——
Date of the Flood, B.C. 2348 ”
It is quite clear, therefore, that if we reduce the natural years of Methuselah to lunar years the result would be to vitiate the whole of the chronology, and, moreover, if we did so in regard to the years of Methuselah we must also do so in regard to others of the Patriarchs. This would mean that Mahalaleel was born to Cainan when the latter was just over seven year of age; or that Methuselah was born to Enoch in the sixth year of his age! If there is any improbability in the record at all, it is rather in the idea of these patriarchal infants than in that of the extreme longevity of Methuselah. If a mere tortoise can live for 500 years, why not a human? What the simple life is capable of, we of this age have no knowledge from experience, but I see no reason why certain souls, fitted by spiritual selection for the performance of some great work or the up-holding of a holy tradition, should not incarnate under cosmical conditions which are also so select as to withstand the concatenation of natural forces which make for dissolution. At all events we have here a rather interesting problem for the Eugenists, who, basing their principles on purely physiological grounds, are confronted and disarmed on every side by these occult forces in Nature which they have failed to take into account. While they base all their calculations on physical heredity, the occultist points silently but impressively to the fact of psychic tradition, and in support of the occult position we are able to point to a hundred cases of insanity which can be specifically predicted from the moment of birth and years before the symptoms of mental disorder begin to manifest. A theory to have a working value must include all the facts, and so far as human genetics are concerned not the least among these facts is that of the cyclic rebirth of souls and the continual importation of new psychic forces into the line of physical heredity. The study of Eugenics should begin in the study of psychology. We know, for instance, that progeny generated during intoxication will probably turn out epileptic, but that does not answer the question as to why one soul rather than another should animate that body. Yet out of a dozen horoscopes an astrologer will unhesitatingly pick out any one that may happen to belong to a body thus afflicted. This fact should give us pause to re-examine the foundations of our system of genetics. The secret of health and longevity is not to be found on this side of the spiritual equator.
CHAPTER IX
A TYPICAL CASE
The ancient secret records embody a tradition of the going down of Atlantis into the depths of the sea after the perversion of a race of humanity whose physical culture, civilization and scientific attainments eclipsed anything of which we have modern example.
The Hebrew records give us the familiar case of Babel, that achievement of human arrogance which reached to the gates of the Sun. The great civilizations of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome have gone the way of all things temporal. In the modern endeavour to “beat the record” there is an element of danger which is too lightly regarded by those who have no knowledge whatsoever of the forces with which they are playing. These are not of the air and wave alone but of the whole universe, as well spiritual as physical. Let us look at the matter in the light of a modern example.
I have no record as to when the Titanic was keeled, but there is certain knowledge that it was launched on the 31st of May, 1911 at Belfast, the time being Greenwich Mean Time, 12.42 p.m. The ship was well-named, not only because it was the greatest embodiment of human engineering and ship-building skill, a veritable monster of a modern Frankenstein, but also because it was the embodiment of human pride and daring. The Titans, it will be remembered, were a race of giants, sons of Heaven and Earth, who were hurled into the abyss for daring to make war against Zeus. It is the Greek story of the submersion of Atlantis.
Ambitious in design, colossal in form, and inclusive of the very latest of modern luxury, this floating city took the water for the first time at a moment when the whole amphitheatre of heaven was witness of indications of impending disaster. I do not pretend to know what particular Master of Wisdom it was who set Argo Navis in the heavens as a symbol of all that maritime prowess with which the world has grown wonderful. I only know that in whatsoever horoscope a malefic planet occupies that particular part of the heavens it stands for a symbol of disaster by navigation. It is associated with Cancer. Neither do I know who it was gave to Neptune the traditional rule of the ocean, but yet I find it a prominent and malefic factor in all significations of shipwreck.
Now we have said that the time of the launching of the Titanic was effected under portents of disaster. Let us go more closely into the particulars. At the moment of launching the 19th degree of the sign Virgo was rising at Belfast with the planet Mars just below the eastern horizon. The ruler of the horoscope was Mercury, and we find it in the 9th division of the heavens, that part which has significance of voyages, and in conjunction with Saturn, the significator of delays, obstacles, obstructions and collapse. Both Saturn and Mercury were opposed by Jupiter. The Moon was in the “ocean” sign, Cancer going to the opposition of Uranus, the symbol of sudden catastrophe.
The most striking point is the ruler of the horoscope, Mercury, in the House of Voyages conjoined with the malefic planet Saturn.