(a) The explanations given in our Stanzas are far more clear than that which the legend of creation from the Cutha tablet would give, even were it complete. What is preserved on it, however, corroborates them. For, in the tablet, the “Lord of Angels” destroys the men in the abyss, when “there were not left the carcases and waste” after they were slaughtered. After which they, the Great Gods, create men with the bodies of birds of the desert, human beings, “seven kings, brothers of the same family,” etc., which is a reference to the locomotive qualities of the primary ethereal bodies of men, which could fly as well as they could walk,[114] but who “were destroyed” because they were not “perfect,” i.e., they “were sexless, like the Kings of Edom.”
Weeded of metaphors and allegories, what will Science say to this idea of a primordial creation of species? It will object to the “Angels” and “Spirits” having anything to do therewith; but if it be Nature and the physical law of evolution that are the creators of all there is now on Earth, why could there be “no such abyss,” when the Globe was covered with waters, in which numbers of monstrous beings were generated? Is it the “human beings” and animals with human heads and double faces, which are a point of the objection? But if man is only a higher animal and has evolved from the brute species by an infinite series of transformations, why could not the “missing links” have had human heads attached to the bodies of animals, or, being two-headed, have heads of beasts and vice versâ, in Nature's early efforts? Are we not shown, during the geological periods, in the ages [pg 059] of the reptiles and the mammalia, lizards with birds' wings, and serpents' heads on animal bodies?[115] And, arguing from the standpoint of Science, does not even our modern human race occasionally furnish us with monster-specimens: two-headed children, animal bodies with human heads, dog-headed babies, etc.? And this proves that, if Nature will still play such freaks now that she has been settled for ages in the order of her evolutionary work, monsters, like those described by Berosus, were a possibility in her opening programme; a possibility which may even have existed once upon a time as a law, before she sorted out her species and began regular work upon them. And this indeed now admits of definite proof by the bare fact of “Reversion,” as Science puts it.
This is what the Doctrine teaches, and demonstrates by numerous proofs. But we shall not wait for the approval of either dogmatic Theology or Materialistic Science, but proceed with the Stanzas. Let these speak for themselves, with the help of the light thrown on them by the Commentaries and their explanations; the scientific aspect of these questions will be considered later on.
Thus Physical Nature, when left to herself in the creation of animal and man, is shown to have failed. She can produce the first two kingdoms, as well as that of the lower animals, but when it comes to the turn of man, spiritual, independent and intelligent powers are required for his creation, besides the “coats of skin” and the “breath of animal life.” The human Monads of preceding Rounds need something higher than purely physical materials with which to build their personalities, under the penalty of remaining even below any “Frankenstein” animal.[116]
7. Displeased they were. “Our Flesh is not there.[117] No fit Rûpas for our Brothers of the Fifth. No Dwellings for the Lives.[118] Pure Waters, not turbid, they must drink (a). Let us dry them.”[119]
(a) Says the Catechism on the Commentaries:
It is from the material Worlds that descend they, who fashion physical man at the new Manvantaras. They are inferior Lha [Spirits], possessed of a dual body [an Astral within an Ethereal Form]. They are the fashioners and creators of our body of illusion....
Into the forms projected by the Lha [Pitris] the Two Letters[120] [the Monad, called also the “Double Dragon”] descend from the Spheres of Expectation.[121]But they are like a roof with no walls, nor pillars to rest upon....
Man needs four Flames and three Fires to become one on Earth, and he requires the essence of the forty-nine Fires[122] to be perfect. It is those who have deserted the Superior Spheres, the Gods of Will,[123] who complete the Manu of illusion. For the “Double Dragon” has no hold upon the mere form. It is like the breeze where there is no tree or branch to receive and harbour it. It cannot affect the form where there is no agent of transmission [Manas, “Mind”] and the form knows it not.
In the highest worlds, the three are one,[124] on Earth [at first] the one becomes two. They are like the two [side] lines of a triangle that has lost its bottom line—which is the third Fire.[125]