibility, or its Satya Age of purity, and now, several of them have reached their Iron Age, the Kali Yuga, an age black with horrors.
On the other hand, it is true that the exoteric Cycles of every nation have been rightly derived from, and shown to depend on, sidereal motions. The latter are inseparably blended with the destinies of [pg 707] nations and men. But, in the purely physical sense, Europe knows of no Cycles other than the astronomical, and it makes its computations accordingly. Nor will it hear of any other than imaginary circles or circuits in the starry heavens that gird them,
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.
But with the Pagans—of whom Coleridge rightly says, “Time, cyclical time, was their abstraction of the Deity,” that “Deity” manifesting coördinately with, and only through, Karma, and being that Karma-Nemesis itself—the Cycles meant something more than a mere succession of events, or a periodical space of time of more or less prolonged duration. For they were generally marked with recurrences of a more varied and intellectual character than are exhibited in the periodical return of seasons or of certain constellations. Modern wisdom is satisfied with astronomical computations and prophecies, based on unerring mathematical laws. Ancient Wisdom added to the cold shell of Astronomy the vivifying elements of its soul and spirit—Astrology. And, as the sidereal motions do regulate and determine other events on Earth besides potatoes and the periodical diseases of that useful vegetable—a statement which, not being amenable to scientific explanation, is merely derided, while none the less accepted—these events have to submit to predetermination, by simple astronomical computations. Believers in Astrology will understand our meaning, sceptics will laugh at the belief and mock the idea. Thus they shut their eyes, ostrich-like, to their own fate.[1108]
This because their little historical period, so called, allows them no margin for comparison. Sidereal heaven is before them; and though their spiritual vision is still unopened, and the atmospheric dust of terrestrial origin seals their sight and chains it within the limits of [pg 708] physical systems, still they do not fail to perceive the movements and note the behaviour of meteors and comets. They record the periodical advents of those wanderers and “flaming messengers,” and prophesy, in consequence, earthquakes, meteoric showers, the apparition of certain stars, comets, etc. Are they, then, soothsayers after all? No; they are learned Astronomers.
Why, then, should Occultists and Astrologers, as learned as these Astronomers, be disbelieved when they prophesy the return of some cyclic event on the same mathematical principles? Why should the claim that they know this return be ridiculed? Their forefathers and predecessors, having recorded the recurrence of such events in their time and day, throughout a period embracing hundreds of thousands of years, the conjunction of the same constellations must necessarily produce, if not quite the same, at any rate similar, effects. Are the prophecies to be derided, because of the claim made for hundreds of thousands of years of observation, and for millions of years for the human Races? In its turn, Modern Science is laughed at by those who hold to Biblical chronology, for its far more modest geological and anthropological figures. Thus Karma adjusts even human laughter, at the mutual expense of sects, learned societies, and individuals. Yet in the prognostication of such future events, at any rate, all foretold on the authority of cyclic recurrences, no psychic phenomenon is involved. It is neither prevision, nor prophecy; any more than is the signalling of a comet or star, several years before its appearance. It is simply knowledge, and mathematically correct computations, which enable the Wise Men of the East to foretell, for instance, that England is on the eve of such or another catastrophe; that France is nearing such a point of her Cycle; and that Europe in general is threatened with, or rather is on the eve of, a cataclysm, to which her own Cycle of racial Karma has led her. Our view of the reliability of the information depends, of course, on our acceptation or rejection of the claim for a tremendous period of historical observation. Eastern Initiates maintain that they have preserved records of racial development and of events of universal import ever since the beginning of the Fourth Race—their knowledge of events preceding that epoch being traditional. Moreover, those who believe in Seership and in Occult Powers will have no difficulty in crediting the general character, at least, of the information given, even if it be traditional, once the tradition is checked and corrected by clairvoyance and Esoteric Knowledge. But [pg 709] in the present case no such metaphysical belief is claimed as our chief dependence, for proof is given—on what, to every Occultist, is quite scientific evidence—the records preserved through the Zodiac for incalculable ages.
It is now amply proved that even horoscopes and judiciary Astrology are not quite based on fiction, and that Stars and Constellations, consequently, have an occult and mysterious influence on, and connection with, individuals. And if with the latter, why not with nations, races, and mankind as a whole? This, again, is a claim made on the authority of the Zodiacal records. We shall then enquire how far the Zodiac was known to the Ancients, and how far it is forgotten by the Moderns.