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.]
Footnotes
[1.] See Genesis ii. 19. Adam is formed in verse 7, and in verse 19 it is said: “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.” Thus man was created before the animals; for the animals mentioned in chapter i are the signs of the Zodiac, while the man, “male and female,” is not man, but the Host of the Sephiroth, Forces, or Angels, “made in his [God's] image and after his likeness.” The Adam, man, is not made in that likeness, nor is it so asserted in the Bible. Moreover, the Second Adam is Esoterically a septenary which represents seven men, or rather groups of men. For the first Adam, the Kadmon, is the synthesis of the ten Sephiroth. Of these, the upper Triad remains in the Archetypal World as the future “Trinity,” while the seven lower Sephiroth create the manifested material world; and this septennate is the Second Adam. Genesis, and the mysteries upon which it was fabricated, came from Egypt. The “God” of the 1st chapter of Genesis is the Logos, and the “Lord God” of the 2nd chapter the Creative Elohim, the lower Powers. [2.] Thus saith Pymander: “This is the mystery that to this day was hidden. Nature being mingled with the Heavenly Man [Elohim, or Dhyânis], brought forth a wonder ... seven Men, all males and females [Hermaphrodite] ... according to the nature of the seven Governors” (ii. 29), or the seven Hosts of the Pitris or Elohim, who projected or created him. This is very clear, but yet, see the interpretations of even our modern theologians, men supposed to be intellectual and learned. In the Theological and Philosophical Works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian [?] Neoplatonist, a work compiled by John David Chambers, of Oriel College, Oxford, the translator wonders “for whom these seven Men are intended?” He solves the difficulty by concluding that, as “the original pattern Man [Adam Kadmon of Genesis i] was masculine-feminine, ... the seven may signify the succeeding patriarchs named in Genesis” (p. 9). A truly theological way of cutting the Gordian knot! [3.] George Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 103. [4.] Compare Zohar, Siphra Dtzenioutha, Idra Suta, 2928, Franck, La Kabbale, p. 205. [5.] Siphra Dtzenioutha. [6.] As it is now asserted that the Chaldæan tablets, which give the allegorical description of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood, even to the legend of the Tower of Babel, were written “before the time of Moses” (Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis), how can the Pentateuch be called a “revelation”? It is simply another version of the same story. [7.] Philosophumena, v. 7; Miller's edition, p. 98. [8.] Ibid., p. 108. [9.] P. 86. [10.] See Pliny, iv, c. 12; Strabo, 10; Herodotus, vii, c. 109; Pausanias, vii, c. 4, etc. [11.] Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 82. [12.] See Bund., 79, 12. [13.] By “original” we mean the Amshaspend, called “Zarathushtra, the lord and ruler of the Vara made by Yima in that land.” There were several Zarathushtras or Zertusts, the Dabistan alone enumerating thirteen; but these were all reincarnations of the first one. The last Zoroaster was the founder of the Fire-temple of Azareksh, and the writer of the works on the primeval sacred Magian religion destroyed by Alexander. [14.] In India called a “Day of Brahmâ.” [15.] x. 86. [16.] See Volcker, Mythological Geography, pp. 145 to 170. [17.] Mythical Monsters, p. 47. [18.] It is to be remarked, however, that Mr. Wallace does not accept Mr. Sclater's idea, and even opposes it. Mr. Sclater supposes a land or continent formerly uniting Africa, Madagascar, and India but not Australia and India; and Mr. A. R. Wallace shows, in his Geographical Distribution of Animals and Island Life, that the hypothesis of such a land is quite uncalled for on the alleged zoological grounds. But he admits that a much closer proximity of India and Australia did certainly exist, and at a time so very remote that it was “certainly pre-tertiary,” adding in a private letter that “no name has been given to this supposed land.” Yet the land did exist, and was of course “pre-tertiary,” for Lemuria, if we accept this name for the third Continent, had perished before Atlantis fully developed, and Atlantis had sunk and its chief portions disappeared before the end of the Miocene period. [19.] See Esoteric Buddhism. [20.]