he promises to prove in his work that the real Sanctum Regnum, the great Magic Art, is in that Star of Bethlehem which led the three Magi to adore the Saviour of the World. He says:
We will prove that the study of the sacred Pentagram had to lead all the Magi to know the new name which should be raised above all names, and before which every being capable of worship has to bend his knee.[427]
This shows that Lévi's Kabalah is mystic Christianity, and not Occultism; for Occultism is universal and knows no difference between the “Saviours” (or great Avatâras) of the several old nations. Éliphas Lévi was not an exception in preaching Christianity under a disguise of Kabalism. He was undeniably “the greatest representative of modern Occult Philosophy,” as it is studied in Roman Catholic countries generally, where it is fitted to the preconceptions of Christian students. But he never taught the real universal Kabalah, and least of all did he teach Eastern Occultism. Let the student compare the Eastern and Western teaching, and see whether the philosophy of the Upanishads “has yet to attain the ranges of perception” of this Western system. Everyone has the right to defend the system he prefers, but in doing this, there is no need to throw slurs upon the system of one's brother.
In view of the great resemblance between many of the fundamental “truths” of Christianity and the “myths” of Brâhmanism, there have been serious attempts made lately to prove that the Bhagavad Gîtâ and most of the Brâhmanas and the Purânas are of a far later date than the Mosaic Books and even than the Gospels. But were it possible that an enforced success should be obtained in this direction, such argument cannot achieve its object, since the Rig Veda remains. Brought down to the most modern limits of the age assigned to it, its date cannot be made to overlap that of the Pentateuch, which is admittedly later.
The Orientalists know well that they cannot make away with the landmarks, followed by all subsequent religions, set up in that “Bible of Humanity” called the Rig Veda. It is there that at the very dawn of intellectual humanity were laid the foundation-stones of all the faiths and creeds, of every fane and church built from first to last; and they are still there. Universal “myths,” personifications of Powers divine and cosmic, primary and secondary, and historical personages of all the now-existing as well as of extinct religions are to be found in the seven chief Deities and their 330,000,000 correlations of the Rig Veda, and those Seven, with the odd millions, are the Rays of the one boundless Unity.
But to This can never be offered profane worship. It can only be the “object of the most abstract meditation, which Hindus practise in order to obtain absorption in it.” At the beginning of every “dawn” of “Creation,” eternal Light—which is darkness—assumes the aspect of so-called Chaos: chaos to the human intellect; the eternal Root to the superhuman or spiritual sense.
“Osiris is a black God.” These were the words pronounced at “low breath” at Initiation in Egypt, because Osiris Noumenon is darkness to the mortal. In this Chaos are formed the “Waters,” Mother Isis, Aditi, etc. They are the “Waters of Life,” in which primordial germs are created—or rather reäwakened—by the primordial Light. It is Purushottama, or the Divine Spirit, which in its capacity of Nârâyana, the Mover on the Waters of Space, fructifies and infuses the Breath of life into that germ which becomes the “Golden Mundane Egg,” in which the male Brahmâ is created;[428] and from this the first Prajâpati, the Lord of Beings, emerges, and becomes the progenitor of mankind. And though it is not he, but the Absolute, that is said to contain the Universe in Itself, yet it is the duty of the male Brahmâ to manifest it in a visible form. Hence he has to be connected with the procreation of species, and assumes, like Jehovah and other male Gods in subsequent anthropomorphism, a phallic symbol. At best every such male God, the “Father” of all, becomes the “Archetypal Man.” Between him and the Infinite Deity stretches an abyss. In the theistic religions of personal Gods the latter are degraded from abstract Forces into physical potencies. The Water of Life—the “Deep” of Mother Nature—is viewed in its terrestrial aspect in anthropomorphic religions. Behold, how holy it has become by theological magic! It is held sacred and is deified now as of old in almost every religion. But if Christians use it as a means of spiritual purification in baptism and prayer; if Hindus pay reverence to their sacred streams, tanks, and rivers; if Pârsî, Mahommedan and Christian alike believe in its efficacy, surely that element must have some great and Occult significance. In Occultism it stands for the Fifth Principle of Kosmos, in the lower septenary: for the whole visible Universe was built by Water, say the Kabalists who know the difference between the two waters—the “Waters of Life” and those of Salvation—so confused together in dogmatic religions. The “King-Preacher” says of himself:
I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven.[429]
Speaking of the great work and glory of the Elohim[430]—unified into the [pg 231] “Lord God” in the English Bible, whose garment, he tells us, is light and heaven the curtain—he refers to the builder
Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters,[431]