The deity called Εἰχτῶν [or the Fire of the Celestial Gods—the Great Thot-Hermes],[476]to whom Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention of magic.[477]
The “invention of magic”! A strange term to use, as though the unveiling of the eternal and actual mysteries of Nature could be invented! As well attribute, millenniums hence, the invention instead of the discovery of radiant matter to Mr. Crookes. Hermes was not the inventor, or even the discoverer, for, as said in the last footnote but one, Thot-Hermes is a generic name, as is Enoch—Enoïchion, the “inner, spiritual eye”—Nebo, the prophet and seer, etc. It is not the proper name of any one living man, but a generic title of many Adepts. Their connection with the serpent in symbolic allegories is due to their enlightenment by the Solar and Planetary Gods during the earliest intellectual Race, the Third. They are all the representative patrons of the Secret Wisdom. Asclepios is the son of the Sun-God Apollo, and he is Mercury; Nebo is the son of Bel-Merodach; Vaivasvata Manu, the great Rishi, is the son of Vivasvat—the Sun or Sûrya, etc. And while, astronomically, the Nâgas along with the Rishis, the Gandharvas, Apsarases, Grâmanîs (or Yakshas, minor Gods), Yâtudhânas and Devas, are the Sun's attendants throughout the twelve solar months; in theogony, and also in anthropological evolution, they are Gods and Men—when incarnated in the Nether World. Let the reader be reminded, in this connection, of the fact that Apollonius met in Kashmir Buddhist Nâgas. These are neither serpents zoologically, nor yet the Nâgas ethnologically, but “wise men.”
The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is but a series of historical records of the great struggle between White and Black Magic, between the Adepts of the Right Path, the Prophets, and those of the Left, the Levites, the clergy of the brutal masses. Even the students of Occultism, though some of them have more archaic MSS. and direct teaching [pg 222] to rely upon, find it difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the Sodales of the Right Path and those of the Left. The great schism that arose between the sons of the Fourth Race, as soon as the first Temples and Halls of Initiation had been erected under the guidance of the “Sons of God,” is allegorized in the Sons of Jacob. That there were two Schools of Magic, and that the orthodox Levites did not belong to the holy one, is shown in the words pronounced by the dying Jacob. And here it may be well to quote a few sentences from Isis Unveiled.[478]
The dying Jacob thus describes his sons: “Dan,” he says, “shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall backwards [i.e., he will teach candidates Black Magic]. I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!” Of Simeon and Levi the patriarch remarks that they “are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly.”[479] Now in the original, the words “their secret” read—“their Sod.”[480] And Sod was the name for the great Mysteries of Baal, Adonis and Bacchus, who were all Sun-Gods and had serpents for symbols. The Kabalists explain the allegory of the fiery serpents by saying that this was the name given to the tribe of Levi, to all the Levites, in short, and that Moses was the chief of the Sodales.[481]
It is to the Mysteries that the original meaning of the “Dragon-Slayers” has to be traced, and the question is fully treated of hereafter.
Meanwhile it follows that, if Moses was the Chief of the Mysteries, he was the Hierophant thereof; and further, if, at the same time, we find the Prophets thundering against the “abominations” of the people of Israël, that there were two Schools. “Fiery serpents” was, then, simply the epithet given to the Levites of the priestly caste, after they had departed from the Good Law, the traditional teachings of Moses, and to all those who followed Black Magic. Isaiah, when referring to the “rebellious children” who will have to carry their riches into the lands whence come “the viper and fiery flying serpent,”[482] or [pg 223] Chaldæa and Egypt, whose Initiates had already greatly degenerated in his day (700 b.c.), meant the sorcerers of those lands.[483] But these must be carefully distinguished from the “Fiery Dragons of Wisdom” and the “Sons of the Fire-Mist.”
In the Great Book of the Mysteries we are told that:
Seven Lords created seven Men; three Lords [Dhyân Chohans or Pitris] were holy and good, four less heavenly and full of passion.... The Chhâyâs [phantoms] of the Fathers were as they.
This accounts for the differences in human nature, which is divided into seven gradations of good and evil. There were seven tabernacles ready to be inhabited by Monads under seven different Karmic conditions. The Commentaries explain on this basis the easy spread of evil, as soon as the human Forms had become real men. Some ancient philosophers, however, in their genetical accounts, ignored the seven and gave only four. Thus the Mexican local Genesis has “four good men,” described as the four real ancestors of the human race, “who were neither begotten by the Gods nor born of woman”; but whose creation was a wonder wrought by the Creative Powers, and who were made only after “three attempts at manufacturing men had failed.” The Egyptians in their theology had only “four Sons of God”—whereas in Pymander seven are given—thus avoiding any mention of the evil nature of man. When, however, Set from a God sank into Set-Typhon, he began to be called the “seventh son”; whence probably arose the belief that “the seventh son of the seventh son” is always a natural-born magician—though at first only a sorcerer was meant. Apap, the serpent symbolizing evil, is slain by Aker, Set's serpent;[484] therefore Set-Typhon could not be that evil. In the Book of the Dead, it is commanded that Chapter clxiii should be read “in the presence of a serpent on two legs,” which means a high Initiate, a Hierophant, for the discus and ram's horns[485] that adorn his “serpent's” head in the hieroglyphics of the title of the said chapter, denote this. Over the “serpent” are represented the two mystic eyes of Ammon,[486] the hidden “Mystery God.” The above passages corroborate [pg 224] our assertion, and show what the word “serpent” really meant in antiquity.
But as to the Nagals and Nargals; whence came the similarity or names between the Indian Nâgas and the American Nagals?