Most of the Western Christian Kabalists—preëminently Éliphas Lévi—in their desire to reconcile the Occult Sciences with Church Dogmas, did their best to make of the “Astral Light” only and preeminently the Plerôma of the early Church Fathers, the abode of the Hosts of the Fallen Angels, of the Archôns and Powers. But the Astral Light, though only the lower aspect of the Absolute, is still dual. It is the Anima Mundi, and ought never to be viewed otherwise, except for Kabalistic purposes. The difference which exists between its “Light” and its “Living Fire,” ought ever to be present in the mind of the Seer and the Psychic. The higher aspect of this “Light,” without which only creatures of matter can be produced, is this Living Fire, and its Seventh Principle. It is stated in Isis Unveiled, in a complete description of it:
The Astral Light or Anima Mundi is dual and bi-sexual. The (ideal) male part of it is purely divine and spiritual, it is Wisdom, it is Spirit or Purusha; while the female portion (the Spiritus of the Nazarenes) is tainted, in one sense, with matter, is indeed matter, and therefore is evil already. It is the life-principle of every living creature, and furnishes the astral soul, the fluidic perisprit, to men, animals, fowls of the air, and everything living. Animals have only the latent germ of the highest immortal soul in them. This latter will develop only after a series of countless evolutions; the doctrine of which evolutions is contained in the Kabalistic axiom: “A stone becomes a plant; a plant, a beast; a beast, a man; a man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god.[313]”
The seven principles of the Eastern Initiates had not been explained when Isis Unveiled was written, but only the three Kabalistic Faces of the semi-exoteric Kabalah.[314] But these contain the description of the mystic natures of the first Group of Dhyân Chohans in the regimen ignis, the region and “rule (or government) of fire,” divided into three classes, synthesized by the first, which makes four or the “Tetraktys.” If one studies the commentaries attentively, he will find the same progression in the angelic natures, viz., from the passive down to the active; the last of these Beings are as near to the Ahamkâra Element—the region or plane wherein Egoship, or the feeling of I-am-ness, is beginning to be defined—as the first are near to the undifferentiated [pg 219] Essence. The former are Arûpa, incorporeal; the latter, Rûpa, corporeal.
In Volume II of the same work,[315] the philosophical systems of the Gnostics and the primitive Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, are fully considered. They show the views held in those days, outside the circle of Mosaic Jews, about Jehovah. He was identified by all the Gnostics with the evil, rather than with the good principle. For them, he was Ilda-Baoth, the “Son of Darkness,” whose mother, Sophia Achamôth, was the daughter of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom—the female Holy Ghost of the early Christians—Âkâsha; Sophia Achamôth personifying the Lower Astral Light or Ether. The Astral Light stands in the same relation to Âkâsha and Anima Mundi, as Satan stands to the Deity. They are one and the same thing seen from two aspects, the spiritual and the psychic—the super-ethereal, or connecting link between matter and pure spirit—and the physical.[316] Ilda-Baoth—a compound name, made up of Ilda (ילד), child, and Baoth; the latter from בהוצ an egg, and בהות, chaos, emptiness, void, or desolation; or the Child born in the Egg of Chaos, like Brahmâ—or Jehovah, is simply one of the Elohim, the Seven Creative Spirits, and one of the lower Sephiroth. Ilda-Baoth produces from himself seven other Gods, “Stellar Spirits,” or the Lunar Ancestors,[317] for they are all the same.[318] They are all in his own image, the “Spirits of the Face,” and the reflections one of the other, who become darker and more material, as they successively recede from their originator. They also inhabit seven regions disposed like a stair, for its steps mount and descend the scale of spirit and matter.[319] With Pagans and Christians, with Hindûs and Chaldeans, with Greek as with Roman Catholics—the texts varying slightly in their interpretations—they all were the Genii of the seven planets, and of the seven planetary spheres of our septenary Chain, of which Earth is the lowest. This connects the “Stellar” and “Lunar” Spirits with the higher planetary Angels, and the Saptarshis, the Seven Rishis of the Stars, [pg 220] of the Hindûs—as subordinate Angels, or Messengers, to these Rishis, their emanations, on the descending scale. Such, in the opinion of the philosophical Gnostics, were the God and the Archangels now worshipped by the Christians! The “Fallen Angels” and the legend of the “War in Heaven” are thus purely pagan in their origin, and come from India, viá Persia and Chaldea. The only reference to them in the Christian canon is found in Revelation xii, as quoted a few pages back.
Thus “Satan,” once he ceases to be viewed in the superstitious, dogmatic, unphilosophical spirit of the Churches, grows into the grandiose image of one who makes of a terrestrial, a divine Man; who gives him, throughout the long cycle of Mahâkalpa, the law of the Spirit of Life, and makes him free from the Sin of Ignorance, hence of Death.
6. The Older Wheels rotated downward and upward (a).... The Mother's Spawn filled the whole.[320] There were Battles fought between the Creators and the Destroyers, and Battles fought for Space; the Seed appearing and reäppearing continuously (b).[321]
(a) Here, having finished for the time being with our side-issues—which, however they may break the flow of the narrative, are necessary for the elucidation of the whole scheme—we must return once more to Cosmogony. The phrase “Older Wheels” refers to the Worlds, or Globes, of our Chain as they were during the previous Rounds. The present Stanza, when explained esoterically, is found embodied entirely in Kabalistic works. Therein will be found the very history of the evolution of those countless Globes, which evolve after a periodical Pralaya, rebuilt from old material into new forms. The previous Globes disintegrate and reäppear, transformed and perfected for a new phase of life. In the Kabalah, worlds are compared to sparks which fly from under the hammer of the great Architect—Law, the Law which rules all the smaller Creators.
The following comparative diagram shows the identity between the two systems, the Kabalistic and the Eastern. The three upper are the three higher planes of consciousness, revealed and explained in both [pg 221] schools only to the Initiates; the lower represent the four lower planes—the lowest being our plane, or the visible Universe.
These seven planes correspond to the seven states of consciousness in man. It remains with him to attune the three higher states in himself to the three higher planes in Kosmos. But before he can attempt to attune, he must awaken the three “seats” to life and activity. And how many are capable of bringing themselves to even a superficial comprehension of Âtmâ Vidyâ (Spirit-Knowledge), or what is called by the Sufis, Rohanee![322]