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BP  561  .B52  V.3 
Blavatsky,  H.  P.  1831-1891 
The  secret  doctrine 


THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE 


Newnham,  Cowell  &  Gripper,  Ltd., 

Printers, 

75,  Chiswell  Street, 

London,  E.C.  i. 


THE 

Secret  Doctrine  : 

THE    SYNTHESIS 


OF 


SCIENCE    RELIGION,  AND  PHILOSOPHY 


H.  P.  ^BLAVATSKY, 

AUTHOR  OF   "ISIS  UNVEII.ED." 


satyAt  nasti   paro   dharmah. 

"There  is  uo  Religion  nigher  than  Truth." 


Volume  III. 


LONDON : 

The  Theosophical  Publishing  House, 

1897. 

Reprinted  1910,  1913,  1918,  1921. 


^'  Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  tne  year  1897,  by  the  Theosophical 

Book  Concern  of  Chicago,  iyi  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress 

it  Washingtofi,  D.C." 


ENTERED  AT  STATIONERS'  HALL. 
ALL  RIGHTS  OF  TRANSLATION  AND  REPRODUCTION  RESERVED. 


As  for  what  thou  hearest  others  say,  who  persuade  the  many  that  the  soul  when 
once  freed  from  the  body  neither  suffers  .  .  .  evil  nor  is  conscious,  I  know  that 
thou  art  better  grounded  in  the  doctrines  received  by  us  from  onr  ancestors  and  in 
the  sacred  orgies  of  Dionysus  than  to  believe  them  ;  for  the  mystic  symbols  are  well 
known  to  us  who  belong  to  the  Brotherhood. 

PI.UTARCH. 
The  problem  of  life  is  man.     Ma^^c,  or  rather  Wisdom,  is  the  evolved  knowledge 
of  the  potencies  of  man's  interior  being,  which  forces  are  divine  emanations,  as  in- 
tuition  is  the   perception  of  their  origin,  and  initiation   our  induction  into  that 
knowledge.     .     .     .     We  begin  with  instinct ;  the  end  is  omniscience. 

A.  Wil^DER. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGB 

Introductory 

I 

One  Key  to  All  Sacred  Books  . 

3 

Assumptions  have  to  be  proven 

5 

The  Spirit  of  Plato's  Teaching 

7 

Self-Contradiction  of  the  Critic 

9 

The  Character  of  Ammonius  Saccas  . 

II 

Plato  a  follower  of  Pythagoras 

• 

13 

SECTIC 

>N  I. 

Preliminary  Survey        > 

14 

The  Protectors  of  China 

• 

. 

15 

The  A  B  C  of  Magic 

17 

Magic  as  old  as  Man 

. 

19 

The  Tree  of  Knowledge 

. 

21 

Occultism  must  win  the  Day    . 

, 

23 

Black  Magic  at  work 

• 

25 

Black  Magic  and  Hypnotism    . 

. 

27 

The  Philosophy  stands  on  its  owr 

I  Merits 

29 

SECTION    II 


Modern  Criticism  and  the  Ancients 
All  Honour  to  Genuine  Scientists 
What  is  a  Myth  ? 
Chaldaean  Oracles 


SECTION    III. 


The  Origin  of  Mag^c 

The  Books  of  Hermes    . 

What  is  the  Origin  of  Magic    . 

Pherecydes  of  Syror 

Cain  Mathematical  and  Anthropomorphic 


30 
31 
35 
35 


36 

37 
39 

41 
43 


Vlll 


CONTENTS. 

SECTION   IV. 


The  Secresy  of  the  Initiates    .  .  , 

Exoteric  and  Esoteric  Teachings 

Origen  on  "  Genesis  "    . 

The  "Dark  Sayings  "  of  the  "Testaments  " 

The  Greatest  Crime  ever  perpetrated 

Asiatic  Religious  proclaim  their  Esotericisni  openly 

The  Wisdom  Religion    ..... 


SECTION   VII. 


Old  Wine  in  New  Bottles 
Copies  that  Ante-dated  Originals 
Which  were  the  Thieves  ? 
Character  of  the  "  Bible  " 


PAGE 

44 
45 
47 
49 
5f 
53 
55 


SECTION   V. 

Some  Reasons  for  Secresy        .... 

. 

•      56 

The  Key  of  Practical  Theurgy 

57 

The  Ladder  of  Being     ..... 

. 

59 

Three  Ways  open  to  the  Adept 

•                       •                       • 

61 

Man  is  God           ...... 

. 

.      63 

Jesus  taught  Reincarnation     . 

•                      •                       • 

i 

.      65 

SECTION    VI. 

The  Dangers  of  Practical  xMagic 

.      67 

Names  are  Symbols       ..... 

.      69 

The  Three  Mothers 

71 

The  Bible  and  Word-Juggling 

73 

Moses  and  the  Jews       ..... 

75 

76 

77 
79 
81 


SECTION   VIII. 

The  "  Book  of  Enoch  "  the  Origin  and  Foundation  of  Christianity 
The  "Book  of  Enoch"  and  Christianity        .... 

Enoch  records  the  Races  ...  ... 

The  "  Book  of  Enoch  "  symbolical    ..... 

Occultists  do  not  reject  the  "  Bible  "  .... 


82 

S3 
85 
87 
89 


CONTENTS.  ix 

SECTION    IX. 

PAGE 

Hermetic  and  Kabalistic  Doctrines    .......  91 

The  "Kabalah  "  and  the  "Book  of  Enoch"             .....  93 

Numbers  and  Measures             •••.....  95 

The  Doctrine  belongs  to  All     ........  97 


SECTION   X. 

Various  Occult  Systems  of  Interpretations  of  Alphabets  and  Numerals             .  98 

Numbers  and  Magic      .........  99 

Gods  and  Numbers        .........  loi 

The  Universal  Language          ••......  103 


SECTION   XI. 

The  Hexagon  with  the  Central  Point,  or  the  Seventh  Key  .  .  .      105 

Occult  Weapons  ..........       107 


SECTION    XII. 

The  Duty  of  the  True  Occultist  towards  Religions  ....       109 

Christian  and  non-Christian  Adepts  .  .  .  .  .  .111 


SECTION    XIII. 

Post-  Christian  Adepts  and  their  Doctrines  .....      112 

Unfair  Criticism .  •••......       113 

The  Two  Eternal  Principles    .  .  .  .  .  ,  ,  .115 


SECTION    XIV. 

Simon  and  his  Biographer  Hippolytus  .  .  .  .  .117 

Uneven  Balances  .  .  .  .  .  ,  .  ,  .no 

Stones  as  "Evidences"  •••.....       121 


SECTION    XV. 

St.  Paul  the  Real  Founder  of  present  Christianity  .  .  .  .122 

Abrogation  of  Law  by  Initiates  .  .  ....       123 

Paul  changed  to  Simon  .  ,  .  .....      125 


CONTENTS. 

SECTION    XVI. 


Peter  a  Jewish  Kabalist,  not  an  Initiate 
The  Seat  of  Peter 


SECTION 

The  Eastern  Gupta  Vidya  and  the  Kabalah 

A  Mystery  within  a  Mystery 

Authorship  of  the  "  Zohar  " 

Chaldaic  and  Hebrew    . 

The  First  Men     . 

Many  Events  not  Historical 

The  real  Hebrew  Characters  I/Ost 

Hebrew  Esotericism  not  Primitive 

The  Concealed  of  All  the  Concealed 


XX. 


PAGE 
126 
127 


SECTION 

XVII. 

Apollonius  of  Tyana 

•          .          .      129 

The  Mjsterious  Teacher 

.     131 

Apollonius  cannot  be  Destroyed 

•     133 

De  Mirville  on  Apollonius 

, 

.    135 

Apollonius  no  Fiction    . 

.      ^37 

SECl 

ION 

XVIII. 

Facts  underlying  Adept  Biographies  . 

138 

Jesus  and  Apollonius     . 

139 

Biographies  of  Initiates 

141 

Similarity  of  IvCgends    . 

143 

Nature  of  Christ 

145 

A  Serious  Mistranslation 

147 

Secret  Doctrine  of  Jesus 

149 

The  Cross  and  Crucifix 

151 

The  StorA' of  Jesus 

153 

The  Primitive  Woman  . 

155 

Kabalistic  Reading  of  Gospels 

157 

Universal  Teachings 

159 

SEC 

noN 

XIX. 

St.  Cyprian  of  Antioch  . 

160 

Magic  in  Antioch            .            .            .            , 

161 

Sorcerer  become  Saint  . 

■ 

• 

163 

164 

165 

167 
169 

171 
173 
175 
177 
179 


CONTENTS. 


XI 


Three-in-One  and  Four 
The  Septenary  Sephira 
The  Blind  lycading  the  Blind 


SECTION    XXI. 


Hebrew  Allegories 

The  Hebrew  Bible  does  not  exist 

Some  Hebrews  were  Initiates 

The  Seven  Creative  Gods 

Seven  Keys  to  all  Allegories    . 

Gerald  Massey  on  the  Seven  Creators 

The  Father  and  Mother 


SECTION    XXII. 

The  "  Zohar  "  on  Creation  and  the  Elohini 

Angels  as  Builders 

Who  are  the  Elohim  ?   . 

Monad,  Duad,  and  Triad 

The  Creative  Gods 

God  the  Host      . 


SECTION    XXIII. 

What  the  Occultists  and  Kabalists  have  to  say 
The  Mystery  of  the  Sun  .... 


SECTION    XXIV. 

Modem  Kabalists  in  Science  and  Occult  Astronomy 
The  Place  of  Neptune    .  .  .  •  • 

Self-Generation  ex-Nihilo         .... 
Are  there  Angels  in  Stars  ?       . 


SECTION    XXV. 


Eastern  and  Western  Occultism 

Primordial  Matter 

The  Great  Deep  . 

The  Chaos  of  Genesis    . 

The  Bible  of  Humanity 

Chaos  is  Theos  or  Kosmos 

One  Hundred  and  Eight 


i8i 
183 
185 


186 
187 
189 
191 
193 
195 
197 


199 
201 
203 
205 
207 
209 


221 
21? 


-215 
217 
219 
221 


222 
223 
225 
.227 
229 
231 
233 


Xll 


The  Idols  and  the  Teraphim 
Divining  by  Teraphim  . 
Jehovah  and  Teraphim 
Idol  of  the  Moon 


CONTENTS. 

SECTION    XXVI. 


SECTION    XXVII. 


Egyptian  Magic 
Evidence  of  Papyri 
Symbols  and  their  Reading 
Rebirth  and  Transmigration 
The  Egyptian  Khous 
Obsession  in  Egypt 
Two  Rituals  of  Magic 
Magical  Statues  . 
Romances — but  True 


SECTION    XXVIII. 


The  Origin  of  the  Mysteries 
An  Instant  in  Heaven    . 
Growth  of  Popular  Beliefs 
A  True  Priesthood 
The  Eg>'ptian  Priests     . 
Revealing  and  Revelling 
Atlanteans  Degenerating 


The  Trial  of  the  Sun  Initiate 
Vishvakarma  Vikarttana 
The  Transmission  of  Light 
Masonry  and  the  Jesuits 


SECTION    XXIX. 


SECTION    XXX. 


The  Mystery  "  Sun  of  Initiation  " 
The  Sun  as  God  . 


SECTION   XXXI. 


The  Object  of  the  Mysteries 
Mysteries  and  Theophany 
The  Mysteries  and  Masonry 


PAGE 

234 
a35 
237 
239 


241 
243 
245 
247 
249 

251 
253 
255 
257 


258 
259 
261 

263 
265 
267 
269 


270 
271 

273 
275 


277 
279 


281 
283 
285 


Traces  of  the  Mysteries 
Christos  and  Chrestos   . 
The  Symbolism  of  Narada* 
Eg3T7tian  Initiation 
The  Self-sacrificing  Victim 
Orpheus    . 


SECTION   XXXIII. 

The  Last  of  the  Mysteries  in  Europe 

Alesia  and  Bibractis        ..... 

The  Learning  of  Egypt  .... 


The  Root  Races  . 
The  "False  Gnosis" 
Teachings  of  Ammonius 
Difficulties  and  Dangers 
The  Neo-Platonic  School 


Symbolism  of  Sun  and  Stars 
The  Circle  Dance 
Christian  Astrolatry 
Michael  the  Conqueror 
The  Christian  Sun-God 


CONTENTS. 

xiii 

SECTION    XXXII. 

PAGE 

.          2S7 

.          2S9 

261 

.          293 

.          295 

.          297 

SECTION    XXXV. 


29S 
299 
301 


SECTION    XXXIV. 

rs  to  the  Mysteries 

.      303 

.      305 

.      307 

.309 

.      311 

.      313 

315 
317 
319 
321 

323 


SECTION 

Pagan  Sidereal  Worship  or  Astronomy 

The  Planetary  Angels    . 

Celestial  Wheels 

The  Promethean  Mystery 


XXXVI. 


325 
327 
329 

33^ 


SECTION    XXXVII. 


The  Souls  of  the  St^rs— Universal  Heliolatry 

Christian  Star- Worship 

A  Singular  Confession  .  . 


332 
333 
335 


xr. 


CONTENTS. 

SECTION   XXXVIII. 


Astrology  and  Astrolatry 
The  Defence  of  Astrology 
Its  Later  Deterioration  . 
Its  Prominent  Disciples 


Cycles  and  Avataras 
An  Unfulfilled  Prophecy 
Secret  Cycles 


SECTION    XXXIX. 


SECTION    XLI. 


The  Doctrine  of  the  Avataras 
All  Avataras  Identical    . 
Voluntary  Incarnations 
Cardinal  de  Cusa 
The  Seven  Rays . 
Special  Cases 
The  Higher  Astral 


The  Seven  Principles 


SECTION   XUI. 


PAGD 

337 
339 
341 
343 


345 
347 
349 


SECTION    XL. 

Secret  Cycles       .            .            .            .            .            .            .            .     . 

.      350 

The  Naros                       .            .            .            .            .            . 

.      351 

Age  of  the  Vedas             ....... 

•      353 

Testimony  of  the  Song  Celestial         ..... 

.      355 

Mackey's  Arguments    ....... 

.      357 

361 

363 

365 

367 
369 
371 

373 


374 


SECTION    XLIII. 

The  Mystery  of  Buddha 

.376 

Shankarachar\a  ........ 

•      377 

The  Buddha  cannot  Reincarnate        ..... 

.      379 

A  Fuller  Explanation     .....,, 

.      3«i 

Sacrifice    .......,, 

.      383 

Shankarachirya  still  Iriving    .            ..... 

.      385 

CONTENTS. 

SECTION    XLIV. 


XV 


"  Reincarnations"  of  Budfllia 
Vajradhara 
Li\'ing  Buddhas  . 
An  Obscure  Passage 


386 
387 
389 
591 


SECTION    XLV. 


An  Unpublished  Discourse  of  Buddba 
A  Mistaken  View 


SECTION    XLVII. 
The  Secret  Books  of  "  Lam-Rin  "  and  Dz5an 


SECTION    XLVIII. 

Amita  Buddha  Kwan-Shai-yin,  and  Kwan->-in. — WTiat  the  "  Book  of  Dzyan  " 
and  the  Lamaseries  of  Tsong-Khapa  say        .  .  .  .  . 


SECTION    XLIX. 
Lohans  in  China 


Tsong-Khapa 
The  Lost  Word    . 
Tibetan  Prophecies 


A  Few  More  Misconceptions  Corrected 
Misrepresentations  of  Buddhism 
A  Mysterious  Land 
Absurd  Conclusions 
Materialistic  Orientalists 
Introduction  of  Buddhism  into  Tibet 


393 
395 


SECTION    XLVI. 

Nirvana-Moksha 

.     396 

The  Akasha 

.       397 

Matter  is  ever  living 

•       399 

BHnd  Faith  not  Expected 

401 

What  Annihilation  Means 

.      403 

405 


407 


409 
411 
413 


SECTION 

rected 

L. 

.     414 

•  415 

•  417 

•  419 
.     421 

ibet 

•     423 

XVI 


CONTENTS. 


The   "Doctrine  of  the   Eye' 

"  Heart's  Seal  "    . 
Swedenborg's  Claims    . 
The  God  "Who" 
More  Misrepresentations 
Aryasanga 


SECTION   LI. 


and  the    "  Doctrine  of   the   Heart,"   or  the 


PAOB 

424 

427 
429 


SOME  PAPERS  ON  THE  BEARING  OF  OCCULT  PHILOSOPHY 

ON  LIFE. 


Note  .... 

A  Warning 

The  Jewel  in  the  Lotus . 

The  Pythagorean  Triad 

Seven  Correspondential  Contents 

Correspondence  between  Races  and  Man 

Man  and  the  Logos 

Cosmic,  Spiritual  and  Physical  Centres 

Woman  and  Alchem}"     . 

Sound  and  Colour 

The  Days  of  the  Week   . 

An  Explanation  . 

Astrology  and  Lunar  Weeks     . 

Seeing  Sounds  and  Hearing  Colours 

Planetary  and  Human  Bodies  . 

Planets  and  Faculties     . 

Simon  Magus  the  Magician 

Series  of  ^ons    . 

The  Triple  ^on . 

Magic  and  Miracles 

Magic  a  Divine  Science 

The  Seven  Hierarchies 

Origines    .... 

Colours  and  Principles  . 

The  Primordial  Seven    . 

The  Hierarchies  and  Man 

Wisdom  and  Truth 

Occult  Secresy    . 

The  Light  and  Dark  Sides  of  Nature 

Nature's  Finer  Forces    . 

The  "Seven  Principles" 


434 

435 
437 
439 
441 

443 
445 
447 
449 
451 
453 
455 
457 
459 
461 

463 
465 
467 
469 
471 
473 
475 
477 
479 
481 

483 
4S5 
4S7 
4S9 
491 
493 


CONTENTS. 


XVU 


The  Auric  Egg    - 

Five  or  Seven  Tattvas    . 

The  Tattvas 

Esoteric  and  Tantra  Tables  of  the  Tattvas 

Hatha  and  Raja  Yoga    . 

The  Awakening  of  the  Seventh  Sense 

The  Master  Chakras 

The  Human  Harp 

The  Duality  of  Manas    . 

The  Living  and  the  Dead 

Gaining  Immortality      . 

Light  and  Life     . 

The  Two  Egos    . 

Death  of  the  Soul 

Reincarnation  of  Lower  Soul   . 

The  Dweller  on  the  Thresliold 

The  Word 

The  Divine  Witness 

Appendix  .  .  .  • 

A  Mantra  Operative 

Colour  and  Spiritual  Sound      . 

Musical  Table     . 

Notes  on  some  Oral  Teachings 

The  Dweller  on  the  Threshold 

Fear  and  Hatred 

Triangle  and  Quaternary- 

Prana  and  Antahkarana 

Sacred  Centres  of  the  Body 

Akasha  Nature's  Soun-Ung-Board 

Kosmic  Consciousness  . 

Divisions  of  the  Astral  Plane    . 

Kosmic  Planes    . 

Differentiation     . 

Men  and  Pitris    . 

Power  of  Imaginatior.    . 

Why  Cycles  Return 

Talas  and  Lokas 

States  of  Consciousness 

Man  and  Lokas  . 

Yogis  in  Svarloka 

Consciousness  and  Self-Consciousness 

Scales  of  Consciousness 

"Vibrations  and  Impressions 

The  Crucifixion  of  the  Christos 


xvni 


CONTENTS. 


Rising  above  the  Brain 
Christ  and  Apollonius  . 
The  Beginnings  . 
Karmic  Effects    . 
Fire  is  Kriyashakti 
Responsibility  and  the  Ego 
Functions  of  the  Astral  Body 


PAOB 

585 
587 
589 

593 


PREFACE. 

The  task  of  preparing  this  volume  for  the  press  has  been  a 
difficult  and  anxious  one,  and  it  is  necessary  to  state  clearly  what 
has  been  done.  The  papers  given  to  me  by  H.  P.  B.  were  quite 
unarranged,  and  had  no  obvious  order  :  I  have,  therefore,  taken  each 
paper  as  a  separate  Section,  and  have  arranged  them  as  sequentially 
as  possible.  With  the  exception  of  the  correction  of  grammatical 
errors  and  the  elimination  of  obviously  un-English  idioms,  the 
papers  are  as  H.  P.  B.  left  them,  save  as  otherwise  marked.  In  a 
few  cases  I  have  filled  in  a  gap,  but  any  such  addition  is  enclosed 
within  square  brackets,  so  as  to  be  distinguished  from  the  text.  In 
"  The  Mystery  of  Buddha  "  a  further  difficulty  arose ;  some  of  the 
Sections  had  been  written  four  or  five  times  over,  each  version  con- 
taining some  sentences  that  were  not  in  the  others ;  I  have  pieced 
these  versions  together,  taking  the  fullest  as  basis,  and  inserting 
therein  everything  added  in  any  other  versions.  It  is,  however, 
with  some  hesitation  that  I  have  included  these  Sections  in  the 
Secret  Doctrine.  Together  with  some  most  suggestive  thought,  they 
contain  very  numerous  errors  of  fact,  and  many  statements  based 
on  exoteric  writings,  not  on  esoteric  knowledge.  They  were  given 
into  my  hands  to  publish,  as  part  of  the  Third  Volume  of  the  Secret 
Doctrine^  and  I  therefore  do  not  feel  justified  in  coming  between 
the  author  and  the  public,  either  by  altering  the  statements,  to 
make  them  consistent  with  fact,  or  by  suppressing  the  Sections. 
She  says  she  is  acting  entirely  on  her  own  authority,  and  it  will  be 


XX  PREFACE. 

obvious  to  any  instructed  reader  that  she  makes — possibly  de- 
liberately— many  statements  so  confused  that  they  are  mere  blinds, 
and  other  statements — probably  inadvertently — that  are  nothing- 
more  than  the  exoteric  misunderstandings  of  esoteric  truths.  The 
reader  must  here,  as  everywhere,  use  his  own  judgment,  but  feeling- 
bound  to  publish  these  Sections,  I  cannot  let  them  go  to  the  public 
without  a  warning  that  much  in  them  is  certainly  erroneous. 
Doubtless,  had  the  author  herself  issued-  this  book,  she  would  have 
entirely  re-written  the  whole  of  this  division ;  as  it  was,  it  seemed 
best  to  give  all  she  had  said  in  the  diflferent  copies,  and  to  leave  it 
in  its  rather  unfinished  state,  for  students  will  best  like  to  have  what 
she  said  as  she  said  it,  even  though  they  may  have  to  study  it 
more  closely  than  would  have  been  the  case  had  she  remained  to 
finish  her  work. 

The  quotations  made  have  been  as  far  as  possible  found,  and 
correct  references  given  ;  in  this  most  laborious  work  a  whole  band 
of  earnest  and  painstaking  students,  under  the  guidance  of  Mrs. 
Cooper- Oakley,  have  been  my  willing  assistants.  Without  their 
aid  it  would  not  have  been  possible  to  give  the  references,  as  often 
a  whole  book  had  to  be  searched  through,  in  order  to  find  a  para- 
graph of  a  few  lines. 

This  volume   completes  the  papers  left  by  H.   P.  B,,   with  the 

exception  of  a  few  scattered  articles  that  yet  remain  and  that  will  be 

published  in  her  own  magazine  Lucifer.     Her  pupils  are  well  aware 

that  few  will  be  found  in  the  present  generation  to  do  justice  to  the 

occult  knowledge  of  H.   P.  B.  and   to   her   magnificent   sweep   of 

thought,  but  as  she  can  wait  to  future  generations  for  the  justification 

of  her  greatness  as  a  teacher,  so  can  her  pupils  afford  to  wait  for  the 

justification  of  their  trust. 

Annie  Besant. 


INTRODUCTORY 


"  Power  belongs  to  him  who  knows  ; "  this  is  a  very  old  axiom. 
Knowledge — the  first  step  to  which  is  the  power  of  comprehending  the 
truth,  of  discerning  the  real  from  the  false — is  for  those  onl}^  who, 
having  freed  themselves  from  every  prejudice  and  conquered  their 
human  conceit  and  selfishness,  are  ready  to  accept  every  and  any  truth, 
once  it  is  demonstrated  to  them.  Of  such  there  are  very  few.  The 
majority  judge  of  a  work  according  to  the  respective  prejudices  of  its 
critics,  who  are  guided  in  their  turn  by  the  popularity  or  unpopularity 
of  the  author,  rather  than  by  its  own  faults  or  merits.  Outside  the 
Theosophical  circle,  therefore,  the  present  volume  is  certain  to  receive 
at  the  hands  of  the  general  public  a  still  colder  welcome  than  its  two 
predecessors  have  met  with.  In  our  day  no  statement  can  hope  for  a 
fair  trial,  or  even  hearing,  unless  its  arguments  run  on  the  line  of 
legitimate  and  accepted  enquiry,  remaining  strictly  within  the  boun- 
daries of  official  Science  or  orthodox  Theology. 

Our  age  is  a  paradoxical  anomaly.  It  is  preeminently  materialistic 
and  as  preeminently  pietistic.  Our  literature,  our  modern  thought 
and  progress,  so  called,  both  run  on  these  two  parallel  lines,  so  incon- 
gruously dissimilar  and  yet  both  so  popular  and  so  very  orthodox,  each 
in  its  own  way.  He  who  presumes  to  draw  a  third  line,  as  a  hyphen 
of  reconciliation  between  the  two,  has  to  be  fully  prepared  for  the 
worst.  He  will  have  his  work  mangled  by  reviewers,  mocked  by  the 
sycophants  of  Science  and  Church,  misquoted  by  his  opponents,  and 
rejected  even  by  the  pious  lending  libraries.  The  absurd  misconcep- 
tions, in  so-called  cultured  circles  of  society,  of  the  ancient  Wisdom- 
Religion  (Bodhism)  after  the  admirably  clear  and  scientifically-presented 
explanations  in  Esoteric  Buddhism,  are  a  good  proof  in  point.  They 
might  have  served  as  a  caution  even  to  those  Theosophists  who, 
hardened  in  an  almost  life-long  struggle  in  the  service  of  their  Cause, 
are  neither  timid  with  their  pen,  nor  in  the  least  appalled  by  dogmatic 


2  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

assumption  and  scientific  authorit)-.  Yet,  do  what  Theosophical  writers 
may,  neither  Materialism  nor  doctrinal  pietism  will  ever  give  their 
Philosophy  a  fair  hearing.  Their  doctrines  will  be  systematically 
rejected,  and  their  theories  denied  a  place  even  in  the  ranks  of  those 
scientific  ephemera,  the  ever-shifting  "working  hj^potheses"  of  our 
day.  To  the  advocate  of  the  "animalistic"  theory,  our  cosmogenetical 
and  anthropogenetical  teachings  are  "fairy-tales"  at  best.  For  to 
those  who  would  shirk  any  moral  responsibility,  it  seems  certainly 
more  convenient  to  accept  descent  from  a  common  simian  ancestor 
and  see  a  brother  in  a  dumb,  tailless  baboon,  than  to  acknowledge  the 
fatherhood  of  Pitris,  the  "  Sons  of  God,"  and  to  have  to  recognise  as  a 
brother  a  starveling  from  the  slums. 

"  Hold  back  !  "  shout  in  their  turn  the  pietists.  "  You  will  never 
make  of  respectable  church-going  Christians  Esoteric  Buddhists!" 

Nor  are  we,  in  truth,  in  an}'  way  anxious  to  attempt  the  metamor- 
phosis. But  this  cannot,  nor  shall  it,  prevent  Theosophists  from 
saying  what  the}'  have  to  say,  especialh^  to  those  who,  in  opposing  to 
our  doctrine  Modern  Science,  do  so  not  for  her  own  fair  sake,  but  only 
to  ensure  the  success  of  their  private  hobbies  and  personal  glorification. 
If  we  cannot  pi'ove  many  of  our  points,  no  more  can  they  ;  )'et  we  may 
show  how,  instead  of  giving  historical  and  scientific  facts — for  the 
edification  of  those  who,  knowing  less  than  they,  look  to  Scientists  to 
do  their  thinking  and  form  their  opinions — the  efforts  of  most  of  our 
scholars  seem  solely  directed  to  killing  ancient  facts,  or  distorting 
them  into  props  to  support  their  own  .special  views.  This  will  be  done 
in  no  spirit  of  malice  or  even  criticism,  as  the  writer  readily  admits 
that  most  of  those  she  finds  fault  with  stand  immeasurably  higher  in 
learning  than  herself.  But  great  scholai'ship  does  not  preclude  bias 
and  prejudice,  nor  is  it  a  safeguard  against  self-conceit,  but  rather  the 
reverse.  Moreover,  it  is  but  in  the  legitimate  defence  of  our  own  state- 
ments, i.e.,  the  vindication  of  Ancient  Wisdom  and  its  great  truths,  that 
we  mean  to  take  our  "  great  authorities"  to  task. 

Indeed,  unless  the  precaution  of  answering  beforehand  certain 
objections  to  the  fundamental  propositions  in  the  present  work  be 
adopted — objections  which  are  certain  to  be  made  on  the  authority  of 
this,  that,  or  another  scholar  concerning  the  Esoteric  character  of  all  the 
archaic  and  ancient  works  on  Philosophy — our  statements  will  be  once 
more  contradicted  and  even  discredited.  One  of  the  main  points  in 
this  Volume  is  to  indicate  in  the  works  of  the  old  Aryan,  Greek,   and 


ONE  KEY  TO  ALL  SACRED  BOOKS.  3 

Other  Philosophers  of  note,  as  well  as  in  all  the  world -scriptures,  the 
presence  of  a  strong  Esoteric  allegory  and  symbolism.  Another  of  the 
objects  is  to  prove  that  the  key  of  interpretation,  as  furnished  by  the 
Eastern  Hindu-Buddhistic  canon  of  Occultism — fitting  as  well  the 
Christian  Gospels  as  it  does  archaic  Egyptian,  Greek,  Chaldaean,  Persian, 
and  even  Hebrew- Mosaic  Books — must  have  been  one  common  to  all  the 
nations,  however  divergent  may  have  been  their  respective  methods 
and  exoteric  "  blinds."  These  claims  are  vehemently  denied  b)*  some 
of  the  foremost  scholars  of  our  da5^  In  his  Edinburgh  I,ectures,  Prof. 
Max  Miiller  discarded  this  fundamental  statement  of  the  Theosophists 
by  pointing  to  the  Hindu  Shastras  and  Pandits,  who  know  nothing  of 
such  Esotericism.*  The  learned  Sanskrit  scholar  stated  in  so  many 
words  that  there  was  no  hidden  meaning,  no  Esoteric  element  or 
"  blinds,"  either  in  the  Piiranas  or  the  Upanhhads.  Considering  that  the 
word  ''Upanishad"  means,  when  translated,  the  "Secret  Doctrine," 
the  assertion  is,  to  say  the  least,  extraordinary.  Sir  M.  Monier  Williams 
again  holds  the  same  view  with  regard  to  Buddhism.  To  hear  him  is  to 
regard  Gautama,  the  Buddha,  as  an  enemy  of  every  pretence  to  Esoteric 
teachings.  He  himself  never  taught  them !  All  such  "pretences  "  to  Occult 
learning  and  "  magic  powers  "  are  due  to  the  later  Arhats,  the  subse- 
quent followers  of  the  "  Light  of  Asia  "  !  Prof.  B.  Jowett,  again,  as 
contemptuously  passes  the  sponge  over  the  "  absurd"  interpretations  of 
Plato's  TimcBus  and  the  Mosaic  Books  by  the  Neoplatonists.  There  is 
not  a  breath  of  the  Oriental  (Gnostic)  spirit  of  Mysticism  in  Plato's 
Dialogues,  the  Regius  Professor  of  Greek  tells  us,  nor  any  approach  to 
Science,  either.  Finall}^,  to  cap  the  climax,  Prof.  Sayce,  the  Assyri- 
ologist,  although  he  does  not  deny  the  actual  presence,  in  the  Assyrian 
tablets  and  cuneiform  literature,  of  a  hidden  meaning — 

Many  of  the  sacrefl  texts    ...     so  written  as  to  be  intelligible  only  to  the 
initiated — 

yet  insists  that  the  "keys  and  glosses"  thereof  are  now  in  the  hands 
of  the  Assyriologists.     The  modern  scholars,  he  affirms,  have  in  their 
possession  clues  to  the  interpretation  of  the  Esoteric  Records, 
Which  even  the  initiated  priests  [of  Chaldaea]  did  not  possess. 


*  The  majority  of  the  Pandits  know  nothing  of  the  Esoteric  Philosophy  now,  because  they  have 
lost  the  key  to  it ;  yet  not  one  of  these,  if  honest,  would  deny  that  the  Upanishads,  and  especially  the 
i'uranas,  are  allegorical  and  symbolical;  nor  that  there  still  remain  in  India  a  few  great  scholars  who 
could,  if  they  would,  give  them  the  key  to  such  interpretations.  Nor  do  they  reject  the  actua. 
existence  of  Mahatmas— initiated  Yogis  and  Adepts— even  in  this  age  of  Kali  Yuga. 


4  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE- 

Thus,  in  the  scholarly  appreciation  of  our  modern  Orientalists  and 
Professors,  Science  was  in  its  infancy  in  the  days  of  the  Egyptian  and 
Chaldsean  Astronomers.  Panini,  the  greatest  Grammarian  in  the  world, 
was  unacquainted  with  the  art  of  writing.  So  was  the  Lord  Buddha, 
and  ever>'one  else  in  India  until  300  B.C.  The  grossest  ignorance 
reigned  in  the  days  of  the  Indian  Rishis,  and  even  in  those  of  Thales, 
Pythagoras,  and  Plato.  Theosophists  must  indeed  be  superstitious 
ignoramuses  to  speak  as  they  do,  in  the  face  of  such  learned  evidence 
to  the  contrary ! 

Truly  it  looks  as  if,  since  the  world's  creation,  there  has  been  but 
one  age  of  real  knowledge  on  earth — the  present  age.     In  the  mistj^ 
twilight,  in  the  grey  dawn  of  history,  stand  the  pale  shadows  of  the  old 
Sages  of  world  renown.     They  were  hopelessly  groping  for  the  correct 
meaning  of  their  own  Mysteries,  the  spirit  whereof  has  departed  with- 
out revealing  itself  to  the  Hierophants,  and  has  remained  latent  in 
space  until  the  advent  of  the  initiates  of  Modern  Science  and  Research. 
The  noontide  brightness  of  knowledge  has  only  now  arrived  at  the 
"  Know- All,"  who,  basking  in  the  dazzling  sun  of  induction,  busies 
himself  with   his    Penelopeian   task   of    "  working   hypotheses,"    and 
loudly  asserts  his  rights  to  universal  knowledge.     Can  anyone  wonder, 
then,   that   according   to  present   views   the   learning  of  the   ancient 
Philosopher,  and  even  sometimes  that  of  his  direct  successors  in  the 
past  centuries,  has  ever  been  useless  to  the  world  and  valueless  to  him- 
self?    For,  as  explained  repeatedly  in  so  many  words,  while  the  Rishis 
and  the  Sages  of  old  have  walked  far  over  the  arid  fields  of  myth  and 
superstition,  the  mediaeval  Scholar,  and  even  the  average  eighteenth 
century  Scientist,  have  always  been  more  or  less  cramped  by  their  "super- 
natural "    religion    and   beliefs.     True,  it   is   generally  conceded   that 
some  ancient  and  also  mediaeval  Scholars,  such  as  Pythagoras,  Plato, 
Paracelsus,  and  Roger  Bacon,  followed  by  a  host  of  glorious  names, 
had  indeed  left  not  a  few  landmarks  over  precious  mines  of  Philosophy 
and  unexplored  lodes  of  Phy.sical  Science.     But  then  the  actual  exca- 
vation of  these,  the  smelting  of  the  gold  and  silver,  and  the  cutting  of 
the  precious  jewels  they  contain,  are  all  due  to  the  patient  labours  of 
the  modern  man  of  Science.     And  is  it  not  to  the  unparalleled  genius 
of  the  latter  that   the   ignorant   and  hitherto-deluded  world   owes    a 
correct  knowledge  of  the  real  nature  of  the  Kosmos,  of  the  true  origin  of 
the  universe  and  man,  as  revealed  in  the  automatic  and  mechanical 
theories  of  the  Physicists,  in  accordance  with  strictly  scientific  Philo- 


ASSUMPTIONS   HAVE  TO   BE   PROVEN.  5 

sophy  ?  Before  our  cultured  era,  Science  was  but  a  name,  Philosophy 
a  delusion  and  a  snare.  According  to  the  modest  claims  of  contem- 
porary authority  on  genuine  Science  and  Philosophy,  the  Tree  of 
Knowledge  has  only  now  sprung  from  the  dead  weeds  of  superstition, 
as  a  beautiful  butterfly  emerges  from  an  ugly  grub.  We  have,  there- 
fore, nothing  for  which  to  thank  our  forefathers.  The  Ancients  have 
at  best  prepared  and  fertilised  the  soil ;  it  is  the  Moderns  who  have 
planted  the  "seeds  of  knowledge  and  reared  the  lovely  plants  called 
blank  negation  and  sterile  agnosticism. 

Such,  however,  is  not  the  view  taken  by  Theosophists.  They  repeat 
what  was  stated  twenty  years  ago.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  speak  of  the 
"  untenable  conceptions  of  an  uncultured  past"  (Tyndall) ;  of  the 
'' parler  enfayitin  "  of  the  Vaidic  poets  (Max  Miiller)  ;  of  the  "absurdi- 
ties" of  the  Neoplatonists  (Jowett);  and  of  the  ignorance  of  the 
Chaldaeo- Assyrian  initiated  Priests  with  regard  to  their  own  symbols, 
when  compared  with  the  knowledge  thereon  of  the  British  Orientalist 
(Sayce).  Such  assumptions  have  to  be  proven  by  something  more 
solid  than  the  mere  word  of  these  scholars.  For  no  amount  of  boastful 
arrogance  can  hide  the  intellectual  quarries  out  of  which  the  represen- 
tations of  so  many  modern  Philosophers  and  Scholars  have  been  carved. 
How  many  of  the  most  distinguished  European  Scientists  have  derived 
honour  and  credit  for  the  mere  dressing-up  of  the  ideas  of  these  old 
Philosophers,  whom  they  are  ever  ready  to  disparage,  is  left  to  an 
impartial  posterity  to  say.  Thus  it  does  seem  not  altogether  untrue 
as  stated  in  his  Unveiled,  to  say  of  certain  Orientalists  and  Scholars 
of  dead  languages,  that  they  will  allow  their  boundless  conceit  and 
self-opinionatedness  to  run  away  with  their  logic  and  reasoning  powers, 
rather  than  concede  to  the  ancient  Philosophers  the  knowledge  of  any- 
thing the  modern  do  not  know. 

As  part  of  this  work  treats  of  the  Initiates  and  the  secret  knowledge 
imparted  during  the  Mysteries,  the  statements  of  those  who,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  Plato  was  an  Initiate,  maintain  that  no  hidden  Mysticism 
is  to  be  discovered  in  his  works,  have  to  be  first  examined.  Too  many 
of  the  present  scholars,  Greek  and  Sanskrit,  are  but  too  apt  to  forego 
facts  in  favour  of  their  own  preconceived  theories  based  on  personal 
prejudice.  They  conveniently  forget,  at  every  opportunity,  not  only 
the  numerous  changes  in  language,  but  also  that  the  allegorical  style 
in  the  writings  of  old  Philosophers  and  the  secretiveness  of  the  Mystics 
had   their   raisoji  d'etre;    that   both   the  pre-Christian    and  the   post- 


6  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Christian  classical  writers — the  great  majority  at  all  events — were 
under  the  sacred  obligation  never  to  divulge  the  solemn  secrets  com- 
municated to  them  in  the  sanctuaries  ;  and  that  this  alone  is  sufficient 
to  sadly  mislead  their  translators  and  profane  critics.  But  these  critics 
will  admit  nothing  of  the  kind,  as  will  presently  be  seen. 

For  over  twentj^-two  centuries  everyone  who  has  read  Plato  has 
been  aware  that,  like  most  of  the  other  Greek  Philosophers  of  note, 
he  had  been  initiated ;  that  therefore,  being  tied  down  by  the  Sodalian 
Oath,  he  could  speak  of  certain  things  only  in  veiled  allegories.  His 
reverence  for  the  Mysteries  is  unbounded  ;  he  openly  confesses  that 
he  writes  "  enigmatically,"  and  we  see  him  take  the  greatest  precautions 
to  conceal  the  true  meaning  of  his  words.  Every  time  the  subject 
touches  the  greater  secrets  of  Oriental  Wisdom — the  cosmogou}^  of  the 
universe,  or  the  ideal  preexisting  world — Plato  shrouds  his  Philosophy 
in  the  profoundest  darkness.  His  Tirnceus  is  so  confused  that  no  one 
but  an  Initiate  can  understand  th-e  hidden  meaning.  As  already  said 
in  his  Unveiled : 

The  speculations  of  Plato  in  the  Banquet  on  the  creation,  or  rather  the  evolution, 
of  primordial  men,  and  the  essay  on  cosmogony  in  the  Timcsus,  must  be  taken 
Jlegorically  if  we  accept  them  at  all.  It  is  this  hidden  Pythagorean  meaning  in 
Timceus,  Cratylus,  and  Partnenides,  and  a  few  other  trilogies  and  dialogues,  that  the 
Neoplatonists  ventured  to  expound,  as  far  as  the  theurgical  vow  of  secresy  would 
allow  them.  The  Pythagorean  doctrine  that  God  is  the  Universal  Mind  diffuse<l 
through  all  things,  and  the  dogma  of  the  soul's  immortality,  are  the  leading 
features  in  these  apparently  incongruous  teachings.  His  piety  and  the  great  vene- 
ration he  felt  for  the  Mysteries  are  sufficient  warrant  that  Plato  would  not  allow 
his  indiscretion  to  get  the  better  of  that  deep  sense  of  responsibility  which  is  felt 
by  every  Adept.  "Constantly  perfecting  himself  in  perfect  Mysteries  a  man  in 
them  alone  becomes  truly  perfect,"  says  he  in  the  Phcedrus. 

He  took  no  pains  to  conceal  his  displeasure  that  the  Mysteries  had  become  less 
secret  than  formerl}'.  Instead  of  profaning  them  by  putting  them  within  the 
reach  of  the  multitude,  he  would  have  guarded  them  with  jealous  care  against  all 
but  the  most  earnest  and  worthy  of  his  disciples.*  While  mentioning  the  Gods  on 
every  page,  his  monotheism  is  unquestionable,  for  the  whole  thread  of  his  dis- 
course indicates  that  by  the  term  "Gods"  he  means  a  class  of  beings  lower  in  the 
scale  than  Deities,  and  but  one  grade  higher  than  men.  Even  Josephus  perceived 
and  acknowledged  this  fact,  despite  the  natural  prejudice  of  his  race.      In   his 


*  This  assertion  is  clearly  corroborated  by  Plato  himself,  who  writes :  "  You  say  that  in  my  former 
discourse  I  have  not  sufficiently  explained  to  you  the  nature  of  the  First.  I  purposely  spoke 
enigmatically,  that  in  case  the  tablet  should  have  happened  with  any  accident,  either  by  sea  or  land, 
a  person  without  some  previous  knowledge  of  the  subject  might  not  be  able  to  understand  its  contents." 
(Plato,  Ep.,  ii.  312  ;  Cory,  Ancient  Fragments,  p.  304.) 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   PLATO'S  TEACHING.  n 

famous  onslaught  upon  Apion,  this  historian  says:  "Those,  however,  among  the 
Greeks  who  philosophized  in  accordance  with  truth  were  not  ignorant  of  anything, 
...  nor  did  they  fail  to  perceive  the  chilling  superficialities  of  the  mythical 
allegories,  on  which  account  they  justly  despised  them.  .  .  .  By  which  thing 
Plato,  being  moved,  says  it  is  not  necessary  to  admit  any  one  of  the  other  poets 
into  'the  Commonwealth,'  and  he  dismisses  Homer  blandly,  after  having  crowned 
him  and  pouring  unguent  upon  him,  in  order  that  indeed  he  should  not  destroy  by 
his  myths,  the  orthodox  belief  respecting  one  God."  * 

And  this  is  the  "  God  "  of  every  Philosopher,  God  infinite  and  im- 
personal. All  this  and  much  more,  which  there  is  no  room  here  to  quote, 
leads  one  to  the  undeniable  certitude  that  {a),  as  all  the  Sciences  and 
Philosophies  were  in  the  hands  of  the  temple  Hierophants,  Plato,  as 
initiated  by  them,  must  have  known  them;  and  {b),  that  logical 
inference  alone  is  amply  sufficient  to  justify  anyone  in  regarding  Plato's 
writings  as  allegories  and  "  dark  sayings,"  veiling  truths  which  he  had 
no  right  to  divulge. 

This  established,  how  comes  it  that  one  of  the  best  Greek  scholars  in 
England,  Prof.  Jowett,*the  modern  translator  of  Plato's  works,  seeks  to 
demonstrate  that  none  of  the  Dialogues— including  even  the  Timaus— 
have  any  element  of  Oriental  Mysticism  about  them  ?  Those  who  can 
discern  the  true  spirit  of  Plato's  Philosophy  will  hardly  be  convinced 
by  the  arguments  which  the  Master  of  Balliol  College  lays  before  his 
readers.  "Obscure  and  repulsive"  to  him,  the  Timcsus  may  cer- 
tainly be ;  but  it  is  as  certain  that  this  obscurity  does  not  arise,  as  the 
Professor  tells  his  public,  "  in  the  infancy  of  physical  science,"  but 
rather  in  its  days  of  secresy  ;  not  "  out  of  the  confusion  of  theological, 
mathematical,  and  physiological  notions,"  or  "out  of  the  desire  to 
conceive  the  whole  of  Nature  without  any  adequate  knowledge  of  the 
parts."t  For  Mathematics  and  Geometry  were  the  backbone  of  Occult 
cosmogony,  hence  of  "Theology,"  and  the  physiological  notions  of  the 
ancient  Sages  are  being  daily  verified  by  Science  in  our  age  ;  at  least, 
to  those  who  know  how  to  read  and  understand  ancient  Esoteric  works. 
The  "  knowledge  of  the  parts  "  avails  us  little,  if  this  knowledge  only 
leads  us  the  more  to  ignorance  of  the  Whole,  or  the  "  nature  and  reason 
of  the  Universal,"  as  Plato  called  Deity,  and  causes  us  to  blunder  most 
egregiously  because  of  our  boasted  inductive  methods.    Plato  may  have 


•   Isis  Unveiled,  i.  287,  288. 

+  The  Dialogues  of  Plato,  translated  by  B.  Jowett,  Regius  Professor  of  Greek  at  the  University  of 
Oxford,  iii.  523. 


8  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

been  "  incapable  of  induction,  or  generalization  in  the  modern  sense"  ;* 
he  may  have  been  ignorant  also,  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  which, 
we  are  told,  "was  absolutely  unknown  to  him,"t  but  then,  there  is 
naught  to  disprove  that  he  knew  what  blood  is — and  this  is  more  than 
any  modern  Physiologist  or  Biologist  can  claim  nowadays. 

Though  a  wider  and  far  more  generous  margin  for  knowledge  is 
allowed  the  "physical  philosopher "  by  Prof.  Jowett  than  by  nearly 
any  other  modern  commentator  and  critic,  nevertheless,  his  criticism 
so  considerably  outweighs  his  laudation,  that  it  may  be  as  well  to 
quote  his  own  words,  to  show  clearly  his  bias.     Thus  he  says : 

To  briug  sense  under  the  control  of  reason  ;  to  find  some  way  through  the 
labyrinth  or  chaos  of  appearances,  either  the  highwaj'  of  mathematics,  or  more 
devious  paths  suggested  by  the  analogy  of  man  with  the  world  and  of  the  world 
with  man  ;  to  see  that  all  things  have  a  cause  and  are  tending  towards  an  end — 
this  is  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  physical  philosopher.  J  But  we  neither  appreciate 
the  conditions  of  knowledge  to  which  he  was  subjected,  nor  have  the  ideas  w-hich 
fastened  upon  his  imagination  the  same  hold  upon  us.  For  he  is  hovering  between 
matter  and  mind  ;  he  is  under  the  dominion  of  abstractions  ;  his  impress  ions  are 
taken  almost  at  random  from  the  outside  of  nature  ;  he  sees  the  light,  but  not  the 
objects  which  are  revealed  b}' the  light;  and  he  brings  into  juxtaposition  things 
which  to  us  appear  wide  as  the  poles  asunder,  because  he  finds  nothing  between 
them. 

The  last  proposition  but  one  must  evidently  be  distasteful  to  the 
modern  "physical  philosopher,"  who  sees  the  "objects"  before  him, 
but  fails  to  see  the  light  of  the  Universal  Mind,  which  reveals  them, 
i.e.,  who  proceeds  in  a  diametrically  opposite  way.  Therefore  the 
learned  Professor  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  ancient  Philosopher, 
whom  he  now  judges  from  Plato's  Timceiis,  must  have  acted  in  a 
decidedly  unphilosophical  and  even  irrational  wa)'-.     For: 

He  passes  abruptly  from  persons  to  ideas  and  numbers,  and  from  ideas  and 
7mmbers  to  persons, \\i&  confuses  subject  and  object,  yif/'i/  a.i\di  final  causes,  and  in 


•  Op.  cit.,  p.  561. 

+  Op.  cit.,  p.  591. 

t  This  definition  places  (unwittingly,  of  course),  the  ancient  "physical  philosopher"  many  cubits 
higher  than  his  modern  "physical  "  confrere,  since  the  ullima  thulc  of  the  latter  is  to  lead  mankind 
to  believe  that  neither  universe  nor  man  have  any  cause  at  all— not  an  intelligent  one  at  all  events— 
and  that  they  have  sprung  into  existence  oviring  to  blind  chance  and  a  senseless  whirling  of  atoms. 
Which  of  the  two  hypotheses  is  the  more  rational  and  logical  is  left  to  the  impartial  reader  to 
decide. 

\  Italics  are  mine.  Every  tyro  in  Eastern  Philosophy,  every  Kabalist,  will  see  the  reason  lor  such 
an  association  of  persons  with  ideas,  numbers,  and  geometrical  figures.  For  number,  says  Philolaus, 
"  is  the  dominant  and  self-produced  bond  of  the  eternal  continuance  of  things."  Alone  the  modem 
Scholar  remains  blind  to  the  grand  truth. 


SELF-CONTRADICTION   OF   THE   CRITIC.  9 

dreaming  of  geometrical  figures*  is  lost  in  a  flux  of  sense.  And  now  an  effort  of 
mind  is  required  on  our  parts  in  order  to  understand  his  double  language,  or  to 
apprehend  the  twilight  character  of  the  knowledge  and  the  genius  of  ancient  philo- 
sophers which,  under  such  conditions  [.?],  seems  by  a  divine  power  in  many 
instances  to  have  anticipated  the  truth. t 

Whether  '*such  conditions"  imply  those  of  ignorance  and  mental 
stolidity  in  "the  genius  of  ancient  philosophers"  or  something  else, 
we  do  not  know.  But  what  we  do  know  is  that  the  meaning  of  the 
sentences  we  have  italicized  is  perfectly  clear.  Whether  the  Regius 
Professor  of  Greek  believes  or  disbelieves  in  a  hidden  sense  of  geo- 
metrical figures  and  of  the  Esoteric  "jargon,"  he  nevertheless  admits 
the  presence  of  a  "  double  language"  in  tlie  writings  of  these  Philo- 
sophers. Thence  he  admits  a  hidden  meaning,  which  must  have  had 
an  interpretation.  Why,  then,  does  he  flatly  contradict  his  own  state- 
ment on  the  very  next  page?  And  why  should  he  deny  to  the 
7z'w^«5— that  preeminently  Pythagorean  (mystic)  Dialogue— any  Occult 
meaning  and  take  such  pains  to  convince  his  readers  that 

The  influence  which  the  Timcsus  has  exercised  upon  posterity  is  partly  due  to 
a  misunderstanding. 

The  following  quotation  from  his  Introduction  is  in  direct  contradic- 
tion with  the  paragraph  which  precedes  it,  as  above  quoted : 

In  the  supposed  depths  of  this  dialogue  the  Neo-Platonists  found  hidden 
meanings  and  connections  with  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Scriptures,  and  out  of 
them  they  dictated  doctrines  quite  at  variance  with  the  spirit  of  Plato.  Believ-ing 
that  he  was  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  had  received  his  wisdom  from  Moses,! 


•  Here  again  the  ancient  Philosopher  seems  to  be  ahead  of  the  modern.  For  he  only  "  confuses 
.  .  .  first  and  final  causes  "  (which  confusion  is  denied  by  those  who  know  the  spirit  of  ancient 
scholarship),  whereas  his  modern  successor  is  confessedly  and  absolutely  ignorant  of  both.  Mr. 
Tyndall  shows  Science  "  powerless"  to  solve  a  single  one  of  the  final  problems  of  Nature  and  "disci- 
plined [read,  modern  materialistic],  imagination  retiring  in  bewilderment  from  the  contemplation  of 
the  problems"  of  the  world  of  matter.  He  even  doubts  whether  the  men  of  present  Science  possess 
"  the  intellectual  elements  which  would  enable  them  to  grapple  vrith  the  ultimate  structural  energies 
of  Nature."  But  for  Plato  and  his  disciples,  the  lower  types  were  but  the  concrete  images  of  the 
higher  abstract  ones;  the  immortal  Soul  has  an  arithmetical,  as  the  body  has  a  geometrical, 
beginning.  This  beginning,  as  the  reflection  of  the  great  universal  Archseus  (Anima  Mundi),  is 
self-moving,  and  from  the  centre  diffu.ses  itself  over  the  whole  body  of  the  Macrocosm. 

+  Op.  cit.,  p.  523. 

t  Nowhere  are  the  Neoplatonists  guilty  of  such  an  absurdity.  The  learned  Professor  of  Greek  must 
have  been  thinking  of  two  spurious  works  attributed  by  Eusebius  and  St.  Jerome  to  Ammonius 
Saccas,  who  wrote  nothing  ;  or  must  have  confused  the  Neoplatouists  with  Philo  Judaeus.  But 
then  Philo  lived  over  130  years  before  the  birth  of  the  founder  of  Neoplatonism.  He  belonged  to  the 
School  of  Aristobulus  the  Jew,  who  lived  under  Ptolemy  Philometer  (150  years  B.C.),  and  is  credited 
with  having  inaugurated  the  movement  which  tended  to  prove  that  Plato  and  even  the  Peripatetic 
Philosophy  were  derived  from  the  "  revealed  "  Mosaic  Books.  Valckenaer  tries  to  show  that  the 
author  of  the  Commentaries  on  the  Books  of  Moses,  was  not  Aristobulus,  the  sycophant  of  Ptolemy. 
But  whatever  he  was,  he  was  not  a  Neoplatonist,  but  lived  before,  or  during  the  days  of  Philo  Judseus, 
since  the  latter  seems  to  know  his  works  and  follow  his  methods. 


lO  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

they  seemed  to  find  in  his  writings  the  Christian  Trinity,  the  Word,  the  Church  . 
.  .  and  the  Neo-Platonists  had  a  method  of  interpretation  which  could  elicit 
any  meaning  out  of  any  words.  They  were  really  incapable  of  distinguishing 
between  the  opinions  of  one  philosopher  and  another,  or  between  the  serious 
thoughts  of  Plato  and  his  passing  fancies.*  .  .  .  [But]  there  is  no  danger  of  the 
modern  commentators  on  the  Timceus  falling  into  the  absurdity  of  the  Neo- 
Platonists. 

No  danger  whatever,  of  course,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  modern 
commentators  have  never  had  the  key  to  Occult  interpretations.  And 
before  another  word  is  said  in  defence  of  Plato  and  the  Neoplatonists, 
the  learned  master  of  Balliol  College  ought  to  be  respectfully  asked : 
What  does,  or  can  he  know  of  the  Ksoteric  canon  of  interpretation  ? 
By  the  term  "  canon  "  is  here  meant  that  key  which  was  communicated 
orally  from  "  mouth  to  ear  "  by  the  Master  to  the  disciple,  or  by  the 
Hierophant  to  the  candidate  for  initiation  ;  this  from  time  immemorial 
throughout  a  long  series  of  ages,  during  which  the  inner — not  public — 
Mysteries  were  the  most  sacred  institution  of  every  land.  Without 
such  a  key  no  correct  interpretation  of  either  the  Dialogues  of  Plato  or 
any  Scripture,  from  the  Vedas  to  Homer,  from  the  Ze?td  Avesfa  to  the 
Mosaic  Books,  is  possible.  How  then  can  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jowett  know 
that  the  interpretations  made  by  the  Neoplatonists  of  the  various 
sacred  books  of  the  nations  were  "  absurdities  ?"  Where,  again,  has  he 
found  an  opportunity  of  studying  these  "  interpretations  "  ?  History 
shows  that  all  such  works  were  destroyed  by  the  Christian  Church 
Fathers  and  their  fanatical  catechumens,  wherever  they  were  found. 
To  say  that  such  men  as  Ammonius,  a  genius  and  a  saint,  whose  learn- 
ing and  holy  life  earned  for  him  the  title  of  Theodidaktos  ("  God- 
taught"),  such  men  as  Plotinus,  Porphyrj^  and  Proclus,  were  "  incapable 
of  distinguishing  between  the  opinions  of  one  philosopher  and  another, 
or  between  the  serious  thoughts  of  Plato  and  his  fancies,"  is  to  assume 
an  untenable  position  for  a  Scholar.  It  amounts  to  saying  that,  (a) 
scores  of  the  most  famous  Philosophers,  the  greatest  Scholars  and 
Sages  of  Greece  and  of  the  Roman  Empire  were  dull  fools,  and  (5)  that 
all  the  other  commentators,  lovers  of  Greek  Philosophy,  some  of  them 
the  acutest  intellects  of  the  age — who  do  not  agree  with  Dr.  Jowett — 
are  also  foolsand  no  betterthan  thosewhom  they  admire.  Thepatronising 
tone  of  the  last  above-quoted  passage  is  modulated  with  the  most  naive 
conceit,  remarkable  even  in  our  age  of  self-glorification  and  mutual- 

•  Only  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  a  Christian  Neoplatonist  and  a  very  fantastic  writer. 


THE    CHARACTER   OF   AMMONIUS   SACCAS.  II 

admiration  cliques.     We  have  to  compare  the   Professor's  views  with 
those  of  some  other  scholars. 

Says  Prof.  Alexander  Wilder  of  New  York,  one  of  the  best  Platonists 
of  the  day,   speaking  of  Ammonius,  the  founder  of  the  Neoplatonic 

School : 

His  deep  spiritual  intuition,  his  extensive  learning,  his  familiarity  with  the 
Christian  Fathers,  Pantsenus,  Clement,  and  Athenagoras,  and  with  the  most 
erudite  philosophers  of  the  time,  all  fitted  him  for  the  labour  which  he  performed 
so  thoroughly.*  He  was  successful  in  drawing  to  his  views  the  greatest  scholars 
and  public  men  of  the  Roman  Empire,  who  had  little  taste  for  wasting  time  in 
dialectic  pursuits  or  superstitious  obser^•ances.  The  results  of  his  ministration  are 
perceptible  at  the  present  day  in  every  country  of  the  Christian  worid ;  every  pro- 
minent system  of  doctrine  now  bearing  the  marks  of  his  plastic  hand.  Every 
ancient  philosophy  has  had  its  votaries  among  the  moderns  ;  and  even  Judaism 
...  has  taken  upon  itself  changes  which  were  suggested  by  the  "  God-taught " 
Alexandrian.  .  .  He  was  a  man  of  rare  learning  and  endowments,  of  blameless 
life  and  amiable  disposition.  His  almost  superhuman  ken  and  many  excellencies 
won  for  him  the  title  of  Theodidaktos  ;  but  he  followed  the  modest  example  of 
Pythagoras,  an<l  only  assumed  the  title  of  Philalethian,  or  lover  of  truth.t 

It  would  be  happy  for  truth  and  fact  were  our  modern  scholars  to 
follow  as  modestly  in  the  steps  of  their  great  predecessors.  But  not 
they — Philalethians ! 

Moreover,  we  know  that : 
Like  Orpheus,  Pvthagoras,  Confucius,  Socrates,  and  Jesus  himself,t  Ammonius 
committed  nothing 'to  writing.}      Instead  he     .     .     .     communicated  his  most 


•  The  labour  of  reconciling  the  different  systems  of  religion. 

+  New Matonhm  and  Alchemy,  by  Alex.  Wilder,  M.D.  pp.  7.  4- 

X  It  is  well-known  that,  though  born  of  Christian  parents,  Ammonius  had  renounced  the  tenets  of 
the  Church-Eusebius  and  Jerome  notwithstanding.  Porphyry,  the  disciple  of  Plotinus,  who  had 
lived  with  Ammonius  for  eleven  years  together,  and  who  had  no  interest  for  stating  an  untruth, 
positively  declares  that  he  had  renounced  Christianity  entirely.  On  the  other  hand,  we  know  that 
Ammonius  believed  in  the  bright  Gods.  Protectors,  and  that  the  Neoplatonic  Philosophy  was  as 
'■  pacran  "  as  it  was  mystical.  But  Eusebius.  the  most  unscrupulous  forger  and  falsifier  of  old  texts, 
and  St.  Jerome,  an  out-and-out  fanatic,  who  had  both  an  interest  in  denying  the  fact,  contradict 
Porphyrj-.  We  prefer  to  believe  the  latter,  who  has  left  to  posterity  an  unblemished  uame  and  a  great 
reputation  for  honesty. 

J  Two  works  are  falsely  attributed  to  Ammonius.  One,  now  lost,  called  De  Consensu  Moysis  eljesu, 
ismeutioned  by  the  same  -trustworthy"  Eusebius.  the  Bishop  of  Csesar^a,  and  the  fneud  of  tha 
Christian  Emperor  Constantine,  who  died,  however,  a  heathen.  All  that  is  known  of  this  pseudo-work 
is  that  Jerome  bestows  great  praise  upon  it  (  Vir.  Illust.,  \  55  ;  and  Euseb.,  H.  E.,  vi.  19)-  The  other 
spurious  production  is  called  the  Dialesseron  (or  the  "  Harmony  of  the  Gospels  ").  This  is  partially 
extant.  But  then,  again,  it  exists  only  in  the  Latin  version  of  Victor,  Bishop  of  Capua  (sixth  century), 
who  attributed  it  himself  to  Tatian,  and  as  wrongly,  probably,  as  later  scholars  attributed  the 
DiaUsseron  to  Ammonius.  Therefore  no  great  reliance  can  be  placed  upon  it,  nor  on  its  "esotenc 
interpretation  of  the  Gospels.  Is  it  this  work,  we  wonder,  which  led  Prof.  Jowett  to  regard  the  Neo- 
platonic interpretations  as  "  absurdities  "  ? 


12  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

important  doctrines  to  persons  duly  instructed  and  disciplined,  imposing  on  them 
the  obligations  of  secresy,  as  was  done  before  him  by  Zoroaster  and  Pythagoras, 
and  in  the  Mysteries.  Except  a  few  treatises  of  his  disciples  we  have  only  the 
declarations  of  his  adversaries  from  which  to  ascertain  what  he  actually  taught.* 

It  is  from  the  biassed  statements  of  such  "  adversaries,"  probably, 
that  the  learned  Oxford  translator  of  Plato's  Dialogues  came  to  the 
conclusion  that: 

That  which  was  truly  great  and  truly  characteristic  of  him  [Plato],  his  effort 
to  realise  and  connect  abstractions,  was  not  understood  by  them  [the  Neoplatonists] 
at  all  [?]. 

He  states,  contemptuously  enough  for  the  ancient  methods  of 
intellectual  analysis,  that: 

In  the  present  day  ...  an  ancient  philosopher  is  to  be  interpreted  from 
himself  and  by  the  contemporary  history  of  thought.t 

This  is  like  saying  that  the  ancient  Greek  canon  of  proportion  (if 
ever  found),  and  the  Athena  Promachus  of  Phidias,  have  to  be 
interpreted  in  the  present  day  from  the  contemporary  history  of 
architecture  and  sculpture,  from  the  Albert  Hall  and  Memorial  Monu- 
ment, and  the  hideous  Madonnas  in  crinolines  sprinkled  over  the  fair 
face  of  Italy.  Prof.  Jowett  remarks  that  "mysticism  is  not  criticism." 
No;  but  neither  is  criticism  always  fair  and  sound  judgment. 
La  critique  est  ais^e,  mais  I'art  est  difficile. 

And  such  "art"  our  critic  of  the  Neoplatonists — his  Greek  scholar- 
ship notwithstanding — lacks  from  a  to  z.  Nor  has  he,  very  evidently, 
the  key  to  the  true  spirit  of  the  Mysticism  of  Pythagoras  and  Plato, 
since  he  denies  even  in  the  TimcBus  an  element  of  Oriental  Mj^sticism, 
and  seeks  to  show  Greek  Philosophy  reacting  upon  the  East,  forgetting 
that  the  truth  is  the  exact  reverse;  that  it  is  "the  deeper  and  more 
pervading  spirit  of  Orientalism"  that  had — through  Pythagoras  and 
his  own  initiation  into  the  Mysteries — penetrated  into  the  verj--  depths 
of  Plato's  soul. 

But  Dr.  Jowett  does  not  see  this.  Nor  is  he  prepared  to  admit  that 
anything  good  or  rational — in  accordance  with  the  "contemporary 
history  of  thought" — could  ever  come  out  of  that  Nazareth  of  the 
Pagan  Mysteries;  nor  even  that  there  is  anything  to  interpret  of  a 
hidden  nature  in  the  TimcEus  or  any  other  Dialogue.     For  him. 

The  so-called  mysticism  of  Plato  is  purely  Greek,  arising  out  of  his  imperfect 

•  Op.  cit.,  p.  7.  +  op.  cit.,  iii,  524. 


PLATO    A  FOLLOWER   OF  PYTHAGORAS.  13 

knowledge*  and  high  aspirations,  and  is  the  growth  of  an  age  in  which  philosophy 
is  not  wholly  separated  from  poetry  and  mj-thology.t 

Among  several  other  equally  erroneous  propositions,  it  is  especially 
the  assumptions  (a)  that  Plato  was  entirely  free  from  any  element  of 
Eastern  Philosophy  in  his  writings,  and  {b)  that  every  modern  scholar, 
without  being  a  Mystic  and  a  Kabalist  himself,  can  pretend  to  judge 
of  ancient  Esotericism — which  we  mean  to  combat.  To  do  this 
we  have  to  produce  more  authoritative  statements  than  our  own 
would  be,  and  bring  the  evidence  of  other  scholars  as  great  as  Dr. 
Jowett,  ifnot  greater,  specialists  in  their  subjects,  moreover,  to  bear 
on  and  destroy  the  arguments  of  the  Oxford  Regius  Professor  of  Greek. 

That  Plato  was  undeniably  an  ardent  admirer  and  follower  of  Pytha- 
goras no  one  wall  deny.  And  it  is  equally  undeniable,  as  Matter  has  it, 
that  Plato  had  inherited  on  the  one  hand  his  doctrines,  and  on  the 
other  had  drawn  his  wisdom,  from  the  same  sources  as  the  Samian 
Philosopher.]:  And  the  doctrines  of  Pythagoras  are  Oriental  to  the 
backbone,  and  even  Brahmanical ;  for  this  great  Philosopher  ever 
pointed  to  the  far  East  as  the  source  whence  he  derived  his  information 
and  his  Philosophy,  and  Colebrooke  shows  that  Plato  makes  the  same 
profession  in  his  Epistles,  and  says  that  he  has  taken  his  teachings 
"from  ancient  and  sacred  doctrines."§  Furthermore,  the  ideas  of  both 
Pythagoras  and  Plato  coincide  too  well  with  the  systems  of  India 
and  with  Zoroastrianism  to  admit  any  doubt  of  their  origin  by  anyone 
who  has  some  acquaintance  with  these  systems.     Again : 

Pant£enus,  Athenagoras,  and  Clement  were  thoroughly  instructed  in  the 
Platonic  philosophy,  and  comprehended  its  essential  unity  with  the  Oriental 
systems.  || 

The  history  of  Pantaenus  and  his  contemporaries  may  give  the  key 
to  the  Platonic,  and  at  the  same  time  Oriental,  elements  that  predomi- 
nate so  strikingly  in  the  Gospels  over  the  Jewish  Scriptures. 


*  "Imperfect  knowledge"  of  what?  That  Plato  was  ignorant  of  many  of  the  modem  "working 
hypotheses"— as  ignorant  as  our  immediate  posterity  is  sure  to  be  of  the  said  hypotheses  when  they 
in  their  turn  after  exploding  join  the  "great  majority  "—is  perhaps  a  blessing  in  disguise. 

t  Op.  cit.,  p.  524. 

t  Histoire  Critique  dtt  Gnosticisme,  by  M.  J.  Matter,  Professor  of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Strasburg, 
"It  is  in  Pythagoras  and  Plato  that  we  find,  in  Greece,  the  first  elements  of  [Oriental]  Gnosticism," 
he  says.    (Vol.  i,  pp.  48  and  50.) 

{  Asiat.  Trans.,  i,  579. 

II  New  Piatonism  and  Alchemy,  p.  4. 


SECTION    I. 

Preliminary    Survey. 


Initiates  who  have  acquired  powers  and  transcendental  knowledge 
can  be  traced  back  to  the  Fourth  Root  Race  from  our  own  age.  As 
the  multiplicity  of  the  subjects  to  be  dealt  with  prohibits  the  introduc- 
tion of  such  a  historical  chapter,  which,  however  historical  in  fact  and 
truth,  would  be  rejected  a  priori  as  blasphemy  and  fable  by  both  Church 
and  Science — we  shall  only  touch  on  the  subject.  Science  strikes  out, 
at  its  own  sweet  will  and  fanc}^  dozens  of  names  of  ancient  heroes, 
simply  because  there  is  too  great  an  element  of  mj^th  in  their  histories ; 
the  Church  insists  that  biblical  patriarchs  shall  be  regarded  as  his- 
torical personages,  and  terms  her  seven  "Star-angels"  the  "historical 
channels  and  agents  of  the  Creator,"  Both  are  right,  since  each  finds 
a  strong  part}'  to  side  with  it.  Mankind  is  at  best  a  sorry  herd  of 
Panurgian  sheep,  following  blindly  the  leader  that  happens  to  suit 
it  at  the  moment.  Mankind — the  majority  at  any  rate — hates  to 
think  for  itself.  It  resents  as  an  insult  the  humblest  invitation  to  step 
for  a  moment  outside  the  old  well-beaten  tracks,  and,  judging  for  itself, 
to  enter  into  a  new  path  in  some  fresh  direction.  Give  it  an  unfamiliar 
problem  to  solve,  and  if  its  mathematicians,  not  liking  its  looks,  refuse 
to  deal  with  it,  the  crowd,  unfamiliar  with  mathematics,  will  stare  at 
the  unknown  quantit}-,  and  getting  hopelessly  entangled  in  sundry 
ods  and  ys,  will  turn  round,  trying  to  rend  to  pieces  the  uninvited 
disturber  of  its  intellectual  Nirvana.  This  may,  perhaps,  account  for 
the  ease  and  extraordinary  success  enjoyed  by  the  Roman  Church  in 
her  conversions  of  nominal  Protestants  and  Free-thinkers,  whose  name 
is  legion,  but  who  have  never  gone  to  the  trouble  of  thinking  for  them- 
selves on  these  most  important  and  tremendous  problems  of  man's 
inner  nature. 

And  yet,  if  the  evidence  of  facts,  the  records  preserved  in  History, 
and  the  iininterrupted  anathemas  of  the  Church  against  "Black  Magic" 
and  Magicians  of  the  accursed  race  of  Cain,  are  not  to  be  heeded,  our 
efforts  will  prove  very  puny  indeed.    When,  for  nearly  two  millenniums, 


THE    PROTECTORS   OF  CHINA.  15 

a  body  of  men  has  never  ceased  to  lift  its  voice  against  Black  Magic, 
the  inference  ought  to  be  irrefutable  that  if  Black  Magic  exists  as  a 
real   fact,   there   must   be   somewhere   its   counterpart — White  Magic, 
False  silver  coins  could  have  no  existence  if  there  were  no  genuine 
silver   money.     Nature   is  dual   in   whatever   she   attempts,    and   this 
ecclesiastical    persecution    ought    alone   to   have   opened  the  eyes   of 
the    public    long   ago.      However  much   travellers   may  be   ready   to 
pervert  every  fact  with  regard  to  abnormal  powers  with  which  certain 
men  are  gifted  in  "  heathen  "  countries  ;  however  eager  they  may  be 
to  put  false  constructions  on  such  facts,  and — to  use  an  old  proverb — 
"to  call  white  swan  black  goose,"  and  to  kill  it,  yet  the  evidence  of 
even  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  ought  to  be  taken  into  considera- 
tion, once  they  swear  in  a  body  to  certain  facts.     Nor  is  it  because 
they  choose  to  see  Satanic  agency  in  manifestations  of  a  certain  kind, 
that  their  evidence  as  to  the  existence  of  such  powers  can  be  dis- 
regarded.    For  what  do  they  say  of  China  ?     Those  missionaries  who 
have  lived  in  the  country  for  long  years,  and  have  seriously  studied 
every  fact  and  belief  that  may  prove  an  obstacle  to  their  success  in 
making  conversions,  and  who  have  become  familiar  with  ever>'  exoteric 
rite  of  both  the  official  religion  and  sectarian  creeds — all  swear  to  the 
existence  of  a  certain  body  of  men,  whom  no  one  can  reach  but  the 
Emperor  and  a  select  body  of  high  officials.     A  few  years  ago,  before 
the  waf^'in  Tonkin,  the  archbishop  in  Pekin,  on  the  report  of  some 
hundreds  of  missionaries  and  Christians,  wrote  to  Rome  the  identical 
story  that  had  been  reported  twenty-five  years  before,  and  had  been 
widely  circulated  in  clerical  papers.     They  had  fathomed,  it  was  said, 
the  mystery  of  certain  official  deputations,  sent  at  times  of  danger  by 
the  Emperor  and  ruling  powers  to  their  Sheu  and  Kiuay,  as  they  are 
called  among  the  people.     These  Sheu  and   Kiuay,  they  explained, 
were  the  Genii  of  the  mountains,  endowed  with  the  most  miraculous 
powers.     They  are  regarded  as  the  protectors  of  China,  by  the  "  igno- 
rant" masses;  as  the  incarnation  of  Satanic  power  by  the  good  and 
"learned"  missionaries. 

The  Sheu  and  Kiuay  are  men  belonging  to  another  state  of  being  to  that  of 
the  ordinary  man,  or  to  the  state  they  enjoyed  while  they  were  clad  in  their 
bodies.  They  are  disembodied  spirits,  ghosts  and  larvae,  living,  nevertheless,  in 
objective  form  on  earth,  and  dwelling  in  the  fastnesses  of  mountains,  inaccessible 
to  all  but  those  whom  they  permit  to  visit  them.* 


*  This  fact  and  others  may  be  found  in  Chinese  Missionary  Reports,  and  in  a  work  by  Monseigneur 
i.s:!aplace,  a  Bishop  in  China.    AnnaUs  de  la  Propagation  de  la  Foi. 


l5  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

In  Tibet  certain  ascetics  are  also  called  Lha,  Spirits,  by  those  with 
whom  they  do  not  choose  to  communicate.  The  Sheu  and  Kiuay,  who 
enjoy  the  highest  consideration  of  theKmperorand  Philosophers,  and  of 
Confucianists  who  believe  in  no  "  Spirits,"  are  simply  L,ohans — Adepts 
who  live  in  the  greatest  solitude  in  their  unknown  retreats. 

But  both  Chinese  exclusiveness  and  Nature  seem  to  have  allied 
themselves  against  European  curiosity  and — as  it  is  sincerely  regarded 
in  Tibet — desecration.  Marco  Polo,  the  famous  traveller,  was  perhaps 
the  European  who  ventured  farthest  into  the  interior  of  these 
countries.     What  was  said  of  him  in  1876  may  now  be  repeated. 

The  district  of  the  Gobi  wilderness,  and,  in  fact,  the  whole  area  of  Independent 
Tartary  and  Tibet  is  carefully  guarded  against  foreign  intrusion.  Those  who  are 
permitted  to  traverse  it  are  under  the  particular  care  and  pilotage  of  certain  agents 
of  the  chief  authoritj',  and  are  in  duty  bound  to  convey  no  intelligence  respecting 
places  and  persons  to  the  outside  world.  But  for  this  restriction,  many  might 
contribute  to  these  pages  accounts  of  exploration,  adventure,  and  discovery  that 
would  be  read  with  interest.  The  time  will  come,  sooner  or  later,  when  the 
dreadful  sand  of  the  desert  will  yield  up  its  long-buried  secrets,  and  then  there 
will  indeed  be  unlooked-for  mortifications  for  our  modern  vanity. 

"  The  people  of  Pashai,"*says  Marco  Polo,  the  daring  traveller  of  the  thirteenth 
centurj-,  "  are  great  adepts  in  sorceries  and  the  diabolic  arts."  And  his  learned 
tditor  adds  :  "This  Paschai,  or  Udj'aua,  was  the  native  country  of  Padma  Sambhava, 
one  of  the  chief  apostles  of  L,amaism,  i.e.,  of  Tibetan  Buddhism,  and  a  great 
master  of  enchantments.  The  doctrines  of  Sakya,  as  they  prevailed  in  Udyana  in 
old  times,  were  probably  strongly  tinged  with  Sivaitic  magic,  and  the  Tibetans 
still  regard  the  locality  as  the  classic  ground  of  sorcery  and  witchcraft." 

The  "  old  times  "  are  just  like  the  "  modern  times  "  ;  nothing  is  changed  as  to 
magical  practices  except  that  they  have  become  still  more  esoteric  and  arcane, 
and  that  the  caution  of  the  adepts  increases  in  proportion  to  the  traveller's  curiosity. 
Hiouen-Thsang  says  of  the  inhabitants:  "The  men  .  .  .  are  fond  of  study, 
but  pursue  it  with  no  ardour.  The  science  of  magical  formula;  has  become  a  regular 
professional  business  luiih  them.''''  t  We  will  not  contradict  the  venerable  Chinese 
pilgrim  on  this  point,  and  are  willing  to  admit  that  in  the  seventh  century  sojne 
people  made  "  a  professional  business"  of  magic;  so,  also,  do  some  people  now, 
but  certainlj'  not  the  true  adepts.  Moreover,  in  that  century,  Buddhism  had 
hardly  penetrated  into  Tibet,  and  its  races  were  steeped  in  the  sorceries  of  the  Bhon^ 
— the  pre-lamaic  religion.  It  is  not  Hiouen-Thsang,  the  pious,  courageous  man 
who  risked  his  life  a  hundred  times  to  have  the  bliss  of  percei\4ng  Buddha's  shadow 
in  the  cave  of  Peshawur,  who  would  have  accused  the  good  lamas  and  monkish 
thaumaturgists  of  "making  a  professional  business"  of  showing  it  to  travellers. 

*  The  regions  somewhere  about  Udyana  and  Kashmir,  as  the  translator  and  editor  of  Marco  Polo 
Colonel  Yule)  believes  (i.  175). 

t  Voyage  des  Ptlerins  Bouddhistes,  Vol.  I. ;  Hisioire  de  la  Vie  dn  jjicuen-  Thsang,  etc.,  traduit  du 
chinois  eu  francais,  par  Stanislas  Julien. 


THE  A  B  C   OF  MAGIC.  j'j 

The  injunction  of  Gautama,  contained  in  his  answer  to  King  Prasenajit,  his  pro- 
tector, who  called  on  him  to  perform  miracles,  must  have  been  ever-present  to  the 
mind  of  Hiouen-Thsang.  "Great  king,"  said  Gautama,  "I  do  not  teach  the  law 
to  my  pupils,  telling  them,  '  Go,  ye  saints,  and  before  the  eyes  of  the  Brahmans 
and  householders  perform,  by  means  of  your  supernatural  powers,  miracles  greater 
than  any  man  can  perform.'  I  tell  them  when  I  teach  them  the  law,  '  Uve  ye 
saints,  hiding  your  good  works,  and  showing  your  sins.' " 

Struck  with  the  accounts  of  magical  exhibitions  witnessed  and  recorded  by 
travellers  of  every  age  who  had  visited  Tartary  and  Tibet,  Colonel  Yule  comes  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  natives  must  have  had  "  at  their  command  the  whole 
encyclopaedia  of  modern  Spiritualists."  Duhalde  mentions  among  their  sorceries 
the  art  of  producing  by  their  invocations  the  figures  of  Laotseu*  and  their 
divinities  in  the  air,  and  of  making  a  pencil  write  answers  to  questions  without 
anybody  touching  it."f 

The  former  invocations  pertain  to  the  religious  mysteries  of  their  sanctuaries  ; 
if  done  otherwise,  or  for  the  sake  of  gain,  they  are  considered  sorcery,  necromancy, 
and  strictly  forbidden.  The  latter  art,  that  of  making  a  pencil  write  without  con- 
tact, was  known  and  practised  in  China  and  other  countries  before  the  Christian 
era.     It  is  the  ABC  of  magic  in  those  countries. 

When  Hiouen-Thsang  desired  to  adore  the  shadow  of  Buddha,  it  was 
not  to  "professional  magicians"  that  he  resorted,  but  to  the  power  of  his 
own  soul-invocation  ;  the  power  of  prayer,  faith,  and  contemplation.  All 
was  dark  and  dreary  near  the  cavern  in  which  the  miracle  was  alleged  to 
sometimes  take  place.  Hiouen-Thsang  entered  and  began  his  devotions.  He 
made  one  hundred  salutations,  but  neither  saw  nor  heard  an)rthing.  Then, 
thinking  himself  too  sinful,  he  cried  bitterly  and  despaired.  But  as  he  was  about 
to  give  up  all  hope,  he  perceived  on  the  eastern  wall  a  feeble  light,  but  it  dis- 
appeared. He  renewed  his  prayers,  full  of  hope  this  time,  and  again  he  saw  the 
light,  which  flashed  and  disappeared  again.  After  this  he  made  a  solemn  vow :  he 
would  not  leave  the  cave  till  he  had  the  rapture  to  at  last  see  the  shadow  of  the 
"Venerable  of  the  Age."  He  had  to  wait  longer  after  this,  for  only  after  two 
hundred  prayers  was  the  dark  cave  suddenly  "  bathed  in  light,  and  the  shadow  of 
Buddha,  of  a  brilliant  white  colour,  rose  majestically  on  the  wall,  as  when  the 
clouds  suddenly  open,  and  all  at  once  display  the  marvellous  image  of  the 
'  Mountain  of  Light.'  A  dazzling  splendour  lighted  up  the  features  of  the  divine 
countenance.  Hiouen-Thsang  was  lost  in  contemplation  and  wonder,  and  would 
not  turn  his  eyes  away  from  the  sublime  and  incomparable  object."  Hiouen- 
Thsang  adds  in  his  own  diary,  Sce-yu-kee,  that  it  is  only  when  man  prays  with  sincere 
faith,  and  if  he  has  received  from  above  a  hidden  impression,  that  he  sees  the 
shadow  clearly,  but  he  cannot  enjoy  the  sight  for  any  length  of  time.  (Max 
Miiller,  Buddhist  Pilgrims.) 

From  one  end  to  the  other  the  country  is  full  of  mystics,  religious  philosophers, 
Buddhist  saints  and  magicians.  Belief  in  a  spiritual  world,  full  of  invisible  beings 
who,  on  certain  occasions,  appear  to  mortals  objectively,  is  universal.     "According 

•  I,ao-tse  ,  the  Chinese  philosopher.  t  772^  Rook  of  Ser  Marco  Polo,  i.  318. 

3    C 


iS  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

to  the  belief  of  the  nations  of  Central  Asia,"  remarks  I.  J.  Schmidt,  "the  earth  and 
its  interior,  as  well  as  the  encompassing  atmosphere,  are  filled  with  spiritual  beings, 
which  exercise  an  influence,  partly  beneficent,  partly  malignant,  on  the  whole  of 
organic  and  inorganic  nature.  .  .  .  Especially  are  deserts,  and  other  wild  and 
uninhabited  tracts,  or  regions  in  which  the  influences  of  nature  are  displayed  on  a 
gigantic  and  terrible  scale,  regarded  as  the  chief  abode  or  rendez-vous  of  evil  spirits. 
And  hence  the  steppes  of  Turan,  and  in  particular  the  great  sandy  desert  of  Gobi, 
have  been  looked  on  as  the  dwelling  place  of  malignant  beings,  from  days  of 
hoary  antiquity." 

The  treasures  exhumed  by  Dr.  Schliemann  at  Mycenae,  have  awakened  popular 
cupidity,  and  the  eyes  of  adventurous  speculators  are  being  turned  toward  the 
localities  where  the  wealth  of  ancient  peoples  is  supposed  to  be  buried,  in  crypt 
or  cave,  or  beneath  sand  or  alluvial  deposit.  Around  no  other  locality,  not  even 
Peru,  hang  so  man}'  traditions  as  around  the  Gobi  Desert.  In  independent 
Tartary  this  howling  waste  of  shifting  sand  was  once,  if  report  speaks  correctly, 
the  seat  of  one  of  the  richest  empires  the  world  ever  saw.  Beneath  the  surface 
is  said  to  lie  such  wealth  in  gold,  jewels,  statuary,  arms,  utensils,  and  all  that 
indicates  civilization,  luxury,  and  fine  arts,  as  no  existing  capital  of  Christendom 
can  show  to-day.  The  Gobi  sand  moves  regularly  from  east  to  west  before  terrific 
gales  that  blow  continually.  Occasionally  some  of  the  hidden  treasures  are 
uncovered,  but  not  a  native  dare  touch  them,  for  the  whole  district  is  under  the 
ban  of  a  mighty  spell.  Death  would  be  the  penalty.  Bahti — hideoiis,  but  faithful 
gnomes — guard  the  hidden  treasures  of  this  prehistoric  people,  awaiting  the  day 
when  the  revolution  of  C5-clic  periods  shall  again  cause  their  story  to  be  known 
for  the  instruction  of  mankind.* 

The  above  is  purposely  quoted  from  his  Unveiled  to  refresh  the 
reader's  memory.  One  of  the  cyclic  periods  has  just  been  passed,  and 
we  may  not  have  to  wait  to  the  end  of  Maht  Kalpa  to  have  revealed 
something  of  the  history  of  the  mysterious  desert,  in  spite  of  the  Bahti, 
and  even  the  Rakshasas  of  India,  not  less  "  hideoits."  No  tales 
or  fictions  were  given  in  our  earlier  volumes,  their  chaotic  state  not- 
withstanding, to  which  chaos  the  writer,  entirely  free  from  vanity, 
confesses  publicly  and  with  many  apologies. 

It  is  now  generally  admitted  that,  from  time  immemorial,  the  distant 
East,  India  especially,  was  the  land  of  knowledge  and  of  every  kind  of 
learning.  Yet  there  is  none  to  whom  the  origin  of  all  her  Arts  and 
Sciences  has  been  so  much  denied  as  to  the  land  of  the  primitive 
Aryas.  From  Architecture  down  to  the  Zodiac,  every  Science  worthy 
of  the  name  was  imported  by  the  Greeks,  the  mysterious  Yavanas — 
agreeably  with  the  decision  of  the  Orientalists  !  Therefore,  it  is  but 
logical  that  even  the  knowledge  of  Occult  Science  should  be  refused 


*  Isis  Unveiled,  i.  599-601,  603,  598. 


MAGIC   AS   OLD   AS   MAN. 


lO 


to  India,  since  of  its  general  practice  in  that  country  less  is  known 
than  in  the  case  of  anj'  other  ancient  people.  It  is  so,  simply  because  : 
With  the  Hindus  it  was,  and  is,  more  esoteric,  if  possible,  than  it  was  even 
among  the  Egyptian  priests.  So  sacred  was  it  deemed  that  its  existence  was  only 
half  admitted,  and  it  was  only  practised  in  public  emergencies.  It  was  more  than 
a  religious  matter,  for  it  was  [and  is  still]  considered  divine.  The  Egyptian  hiero- 
phants,  notwithstanding  the  practice  of  a  stern  and  pure  morality,  could  not  be 
compared  for  one  moment  with  the  ascetical  Gymnosophists,  either  in  holiness  of 
life  or  miraculous  powers  developed  in  them  by  the  supernatural  abjuration  of 
everything  earthly.  By  those  who  knew  them  well  they  were  held  in  still  greater 
reverence  than  the  magians  of  Chaldaea.  "Denying  themselves  the  simplest 
comforts  of  life,  they  dwelt  in  woods,  and  led  the  life  of  the  most  secluded  hermits,"* 
while  their  Egyptian  brothers  at  least  congregated  together.  Notwithstanding 
the  slur  thrown  on  all  who  practised  magic  and  divination,  history  has  proclaimed 
them  as  possessing  the  greatest  secrets  in  medical  knowledge  and  unsurpassed 
skill  in  its  practice.  Numerous  are  the  volumes  preserved  in  Hindu  Mathams,  in 
which  are  recorded  the  proofs  of  their  learning.  To  attempt  to  say  whether  these 
Gymnosophists  were  the  real  founders  of  magic  in  India,  or  whether  they  only 
practised  what  had  passed  to  them  as  an  inheritance  from  the  earliest  Rishist 
— the  seven  primeval  sages  —would  be  regarded  as  mere  speculation  by  exact 
scholars,  j^ 

Nevertheless,  this  must  be  attempted.  In  his  Unveiled,  all  that 
could  be  stated  about  Magic  was  set  down  in  the  guise  of  hints ;  and 
thus,  owing  to  the  great  amount  of  material  scattered  over  two  large 
volumes,  much  of  its  importance  was  lost  upon  the  reader,  while  it 
still  more  failed  to  draw  his  attention  on  account  of  the  faulty  arrange- 
ment. But  hints  may  now  grow  into  explanations.  One  can  never  re- 
peat it  too  often — Magic  is  as  old  as  man.  It  cannot  any  longer  be 
called  charlatanry  or  hallucination,  when  its  lesser  branches — such  as 
mesmerism,  now  miscalled  "  h^^pnotism,"  "  thought  reading,"  "action 
by  suggestion,"  and  what  not  else,  only  to  avoid  calling  it  by  its  right 
and  legitimate  name — are  being  so  seriously  investigated  by  the  most 
famous  Biologists  and  Physiologists  of  both  Europe  and  America. 
Magic  is  indissolubly  blended  with  the  Religion  of  every  country  and  is 


*  Amniianus  Marcellinus,  xxiii.  6. 

t  The  Rishis— the  first  group  of  seven  in  number— lived  in  days  preceding  the  Vedic  period. 
They  are  now  known  as  Sages  and  held  in  reverence  like  demigods.  But  they  may  now  be  shown  as 
something  more  than  merely  mortal  Philosophers.  There  are  other  groups  of  ten,  twelve  and  even 
tweuty-one  in  number.  Haug  shows  that  they  occupy  in  the  Brahmanical  religion  a  position 
answering  to  that  of  the  twelve  sons  of  Jacob  in  the  Jewish  Bible.  The  Brafamans  claim  to  descend 
directly  from  the  Rishis. 

t  /sis  Unveiled,  i.  90. 


20  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

inseparable  from  its  origin.  It  is  as  impossible  for  History  to  name 
the  time  when  it  was  not,  as  that  of  the  epoch  when  it  sprang  into 
existence,  unless  the  doctrines  preserved  by  the  Initiates  are  taken 
into  consideration.  Nor  can  Science  ever  solve  the  problem  of  the 
origin  of  man  if  it  rejects  the  evidence  of  the  oldest  records  in  the 
world,  and  refuses  from  the  hand  of  the  legitimate  Guardians  of  the 
mysteries  of  Nature  the  key  to  Universal  Sj^mbology.  Whenever  a 
writer  has  tried  to  connect  the  first  foundation  of  Magic  with  a  parti- 
cular country  or  some  historical  event  or  character,  further  research 
has  shown  his  hj^pothesis  to  be  groundless.  There  is  a  most  lament- 
able contradiction  among  the  Symbologists  on  this  point.  Some  would 
have  it  that  Odin,  the  Scandinavian  priest  and  monarch,  originated  the 
practice  of  Magic  some  70  years  B.C.,  although  it  is  spoken  of  re- 
peatedly in  the  Bible.  But  as  it  was  proven  that  the  mj^sterious  rites  of 
the  priestesses  Valas  (Voilers)  were  greatly  anterior  to  Odin's  age*,  then 
Zoroaster  came  in  for  an  attempt,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  the 
founder  of  Magian  rites ;  but  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  Pliny  and  Arno- 
bius,  with  other  ancient  Historians,  have  shown  that  Zoroaster  was  but 
a  reformer  of  Magic  as  practised  by  the  Chaldaeans  and  Egyptians,  and 
not  at  all  its  founder,  f 

Who,  then,  of  those  who  have  consistently  turned  their  faces  away 
from  Occultism  and  even  Spiritualism,  as  being  "unphilosophical"  and 
therefore  unworthy  of  scientific  thought,  has  a  right  to  say  that  he  has 
studied  the  Ancients ;  or  that,  if  he  has  studied  them,  he  has  un- 
derstood all  they  have  said  ?  Only  those  who  claim  to  be  wiser  than 
their  generation,  who  think  that  they  know  all  that  the  Ancients 
knew,  and  thus,  knowing  far  more  to-day,  fancy  that  they  are  entitled  to 
laugh  at  their  ancient  simple-mindedness  and  superstition  ;  those,  who 
imagine  they  have  discovered  a  great  secret  by  declaring  the  ancient 
royal  sarcophagus,  now  empty  of  its  King  Initiate,  to  be  a  "  corn-bin," 
and  the  Pyramid  that  contained  it,  a  granary,  perhaps  a  wine-cellar  !  % 


•  See  Miinter  "  On  the  most  Ancient  Religions  of  the  North  before  Odin."  Memoires  de  la  Sociite  des 
Antiquaires  de  France,  ii.  230. 

t  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  xxvi.  6. 

t  "The  date  of  the  hundreds  of  pyramids  in  the  Valley  of  the  Nile  is  impossible  to  fix  by  any 
of  the  rules  of  modem  science  ;  Herodotus  informs  us  that  each  successive  king  erected  one  to  com- 
memorate his  reig-n,  and  serve  as  his  sepulchre.  But,  Herodotus  did  not  tell  all,  although  he  knew 
that  the  real  purpose  of  the  pyramid  was  very  different  from  that  which  he  assigns  to  it.  Were  it  not 
for  his  religious  scruples,  he  might  have  added  that,  externally,  it  symbolized  the  creative  principle 
of  Nature,  and  illustrated  also  the  principles  of  geometry,  mathematics,  astrology  and  astronomy. 


THE  TREE   OF  KNOWI^EDGE.  21 

Modern  society,  on  the  authority  of  some  men  of  Science,  calls  Mao-ic 
charlatantr>- .  But  there  are  eight  hundred  millions  on  the  face  of  the 
globe  who  believe  in  it  to  this  day  ;  there  are  said  to  be  twenty  millions 
of  perfectly  sane  and  often  very  intellectual  men  and  women,  members 
of  that  same  society,  who  believe  in  its  phenomena  under  the  name  of 
Spiritualism.  The  whole  ancient  world,  with  its  Scholars  and  Philo- 
sophers, its  Sages  and  Prophets,  believed  in  it.  Where  is  the  country 
in  which  it  was  not  practised  ?  At  what  age  was  it  banished,  even  from 
our  own  country  ?  In  the  New  World  as  in  the  Old  Country  (the 
latter  far  younger  than  the  former),  the  Science  of  Sciences  was  known 
and  practised  from  the  remotest  antiquity.  The  Mexicans  had  their 
Initiates,  their  Priest-Hierophants  and  Magicians,  and  their  crypts  of 
Initiation.  Of  the  two  statues  exhumed  in  the  Pacific  States,  one 
represents  a  Mexican  Adept,  in  the  posture  prescribed  for  the  Hindu 
ascetic,  and  the  other  an  Aztec  Priestess,  in  a  head-gear  which  might  be 
taken  from  the  head  of  an  Indian  Goddess  ;  while  the  "  Guatemalan 
Medal"  exhibits  the  "Tree  of  Knowledge  "—with  its  hundreds  of  eyes 
and  ears,  symbolical  of  seeing  and  hearing— encircled  by  the  "  Serpent 
of  Wisdom  "  whispering  into  the  ear  of  the  sacred  bird.  Bernard  Diaz 
de  Castilla,  a  follower  of  Cortez,  gives  some  idea  of  the  extraordinary 
refinement,  intelligence  and  civilization,  and  also  of  the  magic  arts 
of  the  people  whom  the  Spaniards  conquered  by  brute  force.  Their 
pyramids  are  those  of  Egypt,  built  according  to  the  same  secret  canon 
of  proportion  as  those  of  the  Pharaohs,  and  the  Aztecs  appear  to 
have  derived  their  civilization  and  religion  in  more  than  one  way  from 
the  same  source  as  the  Egyptians  and,  before  these,  the  Indians. 
Among  all  these  three  peoples  arcane  Natural  Philosophy,  or  Magic, 
was  cultivated  to  the  highest  degree. 

That  it  was  natural,  not  supernatural,  and  that  the  Ancients  so  re- 
garded it,  is  shown  by  what  Eucian  says  of  the  "laughing  Philosopher," 
Democritus,  who,  he  tells  his  readers. 

Believed  in  no  [miracles]  ...  but  applied  himself  to  discover  the  method  by 
which  the  theurgists  could  produce  them;  in  a  word,  his  philosophy  brought  him 
to  the  conclusion  that  magic  was  entirely  confined  to  the  application  and  the 
imitation  of  the  laws  and  the  works  of  nature. 


Internally,  it  was  a  majestic  fane,  in  whose  sombre  recesses  were  performed  the  Mysteries,  and  whose 
walls  had  often  witnessed  the  initiation  scenes  of  members  of  the  royal  family.  The  porphyry  sarco- 
phagus, which  Professor  Piazzi  Smyth,  Astronomer  Royal  of  ScoUand,  degrades  into  a  corn-bin,  was 
the  baptismal  font,  upon  emerging  from  which,  the  neophyte  was  'born  again,'  and  became  an 
adept."    ylsis  Unveiled,  i.  518,  519.) 


22  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

Who  then  can  stiil  call  the  Magic  of  the  Ancients  "  superstition  "? 

In  this  respect  the  opinion  of  Democritus  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to  lis, 
since  the  Magi  left  by  Xerxes,  at  Abdera,  were  his  instructors,  and  he  had  studied 
magic,  moreover,  for  a  considerable  time  with  the  Egyptian  priests.*  For  nearly 
ninety  years  of  the  one  hundred  and  nine  of  his  life,  this  great  philosopher  had 
made  experiments,  and  noted  them  down  in  a  book,  which,  according  to  Petronius,t 
heated  of  iiature — facts  that  he  had  verified  himself.  And  we  find  him  not  only 
disbelie\'ing  in  and  utterlj'  rejecting  miracles,  but  asserting  that  every  one  of  those 
that  were  authenticated  by  eye-witnesses,  had,  and  could  have  taken  place,  for  all, 
even  the  most  incredible,  were  produced  according  to  the  "-hidden  laws  of  nature.''''  % 
.  .  .  Add  to  this  that  Greece,  the  "later  cradle  of  the  arts  and  sciences,"  and 
India,  cradle  of  religions,  were,  and  one  of  them  still  is,  devoted  to  its  study  and 
practice — and  who  shall  venture  to  discredit  its  dignity  as  a  study,  and  its  pro- 
fundity as  a  science  ?  § 

No  true  Theosophist  will  ever  do  so.  For,  as  a  member  of  our  great 
Oriental  body,  he  knows  indubitably  that  the  Secret  Doctrine  of  the 
East  contains  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  Universal  Science  ;  that  in 
its  obscure  texts,  under  the  luxuriant,  though  perhaps  too  exuberant, 
growth  of  allegorical  Symbolism,  lie  concealed  the  corner-  and  the 
key-stones  of  all  ancient  and  modern  knowledge.  That  Stone, 
brought  down  by  the  Divine  Builder,  is  now  rejected  by  the  too-human 
workman,  and  this  because,  in  his  lethal  materiality,  man  has  lost 
every  recollection,  not  onl}'"  of  his  holy  childhood,  but  of  his  very 
adolescence,  when  he  was  one  of  the  Builders  himself;  when  "the 
morning  stars  sang  together,  and  the  Sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy," 
after  they  had  laid  the  measures  for  the  foundations  of  the  earth — to 
use  the  deeply  significant  and  poetical  language  of  Job,  the  Arabian 
Initiate.  But  those  who  are  still  able  to  make  room  in  their  innermost 
selves  for  the  Divine  Raj',  and  who  accept,  therefore,  the  data  of  the 
Secret  Sciences  in  good  faith  and  humilitj^  the}^  know  well  that  it  is  in 
this  Stone  that  remains  buried  the  absolute  in  Philosophy,  which  is 
the  key  to  all  those  dark  problems  of  I^ife  and  Death,  some  of  which, 
at  any  rate,  msiy  find  an  explanation  in  these  volumes. 

The  writer  is  vividly  alive  to  the  tremendous  difficulties  that  present 
themselves  in  the  handling  of  such  abstruse  questions,  and  to  all  the 
dangers  of  the  task.     Insulting  as  it  is  to  human  nature  to  brand  truth 


•  Biog.  I^aert.,  in  "  Democrit.  Vit." 

t  Satyrtc,  ix.  3. 
X   Pliny,  Hist.  Nat. 
\  /si's  Unveiled,  i.  512. 


OCCULTISM   MUST  WIN   THE   DAY.  23 

with  the  name  of  imposture,  nevertheless  we  see  this  done  daily  and 
accept  it.  For  every  occult  truth  has  to  pass  through  such  denial  and 
its  supporters  through  martyrdom,  before  it  is  finally  accepted  ;  though 
even  then  it  remains  but  too  often — 

A  crowu 
Goldeu  iu  show,  yet  but  a  wreath  of  thorns. 

Truths  that  rest  on  Occult  mysteries  will  have,  for  one  reader  who  may 
appreciate  them,  a  thousand  who  will  brand  them  as  impostures.    This  is 
only  natural,  and  the  only  means  to  avoid  it  would  be  for  an  Occultist 
to  pledge  himself  to  the  Pythagorean  "  vow  of  silence,"  and  renew  it 
every  five  years.     Otherwise,    cultured  society — two-thirds  of  which 
think  themselves  in  duty  bound  to  believe  that,  since  the  first  appear- 
ance of  the  first  Adept,  one  half  of  mankind  practised  deception  and 
fraud  on  the  other  half— cultured  society  will  undeniably   assert  its 
hereditary  and  traditional  right  to  stone  the  intruder.     Those  benevo- 
lent critics,  who  most  readily  promulgate    the  now  famous  axiom  of 
Carlyle  with  regard  to  his  countrymen,  of  being  "  mostly  fools,"  having 
taken  preliminary-  care  to  include  themselves  safely  in  the  only  fortu- 
nate exceptions  to  this  rule,  will  in  this  work  gain  strength  and  derive 
additional  conviction  of  the  sad  fact,  that  the  human  race  is  simply 
composed  of  knaves  and  congenital  idiots.     But  this  matters  very  little. 
The  vindication  of  the  Occultists  and  their  Archaic  Science  is  working 
itself  slowly  but  steadily  into  the  very  heart  of  society,  hourly,  daily, 
and  yearly,  in  the  shape  of  two  monster  branches,  two  stray  off-shoots 
of  the  trunk  of   Magic — Spiritualism  and  the    Roman    Church.     Fact 
works  its  way  very  often  through  fiction.     Like  an   immense  boa-con- 
strictor. Error,  in  every  shape,  encircles  mankind,  trying  to  smother  in 
her  deadly  coils  every  aspiration  towards  truth  and  light.     But  Error 
is  powerful  only  on  the  surface,  prevented  as  she  is  by  Occult  Nature 
from   going  any  deeper;    for  the   same   Occult  Nature   encircles   the 
whole  globe,  in  every  direction,  leaving  not  even  the  darkest  corner 
unvisited.     And,  whether  by  phenomenon  or  miracle,  by  spirit-hook  or 
bishop's  crook.  Occultism  must  win  the  day,  before  the  present  era 
reaches  "  Shani's  (Saturn's)  triple  septenary  "  of  the  Western  Cycle  in 
Europe,  in  other  words— before  the  end  of  the  twenty-first  century 

"A.D." 

Truly  the  soil  of  the  long  by-gone  past  is  not  dead,  for  it  has  only 
rested.  The  skeletons  of  the  sacred  oaks  of  the  ancient  Druids  may 
still  send  shoots  from  their  dried-up  boughs  and  be  reborn  to  a  new 


24  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

life,  like  that  handful  of  corn,  in  the  sarcophagus  of  a  mummy  4,000 
years  old,  which,  when  planted,  sprouted,  grew,  and  "  gave  a  fine 
harvest."  Why  not  ?  Truth  is  stranger  than  fiction.  It  may  any  day, 
and  most  unexpectedly,  vindicate  its  wisdom  and  demonstrate  the  con- 
ceit of  our  age,  by  proving  that  the  Secret  Brotherhood  did  not,  indeed, 
die  out  with  the  Philalethians  of  the  last  Eclectic  School,  that  the 
Gnosis  flourishes  still  on  earth,  and  its  votaries  are  man}^  albeit 
unknown.  All  this  may  be  done  b}'-  one,  or  more,  of  the  great  Masters 
visiting  Europe,  and  exposing  in  their  turn  the  alleged  exposers  and 
traducers  of  Magic.  Such  secret  Brotherhoods  have  been  mentioned 
by  several  well-known  authors,  and  are  spoken  of  in  Mackenzie's 
Royal  Masonic  Cyclopcsdia.  The  writer  now,  in  the  face  of  the  millions 
who  deny,  repeats  boldly,  that  which  was  said  in  his  Unveiled. 

If  they  [the  Initiates]  have  been  regarded  as  mere  fictions  of  the  novelist,  that 
fact  has  only  helped  the  "brother-adepts"  to  keep  their  incognito  the  more 
easily.     ... 

The  St.  Germains  and  Cagliostros  of  this  century,  having  learned  bitter  lessons 
from  the  vilifications  and  persecutions  of  the  past,  pursue  different  tactics  now-a- 
days.* 

These  prophetic  words  were  written  in  1876,  and  verified  in  1886. 
Nevertheless,  we  say  again. 

There  are  numbers  of  these  mystic  Brotherhoods  which  have  naught  to  do  with 
"civilized"  countries;  and  it  is  in  their  unknown  communities  that  are  concealed 
the  skeletons  of  the  past.  These  "adepts"  could,  if  they  chose,  lay  claim  to 
strange  ancestry,  and  exhibit  verifiable  documents  that  would  explain  many  a 
mysterious  page  in  both  sacred  and  profane  historj'.f  Had  the  keys  to  the  hieratic 
writings  and  the  secret  of  Egyptian  and  Hindu  symbolism  been  known  to  the 
Christian  Fathers,  they  would  not  have  allowed  a  single  monviment  of  old  to  stand 
uumutilated.J 

But  there  exists  in  the  world  another  class  of  adepts,  belonging  to  a 
brotherhood  also,  and  mightier  than  any  other  of  those  known  to  the 
profane.  Many  among  these  are  personally  good  and  benevolent, 
even  pure  and  holy  occasionally,  as  individuals.  Pursuing  collec- 
tively, however,  and  as  a  body,  a  selfish,  one-sided  object,  with  relent- 
less vigour  and  determination,  they  have  to  be  ranked  with  the  adepts 

•  op.  cit.,  ii.  403. 

i-  This  is  precisely  what  some  of  them  are  preparing  to  do,  and  many  a  "mysterious  page"  in 
sacred  and  profane  histQr>'  are  touched  on  in  these  pages.  Wliether  or  not  their  explanations  will  be 
accepted— is  another  question. 

X  Ibid. 


BLACK  MAGIC   AT   WORK.  25 

of  the  Black  Art.  These  are  our  modern  Roman  Catholic  "fathers" 
and  clergy.  Most  of  the  hieratic  writings  and  symbols  have  been 
deciphered  by  them  since  the  Middle  Ages.  A  hundred  times  more 
learned  in  secret  Symbology  and  the  old  Religions  than  our  Orienta- 
lists will  ever  be,  the  personification  of  astuteness  and  cleverness, 
every  such  adept  in  the  art  holds  the  keys  tightly  in  his  firmly  clenched 
hand,  and  will  take  care  the  secret  shall  not  be  easily  divulged,  if  he 
can  help  it.  There  are  more  profoundly  learned  Kabalists  in  Rome 
and  throughout  Europe  and  America,  than  is  generally  suspected. 
Thus  are  the  professedly  public  "brotherhoods"  of  "black"  adepts 
more  powerful  and  dangerous  for  Protestant  countries  than  any  host 
of  Eastern  Occultists.  People  laugh  at  Magic!  Men  of  Science, 
Physiologists  and  Biologists,  deride  the  potency  and  even  the  belief  in 
the  existence  of  what  is  called  in  vulgar  parlance  "Sorcery"  and 
"Black  Magic"!  The  Archaeologists  have  their  Stonehenge  in  Eng- 
land with  its  thousands  of  secrets,  and  its  twin-brother  Karnac  of 
Brittanj',  and  yet  there  is  not  one  of  them  who  even  suspects  what  has 
been  going  on  in  its  crj'pts,  and  its  mysterious  nooks  and  corners,  for 
the  last  century.  More  than  that,  they  do  not  even  know  of  the  exis- 
tence of  such  "  magic  halls"  in  their  Stonehenge,  where  curious  scenes 
are  taking  place,  whenever  there  is  a  new  convert  in  view.  Hundreds 
of  experiments  have  been,  and  are  being  made  daily  at  the  Salpetriere, 
and  also  by  learned  hypnotisers  at  their  private  houses.  It  is  now 
proved  that  certain  sensitives — both  men  and  women — when  com- 
manded in  trance,  by  the  practitioner,  who  operates  on  them,  to  do  a 
certain  thing — from  drinking  a  glass  of  water  up  to  simulated  murder — 
on  recovering  their  normal  state  lose  all  remembrance  of  the  order 
inspired — "suggested"  it  is  now  called  by  Science.  Nevertheless,  at 
the  appointed  hour  and  moment,  the  subject,  though  conscious  and 
perfectly  awake,  is  compelled  by  an  irresistible  power  within  himself 
to  do  that  action  which  has  been  suggested  to  him  b}^  his  mesmeriser  ; 
and  that  too,  whatever  it  may  be,  and  whatever  the  period  fixed  by  him 
who  controls  the  subject,  that  is  to  say,  holds  the  latter  under  the  power 
of  his  will,  as  a  snake  holds  a  bird  under  its  fascination,  and  finally  forces 
it  to  jump  into  its  open  jaws.  Worse  than  this:  for  the  bird  is  con- 
scious of  the  peril ;  it  resists,  however  helpless  in  its  final  efforts,  while 
the  hypnotized  subject  does  not  rebel,  but  seems  to  follow  the  sugges- 
tions and  voice  of  his  own  free-will  and  soul.  Who  of  our  European 
men  of  Science,  who  believe  in  such  scientific  experiments — and  very 


26  THE   vSECRET   DOCTRINE. 

few  are  they  who  still  doubt  them  now-a-days,  and  who  do  not  feel 
convinced  of  their  actual  reality — who  of  them,  it  is  asked,  is  ready  to 
admit  this  as  being  Black  Magic  ?  Yet  it  is  the  genuiyie,  undeniable 
and  actual  fascination  and  sorcery  of  old.  The  Mulu  Kurunibas  of 
Nilgiri  do  not  proceed  otherwise  in  their  envoiitemeyits  when  they  seek 
to  destroy  an  enemy,  nor  do  the  Dugpas  of  Sikkim  and  Bhutan  know 
of  any  more  potential  agent  than  their  will.  Only  in  them  that  will 
does  not  proceed  by  jumps  and  starts,  but  acts  with  certaint}';  it  does 
not  depend  on  the  amount  of  receptivity  or  nervous  impressibility  of 
the  "subject."  Having  chosen  his  victim  and  placed  himself  eii 
rappo?-t  W\t\i  him,  the  Dugpa's  "fluid"  is  sure  to  find  its  way,  for  his 
will  is  immeasurably  more  strongly  developed  than  the  will  of  the 
European  experimenter — the  self-made,  untutored,  and  tinco7iscio7is 
Sorcerer  for  the  sake  of  Science — who  has  no  idea  (or  belief  either)  of 
the  variety  and  potency  of  the  vv'orld-old  methods  used  to  develop  this 
power,  by  the  co?iscio?is  sorcerer,  the  "  Black  Magician"  of  the  East  and 
West. 

And  now  the  question  is  openlj'  and  squarel)'  asked :  Why  should 
not  the  fanatical  and  zealous  priest,  thirsting  to  convert  some  selected 
rich  and  influential  member  of  societ}^  use  the  same  means  to  accom- 
plish his  end  as  the  French  Physician  and  experimenter  uses  in  his 
case  with  his  subject?  The  conscience  of  the  Roman  Catholic  priest 
is  most  likel}^  at  peace.  He  works  personally  for  no  selfish  purpose,  but 
with  the  object  of  "  saving  a  soul "  from  "  eternal  damnation."  In  his 
view,  if  Magic  there  be  in  it,  it  is  holy,  meritorious  and  divine  Magic. 
Such  is  the  power  of  blind  faith. 

Hence,  when  we  are  assured  by  trustworthy  and  respectable  persons 
of  high  social  standing,  and  unimpeachable  character,  that  there  are 
many  well-organised  societies  among  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  which, 
under  the  pretext  and  cover  of  Modern  Spiritualism  and  medium  ship, 
hold  seances  for  the  purposes  of  conversion  by  suggestion,  directl}' 
and  at  a  distance — we  answer :  We  know  it.  And  when,  more- 
over, we  are  told  that  whenever  those  priest-hj'pnotists  are  desirous 
of  acquiring  an  influence  over  some  individual  or  individuals, 
selected  by  them  for  conversion,  they  retire  to  an  underground 
place,  allotted  and  consecrated  b}-  them  for  such  purposes  {viz.,  cere- 
monial Magic) ;  and  there,  forming  a  circle,  throw  their  combined 
will-power  in  the  direction  of  that  individual,  and  thus  by  repeating 
the  process,    gain   a  complete    control    over  their    victim — we    again 


BLACK   MAGIC   AND   HYPNOTISM.  27 

answer :  Very  likely.     In  fact  we  know  the  practice  to  be  so,  whether 
this  kind  of  ceremonial  Magic  and  mvoutement  is  practised  at  Stone- 
henge  or  elsewhere.     We  know  it,  we  say,  through  personal  experi- 
ence ;  and  also  because  several  of  the  writer's  best  and  most  loved 
friends  have  been  unconsciously  drawn  into  the  Romish  Church  and 
under  her  "benign"  protection  by  such  means.     And,  therefore,  we 
can  only  laugh  in  pity  at  the  ignorance  and  stubbornness  of  those 
deluded  men   of  Science  and   cultured   experimentalists  who,   while 
believing  in  the  power  of  Dr.  Charcot  and  his  disciples  to  "envoute" 
their  subjects,  find  nothing  better  than  a  scornful  smile  whenever  Black 
Magic  and  its  potency  are  mentioned  before  them.     Eliphas  Uvi,  the 
Abbe'-Kabalist,  died  before  Science  and  the  Faculte  de  Medecine  of 
France  had  accepted    hypnotism  and  influence  par  suggestion  among 
its  scientific  experiments,  but  this  is  what  he  said  twenty-five  years 
ago,  in  his  Dogme  et  Rihiel  de  la  Haute  Magie,  on  "Les  Envoutements 
et  les  Sorts  "  : 

That  which  sorcerers  and  necromancers  sought  above  all  things  in  their 
evocations  of  the  Spirit  of  Evil,  was  that  magnetic  potency  which  is  the  lawful 
property  of  the  true  Adept,  and  which  they  desired  to  obtain  possession  of  for 
evil  purposes.  .  .  One  of  their  chief  aims  was  the  power  of  spells  or  of  dele- 
terious influences.  .  .  .  That  power  may  be  compared  to  real  poisonings  by 
^  current  of  astral  light.  They  exalt  their  will  by  means  of  ceremonies  to  the 
degree  of  rendering  it  venomous  at  a  distance.  ...  We  have  said  in  our 
"Dogma"  what  we  thought  of  magic  spells,  and  how  this  power  was  exceed- 
ingly real  and  dangerous.  The  true  Magus  throws  a  spell  without  ceremony 
and  by  his  sole  disapproval,  upon  those  with  whose  conduct  he  is  dissatisfied, 
and  whom  he  thinks  it  necessary  to  punish;*  he  casts  a  spell,  even  by  his  pardon. 
over  those  who  do  him  injury,  and  the  enemies  of  Initiates  never  ^ong  -J^^ 
impunity  for  their  wrong-doing.  We  have  ourselves  seen  proofs  of  this  fatal  law 
in  numerous  instances.  The  executioners  of  martyrs  always  pensh  miserabl, 
and  the  Adepts  are  the  martyrs  of  intelligence.  Providence  [Karma]  seems  to 
despise  those  who  despise  them,  and  puts  to  death  those  who  wouM  seek  to 
prevent  them  from  living.  The  legend  of  the  Wandering  Jew  is  t^e  popular 
poetrv  of  this  arcanum.  A  people  had  sent  a  sage  to  crucihxion  ;  that  p.op  e 
had  bidden  him  "Move  on!"  when  he  tried  to  rest  for  one  moment.  Well 
that  people  will  become  subject,  henceforth,  to  a  similar  condemnatK>n ;  it  wU 
become  entirely  proscribed,  and  for  long  centuries  it  will  be  bidden  Move  on  . 
move  on  !"   finding  neither  rest  nor  pity.t 


*  This  is  incorrectly  expressed.    The  true  Adept  of  the  "  ^^^^\  «-^  "  ;^,7j:,f^^^^^^^^  ^Z^^^Z 
even  his  bitterest  and  most  dangerous  enemy;  he  simply  leaves  the  latter  to  his  Karma,  an 


never  fails  to  do  so,  sooner  or  later. 
+  Op.  cit.,  ii.  239,  241,  240. 


2b  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

"  Fables,"  and  "  superstition,"  will  be  the  answer.  Be  it  so.  Before 
the  lethal  breath  of  selfishness  and  indifi"erence  every  uncomfortable 
fact  is  transformed  into  meaningless  fiction,  and  ever}''  branch  of  the 
once  verdant  Tree  of  Truth  has  become  dried  up  and  stripped  of  its 
primeval  spiritual  significance.  Our  modern  Symbologist  is  superla- 
tively clever  only  at  detecting  phallic  worship  and  sexual  emblems 
even  where  none  were  ever  meant.  But  for  the  true  student  of  Occult 
Lore,  White  or  Divine  Magic  could  no  more  exist  in  Nature  without  its 
counterpart  Black  Magic,  than  day  without  night,  whether  these  be  of 
twelve  hours  or  of  six  months'  duration.  For  him  everything  in  that 
Nature  has  an  occult — a  bright  and  a  night  side  to  it.  Pyramids  and 
Druid's  oaks,  dolmens  and  Bo-trees,  plant  and  mineral — everything 
was  full  of  deep  significance  and  of  sacred  truths  of  wisdom,  when  the 
Arch-Druid  performed  his  magic  cures  and  incantations,  and  the 
Egyptian  Hierophant  evoked  and  guided  Chemnu,  the  "lovely  spectre," 
the  female  Frankenstein-creation  of  old,  raised  for  the  torture  and  test 
of  the  soul-power  of  the  candidate  for  initiation,  simultaneoush-  with 
the  last  agonising  cry  of  his  terrestrial  human  nature.  True,  Magic 
has  lost  its  name,  and  along  with  it  its  rights  to  recognition.  But  its 
practice  is  in  daily  use  ;  and  its  progen}^  "  magnetic  influence,"  "  power 
of  oratory,"  "  irresistible  fascination,"  "  whole  audiences  subdued  and 
held  as  though  under  a  spell,"  are  terms  recognised  and  used  by  all, 
generally  meaningless  though  they  now  are.  Its  effects,  however,  are 
more  determined  and  definite  among  religious  congregations  such  as 
the  Shakers,  the  Negro  Methodists,  and  Salvationists,  who  call  it  "  the 
action  of  the  Holy  Spirit"  and  "grace."  The  real  truth  is  that  Magic 
is  still  in  full  sway  amidst  mankind,  however  blind  the  latter  to  its 
silent  presence  and  influence  on  its  members,  however  ignorant  society 
may  be,  and  remain,  to  its  daily  and  hourly  beneficent  and  maleficent 
effects.  The  world  is  full  of  such  unconscious  magicians — in  politics 
as  well  as  in  daily  life,  in  the  Church  as  in  the  strongholds  of  Free- 
Thought.  Most  of  those  magicians  are  "  sorcerers "  unhappily,  not 
metaphoricall)^  but  in  sober  realit}^,  by  reason  of  their  inherent  selfish- 
ness, their  revengeful  natures,  their  envj''  and  malice.  The  true  student 
of  Magic,  well  aware  of  the  truth,  looks  on  in  pity,  and,  if  he  be  wise, 
keeps  silent.  For  every  effort  made  by  him  to  remove  the  universal 
cecity  is  only  repaid  with  ingratitude,  slander,  and  often  curses,  which, 
unable  to  reach  him,  will  react  on  those  who  wish  him  evil.  Lies  and 
calumny — the  latter  a  teething  lie,  adding  actual  bites  to  empty  harmless 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  STANDS  ON   ITS   OWN  MERITS.  29 

falsehoods — become  his  lot,  and  thus  the  well-wisher  is  soon  torn  to 
pieces,  as  a  reward  for  his  benevolent  desire  to  enlighten. 

Enough  has  been  given,  it  is  believed,  to  shew  that  the  existence  of  a 
Secret  Universal  Doctrine,  besides  its  practical  methods  of  Magic,  is  no 
wild  romance  or  fiction.  The  fact  was  known  to  the  whole  ancient 
world,  and  the  knowledge  of  it  has  survived  in  the  East,  in  India  espe- 
cially. And  if  there  be  such  a  Science,  there  must  be  naturally,  some- 
where, professors  of  it,  or  Adepts.  In  any  case  it  matters  little  whether 
the  Guardians  of  the  Sacred  Lore  are  regarded  as  living,  actually  exist- 
ing men,  or  are  viewed  as  myths.  It  is  their  Philosophy  that  will  have 
to  stand  or  fall  upon  its  own  merits,  apart  from,  and  independent  of 
any  Adepts.  For  in  the  words  of  the  wise  Gamaliel,  addressed  by  him 
to  the  Sj'nedrion  :  "  If  this  doctrine  is  false  it  will  perish,  and  fall  of 
itself ;  but  if  true,  then — it  camiot  be  destroyed." 


SECTION  II. 

Modern  Criticism  and  the  Ancients 


The  Secret  Doctrine  of  the  Aryan  East  is  found  repeated  under 
Egi^ptian  symbolism  and  phraseology  in  the  Books  of  Hermes.  At,  or 
near,  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  all  the  books  called 
Hermetic  were,  in  the  opinion  of  the  average  man  of  Science,  unworthy 
of  serious  attention.  They  were  set  down  and  loudly  proclaimed  as 
simply  a  collection  of  tales,  of  fraudulent  pretences  and  most  absurd 
claims.  They  "  never  existed  before  the  Christian  era,"  it  was  said  : 
"  they  were  all  written  with  the  triple  object  of  speculation,  deceiving 
and  pious  fraud  ;  "  they  were  all,  even  the  best  of  them,  silly  apocrypha.* 
In  this  respect  the  nineteenth  centurj'  proved  a  most  worthy  scion  of 
the  eighteenth,  for,  in  the  age  of  Voltaire  as  well  as  in  this  century, 
everything,  save  what  emanated  direct  from  the  Royal  Academy,  was 
false,  superstitious,  foolish.  Belief  in  the  wisdom  of  the  Ancients 
was  laughed  to  scorn,  perhaps  more  so  even  than  it  is  now.  The  very 
thought  of  accepting  as  authentic  the  works  and  vagaries  of  "  a  false 
Hermes,  a  false  Orpheus,  a  false  Zoroaster,"  of  false  Oracles,  false  Sibyls, 
and  a  thrice  false  Mesraer  and  his  absurd  fluid,  was  tabooed  all  along 
the  line.  Thus  all  that  had  its  genesis  outside  the  learned  and  dogmatic 
precincts  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,!  or  the  Academy  of  France,  was 


•  See,  in  this  connection,  Pneumatologie  des  Esprtls,  by  the  Marquis  de  Mirville,  who  devotes  six 
enormous  volumes  to  show  the  absurdity  of  those  who  deny  the  reality  of  Satan  and  Magic,  or  the 
Occult  Sciences — the  two  being  with  him  synonymous. 

1-  We  think  we  see  the  sidereal  phantom  of  the  old  Philosopher  and  Mystic— once  of  Cambridge 
University — Henrj'  More,  moving  about  in  the  astral  mist  over  the  old  moss-covered  roofs  of  the 
ancient  town  in  which  he  wrote  his  famous  letter  to  Glanvil  about  "witches."  The "  .soul  "  seems 
restless  and  indignant,  as  on  that  day  of  May,  1678,  when  the  doctor  complained  .so  bitterly  to  the 
author  of  Sadducismus  Triumphatus  of  Scot,  .\die  and  Webster.  "Our  new  inspired  saints."  the 
soul  is  heard  to  mutter,  ".sworn  advocates  of  the  witches  .  .  .  who  against  all  sen.se  and  reason 
.  .  .  will  have  no  Samuel  but  a  confederate  knave  .  .  .  these  in-blown  buffoons,  puffed  up  with 
.  .  .  ignorance,  vanity  and  .stupid  infidelity  !  "  (See  "  Letter  to  Glanvil,"  and  Ish  Unveiled,  i.  205, 
206.) 


AI.L  HONOUR  TO   GENUINE   SCIENTISTS.  3 1 

denounced  in  those  days  as  "unscientific,"  and  "  ridiculously  absurd." 
This  tendency  has  survived  to  the  present  day. 

Nothing  can  be  further  from  the  intention  of  any  true  Occultist — who 
stands  possessed,  by  virtue  of  his  higher  psychic  development,  of 
instruments  of  research  far  more  penetrating  in  their  power  than  any 
as  yet  in  the  hands  of  physical  experinientalisics — than  to  look  unsym- 
pathetically  on  the  efforts  that  are  being  made  in  the  area  of  physical 
enquiry.  The  exertions  and  labours  undertaken  to  solve  as  many  as 
possible  of  the  problems  of  Nature  have  always  been  holy  in  his  sight. 
The  spirit  in  which  Sir  Isaac  Newton  remarked  that  at  the  end  of  all 
his  astronomical  work  he  felt  a  mere  child  picking  up  shells  beside  the 
Ocean  of  Knowledge,  is  one  of  reverence  for  the  boundlessness  of 
Nature  which  Occult  Philosophy  itself  cannot  eclipse.  And  it  may 
freely  be  recognised  that  the  attitude  of  mind  which  this  famous  simile 
describes  is  one  which  fairly  represents  that  of  the  great  majority  of 
geuuhie  Scientists  in  regard  to  all  the  phenomena  of  the  physical  plane 
of  Nature.  In  dealing  with  this  they  are  often  caution  and  moderation 
itself.  They  observe  facts  with  a  patience  that  cannot  be  surpassed. 
They  are  slow  to  cast  these  into  theories,  with  a  prudence  that  cannot 
be  too  highly  commended.  And,  subject  to  the  limitations  under 
which  they  observe  Nature,  they  are  beautifully  accurate  in  the  record 
of  their  observations.  Moreover,  it  may  be  conceded  further  that 
modern  Scientists  are  exceedingly  careful  not  to  affirm  negations. 
They  may  say  it  is  immensely  improbable  that  any  discovery  will  ever 
conflict  with  such  or  such  a  theory,  now  supported  by  such  and  such 
an  aggregation  of  recorded  facts.  But  even  in  reference  to  the  broadest 
generalizations — which  pass  into  a  dogmatic  form  only  in  brief  popular 
text  books  of  scientific  knowledge — the  tone  of  "Science"  itself,  if 
that  abstraction  may  be  held  to  be  embodied  in  the  persons  of  its 
most  distinguished  representatives,  is  one  of  reserve  and  often  of 
modesty. 

Far,  therefore,  from  being  disposed  to  scoff  at  the  errors  into  which 
the  limitations  of  their  methods  may  betray  men  of  Science,  the  true 
Occultist  will  rather  appreciate  the  pathos  of  a  situation  in  which  great 
industry'  and  thirst  for  truth  are  condemned  to  disappointment,  and 
often  to  confusion. 

That  which  is  to  be  deplored,  however,  in  respect  to  Modern  Science,  is 
in  itself  an  evil  manifestation  of  the  excessive  caution  which  in  its  most 
favourable    aspect    protects    Science     from    over-hasty    conclusions: 


32  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

namely,  the  tardiness  of  Scientists  to  recognise  that  other  instruments 
ot  research  may  be  applicable  to  the  mysteries  of  Nature  besides  those 
of  the  physical  plane,  and  that  it  may  consequently  be  impossible  to 
appreciate  the  phenomena  of  any  one  plane  correctl)^  without  observing 
them  as  well  from  the  points  of  view  ajBforded  by  others.  In  so  far  then 
as  they  ^vilfully  shut  their  eyes  to  evidence  which  ought  to  have  shown 
them  clearly  that  Nature  is  more  complex  than  physical  phenomena 
alone  would  suggest,  that  there  are  means  by  which  the  faculties  of 
human  perception  can  pass  sometimes  from  one  plane  to  the  other,  and 
that  their  energy  is  being  misdirected  while  they  turn  it  exclusively  on 
the  minutise  of  physical  structure  or  force,  they  are  less  entitled  to 
sympathy  than  to  blame. 

One  feels  dwarfed  and  humbled  in  reading  what  M.  Renan,  that 
learned  modern  "destroyer"  of  every  religious  belief,  past,  present  and 
future,  has  to  say  of  poor  humanity  and  its  powers  of  discernment.  He 
believes 

Mankind  has  but  a  very  narrow  mind;  and  the  number  of  men  capable  of 
seizing  acutely  {finement)  the  true  analogy  of  things,  is  quite  imperceptible.* 

Upon  comparing,  however,  this  statement  with  another  opinion  ex- 
pressed by  the  same  author,  namely,  that : 

The  mind  of  the  critic  should  yield  to  facts,  hands  and  feet  bound,  to  be  dragged 
by  them  wherever  they  may  lead  him,t 

one  feels  relieved.  When,  moreover,  these  two  philosophical  statements 
are  strengthened  by  a  third  enunciation  of  the  famous  Academician, 
which  declares  that : 

Tout  parti  pris  a  priori,  doit  etre  banni  de  la  science,! 
there  remains  little  to  fear.     Unfortunately  M.  Renan  is  the  first  to 
break  this  golden  rule. 

The  evidence  of  Herodotus — called,  sarcastically  no  doubt,  the 
"Father  of  History,"  since  in  every  question  upon  which  Modern  Thought 
disagrees  with  him,  his  testimony  goes  for  nought — the  sober  and 
earnest  assurances  in  the  philosophical  narratives  of  Plato  and  Thucy- 
dides,  Polybius,  and  Plutarch,  and  even  certain  statements  of  Aristotle 
himself,  are  invariably  laid  aside  whenever  they  are  involved  in  what 
modern  criticism  is  pleased  to  regard  as  a  myth.  It  is  some  time 
since  Strauss  proclaimed  that : 

*  Etudes  Religieuses. 
i-  Etudes  Historiques. 
%  Memoire  read  at  the  Academic  des  Inscriptions  des  Belles  Lettres,  in  1859. 


WHAT   IS  A   MYTH  ?  33 

The  presence  of  a  supernatural  element  or  miracle  in  a  narrative  is  an  infallible 
sign  of  the  presence  in  it  of  a  myth ; 

and  such  is  the  canon  of  criticism  tacitly  adopted  by  every  modern  critic. 
But  what  is  a  myth — fiv6o<i — to  begin  with  ?  Are  we  not  told  distinctly 
by  ancient  writers  that  the  word  means  tradition  ?  Was  not  the  lyatin 
term  fabula,  a  fable,  synonymous  with  something  told,  as  having 
happened  in  pre-historic  times,  and  not  necessarily  an  invention.  With 
such  autocrats  of  criticism  and  despotic  rulers  as  are  most  of  the 
French,  English,  and  German  Orientalists,  there  may,  then,  be  no  end 
of  historical,  geographical,  ethnological  and  philological  surprises  in 
store  for  the  century  to  come.  Travesties  in  Philosophy  have  become  so 
common  of  late,  that  the  public  can  be  startled  by  nothing  in  this  direc- 
tion. It  has  already  been  stated  by  one  learned  speculator  that  Homerwas 
simply  "a  mythical  personification  of  the  epopee"*;  by  another,  that 
Hippocrates,  son  of  Esculapius  "  could  only  be  a  chimera  " ;  that  the 
Asclepiades,  their  seven  hundred  years  of  duration  notwithstanding, 
might  after  alFprove  simply  a  "  fiction";  that  "the  city  of  Troy  (Dr.  Schlie- 
mann  to  the  contrary)  existed  only  on  the  maps,"  etc.  Why  should  not 
the  world  be  invited  after  this  to  regard  every  hitherto  historical  charac- 
ter of  days  of  old  as  a  myth?  Were  not  Alexander  the  Great  needed 
by  Philology  as  a  sledge-hammer  wherewith  to  break  the  heads  of 
Brahmanical  chronological  pretensions,  he  would  have  become  long 
ago  simply  "a  symbol  for  annexation,"  or  "  a  genius  of  conquest,"  as 
has  been  already  suggested  by  some  French  writer. 

Blank  denial  is  the  only  refuge  left  to  the  critics.  It  is  the  most 
secure  asylum  for  some  time  to  come  in  which  to  shelter  the  last  of  the 
sceptics.  For  one  who  denies  unconditionally,  the  trouble  of  arguing  is 
unnecessary,  and  he  also  thus  avoids  what  is  worse,  having  to  yield  occa- 
sionally a  point  or  two  before  the  irrefutable  arguments  and  facts  of  his 
opponent.  Creuzer,  the  greatest  of  all  the  modern  Symbologists,  the 
most  learned  among  the  masses  of  erudite  German  Mythologists,  must 
have  envied  the  placid  self-confidence  of  certain  sceptics,  when  he 
found  himself  forced  in  a  moment  of  desperate  perplexity  to  admit  that : 

We  are  compelled  to  return  to  the  theories  of  trolls  and  genii,  as  they  were 
understood  by  the  ancients;  [it  is  a  doctrine]  without  which  it  becomes  absolutely 
impossible  to  explain  to  oneself  anything  with  regard  to  the  Mysteriest 

of  the  Ancients,  which  Mysteries  are  undeniable. 


-  See  A!fred  Maury's  Histoire  des  Religions  de  la  Grice,  i.  248 ;  and  the  speculatioiis  of  Holzmann 
xsxZeitschriftJiir  Vcrgleichende  Sprach  forschung,  ann.  1852,  p.  487,  sq. 
+  Creuzer  o  introauction  des  Mvstires,  iii.  456. 


3    D 


^^  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Roman  Catholics,  who  are  guilty  of  precisely  the  same  worship,  and 
to  the  very  letter — having  borrowed  it  from  the  later  Chaldaeans,  the 
Lebanon  Nabathaeans,  and  the  baptized  Sabseans,-'  and  not  from  the 
learned  Astronomers  and  Initiates  of  the  days  of  old — would  now,  by 
anathematizing  it,  hide  the  source  from  which  it  came.  Theology  and 
Churchianism  would  fain  trouble  the  clear  fountain  that  fed  them  from 
the  first,  to  prevent  posterity  from  looking  into  it,  and  thus  seeing 
their  original  prototype.  The  Occultists,  however,  believe  the  time  has 
come  to  give  everyone  his  due.  As  to  our  other  opponents — the 
modern  sceptic  and  the  Epicurean,  the  cynic  and  the  Sadducee — they 
may  find  an  answer  to  their  denials  in  our  earlier  volumes.  As  to 
many  unjust  aspersions  on  the  ancient  doctrines,  the  reason  for  them 
is  given  in  these  words  in  /sis  Unveiled : 

The  thought  of  the  present-day  commentator  and  critic  as  to  the  ancient 
learning,  is  limited  to  and  runs  round  the  exoterism  of  the  temples ;  his  insight 
is  either  unv/illing  or  unable  to  penetrate  into  the  solemn  adyta  of  old,  where  the 
hierophant  instructed  the  neophyte  to  regard  the  public  worship  in  its  true  light. 
No  ancient  sage  would  have  taught  that  man  is  the  king  of  creation,  and  that  the 
starry  heaven  and  our  mother  earth  were  created  for  his  sake.t 

When  we  find  such  works  as  Phallicisin  %  appearing  in  our  day  in 
print,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  day  for  concealment  and  travesty  has 
passed  away.  Science,  in  Philology,  Symbolism  and  Comparative 
Religion,  has  progressed  too  far  to  make  wholesale  denials  any  longer, 
and  the  Church  is  too  wise  and  cautious  not  to  be  now  making  the  best 
of  the  situation.  Meanwhile,  the  "  rhombs  of  Hecate"  and  the  "wheels 
of  Lucifer,"§  daily  exhumed  on  the  sites  of  Babylonia,  can  no  longer 
be  used  as  clear  evidence  of  a  Satan-worship,  since  the  same  symbols 
are  shown  in  the  ritual  of  the  Latin  Church.  The  latter  is  too  learned 
to  be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  even  the  later  Chaldaeans,  who  had  gra- 
dually fallen  into  dualism,  reducing  all  things  to  two  primal  Principles, 
never  worshipped  Satan  or  idols,  any  more  than  did  the  Zoroastrians, 
who  now  lie  under  the  same  accusation,  but  that  their  Religion  was 
as  highly  philosophical  as  any ;  their  dual  and  exoteric  Theosophy 
became  the  heirloom  of  the  Jews,  who,  in  their  turn,  were  forced  to 
share  it  with   the   Christians.     Parsis  are  to  this  day  charged  with 

•  The  later  Nabathseans  adhered  to  the  same  belief  as  the  Nazareues  and  the  Sabaeans,  honoured 
John  the  Baptist,  and  used  Baptism.  (See  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  127;  Munck, /'a/M/f;;;?,  p.  525 ;  Dualap, 
Std,  the  Son  of  Man,  etc.) 

+  i.  535- 

X  By  Hargrave  Jennings. 

?  See  De  Mirville's  Pneumalologie,  iii.  267  ei  seq. 


CHALDEAN   ORACLES.  35 

Heliolatry,  and  yet  in  the  Chaldaean  Oracles,  under  tlie  "  Magical  and 
Philosophical  Precepts  of  Zoroaster"  one  finds  the  following: 

Direct  not  thy  mind  to  the  vast  measures  of  the  earth  ; 

For  the  plant  of  truth  is  not  upon  ground. 

Nor  measure  the  measures  of  the  sun,  collecting  rules, 

For  he  is  carried  by  the  eternal  will  of  the  Father,  not  foJ"  your  sake. 

Dismiss  the  impetuous  course  of  the  moon ;  for  she  runs  always  by  work  of 

necessit}'. 
The  progression  of  the  stars  was  not  generated  for  your  sake. 

There  was  a  vast  difference  between  the  true  worship  taught  to  those 
who  showed  themselves  worthy,  and  the  state  religions.  The  Magians 
are  accused  of  all  kinds  of  superstition,  but  this  is  what  the  same 
Chaldaean  Oracle  says  : 

The  wide  aerial  flight  of  birds  is  not  true, 

Nor  the  dissections  of  the  entrails  of  victims ;  they  are  all  mere  toj'^s, 

The  basis  of  mercenary  fraud  ;  flee  from  these 

If  you  would  open  the  sacred  paradise  of  piety, 

WTiere  virtue,  wisdom,  and  equity  are  assembled.  * 

As  we  say  in  our  former  work  : 

Sureh'  it  is  not  those  who  warn  people  against  "mercenarj'  fraud"  who  can  be 
accused  of  it;  and  if  they  accomplished  acts  which  seem  miraculous,  who  can  with 
fairness  presume  to  den^-  that  it  was  done  merely  because  they  possessed  a  know- 
ledge of  natural  philosophy  and  psychological  science  to  a  degree  unknown  to  our 
schools  ?t 

The  above  quoted  stanzas  are  a  rather  strange  teaching  to  come  from 
those  who  are  universally  believed  to  have  worshipped  the  sun,  and 
moon,  and  the  starry  hosts,  as  Gods.  The  sublime  profundity  of  the 
Magian  precepts  being  beyond  the  reach  of  modern  materialistic 
thougnt,  the  Chaldaean  Philosophers  are  accused  of  Sabaeanism  and 
Sun-worship,  which  was  the  religion  only  of  the  uneducated 
masses. 


•  Psellus,  4;  in  Cory's  Ancient  Fragments,  289.  +  Isis  Unveiled,  i,  535,  536. 


SECTION    III. 

The  Origin  of  Magic. 


Things  of  late  have  changed,  true  enough.  The  field  of  investiga- 
tion has  widened  ;  old  religions  are  a  little  better  understood ;  and 
since  that  miserable  day  when  the  Committee  of  the  French  Academy, 
headed  by  Benjamin  Franklin,  investigated  Mesmer's  phenomena 
only  to  proclaim  them  charlatanry  and  clever  knavery,  both  heathen 
Philosophy  and  Mesmerism  have  acquired  certain  rights  and  privileges, 
and  are  now  viewed  from  quite  a  different  standpoint.  Is  full  justice 
rendered  them,  however,  and  are  they  any  better  appreciated  ?  We  are 
afraid  not.  Human  nature  is  the  same  now,  as  when  Pope  said  of 
the  force  of  prejudice  that : 

The  diflference  is  as  great  between 

The  optics  seeing,  as  the  objects  seen. 

All  manners  take  a  tincture  from  our  own. 

Or  some  discolour'd  through  our  passions  shown, 

Or  fancy's  beam  enlarges,  multiplies. 

Contracts,  inverts,  and  gives  ten  thousand  dyes. 

Thus  in  the  first  decades  of  our  century  Hermetic  Philosophy  was 
regarded  by  both  Churchmen  and  men  of  Science  from  two  quite 
opposite  points  of  view.  The  former  called  it  sinful  and  devilish  ;  the 
latter  denied  point-blank  its  authenticity,  notwithstanding  the  evidence 
brought  forward  by  the  most  erudite  men  of  every  age,  including  our 
own.  The  learned  Father  Kircher,  for  instance,  was  not  even  noticed  ; 
and  his  assertion  that  all  the  fragments  known  under  titles  of  works 
by  Mercury  Trismegistus,  Berosus,  Pherecydes  of  Syros,  etc.,  were  rolls 
that  had  escaped  the  fire  which  devoured  100,000  volumes  of  the  great 
Alexandrian  Library — was  simply  laughed  at.  Nevertheless  the  edu- 
cated classes  of  Europe  knew  then,  as  they  do  now,  that  the  famous 
Alexandrian  Library,  the  "  marvel  of  the  ages,"  was  founded  by 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus  ;  that  numbers  of  its  MSS.  had  been  carefully 


THE   BOOKS  OF  HERMES.  3^1 

copied  from  hieratic  texts  and  the  oldest  parchments,  Chaldaean,  Phoeni- 
cian, Persian,  etc. ;  and  that  these  transliterations  and  copies  amounted, 
in  their  turn,  to  another  100,000  rolls,  as  Josephus  and  Strabo  assert. 

There  is  also  the  additional  evidence  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  that 
ought  to  be  credited  to  some  extent.*  Clemens  testified  to  the  exist- 
ence of  an  additional  30,000  volumes  of  the  Books  of  Thoth,  placed  in 
the  library  of  the  Tomb  of  Osymandias,  over  the  entrance  of  which 
were  inscribed  the  words,  "A  Cure  for  the  Soul." 

Since  then,  as  all  know,  entire  texts  of  the  "apocryphal"  works  of 
the  "  false  "  Pymander,  and  the  no  less  "  false  "  Asclepias,  have  been 
found  by  Champollion  in  the  most  ancient  monuments  of  Egj'pt.f  As 
said  in  Isis  Unveiled  : 

After  having  devoted  their  whole  lives  to  the  study  of  the  records  of  the  old 
Egyptian  wisdom,  botli  Champollion-Figeac  and  ChanipoUiou  Junior  publicly 
declared,  notwithstanding  many  biassed  judgments  hazarded  by  certain  hasty  and 
unwise  critics,  that  the  Books  of  Hermes  "truly  contain  a  mass  of  Egj'ptian  tradi- 
tions which  are  constantly  corroborated  by  the  most  authentic  records  and  monu- 
ments of  Eg5'pt  of  the  hoariest  antiquity."+ 

The  merit  of  Champollion  as  an  Egyptologist  none  will  question,  and 
if  he  declare  that  everything  demonstrates  the  accuracy  of  the  writings 
of  the  mysterious  Hermes  Trismegistus,  and  if  the  assertion  that  their 
antiquity  runs  back  into  the  night  of  time  be  corroborated  by  him  in 


'  The  forty-two  Sacred  Books  of  the  Egyptians,  mentioued  by  Clement  of  Alexandria  as  having 
existed  in  his  time,  were  but  a  portion  of  the  Books  of  Hermes.  lamblichus,  on  the  authority  of 
the  Egyptian  priest  Abammon,  attributes  1,200  of  such  books  to  Hermes,  and  Manetho  36,000.  But 
the  testimony  of  lamblichus  as  a  Neoplatonist  and  Theurgist  is  of  course  rejected  by  modem 
critics.  Manetho,  who  is  held  by  Bunsen  in  the  highest  consideration  as  a  "purely  historical 
personage,"  with  whom  "none  of  the  later  native  historians  can  be  compared"  (see  Egvpte,  i.  97), 
suddenly  becomes  a  Pseudo-Manetho,  as  soon  as  the  ideas  propounded  by  him  clash  with  the 
scientific  prejudices  against  Magic  and  the  Occult  knowledge  claimed  by  the  ancient  priests.' 
However,  none  of  the  Archaeologists  doubt  for  a  moment  the  almost  incredible  antiquity  of  the 
Hermetic  books.  Champollion  shows  the  greatest  regard  for  their  authenticity  and  truthfulness, 
corroborated  as  it  is  by  many  of  the  oldest  monuments.  And  Bunsen  brings  irrefutable  proofs  of 
their  age.  From  his  researches,  for  instance,  we  learn  that  there  was  a  line  of  sixty-one  kings 
before  the  days  of  Moses,  who  preceded  the  Mosaic  period  by  a  clearly -traceable  civilization  of 
several  thousand  years.  Thus  we  are  warranted  in  believing  that  the  works  of  Hermes  Trismegistus 
were  extant  many  ages  before  the  birth  of  the  Jewish  law-giver.  "Styli  and  inkstands  were  found 
on  monuments  of  the  fourth  Dynasty,  the  oldest  in  the  world,"  says  Bunsen.  If  the  eminent 
Egyptologist  rejects  the  period  of  48,863  j'ears  before  Alexander,  to  which  Diogenes  I^aertius  carries 
back  the  records  of  the  priests,  he  is  evidently  more  embarrassed  with  the  ten  thousand  of  astrono- 
mical observations,  and  remarks  that  "  if  they  were  actual  observations,  they  must  have  extended 
over  10,000  years  "  (p.  14).  "  We  learn,  however,"  he  adds,  "  from  one  of  their  own  old  chronological 
works  .  .  .  that  the  genuine  Egyptian  traditions  concerning  the  mythological  period  treated  of 
myriads  of  years."      {Bgypte,  i.  15;  Isis  Unveiled,  i.  33.) 

■•■  These  details  are  taken  fix>m  Pneumalologie,  iii.  pp.  204,  205. 

i  Egypte,  p.  143 ;  Isis  Unveiled,  i.  625. 


38  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

minutest  details,  then  indeed  criticism  ought  to  be  fully  satisfied.     Says 
Champollion : 

These  inscriptions  are  only  the  faithful  echo  and  expression  of  the  most  ancient 
verities. 

Since  these  words  were  written,  some  of  the  "  apocryphal  " 
verses  by  the  "  mythical "  Orpheus  have  also  been  found  copied 
word  for  word,  in  hierogb'^phics,  in  certain  inscriptions  of  the 
Fourth  Dynasty,  addressed  to  various  Deities.  Finally,  Creuzer  dis- 
covered and  immediately  pointed  out  the  very  significant  fact  that 
numerous  passages  found  in  Homer  and  Hesiod  were  undeniably 
borrowed  by  the  two  great  poets  from  the  Orphic  Hymns,  thus  prov- 
ing the  latter  to  be  far  older  than  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey. 

And  so  gradually  the  ancient  claims  come  to  be  vindicated,  and 
modern  criticism  has  to  submit  to  evidence.  Many  are  now  the 
writers  who  confess  that  such  a  type  of  literature  as  the  Hermetic 
works  of  Egypt  can  never  be  dated  too  far  back  into  the  prehistoric  ages. 
The  texts  of  many  of  these  ancient  works,  that  of  Enoch  included,  so 
loudly  proclaimed  "  apocryphal "  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  are 
now  discovered  and  recognised  in  the  most  secret  and  sacred  sanc- 
tuaries of  Chaldaea,  India,  Phoenicia,  Egypt  and  Central  Asia.  But 
even  such  proofs  have  failed  to  convince  the  bulk  of  our  Materialists. 
The  reason  for  this  is  very  simple  and  evident.  All  these  texts — held 
in  universal  veneration  in  Antiquity,  found  in  the  secret  libraries  of 
all  the  great  temples,  studied  (if  not  always  mastered)  by  the  greatest 
statesmen,  classical  writers,  philosophers,  kings  and  laymen,  as  much 
as  by  renowned  Sages — what  were  they  ?  Treatises  on  Magic  and 
Occultism,  pure  and  simple ;  the  now  derided  and  tabooed  Theosophy 
— hence  the  ostracism. 

Were  people,  then,  so  simple  and  credulous  in  the  days  of  Pytha- 
goras and  Plato  ?  Were  the  millions  of  Babylonia  and  Egypt,  of  India 
and  Greece,  with  their  great  Sages  to  lead  them,  all  fools,  that  during 
those  periods  of  great  learning  and  civilization  which  preceded  the 
year  one  of  our  era — the  latter  giving  birth  but  to  the  intellectual  dark- 
ness of  mediaeval  fanaticism — so  many  otherwise  great  men  should 
have  devoted  their  lives  to  a  mere  illusion,  a  superstition  called  Magic? 
It  would  seem  so,  had  one  to  remain  content  with  the  word  and 
conclusions  of  modern  Philosophy. 

Every  Art  and  Science,  however,  whatever  its  intrinsic  merit,  has  had 
its  discoverer  and  practitioner,  and  subsequently  its  proficients  to  teach 


WHAT   IS   THE    ORIGIN   OF   MAGIC? 

it.  What  is  the  origin  of  the  Occult  Sciences,  or  Magic?  Who  were 
Its  professors,  and  what  is  known  of  them,  whether  in  history  or  legend? 
Clemens  Alexandrinus,  one  of  the  most  intelligent  and  learned  of  the 
early  Christian  Fathers,  answers  this  question  in  his  Stromateis, 
That  ex-pupil  of  the  Neoplatonic  School  argues  : 
If  there  is  instruction,  you  must  seek  for  the  master.* 

And  so  he  shows  Cleanthes  taught  by  Zeno,  Theophrastus  by  Aris- 
totle,  Metrodorus  by  Epicurus,  Plato  by  Socrates,  etc.  And  he  adds 
ttiat  when  he  had  looked  further  back  to  Pythagoras,  Pherecydes,  and 
Thales,  he  had  still  to  search  for  their  masters.  The  same  for  the 
Egyptians,  the  Indians,  the  Babylonians,  and  the  Magi  themselves 
He  would  not  cease  questioning,  he  says,  to  learn  who  it  was  they  all 
had  for  their  masters.  And  when  he  (Clemens)  had  traced  down  the 
enquiry  to  the  very  cradle  of  mankind,  to  the  first  generation  of  men 
he  would  reiterate  once  more  his  questioning,  and  ask,  "  Who  is  their 
teacher  ?  "  Surely,  he  argues,  their  master  could  be  -  no  one  of  men  " 
And  even  when  we  should  have  reached  as  high  as  the  Angels  the 
same  query  would  have  to  be  offered  to  them:  "Who  were  their 
(meaning  the  '  divine  '  and  the  'fallen  '  Angels)  masters  ?  " 

The  aim  of  the  good  father's  long  argument  is  of  course  to  discover 
two  distinct  masters,  one  the  preceptor  of  biblical  patriarchs,  the  other 
the  teacher  of  the  Gentiles.  But  the  students  of  the  Secret  Doctrine 
need  go  to  no  such  trouble.  Their  professors  are  well  aware  who 
were  the  Masters  of  their  predecessors  in  Occult  Sciences  and 
Wisdom. 

The  two  professors  are  finally  traced  out  by  Clemens,  and  are 
as  was  to  be  expected,  God,  and  his  eternal  and  everlasting  enemy  and 
opponent,  the  Devil ;  the  subject  of  Clemens'  enquiry  relating  to 
the  ^..a/ aspect  of  Hermetic  Philosophy,  as  cause  and  effect.  Admit, 
ting  the  moral  beauty  of  the  virtues  preached  in  every  Occult  work 
with  which  he  was  acquainted.  Clemens  desires  to  know  the  cause  of 
the  apparent  contradiction  between  the  doctrine  and  the  practice  good 
and  evil  Magic,  and  he  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  Magic  has  two 
ongins-divineand  diabolical.  He  perceives  its  bifurcation  into  two 
channels,  hence  his  deduction  and  inference. 

We  perceive  it  too,  without,  however,  necessarily  designating  such 
bifurcation^iabolical.    for    we    judge  the    "left-hand    path"    as   it 

•  Strom.,  VI.  vii.    The  following  paragraph  is  paraphrased  from  the  same  chapter. 


40  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

issued  from  the  hands  of  its  founder.  Otherwise,  judging  also  by  the 
effects  of  Clemens'  own  religion  and  the  walk  in  life  of  certain  of  its 
professors,  since  the  death  of  their  Master,  the  Occultists  would  have 
a  right  to  come  to  somewhat  the  same  conclusion  as  Clemens.  They 
would  have  a  right  to  say  that  while  Christ,  the  Master  of  all  true 
Christians,  was  in  every  way  godly,  those  who  resorted  to  the  horrors 
of  the  Inquisition,  to  the  extermination  and  torture  of  heretics,  Jews 
and  Alchemists,  the  Protestant  Calvin  who  burnt  Servetus,  and  his 
persecuting  Protestant  successors,  down  to  the  whippers  and  burners 
of  witches  in  America,  must  have  had  for  thei7-  Master,  the  Devil.  But 
Occultists,  not  believing  in  the  Devil,  are  precluded  from  retaliating  in 
this  way. 

Clemens'  testimony,  however,  is  valuable  in  so  far  as  it  shows  (i)  the 
enormous  number  of  works  on  Occult  Sciences  in  his  day ;  and  (2) 
the  extraordinary  pow^ers  acquired  through  those  Sciences  hy  certain 
men. 

He  devotes,  for  instance,  the  whole  of  the  sixth  book  of  his  Strovia- 
ieis  to  this  research  for  the  first  two  "  Masters"  of  the  true  and  the  false 
Philosoi^h}'-  respectively,  both  preserved,  as  he  says,  in  the  Egyptian 
sanctuaries.  Very  pertinently  too,  he  apostrophises  the  Greeks,  asking 
them  why  they  should  not  accept  the  "  miracles  "  of  Moses  as  such, 
since  they  claim  the  very  same  privileges  for  their  own  Philosophers, 
and  he  gives  a  number  of  instances.  It  is,  as  he  says,  ^achus  obtain- 
ing through  his  Occult  powers  a  marvellous  rain  ;  it  is  Aristasus  causing 
the  winds  to  blow;  Empedocles  quieting  the  gale,  and  forcing  it  to 
cease,  etc.* 

The  books  of  Mercurius  Trismegistus  most  attracted  his  attention.f 
He  is  also  warm  in  his  praise  of  Hystaspes  (or  Gushtasp),  of  the  Sibyl- 
line books,  and  even  of  the  right  Astrology. 

There  have  been  in  all  ages  use  and  abuse  of  Magic,  as  there  are  use 
and  abuse  of  Mesmerism  or  Hypnotism  in  our  own.  The  ancient 
world  had  its  Apollonii  and  its  Pherecydae,  and  intellectual  people 
could  discriminate  then,  as  they  can  now.  While  no  classical  or  pagan 
writer  has  ever  found  one  word  of  blame  for  Apollonius  of  Txana,  for 
instance,  it  is  not  so  with  regard  to  Pherecydes.     Hesj'^chius  of  Miletia, 


•  See  Pneumatologie,  iii.  207.    Therefore  Empedocles  is  called  KU)XvBa.V€fXO<;,  the  "dominatorof 
the  wind."     Strom.,  VI.  iii. 

+  Ibid.,  iv. 


PHERECYDES  OF  SYROS.  41 

Philo  of  Byblos  and  Eusthathius  charge  the  latter  unstintingly  with 
having  built  his  Philosophy  and  Science  on  demoniacal  traditions — i.e., 
on  Sorcery.  Cicero  declares  that  Pherecydes  is,  potius  divinus  quam 
medicus,  "  rather  a  soothsayer  than  a  physician,"  and  Diogenes  Laertius 
gives  a  vast  number  of  stories  relating  to  his  predictions.  One  day 
Pherecydes  prophesies  the  shipwreck  of  a  vessel  hundreds  of  miles 
away  from  him  ;  another  time  he  predicts  the  capture  of  the  Lacedae- 
monians by  the  Arcadians ;  finallj^  he  foresees  his  own  wretched  end.* 

Bearing  in  mind  the  objections  that  will  be  made  to  the  teachings  of 
the  Esoteric  Doctrine  as  herein  propounded,  the  writer  is  forced  to 
meet  some  of  them  beforehand. 

Such  imputations  as  those  brought  by  Clemens  against  the 
"  heathen"  Adepts,  only  prove  the  presence  of  clairvoyant  powers  and 
prevision  in  every  age,  but  are  no  evidence  in  favour  of  a  Devil.  They 
are,  therefore,  of  no  value  except  to  the  Christians,  for  whom  Satan 
is  one  of  the  chief  pillars  of  the  faith.  Baronius  and  De  Mirville,  for 
instance,  find  an  unanswerable  proof  of  Demonology  in  the  belief 
in  the  co-eternity  of  Matter  with  Spirit ! 

De  Mirville  writes  that  Pherecydes 

Postulates  in  principle  the  primordiality  of  Zeus  or  Ether,  and  then,  on  the  same 
plane,  a  principle,  coeternal  and  coactive,  which  he  calls  the  fifth  element,  or 
Ogenos.t 

He  then  points  out  that  the  meaning  of  Ogenos  is  given  as  that 
which  shuts  up,  which  holds  captive,  and  that  is  Hades,  "  or  in  a  word, 
hell." 

The  synonyms  are  known  to  every  schoolboy  without  the  Marquis 
going  to  the  trouble  of  explaining  them  to  the  Academy  ;  as  to  the 
deduction,  every  Occultist  will  of  course  deny  it  and  only  smile  at  its 
folly.     And  now  we  come  to  the  theological  conclusion. 

The  resume  oi  the  views  of  the  Latin  Church — as  given  by  authors  of 
the  same  character  as  the  Marquis  de  Mirville— amounts  to  this  :  that 
the  Hermetic  Books,  their  wisdom — fully  admitted  in  Rome — notwith- 
standing, are  "  the  heirloom  left  by  Cain,  the  accursed,  to  mankind." 
It  is  "  generally  admitted,"  says  that  modern  memorialist  of  Satan  in 
History : 

That  immediately  after  the  Flood  Cham  and  his  descendants  had  propagated 
anew  the  ancient  teachings  of  the  Cainites  and  of  the  submerged  Race.  % 

*  Summarised  from  Ptieutnatologie,  iii.  209.  +  J^c.  cit.  X  Op.  cit.,  iii.  208. 


42 


THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 


This  proves,  at  any  rate,  that  Magic,  or  Sorcery  as  he  calls  it,  is  an 
antediluvian  Art,  and  thus  one  point  is  gained.     For,  as  he  says  :— 

The  evidence  of  Berosius  makes  Ham  identical  with  the  first  Zoroaster,  founder 
of  Bactria,  the  first  author  of  all  the  magic  arts  of  Babylonia,  the  Chemesenua  or 
Cham,*  the  infamous'^  of  the  faithful  Noachians,  finally  the  object  of  adoration 
for  Eg>'pt,  which  having  received  its  name  Wf^^'-^,  whence  chemistry,  built  in  his 
honour  a  town  called  Choemnis,  or  the  "city  of  fire."  J  Ham  adored  it,  it  is  said, 
whence  the  name  Chammaim  given  to  the  pyramids;  which  in  their  turn  have 
been  vulgarised  into  our  modern  noun  "chimney."§ 

This    statement    is    entirely  wrong.      Kgypt    was    the    cradle     of 
Chemistry  and  its  birth-place — this  is  pretty  well  known  by  this  time. 
Only  Kenrick  and  others  show  the  root  of  the  word  to  be  chemi  or  chein, 
which  is  not  Cham  or  Ham,  but  Khem,  the  Egyptian  phallic  God  of  the 
Mysteries. 

But  this  is  not  all.  De  Mirville  is  bent  upon  finding  a  satanic  origin 
even  for  the  now  innocent  Tarot. 

He  goes  on  to  sa}': 

As  to  the  means  for  the  propagation  of  this  evil  Magic,  tradition  points  it  out,  in 
certain  runic  characters  traced  on  metallic  plates  [or  leaves,  des  lames']  which  have 
escaped  destruction  by  the  Deluge. ||  This  might  have  been  regarded  as  legendary, 
had  not  subsequent  discoveries  shown  it  far  from  being  so.  Plates  were  found 
covered  with  curious  and  utterly  undecipherable  characters,  characters  of  un- 
deniable antiquity,  to  which  the  Chamites  [Sorcerers,  with  the  author]  attribute 
the  origin  of  their  marvellous  and  terrible  powers. T 

The  pious   author  may,   meanwhile,    be  left  to  his   own  orthodox 


•  The  English  speaking  people  who  spell  the  name  of  Noah's  disrespectful  son  "  Ham  "  have  to  be 
reminded  that  the  right  spelling  is  "  Kham"  or  "  Cham." 

+  Black  Magic,  or  Sorcery,  is  the  evil  result  obtained  in  any  shape  or  way  through  the  practice  of 
Occult  Arts  ;  hence  it  has  to  be  judged  only  by  its  effects.  The  name  of  neither  Ham  nor  Cain,  when 
pronounced,  has  ever  killed  any  one ;  whereas,  if  we  have  to  believe  that  same  Clemens  Alexandrinus 
who  traces  the  teacher  of  every  Occultist,  outside  of  Christianity,  to  the  Devil,  the  name  of 
Jehovah  (pronounced  Jevo  and  in  a  peculiar  way)  had  the  effect  of  killing  a  man  at  a  distance.  The 
mysterious  Schetnham-phorasch  was  not  always  used  for  holy  purposes  by  the  Kabalists,  especially 
since  the  Sabbath  or  Saturday,  sacred  to  Saturn  or  the  evil  Shani,  became— with  the  Jews— sacred  to 
"Jehovah." 

t  Khoemnis,  the  pre-historic  city,  may  or  may  not  have  been  built  by  Noah's  son,  but  it  was  not 
his  name  that  was  given  to  the  town,  but  that  of  the  Mystery  Goddess  Khoemnu  or  Khoemnis 
(Greek  form) ;  the  deity  that  was  created  by  the  ardent  fancy  of  the  neophyte,  who  was  thus  tantalised 
during  his  "  twelve  labours  "  of  probation  before  his  final  initiation.  Her  male  counterpart  is  Khem. 
The  city  of  Choemnis  or  Khemmis  (to-day  Akhmem)  was  the  chief  seat  of  the  God  Khem.  The 
Greeks  identifying  Khem  with  Pan,  called  this  city  "  Panopolis." 

{  Pneumatologie,  iii.  210.  This  looks  more  like  pious  vengeance  than  philology.  The  picture,  how- 
ever, seems  incomplete,  as  the  author  ought  to  have  added  to  the  "  chimney  "  a  witch  flying  out 
of  it  on  a  broomstick. 

U  How  could  they  escape  from  the  Deluge  unless  God  so  willed  it  ?    This  is  scarcely  logical. 

If  Loc.  cii.,  p.  210. 


CAIN,    MATHEMATICAL   AND   ANTHROPOMORPHIC.  43 

beliefs.  He,  at  anj^  rate,  seems  quite  sincere  in  his  views.  Neverthe- 
less, his  able  arguments  will  have  to  be  sapped  at  their  very  foundation, 
for  it  must  be  shown  on  mathematical  grounds  who,  or  rather  what,  Cain 
and  Ham  really  were.  De  Mirville  is  only  the  faithful  son  of  his 
Church,  interested  in  keeping  Cain  in  his  anthropomorphic  character 
and  in  his  present  place  in  "  Holy  Writ."  The  student  of  Occultism, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  solely  interested  in  the  truth.  But  the  age  has  to 
follow  the  natural  course  of  its  evolution. 


SECTION  lY. 

The  Secresy  of  Initiates. 


The  false  rendering  of  a  number  of  parables  and  sa5'ings  of  Jesus  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  in  the  least.  From  Orpheus,  the  first  initiated 
Adept  of  whom  history  catches  a  glimpse  in  the  mists  of  the  pre- 
Christian  era,  down  through  Pythagoras,  Confucius,  Buddha,  Jesus, 
Apollonius  of  Tyana,  to  Ammonius  Saccas,  no  Teacher  or  Initiate  has 
ever  committed  anything  to  writing  for  public  use.  Each  and  all  of 
them  have  invariably  recommended  silence  and  secres3'  on  certain  facts 
and  deeds ;  from  Confucius,  who  refused  to  explain  publicly  and  satis- 
factorily what  he  meant  by  his  "  Great  Extreme,"  or  to  give  the  key  to 
the  divination  by  "straws,"  down  to  Jesus,  who  charged  his  disciples 
to  tell  no  man  that  he  was  Christ*  (Chrestos),  the  "man  of  sorrows  " 
and  trials,  before  his  supreme  and  last  Initiation,  or  that  he  had  pro- 
duced a  "miracle"  of  resurrection.f  The  Apostles  had  to  preserve 
silence,  so  that  the  left  hand  should  not  know  what  the  right  hand  did ; 
in  plainer  words,  that  the  dangerous  proficients  in  the  Left  Hand 
Science — the  terrible  enemies  of  the  Right  Hand  Adepts,  especially 
before  their  supreme  Initiation — should  not  profit  by  the  publicity  so 
as  to  harm,  both  the  healer  and  the  patient.  And  if  the  above  is  main- 
tained to  be  simply  an  assumption,  then  what  may  be  the  meaning  of 
these  awful  words ; 

Unto  you  it  is  given  to  know  the  mystery  of  the  Kingdom  of  God;  but 
unto  them  that  are  without  all  these  things  are  done  in  parables  ;  that  seeing  they 
may  see  and  not  perceive;  and  hearing,  they  may  hear  and  not  understand;  lest 
at  any  time  they  should  be  converted  and  their  sins  should  be  forgiven  them.  X 

*  Matthezv^  xvi.  20-  +  Mark,  v.  43.  t  Mark,  iv.  11,  12. 


EXOTERIC  AND  ESOTERIC  TEACHINGS.  45 

Unless  interpreted  in  the  sense  of  the  law  of  silence  and  Karma,  the 
utter  selfishness  and  uncharitable  spirit  of  this  remark  are  but  too 
evident.  These  words  are  directly  connected  with  the  terrible  dogma 
of  predestination.  Will  the  good  and  intelligent  Christian  cast  such  a 
slur  of  cruel  selfishness  on  his  Saviour  ?  * 

The  work  of  propagating  such  truths  in  parables  was  left  to  the 
disciples  of  the  high  Initiates.  It  was  their  duty  to  follow  the  key-note 
of  the  Secret  Teaching  without  revealing  its  mysteries.  This  is  shown 
in  the  histories  of  all  the  great  Adepts.  Pythagoras  divided  his  classes 
into  hearers  of  exoteric  and  esoteric  lectures.  The  Magians  received 
their  instructions  and  were  initiated  in  the  far  hidden  caves  of  Bactria. 
"When  Josephus  declares  that  Abraham  taught  Mathematics  he  meant 
by  it  "  Magic,"  for  in  the  Pythagorean  code  Mathematics  mean  Esoteric 
Science,  or  Gnosis. 

Professor  Wilder  remarks : 

The  Essenes  of  Judaea  and  Carmel  made  similar  distinctions,  dividing  their 
adherents  into  neoph>-tes,  brethren  and  the  perfect.  .  .  .  Ammonius  obligated 
his  disciples  by  oath  not  to  divulge  his  higher  doctrines,  except  to  those  who  had 
been  thoroughlj'  instructed  and  exercised  [prepared  for  initiation].t 

One  of  the  most  powerful  reasons  for  the  necessity  of  strict  secresy 
is  given  by  Jesus  Himself,  if  one  may  credit  Matthew.  For  there  the 
Master  is  made  to  say  plainly  : 

Give  not  that  which  is  holy  unto  the  dogs,  neither  cast  ye  your  pearls  before 
swine  ;    lest  they  trample  them  under  their  feet,  and  turn  again  and  rend  you.  J 

Profoundly  true  and  wise  words.  Many  are  those  in  our  own  age, 
and  even  among  us,  who  have  been  forcibly  reminded  of  them — often 
when  too  late.§ 


•  Is  it  not  evident  that  the  words :  " lest  at  any  time  they  should  be  converted  (or:  "lest  haply 
they  should  turn  again  " — as  in  the  revised  version)  and  their  sins  be  forgiven  them"— do  not  at  all 
mean  to  imply  that  Jesus  feared  that  through  repentance  any  outsider,  or  "them  that  are  without," 
should  escape  damnation,  as  the  Uteral  dead-letter  sense  plainly  shows^but  quite  a  different  thing  ? 
Namely,  "lest  any  of  the  profane  should  by  understanding  his  preaching,  undisguised  by  parable, 
get  hold  of  some  of  the  secret  teachings  and  mysteries  of  Initiation — and  even  of  Occult  powers  ? 
"Be  converted"  is,  in  other  words,  to  obtain  a  knowledge  belonging  exclusively  to  the  Initiated  . • 
"  and  their  sins  be  forgiven  them,"  that  is,  their  sins  would  fall -upon  the  illegal  revealer,  on  those 
who  had  helped  the  unworthy  to  reap  there  where  they  have  never  laboured  to  sow,  and  had  given 
them,  thereby,  the  means  of  escaping  on  this  earth  their  deserved  Karma,  which  must  thus  re-act  on 
the  revealer,  who,  instead  of  good,  did  harm  and  faUed. 

■t    New  Platonism  and  Alchemy,  i86g,  pp.  7,  9. 

t  vii.  6. 

}  History  is  full  of  proofs  of  the  same.  Had  not  Anaxagoras  enunciated  the  great  truth  taught 
in  the  Mysteries,  vtx.,  that  the  sun  was  surely  larger  than  the  Peloponnesus,  he  would  not  havt  been 
^rsecuted  and  nearly  put  to  death  by  the  fanatical  mob.    Had  that  other  rabble  which  was  raised 


46  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Even  Maimonides  recommends  silence  with  regard  to  the  true  mean- 
ing of  the  Bible  texts.  This  injunction  destroys  the  usual  affirmation 
that  "  Holy  Writ"  is  the  only  book  in  the  world  whose  divine  oracles 
contain  plain  unvarnished  truth.  It  may  be  so  for  the  learned  Kaba- 
lists ;  it  is  certainly  quite  the  reverse  with  regard  to  Christians,  For 
this  is  what  the  learned  Hebrew  Philosopher  says  : 

Whoever  shall  find  out  the  true  sense  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  ought  to  take  care 
not  to  divulge  it.  This  is  a  maxim  that  all  our  sages  repeat  to  us,  and  above  all 
respecting  the  work  of  the  six  days.  If  a  person  should  discover  the  true  meaning 
of  it  by  himself,  or  by  the  aid  of  another,  then  he  ought  to  be  silent,  or  if  he  vSpeaks 
.  he  ought  to  speak  of  it  obscurely,  in  an  enigmatical  manner,  as  I  do  myself,  leaving 
the  rest  to  be  guessed  by  those  who  can  understand  me. 

The  Symbology  and  Ksoterism  of  the  Old  Testament  being  thus  con- 
fessed by  one  of  the  greatest  Jewish  Philosophers,  it  is  only  natural  to 
find  Christian  Fathers  making  the  same  confession  with  regard  to  the 
New  Testament,  and  the  Bible  in  general.  Thus  we  find  Clemens 
Alexaudrinus  and  Origen  admitting  it  as  plainly  as  words  can  do  it. 
Clemens,  who  had  been  initiated  into  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries  sa5^s,  that : 

The  doctrines  there  taught  contained  in  them  the  end  of  all  instructions  as  they 
were  taken  from  Moses  and  the  ptophets, 

a  slight  perversion  of  facts  pardonable  in  the  good  Father.  The  words 
admit,  after  all,  that  the  Mysteries  of  the  Jews  were  identical  with  those 
of  the  Pagan  Greeks,  who  took  them  from  the  Egyptians,  who  borrowed 
them,  in  their  turn,  from  the  Chaldaeans,  who  got  them  from  the 
Aryans,  the  Atlanteans  and  so  on — far  beyond  the  days  of  that  Race. 
The  secret  meaning  of  the  Gospel  is  again  openly  confessed  by  Clemens 
when  he  says  that  the  Mysteries  of  the  Faith  are  not  to  be  divulged  to 
all. 

But  since  this  tradition  is  not  published  alone  for  him  who  perceives  the  magnifi- 
cence of  the  word ;  it  is  requisite,  therefore,  to  hide  in  a  Mystery  the  wisdom 
spoken,  which  the  Son  of  God  taught.* 

against  Pythagoras  understood  what  the  mysterious  Sage  of  Crotona  meant  by  giving  out  his  remem- 
brance of  having  been  the  "  Son  of  Mercury" — God  of  the  Secret  Wisdom — he  would  not  have  been 
forced  to  fly  for  his  life;  nor  would  Socrates  have  been  put  to  death,  had  he  kept  secret  the  revelations 
of  his  divine  Daimon.  He  knew  how  little  his  century — save  those  initiated — would  understand 
his  meaning,  had  he  given  out  aU  he  knew  of  the  moon.  Thus  he  limited  his  statement  to  an 
allegory,  which  is  now  proven  to  have  been  more  scientific  than  was  hitherto  believed.  He  main- 
tained that  the  moon  was  inhabited  and  thai  the  lunar  beings  lived  in  profound,  vast  and  dark 
valleys,  our  satellite  being  airless  and  without  any  atmosphere  outside  such  profound  valleys ; 
this,  disregarding  the  revelation  full  of  meaning  for  the  few  only,  must  be  so  of  necessity,  if  there 
is  any  atmosphere  on  our  bright  Selene  at  all.  The  facts  recorded  in  the  secret  annals  of  the 
Mysteries  had  to  remain  veiled  under  penalty  of  death. 
*  Stromaleis,  xii. 


OKIGEN   ON    "  GENESIS."  47 

Not  less  explicit  is  Origen  with  regard  to  the  Bible  and  its  symbolical 
fables.     He  exclaims : 

If  we  hold  to  the  letter,  and  must  understand  what  stands  written  in  the  law 
after  the  manner  of  the  Jews  and  common  people,  then  I  should  blush  to  confess 
aloud  that  it  is  God  who  has  given  these  laws :  then  the  laws  of  men  appear  more 
excellent  and  reasonable.* 

And  well  he  might  have  "blushed,"  the  sincere  and  honest  Father 
of  early  Christianity  in  its  days  of  relative  purity.  But  the  Christians 
of  this  highly  literary  and  civilised  age  of  ours  do  not  blush  at  all;  they 
swallow,  on  the  contrar}-,  the  "  light"  before  the  formation  of  the  sun, 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  Jonah's  whale  and  all,  notwithstanding  that  the 
same  Origen  asks  in  a  very  natural  fit  of  indignation  : 

What  man  of  sense  will  agree  with  the  statement  that  the  first,  second  and  third 
days  in  which  the  evening  is  named  and  the  morning,  were  without  sun,  moon,  and 
stars,  and  the  first  day  without  a  heaven  ?  What  man  is  found  such  an  idiot  as  to 
suppose  that  God  planted  trees  in  Paradise,  in  Eden,  like  a  husbaudman,  etc. .'  I 
believe  that  every  man  must  hold  these  things  for  images,  under  which  a  hidden 
sense  lies  concealed  ?t 

Yet  millions  of  "such  idiots"  are  found  in  our  age  of  enlightenment 
andnotonlj'  in  the  third  century.  When  Paul's  unequivocal  statement  in 
Galatians,  iv.  22-25,  that  the  story  of  Abraham  and  his  two  sons  is  all 
"  an  allegor>-,"  and  that  "Agar  is  Mount  Sinai  "  is  added  to  this,  then 
little  blame,  indeed,  can  be  attached  to  either  Christian  or  Heathen  who 
declines  to  accept  the  Bible  in  any  other  light  than  that  of  a  very 
ingenious  allegory. 

Rabbi  Simeon  Ben-"  Jochai,"  the  compiler  of  the  Zohar,  never  im- 
parted the  most  important  points  of  his  doctrine  otherwise  than  orally, 
and  to  a  verj'  limited  number  of  disciples.  Therefore,  without  the 
final  initiation  into  the  Mercavah,  the  study  of  the  Kabalah  will  be  ever 
incomplete,  and  the.  Mercavah  can  be  taught  only"  in  darkness,  in  a 
deserted  place,  and  after  many  and  terrific  trials."  Since  the  death  of 
that  great  Jewish  Initiate  this  hidden  doctrine  has  remained,  for  the 
outside  world,  an  inviolate  secret. 

Among  the  venerable  sect  of  the  Tanaira,  or  rather  the  Tananim,  the  wise  men, 
there  were  those  who  taught  the  secrets  practically  and  initiated  some  disciples 
into  the  grand  and  final  Mystery.  But  the  Mishna  Hagiga,  2nd  Section,  say  that 
the  table  of  contents  of  the  Mercaba  "  must  only  be  delivered  to  wise  old  ones."  The 
Gentatu  is  still  more  dogmatic.     "  The  more  important  secrets  of  the  Mysteries 

•  See  Homilies  7,  in  Levit.,  quoted  in  the  Source  of  Measures,  p.  307. 

t  Origen:  Huet.,  Origeniana,  167;  Pranck,  121;  qu»ted  from  Dunlap's  Sdd,  p.  176. 


43  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

were  not  even  revealed  to  all   priests.     Alone  the  initiates  had  them   divulged." 
And  so  we  find  the  same  great  secresy  prevalent  in  every  ancient  religion.* 

What  says  the  Kabalah  itself?  Its  great  Rabbis  actually  threaten 
him  who  accepts  their  sayings  verbatim.     We  read  in  the  Zohar : 

Woe  to  the  man  who  sees  in  the  Thorah,  i.e.,  Law,  only  simple  recitals  and 
ordinary  words  !  Because  if  in  truth  it  only  contained  these,  we  would  even  to-day 
be  able  to  compose  a  Thorah  much  more  worthy  of  admiration.  For  if  we  find 
only  the  simple  words,  we  would  only  have  to  address  ourselves  to  the  legislators 
of  the  earth,  t  to  those  in  whom  we  most  frequently  meet  with  the  most  grandeur. 
It  would  be  sufficient  to  imitate  them,  and  make  a  Thorah  after  their  words  and 
example.  But  it  is  not  so  ;  each  word  of  the  Thorah  contains  an  elevated  meaning 
and  a  sublime  mystery.  .  .  .  The  recitals  of  the  Thorah  are  the  vestments  of  the 
Thorah.  Woe  to  him  who  takes  this  garment  for  the  Thorah  itself.  .  .  .  The 
simple  take  notice  only  of  the  garments  or  recitals  of  the  Thorah,  they  know  no 
other  thing,  they  see  not  that  which  is  concealed  under  the  vestment.  The  more 
instructed  men  do  not  pay  attention  to  the  vestment,  but  to  the  bodj-  which  it 
envelops,  t 

Ammonius  Saccas  taught  that  the  Secret  Doctrine  of  the  Wisdom- 
Religion  was  found  complete  in  the  Books  of  Thoth  (Hermes),  from 
which  both  Pythagoras  and  Plato  derived  their  knowledge  and  much  of 
their  Philosophy  ;  and  these  Books  were  declared  by  him  to  be  "identical 
with  the  teachings  of  the  Sages  of  the  remote  East."  Professor 
A.  Wilder  remarks : 

As  the  name  Thoth  means  a  college  or  assembly,  it  is  not  altogether  improbable 
that  the  books  were  so  named  as  being  the  collected  oracles  and  doctrines  of  the 
sacerdotal  fraternity  of  Memphis.  Rabbi  Wise  has  suggested  the  same  hypothesis 
in  relation  to  the  divine  utterances  recorded  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  § 

This  is  very  probable.  Only  the  "  divine  utterances  "  have  never 
been,  so  far,  understood  by  the  profane.  Philo  Judaeus,  a  non-initiate, 
attempted  to  give  their  secret  meaning  and — failed. 

But  Books  of  Thoth  or  Bible,  Vedas  or  Kabalah,  all  enjoin  the  same 
secresy  as  to  certain  mysteries  of  nature  symbolised  in  them.  "Woe 
be  to  him  who  divulges  unlawfully  the  words  whispered  into  the  ear  of 


*  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  350. 

+  The  materialistic  "law-givers,"  the  critics  and  Sadducees  who  have  tried  to  tear  to  shreds  the 
doctriues  and  teachings  of  the  great  Asiatic  Masters  past  and  present— no  scholars  in  the  modem 
sense  of  the  word— would  do  well  to  ponder  over  these  words.  No  doubt  that  doctrines  and  secret 
teachings  had  they  been  invented  and  written  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge  would  be  more  brilliant  out- 
wardly.   Would  they  equally  answer  to  universal  truths  and  facts,  is  the  next  question  however. 

X  iii.  fol.  1526,  quoted  in  Myer's  Qabbalah,  p.  loz. 

\  New-Platonism  and  Alchemy,  p.  6. 


THE   "DARK  SAYINGS"    OF  THE    "TESTAMENTS."  49 

Manushi  by  the  First  hiitiatory     Who  that  "Initiator"  was  is  made 
plain  in  the  Book  of  Enoch  : 

From  them  [the  Angels]  I  heard  all  things,  and  understood  what  I  saw ;  that 
which  will  not  take  place  in  this  generation  [Race],  but  in  a  generation  which  is  to 
succeed  at  a  distant  period  [the  6th  and  7th  Races]  on  account  of  the  elect  [the 
Initiates].* 

Again,  it  is  said  with  regard  to  the  judgment  of  those  who,  when  they 
have  learned  "  every  secret  of  the  angels,"  reveal  them,  that: 

They  have  discovered  secrets,  and  they  are  those  who  have  been  judged  ;  but  not 
thou,  my  son  [Noah]  .  .  .  thou  art  pure  and  good  2LX\.^free  from  the  reproach 
of  discovering  [revealing]  secrets. t 

But  there  are  those  in  our  centur}',  who,  having  "discovered  secrets" 
unaided  and  owing  to  their  own  learning  and  acuteness  only,  and  who 
being,  nevertheless,  honest  and  straightforward  men,  undismayed  by 
threats  or  warning  since  they  have  never  pledged  themselves  to  secresy, 
feel  quite  startled  at  such  revelations.  One  of  these  is  the  learned 
author  and  discoverer  of  one  "  Key  to  the  Hebrew-Egyptian  Mystery." 
As  he  says,  there  are  "some  strange  features  connected  with  the  pro- 
mulgation and  condition  "  of  the  Bible. 

Those  who  compiled  this  Book  were  men  as  we  are.  They  knew,  saw,  handled 
and  realized,  through  the  key  measure,!  the  law  of  the  living,  ever-active  God.§ 
They  needed  no  faith  that  He  was,  that  He  worked,  planned,  and  accomplished,  as 
a  mighty  mechanic  and  architect.||  What  was  it,  then,  that  reserved  to  them  alone 
this  knowledge,  while  first  as  men  of  God,  and  second  as  Apostles  of  Jesus  the 
Christ,  they  doled  out  a  blinding  ritual  service,  and  an  empty  teaching  of  faith 
and  no  substance  as  proof,  properU-  coming  through  the  exercise  of  just  those 
senses  which  the  Deity  has  given  all  men  as  the  essential  means  of  obtaining  any 
right  understanding .'  Mystery  and  parable,  and  dark  saying,  and  cloaking  of  the 
true  meanings  are  the  burden  of  the  Testaments,  Old  and  New.  Take  it  that  the 
narratives  of  the  Bible  were  purposed  inventions  to  deceive  the  ignorant  masses, 
even  while  enforcing  a  most  perfect  code  of  moral  obligations:  How  is  it  possible 
to  justif}'  so  great  frauds,  as  part  of  a  Divine  economy,  when  to  that  economy, 
the  attribute  of  simple  and  perfect  truthfulness  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be 


•  1.  z. 

+  Ixiv.  10. 

%  The  key  is  shown  to  be  "in  the  source  of  measures  originating-  the  British  inch  and  the 
ancient  cubit"  as  the  author  tries  to  prove. 

\  The  word  as  a  plural  might  have  better  solved  the  mystery.  God  is  ever-present ;  if  he  were 
ever-active  he  could  no  longer  be  an  infinite  God— nor  ever-present  in  his  limitation. 

II  The  author  is  evidently  a  Mason  of  the  way  of  thinking  of  General  Pike.  So  long  as  th  e 
American  and  English  Masons  will  reject  the  "  Creative  Principle  "  of  the  "Grand  Orient  "  of  France 
they  will  remain  in  the  dark. 


50  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

ascribed?     What  has,  or  what  by  possibility  ought  mystery  to  have,  with  the 
promulgation  of  the  truths  of  God  ?* 

Nothing  whatever  most  certainly,  if  those  mysteries  had  been 
given  from  the  first.  And  so  it  was  with  regard  to  the  first,  semi- 
divine,  pure  and  spiritual  Races  of  Humanity.  They  had  the  "  truths 
of  God,"  and  lived  up  to  them,  and  their  ideals.  They  preserved  them, 
so  long  as  there  was  hardl}'  an}^  evil,  and  hence  scarcely  a  possible 
abuse  of  that  knowledge  and  those  truths.  But  evolution  and  the 
gradual  fall  into  materiality  is  also  one  of  the  "truths"  and  also  one 
of  the  laws  of  "  God."  And  as  mankind  progressed,  and  became  with 
ever}'  generation  more  of  the  earth,  earthh%  the  individuality  of  each 
temporary  Ego  began  to  assert  itself.  It  is  personal  selfishness  that 
develops  and  urges  man  on  to  abuse  of  his  knowledge  and  power. 
And  selfishness  is  a  human  building,  whose  windows  and  doors  are 
ever  wide  open  for  every  kind  of  iniquity  to  enter  into  man's  soul. 
Few  were  the  men  during  the  early  adolescence  of  mankind,  and  fewer 
still  are  they  now,  who  feel  disposed  to  put  into  practice  Pope's  forcible 
declaration  that  he  would  tear  out  his  own  heart,  if  it  had  no  better 
disposition  than  to  love  only  himself,  and  laugh  at  all  his  neighbours. 
Hence  the  necessit)'  of  gradually  taking  away  from  man  the  divine 
knowledge  and  power,  which  became  with  every  new  human  cycle  more 
dangerous  as  a  double-edged  weapon,  whose  evil  side  was  ever 
threatening  one's  neighbour,  and  whose  power  for  good  was 
lavished  freely  only  upon  self.  Those  few  "elect"  whose  inner  natures 
had  remained  unaffected  by  their  outward  physical  growth,  thus  became 
in  time  the  sole  guardians  of  the  m5''steries  revealed,  passing  the  know- 
ledge to  those  most  fit  to  receive  it,  and  keeping  it  inaccessible  to 
others.  Reject  this  explanation  from  the  Secret  Teachings,  and  the 
very  name  of  Religion  will  become  s5''nonymous  with  deception  and 
fraud. 

Yet  the  masses  could  not  be  allowed  to  remain  without  some  sort  of 
moral  restraint.  Man  is  ever  craving  for  a  "beyond  "  and  cannot  live 
without  an  ideal  of  some  kind,  as  a  beacon  and  a  consolation.  At  the 
same  time,  no  average  man,  even  in  our  age  of  universal  education, 
could  be  entrusted  with  truths  too  metaphysical,  too  subtle  for  his 
mind  to  comprehend,  ^vithout  the  danger  of  an  imminent  reaction 
setting  in,  and  faith  in  Gods  and  Saints  making  room  for  an  unscientific 
blank  Atheism.      No  real  philanthropist,  hence  no  Occultist,  would 


*  Source  of  Measures,  pp.  308,  309. 


THE  GREATEST  CRIME  EVER  PERPETRATED.  5 1 

dream  for  a  moment  of  amankind  without  one  tittle  of  Religion.  Even 
the  modern  day  Religion  in  Europe,  confined  to  Sundays,  is  better  than 
none.  But  if,  as  Bunyan  put  it,  "  Religion  is  the  best  armour  that  a 
man  can  have,"  it  certainly  is  the  '"worst  cloak"  ;  and  it  is  that  "cloak" 
and  false  pretence  which  the  Occultists  and  the  Theosophists  fight 
against.  The  true  ideal  Deity,  the  one  living  God  in  Nature,  can 
never  suffer  in  man's  worship  if  that  outward  cloak,  woven  by  man's 
fancy,  and  thrown  upon  the  Deity  by  the  crafty  hand  of  the  priest 
greedy  of  power  and  domination,  is  drawn  aside.  The  hour  has  struck 
with  the  commencement  of  this  century  to  dethrone  the  "  highest 
God  "  of  every  nation  in  favour  of  One  Universal  Deity— the  God  of 
Immutable  Law,  not  charity ;  the  God  of  Just  Retribution,  not  mercy, 
which  is  merely  an  incentive  to  evil-doing  and  to  a  repetition  of  it. 
The  greatest  crime  that  was  ever  perpetrated  upon  mankind  was  com- 
mitted on  that  day  when  the  first  priest  invented  the  first  prayer  with 
a  selfi'sh  object  in  view.  A  God  who  may  be  propitiated  by  iniquitous 
prayers  to  "  bless  the  arms"  of  the  worshipper,  and  send  defeat  and 
death  to  thousands  of  his  enemies — his  brethren  ;  a  Deity  that  can  be 
supposed  not  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  chants  of  laudation  mixed  with 
entreaties  for  a  "  fair  propitious  wind  "  for  self,  and  as  naturally  dis- 
astrous to  the  selves  of  other  navigators  who  come  from  an  opposite 
direction — it  is  this  idea  of  God  that  has  fostered  selfishness  in  man, 
and  deprived  him  of  his  self-reliance.  Prayer  is  an  ennobling  action 
when  it  is  an  intense  feeling,  an  ardent  desire  rushing  forth  from  our 
very  heart,  for  the  good  of  other  people,  and  when  entirely  detached 
from  any  selfish  personal  object ;  the  craving  for  a  beyond  is  natural 
and  holy  in  man,  but  on  the  condition  of  sharing  that  bliss  with  others. 
One  can  understand  and  well  appreciate  the  words  of  the  "  heathen  " 
Socrates,  who  declared  in  his  profound  though  untaught  wisdom,  that : 

Our  praj^ers  should  be  for  blessings  on  all,  in  general,  for  the  Gods  know  best 
what  is  good  for  us. 

But  official  prayer — in  favour  of  a  public  calamity,  or  for  the  benefit 
of  one  individual  irrespective  of  losses  to  thousands — is  the  most 
ignoble  of  crimes,  besides  being  an  impertinent  conceit  and  a  supersti- 
tion. This  is  the  direct  inheritance  by  spoliation  from  the  Jehovites — 
the  Jews  of  the  Wilderness  and  of  the  Golden  Calf. 

It  is  "Jehovah,"  as  will  be  presently  shown,  that  suggested  the 
necessity  of  veiling  and  screening  this  substitute  for  the  unpronounce- 
able name,  and  that  led  to  all  this  "mystery,  parables,  dark  sayings 


52  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

and  cloaking."  Moses  had,  at  any  rate,  initiated  his  seventy  Elders 
into  the  hidden  truths,  and  thus  the  writers  of  the  Old  Testameiit  staud 
to  a  degree  justified.  Those  of  the  New  Testament  have  failed  to  do 
even  so  much,  or  so  little.  They  have  disfigured  the  grand  central 
figure  of  Christ  by  their  dogmas,  and  have  led  people  ever  since  into 
millions  of  errors  and  the  darkest  crimes,  in  His  holy  name. 

It  is  evident  that  w^ith  the  exception  of  Paul  and  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  who  had  been  both  initiated  into  the  Mysteries,  none  of 
the  Fathers  knew  much  of  the  truth  themselves.  They  were  mostly 
uneducated,  ignorant  people ;  and  if  such  as  Augustine  and  Lactantius, 
or  again  the  Venerable  Bede  and  others,  were  so  painfully  ignorant 
until  the  time  of  Galileo*  of  the  most  vital  truths  taught  in  the  Pagan 
temples — of  the  rotundity  of  the  earth,  for  example,  leaving  the 
heliocentric  system  out  of  question — how  great  must  have  been  the 
ignorance  of  the  rest!  I^earning  and  sin  were  synonymous  with  the 
early  Christians.  Hence  the  accusations  of  dealing  with  the  Devil 
lavished  on  the  Pagan  Philosophers. 

But  truth  must  out.  The  Occultists,  referred  to  as  "the  followers  of 
the  accursed  Cain,"  by  such  writers  as  De  Mirville,  are  now  in  a  posi- 
tion to  reverse  the  tables.  That  which  was  hitherto  known  onl}"-  to 
the  ancient  and  modern  Kabalists  in  Europe  and  Asia,  is  now  pub- 
lished and  shown  as  being  mathematically  true.  The  author  of  the 
Key  to  the  Hebrew- Egyptiayi  Mystery  or  the  Source  of  Measures  has  now 
proved  to  general  satisfaction,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  that  the  two  great 
God-names,  Jehovah  and  Elohim,  stood,  in  one  meaning  of  their 
numerical  values,  for  a  diameter  and  a  circumference  value,  respec- 
tively; in  other  words,  that  they  are  numerical  indices  of  geometrical 
relations;  and  finalh'^  that  Jehovah  is  Cain  and  vice  versa. 

This  view,  says  the  author. 

Helps  also  to  take  the  horrid  blemish  off  from  the  name  of  Cain,  as  a  put-up  job 
to  destroy  his  character ;  for  even  without  these  showings,  by  the  very  text,  he 
[Cain]  was  Jehovah.     So  the  theological  schools  had  better  be  alive  to  making  the 


•  In  his  Pneumatologte,  in  Vol.  iv.,  pp.  105- 112,  the  Marquis  de  Mirville  claims  the  knowledge  of 
the  heliocentric  system— earlier  than  Galileo— for  Pope  Urban  VIII.  The  author  goes  further.  He 
tries  to  show  that  famous  Pope,  not  as  the  persecutor  but  as  oue  persecuted  by  Galileo,  and 
calumniated  by  the  Florentine  Astronomer  into  the  bargain.  If  so,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  Latin 
Church,  since  her  Popes,  knowing  of  it,  still  preserved  silence  upon  this  most  important  fact,  either  to 
screen  Joshua  or  their  own  infallibility.  One  can  understand  well  that  the  Bible  having  been  so 
exalted  overall  the  other  systems,  and  its  alleged  mouothei.sm  depending  upon  the  silence  preserved, 
nothing  remained  of  course  but  to  keep  quiet  over  its  symbolism,  thus  allowing  all  its  blunders  to  be 
fathered  on  its  God. 


ASIATIC  RELIGIONS  PROCLAIM   THEIR  ESOTERISM   OPENLY.  53 

amend  honorable,  if  such  a  thing  is  possible,  to  the  good  name  and  fame  of  the  God 
they  worship.* 

This  is  not  the  first  warning  received  b}^  the  "  theological  schools," 
which,  however,  no  doubt  knew  it  from  the  beginning,  as  did  Clemens  of 
Alexandria  and  others.  But  if  it  be  so  they  will  profit  still  less  by  it, 
as  the  admission  would  involve  more  for  them  than  the  mere  sacredness 
and  dignity  of  the  established  faith. 

But,  it  may  also  be  asked,  why  is  it  that  the  Asiatic  religions,  which 
have  nothing  of  this  sort  to  conceal  and  which  proclaim  quite  openly 
the  Esoterism  of  their  doctrines,  follow  the  same  course  ?  It  is  simply 
this :  While  the  present,  and  no  doubt  enforced  silence  of  the  Church 
on  this  subject  relates  merely  to  the  external  or  theoretical  form  of  the 
Bidle— the  unveiling  of  the  secrets  of  which  would  have  involved  no 
practical  harm,  had  they  been  explained  from  the  first — it  is  an  entirely 
different  question  with  Eastern  Esoterism  and  Symbology.  The  grand 
central  figure  of  the  Gospels  would  have  remained  as  unaffected  by  the 
symbolism  of  the  0/d  Testameyit  being  revealed,  as  would  that  of  the 
Founder  of  Buddhism  had  the  Brahmanical  writings  of  the  Piiraiias,  that 
preceded  his  birth,  all  been  shown  to  be  allegorical.  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
moreover,  would  have  gained  more  than  he  would  have  lost  had  he 
been  presented  as  a  simple  mortal  left  to  be  judged  on  his  own  precepts 
and  merits,  instead  of  being  fathered  on  Christendom  as  a  God  whose 
many  utterances  and  acts  are  now  so  open  to  criticism.  On  the 
other  hand  the  symbols  and  allegorical  sayings  that  veil  the  grand 
truths  of  Nature  in  the  Vedas,  the  Brdhfna?ias,  the  Upanishads  and 
especially  in  the  I,amaist  Chagpa  Thogmed  and  other  works,  are  quite 
of  a  different  nature,  and  far  more  complicated  in  their  secret  meaning. 
While  the  Biblical  glyphs  have  nearly  all  a  triune  foundation,  those  of 
the  Eastern  books  are  worked  on  the  septenary  principle.     The)^  are 


•  op.  cit.,  App.  vii.  p.  296.  The  writer  feels  happy  to  find  this  fact  now  mathemati- 
cally demonstrated.  When  it  was  stated  in  Isis  Unveiled  that  Jehovah  and  Saturn  were 
one  and  the  same  with  Adam  Kadmon,  Cain,  Adam  and  Eve,  Abel,  Seth,  etc.,  and  that 
all  were  convertible  symbols  in  the  Secret  Doctrine  (see  Vol.  ii.  pp.  446,  448,  464  et  seq.); 
that  they  answered,  in  short,  to  secret  numerals  and  stood  for  more  than  one  meaning- 
in  the  Bible  as  in  other  doctrines— the  author's  statements  remained  unnoticed.  Isis  had 
failed  to  appear  under  a  scientific  form,  and  by  giving  too  much,  in  fact,  gave  very  little  to  satisfy 
the  enquirer.  But  now,  if  mathematics  and  geometry,  besides  the  evidence  of  the  Bible  and  Kabalah 
are  good  for  anything,  the  public  must  find  itself  satisfied.  No  fuller,  more  scientifically  given  proof 
can  be  found  to  show  that  Cain  is  the  transformation  of  an  Elohim  (the  Sephira  Binah)  into  Jah- 
Veh  (or  God-Eve)  androgyne,  and  that  .Seth  is  the  Jehovah  male,  than  in  the  combined  discoveries  of 
Seyfiarth,  Knight,  etc.,  and  finally  in  Mr.  Ralston  Skinner's  most  erudite  work.  The  further 
relations  of  these  personifications  of  the  first  human  races,  in  their  gradual  development,  will  be 
given  later  on  in  the  text. 


54  'THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

as  closelj'  related  to  the  mysteries  of  Physics  and  Physiology,  as  to 

Psychism  and  the  transcendental  nature  of  cosmic  elements  and  Theo- 
gony;  unriddled  they  would  prove  more  than  injurious  to  the  unini- 
tiated ;  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  present  generations  in  their 
actual  state  of  ph5^sical  and  intellectual  development,  in  the  absence 
of  spirituality  and  even  of  practical  morality,  they  would  become  abso- 
lutely disastrous. 

Nevertheless  the  secret  teachings  of  the   sanctuaries  have  not  re- 
mained without  witness ;  they  have  been   made  immortal  in  various 
ways.     They  have  burst  upon  the  world  in  hundreds  of  volumes  full 
of  the  quaint,  head-breaking  phraseology  of  the  Alchemist ;  they  have 
flashed  like  irrepressible  cataracts  of  Occult  mystic  lore  from  the  pens 
of  poets  and  bards.     Genius  alone  had  certain  privileges  in  those  dark 
ages  when  no  dreamer  could  offer  the  world  even  a  fiction  without 
suiting  his  heaven  and  his  earth  to  biblical  text.     To  genius  alone  it 
was  permitted  in  those  centuries  of  mental  blindness,  when  the  fear 
of  the  "  Holy  Office"  threw  a  thick  veil  over  every  cosmic  and  psychic 
truth,  to  reveal  unimpeded  some  of  the  grandest  truths  of  Initiation. 
Whence  did  Ariosto,  in  his  Orlando  Ftcj'ioso,  obtain   his  conception   of 
that  valley  in  the  Moon,  where  after  our  death  we  can  find  the  ideas 
and  images  of  all  that  exists  on  earth  ?     How  came  Dante  to  imagine 
the  man}^  descriptions  given  in  his  Inferno — a  new  Johannine  Apocalypse, 
a  true  Occult  Revelation  in  verse — his  visit  and  communion  with  the 
Souls  of  the  Seven  Spheres  ?     In  poetry  and  satire  every  Occult  truth 
has  been  welcomed — none  has  been  recognised  as  serious.     The  Comte 
de  Gabalis  is  better  known  and  appreciated  than  Porphyr}'-  and  lam- 
blichus.      Plato's  mysterious  Atlantis   is   proclaimed   a  fiction,   while 
Noah's  Deluge  is  to  this  day  on  the  brain  of  certain  Archaeologists,  who 
scojEf  at  the  archetypal  world  of  Marcel  Palingenius'  Zodiac,  and  would 
resent  as  a  personal  injury  being  asked  to  discuss  the  four  worlds  of 
Mercury  Trismegistus — the  Archetypal,  the  Spiritual,  the  Astral  and 
the  Elementary,  with  three  others  behind  the  opened  scene.     Evidentlj' 
civilised  society  is  still  but  half  prepared  for  the  revelation.     Hence, 
the  Initiates  will  never  give  out  the  whole  secret,  until  the  bulk  of 
mankind  has  changed  its  actual  nature  and  is  better  prepared  for  truth. 
Clemens  Alexandrinus  was  positively  right  in  saying,  "  It  is  requisite 
to  hide  in  a  mystery  the  wisdom  spoken  " — which  the  "  Sons  of  God" 
teach. 

That  Wisdom,  as  will  be  seen,  relates   to    all  the  primeval   truths 


THE  WISDOM-RELIGION.  55 

delivered  to  the  first  Races,  the  "Mind-born,"  by  the  "  Builders"  of  the 
Universe  Themselves. 

There  was  in  every  ancient  country  having  claims  to  civilisation,  an  Esoteric 
Doctrine,  a  system  which  was  designated  Wisdom,*  and  those  who  were 
devoted  to  its  prosecution  were  first  denominated  sages,  or  wise  men.  .  .  . 
Pythagoras  termed  this  system  r]  yvaio-LS  toiv  ovnov,  the  Gnosis  or  Knowledge  of 
things  that  are.  Under  the  noble  designation  of  Wisdom,  the  ancient  teachers, 
the  sages  of  India,  the  magians  of  Persia  and  Babylon,  the  seers  and  prophets 
of  Israel,  the  hierophants  of  Egypt  and  Arabia,  and  the  philosophers  of  Greece 
and  the  West,  included  all  knowledge  which  they  considered  as  essentially 
divine;  classifying  a  part  as  esoteric  and  the  remainder  as  exterior.  The 
Rabbis  called  the  exterior  and  secular  series  the  Mercavah,  as  being  the  bodj-  or 
vehicle  which  contained  the  higher  knowledge.t 

lyater  on,  we  shall  speak  of  the  law  of  the  silence  imposed  on  Eastern 
chelts. 

•  The  writings  extant  in  olden  times  often  personified  Wisdom  as  an  emanation  and  associate  of 
the  Creator.  Thus  we  have  the  Hindu  Buddha,  the  Babylonian  Nebo,  the  Thoth  of  Memphis,  the 
Hennes  of  Greece;  also  the  female  divinities,  NeVtha,  Metis.  Athena,  and  the  Gnostic  potency 
Achamoth  or  Sophia.  The  Samaritan  Pentateuch  denominated  the  Book  of  Genesis,  Akamouth, 
or  Wi.sdom,  and  two  remnants  of  old  treatises,  the  IVisdom  of  Solomon  and  the  IVisdom  of 
/esus,  relate  to  the  same  matters.  The  Book  of  Afas/ialint— the  Discourses  or  Proverbs  of 
Solomon— thus  personifies  Wisdom  as  the  auxiliary  of  the  Creator.  In  the  Secret  Wisdom  of  the 
Kast  that  auxiliary  is  found  collectively  in  the  first  emanations  of  Primeval  Light,  the  Seven  Dhyani- 
Chohans,  who  have  been  shown  to  be  identical  with  the  "  Seven  Spirits  of  the  Presence "  of  the 
Roman  Catholics. 

t  New  Platonism  and  Akketny,  p.  6, 


SECTION  V. 

Some   Reasons  for   Secresy. 


The  fact  that  the  Occult  Sciences  have  been  withheld  from  the 
world  at  large,  and  denied  by  the  Initiates  to  Humanity,  has  often  been 
made  matter  of  complaint.  It  has  been  alleged  that  the  Guardians 
of  the  Secret  Lore  were  selfish  in  withholding  the  "treasures"  of 
Archaic  Wisdom  ;  that  it  was  positiveh*  criminal  to  keep  back  such 
knowledge — "  if  any  " — from  the  men  of  Science,  etc. 

Yet  there  must  have  been  some  very  good  reasons  for  it,  since  from 
the  ver}^  dawn  of  History  such  has  been  the  policy  of  every  Hierophant 
and  "  Master."  Pythagoras,  the  first  Adept  and  real  Scientist  in  pre- 
Christian  Europe,  is  accused  of  having  taught  in  public  the  immobility 
of  the  earth,  and  the  rotatory  motion  of  the  stars  around  it,  while  he 
was  declaring  to  his  privileged  Adepts  his  belief  in  the  motion  of  the 
Earth  as  a  planet,  and  in  the  heliocentric  system.  The  reasons  for 
such  secres3%  however,  are  many  and  were  never  made  a  mystery  of 
The  chief  cause  was  given  in  Iszs  Unveiled.     It  may  now  be  repeated. 

From  the  very  day  when  the  first  mystic,  taught  by  the  first  Instructor  of  the 
"divine  Dynasties"  of  the  early  races,  was  taught  the  means  of  communication 
between  this  world  and  the  worlds  of  the  invisible  host,  between  the  sphere  of 
matter  and  that  of  pure  spirit,  he  concluded  that  to  abandon  this  mysterious 
science  to  the  desecration,  willing  or  unwilling,  of  the  profane  rabble — was  to  lose  it. 
An  abuse  of  it  might  lead  mankind  to  speed}'  destruction ;  it  was  like  surrounding  a 
group  of  children  with  explosive  substances,  and  furnishing  them  with  matches. 
The  first  divine  Instructor  initiated  but  a  select  few,  and  these  kept  silence  with  the 
multitudes.  They  recognised  their  "God"  and  each  Adept  felt  the  great  "SELF" 
within  himself.  The  Atmau,  the  Self,  the  mighty  Lord  and  Protector,  once  that 
man  knew  him  as  the  "I  am,"  the  "Ego  Sum,"  the  "Asmi,"  showed  his  full 
power  to  him  who  could  recognise  the  "still  small  voice."  From  the  days  of  the 
primitive  man  described  by  the  first  Vedic  poet,  down  to  our  modern  age,  there  has 
not  been  a  philosopher  worthy  of  that  name,  who  did  not  carry  in  the  silent  sanc- 
tuary of  his  heart  the  grand  and  mysterious  truth.     If  initiated,  he  learnt  it  as  a 


THE   KEY    OF    PRACTICAL   THEURGY.  57 

sacred  science;  if  otherwise,  then,  like  Socrates,  repeating  to  himself  as  well  as  his 
fellow-men,  the  noble  injunction,  "O  man,  know  thyself,"  he  succeeded  in  recog- 
nising his  God  -within  himself  "Ye  are  Gods,"  the  king-psalmist  tells  us,  and  we 
find  Jesus  reminding  the  scribes  that  this  expression  was  addressed  to  other  mortal 
men,  claiming  for  themselves  the  same  privilege  without  any  blasphemy.  And  as  a 
faithful  echo,  Paul,  while  asserting  that  we  are  all  "the  temple  of  the  living  God," 
cautioush-  remarked  elsewhere  that  after  all  these  things  are  only  for  the  "  wise," 
and  it  is  "unlawful  "  to  speak  of  them.* 

Some  of  the  reasons  for  this  secresy  may  here  be  given. 

The  fundamental  law  and  master-key  of  practical  Theurgy,  in  its 
chief  applications  to  the  serious  study  of  cosmic  and  sidereal,  of 
psychic  and  spiritual,  mysteries  was,  and  still  is,  that  which  was  called 
by  the  Greek  Neoplatonists  "Theophania."  In  its  generally-accepted 
meaning  this  is  "communication  between  the  Gods  (or  God)  and  those 
initiated  mortals  who  are  spiritually  fit  to  enjoy  such  an  intercourse." 
Esoterically,  however,  it  signifies  more  than  this.  For  it  is  not  only 
the  presence  of  a  God,  but  an  actual — howbeit  temporary — incarnation, 
the  blending,  so  to  say,  of  the  personal  Deity,  the  Higher  Self,  with 
man — its  representative  or  agent  on  earth.  As  a  general  law,  the 
Highest  God,  the  Over-soul  of  the  human  being  (Atma-Buddhi),  only 
overshadows  the  individual  during  his  life,  for  purposes  of  instruction 
and  revelation;  or  as  Roman  Catholics — who  erroneously  call  that 
Over-soul  the  "Guardian  Angel"— would  say,  "It  stands  outside  and 
watches."  But  in  the  case  of  the  theophanic  mystery,  it  incarnates 
itself  in  the  Theurgist  for  purposes  of  revelation.  When  the  incarna- 
tion is  temporsLvy,  during  those  mj-sterious  trances  or  "ecstasy,"  which 
Plotinus  defined  as 

The  liberation  of  the  mind  from  its  finite  consciousness,  becoming  one  and 
identified  with  the  Infinite, 

this  sublime  condition  is  very  short.  The  human  soul,  being  the 
offspring  or  emanation  of  its  God,  the  "Father  and  the  Son"  become 
one,  "the  divine  fountain  flowing  like  a  stream  into  its  human  bed. "f 
In  exceptional  cases,  however,  the  myster)^  becomes  complete;    the 

*  ii.  317,  318.  Many  verbal  alterations  from  the  original  text  of  /sis  Unveiled  were  made  by  H.  P.  B. 
in  her  quotations  therefrom,  and  these  are  followed  throughout. 

+  Proclus  claims  to  have  experienced  this  sublime  ecstasy  six  times  during  his  mystic  life ; 
Porphyry  asserts  that  .\pollonius  of  Tyana  was  thus  united  four  times  to  his  deity— a  statement  which 
we  believe  to  be  a  mistake,  since  ApoUonius  was  a  Nirmanakaya  (divine  incarnation— not  Avatara)— 
and  he  (Porphyry)  only  once,  when  over  sixty  years  of  age.  Theophany  (or  the  actual  appearance  of 
a  God  to  man),  Theopathy  (or  "assimilation  of  divine  nature"),  and  Theopueusty  (inspiration,  or 
rather  the  mysterious  power  to  hear  orally  the  teachings  of  a  God)  have  never  been  rightly  under- 
stood. 


58  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Word  is  made  Flesh  in  real  fact,  the  individual  becoming  divine  in  the 
full  sense  of  the  term,  since  his  personal  God  has  made  of  him  his 
permanent  life-long  tabernacle — "the  temple  of  God,"  as  Paul  says. 

Now  that  which,  is  meant  here  by  the  personal  God  of  Man  is,  of 
course,  not  his  seventh  Principle  alone,  as  per  se  and  in  essence  that  is 
merely  a  beam  of  the  infinite  Ocean  of  Light.  In  conjunction  with  our 
Divine  Soul,   the  Buddhi,  it  cannot  be  called  a  Duad,  as  it  otherwise 

A 

might,  since,  though  formed  from  Atma  and  Buddhi  (the  two  higher 
Principles),  the  former  is  no  entity  but  an  emanation  from  the  Absolute, 
and  indivisible  in  reality  from  it.  The  personal  God  is  not  the  Monad, 
but  indeed  the  prototype  of  the  latter,  what  for  want  of  a  better  term  we 
call  the  manifested  Karanatma*  (Causal  Soul),  one  of  the  "seven"  and 
chief  reservoirs  of  the  human  Monads  or  Egos.  The  latter  are  gradually 
formed  and  strengthened  during  their  incarnation-cycle  by  constant 
additions  of  individuality  from  the  personalities  in  which  incarnates 
that  androgynous,  half-spiritual,  half-terrestrial  principle,  partaking  of 
both  heaven  and  earth,  called  by  the  Vedantins  Jiva  and  Vijiianamaya 
Kosha,  and  by  the  Occultists  the  Manas  (mind) ;  that,  in  short,  which 
uniting  itself  partially  with  the  Monad,  incarnates  in  each  new  birth. 
In  perfect  unity  with  its  (seventh)  Principle,  the  Spirit  unalloyed,  it  is 
the  divine  Higher  Self,  as  every  student  of  Theosophy  knows.  After 
every  new  incarnation  Buddhi-Manas  culls,  so  to  say,  the  aroma  of  the 
flower  called  personality,  the  purely  earthly  residue  of  which — its 
dregs — is  left  to  fade  out  as  a  shadow.  This  is  the  most  difficult — 
because  so  transcendentally  metaphysical — portion  of  the  doctrine. 

As  is  repeated  many  a  time  in  this  and  other  works,  it  is  not  the 
Philosophers,  Sages,  and  Adepts  of  antiquity  who  can  ever  be  chai-ged 
with  idolatry.  It  is  they  in  fact,  who,  recognising  divine  unity,  were 
the  only  ones,  owing  to  their  initiation  into  the  mysteries  of  Esotericism, 
to  understand  correctly  the  virovoia  (h^'ponea),  or  under-meaning  of  the 
anthropomorphism  of  the  so-called  Angels,  Gods,  and  spiritual  Beings 
of  every  kind.  Each,  worshipping  the  one  Divine  Essence  that  per- 
vades the  whole  world  of  Nature,  reverenced,  but  never  worshipped 
or  idolised,  any  of  these  "Gods,"  whether  high  or  low — not  even  his 
own  personal  Deity,  of  which  he  was  a  Ray,  and  to  whom  he 
appealed.f 

*  Karana  Sharira  is  the  "causal"  body  and  is  sometimes  said  to  be  the  "personal  God."    And  so 
it  is,  in  one  sense. 
+  This  would  be  in  one  sense  Self-worship. 


THE   LADDER   OF  BEING.  59 

The  holy  Triad  emanates  from  the  One,  and  is  the  Tetraktys  ;  the  gods,  daimons, 
and  souls  are  an  emanation  of  the  Triad.  Heroes  and  men  repeat  the  hierarchy  in 
themselves. 

Thus  said  Metrodorus  of  Chios,  the  Pythagorean,  the  latter  part  of 
the  sentence  meaning  that  man  has  within  himself  the  seven  pale 
reflections  of  the  seven  divine  Hierarchies ;  his  Higher  Self  is,  there- 
fore, in  itself  but  the  refracted  beam  of  the  direct  Ray.  He  who 
regards  the  latter  as  an  Entity,  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  term,  is  one 
of  the  "infidels  and  atheists,"  spoken  of  by  Epicurus,  for  he  fastens 
on  that  God  "the  opinions  of  the  mitltitude "— an  anthropomorphism 
of  the  grossest  kind.*  The  Adept  and  the  Occultist  know  that  "  what 
are  styled  the  Gods  are  only  the  first  principles  "  (Aristotle).  None 
the  less  they  are  intelligent,  conscious,  and  living  "  Principles,"  the 
Primary  Seven  Lights  manifested  from  Light  U7ima7iifested—w\i\ch.  to 
us  is  Darkness.  They  are  the  Seven — exoterically  four— Kumaras  or 
"Mind-Born  Sons"  of  Brahma.  And  it  is  they  again,  the  Dhyan 
Chohans,  who  are  the  prototypes  in  the  aeonic  eternity  of  lower  Gods 
and  hierarchies  of  divine  Beings,  at  the  lowest  end  of  which  ladder  of 
being  are  we — men. 

Thus  perchance  Polytheism,  when  philosophically  understood,  may 
be  a  degree  higher  than  even  the  Monotheism  of  the  Protestant,  say, 
who  limits  and  conditions  the  Deity  in  whom  he  persists  in  seeing  the 
Infinite,  but  whose  supposed  actions  make  of  that  "  Absolute  and 
Infinite  "  the  most  absurd  paradox  in  Philosophy.  From  this  stand- 
point Roman  Catholicism  itself  is  immeasurably  higher  and  more 
logical  than  Protestantism,  though  the  Roman  Church  has  been  pleased 
to  adopt  the  exotericism  of  the  heathen  "  multitude  "  and  to  reject  the 
Philosophy  of  pure  Esotericism. 

Thus  every  mortal  has  his  immortal  counterpart,  or  rather  his 
Archetype,  in  heaven.  This  means  that  the  former  is  indissolubly 
united  to  the  latter,  in  each  of  his  incarnations,  and  for  the  duration  of 
the  cycle  of  births  ;  only  it  is  by  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  Principle 
in  him,  entirely  distinct  from  the  lower  self,  never  through  the  earthly 
personality.  Some  of  these  are  even  liable  to  break  the  union 
altogether,  in  case  of  absence  in  the  moral  individual  of  binding,  viz., 
of  spiritual  ties.    Truh%  as  Paracelsus  puts  it  in  his  quaint,  tortured 


•  "The Gods  exist,"  said  Epicurus,  "  but  they  are  not  what  the  hoi polloi  [the  multitude]  suppose 
them  to  be.  He  is  not  an  infidel  or  atheist  who  denies  the  existence  of  Gods  whom  the  multitude 
worship,  but  he  is  such  who  fastens  on,  the  Gods  the  opinions  of  the  multitude.", 


6o  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

phraseology,  man  with  his  three  (compound)  Spirits  is  suspended  like 
a  foetus  by  all  three  to  the  matrix  of  the  Macrocosm  ;  the  thread 
which  holds  him  united  being  the  "Thread-Soul,"  Siitratma,  and 
Taijasa  (the  "Shining")  of  the  Vedantins.  And  it  is  through  this 
spiritual  and  intellectual  Principle  in  man,  through  Taijasa — the 
Shining,  "  because  it  has  the  luminous  internal  organ  as  its  associate" 
— that  man  is  thus  united  to  his  heavenly  prototype,  never  through 
his  lower  inner  self  or  Astral  Body,  for  which  there  remains  in  most 
cases  nothing  but  to  fade  out. 

Occultism,  or  Theurgy,  teaches  the  means  of  producing  such  union. 
But  it  is  the  actions  of  man — his  personal  merit  alone — that  can  produce 
it  on  earth,  or  determine  its  duration.  This  lasts  from  a  few  seconds — 
a  flash — to  several  hours,  during  which  time  the  Theurgist  or  Theo- 
phanist  is  that  overshadowing  "God"  himself;  hence  he  becomes 
endowed  for  the  time  being  with  relative  omniscience  and  omnipotence. 
With  such  perfect  (divine)  Adepts  as  Buddha*  and  others  such  a 
hypostatical  state  of  avataric  condition  may  last  during  the  whole  life ; 
whereas  in  the  case  of  full  Initiates,  who  have  not  5'et  reached  the 
perfect  state  of  Jivanmukta,t  Theopneusty,  when  in  full  sway,  results  for 
the  high  Adept  in  a  full  recollection  of  everything  seen,  heard,  or 
sensed. 

Taijasa  has  fruitiou  of  the  supersensible.  J 

For  one  less  perfect  it  will  end  only  in  a  partial,  indistinct  remem- 
brance ;  while  the  beginner  has  to  face  in  the  first  period  of  his  psychic 
experiences  a  mere  confusion,  followed  by  a  rapid  and  finall)^  complete 
oblivion  of  the  mysteries  seen  during  this  super-hypnotic  condition. 
The  degree  of  recollection,  when  one  returns  to  his  waking  state  and 
physical  senses,  depends  on  his  spiritual  and  psychic  purification,  the 
greatest  enemy  of  spiritual  memory  being  man's  physical  brain,  the 
organ  of  his  sensuous  nature. 

The  above  states  are  described  for  a  clearer  comprehension  of  terms 
used  in  this  work.  There  are  so  many  and  such  various  conditions 
and  states  that  even  a  Seer  is  liable  to  confound  one  with  the  other. 


•  Esoteric,  as  exoteric,  Buddhism  rejects  tlie  theory  that  Gautama  was  an  incarnation  or 
Avatara  of  Vishnu,  but  teaches  the  doctrine  as  herein  explained.  Everyman  has  in  him  the  materials, 
if  not  the  conditions,  for  theophanic  intercourse  and  Theopneusty,  the  inspiring  "  God  "  being,  how- 
ever, in  every  case,  his  own  Higher  Self,  or  divine  prototype. 

t  One  entirely  and  absolutely  purified,  and  having  nothing  in  common  with  earth  except  his 
body. 

t  Mdndakyopanishad,  4. 


THREE  WAYS   OPEN  TO  THE   ADEPT.  6 1 

To  repeat :  the  Greek,  rarely-used  word,  "  Theophania,"  meant  more 
with  the  Neoplatonists  than  it  does  with  the  modern  maker  of  diction- 
aries. The  compound  word,  "Theophania"  (from  "theos,"  "God," 
and  "phainomai,"  "to  appear"),  does  not  simply  mean  "  a  manifesta- 
tion of  God  to  man  by  act7ial  appearance  " — an  absurditj-,  by  the  waj^ — 
but  the  actual  presence  of  a  God  in  man,  a  divine  incarnation.  When 
Simon  the  Magician  claimed  to  be  "  God  the  Father,"  what  he  wanted 
to  convey  was  just  that  which  has  been  explained,  namely,  that  he  was 
a  divine  incarnation  of  his  own  Father,  whether  we  see  in  the  latter  an 
Angel,  a  God,  or  a  Spirit;  therefore  he  was  called  "  that  power  of  God 
which  is  called  great,"*  or  that  power  which  causes  the  Divine  Self  to 
enshrine  itself  in  its  lower  self — man. 

This  is  one  of  the  several  mysteries  of  being  and  incarnation. 
Another  is  that  when  an  Adept  reaches  during  his  lifetime  that  state  of 
holiness  and  purity  that  makes  him  "equal  to  the  Angels,"  then  at  death 
his  apparitional  or  astral  body  becomes  as  solid  and  tangible  as  was  the 
late  body,  and  is  transformed  into  the  real  man.f  The  old  physical 
body,  falling  off  like  the  cast-off  serpent's  skin,  the  body  of  the  "  new" 
man  remains  either  visible  or,  at  the  option  of  the  Adept,  disappears 
from  view,  surrounded  as  it  is  by  the  Akashic  shell  that  screens  it.  In 
the  latter  case  there  are  three  ways  open  to  the  Adept : 

(i.)  He  may  remain  in  the  earth's  sphere  (Vayu  or  Kama-loka),  in 
that  ethereal  locality  concealed  from  human  sight  save  during  flashes 
of  clairvo3'ance.  In  this  case  his  astral  body,  owing  to  its  great  purit}-- 
and  spirituality,  having  lost  the  conditions  required  for  Akashic  light 
(the  nether  or  terrestrial  ether)  to  absorb  its  semi-material  particles,  the 
Adept  will  have  to  remain  in  the  company  of  disintegrating  shells — 
doing  no  good  or  useful  work.     This,  of  course,  cannot  be. 

(2.  j  He  can  by  a  supreme  effort  of  will  merge  entirely  into,  and 
get  united  with,  his  Monad.  By  doing  so,  however,  he  would  {a) 
deprive  his  Higher  Self  of  posthumous  Samadhi — a  bliss  which  is  not 
real  Nirvana — the  astral,  however  pure,  being  too  earthl}^  for  such 
state ;  and  (^)  he  would  thereby  open  himself  to  Karmic  law ;  the 
action  being,  in  fact,  the  outcome  of  personal  selfishness — of  reaping 
the  fruits  produced  by  and  for  oneself — alone. 

(3.)     The  Adept  has  the  option  of  renouncing  conscious  Nirvana  and 

•  Acts,  viii.  10  (Revised  Version). 

+  See  the  explanations  gfiven  on  the  subject  in  "The  Elixir  of  Life,"  by  G.  M.  (From  a  Chela's 
Diary),  Five  Years  of  Theosophy. 


62  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

rest,  to  work  on  earth  for  the  good  of  maukind.  This  he  can  do  in  a 
two-fold  way :  either,  as  above  said,  by  consolidating  his  astral  body 
into  physical  appearance,  he  can  reassume  the  self-same  personality  ; 
or  he  can  avail  himself  of  an  entirely  new  physical  bod3^  whether  that 
of  a  newly-born  infant  or — as  Shankaracharya  is  reported  to  have  done 
with  the  bod}'  of  a  dead  Rajah — by  "  entering  a  deserted  sheath,"  and 
living  in  it  as  long  as  he  chooses.  This  is  what  is  called  "continuous 
existence."  The  Section  entitled  "  The  Mystery  about  Buddha"  will 
throw  additional  light  on  this  theory,  to  the  profane  incomprehensible, 
or  to  the  generality  simply  absurd.  Such  is  the  doctrine  taught,  every- 
one having  the  choice  of  either  fathoming  it  still  deeper,  or  of  leaving 
it  unnoticed. 

The  above  is  simply  a  small  portion  of  what  might  have  been 
given  in  his  Unveiled,  had  the  time  come  then,  as  it  has  now.  One  can- 
not study  and  profit  by  Occult  Science,  unless  one  gives  himself  up  to  it 
— heart,  soul,  and  body.  Some  of  its  truths  are  too  awful,  too  dangerous, 
for  the  average  mind.  None  can  \.oy  and  play  with  such  terrible  weapons 
with  impunity.  Therefore  it  is,  as  St.  Paul  has  it,  "unlawful"  to 
speak  of  them.  L,et  us  accept  the  reminder  and  talk  only  of  that 
which  is  "  lawful." 

The  quotation  on  p.  56  relates,  moreover,  only  to  psychic  or  spiritual 
Magic.  The  practical  teachings  of  Occult  Science  are  entirely  different, 
and  few  are  the  strong  minds  fitted  for  them.  As  to  ecstasy,  and  such 
like  kinds  of  self-illumination,  this  may  be  obtained  by  oneself  and 
without  any  teacher  or  initiation,  for  ecstacy  is  reached  by  an  inward 
command  and  control  of  Self  over  the  physical  Ego ;  as  to  obtaining 
mastery  over  the  forces  of  Nature,  this  requires  a  long  training,  or  the 
capacity  of  one  born  a  "  natural  Magician."  Meanwhile,  those  who 
possess  neither  of  the  requisite  qualifications  are  strongly  advised  to 
limit  themselves  to  purely  spiritual  development.  But  even  this  is  diffi- 
cult, as  the  first  necessary  qualification  is  an  unshakable  belief  in  one's 
own  powers  and  the  Deity  within  oneself;  otherwise  a  man  would 
simply  develop  into  an  irresponsible  medium.  Throughout  the  whole 
mystic  literature  of  the  ancient  world  we  detect  the  same  idea  of 
spiritual  Esoterism,  that  the  personal  God  exists  within,  nowhere 
outside,  the  worshipper.  That  personal  Deity  is  no  vain  breath,  or  a 
fiction,  but  an  immortal  Entity,  the  Initiator  of  the  Initiates,  now  that 
the  heavenly  or  Celestial  Initiators  of  primitive  humanity — the  Shishta 
of  the  preceding  cj^cles — are  no   more  among  us.      Ivjke  an  under- 


MAN   IS   GOD. 


63 


current,  rapid  and  clear,  it  runs  without  mixing  its  crystalline  purity 
with  the  muddy  and  troubled  waters  of  dogmatism,  an  enforced 
anthropomorphic  Deity  and  religious  intolerance.  We  find  this  idea  in 
the  tortured  and  barbarous  phraseology  of  the  Codex  Nazarccus,  and  in 
the  superb  Neoplatonic  language  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  of  the  later 
Religion,  in  the  oldest  Veda  and  in  the  Avesta,  in  the  Abhidharma,  in 
Kapila's  Sdnkhya,  and  the  Bhagavad  Gitd.  We  cannot  attain  Adeptship 
and  Nirvana,  Bliss  and  the  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  unless  we  link  our- 
selves indissolubly  with  our  Rex  L,ux,  the  Lord  of  Splendour  and  of 
Light,  our  immortal  God  within  us.  "  Aham  eva  param  Brahman  " — 
"  I  am  verily  the  Supreme  Brahman  " — has  ever  been  the  one  living 
truth  in  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  Adepts,  and  it  is  this  which  helps 
the  Mystic  to  become  one.  One  must  first  of  all  recognise  one's  own 
immortal  Principle,  and  then  only  can  one  conquer,  or  take  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven  by  violence.  Only  this  has  to  be  achieved  by  the 
higher — not  the  middle,  nor  the  third — man,  the  last  one  being  of 
dust.  Nor  can  the  second  man,  the  "  Son  " — on  this  plane,  as  his 
"  Father  "  is  the  Son  on  a  still  higher  plane — do  anything  without 
the  assistance  of  the  first,  the  "  Father."  But  to  succeed  one  has  to 
identify  oneself  with  one's  divine  Parent. 

The  first  man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy  ;  the  second  [inner,  our  higher]  man  is  the  Lord 
from  heaven Behold,  I  show  you  a  mystery.* 

Thus  says  Paul,  mentioning  but  the  dual  and  trinitarian  man  for  the 
better  comprehension  of  the  non-initiated.  But  this  is  not  all,  for  the 
Delphic  injunction  has  to  be  fulfilled:  man  must  know  himself  in 
order  to  become  a  perfect  Adept.  How  few  can  acquire  the  knowledge, 
however,  not  merely  in  its  inner  mystical,  but  even  in  its  literal  sense, 
for  there  are  two  meanings  in  this  command  of  the  Oracle.  This  is  the 
doctrine  of  Buddha  and  the  Bodhisattvas  pure  and  simple. 

Such  is  also  the  mystical  sense  of  what  was  said  by  Paul  to  the 
Corinthians  about  their  being  the  "  temple  of  God,"  for  this  meant 
Esoterically : 

Ye  are  the  temple  of  [the,  or  your]  God,  and  the  Spirit  of  [a,  or  your]  God 
dwelleth  in  you.t 

•  I.  Cor.,  XV.  47,  50. 

+  I.  Cor.,  iii.  16.  Has  the  reader  ever  meditated  upon  the  suggestive  words,  often  prouounced  by 
Jesus  and  his  Apostles  ?  "  Be  ye  therefore  perfect  as  your  Father  .  .  is  perfect  "  [Matt.,  v.  48),  says 
the  Great  Master.  The  words  are,  '■  as  perfect  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven,"  being  interpreted 
as  meaning  God.  Now  the  utter  absurdity  of  any  man  becoming  as  perfect  as  the  infinite,  all-perfect 
omniscient  and  omnipresent  Deity,  is  too  apparent.     If  you  accept  it  in  such  a  sense,  Jesus  is  made 


64  the;  secret  doctrine. 

This  carries  precisely  the  same  meaning  as  the  "  I  am  veriiy 
Brahman"  of  theVedantin.  Nor  is  the  latter  assertion  more  blasphe- 
mous than  the  Pauline — if  there  were  any  blasphemj^  in  either,  which 
is  denied.  Only  the  Vedantin,  who  never  refers  to  his  bod}^  as  being 
himself,  or  even  a  part  of  himself,  or  aught  else  but  an  illusory  form  for 
others  to  see  him  in,  constructs  his  assertion  more  openly  and  sincerely 
than  was  done  by  Paul. 

The  Delphic  command  "Know  th3'self "  was  perfectly  comprehen- 
sible to  every  nation  of  old.  So  it  is  now,  save  to  the  Christians,  since, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Mussulmans,  it  is  part  and  parcel  of  every 
Eastern  religion,  including  the  Kabalisticall}^  instructed  Jews.  To 
understand  its  full  meaning,  however,  necessitates,  first  of  all,  belief  in 
Reincarnation  and  all  its  mj^steries  ;  not  as  laid  down  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  French  Reincarnationists  of  the  Allan  Kardec  school,  but  as  they 
are  expounded  and  taught  by  Esoteric  Philosophy.  Man  must,  in 
short,  know  who'  he  was,  before  he  arrives  at  knowing  what  he  is. 
And  how  many  are  there  among  Europeans  who  are  capable  of  develop- 
ing within  themselves  an  absolute  belief  in  their  past  and  future 
reincarnations,  in  general,  even  as  a  law,  let  alone  mystic  knowledge 
of  one's  immediately  precedent  life  ?  Early  education,  tradition  and 
training  of  thought,  everything  is  opposing  itself  during  their  whole 
lives  to  such  a  belief.  Cultured  people  have  been  brought  up  in  that 
most  pernicious  idea  that  the  wide  difference  found  between  the  units 
of  one  and  the  same  mankind,  or  even  race,  is  the  result  of  chance ; 
that  the  gulf  between  man  and  man  in  their  respective  social  positions, 
birth,  intellect,  physical  and  mental  capacities — every  one  of  which 
qualifications  has  a  direct  influence  on  every  human  life — that  all  this 
is  simply  due  to  blind  hazard,  only  the  most  pious  among  them  finding 
equivocal  consolation  in  the  idea  that  it  is  "  the  will  of  God."  They 
have  never  analysed,  never  stopped  to  think  of  the  depth  of  the  oppro- 
brium that  is  thrown  upon  their  God,  once  the  grand  and  most  equit- 
able law  of  the  manifold  re-births  of  man  upon  this  earth  is  foolishly 
rejected.     Men  and  women  anxious  to  be  regarded  as  Christians,  often 

to  litter  the  greatest  fallacy.  What  was  Esoterically  meant  is,  "  Your  Father  who  is  above  the 
material  and  astral  man,  the  highest  Principle  (save  the  Monad)  within  man,  his  own  personal  God.  or 
the  God  of  his  own  personality,  of  whom  he  is  the  ■prison'  and  the  temple.'"  "If  thou  wilt 
l>e  perfect  {i.e.,  an  Adept  and  Initiate)  go  and  sell  that  thou  hast  "  {Matt.,  xix.  21).  Every  man 
who  desired  to  become  a  neophyte,  a  chela,  then,  as  now,  had  to  take  the  vow  of  poverty.  The 
"Perfect,"  was  the  name  given  to  the  Initiates  of  every  denomination.  Plato  calls  them  by  that 
term.  The  E-ssenes  had  their  '"  Perfect,"  and  Paul  plainly  states  that  they,  the  Initiates,  can  only 
speak  before  other  Adepts.     "We  speak  wisdom  among  them  [only]  that  are  perfect  "(I.  Cor.  ii.  6.) 


JESUS  TAUGHT  REINCARNATION.  65 

truly  and  sincerely  trying  to  lead  a  Christ-like  life,  have  never  paused 
to  reflect  over  the  words  of  their  own  Bible.  "  Art  thou  Elias?"  the 
Jewish  priests  and  Levites  asked  the  Baptist  *  Their  Saviour  taught 
His  disciples  this  grand  truth  of  the  Esoteric  Philosophy,  but  verily,  if 
His  Apostles  comprehended  it,  no  one  else  seems  to  have  realised  its 
true  meaning.  No;  not  even  Nicodemus,  who,  to  the  assertion; 
"  Except  a  man  be  born  againf  he  cannot  see  the  Kingdom  of  God," 
answers  :  "  How  can  a  man  be  born  when  he  is  old  ? "  and  is  forthwith 
reproved  by  the  remark :  "  Art  thou  a  master  in  Israel  and  knowest 
not  these  things  ?  "—as  no  one  had  a  right  to  call  himself  a  "  Master  " 
and  Teacher,  without  having  been  initiated  into  the  mysteries  (a)  of  a 
spiritual  re-birth  through  water,  fire  and  spirit,  and  {b)  of  the  re-birth 
from  flesh-t  Then  again  what  can  be  a  clearer  expression  as  to  the 
doctrine  of  manifold  re-births  than  the  answer  given  by  Jesus  to  the 
Sadducees,  "who  deny  that  there  is  any  resurrection,"  i.e.,  any 
re-birth,  since  the  dogma  of  the  resurrection  in  the  flesh  is  now  regarded 
as  an  absurdity  even  by  the  intelligent  clergy : 

They  who  shall  be  accounted  worthy  to  obtain  that  world  [Nirvana]  ^  .  .  . 
neither  marry     .     .     .     neither  can  they  die  any  more, 

which  shows  that  they  had  already  died,  and  more  than  once.     And 
again  : 

Now  that  the  dead  are  raised  even  Moses  shewed  ...  he  calleth  the  I^rd 
the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob,  for  he  is  not  a 
God  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living.  || 

The  sentence  "  now  that  the  dead  are  raised''  evidently  applied  to 
the  then  actual  re-births  of  the  Jacobs  and  the  Isaacs,  and  not  to  their 


*  John,  i.  21. 

^  John,  in.  "Born  "  from  above,  viz.,  from  his  Monad  or  di\-iue  Ego,  the  seventh  Principle,  which 
remains  till  the  end  of  the  Kalpa,  the  nucleus  of,  and  at  the  same  time  the  overshadowing  Principle, 
as  the  Karanatma  (Causal  Soul)  of  the  personality  in  every  rebirth.  lu  this  sense,  the  .sentence  "  born 
anew"  means  "descends  from  above,"  the  last  two  words  having  no  reference  to  heaven  or  space, 
neither  of  which  can  be  limited  or  located,  since  one  is  a  state  and  the  other  infinite,  hence  having 
no  cardmal  points.    (See  Neiu  Testament.  Revised  Version,  loc.  cit.) 

t  This  can  have  no  reference  to  Christian  Baptism,  since  there  was  none  in  the  days  of  Nicodemus 
and  he  could  not  therefore  know  anything  of  it,  even  though  a  "  Master." 

\  This  word,  translated  in  the  New  Testament  "world"  to  suit  the  official  interpretation,  means 
rather  an  "age"  (as  shown  in  the  >?^M.s^rf  r,?yiw«)  or  one  of  the  periods  during  the  Manvantara,  a 
Kalpa,  or  ,«;on.  Esoterically  the  sentence  would  read:  "Hewhoshall  reach,  through  a  series  of  births 
and  Karmic  law,  that  statein  which  Humanity  shall  find  it.self  after  the  Seventh  Round  and  the  Seventh 
Race,  when  comes  Nirvana.  Moksha,  and  when  man  becomes  '  equal  unto  the  .\ugels '  or  Dhyan 
Chohans,  is  a  'son  of  the  resurrection  '  and  '  can  die  no  more  ' ;  then  there  will  be  no  marriage,  as 
there  will  be  no  difference  of  sexes  "—a  result  of  our  present  materiality  and  animalism. 
ji  Luke,  XX.  27-38. 


66  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

future  resurrection  ;  for  in  such  case  they  would  have  been  still  dead 
in  the  interim,  and  could  not  be  referred  to  as  "  the  living." 

But  the  most  suggestive  of  Christ's  parables  and  "dark  sayings"  is 
found  in  the  explanation  given  by  him  to  his  Apostles  about  the  blind 
man  : 

Master,  who  did  sin,  this  man  or  his  parents,  that  he  was  born  blind?  Jesus 
answered,  Neither  hath  this  [blind,  physical]  man  sinned  nor  his  parents;  but  that 
the  works  of  [his]  God  should  be  made  manifest  in  him.* 

Man  is  the  "tabernacle,"  the  "building"  only,  of  his  God;  and  of 
course  it  is  not  the  temple  but  its  inmate — the  vehicle  of  "  God"  f — 
that  had  sinned  in  a  previous  incarnation,  and  had  thus  brought  the 
Karma  of  cecity  upon  the  new  building.  Thus  Jesus  spoke  truly  ;  but 
to  this  day  his  followers  have  refused  to  understand  the  words  of 
wisdom  spoken.  The  Saviour  is  shown  by  his  followers  as  though  he 
were  paving,  by  his  words  and  explanation,  the  way  to  a  precon- 
ceived programme  that  had  to  lead  to  an  intended  miracle.  Verily  the 
Grand  Martyr  has  remained  thenceforward,  and  for  eighteen  centuries, 
the  Victim  crucified  daily  far  more  cruelly  by  his  clerical  disciples 
and  lay  followers  than  he  ever  could  have  been  by  his  allegorical 
enemies.  For  such  is  the  true  sense  of  the  words  "that  the  works  of 
God  should  be  made  manifest  in  him,"  in  the  light  of  theological  inter- 
pretation, and  a  very  undignified  one  it  is,  if  the  Esoteric  explanation 
is  rejected. 

Doubtless  the  above  will  be  regarded  as  fresh  blasphemy.  Neverthe- 
less there  are  a  number  of  Christians  whom  we  know — whose  hearts  go 
out  as  strongly  to  their  ideal  of  Jesus,  as  their  souls  are  repelled  from  the 
theological  picture  of  the  official  Saviour — who  will  reflect  over  our 
explanation  and  find  in  it  no  offence,  but  perchance  a  relief 


*  John,  Ix.  2,  3. 

■f  The  conscious  Ego,  or  Fifth  Principle  Manas,  the  vehicleof  the  divine  Monad  or  "  God." 


SECTION    VI. 
The  Dangers  of  Practical  Magic. 


Magic  is  a  dual  power  :  nothing  is  easier  than  to  turn  it  into  Sorcery; 
ayi  evil  thought  suffices  for  it.  Therefore  while  theoretical  Occultism  is 
harmless,  and  may  do  good,  practical  Magic,  or  the  fruits  of  the  Tree 
of  Life  and  Knowledge,*  or  other\vise  the  "  Science  of  Good  and 
Evil,"  is  fraught  with  dangers  and  perils.  For  the  study  of  theoretical 
Occultism  there  are,  no  doubt,  a  number  of  works  that  may  be  read 
with  profit,  besides  such  books  as  the  Finer  Forces  of  Nature,  etc., 
the  Zohar,  Sepher  fctzirah.  The  Book  of  E7ioch,  Franck's  Kabalah, 
and  many  Hermetic  treatise's.  These  are  scarce  in  European  lan- 
guages, but  works  in  Latin  by  the  mediaeval  Philosophers,  generally 
known  as  Alchemists  and  Rosicrucians,  are  plentiful.  But  even  the 
perusal  of  these  may  prove  dangerous  for  the  unguided  student.  If 
approached  without  the  right  key  to  them,  and  if  the  student  is  unfit, 
owing  to  mental  incapacity,  for  Magic,  and  is  thus  unable  to  discern 
the  Right  from  the  Left  Path,  let  him  take  our  advice  and  leave  this 
study  alone ;  he  will  only  bring  on  himself  and  on  his  family  un- 
expected woes  and  sorrows,  never  suspecting  whence  they  come,  nor 
what  are  the  powers  awakened  bj^  his  mind  being  bent  on  them. 
Works  for  advanced  students  are  many,  but  these  can  be  placed  at  the 
disposal  of  only  sworn  or  "pledged"  chelas  (disciples),  those  who  have 
pronounced  the  ever-binding  oath,  and  who  are,  therefore,  helped  and 
protected.     For  all  other  purposes,  well-intentioned  as  such  works  may 


*  Some  Symbologists,  relying:  on  the  correspondence  of  numbers  and  the  symbols  of  certain  things 
and  personages,  refer  these  "secrets"  to  the  mystery  of  generation.  But  it  is  more  than  this.  The 
glyph  of  the  "  Tree  of  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil  "  has  no  doubt  a  phallic  and  sexual  element  in 
it,  as  has  the  "Woman  and  the  Serpent"  ;  but  it  has  also  a  psychical  and  spiritual  significance. 
Symbols  are  meant  to  yield  more  than  one  meaning:. 


68  THE  SKCRET  DOCTRINE. 

be,  thej^  can  only  mislead  the  unwary  and  guide  him  imperceptibly  to 
Black  Magic  or  Sorcery' — if  to  nothing  worse. 

The  mystic  characters,  alphabets  and  numerals  found  in  the  divisions 
and  sub-divisions  of  the  Great  Kabalah,  are,  perhaps,  the  most  danger- 
ous portions  in  it,  and  especially  the  numerals.  We  say  dangerous, 
because  they  are  the  most  prompt  to  produce  effects  and  results,  and 
this  with  or  without  the  experimenter's  will,  even  without  his  know- 
ledge. Some  students  are  apt  to  doubt  this  statement,  simply  because 
after  manipulating  these  numerals  they  have  failed  to  notice  any  dire 
physical  manifestation  or  result.  Such  results  would  be  found  the  least 
dangerous :  it  is  the  moral  causes  produced  and  the  various  events 
developed  and  brought  to  an  unforeseen  crisis,  that  would  testify  to  the 
truth  of  what  is  now  stated  had  the  la}-  students  only  the  power  of 
discernment. 

The  point  of  departure  of  that  special  branch  of  the  Occult  teaching 
known  as  the  "  Science  of  Correspondences,"  numerical  or  literal  or 
alphabetical,  has  for  its  epigraph  with  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Kaba- 
lists,  the  two  mis-interpreted  verses  which  say  that  God 
ordered  all  things  in  number,  measure  and  weight  ;* 
and : 

He  created  her  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  saw  her,  and  numbered  her,  and  measured 
her.t 

But  the  Eastern  Occultists  have  another  epigraph:  ''Absolute  Unity, 
X,  within  number  and  plurality."  Both  the  Western  and  the  Eastern 
students  of  the  Hidden  Wisdom  hold  to  this  axiomatic  truth.  Only 
the  latter  are  perhaps  more  sincere  in  their  confessions.  Instead  of 
putting  a  mask  on  their  Science,  they  show  her  face  openlj^  even  if 
they  do  veil  carefully  her  heart  and  soul  before  the  in  appreciative 
public  and  the  profane,  who  are  ever  ready  to  abuse  the  most  sacred 
truths  for  their  own  selfish  ends.  But  Unity  is  the  real  basis  of  the 
Occult  Sciences — physical  and  metaphysical.  This  is  shown  even  by 
Eliphas  Ivcvi,  the  learned  Western  Kabalist,  inclined  as  he  is  to  be 
rather  Jesuitical.     He  says  : 

Absolute  Unity  is  the  supreme  and  final  reason  of  things.  Therefore,  that 
reason  can  be  neither  one  person,  nor  three  persons;  it  is  Reason,  and  pre- 
eminently Reason  {raison par  excellence).X 


*  IVisdom,  xi.  21.    Douay  version. 

t  Ecclesiasticus,  i.  9.    Douay  version. 

t  Dogme  ct  Rituel  de  la  Haute  Magie,  i.  361. 


NAMES   ARE  SYMBOLS.  g^ 

The  meaning  of  this  Unity  in  Plurality  in  "  God  "  or  Nature,  can  be 
solved  only  by  the  means  of  transcendental  methods,  by  numerals,  as 
by  the  correspondences  between  soul  and  the  Soul.  Names,  in  the 
Kabalah  as  in  the  Bible,  such  as  Jehovah,  Adam  Kadmon,  Eve,  Cain, 
Abel,  Enoch,  are  all  of  them  more  intimately  connected,  by  geometrical 
and  astronomical  relations,  with  Physiology  (or  Phallicism)  than  with 
Theology  or  Religion.  Little  as  people  are  as  yet  prepared  to  admit  it, 
this  will  be  shown  to  be  a  fact.  If  all  those  names  are  symbols  for  things 
hidden,  as  well  as  for  those  manifested,  in  the  Bible  as  in  the  Vedls, 
their  respective  mysteries  differ  greatly.  Plato's  motto  "  God  geome- 
trises"  was  accepted  by  both  Aryans  and  Jews;  but  while  the  former 
applied  their  Science  of  Correspondences  to  veil  the  most  spiritual  and 
sublime  truths  of  Nature,  the  latter  used  their  acumen  to  conceal  only 
one— to  them  the  most  divine— of  the  mysteries  of  Evolution,  namely, 
that  of  birth  and  generation,  and  then  they  deified  the  organs  of  the 
latter. 

Apart  from  this,  every  cosmogony,  from  the  earliest  to  the  latest,  is 
based  upon,  interlinked  with,  and  most  closely  related  to,  numerals  and 
geometric  figures.  Questioned  by  an  Initiate,  these  figures  and  numbers 
will  yield  numerical  values  based  on  the  integral  values  of  the  Circle— 
"  the  secret  habitat  of  the  ever-invisible  Deity  "  as  the  Alchemists  have 
it— as  they  will  yield  every  other  Occult  particular  connected  with  such 
mysteries,  whether  anthropographical,  anthropological,  cosmic,  or 
psychical.  "  In  reuniting  Ideas  to  Numbers,  we  can  operate  upon  Ideas 
in  the  same  way  as  upon  Numbers,  and  arrive  at  the  Mathematics  of 
Truth,"  writes  an  Occultist,  who  shows  his  great  wisdom  in  desiring  to 
remain  unknown. 

Any  Kabalist  well  acquainted  with  the  Pythagorean  system  of  numerals  and 
geometry  can  demonstrate  that  the  metaphysical  views  of  Plato  were  based  upon 
the  strictest  mathematical  principles.  "True  mathematics,"  savs  the  Magicon, 
"IS  something  with  which  all  higher  sciences  are  connected;  common  mathe- 
matics is  but  a  deceitful  phantasmagoria,  whose  much  praised  infallibility  only 
arises  from  this— that  materials,  conditions  and  references  are  made  to  founda- 
tion."    .     .     . 

The  cosmological  theory  of  numerals  which  Pjthagoras  learned  in  India,  and 
from  the  Egyptian  Hierophants,  is  alone  able  to  reconcile  the  two  units,  matter 
and  spirit,  and  cause  each  to  demonstrate  the  other  mathematically.  The  sacred 
numbers  of  the  universe  in  their  esoteric  combination  can  alone  solve  the  greau 
problem,  and  explain  the  theory  of  radiation  and  the  cycle  of  the  emauatTons. 
The  lower  orders,  before  they  develop  into  higher  ones,  must  emanate  from  the 


70  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

higher  spiritual  ones,  and  when  arrived  at  the  turning-point,  be  reabsorbed  into 
the  infinite.* 

It  is  upon  these  true  Mathematics  that  the  knowledge  of  the  Kosmos 
and  of  all  mysteries  rests,  and  to  one  acquainted  with  them,  it  is  the 
easiest  thing  possible  to  prove  that  both  Vaidic  and  Biblical  structures 
are  based  upon  "  God-in-Nature"  and  "  Nature-in-God,"  as  the  radical 
law.  Therefore,  this  law — as  everything  else  immutable  and  fixed  in 
eternity — could  find  a  correct  expression  only  in  those  purest  transcen- 
dental Mathematics  referred  to  by  Plato,  especially  in  Geometry  as  trans- 
cendentally  applied.  Revealed  to  men — we  fear  not  and  will  not  retract 
the  expression — in  this  geometrical  and  s3'mbolical  garb,  Truth  has 
grown  and  developed  into  additional  symbology,  invented  by  man  for 
the  wants  and  better  comprehension  of  the  masses  of  mankind  that 
came  too  late  in  their  cj^clic  development  and  evolution  to  have  shared 
in  the  primitive  knowledge,  and  would  never  have  grasped  it  other- 
wise. If  later  on,  the  clergy — crafty  and  ambitious  of  power  in  every  age 
— anthropomorphised  and  degraded  abstract  ideals,  as  well  as  the  real 
and  divine  Beings  who  do  exist  in  Nature,  and  are  the  Guardians 
and  Protectors  of  our  manvantaric  world  and  period,  the  fault  and  guilt 
rests  with  those  would-be  leaders,  not  with  the  masses. 

But  the  day  has  come  when  the  gross  conceptions  of  our  forefathers 
during  the  Middle  Ages  can  no  longer  satisfy  the  thoughtful  religionist. 
The  mediaeval  Alchemist  and  Mystic  are  now  transformed  into  the 
sceptical  Chemist  and  Physicist ;  and  most  of  them  are  found  to  have 
turned  awaj^  from  truth,  on  account  of  the  purely  anthropomorphic 
ideas,  the  gross  Materialism,  of  the  forms  in  which  it  is  presented  to 
them.  Therefore,  future  generations  have  either  to  be  gradually  ini- 
tiated into  the  truths  underlying  Exoteric  Religions,  including  their  own, 
or  be  left  to  break  the  feet  of  clay  of  the  last  of  the  gilded  idols.  No 
educated  man  or  woman  would  turn  away  from  any  of  the  now  called 
"superstitions"  which  they  believe  to  be  based  on  nursery  tales  and 
ignorance,  if  they  could  only  see  the  basis  of  fact  that  underlies  every 
"  superstition."  But  let  them  once  learn  for  a  certainty  that  there  is 
hardly  a  claim  in  the  Occult  Sciences  that  is  not  founded  on  philo- 
sophical and  scientific  facts  in  Nature,  and  they  will  pursue  the  study 
of  those  Sciences  with  the  same,  if  not  with  greater,  ardour  than  that 
they  have  expended  in  shunning  them.     This  cannofbe  achieved  at 


•  Isis  Unveiled,  i.  6,  7. 


THE   THREE   MOTHERS. 


71 


once,  for  to  benefit  mankind  such  truths  have  to  be  revealed  gradually 
and  with  great  caution,  the  public  mind  not  being  prepared  for  them. 
However  much  the  Agnostics  of  our  age  may  find  themselves  in  the 
mental  attitude  demanded  by  Modern   Science,  people  are  always  apt 
to  cling  to  their  old  hobbies  so  long  as  the  remembrance  of  them  lasts. 
They  are  like  the  Emperor  Julian — called  the  Apostate,  because  he  loved 
truth  too  well  to  accept  aught  else — who,  though  in  his  last  Theophany 
he  beheld  his  beloved  Gods   as  pale,  worn-out,  and  hardly  discernible 
shadows,  nevertheless  clung  to  them.     Let,  then,  the  world  cling  to  its 
Gods,  to  whatever  plane  or  realm  they  may  belong.    The  true  Occultist 
would  be  guilty  of  high  treason  to  mankind,  were  he  to  break  for  ever 
the  old  deities  before  he  could  replace  them  with  the  whole  and  un- 
adulterated truth — and  this   he   cannot  do  as  yet.     Nevertheless,  the 
reader  may  be  allowed  to  learn  at  least  the  alphabet  of  that  truth.     He 
may  be  shown,  at  any  rate,  what  the  Gods  and  Goddesses  of  the  Pagans, 
denounced  as  demons  by  the  Church,  are  not,  if  he  cannot  learn  the 
whole  and  final  truth  as  to  what  they  are.     Let  him  assure  himself  that 
the  Hermetic  "Tres  Matres,"  and  the  "Three  Mothers"  of  the  Sepher 
Jetzirah  are  one  and  the  same  thing  ;  that  they  are  no  Demon-Goddesses, 
but    Light,   Heat,  and    Electricity,  and    then,  perchance,  the   learned 
classes  will  spurn  them  no  longer.   After  this,  the  Rosicrucian  Illuminati 
may  find  followers  even  in  the  Royal  Academies,  which  will  be  more 
prepared,  perhaps,  than  they  are  now,  to  admit  the  grand  truths  of 
archaic    Natural  Philosophy,  especially  when  their  learned  members 
shall  have  assured  themselves  that,  in  the  dialect  of  Hermes,  the  "  Three 
Mothers"   stand   as  symbols   for  the  whole  of  the  forces  or  agencies 
which  have  a  place  assigned  to  them  in   the  modern  system  of   the 
"  correlation  of  forces."  *     Even  the  polytheism  of  the  "  superstitious  " 
Brahman  and  idolater  shows  its  rahon  d'etre,  since  the  three  Shaktis  of 
the  three  great  Gods,  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Shiva,  are  identical  with  the 
"  Three  Mothers"  of  the  monotheistic  Jew. 

The  whole  of  the  ancient  religious  and  mystical  literature  is  symboli- 
cal.    The  Books  of  Hermes,  the  Zohar,  the  Ya-  Yakav,  the  Egyptian  Book 


*  "Synesius  mentions  books  of  stone  which  he  found  in  the  temple  of  Memphis,  on  one  of  which 
was  en^aved  the  following  sentence:  'One  nature  delights  in  another,  one  nature  overcomes 
another,  one  nature  overrules  another,  and  the  whole  of  them  are  one' ." 

"  The  inherent  restlessness  of  matter  is  embodied  in  the  saying  of  Hermes  :  '  Action  is  the  life  of 
Phta  ' ;  and  Orpheus  calls  nature  TPoXv/A^^^avos  fxdrrjp,  '  the  mother  that  makes  many  things,'  or 
the  ingenious,  the  contriving,  the  inventive  mother."— /fw  Unveiled,  i.  257. 


•J2  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

of  the  Dead,  the  Vedas,  the  Upanishads,  and  the  Bible,  are  as  full  of 
symbolism  as  are  the  Nabathean  revelations  of  the  Chaldaic  Qu-tamy ; 
it  is  a  loss  of  time  to  ask  which  is  the  earliest;  all  are  simply  different 
versions  of  the  one  primeval  Record  of  prehistoric  knowledge  and 
revelation. 

The  first  four  chapters  of  Genesis  contain  the  synopsis  of  all  the  rest 
of  the  Pentateuch,  being  only  the  various  versions  of  the  same  thing  in 
different  allegorical  and  symbolical  applications.  Having  discovered 
that  the  Pyramid  of  Cheops  with  all  its  measurements  is  to  be  found 
contained  in  its  minutest  details  in  the  structure  of  Solomon's  Temple ; 
and  having  ascertained  that  the  biblical  names  Shem,  Ham  and 
Japhet  are  determinative 

of  pyramid  measures,  in  connection  with  the  600-year  period  of  Noah  and  the 
500- year  period  of  Shem,  Ham  and  Japhet;  .  .  .  the  term  "Sons  of  Elohim" 
and  "Daughters"  of  H-Adam,  [are]  for  one  thing  astronomical  terms,* 

the  author  of  the  very  curious  work  already  mentioned — a  book  very 
little  known  in  Europe,  we  regret  to  say — seems  to  see  nothing  in  his 
discovery  bej'^ond  the  presence  of  Mathematics  and  Metrology  in  the 
Bible.  He  also  arrives  at  most  unexpected  and  extraordinary  conclu- 
sions, such  as  are  very  little  warranted  b}^  the  facts  discovered.  His 
impression  seems  to  be  that  because  the  Jewish  biblical  names  are  all 
astronomical,  therefore  the  Scriptures  of  all  the  other  nations  can  be 
"  only  this  and  nothing  more."  But  this  is  a  great  mistake  of  the 
erudite  and  wonderfully  acute  author  of  The  Source  of  Meastires,  if  he 
really  thinks  so.  The  "Key  to  the  Hebrew- Egyptian  Mystery"  un- 
locks but  a  certain  portion  of  the  hieratic  writings  of  these  two  nations, 
and  leaves  those  of  other  peoples  untouched.  His  idea  is  that  the 
Kabalah  "  is  only  that  sublime  Science  upon  which  Masonry  is  based  "  ; 
in  fact  he  regards  Masonry  as  the  substance  of  the  Kabalah,  and  the 
latter  as  the  "  rational  basis  of  the  Hebrew  text  of  Holy  Writ."  About 
this  we  will  not  argue  with  the  author.  But  why  should  all  those  who 
may  have  found  in  the  Kabalah  something  beyond  "the  sublime 
Science  "  upon  which  Masonry  is  alleged  to  have  been  built,  be  held 
up  to  public  contempt  ? 

In  its  exclusiveness  and  one-sidedness  such  a  conclusion  is  pregnant 
with  future  misconceptions  and  is  absolutely  wrong.  In  its  unchari- 
table criticism  it  throws  a  slur  upon  the  "  Divine  Science  "  itself 

•  Source  of  Measures,  p.  x. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  WORD-JUGGLING.  73 

The  Kabalah  is  indeed  "  of  the  essence  of  Masonry,"  but  it  is  depen- 
dent on  Metrology  only  in  one  of  its  aspects,  the  less  Esoteric,  as  even 
Plato  made  no  secret  that  the  Deity  was  ever  geometrising.  For  the 
uninitiated,  however  learned  and  endowed  with  genius  they  maybe,  the 
Kabalah,  which  treats  only  of  "the  garment  of  God,"  or  the  veil  and 
cloak  of  truth, 
is  built  from  the  ground  upward  with  a  practical  application  to  present  uses.* 

Or  in  other  words  represents  an  exact  Science  only  on  the  terrestrial 
plane.  To  the  initiated,  the  Kabalistic  L,ord  descends  from  the 
primeval  Race,  generated  spiritually  from  the  "  Mind-born  Seven." 
Having  reached  the  Earth  the  Divine  Mathematics — a  synonym  for 
Magic  in  his  day,  as  we  are  told  by  Josephus — veiled  her  face.  Hence 
the  most  important  secret  yet  yielded  by  her  in  our  modern  day  is  the 
identity  of  the  old  Roman  measures  and  the  present  British  measures, 
of  the  Hebrew-Eg>'ptian  cubit  and  the  Masonic  inch.f 

The  discovery  is  most  wonderful,  and  has  led  to  further  and  minor 
unveilings  of  various  riddles  in  reference  to  Symbology  and  biblical 
names.  It  is  thoroughly  understood  and  proven,  as  shown  by  Nacha- 
nides,  that  in  the  days  of  Moses  the  initial  sentence  in  Genesis  was 
made  to  read  Rrash  ithbara  Elohim,  or  "  In  the  head-source  [or 
Mulaprakiti — the  Rootless  Root]  developed  [or  evolved]  the  Gods 
[Elohim],  the  heavens  and  the  earth  ;  "  whereas  it  is  now,  owing  to 
the  Massora  and  theological  cunning,  transformed  into  Brashith  bara 
Elohim,  or,  "  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth" — which  word  juggling  alone  has  led  to  materialistic  anthropo- 
morphism and  dualism.  How  many  more  similar  instances  may  not  be 
found  in  the  Bible,  the  last  and  latest  of  the  Occult  works  of  antiquity  ? 
There  is  no  longer  any  doubt  in  the  mind  of  the  Occultist,  that,  notwith- 
standing its  form  and  outward  meaning,  the  Bible — as  explained  by  the 
Zohar  or  Midrash,  the  Yetzirah  (Book  of  Creation)  and  the  Comme?itary 
on  the  Ten  Sephiroth  (by  Azariel  Ben  Manachem  of  the  Xllth  century) — 
is  part  and  parcel  of  the  Secret  Doctrine  of  the  Aryans,  which  explains 
in  the  same  manner  the  Vedas  and  all  other  allegorical  books.  The 
Zohar,  in  teaching  that  the  Impersonal  One  Cause  manifests  in  the  Uni- 
verse through  Its  Emanations,  the  Sephiroth — that  Universe  being  in  its 


•  Masonic  Review,  July,  1886. 

+  See  Source  0/ Measures,  pp.  47—50,  et  pass. 


"74  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

totality  simply  the  veil  woven  from  the  Deity's  own  substance — is  un- 
deniably the  copy  and  faithful  echo  of  the  earliest  Vedas.  Taken  by 
itself,  without  the  additional  help  of  the  Vaidic  and  of  Brahmanical 
literature  in  general,  the  Bible  will  never  yield  the  universal  secrets  of 
Occult  Nature.  The  cubits,  inches,  and  measures  of  this  physical 
plane  will  never  solve  the  problems  of  the  world  on  the  spiritual  plane 
— for  Spirit  can  neither  be  weighed  nor  measured.  The  working  out 
of  these  problems  is  reserved  for  the  "mystics  and  the  dreamers"  who 
alone  are  capable  of  accomplishing  it. 

Moses  was  an  initiated  priest,  versed  in  all  the  mj^steries  and  the 
Occult  knowledge  of  the  Egyptian  temples — hence  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted with  primitive  Wisdom.  It  is  in  the  latter  that  the  symbolical 
and  astronomical  meaning  of  that  "  Mystery  of  Mysteries,"  the  Great 
Pyramid,  has  to  be  sought.  And  having  been  so  familiar  with  the 
geometrical  secrets  that  lay  concealed  for  long  aeons  in  her  strong 
bosom — the  measurements  and  proportions  of  the  Kosmos,  our  little 
Earth  included — what  wonder  that  he  should  have  made  use  of  his 
knowledge  ?  The  Esoterism  of  Egypt  was  that  of  the  whole  world  at 
one  time.  During  the  long  ages  of  the  Third  Race  it  had  been  the 
heirloom,  in  common,  of  the  whole  of  mankind,  received  from  their 
Instructors,  the  "  Sons  of  Light,"  the  primeval  Seven.  There  was  a 
time  also  when  the  Wisdom-Religion  was  not  symbolical,  for  it  became 
Esoteric  only  gradually,  the  change  being  necessitated  by  misuse  and 
by  the  Sorcery  of  the  Atlanteans.  For  it  was  the  "misuse"  only,'  and 
not  the  use,  of  the  divine  gift  that  led  the  men  of  the  Fourth  Race  to 
Black  Magic  and  Sorcery,  and  finally  to  become  "  forgetful  of  Wisdom  "  ; 
while  those  of  the  Fifth  Race,  the  inheritors  of  the  Rishis  of  the  Treta 
Yuga,  used  their  powers  to  atrophise  such  gifts  in  mankind  in  general, 
and  then,  as  the  "  Elect  Root,"  dispersed.  Those  who  escaped  the 
"  Great  Flood  "  preserved  only  its  memory,  and  a  belief  founded  on 
the  knowledge  of  their  direct  fathers  of  one  remove,  that  such  a 
Science  existed,  and  was  now  jealousl}'  guarded  b}-^  the  "Elect  Root" 
exalted  by  Enoch.  But  there  must  again  come  a  time  when  man  shall 
once  more  become  what  he  was  during  the  second  Yuga  (age),  when 
his  probationar3'  cycle  shall  be  over  and  he  shall  gradually  become  what 
he  was — semi-corporeal  and  pure.  Does  not  Plato,  the  Initiate,  tell  us 
in  the  PhcBdrus  all  that  man  once  was,  and  that  which  he  may  yet  again 
become  : 

Before  man's  spirit  sank  into  sensuality  and  became  embodied  through  the  loss 


MOSES  AND  THE  JEWS.  75 

of  his  wings,  he  lived  among  the  Gods  in  the  airy  spiritual  world  where  everything 
is  true  and  pure.* 

Elsewhere  he  speaks  of  the  time  when  men  did  not  perpetuate 
themselves,  but  lived  as  pure  spirits. 

I^et  those  men  of  Science  who  feel  inclined  :q  l;iugh  at  this,  themselves 
unravel  tLe  myster>-  of  the  origin  of  the  first  man. 

Unwilling  that  his  chosen  people — chosen  by  him — should  remain 
as  grossly  idolatrous  as  the  profane  masses  that  surrounded  them, 
Moses  utilised  his  knowledge  of  the  cosmogonical  mysteries  of  the 
Pyramid,  to  build  upon  it  the  Genesiacal  Cosmogony  in  symbols  and 
glyphs.  This  was  more  accCvSsible  to  the  minds  of  the  hot  polloi  than 
the  abstruse  truths  taught  to  the  educated  in  the  sanctuaries.  He 
invented  nothing  but  the  outward  garb,  added  not  one  iota ;  but  in  this 
he  merely  followed  the  example  of  older  nations  and  Initiates.  If  he 
clothed  the  grand  truths  revealed  to  him  by  his  Hierophant  under  the 
most  ingenious  imager^-,  he  did  it  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
Israelites  ;  that  stiff-necked  race  would  accept  of  no  God  unless  He  were 
as  anthropomorphic  as  those  of  the  Olympus  ;  and  he  himself  failed  to 
foresee  the  times  when  highly  educated  statesmen  would  be  defending 
the  husks  of  the  fruit  of  wisdom  that  grew  and  developed  in  him  on 
Mount  Sinai,  when  communing  with  his  own  personal  God — his  divine 
Self.  Moses  understood  the  great  danger  of  delivering  such  truths  to 
the  selfish,  for  he  understood  the  fable  of  Prometheus  and  remembered 
the  past.  Hence,  he  veiled  them  from  the  profanation  of  public  gaze 
and  gave  them  out  allegorically.  And  this  is  why  his  biographer  says 
of  him,  that  when  he  descended  from  Sinai, 

Moses  wist  not  that  the  skin  of  his  face  shone  .  .  .  and  he  put  a  veil  upon 
his  face.t 

And  so  he  "  put  a  veil  "  upon  the  face  of  his  Pentateuch ;  and  to  such 
an  extent  that,  using  orthodox  chronology,  only  3376  3''ears  after  the 
event  people  begin  to  acquire  a  conviction  that  it  is  "  a  veil  indeed." 
It  is  not  the  face  of  God  or  even  of  a  Jehovah  shining  through  ;  not  even 
the  face  of  Moses,  but  verily  the  faces  of  the  later  Rabbis. 
No  wonder  if  Clemens  wrote  in  the  Stromateis  that : 

Similar,  then,  to  the  Hebrew  enigmas  in  respect  to  concealment  are  those  of 
the  Egyptians  also.t 

*  See  Gary's  translation,  pp.  322,  323. 

*  Exodus,  xxxiv.  29,  33. 
X  Op.  cit..  v.  vii. 


SECTION  VII. 

Old  Wine  in    New  Bottles. 


It  is  more  than  likely,  that  the  Protestants  in  the  days  of  the 
Reformation  knew  nothing  of  the  true  origin  of  Christianity,  or,  to  be 
more  explicit  and  correct,  of  I^atin  Kcclesiasticism.  Nor  is  it  probable 
that  the  Greek  Church  knew  much  of  it,  the  separation  between  the 
two  having  occurred  at  a  time  when,  in  the  struggle  for  political  power 
the  lyatin  Church  was  securing,  at  any  cost,  the  alliance  of  the  highlj'' 
educated,  the  ambitious  and  influential  Pagans,  while  these  were  willing 
to  assume  the  outward  appearance  of  the  new  worship,  provided  thej-- 
were  themselves  kept  in  power.  There  is  no  need  to  remind  the  reader 
here  of  the  details  of  that  struggle,  well-known  to  every  educated  man.  It 
is  certain  that  the  highly  cultured  Gnostics  and  their  leaders — such  men 
as  Saturnilus,  an  uncompromising  ascetic,  as  Marcion,  Valentinus, 
Basilides,  Menander  and  Cerinthus — were  not  stigmatised  by  the  (now) 
Latin  Church  because  they  were  heretics,  nor  because  their  tenets  and 
practices  were  indeed  ''  ob  turpitudinem portentosam  nimiumet  horribilem," 
"  monstrous,  revolting  abominations,"  as  Baronius  says  of  those  of  Car- 
pocrates ;  but  simply  because  they  knew  too  much  of  fact  and  truth. 
Kenneth  R.  H.  Mackenzie  correctly  remarks : 

They  were  stigmatised  by  the  later  Roman  Church  because  they  came  into 
conflict  with  the  purer  Church  of  Christianity — the  possession  of  which  was 
usurped  by  the  Bishops  of  Rome,  but  which  original  continues  in  its  docility 
towards  the  founder,  in  the  Primitive  Orthodox  Greek  Church.* 

Unwilling  to  accept  the  responsibility  of  gratuitous  assumptions,  the 
writer  deems  it  best  to  prove  this  inference  by  more  than  one  personal 
and  defiant  admission  of  an  ardent  Roman  Catholic  writer,  evidently 
entrustedwith  the  delicate  task  by  the  Vatican.  The  Marquis  de  Mirville 

•  The  Royal  Masonic  Cyclopeedia,  under  "  Gnosticism." 


COPIES  THAT  ANTS-DATED   ORIGINAI,S.  jj 

makes  desperate   efforts   to   explain  in  the   Catholic  interest  certain 
remarkable   discoveries  in  Archaeology  and  Palaeography,  though  the 
Church  is  cleverly  made  to  remain  outside  of  the  quarrel  and  defence. 
This   is   undeniably  shown   by  his  ponderous  volumes  addressed  to 
the  Academy  of  France  between  1803  and    1865.      Seizing  the  pre- 
text   of   drawing    the   attention    of   the    materialistic   "Immortals" 
to  the  "epidemic  of  Spiritualism,"  the  invasion  of  Europe  and  America 
by  a  numberless  host  of  Satanic  forces,  he  directs  his  efforts  towards 
proving  the  same,  by  giving  the  full  Genealogies  and  the  Theogony  of 
the  Christian  and  Pagan  Deities,  and  by  drawing  parallels  between  the 
two.     All  such  wonderful  likenesses  and  identities  are  only  "  seeming 
and  superficial,"  he  assures  the  reader.     Christian  symbols,  and  even 
characters,  Christ,  the  Virgin,  Angels  and  Saints,  he  tells  them,  were 
all  personated  centuries  beforehand  by  the  fiends  of  hell,  in  order  to 
discredit  eternal  truth  by  their  ungodly  copies.     By  their  knowledge 
of   futurity   the    devils    anticipated    events,    having    "discovered  the 
secrets  of  the  Angels."     Heathen  Deities,   all   the  Sun-Gods   named 
Soters — Saviours — born  of  immaculate   mothers  and   dying  a  violent 
death,  were  only  Ferouers*— as  they  were  called  by  the  Zoroastrians— 
the   demon-ante-dated  copies  (-copies  anticipees)  of  the  Messiah  to  come. 
The  danger  of  recognition     of  such  facsimiles    had  indeed    lately 
become  dangerously  great.     It  had  lingered  threateningly  in  the  air, 
hanging  like  a  sword  of  Damocles  over  the  Church,  since  the  days  of 
Voltaire,  Dupuis  and  other  writers  on  similar  lines.     The  discoveries 


In  the  Ferouer,  and  Devs  of  Jacob!  (Letters  F.  and  D.)  the  word  "  ferouer  "  is  explained  in  the 
followmg  manner  :  The  Ferouer  is  a  part  of  the  creature  (whether  man  or  animal)  of  which  it  is  the 
WH^K  T^"^  'V-^"'^-i^es-  «  IS  the  Nous  of  the  Greeks,  therefore  divine  and  immortal,  and  thus  can 
hardly  be  the  Devil  or  the  satanic  copy  De  Mirville  would  represent  it  {^^^Mimoire,  de  I'Academte  des 
Inscrtpuons,  Vol.  XXXVII.  p.  623,  and  chap,  xxxix.  p.  749).  Foucher  contradicts  him  entirely  The 
Ferouer  was  never  the  "  principle  of  sensations,"  but  always  referred  to  the  most  divine  and  pure 
portion  of  Man's  Ego-the  spiritual  principle.  Anquetil  says  that  the  Ferouer  is  the  purest  portion  of 
man's  soul.  The  Persian  Dev  is  the  antithesis  of  the  Ferouer,  .for  the  Dev  has  been  transformed 
by  Zoroaster  into  the  Genius  of  E%-il  (whence  the  Christian  Devil),  but  even  the  Dev  is  only  finite-  for 
having  become  possessed  of  the  soul  of  man  by  usurpation,  it  will  have  to  leave  it  at  the  great  day  of 
Retribution.  The  Dev  obsesses  the  soul  of  the  defunct  for  three  days,  during  which  the  soul  wanders 
about  the  spot  at  which  it  was  forcibly  separated  from  its  body;  the  Ferouer  ascends  to  the  region  of 
eternal  Light.  It  was  an  unfortunate  idea  that  made  the  noble  Marquis  de  Mirville  imagine  the 
^erouer  to  be  a  "satanic  copy"  of  a  divine  original.  By  calling  all  the  Gods  of  the  Pagans- 
Apollo,  Osiris,  Brahma,  Ormazd,  Bel,  etc.,  the  "  Ferouers  of  Christ  and  of  the  chief  Angels  "  he 
merely  exhibits  the  God  and  the  Angels  he  would  honour  as  inferior  to  the  Pagan  Gods  as'man 
is  inferior  to  his  Soul  and  Spirit ;  since  the  Ferouer  is  the  immortal  part  of  the  mortal  being  of  which 
It  ,s  the  type  and  which  it  survives.  Perchance  the  poor  author  is  unconsciously  prophetic;  and 
Apollo,  Brahma  Ormazd,  Osiris,  etc.,  are  destined  to  sundve  and  replace-as  eternal  cosmic  verities- 
the  evanescent  fictions  about  the  God,  Christ  and  Angels  of  the  Latin  Church ' 


78  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

of  the  Egyptologists,  the  finding  of  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  pre- 
Mosaic  relics  bearing  the  legend  of  Moses*  and  especially  the  many 
rationalistic  works  published  in  England,  such  as  Supernatural  Religio7i 
made  recognition  unavoidable.  Hence  the  appearance  of  Protestant 
and  Roman  Catholic  writers  deputed  to  explain  the  inexplicable ;  to 
reconcile  the  fact  of  Divine  Revelation  with  the  mystery  that  the  divine 
personages,  rites,  dogmas  and  symbols  of  Christianity  were  so  often 
identical  with  those  of  the  several  great  heathen  religions.  The  former 
— the  Protestant  defenders — tried  to  explain  it,  on  the  ground  of 
"prophetic,  precursory  ideas";  the  Latinists,  such  as  De  Mirville,  by 
inventing  a  double  set  of  Angels  and  Gods,  the  one  divine  and  true,  the 
other — the  earlier — "copies  ante-dating  the  originals"  and  due  to  a 
clever  plagiarism  by  the  Evil  One.  The  Protestant  stratagem  is  an  old 
one,  that  of  the  Roman  Catholics  is  so  old  that  it  has  been  forgotten, 
and  is  as  good  as  new.  Dr.  I,undy's  Monumental  Christianity  and  A 
Miracle  i?i  Stone  belong  to  the  first  attempts.  De  Mirville's 
Pneumatologie  to  the  second.  In  India  and  China,  ever}'  such  effort  on 
the  part  of  the  Scotch  and  other  missionaries  ends  in  laughter,  and 
does  no  harm  ;  the  plan  devised  by  the  Jesuits  is  more  serious.  De 
Mirville's  volumes  are  thus  very  important,  as  they  proceed  from  a 
source  which  has  undeniably  the  greatest  learning  of  the  age  at  its 
service,  and  this  coupled  with  all  the  craft  and  casuistry  that  the  sons 
of  Loyola  can  furnish.  The  Marquis  de  Mirville  was  evidently  helped 
by  the  acutest  minds  in  the  service  of  Rome. 

He  begins  by  not  only  admitting  the  justice  of  every  imputation  and 
charge  made  against  the  Eatin  Church  as  to  the  originality  of  her  dogmas, 
but  by  taking  a  seeming  delight  in  anticipating  such  charges ;  for  he 
points  to  every  dogma  of  Christianity  as  having  existed  in  Pagan  rituals 
in  Antiquity.  The  whole  Pantheon  of  Heathen  Deities  is  passed  in  re- 
view by  him,  and  each  is  shown  to  have  had  some  point  of  resemblance 
with  the  Trinitarian  personages  and  Mary.  There  is  hardly  a  mystery, 
a  dogma,  or  a  rite  in  the  Eatin  Church  that  is  not  shown  by  the  author 
as  having  been  "  parodied  by  the  Curvati " — the  "Curved,"  the  Devils. 
All  this  being  admitted  and  explained,  the  Symbologists  ought  to  be 
silenced.  And  so  they  would  be,  if  there  were  no  materialistic  critics 
to  reject  such  omnipotency  of  the  Devil  in  this  world.  For,  if  Rome 
admits  the  likenesses,  she  also  claims  the  right  of  judgment  between 

*  See  George  Smith's  Babylon  and  other  works. 


WHICH   WERE   THE   THIEVES?  79 

the  true  and  the  false  Avat^ra,  the  real  and  the  unreal  God,  between 
the  original  and  the  copy— though  the  copy  precedes  the  original  by 
millenniums. 

Our  author  proceeds  to  argue  that  whenever  the  missionaries  try  to 
convert  an  idolater,  they  are  invariably  answered  : 

We  had  our  Crucified  before  yours.  What  do  you  come  to  show  us.'*  Ao-ain, 
what  should  we  gain  by  denyiug  the  mysterious  side  of  this  copy,  under  the  plea 
that  according  to  Weber  all  the  present  Purdnas  are  remade  from  older  ones,  since 
here  we  have  in  the  same  order  of  personages  a  positive  precedence  which  no  one 
would  ever  think  of  contesting,  t 

And  the  author  instances  Buddha,  Krishna,  Apollo,  etc.  Having 
admitted  all  this  he  escapes  the  diflficulty  in  this  wise  : 

The  Church  Fathers,  however,  who  recognized  their  own  property  under  all 
such  sheep's  clothing  .  .  .  knowing  by  means  of  the  Gospel  ...  all  the 
ruses  of  the  pretended  spirits  of  light;  the  Fathers,  we  say,  meditating  upon  the 
decisive  words,  "all  that  ever  came  before  me  are  robbers"  [John,  x.  8),  did  not 
hesitate  in  recognizing  the  Occult  agency  at  work,  the  general  and  superhuman 
direction  given  beforehand  to  falsehood,  the  universal  attribute  and  environment 
of  all  these  false  Gods  of  the  nations;  ''omnes  dii  gentium  dcemonia  {elilim):' 
{Psalm  xcv.)J 

With  such  a  policy  everything  is  made  easy.  There  is  not  one  glaring 
resemblance,  not  one  fully  proven  identity,  that  could  not  thus  be  made 
away  with.  The  above-quoted  cruel,  selfish,  self- glorifying  words, 
placed  by  John  in  the  mouth  of  Him  who  was  meekness  and  charity 
personified,  could  never  have  been  pronounced  by  Jesus.  The  Occul- 
tists reject  the  imputation  indignantly,  and  are  prepared  to  defend  the 
man  as  against  the  God,  by  showing  whence  come  the  words  plagiar- 
ised by  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  They  are  taken  bodily  from 
the  "Prophecies"  in  the  Book  of  Eyioch.  The  evidence  on  this  head  of 
the  learned  biblical  scholar,  Archbishop  I^aurence,  and  of  the  author  of 
lh.Q  Ez'olutio7t  of  Christianity,  who  edited  the  translation,  may  be  brought 
forward  to  prove  the  fact.  On  the  last  page  of  the  Introduction  to  the 
Book  of  Enoch  is  found  the  following  passage  : 

The  parable  of  the  sheep  rescued  by  the  good  Shepherd  from  hireling  guardians 
and    ferocious  wolves,   is    obviously   borrowed    by  the    fourth    Evangelist    from 


•  This  is   as   fanciful   as   it  is  arbitrary.    Where  is  the  Hindu  or  Buddhist  who  mjUM  s^yv^  01 

id  "  .'  °^ 


his  "  Crucified  "  .' 
+  Op.  cit.,  iv.  237 
\    Loc.  cit.,  250. 


8o  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Enoch,  Ixxxix,  in  which  the  author  depicts  the  shepherds  as  killing  and  destroying 
the  sheep  before  the  advent  of  their  Lord,  and  thus  discloses  the  true  meaning  of 
that  hitherto  mysterious  passage  in  the  Johannine  parable— "All  that  ever  came 
before  me  are  thieves  and  robbers" — language  in  which  \>'e  now  detect  an  obvious 
reference  to  the  allegorical  shepherds  of  Enoch. 

"Obvious"  truly,  and  something  else  besides.  For,  if  Jesus  pro- 
nounced the  words  in  the  sense  attributed  to  him,  then  he  must 
have  read  the  Book  of  Enoch — a  purely  Kabalistic,  Occult  work,  and 
he  therefore  recognised  the  worth  and  value  of  a  treatise  now  declared 
apocryphal  by  his  Churches.  Moreover,  he  could  not  have  been 
ignorant  that  these  words  belonged  to  the  oldest  ritual  of  Initiation.* 
And  if  he  had  not  read  it,  and  the  sentence  belongs  to  John,  or  who- 
ever wrote  the  Fourth  Gospel,  then  what  reliance  can  be  placed  on  the 
authenticity  of  other  sayings  and  parables  attributed  to  the  Christian 
Saviour  ? 

Thus,  De  Mirville's  illustration  is  an  unfortunate  one.  Kver)^  other 
proof  brought  by  the  Church  to  show  the  infernal  character  of  the 
ante-and-anti-Christian  copyists  may  be  as  easily  disposed  of.  This 
is  perhaps  unfortunate,  but  it  is  a  fact,  nevertheless — Magna  est  Veritas 
et  prevalebit. 

The  above  is  the  answer  of  the  Occultists  to  the  two  parties  who 
charge  them  incessantly,  the  one  with  "  Superstition,"  and  the  other 
with  "  Sorcery."  To  those  of  our  Brothers  who  are  Christians,  and 
twit  us  with  the  secresy  imposed  upon  the  Eastern  Chelas,  adding 
invariably  that  their  own  "  Book  of  God  "  is  "  an  open  volume"  for  all 
"to  read,  understand,  and  be  saved"  we  would  reply  by  asking  them  to 
study  what  we  have  just  said  in  this  Section,  and  then  to  refute  it — if 
they  can.  There  are  very  few  in  our  da5^s  who  are  still  prepared  to 
assure  their  readers  that  the  Bible  had 


'  "  Q.:  Who  knocks  at  the  door  ? 

A .  :  The  good  cowherd. 

Q. :  Who  preceded  thee  ? 

A .  :  The  three  robbers. 

Q.:  Who  follows  thee? 

A. :  The  three  murderers,"  etc.,  etc. 

Now  this  is  the  conversation  that  took  place  between  the  priest-initiators  and  the  candidates  for 
i!iitiation  during  the  mysteries  enacted  in  the  oldest  sanctuaries  of  the  Himalayan  fastnesses.  The 
ceremony  is  still  perfonned  to  this  day  in  one  of  the  most  ancient  temples  in  a  secluded  spot  of 
Nepaul.  It  originated  with  the  Mysteries  of  the  first  Krishna,  passed  to  the  First  Tirthankara  and 
ended  with  Buddha,  and  is  called  the  Kurukshetra  rite,  being  enacted  as  a  memorial  of  the  great 
battle  and  death  of  the  divine  Adept.  It  is  not  Masonry,  but  an  initiation  into  the  Occult  teachings 
of  that  Hero — Occultism,  pure  and  simple. 


CHARACTER   OF  THE   BIBLE.  (<i 

God  for  its  author,  salvation  for  its  end,  and  truth  without  any  mixture  of  error 
tor  its  matter. 

Could  Locke  be  asked  the  question  now,  he  would  perhaps  be  un- 
willing to  repeat  again  that  the  Bid/e  is 
all  pure,  all  sincere,  nothing  too  much,  nothing  wanting. 

The  Btd/e,  if  it  is  not  to  be  shown  to  be  the  very  reverse  of  all  this, 
sadlj'  needs  an  interpreter  acquainted  with  the  doctrines  of  the  East,  as 
the)^  are  to  be  found  in  its  secret  volumes  ;  nor  is  it  safe  now,  after 
Archbishop  Laurence's  translation  of  the  Book  0/ Enoch,  to  cite  Cowper 
and  assure  us  that  the  Bid/e 

.     .     .     gives  a  light  to  every  age. 
It  gives,  but  borrows  none. 

for  it  does  borrow,  and  that  very  considerably  ;  especially  in  the 
opinion  of  those  who,  ignorant  of  its  symbolical  meaning  and  of 
the  universality  of  the  truths  underlj'ing  and  concealed  in  it,  are 
able  to  judge  only  from  its  dead-letter  appearance.  It  is  a  grand 
volume,  a  master-piece  composed  of  clever,  ingenious  fables  con- 
taining great  verities  ;  but  it  reveals  the  latter  only  to  those  who, 
like  the  Initiates,  have  a  key  to  its  inner  meaning ;  a  tale  sublime 
in  its  morality  and  didactics  truh' — still  a  tale  and  an  allegory  ;  a 
repertory  of  invented  personages  in  its  older  Jewish  portions,  and  of 
dark  sayings  and  parables  in  its  later  additions,  and  thus  quite  mislead- 
ing to  anyone  ignorant  of  its  Esotericism.  Moreover  it  is  Astrolatry  and 
Sabaean  worship,  pure  and  simple,  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  Penta- 
teuch when  it  is  read  exoterically,  and  Archaic  Science  and  Astronom}'^ 
to  a  most  wonderful  degree,  when  interpreted — Esoterically. 


3  o 


SECTION    VIII. 

The   Book  of  Enoch  the  Origin  and  the 
Foundation  of  Christianity. 


While  making  a  good  deal  of  the  Mercavah,  the  Jews,  or  rather  their 
synagogues,  rejected  the  Book  of  Enoch,  either  because  it  was  not  in- 
cluded from  the  first  in  the  Hebrew  Canon,  or  else,  as  Tertullian  thought, 
it  was 

Disavowed  by  the  Jews  like  all  other  Scripture  which  speaks  of  Christ.* 
But  neither  of  these  reasons  was  the  real  one.  The  Synedrion  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  simply  because  it  was  more  of  a  magic  than 
a  purely  kabalistic  work.  The  present  day  Theologians  of  both  lyatin 
and  Protestant  Churches  class  it  among  apocryphal  productions. 
Nevertheless  the  New  Testament,  especially  in  the  Acts  and  Epistles, 
teems  with  ideas  and  doctrines,  now  accepted  and  established  as  dogmas 
b}'  the  infallible  Roman  and  other  Churches,  and  even  with  whole  sen- 
tences taken  bodily  from  Enoch,  or  the  "  pseudo-Enoch,"  who  wrote 
under  that  name  in  Aramaic  or  Syro-Chaldaic,  as  asserted  b}^  Bishop 
Laurence,  the  translator  of  the  Ethiopian  text. 

The  plagiarisms  are  so  glaring  that  the  author  of  The  Evolutwi  oj 
Christianity,  who  edited  Bishop  Laurence's  translation,  was  compelled 
to  make  some  suggestive  remarks  in  his  Introduction.  On  internal 
evidence!  this  book  is  found  to  have  been  written  before  the  Christian 
period  (whether  two  or  twenty  centuries  does  not  matter).  As  correctly 
argued  by  the  Editor,  it  is 

Either  the  inspired  forecast  of  a  great  Hebrew  prophet,  predicting  with  miracu- 
lous accuracy  the  future  teaching  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  or  the  Semitic  romance 


••  JiooK  of  Enoch,  Archbishop  I..aurence's  translation.    Introduction,  p.  v. 

+  The  Book  of  Enoch  was  unknown  to  Europe  for  a  tliousaud  years,  when  Bruce  found  in  Abyssinia 
some  copies  of  it  in  Kthiopic ;  u  was  translated  by  Archbishop  l,aurence  in  1821.  from  the  XiOF*  hi 
the  Bodleian  Library,  Oxford. 


THE   BOOK   OF   ENOCH   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  83 

from  which  the  latter  borrowed  His  conceptions  of  the  triumphant  return  of  the 
Son  of  man,  to  occupy  a  judicial  throne  in  the  midst  of  rejoicing  saints  and 
trembling  sinners,  expectant  of  everlasting  happiness  or  eternal  lire;  and  whether 
these  celestial  visions  be  accepted  as  human  or  Divine,  they  have  exercised  so  vast 
an  influence  on  the  destinies  of  mankind  for  nearly  two  thousand  years  that 
candid  and  impartial  seekers  after  religious  truth  can  no  longer  delay  enquiry  into 
the  relationship  of  the  Book  of  Enoch  with  the  revelation,  or  the  evolution,  of 
Christianity.  * 

The  Book  of  Eiioch 

Also  records  the  supernatural  control  of  the  elements,  through  the  action  of 
individual  angels  presiding  over  the  winds,  the  sea,  hail,  frost,  dew,  the  lightning's 
flash,  and  reverberating  thunder.  The  names  of  the  principal  fallen  angels  are 
also  given,  among  whom  we  recognize  some  of  the  invisible  powers  named  in  the 
incantations  [magical]  inscribed  on  the  terra-cotta  cups  of  Hebrew-Chaldee  conju- 
rations.t 

We  also  find  on  these  cups  the  word  "  Halleluiah,"  showing  that 

A  word  with  which  ancient  Syro-Chaldaeans  conjured  has  become,  through  the 
vicissitudes  of  language,  the  Shibboleth  of  modern  Revivalists. t 

The  Editor  proceeds  after  this  to  give  fifty-seven  verses  from  various 
parts  of  the  Gospels  and  Ads,  with  parallel  passages  from  the  Book  of 
Enoch,  and  says : 

The  attention  of  theologians  has  been  concentrated  on  the  passage  in  the  Epistle 
of  Jude,  because  the  author  specifically  names  the  prophet;  but  the  cumulative 
coincidence  of  language  and  ideas  in  Enoch  and  the  authors  of  the  New  Testament 
Scripture,  as  disclosed  in  the  parallel  passages  which  we  have  collated,  clearly 
indicates  that  the  work  of  the  Semitic  Milton  was  the  inexhaustible  source  from 
which  Evangelists  and  Apostles,  or  the  men  who  wrote  in  their  names,  borrowed 
their  conceptions  of  the  resurrection,  judgment,  immortality,  perdition,  and  of  the 
universal  reign  of  righteousness,  under  the  eternal  dominion  of  the  Son  of  man. 
This  evangelical  plagiarism  culminates  in  the  Revelation  of  John,  which  adapts 
the  visions  of  Enoch  to  Christianity,  with  modifications  in  which  we  miss  the 
sublime  simplicity  of  the  great  master  of  apocalyptic  prediction,  who  prophesied 
in  the  name  of  the  antediluvian  patriarch. § 

In  fairness  to  truth,  the  hypothesis  ought  at  least  to  have  been  sug- 
gested, that  the  Book  of  Enoch  in  its  present  form  is  simply  a  transcript 
— with  numerous  pre-Christian  and  post-Christian  additions  and  inter- 
polations— from  far  older  texts.  Modern  research  went  so  far  as  to 
point  out  that  Enoch  is  made,  in  Chapter  Ixxi,  to  divide  the  day  and 
night  into  eighteen  parts,  and  to  represent  the  longest  day  in  the  year 
as  consisting  of  twelve  out  of  these  eighteen  parts,  while  a  day  of  six- 

•  op.  cil..  p.  XX.  +  Loc.  cit.  X  Op.  cit.,  p.  riv.,  note.  \  Op.  cit.,  p.  xxxv. 


84  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

teen  hours  in  length  could  not  have  occurred  in  Palestine.     The  trans- 
lator, Archbishop  Laurence,  remarks  thus : 

The  region  in  which  the  author  lived  must  have  been  situated  not  lower  than 
forty-five  degrees  north  latitude,  where  the  longest  day  is  fifteen  hours  and  a-half, 
nor  higher  perhaps  than  forty-nine  degrees,  where  the  longest  day  is  precisely 
sixteen  hours.  This  will  bring  the  country  where  he  wrote  as  high  up  at  least  as 
the  northern  districts  of  the  Caspian  and  Euxine  Seas  .  .  .  the  author  of  the 
Book  of  Efioch  was  perhaps  a  member  of  one  of  the  tribes  which  Shalmaneser 
carried  away,  and  placed  "in  Halah  and  in  Habor  by  the  river  Goshen,  and  in  the 
cities  of  the  Medes."  * 

Further  on,  it  is  confessed  that : 

It  cannot  be  said  that  internal  evidence  attests  the  superiority  of  the  Old  Testa' 
ment  to  the  Book  of  Enoch.  .  .  .  The  Book  of  Enoch  teaches  the  preexistence 
of  the  Son  of  man,  the  Elect  One,  the  Messiah,  who  "from  the  beginning  existed 
in  secretjt  and  whose  name  was  invoked  in  the  presence  of  the  Lord  of  Spirits, 
before  the  sun  and  the  signs  were  created."  The  author  also  refers  to  the  "other 
Power  who  was  upon  Earth  over  the  water  on  that  day" — an  apparent  reference  to 
the  language  of  Genesis,  i.  ^.X  [We  maintain  that  it  applies  as  well  to  the  Hindu 
Narayana — the  "mover  on  the  waters."]  We  have  thus  the  Lord  of  Spirits,  the 
Elect  One,  and  a  third  Power,  seemingly  foreshadowing  this  Trinity  [as  much  as 
the  Trimurti]  of  futurity;  but  although  Enoch's  ideal  Messiah  doubtless  exercised 
an  important  influence  on  primitive  conceptions  of  the  Divinity  of  the  Son  of 
man,  we  fail  to  identify  his  obscure  reference  to  another  "Power"  with  the 
Trinitarianism  of  the  Alexandrine  school;  more  especially  as  "angels  of  power" 
abound  in  the  visions  of  Enoch.  § 

An  Occultist  would  hardly  fail  to  identify  the  said  ''  Power."  The 
Editor  concludes  his  remarkable  reflections  by  adding : 

Thus  far  we  learn  that  the  Book  of  Enoch  was  published  before  the  Christian 
Era  by  some  great  Unknown  of  Semitic  [?]  race,  who,  believing  himself  to  be 
inspired  in  a  post-prophetic  age,  borrowed  the  name  of  an  antediluvian  patriarch  || 
to  authenticate  his  own  enthusiastic  forecast  of  the  Messianic  kingdom.  And  as 
the  contents  of  his  marvellous  book  enter  freely  into  the  composition  of  the  New 
Testament,  it  follows  that  if  the  author  was  not  an  inspired  prophet,  who  predicted 
the  teachings  of  Christianity,  he  was  a  visionary  enthusiast  whose  illusions  were 
accepted  by  Evangelists  and  Apostles  as  revelation— alternative  conclusions  which 
involve  the  Divine  or  human  origin  of  Christian ity.lT 


•  Op.  cit.,  p.  xiii. 

t  The  Seventh  Principle,  the  First  Emanation. 

t  Op.  cit.,  pp.  xxxvii.  and  xl. 

\  Op.  cit..  pp.  xl.  and  li. 

II  Who  stands  for  the  "Solar  "  or  Manvantaric  Year. 

5f  Op.  cit.,  pp.  xli.,  xlii. 


ENOCH   RECORDS  THE   RACES.  85 

The  outcome  of  all  of  which  is,  in  the  words  of  the  same  Editor  ; 

The  discovery  that  the  language  and  ideas  of  alleged  revelation  are  found  in  a 
preexistent  work,  accepted  by  Evangelists  and  Apostles  as  inspired,  but  classed  by 
modern  theologians  among  apocryphal  productions.* 

This  accounts  also  for  the  unwillingness  of  the  reverend  librarians 
of  the  Bodleian  Library  to  publish  the  Ethiopian  text  of  the  Book  of 
Enoch. 

The  prophecies  of  the  Book  of  Enoch  are  indeed  prophetic,  but  they 
were  intended  for,  and  cover  the  records  of,  the  five  Races  out  of  the 
seven — everything  relating  to  the  last  two  being  kept  secret.  Thus 
the  remark  made  by  the  Editor  of  the  English  translation,  that : 

Chapter  xcii.  records  a  series  of  prophecies  extending  from  Enoch's  own  time  to 
about  one  thousand  years  beyond  the  present  generation,t 

is  faulty.  The  prophecies  extend  to  the  end  of  our  present  Race,  not 
merely  to  a  "  thousand  years  "  hence.     Very  true  that : 

In  the  system  of  [Christian]  chronology  adopted,  a  day  stands  [occasionallyj  for 
a  hundred,  and  a  week  for  seven  hundred  years.ij 

But  this  is  an  arbitrary  and  fanciful  system  adopted  by  Christians  to 
make  Biblical  chronology  fit  with  facts  or  theories,  and  does  not  repre- 
sent the  original  thought.  The  "  days  "  stand  for  the  undetermined 
periods  of  the  Side-Races,  and  the  "weeks"  for  the  Sub-Races,  the 
Root- Races  being  referred  to  by  an  expression  that  is  not  even  found 
in  the  English  translation.  Moreover  the  sentence  at  the  bottom  of 
page  150: 

Subsequently,  in  the  fourth  week  .  •.  .  the  visions  of  the  holy  and  the 
righteous  shall  be  seen,  the  order  of  generation  after  generation  shall  take  place,  § 

is  quite  wrong.  It  stands  in  the  original :  "  the  order  of  generation 
after  generation  had  taken  place  on  the  earth,"  etc.  ;  that  is,  after  the 
first  human  race  procreated  in  the  truly  human  way  had  sprung  up  in 
the  Third  Root-Race  ;  a  change  which  entirely  alters  the  meaning. 
Then  all  that  is  given  in  the  translation — as  very  likely  also  in  the 
Ethiopic  text,  since  the  copies  have  been  sorely  tampered  with — as 
about  things  which  were  to  happen  in  the  future,  is,  we  are  informed, 
in  the  past  tense  in  the  original  Chaldaean  MSS.,  and  is  not  pro- 
phecy, but  a  narrative  of  what  had  already  come  to  pass.  When 
Enoch  begins  "  to  speak  from  a  book "  |i  he   is  reading  the  account 

•  op.  cit.,  p.  xlviii.        +  Op.  cil.,  p.  xxiii.        J  Loc.  cil.        \  Xcii.  9.        ||   Op.  cil.,  xcii.  4. 


86  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

given  by  a  great  Seer,  and  the  prophecies  are  not  his  own,  but  are  from 
the  Seer.  Enoch  or  Enoichion  means  "internal  eye"  or  Seer.  Thus 
every  Prophet  and  Adept  may  be  called  "  Enoichion,"  without  be- 
coming a  pseudo-Enoch.  But  here,  the  Seer  who  compiled  the  present 
Book  of  Enoch  is  distinctly  shown  as  reading  out  from  a  book  : 

I  have  been  born  the  seventh  in  the  first  week  [the  seventh  branch,  or  Side-Race, 
of  the  first  Sub-Race,  after  physical  generation  had  begun,  namely,  in  the  third 
Root-Race]  .  .  .  But  after  me,  in  the  second  week  [second  Sub-Race]  great 
wickedness  shall  arise  [arose,  rather]  and  in  that  week  the  end  of  the  first  shall 
take  place,  in  which  mankind  shall  be  safe.  But  when  the  first  is  completed 
iniquity  shall  grow  up.* 

As  translated  it  has  no  sense.  As  it  stands  in  the  Esoteric  text,  it 
simply  means,  that  the  First  Root-Race  shall  come  to  an  end  during 
the  second  Sub-Race  of  the  Third  Root-Race,  in  the  period  of  which 
time  mankind  will  be  safe  ;  all  this  having  no  reference  whatever  to 
the  biblical  Deluge.  Verse  loth  speaks  of  the  sixth  week  [sixth  Sub- 
Race  of  the  Third  Root- Race]  when 

All  those  who  are  in  it  shall  be  darkened,  the  hearts  of  all  of  them  shall  be 
forgetful  of  wisdom  [the  divine  knowledge  will  be  dying  out]  and  in  it  shall  a  man 
ascend. 

This  "man"  is  taken  by  the  interpreters,  for  some  mysterious 
reasons  of  their  own,  to  mean  Nebuchadnezzar;  he  is  in  reality  the  first 
Hierophant  of  the  purely  human  Race  (after  the  allegorical  Fall  into 
generation)  selected  to  perpetuate  the  dying  Wisdom  of  the  Devas 
(Angels  or  Elohim).  He  is  the  first  "Son  of  Man" — the  mysterious 
appellation  given  to  the  divine  Initiates  of  the  first  human  school  of 
the  Manushi  (men),  at  the  very  close  of  the  Third  Root-Race.  He  is 
also  called  the  "  Saviour,"  as  it  was  He,  with  the  other  Hierophants, 
who  saved  the  Elect  and  the  Perfect  from  the  geological  conflagration, 
leaving  to  perish  in  the  cataclysm  of  the  Closef  those  who  forgot  the 
primeval  wisdom  in  sexual  sensuality. 

And  during  its  completion  [of  the  "sixth  week,"  or  the  sixth  Sub-Race]  he  shall 
burn  the  house  of  dominion  [the  half  of  the  globe  or  the  then  inhabited  continent] 
with  fire,  and  all  the  race  of  the  elect  root  shall  be  dispersed.  J 


•  Op.  cil.,  xcii.  4-7. 

t  At  the  close  of  every  Root-Race  there  comes  a  cataclysm,  in  turn  by  fire  or  water.  Immediately 
after  the  "  Fall  into  generation  "  the  dross  of  the  third  Root-Race — those  who  fell  into  sensuality  by 
falling  off  from  the  teaching  of  the  Divine  Instructors— were  destroyed,  after  which  the  Fourth 
Root-Race  originated,  at  the  end  of  which  took  place  the  last  Deluge.  (See  the  "Sons  of  God" 
mentioned  in  Isis  Unveiled,  ,■593  et  seq.) 

X  Op.  cit.,  xcii.  II. 


THE   BOOK   OF   ENOCH    SYMBOLICAL.  87 

The  above  applies  to  the  Elect  Initiates,  and  not  at  all  to  the  Jews, 
the  supposed  chosen  people,  or  to  the  Babylonian  captivity,  as  inter- 
preted by  the  Christian  theologians.  Considering  that  we  find  Enoch, 
or  his  perpetuator,  mentioning  the  execution  of  the  "decree  upon 
sinners"  in  several  diflferent  weeks,*  saying  that  "every  work  of  the 
ungodly  shall  disappear  from  the  whole  earth  "  during  this  fourth  time 
(the  Fourth  Race),  it  surely  can  hardly  apply  to  the  one  solitary 
Deluge  of  the  Bible,  still  less  to  the  Captivity. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  as  the  Book  of  Enoch  covers  the  five  Races 
of  the  Manvantara,  with  a  few  allusions  to  the  last  two,  it  does  not 
contain  "  Biblical  prophecies,"  but  simply  facts  taken  out  of  the  Secret 
Books  of  the  East.     The  editor,  moreover,  confesses  that: 

The  preceding  six  verses,  viz.,  13th,  14th,  istb,  i6th.  17th,  and  i8th,  are  taken 
from  between  the  14th  and  15th  verses  of  the  nineteenth  chapter,  where  they  are 
to  be  found  in  the  MSS.t 

By  this  arbitrary  transposition,  he  has  made  confusion  still  more 
confused.  Yet  he  is  quite  right  in  saying  that  the  doctrines  of  the 
Gospels,  and  even  of  the  Old  Testament,  have  been  taken  bodily  from 
the  Book  of  Enoch,  for  this  is  as  evident  as  the  sun  in  heaven.  The 
whole  of  the  Pentateuch  was  adapted  to  fit  in  with  the  facts  given,  and 
this  accounts  for  the  Hebrews  refusing  to  give  the  book  a  place  in  their 
Canon,  just  as  the  Christians  have  subsequently  refused  to  admit  it 
among  their  canonical  works.  The  fact  that  the  Apostle  Jude  and 
many  of  the  Christian  Fathers  referred  to  it  as  a  revelation  and  a 
sacred  volume,  is,  however,  an  excellent  proof  that  the  early  Christians 
accepted  it ;  among  these  the  most  learned — as,  for  instance,  Clement 
of  Alexandria — understood  Christianity  and  its  doctrines  in  quite  a 
different  light  from  their  modern  successors,  and  viewed  Christ  under 
an  aspect  that  Occultists  only  can  appreciate.  The  early  Nazarenes 
and  Chrestians,  as  Justin  Martyr  calls  them,  were  the  followers  of 
Jesus,  of  the  true  Chrestos  and  Christos  of  Initiation ;  whereas,  the 
modern  Christians,  especially  those  of  the  West,  may  be  Papists,  Greeks, 
Calvinists,  or  Lutherans,  but  can  hardly  be  called  Christians,  i.e.,  the 
followers  of  Jesus,  the  Christ. 

Thus  the  Book  of  Enoch  is  entirely  symbolical.  It  relates  to  the 
history  of  the  human  Races  and  of  their  early  relation  to  Theogony, 
the  symbols  being  interblended  with  astronomical  and  cosmic  mysteries. 

•  op.  cil.,  xcii.  7,  II,  13,  15.  +  Op.  cit.,  note,  p.  152.. 


88  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

One  chapter  is  missing,  however,  in  the  Noachian  records  (from  both 
the  Paris  and  the  Bodleian  MSS.),  namely.  Chapter  Iviii.  in  Sect.  X ; 
this  could  not  be  remodelled,  and  therefore  it  had  to  disappear,  dis- 
figured fragments  alone  having  been  left  of  it.  The  dream  about  the 
cows,  the  black,  red  and  white  heifers,  relates  to  the  first  Races,  their 
division  and  disappearance.  Chapter  Ixxxviii,  in  which  one  of  the 
four  Angels  "went  to  the  white  cows  and  taught  them  a  mystery," 
after  which,  the  mystery  being  born  "  became  a  man,"  refers  to  (a)  the 
first  group  evolved  of  primitive  Aryans,  and  (<5)  to  the  "  mystery  of  the 
Hermaphrodite  "  so  called,  having  reference  to  the  birth  of  the  first 
human  Races  as  they  are  now.  The  well-known  rite  in  India,  one  that 
has  survived  in  that  patriarchal  country  to  this  day,  known  as  the 
passage,  or  rebirth  through  the  cow — a  ceremony  to  which  those  of 
lower  castes  who  are  desirous  of  becoming  Brahmans  have  to  submit — 
has  originated  in  this  myster5^  Let  any  Kastern  Occultist  read  with 
careful  attention  the  above-named  chapter  in  the  Book  of  Enoch,  and  he 
will  find  that  the  "  lyord  of  the  Sheep,"  in  whom  Christians  and 
European  Mystics  see  Christ,  is  the  Hierophant  Victim  whose  name  in 
Sanskrit  we  dare  not  give.  Again,  that  while  the  Western  Churchmen 
see  Kg3^ptians  and  Israelites  in  the  "  sheep  and  wolves,"  all  these 
animals  relate  in  truth  to  the  trials  of  the  Neophyte  and  the  mysteries 
of  initiation,  whether  in  India  or  Egypt,  and  to  that  most  terrible  penalty 
incurred  hy  the  "wolves" — those  who  reveal  indiscriminately  that 
which  is  only  for  the  knowledge  of  the  Elect  and  the  "  Perfect." 

The  Christians  who,  thanks  to  later  interpolations,*  have  made  out 
in  that  chapter  a  triple  prophecy  relating  to  the  Deluge,  Moses  and 
Jesus,  are  mistaken,  as  in  reality  it  bears  directlj'  on  the  punishment 
and  loss  of  Atlantis  and  the  penalty  of  indiscretion.  The  "  Lord  of  the 
sheep"  is  Karma  and  the  "Head  of  the  Hierophants"  also,  the 
Supreme  Initiator  on  earth.  He  says  to  Enoch,  who  implores  him  to 
save  the  leaders  of  the  sheep  from  being  devoured  by  the  beasts  of 
prey: 

I  will  cause  a  recital   to  be  made   before  me    .     .     .     how  many   they  have 


*  Those  interpolations  and  alterations  are  found  almost  in  every  case  where  figures  are  given— 
especially  whenever  the  numbers  eleven  and  twelve  come  in— as  these  are  all  made  (by  the  Chris- 
tians) to  relate  to  the  numbers  of  Apostles,  and  Tribes,  and  Patriarchs.  The  translator  of  the 
Rthiopic  text — Archbishop  Laurence— attributes  them  generally  to  "mistakes  of  the  transcriber" 
whenever  the  two  texts,  the  Paris  and  the  Bodleian  MSS.,  differ.  We  fear  it  is  no  mistake,  in 
most  cases. 


OCCULTISTS  DO   NOT  REJECT  THE   BIBLE.  89 

delivered  up  to  destruction,  and  .  .  .  what  they  will  do;  whether  they  will  act 
as  I  have  commanded  them  or  not 

Of  this,  however,  they  shall  be  ignorant ;  neither  shalt  thou  make  any  explana- 
tion to  them,  neither  shalt  thou  reprove  them ;  but  there  shall  be  an  account  of 
all  the  destruction  done  by  them  in  their  respective  seasons.* 

.  .  .  He  looked  in  silence,  rejoicing  they  were  devoured,  swallowed  up,  and 
carried  off,  and  leaving  them  in  the  power  of  every  beast  for  food.     .     .     .t 

Those  who  labour  under  the  impression  that  the  Occultists  of  any 
nation  reject  the  Bible,  in  its  original  text  and  meaning,  are  wrong. 
As  well  reject  the  Books  of  Thoth,  the  Chaldsean  Kabalah  or  the 
Book  of  Dzyan  itself.  Occultists  only  reject  the  one-sided  inter- 
pretations and  the  human  element  in  the  Bible,  which  is  an  Occult, 
and  therefore  a  sacred,  volume  as  much  as  the  others.  And  terrible 
indeed  is  the  punishment  of  all  those  who  transgress  the  permitted 
limits  of  secret  revelations.  From  Prometheus  to  Jesus,  and  from 
Him  to  the  highest  Adept  as  to  the  lowest  disciple,  every  revealer 
of  mysteries  has  had  to  become  a  Chrestos,  a  "  man  of  sorrow  "  and 
a  martyr.  "  Beware,"  said  one  of  the  greatest  Masters,  "  of  reveal- 
ing the  Myster>'  to  those  without " — to  the  profane,  the  Sadducee  and 
the  unbeliever.  All  the  great  Hierophants  in  history  are  shown  end- 
ing their  lives  by  violent  deaths — Buddha,j  Pythagoras,  Zoroaster, 
most  of  the  great  Gnostics,  the  founders  of  their  respective  schools ; 
and  in  our  own  more  modern  epoch  a  number  of  Fire- Philosophers,  of 
Ro.sicrucians  and  Adepts.  All  of  these  are  shown — whether  plainly  or 
under  the  veil  of  allegory — as  paying  the  penalty  for  the  revelations 
they  had  made.     This  may  seem  to  the  profane  reader  only  coincidence. 

*  op.  cit.,  Ixxxviii.  99,  100. 

t  Loc.  cit.,  94.    This  passage,  as  will  be  presently  shown,  has  led  to  a  very  curious  discovery. 

i  In  the  profane  history  of  Gautama  Buddha  he  dies  at  the  good  old  age  of  eighty,  and  passes 
off  from  life  to  death  peacefully  %vith  all  the  serenity  of  a  great  saint,  as  Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire  has  , 
it.  Not  so  in  the  Esoteric  and  true  interpretation  which  reveals  the  real  sense  of  the  profane  and 
allegorical  statement  that  makes  Gautama,  the  Buddha,  die  very  unpoetically  from  the  effects  of  too 
much  pork,  prepared  for  him  by  Tsonda.  How  one  who  preached  that  the  killing  of  animals  was  the 
greatest  sin,  and  who  was  a  perfect  vegetarian,  could  die  from  eating  pork,  is  a  question  that  is 
never  asked  by  our  Orientalists,  some  of  whom  made  (as  now  do  many  charitable  missionaries  in 
Ceyloni  great  fun  at  the  alleged  occurrence.  The  simple  truth  is  that  the  said  rice  and  pork  are 
purely  allegorical.  Rice  stands  for  "  forbidden  fruit,"  like  Eve's  "  apple,  '  and  means  Occult  know- 
ledge with  the  Chinese  and  Tibetans  ;  and  "  pork  "  for  Brahmanical  teachings— Vishnu  having 
assumed  in  his  first  Avatara  the  form  of  a  boar,  in  order  to  raise  the  earth  on  the  surface  of  the 
waters  of  space.  It  is  not,  therefore,  from  "  pork  "  that  Buddha  died,  but  for  having  divulged  some 
of  the  Brahmanical  mysteries,  after  which,  seeing  the  bad  effects  brought  on  some  unworthy  people 
by  the  revelation,  he  preferred,  instead  of  availing  himself  of  Nirvana,  to  leave  his  earthly  form, 
remaining  still  in  the  sphere  of  the  liviug,  in  order  to  help  humanity  to  progress.  Hence  his 
constant  reincarnations  in  the  hierarchy  of  the  Dalai  and  Teshu  Lamas,  among  otlier  bounties. 
Such  is  the  Esoteric  explanation.    The  life  of  Gautama  will  be  more  fully  discussed  later  on. 


90  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

To  the  Occultist,  the  death  of  every  "Master"  is  significant,  and 
appears  pregnant  with  meaning.  Where  do  we  find  in  history  that 
"  Messenger  "  grand  or  humble,  an  Initiate  or  a  Neophj'te,  who,  when 
he  was  made  the  bearer  of  some  hitherto  concealed  truth  or  truths,  was 
not  crucified  and  rent  to  shreds  by  the  "dogs"  of  envy,  malice  and 
ignorance  ?  Such  is  the  terrible  Occult  law  ;  and  he  who  does  not  feel  in 
himself  the  heart  of  a  lion  to  scorn  the  savage  barking,  and  the  soul  of 
a  dove  to  forgive  the  poor  ignorant  fools,  let  him  give  up  the  Sacred 
Science.  To  succeed,  the  Occultist  must  be  fearless  ;  he  has  to  brave 
dangers,  dishonour  and  death,  to  be  forgiving,  and  to  be  silent  on  that 
which  cannot  be  given.  Those  who  have  vainly  laboured  in  that  direc- 
tion must  wait  in  these  days — as  the  Book  of  Enoch  teaches — "  until 
the  evil-doers  be  consumed  "  and  the  power  of  the  wicked  annihilated. 
It  is  not  lawful  for  the  Occultist  to  seek  or  even  to  thirst  for  revenge  : 
let  him 

Wait  until  sin  pass  away;  for  their  [the  sinners']  names  shall  be  blotted  out  of 
the  holy  books  [the  astral  records],  their  seed  shall  be  destroyed  and  their  spirits 
slain.* 

Esoterically,  Enoch  is  the  "  Son  of  man,"  the  first ;  and  symboli- 
cally, the  first  Sub-Race  of  the  Fifth  Root  Race.f  And  if  his  name 
yields  for  purposes  of  numerical  and  astronomical  glyphs  the  meaning 
of  the  solar  year,  or  365,  in  conformity  to  the  age  assigned  to  him  in 
Genesis,  it  is  because,  being  the  seventh,  he  is,  for  Occult  purposes,  the 
personified  period  of  the  two  preceding  Races  with  their  fourteen  Sub- 
Races.  Therefore,  he  is  shown  in  the  Book  as  the  great  grandfather  of 
Noah  who,  in  his  turn,  is  the  personification  of  the  mankind  of  the 
Fifth,  struggling  with  that  of  the  Fourth  Root-Race — the  great  period 
of  the  revealed  and  profaned  Mysteries,  when  the  "  sons  of  God  " 
coming  down  on  Earth  took  for  wives  the  daughters  of  men,  and  taught 
them  the  secrets  of  the  Angels ;  in  other  words,  when  the  "  mind- 
born  "  men  of  the  Third  Race  mixed  themselves  with  those  of  the 
Fourth,  and  the  divine  Science  was  gradually  brought  down  by  men  to 
Sorcery. 


'  op.  cit.,  cv.  21. 

+  111  the  Bible  (Genesis,  iv  and  v)  there  are  three  distinct  Enochs  (Kanoch  or  Chaiioch) — the  son  o£ 
Cain,  the  son  of  Seth,  and  the  son  of  Jared  ;  but  they  are  all  identical,  and  two  of  them  are  men- 
tioned for  purposes  of  misleading.  The  years  of  only  the  last  two  are  ^ven,  the  first  one  being 
iefl  without  further  notice. 


SECTION  IX. 

HERMETIC  AND  KaBALISTIC  DOCTRIISTKS. 


The  cosmogony  of  Hermes  is  as  veiled  as  the  Mosaic  system,  only 
it  is  upon  its  face  far  more  in  harmony  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Secret 
Sciences  and  even  of  Modern  Science.  Says  the  thrice  great  Trisme- 
gistus,  "  the  hand  that  shaped  the  world  out  of  formless  pre-existent 
matter  is  no  hand"  ;  to  which  Geiiesis  is  made  to  reply,  "The  world 
was  created  out  of  nothing,"  although  \.\x^Kabalah  denies  such  a  mean- 
ing in  its  opening  sentences.  The  Kabalists  have  never,  any  more  than 
have  the  Indian  Aryans,  admitted  such  an  absurdity.  With  them,  Fire. 
or  Heat,  and  Motion*  were  chiefly  instrumental  in  the  formation  of 
the  world  out  of  preexisting  Matter.  The  Parabrahman  and  Mulapra- 
kriti  of  the  Vedantins  are  the  prototypes  of  the  En  Suph  and  Shekinah 
of  the  Kabalists.  Aditi  is  the  original  of  Sephira,  and  the  Prajapatis 
are  the  elder  brothers  of  the  Sephiroth.  The  nebular  theory  of 
Modern  Science,  with  all  its  mysteries,  is  solved  in  the  cosmogony  of 
the  Archaic  Doctrine  ;  and  the  paradoxical  though  very  scientific 
enunciation,  that  "  cooling  causes  contraction  and  contraction  causes 
heat;  therefore  cooling  causes  heat,"  is  shown  as  the  chief  agency 
in  the  formation  of  the  worlds,  and  especially  of  our  sun  and  solar 
system. 

All  this  is  contained  within  the  small  compass  of  Sepher  Jetzirah  in 
its  thirty-two  wonderful  Ways  of  Wisdom,  signed  "Jah  Jehovah 
Sabaoth,"  for  whomsoever  has  the  key  to  its  hidden  meaning.  As  to 
the  dogmatic  or  theological  interpretation  of  the  first  verses  in  Genesis 
It  IS  pertinently  answered  in  the  same   book,   where  speaking  of  the 

•  The  eternal  and  incessant  "in-breathing  and  out-breathing  of  Parabrahman"  or  Nature,  the 
Universe  in  Space,  whether  during  Manvantara  or  Pralaya. 


92  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Three   Mothers,  Air,    Water  and   Fire,   the  writer  describes  tliem   as 
a  balance  with 

The  good  in  one  scale,  the  evil  in  the  other,  and  the  oscillating  tongue  of  the 
Balance  between  them.  * 

One  of  the  secret  names  of  the  One  Kternal  and  Ever- Present  Deity, 
was  in  everj^  country  the  same,  and  it  has  preserved  to  this  day  a 
phonetic  likeness  in  the  various  languages.  The  Aum  of  the  Hindus, 
the  sacred  syllable,  had  become  the  'Awiv  with  the  Greeks,  and  the 
^vum  with  the  Romans — the  Pan  or  All.  The  "thirtieth  way"  is 
called  in  the  Sepher Jetzi7-ah  the  "gathering  understanding,"  because 

Thereby  gather  the  celestial  adepts  judgments  of  the  stars  and  celestial  signs, 
and  their  observations  of  the  orbits  are  the  perfection  of  science,  t 

The  thirty-second  and  last  is  called  therein  the  "  serving  understand- 
ing," and  it  is  so-called  because  it  is 

A  disposer  of  all  those  that  are  ser^'ing  in  the  work  of  the  Seven  Planets, 
according  to  their  Hosts.  + 

The  "work"  was  Initiation,  during  which  all  the  mj^steries  con- 
nected with  the  "  Seven  Planets  "  were  divulged,  and  also  the  mystery 
of  the  "  Sun-Initiate  "  with  his  seven  radiances  or  beams  cut  off— the 
glory  and  triumph  of  the  anointed,  the  Christos  ;  a  mystery  that  makes 
plain  the  rather  puzzling  expression  of  Clemens : 

For  we  shall  find  that  very  many  of  the  dogmas  that  are  held  by  such  sects  [of 
Barbarian  and  Hellenic  Philosophy]  as  have  not  become  utterly  senseless,  and  are 
not  cut  out  from  the  order  of  nature  ["by  cutting  off  Christ,"^  or  rather  Chrestos] 
.     .     .    correspond  in  their  origin  and  with  the  truth  as  a  whole.  || 

In  his  Unveiled,^  the  reader  will  find  fuller  information  than  can  be 
given  here  on  the  Zohar  and  its  author,  the  great  Kabalist,  Simeon 
Ben  Jochai.  It  is  said  there  that  on  account  of  his  being  known 
to  be  in  possession  of  the  secret  knowledge  and  of  the  Mercaba,  which 
insured  the  reception  of  the  "  Word,"  his  very  life  was  endangered, 


•  op.  cii.,  iii.  I. 

t  Op.  cit.,  30. 

t  Op.  cit.,  32. 

?  Those  who  are  aware  that  the  term  Christos  was  applied  by  the  Gnostics  to  the  Higher  Ego  (the 
aucieut  Pagan  Greek  Initiates  doing  the  same),  will  readily  understand  the  allusion.  Christos  was 
said  to  be  cut  off  from  the  lower  Ego,  Chrestos,  after  the  final  and  supreme  Initiation,  when  the 
two  became  blended  in  one ;  Chrestos  being  conquered  and  resurrected  in  the  glorified  Christos.— 
Franck,  Die  Kabbala,  75;  Dunlap,  Sod,  Vol.  II. 

H  Siromaleis,  I.  xiii. 
V,   Op.  cii.,  II.  viii. 


THE  KABAI,AH  AND  THE  BOOK  OF  ENOCH.  93 

and  he  had  to  fl}^  to  the  wilderness,  where  he  lived  in  a  cave  for  twelve 
years  surrounded  b}^  faithful  disciples,  and  finally  died  there  amid  signs 
and  wonders*  His  teachings  on  the  origin  of  the  Secret  Doctrine, 
or,  as  he  also  calls  it,  the  Secret  Wisdom,  are  the  same  as  those  found 
in  the  East,  with  the  exception  that  in  place  of  the  Chief  of  a  Host  of 
Planetary  Spirits  he  puts  "  God,"  saying  that  this  Wisdom  was  first 
taught  by  God  himself  to  a  certain  number  of  Elect  Angels  ;  whereas 
in  the  Eastern  Doctrine  th^  saying  is  different,  as  will  be  seen. 

Some  synthetic  and  kabalistic  studies  on  the  sacred  Book  of  Enoch 
and  the  Taro  (Rota)  are  before  us.  We  quote  from  the  MS.  copy  of  a 
Western  Occultist,  which  is  prefaced  by  these  words : 

There  is  but  one  Law,  one  Principle,  one  Agent,  one  Truth  and  one  Word.  That 
which  is  above  is  analogical!)-  as  that  which  is  below.  All  that  which  is,  is  the 
result  of  quantities  and  of  equilibriums. 

The  axiom  of  Eliphas  Levi  and  this  triple  epigraph  show  the  identity 
of  thought  between  the  East  and  the  West  with  regard  to  the  Secret 
Science  which,  as  the  same  MS.  tells  us,  is : 

The  key  of  things  concealed,  the  key  of  the  sanctuan,-.  This  is  the  Sacred 
Word  which  gives  to  the  Adept  the  supreme  reason  of  Occultism  and  its  Mys- 
teries. It  is  the  Quintessence  of  Philosophies  and  of  Dogmas;  it  is  the  Alpha  and 
Omega;  it  is  the  Light,  Life  and  Wisdom  Universal. 

The  Taro  of  the  sacred  Book  of  Enoch,  or  Rota,  is  prefaced,  moreover, 
with  this  explanation : 

The  antiquity  of  this  Book  is  lost  in  the  night  of  time.  It  is  of  Indian  origin, 
and  goes  back  to  an  epoch  long  before  Moses.  .  .  .  It  is  written  upon  detached 
leaves,  which  at  the  first  were  of  fine  gold  and  precious  metals.  ...  It  is 
symbolical,  and  its  combinations  adapt  themselves  to  all  the  wonders  of  the 
Spirit.  Altered  by  its  passage  across  the  Ages,  it  is  nevertheless  preserved — thanks 
to  the  ignorance  of  the  curious — in  its  types  and  its  most  important  primitive 
figures. 

This  is  the  Rota  of  Enoch,  now  called  Taro  of  Enoch,  to  which  De 
Mirville  alludes,  as  we  saw,  as  the  means  used  for  "  evil  Magic,"  the 


•  Many  are  the  marvels  recorded  as  having-  taken  place  at  his  death,  or  we  should  rather  say  his 
translation  ;  for  he  did  not  die  as  others  do,  but  having:  suddenly  disappeared,  while  a  dazzling  light 
filled  the  cavern  with  glory,  his  body  was  again  seen  upon  its  subsidence.  When  this  heavenly  light 
gave  place  to  the  habitual  semi -darkness  of  the  gloomy  cave — then  only,  says  Ginsburg,  "the 
disciples  of  Israel  perceived  that  the  lamp  of  Israel  was  extinguished."  His  biographers  tell  us  that 
there  were  voices  heard  from  Heaven  during  the  preparation  for  his  funeral,  and  at  his  interment, 
when  the  coffin  was  lowered  into  the  deep  cave  prepared  for  it,  a  flame  broke  forth  and  a  voice 
mighty  and  majestic  pronounced  these  v.-ords  :  "This  is  he  who  caused  the  earth  to  quake,  and  the 
kingdoms  to  shake  !  " 


94 


THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


"  metallic  plates  [or  leaves]  escaped  from  destruction  during  the  Deluge" 
and  which  are  attributed  by  him  to  Cain.  They  have  escaped  the 
Deluge  for  the  simple  reason  that  this  Flood  was  not  "  Universal." 
And  it  is  said  to  be  "  of  Indian  origin,"  because  its  origin  is  with  the 
Indian  Aryans  of  the  first  Sub-Race  of  the  Fifth  Root-Race,  before  the 
final  destruction  of  the  last  stronghold  of  Atlantis.  But,  if  it  originated 
with  the  forefathers  of  the  primitive  Hindus,  it  was  not  in  India  that  it 
was  first  used.  Its  origin  is  still  more  ancient  and  must  be  traced 
beyond  and  into  the  Himaleh,*  the  Snowy  Range.  It  was  born  in  that 
mysterious  locality  which  no  one  is  able  to  locate,  and  which  is  the 
despair  of  both  Geographers  and  Christian  Theologians — the  region  in 
which  the  Brahman  places  his  Kailasa,  the  Mount  Sumeru,  and  the 
Parvati  Pamir,  transformed  by  the  Greeks  into  Paropamisus. 

Round  this  locality,  which  still  exists,  the  traditions  of  the  Garden 
of  Eden  were  built.  From  these  regions  the  Greeks  obtained  their 
Parnassusf  ;  and  thence  proceeded  most  of  the  biblical  personages,  some 
of  them  in  their  day  men,  some  demi-gods  and  heroes,  some — though 
very  few — mj^hs,  the  astronomical  doubles  of  the  former.  Abram  was 
one  of  them — a  Chaldaean  Brahman,:]:  says  the  legend,  transformed 
later,  after  he  had  repudiated  his  Gods  and  left  his  Ur  {^pur,  "  town  "  ?) 
in  Chaldaea,  into  A-brahm§  (or  A-braham)  "no-brahraan"  who  emi- 
grated. Abram  becoming  the  "father  of  many  nations"  is  thus  ex- 
plained. The  student  of  Occultism  has  to  bear  in  mind  that  every  God 
and  hero  in  ancient  Pantheons  (that  of  the  Bible  included),  has  three 
biographies  in  the  narrative,  so  to  say,  running  parallel  with  each  other 
and  each  connected  with  one  of  the  aspects  of  the  hero — historical, 
astronomical  and  perfectly  mythical,  the  last  serving  to  connect  the 
other  two  together  and  smooth  away  the  asperities  and  discordancies 
in  the  narrative,  and  gathering  into  one  or  more  symbols  the  verities 
of  the  first  two.     Localities  are  made  to  correspond  with  astronomical 

*  Pockocke,  may  be,  was  not  altogether  wrong  in  deriving  the  German  Heaven,  Himmel,  from 
Himalaya;  nor  can  it  be  denied  that  it  is  the  Hindu  Kailasa  (Heavenj  that  is  tlie  father  of  the  Greek 
Heaven  (Koilon),  and  of  the  L,atin  Ccelura. 

+  See  Pockocke's  India  in  Greece,  and  his  derivation  of  Mount  Parnassus  from  Parnasa,  the  leaf  and 
branch  huts  of  the  Hindu  ascetics,  half  shrine  and  halfhabitation.  "Part  of  the  Par-o-Pamisus  (the  hill 
ofBamian),  is  called  Parnassus.  'These  mountains  are  called  Devanica,  because  they  are  so  full  of 
Devas  or  Gods,  called  "Gods  of  the  Earth,"  Bhu  Devas.  They  lived,  according  to  the  Puranas,  in 
bowers  or  huts,  called  Parnasas,  because  they  were  made  of  leaves'  (Parnas),"  p.  302. 

X  Rawlinson  is  justly  very  confident  of  an  Aryan  and  Vedic  influence  on  the  early  mythology  anil 
history  of  Babylon  and  Chaldaea. 

}  This  is  a  Secret  Doctrine  affirmation,  and  may  or  may  not  be  accepted.  Only  Abrahui,  Isaac  and 
Judah  resemble  terribly  the  Hindu  Brahma  Ikshvaku  and  Yadu. 


NUMBERS   AND   MEASURES.  95 

and  even  with  psychic  events.  History  was  thus  made  captive  by 
ancient  Mystery,  to  become  later  on  the  great  Sphynxof  the  nineteenfn 
century.  Only,  instead  of  devouring  her  too  dull  querists  who  wiii 
unriddle  her  whether  she  acknowledges  it  or  not,  she  is  desecrated  and 
mangled  by  the  modern  CEdipus,  before  he  forces  her  into  the  sea  of 
speculations  in  which  the  Sphynx  is  drowned  and  perishes.  This  has 
now  become  self-evident,  not  only  through  the  Secret  Teachings,  par- 
simoniously as  they  may  be  given,  but  by  earnest  and  learned  Sym- 
bologists  and  even  Geometricians.  The  Key  to  the  Hebreiv  Egyptian 
Mystery,  in  which  a  learned  Mason  of  Cincinnati,  Mr.  Ralston  Skinner, 
unveils  the  riddle  of  a  God,  with  such  ungodly  ways  about  him  as  the 
Biblical  Jah-ve,  is  followed  by  the  establishment  of  a  learned  society 
under  the  presidentship  of  a  gentleman  from  Ohio  and  four  vice- 
presidents,  one  of  whom  is  Piazzi  Smyth,  the  well-known  Astronomer 
and  Egyptologist.  The  Director  of  the  Royal  Observatory  in  Scotland 
and  author  of  The  Great  Pyramid,  PharaoJiic  by  name,  Hicmanitarian  by 
fact,  its  Marvels,  Mysteries,  and  its  Teachings,  is  seeking  to  prove  the 
same  problem  as  the  American  author  and  Mason  :  namely,  that  the 
English  sj'stem  of  measurement  is  the  same  as  that  used  by  the  ancient 
Egyptians  in  the  construction  of  their  Pyramid,  or  in  Mr.  Skinners 
own  words  that  the  Pharaonic  "source  of  measures"  originated  the 
"  British  inch  and  the  ancient  cubit."  It  "  originated  "  much  more 
than  this,  as  will  be  fully  demonstrated  before  the  end  of  the  next  cen- 
tury. Not  onh'  is  everything  in  Western  religion  related  to  measures, 
geometrical  figures,  and  time-calculations,  the  principal  period-dura- 
tions being  founded  on  most  of  the  historical  personages,*  but  the 
latter  are  also  connected  with  heaven  and  earth  truly,  onl)^  with  tne 

A. 

Indo- Aryan  heaven  and  earth,  not  with  those  of  Palestine. 
The  prototypes  of  nearly  all  the  biblical  personages  are  to  be  sought 


•  It  is  said  in  The  Gnostics  and  their  Remains,  by  C.  W.  King  (p.  13),  with  regard  to  the  names  of 
Brahma  and  Abram  ;  "  This  figure  of  the  man,  Seir  Anpin,  consists  of  243  numbers,  being  the  numeri- 
cal value  of  the  letters  in  the  name  'Abram'  signifying  the  different  orders  in  the  celestial  iRcr- 
archies.  In  fact  the  names  Abram  and  Brahma  are  equivalent  in  numerical  value."  Thus  to  one 
acquainted  with  Esoteric  Symbolism,  it  does  not  seem  at  all  strange  to  find  in  the  I,oka-palas  (the 
four  cardinal  and  intermediate  points  of  the  compass  personified  by  eight  Hindu  Gods)  Indra's 
elephant,  named  Abhra— (matanga)  and  his  wife  Abhramu.  Abhra  is  in  a  way  a  Wisdom  Deity, 
•iiuce  it  is  this  elephant's  head  that  replaced  that  of  Ganesha  (Ganapati)  the  God  ofWisdom,  cut  off  by 
Sliiva.  Now  Abhra  means  "  cloud,"  and  it  is  also  the  name  of  the  city  where  Abram  is  supposed  to 
have  resided— when  read  backwards—"  Arba  (Kirjath)  the  city  of  four.  .  .  Abram  is  Abra  with  an 
appended  m  fiii;.l,  and  Abra  read  backward  is  A^::ha."  (Key  to  the  Hebrew  Egyptian  Mystery).  The 
author  might  have  added  that  Abra  meaning  in  Sanskrit  "  in,  or  of,  the  clouds,"  thecosmo-astronomical 
symbol  of  Abram  becomes  still  plainer.     All  of  these  ought  to  be  read  in  their  originals,  in  .Sansicr't. 


g6  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

for  in  the  early  Pantheon  of  India.  It  is  the  "Mind-born"  Sons  or 
Brahma,  or  rather  of  the  Dhyani-Pitara  (the  "  Father-Gods "),  ine 
"  Sorts  of  Light,"  who  have  given  birth  to  the  "Sons  of  Earth'' — the 
Patriarchs.  For  if  the  Rig  Veda  and  its  three  sister  Vedas  have  been 
"  milked  out  from  fire,  air  and  sun,"  or  Agni,  Indra,  and  Surya,  as 
Manu- Smriti  tells  us,  the  Old  Testameyit  was  most  undeniablj^  "  milked 
out "  of  the  most  ingenious  brains  of  Hebrew  Kabalists,  partly  in 
Egypt  and  partly  in  Babylonia — "  the  seat  of  Sanskrit  literature  and 
Brahman  learning  from  her  origin,"  as  Colonel  Vans  Kennedy  truly 
declared.  One  of  such  copies  was  Abram  or  Abraham,  into  whose 
bosom  every  orthodox  Jew  hopes  to  be  gathered  after  death,  that  bosom 
being  localised  as  "  heaven  in  the  clouds"  or  Abhra.* 

From  Abraham  to  Enoch's  Taro  there  seems  to  be  a  considerable 
distance,  yet  the  two  are  closely  related  by  more  than  one  link. 
Gaffarel  has  shown  that  the  four  symbolical  animals  on  the  twenty-first 
key  of  the  Taro,  at  the  third  septenary,  are  the  Teraphim  of  the  Jews 
invented  and  worshipped  by  Abram's  father  Terah,  and  used  in  the 
oracles  of  the  Urim  and  Thummim.  Moreover,  astronomically  Abraham 
is  the  sun-measure  and  a  portion  of  the  sun,  while  Enoch  is  the  solar 
year,  as  much  as  are  Hermes  or  Thot ;  and  Thot,  numerically,  "  was 
the  equivalent  of  Moses,  or  Hermes,"  "the  lord  of  the  lower  realms, 
also  esteemed  as  a  teacher  of  wisdom,"  the  same  Mason-mathema- 
tician tells  us  ;  and  the  Taro  being,  according  to  one  of  the  latest  bulls 
of  the  Pope,  "  an  invention  of  Hell,"  the  same  "  as  Masonry  and 
Occultism,"  the  relation  is  evident.  The  Taro  contains  indeed  the 
mystery  of  all  such  transmutations  of  personages  into  sidereal  bodies 
and  vice  versa.  The  "wheel  of  Enoch"  is  an  archaic  invention,  the 
most  ancient  of  all,  for  it  is  found  in  China.  Eliphas  Levi  says  there 
was  not  a  nation  but  had  it,  its  real  meaning  being  preserved  in  the 
greatest  secresy.     It  was  a  universal  heirloom. 

As  we  see,  neither  the  Book  of  Enoch  (his  "Wheel"),  nor  the  Zohar, 
nor  an)''  other  kabalistic  volume,  contains  merely  Jewish  wisdom. 


•  Before  these  theories  and  speculations— we  are  willing  to  admit  they  are  such— are  rejected,  the 
following  few  points  ought  to  be  explained,  (i)  Why,  after  leaving  Egypt,  was  the  patriarch's  name 
changed  by  Jehovah  from  Abram  to  Abraham.  (2I  Why  Sarai  becomes  on  the  same  principle  Sarah 
(Gen., -xyn.).  (3)  Whence  the  strange  coincidence  of  names?  (4)  Why  should  Alexander  Polyhistor 
say  that  Abraham  was  born  at  Kamarina  or  Una,  a  city  of  soothsayers,  and  invented  Astronomy  - 
(5)  "  The  Abrahamic  recollections  go  back  at  least  three  millenniums  beyond  the  grandfather  of 
Jacob,"  says  Bunsen  (Egypt's  Place  in  History,  v.  35.) 


THE    DOCTRINE    BELONGS   TO   ALL.  97 

The  doctrine  itself  being  the  result  of  whole  millenniums  of  thought,  is  there- 
fore the  joint  property  of  Adepts  of  every  nation  under  the  sun.  Nevertheless  the 
Zohar  teaches  practical  Occultism  more  than  any  other  work  on  that  subject;  not 
•as  it  is  translated  and  commented  upon  by  its  various  critics  though,  but  with  the 
secret  signs  on  its  margins.  These  signs  contain  the  hidden  instructions,  apart 
from  the  metaphysical  interpretations  and  apparent  absurdities  so  fully  credited 
by  Josephus,  who  was  never  .initiated  and  gave  out  the  dead  letter  as  he  had 
received  it.* 


*  Jsvi  Unveiled^  ii.  75^. 


Z    H 


SECTION    X. 

YarioUvS  Occult  Systems  of  Interpretations 
OF  Alphabets  and  Numerals. 


The  transcendental  methods  of  the  Kabalah  must  not  be  mentioned 
in  a  public  work  ;  but  its  various  systems  of  arithmetical  and  geo- 
metrical ways  of  unriddling  certain  symbols  may  be  described.  The 
Zohar  methods  of  calculation,  with  their  three  sections,  the  Gematria, 
Notaricon  and  Temura,  also  the  Albath  and  Algath,  are  extremely 
difficult  to  practise.  We  refer  those  who  would  learn  more  to  Cornelius 
Agrippa's  works.*  But  none  of  those  systems  can  ever  be  understood 
unless  a  Kabalist  becomes  a  real  Master  in  his  Science.  The  Sym- 
bolism of  Pythagoras  requires  still  more  arduous  labour.  His  symbols 
are  very  numerous,  and  to  comprehend  even  the  general  gist  of  his 
abstruse  doctrines  from  his  Symbology  would  necessitate  years  of  study. 
His  chief  figures  are  the  square  (the  Tetraktys),  the  equilateral  triangle, 
the  point  within  a  circle,  the  cube,  the  triple  triangle,  and  finally  the 
forty-seventh  proposition  of  Kuclid's  Elements,  of  which  proposition 
Pythagoras  was  the  inventor.  But  with  this  exception,  none  of  the 
foregoing  symbols  originated  with  him,  as  some  believe.  Millenniums 
before  his  day,  they  were  well  known  in  India,  whence  the  Samian  Sage 
brought  them,  not  as  a  speculation,  but  as  a  demonstrated  Science, 
says  Porphyry,  quoting  from  the  Pythagorean  Moderatus. 

The  numerals  of  PVthagoras  were  hieroglyphical  symbols  by  means  whereof  he 
explained  all  ideas  concerning  the  nature  of  things.t 

•  See  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  218-300.  Gematria  is  formed  by  a  metathesis  from  the  Greek  word 
•ypa/i./u,aT€ia  ;  Notaricon  may  be  compared  U>  stenography  ;  Temura  is  permutation— a  way  of  divid- 
ing the  alphabet  and  shifting  letters. 

+  De  Vita  Pythag. 


NUMBERS   AND   MAGIC.  99 

The  fundamental  geometrical  figure  of  the  Kabalah,  as  given  in 
the  Book  of  Nuynbcrs*  that  figure  which  tradition  and  the  Esoteric 
Doctrines  tell  us  was  given  by  the  Deity  Itself  to  Moses  on  Mount 
Sinai,t  contains  the  key  to  the  universal  problem  in  its  grandiose, 
because  simple,  combinations.  This  figure  contains  in  itself  all  the 
other-s. 

The  Symbolism  of  numbers  and  their  mathematical  inter-relations 
is  also  one  of  the  branches  of  Magic,  especially  of  mental  Magic, 
divination  and  correct  perception  in  clairvoyance.  Systems  differ, 
but  the  root  idea  is  everywhere  the  same.  As  shown  in  the  Royal 
Masonic  Cyclopadia,  by  Kenneth  R.  H.  Mackenzie : 

One  system  adopts  unity,  another  trinity,  a  third  quinquinity;  again  we  have 
sexagons,  heptagons,  novems,  and  so  on,  until  the  mind  is  lost  in  the  survey  of  the 
materials  alone  of  a  science  of  numbers.  J 

The  Devanagari  characters  in  which  Sanskrit  is  generally  written, 
have  all  that  the  Hermetic,  Chaldasan  and  Hebrew  alphabets  have,  and 
in  addition  the  Occult  significance  of  the  "  eternal  sound,"  and  the 
meaning  given  to  every  letter  in  its  relation  to  spiritual  as  well  as 
terrestrial  things.  As  there  are  only  twenty-two  letters  in  the 
Hebrew  alphabet  and  ten  fundamental  numbers,  while  in  the  Devanagari 
there  are  thirty-five  consonants  and  sixteen  vowels,  making  altogether 
fifty-one  simple  letters,  with  numberless  combinations  in  addition, 
the  margin  for  speculation  and  knowledge  is  in  proportion  con- 
siderably wider.  Every  letter  has  its  equivalent  in  other  lan- 
guages, and  its  equivalent  in  a  figure  or  figures  of  the  calcu- 
lation table.  It  has  also  numerous  other  significations,  which 
depend  upon  the  special  idiosyncrasies  and  characteristics  of  the 
person,  object,  or  subject  to  be  studied.  As  the  Hindus  claim  to 
have  received  the  Devanagari  characters  from  Sarasvati,  the  inven- 
tress  of  Sanskrit,  the  "language  of  the  Devas"  or  Gods  (in  their 
exoteric  pantheon),  so  most  of  the  ancient  nations  claimed  the  same 
privilege  for  the  origin   of  their  letters   and   tongue.      The  Kabalah 


■  We  arc  not  aware  that  a  copy  of  this  ancient  work  is  embraced  in  the  catalog-ue  of  any  European 
librarj' ;  but  it  is  one  of  the  "  Books  of  Hermes,"  and  it  is  referred  to  and  quotations  are  made  from 
it  in  the  works  of  a  number  of  ancient  and  mediaeval  philosophical  authors.  Among  these  authori- 
ties are  Amoldo  di  ViWano-va.'s  Rosarium  Philosoph.,  Francesco  Amuphi's  Ofius  de  Lapide,  Hermes 
Trismegistus'  Traciatus  de  Transmutatione  Metallorum  and  Tabula  Smaragdina,  and  above  all  the 
treatise  of  Raymond  Lully,  Ab  Angelis  Opus  Divinum  de  Quinta  Essentia. 

+  Exodus,  XXV.  40. 

J  Sub  voce  "  Numbers." 


lOO  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

calls  the  Hebrew  alphabet  the  "  letters  of  the  Angels,"  which  were 
communicated  to  the  Patriarchs,  just  as  the  Devanagari  was  to  the 
Rishis  by  the  Devas.  .  The  Chaldseans  found  their  letters  traced  in  the 
sk}'  by  the  "yet  unsettled  stars  and  comets,"  says  the  Book  of  Numbers ; 
while  the  Phoenicians  had  a  sacred  alphabet  formed  by  the  twistings  of 
the  sacred  serpents.  The  Natar  Khari  (hieratic  alphabet)  and  secret 
(sacerdotal)  speech  of  the  Egyptians  is  closely  related  to  the  oldest 
"Secret  Doctrine  Speech."  It  is  a  Devanagari  with  mystical  combina- 
tions and  additions,  into  which  the  Senzar  largely  enters. 

The  power  and  potency  of  numbers  and  characters  are  well  known  to 
many  Western  Occultists  as  being  compounded  from  all  these  systems, 
but  are  still  unknown  to  Hindu  students,  if  not  to  their  Occultists.  In 
their  turn  European  Kabalists  are  generally  ignorant  of  the  alphabeti- 
cal secrets  of  Indian  Esoterism.  At  the  same  time  the  general  reader 
in  the  West  knows  nothing  of  either;  least  of  all  how  deep  are  the 
traces  left  by  the  Esoteric  numeral  systems  of  the  world  in  the 
Christian  Churches. 

Nevertheless  this  system  of  numerals  solves  the  problem  of  cosmo- 
gony for  whomsoever  studies  it,  while  the  system  of  geometrical  figures 
represents  the  numbers  objectively. 

To  realise  the  full  comprehension  of  the  Deific  and  the  Abstruse 
enjoyed  by  the  Ancients,  one  has  to  study  the  origin  of  the  figurative 
representations  of  their  primitive  Philosophers.  The  Books  of  Hermes 
are  the  oldest  repositories  of  numerical  Symbology  in  Western 
Occultism.  In  them  we  find  that  the  number  ten*  is  the  Mother  of  the 
Soul,  lyife  and  lyight  being  therein  united.  For  as  the  sacred  anagram 
Teruph  shows  in  the  Book  of  the  Keys  (Numbers),  the  number  i  (one) 
is  born  from  Spirit,  and  the  number  lo  (ten)  from  Matter;  "the  unity 
has  made  the  ten,  the  ten,  the  unity  " ;  and  this  is  only  the  Pantheistic 
axiom,  in  other  words  "  God  in  Nature  and  Nature  in  God." 

The  kabalistic  Gematria  is  arithmetical,  not  geometrical.  It  is  one 
of  the  methods  for  extracting  the  hidden  meaning  from  letters,  words, 
and  sentences.  It  consists  in  applying  to  the  letters  of  a  word  the 
sense  they  bear  as  numbers,  in  outward  shape  as  well  as  in  their 
individual  sense.     As  illustrated  by  Ragon: 

The  figure  I  signified  the  living  man  (a  body  erect),  man  being  the  only  living 
being  enjo3'ing  this  faculty.     A  head  being  added  to  it,  the  gl3rph  (or  letter)  P  was 


*  See  Johannes  Meursius,  Denarius  Pythagoricus. 


GODS   AND   NUMBERS.  lOI 

obtained,  meaning  paternity,  creative  potency ;  the  R  signifying  the  walking  man 
(with  his  foot  forward)  going,  tens,  iturus.* 

The  characters  were  also  made  supplementary  to  speech,  every  letter  being  at 
once  a  figure  representing  a  sound  for  the  ear,  an  idea  to  the  mind;  as,  for  instance, 
the  letter  F,  which  is  a  cutting  sound  like  that  of  air  rushing  quickly  through 
space;  fury,  fusee,  fugue,  all  words  expressive  of,  and  depicting  what  they  signify.t 

But  the  above  pertains  to  another  system,  that  of  the  primitive  and 
philosophical  formation  of  the  letters  and  their  outward  glyphic  form — 
not  to  Geraatria.  The  Teniura  is  another  kabalistic  method,  by  which 
any  word  could  be  made  to  yield  its  mystery  out  of  its  anagram.  So  in 
Sepher  Jetzirah  we  read  "  One — the  Spirit  of  the  Alahim  of  Lives."  In 
the  oldest  kabalistic  diagrams  the  Sephiroth  (the  seven  and  the  three) 
are  represented  as  wheels  or  circles,  and  Adam  Kadmon,  the  primitive 
Man,  as  an  upright  pillar.  "  Wheels  and  seraphim  and  the  holy 
creatures  "  (Chioth)  says  Rabbi  Akiba.  In  still  another  system  of  the 
sj-mbolical  Kabalah  called  Albath — which  arranges  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet  by  pairs  in  three  rows — all  the  couples  in  the  first  row  bear 
the  numerical  value  ten ;  and  in  the  system  of  Simeon  Ben  Shetah  (an 
Alexandrian  Neoplatonist  under  the  first  Ptolemy)  the  uppermost 
couple — the  most  sacred  of  all — is  preceded  by  the  Pythagorean  cypher : 
one,  and  a  nought — lo. 

All  beings,  from  the  first  divine  emanation,  or  "  God  manifested," 
down  to  the  lowest  atomic  existence,  "  have  their  particular  number 
which  distinguishes  each  of  them  and  becomes  the  source  of  their 
attributes  and  qualities  as  of  their  destiny."  Chance,  as  taught  by 
Cornelius  Agrippa,  is  in  reality  only  an  unknown  progression  ;  and 
time  but  a  succession  of  numbers.  Hence,  futurity  being  a  compound 
of  chance  and  time,  these  are  made  to  serve  Occult  calculations  in  order 
to  find  the  result  of  an  event,  or  the  future  of  one's  destiny.  Said 
Pythagoras : 

There  is  a  mysterious  connection  between  the  Gods  and  numbers,  on  which  the 

science  of  arithmancy  is  based.     The  soul  is  a  world  that  is  self-moving;  the  soul 
contains  in  itself,  and  is,  the  quaternary,  the  tetraktys  [the  perfect  cube]. 

There  are  lucky  and  unlucky,  or  beneficent  and  maleficent  numbers. 
Thus  while  the  ternary — the  first  of  the  odd  numbers  (the  one  being 
the  perfect  and  standing  by  itself  in  Occultism) — is  the  divine  figure  or 
the  triangle ;  the  duad  was  disgraced  by  the  Pythagoreans  from  the 

*  Rag-on,  Mafonnerie  Occulte,  p.  426,  note. 
+  Ibid.,  p.  432,  note. 


I02  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

first.       It    represented    Matter,   the  passive   and   evil    principle — the 
number  of  Maya,  illusion. 

While  the  number  one  symbolized  harmony,  order  or  the  good  principle  (the 
cue  God  expressed  in  Latin  by  Solus,  from  which  the  word  Sol,  the  Sun,  the  symbol 
of  the  Deity),  number  two  expressed  a  contrary  idea.  The  science  of  good  and 
evil  began  with  it.  All  that  is  double,  false,  opposed  to  the  only  reality,  was 
depicted  by  the  binary.  It  also  expressed  the  contrasts  in  Nature  which  are  always 
double :  night  and  day,  light  and  darkness,  cold  and  heat,  dampness  and  dryness, 
health  and  sickness,  error  and  truth,  male  and  female,  etc.  .  .  .  The  Romans 
dedicated  to  Pluto  the  second  month  of  the  year,  and  the  second  day  of  that 
month  to  expiations  in  honour  of  the  Manes.  Hence  the  same  rite  established  by 
the  Latin  Church,  and  faithfull}'  copied.  Pope  John  XIX.  instituted  in  1003  the 
Festival  of  the  Dead,  which  had  to  be  celebrated  on  the  2nd  of  November,  the 
second  month  of  autumn.* 

On  the  other  hand  the  triangle,  a  purely  geometrical  figure,  had 
great  honour  shewn  it  by  every  nation,  and  for  this  reason  : 

In  geometry  a  straight  line  cannot  represent  an  absolutely  perfect  figure,  any 
more  than  two  straight  lines.  Three  straight  lines,  on  the  other  hand,  produce  by 
their  junction  a  triangle,  or  the  first  absolutely  perfect  figure.  Therefore,  it  sym- 
bolized from  the  first  and  to  this  day  the  Eternal — the  first  perfection.  The  word 
for  deity  in  Latin,  as  in  French,  begins  with  D,  in  Greek  the  delta  or  triangle,  a  , 
whose  three  sides  symbolize  the  trinity,  or  the  three  kingdoms,  or,  again,  divine 
nature.  In  the  middle  is  the  Hebrew  Yod,  the  initial  of  Jehovah  [see  Eliphas 
Levi's  Dognie  et  Riiutl,  i.  154],  the  animating  spirit  or  fire,  the  generating  principle 
represented  \>y  the  letter  G,  the  initial  of  "God"  in  the  northern  languages,  whose 
philosophical  significance  is  generation,  t 

As  stated  correctly  by  the  famous  Mason  Ragon,  the  Hindu  Trimurti 
is  personified  in"  the  world  of  ideas  by  Creation,  Preservation  and 
Destruction,  or  Brahma,  Vishnu  and  Shiva  ;  in  the  world  of  matter  by 
Earth,  Water  and  Fire,  or  the  Sun,  and  sj^mbolised  b}'-  the  Lotus,  a 
flower  that  lives  by  earth,  water,  and  the  sun.j     The  Lotus,  sacred  to 


•  Extracted  from  Ragon,  MoQonnerie  Occulte,  p.  427,  note. 

+  Summarised  from  Ragon,  ibid.,  p.  428,  note. 

%  Ragon  mentions  the  curious  fact  that  the  first  four  numbers  in  German  are  named  after  the 
elements. 

"  Kin,  or  one,  means  the  air,  the  element  which,  ever  in  motion,  penetrates  matter  throughout,  and 
■whose  continual  ebb  and  tide  is  the  universal  vehicle  of  life. 

"  Zwei,  two,  is  derived  from  the  old  German  Zv?eig,  signifying  germ,  fecundity ;  it  stands  for  earth 
the  fecund  mother  of  all. 

"  Drei,  three,  is  the  trienos  of  the  Greeks,  standing  for  water,  whence  the  Sea-gods,  Tritons;  and 
trident,  the  emblem  of  Neptune— the  water,  or  sea,  in  general  being  called  Amphitrite  (surrounding 
water). 

•'  Vier,  four,  a  number  meaning  in  Belgian  fire.  .  .  It  is  in  the  quaternary  that  the  first  solid 
figure  is  found,  the  universal  symbol  of  immortality,  the  Pyramid,  '  whose  first  syllable  means  fire.' 
Lysis  and  Timaeus  of  Locris  claimed  that  there  was  not  a  thing  one  could  name  that  had  not  the 


THE   UNIVERSAL  LANGUAGE.  I03 

Isis,  had  the  same  significance  in  Egypt,  whereas  in  the  Christian 
symbol,  the  Lotus,  not  being  found  in  either  Judaea  or  Europe,  was  re- 
placed by  the  water-lily.  In  every  Greek  and  Latin  Church,  in  all  the 
pictures  of  the  Annunciation,  the  Archangel  Gabriel  is  depicted  with 
this  trinitarian  sj^mbol  in  his  hand  standing  before  Mary,  while  above 
the  chief  altar  or  under  the  dome,  the  Eye  of  the  Eternal  is  painted 
within  a  triangle,  made  to  replace  the  Hebrew  Yod  or  God. 

Truly,  says  Ragon,  there  was  a  time  when  numbers  and  alphabetical 
characters  meant  something  more  they  do  now — the  images  of  a  mere 
insignificant  sound. 

Their  mission  was  nobler  then.  Each  of  them  represented  by  its  form  a  complete 
sense,  which,  besides  the  meaning  of  the  word,  had  a  double*  interpretation 
adapted  to  a  dual  doctrine.  Thus  when  the  sages  desired  to  write  something  to  be 
understood  only  by  the  savants,  they  confabulated  a  story,  a  dream,  or  some  other 
fictitious  subject  with  personal  names  of  men  and  localities,  that  revealed  b}-  their 
lettered  characters  the  true  meaning  of  the  author  l>y  that  narrative.  Such  were 
all  their  religious  creations,  t 

Every  appellation  and  term  had  its  raison  d'etre.  The  name  of  a 
plant  or  mineral  denoted  its  nature  to  the  Initiate  at  the  first  glance. 
The  essence  of  everything  was  easily  perceived  by  him  once  that  it  was 
figured  by  such  characters.  The  Chinese  characters  have  preserved 
much  of  this  graphic  and  pictorial  character  to  this  day,  though  the 
secret  of  the  full  system  is  lost.  Nevertheless,  even  now,  there  are 
those  among  that  nation  who  can  write  a  long  narrative,  a  volume,  on 
one  page  ;  and  the  s^^mbols  that  are  explained  historically,  allegorically 
and  astronomically,  have  survived  until  now. 

Moreover,  there  exists  a  universal  language  among  the  Initiates, 
which  an  Adept,  and  even  a  disciple,  of  any  nation  may  understand  by 
reading  it  in  his  own  language.  We  Europeans,  on  the  contrary, 
possess  only  one  graphic  sign  common  to  all,  &  (and) ;  there  is  a 
language  richer  in  metaphysical  terms  than  any  on  earth,  whose  every 

quaternary  for  its  root.  .  .  The  ingenious  and  mystical  idea  which  led  to  the  veneration  of  t4ie 
ternary  and  the  triangle  was  applied  to  number  four  and  its  fig-ure :  it  was  said  to  express  a  living 
being,  i,  the  vehicle  of  the  triangle  4,  vehicle  of  God,  or  man  carrying  in  him  the  divine  principle." 

Finally,  "  the  Ancients  represented  the  world  by  the  number  five.  Diodorus  explains  it  by  saying 
that  this  number  represents  earth,  fire,  water,  air  and  ether  or  spiritus.  Hence,  the  origin  of  Peiitc 
(five)  and  of  Pan  (the  God)  meaning  in  Greek  all."  (Compare  Ragon,  op.  cit.,  pp.  428-430.)  It  is  left 
with  the  Hindu  Occultists  to  explain  the  relation  this  Sanskrit  word  Pancha  (five)  has  to  the 
elea»ents,  the  Greek  Pente  having  for  its  root  the  Sanskrit  term. 

•  The  system  of  the  so-called  Senzar  characters  is  still  more  wonderful  and  difiRcult,  since  each 
letter  is  made  to  yield  several  meanings,  a  sign  placed  at  the  commencement  showring  the  true 
meaning. 

+  Ragon,  op.  cil.,  p.  431,  note. 


I04  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

word  is  expressed  by  like  common  signs.  The  L,itera  Pythagorse,  so 
called,  the  Greek  Y  (the  English  capital  Y)  if  traced  alone  in  a  message, 
was  as  explicit  as  a  whole  page  filled  with  sentences,  for  it  stood  as  a 
symbol  for  a  number  of  things — for  white  and  black  Magic,  for  instances- 
Suppose  one  man  enquired  of  another  :  To  what  School  of  Magic  does 
so  and  so  belong?  and  the  answer  came  back  with  the  letter  traced 
with  the  right  branch  thicker  than  the  left,  then  it  meant  "  to  right 
hand  or  divine  Magic ; "  but  if  the  letter  were  traced  in  the  usual 
way,  with  the  left  branch  thicker  than  the  right,  then  it  meant 
the  reverse,  the  right  or  left  branch  being  the  whole  biography  of  a 
man.  In  Asia,  especially  in  the  Devanagari  characters,  every  letter 
had  several  secret  meanings. 

Interpretations  of  the  hidden  sense  of  such  apocalyptic  writings  are 
found  in  the  keys  given  in  the  Kabalah,  and  they  are  among  its  most 
sacred  lore.  St.  Hieronymus  assures  us  that  they  were  known  to  the 
School  of  the  Prophets  and  taught  therein,  which  is  very  likely. 
Molitor,  the  learned  Hebraist,  in  his  work  on  tradition  says  that : 

The  two  and  twenty  letters  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet  were  regarded  as  an  emana- 
tion, or  the  visible  expression  of  the  divine  forces  inherent  in  the  ineffable  name. 

These  letters  find  their  equivalent  in,  and  are  replaced  by  numbers, 
in  the  same  way  as  in  the  other  systems.  For  instance,  the  twelfth 
and  the  sixth  letter  of  the  alphabet  yield  eighteen  in  a  name ;  the 
other  letters  of  that  name  added  being  always  exchanged  for  that 
figure  which  corresponds  to  the  alphabetical  letter  ;  then  all  those 
figures  are  subjected  to  an  algebraical  process  which  transforms  them 
again  into  letters  ;  after  which  the  latter  yield  to  the  enquirer  "  the 
most  hidden  secrets  of  divine  Permanency  (eternity  in  its  immutability) 
in  the  Futurity." 


•  The  y  exoterically  signifies  only  the  two  paths  of  virtue  or  vice,  and  stands  also  lor  the  numeral 
150  and  with  a  dash  over  the  letter  Y  for  150,000. 


SECTION  XL 

The  Hexagon  \^ith  the  Central  Point,  or 
THE  Seventh  Key. 


Arguing  upon  the  virtue  in  names  (Baalshem),  Molitor  thinks  it  im- 
possible to  deny  that  the  Kabalah — its  present  abuses  notwithstand- 
ing— has  some  very  profound  and  scientific  basis  to  stand  upon.  And 
if  it  is  claimed,  he  argues. 

That  before  the  Name  of  Jesus  every  other  Name  must  bend,  why  should  not  the 
Tetragrammaton  have  the  same  power  ?  * 

This  is  good  sense  and  logic.  For  if  Pythagoras  viewed  the  hexagon 
formed  of  two  crossed  triangles  as  the  symbol  of  creation,  and  the  Egyp- 
tians,asthat  ofthe  union  of  fire  and  water  (or  of  generation),  the  Essenes 
saw  in  it  the  Seal  of  Solomon,  the  Jews  the  Shield  of  David,  the  Hindus 
the  Sign  of  Vishnu  (to  this  day)  ;  and  if  even  in  Russia  and  Poland 
the  double  triangle  is  regarded  as  a  powerful  talisman — then  so  wide- 
spread a  use  argues  that  there  is  something  in  it.  It  stands  to 
reason,  indeed,  that  such  an  ancient  and  universally  revered  symbol 
should  not  be  merely  laid  aside  to  be  laughed  at  by  those  who  know 
nothing  of  its  virtues  or  real  Occult  significance.  To  begin  with, 
even  the  known  sign  is  merely  a  substitute  for  the  one  used  by  the 
Initiates.  In  a  Tantrika  work  in  the  British  Museum,  a  terrible  curse 
is  called  down  upon  the  head  of  him  who  shall  ever  divulge  to  the 
profane  the  real  Occult  hexagon  known  as  the  "  Sign  of  Vishnu," 
"Solomon's  Seal,"  etc. 

The  great  power  of  the  hexagon — with  its  central  mystic  sign  the  T, 
or  the  Svastika,  a  septenary — is  well  explained  in  the  seventh  key  of 
Things  Concealed,  for  it  says  : 

*   Tradition,  chap,  on  "  Numbers." 


I06  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

The  seventh  key  is  the  hierogl5'ph  of  the  sacred  septenary-,  of  royalty,  of  the 
priesthood  [the  Initiate],  of  triumph  and  true  result  by  struggle.  It  is  magic 
power  in  all  its  force,  the  true  "Holy  Kingdom."  In  the  Hermetic  Philosophy  it 
is  the  quintessence  resulting  from  the  union  of  the  two  forces  of  the  great  Magic 
Agent  [Akasha,  Astral  Light.]  ...  It  is  equally  Jakin  and  Boaz  bound  by  the 
will  of  the  Adept  and  overcome  by  his  omnipotence. 

The  force  of  this  key  is  absolute  in  Magic.  All  religions  have  con- 
secrated this  sign  in  their  rites. 

We  can  only  glance  hurriedly  at  present  at  the  long  series  of  antedilu- 
vian works  in  their  postdiluvian  and  fragmentary,  often  disfigured,  form. 
Although  all  of  these  are  the  inheritance  from  the  Fourth  Race — now 
lying  buried  in  the  unfathomed  depths  of  the  ocean — still  they  are  not 
to  be  rejected.  As  we  have  shown,  there  was  but  one  Science  at  the 
dawn  of  mankind,  and  it  was  entirely  divine.  If  humanity  on  reach- 
ing its  adult  period  has  abused  it — especially  the  last  Sub-Races  of  the 
Fourth  Root- Race — it  has  been  the  fault  and  sin  of  the  practitioners 
who  desecrated  the  divine  knowledge,  not  of  those  who  remained  true 
to  its  pristine  dogmas.  It  is  not  because  the  modern  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  faithful  to  her  traditional  intolerance,  is  now  pleased  to  see  in 
the  Occultist,  and  even  in  the  innocent  Spiritualist  and  Mason,  the 
descendants  of  "  the  Kischuph,  the  Hamite,  the  Kasdim,  the  Cephene, 
the  Ophite  and  the  Khartumim" — all  these  being  "the  followers  of 
Satan,"  that  they  are  such  indeed.  The  State  or  National  Religion  of 
every  country  has  ever  and  at  all  times  verj^  easily  disposed  of  rival 
schools  by  professing  to  believe  they  were  dangerous  heresies — the  old 
Roman  Catholic  State  Religion  as  much  as  the  modern  one. 

The  anathema,  however,  has  not  made  the  public  any  the  wiser  in 
the  Mysteries  of  the  Occult  Sciences.  In  some  respects  the  world  is 
all  the  better  for  such  ignorance.  The  secrets  of  Nature  generally 
cut  both  ways,  and  in  the  hands  of  the  undeserving  they  are  more 
than  likely  to  become  murderous.  Who  in  our  modern  day  knows 
anything  of  the  real  significance  of,  and  the  powers  contained  in, 
certain  characters  and  signs — talismans — whether  for  beneficent  or  evil 
purposes  ?  Fragments  of  the  Runes  and  the  writing  of  the  Kischuph, 
found  scattered  in  old  mediaeval  libraries ;  copies  from  the  Ephesian 
and  Milesian  letters  or  characters ;  the  thrice  famous  Book  of  Thotk, 
and  the  terrible  treatises  (still  preserved)  of  Targes,  the  Chaldsean,  and 
his  disciple  Tarchon,  the  Etruscan — who  flourished  long  before  the 
Trojan  War — are  so  many  names  and  appellations  void  of  sense  (though 
met  with  in  classical  literature)  for  the  educated  modem  scholar.   Who, 


OCCULT   WEAPONS.  I07 

in  the  nineteenth  century,  believes  in  the  art,  described  in  such  treatises 
as  those  of  Targes,  of  evoking  and  directing  thunder-bolts  ?  Yet  the 
same  is  described  in  the  Brahmanical  literature,  and  Targes  copied  his 
"  thunder-bolts  "  from  the  Astra,*  those  terrible  engines  of  destruction 
known  to  the  Mahabharatan  Aryans.  A  whole  arsenal  of  dynamite 
bombs  would  pale  before  this  art — if  it  ever  becomes  understood  by  the 
Westerns.  It  is  from  an  old  fragment  that  was  translated  to  him,  that 
the  late  L/Ord  Bulwer  L,ytton  got  his  idea  of  Vril.  It  is  a  lucky  thing, 
indeed,  that,  in  the  face  of  the  virtues  and  philanthropy  that  grace  our 
age  of  iniquitous  wars,  of  anarchists  and  dynamiters,  the  secrets  con- 
tained in  the  books  discovered  in  Numa's  tomb  should  have  been 
burnt.  But  the  science  of  Circe  and  Medea  is  not  lost.  One  can  dis- 
cover it  in  the  apparent  gibberish  of  the  Tantrika  Sutras,  the  Kuku-nia 
of  the  Bhutan!  and  the  Sikhim  Dugpas  and  "  Red-caps "  of  Tibet, 
and  even  in  the  sorcery  of  the  Nilgiri  Mula  Kurumbas.  Very  luckily 
few  outside  the  high  practitioners  of  the  Left  Path  and  of  the  Adepts 
of  the  Right — in  whose  hands  the  weird  secrets  of  the  real  meaning 
are  safe — understand  the  "  black  "  evocations.  Otherwise  the  Western 
as  much  as  the  Eastern  Dugpas  might  make  short  work  of  their 
enemies.  The  name  of  the  latter  is  legion,  for  the  direct  descendants 
of  the  antediluvian  sorcerers  hate  all  those  who  are  not  with  them, 
arguing  that,  therefore,  they  are  against  them. 

As  for  the  "Little  Albert" — though  even  this  small  half-esoteric 
volume  has  become  a  literary  relic — and  the  "  Great  Albert "  or  the 
"  Red  Dragon,"  together  with  the  numberless  old  copies  still  in  exis- 
tence, the  sorry  remains  of  the  mythical  Mother  Shiptons  and  the 
Merlins — we  mean  the  false  ones — all  these  are  vulgarised  imitations 
of  the  original  works  of  the  same  names.  Thus  the  "  Petit  Albert"  is 
the  disfigured  imitation  of  the  great  work  written  in  Latin  by  Bishop 
Adalbert,  an  Occultist  of  the  eighth  century,  sentenced  by  the  second 
Roman  Concilium.  His  work  was  reprinted  several  centuries  later 
and  named  Alberti  Parvi  Lucii  Libellus  de  Mirabilibus  Natures  Arcanis. 
The  severities  of  the  Roman  Church  have  ever  been  spasmodic.  While 
one  learns  of  this  condemnation,  which  placed  the  Church,  as  will  be 
shown,  in  relation  to  the  Seven  Archangels,  the  Virtues  or  Thrones  of 
God,  in  the  most  embarrassing  position  for  long  centuries,  it  remains  a 


*  This  is  a  kind  of  magical  bow  and  arrow  calculated  to  destroy  in  one  moment  whole  armies ;  it  is 
mentioned  in  the  R&m&yana,  the  Pur&nas  and  elsewhere. 


I08  THE    SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

wonder  indeed,  to  find  that  the  Jesuits  have  not  destroyed  the  archives, 
with  all  their  countless  chronicles  and  annals,  of  the  Histor)^  of  France 
and  those  of  the  Spanish  Escurial,  along  with  them.  Both  history  and 
the  chronicles  of  the  former  speak  at  length  of  the  priceless  talisman 
received  b}"-  Charles  the  Great  from  a  Pope.  It  was  a  little  volume  on 
Magic — or  Sorcery,  rather — all  full  of  kabalistic  figures,  signs,  mys- 
terious sentences  and  invocations  to  the  stars  and  planets.  These 
were  talismans  against  the  enemies  of  the  King  (^les  ennemis  de  CJiarle- 
magne),  which  talismans,  the  chronicler  tells  us,  proved  of  great  help, 
as  "ever}'  one  of  them  [the  enemies]  died  a  violent  death."  The  small 
volume,  Enchiridium  Leonis  Papce,  has  disappeared  and  is  very  luckily 
out  of  print.  Again  the  Alphabet  of  Thoth  can  be  dimly  traced  in  the 
modern  Tarot  which  can  be  had  at  almost  every  bookseller's  in  Paris. 
As  for  its  being  understood  or  utilised,  the  many  fortune-tellers  in 
Paris,  who  make  a  professional  living  by  it,  are  sad  specimens  of 
failures  of  attempts  at  reading,  let  alone  correctly  interpreting,  the 
s5'mbolism  of  the  Tarot  without  a  preliminary  philosophical  study  of 
the  Science.  The  real  Tarot,  in  its  complete  symbology,  can  be  found 
only  in  the  Bab3'lonian  cylinders,  that  any  one  can  inspect  and  study 
in  the  British  Museum  and  elsewhere.  Any  one  can  see  these  Chaldaean, 
antediluvian  rhombs,  or  revolving  cylinders,  covered  with  sacred  signs ; 
but  the  secrets  of  these  divining  "wheels,"  or,  as  de  Mirvdlle  calls 
them,  "  the  rotating  globes  of  Hecate,"  have  to  be  left  untold  for  some 
time  to  come.  Meanwhile  there  are  the  "turning-tables"  of  the 
modern  medium  for  the  babes,  and  the  Kabalah  for  the  strong.  This 
may  afford  some  consolation. 

People  are  very  apt  to  use  terms  which  they  do  not  understand,  and 
to  pass  judgments  on  prima  facie  evidence.  The  difference  between 
White  and  Black  Magic  is  very  difficult  to  realise  fully,  as  both  have 
to  be  judged  by  their  motive,  upon  which  their  ultimate  though  not 
their  immediate  effects  depend,  even  though  these  may  not  come  for 
years.  Between  the  "  right  and  the  left  hand  [Magic]  there  is  but  a 
cobweb  thread,"  says  an  Eastern  proverb.  I^et  us  abide  by  its  wisdom 
and  wait  till  we  have  learned  more. 

We  shall  have  to  return  at  greater  length  to  the  relation  of  the 
Kabalah  to  Gupta  Vidya,  and  to  deal  further  with  esoteric  and 
numerical  systems,  but  we  must  first  follow  the  line  of  Adepts  in  post- 
Christian  times. 


SECTION    XII. 

The  Duty  of   the  True  Occultist  to\^ard 

Religions. 


Having  disposed  of  pre-Christian  Initiates  and  their  Mysteries — 
though  more  has  to  be  said  about  the  latter — a  few  words  must  be  given 
to  the  earliest  post-Christian  Adepts,  irrespective  of  their  personal 
beliefs  and  doctrines,  or  their  subsequent  places  in  History,  whether 
sacred  or  profane.  Our  task  is  to  analyse  this  adeptship  with  its 
abnormal  thaumaturgical,  or,  as  now  called,  psychological  powers ;  to 
give  each  of  such  Adepts  his  due,  by  considering,  firstly,  what  are  the 
historical  records  about  them  that  have  reached  us  at  this  late  day,  and 
secondly,  to  examine  the  laws  of  probability  with  regard  to  the  said 
powers. 

And  at  the  outset  the  writer  must  be  allowed  a  few  words  in  justifica- 
tion of  what  has  to  be  said.     It  would  be  most  unfair  to  see  in  these 
pages  any  defiance  to,  or  disrespect  for,  the  Christian  religion— least  of 
all,  a  desire  to  wound  anyone's  feelings.     The  Theosophist  believes  in 
neither   Divine    nor  Satanic  miracles.      At   such   a   distance  of  time 
he   can    only   obtain  prima  facie  evidence    and   judge    of  it   by   the 
results  claimed.     There   is  neither  Saint   nor  Sorcerer,  Prophet  nor 
Soothsayer  for  him ;  only  Adepts,  or  proficients  in  the  production  of 
feats  of  a  phenomenal   character,  to  be  judged  by  their  words  and 
deeds.      The  only  distinction   he  is  now   able   to  trace  depends  on 
the  results  achieved — on  the   evidence  whether  they  were  beneficent 
or  maleficent  in  their  character  as  affecting  those  for  or  against  whom 
the  powers  of  the  Adept  were  used.     With  the  division  so  arbitrarily 
made  between   proficients  in   "  miraculous "    doings   of  this  or  that 
Religion  by  their  respective  followers  and  advocates,  the  Occultist  can- 
not and  must  not  be  concerned.     The  Christian  whose  Religion  com- 


no  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

mands  him  to  regard  Peter  and  Paul  as  Saints,  and  divinely  inspired 
and  glorified  Apostles,  and  to  view  Simon  and  Apollonius  as  Wizards 
and  Necromancers,  helped  by,  and  serving  the  ends  of,  supposed  Evil 
Powers — is  quite  justified  in  thus  doing  if  he  be  a  sincere  orthodox 
Christian.  But  so  also  is  the  Occultist  justified,  if  he  would  serve  truth 
and  only  truth,  in  rejecting  such  a  one-sided  view.  The  student  of 
Occultism  must  belong  to  no  special  creed  or  sect,  yet  he  is  bound  to 
show  outward  respect  to  every  creed  and  faith,  if  he  would  become  an 
Adept  of  the  Good  Law.  He  must  not  be  bound  by  the  pre-judged  and 
sectarian  opinions  of  anyone,  and  he  has  to  form  his  own  opinions  and 
to  come  to  his  own  conclusions  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  evidence 
furnished  to  him  by  the  Science  to  which  he  is  devoted.  Thus,  if  the 
Occultist  is,  by  way  of  illustration,  a  Buddhist,  then,  while  regarding 
Gautama  Buddha  as  the  grandest  of  all  the  Adepts  that  lived,  and  the 
incarnation  of  unselfish  love,  boundless  charity,  and  moral  goodness, 
he  will  regard  in  the  same  light  Jesus — proclaiming  Him  another  such 
incarnation  of  every  divine  \'irtue.  He  will  reverence  the  memory  of 
the  great  Martyr,  even  while  refusing  to  recognise  in  Him  the  incarna- 
tion on  earth  of  the  One  Supreme  Deity,  and  the  "  Very  God  of  Gods" 
in  Heaven.  He  will  cherish  the  ideal  man  for  his  personal  virtues,  not 
for  the  claims  made  on  his  behalf  by  fanatical  dreamers  of  the  earl}^ 
ages,  or  by  a  shrewd  calculating  Church  and  Theology.  He  will  even 
believe  in  most  of  the  "  asserted  miracles,"  only  explaining  them  in 
accordance  with  the  rules  of  his  own  Science  and  by  his  psychic  dis- 
cernment. Refusing  them  the  term  "  miracle " — in  the  theological 
sense  of  an  event  "contrarj^  to  the  established  laws  of  nature" — he 
will  nevertheless  view  them  as  a  deviation  from  the  laws  known  (so 
far)  to  Science,  quite  another  thing.  Moreover  the  Occultist  will,  on 
\^^  prima  facie  evidence  of  the  Gospels — whether  proven  or  not — class 
most  of  such  works  as  beneficent,  divine  Magic,  though  he  will  be 
justified  in  regarding  such  events  as  casting  out  devils  into  a  herd  of 
swine*  as  allegorical,  and  as  pernicious  to  true  faith  in  their  dead- 
letter  sense.  This  is  the  view  a  genuine,  impartial  Occultist  would 
take.  And  in  this  respect  even  the  fanatical  Mussulmans  who  regard 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  as  a  great  Prophet,  and  show  respect  to  Him,  are 
giving  a  wholesome  lesson  in  charity  to  Christians,  who  teach  and 
accept  that  "  religious  tolerance  is  impious  and  absurd, "f  and  who  will 


Matthew,  viii.  30-34.  +  Dagmatic  Theology,  iii.  345. 


CHRISTIAN  AND   NON-CHRISTIAN  ADEPTS.  Ill 

never  refer  to  the  prophet  of  Islam  by  any  other  term  but  that  of  a 
"  false  prophet."  It  is  on  the  principles  of  Occultism,  then,  that  Peter 
and  Simon,  Paul  and  Apollonius,  will  now  be  examined. 

These  four  Adepts  are  chosen  to  appear  in  these  pages  with  good 
reason.  They  are  the  first  in  post-Christian  Adeptship— as  recorded 
in  profane  and  sacred  writings— to  strike  the  key-note  of  "  miracles," 
that  is  of  psychic  and  physical  phenomena.  It  is  only  theological 
bigotry  and  intolerance  that  could  so  maliciously  and  arbitrarily  separate 
the  two  harmonious  parts  into  two  distinct  manifestations  of  Divine  and 
Satanic  Magic,  into  "godly"  and  "  ungodly"  works. 


SECTION  XIIL 

Post=Christiak  Adepts  and  their  Doctrines. 


What  does  the  world  at  large  know  of  Peter  and  Simon,  for  example? 
Profane  history  has  no  record  of  these  two,  while  that  which  the  so- 
called  sacred  literature  tells  us  of  them  is  scattered  about,  contained  in 
a  few  sentences  in  the  Acfs.  As  to  the  Apocrypha,  their  very  name 
forbids  critics  to  trust  to  them  for  information.  The  Occultists,  how- 
ever, claim  that,  one-sided  and  prejudiced  as  they  may  be,  the  apocry- 
phal Gospels  contain  far  more  historically  true  events  and  facts  than 
does  the  New  Testame^it,  the  Acts  included.  The  former  are  crude  tra- 
dition, the  latter  (the  official  Gospels)  are  an  elaborately  made  up  legend. 
The  sacredness  of  the  New  Testament  is  a  question  of  private  belief 
and  of  blind  faith,  and  while  one  is  bound  to  respect  the  private 
opinion  of  one's  neighbour,  no  one  is  forced  to  share  it. 

Who  was  Simon  Magus,  and  what  is  known  of  him  ?  One  learns 
in  the  Acts  simply  that  on  account  of  his  remarkable  magical  Arts  he 
was  called  "  the  Great  Power  of  God."  Philip  is  said  to  have  baptised 
this  Samaritan  ;  and  subsequently  he  is  accused  of  having  offered 
money  to  Peter  and  John  to  teach  him  the  power  of  working  true 
"  miracles,"  false  ones,  it  is  asserted,  being  of  the  Devil.*  This  is  all, 
if  we  omit  the  words  of  abuse  freely  used  against  him  for  working 
"miracles"  of  the  latter  kind.  Origen  mentions  him  as  having  visited 
Rome  during  the  reign  of  Nero,f  and  Mosheim  places  him  among  the 
open  enemies  of  Christianity  ;|  but  Occult  tradition  accuses  him  of 
nothing  worse  than  refusing  to  recognise  "  Simeon  "  as  a  Vicegerent  of 
God,  whether  that  "Simeon"  was  Peter  or  anyone  else  being  still  left 
an  open  question  with  the  critic. 

•  viii.  9,  10.  t  Adv.  Celsum.  t  Eccles.  Hist.,  i.  140. 


UNFAIR  CRITICISM.  Hj 

That  which  Irenaeus*  and  Epiphaniusf  say  of  Simon  Magus — namely, 
that  he  represented  himself  as  the  incarnated  trinity ;  that  in  Samaria 
he  was  the  Father,  in  Judaea  the  Son,  and  had  given  himself  out  to  the 
Gentiles  as  the  Holy  Spirit — is  simply  backbiting.  Times  and  events 
change ;  human  nature  remains  the  same  and  unaltered  under  every 
sky  and  in  every  age.  The  charge  is  the  result  and  product  of  the 
traditional  and  now  classical  odium  theologicum.  No  Occultists — all  of 
whom  have  experienced  personally,  more  or  less,  the  effects  of  theolo- 
gical rancour — will  ever  believe  such  things  merely  on  the  word  of  an 
Irenaeus,  if,  indeed,  he  ever  wrote  the  words  himself  Further  on  it  is 
narrated  of  Simon  that  he  took  about  with  him  a  woman  whom  he  in- 
troduced as  Helen  of  Troy,  who  had  passed  through  a  hundred  reincar- 
nations, and  who,  still  earlier,  in  the  beginning  of  aeons,  was  Sophia, 
Divine  Wisdom,  an  emanation  of  his  own  (Simon's)  Eternal  Mind, 
when  he  (Simon)  was  the  "  Father"  ;  and  finally,  that  by  her  he  had 
"begotten  the  Archangels  and  Angels,  by  whom  this  world  was 
created,"  etc. 

Now  we  all  know  to  what  a  degree  of  transformation  and  luxuriant 
growth  any  bare  statement  can  be  subjected  and  forced,  after 
passing  through  only  half  a  dozen  hands.  Moreover,  all  these  claims 
may  be  explained  and  even  shown  to  be  true  at  bottom.  Simon  Magus 
was  a  Kabalist  and  a  Mystic,  who,  like  so  many  other  reformers, 
endeavoured  to  found  a  new  Religion  based  on  the  fundamental  teach- 
ings of  the  Secret  Doctrine,  yet  without  divulging  more  than  necessary 
of  its  mysteries.  Why  then  should  not  Simon,  a  Mystic,  deeply  imbued 
with  the  fact  of  serial  incarnations  (we  may  leave  out  the  number  "  one 
hundred,"  as  a  ver)^  probable  exaggeration  of  his  disciples),  speak  of 
an}'  one  whom  he  knew  psychically  as  an  incarnation  of  some 
heroine  of  that  name,  and  in  the  way  he  did — if  he  ever  did  so  ?  Do 
we  not  find  in  our  own  century  some  ladies  and  gentlemen,  not  charla- 
tans but  intellectual  persons  highly  honoured  in  society,  whose 
inner  conviction  assures  them  that  they  were — one  Queen  Cleopatra, 
another  one  Alexander  the  Great,  a  third  Joan  of  Arc,  and  who  or  what 
not?  This  is  a  matter  of  inner  conviction,  and  is  based  on  more  or  less 
familiarity  with  Occultism  and  belief  in  the  modern  theory  of  reincar- 
nation. The  latter  differs  from  the  one  genuine  doctrine  of  old,  as  will 
be  shown,  but  there  is  no  rule  without  its  exception. 


•  Contra  Hareses,  I.  xxiii.  1-4.  +  Contra  Hcereses,  ii.  1-6. 

31 


114  "^^^   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

As  to  the  Magus  being  "one  with  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son,  and 
God  the  Holy  Ghost,"  this  again  is  quite  reasonable,  if  we  admit  that  a 
Mystic  and  Seer  has  a  right  to  use  allegorical  language  ;  and  in  this  case, 
moreover,  it  is  quite  justified  by  the  doctrine  of  Universal  Unit)'-  taught 
in  Esoteric  Philosophy.  Every  Occultist  will  say  the  same,  on  (to  him) 
scientific  and  logical  grounds,  in  full  accordance  with  the  doctrine  he 
professes.  Not  a  Vedantin  but  says  the  same  thing  daily :  he  is,  of 
course,  Brahman,  and  he  is  Parabrahman,  once  that  he  rejects  the  indi- 
viduality of  his  personal  spirit,  and  recognises  the  Divine  Ray  which 
dwells  in  his  Higher  Self  as  only  a  reflection  of  the  Universal  Spirit. 
This  is  the  echo  in  all  times  and  ages  of  the  primitive  doctrine  of 
Emanations.  The  first  Emanation  from  the  Unknown  is  the  "  Father," 
the  second  the  "  Son,"  and  all  and  everything  proceeds  from  the  One, 
or  that  Divine  Spirit  which  is  "  unknowable."  Hence,  the  assertion 
that  by  her  (Sophia,  or  Minerva,  the  Divine  Wisdom)  he  (Simon),  when 
yet  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  himself  the  Father  (or  the  first  collec- 
tive Emanation),  begot  the  Archangels — the  "  Son  " — who  were  the 
creators  of  this  world. 

The  Roman  Catholics  themselves,  driven  to  the  wall  by  the  irrefut- 
able arguments  of  their  opponents — the  learned  Philologists  and  Sym- 
bologists  who  pick  to  shreds  Church  dogmas  and  their  authorities,  and 
point  out  the  plurality  of  the  Elohim  in  the  Bib/e—SLdtnit  to-day  that 
the  first  "creation  "  of  God,  the  Tsaba,  or  Archangels,  must  have  par- 
ticipated   in  the  creation  of  the  Universe.      Might  not  we  suppose : 

Although  "God  alone  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth"  .  .  .  that  however 
unconnected  they  [the  Angels]  may  have  been  with  the  primodial  e.v  nihth  crea- 
tion, they  ma)-  have  received  a  mission   to  achieve,  to  continue,  and  to  sustain  it?* 

exclaims  De  Mir\dlle,  in  answer  to  Renan,  Lacour,  Maury  and  the  izitti 
quanti  of  the  French  Institute.  With  certain  alterations  it  is  precisely 
this  which  is  claimed  by  the  Secret  Doctrine.  In  truth  there  is  not  a 
single  doctrine  preached  by  the  many  Reformers  of  the  first  and  the 
subsequent  centuries  of  our  era,  that  did  not  base  its  initial  teachings  on 
this  universal  cosmogony.  Consult  Mosheim  and  see  what  he  has  to  say 
of  the  many  "  heresies  "  he  describes.     Cerinthus,  the  Jew, 

Taught  that  the  Creator  of  this  world  .  .  .  the  Sovereign  God  of  the 
Jewish  people,  was  a  Being    .     .     .     who  derived  his  birth  from  the  Supreme  God ; 

that  this  Being,  moreover. 

Fell  by  degrees  from  his  native  virtue  and  primitive  dignity. 

*  op.  cit.,  ii.  337. 


THE  TWO   ETERNAL   PRINCIPLES.  II5 

Basilides,  Carpocrates  and  Valentinus,  the  Eg>'ptian  Gnostics  of  the 
second  century,  held  the  same  ideas  with  a  few  variations.  Basilides 
preached  seven  ^ons  (Hosts  or  Archangels),  who  issued  from  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Supreme.  Two  of  them,  Power  and  Wisdom,  begot  the 
heavenly  hierarchy  of  the  first  class  and  dignity;  this  emanated  a  second  ; 
the  latter  a  third,  and  so  on  ;  each  subsequent  evolution  being  of  a  nature 
less  exalted  than  the  precedent,  and  each  creating  for  itself  a  Heaven 
as  a  dwelling,  the  nature  of  each  of  these  respective  Heavens  decreas- 
ing in  splendour  and  purity  as  it  approached  nearer  to  the  earth.  Thus 
the  number  of  these  Dwellings  amounted  to  365  ;  and  over  all  presided 
the  Supreme  Unknown  called  Abraxas,  a  name  which  in  the  Greek 
method  of  numeration  jdelds  the  number  365,  which  in  its  mystic  and 
numerical  meaning  contains  the  number  355,  or  the  man  value.*  This 
was  a  Gnostic  Mystery  based  upon  that  of  primitive  Evolution,  which 
ended  with  "  man." 

Saturnilus  of  Antioch  promulgated  the  same  doctrine  slightly 
modified.  He  taught  two  eternal  principles.  Good  and  Evil,  which  are 
simply  Spirit  and  Matter.  The  seven  Angels  who  preside  over  the 
seven  Planets  are  the  Builders  of  our  Universe — a  purely  Eastern  doc- 
trine, as  Saturnilus  was  an  Asiatic  Gnostic.  These  Angels  are  the 
natural  Guardians  of  the  seven  Regions  of  our  Planetary  System,  one 
of  the  most  powerful  among  these  seven  creating  Angels  of  the  third 
order  being  "  Saturn,"  the  presiding  genius  of  the  Planet,  and  the  God 
of  the  Hebrew  people :  namely,  Jehovah,  who  was  venerated  among 
the  Jews,  and  to  whom  they  dedicated  the  seventh  day  or  Sabbath, 
Saturday — •'  Saturn's  day  "  among  the  Scandinavians  and  also  among 
the  Hindus. 

Marcion,  who  also  held  the  doctrine  of  the  two  opposed  principles  of 
Good  and  Evil,  asserted  that  there  was  a  third  Deity  between  the  two — 
one  of  a  "  mixed  nature" — the  God  of  the  Jews,  the  Creator  (with  his 
Host)  of  the  lower,  or  our.  World.     Though  ever  at  war  with  the  Evil 


•  Ten  is  the  perfect  number  of  the  Supreme  God  amongf  the  "manifested  "  deities,  for  number  I  is 
the  symbol  of  the  Universal  Unit,  or  male  principle  in  Nature,  and  number  O  the  feminine  symbol 
Chaos,  the  Deep,  the  two  forming  thus  the  symbol  of  Androgyne  nature  as  well  as  the  fuU  value  of 
the  solar  year,  which  was  also  the  value  of  Jehovah  and  Enoch.  Ten,  with  Pythagoras,  was  the  symbol 
of  the  Universe ;  also  of  Enos,  the  Son  of  Seth,  or  the  ".Son  of  Man  "  who  stands  as  the  symbol  of  the 
solar  year  of  365  days,  and  whose  years  are  therefore  given  as  365  also.  In  the  Egyptian  Symbology 
Abraxas  was  the  Sun,  the  "  Lord  of  the  Heavens." 

The  circle  is  the  symbol  of  the  one  Unmanifesting  Principle,  the  plane  of  whose  figure  is  infinitude 
eternally,  and  this  is  crossed  by  a  diameter  only  during  Manvaiitaras. 


Il6  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Principle,  this  intermediate  Being  was  nevertheless  also  opposed  to  the 
Good  Principle,  whose  place  and  title  he  coveted. 

Thus  Simon  was  only  the  son  of  his  time,  a  religious  Reformer  like 
so  many  others,  and  an  Adept  among  the  Kabalists.  The  Church,  to 
which  a  belief  in  his  actual  existence  and  great  powers  is  a  necessity — 
in  order  the  better  to  set  oflf  the  "  miracle"  performed  by  Peter  and  his 
triumph  over  Simon — extols  unstintingly  his  wonderful  magic  feats. 
On  the  other  hand,  Scepticism,  represented  by  scholars  and  learned 
critics,  tries  to  make  away  with  him  altogether.  Thus,  after  denying 
the  very  existence  of  Simon,  they  have  finally  thought  fit  to  merge 
his  individuality  entirely  in  that  of  Paul.  The  anonymous  author  of 
Supernatural  Religio7i  assiduously  endeavoured  to  prove  that  by  Simon 
Magus  we  must  understand  the  Apostle  Paul,  whose  Epistles  were 
secretl}*^  as  well  as  openly  calumniated  and  opposed  by  Peter,  and 
charged  with  containing  "dysnoetic  learning."  Indeed  this  seems 
more  than  probable  when  we  think  of  the  two  Apostles  and  contrast 
their  characters. 

The  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  was  brave,  outspoken,  sincere,  and  very  learned ; 
the  Apostle  of  Circumcision,  cowardly,  cautious,  insincere,  and  very  ignorant. 
That  Paul  had  been,  partially  at  least,  if  not  completely,  initiated  into  the  theurgic 
mysteries,  admits  of  little  doubt.  His  language,  the  phraseology  so  peculiar  to  the 
Greek  philosophers,  certain  expressions  used  only  by  the  Initiates,  are  so  many 
sure  ear-marks  to  that  supposition.  Our  suspicion  has  been  strengthened  by  an 
able  article  entitled  "Paul  and  Plato,"  by  Dr.  A.  Wilder,  in  which  the  author  puts 
forward  one  remarkable  and,  for  us,  very  precious  observation.  In  the  Epistles  to 
the  Corinthians,  he  shows  Paul  abounding  with  "expressions  suggested  b}'  the  ini- 
tWions  of  Sabazius  and  Eleusis,  and  the  lectures  of  the  (Greek)  philosophers. 
He  (Paul)  designates  himself  an  idiotes — a  person  unskilful  in  the  Word,  but  not  in 
the  gnosis  or  philosophical  learning.  'We  speak  wisdom  among  the  perfect  or 
initiated,'  he  writes,  even  the  hidden  wisdom,  'not  the  wisdom  of  this  world,  nor  of 
the  Archons  of  this  world,  but  divine  wisdom  in  a  mystery,  secret — which  notie  of 
the  Archons  of  this  world  knew.'  "* 

What  else  can  the  Apostle  mean  by  those  unequivocal  words,  but  that  he  himself, 
as  belonging  to  the  Mystae  (Initiated),  spoke  of  things  shown  and  explained  only 
in  the  Mysteries?  The  "dixnne  wisdom  in  a  mystery  which  none  of  the  Archons  of 
this  world  knew,"  has  evidently  some  direct  reference  to  the  Basileus  of  the  Eleu- 
sinian  Initiation  who  did  know.  The  Basileus  belonged  to  the  staff  of  the  great 
Hierophant,  and  was  an  Archon  of  Athens;  and  as  such  was  one  of  the  chief 
Mj-stro,  belonging  to  the  interior  Mysteries,  to  which  a  very  select  and  small 
number  obtained  an  entrance.t  The  magistrates  supervising  the  Eleusinia  were 
called  Archons. J 

We  will  deal,  however,  first  with  Simon  the  Magician. 


*  /.  Cor.,  ii.  6-8.  t  Compare  Taylor's  Eleusinian  aud  Bacchic  Mysteries.        t  /sis  Unveiled,  ii.  89. 


SECTION    XIV. 

Simon  and  his  Biographer  Hippolytus. 


As  shown  in  our  earlier  volumes,  Simon  was  a  pupil  of  the  Tanaim 
of  Samaria,  and  the  reputation  he  left  behind  him,  together  with  the 
title  of  "  the  Great  Power  of  God,"  testify  in  favour  of  the  ability  and 
learning  of  his  Masters.     But  the  Tanaim  were  Kabalists  of  the  same 
secret  school  as  John  of  the  Apocalypse,  whose  careful  aim  it  was  to 
conceal  as  much  as  possible  the  real  meaning  of  the  names  in  the 
Mosaic  Books.     Still  the  calumnies  so  jealously  disseminated  against 
Simon  Magus  by  the  unknown   authors   and  compilers  of  the  Acts 
and  other  writings,  could  not  cripple  the  truth  to  such  an  extent  as 
to  conceal  the  fact  that  no  Christian  could  rival  him  in  thaumaturgic 
deeds.     The  story  told  about  his  falling  during  an  aerial  flight,  break- 
ing both  his  legs  and  then  committing  suicide,  is  ridiculous.     Posterity 
has  heard  but  one  side  of  the  story.     Were  the  disciples  of  Simon  to 
have  a  chance,  we  might  perhaps  find  that  it  was  Peter  who  broke  bc^th 
his  legs.     But   as  against  this  hypothesis  we  know  that  this  Apostle 
was  too  prudent  ever  to  venture  himself  in  Rome.     On  the  confession 
of  several    ecclesiastical  writers,   no    Apostle    ever    performed    such 
"  supernatural  wonders,"  but  of  course  pious  people  will  say  this  only 
the  more  proves  that  it  was  the  Devil  who  worked  through  Simon. 
He  was  accused  of  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  only  because  he 
introduced  as  the  "Holy  Spiritus"  the  Mens  (Intelligence)  or  "the 
Mother  of  all."     But  we  find  the  same  expression  used  in  the  Book  of 
Enoch,  in  which,  in  contradistinction  to  the  "Son  of  Man,"  he  speaks 
of  the  "Son  of  the  Woman."     In  the  Codex  of  the  Nazarenes,  and  in 
the  Zohar,  as  well  as  in  the  Books  of  Hermes,  the  same  expression  is 
used  ;  and  even  in  the  apocryphal  Evangelium  of  the  Hebrews  we  read 
that  Jesus  admitted  the  female  sex  of  the  Holy  Ghost  by  using  the 
expres.sion  "  My  Mother,  the  Holy  Pneuma." 


Il8  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

After  long  ages  of  denial,  however,  the  actual  existence  of  Simon 
Magus  has  been  finally  demonstrated,  whether  he  was  Saul,  Paul  or 
Simon.  A  manuscript  speaking  of  him  under  the  last  name  has  been 
discovered  in  Greece  and  has  put  a  stop  to  any  further  speculation. 

In  his  Histoire  des  Trois  Premiers  Siecles  de  fEglise*  M.  de  Pressense 
gives  his  opinion  on  this  additional  relic  of  early  Christianity.  Owing 
to  the  numerous  myths  with  which  the  history  of  Simon  abounds — he 
says — many  Theologians  (among  Protestants,  he  ought  to  have  added) 
have  concluded  that  it  was  no  better  than  a  clever  tissue  of  legends. 
But  he  adds  : 

It  contains  positive  facts,  it  seems,  now  warranted  by  the  unanimous  testimony 
of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  and  the  narrative  of  Hippolytus  recently  dis- 
covered, t 

This  MS.  is  very  far  from  being  complimentary  to  the  alleged 
founder  of  Western  Gnosticism.  While  recognising  great  powers  in 
Simon,  it  brands  him  as  a  priest  of  Satan — which  is  quite  enough  to 
show  that  it  was  written  by  a  Christian.  It  also  shows  that,  like 
another  '•  servant  of  the  Evil  One  " — as  Manes  is  called  by  the  Church 
— Simon  was  a  baptised  Christian  ;  but  that  both,  being  too  well  versed 
in  the  mysteries  of  true  primitive  Christianity,  were  persecuted  for  it. 
The  secret  of  such  persecution  was  then,  as  it  is  now,  quite  transparent 
to  those  who  study  the  question  impartially.  Seeking  to  preserve  his 
independence,  Simon  could  not  submit  to  the  leadership  or  authority 
of  any  of  the  Apostles,  least  of  all  to  that  of  either  Peter  or  John,  the 
fanatical  author  of  the  Apocalypse.  Hence  charges  of  heresy  followed 
by  "anathema  maranatha."  The  persecutions  by  the  Church  were 
never  directed  against  Magic,  when  it  was  orthodox;  for  the  new 
Theurgy,  established  and  regulated  by  the  Fathers,  now  known  to 
Christendom  as  "grace"  and  "miracles,"  was,  and  is  still,  when  it 
does  happen,  only  Magic — whether  conscious  or  unconscious.  Such 
phenomena  as  have  passed  to  posterity  under  the  name  of  "divine 
miracles"  were  produced  through  powers  acquired  by  great  purity  of 
life  and  ecstasy.  Prayer  and  contemplation  added  to  asceticism  are  the 
best  means  of  discipline  in  order  to  become  a  Theurgist,  where  there 
is  no  regular  initiation.  For  intense  prayer  for  the  accomplishment  of 
some  object  is  only  intense  will  and  desire,  resulting  in  unconscious 
Magic.     In  our  own  day  George  Miiller  of  Bristol  has  proved  it.     But 

*  op.  cil.,  ii.  395.  t  Quoted  by  De  Mirville,  Op.  cil.,  vi.  41  and  42. 


UNEVEN   BAI^ANCES.  II9 

'•divine  miracles"  are  produced  by  the  same  causes  that  generate 
eifects  of  Sorcer>^  The  whole  difference  rests  on  the  good  or  evil 
effects  aimed  at,  and  on  the  actor  who  produces  them.  The  thunders 
of  the  Church  were  directed  only  against  those  who  dissented  from 
the  formulae  and  attributed  to  themselves  the  production  of  certain 
marvellous  eflfects,  instead  of  fathering  them  on  a  personal  God ;  and 
thus,  while  those  Adepts  in  Magic  Arts  who  acted  under  her  direct 
instructions  and  auspices  were  proclaimed  to  posterity  and  history  as 
saints  and  friends  of  God,  all  others  were  hooted  out  of  the  Church  and 
sentenced  to  eternal  calumny  and  curses  from  their  day  to  this.  Dogma 
and  authority  have  ever  been  the  curse  of  humanity,  the  great  extin- 
guishers of  light  and  truth.* 

It  was  perhaps  the  recognition  of  a  germ  of  that  which,  later  on,  in 
the  then  nascent  Church,  grew  into  the  virus  of  insatiate  power  and 
ambition,  culminating  finally  in  the  dogma  of  infallibilit}-,  that  forced 
Simon,  and  so  many  others,  to  break  away  from  her  at  her  very  birth. 
Sects  and  dissensions  began  with  the  first  century.  While  Paul 
rebukes  Peter  to  his  face,  John  slanders  under  the  veil  of  vision  the 
Nicolaitans,  and  makes  Jesus  declare  that  he  hates  them.f  Therefore 
we  pay  little  attention  to  the  accusations  against  Simon  in  the  MS. 
found  in  Greece. 

It  is  entitled  Philosophumeyia.  Its  author,  regarded  as  Saint  Hip- 
polytus  by  the  Greek  Church,  is  referred  to  as  an  "  unknown  heretic" 
by  the  Papists,  only  because  he  speaks  in  it  "  very  slanderously  "  of 
Pope  Callistus,  also  a  Saint.  Nevertheless,  Greeks  and  Latins  agree 
in  declaring  the  Philosophuviena  to  be  an  extraordinary  and  very 
erudite  work.  Its  antiquity  and  genuineness  have  been  vouched  for  by 
the  best  authorities  of  Tiibingen. 

Whoever  the  author  may  have  been,  he  expresses  himself  about 
Simon  in  this  wise  : 

Simon,  a  man  well  versed  in  magic  arts,  deceived  many  persons  partly  by  the 

*  Mr.  St.  George  lyane-Fox  has  admirably  expressed  the  idea  in  his  eloquent  appeal  to  the  many 
rival  schools  and  societies  in  India.  "  I  feel  sure,"  he  said,  "  that  the  prime  motive,  however  dimly 
perceived,  by  which  you,  as  the  promoters  of  these  naovements,  were  actuated,  was  a  revolt  against 
the  t3Tannical  and  almost  universal  establishment  throughout  all  existing  social  and  so-called  reli- 
gious institutions  of  a  usurped  authority  in  some  external  form  supplanting  and  obscuring  the  oulj' 
real  and  ultimate  authority,  the  indwelling  spirit  of  truth  revealed  to  each  individual  soul,  true  con- 
science in  fact,  that  supreme  source  of  all  human  wisdom  and  power  which  elevates  man  above  the 
level  of  the  brute."  ( To  the  Members  of  the  Arya  Samaj,  the  Theosophical  Society,  Brahmo  and  Hindu 
Sam&j  aud  other  Religious  and  Progressive  Societies  in  India.) 

+  Revelation,  ii.  6. 


I20  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

art  of  Thrasymedes,*  and  partly  wiih  ike  he/p  of  de/nons.f  .  .  .  He  determined  to 
pass  himself  off  as  a  god.  .  .  .  Aided  by  his  wicked  arts,  he  turned  to  profit  not 
only  the  teachings  of  Moses,  but  those  of  the  poets.  .  .  .  His  disciples  use  to 
this  day  his  charms.  Thanks  to  incantations,  to  philtres,  to  their  attractive 
caressesj  and  what  they  call  "sleeps,"  they  send  demons  to  influence  all  those 
whom  they  would  fascinate.  With  this  object  they  employ  what  they  call  "  familiar 
demons."§ 

Further  on  the  MS.  reads : 

The  Magus  (Simon)  made  those  who  wished  to  enquire  of  the  demon,  write  what 
their  question  was  on  a  leaf  of  parchment ;  this,  folded  in  four,  was  thrown  into  a 
burning  brazier,  in  order  that  the  smoke  should  reveal  the  contents  of  the  writing 
to  the  Spirit  (demon)  (P/iilos.,  IV.  iv.)  Incense  was  thrown  by  handfuls  on  the 
blazing  coals,  the  Magus  adding,  on  pieces  of  papyrus,  the  Hebrew  names  of  the 
Spirits  he  was  addressing,  and  the  flame  devoured  all.  Very  soon  the  divine  Spirit 
seemed  to  overwhelm  the  Magician,  who  uttered  unintelligible  invocations,  and 
plunged  in  such  a  state  he  answered  every  question — phantasmal  apparitions  being 
often  raised  over  the  flaming  brazier  [ibid.,  iii.) ;  at  other  times  fire  descended  from 
heaven  upon  objects  previously  pointed  out  by  the  Magician  {ibid.) ;  or  again  the 
deity  evoked,  crossing  the  roOm,  would  trace  fiery  orbs  in  its  flight  {ibid.,  ix.).(| 

So   far  the    above   statements   agree  with  those  of  Anastasius   the 

Sinai'te : 

People  saw  Simon  causing  statues  to  walk  ;  precipitating  himself  into  the  flames 
without  being  burnt ;  metamorphosing  his  body  into  that  of  various  animals  [lycan- 
thropy] ;  raising  at  banquets  phantoms  and  spectres ;  causing  the  furniture  in  the 
rooms  to  move  about,  by  invisible  spirits.  He  gave  out  that  he  was  escorted  by  a 
number  of  shades  to  whom  he  gave  the  name  of  "souls  of  the  dead."  Finally,  he 
used  to  fly  in  the  air  .  .  .  (Anast.,  Patrol.  Grecque,  vol.  Ixxxix.,  col.  523, 
quaest.  xx.).1I 

Suetonius  saj's  in  his  Nero, 

In  those  days  an  Icarus  fell  at  his  first  ascent  near  Nero's  box  and  covered  it  with 
his  blood.** 

This  sentence,  referring  evidentl)^  to  some  unfortunate  acrobat  who 


•  This  "  art "  is  not  common  jugglery,  as  some  define  it  now :  it  is  a  kind  of  psychological  jugglery, 
if  jugglery  at  all,  where  fascination  and  glamour  are  used  as  means  of  producing  illusions.  It  is 
hypnotism  on  a  large  scale. 

+  The  author  asserts  in  this  his  Christian  persuasion. 

i  Magnetic  passes,  evidently,  followed  by  a  trance  and  sleep. 

{  "Elementals"  used  by  the  highest  Adept  to  do  mechanical,  not  intellectual  work,  as  a  physicist 
uses  gases  and  other  compounds. 

II  Quoted  ft-om  De  Mirville,  op.  cii.,  vi.  43. 

T  Ibid.,  VI.  45. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  46. 


STONES  AS    "EVIDENCES."  121 

missed  his  footing  and  tumbled,  is  brought  forward  as  a  proof  that  it 
was  Simon  who  fell*  But  the  latter's  name  is  surely  too  famous,  if 
one  must  credit  the  Church  Fathers,  for  the  historian  to  have  men- 
tioned him  simply  as  "an  Icarus."  The  writer  is  quite  aware  that  there 
exists  in  Rome  a  locality  named  Simonium,  near  the  Church  of  SS. 
Cosmas  and  Daimanus  (Via  Sacra),  and  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  temple 
of  Romulus,  where  the  broken  pieces  of  a  stone,  on  which  it  is  alleged 
the  two  knees  of  the  Apostle  Peter  were  impressed  in  thanksgiving 
after  his  supposed  victory  over  Simon,  are  shown  to  this  day.  But 
what  does  this  exhibition  amount  to  ?  For  the  broken  fragments  of 
one  stone,  the  Buddhists  of  Ceylon  show  a  whole  rock  on  Adam's  Peak 
with  another  imprint  upon  it.  A  crag  stands  upon  its  platform,  a  terrace 
of  which  supports  a  huge  boulder,  and  on  the  boulder  rests  for  nearlj'- 
three  thousand  years  the  sacred  foot-print,  of  a  foot  five  feet  long.  Whj'^ 
not  credit  the  legend  of  the  latter,  if  we  have  to  accept  that  of  St.  Peter  ? 
"Prince  of  Apostles,"  or  "Prince  of  Reformers,"  or  even  the  "First- 
born of  Satan,"  as  Simon  is  called,  all  are  entitled  to  legends  and 
fictions.     One  may  be  allowed  to  discriminate,  however. 

That  Simon  could  fly,  i.e.,  raise  himself  in  the  air  for  a  few  minutes, 
is  no  impossibility.  Modern  mediums  have  performed  the  same  feat 
supported  by  a  force  that  Spiritualists  persist  in  calling  "  spirits."  But 
if  Simon  did  .so,  it  was  with  the  help  of  a  self-acquired  blind  power  that 
heeds  little  the  pra^'ers  and  commands  of  rival  Adepts,  let  alone  Saints. 
The  fact  is  that  logic  is  against  the  supposed  fall  of  Simon  at  the  prayer 
of  Peter.  For  had  he  been  defeated  publicly  by  the  Apostle,  his  dis- 
ciples would  have  abandoned  him  after  such  an  evident  sign  of  in- 
feriority, and  would  have  become  orthodox  Christians.  But  we  find 
even  the  author  of  Philosophiimena,  just  such  a  Christian,  showing 
otherwise.  Simon  had  lost  so  little  credit  with  his  pupils  and  the 
masses,  that  he  went  on  daily  preaching  in  the  Roman  Campania  after 
his  supposed  fall  from  the  clouds  "far  above  the  Capitolium,"  in  which 
fall  he  broke  his  legs  only  !  Such  a  lucky  fall  is  in  itself  suflSciently 
miraculous,  one  would  say. 


•  Amedee  Fleury,  Rapports  de  St.  Paul  avec  Senigue.  ii.  lOO.    The  whole  of  this  is  summarised  from 
De  MirWlle. 


SECTION  XV, 

St»  Paul  the  real  Founder  of  present 
Christianity. 


We  may  repeat  with  the  author  of  Phallicism  : 

We  are  all  for  construdian—^v^n  for  Christian,  although  of  course  philosophiccl 
construction.  We  have  nothing  to  do  with  reality,  in  man's  limited,  mechanical, 
scientific  sense,  or  with  realism.  We  have  undertaken  to  show  that  mysticism  is 
the  very  life  and  soul  of  religion ;  *  .  .  .  that  the  Bible  is  only  misread  and  mis- 
represented when  rejected  as  advancing  supposed  fabulous  and  contradictory  things  ; 
that  Moses  did  not  make  mistakes,  but  spoke  to  the  "children  of  men  "  in  the  only 
way  in  which  children  in  their  nonage  can  be  addressed ;  that  the  world  is,  indeed, 
a  very  diiFerent  place  from  that  which  it  is  assumed  to  be ;  that  what  is  derided  as 
superstition  is  the  only  true  and  the  only  scientific  knowledge,  and  moreover  that 
modern  knowledge  and  modem  science  are  to  a  great  extent  not  only  superstition, 
but  superstition  of  a  very  destructive  and  deadly  kind.t 

/  All  this  is  perfectly  true  and  correct.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the 
New  Testamejit,  the  Acts  and  the  Epistles — however  much  the  historical 
figure  of  Jesus  may  be  true — are  all  symbolical  and  allegorical  sayings, 
and  that  "  it  was  not  Jesus  but  Paul  who  was  the  real  founder  of  Chris- 
tianity ; "  X  but  it  was  not  the  official  Church  Christianity,  at  any  rate. 
"  The  disciples  were  called  Christians  first  in  Antioch,"  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  tell  us,§  and  they  were  not  so  called  before,  nor  for  a  long  time 
after,  but  simply  Nazarenes. 

This  view  is  found  in  more  than  one  writer  of  the  present  and  the 
past  centuries.     But,  hitherto,  it  has  always  been  laid  aside  as  an  un- 

*  But  we  can  never  agree  with  the  author  "  that  rites  and  ritual  and  formal  worship  and  prayers 
are  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  things,"  for  the  external  can  develop  and  grow  and  receive  worship 
only  at  the  expense  of,  and  to  the  detriment  of,  the  internal,  the  only  real  and  true. 

+  H.Jennings,  op.  cit.,  pp.  37,  38. 

X  See  Ists  Unveiled,  ii.  574. 

\  xi.  26. 


ABROGATION    OF   LAW    BY    INITIATES.  1 23 

proven  hypothesis,  a  blasphemous  assumption  ;  though,  as  the  author 
of  Paul,  the  Fozifider  of  Ckristiatiity*  truly  says  : 

Such  men  as  Irenaeus,  Epiphanius  and  Eusebius  have  transmitted  to  posterity  a 
reputation  for  such  untruth  and  dishonest  practices  that  the  heart  sickens  at  the 
story  of  the  crimes  of  that  period. 

The  more  so,  since  the  whole  Christian  scheme  rests  upon  their  say- 
ings. But  we  find  now  another  corroboration,  and  this  time  on  the 
perfect  reading  of  biblical  glyphs.  In  The  Source  of  Measures  we  und 
the  following: 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  our  present  Christianity  is  Pauline,  not  Jesus. 
Jesus,  in  his  life,  was  a  Jew,  conforming  to  the  law;  even  more,  He  says:  "The 
scribes  and  pharisees  sit  in  Moses'  seat ;  whatsoever  therefore  they  command  you 
to  do,  that  observe  and  do."  And  again :  "  I  did  not  come  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil 
the  law."  Therefore,  He  was  under  the  law  to  the  day  of  his  death,  and  could  not, 
while  in  life,  abrogate  one  jot  or  tittle  of  it.  He  was  circumcised  and  commanded 
circumcision.  But  Paul  said  of  circumcision  that  it  availed  nothing,  and  he  (Paul) 
abrogated  the  law.  Saul  and  Paul—th.aA.  is,  Saul,  under  the  law,  and  Paul,  freed 
from  the  obligations  of  the  law — were  in  one  man,  but  parallelisms  in  the  flesh,  of 
Jesus  the  man  under  the  law  as  observing  it.  who  thus  died  in  Chrestos  and  arose, 
freed  from  its  obligations,  in  the  spirit  world  as  Chrisios,  or  the  triumphant  Christ. 
It  was  the  Christ  who  was  freed,  but  Christ  was  in  the  Spirit.  Saul  in  the  flesh  was 
the  function  of,  and  parallel  of  Chrestos.  Paul  in  the  flesh  was  the  function  and 
parallel  of  Jesus  become  Christ  in  the  spirit,  as  an  early  reality  to  answer  to  and  act 
for  the  apotheosis ;  and  so  armed  with  all  authority  in  the  flesh  to  abrogate  human 
law.t 

The  real  reason  why  Paul  is  shown  as  "abrogating  the  law"  can  be 
found  only  in  India,  where  to  this  day  the  most  ancient  customs  and 
privileges  are  preserved  in  all  their  purity,  notwithstanding  the  abuse 
levelled  at  the  same.  There  is  onl)^  one  class  of  persons  who  can 
disregard  the  law  of  Brahmanical  institutions,  caste  included,  with  im- 
punity, and  that  is  tho:  perfect  "  Svamis,"  the  Yogis — who  have  reached, 
or  are  supposed  to  have  reached,  the  first  step  towards  the  Jivanmukta 
state — or  the  full  Initiates.  And  Paul  was  undeniably  an  Initiate.  We 
will  quote  a  passage  or  two  from  Isis  Unveiled,  for  we  can  say  now 
nothing  better  than  what  was  said  then  : 

Take  Paul,  read  the  little  of  original  that  is  left  of  him  in  the  writings  attributed 
to  this  brave,  honest,  sincere  man,  and  see  whether  anyone  can  find  a  word  therein 
to  show  that  Paul  meant  by  the  word  Christ  anything  more  than  the  abstract  ideal 
of  the  personal  divinity  indwelling  in  man.     For  Paul,  Christ  is  not  a  person,  but 

*  Art.,  by  Dr.  A.  Wilder,  in  Evolution.  t  Op.  cit.,  p.  262. 


124  '^^^   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

an  embodied  idea.  "If  any  man  is  in  Christ  he  is  a  new  creation,"  he  is  reborn,  a^ 
after  initiation,  for  the  Lord  is  spirit — the  spirit  of  man.  Paul  was  the  only  one  oi 
the  apostles  who  had  understood  the  secret  ideas  underlying  the  teachings  of  Jesus, 
although  he  had  never  met  him. 

But  Paul  himself  was  not  infallible  or  perfect. 

Bent  upon  inaugurating  a  new  and  broad  reform,  one  embracing  the  whole  of 
humanity,  he  sincerely  set  his  own  doctrines  far  above  the  wisdom  of  the  ages,  above 
the  ancient  Mysteries  and  final  revelation  to  the  Epoptse. 

Another  proof  that  Paul  belonged  to  the  circle  of  the  "Initiates"  lies  in  tne 
following  fact.  The  apostle  had  his  head  shorn  at  Cenchrese,  where  Lucius 
i/lpuleius)  was  initiated,  because  "  he  had  a  vow."  The  Nazars — or  set  apart — as 
we  see  in  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  had  to  cut  their  hair,  which  they  wore  long,  and 
which  "no  razor  touched"  at  any  other  time,  and  sacrifice  it  on  the  altar  of  initia- 
tion.    And  the  Nazars  were  a  class  of  Chaldsean  Theurgists  or  Initiates. 

It  is  shown  in  Isis  Ufiveiled  that  Jesus  belonged  to  this  class. 

Paul  declares  that :  "  According  to  the  grace  of  God  which  is  given  unto  me,  as  a 
wise  master-builder,  I  have  laid  the  foundation."     (/.  Corinth.,  iii.  lo.) 

This  expression,  master-builder,  used  only  once  in  the  whole  Bible,  and  by  Paul, 
may  be  considered  as  a  whole  revelation.  In  the  Mysteries,  the  third  part  of  the 
sacred  rites  was  called  Bpopteia,  or  revelation,  reception  into  the  secrets.  In  sub- 
stance it  means  the  highest  stage  of  clairvoyance — the  divine ;  ...  but  the 
real  significance  of  the  word  is  "overseeing,"  from  OTrrofiat — "I  see  myself."  In 
Sanskrit  the  root  dp  had  the  same  meaning  originally,  though  now  it  is  understood 
as  meaning  "  to  obtain."  * 

The  word  epopteia  is  compound,  from  cTri  "  upon,"  and  oTrro/Aat  "  to  look,"  or  an 
overseer,  an  inspector — also  used  for  a  master-builder.  The  title  of  master-mason, 
in  Freemasonry,  is  derived  from  this,  in  the  sense  used  in  the  Mysteries.  Therefore, 
when  Paul  entitles  himself  a  "master-builder,"  he  is  using  a  word  pre-eminently 
kabalistic,  theurgic,  and  masonic,  and  one  which  no  other  apostle  uses.  He  thus 
declares  himself  an  adept,  having  the  right  to  initiate  others. 

If  we  search  in  this  direction,  with  those  sure  guides,  the  Grecian  Mysteries  and 
the  Kabalah,  before  us,  it  will  be  easy  to  find  the  secret  reason  why  Paul  was  so 
persecuted  and  hated  by  Peter,  John,  and  James.  The  author  of  the  Revelation  was 
a  Jewish  Kabalist,  pur  sang,  with  all  the  hatred  inherited  b}'  him  from  his  fore- 
fathers toward  the  pagan  Mysteries.t  His  jealousy  during  the  life  of  Jesus  extended 
even  to  Peter ;  and  it  is  but  after  the  death  of  their  common  master  that  we  see  the 


*  In  its  most  extensive  meaning,  the  Sanskrit  word  has  the  same  literal  sense  as  the  Greek  term ; 
both  imply  "  revelation,"  by  no  human  agent,  but  through  the  "  receiving  of  the  sacred  drink."  In 
India  the  initiated  received  the  "  Soma,"  sacred  drink,  which  helped  to  liberate  his  soul  from  tht 
body  ;  and  in  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries  it  was  the  sacred  drink  offered  at  the  Epopteia.  The  Grecian 
Mysteries  are  wholly  derived  from  the  Brahmanical  Vaidic  rites,  and  the  latter  from  the  Ante-Vaidic 
religious  Mysteries— primitive  Wisdom  Philosophy. 

+  It  is  needless  to  state  that  the  Gospel  according  lojohn  was  not  written  by  John,  but  by  a  Platonist 
or  a  Gnostic  belonging  to  the  Neoplatonic  school. 


PAUL   CHANGED   TO   SIMON.  I25 

two  apostles — the  former  of  whom  wore  the  Mitre  and  the  Petaloon  of  the  Jewish 
Rabbis — preach  so  zealously  the  nte  of  circumcision.  In  the  eyes  of  Peter,  Paul, 
who  had  humiliated  him,  and  whom  he  felt  so  much  his  superior  in  "Greek  learn- 
ing" and  philosophj^  must  have  naturally  appeared  as  a  magician,  a  man  polluted 
with  the  "Gnosis,"  with  the  "wisdom"  of  the  Greek  Mysteries — hence,  perhaps, 
"Simon  the  Magician  "  as  a  comparison,  not  a  nickname.* 


•  Hid.,  loc.  cit.  The  fact  that  Peter  persecuted  the  "Apostle  to  the  Gentiles"  under  that  name, 
does  not  necessarily  imply  that  there  was  no  Simon  Magus  individually  distinct  from  Paul.  It  may 
have  become  a  generic  name  of  abuse.  Theodoret  and  Chrysostom,  the  earliest  and  most  prolific 
conunentators  on  the  Gnosticism  of  those  days,  seem  actually  to  make  of  Simon  a  rival  of  Paul  and  to 
state  that  between  them  passed  frequent  mes.sages.  The  former,  as  a  diligent  propagandist  of  what 
Paul  terms  the  "antithesis  of  the  Gnosis"  (/.  Epistle  to  Timothy),  must  have  been  a  sore  thorn  in 
the  side  of  the  apostle.    There  are  sufficient  proofs  of  the  actual  existence  of  Simon  Magus. 


SECTION  XVI. 

Peter  a  jE^^nsH  Kabalist,  not  an  Initiate. 


As  to  Peter,  biblical  criticism  has  shown  that  in  all  probabilit,v  he 
had  no  more  to  do  with  the  foundation  of  the  Latin  Church  at  Rome 
than  to  furnish  the  pretext,  so  readil.y  seized  upon  by  the  cunning 
Irenseus,  of  endowing  the  Church  with  a  new  name  for  the  Apostle — 
Petra  or  Kiffa — a  name  which,  by  an  easy  play  upon  words,  could  be 
readily  connected  with  Petroma.  The  Petroma  was  a  pair  of  stone 
tablets  used  by  the  Hierophants  at  the  Initiations,  during  the  final 
Myster3\  In  this  lies  concealed  the  secret  of  the  Vatican  claim  to  the 
seat  of  Peter,     As  already  quoted  in  his  Unveiled,  ii.  92  : 

In  the  Oriental  countries  the  designation  Peter  (in  Phoenician  and  Chaldaic  an 
interpreter),  appears  to  have  been  the  title  of  this  personage.* 

So  far,  and  as  the  "interpreters"  of  A^<?^-Christianism,  the  Popes 
have  most  undeniably  the  right  to  call  themselves  successors  to  the 
title  of  Peter,  but  hardly  the  successors  to,  least  of  all  the  interpreters 
of,  the  doctrines  of  Jesus,  the  Christ ;  for  there  is  the  Oriental  Church, 
older  and  far  purer  than  the  Roman  hierarchy,  which,  having  ever 
faithfully  held  to  the  primitive  teachings  of  the  Apostles,  is  known 
historically  to  have  refused  to  follow  the  Latin  seceders  from  the 
original  Apostolic  Church,  though,  curiously  enough,  she  is  still 
referred  to  by  her  Roman  sister  as  the  "Schismatic"  Church.  It  is 
useless  to  repeat  the  reasons  for  the  statements  above  made,  as  they 
may  all  be  found  in  his  Unveiled,]  where  the  words,  Peter,  Patar,  and 
Pitar,  are  explained,  and  the  origin  of  the  "Seat  of  Pitah"  is  shown. 
The  reader  will  find  upon  referring  to  the  above  pages  that  an  inscrip- 
tion was  found  on  the  cofl5n  of  Queen  Mentuhept  of  the  Eleventh 
Dynasty  (2250  B.C.  according  to  Bunsen),  which  in  its  turn  was  shown 


•  Taylor's  Eleuitnian  and  Bacchic  Mysteries,  Wilder's  ed.,  p.  x.  t  U.  91-94. 


THE   SEAT   OF    PETER.  127 

to  have  been  transcribed  from  the  Seventeenth  Chapter  of  the  Book  of 
the  Dead,  dating  certainly  not  later  than  4500  B.C.  or  496  years  before 
the  World's  Creation,  in  the  Genesiacal  chronology.  Nevertheless, 
Baron  Bunsen  shows  the  group  of  the  hieroglyphics  given  iPeter-ref-su, 
the  "Mystery  Word")  and  the  sacred  formulary  mixed  up  with  a  whole 
series  of  glosses  and  various  interpretations  on  a  monument  4,000 
years  old. 

This  is  identical  with  saying  that  the  record  (the  true  interpretation)  was  at  that 
time  no  longer  intelligible.  •  .  .  We  beg  our  readers  to  understand  that  a  sacred 
text,  a  hymn,  containing  the  words  of  a  departed  spirit,  existed  in  such  a  state, 
about  4,000  years  ago,  as  to  be  all  but  unintelligible  to  royal  scribes.* 

"Unintelligible"  to  the  non-initiated — this  is  certain;  and  it  is  so 
proved  by  the  confused  and  contradictory  glosses.  Yet  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  it  was — for  it  still  is — a  mystery  word.  The  Baron  further 
explains : 

It  appears  to  me  that  our  PTR  is  literally  the  old  Aramaic  and  Hebrew  "  Patar," 
which  occurs  in  the  history'  of  Joseph  as  the  specific  word  for  interpreting,  whence 
also  Pitrum  is  the  term  for  interpretation  of  a  text,  a  dream.t 

This  word,  PTR,  was  partially  interpreted  owing  to  another  word 
similarly  written  in  another  group  of  hieroglyphics,  on  a  stele,  the 
glyph  used  for  it  being  an  opened  eye,  interpreted  by  De  Rouge]:  as 
"to  appear,"  and  by  Bunsen  as  "illuminator,"  which  is  more  correct. 
However  it  may  be,  the  word  Patar,  or  Peter,  would  locate  both  master 
and  disciple  in  the  circle  of  initiation,  and  connect  them  with  the  Secret 
Doctrine;  while  in  the  "Seat  of  Peter"  we  can  hardly  help  seeing  a 
connection  with  Petroma,  the  double  set  of  stone  tablets  used  by  the 
Hierophant  at  the  Supreme  Initiation  during  the  final  Mystery,  as 
already  stated,  also  with  the  Pitha-sthana  (seat,  or  the  place  of  a  seat), 
a  term  used  in  the  Mysteries  of  the  Tantriks  in  India,  in  which  the 
limbs  of  Sati  are  scattered  and  then  united  again,  as  those  of  Osiris  by 
Isis.§  Pitha  is  a  Sanskrit  word,  and  is  also  used  to  designate  the  seat 
of  the  initiating  Lama. 

Whether  all  the  above  terms  are  due  simplj^  to  "coincidences"  or 
otherwise  is  left  to  the  decision  of  our  learned  Symbologists  and  Philo- 
logists.    We  state  facts — and  nothing  more.     Many  other  writers,  far 


*  Bunsen,  Egypt's  Place  in  History,  v.  90. 

+  Ibid. 

t  Stele,  p.  44. 

?  See  Dowson's  Hindu  Classical  Diet.,  sub  voc,  "  Pitha-sthanatn." 


128  THE   SECPv^T   DOCTRINE. 

more  learned  and  entitled  to  be  J  -^ard  than  the  author  has  ever  claimed 
to  be,  have  sufficiently  demonstrated  that  Peter  never  had  anything 
to  do  with  the  foundation  of  the  Latin  Church ;  that  his  supposed 
name  Petra  or  KiflFa,  also  the  whole  story  of  his  Apostleship  at  Rome, 
are  simply  a  play  on  the  term,  which  meant  in  every  country,  in  one 
or  another  form,  the  Hierophant  or  Interpreter  of  the  Mysteries  ;  and 
that  finally,  far  from  dying  a  martyr  at  Rome,  where  he  had  probably 
never  been,  h'^  died  at  a  good  old  age  at  Babylon.  In  Scpher  Toldoth 
Jeshu,  a  Hebrew  manuscript  of  great  antiquity — evidently  an  original 
and  very  precious  document,  if  one  may  judge  from  the  care  the  Jews 
took  to  hide  it  from  the  Christians — Simon  (Peter)  is  referred  to  as  "  a 
faithful  servant  of  God,"  who  passed  his  life  in  austerities  and  medita- 
tion, a  Kabalist  and  a  Nazarene  who  lived  at  Babylon  "at  the  top  of  a 
tower,  composed  hymns,  preached  charit5%"  and  died  there. 


SECTION   XVIL 

Apollonius  of  Tyana. 


It  is  said  in  /sis  Unveiled  that  the  greatest  teachers  of  divinity  agree 
that  nearly  all  ancient  books  were  written  symbolically  and  in  a  lan- 
guage intelligible  only  to  the  Initiated.  The  biographical  sketch  of 
ApoUonius  of  Tyana  aifords  an  example.  As  everj'  Kabalist  knows,  it 
embraces  the  whole  of  the  Hermetic  Philosophy,  being  a  counterpart 
in  many  respects  of  the  traditions  left  us  of  King  Solomon.  It  reads 
like  a  fairy  story,  but,  as  in  the  case  of  the  latter,  sometimes  facts  and 
historical  events  are  presented  to  the  world  under  the  colours  of 
fiction.  The  journey  to  India  represents  in  its  every  stage,  though  of 
course  allegorically,  the  trials  of  a  Neophyte,  giving  at  the  same  time  a 
geographical  and  topographical  idea  of  a  certain  country  as  it  is  even 
now,  if  one  knows  where  to  look  for  it.  The  long  discourses  of  ApoUo- 
nius with  the  Brahmans,  their  sage  advice,  and  the  dialogues  with  the 
Corinthian  Menippus  would,  if  interpreted,  give  the  Esoteric  Catechism. 
His  visit  to  the  empire  of  the  wise  men,  his  interview  with  their  king 
Hiarchas,  the  oracle  of  Amphiaraus,  explain  symbolically  manj'  of  the 
secret  dogmas  of  Hermes — in  the  generic  sense  of  the  name — and  of 
Occultism.  Wonderful  is  this  to  relate,  and  were  not  the  statement 
supported  by  numerous  calculations  already  made,  and  the  secret 
already  half  revealed,  the  writer  would  never  have  dared  to  say  it. 
The  travels  of  the  great  Magus  are  correctly,  though  allegorically 
described — that  is  to  say,  all  that  is  related  by  Damis  had  actually 
taken  place — but  the  narrative  is  based  upon  the  Zodiacal  signs. 
As  transliterated  by  Damis  under  the  guidance  of  ApoUonius  and 
translated  by  Fhilostratus,  it  is  a  marvel  indeed.  At  the  conclusion 
of  what  may  now  be  related  of  the  wonderful  Adept  of  Tyana  our  mean- 
ing will  become  clearer.  Sufl&ce  it  to  say  for  the  present  that  the  dia- 
logues spoken  of  would  disclose,  if  correctly  understood,  some  of  the 
most  important  secrets  of  Nature.     Eliphas  Levi  points  out  the  great 


130  ^HE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

resemblance  which  exists  between  King  Hiarchus  and  the  fabulous 
Hiram,  from  whom  Solomon '  procured  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  and  the 
gold  of  Ophir.  But  he  keeps  silent  as  to  another  resemblance  of  which, 
as  a  learned  Kabalist,  he  could  not  be  ignorant.  Moreover,  according 
to  his  invariable  custom,  he  mystifies  the  reader  more  than  he  teaches 
him,  divulging  nothing  and  leading  him  off  the  right  track. 

lyike  most  of  the  historical  heroes  of  hoary  antiquity,  whose  lives  and 
works  strongly  difier  from  those  of  commonplace  humanity,  ApoUonius 
is  to  this  day  a  riddle,  which  has,  so  far,  found  no  CE)dipus.  His  exis- 
tence is  surrounded  with  such  a  veil  of  mystery  that  he  is  often  mis- 
taken for  a  myth.  But  according  to  every  law  of  logic  and  reason,  it  is 
quite  clear  that  Apollonius  should  never  be  regarded  in  such  a  light. 
If  the  Tyanean  Theurgist  may  be  put  down  as  a  fabulous  character,  then 
history  has  no  right  to  her  Caesars  and  Alexanders.  It  is  quite  true 
that  this  Sage,  who  stands  unrivalled  in  his  thaumaturgical  powers  to 
this  day — on  evidence  historically  attested — came  into  the  arena  of 
public  life  no  one  seems  to  know  whence,  and  disappeared  from  it,  no 
one  seems  to  know  whither.  But  the  reasons  for  this  are  evident. 
Every  means  was  used — especially  during  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries 
of  our  era — to  sweep  from  people's  minds  the  remembrance  of  this 
great  and  holy  man.  The  circulation  of  his  biographies,  which  were 
many  and  enthusiastic,  was  prevented  by  the  Christians,  and  for  a  ver}' 
good  reason,  as  we  shall  see.  The  diary  of  Damis  survived  most  mira- 
culously, and  remained  alone  to  tell  the  tale.  But  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  Justin  Martyr  often  speaks  of  Apollonius,  and  the  charac- 
ter and  truthfulness  of  this  good  man  are  unimpeachable,  the  more  in 
that  he  had  good  reasons  to  feel  bewildered.  Nor  can  it  be  denied  that 
there  is  hardly  a  Church  Father  of  the  first  six  centuries  that  left 
Apollonius  unnoticed.  Only,  according  to  invariable  Christian  customs 
of  charity,  their  pens  were  dipped  as  usual  in  the  blackest  ink  of  odium 
theologicum,  intolerance  and  one-sidedness.  St.  Jerome  (Hieronymus) 
gives  at  length  the  story  of  St.  John's  alleged  contest  with  the  Sage  of 
Tyana — a  competition  of  "  miracles" — in  which,  of  course,  the  truthful 
saint*  describes  in  glowing  colours  the  defeat  of  Apollonius,  and  seeks 

*  See  Preface  to  St.  Matthew's  Gospel,  Baronius,  i.  752,  quoted  in  De  Mirville,  vi.  63.  Jerome  is  the 
Father  who  having  found  the  authentic  and  orig-inal  Evangel  (the  Hebrew  text),  by  Matthew  the 
Apostle-publican,  in  the  library  of  Ciesarea,  "  written  by  the  hand  of  Matthew  "  (Hieronymus  :  De 
Viris,  Illust.  Chap,  iii.)— as  he  himself  admits— set  it  down  as  heretical,  and  substituted  for  it  his  own 
Greek  text.  And  it  is  also  he  who  perverted  the  text  in  the  Book  0/  Job  to  enforce  belief  in  the  re- 
surrection in  flesh  (see  Isis  Unveiled,  Vol.  ii.  pp.  181  and  182,  et  seq.),  quoting  in  support  the  moi>i 
learned  authorities. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   TEACHER.  I'^I 

corroboration  in  St.  John's  Apocrypha  proclaimed  doubtful  even  by  the 
Church.* 

Therefore  it  is  that  nobody  can  say  where  or  when  ApoUonius  was 
born,  and  ever^'one  is  equally  ignorant  of  the  date  at  which,  and  of  the 
place  where  he  died.  Some  think  he  was  eighty  or  ninety  years  old 
at  the  time  of  his  death,  others  that  he  was  one  hundred  or  even  one 
hundred  and  seventeen.  But,  whether  he  ended  his  days  at  Ephesus 
in  the  year  96  a.d.,  as  some  say,  or  whether  the  event  took  place  at 
Lindus  in  the  temple  of  Pallas- Athene,  or  whether  again  he  disappeared 
from  the  temple  of  Dictynna,  or  whether,  as  others  maintain,  he  did 
not  die  at  all,  but  when  a  hundred  years  old  renewed  his  life  by  Magic. 
and  went  on  working  for  the  benefit  of  humanity,  no  one  can  tell. 
The  Secret  Records  alone  have  noted  his  birth  and  subsequent  career. 
But  then — "  who  hath  believed  in  that  report  ?  " 

All  that  history  knows  is  that  ApoUonius  was  the  enthusiastic  founder 
of  a  new  school  of  contemplation.  Perhaps  less  metaphorical  and  more 
practical  than  Jesus,  he  nevertheless  inculcated  the  same  quintessence 
of  spirituality,  the  same  high  moral  truths.  He  is  accused  of  having 
confined  them  to  the  higher  classes  of  society  instead  of  doing  what 
Buddha  and  Jesus  did,  instead  of  preaching  them  to  the  poor  and  the 
afflicted.  Of  his  reasons  for  acting  in  such  an  exclusive  way  it  is  im- 
possible to  judge  at  so  late  a  date.  But  Karmic  law  seems  to  be  mixed 
up  with  it.  Born,  as  we  are  told,  among  the  aristocracy,  it  is  very 
likely  that  he  desired  to  finish  the  work  undone  in  this  particular 
direction  by  his  predecessor,  and  sought  to  oifer  "peace  on  earth  and 
good  will"  to  a/t  men,  and  not  alone  to  the  outcast  and  the  criminal. 
Therefore  he  associated  with  the  kings  and  the  mighty  ones  of  the  age. 
Nevertheless,  the  three  "miracle-workers"  exhibited  striking  simi- 
larity of  purpose.  Like  Jesus  and  like  Buddha,  ApoUonius  was  the 
uncompromising  enemy  of  all  outward  show  of  piety,  all  display  of 
useless  religious  ceremonies,  bigotry  and  hypocrisy.  That  his  "  mira- 
cles "  were  more  wonderful,  more  varied,  and  far  better  attested  in 

•  De  MirviUe  gives  Uie  following  Uirilling  account  of  Uie  "  contest." 

"John,  pressed,  as  St.  Jerome  tells  us,  by  all  the  churches  of  Asia  to  proclaim  more  solemnly  [in  the 
face  of  the  miracles  of  ApoUonius]  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ,  after  a  long  prayer  with  his  disciples 
on  the  Mount  of  Patmos  and  being  in  ecstasy  by  the  divine  Spirit,  made  heard  amid  thunder  and 
lightning  his  famous  In  Pyincipio  eral  Verbum.  When  that  sublime  extasis,  that  caused  him  to  be 
named  the  'Son  of  Thunder,'  had  passed,  ApoUonius  was  compelled  to  retire  and  to  disappear. 
Such  was  his  defeat,  less  bloody  but  as  hard  as  that  of  Simon,  the  Magician.  ("The  Magician  Theur- 
eist,"  vi.  63)  For  our  part  we  have  never  heard  of  extasis  producing  thunder  and  lightning  and  we 
are  at  a  loss  to  understand  the  meaning. 


132  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

History  than  any  others,  is  also  true.  Materialism  denies ;  but  evi- 
dence, and  the  affirmations  of  even  the  Church  herself,  however  much 
he  is  branded  by  her,  show  this  to  be  the  fact.* 

The  calumnies  set  afloat  against  Apollonius  were  as  numerous  as  they  were  false. 
So  late  as  eighteen  centuries  after  his  death  he  was  defamed  by  Bishop  Douglas  in 
his  work  against  miracles.  In  this  the  Right  Reverend  bishop  crushed  himself 
against  historical  facts.  For  it  is  not  in  the  miracles,  but  in  the  identity  of  ideas 
and  doctrines  preached  that  we  have  to  look  for  a  similarity  between  Buddha,  Jesus 
and  Apollonius.  If  we  study  the  question  with  a  dispassionate  mind,  we  shall  soon 
perceive  that  the  ethics  of  Gautama,  Plato,  Apollonius,  Jesus,  Ammonius  Sakkas, 
and  his  disciples,  were  all  based  on  the  same  mystic  philosophy — that  all  wor- 
shipped one  divine  Ideal,  whether  they  considered  it  as  the  "Father"  of  humanity, 
who  lives  in  man,  as  man  lives  in  Him,  or  as  the  Incomprehensible  Creative  Prin- 
ciple. All  led  God-like  lives.  Ammonius,  speaking  of  his  philosophy,  taught  that 
their  school  dated  from  the  days  of  Hermes,  who  brought  his  vnsdom  from  India. 
It  was  the  same  mystical  contemplation  throughout  as  that  of  the  Yogin  :  the  com- 
munion of  the  Brahman  with  his  ow^n  luminous  Self^the  "  Atman."t 

The  groundwork  of  the  Eclectic  School  is  thus  shown  to  be  identical 
with  the  doctrines  of  the  Yogis — the  Hindu  Mystics ;  it  is  proved  that 
it  had  a  common  origin,  from  the  same  source  as  the  earlier  Buddhism 
of  Gautama  and  of  his  Arhats. 

The  Ineffable  Name  in  the  search  for  which  so  many  Kabalists — unacquainted 
with  any  Oriental  or  even  European  Adepts — vainly  consume  their  knowledge  and 
lives,  dwells  latent  in  the  heart  of  every  man.  This  mirific  name  which,  according 
to  the  most  ancient  oracles,  "  rushes  into  the  infinite  worlds,  dt^oiTT/roxTTpoe^aXiyyi,' 
can  be  obtained  in  a  twofold  way:  by  regular  initiation,  and  through  the  "small 
voice  "  which  Elijah  heard  in  the  cave  of  Horeb,  the  mount  of  God.  And  "  when 
Elijah  heard  it  he  wrapped  his  face  in  his  mantle  and  stood  in  the  entering  of  the 
cave.     And  behold  there  came  M^  voice." 

When  Apollonius  of  Tyana  desired  to  hear  the  "small  voice,"  he  used  to  wrap 
himself  up  entirely  in  a  mantle  of  fine  wool,  on  which  he  placed  both  his  feet,  after 
having  performed  certain  magnetic  passes,  and  pronounced  not  the  "name"  but 
an  invocation  well  known  to  every  adept.  Then  he  drew  the  mantle  over  his  head 
and  face,  and  his  translucid  or  astral  spirit  was  free.  On  ordinary  occasions  he 
no  more  wore  wool  than  the  priests  of  the  temples.  The  possession  of  the  secret 
combination  of  the  "name"  gave  the  Hierophant  supreme  power  over  every  being, 
human  or  otherwise,  inferior  to  himself  in  soul-strength.  J 

*  This  is  the  old,  oldstory.  Who  of  us,  Theosophists,  but  knows  by  bitter  personal  experience  whnt 
clerical  hatred,  malice  and  persecution  can  do  in  this  direction  ;  to  what  an  extent  of  falsehood, 
calumny  and  cruelty  these  feelings  can  go,  even  in  our  modern  day.  and  what  exemplars  of  Christ- 
like  charity  His  alleged  and  self-constituted  servants  have  shown  themselves  to  be ! 

+  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  342. 

%  Loc.  cit.,  ii.  343,  344. 


APOLLONIUS  CANNOT   BE    DESTROYED.  I33' 

To  whatever  school  he  belonged,  this  fact  is  certain,  that  Apollonius 
of  Tyana  left  an  imperishable  name  behind  him.  Hundreds  of  works 
were  written  upon  this  wonderful  man  ;  historians  have  seriously  dis- 
cussed him  ;  pretentious  fools,  unable  to  come  to  any  conclusion  about 
the  Sage,  have  tried  to  deny  his  very  existence.  As  to  the  Church, 
although  she  execrates  his  memor>-,  she  has  ever  tried  to  present  him 
m  the  light  of  a  historical  character.  Her  policy  now  seems  to  be  to 
direct  the  impression  left  by  him  into  another  channel — a  well  known 
and  a  very  old  stratagem.  The  Jesuits,  for  instance,  while  admitting 
his  "  miracles,"  have  set  going  a  double  current  of  thought,  and  they 
have  succeeded,  as  they  succeed  in  all  they  undertake.  Apollonius  is 
represented  by  one  party  as  an  obedient  "  medium  of  Satan,"  surround- 
ing his  theurgical  powers  by  a  most  wonderful  and  dazzling  light; 
while  the  other  party  professes  to  regard  the  whole  matter  as  a  clever 
romance,  written  with  a  predetermined  object  in  view. 

In  his  voluminous  Memoirs  of  Satan,  the  Marquis  de  Mirville,  in  the 
course  of  his  pleading  for  the  recognition  of  the  enemy  of  God  as  the 
producer  of  spiritual  phenomena,  devotes  a  whole  chapter  to  this  great 
Adept,.  The  following  translation  of  passages  in  his  book  unveils  the 
whole  plot.  The  reader  is  asked  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  Marquis 
wrote  every  one  of  his  works  under  the  auspices  and  authorisation  of 
the  Holy  See  of  Rome. 

It  would  be  to  leave  the  first  centur>-  incomplete  and  to  ofFer  an  insult  to  the 
memory  of  St.  John,  to  pass  over  in  silence  the  name  of  one  who  had  the  honour  ot 
being  his  special  antagonist,  as  Simon  was  that  of  St.  Peter,  Elymas  that  of  Paul, 
etc.  In  the  first  years  of  the  Christian  era,  .  .  .  there  appeared  at  Tyana  in 
Cappadocia  one  of  those  extraordinary  men  of  whom  the  Pythagorean  School  was 
so  very  lavish.  As  great  a  traveller  as  was  his  master,  initiated  in  all  the  secret 
doctrines  of  India,  Egypt  and  Chaldaea,  endowed,  therefore,  with  all  the  theurgic 
powers  of  the  ancient  Magi,  he  bewildered,  each  in  its  turn,  all  the  countries  which 
he  visited,  and  which  all— we  are  obliged  to  admit— seem  to  have  blessed  his 
memory.  We  could  not  doubt  this  fact  without  repudiating  real  historical  records. 
The  details  of  his  life  are  transmitted  to  us  by  a  historian  of  the  fourth  century 
(Philostratus),  himself  the  translator  of  a  diary  that  recorded  day  by  day  the  life  of 
the  philosopher,  written  by  Damis,  his  disciple  and  intimate  friend.* 

De  Mirville  admits  the  possibility  of  some  exaggerations  in  both 
recorder  and  translator;  but  he  "does  not  believe  they  hold  a  very 
wide  space  in  the  narrative."     Therefore,  he  regrets  to  find  the  Abbe 


♦  Pneumatologie,  vi.  62. 


J-.  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Freppel  "  in  his  eloquent  Essays,*  calling  the  diary  of  Damis  a  romance." 
Why? 

[Because]  the  orator  bases  his  opinion  on  the  perfect  similitude,  calculated  as  he 
imagines,  of  that  legend  with  the  life  of  the  Saviour.  But  in  studying  the  subject 
more  profoundly,  he  [Abbe  Freppel]  can  convince  himself  that  neither  Apollonius, 
nor  Damis,  nor  again  Philostratus  ever  claimed  a  greater  honour  than  a  likeness  to 
St.  John.  This  programme  was  in  itself  sufficiently  fascinating,  and  the  travesty  as 
suflficiently  scandalous;  for  owing  to  magic  arts  Apollonius  had  succeeded  in 
counterbalancing,  in  appearance,  several  of  the  miracles  at  Ephesus  [produced  by 
vSt.  John],  etct 

The  unguis  hi  herba  has  shown  its  head.  It  is  the  perfect,  the  won- 
derful similitude  of  the  life  of  Apollonius  with  that  of  the  Saviour  that 
places  the  Church  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis.  To  deny  the  life 
and  the  "  miracles  "  of  the  former,  would  amount  to  denying  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  same  Apostles  and  patristic  writers  on  whose  evidence 
is  built  the  life  of  Jesus  himself.  To  father  the  Adept's  beneficent 
deeds,  his  raisings  of  the  dead,  acts  of  charity,  healing  powers,  etc.,  on 
the  "  old  enemy  "  would  be  rather  dangerous  at  this  time.  Hence  the 
stratagem  to  confuse  the  ideas  of  those  who  rely  upon  authorities  and 
criticisms.  The  Church  is  far  more  clear-sighted  than  any  of  our  great 
historians.  The  Church  knows  that  to  deny  the  existence  of  that 
Adept  would  lead  her  to  denjang  the  Emperor  Vespasian  and  his  His- 
torians, the  Emperors  Alexander  Severus  and  Aurelianus  and  their 
Historians,  and  finally  to  deny  Jesus  and  every  evidence  about  Him, 
thus  preparing  the  way  to  her  flock  for  finally  denying  herself.  It 
becomes  interesting  to  learn  what  she  says  in  this  emergency,  through 
her  chosen  speaker,  De  Mirville.     It  is  as  follows : 

What  is  there  so  new  and  so  impossible  in  the  narrative  of  Damis 
concerning  their  voyages  to  the  countries  of  the  Chaldees  and  the 
Gymnosophists  ? — he  asks.  Try  to  recall,  before  denying,  what  were 
in  those  days  those  countries  of  marvels  par  excellence,  as  also  the  testi- 
mony of  such  men  as  P3'thagoras,  Empedocles  and  Democritus,  who 
ought  to  be  allowed  to  have  known  what  they  were  writing  about. 
With  what  have  we  finally  to  reproach  Apollonius  ?  Is  it  for  having 
made,  as  the  Oracles  did,  a  series  of  prophecies  and  predictions  won- 
derfully verified  ?  No  :  because,  better  studied  now,  we  know  what  they 
are.:}:     The  Oracles  have  now  become  to  us,  what  they  were  to  every 


•  Les  Apologistes  ChrUuns  au  Second  Siicle,  p.  ro6. 

+  Pneumatologie ,  vi,  62. 

X  Many  are  they  who  do  not  know,:  hence,  they  do  not  believe  in  tliem. 


DE   MIRVILLB  ON   APOLLONIUS.  135 

one  during  the  past  century,  from  Van  Dale  to  Fontenelle.  Is  it  for 
having  been  endowed  with  second  sight,  and  having  had  visions  at 
a  distance  ?  *  No ;  for  such  phenomena  are  at  the  present  day 
endemical  in  half  Europe.  Is  it  for  having  boasted  of  his  knowledge 
of  every  existing  language  under  the  sun,  without  having  ever  learned 
one  of  them  ?  But  who  can  be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  this  is  the  best 
criterionf  of  the  presence  and  assistance  of  a  spirit  of  whatever  nature 
it  may  be  ?  Or  is  it  for  having  believed  in  transmigration  (reincarna- 
tion) ?  It  is  still  believed  in  (by  millions)  in  our  day.  No  one  has  any 
idea  of  the  number  of  the  men  of  Science  who  long  for  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  Druidical  Religion  and  of  the  Mysteries  of  Pythagoras. 
Or  is  it  for  having  exorcised  the  demons  and  the  plague  ?  The  Eg>'p- 
tians,  the  Etruscans  and  all  the  Roman  Pontiffs  had  done  so  long 
before.]:  For  having  conversed  with  the  dead  ?  We  do  the  same  to-day, 
or  believe  we  do  so — which  is  all  the  same.  For  having  believed  in 
the  Empuses  ?  Where  is  the  Demonologist  that  does  not  know  that 
the  Empuse  is  the  "  south  demon  "  referred  to  in  David's  Psalms,  and 
dreaded  then  as  it  is  feared  even  now  in  all  Northern  Europe  ?  §  For 
having  made  himself  invisible  at  will  ?  It  is  one  of  the  achievements 
of  mesmerism.  For  having  appeared  after  his  (supposed)  death  to  the 
Emperor  Aurelian  above  the  city  walls  of  Tyaua,  and  for  having  com- 
pelled him  thereby  to  raise  the  siege  of  that  town  ?  Such  was  the 
mission  of  every  hero  beyond  the  tomb,  and  the  reason  of  the  worship 
vowed  to  the  Manes. ||  For  having  descended  into  the  famous  den  of 
Trophonius,  and  taken  from  it  an  old  book  preserved  for  years  after  by 
the  Emperor  Adrian  in  his  Antium  library?  The  trustworthy  and 
sober  Pausanias  had  descended  into  the  same  den  before  ApoUonius, 
and  came  back  no  less  a  believer.  For  having  disappeared  at  his 
death  ?     Yes,  like  Romulus,  like  Votan,  like    Lycurgus,  like   Pythag- 


•  Just  so.  Apollonius,  during  a  lecture  he  was  delivering  at  Ephesus  before  an  audience  of  many 
thousands,  perceived  the  murder  of  the  Emperor  Domitian  in  Rome  and  notified  it  at  the  very 
moment  it  was  taking  place,  to  the  whole  town;  and  Swedenborg,  in  the  same  manner,  saw  from 
Gothenburg  the  great  fire  at  Stockholm  and  told  it  to  his  friends,  no  telegraph  being  in  use  in  those 
days. 

+  No  criterion  at  all.  The  Hindu  Saddhus  and  Adepts  acquire  the  gift  by  the  holiness  of  their 
lives.     The  Yoga-Vidya  teaches  it,  and  no  "  spirits  "  are  required. 

X  As  to  the  Pontiffs,  the  matter  is  rather  doubtful. 

\  But  this  alone  is  no  reason  why  people  should  believe  in  this  class  of  spirits.  There  are  better 
authorities  for  such  belief. 

II  De  Mirville's  aim  is  to  show  that  all  siich  apparitions  of  the  Manes  or  disembodied  Spirits  are  the 
work  of  the  Devil,  "Satan's  simulacrn    ' 


136  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

oras,*  always  under  the  most  mysterious  circumstances,  ever  attended  by 
apparitions,  revelations,  etc.  Let  us  stop  here  and  repeat  once  more : 
had  the  life  of  Apollonius  been  simple  romance,  he  would  never  have 
attained  such  a  celebrity  during  his  lifetime  or  created  such  a  numerous 
sect,  one  so  enthusiastic  after  his  death. 

And,  to  add  to  this,  had  all  this  been  a  romance,  never  would  a  Cara- 
calla  have  raised  a  hereon  to  his  memoryf  or  Alexander,  Severus 
have  placed  his  bust  between  those  of  two  Demi-Gods  and  of  the  true 
God, I  or  an  Empress  have  corresponded  with  him.  Hardly  rested 
from  the  hardships  of  the  siege  at  Jerusalem,  Titus  would  not  have 
hastened  to  write  to  Apollonius  a  letter,  asking  to  meet  him  at  Argos 
and  adding  that  his  father  and  himself  (Titus)  owed  all  to  him,  the 
great  Apollonius,  and  that,  therefore,  his  first  thought  was  for  their 
benefactor.  Nor  would  the  Emperor  Aurelian  have  built  a  temple  and 
a  shrine  to  that  great  Sage,  to  thank  him  for  his  apparition  and  com- 
munication at  Tyana.  That  posthumous  conversation,  as  all  knew, 
saved  the  city,  inasmuch  as  Aurelian  had  in  consequence  raised  the 
siege.  Furthermore,  had  it  been  a  romance,  Histor}^  would  not  have 
had  Vopiscus,§  one  of  the  most  trustworthy  Pagan  Historians,  to  certify 
to  it.  Finally,  x\pollonius  would  not  have  been  the  object  of  the 
admiration  of  such  a  noble  character  as  Epictetus,  and  even  of  several 
of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church ;  Jerome  for  instance,  in  his  better  moments, 
writing  thus  of  Apollonius  : 

This  travelling  philosopher  found  something  to  learn  wherever  he  went ;  and  pro- 
fiting everywhere  thus  improved  with  every  day.|| 


•  He  mig:ht  have  added :  like  the  great  Shankaracharya,  Tsong-Kha-Pa,  and  so  many  other  real 
Adepts — even  his  own  Master,  Jesus  ;  for  this  is  indeed  a  criterion  of  true  Adeptship,  though  "  to  dis- 
appear" one  need  not  fly  up  in  the  clouds. 

■•■  See  Dion  Cassius,  XXVII.  xviii.  2. 

t  Lampridius,  Adrian,  xxix.  2. 

?  The  passage  runs  as  follows  :  "Aurelian  had  determined  to  destroy  Tyana,  and  the  town  owed 
its  salvation  only  to  a  miracle  of  Apollonius  ;  this  man  so  famous  and  so  wise,  this  great  friend  of  the 
Gods,  appeared  suddenly  before  the  Emperor,  as  he  was  returning  to  his  tent,  in  his  own  figure  and 
form,  and  said  to  him  in  the  Pannonian  language  :  '  Aurelian,  if  thou  wouldst  conquer,  abandon  the.se 
evil  designs  against  my  fellow-citizens :  if  thou  wouldst  command,  abstain  from  shedding  innocent 
blood ;  and  if  thou  wouldst  live,  abstain  from  injustice.'  Aurelian,  familiar  with  the  face  of  Apollonius, 
whose  portraits  he  had  seen  in  many  temples,  struck  with  wonder,  immediately  vowed  to  him  (Apol- 
lonius) statue,  portrait  and  temple,  and  returned  completely  to  ideas  of  mercy."  And  then  Vopiscus 
adds:  "  If  I  have  believed  more  and  more  in  the  virtues  of  the  majestic  Apollonius,  it  is  because,  after 
gathering  my  information  from  the  most  serious  men,  I  have  found  all  these  facts  corroborated  in 
the  Books  of  the  Ulpian  Library."  (See  Klaxnus  Vopiscus,  Aurelianus).  Vopi.scus  wrote  in  350  and 
consequently  preceded  Philostratus  by  a  century. 

|:  Ep.  ad  Paulinum. 


APOLI^ONIUS   NO    FICTION.  I37 

As  to  his  prodigies,  without  wishing  to  fathom  them,  Jerome  most 
undeniably  admits  them  as  such  ;  which  he  would  assuredly  never  have 
done,  had  he  not  been  compelled  to  do  so  by  facts.  To  end  the  sub- 
ject, had  Apolloniusbeen  a  simple  hero  of  a  romance,  dramatised  in  the 
fourth  century,  the  Ephesians  would  not,  in  their  enthusiastic  grati- 
tude, have  raised  to  him  a  golden  statue  for  all  the  benefits  he  had  con- 
ferred upon  them.* 


TBe  above  is  niostl5'  summarised  trom  De  Mirville,  loc.  cit.,  pp  oo-« 


SECTION    XVIII. 

Facts  underlying  Adept   Biographies 


The  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits ;  the  nature  of  the  Adept  by  his 
words  and  deeds.  These  words  of  charity  and  mercy,  the  noble  advice 
put  into  the  mouth  of  Apollonius  (or  of  his  sidereal  phantom),  as 
given  by  Vopiscus,  show  the  Occultists  who  Apollonius  was.  Why 
then  call  him  the  "  Medium  of  Satan "  seventeen  centuries  later  ? 
There  must  be  a  reason,  and  a  very  potent  reason,  to  justify  and 
explain  the  secret  of  such  a  strong  animus  of  the  Church  against  one 
of  the  noblest  men  of  his  age.  There  is  a  reason  for  it,  and  we  give 
it  in  the  words  of  the  author  of  the  Key  to  the  Hebrew- Egyptian 
Mystery  in  the  Source  of  Measures,  and  of  Professor  Seyffarth.  The 
latter  analyses  and  explains  the  salient  dates  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  and 
thus  throws  light  on  the  conclusions  of  the  former.  We  quote  both, 
blending  the  two. 

According  to  solar  months  (of  thirty  days,  one  of  the  calendars  in  use  among 
the  Hebrews)  all  remarkable  events  of  the  Old  Testament  happened  on  the  days  of 
the  equinoxes  and  the  solstices ;  for  instance,  the  foundations  and  dedications  of 
the  temples  and  altars  [and  consecration  of  the  tabernacle].  On  the  same  cardinal 
days,  the  most  remarkable  events  of  the  New  Testament  happened ;  for  instance,  the 
annunciation,  the  birth,  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  and  the  birth  of  John  the  Baptist. 
And  thus  we  learn  that  all  remarkable  epochs  of  the  New  Testament  v^^x^  tj'pically 
sanctified  a  long  time  before  by  the  Old  Testam,enl,  beginning  at  the  day  succeeding 
the  end  of  the  Creation,  which  was  the  day  of  the  vernal  equinox.  During  the 
crucifixion,  on  the  14th  day  of  Nisau,  Dionysius  Areopagita  saw,  in  Ethiopia,  an 
eclipse  of  the  sun,  and  he  said,  "  Now  the  Lord  (Jehovah)  is  suflFering  something." 
Then  Christ  arose  from  the  dead  on  the  22d  March,  17  Nisan,  Sunday,  the  day  of 
the  vernal  equinox  (Seyf.,  quoting  Philo  de  Septen) — that  is,  on  Easter,  or  on  the 
day  when  the  sun  gives  new  life  to  the  earth.  The  words  of  John  the  Baptist 
"  He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease,"  serve  to  prove,  as  is  affirmed  by  the 
fathers  of  the  church,  that  John  was  born  on  the  longest  day  of  the  year,  and 
Christ,  who  was  six  months  younger,  on  the  shortes*^,  22d  June  and  22d  December, 
the  solstices. 


JESUS  AND  APOLI.ONIUS.  130 

This  only  goes  to  show  that,  as  to  another  phase,  John  and  Jesus  were  l)ui 
epitomisers  of  the  history  of  the  same  sun,  under  differences  of  aspect  or  condition  ; 
and  one  condition  following  another,  of  necessity,  the  statement,  Luke,  ix.  7,  was 
not  only  not  an  empty  one,  but  it  was  true,  that  which  "was  said  of  some,' that 
(in  Jesus)  John  was  risen  from  the  dead."  (And  this  consideration  serves  to  explain 
why  it  has  been  that  the  Life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  by  Philostratus,  has  been  so 
persistently  kept  back  from  translation  and  from  popular  reading.  Those  who 
have  studied  it  in  the  original  have  been  forced  to  the  comment  that  either  the 
Life  of  Apollonius  has  been  taken  from  the  New  resiament,  or  that  the  New 
Testament  narratives  have  been  taken  from  the  Life  of  Apollonius,  because  of 
the  manifest  sameness  of  the  means  of  construction  of  the  narratives.  The  expla- 
nation is  simple  enough,  when  it  is  considered  that  the  names  oi  Jesus,  Hebrew  2J^ 
and  Apollonius,  or  Apollo,  are  alike  names  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens;  and  necessarily 
the  history  of  the  one,  as  to  his  travels  through  the  signs,  with  the  personifications 
of  his  sufferings,  triumphs  and  miracles,  could  be  but  the  history  of  the  othe?; 
where  there  was  a  widespread,  common  method  of  describing  those  travels  by  per- 
sonification.) It  seems  also  that,  for  long  afterward,  all  this  was  known  to  rest  upon 
an  astronomical  basis;  for  the  secular  church,  so  to  speak,  was  founded  byConstan- 
tine,  and  the  objective  condition  of  the  worship  established  was  that  part  of  his 
decree,  in  which  it  was  affirmed  that  the  venerable  day  of  the  sun  should  be  the  day 
set  apart  for  the  worship  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  .b««-day.  There  is  something  weird  and 
startling  in  some  other  facts  about  this  matter.  The  prophet  Daniel  (true  prophet, 
as  says  Graetz),*  by  use  of  the  pyramid  numbers,  or  astrological  numbers,  foretold 
the  cutting  off  of  the  M^shiac,  as  it  happened  (which  would  go  to  show  the  accuracy 
of  his  astronomical  knowledge,  if  there  was  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  at  that  time). 
.  .  .  Now,  however,  the  temple  was  destroyed  in  the  year  71,  in  the  month  Virgo, 
and  71  is  the  Dove  number,  as  shown,  or  71  x  5  =  355,  and  with  the  fish,  a  Jehovah 
number. 

"Is  it  possible,"  queries  further  on  the  author,  thus  answering  the 
intimate  thought  of  every  Christian  and  Occultist  who  reads  and 
studies  his  work : 

Is  it  possible  that  the  events  of  humanity  do  run  co-ordinately  with  these  number 
forms  ?  If  so,  while  Jesus  Christ,  as  an  astronomical  figure,  was  true  to  all  that  has  been 
advanced,  and  more,  possibly.  He  may,  as  a  man,  have  filled  up,  under  the  numbers, 
answers  in  the  sea  of  life  to  predestined  type.  The  personality  of  Jesus  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  destroyed,  because,  as  a  condition,  he  was  answering  to  astrono- 
mical forms  and  relations.  The  Arabian  says,  "Your  destiny  is  written  in  tlie 
stars,  "t 

Nor  is  the  "personality"  of  Apollonius  "destroyed"  for  the  same 


•  A  "  true  prophet "  because  an  Initiate,  one  perfectly  versed  in  Occult  astronomy. 

t  K^  to  Hebrew- Egyptian   Mystery,  p.  259  et  seq.     Astronomy  and   physiolotrv   are   the   bodies 

^Z"L^t:Zt:'TT''  "''^""^"^  ^°"'^  =    ^^^  ^^^^  ^"^  stu^rbyThe  e%^f  i^^i 
perception,  the  latter  by  the  inner  or  "  soul-eye  -  :  and  both  ar*  exact  sciences 


140  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

reason.  The  case  of  Jesus  covers  the  ground  for  the  same  possibility 
in  the  cases  of  all  Adepts  and  Avataras — such  as  Buddha,  Shankara- 
charya,  Krishna,  etc. — all  of  these  as  great  and  as  historical  for  their 
respective  followers  and  in  their  countries,  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  now 
for  Christians  and  in  this  land. 

But  there  is  something  more  in  the  old  literature  of  the  early 
centuries.     lamblichus  wrote  a  biography  of  the  great  Pythagoras. 

The  latter  so  closely  resembles  the  life  of  Jesus  that  it  may  be  taken  for  a 
travesty.     Diogenes  Laertius  and  Plutarch  relate  the  history  of  Plato  according  to  a 

similar  st5'le.* 

Why  then  wonder  at  the  doubts  that  assail  every  scholar  who 
studies  all  these  lives  ?  The  Church  herself  knew  all  these  doubts  in 
her  early  stages ;  and  though  only  one  of  her  Popes  has  been  known 
publicly  and  openly  as  a  Pagan,  how  many  more  were  there  who  were 
too  ambitious  to  reveal  the  truth  ? 

This  ''mysterj^"  for  mystery  indeed  it  is  to  those  who,  not  being 
Initiates,  fail  to  find  the  key  of  the  perfect  similitude  between  the  lives 
of  Pythagoras,  Buddha,  Apollonius,  etc. — is  only  a  natural  result  for 
those  who  know  that  all  these  great  characters  were  Initiates  of  the 
same  School.  For  them  there  is  neither  "  travesty  "  nor  "  copy  "  of  one 
from  the  other ;  for  them  they  are  all  "  originals,"  only  painted  to 
represent  one  and  the  same  subject :  the  mystic,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  public,  life  of  the  Initiates  sent  into  the  world  to  save  portions  of 
humanity,  if  they  could  not  save  the  whole  bulk.  Hence,  the  same  pro- 
gramme for  all.  The  assumed  "  immaculate  origin  "  lor  each,  refer- 
ring to  their  "  mystic  birth "  during  the  Mystery  of  Initiation,  and 
accepted  literally  by  the  multitudes,  encouraged  in  this  by  the  better 
informed  but  ambitious  clergy.  Thus,  the  mother  of  each  one  of  them 
was  declared  a  rirgin,  conceiving  her  son  directly  by  the  Holy  Spirit  of 
God ;  and  the  Sons,  in  consequence,  were  the  "  Sons  of  God,"  though 
in  truth,  none  of  them  was  any  more  entitled  to  such  recognition  than 
were  the  rest  of  his  brother  Initiates,  for  they  were  all — so  far  as  their 
mystic  lives  were  concerned — only  "  the  epitomisers  of  the  history  of 
the  same  Sun,"  which  epitome  is  another  mystery  within  the  Mystery. 
The  biographies  of  the  external  personalities  bearing  the  names  of 
such  heroes  have  nothing  to  do  with,  and  are  quite  independent  of  the 
private  lives  of  the  heroes,  being  only  the  mystic  records  of  their 
public  and,  parallel  therewith,  of  their  inner  lives,  in  their  characters  as 


•  New  Platonism  and  Alchemy,  p.  12 


BIOGRAPHIES   OF   INITIATES.  I41 

Neophytes  and  Initiates.  Hence,  the  manifest  sameness  of  the  means 
of  construction  of  their  respective  biographies.  From  the  beginning 
of  Humanity  the  Cross,  or  Man,  with  his  arms  stretched  out  horizon- 
tally, typifying  his  kosmic  origin,  was  connected  with  his  psychic 
nature  and  with  the  struggles  which  lead  to  Initiation.  But,  if  it  is 
once  shown  that  (a)  every  true  Adept  had,  and  still  has,  to  pass  through 
the  seven  and  the  twelve  trials  of  Initiation,  symbolised  by  the  twelve 
labours  of  Hercules ;  {b)  that  the  day  of  his  real  birth  is  regarded  as 
that  day  when  he  is  born  into  the  world  spiritually,  his  very  age  being 
counted  from  the  hour  of  his  second  birth,  which  makes  of  him  a  "  twice- 
born,"  a  Dvija  or  Initiate,  on  which  day  he  is  indeed  born  of  a  God  and 
from  an  immaculate  Mother ;  and  {c)  that  the  trials  of  all  these  person- 
ages are  made  to  correspond  with  the  Esoteric  significance  of  initiatory 
rites — all  of  which  corresponded  to  the  twelve  zodiacal  signs — then 
every  one  will  see  the  meaning  of  the  travels  of  all  those  heroes 
through  the  signs  of  the  Sun  in  Heaven  ;  and  that  they  are  in  each 
individual  case  a  personification  of  the  "  suflferings,  triumphs  and 
miracles  "  of  an  Adept,  before  and  after  his  Initiation.  When  to  the 
world  at  large  all  this  is  explained,  then  also  the  mystery  of  all  those 
lives,  so  closely  resembling  each  other  that  the  history  of  one  seems  to 
be  the  history  of  the  other,  and  vice  versa,  will,  like  everything  else, 
become  plain. 

Take  an  instance.  The  legends  —  for  they  are  all  legends  for 
exoteric  purposes,  whatever  may  be  the  denials  in  one  case — of  the 
lives  of  Krishna,  Hercules,  Pythagoras,  Buddha,  Jesus,  Apollonius, 
Chaitanya.  On  the  worldly  plane,  their  biographies,  if  written  by  one 
outside  the  circle,  would  differ  greatly  from  what  we  read  of  them  in 
the  narratives  that  are  preserved  of  their  mystic  lives.  Nevertheless, 
however  much  masked  and  hidden  from  profane  gaze,  the  chief  features 
of  such  lives  will  all  be  found  there  in  common.  Each  of  those  charac- 
ters is  represented  as  a  divinely  begotten  Soter  (Saviour),  a  title 
bestowed  on  deities,  great  kings  and  heroes  ;  everyone  of  them,  whether 
at  their  birth  or  afterwards,  is  searched  for,  and  threatened  with  death 
(yet  never  killed)  by  an  opposing  power  (the  world  of  Matter  and  Illu- 
sion), whether  it  be  called  a  king  Kansa,  king  Herod,  or  king  Mara 
(the  Evil  Power).  They  are  all  tempted,  persecuted  and  finally  said  to 
have  been  murdered  at  the  end  of  the  rite  of  Initiation,  i.e.,  in  their 
physical  personalities,  of  which  they  are  supposed  to  have  been  rid  for 
ever  after  spiritual  "  resurrection  "  or  "  birth."     And  having  thus  come 


1^2  THE  SECRKT  DOCTRINE. 

to  an  end  by  this  supposed  violent  death,  they  all  descend  to  the 
Nether  World,  the  Pit  or  Hell— the  Kingdom  of  Temptation,  Lust  and 
Matter,  therefore  of  Darkness,  whence  returning,  having  overcome  the 
" Chrest-condition,"  they  are  glorified  and  become  "Gods." 

It  is  not  in  the  course  of  their  everyday  life,  then,  that  the  great 
similarity  is  to  be  sought,  but  in  their  inner  state  and  in  the  most  impor- 
tant events  of  their  career  as  religious  teachers.  All  this  is  connected 
with,  and  built  upon,  an  astronomical  basis,  which  serves,  at  the  same 
time,  as  a  foundation  for  the  representation  of  the  degrees  and  trials  of 
Initiation:  descent  into  the  Kingdom  of  Darkness  and  Matter,  for  the 
last  time,  to  emerge  therefrom  as  "  Suns  of  Righteousness,"  is  the  most 
important  of  these  and,  therefore,  is  found  in  the  history  of  all  the 
Soters— from  Orpheus  and  Hercules,  down  to  Krishna  and  Christ. 
Says  Euripides  : 

Heracles,  who  has  gone  from  the  chambers  of  earth, 

Iveaving  the  nether  home  of  Pluto.* 

And  Virgil  writes : 

At  Thee  the  Stygian  lakes  trembled ;  Thee  the  janitor  of  Orcus 
Feared.     .     .     Thee  not  even  Typhon  frightened.     .    . 
Hail,  true  son  of  Jove,  glory  added  to  the  Gods.t 

Orpheus  seeks,  in  the  kingdom  of  Pluto,  Eurydice,  his  lost  Soul ; 
Krishna  goes  down  into  the  infernal  regions  and  rescues  therefrom 
his  six  brothers,  he  being  the  seventh  Principle  ;  a  transparent  allegory 
of  his  becoming  a  "  perfect  Initiate,"  the  whole  of  the  six  Principles 
merging  into  the  seventh.  Jesus  is  made  to  descend  into  the  kingdom 
of  Satan  to  save  the  soul  of  Adam,  or  the  symbol  of  material  physical 
humanity. 

Have  any  of  our  learned  Orientalists  ever  thought  of  searching  for 
the  origin  of  this  allegon^  for  the  parent  "Seed"  of  that  "Tree  of 
lyife  "  which  bears  such  verdant  boughs  since  it  was  first  planted  on 
earth  by  the  hand  of  its  "  Builders  "  ?  We  fear  not.  Yet  it  is  found, 
as  is  now  shown,  even  in  the  exoteric,  distorted  interpretations  of  the 
Vedas—oi  the  Rig  Veda,  the  oldest,  the  most  trustworthy  of  all  the  four 
— this  root  and  seed  of  all  future  Initiate-Saviours  being  called  in  it 
the  Visvakarmt,  the  "Father"  Principle,  "beyond  the  comprehension 
of  mortals ; "  in  the  second  stage  Surya,  the  "  Son,"  who  oflFers  Himself 
as  a  sacrifice  to  Himself;  in  the  third,  the  Initiate,  who  sacrifices  His 


•  Heracles,  807.  ^^Eneid,  viii..  274,  ff. 


SIMILARITY   OF  LEGENDS.  143 

physical  to  His  spiritual  Self.  It  is  in  VisvakarmS,  the  "  omnificent,"  who 
becomes  (mystically)  Vikkartana,  the  "  sun  shorn  of  his  beams,"  who 
suffers  for  his  too  ardent  nature,  and  then  becomes  glorified  (by  purifi- 
cation), that  the  keynote  of  the  Initiation  into  the  greatest  Mystery  of 
Nature  was  struck.     Hence  the  secret  of  the  wonderful  "  similarity." 

All  this  is  allegorical  and  mystical,  and  yet  perfectly  comprehensible 
and  plain  to  any  student  of  Eastern  Occultism,  even  superficially 
acquainted  with  the  Mysteries  of  Initiation.  In  our  objective  Universe 
of  Matter  and  false  appearances  the  Sun  is  the  most  fitting  emblem  of 
the  life-giving,  beneficent  Deity.  In  the  subjective,  boundless  World 
of  Spirit  and  Realiiy  the  bright  luminary  has  another  and  a  mystical 
significance,  which  cannot  be  fully  given  to  the  public.  The  so-called 
"idolatrous"  Parsis  and  Hindus  are  certainly  nearer  the  truth  in  their 
religious  reverence  for  the  Sun,  than  the  cold,  ever-analysing,  and  as 
ever-mistaken,  public  is  prepared  to  believe,  at  present.  The  Theoso- 
phists,  who  will  be  alone  able  to  take  in  the  meaning,  may  be  told  that 
the  Sun  is  the  external  manifestation  of  the  Seventh  Principle  of  our 
Planetary  System,  while  the  Moon  is  its  Fourth  Principle,  shining 
in  the  borrowed  robes  of  her  master,  saturated  with  and  reflecting 
every  passionate  impulse  and  evil  desire  of  her  grossly  material  body. 
Earth.  The  whole  cycle  of  Adeptship  and  Initiation  and  all  its  mysteries 
are  connected  with,  and  subservient  to,  these  two  and  the  Seven  Planets. 
Spiritual  clairvoyance  is  derived  from  the  Sun;  all  psychic  states, 
diseases,  and  even  lunacy,  proceed  from  the  Moon. 

According  even  to  the  data  of  History— her  conclusions  being 
remarkably  erroneous  while  her  premises  are  mostly  correct— there  is 
an  extraordinary  agreement  between  the  "  legends"  of  every  Founder 
of  a  Religion  (and  also  between  the  rites  and  dogmas  of  all)  and  the 
names  and  course  of  constellations  headed  by  the  Sun.  It  does  not 
follow,  however,  because  of  this,  that  both  Founders  and  their  Religions 
should  be,  the  one  myths,  and  the  other  superstitions.  They  are,  one 
and  all,  the  different  versions  of  the  same  natural  primeval  Mystery, 
on  which  the  Wisdom-Religion  was  based,  and  the  development  of  its 
Adepts  subsequently  framed. 

And  now  once  more  we  have  to  beg  the  reader  not  to  lend  an  ear  to 
the  charge— against  Theosophy  in  general  and  the  writer  in  parti- 
cular—of disrespect  toward  one  of  the  greatest  and  noblest  characters 
in  the  History  of  Adeptship— Jesus  of  Nazareth— nor  even  of  hatred  to 
the  Church.     The  expression  of  truth  and  fact  can  hardly  be  regarded, 


144  "^^^  SECRBT  DOCTRINE. 

with  any  approximation  to  justice,  as  blasphemy  or  hatred.  The  whole 
question  hangs  upon  the  solution  of  that  one  point :  Was  Jesus  as  "  Son 
of  God"  and  "Saviour"  of  Mankind,  unique  in  the  World's  annals? 
Was  His  case — among  so  many  similar  claims — the  only  exceptional  and 
unprecedented  one  ;  His  birth  the  sole  supernaturally  immaculate ; 
and  were  all  others,  as  maintained  by  the  Church,  but  blasphemous 
Satanic  copies  and  plagiarisms  by  anticipation  ?  Or  was  He  only  the 
"  son  of  his  deeds,"  a  pre-eminently  holy  man,  and  a  reformer,  one  of 
many,  who  paid  with  His  life  for  the  presumption  of  endeavouring, 
in  the  face  of  ignorance  and  despotic  power,  to  enlighten  mankind 
and  make  its  burden  lighter  by  His  Ethics  and  Philosophy?  The  first 
necessitates  a  blind,  all-resisting  faith  ;  the  latter  is  suggested  to  every 
one  by  reason  and  logic.  Moreover,  has  the  Church  always  believed  as 
she  does  now — or  rather,  as  she  pretend,  she  does,  in  order  to  be  thus 
justified  in  directing  her  anathema  against  those  who  disagree  with  her— 
or  has  she  passed  through  the  same  throes  of  doubt,  nay,  of  secret  denial 
and  unbelief,  suppressed  only  by  the  force  of  ambition  and  love  of  power? 

The  question  must  be  answered  in  the  affirmative  as  to  the  second 
alternative.  It  is  an  irrefutable  conclusion,  and  a  natural  inference 
based  on  facts  known  from  historical  records.  Leaving  for  the  present 
untouched  the  lives  of  many  Popes  and  Saints  that  loudly  belied  their 
claims  to  infallibility  and  holiness,  let  the  reader  turn  to  Ecclesiastical 
History,  the  records  of  the  growth  and  progress  of  the  Christian 
Church  (not  of  Christianity),  and  he  will  find  the  answer  on  those 
pages.     Says  a  writer  •. 

The  Church  has  known  too  well  the  suggestions  of  freethought  created  by 
enquiry,  as  also  all  those  doubts  that  provoke  her  anger  to-day ;  and  the  "  sacred 
truths  "  she  would  promulgate  have  been  in  turn  admitted  and  repudiated,  trans- 
formed and  altered,  amplified  and  curtailed,  by  the  dignitaries  of  the  Church  hier- 
archy, even  as  regards  the  most  fundamental  dogmas. 

Where  is  that  God  or  Hero  whose  origin,  biography,  and  genealogy' 
were  more  hazy,  or  more  difficult  to  define  and  finally  agree  upon  than 
those  of  Jesus  ?  How  was  the  now  irrevocable  dogma  with  regard  to 
His  true  nature  settled  at  last?  By  His  mother,  according  to  the 
Evangelists,  He  was  a  man — a  simple  mortal  man  ;  by  His  Father  He 
is  God  5  But  how  ?  Is  He  then  man  or  God,  or  is  He  both  at  the  same 
time?  asks  the  perplexed  writer.  Truly  the  propositions  oflfered  on 
this  point  of  the  doctrine  have  caused  floods  of  ink  and  blood  to  be  shed, 
in  turn,  on  poor  Humanity,  and  still  the  doubts  are  not  at  rest.  In  this, 
as  in  everything  else,  the  wise  Church  Councils  have    contradicted 


NATURE   OF   CHRIST.  I45 

themselves  and  changed  their  minds  a  number  of  times.  Let  us 
recapitulate  and  throw  a  glance  at  the  texts  offered  for  our  inspection. 
This  is  History. 

The  Bishop  Paul  of  Samosata  denied  the  divinity  of  Christ  at  the 
first  Council  of  Antioch ;  at  the  very  origin  and  birth  of  theological 
Christianity,  He  was  called  "  Son  of  God "  merely  on  account  of  His 
holiness  and  good  deeds.  His  blood  was  corruptible  in  the  Sacrament 
of  the  Eucharist. 

At  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  held  a.d.  325,  Arius  came  out  with  his  pre- 
misses, which  nearly  broke  asunder  the  Catholic  Union. 

Seventeen  bishops  defended  the  doctrines  of  Arius,  who  was  exiled 
for  them.  Nevertheless,  thirty  5'ears  after,  a.d.  355,  at  the  Council  of 
Milan,  three  hundred  bishops  signed  a  letter  of  adherence  to  the  Arian 
views,  notwithstanding  that  ten  years  earlier,  a.d.  345,  at  a  new  Council 
of  Antioch,  the  Eusebians  had  proclaimed  that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  Son 
of  God  and  One  with  His  Father. 

At  the  Council  of  Sirmium,  a.d.  357,  the  "Son"  had  becorie  no 
longer  consubstantial.  The  Anomaeans,  who  denied  that  consubstan- 
tiality,  and  the  Arians  were  triumphant.  A  year  later,  at  the  second 
Council  of  Ancyra,  it  was  decreed  that  the  "  Son  was  not  consubstantial 
but  only  similar  to  the  Father  in  his  substance."  Pope  Liberius 
ratified  the  decision. 

During  several  centuries  the  Councils  fought  and  quarrelled,  sup- 
porting the  most  contradictory  and  opposite  views,  the  fruit  of  their 
laborious  travail  being  the  Holy  Trinit}-,  which,  Minerva-like,  issued 
forth  from  the  theological  brain,  armed  with  all  the  thunders  of  the 
Church.  The  new  mystery  was  ushered  into  the  worla  amid  some 
terrible  strifes,  in  which  murder  and  other  crimes  haa  a  high  hand. 
At  the  Council  of  Saragossa,  a.d.  380,  it  was  proclaimed  that  the  Father, 
Son  and  Holy  Spirit  are  one  and  the  same  Person,  Christ's  human 
nature  being  merely  an  "  illusion  " — an  echo  of  the  Avataric  Hindu 
doctrine.  "  Once  upon  this  slippery  path  the  Fathers  had  to  slide 
down  ad  abs7irdum — which  they  did  not  fail  of  doing."  How  deny 
human  nature  in  him  who  was  born  ot  a  woman  ?  The  onh^  wise 
remark  made  during  one  of  the  Councils  of  Constantinople  came  from 
Eutyches,  who  was  bold  enough  to  say :  "  May  God  preser^^e  me  from 
reasoning  on  the  nature  of  my  God" — for  which  he  was  excommuni- 
cated b\-  Pope  Flavins. 

At  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  a.d.  449,  Eutyches  had  his  revenge.  As 
Eusebius,  the  veracious  Bishop  of  Caesarea,  was  forcing  him  into  the 

3    L 


ja6  the  secret  doctrine. 

admission  of  iwo  distinct  natures  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Council  rebelled 
against  him  and  it  was  proposed  that  Eusebius  should  be  burned  alive. 
The  bishops  arose  like  one  man,  and  with  fists  clenched,  foaming  with 
rage,  demanded  that  Eusebius  should  be  torn  into  two  halves,  and  be 
dealt  by  as  he  would  deal  with  Jesus,  whose  nature  he  divided. 
Eutyches  was  re-established  in  his  power  and  office,  Eusebius  and 
Flavins  deposed.  Then  the  two  parties  attacked  each  other  most  vio- 
lently and  fought.  St.  Flavins  was  so  ill-treated  by  Bishop  Diodorus, 
who  assaulted  and  kicked  him,  that  he  died  a  few  days  later  from  the 
injuries  inflicted. 

Every  incongruity  was  courted  in  these  Councils,  and  the  result  is 
the  present  living  paradoxes  called  Church  dogmas.  For  instance,  at  the 
first  Council  of  Ancyra,  a.d.  314,  it  was  asked,  "  In  baptizing  a  woman 
with  child,  is  the  unborn  baby  also  baptized  by  the  fact  ?  "  The  Council 
answered  in  the  negative;  because,  as  was  alleged,  "the  person  thus 
receiving  baptism  must  be  a  consenting  party,  which  is  impossible  to 
the  child  in  its  mother's  womb."  Thus  then  unconsciousness  is  a 
canonical  obstacle  to  baptism,  and  thus  no  child  baptised  nowadays  is 
baptised  at  all  in  fact.  And  then  what  becomes  of  the  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  starving  heathen  babies  baptised  by  the  missionaries  during 
famines,  and  otherwise  surreptitiously  "saved"  by  the  too  zealous 
Padres?  Follow  one  after  another  the  debates  and  decisions  of  the 
numberless  Councils,  and  behold  on  what  a  jumble  of  contradictions 
the  present  infallible  and  Apostolic  Church  is  built ! 

And  now  we  can  see  how  greatly  paradoxical,  when  taken 
literally,  is  the  assertion  in  Genesis :  "  God  created  man  in  his  own 
image."  Besides  the  glaring  fact  that  it  is  not  the  Adam  of  dust 
(of  Chapter  ii.),  who  is  thus  made  in  the  divine  image,  but  the  Divine 
Androgyne  (of  Chapter  i.),  or  Adam  Kadmon,  one  can  see  for  oneself 
that  God — the  God  of  the  Christians  at  any  rate — was  created  by  man 
in  his  own  image,  amid  the  kicks,  blows  and  murders  of  the  early 
Councils. 

A  curious  fact,  one  that  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  the  claim  that 
Jesus  was  an  Initiate  and  a  martyred  Adept,  is  given  in  the  work, 
(already  so  often  referred  to)  which  may  be  called  "  a  mathematical 
revelation  " — The  Source  of  Measures. 

Attention  is  called  to  the  part  of  the  46th  verse  of  the  27th  Chapter  of  Matthew, 
as  follows:  "EH,  Eli,  Lama  Sabachthani? — that  is  to  say,  My  God,  my  God,  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me?"     Of  course,  our  versions  are  taken    from  the  original 


A  SERIOUS  MISTRANSI.ATION.  I47 

Greek  manuscripts  (the  reason  why  we  have  no  original  Hebrew  manuscripts 
concerning  these  occurrences  being  because  the  enigmas  in  Hebrew  would  betray 
themselves  on  comparison  with  the  sources  of  their  derivation,  the  Old  Testament). 
The  Greek  manuscripts,  without  exception,  give  these  words  as — 

'HXi  'HXt  \afia   ara^a^Oavi 

They  are  Hebrew  words,  rendered  into  the  Greek,  and  in  Hebrew  are  as  follows: 

TD-nnDiD  noS  hi^  hi^ 

The  Scripture  of  these  words  says,  "  that  is  to  say.  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast 
thou  forsaken  me'  "  as  their  proper  translation.  Here  then  are  the  words,  beyond 
all  dispute ;  and  beyond  all  question,  such  is  the  interpretation  gfiven  of  them  by 
Scripture.  Now  the  words  will  not  bear  this  interpretation,  and  it  is  a  false  render- 
ing. The  true  meaning  is  just  the  opposite  of  the  one  given,  and  is— 
My  God,  my  God,  how  thon  dost  glorify  me! 

But  even  more,  for  while  lama  is  why,  or  how,  as  a  verbal  it  connects  the  idea  of 
to  dazzle,  or  adverbially,  it  could  run  "  how  dazslingly,''  and  so  on.  To  the  unwar\- 
reader  this  interpretation  is  enforced,  and  made  to  answer,  as  it  were,  to  the  fulfil- 
ment of  a  prophetic  utterance,  by  a  marginal  reference  to  the  first  verse  of  the 
twenty-second  Psalm,  which  reads : 

"  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  }  " 
The  Hebrew  of  this  verse  for  these  words  is — 

as  to  which  the  reference  is  correct,  and  the  interpretation  sound  and  good,  but 
with  an  utterly  diflferent  word.     The  words  are— 

Eli,  Eli,  lamah  azabvtha-ni? 
No  wit  of  man,  however  scholarly,  can  save  this  passage  {torn  falseness  of  render- 
ing on  its  face ;  and  as  so,  it  becomes  a  most  terrible  blow  upon  the  proper  first-face 
sacredness  of  the  recital.* 

For  ten  years  or  more,  sat  the  revisers  (?)  of  the  Bible,  a  most  impos- 
ing and  solemn  array  of  the  learned  of  the  land,  the  greatest  Hebrew 
and  Greek  scholars  of  England,  purporting  to  correct  the  mistakes  and 
blunders,  the  sins  of  omission  and  of  commission  of  their  less  learned 
predecessors,  the  translators  of  the  Bible.  Are  we  going  to  be  told 
that  none  of  them  saw  the  glaring  difference  between  the  Hebrew  words 
in  Psalm  xxii.,  azabvtha-ni,  and  sabachthayii  in  Matthew  ;  that  they  were 
!iot  aware  of  the  deliberate  falsification  ? 

For  "  falsification"  it  was.  And  if  we  are  asked  the  reason  why  the 
early  Church  Fathers  resorted  to  it,  the  answer  is  plain  :  Because  the 
Sacramental  words  belonged  in  their  true  rendering  to   Pagan   temple 

•  App.,  vii.,  p.  301. 


148  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

rites.  They  were  pronounced  after  the  terrible  trials  of  Initiation,  and 
were  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of  some  of  the  "Fathers"  when  the 
Gospel  of  Matthew  was  edited  into  the  Greek  language.  Because, 
finally,  many  of  the  Hierophants  of  the  Mysteries,  and  many  more  of 
the  Initiates  were  still  living  in  those  days,  and  the  sentence  rendered 
in  its  true  words  would  class  Jesus  directly  with  the  simple  Initiates. 
The  words  "  My  God,  my  Sun,  thou  hast  poured  thy  radiance  upon 
me !  "  were  the  final  words  that  concluded  the  thanksgiving  prayer  of 
the  Initiate,  "the  Son  and  the  glorified  Elect  of  the  Sun."  In  Kgypt 
we  find  to  this  day  carvings  and  paintings  that  represent  the  rite.  The 
candidate  is  between  two  divine  sponsors  ;  one  "Osiris-Sun  "  with  the 
head  of  a  hawk,  representing  life,  the  other  Mercury — the  ibis-headed, 
psychopompic  genius,  who  guides  the  Souls  after  death  to  their  new 
abode.  Hades — standing  for  the  death  of  the  physical  body,  figuratively. 
Both  are  shown  pouring  the  "  stream  of  life,"  the  water  of  purification, 
on  the  head  of  the  Initiate,  the  two  streams  of  which,  interlacing,  form 
a  cross.  The  better  to  conceal  the  truth,  this  basso-relievo  has  also  been 
explained  as  a  "  Pagan  presentment  of  a  Christian  truth."  The  Cheva- 
lier des  Mousseaux  calls  this  Mercury  : 

The  assessor  of  Osiris-Sol,  as  St.  Michael  is  the  assessor,  Ferouer,  of  the  Word. 

The  monogram  of  Chrestos  and  the  Labarum,  the  standard  of  Con- 
stantine — who,  by  the  by,  died  a  Pagan  and  was  never  baptised — is  a 
symbol  derived  from  the  above  rite  and  also  denotes  "  life  and  death." 
Ivong  before  the  sign  of  the  Cross  was  adopted  as  a  Christian  symbol, 
it  was  employed  as  a  secret  sign  of  recognition  among  Neophytes  and 
Adepts.     Say    Eliphas  Levi : 

The  sign  of  the  cross  adopted  by  the  Christians  does  not  belong  exclusively  to 
them.  It  is  kabalistic,  and  represents  the  oppositions  and  quaternary  equilibrium 
of  the  elements.  We  see  by  the  occult  verse  of  the  Pater,  to  which  we  have  called 
attention  in  another  work,  that  there  were  originally  two  ways  of  making  it,  or,  at 
least,  two  very  different  formulas  to  express  its  meaning:  one  reserved  for  priests 
and  initiates ;  the  other  given  to  neophytes  and  the  profane.* 

One  can  understand  now  why  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  the  Evangel  of 
the  Ebionites,  has  been  for  ever  excluded  in  its  Hebrew  form  from  the 
world's  curious  gaze. 

Jerome  found  the  authentic  and  original  Evangel  written  in  Hebrew,  by  Matthew 
the  Publican,  at  the  library  collected  at  Caesarea  bj-  the  mart)'r  Pamphilius, 
"  I  received  permission  frotn  the  Na2arceans,yfho  at  Beroea  of  Syria  used  this  (gospel) 

•  Dogme  et  Rituel  de  la  Haute  Magte,  ii.  88. 


SECRET   DOCTRINE   OF  JESUS.  I49 

to  translate  it,"  he  writes  toward  the  end  of  the  fourth  centur>'.*  "  In  the  Evangel 
which  the  Nazarenes  and  Ebionites  use,"  said  Jerome,  "  which  recently  I  trans- 
lated from  Hebrew  into  Greek,  and  which  is  called  by  most  persons  the  genuine 
gospel  of  Matthew,"  etc.t 

That  the  apostles  had  received  a  "secret  doctrine  "  from  Jesus,  and  that  he  him- 
self taught  one,  is  evident  from  the  following  words  of  Jerome,  who  confessed  it  in 
an  unguarded  moment.  Writing  to  the  Bishops  Chromatins  and  Heliodorus,  he 
complains  that  "a  difficult  work  is  enjoined,  since  this  (translation)  has  been  com- 
manded me  by  your  Felicities,  which  Si.  Matthew  himself,  the  Apostle  and  Evan- 
gelist, did  not  wish  to  be  openly  written.  For  if  this  had  not  been  secret,  he  (Matthew, 
would  have  added  to  the  Evangel  that  what  he  gave  forth  was  his ;  but  he  made 
up  this  book  sealed  up  in  the  Hebrew  characters,  which  he  put  forth  even  in  such  a 
way  that  the  book,  written  in  Hebrew  letters  and  by  the  hand  of  himself,  might  be 
possessed  by  the  men  most  religious ;  who  also,  in  the  course  of  time,  received  it 
from  those  who  preceded  them.  But  this  ver)'  book  they  never  gave  to  any  one  to 
be  transcribed,  and  its  text  they  related  some  one  way  and  some  another. "t  And 
he  adds  further  on  the  same  page:  "And  it  happened  that  this  book,  ha\nng 
been  published  by  a  disciple  of  Manichffius,  named  Seleucus,  who  also  wrote  falsely 
The  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  exhibited  matter  not  for  edification,  but  for  destruction  ; 
and  that  this  (book)  was  approved  in  a  synod  which  the  ears  of  the  Church  properly 

refused  to  listen  to."§ 

Jerome  admits,  himself,  that  the  book  which  he  authenticates  as  being  written 
"by  the  hand  of  Matthew,"  was  nevertheless  a  book  which,  notwithstanding  that 
he  translated  it  twice,  was  nearly  unintelligible  to  him,  for  it  was  arcane.  Never- 
theless, Jerome  coolly  sets  down  every  commentary  upon  it  but  his  own  as  heretical. 
More  than  that,  Jerome  knew  that  this  Gospel  was  the  only  original  one,  yet  he 
becomes  more  zealous  than  ever  in  his  persecution  of  the  "  Heretics."  Why  ?  Be- 
cause to  accept  it  was  equivalent  to  reading  the  death  sentence  of  the  established 
Church.     The  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  was  well  known  to  have  been  the 


'  (Hieronymus,  Z?^  Viris  must.,nx.)  "It  is  remarkable  that,  while  all  Church  Fathers  say  that 
^faU^uwv^i^  in  Hebrew,  ih^  whole  of  them  use  the  Greek  text  as  the  genuine  apostolic  wnting, 
without  mentioning  what  relation  the  Hebrew  Matthew  has  to  our  Greek  one  !  It  had  many  peculiar 
additions  which  are  wantit.g  in  our  (Greek)  Evangel  "  (Olshausen,  Nachwets  der  Echtheit  der  Samml- 
lichen  Schriften  des  Seuen  Test.,  p.  32  ;  Dunlap,  Sod,  the  Son  of  the  Man,  p.  44-) 

*  Commen.  to  Matthew  (xii.  13)  Book  II.  Jerome  adds  that  it  was  written  in  the  Chaldaic  language, 
but  with  Hebrew  letters. 

X  "  St.  Jerome,"  v.  445  ;  Dunlap,  Sod,  the  Son  of  Man,  p.  46. 

?  This  accounts  also  for  the  lejection  of  the  works  of  Justin  Martyr,  who  used  only  this  "  Gospel 
according  to  the  Hebrews,"  as  also  did  most  probably  Tatian.  his  disciple.  At  what  a  late  period  the 
divinity  of  Christ  was  fully  established  we  can  judge  by  the  mere  fact  that  even  in  the  fourth  century- 
Eusebius  did  not  denounce  this  book  as  spurious,  but  only  classed  it  with  such  as  the  Apocalypse  of 
lohn  •  and  Credner  [Zur  Gesch.  des  Kan,  p.  120)  shows  Nicephorus  inserting  it,  together  with  the 
Revelation,  in  his  Stichometry,  among  the  Antilegomena.  The  Ebionites,  the  genuine  pnm.tive 
Christians  rejecting  the  rest  of  the  Apostolic  writings,  make  use  only  of  this  Gospel  (Adv.  Har.,  1. 
26)  and  the  Ebionites,  as  Epiphanius  declares,  firmly  beUeved,  with  the  Nazarenes,  that  Jesus  was 
but  a  man,  "  of  the  seed  of  a  man." 


I50  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

only  one  accepted  for  four  centuries  by  the  Jewish  Christians,  the  Nazarenes  and 
the  Ebionites.    And  neither  of  the  latter  accepted  the  divinity  o/Christ.* 

The  Ebionites  were  the  first,  the  earliest  Christians,  whose  re- 
presentative was  the  Gnostic  author  of  the  Clementine  Homilies,  and  as 
the  author  of  Supernatural  Religion  shows,t  Ebionitic  Gnosticism 
had  once  been  the  purest  form  of  Christianity.  They  were  the  pupils 
and  followers  of  the  early  Nazarenes — the  kabalistic  Gnostics.  They 
believed  in  the  ^ons,  as  the  Cerinthians  did,  and  that  "  the  world  was 
put  together  by  Angels"  (Dhyan  Chohans),  as  Epiphanius  complains 
{Contra  Ebionitas)  :  "  Ebion  had  the  opinion  of  the  Nazarenes,  the  form 
of  Cerinthians."  "  They  decided  that  Christ  was  of  the  seed  of  a  man," 
he  laments.^     Thus  again  : 

The  badge  of  Dan-Scorpio  is  death-life,  in  the  symbol  ^  ,  as  cross-bones  and  skully 
.  .  .  or  life-death  .  .  .  the  standard  of  Constantine,  the  Roman  Emperor. 
Abel  has  been  shown  to  be  Jesus,  and  Cain-Vulcain,  or  Mars,  pierced  him.  Constan- 
tine was  the  Roman  Emperor,  whose  warlike  god  was  Mars,  and  a  Roman  soldier 
pierced  Jesus  on  the  cross.     .     .     . 

But  the  piercing  of  Abel  was  the  consummation  of  his  marriage  with  Cain,  and 
this  was  proper  under  the  form  of  Mars  Generator  ;  hence  the  double  glyph,  one  of 
Mars-Generator  [Osiris-Sun]  and  Mars-Destroyer  [Mercury  the  God  of  Death  in  the 
Egyptian  basso-relievo]  in  one ;  significant,  again,  of  the  primal  idea  of  the  living 
cosmos,  or  of  birth  and  death,  as  necessary  to  the  continuation  of  the  stream  of 
life.§ 

To  quote  once  more  from  /sis  Unveiled : 

A  Latin  cross  of  a  perfect  Christian  shape  was  found  hewn  upon  the  granite 
slabs  of  the  Adytum  of  the  Serapeum  ;  and  the  monks  did  not  fail  to  claim  that 
the  cross  had  been  hallowed  by  the  Pagans  in  a  "spirit  of  prophecy."  At  least, 
Sozomen,  with  an  air  of  triumph,  records  the  fact.||  But  archaeology  and  sym- 
bolism, those  tireless  and  implacable  enemies  of  clerical  false  pretences,  have 
found  in  the  hieroglj-phics  of  the  legend  running  round  the  design  at  least  a 
partial  interpretation  of  its  meaning. 

According   to    King  and    other  numismatists  and  archaeologists,  the  cross  was 

*  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  182-3. 

+  Op.  cit.,  ii.  5. 

X  See  also  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  180,  to  end  of  chapter. 

\  Source  of  Measures,  p.  299.  This"  stream  of  life  "  being  emblematised  in  the  Philloc  basso-telievo 
just  mentioned,  by  the  water  poured  in  the  shape  of  a  Cross  on  the  initiated  candidate  by  Osiris— 
Life  and  the  Sun— and  MercMry— Death.  It  was  the  fnale  of  the  rite  of  Initiation  after  the  seven 
and  the  twelve  tortures  in  the  Crypts  of  Egypt  were  passed  through  successfully. 

Il  Another  untrustworthy,  untruthful  and  ignorant  writer,  an  ecclesiastical  historian  of  the  fifth 
century.  His  alleged  history  of  the  strife  between  the  Pagans,  Neoplatonists,  and  the  Christians  of 
Alexandria  and  Constantinople,  which  extends  from  the  year  324  to  439,  dedicated  by  him  to  Th«o- 
dosius,  the  younger,  is  full  of  deliberate  falsifications. 


THE  CROSS  AND   CRUCIFIX.  15I 

placed  there  as  the  symbol  of  eternal  life.     Such  a  Tau,  or  Egyptian  cross,  was 
used  in  the  Bacchic  and  Eleusinian   Mysteries.     Symbol  of  the  dual  generative 
power,  it  was  laid  upon  the  breast  of   the   Initiate,  after  his  "  new  birth "  was 
accomplished,  and  the  Mystae  had  returned  from  their  baptism  in  the  sea.     It  was 
a  mystic  sign   that  his  spiritual   birth  had  regenerated  and  united  his  astral  soul 
with   his  divine  spirit,  and  that  he  was   ready   to  ascend  in  spirit  to  the  blessed 
abodes  of  light  and  glory— the  Eleusiuia.     The  Tau  was  a  magic  talisman  at  the 
same  time  as  a  religious  emblem.     It  was  adopted  by  the  Christians  through  the 
Gnostics  and  Kabalists,  who  used  it  largely,  as  their  numerous  gems  testify.     These  in 
turn  had  the  Tau  (or  handled  cross)  from  the  Egyptians,  and  the  Latin  Cross  from  the 
Buddhist  missionaries,  who  brought  it  from  India  (where  it  can  be  found  even  now) 
two  or  three  centuries  B.C.     The  Assyrians,  Egyptians,  ancient  Americans,  Hindus 
and  Romans  had  it  in  various,  but  very  slight  modifications  of  shape.     Till  ver\- 
late   in  the  middle  ages,  it   was  considered   a   potent  spell  against  epilepsy  and 
demoniacal  possession,  and  the  "signet  of  the  living  God"   brought  down   in  St. 
John's  vision  by  the  angel  ascending  from  the  east  to  "  seal  the  servants  of  our  God 
in  the  foreheads,"   was  but  the  same  mystic  Tau— the  Egyptian  Cross.     In   the 
painted   glass  of  St.   Denis  (France)  this  angel    is  represented    as   .stamping  this 
sign  on  the  forehead  of  the  elect;   the  legend   reads,  SIGNUM  TAY.     In  King's 
Gnostics,  the  author  reminds  us  that "  this  mark  is  commonly  borne  by  St.  Anthony, 
an  Egyptian  recluse."*    What  the  real  meaning  of  the  Tau  was,  is  explained  to  us 
by  the  Christian  St.  John,  the  Egyptian   Hermes,  and  the  Hindu   Brahmans.     It  is 
but  too  evident  that,  with  the  Apostle  at  least,  it  meant  the  "  Ineffable  Name,"  as  he 
calls  this  "  signet  of  the  living  God  "  a  few  chapters  further  ont  the  ''Father's  name 
written  in  their  foreheads." 

The  Brahmatma,  the  chief  of  the  Hindu  Initiates,  had  on  his  head-gear  two  keys, 
symbol  of  the  revealed  mystery  of  life  and  death,  placed  cross-like ;  and  in  some 
Buddhist  pagodas  of  Tartary  and  Mongolia,  the  entrance  of  a  chamber  within  the 
temple,  generally  containing  the  staircase  which  leads  to  the  inner  dagoba,!  and 
the  porticos  of  some  Prachidas\  are  ornamented  with  a  cross  formed  of  two  fishes, 
as  found  on  some  of  the  zodiacs  of  the  Buddhists.  We  should  not  wonder  at 
all  at  learning  that  the  sacred  device  in  the  tombs  in  the  catacombs  at  Rome,  the 
"Vesica  Piscis,"  was  derived  from  the  said  Buddhist  zodiacal  sign.  How  general 
must  have  been  that  geometrical  figure  in  the  world-symbols,  may  be  inferred  from 
the  fact  that  there  is  a  Masonic  tradition  that  Solomon's  temple  was  built  on  three 
foundations,  forming  the  "triple  Tau"  or  three  crosses. 

In  its  mystical  sense,  the  Egyptian  cross  owes  its  origin,  as  an  emblem,  to  the 
realisation  by  the  earliest  philosophy  of  an  androgynous  dualism  of  every  manifesta- 
tion in  nature,  which  proceeds  from  the  abstract  ideal  of  a  likewise  androgynous 
deity,  while  the  Christian  emblem  is  simply  due  to  chance.     Had  the  Mosaic  law 


*  Gems  0/ the  Orthodox  Christians,  vol.  I.,  p.  135. 

♦  Revelation,  xiv.  i. 

i  A  Dagoba  is  a  small  temple  of  globular  form,  in  which  are  preserved  the  relics  of  Gautama. 
\  Prachidas  are  buildings   of  all  sizes  and  forms,  like  our  mausoleums,  and  are  sacred  to  v  otive 
offerings  to  the  dead. 


152  THE   vSECRET   DOCTRINE. 

prevailed,  Jesus  should  have  been  lapidated.*  The  crucifix  was  an  instrument  of 
torture,  and  utterly  common  among  Romans  as  it  was  unknown  among  Semitic 
nations.  It  was  called  the  "  Tree  of  Infamy."  It  is  but  later  that  it  was  adopted  as 
a  Christian  symbol ;  but  during  the  first  two  decades  the  apostles  looked  upon  it 
with  horror.t  It  is  certainly  not  the  Christian  Cross  that  John  had  in  mind  when 
speaking  of  the  "  signet  of  the  living  God,"  hutihe  fnysticTau — the  Tetragrammaton, 
or  mighty  name,  which,  on  the  most  ancient  Kabalistic  talismans,  was  represented 
by  the  four  Hebrew  letters  composing  the  Holy  Word. 

The  famous  Lady  Ellenborough,  known  among  the  Arabs  of  Damascus,  and  in 
the  desert,  after  her  last  marriage,  as  Hanoum  Medjouye,  had  a  talisman  in  her 
possession,  presented  to  her  by  a  Druse  from  Mount  Lebanon.  It  was  recognised  bj'  a 
certain  sign  on  its  left  corner  as  belonging  to  that  class  of  gems  which  is  known  in 
Palestine  as  a  "  Messiafitc"  amulet,  of  the  second  or  third  century  B.C.  It  is  a  green 
stone  of  a  pentagonal  form  ;  at  the  bottom  is  engraved  a  fish  ;  higher,  Solomon's 
Seal;:!:  and  still  higher,  the  four  Chaldaic  letters— Jod,  He,  Vau,  He,  lAHO,  which 
form  the  name  of  the  Deity.  These  are  arranged  in  quite  an  unusual  way,  running 
from  below  upward,  in  reversed  order,  and  forming  the  Egj'ptian  Tau.  Around 
these  there  is  a  legend  which,  as  the  gem  is  not  our  property,  we  are  not  at  liberty 
to  give.  The  Tau,  in  its  mystical  sense,  as  well  as  the  Crux  ansata,  is  the  Tree  of 
Life. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  earliest  Christian  emblems — before  it  was  ever  attempted 
to  represent  the  bodily  appearance  of  Jesus — were  the  Lamb,  the  Good  Shepherd, 
and  The  Fish.  The  origin  of  the  latter  emblem,  which  has  so  puzzled  the 
archaeologists,  thus  becomes  comprehensible.  The  whole  secret  lies  in  the  easily 
ascertained  fact  that,  while  in  the  Kabalah  the  King  Messiah  is  called  "  Interpreter," 
or  Revealer  of  the  Mystery,  and  shown  to  be  the  fifth  emanation,  in  the  Talmud — 
for  reasons  we  will  now  explain — the  Messiah  is  very  often  designated  as  "  DAG," 
or  the  Fish.  This  is  an  inheritance  from  the  Chaldees,  and  relates — as  the  very 
name  indicates — to  the  Babylonian  Dagon,  the  man-fish,  who  was  the  instructor 
and  interpreter  of  the  people,  to  whom  he  appeared.  Abarbanel  explains  the 
name,  by  stating  that  the  sign  of  his  (Messiah's)  coming  is  the  conjunction  of  Saturn 
and  Jupiter  in  the  sign  Pisces.\  Therefore,  as  the  Christians  were  intent  upon 
identifying  their  Christos  with  the  Messiah  of  the  Old  Testament,  they  adopted  it  so 
readily  as  to  forget  that  its  true  origin  might  be  traced  still  further  back  than  the 
Babylonian  Dagon.  How  eagerly  and  closely  the  ideal  of  Jesus  was  united,  by  the 
early  Christians,  with  every  imaginable  kabalistic  and  pagan  tenet,  may  be  inferred 
from  the  language  of  Clemens,  of  Alexandria,  addressed  to  his  co-religionists. 

'  The  Talmudistic  records  claim  that,  after  having  been  hanged,  he  was  lapidated  and  buried  under 
the  water  at  the  junction  of  two  streams.  Mishna  Sanhedrin,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  4;  Talmud,  of  Babylon, 
same  article,  43  a,  67  a. 

+  Coptic  Legends  of  the  Crucifixion,  MSS.  XI. 

}  We  are  at  a  loss  to  understand  why  King,  in  his  Gnostic  Gems,  represents  Solomon's  Seal  as  a 
five-pointed  star,  whereas  it  is  six-pointed,  and  is  the  signet  of  Vishnu  in  India. 

\  King  {Gnostics)  gives  the  figure  of  a  Christian  symbol,  very  common  during  the  middle  ages,  of 
three  fishes  interlaced  into  a  triangle,  and  having  the  FIVE  letters  (a  most  sacred  Pythagorean 
number)  IX©Y2  engraved  on  it.    The  number  five  relates  to  the  same  kabalistic  computation. 


THE   STORY   OF   JESUS.  I53 

When  they  were  debating  upon  the  choice  of  the  most  appropriate  symbol  to 
remind  them  of  Jesus,  Clemens  advised  them  in  the  following  words:  "Let  the 
engraving  upon  the  gem  of  your  ring  be  either  a  dove,  or  a  ship  running  before  the 
ivind  (the  Argha),  or  2.  fish:''  Was  the  good  father,  when  writing  this  sentence 
labouring  under  the  recollection  of  Joshua,  son  of  Nun  (called  y«wi  in  the  Greek 
and  Slavonian  versions) ;  or  had  he  forgotten  the  real  interpretation  of  these  pagan 
symbols  ?* 

And  now,  with  the  help  of  all  these  passages  scattered  hither  and 
thither  in  his  and  other  works  of  this  kind,  the  reader  will  see  and 
judge  for  himself  which  of  the  two  explanations — the  Christian  or  that 
of  the  Occultist — is  the  nearer  to  truth.  If  Jesus  were  not  an  Ini- 
tiate, why  should  all  these  allegorical  incidents  of  his  life  be  given  ? 
Why  should  such  extreme  trouble  be  taken,  so  much  time  wasted  try- 
ing to  make  the  above :  (a)  answer  and  dovetail  with  purposely  picked 
out  sentences  in  the  Old  Testamc7it,  to  show  them  as  prophecies; 
and  {b)  to  preserve  in  them  the  initiatory  symbols,  the  emblems 
so  pregnant  with  Occult  meaning  and  all  of  these  belonging  to 
Pagan  7nystic  Philosophy  ?  The  author  of  the  Source  of  Measures  gives 
out  that  mystical  intent ;  but  only  once  now  and  again,  in  its  one-sided, 
numerical  and  kabalistic  meaning,  without  paying  any  attention  to,  or 
having  concern  with,  the  primeval  and  more  spiritual  origin,  and  he 
deals  with  it  only  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  Old  Testament.  He  attri- 
butes the  purposed  change  in  the  sentence  "  Eli,  Eli,  lama  sabachthani  " 
to  the  principle  already  mentioned  of  the  crossed  bones  and  skull  in  the 
Labarum, 

As  an  emblem  of  death,  being  placed  over  the  door  of  life  and  signifying  birth,  or 
of  the  intercontainment  of  two  opposite  principles  in  one,  just  as,  mystically,  the 
Sa\'iour  was  held  to  be  man-woman.t 

The  author's  idea  is  to  show  the  mystic  blending  by  the  Gospel 
writers  of  Jehovah,  Cain,  Abel,  etc.,  with  Jesus  (in  accordance  with 
Jewish  kabalistic  numeration)  ;  the  better  he  succeeds,  the  more  clearly 
he  shows  that  it  was  a  forced  blending,  and  that  we  have  not  a  record 
of  the  real  events  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  narrated  by  eye-witnesses  or  the 
Apostles.     The  narrative  is  all  based  on  the  signs  of  the  Zodiac : 

Each  a  double  sign  or  male-female  [in  ancient  astrological  MagicJ— viz :  it  was 
Taurus-Eve,  and  Scorpio  was  Mars- Lupa,  or  Mars  with  the  female  wolf  [in  relation  to 


*  Op.  cil.,  ii.,  253-256. 

t  Op.  cil.,  301.    All  this  connects  Jesus   with  great  Initiates  and   solar  heroes;  all  this  is  purely 
Pagan,  under  a  newly-evolved  variation,  the  Christian  scheme. 


154  '^^^  SECKET   DOCTRINE. 

Romulus].  So,  as  these  signs  were  opposites  of  each  other,  yet  mel  in  the  centre, 
they  were  connected ;  and  so  in  fact  it  was,  and  in  a  double  sense,  the  conception  of 
the  year  was  in  Taurus,  as  the  conception  of  Eve  by  Mars,  her  opposite,  in  Scorpio. 
The  birth  would  be  at  the  winter  solstice,  or  Christmas.  On  the  contrary,  bv  con- 
ception in  Scorpio — viz.,  of  Lupa  by  Taurus — birth  would  be  in  lyco.  Scorpio  was 
Chrestos  in  humiliation,  while  Leo  was  Christos  in  triutnph.  While  Taurus-Eve 
fulfilled  astronomical  functions.  Mars- Lupa  fulfilled  spiritual  ones  by  type.* 

The  author  bases  all  this  on  Egyptian  correlations  and  meanings  of 
Gods  and  Goddesses,  but  ignores   the  Aryan,  which   are  far  earlier. 

Mooth  or  Mouth,  was  the  Egj-ptian  cognomen  of  Venus,  (Eve,  mother  of  all  living) 
[as  Vach,  mother  of  all  living,  a  permutation  oi  Aditi,  as  Eve  was  one  of  Sephirajor 
the  moon.  Plutarch  [his,  374)  hands  it  down  that  Isis  was  sometimes  called  Muth, 
which  word  means  mother.  .  .  (Issa,  rTtDN»  woman).  (Isis,  p.  372).  Isis,  he  says 
is  that  part  of  Nature,  which,  as  feminine,  contains  in  herself,  as  (nutrix)  nurse,  all 
things  to  be  born.  .  .  "  Certainly  the  moon,"  speaking  astronomically,  "  chiefly 
exercises  this  function  in  Taurus,  Venus  being  the  house  (in  opposition  to  Mars, 
generator,  in  Scorpio),  because  the  sign  is  lima,  hypsoma.  Since.  .  .  Isis  Metheur 
differs  from  Isis  3futh  and  that  in  the  vocable  Muth  the  notion  of  bringing  forth  may 
be  concealed,  and  since  fructification  must  take  place,  5a/ being  joined  with  Luna  in 
Libra,  it  is  not  improbable  that  Muth  first  indeed  signifies  Venus  in  Libra ;  hence 
Luna  in  Libra."     (Beitrage  zur  Kenntniss,  pars.  11,  S.  9,  under  Muth.)\ 

Then  Fuerst,  under  Bohu,  is  quoted  to  show 

The  double  play  upon  the  word  Muth  by  help  of  which  the  real  intent  is  produced 
in  the  occult  way  .  .  .  sin,  death,  and  woman  are  one  in  the  glyph,  and  corre- 
latively  connected  with  intercourse  and  death.X 

All  this  is  applied  by  the  author  only  to  the  exoteric  and  Jewish 
euhemerised  symbols,  whereas  they  were  meant,  first  of  all,  to  conceal 
cosmogonical  mysteries,  and  then,  those  of  anthropological  evolution 
with  reference  to  the  Seven  Races,  already  evoluted  and  to  come,  and 
especially  as  regards  the  last  branch  races  of  the  third  Root- Race. 
However,  the  word  void  (primeval  Chaos)  is  shown  to  be  taken  for 
Eve-Venus-Naamah,  agreeably  with  Fuerst's  definition;  for  as  he 
says: 

In  this  primitive  signification  [of  void]  was  ini  [bohu]  taken  in  the  Biblical  cos- 
mogony, and  used  in  establishing  the  dogma  pND  Q)-^  Jes  (us)  nCavm,  Jes-us 
from  nothing),  respecting  creation.  [Which  shows  the  writers  of  the  Nezv  Testament 
considerably  skilled  in  the  Kabalah  and  Occult  Sciences,  and  corroborates  still  more 
our  assertion.]  Hence  Aquila  translates  ovhiv  vulg.  vacua  (hence  vacca,  cow) 
[hence  also  the  horns  of  Isis— Nature,  Earth,  and  the  Moon— taken  from  Vach,  the 
Hindu  "  Mother  of  all  that  lives,"  identified  with  Viraj  and  called  in  Atharvaveda 
the  daughter  of  Kama,  \.\v^  first  desires:  "That  daughter  of  thine,  O  Kama,  is  calUd 

•  op.  Cit.,  296.  +  Pp.  294,  295.  J  p  ^gj_ 


THE   PRIMITIVE   WOMAN. 


155 


the  cow,  she  whom  Sages  name  Vdch-Virdj,"  who  was  milked  hy  Brihaspati,  the 
Rishi,  which  is  another  mystery]  Onkelos  and  Sauiarit.     "'3p"'T 

The  Phoenician  cosmogony  has  connected  Bohu  IHl  Baav  into  a  personified  ex- 
pression denoting  the  pritnitive  substance,  and  as  a  deity,  the  mother  of  races  of 
the  gods  [which  is  Aditi  and  Vach].  The  Aramean  name  n"in!l»  r\"in!l,  Nn"in2, 
Bacj^,  Bv^-os,  Buto,  for  the  mother  of  the  gods,  which  passed  over  to  the  Gnostics, 
Babylonians  and  Eg>'ptians,  is  identical  then  with  Mot  (mo,  our  Muth)  properly, 
(Bw^)  originated  in  Phoenician  from  an  interchange  of  b  with  m* 

Rather,  one  would  say,  go  to  the  origin.  The  mystic  euhemerisation 
of  Wisdom  and  Intelligence,  operating  in  the  work  of  cosmic  evolution, 
or  Buddhi  under  the  names  of  Brahma,  Purusha,  etc.,  as  male  power, 
and  Aditi-Vach,  etc.,  as  female,  whence  Sarasvati,  Goddess  of  Wisdom, 
who  became  under  the  veils  of  Esoteric  concealment,  Butos,  Bythos- 
Depth,  the  grossly  material,  personal  female,  called  Eve,  the  "primitive 
woman  "  of  Irenaeus,  and  the  world  springing  out  oi  Nothing. 

The  workings  out  of  this  glj^ih  of  4th  Genesis  help  to  the  comprehension  of  the 
division  of  one  character  into  the  forms  of  two  persons;  as  Adam  and  Eve,  Cain 
and  Abel,  Abram  and  Isaac,  Jacob  and  Esau,  andsoon  [all  male  and  female]  .  .  . 
Now,  as  linking  together  several  great  salient  points  in  the  Biblical  structure :  (/) 
as  to  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  ;  with  also  (2)  as  to  the  Roman  Empire;  (j)  as  to 
confirming  the  meanings  and  uses  of  symbols  ;  and  (7)  as  to  confirming  the  entire 
explanation  and  reading  of  the  glyphs  ;  as  (5)  recognising  and  laying  down  the  base 
of  the  great  pyramid  as  the  foundation  square  of  the  Bible  construction  ;  (6)  as  well 
as  the  new  Roman  adoption  under  Constantine — the  following  given  :t 

Cain  has  been  shown  to  be  .  .  .  the  360  circle  of  the  Zodiac,  the  perfect  and 
exact  standard,  by  a  squared  division ;  hence  his  name  of  Melchizadik  .... 
[The  geometrical  and  numerical  demonstrations  here  follow.]  It  has  been 
repeatedly  stated  that  the  object  of  the  Great  Pyramid  construction  was  to  measure 
the  heavens  and  the  earth  .  .  .  [the  objective  spheres  as  evoluting  from  the  sub- 
jective, purely  spiritual  Kosmos,  we  beg  leave  to  add];  therefore,  its  measuring  con- 
tainment would  indicate  all  the  substance  of  measure  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  or 
agreeably  to  ancient  recognition.  Earth,  Air,  IVater  and  Fire.X  (The  base  side  of 
this  pyramid  was  diameter  to  a  circumference  in  feet  of  2400.  The  characteristic 
of  this  is  24  feet,  or  6  x  4  =  24,  or  this  very  Cain-Adam  square.)  Now,  by  the 
restoration  of  the  encampment  of  the  Israelites,  as  initiated  by  Moses,  by  the  great 


•  Pp-  295,  296. 

t  Had  we  known  the  leanied  author  before  his  book  was  printed,  he  might  have  been  perchance 
prevailed  upon  to  add  a  seventh  link  from  which  all  others,  far  preceding-  those  enumerated  in 
point  of  time,  and  surpassing  them  in  universally  philosophical  meaning,  have  been  derived,  aye, 
even  to  the  great  pyramid,  whose  foundation  square  was,  in  its  turn,  the  great  Aryan  Mysteries. 

X  We  would  say  cosmic  Matter,  Spirit,  Chaos,  and  Divine  Light,  for  the  Egyptian  idea  was 
identical  in  this  with  the  Aryan.  However,  the  author  is  right  with  regard  to  the  Occult  Symbology 
of  the  Jews.  They  were  a  remarkably  matter  of  fact,  unspiritual  people  at  all  times;  yet  even  with 
ihem  "  Ruach  "  was  Divine  Spirit,  not  "  air." 


156  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

scholar,  Father  Athanasiiis  Kircher,  the  Jesuit  priest,  the  above  is  precisely,  by- 
Biblical  record  and  traditionary  sources,  the  method  of  laj^ing  off  this  encampment. 
The  four  intenor  squares  were  devoted  to  (i)  Moses  and  Aaron;  (2)  Kohath;  (3) 
Gershom;  and  (4)  Merari — the  last  three  being  the  heads  of  the  Levites.  The 
attributes  of  these  squares  were  the  primal  attributes  of  Adam-Mars  and  were 
concreted  of  the  elements.  Earth,  Air,  Fire,  Water,  or  D"'  =  lam  =  Water,  ~nD  = 
Nour  =  Fire,  ni")  =  Rouach  =  Air,  and  nil?!"'  =  labeshah  =  Earth.  The  initial 
letters  of  these  words  are  INRI — the  symbol  usually  translated  as  /esus  A^azarenus 
^ex /udeeorum — "Jesus  of  Nazareth,  King  of  the  Jews."  This  sqtiare  of  INRI  is 
the  Adam  square,  which  was  extended  from,  as  a  foundation,  into  four  others  of 
144  X  2  =  288,  to  the  side  of  the  large  square  of  288  x  4  =  1152,  =  the  whole 
circumference.  But  this  square  is  the  display  of  also  circular  elements  and  11,5-2 
can  denote  this.  Put  INRI  into  a  circle,  or  read  it  as  the  letters  sta.nd  in  the  square, 
as  to  its  values  of  152 1,  and  we  have  /^    ^\  which  reads  115-2. 


_5_^ 

But  as  seen  Cain  denotes  this  as,  or  in,  the  115  of  his  name:  which  115  was  the 
very  complement  to  make  up  the  360  day  year,  to  agree  with  the  balances  of  the 
standard  circle,  which  were  Cain.  The  corner  squares  of  the  larger  square  are, 
A  =  Leo,  and  B  =  Dan  Scorpio ;  and  it  is  seen  that  Cain  pierces  Abel  at  the  inter- 
section of  the  equinoctial  with  the  solstice  cross  lines,  referred  to  from  Dan-Scorpio  on 
the  celestial  circle.  But  Dan-Scorpio  borders  on  Libra,  the  scales,  whose  sign  is 
^  (which  sign  is  that  of  the  ancient  pillozv  on  -which,  the  back  0/ the  head  to  the  ears* 
rested,  the  pillow  of  Jacob),  and  is  represented  for  one  symbol  as  XPS  •  •  • 
Also  the  badge  of  Dan-vScorpio  is  death-life,  in  the  symbol  f .  Now  the  cross  is 
the  emblem  of  the  origin  of  jneasures,  in  the  Jehovah  form  of  a  straight  line 
one  of  a  denomination  of  20612,  the  perfect  circumference ;  hence  Cain  was  this  as 
Jehovah,  for  the  text  says  that  he  was  Jehovah.  But  the  attachment  of  a  man  to 
this  cross  was  that  of  113:  355  to  6561 :  5153  x  4  =  20612,  as  shown.  Now,  over  the 
/^mrf  of  Jesus  crucified  was  placed  the  inscription,  of  which  the  initial  letters  of  the 
words  have  always  been  retained  as  symbolic,  and  handed  down  and  used  as  a 
monogram  of  Jesus  Chrestos — viz.,  Y^'SJ.  or  Jesus  Nazarenus  Rex  Jiidcsorum;  but 
they  are  located  on  the  Cross,  or  the  cubed /orw2  of  the  circular  origin  of  measures 
which  measure  the  substance  of  Earth,  Air,  Fire  and  Water,  or  INRI  =  1152,  as 
shown.  Here  is  the  mart  on  the  cross,  or  113:  355  combined  with  6561  :  5153  x  4  = 
20612.  These  a.rethe pyram,id-base  numbers  as  coming  from  113  :  355  as  the  Hebrew 
source  ;  whence  the  Adam-square,  which  is  the  pyramid  base,  and  the  centre  one 
to  the  larger  square  of  the  encampment.  Bend  INRI  into  a  circle,  and  we  have 
1 152,  or  the  circumference  of  the  latter.  But  Jesus  dying  (or  Abel  married)  made 
iise  of  the  very  words  needed  to  set  forth  all.  He  sa5'S,  Eh,  Eh,  Lama  Sabachth- 
am    .  .     Read  them  by  their  power  values,  in  circular  form,  as  produced  from 


♦  Mr.  Ralston  Skinner  shows  that  the  symbol  » ,  the  crossed  bones  and  skull,  has  the  letter  p  Koph, 
the  half  of  the  head  behind  the  ears. 


KABAXISTIC   READING   OF   GOSPELS.  157 

the  Adam  form  as  shown,  and  we  have  ^Sn  =  113,  -Sn  =  113.  or  113-311  :  ^°^ 
=  345  or  Moses  in  the  Cain-Adam  pyramid  circle:  FinDtD  =  710,  equals  Dove,  or 
Jonah'  and  710  -  2  =  355.  or  355  -  553  ;  and  finally,  as  determinative  of  all  T  or  ni, 
where  3   =  nun,  fish   =   565.  and  .    =    i  or  10 ;  together  565  -  =  H-iH-  or  the  Chnst 


value 


[All  of  the  above]  throws  light  on  the  transfiguration  scene  on  the  mount.  There 
were  present  there  Peter  and  James  and  John  with  Jesus  ;  or  D^  lami,  James, 
Water ;  n^1\  Peter,  Earth ;  TiT),  John,  Spirit,  Air,  and  -113^  Jesus,  Fire,  Lifo— 
together  INRI.  But  behold  Eli  and  Moses  met  them  there,  or  ""Sn  and  HoS  or 
EH  and  Lamah,  or  113  and  345-  And  this  shows  that  the  scene  of  transfiguration 
was  connected  with  the  one  above  set  forth.* 

This  kabalistical  reading  of  the  Gospel  narratives— hitherto  supposed 
to  record  the  most  important,  the  most  mystically  awful,  yet  most  real 
events  of  the  life  of  Jesus— must  fall  with  terrible  weight  upon  some 
Christians.     Every  honest  trusting  believer  who  has  shed  tears  of  re- 
verential emotion  over  the  events  of  the  short  period  of  the  public  life 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  has  to  choose  one  of  the  two  ways  opening  before 
him  after  reading  the  aforesaid  :  either  his  faith  has  to  render  him  quite 
imperv'ious  to  any  light  coming  from   human  reasoning  and  evident 
fact ;  or  he  must  confess  that  he  has  lost  his  Saviour.     The  One  whom 
he  had  hitherto  considered  as  the  unique  incarnation  on  this  earth  of 
the  One  Living  God  in  heaven,  fades  into  thin  air,  on  the  authority  of 
the  properly  read   and    correctly  interpreted   Bible  itself.     Moreover, 
since  on  the  authority  of  Jerome  himself  and  his  accepted  and  authentic 
confession,  the  book  written  by  the  hand  of  Matthew  "  exhibits  matter 
not  for  edification  but  for  destruction  "   (of  Church  and  human  Chris- 
tianity,  and  only  that)  what  truth  can  be  expected  from  his  famous 
Vulgate?      Human   mysteries,    concocted    by    generations   of  Church 
Fathers  bent  upon  evoUnng  a  religion  of  their  own  invention,  are  seen 
instead  of  a  divi7ie  Revelation  ;  and  that  this  was  so  is  corroborated  by 
a  prelate  of  the  Latin  Church.     Saint  Gregory  Nazianzen  wrote  to  his 
friend  and  confidant.  Saint  Jerome: 

Nothing  can  impose  better  on  a  people  than  verbiage ;  the  less  they  understand 
the  more  they  admire.  .  .  Our  fathers  and  doctors  have  often  said,  not  what 
they  thought,  but  that  to  which  circumstances  and  necessity  forced  them. 


-  Pp.  296-302.  By  these  numbers,  explains  the  author,  "  EH  is  113  (by  placing  the  word  in  a  circle) : 
amah  being  345,  is  by  change  ofletters  to  suit  the  same  value  D  tDD  (in  a  circle)  or  Moses,  while  Sabachth 
is  John  or  the  dove,  or  Holy  Spirit,  because  (in  a  circle)  it  is  710  (or  355  x  2).  The  termination  ni,  as 
meni  or  5651,  becomes  Jehovah." 


158  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Which  then  of  the  two — the  clergy,  or  the  Occultists  and  Theoso- 
phists — are  the  more  blasphemous  and  dangerous?  Is  it  those  who 
would  impose  upon  the  world's  acceptance  a  Saviour  of  their  own 
fashioning,  a  God  with  human  shortcomings,  and  who  therefore  is  cer- 
tainly not  a  perfect  divine  Being ;  or  those  others  who  say  :  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  was  an  Initiate,  a  holy,  grand  and  noble  character,  but  withal 
human,  though  truly  "  a  Son  of  God"  ? 

If  Humanit)^  is  to  accept  a  so-called  supernatural  Religion,  how  far 
more  logical  to  the  Occultist  and  the  Psychologist  seems  the  trans- 
parent allegor}'  given  of  Jesus  by  the  Gnostics.  They,  as  Occultists, 
and  with  Initiates  for  their  Chiefs,  differed  only  in  their  renderings  of 
the  story  and  in  their  symbols,  and  not  at  all  in  substance.  What  say 
the  Ophites,  the  Nazarenes,  and  other  "heretics"?  Sophia,  "the 
Celestial  Virgin,"  is  prevailed  upon  to  send  Christos,  her  emanation,  to 
the  help  of  perishing  humanity,  from  whom  Ilda-Baoth  (the  Jehovah 
of  the  Jews)  and  his  six  Sons  of  Matter  (the  lower  terrestrial  Angels) 
are  shutting  out  the  divine  light.      Therefore,  Christos,  the  perfect,  * 

Uniting  himself  with  Sophia  [divine  wisdom]  descended  through  the  seven  plane- 
tary regions,  assuming  in  each  an  analogous  form  .  .  .  [and]  entered  into  the 
man  Jesus  at  the  moment  of  his  baptism  in  the  Jordan.  From  this  time  forth 
Jesus  began  to  work  miracles ;  before  that  he  had  been  entirely  ignorant  of  his  own 
mission. 

Ilda-Baoth,  discovering  that  Christos  was  bringing  to  an  end  his 
kingdom  of  Matter,  stirred  up  the  Jews,  his  own  people,  against  Him, 
and  Jesus  was  put  to  death.  When  Jesus  was  on  the  Cross  Christos 
and  Sophia  left  His  body,  and  returned  to  Their  own  sphere.  The 
material  body  of  Jesus  was  abandoned  to  the  earth,  but  He  Himself,  the 
Inner  Man,  was  clothed  with  a  body  made  up  oi  ^zther.] 

Thenceforth  he  consisted  merely  of  soul  and  spirit.  .  .  During  his  sojourn 
upon  earth  of  eighteen  months  after  he  had  risen,  he  received  from  Sophia  that  per- 
fect knowledge,  that  true  Gnosis,  which  he  communicated  to  the  small  portion  of 
the  Apostles  who  were  capable  of  receiving  the  same.  + 

The  above  is  transparently  Eastern  and  Hindu ;  it  is  the  Ssofe^Hc 
Doctrine  pure  and  simple,  save  for  the  names  and  the  allegory.     It  is, 

*  The  Western  personification  of  that  power,  which  the  Hindus  call  the  Vija,  tne  "  one  seed,"  or 
Maha  yishnu—a  power,  not  the  God — or  that  mysterious  Principle  that  contains  in  Itself  the 
■Seed  of  Avatirism. 

+  "Arise  into  Nervi  from  this  decrepit  body  into  which  thou  hast  been  sent.  Ascend  into  thy 
former  abode,  O  blessed  Avatar  !  " 

t  The  Gnostics  and  their  Remains,  King,  pp.  100,  loi. 


UNIVERSAL   TEACHINGS.  1 59 

more  or  less,  the  history  of  ever)^  Adept  who  obtains  Initiation.  The 
Baptism  in  the  Jordan  is  the  Rite  of  Initiation,  the  final  purification, 
whether  in  sacred  pagoda,  tank,  river,  or  temple  lake  in  Egypt  or 
Mexico.  The  perfect  Christos  and  Sophia — divine  Wisdom  and  Intelli- 
gence— enter  the  Initiate  at  the  moment  of  the  mystic  rite,  by  trans- 
ference from  Guru  to  Chela,  and  leave  the  physical  body,  at  the  moment 
of  the  death  of  the  latter,  to  re-enter  the  Nirmanakaya,  or  the  astral 
Ego  of  the  Adept. 

The  spirit  of  Buddha  [collectively]  overshadows  the  Bodhisattvas  of  his  Church 

says  the  Buddhist  Ritual  of  Arj^asangha. 
Says  the  Gnostic  teaching  • 

When  he  [the  spirit  of  Christos]  shall  have  collected  all  the  Spiritual,  all  the 
Light  [that  exists  in  matter],  out  of  Ilbadaoth's  empire.  Redemption  is  accom- 
plished and  the  end  of  the  world  arrived.* 

Say  the  Buddhists : 

When  Buddha  [the  Spirit  of  the  Church]  hears  the  hour  strike,  he  will  send 
Maitreya  Buddha — after  whom  the  old  world  will  be  destroyed 

That  which  is  said  of  Basilides  by  King  maj'  be  applied  as  truthfully 
to  every  innovator,  so  called,  whether  of  a  Buddhist  or  of  a  Christian 
Church.  In  the  eyes  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  he  says,  the  Gnostics 
taught  very  little  that  was  blameable  in  their  mystical  transcendental 
views. 

In  his  eyes  the  latter  [Basilides],  was  not  a  ha-ctic,  that  is  an  innovator  upon  the 
accepted  doctrines  of  the  Catholic  Church,  but  only  a  theosophic  speculator  who 
sought  to  express  old  truths  by  new  formulai.t 

There  was  a  Secret  Doctrine  preached  by  Jesus  ;  and  "  secresy  "  in 
those  days  meant  Secrets,  or  Mysteries  of  Initiation,  all  of  which  have 
been  either  rejected  or  disfigured  by  the  Church.  In  the  Clementine 
Homilies  we  read : 

And  Peter  said :  "  We  remeralier  that  our    Lord    and  Teacher,  commanding 
us,  said   '  Guard  the  mysteries  for  me  and  the  sons  of  my  house.'"  Wherefore  also 
he  explained  to  His  disciples  privately  the   Mysteries  of  the   Kingdom  of  the 
Heavens,  j 


Loc.  cil,  +  Op,  cit.,  o.  258.  :  Homilies  XIX.,  xx.  1. 


SECTION    XIX. 
St.  Cyprian  of  Antioch. 


Thk  iBons  (Stellar  Spirits) — emanated  from  the  Unknown  of  the  Gnos- 
tics, and  identical  with  the  Dh5^an  Chohans  of  the  Esoteric  Doctrine — 
and  their  Pleroma,  having  been  transformed  into  Archangels  and  the 
"Spirits  of  cix«_  Presence"  by  the  Greek  and  l,atin  Churches,  the  pro- 
totj^pes  have  lost  caste.  The  Pleroma*  was  now  called  the  "  Heavenly 
Host,"  and  therefore  the  old  name  had  to  become  identified  with  Satan 
and  his  "  Host."  Might  is  right  in  every  age,  and  History  is  full  of  con- 
trasts. Manes  had  been  called  the  "  Paraclete  "f  by  his  followers. 
He  was  an  Occultist,  but  passed  tc  posterity,  owing  to  the  kind 
exertions  of  the  Church,  as  a  Sorcerer,  so  a  matcn  had  to  be  found  for 
him  by  way  of  contrast.  We  recognise  this  match  in  St.  Cyprianus  of 
Antioch,  a  self-confessed  if  not  a  real  "  Black  Magician,"  it  seems,  whom 
the  Church — as  a  reward  for  his  contrition  and  humility — subsequently 
raised  to  the  high  rank  of  Saint  and  Bishop. 

What  history  knows  of  him  is  not  much,  and  it  is  mostly  based  on 
his  own  confession,  the  truthfulness  of  which  is  warranted,  we  are  told, 
by  St.  Gregory,  the  Empress  Eudoxia,  Photius  and  the  Holy  Church. 
This  curious  document  was  ferreted  out  by  the  Marquis  de  Mir\nlle,  J  in 
the  Vatican,  and  by  him  translated  into  French  for  the  first  time,  as  he 
assures  the  reader.  We  beg  his  permission  to  re-translate  a  few  pages, 
not  for  the  sake  of  the  penitent  Sorcerer,  but  for  that  of  some  students 
of  Occultism,   who  will  thus  have  an  opportunity  of   comparing  the 


•  The  Pleroma  constituted  the  synthesis  or  entirety  of  all  the  spiritual  entities.  St.  Paul  still  used 
the  name  in  his  Epistles. 

+  The  "Comforter,"  second  Messiah,  intercessor.  "A  term  applied  to  the  Holy  Ghost."  Maues 
was  the  disciple  of  Terebinthus,  an  Egyptian  Philosopher,  who,  according  to  the  Christian  Socrates 
(I.  i.,  cited  by  Tillemont,  iv.  584),  "while  invoking  one  day  the  demons  of  the  air,  fell  from  the  roof  of 
iis  house  and  was  killed." 

I  Cf.  op.cit.,  vi.  169-183. 


MAGIC    IN   ANTIOCH.  l6l 

methods  of  ancient  Magic  (or  as  the  Church  calls  it,  Demonism)  with 
those  of  modem  Theurgy  and  Occultism. 

The  scenes  described  took  place  at  Antioch  about  the  middle  of  the 
third  century,  252  A.D.,  says  the  translator.  This  Confession  was 
written  by  the  penitent  Sorcerer  after  his  conversion  ;  therefore,  we  are 
not  surprised  to  find  how  much  room  he  gives  in  his  lamentations  to 
reviling  his  Initiator  "Satan,"  or  the  "Serpent  Dragon,"  as  he  calls 
him.  There  are  other  and  more  modern  instances  of  the  same  trait  in 
human  nature.  Converted  Hindus,  Parsis  and  other  "heathen"  of 
India  are  apt  to  denounce  their  forefathers'  religions  at  every  opportu- 
nity.    Thus  runs  the  Confession : 

O  all  of  30U  who  reject  the  real  mysteries  of  Christ,  see  my  tears  !  .  .  .  You 
■who  wallow  in  your  demoniacal  practices,  learn  by  my  sad  example  all  the  vanity 
of  their  [the  demons']  baits  ...  I  am  that  Cyprianus,  who,  vowed  to  Apollo 
from  his  infancy,  was  early  initiated  into  all  the  arts  of  the  dragon.*  Even  before 
the  age  of  seven  I  had  already  been  introduced  into  the  temple  of  Mithra :  three 
years  later,  my  parents  taking  me  to  Athens  to  be  received  as  citizen,  I  was  per- 
mitted likewise  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  Ceres  lamenting  her  daughter,  t  and 
I  also  became  the  guardian  of  the  Dragon  in  the  Temple  of  Pallas. 

Ascending  after  that  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Olympus,  the  Seat  of  the  Gods,  as 
it  is  called,  there  too  I  was  initiated  into  the  sense,  and  the  real  meaning  of  their 
[the  Gods']  speeches  and  their  clamorous  manifestations  {strepituuin).  It  is  there 
that  I  was  made  to  see  in  imagination  (phaniasia)  [or  nidyd]  those  trees  and  all  those 
herbs  that  operate  such  prodigies  with  the  help  of  demons ;  .  .  .  and  I  saw 
their  dances,  their  warfares,  their  snares,  illusions  and  promiscuities.  I  heard  their 
singing.  J  I  saw  finally,  for  fort}-  consecutive  days,  the  phalanx  of  the  Gods  and 
Goddesses,  sending  from  Olympus,  as  though  they  were  Kings,  spirits  to  represent 
them  on  earth  and  act  in  their  name  among  all  the  nations.^ 

At  that  time  I  lived  entirely  on  fruit,  eaten  only  after  sunset,  the  virtues  of  which 
were  explained  to  me  by  the  seven  priests  of  the  sacrifices. || 

When  I  was  fifteen  my  parents  desired  that  I  should  be  made  acquainted,  not 
only  with  all  the  natural  laws  in  connection  with  the  generation  and  corruption  of 


•  "The great  serpent  placed  to  watch  the  temple,"  comments  De  Mirville.  "  How  often  have  we 
repeated  that  it  was  no  symbol,  no  personification  but  really  a  serpent  occupied  by  a  god!  " — he 
exclaims;  and  we  answer  that  at  Cairo  in  a  Mussulman,  not  a  heathen  temple,  we  have  seen,  as 
thousands  of  other  visitors  have  also  seen,  a  huge  serpent  that  lived  there  for  centuries,  we  were  told, 
and  was  held  in  great  respect.    Was  it  also  "  occupied  by  a  God,"  or  possessed,  in  other  words  ? 

•♦•The  Mysteries  of  Demeter,  or  the  '"  afflicted  mother." 

*  By  the  satyrs. 

}  This  looks  rather  suspicious  and  seems  interpolated.  De  Mirville  tries  to  have  what  he  says  of 
Satan  and  his  Court  sending  their  imps  on  earth  to  tempt  humanity  and  masquerade  at  seances, 
corroborated  by  the  ex-sorcerer. 

II  This  docs  not  look  like  sinful  lood.    It  is  the  diet  of  Chelas  to  this  day. 

3  M 


l62  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

bodies  on  earth,  in  the  air  and  in  the  seas,  but  also  with  all  the  other  forces  grafted  * 
(insitas)  on  these  by  the  Prince  of  the  World  in  order  to  counteract  their  prima'' 
and  divine  constitution.!  At  twenty  I  went  to  Memphis,  where,  penetrating  into 
the  Sanctuaries,  I  was  taught  to  discern  all  that  pertains  to  the  communications  of 
demons  [Daimones  or  Spirits]  with  terrestrial  matters,  their  aversion  for  certain 
places,  their  sympathy  and  attraction  for  others,  their  expulsion  from  certain  planets, 
certain  objects  and  laws,  their  persistence  in  preferring  darkness  and  their  resis- 
tance to  light.^  There  I  learned  the  number  of  the  fallen  Princes,^  that  which 
takes  place  in  human  souls  and  the  bodies  they  enter  into  communication  with. 

I  learnt  the  analogy  that  exists  between  earthquakes  and  the  rains,  between  the 
motion  of  the  earth  ||  and  the  motion  of  the  seas;  I  saw  the  spirits  of  the  Giants 
plunged  in  subterranean  darkness  and  seemingly  supporting  the  earth  like  a  man 
carrying  a  burden  on  his  shoulders.^ 

When  thirty  I  travelled  to  Chaldsea  to  study  there  the  true  power  of  the  air, 
placed  by  some  in  the  fire  and  by  the  more  learned  in  light  [Akasha].  I  was  taught 
to  see  that  the  planets  were  in  their  variety  as  dissimilar  as  the  plants  on  earth, 
and  the  stars  were  like  armies  ranged  in  battle  order.  I  knew  the  Chaldaean 
division  of  Ether  into  365  parts,**  and  I  perceived  that  everyone  of  the  demons  who 
divide  it  among  themselvestt  was  endowed  with  that  material  force  that  permitted 
him  to  execute  the  orders  of  the  Prince  and  guide  all  the  movements  therein  [in  the 
Ether].JJ  They  [the  Chaldees]  explained  to  me  how  those  Princes  had  become 
participants  in  the  Council  of  Darkness,  ever  in  opposition  to  the  Council  of 
Light. 

I  got  acquainted  with  the  Mediatores  [surely  not  mediums  as  De  Mirville  ex- 
plains !],§§  and  upon  seeing  the  covenants  they  were  mutually  bound  by,  I  was 
struck  with  wonder  upon  learning  the  nature  of  their  oaths  and  observances.  |||| 

•  "Grafted"  is  the  correct  expression.  "The  seven  Builders  graft  the  divine  and  the  beneficent 
forces  on  to  the  gross  material  nature  of  the  vegetable  and  mineral  kingdoms  every  Second  Round  "— 
says  the  Catechism  of  Lanoos. 

+  Only  the  Prince  of  the  World  is  not  Satan,  as  the  translator  would  make  us  beheve,  but  the  collec- 
tive Host  of  the  Planetary.    This  is  a  little  theological  back-biting. 

X  Here  the  Elemental  and  Elementary  Spirits  are  evidently  meant. 

}    The  reader  has  already  learned  the  truth  about  them  in  the  course  of  the  present  work. 

;|  Pity  the  penitent  Saint  had  not  imparted  his  knowledge  of  the  rotation  of  the  earth  and  helio- 
centric system  earlier  to  his  Church.  That  might  have  saved  more  than  one  human  life— that  of  Bruno 
for  one. 

^  Chelas  in  their  trials  ot  initiation,  also  see  in  trances  artificially  generated  for  them,  the  vision  of 
the  Earth  supported  by  an  elephant  on  the  top  of  a  tortoise  standing  on  nothing— and  this,  to  teach 
them  to  discern  the  true  from  the  false. 

••  Relating  to  the  days  of  the  year,  also  to  7  x  7  divisions  of  the  earth's  sublunary  sphere,  divided 
into  seven  upper  and  seven  lower  spheres  with  their  respective  Planetary  Hosts  or  "  armies." 

tt  Daimon  is  not  "  demon,"  as  translated  by  De  Mirville,  but  Spirit. 

XX  All  this  is  to  co.Toborate  his  dogmatic  assertions  that  Pater  .5Jther  or  Jupiter  is  Satan  !  and  that 
pestilential  diseases,  cataclysms,  and  even  thunderstorms  that  prove  disastrous,  come  from  the  Satanic 
Host  dwelling  in  Ether- a  good  warning  to  the  men  of  Science! 

?{  The  translator  replaces  the  word  Mediators  by  mediums,  excusing  himself  in  a  foot-note  by  saying 
that  Cyprian  must  have  meant  modern  mediums  ! 

nil  Cyprianus  simply  meant  to  hint  at  the  rites  and  mysteries  of  Initiation,  and  the  pledge  of  secresy 
and  oaths  that  bound  the  Initiates  together.  His  translator,  however,  has  made  a  Witches'  Sabbath 
of  it  instead. 


SORCERER  BECOME   SAINT.  1 63 

Believe  me,  I  saw  the  De\nl ;  believe  me  I  have  embraced  him*  [like  the  witches 
at  the  Sabbath  (?)]  when  I  was  yet  quite  young,  and  he  saluted  me  by  the  title  of 
the  new  Jambres,  declaring  me  worthy  of  my  ministry  (initiation).  He  promised 
me  continual  help  during  life  and  a  principality  after  death.t  Having  become  in 
great  honour  [an  Adept]  under  his  tuition,  he  placed  under  my  orders  a  phalanx  of 
demons,  and  when  I  bid  him  good-bj-e,  "  Courage,  good  success,  excellent  Cyprian," 
he  exclaimed,  rising  up  from  his  seat  to  see  me  to  the  door,  plunging  thereby  those 
present  into  a  profound  admiration.  + 

Having  bidden  farewell  to  his  Chaldaean  Initiator,  the  future 
Sorcerer  and  Saint  went  to  Antioch.  His  tale  of  *'  iniquity"  and  sub- 
sequent repentance  is  long  but  we  will  make  it  short.  He  became  "  an 
accomplished  Magician,"  surrounded  by  a  host  of  disciples  and  "candi- 
dates to  the  perilous  and  sacrilegious  art."  He  shows  himself  distri- 
buting love-philtres  and  dealing  in  deathly  charms  "to  rid  young 
wives  of  old  husbands,  and  to  ruin  Christian  virgins."  Unfortunately 
Cyprianus  was  not  above  love  himself.  He  fell  in  love  with  the  beau- 
tiful Justine,  a  converted  maiden,  after  having  vainly  tried  to  make  her 
share  the  passion  one  named  Aglaides,  a  profligate,  had  for  her.  His 
"  demons  failed  "  he  tells  us,  and  he  got  disgusted  with  them.  This 
disgust  brings  on  a  quarrel  between  him  and  his  Hierophant,  whom  he 
insists  on  identifying  with  the  Demon  ;  and  the  dispute  is  followed  by 
a  tournament  between  the  latter  and  some  Christian  converts,  in  which 
the  "  Evil  One  "  is,  of  course,  worsted.  The  Sorcerer  is  finally  baptised 
and  gets  rid  of  his  enemy.  Having  laid  at  the  feet  of  Anthimes, 
Bishop  of  Antioch,  all  his  books  on  Magic,  he  became  a  Saint  in  com- 
pany with  the  beautiful  Justine,  who  had  converted  him  ;  both  suffered 
martyrdom  under  the  Emperor  Diocletian;  and  both  are  buried  side  by 
side  in  Rome,  in  the  Basilica  of  St.  John  I,ateran,  near  the  Baptistery. 

•  "Twelve  centuries  later,  in  full  renaissance  and  reform,  the  world  saw  Luther  do  the  same  [em- 
brace the  Devil  he  means  ?] — according  to  his  own  confession  and  in  the  same  conditions,"  explains 
De  Mirvnlle  in  a  foot-note,  showing  thereby  the  brotherly  love  that  binds  Christians.  Now  Cyprianus 
meant  by  the  Devil  (if  the  word  is  really  in  the  original  text)  his  Initiator  and  Hierophant.  No  Saint 
—even  a  penitent  Sorcerer— would  be  so  silly  as  to  sp>eak  of  his  (the  Devil's^  rising  from  his  seat  to  see 
him  to  the  door,  were  it  otherwise. 

+  Every  Adept  has  "  a  principality  after  his  death." 

i  Which  shows  that  it  was  the  Hierophant  and  his  disciples  C->'j?rianus  shows  himself  as  grateful 
as  most  of  the  other  converts  (the  modem  included)  to  his  Teachers  and  Instructors. 


SECTION    XX. 

The  Eastern  Gupta  Vidya  &  the  Kabalah. 


We  now  return  to  the  consideration  of  the  essential  identity  between 
the  Eastern  Gupta  Vidya  and  the  Kabalah  as  a  system,  while  we  must 
also  show  the  dissimilarity  in  their  philosophical  interpretations  since 
the  Middle  Ages. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  views  of  the  Kabalists — meaning  by  the 
word  those  students  of  Occultism  who  study  the  Jewish  Kabalah  and 
who  know  little,  if  anything,  of  any  other  Esoteric  literature  or  of  its 
teachings — are  as  varied  in  their  synthetic  conclusions  upon  the 
nature  of  the  mysteries  taught  even  in  the  Zphar  alone,  and  are  as  wide 
of  the  true  mark,  as  are  the  dicta  upon  it  of  exact  Science  itself.  I,ike 
the  mediaeval  Rosicrucian  and  the  Alchemist — like  the  Abbot  Trithe- 
mius,  John  Reuchlin,  Agrippa,  Paracelsus,  Robert  Fludd,  Philalethes, 
etc. — by  whom  they  swear,  the  continental  Occultists  see  in  the  Jewish 
Kabalah  alone  the  universal  well  of  wisdom  ;  they  find  in  it  the  secret 
lore  of  nearly  all  the  mysteries  of  Nature — metaphysical  and  divine — 
some  of  them  including  herein,  as  did  Reuchlin,  those  of  the  Christian 
Bible.  For  them  the  Zohar  is  an  Esoteric  Thesaurus  of  all  the  mys- 
teries of  the  Christian  Gospel ;  and  the  Sepher  Yetzirah  is  the  light 
that  shines  in  every  darkness,  and  the  container  of  the  keys  to  open 
every  secret  in  Nature.  Whether  many  of  our  modern  followers  of  the 
mediaeval  Kabalists  have  an  idea  of  the  real  meaning  of  the  symbology 
of  their  chosen  Masters  is  another  question.  Most  of  them  have 
probably  never  given  even  a  passing  thought  to  the  fact  that  the  Eso- 
teric language  used  by  the  Alchemists  was  their  own,  and  that  it  was 
given  out  as  a  blind,  necessitated  by  the  dangers  of  the  epoch  they 
lived  in,  and  not  as  the  Mystery-language,  used  by  the  Pagan  Initiates, 
which  the  Alchemists  had  re-translated  and  re-veiled  once  more. 


A   MYSTERY   WITHIN   A   MYSTERY.  1 6c 

And  now  the  situation  stands  thus:  as  the  old  Alchemists  have 
not  left  a  key  to  their  writings,  the  latter  have  become  a  mystery 
within  an  older  mysterj-.  The  Kabalah  is  interpreted  and  checked  only 
by  the  light  which  mediaeval  Mystics  have  thrown  upon  it,  and  they, 
in  their  forced  Christolog>',  had  to  put  a  theological  dogmatic  mask  on 
every  ancient  teaching,  the  result  being  that  each  Mystic  among  our 
modern  European  and  American  Kabalists  interprets  the  old  symbols 
in  his  own  way,  and  each  refers  his  opponents  to  the  Rosicrucian  and 
the  Alchemist  of  three  and  four  hundred  years  ago.  Mystic  Christian 
dogma  is  the  central  maelstrom  that  engulfs  every  old  Pagan  symbol, 
and  Christianity— Anti-Gnostic  Christianity,  the  modern  retort  that  has 
replaced  the  alembic  of  the  Alchemists— has  distilled  out  of  all  recogni- 
tion the  Kabalah,  i.e.,  the  Hebrew  Zohar  and  other  rabbinical  mystic 
works.  And  now  it  has  come  to  this  :  The  student  interested  in  the 
Secret  Sciences  has  to  believe  that  the  whole  cycle  of  the  symbolical 
"  Ancient  of  Days,"  every  hair  of  the  mighty  beard  of  Macroprosopos, 
refers  only  to  the  history  of  the  earthly  career  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth ! 
And  we  are  told  that  the  Kabalah  "  was  first  taught  to  a  select  company 
of  angels"  by  Jehovah  himself— who,  out  of  modesty,  one  must  think, 
made  himself  only  the  third  Sephiroth  in  it,  and  a  female  one  into  the 
bargain.  So  many  Kabalists,  so  many  explanations.  Some  believe- 
perchance  with  more  reason  than  the  rest— that  the  substance  of  the 
Kabalah  is  the  basis  upon  which  Masonry  is  built,  since  modern 
Masonry  is  undeniably  the  dim  and  hazy  reflection  of  primeval  Occult 
Masonry,  of  the  teaching  of  those  divine  Masons  who  established  the 
Mysteries  of  the  prehistoric  and  prediluvian  Temples  of  Initiation, 
raised  by  truly  superhuman  Builders.  Others  declare  that  the  tenets 
expounded  in  the  Zohar  relate  merely  to  mysteries  terrestrial  and  pro- 
fane, having  no  more  concern  with  metaphysical  speculations— such  as 
the  soul,  or  the  post-viortem  life  of  man— than  have  the  Mosaic  books. 
Others,  again— and  these  are  the  real,  genuine  Kabalists,  who  had  their 
instructions  from  initiated  Jewish  Rabbis— affirm  that  if  the  two  most 
learned  Kabalists  of  the  mediaeval  period,  John  Reuchlin  and  Para- 
celsus, differed  in  their  religious  professions— the  former  being  the 
Father  of  the  Reformation  and  the  latter  a  Roman  Catholic,  at  least  in 
appearance— the  Zohar  cannot  contain  much  of  Christian  dogma  or 
tenet,  one  way  or  the  other.  In  other  words,  they  maintain  that 
the  numerical  language  of  the  Kabalistic  works  teaches  universal 
truths— and  not  any  one  Religion  in  particular.     Those  who  make  this 


l66  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

Statement  are  perfectly  right  in  saying  that  the  Mystery-language  used 
in  the  Zohar  and  in  other  Kabalistic  literature  was  once,  in  a  time  of 
unfathomable  antiquity,  the  universal  language  of  Humanity.  But 
they  become  entirely  wrong  if  to  this  fact  they  add  the  untenable 
theory  that  this  language  was  invented  by,  or  was  the  original  property  of, 
the  Hebrews,  from  whom  all  the  other  nations  borrowed  it. 

They  are  wrong,  because,  although  the  Zohar  ("iHT  ZHR),  The  Book 
of  Splendour  of  Rabbi  Simeon  Ben  lochai,  did  indeed  originate  with 
him — his  son,  Rabbi  Eleazar,  helped  by  his  secretary,  Rabbi  Abba,  com- 
piling the  Kabalistic  teachings  of  his  deceased  father  into  a  work 
called  the  Zohar — those  teachings  were  not  Rabbi  Simeon's,  as  the 
Gupta  Vidya  shows.  The}^  are  as  old  as  the  Jewish  nation  itself,  and 
far  older.  In  short,  the  writings  which  pass  at  present  under  the  title 
of  the  Zohar  oi  Rabbi  Simeon  are  about  as  original  as  were  the  Kg3'p- 
tian  synchronistic  Tables  after  being  handled  by  Eusebius,  or  as  St. 
Paul's  Epistles  after  their  revision  and  correction  by  the  "  Holy 
Church."* 

Let  us  throw  a  rapid  retrospective  glance  at  the  history  and  the 
tribulations  of  that  very  same  Zohar,  as  we  know  of  them  from  trust- 
worthy tradition  and  documents.  We  need  not  stop  to  discuss  whether 
it  was  written  in  the  first  century  B.C.  or  in  the  first  century  a.d. 
Suffice  it  for  us  to  know  that  there  was  at  all  times  a  Kabalistic  litera- 
ture among  the  Jews ;  that  though  historically  it  can  be  traced  only 
from  the  time  of  the  Captivity,  yet  from  the  Pentateuch  down  to  the 
Talmud  the  documents  of  that  literature  were  ever  written  in  a  kind  of 
Mystery-language,  were,  in  fact,  a  series  of  s}^mbolical  records  which 
the  Jews  had  copied  from  the  Egyptian  and  the  Chaldsean  Sanctuaries, 
only  adapting  them  to  their  own  national  history — if  history  it  can  be 
called.  Now  that  which  we  claim — and  it  is  not  denied  even  by  the 
most  prejudiced  Kabalist,  is  that  although  Kabalistic  lore  had  passed 
orally  through  long  ages  down  to  the  latest  Pre-Christian  Tanaim,  and 
although  David  and  Solomon  may  have  been  great  Adepts  in  it,  as  is 
claimed,  yet  no  one  dared  to  write  it  down  till  the  days  of  Simeon 


*  This  is  proved  if  we  take  but  a  single  recorded  instance.  J.  Picus  de  Mirandola,  finding:  that 
there  was  more  Christianity  than  Judaism  in  the  Kabalah,  and  discovering  in  it  the  doctrines  of  the 
Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  the  Divinity  of  Jesus,  etc.,  wound  up  his  proofs  of  this  vrith  a  challenge  to 
the  world  at  large  from  Rome.  As  Ginsburg  shows:  "  In  i486,  when  only  twenty-four  years  old,  he 
[Picus]  published  nine  hundred  [Kabalistic]  theses,  which  were  placarded  in  Rome,  and  under- 
took to  defend  them  in  the  presence  of  all  European  scholars  whom  he  invited  to  the  Eternal  City, 
promising  to  defray  their  travelling  expenses." 


AUTHORSHIP  OF  THE   ZOHAR.  167 

Ben   lochai.      In   short,  the   lore  found   in   Kabalistic  literature  was 
never  recorded  in  writing  before  the  first  century  of  the  modem  era. 

This  brings  the  critic  to  the  following  reflection  :  While  in  India  we 
find  the  Vedas  and  the  Brahmanical  literature  written  down  and  edited 
ages  before  the  Christian  era — the  Orientalists  themselves  being 
obliged  to  concede  a  couple  of  millenniums  of  antiquity  to  the  older 
manuscripts ;  while  the  most  important  allegories  in  Genesis  are  found 
recorded  on  Babylonian  tiles  centuries  B.C. ;  while  the  Egyptian  sarco- 
phagi yearly  yield  proofs  of  the  origin  of  the  doctrines  borrowed  and 
copied  by  the  Jews ;  yet  the  Monotheism  of  the  Jews  is  exalted  and 
thrown  into  the  teeth  of  all  the  Pagan  nations,  and  the  so-called 
Christian  Revelation  is  placed  above  all  others,  like  the  sun  above 
a  row  of  street  gas- lamps.  Yet  it  is  perfectly  well  known,  having  been 
ascertained  beyond  doubt  or  cavil,  that  no  manuscript,  whether  Kaba- 
listic, Talmudistic,  or  Christian,  which  has  reached  our  present  genera- 
tion, is  of  earlier  date  than  the  first  centuries  of  our  era,  whereas 
this  can  certainly  never  be  said  of  the  Egyptian  papyri  or  the  Chaldasan 
tiles,  or  even  of  some  Eastern  writings. 

But  let  us  limit  our  present  research  to  the  Kabalah,  and  chiefly  to 
the  Zohar — called  also  the  Midrash.  This  book,  whose  teachings  were 
edited  for  the  first  time  between  70  and  no  a.d.,  is  known  to  have  been 
lost,  and  its  contents  to  have  been  scattered  throughout  a  number  of 
minor  manuscripts,  until  the  thirteenth  century.  The  idea  that  it  was  the 
composition  of  Moses  de  Leon  of  Valladolid,  in  Spain  who  passed^f 
ofi"  as  a  pseudograph  of  Simeon  Ben  lochai,  is  ridiculom  and  was  wel 
disposed  of  by  Munk— though  he  does  point  to  more  thau  one  modern 
interpolation  in  the  Zohar.  At  the  same  time  it  is  more  than  certain 
that  the  present  Book  of  Zohar  was  written  by  Moses  de  Leon,  and, 
owing  to  joint  editorship,  is  more  Christian  in  its  colouring  than  is  many 
a  genuine  Christian  volume.  Munk  gives  the  reason  why,  saying  that 
it  appears  evident  that  the  author  made  use  of  ancient  documents,  and 
among  these  of  certain  Midraschim,  or  collections  of  traditions  and 
Biblical  expositions,  which  we  do  not  now  possess. 

As  a  proof,  also,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  Esoteric  system  taught  in 
the  Zohar  came  to  the  Jews  very  late  indeed — at  any  rate,  that  they  had 
so  far  forgotten  it  that  the  innovations  and  additions  made  by  de  Leon 
provoked  no  criticism,  but  were  thankfully  received — Munk  quotes 
from  Tholuck,  a  Jewish  authority,  the  following  information :  Haya 
Gaon,  who  died  in  1038,  is  to  our  knowledge  the  first  author  who  deve- 


l68  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

loped  (and  perfected)  the  theory  of  the  Sephiroth,  and  he  gave  them 
names  which  we  find  again  among  the  Kabalistic  names  used  by  Dr. 
Jellinek.  Moses  Ben  Schem-Tob  de  Leon,  who  held  intimate  inter- 
course with  the  Syrian  and  Chaldaean  Christian  learned  scribes,  was 
enabled  through  the  latter  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  some  of  the 
Gnostic  writings.* 

Again,  the  Sepher  Jetzirah  {Book  of  Creation) — though  attributed  to 
Abraham  and  though  very  archaic  as  to  its  contents — is  first  men- 
tioned in  the  eleventh  century  by  Jehuda  Ho  Levi  (Chazari).  And 
these  two,  the  Zohar  and  Jetzirah,  are  the  storehouse  of  all  the  sub- 
sequent Kabalistic  works.  Now  let  us  see  how  far  the  Hebrew  sacred 
canon  itself  is  to  be  trusted. 

The  word  "Kabalah"  comes  from  the  root  "to  receive,"  and  has  a 
meaning  identical  with  the  Sanskrit  "Smriti"  ("received  by  tradi- 
tion")— a  system  of  oral  teaching,  passing  from  one  generation  of 
priests  to  another,  as  was  the  case  with  the  Brahmanical  books 
before  they  were  embodied  in  manuscript.  The  Kabalistic  tenets  came 
to  the  Jews  from  the  Chaldseans  ;  and  if  Moses  knew  the  primitive  and 
universal  language  of  the  Initiates,  as  did  every  Egyptian  priest,  and 
was  thus  acquainted  with  the  numerical  S5'^stem  on  which  it  was  based, 
he  may  have — and  we  say  he  has — written  Genesis  and  other  "  scrolls." 
The  five  books  that  now  pass  current  under  his  name,  the  Pentateuch, 
are  not  withal  the  original  Mosaic  Records. f  Nor  were  they  written 
in  the  old  Hebrew  square  letters,  nor  even  in  the  Samaritan  charac- 
ters, for  both  alphabets  belong  to  a  date  later  than  that  of  Moses, 
and  Hebrew — as  it  is  now  known — did  not  exist  in  the  days  of  the 
great  lawgiver,  either  as  a  language  or  as  an  alphabet. 

As  no  statements  contained  in  the  records  of  the  Secret  Doctrine  of 
the  Kast  are  regarded  as  of  any  value  by  the  world  in  general,  and 
since  to  be  understood  by  and  convince  the  reader  one  has  to  quote 
names  familiar  to  him,  and  use  arguments  and  proofs  out  of  documents 
which  are  accessible  to  all,  the  following  facts  may  perhaps  demon- 
strate that  our  assertions  are  not  merely  based  on  the  teachings  of 
Occult  Records: 

(i)  The  great  Orientalist  and  scholar,  Klaproth,   denied  positively 


•  This  account  is  summarised  from  Isaac  Myer's  Qabbalah,  p.  lo,  et  seq. 

t  There  is  not  in  the  decalogue  one  idea  that  is  not  the  counterpart,  or  the  paraphrase,  of  the 
dogmas  and  ethics  current  among  the  Egyptians  long  before  the  time  of  Moses  and  Aaron.  (The 
Mosaic  Law  a  transcript  from  Egyptian  Sources;  vide  Geometry  in  Religion,  1890.) 


CHAI,DAIC   AND    HEBRKW.  1 69 

the  antiquity  of  the  so-called  Hebrew  alphabet,  on  the  ground  that  the 
square  Hebrew  characters  in  which  the  Biblical  manuscripts  are  written, 
and  which  we  use  in  printing,  were  probably  derived  from  the 
Palmyrene  writing,  or  some  other  Semitic  alphabet,  so  that  the 
Hebrew  Bible  is  written  merely  in  the  Chaldaic  phonographs  of  Hebrew 
words. 

The  late  Dr.  Kenealy  pertinently  remarked  that  the  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians rel)'  on 

A  phonograph  of  a  dead  and  almost  unknown  language,  as  abstruse  as  the  cunei- 
form letters  on  the  mountains  of  Ass^-ria.* 

(2)  The  attempts  made  to  carry  back  the  square  Hebrew  character  to 
the  time  of  Esdras  (b.c.  458)  have  all  failed. 

(3)  It  is  asserted  that  the  Jews  took  their  alphabet  from  the  Baby- 
lonians during  their  captivity.  But  there  are  scholars  who  do  not  carry 
the  now-known .  Hebrew  square  letters  beyond  the  late  period  of  the 
fourth  century,  A.D.f 

The  Hebrew  Bible  is  preciselj-  as  if  Homer  were  printed,  not  in  Greek,  but  in 
English  letters;  or  as  if  Shakespeare's  works  were  phonographed  in  Burmese.  J 

(4)  Those  who  maintain  that  the  ancient  Hebrew  is  the  same  as  the 
Syraic  or  Chaldaic  have  to  see  what  is  said  in  Jeremiah,  wherein  the 
Ivord  is  made  to  threaten  the  house  of  Israel  with  bringing  against  it 
the  mighty  and  ancient  nation  of  the  Chaldseans  : 

A  nation  whose  language  thou  knowest  not,  neither  understandest  what  thej- 
say.f  • 

This  is  quoted  by  Bishop  Walton  ||  against  the  assumption  of  the 
identity  of  Chaldaic  and  Hebrew,  and  ought  to  settle  the  question. 

(5)  The  real  Hebrew  of  Moses  was  lost  after  the  seventy  years'  cap- 
tivity, when  the  Israelites  brought  back  Chaldaic  with  them  and  grafted 
it  on  their  own  language,  the  fusion  resulting  in  a  dialectical  variety  of 
Chaldaic,  the  Hebrew  tincturing  it  very  slightly  and  ceasing  from  that 
time  to  be  a  spoken  language.^ 


*  Book  of  God.    Kenealy,  p.  383.    The  reference  to  Klaproth  is  also  from  this  page. 

+  See  Asiat.Jour.,  N.S.  vii.,  p.  275,  quoted  by  Kenealy. 

t  Book  of  God,  loc.  cit. 

\  Op.  cit.,  V.  15. 

II  Prolegomena,  iii.  13,  quoted  by  Kenealy,  p.  385. 

1  See  Book  of  God,  p.  385.  "  Care  should  be  taken,"  says  Butler  (quoted  by  Kenealy,  p.  489),  "  to 
distin^ish  between  the  Pentateuch  in  the  Hebrew  language  but  in  the  letters  of  the  Samaritan 
alphabet,  and  the  version  of  the  Pentateuch  in  the  Samaritan  language.  One  of  the  most  important 
differences  between  the  Samaritan  and  the  Hebrew  text  respects  the  duration  of  the  period  between 


lyo  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

As  to  our  statement  that  the  present  Old  Testament  does  not  contain 
the  original  Books  of  Moses,  this  is  proven  by  the  facts  that : 

(i)  The  Samaritans  repudiated  the  Jewish  canonical  books  and  their 
"  Law  of  Moses."  They  will  have  neither  the  Psalms  of  David,  nor 
the  Prophets,  nor  the  Talmud  and  Mishna  :  nothing  but  the  real  Books 
of  Moses,  and  in  quite  a  different  edition.*  The  Books  of  Moses  and 
of  Joshua  are  disfigured  out  of  recognition  by  the  Talmudists,  they  say. 

(2)  The  "  black  Jews  "  of  Cochin,  Southern  India — who  know  no- 
thing of  the  Babylonian  Captivity  or  of  the  ten  "  lost  tribes  "  (the  latter 
a  pure  invention  of  the  Rabbis),  proving  that  these  Jews  must  have 
come  to  India  before  the  year  600  B.C. — have  their  Books  of  Moses 
which  they  will  show  to  no  one.  And  these  Books  and  Laws  differ 
greatly  from  the  present  scrolls.  Nor  are  they  written  in  the  square 
Hebrew  characters  (semi-Chaldaic  and  semi-Palmyrean)  but  in  the 
archaic  letters,  as  we  were  assured  by  one  of  them — letters  entirely  un- 
known to  all  but  themselves  and  a  few  Samaritans. 

(3)  The  Karaim  Jews  of  the  Crimea — who  call  themselves  the  descen- 
dants of  the  true  children  of  Israel,  i.e.,  of  the  Sadducees — reject  the 
Torah  and  the  Pentateuch  of  the  Synagogue,  reject  the  Sabbath  of  the 
Jews  (keeping  Friday),  will  have  neither  the  Books  of  the  Prophets 
nor  the  Psalms — nothing  but  their  own  Books  of  Moses  and  what  they 
call  his  one  and  real  Law. 

This  makes  it  plain  that  the  Kabalah  of  the  Jews  is  but  the  distorted 
echo  of  the  Secret  Doctrine  of  the  Chaldseans,  and  that  the  real  Kabalah 
is  found  only  in  the  Chaldaean  Book  of  Numbers  now  in  the  possession 
of  some  Persian  Sufis.  Every  nation  in  antiquity  had  its  traditions 
based  on  those  of  the  Aryan  Secret  Doctrine ;  and  each  nation  points 
to  this  day  to  a  Sage  of  its  own  race  who  had  received  the  primordial 
revelation  from,  and  had  recorded  it  under  the  orders  of,  a  more  or  less 
divine  Being.  Thus  it  was  with  the  Jews,  as  with  all  others.  They 
had  received  their  Occult  Cosmogony  and  Laws  from  their  Initiate, 
Moses,  and  they  have  now  entirel}^  mutilated  them. 

Adi  is  the  generic  name  in  our  Doctrine  of  all  the  first  men,  i.e., 
the  first  speaking  races,  in  each  of  the  seven  zones — hence  probably 

the  deluge  and  the  birth  of  Abraham.  The  Samaritan  text  makes  it  longer  by  some  centuries  than 
the  Hebrew  text ;  and  the  Septuagint  makes  it  longer  by  some  centuries  than  the  Samaritan."  It  is 
observable  that  in  the  authentic  translation  of  the  Latin  Vulgate,  the  Roman  Church  follows  the  com- 
putation expressed  in  the  Hebrew  text ;  and  in  her  Martyrology  follows  that  of  the  Seventy,  both 
texts  being  inspired,  as  she  claims. 
•  See  Rev.  Joseph  \io\?L's  Journal,  p.  200. 


THE   FIRST  MEN. 


171 


"Ad-am."  And  such  first  men,  in  every  nation,  are  credited  with 
having  been  taught  the  divine  mysteries  of  creation.  Thus,  the 
Sabaeans  (according  to  a  tradition  preserved  in  the  Sufi  works)  say 
that  when  the  "Third  First  Man"  left  the  country  adjacent  to  India 
for  Babel,  a  tree*  was  given  to  him,  then  another  and  a  third  tree,  whose 
leaves  recorded  the  history  of  all  the  races;  the  "Third  First  Man" 
meant  one  who  belonged  to  the  Third  Root- Race,  and  yet  the  Sabaeans 
call  him  Adam.  The  Arabs  of  Upper  Egypt,  and  the  Mohammedans 
generally,  have  recorded  a  tradition  that  the  Angel  Azaz-el  brings  a 
message  from  the  Wisdom-Word  of  God  to  Adam  whenever  he  is  re- 
born ;  this  the  Sufis  explain  by  adding  that  this  book  is  given  to  every 
Seli-Allah  ("  the  chosen  one  of  God  ")  for  his  wise  men.  The  story 
narrated  by  the  Kabalists — namely,  that  the  book  given  to  Adam 
before  his  Fall  (a  book  full  of  mysteries  and  signs  and  events  which 
either  had  been,  were,  or  were  to  be)  was  taken  away  by  the  Angel 
Raziel  after  Adam's  Fall,  but  again  restored  to  him  lest  men  might 
lose  its  wisdom  and  instruction ;  that  this  book  was  delivered  by 
Adam  to  Seth,  who  passed  it  to  Enoch,  and  the  latter  to  Abraham,  and 
so  on  in  succession  to  the  most  wise  of  every  generation — relates  to  all 
nations,  and  not  to  the  Jews  alone.  For  Berosus  narrates  in  his  turn 
that  Xisuthrus  compiled  a  book,  writing  it  at  the  command  of  his 
deity,  which  book  was  buried  in  Ziparaf  or  Sippara,  the  City  of  the  Sun, 
in  Ba-bel-on-ya,  and  was  dug  up  long  afterwards  and  deposited  in  the 
temple  of  Belos ;  it  is  from  this  book  that  Berosus  took  his  histor}^  of 
the  antediluvian  dynasties  of  Gods  and  Heroes,  ^lian  (in  Nimrod) 
speaks  of  a  Hawk  (emblem  of  the  Sun),  who  in  the  days  of  the  begin- 
nings brought  to  the  Egyptians  a  book  containing  the  wisdom  of  their 
religion.  The  Sam-Sam  of  the  Sabaeans  is  also  a  Kabalah,  as  is  the 
Arabic  Zem-Zem  (  Well  of  Wisdom^.X 

We  are  told  by  a  very  learned  Kabalist  that  Seyflfarth  asserts  that 
the  old  Eg3T)tian  tongue  was  only  old  Hebrew,  or  a  Semitic  dialect ; 
and  he  proves  this,  our  correspondent  thinks,  by  sending  him  "  some 
500  words  in  common  "  in  the  two  languages.  This  proves  very  little 
to  our  mind.  It  only  shows  that  the  two  nations  lived  together  for 
centuries,  and  that  before  adopting  the  Chaldaean  for  their  phonetic 

•  A  tree  is  symbolically  a  book — as  "  pillar  "  is  another  synonym  of  the  same. 

t  The  wife  of  Moses,  one  of  the  seven  daughters  of  a  Midian  priest,  is  called  Zipora.  It  was  Jethro, 
the  priest  of  Midian,  who  initiated  Moses,  Zipora,  one  of  the  seven  daughters,  being  simply  one  o' 
the  seven  Occult  powers  that  the  Hierophant  was  and  is  supposed  to  pass  to  the  initiated  novice, 

X  See  for  these  details  the  Book  of  God,  pp.  244,  250. 


172  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

tongue  the  Jews  had  adopted  the  old  Coptic  or  Egyptian.  The  Israeli- 
tish  Scriptures  drew  their  hidden  wisdom  from  the  primeval  Wisdom- 
Religion  that  was  the  source  of  other  Scriptures,  only  it  was  sadly 
degraded  by  being  applied  to  things  and  mysteries  of  this  Earth,  in- 
stead of  to  those  in  the  higher  and  ever-present,  though  invisible, 
spheres.  Their  national  history,  if  they  can  claim  any  autonomy 
before  their  return  from  the  Babylonian  captivity,  cannot  be  carried 
back  one  day  earlier  than  the  time  of  Moses.  The  language  of  Abra- 
ham— if  Zeruan  (Saturn,  the  emblem  of  time — the  "Sar,"  "Saros,"  a 
"cycle")  can  be  said  to  have  any  language — was  not  Hebrew,  but 
Chaldaic,  perhaps  Arabic,  and  still  more  likely  some  old  Indian  dialect. 
This  is  shown  by  numerous  proofs,  some  of  which  we  give  here  ;  and 
unless,  indeed,  to  please  the  tenacious  and  stubborn  believers  in  Bible 
chronology,  we  cripple  the  years  of  our  globe  to  the  Procrustean  bed  of 
7,000  3^ears,  it  becomes  self-evident  that  the  Hebrew  cannot  be  called 
an  old  language,  merely  because  Adam  is  supposed  to  have  used  it 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  Bunsen  says  in  Egypt's  Place  in  Universal 
History  that  in  the 

Chaldsean  tribe  immediately  connected  with  Abraham,  we  find  reminiscences  of 
dates  disfigured  and  misunderstood  as  genealogies  of  single  men,  or  figures  of 
epochs.  The  Abrahamic  recollections  go  back  at  least  three  millennia  beyond  the 
grandfather  of  Jacob.* 

The  Bible  of  the  Jews  has  ever  been  an  Esoteric  Book  in  its  hidden 
meaning,  but  this  meaning  has  not  remained  one  and  the  same  through- 
out since  the  days  of  Moses.  It  is  useless,  considering  the  limited 
space  we  can  give  to  this  subject,  to  attempt  anything  like  the  detailed 
history  of  the  vicissitudes  of  the  so-called  Pentateuch,  and  besides,  the 
history  is  too  well  known  to  need  lengthy  disquisitions.  Whatever 
was,  or  was  not,  the  Mosaic  Book  of  Creation — from  Geyiesis  down  to 
the  Prophets — the  Pentateuch  of  to-day  is  not  the  same.  It  is  sufficient 
to  read  the  criticisms  of  Erasmus,  and  even  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  to  see 
clearly  that  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  had  been  tampered  with  and  re- 
modelled, had  been  lost  and  rewritten,  a  dozen  times  before  the  days 
of  Ezra.  This  Ezra  himself  may  yet  one  day  turn  out  to  have  been 
Azara,  the  Chaldaean  priest  of  the  Fire  and  Sun-God,  a  renegade  who, 
through  his  desire  of  becoming  a  ruler,  and  in  order  to  create  an  Eth- 
narchy,  restored  the  old  lost  Jewish  Books  in  his  own  way.     It  was  an 

*  op.  cit.,  V.  85. 


MANY  EVENTS  NOT   HISTORICAL.  173 

easy  thing  for  one  versed  in  the  secret  system  of  Esoteric  numerals,  or 
Symbology,  to  put  together  events  from  the  stray  books  that  had  been 
preserved  by  various  tribes,  and  make  of  them  an  apparently  harmo- 
nious narrative  of  creation  and  of  the  evolution  of  the  Judaean  race. 
But  in  its  hidden  meaning,  from  Genesis  to  the  last  word  of  Deuteronomy, « 
the  Pentateuch  is  the  symbolical  narrative  of  the  sexes,  and  is  an  apo-  / 
theosis  of  Phallicism,  under  astronomical  and  physiological  persona- 
tions* Its  coordination,  however,  is  only  apparent ;  and  the  human 
hand  appears  at  every  moment,  is  found  ever>' where  in  the  "  Book  of 
God."  Hence  the  Kings  of  Edom  discuss  in  Genesis  before  any  king 
had  reigned  in  Israel ;  Moses  records  his  own  death,  and  Aaron  dies 
twice  and  is  buried  in  two  diflFerent  places,  to  say  nothing  of  other 
trifles.  For  the  Kabalist  they  are  trifles,  for  he  knows  that  all  these 
events  are  not  history,  but  are  simply  the  cloak  designed  to  envelope 
and  hide  various  physiological  peculiarities ;  but  for  the  sincere 
Christian,  who  accepts  all  these  "  dark  sayings "  in  good  faith,  it 
matters  a  good  deal.  Solomon  may  very  well  be  regarded  as  a 
mythf  by  the  Masons,  as  they  lose  nothing  by  it,  for  all  their  secrets 
are  Kabalistic  and  allegorical — for  those  few,  at  any  rate,  who  under- 
stand them.  For  the  Christian,  however,  to  give  up  Solomon,  the  son  of 
David — from  whom  Jesus  is  made  to  descend — involves  a  real  loss. 
But  how  even  the  Kabalists  can  claim  great  antiquity  for  the  Hebrew 
texts  of  the  old  Biblical  scrolls  now  possessed  by  the  scholars  is  not  made 
at  all  apparent.  For  it  is  certainly  a  fact  of  history,  based  on  the  con- 
fessions of  the  Jews  themselves,  and  of  Christians  likewise,  that  : 

The  Scriptures  having  perished  in  the  captivity  of  Nabuchodonozar,  Esdras,  the 
Levite,  the  priest,  in  the  times  of  Artaxerxes,  king  of  the  Persians,  having  become 
inspired,  in  the  exercise  of  prophecy  restored  again  the  whole  of  the  ancient 
Scriptures.  J 


•  As  is  fully  shown  in  the  Source  of  Measures  and  other  works. 

+  Surely  even  Masons  would  never  claim  the  actual  existence  of  Solomon  ?  As  Keuealy  shows,  he 
is  not  noticed  by  Herodotus,  nor  by  Plato,  nor  by  any  writer  of  standing.  It  is  most  extraordinary, 
he  says,  "  that  the  Jewish  nation,  over  whom  but  a  few  years  before  the  mighty  Solomon  had  reigned 
in  all  his  glory,  with  a  magnificence  scarcely  equalled  by  the  greatest  mouarchs,  spending  nearly 
eight  thousand  millions  of  gold  on  a  temple,  was  overlooked  by  the  historian  Herodotus,  writing  of 
Egypt  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Babylon  on  the  other — visiting  both  places,  and  of  course  passing 
almost  necessarily  within  a  few  miles  of  the  splendid  capital  of  the  national  Jerusalem  ?  How  can 
this  be  accounted  for  ? "  he  asks  (p.  457).  Nay,  not  only  are  there  no  proofs  of  the  twelve  tribes  of 
Israel  havingever  existed,  but  Herodotus,  the  most  accurate  of  historians,  who  was  in  Assvria  when 
E«a  flourished,  never  mentions  the  Israelites  at  all ;  and  Herodotus  was  born  in  48/1  B.r_  How  is 
this? 

%  Clement,  Slromateis,  xxii. 


1^4  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

One  must  have  a  strong  belief  in  "  Esdras,"  and  especially  in  his 
good  faith,  to  accept  the  now-existing  copies  as  genuine  Mosaic  Books ; 
for: 

Assuming  that  the  copies,  or  rather  phonographs  which  had  been  made  by 
Hilkiah  and  Esdras,  and  the  various  anonymous  editors,  were  really  true  and 
genuine,  they  must  have  been  wholly  exterminated  by  Antiochus ;  and  the  versions 
of  the  Old  Testament  which  now  subsist  must  have  been  made  by  Judas,  or  by 
some  unknown  compilers,  probably  from  the  Greek  of  the  Seventy,  long  after  the 
appearance  and  death  of  Jesus.* 

The  Bible,  therefore,  as  it  is  now  (the  Hebrew  texts,  that  is), 
depends  for  its  accuracy  on  the  genuineness  of  the  Septuagint ;  this, 
we  are  again  told,  was  written  miraculously  by  the  Seventj'',  in  Greek, 
and  the  original  copy  having  been  lost  since  that  time,  our  texts 
are  re-translated  back  into  Hebrew  from  that  language.  But  in 
this  vicious  circle  of  proofs  we  once  more  have  to  rely  upon  the 
good  faith  of  two  Jews — Josephus  and  Philo  Judaeus  of  Alexandria — 
these  two  Historians  being  the  only  witnesses  that  the  Septuagint 
was  written  under  the  circumstances  narrated.  And  yet  it  is  just 
these  circumstances  that  are  very  little  calculated  to  inspire  one  with 
confidence.  For  what  does  Josephus  tell  us  ?  He  says  that  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus,  desiring  to  read  the  Hebrew  Law  in  Greek,  wrote  to 
Eleazar,  the  high-priest  of  the  Jews,  begging  him  to  send  him  six  mcji 
from  each  of  the  twelve  tribes^  who  should  make  a  translation  for  him. 
Then  follows  a  truly  miraculous  story,  vouchsafed  by  Aristeas,  of  these 
seventy-two  men  from  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  who,  shut  up  in  an 
island,  compiled  their  translation  in  exactly  seventy-two  days,  etc. 

All  this  is  very  edifying,  and  one  might  have  had  very  little  reason 
to  doubt  the  story,  had  not  the  "  ten  lost  tribes  "  been  made  to  play 
their  part  in  it.  How  could  these  tribes,  lost  between  700  and  900  B.C., 
each  send  six  men  some  centuries  later,  to  satisfy  the  whim  of  Ptolemy, 
and  to  disappear  once  more  immediately  afterwards  from  the  horizon  ? 
A  miracle,  verily. 

We  are  expected,  nevertheless,  to  regard  such  documents  as  the 
Septuagint  as  containing  direct  divine  revelation  :  Documents  origin- 
ally written  in  a  tongue  about  which  nobody  now  knows  anything ; 
written  by  authors  that  are  practically  mythical,  and  at  dates  as  to 
which  no  one  is  able  even  to  make  a  defensible  surmise  ;  documents  of 
the  original  copies  of  which  there  does  not  now  remain  a  shred.     Yet 


Book  of  God,  p.  408. 


THE   REAL   HEBREW   CHARACTERS  LOST.  175 

people  will  persist  in  talking  of  the  ancient  Hebrew,  as  if  there  were  any 
man  left  in  the  world  who  now  knows  one  word  of  it.  So  little,  indeed, 
was  Hebrew  known  that  both  the  Septuagint  and  the  New  Testament 
had  to  be  written  in  a  heathen  language  (the  Greek),  and  no  better 
reasons  for  it  given  than  what  Hutchinson  says,  namely,  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  chose  to  write  the  New  Testament  in  Greek. 

The  Hebrew  language  is  considered  to  be  very  old,  and  yet  there 
exists  no  trace  of  it  anywhere  on  the  old  monuments,  not  even  in 
Chaldaea.  Among  the  great  number  of  inscriptions  of  various  kinds 
found  in  the  ruins  of  that  countr>' : 

One  in  the  Hebrew  Chaldee  letter  and  language  has  never  been  found  \  nor  has  a 
single  authentic  medal  or  gem  in  this  new-fangled  character  been  ever  discovered, 
which  could  carry  it  even  to  the  days  of  Jesus.* 

The  original  Book  of  Daniel  is  written  in  a  dialect  which  is  a  mixture 
of  Hebrew  and  Aramaic  ;  it  is  not  even  in  Chaldaic,  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  verses  interpolated  later  on.  According  to  Sir  W.  Jones  and 
other  Orientalists,  the  oldest  discoverable  languages  of  Persia  are  the 
Chaldaic  and  Sanskrit,  and  there  is  no  trace  of  the  "  Hebrew"  in  these. 
It  would  be  verj'  surprising  if  there  were,  since  the  Hebrew  known  to 
the  Philologists  does  not  date  earlier  than  500  B.C.,  and  its  characters 
belong  to  a  far  later  period  still.  Thus,  while  the  real  Hebrew  charac- 
ters, if  not  altogether  lost  are  nevertheless  so  hopelessly  transformed — 

A  mere  inspection  of  the  alphabet  showing  that  it  has  been  shaped  and  made 
regular,  in  doing  which  the  characteristic  marks  of  some  of  the  letters  have  been 
retrenched  in  order  to  make  them  more  square  and  uniform — t 

that  no  one  but  an  initiated  Rabbi  of  Samaria  or  a  "  Jain "  could 
read  them,  the  new  system  of  the  masoretic  points  has  made  them  a 
sphinx-riddle  for  all.  Punctuation  is  now  to  be  found  ever>'where  in 
all  the  later  manuscripts,  and  by  means  of  it  anything  can  be  made  of 
a  text ;  a  Hebrew  scholar  can  put  on  the  texts  any  interpretation  he 
likes.     Two  instances  given  by  Kenealj^  will  sufl&ce  : 

In  Genesis,  xlix.  21,  we  read  : 

Naphtali  is  a  hind  let  loose ;  he  giveth  goodly  words. 
By  only  a  slight  alteration  of  the  points  Bochart  changes  this  into : 

Napthali  is  a  spreading  tree,  shooting  forth  beautiful  branches. 
So  again,  in  Psalms  (xxix.  9),  instead  of: 


'  Book  of  God,  p.  453. 

+  Asiatic  Journal, -vu.,  p.  275,  quoted  by  Kenealj'. 


176  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

The  voice  of  the  Lord  maketh  the  hind  to  calve,  and  discovereth  the  forests  : 
Bishop  Lowth  gives : 

The  voice  of  the  Ivord  striketh  the  oak,  aud  discovereth  the  forests. 
The  same  word  in  Hebrew  signifies  "God  "  and  "  nothing,"  etc.* 

With  regard  to  the  claim  made  by  some  Kabalists  that  there  was 
in  antiquity  one  knowledge  and  one  language,  this  claim  is  also 
our  own,  and  it  is  very  just.  Only  it  must  be  added,  to  make  the 
thing  clear,  that  this  knowledge  and  language  have  both  been  esoteric 
ever  since  the  submersion  of  the  Atlanteans.  The  Tower  of  Babel 
myth  relates  to  that  enforced  secrecy.  Men  falling  into  sin  were  re- 
garded as  no  longer  trustworthy  for  the  reception  of  such  knowledge, 
and,  from  being  universal,  it  became  limited  to  the  few.  Thus,  the 
"one-lip" — or  the  Mystery-language — being  gradually  denied  to  sub- 
sequent generations,  all  the  nations  became  severally  restricted  to 
their  own  national  tongue ;  and  forgetting  the  primeval  Wisdom-lan- 
guage, they  stated  that  the  Lord — one  of  the  chief  Lords  or  Hierophants 
of  the  Mysteries  of  the  Java  Aleim — had  confounded  the  languages  of 
all  the  earth,  so  that  the  sinners  could  understand  one  another's  speech 
no  longer.  But  Initiates  remained  in  every  land  and  nation,  and  the 
Israelites,  like  all  others,  had  their  learned  Adepts.  One  of  the  keys 
to  this  Universal  Knowledge  is  a  pure  geometrical  and  numerical 
system,  the  alphabet  of  every  great  nation  having  a  numerical  value  for 
every  letter,f  and,  moreover,  a  system  of  permutation  of  syllables  and 
synonyms  which  is  carried  to  perfection  in  the  Indian  Occult  methods, 
and  which  the  Hebrew  certainly  has  not.  This  one  system,  containing 
the  elements  of  Geometry  and  Numeration,  was  used  by  the  Jews  for 
the  purpose  of  concealing  their  Esoteric  creed  under  the  mask  of  a 
popular  and  national  monotheistic  Religion.  The  last  who  knew  the 
system  to  perfection  were  the  learned  and  "  atheistical"  Sadducees,  the 
greatest  enemies  of  the  pretensions  of  the  Pharisees  and  of  their  con- 

*  Rook  of  God,  p.  385. 

1-  Speaking  of  the  hidden  meaning  of  the  Sanskrit  words,  Mr.  T.  Subba  Row,  in  his  able  article  on 
"  The  Twelve  Signs  of  the  Zodiac,"  gives  some  advice  as  to  the  way  in  which  one  should  proceed  to 
find  out  "  the  deep  significance  of  ancient  Sanskrit  nomenclature  in  the  old  Arj'an  myths,  i.  Find 
out  the  synonyms  of  the  word  used  which  have  other  meanings.  2.  Find  out  the  numerical  value  of 
the  letters  composing  the  word  according  to  the  methods  of  the  ancient  Tantrik  works  [Tanlrifca 
Shdstra—vioTi.s  on  Incantation  and  Magic].  3.  Examine  the  ancient  myths  or  allegories,  if  there 
are  any,  which  have  any  special  connection  with  the  word  in  question.  4.  Permute  the  different 
syllables  composing  the  word  and  examine  the  new  combinations  that  will  thus  be  formed  and  their 
meanings,"  etc.  But  he  does  not  give  the  principal  rule.  And  no  doubt  he  is  quite  right.  The 
Tantrika  Shastras  are  as  old  as  Magic  itself.  Have  they  also  borrowed  their  Esotericism  from  the 
Hebrews .' 


HKBREW  ESOTERICISM   NOT  PRIMITIVE.  ^»77 

fused  notions  brought  from  Babylon.  Yes,  the  Sadducees,  the  Illu- 
sionists, who  maintained  that  the  Soul,  the  Angels,  and  all  similar 
Beings,  were  illusions  because  they  were  temporary— thus  showing 
themselves  at  one  with  Eastern  Esotericism.  And  since  they  rejected 
every  book  and  Scripture,  with  the  exception  of  the  Law  of  Moses,  it 
seems  that  the  latter  must  have  been  very  different  from  what  it  is 

now.* 

The  whole  of  the  foregoing  is  written  with  an  eye  to  our  Kabalists. 
Great  scholars  as  some  of  them  undoubtedly  are,  they  are  nevertheless 
wrong  to  hang  the  harps  of  their  faith  on  the  willows  of  Talmudic 
growth— on  the  Hebrew  scrolls,  whether  in  square  or  pointed  charac- 
ters, now  in  our  public  libraries,  museums,  or  even  in  the  collections 
of  Paleographers.  There  do  not  remain  half-a-dozen  copies  from  the 
true  Mosaic  Hebrew  scrolls  in  the  whole  world.  And  those  who  are 
in  possession  of  these — as  we  indicated  a  few  pages  back — would  not 
part  with  them,  or  even  allow  them  to  be  examined,  on  any  considera- 
tion whatever.  How  then  can  any  Kabalist  claim  priority  for  Hebrew 
Esotericism,  and  say,  as  does  one  of  our  correspondents,  that  "the 
Hebrew  has  come  down  from  a  far  remoter  antiquity  than  any  of  them 
[whether  Egyptian  or  even  Sanskrit!],  and  that  it  was  the  source,  or 
nearer  to  the  old  original  source,  than  any  of  them  "  ?t 

As  our  correspondent  says  :  "  It  becomes  more  convincing  to  me 
every  day  that  in  a  far  past  time  there  was  a  mighty  civilization  with 


•  Their  founder,  Sadoc,  was  the  pupil,  through  Antigonus  Saccho,  of  Simon  the  Just.  They  had 
their  own  secret  Book  of  the  Law  ever  since  the  foundation  of  their  sect  (about  400  B.C.)  and  this 
volume  was  unknown  to  the  masses.  At  the  time  of  the  Separation  the  Samaritans  recognised  o-aiy 
the  Book  of  the  Law  of  Moses  and  the  Book  offoshua,  and  their  Pentateuch  is  far  older,  and  is  different 
from  the  Septuagint.  In  168  B.C.  Jerusalem  had  its  temple  plundered,  and  its  Sacred  Book.s — namely, 
the  Bible  made  up  by  Ezra  and  finished  by  Judas  Maccabeus— were  lost  (see  Bxirder'sfosephus,  vol. 
ii.  pp.  331-335);  after  which  the  Massorah  completed  the  work  of  destruction  (even  of  Ezra's  once- 
more  adjusted  Bible)  begun  by  the  change  into  square  from  horned  letters.  Therefore  the  later  Pen- 
tateuch accepted  by  the  Pharisees  was  rejected  and  laughed  at  by  the  Sadducees.  They  are  generally 
called  atheists  ;  yet,  since  those  learned  men,  who  made  no  secret  of  their  freethought,  furnished  from 
among  their  number  the  most  eminent  of  the  Jewish  high-priests,  this  seems  impossible.  How  could 
the  Pharisees  and  the  other  two  believing  and  pious  sects  allow  notorious  atheists  to  be  selected  for 
such  posts.'  The  answer  is  difi&cult  to  find  for  bigotry  and  for  believers  in  a  personal,  anthropo- 
morphic God,  but  very  easy  for  those  who  accept  facts.  The  Sadducees  were  called  atheists  because  they 
believed  as  the  initiated  Moses  believed,  thus  differing  very  widely  from  the  latter  made-up  Jewish 
legislator  and  hero  of  Mount  Sinai. 

+  The  measurements  of  the  Great  Pyramid  being  those  of  the  temple  of  Solomon,  of  the  Ark  of 
the  Covenant,  etc.,  according  to  Piazzi  Smythe  and  the  author  of  the  Source  of  Measures,  and 
the  PjTamid  of  Gizeh  being  shown  on  astronomical  calculations  to  have  been  built  4950  B.C.,  ana 
Moees  having  written  his  books — for  the  sake  of  argument — not  even  half  that  time  before  our  era, 
how  can  this  be  ?  Surely  if  any  one  borrowed  from  the  other,  it  is  not  the  Pharaohs  from  Moses.  Even 
philology  shows  not  only  the  Egyptian,  but  even  the  Mongolian,  older  than  the  Hebrew. 

3    N 


178  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

enormous  learning,  which  had  a  common  language  over  the  earth,  as  co 
which  its  essence  can  be  recovered  from  the  fragments  which  now  exist  y 

Aye,  there  existed  indeed  a  mighty  civilization,  and  a  still  mightier 
secret  learning  and  knowledge,  the  entire  scope  of  which  can  never 
be  discovered  by  Geometry  and  the  Kabalah  alone  :  for  there  are  seven 
keys  to  the  large  entrance-door,  and  not  one,  nor  even  two,  keys  can 
ever  open  it  sufficiently  to  allow  more  than  glimpses  of  what  lies  within. 

Everj'  scholar  must  be  aware  that  there  are  two  distinct  styles — two 
schools,  so  to  speak — plainly  traceable  in  the  Hebrew  Scripures:  the 
Elohistic  and  the  Jehovistic.  The  portions  belonging  to  these  respec- 
tively are  so  blended  together,  so  completely  mixed  up  by  later  hands, 
that  often  all  external  characteristics  are  lost.  Yet  it  is  also  known 
that  the  two  schools  were  antagonistic  ;  that  the  one  taught  esoteric, 
the  other  exoteric,  or  theological  doctrines ;  that  the  one,  the  Elohists, 
were  Seers  (Roch),  whereas  the  other,  the  Jehovists,  were  prophets 
(Nabhi),*  and  that  the  latter — who  later  became  Rabbis — were  gene- 
rally only  nominally  prophets  by  virtue  of  their  official  position,  as  the 
Pope  is  called  the  infallible  and  inspired  vicegerent  of  God.  That, 
again,  the  Elohists  meant  by  "Elohim"  "forces,"  identifying  their 
Deity,  as  in  the  Secret  Doctrine,  with  Nature ;  while  the  Jehovists 
made  of  Jehovah  a  personal  God  externally,  and  used  the  term  simply 
as  a  phallic  symbol — a  number  of  them  secretly  disbelieving  even  in 
metaphysical,  abstract  Nature,  and  synthesizing  all  on  the  terrestrial 
scale.  Finally,  the  Elohists  made  of  man  the  divine  incarnate  image 
of  the  Elohim,  emanated  first  in  all  Creation  ;  and  the  Jehovists  show 
him  as  the  last,  the  crowning  glory  of  the  animal  creation,  instead  of 
his  being  the  head  of  all  the  sensible  beings  on  earth.  (This  is  reversed 
by  some  Kabalists,  but  the  reversion  is  due  to  the  designedly-produced 
confusion  in  the  texts,  especially  in  the  first  four  chapters  of  Genesis^ 

Take  the  Zohar  and  find  in  it  the  description  relating  to  Ain-Supb, 
the  Western  or  Semitic  Parabrahman.  What  passages  have  come  so 
nearly  up  to  the  Vedantic  ideal  as  the  following  : 

The  creation  [the  evolved  Universe]  is  the  garment  of  that  which  has  no  name, 
the  garment  woven  from  the  Deity's  own  subsiatice.\ 

*  This  alone  shows  how  the  Books  of  Moses  were  tampered  with.  In  Samuel  (ix.  9),  it  is  said  :  "  He 
that  is  now  a  prophet  [Nabhi]  was  beforetime  called  a  Seer  [Roch]."  Now  since  before  Samuel,  the 
word  "  Roch  "  is  met  nowhere  in  the  Pentateuch,  but  its  place  is  always  taken  by  that  of  "  Nabhi,"  this 
proves  clearly  that  the  Mosaic  text  has  been  replaced  by  that  of  the  later  Invites.  (See  for  fuller 
dtia.\ls  Jewish  Antiquilies,  by  the  Rev.  D.  Jennings,  D.P.) 

t  Zohar,  i,  2a. 


THE  C0NCEAI3D  OF  ALI,  THE  CONCEAI^KD.  1 79 

Between  that  which  is  Ain  or  "  nothing,"  and  the  Heavenly  Man, 
there  is  an  Impersonal  First  Cause,  however,  of  which  it  is  said  : 

Before  It  gave  any  shape  to  this  world,  before  It  produced  anj'  form,  It  was  alone, 
without  form  or  similitude  to  anything  else.  Who,  then,  can  comprehend  It,  how 
It  was  before  the  creation,  since  It  was  formless  ?  Hence  it  is  forbidden  to  repre- 
sent It  by  any  form,  similitude,  or  even  by  Its  sacred  name,  by  a  single  letter  or  a 
single  point.* 

The  sentence  that  follows,  however,  is  an  evident  later  interpolation  ; 
for  it  draws  attention  to  a  complete  contradiction  : 

And  to  this  the  words  {DetU.  iv.  15),  refer — "  Ye  saw  no  manner  of  similitude  on 
the  day  the  Lord  spake  unto  you." 

But  this  reference  to  Chapter  iv.  of  Deuteronomy,  when  in  Chapter  v. 
God  is  mentioned  as  speaking  "  face  to  face  "  with  the  people,  is  very 
clumsy. 

Not  one  of  the  names  given  to  Jehovah  in  the  Bible  has  any  reference 
whatever  to  either  Ain-Suph  or  the  Impersonal  First-Cause  (which  is 
the  Logos)  of  the  Kabalah  ;  but  they  all  refer  to  the  Emanations. 

It  says 

For  although  to  reveal  itself  to  us,  the  concealed  of  all  the  concealed  sent  forth 
the  Ten  Emanations  [Sephiroth]  called  the  Form  of  God,  Form  of  the  Heavenly 
Man,  yet  since  even  this  luminous  form  was  too  dazzling  for  our  vision,  it  had  to 
assume  another  form,  or  had  to  put  on  another  garment,  which  is  the  Universe.  The 
Universe,  therefore,  or  the  visible  world,  is  a  farther  expansion  of  the  Divine  Sub- 
stance,  and  is  called  in  the  Kabalah  "  The  Garment  of  God."t 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  all  the  Hindu  Puranas,  especially  that  of  the 
Vishyiu  Purdna.  Vishnu  pervades  the  Universe  and  is  that  Universe  ; 
Brahma  enters  the  Mundane  Egg,  and  issues  from  it  as  the  Universe ; 
Brahma  even  dies  with  it  and  there  remains  only  Brahman,  the  imper- 
sonal, the  eternal,  the  unborn,  and  the  unqualifiable.  The  Ain-Suph 
of  the  Chaldaeans  and  later  of  the  Jews  is  assuredly  a  copy  of  the  Vaidic 
Deity;  while  the  "  Heavenly  Adam,"  the  Macrocosm  which  unites  in 
itself  the  totality  of  beings  and  is  the  Esse  of  the  visible  Universe,  finds 
his  original  in  the  Puranic  Brahma.,  In  Sod,  "  the  Secret  of  the  Law," 
one  recognizes  the  expressions  used  in  the  oldest  fragments  of  the 
Gupta  Vidya,  the  Secret  Knowledge.  And  it  is  not  venturing  too  much 
to  say  that  even  a  Rabbi  quite  familiar  with  his  own  special  Rabbinical 
Hebrew  would  only  comprehend  its  secrets  thoroughly  if  he  added  to 

•  Zohar,  42b. 

t  Zohar,  i,  2a.    See  Dr.  Ch.  Ginsburg's  essay  on    The  Cabbalak,  its  Doctrines,  Developments  and 
Literature. 


l8o  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

his  learning  a  serious  knowledge  of  the  Hindu  philosophies.  Let  us 
turn  to  Stanza  I.  of  the  Book  of  Dzyan  for  an  example. 

The  Zohar  premises,  as  does  the  Secret  Doctrine,  a  universal,  eternal 
Essence,  passive — because  absolute — in  all  that  men  call  attributes. 
The  pregenetic  or  pre-cosmical  Triad  is  a  pure  metaphysical  abstrac- 
tion. The  notion  of  a  triple  hj^postasis  in  one  Unknown  Divine  Essence 
is  as  old  as  speech  and  thought.  Hiranyagarbha,  Hari,  and  Shankara 
— the  Creator,  the  Preserver,  and  the  Destroyer — are  the  three  mani- 
fested attributes  of  it,  appearing  and  disappearing  with  Kosmos  ;  the 
visible  Triangle,  so  to  speak,  on  the  plane  of  the  ever-invisible  Circle. 
This  is  the  primeval  root-thought  of  thinking  Humanity ;  the  Pytha- 
gorean Triangle  emanating  from  the  ever-concealed  Monad,  or  the 
Central  Point. 

Plato  speaks  of  it  and  Plotinus  calls  it  an  ancient  doctrine,  on  which 
Cudworth  remarks  that : 

Since  Orpheus,  Pythagoras,  and  Plato,  who  all  of  them  asserted  a  Trinity  of 
divine  hypostases,  unquestionably  derived  their  doctrine  from  the  Egyptians,  it 
may  be  reasonably  suspected  that  the  Egyptians  did  the  like  before  them.* 

The  Egyptians  certainly  derived  their  Trinity  from  the  Indians. 
Wilson  justly  observes  : 

As,  however,  the  Grecian  accounts  and  those  of  the  Egyptians  are  much  more 
perplexed  and  unsatisfactory  than  those  of  the  Hindus,  it  is  most  probable  that 
we  find  amongst  them  the  doctrine  in  its  most  original,  as  well  as  most  methodical 
and  significant  form.t 

This,  then,  is  the  meaning : 

"  Darkness  alone  filled  the  Boundless  All,  for  Father,  Mother  and  Son 
were  once  more  0?ie."l 

Space  was,  and  is  ever,  as  it  is  between  the  Manvantaras.  The 
Universe  in  its  pre-kosraic  state  was  once  more  homogeneous  and  one 
—outside  its  aspects.  This  was  a  Kabalistic,  and  is  now  a  Christian 
teaching. 

As  is  constantly  shown  in  the  Zohar,  the  Infinite  Unity,  or  Ain-Suph, 
is  ever  placed  outside  human  thought  and  appreciation  ;  and  in  Sepher 
Jetzirah  we  see  the  Spirit  of  God — the  Logos,  not  the  Deity  itself — 
called  One. 


•  Cudworth,  I.  iii,  quoted  by  Wilson,  Vishnu  Purdna,  i.  14,  note 
+  Wishnu  Purdna,  i.  14. 
t  Stanza  i,  4. 


THREE-IN-ONE   AND   FOUR.  l8l 

One  is  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God,  .  .  who  liveth  for  ever.  Voice,  Spirit,  [of 
the  Spirit],  and  Word  :  this  is  the  Holy  Spirit,* 

— and  the  Quaternary.     From  this  Cube  emanates  the  whole  Kosmos. 

Says  the  Secret  Doctrine  : 

"  //  is  called  to  life.  The  mystic  Cube  in  which  rests  the  Creative  Idea, 
the  manifesting  Mantra  [or  articulate  speech — Vach]  and  the  holy 
Purnsha  [both  radiations  of  prima  materia]  exist  in  the  Eternity  in  the 
Divine  Substance  in  their  latent  state 

— during  Pralaya. 

And  in  the  Sepher  fetzirah,  when  the  Three-in-One  are  to  be  called 
into  being — by  ifhe  manifestation  of  Shekinah,  the  first  efFulgency  or 
radiation  in  the  manifesting  Kosmos — the  "Spirit  of  God,"  or  Number 
One,t  fructifies  and  awakens  the  dual  Potenc}',  Number  Two,  Air,  and 
Number  Three,  Water  ;  in  these  "  are  darkness  and  emptiness,  slime 
and  dung" — which  is  Chaos,  the  Tohu-Vah-Bohu.  The  Air  and 
Water  emanate  Number  Four,  Ether  or  Fire,  the  Son.  This  is  the 
Kabalistic  Quaternary.  This  Fourth  Number,  which  in  the  manifested 
Kosmos  is  the  One,  or  the  Creative  God,  is  with  the  Hindus  the 
"  Ancient,"  Sanat,  the  Prajapati  of  the  Vedas  and  the  Brahma  of  the 
Brahmans — the  heavenly  Androgyne,  as  he  becomes  the  male  only 
after  separating  himself  into  two  bodies,  Vach  and  Viraj.  With  the 
Kabalists,  he  is  at  first  the  Jah-Havah,  only  later  becoming  Jehovah, 
like  Viraj,  his  prototype  ;  after  separating  himself  as  Adam-Kadmon 
into  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  formless,  and  into  Cain-Abel  in  the  semi- 
objective,  world,  he  became  finally  the  Jah-Havah,  or  man  and  woman, 
in  Enoch,  the  son  of  Seth. 

For,  the  true  meaning  of  the  compound  name  of  Jehovah — of  which, 
unvoweled,  you  can  make  almost  anything — is  :  men  and  women,  or 
humanity  composed  of  its  two  sexes.  From  the  first  chapter  to  the  end 
of  the  fourth  chapter  of  Genesis  every  name  is  a  permutation  of  another 
name,  and  every  personage  is  at  the  same  time  somebody  else.  A 
Kabalist  traces  Jehovah  from  the  Adam  of  earth  to  Seth,  the  third  son 
— or  rather  race — of  Adam.:J:     Thus  Seth  is  Jehovah  male ;  and  Enos, 

•  Mishna,  i.  9. 

t  In  its  manifested  state  it  becomes  Ten,  the  Universe.  In  the  Chaldaean  Kabalah  it  is  sexless.  In  the 
Jewish,  Shekinah  is  female,  and  the  early  Christians  and  Gnostics  regarded  the  Holy  Ghost  as  a 
female  potency.  In  the  Book  of  Numbers  "  Shekina  "  is  made  to  drop  the  final  "  h  "  that  makes  it  a 
feminine  name.  NarSyana,  the  Mover  on  the  Waters,  is  also  sexless ;  but  it  is  our  firm  belief  that 
Shekinah  and  Daiviprakriti,  the  "  Lig-ht  of  the  Logos,"  are  one  and  the  .same  thing  philosophically. 

t  The  Elohim  create  the  Adam  of  dust,  and  in  him  Jehovah-Binah  .separates  himself  into  Eve, 
after  which  the  male  portion  of  God  becomes  the  Serpent,  tempts  himself  in  Eve,  then  creates  himself 


182  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

being  a  permutation  of  Cain  and  Abel,  is  Jehovah  male  and  female,  or 
our  mankind.  The  Hindu  Brahma- Viraj,  Viraj-Manu,  and  Manu-Vai- 
vasvata,  with  his  daughter  and  wife,  Vach,  present  the  greatest  analogy 
with  these  personages — for  anyone  who  will  take  the  trouble  of  studying 
the  subject  in  both  the  Bible  and  the  Purdnas.  It  is  said  of  Brahma 
that  he  created  himself  as  Manu,  and  that  he  was  born  of,  and  was 
identical  with,  his  original  self,  while  he  constituted  the  female  portion 
Shata-rupa"  (hundred-formed).  In  this  Hindu  Eve,  "the  mother  of 
all  living  beings,"  Brahma  created  Viraj,  who  is  himself,  but  on  a 
lower  scale,  as  Cain  is  Jehovah  on  an  inferior  scale :  both  are  the  first 
males  of  the  Third  Race.  The  same  idea  is  illustrated  in  the  Hebrew 
name  of  God  (n*in^-)  Read  from  right  to  left  "  Jod"  0)  is  the  father, 
"  He"  (n)  the  mother,  "  Vau"  W  the  son,  and  "  He"  (n)'  repeated  at 
the  end  of  the  word,  is  generation,  the  act  of  birth,  materiality.  This 
is  surely  a  sufficient  reason  why  the  God  of  the  Jews  and  Christians 
should  be  personal,  as  much  as  the  male  Brahma,  Vishnu,  or  Shiva  of 
the  orthodox,  exoteric  Hindu. 

Thus  the  term  of  Jhvh  alone — now  accepted  as  the  name  of  "  One 
living  [male]  God  " — will  yield,  if  seriously  studied,  not  only  the  whole 
mystery  of  ^m;^^  (in  the  Biblical  sense,)  but  also  that  of  the  Occult 
Theogony,  from  the  highest  divine  Being,  the  third  in  order,  down  to 
man.     As  shown  by  the  best  Hebraists : 

The  verbal  rm,  or  Hayah,  or  E-y-e,  means  to  be,  to  exist,  «rliile  rpfT  or  Chiyah, 
or  H-y-e,  means  to  live,  as  motion  of  existetice* 

Hence  Eve  stands  as  the  evolution  and  the  never-ceasing  "  becom- 
ing "  of  Nature.  Now  if  we  take  the  almost  untranslatable  Sanskrit 
word  Sat,  which  means  the  quintessence  of  absolute  immutable  Being, 
or  Be-ness — as  it  has  been  rendered  by  an  able  Hindu  Occultist— we 
shall  find  no  equivalent  for  it  in  any  language  ;  but  it  may  be  regarded 
as  most  closely  resembling  "  Ain,"  or  "  En-Suph,"  Boundless  Being. 
Then  the  term  Hayah,  "  to  be,"  as  passive,  changeless,  yet  manifested 
existence  may  perhaps  be  rendered  by  the  Sanskrit  Jivatma,  universal 
life  or  soul,  in  its  secondary  and  cosmic  meaning  ;  while  "  Chayah,  "  to 
live,"  as  "  motion  of  existence,"  is  simply  Prana,  the  ever-changing 
life  in  its  objective  sense.  It  is  at  the  head  of  this  third  category  that 
the  Occultist  finds  Jehovah— the  Mother,  Binah,  and  the  Father,  Are- 

in  her  as  Cain,  passes  into  Beth,  and  scatters  from  Enoch,  the  Son  of  Man,  or  Humanity,  as  Jod 
heva. 

*  The  Source  of  Measures,  p.  8. 


THE   SEPTENARY   SEPHIRA.  183 

lini.  This  is  made  plain  in  the  Zohar,  when  the  emanation  and  evolu- 
tion of  the  Sephiroth  are  explained  :  First,  Ain-Suph,  then  Shekinah, 
the  Garment  or  Veil  of  Infinite  Light,  then  Sephira  or  the  Kadmon, 
and,  thus  making  the  fourth,  the  spiritual  Substance  sent  forth  irom 
the  Infinite  Light.  This  Sephira  is  called  the  Crown,  Kether,  and  has 
besides,  six  other  names — in  all  seven.  These  names  are  :  i.  Kether  ; 
2.  the  Aged ;  3.  the  Primordial  Point ;  4.  the  White  Head  ;  5.  the 
Long  Face;  6.  the  Inscrutable  Height;  and  7.  Ehejeh  ("I  am".)* 
This  septenary  Sephira  is  said  to  contain  in  itself  the  nine  Sephiroth. 
But  before  showing  how  she  brought  them  forth,  let  us  read  an  expla- 
nation about  the  Sephiroth  in  the  Talmtid,  which  gives  it  as  an  archaic 
tradition,  or  Kabalah. 

There  are  three  groups  (or  orders)  of  Sephiroth  :  i.  The  Sephiroth 
called  "  divine  attributes  "  (the  Triad  in  the  Holy  Quaternary)  ;  2.  the 
sidereal  (personal)  Sephiroth  ;  3.  the  metaphysical  Sephiroth,  or  a  peri- 
phrasis of  Jehovah,  who  are  the  first  three  Sephiroth  (Kether,  Chokmah 
and  Binah),  the  rest  of  the  seven  being  the  personal  "  Seven  Spirits  of 
the  Presence  "  (also  of  the  planets,  therefore).  Speaking  of  these,  the 
angels  are  meant,  though  not  because  they  are  seven,  but  because  they 
represent  the  seven  Sephiroth  which  contain  in  them  the  universality 
of  the  Angels. 

This  shows  {a)  that,  when  the  first  four  Sephiroth  are  separated,  as 
a  Triad-Quaternary — Sephira  being  its  synthesis — there  remain  only 
seven  Sephiroth,  as  there  are  seven  Rishis ;  these  become  ten  when 
the  Quaternary,  or  the  first  divine  Cube,  is  scattered  into  units ;  and  {U) 
that  while  Jehovah  might  have  been  viewed  as  the  Deity,  if  he  be  in- 
cluded in  the  three  divine  groups  or  orders  of  the  Sephiroth,  the 
collective  Elohim,  or  the  quaternary  indivisible  Kether,  once  that  he 
becomes  a  male  God,  he  is  no  more  than  one  of  the  Builders  of  the 
lower  group — a  Jewish  Brahma.f     A  demonstration  is  now  attempted. 

The  first  Sephira,  containing  the  other  nine,  brought  them  forth  in 


•  This  identifies  Sephira,  the  third  potency,  with  Jehovah  the  Lord,  who  says  to  Moses  out  of 
the  burning  bush:  "(Here)  I  am."  (Exodus,  iii,  4.)  At  this  time  the  "Lord"  had  not  yet  become 
Jehovah.  It  was  not  the  one  Male  God  who  spoke,  but  the  Elohim  manifested,  or  the  Sephiroth  in 
their  manifested  collectivity  of  seven,  contained  in  the  triple  Sephira. 

•t  The  Brahmans  were  wise  in  their  generation  when  they  gradaally,  for  no  other  reason  than  this, 
abandoned  Brahma,  and  paid  less  attention  to  him  individually  than  to  any  other  deity.  As  an 
abstract  synthesis  they  worshipped  him  collectively  and  in  every  God,  each  of  which  represents  him. 
As  Brahma,  the  male,  he  is  far  lower  than  Shiva,  the  Lingam,  who  personates  universal  generation, 
or  Vishnu,  the  preserver— both  Shiva  and  Vishnu  being  the  regenerators  of  life  after  destruction. 
The  Christians  might  do  worse  than  follow  their  example,  and  worship  God  in  Spirit,  and  not  in 
the  male  Creator. 


184  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

this  order:  (2)  Hokmah  (Chokmah,  or  Wisdom),  a  masculine  active 
potency  represented  among  the  divine  names  as  Jah  ;  and,  as  a  permu- 
tation or  an  evolution  into  lower  forms  in  this  instance — becoming  the 
Auphanim  (or  the  Wheels — cosmic  rotation  of  matter)  among  the 
army,  or  the  angelic  hosts.  From  this  Chokmah  emanated  a  feminine 
passive  potency  called  (3)  Intelligence,  Binah,  whose  divine  name  is 
Jehovah,  and  whose  angelic  name,  among  the  Builders  and  Hosts,  is 
Arelim*  It  is  from  the  union  of  these  two  potencies,  male  and  female 
(or  Chokmah  and  Binah)  that  emanated  all  the  other  Sephiroth,  the 
seven  orders  of  the  Builders.  Now  if  we  call  Jehovah  by  his  divine 
name,  then  he  becomes  at  best  and  forthwith  "a  female  passive" 
potency  in  Chaos.  And  if  we  view  him  as  a  male  God,  he  is  no  more 
than  one  of  many,  an  Angel,  Arelim.  But  straining  the  analysis  to  its 
highest  point,  and  if  his  male  name  Jah,  that  of  Wisdom,  be  allowed 
to  him,  still  he  is  not  the  "Highest  and  the  one  Iviving  God;" 
for  he  is  contained  with  many  others  within  Sephira,  and  Sephira 
herself  is  a  third  Potency  in  Occultism,  though  regarded  as  the  first  in 
the  exoteric  Kabalah — and  is  one,  moreover,  of  lesser  importance  than 
the  Vaidic  Aditi,  or  the  Primordial  Water  of  Space,  which  becomes 
after  many  a  permutation  the  Astral  Ivight  of  the  Kabalist. 

Thus  the  Kabalah,  as  we  have  it  now,  is  shown  to  be  of  the  greatest 
importance  in  explaining  the  allegories  and  "dark  sayings"  of  the 
Bible.  As  an  Esoteric  work  upon  the  mysteries  of  creation,  however, 
it  is  almost  worthless  as  it  is  now  disfigured,  unless  checked  by  the  Chal- 
daean  Book  of  Numbers  or  by  the  tenets  of  the  Eastern  Secret  Science, 
or  Esoteric  Wisdom.  The  Western  nations  have  neither  the  original 
Kabalah,  nor  yet  the  Mosaic  Bible. 

Finally,  it  is  demonstrated  by  internal  as  well  as  by  external 
evidence,  on  the  testimony  of  the  best  European  Hebraists,  and  the 
confessions  of  the  learned  Jewish  Rabbis  themselves,  that  "  an  ancient 
document  forms  the  essential  basis  of  the  Bible,  which  received  very 
considerable  insertions  and  supplements  ;  "  and  that  "  the  Pentateuch 
arose  out  of  the  primitive  or  older  document  by  means  of  a  supplemen- 
tary one."  Therefore  in  the  absence  of  the  Book  of  Numbers,]  the 
Kabalists  of  the  West  are  only  entitled  to  come  to  definite  conclusions, 
when  they  have  at  hand  some  data  at  least  from  that  "  ancient  docu- 


•  A  plural  word,  sig-nifying  a  collective  host  generically  ;  literally,  the  "  strong  lion." 
■t-  The  writer  possesses  only  a  few  extracts,  some  dozen  pages  in  all,  verbatim  quotations  from  that 
priceless  work,  of  which  but  two  or  three  copies,  perhaps,  are  still  extant. 


THE   BUND   LEADING  THE   BUND.  1 85 

ment" — data  now  found  scattered  throughout  Egyptian  papyri, 
Assyrian  tiles,  and  the  traditions  preserved  by  the  descendants  of  the 
disciples  of  the  last  Nazars.  Instead  of  that,  most  of  them  accept  as 
their  authorities  and  infallible  guides  Sabre  d' Olivet — who  was  a  man 
of  immense  erudition  and  of  speculative  mind,  but  neither  a  Kabalist 
nor  an  Occultist,  either  Western  or  Eastern — and  the  Mason  Ragon, 
the  greatest  of  the  "  Widow's  sons,"  who  was  even  lesr.  of  an  Orientalist 
than  d' Olivet,  for  Sanskrit  learning  was  almost  unknown  in  the  days  of 
both  these  eminent  scholars. 


SECTION  XXI. 
Hebrew  Allegories. 


How  can  any  Kabalist,  acquainted  with  the  foregoing,  deduce  his  con- 
clusions with  regard  to  the  true  Esoteric  beliefs  of  the  primitive  Jews, 
from  that  only  which  he  now  finds  in  the  Jewish  scrolls  ?  How  can 
any  scholar — even  though  one  of  the  keys  to  the  universal  language  be 
now  positively  discovered,  the  true  key  to  the  numerical  reading  of  a 
pure  geometrical  system — give  out  anything  as  his  final  conclusion  ? 
Modern  Kabalistic  speculation  is  on  a  par  now  with  modern  "  specula- 
tive Masonry ;  "  for  as  the  latter  tries  vainly  to  link  itself  with  the 
ancient — or  rather  the  archaic — Masonry  of  the  Temples,  failing  to 
make  the  link  because  all  its  claims  have  been  shown  to  be  inaccurate 
from  an  archaeological  standpoint,  so  fares  it  also  with  Kabalistic 
speculation.  As  no  m5^stery  of  Nature  worth  running  after  can  be 
revealed  to  humanity  by  settling  whether  Hiram  Abif  was  a  living 
Sidonian  builder,  or  a  solar  myth,  so  no  fresh  information  will  be  added 
to  Occult  I/Dre  by  the  details  of  the  exoteric  privileges  conferred  on  the 
Collegia  Fabrorum  by  Numa  Pompilius.  Rather  must  the  symbols 
used  in  it  be  studied  in  the  Aryan  light,  since  all  the  Symbolism  of  the 
ancient  Initiations  came  to  the  West  with  the  light  of  the  Eastern  Sun. 
Nevertheless,  we  find  the  most  learned  Masons  and  Symbologists 
declaring  that  all  these  weird  symbols  and  glyphs,  that  run  back  to  a 
common  origin  of  immense  antiquity,  were  nothing  more  than  a  display 
of  cunning  natural  phallicism,  or  emblems  of  primitive  typolog>'. 
How  much  nearer  the  truth  is  the  author  of  The  Source  of  Measures, 
who  declares  that  the  elements  of  human  and  numerical  construc- 
tion in  the  Bible  do  not  shut  out  the  spiritual  elements  in  it,  albeit 
so  few  now  understand  them.  The  words  we  quote  are  as  suggestive 
as  they  are  true  : 

How  desperately  blinding  becomes  a  superstitious  use,  through  ignorance,  of  such 
emblems,    when  they  are  made  to  possess  the  power  of  bloodshed  and  torture. 


THE   HEBREW   BIBI.E  DOES  NOT  EXIST.  l87 

through  orders  of  propaganda  of  any  species  of  religious  cultus.  When  one  thinks 
of  the  horrors  of  a  Moloch,  or  Baal,  or  Dagon  worship ;  of  the  correlated  blood- 
deluges  under  the  Cr.oss  baptized  in  gore  by  Constantine,  at  the  initiative  of  the 
secular  Church  ;  .  .  .  when  one  thinks  of  all  this  and  then  that  the  cause  of  all 
has  been  simply  ignorance  of  the  real  radical  reading  of  the  Moloch,  and  Baal,  and 
Dagon,  and  the  Cross  and  the  Tphillin,  all  running  back  to  a  common  origin,  and 
after  all  being  nothing  more  than  a  display  of  pure  and  natural  mathematics,  .  .  . 
one  is  apt  to  feel  like  cursing  ignorance,  and  to  lose  confidence  in  what  are  called 
intuitions  of  religion  ;  one  is  apt  to  wish  for  a  return  of  the  day  when  all  the  world 
was  of  one  lip  and  of  one  knowledge.  .  .  .  But  while  these  elements  [of  the 
construction  of  the  pyramid]  are  rational  and  scientific,  ...  let  no  man 
consider  that  with  this  discover>*  comes  a  cutting- off  of  the  spirittmlity*  oi  fhe.  Bible 
intention,  or  of  man's  relation  to  this  spiritual  foundation.  Does  one  wish  to  build 
a  house  ?  No  house  was  ever  actually  built  with  tangible  material  until  first  the 
architectural  design  of  building  had  been  accomplished,  no  matter  whether  the 
structure  was  palace  or  hovel.  So  with  these  elements  and  numbers.  They  are 
not  of  man,  nor  are  they  of  his  invention.  They  have  been  revealed  to  him  to  the 
extent  of  his  ability  to  realize  a  system,  which  is  the  creative  system  of  the  eternal 
God.  .  .  .  But  spititually,  to  man  the  value  of  this  matter  is  that  he  can 
actually  in  contemplation,  bridge  over  all  material  construction  of  the  cosmos,  and 
pass  into  the  very  thought  and  mind  of  God,  to  the  extent  of  recognizing  this 
system  of  design  for  cosmic  creation — yea,  even  before  the  words  went  forth  :  "  Lei 
there  be."f 

But  true  as  the  above  words  may  be,  when  coming  from  one  who  has 
re-discovered,  more  completely  than  anyone  else  has  done  during  the 
past  centuries,  one  of  the  keys  to  the  universal  Mystery  lyanguage,  it  is 
impossible  for  an  Eastern  Occultist  to  agree  with  the  conclusion  of  the 
able  author  of  The  Sozcrce  of  Measures.  He  "  has  set  out  to  find  the 
truth,'  and  yet  he  still  believes  that : 

The  best  and  most  authentic  vehicle  of  communication  from  [the  creative]  God 
to  man    .    .    .     is  to  be  found  in  the  Hebrew  Bible. 

To  this  we  must  and  shall  demur,  giving  our  reasons  for  it  in  a  few 
words.  The  "Hebrew  Bible"  exists  no  more,  as  has  been  shown 
in  the  foregoing  pages,  and  the  garbled  accounts,  the  falsified  and  pale 
copies  we  have  of  the  real  Mosaic  Bible  of  the  Initiates,  warrant  the 
making  of  no  such  sweeping  assertion  and  claim.  All  that  the  scholar  can 
fairly  claim  is  that  the  Jewish  Bible,  as  now  extant— in  its  latest  and  final 
interpretation,  and  according  to  the  newly-discovered  key — may  give 

*  Aye  ;  but  that  spirituality  can  never  be  discovered,  far  less  proved,  unless  we  turn  to  the  Aryan 
Scriptures  and  Symbolog>'.  For  the  Jews  it  was  lost,  save  for  the  Sadducees,  from  the  day  that  the 
"  chosen  people  "  reached  the  Promised  Land,  the  national  Karma  preventing  Moses  from  reaching 
it. 

t  Op.  cit.,  pp.  317-319. 


1 88  THE  SECRET?  DOCTRINE. 

a  partial  presentment  of  the  truths  it  contained  before  it  was  mangled. 
But  how  can  he  tell  what  the  Pentateuch  contained  before  it  had  been 
re-composed  by  Esdras ;  then  corrupted  still  more  by  the  ambitious 
Rabbis  in  later  times,  and  otherwise  remodelled  and  interfered  with  ? 
Leaving  aside  the  opinion  of  the  declared  enemies  of  the  Jewish  Scrip- 
tures, one  may  quote  simply  what  their  most  devoted  followers  say. 

Two  of  these  are  Home  and  Prideaux.  The  avowals  of  the  former 
will  be  suflBcient  to  show  how  much  now  remains  of  the  original  Mosaic 
books,  unless  indeed  we  accept  his  sublimely  blind  faith  in  the  inspira- 
tion and  editorship  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  writes  that  when  a  Hebrew 
scribe  found  a  writing  of  any  author  he  was  entitled,  if  he  thought  fit, 
being  "  conscious  of  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Spirit,"  to  do  exactly  as  he 
pleased  with  it — to  cut  it  up,  or  copy  it,  or  use  as  much  of  it  as  he 
deemed  right,  and  so  to  incorporate  it  with  his  own  manuscript.  Dr. 
Kenealy  aptly  remarks  of  Home,  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  get 
any  admission  from  him 

That  makes  against  his  church,  so  remarkably  guarded  is  he  [Home]  in  his 
phraseology  and  so  wonderfully  discreet  in  the  use  of  words  that  his  language, 
like  a  diplomatic  letter,  perpetually  suggests  to  the  mind  ideas  other  than  those 
which  he  really  means  ;  I  defy  any  unlearned  person  to  read  his  chapter  on  "  Hebrew 
characters "  and  to  derive  any  knowledge  from  it  whatever  on  the  subject  on 
which  he  professes  to  treat.* 

And  yet  this  same  Home  writes  : 

We  are  persuaded  that  the  things  to  which  reference  is  made  proceeded  from  the 
original  writers  or  compilers  of  the  books  {^Old  Testament].  Sometimes  the}'  took 
other  writings,  annals,  genealogies,  and  such  like,  with  which  they  incorporated 
additional  matter,  or  which  they  put  together  with  greater  or  less  condensation. 
The  Old  Testament  authors  used  the  sources  they  employed  (that  is,  the  writing  of 
other  people)  with  freedom  and  independence.  Conscious  of  the  aid  of  the  Divine 
Spirit,  they  adapted  their  own  productions,  or  the  productions  of  others,  to  the  wants 
of  the  times.  But  in  these  respects  they  cannot  be  said  to  have  corrupted  the  text 
of  Scripture.     They  made  the  text.f 

But  of  what  did  they  make  it  ?  Why,  of  the  writings  of  other  persons, 
justly  observes  Keneal)'^ : 

And  this  is  Home's  notion  of  what  the  Old  Testament  is — a  cento  from  the 
writings  of  unknown  persons  collected  and  put  together  by  those  who,  he  says, 
were  divinely  inspired.  No  infidel  that  I  know  of  has  ever  made  so  damaging  a 
charge  as  this  against  the  authenticity  of  the  Old  Testam.ent.* 


•  The  Book  of  God,  pp.  388,  389. 

t  See  Home's  Introduction  (loth  edition),  vol.  ii,  p.  33,  as  quoted  by  Dr.  Kenealy,  p.  389. 


SOME   HEBREWS  WERE   INITIATES.  189 

This  is  quite  sufficient,  we  think,  to  show  that  no  key  to  the  universal 
lano-uage-system  can  ever  open  the  mysteries  of  Creation  in  a  work  in 
which,  whether  through  design  or  carelessness,  nearly  every  sentence 
has  been  made  to  apply  to  the  latest  outcome  of  religious  views — to 
Phallicism,  and  to  nothing  else.  There  are  a  sufficient  number  of  stray 
bits  in  the  Elohistic  portions  of  the  Bible  to  warrant  the  inference  that  the 
Hebrews  who  wrote  it  were  Initiates  ;  hence  the  mathematical  coordi- 
nations and  the  perfect  harmony  between  the  measures  of  the  Great 
Pyramid  and  the  numerals  of  the  Biblical  glyphs.  But  surely  if  one 
borrowed  from  the  other,  it  cannot  be  the  architects  of  the  Pyramid  who 
borrowed  from  Solomon's  Temple,  if  only  because  the  former  exists  to 
this  day  as  a  stupendous  living  monument  of  Ksoteric  records,  while 
the  famous  temple  has  never  existed  outside  of  the  far  later  Hebrew 
scrolls.*  Hence  there  is  a  great  distance  between  the  admission  that 
some  Hebrews  were  Initiates,  and  the  conclusion  that  because  of  this 
the  Hebrew  Bible  must  be  the  best  standard,  as  being  the  highest 
representative  of  the  archaic  Esoteric  System. 

Nowhere  does  the  Bible  say,  moreover,  that  the  Hebrew  is  the  lan- 
guage of  God ;  of  this  boast,  at  any  rate,  the  authors  are  not  guilty. 
Perhaps  because  in  the  days  when  the  Bible  was  last  edited  the  claim 
would  have  been  too  preposterous — hence  dangerous.  The  compilers 
of  the  Old  Testament,  as  it  exists  in  the  Hebrew  canon,  knew  well  that 
the  language  of  the  Initiates  in  the  days  of  Moses  was  identical  with 
that  of  the  Egyptian  Hierophants  ;  and  that  none  of  the  dialects  that 
had  sprung  from  the  old  Syriac  and  the  pure  old  Arabic  of  Yarab — the 
father  and  progenitor  of  the  primitive  Arabians,  long  before  the  time 
of  Abraham,  in  whose  days  the  ancient  Arabic  had  already  become 
vitiated — that  none  of  those  languages  was  the  one  sacerdotal  universal 
tongue.  Nevertheless  all  of  them  included  a  number  of  words  which 
could  be  traced  to  common  roots.  And  to  do  this  is  the  business  of 
modern  Philology,  though  to  this  day,  with  all  the  respect  due  to  the 
labours  of  the  eminent  Philologists  of  Oxford  and  Berlin,  that  Science 
seems  to  be  hopelessly  floundering  in  the  Cimmerian  darkness  of  mere 
hypothesis. 

•  The  author  says  that  Parker's  qu  adrature  is  "  that  identical  measure  which  was  used  ancientlj' 
as  the  perfect  measure,  by  the  Egyptians,  in  the  construction  of  the  Great  Pyramid,  which  was  built 
to  monument  it  and  its  uses,"  and  that  "from  it  the  sacred  cubit-value  was  derived,  which  T?»a3  the 
cubit- value  used  in  the  construction  of  the  Temple  of  Solomon,  the  Ark  of  Noah,  and  th»  Ark  of  the 
Covenant "  (p.  22).  This  is  a  grand  discovery,  uo  doubt,  but  it  only  shows  that  the  Jews  profited  well 
by  their  captivity  in  Egypt,  and  that  Moses  was  a  great  Initiate. 


190  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Ahrens,  when  speaking  of  the  letters  as  arranged  in  the  Hebrew 
sacred  scrolls,  and  remarking  that  they  were  musical  notes,  had  pro- 
bably never  studied  Aryan  Hindu  music.  In  the  Sanskrit  language 
letters  are  continually  arranged  in  the  sacred  Ollas  so  that  they  may 
become  musical  notes.  For  the  whole  Sanskrit  alphabet  and  the 
Vedas,  from  the  first  word  to  the  last,  are  musical  notations  reduced  to 
writing  ;  the  two  are  inseparable.*  As  Homer  distinguished  between 
the  "language  of  Gods "  and  the  "language  of  men,"f  so  did  the 
Hindus.  The  Devanagari,  the  Sanskrit  characters,  are  the  "  speech  of 
the  Gods,"  and  Sanskrit  is  the  divine  language. 

It  is  argued  in  defence  of  the  present  version  of  the  Mosaic 
Books  that  the  mode  of  language  adopted  was  an  "  accommodation  " 
to  the  ignorance  of  the  Jewish  people.  But  the  said  "  mode  of  lan- 
guage "fdrags  down  the  "sacred  text"  of  Ksdras  and  his  colleagues  to 
the  level  of  the  most  unspiritual  and  gross  phallic  religions.  This  plea 
confirms  the  suspicions  entertained  by  some  Christian  Mj^stics  and 
many  philosophical  critics,  that : 

(cC)  Divine  Power  as  an  Absolute  Unity  had  never  anything  more  to 
do  with  the  Biblical  Jehovah  and  the  "  Lord  God  "  than  with  any  other 
Sephiroth  or  Number.  The  Ain-Suph  of  the  Kabalah  of  Moses  is  as 
independent  of  any  relation  with  the  created  Gods  as  is  Parabrahman 
Itself. 

(J))  The  teachings  veiled  in  the  Old  Testameyit  under  allegorical  ex- 
pressions are  all  copied  from  the  Magical  Texts  of  Babylonia,  by  Esdras 
and  others,  while  the  earlier  Mosaic  Text  had  its  source  in  Egypt. 

A  few  instances  known  to  almost  all  Symbologists  of  note,  and 
especiall}^  to  the  French  Egyptologists,  may  help  to  prove  the  state- 
ment. Furthermore,  no  ancient  Hebrew  Philosopher,  Philo  no  more 
than  the  Sadducees,  claimed,  as  do  now  the  ignorant  Christians,  that 


*  See  Theosophisi,  November,  1879,  art.  "  Hindu  Music,"  p.  47. 

f  The  Sanskrit  letters  are  far  more  numerous  than  the  poor  twenty-two  letters  of  the  Hebrew 
alphabet.  They  are  all  musical,  and  they  are  read— or  rather  chanted— according  to  a  system  given 
in  very  old  Tantrika  works,  and  are  called  Devanagari,  the  speech,  or  language,  of  the  Gods.  And 
since  each  letter  answers  to  a  numeral,  the  Sanskrit  affords  afar  larger  scope  for  expression,  and 
it  must  nece.ssEirily  be  far  more  perfect  than  the  Hebrew,  which  followed  the  same  system 
but  could  apply  it  only  in  a  very  limited  way.  If  either  of  these  two  languages  were  taught  to 
humanity  by  the  Gods,  surely  it  would  more  likely  be  the  Sanskrit,  the  perfect  form  of  the  most 
perfect  language  on  earth,  than  the  Hebrew,  the  roughest  and  the  poorest.  For  once  anytwie 
believes  in  a  language  of  divine  origin,  he  can  hardly  believe  at  the  same  time  that  Angels  or  Gods 
or  any  divine  Messengers  have  had  to  develop  it  from  a  rough  monosyllabic  form  into  a  perfect  one. 
as  we  see  in  terrestrial  linguistic  evolution. 


THE   SEVEN  CREATIVE   GODS.  I91 

the  events  in  the  Bible  should   be  taken  literally.     Philo  says  most 
explicitly  : 

The  verbal  statements  are  fabulous  [in  the  Book  of  the  Law] :  it  is  in  the  alieeory 
that  we  shall  find  the  truth. 

Let  us  give  a  few  instances,  beginning  with  the  latest  narrative,  the 
Hebrew,  and  thus  if  possible  trace  the  allegories  to  their  origin. 

1.  Whence  the  Creation  in  six  days,  the  seventh  day  as  day  of  rest, 
the  seven  Elohim,*  and  the  division  of  space  into  heaven  and  earth,  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  ? 

The  division  of  the  vault  above  from  the  Abyss,  or  Chaos,  below  is 
one  of  the  first  acts  of  creation  or  rather  of  evolution,  in  ever}'  cosmo- 
gony. Hermes  in  Pymander  speaks  of  a  heaven  seen  in  seven  circles 
with  seven  Gods  in  them.  We  examine  the  Assyrian  tiles  and  find 
the  same  on  them — the  seven  creative  Gods  busy  each  in  his  own 
sphere.  The  cuneiform  legends  narrate  how  Bel  prepared  the  seven 
mansions  of  the  Gods  ;  how  heaven  was  separated  from  the  earth.  In 
the  Brahmanical  allegory  everything  is  septenary,  from  the  seven  zones, 
or  envelopes,  of  the  Mundane  Egg  down  to  the  seven  continents, 
islands,  seas,  etc.  The  six  days  of  the  week  and  the  seventh,  the 
Sabbath,  are  based  primarily  on  the  seven  creations  of  the  Hindu 
Brahma,  the  seventh  being  that  of  man  ;  and  secondarily  on  the  number 
of  generation.  It  is  preeminently  and  most  conspicuously  phallic.  In 
the  Babylonian  system  the  seventh  day,  or  period,  was  that  in  which 
man  and  the  animals  were  created. 

2.  The  Elohim  make  a  woman  out  of  Adam's  rib.f  This  process  is 
found  in  the  Magical  Texts  translated  by  G.  Smith. 

The  seven  Spirits  bring  forth  the  woman  from  the  loins  of  the  man, 

explains  Mr.  Sayce  in  his  Hibbert  Lectures. % 


*  In  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  the  word  "God  "  represents  the  Elohim— Gods  iu  the  plural,  not 
one  God.  This  is  a  cunning  and  dishonest  translation.  For  the  whole  Kabalah  explains  sufficiently 
that  the  Alhim  (Elohim)  are  seven  ;  each  creates  one  of  the  seven  things  enumerated  in  the  first 
chapter,  and  these  answer  allegorically  to  the  seven  creations.  To  make  this  clear,  count  the  verses 
in  which  it  is  said  "  And  God  saw  that  it  was  good,"  and  you  will  find  that  this  is  said  seven  times  - 
in  verses  4,  10,  12,  18,  21,  25,  and  31.  And  though  the  compilers  cunningly  represent  the  creation  of 
man  as  occurring  on  the  sixth  day,  yet,  having  made  man  "  male  and  female  in  the  image  of  God." 
the  Seven  Elohim  repeat  the  sacramental  sentence,  "  It  was  good,"  for  the  seventh  time,  thus  making 
of  man  theseventh  creation,  and  showing  the  origin  of  this  bit  of  cosmogony  to  be  in  the  Hindu  creations 
The  Elohim  are,  of  course,  the  seven  Egyptian  Khnumu,  the  "  a.ssistant-architects " ;  the  seven 
Amshaspends  of  the  Zoroastrians ;  the  Seven  Spirits  subordinate  to  Hdabaoth  of  the  Nazareans  ;  the 
seven  Prajapati  of  the  Hindus,  etc. 

+  Gen.,  ii.  21   22. 

t  Op.  cit.,  p.  395,  note. 


J  92  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

The  mystery  of  the  woman  who  was  made  from  the  man  is  repeated 
in  every  national  religion,  and  in  Scriptures  far  antedating  the  Jewish. 
You  find  it  in  the  Avestan  fragments,  in  the  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead, 
and  finally  in  Brahma,  the  male,  separating  from  himself,  as  a  female 
self,  Vach,  in  whom  he  creates  Viraj. 

3.  The  two  Adams  of  the  first  and  second  chapters  in  Genesis  origi- 
nated from  garbled  exoteric  accounts  coming  from  the  Chaldseans  and 
the  Egyptian  Gnostics,  revised  later  from  the  Persian  traditions,  most 
of  which  are  old  Aryan  allegories.  As  Adam  Kadmon  is  the  seventh 
creation,*  so  the  Adam  of  dust  is  the  eighth  ;  and  in  the  Puranas 
one  finds  an  eighth,  the  Anugraha  creation,  and  the  Egyptian  Gnostics 
had  it.     Irenseus,  complaining  of  the  heretics,  says  of  the  Gnostics  : 

Sometimes  they  will  have  him  [mau]  to  have  been  made  on  the  sixth  day,  and 
sometimes  on  the  eighth. t 

The  author  of  The  Hebrew  and  Other  Creations  writes : 

These  two  creations  of  man  on  the  sixth  day  and  on  the  eighth  were  those  of  the 
Adamic,  or  fleshly  man,  and  of  the  spiritual  man,  who  were  known  to  Paul  and  the 
Gnostics  as  the  first  and  second  Adam,  the  man  of  earth  and  the  man  of  Heaven. 
Irenseus  also  says  the)'  insisted  that  Moses  began  with  the  Ogdoad  of  the  Seven 
Powers  and  their  mother,  Sophia  (the  old  Kefa  of  Egypt,  who  is  the  Living  Word 
at  Ombos).^ 

Sophia  is  also  Aditi  with  her  seven  sons. 

One  might  go  on  enumerating  and  tracing  the  Jewish  "  revelations  " 
ad  infinitum  to  their  original  sources,  were  it  not  that  the  task  is  super- 
fluous, since  so  much  is  already  done  in  that  direction  by  others — and 
done  thoroughly  well,  as  in  the  case  of  Gerald  Massey,  who  has  sifted 
the  subject  to  the  very  bottom.  Hundreds  of  volumes,  treatises,  and 
pamphlets  are  being  written  yearly  in  defence  of  the  "  divine-inspira- 
tion "  claim  for  the  Bible ;  but  symbolical  and  archaeological  research 
is  coming  to  the  rescue  of  truth  and  fact — therefore  of  the  Esoteric 
Doctrine — upsetting  every  argument  based  on  f  ith  and  breaking  it  as 
an  idol  with  feet  of  clay.  A  curious  and  learned  book.  The  Approaching 
Endof  the  Age,  by  H.  Grattan  Guinness,  professes  to  solve  the  mysteries 
of  the  Bible  chronology  and  to  prove  thereby  God's  direct  revelation 
to  man.    Among  other  things  its  author  thinks  that : 

It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  a  septiform  chronology  luas  divinely  appointed  in  the 
elaborate  ritual  of  Judaism. 

*  The  seventh  esoterically,  exotericaUy  the  sixth. 

+  Contra  Heresei,  I,  xviii,  •^. 

%  Op.  cit.  by  Gerald  Massey,  p.  19. 


SEVEN   KEYS  TO  ALT.  AI.LEGORIES.  193 

This  Statement  is  innocently  accepted  and  fervently  believed  in  by 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  only  because  they  are  ignorant  of  the 
Bibles  of  other  nations.  Two  pages  from  a  small  pamphlet,  a  lecture 
by  Mr.  Gerald  Massey,*  so  upset  the  arguments  and  proofs  of  the 
enthusiastic  Mr.  Grattan  Guinness,  spread  over  760  pages  of  small 
print,  as  to  prevent  them  from  ever  raising  their  heads  any  more.  Mr. 
Massey  treats  of  the  Fall,  and  says  : 

Here,  as  before,  the  genesis  does  not  begin  at  the  beginning.  There  was  an 
earlier  Fall  than  that  of  ;the  Primal  Pair.  In  this  the  number  of  those  who  failed 
and  fell  was  seven.  We  meet  with  those  seven  in  Egypt— eight  with  the  Mother- 
where  they  are  called  the  "  Children  of  Inertness,"  who  were  cast  out  from  Am- 
Smen,  the  Paradise  of  the  Eight;  also  in  a  Babylonian  legend  of  Creation,  as  the 
Seven  Brethren,  who  were  Seven  Kings,  like  the  Seven  Kings  in  the  Book  of 
Revelation ;  and  the  Seven  Non-Sentient  Powers,  who  became  the  Seven  Rebel 
Angels  that  made  war  in  heaven.  The  Seven  Kronidse,  described  as  the  Seven 
Watchers,  who  in  the  beginning  were  formed  in  the  interior  of  heaven.  The 
heaven,  like  a  vault,  they  extended  or  hollowed  out ;  that  which  was  not  visible 
they  raised,  and  that  which  had  no  exit  they  opened;  their  work  of  creation  being 
exactly  identical  with  that  of  the  Elohim  in  the  Book  of  Genesis.  These  are  the 
Seven  elemental  Powers  of  space,  who  were  continued  as  Seven  Timekeepers.  It  is 
said  of  them  :  "  In  watching  was  their  office,  but  among  the  stars  of  heaven  their 
watch  they  kept  not,"  and  their  failure  was  the  Fall.  In  the  Book  of  Enoch  the 
same  Seven  Watchers  in  heaven  are  stars  which  transgressed  the  commandment  of 
God  before  their  time  arrived,  for  they  came  not  in  their  proper  season,  therefore 
was  he  offended  with  them,  and  bound  them  until  the  period  of  the  consummation 
of  their  crimes,  at  the  end  of  the  secret,  or  great  year  of  the  Worid,  i.e.,  the  Period 
of  Precession,  when  there  was  to  be  restoration  and  rebeginning.  The  Seven 
deposed  constellations  are  seen  by  Enoch,  looking  like  seven  great  blazing  moun- 
tains overthrown— the  seven  mountains  in  Revelation,  on  which  the  Scarlet  Lady 
sits.t 

There  are  seven  keys  to  this,  as  to  every  other  allegory,  whether  in 
the  Bible  or  in  pagan  religions.  While  Mr.  Massey  has  hit  upon  the 
key  in  the  mysteries  of  cosmogony,  John  Bentley  in  his  Hindu  Astro- 
nomy claims  that  the  Fall  of  the  Angels,  or  War  in  Heavai,  as  given  by 
the  Hindus,  is  but  a  figure  of  the  calculations  of  time-periods,  and  goes 
on  to  show  that  among  the  Western  nations  the  same  war,  with  like 
results,  took  the  form  of  the  war  of  the  Titans. 

In  short,  he  makes  it  astronomical.  So  does  the  author  of  The  Source 
of  Measures : 


*  op  cit..  p.  278.! 

+  TTte  Hebrew  and  other  Creations  :  with  a  reply  to  Professor  A.  H.  Sayce,  p.  i<5. 

3    < 


194  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

The  celestial  sphere  with  the  earth,  was  divided  into  twelve  compartments 
[astronomically],  and  these  compartments  were  esteemed  as  sexed,  the  lords  or 
husbands  being  respectively  the  planets  presiding  over  them.  This  being  the 
settled  scheme,  want  of  proper  correction  would  bring  it  to  pass,  after  a  time,  that 
error  and  confusion  would  ensue  by  the  compartments  coming  under  the  lordship 
of  the  wrong  planets.  Instead  of  lawful  wedlock,  there  would  be  illegal  intercourse, 
as  between  the  planets,  "sons  of  Elohim,""  and  these  compartments,  "daughters  of 
H-Adam,"  or  the  earth-v\?in ;  and  in  fact  the  fourth  verse  of  sixth  Genesis  will  bear 
this  interpretation  for  the  usual  one,  viz.,  "  In  the  same  days,  or  periods,  there  were 
untimely  births  in  the  earth  ;  and  also  behind  that,  when  the  sons  of  Elohim  came 
to  the  daughters  of  H-Adam,  they  begat  to  them  the  offspring  of  harlotry,"  etc., 
astronomically  indicating  this  confusion.* 

Do  any  of  these  learned  explanations  explain  anything  except  a 
possible  ingenious  allegory,  and  a  personification  of  the  celestial  bodies, 
by  the  ancient  Mythologists  and  Priests?  Carried  to  their  last  word  they 
would  undeniabl}^  explain  much,  and  would  thus  furnish  one  of  the  right 
seven  keys,  fitting  a  great  many  of  the  Biblical  puzzles  yet  opening  none 
naturally  and  entirely,  instead  of  being  scientific  and  cunning  master- 
keys.  But  they  yet  prove  one  thing — that  neither  the  septiform 
chronology  nor  the  septiform  theogony  and  evolution  of  all  things  is 
of  divine  origin  in  the  Bible.  For  let  us  see  the  sources  at  which  the 
Bible  sipped  its  divine  inspiration  with  regard  to  the  sacred  number 
seven.     Says  Mr.  Massey  in  the  same  lecture  : 

The  Book  of  Genesis  tells  us  nothing  about  the  nature  of  these  Elohim,  erro- 
neouslj'  rendered  "God,"  who  are  creators  of  the  Hebrew  beginning,  and  who  are 
themselves  preextant  and  seated  when  the  theatre  opens  and  the  curtain  ascends. 
It  says  that  in  the  beginning  the  Elohim  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth.  In 
thousands  of  books  the  Elohim  have  been  discussed,  but  .  .  .  with  no  conclu- 
sive result.  .  .  The  Elohim  are  Seven  in  number,  whether  as  nature-powers, 
gods  of  constellations,  or  planetary  gods,  ...  as  the  Pitris  and  Patriarchs, 
Manus  and  Fathers  of  earlier  times.  The  Gnostics,  however,  and  the  Jewish 
Kabalah  preserve  an  account  of  the  Elohim  of  Genesis  by  which  we  are  able  to 
identify  them  with  other  forms  of  the  seven  primordial  powers.  .  .  .  Their 
names  are  Ildabaoth,  Jehovah  (or  Jao),  Sabaoth,  Adonai,  Eloeus,  Oreus,  and 
Astanphaeus.  Ildabaoth  signifies  the  Lord  God  of  the  fathers,  that  is  the  fathers 
who  preceded  the  Father;  and  thus  the  seven  are  identical  with  the  seven  Pitris  or 
Fathers  of  India  (Irenaeus,  B.  I.,  xxx.,  5).  Moreover,  the  Hebrew  Elohim  were 
preextant  by  name  and  nature  as  Phoenician  divinities  or  powers.  Sanchoniathon 
mentions  them  by  name,  and  describes  them  as  Auxiliaries  of  Kronos  or  Time.  In 
this  phase,  then,  the  Elohim  are  time-keepers  in  heaven!  In  the  Phoenician 
mythology  the  Elohim  are  the  Seven  sons  of  Sydik  [Melchizedek],  identical  with 

•  Op.  cil.,  p.  243. 


GERALD   MASSEY   ON   THE   SEVEN  CREATORS.  195 

the  Seven  Kabiri,  who  in  Egypt  are  the  Seven  sons  of  Ptah,  and  the  Seven  Spirits 
oi^&in  The  Book  of  the  Dead;    .     ,    .    in  America  with  the  seven  Hohgates,     .     . 
in  Assyria  with  the  seven  Lumazi.     .     .     .     They  are  always  seven  in  number    , 
who  JCab—that   is,  turn  round,  together,  whence  the   "Kab-iri."     .     .    . 
They  are  also  the  Hi  or  Gods,  in  Assyrian,  who  were  seven  in  number !     .     .     . 
They  were  first  born  of  the  Mother  in  Space,*  and  then  the  Seven  Companions 
passed  into  the  sphere  of  time  as  auxiliaries  of  Kronus,  or  Sons  of  the  Male  Parent. 
As  Damascius  says  in  his  Primitive  Principles,  the  Magi  consider  that  space  and 
time  were  the  source  of  all ;    and  from  being  powers  of  the  air  the  gods  were 
promoted  to  become  time-keepers  for  men.     Seven  constellations  were  assigned  to 
them.     ...     As  the    seven   turned   round  in  the  ark  of  the  sphere  they  were 
designated  the  Seven  Sailors'  Companions,  Rishis,  or  Elohim.     The  first  "Seven 
Stars  "  are  not  planetary.     They  are  the  leading  stars  of  seven  constellations  which 
turned  round  with  the  Great  Bear  in  describing  the  circle  of  the  year.t    These  the 
Assyrians  called  the  seven  Lumazi,  or  leaders  of  the  flocks  of  stars,  designated  sheep. 
On  the  Hebrew  line  of  descent  or  development,  these  Elohim  are  identified  for  us 
by  the  Kabalists  and  Gnostics,  who  retained  the  hidden  wisdom  or  gnosis,  the  clue 
of  which   is   absolutely  essential  to   any  proper  understanding   of  mj-thology   or 
theology.     .     .     .    There  were  two  constellations  with  seven  stars  each.     We  call 
them  the  Two  Bears.     But  the  seven  stars  of  the  Lesser  Bear  were  once  considered 
to  be  the  seven  heads  of  the  Polar  Dragon,  which  we  meet  with— as  the  beast  with 
seven  heads— in  the  Akkadian  Hymns  and  in  Revelation.      The  mythical  dragon 
originated  in  the  crocodile,  which  is  the  dragon  of  Egypt.     .     .     .     Now  in    one 
particular  cult,  the  Sut-Typhonian,  the  first  god  was  Sevekh  [the  seven-fold],  who 
wears  the  crocodile's  head,  as  well  as  the  Serpent,  and  who  is  the  Dragon,  or  whose 
constellation  was  the  Dragon.     ...     In  Egypt  the  Great  Bear  was  the  constella- 
tion  of  Typhon,  or  Kepha,  the  old  genetrix,  called  the  Mother  of  the  Revolutions ; 
and  the  Dragon  with  seven  heads  was  assigned  to  her  son,  Sevekh-Kronus,  or  Saturn, 
called  the  Dragon  of  Life.     That  is,  the  typical  dragon  or  serpent  with  seven  heads 
was  female  at  first,  and  then  the  type  was  continued,  as  male  in  her  son  Sevekh, 
the  Sevenfold  Serpent,  in  Ea  the  Sevenfold,     ...     lao  Chnubis,  and  others. 
We  find  these  two  in  The  Book  of  Revelation.    One  is  the  Scariet  Lady,  the  mother 
of  mystery,  the  great  harlot,  who  sat  on  a  scarlet-coloured  beast  with  seven  heads, 
which  is  the  Red  Dragon  of  the  Pole.     She  held  in  her  hand  the  unclean  things  of 
her  fornication.    That  means  the  emblems  of  the  male  and  female,  imaged  by  the 
Egyptians  at  the  Polar  Centre,  the  very  uterus  of  creation,  as  was  indicated  by  the 
Thigh  constellation,  called  the  Khepsh  of  Typhon,  the  old  Dragon,  in  the  northern 
birthplace  of  Time  in  heaven.    The  two  revolved  about  the  pole  of  heaven,  or  the 
Tree,  as  it  was  called,  which  was  figured  at  the  centre  of  the  starry  motion.     In  The 
Book  of  Enoch  these  two  constellations  are  identified  as  Leviathan  and  Behemoth- 
Bekhmut,  or  the  Dragon  and  Hippopotamus  =  Great  Bear,  and  they  are  the  primal 
pair  that  were  first  created  in  the  Garden  of  Eden.     So  that  the  Egyptian  first 

•  When  they  are  the  Anupadakas  (Parentless)  of  the  Secret  Doctrine.    See  Stanzas,  i,  9,  Vol.  1,  56- 
t  These    originated    with     the    Aryans,    who    placed   therein    their   "  bnght- crested "    (Chitra- 
Shikhandan)  Seven  Rishis.    But  all  this  is  far  more  Occult  than  appears  on  the  surface. 


196  THE  SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

mother,  Kefa  [or  Kepha]  whose  name  signifies  "  mystery,"  was  the  original  of  the 
Hebrew  Chavah,  our  Eve ;  and  therefore  Adam  is  one  with  Sevekh  the  sevenfold 
one,  the  solar  dragon  in  whom  the  pov/ers  of  light  and  darkness  were  combined, 
and  the  sevenfold  nature  was  shown  in  the  seven  rays  worn  by  the  Gnostic  lao- 
Chnubis,  god  of  the  number  seven,  who  is  Sevekh  by  name  and  a  form  of  the  first 
father  as  head  of  the  Seven.* 

All  this  gives  the  key  to  the  astronomical  prototype  of  the  allegory 
in  Genesis,  but  it  furnishes  no  other  key  to  the  mystery  involved  in  the 
sevenfold  glyph.  The  able  Eg>'ptologist  shows  also  that  Adam  himself 
according  to  Rabbinical  and  Gnostic  tradition,  was  the  chief  of  the 
Seven  who  fell  from  Heaven,  and  he  connects  these  with  the  Patriarchs, 
thus  agreeing  with  the  Esoteric  Teaching.  For  by  mystic  permutation 
and  the  m5^stery  of  primeval  rebirths  and  adjustment,  the  Seven  Rishis 
are  in  reality  identical  with  the  seven  Prajapatis,  the  fathers  and 
creators  of  mankind,  and  also  with  the  Kumaras,  the  first  sons  of 
Brahma,  who  refused  to  procreate  and  multiply.  This  apparent  con- 
tradiction is  explained  by  the  seven-fold  nature — make  it  four-fold  on 
metaphysical  principles  and  it  will  come  to  the  same  thing — of  the 
celestial  men,  the  Dhyan  Chohans.     This  nature  is  made  to  divide  and 

A 

separate ;  and  while  the  higher  principles  (AtmS-Buddhi)  of  the 
"  Creators  of  Men  "  are  said  to  be  the  Spirits  of  the  seven  constellations, 
their  middle  and  lower  principles  are  connected  with  the  earth  and  are 
shown 

Without  desire  or  passion,  inspired  with  holy  wisdom,  estranged  from  the 
Universe  and  undesirous  of  progeny,t 

remaining  Kaumaric  (virgin  and  uudefiled) ;  therefore  it  is  said  they 
refused  to  create.  For  this  they  are  cursed  and  sentenced  to  be  born  and 
reborn  "  Adams,"  as  the  Semites  would  say. 

Meanwhile  let  me  quote  a  few  lines  more  from  Mr.  G.  Massey's  lec- 
ture, the  fruit  of  his  long  researches  in  Egyptology  and  other  ancient 
lore,  as  it  shows  that  the  septenary  division  was  at  one  time  a  universal 
doctrine : 

Adam  as  the  father  among  the  Seven  is  identical  with  the  Egyptian  Atum,  .  . 
whose  other  name  of  Adon  is  identical  with  the  Hebrew  Adonai.  In  this  way  the 
second  Creation  in  Genesis  reflects  and  continues  the  later  creation  in  the  mj'thos 
which  explains  it.  The  Fall  of  Adam  to  the  lower  world  led  to  his  being  humanised 
on  earth,  by  which  process  the  celestial  was  turned  into  the  mortal,  and  this,  which 

•  Op.  eit.,  pp.  19-22. 

+  K»jAnt< /^rdwo,  Wilson's  Trans.,  i,  loi.  The  period  of  these  Kumiras  is  Pre-Adamic.  r.<».,  before 
the  separation  of  sexeg,  and  before  humanity  had  received  the  creative,  or  sacred,  fire  of  Prometheus. 


THE   FATHER  AND   MOTHER.  I97 

belongs  to  the  astronomical  allegory,  got  literalised  as  the  Fall  of  Man,  or  descent 
of  the  soul  into  matter,  and  the  conversion  of  the  angelic  into  an  earthly  being.  . 
.  .  It  is  found  in  the  [Babylonian]  texts,  whenEa,  the  first  father,  is  said  to  "grant 
forgiveness  to  the  conspiring  gods,"  for  whose  "  redemption  did  he  create  mankind." 
(Sayce;  Hib.  Lee,  p.  140)  .  .  .  The  Elohim,  then,  are  the  Eg5T)tian,  Akkadian, 
Hebrew,  and  •  Phoenician  form  of  the  Universal  Seven  Powers,  who  are  Seven  in 
Egypt,  Seven  in  Akkad,  Babylon,  Persia,  India,  Britain,  and  Seven  among  the 
Gnostics  and  Kabalists.  Thej*  were  the  Seven  fathers  who  preceded  the  Father  in 
Heaven,  because  they  were  earlier  than  the  individualised  fatherhood  on  earth.  . 
.  .  When  the  Elohim  said  :  "Let  us  make  man  in  our  image,  after  our  likeness," 
there  were  seven  of  them  who  represented  the  seven  elements,  powers,  or  souls  that 
went  to  the  making  of  the  human  being  who  came  into  existence  before  the 
Creator  was  represented  anthropomorphically,  or  could  have  conferred  the  human 
likeness  on  the  Adamic  man.  It  was  in  the  sevenfold  image  of  the  Elohim  that 
man  was  first  created,  with  his  seven  elements,  principles  or  souls,*  and  therefore 
he  could  not  have  been  formed  in  the  image  of  the  one  God.  The  seven  Gnostic 
Elohim  tried  to  make  a  man  in  their  own  image,  but  could  not  for  lack  of  virile 
power.t  Thus  their  creation  in  earth  and  heaven  was  a  failure  .  .  .  because 
the\-  themselves  were  lacking  in  the  soul  of  the  fatherhood  !  When  the  Gnostic 
laldabaoth,*  chief  of  the  Seven,  cried:  "I  am  the  father  and  God,"  his  mother 
Sophia  [Achamoth]  replied :  "  Do  not  tell  lies,  Ildabaoth,  for  the  first  man  (Anthro- 
pos,  son  of  Anthropos)§  is  above  thee."  That  is,  man  who  had  now  been  created  in 
the  image  of  the  fatherhood  was  superior  to  the  gods  who  were  derived  from  the 
Mother- Parent  alone  !  ||  For,  as  it  had  been  first  on  earth,  so  was  it  afterwards  in 
heaven  [the  Secret  Doctrine  teaches  the  reverse] ;  and  thus  the  primary  gods  were 
held  to  be  soulless  like  the  earliest  races  of  men.  .  .  .  The  Gnostics  taught  that 
the  Spirits  of  Wickedness,  the  inferior  Seven,  derived  their  origin  from  the  great 
Mother  alone,  who  produced  without  the  fatherhood !  It  was  in  the  image,  then, 
of  the  sevenfold  Elohim  that  the  seven  races  were  formed  which  we  sometimes 
hear  of  as  the  Pre-Adamite  races  of  men,  because  they  were  earlier  than  the  father- 
hood, which  was  individualised  only  in  the  second  Hebrew  Creation.! 

This  shows  sufl5ciently  how  the  echo  of  the  Secret  Doctrine — of  the 
Third  and  Fourth  Races  of  men,  made  complete  by  the  incarnation  in 
humanity  of  the  Manasa  Putra,  Sons  of  Intelligence  or  Wisdom — 
reached  every  corner  of  the  globe.  The  Jews,  however,  althougn  tHey 
borrowed  of  the  older  nations  the  groundwork  on  which  to  build  their 

*  The  Secret  Doctrine  says  that  this  was  the  second  creation,  not  the  first,  and  that  it  took  place 
during-  the  Third  Race,  when  men  separated,  i.e.,  began  to  be  bom  as  distinct  men  and  women. 
See  Vol.  ii.  of  this  work,  Stanzas  and  Commentaries. 

+  This  is  a  Western  mangling  of  the  Indian  doctrine  of  the  Kumaras. 

X  He  was  regarded  by  several  Gnostic  sects  as  one  with  Jehovah.    See  his  Unveiled,  vol.  ii.  p.  184. 

\  Or  "man,  son  of  man."  The  Church  found  in  this  a  prophecy  ^.wA.  a  confession  of  Christ,  the 
"Son  of  Man  !  " 

II  See  stanza  ii.  5,  Secret  Doctrine,  u.  16. 

^  Op.  cit.,  pp.  23,  24. 


igS  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

revelation,  never  had  more  than  three  keys  out  of  the  seven  in  their 
mind,  while  composing  their  national  allegories — the  astronomical,  the 
numerical  (metrology),  and  above  all  the  purely  anthropological,  or 
rather  physiological  key.  This  resulted  in  the  most  phallic  religion  of 
all,  and  has  now  passed,  part  and  parcel,  into  Christian  theology,  as  is 
proved  by  the  lengthy  quotations  made  from  a  lecture  of  an  able  Egyp- 
tologist, who  can  make  naught  of  it  save  astronomical  myths  and 
phallicism,  as  is  implied  by  his  explanations  of  "  fatherhood '^  in  the 
allegories. 


SECTION  XXII. 

The  •'•'Zohar"  on  Creation  and  the  Elohik 


The  opening  sentence  in  Genesis,  as  every  Hebrew  scholar  knows, 
is: 

Now  there  are  two  well-known  ways  of  rendering  this  line,  as  any  other 
Hebrew  writing :  one  exoteric,  as  read  by  the  orthodox  Bible  interpreters 
(Christian),  and  the  other  Kabalistic,  the  latter,  moreover,  being  divided 
into  the  Rabbinical  and  the  purely  Kabalistic  or  Occult  method.  As  in 
Sanskrit  writing,  the  words  are  not  separated  in  the  Hebrew,  but  are 
made  to  run  together — especially  in  the  old  systems.  For  instance,  the 
above,  divided,  would  read :  "  B'rashith  bara  Elohim  eth  hashamayitn 
v'eth  Kareths  ;"  and  it  can  be  made  to  read  thus:  " Rrash  ithbara Elohim 
ethhashamayint  ifeth'areis"  thus  changing  the  meaning  entirely. 
The  latter  means,  "  In  the  beginning  God  made  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,"  whereas  the  former,  precluding  the  idea  of  any  beginning, 
would  simply  read  that  "  out  of  the  ever-existing  Essence  [divine]  [or 
out  of  the  womb — also  head — thereof]  the  dual  [or  androgjme]  Force 
[Gods]  shaped  the  double  heaven  ; "  the  upper  and  the  lower  heaven 
being  generally  explained  as  heaven  and  earth.  The  latter  word  means 
Esoterically  the  "  Vehicle,"  as  it  gives  the  idea  of  an  empty  globe, 
within  which  the  manifestation  of  the  world  takes  place.  Now,  ac- 
cording to  the  rules  of  Occult  sj^mbolical  reading  as  established  in 
the  old  Sepher  Jetzirah  (in  the  Chaldaean  Book  of  Numbers*^  the  initial 
fourteen  letters  (or  "  B'rasitb'  raalaim ")  are  in  themselves  quite 
sufficient  to  explain  the  theory  of  "creation"  without  any  further  ex- 


*  The  Sepher  Jetzirah  now  known  is  but  a  portion  of  the  original  one  incorporated  in  the  Chaldaean 
Book  of  Numbers.  The  fragment  now  in  possession  of  the  Western  Kabalists  is  one  gfreatly  tampered 
with  by  the  Rabbis  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  its  masoretic  points  show.  The  "  Masorah  "  scheme  is  a 
modem  blind,  dating:  after  our  era  and  perfected  in  Tiberias.    (See  Isii  Unveiled,  vol.  ii,  pp.  43o-43i) 


200  THE  SECRKT  DOCTRINE. 

planation  or  qualification.  Every  letter  of  them  is  a  sentence  ;  and, 
placed  side  by  side  with  the  hieroglyphic  or  pictorial  initial  version  of 
"creation"  in  the  Book  of  Dzyan,  the  origin  of  the  Phoenician  and 
Jewish  letters  would  soon  be  found  out.  A  whole  volume  of  explana- 
tions would  give  no  more  to  the  student  of  primitive  Occult  Symbology 
than  this :  the  head  of  a  bull  within  a  circle,  a  straight  horizontal  line, 
a  circle  or  sphere,  then  another  one  with  three  dots  in  it,  a  triangle, 
then  the  Svastika  (or  Jaina  cross) ;  after  these  come  an  equilateral 
triangle  within  a  circle,  seven  small  bulls'  heads  standing  in  three  rows, 
one  over  the  other ;  a  black  round  dot  (an  opening),  and  then  seven 
lines,  meaning  Chaos  or  Water  (feminine). 

Anyone  acquainted  with  the  symbolical  and  numerical  value  of  the 
Hebrew  letters  will  see  at  a  glance  that  this  glyph  and  the  letters  of 
"  B'rasitb'  raalaim  "  are  identical  in  meaning.  "  Beth  "  is  "  abode  "  or 
"region;"  "  Resh,"  a  "circle"  or  "head;"  "  Aleph,"  "bull"  (the 
symbol  of  generative  or  creative  power*)  ;  "  Shin,"  a  "  tooth  "  (300 
exoterically — a  trident  or  three  in  one  in  its  Occult  meaning)  ;  "Jodh," 
the  perfect  unity  or  "one  "  f  ;  "  Tau,"  the  "  root "  or  "  foundation  "  (the 
same  as  the  cross  with  the  Egyptians  and  Aryans)  :  again,  "  Beth," 
"Resh,"  and  "Aleph."  Then  "  Aleph,"  or  seven  bulls  for  the  seven 
Alaim ;  an  ox-goad,  "  lyamedh,"  active  procreation;  "He,"  the 
"opening"  or  "matrix;"  "  Yodh,"  the  organ  of  procreation;  and 
"Mem,"  "water"  or  "  chaos,"  the  female  Power  near  the  male  that 
precedes  it. 

The  most  satisfactory  and  scientific  exoteric  rendering  of  the  opening 
sentence  of  Genesis — on  which  was  hung  in  blind  faifh  the  whole 
Christian  religion,  synthesized  by  its  fundamental  dogmas — is  un- 
deniably the  one  given  in  the  Appendix  to  The  Source  of  Measures  by 
Mr.  Ralston  Skinner.  He  gives,  and  we  must  admit  in  the  ablest, 
clearest,  and  most  scientific  way,  the  numerical  reading  of  this  first 

'■'  In  the  oldest  symbolisni^that  used  in  the  Egyptian  hierog-lyphics— when  the  bull's  head  only  is 
found  it  means  the  Deity,  the  Perfect  Circle,  with  the  procreative  power  latent  in  it.  When  the 
■whole  bull  is  represented,  a  solar  God,  a  personal  deity  is  meant,  for  it  is  then  the  symbol  of  the  acting 
generative  power. 

+  It  took  three  Root-Races  to  degrade  the  symbol  of  the  One  Ab.stract  Unity  manifested  in  Nature  as 
a  Ray  emanating  from  infinity  (the  Circle)  into  a  phallic  symbol  of  generation,  as  it  was  even  in  the 
Kabalah.  This  degradation  began  with  the  Fourth  Race,  and  had  its  raison  d'etre  in  Polytheism,  as 
the  latter  was  invented  to  screen  the  One  Universal  Deity  from  profanation.  The  Christians  may 
plead  ignorance  of  its  meaning  as  an  excuse  for  its  acceptance.  But  why  sing  never-ceasing  lauda- 
tions to  the  Mosaic  Jews  who  repudiated  all  the  other  Gods,  preserved  the  most  phallic,  and  then 
most  impudently  proclaimed  themselves  Monotheists .'  Jesus  ever  steadily  ignored  Jehovah.  He 
Wint  against  the  Mosaic  commandments.  He  recognized  his  Heavenly  Father  alone,  and  prohibited 
public  worship. 


ANGELS   AS   BUILDERS.  20I 

sentence  and  chapter  in  Genesis.  By  the  means  of  number  31,  or  the 
word  "  El "  (i  for  "  Aleph  "  and  30  for  "  L^amedh  "),  and  other  numerical 
Bible  symbols,  compared  with  the  measures  used  in  the  great  pyramid 
of  Eg3'P^j  ^^  shows  the  perfect  identity  between  its  measurements — 
inches,  cubits,  and  plan — and  the  numerical  values  of  the  Garden  of 
Eden,  Adam  and  Eve,  and  the  Patriarchs.  In  short,  the  author  shows 
that  the  pyramid  contains  in  itself  architectural!)^  the  whole  of  Genesis, 
and  discloses  the  astronomical,  and  even  the  physiological,  secrets  in 
its  symbols  and  glyphs  ;  yet  he  will  not  admit,  it  would  seem,  the 
psycho-cosmical  and  spiritual  mysteries  involved  in  these.  Nor  does 
the  author  apparently  see  that  the  root  of  all  this  has  to  be  sought  in 
the  archaic  legends  and  the  Pantheon  of  India.*  Failing  this,  whither 
does  his  great  and  admirable  labour  lead  him  ?  Not  further  than  to 
find  out  that  Adam,  the  earth,  and  Moses  or  Jehovah  "  are  the  same" 
— or  to  the  a-b-c  of  comparative  Occult  Symbology — and  that  the  days 
in  Genesis  being  "circles"  "displayed  by  the  Hebrews  as  squares,"  the 
result  of  the  sixth-day's  labour  culminates  in  the  fructifying  principle. 
Thus  the  Bible  is  made  to  yield  Phallicism,  and  that  alone. 

Nor — read  in  this  light,  and  as  its  Hebrew  texts  are  interpreted  by 
Western  scholars — can  it  ever  yield  anything  higher  or  more  sublime 
than  such  phallic  elements,  the  root  and  the  corner-stone  of  its  dead- 
letter  meaning.  Anthropomorphism  and  Revelation  dig  the  impassable 
chasm  between  the  material  world  and  the  ultimate  spiritual  truths. 
That  creation  is  not  thus  described  in  the  Esoteric  Doctrine  is  easily 
shown.  The  Roman  Catholics  give  a  reading  far  more  approaching 
the  true  Esoteric  meaning  than  that  of  the  Protestant.  For  several  of 
their  saints  and  doctors  admit  that  the  formation  of  heaven  and  earth, 
of  the  celestial  bodies,  etc.,  belongs  to  the  work  of  the  "Seven  Angels 
of  the  Presence."  St.  Denys  calls  the  "  Builders"  "  the  cooperators  of 
God,"  and  St.  Augustine  goes  even  farther,  and  credits  the  Angels 
with  the  possession  of  the  divine  thought,  the  prototype,  as  he  says, 
of  everything  created.f    And,  finally,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  has  a  long 


•  Is  it  everything  to  have  found  out  that  the  celestial  circle  of  360"  is  determined  by  "  the  full  word- 
form  of  Klohim,"  and  that  this  yields,  when  the  word  is  placed  in  a  circle,  "  3'i4i5,  or  the  relation  of  cir- 
cumference to  a  diameter  of  one."'  This  is  only  its  astronomical  or  mathematical  aspect.  To  know 
the  full  septenary  significance  of  the  "  Primordial  Circle,"  the  pyramid  and  the  Kabalistic  Bible  must 
be  read  in  the  light  of  the  figure  on  which  the  temples  of  India  are  built.  The  mathematical  squaring 
of  the  circle  is  only  the  terrestrial  risumi  of  the  problem.  The  Jews  were  content  with  the  six  days 
of  activity  and  the  seventh  of  rest.  The  progenitors  of  mankind  solved  the  greatest  problems  of  the 
Universe  with  their  seven  Rays  or  Rishis. 

+  Genesis  begins  with  the  third  stage  of  "  creation,"  skipping  the  pre  iminary  two. 


202  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

dissertation  upon  this  topic,  calling  God  the  primar}',  and  the  Angels 
the  secondary,  cause  of  all  visible  effects.  In  this,  with  some  dogmatic 
differences  of  form,  the  "  Angelic  Doctor"  approaches  ver}^  nearly  the 
Gnostic  ideas.  Basilides  speaks  of  the  lowest  order  of  Angels  as  the 
Builders  of  our  material  world,  and  Saturnilus  held,  as  did  the  Sabaeans, 
that  the  Seven  Angels  who  preside  over  the  planets  are  the  real 
creators  of  the  world ;  the  Kabalist-monk,  Trithemius,  in  his  De 
Secundis  Deis,  taught  the  same. 

The  eternal  Kosmos,  the  Macrocosm,  is  divided  in  the  Secret  Doctrine, 
like  man,  the  Microcosm,  into  three  Principles  and  four  Vehicles,* 
which  in  their  collectivity  are  the  seven  Principles.  In  the  Chaldsean 
or  Jewish  Kabalah,  the  Kosmos  is  divided  into  seven  worlds  :  the 
Original,  the  Intelligible,  the  Celestial,  the  Elementary,  the  Lesser 
(Astral),  the  Infernal  (Kama-loka  or  Hades),  and  the  Temporal  (of 
man).  In  the  Chaldaean  system  it  is  in  the  Intelligible  World,  the 
second,  that  appear  the  "  Seven  Angels  of  the  Presence,"  or  the 
Sephiroth  (the  three  higher  ones  being,  in  fact,  one,  and  also  the 
sum  total  of  all).  They  are  also  the  "Builders"  of  the  Eastern 
Doctrine :  and  it  is  only  in  the  third,  the  celestial  world,  that  the  seven 
planets  and  our  solar  system  are  built  by  the  seven  Planetary  Angels, 
the  planets  becoming  their  visible  bodies.  Hence — as  correctl}'  stated 
— if  the  universe  as  a  whole  is  formed  out  of  the  Eternal  One  Substance 
or  Essence,  it  is  not  that  everlasting  Essence,  the  Absolute  Deity, 
that  builds  it  into  shape ;  this  is  done  by  the  first  Rays,  the  Angels 
or  Dhyan  Chohans,  that  emanate  from  the  One  Element,  which  becom- 
ing periodically  Light  and  Darkness,  remains  eternally,  in  its  Root- 
Principle,  the  one  unknown  yet  existing  Reality. 

A  learned  Western  Kabalist,  Mr.  S.  L.  MacGregor  Mathers,  whose 
reasoning  and  conclusions  will  be  the  more  above  suspicion  since  he  is 
untrained  in  Eastern  Philosophy  and  unacquainted  with  its  Secret 
Teachings,  writes  on  the  first  verse  of  Genesis  in  an  unpublished  essay  : 


*  The  three  roo/- principles  are,  exoterically  :  Man,  Soul,  and  Spirit  (meaning  by  "  man  "  the  in- 
telligent personality),  and  esoterically:  Life,  Soul,  and  Spirit:  the  four  vehicles  are  Body,  Astral 
double,  Animal  (or  human)  Soul,  and  Divine  Soul  (Sthfila-Sharira,  lyinga-Sharira,  Kama-rupa,  and 
Buddhi,  the  vehicle  of  Atma  or  Spirit).  Or,  to  make  it  still  clearer :  (i)  the  Seventh  Principle  has  for 
its  vehicle  the  Sixth  (Buddhi);  (2)  the  vehicle  of  Manas  is  Kama-rupa;  (3)  that  of  Jiva  or  Prana  (life) 
is  the  Linga-Sharira  (the  "double"  of  man  :  the  Linga-Shanra  proper  can  never  leave  the  body  till 
death  ;  that  which  appears  is  an  astral  body,  reflecting  the  physical  body  and  serving  as  a  vehicle  for 
the  human  soul,  or  inteUigence) ;  and  (4)  the  Body,  the  phys^ical  vehicle  of  all  the  above  collectively. 
The  Occultist  recognizes  the  same  order  as  existing  for  the  cosmical  totality,  the  ^ycAo-cosmical 
Universe. 


WHO   ARE  THE   EtOHIM  ?  2Q3 

Berashith  Bara  Elohim — "In  the  beginning  the  Elohim  created!"  Who  are 
these  Elohim  of  Genesis  ? 

ya-yHvta  Elohim  Ath  Ha-Adam  Be-Tzaltno,  Be-Tzelem  Elohim  Bara  Otho, 
Zakhar  Vingebah  Bara  Otham — "And  the  Elohim  created  the  Adam  in  Their  own 
Image,  in  the  Image  of  the  Elohim  created  They  them,  Male  and  Female  created 
They  them  !  "  Who  are  they,  the  Elohim  ?  The  ordinary  English  translation  of  the 
Bible  renders  the  word  Elohim  by  "  God  :  "  it  translates  o.  plural  noun  by  a  singular 
one.  The  only  excuse  brought  forward  for  this  is  the  somewhat  lame  one  that  the 
word  is  certainly  plural,  but  is  not  to  be  used  in  a  plural  sense  :  that  it  is  "  a  plural 
denoting  excellence."  But  this  is  only  an  assumption  whose  value  may  be  justly 
gauged  by  Genesis  i.  26,  translated  in  the  orthodox  Biblical  version  thus :  "  And 
God  [Elohim]  said,  '  Let  us  make  man  in  our  own  image,  after  our  likeness.' " 
Here  is  a  distinct  admission  of  the  fact  that  "Elohim  "  is  not  a  '•  plural  of  excel- 
lence," but  a  plural  noun  denoting  more  than  one  being.* 

What,  then,  is  the  proper  translation  of  "Elohim,"  and  to  whom  is  it  referable? 
"  Elohim  "  is  not  only  a  plural,  but  a  feminine  plural  f  And  yet  the  translators  of 
the  Bible  have  rendered  it  by  a  masculine  singular  !  Elohim  is  the  plural  of  the 
feminine  noun  El-h,  for  the  final  letter,  -h,  marks  the  gender.  It,  however,  instead 
of  forming  the  plural  in  -oth,  takes  the  usual  termination  of  the  masculine  pluial, 
which  is  -im. 

Although  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  nouns  of  both  genders  take  the 
terminations  appropriated  to  them  respectively,  there  are  yet  many  masculines 
which  form  the  plural  in  -oth,  as  well  as  feminine  which  form  it  in  -im  while  some 
nouns  of  each  gender  take  alternately  both.  It  must  be  observed,  however,  that  the 
termination  of  the  plural  does  not  affect  its  gender,  which  remains  the  same  as  in 
the  singular 

To  find  the  real  meaning  of  the  symbolism  involved  in  this  word  Elohim  we 
must  go  to  that  key  of  Jewish  Esoteric  Doctrine,  the  little-known  and  less-linder- 
stood  Kabalah.  There  we  shall  find  that  this  word  represents  two  united  masculine 
and  feminine  Potencies,  co-equal  and  co-eternal,  conjoined  in  everlasting  union  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  Universe — the  great  Father  and  Mother  of  Nature,  into 
whom  the  Eternal  One  conforms  himself  before  the  Universe  can  subsist.  For  the 
teaching  of  the  Kabalah  is  that  before  the  Deity  conformed  himself  thus — i.e.  as 


•  St.  Denys,  the  Areopagrite,  the  supposed  contemporary  of  St.  Paul,  his  co-disciple,  and  first  Bishop 
of  St.  Denis,  near  Paris,  teaches  that  the  bulk  of  the  "work  of  creation"  was  performed  by  the 
"Seven  Spirits  of  the  Presence  "^Ood'sco-o^^ra/orj,  owing  to  a  participation  of  the  divinity  in  them. 
(Hierarch.,  p.  196.)  And  Saint  Augustine  also  thinks  that "  things  were  rather  created  in  the  angelic 
minds  than  in  Nature,  that  is  to  say,  that  the  angels  perceived  and  knew  them  (all  things)  in  their 
thoughts  before  they  could  spring  forth  into  actual  existence."  (  Vid.  De  Genesis  ad  Litieram  p.,  II.) 
(Summarized  from  De  Mirville,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  337-338.)  Thus  the  early  Christian  Fathers,  even  a  non- 
initiate  like  St.  Augustine,  ascribed  the  creation  of  the  visible  world  to  Angels,  or  Secondary 
Powers,  while  St.  Denys  not  only  specifies  these  as  the  "  Seven  Spirits  of  the  Presence,"  but  shows 
them  owing  their  power  to  the  informing  divine  energy— Fohat  in  the  Secret  Doctrine.  But  the 
egotistical  darkness  which  caused  the  Western  races  to  cling  so  desperately  to  the  C^o-centric 
System,  made  them  also  neglect  and  despise  all  those  fragfments  of  the  true  ReUgion  which  would 
have  deprived  them  and  the  little  globe  they  took  for  the  centre  of  the  Universe  of  the  sigrnal 
honour  of  having  been  expressly  "created  "  by  the  One,  Secondless,  Infinite  God  ! 


204 


THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


male  and  female — the  Worlds  of  the  Universe  could  not  subsist?  or  in  the  words  of 
Genesis,  that  "  the  earth  was  formless  and  void."  Thus,  then,  is  the  conformation 
of  the  Elohim,  the  end  of  the  Formless  and  the  Void  and  the  Darkness,  for  only 
after  that  conformation  can  the  Rtiach  Elohim — the  "Spirit  of  the  Elohim" — 
vibrate  upon  the  countenance  of  the  Waters.  But  this  is  a  very  small  part  of  the 
information  which  the  Initiate  can  derive  from  the  Kabalah  concerning  this  word 
Elohim. 

Attention  must  here  be  called  to  the  confusion — if  not  worse — which 
reigns  in  the  Western  interpretations  of  the  Kabalah.  The  Eternal 
One  is  said  to  conform  himself  into  two :  the  Great  Father  and  Mother 
of  Nature.  To  begin  with,  it  is  a  horribly  anthropomorphic  conception 
to  apply  terms  impl5nng  sexual  distinction  to  the  earliest  and  first 
differentiations  of  the  One.  And  it  is  even  more  erroneous  to  identify 
these  first  differentiations — the  Purusha  and  Prakriti  of  Indian 
Philosophy — with  the  Elohim,  the  creative  powers  here  spoken  of;  and 
to  ascribe  to  these  (to  our  intellects)  unimaginable  abstractions,  the 
formation  and  construction  of  this  visible  world,  full  of  pain,  sin,  and 
sorrow.  In  truth,  the  "  creation  by  the  Elohim "  spoken  of  here  is 
but  a  much  later  "  creation,"  and  the  Elohim  far  from  being  supreme, 
or  even  exalted  powers  in  Nature,  are  only  lower  Angels.  This  was 
the  teaching  of  the  Gnostics,  the  most  philosophical  of  all  the  early 
Christian  Churches.  They  taught  that  the  imperfections  of  the  world 
were  due  to  the  imperfection  of  its  Architects  or  Builders — the 
imperfect,  and  therefore  inferior.  Angels.  The  Hebrew  Elohim 
correspond  to  the  Prajapati  of  the  Hindus,  and  it  is  shown  else- 
where from  the  Esoteric  interpretation  of  the  Puranas  that  the 
Prajapati  were  the  fashioners  of  man's  material  and  astral  ioxvci  only : 
that  they  could  not  give  him  intelligence  or  reason,  and  therefore  in 
symbolical  language  they  "  failed  to  create  man."  But,  not  to  repeat 
what  the  reader  can  find  elsewhere  in  this  work,  his  attention  needs 
only  to  be  called  to  the  fact  that  "  creation"  in  this  passage  is  not  the 
Primary  Creation,  and  that  the  Elohim  are  not  "  God,''  nor  even  the 
higher  Planetary  Spirits,  but  the  Architects  of  this  visible  physical 
planet  and  of  man's  material  body,  or  encasement. 

A  fundamental  doctrine  of  the  Kabalah  is  that  the  gradual  development  of  the 
Deity  from  negative  to  positive  Existence  is  symbolized  bj'  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  the  Ten  Numbers  of  the  denary  scale  of  numeration,  from  the  Zero, 
through  the  Unity,  into  the  Plurality.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Sephiroth,  or 
Emanations. 

For  the  inward  and  concealed  Negative  Form  concentrates  a  centre  which  is  the 
primal  Unity.     But  the  Unity  is  one  and  indivisible :  it  can  neither  be  increased  by 


MONAD,    DUAD,    AND   TRIAD.  ao^ 

multiplication  nor  decreased  by  division,  for  ixi  =  i,  and  no  more;  and  i-i-i  =  i, 
and  no  less.  And  it  is  this  changelessness  of  the  Unity,  or  Monad,  which  makes  it 
a  fitting  type  of  the  One  and  Changeless  Deity.  It  answers  thus  to  the  Christian 
idea  of  God  the  Father,  for  as  the  Unity  is  the  parent  of  the  other  numbers,  so  is 
the  Deity  the  Father  of  All. 

The  philosophical  Eastern  mind  would  never  fall  into  the  error 
which  the  conyiotation  of  these  words  implies.  With  them  the  "One 
and  Changeless" — Parabrahman — the  Absolute  All  and  One,  cannot  be 
conceived  as  standing  in  any  relation  to  things  finite  and  conditioned, 
and  hence  they  would  never  use  such  terms  as  these,  which  in  their 
very  essence  imply  such  a  relation.  Do  they,  then,  absolutely  sever 
man  from  God?  On  the  contrary.  They  feel  a  closer  union  than  the 
Western  mind  has  done  in  calling  God  the  "  Father  of  All,"  for  they 
know  that  in  his  immortal  essence  man  is  himself  the  Changeless, 
Secondless  One. 

But  we  have  just  said  that  the  Unity  is  one  and  changeless  by  either  multiplica- 
tion or  division  ;  how  then  is  two,  the  Duad,  formed  }  By  reflection.  For,  unlike 
Zero,  the  Unity  is  partly  definable — that  is,  in  its  positive  aspect ;  and  the  defini- 
tion creates  an  Eikon  or  Eidolon  of  itself  which,  together  with  itself,  forms  a  Duad  ; 
and  thus  the  number  two  is  to  a  certain  extent  analogous  to  the  Christian  idea  of 
the  Son  as  the  Second  Person.  And  as  the  Monad  vibrates,  and  recoils  into  the 
Darkness  of  the  Primary  Thought,  so  is  the  Duad  left  as  its  vice-gerent  and  repre- 
sentative, and  thus  co-equal  with  the  Positive  Duad  is  the  Triune  Idea,  the 
number  three,  co-equal  and  co-eternal  with  the  Duad  in  the  bosom  of  the  Unity, 
yet,  as  it  were,  proceeding  therefrom  in  the  numerical  conception  of  its  sequence. 

This  explanation  would  seem  to  imply  that  Mr.  Mathers  is  aware 
that  this  "creation"  is  not  the  truly  divine  or  primary  one,  since  the 
Monad — the  first  manifestation  on  our  plane  of  objectivity — "  recoils 
into  the  Darkness  of  the  Primal  Thought,"  i.e.,  into  the  subjectivity  of 
the  first  divine  Creation. 

And  this,  again,  also  partly  answers  to  the  Christian  idea  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
of  the  whole  three  forming  a  Trinity  in  unity.  This  also  explains  the  fact  in 
geometry  of  the  three  right  lines  being  the  smallest  number  which  will  make  a  ■ 
plane  rectilineal  figure,  while  two  can  never  enclose  a  space,  being  powerless  and 
without  effect  till  completed  by  the  number  Three.  These  three  first  numbers  of 
the  decimal  scale  the  Qabalists  call  by  the  names  of  Kether,  the  Crown,  Chokmah, 
Wisdom,  and  Binah,  Understanding ;  and  they  furthermore  associate  with  them 
these  divine  names:  with  the  Unity,  Eheich,  "I  exist;  "  with  the  Duad,  Yah;  and 
with  the  Triad,  Elohim ;  they  especially  also  call  the  Duad,  Abba— the  Father, 
and  the  Triad,  Aima — the  Mother,  whose  eternal  conjunction  is  symbolized  in  the 
word  Elohim. 

But  what  especially  strikes  the  student  of  the  Kabalah  is  the  malicious  persistency 


2o6  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

with  which  the  translators  of  the  Bible  have  jealously  crowded  out  of  sight  and  sup- 
pressed everj'  reference  to  the  feminine  form  of  the  Deity.  Thej-  have,  as  we  have 
just  seen,  translated  the  feminine  plural  "  Elohim,"  by  the  masculine  singular, 
"  God."  But  they  have  done  more  than  this  :  they  have  carefull}'  hidden  the  fact 
that  the  word  Ruach — the  "Spirit" — is  feminine,  and  that  consequently  the  Holy 
Ghost  of  the  New  Testament  is  a  feminine  Poteucj-.  How  many  Christians  are 
cognizant  of  the  fact  that  in  the  account  of  the  Incarnation  in  Luke  (i.  35)  two 
divine  Potencies  are  mentioned  ? 

"  The  Holy  Ghost  shall  come  upon  thee,  and  the  Power  of  the  Highest  shall 
overshadow  thee."  The  Holy  Ghost  (the  feminine  Potency)  descends,  and  the 
Power  of  the  Highest  (the  masculine  Potency)  is  united  therewith.  "Therefore 
also  that  holy  thing  which  shall  be  born  of  thee  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  God  "— 
of  the  Elohim  namely,  seeing  that  these  two  Potencies  descend. 

lu  the  Sepher  Yetzirah,  or  Book  of  Formation,  we  read  : 

"  One  is  vShe  the  Ruach  Elohim  Chiim — (Spirit  of  the  Living  Elohim).  .  .  . 
Voice,  Spirit,  and  Word  ;  and  this  is  She,  the  Spirit  of  the  Holy  One."  Here  again 
we  see  the  intimate  connection  which  exists  between  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the 
Elohim.  Furthermore,  farther  on  in  this  same  Book  of  Formation — which,  is,  be 
it  remembered,'one  of  the  oldest  of  the  Kabalistical  Books,  and  whose  authorship  is 
ascribed  to  Abraham  the  Patriarch — we  shall  find  the  idea  of  a  Feminine  Trinity  in 
the  first  place,  from  whom  a  masculine  Trinity  proceeds  ;  or,  as  it  is  -said  in  the 
text :  "  Three  Mothers  whence  proceed  three  Fathers."  And  yet  this  double  Triad 
forms,  as  it  were,  but  one  complete  Trinity.  Again  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the 
Second  and  Third  Sephiroth  (Wisdom  and  Understanding)  are  both  distinguished 
by  feminine  names,  Chokmah  and  Binah,  notwithstanding  that  to  the  former 
more  particularly  the  masculine  idea,  and  to  the  latter  the  feminine,  are  attributed, 
under  the  titles  of  Abba  and  Aima  (or  Father  and  Mother).  This  Aima  (the  Great 
Mother)  is  magnificently  symbolized  in  the  twelfth  chapter  of  the  Apocalypse, 
which  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  Kabalistical  books  in  the  Bible.  In  fact, 
mthout  the  Kabalistical  keys  its  meaning  is  utterly  unintelligible. 

Now,  in  the  Hebrew,  as  in  the  Greek,  alphabet,  there  are  no  distinct  numeral 
characters,  and  consequently  each  letter  has  a  certain  numerical  value  attached  to 
it.  From  this  circumstance  results  the  important  fact  that  every  Hebrew  word 
constitutes  a  number,  and  every  number  a  word.  This  is  referred  to  in  the  Revela- 
tions (xiii.  18)  in  mentioning  the  "  number  of  the  beast  "  !  In  the  Kabalah  words 
of  equal  numerical  values  are  supposed  to  have  a  certain  explanatory  connection 
with  each  other.  This  forms  the  science  of  Gematria,  which  is  the  first  division  of 
the  Literal  Kabalah.  Furthermore,  each  letter  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet  had  for  the 
Initiates  of  the  Kabalah  a  certain  hieroglyphical  value  and  meaning  which,  rightly 
applied,  gave  to  each  word  the  value  of  a  mystical  sentence  ;  and  this  again  was 
variable  according  to  the  relative  positions  of  the  letters  with  regard  to  each  other. 
From  these  various  Kabalistical  points  of  view  let  us  now  examine  this  word 
Elohim. 

First  then  we  can  divide  the  word  into  the  two  words,  which  signify  "  The 
Feminine  Divinity  of  the  Waters ;  "    compare  with  the  Greek  Aphrodite,  "  sprung 


THE   CREATIVE   GODS.  207 

from  the  foam  of  the  sea."  Again  it  is  divisible  into  the  "  Mighty  One,  Star  of  the 
Sea,"  or  "the  Mighty  One  breathing  forth  the  Spirit  upon  the  Waters."  Also  by 
combination  of  the  letters  we  get  "  the  Silent  Power  of  lah."  And  again,  "  My 
God,  the  Former  of  the  Universe,"  for  Mah  is  a  secret  Kabalistical  name  applied  to 
the  idea  of  Formation.  Also  we  obtain  "Who  is  my  God."  Furthermore  "the 
Mother  in  lah." 

The  total  number  is  i  +  30  +  5  +  lo  +  40  =  86  =  "Violent  heat,"  or  "the Power 
of  Fire."  If  we  add  together  the  three  middle  letters  we  obtain  45,  and  the  first 
and  last  letters  yield  41,  making  thus  "the  Mother  of  Formation."  Lastl>,  we 
shall  find  the  two  divine  names  "El"  and  "Yah,"  together  with  the  letter  m, 
which  signifies  "  Water,"  for  Mem,  the  name  of  this  letter,  means  "  water." 

If  we  divide  it  into  its  component  letters  and  take  them  as  hieroglyphical  signs 
we  shall  have  : 

"  Will  perfected  through  Sacrifice  progressing  through  successive  Transforma- 
tion by  Inspiration." 

The  last  few  paragraphs  of  the  above,  in  which  the  word  "  Elohiin" 
is  Kabalistically  analyzed,  show  conclusively  enough  that  the  Elohim 
are  not  one,  nor  two,  nor  even  a  trinity,  but  a  Host — the  army  of  the 
creative  powers. 

The  Christian  Church,  in  making  of  Jehovah — one  of  these  very 
Elohim — the  one  Supreme  God,  has  introduced  hopeless  confusion  into 
the  celestial  hierarchy,  in  spite  of  the  volumes  written  by  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  his  school  on  the  subject.  The  only  explanation  to  be 
found  in  all  their  treatises  on  the  nature  and  essence  of  the  numberless 
classes  of  celestial  beings  mentioned  in  the  Bible — Archangels,  Thrones, 
Seraphim,  Cherubim,  Messengers,  etc. — is  that  "The  angelic  host  is 
God's  militia."  They  are  " Gods  the  creatures''  while  he  is  "  God  the 
Creator-/'  but  of  their  true  functions — of  their  actual  place  in  the 
economy  of  Nature — not  one  word  is  said.     They  are 

More  brilliant  than  the  flames,  more  rapid  than  the  wind,  and  they  live  in  love 
and  harmony,  mutually  enlightening  each  other,  feeding  on  bread  and  a  mystic 
beverage — the  communion  wine  and  water  .-' — surrounding  as  with  a  ftver  of  fire  the 
throne  of  the  Lamb,  and  veiling  their  faces  with  their  wings.  This  throne  of  love 
and  glory  they  leave  only  to  carry  to  the  stars,  the  earth,  the  kingdoms  and  all  the 
sons  of  God,  their  brothers  and  pupils,  in  short,  to  aU  creatures  like  themselves  the 

divine  influence As  to  their  number,  it  is  that  of  the  great  army  of 

Heaven  (Sabaoth),  more  numerous  than  the  stars Theology  shows  us 

these  rational  luminaries,  each  constituting  a  species,  and  containing  in  their 
natures  such  or  another  position  of  Nature :  covering  immense  space,  though  of  a 
determined  area  ;  residing — incorporeal  though  they  are — within  circumscribed 
limits;  .  .  .  more  rapid  than  light  or  thunderbolt,  disposing  of  all  the  elements 
of  Nature,  providing  at  will  inexplicable  mirages  [illusions  .^J,  objective  and  subjec- 


30S  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

tive  in  turn,  speaking  to  men  a  language  at  one  time  articulate,  at  another  purely 
spiritual.* 

We  learn  farther  on  in  the  same  work  that  it  is  these  Angels  and 
their  hosts  who  are  referred  to  in  the  sentence  of  verse  I,  chapter  ii,  of 
Genesis :  Igitur  perfecti  sunt  cceli  et  terra  et  omnis  ornatus  eorum :  " 
and  that  the  Vulgate  has  peremptorily  substituted  for  the  Hebrew  word 
"tsaba"  ("host")  that  of  "ornament;"  Munck  shows  the  mistake 
of  substitution  and  the  derivation  of  the  compound  title,  "  Tsabaoth- 
Elohim,"  from  "  tsaba. '^  Moreover,  Cornelius  a  ]>pide,  "the  master 
of  all  Biblical  commentators,"  says  de  Mirville,  shows  us  that  such 
was  the  real  meaning.    Those  Angels  are  stars. 

All  this,  however,  teaches  us  very  little  as  to  the  true  functions  of 
this  celestial  army,  and  nothing  at  all  as  to  its  place  in  evolution  and 
its  relation  to  the  earth  we  live  on.  For  an  answer  to  the  question, 
"  Who  are  the  true  Creators  ?  "  we  must  go  to  the  Ksoteric  Doctrine, 
since  there  only  can  the  key  be  found  which  will  render  intelligible  the 
Theogonies  of  the  various  world-religions. 

There  we  find  that  the  real  creator  of  the  Kosmos,  as  of  all  visible 
Nature — if  not  of  all  the  invisible  hosts  of  Spirits  not  yet  drawn  into 
the  "Cycle  of  Necessity,"  or  evolution — is  "the  Lord — the  Gods,"  or 
the  "Working  Host,"  the  "Army"  collectively  taken,  the  "One  in 
many," 

The  One  is  infinite  and  unconditioned.  It  cannot  create,  for  It  can 
have  no  relation  to  the  finite  and  conditioned.  If  everything  we  see, 
from  the  glorious  suns  and  planets  down  to  the  blades  of  grass  and  the 
specks  of  dust,  had  been  created  by  the  Absolute  Perfection  and  were 
the  direct  work  of  even  the  First  Energy  that  proceeded  from  It,t  then 
every  such  thing  would  have  been  perfect,  eternal,  and  unconditioned, 


*De  Mirville,  ii.   295. 

tTo  the  Occultist  and  Chela  the  difference  made  between  Energy  and  Emanation  need  not  be  ex- 
plained. The  Sanskrit  word  "  Sakti "  is  untranslatable.  It  may  be  Energy,  but  it  is  one  that  proceeas 
through  itself,  not  being  due  to  the  active  or  conscious  will  of  the  one  that  produces  it.  The  "  First- 
Bom,"  or  Logos,  is  not  an  Emanation,  but  an  Energy  inherent  in  and  co-eternal  with  Parabrahman, 
the  One.  The  Zohar  speaks  of  emanations,  but  reserves  the  word  for  the  seven  Sephiroth  emanated 
from  the  first  three — which  form  one  triad — Kether,  Chokmah,  and  Binah.  As  for  these  three,  it 
explains  the  difference  by  calling  them  "iuunanations,"  something  inherent  to  and  coeval  with  the 
subject  postulated,  or  in  other  words,  "  Energies." 

It  is  these  "Auxiliaries,"  the  Auphanim,  the  half-human  Prajipatis,  the  Angels,  the  Architects 
under  the  leadershipof  the"  Angel  of  the  Great  Council,"  with  the  restof  the  Kosmos- Builders  of  other 
nations,  that  can  alone  explain  the  imperfection  of  the  Universe.  This  imperfection  is  one  of  the 
arguments  of  the  Secret  Science  in  favour  of  the  existence  and  activity  of  these  "  Powers."  And  who 
know  better  than  the  few  philosophers  of  our  civilised  lands  how  near  the  truth  PhUo  was  in  ascribing 
the  origin  of  evil  to  the  admixture  of  inferior  potencies  in  the  arrangement  of  matter,  and  even  in  the 
formatiot:  of  man— a  task  entrusted  to  the  divine  lyOgos. 


GOD  THE  HOST.  ^09 

like  its  author.  The  millions  upon  millions  of  imperfect  works  found 
in  Nature  testify  loudly  that  they  are  the  products  of  finite,  conditioned 
beings — though  the  latter  were  and  are  Dhyan  Chohans,  Archangels, 
or  what  ever  else  they  may  be  named.  In  short,  these  imperfect  works 
are  the  unfinished  production  of  evolution,  under  the  guidance  of  the 
imperfect  Gods.  The  Zohar  gives  us  this  assurance  as  well  as  the 
Secret  Doctrine.  It  speaks  of  the  auxiliaries  of  the  "Ancient  of 
Days,"  the  "  Sacred  Aged,"  and  calls  them  Auphanim,  or  the  living- 
Wheels  of  the  celestial  orbs,  who  participate  in  the  work  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  Universe. 

Thus  it  is  not  the  "  Principle,"  One  and  Unconditioned,  nor  even  Its 
reflection,  that  creates,  but  only  the  "  Seven  Gods  "  who  fashion  the 
Universe  out  of  the  eternal  Matter,  vivified  into  objective  life  hy  the 
reflection  into  it  of  the  One  Reality. 

The  Creator  is  they  — "  God  the  Host" — called  in  the  Secret  Doctrine 
the  Dhyau  Chohans  ;  with  the  Hindus  the  Prajapatis  ;  with  the  Western 
Kabalists  the  Sephiroth  ;  and  with  the  Buddhist  the  Devas — impersonal 
because  blind  forces.  They  are  the  Amshaspends  with  the  Zoroas- 
trians,  and  while  with  the  Christian  Mystic  the  "  Creator"  is  the  "Gods 
of  the  God,"  with  the  dogmatic  Churchman  he  is  the  "  God  of  the 
Gods,"  the  "  Lord  of  lords,"  etc. 

"  Jehovah  "  is  only  the  God  who  is  greater  than  all  Gods  in  the  eyes 
of  Israel. 
I  know,  that  the  Lord  [of  Israel]  is  great  and  that  our  Lord  is  above  all  gods.  * 

And  again  : 
For  all  the  gods  of  the  nations  are  idols,  but  the  Lord  made  the  heavens.t 

The  Egyptian  Neteroo,  translated  by  Champollion  "  the  other  Gads ''" 
are  the  Elohim  of  the  Biblical  writers,  behind  which  stands  concealed 
the  One  God,  considered  in  the  diversity  of  his  powers.J  This  One  is 
not  Parabrahman,  but  the  Unmanifested  Logos,  the  Demiurgos,  the 
real  Creator  or  Fashioner,  that  follows  him,  standing  for  the  Demiurg"! 
collectively  taken.     Further  on  the  great  Egyptologist  adds : 

We  see  Eg>'pt  concealing  and  hiding,  so  to  say,  the  God  of  Gods  behind  the  agents 
she  surrounds  him  with  ;  she  gives  the  precedence  to  her  great  gods  before  the  one 

-  Psalms  cxxxv.  5. 

t  Psalms  xcvi.  5. 

X  Rather  as  Ormazd  or  Ahura-Mazda,  Vit-nam- Ahtoi,  and  all  the  unmanifested  I<ogoi.  Jehovah  is 
the  manifested  Viraj,  corresponding  to  Binah.  the  third  Sephira  in  the  Kabalah.  a  female  Powo: 
which  would  find  its  prototype  rather  in  the  Prajapati,  than  in  Brahma,  the  Creator. 


2IO  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

and  sole  Deity,  so  that  the  attributes  of  that  God  become  their  property.  Those 
great  Gods  proclaim  themselves  uncreate.  .  .  .  Neith  is  "  that  which  is,''  as 
Jehovah  ;*  Thoth  is  self-createdt  without  having  been  begotten,  etc.  Judaism, 
annihilating  these  potencies  before  the  grandeur  of  its  God,  they  cease  to  be  simply 
Powers,  like  Philo's  Archangels,  like  the  Sephiroth  of  the  Kabalah,  like  the 
Ogdoades  of  the  Gnostics— they  merge  together  and  become  transformed  into  God 
himself.  :J 

Jehovah  is  thus,  as  the  Kabalah  teaches,  at  best  but  the  "  Heavenly 
Man,"  Adam  Kadmon,  used  by  the  self-created  Spirit,  the  Logos,  as  a 
chariot,  a  vehicle  in  His  descent  towards  manifestation  in  the  phe- 
nomenal world. 

Such  are  the  teachings  of  the  Archaic  Wisdom,  nor  can  the;'  be 
repudiated  even  by  the  orthodox  Christian,  if  he  be  sincere  and  open- 
minded  in  the  study  of  his  own  Scripture.  For  if  he  reads  St.  Paul's 
Epistles  carefully  he  will  find  that  the  Secret  Doctrine  and  the  Kabalah 
are  fully  admitted  by  the  "  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles."  The  Gnosvs 
which  he  appears  to  condemn  is  no  less  for  him  than  for  Plato  "  the 
supreme  knowledge  of  the  truth  and  of  the  One  Being  ;  "§  for  what  v^t. 
Paul  condemns  is  not  the  true,  but  only  the  false,  Gnosis  and  its 
abuses :  otherwise  how  could  he  use  the  language  of  a  Platonist  p^r 
sang?  The  Ideas,  types  (Archai),  of  the  Greek  Philosopher;  tiie 
Intelligences  of  Pythagoras  ;  the  ^ons  or  Emanations  of  the  Pantheist ; 
the  Logos  or  Word,  Chief  of  these  Intelligences ;  the  Sophia  or 
Wisdom  ;  the  Demiurgos,  the  Builder  of  the  world  under  the  direction 
of  the  Father,  the  Unmanifested  Logos,  from  which  He  emanates  ;  Am- 
Suph,  the  Unknown  of  the  Infinite ;  the  angelic  Periods  ;  the  Seven 
Spirits  who  are  the  representatives  of  the  Seven  of  all  the  oider 
cosmogonies — are  all  to  be  found  in  his  writings,  recognized  by  the 
Church  as  canonical  and  divinely  inspired.  Therein,  too,  may  be 
recognized  the  Depths  of  Ahriman,  Rector  of  this  our  World,  the 
"  God  of  this  World  ; "  the  Pleroma  of  the  Intelligences  ;  the  Arch- 
ontes  of  the  air ;  the  Principalities,  the  Kabalistic  Metatron  ;  and  they 
can  easily  be  identified  again  in  the  Roman  Catholic  writers  when  read 
in  the  original  Greek  and  Latin  texts,  English  translations  giving  but  a 
very  poor  idea  of  the  real  contents  of  these. 


*  Neith  is  Aditi,  evidently. 

tThe  Self-created  Logos,  Narayana,  Purushottauia,  aud  others. 

i  Mire  cVApis,  pp.  32-35.    Quoted  by  De  Mirville. 

}  See  Republic,  1.  vi. 


SECTION    XXIII. 

What  the  Occultists  and  Kabalists  have 

TO  SAY. 


The  Zohar,  an  unfathomable  store  of  hidden  wisdom  and  mystery, 
is  very  often  appealed  to  by  Roman  Catholic  writers.  A  very  learned 
Rabbi,  now  the  Chevalier  Drach,  having  been  converted  to  Roman 
Catholicism,  and  being  a  great  Hebraist,  thought  fit  to  step  into  the 
shoes  of  Picus  de  Mirandola  and  John  Reuchlin,  and  to  assure  his  new 
co-religionists  that  the  Zohar  contained  in  it  pretty  nearly  all  the 
dogmas  of  Catholicism.  It  is  not  our  province  to  show  here  how  far 
he  has  succeeded  or  failed  ;  only  to  bring  one  instance  of  his  explana- 
tions and  preface  it  with  the  following: 

The  Zohar,  as  already  shown,  is  not  a  genuine  production  of  the 
Hebrew  mind.  It  is  the  repository  and  compendium  of  the  oldest  doc- 
trines of  the  East,  transmitted  orally  at  first,  and  then  written  down  in 
independent  treatises  during  the  Captivity  at  Babylon,  and  finally 
brought  together  by  Rabbi  Simeon  Ben  lochai,  toward  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Christian  era.  As  Mosaic  cosmogony  was  born  under  a 
new  form  in  Mesopotamian  countries,  so  the  Zohar  was  a  vehicle  in 
which  were  focussed  rays  from  the  light  of  Universal  Wisdom.  What- 
ever likenesses  are  found  between  it  and  the  Christian  teachings,  the 
compilers  of  the  Zohar  never  had  Christ  in  their  minds.  Were  it 
otherwise  there  would  not  be  one  single  Jew  of  the  Mosaic  law  left  in 
the  world  by  this  time.  Again,  if  one  is  to  accept  literally  what  the 
Zohar  says,  then  any  religion  under  the  sun  may  find  corroboration  in 
its  symbols  and  allegorical  sayings ;  and  this,  simply  because  this  work 
is  the  echo  of  the  primitive  truths,  and  every  creed  is  founded  on  some 
of  these ;  the  Zohar  being  but  a  veil  of  the  Secret  Doctrine.  This  is 
so  evident  that  we  have  only  to  point  to  the  said  ex-Rabbi,  the 
Chevalier  Drach,  to  prove  the  fact. 


212  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

In  Part  III,  fol.  87  (col.  346th)  the  Zohar  treats  of  the  Spirit  guiding: 
the  Sun,  its  Rector,  explaining  that  it  is  not  the  Sun  itself  that  is 
meant  thereby,  but  the  Spirit  "on,  or  under"  the  Sun.  Drach  is 
anxious  to  show  that  it  was  Christ  who  was  meant  by  that  "Sun,"  or 
the  Solar  Spirit  therein.  In  his  comment  upon  that  passage  which 
refers  to  the  Solar  Spirit  as  "  that  stone  which  the  builders  rejected," 
he  asserts  most  positively  that  this 

Sun-stone  {pierre  soleil)  is  identical  with  Christ,  who  was  that  stone, 

and  that  therefore 

The  sun  is  undeniably  {sans  coniredit)  the  second  hypostasis  of  the  Deity,*  or 
Christ. 

If  this  be  true,  then  the  Vaidic  or  pre-Vaidic  Aryans,  Chaldaeans  and 
Egyptians,  like  all  Occultists  past,  present,  and  future,  Jews  included, 
have  been  Christians  from  all  eternity.  If  this  be  not  so,  then 
modern  Church  Christianity  is  Paganism  pure  and  simple  exoterically, 
and  transcendental   and   practical  Magic,  or  Occultism,  Esoterically. 

For  this  "  stone  "  has  a  manifold  significance,  a  dual  existence,  with 
gradations,  a  regular  progression  and  retrogression.  It  is  a  "mystery" 
indeed. 

The  Occultists  are  quite  ready  to  agree  with  St.  Chrysostom,  that 
the  infidels — the  profane,  rather — 

Being  blinded  by  sun-light,  thus  lose  sight  of  the  true  Sun  in  the  contemplation 
of  the  false  one. 

But  if  that  Saint,  and  along  with  him  now  the  Hebraist  Drach,  chose 
to  see  in  the  Zohar  and  the  Kabalistic  Sun  "  the  second  h^'postasis," 
this  is  no  reason  why  all  others  should  be  blinded  by  them.  The 
mystery  of  the  Sun  is  the  grandest  perhaps,  of  all  the  innumerable 
mysteries  of  Occultism.  A  Gordian  knot,  truly,  but  one  that  cannot 
be  severed  with  the  double-edged  sword  of  scholastic  casuistry.  It  is 
a  tTnr  di*o  dignus  vindice  nodus,  and  can  be  untied  only  by  the  Gods. 
Tue  meaning  of  this  is  plain,  and  every  Kabalist  will  understand  it. 

Contra  solem  ne  loquaris  was  not  said  by  Pythagoras  with  regard  to  the 
visible  Sun.  It  was  the  "Sun  of  Initiation"  that  was  meant,  in  its 
triple  form— two  of  which  are  the  "  Day-Sun  "  and  the  "  Night-Sun." 

If  behind  the  physical  luminary  there  were  no  mystery  that  people 
sensed  instinctively,   why   should   every  nation,   from    the  primitive 


*  Harmonie  entre  VEglise  et  la  Synagogue,  t.  II.,  p.  427,  by  the  Chevalier  Drach.    See  De  Min-ille 

iv.  38,  39. 


THE   MYSTERY   OF  THE   SUN.  213 

peoples  down  to  the  Parsis  of  to-day,  have  turned  towards  the  Sun 
during  prayers?     The  Solar  Trinity  is  not  Mazdean,  but  is  universal, 
and  is  as  old  as  man.     All  the  temples  in  Antiquity  were  invariably 
made  to  face  the  Sun,  their  portals  to  open  to  the  East.     See  the  old 
temples  of  Memphis  and  Baalbec,  the  Pyramids  of  the  Old  and  of  the 
New  (?)  Worids,  the  Round  Towers  of  Ireland,  and  the  Serapeum  of 
Egypt.     The  Initiates  alone  could  give  a  philosophical  explanation  of 
this,  and  a  reason  for  it— its  mysticism  notwithstanding— were  only  the 
world  ready  to  receive  it,  which  alas  !  it  is  not.     The  last  of  the  Solar 
Priests  in  Europe  was  the  Imperial  Initiate,  Julian,  now  called   the 
Apostate.*     He  tried  to  benefit  the  world  by  revealing  at  least  a  portion 
of  the  great  mystery  of  the  rpcTrXacnos  and— /^^  died.     "  There  are  three 
in  one,"  he  said  of  the  Sun— the  central  Sunf  being  a  precaution  of 
Nature :  the  first  is  the  universal  cause  of   all,  Sovereign  Good  and 
perfection;    the    Second    Power    is  paramount    Intelligence,   having 
dominion  over  all  reasonable  beings,  vocpoZs ;  the  third  is  the  visible 
Sun.      The    pure    energy    of   solar   intelligence    proceeds    from    the 
luminous  seat  occupied  by  our  Sun  in  the  centre  of  heaven,  that  pure 
energy  being  the  Logos  of  our  system  ;  the  "  Mysterious  Word  Spirit 
produces  all  through  the  Sun,  and  never  operates  through  any  other 
medium,"    says    Hermes   Trismegistus.      For  it  is  hi  the  Sun,  more 
than  in  any  other  heavenly  body  that  the  [unknown]  Power  placed  the 

•  Julian  died  for  the  same  crime  as  Socrates.  Both  divulged  a  portion  of  the  solar  mystery,  the 
heliocentric  system  being  only  a  part  of  what  was  given  during  Initiation-one  consciously,  the 
other  unconsciously,  the  Greek  Sage  never  having  been  initiated.  It  was  not  the  real  solar  system 
that  was  preserved  in  such  secrecy,  but  the  mysteries  connected  with  the  Sun's  constitution.  Socrates 
was  sentenced  to  death  by  earthly  and  woridly  judges;  Julian  died  a  violent  death  because  the 
hitherto  protecting  hand  was  withdrawn  from  him,  and,  no  longer  shielded  by  it,  he  was  simply 
left  to  his  destiny  or  Karma.  For  the  student  of  Occultism  there  is  a  suggestive  diflference  between 
the  two  kinds  of  death.  Another  memorable  instance  of  the  unconscious  divulging  of  secrets  per- 
taining to  mysteries  is  that  of  the  poet,  P.  Ovidius  Naso,  who,  like  Socrates,  had  not  been  initiated. 
In  his  case  the  Emperor  Augustus,  who  was  an  Initiate,  mercifully  changed  the  penalty  of  death 
into  banishment  to  Tomos  on  the  Euxine.  This  sudden  change  from  unbounded  royal  favour  to 
banishment  has  been  a  fruitful  scheme  of  speculation  to  classical  scholars  not  initiated  into  the 
Mysteries.  They  have  quoted  Ovid's  own  hues  to  show  that  it  was  some  great  and  heinous  immo- 
raUty  of  the  Emperor  of  which  Ovid  had  become  unwillingly  cognizant.  The  inexorable  law  of  the 
death  penalty,  always  following  upon  the  revelation  of  any  portion  of  the  Mysteries  to  the  profane, 
was  unknown  to  them.  Instead  of  seeing  the  amiable  and  merciful  act  of  the  Emperor  in  jts  true 
light  they  have  made  it  an  occasion  for  traducing  his  moral  character.  The  poet's  own 
words  can  be  no  evidence,  because  as  he  was  not  an  Initiate,  it  could  not  be  explained  to 
him  in  what  his  offence  consisted.  There  have  been  comparatively  moaem  instances  of 
poets  unconsciously  revealing  in  their  verses  so  much  of  the  hidden  knowledge  as  to 
make  even  Initiates  suppose  them  to  be  fellow -Initiates,  and  come  to  talk  to  them  on  the  subject. 
This  only  shows  that  the  sensitive  poetic  temperament  is  sometimes  so  far  transported  beyond  the 
bounds  of  ordinary  sense  as  to  get  glimpses  into  what  has  been  impressed  on  the  Astral  Light.  In 
xne  Lighl  of  Asia  there  are  two  passages  Uiat  might  make  an  Initiate  of  the  first  degree  think 
that  Mr.  Edwin  Arnold  had  been  initiated  himseirin  the  Himalyan  ashrams,  but  this  is  not  so. 
-  A  proof  that  Julian  was  acquainted  with  the  heliocentric  system. 


2s^  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

scat  of  its  habitation.  Only  neither  Hermes  Trismegistus  nor  Julian 
(an  initiated  Occultist),  nor  any  other,  meant  by  this  Unknown  Cause 
Jehovah,  or  Jupiter.  They  referred  to  the  cause  that  produced  all  the 
manifested  "great  Gods"  or  Demiurgi  (the  Hebrew  God  included)  of 
our  system.  Nor  was  our  visible,  material  Sun  meant,  for  the  latter 
was  only  the  manifested  sj^mbol.  Philolaus  the  Pythagorean,  explains 
and  completes  Trismegistus  by  saying : 

The  Suu  is  a  mirror  of  fire,  the  splendour  of  whose  flames  by  their  reflection  in 
that  mirror  [the  Sun]  is  poured  upon  us,  and  that  splendour  we  call  image. 

It  is  evident  that  Philolaus  referred  to  the  central  spiritual  Sun, 
whose  beams  and  effulgence  are  onh^  mirrored  by  our  central  Star,  the 
Sun.  This  is  as  clear  to  the  Occultists  as  it  was  to  the  Pythagoreans. 
As  for  the  profane  of  pagan  antiquity,  it  was,  of  course,  the  physical 
Sun  that  was  the  "highest  God"  for  them,  as  it  seems — if  Chevalier 
Drach's  view  be  accepted — to  have  now  virtually  become  for  the 
modern  Roman  Catholics.  If  words  mean  anything,  the  statement 
made  by  the  Chevalier  Drach  that  "  this  sun  is,  undeniably,  the  second 
hypostasis  of  the  Deit}',"  imply  what  we  say  ;  as  "  this  Sun  "  refers  to 
the  Kabalistic  Sun,  and  "  hypostasis"  means  substance  or  subsistence 
of  the  Godhead  or  Trinit}^ — distinctly  personal.  As  the  author,  being 
an  ex- Rabbi,  thoroughly  versed  in  Hebrew,  and  in  the  mysteries  of 
the  Zohar,  ought  to  know  the  value  of  words  ;  and  as,  moreover,  in 
writing  this,  he  was  bent  upon  reconciling  "  the  seeming  contradic- 
tions," as  he  puts  it,  between  Judaism  and  Christianit}' — the  fact  becomes 
quite  evident. 

But  all  this  pertains  to  questions  and  problems  which  will  be  solved 
naturally  and  in  the  course  of  the  development  of  the  doctrine.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church  stands  accused,  not  of  worshipping  under  other 
names  the  Divine  Beings  worshipped  by  all  nations  in  antiquity,  but 
of  declaring  idolatrous,  not  only  the  Pagans  ancient  and  modern,  but 
every  Christian  nation  that  has  freed  itself  from  the  Roman  j'oke. 
The  accusation  brought  against  herself  by  more  than  one  man  of 
Science,  of  worshipping  the  stars  like  true  Sabaeans  of  old,  stands  to 
this  day  uncontradicted,  yet  no  star-worshipper  has  ever  addressed  his 
adoration  to  the  material  stars  and  planets,  as  will  be  shown  before  the 
last  page  of  this  work  is  written  ;  none  the  less  is  it  true  that  those 
Philosophers  alone  who  studied  Astrology  and  Magic  knew  that  the 
last  word  of  those  sciences  was  to  be  sought  in,  and  expected  from,  the 
Occult  forces  emanating  from  those  constellations. 


SECTION  XXIYo 

Modern  Kabalists  in  Science  and  Occult 

Astronomy. 


There  is  a  physical,  an  astral,  and  a  super-astral  Universe  in  the 
three  chief  divisions  of  the  Kabalah  ;  as  there  are  terrestrial,  super- 
terrestrial,  and  spiritual  Beings.  The  "  Seven  Planetary  Spirits  "  may 
be  ridiculed  bj'  Scientists  to  their  hearts'  content,  yet  the  need  of 
intelligent  ruling  and  guiding  Forces  is  so  much  felt  to  this  day  that 
scientific  men  and  specialists,  who  will  not  hear  of  Occultism  or  of 
ancient  systems,  find  themselves  obliged  to  generate  in  their  inner 
consciousness  some  kind  of  semi-mystical  system.  Metcalt's  "  sun- 
force"  theory,  and  that  of  Zaliwsky,  a  learned  Pole,  which  made 
Electricity  the  Universal  Force  and  placed  its  storehouse  in  the  Sun,* 
were  revivals  of  the  Kabalistic  teachings.  Zaliwsky  tried  to  prove  that 
Electricity,  producing  "the  most  powerful,  attractive,  calorific,  and 
luminous  effects,"  was  present  in  the  physical  constitution  of  the  Sun 
and  explained  its  peculiarities.  This  is  very  near  the  Occult  teaching. 
It  is  only  by  admitting  the  gaseous  nature  of  the  Sun-reflector,  and  the 
powerful  Magnetism  and  Electricity  of  the  solar  attraction  and  repul- 
sion, that  one  can  explain  (a)  the  evident  absence  of  2>.ny  waste  of 
power  and  luminosity  in  the  Sun — inexplicable  by  the  ordinary  laws  of 
combustion  ;  and  (Jf)  the  behaviour  of  the  planets,  so  often  contradict- 
ing every  accepted  rule  of  weight  and  gravity.  And  Zaliwsky  makes 
this  "  solar  electricity"  ^^  differ  from  anything  known  on  earths 

Father  Secchi  may  be  suspected  of  having  sought  to  introduce 

Forces  of  quite  a  new  order  and.  quite  foreign  to  gravitation,  which  he  had  discovered 
in  Space,  t 

*  La  Gravitation,  par  r EUclriciU,  p.  7,  quoted  by  De  Mirvilk.  iv.  156. 
t  De  Mirville,  iv.  157. 


216  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

in  order  to  reconcile  Astronomy  with  theological  Astrouom3\  But 
Nagy,  a  member  of  the  Hungarian  Academ}^  of  Sciences,  was  no 
clerical,  and  yet  he  develops  a  theorj-^  on  the  necessit}'^  of  intelligent 
Forces  whose  complacency  "would  lend  itself  to  all  the  whims  of  the 
comets."     He  suspects  that : 

Notwithstanding  all  the  actual  researches  on  the  rapidity  of  light — that  aazzling 
prodtict  of  an  un knozvii  force  .  .  .  which  we  see  too  frequently  to  understand — 
that  light  is  motionless  in  reality.* 

C.  E.  Love,  the  well-known  railway  builder  and  engineer  in  France, 
tired  of  blind  forces,  made  all  the  (then)  "  imponderable  agents" — now 
called  "forces" — subordinates  of  Electricity,  and  declares  the  latter  to 
be  an 

Intelligence — albeit  molecular  in  nature  and  niaterial.t 

In  the  author's  opinion  these  Forces  are  atomistic  agents,  endowed 
with  intelligence,  spontaneous  will,  and  motion,:]:  and  he  thus,  like  the 
Kabalists,  makes  the  causal  Forces  substantial,  while  the  Forces  that 
act  on  this  plane  are  onlj'-  the  effects  of  the  former,  as  with  him  matter 
is  eternal,  and  the  Gods  also  ;§  so  is  the  Soul  likewise,  though  it  has 
inherent  in  itself  a  still  higher  Soul  [Spirit],  preexistent,  endowed  with 
memory,  and  superior  to  Electric  Force ;  the  latter  is  subservient  to 
the  higher  Souls,  those  superior  Souls  forcing  it  to  act  according  to  the 
eternal  laws.  The  concept  is  rather  hazy,  but  is  evidently  on  the 
Occult  lines.  Moreover,  the  system  proposed  is  entirely  pantheistic, 
and  is  worked  out  in  a  purely  scientific  volume.  Monotheists  and 
Roman  Catholics  fall  foul  of  it,  of  course ;  but  one  who  believes  in  the 
Planetary  Spirits  and  who  endows  Nature  with  living  Intelligences, 
must  always  expect  this. 

In  this  connection,  however,  it  is  curious  that  after  the  moderns  have 
so  laughed  at  the  ignorance  of  the  ancients. 

Who,  knowing  only  of  seven  planets    [yet  having  an   ogdoad  which   did  not 
include  the  earth  !],  invented  therefore  seven  Spirits  to  fit  in  with  the  Clumber, 

Babinet  should  have  vindicated  the  "  superstition "  unconsciously  to 
himself.  In  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondcs  this  eminent  French  Astro- 
nomer writes : 


•  Memoir  on  the  Solar  System,  p.  7,  De  Mirville,  iv.  157. 

+  Essai  sur  PIdeniiti  des  Agents  Producteurs  du  Son,  de  la  Lumiire,  etc.,  p.  15,  Ibid. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  218. 

}  Summarised  from  Ibid.,  p.  213.     De  Mirville.  iv.  158. 


THE   PLACE   OF   NEPTUNE.  217 

The  ogdoad  of  the  Aucients  included  the  earth  [which  is  an  error],  i.e.,  eight  or 
seven  according  to  whether  or  not  the  earth  was  comprised  in  the  number.* 

De  Mirville  assures  his  readers  that : 

M.  Babinet  was  telling  me  but  a  few  daj's  ago  that  we  had  in  reality  only  eight 
big  planets,  including  the  earth,  and  so  many  small  ones  between  Mars  and  Jupiter 
.  .  .  .  Herschel  offering  to  call  all  those  beyond  the  seven  primary  planets 
asteroids !  t 

There  is  a  problem  to  be  solved  in  this  connection.  How  do  Astro- 
nomers know  that  Neptune  is  a  planet,  or  even  that  it  is  a  body 
belonging  to  our  system  ?  Being  found  on  the  very  confines  of  our 
Planetary  World,  so  called,  the  latter  was  arbitrarily  expanded  to 
receive  it ;  but  what  reallj'  mathematical  and  infallible  proof  have 
Astronomers  that  it  is  (a)  a  planet,  and  {b)  one  of  our  planets  ?  None 
at  all !     It  is  at  such  an  immeasurable  distance  from  us,  the 

Apparent  diameter  of  the  sun  being  to  Neptune  but  one-fortieth  of  the  sun's 
apparent  diameter  to  us, 

and  it  is  so  dim  and  hazy  when  seen  through  the  best  telescope  that  it 
looks  like  an  astronomical  romance  to  call  it  one  of  our  planets. 
Neptune's  heat  and  light  are  reduced  to  g-^o  P^rt  of  the  heat  and  light 
received  b)''  the  earth.  His  motion  and  that  of  his  satellites  have 
always  looked  suspicious.  They  do  not  agree — in  appearance,  at  least 
— with  those  of  the  other  planets.  His  system  is  retrograde,  etc.  But 
even  the  latter  abnormal  fact  resulted  only  in  the  creation  of  new 
hypotheses  by  our  Astronomers,  who  forthwith  suggested  a  probable 
overturn  of  Neptune,  his  collision  with  another  body,  etc.  Was 
Adams'  and  Leverrier's  discovery  so  welcomed  because  Neptune  was  as 
necessary  as  was  Ether  to  throw  a  new  glory  upon  astronomical  pre- 
vision, upon  the  certitude  of  modern  scientific  data,  and  principally 
upon  the  power  of  mathematical  analysis  ?  It  would  so  appear.  A 
new  planet  that  widens  our  planetarj'  domain  by  more  than  four 
hundred  million  leagues  is  worthy  of  annexation.  Yet,  as  in  the  case 
of  terrestrial  annexation,  scientific  authority  may  be  proved  "right" 
only  because  it  has  "  might."  Neptune's  motion  happens  to  be  dimly 
perceived :  Eureka !  it  is  a  planet !  A  mere  motion,  however,  proves 
very  little.  It  is  now  an  ascertained  fact  in  Astronomy  that  there  are 
no  absolutely  fixed  stars  in  Nature,:]:  even  though  such  stars  should 

*  May,  1855.    Ibid.,  p.  139. 

+  La  Terre  et  notre  Systhne  solaire.    De  Mirville,  iv.  139. 

:*  If,  as  Sir  W.  Herschel  thought,  the  so-called  fixed  stars  have  resulted  from,  and  owe  their  origin 
Vrj  nebular  combustion,  they  cannot  be  fixed  any  more  than  is  our  sun,  which  was  believed  to  be 


2l8  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

continue  to  exist  in  astronomical  parlance,  while  they  have  passed 
from  the  scientific  imagination.  Occultism,  however,  has  a  strange 
theorj^  of  its  own  with  regard  to  Neptune. 

Occultism  says  that  if  several  hypotheses  resting  on  mere  assump- 
tion— which  have  been  accepted  only  because  they  have  been  taught 
by  eminent  men  of  learning — are  taken  away  from  the  Science  of 
Modern  Astronomy,  to  which  they  serve  as  props,  then  even  the  pre- 
sumably universal  law  of  gravitation  will  be  found  to  be  contrary  to  the 
most  ordinary  truths  of  mechanics.  And  really  one  can  hardly  blame 
Christians — foremost  of  all  the  Roman  Catholics — however  scientific 
some  of  these  may  themselves  be,  for  refusing  to  quarrel  with  their 
Church  for  the  sake  of  scientific  beliefs.  Nor  can  we  even  blame  them 
for  accepting  in  the  secresy  of  their  hearts — as  some  of  them  do — the 
theological  "  Virtues"  and  "  Archons"  of  Darkness,  instead  of  all  the 
blind  forces  offered  them  by  Science. 

Never  can  there  be  intervention  of  any  sort  in  the  marshalling  and  the  regular 
precession  of  the  celestial  bodies  !  The  law  of  gravitation  is  the  law  of  laws ;  who 
ever  witnessed  a  stone  rising  in  the  air  against  gravitation  ?  The  permanence  of 
the  universal  law  is  shown  in  the  behaviour  of  the  sidereal  worlds  and  globes  eter- 
nally faithful  to  their  primitive  orbits;  never  wandering  beyond  their  respective 
paths.  Nor  is  there  any  intervention  needed,  as  it  could  only  be  disastrous. 
Whether  the  first  sidereal  incipient  rotation  took  place  owing  to  an  intercosmic 
chance,  or  to  the  spontaneous  development  of  latent  primordial  forces ;  or  again, 
whether  that  impulse  was  given  once  for  all  by  God  or  Gods — it  does  not  make  the 
slightest  difference.  At  this  stage  of  cosmic  evolution  no  intervention,  superior  or 
inferior,  is  admissible.  Were  any  to  take  place,  the  universal  clock-work  would 
stop,  and  Kosmos  would  fall  into  pieces. 

Such  are  stray  sentences,  pearls  of  wisdom,  fallen  from  time  to  time 
from  scientific  lips,  and  now  chosen  at  random  to  illustrate  a  query. 
We  lift  our  diminished  heads  and  look  heavenward.  Such  seems  to  be 
the  fact :  worlds,  suns,  and  stars,  the  shining  myriads  of  the  heavenly 
hosts,  remind  the  Poet  of  an  infinite,  shoreless  ocean,  whereon  move 
swiftly  numberless  squadrons  of  ships,  millions  upon  millions  of 
cruisers,  large  and  small,  crossing  each  other,  whirling  and  gyrating  in 


motionless  and  is  now  found  to  rotate  around  its  axis  every  twenty-five  days.  As  the  fixed  star 
nearest  to  the  sun.  however,  is  eight-thousand  times  farther  away  from  him  than  is  Neptune,  the 
illu.sions  furnished  by  the  telescopes  must  be  also  eig-ht-thousand  times  as  great.  We  will  therefore 
leave  the  question  at  rest,  repeating  only  what  A.  Maury  said  in  his  work  (La  Terre  et  V Homme, 
published  in  1858) :  "  It  is  utterly  impossible,  so  far,  to  decide  anything  concerning  Neptune's  consti- 
tution, analogy  alone  authorising  us  to  ascribe  to  him  a  rotary  motion  like  that  of  other  planets  " 
tDe  Mirville,  iv.  140). 


SELF-GENERATION  EX-NIHII,0?  210 

every  direction  ;  and  Science  teaches  us,  that  though  they  be  wiihout 
rudder  or  compass  or  any  beacon  to  guide  them,  they  are  nevertheless 
secure  from  collision — almost  secure,  at  an3'^  rate,  save  in  chance  acci- 
dents— as  the  whole  celestial  machine  is  built  upon  and  guided  by  an 
immutable,  albeit  blind,  law,  and  by  constant  and  accelerating  force  or 
forces.  "  Built  upon  "  by  whom  ?  "  By  self-evolution,"  is  the  answer. 
Moreover,  as  dynamics  teach  that 

A  bod}-  in  motion  tends  to  continue  in  the  same  state  of  relative  rest  or  motion 
unless  acted  upon  by  some  external  force, 

this  force  has  to  be  regarded  as  self-generated — even  if  not  eternal, 
since  this  would  amount  to  the  recognition  of  perpetual  motion — and 
so  well  self-calculated  and  self-adjusted  as  to  last  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  Kosmos.  But  "self-generation"  has  still  to  generate 
from  something,  generation  ex-nihilo  being  as  contrary  to  reason  as  it 
is  to  Science.  Thus  we  are  placed  once  more  between  the  horns  of  a 
dilemma  :  are  we  to  believe  in  perpetual  motion  or  in  self-generation 
ex-nihilo  ?  And  if  in  neither,  who  or  what  is  that  something,  which 
first  produced  that  force  or  those  forces  ? 

There  are  such  things  in  mechanics  as  superior  levers,  which  give 
the  impulse  and  act  upon  secondary  or  inferior  levers.  The  former, 
however,  need  an  impulse  and  occasional  renovation,  otherwise  they 
would  themselves  very  soon  stop  and  fall  back  into  their  original  status. 
What  is  the  external  force  which  puts  and  retains  them  in  motion  ? 
Another  dilemma ! 

As  to  the  law  of  cosmical  jioyi-ijitervention,  it  could  be  justified  only 
in  one  case,  namely,  if  the  celestial  mechanism  were  perfect;  but  it  is 
not.  The  so-called  unalterable  motions  of  celestial  bodies  alter  and 
change  incessantly  ;  they  are  very  often  disturbed,  and  the  wheels  of 
even  the  sidereal  locomotive  itself  occasionally  jump  off  their  invisible 
rails,  as  may  be  easily  proved.  Otherwise  why  should  Laplace  speak 
of  the  probable  occurrence  at  some  future  time  of  an  out-and-out 
reform  in  the  arrangement  of  the  planets ;  *  or  Lagrange  maintain  the 
gradual  narrowing  of  the  orbits ;  or  our  modern  Astronomers,  again, 
declare  that  the  fuel  in  the  sun  is  slowly  disappearing  ?  If  the  laws 
and  forces  which  govern  the  behaviour  of  the  celestial  bodies  are  im- 
mutable, such  modifications  and  wearing-out  of  substance  or  fuel,  of 
force  and  fluids,  would  be  impossible;  yet  they  are  not  denied.    There- 

*  Exposition  du  vtai System  du  Monde,  p.  282. 


220  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

fore  one  has  to  suppose  that  such  modifications  will  have  to  rely  upon 
the  laws  of  forces,  which  will  have  to  self-regenerate  themselves  once 
more  on  such  occasions,  thus  producing  an  astral  antinomy,  and  a  kind 
of  phj'sical  palinomy,  since,  as  Laplace  says,  one  would  then  see  fluids 
disobeying  themselves  and  reacting  in  a  way  contrary  to  all  their  attri- 
butes and  properties. 

Newton  felt  ver>^  uncomfortable  about  the  moon.  Her  behaviour  in 
progressivel}'  narrowing  the  circumference  of  her  orbit  around  the 
earth  made  him  nervous,  lest  it  should  end  one  day  in  our  satellite 
falling  upon  the  earth.  The  world,  he  confessed,  needed  repairing, 
and  that  very  often.*  In  this  he  was  corroborated  by  Herschel.f  He 
speaks  of  real  and  quite  considerable  deviations,  besides  those  which 
are  only  apparent,  but  gets  some  consolation  from  his  conviction  that 
somebod}'  or  something  will  probably  see  to  things. 

We  may  be  answered  that  the  personal  beliefs  of  some  pious  As- 
tronomers, however  great  they  may  be  as  scientific  characters,  are  no 
proofs  of  the  actual  existence  and  presence  in  space  of  intelligent 
supramundane  Beings,  of  either  Gods  or  Angels.  It  is  the  behaviour 
of  the  stars  and  planets  themselves  that  has  to  be  analysed  and  infer- 
ences must  be  drawn  therefrom.  Renan  asserts  that  nothing  that  we 
know  of  the  sidereal  bodies  warrants  the  idea  of  the  presence  of  any 
Intelligence,  whether  internal  or  external  to  them. 

Let  us  see,  saj^s  Reynaud,  if  this  is  a  fact,  or  only  one  more  empty 
scientific  assumption. 

The  orbits  traversed  by  the  planets  are  far  from  being  immutable.  They  are,  on 
the  contrary,  subject  to  perpetual  mutation  in  position,  as  in  form.  Elongations, 
contractions,  and  orbital  widenings,  oscillations  from  right  to  left,  slackening  and 
quickening  of  speed     ....     and  all  this  on  a  plane  which  seems  to  vacillate.  J 

As  is  very  pertinently  observed  by  des  Mousseux  : 

Here  is  a  path  having  little  of  the  mathematical  and  mechanical  precision  claimed 
for  it ;  for  we  know  of  no  clock  which,  having  gone  slow  for  several  minutes 
should  catch  up  the  right  time  of  itself  and  without  a  turn  of  the  key. 

So  much  for  blind  law  and  force.  As  for  the  physical  impossibilit}- — 
a  miracle  indeed  in  the  sight  of  Science — of  a  stone  raised  in  the  air 
against  the  law  of  gravitation,  this   is  what  Babinet — the  deadliest 


•  See  the  passage  quoted  by  Herschel  in  Natmal  Philosophy,  p.  165.    De  MirviUe,  iv.  105, 

+  Loc.  cit. 

%    Terre  el  del,  p.  28.     Ibid. 


ARE  THERE   ANGELS  IN   STARS  221 

enemy  and  opponent  of  the  phenomena  of  levitation— (cited  by  Arago) 

says : 

Everyone  knows  the  theory  of  bolides  [meteors]  and  aerolithes.  ...  In 
Connecticut  an  immense  aerolith  was  seen  [a  mass  of  eighteen  hundred  feet  in 
diameter],  bombarding  a  whole  American  zone  and  returning  to  the  spot  [in  mid-air  i 
from  which  it  had  started.* 

Thus  we  find  in  both  of  the  cases  above  cited— that  of  self-correcting 
planets  and  of  meteors  of  gigantic  size  flying  back  into  the  air— a 
"  blind  force  "  regulating  and  resisting  the  natural  tendencies  of  "  blind 
matter,"  and  even  occasionally  repairing  its  mistakes  and  correcting 
its  failures.  This  is  far  more  miraculous  and  even  "  extravagant,"  one 
would  say,  than  any  "  Angel-guided  "  Element. 

Bold  is  he  who  laughs  at  the  idea  of  Von  Halier,  who  declares 
that: 

The  stars  are  perhaps  an  abode  of  glorious  Spirits;  as  here  Vice  reigns,  there  i« 
Virtue  master.t 


•  CEuvres  d' Arago,  vol.  i.,  p.  219  ;  quoted  by  De  Mirville,  iii.  462. 

♦  "  Die  Sterne  sind  vielleichl  ein  Sitz  verklarter  Geister  ; 
W/'u:  hier  das  Lasier  herrscht,  ist  dorl  die  Tugend  Meisler." 


SECTION    XXY. 

Eastern  and  Western  Occultism: 


In  The  Thcosophist  for  March,  1886,*  in  an  answer  to  the  "  Solar 
Sphinx,"  a  member  of  the  London  Lodge  of  the  Theosophical  Society 
wrote  as  follows  : 

We  hold  and  believe  that  the  re\aval  of  Occult  Knowledge  now  in  progress  will 
some  day  demonstrate  that  the  Western  system  represents  ranges  of  perceptions 
which  the  Eastern — at  least  as  expounded  in  the  pages  of  The  Theosophist — has  yet 
to  attain.t 

The  writer  is  not  the  only  person  labouring  under  this  erroneous  im- 
pression. Greater  Kabalists  than  he  had  said  the  same  in  the  United 
States.  This  only  proves  that  the  knowledge  possessed  by  Western 
Occultists  of  the  true  Philosophy,  and  the  "  ranges  of  perceptions  "  and 
thought  of  the  Eastern  doctrines,  is  very  superficial.  This  assertion 
wdll  be  easily  demonstrated  by  giving  a  few  instances,  instituting  com- 
parisons between  the  two  interpretations  of  one  and  the  same  doctrine 
— the  Hermetic  Universal  Doctrine.     It  is  the  more  needed  since,  were 


•  op.  cit.,  p.  411. 

t  Whenever  Occult  doctrines  were  expounded  in  the  pages  of  TTu  Theosophist,  care  was  taken  each 
time  to  declare  a  subject  incomplete  when  the  whole  could  not  be  given  in  its  fulness,  and  no  writer 
has  ever  tried  to  mislead  the  reader.  As  to  the  Western  "ranges  of  perception  "  concerning  doc- 
trines really  Occult,  the  Eastern  Occultists  have  been  made  acquainted  with  them  for  some  time  past. 
Thus  they  are  enabled  to  assert  with  confidence  that  the  West  may  be  in  possession  of  Hermetic 
philosophy  as  a  sp>eculative  system  of  dialectics,  the  latter  being  used  in  the  West  admirably  well, 
but  it  lacks  entirely  the  knowledge  of  Occultism.  The  genuine  Eastern  Occultist  keeps  silent  and 
unknown,  never  publishes  what  he  knows,  and  rarely  even  speaks  of  it,  as  he  knows  too  well  the 
penalty  of  indiscretion. 


PRIMORDlAIv  MATTER.  223 

we  to  neglect  bringing  forward  such  comparisons,  our  work  would  be 
left  incomplete. 

We  may  take  the  late  Eliphas  Levi,  rightly  referred  to  by  another 
Western  Mystic,  Mr.  Kenneth  Mackenzie,  as  "  one  of  the  greatest  re- 
presentatives of  modern  Occult  Philosophy,"*  as  presumably  the  best 
and  most  learned  expounder  of  the  Chaldaean  Kabalah,  and  compare 
his  teaching  with  that  of  Eastern  Occultists.  In  his  unpublished  manu- 
scripts and  letters,  lent  to  us  by  a  Theosophist,  who  was  for  fifteen 
years  his  pupil,  we  had  hoped  to  find  that  which  he  was  unwilling  to 
publish.  What  we  do  find,  however,  disappoints  us  greatly.  We  will 
take  these  teachings,  then,  as  containing  the  essence  of  Western  or 
Kabalistic  Occultism,  analyzing  and  comparing  them  with  the  Eastern 
interpretation  as  we  go  on. 

Eliphas  Levi  teaches  correctly,  though  in  language  rather  too  rhap- 
sodically  rhetorical  to  be  sufl&ciently  clear  to  the  beginner,  that 

Eternal  life  is  Motion  equilibrated  by  the  alternate  manifestations  of  force. 

But  why  does  he  not  add  that  this  perpetual  motion  is  independent 
of  the  manifested  Forces  at  work  ?     He  says : 

Chaos  is  the  Tohu-vah-bohu  of  perpetual  motion  and  the  sum  total  of  primordial 
matter ; 

and  he  fails  to  add  that  Matter  is  "primordial"  only  at  the  beginning 
of  every  new  reconstruction  of  the  Universe  matter  in  abscondito,  as  it 
is  called  by  the  Alchemists,  is  eternal,  indestructible,  without  beginning 
or  end.  It  is  regarded  by  Eastern  Occultists  as  the  eternal  Root  of  all, 
the  Mulaprakriti  of  the  Vedantin,  and  the  Svabhavat  of  the  Buddhist, 
the  Divine  Essence,  in  short,  or  Substance  ;  the  radiations  from  This 
are  periodically  aggregated  into  graduated  forms,  from  pure  Spirit  to 
gross  Matter  ;  the  Root,  or  Space,  is  in  its  abstract  presence  the  Deity 
Itself,  the  Ineffable  and  Unknown  One  Cause. 

Ain-Suph  with  him  also  is  the  Boundless,  the  infinite  and  One  Unity, 
secondless  and  causeless  as  Parabrahman.  Ain-Suph  is  the  indivisible 
point,  and  therefore,  as  "being  everywhere  and  nowhere,"  is  the  abso- 
lute All.  It  is  also  "  Darkness  "  because  it  is  absolute  Light,  and  the 
Root  of  the  seven  fundamental  Cosmic  Principles.  Yet  Eliphas  Levi, 
by  simply  stating  that  "  Darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  Earth," 
fails  to  show  (a)  that  " Darkness"  in  this  sense  is  Deity  Itself,  and  he  is 


•  See  The  Royal  Masonic  Cyclopctdia,  art.  "Sepher  Jetzirah." 


<>24  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

therefore  withholding  the  only  philosophical  solution  of  this  problem  for 
the  human  mind  ;  and  {b)  he  allows  the  unwary  student  to  believe  that 
b}'  "  Earth  "  our  own  little  globe — an  atom  in  the  Universe — is  meant. 
In  short,  this  teaching  does  not  embrace  the  Occult  Cosmogony,  but 
deals  simply  with  Occult  Geology  and  the  formation  of  our  cosmic 
speck.  This  is  further  shown  by  his  making  a  resume  oi  the  Sephiro- 
thal  Tree  in  this  wise  : 

God  is  harmony,  the  astronomy  of  Powers  and  Unity  outside  of  the  World. 

This  seems  to  suggest  (a)  that  he  teaches  the  existence  of  an  extra- 
cosmic  God,  thus  limiting  and  conditioning  both  the  Kosmos  and  the 
divine  Infinity  and  Omnipresence,  which  cannot  be  extraneous  to  or 
outside  of  one  single  atom  ;  and  {b)  that  by  skipping  the  whole  of  the 
pre-cosmic  period — the  manifested  Kosmos  here  being  meant — the  very 
root  of  Occult  teaching,  he  explains  only  the  Kabalistic  meaning  of  the 
dead-letter  of  the  Bible  and  Genesis,  leaving  its  spirit  and  essence  un- 
touched. Surely  the  "  ranges  of  perception  "  of  the  Western  mind  will 
not  be  greatly  enlarged  by  such  a  limited  teaching. 

Having  said  a  few  words  on  Tohu-vah-bohu — the  meaning  of  which 
Wordsworth  rendered  graphically  as  "higgledy-piggledy" — and  having 
explained  that  this  term  denoted  Cosmos,  he  teaches  that : 

Above  the  dark  abyss  [Chaos]  were  the  Waters;  ,  .  .  the  earth  {la  terre  .''\  was 
Tohu-vah-bohu,  i.e.,  in  confusion,  and  darkness  covered  the  face  of  the  Deep,  and 
vehement  Breath  moved  on  the  Waters  when  the  Spirit  exclaimed  [.?],  "Let  there 
be  light,"  and  there  was  light.  Thus  the  earth  [our  globe,  of  course]  was  in  a  state 
of  cataclysm ;  thick  vapours  veiled  the  immensity  of  the  sky,  the  earth  was  covered 
with  waters  and  a  violent  wind  was  agitating  this  dark  ocean,  when  at  a  given 
moment  the  equilibrium  revealed  itself  and  light  reappeared ;  the  letters  that  com- 
pose  the  Hebrew  word  "Bereshith"  (the  first  word  of  Genesis)  are  "Beth,"  the 
binary,  the  verb  manifested  by  the  act,  2.  feminine  letter;  then  "  Resch,"  the  Verbum 
and  Life,  number  20,  the  disc  multiplied  by  2;  and  "  Aleph,"  the  spiritual  principle, 
the  Unit,  a  masculine  letter. 

Place  these  letters  in  a  triangle  and  you  have  the  absolute  Unit}',  that  without 
being  included  into  numbers  creates  the  number,  the  first  manifestation,  which  is 
2,  and  these  two  united  by  harmony  resulting  from  the  analogy  of  contraries  [oppo- 
sites],  make  i,  only.     This  is  why  God  is  called  Elohim  (plural). 

All  this  is  very  ingenious,  but  is  very  puzzling,  besides  being  incorrect. 
For  owing  to  the  first  sentence,  "  Above  the  dark  abyss  were  the  Waters," 
the  French  Kabalist  leads  the  student  away  from  the  right  track.  This  an 
Eastern  Chela  will  see  at  a  glance,  and  even  one  of  the  profane  may 
see  it.     For  if  the  Tohu-vah-bohu  is  "under"  and   the  Waters  are 


THE  GREAT   DEEP.  225 

•^^  above,"  then  these  two  are  quite  distinct  from  each  other,  and  tbis  is 
not  the  case.  This  statement  is  a  very  important  one,  inasmuch  as  it 
entirely  changes  the  spirit  and  nature  of  Cosmogony,  and  brings  it 
down  to  a  level  with  exoteric  Genesis — perhaps  it  was  so  stated  with  an 
eye  to  this  result.  The  Tohu-vah-bohu  is  the  "Great  Deep"  and  is 
identical  with  "  the  Waters  of  Chaos,"  or  the  primordial  Darkness.  By 
stating  the  fact  otherwise  it  makes  both  "  the  Great  Deep  "  and  the 
"Waters" — which  cannot  be  separated  except  in  the  phenomenal 
world — limited  as  to  space  and  conditioned  as  to  their  nature.  Thus 
Eliphas  in  his  desire  to  conceal  the  last  word  of  Esoteric  Philosophy, 
fails — whether  intentionally  or  otherwise  does  not  matter — to  point  out 
the  fundamental  principle  of  the  one  true  Occult  Philosophy,  namely, 
the  unity  and  absolute  homogeneity  of  the  One  Eternal  Divine  Element, 
and  he  makes  of  the  Deity  a  male  God.     Then  he  says  : 

Above  the  Waters  was  the  powerful  Breath  of  the  Elohim  [the  creative  Dhyan 
Chohans].  Above  the  Breath  appeared  the  Light,  and  above  the  Light  the  Word 
.     .     .     .     that  created  it. 

Now  the  fact  is  quite  the  reverse  of  this  :  it  is  the  Primeval  Light  that 
creates  the  Word  or  Logos,  Who  in  His  turn  creates  physical  light. 
Tq  prove  and  illustrate  what  he  says  he  gives  the  following  figure : 


Now  any  Eastern  Occultist  upon  seeing  this  would  not  hesitate  to 
pronounce  it  a  "  left-hand  "  magic  figure.  It  is  entirely  reversed,  and 
it  represents  the  third  stage  of  religious  thought,  that  current  in 
Dvapara  Yuga,  when  the  one  principle  is  already  separated  into  maie 
and  female,    and  humanity  is  approaching  the  fall  into  materiality 

3    Q 


226  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

which  brings  the  Kali  Yuga.     A  student  of  Eastern  Occultism  would 
draw  it  thus  : 


For  the  Secret  Doctrine  teaches  us  that  the  reconstruction  of  the 
Universe  takes  place  in  this  wise  :  At  the  periods  of  new  generation, 
perpetual  Motion  becomes  Breath ;  from  the  Breath  comes  forth 
primordial  Light,  through  whose  radiance  manifests  the  Eternal  Thought 
concealed  in  darkness,  and  this  becomes  the  Word  (Mantra).*  It  is 
That  (the  Mantra  or  Word)  from  which  all  This  (the  Universe)  sprang 
into  being. 

Further  on  Eliphas  Levi  says : 

This  [the  concealed  Deity]  radiated  a  ray  into  the  Eternal  Essence  [Waters  of 
Space]  and,  fructifying  thereby  the  primordial  germ,  the  Essence  expanded,t 
giving  birth  to  the  Heavenly  Man  from  whose  mind  were  born  all  forms. 

The  Kabalah  states  very  nearly  the  same.  To  learn  what  it  really 
teaches  one  has  to  reverse  the  order  in  which  Eliphas  Levi  gives  it, 
replacing  the  word  "  above"  by  that  of  "  in,"  as  there  cannot  surely  be 
any  "  above"  or  "under"  in  the  Absolute.     This  is  what  he  says  : 

Above  the  waters  the  powerful  breath  of  the  Elohim;  above  the  Breath  the 
Light;  above  Light  the  Word,  or  the  Speech  that  created  it.  We  see  here  the 
spheres  of  evolution :  the  souls  [.^]  driven  from  the  dark  centre  (Darkness)  toward 
the  luminous  circumference.  At  the  bottom  of  the  lowe-st  circle  is  the  Tohu-vah- 
bohu,  or  the  chaos  which  precedes  all  manifestation  [Naissances — generation] ;  then 
the  region  of  Water;  then  Breath;  then  Light;  and,  lastly,  the  Word. 


•  In  the  exoteric  sense,  the  Mantra  (or  that  psychic  faculty  or  power  that  conveys  perception  or 
thought)  is  the  older  portion  of  the  Vedas,  the  second  part  of  which  is  composed  of  the  Brahmanas. 
In  Esoteric  phraseology  Mautr.i  is  the  Word  made  flesh,  or  rendered  objective,  through  divine  raaj^c. 

+  The  secret  meaning  of  the  word  "  Brahma  "  is  '  expansion,"  "  increase,'  or  "  orrowth." 


THE   CHAOS  OF   GENESIS.  227 

The  construction  of  the  above  sentences  shows  that  the  learned  Abbe 
had  a  decided  tendency  to  anthropomorphize  creation,  even  though  the 
latter  has  to  be  shaped  out  of  preexisting  material,  as  the  Zohar  shows 
plainly  enough. 

This  is  how  the  "  great"  Western  Kabalist  gets  out  of  the  difl&culty: 
he  keeps  silent  on  the  first  stage  of  evolution  and  imagines  a  second 
Chaos.     Thus  he  says  : 

The  Tohu-vah-bohu  is  tlie  Latin  Limbus,  or  twilight  of  the  morning  and  evening 
of  life.*  It  is  in  perpetual  motion, t  it  decomposes  continually,  J  and  the  work  of 
putrefaction  accelerates,  because  the  world  is  advancing  towards  regeneration.  § 
The  Tohu-vah-bohu  of  the  Hebrews  is  not  exactly  the  confusion  of  things  called 
Chaos  by  the  Greeks,  and  which  is  found  described  in  the  commencement  of  the 
Metamorphosis  of  Ovid;  it  is  something  greater  and  more  profound;  it  is  the 
foundation  of  religion,  it  is  the  philosophical  affirmation  of  the  immateriality  of 
God. 

Rather  an  affirmation  of  the  materiality  of  a  personal  God.  If  a  man 
has  to  seek  his  Deity  in  the  Hades  of  the  ancients — for  the  Tohu-vah- 
bohu,  or  the  lyimbus  of  the  Greeks,  is  the  Hall  of  Hades — then  one  can 
wonder  no  longer  at  the  accusations  brought  forward  by  the  Church 
against  the  "  witches  "  and  sorcerers  versed  in  Western  Kabalism,  that 
the}''  adored  the  goat  Mendes,  or  the  devil  personified  by  certain  spooks 
and  Elementals.  But  in  face  of  the  task  Eliphas  I^evi  had  set  before 
himself — that  of  reconciling  Jewish  Magic  with  Roman  ecclesiasticism 
— he  could  say  nothing  else. 

Then  he  explains  the  first  sentence  in  Genesis  : 

Let  us  put  on  one  side  the  \Tilgar  translation  of  the  sacred  texts  and  see  what  is 
hidden  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis. 

He  then  gives  the  Hebrew  text  quite  correctly,  but  transliterates  it  : 

Bereschith  Bara  Eloim  uth  aschamam  ouatti  aares  ouares  ayete  Tohu-vah-bohu. 
.    .     .     Ouimas  Eloim  rai  avur  ouiai  aour. 

And  he  then  explains : 

The  first  word,  "Bereschith,"  signifies  "genesis,"  a  word  equivalent  to  "nature." 


•  Why  not  give  at  once  its  theological  meaning,  as  we  find  it  in  Webster?  With  the  Roman 
Catholics  it  means  simply  "  purgatory,"  the  borderland  between  heaven  and  hell  (Limbus  patritm  and 
Limbus  infantum),  the  one  for  all  men,  whether  good,  bad  or  indifferent ;  the  other  for  the  souls  of 
unbaptized  children  !  With  the  ancients  it  meant  simply  that  which  in  Esoteric  Buddhism  is  called 
the  Kama  IvOka,  between  Devachan  and  Avitchi. 

+  As  Chaos,  the  eternal  Element,  not  as  the  Kama  I/)ka  surely  r 

t  A  proof  that  by  this  word  Eliphas  Levi  means  the  lowest  region  of  the  terrestrial  Akasha. 
}     Evidently  he  is  concerned  only  with  our  periodical  world,  or  me  terrestrial  globe. 


228  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

"The  act  of  generation  or  production,"  we  maintain  ;  not  "  nature." 
He  then  continues : 

The  phrase,  then,  is  incorrectly  translated  in  the  Bible.  It  is  not  "in  the  begin- 
ning," for  it  should  be  at  the  stage  of  the  generating  force,*  which  would  thus 
exclude  every  idea  of  the  ex-nihilo  ...  as  nothing  cannot  produce  something. 
The  word  "Eloim"  or  "Elohim"  signifies  the  generating  Powers,  and  such  is  the 
Occult  sense  of  the  first  verse.  .  .  .  "Bereschith"  ("nature"  or  "genesis"), 
"Bara"  ("created")  "Eloim"  ("the  forces")  "Athat-ashamaim"  ("heavens") 
"ouath"  and  "oaris"  ("the  earth");  that  is  to  saj-,  "The  generative  potencies 
created  indefinitely  (eternally  t)  those  forces  that  are  the  equilibrated  opposites 
that  we  call  heaven  and  earth,  meaning  the  space  and  the  bodies,  the  volatile  and 
the  fixed,  the  movement  and  the  weight. 

Now  this,  if  it  be  correct,  is  too  vague  to  be  understood  by  any  one 
ignorant  of  the  Kabalistic  teaching.  Not  only  are  his  explanations  un- 
satisfactory and  misleading — in  his  published  works  they  are  still 
worse — but  his  Hebrew  transliteration  is  entirely  wrong :  it  precludes 
the  student,  who  would  compare  it  for  himself  with  the  equivalent 
symbols  and  numerals  of  the  words  and  letters  of  the  Hebrew  alphabet, 
from  finding  anything  of  that  he  might  have  found  were  the  words  cor- 
rectly spelt  in  the  French  transliteration. 

Compared  even  with  exoteric  Hindu  Cosmogony,  the  philosophy 
which  Eliphas  Levi  gives  out  as  Kabalistic  is  simpl)^  mystical  Roman 
Catholicism  adapted  to  the  Christian  Kabalah.  His  Histoire  de  la  Magie 
shows  it  plainly,  and  reveals  also  his  object,  which  he  does  not  even  care 
to  conceal.     For,  while  stating  with  his  Church,  that 

The  Christian  religion  has  imposed  silence  on  the  lying  oracles  of  the  Gentiles 
and  put  an  end  to  the  prestige  of  the  false  gods,  J 

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 
everj-  being  capable  of  worship  has  to  bend  his  knee.^ 

*  In  the  "  reawakening  "  of  the  Forces  would  be  more  correct. 

t  An  action  which  is  incessant  in  eternity  cannot  be  called  "  creation ;  "  it  is  evolution,  and  the 
eternally  or  ever-becoming  of  the  Greek  Philosopher  and  the  Hindu  Vedantin  ;  it  is  the  Sat  and  the 
one  Being-uess  of  Pannenides,  or  the  Being  identical  with  Thought.  Now  how  can  the  Potencies  be 
said  to  "  create  movement,"  once  it  is  seen  movement  never  had  any  beginning,  but  existed  in  the 
Eternity  ?  Why  not  say  that  the  reawakened  Potencies  transferred  motion  from  the  eternal  to  the 
temporal  plane  of  being  't    Surely  this  is  not  Creation. 

X  Histoire  de  la  Magie.    Int.,  p.  i. 

\  Histoire  de  la  Magie.    Int.,  p.  2. 


THE   BIBLE   OF  HUMANITY.  229 

This  shows  that  I,evi's  Kabalah  is  mystic  Christianit}^  and  not  Oc- 
cultism ;  for  Occultism  is  universal  and  knows  no  diflference  between 
the  "  Saviours"  (or  great  Avataras)  of  the  several  old  nations.  Eliphas 
Levi  was  not  an  exception  in  preaching  Christianity  under  a  disguise 
of  Kabalism.  He  was  undeniably  "  the  greatest  representative  of 
modem  Occult  Philosoph}^"  as  it  is  studied  in  Roman  Catholic  coun- 
tries generally,  where  it  is  fitted  to  the  preconceptions  of  Christian 
studeflts.  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  6^awwAaaf5  "  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  sj'stem  of  one's  brother. 

In  view  of  the  great  resemblance  between  many  of  the  fundamental 
"truths"  of  Christianity  and  the  "  myths"  of  Brahmanism,  there  have 
been  serious  attempts  made  lately  to  prove  that  the  Bhagavad  Gita 
and  most  of  the  Brdhmanas  and  the  Purdtias  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  modem  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  ever>'  fane  and  church  built  from  first  to  last ;  and 
the}^  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. 


230  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

"  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  I/ife,"  in  which  primordial  germs 
are  created — or  rather  reawakened — by  the  primordial  Light.  It  is 
Purushottama,  or  the  Divine  Spirit,  which  in  its  capacity  of  Narayana, 
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  Brahma  is  created  ;*  and  from  this  the  first  Prajapati, 
the  1^0 rd  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  Brahma  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  physi- 
cal 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 
paj)-  reverence  to  their  sacred  streams,  tanks,  and  rivers ;  if  Parsi,  Ma- 
hommedan  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  ofKosmos,  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  lyife  "  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.t 

Speaking  of  the  great  work  and  glory  of  the  Elohim  J — unified  into  the 

•  The  Vaishnavas,  who  regard  Vishnu  as  the  Supreme  God  and  the  fashioner  of  the  Universe, 
claim  that  Brahma  sprang  from  the  navel  of  Vishnu,  the  "  imperishable,"  or  rather  from  the  lotus 
that  grew  from  it.  But  the  "  navel  "  here  means  the  Central  Point,  the  mathematical  symbol  of  in- 
finitude, or  Parabrahman,  the  One  and  the  Secondless. 

+  Ecclesiastes,  i.  12,  13. 

i  It  is  probably  needless  to  say  here  what  everyone  knows.  The  translation  of  the  Protestant 
Bible  is  not  a  word  for  word  rendering  of  the  earlier  Greek  and  Latin  Bibles  :  the  sense  is  very 
often  disfigured,  and  "  God  "  is  put  where  "  Jahve  "  and  "  Elohim  "  stand. 


CHAOS  IS  THEOS   OR  KOSMOS.  23 1 

"  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,* 
that  is,  the  divine  Host  of  the  Sephiroth,  who  have  constructed  the 
Universe  out  of  the  Deep,  the  Waters  of  Chaos.  Moses  and  Thales 
were  right  in  saying  that  only  earth  and  water  can  bring  forth  a  living 
Soul,  water  being  on  this  plane  the  principle  of  all  things,  Moses  was 
an  Initiate,  Thales  a  Philosopher — i.e.,  a  Scientist,  for  the  words  were 
synonymous  in  his  day. 

The  secret  meaning  of  this  is  that  water  and  earth  stand  in  the 
Mosaic  Books  for  the  prima  materia  and  the  creative  (feminine)  Prin- 
ciple on  our  plane.  In  Egypt  Osiris  was  Fire,  and  Isis  was  the  Earth 
or  its  synonym  Water ;  the  two  opposing  elements — just  because  of 
their  opposite  properties — being  necessary  to  each  other  for  a  common 
object :  that  of  procreation.  The  earth  needs  solar  heat  and  rain  to 
make  her  throw  out  her  germs.  But  these  procreative  properties  of  Fire 
and  Water,  or  Spirit  and  Matter,  are  symbols  but  of  physical  genera- 
tion. While  the  Jewish  Kabalists  symbolized  these  elements  only  in 
their  application  to  manifested  things,  and  reverenced  them  as  the 
emblems  for  the  production  of  terrestrial  life,  the  Eastern  Philosophy 
noticed  them  only  as  an  illusive  emanation  from  their  spiritual  proto- 
types, and  no  unclean  or  unholy  thought  marred  its  Esoteric  religious 
symbology. 

Chaos,  as  shown  elsewhere,  is  Theos,  which  becomes  Kosmos :  it  is 
Space,  the  container  of  everything  in  the  Universe.  As  Occult  Teach- 
ings assert,  it  is  called  by  the  Chaldaeans,  Egyptians,  and  every  other 
nation  Tohu-vah-bohu,  or  Chaos,  Confusion,  because  Space  is  the  great 
storehouse  of  Creation,  whence  proceed  not  forms  alone,  but  also  ideas, 
which  could  receive  their  expression  only  through  the  IvOgos,  the 
Word,  Verbum,  or  Sound. 

The  numbers  i,  2,  3,  4  are  the  successive  emanations  front  Mother  [^Space^ 
as  she  forms  running  downward  her  garment,  spreading  it  upo?i  the  seven 
steps  of  Creation. \     The  roller  returns  upon  itself  as  one  e7id  joins  the  other 


•  Psalms,  civ.  2,  3. 

+  To  avoid  misunderstanding  of  the  word  "  creation  "  so  often  used  by  us,  the  remarks  of  the 
author  of  Through  the  Gates  of  Gold  may  be  quoted  owing  to  their  clearness  and  simplicity.  "  The 
words  '  to  create  '  are  often  understood  by  the  ordinary  mind  to  convey  the  idea  of  evolving  some- 
thing out  of  nothing.  This  is  clearly  not  its  meaning.  We  are  mentally  obliged  to  provide  our 
Creator  with  chaos  from  which  to  produce  the  worlds.  The  tiller  of  the  soil,  who  is  the  typical  pro- 
ducer of  social  life,  must  have  his  material :  his  earth,  his  sky,  rain  and  sun,  and  the  seeds  to  place 


232  THK   SKCRET  DOCTRINE. 

in  infinitude,  and  the  7iumbers  4,  3,  a7id  2  are  displayed,  as  it  is  the  oniy 
side  of  the  veil  that  we  can  perceive,  the  first  number  beitig  lest  in  its  i?i- 
accessible  solitude. 

.  .  .  Father,  which  is  Botindless  Time,  generates  Mother,  which  is 
infinite  Space,  iii  Eternity  ;  and  Mother  ge7ierates  Father  in  Manvantaras, 
which  are  divisions  of  durations,  that  Day  when  that  world  becomes  07ie 
ocean.  The7i  the  Mother  becomes  Nard  [  Waters — the  Great  Deep^  for 
Nara  \_the  Supre7ne  Spirit^  to  rest — or  i7iove — up07i,  when,  it  is  said,  that 
I,  2,  3,  4  descend  and  abide  i7i  the  world  of  the  U7isee7i,  while  the  4,  3,  2, 
become  the  limits  in  the  visible  world  to  deal  with  the  77ia7iifestations  of 
Father  \_Time^.* 

This  relates  to  the  Mahayugas  which  in  figures  become  432,  and  with 
the  addition  of  noughts,  4,320,000. 

Now  it  is  surpassingly  strange,  if  it  be  a  mere  coincidence,  that  the 
numerical  value  of  Tohu-vah-bohu,  or  "  Chaos,"  in  the  Bible — which 
Chaos,  of  course,  is  the  "Mother"  Deep,  or  the  Waters  of  Space — 
should  yield  the  same  figures.  For  this  is  what  is  found  in  a  Kabalist 
manuscript: 

It  is  said  of  the  Heavens  and  the  Earth  in  the  second  verse  of  Genesis  that  they 
were  "Chaos  and  Confusion" — that  is,  they  were  "Tohu-vah-bohu;  "  '^  axi^L  darkness 
was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep,"  i.e.,  "the  perfect  material  out  of  which  con- 
struction was  to  be  made  lacked  organization."  The  order  of  the  digits  of  these 
words  as  they  stand — i.e.,^  the  letters  rendered  by  their  numerical  value — is  6,526,654 
and  2,386.  By  art  speech  these  are  key- working  numbers  loosely  shuffled  together, 
the  germs  and  keys  of  construction,  but  to  be  recognized,  one  by  one,  as  used  and 
required.  They  follow  symmetrically  in  the  work  as  immediately  following  the 
first  sentence  of  grand  enunciation:  "In  Rash  developed  itself  Gods,  the  heavens 
and  the  earth." 

Multiply  the  numbers  of  the  letters  of  "Tohu-vah-bohu"  together  continuously 
from  right  to  left,  placing  the  consecutive  single  products  as  we  go,  and  we  will  have 
the  following  series  of  values,  viz.,  {a)  30,  60,  360,  2,160,  10,800,  43,200,  or  as  by  the 
characterizing  digits ;  3,  6,  36,  216,  108,  and  432;  (b)  20,  120,  720,  1,440,  7,200,  or  2,  12, 
72,  144,  72,  432,  the  series  closing  in  432,  one  of  the  most  famous  numbers  of 
antiquity,  and  which,  though  obscured,  crops  out  in  the  chronology  up  to  the 
Flood.:    .    •     . 

within  the  earth.  Out  of  nothing  he  can  produce  nothing.  Out  of  a  void  nature  cannot  arise ; 
there  is  that  material  beyond,  behind,  or  within,  from  which  she  is  shaped  by  our  desire  for  a 
Universe."     (P.  72.) 

•  Commentary  on  Stanza  ix.  on  Cycles. 

t  Or,  read  from  right  to  left,  the  letters  and  their  corresponding  numerals  stand  thus  :  "  t,"  4  ; 
"2l,"5;  "bh,"  2  ;  ."  V,"  6;  "v,"0;  "h,"s;  "v"  or  "w,"  6;  which  yields  "thuvbhu,"  4566256,  or 
"  Tohu-vah-bohu." 

X  Mr.  Ralston  Skinner's  MSS. 


ONE   HUNDRED   AND   EIGHT.  233 

This  shows  that  the  Hebrew  usage  of  play  upon  the  numbers  must 
have  come  to  the  Jews  from  India.  As  we  have  seen,  the  final  series 
yields,  besides  many  another  combination,  the  figures  io8  and  1008— 
the  number  of  the  names  of  Vishnu,  whence  the  108  grains  of  the  Yoo-is 
rosary— and  close  with  432,  the  truly  "  famous"  number  in  Indian  and 
Chaldaean  antiquity,  appearing  in  the  cycle  of  4,320,000  years  in  the 
former,  and  in  the  432,000  years,  the  duration  of  the  Chaldsean  divine 
dynasties. 


V 


SECTION  XXVL 

The  Idols  and  the  Teraphim. 


The  meaning  of  the  "  fairy-tale  "  told  by  the  Chaldaean  Qu-tamy  is 
easily  understood.  His  modus  operayidi  with  the  "  idol  of  the  moon  " 
was  that  of  all  the  Semites,  before  Terah,  Abraham's  father,  made  images 
— the  Teraphim,  called  after  him — or  the  "chosen  people"  of  Israel 
ceased  divining  by  them.  These  teraphim  were  just  as  much  "  idols" 
as  is  any  pagan  image  or  statue.*  The  injunction  "  Thou  shalt  not 
bow  to  a  graven  image,"  or  teraphim,  must  have  either  come  at  a  later 
date,  or  have  been  disregarded,  since  the  bowing-down  to  and  the 
divining  by  the  teraphim  seem  to  have  been  so  orthodox  and  general 
that  the  "L,ord"  actually  threatens  the  Israelites,  through  Hosea,  to 
deprive  them  of  their  teraphim. 

For  the  children  of  Israel  shall  abide  many  days  without  a  king,  .  .  .  with- 
out a  sacrifice,  and  without  an  image, 

Matzebah,  or  statue,  or  pillar,  is  explained  in  the  Bible  to  mean 
"  without  an  ephod  and  without  teraphim."! 

Father  Kircher  supports  very  strongly  the  idea  that  the  statue  of  the 
Egyptian  Serapis  was  identical  in  everyway  with  those  of  the  seraphim, 
or  teraphim,  in  the  temple  of  Solomon.     Says  lyouis  de  Dieu : 

They  were,  perhaps,  images  of  angels,  or  statues  dedicated  to  the  angels,  the 
presence  of  one  of  these  spirits  being  thus  attracted  into  a  teraphim  and  answering 
the  inquirers  [consultans];  and  even  in  this  hypothesis  the  word  "teraphim"  would 


*  That  the  teraphim  was  a  statue,  and  no  small  article  either,  is  shown  in  Samuel  xix.,  where 
Michal  takes  a  teraphim  ("image,"  as  it  is  translated)  and  puts  it  in  bed  to  represent  David,  her 
husband,  who  ran  away  from  Saul  (see  verse  13,  et  seg.).  It  was  thus  of  the  size  and  shape  of  a 
human  figure — a  statue  or  real  idol. 

+  0/>.  cit.,  iii.  4 


DIVINING   BY  TERAPHIM. 


235 


become  the  equivalent  of  "seraphim"  by  changing  the  "t"  into  "s"  in  the  manner 
of  Syrians.* 

What  says  the  Septuagint  ?  The  teraphim  are  translated  successively 
by  ctSwXa — forms  in  someone's  likeness ;  eidolon,  an  "  astral  body ;  " 
yXvrrra — the  sculptured  ;  KevoTd4>La — sculptures  in  the  sense  of  containing 

something   hidden,  or   receptacles ;    6r]\ov<i — manifestations  ;    aX^e€ia<s 

truths  or  realities  ;  fjuopcfx^fxara  or  (fxoTLo-fxov^ — luminous,  shining  likenesses. 
The  latter  %xpression  shows  plainly  what  the  teraphim  were.  The 
Vulgate  translates  the  term  by  "  annuntientes,"  the  "  messengers  who 
announce,"  and  it  thus  becomes  certain  that  the  teraphim  were  the 
oracles.  They  were  the  animated  statues,  the  Gods  who  revealed 
themselves  to  the  masses  through  the  Initiated  Priests  and  Adepts  in 
the  Egyptian,  Chaldsean,  Greek,  and  other  temples. 

As  to  the  way  of  divining,  or  learning  one's  fate,  and  of  being  instructed 
by  the  teraphim, f  it  is  explained  quite  plainly  by  Maimonides  and 
Seldenas.     The  former  says  : 

The  worshippers  of  the  teraphim  claimed  that  the  light  of  the  principal  stars 
[planets],  penetrating  into  and  filling  the  carved  statue  through  and  through,  the 
angelic  virtue  [of  the  regents,  or  animating  principle  in  the  planets]  conversed 
with  them,  teaching  them  many  most  useful  arts  and  sciences. t 

In  his  turn  Seldenus  explains  the  same,  adding  that  the  teraphim§ 
were  built  and  fashioned  in  accordance  with  the  position  of  their  re- 
spective planets,  each  of  the  teraphim  being  consecrated  to  a  special 
"star-angel,"  those  that  the  Greeks  called  stoichae,  as  also  according  to 
figures  located  in  the  sky  and  called  the  "tutelary  Gods"  : 

Those  who  traced  out  the  (TToiyfio.  were  called  (TTOt;^£tcj/xaTi/coi  [or  the  diviners 
by  the  planets]  and  the  oToixeta.H 

Ammianus  Marcellinus  states  that  the  ancient  divinations  were  always 


•  Louis  de  Dieu,  Genesis,  xiczi.  19.    See  De  Mirville,  iii.  257. 

+  "  The  teraphim  of  Abram's  father,  Terah,  the  '  maker  of  images,'  were  the  Kabeiri  Gods,  and  we 
see  them  worshipped  by  Micah,  by  the  Danites,  and  others.  (Judges,  xvii.-xviii.,  etc.)  Teraphim  were 
identical  with  seraphim,  and  these  were  serpent  images,  the  origin  of  which  is  in  the  Sanskrit 
'Sarpa'  (the  'serpent')  a  symbol  sacred  to  all  the  deities  as  a  symbol  of  immortality.  Kiyun,  or 
the  God  Kivan,  worshipped  by  the  Hebrews  in  the  wilderness,  is  Shiva,  the  Hindu  Saturn.  (The 
Zendic  'h'  is  's'  in  India;  thus,  '  Hapta '  is  'Sapta;'  'Hindu'  is  'Sindhaya.'  (A.  Wilder) 
'The  -'s"  continually  softens  to  "h"  from  Greece  to  Calcutta,  from  the  Caucasus  to  Egypt,'  says 
Dunlap.  Therefore  the  letters  '  k,'  'h,'  and  's'  are  interchangeable.  The  Greek  story  shows  that 
Dardanus,  the  Arcadian,  having  received  them  as  a  dowry,  carried  them  to  Samothrace,  and  thence  to 
Troy ;  and  they  were  worshipped  long  before  the  days  of  glory  of  Tyre  or  Sidon,  though  the 
former  had  been  built  2760  b.c.    From  where  did  Dardanus  derive  them  ? "    Isis  Unveiled,  i.  570. 

X  Maimon,    Mare  Nevochim,  III.  xxx. 

(Those  dedicated  to  the  sun  were  made  in  gold,  and  those  to  the  moon  in  silver. 
\De  Diis  Syriis,  Teraph.    II.  Syat,  p.  31. 


THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

accomplished  with  the  help  of  the  "  spirits  "  of  the  elements  (spiritus 
elementorum),  or  as  they  are  called  in  Greek  -rrvev/xaTa  twv  o-Toi;^etW.  Now 
the  latter  are  not  the  "spirits"  of  the  stars  (planets),  nor  are  they 
divine  Beings  ;  they  are  simply  the  creatures  inhabiting  their  respective 
elements,  called  by  the  Kabalists,  elementary  spirits,  and  by  the  Theo- 
sophists  elementals.*    Father  Kircher,  the  Jesuit,  tells  the  reader : 

Every  god  had  such  instruments  of  divination  to  speak  through.  Each  had  his 
speciahty. 

Serapis  gave  instruction  on  agriculture ;  Anubis  taught  sciences ; 
Horus  advised  upon  ps5'chic  and  spiritual  matters  ;  Isis  was  consulted 
on  the  rising  of  the  Nile,  and  so  on.f 

This  historical  fact,  furnished  by  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  erudite 
among  the  Jesuits,  is  unfortunate  for  the  prestige  of  the  "  lyord  God  of 
Israel "  with  regard  to  his  claims  to  priority  and  to  his  being  the  one 
living  God.  Jehovah,  on  the  admission  of  the  Old  Testament  itself, 
conversed  with  his  elect  in  no  other  way,  and  this  places  him  on  a  par 
with  every  other  Pagan  God,  even  of  the  inferior  classes.  In  Judges, 
xvii.,  we  read  of  Micah  having  an  ephod  and  a  teraphim  fabricated,  and 
consecratingthem  to  Jehovah  (see  the  Septuagint  and  the  Vulgate) ;  these 
objects  were  made  by  a  founder  from  the  two  hundred  shekels  of  silver 
given  to  him  by  his  mother.  True,  King  James'  "  Holy  Bible"  explains 
this  little  bit  of  idolatry  by  saying : 

In  those  days  there  was  no  king  in  Israel,  but  every  man  did  that  which  was 
right  in  his  own  eyes. 

Yet  the  act  must  have  been  orthodox,  since  Micah,  after  hiring  a  priest, 
a  diviner,  for  his  ephod  and  teraphim,  declares  :  "  Now  know  I  that  the 
Lord  will  do  me  good."     And  if  Micah's  act — who 

Had  an  house  of  Gods,  and  made  an  ephod  and  teraphim  and  consecrated  one  of 
his  sons 

to  their  service,  as  also  to  that  of  the  "  graven  image  "  dedicated  "  unto 
the  Lord"  by  his  mother — now  seems  prejudicial,  it  was  not  so  in  those 
days  of  one  religion  and  one  lip.  How  can  the  Latin  Church  blame  the 
act,  since  Kircher,  one  of  her  best  writers,  calls  the  teraphim  "  the  holy 
instruments  of  primitive  revelations  ;  "  since  Genesis  shows  us  Rebecca 
going  "  to  enquire  of  the  Lord,"|  and  the  Lord  answering  her  (certainly 


•  Those  that  the  Kabalists  call  elementary  spirits  are  sylphs,  gnomes,  undines  and  salanwisders, 
nature-spirits,  in  short.    The  spirits  of  the  angels  formed  a  distinct  class. 
+  CEdipus,  ii.  444- 
t  Op.  cit.,  XXV.  22  et  seq. 


JEHOVAH    AND   TERAPHIM.  237 

through  his  teraphim),  and  delivering  to  her  several  prophecies  ?  And 
if  this  be  not  sufficient,  there  is  Saul,  who  deplores  the  silence  of  the 
ephod,*  and  David  who  consults  the  thummim,  and  receives  oral  advice 
from  the  I/)rd  as  to  the  best  way  of  killing  his  enemies. 

The  thummim  and  urim,  however — the  object  in  our  days  of  so  much 
conjecture  and  speculation — was  not  an  invention  of  the  Jews,  nor  had  it 
originated  with  them,  despite  the  minute  instruction  given  about  it 
by  Jehovah  to  Moses.  For  the  priest-hierophant  of  the  Eg>^ptian 
temples  wore  a  breastplate  of  precious  stones,  in  every  way  similar  to 
that  of  the  high  priest  of  the  Israelites. 

The  high-priests  of  Egypt  wore  suspended  on  their  necks  an  image  of  sapphire, 
called  Truth,  the  manifestation  of  truth  becoming  evident  in  it. 

Seldenus  is  not  the  only  Christian  writer  who  assimilates  the  Jewish 
to  the  Pagan  teraphim,  and  expressed  a  conviction  that  the  former  had 
borrowed  them  from  the  Egyptians.  Moreover,  we  are  told  by  DoUinger, 
a  preeminently  Roman  Catholic  writer : 

The  teraphim  were  used  and  remained  in  many  Jewish  families  to  the  days  of 
Josiah.t 

As  to  the  personal  opinion  of  Bollinger,  a  Papist,  and  of  Seldenus,  a 
Protestant — both  of  whom  trace  Jehovah  in  the  teraphim  of  the  Jews 
and  "  evil  spirits  "  in  those  of  the  Pagans — it  is  the  usual  one-sided 
judgment  of  odium  theologicum  and  sectarianism.  Seldenus  is  right, 
however,  in  arguing  that  in  the  days  of  old,  all  such  modes  of  communi- 
cation had  been  primarily  established  for  purposes  of  divine  and  angelic 
communications  only.     But 

The  holy  Spirit  (spirits,  rather)  spake  [not]  to  the  children  of  Israel  [alone]  by 
urim  and  thummim,  while  the  tabernacle  remained, 

as  Dr.  A.  Cruden  would  have  people  believe.  Nor  had  the  Jews  alone 
need  of  a  "  tabernacle  "  for  such  a  kind  of  theophanic,  or  divine  com- 
munication ;  for  no  Bath-Kol  (or  "Daughter  of  the  divine  Voice"), 
called  thummim,  could  be  heard  whether  by  Jew,  Pagan,  or  Christian, 
were  there  not  a  fit  tabernacle  for  it.  The  "  tabernacle  "  was  simply 
the  archaic  telephone  of  those  days  of  Magic  when  Occult  powers  were 
acquired  by  Initiation,  just  as  they  are  now.     The  nineteenth  century 


*  The  ephod  was  a  linen  garment  worn  by  the  high  priest,  but  as  the  thummim  was  attached  to  it, 
the  entire  paraphernalia  of  divination  was  often  comprised  in  that  single  word,  ephod.  See 
I.  Sam.,  xxviii.  6,  and  xxx.  7,  8. 

+  Paganism  and  Judaiiin,  iv.  197. 


238  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

has  replaced  with  an  electric  telephone  the  "tabernacle"  of  specified 
metals,  wood,  and  special  arrangements,  and  has  natural  mediums 
instead  of  high  priests  and  hierophants.  Why  should  people  wonder, 
then,  that  instead  of  reaching  Planetary  Spirits  and  Gods,  believers 
should  now  communicate  with  no  greater  beings  than  elementals  and 
animated  shells — the  demons  of  Porphyry  ?  Who  these  were,  he  tells 
us  candidly  in  his  work  On  the  Good  and  Bad  Demons  : 

They  whose  ambition  is  to  be  taken  for  Gods,  and  whose  leader  demands  to  be 
recognized  as  the  Supreme  God. 

Most  decidedly — and  it  is  not  the  Theosophists  who  will  ever  deny 
the  fact — there  are  good  as  well  as  bad  spirits,  beneficent  and 
malevolent  "  Gods  "  in  all  ages.  The  whole  trouble  was,  and  still  is,  to 
know  which  is  which.  And  this,  we  maintain,  the  Christian  Church 
knows  no  more  than  her  profane  flock.  If  anything  proves  this,  it  is, 
most  decidedly,  the  numberless  theological  blunders  made  in  this 
direction.  It  is  idle  to  call  the  Gods  of  the  heathen  "devils,"  and 
then  to  copy  their  symbols  in  such  a  servile  manner,  enforcing  the 
distinction  between  the  good  and  the  bad  with  no  weightier  proof 
than  that  they  are  respectively  Christian  and  Pagan.  The  planets — 
the  elements  of  the  Zodiac — have  not  figured  only  at  Heliopolis  as  the 
twelve  stones  called  the  "mysteries  of  the  elements"  (elementorum 
arcana).  On  the  authority  of  many  an  orthodox  Christian  writer  they 
were  found  also  in  Solomon's  temple,  and  may  be  seen  to  this  day  in 
several  old  Italian  churches,  and  even  in  Notre  Dame  of  Paris. 

One  would  really  say  that  the  warning  in  Clement's  Stromateis  has 
been  given  in  vain,  though  he  is  supposed  to  quote  words  pronounced 
by  St.  Peter.     He  says  : 

Do  not  adore  God  as  the  Jews  do,  who  think  they  are  the  only  ones  to  know 
Deity  and  fail  to  perceive  that,  instead  of  God,  they  are  worshipping  angels,  the 
lunar  months,  and  the  moon.* 

Who  after  reading  the  above  can  fail  to  feel  surprise  that,  notwith- 
standing such  understanding  of  the  Jewish  mistake,  the  Christians  are 
still  worshipping  the  Jewish  Jehovah,  the  Spirit  who  spoke  through  his 
teraphim  !  That  this  is  so,  and  that  Jehovah  was  simply  the  "  tutelary 
genius,"  or  spirit,  of  the  people  of  Israel — only  one  of  the  pneumata  ton 
stoicheion  (or  "great  spirits  of  the  elements"),  not  even  a  high 
"Planetary" — is    demonstrated  on    the  authority  of  St.  Paul   and   of 

•  op.  cil.,  I.  vi.  5. 


IDOL  OF  THE   MOON.  23^ 

Clemens  Alexandrinus,  if  the  words  they  use  have  any  meaning.  With 
the  latter,  the  word  o-roixcta  signifies  not  only  elements,  but  also 

Generative  cosmological  principles,  and  notably  the  signs  [or  constellations]  of 
the  Zodiac,  of  the  months,  days,  the  sun  and  the  moon.* 

The  expression  is  used  by  Aristotle  in  the  same  sense.  He  says, 
Twv  aarpiLv  oTotx"a,f  while  Diogenes  Laertius  calls  SwScKa  a-TotxeCa,  the 
twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac.  :J:  Now  having  the  positive  evidence  of 
Ammianus  Marcellinus  to  the  effect  that 

Ancient  divination  was  always  accomplished  with  the  help  of  the  spirits  of  the 
elements, 

or  the  same  irvea.fj.aTa  Tw  o-Toix«wv,  and  seeing  in  the  Bible  numerous 
passages  that  (a)  the  Israelites,  including  Saul  and  David,  resorted  to 
the  same  divination,  and  used  the  same  means  ;  and  (d)  that  it  was 
their  "Lord" — namely,  Jehovah — who  answered  them,  what  else  can 
we  believe  Jehovah  to  be  than  a  "  spiritus  elementorum"  ? 

Hence  one  sees  no  great  difference  between  the  *'  idol  of  the  moon  " 
— the  Chaldaean  teraphim  through  which  spoke  Saturn — and  the  idol 
of  urim  and  thummim,  the  organ  of  Jehovah.  Occult  rites,  scientific 
at  the  beginning — and  forming  the  most  solemn  and  sacred  of  sciences 
— have  fallen  through  the  degeneration  of  mankind  into  Sorcer>%  now 
called  "superstition."     As  Diogenes  explains  in  his  History  : 

The  Kaldhi,  having  made  long  observations  on  the  planets  and  knowing  better 
than  anyone  else  the  meaning  of  their  motions  and  their  influences,  predict  to 
people  their  futurity.  They  regard  their  doctrine  of  'CQ.^five  great  orbs — which  they 
call  interpreters,  and  we,  planets — as  the  most  important.  And  though  they  allege 
that  it  is  the  sun  that  furnishes  them  with  most  of  the  predictions  for  great  forth- 
coming events,  yet  they  worship  more  particularly  Saturn.  Such  predictions  made 
to  a  number  of  kings,  especially  to  Alexander,  Antigonus,  Seleucus,  Nicanor,  etc., 
.  .  have  been  so  marvellously  realised  that  people  were  struck  with  admira- 
tion. § 

It  follows  from  the  above  that  the  declaration  made  by  Qu-tamy,  the 
Chaldaean  Adept — to  the  effect  that  all  that  he  means  to  impart  in  his 
work  to  the  profane  had  been  told  by  Saturn  to  the  moon,  by  the  latter  to 
her  idol,  and  by  that  idol,  or  teraphim,  to  himself,  the  scribe — no  more 
implied  idolatry  than  did  the  practice  of  the  same  method  by  King 


*  Discourse  to  the  Gentiles,  p.  146. 

■I-  De  Gener.,  I.  II.  iv. 

t  See  Cosmos,  by  Menage,  I.,  vi.,  \  101. 

{  Op.  cit.,  I.  ii. 


240  THE  SECRET   D0CTRINE. 

David.  One  fails  to  perceive  in  it,  therefore,  either  an  apocrypha  or 
a  "  fairy-tale."  The  above-named  Chaldaean  Initiate  lived  at  a  period 
far  anterior  to  that  ascribed  to  Moses,  in  whose  day  the  Sacred  Science 
of  the  sanctuary  was  still  in  a  flourishing  condition.  It  began  to 
decline  only  when  such  scoffers  as  Lucian  had  been  admitted,  and  the 
pearls  of  the  Occult  Science  had  been  too  often  thrown  to  the  hungry 
dogs  of  criticism  and  ignorance. 


SECTION  XXVII. 

Egyptian  Magic. 


Few  of  our  students  ot  Occultism  have  had  the  opportunity  of 
examining  Egyptian  papyri — those  living,  or  rather  re-arisen 
witnesses  that  Magic,  good  and  bad,  was  practised  many  thousands 
of  years  bacls:  into  the  night  of  time.  The  use  of  the  papyrus  prevailed 
up  to  the  eighth  century  of  our  era,  when  it  was  given  up,  and  its 
fabrication  fell  into  disuse.  The  most  curious  of  the  exhumed  docu- 
ments were  immediately  purchased  and  taken  away  from  the  countr^^ 
Yet  there  are  a  number  of  beautifully-preserved  papyri  at  Bulak,  Cairo, 
though  the  greater  number  have  never  been  yet  properly  read.* 

Others — those  that  have  been  carried  awa}'  and  may  be  found  in  the 
museums  and  public  libraries  of  Europe — have  fared  no  better.  In  the 
days  of  the  Vicomte  de  Rouge,  some  twenty-five  j^ears  ago,  only  a  few 
of  them  "  were  two-thirds  deciphered  ;  "  and  among  those  some  most 
interesting  legends,  inserted  parenthetically  and  for  purposes  of 
explaining  royal  expenses,  are  in  the  Register  of  the  Sacred  Accounts. 

This  may  be  verified  in  the  so-called  "Harris"  and  Anastasi  collections, 
and  in  some  papyri  recently  exhumed  ;  one  of  these  gives  an  account 
of  a  whole  series  of  magic  feats  performed  before  the  Pharaohs  Ramses 
II.  and  III.  A  curious  document,  the  first-mentioned,  truly.  It  is  a 
papyrus  of  the  fifteenth  century  B.C.,  written  during  the  reign  of 
Ramses  V.,  the  last  king  of  the  eighteenth  dynasty,  and  is  the  work 
of  the  scribe  Thoutmes,  who    notes   down    some  of  the  events  with 

•  "The  characters  employed  ou  those  parchments,"  writes  De  Mirville,  "are  sometimes  hierogly- 
phics, placed  perpendicularly,  a  kind  of  lineary  tachygraphy  (abridged  characters),  where  the  image 
is  often  reduced  to  a  simple  stroke  ;  at  other  times  placed  in  horizontal  lines  ;  then  the  hieratic  or  sacred 
writing,  going  from  right  to  left  as  in  all  Semitic  languages ;  lastly,  the  characters  of  the  country, 
used  for  oflBcial  documents,  mostly  contracts,  etc.,  but  which  since  the  Ptolemies  has  been  also 
adopted  for  the  monuments,"  v.  8i,  82.  A  copy  of  the  Harris  papyrus,  translated  by  Chabas — 
Papyrus  magique — may  be  studied  at  the  British  Museum. 


242  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

regard  to  defaulters  occurring  on  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  days  of 
the  month  of  Paophs.  The  document  shows  that  in  those  days  of 
"miracles"  in  Egypt  the  taxpayers  were  not  found  among  the  living 
alone,  but  ever>'  mummy  was  included.  All  and  everything  was  taxed  ; 
and  the  Khou  of  the  mummy,  in  default,  was  punished  "by  the  priest- 
exorciser,  who  deprived  it  of  the  liberty  of  action."  Now  what  was 
the  Khou  ?  Simply  the  astral  body,  or  the  aerial  simulacrum  of  the 
corpse  or  the  mummy — that  which  in  China  is  called  the  Hauen,  and 
in  India  the  Bhut. 

Upon  reading  this  papyrus  to-day,  an  Orientalist  is  pretty  sure  to 
fling  it  aside  in  disgust,  attributing  the  whole  affair  to  the  crass  super- 
stition of  the  ancients.  Truly  phenomenal  and  inexplicable  must  have 
been  the  dullness  and  credulity  of  that  otherwise  highly  philosophical 
and  civilized  nation  if  it  could  carry  on  for  so  many  consecutive  ages, 
for  thousands  of  years,  such  a  system  of  mutual  deception .'  A  system 
whereby  the  people  were  deceived  by  the  priests,  the  priests  by 
their  King-Hierophants,  and  the  latter  themselves  were  cheated  by 
the  ghosts,  which  were,  in  their  turn,  but  "  the  fruits  of  hallucination." 
The  whole  of  antiquity,  from  Menes  to  Cleopatra,  from  Manu  to 
Vikramaditya,  from  Orpheus  down  to  the  last  Roman  augur,  were 
h)^sterical,  we  are  told.  This  must  have  been  so,  if  the  whole  were 
not  a  system  of  fraud.  Life  and  death  were  guided  by,  and  were  under 
the  .sway  of,  sacred  "conjuring."  For  there  is  hardly  a  papyrus, 
though  it  be  a  simple  document  of  purchase  and  sale,  a  deed  belonging 
to  daily  transactions  of  the  most  ordinary  kind,  that  has  not  Magic, 
white  or  black,  mixed  up  in  it.  It  looks  as  though  the  sacred  scribes 
of  the  Nile  had  purposely,  and  in  a  prophetic  spirit  of  race-hatred,  carried 
out  the  (to  them)  most  unprofitable  task  of  deceiving  and  puzzling  the 
generations  of  a  future  white  race  of  unbelievers  yet  unborn  !  Anyhow, 
the  papyri  are  full  of  Magic,  as  are  likewise  the  stelae.  We  learn, 
moreover,  that  the  papyrus  was  not  merely  a  smooth-surfaced  parch- 
ment, a  fabric  made  of 

Ivigneous  matter  from  a  shrub,  the  pellicles  of  which  superposed  one  over  the 
other  formed  a  kiud  of  writing-paper; 

but  that  the  shrub  itself,  the  implements  and  tools  for  fabricating  the 
parchment,  etc.,  were  all  previously  subjected  to  a  process  of  magical 
preparation — according  to  the  ordinance  of  the  Gods,  who  had  taught 
that  art,  as  they  had  all  others,  to  their  Priest- Hierophants. 

There  are,  however,  some  modern  Orientalists  who  seem  to  have  an 


EVIDENCE   OF  PAPYRI.  243 

inkling  of  the  true  nature  of  such  things,  and  especially  of  the  analogy 
and  the  relations  that  exist  between  the  Magic  of  old  and  our  modern- 
day  phenomena.  Chabas  is  one  of  these,  for  he  indulges,  in  his  trans- 
lation of  the  "  Harris  "  papyrus,  in  the  following  reflections : 

Without  ha\ang  recourse  to  the  imposing  ceremonies  of  the  wand  of  Hermes,  or 
to  the  obscure  formulae  of  an  unfathomable  mysticism,  a  mesmerizer  in  our  own 
day  will,  by  means  of  a  few  passes,  disturb  the  organic  faculties  of  a  subject,  incul- 
cate the  knowledge  of  foreign  languages,  transport  him  to  a  far-distant  country,  or 
into  secret  places,  make  him  guess  the  thoughts  of  those  absent,  read  in  closed 
letters,  etc.  .  .  .  The  antre  of  the  moderri  sybil  is  a  modest-looking  room, 
the  tripod  has  made  room  for  a  small  round  table,  a  hat,  a  plate,  a  piece  of  furni- 
ture of  the  most  vulgar  kind;  only  the  latter  is  even  superior  to  the  oracle  of  anti- 
quity [how  does  M.  Chabas  know?],  inasmuch  as  the  latter  only  spoke,*  while  the 
oracle  of  our  day  writes  its  answers.  At  the  command  of  the  medium  the  spirits  of 
the  dead  descend  to  make  the  furniture  creak,  and  the  authors  of  bygone  centuries 
deliver  to  lis  works  written  b}'  them  bej-ond  the  grave.  Human  credulity  has  no 
narrower  limits  to-day  than  it  had  at  the  dawn  of  historical  times.  ...  As 
teratology  is  an  essential  part  of  general  physiology  now,  so  the  pretended  Occult 
Sciences  occupy  in  the  annals  of  humanity  a  place  which  is  not  without  its  impor- 
tance, and  deserve  for  more  than  one  reason  the  attention  of  the  philosopher  and 
the  historian. t 

Selecting  the  two  Champollions,  Lenormand,  Bunsen,  Vicomte  de 
Rouge,  and  several  other  Egyptologists  to  serve  as  our  witnesses,  let  us 
see  what  they  say  of  Egyptian  Magic  and  Sorcery.  They  may  get  out 
of  the  difiicult}''  b)'  accounting  for  each  "  superstitious  belief"  and 
practice  b}'  attributing  them  to  a  chronic  psychological  and  physio- 
logical derangement,  and  to  collective  hj-'steria,  if  they  like  ;  still  facts 
are  there,  staring  us  in  the  face,  from  the  hundreds  of  these  mysterious 
papyri,  exhumed  after  a  rest  of  four,  five,  and  more  thousands  of  years, 
with  their  magical  containments  and  evidence  of  antediluvian  Magic. 

A  small  library,  found  at  Thebes,  has  furnished  fragments  of  every 
kind  of  ancient  literature,  many  of  which  are  dated,  and  several  of 
which  have  thus  been  assigned  to  the  accepted  age  of  Moses.  Books 
or  manuscripts  on  ethics,  history,  religion  and  medicine,  calendars  and 

•  And  what  of  the  "Mene,  mene,  tekel,  upharsin,"  the  words  that  "  the  fingers  of  a  man's  hand," 
whose  body  and  arm  remained  in\'isible,  wrote  on  the  walls  of  Belshazzar's  palace?  {Daniel,  v.) 
What  of  the  writings  of  Simon  the  Magician,  and  the  magic  characters  on  the  walls  and  in  the  air  of 
the  crypts  of  Initiation,  without  mentioning  the  tables  of  stone  on  which  the  finger  of  God  wrote  the 
commandments  ?  Between  the  writisg  of  one  God  and  other  Gods  the  difference,  if  any,  lies  only  in 
their  respective  natures  ;  and  if  the  tree  is  to  be  known  by  its  fruits,  then  preference  would  have  to  be 
given  always  to  the  Pagan  Gods.  It  is  the  immortal  "  To  be  or  not  to  be."  Either  all  of  them  are— 
or  at  any  rate,  may  be— true,  or  all  are  surely  pious  frauds  and  the  result  of  credulity. 

+  Papyrus  Magique,  p.  186. 


244  '^'^^  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

registers,  poems  and  novels — ever3^thing — may  be  had  in  that  precious 
collection ;  and  old  legends — traditions  of  long  forgotten  ages  (please 
to  remark  this:  legends  recorded  during  the  Mosaic  period) — are  already- 
referred  to  therein  as  belonging  to  an  immense  antiquity,  to  the  period 
of  the  dynasties  of  Gods  and  Giants.  Their  chief  contents,  how- 
ever, are  formulae  of  exorcisms  against  black  Magic,  and  funeral 
rituals  :  true  breviaries,  or  the  vade  ineaim  of  every  pilgrim-traveller  in 
eternity.  These  funeral  texts  are  generally  written  in  hieratic  charac- 
ters. At  the  head  of  the  papyrus  is  invariably  placed  a  series  of 
scenes,  showing  the  defunct  appearing  before  a  host  of  Deities  succes- 
sively, who  have  to  examine  him.  Then  comes  the  judgment  of  the 
Soul,  while  the  third  act  begins  with  the  launching  of  that  Soul  into 
the  divine  light.     Such  papyri  are  often  forty  feet  long.* 

The  following  is  extracted  from  general  descriptions.  It  will  show 
how  the  moderns  understand  and  interpret  Egyptian  (and  other) 
Symbology. 

The  papyrus  of  the  priest  Nevo-loo  (or  Nevolen),  at  the  Louvre,  may 
be  selected  for  one  case.  First  of  all  there  is  the  bark  carrying  the 
coffin,  a  black  chest  containing  the  defunct's  mummy.  His  mother, 
Ammenbem-Heb,  and  his  sister,  Hooissanoob,  are  near ;  at  the  head  and 
feet  of  the  corpse  stand  Nephtys  and  Isis  clothed  i-n  red,  and  near 
them  a  priest  of  Osiris  clad  in  his  panther's  skin,  his  censer  in  his  right 
hand,  and  four  assistants  carrying  the  mummy's  intestines.  The  coffin 
is  received  by  the  God  Anubis  (of  the  jackal's  head),  from  the  hands  of 
female  weepers.  Then  the  Soul  rises  from  its  mummy  and  the  Khou 
(astral  body)  of  the  defunct.  The  former  begins  its  worship  of  the 
four  genii  of  the  East,  of  the  sacred  birds,  and  of  Ammon  as  a  ram. 
Brought  into  the  "  Palace  of  Truth,"  the  defunct  is  before  his  judges. 
While  the  Soul,  a  scarabaeus,  stands  in  the  presence  of  Osiris,  his  astral 
Khou  is  at  the  door.  Much  laughter  is  provoked  in  the  West  by  the 
invocations  to  various  Deities,  presiding  over  each  of  the  limbs  of  the 
mummy,  and  of  the  living  human  body.  Onl}^  judge:  in  the  papyrus 
of  the  mummy  Petamenoph  "  the  anatomy  becomes  theographical," 
"  astrology  is  applied  to  physiolog5%"  or  rather  "to  the  anatomy  of  the 
human  body,  the  heart  and  the  soul."  The  defunct's  "  hair  belongs  to 
the  Nile,  his  eyes  to  Venus  (Isis),  his  ears  to  Macedo,  the  guardian  of 
the  tropics ;  his  nose  to  Anubis,  his  left  temple  to  the  Spirit  dwelling 


See  Maspero's  Guide  to  the  Bulak  Museum,  among  others. 


SYMBOLS   AND   THEIR   READING. 


245 


in  the  sun.  .  .  .  What  a  series  of  intolerable  absurdities  and  ignoble 
prayers  ...  to  Osiris,  imploring  him  to  give  the  defunct  in  the 
other  world,  geese,  eggs,  pork,  etc."  * 

It  might  have  been  prudent,  perhaps,  to  have  waited  to  ascertain 
whether  all  these  terms  of  "  geese,  eggs,  and  pork"  had  not  some  other 
Occult  meaning.  The  Indian  Yogi  who,  in  an  exoteric  work,  is  invited 
to  drink  a  certain  intoxicating  liquor  till  he  loses  his  senses,  was  also 
regarded  as  a  drunkard  representing  his  sect  and  class,  until  it  was 
found  that  the  Esoteric  sense  of  that  "  spirit  "  was  quite  different :  that 
it  meant  divine  light,  and  stood  for  the  ambrosia  of  Secret  Wisdom. 
The  symbols  of  the  dove  and  the  lamb  which  abound  now  in  Eastern 
and  Western  Christian  Churches  may  also  be  exhumed  long  ages  hence, 
and  speculated  upon  as  objects  of  present-day  worship.  And  then  some 
"  Occidentalist,''  in  the  forthcoming  ages  of  high  Asiatic  civilization 
and  learning,  may  write  karmically  upon  the  same  as  follows :  "  The 
ignorant  and  superstitious  Gnostics  and  Agnostics  of  the  sects  of 
'  Pope'  and  '  Calvin  '  (the  two  monster  Gods  of  the  Dynamite-Christian 
period)  adored  a  pigeon  and  a  sheep !  "  There  will  be  portable  hand- 
fetishes  in  all  and  every  age  for  the  satisfaction  and  reverence  of  the 
rabble,  and  the  Gods  of  one  race  will  always  be  degraded  into  devils  by 
the  next  one.  The  cycles  revolve  within  the  depths  of  Lethe,  and 
Karma  shall  reach  Europe  as  it  has  Asia  and  her  religions. 

Nevertheless, 

This  grand  and  dignified  language  [in  the  Book  of  the  Dead],  these  pictures  full  of 
majesty,  this  orthodoxy  of  the  whole  evidently  proving  a  very  precise  doctrine 
concerning  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  its  personal  survival, 

as  shown  by  De  Rouge  and  the  Abbe  Van  Drival,  have  charmed  some 
Orientalists.  The  psychostasy  (or  judgment  of  the  Soul)  is  certainly  a 
whole  poem  to  him  who  can  read  it  correctly  and  interpret  the  images 
therein.  In  that  picture  we  see  Osiris,  the  horned,  with  his  sceptre 
hooked  at  the  end — the  original  of  the  pastoral  bishop's  crook  or  crosier 
— the  Soul  hovering  above,  encouraged  by  Tmei,  daughter  of  the  Sun 
of  Righteousness  and  Goddess  of  Mercy  and  Justice ;  Horus  and 
Anubis,  weighing  the  deeds  of  the  soul.  One  of  these  papyri  shows 
the  Soul  found  guilty  of  gluttony  sentenced  to  be  re-born  on  earth  as 
a    hog ;    forthwith    comes  the  learned  conclusion   of  an  Orientalist, 


De  Mirville  (from  whom  much  of  the  preceding  is  taken),  v.  81,  85. 


246  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

"  This  is  an  indisputable  proof  of  belief   in   vietempsychosis,   of  trans- 
migration into  animals,''  etc. 

Perchance  the  Occult  law  of  Karma  might  explain  the  sentence 
otherwise.  It  may,  for  all  our  Orientalists  know,  refer  to  the  physio- 
logical vice  in  store  for  the  Soul  when  re-incarnated — a  vice  that  will 
lead  that  personality  into  a  thousand  and  one  scrapes  and  mis- 
adventures. 

Tortures  to  begin  with,  then  metempsychosis  during 2>,oqo  years,  as  a  hawk,  an  angel, 
a  lotus-flower,  a  heron,  a  stork,  a  swallow,  a  serpent,  and  a  crocodile :  one  sees  that 
the  consolation  of  such  a  progress  was  far  from  being  satisfactory, 

argues  De  Mirville,  in  his  work  on  the  Satanic  character  of  the  Gods 
of  Egypt.*  Again,  a  simple  suggestion  may  throw  on  this  a  great 
light.  Are  the  Orientalists  quite  sure  they  have  read  correctly  the 
"metempsychosis  during  3,000  years"?  The  Occult  Doctrine  teaches 
that  Karma  waits  at  the  threshold  of  Devachan  (the  Amenti  of 
the  Egyptians)  for  3,000  years ;  that  then  the  eternal  Ego  is  reincar- 
nated dc  ?iovo,  to  be  punished  in  its  new  temporary  personality  for 
sins  committed  in  the  preceding  birth,  and  the  suffering  for  which, 
in  one  shape  or  another,  will  atone  for  past  misdeeds.  And  the 
hawk,  the  lotus-flower,  the  heron,  serpent,  or  bird — ever>^  object  in 
Nature,  in  short — had  its  symbolical  and  manifold  meaning  in  ancient 
religious  emblems.  The  man  who  all  his  life  acted  hypocritically  and 
passed  for  a  good  man,  but  had  been  in  sober  reality  watching  like  a 
bird  of  prey  his  chance  to  pounce  upon  his  fellow-creatures,  and  had 
deprived  them  of  their  property,  will  be  sentenced  by  Karma  to  bear 
the  punishment  for  hypocrisy  and  covetousness  in  a  future  life.  What 
will  it  be  ?  Since  every  human  unit  has  ultimately  to  progress  in  its 
evolution,  and  since  that  "  man  "  will  be  reborn  at  some  future  time  as 
a  good,  sincere,  well-meaning  man,  his  sentence  to  be  re-incarnated  as 
a  hawk  may  simply  mean  that  he  will  then  be  regarded  metaphorically 
as  such.  That,  notwithstanding  his  real,  good,  intrinsic  qualities,  he 
will,  perhaps  during  a  long  life,  be  unjustly  and  falsely  charged  with 
and  suspected  of  greed  and  hypocrisy  and  of  secret  exactions,  all  of 
which  will  make  him  suffer  more  than  he  can  bear.  The  law  of  retri- 
bution can  never  err,  and  yet  how  many  such  innocent  victims  of  false 
appearance  and  human  malice  do  we  not  meet  in  this  world  of  in- 
cessant illusion,  of  mistake  and  deliberate  wickedness.     We  see  them 

*  See  De  Mirville,  v.  84,  85. 


REBIRTH   AND   TRANSMIGRATION.  247 

every  day,  and  they  may  be  found  within  the  personal  experience  of 
each  of  us.  What  Orientalist  can  say  with  any  degree  of  assurance 
that  he  has  understood  the  religions  of  old  ?  The  metaphorical  lan- 
guage of  the  priests  has  never  been  more  than  superficially'  revealed, 
and  the  hieroglj^phics  have  been  ver\'  poorly  mastered  to  this  day.* 

What  says  /sis  Unveiled  on  this  question  of  Eg3'ptian  rebirth  and 
transmigration,  and  does  it  clash  with  anj'^thing  that  we  say  now  ? 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  philosophj-  of  cycles,  which  was  allegorized  by  the 
Egyptian  Hierophants  in  the  "cycle  of  necessity,"  explains  at  the  same  time  the 
allegory  of  the  "Fall  of  Man."  According  to  the  Arabian  descriptions,  each  of 
the  seven  chambers  of  the  pyramids — those  grandest  of  all  cosmic  symbols — was 
known  by  the  name  of  a  planet.  The  peculiar  architecture  of  the  pyramids  shows 
in  itself  the  drift  of  the  metaphjsical  thought  of  their  builders.  The  apex  is  lost 
in  the  clear  blue  sky  of  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs,  and  typifies  the  primordial  point 
lost  in  the  unseen  Universe  from  whence  started  the  first  race  of  the  spiritual 
prototj-pes  of  man.  Each  mummy  from  the  moment  that  it  was  embalmed  lost  its 
physical  indi\'iduality  in  one  seuse :  it  symbolised  the  human  race.  Placed  in  such 
a  way  as  was  best  calculated  to  aid  the  exit  of  the  "Soul,"  the  latter  had  to  pass 
through  the  seven  planetary  chambers  before  it  made  its  exit  through  the  sym- 
bolical apex.  Each  chamber  typified,  at  the  same  time,  one  of  the  seven  spheres 
[of  our  Chain]  and  one  of  the  seven  higher  tj^pes  of  physico-spiritual  humanit}' 
alleged  to  be  above  our  own.  Every  3000  years  the  soul,  representative  of  its  race, 
had  to  return  to  its  primal  point  of  departure  before  it  underwent  another  evolution 
into  a  more  perfected  spiritual  and  physical  transformation.  We  must  go  deep 
indeed  into  the  abstruse  metaphysics  of  Oriental  mysticism  before  we  can  realise 
fully  the  infinitude  of  the  subjects  that  were  embraced  at  one  sweep  by  the  majestic 
thought  of  its  e.xponents.t 

This  is  all  Magic  when  once  the  details  are  given  ;  and  it  relates  at 
the  same  time  to  the  evolution  of  our  seven  Root-Races,  each  with  the 
characteristics  of  its  special  guardian  or  "God,"  and  his  Planet.  The 
astral  body  of  each  Initiate,  after  death,  had  to  reenact  in  its  funeral 
mystery  the  drama  of  the  birth  and  death  of  each  Race — the  past  and 
the  future — and  pass  through  the  seven  "planetary  chambers,"  which, 
as  said  above,  typified  also  the  seven  spheres  of  our  Chain. 
The  mystic  doctrine  of  Eastern  Occultism  teaches  that 
"  The  Spiritual  Ego  \jiot  the  astral  Khou~\  has  to  revisit,  before  it  in- 
carnates into  a  new  body,  the  scenes  it  left  at  its  last  disincarnation.     It 

*  One  sees  this  difficulty  arise  even  with  a  perfectly  known  language  like  Sanskrit,  the  meaning  of 
which  is  far  easier  to  comprehend  than  the  hieratic  %vritings  of  Egypt.  Everyone  knows  how  hope- 
lessly the  Sanskritists  are  often  puzzled  over  the  real  meaning  and  how  they  fail  in  rendering  the 
meaning  correctly  in  their  respective  translations,  in  which  one  Orientalist  contradicts  the  other. 

+  Op.  cit.,  i.  297. 


248  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

has  to  see  for  itself  and  take  copiizance  of  all  the  effects  produced  by 
the  causes  \Jhe  Nidanas^  generated  by  its  actions  in  a  previous  life;  that, 
seeing,  it  should  recognize  the  justice  of  the  decree,  and  help  the  law  of  Retri- 
bution {^Karma']  instead  of  impedi?ig  it."* 

The  translations  by  Vicomte  de  Rouge  of  several  Eg5^ptian  papj^ri, 
imperfect  as  they  may  be,  give  us  one  advantage :  they  show  undeni- 
ably the  presence  in  them  of  white,  divine  Magic,  as  well  as  of 
Sorcery,  and  the  practice  of  both  throughout  all  the  dynasties.  The 
Book  of  the  Dead,  far  older  than  Genesis\  or  any  other  book  of  the  Old 
Testament,  shows  it  in  every  line.  It  is  full  of  incessant  prayers  and 
exorcisms  against  the  Black  Art.  Therein  Osiris  is  the  conqueror 
of  the  "aerial  demons."  The  worshipper  implores  his  help  against 
Matat,  "from  whose  eye  proceeds  the  invisible  arrow."  This  "invisible 
arrow"  that  proceeds  from  the  eye  of  the  Sorcerer  (whether  living  or 
dead)  and  that  "circulates  throughout  the  world,"  is  the  evil  eye — 
cosmic  in  its  origin,  terrestrial  in  its  effects  on  the  microcosmical  plane. 
It  is  not  the  Latin  Christians  whom  it  behoves  to  view  this  as  a  super- 
stition. Their  Church  indulges  in  the  same  belief,  and  has  even  a 
prayer  against  the  "arrow  circulating  in  darkness." 

The  most  interesting  of  all  those  documents,  however,  is  the 
"Harris"  papyrus,  called  in  France  ^'le  papyrus  tnagique  de  Chabas," 
as  it  was  first  translated  by  the  latter.  It  is  a  manuscript  written  in 
hieratic  characters,  translated,  commented  upon,  and  published  in 
i860  by  M.  Chabas,  but  purchased  at  Thebes  in  1855  by  Mr.  Harris. 
Its  age  is  given  at  between  twentj^-eight  and  thirty  centuries.  We 
quote  a  few  extracts  from  these  translations: 

Calendar  of  lucky  and  unlucky  days :  .  .  •  He  who  makes  a  bull  work  on  the 
20th  of  the  month  of  Pharmuths  will  surely  die ;  he  who  on  the  24th  day  of  the 
same  month  pronounces  the  name  of  Seth  aloud  will  see  trouble  reigning  in  his 
house  from  that  day ;  ...  he  who  on  the  5th  day  of  Patchous  leaves  his  house 
falls  sick  and  dies. 
Exclaims  the  translator,  whose  cultured  instincts  are  revolted  : 
If  one  had  not  these  words  under  our  eyes,  one  could  never  believe  in  such  ser\n- 
tude  at  the  epoch  of  the  Ramessides.+ 

•  Book  II.,  Commentary. 

t  Bunsen  and  ChampoUion  so  declare,  and  Dr.  Carpenter  says  that  the  Book  of  the  Dead,  .sculptured 
on  the  oldest  monuments,  with  "  the  very  phra.ses  we  find  in  the  New  Testament  in  connection  with 
the  Day  of  Judgment  .  .  .  was  engraved  probably  2,000  years  before  the  time  of  Christ."  (See 
Isis  Unveiled,  i.,  518.) 

t  De  Minrille,  v.  88.  Just  such  a  calendar  and  horoscope  interdictions  exist  in  India  in  our  day,  as 
well  as  in  China  and  all  the  Buddliist  countries. 


THE   EGYPTIAN   KHOUS.  249 

We  belong  to  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  and  are 
therefore  at  the  height  of  civilization,  and  under  the  benign  sway  and 
enlightening  influence  of  the  Christian  Church,  instead  of  being 
subject  to  the  Pagan  Gods  of  old.  Nevertheless  we  personally  know 
dozens,  and  have  heard  of  hundreds,  of  educated,  highly-intellectual 
persons  who  would  as  soon  think  of  committing  suicide  as  of  starting 
on  any  business  on  a  Friday,  of  dining  at  a  table  where  thirteen  sit 
down,  or  of  beginning  a  long  journey  on  a  Monday.  Napoleon  the 
Great  became  pale  when  he  saw  three  candles  lit  on  a  table.  Moreover, 
we  may  gladly  concur  with  De  Mirv'ille  in  this,  at  any  rate,  that  such 
"superstitions"  are  "the  outcome  of  observation  and  experience."  If 
the  former  had  never  agreed  with  facts,  the  authority  of  the  Calendar, 
he  thinks,  would  not  have  lasted  for  a  week.     But  to  resume : 

Genethliacal  influences  :  The  child  born  on  the  5th  day  of  Paophi  will  be  killed 
by  a  bull ;  on  the  27th  by  a  serpent.  Born  on  the  4th  of  the  month  of  Athyr,  he  will 
succumb  to  blows. 

This  is  a  question  of  horoscopic  predictions;  judiciary  astrology  is 
firmly  believed  in  in  our  own  age,  and  has  been  proven  to  be  scientifi- 
cally possible  by  Kepler. 

Of  the  Khous  two  kinds  were  distinguished :  first,  the  justified 
Khous,  i.e.,  those  who  had  been  absolved  from  sin  by  Osiris  when  they 
were  brought  before  his  tribunal ;  these  lived  a  second  life.  Secondly, 
there  were  the  guilty  Khous,  "the  Khous  dead  a  second  time;"  these 
were  the  damned.  Second  death  did  not  annihilate  them,  but  they 
were  doomed  to  wander  about  and  to  torture  people.  Their  existence 
had  phases  analogous  to  those  of  the  living  man,  a  bond  so  intimate 
between  the  dead  and  the  living  that  one  sees  how  the  observation 
of  religious  funeral  rites  and  exorcisms  and  prayers  (or  rather  magic 
incantations)  should  have  become  necessary.*    Says  one  prayer: 

Do  not  permit  that  the  venom  should  master  his  limbs  [of  the  defunct],  .  .  . 
that  he  should  be  penetrated  by  any  male  dead,  or  any  female  dead ;  or  that  the 
shadow  of  any  spirit  should  haunt  him  (or  her).t 

M.  Chabas  adds : 

These  Khous  were  beings  of  that  kind  to  which  human  beings  belong  after  their 
death ;  they  were  exorcised  in  the  name  of  the  god  Chons.  .  .  .  The  Manes 
then  could  enter  the  bodies  of  the  li^'ing,  haunt  and  obsess  them.  Formulae  and 
talismans,  and  especially  statues  or  divine  fl^ures,  were  used  against  such  formidable 
invasions.:}:     .     .    .    They  were  combated  by  the  help  of  the  divine  power,  the  god 

♦  See  De  Mirville,  iii.  65.  +  Pap.  Mag.,  p.  163.  t  Ibid.,  p.  168. 


250  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Chons  being  famed  for  such  deliverances.  The  Khou,  in  obeying  the  orders  of  the 
god,  none  the  less  preserved  the  precious  faculty  inherent  in  him  of  accommodating 
himself  in  any  other  body  at  will. 

The  most  frequent  formula  of  exorcism  is  as  follows.  It  is  very 
suggestive : 

Men,  gods,  elect,  dead  spirits,  amous,  negroes,  menti-u,  do  not  look  at  this  soul 
to  show  cruelty  toward  it. 

This  is  addressed  to  all  who  were  acquainted  with  Magic. 
"Amulets  and  mystic  names."     This  chapter  is  called  "very  mys- 
terious," and  contains  invocations  to  Penhakahakaherher  and  Uranao- 
karsankrobite,  and  other  such  easy  names.     Says  Chabas: 

We  have  proofs  that  mystic  names  similar  to  these  were  in  common  use  during 
the  stay  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt. 

And  we  ma}''  add  that,  whether  got  from  the  Egyptians  or  the 
Hebrews,  these  are  sorcery  names.  The  student  can  consult  the  works 
of  Eliphas  L,evi,  such  as  his  Grinioire  des  Sorciers.  In  these  exorcisms 
Osiris  is  called  Mamuram-Kahab,  and  is  implored  to  prevent  the 
twice-dead  Khou  from  attacking  the  justified  Khou  and  his  next  of  kin, 
since  the  accursed  (astral  spook) 
Can  take  any  form  he  likes  and  penetrate  at  will  into  any  locality  or  body. 

In  studying  Eg>^ptian  papyri,  one  begins  to  find  that  the  subjects  of 
the  Pharaohs  were  not  verj^  much  inclined  to  the  Spiritism  or  Spiritual- 
ism of  their  day.  They  dreaded  the  "blessed  spirit"  of  the  dead  more 
than  a  Roman  Catholic  dreads  the  devil ! 

But  how  uncalled-for  and  unjust  is  the  charge  against  the  Gods  of 
Egypt  that  they  are  these  "  devils,"  and  against  the  priests  of  exercis- 
ing their  magic  powers  with  the  help  of  "the  fallen  angels,"  maybe 
seen  in  more  than  one  papyrus.  For  one  often  finds  in  them  records 
of  Sorcerers  sentenced  to  the  death  penalty,  as  though  they  had  been 
living  under  the  protection  of  the  holy  Christian  Inquisition.  Here  is 
one  case  during  the  reign  of  Ramses  III,  quoted  by  De  Mirville  from 
Chabas. 

The  first  page  begins  with  these  words:  "From  the  place  where  I  am  to  the 
people  of  my  countrj'."  There  is  reason  to  suppose,  as  one  will  see,  that  the  person 
who  wrote  this,  in  the  first  personal  pronoun,  is  a  magistrate  making  a  report,  and 
attesting  it  before  men,  after  an  accustomed  formula,  for  here  is  the  main  part  of 
this  accusation  :  "  This  Hai,  a  bad  man,  was  an  overseer  [or  perhaps  keeper]  of 
sheep :  he  said  :  '  Can  I  have  a  book  that  will  give  me  great  power  ?  '  .  .  .  And 
a  book  was  given  him  with  the  formulae  of  Ramses-Meri-Amen,  the  great  God,  his 


OBSESSION    IN   EGYPT.  25I 

royal  master  ;  and  he  succeeded  in  getting  a  divine  power  enabling  him  to  fascinate 
men.  He  also  succeeded  in  building  a  place  and  in  finding  a  very  deep  place,  and 
produced  men  of  Menh  [magical  homunculi .?]  and  .  .  .  love-writings  .  . 
stealing  them  from  the  Khen  [the  occult  library  of  the  palace]  by  the  hand  of  the 
stonemason  Atirma,  ...  by  forcing  one  of  the  supervisors  to  go  aside,  and 
acting  magically  on  the  others.  Then  he  sought  to  read  futurity  by  them  and  suc- 
ceeded. All  the  horrors  and  abominations  he  had  conceived  in  his  heart,  he  did 
them  really,  he  practised  them  all,  and  other  great  crimes  as  well,  such  as  the  horror 
[?]  of  all  the  Gods  and  Goddesses.  Likewise  let  the  prescriptions  great  {severe  .^] 
unto  death  be  done  unto  him,  such  as  the  divine  words  order  to  be  done  to  him." 
The  accusation  does  not  stop  there,  it  specifies  the  crimes.  The  first  line  speaks  of 
a  hand  paralysed  by  means  of  the  men  of  Menh,  to  whom  it  is  simply  said,  "  Let  such 
an  effect  be  produced''  and  it  is  produced.  Then  come  the  great  abominations,  such  as 
deserve  death.  .  .  .  The  judges  who  had  examined  him  (the  culprit)  reported 
saying,  "  Let  him  die  according  to  the  order  of  Pharaoh,  and  according  to  what  is 
written  in  the  lines  of  the  divine  language." 

M.  Chabas  remarks: 

Documents  of  this  kind  abound,  but  the  task  of  analysing  them  all  cannot  be 
attempted  with  the  limited  means  we  possess.* 

Then  there  is  an  inscription  taken  in  the  temple  of  Khous,  the  God 
who  had  power  over  the  elementaries,  at  Thebes.  It  was  presented  by 
M.  Prisse  d'Avenne  to  the  Imperial — now  National — Library  of  Paris, 
and  was  translated  first  by  Mr.  S.  Birch.  There  is  in  it  a  whole 
romance  of  Magic.  It  dates  from  the  day  of  Ramses  XII. f  of  the 
twentieth  dynasty  ;  it  is  from  the  rendering  of  M.  de  Rouge  as  quoted 
by  De  Mirville,  that  we  now  translate  it. 

This  monument  tells  us  that  one  of  the  Ramses  of  the  twentieth  dynasty,  while 
collecting  at  Naharain  the  tributes  paid  to  Egypt  by  the  Asiatic  nations,  fell  in  love 
with  a  daughter  of  the  chief  of  Bakhten,  one  of  his  tributaries,  married  her  and, 
bringing  her  to  Eg>'pt  with  him,  raised  her  to  the  dignity  of  Queen,  under  the  royal 
name  of  Ranefrou.  Soon  afterwards  the  chief  of  Bakhten  dispatched  a  messenger 
to  Ramses,  praying  the  assistance  of  Egyptian  science  for  Bent-Rosh,  a  young  sister 
of  the  queen,  attacked  with  illness  in  all  her  limbs. 

The  messenger  asked  expressly  that  a  "wise-man"  [an  Initiate — Reh-Het]  should 
be  sent.  The  king  gave  orders  that  all  the  hierogrammatists  of  the  palace  and  the 
guardians  of  the  secret  books  of  the  Khen  should  be  sent  for,  and  choosing  from 
among  them  the  royal  scribe  Thoth-em-Hebi,  an  intelligent  man,  well  versed  in 
writing,  charged  him  to  examine  the  sickness. 

*  Maimonides  in  his  Treatise  on  Idolatry  says,  speaking  of  the  Jewish  teraphim :  "  They  talked 
with  men."  To  this  day  Christian  Sorcerers  in  Italy,  and  negro  Voodoos  at  New  Orleans  fabricate 
small  wax  figures  in  the  likeness  of  their  victims,  and  transpierce  them  with  needles,  the  wound,  as  on 
the  teraphim  or  Menh,  being  repercussed  on  the  living,  often  killing  them.  Mysterious  deaths  are 
still  many,  and  not  all  are  traced  to  the  guilty  hand. 

+  The  Ramses  of  Lepsius,  who  reigned  some  1300  years  before  our  era. 


252  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Arrived  at  Bakhten,  Thoth-em-Hebi  found  that  Bent-Rosh  was  possessed  by  a 
Khou  (Em-seh-'eru  ker  h'ou),  but  declared  himself  too  weak  to  engage  in  a  struggle 
with  him.* 

Eleven  years  elapsed,  and  the  young  girl's  state  did  not  improve.  The  chief  of 
Bakhten  again  sent  his  messenger,  and  on  his  formal  demand  Khons-peiri-Seklerem- 
Zam,  one  of  the  divine  forms  of  Chons — God  the  Son  in  the  Theban  Trinity— was 
dispatched  to  Bakhten.     .     .     . 

The  God  [incarnate]  hav-ing  saluted  {besa)  the  patient,  she  felt  immediatel}'  relieved^ 
and  the  Khou  who  was  in  her  manifested  forthwith  his  intention  of  obeying  the 
orders  of  the  God.  "  O  great  God,  who  forcest  the  phantom  to  vanish,"  said  the 
Khou,  "  I  am  thy  slave  and  I  will  return  whence  I  came  !  "t 

Evidently  Khons-peiri-Seklerem-Zam  was  a  real  Hierophaut  of  the 
class  named  the  "Sons  of  God,"  since  he  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  forms 
of  the  God  Khons;  which  means  either  that  he  was  considered  as  an 
incarnation  of  that  God — an  Avatara — or  that  he  was  a  full  Initiate. 
The  same  text  shows  that  the  temple  to  which  he  belonged  was  one  of 
those  to  which  a  School  of  Magic  was  attached.  There  was  a  Khen  in 
it,  or  that  portion  of  the  temple  which  was  inaccessible  to  all  but  the 
highest  priest,  the  library  or  depository  of  secret  works,  to  the  stud)^  and 
care  of  which  special  priests  were  appointed  (those  whom  all  the 
Pharaohs  consulted  in  cases  of  great  importance),  and  wherein  they 
communicated  with  the  Gods  and  obtained  advice  from  them.  Does 
not  L,ucian  tell  his  readers  in  his  description  of  the  temple  of  Hiera- 
polis,  of  "Gods  who  manifest  their  presence  indepetidently?":!:  And 
further  on  that  he  once  travelled  with  a  priest  from  Memphis,  who  told 
him  he  had  passed  twenty- three  years  in  the  subterranean  crypts  of 
his  temple,  receiving  instructions  on  Magic  from  the  Goddess  Isis  her- 
self. Again  we  read  that  it  was  b}^  Mercury  himself  that  the  great 
Sesostris  (Ramses  II.)  was  instructed  in  the  Sacred  Sciences.  On  which 
Jablonsky  remarks  that  we  have  here  the  reason  why  Amun  (Ammon) 
— whence  he  thinks  our  "Amen"  is  derived — was  a  real  evocation  to 
the  light. § 

In  the  Papyrus  Anastasi,  which  teems  with  various  formulae  for  the 

•  One  may  judge  how  trustworthy  are  the  translations  of  such  Egyptian  documents  when  the 
sentence  is  rendered  in  three  different  ways  by  three  Egyptologists.  Rouge  says  :  "  He  found  her  in 
a  state  io  fall  under  ilte  power  of  spirits,"  or,  "with  her  limbs  quite  stiff,"  (?)  another  version  ;  and 
Chabas  translates  :  "  And  the  Scribe  found  the  Khou  too  wicked."  Between  her  being  in  possession 
of  an  evil  Khou  and  "with  her  limbs  tiuite  stiff,"  there  is  a  difference. 

+  De  Mir\ille,  v.  247,  248. 

X  Some  translators  would  have  I,ucian  speak  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city,  but  they  fail  tC 
show  that  this  view  is  maintainable. 

}  De  Mir^nlle,  v.  256,  257. 


TWO   RITUAI^S   OF   MAGIC.  253 

evocation  of  Gods,  and  with  exorcisms  against  Khous  and  the  elemen- 
tal' demons,  the  seventh  paragraph  shows  plainly  the  difference  made 
between  the  real  Gods,  the  Planetary  Angels,  and  those  shells  of 
mortals  which  are  left  behind  in  Kama-loka,  as  though  to  tempt  man- 
kind and  to  puzzle  it  the  more  hopelessly  in  its  vain  search  after  the 
truth,  outside  the  Occult  Sciences  and  the  veil  of  Initiation.  This 
seventh  verse  saj^s  with  regard  to  such  divine  evocations  or  theomantic 
consultations: 

One  must  invoke  that  divine  and  great  name*  only  in  cases  of  absolute  necessity, 
and  when  one  feels  absolutely  pure  and  irreproachable. 

Not  SO  in  the  formula  of  black  Magic.  Reuvens,  speaking  of  the 
two  rituals  of  Magic  of  the  Anastasi  collection,  remarks  that  they 

Undeniably  form  the  most  instructive  commentary  upon  the  Egyptian  mysteries 
attributed  to  Jamblichus,  and  the  best  pendant  to  that  classical  work,  for  under- 
standing the  thaumaturgj'  of  the  philosophical  sects,  thaumaturgy  based  on  ancient 
Egyptian  religion.  According  to  Jamblichus,  thaumaturgy  was  exercised  by  the 
ministry  of  secondary  genii.t 

Reuvens  closes  with  a  remark  which  is  very  suggestive  and  is  very 
important  to  the  Occultists  who  defend  the  antiquity  and  genuineness 
of  their  documents,  for  he  says: 

All  that  he  [Jamblichus]  gives  out  as  theology  we  find  as  history  in  our  papyri. 

But  then  how  deny  the  authenticity,  the  credibility,  and,  beyond  all, 
the  trustworthiness  of  those  classical  writers,  who  all  wrote  about 
Magic  and  its  Mysteries  in  a  most  worshipful  spirit  of  admiration  and 
reverence?     Listen  to  Pindarus,  who  exclaims: 

Happy  he  who  descends  into  the  grave  thus  initiated,  for  he  knows  the  end  of  his 
life  and  the  kingdomj  given  by  Jupiter.§ 


•  How  can  de  Mirv'ille  see  Satan  in  the  Egyptian  God  of  the  great  divine  Name,  when  he  himself 
admits  that  nothing  was  greater  than  the  name  of  the  oracle  of  Dodona,  as  it  was  that  of  the  God  of 
the  Jews,  lAO,  or  Jehovah  ?  That ''oracle  had  been  brought  by  the  Pelasgians  to  Dodona  more 
than  fourteen  centuries  b.c.  and  left  with  the  forefathers  of  the  Hellenes,  and  its  history  is  well- 
known  and  may  be  read  in  Herodotus.  Jupiter,  who  loved  the  fair  nj'mph  of  the  ocean,  Dodona,  had 
ordered  Pelasgus  to  carry  his  cult  to  Thessaly.  The  name  of  the  God  of  that  oracle  at  the  temple 
of  Dodona  was  Zeus  Pelasgicos,  the  Zeuspater  (God  the  Father),  or  as  De  Mirville  explains  :  "  It  was  the 
m.u\s  par  excellence,  the  name  that  the  Jews  held  as  the  ineflfable,  the  unpronounceable  Name — in 
s\\or\.,  Jaoh-pater ,  i.e.,  'he  who  was,  who  is,  and  who  will  be,'  otherwise  the  Eternal."  And  the  author 
admits  that  Maury  is  right  "in  discovering  in  the  name  of  the  Vaidic  ludra  the  Biblical  Jehovah," 
and  does  not  even  attempt  to  deny  the  etj^mologfical  connection  between  the  two  names — "  the  great 
and  the  lost  name  with  the  sun  and  the  thunder-bolts."  Strange  confessions,  and  still  stranger 
contradictions. 

+  Reuvens'  Letter  to  Letronne  on  the  jslh  number  of  the  Papyri  Anastasi."    See  De  Mirville.  v.  258. 

}  The  Eleusinian  Fields. 

{  Fragments,  ix. 


2.54  '"'^E   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Or  to  Cicero : 

Initiation  not  only  teaches  us  to  feel  happy  in  this  life,  but  also  to  die  with  better 
hope.* 

Plato,  Pausanias,  Strabo,  Diodorus  and  dozens  of  others  bring  their 
evidence  as  to  the  great  boon  of  Initiation ;  all  the  great  as  well  as  the 
partially-initiated  Adepts,  share  the  enthusiasm  of  Cicero. 

Does  not  Plutarch,  thinking  of  what  he  had  learned  in  his  initiation,  console  him- 
self for  the  loss  of  his  wife?  Had  he  not  obtained  the  certitude  at  the  Mysteries  of 
Bacchus  that  "the  soul  [spirit]  remains  incorruptible,  and  that  there  is  a  here- 
after".^ .  .  .  Aristophanes  went  even  farther  :  "  All  those  who  participated  in 
the  Mysteries,"  he  says,  "led  an  innocent,  calm,  and  holy  life  ;  they  died  looking 
for  the  light  of  the  Eleusinian  Fields  [Devachan],  while  the  rest  could  never  expect 
anything  but  eternal  darkness  [ignorance  ?]. 

.  .  .  And  when  one  thinks  about  the  importance  attached  by  the  States  to  the 
principle  and  the  correct  celebration  of  the  Mysteries,  to  the  stipulations  made  in 
their  treaties  for  the  security  of  their  celebration,  one  sees  to  what  degree  those  Mys- 
teries had  so  long  occupied  their  first  and  their  last  thought. 

It  was  the  greatest  among  public  as  well  as  private  preoccupations,  and  this  is  only 
natural,  since  according  to  Dollinger,  "  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries  were  viewed  as  the 
efflorescence  of  all  the  Greek  religion,  as  the  purest  essence  of  all  its  conceptions,  t 

Not  only  conspirators  were  refused  admittance  therein,  but  those  who  had  not 
denounced  them  ;  traitors,  perjurers,  debauchees,  J  .  .  ,  so  that  Porphyry  could 
say  that :  "  Our  soul  has  to  be  at  the  moment  of  death  as  it  was  during  the  Mysteries, 
i.e.,  exempt  from  any  blemishes,  passion,  envy,  hatred,  or  anger."§ 

Truly, 

Magic  was  considered  a  Divine  Science  which  led  to  a  participation  in  the  attri- 
butes of  the  Divinity  itself.  || 

Herodotus,  Thales,  Parmenides,  Empedocles,  Orpheus,  Pythagoras, 
all  went,  each  in  his  day,  in  search  of  the  wisdom  of  Egypt's  great 
Hierophants,  in  the  hope  of  solving  the  problems  of  the  universe. 

Says  Philo : 

The  Mysteries  were  known  to  unveil  the  secret  operations  of  Nature.il 
The  prodigies  accomplished  by  the  priests  of  theurgic  magic  are  so  well  authenti- 
cated and  the  evidence — if  human  testimony  is  worth  anything  at  all — is  so  over- 
whelming that,  rather  than  confess  that  the  pagan  theurgists  far  outrivalled  the 


*  De  Legihus,  II.  iv. 

t  Judaism  and  Paganism,  i.  i8 

t  Frag,  of  Styg.,  ap.  Slob. 

\  De  Special.  Legi. 

II  De  Mirville,  v.  278,  279. 

H  Isit  Unveiled,  i.  25. 


MAGICAI,  STATUES.  SI55 

Christians  in  miracles,  Sir  David  Brewster  conceded  to  the  former  the  greatest  pro- 
ficiency in  physics  and  everything  that  pertains  to  natural  philosophy.  Science 
finds  herself  in  a  very  disagreeable  dilemma.     .     .     . 

"  Magic,"  says  Psellus,  "  formed  the  last  part  of  the  sacerdotal  science.  It  investi- 
gated the  nature,  power,  and  quality  of  everything  sublunary ;  of  the  elements  and 
their  parts,  of  animals,  of  various  plants  and  their  fruits,  of  stones  and  herbs.  In 
short,  it  explored  the  essence  and  power  of  everything.  From  hence,  therefore,  it 
produced  its  effects.  And  it  formed  statues  [magnetized]  which  procure  health,  and 
made  all  various  figures  and  things  [talismans],  which  could  equally  become  the 
instruments  of  disease  as  well  'as  of  health.  Often,  too,  celestial  fire  is  made  to 
appear  through  magic,  and  then  statues  laugh  and  lamps  are  spontaneously  en- 
kindled." * 

This  assertion  of  Psellus  that  Magic  "made  statues  which  procure 
health,"  is  now  proven  to  the  world  to  be  no  dream,  no  vain  boast  of  a 
hallucinated  Theurgist.  As  Reuvens  saj's,  it  becomes  "history."  For 
it  is  found  in  the  Papy^-us  Magique  of  Harris  and  on  the  votive  stele 
just  mentioned.     Both  Chabas  and  De  Rouge  state  that : 

On  the  eighteenth  line  of  this  very  mutilated  monument  is  found  the  formula 
with  regard  to  the  acquiescence  of  the  God  (Chons)  who  made  his  consent  known  by 
a  motion  he  imparted  to  his  statue. t 

There  was  even  a  dispute  over  it  between  the  two  Orientalists. 
While  M.  de  Rouge  wanted  to  translate  the  word  "Han"  b}'-  "favour" 
or  "grace,"  M.  Chabas  insisted  that  "Han"  meant  a  "movement"  or 
"a  sign''  made  by  the  statue. 

Excesses  of  power,  abuse  of  knowledge  and  personal  ambition  very 
often  led  selfish  and  unscrupulous  Initiates  to  black  Magic,  just  as  the 
same  causes  led  to  precisely  the  same  thing  among  Christian  popes 
and  cardinals ;  and  it  was  black  Magic  that  led  finally  to  the  abolition 
of  the  Mysteries,  and  not  Christianit}',  as  is  often  erroneously  thought. 
Read  Mommsen's  Roman  History,  vol.  i.,  and  3'ou  will  find  that  it  was  the 
Pagans  themselves  who  put  an  end  to  the  desecration  of  the  Divine 
Science.  As  ^■axXy  as  560  B.C.  the  Romans  had  discovered  an  Occult 
association,  a  school  of  black  Magic  of  the  most  revolting  kind ;  it 
celebrated  mysteries  brought  from  Etruria,  and  very  soon  the  moral 
pestilence  had  spread  all  over  Italy 

More  than  seven  thousand  Initiates  were  prosecuted,  and  most  of  them  were  sen- 
tenced to  death.     .     .     . 

Later  on,  Titus-Livius  shows  us  another  three  thousand  Initiates  sentenced  during 
a  sii'igle  year  for  the  crime  of  poisoning.  J 


*  Isis  Unveiled,  i.   282,  283.  +  De  Mir^dlle,  v.  248.  %  De  Mirville,  v.  28^ 


256  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

And  yet  black  Magic  is  derided  and  denied ! 

Paulthier  may  or  may  not  be  too  enthusiastic  in  saying  that  India 
appears  to  him  as 

The  grand  and  primitive  hearth  of  human  thought,  that  has  ended  by  embracing 
the  whole  ancient  world, 

but  he  was  right  in  his  idea.  That  primitive  thought  led  to  Occult 
knowledge,  which  in  our  Fifth  Race  is  reflected  from  the  earliest 
days  of  the  'Egyptian  Pharaohs  down  to  our  modern  times.  Hardly  a 
hieratic  papyrus  is  exhumed  with  the  tightly  swathed-up  mummies  of 
kings  and  high  priests  that  does  not  contain  some  interesting  infor- 
mation for  the  modern  students  of  Occultism. 

All  that  is,  of  course,  derided  Magic,  the  outcome  of  primitive 
knowledge  and  of  revelation,  though  it  was  practised  in  such  ungodly 
waj'S  by  the  Atlantean  Sorcerers  that  it  has  since  become  necessary 
for  the  subsequent  Race  to  draw  a  thick  veil  over  the  practices  which 
were  used  to  obtain  so-called  magical  effects  on  the  ps3'chic  and 
on  the  physical  planes.  In  the  letter  no  one  in  our  century  will  believe 
the  statements,  with  the  exception  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  and  these 
will  give  the  acts  a  Satanic  origin.  Nevertheless,  Magic  is  so  mixed  up 
with  the  history  of  the  world,  that  if  the  latter  is  ever  to  be  written  it 
has  to  rely  upon  the  discoveries  of  Archaeology,  Egyptology,  and  hieratic 
writings  and  inscriptions  ;  if  it  insists  that  they  must  be  free  from  that 
"  superstition  of  the  ages  "  it  will  never  see  the  light.  One  can  well 
imagine  the  embarrassing  position  in  which  serious  Eg>'ptologists, 
Assyriologists,  savants  and  academicians  find  themselves.  Forced  to 
translate  and  interpret  the  old  pap5^ri  and  the  archaic  inscriptions  on 
stelae  and  Babylonian  cylinders,  they  find  themselves  compelled  from 
first  to  last  to  face  the  distasteful,  and  to  them  repulsive,  subject  of 
Magic,  with  its  incantations  and  paraphernalia.  Here  they  find  sober 
and  grave  narratives  from  the  pens  of  learned  scribes,  made  up  under 
the  direct  supervision  of  Chaldaean  or  Egyptian  Hierophants,  the  most 
learned  among  the  Philosophers  of  antiquity.  These  statements  were 
written  at  the  solemn  hour  of  the  death  and  burial  of  Pharaohs,  High 
Priests,  and  other  mighty  ones  of  the  land  of  Chemi ;  their  purpose  was 
the  introduction  of  the  newly-born,  Osirified  Soul  before  the  awful- 
tribunal  of  the  "  Great  Judge"  in  the  region  of  Amenti — there  where  a 
lie  was  said  to  outweigh  the  greatest  crimes.  Were  the  Scribes  and 
Hierophants,  Pharaohs,  and  King- Priests  all  fools  or  frauds  to  have 
either  believed  in,  or  tried  to  make  others  believe  in,  such  *'  cock-and 


ROMANCES — BUT  TRUE.  257 

bull  stories  "  as  are  found  in  the  most  respectable  papyri  ?  Yet  there 
is  no  help  for  it.  Corroborated  by  Plato  and  Herodotus,  by  Manetho 
and  Syncellus,  as  by  all  the  greatest  and  most  trustworthy  authors  and 
philosophers  who  wrote  upon  the  subject,  those  papyri  note  down — as 
seriously  as  thej^  note  any  history,  or  any  fact  so  well  known  and 
accepted  as  to  need  no  commentary — whole  royal  dynasties  of  Manes, 
to  wit,  of  shadows  and  phantoms  (astral  bodies),  and  such  feats  of 
magic  skill  and  such  Occult  phenomena,  that  the  most  credulous 
Occultist  of  our  own  times  would  hesitate  to  believe  them  to  be  true. 

The  Orientalists  have  found  a  plank  of  salvation,  while  yet  publishing 
and  delivering  the  papyri  to  the  criticism  of  literary  Sadducees  :  they 
generally  call  them  "  romances  of  the  days  of  Pharaoh  So-and-So.*' 
The  idea  is  ingenious,  if  not  absolutely  fai 


SECTION  XXVIII. 

The  Origin  of  the  Mysteries. 


All  that  is  explained  in  the  preceding  Sections  and  a  hundredfold 
more  was  taught  in  the  Mysteries  from  time  immemorial.  If  the  first 
appearance  of  those  institutions  is  a  matter  of  historical  tradition  with 
regard  to  some  of  the  later  nations,  their  origin  must  certainly  be 
assigned  to  the  time  of  the  Fourth  Root  Race.  The  Mysteries  were 
imparted  to  the  elect  of  that  Race  when  the  average  Atlantean  had  begun 
to  fall  too  deeply  into  sin  to  be  trusted  with  the  secrets  of  Nature.  Their 
establishment  is  attributed  in  the  Secret  Works  to  the  King-Initiates  of 
the  divine  dynasties,  when  the  "  Sons  of  God"  had  gradually  allowed 
their  country  to  become  Kookarma-des  (the  land  of  vice). 

The  antiquity  of  the  Mysteries  may  be  inferred  from  the  history  of 
the  worship  of  Hercules  in  Egypt.  This  Hercules,  according  to  what 
the  priests  told  Herodotus,  was  not  Grecian,  for  he  says  : 

Of  the  Grecian  Hercules  I  could  in  no  part  of  Egjpt  procure  any  knowledge : 
.  .  .  the  name  was  never  borrowed  bj'  Egypt  from  Greece.  .  .  .  Hercules, 
,  .  .  .  as  they  [the  priests]  affirm,  is  one  of  the  twelve  (great  Gods),  who 
were  reproduced  from  the  earlier  eight  Gods  17,000  years  before  the  year  of 
Amasis. 

Hercules  is  of  Indian  origin,  and — his  Biblical  chronology  put  aside 

-Colonel  Tod  was  quite  right  in  his  suggestion  that  he  was  Balarama 
or  Baladeva.  Now  one  must  read  the  Purdiias  with  the  Esoteric  key  in 
one'shand  in  order  to  find  out  how  on  almost  every  page  they  corroborate 
the  Secret  Doctrine.  The  ancient  classical  writers  so  well  understood 
this  truth  that  they  unanimously  attributed  to  Asia  the  origin  of 
Hercules. 

A  section  of  the  Mahdbhdrata  is  devoted  to  the  history  of  the  Hercula,  of  which 
race  was  Vyasa.     .     .     .     Diodorus  has  the  same  legend  with  some  variety.     He 


AN   INSTANT  IN   HEAVBN.  250 

says :  "  Hercules  was  born  amongst  the  Indians  and,  like  the  Greeks,  they  furnish 
him  with  a  club  and  lion's  hide."  Both  [Krishna  and  Baladeva]  are  (lords)  of  the 
race  (cfila)  of  Heri  (Heri-cul-es)  of  which  the  Greeksmight  have  made  the  compound 
Hercules.* 

The  Occult  Doctrine  explains  that  Hercules  was  the  last  incarnation 
of  one  of  the  seven  "  Lords  of  the  Flame,"  as  Krishna's  brother,  Bala- 
deva. That  his  incarnations  occurred  during  the  Third,  Fourth,  and 
Fifth  Root-Races,  and  that  his  worship  was  brought  into  Egypt  from 
Lanka  and  India  by  the  later  immigrants.  That  he  was  borrowed  by 
the  Greeks  from  the  Egyptians  is  certain,  the  more  so  as  the  Greeks 
place  his  birth  at  Thebes,  and  only  his  twelve  labours  at  Argos.  Now 
we  find  in  the  Vishnu  Purana  a  complete  corroboration  of  the  statement 
made  in  the  Secret  Teachings,  of  which  Puranic  allegory  the  following 
is  a  short  summary  : 

Raivata,  a  grandson  of  Sharyati,  Manu's  fourth  son,  finding  no  man 
worthy  of  his  lovely  daughter,  repaired  with  her  to  Brahma's  region  to 
consult  the  God  in  this  emergency.  Upon  his  arrival,  Haha,  Huhu,  and 
other  Gandharvas  were  singing  before  the  throne,  and  Raivata,  waiting 
till  they  had  done,  imagined  that  but  one  Muhurta  (instant)  had  passed, 
whereas  long  ages  had  elapsed.  When  they  had  finished  Raivata  pros- 
trated himself  and  explained  his  perplexity.  Then  Brahma  asked  him 
whom  he  wished  for  a  son-in-law,  and  upon  hearing  a  few  personages 
named,  the  Father  of  the  World  smiled  and  said  :  "  Of  those  whom  you 
have  named  the  third  and  fourth  generation  [Root-Races]  no  longer 
survive,  for  many  successions  of  ages  [Chatur-Yuga,  or  the  four  Yuga 
cycles]  have  passed  away  while  you  were  listening  to  our  songsters. 
Now  on  earth  the  twenty-eighth  great  age  of  the  present  Manu  is  nearly 
finished  and  the  Kali  period  is  at  hand.  You  must  therefore  bestow 
this  virgin-gem  upon  some  other  husband.     For  you  are  now  alone." 

Then  the  Raja  Raivata  is  told  to  proceed  to  Kushasthali,  his  ancient 
capital,  which  was  now  called  Dvaraka,  and  where  reigned  in  his  stead 
a  portion  of  the  divine  being  (Vishnu)  in  the  person  of  Baladeva,  the 
brother  of  Krishna,  regarded  as  the  seventh  incarnation  of  Vishnu 
whenever  Krishna  is  taken  as  a  full  divinity. 

"  Being  thus  instructed  by  the  Lotus-born  [Brahma],  Raivata  re- 
turned with  his  daughter  to  earth,  where  he  found  the  race  of  men 
dwindled  in  stature  [see  what  is  said  in  the  Stanzas  and  Commentaries 
of  the  races  of  mankind  gradually   decreasing    in   stature]  ;     .     .     . 


•  Tod's  Rajaslhan,  i.  28. 


26o  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

reduced  in  vigour,  and  enfeebled  in  intellect.  Repairing  to  the  city  of 
Kushasthali,  he  found  it  much  altered,"  because,  according  to  the 
allegorical  explanation  of  the  commentator,  "  Krishna  had  reclaimed 
from  the  sea  a  portion  of  the  countr}-,"  which  means  in  plain  language 
that  the  continents  had  all  been  changed  meanwhile — and  "  had  reno- 
vated the  city  " — or  rather  built  a  new  one,  Dvaraka  ;  for  one  reads 
in  the  Bhagavad  Purdna*  that  Kushasthali  was  founded  and  built 
by  Raivata  within  the  sea ;  and  subsequent  discoveries  showed  that 
it  '|was  the  same,  or  on  the  same  spot,  as  Dvaraka.  Therefore  it 
was  on  an  island  before.  The  allegor}^  in  Vishnu  Purdna  shows  King 
Raivata  giving  his  daughter  to  "the  wielder  of  the  ploughshare" — or 
rather  "  the  plough-bannered" — Baladeva,  who  "beholding  the  damsel 
of  excessively  lofty  height.  .  .  .  shortened  her  with  the  end  of  his 
ploughshare,  and  she  became  his  wife."* 

This  is  a  plain  allusion  to  the  Third  and  Fourth  Races — to  the 
Atlantean  giants  and  the  successive  incarnations  of  the  "Sons  of  the 
Flame  "  and  other  orders  of  Dhyan  Chohans  in  the  heroes  and  kings  of 
mankind,  down  to  the  Kali  Yuga,  or  Black  Age,  the  beginning  of  which 
is  within  historical  times.  Another  coincidence  :  Thebes  is  the  city  of  a 
hundred  gates,  and  Dvaraka  is  so  called  from  its  many  gateways  or 
doors,  from  the  word  "  Dvara,"  "  gatewa3^"  Both  Hercules  and 
Baladeva  are  of  a  passionate,  hot  temper,  and  both  are  renowned  for  the 
fairness  of  their  white  skins.  There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that 
Hercules  is  Baladeva  in  Greek  dress.  Arrian  notices  the  great 
similarity  between  the  Theban  and  the  Hindu  Hercules,  the  latter 
being  worshipped  b}^  the  Suraseni  who  built  Methorea,  or  Mathura, 
Krishna's  birthplace.  The  same  writer  places  Sandracottus  (Chandra- 
gupta,  the  grandfather  of  King  Asoka,  of  the  clan  of  Morya)  in  the 
direct  line  of  the  descendants  of  Baladeva. 

There  were  no  Mysteries  in  the  beginning,  we  are  taught.  Know- 
ledge (Vidj^a)  was  common  property,  and  it  reigned  universally 
throughout  the  Golden  Age  (Satya  Yuga).     As  says  the  Commentary  : 

Men  had  not  created  evil  yet  in  those  days  of  bliss  and  purity,  for  they 
'd'cre  of  God-like  viore  than  of  hjimaji  Jiature. 

But  when  mankind,  rapidly  increasing  in  numbers,  increased  also  in 
variet}'  of  idiosyncrasies  of  body  and  mind,  then  incarnated  Spirit 
showed  its  weakness.     Natural  exaggerations,  and   along  with    these 


O/.  c«V.,  ix.  iii.  28.  +   Vishnu  Purdna,  \\.\.    Wilson's  translation,  iii.  248-2,s4- 


GROWTH    OF   POPULAR   B^WEFS.  261 

superstitions,  arose  in  the  less  cultured  and  healthy  minds.  Selfishness 
was  born  out  of  desires  and  passions  hitherto  unknown,  and  but  too 
often  knowledge  and  power  were  abused,  until  finally  it  became  neces- 
sary to  limit  the  number  of  those  who  knew.     Thus  arose  Initiation. 

Every  separate  nation  now  arranged  for  itself  a  religious  system, 
according  to  its  enlightenment  and  spiritual  wants.  Worship  of  mere 
form  being  discarded  by  the  wise  men,  these  confined  true  knowledge 
to  the  very  few.  The  need  of  veiling  truth  to  protect  it  from  desecra- 
tion becoming  more  apparent  with  ever}-  generation,  a  thin  veil  was 
used  at  first,  which  had  to  be  gradually  thickened  according  to  the 
spread  of  personality  and  selfishness,  and  this  led  to  the  Mysteries. 
They  came  to  be  established  in  every  country  and  among  every  people, 
while  to  avoid  strife  and  misunderstanding  exoteric  beliefs  were  allowed 
to  grow  up  in  the  minds  of  the  profane  masses.  Inoffensive  and 
innocent  in  their  incipient  stage— like  a  historical  event  arranged  in  the 
form  of  a  fairy  tale,  adapted  for  and  comprehensible  to  the  child's  mind 
—in  those  distant  ages  such  beliefs  could  be  allowed  to  grow  and  make 
:he  popular  faith  without  any  danger  to  the  more  philosophical  and 
abstruse  truths  taught  in  the  sanctuaries.  Logical  and  scientific 
observation  of  the  phenomena  in  Nature,  which  alone  leads  man  to  the 
knowledge  of  eternal  truths— provided  he  approaches  the  threshold  of 
observation  unbiassed  by  preconception  and  sees  with  his  spiritual  eye 
before  he  looks  at  things  from  their  physical  aspect— does  not  lie  within 
the  province  of  the  masses.  The  marvels  of  the  One  Spirit  of  Truth, 
the  ever-concealed  and  inaccessible  Deity,  can  be  unravelled  and 
assimilated  only  through  Its  manifestations  by  the  secondary  "  Gods,' 
Its  acting  powers.  While  the  One  and  Universal  Cause  has  to  remain 
for  ever  in  absco7idito,  Its  manifold  action  may  be  traced  through  the 
effects  in  Nature.  The  latter  alone  being  comprehensible  and  manifest 
to  average  mankind,  the  Powers  causing  those  effects  were  allowed  to 
grow  in  the  imagination  of  the  populace.  Ages  later  in  the  Fifth,  the 
Aryan,  Race  some  unscrupulous  priests  began  to  take  advantage  of  the 
too-easy  beliefs  of  the  people  in  every  country,  and  finally  raised  those 
secondar>^  Powers  to  the  rank  of  God  and  Gods,  thus  succeeding  in 
isolating  them  altogether  from  the  One  Universal  Cause  of  all  causes .* 

•  There  were  no  Brahmans  as  a  hereditary  caste  in  days  of  old.  In  .those  long-departed  ages  a 
man  became  a  Brahman  through  personal  merit  and  Initiation.  Gradually,  however,  despotism 
crept  in,  and  the  son  of  a  Brahman  was  created  a  Brahman  by  right  of  protection  first,  then  by  that  of 
heredity.  The  rights  of  blood  replaced  those  of  real  merit,  and  thus  arose  the  body  of  Brahmans, 
which  was  soon  changed  into  a  powerful  caste. 


262  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Henceforward  the  knowledge  of  the  primeval  truths  remained 
entirel)'  in  the  hands  of  the  Initiates. 

The  Mysteries  had  their  weak  points  and  their  defects,  as  every 
institution  welded  with  the  human  element  must  necessarily  have.  Yet 
Voltaire  has  characterised  their  benefits  in  a  few  words  : 

In  the  chaos  of  popular  superstitions  there  existed  an  institution  which  has 
ever  prevented  man  from  falling  into  absolute  brutality :  it  was  that  of  the 
Mysteries. 

Verily,  as  Ragon  puts  it  of  Masonry  ; 

Its  temple  has  Time  for  duration,  the  Universe  for  space.  ..."  Let  us  divide 
that  we  may  rule,"  have  said  the  crafty;  "Let  us  unite  to  resist,"  have  said  the 
first  Masons.* 

Or  rather,  the  Initiates  whom  the  Masons  have  never  ceased  to  claim 
as  their  primitive  and  direct  Masters.  The  first  and  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  moral  strength  and  power  is  association  and  solidarity  of 
thought  and  purpose.  "The  Sons  of  Will  and  Yoga"  united  in  the 
beginning  to  resist  the  terrible  and  ever-growing  iniquities  of  the  left- 
hand  Adepts,  the  Atlanteaus.  This  led  to  the  foundation  of  still  more 
Secret  Schools,  temples  of  learning,  and  of  Mysteries  inaccessible  to  all 
except  after  the  most  terrible  trials  and  probations. 

Anything  that  might  be  said  of  the  earliest  Adepts  and  their  divine 
Masters  would  be  regarded  as  fiction.  It  is  necessarj-,  therefore,  if  we 
would  know  something  of  the  primitive  Initiates  to  judge  of  the  tree 
by  its  fruits  ;  to  examine  the  bearing  and  the  work  of  their  successors 
in  the  Fifth  Race  as  reflected  in  the  works  of  the  classic  writers  and  the 
great  Philosophers.  How  were  Initiation  and  the  Initiates  regarded 
during  some  2,000  years  by  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers  ?  Cicero 
informs  his  readers  in  very  clear  terms.     He  sa^'s  : 

An  Initiate  must  practise  all  the  virtues  in  his  power:  justice,  fidelity,  liberality, 
modesty,  temperance ;  these  virtues  cause  men  to  forget  the  talents  that  he  may 
lack.t 

Ragon  says  : 

When  the  Egyptian  priests  said :  "  All  for  the  people,  nothing  through  the 
people,"  they  were  right:  in  an  ignorant  nation  truth  must  be  revealed  only  to 


•  Des  Initiatiom  Anciennes  and  Modernes.  "The  mysteries,"  says  Ragon,  "were  the  gr«ft  of 
India."  In  this  he  is  mistaken,  for  the  Aryan  race  had  brought  the  mysteries  of  Initiation  from 
Atlantis.  Nevertheless  he  is  right  in  saying  that  the  mysteries  preceded  all  civilisations,  and  that  by 
polishing  the  mind  and  morals  of  the  peoples  they  served  as  a  base  for  all  the  laws— civil,  political, 
and  religious. 

t  De  Off.,  i.  33. 


A  TRUE  naESTHOOD.  263 

trustworthy  persons.  •  .  .  We  have  seen  in  our  days,  "all  through  the  people, 
nothing  for  the  people,"  a  false  and  dangerous  system.  The  real  axiom  ought  to  be : 
"  All  for  the  people  and  with  the  people."  * 

But  in  order  to  achieve  this  reform  the  masses  have  to  pass  through 
a  dual  transformation  :  (a)  to  become  divorced  from  every  element  of 
exoteric  superstition  and  priestcraft,  and  (b)  to  become  educated  men, 
free  from  every  danger  of  being  enslaved  whether  by  a  man  or  an 
idea. 

This,  in  view  of  the  preceding,  may  seem  paradoxical.  The  Initiates 
were  "  priests,"  we  may  be  told — at  any  rate,  all  the  Hindu,  Egyptian, 
Chaldaean,  Greek,  Phoenician,  and  other  erophants  and  Adepts  were 
priests  in  the  temples,  and  it  was  they  who  invented  their  respective 
exoteric  creeds.  To  this  the  answer  is  possible :  '•  The  cowl  does  not 
make  the  friar."  If  one  may  believe  tradition  and  the  unanimous 
opinion  of  ancient  writers,  added  to  the  examples  we  have  in  the 
"  priests  "  of  India,  the  most  conservative  nation  in  the  world,  it  becomes 
quite  certain  that  the  Egyptian  priests  were  no  more  priests  in  the 
sense  we  give  to  the  word  than  are  the  temple  Brahmans.  They  could 
never  be  regarded  as  such  if  we  take  as  our  standard  the  European 
clergy.     Laurens  observes  very  correctly  that  : 

The  priests  of  Egypt  were  not,  strictly  speaking,  ministers  of  religion.  The 
word  "priest,"  which  translation  has  been  badly  interpreted,  had  an  acceptation 
very  diflFerent  from  the  one  that  is  applied  to  it  among  us.  In  the  language  of 
antiquity,  and  especially  in  the  sense  of  the  initiation  of  the  priests  of  ancient 
Egypt,  the  word  "priest"  is  synonymous  with  that  of  "philosopher."  .  .  .  The 
institution  of  the  Egj'ptian  priests  seems  to  have  been  really  a  confederation  of  sages 
gathered  to  study  the  art  of  ruling  men,  to  centre  the  domain  of  truth,  modulate  its 
propagation,  and  arrest  its  too  dangerous  dispersion. t 

The  Egyptian  Priests,  like  the  Brahmans  of  old,  held  the  reins  of  the 
governing  powers,  a  system  that  descended  to  them  by  direct  inheritance 
from  the  Initiates  of  the  great  Atlantis.  The  pure  cult  of  Nature  in  the 
earliest  patriarchal  days — the  word  "patriarch"  applying  in  its  first 
original  sense  to  the  Progenitors  of  the  human  race,:J:  the  Fathers, 
Chiefs,  and  Instructors  of  primitive  men — became  the  heirloom  of  those 


•  Des  Iniltations,  p.  22. 

+  Essais  Historiques  sur  la  Franc- Maconnerie,  pp.  142,  143. 

t  The  word  "patriarch"  is  composed  of  the  Greek  word  "Patria"  ("family,"  "tribe,"  or 
"  nation"  and  "  Archos "  (a  "chief"),  the  paternal  principle.  The  Jewish  Patriarchs  who  were 
pastors,  passed  their  name  to  the  Christian  Patriarchs  ;  yet  they  were  no  priests,  but  were  simply  the 
heads  of  their  tribes,  like  the  Indian  Rishis. 


204  THE   SECRET    DOCTRINE. 

alone  who  could  discern  the  noumenon  beneath  the  phenomenon. 
Later,  the  Initiates  transmitted  their  knowledge  to  the  human  kings, 
as  their  divine  Masters  had  passed  it  to  their  forefathers.  It  was  their 
prerogative  and  duty  to  reveal  the  secrets  of  Nature  that  were  useful  to 
mankind — the  hidden  virtues  of  plants,  the  art  of  healing  the  sick,  and 
of  bringing  about  brotherly  love  and  mutual  help  among  mankind.  No 
Initiate  was  one  if  he  could  not  heal — aye,  recall  to  life  from  apparent 
death  (coma)  those  who,  too  long  neglected,  would  have  indeed  died 
during  their  lethargy.*  Those  who  showed  such  powers  were  forthwith 
set  above  the  crowds,  and  were  regarded  as  Kings  and  Initiates. 
Gautama  Buddha  was  a  King-Initiate,  a  healer,  and  recalled  to  life 
those  who  were  in  the  hands  of  death.  Jesus  and  Apollonius  were 
healers,  and  were  both  addressed  as  Kings  by  their  followers.  Had  they 
failed  to  raise  those  who  were  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  dead,  none 
of  their  names  would  have  passed  down  to  posterity  ;  for  this  was  the 
first  and  crucial  test,  the  certain  sign  that  the  Adept  had  upon  Him  the 
invisible  hand  of  a  primordial  divine  Master,  or  was  an  incarnation  of 
one  of  the  "  Gods." 

The  later  royal  privilege  descended  to  our  Fifth  Race  kings  through 
the  kings  of  Egypt.  The  latter  were  all  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of 
medicine,  and  they  healed  the  sick,  even  when,  owing  to  the  terrible 
trials  and  labours  of  final  Initiation,  they  were  unable  to  become  full 
Hierophants.  They  were  healers  by  privilege  and  by  tradition,  and  were 
assisted  in  the  healing  art  by  the  Hierophants  of  the  temples,  when  they 
themselves  were  ignorant  of  Occult  curative  Science.  So  also  in  far 
later  historical  times  we  find  Pyrrhus  curing  the  sick  by  simply 
touching  them  with  his  foot ;  Vespasian  and  Hadrian  needed  only  to 
pronounce  a  few  words  taught  to  them  by  their  Hierophants,  in  order 
to  restore  sight  to  the  blind  and  health  to  the  cripple.  From  that  time 
onward  history  has  recorded  cases  of  the  same  privilege  conferred  on  the 
emperors  and  kings  of  almost  every  nation. f 

That  which  is  known  of  the  Priests  of  Eg3^pt  and  of  the  ancient 


•  There  is  no  need  to  observe  here  that  the  resurrection  of  a  really  dead  body  is  an  impossibility  in 
Nature. 

t  The  kings  of  Hungary  claimed  that  they  could  cure  the  jaundice  ;  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy  were 
credited  with  preserving  people  from  the  plague ;  the  kings  of  Spain  delivered  those  possessed  by 
the  devil.  The  prerogative  of  curing  the  king's  evil  was  given  to  the  kings  of  France,  in  reward  for  the 
virtues  of  good  King  Robert.  Francis  the  First,  during  a  short  stay  at  Marseilles  for  his  son's  wed- 
ding, touched  and  cured  of  that  disease  upwards  of  500  persons.  The  kings  of  England  had  the  same 
privilege. 


THE   EGYPTIAN   PRIESTS.  265 

Brahmans,  corroborated  as  it  is  by  all  the  ancient  classics  and  histori- 
cal writers,  gives  us  the  right  to  believe  in  that  which  is  only  tradi- 
tional in  the  opinion  of  sceptics.  Whence  the  wonderful  knowledo'e 
of  the  Egyptian  Priests  in  every  department  of  Science,  unless  they 
had  it  from  a  still  more  ancient  source?  The  famous  "Four,"  the  seats 
of  learning  in  old  Ugypt,  are  more  historically  certain  than  the  begin- 
nings of  modern  England.  It  was  in  the  great  Theban  sanctuary  that 
Pythagoras  upon  his  arrival  from  India  studied  the  Science  of  Occult 
numbers.  It  was  in  Memphis  that  Orpheus  popularized  his  too-abtruse 
Indian  metaphysics  for  the  use  of  Magna  Grecia;  and  thence  Thales, 
and  ages  later  Democritus,  obtained  all  they  knew.  It  is  to  Sais  that 
all  the  honour  must  be  given  of  the  wonderful  legislation  and  the  art 
of  ruling  people,  imparted  by  its  Priests  to  Lycurgus  and  Solon,  who 
will  both  remain  objects  of  admiration  for  generations  to  come. 
And  had  Plato  and  Eudoxus  never  gone  to  worship  at  the  shrine  of 
Heliopolis,  most  probably  the  one  would  have  never  astonished  future 
generations  with  his  ethics,  nor  the  other  with  his  wonderful  know- 
ledge of  mathematics.* 

The  great  modern  writer  on  the  Mysteries  of  Egyptian  Initiation — 
one,  however,  who  knew  nothing  of  those  in  India — the  late  Ragon, 
has  not  exaggerated  in  maintaining  that: 

All  the  notions  possessed  by  Hindustan,  Persia,  Syria,  Arabia,  Chaldaea,  Sydonia, 
and  the  priests  of  Babylonia,  [on  the  secrets  of  Nature],  was  known  to  the  Egyptian 
priests.  It  is  thus  Indian  philosophj',  without  mysteries,  which,  having  pene- 
trated into  Chaldaea  and  ancient  Persia,  gave  rise  to  the  doctrine  of  Egj'ptian 
Mysteries,  t 

The  Mysteries  preceded  the  hieroglyphics. |  They  gave  birth  to  the 
latter,  as  permanent  records  were  needed  to  preserve  and  commemorate 
their   secrets.      It   is   primitive   Philosophy§    that   has  served   as   the 


•  See  r,aurens'  ^ssat's  Historiques  for  further  information  as  to  the  world-mde,  universal  knowledge 
of  the  Egyptian  Priests. 

t  Des  Initiations,  p.  24. 

}  The  word  comes  from  the  Greek  " hieros  "  (sacred ")  and  "  glupho "  ("I  grrave  ").  The  Egyptian 
characters  were  sacred  to  the  Gods,  as  the  Indian  Devanagari  is  the  language  of  the  Gods. 

\  The  same  author  had(as  Occultists  have)  a  veryreasonable  objection  to  the  modem  etymology  ofthe 
word  "philosophy,"  which  is  interpreted"  love  of  wisdom,"  and  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  philo- 
sophers were  scientists,  and  philosophy  was  a  real  science — not  simply  verbiage,  as  it  is  in  our  day. 
The  term  is  composed  of  two  Greek  words  whose  meaning  is  intended  to  convey  its  secret  sense,  and 
ought  to  be  interpreted  as  "wisdom  of  love."  Now  it  is  in  the  last  word,  "love,"  that  lies  hidden 
the  esoteric  significance  :  for  "  love  "  does  not  stand  here  as  a  noun,  nor  does  it  mean  "  affection  "  or 
"fondness,"  but  is  the  term  used  for  Eros,  that  primordial  principle  in  divine  creation,  synonymous 
vrith  iroCTO?.  the   abstract   desire  in  Nature  for  procreation,   resulting  in  an   everlasting  series  of 


266  THE  SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

foundation-stone  for  modern  Philosophy;  onl)^  the  progeny,  while 
perpetuating  the  features  of  the  external  body,  has  lost  on  its  way  the 
Soul  and  Spirit  of  its  parent. 

Initiation,  though  it  contained  neither  rules  and  principles,  nor  any 
special  teaching  of  Science — as  now  understood — was  nevertheless 
Science,  and  the  Science  of  sciences.  And  though  devoid  of  dogma, 
of  physical  discipline,  and  of  exclusive  ritual,  it  was  yet  the  one  true 
Religion — that  of  eternal  truth.  Outwardly  it  was  a  school,  a  college, 
wherein  were  taught  sciences,  arts,  ethics,  legislation,  philanthropy,  the 
cult  of  the  true  and  real  nature  of  cosmic  phenomena ;  secretly,  during 
the  Mysteries,  practical  proofs  of  the  latter  were  given.  Those  who 
could  learn  truth  on  all  things — i.e.,  those  who  could  look  the  great 
Isis  in  her  unveiled  face  and  bear  the  awful  majesty  of  the  Goddess — 
became  Initiates.  But  the  children  of  the  Fifth  Race  had  fallen  too 
deeply  into  matter  always  to  do  so  with  impunity.  Those  who  failed 
disappeared  from  the  world,  without  leaving  a  trace  behind.  Which  of 
the  highest  kings  would  have  dared  to  claim  any  individual,  however 
high  his  social  standing,  from  the  stern  priests,  once  that  the  victim 
had  crossed  the  threshold  of  their  sacred  Adytum  ? 

The  noble  precepts  taught  by  the  Initiates  of  the  early  races  passed 
to  India,  Egypt,  and  Greece,  to  China  and  Chaldsea,  and  thus  spread  all 
over  the  world.  All  that  is  good,  noble,  and  grand  in  human  nature, 
every  divine  faculty  and  aspiration^  were  cultured  by  the  Priest- 
Philosophers  who  sought  to  develop  them  in  their  Initiates.  Their  code 
of  ethics,  based  on  altruism,  has  become  universal.  It  is  found  in 
Confucius,  the  "atheist,"  who  taught  that  "he  who  loves  not  his 
brother  has  no  virtue  in  him,"  and  in  the  Old  Tcsia?neiit  precept,  "Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."*  The  greater  Initiates  became 
like  unto  Gods,  and  Socrates,  mVXdlo' s  Ph(zdo,  is  represented  as  saying  : 

The  Initiates  are  sure  to  come  into  the  companj'  of  the  Gods. 

In  the  same  work  the  great  Athenian  Sage  is  made  to  say: 


phenomena.  It  means  "  divine  love,"  that  universal  element  of  divine  omnipresence  spread  through- 
out Nature  and  which  is  at  once  the  chief  cause  and  effect.  The  "  wisdom  of  love  "  (or  "  philo.sophia,") 
meant  attraction  to  and  love  of  ever>'thing  hidden  beneath  objective  phenomena  and  the  knowledge 
thereof  Philosophy  meant  the  highest  Adeptship— love  of  and  assimilation  with  Deity.  In  his 
modesty  Pythagoras  even  refused  to  be  called  a  Philosopher  (or  one  who  knows  every  hidden  thing  in 
things  \'isible  ;  cause  and  effect,  or  absolute  truth),  and  called  himself  simply  a  Sage  an  aspirant  to 
philosophy,  or  to  Wisdom  of  Love— love  in  its  exoteric  meaning  being  as  degraded  by  men  then  as 
it  is  now  by  its  purely  terrestrial  application. 

•  Lev.,  xix.  i8. 


REVEAIvING  AND   REVEIIvING.  267 

It  is  quite  apparent  that  those  who  have  estabhshed  the  Mysteries,  or  the  secret 
asseniblies  of  the  Initiates,  were  no  mean  persons,  but  powerful  genii,  who  from  the 
first  ages  had  endeavoured  to  make  us  understand  under  those  enigmas  that  he  who 
will  reach  the  invisible  regions  unpurified  will  be  hurled  into  the  abyss  [the  Eighth 
Sphere  of  the  Occult  Doctrine ;  that  is,  he  will  lose  his  personality  for  ever],  while 
he  who  will  attain  them  purged  of  the  maculations  of  this  world,  and  accomplished 
in  virtues,  will  be  received  in  the  abode  of  the  Gods. 

Said  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  referring  to  the  Mysteries: 

Here  ends  all  teaching.     One  sees  Nature  and  all  things. 

A  Christian  Father  of  the  Church  speaks  then  as  did  the  Pagan 
Pretextatus,  the  pro-consul  of  Achaia  (fourth  century  a.d.),  "  a  man 
of  eminent  virtues,"  who  remarked  that  to  deprive  the  Greeks  of  "the 
sacred  Mysteries  which  bind  in  one  the  whole  of  mankind,"  was  to  render 
their  very  lives  worthless  to  them.  Would  the  Mysteries  have  ever 
obtained  the  highest  praise  from  the  noblest  men  of  antiquity  had  they 
not  been  of  more  than  human  origin  ?  Read  all  that  is  said  of  this 
unparalleled  institution,  as  much  by  those  who  had  never  been  ini- 
tiated, as  by  the  Initiates  themselves.  Consult  Plato,  Euripides, 
Socrates,  Aristophanes,  Pindar,  Plutarch,  Isocrates,  Diodorus,  Cicero, 
Epictetus,  Marcus  Aurelius,  not  to  name  dozens  of  other  famous  Sages 
and  writers.  That  which  the  Gods  and  Angels  had  revealed,  exoteric 
religions,  beginning  with  that  of  Moses,  revelled  and  hid  for  ages  from 
the  sight  of  the  world.  Joseph,  the  son  of  Jacob,  was  an  Initiate, 
otherwise  he  would  not  have  married  Aseneth,  the  daughter  of  Petephre 
("Potiphar" — "he  who  belongs  to  Phre,"  the  Sun-God),  priest  of 
Heliopolis  and  governor  of  On.*  Every  truth  revealed  by  Jesus,  and 
which  even  the  Jews  and  early  Christians  understood,  was  revelled  by 
the  Church  that  pretends  to  serve  Him.  Read  what  Seneca  says,  as 
quoted  by  Dr.  Kenealy: 

"  The  world  being  melted  and  having  reentered  the  bosom  of  Jupiter  [or  Para- 
brahman],  this  God  continues  for  some  time  totally  concentred  in  himself  and 
remains  concealed,  as  it  were,  wholly  immersed  in  the  contemplation  of  his  own 
ideas.  Afterwards  we  see  a  new  world  spring  from  him.  .  .  .  An  innocent  race 
of  men  is  formed."  And  again,  speaking  of  a  mundane  dissolution  as  involving  the 
destruction  or  death  of  all,  he  [Seneca]  teaches  us  that  when  the  laws  of  Natvire 
shall  be  buried  in  ruin  and  the  last  day  of  the  world  shall  come,  the  Southern  Pole 
shall  crush,  as  it  falls,  all  the  regions  of  Africa ;  and  the  North  Pole  shall  overwhelm 
all  the  countries  beneath  its  axis.     The  affrighted  sun  shall  be  deprived  of  its  light  ; 

•  "  On,"'the  "  Sun,"  the  Egyptian  name  of  Heliopolis  (the  "  City  of  the  Sun  "). 


268  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

the  palace  of  heaven,  falling  to  decay,  shall  produce  at  once  both  life  and  death,  and 
some  kind  of  dissolution  shall  equally  seize  upon  all  the  deities,  who  thus  shall 
return  to  their  original  chaos.* 

One  might  fancj^  oneself  reading  the  Piiranic  account  by  Parashara 
of  the  great  Pralaya.  It  is  nearly  the  same  thing,  idea  for  idea.  Has 
Christianity  nothing  of  the  kind  ?  I^et  the  reader  open  any  English 
Bible  and  read  chapter  iii.  of  the  Secoyid  Epistle  of  Peter,  and  he  will 
find  there  the  same  ideas. 

There  shall  come  in  the  last  days  scoflFers,  ....  saying,  Where  is  the  promise 
of  his  coming  ?  for  since  the  fathers  fell  asleep  all  things  continue  as  they  were 
from  the  beginning  of  the  creation.  For  this  they  willingly  are  ignorant  of 
that  by  the  word  of  God  the  heavens  were  of  old,  and  the  earth  standing  out  of 
the  water  and  in  the  water :  whereby  the  world  that  then  was,  being  overflowed 
with  water,  perished.  But  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  which  are  now,  by  the  same 
word  are  ....  reserved  unto  fire,  ....  in  the  which  the  heavens  shall 
pass  away  with  a  great  noise,  and  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat.  .  . 
Nevertheless  we    ...     .     look  for  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth. 

If  the  interpreters  chose  to  see  in  this  a  reference  to  a  creation,  a 
deluge,  and  a  promised  coming  of  Christ,  when  they  will  live  in  a 
New  Jerusalem  in  heaven,  that  is  no  fault  of  Peter.  What  he  meant 
was  the  destruction  of  the  Fifth  Race  and  the  appearance  of  a  new 
continent  for  the  Sixth  Race. 

The  Druids  understood  the  meaning  of  the  Sun  in  Taurus,  therefore 
when  all  the  fires  were  extinguished  on  the  ist  of  November  their 
sacred  and  inextinguishable  fire  remained  alone  to  illumine  the  horizon 
like  those  of  the  Magi  and  the  modern  Zoroastrian.  And  like  the  early 
Fifth  Race  and  the  later  Chaldaeans  and  Greeks,  and  again  like  the 
Christians  (who  do  it  to  this  day  without  suspecting  the  real  meaning), 
they  greeted  the  "Morning-Star,"  the  beautiful  Venus- Lucifer. f  Strabo 
speaks  of  an  island  near  Britannia  where  Ceres  and  Persephone  were 
worshipped  with  the  same  rites  as  in  Samothrace,  and  this  was  the 
sacred  lerna,  where  a  perpetual  fire  was  lit.  The  Druids  believed  in 
the  rebirth  of  man,  not,  as  Lucian  explains, 

That  the  same  Spirit  shall  animate  a  new  body,  not  here,  but  in  a  different  world, 
but  in  a  series  of  reincarnations  in  this  same  world ;  for  as  Diodorus 


*  Book  of  God,  p.  i6o. 

+  Mr.  Kenealy  quotes,  in  his  Book  of  God,  Vallancey,  who  says :  "  I  had  not  been  a  week  landed 
in  Ireland  from  Gibraltar,  where  I  had  studied  Hebrew  and  Chaldaic  under  Jews  of  various 
countries,  wheu  I  heard  a  peasant  girl  say  to  a  boor  standing  by  her  '  Feach  an  Maddin  Nag  ' 
{'  Behold  the  morning  star '),  pointing  to  the  planet  Venus,  the  Maddena  Nag  of  the  Chaldeans." 


ATLANTEANS  DEGENERATING.  269 

says,  they  declared  that  the  souls  of  men  after  a  determinate  period 
would  pass  into  other  bodies.* 

These  tenets  came  to  the  Fifth  Race  Aryans  from  their  ancestors  of 
the  Fourth  Race,  the  Atlanteans.  They  piously  preserved  the  teach- 
ings, while  their  parent  Root-Race,  becoming  with  every  generation 
more  arrogant,  owing  to  the  acquisition  of  superhuman  powers,  were 
gradually  approaching  their  end. 


*  There  was  a  time  when  the  whole  world,  the  totality  of  mankind,  had  one  religion,  lis  they  were 
of  "one  lip."  "All  the  reli^ons  of  the  earth  were  at  first  one,  and  emanated  irom  one  centre," 
says  Faber. 


SECTION   XXIX, 

The  Trial  of  the  Sun  Initiate. 


We  will  begin  with  the  ancient  Mysteries — those  received  from  the 
Atlanteans  by  the  primitive  Aryans — whose  mental  and  intellectual 
state  Professor  Max  Miiller  has  described  with  such  a  masterly  hand, 
yet  left  so  incomplete  withal. 

He  says  :  We  have  in  it  [in  the  Rig  Veda]  a  period  of  the  intellectual  life  of  man  to 
which  there  is  no  parallel  in  any  other  part  of  the  world.  In  the  hymns  of  the  Veda 
we  see  man  left  to  himself  to  solve  the  riddle  of  this  world.  .  .  .  He  invokes  the 
gods  around  him,  he  praises,  he  worships  them.  But  still  with  all  these  gods  .  . 
.  .  beneath  him,  and  above  him,  the  early  poet  seems  ill  at  rest  within  himself. 
There,  too,  in  his  own  breast,  he  has  discovered  a  power  that  is  never  mute  when 
he  prays,  never  absent  when  he  fears  and  trembles.  It  seems  to  inspire  his  prayers 
and  yet  to  listen  to  them  ;  it  seems  to  live  in  him,  and  yet  to  support  him  and  all 
around  him.  The  only  name  he  can  find  for  this  mysterious  power  is  "  Brahman  ;  " 
for  brahman  meant  originally  force,  will,  wish,  and  the  propulsive  power  of  creation. 
But  this  impersonal  brahman  too,  as  soon  as  it  is  named,  grows  into  something 
strange  and  divine.  It  enjds  by  being  one  of  many  gods,  one  of  the  great  triad, 
worshipped  to  the  present  day.  And  still  the  thought  within  him  has  no  real 
name;  that  power  which  is  nothing  but  itself,  which  supports  the  gods,  the 
heavens,  and  every  living  being,  floats  before  his  mind,  conceived  but  not  expressed. 
At  last  he  calls  it  "  Atman,"  for  atman,  originally  breath  or  spirit,  comes  to  mean 
Self  and  Self  alone.  Self,  whether  divine  or  human  ;  Self,  whether  creating  or 
suffering;  Self,  whether  One  or  All ;  but  always  Self,  independent  and  free.  "  Who 
has  seen  the  first-born  ?"  says  the  poet,  "when  he  who  had  no  bones  (i.e.,  form) 
bore  him  that  had  bones  ?  Where  was  the  life,  the  blood,  the  Self  of  the  world  ? 
Who  went  to  ask  this  from  any  one  who  knew  it  ?  ■"  (Rig  Veda,  I,  164,  4.)  This  idea 
of  a  divine  Self  once  expressed,  ever>thing  else  must  acknowledge  its  supremacy  ; 
Self\&  the  Lord  of  all  things ;  it  is  the  King  of  all  things ;  as  all  the  spokes  of  a  wheel 
are  contained  in  the  nave  and  circumference,  all  things  are  contained  in  this  Self; 
all  selves  are  contained  in  this  Self.'"     (Brihadaranyaka,  IV,  v.  15).* 


Chips  from  a    German  IVorkshop,  i.  69,  70. 


\nSHVAKARMA   AND   VIKARTTANA.  27I 

This  Self,  the  highest,  the  one,  and  the  universal,  was  symbolised  on 
the  plane  of  mortals  by  the  Sun,  its  life-giving  effulgence  being  in  its 
turn  the  emblem  of  the  Soul — killing  the  terrestrial  passions  which 
have  ever  been  an  impediment  to  the  re-union  of  the  Unit  Self  (the 
Spirit)  with  the  All-Self  Hence  the  allegorical  mystery,  only  the  broad 
features  of  which  may  be  given  here.  It  was  enacted  by  the  "  Sons  of 
the  Fire-Mist  "  and  of  "  Light."  The  second  Sun  (the  "second  hypos- 
tasis "  of  Rabbi  Drach)  appeared  as  put  on  his  trial,  Vishvakarma,  the 
Hierophant,  cutting  ofif  seven  of  his  beams,  and  replacing  them  with  a 
crown  of  brambles,  when  the  "Sun"  became  Vikarttana,  shorn  of  his 
beams  or  rays.  After  that,  the  Sun — enacted  by  a  neophyte  ready  to 
be  initiated — was  made  to  descend  into  Patala,  the  nether  regions,  on 
a  trial  of  Tantalus.  Coming  out  of  it  triumphant,  he  emerged  from  this 
region  of  lust  and  iniquity,  to  re-become  Karmasakshin,  witness  of  the 
Karma  of  men,*  and  arose  once  more  triumphant  in  all  the  glor}^  of  his 
regeneration,  as  the  Graha-Rajah,  King  of  the  Constellations,  and  was 
addressed  as  Gabhastiman,  "re-possessed  of  his  rays." 

The  "  fable  "  in  the  popular  Pantheon  of  India,  founded  upon,  and 
born  out  of  the  poetical  mysticism  of  the  Rig-  Veda — the  sayings  of 
which  were  mostly  all  dramatised  during  the  religious  Mysteries — grew 
in  the  course  of  its  exoteric  evolution  into  the  following  allegorj'.  It 
may  be  found  now  in  several  of  the  Purdnas  and  in  other  Scriptures. 
In  the  Rig-  Veda  and  its  Hymns,  Vishvakarma,  a  Mystery-God,  is  the 
Logos,  the  Demiurgos,  one  of  the  greatest  Gods,  and  spoken  of  in  two 
of  the  hymns  as  the  highest.  He  is  the  Omnificent  (Vishvakarma), 
called  the  "  Great  Architect  of  the  Universe,"  the 

All  seeing  God,  ....  the  father,  the  generator,  the  disposer,  who  gives  the 
gods  their  names,  and  is  beyond  the  comprehension  of  mortals, 

as  is  every  Mystery-God.  Esoterically,  He  is  the  personification  of  the 
creative  manifested  Power ;  and  mystically  He  is  the  seventh  principle  in 
man,  in  its  collectivity.  For  He  is  the  son  of  Bhuvana,  the  self-created, 
luminous  Essence,  and  of  the  virtuous,  chaste  and  lovely  Yoga-Siddha, 
the  virgin  Goddess,  whose  name  speaks  for  itself,  since  it  personified 
Yoga-power,  the  "chaste  mother"  that  creates  the  Adepts.  In  the 
Rig-Vaidic  Hymns,  Vishvakarma  performs  the  "great  sacrifice,"  i.e., 
sacrifices  himself  for  the  world ;  or,  as  the  Nirukta  is  made  to  say,  trans- 
lated by  the  Orientalists : 


Surya.  the  Sun,  is  one  of  the  nine  divinities  that  witness  all  human  actions. 


272  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Vishvakarma  first  of  all  ofifers  up  all  the  world  in  a  sacrifice,  and  then  ends  by 
sacrificing  himself. 

In  the  mystical  representations  of  his  character,  Vishvakarma  is 
often  called  Vittoba,  and  is  pictured  as  the  "  Victim,"  the  "  Man- God," 
or  the  Avatara  crucified  in  space. 

[Of  the  true  Mysteries,  the  real  Initiations,  nothing  of  course  can  be 
said  in  public ;  they  can  be  known  only  to  those  who  are  able  to  experi- 
ence them.  But  a  few  hints  can  be  given  of  the  great  ceremonial 
Mysteries  of  Antiquity,  which  stood  to  the  public  as  the  real  Mysteries, 
and  into  which  candidates  were  initiated  with  much  ceremony  and 
display  of  Occult  Arts.  Behind  these,  in  silence  and  darkness,  were  the 
true  Mysteries,  as  they  have  always  existed  and  continue  to  exist.  In 
Egypt,  as  in  Chaldaea  and  later  in  Greece,  the  M3^steries  were  celebrated 
at  stated  times,  and  the  first  day  was  a  public  holiday,  on  which,  with 
much  pomp,  the  candidates  were  escorted  to  the  Great  Pyramid  and 
passed  thereinto  out  of  sight.  The  second  day  was  devoted  to  cere- 
monies of  purification,  at  the  close  of  which  the  candidate  was  presented 
with  a  white  robe ;  on  the  third  day]  *  he  was  tried  and  examined  as  to 
his  proficiency  in  Occult  learning.  On  the  fourth  day,  after  another 
ceremony  symbolical  of  purification,  he  was  sent  alone  to  pass  through 
various  trials,  finally  becoming  entranced  in  a  subterranean  crypt,  in 
utter  darkness,  for  two  days  and  two  nights.  In  Kgypt,  the  entranced 
neophyte  was  placed  in  an  empty  sarcophagus  in  the  Pyramid,  where 
the  initiatory  rites  took  place.  In  India  and  Central  Asia,  he  was 
bound  on  a  lathe,  and  when  his  body  had  become  like  that  of  one  dead 
(entranced),  he  was  carried  into  the  crypt.  Then  the  Hierophant 
kept  watch  over  him  "  guiding  the  apparitional  soul  (astral  body) 
i'rom  this  world  of  Samsara  (or  delusion)  to  the  nethef  kingdoms,  from 
which,  if  successful,  he  had  the  right  of  releasing  seveji  suffering  souls''' 
(Elementaries).  Clothed  with  his  Anandamayakosha,  the  body  ot 
bliss — the  Srotapanna  remained  there  where  we  have  no  right  to 
follow  him,  and  upon  returning — received  the  Word,  with  or  without 
the  "heart's  blood"  of  the  Hierophant.f 

•  [There  is  a  gap  in  H.  P.  B.'s  MS.,  and  the  paragraph  in  brackets  supplies  what  was  missing.— 
A.  B.] 

*  In  Jsis  Unveiled,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  41,  42,  a  portion  of  this  rite  is  referred  to.  Speaking  of  the  dogma 
of  Atonement,  it  is  traced  to  ancient  "heathendom"  again.  We  say:  "This  cornerstone  of  a 
church  which  had  believed  herself  built  on  a  firm  rock  for  long  centuries,  is  now  excavaied  by 
science  and  proved  to  come  from  the  Gnostics.  Professor  Draper  shows  it  as  hardly  known  in  the 
days  of  Tertullian,  and  as  having  '  originated  among  the  Gnostic  heretics'  (see  Confiicl  Between  Re- 


THE   TRANSMISSION    OF   LIGHT.  273 

Ooly  in  truth  the  Hierophaut  was  never  killed — neither  in  India  nor 
elsewhere,  the  murder  being  simply  feigned — unless  the  Initiator  had 
chosen  the  Initiate  for  his  successor  and  had  decided  to  pass  to  him 
the  last  and  supreme  Word,  after  which  he  had  to  die — only  one 
man  in  a  nation  having  the  right  to  know  that  word.  Many  are  those 
grand  Initiates  who  have  thus  passed  out  of  the  world's  sight,  dis- 
appearing 

As  mysteriously  from  the  sight  of  men  as  Moses  from  the  top  of  Mount  Pisgah 
(Nebo,  oracular  Wisdom),  aftei  he  had  laid  his  hands  upon  Joshua,  who  thus  became 
"full  of  the  spirit  of  wisdom,"  i.e.,  initiated. 

But  he  died,  he  was  not  killed.  For  killing,  if  really  done,  would 
belong  to  black,  not  to  divine  Magic.  It  is  the  transmission  of  light, 
rather  than  a  transfer  of  life,  of  life  spiritual  and  divine,  and  it  is  the 
shedding  of  Wisdom,  not  of  blood.  But  the  uninitiated  inventors  of 
theological  Christianity  took  the  allegorical  language  a  la  lettre ;  and 
instituted  a  dogma,  the  crude,  misunderstood  expression  of  which 
horrifies  and  repels  the  spiritual  "  heathen." 

All  these  Hierophants  and  Initiates  were  types  of  the  Sun  and  of  the 
Creative    Principle    (spiritual    potency)    as    were    Vishvakarma    and 


ligion  and  Science,  p.  224).  .  .  .  But  there  are  sufficient  proofs  to  show  that  it  originated  amoug 
them  no  more  than  did  their  anointed  Christos  and  Sophia.  The  former  they  modelled  on  the  original 
of  the  King  Messiah,  the  male  principle  of  wisdom,  and  the  latter  on  the  third  Sephiroth,  from  the 
Chaldasan  Kabalah,  and  even  from  the  Hindu  Brahmi  and  Sarasvati,  and  the  Pagan  Dionysius  and 
Demeter.  And  here  we  are  on  firm  ground,  if  it  were  only  because  it  is  now  proved  that  the  Neji' 
Testament  n.-ver  appeared  in  its  complete  form,  such  as  we  find  it  now,  till  300  years  after  the  period 
of  the  apostles,  and  the  Zohar  and  other  Kabalistic  books  are  found  to  belong  to  the  first  century 
before  our  era,  if  not  to  be  far  older  still. 

"The  Gnostics  entertained  manj' of  the  Essenean  ideas  ;  and  theEssenes  had  their  greater  and  minor 
Mysteries  at  least  two  centuries  before  our  era.  They  were  the  Isarim  ox  hiitiates,  the  descendants  of 
the  Egyptian  hierophants,  in  whose  country  they  had  been  settled  for  several  centuries  before  they 
were  converted  to  Buddhistic  monasticism  by  the  missionaries  of  King  Asoka,  and  amalgamated  later 
with  the  earliest  Christians  :  and  they  existed,  probably,  before  the  old  Egj'ptiau  temples  were  dese- 
crated and  ruined  in  the  incessant  invasions  of  Persians,  Greeks,  and  other  conquering  hordes.  The 
hierophants  had  their  atonement  enacted  in  the  Mysterj-  of  Initiation  ages  before  the  Gnostics,  or 
even  the  Essenes,  had  appeared.  It  was  known  among  hierophants  as  the  Baptism  of  Blood,  and 
was  considered  not  as  an  atonement  for  the  '  fall  of  man  '  in  Eden,  but  simply  as  an  e.xpiation  for 
the  past,  present,  and  future  sins  of  ignorant,  but  nevertheless  polluted  mankind.  The  hierophant 
had  the  option  of  either  offering  his  pure  and  sinless  life  as  a  sacrifice  for  his  race  to  the  gods  whom 
he  hoped  to  rejoin,  or  an  animal  victim.  The  former  depended  entirely  on  their  own  will.  At  the 
last  moment  of  the  solemn  'new  birth,' the  Initiator  passed  '  the  word'  to  the  initiated,  and  imrL.e- 
diately  after  the  latter  had  a  weapon  placed  in  his  right  hand,  and  was  ordered  to  strike.  This  is  the 
true  origin  of  the  Christian  dogma  of  atonement." 

As  Ballanche  says,  quoted  by  Ragon  :  "  Destruction  is  the  great  God  of   the  World,"  justifying 
therefore  the  philosophical  conception  of  the  Hindu  Shiva.     According  to  this  immutable  and  sacrec 
law,  the  Initiate  was  compelled  to  kill  the  Initiator  ;  otherwise  initiation  remained  incomplete.     .     . 
It  is  death  that  generates  life."     Orthodoxie  maconnique,  p.  104.     All  that,  however,  was  emblematic 
and  exoteric.    Weapon  and  killing  must  be  understood  in  their  allegorical  sense. 

3    T 


274  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Vikarttana,  from  the  origin  of  the  Mysteries.  Ragon,  the  famous 
Mason,  gives  curious  details  and  explanations  with  regard  to  the  Sun 
rites.  He  shows  that  the  biblical  Hiram,  the  great  hero  of  Masonry 
(the  "widow's  son")  a  type  taken  from  Osiris,  is  the  Sun-God,  the 
inventor  of  arts,  and  the  "architect,"  the  name  Hiram  meaning  the  ele- 
vated, a  title  belonging  to  the  Sun.  Every  Occultist  knows  how  closely 
related  to  Osiris  and  the  Pyramids  are  the  narratives  in  Kings  con- 
cerning Solomon,  his  Temple  and  its  construction  ;  he  knows  also  that 
the  whole  of  the  Masonic  rite  of  Initiation  is  based  upon  the  Biblical 
allegory  of  the  construction  of  that  Temple,  Masons  conveniently  forget- 
ting, or  perhaps  ignoring,  the  fact  that  the  latter  narrative  is  modelled 
upon  Egyptian  and  still  earlier  symbolisms.  Ragon  explains  it  by 
showing  that  the  three  companions  of  Hiram,  the  "  three  murderers," 
typify  the  three  last  months  of  the  year ;  and  that  Hiram  stands  for  the 
Sun — from  its  summer  solstice  downwards,  when  it  begins  decreasing — 
the  whole  rite  being  an  astronomical  allegory. 

During  the  summer  solstice,  the  Sun  provokes  songs  of  gratitude  from  all  that 
breathes ;  hence  Hiram,  who  represents  it,  can  give  to  whomsoever  has  the  right  to 
il,  the  sacred  Word,  that  is  to  say  life.  When  the  Sun  descends  to  the  inferior 
signs  all  Nature  becomes  mute,  and  Hiram  can  no  longer  give  the  sacred  Word  to 
the  companions,  who  represent  the  three  inert  months  of  the  year.  The  first  com- 
panion strikes  Hiram  feebly  with  a  rule  twenty-four  inches  long,  symbol  of  the 
twenty-four  hours  which  make  up  each  diurnal  revolution  ;  it  is  the  first  distribu- 
tion of  time,  which  after  the  exaltation  of  the  mighty  star,  feebly  assails  his  exis- 
tence, giving  him  the  first  blow.  The  second  companion  strikes  him  with  an  iron 
square,  symbol  of  the  last  season,  figured  by  the  intersections  of  two  right  lines, 
which  would  divide  into  four  equal  parts  the  Zodiacal  circle,  whose  centre  symbo- 
lises Hiram's  heart,  where  it  touches  the  point  of  the  four  squares  representing  the 
four  seasons:  second  distribution  of  time,  which  at  that  period  strikes  a  heavier 
blow  at  the  solar  existence.  The  third  companion  strikes  him  mortally  on  his  fore- 
head with  a  heavy  blow  of  his  mallet,  whose  cylindrical  form  symbolises  the  year, 
the  ring  or  circle :  third  distribution  of  time,  the  accomplishment  of  which  deals 
the  last  blow  to  the  existence  of  the  expiring  Sun.  From  this  interpretation  it  has 
been  inferred  that  Hiram,  s.fou?ider  of  metals,  the  hero  of  the  new  legend  with  the 
title  of  architect,  is  Osiris  (the  Sun)  of  modern  initiation  ;  that  Isis,  his  widow,  is  the 
Lodge,  the  emblem  of  the  Earth  {loka  in  Sanskrit,  the  world)  and  that  Horus,  son  of 
Osiris  (or  of  light)  and  the  widow's  son,  is  the  free  Mason,  that  is  to  say,  the  Initiate 
who  inhabits  the  terrestrial  lodge  (the  child  of  the  Widow,  and  of  Light.)* 

And  here  again,  our  friends  the  Jesuits  have  to  be  mentioned,  for  the 
above  rite  is  of  their  making.     To  give  one  instance  of  their  success  in 


•  Orthodoxie  mafonni^ue,  pp.  102-104. 


MASONRY    AND   THE  JESUITS.  275 

throwing  dust  into  the  eyes  of  ordinary  individuals  to  prevent  their 
seeing  the  truths  of  Occultism,  we  will  point  out  what  they  did  in  what 
is  now  called  Freemasonry. 

This  Brotherhood  does  possess  a  considerable  portion  of  the  sym- 
bolism, formulae,  and  ritual  of  Occultism,  handed  down  from  time 
immemorial  from  the  primeval  Initiations.  To  render  this  Brother- 
hood a  mere  harmless  negation,  the  Jesuits  sent  some  of  their  most  able 
emissaries  into  the  Order,  who  first  made  the  simple  brethren  believe 
that  the  true  secret  was  lost  with  Hiram  Abiff ;  and  then  induced  them 
to  put  this  belief  into  their  formularies.  They  then  invented  specious 
but  spurious  higher  degress,  pretending  to  give  further  light  upon  this 
lost  secret,  to  lead  the  candidate  on  and  amuse  him  with  forms 
borrowed  from  the  real  thing  but  containing  no  substance,  and  all 
artfully  contrived  to  lead  the  aspiring  Neophyte  to  nowhere.  And  yet 
men  of  good  sense  and  abilities,  in  other  respects,  will  meet  at  intervals, 
and  with  solemn  face,  zeal  and  earnestness,  go  through  the  mockery  of 
revealing  "substituted  secrets"  instead  of  the  real  thing. 

If  the  reader  turns  to  a  very  remarkable  and  very  useful  work  called 
The  Royal  Masonic  Cyclopaedia,  Art.  "  Rosicrucianism,"  he  will  find  its 
author,  a  high  and  learned  Mason,  showing  what  the  Jesuits  have  done 
to  destroy  Masonry.  Speaking  of  the  period  when  the  existence  of  this 
mysterious  Brotherhood  (of  which  many  pretend  to  know  "something" 
if  not  a  good  deal,  and  know  in  fact  nothing)  was  first  made  known,  he 
says  : 

There  was  a  dread  among  the  great  masses  of  society  in  byegone  days  of  the  un- 
seen— a  dread,  as  recent  events  and  phenomena  .show  very  clearly,  not  yet  overcome 
in  its  entirety.  Hence  students  of  Nature  and  mind  were  forced  into  an  obscurity 
not  altogether  unwelcome.  .  .  .  The  Kabalistic  reveries  of  a  Johann  Reuchlin 
led  to  the  fiery  action  of  a  Luther,  and  the  patient  labours  of  Trittenheim  produced 
the  modern  system  of  diplomatic  cipher  writing.  .  .  .  It  is  very  worthy  of  re- 
mark, that  one  particular  century,  and  that  in  which  the  Rosicrucians  first  showed 
themselves,  is  distinguished  in  history  as  the  era  in  which  most  of  these  efibrts  at 
throwing  off  the  trammels  of  the  past  [Poperj'  and  Ecclesiasticism]  occurred. 
Hence  the  opposition  of  the  losing  party,  and  their  virulence  against  anj'thing 
mysterious  or  unknown.  They  freely  organised  pseudo-Rosicrucian  and  Masonic 
societies  in  return ;  and  these  societies  were  instructed  to  irregularly  entrap  the  weaker 
brethren  of  the  True  and  Invisible  Order,  and  then  triumphantly  betray  anything 
they  might  be  so  inconsiderate  as  to  communicate  to  the  superiors  of  these 
transitory  and  unmeaning  associations.  Every  wile  was  adopted  by  the  authori- 
ties, fighting  in  self-defence  against  the  progress  of  truth,  to  engage,  by  persuasion, 
interest  or  terror,  such  as  might  be  cajoled  into  receiving  the  Pope  as  Master — 


276  THE    SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

when  gained,  as  many  converts  to  that  faith  know,  but  dare  not  own,  the}'  are 
treated  with  neglect,  and  left  to  fight  the  battle  of  life  as  best  they  may,  not  even 
being  admitted  to  the  knowledge  of  such  miserable  aporrheta  as  the  Romish  faith 
considers  itself  entitled  to  withhold. 

But  if  Masonry  has  been  spoiled,  none  is  able  to  crush  the  real,  in- 
visible Rosicrucian  and  the  Eastern  Initiate.  The  symbolism  of 
Vishvakarma  and  Surya  Vikarttana  has  survived,  where  Hiram  Abiff 
was  indeed  murdered,  and  we  will  now  return  to  it.  It  is  not  simply  an 
astronomical,  but  is  the  most  solemn  rite,  an  inheritance  from  the 
Archaic  Mysteries  that  has  crossed  the  ages  and  is  used  to  this  day.  It 
typifies  a  whole  drama  of  the  Cycle  of  Life,  of  progressive  incarnations, 
and  of  psychic  as  well  as  of  physiological  secrets,  of  which  neither  the 
Church  nor  Science  knows  anything,  though  it  is  this  rite  that  has  led 
'•he  former  to  the  greatest  of  its  Christian  Mysteries. 


SECTION  XXX. 
The  Mystery  "  Sun  of  Initiation.' 


The  antiquity  of  the  Secret  Doctrine  may  be  better  realised  when  it 
is  shown  at  what  point  of  history  its  Mysteries  had  already  been 
desecrated,  by  being  made  subservient  to  the  personal  ambition  of 
despot-ruler  and  crafty  priest.  These  profoundly  philosophical  and 
scientifically  composed  religious  dramas,  in  which  were  enacted  the 
grandest  truths  of  the  Occult  or  Spiritual  Universe  and  the  hidden 
lore  of  learning,  had  become  subject  to  persecution  long  before  the  days 
when  Plato  and  even  Pythagoras  flourished.  Withal,  primal  revelations 
given  to  Mankind  have  not  died  with  the  Mysteries  ;  they  are  still  pre- 
served as  heirlooms  for  future  and  more  spiritual  generations. 

It  has  been  alread}^  stated  in  his  Uyiveiled*  that  so  far  back  as  in  the 
days  of  Aristotle,  the  great  Mysteries  had  already  lost  their  primitive 
grandeur  and  solemnity.  Their  rites  had  fallen  into  desuetude,  and  they 
had  to  a  great  degree  degenerated  into  mere  priestly  speculations  and  had 
become  religious  shams.  It  is  useless  to  state  when  they  first  appeared 
in  Europe  and  Greece,  since  recognised  history  may  almost  be  said  to 
begin  with  Aristotle,  everything  before  him  appearing  to  be  in  an 
inextricable  chronological  confusion.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  in  Egypt 
the  Mysteries  had  been  known  since  the  days  of  Menes,  and  that  the 
Greeks  received  them  only  when  Orpheus  introduced  them  from  India. 
In  an  article  "  Was  writing  known  before  Panini  ?  "f  it  is  stated  that  the 
Pandus  had  acquired  universal  dominion  and  had  taught  the  "  sacri- 
ficial "  Mysteries  to  other  races  as  far  back  as  3,300  B.C.  Indeed,  when 
Orpheus,  the  son  of  Apollo  or  Helios,  received  from  his  father  the 
phorminx — the  seven-stringed  lyre,  symbolical  of  the  sevenfold  mystery 


*  op.  cii.,  i.  15. 

T  Five  Years  of  Theosophy,  p.  258.  A  curious  question  to  start  and  to  deny,  when  it  is  well-known 
even  to  the  Orientalists  that,  to  take  but  one  case,  there  is  Yaska,  who  was  a  predecessor  of  Panini, 
and  his  work  still  exists  ;  there  are  seventeen  writers  of  Nirukta  (glossary)  known  to  have  preceded 
y.iska 


278  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

of  Initiation — these  Mysteries  were  already'  hoary  with  age  in  Central 
Asia  and  India.  According  to  Herodotus  it  was  Orpheus  who  brought 
them  from  India,  and  Orpheus  is  far  anterior  to  Homer  and  Hesiod. 
Thus  even  in  the  days  of  Aristotle  few  were  the  true  Adepts  left  in 
Europe  and  even  in  Egypt.  The  heirs  of  those  who  had  been  dispersed 
b}-  the  conquering  swords  of  various  invaders  of  old  Eg>'pt  had  been 
dispersed  in  their  turn.  As  8,000  or  9,000  years  earlier  the  stream  of 
knowledge  had  been  slowly  running  down  from  the  tablelands  of 
Central  Asia  into  India  and  towards  Europe  and  Northern  Africa, 
so  about  500  years  B.C.  it  had  begun  to  flow  backward  to  its  old  home 
and  birthplace.  During  the  two  thousand  subsequent  years  the  know- 
ledge of  the  existence  of  great  Adepts  nearly  died  out  in  Europe. 
Nevertheless,  in  some  secret  places  the  Mysteries  were  still  enacted  in  all 
their  primitive  purity.  The  "  Sun  of  Righteousness"  still  blazed  high 
on  the  midnight  sky ;  and,  while  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the 
profane  world,  there  was  the  eternal  light  in  the  Adyta  on  the  nights  of 
Initiation.  The  true  Mysteries  were  never  made  public.  Eleusinia  and 
Agrse  for  the  multitudes ;  the  God  Ev^SouX^  "  of  the  good  counsel,"  the 
great  Orphic  Deity,  for  the  neophyte. 

This  mystery  God — mistaken  by  our  Symbologists  for  the  Sun— who 
was  He  ?  Everyone  who  has  any  idea  of  the  ancient  Egyptian  exoteric 
faith  is  quite  aware  that  for  the  multitudes  Osiris  was  the  Sun  in 
Heaven,  "  the  Heavenly  King,"  Ro-Imphab  ;  that  by  the  Greeks  the 
Sun  was  called  the  "  Eye  of  Jupiter,"  as  for  the  modern  orthodox  Parsi 
he  is  "  the  Eye  of  Ormuzd  :  "  that  the  Sun,  moreover,  was  addressed  as 
the  "All-seeing  God  "  (7roXvd<^^aXyu.os)  as  the  "  God  Saviour,"  and  the 
"saving  God  "  (AiViov  -ri}?  o-wxTyptas).  Read  the  papyrus  of  Papheronraes 
at  Berlin,  and  the  stela  as  rendered  by  Mariette  Bey,*  and  see  what 
they  say : 

Glory  to  thee,  O  Sun,  divine  child  !  .  .  .  thy  rays  carry  life  to  the  pure  and 
to  those  ready.  .  .  .  The  Gods  [the  "Sons  of  God  "]  who  approach  thee  tremble 
with  delight  and  awe.     .     .     .     Thou  art  the  first  born,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Word.t 

The  Church  has  now  seized  upon  these  terms  and  sees  presentments 
of  the  coming  Christ  in  these  expressions  in  the  initiatory  rites  and 


•  La  Mire  d'Apis,  p.  47. 

+  One  just  initiated  is  called  the  "  first-bom,"  and  in  India  he  becomes  dwija,  "tvsdce  born,"  only 
after  his  final  and  supreme  Initiation.  Every  Adept  is  a  "Son  of  God  "  and  a  " Son  of  Light  "  after 
receiving-  the  "Word,"  when  he  becomes  the  "Word"  himself,  afler  receiving-  the  seven  divine  attri- 
butes or  the  "  lyre  of  Apollo." 


THE   SUN   AS   GOD. 


279 


prophetic  utterances  of  the  Pagan  Oracles.  Thej^  are  nothing  of  the 
kind,  for  they  were  applied  to  every  worthy  Initiate.  If  the  expres- 
sions that  were  used  in  hieratic  writings  and  glyphs  thousands  of  years 
before  our  era  are  now  found  in  the  laudatory  hymns  and  prayers  of 
Christian  Churches,  it  is  simply  because  they  have  been  unblushingly 
appropriated  by  the  Latin  Christians,  in  the  full  hope  of  never  being 
detected  by  posterity.  Everything  that  could  be  done  had  been  done 
to  destroy  the  original  Pagan  manuscripts  and  the  Church  felt  secure. 
Christianity  has  undeniably  had  her  great  Seers  and  Prophets,  like 
every  other  religion  ;  but  their  claims  are  not  strengthened  by  denying 
their  predecessors. 
Listen  to  Plato : 

Know  then,  Glaucus,  that  when  I  speak  of  the  production  of  good,  it  is  the  Sun  I 
mean.     The  Son  has  a  perfect  analogy  with  his  Father. 

lamblichus  calls  the  Sun  "  the  image  of  divine  intelligence  or 
Wisdom."  Eusebius,  repeating  the  words  of  Philo,  calls  the  rising 
Sun  (avaroXi])  the  chief  Angel,  the  most  ancient,  adding  that  the  Arch- 
angel who  is  polyonymotis  (of  many  names)  is  the  Verbum  or  Christ. 
The  word  Sol  (Sun)  being  derived  from  solus,  the  One,  or  the  "He 
alone,"  and  its  Greek  name  Helios  meaning  the  "  Most  High,"  the 
emblem  becomes  comprehensible.  Nevertheless,  the  Ancients  made  a 
difference  between  the  Sun  and  its  prototj'pe. 

Socrates  saluted  the  rising  Sun  as  does  a  true  Parsi  or  Zoroastrian 
in  our  own  day  ;  and  Homer  and  Euripides,  as  Plato  did  after  them 
several  times,  mention  the  Jupiter-Logos,  the  "Word"  or  the  Sun, 
Nevertheless,  the  Christians  maintain  that  since  the  oracle  consulted 
on  the  God  lao  answered  :  "  It  is  the  Sun,"  therefore 

The  Jehovah  of  the  Jews  was  well  known  to  the  Pagans  and  Greeks;* 
and  "  lao  is  our  Jehovah,"  The  first  part  of  the  proposition  has 
nothing,  it  seems,  to  do  with  the  second  part,  and  least  of  all  can  the 
conclusion  be  regarded  as  correct.  But  if  the  Christians  are  so  anxious 
to  prove  the  identity.  Occultists  have  nothing  against  it.  Only,  in 
such  case,  Jehovah  is  also  Bacchus.  It  is  very  strange  that  the  people 
of  civilised  Christendom  should  until  now  hold  on  so  desperately  to 
the  skirts  of  the  idolatrous  Jews — Sabaeaus  and  Sun  worshippers  as 
they  were,!  like  the  rabble  of  Chaldsea — and  that  they  should  fail  to  see 
that  the  later  Jehovah  is  but  a  Jewish  development  of  the  Ja-va,  or  the 

•  See  De  Mirville,  iv.  15.  t  II.  Kings,  zxiii.  j-'^. 


28o  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

lao,  of  the  Phoenicians  ;  that  this  name,  in  short,  was  the  secret  name 
of  a  Mystery-God,  one  of  the  many  Kabiri.  "  Highest  God  "  as  He 
was  for  one  little  nation,  he  never  was  so  regarded  by  the  Initiates  who 
conducted  the  Mysteries  ;  for  them  he  was  but  a  Planetary  Spirit 
attached  to  the  visible  Sun  ;  and  the  visible  Sun  is  only  the  central 
Star,  not  the  central  spiritual  Sun. 

And  the  Angel  of  the  Lord  said  unto  him  [Manoah]  "Why  askest  thou  thus  after 
my  name,  seeing  it  is  secret."  * 

However  this  may  be,  the  identity  of  the  Jehovah  of  Mount  Sinai  with 
the  God  Bacchus  is  hardly  disputable,  and  he  is  surely — as  already 
shown  in  Isis  Unveiled — Dionysos.f  Wherever  Bacchus  was  worshipped 
there  was  a  tradition  of  Nyssa,:|:  and  a  cave  where  he  was  reared. 
Outside  Greece,  Bacchus  was  the  all-powerful  "  Zagreus,  the  highest  of 
Gods,"  in  whose  service  was  Orpheus,  the  founder  of  the  Mysteries. 
Now,  unless  it  be  conceded  that  Moses  was  an  initiated  Priest,  an 
Adept,  whose  actions  are  all  narrated  allegorically,  then  it  must  be 
admitted  that  he  personally,  together  with  his  hosts  of  Israelites, 
worshipped  Bacchus. 

And  Moses  built  an  altar,  and  called  the  name  of  it  Jehovah  Nissi  [or,  lao-nisi,  or 
again  Dionisi].§ 

To  Strengthen  the  .statement  we  have  further  to  remember  that  the 
place  where  Osiris,  the  Egyptian  Zagreus  or  Bacchus,  was  born,  was 
Mount  Sinai,  which  is  called  by  the  Egyptians  Mount  Nissa.  The 
brazen  serpent  was  a  nis,  QJnD,  and  the  month  of  the  Jewish  Passover  is 
Nisan. 

*  Judges,  xiii.  i8.  Satnson,  Manoah's  son,  was  an  Initiate  of  that  "  M3'stery  "  I,ord,  Ja-va  ;  he  was 
consecrated  before  his  birth  to  become  a  "Nazarite  "  (a  chela)  an  Adept.  His  sin  with  Dalilah,  and 
the  cropping  of  his  long  hair  that  "  no  razor  was  to  touch  "  shows  how  well  he  kept  his  sacred  vow. 
The  allegory  of  Samsoii  proves  the  Esotericism  of  the  Bible,  as  also  the  character  of  the  "  Mystery 
Gods  "  of  the  Jews.  True,  Movers  gives  a  definition  of  the  Phcenician  idea  of  the  ideal  sunlight  as  a 
spiritual  influence  issuing  from  the  highest  God,  lao,  "'  the  light  conceivable  only  by  intellect — the 
physical  and  spiritual  Principle  of  all  things;  out  of  which  the  soul  emanates."  It  was  the  male 
Essence,  or  Wisdom,  while  the  primitive  matter  or  Chaos  was  the  female.  Thus  the  first  two  princi- 
ples, co-eternal  and  infinite,  were  already  with  the  primitive  Phoenicians,  spirit  and  matter.  But  this 
is  the  echo  of  Jewish  thought,  not  the  opinion  of  Pagan  Philosophers. 

t  See  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  526. 

t  Beth -San  or  Scythopolis  in  Palestine  had  that  designation  ;  so  had  a  spot  on  Mount  Parnassus. 
But  Diodorus  declares  that  Nyssa  was  between  Phoenicia  and  Egypt  ;  Euripides  states  that  Dionysos 
came  to  Greece  from  India  ;  and  Diodorus  adds  his  testimony  :  "  Osiris  was  brought  up  in  Ny.ssa,  in 
Arabia  the  Happy  ;  he  was  the  son  of  Zeus,  and  was  named  from  his  father  (nominative  Zeus,  geni- 
tive Dios)  and  the  place  Dio-Nysos  "— the  Zeus  or  Jove  of  Nyssa.  This  identity  of  nam'?  or  title  is 
very  significant.  In  Greece  Dionj-sos  was  second  only  to  Zeus,  and  Pindar  says :  "  So  F.ither  Zeus 
governs  all  things,  and  Bacchus  he  governs  also." 

\  Ex.,  xvii.  15 


SECTION  XXXI. 

The  Objects  of  the  Mysteries, 


The  earliest  Mysteries  recorded  in  history  are  those  of  Saniothrace. 
After  the  distribution  of  pure  Fire,  a  new  life  began.  This  was  the  new 
birth  of  the  Initiate,  after  which,  like  the  Brahmans  of  old  in  India,  he 
became  a  dwija — a  "  twice  born," 

Initiated  into  that  which  may  be  rightly  called  the  most  blessed  of  all  Mysteries 
.     .     .     being  ourselves  pure,* 

says  Plato.  Diodorus  Siculus,  Herodotus,  and  Sanchoniathon  the 
Phoenician — the  oldest  of  Historians — say  that  these  Mysteries  originated 
in  the  night  of  time,  thousands  of  years  probably  before  the  historical 
period.     lamblichus  informs  us  that  Pythagoras 

Was  initiated  in  all  the  Mysteries  of  Byblus  and  Tyre,  in  the  sacred  operations  of 
the  Syrians,  and  in  the  Mysteries  of  the  Phoenicians.t 

As  was  said  in  Isis  Unveiled : 

When  men  like  Pythagoras,  Plato  and  lamblichus,  renowned  for  their  severe 
morality,  took  part  in  the  Mysteries  and  spoke  of  them  with  veneration,  it  ill 
behoves  our  modern  critics  to  judge  them  [and  their  Initiates]  upon  their  merely 
external  aspect. 

Yet  this  is  what  has  been  done  until  now,  especially  by  the  Christian 
Fathers.  Clement  Alexandrinus  stigmatises  the  Mysteries  as  "  in- 
decent and  diabolical "  though  his  words,  showing  that  the  Eleusinian 
Mysteries  were  identical  with,  and  even,  as  he  would  allege,  borrowed 
from,  those  of  the  Jews,  are  quoted  elsewhere  in  this  work.  The  Mys- 
teries were  composed  of  two  parts,  of  which  the  Lesser  were  performed 

*  Phadrus,  Gary's  translation,  p.  326. 

+  Life  of  Pythagoras,  p.  297.  "Since  Pythagoras,"  he  adds,  "also  spent  two  and  twenty  years  in  the 
adyta  of  the  temples  in  Egypt,  associated  with  the  Magiaus  in  Babylon,  and  was  instructed  by 
them  in  their  venerable  knowledge,  it  is  not  at  all  wonderful  that  he  was  skilled  in  Mag^cor  Theurgy, 
and  was  therefore  able  to  perform  things  which  surpass  merely  human  power,  and  which  appear  to 
be  perfectly  incredible  to  the  vulgar  "  (p.  298). 


282  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

at  Agrse,  and  the  Greater  at  Eleusis,  and  Clement  had  been  himself 
initiated.  But  the  Katharsis,  or  trials  of  purification,  have  ever  been 
misunderstood.  lamblichus  explains  the  worst ;  and  his  explanation 
ought  to  be  perfectly  satisfactory^  at  any  rate  for  every  unprejudiced 
mind. 

He  says : — 

Exhibitions  of  this  kind  in  the  Mysteries  were  designed  to  free  us  from  licentious 
passions,  by  gratifying  the  sight,  and  at  the  same  time  vanquishing  all  evil  thought, 
through  the  awful  sanctity  with  which  these  rites  were  accompanied. 

Dr.  Warburton  remarks : 

The  wisest  and  best  men  in  the  Pagan  world  are  unanimous  in  this,  that  the 
Mysteries  were  instituted  pure,  and  proposed  the  noblest  ends  by  the  worthiest 
means. 

Although  persons  of  both  sexes  and  all  classes  were  allowed  to  take 
part  in  the  Mj'steries,  and  a  participation  in  them  was  even  obliga- 
tory, very  few  indeed  attained  the  higher  and  final  Initiation  in  these 
celebrated  rites.  The  gradation  of  the  Mysteries  is  given  us  by  Proclus 
in  the  fourth  book  of  his  Theology  of  Plato. 

The  perfective  rite,  precedes  in  order  the  initiation  Telete,  Muesis,  and  the  ini- 
tiation, Epopteia,  or  the  final  apocalypse  [revelation]. 

Theon  of  Smyrna,  in  Mathematica,  also  divides  the  mystic  rites  into 
five  parts  : 

The  first  of  which  is  the  previous  purification  ;  for  neither  are  the  Mj'steries  com- 
municated to  all  who  are  willing  to  receive  them  ;  but  there  are  certain  persons 

who  are  prevented  by  the  voice  of  the  crier since  it  is  necessary 

that  such  as  are  not  expelled  from  the  Mysteries  should  first  be  refined  by  certain 
purifications :  but  after  purification  the  reception  of  the  sacred  rites  succeeds.  The 
third  part  is  denominated  epopteia  or  reception.  And  the  fourth,  which  is  the  end 
and  design  of  the  revelation,  is  (the  investiture)  the  binding  of  the  head  and  fixing 
of  the  crowns*  .  .  .  whether  after  this  he  [the  initiated  person]  becomes  a 
torchbearer,  or  an  hierophant  of  the  Mysteries,  or  sustains  some  other  part  of  thf 
sacerdotal  ofiice.  But  the  fifth,  which  is  produced  from  all  these,  is  friendship  ana 
interior  communion  with  God.  And  this  was  the  last  and  most  awful  of  all  the 
Mysteries,  t 

The  chief  objects  of  the  Mysteries,  represented  as  diabolical  by  the 


•  This  expression  must  not  be  understood  simply  literally  ;  for,  as  in  the  initiation  of  certain  Brother- 
hoods, it  has  a  secret  meaning  that  we  have  just  explained  ;  it  was  hinted  at  by  Pythagoras,  when  he 
describes  his  feelings  after  the  Initiation,  and  says  that  he  was  crowned  by  the  Gods  in  whose 
presence  he  had  drunk  "  the  waters  of  life  "—in  the  Hindu  Mysteries  there  was  the  fount  of  life,  and 
soma,  the  sacred  drink. 

+  Eleusinian  and  Bacchic  Mysteries.  T.  Taylor,  p.  46,  47. 


MYSTERIES  AND  THEOPHANY.  283 

Christian  Fathers  and  ridiculed  b}^  modem  writers,  were  instituted  with 
the  highest  and  the  most  moral  purpose  in  view.  There  is  no  need  to 
repeat  here  that  which  has  been  alread}^  described  in  /sis  Unveiled"^  that 
whether  through  temple  Initiation  or  the  private  study  of  Theurgy,  every 
student  obtained  the  proof  of  the  immortality  of  his  Spirit,  and  the 
sur\'ival  of  his  Soul.  What  the  last  epopteia  was  is  alluded  to  by  Plato 
in  Ph^drus  : 

Being  initiated  in  those  Mysteries,  which  it  is  lawful  to  call  the  most  blessed  of  all 
mysteries  ...  we  were  freed  from  the  molestations  of  evils,  which  otherwise 
await  us  in  a  future  period  of  time.  Likewise  in  consequence  of  this  divine  i7titia- 
iion,  we  became  spectators  of  entire,  simple,  immoveable,  and  blessed  visions,  resi- 
dent in  a  pure  light.t 

This  veiled  confession  shows  that  the  Initiates  enjoyed  Theophany— 
saw  visions  of  Gods  and  of  real  immortal  Spirits.  As  Taylor  correctly 
infers : 

The  most  sublime  part  of  the  epopteia  or  final  revealing,  consisted  in  beholding 
the  Gods  [the  high  Planetary  Spirits]  themselves,  invested  with  a  resplendent 
light.: 

The  statement  of  Proclus  upon  the  subject  is  unequivocal : 

In  all  the  Initiations  and  Mysteries,  the  Gods  exhibit  many  forms  of  themselves, 
and  appear  in  a  variety  of  shapes  ;  and  sometimes  indeed  a  formless  light  of  them- 
selves is  held  forth  to  the  view  ;  sometimes  this  light  is  according  to  a  human  fomt 
and  sometimes  it  proceeds  into  a  different  shape.§ 

Again  we  have 

Whatever  is  on  earth  is  the  resemblance  and  shadow  of  something  that  is  in  the 
sphere,  while  that  resplendent  thing  [the  prototype  of  the  Soul-Spirit]  remaineth  in 
unchangeable  condition,  it  is  well  also  with  its  shadow.  When  that  resplendent  one 
removeth  far  from  its  shadow  life  removeth  [from  the  latter]  to  a  distance.  Again 
that  light  is  the  shadow  of  something  more  resplendent  than  itself.  || 

Thus  speaks  the  Desatir,  in  the  Book  of  Shet  (the  prophet  Zirtusht), 
thereby  showing  the  identity  of  its  Esoteric  doctrines  with  those  of  the 
Greek  Philosophers. 

The  second  statement  of  Plato  confirms  the  view  that  the  Mysteries 
of  the  Ancients  were  identical  with  the  Initiations  practised  even 
now    among    the    Buddhist    and    the    Hindu    Adepts.      The    higher 


*  II.  Ill,  113. 

+  Eleusinian  and  Bacchic  Mysteries,  p.  63. 

t  Op.  cit.,  p.  65. 

\  Quoted  by  Taylor,  p.  66. 

II  Verses  35-38. 


284  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

visions,  the  most  truthful,  were  produced  through  a  regular  discipline 
of  gradual  Initiations,  and  the  development  of  ps3^chical  powers.  In 
Europe  and  Egypt  the  Mystse  were  brought  into  close  union  with 
those  whom  Proclus  calls  "  mystical  natures,"  "  resplendent  Gods," 
because,  as  Plato  says  : 

[We]  were  ourselves  pure  and  immaculate,  being  liberated  from  this  surrounding 
vestment,  which  we  denominate  body,  and  to  which  we  are  now  bound  like  an 
oyster  to  its  shell.* 

As  to  the  East, 

The  doctrine  of  planetary  and  terrestrial  Pitris  was  revealed  entirely  in  ancient 
India,  as  well  as  now,  only  at  the  last  moment  of  initiation,  and  to  the  adepts  of 
superior  degrees,  t 

The  word  Pitris  may  now  be  explained  and  something  else  added. 
In  India  the  chela  of  the  third  degree  of  Initiation  has  two  Gurus: 
One,  the  living  Adept ;  the  other  the  disembodied  and  glorified 
Mahatma,  Who  remains  the  adviser  or  in.structor  of  even  the  high 
Adepts.  Few  are  the  accepted  chelas  who  even  see  their  living  Master, 
their  Guru,  till  the  day  and  hour  of  their  final  and  for  ever  binding 
vow.  It  is  this  that  was  meant  in  his  Unveiled^.wYiQn  it  was  stated  that 
few  of  the  fakirs  (the  word  chela  being  unknown  to  Europe  and 
America  in  those  days)  however 

Pure,  and  honest,  and  self-devoted,  have  yet  ever  seen  the  astral  form  of  a  purely 
human  pitar  {an  ancestor  or  father),  otherwise  than  at  the  solemn  moment  of  their 
first  and  last  initiation.  It  is  in  the  presence  of  his  instructor,  the  Guru,  and  just 
before  the  vatou-fakir  [the  just  initiated  chela]  is  despatched  into  the  world  of  the 
living,  with  his  seven-knotted  bamboo  wand  for  all  protection,  that  he  is  suddeulv 
placed  face  to  face  with  the  unknown  Presence  [of  his  Pitar  or  Father,  the  glori- 
fied invisible  Master,  or  disembodied  Mahatma].  He  sees  it,  and  falls  prostrate  at 
the  feet  of  the  evanescent  form,  but  is  not  entrusted  with  the  great  secret  of  its 
evocation,  for  it  is  the  supreme  mystery  of  the  holy  syllable. 

The  Initiate,  says  Eliphas  Eevi,  knows  ;  therefore,  "  he  dares  all  and 
keeps  silent."     Says  the  great  French  Kabalist : 

You  may  see  him  often  sad,  never  discouraged  or  desperate  ;  often  poor,  never 
humbled  or  wretched  ;  often  persecuted,  never  cowed  down  or  vanquished.  For  he 
remembers  the  widowhood  and  the  murder  of  Orpheus,  the  exile  and  solitary  death 
of  Moses,  the  martyrdom  of  the  prophets,  the  tortures  of  Apollonius,  the  Cross  of 
the  Saviour.  He  knows  in  what  forlorn  state  died  Agrippa,  whose  memory  is  slan- 
dered to  this  day ;  he  knows  the  trials  that  broke  down  the  great  Paracelsus,  and 


Phadrus,  64,  quoted  by  Taylor,  p.  64.  t  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  m. 


THE    MYSTERIES   AND   MASONRY.  285 

all  that  Raymond  Lully  had  to  suffer  before  he  arrived  at  a  bloody  death.  He 
remembers  Swedenborg  having  to  feign  insanity,  and  losing  even  his  reason  before 
his  knowledge  was  forgiven  to  him  ;  St.  Martin,  who  had  to  hide  himself  all  his 
life  ;  Cagliostro,  who  died  forsaken  in  the  cells  of  the  Inquisition  *  ;  Cazotte,  who 
perished  on  the  guillotine.  Successor  of  so  man)'  victims,  he  dares,  nevertheless, 
but  understands  the  more  the  necessity  to  keep  silent.t 

Masonry — not  the  political  institution  known  as  tlie  Scotch  L,odge, 
but  real  Masonry,  some  rites  of  which  are  still  preserved  in  the  Grand 
Orient  of  France,  and  that  Elias  Ashmole,  a  celebrated  English  Occult 
Philosopher  of  the  XVIIth  centtirj^  tried  in  vain  to  remodel,  after  the 
manner  of  the  Indian  and  Egyptian  Mysteries — Masonry  rests,  accord- 
ing to  Ragon,  the  great  authority  upon  the  subject,  upon  three  funda- 
mental degrees  :  the  triple  duty  of  a  Mason  is  to  study  ivhejice  he  comes, 
what  he  is,  and  whither  he  goes ;  the  study  that  is,  of  God,  of  himself, 
and  of  the  future  transformation.:]:  Masonic  Initiation  was  modelled 
on  that  in  the  lesser  Mysteries.  The  third  degree  was  one  used  in 
both  Egypt  and  India  from  time  immemorial,  and  the  remembrance  of  it 
lingers  to  this  day  in  every  Lodge,  under  the  name  of  the  death  and 
resurrection  of  Hiram  AbifF,  the  "  Widow's  Son."  In  Egypt  the  latter 
was  called  "Osiris;"  in  India  "  Loka-chakshu  "  (Eye  of  the  World), 
ind  "  Dinakara  "  (day-maker)  or  the  Sun — and  the  rite  itselt  was 
everywhere  named  the  *'  gate  of  death."  The  coffin,  or  sarcophagus, 
of  Osiris,  killed  by  Typhon,  was  brought  in  and  placed  in  the  middle 
of  the  Hall  of  the  Dead,  with  the  Initiates  all  around  it  and  the 
candidate  near  by.  The  latter  was  asked  whether  he  had  participated 
in  the  murder,  and  notwithstanding  his  denial,  and  after  sundry  and 
very  hard  trials,  the  Initiator  feigned  to  strike  him  on  the  head  with  a 
hatchet ;  he  was  thrown  down,  swathed  in  bandages  like  a  mummy, 
and  wept  over.  Then  came  lightning  and  thunder,  the  supposed 
corpse  was  surrounded  with  fire,  and  was  finally  raised. 

Ragon  speaks  of  a  rumour  that  charged  the  Emperor  Com  modus — 
when  he  was  at  one  time  enacting  the  part  of  the  Initiator — with 
having  plaj^ed  this  part  in  the  initiatory  drama  so  seriously  that  he 
actually  killed  the  postulant  when  dealing  him  the  blow  with  the 
hatchet.  This  shows  that  the  lesser  Mysteries  had  not  quite  died  out 
in  the  second  century  a.d. 


•  This  is  false,  and  the  AbbS  Constant  (Eliphas  I^vi)  knew  it  was  so.    Why  did  he  promulgate  tht 
untruth  ? 
t  Dogme  de  la  Haute  Magie,  i.  219,  220. 
J  Orthodox ie  ^fa<;onniquf,  p.  99. 


286  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

The  Mysteries  were  carried  into  South  and  Central  America.  Northern 
Mexico  and  Peru  by  the  Atlanteans  in  those  days  when 

A  pedestrian  from  the  North  [of  what  was  once  upon  a  time  also  India]  migli. 
have  reached — hardly  wetting  his  feet — the  Alaskan  Peninsula,  through  Manchooria, 
across  the  future  Gulf  of  Tartary,  the  Kurile  and  Aleutian  Islands  ;  while  another 
traveller,  furnished  with  a  cauoe  and  starting  from  the  South,  could  have  walked 
over  from  Siam,  crossed  the  Polynesian  Islands  and  trudged  into  any  part  of  the 
continent  of  South  America.* 

They  continued  to  exist  down  to  the  day  of  the  Spanish  invaders. 
These  destroyed  the  Mexican  and  Peruvian  records,  but  were  pre- 
vented from  laying  their  desecrating  hands  upon  the  many  Pyramids — 
the  lodges  of  an  ancient  Initiation — whose  ruins  are  scattered  over 
Puente  Nacional,  Cholula,  and  Teotihuacan.  The  ruins  of  Palenque, 
of  Ococimgo  in  Chiapas,  and  others  in  Central  America  are  known  to 
all.  If  the  pyramids  and  temples  of  Guiengola  and  Mitla  ever  betray 
their  secrets,  the  present  Doctrine  will  then  be  shown  to  have  been  a 
forerunner  of  the  grandest  truths  in  Nature.  Meanwhile  they  have  all 
a  claim  to  be  called  Mitla,  "the  place  of  sadness"  and  "the  abode  ot 
the  (desecrated)  dead." 


Five  Yeats  of  Theosophy,  p.  214. 


SECTION  XXXIL 

Traces  of  the  Mysteries. 


Says  the  Royal  Masonic  Cyclopedia,  art.  "  Sun  :  " 

In  all  times,  the  Sun  has  necessarily  played  an  important  part  as  a  symbol,  and 
especially  in  Freemasonry.  The  W.M.  represents  the  rising  sun,  the  J.W.  the  sun 
at  the  meridian,  and  the  S.W.  the  setting  sun.  In  the  Druidical  rites,  the  Arch- 
Druid  represented  the  sun,  and  was  aided  by  two  other  oflficers,  one  representing 
the  Moon  in  the  West,  and  the  other  the  Sun  at  the  South  in  its  meridian.  It  is 
quite  unnecessary  to  enter  into  any  lengthened  discussion  on  this  symbol. 

It  is  the  more  "unnecessary"  since  J.  M.  Ragon  has  discussed  it 
very  fully,  as  one  may  find  at  the  end  of  Section  XXIX.,  where  part  of  his 
explanations  have  been  quoted.  Freemasonry  derived  her  rites  from 
the  East,  as  we  have  said.  And  if  it  be  true  to  say  of  the  modern 
Rosicrucians  that  "  they  are  invested  with  a  knowledge  of  chaos,  not 
perhaps  a  very  desirable  acquisition,"  the  remark  is  still  more  true  when 
applied  to  all  the  other  branches  of  Masonry,  since  the  knowledge  of 
^heir  members  about  the  full  signification  of  their  symbols  is  nil. 
Dozens  of  hypotheses  are  resorted  to,  one  more  unlikely  than  the 
other,  as  to  the  "Round  Towers"  of  Ireland;  one  fact  is  enough 
to  show  the  ignorance  of  the  Masons,  namely,  that,  according  to  the 
Royal  Masonic  Cyclopaedia,  the  idea  that  they  are  connected  with 
Masonic  Initiation  may  be  at  once  dismissed  as  unworthy  of  notice. 
The  "Towers,"  which  are  found  throughout  the  East  in  Asia,  were 
connected  with  the  Mystery-Initiations,  namely,  with  the  Vishvakarma 
and  the  Vikarttana  rites.  The  candidates  for  Initiation  were  placed 
in  them  for  three  days  and  three  nights,  wherever  there  was  no  temple 
with  a  subterranean  crypt  close  at  hand.  These  round  towers  were 
built  for  no  other  purposes.  Discredited  as  are  all  such  monuments  of 
Pagan  origin  by  the  Christian  clerg>',  who  thus  "  soil  their  own  nest," 
they  are  still  the  living  and  indestructible  relics  of  the  Wisdom  of  old. 


288  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

Nothing  exists  in  this  objective  and  illusive  world  of  ours  that  cannot 
be  made  to  serve  two  purposes — a  good  and  a  bad  one.  Thus  in  later 
ages,  the  Initiates  of  the  Left  Path  and  the  authropomorphists  took  m 
hand  most  of  those  venerable  ruins,  then  silent  and  deserted  by  their 
first  wise  inmates,  and  turned  them  indeed  into  phallic  monuments. 
But  this  was  a  deliberate,  wilful,  and  vicious  misinterpretation  of  their 
real  meaning,  a  deflection  from  their  first  use.  The  Sun — though  ever, 
even  for  the  multitudes,  /xovos  oipavov  ^eos,  "  the  only  and  one  King  and 
God  in  Heaven,"  and  the  Ev(3ov\rj,  "the  God  of  Good  Counsel"  of 
Orpheus — had  in  every  exoteric  popular  religion  a  dual  aspect  which 
was  anthropomorphised  by  the  profane.  Thus  the  Sun  was  Osiris- 
Typhon,  Ormu7A-A/iriman,  Bel-Jupiter  and  Baa/,  the  life-giving  and 
tiie  deat/i-giving  luminary.  And  thus  one  and  the  same  monolith, 
pillar,  pyramid,  tower  or  temple,  originally  built  to  glorify  the  first 
principle  or  aspect,  might  become  in  time  an  idol-fane,  or  worse,  a 
phallic  emblem  in  its  crude  and  brutal  form.  The  Lingara  of  the 
Hindus  has  a  spiritual  and  highly  philosophical  meaning,  while  the 
missionaries  see  in  it  but  an  "  indecent  emblem  ;  "  it  has  just  the 
meaning  which  is  to  be  found  in  all  those  baalim,  chammanim,  and  the 
bamoth  with  the  pillars  of  unhewn  stone  of  the  Bible,  set  up  for  the 
glorification  of  the  male  Jehovah  But  this  does  not  alter  the  fact 
that  the  pureia  of  the  Greeks,  the  nur-hags  of  Sardinia,  the  teocalli 
of  Mexico,  etc.,  were  all  in  the  beginning  of  the  same  character 
as  the  "Round  Towers"  of  Ireland.  They  were  sacred  places  o 
Initiation. 

In  1877,  the  writer,  quoting  the  authority  and  opinions  of  some  most 
eminent  scholars,  ventured  to  assert  that  there  was  a  great  difference 
between  the  terms  Chrcstos  and  Christos,  a  difference  having  a  pro- 
found and  Esoteric  meaning.  Also  that  while  Christos  means  "  to 
live"  and  "to  be  born  into  a  new  life,"  Chrestos,  in  "Initiation" 
phraseology,  signified  the  death  of  the  inner,  lower,  or  personal  nature 
in  man ;  thus  is  given  the  key  to  the  Brahmanical  title,  the  twice-born ; 
and  finally, 

There  were  Chrestians  long  before  the  era  of  Christianity,  and  the  Essenes  be- 
longed to  them.*    . 

For    this  epithets  sufficiently  opprobrious  to  characterise   the  writer 
could  hardly  be  found.     And  yet  then  as  well  as  now,  the  author  never 


•  In  I.  Fitter,  ii  3  Jesus  is  called  "  the  Lord  Chrestos. 


CHRISTOS  AND  CHRESTOS.  289 

attempted  a  statement  of  such  a  serious  nature  without  showing  as 
many  learned  authorities  for  it  as  could  be  mustered.  Thus  on  the 
next  page  it  was  said  : 

Lepsius  shows  that  the  word  Nofre  means  Chrestos,  "  good,"  and  that  one  of  the 
titles  of  Osiris,  '-Onnofre,"  must  be  translated  "the  goodness  of  God  made  mani- 
fest." "The  worship  of  Christ  was  not  universal  at  this  early  date,"  explains 
Mackenzie,  "by  which  I  mean  that  Christolatry  had  not  been  introduced  ;  but  the 
worship  of'  Chrestos— t'a.^  Good  Principle— had  preceded  it  by  many  centuries,  and 
even  survived  the  general  adoption  of  Christianity,  as  shown  on  monuments  still  in 
existence.  .  .  .  Again,  we  have  an  inscription  which  is  pre-Christian  on  an 
epitaphial  tablet  (Spon.  il/ziT.£:;7^fi^.,  Ant.,  x.  xviii.  2).  Yaxu'^c  Aapto-atwv  At/ct/aoo-u 
Hpo)?  Xp7jo-T€  Xaipc,  and  de  Rossi  {Roma  Sotteranea,  tome  i.,  tav.  xxi.)  gives  us 
another  example  from  the  catacombs—"  M\\a.  Chreste,  in  Pace."* 

To-day  the  writer  is  able  to  add  to  all  those  testimonies  the  corrobo- 
ration of  an  erudite  author,  who  proves  whatever  he  undertakes  to  show 
on  the  authority  of  geometrical  demonstration.  There  is  a  most 
curious  passage  with  remarks  and  explanations  in  the  Source  of  Mea- 
sures, whose  author  has  probably  never  heard  of  the  "  Mystery-God " 
Visvakarma  of  the  early  Aryans.  Treating  on  the  difference  between 
the  terms  Chrest  and  Christ,  he  ends  by  saying  that : 

There  were  two  Messiahs:  one  who  went  down  into  the  pit  for  the  salvation  of 
this  world ;  this  was  the  Sun  shorn  of  his  golden  rays,  and  crowned  with  black- 
ened ones  (symbolising  this  loss),  as  the  thorns :  the  other  was  the  triumphant 
I^Iessiah  mounting  up  to  the  summit  of  the  arch  of  heaven,  and  personified  as  the 
Lion  of  the  Tribe  of Judah.  In  both  instances  he  had  the  cross;  once  in  humilia- 
tion and  once  holding  it  in  his  control  as  the  law  of  creation.  He  being 
Jehovah. 

And  then  the  author  proceeds  to  give  "the  fact"  that  "there  were 
two  Messiahs,"  etc.,  as  quoted  above.  And  this— leaving  the  divine 
and  mystic  character  and  claim  for  Jesus  entirely  independent  of  this 
event  of  His  mortal  life— shows  Him,  beyond  any  doubt,  as  an  Initiate 
of  the  Egyptian  Mysteries,  where  the  same  rite  of  Death  and  of 
spiritual  Resurrection  for  the  neophyte,  or  the  suffering  Chrestos  on 
his  trial  and  new  birth  by  Regeneration,  was  enacted— for  this  was  a 
universally  adopted  rite. 

The  "pit"  into  which  the  Eastern  Initiate  was  made  to  descend  was., 
as  shown  before,  Patala,  one  of  the  seven  regions  of  the  nether  world, 
over  which  ruled  Vasuki,  the  great  "snake  God."     This  pit,  Patala,  has 


Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  323 

3    U 


290  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

in  the  Eastern  Symbolism  preciselj'  the  same  manifold  meaning  as  is 
found  by  Mr.  Ralston  Skinner  in  the  Hebrew  word  shiac  in  its 
application  to  the  case  in  hand.  For  it  was  the  synonym  of  Scorpio — 
Patala's  depths  being  "impregnated  with  the  brightness  of  the  new 
Sun" — represented  by  the  "newly  born"  into  the  glory;  and  Patala 
was  and  is  in  a  sense,  "a  pit,  a  grave,  the  place  of  death,  and  the  door 
of  Hades  or  Sheol" — as,  in  the  partially  exoteric  Initiations  in  India, 
the  candidate  had  to  pass  through  the  matrix  of  the  heifer  before 
proceeding  to  Patala.  In  its  non-mystic  sense  it  is  the  Antipodes — 
America  being  referred  to  in  India  as  Patala.  But  in  its  symbolism  it 
meant  all  that,  and  much  more.  The  fact  alone  that  Vasuki,  the  ruling 
Deity  of  Patala,  is  represented  in  the  Hindu  Pantheon  as  the  great 
Naga  (Serpent) — who  was  used  by  the  Gods  and  Asuras  as  a  rope 
round  the  mountain  Mandara,  at  the  churning  of  the  ocean  for 
Amrita,  the  water  of  immortality — connects  him  directly  with  Initia- 
tion. 

For  he  is  Shesha  Naga  also,  serving  as  a  couch  for  Vishnu,  and 
upholding  the  seven  worlds  ;  and  he  is  also  Ananta,  "the  endless,"  and 
the  symbol  of  eternity — hence  the  "  God  of  Secret  Wisdom,"  degraded 
by  the  Church  to  the  role  of  the  tempting  Serpent,  of  Satan.  That 
what  is  now  said  is  correct  may  be  verified  by  the  evidence  of  even  the 
exoteric  rendering  of  the  attributes  of  various  Gods  and  Sages  both  in 
the  Hindu  and  the  Buddhist  Pantheons.  Two  instances  will  suffice  to 
show  how  little  our  best  and  most  erudite  Orientalists  are  capable  of 
dealing  correctly  and  fairly  with  the  symbolism  of  Eastern  nations, 
while  remaining  ignorant  of  the  corresponding  points  to  be  found  only 
in  Occultism  and  the  Secret  Doctrine. 

(i)  The  learned  Orientalist  and  Tibetan  traveller,  Professor  Emil 
Schlagintweit,  mentions  in  one  of  his  works  on  Tibet,  a  national  legend 
to  the  effect  that 

Nagarjuna  [a  "mythological"  personage  "without  any  real  existence,"  the 
learned  German  scholar  thinks]  received  the  book  Paramartha,  or  according  to 
others,  the  book  Avatamsaka,  from  the  Nagas,  fabulous  creatures  of  the  nature  of 
serpents,  who  occupy  a  place  among  the  beings  superior  to  man,  and  are  regarded 
as  protectors  of  the  law  of  Buddha.  To  these  spiritual  beings  Shakyamuni  is  said 
to  have  taught  a  more  philosophical  religious  system  than  to  men,  who  were  not 
sufficiently  advanced  to  understand  it  at  the  time  of  his  appearance.  * 

Nor  are  men  sufficiently  advanced  for  it  now;  for  "the  more  philo- 


Buddliism  in  Tibet,  p.  31. 


THE    SYMBOUSM    OF   NARADA.  291 

sophical  religious  system  "  is  the  Secret  Doctrine,  the  Occult  Eastern 
Philosophy,  which  is  the  corner-stone  of  all  sciences  rejected  by  the 
unwise  builders  even  at  this  day,  and  more  to-day  perhaps  than  ever 
before,  in  the  great  conceit  of  our  age.  The  allegory  means  simply 
that  Nagarjuna  having  been  initiated  by  the  "  Serpents" — the  Adepts, 
"the  wise  ones" — and  driven  out  from  India  by  the  B  rah  mans,  who 
dreaded  to  have  their  Mysteries  and  sacerdotal  Science  divulged  (the 
real  cause  of  their  hatred  of  Buddhism),  went  awa)^  to  China  and  Tibet, 
where  he  initiated  many  into  the  truths  of  the  hidden  Mysteries  taught 
by  Gautama  Buddha. 

(2)  The  hidden  symbolism  of  Narada — the  great  Rishi  and  the 
author  of  some  of  the  Rig-Vaidic  hymns,  who  incarnated  again  later 
on  during  Krishna's  time — has  never  been  understood.  Yet,  in  con- 
nection with  the  Occult  Sciences,  Narada,  the  son  of  BrahmS,  is  one  of 
the  most  prominent  characters;  he  is  directly  connected  in  his  first 
incarnation  with  the  "Builders" — hence  with  the  seven  "Rectors"  of 
the  Chri.stian  Church,  who  "helped  God  in  the  work  of  creation." 
This  grand  personification  is  hardly  noticed  by  our  Orientalists,  who 
refer  only  to  that  which  he  is  alleged  to  have  said  of  Patala,  namely, 
"  that  it  is  a  place  of  sexual  and  sensual  gratifications."  This  is 
thought  to  be  amusing,  and  the  reflection  is  suggested  that  Narada,  no 
doubt,  "  found  the  place  delightful."  Yet  this  sentence  simply  shows 
him  to  have  been  an  Initiate,  connected  directly  with  the  Mysteries, 
and  walking,  as  all  the  other  neophytes,  before  and  after  him,  had  to 
walk,  in  "  the  pit  among  the  thorns  "  in  the  "  sacrificial  Chrest  condi- 
tion," as  the  suffering  victim  made  to  descend  thereinto — a  mystery, 
truly  ! 

Narada  is  one  of  the  seven  Rishis,  the  "mind-born  sons"  of 
Brahma.  The  fact  of  his  having  been  during  his  incarnation  a  high 
Initiate — he,  like  Orpheus,  being  the  founder  of  the  Mysteries — is 
corroborated,  and  made  evident  by  his  history.  The  Mahabhdraia 
states  that  Narada,  having  frustrated  the  scheme  formed  for  peopling 
the  universe,  in  order  to  remain  true  to  his  vow  of  chastity,  was 
cursed  by  Daksha,  and  sentenced  to  be  born  once  more.  Again,  when 
born  during  Krishna's  time,  he  is  accused  of  calling  his  father  Brahma 
"  a  false  teacher,"  because  the  latter  advised  him  to  get  married,  and 
he  refused  to  do  so.  This  shows  him  to  have  been  an  Initiate,  going 
against  the  orthodox  worship  and  religion.  It  is  curious  to  find  this 
Rishi  and  leader  among  the  "  Builders"  and  the  "  Heavenly  Host  "  as 


292  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

the  prototype  of  the  Christian  "leader"  of  the  same  "Host"  —  the 
Archangel  Mikael.  Both  are  the  male  "  Virgins,"  and  both  are 
the  only  ones  among  their  respective  "  Hosts  "  who  refuse  to  create. 
Narada  is  said  to  have  dissuaded  the  Hari-ashvas,  the  five  thousand  sons 
of  Daksha,  begotten  by  him  for  the  purpose  of  peopling  the  Earth, 
from  producing  offspring.  Since  then  the  Hari-ashvas  have  "  dispersed 
themselves  through  the  regions,  and  have  never  returned."  The  Initiates 
are,  perhaps,  the  incarnations  of  these  Hari-ashvas  ? 

It  was  on  the  seventh  day,  the  third  of  his  ultimate  trial,  that  the 
neophyte  arose,  a  regenerated  man,  who,  having  passed  through  his 
second  spiritual  birth,  returned  to  earth  a  glorified  and  triumphant 
conqueror  of  Death,  a  Hierophant. 

An  Eastern  neophyte  in  his  Chrest  condition  may  be  seen  in  a  certain 
engraving  in  Moor's  Hindu  Pantheon,  whose  author  mistook  another 
form  of  the  crucified  Sun  or  Vishnu,  Vittoba,  for  Krishna,  and  calls 
it  "  Krishna  crucified  in  Space."  The  engraving  is  also  given  in  Dr. 
Eundy's  Mo7t7Wte7ital  Christianity,  in  which  work  the  reverend  author 
has  collected  as  many  proofs  as  his  ponderous  volume  could  hold  of 
"  Christian  symbols  before  Christianity,"  as  he  expresses  it.  Thus  he 
shows  us  Krishna  and  Apollo  as  good  shepherds,  Krishna  holding  the 
cruciform  Conch  and  the  Chakra,  and  Krishna  "  crucified  in  Space,"  as 
he  calls  it.  Of  this  figure  it  may  be  truly  said,  as  the  author  says  of  it 
himself : 

This  representation  I  believe  to  be  anterior  to  Christiauit}-.  ...  It  looks  like 
a  Christian  crucifix  in  many  respects.  .  .  .  The  drawing,  the  attitude,  the  nail- 
marks  in  hands  and  feet,  indicate  a  Christian  origin,  while  the  Parthian  coronet  of 
seven  points,  the  absence  of  the  wood,  and  of  the  usual  inscription,  and  the  rays  of 
glory  above,  would  seem  to  point  to  some  other  than  a  Christian  origin.  Can  it  be 
the  victim-man,  or  the  priest  and  victim  both  in  one,  of  the  Hindu  Mythology,  who 
offered  himself  a  sacrifice  before  the  worlds  were  .-* 

It  is  surely  so. 

'  Can  it  be  Plato's  Second  God  who  impressed  himself  on  the  universe  in  the  form 
of  the  cross  ?  Or  is  it  his  divine  man,  who  would  be  scourged,  tormented,  fettered, 
have  his  eyes  burnt  out ;  and  lastly    .     .     .     would  be  crucified  ? 

It  is  all  that  and  much  more  ;  archaic  religious  Philosophy  was 
universal,  and  its  Mysteries  are  as  old  as  man.  It  is  the  eternal  symbol 
of  the  personified  Sun — astronomically  purified — in  its  mystic  meaning 
regenerated,  and  symbolised  by  all  the  Initiates  in  memor>'  of  a  sinless 
Humanity  when  all  were  "  Sons  of  God."     Now,  mankind  has  become 


EGYPTIAN   INITIATION.  293 

the  "Son  of  Evil"  trul}'.  Does  all  this  take  anything  away  from  the 
dignity  of  Christ  as  an  ideal,  or  of  Jesus  as  a  divine  man  ?  Not  at  all. 
On  the  contrar}',  made  to  stand  alone,  glorified  above  all  other  "Sons  of 
God,"  He  can  only  foment  evil  feelings  in  all  those  many  millioned 
nations  who  do  not  believe  in  the  Christian  system,  provoking  their 
hatred  and  leading  to  iniquitous  wars  and  strifes.  If.  on  the  other 
hand,  we  place  Him  among  a  long  series  of  "Sons  of  God"  and 
Sons  of  divine  I^ight,  every  man  may  then  be  left  to  choose  for  himself, 
among  those  many  ideals,  which  he  will  choose  as  a  God  to  call  to  his 
help,  and  worship  on  earth  as  in  Heaven. 

Many  among  those  called  "Saviours"  were  "  good  shepherds,"  as 
was  Krishna  for  one,  and  all  of  them  are  said  to  have  "  crushed  the 
serpent's  head" — in  other  words  to  have  conquered  their  sensual  nature 
and  to  have  mastered  divine  and  Occult  Wisdom.  Apollo  killed 
Python,  a  fact  which  exonerates  him  from  the  charge  of  being  himself 
the  great  Dragon,  Satan :  Krishna  slew  the  snake  Kalinaga,  the  Black 
Serpent ;  and  the  Scandinavian  Thor  bruised  the  head  of  the  symbolical 
reptile  with  his  crucifixion  mace. 

In  Egypt  every  city  of  importance  was  separated  from  its  burial-place 
by  a  sacred  lake.  The  same  ceremony  of  judgment,  as  is  described  in 
The  Book  of  the  Dead — "  that  precious  and  mysterious  book  "  (Bunsen) 
— as  taking  place  in  the  world  of  Spirit,  took  place  on  earth  during  the 
burial  of  the  mummy.  Forty-two  judges  or  assessors  assembled  on  the 
shore  and  judged  the  departed  "  Soul"  according  to  its  actions  when  in 
the  body.  After  that  the  priests  returned  within  the  sacred  precincts 
and  instructed  the  neophytes  upon  the  probable  fate  of  the  Soul,  and 
the  solemn  drama  that  was  then  taking  place  in  the  invisible  realm 
whither  the  Soul  had  fled.  The  immortality  of  the  Spirit  was  strongly 
inculcated  on  the  neophytes  by  the  Al-om-Jah — the  name  of  the 
highest  Egyptian  Hierophant.  In  the  Crata  Nepoa — the  priestly 
Mysteries  in  Egypt — the  following  are  described  as  four  out  of  the  seven 
degrees  of  Initiation. 

After  a  preliminary  trial  at  Thebes,  where  the  neophyte  had  to  pass 
through  many  probations,  called  the  "  Twelve  Tortures,"  he  was  com- 
manded, in  order  that  he  might  come  out  triumphant,  to  govern  his 
passions  and  never  lose  for  a  moment  the  idea  of  his  inner  God  or 
seventh  Principle.  Then,  as  a  symbol  of  the  wanderings  of  the 
unpurified  Soul,  he  had  to  ascend  several  ladders  and  wander  in  dark- 
ness in  a  cave  with  man}'-  doors,  all  of  which  were  locked.     Having 


294  '^^^   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

overcome  all,  he  received  the  degree  of  Pastophoris,  after  which  he 
became,  in  the  second  and  third  degrees,  the  Neocoris  and  Melanc- 
phoris.  Brought  into  a  vast  subterranean  chamber,  thickly  furnished 
with  mummies  l3ung  in  state,  he  was  placed  in  presence  of  the  coffin 
which  contained  the  mutilated  body  of  Osiris.  This  was  the  hall 
called  the  "  Gates  of  Death,"  whence  the  verse  in  Job  : 

,  Have  the  gates  of  Death  been  opened  to  thee, 

Hast  thou  seen  the  doors  of  the  shadow  of  death  ? 

Thus  asks  the  "  Lord,"  the  Hierophant,  the  Al-om-jah,  the  Initiator 
of  Job,  alluding  to  this  third  degree  of  Initiation.  For  the  Book  oj 
Job  is  the  poem  of  Initiation  par  excellence. 

When  the  neophyte  had  conquered  the  terrors  of  this  trial,  he  was 
conducted  to  the  "  Hall  of  Spirits,"  to  be  judged  by  them.  Among  the 
rules  in  which  he  was  instructed,  he  was  commanded  : 

Never  to  either  desire  or  seek  revenge ;  to  be  alwaj-s  ready  to  help  a  brother  in 
danger,  even  unto  the  risk  of  his  own  life  ;  to  bury  every  dead  body ;  to  honour  his 
parents  above  all ;  to  respect  old  age,  and  protect  those  weaker  than  himself;  and, 
finally,  to  ever  bear  in  mind  the  hour  of  death,  and  that  of  resurrection  in  a  new 
and  imperishable  body. 

Purity  and  chastity  were  highly  recommended,  and  adultery  was 
threatened  with  death.  Thus  the  Eg>'ptian  neophyte  was  made  a 
Kristophoros.  In  this  degree  the  mystery-name  of  lAO  was  communi- 
cated to  him. 

Let  the  reader  compare  the  above  sublime  precepts  with  the  precepts 
of  Buddha,  and  the  noble  commandments  in  the  "Rule  of  Life"  for 
the  ascetics  of  India,  and  he  will  understand  the  unity  of  the  Secret 
Doctrine  everywhere. 

It  is  impossible  to  deny  the  presence  of  a  sexual  element  in  many 
religious  symbols,  but  this  fact  is  not  in  the  least  open  to  censure, 
once  it  becomes  generally  known  that — in  the  religious  traditions  of 
every  country — man  was  not  born  in  the  first  "  human  "  race  from 
father  and  mother.  From  the  bright  "  mind-born  Sons  of  Brahma," 
the  Rishis,  and  from  Adam  Kadmon  with  his  Emanations,  the 
Sephiroth,  down  to  the  "  parentless,"  the  Anupadaka,  or  the  Dhyani- 
Buddhas,  from  whom  sprang  the  Bodhisattvas  and  Manushi-Buddhas, 
the  earthly  Initiates — men — the  first  race  of  men  was  with  every  nation 
held  as  being  born  without  father  or  mother.  Man,  the  "  Manushi- 
Buddha,"  the  Manu,  the  "Enosh,"  son  of  Seth,  or  the  "Son  of  Man" 
as  he  is  called — is  born  in  the  present  way  only  as  the  consequence. 


THE   SELF-SACRIFICING  VICTIM.  29^ 

the  unavoidable  fatality,  of  the  law  of  natural  evolution.     Mankind — 
having  reached  the  last  limit,  and  that  turning  point  where  its  spiritual 
nature  had  to  make  room  for  mere  physical  organisation — had  to  "  fall 
into  matter"  and  generation.      But  man's    evolution  and   involution 
are    cyclic.     He  will    end   as   he   began.     Of   course  to    our    grossly 
material  minds  even  the  sublime  symbolism  of  Kosnios  conceived  in 
the   matrix   of  Space  after    the   divine    Unit   had   entered   into    and 
fructified  it  with  Its  holy  fiat,  will  no  doubt  suggest  materiality.     Not 
so  with  primitive  mankind.     The  initiatory  rite  in  the  Mysteries  of 
the  self-sacrificing  Victim  that  dies  a  spiritual  death  to  save  the  world 
from  destruction — really  from   depopulation — was  established  during 
the  Fourth  Race,  to  commemorate  an  event,  which,  physiologically, 
has  now  become  the  Mystery  of  Mysteries  among  the  world-problems. 
In  the  Jewish   script   it  is  Cain  and   the    female   Abel  who  are   the 
sacrificed    and    sacrificing  couple — both   immolating  themselves  (as 
permutations  of  Adam   and   Eve,  or  the  dual  Jehovah)  and  shedding 
their  blood   "  of  separation  and  union,"   for  the  sake  of  and  to  save 
mankind  by  inaugurating  a  new  physiological  race.     Later  still,  when 
the  neophyte,  as  already  mentioned,  in  order  to  be  re-born  once  more 
iniK)  his  lost  spiritual  state,  had  to  pass  through  the  entrails  (the  womb) 
of  a  virgin  heifer  *  killed  at  the  moment  of  the  rite,  it  involved  again  a 
mystery  and  one  as  great,  for  it  referred  to  the  process  of  birth,  or 
rather  the  first  entrance  of  man  on  to  this  earth,  through  Vach — "  the 
melodious  cow  who  milks  forth  sustenance  and  water  " — and  who  is 
the  female  Logos.     It  had  also  reference  to  the  same  self-sacrifice  of 
the   "divine    Hermaphrodite" — of  the    third    Root- Race — the  trans- 
formation  of  Humanity   into   truly   physical   men,    after   the   loss   of 
spiritual  potency.     When,  the  fruit  of  evil  having  been  tasted  along 
with  the  fruit  of  good,  there  was  as  a  result  the  gradual  atrophy  of 
spirituality  and  a  strengthening  of  the  materiality  in  man,  then  he  was 
doomed  to  be  born  thenceforth  through  the  present  process.     This  is 
the  Myster}^  of  the  Hermaphrodite,  which  the  Ancients  kept  so  secret 
and   veiled.     It   was   neither   the   absence   of  moral   feeling,   nor   the 
presence  of  gross  sensuality  in  them  that  made  them  imagine  their 
Deities   under   a   dual    aspect  ;    but   rather  their    knowledge    of  the 
mysteries  and  processes  of  primitive  Nature.     The  Science  of  Physio- 
logy was  better  known  to  them  than  it  is  to  us  now.     It  is  in  this 

*  The  .Aryans  replaced  the  living  cow  by  one  made  of  gold,  silver  or  any  other  metal,  and  the  rite  is 
preserved  to  this  day,  when  one  desires  to  become  a  Brahman,  a  twice-born,  in  India. 


296  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

that  lies  buried  the  key  to  the  Symbolism  of  old,  the  true  focus  of 
national  thought,  and   the  strange  dual-sexed  images  of  nearly  every 
God  and  Goddess  in  both  pagan  and  monotheistic  Pantheons. 
Says  Sir  William  Drummond  in  CEdipus  Jtiddictis : 

The  truths  of  science  were  the  arcana  of  the  priests  because  these  truths  were  the 
foundations  of  religion. 

But  why  should  the  missionaries  so  cruelly  twit  the  Vaishnavas  and 
Krishna  worshippers  for  the  supposed  grossly  indecent  meaning  of 
their  symbols,  since  it  is  made  clear  bej'ond  the  slightest  doubt,  and  by 
the  most  unprejudiced  writers,  that  Chrestos  in  the  pit — whether  the 
pit  be  taken  as  meaning  the  grave  or  hell — had  likewise  a  sexual 
element  in  it,  from  the  ver}''  origin  of  the  symbol. 

This  fact  is  no  longer  denied  to-day.  The  "Brothers  of  the  Rosy 
Cross "  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  as  good  Christians  as  any  to  be 
found  in  Europe,  nevertheless,  all  their  rites  were  based  on  symbols 
whose  meaning  was  pre-eminently  phallic  and  sexual.  Their  biographer, 
Hargrave  Jennings,  the  best  modern  authoritj''  on  Rosicrucianism, 
speaking  of  this  mystic  Brotherhood,  describes  how 

The  tortures  and  the  sacrifice  of  Calvary,  the  Passion  of  the  Cross,  were,  in  thei 
[the  Rose-Croix's]  glorious  blessed  magic  and  triumph,  the  protest  and  appeal.  * 

Protest — by  whom  ?  The  answer  is,  the  protest  of  the  crucified  Rose, 
the  greatest  and  the  most  unveiled  ot  all  sexual  symbols — the  Yoni 
and  lyingam,  the  "  victim  "  and  the  "  murderer,"  the  female  and  male 
principles  in  Nature.  Open  the  last  work  of  that  author,  Phallicism, 
and  see  in  what  glowing  terms  he  describes  the  sexual  symbolism  in 
that  which  is  most  sacred  to  the  Christian  : 

The  flowing  blood  streamed  from  the  crown,  or  the  piercing  circlet  of  the  thorns 
of  Hell.  The  Rose  is  feminine.  Its  lustrous  carmine  petals  are  giiarded  with  thorns. 
The  Rose  is  the  most  beautiful  of  flowers.  The  Rose  is  the  Queen  of  God's  Garden 
(Mary,  the  Virgin).  It  is  not  the  Rose  alone  which  is  the  magical  idea,  or  truth. 
But  it  is  the  "  crucified  rose,"  or  the  "  martyred  rose  "  (by  the  grand  mystic  apoca- 
lyptic figure)  which  is  the  talisman,  the  standard,  the  object  of  adoration  of  all  the 
"Sons  of  Wisdom"  or  the  true  Rosicrucians.* 

Not  of  all  the  "  Sons  of  Wisdom,"  by  an)'  means,  not  even  of  the 
true  Rosicrucian.  For  the  latter  would  never  put  in  such  sickening 
relievo,  in  such  a  purely  sensual  and  terrestrial,  not  to  say  animal 
light,  the   grandest,  the  noblest  of  Nature's  sjaubols.     To  the   Rosi- 

*  Op.cit.,  p.  141. 


ORPHEUS.  297 

crucian,  the  "  Rose  "  was  the  symbol  of  Nature,  of  the  ever  prolific  and 
virgin  Earth,  or  Isis,  the  mother  and  nourisher  of  man,  considered  as 
feminine  and  represented  as  a  virgin  woman  by  the  Egyptian  Initiates. 
Like  every  other  personification  of  Nature  and  the  Earth  she  is  the 
sister  and  wife  of  Osiris,  as  the  two  characters  answer  to  the  personified 
symbol  of  the  Earth,  both  she  and  the  Sun  being  the  progeny  of  the 
same  mysterious  Father,  because  the  Earth  is  fecundated  by  the  Sun — 
according  to  the  earliest  Mysticism — by  divine  insufiQation.  It  was 
the  pure  ideal  of  mystic  Nature  that  was  personified  in  the  "  World 
Virgins,"  the  "  Celestial  Maidens,"  and  later  on  by  the  human  Virgin, 
Mary,  the  Mother  of  the  Saviour,  the  Salvator  Mimdi  now  chosen  by 
the  Christian  World.  And  it  was  the  character  of  the  Jewish  maiden 
that  was  adapted  by  Theology  to  archaic  Symbolism,*  and  not  the 
Pagan  symbol  that  was  modelled  for  the  new  occasion. 

We  know  through  Herodotus  that  the  Mysteries  were  brought  from 
India  by  Orpheus^— a  hero  far  anterior  to  both  Homer  and  Hesiod. 
Very  little  is  really  known  of  him,  and  till  very  lately  Orphic  litera- 
ture, and  even  the  Argonauts,  were  attributed  to  Onamacritus,  a  con- 
temporary of  Pisistratus,  Solon  and  Pythagoras — who  was  credited 
with  their  compilation  in  the  present  form  toward  the  close  of  the 
sixth  century  B.C..  or  800  years  after  the  time  of  Orpheus.  But  we  are 
told  that  in  the  days  of  Pausanias  there  was  a  sacerdotal  family,  who, 
like  the  Brahmans  with  the  Vcdas,  had  committed  to  memory  all  the 
Orphic  Hymns,  and  that  they  were  usually  thus  transmitted  from  one 
generation  to  another.  By  placing  Orpheus  so  far  back  as  1200  B.C., 
official  Science— so  careful  in  her  chronology  to  choose  in  each 
case  as  late  a  period  as  possible — admits  that  the  Mysteries,  or  in  other 
words  Occultism  dramatised,  belong  to  a  still  earlier  epoch  than  the 
Chaldaeans  and  Egyptians. 

The  downfall  of  the  Mysteries  in  Europe  may  now  be  mentioned. 

•  In  Ragon's  Orthodoxie  Maqonnique,  p.  105,  note,  we  find  the  following  statement — borrowed  from 
Albumazar  the  Arabian,  probably :  "The  Virgin  of  the  Magi  and  Chaldaans.  The  Chaldsean  sphere 
[globe]  showed  in  its  heavens  a  newly-born  babe,  called  Christ  and  Jesus  ;  it  was  placed  in  the  arms 
of  the  Celestial  Virgin.  It  was  to  this  Virgin  that  Eratosthenes,  the  Alexandrian  Librarian,  bom  276 
years  before  our  era,  gave  the  name  of  Isis,  mother  of  Horus."  This  is  only  what  Kircher  gives  {in 
ySdipus  y^gypticus,  iii.  5),  quoting  Albumazar :  "  In  the  first  decan  of  the  Virgin  rises  a  maid, 
called  Aderenosa,  that  is  pure,  immaculate  virgin  .  .  .  sitting  upon  an  embroidered  throne  nurs- 
ing a  boy  .  .  . ;  a  boy,  named  Jessus  .  .  which  signifies  Issa,  whom  they  also  call  Christ  in 
Greek."    (See  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  491.) 


SECTION  XXXIII. 
The  Last  of  the  Mysteries  in  Europe. 


As  was  predicted  by  the  great  Hermes  in  his  dialogue  with  ^sculapius, 
the  time  had  indeed  come  when  impious  foreigners  accused  Egypt  of 
adoring  monsters,  and  naught  but  the  letters  engraved  in  stone 
upon  her  monuments  survived — enigmas  unintelligible  to  posterity 
Her  sacred  Scribes  and  Hierophants  became  wanderers  upon  the  facL.- 
of  the  earth.  Those  who  had  remained  in  Egypt  found  themselves 
obliged  for  fear  of  a  profanation  of  the  sacred  Mysteries  to  seek  refuge 
in  deserts  and  mountains,  to  form  and  establish  secret  societies  and 
brotherhoods — such  as  the  Essenes  ;  those  who  had  crossed  the  oceans 
to  India  and  even  to  the  (now-called)  New  World,  bound  themselves 
by  solemn  oaths  to  keep  silent,  and  to  preserve  secret  their  Sacred 
Knowledge  and  Science  ;  thus  these  were  buried  deeper  than  ever  out 
of  human  sight.  In  Central  Asia  and  on  the  northern  borderlands  of 
India,  the  triumphant  .sword  of  Aristotle's  pupil  swept  away  from  his 
path  of  conquest  every  vestige  of  a  once  pure  Religion  :  and  its  Adepts 
receded  further  and  further  from  that  path  into  the  most  hidden  spots 
of  the  globe.  The  cycle  of  *  *  *  *  being  at  its  close,  the  first  hour 
for  the  disappearance  of  the  Mysteries  struck  on  the  clock  of  the 
Races,  with  the  Macedonian  conqueror.  The  first  strokes  of  its  last 
hour  sounded  in  the  year  47  B.C.  Alesia*  the  famous  city  in  Gaul,  the 
Thebes  of  the  Kelts,  so  renowned  for  its  ancient  rites  of  Initiation  and 
Mysteries,  was,  as  J.  M.  Ragon  well  describes  it : 

The  ancient  metropolis  and  the  tomb  of  Initiation,  of  the  religion  of  the  Druids 
and  of  the  freedom  of  Gaul.t 


•  Now  called  St.  Reine  (Cote  d'Or)  on  the  two  streams,  the  Ose  and  the  Oserain.    Its  fall  is  a  histo- 
rical fact  in  Keltic  Gaulish  History. 
+  Orlhodoxie  Mafonnique,  p.  22. 


AI^ESIA   AND   BIBRACTIS.  299 

It  was  during  the  first  century  before  our  era,  that  the  last  and 
supreme  hour  of  the  great  Mysteries  had  struck.  History  shows  the 
populations  of  Central  Gaul  revolting  against  the  Roman  yoke.  The 
country  was  subject  to  Caesar,  and  the  revolt  was  crushed  ;  the  result 
was  the  slaughter  of  the  garrison  at  Alesia  (or  Alisa),  and  of  all  its 
inhabitants,  including  the  Druids,  the  college-priests  and  the  neo- 
phytes ;  after  this  the  whole  city  was  plundered  and  razed  to  the 
ground. 

Bibractis,  a  city  as  large  and  as  famous,  not  far  from  Alesia,  perished 
a  few  years  later.    J.  M.  Ragon  describes  her  end  as  follows  : 

Bibractis,  the  mother  of  sciences,  the  soul  of  the  early  nations  [in  Europe],  a 
town  equally  famous  for  its  sacred  college  of  Druids,  its  civilisation,  its  schools,  in 
which  40,000  students  were  taught  philosophy,  literature,  grammar,  jurisprudence, 
medicine,  astrology,  occult  sciences,  architecture,  etc.  Rival  of  Thebes,  of 
Memphis,  of  Athens  and  of  Rome,  it  possessed  an  amphitheatre,  surrounded 
with  colossal  statues,  and  accommodating  100,000  spectators,  gladiators,  a  capitol, 
temples  of  Janus,  Pluto,  Proserpine,  Jupiter,  Apollo,  Minerva,  Cybele,  Venus  and 
Anubis;  and  in  the  midst  of  those  sumptuous  edifices  the  Naumachy,  with  its  vast 
basin,  an  incredible  construction,  a  gigantic  work  wherein  floated  boats  and  galleys 
devoted  to  naval  games;  then  a  Champ  de  Mars,  an  aqueduct,  fountains,  public 
baths ;  finally  fortifications  and  walls,  the  construction  of  which  dated  from  the 
heroic  ages.* 

Such  was  the  last  city  in  Gaul  wherein  died  for  Europe  the  secrets  of 
the  Initiations  of  the  Great  Mysteries,  the  Mysteries  of  Nature,  and  of 
her  forgotten  Occult  truths.  The  rolls  and  manuscripts  of  the  famous 
Alexandrian  I^ibrarj^  were  burned  and  destroyed  by  the  same  Caesar,t 
but  while  History  deprecates  the  action  of  the  Arab  general,  Amrus, 
who  gave  the  final  touch  to  this  act  of  vandalism  perpetrated  by  the 
great  conqueror,  it  has  not  a  word  to  say  to  the  latter  for  his  destruc- 
tion of  nearly  the  same  amount  of  precious  rolls  in  Alesia,  nor  to  the 
destroyer  of  Bibractis.  While  Sacrovir — chief  of  the  Gauls,  who 
revolted  against  Roman  despotism  under  Tiberius,  and  was  defeated 
by  Silius  in  the  year  21  of  our  era — was  burning  himself  alive  with  his 
fellow  conspirators  on  a  funeral  pyre  before  the  gates  of  the  city,  as 
Ragon  tells  us,  the  latter  was  sacked  and  plundered,  and  all  her  trea- 
sures of  literature  on  the  Occult  Sciences  perished  by  fire.  The  once 
majestic  city,  Bibractis,  has  now  become  Autun,  Ragon  explains. 


*  op.  cit.  p.  22. 

+  The  Christian  mob  in  389  of  our  era  completed  the  work  of  destruction  upon  what  remained  ;  most 
of  the  priceless  works  were  saved  for  students  of  Occultism,  but  lost  to  the  world. 


30O  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

A  few  monuments  of  glorious  antiquity  are  still  there,  such  as  the  temples  of 
Janus  and  of  Cybele. 

Ragon  goes  on  : 
Aries,  founded  two  thousand  years  before  Christ,  was  sacked  in  270.  This  metro- 
polis of  Gaul,  restored  40  years  later  by  Constantine,  has  preserved  to  this  day  a 
few  remains  of  its  ancient  splendour ;  amphitheatre,  capitol,  an  obelisk,  a  block  of 
granite  17  metres  high,  a  triumphal  arch,  catacombs,  etc.  Thus  ended  Kelto- 
Gaulic  civilisation.  Csesar,  as  a  barbarian  worthy  of  Rome,  had  already  accom- 
plished the  destruction  of  the  ancient  Mysteries  by  the  sack  of  the  temples  and 
their  initiatory  colleges,  and  by  the  massacre  of  the  Initiates  and  the  Druids.  Re- 
mained Rome  ;  but  she  never  had  but  the  lesser  Mysteries,  shadows  of  the  Secret 
Sciences.     The  Great  Initiation  was  extinct.* 

A  few  further  extracts  may  be  given  from  liis  Occult  Masonry,  as  they 
bear  directly  upon  our  subject.  However  learned  and  erudite,  some  of 
the  chronological  mistakes  of  that  author  are  very  great.     He  says : 

After  deified  man  (Hermes)  came  the  King- Priest  [theHierophant]  Menes  was  the 
first  legislator  and  the  founder  of  Thebes  of  the  hundred  palaces.  He  filled  that 
city  with  magnificent  splendour ;  it  is  from  his  day  that  the  sacerdotal  epoch  of 
Egypt  dates.  The  priests  reigned,  for  it  is  they  who  made  the  laws.  It  is  said  that 
there  have  been  three  hundred  and  twenty-nine  [Hierophants]  since  his  time— all 
of  whom  have  remained  unknown. 

After  that,  genuine  Adepts  having  become  scarce,  the  author  shows 
the  Priests  choosing  false  ones  from  the  midst  of  slaves,  whom  they 
exhibited,  having  crowned  and  deified  them,  for  the  adoration  of  the 
ignorant  masses. 

Tired  of  reigning  in  such  a  servile  way,  the  kings  rebelled  and  freed  themselves. 
Then  came  Sesostris,  the  founder  of  Memphis  (1613,  they  sa}-,  before  our  era).  To 
the  sacerdotal  election  to  the  throne  succeeded  that  of  the  warriors.  .  .  Cheops 
who  reigned  from  1178  to  1122  built  the  great  Pyramid  which  bears  his  name.  He 
is  accused  of  having  persecuted  theocracy  and  closed  the  temples. 

This  is  Utterly  incorrect,  though  Ragon  repeats  "  History."  The 
Pyramid  called  by  the  name  of  Cheops  is  the  Great  Pyramid,  the 
building  of  which  even  Baron  Bunsen  assigned  to  5,000  B.C.  He  says 
in  Egypt's  Place  i7i  Universal  History  : 


*  op.  cit.  p.  23.  J.  M.  Ragon,  a  Belgian  by  birth,  and  a  Mason,  knew  more  about  Occultism  than  any 
other  non-initiated  writer.  For  fifty  years  he  studied  the  ancient  Mysteries  wherever  he  could  find 
accounts  of  them.  In  1805,  he  founded  at  Paris  the  Brotherhood  of  J^s  Trinosop/tes,  in  which  Lodge 
he  delivered  for  years  lectures  on  Ancient  and  Modern  Initiation  (in  1818  and  again  in  1841),  which 
were  published,  and  now  are  lost.  Then  he  became  the  writer  in  chief  of  Hermes,  a  masonic  paper. 
His  best  works  were  Lxl  Ma^onncrie  OccuUe  and  the  Fasles  Initiattques.  After  his  death,  in  1866,  a 
number  ofhis  MSS.  remained  in  the  possession  of  the  Grand  Orient  of  France.  A  high  Mason  told 
the  writer  that  Ragon  had  corresponded  for  years  with  two  Orientalists  in  Syria  and  Egj'pt,  one  of 
whom  is  a  Kopt  gentleman. 


THE   I.EARNING   OF   EGYPT.  30I 

The  Origines  of  Egypt  go  back  to  the  ninth  millennium  before  Christ.* 
And  as  the  Mysteries  were  performed  and  the  Initiations  took  place 
in  that  Pyramid — for  indeed  it  was  built  for  that  purpose — it  looks 
strange  and  an  utter  contradiction  with  known  facts  in  the  history  of 
the  Mysteries,  to  suppose  that  Cheops,  if  the  builder  of  that  Pyramid, 
ever  turned  against  the  initiated  Priests  and  their  temples.  Moreover, 
as  far  as  the  Secret  Doctrine  teaches,  it  was  not  Cheops  who  built  the 
Pyramid  of  that  name,  whatever  else  he  might  have  done. 
Yet,  it  is  quite  true  that 

Owing  to  an  Ethiopian  invasion  and  the  federated  government  of  twelve  chiefs, 
royalty  fell  into  the  hands  of  Amasis,  a  man  of  low  birth. 

This  was  in  570  B.C.,  and  it  is  Amasis  who  destroyed  priestly 
power.     And 

Thus  perished  that  ancient  theocracy  which  showed  its  crowned  priests  for  so 
many  centuries  to  EgA'pt  and  the  whole  world. 

Eg3'pt  had  gathered  the  students  of  all  countries  around  her  Priests 
and  Hierophants  before  Alexandria  was  founded.     Ennemoser  asks  : 

How  comes  it  that  so  little  has  become  known  of  the  Mysteries  and  of  their 
particular  contents,  through  so  many  ages,  and  amongst  so  many  different  times 
and  people  .••  The  answer  is  that  it  is  again  owing  to  the  universally  strict  silence 
of  the  initiated.  Another  cause  may  be  found  in  the  destruction  and  total  loss  of 
all  the  written  memorials  of  the  secret  knowledge  of  the  remotest  antiquity. 

Numa's  books,  described  by  Liv^)  consisting  of  natural  philosophy,  were  found  in 
his  tomb ;  but  they  were  not  allowed  to  be  made  known,  lest  they  should  reveal 
the  most  secret  mysteries  of  the  state  religion.  .  .  .  The  senate  and  the  tribunes 
of  the  people  determined  .  .  .  that  the  books  themselves  should  be  burned, 
which  was  done.t 

Cassain  mentions  a  treatise,  well-known  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  cen- 
turies, which  was  accredited  to  Ham,  the  son  of  Noah,  who  in  his  turn 
was  reputed  to  have  received  it  from  Jared,  the  fourth  generation  from 
Seth,  the  son  of  Adam. 

Alchemy  also  was  first  taught  in  Egypt  by  her  learned  Priests,  though 
the  first  appearance  of  this  system  is  as  old  as  man.  Many  writers 
have  declared  that  Adam  was  the  first  Adept ;  but  that  was  a  blind 
and  a  pun  upon  the  name,  which  is  "  red  earth  "  in  one  of  its  meanings. 
The  correct  information — under  its  allegorical  veil — is  found  in  the 
sixth  chapter  of  Genesis,  which  speaks  of  the  "Sons  of  God"  who 
took  wives  of  the  daughters  of  men,  after  which  they  communicated 

*  op.  cit.,  iv.  462.  -^History  of  Magic,  ii.  ii. 


302  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

to  these  wives  many  a  mystery  and  secret  of  the  phenomenal  world. 
The  cradle  of  Alchemy,  says  Olaus  Borrichius,  is  to  be  sought  in  the 
most  distant  times.  Democritus  of  Abdera  was  an  Alchemist,  and  a 
Hermetic  Philosopher.  Clement  of  Alexandria  wrote  considerably 
upon  the  Science,  and  Moses  and  Solomon  are  called  proficients  in  it. 
We  are  told  by  W.  Godwin  : 

The  first  authentic  record  on  this  subject  is  an  edict  of  Diocletian  about  300  years 
A.D.,  ordering  a  diUgent  search  to  be  made  in  Egypt  for  all  the  ancient  books 
which  treated  of  the  art  of  making  gold  and  silver,  that  they  might,  without  dis- 
tinction, be  consigned  to  the  flames. 

The  Alchemy  of  the  Chaldaeans  and  the  old  Chinamen  is  not  even 
the  parent  of  that  Alchemy  which  revived  among  the  Arabians  many 
centuries  later.  There  is  a  spiritual  Alchemy  and  a  physical  transmu- 
tation-    '^he  knowledge  of  both  was  imparted  at  the  Initiations. 


SECTION   XXXIV. 

The  Post-Christian  Successors  to 
THE  Mysteries. 


The  Eleusinian  Mysteries  were  no  more.  Yet  it  was  these  which  gave 
their  principal  features  to  the  Neo-platonic  school  of  Ammouius 
Saccas,  for  the  Eclectic  System  was  chiefly  characterised  by  its  Theurgy 
and  ecstasis.  It  was  lamblichus  who  added  to  it  the  Egyptian  doctrine 
of  Theurgy  with  its  practices,  and  Porphyry,  the  Jew,  who  opposed  this 
new  element.  The  school,  however,  with  but  few  exceptions,  practised 
asceticism  and  contemplation,  its  mystics  passing  through  a  discipline 
as  rigorous  as  that  of  the  Hindu  devotee.  Their  efforts  never  tended 
so  much  to  develop  the  successful  practice  of  thaumaturgy,  necromancy 
or  sorcery — such  as  they  are  now  accused  of— as  to  evolve  the  higher 
faculties  of  the  inner  man,  the  Spiritual  Ego.  The  school  held  that  a 
number  of  .spiritual  beings,  denizens  of  spheres  quite  independent  of 
the  earth  and  of  the  human  cycle,  were  mediators  between  the  "  Gods  " 
and  men,  and  even  between  man  and  the  Supreme  Soul.  To  put  it  in 
plainer  language,  the  soul  of  man  became,  owing  to  the  help  of  the 
Planetary  Spirits,  "  recipient  of  the  soul  of  the  world  "  as  Emerson  puts 
it.  Apollonius  of  Tyana  asserted  his  possession  of  such  a  power  in 
these  words  (quoted  by  Professor  Wilder  in  his  Neo-Plalonism)  : 

I  can  see  the  present  and  the  future  in  a  clear  mirror.  The  sage  [Adept]  need 
not  wait  for  the  vapours  of  the  earth  and  the  corruption  of  the  air  to  foresee  plagues 
and  fevers;  he  must  know  them  later  than  God,  but  earlier  than  the  people.  The 
iheoi  or  gods  see  the  future ;  common  men,  the  present ;  sages,  that  which  is 
about  to  take  place.  My  peculiar  abstemious  mode  of  living  produces  such  an 
acuteness  of  the  senses,  or  creates  some  other  faculty,  so  that  the  greatest  and  most 
remarkable  things  may  be  performed.* 


*  Neo-Platonism  and  Alchemy,  p.  15. 


304  'I'HE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

Professor  A.  Wilder's  comment  thereupon  is  remarkable  : 

This  is  what  may  be  termed  spiritual  photography.  The  soul  is  the  camera  in 
which  facts  and  events,  future,  past,  and  present,  are  alike  fixed ;  and  the  mind 
becomes  conscious  of  them.  Beyond  our  everyday  world  of  limits,  all  is  as  one  day 
or  state — the  past  and  future  comprised  in  the  present.  Probably  this  is  the  "  great 
day,"  the  "last  day,"  the  "day  of  the  Lord,"  of  the  Bible  writers— the  day  into 
which  everyone  passes  by  death  or  ecstasis.  Then  the  soul  is  freed  from  the  con- 
straint of  the  body,  and  its  nobler  part  is  united  to  higher  nature  and  becomes  par- 
taker in  the  wisdom  and  foreknowledge  of  the  higher  beings.* 

How  far  the  system  practised  by  the  Neo-Platonists  was  identical 
with  that  of  the  old  and  the  modern  Vedantins  may  be  inferred  from 
what  Dr.  A.  Wilder  says  of  the  Alexandrian  Theosophists. 

The  anterior  idea  of  the  New  Platonists  was  that  of  a  single  Supreme  Essence. 
All  the  old  philosophies  contained  the  doctrine  that  de.o\,  thcoi,  gods  or  dis- 
posers, angels,  demons,  and  other  spiritual  agencies,  emanated  from  the  Supreme 
Being.  Ammonius  accepted  the  doctrine  of  the  Books  of  Hermes,  that  from 
the  divine  All  proceeded  the  Divine  Wisdom  or  Amun ;  that  from  Wisdom  pro- 
ceeded the  Demiurge  or  Creator;  and  from  the  Creator,  the  subordinate  spiritual 
beings ;  the  world  and  its  peoples  being  the  last.  The  first  is  contained  in  the 
second,  the  first  and  second  in  the  third,  and  so  on  through  the  entire  series.t 

This  is  a  perfect  echo  of  the  belief  of  the  Vedantins,  and  it  proceeds 
directly  from  the  secret  teachings  of  the  Kast.  The  same  author 
says : 

Akin  to  this  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Jewish  Kabala  which  was  taught  by  the  Pharsi 
or  Pharisees,  who  probably  borrowed  it,  as  their  sectarian  designation  would  seem 
to  indicate,  from  the  Magians  of  Persia.  It  is  substantially  embodied  in  the  follow- 
ing synopsis. 

The  Divine  Being  is  the  All,  the  source  of  all  existence,  the  Infinite ;  and  He 
cannot  be  known.  The  Universe  reveals  Him,  and  subsists  by  Him.  At  the 
beginning  His  effulgence  went  forth  everj-where.i  Eventually  He  retired  within 
Himself  and  so  formed  around  Him  a  vacant  space.  Into  this  He  transmitted  His 
first  Emanation,  a  Ray,  containing  in  it  the  generative  and  conceptive  power,  and 
hence  the  name  IE,  or  Jah.  This  in  its  turn  produced  the  tikkuji,  th.^  pattern  or 
idea  of  form ;  and  in  this  emanation,  which  also  contained  the  male  and  female,  or 
generative  and  conceptive  potencies,  were  the  three  primitive  forces  of  Ught, 
Spirit  and  Life.  This  Tikkuu  is  united  to  the  Ray,  or  first  emanation,  and  per- 
vaded by  it :  and  by  that  union  is  also  in  perpetual  communication  with  the  infinite 
source.     It  is  the  pattern,  the  primitive  man,  the  Adam  Kadmon,  the  macrocosm  of 


•  Loc.  cit. 
+  Op.  cit.,  pp.  9,  10. 

X  This  Divine  Eflfulgence  and  Essence  is  the  light  of  the  I^ogfos ;  only  the  Vedantiu  would  not  use 
the  pronoun  "  He,"  but  would  say  "  It." 


THE   ROOT  RACES.  305 

Pythagoras  and  other  philosophers.  From  it  proceeded  the  Sephiroth.  .  .  . 
From  the  Sephiroth  in  turn  emanated  the  four  worlds,  each  proceeding  out  of  the 
one  immediately  above  it,  and  the  lower  one  enveloping  its  superior.  These  worlds 
became  less  pure  as  they  descended  in  the  scale,  the  lowest  of  all  being  the  material 
world.* 

This  veiled  enunciation  of  the  Secret  Teaching  will  be  clear  to  our 
readers  by  this  time.     These  worlds  are : 

Aziliith  is  peopled  with  the  purest  emanations  [the  First,  almost  spiritual.  Race 
of  the  human  beings  that  were  to  inhabit]  the  Fourth ;  the  second,  Beriah,  by  a 
lower  order,  the  servants  of  the  former  [the  second  Race];  the  third, /.f^VaA,  by  the 
cherubim  and  seraphim,  the  Elohim  and  B'ni  Elohim  ["Sons  of  Gods"  or  Elohim, 
our  Third  Race].  The  fourth  world,  Asiah,  is  inhabited  by  the  Klipputh,  of  whom 
Belial  is  chief  [the  Atlantean  Sorcerers].+ 

These  worlds  are  all  the  earthly  duplicates  of  their  heavenly  proto- 
types, the  mortal  and  temporary  reflections  and  shadows  of  the  more 
durable,  if  not  eternal,  races  dwelling  in  other,  to  us,  invisible  worlds. 
The  souls  of  the  men  of  our  Fifth  Race  derive  their  elements  from  these 
four  worlds— Root  Races— that  preceded  ours  :  namely,  our  intellect, 
Manas,  the  fifth  principle,  our  passions  and  mental  and  corporeal  appe- 
tites. A  conflict  having  arisen,  called  "war  in  heaven,"  among  our 
prototypical  worlds,  war  came  to  pass,  aeons  later,  between  the  Atlan- 
teansj  of  Asiah,  and  those  of  the  third  Root  Race,  the  B'ni  Elohim  or 
the  "Sons  of  God,"§  and  then  evil  and  wickedness  were  intensified. 
Mankind  (in  the  last  sub-race  of  the  third  Root  Race)  having 

Sinned  in  their  first  parent  [a  physiological  allegory,  truly  !]  from  whose  soul  everj- 
human  soul  is  an  emanation, 

says  the  Zokar,  men  were  "  exiled  "  into  more  material  bodies  to 
Expiate  that  sin  and  become  proficient  in  goodness. 

To  accomplish  the  cycle  of  necessity,  rather,  explains  the  doctrine ; 
to  progress  on  their  task  of  evolution,  from  which  task  none  of  us  can 
be  freed,  neither  by  death  nor  suicide,  for  each  of  us  have  to  pass 
through  the  "  Valley  of  Thorns "  before  he  emerges  into  the  plains 
of  divine  light  and  rest.  And  thus  men  will  continue  to  be  born  in 
new  bodies 
Till  they  have  become  sufficiently  pure  to  enter  a  higher  form  of  existence. 


*  Loc.  cil.,  note,  p.  lo. 
+  Loc.  cil.,  note. 

X  See  Esoteric  Buddhism,  by  A.  P.  Sinnett,  Fifth  Edition. 

\  See  Isis  Unveiled,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  589-595.     The  "Sous  of  God"  and  their  war  with  the  giants  anO 
magicians. 

3    X 


3o6  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

This  means  only  that  Mankind,  from  the  First  down  to  the  last,  or 
Seventh  Race,  is  composed  of  one  and  the  same  company  of  actors,  who 
have  descended  from  higher  spheres  to  perform  their  artistic  tour  on 
this  our  planet.  Earth.  Starting  as  pure  spirits  on  our  downvv'ard 
journey  around  the  world  (verily!)  with  the  knowledge  of  truth — now 
feebly  echoed  in  the  Occult  Doctrines — inherent  in  us,  cyclic  law  brings 
us  down  to  the  reversed  apex  of  matter,  which  is  lost  down  here  on 
earth  and  the  bottom  of  which  we  have  already  struck  ;  and  then,  the 
same  law  of  spiritual  gravity  will  make  us  slowly  ascend  to  still  higher, 
still  purer  spheres  than  those  we  started  from. 

Foresight,  prophecy,  oracular  powers  !  Illusive  fancies  of  man's 
dwarfed  perceptions,  which  see  actual  images  in  reflections  and 
shadows,  and  mistake  past  actualities  for  prophetic  images  of  a  future 
that  has  no  room  in  Kternity.  Our  macrocosm  and  its  smallest  micro- 
cosm, man,  are  both  repeating  the  same  plaj^  of  universal  and  individual 
events  at  each  station,  as  on  every  stage  on  which  Karma  leads  them  to 
enact  their  respective  dramas  of  life.  False  prophets  could  have  no 
existence  had  there  been  no  true  prophets.  And  so  there  were,  and 
many  of  both  classes,  and  in  all  ages.  Only,  none  of  these  ever  saw 
anything  but  that  which  had  already  come  to  pass,  and  had  been  before 
prototypically  enacted  in  higher  spheres — if  the  event  foretold  related 
to  national  or  public  weal  or  woe — or  in  some  preceding  life,  if  it  con- 
cerned only  an  individual,  for  every  such  event  is  stamped  as  an 
indelible  record  of  the  Past  and  Future,  which  are  onl3%  after  all,  the 
ever  Present  in  Kternity.  The  "  worlds  "  and  the  purifications  spoken 
of  in  the  Zohar  and  other  Kabalistic  books,  relate  to  our  globe  and  races 
no  more  and  no  less  than  they  relate  to  other  globes  and  other  races 
that  have  preceded  our  own  in  the  great  cycle.  It  was  such  funda- 
mental truths  as  these  that  were  performed  in  allegorical  plays  and 
images  during  the  Mysteries,  the  last  Act  of  which,  the  Epilogue  for 
the  Mystae,  was  the  anastash  or  "continued  existence,"  as  also  the 
"  Soul  transformation." 

Hence,  the  author  of  Neo-platonisni  and  Alchemy  shows  us  that  all 
such  Eclectic  doctrines  were  strongly  reflected  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul, 
and  were 

Inculcated  more  or  less  among  the  Churches.  Hence,  such  passages  as  these 
"Ye  were  dead  in  errors  and  sins;  ye  walked  according  to  the  ceon  of  this  worl'^I, 
accoralng  to  the  archon  that  has  the  domination  of  the  air."  "We  wrestle  not 
against  flesh   and  blood,  but  against  the  dominations,  against  potencies,  again?! 


THE   "PAI^SE   GNOSIS."'  30? 

the  lords  of  darkness,  and  against  the  mischievousness  of  spirits  in  the  empyrean 
regions."  But  Paul  was  evidently  hostile  to  the  effort  to  blend  his  gospel  with 
the  gnostic  ideas  of  the  Hebrew-Egyptian  school,  as  seems  to  have  been  attempted 
at  Ephesus ;  and  accordingly,  wrote  to  Timothy,  his  favourite  disciple,  "  Keep  safe 
the  precious  charge  entrusted  to  thee ;  and  reject  the  new  doctrines  and  the  anta- 
gonistic principles  of  the  gnosis,  falsely  so-called,  of  which  some  have  made  pro- 
fession  and  gone  astray  from  the  faith."*" 

But  as  the  Gnosis  is  the  Science  pertaining  to  our  Higher  Self,  as 
blind  faith  is  a  matter  of  temperament  and  emotionalism,  and  as  Paul's 
doctrine  was  still  newer  and  his  interpretations  far  more  thickly  veiled, 
to  keep  the  inner  truths  hidden  far  away  from  the  Gnostic,  preference 
has  been  given  to  the  former  by  every  earnest  seeker  after  truth. 

Besides  this,  the  great  Teachers  who  professed  the  so-called  "  false 
Gnosis  "  were  very  numerous  in  the  days  of  the  Apostles,  and  were  as 
great  as  any  converted  Rabbi  could  be.  If  Porphyry,  the  Jew  Malek, 
went  against  Theurg>'  on  account  of  old  traditional  recollections,  there 
were  ot'her  teachers  who  practised  it.  Plotinus,  lamblichus,  Proclus 
were  all  thaumaturgists,  and  the  latter 

Elaborated  the  entire  theosophy  and  theurgy  of  his  predecessors  into  a  complete 
system,  t 

As  to  Ammouius, 

Countenanced  by  Clemens  and  Athenagoras,  in  the  Church,  and  by  learned  men 
of  the  Synagogue,  the  Academy,  and  the  Grove,  he  fulfilled  his  labour  by  teaching 
a  common  doctrine  for  all.  j 

Thus  it  is  not  Judaism  and  Christianity  that  re-modelled  the  ancient 
Pagan  'Wisdom,  but  rather  the  latter  that  put  its  heathen  curb,  quietly 
and  insensibly,  on  the  new  faith ;  and  this,  moreover,  was  still  further 
influenced  by  the  Eclectic  Theosophical  system,  the  direct  emanation 
of  the  'Wisdom  Religion.  All  that  is  grand  and  noble  in  Christian 
theology  comes  from  Neo-Platonism.  It  is  too  well-known  to  now  need 
much  repetition  that  Ammonius  Saccas,  the  God-taught  (theodidaktos) 
and  the  lover  of  the  truth  ( philalethes ) ,  in  establishing  his  school,' 
made  a  direct  attempt  to  benefit  the  world  by  teaching  those  portions 
of  the  Secret  Science  that  were  permitted  by  its  direct  guardians  to  be 
revealed  in  those  days.§     The  modern  movement  of  our  own  Theo- 


*  Loc.  cil.,  note. 

+  Op.  cit.,  p.  i8. 

X  Op.  cit.,  p.  8. 

\  No  orthodox  Christian  has  ever  equalled,  far  less  surpassed,  in  ttie  practice  of  true  Christ-like 
virtues  and  ethics,  or  in  the  beauty  of  his  moral  tiature,  Aratnonius,  the  Alexandrian  pen.'ert  from 
Christianity  (he  was  born  from  Christian  parents). 


308  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

sophical  Society  was  begun  on  the  same  principles  ;  for  the  Neo-Platonic 
school  of  Ammonius  aimed,  as  we  do,  at  the  reconcilement  of  all  sects 
and  peoples,  under  the  once  common  faith  of  the  Golden  Age,  tr5dng 
to  induce  the  nations  to  lay  aside  their  contentions — in  religious  matters 
at  any  rate — bj' proving  to  them  that  their  various  beliefs  are  all  the  more 
or  less  legitimate  children  of  one  common  parent,  the  Wisdom  Religion. 
Nor  was  the  Eclectic  Theosophical  system — as  some  writers  inspired 
by  Rome  would  make  the  world  believe — developed  only  during  the 
third  century  of  our  era ;  but  it  belongs  to  a  much  earlier  age,  as  has 
been  shown  by  Diogenes  Laertius.  He  traces  it  to  the  beginning  of  the 
dynasty  of  the  Ptolemies ;  to  the  great  seer  and  prophet,  the  Egyptian 
Priest  Pot-Amun,  of  the  temple  of  the  God  of  that  name — for  Amun  is 
the  God  of  Wisdom.  Unto  that  day  the  communication  between  the 
Adepts  of  Upper  India  and  Bactria  and  the  Philosophers  of  the  West 
had  never  ceased. 

Under  Philadelphus  .  .  .  the  Hellenic  teachers  became  rivals  of  the  College 
of  Rabbis  of  Babylon.  The  Buddhistic,  Vedantic  and  Magian  systems  were  ex- 
pounded along  with  the  philosophies  of  Greece.  .  .  .  Aristobulus,  the  Jew, 
declared  that  the  ethics  of  Aristotle  were  derived  from  the  law  of  Moses  (!);  and 
Philo,  after  him,  attempted  to  interpret  the  Pentateuch  in  accordance  with  the  doc- 
trines of  Pythagoras  and  the  Academy.  In  Josephus  it  is  said  that,  in  the  Book  of 
the  Genesis,  Moses  wrote  philosophically— that  is,  in  the  figurative  style ;  and  the 
Essenes  of  Carmel  were  reproduced  in  the  Therapeutse  of  Egypt,  who,  in  turn, 
were  declared  by  Eusebius  to  be  identical  with  the  Christians,  though  they  actually 
existed  long  before  the  Christian  era.  Indeed,  in  its  turn,  Christianity  also  was  taught 
at  Alexandria,  and  underwent  an  analogous  metamorphosis.  Pantsenus,  Athena- 
goras  and  Clement  were  thoroughly  instructed  in  the  Platonic  philosophy,  and 
comprehended  its  essential  unity  with  the  oriental  systems.* 

Ammonius,  though  the  son  of  Christian  parents,  was  a  lover  of  the 
truth,  a  true  Philaletheian  foremost  of  all.  He  set  his  heart  upon  the 
work  of  reconciling  the  different  systems  into  a  harmonious  whole,  for 
he  had  already  perceived  the  tendency  of  Christianity  to  raise  itself  on 
the  hecatomb  which  it  had  constructed  out  of  all  other  creeds  and  faiths. 
What  says  history  ? 

The  ecclesiastical  historian,  Mosheim,  declares  that 

Ammonius,  conceiving  that  not  only  the  philosophers  of  Greece,  but  also  all  those 
ofthe  different  barbarous  nations,  were  perfectly  in  unison  with  each  other  with  regard 
to  every  essential  point,  made  it  his  business  so  to  temper  and  expound  the  tenets  of 
all  these  various  sects,  as  to  make  it  appear  they  had  all  of  them  originated  from  one 

»  Op.  cit.,  pp.  3,  4- 


TEACHINGS   OF   AMMONIUS.  309 

and  the  same  source,  and  all  tended  to  one  and  the  same  end.  Again,  Mosheim  says 
that  Ammonius  taught  that  the  religion  of  the  multitude  went  hand  in  hand  with 
philosophy,  and  with  her  had  shared  the  fate  of  being  by  degrees  corrupted  and 
obscured  with  mere  human  conceits,  superstition,  and  lies ;  that  it  ought,  there- 
fore, to  be  brought  back  to  its  original  purity  by  purging  it  of  this  dross  and  ex- 
pounding it  upon  philosophical  principles ;  and  that  the  whole  which  Christ  had 
in  view  was  to  reinstate  and  restore  to  its  primitive  integrity  the  Wisdom  of  the 
Ancients.* 

Now  what  was  that  "  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients  "  that  the  Founder  of 
Christianity  "  had  in  view  "  ?  The  system  taught  by  Ammonius  in  his 
Eclectic  Theosophical  School  was  made  of  the  crumbs  permitted  to  be 
gathered  from  the  antediluvian  lore  ;  those  Neo-Platonic  teachings  are 
described  in  the  Edinburgh  Eyicyclopcedia  as  follows  : 

He  [Ammonius]  adopted  the  doctrines  which  were  received  in  Egypt  concerning 
the  Universe  and  the  Deity,  considered  as  constituting  one  great  whole;  concern- 
ing the  eternity  of  the  world,  the  nature  of  souls,  the  empire  of  Providence  [Karma] 
and  the  government  of  the  world  by  demons  [daimons  or  spirits,  archangels].  He 
also  established  a  system  of  moral  discipline  which  allowed  the  people  in  general 
to  live  according  to  the  laws  of  their  countr}'^  and  the  dictates  of  nature ;  but 
required  the  wise  to  exalt  their  minds  by  contemplation,  and  to  mortify  the  body.t 
so  that  they  might  be  capable  of  enjoying  the  presence  and  assistance  of  the  demons 
[including  their  own  daimon  or  Seventh  Principle]  .  .  .  and  ascending  after 
death  to  the  presence  of  the  Supreme  [Soul]  Parent.  In  order  to  reconcile  the 
popular  religions,  and  particularly  the  Christian,  with  this  new  system,  he  made 
the  wliole  history  of  the  heathen  gods  an  allegorj',  maintaining  that  they  were  only 
celestial  ministers:):  entitled  to  an  inferior  kind  of  worship  ;  and  he  acknowledged 
that  Jesus  Chiist  was  an  excellent  man  and  the  friend  of  God,  but  alleged  that  it 
was  not  his  design  entirely  to  abolish  the  worship  of  demons,  §  and  that  his  only  in- 
tention was  to  purify  the  ancient  religion. 

No  more  could  be  declared  except  for  those  Philaletheians  who 
were  initiated,  "  persons  duh'  instructed  and  disciplined "  to  whom 
Ammonius  communicated  his  more  important  doctrines. 

Imposing  on  them  the  obligations  of  secrec}',  as  was  done  before  him  by  Zoroas- . 
ter  and  Pythagoras,  and  in  the  Mysteries  [where  an  oath  was  required  from  the 

•  Quoted  by  Dr.  Wilder,  p.  5. 

t  "  MortiScation  "  is  here  meant  in  the  moral,  not  the  physical  sense;  to  restrain  every  lust  and 
passion,  and  live  on  the  simplest  diet  possible. 

t  This  is  the  Neo-Platonic  teaching  adopted  as  a  doctrine  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  with  its 
worship  of  the  Seven  Spirits. 

}  The  Church  has  made  of  it  the  worship  of  devils,  "  Daimon  "  is  Spirit,  and  relates  to  our  divine 
Spirit,  the  seventh  Principle  and  to  the  Dhyan  Chohans.  Jesus  prohibited  going-  to  the  temple  or 
church  "as  Pharisees  do"  but  commanded  that  man  should  retire  for  prayer  (communion  with  his 
God)  into  a  private  closet.  Is  it  Jesus  who  would  have  countenanced  in  the  face  of  the  starving 
millions,  the  building  of  the  most  gorgeous  churches  ? 


3IO  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE- 

neophytes  or  catechumens  not  to  divulge  what  they  had  learned].     The  great  Pj'tha- 
goras  divided  his  teachings  into  exoteric  and  esoteric* 

Has  not  Jesus  done  the  same,  since  He  declared  to  His  disciples  that 
to  them  it  was  given  to  know  the  m5^steries  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
whereas  to  the  multitudes  it  was  not  given,  and  therefore  He  spoke  in 
parables  which  had  a  two- fold  meaning  ? 

Dr.  A.  Wilder  proceeds  : 

Thus  Ammonius  found  his  work  ready  to  his  hand.  His  deep  spiritual  intuition, 
his  extensive  learning,  and  his  familiarit}'  with  the  Christian  fathers,  Pantasnus, 
Clement  and  Athenagoras,  and  with  the  most  erudite  philosophers  of  the  time,  all 
fitted  him  for  the  labour  he  performed  so  thoroughly.  .  .  .  The  results  of  his 
ministration  are  perceptible  at  the  present  daj'  in  every  country  of  the  Christian 
world ;  every  prominent  system  of  doctrine  now  bearing  the  marks  of  his  plastic 
hand.  Ever}'  ancient  philosophy  has  had  its  votaries  among  the  moderns ;  and 
even  Judaism,  oldest  of  them  all,  has  taken  upon  itself  changes  which  were  sug- 
gested by  the  "  God-taught  "  Alexandrian. t 

The  Neo-Platonic  School  of  Alexandria  founded  by  Ammonius — the 
prototype  proposed  for  the  Theosophical  Society — taught  Theurgy  and 
Magic,  as  much  as  they  were  taught  in  the  days  of  Pythagoras,  and  by 
others  far  earlier  than  his  period.  For  Proclus  sa5^s  that  the  doctrines 
of  Orpheus,  who  was  an  Indian  and  came  from  India,  were  the  origin  of 
the  systems  afterwards  promulgated. 

What  Orpheus  delivered  in  hidden  allegories,  Pythagoras  learned  when  he  was 
initiated  into  the  Orphic  Mysteries  ;  and  Plato  next  received  a  perfect  knowledge 
of  them  from  Orphic  and  Pythagorean  writings,  j 

The  Philaletheians  had  their  division  into  neophytes  (chclas)  and 
Initiates,  or  Masters  ;  and  the  eclectic  system  was  characterised  by  three 
distinct  features,  which  are  purely  Vedantic ;  a  Supreme  Essence,  One 
and  Universal ;  the  eternity  and  indivisibility  of  the  human  spirit ;  and 
Theurgy,  which  is  Mantncism.  So  also,  as  we  have  seen,  they  had  their 
secret  or  Esoteric  teachings  like  any  other  mystic  school.  Nor  were 
they  allowed  to  reveal  anything  of  their  secret  tenets,  any  more  than 
were  the  Initiates  of  the  Mysteries.  Only  the  penalties  incurred  b}'  the 
revealers  of  the  secrets  of  the  latter  were  far  more  terrible,  and  this 
prohibition  has  survived  to  this  day,  not  only  in  India,  but  even  among 
the  Jewish  Kabalists  in  Asia.§ 

•  op.  cit.,  p.  7. 
+  Op.  cit.,  p.  7. 
X  Op.  oil.,  p.  18. 

{  The  Talmud  gives  the  story  of  the  four  Tanaim,  who  are  made,  in  allegorical  tenus,  to  enter  into 
the  garden  of  delights,  i.e.,  to  be  initiated  into  the  occult  and  final  science. 


DIFFICULTIES   AND   DANGERS.  31I 

One  of  the  reasons  for  such  secrecy  may  be  the  undoubtedly  serious 
difficulties  and  hardships  of  chelaship,  and  the  dangers  attendino* 
Initiation.  The  modern  candidate  has,  like  his  predecessor  of  old,  to 
either  conquer  or  die  ;  when,  which  is  still  worse,  he  does  not  lose  his 
reason.  There  is  no  danger  to  him  who  is  true  and  sincere,  and, 
especially,  unselfish.  For  he  is  thus  prepared  beforehand  to  meet  any 
temptation. 

He,  who  fully  recognised  the  power  of  his  immortal  spirit,  and  never  doubted  for 
one  moment  its  omnipotent  protection,  had  naught  to  fear.  But  woe  to  the  candi- 
date in  whom  the  slightest  physical  fear— sickly  child  of  matter— made  him  lose 
sight  and  faith  in  his  own  invulnerability.  He  who  was  not  wholly  confident  of 
his  moral  fitness  to  accept  the  burden  of  these  tremendous  secrets  was  doomed.* 

There  were  no  such  dangers  in  Neo-Platonic  Initiations.  The  selfish 
and  the  unworthy  failed  in  their  object,  and  in  the  failure  was  the 
punishment.  The  chief  aim  was  "  reunion  of  the  part  with  the  ally 
This  All  was  One,  with  numberless  names.  Whether  called  Did,  the 
"bright  Ivord  of  Heaven"  by  the  Aryan  ;  lao,  by  the  Chaldaean  and 
Kabalist ;  labe  by  the  Samaritan  ;  the  Ttu  or  Tuisco  by  the  Northman ; 
Duw,  by  the  Briton  ;  Zeus,  by  the  Thracian  or  Jupiter  by  the  Roman — 
it  was  the  Being,  the  Facit,  One  and  Supreme,!  the  unborn  and  the 
inexhaustible  source  of  every  emanation,  the  fountain  of  life  and  light 
eternal,  a  Ray  of  which  every  one  of  us  carries  in  him  on  this  earth. 
The  knowledge  of  this  Mystery  had  reached  the  Neo-Platonists  from 
India  through  Pythagoras,  and  still  later  through  Apollonius  of  Tyana 
and  the  rules  and  methods  for  producing  ecstasy  had  come  from  the 

A, 

same  lore  of  the  divine  Vidya,  the  Gnosis.     For  Aryavarta,  the  bright 
focus  into  which  had  been  poured  in  the  beginning  of  time  the  flames 

"According  to  the  teaching  of  our  holy  masters  the  names  of  the  four  who  entered  the  garden  of 
delight,  are  :  Ben  Asai,  Ben  Zoraa,  Acher,  and  Rabbi  Akiba.     .    .    . 

"  Ben  Asai  looked  and — lost  his  sight. 

"  Ben  Zoma  looked  and — lost  his  reason. 

"Acher  made  depredations  in  the  plantation  "  (mixed  up  the  whole  and  failed).  "  But  Akiba,  who 
had  entered  in  peace  came  out  of  it  in  peace;  for  the  saint,  whose  name  he  blessed,  had  said,  'This 
old  man  is  worthy  of  serving  us  with  glorj'."  "' 

"  The  learned  commentators  of  the  Talmud,  the  Rabbis  of  the  synagogue,  explain  that  the  garden 
0/  delight,  in  which  those  four  personages  are  made  to  enter,  is  but  that  mysterious  science,  the  most 
terrible  of  sciences  for  weak  intellects,  which  it  leads  directly  to  insanity,"  says  A.  Franck,  in  his 
Kabbalah.  It  is  not  the  pure  at  heart  and  he  who  studies  but  with  a  view  to  perfectmg  himself  and 
so  more  easily  acquiring  the  promised  immortality,  who  need  have  any  fear  ;  but  rather  he  who 
makes  of  the  science  of  sciences  a  siuful  pretext  for  worldly  motives,  who  should  tremble.  The  latter 
will  never  understand  the  kabalistic  evocations  of  the  supreme  initiation. — hn  Unveiled,  ii.  119. 

"  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  119. 

+  See  Aeo-Pialonism,  p.  9. 


312  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

of  Divine  Wisdom,  had  become  the  centre  from  which  radiated  the 
"  tongues  of  fire  "  into  every  portion  of  the  globe.  What  was  Samadhi 
but  that 

Sublime  ecstasy,  in  which  state  things  divine  and  the  mysteries  of  Nature  are 
revealed  to  us, 

of  which  Porphyry  speaks  ? 

The  efflux  from  the  di\-ine  soul  is  imparted  to  the  human  spirit  in  unreserved 
abundance,  accomplishing  for  the  soul  a  union  with  the  divine,  and  enabling  it 
while  in  the  body  to  be  partaker  of  the  life  which  is  not  in  the  body, 

he  explains  elsewhere. 

Thus  under  the  title  of  Magic  was  taught  every  Science,  physical  and 
metaphysical,  natural  or  deemed  supernatural  by  those  who  are  ignorant 
of  the  omnipresence  and  universality  of  Nature. 

Divine  Magic  makes  of  man  a  God ;  human  magic  creates  a  new  fiend. 

We  wrote  in  Isis  U7iveiled : 

In  the  oldest  documents  now  in  the  possession  of  the  World — the  Vedas  and  the 
older  laws  of  Manu— we  find  many  magical  rites  practised  and  permitted  by  the 
Brahmaus.*  Tibet,  Japan,  and  China,  teach  in  the  present  age  that  which  was 
taught  by  the  oldest  Chaldasans.  The  clergy  of  these  respective  countries  prove 
moreover  what  they  teach — namely,  that  the  practice  of  moral  and  phj'sical  purity, 
and  of  certain  austerities,  developes  the  vital  soul-power  of  self-illumination. 
Affording  to  man  the  control  over  his  own  immortal  spirit,  it  gives  him  trul}' 
magical  powers  over  the  elementary  spirits  inferior  to  himself.  In  the  "West  we 
find  magic  of  as  high  an  antiquit}-  as  in  the  East  The  Druids  of  Great  Britain 
practised  it  in  the  silent  crypts  of  their  deep  caves;  and  Pliny  devotes  many  a 
chapter  to  the  "  wisdom  "  t  of  the  leaders  of  the  Celts  The  Semothees — the  Druids 
of  the  Gauls — expounded  the  physical  as  well  as  the  spiritual  sciences.  They 
taught  the  secrets  of  the  universe,  the  harmonious  progress  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  the  formation  of  the  earth,  and  above  all— the  immortality  of  the  Soul.:{: 
In  their  sacred  groves— natural  academies  built  by  the  hand  of  the  Invisible  Archi- 
tect— the  initiates  assembled  at  the  still  hour  of  midnight,  to  learn  about  what  man 
once  was,  and  what  he  will  be.§  They  needed  no  artificial  illumination,  nor  life- 
drawing  gas,  to  light  up  their  temples,  for  the  chaste  goddess  of  night  beamed  her 
most  silvery  rays  on  their  oak-crowned  heads  ;  and  their  white-robed  sacred  bards 
knew  how  to  converse  with  the  solitary  queen  of  the  starry  vault.  || 

During  the  palmy  days  of  Neo-Platonism  these  Bards  were  no  more, 

*  See  the  Code  published  by  Sir  William  Jones,  Chapter  ix.  p.  ii. 

t  Pliny :  Hist.  Nat.,  xxx.  i ;  lb.,  xvi.  14  ;  xxv.  9,  etc. 

X  Pomponius  ascribes  to  them  the  knowledge  of  the  highest  sciences. 

{  Csesar,  iii.  14. 

II  Pliny,  XXX.    Isis  Lhiveiled,  i.  18. 


THE  NEO-PLATONIC   SCHOOL.  3^S 

for  their  cycle  had  run  its  course,  and  the  last  of  the   Druids  had 
perished  at  Bibractis  and  Alesia.     But  the  Neo-Platonic  school  was  for 
a  lono-  time  successful,  powerful  and  prosperous.     Still,  while  adopting 
Aryan  Wisdom  in  its  doctrines,  the  school  failed  to  follow  the  wisdom 
of  the   Brahmans  in  practice.     It  showed  its  moral  and  intellectual 
superiority  too  openly,  caring  too  much  for  the  great  and  powerful  of 
■^his  earth      While  the  Brahmans  and  their  great  Yogis— experts  m 
matters    of  philosophy,  metaphysics,  astronomy,  morals  and  religion 
-preserved  their  dignity  under  the  sway  of  the  most  powerful  princes, 
remained  aloof  from  the  world  and  would  not  condescend  to  visit  them 
or  ask  for  the  slightest  favour,*  the  Emperors  Alexander,  Severus,  and 
Julian  and  the  greatest  among  the  anscocracy  of  the  land,  embraced  the 
tenets'of  the  Neo-Platonists,  who  mixed  freely  with  the  worm.    Tne 
system  ilourished  for  several  centuries  and  comprised  within  the  ranks 
of  its  followers  the  ablest  and  most  learned  among  the  men  of  tne  time; 
Hypatia,  the  teacher  of  the  Bishop  Synesius,  was  one  of  the  ornaments 
of  the  School  until  the  fatal  and  shameful  day  when  she  was  murdered 
by  the  Christian  mob  at  the  instigation  of  Bishop  Cyril  of  Alexandria. 
The  school  was  finally  removed  to  Athens,  and  closed  by  order  of  the 
Emperor  Justinian. 

How  accurate  is  Dr.  Wilder' s  remark  that 

Modern  .vriters  have  commented  upon  the  peculiar  views  of  the  Neo-Platonists 
upon  these  [metaphysical]  subjects,  seldom  representing  them  correctly,  even  if  this 
was  desired  or  intended.t 

The  few  speculations  on  the  sublunary,  material,  and  spiritual 
universes  that  they  did  put  into  writing-Ammonius  never  having 
himself  written  a  line,  after  the  wont  of  reformers-could  not  enable 
posterity  to  judge  them  rightly,  even  had  not  the  early  Christian 
Vandals,  the  later  crusaders,  and  the  fanatics  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
destroyed  three  parts  of  that  which  remained  of  the  Alexandrian 
Library  and  its  later  schools. 
Professor  Draper  shows  that  Cardinal  Ximenes  alone 

.  ..  The  care  which  thev  took  in  educating  youth,  in  familiarizing  it  with  ^^^''^'''^f^'^^^.'^^Zs 

termed,  so  supercihously,  magic' 
t  Op.  cit.,  p.  9- 


314  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Delivered  to  the  flames  in  the  squares  of  Granada  eighty  thousand  Arabic  manu- 
scripts, many  of  them  translations  of  classical  authors. 

In  the  Vatican  Library,  whole  passages  in  the  most  rare  and  precious 
treatises  of  the  Ancients  were  found  erased  and  blotted  out,  "  for  the 
sake  of  interlining  them  with  absurd  psalmodies  ! "  Moreover  it  is 
well  known  that  over  thirty-six  volumes  written  by  Porphyry  were 
burnt  and  otherwise  destroyed  by  the  "  Fathers."  Most  of  the  little  that 
is  known  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Eclectics  is  found  in  the  writings  of 
Plotinus  and  of  those  same  Church  Fathers. 

Says  the  author  of  Neo-Platonism  : 

What  Plato  was  to  Socrates,  and  the  Apostle  John  to  the  head  of  the  Christian 
faith,  Plotinus  became  to  the  God-taught  Ammonius.  To  Plotinus,  Origeues,  and 
Longinus  we  are  indebted  for  what  is  known  of  the  Philaletheian  system.  They  were 
duly  instructed,  initiated  and  entrusted  with  the  interior  doctrines.* 

This  accounts  marvellously  for  Origen's  calling  people  "  idiots"  who 
believe  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  and  Adam  and  Eve  fables ;  as  also  for 
the  fact  that  so  few  of  the  writings  of  that  Church  Father  have  passed 
to  posterit}^  Between  the  secrecy  imposed,  the  vows  of  silence  and 
that  which  was  maliciously  destroyed  by  every  foul  means,  it  is  indeed 
miraculous  that  even  so  much  of  the  Philaletheian  tenets  has  reached 
the  world. 

*   up.  Cll.,  p.  II. 


SECTION   XXXV. 

Symbolism  of  Sun  and  Stars. 


And  the  Heaven  was  visible  in  Seven  Circles  and  the  planets  appeared  with  all 
their  signs,  in  star-form,  and  the  stars  were  divided  and  numbered  with  the  rulers 
that  were  in  them,  and  their  revolving  course,  through  the  agency  of  the  divine 
Spirit.* 

Here  Spirit  denotes  Pnetima,  collective  D^ity,  manifested  in  its 
"  Builders,"  or,  as  the  Chtirch  has  it,  "  the  seven  Spirits  of  the  Presence," 
the  mediantibiis  angclis  of  whom  Thomas  Aquinas  says  that  "  God 
never  works  but  through  them." 

These  seven  "  rulers"  or  mediating  Angels  were  the  Kabiri  Gods  of 
the  Ancients.  This  was  so  evident,  that  it  forced  from  the  Church, 
together  with  the  admission  of  the  fact,  an  explanation  and  a  theorj% 
whose  clumsiness  and  evident  sophistry  are  such  that  it  must  fail  to 
impress.  The  world  is  asked  to  believe,  that  while  the  Planetar}'- 
Angels  of  the  Church  are  divine  Beings,  the  genuine  "Seraphim,"! 
these  very  same  angels,  under  identical  names  and  planets,  were 
and  are  "  false " — as  Gods  of  the  ancients.  They  are  no  better  than 
pretenders ;  the  cunning  copies  of  the  real  Angels,  produced  before- 
hand through  the  craft  and  power  of  Lucifer  and  of  the  fallen  Angels, 
Now,  what  are  the  Kabiri? 

Kabiri,  as  a  name,  is  derived  from  Habir  "jin,  great,  and  also  from 
Venus,  this  Goddess  being  called  to  the  present  day  Kabar,  as  is  also  her 
star.  The  Kabiri  were  worshipped  at  Hebron,  the  city  of  the  Anakim, 
or  anakas  (kings,  princes).  The)'  are  the  highest  Planetary  Spirits,  the 
"greatest   Gods"   and   "the  powerful."       Varro,  following  Orpheus, 


*  Hermes,  iv.  6. 

t  From  Saraph  rf  rltD  "  fiery>  burning,"  plural  (see  Isaiah,  vi.  2-6).  They  are  regarded  as  the  per- 
sonal attendants  of  the  Almighty,  "  his  messengers,"  angels  or  metratons.  In  Revelation  they  are 
th£  "  seven  burning  lamps"  in  attendance  before  the  throne. 


3l6  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

calls  these  Gods  cvSwarol,  "  diviue  Powers."  The  word  Kabirim 
when  applied  to  men,  and  the  words  Heber,  Gheber  (with  refer- 
ence to  Nimrod,  or  the  "  giants  "  of  Genesis,  vi.)  and  Kabir,  are  all 
derived  from  the  "  m3-sterious  Word" — the  Ineffable  and  the  "  Un- 
pronounceable." Thus  it  is  they  who  represent  tsaba,  the  "host 
of  heaven."  The  Church,  however,  bowing  before  the  angel  Anael 
(the  regent  of  Venus),*  connects  the  planet  Venus  with  L,ucifer,  the 
chief  of  the  rebels  under  Satan — so  poetically  apostrophized  by  the 
prophet  Isaiah  as  "  O  Ivucifer,  son  of  the  morning."!  AH  the  Mystery 
Gods  were  Kabiri.  As  these  "  seven  lictors "  relate  directly  to  the 
Secret  Doctrine  their  real  status  is  of  the  greatest  importance. 

Suidas  defines  the  Kabiri  as  the  Gods  who  command  all  the  other 
daemons  (Spirits),  KajSeipous  Saifjiovas.     Macrobius  introduces  them  as 

Those  Penates  and  tutelary  deities,  through  whom  we  live  and  learn  and  know 
{Saturn,  I.  iii.  ch.  iv.). 

The  teraphim  through  which  the  Hebrews  consulted  the  oracles  of 
the  Urim  and  the  Thummim,  were  the  symbolical  hieroglyphics  of  the 
Kabiri.  Nevertheless,  the  good  Fathers  have  made  of  Kibir  the 
synonym,  of  devil  and  of  daimon  (spirit)  a  demon. 

The  M^'steries  of  the  Kabiri  at  Hebron  (Pagan  and  Jewish)  were 
presided  over  by  the  seven  Planetary  Gods,  among  the  rest  by  Jupiter 
and  Saturn  under  their  mystery  names,  and  they  are  referred  to  as 
tt^io;)(€p(Tos  and  d^to'xcpo-a,  and  bj^  Euripides  as  d^toxpews  6  ^eos.  Creu- 
zer,  moreover,  shows  that  whether  in  Phoenicia  or  in  Egypt,  the 
Kabiri  were  always  the  seven  planets  as  known  in  antiquity,  who, 
together  with  their  Father  the  Sun — referred  to  elsewhere  as  their 
"  elder  brother" — composed  a  powerful  ogdoad;  %  the  eight  superior 
powers,  as  TrapeSol,  or  solar  assessors,  danced  around  him  the  sacred 
circular  dance,  the  symbol  of  the  rotation  of  the  planets  around  the 
Sun.     Jehovah  and  Saturn,  moreover,  are  one. 

It  is  quite  natural,  therefore,  to  find  a  French  writer,  D'Anselme, 

*  Venus  with  the  Chaldseans  and  Egyptians  was  the  wife  of  Proteus,  and  is  regarded  as  the  mother 
of  the  Kabiri,  the  sons  of  Phta  or  Emepth — the  divine  light  or  the  Sun.  The  angels  answer  to  the 
stars  in  the  following  order :  The  Sun,  the  Moon,  Mars,  Venus,  Mercurj',  Jupiter,  and  Saturn ; 
Michael,  Gabriel,  Saraael,  Anael,  Raphael,  Zachariel,  and  Orifiel ;  this  is  in  religion  and  Christian 
Kabalism ;  astrologically  and  esoterically  the  places  of  the  "  regents  "  stand  otherwise,  as  also  in  the 
Jewish,  or  rather  the  real  Chalda;an  Kabalah. 

t  Iu)c.  cit.,  xiv.  12. 

X  This  is  one  more  proof  that  the  Ancients  knew  of  seven  planets  besides  the  Sun  ;  for  otherwise 
which  is  the  eighth  in  such  a  case  ?  The  seventh,  with  two  others,  as  stated,  were  "  mystery"  planets, 
whether  Uranus  or  any  other. 


THE   CIRCLE   DANCE.  S^T 

appl^'ing  the  same  terms  of  d^tdx£,oo"09  and  a$t6x^pcra  to  Jehovah  and 
his  word,  and  they  are  correctly  so  applied.  For  if  the  "  circle  dance  " 
prescribed  by  the  Amazons  for  the  Mysteries— being  the  "circle 
dance"  of  the  planets,  and  characterised  as  "  the  motion  of  the  divine 
Spirit  carried  on  the  waves  of  the  great  Deep"— can  now  be  called 
"infernal"  and  "lascivious"  when  performed  by  the  Pagans,  then  the 
same  epithets  ought  to  be  applied  to  David's  dance;  *  and  to  the  dance 
of  the  daughters  of  Shiloh,t  and  to  the  leaping  of  the  prophets  of  Baal ;+ 
they  were  all  identical  and  all  belonged  to  Sabaean  worship.  King 
David's  dance,  during  which  he  uncovered  himself  before  his  maid- 
servants in  a  public  thoroughfare,  saying : 

I  will  p/ay  (act  wantonly)  before  nTft  (Jehovah),  and  I  will  yet  be  more  vile  than 
this, 

was  certainly  more  reprehensible  than  any  "  circle  dance"  during  the 
Mysteries,  or  even  than  the  modern  Rasa  Mandala  in  India,§  which  is 
the  same  thing.  It  was  David  who  introduced  Jehovistic  worship  into 
Judea,  after  sojourning  so  long  among  the  Tyrians  and  Philistines, 
where  these  rites  were  common. 

David  knew  nothing  of  Moses ;  and  if  he  introduced  the  Jehovah-worship,  it  was 
not  in  its  monotheistic  character,  but  simply  as  that  of  one  of  the  many  {Aabi- 
rean)  gods  of  the  neighbouring  nations,  a  tutelary  deity  of  his  own.  n-'HT.  to 
whom  he  had  given  the  preference— whom  he  had  chosen  among  "all  other  (Kabeiri) 
gods."  II 

and  who  was  one  of  the  "  associates,"  Chabir,  of  the  Sun.  The  Shakers 
dance  the  "  circle  dance"  to  this  day  when  turning  round  for  the  Holy 
Ghost  to  move  them.  In  India  it  is  Nara-yana  who  is  "  the  mover  on 
the  waters;"  and  Narayana  is  Vishnu  in  his  secondary  form,  and 
Vishnu  has  Krishna  for  an  Avatara,  in  whose  honour  the  "  circle  dance  " 
is  still  enacted  by  the  Nautch-girls  of  the  temples,  he  being  the 
Sun-God  and  they  the  planets  as  symbolised  by  the  gopis. 

Let  the  reader  turn  to  the  works  of  De  Mirville,  a  Roman  Catholic 
writer,  or   to    Momimcntal   Christianity,   by  Dr.    Lundy,   a  Protestant 


•  II.  Sam.,  vi.  20-22. 

T  Judges,  xxi.  21,  el  seq. 

t  I.  Kings,  xviii.  26. 

\  This  dance-the  Rasa  Mandala,  enacted  by  the  Gopis  or  shepherdesses  of  Krishna,  the  Sun- 
God  is  enacted  to  this  day  in  Rajputana  in  India,  and  is  undeniably  the  same  theo- astronomical  and 
symbolical  dance  of  the  planets  and  the  Zodiacal  signs,  that  was  danced  thousands  of  years  before 
our  era. 

I!  Isis  Unveiled,  ii.  45. 


3i3  THE   SKCRHT  DOCTRINE. 

divine,  if  he  wants  to  appreciate  to  any  degree  the  subtlety  and  casuistry 
of  their  reasonings.  No  one  ignorant  of  the  occult  versions  can  fail  to 
be  impressed  with  the  proofs  brought  forward  to  show  how  cleverly 
and  perseveringly  "  Satan  has  worked  for  long  millenniums  to  tempt  a 
humanity"  unblessed  with  an  infallible  Church,  in  order  to  have 
himself  recognised  as  the  "One  living  God,"  and  his  fiends  as  holy 
Angels.  The  reader  must  be  patient,  and  study  with  attention  what 
the  author  says  on  behalf  of  his  Church.  To  compare  it  the  better 
with  the  version  of  the  Occultists,  a  few  points  may  be  quoted  here 
verbatim. 

St.  Peter  tells  us  :  "  May  the  divine  Lucifer  arise  in  your  hearts"  *  [Now  the  Sun 
is  Christ].  ..."  I  will  send  my  Son  from  the  Sun,"  said  the  Eternal  through 
the  voice  of  prophetic  traditions ;  and  prophecy  having  become  history  the  Evange- 
lists repeated  in  their  turn  :  The  Sun  rising  from  on  high  visited  us.t 

Now  God  says,  through  Malachi,  that  the  Sun  shall  arise  for  those 
who  fear  his  name.  What  Malachi  meant  by  "the  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness" the  Kabalists  alone  can  tell;  but  what  the  Greek,  and  even  the 
Protestant,  theologians  understood  by  the  term  is  of  course  Christ, 
referred  to  metaphorical^.  Only,  as  the  sentence,  "  I  will  send  my 
Son  from  the  Sun,"  is  borrowed  verbatim  from  a  Sibylline  Book,  it 
becomes  very  hard  to  understand  how  it  can  be  attributed  to,  or  classed 
with  any  prophecy  relating  to  the  Christian  Saviour,  unless,  indeed, 
the  latter  is  to  be  identified  with  Apollo.  Virgil,  again,  says,  "  Here 
comes  the  Virgin's  and  Apollo's  reign,"  and  Apollo,  or  Apollyon,  is  to 
this  day  viewed  as  a  form  of  Satan,  and  is  taken  to  mean  the  Anti- 
christ. If  the  Sibylline  promise,  "He  will  send  his  Son  from  the  Sun" 
applies  to  Christ,  then  either  Christ  and  Apollo  are  one — and  then 
why  call  the  latter  a  demon? — or  the  prophecy  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  Christian  Saviour,  and,  in  such  a  case,  why  appropriate  it  at 
all? 

But  De  Mirville  goes  further.  He  shows  us  St.  Denys,  the  Areo- 
pagite,  affirming  that 

The  Sun  is  the  special  signification,  and  the  statue  of  God.i:    .    .     .     It  is  by  the 

•  li.  Epistle,  i.  ig.  The  English  text  says:  "Until  the  day-star  arise  in  your  heart,"  a  trifling 
alteration  which  does  not  really  matter— as  Lucifer  is  the  day  as  well  a.s  the  "  morning  "  star— and  it 
is  less  shocking  to  pious  ears.    There  are  a  number  of  such  alterations  in  the  Protestant  bibles. 

t  Again  the  English  translation  changes  the  word  "Sun"  into  "day-spring."  The  Roman 
Catholics  are  decidedly  braver  and  more  sincere  than  the  Protestant  theologians.  De  Mir\ine, 
iv.  34,  38. 

X  Thus  said  the  Egyptians  and  the  Sabaeans  in  days  of  old,  the  symbol  of  whose  manifested  gods, 
Osiris  and  Bel,  was  the  sun.     But  they  had  a  higher  deity. 


CHRISTIAN    ASTROLATRY. 


^319 


Eastern  door  that  the  glorj-  of  the  Lord  penetrated  into  the  temples  [of  the  Jews 
and  Christians,  that  divine  glory  being  Sun-light.]  .  .  .  "  We  build  our  churches 
towards  the  east,"  says  in  his  turn  St.  Ambrose,  "  for  during  the  Mysteries  we  begin 
by  renouncing  him  who  is  in  the  west." 

"He  who  is  in  the  west"  is  Typhon,  the  Egyptian  god  of  darkness 
— the  west  having  been  held  by  them  as  the  "Typhouic  Gate  of 
Death."  Thus,  having  borrowed  Osiris  from  the  Egyptians,  the 
Church  Fathers  thought  little  of  helping  themselves  to  his  brother 
Typhon.     Then  again : 

The  prophet  Baruch*  speaks  of  the  stars  that  rejoice  in  their  vessels  and  citadels 
(Chap,  iii.);  and  Ecclesiasies  applies  the  same  terms  to  the  sun,  which  is  said  to  be 
"the  admirable  vessel  of  the  most  High,"  and  the  "citadel  of  the  Lord"  (jivXa)(T}.\ 

In  every  case  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  thing,  for  the  sacred  writer  says,  It  is 
a  Spirit  who  rules  the  sun's  course.  Hear  what  he  sajs  (in  Eccles.,  i.  6),  "The  sun 
also  ariseth — and  its  spirit  lighting  all  in  its  circular  path  (gyrat  gyrans)  returneth 
according  to  his  circuits."! 

De  Mirville  seems  to  quote  from  texts  either  rejected  by  or  unknown 
to  Protestants,  in  whose  bible  there  is  no  forty-third  chapter  of 
Ecclesiasies ;  nor  is  the  sun  made  to  go  "in  circuits"  in  the  latter,  but 
the  wind.  This  is  a  question  to  be  settled  between  the  Roman  and  the 
Protestant  Churches.  Our  point  is  the  strong  element  of  Sabseanism 
or  Heliolatr}'  present  in  Christianit3^ 

An  (Ecumenical  Council  having  authoritatively  put  a  stop  to  Chris- 
tian Astrolatry  by  declaring  that  there  were  no  sidereal  Souls  in  sun, 
moon,  or  planets,  St.  Thomas  took  upon  himself  to  settle  the  point  in 
dispute.  The  "angelic  doctor"  announced  that  such  expressions  did 
not  mean  a  "soul,"  but  only  an  Intelligence,  not  resident  in  the  sun  or 
stars,  but  one  that  assisted  them,  "a  guiding  and  directing  intelli- 
gence."§ 


*  Exiled  from  the  Protestant  bible  but  left  in  the  Apocrypha  which,  according  to  Article  VI.  of  the 
Church  of  England,  "  she  doth  read  for  example  of  life  and  instruction  of  manners  "  (?),  but  not  to 
establish  any  doctrine. 

T  Cornelius  a  Lapide,  v.  248. 

X  Ecclesiasies,  xliii.  The  above  quotations  are  taken  from  De  Mirville's  chapter  "  On  Christian 
and  Jewish  Solar  Theology,"  iv.  35-38. 

\  Nevertheless  the  Church  has  preserved  in  her  most  sacred  rites  the  "  star-rites  "  of  the  Pagan 
Initiates.  In  the  pre-Christian  Mithraic  Mysteries,  the  candidate  who  overcame  successfully  the 
"twelve  Tortures"  which  preceded  the  final  Initiation,  received  a  small  round  cake  or  wafer  of 
unleavened  bread,  symbolising  in  one  of  its  meanings,  the  solar  disc,  and  known  as  the  manna 
(heavenly  bread ).  .  .  .  A  lamb,  or  a  bull  even,  was  killed,  and  with  the  blood  the  candidate  had  to 
be  sprinkled,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Emperor  Julian's  initiation.  The  seven  rules  or  mysteries  that  are 
represented  in  the  Revelation  as  the  seven  seals  which  are  opened  in  order  were  then  delivered  to 
the  newly  born. 


320  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Thereupon  the  author,  comforted  by  the  explanation,  quotes  Clement 
the  Alexandrian,  and  reminds  the  reader  of  the  opinion  of  that  philo- 
sopher, the  inter-relation  that  exists  "between  the  seven  branches  of 
the  candlestick — the  seven  stars  of  the  Revelation,"  and  the  sun : 

The  six  branches  (says  Clement)  fixed  to  the  central  candlestick  have  lamps,  but 
the  sun  placed  in  the  midst  of  the  wandering  ones  (TrXavT^TCov)  pours  his  beams 
on  them  all ;  this  golden  candlestick  hides  one  more  mystery :  it  is  the  sign  of 
Christ,  not  only  in  shape,  but  because  he  sheds  his  light  through  the  ministry 
of  the  seven  spirits  primarily  created,  and  who  are  the  Seven  E3'es  of  the 
Lord.  Therefore  the  principal  planets  are  to  the  seven  primeval  spirits,  according 
to  St.  Clement,  that  which  the  candlestick-sun  is  to  Christ  Himself,  namely — their 
vessels,  their  <fivXa)(^ai. 

Plain  enough,  to  be  sure ;  though  one  fails  to  see  that  this  explana- 
tion even  helps  the  situation.  The  seven-branched  chandelier  of  the 
Israelites,  as  well  as  the  "wanderers"  of  the  Greeks,  had  a  far  more 
natural  meaning,  a  purely  astrological  one  to  begin  with.  In  fact 
from  Magi  andChaldseans  down  to  the  rauch-laughed-at  Zadkiel,  ever}^ 
astrological  work  will  tell  its  reader  that  the  Sun  placed  in  the  midst 
of  the  planets,  with  Saturn,  Jupiter  and  Mars  on  one  side,  and  Venus, 
Mercury  and  the  Moon  on  the  other,  the  planets'  line  crossing 
through  the  whole  Earth,  has  always  meant  what  Hermes  tells  us, 
namely,  the  thread  of  destiny,  or  that  whose  action  (influence)  is 
called  destiny.*  But  symbol  for  symbol  w^e  prefer  the  sun  to  a  candle- 
stick. One  can  understand  how  the  latter  came  to  represent  the  sun 
and  planets,  but  no  one  can  admire  the  chosen  symbol.  There  is 
poetr}^  and  grandeur  in  the  sun  when  it  is  made  to  symbolize  the  "Kye 
of  Ormuzd,"  or  of  Osiris,  and  is  regarded  as  the  Vahan  (vehicle)  of 
the  highest  Deity.  But  one  must  for  ever  fail  to  perceive  that  any 
particular  glory  is  rendered  to  Christ  by  assigning  to  him  the  trunk  of 
a  candlestick,!  in  a  Jewish  synagogue,  as  a  mystical  seat  of  honour. 

There  are  then  positively  two  suns,  a  sun  adored  and  a  sun  adoring. 
The  Apocalypse  proves  it. 

The  Word  is  found  in  Chap,  vii.,  in  the  angel  who  ascends  with  the  rising  of 
the  sun,  having  the  seal  of  the  living  God.  .  .  .  While  commentators  differ  on 
the  personality  of  this  angel,  St.  Ambrose  and  many  other  theologians  see  in  him 

•  Truly  saj's  S.  T.  Coleridge :  "  Instinctively  the  reason  has  always  pointed  out  to  men  the  ultimate 
end  of  various  sciences.     .    .    .    There  is  no  doubt  but  that  astrology  of  some  sort  or  other  will  be 
the  last  achievement  of  astronomy ;  tiiere  must  be  chemical  relations  between  the  planets    .     .     . 
the  difference  of  their  magnitude  compared  with  that  of  their  distances  is  not  explicable  otherwise.* 
Between  planets  and  our  earth  with  its  mankind,  we  may  add. 

T  "  Christ  then,"  the  author  says  (p.  40),  "  is  represented  by  the  trunk  of  the  candlestick." 


MICHAEL  THE  CONQUEROR.  321 

Christ  himself.  .  .  •  He  is  the  Sjpi  adored.  But  in  Chap.  xix.  we  find  an 
angel  standing  in  the  sun,  inviting  all  the  nations  to  gather  to  the  great  supper  of 
the  Lamb.  This  time  it  is  literally  and  simply  the  angel  of  the  sun— who  cannot 
be  mistaken  for  the  "Word,"  since  the  prophet  distinguishes  him  from  the  Word, 
the  King  of  Kings  and  the  Lord  of  Lords.  .  .  .  The  angel  in  the  sun  seems  to 
be  an  adoring  sun.  Who  may  be  the  latter  ?  And  who  else  can  he  be  but  the 
Morning  Star,  the  guardian  angel  of  the  Word,  hisferouer,  or  angel  of  the  face,  as 
the  Word  is  the  angel  of  the  Face  (presence)  of  his  Father,  his  principal  attribute 
and  strength,  as  his  name  itself  implies  (Mikael),  the  powerful  rector  glorified  by 
the  Church,  the  Rector  potens  who  will  fell  the  Antichrist,  the  Vice- Word,  in  short, 
who  represents  his  master,  and  seems  to  be  otie  with  him* 

Yes,  Mikael  is  the  alleged  conqueror  of  Ormuzd,  Osiris,  Apollo, 
Krishna,  Mithra,  etc.,  of  all  the  Solar  Gods,  in  short,  known  and 
unknown,  now  treated  as  demons  and  as  "Satan."  Nevertheless,  the 
"Conqueror"  has  not  disdained  to  don  the  war-spoils  of  the  vanquished 
foes — their  personalities,  attributes,  even  their  names — to  become  the 
alter  ego  of  these  demons. 

Thus  the  Sun-God  here  is  Honover  or  the  Eternal.  The  prince' is  Ormuzd,  since 
he  is  the  first  of  the  seven  Amshaspends  [the  demon  copies  of  the  seven  original 
angels]  (caput  angelorum)  ;  the  lamb  {hamal),  the  Shepherd  of  the  Zodiac 
and  the  antagonist  of  the  snake.  But  the  Sun  (the  Eye  of  Ormuzd)  has  also 
his  rector,  Korshid  or  the  Mitraton,  who  is  the  Ferouer  of  the  face  of  Ormuzd. 
his  Ized,  or  the  morning  star.  The  Mazdeans  had  a  triple  Sun.  .  .  .  For  us 
this  Korshid-Mitraton  is  the  first  of  the  psychopompian  genii,  and  the  guide  of  the 
sun,  the  immolator  of  the  terrestrial  Bull  [or  lamb]  whose  wounds  are  licked  by  the 
serpent  [on  the  famous  Mithraic  monument].! 

St.  Paul,  in  speaking  of  the  rulers  of  this  world,  the  Cosmocratores, 
only  said  what  was  said  b)^  all  the  primitive  Philosophers  of  the  ten 
centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  only  he  was  scarcely  understood, 
and  was  often  wilfully  misinterpreted.  Damascius  repeats  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Pagan  writers  when  he  explains  that 

There  are  seven  series  of  cosmocratores  or  cosmic  forces,  which  are  double  :  the 
higher  ones  commissioned  to  support  and  guide  the  superior  world;  the  lower 
ones,  the  inferior  world  [our  own]. 

And  he  is  but  saying  what  the  ancients  taught.  lamblichus  gives  this 
dogma  of  the  duality  of  all  the  planets  and  celestial  bodies,  of  gods 
and  daimons  (spirits).  He  also  divides  the  Archontes  into  two  classes 
— the  more  and  the  less  spiritual ;  the  latter  more  connected  with  and 
clothed  with  matter,  as  having  a  form,  while  the  former  are  bodiless 


De  MirviUe,  iv.  41,  42.  t  De  Mirville,  iv.  42. 


322  THE    SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

(arupd).  But  what  have  Satan  and  his  angels  to  do  with  all  this? 
Perhaps  only  that  the  identity  of  the  Zoroastrian  dogma  with  the  Chris- 
tian, and  of  Mithra,  Ormuzd,  and  Ahriman  with  the  Christian  Father, 
Son,  and  Devil,  might  be  accounted  for.  And  when  we  say  "Zoroastrian 
dogmas"  we  mean  the  exoteric  teaching.  How  explain  the  same 
relations  between  Mithra  and  Ormuzd  as  those  between  the  Archangel 
ivlikaei  and  Christ  ? 
Ahura  Mazda  saj-s  to  hoi}-  Zaratushta  :  "  When  I  created  [emanated]  IVIithra 
.  I  created  him  that  he.  should  be  invoked  and  adored  equally  with 
myself." 

A 

For  the  sake  of  necessary  reforms,  the  Zoroastrian  Aryans  transformed 
the  Devas,  the  bright  Gods  of  India,  into  devs  or  devils.  It  was  their 
Karma  that  in  their  turn  the  Christians  should  vindicate  on  this  point 
the  Hindus.  Now  Ormuzd  and  Mithra  have  become  the  devs  of  Christ 
and  Mikael,  the  dark  lining  and  aspect  of  the  Saviour  and  Angel. 
The  day  of  the  Kami  .  of  Christian  theology  will  come  in  its  turn. 
Alread}^  the  Protestants  have  begun  the  first  chapter  of  the  religion 
that  will  seek  to  transform  the  "Seven  Spirits"  and  the  host  of  the 
Roman  Catholics  into  demons  and  idols.  Every  religion  has  its  Karma, 
as  has  every  individual.  That  which  is  due  to  human  conception  and 
is  built  on  the  abasement  of  our  brothers  who  disagree  with  us,  must 
have  its  day.     "There  is  no  religion  higher  than  truth." 

The  Zoroastrians,  Mazdeans,  and  Persians  borrowed  their  conceptions 
from  India ;  the  Jews  borrowed  their  theory  of  angels  from  Persia  ;  the 
Christians  borrowed  from  the  Jews. 

Hence  the  latest  interpretation  by  Christian  theolog}' — to  the  great 
disgust  of  the  sjmagogue,  forced  to  share  the  symbolical  candlestick 
with  the  hereditary  enemy — that  the  seven-branched  candlestick  repre- 
sents the  seven  Churches  of  Asia  and  the  seven  planets  which  are  the 
angels  of  those  Churches.  Hence  also,  the  conviction  that  the  Mosaic 
Jews,  the  inventors  of  that  symbol  for  their  tabernacle,  were  a  kind  of 
Sabseans,  who  blended  their  planets  and  the  spirits  thereof  into  one, 
and  called  them — only  far  later — ^Jehovah.  For  this  we  have  the  testi- 
mony of  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  St.  Hieronymus  and  others. 

And  Clement,  as  an  Initiate  of  the  Mysteries — at  which  the  secret  of 
the  heliocentric  system  was  taught  several  thousands  of  years  before 
Galileo  and  Copernicus — proves  it  by  explaining  that 

By  these  various  symbols  connected  with  (sidereal)  phenomena  the  totality 
of  all  ,the  creatures   which   bind    heaven    with   earth,    are    figured.     .     .     .     The 


THE    CHRISTIAN   SUN-GOD.  323 

chandelier  represented  the  motion  of  the  seven  luminaries,  describing  their  astral 
revolution.  To  the  right  and  the  left  of  that  candelabrum  projected  the  six  branches, 
each  of  which  had  its  lamp,  because  the  Sun  placed  as  a  candelabrum  in  the  middle 
of  other  planets  distributes  light  to  them.*  .  .  .  As  to  the  cherubs  having  twelve 
wings  between  the  two,  they  represent  to  us  the  sensuous  world  in  the  twelve 
zodiacal  signs.t 

And  yet,  in  the  face  of  all  this  evidence,  sun,  moon,  planets,  all  are 
shown  as  being  demoniacal  before,  and  divine  only  after,  the  appear- 
ance of  Christ.  All  know  the  Orphic  verse  :  "  It  is  Zeus,  it  is  Adas, 
it  is  the  Sun,  it  is  Bacchus,"  these  names  having  been  all  S5'nonymous 
for  classic  poets  and  writers.  Thus  for  Deniocritus  "  Deity  is  but  a 
soul  in  an  orbicular  fire,"  and  that  fire  is  the  Sun.  For  lamblichus  the 
sun  was  "  the  image  of  divine  intelligence";  for  Plato  "  an  immortal 
living  Being."  Hence  the  oracle  of  Claros  when  asked  to  say  who  was 
the  Jehovah  of  the  Jews,  answered,  "  It  is  the  Sun."  We  may  add 
the  words  in  Psalm  xix.  4 

In  the  sun  hath  he  placed  a  tabernacle  for  himself  j  .  .  .  his  going  forth  is 
from  the  end  of  the  heaven,  and  his  circuit  unto  the  ends  of  it :  and  there  is  nothing 
hid  from  the  heat  thereof 

Jehovah  then  is  the  sun,  and  thence  also  the  Christ  of  the  Roman 
Church.  And  now  the  criticism  of  Dupuis  on  that  verse  becomes  com- 
prehensible, as  also  the  despair  of  the  Abbe  Foucher.  "  Nothing  is 
more  favourable  to  Sabseism  than  this  text  of  the  Vulgate  !  "  he 
exclaims.  And,  however  disfigured  may  be  the  words  and  sense  in 
the  English  authorised  bible,  the  Vulgate  and  the  Septuagint  both  give 
the  correct  text  of  the  original,  and  translate  the  latter  :  "  In  the  sun 
he  established  his  abode  "  ;  while  the  Vulgate  regards  the  "  heat "  as 
coming  direct  from  God  and  not  from  the  sun  alone,  since  it  is  God 
who  issues  forth  from,  and  dwells  in  the  sun  and  performs  the  circuit  : 
i7i  sole posuit  .  .  .  .  ei  ipse  exultavit.  From  these  facts  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  Protestants  were  right  in  charging  St.  Justin  with  saying 
that 

God  has  permitted  us  to  worship  the  sun. 


•  Notwithstanding   the  above,  written   in   the   earliest   Christian   period    by   the    renegade    Neo- 
Platouist,  the  Church  persists  to  this  day  in  her  wilful  error.     Helpless  against  Galileo,  she  now  tries 
to  throw  a  doubt  even  on  the  heliocentric  system ! 
t  Siromateis,  V.,  vi. 

i  The  English  bible  has :  "  In  them  (the  Heavens)  hath  he  set  a  tabernacle  for  the  sun,"  which  is 
ncorrect  and  has  no  sense  in  view  of  the  verse  that  follows,  for  there  are  thing's  "  hid  from  the  heat 
thereof"  if  the  latter  word  is  to  be  ai)pl;ed  to  the  sun. 


324  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

And  this,  notwithstanding  the  lame  excuses  that  what  was  really 
meant  was  that 

God  permitted  himself  to  be  worshipped  in,  or  within,  the  sun, 
which  is  all  the  same. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above,  that  while  the  Pagans  located  in  the 
sun  and  planets  only  the  inferior  powers  of  Nature,  the  representative 
Spirits,  so  to  say,  of  Apollo,  Bacchus,  Osiris,  and  other  solar  gods,  the 
Christians,  in  their  hatred  of  Philosophy,  appropriated  the  sidereal 
localities,  and  now  limit  them  to  the  use  of  their  anthropomorphic 
deity  and  his  angels — new  transformations  of  the  old,  old  gods. 
Something  had  to  be  done  in  order  to  dispose  of  the  ancient  tenants,, 
so  they  were  disgraced  into  "  demons,"  wicked  devils. 


SECTION  XXXVI 

Pagan  Sidereal  Worship,  or  AstroloS¥, 


The  Teraphim  of  Abram's  father  Terah,  the  "  maker  of  images,"  and 
the  Kabiri  Gods  are  directly  connected  with  ancient  Sabsean  worship 
or  Astrolatry.  Kiyun,  or  the  God  Kivan,  worshipped  by  the  Jews 
in  the  wilderness,  is  Saturn  and  Shiva,  later  on  called  Jehovah. 
Astrology  existed  before  astronomy,  and  Astro7iomus  was  the  title 
of  the  highest  hierophant  in  Egypt*  One  of  the  names  of 
the  Jewish  Jehovah,  "  Sabaoth,"  or  the  "  Eord  of  Hosts"  {tsabaotJi), 
belongs  to  the  Chaldsean  Sabaeans  (or  Tsabcsa7is),  and  has  for  its  root  the 
word  tsab,  meaning  a  "car,"  a  "ship,"  and  "an  army";  sabaoth  thus 
meaning  literally  the  army  of  the  ship,  the  crew,  or  a  naval  host,  the  sky 
being  metaphorically  referred  to  as  the  "  upper  ocean  "  in  the  doctrine. 

In  his  interesting  volumes.  The  God  of  Moses,  Eacour  explains  that 
all  such  words  as 

The  celestial  armies  or  the  hosts  of  heaven,  signify  not  only  the  totality  of  the 
heavenly  constellations,  but  also  the  Aleim  on  whom  they  are  dependent ;  the 
aleitzbaout  are  the  forces  or  souls  of  the  constellations,  the  potencies  that  maintain 
and  guide  the  planets  in  this  order  and  procession ;  .  .  .  the  Jae-va-Tzbaout 
signifies  Him,  the  supreme  chief  of  those  celestial  bodies. 

In  his  collectivity,  as  the  chief  "  Order  of  Spirits,"  not  a  chief 
Spirit. 

The  Sabaeans  having  worshipped  in  the  graven  images  only  the 
celestial  hosts  —  angels  and  gods  whose  habitations  were  the 
planets,  never  in  truth  worshipped  the  stars.  For  on  Plato's 
authority,    we   know    that   among  the    stars   and    constellations,    the 

•  When  the  {hierophant  took  his  last  degree,  he  emerged  from  the  sacred  recess  called  Manneras 
and  was  given  the  golden  Tau,  the  Egyptian  Cross,  which  was  subsequently  placed  on  his  breast,  and 
buried  with  him. 


326  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

planets  alone  had  a  right  to  the  title  of  theoi  (Gods),  as  that  name  was 
derived  from  the  verb  QCiv,  to  run  or  to  circulate.  Seldenus  r.lso  tells 
us  that  they  were  likewise  called 

Q(.oi.  /3ouXai6t  (God-Councillors)  aud  pa/38o(j!)dpot  {liclors)   as   they   (the   planets) 
were  present  at  the  sun's  consistory,  solis  consistoris  adsiantes. 

Saj's  the  learned  Kircher  : 

The  sceptres  the  seven  presiding  angels  were  armed  with,  explain  these  names 
of  Rhabdophores  and  lictors  given  to  them. 

Reduced  to  its  simplest  expression  and  popular  meaning,  this  is  of 
course  fetish  worship.  Yet  esoteric  astrolatry  was  not  at  all  the 
worship  of  idols,  since  under  the  names  of"  CouT.cillors  "  and  "  Lictors," 
present  at  the  "  Sun's  consistory,"  it  was  not  the  planets  in  their 
material  bodies  that  were  meant,  but  their  Regents  or  "  Souls  " 
(Spirits).  If  the  prayer  "  Our  Father  in  heaven,"©-  "Saint"  so-and- 
so  in  "  Heaven  "  is  not  an  idolatrous  invocation,  then  "  Our  Father 
in  Mercury,"  or  "Our  Lady  in  Venus,"  "Queen  of  Heaven,"  etc.,  is 
no  more  so  ;  for  it  is  precisely  the  same  tiling,  the  name  making 
no  difference  in  the  act.  The  word  used  in  the  Christian  prayers, 
"in  heaven"  cannot  mean  an5'thing  abstract.  A  dwelling — whether 
of  Gods,  angels  or  Saints  (every  one  of  these  being  anthropomorphic 
individualities  and  beings) — must  necessarily  mean  a  locality,  some 
defined  spot  in  that  "  heaven "  ;  hence  it  is  quite  immaterial  for 
purposes  of  worship  whether  that  spot  be  considered  as  "  heaven  "  in 
general,  meaning  nowhere  in  particular,  or  in  the  Sun,  Moon  or 
Jupiter. 

The  argument  is  futile  that  there  were 

Two  deities,  and  two  distinct  hierarchies  or  tsabas  in  heaven,  in  the  ancient 
world  as  in  our  modern  times  .  .  .  the  one,  the  living  God  and  his  host,  and 
the  other,  Sata?i,  Lucifer  with  his  councillors  and  lictors,  or  the  fallen  angels. 

Our  opponents  say  that  it  is  the  latter  which  Plato  with  the  whole 
of  antiquity  worshipped,  and  which  two-thirds  of  humanity  worship 
to  this  day.  "The  whole  question  is  to  know  how  to  discern  between 
the  two." 

Protestant  Christians  fail  to  find  any  mention  of  angels  in  the  Penta- 
teuch, we  may  therefore  leave  them  aside.  The  Roman  Catholics  and 
the  Kabalists  find  such  mention  ;  the  former,  because  they  have 
accepted  Jewish  angelology,  without  suspecting  that  the  "  tsabsean 
Hosts"  were  colonists  and  settlers  on  Judsean  territory  from  the  lands 
of  the   Gentiles;    the  latter,   because  they   accepted  the  bulk  of  the 


THE   PLANETARY   ANGELS.  327 

Secret  Doctrine,   keeping   the  kernel  for  themselves  and  leaving  the 
husks  to  the  unwary. 

Cornelius  a  Lapide  points  out  and  proves  the  meaning  of  the 
word  tsaba  in  the  first  verse  of  Chapter  ii.  of  Genesis ;  and  he  does  so 
correctly,  guided,  as  he  probably  was,  by  learned  Kabalists.  The  Protes- 
tants are  certainly  wrong  in  their  contention,  for  angels  are  mentioned 
in  the  Pentateuch  under  the  word  isaba,  which  means  "  hosts  "  of  angels. 
In  the  Vulgate  the  word  is  translated  ornatus,  meaning  the  "sidereal 
army,"  the  ornament  also  of  the  sky— kabalistically.  The  biblical 
scholars  of  the  Protestant  Church,  and  the  savants  among  the  material- 
ists, who  failed  to  find  "angels"  mentioned  by  Moses,  have  thus 
committed  a  serious  error.     For  the  verse  reads  : 

Thus  the  lieaveti  and  the  earth  were  finished  and  all  the  host  of  them, 
the   "host"  meaning  "the  army  of  stars  and  angels";  the  last  two 
words  being,  it  seems,  convertible  terms  in  Church  phraseology.     A 
Lapide  is  cited  as  an  authority  for  this ;  he  says  that 

Tsaba  does  not  mean  either  one  or  the  other  but  ''the  one  and  the  other;'  or  both, 
siderum  ac  angelontm. 

If  the  Roman  Catholics  are  right  on  this  point,  so  are  the  Occultists 
when  they  claim  that  the  angels  worshipped  in  the  Church  of  Rome 
are  none  else  than  their  "Seven  Planets,"  the  Dhyan  Chohans  of 
Buddhistic  Esoteric  Philosophy,  or  the  Kumaras,  "the  mind-born  sons 
of  Brahma,"  known  under  the  patronymic  of  Vaidhatra.  The  identity 
between  the  Kumaras,  the  Builders  or  cosmic  Dhyan  Chohans,  and  the 
Seven  Angels  of  the  Stars,  will  be  found  without  one  single  flaw  if 
their  respective  biographies  are  studied,  and  especially  the  charac- 
teristics of  their  chiefs,  Sanat-Kumara  (Sanat  Sujata),  and  Michael 
the  Archangel.  Together  with  the  Kabirim  (Planets),  the  name  of 
the  above  in  Chaldsea,  they  were  all  ''divine  Powers"  (Forces). 
Fuerot  says  that  the  name  Kabiri  was  used  to  denote  the  seven  sons  of 
p^"I^»  meaning  Pater  Sadie,  Cain,  or  Jupiter,  or  again  of  Jehovah. 
There  are  seven  Kumaras— four  exoteric  and  three  secret — the  names 
of  the  latter  being  found  in  the  Sankhya  Bhashya,  by  Gaudapada- 
charya.*  They  are  all  "  Virgin  Gods,"  who  remain  eternally  pure  and 
innocent  and  decline  to  create  progeny.  In  their  primitive  aspect, 
these  Aryan  seven   "mind-born  sons"   of  God  are  not  the  regents  of 


*  The  three  secret  names  are  "  Sana,  Sanat  Sujata,  and  KapUa ;  "  while  the  four  exoteric  Gods  are 

called,  Sanat  Kumara,  Sauanda,  Saiiaka  and  Sanatana. 


328  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

the  planets,  but  dwell  far  beyond  the  planetary  region.  But  the  same 
mysterious  transference  from  one  character  or  dignit}'  to  another  is 
found  in  the  Christian  Angel-scheme.  The  "  Seven  Spirits  of  the 
Presence  "  attend  perpetually  on  God,  and  yet  we  find  them  under  the 
same  names  of  Mikael,  Gabriel,  Raphael,  etc.,  as  "Star-regents"  or 
the  informing  deities  of  the  seven  planets.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
Archangel  Michael  is  called  "the  invincible  virgin  combatant"  as  he 
"refused  to  create,"*  which  would  connect  him  with  both  Sana 
Sujata  and  the  Kumara  who  is  the  God  of  War. 

The  above  has  to  be  demonstrated  by  a  few  quotations.  Comment- 
ing upon  St.  John's  "  Seven  Golden  Candlesticks,"  Cornelius  a  L,apide 
says  : 

These  seven  lights  relate  to  the  seven  branches  of  the  candlestick  by  which  were 
represented  the  seven  [principal]  planets  in  the  temples  of  Moses  and  Solomon 
.     .     or,  better  still,  to  the  seven  principal  Spirits,  commissioned  to  watch  over 
the  salvation  of  men  and  churches. 

St.  Jerome  says : 

In  truth  the  candlestick  with  the  seven  branches  was  the  type  of  the  world  and 
its  planets. 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  great  Roman  Catholic  doctor  writes  : 

I  do  not  remember  having  ever  met  in  the  works  of  saints  or  philosophers  a 
denial  that  the  planets  are  guided  by  spiritual  beings.  ...  It  seems  to  me  that  it 
may  be  proved  to  demonstration  that  the  celestial  bodies  are  guided  by  some  intelli- 
gence, either  directly  by  God,  or  by  the  mediation  of  angels.  But  the  latter  opinion 
seems  to  be  far  more  consonant  with  the  order  of  things  asserted  by  St.  Denj's  to  be 
without  exception,  that  everything  on  earth  is,  as  a  rule,  governed  by  God  through 
intermediarj'  agencies.t 

And  now  let  the  reader  recall  what  the  Pagans  sa}'-  of  this.  All  the 
classical  authors  and  philosophers  who  have  treated  the  subject, 
repeat  with  Hermes  Trismegistus,  that  the  seven  Rectors — the  planets 
including  the  sun — were  the  associates,  or  the  co-workers,  of  the 
Unknown  All  represented  by  the  Demiurgos — commissioned  to  contain 

•  Another  Kumira,  the  "God  of  War"  is  called  in  the  Hindu  system  the  "eternal  celibate"— 
'■  the  virgin  warrior."     He  is  the  Aryan  St.  Michael. 

f  We  give  the  original  :  "  Coelestia  corpora  moveri  a  spiritual!  creatura,  a  nemine  Sanctorum  vel 
philosophorum,  negatum,  legisse  me  memiui.  (O^mjc.  X.  art.  iii.).  .  .  .  Mihi  autam  videtur,  quod 
Demonstrativt'  probari  posset,  quod  ab  aliquo  inteUectu  corpora  coelestia  moveantur.  vel  a  Deo 
immediate,  vel  a  mediantibus  angelis.  Sed  quod  mediantibus  augelis  ca  moveat,  congruit  rerum 
ordiiie,  quern  Dionysius  infallibilem  asserit,  ut  inferiora  a  Deo  per  Media  secundum  cursum 
communem  admiuistrc-ntur "  {Opusc.  II.  art.  ii.l,  and  if  so,  and  God  never  meddles  with  the  once  for 
ever  established  laws  of  Nature,  leaving  it  to  his  administrators,  why  should  their  being  called  God3 
by  the  "  heathen  "  be  deemed  idolatrous  ' 


CELESTIAL   WHEELS.  329 

the  Cosmos — our  planetary  world — within  seven  circles.  Plutarch 
shows  them  representing  "  the  circle  of  the  celestial  worlds."  Again, 
Denj's  of  Thracia  and  the  learned  Clemens  of  Alexandria  both  describe 
the  Rectors  as  being  shown  in  the  Egyptian  temples  in  the  shape  of 
mysterious  wheels  or  spheres  always  in  motion,  which  made  the 
Initiates  affirm  that  the  problem  of  perpetual  motion  had  been 
solved  by  the  celestial  wheels  in  the  Initiation  Adyta*  This  doctrine 
of  Hermes  was  that  of  Pythagoras  and  of  Orpheus  before  him.  It  is 
called  by  Proclus  "  the  God-given  "  doctrine.  lamblichus  speaks  of 
it  with  the  greatest  reverence.  Philostratus  tells  his  readers  that  the 
whole  sidereal  court  of  the  Babylonian  heaven  was  represented  in  the 
temples 

In  globes  made  of  sapphires  and  supporting  the  golden  images  of  their  respective 
gods. 

The  temples  of  Persia  were  especially  famous  for  these  representa- 
tions.    If  Cedrenus  can  be  credited 

The  Emperor  Heraclius  on  his  entry  into  the  city  of  Bazaenm  was  struck  with 
admiration  and  wonder  before  the  immense  machine  fabricated  for  King  Chosroes, 
which  represented  the  night-sky  with  the  planets  and  all  their  revolutions,  with  the 
angels  presiding  over  them.t 

It  was  on  such  "spheres"  that  Pythagoras  studied  Astronomy  in 
the  adyta  arcana  of  the  temples  to  which  he  had  access.  And  it  was 
there  on  his  Initiation,  that  the  eternal  rotation  of  those  spheres — 
"the  mysterious  wheels"  as  they  are  called  by  Clemens  and  Denys,  and 
which  Plutarch  calls  "  world-wheels"— demonstrated  to  him  the  verity 


•  In  one  of  Des  Mousseaux's  volumes  on  Demonologry  {CEuvres  (Us  Demons  if  we  do  not  mistake 
the  statement  of  the  Abbe  Hue  is  found,  and  the  author  testifies  to  having-  heard  the  following 
story  repeatedly  from  the  Abbe  himself.     In  a  lamasery  of  Tibet,  the  missionary  found  the  following  : 

It  is  a  simple  canvas  without  the  slightest  mechanical  apparatus  attached,  as  the  visitor  may 
prove  by  examining  it  at  his  leisure.  It  represents  a  moonlit  landscape,  but  the  moon  is  not  at  all 
motionless  and  dead ;  quite  the  reverse,  for,  according  to  the  Abbe,  one  would  say  that  our  moon  her- 
self, or  at  least  her  living  double,  lighted  the  picture.  Each  phase,  each  aspect,  each  movement  of 
our  satellite,  is  repeated  in  her  facsimile,  in  the  movement  and  progress  of  the  moon  in  the  sacred 
pncture.  "  You  see  this  planet  in  the  painting  ride  as  a  crescent,  or  full,  shine  brightly,  pass  behind 
the  clouds,  peep  out  or  set,  in  a  manner  corresponding  in  the  most  extraordinary  way  with  the  real 
luminary.  It  is,  in  a  word,  a  most  perfect  and  resplendent  reproduction  of  the  pale  queen  of  the 
night,  which  received  the  adoration  of  so  many  people  in  the  days  of  old."  We  know  from  the  most 
reliable  sources  and  numerous  eye-witnesses,  that  such  "  machines  "—not  canvas  paintings— do  exist 
in  certain  temples  of  Tibet ;  as  also  the  "  sidereal  wheels  "  representing  the  planets,  and  kept  for  the 
same  purposes- astrological  and  magical.  Hue's  statement  was  translated  in  Isis  Unveiled  from  Des 
Mousseaux's  volume. 

^  Cedrenus,  p.  338.  Whether  produced  hy  clockwork  or  magic  power,  such  machines— whole  celes- 
tial spheres  with  planets  rotating— were  found  in  the  Sanctuaries,  and  some  exist  to  this  day  in 
Japan,  in  a  secret  subterranean  temple  of  the  old  Mikados,  as  well  as  in  two  other  places. 


330  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

of  what  had  been  divulged  to  him,  namely,  the  heliocentric  system, 
the  great  secret  of  the  Adyta.  All  the  discoveries  of  modern  astronomy, 
like  all  the  secrets  that  can  be  revealed  to  it  in  future  ages,  were  con- 
tained in  the  secret  obsen^atories  and  Initiation  Halls  of  the  temples 
of  old  India  and  Egypt.  It  is  in  them  that  the  Chaldaean  made  his 
calculations,  repealing  to  the  world  of  the  profane  no  more  than  it  was 
fit  to  receive. 

We  may,  and  shall  be  told,  no  doubt,  that  Uranus  was  unknown  to 
the  ancients,  and  that  they  were  forced  to  reckon  the  .sun  amongst  the 
planets  and  as  their  chief  How  does  an5^one  know?  Uranus  is  a 
modern  name ;  but  one  thing  is  certain:  the  ancients  had  a  planet,  "a 
mysteiy  planet,"  that  thej^  never  named  and  that  the  highest  Astro- 
nomus,  the  Hierophant,  alone  could  "  confabulate  with."  But  this 
seventh  planet  was  not  the  sun,  but  the  hidden  Divine  Hierophant, 
who  was  said  to  have  a  crown,  and  to  embrace  within  its  wheel 
"  seventy-seven  smaller  wheels."  In  the  archaic  secret  system  of  the 
Hindus,  the  sun  is  the  visible  Logos  "Surj'a";  over  him  there  is 
another,  the  divine  or  heavenl)'  Man — who,  after  having  established 
the  system  of  the  world  of  matter  on  the  archetype  of  the  Unseen 
Universe,  or  Macrocosm,  conducted  during  the  M5^steries  the  heavenly 
Rasa  Mandala  ;  when  he  was  said  : 

To  give  with  his  right  foot  the  impulse  to  Tyant  or  Bhumi  [Earth]  that  makes 
her  rotate  in  a  double  revolution. 

What  sa3's  Hermes  again  ?  When  explaining  Egyptian  Cosmology 
he  exclaims  : 

Listen,  O  my  son  .  .  .  the  Power  has  also  formed  seven  agents,  who  contain 
within  their  circles  the  material  world,  and  whose  action  is  called  destiny.  .  .  . 
When  all  became  subject  to  man,  the  Seven,  willing  to  favour  human  intelligence, 
comnmnicated  to  him  their  powers.  But  as  soon  as  man  knew  their  true  essence 
and  his  own  nature,  he  desired  to  penetrate  within  and  beyond  the  circles  and  thus 
break  their  circumference  by  usurping  the  power  of  him  who  has  dominion  over 
the  Fire  [vSun]  itself;  after  which,  having  robbed  one  of  the  Wheels  of  the  Sun  of 
the  sacred  fire,  he  fell  into  slavery.* 

It  is  not  Prometheus  who  is  meant  here.  Prometheus  is  a  S5'-mbol 
and  a  personification  of  the  whole  of  mankind  in  relation  to  an  event 
which  occurred  during  its  childhood,  so  to  sa}' — the  "  Baptism  b}'-  Fire  " 
— which  is  a  mystery  within  the  great   Promethean  Mystery,  one  that 

**  Champollion's  E9;yptc  Moderne,  p.  42. 


THE    PROMETHEAN    MYSTERY.  331 

may  be  at  present  mentioned  only  in  its  broad  general  features.  By 
reason  of  the  extraordinary  growth  of  human  intellect  and  the  develop- 
ment in  our  age  of  the  fifth  principle  (Manas)  in  man,  its  rapid  progress 
has  paralysed  spiritual  perceptions.  It  is  at  the  expense  of  wisdom 
that  intellect  generally  lives,  and  mankind  is  quite  unprepared  in  its 
present  condition  to  comprehend  the  awful  drama  of  human  dis- 
obedience to  the  laws  of  Nature  and  the  subsequent  Fall,  as  a  result. 
Tt  can  only  be  hinted  at.  in  its  place. 


SECTION   XXXYil 

The  Souls  of  the  Stars— Universal 
Heliolatry. 


In  order  to  show  that  the  Ancients  have  never  "  mistaken  stars  for 
Gods,"  or  Angels  and  the  sun  for  the  highest  Gods  and  God,  but  have 
worshipped  onlj'  the  Spirit  of  all,  and  have  reverenced  the  minor  Gods 
supposed  to  reside  in  the  sun   and    planets — the  difference   between 
these  two  worships  has  to  be  pointed  out.     Saturn,   "  the  Father  of 
Gods"  must  not  be  confused  with  his  namesajie — the  planet  of  the 
same  name  with  its  eight  moons  and  three  rings.     The  two — though 
in  one  sense  identical,  as  are,  for  instance,  physical  man  and  his  soul — 
must  be  separated  in  the  question  of  worship.     This  has  to  be  done  the 
more  carefully  in  the  case  of  the  seven  planets  and  their  Spirits,  as 
the  whole  formation  of  the  universe  is  attributed  to  them  in  the  Secret 
Teachings.     The  same  difference  has  to  be  shown  again  between  the 
stars  of  the  Great  Bear,  the  Rikslia  and  the  Chitra  Shikhandina,  "  the 
bright-crested,"  and  the   Rishis — the  mortal  Sages  who  appeared  on 
earth  during  the  Satya  Yuga.     If  all  of  these  have  been  so  far  closely 
united    in    the    visions   of  the    seers   of   every  age — the   bible   seers 
included — there  must  have  been  a  reason  for  it.      Nor  need  one  go 
back  so  far  as  into  the  periods  of  "superstition"   and    "unscientific 
fancies  "  to  find  great  men  in  our  epoch  sharing  in  them.     It  is  well 
known  that  Kepler,  the  eminent  astronomer,  in  common  with  many 
other  great  men  who  believed  that  the  heavenly  bodies  ruled  favourably 
or  adversely  the  fates  of  men  and  nations — fully  credited  besides  this 
the  fact  that  all  heavenly  bodies,  even  our  own  earth,  are  endowed  with 
living  and  thinking  souls. 

Le  Couturier's  opinion  is  worthy  of  notice  in  this  relation  : 


CHRISTIAN   STAR- WORSHIP.  333 

We  are  too  inclined  to  criticize  unsparingly  everything  concerning  astrology  and 
its  ideas ;  nevertheless  our  criticism,  to  be  one,  ought  at  least  to  know,  lest  it 
should  be  proved  aimless,  what  those  ideas  in  truth  are.  And  when  among  the 
men  we  thus  criticize,  we  find  such  names  as  those  of  Regiomontanus,  Tycho 
Brahe,  Kepler,  etc.,  there  is  reason  why  we  should  be  careful.  Kepler  was  an 
astrologer  by  profession,  and  became  an  astronomer  in  consequence.  He  was 
earning  his  livelihood  by  genethliac  figures,  which,  indicating  the  state  of  the 
heavens  at  the  moment  of  the  birth  of  individuals,  were  a  means  to  which  ever3-one 
resorted  for  horoscopes.  That  great  man  was  a  believer  in  the  principles  of  astro- 
logy, without  accepting  all  its  foolish  results.* 

But  astrology  is  nevertheless  proclaimed  as  a  sinful  science,  and 
together  with  Occultism  is  tabooed  by  the  Churches.  It  is  very  doubtful, 
however,  whether  mystic  "star  worship"  can  be  so  easily  laughed 
down  as  people  imagine — at  any  rate  by  Christians.  The  hosts  of 
Angels,  Cherubs  and  Planetary  Archangels  are  identical  with  the 
minor  Gods  of  the  Pagans.  As  to  their  "great  Gods,"  if  Mars  has 
been  shown — on  the  admission  of  even  the  enemies  of  the  Pagan 
astrologers — to  have  been  regarded  by  the  latter  simply  as  the 
personified  strength  of  the  one  highest  impersonal  Deity,  Mercury 
being  personified  as  its  omniscience,  Jupiter  as  its  omnipotency,  and 
soon,  then  the  "superstition"  of  the  Pagan  has  indeed  become  the 
"  religion"  of  the  masses  of  the  civilized  nations.  For  with  the  latter. 
Jehovah  is  the  synthesis  of  the  seven  Elohira,  the  eternal  centre  of 
all  those  attributes  and  forces,  the  Alei  of  the  Aleim,  and  the  Adonai 
of  the  Adonim.  And  if  with  them  Mars  is  now  called  St.  Micnael,  the 
''strength  of  God,"  Mercury  Gabriel,  the  "omniscience  and  fortitude 
of  the  lyord,"  and  Raphael  "  the  blessing  or  healing  power  of  God," 
this  is  simply  a  change  of  names,  the  characters  behind  the  masks 
remaining  the  same. 

The  Dalai-lama's  mitre  has  seven  ridges  in  honour  of  the  seven 
chief  Dhyani  Buddhas.  In  the  funeral  ritual  of  the  Eg3"ptians  the 
defunct  is  made  to  exclaim  : 

Salutation  to  you,  O  Princes,  who  stand  in  the  presence  of  Osiris.  .  .  .  Send 
me  the  grace  to  have  my  sins  destroyed,  as  you  have  done  for  the  seven  spirits  who 
follow  their  Lord  !t 

Brahma's  head  is  ornamented  with  seven  rays,  and  he  is  followed  by 
the«seven  Rishis,  in  the  seven  Svargas.     China  has  her  seven  Pagodas  ; 


*  Musee  des  Sciences,  p.  230. 

t  Translated  by  the  Vicomte  de  Rougemont.    See  Les  Annates  de  ffiilosophie  Chritienne,  7th  year, 
1861. 


334  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

the  Greeks  had  their  seven  Cyclopes,  seven  Demiurgi,  and  the  Mystery 
Gods,  the  seven  Kabiri,  whose  chief  was  Jupiter-Saturn,  and  with  the 
Jews,  Jehovah.  Now  the  latter  Deity  has  become  chief  of  all,  the 
highest  and  the  one  God,  and  his  old  place  is  taken  by  Mikael 
(Michael).  He  is  the  "  Chief  of  the  Host"  {tsaba);  the  "  Archi- 
strategus  of  the  Lord's  army  "  ;  the  "  Conqueror  of  the  Devil  " — Victor 
diaboli — and  the  "  Archisatrap  of  the  Sacred  Militia,"  he  who  slew  the 
"Great  Dragon."  Unfortunately  astrology  and  symbology,  having 
no  inducement  to  veil  old  things  with  new  masks,  have  preserved  the 
real  name  of  Mikael—"  that  was  Jehovah"— Mikael  being  the  Angel  of 
the  face  of  the  I^ord,*  "  the  guardian  of  the  planets,"  and  the  living 
image  of  God.  He  represents  the  Deity  in  his  visits  to  earth,  for  as  it  i.s 
well  expressed  in  Hebrew,  he  is  one  Sm'TD>  who  is  as  God,  or  who  is 
like  unto  God.     It  is  he  who  cast  out  the  serpent. f 

Mikael,  being  the  regent  of  the  planet  Saturn,  is — Sahini.X  His 
mystery-name  is  Sabbathiel,  because  he  presides  over  the  Jev/ish 
Sabbath,  as  also  over  the  astrological  Saturday.  Once  identified,  the 
reputation  of  the  Christian  conqueror  of  the  devil  is  in  still  greater 
danger  from  further  identifications.  Biblical  angels  are  called  Mala- 
chim,  the  messengers  between  God  (or  rather  the  gods)  and  men.  In 
Hebrew  Sn^d  Malach,  is  also  "  a  King,"  and  Malech  or  Melech  was 
likewise  Moloch,  or  again  Saturn,  the  Seb  of  Egypt,  to  whom  Dies 
Sahirni,  or  the  Sabbath,  was  dedicated.  The  Sabaeans  separated  and 
distinguished  the  planet  Saturn  from  its  God  far  more  than  the  Roman 
Catholics  do  their  angels  from  their  stars;  and  the  Kabalists  make 
or  the  Archangel  Mikael  the  patron  of  the  seventh  work  of  magic. 

lu  theological  symbolism  .  .  .  Jupiter  [the  Sun]  is  the  risen  and  glorious 
Saviour,  and  Saturn,  God  the  Father,  or  the  Jehovah  of  Moses,  § 

says  Eliphas  L,evi,  who  ought  to  know.  Jehovah  and  the  Saviour, 
Saturn  and  Jupiter,  being  thus  one,  and  Mikael  being  called  the  living 
image  of  God,  it  does  seem  dangerous  for  the  Church  to  call  Saturn, 
Satan— /<?  dieu  mauvais.  However,  Rome  is  strong  in  casuistry  and 
will  get  out  of  this  as  she  got  out  of  every  other  identification,  with 
glory  to  herself  and  to  her  own  full  satisfaction.     Nevertheless  all  her 


•  Isaiah,  Ixiii.  9. 

■^  Chapter  xii.  of  Revelation  :  "There  was  war  in  heaven,  Mikael  and  his  angels  fought  agaiE.«'  the 
ivaijon,"  etc.  (7)  and  the  g^reat  dragon  was  cast  out  (9). 

He  is  also  the  informing  Spirit  of  the  Sun  and  Jupiter,  and  evc:n  of  Venus. 
5  Dogm:  el  Rilti^U,  ii.  no. 


A   SINGULAR   CONFESSION.  335 

dogmas  and  rituals  seem  like  so  many  pages  torn  out  from  the  histor.v 
of  Occultism,  and  then  distorted.  The  extremel)-  thin  partition  that 
separates  the  Kabalistic  and  Chaldaean  Theogony  from  the  Roman 
Catholic  Angelology  and  Theodicy  is  now  confessed  by  at  least  one 
Roman  Catholic  writer.  One  can  hardh*  believe  one's  eyes  in  finding 
the  following  (the  passages  italicized  by  us  should  be  carefully 
noticed)  : 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  features  of  our  Holy  Scriptures  is  the  calculated 
discretion  used  in  the  enunciation  of  the  mysteries  less  directly  useful  to  salvation. 
.  .  .  Thus,  beyond  those  "myriads  of  myriads"  of  angelic  creatures  just  noticed* 
and  all  these  prudently  elementary  divisions,  there  are  certainly  many  others,  whose 
very  names  have  not  yet  reached  us.t  "  For,"  excellently  says  St.  John  Chrysos- 
toni,  "there  are  doubtless,  {sine  dubio,)  many  other  Virtues  [celestial  beings]  whose 
denominations  we  are  yet  far  from  kno\\dng.  .  .  .  The  nine  orders  are  not  by 
any  means  the  only  populations  in  heaven,  where,  on  the  contrary,  are  to  be  found 
numberless  tribes  of  inhabitants  infinitely  varied,  and  of  which  it  would  be  impossi- 
ble to  ^ive  the  slightest  idea  through  human  tongue.  .  .  .  Paul,  who  had  learned 
their  names,  reveals  to  us  their  existence."  {De  Incomprehensibili  Natura  Dei, 
Bk.  IV.)     .... 

It  would  thus  amount  to  a  gross  mistake  to  see  merely  errors  in  the  Angelology  of 
the  Kabalists  and  Gnostics,  so  severely  treated  by  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  for 
his  imposing  censure  reached  only  their  exaggerations  and  mcious  interpretations, 
and  still  more,  the  applicatioti  of  those  noble  titles  to  the  miserable  personalities  of 
demoniacal  usurpers.X  Often  nothing  so  resemble  each  other  as  the  language  of  the 
judges  and  that  of  the  convicts  [of  saints  and  Occultists].  One  has  to  penetrate  deeply 
into  this  duul  study  [of  creed  and  profession]  and  what  is  still  better,  to  trust  blindly 
to  the  authority  of  the  tribunal  [the  Church  of  Rome,  of  course]  to  enable  oneself  to 
seize  precisely  the  point  of  the  error.  The  Gnosis  condemned  by  St.  Paul  remains, 
nevertheless,  for  him  as  for  Plato  the  supreme  knowledge  of  all  truths,  and  of  the 
Being  par  excellence,  o  oi/tws  wv  {Republ.  Bk.  VI).  The  Ideas,  types,  a.pya.1  of  the 
Greek  philosopher,  the  Intelligences  of  Pythagoras,  the  aeons  or  emanations,  the 
occasion  of  so  much  reproach  to  the  first  heretics,  the  Logos  or  Word,  Chief  of  these 
Intelligences,  the  Demiurgos,  the  architect  of  the  world  under  his  father's  direction 
[of  the  Pagans],  the  unknown  God,  the  En-soph,  or  the  It  of  the  Infinite  [of  the 
Kabalists],  the  angelical  periods,^  the  seven  spirits,  the  Depths  of  Ahriman,  the 
World's  Rectors,  the  Archontes  of  the  air,  the  God  of  this  world,  the  pleroma  of  the 


•  If  enumerated,  theywill  be  found  to  be  the  Hindu  "divisions"  and  choirs  of  Devas,  and  the 
Dhyan  Chohans  of  Esoteric  Buddhism. 

t  But  this  fact  has  not  prevented  the  Roman  Church  rom  adopting  them  all  the  same,  accepting 
thttn  fiom  ignorant,  though  perchance  sincere  Church  Fathers,  who  had  borrowed  them  from  Kaba 
tio'cs — ^Jev/s  and  Pagans. 

J  To  call  "usurpers"  those  who  preceded  the  Christian  Beings  for  whose  benefit  these  saiac  title» 
•ere  borrowed,  is  cai-ryiag  paradoxical  anachronism  a  little  too  far  ! 

5  Or  the  divine  ages,  the  "  days  and  years  of  Brahma.' 


336  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

intelligences,  down  to  Metatron  the  angel  of  the  Jews,  all  this  is  found  word  for 
7vord,  as  so  many  truths,  in  the  works  of  our  greatest  doctors,  and  in  St.  Paul.* 

If  an  Occultist,  eager  to  charge  the  Church  with  a  numberless  series 
of  plagiarisms  were  to  write  the  above,  could  he  have  written  more 
strongly  ?  And  have  we,  or  have  we  not,  the  right,  after  such  a  com- 
plete confession,  to  reverse  the  tables  and  to  say  of  Roman  Catholics 
and  others  what  is  said  of  the  Gnostics  and  Occultists.  "They  used 
our  expressions  and  rejected  our  doctrines."  For  it  is  not  the  "pro- 
moters of  the  false  Gnosis  " — who  had  all  those  expressions  from  their 
archaic  ancestors — who  helped  themselves  to  Christian  expressions, 
but  verily  the  Christian  Fathers  and  Theologians,  who  helped  them- 
selves to  our  nest,  and  have  tried  ever  since  to  soil  it. 

The  words  above  quoted  will  explain  much  to  those  who  are  search- 
ing for  truth  and  for  truth  only.  They  will  show  the  origin  of  certain 
rites  in  the  Church  inexplicable  hitherto  to  the  simple-minded,  and 
will  give  the  reason  why  such  words  as  "Our  Lord  the  Sun"  were 
used  in  prayer  by  Christians  up  to  the  fifth  and  even  sixth  century 
of  our  era,  and  embodied  in  the  Liturgy,  until  altered  into  "Our  Lord, 
the  God."  Let  us  remember  that  the  early  Christians  painted  Christ 
on  the  walls  of  their  subterranean  necropolis,  as  a  shepherd  in  the 
guise  of,  and  invested  with  all  the  attributes  of  Apollo,  driving  away 
the  wolf,  Fenris,  who  seeks  to  devour  the  Sun  and  his  Satellites. 


•  De  Mirville,  ii.  325,  326.  So  we  say  too.  And  this  shows  that  it  is  to  the  Kabalists  atid  Magicians 
ihat  the  Church  is  indebted  for  her  dogmas  and  names.  Paul  never  condemned  reai  Gnosis,  but  the 
■Jalse  one.  now  accepted  by  the  Church- 


SECTION  XXXYIIL 

Astrology  and  Astrolatry. 


The  books  of  Kermes  Trismegistus  contain  the  exoteric  meaning, 
still  veiled  for  all  but  the  Occultist,  of  the  Astrolog5'  and  Astrolatry 
of  the  Khaldi.  The  two  subjects  are  closely  connected.  Astrolatry, 
or  the  adoration  of  the  heavenly  host,  is  the  natural  result  of  only  half- 
revealed  Astrology,  whose  Adepts  carefulh'  concealed  from  the  non- 
initiated  masses  its  Occult  principles  and  the  wisdom  imparted  to  them 
by  the  Regents  of  the  Planets — the  "  Angels."  Hence,  divine  Astro- 
logy for  the  Initiates  ;  superstitious  Astrolatry  for  the  profane.  St. 
Justin  asserts  it : 

From  the  first  invention  of  the  hieroglyphics  it  was  not  the  vulj^ar,  but  the  dis- 
tinguished and  select  men  who  became  initiated  in  the  secrecy  of  the  temples  into 
the  science  of  every  kind  of  Astrology — even  into  its  most  abject  kind:  that  Astro- 
logj'  which  later  on  found  itself  prostituted  in  the  public  thoroughfares. 

There  was  a  vast  difference  between  the  Sacred  Science  taught  by 
Petosiris  and  Necepso — the  first  Astrologers  mentioned  in  the  Egyptian 
manuscripts,  believed  to  have  lived  during  the  reign  of  Ramses  II. 
rSesostris)  * — and  the  miserable  charlatanry  of  the  quacks  called 
Chaldasans,  who  degraded  the  Divine  Knowledge  under  the  last 
Emperors  of  Rome.  Indeed,  one  may  fairly  describe  the  two  as  the 
"  high  ceremonial  Astrology"  and  "astrological  Astrolatry."  The  first 
depended  on  the  knowledge  by  the  Initiates  of  those  (to  us)  immaterial 
Forces  or  Spiritual  Entities  that  affect  matter  and  guide  it.  Called  by 
the  ancient  Philosophers  the  Archontes  and  the  Cosmocratores,  they 
were  the  types  or  paradigms  on  the  higher  planes  of  the  lower  and 
more  material  beings  on  the  scale  of  evolution,  whom  we  call  Ele- 
raentals  and  Nature-Spirits,  to  whom  the  Sabaeans  bowed  and  whom 
they  worshipped,  without  suspecting  the  essential  difference.     Hence 

*  Sesostris,  or  Pharaoh  Ramses  II.,  whose  mummy  was  unswathed  in  1886  by  Maspero  of  the  Bulak 
IMuseum,  and  recognised  as  that  of  the  greatest  king  of  Egypt,  whose  grandson,  Ramses  III.  was 
the  last  king  of  an  ancient  kingdom. 

3    ■'- 


338  THE   SECRET    DOCTRINE. 

the  latter  kind  when  not  a  mere  pretence,  degenerated  but  too  often 
into  Black  Magic.  It  was  the  favourite  form  of  popular  or  exoteric 
Astrology,  entirely  ignorant  of  the  apotelesmatic  principles  of  the 
primitive  Science,  the  doctrines  of  which  were  imparted  only  at 
Initiation.  Thus,  while  the  real  Hierophants  soared  like  Demi-Gods 
to  the  very  summit  of  spiritual  knowledge,  the  hoi  polloi  among  the 
Sabseans  crouched,  steeped  in  superstition — ten  millenniums  back,  as 
they  do  now—  in  the  cold  and  lethal  shadow  of  the  vallej'-s  of  matter. 
Sidereal  influence  is  dual.  There  is  the  physical  and  physiological 
influence,  that  of  exotericism  ;  and  the  high  spiritual,  intellectual,  and 
moral  influence,  imparted  by  the  knowledge  of  the  planetary  Gods. 
Baill)',  speaking  with  only  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  former,  called 
Astrology,  so  far  back  as  the  eighteenth  century,  "  The  very  foolish 
mother  of  a  very  wise  daughter" — Astronomy.  On  the  other  hand, 
Arago,  a  luminary  of  the  nineteenth  century,  supports  the  realit}'^  of 
the  sidereal  influence  of  the  Sun,  Moon  and  Planets.     He  asks  : 

Where  do  we  find  lunar  influences  refuted  by  arguments  that  science  would  dare 
to  avow  ? 

But  even  Bailly,  having,  as  he  thought,  put  down  Astrolog}'  as  publicly 
practised,  dares  not  do  the  same  with  the  real  Astrology.     He  says  : 

Judiciary  Astrology  was  at  its  origin  the  result  of  a  profound  system,  the  work  of 
an  enlightened  nation  that  would  wander  too  far  into  the  mysteries  of  God  and 
Nature. 

A  Scientist  of  a  more  recent  date,  a  member  of  the  Institute  of  France, 
and  a  professor  of  History,  Ph.  I^ebas,  discovers  (unconsciously  to  him- 
self) the  very  root  of  Astrology  in  his  able  article  on  the  subject  in  the 
Dictionnaire  Encyclopedique  dc  France.  He  well  understands,  he  tells 
his  readers,  that  the  adhesion  to  that  Science  of  such  a  number  of  highl: 
intellectual  men  should  be  in  itself  a  sufficient  motive  for  believing  tha 
all  Astrology  is  not  folly  : 

While  proclaiming  in  politics  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  and  of  public  opinion 
can  we  admit,  as  heretofore,  that  mankind  allovi-ed  itself  to  be  radically  deceived  in 
this  only:  that  an  absolute  and  gross  absurdity  reigned  in  the  minds  of  whole 
nations  for  so  many  centuries  without  being  based  on  anything  save — on  one  hand 
humrin  imbecility,  and  on  the  other  charlatanry  ?  How  for  fifty  centuries  and  more 
can  most  men  have  been  either  dupes  or  knaves.^  .  .  .  Even  though  we  may 
find  it  impossible  to  decide  between  and  separate  the  realities  of  Astrology  from 
the  elements  of  invention  and  empty  dreaming  in  it,  .  .  .  let  us,  neverthe- 
less, repeat  with  Bossuet  and  all  modern  philosophers,  that  "nothing  that  has  been 
dominant  could  be  absolutely  false."     Is  it  not  true,  at  all  events,  that  there  is  a 


THE    DEFENCE    OF    ASTROLOGY.  339 

physical  reaction  on  one  another  among  the  planets  ?  Is  it  not  again  true,  that  the 
Tjlanets  have  an  influence  on  the  atmosphere,  and  consequently  at  any  rate  a 
mediate  action  on  vegetaiion  and  animals?  Has  not  modem  science  demonstrated 
now  these  two  points  beyond  any  doubt  ?  ...  Is  it  anj-  less  true  that  human 
iberty  of  action  is  not  absolute :  that  all  is  bound,  that  all  weighs,  planets  as  the 
rest,  on  each  individual  will ;  that  Providence  [or  Karma]  acts  on  us  and  directs 
men  through  those  relations  that  it  has  established  between  them  and  the  visible 
objects  and  the  whole  universe  ?  .  .  .  Astrolatry,  in  its  essence,  is  nothing  but 
.hat ;  we  are  bound  to  recognise  that  an  instinct  superior  to  the  age  the}-  lived  in 
guided  the  efforts  of  the  ancient  Magi.  As  to  the  materialism  and  annihilation  of 
human  moral  freedom  with  which  Bailly  charges  their  theory  (Astrology),  the  re- 
probate has  no  sense  whatever.  All  the  great  astrologers  admitted,  without  one 
single  exception,  tliat  man  could  react  against  the  influence  of  the  stars.  This  prin- 
ciple is  established  in  the  Ptolemceian  Tetrabiblos,  the  true  astrological  Scriptures, 
in  chapters  ii.  and  iii.  of  book  i.* 

Thomas  Aquinas  had  corroborated  Lebas  in  anticipation  ;  he  says  : 
The  celestial  bodies  are  the  cause  of  all  that  happens  in  this  sublunary  world,  they 
act  indirectly  on  human  actions  ;  but  not  all  the  effects  produced  by  them  are  un- 

avoi  hible.t 

The  Occultists  and  Theosophists  are  the  first  to  confess  that  there 
is  white  and  black  Astrology.  Nevertheless,  Astrology  has  to  be 
studied  in  both  aspects  by  those  who  wish  to  become  proficient  in  it ; 
and  the  good  or  bad  results  obtained  do  not  depend  upon  the  principles, 
which  are  the  same  in  both  kinds,  but  in  the  Astrologer  himself.  Thus 
Pythagoras,  who  established  the  whole  Copernican  system  by  the 
Books  of  Hermes  2,000  years  before  Galileo's  predecessor  was  born, 
found  and  studied  in  them  the  whole  Science  of  divine  Theogouy,  of 
the  communication  with,  and  the  evocation  of,  the  world's  Rectors — 
the  Princes  of  the  "  Principalities"  of  St.  Paul — the  nativity  of  each 
Planet  and  of  the  Universe  itself,  the  formulae  of  incantations  and  the 
consecration  of  each  portion  of  the  human  body  to  the  respective 
Zodiacal  sign  corresponding  to  it.  All  this  cannot  be  regarded  as 
childish  and  absurd — still  less  "devilish" — save  by  those  who  are,  and 
wish  to  remain,  tyros  in  the  Philosophy  of  the  Occult  Sciences.  No 
true  thinker — no  one  who  recognises  the  presence  of  a  common  bond 
between  man  and  visible,  as  well  as  invisible.  Nature — would  see  in 
the  old  relics  of  Archaic  Wisdom — such  as  the  Petettieiioph  Papyrus,  for 
instance — "childish  nonsense  and  absurdity,"  as  many  Academicians 


•  op.  cit.,  p.  422. 
■i-  Summa,  Quest,  xv.  Art.  t.,  upoa  Astrologers,  and  Vol.  III.  pp.  2-29. 


340  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

and  Scientists  have  done.  But  upon  finding  in  such  ancient  documents 
the  application  of  the  Hermetic  rules  and  laws,  such  as 

The  consecration  of  one's  hair  to  the  celestial  Nile ;  of  the  left  temple  to  the 
living  Spirit  in  the  sun,  and  in  the  right  one  to  the  spirit  of  Amnion, 

he  will  endeavour  to  study  and  comprehend  better  the  "  laws  of 
correspondences."  Nor  will  he  disbelieve  in  the  antiquity  of  Astrology 
on  the  plea  that  some  Orientalists  have  thought  fit  to  declare  that  the 
Zodiac  was  not  very  ancient,  being  only  the  invention  of  the  Greeks 
of  the  Macedonian  period.  For  this  statement,  be.sides  having  been 
shown  to  be  entirely  erroneous  by  a  number  of  other  reasons,  may 
be  entirely  disproved  by  facts  relating  to  the  latest  discoveries 
in  Egypt,  and  by  the  more  accurate  readings  of  hieroglyphics  and 
inscriptions  of  the  earliest  dynasties.  The  published  polemics  on  the 
contents  of  the  so-called  "  Magic  "  Papyri  of  the  Anastasi  collection 
indicate  the  antiquity  of  the  Zodiac.  As  the  Lettres  a  Lettrone  say: 
The  papyri  discourse  at  length  upon  the  four  bases  or 

Foundations  of  the  world,  the  identity  of  which  it  is  impossible,  according  to 
ChampoUion,  to  mistake,  as  one  is  forced  to  recognise  in  them  the  Pillars  of  the 
World  of  St.  Paul.  It  is  they  who  are  invoked  with  the  gods  of  all  the  celestial 
zones,  quite  analogous,  once  more,  to  the  Spiritualia  nequitice  in  ccplestibus  of  the 
same  Apostle.* 

That  invocation  was  made  in  the  proper  terms  ...  of  the  formula,  repro- 
duced far  too  faithfully  by  Jamblichus  for  it  to  be  possible  to  refuse  him  any  longer 
the  merit  of  having  transmitted  to  posterity  the  ancient  and  primitive  spirit  of  the 
Egyptian  Astrologers.t 

As  Letronne  had  tried  to  prove  that  all  the  genuine  Egj^ptian  Zodiacs 
had  been  manufactured  during  the  Roman  period,  the  Sensaos  mumm}' 
is  brought  forward  to  show  that : 

All  the  Zodiacal  monuments  in  Eg>'pt  were  chiefly  astronomical.  Royal  tombs 
and  funereal  rituals  are  so  many  tables  of  constellations  and  of  their  influences  for 
all  the  hours  of  every  month. 

Thus  the  genethliac  tables  themselves  prove  that  they  are  far  older  than  the 
period  assigned  to  their  origin  ;  all  the  Zodiacs  of  the  sarcophagi  of  later  epochs 


*  "The  principalities  and  powers  [born]  in  heavenly  places"  (Epkes.,  iii.  lo).  The  verse,  "For 
though  there  be  that  are  called  Gods,  whether  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  as  there  be  Gods  many  and 
lords  many''  (I.  Corinth.,  viii.  5),  shows,  at  any  rate,  the  recognition  by  Paul  of  a  plurality  of 
"Gods"  whom  he  calls  "daemons"  ("  spirits" -never  devils).  Principalities,  Thrones,  Dominions. 
Rectors,  etc.  are  all  Jewish  and  Christian  names  for  the  Gods  of  the  ancients — the  Archangels  and 
Angels  of  the  former  being  in  everj'  case  the  Devas  and  the  Dhyiin  Chohans  of  the  more  ancient 
religions. 

■f  Answer  by  I'.juvens  to  I,etronne  with  regard  to  his  mistaken  notions  about  the  Zodiai:  of 
Dendern. 


ITS   LATER   DETERIORATION.  34I 

being  simple  reminiscences  of  the  Zodiacs  belonging  to  the  mythological  [archaic] 
period. 

Primitive  Astrology  was  as  far  above  modern  jiidiciar}'  Astrology, 
so-called,  as  the  guides  (the  Planets  and  Zodiacal  signs)  are  above  the 
lamp-posts.  Berosns  shows  the  sidereal  sovereignty  of  Bel  and  Mylitta 
(Sun  and  Moon),  and  only  "  the  twelve  lords  of  the  Zodiacal  Gods," 
the  "thirty-six  Gods  Counsellors"  and  the  "twenty-four  Stars,  judges 
of  this  world,"  which  support  and  guide  the  Universe  (our  solar  system), 
watch  over  mortals  and  reveal  to  mankind  its  fate  and  their  own 
decrees.  Judiciar}'  Astrology  as  it  is  now  known,  is  correctly 
denominated  by  the  I,atin  Church  the 

Materialistic  and  pantheistic  prophesying  by  the  objective  planet  itself,  indepen- 
dently of  its  Rector  [the  Mlac  of  the  Jews,  the  ministers  of  the  Eternal  commis- 
sioned by  him  to  announce  his  will  to  mortals] ;  the  ascension  or  conjunction  of  the 
planet  at  the  moment  of  the  birth  of  an  individual  deciding  his  fortune  and  the 
moment  and  mode  of  his  death.  * 

Every  student  of  Occultism  knows  that  the  heavenly  bodies  are 
closely  related  during  each  Manvautara  with  the  mankind  of  that  special 
cycle  ;  and  there  are  some  who  believe  that  each  great  character  born 
during  that  period  has — as  every  other  mortal  has,"  only  in  a  far  stronger 
degree — his  destiny  outlined  within  his  proper  constellation  or  star, 
traced  as  a  self-prophecy,  an  anticipated  autobiography,  by  the  in- 
dwelling Spirit  of  that  particular  star.  The  human  Monad  in  its  first 
beginning  is  that  Spirit,  or  the  Soul  of  that  star  (Planet)  itself.  As 
our  Sun  radiates  its  light  and  beams  on  ever}''  body  in  space  within  the 
boundaries  of  its  system,  so  the  Regent  of  every  Planet-star,  the  Parent- 
monad,  shoots  out  from  itself  the  Monad  of  every  "  pilgrim  "  Soul  born 
under  its  house  within  its  own  group.  The  Regents  are  esoterically 
seven,  whether  in  the  Sephiroth,  the  "  Angels  of  the  Presence,"  the 
Rishis,  or  the  Amshaspends.  "The  One  is  no  number"  is  said  in  all 
the  esoteric  works. 


*  St.  Augustine  [De  Gen.,  I.  iii.)  and  Delrio  (DUquisit.,  Vol.  IV.,  chap,  iii.)  are  quoted  by  De  Mirville, 
to  show  that  "  the  more  astrologers  speak  the  truth  and  the  better  they  prophesy  it,  the  more  one  has 
to  feel  diflSdeut,  seeing  that  their  agreement  with  the  devil  becomes  thereby  the  more  apparent." 
The  famous  statement  made  by  Juvenal  (Satires,  vi.)  to  the  effect  that  "  not  one  single  astrologer 
could  be  found  who  did  not  pay  dearly  for  the  help  he  received  from  his  genius" — no  more  proves 
the  latter  to  be  a  devil  than  the  death  of  Socrates  proves  his  daitnon  to  have  been  a  native  from 
the  nether  world — if  such  there  be.  Such  argument  only  demonstrates  human  stupidity  and 
wickedness,  once  reason  is  made  subservient  to  prejudice  and  fanaticism  of  every  sort.  "  Most  of  the 
great  writers  of  antiquity,  Cicero  and  Tacitus  among  them,  believed  in  Astrology  and  the  realiza- 
tion of  its  prophecies;"  and  "the  penalt)'  of  death  decreed  nearly  everywhere  against  those 
mathematicians  [astrologers]  who  happened  to  predict  falsely  diminished  neither  their  number 
nor  their  tranquillity  of  mind." 


342  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

From  the  Kasdim  and  Gazziin  (Astrologers)  the  noble  primitive 
science  passed  to  the  Khartumim  Asaphim  (or  Theologians)  and  the 
Hakamim  (or  scientists,  the  Magicians  of  the  lower  class),  and  from 
these  to  the  Jews  during  their  captivity.  The  Books  of  Moses  had  been 
buried  in  oblivion  for  centuries,  and  when  re-discovered  by  Hilkiah  had 
lost  their  true  sense  for  the  people  of  Israel.  Primitive  Occult  Astrology 
was  on  the  decline  when  Daniel,  the  last  of  the  Jewish  Initiates  of  the 
old  school,  became  the  chief  of  the  Magi  and  Astrologers  of  Chaldasa. 
In  those  daj's  even  Egypt,  who  had  her  wisdom  from  the  same  source 
as  Babylon,  had  degenerated  from  her  former  grandeur,  and  her  glory 
had  begun  to  fade  out.  Still,  the  science  of  old  had  left  her  eternal 
imprint  on  the  world,  and  the  seven  great  Primitive  Gods  reigned  for 
ever  in  the  Astrology  and  in  the  division  of  time  of  every  nation  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth.  The  names  of  the  daj's  of  our  (Christian)  week 
are  those  of  the  Gods  of  the  Chaldseaus,  who  translated  them  from  those 
of  the  Aryans;  the  uniformity  of  these  antediluvian  names  in  every 
nation,  from  the  Goths  back  to  the  Indians,  would  remain  inexplicable, 
as  Sir  W.  Jones  thought,  had  not  the  riddle  been  explained  to  us  by  the 
invitation  made  by  the  Chaldsean  oracles,  recorded  by  Porphyr}'^  and 
quoted  by  Eusebius : " 

To  carry  those  names  first  to  the  Egyptian  and  Phoenician  colonies,  then  to  the 
Greeks,  with  the  express  recommendation  that  each  God  should  be  invoked  only 
on  that  day  that  had  been  called  by  his  name.     .     .     . 

Thus  Apollo  says  in  those  oracles  :  "  I  must  be  invoked  on  the  day  of  the  sun  ; 
Mercury  after  his  directiojis,  then  Chronos  [Saturn],  then  Venus,  and  do  not  fail 
to  call  seven  times  each  of  those  gods."  * 

This  is  slightly  erroneous.  Greece  did  not  get  her  astrological 
instruction  from  Egypt  or  from  Chaldsea,  but  direct  from  Orpheus,  as 
Lucian  tells  us.f  It  was  Orpheus,  as  he  says,  who  imparted  the  Indian 
Sciences  to  nearly  all  the  great  monarchs  of  antiquity  ;  and  it  was  they, 
the  ancient  kings  favoured  by  the  Planetary  Gods,  who  recorded  the 
principles  of  Astrology — as  did  Ptoleraus,  for  instance.  Thus  I^ucian 
writes : 

The  Boeotian  Tiresias  acquired  the  greatest  reputation  in  the  art  of  predicting 
futurit}-.  ...  In  those  days  divination  was  not  as  slightly  treated  as  it  is  now  ; 
and  nothing  was  ever  undertaken  without  previous  consultation  with  diviners, 
whose  oracles  were  all  directed  by  astrology.     ...     At  Delphos  the  virgin  com- 


•  Prepatatin  P.vanselica,  I.  xiv.  +  Asl.,  iv.  60. 


ITS   PROMINENT   DISCIPI^ES.  343 

missioned  to  announce  futurity  was  the  symbol  of  the  Heavenly  Virgin,     .     ,     .     and 
Our  Lady. 

On  the  sarcophagus  of  an  Egyptian  Pharaoh,  Neith,  mother  of  Ra,  the 
heifer  that  brings  forth  the  Sun,  her  body  spangled  with  stars,  and 
wearing  the  solar  and  lunar  discs,  is  equalh^  referred  to  as  the  "  Heavenh^ 
Virgin  "  and  "  Our  Lad}-  of  the  Starry  Vault." 

Modern  judiciar}^  Astrologj^  in  its  present  form  began  only  during  the 
time  of  Diodorus,  as  he  apprises  the  world.-'"  But  Chaldaean  Astrologj' 
was  believed  in  b)^  most  of  the  great  men  in  History,  such  as  Caesar, 
Plin5%  Cicero — whose  best  friends,  Nigidius  Figulus  and  Lucius 
Tarrutius,  were  themselves  Astrologers,  the  former  being  famous  as  a 
prophet.  Marcus  Antonius  never  travelled  without  an  Astrologer 
recommended  to  him  by  Cleopatra.  Augustus,  when  ascending  the 
throne,  had  his  horoscope  drawn  by  Theagenes.  Tiberius  discovered 
pretenders  to  his  throne  b}-  means  of  Astrology  and  divination. 
Vitellius  dared  not  exile  the  Chaldseans,  as  they  had  announced  the 
day  of  their  banishment  as  that  of  his  death.  Vespasian  consulted  them 
daily;  Domitian  would  not  move  without  being  advised  by  the  prophets; 
Adrian  was  a  learned  Astrologer  himself;  and  all  of  them,  ending  with 
Julian  (called  the  Apostate  because  he  would  not  become  one),  believed 
in,  and  addressed  their  prayers  to,  the  Planetary  "  Gods."  The 
Emperor  Adrian,  moreover,  "predicted  from  the  January  calends  up 
to  December  31st,  every  event  that  happened  to  him  daily."  Under 
the  wisest  emperors  Rome  had  a  School  of  Astrology,  wherein  were 
secretly  taught  the  occult  influences  of  the  Sun,  Moon,  and  Saturn. f 
Judiciary  Astrology  is  used  to  this  day  by  the  Kabalists ;  and  Eliphas 
Levi,  the  modern  French  Magus,  teaches  its  rudiments  in  his  Dogmc  d 
Ritucl  de  la  Haute  Magic.  But  the  ke}'  to  ceremonial  or  ritualistic 
Astrology,  with  the  teraphim  and  the  urim  and  thummim  of  Magic,  is 
lost  to  Europe.  Hence  our  century  of  Materialism  shrugs  its  shoulders 
and  sees  in  Astrology — a  pretender. 

Not  all  scientists  scoff  at  it,  however,  and  one  may  rejoice  in  reading 
in  the  Musee  des  SciencesX  the  suggestive  and  fair  remarks  made  by  Le 
Couturier,  a  man  of  science  of  no  mean  reputation.    He  thinks  it  curious 


»  Hist..  I.  ii. 

+  All   these  particulars  may   be   found  more   fully  aud    far  more    completely   in    Champollion 
Figeac's  Egypte. 
t  Op.  cit.,  p.  2-,i. 


344  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

to  notice  that  while  the  bold  speculations  of  Democritus  are   found 
vindicated  by  Dalton, 

The  reveries  of  the  alchemists  are  also  on  their  way  to  a  certain  rehabilitation. 
They  receive  renewed  life  from  the  minute  investigations  of  their  successors,  the 
chemists ;  a  very  remarkable  thing  indeed  is  to  see  how  much  modern  discoveries 
have  served  to  vindicate,  of  late,  the  theories  of  the  Middle  Ages  from  the  charge  of 
absurdity  laid  at  their  door.  Thus,  if,  as  demonstrated  by  Col.  Sabine,  the  direction 
of  a  piece  of  steel,  hung  a  few  feet  above  the  soil,  may  be  influenced  by  the  position 
of  the  moon,  whose  body  is  at  a  distance  of  240,000  miles  from  our  planet,  who  then 
could  accuse  of  extravagance  the  belief  of  the  ancient  astrologers  [or  the  modern, 
either]  in  the  influence  of  the  stars  on  human  destiny.* 

*  Op.  cit.,  p.  230. 


SECTION   XXXIX. 
Cycles  and  Ayataras. 


We    have   already  drawn  attention  to  the  facts  that  the  record  of 
the  life  of  a  World-Saviour  is  emblematical,  and  must  be  read  by  its 
mystic  meaning,  and  that  the  figures  432  have  a  cosmic  evolutionary 
significance.     We  find  these  two  facts  throwing  light  on  the  origin  of 
the  exoteric  Christian  religion,  and  clearing  away  much  of  the  obscurity 
surrounding  its  beginnings.     For  is  it  not  clear  that  the  names  and 
characters  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels  and  in  that  01  St.  John  are  not 
historical  ?     Is  it  not  evident  that  the  compilers  of  the  life  of  Christ, 
desirous  to  show  that  the  birth  of  their  Master  was  a  cosmic,  astro- 
nomical, and  divinely-preordained  event,  attempted  to  coordinate  the 
same  with  the  end  of  the  secret  cycle,  4.320  ?     When  facts  are  collated 
this  answers  to  them  as  little  as  does  the  other  cycle  of  "  thirty-three 
solar  years,  seven  months,  and  seven  days,"  which  has  also  been  brought 
forward  as  supporting  the  same  claim,  the  soli-lunar  cycle  in  which  the 
Sun  gains  on  the  Moon  one  solar  year.     The  combination  of  the  three 
figures,  4,  3,  2,  with  cyphers  according  to  the  cycle  and  Manvantara 
concerned,  was,  and  is,  preeminently  Hindu.     It  will  remain  a  secret 
even  though  several  of  its  significant  features  are  revealed.     It  relates, 
for  instance,  to  the  Pralaya  of  the  races  in  their  periodical  dissolution, 
before  which  events  a  special  Avatara  has  always  to  descend  and  incar- 
nate on  earth.     These  figures  were  adopted  by  all  the  older  nations, 
such  as  those  of  Egypt  and  Chaldaea,  and  before  them  were  current 
among  the  Atlanteans.     Evidently  some  of  the  more  learned  among 
the  early  Church  Fathers  who  had  dabbled,  whilst  Pagans,  in  temple 
secrets,  knew  them  to  relate  to  the  Avataric  or  Messianic  :  .  jstery,  and 
tried   to   apply  this  cycle  to  the  birth  of  their  Messiah;  they  failed 
because  the  figures  relate  to  the  respective  ends  of  the  Root-Races  and 
not  to  any  individual.     In  their  badly-directed  efforts,  moreover,  an 
error  of  five  years  occurred.     Is  it  possible,  if  their  claims  as  to  the 


346 


THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


importance  and  universality  of  the  event  were  correct,  that  such  a  vital 
mistake  should  have  been  allowed  to  creep  into  a  chronological  com- 
putation preordained  and  traced  in  the  heavens  by  the  finger  of  God  ? 
Again,  what  were  the  Pagan  and  even  Jewish  Initiates  doing,  if  this 
claim  as  to  Jesus  be  correct  ?     Could  they,  the  custodians  of  the  key  to 

A 

the  secret  cycles  and  Avataras,  the  heirs  of  all  the  Aryan,  Egyptian, 
and  Chaldaean  wisdom,  have  failed  to  recognise  their  great  "God- 
Incarnate,"  one  with  Jehovah, ■•'  their  Saviour  of  the  latter  days,  him 
whom  all  the  nations  of  Asia  still  expect  as  their  Kalki  Avatara,  Mait- 
reya  Buddha,  Sosiosh,  Messiah,  etc.  ? 

The  simple  secret  is  this  :  There  are  cycles  within  greater  cycles, 
which  are  all  contained  in  the  one  Kalpa  of  4,320,000  years.  It  is  at 
the  end  of  this  cycle  that  the  Kalki  Avatara  is  expected — the  Avatara 
Whose  name  and  characteristics  are  secret,  Who  will  come  forth  from 
Shamballa,  the  "  City  of  Gods,"  which  is  in  the  West  for  some  nations, 
in  the  East  for  others,  in  the  North  or  South  for  yet  others.  And  this 
is  the  reason  why,  from  the  Indian  Rishi  to  Virgil,  and  from  Zoroaster 
down  to  the  latest  Sibyl,  all  have,  since  the  beginning  of  the  Fifth  Race, 
prophesied,  sung,  and  promised  the  cyclic  return  of  the  Virgin — Virgo, 
the  constellation — and  the  birth  of  a  divine  child  who  should  bring  back 
to  our  earth  the  Golden  Age. 

No  one,  however  fanatical,  would  have  sufficient  hardihood  to  main- 
tain that  the  Christian  era  has  ever  been  a  return  to  the  Golden  Age 
— Virgo  having  actually  entered  into  Libra  since  then.  Eet  us  trace 
as  briefly  as  possible  the  Christian  traditions  to  their  true  origin. 

First  of  all,  they  discover  in  a  few  lines  from  Virgil  a  direct  prophecy 
of  the  birth  of  Christ.  Yet  it  is  impossible  to  detect  in  this  prophecy 
any  feature  of  the  present  age.  It  is  in  the  famous  fourth  Eclogue  in 
which,  half  a  century  before  our  era,  Pollio  is  made  to  ask  the  Muses 
of  Sicily  to  sing  to  him  about  greater  events. 

The  last  era  of  Cuni^ean  song  is  now  arrived  and  the  grand  series  of  ages  [that 
series  which  recurs  again  and  again  in  the  course  of  our  mundane  revolution] 
begins  afresh.     Now  the  Virgin  Astraea  returns,  and  the  reign  of  Saturn  reconi- 

"  In  the  1,326  places  in  the  New  Testament  where  the  word  "  God  "  is  mentioned  nothing  signifies 
that  in  God  are  included  more  beings  than  God.  On  the  contrary  in  17  places  God  is  called  the 
only  God.  The  places  wliere  the  Father  is  so-called  amount  to  320.  In  105  places  God  is  addressed 
v/ith  high-sounding  titles.  In  90  places  all  prayers  and  thanks  are  addressed  to  the  Father;  300 
times  in  the  Neiu  Testament  is  the  Son  declared  to  be  inferior  to  the  Father;  85  times  is  Jesus  called 
the  "Son  of  Man  ;  "  70  times  is  he  called  a  man.  In  not  one  single  place  in  the  bible  is  it  said  that 
God  holds  within  him  three  different  Beings  or  Persons,  and  yet  is  one  Being  or  Person.— Dr.  Karl 
von  Bergen's  Lectures  in  Sweden. 


AN   UNFULFILI.ED    PROPHECY  347 

mer.ces.  Now  a  new  progeny  descends  from  the  celestial  realms.  Do  thou,  chaste 
Ivucina,  smile  propitious  to  the  infant  B03' who  will  bring  to  a  close  the  present  Ao'e 
of  Iron,*  and  introduce  throughout  the  whole  world  the  Age  of  Gold.  .  .  .  He 
shall  share  the  life  of  Gods  and  shall  see  heroes  mingled  in  society  with  Gods,  him- 
self be  seen  by  them  and  all  the  peaceful  world.  .  .  .  Then  shall  the  herds  no 
longer  dread  the  huge  lion,  the  serpent  also  shall  die  :  and  the  poison's  deceptive 
plant  shall  perish.  Come  then,  dear  child  of  the  Gods,  great  descendant  of  Jupiter! 
.  .  .  The  time  is  near.  See,  the  world  is  shaken  with  its  globe  saluting  thee  : 
the  earth,  the  regions  of  the  sea,  and  the  heavens  sublime.t 

It  is  in  these  few  lines,  called  the  "Sib)'lline  prophecy  about  the 
coming  of  Christ,"  that  his  followers  now  see  a  direct  foretelling  of  the 
event.  Now  who  will  presume  to  maintain  that  either  at  the  birth  of 
Jesus  or  since  the  establishment  of  the  so-called  Christian  religion, 
any  portion  of  the  above-quoted  sentences  can  be  shown  as  prophetic  ? 
Has  the  "  last  age  " — the  Age  of  Iron,  or  Kali  Yuga — closed  since  then  ? 
Quite  the  reverse,  since  it  is  shown  to  be  in  full  sway  just  now,  not 
only  because  the  Hindus  use  the  name,  but  by  universal  personal 
experience.  Where  is  that  "  new  race  that  has  descended  from  the 
celestial  realms  "  ?  Was  it  the  race  that  emerged  from  Paganism  into 
Christianity  ?  Or  is  it  our  present  race,  with  nations  ever  red-hot  for 
fight,  jealous  and  envious,  ready  to  pounce  upon  each  other,  showing 
mutital  hatred  that  would  put  to  blush  cats  and  dogs,  ever  lying  and 
deceiving  one  another?  Is  it  this  age  of  ours  that  is  the  promised 
"Golden  Age" — in  which  neither  the  venom  of  the  serpent  nor  of 
any  plant  is  any  longer  lethal,  and  in  which  we  are  all  secure  under 
the  mild  sway  of  God-chosen  sovereigns?  The  wildest  fancy  of  an 
opium-eater  could  hardly  suggest  a  more  inappropriate  description,  if  it 
is  to  be  applied  to  our  age  or  to  any  age  since  the  year  one  of  our  era. 
What  of  the  mutual  slaughter  of  sects,  of  Christians  by  Pagans,  and  of 
Pagans  and  Heretics  by  Christians  ;  the  horrors  of  the  Middle  Ages  and 
of  the  Inquisition;  Napoleon,  and  since  his  day,  an  "  armed  peace"  at 
best — at  the  worst,  torrents  of  blood,  shed  for  supremacy  over  acres  of 
land,  and  a  handful  of  heathen  :  millions  of  soldiers  under  arms,  ready 
for  battle;  a  diplomatic  body  playing  at  Cains  and  Judases ;  and  instead 
of  the  •'  mild  swa}?-  of  a  divine  sovereign  "  the  universal,  though  un- 
recognised, sway  of  Caesarism,  of  "might"  in  lieu  of  "  right,"  and  the 
breeding  therefrom  of  anarchists,  socialists,  petroleuses,  and  destroyers 
of  ever)'  description  ? 


*  Kali  Yuga,  the  Black  or  Iron  Age.  ■(•  Virgil,  Eclogue,  iv. 


348  THE    SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

The  Sibylline  prophecy  and  Virgil's  inspirational  poetry  remain  un- 
fulfilled in  every  point,  as  we  see. 

The  fields  are  yellow  with  soft  ears  of  corn ; 

but  so  they  were  before  our  era : 

The  blushing  grapes  shall  hang  from  the  rude  brambles,  and  dewy  honey  shall  [or 
may]  distil  from  the  rugged  oak ; 

but  they  have  not  thus  done,  so  far.  We  must  look  for  another  inter- 
pretation. What  is  it  ?  The  Sibylline  Prophetess  spoke,  as  thousands 
of  other  Prophets  and  Seers  have  spoken,  though  even  the  few  such 
records  that  have  survived  are  rejected  by  Christian  and  infidel,  and 
their  interpretations  are  only  allowed  and  accepted  among  the  Initiated. 
The  Sibyl  alluded  to  cycles  in  general  and  to  the  great  cycle  especially. 
Let  us  remember  how  the  Puranas  corroborate  the  above,  among  others 
the    Vishnu  Purana  : 

When  the  practices  taught  by  the  Vedas,  and  the  Institutes  of  Law  shall  have 
nearly  ceased,  and  the  close  of  the  Kali  Yuga  [the  "Iron  Age"  of  Virgil]  shall  be 
nigh,  an  aspect  of  that  divine  Being  who  exists  of  his  own  spiritual  nature  in  the 
character  of  Brahma  and  even  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  [Alpha  and  Omega], 
■  .  .  shall  descend  upon  earth  :  he  will  be  born  in  the  family  of  Vishnuyashas, 
an  eminent  Brahman  of  Shamballah  .  .  .  endowed  with  the  eight  superhuman 
powers.  By  his  irresistible  might  he  will  destroy  ...  all  whose  minds  are 
devoted  to  iniquity.  He  will  then  reestablish  righteousness  upon  earth ;  and  the 
minds  of  those  who  live  at  the  end  of  the  [Kali]  Age  shall  be  awakened,  and  shall 
be  as  pellucid  as  crystal.*  The  men  who  are  thus  changed  by  virtue  of  that  peculiar 
time  shall  be  as  the  seeds  of  human  beings  [the  Shistha,  the  survivors  of  the  future 
cataclysm],  and  shall  give  birth  to  a  race  who  shall  follow  the  laws  of  the  Krita  [or 
Satya]  Yuga  [the  age  of  purity,  or  the  "  Golden  Age"].  For  it  is  said  :  "  When  the 
sun  and  moon  and  Tishya  [asterisms]  and  the  planet  Jupiter  are  in  one  mansion  the 
Krita  Age  [the  Golden]  shall  return. t 

The  astronomical  cycles  of  the  Hindus — those  taught  publicly — have 
been  sufficiently  well  understood,  but  the  esoteric  meaning  thereof, 
in  its  application  to  transcendental  subjects  connected  with  them, 
has  ever  remained  a  dead-letter.  The  number  of  cycles  was 
enormous ;  it  ranged  from  the  Maha  Yuga  cycle  of  4,320,000 
years  down  to  the  small  septenary  and  quinquennial  cycles,  the 
latter    being    composed    of   the    five    years    called     respectively    the 

•  At  the  close  of  our  Race,  people,  it  is  said,  through  suffering-  and  discontent  will  become  more 
spiritual.  Clairvoyance  will  become  a  general  faculty.  We  shall  be  approaching  the  spiritual  state 
of  the  Third  and  Second  Races. 

+   Vh-hnu  Purana,  IV.,  xxiv.  228,  Wilson's  translation. 


SECRET  CYCLES.  349 

Samvatsara,  Parivatsara,  Idvatsara,  Anuvatsara,  and  Vatsara,  each 
having  secret  attributes  or  qualities  attached  to  them.  Vriddhagarga 
gives  these  in  a  treatise,  now  the  property  of  a  Trans-Himalayan 
Matham  (or  temple)  ;  and  describes  the  relation  between  this  quinquen- 
nial and  the  Brihaspati  cyde,  based  on  the  conjunction  of  the  Sun  and 
Moon  every  sixtieth  year :  a  cycle  as  mysterious— for  national  events 
in  general  and  those  of  the  Aryan  Hindu  nation  especially— as  it  is 
important. 


SECTION  XL. 

Secret   Cycles, 


The  former  five-year  cycle  comprehends  sixt}^  solar-siaereal  moniuh 
of  1800  days,  sixty-one  solar  months  (or  1830  days)  ;  sixty-two  lunar 
months  (or  i860  lunations),  and  sixty-seven  lunar-asterismal  months 
(or  1809  such  daj'-s). 

In  his  Kdla  Sankalita,  Col.  Warren  very  properly  regards  these  years 
as  cycles ;  this  they  are,  for  each  year  has  its  own  special  importance 
as  having  some  bearing  upon,  and  connection  with,  specified  events 
in  individual  horoscopes.  He  writes  that  in  the  cycle  of  sixty 
there 

Are  contained  five  cycles  of  twelve  j'ears,  each  supposed  equal  to  one  year  of  the 
planet  (Brihaspati,  or  Jupiter)  ...  I  mention  this  cycle  because  I  found  it 
mentioned  in  some  books,  but  I  know  of  no  nation  or  tribe  that  reckons  time  after 
that  account.* 

The  ignorance  is  ver}' natural,  since  Col.  Warren  could  know  nothing 
of  the  secret  cycles  and  their  meanings.     He  adds  : 

The  names  of  the  five  cycles  or  Yugas  are:  .  .  .  (i)  Samvatsara,  {2)  Parivat- 
sara,  (3)  Idvatsara,  (4)  Anuvatsara,  (5)  Udravatsara. 

The  learned  Colonel  might,  however,  have  assured  himself  that 
there  were  "other  nations"  which  had  the  same  secret  cycle,  if  he  had 
but  remembered  that  the  Romans  also  had  their  lustrum  of  five  years 
(from  the  Hindus  undeniably)  which  represented  the  same  period  if 
multiplied  by  \2.\  Near  Benares  there  are  still  the  relics  of  all  these 
cycle-records,  and  of  astronomical  instruments  cut  out  of  solid  rock, 
the  everlasting  records  of  Archaic  Initiation,  called  by  Sir  W.  Jones 

•  op.  cit.,  p.  212.  +  At  any  rate,  the  temple  secret  nieajiing:  was  the  same. 


THE   NAROS.  351 

(as  suggested  by  the  prudent  Brahmans  who  surrounded  him)  old 
"back  records"  or  reckonings.  But  in  Stonehenge  they  exist  to  this 
day.  Higgins  says  that  Waltire  found  the  barrov/s  of  tumuli  sur- 
rounding this  giant-temple  represented  accurately  the  situation  and 
magnitude  of  the  fixed  stars,  forming  a  complete  orrerj^  or  planisphere. 
As  Colebrooke  found  out,  it  is  the  cycle  of  the  Vedas,  recorded  in  the 
Jyoiisha,  one  of  the  Vedangas,  a  treatise  on  Astronomy,  which  is  the 
basis  of  calculation  for  all  other  C3'cles,  larger  or  smaller ;  *  and  the 
Vedas  were  written  in  characters,  archaic  though  they  be,  long  after 
those  natural  observations,  made  b)''  the  aid  of  their  gigantic  mathe- 
matical and  astronomical  instruments,  had  been  recorded  by  the  men 
of  the  Third  Race,  who  had  received  their  instruction  from  the 
Dhyan  Chohans.  Maurice  speaks  truly  when  he  observes  that  all 
such 

Circular  stone  monuments  were  intended  as  durable  symbols  of  astronomical 
cycles  by  a  race  who,  not  having,  or  for  political  reasons,  forbidding  the  use  of 
letters,  had  no  other  permanent  method  of  instructing  their  disciples  or  hanaing 
down  their  knowledge  to  posterity. 

He  errs  only  in  the  last  idea.  It  was  to  conceal  their  knowledge 
from  profane  posterity,  leaving  it  as  an  heirloom  only  to  the  Initiates, 
that  such  monuments,  at  once  rock  observatories  and  astronomical 
treatises,  were  cut  out. 

It  is  no  news  that  as  the  Hindus  divided  the  earth  into  seven  zones, 
so  the  more  western  peoples — Chaldaeans,  Phoenicians,  and  even  the 
Jews,  who  got  their  learning  either  directly  or  indirectly  from  the 
Brahman?; — made  all  their  secret  and  sacred  numerations  bj-  6  and  12, 
though  using  the  number  7  whenever  this  would  not  lend  itself  to 
handling.  Thus  the  numerical  base  of  6,  the  exoteric  figure  given  by 
Arya  Bhatta,  was  made  good  use  of.  From  the  first  secret  cycle  of  600 
— the  Naros,  transformed  successively  into  60,000  and  60  and  6,  and, 
with  other  noughts  added  into  other  secret  cycles — down  to  the  smallest, 
an  Archaeologist  and  Mathematician  can  easily  find  it  repeated  in  every 
country,  known  to  every  nation.  Hence  the  globe  was  divided  into  60 
degrees,  which,  multiplied  by  60,  became  3,600  the  "great  j^ear." 
Hence  also  the  hour  with  its  60  minutes  of  60  seconds  each.  The 
Asiatic  people  count  a  cycle  of  60  years  also,  after  which  comes  the 
lucky  seventh  decad,  and  the  Chinese  have  their  small  cycle  of  60 
days,  the  Jews  of  6  days,  the  Greeks  of  6  centuries — the  Naros  again 

•  Asiai.  Res.,  voi.  x-iii.  p.  470,  et  scq. 


352 


THE   SBCRET    DOCTRINE. 


The  Babylonians  had  a  great  year  of  3,600,  being  the  Naros  multiplied 
by  6.  The  Tartar  cycle  called  Van  was  180  years,  or  three  sixties  ;  this 
multii^lied  by  12  times  12=144,  makes  25,920  years,  the  exact  period  of 
revolution  of  the  heavens. 

India  is  the  birthplace  of  arithmetic  and  mathematics ;  as  "  Our 
Figures,"  in  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  by  Prof.  Max  Miiller,  shows 
beyond  a  doubt.  As  well  explained  by  Krishna  Shastri  Godbole  in  The 
Theosophist : 

The  Jews  .  .  .  represented  the  units  (1-9)  by  the  first  nine  letters  of  our 
alphabet;  the  tens  (10-90)  by  the  next  nine  letters;  the  first  four  hundreds  (100-400) 
by  the  last  four  letters,  and  the  remaining  ones  (500-900)  by  the  second  forms  of  the 
letters  "kaf"  (iith),  "  mim  "  (13th),  "nun"  (13th),  "  pe  "  (17th),  and  "sad"  (i8th); 
and  they  represented  other  numbers  by  combining  these  letters  according  to  their 
value.  .  .  .  The  Jews  of  the  present  period  still  adhere  to  this  practice  of  nota- 
tion in  their  Hebrew  books.  The  Greeks  had  a  numerical  system  similar  to  that 
used  by  the  Jews,  but  they  carried  it  a  little  farther  by  using  letters  of  the  alphabet 
".vith  a  dash  or  slant-line  behind,  to  represent  thousands  (1000-9000),  tens  of  thou- 
."zands  (10,000-90,000)  and  one  hundred  of  thousands  (100,000)  the  last,  for  instance, 
being  represented  by  "rho"  with  a  dash  behind,  while  "rho"  singly  represented 
100.  The  Romans  represented  all  numerical  values  by  the  combination  (additive 
ivhen  the  second  letter  is  of  equal  or  less  value)  of  six  letters  of  their  alphabet: 
:  (=  i),  V  (=  5),  X  (=  10),  c  (for  "centum"  =  100),  d  (=  500),  and  m  (=  1000):  thus 
20  =  XX,  15  =  XV,  and  9  =  ix.  These  are  called  the  Roman  numerals,  and  are 
adopted  by  all  European  nations  when  using  the  Roman  alphabet.  The  Arabs  at 
first  followed  their  neighbours,  the  Jews,  in  their  method  of  computation,  so  much 
so  that  they  called  it  Abjad  from  the  first  four  Hebrew  letters — "alif,"  "beth,'' 
"gimel" — or  rather  "jimel,"  that  is,  "jim"  (Arabic  being  wanting  in  "g"),  and 
"daleth,"  representing  the  first  four  units.  But  when  in  the  early  part  of  the 
Christian  era  they  came  to  India  as  traders,  they  found  the  country  already  using 
for  computation  the  decimal  scale  of  notation,  which  they  forthwith  borrowed 
literally ;  viz.,  without  altering  its  method  of  writing  from  left  to  right,  at  variance 
with  their  own  mode  of  writing,  which  is  from  right  to  left.  They  introduced  .this 
system  into  Europe  through  Spain  and  other  European  countries  lying  along  the 
coast  of  the  Mediterranean  and  under  their  sway,  during  the  dark  ages  of  European 
history.  It  has  thus  become  evident  that  the  Arj'as  knew  well  mathematics  or  the 
science  of  computation  at  a  time  when  all  other  nations  knew  bitt  little,  if  anything, 
of  it.  It  has  also  been  admitted  that  the  knowledge  of  arithmetic  and  algebra  was 
first  introduced  from  the  Hindus  by  the  Arabs,  and  then  taught  by  them  to  the 
Western  nations.  This  fact  convincingly  proves  that  the  Aryan  civilisation  is  older 
than  that  of  any  other  nation  in  the  world  ;  and  as  the  Vedas  are  avowedly  proved 
tue  oldest  wor'i  of  that  civilisation,  a  presumption  is  raised  in  favour  of  their  great 
antic  aicv.* 


Theosophist,  August,  1881. 


AGE   OF  THE  VEDAS.  353 

But  while  the  Jewish  nation,  for  instance — regarded  so  long  as  the 
first  and  oldest  in  the  order  of  creation — knew  nothing  of  arithmetic 
and  remained  utterly  ignorant  of  the  decimal  scale  of  notation — the 
latter  existed  for  ages  in  India  before  the  actual  era. 

To  become  certain  of  the  immense  antiquity  of  the  Arj-an  Asiatic 
nations  and  of  their  astronomical  records  one  has  to  study  more  than 
the  Vcdas.  The  secret  meaning  of  the  latter  will  never  be  understood 
by  the  present  generation  of  Orientalists ;  and  the  astronomical  works 
which  give  openly  the  real  dates  and  prove  the  antiquity  of  both  the 
nation  and  its  science,  elude  the  grasp  of  the  collectors  of  ollas  and  old 
manuscripts  in  India,  the  reason  being  too  obvious  to  need  explanation. 
Yet  there  are  Astronomers  and  Mathematicians  to  this  day  in  India, 
humble  Shastris  and  Pandits,  unknown  and  lost  in  the  midst  of  that 
population  of  phenomenal  memories  and  metaphysical  brains,  who  have 
undertaken  the  task  and  have  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  many  that 
the  Vedas  are  the  oldest  works  in  the  world.  One  of  such  is  the  Shastri 
just  quoted,  who  published  in  The  Thcosophist*  an  able  treatise  proving 
astronomically  and  mathematically  that : 

If  the  Post- Vaiclika  works  alone,  the  Upanishads,  the  Brahmanas,  etc.,  clown  to 
the  Puranas,  when  examined  criticall}'  earn'  us  back  to  20,000  B.C.,  then  the  time  of 
the  composition  of  the  Vedas  themselves  cannot  be  less  than  30,000  B.C.,  in  round 
numbers,  a  date  which  we  may  take  at  present  as  the  age  of  that  Book  of 
books,  t 

And  what  are  his  proofs  ? 

Cycles  and  the  evidence  yielded  by  the  asterisms.  Here  are  a  few 
extracts  from  his  rather  lengthy  treatise,  selected  to  give  an  idea  of  his 
demonstrations  and  bearing  directly  on  the  quinquennial  cycle  spoken 
of  just  now.  Those  who  feel  interested  in  the  demonstrations  and  are 
advanced  mathematicians  can  turn  to  the  article  itself,  "  The  Antiquity 
of  the  Vcdas"  %  and  judge  for  themselves. 

10.  Somakara  in  his  commentary  on  the  Shesha  Jyotisha  quotes  a  passage  from 
the  Satapatha  Brdhynana,  which  contains  an  observation  on  the  change  of  the  tropics, 
and  which  is  also  found  in  the  Sakhdyana  Brdhniana,  as  has  been  noticed  by  Prof. 
Max  Miiller  in  his  preface  to  Rigveda  Samhiid  (p.  xx.  foot-note,  vol.  iv.).  The  pas- 
sage is  this :  .  .  ,  "  The  full-moon  night  in  Phalguna  is  the  first  night  of  Sam- 
vatsara,  the  first  year  of  the  quinquennial  age."  This  passage  clearly  shows  that 
the  quinquennial  age  which,  according  to  the  sixth  verse  of  th.Q  Jyotisha,  begins  on 
the  1st  of  Magha  ( Januarj-Februarj-),  once  began  on  the  15th  of  Phalguna  (February- 

-  Aug.,  1881  to  Feb.,  1882.  t  Loc.  cit.,  iv.  127.  %  Theosophist,  vol.  iii.  p.  22. 

3     AA 


254  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

March).     Now  when  the  rsth  of  Phdlguna  of  the  first  year  called  Samvatsara  of  the 
quinquennial  age  begins,  the  moon,  according  to  \.\i^  Jyoiisha,  is  in 

Y^      ( ^  i  or  fth  of  the  Uttara  Phalguni,  and 


I  -l- 

I 

3 

+  8 

29 

I 

_^  +  - 

I 

XX  I 

the  sun  in   ru^^ '^ 1 '  **''  i^^   °^  Purva    Bhadrapadd.     Hence  the 

25 

position  of  the  four  principal  points  on  the  ecliptic  was  then  as  follows: 

The  winter  solstice  in  3°29'  of  Purva  Bhadrapada. 

The  vernal  equinox  in  the  beginning  of  Mrigashirsha. 

The  summer  solstice  in  lo  of  Purva  Phalguni. 

The  autumnal  equinox  in  the  middle  of  Jyeshtha. 

The  vernal  equinoctial  point,  we  have  seen,  coincided  with  the  beginning  of 
Krittika  in  1421  B.C.  ;  and  from  the  beginning  of  Krittika  to  that  of  Mrigashirsha, 
was,  in  consequence,  142 1  +  26  2/3  x  72  =  1421  +  1920  =  3341  B.C.,  supposing  the  rate 
oi  precession  to  be  50''  a  year.  When  we  take  the  rate  to  be  3°2o"  in  247  years,  the 
time  comes  up  to  1516  +  19607  =  34767  B.C. 

When  the  winter  solstice  by  its  retrograde  motion  coincided  after  that  with  the 
beginning  of  Purva  Bhadrapada,  then  the  commencement  of  the  quinquennial  age 
was  changed  from  the  15th  to  the  ist  of  Phalguna  (February-March).  This  change 
took  place  240  years  after  the  date  of  the  above  observation,  that  is,  in  3101  B.C. 
This  date  is  most  important,  as  from  it  an  era  was  reckoned  in  after  times.  The 
commencement  of  the  Kali  or  Kali  Yuga  (derived  from  "kal,"  "to  reckon"), 
though  said  by  European  scholars  to  be  an  imaginary  date,  becomes  thus  an  astro- 
nomical fact. 

Interchange  of  Krittika  and  Ashvini.* 

We  thus  see  that  the  asterisms,  twenty-seven  in  number,  were  counted  from  the 
Mrigashirsha  when  the  vernal  equinox  was  in  its  beginning,  and  that  the  practice  of 
thus  counting  was  adhered  to  till  the  vernal  equinox  retrograded  to  the  beginning 
of  Krittika,  when  it  became  the  first  of  the  asterisms.  For  then  the  winter  solstice 
had  changed,  receding  from  Phalguna  (Februarj--March)  to  Magha  (January- 
Februarj-),  one  complete  lunar  month.     And,  in  like  manner,  the  place  of  Krittika 

•  The  impartial  study  of  Vaidic  and  Post-Vaidic  works  shows  that  the  ancient  Aryans  knew  well 
the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  and  "  that  they  changed  their  position  from  a  certain  asterism  to 
two  (occasionally  three)  asterisms  back  whenever  the  precession  amounted  to  two,  properly  speaking, 
to  2  11/61  asterisms  or  about  29°,  being  the  motion  of  the  sun  in  a  lunar  month,  and  so 
caused  the  seasons  to  fall  back  a  complete  lunar  month.  .  .  It  appears  certain  that  at 
the  date  of  SUrya  Siddkdnia,  Brahma  Siddanta,  and  other  ancient  treatises  on  astronomy, 
the  vernal  equinoctial  point  had  not  actually  reached  the  beginning  of  Ashvini,  but  was  a  few 
degrees  east  of  it.  .  .  The  astronomers  of  Europe  change  westward  the  beginning  of  Arios  and  of 
all  other  signs  of  the  Zodiac  every  year  by  about  50"  25,  and  thus  make  the  names  of  the  signs 
meaningless.  But  these  signs  are  as  much  fixed  as  the  asterisms  themselves,  and  hence  the  Western 
astronomers  of  the  present  day  appear  to  us  in  this  respect  less  wary  and  scientific  in  their  observa- 
tions than  their  very  ancient  brethren— the  Aryas." — Theosophist,  iii.  23. 


TESTIMONY   OF  THE   SONG   CELESTIAI..  *  355 

was  occupied  by  Ashvini,  that  is,  the  latter  became  the  first  of  the  asterisms,  head- 
ing all  others,  when  its  beginning  coincided  with  the  vernal  equinoctial  point,  or,  in 
other  words,  when  the  winter  solstice  was  in  Pansha  (December-February).  Now 
from  the  beginning  of  Krittika  to  that  of  Ashvini  there  are  two  asterisms,  or  26  2/3°, 
and  the  time  the  equinox  takes  to  retrograde  this  distance  at  the  rate  of  i  in  72 
}-ears  is  1920  years;  and  hence  the  date  at  which  the  vernal  equinox  coincided 
with  the  commencement  of  Ashvini  or  with  the  end  of  Revati  is  1920- 142 1  = 
499  A.D. 

BenTi,ey's  Opinion. 

12.  The  next  and  equally-important  observation  we  have  to  record  here  is  one 
discussed  by  Mr.  Bentley  in  his  researches  into  the  Indian  antiquities.  "  The  first 
lunar  asterism,"  he  says,  "in  the  division  of  twenty-eight  was  called  Mula,  that  is 
to  say,  the  root  or  origin.  In  the  division  of  twenty-seven  the  first  lunar  asterism 
was  called  Jyeshtha,  that  is  to  say,  the  eldest  or  first,  and  consequently  of  the  same 
import  as  the  former"  (vide  his  Historical  View  of  the  Hindu  Astrotioviy,  p.  4). 
From  this  it  becomes  manifest  that  the  vernal  equinox  was  once  in  the  beginning 
of  Mula,  and  Miila  was  reckoned  the  first  of  the  asterisms  when  they  were  twenty- 
eight  in  number,  including  Adhijit.  Now  there  are  fourteen  asterisms,  or  180°, 
from  the  beginning  of  Mrigashirsha  to  that  of  Mula,  and  hence  the  date  at  which 
the  vernal  equinox  coincided  with  the  beginning  of  Mula  was  at  least  3341  +  180 
X  72  =  16,301  B.C.  The  position  of  the  four  principal  points  on  the  ecliptic  was 
then  as  given  below  : 

The  winter  solstice  in  the  beginning  of  Uttara  Phalguui  in  the  month  of 
Shravana. 

The  vernal  equinox  in  the  beginning  of  Mula  in  Karttika. 

The  summer  solstice  in  the  beginning  of  Purva  Bhadrapada  in  Magha. 

The  autumnal  equinox  in  the  beginning  of  Mrigashirsha  in  Vaishakha. 

A  Proof  from  the  Bhagavad  Gita. 

13.  The  Bhagavad  did,  as  well  as  the  Bhdgavata,  makes  mention  of  an  observa- 
tion which  points  to  a  still  more  remote  antiquity  than  the  one  discovered  by  Mr. 
Bentley.    The  passages  are  given  in  order  below : 

"  I  am  the  Margashirsha  [viz.  the  first  among  the  months]  and  the  spring  {viz.  the 
first  among  the  seasons]." 

This  shows  that  at  one  time  the  first  month  of  spring  was  Margashirsha.  A 
season  includes  two  months,  and  the  mention  of  a  month  suggests  the  season, 

"  I  am  the  Samvatsara  among  the  years  [which  are  five  in  number]  and  the  spring 
among  the  seasons,  and  the  Margashirsha  among  the  months  and  the  Abhijit  among 
the  asterisms  [which  are  twentj'-eight  in  number]." 

This  clearly  points  out  that  at  one  time  in  the  first  year  called  Samvatsara,  of  the 
quinquennial  age,  the  Madhu,  that  is,  the  first  month  of  spring,  was  Margashirsha, 
and  Abhijit  was  the  first  of  the  asterisms.  It  then  coincided  with  the  vernal 
equinoctial  point,  and  thence  from  it  the  asterisms  were  counted.  To  find  the  date 
of  this  observation  :  There  are  three  asterisms  from  the  beginning  of  Mula  to  the 
beginning  of  Abh<jit,  and  hence  the  date  in  question  is  at  least  16,301  +  3/7  x  qoX 


255  'tHE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

72  =  19,078  or  about  20,000  B.C.     The  Samvatsara  at  this  time  began  in  BhadrapadS, 
the  ^\nnter  solstitial  month. 

So  far  then  20,000  years  are  mathematically  proven  for  the  antiquity 
of  the  Vedas.  And  this  is  simply  exoteric.  Any  mathematician,  pro- 
vided he  be  not  blinded  by  preconception  and  prejudice,  can  see  this, 
and  an  unknown  but  very  clever  amateur  Astronomer,  S.  A.  Mackey, 
has  proved  it  some  sixty  5'ears  back. 

His  theory  about  the  Hindu  Yugas  and  their  length  is  curious — as 
being  so  very  near  the  correct  doctrine. 

It  is  said  in  volume  ii.  p.  131,  of  Asiatic  Researches  that :  "  The  great  ancestor  of 
Yudhister  reigned  27,000  j'ears  ...  at  the  end  of  the  brazen  age."  In  volume 
ix.  p.  364,  we  read  : 

"  In  the  beginning  of  the  Cali  Yuga,  in  the  reign  of  Yudhister.  And  Yudister 
.     .     .     began  his  reign  immediately  after  the  flood  called  Praiaya." 

Here  we  find  three  different  statements  concerning  Yudhister  ...  to  explain 
these  seeming  differences  we  must  have  recourse  to  their  books  of  science,  where 
we  find  the  heavens  and  the  earth  divided  into  five  parts  of  unequal  dimensions,  by 
circles  parallel  to  the  equator.  Attention  to  these  divisions  will  be  found  to  be  of  the 
utmost  importance  .  .  .  as  it  will  be  found  that  from  them  arose  the  division  of  their 
Maha-Yuga  into  its  four  component  parts.  Every  astronomer  knows  that  there  is 
a  point  in  the  heavens  called  the  pole,  round  which  the  whole  seems  to  turn  in 
twenty-four  hours ;  and  that  at  ninety  degrees  from  it  they  imagine  a  circle  called 
the  equator,  which  divides  the  heavens  and  the  earth  into  two  equal  parts,  the 
north  and  the  south.  Between  this  circle  and  the  pole  there  is  another  imaginary 
circle  called  the  circle  of  perpetual  appaHtion :  between  which  and  the  equator 
there  is  a  point  in  the  heavens  called  the  zenith,  through  which  let  another 
imaginary  circle  pass,  parallel  to  the  other  two ;  and  then  there  wants  but  the 
circle  of  perpetual  occultation  to  complete  the  round.  .  .  .  No  astronomer  of 
Europe  besides  myself  has  ever  applied  them  to  the  development  of  the  Hindu 
mysterious  numbers.  We  are  told  in  the  Asiatic  Researches  that  Yudhister  brought 
Vicramaditya  to  reign  in  Cassimer,  which  is  in  the  latitude  of  36  degrees.  And 
in  that  latitude  the  circle  of  perpetual  apparition  would  extend  up  to  72  degrees 
altitude,  and  from  that  to  the  zenith  there  are  but  iS  degrees,  but  from  the  zenith 
to  the  equator  in  that  latitude  there  are  36  degrees,  and  from  the  equator  to  the 
circle  of  perpetual  occultation  there  are  54  degrees.  Here  we  find  the  semi-circle 
of  180  degrees  divided  into  four  parts,  in  the  proportion  of  i,  2,  3,  4,  i.e.,  18,  36, 
54,  72.  Whether  the  Hindu  astronomers  were  acquainted  with  the  motion  of  the 
earth  or  not  is  of  no  consequence,  since  the  appearances  are  the  same ;  and  if  it 
will  give  those  gentlemen  of  tender  consciences  any  pleasure  I  am  willing  to  admit 
that  they  imagined  the  heavens  rolled  round  the  earth,  but  they  had  observed  the 
stars  in  the  path  of  the  sun  to  move  forward  through  the  equinoctial  points,  at  the 
rate  of  fifty-four  seconds  of  a  degree  in  a  year,  which  carried  the  whole  zodiac  round 
in  24,000  years ;  in  which  time  they  also  observed  that  the  angle  of  obliquity  varied, 
so  as  to  extend  or  contract  the  width  of  the  tropics  4  degrees  on  each  side,  which  rate 


mackey's  arguments.  357 

of  motion  would  earn-  the  tropics  from  the  equator  to  the  poles  in  540,000  years  : 
in  which  time  the  Zodiac  would  have  made  twenty-two  and  a  half  revolutions,  which 
are  expressed  by  the  parallel  circles  from  the  equator  to  the  poles  ...  or  what 
amounts  to  the  same  thing,  the  north  pole  of  the  ecliptic  would  have  moved  from  the 
north  pole  of  the  earth  to  the  equator.  .  .  .  Thus  the  poles  become  inverted  in 
1,080,000  years,  which  is  their  Maha  Yuga,  and  which  they  had  divided  into  four 
unequal  parts,  in  the  proportions  of  i,  2,  3,  4,  for  the  reasons  mentioned  above ; 
which  are  108,000,  216,000,  324,000,  and  432,000.  Here  we  have  the  most  positive 
proofs  that  the  above  numbers  originated  in  ancient  astronomical  observations,  and 
consequently  are  not  deserving  of  those  epithets  which  have  been  bestowed  upon 
them  by  the  Essayist,  echoing  the  voice  of  Bentley,  Wilford,  Dupuis,  etc. 

I  have  now  to  show  that  the  reign  of  Yudhister  for  27,000  j^ears  is  neither  absurd 
nor  disgnsting,  but  perhaps  the  Essa}-ist  is  not  aware  that  there  were  several 
Yudhisters  or  Judhisters.  In  volume  ii.  p.  131,  Asiatic  Researches :  "  The  great 
ancestor  of  Yudhister  reigned  27,000  years  at  the  end  of  the  brazen  or  third  age." 
Here  I  must  again  beg  your  attention  to  this  projection.  This  is  a  plane  of  that 
machine  which  the  second  gentleman  thought  so  verj-  clumsy;  it  is  that  of  a. pro- 
long spheroid,  called  by  the  ancients  an  atroscope.  "  Let  the  longest  axis  represent 
the  poles  of  the  earth,  making  an  angle  of  28  degrees  with  the  horizon  ;  then  will 
the  seven  divisions  above  the  horizon  to  the  North  Pole,  the  temple  of  Buddha,  and 
the  seven  from  the  North  Pole  to  the  circle  of  perpetual  apparition  represent  the 
fourteen  INIanvantaras,  or  very  long  periods  of  time,  each  of  which,  according  to  the 
third  volume  of  Asiatic  Researches,  p.  258  or  259,  was  the  reign  of  a  Menu.  But  Capt. 
Wilford,  in  volume  v.  p.  243,  gives  us  the  following  information:  "The  Egyptians 
had  fourteen  dynasties,  and  the  Hindus  had  fourteen  dynasties,  the  rulers  of  which 
are  called  Menus."     .     .     . 

Who  can  here  mistake  the  fourteen  very  long  periods  of  time  for  those  which 
constituted  the  Cali  Yuga  of  Delhi,  or  any  other  place  in  the  latitude  of  28  degrees, 
where  the  blank  space  from  the  foot  of  Meru  to  the  seventh  circle  from  the  equator, 
constitutes  the  part  passed  over  by  the  tropic  in  the  next  age ;  which  proportions 
differ  considerably  from  those  in  the  latitude  of  36 ;  and  because  the  numbers  in  the 
Hindu  books  differ,  Mr.  Bentley  asserts  that:  "This  shows  what  little  dependence 
is  to  be  put  in  them."  But,  on  the  contrary,  it  shows  with  what  accuracy  the  Hindus 
had  observed  the  motions  of  the  heavens  in  different  latitudes. 

Some  of  the  Hindus  inform  us  that  "  the  earth  has  two  spindles  which  are  sur- 
rounded by  seven  tiers  of  heavens  and  hells  at  the  distance  of  one  Raju  each."  This . 
needs  but  little  explanation  when  it  is  understood  that  the  seven  divisions  from  the 
equator  to  their  zenith  are  called  Rishis  or  Raslias.  But  what  is  most  to  our  present 
purpose  to  know  is  that  they  had  given  names  to  each  of  those  divisions  which  the 
tropics  passed  over  during  each  revolution  of  the  Zodiac.  In  the  latitude  of  36 
degrees  where  the  Pole  or  Meru  was  nine  steps  high  at  Cassimere,  they  were  called 
Shastras;  in  latitude  28  degrees  at  Delhi,  where  the  Pole  or  Meru  was  seven  steps 
high,  they  were  called  Menus ;  but  in  24  degrees,  at  Cacha,  where  the  Pole  or  Meru 
was  but  six  steps  high,  they  were  called  Sacas.  But  in  the  ninth  volume  {Asiatic 
Researches)  Yudhister,  the  son  of  Dherma,  or  Justice,  was  the  first  of  the  six  Sacas; 


358  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

the  name  implies  the  end,  and  as  everything  has  two  ends,  Yudhister  is  as  applicable 
to  the  first  as  to  the  last.  And  as  the  division  on  the  north  of  the  circle  of  perpetual 
apparition  is  the  first  of  the  Cali  Yuga,  supposing  the  tropics  to  be  ascending,  it 
was  called  the  division  or  reign  of  Yudhister.  But  the  division  which  immediately 
precedes  the  circle  of  perpetual  apparition  is  the  last  of  the  third  or  brazen  age,  and 
was  therefore  called  Yudhister,  and  as  his  reign  preceded  the  reign  of  the  other,  as 
the  tropic  ascended  to  the  Pole  or  Mem,  he  was  called  the  father  of  the  other — "  the 
great  ancestor  of  Yudhister,  who  reigned  twenty-seven  thousand  years,  at  the  end  of 
the  brazen  age."     (Vol.  ii.  Asiatic  Researches.) 

The  ancient  Hindus  observed  that  the  Zodiac  went  forward  at  about  the  rate  of 
fift3'-four  seconds  a  year,  and  to  avoid  greater  fractions,  stated  it  at  that,  which 
would  make  a  complete  round  in  24,000  years ;  and  observing  the  angle  of  the  poles 
to  vary  nearly  4  degrees  each  round,  stated  the  three  numbers  as  such,  which  would 
have  given  forty-five  rotcnds  of  the  Zodiac  to  half  a  revolution  of  the  poles ;  but 
finding  that  forty-five  rounds  would  not  bring  the  northern  tropic  to  coincide  with 
the  circle  of  perpetual  apparition  by  thirty  minutes  of  a  degree,  which  required  the 
Zodiac  to  move  one  sign  and  a  half  more,  which  we  all  know  it  could  not  do  in  less 
than  3,000  years,  they  were,  in  the  case  before  us,  added  to  the  end  of  the  brazen 
age ;  which  lengthen  the  reign  of  that  Yudhister  to  27,000  3'ears  instead  of  24,000, 
but,  at  another  time  they  did  not  alter  the  regular  order  of  24,000  years  to  the  reign 
of  each  of  these  long-winded  monarchs,  but  rounded  up  the  time  b}'  allowing  a 
regency  to  continue  three  or  four  thousand  years.  In  volume  ii.  p.  134,  Asiatic 
Researches,  we  are  told  that :  ' '  Paricshit,  the  great  nephew  and  successor  of  Yudhister, 
is  allowed  without  controversy  to  have  reigned  in  the  interval  between  the  brazen 
and  earthen,  or  Cali  Ages,  and  to  have  died  at  the  setting-in  of  the  Cali  Yug."  "Here 
we  find  an  interregmiin  at  the  end  of  the  h'azen  age,  and  before  the  setting-in  of  the 
Cali  Yug :  and  as  there  can  be  but  one  brazen  or  Treta  Yug,  i.e.,  the  third  age,  in 
a  Maha  Yuga  of  1,080,000  years  :  the  reign  of  this  Paricshit  must  have  been  in  the 
second  Maha  Yuga,  when  the  pole  had  returned  to  its  original  position,  which 
must  have  taken  2,160,000  years  :  and  this  is  what  the  Hindus  call  the  Prajanatha 
Yuga.  Analogous  to  this  custom  is  that  of  some  nations  more  modern,  who,  fond 
of  even  numbers,  have  made  the  common  year  to  consist  of  twelve  months  of  thirty 
days  each,  and  the  five  days  and  odd  measure  have  been  represented  as  the  reign  of 
a  little  serpent  biting  his  tail,  and  di\'ided  into  five  parts,  etc. 

But  "Yudhister  began  his  reign  immediately  after  the  flood  called  Pralaya,"  i.e., 
at  the  end  of  the  Cali  Yug  (or  age  of  heat),  when  the  tropic  had  passed  from  the 
pole  to  the  other  side  of  the  circle  of  perpetual  apparition,  which  coincides  with 
the  northern  horizon ;  here  the  tropics  or  summer  solstice  would  be  again  in  the 
same  parallel  of  north  declination,  at  the  commencement  of  their  first  age,  as  he  was 
at  the  end  of  their  third  age,  or  Treta  Yug,  called  the  brazen  age.    .     .    . 

Enough  has  been  said  to  prove  that  the  Hindu  books  of  science  are  not  disgusting 
absurdities,  originated  in  ignorance,  vanity,  and  credulit}-;  but  books  containing 
the  most  profound  knowledge  of  astronomy  and  geography. 

What,  therefore,  can  induce  those  gentlemen  of  tender  consciencesto  insist  that 
Yudhister  was  a  real  mortal  man  I  have  no  guess ;  unless  it  be  that  they  fear  for 
the  fate  of  Jared  and  his  grandfather,  Methuselah  } 


THE 

MYSTERY  OF   BUDDHA. 


SECTION   XLI. 

The  Doctrine  of  Ayataras. 


A  STRANGE  Story— a  legend  rather — is  persistently  current  among 
the  disciples  of  some  great  Himalayan  Gurus,  and  even  among  laymen, 
to  the  effect  that  Gautama,  the  Prince  of  Kapilavastu,  has  never  left 
the  terrestrial  regions,  though  his  body  died  and  was  burnt,  and  its 
relics  are  preserved  to  this  day.  There  is  an  oral  tradition  among  the 
Chinese  Buddhists,  and  a  written  statement  among  the  secret  books  of 
the  Lamaists  of  Tibet,  as  well  as  a  tradition  among  the  Aryans,  that 
Gautama  Buddha  had  two  doctrines :  one  for  the  masses  and  His  lay 
disciples,  the  other  for  His  "  elect,"  the  Arhats.  His  policy  and  after 
Him  that  of  His  Arhats  was,  it  appears,  to  refuse  no  one  admission  into 
the  ranks  of  candidates  for  Arhatship,  but  never  to  divulge  the  final 
mysteries  except  to  those  who  had  proved  themselves,  during  long  years 
of  probation,  to  be  worthy  of  Initiation.  These  once  accepted  were  con- 
secrated and  initiated  without  distinction  of  race,  caste  or  wealth,  as  in 
the  case  of  His  western  successor.  It  is  the  Arhats  who  have  set  forth 
and  allowed  this  tradition  to  take  root  in  the  people's  mind,  and  it  is 
the  basis,  also,  of  the  later  dogma  of  Lamaic  reincarnation  or  the  suc- 
cession of  human  Buddhas. 

The  little  that  can  be  said  here  upon  the  subject  may  or  may  not 
help  to  guide  the  psychic  student  in  the  right  direction.  It  being  left 
to  the  option  and  responsibility  of  the  writer  to  tell  the  facts  as  she 
personally  understood  them,  the  blame  for  possible  misconceptions 
created  must  fall  only  upon  her.  She  has  been  taught  the  doctrine, 
but  it  was  left  to  her  sole  intuition — as  it  is  now  left  to  the  sagacity  of 
the  reader — to  group  the  mj'sterious  and  perplexing  facts  together. 
The  incomplete  statements  herein  given  are  fragments  of  what  is 
contained  in  certain  secret  volumes,  but  it  is  not  lawful  to  divulge  the 
details. 

The  esoteric  version  of  the  mystery  given  in  the  secret  volumes  may 


362  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

be  told  very  briefly.  The  Buddhists  have  always  stoutly  denied  that  their 
Buddha  was,  as  alleged  by  the  Brahmans,  an  Avatara  of  Vishnu  in  the 
same  sense  as  a  man  is  an  incarnation  of  his  Karmic  ancestor.  They 
deny  it  partly,  perhaps,  because  the  esoteric  meaning  of  the  term 
"  Maha  Vishnu "  is  not  known  to  them  in  its  full,  impersonal,  and 
general  meaning.  There  is  a  mysterious  Principle  in  Nature  called 
"  Maha  Vishnu,"  which  is  not  the  God  of  that  name,  but  a  principle 
which  contains  Bija,  the  seed  of  Avatarism  or,  in  other  words,  is  the 
potency  and  cause  of  such  divine  incarnations.  All  the  World-Saviours, 
the  Bodhisattvas  and  the  Avataras,  are  the  trees  of  salvation  grown  out 
from  the  one  seed,  the  Bija  or  "  Maha  Vishnu."  Whether  it  be  called 
Adi-Buddha  (Primeval  Wisdom)  or  Maha  Vishnu,  it  is  all  the  same. 
Understood  esoterically,  Vishnu  is  both  Saguna  and  Nirguna  (with 
and  without  attributes).  In  the  first  aspect,  Vishnu  is  the  object  of 
exoteric  worship  and  devotion  ;  in  the  second,  as  Nirguna,  he  is  the 
culmination  of  the  totality  of  spiritual  wisdom  in  the  Universe — 
Nirvana,*  in  short — and  has  as  worshippers  all  philosophical  minds. 
In  this  esoteric  sense  the  Lord  Buddha  was  an  incarnation  of  Maht 
Vishnu. 

This  is  from  the  philosophical  and  purely  spiritual  standpoint.  From 
the  plane  of  illusion,  however,  as  one  would  saj'',  or  from  the  terrestrial 
standpoint,  those  initiated  kyiow  that  He  was  a  direct  incarnation  of  one 
of  the  primeval  "Seven  Sons  of  Light"  who  are  to  be  found  in  every 
Theogony^-the  Dhyan  Chohans  whose  mission  it  is,  from  one  eternity 
(aeon)  to  the  other,  to  watch  over  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  regions 
under  their  care.  This  has  been  already  enunciated  in  Esoteric 
Buddhism. 

One  of  the  greatest  mysteries  of  speculative  and  philosophical  Mys- 
ticism— and  it  is  one  of  the  mysteries  now  to  be  disclosed — is  the  viodus 
operandi  in  the  degrees  of  such  hypostatic  transferences.  As  a  matter 
of  course,  divine  as  well  as  human  incarnations  must  remain  a  closed 
book  to  the  theologian  as  much  as  to  the  physiologist,  unless  the 
esoteric  teachings  be  accepted  and  become  the  religion  of  the  world. 
This  teaching  may  never  be  fuU}^  explained  to  an  unprepared  public  ; 
but  one  thing  is  certain  and  may  be  said  now:  that  between  the  dogma 

*  A  g^reat  deal  of  misconception  is  raised  by  a  confusion  of  planes  of  being  and  misuse  of  expres- 
sions. For  instance,  certain  spiritual  states  have  been  confounded  with  the  Nirvana  of  Buddha. 
The  Nirvana  of  Buddha  is  totally  different  from  any  other  spiritual  state  of  Samidhi  or  even  the 
highest  Theophania  enjoyed  by  lesser  Adepts.  After  physical  death  the  kinds  of  spiritual  states 
reached  by  Adepts  differ  greatly. 


AI.L   AVATARAS   IDENTICAL.  363 

of  a  newly-created  soul  for  each  new  birth,  and  the  physiological 
assumption  of  a  temporary  animal  soul,  there  lies  the  vast  region  of 
Occult  teaching  *  with  its  logical  and  reasonable  demonstrations,  the 
links  of  which  may  all  be  traced  in  logical  and  philosophical  sequence 
in  nature. 

This  "  Mysters^"  is  found,  for  him  who  understands  its  right  mean- 
ing, in  the  dialogue  between  Krishna  and  Arjuna,  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita, 
chapter  iv.     Says  the  Avatara  : 

Many  births  of  mine  have  passed,  as  also  of  yours,  O  Arjuna  !  All  those  I  know, 
but  you  do  not  know  yours,  O  harasser  of  your  enemies. 

Although  I  am  unborn,  with  exhaustless  Atma,  and  am  the  Lord  of  all  that 
is ;  yet,  taking  up  the  domination  of  my  nature  I  am  born  by  the  power  of 
illusion,  t 

Whenever,  O  son  of  Bharata,  there  is  decline  of  Dharma  [the  right  law]  and  the 
rise  of  Adharma  [the  opposite  of  Dharma]  there  I  manifest  myself. 

For  the  salvation  of  the  good  and  the  destruction  of  wickedness,  for  the  establish- 
ment of  the  law,  I  am  born  in  every  yuga. 

Whoever  comprehends  truly  my  divine  birth  and  action,  he,  O  Arjuna,  having 
abandoned  the  body  does  not  receive  re-birth  ;  he  comes  to  me. 

Thus,  all  the  Avataras  are  one  and  the  same :  the  Sons  of  their 
"Father,"  in  a  direct  descent  and  line,  the  "Father,"  or  one  of  the 
seven  Flames  becoming,  for  the  time  being,  the  Son,  and  these  two 
being  one — in  Eternity.  What  is  the  Father  ?  Is  it  the  absolute  Cause 
of  all  ?— the  fathomless  Eternal  ?  No  ;  most  decidedly.  It  is  Karan- 
atma,  the  "  Causal  Soul"  which,  in  its  general  sense,  is  called  by  the 
Hindus  Ishvara,  the  Lord,  and  by  Christians,  "  God,"  the  One  and 
Only.  From  the  standpoint  of  unity  it  is  so ;  but  then  the  lowest  of 
the  Elementals  could  equally  be  viewed  in  such  case  as  the  "  One  and 
Only."  Each  human  being  has,  moreover,  his  own  divine  Spirit  or 
personal  God.  That  divine  Entity  or  Flame  from  which  Buddhi 
emanates  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  man,  though  on  a  lower  plane, 


*  This  region  is  the  one  possible  point  of  conciliation  between  the  two  diametrically  opposed  poles 
of  religion  and  science,  the  one  with  its  barren  fields  of  dogmas  on  faith,  the  other  over-running 
with  empty  hypotheses,  both  overgrown  with  the  weeds  of  error.  They  will  never  meet.  The  two 
are  at  feud,  at  an  everlasting  warfare  with  each  other,  but  this  does  not  prevent  them  from  uniting 
-against  Esoteric  Philosophy,  which  for  two  millenniums  has  had  to  fight  against  infallibility  in 
both  directions,  or  "mere  vanity  and  pretence"  as  Antoninus  defined  it,  and  now  finds  the 
materialism  of  Modem  Science  arrayed  against  its  truths. 

+  Whence  some  of  the  Gnostic  ideas  '>.  Cerinthus  taught  that  the  world  and  Jehovah  having  fallen 
ofif  from  virtue  and  primitive  dignity  the  Supreme  permitted  one  of  his  glorious  .i^ons,  whose  name 
was  the  "  Anointed  "  (Christ)  to  incarnate  in  the  man  Jesus.  Basilides  denied  the  reality  of  t«he  body 
of  Jesus,  and  calling  it  an  "  illusion  "  held  that  it  was  Simon  of  Cyrene'  who  suffered  ox  the  Cross  in 
his  stead.    All  such  teachings  are  echoes  of  the  Eastern  Doctrines.  , 


364  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

as  the  Dhyani-Buddha  to  his  human  Buddha.  Hence  monotheism, 
and  polytheism  are  not  irreconcilable  ;  they  exist  in  Nature. 

Truly,  "  for  the  salvation  of  the  good  and  the  destruction  of  wicked- 
ness," the  personalities  known  as  Gautama,  Shankara,  Jesus  and  a  few 
others  were  born  each  in  his  age,  as  declared—"  I  am  born  in  every 
Yuga  " — and  they  were  all  born  through  the  same  Power. 

There  is  a  great  mystery  in  such  incarnations  and  they  are  outside 
and  beyond  the  cycle  of  general  re-births.  Rebirths  may  be  divided 
into  three  classes  :  the  divine  incarnations  called  Avataras  ;  those  of 
Adepts  who  give  up  Nirvana  for  the  sake  of  helping  on  humanitj^ — the 
Nirmanakayas  ;  and  the  natural  succession  of  rebirths  for  all — the 
common  law.  The  Avatara  is  an  appearance,  one  which  may  be 
termed  a  special  illusion  within  the  natural  illusion  that  reigns  on  the 
planes  under  the  sway  of  that  power,  Maya  ;  the  Adept  is  re-born 
consciously^  at  his  will  and  pleasure  ;  *  the  units  of  the  common  herd 
unconsciously  follow  the  great  law  of  dual  evolution. 

What  is  an  Avatara?  for  the  term  before  being  used  ought  to  be  well 
understood.  It  is  a  descent  of  the  manifested  Deity — whether  under 
the  specific  name  of  Shiva,  Vishnu,  or  Adi-Buddha — into  an  illusive 
form  of  individualit}^  an  appearance  which  to  men  on  this  illusive 
plane  is  objective,  but  is  not  so  in  sober  fact.  That  illusive  form, 
having  neither  past  nor  future,  because  it  had  neither  previous  incar- 
nation nor  will  have  subsequent  rebirths,  has  naught  to  do  with  Karma, 
which  has  therefore  no  hold  on  it. 

Gautama  Buddha  was  born  an  Avatara  in  one  sense.  But  this,  in 
view  of  unavoidable  objections  on  dogmatic  grounds,  necessitates 
explanation.  There  is  a  great  difference  between  an  Avatara  and  a 
Jivanmukta :  one,  as  already  stated,  is  an  illusive  appearance.  Karma- 
less,  and  having  never  before  incarnated ;  and  the  other,  the  Jivanmukta, 
is  one  who  obtains  Nirvana  by  his  individual  merits.  To  this  expres- 
sion again  an  uncompromising,  philosophical  Vedantin  would  object. 
He  might  say  that  as  the  condition  of  the  Avatara  and  the  Jivanmukta 
are  one  and  the  same  state,  no  amount  of  personal  merit,  in  howsoever 
many  incarnations,  can  lead  its  possessor  to  Nirvana.  Nirvana,  he 
would  say,  is  actionless ;  how  can,  then,  any  action  lead  to  it?     It  is 

*  A  genuine  initiated  Adept  will  retain  his  Adeptship,  though  there  may  be  for  our  world  of  illusion 
numberless  incarnations  of  him.  The  propelling  power  that  lies  at  the  root  of  a  series  of  such 
incarnations  is  noi  Karma,  as  ordinarily  understood,  but  a  still  more  inscrutable  power.  During  the 
period  of  his  live.s  the  Adept  does  not  lose  his  Adeptship,  though  he  cannot  rise  in  it  to  a  higher 
degree. 


VOI^UNTARY   INCARNATIONS.  365 

neither  a  result  nor  a  cause,  but  an  ever-present,  eternal  Is,  as 
Nagasena  defined  it.  Hence  it  can  have  no  relation  to,  or  concern 
with,  action,  merit,  or  demerit,  since  these  are  subject  to  Karma.  All 
this  is  very  true,  but  still  to  our  mind  there  is  an  important  difference 
between  the  two.  An  Avatara  is ;  a  Jivanmukta  becomes  one.  If  the 
state  of  the  two  is  identical,  not  so  are  the  causes  which  lead  to  it.  An 
Avatara  is  a  descent  of  a  God  into  an  illusive  form  ;  a  Jivanmukta, 
who  may  have  passed  through  numberless  incarnations  and  may  have 
accumulated  merit  in  them,  certain^  does  not  become  a  Nirvani 
because  of  that  merit,  but  only  because  of  the  Karma  generated  by  it, 
which  leads  and  guides  him  in  the  direction  of  the  Guru  who  will 
initiate  him  into  the  mysterj^  of  Nirvana  and  who  alone  can  help  him 
to  reach  this  abode. 

The  Shastras  say  that  from  our  works  alone  we  obtain  Moksha,  and 
if  we  take  no  pains  there  will  be  no  gain  and  we  shall  be  neither 
assisted  nor  benefited  by  Deity  [the  Maha-Guru].  Therefore  it  is 
maintained  that  Gautama,  though  an  Avatara  in  one  sense,  is  a  true 
human  Jivanmukta,  owing  his  position  to  his  personal  merit,  and  thus 
more  than  an  Avatara.  It  was  his  personal  merit  that  enabled  him  to 
achieve  Nirvana. 

Of  the  voluntary  and  conscious  incarnations  of  Adepts  there  are  two 
types — those  of  Nirmanakayas,  and  those  undertaken  by  the  proba- 
tionary chelas  who  are  on  their  trial. 

The  greatest,  as  the  most  puzzling  m3'^stery  of  the  first  type  lies  in 
the  fact,  that  such  re-birth  in  a  human  body  of  the  personal  Kgo  of 
some  particular  Adept — when  it  has  been  dwelling  in  the  Mayavi  or 
the  Kama  Rupa,  and  remaining  in  the  Kama  Loka — may  happen  even 
when  his  "  Higher  Principles"  are  in  the  state  of  Nirvana.*  Let  it  be 
understood  that  the  above  expressions  are  used  for  popular  purposes, 
and  therefore  that  what  is  written  does  not  deal  with  this  deep  and 
mysterious  question  from  the  highest  plane,  that  of  absolute  spirituality, 
nor  again  from  the  highest  philosophical  point  of  view,  comprehensi- 
ble but  to  the  very  few.     It  must  not  be  supposed  that  anything  can  go 

•  From  the  so-called  Brahma  I,oka — the  seventh  and  higher  world,  beyond  which  all  is  arupa, 
formless,  purely  spiritual — to  the  lowest  world  and  insect,  or  even  to  an  object  such  as  a  leaf,  there  is 
perpetual  revolution  of  the  condition  of  existence,  evolution  and  re-birth.  Some  human  beings 
attain  states  or  spheres  from  which  there  is  only  a  return  in  a  new  Kalpa  (a  day  of  Brahma) ; 
there  are  other  states  or  spheres  from  which  there  is  only  return  after  loo  years  of  Brahma  (Maha- 
Kalpa,  a  period  covering  311,040,000,000,000  years).  Nirvana,  it  is  said,  is  a  state  from  which  there  is 
no  return.  Yet  it  is  maintained  that  there  may  be,  as  exceptional  cases,  re-incarnation  from  that 
state  ;  only  such  incarnations  are  illusion,  like  everything  else  on  this  plane,  as  will  be  shown. 


366  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

into  Nirvana  which  is  not  eternally  there  ;  but  human  intellect  in  con- 
ceiving the  Absolute  must  put  It  as  the  highest  term  in  an  indefinite 
series.  If  this  be  borne  in  mind  a  great  deal  of  misconception  will  be 
avoided.  The  content  of  this  spiritual  evolution  is  the  material  on 
various  planes  with  which  the  Nirvani  was  in  contact  prior  to  his 
attainment  of  Nirvana.  The  plane  on  which  this  is  true,  being  in  the 
series  of  illusive  planes,  is  undoubtedly  not  the  highest.  Those  who 
search  for  that  must  go  to  the  right  source  of  study,  the  teachings  of 
the  Upanishads,  and  must  go  in  the  right  spirit.  Here  we  attempt 
only  to  indicate  the  direction  in  which  the  search  is  to  be  made,  and  in 
showing  a  few  of  the  mysterious  Occult  possibilities  we  do  not  bring 
our  readers  actually  to  the  goal.  The  ultimate  truth  can  be  communi- 
cated only  from  Guru  to  initiated  pupil. 

Having  said  so  much,  the  statement  still  will  and  must  appear  incom- 
prehensible, if  not  absurd,  to  many.  Firstly,  to  all  those  who  are 
unfamiliar  with  the  doctrine  of  the  manifold  nature  and  various  aspects 
of  the  human  Monad  ;  and  secondly  to  those  who  view  the  septenary 
division  of  the  human  entity  from  a  too  materialistic  standpoint.  Yet 
the  intuitional  Occultist,  who  has  studied  thoroughly  the  mysteries  of 
Nirvana — who  knows  it  to  be  identical  with  Parabrahman,  and  hence 
unchangeable,  eternal  and  no  Thing  but  the  Absolute  All — will  seize 
the  possibilit}'  of  the  fact.  They  know  that  while  a  Dharmakaya — a 
Nirvani  "without  remains,"  as  our  Orientalists  have  translated  it, 
being  absorbed  into  that  Nothingness,  which  is  the  one  real,  because 
Absolute,  Consciousness — cannot  be  said  to  return  to  incarnation  on 
Earth,  the  Nirvani  being  no  longer  a  he,  a  she,  or  even  an  it,  the 
Nirmanakaya — or  he  who  has  obtained  Nirvtna  "  with  remains,"  i.e., 
who  is  clothed  in  a  subtle  body,  which  makes  him  impervious  to  all 
outward  impressions  and  to  every  mental  feeling,  and  in  whom  the 
notion  of  his  Ego  has  not  entirely  ceased — can  do  so.  Again,  every 
Eastern  Occultist  is  aware  of  the  fact  that  there  are  two  kinds  of 
Nirmanakayas — the  natural,  and  the  assumed ;  that  the  former  is  the 
name  or  epithet  given  to  the  condition  of  a  high  ascetic,  or  Initiate, 
who  has  reached  a  stage  of  bliss  second  only  to  Nirvana ;  while  the 
latter  means  the  self-sacrifice  of  one  who  voluntarily  gives  up  the  abso- 
lute Nirvana,  in  order  to  help  humanity  and  be  still  doing  it  good,  or, 
in  other  words,  to  save  his  fellow-creatures  by  guiding  them.  It  maj' 
be  objected  that  the  Dharmakaya,  being  a  Nirvani  or  Jivanmukta,  can 
have  no  "remains"  left  behind  him  after  death,  for  having  attained  that 


CARDINAL  DE   CUSA.  367 

State  from  which  no  further  incarnations  are  possible,  there  is  no  need 
for  him  of  a  subtle  body,  or  of  the  individual  Ego  that  reincarnates 
from  one  birth  to  another,  and  that  therefore  the  latter  disappears  of 
logical  necessity ;  to  this  it  is  answered :  it  is  so  for  all  exoteric  pur- 
poses and  as  a  general  law.  But  the  case  with  which  we  are  dealing 
is  an  exceptional  one,  and  its  realization  lies  within  the  Occult  powers 
of  the  high  Initiate,  who,  before  entering  into  the  state  of  Nirvana,  can 
cause  his  "  remains "  (sometimes,  though  not  very  well,  called  his 
Mtyavi  Rupa),  to  remain  behind,*  whether  he  is  to  become  a  Nirvani, 
or  to  find  himself  in  a  lower  state  of  bliss. 

Next,  there  are  cases — rare,  yet  more  frequent  than  one  would  be 
disposed  to  expect — which  are  the  voluntary  and  conscious  reincarna- 
tions of  Adepts!  on  their  trial.  Every  man  has  an  Inner,  a  "  Higher 
Self,"  and  also  an  Astral  Body.  But  few  are  those  who,  outside  the 
higher  degrees  of  Adeptship,  can  guide  the  latter,  or  any  of  the  prin- 
ciples that  animate  it,  when  once  death  has  closed  their  short  terrestrial 
life.  Yet  such  guidance,  or  their  transference  from  the  dead  to  a  living 
body,  is  not  only  possible,  but  is  of  frequent  occurrence,  according  to 
Occult  and  Kabalistic  teachings.  The  degrees  of  such  power  of  course 
var3-  greatly.  To  mention  but  three:  the  lowest  of  these  degrees 
would  allow  an  Adept,  who  has  been  greatly  trammelled  during  life 
in  his  study  and  in  the  use  of  his  powers,  to  choose  after  death 
another  body  in  which  he  could  go  on  with  his  interrupted  studies, 
though  ordinarily  he  would  lose  in  it  every  remembrance  of  his  pre- 
vious incarnation.  The  next  degree  permits  him,  in  addition  to  this, 
to  transfer  the  memory  of  his  past  life  to  his  new  body ;  while  the 
highest  has  hardly  any  limits  in  the  exercise  of  that  wonderful 
faculty. 

As  an  instance  of  an  Adept  who  enjoyed  the  first  mentioned  power 
some  mediaeval  Kabalists  cite  a  well-known  personage  of  the  fifteenth 
century — Cardinal  de  Cusa  ;  Karma,  due  to  his  wonderful  devotion  to 


•  This  fact  of  the  disappearance  of  the  vehicle  of  Egotism  iu  the  fully  developed  Yogi,  who  is 
supposed  to  have  reached  Nir\'ana  on  earth,  years  before  his  corporeal  death,  has  led  to  the  law  ia 
Manu,  sanctioned  by  millenniums  of  Brahmanical  authority,  that  such  aParamatmi  should  be  held  at. 
absolutely  blameless  and  free  from  sin  or  responsibility,  do  whatever  he  may  (see  last  chapter  of  the 
Laws  of  Manu).  Indeed,  caste  itself— that  most  despotic,  uncompromising  and  autocratic  tyrant 
in  India— can  be  broken  with  impunity  by  the  Yogi,  who  is  above  caste.  This  will  give  the  key  to 
our  statements. 

+  [The  word  "  Adept  "  is  very  loosely  used  by  H.  P.  B.,  who  often  seems  to  have  implied  by  it  no 
more  than  the  possession  of  special  knowledge  of  some  kind.  Here  it  seems  to  mean  first  an 
uninitiated  disciple  and  then  an  initiated  one. — Eds.] 


368  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Esoteric  study  and  the  Kabalah,  led  the  suiFering  Adept  to  seek  intel- 
lectual recuperation  and  rest  from  ecclesiastical  tj'ranny  in  the  body  of 
Copernicus.  Se  non  e  vcro  e  ben  irovato  ;  and  the  perusal  of  the  lives  of 
the  two  men  might  easily  lead  a  believer  in  such  powers  to  a  ready 
acceptance  of  the  alleged  fact.  The  reader  having  at  his  command  the 
means  to  do  so  is  asked  to  turn  to  the  formidable  folio  in  Latin  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  called  De  Docta  Igjtorantia,  written  by  the  Cardinal 
de  Cusa,  in  which  all  the  theories  and  hj'potheses — all  the  ideas — of 
Copernicus  <4re  found  as  the  key-notes  to  the  discoveries  of  the  great 
astronomer.*  Who  was  this  extraordinarily  learned  Cardinal  ?  The 
son  of  a  poor  boatman,  owng  all  his  career,  his  Cardinal's  hat,  and  the 
reverential  awe  rather  than  friendship  of  the  Popes  Eugenius  IV., 
Nicholas  V.,  and  Pius  II.,  to  the  extraordinary  learning  which  seemed 
innate  in  him,  since  he  had  studied  nowhere  till  comparatively  late  in 
life.  De  Cusa  died  in  1473 ;  moreover,  his  best  works  were  written 
before  he  was  forced  to  enter  orders — to  escape  persecution.  Nor  did 
the  Adept  escape  it. 

In  the  voluminous  work  of  the  Cardinal  above-quoted  is  found  a  ver}- 
suggestive  sentence,  the  authorship  of  which  has  been  variously  attri- 
buted to  Pascal,  to  Cusa  himself,  and  to  the  Zohar,  and  which  belongs 
by  right  to  the  Books  of  Hermes  • 

The  world  is  an  infinite  sphere,  whose  centre  is  everj'where  and  whose  circumfer- 
ence is  nowhere. 

This  is  changed  by  some  into  :  "  The  centre  being  nowhere,  and  the 
circumference  everj^where,"  a  rather  heretical  idea  for  a  Cardinal, 
though  perfectly  orthodox  from  a  Kabalistic  standpoint. 

•  About  fifty  years  before  the  birth  of  Copernicus,  de  Cusa  wrote  as  follows  :  "  Though  the  world 
may  not  be  absolutely  infinite,  no  one  can  represent  it  to  himself  as  finite,  since  human  reason  is  in- 
capable of  assigning  to  it  any  term.  .  .  .  For  in  the  same  way  that  our  earth  cannot  be  in  the 
centre  of  the  Universe,  as  thought,  no  more  could  the  sphere  of  the  fixed  stars  be  in  it.  .  .  .  Thus 
this  world  is  like  a  vast  machine,  having  its  centre  [Deity]  everywhere,  and  its  circumference  nowhere 
{machina  tnundt,  quasi  habens  ubigue  centrum,  et  miUibi  Circti7nfcrentm7n'\.  .  .  .  Hence,  the  earth 
not  being  in  the  centre,  cannot  therefore  be  motionless  ....  and  though  it  is  far  smaller  than 
the  sun,  one  must  not  conclude  for  all  that,  that  she  is  worse  [wV/o;— more  vile].  .  .  .  One  cannot 
see  whether  its  inhabitants  are  superior  to  those  who  dwell  nearer  to  the  sun,  or  in  other  stars,  as 
sidereal  space  cannot  be  deprived  of  inhabitants.  .  .  .  The  earth,  very  likely  [fortasae]  one  of 
the  smallest  globes,  is  nevertheless  the  cradle  of  intelligent  beings,  most  noble  and  perfect."  One 
cannot  fail  to  agree  with  the  biographer  of  Cardinal  de  Cusa,  who,  having  no  suspicion  of  the  Occult 
truth,  and  the  reason  of  such  erudition  in  a  writer  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  simply 
marvels  at  such  a  miraculous  foreknowledge,  and  attributes  it  to  God,  saying  of  him  that  he  was  a 
man  incomparable  in  every  kind  of  philosophy,  bj-  whom  niany  a  theological  mystery  inaccessible  to 
the  human  mind  (!),  veiled  and  neglected  for  centuries  (velata  et  neglecta)  were  once  more  brought  to 
light.  "  Pascal  might  have  read  De  Cusa's  works  ;  but  whence  could  the  Cardinal  have  borrowed  his 
ideas?"  asks  Moreri.  Evidently  from  Hermes  and  the  works  of  Pythagoras,  even  if  the  mystery  of 
his  incarnation  and  re-incarnatiou  be  dismissed. 


THE   SEVEN  RAYS.  369 

The  theory  of  rebirth  must  be  set  forth  by  Occultists,  and  then 
applied  to  special  cases.  The  right  comprehension  of  this  psychic  facfi 
is  based  upon  a  correct  view  of  that  group  of  celestial  Beings  who  are 
universally  called  the  seven  Primeval  Gods  or  Angels — our  Dhyan 
Chohans — the  "  Seven  Primeval  Raj's  "  or  Powers,  adopted  later  on  by 
the  Christian  Religion  as  the  "  Seven  Angels  of  the  Presence."  Arupa, 
formless,  at  the  upper  rung  of  the  ladder  of  Being,  materializing  more 
and  more  as  they  descend  in  the  scale  of  objectivity  and  form,  ending  in 
the  grossest  and  most  imperfect  of  the  Hierarchy,  man — it  is  the  former 
purely  spiritual  group  that  is  pointed  out  to  us,  in  our  Occult  teaching, 
as  the  nursery  and  fountain-head  of  human  beings.  Therein  germinates 
that  consciousness  which  is  the  earliest  manifestation  from  causal  Con- 
sciousness— the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  divine  being  and  life  for  ever. 
And  as  it  proceeds  downward  through  ever>^  phase  of  existence  descend- 
ing through  man,  through  animal  and  plant,  it  ends  its  descent  only  in 
the  mineral.  It  is  represented  by  the  double  triangle — the  most  mys- 
terious and  the  most  suggestive  of  all  mystic  signs,  for  it  is  a  double 
glyph,  embracing  spiritual  and  physical  consciousness  and  life,  the 
former  triangle  running  upwards,  and  the  lower  downwards,  both  inter- 
laced, and  showing  the  various  planes  of  the  twice-seven  modes  of 
consciousness,  the  fourteen  spheres  of  existence,  the  Lokas  of  the 
Brahmans. 

The  reader  may  now  be  able  to  obtain  a  clearer  comprehension  of  the 
whole  thing.  He  will  also  see  what  is  meant  by  the  "  Watchers,"  there 
being  one  placed  as  the  Guardian  or  Regent  over  each  of  the  seven 
divisions  or  regions  of  the  earth,  according  to  old  traditions,  as  there 
is  one  to  watch  over  and  guide  every  one  of  the  fourteen  worlds  or 
J^okas.*  But  it  is  not  with  any  of  these  that  we  are  at  present  con- 
cerned, but  with  the  "  Seven  Breaths,"  so-called,  that  furnish  man  with 
his  immortal  Monad  in  his  cj-clic  pilgrimage. 

The  Commentary  on  the  Book  of  Dzyan  says : 

Descending  on  his  region  first  as  Lord  of  Glory,  the  Flame  (or  Breath), 
having  called  into  consciotis  being  the  highest  of  the  Emaiiations  of  that 
special  region,  ascends  front  it  again  to  Its  primeval  seat,  whence  It  watches 

*  This  is  the  secret  meaning  of  the  statements  about  the  Hierarchy  of  Prajapatis  or  Rishis.  First 
seven  are  mentioned,  then  ten,  then  twenty-oue,  and  so  on.  They  are  "  Gods  "  and  creators  of  men — 
many  of  them  the  "  Lords  of  Being's"  ;  they  are  the  "  Mind-born  Sons  "  of  Brahma,  and  then  they 
became  mortal  heroes,  and  are  often  shown  as  of  a  very  sinful  character.  The  Occult  meaning  of  the 
Biblical  Patriarchs,  their  genealogy,  and  their  descendants  dividing  among  themselves  the  earth,  is 
the  same.    Again,  Jacob's  dream  has  the  same  significance. 

3     BB 


yjQ  ^  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

over  and  guides  lis  countless  Beams  (Moiiads).  It  chooses  as  Its  Avatdras 
only  those  who  had  the  Seven  Virtues  in  them*  in  their  previous  incarna- 
tion. As  for  the  rest.  It  overshadows  each  with  one  of  Its  countless  beams. 
Yet  even  the  "  beam  "  is  a  part  of  the  Lord  of  Lords. \ 
The  septenary  principle  in  man — who  can  be  regarded  as  dual  only 
as  concerns  psychic  manifestation  on  this  gross  earthly  plane — was 
known  to  all  antiquity,  and  may  be  found  in  every  ancient  Scripture. 
The  Egyptians  knew  and  taught  it,  and  their  division  of  principles  is 
in  every  point  a  counterpart  of  the  Aryan  Secret  Teaching.  It  is  thus 
given  in  Isis  Unveiled : 

In  the  Egj-ptian  notions,  as  in  those  of  all  other  faiths  founded  on  philosophy, 
man  was  not  merely  ...  a  union  of  soul  and  body  :  he  was  a  trinity  when 
Spirit  was  added  to  it.  Besides,  that  doctrine  made  him  consist  of  Kha  (body), 
Khaba  (astral  form  or  shadow),  Ka  (animal  soul  or  life-principle),  Ba  (the  higher 
soul),  and  Akh  (terrestrial  intelligence).  They  had  also  a  sixth  principle,  named 
Sah  (or  mummy),  but  the  functions  of  this  one  commenced  after  the  death  of  the 
body.t 

The  seventh  principle  being  of  course  the  highest,  uncreated  Spirit 
was  generically  called  Osiris,  therefore  ever}''  deceased  person  became 
Osirified — or  an  Osiris — after  death. 

But  in  addition  to  reiterating  the  old  ever-present  fact  of  reincarna- 
tion and  Karma — not  as  taught  by  the  Spiritists,  but  as  by  the  most 
Ancient  Science  in  the  world — Occultists  must  teach  cyclic  and  evolu- 
tionary reincarnation  :  that  kind  of  re-birth,  mysterious  and  still  incom- 
prehensible to  many  who  are  ignorant  of  the  world's  history,  which  was 
cautiously  mentioned  in  Isis  Unveiled.  A  general  re-birth  for  every 
individual  with  interlude  of  Kama  I^oka  and  Devachan,  and  a  cyclic 
conscious  reincarnation  with  a  grand  and  divine  object  for  the  few. 
Those  great  characters  who  tower  like  giants  in  the  history  of  mankind 
like  Siddartha  Buddha  and  Jesus  in  the  realm  of  the  spiritual,  and 
Alexander  the  Macedonian  and  Napoleon  the  Great  in  the  realm  of 
physical  conquests  are  but  the  reflected  images  of  human  types  which 
had  existed — not  ten  thousand  years  before,  as  cautiously  put  forward 
in  his  Utiveiled,  but  for  millions  of  consecutive  3^ears  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Manvantara.     For — with  the  exception  of  real  Avataras,  as 

*  He  "  of  the  Seven  Virtues  "  is  one  who,  without  the  benefit  of  Initiation,  becomes  as  pure  as  env 
Adept  by  the  simple  exertion  of  his  own  merit.  Being  so  holy,  his  body  at  his  next  incamatioa 
becomes  the  Avatara  of  his  "  Watcher"  or  Guardian  Angel,  as  the  Christian  would  put  it. 

■!•  The  title  of  the  highest  Dhyau  Chohans. 

*  C^.  r;»/.,  ii.  367. 


SPECIAI,   CASES.  371 

above  explained — they  are  the  same  unbroken  Ra^'s  (Monads),  each 
respectively  of  its  own  special  Parent-Flame — called  Devas,  Dhyan 
Chohans,  or  Dhyani-Buddhas,  or  again,  Planetary  Angels,  etc. — shining 
in  seonic  eternity  as  their  prototypes.  It  is  in  their  image  that  some 
men  are  born,  and  when  some  specific  humanitarian  object  is  in  view, 
the  latter  are  hypostatically  animated  by  their  divine  prototypes  repro- 
duced again  and  again  by  the  mysterious  Powers  that  control  and  guide 
the  destinies  of  our  world. 

No  more  could  be  said  at  the  time  when  Is  is  Unveiled  was  written  ; 
hence  the  statement  was  limited  to  the  single  remark  that 

There  is  no  prominent  character  in  all  the  annals  of  sacred  or  profane  historj' 
whose  prototype  we  cannot  find  in  the  half  fictitious  and  half  real  traditions  of 
bygone  religions  and  mythologies.  As  the  star,  glimmering  at  an  immeasurable 
distance  above  our  heads,  in  the  boundless  immensity  of  the  sky,  reflects  itself  in 
the  smooth  waters  of  a  lake,  so  does  the  imagery  of  men  of  the  antediluvian  ages 
reflect  itself  in  the  periods  we  can  embrace  in  a  historical  retrospect. 

But  now  that  so  many  publications  have  been  brought  out,  stating 
much  of  the  doctrine,  and  several  of  them  giving  many  an  erroneous 
view,  this  vague  allusion  may  be  amplijfied  and  explained.  Not  only 
does  this  statement  apply  to  prominent  characters  in  history  in  general, 
but  also  to  men  of  genius,  to  every  remarkable  man  of  the  age,  who 
soars  be3'ond  the  common  herd  with  some  abnormally  developed 
special  capacity  in  him,  leading  to  the  progress  and  good  of  mankind. 
Each  is  a  reincarnation  of  an  individuality  that  has  gone  before  him 
with  capacities  in  the  same  line,  bringing  thus  as  a  dowry  to  his  new 
form  that  strong  and  easily  re-awakened  capacity  or  quality  which  had 
been  fully  developed  in  him  in  his  preceding  birth.  Very  often  they 
are  ordinary  mortals,  the  Egos  of  natural  men  in  the  course  of  their 
cyclic  development. 

But  it  is  with  "  special  cases  "  that  we  are  now  concerned.  Let  us 
suppose  that  a  person  during  his  cycle  of  incarnations  is  thus  selected 
for  special  purposes — the  vessel  being  sufficiently  clean — by  his  personal 
God,  the  Fountain-head  (on  the  plane  of  the  manifested)  of  his  Monad, 
who  thus  becomes  his  in-dweller.  That  God,  his  own  prototype  or 
"  Father  in  Heaven,"  is,  in  one  sense,  not  only  the  image  in  which  he, 
the  spiritual  man,  is  made,  but  in  the.  case  we  are  considering,  it  is 
that  spiritual,  individual  Ego  himself.  This  is  a  case  of  permanent, 
life-long  Theophania.  Let  us  bear  in  mind  that  this  is  neither 
Avatarisra,  as  it  is  understood  in  Brahmanical  Philosophy,  nor  is  the 


272  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

man  thus  selected  a  Jivanmukta  or  Nirvani,  but  that  it  is  a  wholly 
exceptional  case  in  the  realm  of  Mysticism.  The  man  may  or  may  not 
have  been  an  Adept  in  his  previous  lives ;  he  is  so  far,  and  simply,  an 
extremely  pure  and  spiritual  individual — or  one  who  was  all  that  in 
his  preceding  birth,  if  the  vessel  thus  selected  is  that  of  a  newly-born 
infant.  In  this  case,  after  the  physical  translation  of  such  a  saint  or 
Bodhisattva,  his  astral  principles  cannot  be  subjected  to  a  natural  dis- 
solution like  those  of  any  common  mortal.  They  remain  in  our  sphere 
and  within  human  attraction  and  reach  ;  and  thus  it  is  that  not  only  a 
Buddha,  a  Shankarachtrya,  or  a  Jesus  can  be  said  to  animate  several 
persons  at  one  and  the  same  time,  but  even  the  principles  of  a  high 
Adept  may  be  animating  the  outward  tabernacles  of  common  mortals. 

A  certain  Ray  (principle)  from  Sanat  Kumara  spiritualized  (animated) 
Pradyumna,  the  son  of  Krishna  during  the  great  Mahabharata  period, 
while  at  the  same  time,  he,  Sanat  Kumara,  gave  spiritual  instruction  to 
King  Dhritarashtra.  Moreover,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  Sanat- 
Kumara  is  "  an  eternal  youth  of  sixteen,"  dwelling  in  Jana  Loka,  his  own 
sphere  or  spiritual  state. 

Even  in  ordinary  mediumistic  life,  so-called,  it  is  pretty  well  ascer- 
tained that  while  the  body  is  acting — even  though  only  mechanically — 
or  resting  in  one  place,  its  astral  double  may  be  appearing  and  acting 
independently  in  another,  and  very  often  distant  place.  This  is  quite 
a  common  occurrence  in  mystic  life  and  history,  and  if  this  be  so  with 
ecstatics,  Seers  and  Mj^stics  of  every  description,  why  cannot  the  same 
thing  happen  on  a  higher  and  more  spiritually  developed  plane  of 
existence  ?  Admit  the  possibility  on  the  lower  psychic  plane,  then  why 
not  on  a  higher  plane  ?  In  the  cases  of  higher  Adeptship,  when  the 
body  is  entirely  at  the  command  of  the  Inner  Man,  when'  the  Spiritual 
Ego  is  completely  reiinited  with  its  seventh  principle  even  during  the 
life-time  of  the  personality,  and  the  Astral  Man  or  personal  Ego  has 
become  so  purified  that  he  has  gradually  assimilated  all  the  qualities 
and  attributes  of  the  middle  nature  (Buddhi  and  Manas  in  their 
terrestrial  aspect)  that  personal  Ego  substitutes  itself,  so  to  say,  for  the 
spiritual  Higher  Self,  and  is  thenceforth  capable  of  living  an  independent 
life  on  earth ;  when  corporeal  death  takes  place  the  following  m}'sterious 
event  often  happens.  As  a  Dharmakaya,  a  Nirvani  "  without  remains  " 
entirely  free  from  terrestrial  admixture,  the  Spiritual  Ego  cannot 
return  to  reincarnate  on  earth.  But  in  such  cases,  it  is  affirmed,  the 
personal  Ego  of  even  a  Dharmakaya  can  remain  in  our  sphere  as  a 


THE   HIGHER   ASTRAL.  373 

whole  and  return  to  inearnation  on  earth  if  need  be.  For  now  it  can 
no  lon<.er  be  subject,  like  the  astral  remains  of  any  ordinary  man  to 
!radua°l  dissolution  in  the  Kama  Loka  (the  limbu.  or  purgatory  of  the 
Roman  Catholic,  and  the  ..Summer-land"  of  the  Sp^J-aUst)    .t  can 

not  die  a  second  ^  ^^^Z^:^:^^:":^. 
It  has  become  too  holy  and  pure,  no  ion-,ci  u> 

natural  li-'ht  and  spirituality,  either  to  sleep  m  the  unconsciotts 
Slumber  of°a  lower  n' vSnic  state,  or  to  be  dissolved  like  any  ord.uary 
astral  shell  and  disappear  m  its  entirety.  ^t-     -   - 

But  Tn  that    coudttiou   known   as  the  NirmSnakaya  [the  N.rvaur 
.'with  remains,"]  he  can  still  help  humanity. 

.  Le  Te  sufi-er  and  bear  the  sins  of  all  [be  reincarnated  uuto  new 
misery]  but  let  the  world  besaved  ! "  was  said  by  Gautama  Buddha  :  an 
Exclamation  the  real  meaning  of  which  is  little  understood  now  by  h 

crucfied  body  could  truly  say:  -.1  am  with  my  Father  and  one  w.th 
Him"  which  clid  not  prevent  the  astral  from  taking  a  form  agam  nor 
fohn  from  tarrying  indeed  till  his  Master  had  come;  nor  hmder  John 
romfirng  to  recognize  him  when  he  did  come,  or  from  'ben  opposing 
hTm  But  in  the  ahurch  that  remark  generated  the  absurd  rdea  of 
the  millennium  or  chiliasm,  in  its  physical  sense. 

^ince  then  the  '.Man  of  Sorrows"  has  returned  perchance,  more 
th!"once  unknown  to,  and  undiscovered  by,  his  blind  followers^ 
stcethen  also,  this  grand  '.Son  of  God"  has  been  incessant  y  and 
most  cruelly  crucified  daily  and  hourly  by  the  Churches  founded  m 
feiame  But  the  Apostles,  only  half-initiated,  failed  to  tarry  for 
Sieir  Master,  and  not  recognizing  him,  spurned  him  every  time 
he  returned. t • 

joined  withihe  »"•■"■>-'' \'T,T;  r.rh.eco'fd,  W.'.ince  U  has  b».  cleansed  of  .11  it. 
■•  aerial  bod,  "  of  an  Adept  should  have  .w  ,he  nhv'tol  body     The  high  Initial,  i.  a  •'  Son  ot  the 

™«'";^X?T::raCS  o   th:rn:Stii:  r'S  .n-pHsoned  and  pnt  to  death  bythe 
CSrotr^lhlfla^sCchJt  shonld  ruin  the  wo,,  of  Jesnit  hands. 


SECTION  XLIL 

The  Seven   Principles. 


The  "  Myster,v  of  Buddha"  is  that  of  several  other  Adepts — perhaps 
of  many.  The  whole  trouble  is  to  understand  correctlj^  that  other 
mystery :  that  of  the  real  fact,  so  abstruse  and  transcendental  at  first 
sight,  about  the  "  Seven  Principles  "  in  man,  the  reflections  in  man  of 
the  seven  powers  in  Nature,  physically,  and  of  the  seven  Hierarchies 
of  Being,  intellectually  and  spiritually.  Whether  a  man — material, 
ethereal,  and  spiritual — is  for  the  clearer  comprehension  of  his  (broadl}^- 
speaking)  triple  nature,  divided  into  groups  according  to  one  or  another 
system,  the  foundation  and  the  apex  of  that  division  will  be  always  the 
same.  There  being  only  three  Upadhis  (bases)  in  man,  any  number  of 
Koshas  (sheaths')  and  their  aspects  may  be  built  on  these  without  des- 
troying the  harmony  of  the  whole.  Thus,  while  the  Esoteric  System 
accepts  the  septenary  division,  the  Vedantic  classification  gives  five 
Koshas,  and  the  Taraka  Raja  Yoga  simplifies  them  into  four — the  three 
Upadhis  synthesized  by  the  highest  principle,  Atma. 

That  which  has  just  been  stated  will,  of  course,  suggest  the  question: 
"  How  can  a  spiritual  (or  semi-spiritual)  personality  lead  a  triple  or 
even  a  dual  life,  shifting  respective  *  Higher  Selves '  ad  libihim,  and  be 
still  the  one  eternal  Monad  in  the  infinity  of  a  Manvantara?"  The 
answer  to  this  is  easy  for  the  true  Occultist,  while  for  the  uninitiated 
^>rofane  it  must  appear  absurd.  The  *'  Seven  Principles"  are,  of  course, 
the  manifestation  of  one  indivisible  Spirit,  but  only  at  the  end  of  the 
Manvantara,  and  when  they  come  to  be  re-united  on  the  plane  of  the 
One  Reality  does  the  unity  appear  ;  during  the  **  Pilgrim's  "  journey  the 
reflections  of  that  indivisible  One  Flame,  the  aspects  of  the  one  eternal 
Spirit,  have  each  the  power  of  action  on  one  of  the  manifested  planes  of 
existence — the  gradual  differentiations  from  the  one  unmanifested  plane 
— on  that  plane   namely  to  which  it  properly  belongs.      Our  earth 


THE    PURIFIED     SELF.  375 

affording  every  Mayavic  condition,  it  follows  that  the  purified  Ego- 
tistical Principle,  the  astral  and  personal  Self  of  an  Adept,  though  form- 
ing in  reality  one  integral  whole  with  its  Highest  Self  (Atm^  and 
Buddhi)  may,  nevertheless,  for  purposes  of  universal  mercy  and  benevo- 
lence, so  separate  itself  from  its  divine  Monad  as  to  lead  on  this  plane 
of  illusion  and  temporary  being  a  distinct  independent  conscious  life 
of  its  own  under  a  borrowed  illusive  shape,  thus  serving  at  one  and  the 
same  time  a  double  purpose :  the  exhaustion  of  its  own  individual 
Karma,  and  the  saving  of  millions  of  human  beings  less  favoured  than 
itself  from  the  effects  of  mental  blindness.  If  asked :  "  When  the 
change  described  as  the  passage  of  a  Buddha  or  a  Jivanmukta  into 
Nirvana  takes  place,  where  does  the  original  consciousness  which 
animated  the  body  continue  to  reside — in  the  Nirvani  or  in  the  subse- 
quent reincarnations  of  the  latter's  'remains'  (the  Nirmanaka5^a)? " 
the  answer  is  that  iinprisoned  consciousness  may  be  a  "  certain  know- 
ledge from  observation  and  experience,"  as  Gibbon  puts  it,  but  dis- 
embodied consciousness  is  not  an  effect,  but  a  cause.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
whole,  or  rather  a  Ra}^  on  the  graduated  scale  of  its  manifested  activity, 
of  the  one  all-pervading,  limitless  Flame,  the  reflections  of  which  alone 
can  differentiate ;  and,  as  such,  consciousness  is  ubiquitous,  and  can  be 
neither  localized  nor  centred  on  or  in  any  particular  subject,  nor  can  it 
be  limited.  Its  effects  alone  pertain  to  the  region  of  master,  for  thought 
is  an  energy  that  affects  matter  in  various  ways,  but  consciousness  per 
se,  as  understood  and  explained  by  Occult  philosophy,  is  the  highest 
quality  of  the  sentient  spiritual  principle  in  us,  the  Divine  Soul  (or 
Buddhi)  and  our  Higher  Ego,  and  does  not  belong  to  the  plane  of 
materiality.  After  the  death  of  the  physical  man,  if  he  be  an  Initiate, 
it  becomes  transformed  from  a  human  quality  into  the  independent 
principle  itself;  the  conscious  Ego  becoming  Consciousness  per  se 
without  any  Ego,  in  the  sense  that  the  latter  can  no  longer  be  limited 
or  conditioned  by  the  senses,  or  even  by  space  or  time.  Therefore  it  is 
capable,  without  separating  itself  from  or  abandoning  its  possessor, 
Buddhi,  of  reflecting  itself  at  the  same  time  in  its  astral  man  that  was, 
without  being  under  any  necessity  for  localizing  itself  This  is  shown 
at  a  far  lower  stage  in  our  dreams.  For  if  consciousness  can  display 
activity  during  our  visions,  and  while  the  body  and  its  material  brain  are 
fast  asleep — and  if  even  during  those  visions  it  is  all  but  ubiquitous — 
how  much  greater  must  be  its  power  when  entirely  free  from,  and 
having  no  more  connection  with,  our  physical  brain. 


SECTION    XLIII. 

The  Mystery  of  Buddha. 


Now  the  m5''stery  of  Buddha  lies  in  this :  Gautama,  an  incarnation  of 
pure  Wisdom,  had  yet  to  learn  in  His  human  body  and  to  be  initiated 
into  the  world's  secrets  like  any  other  mortal,  until  the  day  when  He 
emerged  from  His  secret  recess  in  the  Himalaj^as  and  preached  for  the 
first  time  in  the  grove  of  Benares.  The  same  with  Jesus  :  from  the  age 
of  twelve  to  thirty  years,  when  He  is  found  preaching  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  nothing  is  positively  said  or  known  of  Him.  Gautama  had 
sworn  inviolable  secrec)'  as  to  the  Esoteric  Doctrines  imparted  to  Him. 
In  His  immense  pit}-  for  the  ignorance — and  as  its  consequence  the 
suflferings — of  mankind,  desirous  though  He  was  to  keep  inviolate  His 
sacred  vows.  He  failed  to  keep  within  the  prescribed  limits.  While 
constructing  His  Esoteric  Philosophy  (the  "  E^'e-Doctrine")  on  the 
foundations  of  eternal  Truth,  He  failed  to  conceal  certain  dogmas, 
and  trespassing  bej^ond  the  lawful  lines,  caused  those  dogmas  to  be 
misunderstood.  In  His  anxiet}^  to  make  awa}^  with  the  false  Gods, 
He  revealed  in  the  "  Seven  Paths  to  Nirvana  "  some  of  the  mysteries 
of  the  Seven  Lights  of  the  Ariipa  (formless)  World.  A  little  of  the 
truth  is  often  worse  than  no  truth  at  all. 
Truth  and  fiction  are  like  oil  and  water :  they  will  never  mix. 

His  new  doctrine,  which  represented  the  outward  dead  bod}'  of  the 
Esoteric  Teaching  without  its  vivifjdng  Soul,  had  disastrous  effects  :  it 
was  never  correctly  understood,  and  the  doctrine  itself  was  rejected  by 
the  Southern  Buddhists.  Immense  philanthropy,  a  boundless  love  and 
charity  for  all  creatures,  were  at  the  bottom  of  His  unintentional 
mistake  ;  but  Karma  little  heeds  intentions,  whether  good  or  bad,  if 
the}'  remain  fruitless.  If  the  "  Good  L,aw  "  as  preached  resulted  in  the 
most  sublime  code  of  ethics  and  the  unparalleled  philosophy  of  things 
external  in  the  visible  Kosmos,  it  biassed  and  misguided  immature 
minds  into  believing  there  was  nothing  more  under  the  outward 
mantle  of  the  system,  and  its  dead-letter  only  was  accepted.     More- 


SHANKARACHARYA.  377 

over,  the  new  teaching  unsettled  many  great  minds  which  had  previously- 
followed  the  orthodox  Brahmanical  lead. 

Thus,  fifty  odd  years  after  his  death  "  the  great  Teacher "  *  having 
refused  full  Dharmakaya  and  Nirvana,  was  pleased,  for  purposes  of 
Karma  and  philanthropy,  to  be  reborn.  For  Him  death  had  been  no 
death,  but  as  expressed  in  the  "  Elixir  of  L,ife,"f  He  changed 

A  sudden  plunge  into  darkness  to  a  transition  into  a  brighter  light. 

The  shock  of  death  was  broken,  and  like  many  other  Adepts,  He 
threw  off  the  mortal  coil  and  left  it  to  be  burnt,  and  its  ashes  to  serve 
as  relics,  and  began  interplanetary  life,  clothed  in  His  subtle  body. 
He  was  reborn  as  Shankara,  the  greatest  Vedantic  teacher  of  India, 
whose  philosophy — based  as  it  is  entirely  on  the  fundamental  axioms 
of  the  eternal  Revelation,  the  Shruti,  or  the  primitive  Wisdom- 
Religion,  as  Buddha  from  a  different  point  of  view  had  before  based  His 
— finds  itself  in  the  middle-ground  between  the  too  exuberantly  veiled 
metaphysics  of  the  orthodox  Brahmans  and  those  of  Gautama,  which, 
stripped  in  their  exoteric  garb  of  every  soul-vivifying  hope,  transcen- 
dental aspiration  and  symbol,  appear  in  their  cold  wisdom  like  crystal- 
line icicles,  the  skeletons  of  the  primeval  truths  of  Esoteric  Philosophy. 

Was  Shankaracharya  Gautama  the  Buddha,  then,  under  a  new 
personal  form  ?  It  may  perhaps  only  puzzle  the  reader  the  more  if  he 
be  told  that  there  was  the  "  astral "  Gautama  inside  the  outward  Shan- 
kara, whose  higher  principle,  or  Atman,  was,  nevertheless,  his  own 
divine  prototype — the  "Son  of  Eight,"  indeed — the  heavenly,  mind- 
born  son  of  Aditi. 

This  fact  is  again  based  on  that  mysterious  transference  of  the  divine 
ex-personality  merged  in  the  impersonal  Individuality — now  in  its  full 

A, 

trinitarian  form  of  the  Monad  as  Atma-Buddhi-Manas — to  a  new  body, 
whether  visible  or  subjective.  In  the  first  case  it  is  a  Manushya-Buddha ; 
in  the  second  it  is  a  Nirmanakaya.  The  Buddha  is  in  Nirvana,  it  is 
said,  though  this  once  mortal  vehicle — the  subtle  body — of  Gautama  is 
still  present  among  the  Initiates  ;  nor  will  it  leave  the  realm  of  conscious 
•  Being  so  long  as  suffering  mankind  needs  its  divine  help — not  to  the 
end  of  this  Root  Race,  at  any  rate.  From  time  to  time  He,  the 
"  astral "    Gautama,  associates   Himself,   in  some  most    mysterious — 


•  When  we  say  the  "  great  Teacher,"  we  do  not  mean  His  Buddhic  Ego,  but  that  principle  in  Him 
which  was  the  vehicle  of  His  personal  or  terrestrial  Ego. 
+  Five  Years  of  Theosophy,  New  Edition,  p.  3. 


378  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

to  US  quite  incomprehensible — manner,  with  Avataras  and  great  saints, 
and  works  through  them.     And  several  such  are  named. 

Thus  it  is  averred  that  Gautama  Buddha  was  reincarnated  in  Shan- 
karacharya — that,  as  is  said  in  Esoteric  Buddhism  : 

Shankaracharya  simply  zvas  Buddha  in  all  respects  in  a  new  body.* 

While  the  expression  in  its  mystic  sense  is  true,  the  way  of  putting 
it  may  be  misleading  until  explained.  Shankara  was  a  Buddha,  most 
assuredly,  but  he  never  was  a  reincarnation  of  the  Buddha,  though 
Gautama's  "  Astral  "  Ego — or  rather  his  Bodhisattva — may  have  been 
associated  in  some  mysterious  way  with  Shankaracharya.  Yes,  it  was 
perhaps  the  Ego,  Gautama,  under  a  new  and  better  adapted  casket — 
that  of  a  Brahman  of  Southern  India.  But  the  Atman,  the  Higher 
Self  that  overshadowed  both,  was  distinct  from  the  Higher  Self  of  the 
translated  Buddha,  which  was  now  in  Its  own  sphere  in  Kosmos. 

Shankara  was  an  Avatara  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term.  According 
to  Sayanacharya,  the  great  commentator  on  the  Vcdas,  he  is  to  be  held 
as  an  Avatara,  or  direct  incarnation  of  Shiva — the  lyOgos,  the  Seventh 
Principle  in  Nature — Himself.  In  the  Secret  Doctrine  Shri  Shankar- 
acharya is  regarded  as  the  abode — for  the  thirty-two  years  of  his  mortal 
life — of  a  Flame,  the  highest  of  the  manifested  Spiritual  Beings,  one 
of  the  Primordial  Seven  Ra3's. 

And  now  what  is  meant  by  a  "  Bodhisattva"  ?  Buddhists  of  the 
Mahayana  mystic  system  teach  that  each  Buddha  manifests  Himself 
(hypostatically  or  otherwise)  simultaneously  in  three  worlds  of  Being, 
nameh',  in  the  world  of  Kama  (concupiscence  or  desire — the  sensuous 
universe  or  our  earth)  in  the  shape  of  a  man  ;  in  the  world  of  Riipa 
(form,  yet  supersensuous)  as  a  Bodhisattva ;  and  in  the  highest 
Spiritual  World  (that  of  purely  incorporeal  existences)  as  a  Dhyani- 
Buddha.  The  latter  prevails  eternally  in  space  and  time,  i.e.,  from 
one  Maha-Kalpa  to  the  other — the  synthetic  culmination  of  the  three 
being  Adi-Buddha,t  the  Wisdom-Principle,  which  is  Absolute,  and 
therefore  out  of  space  and  time.  Their  inter-relation  is  the  follow- 
ing :  The  Dhyani-Buddha,  when  the  world  needs  a  human  Buddha, 


•  op.  cit.,  p.  175,  Fifth  Edition. 

+  It  would  be  useless  to  raise  objections  from  exoteric  works  to  statements  in  this,  which  aims  to 
expound,  however  superficially,  the  Esoteric  Teaching's  alone.  It  is  because  they  are  misled  by  the 
exoteric  doctrine  that  Bishop  Bigandet  and  others  aver  that  the  notion  of  a  supreme  eternal  Adi- 
Buddha  is  to  be  found  only  in  writings  of  comparatively  recent  date.  What  is  given  here  is  taken 
from  the  secret  portions  of  Dus  Kyi  Khorlo  (Kala  Chakra,  in  Sanskrit,  or  the  "  Wheel  of  Time,"  or 
duration). 


THE    BUDDHA   CANNOT    REINCAkNATE.  379 

"  creates "  through  the  power  of  Dhj^ana  (meditation,  omnipotent 
devotion),  a  mind-born  son — a  Bodhisattva — whose  mission  it  is  after 
the  physical  death  of  his  human,  or  Manushya-Buddha,  to  continue  his 
work  on  earth  till  the  appearance  of  the  subsequent  Buddha.  The 
Esoteric  meaning  of  this  teaching  is  clear.  In  the  case  of  a  simple 
mortal,  the  principles  in  him  are  only  the  more  or  less  bright  reflec- 
tions of  the  seven  cosmic,  and  the  seven  celestial  Principles,  the  Hier- 
archy of  supersensual  Beings.  In  the  case  of  a  Buddha,  they  are 
almost  the  principles  in  esse  themselves.  The  Bodhisattva  replaces  in 
him  the  Ktrana  Sharira,  the  Ego  principle,  and  the  rest  correspond- 
ingly ;  and  it  is  in  this  way  that  Esoteric  Philosophy  explains  the 
meaning  of  the  sentence  that  "  by  virtue  of  Dhyana  [or  abstract 
meditation]  the  Dhyani-Buddha  [the  Buddha's  Spirit  or  Monad]  creates 
a  Bodhisattva,"  or  the  astrally  clothed  Ego  within  the  Manushya-Buddha. 
Thus,  while  the  Buddha  merges  back  into  Nirvana  whence  it  pro- 
ceeded, the  Bodhisattva  remains  behind  to  continue  the  Buddha's 
work  upon  earth.  It  is  then  this  Bodhisattva  that  may  have  afforded 
the  lower  principles  in  the  apparitional  body  of  Shankaracharya,  the 
Avatara. 

Now  to  say  that  Buddha,  after  having  reached  Nir\^ana,  returned 
thence  to  reincarnate  in  a  new  body,  would  be  uttering  a  heresy  from 
the  Brahmanical,  as  well  as  from  the  Buddhistic  standpoint.  Even  in 
the  Mahay  ana  exoteric  School  in  the  teaching  as  to  the  three  ' '  Buddhic ' ' 
bodies,*  it  is  said  of  the  Dharmakaya— the  ideal  formless  Being— that 
once  it  is  taken,  the  Buddha  in  it  abandons  the  world  of  sensuous 
perceptions  for  ever,  and  has  not,  nor  can  he  have,  any  more  connec- 
tion with  it.  To  say,  as  the  Esoteric  or  Mystic  School  teaches,  that 
though  Buddha  is  in  Nirvana  he  has  left  behind  him  the  Nirmanakaya 
(the  Bodhisattva)  to  work  after  him,  is  quite  orthodox  and  in  accord- 
ance with  both  the  Esoteric  Mahay^na  and  the  Prasanga  Madhyamika 
Schools,  the  latter  an  anti-esoteric  and  most  rationalistic  system.  ^For 
in  the  Kdla  Chakra  Commentary  it  is  shown  that  there  is  :  (i)  Adi- 
Buddha,  eternal  and  conditionless ;  then  (2)  come  Sambhogakaya- 
Buddhas,  or  Dhyani-Buddhas,  existing  from  (geonic)  eternity  and  never 
disappearing— the  Causal  Buddhas  so  to  say  ;  and  (3)  the  Manushya- 

*  The  three  bodies  are  (i)  the  Nirmanakaya  (Pru-lpai-Ku  in  Tibetan),  in  which  the  Bodhisattva 
after  entering  by  the  six  Piramitas  the  Path  to  Nirvana,  appears  to  men  in  order  to  teach  them  ;  (2) 
Sarabhogakaya  (Dzog-pai-Ku),  the.  body  of  bliss  imper^■ious  to  all  physical  sensations,  received  by 
one  who  has  fulfilled  the  three  conditions  of  moral  perfection ;  and  (3)  Dharmakava  (in  Tibetan, 
Chos-Ku),  the  Nirvanic  body. 


380  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Bodhisattvas.  The  relation  between  them  is  determined  by  the 
definition  given.  Adi -Buddha  is  Vajradhara,  and  the  Dhyani-Buddhas 
are  Vajrasattva ;  yet  though  these  two  are  diflferent  Beings  on  their 
respective  planes,  They  are  identical  in  fact,  one  acting  through  the 
other,  as  a  Dhyani  through  a  human  Buddha.  One  is  "  Endless  In- 
telligence ;  "  the  other  only  "  Supreme  Intelligence."  It  is  said  of  Phra 
Bodhisattva— who  was  subsequently  on  earth  Buddha  Gautama  : 

Having  fulfilled  all  the  conditions  for  the  immediate  attainment  of  perfect  Buddha- 
ship,  the  Holy  One  preferred,  from  unlimitc  charity  towards  living  beings,  once 
more  to  reincarnate  for  the  benefit  of  man. 

The  Nirvana  of  the  Buddhists  is  only  the  threshold  of  Paranirvana, 
according  to  the  Esoteric  Teaching  :  while  with  the  Brahmans, 
it  is  the  sumnmvi  bonum,  that  final  state  from  which  there  is  no  more 
return — not  till  the  next  Maha-Kalpa,  at  all  events.  And  even  this 
last  view  will  be  opposed  by  some  too  orthodox  and  dogmatic  Philo- 
sophers who  will  not  accept  the  Esoteric  Doctrine.  With  them 
Nirvana  is  absolute  nothingness,  in  which  there  is  nothing  and  no 
one:  only  an  unconditioned  All.  To  understand  the  full  character- 
istics of  that  Abstract  Principle  one  must  sense  it  intuitionally  and 
comprehend  fully  the  "  one  permanent  condition  in  the  Universe," 
which  the  Hindiis  define  so  truly  as 

The  state  of  perfect  unconsciousness — bare  Chidakasham  (field  of  consciousness) 
in  fact, 
however  paradoxical  it  may  seem  to  the  profane  reader.*' 

Shankaracharya  was  reputed  to  be  an  Avatara,  an  assertion  the 
writer  implicitly  believes  in,  but  which  other  people  are,  of  course,  at 
liberty  to  reject.  And  as  such  he  took  the  body  of  a  southern  Indian, 
newl3''-born  Brahman  baby ;  that  body,  for  reasons  as  important  as 
they  are  mysterious  to  us,  is  said  to  have  been  animated  by  Gautama's 
astral  personal  remains.  This  divine  Non-Ego  chose  as  its  own 
Upadhi  (physical  basis),  the  ethereal,  human  Ego  of  a  great  Sage  in 
this  world  of  forms,  as  the  fittest  vehicle  for  Spirit  to  descend  into. 

Said  Shankaracharya  : 

Parabrahman  is  Karta[Purusha],  as  there  is  no  other  Adhishtatha,t  and  Parabrah' 
man  is  Prakriti,  there  being  no  other  substance.  J 

•  Five  Years  of  Theosophy,  art.  "  Personal  and  Impersonal  God,"  p.  129. 

+  Adhishtatha,  the  active  or  working  agent  in  Prakriti  (or  matter). 

t  Vedanla-Stilras,  Ad.  I.  Pada  iv.  Shi.  23.  Commentary.  The  passage  is  given  as  follows  in 
Thibaut's  translation  (Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  xxxiv.),  p.  286:  "The  Self  is  thus  the  operative 
cause,  because  there  is  no  other  ruling  principle,  and  the  material  cause  because  there  is  no  other 
substance  from  which  the  world  could  oriprinate." 


A    FULLER    EXPLANATION.  S^I 

New  what  is  true  of  the  Macrocosmical  is  also  true  of  the  Microcosmi- 
cal  plane  It  is  therefore  nearer  the  truth  to  say— when  once  we  accept 
such  a  possibilitv-that  the  "astral"  Gautama,  or  the  Nirmanak^ya, 
was  the'Upadhi  of  Shankarlcharya's  spirit,  rather  than  that  the  latter 
was  a  reincarnation  of  the  former. 

When  a  ShankarachSrya  has  to  be  born,  naturally  every  one  of  the 
principles  in  the  manifested  mortal  man  must  be  the  purest  and  finest 
that   exist  on  earth.      Consequently  those  principles   that  were  once 
attached  to  Gautama,  who  was  the  direct  great  predecessor  of  Shankara, 
we-e  naturally  attracted  to  him,  the  economy  of  Nature  forbidding  the 
re-evolution  of  similar  principles  from  the  crude  state.     But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  higher  ethereal  principles  are  not,  like  the  lower 
more  material  ones,  visible  sometimes  to  man  (as  astral  bodies),  and 
they  have  to  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  separate  or  independent  Powers^ 
or   Gods,   rather  than  as   material  objects.     Hence   the   right  way  of 
representino-  the  truth  would  be  to  say  that  the  various  principles,  the 
Bodhisattva,  of  Gautama  Buddha,  which  did  not  go  to  Nirvana,  re- 
united to  form  the  middle  principles  o!   Shankaracharya,  the  earthly 

^"irfs  absolutely  necessar>'  to  study  the  doctrine  of  the  Buddhas 
esoterically  and  understand  the  subtle  differences  between  the  various 
planes  of  existence  to  be  able  to  comprehend  correctly  the  above.  Put 
more  clearly  Gautama,  the  human  Buddha,  who  had,  exoterically, 
Amitabha  for  his  Bodhisattva  and  Avalokiteshvara  for  his  Dhyam- 
Buddha-the  triad  emanating  directly  from  Adi-Buddha-assimilated 
these  by  his  "  Dhyana"  (meditation)  and  thus  become  a  Buddha  ("  en- 
lightened ").  In  another  manner  this  is  the  case  with  all  men  ;  every- 
one of  us  has  his  Bodhisattva-the  middle  principle,  if  we  hold  for  a 
moment  to  the  trinitarian  division  of  the  septenary  group-and  his 
Dhyani-Buddha,  or  Chohan,  the  "  Father  of  the  Son."  Our  connecting 
link  with  the  higher  Hierarchy  of  Celestial  Beings  lies  here  m  a  nut- 
shell only  we  are  too  sinful  to  assimilate  them^ 

'"^Z^Znts'^^isaid  "  there  are  seven  Buddhas  in  every  Buddha,  and  there  are  «>  Bhikshus  and 
"Mendicants,    ne  saia,     tacre  a  branches  of  complete  know- 

but  one  Buddha  m  each  mendicant     What  are  ^^e  J^^«  •     ^h^  ^  ^^^^^  ^^  .^^^_ 

ledge,    ^.-hat  are  the  ..>  ?    The  six  organs  <^^^^^;JJ^l'^ZTJ 6.e..Xo^s  in  him  the  ten  forms 

s;:^Ssa^dt:?jStriu:rs^e..^p^ 

pattern  for  all  men.    But  his  Arhats  were  not  necessarily  so. 


382  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Six  centuries  after  the  translation  of  the  human  Buddha  (Gautama) 
another  Reformer,  as  noble  and  as  loving,  though  less  favoured  by- 
opportunity,  arose  in  another  part  of  the  world,  among  another  and  a 
less  spiritual  race.  There  is  a  great  similarity  between  the  subsequent 
opinions  of  the  world  about  the  two  Saviours,  the  Eastern  and  the 
Western.  While  millions  became  converted  to  the  doctrines  of  the 
two  Masters,  the  enemies  of  both — sectarian  opponents,  the  most  dan- 
gerous of  all — tore  both  to  shreds  by  insinuating  maliciously-distorted 
statements  based  on  Occult  truths,  and  therefore  doubly  dangerous. 
While  of  Buddha  it  is  said  by  the  Brahmans  that  He  was  truly  an 
Avatara  of  Vishnu,  but  that  He  had  come  to  tempt  the  Brahmans  from 
their  faith,  and  was  therefore  the  evil  aspect  of  the  God  ;  of  Jesus  the 
Bardesanian  Gnostics  and  others  asserted  that  He  was  Nebu,  the 
false  Messiah,  the  destroyer  of  the  old  orthodox  religion.  "  He  is  the 
founder  of  a  new  sect  of  Nazars,"  said  other  sectarians.  In  Hebrew 
the  word  "Naba"  means  '^  to  speak  by  inspiration,"  CnI13'  and  113  is 
Nebo,  the  God  of  wisdom).  But  Nebo  is  also  Mercury,  who  is  Buddha 
in  the  Hindu  monogram  of  planets.  And  this  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  the  Talmudists  hold  that  Jesus  was  inspired  by  the  Genius  (or 
Regent)  of  Mercury  confounded  by  Sir  William  Jones  with  Gautame 
Buddha.  There  are  many  other  strange  points  of  similarity  between 
Gautama  and  Jesus,  which  cannot  be  noticed  here.* 

If  both  the  Initiates,  aware  of  the  danger  of  furnishing  the  uncul- 
tured masses  with  the  powers  acquired  by  ultimate  knowledge,  left  the 
innermost  corner  of  the  sanctuary  in  profound  darkness,  who,  ac- 
quainted with  human  nature,  can  blame  either  of  them  for  this  ?  Yet 
although  Gautama,  actuated  by  prudence,  left  the  Esoteric  and  most 
dangerous  portions  of  the  Secret  Knowledge  untold,  and  lived  to  the 
ripe  old  age  of  eighty — the  Esoteric  Doctrine  says  one  hundred — years, 
dying  with  the  certainty  of  having  taught  its  essential  truths,  and  of 
having  sown  the  seeds  for  the  conversion  of  one-third  of  the  world.  He 
yet  perhaps  revealed  more  than  was  strictly  good  for  posterity.  But 
Jesus,  who  had  promised  His  disciples  the  knowledge  which  confers 
upon  man  the  pov/er  of  producing  "  miracles  "  far  greater  than  He  had 
ever  produced  Himself,  died,  leaving  but  a  few  faithful  disciples — men 
only  half-way  to  knowledge.  They  had  therefore  to  struggle  with  a 
world  to  which  they  could  impart  only  what  they  but  half-knew  them- 
selves, and — no  more.     In  later   ages  the  exoteric  followers  of  both 

*  See  /sis  Unveiled,  ii.  132. 


SACRIFICE.  3^i 

mangled  the  truths  given  out,  often  out  of  recognition.  With  regara 
to  tne  adherents  of  the  Western  Master,  the  proof  of  this  lies  in  the 
very  fact  that  none  of  them  can  now  produce  the  promised  "  miracles.  " 
They  have  to  choose :  either  it  is  they  who  have  blundered,  or  it  is 
their  Master  who  must  stand  arraigned  for  an  empty  promise,  an  un- 
called-for boast.*  Why  such  a  difference  in  the  destiny  of  the  two  t 
For  the  Occultist  this  enigma  of  the  unequal  favour  of  Karma  or  Pro- 
vidence is  unriddled  by  the  Secret  Doctrine. 

It  is  "  not  lawful "  to  speak  of  such  things  publicly,  as  St.  Paul  tells 
IS.     One  more  explanation  only  may  be  given  in  reference  to  this  sub- 
ject.    It  was  said  a  few  pages  back  that  an  Adept  who  thus  sacrifices 
himself  to  live,  giving  up  full  Nirvana,  though  he  can  never  lose  the 
knowledge  acquired  by  him  in  previous  existences,  yet  can  never  rise 
higher  in  such  borrowed  bodies.     Why  ?     Because  he  becomes  simply 
the  vehicle  of  a  "  Son  of  Light "  from  a  still  higher  sphere,  Who  being 
Arupa,  has  no  personal  astral  body  of  His  own  fit  for  this  world.     Such 
"  Sons  of  Light,"  or  Dhyani-Buddhas,  are  the  Dharmakayas  of  preced- 
ing Manvantaras,  who  have  closed  their  cycles  of  incarnations  in  the 
ordinary  sense  and  who,  being  thus  Karmaless,  have  long  ago  dropped 
their  individual  Rupas,  and  have  become  identified  with  the  first  Prin- 
ciple.     Hence   the  necessity  of  a  sacrificial   Nirmanakaya,  ready  to 
suffer  for  the  misdeeds  or  mistakes  of  the  new  body  in  its  earth- 
pilgrimage,  without  any  future  reward  on  the  plane  of  progression  and 
rebirth,  since   there    are  no  rebirths   for  him  in  the  ordinary  sense. 
The  Higher  Self,  or  Divine  Monad,  is  not  in  such  a  case  attached  to 
the  lower  Ego ;  its  connection  is  only  temporary,  and  in  most  cases  it 
acts  through  decrees  of  Karma.     This  is  a  real,  genuine  sacrifice,  the 
explanation  of  which  pertains  to  the  highest  Initiation  of  Gnana  (Occult 
Knowledge).     It  is  closely  linked,  by  a  direct  evolution  of  Spirit  and 
involution  of  Matter,  with  the  primeval  and  great  Sacrifice  at  the 
foundation   of  the  manifested   Worlds,   the  gradual   smothering  and 


*  "  Before  one  becomes  a  Buddha  he  must  be  a  Bodhisattva ;  before  evolving  into  a  Bodhisattva  he 
must  be  a  Dhyani-Buddha.  ...  A  Boddhisattva  is  the  way  and  Path  to  his  Father,  and  thence  to 
the  One  Supreme  Essence"  (Descent  of  Buddhas,  p.  17,  from  Aryasanga).  '"I  am  the  Way,  the 
Truth,  and  the  Life  :  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me  "  (St.  John,  six.  b).  The  "way"  is 
not  the  goal.  Nowhere  throughout  the  New  Testament  is  Jesus  found  calling  himself  God,  or  any- 
thinghigher  than  "  asonofGod,"  the  son  of  a"  Father"  common  to  all,  synthetically.  Paul  never  said 
<I.  Tim.,  iii.  10),  "  God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh,"  but  "He  who  was  manifested  in  the  flesh  "  (Revised 
Edition).  Wliile  the  common  herd  among  the  Buddhists— the  Burmese  especially— regard  Jesus  as  an 
ncarnation  of  Devadatta,  a  relative  who  opposed  the  teachings  of  Buddha,  the  students  of  Esot  eric 
Philosophy  see  in  the  Nazarene  Sage  a  Bodhisattva  with  the  spirit  of  Buddha  Himself  in  Him. 


^S4.  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

d'iath  of  the  spiritual  in  the  material.  The  seed  •'  is  not  quickened 
except  it  die."  *  Hence  in  the  Purusha  Sukta  of  the  Rig  Veda,\  the 
mother-fount  and  source  of  all  subsequent  religions,  it  is  stated  alle- 
goricall}''  that  "the  thousand-headed  Purusha"  was  slaughtered  at  the 
foundation  of  the  World,  that  from  his  remains  the  Universe  might 
arise.  This  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  foundation — the  seed, 
truly — of  the  later  many-formed  symbol  in  various  religions,  including 
Christianity,  of  the  sacrificial  lamb.  For  it  is  a  play  upon  the  words. 
"Aja"  (Purusha),  "the  unborn,"  or  eternal  Spirit,  means  also  "  lamb," 
in  Sanskrit.  Spirit  disappears — dies,  metaphorically — the  more  it  gets 
involved  in  matter,  and  hence  the  sacrifice  of  the  "  unborn,"  or  the 
"lamb." 

Why  the  Buddha  chose  to  make  this  sacrifice  will  be  plain  only  to 
those  who,  to  the  minute  knowledge  of  His  earthl}^  life,  add  that  of  a 
thorough  comprehension  of  the  laws  of  Karma.  Such  occurrences, 
however,  belong  to  the  most  exceptional  cases. 

As  tradition  goes,  the  Brahmans  had  committed  a  heavy  sin  by 
persecuting  Gautama  Buddha  and  His  teachings  instead  of  blending 
and  reconciling  them  with  the  tenets  of  pure  Vaidic  Brahmanism,  as 
was  done  later  by  Shankaracharya.  Gautama  had  never  gone  against 
the  Vedas,  only  against  the  exoteric  growth  of  preconceived  interpreta- 
tions. The  Shruti — divine  oral  revelation,  the  outcome  of  which  was 
the  Veda — is  eternal.  It  reached  the  ear  of  Gautama  Siddartha  as 
it  had  those  of  the  Rishis  who  had  written  it  down.  He  accepted 
the  revelation,  while  rejecting  the  later  overgrowth  of  Brahmanical 
thought  and  fancy,  and  built  His  doctrines  on  one  and  the  same 
basis  of  imperishable  truth.  As  in  the  case  of  His  Western  successor, 
Gautama,  the  "Merciful,"  the  "Pure,"  and  the  "Just,"  was  the  first 
found  in  the  Eastern  Hierarchy  of  historical  Adepts,  if  not  in  the 
world-annals  of  divine  mortals,  who  was  moved  by  that  generous  feel- 
ing which  locks  the  whole  of  mankind  within  one  embrace,  with  no 
petty  differences  of  race,  birth,  or  caste.  It  was  He  who  first  enunciated 
that  grand  and  noble  principle,  and  He  again  who  first  put  it  into 
practice.  For  the  sake  of  the  poor  and  the  reviled,  the  outcast  and 
the  hapless,  invited  by  Him  to  the  king's  festival  table.  He  had  excluded 
those  who  had  hitherto  sat  alone  in  haughty  seclusion  and  selfishness, 
believing  that  they  would  be  defiled  by  the  very  shadow  of  the  dis- 


I.  Corinth.,  xv.  36.  +  Op.  cit.,  Mandala  x.,  hymn  90. 


SHANKARACHARYA   STILI,  LIVING.  36!y 

inherited  ones  of  the  land — and  these  non-spiritual  BrShmans  turtted 
against  Him  for  that  preference.  Since  then  such  as  these  have  never 
forgiven  the  prince-beggar,  the  son  of  a  king,  who,  forgetting  His  rank 
and  station,  had  flung  widely  open  the  doors  of  the  forbidden  sanctuary 
to  the  pariah  and  the  man  of  low  estate,  thus  giving  precedence  to 
personal  merit  over  hereditary  rank  or  fortune.  The  sin  was  theirs — 
the  cause  nevertheless  Himself:  hence  the  "  Merciful  and  the  Blessed 
One  "  could  not  go  out  entirely  from  this  world  of  illusion  and  created 
causes  without  atoning  for  the  sin  of  all — therefore  of  these  Brahmans 
also.  If  "  man  afflicted  by  man  "  found  safe  refuge  with  the  Tathagata, 
"  man  afflicting  man "  had  also  his  share  in  His  self-sacrificing,  all- 
embracing  and  forgiving  love.  It  is  stated  that  He  desired  to  atone 
for  the  sin  of  His  enemies.  Then  only  was  He  willing  to  become  a  full 
Dharmakaya,  a  Jivanmukta  "  without  remains." 

The  close  of  Shankaracharya's  life  brings  us  face  to  face  with  a  fresh 
mystery.  Shankaracharya  retires  to  a  cave  in  the  Himalayas,  permit- 
ting none  of  his  disciples  to  follow  him,  and  disappears  therein  for 
ever  from  the  sight  of  the  profane.  Is  he  dead  ?  Tradition  and 
popular  belief  answer  in  the  negative,  and  some  of  the  local  Gurus,  if 
they  do  not  emphatically  corroborate,  do  not  deny  the  rumour.  The 
truth  with  its  mysterious  details  as  given  in  the  Secret  Doctrine  is 
known  but  to  them  ;  it  can  be  given  out  fully  only  to  the  direct  folloivers 
of  the  great  Dravidian  Guru,  and  it  is  for  them  alone  to  reveal  of  it  as 
much  as  they  think  fit.  Still  it  is  maintained  that  this  Adept  of  Adepts 
lives  to  this  day  in  his  spiritual  entity  as  a  mysterious,  unseen,  yet 
overpowering  presence  among  the  Brotherhood  of  Shamballa,  hevovd, 
far  beyond,  the  snow^'-capped  Himalayas. 


SECTION    XLIV. 

"Reincarnations"  of  Buddha 


Every  section  in  the  chapter  on  •*  Dezhin  Shegpa"  *  (Tathagata)  in 
the  Commentaries  represents  one  year  of  that  great  Philosopher's  life, 
in  its  dual  aspect  of  public  and  private  teacher,  the  two  being  con- 
trasted and  commented  upon.  It  shows  the  Sage  reaching  Buddha- 
hood  through  a  long  course  of  stud^^  meditation,  and  Initiations,  as 
any  other  Adept  would  have  to  do,  not  one  rung  of  the  ladder  up  to 
the  arduous  "  Path  of  Perfection "  being  missed.  The  Bodhisattva 
became  a  Buddha  and  a  Nirvani  through  personal  effort  and  merit, 
after  having  had  to  undergo  all  the  hardships  of  every  other  neophyte 
— not  by  virtue  of  a  divine  birth,  as  thought  by  some.  It  was  only  the 
reaching  of  Nirvana  while  still  living  in  the  body  and  on  this  earth 
that  was  due  to  His  having  been  in  previous  births  high  on  the  "  Path 
of  Dzyan "  (knowledge,  wisdom).  Mental  or  intellectual  gifts  and 
abstract  knowledge  follow  an  Initiate  in  his  new  birth,  but  he  has  to 
acquire  phenomenal  powers  anew,  passing  through  all  the  successive 
stages.  He  has  to  acquire  Rinchen-na-dun  ("the  seven  precious 
gifts")!  one  after  the  other.  During  the  period  of  meditation  no 
worldly  phenomena  on  the  physical  plane  must  be  allowed  to  enter 
into  his  mind  or  cross  his  thoughts.  Zhine-lhagthong  (Sanskrit : 
Vipashya,  religious  abstract  meditation)  will  develop  in  him  most 
wonderful  faculties  independently  of  himself.     The  four  degrees  of 


•  Literally,  "  he  who  walks  [or  follows]  in  the  way  [or  path]  of  his  predecessors." 
t  Schmidt,  iu  Slanong  Seetsen,  p.  471,  and  Schlagrintweit,  in  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  p.  53,  accept  these 
precious  things  literally,  enumerating'  them  as  "  the  wheel,  the  precious  stone,  the  royal  consort,  the 
best  treasurer,  the  best  horse,  the  elephant,  the  best  leader."  After  this  one  can  little  wonder  if 
"besides  a  Dhyani-Buddhi  and  a  Dhyani-Bodhisattva  "  each  human  Buddha  is  furnished  with  "  a 
female  companion,  a  Shakti  " — when  in  truth  "  Shakti  "  is  simply  the  Soul-power,  the  psychic  energy 
of  the  God  as  of  the  Adept.  The  "  royal  consort,"  the  third  of  the  "  seven  precious  gifts,"  very  likely 
led  the  learned  Orientalist  into  this  ludicrous  error. 


VAJRADHARA.  387 

contemplation,  or  Sam-tan  (Sanskrit :  Dhyana),  once  acquired,  every- 
thing becomes  easy.  For,  once  that  man  has  entirely  got  rid  of  the 
idea  of  individuality,  merging  his  Self  in  the  Universal  Self,  becoming, 
so  to  say,  the  bar  of  steel  to  which  the  properties  inherent  in  the 
loadstone  (Adi  Buddha,  or  Anima  Mundi)  are  imparted,  powers  hitherto 
dormant  in  him  are  awakened,  mysteries  in  invisible  Nature  are 
unveiled,  and  becoming  a  Thonglam-pa  (a  Seer)  he  becomes  a 
Dhyani-Buddha.  Every  Zung  (Dharani,  a  mystic  word  or  mantra) 
of  the  I/)kottaradharma  (the  highest  world  of  causes)  will  be  known 
to  him. 

Thus,  after  His  outward  death,  twenty  years  .ater,  Tathagata  in  His 
immense  love  and  "pitiful  mercy"  for  erring  and  ignorant  humanity, 
refused  Paranirvana*  in  order  that  He  might  continue  to  help 
men. 

Says  a  Commentary : 

Having  reached  the  Path  of  Deliverance  [  Thar-lani]  from  transmigra- 
tion, one  cannot  perform  Tiilpa]  any  longer,  for  to  become  a  Paranirvdni 
is  to  close  the  circle  of  the  Septenary  Ku-Sum.X  He  has  merged  his 
borrowed  Dorjesempa  [  Vajrasattva'\  into  the  Universal  ayid  become  07ie 
ivith  it. 

Vajradhara,  also  Vajrasattva  (Tibetan:  Dorjechang  and  Dorjedzin, 
or  Dorjosampa),  is  the  regent  or  President  of  all  the  Dhyan  Chohans 
or  Dhyani  Buddhas,  the  highest,  the  Supreme  Buddha ;  personal,  yet 
never  manifested  objectively  ;  the  "  Supreme  Conqueror,"  the  "  Lord  of 
all  Mysteries,"  the  "  One  without  Beginning  or  End " — in  ^hort,  the 
Logos  of  Buddhism.  For,  as  Vajrasattva,  He  is  simply  the  Tsovo 
(Chief)  of  the  Dhyani  Buddhas  or  Dhyan  Chohans,  and  the  Supreme 
Intelligence  in  the  Second  World  ;  while  as  Vajradhara  (Dorjechang), 
He  is  all  that  which  was  enumerated  above.  "  These  two  are  one,  and 
yet  two,"  and  over  them  is  "Chang,  the  Supreme  Unmanifested  and 


•  A  Bodhisattva  can  reach  Nirvana  and  live,  as  Buddba  did,  and  after  death  he  can  either  refuse 
objective  reincarnation  or  accept  and  use  it  at  his  convenience  for  the  benefit  of  mankind  whom  he 
can  instruct  in  various  ways  while  he  remains  in  the  Devachanic  regions  within  the  attraction  of  our 
earth.  But  having:  once  reached  Paranirvana  or  "Nirvana  without  remains  "—the  highest 
Dhai-makaya  condition,  in  which  state  he  remains  entirely  outside  of  every  earthly  condition — he 
will  return  no  more  until  the  commencement  of  a  new  Manvantara,  since  he  has  crossed  beyond  the 
cycle  of  births. 

+  Tulpa  is  the  voluntary  incarnation  of  an  Adept  into  a  living  body,  whether  of  an  adult,  child,  or 
new-bom  babe. 

i  Ku-sum  is  the  triple  form  of  the  Nirvana  state  and  its  respective  duration  in  the  "  cycle  of  Non- 
Being."    The  number  seven  here  refers  to  the  seven  Rounds  of  onr  septenary  System. 


388  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Universal  Wisdom  that  has  no  name."  As  two  in  one  He  (They)  is 
the  Power  that  subdued  and  conquered  Evil  from  the  beginning,  allow- 
ing it  to  reign  only  over  willing  subjects  on  earth,  and  having  no  power 
over  those  who  despise  and  hate  it.  Esoterically  the  allegory  is  easily 
understood;  exoterically  Vajradhara  (Vajrasattva)  is  the  God  to  whom 
all  the  evil  spirits  swore  that  they  would  not  impede  the  propagation 
of  the  Good  I^aw  (Buddhism),  and  before  whom  all  the  demons  tremble. 
Therefore,  we  say  this  dual  personage  has  the  same  role  assigned  to  it  in 
canonical  and  dogmatic  Tibetan  Buddhism  as  have  Jehovah  and  the 
Archangel  Mikael,  the  Metatron  of  the  Jewish  Kabalists.  This  is  easily 
shown.  Mikael  is  "  the  angel  of  the  face  of  God,"  or  he  who  represents 
his  Master.  "  My  face  shall  go  with  thee  "  (in  English,  "presence"), 
before  the  Israelites,  says  God  to  Moses  {Exodus,  xxxiii.  14).  "  The 
angel  of  my  presence  "  (Hebrew  :  "  of  my  face  ")  {Isaiah,  Ixiii.  9),  etc. 
The  Roman  Catholics  identify  Christ  with  Mikael,  who  is  also  his  ferouer, 
or  "face,"  mystically.  This  is  precisely  the  position  of  Vajradhara, 
or  Vajrasattva,  in  Northern  Buddhism.  For  the  latter,  in  His  Higher 
Self  as  Vajradhara  (Dorjechang),  is  never  manifested,  except  to  the  sev.en 
Dhyan  Chohans,  the  primeval  Builders.  Esoterically,  it  is  the  Spirit  of 
the  "Seven"  collectively,  their  seventh  principle,  or  Atman.  Exoteri- 
cally, any  amount  of  fables  may  be  found  in  Kala  Chakra,  the  most 
important  work  in  the  Gyut  [or  (D)gyu]  division  of  the  Kanjur,  the 
division  of  mystic  knowledge  [(D)gyu].  Dorjechang  (wisdom) 
Vajradhara,  is  said  to  live  in  the  second  Arupa  World,  which  connects 
him  with  Metatron,  in  the  first  world  of  pure  Spirits,  the  Briatic  world 
of  the  Kabalists,  who  call  this  angel  El-Shaddai,  the  Omnipotent  and 
Mighty  One.  Metatron  is  in  Greek  ayycXos  (Messenger),  or  the 
Great  Teacher.  Mikael  fights  Satan,  the  Dragon,  and  conquers  him 
and  his  Angels.  Vajrasattva,  who  is  one  with  Vajrapani,  the  Subduer 
of  the  Evil  Spirits,  conquers  Rahu,  the  Great  Dragon  who  is  always 
trying  to  devour  the  sun  and  moon  (eclipses).  "  War  in  Heaven  "  in  the 
Christian  legend  is  based  upon  the  bad  angels  having  discovered  the  secrets 
(magical  wisdom)  of  the  good  ones  (Enoch),  and  the  mystery  of  the  "Tree 
of  lyife.'*  Let  anyone  read  simply  the  exoteric  accounts  in  the  Hindu 
and  Buddhist  Pantheons — the  latter  version  being  taken  from  the 
former — and  he  will  find  both  resting  on  the  same  primeval,  archaic 
allegory  from  the  Secret  Doctrine.  In  the  exoteric  texts  (Hindu  and 
Buddhist),  the  Gods  churn  the  ocean  to  extract  from  it  the  Water 
of  Life — Amrita — or  the  Elixir  of  Knowledge.     In  both  the  Dragon 


LIVING    BUDDHAS.  389 

Steals  some  of  this,  and  is  exiled  from  heaven  by  Vishnu,  or  Vajra- 
dhara,  or  the  chief  God,  whatever  may  be  his  name.  We  find  the 
same  in  the  Book  of  E7ioch,  and  it  is  poetized  in  St.  John's  Revelation. 
And  now  the  allegory,  with  all  its  fanciful  ornamentations,  has  become 
a  dogma  ! 

As  will  be  found  mentioned  later,  the  Tibetan  I^amaseris  contain 
many  secret  and  semi-secret  volumes,  detailing  the  lives  of  great  Sages. 
Many  of  the  statements  in  them  are  purposely  confused,  and  in  others 
the  reader  becomes  bewildered,  unless  a  clue  be  given  him,  by  the  use 
of  one  name  to  cover  many  individuals  who  follow  the  same  line  of 
teaching.  Thus  there  is  a  succession  of  "living  Buddhas'"  and  the 
name  "Buddha"  is  given  to  teacher  after  teacher.  Schlagintweit 
writes  : 

To  each  human  Buddha  belongs  a  Dhyani- Buddha,  and  a  Dhyani-Bodhisattva, 
and  the  unlimited  number  of  the  former  also  involves  an  equally  unlimited  number 
of  the  latter.* 

[But  if  this  be  so — and  the  exoteric  and  semi-exoteric  use  of  the 
name  justify  the  statement — the  reader  must  depend  on  his  own 
intuition  to  distinguish  between  the  Dhyani  Buddhas  and  the  human 
Buddhas,  and  must  not  apply  to  the  great  Buddha  of  the  Fifth  Race 
all  that  is  ascribed  to  "  the  Buddha"  in  books  where,  as  said,  blinds  are 
constantly  introduced. 

In  one  of  these  books  some  strange  and  obscure  statements  are  made 
which  the  writer  gives,  as  before,  entirel3^  on  her  own  responsibility, 
since  a  few  may  sense  a  meaning  hidden  under  words  misleading  in 
their  surface  meaning.]!  It  is  stated  that  at  the  age  of  thirty-three, 
ShankarachSr>'a,  tired  of  his  mortal  body,  "put  it  oflf"  in  the  cave  he 
had  entered,  and  that  the  Bodhisattva,  that  served  as  his  lower 
personality,  was  freed 

With  the  burden  of  a  sin  upon  him  which  he  had  not  committed. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  added : 

At  whatever  age  one  puts  off  his  outward  body  by  free  will,  at  that  age  will  he  be 
made  to  die  a  violent  death  against  his  will  in  his  next  rebirth. 

•  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  p.  52.  This  same  generic  use  of  a  name  is  found  among  Hindus  with  that  of 
Shankaracharj'a,  to  take  but  one  instance.  All  His  successors  bear  his  name,  but  are  not  reincarna- 
tions of  Him.    So  with  the  "  Buddhas." 

+  [The  words  within  brackets  are  supplied  to  introduce  the  following  statements  that  are  confused 
and  contradictory  as  they  stand,  and  which  H.  P.  B.  had  probably  intended  to  elucidate  to  some 
slight  extent,  as  they  are  written  two  or  three  times  with  different  sentences  following  them.  The 
MS.  is  exceedingly  confused,  and  everything  H.  P.  B.  said  is  here  pieced  together,  the  addition  above 
made  being  marked  in  brackets  to  distinguish  it  from  hers. — A.  B.] 


390  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Now,  Karma  could  have  no  hold  on  "  Maha  Shankara  "  (as 
Shankara  is  called  in  the  secret  work),  as  he  had,  as  Avatara,  no  Ego 
of  his  own,  but  a  Bodhisattva — a  willing  sacrificial  victim.  Neither 
had  the  latter  any  responsibility  for  the  deed,  whether  sinful  or  other- 
wise. Therefore  we  do  not  see  the  point,  since  Karma  cannot  act 
unjustly.  There  is  some  terrible  mystery  involved  in  all  this  story, 
one  that  no  uninitiated  intellect  can  ever  unravel.  Still,  there  it  :s. 
suggesting  the  natural  quer}%  "Who,  then,  was  punished  by  Karma r '' 
and  leaving  it  to  be  answered. 

A  few  centuries  later  Buddha  tried  one  more  incarnation,  it  is  said, 
in  *  *  *  *,  and  again,  fift}''  years  subsequent  to  the  death  of  this  Adept, 
in  one  whose  name  is  given  as  Tiani-Tsang.*  No  details,  no  further 
information  or  explanation  is  given.  It  is  simply  stated  that  the  last 
Buddha  had  to  work  out  the  remains  of  his  Karma,  which  none  of  the 
Gods  themselves  can  escape,  forced  as  he  was  to  bury  still  deeper 
certain  m5'steries  half  revealed  by  him — hence  misinterpreted.  The 
words  used  would  stand  when  translated  if 

Born  fifty-two  j'ears  too  earl}'  as  Shramana  Gautama,  the  son  of  King  Zastang ; 
then  retiring  fifty-seven  years  too  soon  as  Maha  Shankara,  who  got  tired  of  his 
outward  form.  This  wilful  act  aroused  and  attracted  King  Karma,  who  killed  the 
new  form  of  *  *  *  at  thirty-three,  J  the  age  of  the  bod}' that  was  put  oflf.  [At 
whatever  age  one  puts  off  his  outward  body  by  free  will,  at  that  age  will  he  be  made 
to  die  in  his  next  incarnation  against  his  will — Commentar}'.]  He  died  in  his  next 
(body)  at  thirty-two  and  a  little  over,  and  again  in  his  next  at  eighty — a  Maya,  and 
at  one  hundred,  in  reality.  The  Bodhisattva  chose  Tiani-Tsang,  §  then  again  the 
Sugata  became  Tsong-Kha-pa,  who  became  thus  Dezhin-Shegpa  [Tathagata^ — "one 
who  follows  in  the  way  and  manner  of  his  predecessors"].  The  Blessed  One  could 
do  good  to  his  generation  as  *  *  *  but  none  to  posterity,  and  so  as  Tiani-Tsang 
he  became  incarnated  only  for  the  "remains"  [of  his  precedent  Karma,  as  \re 
understand  it].  The  Seven  Ways  and  the  Four  Truths  were  once  more  hidden  out 
of  sight.  The  Merciful  One  confined  since  then  his  attention  and  fatherly  care  to 
the  heart  of  Bodyul,  the  nursery-grounds  of  the  seeds  of  truth.  The  blessed 
"  remains  "  since  then  have  overshadowed  and  rested  in  many  a  holy  body  of  human 
Bodhisattvas. 

No  further  information  is  given,  least  of  all  are  there  any  details  or 


•  King  Suddhodana. 

■t-  There  are  several  names  marked  simply  by  asterisks. 

J  Shankar.icharya  died  also  at  thirty-two  years  of  age,  or  rather  disappeared  from  the  sight  of  his 
disciples,  as  the  legend  goes. 

t  Does  "  Tiani-Tsang  "  stand  for  Apollonius  of  Tyana  .-  This  is  a  simple  surmise.  Some  things  in 
the  life  of  that  Adept  would  seem  to  tally  with  the  hypothesis— others  to  go  against  it. 


AN  OBSCURE  PASSAGE.  391 

explanations  to  be  found  in  the  secret  volume.  All  is  darkness  and 
mystery  in  it,  for  it  is  evidently  written  but  for  those  who  are  already 
instructed.  Several  flaming  red  asterisks  are  placed  instead  of  names, 
and  the  few  facts  given  are  abruptly  broken  off.  The  key  of  the  riddle 
is  left  to  the  intuition  of  the  disciple,  unless  the  "  direct  followers  " 
of  Gautama  the  Buddha — "those  who  are  to  be  denied  by  His  Church 
for  the  next  cycle" — and  of  Shankaracharya,  are  pleased  to  add  more. 

The  final  section  gives  a  kind  of  summary  of  the  seventy  sections 
— covering  seventy-three  years  of  Buddha's  life  * — from  which  the  last 
paragraph  is  summarized  as  follows  : 

Emerging  from ,  the  most  excellent  seat  of  the  three  secrets  [Sang-Sum],  the 

Master  of  incomparable  mercy,  after  having  performed  on  all  the  anchorites  the 

rite  of ,  and  each  of  these  having  been  cut  ofF.t  perceived  through  [the  power  of] 

Hlun-Chub  t  what  was  his  next  duty.  The  Most- Illustrious  meditated  and  asked 
himself  whether  this  would  help  [the  future]  generations.  What  they  needed  was 
the  sight  of  Maya  in  a  body  of  illusion.  Which  }  .  .  .  The  great  conqueror  of 
pains  and  sorrows  arose  and  proceeded  back  to  his  birthplace.  There  Sugata  was 
welcomed  by  the  few,  for  they  did  not  know  Shramana  Gautama.  "Shakya  [the 
Mighty]  is  in  Nirvana.  .  .  .  He  has  given  the  Science  to  the  Shuddhas  [Shudra]," 
said  they  of  Damze  Yul  [the  country  of  Brahmaus  :  India].     ...     It  was  for  that, 

born  of  pit)-,  that  the  All-Gloiious  One  had  to  retire  to  ,  and  then  appear 

[karmically]  as  Maha  Shankara ;  and  out  of  pity  as  ,  and  again  as  ,  and 

again  as  Tsong-Kha-pa.  .  .  .  For,  he  who  chooses  in  humiliation  must  go  down, 
and  he  who  loves  not  allows  Karma  to  raise  him.§ 

This  passage  is  confessedly  obscure  and  written  for  the  few.  It  is  not 
lawful  to  say  any  more,  for  the  time  has  not  yet  come  when  nations  are 


*  According  to  Esoteric  teaching  Buddha  lived  one  hundred  years  in  reality,  though  having 
reached  Nirvana  in  his  eightieth  year  he  was  regarded  as  one  dead  to  the  world  of  the  living.  See 
article  "  Shakyamuni's  Place  in  History  "  in  Five  Years  of  Theosophy. 

+  It  is  a  secret  rils,  pertaining  to  high  Initiation,  and  has  the  same  significance  as  the  one  to  which 
Clement  of  Alexandria  alludes  when  he  speaks  of  "  the  token  of  recognition  being  in  common  with 
us,  as  by  cutting  oflf  Christ  "  (Strom.,  13).  Schlagintweit  wonders  what  it  may  be.  "The  typical  re- 
presentation of  a  hermit,"  he  says,  "  is  always  that  of  a  man  with  long,  uncut  hair  and  beard.  .  .  . 
A  rite  very  often  selected,  though  I  am  unable  to  state  for  what  reason,  is  that  of  Chod  ('  to  cut '  or 
'  to  destroy  ')  the  meaning  of  which  is  anxiously  kept  a  profound  secret  by  the  I<amas."  (Buddhism 
in  Tibet,  p.  i6j.) 

i  Hluu-Chub  is  the  divining  spirit  in  man,  the  highest  degree  of  seership. 

\  The  secret  meaning  of  this  sentence  is  that  Karma  exercises  its  sway  over  the  Adept  as  much  as 
over  any  other  man  ;  "  Gods  "  can  escape  it  as  little  as  simple  mortals.  The  Adept  who,  having 
reached  the  Path  and  won  His  Dharmakaya — the  Nirvana  from  which  there  is  no  return  until  the  new 
g^rand  Kalpa — prefers  to  use  His  right  of  choosing  a  condition  inferior  to  that  which  belongs  to  Him, 
but  that  will  leave  him  free  to  return  whenever  He  thinks  it  advisable  and  under  whatever  personality 
He  may  select,  must  be  prepared  to  take  all  the  chances  of  failure — possibly — and  a  lower  condition 
than  was  His  lot— for  a  certainty— as  it  is  an  occult  law.  Karma  alone  is  absolute  justice  and  infalli- 
ble in  its  selections.  He  who  uses  his  rights  with  it  (Karma)  must  bear  the  consequences- if  any. 
Thus  Buddha's  first  reincarnation  was  prodtr  -"d  by  Karma — and  it  led  Him  higher  than  ever  ;  the 
two  following  were  "  out  of  pity  "  and    *    *    • 


392  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

prepared  to  hear  the  whole  truth.  The  old  religions  are  full  of  mysteries, 
and  to  demonstrate  some  of  them  would  surely  lead  to  an  explosion  of 
hatred,  followed,  perhaps,  by  bloodshed  and  worse.  It  will  be  suflScient 
to  know  that  while  Gautama  Buddha  is  merged  in  Nirvana  ever  since 
his  death,  Gautama  Shakyamuni  may  have  had  to  reincarnate — this  dual 
inner  personality  being  one  of  the  greatest  mysteries  of  Esoteric 
psychism. 

"The  seat  of  the  three  secrets"  refers  to  a  place  inhabited  by  high 
Initiates  and  their  disciples.  The  "  secrets "  are  the  three  mystic 
powers  known  as  Gopa,  Yasodhara,  and  Uptala  Varna,  that  Csomo  de 
Koros  mistook  for  Buddha's  three  wives,  as  other  Orientalists  have 
mistaken  Shakti  (Yoga  power)  personified  by  a  female  deity  for  His 
wife ;  or  the  Draupadi — also  a  spiritual  power — for  the  wife  in  common 
of  the  five  brothers  Pandava. 


SECTION  XLY. 
An  Unpublished  Discourse  of  Buddha. 


(It  is  found  in  the  second  Book  of  Commentaries  and  is  addressed  to 
the  Arhats.) 

Said  the  All- Merciful :  Blessed  are  ye,  O  Bhikshus,  happy  are  5'e  who 
have  understood  the  mystery  of  Being  and  Non-Being  explained  in 
Bas-pa  [Dharma,  Doctrine],  and  have  given  preference  to  the  latter,  for 
ye  are  verily  my  Arhats.  .  .  .  The  elephant,  who  sees  his  form 
mirrored  in  the  lake,  looks  at  it,  and  then  goes  away,  taking  it  for  the 
real  body  of  another  elephant,  is  wiser  than  the  man  who  beholds  his 
face  in  the  stream,  and,  looking  at  it,  says,  "Here  am  I  .  .  .  I  am 
I":  for  the  "I,"  his  Self,  is  not  in  the  world  of  the  twelve  Nidanas  and 
mutability,  but  in  that  of  Non-Being,  the  only  world  beyond  the  snares 
of  Maya.  .  .  .  That  alone,  which  has  neither  cause  nor  author, 
which  is  self-existing,  eternal,  far  beyond  the  reach  of  mutability,  is 
the  true  "  I"  [Ego],  the  Self  of  the  Universe.  The  Universe  of  Nam- 
Kha  says:  "I  am  the  world  of  Sien-Chan";*  the  four  illusions  laugh 
and  reply,  "Verily  so."  But  the  truly  wise  man  knows  that  neither 
man,  nor  the  Universe  that  he  passes  through  like  a  flitting  shadow,  is 
any  more  a  real  Universe  than  the  dewdrop  that  reflects  a  spark  of  the 
morning  sun  is  that  sun.  .  .  .  There  are  three  things,  Bhikshus, 
that  are  everlastingly  the  same,  upon  which  no  vicissitude,  no  modifi- 
cation can  ever  act:  these  are  the  Law,  Nirvana,  and  Space,!  and  those 
three  are  One,  since  the  first  two  are  within  the  last,  and  that  last  one 
a  Maya,  so  long  as  man  keeps  within  the  whirlpool  of  sensuous 
existences.      One   need   not  have  his  mortal   body  die  to  avoid   the 


•  The  Universe  of  Brahma  (Sien-Chan  ;  Nain-Kha)  is  Universal  niusion,  or  our  phenomenal  world. 

+  Akasha.  It  is  next  to  impossible  to  render  the  mystic  word  "Tho-og"  by  any  other  term  than 
"Space,"  and  yet,  unless  coined  on  purpose,  no  new  appellation  can  render  it  so  well  to  the  mind  of 
the  Occultist.    The  term  "  Aditi  "  is  also  translated  "  Space,"  and  there  is  a  world  of  meaning  in  it. 


394  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

clutches  of  concupiscence  and  other  passions.  The  Arhat  who 
observes  the  seven  hidden  precepts  of  Bas-pa  may  become  Dang-ma 
and  Lha.*  He  may  hear  the  "holj' voice"  of  .  .  .  [Kwan-3'in],t  and 
find  himself  within  the  quiet  precincts  of  his  Sangharama :{:  trans- 
ferred into  Amitabha  Baddha.§  Becoming  one  with  Auuttara  Samyak 
Sambodhi,||  he  may  pass  through  all  the  six  worlds  of  Being  (Rupa- 
loka)  and  get  into  the  first  three  worlds  of  Arupa.^  .  .  .  He  who 
listens  to  my  secret  law,  preached  to  my  select  Arhats,  will  arrive  with 
its  help  at  the  knowledge  of  Self,  and  thence  at  perfection. 

It  is  due  to  entirely  erroneous  conceptions  of  Eastern  thought  and 
to  ignorance  of  the  existence  of  an  Esoteric  key  to  the  outward 
Buddhist  phrases  that  Burnouf  and  other  great  scholars  have  inferred 
from  such  propositions — held  also  by  the  Vedantins — as  "my  body  is 
not  body"  and  "mj^self  is  no  self  of  mine,"  that  Eastern  psychology 
was  all  based  upon  non-permanency.  Cousin,  for  instance,  lecturing 
upon  the  subject,  brings  the  two  following  propositions  to  prove,  on 
Burnouf 's  authority,  that,  unlike  Brahmanisra,  Buddhism  rejects  the 
perpetuity  of  the  thinking  principle.     These  are : 

r.  Thought  or  Spirit**— for  the  faculty  is  not  distinguished  from  the  subject — 
appears  only  with  sensation  and  does  not  survive  it. 

2.  The  Spirit  cannot  itself  lay  hold  of  itself,  and  in  directing  attention  to  itself  it 
draws  from  it  only  the  conviction  of  its  powerlessness  to  see  itself  otherwise  than  as 
successive  and  transitory. 

This  all  refers  to  Spirit  embodied,  not  to  the  freed  Spiritual  Self  on 
whom  Maya  has  no  more  hold.     Spirit  is  no  body;  therefore  have  the 

•  Dang-ma,  a  purified  soul,  and  I,ha,  a  freed  spirit  within  a  living  body  ;  an  Adept  or  Arhat.  In 
the  popular  opinion  in  Tibet,  a  Lha  is  a  disembodied  spirit,  something  similar  to  the  Burmese  Nat- 
only  higher. 

+  Kwan-yin  is  a  synonym,  for  in  the  original  another  term  is  used,  but  the  meaning  is  identical.  It 
is  the  divine  voice  of  Self,  or  the  "  Spirit-voice  "  in  man,  and  the  same  as  Vachishvara  (the  "  Voice- 
deity  ")  of  the  Brahmans.  In  China,  the  Buddhist  ritualists  have  degraded  its  meaning  by  anthro- 
pomorphizing it  into  a  Goddess  of  the  same  name,  with  one  thousand  hands  and  eyes,  and  they  call 
it  Kwan-shai-yin-Bodhisat.    It  is  the  Buddhist  "  daVmon  "-voice  of  Socrates. 

t  Sangharama  is  the  sanctum  sanctorum  of  an  ascetic,  a  cave  or  any  place  he  chooses  for  his  medi- 
tation. 

i  Amitabha  Buddha  is  in  this  connection  the  "  boundless  light  "  by  which  things  of  the  subjective 
world  are  perceived. 

II  Esoterically,  "  the  unsurpassingly  merciful  and  enlightened  heart,"  said  of  the  "  Perfect  Ones," 
the  Jivan-muktas,  collectively. 

•I  These  six  worids— seven  with  us— are  the  worlds  of  Nats  or  .Spirits,  with  the  Burmese  Buddhists, 
and  the  seven  higher  worlds  of  the  Vedantins. 

**  Two  things  entirely  distinct  from  each  other.  The  "  faculty  is  not  distinguished  from  the 
subject  "  only  on  this  material  plane,  while  thought  generated  by  our  physical  brain,  one  that  has 
nes-er  impressed  itself  at  the  same  time  on  the  spiritual  counterpart,  whether  through  the  atrophy  of 
the  latter  or  the  intrinsic  weakness  of  that  thought,  can  never  survive  our  body ;  this  much  is  sure. 


A   MISTAKEN   VIEW.  395 

Orientalists  made  of  it  "nobody"  and  nothing.  Hence  they  proclaim 
Buddhists  to  be  Nihilists,  and  Vedantins  to  be  the  followers  of  a  creed 
in  which  the  "Impersonal  [God]  turns  out  on  examination  to  be  a 
myth  "  ;  their  goal  is  described  as 

The  complete  extinction  of  all  spiritual,  mental,  and  bodily  powers  by  absorption 
into  the  Impersonal.* 


Vedanta  Sara,  translated  by  Major  jacoc,  p.  123 


SECTION    XLVI 

IN  IRYANA=MOKSHA. 


The  few  sentences  given  in  the  text  from  one  of  Gautama  Buddha's 
secret  teachings  show  how  uncalled  for  is  the  epithet  of  "Materialist" 
when  applied  to  One  Whom  two-thirds  of  those  who  are  looked  upon  as 
great  Adepts  and  Occultists  in  Asia  recognize  as  their  Master,  whether 
under  the  name  of  Buddha  or  that  of  Shankaracharya.  The  reader  will 
remember  the  just-quoted  words  are  what  Buddha  Sanggyas  (or  Pho)  is 
alleged  by  the  Tibetan  Occultists  to  have  taught :  there  are  three  eternal 
things  in  the  Universe — the  Law,  Nirvana,  and  Space.  The  Buddhists 
of  the  Southern  Church  claim,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Buddha  held 
only  two  things  as  eternal — Akasha  and  Nirvana.  But  Akasha  being 
the  same  as  Aditi,*  and  both  being  translated  "  Space,"  there  is  no 
discrepancy  so  far,  since  Nir\^ana  as  well  as  Moksha,  is  a  state.  Then 
in  both  cases  the  great  Kapilavastu  Sage  unifies  the  two,  as  well  as  the 
three,  into  one  eternal  Element,  and  ends  by  saying  that  even  "  that 
One  is  a  Maya"  to  one  who  is  not  a  Dang-ma,  a  perfectly  purified  Soul. 

The  whole  question  hangs  upon  materialistic  misconceptions  and 
ignorance  of  Occult  Metaphysics.  To  the  man  of  Science  who  regards 
Space  as  simply  a  mental  representation,  a  conception  of  something 
existing  ^w  yi?rwa,  and  having  no  real  being  outside  our  mind,  Space 
per  se  is  verily  an  illusion.  He  may  fill  the  boundless  interstellar  space 
with  an  "imaginary"  ether,  nevertheless  Space  for  him  is  an  abstraction. 
Most  of  the  Metaphysicians  of  Europe  are  so  wide  of  the  mark,  from  the 
purely  Occult  standpoint,  of  a  correct  comprehension  of  "  Space,"  as 
are  the  Materialists,  though  the  erroneous  conceptions  of  both  of  course 
differ  widely. 


•  Aditi  is  according  to  the  Rig  Veda,  "  the  Father  and  Mother  of  all  the  Gods  " ;  and  Akasha  is 
held  by  Southern  Buddhism  as  the  Root  of  all,  whence  everything  in  the  Universe  came  out,  iu 
obedience  to  a  law  of  motion  inherent  in  it ;  and  this  is  the  Tibetan  "  Space  "  (Tho-og). 


THE  AKASHA.  357 

If,  bearing  in  mind  the  philosophical  views  of  the  Ancients  upon  this 
question,  we  compare  them  with  what  is  now  termed  exact  physical 
Science,  it  will  be  found  that  the  two  disagree  only  in  inferences  and  names, 
and  that  their  postulates  are  the  same  when  reduced  to  their  most  simple 
expression.  From  the  beginning  of  the  human  ^ons,  from  the  very 
dawn  of  Occult  Wisdom,  the  regions  that  the  men  of  Science  fill  with 
ether  have  been  explored  by  the  Seers  of  every  age.  That  which  the 
world  regards  simply  as  cosmic  Space,  an  abstract  representation,  the 
Hindu  Rishi,  the  Chaldaean  Magus,  the  Egyptian  Hierophant  held,  each 
and  all,  as  the  one  eternal  Root  of  all,  the  playground  of  all  the  Forces 
in  Nature.  It  is  the  fountain-head  of  all  terrestrial  life,  and  the  abode 
of  those  (to  us)  invisible  swarms  of  existences — of  real  beings,  as  of  the 
shadows  only  thereof,  conscious  and  unconscious,  intelligent  and 
senseless — that  surround  us  on  all  sides,  that  interpenetrate  the  atoms 
of  our  Kosmos,  and  see  us  not,  as  we  do  not  either  see  or  sense  them 
through  our  physical  organisms.  For  the  Occultist  "Space"  and 
"  Universe  "  are  synonyms.  In  Space  there  is  not  Matter,  Force,  nor 
Spirit,  but  all  that  and  much  more.  It  is  the  One  Element,  and  that 
one  the  Anima  Mundi — Space,  Akasha,  Astral  Light — the  Root  of  I^ife 
which,  in  its  eternal,  ceaseless  motion,  like  the  out-  and  in-breathing  of 
one  boundless  ocean,  evolves  but  to  reabsorb  all  that  lives  and  feels  and 
thinks  and  has  its  being  in  it.  As  said  of  the  Universe  in  his  Unveiled, 
it  is: 

The  combination  of  a  thousand  elements  and  j-et  the  expression  of  a  single  Spirit 
— a  chaos  to  the  sense,  a  Kosmos  to  the  reason. 

Such  were  the  views  upon  the  subject  of  all  the  great  ancient 
Philosophers,  from  Manu  down  to  Pythagoras,  from  Plato  to  Paul. 

When  the  dissolution  [Pralaj^a]  had  arrived  at  its  term  the  great  Being  [Para- 
Atma,  or  Para-Purusha],  the  Lord  existing  through  himself,  out  of  whom  and  through 
whom  all  things  were,  and  are,  and  will  be,  .  .  .  resolved  to  emanate  from  his 
own  substance  the  various  creatures.* 

The  mystic  Decad  [cff  Pythagoras]  (i  +  2  +  3  +  4  =  10)  is  a  way  of  expressing  this 
idea.  The  One  is  God ;  t  the  Two,  matter;  the  Three,  combining  Monad  and  Duad 
and  partaking  of  the  nature  of  both,  is  the  phenomenal  world ;  the  Tetrad,  or  form 
of  perfection,  expresses  the  emptiness  of  all ;  and  the  Decad,  or  sum  of  all,  involves 
the  entire  Cosmos.  J 

•  Mdnava-Dkarma-Shdstra,  i.  6,  7. 

+  The  "  God"  of  Pythagoras,  the  disciple  of  the  Aryan  Sagres,  is  no  personal  God.  I,et  it  be  remem 
bered  that  he  taught  as  a  cardinal  t  enet  that  there  exists  a  permanent  Principle  of  Unity  beneath  al 
forms,  changes,  and  other  p  henomena  of  the  Universe. 

*  I  sis  Unveiled,  i.  xvi. 


398  THE   SiiCRET  DOCTRINE. 

Plato's  "  God"  is  the  "Universal  Ideation,"  and  Paul  saying  "Out  of 
him,  and  through  him,  and  in  him,  all  things  are,"  had  surely  a 
Principle — never  a  Jehovah — in  his  profound  mind.  The  key  to  the 
Pythagorean  dogmas  is  the  key  to  every  great  Philosophy.  It  is  the 
general  formula  of  unity  in  multiplicity,  the  One  evolving  the  many 
and  pervading  the  All.  It  is  the  archaic  doctrine  of  Emanation  in  a 
few  words. 

Speusippus  and  Xenocrates  held,  like  their  great  Master,  Plato,  that: 

The  Anima  Mundi  (or  "world-soul")  was  not  the  Deity,  but  a  manifestation. 
Those  philosophers  never  conceived  of  the  One  as  an  animate  nature.  The  original 
One  did  not  exist,  as  we  understand  the  term.  Not  till  he  (it)  had  united  with  the 
many  emanated  existences  (the  Monad  and  Duad),  was  a  being  produced.  The 
TLfxtov  ("honoured"),  the  something  manifested,  dwells  in  the  centre  as  in  the  cir- 
cumference, but  it  is  only  the  reflection  of  the  Deity — the  World-Soul.  In  this  doc- 
trine we  find  the  spirit  of  Esoteric  Buddhism.* 

And  it  is  that  of  Esoteric  Brahminism  and  of  the  Vedantin  Adwaitis. 
The  two  modern  philosophers,  Schopenhauer  and  von  Hartmann, 
teach  the  same  ideas.     The  Occultists  say  that : 

The  psychic  and  ectenic  forces,  the  "  ideo-motor  "  and  "electro-biological  powers," 
"  latent  thought,"  and  even  "  unconscious  cerebration  "  theories  can  be  condensed 
in  two  words :  the  Kabalistic  Astral  Light.t 

Schopenhauer  only  synthesized  all  this  by  calling  it  Will,  and  con- 
tradicted the  men  of  Science  in  their  materialistic  views,  as  von 
Hartmann  did  later  on.  The  author  of  \\xq.  Philosophy  of  the  Uyiconscious 
calls  their  views  "  an  instinctual  prejudice." 

Furthermore,  he  demonstrates  that  no  experimenter  can  have  anything  to  do 
with  matter  properly  so  termed,  but  only  with  the  forces  into  which  he  divides  it. 
The  visible  effects  of  matter  are  but  the  effects  of  force.  He  concludes  thereby  that 
that  which  is  now  called  matter  is  nothing  but  the  aggregation  of  atomic  forces,  to 
express  which  the  word  "matter"  is  used ;  outside  of  that,  for  science,  matter  is 
but  a  word  void  of  sense.  J 

As  much,  it  is  to  be  feared,  as  those  other  terms  with  which  we  are 
now  concerned,  "  Space,"  "Nirvana,"  and  so  on. 

The  bold  theories  and  opinions  expressed  in  Schopenhauer's  works  differ  widely 
from  those  of  the  majority  of  our  orthodox  scientists. §     "  In  reality,"  remarks  this 

•  Isis  Unveiled,  i.  xviii. 
t  Isis  Unveiled  \.  58. 
X  Isis  Unveiled,  i.  59. 

\  WTiile  they  are  to  a  great  extent  identical  with  those  of  Esoteric  Buddhism,  the  Secret  Doctrine 
of  the  East. 


MATTER  IS  EVER  LIVING,  •^gg 

daring  speculator,  "  there  is  neither  Matter  nor  Spirit.  The  tendency  to  gravita- 
tion in  a  stone  is  as  unexplaiuable  as  thought  in  the  human  brain.  ...  If  matter 
can— no  one  knows  why— fall  to  the  ground,  then  it  can  also— no  one  knows  why- 
think.  ...  As  soon,  even  in  mechanics,  as  we  trespass  beyond  the  purely 
mathematical,  as  soon  as  we  reach  the  inscrutable  adhesion,  gravitation,  and  so  on 
we  are  faced  by  phenomena  which  are  to  our  senses  as  mysterious  as  the  will  and 
thought  in  man :  we  find  ourselves  facing  the  incomprehensible,  for  such  is  everv 
force  in  nature.  Where  is,  then,  that  matterwhich  you  all  pretend  to  know  so  well' 
and  from  which— being  so  familiar  with  it— you  draw  all  your  conclusions  and 
explanations,  and  attribute  to  it  all  things  ?  .  .  .  That  which  can  be  fully 
realized  by  our  reason  and  senses  is  but  the  superficial ;  they  can  never  reach  the 
true  inner  substance  of  things.  Such  was  the  opinion  of  Kant.  If  you  consider 
that  there  is  in  a  human  head  some  sort  of  a  spitit,  then  you  are  obliged  to  concede 
the  same  to  a  stone.  If  your  dead  and  utterly-passive  matter  can  manifest  a  ten- 
dency toward  gravitation  or,  like  electricity,  attract  and  repel  and  send  out  sparks 
then  as  well  as  the  brain  it  can  also  think.  In  short,  every  particle  of  the  so-called 
spirit  we  can  replace  with  an  equivalent  of  matter,  and  everj-  particle  of  matter 
replace  with  spirit.  .  .  .  Thus,  it  is  not  the  Christian  division  of  all  things  into 
matter  and  spirit  that  can  ever  be  found  philosophically  exact ;  but  only  if  we 
divide  them  into  will  and  manifestation,  which  form  of  division  has  naught  to  do 
\vith  the  former,  for  it  spiritualizes  everj-thing:  all  that  which  is  in  the  first  instance 
real  and  objective— body  and  matter— it  transforms  into  a  representation,  and  every 
manifestation  into  will."* 

The  matter  oi  science  may  be  for  all  objective  purposes  a  "  dead  and 
utterly-passive  matter  "  ;  to  the  Occultist  not  an  atom  of  it  can  be  dead 
— "  Ivife  is  ever  present  in  it."  We  send  the  reader  who  would  know 
more  about  it  to  our  article,  "  Transmigration  of  I.ife-Atoms."t  What 
we  are  now  concerned  with  is  the  doctrine  of  Nir\'ana. 

A  "system  of  atheism"  it  may  be  justly  called,  since  it  recognizes 
neither  God  nor  Gods— least  of  all  a  Creator,  as  it  entirely  rejects 
creation.  The  Fecit  ex  nihilo  is  as  incomprehensible  to  the  Occult 
metaphysical  Scientist  as  it  is  to  the  scientific  Materialist.  It  is  at  this 
point  that  all  agreement  stops  between  the  two.  But  if  such  be  the  sin 
of  the  Buddhist  and  Brahman  Occultist,  then  Pantheists  and  Atheists, 
and  also  theistical  Jews— the  Kabalists— must  also  plead  "  guilty  "  to 
it ;  yet  no  one  would  ever  think  of  calling  the  Hebrews  of  the  Kabalah 
"Atheists."  Except  the  Talmudistic  and  Christian  exoteric  systems 
there  never  was  a  religious  Philosophy,  whether  in  the  ancient  or 
modern  world,  but  rejected  a  priori  the  ex  nihilo  hypothesis,  simply 
because  Matter  was  always  co-eternalized  with  Spirit. 


•  Parerga,  11.  iii.  112  ;  quoted  in  IsU  UnveiUd,  i.  58.  t  Five  years  of  Theosophy,  p.  338,  ei  seq. 


•fOO  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Nirvana,  as  well  as  the  Moksha  of  the  Vedantins,  is  regarded  by 
most  of  the  Orientalists  as  a  synonym  of  annihilation ;  yet  no  more 
"laxing  injustice  could  be  done,  and  this  capital  error  must  be  pointed 
out  and  disproved.  On  this  most  important  tenet  of  the  Brahmo- 
Buddhistic  system — the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  "Being"  or  "Non- 
Being" — rests  the  whole  edifice  of  Occult  Metaphysics.  Now  the 
rectification  of  the  great  error  concerning  Nirvana  may  be  very  easily 
accomplished  with  relation  to  the  philosophically  inclined,  to  those 
who. 

In  the  glass  of  things  temporal  see  the  image  of  things  spiritual. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  that  reader  who  could  never  soar  beyond  the 
details  of  tangible  material  form,  our  explanation  will  appear  meaning- 
less. He  may  comprehend  and  even  accept  the  logical  inferences 
from  the  reasons  given — the  true  spirit  will  ever  escape  his  intuitions. 
The  word  "  nihil "  having  been  misconceived  from  the  first,  it  is 
continually  used  as  a  sledge-hammer  in  the  matter  of  Esoteric 
Philosophy.  Nevertheless  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Occultist  to  try  and 
explain  it. 

Nirvana  and  Moksha,  then,  as  said  before,  have  their  being  in  non- 
being,  if  such  a  paradox  be  permitted  to  illustrate  the  meaning  the 
better.  Nirvana,  as  some  illustrious  Orientalists  have  attempted  to 
prove,  does  mean  the  "blowing-out"*  of  all  sentient  existence.  It  is 
like  the  flame  of  a  candle  burnt  out  to  its  last  atom,  and  then  suddenly 
extinguished.  Quite  so.  Nevertheless,  as  the  old  Arhat  Nagasena 
afl&rmed  before  the  king  who  taunted  him  :  "  Nirvana  is" — and  Nirvana 
is  eternal.  But  the  Orientalists  deny  this,  and  say  it  is  not  so.  In 
their  opinion  Nirvana  is  not  a  re-absorption  in  the  Universal  Force, 
not  eternal  bliss  and  rest,  but  it  means  literally  "the  blowing-out,  the 
extinction,  complete  annihilation,  and  not  absorption."  The  La^ik- 
ctvatara  quoted  in  support  of  their  arguments  by  some  Sanskritists,  and 
which  gives  the  different  interpretations  of  Nirvana  by  the  Tirthika 
Brahmans,  is  no  authority  to  one  who  goes  to  primeval  sources  for 
information,  namely,  to  the  Buddha  who  taught  the  doctrine.  As  well 
quote  the  Char\'-aka  Materialists  in  their  support. 

•  Prof.  Max  Mailer,  in  a  letter  to  The  Times  (April,  1857),  maintained  most  vehemently  that  Nirvana 
meant  annihilation  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word.  {Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  i.  287.)  But  in 
1869,  in  a  lecture  before  the  General  Meeting  of  the  Association  of  German  Philologists  at  Kiel.  "  he 
distinctly  declares  his  belief  that  the  Nihilism  attributed  to  Buddha's  teaching  forms  no  part  of  his 
doctrine,  and  that  it  is  wholly  wrong  to  suppose  thatNiri-ana  means  annihilation."  (Trubner's  Amer. 
*nd  Oriental  L:t.  Rec,  Oct.  i6th,  1869.) 


BLIND   FAITH  NOT  EXPECTED.  40I 

If  we  bring  as  an  argument  the  sacred  Jaina  books,  wherein  the 
dying  Gautama  Buddha  is  thus  addressed:  "Arise  into  Nirvi  [Nir- 
vana] from  this  decrepit  body  into  which  thou  hast  been  sent.  .  .  . 
Ascend  into  thy  former  abode,  O  blessed  AvatSra "  ;  and  if  we  add 
that  this  seems  to  us  the  very  opposite  of  nihilism,  we  maj^  be  told 
that  so  far  it  may  only  prove  a  contradiction,  one  more  discrepancy  in 
the  Buddhist  faith.  If  again  we  remind  the  reader  that  since  Gautama 
is  believed  to  appear  occasionall)',  re-descending  from  his  "  former 
abode"  for  the  good  of  humanity  and  His  faithful  congregation,  thus 
making  it  incontestable  that  Buddhism  does  not  teach  final  annihila- 
tion, we  shall  be  referred  to  authorities  to  whom  such  teaching  is 
ascribed.  And  let  us  say  at  once :  Men  are  no  authority  for  us  in  ques- 
tions of  conscience,  nor  ought  the)'-  to  be  for  anyone  else.  If  anyone 
holds  to  Buddha's  Philosophy,  let  him  do  and  say  as  Buddha  did  and 
said  ;  if  a  man  calls  himself  a  Christian,  let  him  follow  the  command- 
ments of  Christ — not  the  interpretations  of  His  many  dissenting  priests 
and  sects. 

In  A  Buddhist  Catechism  the  question  is  asked : 

Are  there  any  dogmas  in  Buddhism  which  we  are  required  to  accept  on 
faith  ? 

A.  No.  We  are  earnestly  enjoined  to  accept  nothing  whatever  on  faith,  whether 
it  be  written  in  books,  handed  down  from  our  ancestors,  or  taught  by  sages.  Our 
I/Ord  Buddha  has  said  that  we  must  not  believe  in  a  thing  said  mereh'  because  it  is 
said;  nor  traditions  because  they  have  been  handed  down  from  antiquity;  nor 
rumours,  as  such  ;  nor  writings  by  sages,  because  sages  wrote  them :  nor  fancies 
that  we  may  suspect  to  have  been  inspired  in  us  by  a  Deva  (that  is,  in  presumed 
spiritual  inspiration);  nor  from  inferences  drawn  from  some  haphazard  assumption 
we  may  have  made  ;  nor  because  of  what  seems  an  analogical  necessity  ;  nor  on  the 
mere  authority  of  our  teachers  or  masters.  But  we  are  to  believe  when  the  writing, 
doctrine,  or  sa5ang  is  corroborated  \sy  our  own  reason  and  consciousness.  "  For 
this,"  says  he  in  concluding,  "  I  taught  you  not  to  believe  merely  because  you  have 
heard,  but  when  you  believed  of  your  consciousness,  then  to  act  accordingly  and 
abundantly."* 

That  Nirvana,  or  rather,  that  state  in  which  we  are  in  Nirvana,  is 
quite  the  reverse  of  annihilation  is  suggested  to  us  by  our  "  reason 
and  consciousness,"  and  that  is  suflScient  for  us  personally.  At  the 
same  time,  this  fact  being  inadequate  and  ver>'  ill-adapted  for  the 
general  reader,  something  more  efficient  may  be  added. 

•  See  the  Kalama  Suila  of  the  Angultaranikayo,  as  quoted  ia  A  Buddhist  Catechism,  by  H.  S. 
Olcott,  President  of  the  Theosophical  Society,  pp.  55,  56. 

3  D3 


402  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

Without  resorting  to  sources  unsympathetic  to  Occultism,  ^\i^  Kabalah 
furnishes  us  with  the  most  luminous  and  clear  proofs  that  the  term 
"  nihil "  in  the  minds  of  the  Ancient  Philosophers  had  a  meaning  quite 
different  from  that  it  has  now  received  at  the  hands  of  Materialists. 
It  means  certainly  "nothing" — or  "no-thing."  F.  Kircher,  in  his  work 
on  the  Kabalak  and  the  Egyptian  Mysteries  *  explains  the  term 
admirabl3\  He  tells  his  readers  that  in  the  Zohar  the  first  of  the 
Sephirotlif  has  a  name  the  significance  of  which  is  "  the  Infi^iite,''  but 
which  was  translated  indifferently  by  the  Kabalists  as  "Ens"  and 
"  Non-Ens  "  ("  Being"  and  "  Non-Being")  ;  a  Being,  inasmuch  as  it  is 
the  root  and  source  of  all  other  beings ;  Non-Being  because  Ain  Soph — 
the  Boundless  and  the  Causeless,  the  Unconscious  and  the  Passive 
Principle — resembles  nought  else  in  the  Universe. 

The  author  adds  : 

This  is  the  reason  why  St.  Denys  did  not  hesitate  to  call  it  Nihil. 

"  Nihil "  therefore  stands — even  with  some  Christian  theologians  and 
thinkers,  especially  with  the  earlier  ones  who  lived  but  a  few  removes 
from  the  profound  Philosophy  of  the  initiated  Pagans — as  a  synonym 
for  the  impersonal,  divine  Principle,  the  Infinite  All,  which  is  no  Being 
or  thing — the  En  orAin  Soph,  the  Parabrahman  of  the  Vedanta.  Now 
St.  Denys  was  a  pupil  of  St.  Paul — an  Initiate — and  this  fact  makes 
ever^'thing  clear. 

The  "  Nihil"  is  in  esse  the  Absolute  Deity  itself,  the  hidden  Power  or 
Omnipresence  degraded  by  Monotheism  into  an  anthropomorphic 
Being,  with  all  the  passions  of  a  mortal  on  a  grand  scale.  Union  with 
That  is  not  annihilation  in  the  sense  understood  in  Europe.:}:  In  the 
East  annihilation  in  Nirvana  refers  but  to  matter :  that  of  the  visible  as 
well  as  the  invisible  bod)-,  for  the  astral  body,  the  personal  double,  is 
still  matter,  however  sublimated.  Buddha  taught  that  the  primitive 
Substance  is  eternal  and  unchangeable.  Its  vehicle  is  the  pure, 
luminous  ether,  the  boundless,  infinite  Space, 

Not  a  void  resulting  from  the  absence  of  forms,  but  on  the  contrary,  the  founda- 

'  CEdipus  AZgypt.,  11.  i.  291. 

T  Sephir,  or  Aditi  (mystic  Space).  The  Sephiroth,  be  it  understood,  are  identical  with  the  Hindu 
Prajipatis,  the  Dhyan  Chohans  of  Esoteric  Buddhism,  theZoroastrian  Amshaspends,  andfinally  with 
the  Elohim— the  "Seven  Angels  of  the  Presence"  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

*  According  to  the  Eastern  idea,  the  All  comes  out  from  the  One,  and  returns  to  it  again.  Absolute 
annihilation  is  simply  unthinkable.  Nor  can  eternal  Matter  be  annihilated.  Form  maybe  annihi- 
lated :  co-relations  may  change.  That  is  all.  There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  annihilation— in  the 
European  sense— in  the  Universe. 


WHAT  ANNIHILATION  MEANS.  4.03 

tion  of  all  forms  .  .  .  [This]  denotes  it  to  be  the  creation  of  Ma)'a,  all  the  works 
of  which  are  as  nothing  before  the  uncreated  Form  [Spirit],  in  whose  profound  and 
sacred  depths  all  motion  must  cease  for  ever.* 

Motion  here  refers  only  to  illusive  objects,  to  their  change  as  opposed 
to  perpetuity,  rest — perpetual  motion  being  the  Eternal  L,aw,  the  cease- 
less Breath  of  the  Absolute. 

The  mastery  of  Buddhistic  dogmas  can  be  attained  only  according  to 
the  Platonic  method  :  from  universals  to  particulars.  The  key  to  it  lies 
in  the  refined  and  mystical  tenets  of  spiritual  influx  and  divine  life. 

Saith  Buddha  : 

Whosoever  is  tinacquaiiiied  with  my  Lazv,\  and  dies  in  that  state  must 
return  to  earth  until  he  becomes  a  perfect  Samano  [ascetic'].  To  achieve 
this  object  he  must  destroy  withiti  himself  the  trinity  of  Mdyd.X  He  miist 
extinguish  his  passio?is,  ujiite  and  identify  himself  with  the  Law  [the  teach- 
ing of  the  Secret  Doctrine\  and  comprehend  the  philosophy  of  a7inihilation.% 

No,  it  is  not  in  the  dead-letter  of  Buddhistical  literature  that  scholars 
may  ever  hope  to  find  the  true  solution  of  its  metaphysical  subtleties. 
Alone  in  all  antiquity  the  Pythagoreans  understood  them  perfectly,  and 
it  is  on  the  (to  the  average  Orientalist  and  the  Materialist)  incomprehen- 
sible abstractions  of  Buddhism  that  Pythagoras  grounded  the  principal 
tenets  of  his  Philosophy.  ^ 

Annihilation  means  with  the  Buddhistical  Philosophy  only  a 
dispersion  of  matter,  in  whatever  form  or  semblayice  of  form  it  may  be, 
foi*  everything  that  bears  a  shape  was  created,  and  thus  must  sooner  or 
later  perish,  i.e.,  change  that  shape;  therefore,  as  something  temporal, 
though  seeming  to  be  permanent,  it  is  but  an  illusion,  Maya  ;  for  as 
eternity  has  neither  beginning  nor  end,  the  more  or  less  prolonged 
duration  of  some  particular  form  passes,  as  it  were,  like  an  instantaneous 
flash  of  lightning.  Before  we  have  the  time  to  realize  that  we  have 
seen  it,  it  is  gone  and  passed  for  ever ;  hence  even  our  astral  bodies, 
pure  ether,  are  but  illusions  of  matter  so  long  as  they  retain  their 
terrestrial  outline.  The  latter  changes,  says  the  Buddhist,  according 
to  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  person  during  his  lifetime,  and  this  is 


•  Isis  Unveiled,  i.  289. 

•»■  The  Secret  Law,  the  "  Doctrine  of  the  Heart,"  so  called  in  contrast  to  the  "  Doctrine  of  the  EyP," 
or  exoteric  Buddhism. 

%  "  Illusive  matter  in  its  triple  manifestation  in  the  earthly,  and  the  astral  or  fontal  Soul  (the  body), 
and  the  Platonian  dual  Soul — the  rational  and  the  irrational  one." 

\  Isis  Unveiled,  i.  289. 


404  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

metempsychosis.  When  the  spiritual  Entity  breaks  loose  for  ever  from 
every  particle  of  matter,  then  only  it  enters  upon  the  eternal  and 
unchangeable  Nirvana.  He  exists  in  Spirit,  in  nothing ;  as  a  form,  a 
shape,  a  semblance,  he  is  completely  annihilated,  and  thus  will  die  no 
more,  for  Spirit  alone  is  no  Maya,  but  the  only  Reality  in  an  illusionary 
universe  of  ever-passing  forms. 

It  is  upon  this  Buddhist  doctrine  that  the  Pythagoreans  grounded  the  principal 
tenets  of  their  philosophy.  "Can  that  Spirit  which  gives  life  and  motion,  and  par- 
takes of  the  nature  of  light,  be  reduced  to  nonentity?"  they  ask.  "Can  that  sen- 
sitive Spirit  in  brutes  which  exercises  memory,  one  of  the  rational  faculties,  die  and 
become  nothing?"  And  Whitelock  Bulstrode  in  his  able  defence  of  Pythagoras 
expounds  this  doctrine  by  adding : 

"If  you  say  they  [the  brutes]  breathe  their  Spirits  into  the  air,  and  there  vanish, 
that  is  all  that  I  contend  for.  The  air  indeed  is  the  proper  place  to  receive  them, 
being  according  to  Laertius  full  of  souls ;  and  according  to  Epicurus  full  of  atoms, 
the  principles  of  all  things;  for  even  this  place  wherein  we  walk  and  birds  fly  has  so 
much  of  a  spiritual  nature  that  it  is  invisible,  and  therefore  may  well  be  the  receiver 
of  forms,  since  the  forms  of  all  bodies  are  so ;  we  can  only  see  and  hear  its  effects ; 
the  air  itself  is  toe  fine  and  above  the  capacity  of  the  age.  What  then  is  the  ether 
in  the  region  above,  and  what  are  the  influences  of  forms  that  descend  from  thence  ?  " 
The  Spirits  of  creatures,  the  Pythagoreans  hold,  who  are  emanations  of  the  most 
sublimated  portions  of.  ether — emanations,  breaths,  but  not  forms.  Ether  is  corrup- 
tible— all  philosophers  agree  in  that ; — and  what  is  incorruptible  is  so  far  from 
being  annihilated  when  it  gets  rid  of  the  form  that  it  lays  a  good  claim  to 
imnio?'tatity. 

"  But  what  is  that  which  has  no  bod}%  no  form;  which  is  imponderable,  invisible, 
and  indivisible— that  which  exists,  and  yet  is  not?"  ask  the  Buddhists.  "It  is 
Nirvana,"  is  the  answer.    It  is  fiothing—not  a  region,  but  rather  a  state.* 

*  Isis  Unveiled,  i.  290. 


SECTION  XLVIL 

The  Secret  Books  of  ''Lam-Rin"  and  Dzyan, 


The  Book  of  Dzyan — from  the  Sanskrit  word  "Dhyan"  (mystic 
meditation) — is  the  first  volume  of  the  Commentaries  upon  the  seven 
secret  folios  of  Kiu-te,  and  a  Glossary  of  the  public  works  of  the  same 
name.  Thirty-five  volumes  of  Kiu-te  for  exoteric  purposes  and  the  use 
of  the  laymen  may  be  found  in  the  possession  of  the  Tibetan  Gelugpa 
Lamas,  in  the  library  of  any  monastery ;  and  also  fourteen  books  of 
Commentaries  and  Annotations  on  the  same  by  the  initiated  Teachers. 

Strictly  speaking,  those  thirty-five  books  ought  to  be  termed  "  The 
Popularised  Version  "  of  the  Secret  Doctrine,  full  of  myths,  blinds,  and 
errors ;  the  fourteen  volumes  of  Commentaries,  on  the  other  hand — with 
their  translations,  annotations,  and  an  ample  glossary  of  Occult  terms, 
worked  out  from  one  small  archaic  folio,  the  Book  of  the  Secret  Wisdom 
of  the  Wor/d* — contain  a  digest  of  all  the  Occult  Sciences.  These,  it 
appears,  are  kept  secret  and  apart,  in  the  charge  of  the  Teshu  Lama  of 
Tji-gad-je.  The  Books  of  Kiu-te  are  comparatively  modern,  having  been 
edited  within  the  last  millennium,  whereas,  the  earliest  volumes  of  the 
Commentaries  are  of  untold  antiquity,  some  fragments  of  the  original 
cylinders  having  been  preserved.  With  the  exception  that  they  explain 
and  correct  some  of  the  too  fabulous,  and  to  every  appearance,  grosslj'- 
exaggerated  accounts  in  the  Books  of  IKiu-tef — properly  so-called — the 
Commentaries  have  little  to  do  with  these.     They  stand  in  relation  to 

*  It  is  from  the  texts  of  all  these  works  that  the  Secret  Doctrine  has  been  given.  The  original 
matter  -would  not  make  a  small  pamphlet,  but  the  explanations  and  notes  from  the  Commentaries 
and  Glossaries  might  be  worked  into  ten  volumes  as  large  as  Isis  Unveiled. 

t  The  monk  Delia  Penna  makes  considerable  fun  in  his  Memoirs  (see  Markham's  Tibet)  of  certain 
statements  in  the  Books  of  Kiu-te.  He  brings  to  the  notice  of  the  Christian  public  "the  great  moun- 
tain 160,000  leagues  high  "  (a  Tibetan  league  consisting  of  five  miles)  in  the  Himalayan  Range. 
"According  to  their  law,"  he  says,  "in  the  west  of  this  world  is  an  eternal  world  .  .  .  a  paradise, 
and  in  it  a  Saint  called  Hopahma,  which  means  'Saint  of  Splendour  and  Infinite  Light.'  This  Saint 
has  many  disciples  who  are  all  Chang-chub,"  which  means,  he  adds  in  a  footnote,  "the  Spirits  of 
those  who,  on  account  of  their  perfection,  do  not  care  to  become  saints,  and  train  and  instruct  the 
bodies  of  the  reborn  Lamas  ...  so  that  they  may  help  the  living."  Which  means  that  the  presum- 
ably "  dead  "  Yang-Chhub  (not "  Chang-chub  ")  are  simply  living  Bodhisattvas,  some  of  those  known 
as  Bhante  ("the  Brothers").  As  to  the  "mountain  160,000  leagues  high,"  the  Cbwjw/^w/ary  which 
gives  the  key  to  such  statements  explains  that  according  to  the  code  used  by  the  writers,  "  to  the  west 
of  the  '  Snowy  Mountain  '  160  leagues  [the  cyphers  being  a  blind]  from  a  certain  spot  and  by  a  direct 
road,  is  the  Bhante  Yul  [the  country  or  'Seat  of  the  Brothers'],  the  residence  of  Maha-Chohan  ..." 
etc.    This  is  the  real  meaning.    The  "  Hopahma  "  of  Delia  Penna  is— the  Maha-Chohan,  the  Chief. 


4o6  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

them  as  the  Chaldseo- Jewish  Kabalah  stands  to  the  Mosaic  Books.  In 
the  work  known  as  the  Avatumsaka  Si'itra,  in  section  :  "  The  Supreme 
Atman  [Soul]  as  manifested  in  the  character  of  the  Arhats  and  Pratyeka 
Buddhas,"  it  is  stated  that : 

Because  from  the  beginning  all  sentient  creatures  have  confused  the  truth  and 
embraced  the  false,  therefore  there  came  into  existence  a  hidden  knowledge  called 
Alaya  Vijnana. 

"Who  is  in  possession  of  the  true  knowledge?"  is  asked.  "The 
great  Teachers  of  the  Snowy  Mountain,"  is  the  response. 

These  "great  Teachers"  have  been  known  to  live  in  the  "Snowy 
Range  "  of  the  Himalayas  for  countless  ages.  To  deny  in  the  face  of 
millions  of  Hindus  the  existence  of  their  great  Gurus,  living  in  the 
Ashrams  scattered  all  over  the  Trans-  or  the  Cis-Himalayau  slopes 
is  to  make  oneself  ridiculous  in  their  eyes.  When  the  Buddhist 
Saviour  appeared  in  India,  their  Ashrams — for  it  is  rarely  that  these 
great  Men  are  found  in  Lamaseries,  unless  on  a  short  visit — were  on 
*.he  spots  they  now  occupy,  and  that  even  before  the  Brahmans  them- 
selves came  from  Central  Asia  to  settle  on  the  Indus.  And  before  that 
more  than  one  Aryan  Dvija  of  fame  and  historical  renown  had  sat  at 
their  feet,  learning  that  which  culminated  later  on  in  one  or  another 
of  the  great  philosophical  schools.     Most  of  these  Himalayan  Bhante 

A 

were  Aryan  Brahmans  and  ascetics. 

No  student,  unless  very  advanced,  would  be  benefited  by  the  perusal  of 
those  exoteric  volumes.*  The)'  must  be  read  with  a  key  to  their  meaning, 
and  that  key  can  only  be  found  in  the  Commentaries.  Moreover  there 
are  some  comparatively  modern  works  that  are  positively  injurious  so 
far  as  a  fair  comprehension  o.  even  exoteric  Buddhism  is  concerned. 
Such  are  the  ^?/^^/^/5/  Cosmos,  by  Bonze  Jin-ch'on  of  Pekin;  the  Shing- 
Tau-ki  (or  The  Records  of  the  Enlightenment  of  Tathdgata),  by  Wang  Puk 
— seventh  century ;  Hisai  Sictra  (or  Book  of  Creatio?i),  and  some  others. 

*  In  some  MSS.  notes  before  us,  written  by  Gelung  (priest)  Thango-pa  Chhe-go-mo,  it  is  said :  "The 
few  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  who  have  visited  our  laud  (under  protest)  in  the  last  century  and 
have  repaid  our  hospitality  by  turning  our  sacred  literature  into  ridicule,  have  shown  little  discretion 
and  still  less  knowledge.  It  is  true  that  the  Sacred  Canon  of  the  Tibetans,  the  Kahgyur  and 
Bstanhgyur ,  comprises  1707  distinct  works— 1083  public  and  624  secret  volumes,  the  former  being  com- 
posed of  350  and  the  latter  of  77  volumes  folio.  May  we  humbly  invite  the  good  missionaries,  however, 
to  tell  us  when  they  ever  succeeded  in  getting  a  glimpse  of  the  last-named  secret  folios  ?  Had  they 
even  by  chance  seen  them  I  can  assure  the  Western  Pandits  that  these  manuscripts  and  folios  could 
never  be  understood  even  by  a  bom  Tibetan  without  a  key  (a)  to  their  peculiar  characters,  and  [b)  to 
their  hidden  meaning.  In  our  system  every  description  of  locality  is  figurative,  every  name  and  word 
purposely  veiled  ;  and  one  has  first  to  study  the  mode  of  deciphering  and  then  to  learn  the  equiva- 
lent secret  terms  and  symbols  for  nearly  every  word  of  the  religious  language.  The  Egyptian 
enchorial  or  hieratic  system  is  child's  play  to  our  sacerdotal  puzzles." 


SECTION   XLVIIL 

Amita  Buddha  KwAN-SHAi=Ym,  and   Kwan= 

YIN.— What  the  "Book  of  Dzyan"  and  the 

Lamaseries  of  Tsong=Kha=pa  say. 


As  a  supplement  to  the  Commentaries  there  are  man}'  secret  folios  on 
the  lives  of  the  Buddhas  and  Bodhisattvas,  and  among  these  there  is 
one  on  Prince  Gautama  and  another  on  His  reincarnation  in  Tsong- 
Kha-pa.  This  great  Tibetan  Reformer  of  the  fourteenth  century,  said 
to  be  a  direct  incarnation  of  Amita  Buddha,  is  the  founder  of  the 
secret  School  near  Tji-gad-je,  attached  to  the  private  retreat  of  the 
Teshu  lyama.  It  is  with  Him  that  began  the  regular  sj^stem  of  Lamaic 
incarnations  of  Buddhas  (Sang-gyas),  or  of  Shak^^a-Thub-pa  (Shakya- 
muni).  Araida  or  Amita  Buddha  is  called  by  the  author  of  Chinese 
Buddhism,  a.  mythical  being.     He  speaks  of 

Amida  Buddha  (Ami-to  Fo)  a  fabulous  personage,  worshipped  assiduously — 
like  Kwaii-yiu — by  the  Northern  Buddhists,  but  unknown  in  Siam,  Burmah,  and 
Ceylon.* 

Very  likely.      Yet  Amida  Buddha  is  not  a  "  fabulous  "  personage, 

A  A 

since  (a)  "  Amida  "  is  the  Senzar  form  of  "  Adi" ;  "  Adi-Buddhi  "  and 
"  Adi-Buddha,"t  as  already  shown,  existed  ages  ago  as  a  Sanskrit  term 
for  "Primeval  Soul"  and  "Wisdom"  ;  and  (d)  the  name  was  applied 
to  Gautama  Shakyamuni,  the  last  Buddha  in  India,  from  the  seventh 
centur}',  when  Buddhism  was  introduced  into  Tibet.  "Amitabha"  (in 
Chinese,    " Wu-liang-sheu ")    means     literally    "Boundless    Age,"    a 


*  Otinese  Buddhism,  p.  171. 

t  "Buddhi"  is  a  Sanskrit  term  for  "discrimination"  or   intellect    (the    sixth    principle),    and 
"  Buddha"  is  "wise,"  "wisdom,"  and  also  the  planet  Mercury. 


408  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

synonym  of  "En,"  or  "  Ain-Suph,"  the  "Ancient  of  Days,'^  and  is  an 
epithet  that  connects  Him  directly  with  the  Boundless  Adi-Buddhi 
(primeval  and  Universal  Soul)  of  the  Hindus,  as  well  as  with  the  Anima 
Mundi  of  all  the  ancient  nations  of  Europe  and  the  Boundless  and 
Infinite  of  the  Kabalists.  If  Amitabha  be  a  fiction  of  the  Tibetans,  or 
a  new  form  of  Wu-liang-sheu,  "a  fabulous  personage,"  as  the  author- 
compiler  of  Chinese  Buddhis77i  tells  his  readers,  then  the  "fable"  must 
be  a  very  ancient  one.  For  on  another  page  he  says  himself  that  the 
addition  to  the  canon,  of  the  books  containing  the 

Legends  of  Kwan->nn  aud  of  the  Western  heaven  with  its  Buddha,  Amitabha, 
was  also  previous  to  the  Council  of  Kashmere,  a  little  before  the  beginning  of 
our  era,* 
and  he  places 

the  origin  of  the  primitive  Buddhist  books  which  are  common  to  the  Northern  and 
Southern  Buddhists  before  246  B.C. 

Since  Tibetans  accepted  Buddhism  only  in  the  seventh  centur>'  a.d., 
how  comes  it  that  they  are  charged  with  inventing  Amita-Buddha  ? 
Besides  which,  in  Tibet,  Amitabha  is  called  Odpag-med,  which  shows 
that  it  is  not  the  name  but  the  abstract  idea  that  was  first  accepted  of 
an  unknown,  invisible,  and  Impersonal  Power — taken,  moreover,  from 
the  Hindu  "Adi-Buddhi,"  and  not  from  the  Chinese  "Amitabha."! 
There  is  a  great  difference  between  the  popular  Odpag-med  (Amitabha) 
who  sits  enthroned  in  Devachan  (Sukhavati),  according  to  the  Mani 
Kambum  Scriptures — the  oldest  historical  work  in  Tibet,  and  the  philo- 
sophical abstraction  called  Amida  Buddha,  the  name  being  passed  now 
to  the  earthly  Buddha,  Gautama. 


*  This  curious  contradiction  may  be  Ibuud  in  Chinese  Buddhism,  pp.  171,  273.  The  reverend  author 
assures  his  readers  that  "  to  the  philosophic  Buddhists  .  .  .  Amitabha  Yoshi  Fo,  and  the  others 
are  nothing  but  the  signs  of  ideas"  (p.  236).  Very  true.  But  so  should  be  all  other  deific  names,  such 
as  Jehovah,  Allah,  etc.,  aud  if  they  are  not  simply  "signs  of  ideas"  this  would  only  show  that  minds 
that  receive  them  otherwise  are  not  "  philosophic  "  ;  it  would  not  at  all  afford  serious  proof  that  there 
are  personal,  li\-ing  Gods  of  these  names  in  reality. 

t  The  Chinese  Axnitabha  (Wu-liang-sheu)  and  the  Tibetan  Amitabha  , (Odpag-med)  have  now 
become  personal  Gods,  ruling  over  and  living  in  the  celestial  region  of  Sukhavati,  or  Tushita 
<Tibetan  :  Devachan) ;  while  Adi-Buddhi,  of  the  philosophic  Hindu,  and  Amita  Buddha  of  the  philo- 
pophic  Chinaman  and  Tibetan,  are  names  for  universal,  primeval  ideas. 


SECTION    XLIX. 

TS0NG=KhA=PA.— LOHANS  IN  ChinAo 


In  an  article,  "  Reincarnation  in  Tibet,"  everything  that  could  be 
said  about  Tsong-Kha-pa  was  published  *  It  was  stated  that  this 
reformer  was  not,  as  is  alleged  by  Parsi  scholars,  an  incarnation  of  one 
of  the  celestial  Dhyanis,  or  the  five  heavenly  Buddhas,  said  to  have  been 
created  by  Shakyamuni  after  he  had  risen  to  Nir\'ana,  but  that  he  was  an 
incarnation  of  Amita  Buddha  Himself.  The  records  preserved  in  the 
Gon-pa,  the  chief  Lamasery  of  Tda-shi-Hlumpo,  show  that  Sang-gyas 
left  the  regions  of  the  "Western  Paradise"  to  incarnate  Himself  in 
Tsong-Kha-pa,  in  consequence  of  the  great  degradation  into  which  His 
secret  doctrines  had  fallen. 

Wheuever  made  too  public,  the  Good  Law  of  Cheu  [magical  powers]  fell  invaria- 
bly into  sorcery  or  "  black  magic."  The  Dwijas,  the  Hoshang  [Chinese  monks] 
and  the  Lamas  could  alone  be  entrusted  safely  with  the  formulae. 

Until  the  Tsong-Kha-pa  period  there  had  been  no  Sang-gyas  (Buddha) 
incarnations  in  Tibet. 

Tsong-Kha-pa  gave  the  signs  whereby  the  presence  of  one  of 
the  twenty-five  Bodhisattvas  f  or  of  the  Celestial  Buddhas  (Dhyan 
Chohans)  in  a  human  bod}'  might  be  recognized,  and  He  strictly  forbade 
necromancy.  This  led  to  a  split  amongst  the  Lamas,  and  the  mal- 
contents allied  themselves  with  the  aboriginal  Bhons  against  the  re- 
formed Lamaism.  Even  now  they  form  a  powerful  sect,  practising  the 
most  disgusting  rites  all  over  Sikkhim,  Bhutan,  Nepaul,  and  even  on  the 
borderlands  of  Tibet.  It  was  worse  then.  With  the  permission  of  the 
Tda-shu  or  Teshu  L,ama,:I:  some  hundred  Lohans  (Arhats),  to  avert  strife, 

'  See  Theosophist  for  March,  1882. 

T  The  intimate  relation  of  the  twenty-five  Buddhas  (Bodhisattvas)  with  the  twenty-five  Tattvas  (the 
Conditioned  or  Limited)  of  the  Hindus  is  interesting. 

t  It  is  curious  to  note  the  great  importance  given  by  European  Orientalists  to  the  DalaV  Lamas  of 
Lhassa,  and  their  utter  ignorance  as  to  the  Tda-shu  (or  Teshu)  Lamas,  while  it  is  the  latter  who  began 
the  hierarchical  series  of  Buddha-incarnations,  and  are  de  Jacto  the  "popes"  in  Tibet;  the  Dalai' 
Lamas  are  the  creations  of  Nabang-lob-Sang,  the  Tda-shu  Lama,  who  was  Himself  the  sixth  incarna- 
tion of  Amita,  through  Tseng  Kha-pa,  though  very  few  seem  to  be  aware  of  that  fact. 


4IO  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

went  to  settle  in  China  in  the  famous  monastery  near  Tien-t'-ai,  where 
thej^  soon  became  subjects  for  legendarj^  lore,  and  continue  to  be  so  to 
this  day.     They  had  been  already  preceded  by  other  Lohans, 

The  world-famous  disciples  of  Tatbagata,  called  the  "sweet-voiced  "  on  account 
of  their  ability  to  chant  the  Mantras  with  magical  effect.* 

The  first  ones  came  from  Kashmir  in  the  year  3,000  of  Kali  Yuga  (about 
a  century  before  the  Christian  era),t  while  the  last  ones  arrived  at  the  end 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  1,500  years  later ;  and,  finding  no  room  for 
themselves  at  the  lamasery  of  Yihigching,  they  built  for  their  own  use 
the  largest  monastery  of  all  on  the  sacred  island  of  Pu-to  (Buddha,  or 
Put,  in  Chinese),  in  the  province  of  Chusan.  There  the  Good  Law,  the 
"  Doctrine  of  the  Heart,"  flourished  for  several  centuries.  But  when 
the  island  was  desecrated  by  a  mass  of  Western  foreigners,  the  chief 

Lohans  left  for  the  mountains  of .     In  the  Pagoda  of  Pi-yun-ti, 

near  Pekin,  one  can  still  see  the  "  Hall  of  the  Five-hundred  Lohans." 
There  the  statues  of  the  first-comers  are  arranged  below,  while  one 
solitary  Lohan  is  placed  quite  under  the  roof  of  the  building,  which 
seems  to  have  been  built  in  commemoration  of  their  visit. 

The  works  of  the  Orientalists  are  full  of  the  direct  landmarks  of 
Arhats  (Adepts),  possessed  of  thaumaturgic  powers,  but  these  are 
spoken  of — whenever  the  subject  cannot  be  avoided — with  unconcealed 
scorn.  Whether  innocently  ignorant  of,  or  purposely  ignoring,  the 
importance  of  the  Occult  element  and  symbology  in  the  various 
Religions  they  undertake  to  explain,  short  work  is  generally  made  of 
such  passages,  and  they  are  left  untranslated.  In  simple  justice,  how- 
ever, it  should  be  allowed  that  much  as  all  such  miracles  may  have  been 
exaggerated  by  popular  reverence  and  fancy,  they  are  neither  less 
credible  nor  less  attested  in  "  heathen  "  annals  than  are  those  of  the 


*  The  chanting  of  a  Mantra  is  not  a  prayer,  but  rather  a  mag-ical  sentence  in  which  the  law  of 
Occult  causation  connects  itself  with,  and  depends  on,  the  will  and  acts  of  its  singer.  It  is  a  succes- 
sion of  Sanskrit  sounds,  and  when  its  string  of  words  and  sentences  is  pronounced  according  to  the 
magical  formulae  in  the  Alharva  Veda,  but  understood  by  the  few,  some  Mantras  produce  an  instan- 
taneous and  very  wonderful  effect.  In  its  esoteric  sense  it  contains  the  Viich  (the  "mystic  speech  "), 
which  resides  in  the  Mantra,  or  rather  in  its  sounds,  since  it  is  according  to  the  vibrations,  one  way 
or  the  other,  of  ether  that  the  effect  is  produced.  The  "  sweet  singers  "  were  called  by  that  name 
because  they  were  experts  in  Mantras.  Hence  the  legend  in  China  that  the  singing  and  melody  of 
the  I<ohans  are  heard  at  dawn  by  the  priests  from  their  cells  in  the  monastery  of  Fang-Kwang.  (See 
Biography  of  Chi-Kai  in  Tien-tai-nan-tchi.) 

t  The  celebrated  Lohan,  Madhyantika,  who  converted  the  king  and  whole  country  of  Kashmir  to 
Buddhism,  sent  a  body  of  I^ohans  to  preach  the  Good  Law.  He  was  the  sculptor  who  raised  to 
Buddha  the  famous  statue  one  hundred  feet  high,  which  Hiuen-Tsaung  saw  at  Dardu,  to  the  north  of 
the  Punjab.  As  the  same  Chinese  traveller  mentions  a  temple  ten  Li  from  Peshawur — 350  feet  round 
and  850  feet  high — which  was  at  his  time  (a.d.  550)  already  830  years  old,  Koeppen  thinks  that  so  far 
back  as  292  B.C.  Buddhism  was  the  prevalent  religion  in  the  Punjab. 


THE   LOST   WORD.  ^jj 

numerous  Christian  Saints  in  the  church  chronicles.  Both  have  an 
equal  right  to  a  place  in  their  respective  histories. 

If,  after  the  beginning  of  persecution  against  Buddhism,  the  Arhats 
were  no  more  heard  of  in  India,  it  was  because,  their  vows  prohibiting 
retaliation,  they  had  to  leave  the  country  and  seek  solitude  and  security 
in  China,  Tibet,  Japan,  and  elsewhere.  The  sacerdotal  powers  of  the 
Brahmans  being  at  that  time  unlimited,  the  Simons  and  Apolloniuses 
of  Buddhism  had  as  much  chance  of  recognition  and  appreciation  by 
the  Brahmanical  Irenaeuses  and  TertuUians  as  had  their  successors  in 
the  Judsean  and  Roman  worlds.  It  was  a  historical  rehearsal  of  the 
dramas  that  were  enacted  centuries  later  in  Christendom.  As  in  the 
case  of  the  so-called  "  Heresiarchs "  of  Christianitj',  it  was  not  for 
rejecting  the  Vedas  or  the  sacred  Syllable  that  the  Buddhist  Arhats 
were  persecuted,  but  for  understanding  too  well  the  secret  meaning  of 
both.  It  was  simply  because  their  knowledge  was  regarded  as  dangerous 
and  their  presence  in  India  unwelcome,  that  they  had  to  emigrate. 

Nor  were  there  a  smaller  number  of  Initiates  among  the  Brahmans 
themselves.  Even  to-day  one  meets  most  wonderfully-gifted  Saddhus 
and  Yogis,  obliged  to  keep  themselves  unnoticed  and  in  the  shadow, 
not  only  owing  to  the  absolute  secresy  imposed  upon  them  at  their 
Initiation  but  also  for  fear  of  the  Anglo-Indian  tribunals  and  courts  of 
law,  wherein  judges  are  determined  to  regard  as  charlatanry,  imposition, 
and  fraud,  the  exhibition  of,  or  claim  to,  any  abnormal  powers,  and  one 
may  judge  of  the  past  by  the  present.  Centuries  after  our  era  the 
Initiates  of  the  inner  temples  and  the  Mathams  (monastic  communities) 
chose  a  superior  council,  presided  over  by  an  all-powerful  Brahm-Atma,^ 
the  Supreme  Chief  of  all  those  Mahatmas.  This  pontificate  could  be 
exercised  only  by  a  Brahman  who  had  reached  a  certain  age,  and  he  it 
was  who  was  the  sole  guardian  of  the  mystic  formula,  and  he  was  the 
Hierophant  who  created  great  Adepts.  He  alone  could  explain  the 
meaning  of  the  sacred  word,  AUM,  and  of  all  the  religious  sj^mbols 
and  rites.  And  whosoever  among  those  Initiates  of  the  Supreme 
Degree  revealed  to  a  profane  a  single  one  of  the  truths,  even  the  smallest 
of  the  secrets  entrusted  to  him,  had  to  die  ;  and  he  who  received 
the  confidence  was  put  to  death. 

But  there  existed,  and  still  exists  to  this  day,  a  Word  far  surpassing 
the  mj'^sterious  monosyllable,  and  which  renders  him  who  comes  into 
possession  of  its  key  nearly  the  equal  of  Brahman.  The  Brahmatmas 
alone  possess  this  key,  and  we  know  that  to  this  day  there  are  two 


412  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

great  Initiates  in  Southern  India  who  possess  it.  It  can  be  passed  only 
at  death,  for  it  is  the  "Lost  Word."  No  torture,  no  human  power, 
could  force  its  disclosure  b)'  a  Brahman  who  knows  it ;  and  it  is  well 
guarded  in  Tibet. 

Yet  this  secres}'  and  this  profound  mystery  are  indeed  disheartening, 
since  they  alone — the  Initiates  of  India  and  Tibet — could  thoroughly 
dissipate  the  thick  mists  hanging  over  the  history  of  Occultism,  and 
force  its  claims  to  be  recognized.  The  Delphic  injunction,  ''Know 
thyself,''  seems  for  the  few  in  this  age.  But  the  fault  ought  not  to  be 
laid  at  the  door  of  the  Adepts,  who  have  done  all  that  could  be  done, 
and  have  gone  as  far  as  Their  rules  permitted,  to  open  the  eyes  of 
the  world.  Only  while  the  European  shrinks  from  public  obloquj^  and 
the  ridicule  unsparingly  thrown  on  Occultists,  the  Asiatic  is  being 
discouraged  b}^  his  own  Pandits.  These  profess  to  labour  under  the 
gloomy  impression  that  no  Biga  Vidya,  no  Arhatship  (Adeptship),  is 
possible  during  the  Kali  Yuga  (the  "  Black  Age")  we  are  now  passing 
through.  Even  the  Buddhists  are  taught  that  the  Lord  Buddha  is 
alleged  to  have  prophesied  that  the  power  would  die  out  in  "one 
millennium  after  His  death."  But  this  is  an  entire  mistake.  In  the 
Digha  Nikaya  the  Buddha  saj^s  : 

Hear,  Subhadra !  The  world  wnll  never  be  without  Rahats,  if  the  ascetics  in  my 
con.cjregations  well  and  truly  keep  my  precepts. 

A  similar  contradiction  of  the  view  brought  forward  by  the  BrShmans 
is  made  by  Krishna  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita,  and  there  is  further  the 
actual  appearance  of  many  Saddhus  and  miracle-workers  in  the  past, 
and  even  in  the  present  age.  The  same  holds  good  for  China  and 
Tibet.  Among  the  commandments  of  Tsong-Kha-pa  there  is  one  that 
enjoins  the  Rahats  (Arhats)  to  make  an  attempt  to  enlighten  the  world, 
including  the  "white  barbarians,"  ever)''  century,  at  a  certain  specified 
period  of  the  cycle.  Up  to  the  present  daj-none  of  these  attempts  has  been 
ver}'  successful.  Failure  has  followed  failure.  Have  we  to  explain  the  fact 
by  the  light  of  a  certain  prophecy  ?  It  is  said  that  up  to  the  time  when 
Pban-chhen-rin-po-chhe  (the  Great  Jewel  of  Wisdom)  *  condescends  to 
be  reborn  in  the  land  of  the  P'helings  (Westerners),  and  appearing  as  the 
Spiritual  Conqueror  (Chom-den-da),  destroys  the  errors  and  ignorance 
of  the  ages,  it  will  be  of  little  use  to  try  to  uproot  the  misconceptions 


♦  A  title  of  the  Tda-shu-Hlum-po  I^ama. 


TIBETAN  PROPHECIES. 


413 


of  Fheling-pa  (Europe)  :  her  sons  will  listen  to  no  one.  Another  pro- 
phecy declares  that  the  Secret  Doctrine  shall  remain  in  all  its  purity  in 
Bhod-yul  (Tibet),  only  to  the  day  that  it  is  kept  free  from  foreign  in- 
vasion. The  very  visits  of  Western  natives,  however  friendly,  would 
be  baneful  to  the  Tibetan  populations.  This  is  the  true  key  to  Tibetan 
exclusiveness. 


SECTION    L. 

A  FEW  MORE  Misconceptions  Corrected. 


Notwithstanding  widespread  misconceptions  and  errors — often 
most  amusing  to  one  who  has  a  certain  knowledge  of  the  true  doctrines — 
about  Buddhism  generally,  and  especially  about  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  all 
the  Orientalists  agree  that  the  Buddha's  foremost  aim  was  to  lead  human 
beings  to  salvation  by  teaching  them  to  practise  the  greatest  purity  and 
virtue,  and  by  detaching  them  from  the  service  of  this  illusionary  world, 
and  the  love  of  one's  still  more  illusionary — because  so  evanescent  and 
unreal — body  and  physical  self.  And  what  is  the  good  of  a  virtuous 
life,  full  of  privations  and  suffering,  if  the  only  result  of  it  is  to  be 
annihilation  at  the  end  ?  If  'even  the  attainment  of  that  supreme  per- 
fection which  leads  the  Initiate  to  remember  the  whole  series  of  his 
past  lives,  and  to  foresee  that  of  the  future  ones,  by  the  full  development 
of  that  inner,  divine  eye  in  him,  and  to  acquire  the  knowledge  that 
unfolds  the  causes  *  of  the  ever-recurring  cj^cles  of  existence,  brings 
him  finally  to  non-being,  and  nothing  more — then  the  whole  .system 
is  idiotic,  and  Epicureanism  is  far  more  philosophical  than  stick 
Buddhism.  He  who  is  unable  to  comprehend  the  subtle,  and  yet  so 
potent,  difference  between  existence  in  a  material  or  physical  state 
and  a  purely  spiritual  existence — Spirit  or  "  Soul-life " — will  never 
appreciate  at  their  full  value  the  grand  teachings  of  the  Buddha,  even 
in  their  exoteric  form.  Individual  or  personal  existence  is  the  cause  of 
pains  and  sorrows ;  collective  and  impersonal  life-eternal  is  full  of 
divine  bliss  and  joy  for  ever,  with  neither  causes  nor  effects  to  darken 
its  light.  And  the  hope  for  such  a  life-eternal  is  the  ke5mote  of  the 
whole  of  Buddhism.  If  we  are  told  that  impersonal  existence  is  no 
existence  at  all,  but  amounts  to  annihilation,  as  was  maintained  by  some 
French  reincarnationists,  then  we  would  ask :  What  difference  can  it 


*  The   twelve    Nidiuas    ca-jJtd   in    Tibetan  Tin-brel  Chug-uyi,  which  are  based  upon  the  "  Four 
Truths." 


MISREPRESENTATIONS  OF   BUDDHISM.  ,|.:5 

make  in  the  spiritual  perceptions  of  an  Kgo  whether  he  enter  Nirvana 
loaded  with  the  recollections  only  of  his  own  personal  lives — tens  of 
thousands  accordingto  the  modern  reincarnationists — or  whether,  merged 
entirely  in  the  Parabrahmic  state  it  becomes  one  with  the  All,  with  the 
absolute  knowledge  and  the  absolute  feeling  of  representing  collective 
humanities  ?  Once  that  an  Ego  lives  only  ten  distinct  individual  lives 
he  must  necessarily  lose  his  one  self,  and  become  mixed  up — merged, 
so  to  say — with  these  ten  selves.  It  really  seems  that  so  long  as  this 
great  mystery  remains  a  dead-letter  to  the  world  of  Western  thinkers, 
and  especially  to  the  Orientalists,  the  less  the  latter  undertake  to 
explain  it  the  better  for  Truth. 

Of  all  the  existing  religious  Philosophies,  Buddhism  is  the  least 
understood.  The  Lassens,  Webers,  Wassiljows,  the  Burnoufs  and 
Juliens,  and  even  such"  eye-witnesses"  of  Tibetan  Buddhism  as  Csoma 
de  Koros  and  the  Schlagintweits,  have  hitherto  only  added  perplexity 
to  confusion.  None  of  these  has  ever  received  his  information  from  a 
genuine  Gelugpa  source :  all  have  judged  Buddhism  from  the  bits  of 
knowledge  picked  up  at  Tibetan  frontier  lamaseries,  in  countries 
thickly  populated  by  Bhutanese  and  L,eptchas,  Bhons,  and  red-capped 
Dugpas,  along  the  line  of  the  Himalayas.  Hundreds  of  volumes  pur- 
chased from  Burats,  Shamans,  and  Chinese  Buddhists,  have  been  read 
and  translated,  glossed  and  misinterpreted  according  to  invariable  custom . 
Esoteric  Schools  would  cease  to  be  worthy  of  their  name  were  their 
literature  and  doctrines  to  become  the  property  of  even  their  profane 
co-religionists — still  less  of  the  Western  public.  This  is  simple 
common-sense  and  logic.  Nevertheless  this  is  a  fact  which  our 
Orientalists  have  ever  refused  to  recognize :  hence  they  have  gone  on, 
gravely  discussing  the  relative  merits  and  absurdities  of  idols,  "  sooth- 
saying tables,"  and  "magical  figures  of  Phurbu"  on  the  "square 
tortoise."  None  of  these  have  anything  to  do  with  the  real  philo- 
sophical Buddhism  of  the  Gelugpa,  or  even  of  the  most  educated  among, 
the  Sakyapa  and  Kadampa  sects.  All  such  "plates"  and  sacrificial 
tables,  Chinsreg  magical  circles,  etc.,  were  avowedly  got  from  Sikkhim, 
Bhutan,  and  Eastern  Tibet,  from  Bhons  and  Dugpas.  Nevertheless, 
these  are  given  as  characteristics  of  Tibetan  Buddhism  !  It  would  be 
as  fair  to  judge  the  unread  Philosophy  of  Bishop  Berkeley  after  studying 
Christianity  in  the  clown-worship  of  Neapolitan  lazzaroni,  dancing  a 
mystic  jig  before  the  idol  of  St.  Pip,  or  carrying  the  ex-voto  in  wax  of 
the  phallus  of  SS.  Cosmo  and  Domiano,  at  Tsernie. 


^_l6  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  primitive  Shravakas  (listeners  or  hearers)  and 
the  Shramanas  (the  " thought-restrainers "  and  the  "pure")  have 
degenerated,  and  that  many  Buddhist  sects  have  fallen  into  mere 
dogmatism  and  ritualism.  Like  ever)^  other  Esoteric,  half-suppressed 
teaching,  the  words  of  the  Buddha  convey  a  double  meaning,  and 
every  sect  has  gradually  come  to  claim  to  be  the  only  one  knowing  the 
correct  meaning,  and  thus  to  assume  supremacy  over  the  rest.  Schism 
has  crept  in,  and  has  fastened,  like  a  hideous  cancer,  on  the  fair  body  of 
early  Buddhism.  Nagarjuna's  Mahayana  ("  Great  Vehicle")  School 
was  opposed  by  the  Hinayana(or  "Little  Vehicle") System,  and  even  the 
Yogacharya  of  Aryasanga  became  disfigured  by  the  yearly  pilgrimage 
from  India  to  the  shores  of  Mansarovara,  of  hosts  of  vagabonds 
with  matted  locks  vv^ho  play  at  being  Yogis  and  Fakirs,  preferring  this 
to  work.  An  affected  detestation  of  the  world,  and  the  tedious  and 
useless  practice  of  the  counting  of  inhalations  and  exhalations  as  a 
means  to  produce  absolute  tranquillity  of  mind  or  meditation,  have 
brought  this  school  within  the  region  of  Hatha  Yoga,  and  have  made 
it  heir  to  the  Brahmanical  Tirthikas.  And  though  its  Srotapatti,  its 
Sakridagamin,  Anagamin,  and  Arhats,*  bear  the  same  names  in  almost 
every  school,  yet  the  doctrines  of  each  differ  greatly,  and  none  of  these 
is  likely  to  gain  real  Abhijnas  (the  supernatural  abnormal  five  powers). 

One  of  the  chief  mistakes  of  the  Orientalists  when  judging  on 
"  internal  (?)  evidence,"  as  they  express  it,  was  that  they  assumed  that 
the  Pratyeka  Buddhas,  the  Bodhisattvas,  and  the  "Perfect"  Buddhas 
were  a  later  development  of  Buddhism.  For  on  these  three  chief 
degrees  are  based  the  seven  and  twelve  degrees  of  the  Hierarchy  of 
Adeptship.  The  first  are  those  who  have  attained  the  Bodhi  (wisdom) 
of  the  Buddhas,  but  do  not  become  Teachers.f  The  human  Bodhisattvas 
are  candidates,  so  to  say,  for  perfect  Buddhaship  (in  Kalpas  to  come), 
and  with  the  option  of  using  their  powers  now  if  need  be.     "  Perfect " 

•  The  Srotapatti  is  one  who  has  attained  the  firU  Path  of  comprehension  in  the  real  and  the 
unreal ;  the  Sakridagamin  is  the  candidate  for  one  of  the  higher  Initiations  :  "  one  who  is  to  receive 
birth  once  more  ;  "  the  Anagamin  is  he  who  has  attained  the  •'  third  Path,"  or  literally,  "  he  who  will 
not  be  reborn  again  "  unless  he  so  wishes  it,  having  the  option  of  being  reborn  in  any  of  the  "  worlds 
of  the  Gods,"  or  of  remaining  in  Devachan,  or  of  choosing  an  earthly  body  with  a  philanthropic 
object.  An  Arhat  is  one  who  has  reached  the  highest  Path;  he  may  merge  into  Nirvana  at  will,  while 
here  on  earth. 

f  [The  Pratyeka  Buddha  stands  on  the  level  of  the  Buddha,  but  His  work  for  the  world  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  its  teaching,  and  His  ofl&ce  has  always  been  surrounded  with  mystery.  The  prepos- 
terous view  that  He,  at  such  superhuman  height  of  power,  wisdom  and  love  could  be  selfish,  is  found 
in  the  exoteric  books,  though  it  is  hard  to  see  how  it  can  have  arisen.  H.  P.  B.  charged  me  to 
correct  the  mistake,  as  she  had,  in  a  careless  moment,  copied  such  a  statement  elsewhere.— .'V.  B.] 


A   MYSTERIOUS   LAND.  4 1'/ 

£uddhas  are  simply  "  perfect "  Initiates.  All  these  are  men,  and  not 
disembodied  Beings,  as  is  given  out  in  the  Hinayana  exoteric  books. 
Their  correct  character  may  be  found  only  in  the  secret  volumes  of 
IvUgrub  or  Nagarjuna,  the  founder  of  the  Mahayana  system,  who  is  said 
to  have  been  initiated  by  the  Nagas  (fabulous  "  Serpents,"  the  veiled 
name  for  an  Initiate  or  Mahatma).  The  fabled  report  found  in  Chinese 
records  that  Nagarjuna  considered  his  doctrine  to  be  in  opposition  to 
that  of  Gautama  Buddha,  until  he  discovered  from  the  Nagas  that  it 
was  precisely  the  doctrine  that  had  been  secretly  taught  by  Shakyamuni 
Himself,  is  an  allegory,  and  is  based  upon  the  reconciliation  between 
the  old  Brahmanical  secret  Schools  in  the  Himalayas  and  Gautama's 
Esoteric  teachings,  both  parties  having  at  first  objected  to  the  rival 
schools  of  the  other.  The  former,  the  parent  of  all  others,  had  been 
established  beyond  the  Himalayas  for  ages  before  the  appearance  of 
.Shakyamuni.  Gautama  was  a  pupil  of  this;  and  it  was  with  them, 
■  hose  Indian  Sages,  that  He  had  learned  the  truths  of  the  Sungata,  the 
emptiness  and  impermanence  of  every  terrestrial,  evanescent  thing,  and 
the  mysteries  of  Prajna  Paramita,  or  "knowledge  across  the  River," 
which  finally  lands  the  "  Perfect  One  "  in  the  regions  of  the  One  Reality. 
But  His  Arhats  were  not  Himself.  Some  of  them  were  ambitious,  and 
they  modified  certain  teachings  after  the  great  councils,  and  it  is 
on  account  of  these  "heretics"  that  the  Mother-School  at  first  refused 
to  allow  them  to  blend  their  schools,  when  persecution  began  driving 
away  the  Esoteric  Brotherhood  from  India.  But  when  finally  most  of 
them  submitted  to  the  guidance  and  control  of  the  chief  Ashrams,  then 

A 

the  Yogacharya  of  Aryasanga  was  merged  into  the  oldest  Lodge.  For 
it  is  there  from  time  immemorial  that  has  lain  concealed  the  final  hope 
and  light  of  the  world,  the  salvation  of  mankind.  Many  are  the  names 
of  that  School  and  land,  the  name  of  the  latter  being  now  regarded  by 
the  Orientalists  as  the  mythic  name  of  a  fabulous  country.  It  is 
from  this  mysterious  land,  nevertheless,  that  the  Hindu  expects  his 
Kalki  Avatara,  the  Buddhist  his  Maitreya,  the  Parsi  his  Sosiosh,  and 
the  Jew  his  Messiah,  and  so  would  the  Christian  expect  thence  his 
Christ — if  he  only  knew  of  it. 

There,  and  there  alone,  reigns  Paranishpanna  (Gunggrub),  the 
absolutely  perfect  comprehension  of  Being  and  Non-Being,  the  change- 
less true  Existence  in  Spirit,  even  while  the  latter  is  seemingly  still  ir 
the  body,  every  inhabitant  thereof  being  a  Non-Ego  because  he  has 
i/v^ouine  the  Perfect  Ego.     Their  voidness  is  "self-existent  and  perfect" 


41 8  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

— if  there  were  profane  eyes  to  sense  and  perceive  it — because  it  has 
become  absolute ;  the  unreal  being  transformed  into  conditionless 
Reality,  and  the  realities  of  this,  our  world,  having  vanished  in  their 
own  nature  into  thin  (non-existing)  air.  The  "Absolute  Truth" 
(Dondam-pay-den-pa ;  Sanskrit :  Paramarthasatya),  having  conquered 
"relative  truth"  (Kunza-bchi-den-pa ;  Sanskrit:  Samvritisatya),  the 
inhabitants  of  the  mysterious  region  are  thus  supposed  to  have  reached 
the  state  called  in  mystic  phraseology  Svasamvedana  ("  self-analyzing 
reflection  ")  and  Paramartha,  or  that  absolute  consciousness  of  the 
personal  merged  into  the  impersonal  Ego,  which  is  above  all,  hence 
above  illusion  in  every  sense.  Its  "  Perfect"  Buddhas  and  Bodhisattvas 
may  be  on  every  nimble  Buddhist  tongue  as  celestial — therefore 
unreachable  Beings,  while  these  names  may  suggest  and  say  nothing  to 
the  dull  perceptions  of  the  European  profane.  What  matters  it  to  Those 
who,  being  in  this  world,  yet  live  outside  and  far  beyond  our  illusive 
earth !  Above  Them  there  is  but  one  class  of  Nirvanis,  namely, 
the  Chos-ku  (Dharmakaya),  or  the  Nirvanis  "  without  remains  " — the 
pure  Arupa,  the  formless  Breaths.* 

Thence  emerge  occasionally  the  Bodhisattvas  in  their  Prul-pai-ku 
(or  Nirmanakaya)  body  and,  assuming  an  ordinary  appearance,  they 
teach  men.     There  are  conscious,  as  well  as  unconscious,  incarnations. 

Most  of  the  doctrines  contained  in  the  YogScharya,  or  Mahayana 
systems  are  Esoteric,  like  the  rest.  One  day  the  profane  Hindu  and 
Buddhist  may  begin  to  pick  the  Bible  to  pieces,  taking  it  literall}-. 
Education  is  fast  spreading  in  Asia,  and  already  there  have  been  made 
some  attempts  in  this  direction,  so  that  the  tables  may  then  be  cruelly 
turned  on  the  Christians.  Whatever  conclusions  the  two  may  arrive 
at,  they  will  never  be  half  as  absurd  and  unjust  as  some  of  the  theories 
launched  by  Christians  against  their  respective  Philosophies.  Thus, 
according  to  Spence  Hardy,  at  death  the  Arhat  enters  Nirvana  : 

That  is,  he  ceases  to  exist. 

And,  agreeably  to  Major  Jacob,  the  Jivanmukta, 


*  It  is  an  erroneous  idea  which  makes  the  Orientalists  take  literally  the  teaching  of  the  Mahayana 
School  about  the  three  different  kinds  of  bodies,  namely,  the  Prulpa-ku,  the  Longehod-dzocpaig-ku, 
and  the  Chos-ku,  as  all  i>ertaining  to  the  Nirvanic  condition.  There  are  two  kinds  of  Nirvana  :  the 
earthly,  and  that  of  the  purely  disembodied  Spirits.  These  three  "  bodies  "  are  the  three  envelopes — 
all  more  or  less  physical — which  are  at  the  disposal  of  the  Adept  who  has  entered  and  cros.sed  the 
six  Piramitas,  or  "  Paths  "  of  Buddha.  Once  He  enters  upon  the  seventh.  He  can  return  no  more  to 
earth.    See  Cosma, your.  As.  Soc.  Beng.,  vii.  142;  and  Schott,  Buddhumus,  p.  9.  who  give  it  other- 


ABSURD   CONCLUSIONS.  419 

Absorbed  into  Brahma,  enters  upon  an  unconscious  and  stonelike  existence." 

Shankaracharya  is  shown  as  saying  in  his  prolegomena  to  the 
Shvetashvatara  : 

Gnosis,  once  arisen,  requires  nothing  farther  for  the  realization  of  its  result:  it 
needs  subsidia  only  that  it  may  arise. 

The  Theosophist,  it  has  been  argued,  as  long  as  he  lives,  may  do  good 
and  evil  as  he  chooses,  and  incur  no  stain,  such  is  the  efficacy  of  gnosis. 
\nd  it  is  further  alleged  that  the  doctrine  of  Nirvana  lends  itself  to 
immoral  inferences,  and  that  the  Quietists  of  all  ages  have  been  taxed 

with  immorality .t  o  t      1 

According  to  Wassilyewt  and  Csoma  de  Koros,§  the  Prasanga  School 

adopted  a  peculiar  mode  of 

Deducing  the  absurdity  and  erroneousness  of  every  esoteric  opinion.  || 

Correct  interpretations  of  Buddhist  Philosophy  are  crowned  by  that 
gloss  on  a. thesis  from  the  Prasanga  School,  that 

Even  an  Arhat  goes  to  hell  in  case  he  doubt  anything.U 
thus  making  of  the  most  free-thinking  religion  in  the  world  a  blind- 
faith  system.  The  "  threat "  refers  simply  to  the  well-known  law  that 
even  an  Initiate  mav  fail,  and  thus  have  his  object  utterly  ruined,  if  he 
doubt  for  one  moment  the  efficacy  of  his  psychic  powers-the  alphabet 
of  Occultism,  as  every  Kabalist  well  knows. 

The  Tibetan  sect  of  the  Ngo-vo-nyid-med  par  Mraba  ("  they  who 
deny  existence,"  or  "  regard  nature  as  Maya  "^^  can  never  be  contrasted 
for  one  moment  with  some  of  the  nihilistic  or  materialistic  schools  o. 
India,  such  as  the  Charvaka.  They  are  pure  VedSntins-if  anythmg- 
in  their  views.  And  if  the  Yogacharyas  may  be  compared  with,  or 
called  the  Tibetan  Vishishtadwaitis,  the  Prasanga  School  is  surely  the 
Adwaita  Philosophy  of  the  land.  It  was  divided  into  two:  one  was 
originally  founded  by  Bhavya,  the  Svantatra  Madhyamika  School,  and 
the  other  by  Buddhapalita  ;  both  have  their  exoteric  and  esoteric  divi- 
sions     It  is  necessarv  to  belong  to  the  latter  to  know  anything  oi  tne 


*   Vcdanta  S&ra,  translated  by  Major  Jacob,  p.  119. 

+  /bid.,  p.  122. 

i  DerBudd/usmus,  pp.  327.  357,  et  seg.,  quoted  by  Schlagintweit. 

?  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  p.  4i- 

;i  Jour,  of  As.  Soc.  Bengal,  vii.  144,  quoted  as  above. 


1  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  p.  44-  .  t,       v,  „t,«,o.,  •  t>ip  il1ii«;ion  of 

..  They  naaintain  also  the  existence  of  One  Absolute  P»«  ^ajure  Parabr^^^^^^^^^^ 

everything  outside  of  it ;  the  leading  of  the  individual  Soul-a  Ray  of  the     X^uiversal 

nature  of  existence  and  things  by  Yoga  alone. 


420  TI-IE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

esoteric  doctrines  of  that  sect,  the  most  metaphysical  and  philosophical 
of  all.  Chandrakirti  (Dava  Dagpa)  wrote  his  commentaries  on  the 
Prasanga  doctrines  and  taught  publicly ;  and  he  expressly  states  that 
there  are  two  ways  of  entering  the  "  Path"  to  Nirvana.  Any  virtuous 
man  can  reach  by  Naljorngonsum  ("  meditation  by  self-perception"), 
the  intuitive  comprehension  of  the  four  Truths,  without  either  belong- 
ing to  a  monastic  order  or  having  been  initiated.  In  this  case  it  was 
considered  as  a  heresy  to  maintain  that  the  visions  which  may  arise  in 
consequence  of  such  meditation,  or  Vishna  (internal  knowledge),  are 
not  susceptible  of  errors  (Namtog  or  false  visions),  for  they  are.  Alaya 
alone  having  an  absolute  and  eternal  existence,  can  alone  have  absolute 
knowledge ;  and  even  the  Initiate,  in  his  Nirmanakaya*  body  may  com- 
mit an  occasional  mistake  in  accepting  the  false  for  the  true  in  his  ex- 
plorations of  the  "  Causeless  "  World.  The  Dharmakaya  Bodhisattva 
is  alone  infallible,  when  in  real  Samadhi.  Ala5'a,  or  N3'ing-po, 
being  the  root  and  basis  of  all,  invisible  and  incomprehensible  to 
human  eye  and  intellect,  it  can  reflect  only  its  reflection — not  Itself. 
Thus  that  reflection  will  be  mirrored  like  the  moon  in  tranquil  and 
clear  water  only  in  the  passionless  Dharmakaya  intellect,  and  will  be 
distorted  by  the  flitting  image  of  eversdhing  perceived  in  a  mind  that 
is  itself  liable  to  be  disturbed. 

In  short,  this  doctrine  is  that  of  the  Raj-Yoga  in  its  practice  of  the 
two  kinds  of  the  Samadhi  state  ;  one  of  the  "  Paths  "  leading  to  the 
sphere  of  bliss  (Sukhavati  or  Devachan),  where  man  enjoys  perfect, 
unalloyed  happiness,  but  is  yet  still  connected  with  personal  existence  ; 
and  the  other  the  Path  that  leads  to  entire  emancipation  from  the 
worlds  of  illusion,  self,  and  unrealit5\  The  first  one  is  open  to  all  and 
is  reached  by  merit  simply ;  the  second — a  hundredfold  more  rapid — 
is  reached  through  knowledge  (Initiation).  Thus  the  followers  of  the 
Prasanga  School  are  nearer  to  Esoteric  Buddhism  than  are  the  Yoga- 
charyas  ;  for  their  views  are  those  of  the  most  secret  Schools,  and  only 
the  echo  of  these  doctrines  is  heard  in  the  Yaiyiyaiigshapda  and  other 
works  in  public  circulation  and  use.  For  instance,  the  unreality  of  two 
out  of  the  three  divisions  of  time  is  given  in  public  works,  namely  {a) 
that  there  is  neither  past  nor  future,  both   of  these   divisions  being 

*  Nirtndnakaya  (also  Nirvanakaya,  vulg.)  is  the  body  or  Self  "with  remains,"  or  the  influence  of 
terrestrial  attributes,  however  spiritualized,  clinging  yet  to  that  Self.  An  Initiate  in  Dharmakaya, 
or  in  Nirvana  "without  remains,"  is  the  Jivanmukta,  the  Perfect  Initiate,  who  separates  his  Higher 
Self  entirely  from  his  body  during  Samadhi.  [It  will  be  noticed  that  these  two  words  are  her" 
used  in  a  sense  other  than  that  previously  given. — A.  B.] 


MATERIAI^ISTIC   ORIENTAWSTS.  42I 

correlative  to  the  present ;  and  (b)  that  the  reality  of  things  can  never  be 
sensed  or  perceived  except  by  him  who  has  obtained  the  Dharmakaya 
body;  here  again  is  a  difficulty,  since  this  body  "  without  remains" 
carries  the  Initiate  to  full  Paranirvtna,  if  we  accept  the  exoteric  explana- 
tion verbally,  and  can  therefore  neither  sense  nor  perceive.  But 
evidently  our  Orientalists  do  not  feel  the  caveat  in  such  incongruities, 
and  they  proceed  to  speculate  without  pausing  to  reflect  over  it. 
Literature  on  Mysticism  being  enormous,  and  Russia,  owing  to  the  free 
intercourse  with  the  Burats,  Shamans,  and  Mongolians,  having  alone 
purchased  whole  libraries  on  Tibet,  scholars  ought  to  know  better  by 
this  time.  It  suffices  to  read,  however,  what  Csoma  wrote  on  the 
origin  of  the  Kala  Chakra  System,*  or  Wassilyew  on  Buddhism,  to 
make  one  give  up  every  hope  of  seeing  them  go  below  the  rind  of  the 
"  forbidden  fruit."  When  Schlagintweit  is  found  saying  that  Tibetan 
Mysticism  is  not  Yoga — 
That  abstract  devotion  by  which  supernatural  powers  are  acquired,t 

as  Yoga  is  defined  by  Wilson,  but  that  it  is  closely  related  to  Siberian 
Shamanism,  and  is  "almost  identical  with  the  Tantrika  ritual";  and 
that  the  Tibetan  Zung  is  the  ''  Dharanis"  and  the  Gyut  only  the  Ta7i- 
tras — pre-Christian  Tantra  being  judged  by  the  ritual  of  the  modern 
Tantrikas — one  seems  almost  justified  in  suspecting  our  materialistic 
Orientalists  of  acting  as  the  best  friends  and  allies  of  the  missionaries. 
Whatever  is  not  known  to  our  geographers  seems  to  be  a  non-existent 
locality.     Thus : 

Mysticism  is  reported  to  have  originated  in  the  fabulous  country,  Sambhala. 
.  .  .  .  Csoma,  from  rar^tt/ investigations,  places  this  [fabulous  ?]  country  beyond 
the  Sir  Daria  [Yaxartes]  between  45°  and  50°  north  latitude.  It  was  first  known  in 
India  in  the  year  965  A.D.,  and  was  introduced  .  .  .  into  Tibet  from  India,  via 
Kashmir,  in  the  year  1025  A.D.J 

"It"  meaning  the  "Dus-kyi  Khorlo,"  or  Tibetan  Mysticism.  A 
system  as  old  as  man,  known  in  India  and  practised  before  Kurope 
had  become  a  continent,  "was  first  known,"  we  are  told,  only  nine  or 
ten  centuries  ago!  The  text  of  its  books  in  its  present  form  may  have 
"originated"  even  later,  for  there  are  numerous  such  texts  that  have 
been  tampered  with  by  sects  to  suit  the  fancies  of  each.    But  who  has  read 

*  The  "Sacred"  Books  of  Dus-Kyi  Khorlo  ("Time  Circle").      See  Jour.  As.  Soc,  ii.  57.      These 
works  were  abandoned  to  the  Sikkhim  Dugpas.  from  the  time  of  Tsong-Kha-pa's  reform. 
+  Clossarv  of  Judicial  and  Revenue  Terms,  art.  "Yoga,"  quoted  in  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  p.  .17. 
X  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  pp.  47,  48. 


422  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

the  onginal  book  on  Dus-Kyi  Khorlo,  re- written  byTsong-Kha-pa,  with 
his  Commentaries?  Considering  that  this  grand  Reformer  burnt  every 
book  on  Sorcer>'  on  which  he  could  lay  his  hands  in  1387,  and  that  he 
has  left  a  whole  librarj'  of  his  own  works — not  a  tenth  part  of  which 
has  ever  been  made  known — such  statements  as  those  above-quoted 
are,  to  say  the  least,  premature.  The  idea  is  also  cherished — from  a 
happy  hj^pothesis  offered  by  Abbe  Hue — that  Tsong-Kha-pa  derived 
his  wisdom  and  acquired  his  extraordinary  powers  from  his  intercourse 
with  a  stranger  from  the  West,  "remarkable  for  a  long  nose."  This 
stranger  is  believed  by  the  good  Abbe  "to  have  been  a  European  mis- 
sionary " ;  hence  the  remarkable  resemblance  of  the  religious  ritual  in 
Tibet  to  the  Roman  Catholic  service.  The  sanguine  "  Lama  of  Jeho- 
vah" does  not  say,  however,  who  were  the  five  foreigners  who  appeared 
in  Tibet  in  the  year  371  of  our  era,  to  disappear  as  suddenly  and  mys- 
teriousl}^  as  they  came,  after  leaving  with  King  Thothori-N^'ang-tsan 
instructions  how  to  use  certain  things  in  a  casket  that  "  had  fallen  from 
heaven"  in  his  presence  precisely  fifty  years  before,  or  in  the  year 
A.D.  331.* 

There  is  generall}^  a  hopeless  confusion  about  Eastern  dates  among 
European  scholars,  but  nowhere  is  this  so  great  as  in  the  case  of 
Tibetan  Buddhism.  Thus,  while  some,  correctly  enough,  accept  the 
seventh  century  as  the  date  of  the  introduction  of  Buddhism,  there  are 
others — such  as  Lassen  and  Koeppung,  for  instance — who  show  on 
good  authority,  the  one,  the  construction  of  a  Buddhist  monastery  on 
the  slopes  of  the  Kailas  Range  so  far  back  as  the  year  137  B.c.,t  and 
the  other,  Buddhism  established  in  and  north  of  the  Punjab,  as  earlj' 
as  the  year  292  B.C.  The  difference  though  trifling — only  just  one 
thousand  years — is  nevertheless  puzzling.  But  even  this  is  easily 
explained  on  Esoteric  grounds.  Buddhism — the  veiled  Esotericism  of 
Buddha — was  established  and  took  root  in  the  seventh  century  of  the 
Christian  era ;  while  true  Esoteric  Buddhism,  or  the  kernel,  the  very 
spirit  of  Tathagata's  doctrines,  was  brought  to  the  place  of  its  birth, 
the  cradle  of  humanity,  by  the  chosen  Arhats  of  Buddha,  who  were 
sent  to  find  for  it  a  secure  refuge,  as 


*  Buddhism  in  Tibet,  pp.  63,  64.  The  objects  found  in  the  casket,  as  enumerated  in  the  exoteric 
legend,  are  of  course  symbolical.  They  may  be  found  mentioned  in  the  Kanjur.  They  were  rs-^id  to 
be;  \\)  two  hands  joined;  (2)  a  miniature  Choten  (Stupa,  or  reliquary);  (3)  a  talisman  with  "Om 
mani  padme  hum"  inscribed  on  it :  (d)  a  religions  t>ooV-,  Zamaiog  ("  a  constructed  vehicle'  ). 

t  AUerlhumskunde,  ii.  1072. 


INTRODUCTION   OF   BUDDHISM   INTO    TIBET.  42" 

The  Sage  had  perceived  the  dangers  ever  since  he  had  entered  upon  Thonglam 
("the  Path  of  seeing,"  or  clairvoyance). 

Amidst  populations  deepl}'  steeped  in  Sorcery  the  attempt  proved  a 
failure;  and  it  was  not  until  the  School  of  the  "Doctrine  of  the  Heart" 
had  merged  with  its  predecessor,  established  ages  earlier  on  the  slope 
facing  Western  Tibet,  that  Buddhism  was  finally  engrafted,  with  its 
two  distinct  Schools — the  Esoteric  and  the  exoteric  divisions — in  the 
Iraid  of  the  Bhon-pa. 


SECTION  LI 

The  "  Doctrine  of  the  Eye"  &  the  "  Doctrine 
OF  THE  Heart,"  or  the  "Heart's  Seal." 


Prof.   Albrecht  Weber  was   right  when   he  declared    that    the 
Northern  Buddhists 
Alone  possess  these  [Buddhist]  Scriptures  complete. 

For,  while  the  Southern  Buddhists  have  no  idea  of  the  existence  of  an 
Esoteric  Doctrine — enshrined  like  a  pearl  within  the  shell  of  every 
religion — the  Chinese  and  the  Tibetans  have  preserved  numerous 
records  of  the  fact.  Degenerate,  fallen  as  is  now  the  Doctrine  publicl}' 
preached  by  Gautama,  it  is  yet  preserved  in  those  monasteries  in  China 
that  are  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  visitors.  And  though  for  over  two 
millennia  every  new  "  reformer,"  taking  something  out  of  the  original 
has  replaced  it  by  some  speculation  of  his  own,  still  truth  lingers  even 
now  among  the  masses.  But  it  is  only  in  the  Trans-Himalayan  fast- 
nesses— loosel}^  called  Tibet — in  the  most  inaccessible  spots  of  desert 
and  mountain,  that  the  Esoteric  "Good  Law" — the  "  Heart's  Seal  " — 
lives  to  the  present  daj'  in  all  its  pristine  purit}-. 

Was  Emanuel  Swedenborg  wrong  when  he  remarked  of  the  forgotten, 
long-lost  Word  : 

Seek  for  it  in  China ;  peradventure  you  may  find  it  in  Great  Tartary. 

He  had  obtained  this  information,  he  tells  his  readers,  from  certain 
"  Spirits,"  who  told  him  that  they  performed  their  worship  according 
to  this  (lost)  ancient  Word.  On  this  it  was  remarked  in  Isis  Unveiled 
that 

Other  students  of  Occult  Sciences  had  more  than  the  word  of  "spirits"  to  rely 
UDon  in  this  special  case  :  they  have  seen  the  books 


SWEDBNBORG'S  CI.AIMS.  425 

mat  contain  the  "  Word."*  Perchance  the  names  of  those  "  Spirits  " 
who  visited  the  great  Swedish  Theosophist  were  Eastern.  The  word 
of  a  man  of  such  undeniable  and  recognised  integrity,  of  one  whose 
learning  in  Mathematics,  Astronomy,  the  natural  Sciences  and  Philo- 
sophy was  far  in  advance  of  his  age,  cannot  be  trifled  with  or  rejected 
as  unceremoniously  as  if  it  were  the  statement  of  a  modern  Theoso- 
phist ;  further,  he  claimed  to  pass  at  will  into  that  state  when  the 
Inner  Self  frees  itself  entirely  from  every  physical  sense,  and  lives  and 
breathes  in  a  world  where  every  secret  of  Nature  is  an  open  book  to 
the  Soul-eye.f  Unfortunately  two-thirds  of  his  public  writings  are  ilso 
allegorical  in  one  sense  ;  and,  as  they  have  been  accepted  literally, 
criticism  has  not  spared  the  great  Swedish  Seer  any  more  than  other 
Seers. 

Having  taken  a  panoramic  view  of  the  hidden  Sciences  and  Magic 
with  their  Adepts  in  Europe,  Eastern  Initiates  must  now  be  mentioned. 
If  the  presence  of  Esotericism  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures  of  the  West 
only  now  begins  to  be  suspected,  after  nearly  two  thousand  years  of 
blind  faith  in  their  verbatim  wisdom,  the  same  may  well  be  granted  as 
to  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East.  Therefore  neither  the  Indian  nor  the 
Buddhist  system  can  be  understood  without  a  key,  nor  can  the  study 
of  comparative  Religion  become  a  "  Science "  until  the  symbols  of 
every  Religion  yield  their  final  secrets.  At  the  best  such  a  study  will 
remain  a  loss  of  time,  a  playing  at  hide-and-seek. 

On  the  authority  of  a  Japanese  Encyclopedia,  Remusat  shows  the 
Buddha,  before  His  death,  committing  the  secrets  of  His  system  to 
His  disciple,  Kasyapa,  to  whom  alone  was  entrusted  the  sacred 
keeping  of  the  Esoteric  interpretation.  It  is  called  in  China  Ching-fa- 
yin-  Tsang  ("  the  Mystery  of  the  Eye  of  the  Good  Doctrine  ").  To  any 
student  of  Buddhist  Esotericism  the  term,  "  the  Mystery  of  the  Eye," 
would  show  the  absence  of  any  Esotericism.  Had  the  word  "  Heart " 
stood  in  its  place,  then  it  would  have  meant  what  it  now  only  professes 
to  convey.  The  "  Eye  Doctrine  "  means  dogma  and  dead-letter  form, 
church  ritualism  intended  for  those  who  are  content  with  exoteric 
formulas.  The  "  Heart  Doctrine,"  or  the  "  Heart's  Seal  "  (the  Sin  Yin), 
is  the  only  real  one.     This  may  be  found  corroborated  by  Hiuen  Tsang. 

•  op.  cit.,  ii.  470. 

+  Unless  one  obtains  exact  information  and  the  right  method,  one's  visions,  however  correct  ana 
true  in  Soul-life,  will  ever  fail  to  get  photographed  in  our  human  memory,  and  certain  cells  of  the 
brain  are  sure  to  play  havoc  with  our  remembrances. 


426  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

In  his  translation  of  Mahd-Prajnd-Pdramitd  {Ta-poh-je-King),  in  one 
hundred  and  twenty  volumes,  it  is  stated  that  it  was  Buddha's  "  favourite 
disciple  Ananda,"  who,  after  his  great  Master  had  gone  into  Nirvana, 
was  commissioned  by  Kasyapa  to  promulgate  "  the  Eye  of  the  Doc- 
trine," the  "Heart"  of  the  Law  having  been  left  with  the  Arhats 
alone. 

The  essential  difference  that  exists  between  the  two — the  "  Eye  "  and 
the  "  Heart,"  or  the  outward  form  and  the  hidden  meaning,  the  cold 
metaphysics  and  the  Divine  Wisdom — is  clearly  demonstrated  in 
several  volumes  on  "  Chinese  Buddhism,"  written  by  sundry  mis- 
sionaries. Having  lived  for  years  in  China,  they  still  know  no  more 
than  they  have  learned  from  pretentious  schools  calling  themselves 
esoteric,  yet  freely  supplying  the  open  enemies  of  their  faith  with  pro- 
fessedly ancient  manuscripts  and  esoteric  works  !  This  ludicrous  con- 
tradiction between  profession  and  practice  has  never,  as  it  seems, 
struck  any  of  the  western  and  reverend  historians  of  other  peoples' 
secret  tenets.  Thus  many  esoteric  schools  are  mentioned  in  Chinese 
Buddhism  by  the  Rev.  Joseph  Edkins,  who  believes  quite  sincerely  that 
he  has  made  "  a  minute  examination  "  of  the  secret  tenets  of  Buddhists 
whose  works  "were  until  lately  inaccessible  in  their  original  form." 
It  really  will  not  be  saying  too  much  to  state  at  once  that  the  genuine 
Esoteric  literature  is  "  inaccessible"  to  this  day,  and  that  the  respect- 
able gentleman  who  was  inspired  to  state  that 

It  does  not  appear  that  there  was  any  secret  doctrine  which  those  who  knew  it 
would  not  divulge, 

made  a  great  mistake  if  he  ever  believed  in  what  he  says  on  page  i6i 
of  his  work.  L,et  him  know  at  once  that  all  those  Yu-luh  ("  Records 
of  the  Sayings  ")  of  celebrated  teachers  are  simply  blinds,  as  complete 
— if  not  more  so — than  those  in  the  Puranas  of  the  Brahmans.  It  is 
useless  to  enumerate  an  endless  string  of  the  finest  Oriental  scholars 
or  to  bring  forward  the  researches  of  Remusat,  Burnouf,  Koeppen,  St. 
Hilaire,  and  St.  Julian,  who  are  credited  with  having  exposed  to  view 
the  ancient  Hindu  world,  by  revealing  the  sacred  and  secret  books  of 
Buddhism  :  the  world  that  they  reveal  has  never  been  veiled.  The 
mistakes  of  all  the  Orientalists  may  be  judged  by  the  mistake  of  one  of 
the  most  popular,  if  not  the  greatest  among  them  all — Prof.  Max 
Miiller.  It  is  made  with  reference  to  what  he  laughingly  translates  as 
the  "god  Who"  (Ka). 


THE   GOD    "  WHO. 


427 


The  authors  of  the  Brdhmanas  had  so  completely  broken  with  the  past,  that, 
forgetful  of  the  poetical  character  of  the  hj-mns  and  the  yearning  of  the  poets  after 
the  Unknown  God,  they  exalted  the  interrogative  pronoun  itself  into  a  deity,  and 
acknowledged  a  god  Ka  (or  Who  ?)  .  .  .  Wherever  interrogative  verses  occur 
the  author  states  that  Ka  is  Prajapati,  or  the  Lord  of  Creatures.  Nor  did  they  stop 
here.  Some  of  the  hymns  in  which  the  interrogative  pronoun  occurred  were  called 
Kadvat,  i.e.,  having  Kad  or  Quid.  But  soon  a  new  adjective  was  formed,  and  not 
only  the  hymns  but  the  sacrifice  also  offered  to  the  god  were  called  Kaya,  or 
"Who"-ish.  .  .  .  At  the  time  of  Panini  this  word  acquired  such  legitimacy  as 
to  call  for  a  separate  rule  explaining  its  formation.  The  Commentator  here  explains 
Ka  by  Brahman. 

Had  the  commentator  explained  It  even  by  Parabrahman  he  would 
have  been  still  more  in  the  right  than  he  was  by  rendering  It  as 
"  Brahman."  One  fails  to  see  why  the  secret  and  sacred  Myster3^-Name 
of  the  highest,  sexless,  formless  Spirit,  the  Absolute, — Whom  no  one 
would  have  dared  to  classify  with  the  rest  of  the  manifested  Deities,  or 
even  to  name  during  the  primitive  nomenclature  of  the  symbolical 
Panthenon,  should  not  be  expressed  by  an  interrogative  pronoun.  Is 
it  those  who  belong  to  the  most  anthropomorphic  Religion  in  the  world 
who  have  a  right  to  take  ancient  Philosophers  to  task  for  even  an  exag- 
gerated religious  awe  and  veneration  ? 

But  we  are  now  concerned  with  Buddhism.  Its  Esotericism  and  oral 
instruction,  which  is  written  down  and  preserved  in  single  copies  by 
the  highest  chiefs  in  genuine  Esoteric  Schools,  is  shown  by  the 
author  Sau-Kian-yi-su.  Contrasting  Bodhidharma  with  Buddha,  he 
exclaims  : 

"Julai"  (Tathagata)  taught  great  truths  and  the  causes  of  things.  He  became 
the  instructor  of  men  and  Devas.  He  saved  multitudes,  and  spoke  the  contents  of 
more  than  five  hundred  works.  Hence  arose  the  Kiau-men,  or  exoteric  branch  of 
the  system,  and  it  was  believed  to  be  the  tradition  of  the  words  of  Buddha.  Bodhi- 
dharma brought  from  the  Western  Heaven  [Shamballa]  the  "Seal  of  Truth  "  (true 
seal  )and  opened  the  fountain  of  contemplation  in  the  East.  He  pointed  directly 
to  Buddha's  heart  and  nature,  swept  away  the  parasitic  and  alien  growth  of  book-  ' 
instruction,  and  thus  established  the  Tsung-men,  or  Esoteric  branch  of  the  system 
containing  the  tradition  of  the  heart  of  Buddha.* 

A  few  remarks  made  by  the  author  of  Chinese  Buddhis?n  throw  a  flood 
of  light  on  the  universal  misconceptions  of  Orientalists  in  general,  and 


'■'  Chinese  Buddhism,  p.  158.  The  Rev.  Joseph  Edkins  either  ignores,  or— which  is  more  probable— 
IS  utterly  ignorant  of  the  real  existence  of  such  Schools,  and  judges  by  the  Chinese  travesties  of 
these,  calling  such  Bsotericism  "  heterodox  Buddhism."    And  so  it  is,  in  one  sense. 


426  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

cf  the  missionaries  in  the  "lauds  of  the  Gentiles"  in  particular.  They 
appeal  very  forcibly  to  the  intuition  of  Theosophists — more  particularly 
of  those  in  India.     The  sentences  to  be  noticed  are  italicized. 

The  common  [Chinese]  word  for  the  esoteric  Schools  is  dan,  the  Sanskrit  Dhydfia 
.  .  .  Orthodox  Buddhism  has  in  China  slowl}^  but  steadily  become  heterodox. 
The  Buddhism  of  books  and  ancient  traditions  has  become  the  Buddhism  of  mystic 
contemplation.  .  .  .  The  history  of  ancient  schools  springing  up  long  ago  in  the 
Buddhist  communities  of  India  caji  now  be  otily  very  partially  recovered.  Possibly 
some  light  ma}'  be  thrown  back  by  China  upon  th«  religious  history  of  the  country 
from  which  Buddhism  came.*  In  no  part  of  the  story  is  aid  to  the  recovery  of  the 
lost  knowledge  more  likely  to  be  found  than  in  the  accounts  of  the  patriarchs,  the 
line  of  whom  was  completed  by  Bodhidharma.  In  seeking  the  best  explanation  of 
the  Chinese  and  Japanese  narrative  of  the  patriarchs,  and  the  seven  Buddhas 
terminating  in  Gautama,  or  Shakyamuni,  it  is  important  to  know  the  Jain  tradi- 
tions as  they  were  early  in  the  sixth  century  of  our  era,  when  the  Patriarch  Bodhi- 
dharma removed  to  China.     .     .     . 

In  tracing  the  rise  of  the  various  schools  of  esoteric  Buddhism  it  must  be  kept  in 
mind  that  a  principle  somewhat  similar  to  the  dogma  of  apostolical  succession 
belongs  to  them  all.  They  all  profess  to  derive  their  doctrines  through  a  succession 
of  teachers,  each  instructed  personally  by  his  predecessor,  till  the  time  of  Bodhi- 
dharma, afid  so  further  up  in  the  series  to  Shakyamuni  himself  and  the  earlier 
Buddhas.'^ 

It  is  complained  further  on,  and  is  mentioned  as  a  falling  away  from 
strict  orthodox  Buddhism,  that  the  Lamas  of  Tibet  dre  received  in  Pekijt 
with  the  utmost  respect  by  the  Emperor. 

The  following  passages,  taken  from  different  parts  of  the  book, 
summarise  Mr.  Edkins'  views  : 

Hermits  are  not  uncommonly  met  with  in  the  vicinity  of  large  Buddhist  temples 
.  .  .  their  hair  being  allowed  to  grow  unshorn.  .  .  .  The  doctrine  of  metem- 
psychosis is  rejected.  Buddhism  is  one  form  of  Pantheism  on  the  ground  that  the 
doctrine  of  metempsychosis  makes  all  nature  instinct  with  life,  and  that  that  life  is 
the  Deity  assuming  different  forms  of  personalitj^that  Deity  not  being  a  self-conscious, 
free-acting  Self-Cause,  but  an  all-pervading  Spirit.  The  esoteric  Buddhists  of  China, 
keeping  rigidly  to  their  one  doctrine,:}:  say  nothing  of  the  metempsychosis,  .  .  . 
or  any  other  of  the  more  material  parts  of  the  Buddhist  system.  .  .  .  The 
Western  paradise  promised  to  the  worshippers  of  Amida  Buddha  is    .     .     .     incon 

*  That  country— India — has  lost  the  records  of  such  Schools  and  their  teachings  only  so  far  as  the 
general  public,  and  especially  the  inappreciative  Western  Orientalists,  are  concerned.  It  has  preserved 
them  in  full  in  some  Mathams  (refuges  for  mystic  contemplation).  But  it  may  perhaps  be  better  to 
seek  them  with,  and  from,  their  rightful  owners,  the  so-called  "  mythical  "  Adepts,  or  Mahatmas. 

•*   "tbrniose  liuddhism,  pp.  155-159. 

t  They  certainly  reject  most  emphatically  the  popular  theory  of  the  transmigration  of  human 
entities  or  Souls  into  animals,  but  not  the  evolution  of  men  from  animals — so  far,  r.t  least,  as  their 
lower  principles  are  concerned. 


MORE   MISREPRESENTATIONS.  429 

sistent  with  the  doctrine  of  Nirvana  [?].*  .  .  .  It  promises  immortaCity  instead 
of  annihilation.  The  great  antiquity  of  this  School  is  evident  from  the  early  date 
of  the  translation  of  the  Aniida  Sutra,  which  came  from  the  hands  of  Kumarajiva, 
and  the  Ku-liang-sheu-King,  dating  from  the  Han  dynasty.  Its  extent  of  influence 
is  seen  in  the  attachment  of  the  Tibetans  and  Moguls  to  the  worship  of  this 
Buddha,  and  in  the  fact  that  the  name  of  this  fictitious  personage  [?]  is  more  com- 
monly heard  in  China  than  that  of  the  historical  Shakyamuni. 

We  fear  the  learned  writer  is  on  a  false  track  as  to  Nirvana  and 
Amita  Buddha.  However,  here  we  have  the  evidence  of  a  missionarj' 
to  show  that  there  are.  several  schools  of  Esoteric  Buddhism  in  the 
Celestial  Empire.  When  the  misuse  of  dogmatical  orthodox  Buddhist 
Scriptures  had  reached  its  climax,  and  the  true  spirit  of  the  Buddha's 
Philosophy  was  nearly  lost,  several  reformers  appeared  from  India, 
who  established  an  oral  teaching.  Such  were  Bodhidharma  and 
Nagarjuna,  the  authors  of  the  most  important  works  of  the  contempla- 
tive School  in  China  during  the  first  centuries  of  our  era.  It  is  known, 
moreover,  as  is  said  in  Chinese  Buddhism,  that  Bodhidharma  became 
the  chief  founder  of  the  Esoteric  Schools,  which  were  divided  into  five 
principal  branches.  The  data  given  are  correct  enough,  but  ever>'  con- 
clusion, without  one  single  exception,  is  wrong.  It  was  said  in  his 
Unveiled  that — 

Buddha  teaches  the  doctrine  of  a  new  birth  as  plainly  as  Jesus  does.  Desirin'j- 
to  break  with  the  ancient  Mysteries,  to  which  it  was  impossible  to  admit  the 
ignorant  masses,  the  Hindu  reformer,  though  generally  silent  upon  more  than  one 
secret  dogma,  clearly  states  his  thought  in  several  passages.  Thus,  he  says: 
"  Some  people  are  born  again  ;  evil-doers  go  to  hell  [Avitchi] ;  righteous  people  go  to 
heaven  [Devachan]  ;  those  who  are  free  from  all  worldly  desires  enter  Nirvana" 
{Precepts  of  i fie  Dhammapada,  v.  126).  Elsewhere  Buddha  states  that  "  it  is  better  to 
believe  in  a  future  life,  in  which  happiness  or  misery  can  be  felt :  for  if  the  heart 
believes  therein  it  will  abandon  sin  and  act  A^rtuously ;  and  even  if  there  is  no 
resurrection  [rebirth],  such  a  life  will  bring  a  good  name  and  the  reward  of  men. 
But  those  who  believe  in  extinction  at  death  will  not  fail  to  commit  any  sin 
that  they  may  choose,  because  of  their  disbelief  in  a  future."  (See  IVheel  of  the 
Law.) 

How    is    immortality,    then,    "inconsistent  with    the    doctrine    of 


'  It  IS  quite  consistent,  on  the  contrary,  when  explained  in  the  light  of  the  Esoteric  Doctrine  The 
"  Western  paradise,"  or  Western  heaven,  is  no  fiction  located  in  transcendental  space.  It  is  a  hona-fide 
locahty  in  the  mountains,  or,  to  be  more  correct,  one  encircled  in  a  desert  within  mountains  Hence 
it  IS  assigned  for  the  residence  of  those  students  of  Esoteric  Wisdom-disciples  of  Buddha-who 
have  attained  the  rank  of  I.ohans  and  Anagamins  (Adepts).  It  is  called  "Western"  simply  from 
geographical  considerations  ;  and  "  the  great  iron  mountain  girdle"  that  surrounds  the  Avitchi  and 
the  seven  Lokas  that  encircle  the  "Western  paradise  "  are  a  very  exact  representation  of  weU-known 
localities  and  thines  to  the  Eastern  student  of  Occultism- 


430  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Nirvana?"  The  above  are  only  a  few  of  Buddha's  openly- expressed 
thoughts  to  his  chosen  Arhats  ;  the  great  Saint  said  much  more.  As  a 
comment  upon  the  mistaken  views  held  in  our  century  by  the  Oriental- 
ists, "  who  vainly  try  to  fathom  Tathagata's  thoughts,"  and  those  ot 
Brahmans,  "  who  repudiate  the  great  Teacher  to  this  day,"  here  are 
some  original  thoughts  expressed  in  relation  to  the  Buddha  and  the 
study  of  the  Secret  Sciences.  They  are  from  a  work  written  in  Chinese 
by  a  Tibetan,  and  published  in  the  monastery  of  Tientai  for  circulation 
among  the  Buddhists 

Who  live  in  foreign  lands,  and  are  in  danger  of  being  spoiled  by  missionaries, 
as  the  author  truly  says,  every  convert  being  not  only  "  spoiled  "  for 
his  own  creed,  but  being  also  a  sorry  acquisition  for  Christianity.     A 
translation  of  a  few  passages,  kindly  made  from  that  work  for  the  pre- 
sent volumes  is  now  given. 

No  profane  ears  having  heard  the  mighty  Chau-yan  [secret  and  enlightening 
precepts]  of  Vu-vei-Tchen-jen  [Buddha  within  Buddha],*  of  our  beloved  Lord  and 
Bodhisattva,  how  can  one  tell  what  his  thoughts  really  were?  The  holy  Sang-gyas- 
Panclihen  t  never  offered  an  insight  into  the  One  Reality  to  the  unreformed  [unini- 
tiated] Bhikkus.  Few  are  those  even  among  the  Tu-fon  [Tibetans]  who  knew  it ; 
as  for  the  Tsung-men  j  Schools,  they  are  going  with  every  day  more  down  hill. 
.  .  .  .  Not  even  the  Fa-siong-Tsung§  can  give  one  the  wisdom  taught  in  real 
Naljor-chod-pa  [Sanskrit: II  Yogacharya]:  .  .  .  it  is  all  " Eye "  Doctrine,  and  no 
more.  The  loss  of  a  restraining  guidance  is  felt,  since  the  Tch'-an-si  [teachers]  of 
inward  meditation  [self-contemplation  or  Tchung-kwan]  have  become  rare,  and  the 
Good  Law  is  replaced  by  idol-worship  [Siang-kyan].  It  is  of  this  [idol-  or  image- 
worship]  that  the  Barbarians  [Western  people]  have  heard,  and  know  nothing  of 
Bas-pa-Dharma  [the  secret  Dharma  or  doctrine].  Why  has  truth  to  hide  like  a 
tortoise  within  its  shell  ?  Because  it  is  now  found  to  have  become  like  the  Lama's 
tonsure  knife,1I  a  weapon  too  dangerous  to  use  even  for  the  Lanoo.  Therefore  no 
one  can  be  entrusted  with  the  knowledge  [Secret  Science]  before  his  time.    The 

*  The  word  is  translated  by  the  Orientalists  as  "  true  man  without  a  position,"  (?)  which  is  very 
misleading.  It  simply  means  the  true  inner  man,  or  Ego,  "Buddha  within  Buddha  "  meaning  that 
there  was  a  Gautama  inwardly  as  well  as  oulwardiy. 

t  One  of  the  titles  of  Gautama  Buddha  in  Tibet. 

t  The  "  Esoteric  "  Schools,  or  sects,  of  which  there  are  many  in  China. 

\  A  school  of  contemplation  founded  by  Hiuen-Tsang,  the  traveller,  nearly  extinct.  Fa-siong- 
Tsung  means  "the  School  that  unveils  the  inner  nature  of  things." 

li  Esoteric,  or  hidden,  teaching  of  Yoga  (Chinese:  Yogi-mi-kean). 

'\  The  "tonsure  knife"  is  made  of  meleoric  iron,  and  is  used  for  the  purpose  of  cutting  off  the 
'vow-lock,"  or  hair  from  the  novice's  head  during  his  first  ordination.  It  has  a  double-edged 
blade  is  sharp  as  a  razor,  and  lies  concealed  within  a  hollow  handle  of  horn.  By  touching  a  spring 
tha  blade  jerks  out  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  and  recedes  back  with  the  same  rapidity.  A  great 
dexterity  is  required  in  using  it  without  wounding  the  head  of  the  young  Gelung  and  Gelung-ma 
(candidates  to  become  priests  and  nuns)  during  the  preliminary  rites,  which  are  pubUc. 


ARYASANGA.  43I 

Chagpa-Thog-mad  have  become  rare,  and  the  best  have  retired  to  Tushita  the 
Blessed.* 

Further  on,  a  man  seeking  to  master  the  mysteries  of  Esotericism 
before  he  had  been  declared  by  the  initiated  Tch'-an-si  (teachers)  to  be 
ready  to  receive  them,  is  likened  lo 

One  who  would,  without  a  lantern  and  on  a  dark  night,  proceed  to  a  place  full 
of  scorpions,  determined  to  feel  on  the  ground  for  a  needle  his  neighbour  has 
dropped. 

Again  : 

He  who  would  acquire  the  Sacred  Knowledge  should,  before  he  goes  any  farmer 
"trim  his  lamp  of  inner  understanding,"  and  then  "with  the  help  of  such  good 
light"  use  his  meritorious  actions  as  a  dust-cloth  to  remove  every  impurity  from 
his  mystic  mirror,t  so  that  he  should  be  enabled  to  see  in  its  lustre  the  faithful 
reflection  of  Self.  ....  First,  this ;  then  Tong-pa-nya,t  lastly ;  Samma  Sam- 
buddha.§ 

In  Chinese  Buddhism  a  corroboration  of  these  statements  is  to  be 
found  in  the  aphorisms  of  Lin-tsi : 

Within  the  body  which  admits  sensations,  acquires  knowledge,  thinks,  and  acts, 
there  is  the  "  true  man  without  a  position  "  Wu-wei-chen-jen.  He  makes  himself 
clearly  visible  ;  not  the  thinnest  separating  film  hides  him.  Why  do  you  not  recog- 
nise nim?     ...     If  the  mind  does   not  come  to   conscious  existence,  there  is 

deliverance  everywhere What  is  Buddha?    Arts.  A  mind  clear  and  at 

rest.    What  is  the  Law }    Ans.  A  mind  clear  and  enlightened.     What  is  Tau  ? 
Ahs.  In  every  place  absence  of  impediments  and  pure  enlightenment.     These  three 


•  Chagpa-Thog-mad  is  the  Tibetan  name  of  Aryasanga,  the  founder  of  the  Yogacharya  or 
Naljorchodpa  School.  This  Sage  and  Initiate  is  said  to  have  been  taught  "  Wisdom  "  by  Mai- 
treva  Buddha  Himself,  the  Buddha  of  the  Sixth  Race,  at  Tushita  (a  celestial  region  presided  over 
by  Him),  and  as  having  received  from  Him  the  6ve  books  of  Champailehos-nga.  The  Secret  Doctrine 
teaches,  however,  that  he  came  from  Dejung,  or  Shambhalla,  called  the  "source  of  happiness  " 
C  wisdom-acquired  ")  and  declared  by  some  Orientalists  to  be  a  "  fabulous  "  place. 

t  It  may  not  be,  perhaps,  amiss  to  remind  the  reader  of  the  fact  that  the  "  mirror"  was  a  part  of 
the  symbolism  of  the  Thesmophoria,  a  portion  of  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries ;  and  that  it  was  used  in 
the  search  for  Atmu,  the  "Hidden  One."  or  "Self"  In  his  excellent  paper  on  the  above-named 
mysteries,  Dr.  Alexander  Wilder  of  New  York  says  :  "  Despite  the  assertion  of  Herodotus  and 
others  that  the  Bacchic  Mysteries  were  Egyptian,  there  exists  strong  probability  that  they  came 
originally  from  India,  and  were  Shaivitic  or  Buddhistical.  Kore-Perscp-honeia  was  but  the  goddess 
Parasu-pani,  or  Bhavani,  aud  Zagreus  is  from  Chakra,  a  country  extending  from  ocean  to  ocean.  If 
this  is  a  Turanian  story  we  can  easily  recognise  the  '  horns  "  as  the  crescent  worn  by  Lama-priests, 
and  assume  the  whole  legend  [the  fable  of  Dionysus-Zagreus]  to  be  based  on  Lama-succession  and 
transmigration.  .  .  .  The  whole  story  of  Orpheus  .  .  .  has  a  Hindu  ring  all  through."  The 
t.ile  of  "Lama-succession  and  transmigration  "  did  not  originate  with  the  Lamas,  who  date  them- 
selves only  so  far  back  as  the  seventh  century,  but  with  the  Chaldoeaiis  and  the  Brahmans,  still  earlier. 

X  The  state  of  absolute  freedom  from  any  siu  or  desire. 
The  state  during  which  an  Adept  sees  the  long  series  of  his  past  births,  and  lives  through  all  his 
previous  incarnations  in  this  and  the  other  worlds.    (See  the  admirable  description  in  the  Light  of 
.  .ji'a,  p.  i66,  1884  ed.l 


432  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

The  reverend  author  of  Chinese  Buddhism  makes  merry  over  the 
symbolism  of  Buddhist  discipline.  Yet  the  self-inflicted  "slaps  on  the 
cheek"  and  "blows  under  the  ribs"  find  their  pendants  in  the  morti- 
fications of  the  body  and  self-flagellation — "  the  discipline  of  the 
scourge  " — of  the  Christian  monks,  from  the  first  centuries  of  Chris- 
tianity down  to  our  own  day.  But  then  the  said  author  is  a  Protestant, 
who  substitutes  for  mortification  and  discipline — good  living  and  com- 
fort.    The  sentence  in  the  Lin-tsi, 

The  "true  man,  without  a  position,"  Wu-wei-chen-jen,  is  wrapped  in  a  prickly 
shell,  like  the  chestnut.  He  cannot  be  approached.  This  is  Buddha — the  Buddha 
within  you, 

is  laughed  at.     Truly 

An  infant  cannot  understand  the  seven  enigmas  ! 


SOME    PAPERS   ON   THE 

BEARING  OF  OCCULT 
PHILOSOPHY    ON   LIFE. 


NOTB. 
Papers  I.  II.  III.  of  the  following  were  written  by  H.  P.  B.  and 
were  circulated  privately  during  her  lifetime,  but  they  were  written 
with  ihe  idea  that  they  would  be  published  after  a  time.  They  are 
papeis  intended  for  students  rather  than  for  the  ordinary  reader,  and 
will  repay  careful  study  and  thought.  The  "  Notes  of  some  Oral 
Teaching  "  were  written  down  by  some  of  her  pupils  and  were  partially 
corrected  by  her,  but  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  relieve  them  of 
their  fragmentary  character.  She  had  intended  to  make  them  the 
basi.<?  for  written  papers  similar  to  the  first  three,  but  her  failing  health 
rendered  this  impossible,  and  they  are  published  with  her  consent,  the 
time  for  restricting  them  to  a  limited  circle  having  expired. 

Annie  Besant. 


PAPER  I 


A   WARNING. 


THERi<  is  a  Strange  law  in  Occultism  which  has  been  ascertamed 
and  proven  by  thousands  of  years  of  experience ;  nor  has  it  failed  to 
demonstrate  itself,  almost  in  every  case,  during  the  years  that  the 
Theosophical  Society  has  been  in  existence.  As  soon  as  anyone 
pledges  himself  as  a  "  Probationer,"  certain  Occult  effects  ensue.  Of 
these  the  first  is  the  throwing  outward  of  everything  latent  in  the 
nature  of  the  man ;  his  faults,  habits,  qualities  or  subdued  desires, 
whether  good,  bad  or  indifferent. 

For  instance,  if  a  man  be  vain  or  a  sensualist,  or  ambitious, 
whether  by  atavism  or  by  karmic  heirloom,  those  vices  are  sure  to 
break  out,  even  if  he  has  hitherto  successfully  concealed  and  repressed 
them.  They  will  come  to  the  front  irrepressibly,  and  he  will  have  to 
fight  a  hundred  times  harder  than  before,  until  he  kills  all  such 
tendencies  in  himself. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  he  be  good,  generous,  chaste  and  abstemious, 
or  has  any  virtue  hitherto  latent  and  concealed  in  him,  it  will  work  its 
way  out  as  irrepressibly  as  the  rest.  Thus  a  civilized  man  who  hates  to 
be  considered  a  saint,  and  therefore  assumes  a  mask,  will  not  be  able  to 
conceal  his  true  nature,  whether  base  or  noble. 

This  is  an  immutable  law  in  the  domain  of  the  occult. 

Its  action  is  the  more  marked,  the  more  earnest  and  sincere  the 
desire  of  the  candidate,  and  the  more  deeply  he  has  felt  the  reality  and 
importance  of  his  pledge. 

The  ancient  occult  axiom,  "  Know  Thyself,"  must  be  familiar  to 
ever}'  student ;  but  few  if  any  have  apprehended  the  real  meaning  of 
this  wise  exhortation  of  the  Delphic  Oracle.  You  all  know  your  earthly 
pedigree,  but  who  of  you  has  ever  traced  all  the  links  of  heredity. 


436  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

astral,  psychic  and  spiritual,  which  go  to  make  you  what  you  are? 
Many  have  written  and  expressed  their  desire  to  unite  themselves  with 
their  Higher  Ego,  yet  none  seem  to  know  the  indissoluble  link  con- 
necting their  "  Higher  Egos"  with  the  One  Universal  Self. 

For  all  purposes  of  Occultism,  whether  practical  or  purely  meta- 
physical, such  knowledge  is  absolutely  requisite.  It  is  proposed, 
therefore,  to  begin  these  papers  by  showing  this  connection  in  all 
directions  with  the  worlds  :  Absolute,  Archetypal,  Spiritual,  Manasic, 
Psychic,  Astral,  and  Elemental.  Before,  however,  we  can  touch  upon 
the  higher  worlds — Archetypal,  Spiritual  and  Manasic — we  must 
master  the  relations  of  the  seventh,  the  terrestrial  world,  the  lower 
Prakriti,  or  Malkuth  as  in  the  Kabalah,  to  the  worlds  or  planes  which 
immediately  follow  it. 

OM. 

"  Om,"  says  the  Aryan  Adept,  the  son  of  the  Fifth  Race,  who  with 
this  syllable  begins  and  ends  his  salutation  to  the  human  being,  his 
conjuration  of,  or  appeal  to,  non-human  Presences. 

"  Om-Mani,"  murmurs  the  Turanian  Adept,  the  descendant  of  the 
Fourth  Race ;  and  after  pausing  he  adds,  "  Padme-Hum." 

This  famous  invocation  is  very  erroneously  translated  by  the 
Orientalists  as  meaning,  "  Oh  the  Jewel  in  the  Lotus."  For  although, 
literally,  Om  is  a  syllable  sacred  to  the  Deity,  Padme  means  "  in  the 
Lotus,"  and  Mani  is  any  precious  stone,  still  neither  the  words  them- 
selves, nor  their  symbolical  meaning,  are  thus  really  correctly  rendered. 

In  this,  the  most  sacred  of  all  Eastern  formulas,  not  only  has  every 
syllable  a  secret  potency  producing  a  definite  result,  but  the  whole 
invocation  has  seven  different  meanings  and  can  produce  seven  distinct 
results,  each  of  which  may  differ  from  the  others. 

The  seven  meanings  and  the  seven  results  depend  upon  the  intona- 
tion which  is  given  to  the  whole  formula  and  to  each  of  its  syllables ; 
and  even  the  numerical  value  of  the  letters  is  added  to  or  diminished 
according  as  such  or  another  rhythm  is  made  use  of.  Let  the  student 
remember  that  number  underlies  form,  and  number  guides  sound. 
Number  lies  at  the  root  of  the  manifested  Universe:  numbers  and 
harmonious  proportions  guide  the  first  differentiations  of  homogeneous 
substance  into  heterogeneous  elements  ;  and  number  and  numbers  set 
limits  to  the  formative  hand  of  Nature. 

Know  the  corresponding  numbers  of  the  fundamental  principle  of 


THE  JEWEL  IN  THE   LOTUS.  437 

every  element  and  its  sub-elements,  learn  their  interaction  and  behaviour 
on  the  occult  side  of  manifesting  Nature,  and  the  law  of  correspondences 
will  lead  3'ou  to  the  discovery  of  the  greatest  mysteries  of  macrocos- 
mical  life. 

But  to  arrive  at  the  macrocosmical,  you  must  begin  by  the  micro- 
cosmical,  i.e.,  you  must  study  Man,  the  microcosm — in  this  case  as 
physical  science  does — inductively,  proceeding  from  particulars  to 
universals.  At  the  same  time,  however,  since  a  key-note  is  required  to 
analyze  and  comprehend  any  combination  of  differentiations  of  sound, 
we  must  never  lose  sight  of  the  Platonic  method,  which  starts  with  one 
general  view  of  all,  and  descends  from  the  universal  to  the  individual. 
This  is  the  method  adopted  in  Mathematics — the  only  exact  science  that 
exists  in  our  day. 

Let  us  study  Man,  therefore ;  but  if  we  separate  him  for  one  moment 
from  the  Universal  Whole,  or  view  him  in  isolation,  from  a  single 
aspect,  apart  from  the  "Heavenly  Man" — the  Universe  symbolized  by 
Adam  Kadmon  or  his  equivalents  in  every  Philosophy — we  shall  either 
land  in  Black  Magic  or  fail  most  ingloriously  in  our  attempt. 

Thus  the  mystic  sentence,  "  Om  Mani  Padme  Hjim,'"  when  rightlj^ 
understood,  instead  of  being  composed  of  the  almost  meaningless  words, 
*'  Oh  the  Jewel  in  the  Lotus,"  contains  a  reference  to  this  indissoluble 
union  between  Man  and  the  Universe,  rendered  in  seven  different  ways, 
and  having  the  capability  of  seven  different  applications  to  as  many 
planes  of  thought  and  action. 

From  whatever  aspect  we  examine  it,  it  means  :  "  I  am  that  I  am  "  ; 
"  I  am  in  thee  and  thou  art  in  me."  In  this  conjunction  and  close 
union  the  good  and  pure  man  becomes  a  God.  Whether  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  he  will  bring  about,  or  innocently  cause  to  happen, 
unavoidable  results.  In  the  first  case,  if  an  Initiate  (of  course  an 
Adept  of  the  Right-hand  Path  alone  is  meant),  he  can  guide  a  beneficent 
or  a  protecting  current,  and  thus  benefit  and  protect  individuals  and 
even  whole  nations.  In  the  second  case,  although  quite  unaware  of 
what  he  is  doing,  the  good  man  becomes  a  shield  to  whomsoever  he  is 
with. 

Such  is  the  fact ;  but  its  how  and  why  have  to  be  explained,  and  this 
can  be  done  only  when  the  actual  presence  and  potency  of  numbers  in 
sounds,  and  hence  in  words  and  letters,  have  been  rendered  clear.  The 
formula,  "  Om  Mani  Padme  Htifn,'"  has  been  chosen  as  an  illustration 
on  account  of  its  almost  infinite  potency  in  the  mouth  of  an  Adept,  and 


438  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

of  its  potentiality  when  pronounced  by  any  man.  Be  careful,  all  you 
who  read  this  :  do  not  use  these  words  in  vain,  or  when  in  anger,  lest 
you  become  yourself  the  first  sacrificial  victim,  or,  what  is  worse, 
endanger  those  whom  you  love. 

The  profane  Orientalist,  who  all  his  life  skims  mere  externals,  will 
tell  you  flippantl}^  and  laughing  at  the  superstition,  that  in  Tibet  this 
sentence  is  the  most  powerful  six-syllabled  incantation  and  is  said  to 
have  been  delivered  to  the  nations  of  Central  Asia  by  Padmapani,  the 
Tibetan  Cbenresi.* 

But  who  is  Padmapani,  in  reality  ?  Each  of  us  must  recognize  him 
for  himself,  whenever  he  is  read3\  Each  of  us  has  within  himself  the 
"Jewel  in  the  lyotus,"  call  it  Padmapani,  Krishna,  Buddha,  Christ,  or 
whatever  name  we  maj^  give  to  our  Divine  Self.  The  exoteric  stor}* 
runs  thus : 

The  supreme  Buddha,  or  Amitabha,  they  say,  at  the  hour  of  the 
creation  of  man,  caused  a  rosy  ray  of  light  to  issue  from  his  right  eye. 
The  ray  emitted  a  sound  and  became  Padmapani  Bodhisattva.  Then  the 
Deity  allowed  to  stream  forth  from  his  left  eye  a  blue  ray  of  light, 
which,  becoming  incarnate  in  the  two  virgins  Dolma,  acquired  the 
power  to  enlighten  the  minds  of  living  beings.  Amitabha  then  called 
the  combination,  which  forthwith  took  up  its  abode  in  man,  "  Om  Mani 
Padme  Hum,''  "  I  am  the  Jewel  in  the  I/Dtus  and  in  it  I  will  remain." 
Then  Padmapani,  "  the  One  in  the  lyOtus  "  vowed  never  to  cease  work- 
ing until  he  had  made  Humanity  feel  his  presence  in  itself  and  had 
thus  saved  it  from  the  misery  of  rebirth.  He  vowed  to  perform  the 
feat  before  the  end  of  the  Kalpa,  adding  that,  in  case  of  failure,  he 
wished  that  his  head  should  split  into  numberless  fragments.  The 
Kalpa  closed  ;  but  Humanity  felt  him  not  within  its  cold,  evil  heart. 
Then  Padmapani' s  head  split  and  was  shattered  into  a  thousand  frag- 
ments. Moved  with  compassion,  the  Deity  re-formed  the  pieces  into 
ten  heads,  three  white,  and  seven  of  various  colours.  And  since  that 
day  man  has  become  a  perfect  number,  or  Ten. 

In  this  allegory  the  potency  of  Sound,  Colour,  and  Number  is  so 
ingeniously  introduced  as  to  veil  the  real  Esoteric  meaning.  To  the 
outsider  it  reads  like  one  of  the  many  meaningless  fair5^-tales  of 
creation  ;  but  it  is  pregnant  with  spiritual  and  divine,  physical  and 
magical  meaning.     From  Amitabha — no  colotir,  or  the  white  glory — are 


•  See  supra,  ii.  i88,  189. 


THE   PYTHAGORKAN   TETRAD.  439 

born  the  seven  differentiated  colours  of  the  prism.  These  each  emit  a 
corresponding  sound,  forming  the  seven  of  the  musical 
scale.  As  Geometry,  among  the  Mathematical  Sciences, 
is  specially  related  to  Architecture,  and  also  (proceeding 
to  Universals)  to  Cosmogony,  so  the  ten  Jods  of  the 
Pythagorean  Tetrad,  or  Tetraktys,  being  made  to  sym- 
bolize the  Macrocosm,  the  Microcosm,  or  man,  its  image, 
had  also  to  be  divided  into  ten  points.  For  this  Nature  herself  has 
provided,  as  will  be  seen. 

But  before  this  statement  can  be  proved  and  the  perfect  correspon- 
dences between  the  Macrocosm  and  the  Microcosm  demonstrated,  a  few 
words  of  explanation  are  necessary. 

To  the  learner  who  would  study  the  Esoteric  Sciences  with  their 
double  object:  {a)  of  proving  Man  to  be  identical  in  spiritual  and 
physical  essence  with  both  the  Absolute  Principle  and  with  God  in 
Nature ;  and  (3)  of  demonstrating  the  presence  in  -  him  of  the  same 
potential  powers  as  exist  in  the  creative  forces  in  Nature — to  such  a 
one  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  correspondences  between  Colours, 
Sounds,  and  Numbers  is  the  first  requisite.  As  already  said,  the  sacred 
formula  of  the  far  East,  "  Om  Marii  Padme  Hum''  is  the  one  best  calcu- 
lated to  make  these  correspondential  qualities  and  functions  clear  to 
the  learner. 

In  the  allegory  of  Padmapani,  the  Jewel  (or  Spiritual  Ego)  in  the 
Lotus,  or  the  symbol  of  androgynous  man,  the  numbers  3,  4,  7,  10,  as 
synthesizing  the  Unit,  Man,  are  prominent,  as  I  have  already  said.  It 
is  on  the  thorough  knowledge  and  comprehension  of  the  meaning  and 
potency  of  these  numbers,  in  their  various  and  multiform  combinations, 
and  in  their  mutual  correspondence  with  sounds  or  words,  and  colours 
or  rates  of  motion  (represented  in  physical  science  by  vibrations),  that 
the  progress  of  a  student  in  Occultism  depends.  Therefore  we  must 
begin  with  the  first,  initial  word.  Cm,  or  Aum.  Cm  is  a  "  blind."  The 
sentence  "  Om  Mani  Padme  Hum"  is  not  a  six-  but  a  seven-syllabled 
phrase,  as  the  first  syllable  is  double  in  its  right  pronunciation,  and 
triple  in  its  essence,  A-um.  It  represents  the  for  ever  concealed 
primeval  triune  differentiation,  not  frotn  but  zw  the  One  Absolute,  and 
is  therefore  symbolized  by  the  4,  or  the  Tetraktys,  in  the  metaphysical 
world.     It  is  the  Unit-ray,  or  Atman. 

It  is  the  Atman,  this  highest  Spirit  in  man,  which,  in  conjunction 
^Yith  Buddhi  and  Manas,  is  called  the  upper  Triad,  or  Trinity.     This 


440  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

Triad  with  its  four  lower  human  principles,  is,  moreover,  enveloped  with 
an  auric  atmosphere,  like  the  \^olk  of  an  egg  (the  future  embryo)  by  the 
albumen  and  shell.  This,  to  the  perceptions  of  higher  Beings  from 
other  planes,  makes  of  each  individuality  an  oval  sphere  of  more  or  less 
radiancy. 

To  show  the  student  the  perfect  correspondence  between  the  birth  of 
Kosmos,  a  World,  a  Planetary  Being,  or  a  Child  of  Sin  and  Earth, 
a  more  definite  and  clear  description  must  be  given.  Those  acquainted 
with  Physiology  will  understand  it  better  than  others. 

Who,  having  read  say  the  Vishnu  or  other  Parana,  is  not  familiar 
with  the  exoteric  allegory  of  the  birth  of  Brahma  (male-female)  in  the 
Egg  of  the  World,  Hiranyagarbha,  surrounded  b}"-  its  seven  zones,  or 
rather  planes,  which  in  the  world  of  form  and  matter  become  seven 
and  fourteen  L,okas ;  the  numbers  seven  and  fourteen  reappearing  as 
occasion  requires. 

Without  giving  out  the  secret  analysis,  the  Hindus  have  from  time 
immemorial  compared  the  matrix  of  the  Universe,  and  also  the  solar 
matrix,  to  the  female  uterus.  It  is  written  of  the  former:  "Its  womb 
is  vast  as  the  Meru,"  and 

The  future  mighty  oceans  lay  asleep  in  the  waters  that  filled  its  cavities,  the  con- 
tinents, seas  and  mountains,  the  stars,  planets,  the  gods,  demons  and  mankind. 

The  whole  resembled,  in  its  inner  and  outer  coverings,  the  cocoanut 
filled  interiorly  with  pulp,  and  covered  externally  with  husk  and  rind. 
"Vast  as  Meru,"  say  the  texts. 

Meru  was  its  Amnion,  and  the  other  mountains  were  its  Chorion, 

adds  a  verse  in  Vishnu  Purana* 

In  the  same  way  is  man  born  in  his  mother's  womb.  As  Brahma 
is  surrounded,  in  exoteric  traditions,  by  seven  layers  within  and  seven 
without  the  Mundane  Egg,  so  is  the  embryo  (the  first  or  the  seventh 
layer,  according  to  the  end  from  which  we  begin  to  count).  Thus,  just 
as  Esotericism  in  its  Cosmogony  enumerates  seven  inner  and  seven 
outer  layers,  so  Physiology  notes  the  contents  of  the  uterus  as  seven 
also,  although  it  is  completely  ignorant  of  this  being  a  copy  of  what 
takes  place  in  the  Universal  Matrix.     These  contents  are : 

I.  Embryo.  2.  A^nnio tic  Fluid,  immediately  surrounding  the  Embryo. 
3.  Amnion,  a  membrane  derived  from  the  FcEtus,  which  contains  the 
fluid.     4.   Umbilical  Vesicle,  which  serves  to  convey  nourishment  origi- 

•  Wilson's  translation,  as  amended  by  Fitzedward  Hall,  i.  40. 


SEVEN  CORRESPONDENTIAL  CONTENTS. 


441 


nally  to  the  Embryo  and  to  nourish  it.  5.  AUantois,  a  protrusion  from 
the  Embr5^o  in  the  form  of  a  closed  bag,  which  spreads  itself  between 
3  and  7,  in  the  midst  of  6,  and  which,  after  being  specialized  into  the 
Placenta,  serves  to  conduct  nourishment  to  the  Embrj-o.  6.  hiterspace 
between  3  and  7  (the  Amnion  and  Chorion),  filled  with  an  albuminous 
fluid.     7.   Chorion,  or  outer  layer. 

Now,  each  of  these  seven  contents  severally  corresponds  with,  and 
is  formed  after,  an  antetype,  one  on  each  of  the  seven  planes  of  being, 
with  which  in  their  turn  correspond  the  seven  states  of  Matter  and  all 
other  forces,  sensational  or  functional,  in  Nature. 

The  following  is  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  seven  correspondential 
contents  of  the  wombs  of  Nature  and  of  Woman.  We  may  contrast 
them  thus : 


Cosmic  Process, 
(upper  pole.) 

(i)  The  mathematical  Point, 
called  the  "  Cosmic  Seed,"  the 
Monad  of  Leibnitz ;  which  con- 
tains the  whole  Universe,  as  the 
acorn  the  oak.  This  is  the  first 
bubble  on  the  surface  of  boundless 
homogeneous  Substance,  or  Space, 
the  bubble  of  differentiation  in  its 
incipient  stage.  It  is  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Orphic  or  Brahma's 
Egg.  It  corresponds  in  Astrology 
and  Astronomy  to  the  Sun. 


Human  Process. 

(lower  pole.) 

(i)     The     terrestrial     Embryo, 

which   contains   in    it    the    future 

man    with    all    his    potentialities. 

In  the  series  of  principles  of  the 

A. 

human  system  it  is  the  Atman,  or 
the  super-spiritual  principle,  just 
as  in  the  physical  Solar  System  it 
is  the  Sun. 


(2)  The  vis  vitcB  of  our  solar 
system  exudes  from  the  Sun. 

{a)  It  is  called,  when  referred 
to  the  higher  planes,  Akasha. 

{b)  It  proceeds  from  the  ten 
"divinities,"  the  ten  numbers  of 
the  Sun,  which  is  itself  the  "  Per- 
fect Number."  These  are  called 
Dis — in   reality  Space — the  forces 


(2)  The  Amniotic  Fluid  exudes 
from  the  Embryo. 

(a)  It  is  called,  on  the  plane  of 
matter,  Prana.* 

(J))  It  proceeds,  taking  its  source 
in  the  universal  One  Life,  from  the 
heart  of  man  and  Buddhi,  over 
which  the  Seven  Solar  Rays  (Gods) 
preside. 


•  Prana  is  in  reality  the  universal  Life  Principle. 


442 


THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE- 


spread  in  Space,  three  of  which 
are  contained  in  the  Sun's  Atman, 
or  seventh  principle,  and  seven 
are  the  rays  shot  out  by  the  Sun. 


(3)  The  Ether  of  Space,  which, 
in  its  external  aspect,  is  the  plastic 
crust  which  is  supposed  to  enve- 
lope the  Sun.  On  the  higher 
plane  it  is  the  whole  Universe,  as 
the  third  differentiation  of  evolv- 
ing Substance,  Mulaprakriti  be- 
coming Prakriti. 

(a)  It  corresponds  mystically  to 
the  manifested  Mahat,  or  the  Intel- 
lect or  Soul  of  the  World. 


(3)  The  Amnion,  the  membrane 
containing  the  Amniotic  Fluid  and 
enveloping  the  Embryo.  After 
the  birth  of  man  it  becomes  the 
third  layer,  so  to  say,  of  his  mag- 
neto-vital aura. 


(a)  Manas,  the  third  principle 
(counting  from  above),  or  the 
Human  Soul  in  Man. 


(4)  The  sidereal  contents  of 
Ether,  the  substantial  parts  of  it, 
unknown  to  Modern  Science,  repre- 
sented : 


(a)  In  Occult  and  Kabalistic 
Mysteries,  by  Elementals. 

{b')  In  physical  Astronomy,  by 
meteors,  comets,  and  all  kinds  of 
casual  and  phenomenal  cosmic 
bodies. 


(4)  Umbilical  Vesicle,  serving, 
as  Science  teaches,  to  nourish  the 
Embryo  originally,  but,  as  Occult 
Science  avers,  to  carrj'to  the  Foetus 
by  osmosis  the  cosmic  influences 
extraneous  to  the  mother. 

(a)  In  the  grown  man  these 
become  the  feeders  of  Kama,  over 
which  they  preside. 

{b')  In  the  physical  man,  his  pas- 
sions and  emotions,  the  moral  me- 
teors and  comets  of  human  nature. 


(5)  Life  currents  in  Ether,  having 
their  origin  in  the  Sun  :  the  canals 
through  which  the  vital  principle 
of  that  Ether  (the  blood  of  the 
Cosmic  Body)  passes  to  nourish 
everything  on  the  Earth  and  on 
the  other  Planets :  from  the  miner- 
als, which  are  thus  made  to  grow 


(5)  The  Allantois,  a  protrusion 
from  the  Embryo,  which  spreads 
itself  between  the  Amnion  and 
Chorion  ;  it  is  supposed  to  conduct 
the  nourishment  from  the  mother 
to  the  Embrj^o.  It  corresponds  to 
the  life-principle,  Prana  or  Jiva. 


CORRESPONDENCE  BETWEEN  RACES  AND  MAN. 


443 


and  become  specialized,  from  the 
plants,  which  are  thus  fed,  to  ani- 
mal and  man,  to  whom  life  is  thus 

imparted. 

(6)  The  double  radiation,  psychic 
and  physical,  which  radiates  from 
the  Cosmic  Seed  and  expands 
around  the  whole  Kosmos,  as  well 
as  around  the  Solar  System  and 
every  Planet.  In  Occultism  it  is 
called  the  upper  divine,  and  the 
lower  material.  Astral  lyight. 


(6)  The  Allantois  is  divided  into 
two  layers.  The  interspace  between 
the  Amnion  and  the  Chorion  con- 
tains the  Allantois  and  also  an 
albuminous  fluid.* 


(7)  The  outer  crust  of  every 
sidereal  body,  the  Shell  of  the 
Mundane  Egg,  or  the  sphere  of 
our  Solar  System,  of  our  Earth,  and 
of  every  man  and  animal.  In 
sidereal  space.  Ether  proper;  on 
the  terrestrial  plane,  Air,  which 
again  is  built  in  seven  layers. 


(7)  The  Chorion,  or  the  Zona 
Pellucida,  the  globular  object  called 
Blastodermic  Vesicle,  the  outer 
and  the  inner  layers  of  the  mem- 
brane of  which  go  to  form  the 
physical  man.  The  outer,  or  ecto- 
derm, forms  his  epidermis ;  the 
inner,  or  endoderm,  his  muscles, 
bones,  etc.  Man's  skin,  again,  is 
composed  of  seven  layers. 

(a)  The  "primitive"  becomes 
the  "  permanent  "  Chorion. 


(«)  The  primordial  potential 
world-stuff  becomes  (for  the  Man- 
vantaric  period)  the  permanent 
globe  or  globes. 

Even  in  the  evolution  of  the  Races  we  see  the  same  order  as  in 
Nature  and  Man.f  Placental  animal-man  became  such  only  after  the 
separation  of  sexes  in  the  Third  Root-Race.  In  the  physiological 
evolution,  the  placenta  is  fully  formed  and  functional  only  after  the 
third  month  of  uterine  life. 


*  All  the  uterine  contents,  having  a  direct  spiritual  connection  with  their  cosmic  antetj-pes,  are,  on 
the  physical  plane,  potent  objects  in  Black  Magic,  and  are  therefore  considered  unclean. 

t  See  supra,  ii.  Part  I. 


444  THE  SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

Let  us  put  aside  such  human  conceptions  as  a  personal  God,  and 
hold  to  the  purely  divine,  to  that  which  underlies  all  and  everything  in 
boundless  Nature.  It  is  called  by  its  Sanskrit  Esoteric  name  in  the 
Vedas,  Tat  (or  That),  a  term  for  the  unknowable  Rootless  Root.  If 
we  do  so,  we  may  answer  these  seven  questions  of  the  Esoteric  Catechism 
thus  : 

(i)  Q.— What  is  the  Eternal  Absolute  ? 
A.— That. 

(2)  Q. — How  came  Kosmos  into  being? 
A.— Through  That. 

(3)  Q. — How,  or  what  will  it  be  when  it  falls  back  into  Pralaya  ? 
A. — In  That. 

(^^  Q. — Whence  all  the  animate,    and  supposition alh%  the   "inani- 
mate" nature? 
A. — From  That. 
(5)  Q. — What  is  the  Substance  and  Essence  of  which  the  Universe  is 
formed  ? 
A.— That. 
(^6)  O. — Into  what  has  it  been  and  will  be  again  and  again  resolved  ? 

A.— Into  That. 
(7)  Q. — Is  That  then  both  the  instrumental  and  material  cause  of 
the  Universe  ? 
A. — What  else  is  it  or  can  it  be  than  That  ? 
As  the  Universe,  the  Macrocosm  and  the  Microcosm,*  are  ten.  why 
should  we  divide  Man  into  seve7i  "principles"?     This  is  the  reason  why 
the  perfect  number  ten  is  divided  into  two :  in  their  completeness,  i.e.. 
super-spiritually  and  physically,  the  forces  are  ten  :   to  wit,  three  on 
the  subjective  and  inconceivable,  and  seven   on  the  objective  plane. 
Bear  in    mind  that  I  am  now  giving  3^ou  the  description  of  the  two 
opposite  poles  :  {a)  the  primordial  Triangle,  which,  as  soon  as  it  has 
reflected  itself  in  the  "  Heavenly  Man,"  the  highest  of  the  lower  seven 
— disappears,    returning  into   "  Silence  and    Darkness "  ;    and  {U)   the 
astral  paradigmatic  man,  whose  Monad  (Atma)  is  also  represented  by  a 
triangle,  as  it  has  to  become  a  ternary  in  conscious  Devachanic  inter- 
ludes.    The  purely  terrestrial  man  being  reflected  in  the  universe  of 
Matter,  so  to  say,  upside  down,  the  upper  Triangle,  wherein  the  creative 
ideation  and  the  subjective  potentiality  of  the  formative  faculty  resides, 

•  The  Solar  System  or  the  Earth,  as  the  case  may  be. 


DIAGRAM     I. 
Ist.-Maeroeosm  and  Its  3,  7,  or  10  Centres  of  Creative  Forees. 


A.  Sexless,  Unmanifested  Logos. 

B.  Potential  Wisdom. 

C.  Universal  Ideation. 


.  Creative  Logos. 
.  Eternal  Substance. 
,  Spirit. 


D.  The  Spiritual  Forces  acting  : 
^Matter. 


/      PILAKRirr.-     ■■    MAHAT.  \ 

/           Vspiritual.^,           \ 

L 

0/Psychic,Q 

) 

V'    j-0     Astral.  Q\)y 

A.  B.  C.  The  Unknowable. 


I-  h.  c.  This  is  Pradha  I  undif- 
ferentiated matter  is  — *  nkhya 
philosophy,  or  Good,-  il  anffl 
Chaotic  Darkness  (Satt\  a,  Raj.ii 
and  Tamas),  neutralizing  each 
other.  When  differentiated,  they 
become  the  Seven  Creative  Po- 
tencies;  Spirit,  Substance  and 
Fire  stimulating  Matter  to  form 
itself 


2nd.-Mieroeosm  (the  Inner  Man.  and  fUs  3,  7,  6|lb  Centres  of  Potential  Fo.ees. 


(Atman,  although  exoterically  reckoned 
as  the  seventh  principle,  is  noindividual 
pnnciple  at  all,  and  belongs  to  the  Uni- 
versal Soul;  7  is  the  Auric  Egg,  the 
Magnetic  Sphere  round  every  human 
and  animal  being.) 

1.  BuDDHi,  the  vehicle  of  Atm.?. 

2.  Manas,  the  vehicle  of  Buddhi. 

3.  Lower  Manas  (the  Upper  and 
Lower  Manas  are  two  aspects  of 
one  and  the  same  principle)  and 

4.  K.AMA  RiiPA,  its  vehicle. 

5.  Pr.ana,  Life,  and 

6.  LiNGA  SharIra,  its  vehicle. 


i/D 

a^Si 

^  b 

<?\  \ 

;--.«    yj 

k  ^"^ri 

I.  II.  III.  are  the  Three  Hypostases 
of  Atman,  its  contact  with  Na- 
ture and  Man  being  the  Fourth 
making  it  a  Quaternary,  or  Te- 
traktys,  the  Higher  Self. 

■•  2.  3.  4.  5.  6.  These  six  princi- 
ples, acting  on  four  different 
planes,  and  having  their  Auric 
Envelope  on  the  seventh  (vide 
infra),  are  those  used  by  the 
Adepts  of  the  Right-Hand,  or 
White  Magicians. 

*The  Physical  Body;  is  no  princi- 
ple ;  it  is  entirely  ignored,  being 
used  only  in  Black  Magic. 


3pd.— IVlier 


I  the  Physieal-^an)  arid  His  ih    6rifices,  or  centres  of  Helion, 


I.  (BriJDHi)  Right  Eye. 

3.  (Lowi-R  Manas)  Right  Ear. 

5.  (Life  Principle)  Right  Nostril. 

7.  The  Organ  of  the  Creative 
'Logos,  the  Mouth. 

8.  9-  10.  As  this  Lower  Ternary  has  a 
direct  coimcctionwiththeHigheV.itmic 
Tnad  and  its  three  aspects  (creative,  p7e- 
ser\ative  and  destructive,  or  rather  re- 
generative), the  abuse  of  the  corres- 
ponding functions  is  the  most  terrible 
of  Karmic  sins-the  Sin  against  the 
Holy  Ghost  with  the  Christians.    ■^ 


C-^2&>-. 


2.  (Manas)  Left  Eye. 

4.  (Kama  Rup.a)  Left  Ear. 

6.  (Life  Vehicle)  Left  Nostril, 

7-  The  Paradigm  of  the  loili  (cre- 
ative) orifice  in  the  Lower  Triad. 

These   Physical   Organs  are  'Jscd 
only  by  Dugpas  in  Black  Magic. 


MAN   AND   THE   LOGOS. 


445 


is  shifted  in  the  man  of  cla}'  below  the  seven.  Thus  three  of  the  ten, 
containing  in  the  archetypal  world  only  ideative  and  paradigmatical 
potentiality,  i.e.,  existing  in  possibility,  not  in  action,  are  in  fact  one. 
The  potency  of  formative  creation  resides  in  the  Logos,  the  synthesis 
of  the  seven  Forces  or  Rays,  which  becomes  forthwith  the  Quaternary, 
the  sacred  Tetraktys.  This  process  is  repeated  in  man,  in  whom  the 
lower  physical  triangle  becomes,  in  conjunction  with  the  female  One, 
the  male-female  creator,  or  generator.  The  same  on  a  still  lower  plane 
in  the  animal  world.     A  mystery  above,  a  mystery  below,  truly. 

This  is  how  the  upper  and  highest,  and  the  lower  and  most  animal, 
stand  in  mutual  relation. 

DIAGRAM    I. 

In  this  diagram,  we  see  that  physical  man  (or  his  body)  does  not 
share  in  the  direct  pure  waves  of  the  divine  Essence  which  flows  from 
the  One  in  Three,  the  Unmanifested,  through  the  Manifested  Logos 
(the  upper  face  in  the  diagram).  Purusha,  the  primeval  Spirit,  touches 
the  human  head  and  stops  there.  But  the  Spiritual  Man  (the  synthesis 
of  the  seven  principles)  is  directly  connected  with  it.  And  here  a  few 
words  ought  to  be  said  about  the  usual  exoteric  enumeration  of*  the 
principles.  At  first  an  approximate  division  only  was  made  and  given 
out.  Esoteric  Buddhism  begins  with  Atma,  the  seventh,  and  ends  with 
the  Physical  Body,  the  first.  Now  neither  Atma,  which  is  no 
individual  "  principle,"  but  a  radiation  from  and  one  with  the  Unmani- 
fested Logos  ;  nor  the  Body,  which  is  the  material  rind,  or  shell,  of  the 
Spiritual  Man,  can  be,  in  strict  truth,  referred  to  as  "principles." 
Moreover,  the  chief  "  principle  "  of  all,  one  not  even  mentioned  hereto- 
fore, is  the  "Luminous  Egg"  (Hiranyagarbha),  or  the  invisible 
magnetic  sphere  in  which  ever}-  man  is  enveloped.*  It  is  the  direct 
emanation  :  (a)  from  the  Atmic  Ray  in  its  triple  aspect  of  Creator, 
Preserver  and  Destroyer  (Regenerator);  and  {b)  from  Buddhi-Manas. 
T\iQ.  seventh  aspect  of  this  individual  Aura  is  the  faculty  of  assuming  the 
form  of  its  body  and  becoming  the  "  Radiant,"  the  Luminous  Augoeides. 
It  is  this,  strictly  speaking,  which  at  times  becomes  the  form  called 
Mayavi  Rupa.  Therefore,  as  explained  in  the  second  face  of  the 
diagram   (the   astral   man),  the   Spiritual   Man   consists  of  only   five 


*  So  are  the  animals,  the  plants,  and  even  the  minerals.  Reichenbach  never  understood  what  he 
learned  througfh  his  sensitives  and  clairvoyants.  It  is  the  odic,  or  rather  the  auric  or  magnetic  fluid 
which  emanates  from  man,  but  it  is  also  something  more. 


446  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

principles,  as  taught  by  the  Vedantins,*  who  substitute,  tacitly,  for  the 
physical  this  sixth,  or  Auric,  Body,  and  merge  the  dual  Manas  (the 
dual  mind,  or  consciousness)  into  one.  Thus  they  speak  of  five  Koshas 
(sheaths  or  principles),  and  call  Atma  the  sixth  yet  no  "principle." 
This  is  the  secret  of  the  late  Subba  Row's  criticism  of  the  division  in 
Esoteric  Buddhism.  But  let  the  student  now  learn  the  true  Ksoteric 
enumeration. 

The  reason  why  public  mention  of  the  Auric  Body  was  not  permitted 
was  on  account  of  its  being  so  sacred.  It  is  this  Body  which,  at  death, 
assimilates  the  essence  of  Buddhi  and  Manas  and  becomes  the  vehicle 
of  these  spiritual  principles,  which  are  not  objective,  and  then,  with  the 
full  radiation  of  Atma  upon  it  ascends  as  Manas-Taijasi  into  the 
Devachanic  state.  Therefore  is  it  called  by  many  names.  It  is  the 
Sutratma,  the  silver  "  thread  "  which  "  incarnates"  from  the  beginning 
of  Manvantara  to  the  end,  stringing  upon  itself  the  pearls  of  human 
existence,  in  other  words,  the  spiritual  aroma  of  every  personality  it 
follows  through  the  pilgrimage  of  life.f  It  is  also  the  material  from 
which  the  Adept  forms  his  Astral  Bodies,  from  the  Augoeides  and  the 
Mayavi  Rupa  downwards.  After  the  death  of  man,  when  its  most 
ethereal  particles  have  drawn  into  themselves  the  spiritual  principles  of 
Buddhi  and  the  Upper  Manas,  and  are  illuminated  with  the  radiance  of 
Atma,  the  Auric  Bod}'  remains  either  in  the  Devachanic  state  of  con- 
sciousness, or,  in  the  case  of  a  full  Adept,  prefers  the  state  of  a 
Nirmanaka^'a,  that  is,  one  who  has  so  purified  his  whole  s}' stem  that  he 
is  above  even  the  divine  illusion  of  a  Devachani.  Such  an  Adept 
remains  in  the  astral  (invisible)  plane  connected  with  our  earth,  and 
henceforth  moves  and  lives  in  the  possession  of  all  his  principles  except 
the  Kama  Riipa  and  Physical  Body.  In  the  case  of  the  Devachani, 
the  lyinga  Sharira — the  alter  ego  of  the  body,  which  during  life  is  within 
the  physical  envelope  while  the  radiant  aura  is  without — strengthened 
by  the  material  particles  which  this  aura  leaves  behind,  remains  close  to 
the  dead  body  and  outside  it,  and  soon  fades  awa5^  In  the  case  of  the 
full  Adept,  the  body  alone  becomes  subject  to  dissolution,  while  the 
centre  of  that  force  which  was  the  seat  of  desires  and  passions,  disappears 
with  its  cause — the  animal  body.  But  during  the  life  of  the  latter  all 
these  centres  are  more  or  less  active  and  in  constant  correspondence 


•  See  supra,  i.  181,  for  the  Vedantic  exoteric  enumeration. 

+  Sec  Lucifer,  January,  1889  "Dialogue  upon  the  Mysteries  of  •\fter-Life. 


COSMIC,  SPIRITUAL.  AND   PHYSICAL  CENTRES.  447 

with  their  prototypes,  the  cosmic  centres,  and  their  microcosms  the 
principles.  It  is  only  through  these  cosmic  and  spiritual  centres  that 
the  physical  centres  (the  upper  seven  orifices  and  the  lower  triad)  can 
benefit  by  their  Occult  interaction,  for  these  orifices,  or  openino-s,  are 
channels  conducting  into  the  body  the  influences  that  the  will  of  ma7i 
attracts  and  uses,  viz.,  the  cosmic  forces. 

This  will  has,  of  course,  to  act  primarily  through  the  spiritual  princi- 
ples. To  make  this  clearer,  let  us  take  an  example.  In  order  to  stop 
pain,  let  us  say  in  the  right  eye,  you  have  to  attract  to  it  the  potent 
magnetism  from  that  cosmic  principle  which  corresponds  to  this  eye 
and  also  to  Buddhi.  Create,  by  a  powerful  will  effort,  an  imaginary  line 
of  communication  between  the  right  eye  and  Buddhi,  locating  the  latter 
as  a  ce7itre  in  the  same  part  of  the  head.  This  line,  though  you  may 
call  it  "  imaginary,"  is,  once  you  succeed  in  seeing  it  with  your  mental 
eye  and  give  it  a  shape  and  colour,  in  truth  as  good  as  real.  A  rope  in 
a  dream  is  not  and  yet  is.  Moreover,  according  to  the  prismatic  colour 
with  which  you  endow  your  line,  so  will  the  influence  act.  Now  Buddhi 
and  Mercury  correspond  with  each  other,  and  both  are  yellow,  or  radiant 
and  golden  coloured.  In  the  human  system,  the  right  eye  corresponds 
with  Buddhi  and  Mercury ;  and  the  left  with  Manas  and  Venus  or 
Lucifer.  Thus,  if  your  line  is  golden  or  silvery,  it  will  stop  the  pain  ; 
if  red,  it  will  increase  it,  for  red  is  the  colour  of  Kama  and  corresponds 
with  Mars.  Mental  or  Christian  Scientists  have  stumbled  upon  the 
effects  without  understanding  the  causes.  Having  found  by  chance  the 
secret  of  producing  such  results  owing  to  mental  abstraction,  they 
attribute  them  to  their  union  with  God  (whether  a  personal  or 
impersonal  God  they  know  best),  whereas  it  is  simply  the  effect  of  one 
or  another  principle.  However  it  may  be,  they  are  on  the  path  of  dis- 
covery, although  they  must  remain  wandering  for  a  long  time  to  come. 

lyCt  not  Esoteric  students  commit  the  same  mistake.  It  has 
often  been  explained  that  neither  the  cosmic  planes  of  substance 
nor  even  the  human  principles — with  the  exception  of  the  lowest 
material  plane  or  world  and  the  physical  body,  which,  as  has  been  said, 
are  no  "  principles," — can  be  located  or  thought  of  as  being  in  Space  and 
Time.  As  the  former  are  seven  in  One,  so  are  we  seven  in  One — that 
same  absolute  Soul  of  the  World,  which  is  both  Matter  and  non -Matter, 
Spirit  and  non-Spirit,  Being  and  non-Being.  Impress  yourselves  well 
with  this  idea,  all  those  of  you  who  would  study  the  mysteries  of  SELF. 

Remember  that  with  our  physical  senses  alone  at  our  command,  none 


448  THF   SKCRET  DOCTRINE. 

of  US  can  hope  to  reach  beyond  gross  Matter.  We  can  do  so  oniy 
through  one  or  another  of  our  seven  spiritual  senses,  either  by  training, 
or  if  one  is  a  born  Seer.  Yet  even  a  clairvoyant  possessed  of  such 
faculties,  if  not  an  Adept,  no  matter  how  honest  and  sincere  he  may  be, 
will,  through  his  ignorance  of  the  truths  of  Occult  Science,  be  led  by 
the  visions  he  sees  in  the  Astral  Light  only  to  mistake  for  God  or 
Angels  the  denizens  of  those  spheres  of  which  he  may  occasionally 
catch  a  glimpse,  as  witness  Swedenborg  and  others. 

These  seven  senses  of  ours  correspond  with  every  other  septenate  in 
nature  and  in  ourselves.  Physically,  though  invisibly,  the  human 
Auric  Envelope  (the  amnion  of  the  physical  man  in  every  age  of  life) 
has  seven  layers,  just  as  Cosmic  Space  and  our  ph3^sical  epidermis 
have.  It  is  this  Aura  which,  according  to  our  mental  and  physical  state 
of  purity  or  impurity,  either  opens  for  us  vistas  into  other  worlds,  or 
shuts  us  out  altogether  from  anything  but  this  three-dimensional  world 
f  Matter. 

Each  of  our  seven  physical  senses  (two  of  which  are  still  unknown 
to  profane  Science),  and  also  of  our  seven  states  of  consciousness — viz.  : 
(i)  waking;  (2)  waking-dreaming;  (3)  natural  sleeping ;  (4)  induced 
or  trance-sleep  ;  (5)  psychic  ;  (6)  super-psychic ;  and  (7)  purely  spiritual 
— corresponds  with  one  of  the  seven  Cosmic  Planes,  develops  and  uses 
one  of  the  seven  super-senses,  and  is  connected  directly,  in  its  use  on 
the  terrestro-spiritual  plane,  with  the  cosmic  and  divine  centre  of  force 
that  gave  it  birth,  and  which  is  its  direct  creator.  Each  is  also  con- 
nected with,  and  under  the  direct  influence  of,  one  of  the  seven  sacred 
Planets.*  These  belonged  to  the  Lesser  Mysteries,  whose  followers 
were  called  Mystai  (the  veiled),  seeing  that  they  were  allowed  to 
perceive  things  only  through  a  mist,  as  it  were  "with  the  eyes  closed"; 
while  the  Initiates  or  "  Seers "  of  the  Greater  Mysteries  were  called 
Epoptai  (those  who  see  things  unveiled).  It  was  the  latter  only  who 
were  taught  the  true  mysteries  of  the  Zodiac  and  the  relations  and  cor- 
respondences between  its  twelve  signs  (two  secret)  and  the  ten  human 
orifices.  The  latter  are  now  of  course  ten  in  the  female,  and  only  nine 
in  the  male  ;  but  this  is  merely  an  external  difference.  In  the  second 
volume  of  this  work  it  is  stated  that  till  the  end  of  the  Third 
Koot-Race  (when  androgynous  man  separated  into  male  and  female) 
tlie  ten  orifices  existed  in  the  hermaphrodite,  first   potentially,  then 

•  See  supra,  i.  626-629. 


WOMAN  AND   ALCHEMY.  449 

functionally.  The  evolution  of  the  human  embryo  shows  this.  For 
instance,  the  only  opening  formed  at  first  is  the  buccal  cavity,  "a  cloaca 
communicating  with  the  anterior  extremity  of  the  intestine."  These 
become  later  the  mouth  and  the  posterior  orifice :  the  Logos  differen- 
tiating and  emanating  gross  matter  on  the  lower  plane,  in  Occult 
parlance.  The  difficulty  which  some  students  will  experience  in  recon- 
ciling the  correspondences  between  the  Zodiac  and  the  orifices  can  be 
easily  explained.  Magic  is  coeval  with  the  Third  Root-Race,  which 
began  by  creating  through  Kriyashakti  and  ended  by  generating  its 
species  in  the  present  way.*  Woman,  being  left  with  the  full  or  perfect 
cosmic  number  10  (the  divine  number  of  Jehovah),  was  deemed  higher 
and  more  spiritual  than  man.  In  Egypt,  in  days  of  old,  the  marriage 
service  contained  an  article  that  the  woman  should  be  the  "  lady  of  the 
lord,"  and  real  lord  over  him,  the  husband  pledging  himself  to  be 
"obedient  to  his  wife"  for  the  production  of  alchemical  results  such  as 
the  Elixir  of  Life  and  the  Philosopher's  Stone,  for  the  spiritual  help  of 
the  woman  was  needed  by  the  male  Alchemist.  But  woe  to  the 
Alchemist  who  should  take  this  in  the  dead-letter  sense  of  physical 
imion.  Such  sacrilege  would  become  Black  Magic  and  be  followed  by 
certain  failure.  The  true  Alchemist  of  old  took  aged  women  to  help 
him,  carefully  avoiding  the  young  ones  ;  and  if  any  of  them  happened 
to  be  married  they  treated  their  wives  for  months  both  before  and  during 
their  operations  as  sisters. 

The  error  of  crediting  the  Ancients  with  knowing  only  ten  of  the 
zodiacal  signs  is  explained  in  Isis  Unveiled.]  The  Ancients  did  know 
of  twelve,  but  viewed  these  signs  differently  from  ourselves.  They 
took  neither  Virgo  nor  Scorpio  singly  into  consideration,  but  regarded 
them  as  two  in  one,  since  they  were  made  to  refer  directly  and  symboli- 
cally to  the  primeval  dual  man  and  his  separation  into  sexes.  During 
the  reformation  of  the  Zodiac,  Libra  was  added  as  the  twelfth  sign, 
though  it  is  simply  an  equilibrating  sign,  at  the  turning  point — the 
mysterj''  of  separated  man. 

Let  the  student  learn  all  this  well.  Meanwhile  we  have  to  recapitu- 
late what  has  been  said. 

(i)  Each  human  being  is  an  incarnation  of  his  God,  in  other  words, 
one  with  his  "  Father  in  Heaven,"  just  as  Jesus,  an  Initiate,  is  made  to 
say.     As  many  men  on  earth,  so  many  Gods  in  Heaven  ;  and  yet  these 


*  See  supra,  i.  228,  et  seq.,  and  ii.  passim.  t  Op.  cit.,  ii.  456,  461,  465  et  seq. 


GG 


450  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Gods  are  in  reality  One,  for  at  the  end  of  every  period  of  activity,  they 
are  withdrawn,  like  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun,  into  the  Parent 
Luminary,  the  Non-Manifested  IvOgos,  which  in  its  turn  is  merged  into 
the  One  Absolute.  Shall  we  call  these  "  Fathers  "  of  ours,  whether 
individually  or  collectively,  and  under  any  circumstances,  our  per- 
sonal Gsd  ?  Occultism  answers.  Never.  Ail  that  an  average  man  can 
know  of  his  "  Father "  is  what  he  knows  of  himself,  through  and 
within  himself.  The  Soul  of  his  "  Heavenly  Father  "  is  incarnated 
in  him.  This  Soul  is  himself,  if  he  be  successful  in  assimilat- 
ing the  Divine  Individuality  while  in  his  physical,  animal  shell.  As 
to  the  Spirit  thereof,  as  well  expect  to  be  heard  by  the  Absolute.  Our 
prayers  and  supplications  are  vain,  unless  to  potential  words  we  add 
potent  acts,  and  make  the  Aura  which  surrounds  each  one  of  us  so 
pure  and  divine  that  the  God  within  us  may  act  outwardly,  or  in 
other  words,  become  as  it  were  an  extraneous  Potency.  Thus  have 
Initiates,  Saints,  and  very  holy  and  pure  men  been  enabled  to  help 
others  as  well  as  themselves  in  the  hour  of  need,  and  produce  what  are 
foolishly  called  "  miracles,"  each  by  the  help  and  with  the  aid  of  the 
God  within  himself,  which  he  alone  has  enabled  to  act  on  the  outward 
plane. 

(2)  The  word  Aum  or  Om,  which  corresponds  to  the  upper  Triangle, 
if  pronounced  by  a  very  holy  and  pure  man,  will  draw  out,  or  awaken, 
not  only  the  less  exalted  Potencies  residing  in  the  planetary  spaces  and 
elements,  but  even  his  Higher  Self,  or  the  "  Father"  within  him.  Pro- 
nounced by  an  averagely  good  man,  in  the  correct  wa3%  it  will  help  to 
strengthen  him  morally,  especially  if  between  two  "  Aums  "  he  medi- 
tates intently  upon  the  AuM  within  him,  concentrating  all  his  attention 
upon  the  ineffable  glory.  But  woe  to  the  man  who  pronounces  it  after 
the  commission  of  some  far-reaching  sin  :  he  will  only  thereb}^  attract 
to  his  own  impure  photosphere  invisible  Presences  and  Forces  which 
could  not  otherwise  break  through  the  Divine  Envelope. 

Aum  is  the  original  of  Amen.  Now,  Amen  is  not  a  Hebrew  term, 
but,  like  the  word  Halleluiah,  was  borrowed  by  the  Jews  and  Greeks 
from  the  Chaldees.  The  latter  word  is  often  found  repeated  in  certain 
magical  inscriptions  upon  cups  and  urns  among  the  Babylonian  and 
Ninevean  relics.  Amen  does  not  mean  "so  be  it,"  or  "verily,"  but 
signified  in  hoary  antiquity  almost  the  same  as  Aum.  The  Jewish 
Tanai'm  (Initiates)  used  it  for  the  same  reason  as  the  Aryan  Adepts  use 
Aum,  and  with  a  like  success,  the  numerical  value  of  AMeN  in  Hebrew 


SOUND   AND   COIvOUR.  as.! 

letters  being  91,  the  same  as  thefull  value  of  YHVH,^  26,  and  ADoNa  V, 
65,  or  91.  Both  words  mean  the  afl&rmation  of  the  being,  or  existence 
of  the  sexless  "  Lord  "  within  us. 

(3)  Esoteric  Science  teaches  that  every  sound  in  the  visible  world 
awakens  its  corresponding  sound  in  the  invisible  realms,  and  arouses 
to  action  some  force  or  other  on  the  Occult  side  of  Nature.  Moreover, 
every  sound  corresponds  to  a  colour  and  a  number  (a  potency  spiritual, 
psychic  or  physical)  and  to  a  sensation  on  some  plane.  All  these  find 
an  echo  in  every  one  of  the  so-far  developed  elements,  and  even  on  the 
terrestrial  plane,  in  the  Lives  that  swarm  in  the  terrene  atmosphere, 
thus  prompting  them  to  action. 

Thus  a  prayer,  unless  pronounced  mentally  and  addressed  to  one's 
"  Father"  in  the  silence  and  solitude  of  one's  "  closet,"  must  have  more 
frequently  disastrous  than  beneficial  results,  seeing  that  the  masses  are 
entirely  ignorant  of  the  potent  efi"ects  which  they  thus  produce.  To 
produce  good  effects,  the  prayer  must  be  uttered  by  "  one  who  knows 
how  to  make  himself  heard  in  silence,"  when  it  is  no  longer  a  prayer, 
but  becomes  a  command.  Why  is  Jesus  shown  to  have  forbidden  his 
hearers  .to  go  to  the  public  synagogues  ?  Surely  every  praying  man 
was  not  a  hypocrite  and  a  liar,  nor  a  Pharisee  who  loved  to  be  seen 
praying  by  people!  He  had  a  motive,  we  must  suppose:  the  same 
motive  which  prompts  the  experienced  Occultist  to  prevent  his  pupils 
from  going  into  crowded  places  now  as  then,  from  entering  churches, 
seance  rooms,  etc.,  unless  they  are  in  sympathy  with  the  crowd. 

There  is  one  piece  of  advice  to  be  given  to  beginners,  who  cannot 
help  going  into  crowds— one  which  may  appear  superstitious,  but 
which  in  the  absence  of  Occult  knowledge  will  be  found  efiicacious. 
As  well  known  to  good  Astrologers,  the  days  of  the  week  are  not  in 
the  order  of  those  planets  whose  names  they  bear.  The  fact  is  that 
the  ancient  Hindus  and  Egyptians  divided  the  day  into  four  parts,  each 
day  being  under  the  protection  (as  ascertained  by  practical  magic)  of 
a  planet;  and  everyday,  as  correctly  asserted  by  Dion  Cassius,  received 
the  name  of  the  planet  which  ruled  and  protected  its  first  portion.  Let 
the  student  protect  himself  from  the  "  Powers  of  the  Air"  (Elementals) 
which  throng  public  places,  by  wearing  either  a  ring  containing  some 
jewel  of  the  colour  of  the  presiding  planet,  or  else  of  the  metal  sacred 
to  it.  But  the  best  protection  is  a  clear  conscience  and  a  firm  desire  to 
benefit  Humanity. 

*  Jod-Hevah,  or  male-female  on  the  terrestrial  plane,  as  invented  by  the  Jews,  and  now  made  out 
to  mean  Jehovah  ;  but  signifying  in  reality  and  literally,  "giving  being  "  and  "  receiving  life." 


452 


THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


THE   PLANETS,  THE   DAYS  OF    THE  WEEK  AND    THEIR  CORRES- 
PONDING COLOURS  AND   METALS. 

In  the  accompanying  diagram  the  days  of  the  week  do  not  stand  in 
their  usual  order,  though  they  are  placed  iu  their  correct  sequence  as 
determined  by  the  order  of  the  colours  in  the  solar  spectrum  and  the 
corresponding  colours  of  their  ruling  planets.  The  fault  of  the  con- 
fusion in  the  order  of  the  days  revealed  by  this  comparison  lies  at  the 
door  of  the  early  Christians.  Adopting  from  the  Jews  their  lunar 
months,  they  tried  to  blend  them  with  the  solar  planets,  and  so  made  a 
mess  of  it ;  for  the  order  of  the  days  of  the  week  as  it  now  stands  does 
not  follow  the  order  of  the  planets. 

Now,  the  Ancients  arranged  the  planets  in  the  following  order  : 
Moon,  Mercury,  Venus,  Sun,  Mars,  Jupiter,  Saturn,  counting  the  Sun 
as  a  planet  for  exoteric  purposes.  Again,  the  Eg3Ttians  and  Indians, 
the  two  oldest  nations,  divided  their  day  into  four  parts,  each  of  which 
was  under  the  protection  and  rule  of  a  planet.  In  course  of  time  each 
day  came  to  be  called  by  the  name  of  that  planet  which  ruled  its  first 
portion — the  morning.  Now,  when  they  arranged  their  week,  the 
Christians  proceeded  as  follows :  they  wanted  to  make  the  day  of  the 
Sun,  or  Sunday,  the  seventh,  so  they  named  the  days  of  the  week  by 
taking  every  fourth  planet  in  turn ;  e.g.,  beginning  with  the  Moon 
(Monday),  they  counted  thus :  Moon,  Mercur>%  Venus,  Sun,  Mars  ; 
thus  Tuesday,  the  day  whose  first  portion  was  ruled  by  Mars,  became 
the  second  day  of  the  week  ;  and  so  on.  It  .should  be  remembered  also 
that  the  Moon,  like  the  Sun,  is  a  substitute  for  a  secret  planet. 

The  present  division  of  the  solar  year  was  made  several  centuries 
later  than  the  beginning  of  our  era ;  and  our  week  is  not  that  of  the 
Ancients  and  the  Occultists.  The  septenary  division  of  the  four  parts 
of  the  lunar  phases  is  as  old  as  the  world,  and  originated  with  the 
people  who  reckoned  time  by  the  lunar  months.  The  Hebrews  never 
used  it,  for  they  counted  only  the  seventh  day,  the  Sabbath,  though  the 
second  chapter  of  Genesis  seems  to  speak  of  it.  Till  the  days  of 
the  Csesars  there  is  no  trace  of  a  week  of  seven  days  among  any 
nation  save  the  Hindus.  From  India  it  passed  to  the  Arabs,  and 
reached  Europe  with  Christianity.  The  Roman  week  consisted  of  eight 
days,  and  the  Athenian  of  ten.*     Thus  one  of  the  numberless  contra- 


•  See  Notice  sur  le  CaUndrier,  J.  H.  Ragon. 


Objeciive,  Terresirial  Plane, 

UlAGJ^AM     11. 

bert'ani    'corr^p^ndi                                                    ^T    ".^T"    T    ""               ''"    ""    """'""    ^""«'P'<"  ^^'^   "» 
.0    no    visible     Ran.,.                 ATMA.                 Colour'    or'!     "e"!           ,^"™J«"/"   "■    ''"'    '""X    ">""M<i 
for    it     proceeds     from                                                    ,„,    It     ;„',  ,J«     ,1                       Numbers.    Sounds,    Colour.,    olc, 
the  Spiritual  Sun;   aor                                               ^'    "    '"""'"    *'"="'          '■'*=^  ""  ""  enun,er«ed  hero  la  ih. 
""•                                           order  used  lor  oKoterio  purpom. 

NUMBERS 

METALS. 

PLANETS.                  \    ^"^    HUMAN 

1             PRISCJPLES. 

1   DAYS  OF  THE 
WEEK. 

TUESOAY. 

Dtts  ilarlit.  or 

COLOURS 

I.  Rko. 

SOUND.         ( 

Physical  Man's  Key-note. 

Hon 

Mars. 
The  Planet  ofGeneratian. 

K*MA  ROpa. 
The  vehicle  or  sea 

Sut. 

/(<iritt» 
Do. 

siiticis  and  Passions 

Sa. 

Life  Spiriiual  and  Life  Physical. 

Colo. 

The  Sun. 
The  Giver  of  Life  physically. 
Spiritually     and     esotericaily 
ibe    substitute  for    the    inier- 
Mercurial    Planet,    a    sacted 

PRiNA  OR  JIVA. 

Life. 

Sunday. 
Ditt     Solu.    or 

2.  Orangb. 

Hi. 

Rk. 

Because  Buddhi  fs  (so  to  speak) 

lorms  with  the  seventh,  or  Auric 
Envelopk,        the       Devachanic 
Triad. 

Mercurv. 
phur^'as^BuooM; 

Flamrof""spint*' 
(See      Alchemical 

The  Messenger  and  ifae  Tn- 
icrprcterodtieGods. 

Buddhi. 
Splriiu,il    Soul,    or 
Aitnic    H^v;    veblcle 
of  Aima 

WiDHBSDAV. 

DtetMtiemn.or 
Woden.      Day    of 
Buddha     In     the 
South,      and      of 
Woden      in      thc 
Norih-Gods     of 
Wisdom 

3-   VULLOVV 

Ma, 

Ml. 
Fa, 

The  middle  principle— between 
the   purely    matecial    and    puteiv 
i^picitual  triads.      The    conscious 

Leao, 

Saiuhh 

K*»A  Mamas. 
ThcI.o^flrMind.or 
Animal  Soul 

AURJC   ElVttOI'« 

Saturn 

S 

Tin 

JUP-TER. 

Thursday. 
Diet    Jovu,    or 
Tbor 

3.  BLUt. 

S  Ihdiooor 
Dark  Blub 

Da 

Sol. 

fi 

When     alloyed 
becomes     Bronze 
{ibe    dual   prlaci- 
piei 

V£t4US 

The  Morning  and  the  Even- 
ing Star. 

The   Hii;ber  Mlad, 
or  Huauf,  Soul. 

Dta  ytnttis,  or 
Fiigo 

U. 

Contains  in  itself  the  reflection 
ol  Septenary  Man. 

S.LVE« 

Thk  Moon 
Tbc  Patent  of  the  Earth 

Lisii*  ^harIra 
The   rts.r^l   Double 
of  Man,   iba    Pareni 
oftbcPbvicalMan 

Monday. 
Dits  Lunat,  or 
Moon, 

7   ViOLtl 

Ni.            &i 

THE   DAYS   OF   THE   WEEK.  453 

•dictions  and  fallacies  of  Christendom  is  the  adoption  of  the  Indian 
septenary  week  of  the  lunar  reckoning,  and  the  preservation  at  the 
same  time  of  the  mythological  names  of  the  planets. 

Nor  do  modern  Astrologers  give  the  correspondences  of  the  days  and 
planets  and  their  colours  correctly ;  and  while  Occultists  can  give  good 
reason  for  every  detail  of  their  own  tables  of  colours,  etc.,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  Astrologers  can  do  the  same. 


To  close  this  first  Paper,  let  me  say  that  the  readers  must  in  all 
necessity  be  separated  into  two  broad  divisions  :  those  who  have  not 
quite  rid  themselves  of  the  usual  sceptical  doubts,  but  who  long  to 
ascertain  how  much  truth  there  may  be  in  the  claims  of  the  Occultists ; 
and  those  others  who,  having  freed  themselves  from  the  trammels  of 
Materialism  and  Relativitv,  feel  that  true  and  real  bliss  must  be  sought 
only  in  the  knowledge  and  personal  experience  of  that  which  the 
Hindu  Philosopher  calls  the  Brahmavidya,  and  the  Buddhist  Arhat  the 
realization  of  Adibuddha,  the  primeval  Wisdom.  Let  the  former  pick 
out  and  study  from  these  Papers  only  those  explanations  of  the  pheno- 
mena of  life  which  profane  Science  is  unable  to  give  them.  Even 
with  such  limitations,  they  will  find  by  the  end  of  a  year  or  two  that 
they  will  have  learned  more  than  all  their  Universities  and  Colleges 
can  teach  them.  As  to  the  sincere  believers,  they  will  be  rewarded  by 
seeing  their  faith  transformed  into  knowledge.  True  knowledge  is  of 
Spirit  and  in  Spirit  alone,  and  cannot  be  acquired  in  any  other  way 
except  through  the  region  of  the  higher  mind,  the  only  plane  from 
which  we  can  penetrate  the  depths  of  the  all-pervading  Absoluteness. 
He  who  carries  out  only  those  laws  established  by  human  minds,  who 
lives  that  life  which  is  prescribed"  by  the  code  of  mortals  and  their 
fallible  legislation,  chooses  as  his  guiding  star  a  beacon  which  shines 
on  the  ocean  of  Maya,  or  of  temporary  delusions,  and  lasts  for  but  one 
incarnation.  These  laws  are  necessary  for  the  life  and  welfare  of 
physical  man  alone.  He  has  chosen  a  pilot  who  directs  him  through 
the  shoals  of  one  existence,  a  master  who  parts  with  him,  however,  on 
the  threshold  of  death.  How  much  happier  that  man  who,  while 
strictly  performing  on  the  temporary  objective  plane  the  duties  of  daily 
life,  carrying  out  each  and  every  law  of  his  country,  and  rendering,  in 
short,  to  Caesar  what  is  Caesar's,  leads  in  reality  a  spiritual  and  perma- 
nent existence,  a  life  with  no  breaks  of  continuity,  no  gaps,  no  inter- 


454  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

ludes,  not  even  during  those  periods  which  are  the  halting-places  of 
the  long  pilgrimage  of  purely  spiritual  life.  All  the  phenomena  of  the 
lower  human  mind  disappear  like  the  curtain  of  a  proscenium,  allowing 
him  to  live  in  the  region  beyond  it,  the  plane  of  the  noumenal,  the  one 
reality.  If  man  by  suppressing,  if  not  destroying,  his  selfishness  and 
personality,  only  succeeds  in  knowing  himself  as  he  is  behind  the  veil 
of  physical  Maya,  he  will  soon  stand  beyond  all  pain,  all  misery,  and 
beyond  all  the  wear  and  tear  of  change,  which  is  the  chief  originator  of 
pain.  Such  a  man  will  be  physically  of  Matter,  he  will  move  surrounded 
by  Matter,  and  yet  he  will  live  beyond  and  outside  it.  His  body  will 
be  subject  to  change,  but  he  himself  will  be  entirely  without  it,  and 
will  experience  everlasting  life  even  while  in  temporary  bodies  of  short 
duration.  All  this  may  be  achieved  by  the  development  of  unselfish 
universal  love  of  Humanity,  and  the  suppr-ession  of  personality,  or 
selfishness,  which  is  the  cause  of  all  sin,  and  consequently  of  all  human 
sorrow. 


PAPER  II 


AN   EXPLANATION. 

In  view  of  the  abstruse  nature  of  the  subjects  dealt  with,  the  present 
Paper  will  begin  with  an  explanation  of  some  points  which  remained 
obscure  in  the  preceding  one,  as  well  as  of  some  statements  in  which 
there  was  an  appearance  of  contradiction. 

Astrologers,  of  whom  there  are  many  among  the  Esotericists,  are 
likely  to  be  puzzled  by  some  statements  distinctly  contradicting  their 
teachings  ;  whilst  those  who  know  nothing  of  the  subject  may  perhaps 
find  themselves  opposed  at  the  outset  by  those  who  have  studied  the 
exoteric  systems  of  the  Kabalah  and  Astrology.  For  let  it  be  distinctly 
known,  nothing  of  that  which  is  printed  broadcast,  and  available  to 
every  student  in  public  libraries  or  museums,  is  really  Esoteric,  but  is 
either  mixed  with  deliberate  "  blinds,"  or  cannot  be  understood  and 
studied  with  profit  without  a  complete  glossary  of  Occult  terms. 

The  following  teachings  and  explanations,  therefore,  may  be  useful 
to  the  student  in  assisting  him  to  formulate  the  teaching  given  in  the 
preceding  Paper. 

In  Diagram  I.  it  will  be  observed  that  the  3,  7,  and  10  centres  are 
respectively  as  follows : 

(a)  The  3  pertain  to  the  spiritual  world  of  the  Absolute,  and  there- 
fore to  the  three  higher  principles  in  Man. 

(d)  The  7  belong  to  the  spiritual,  psychic,  and  physical  worlds  and 
to  the  body  of  man.  Physics,  metaphysics  and  hyper-physics  are  the 
triad  that  symbolizes  man  on  this  plane. 

(£•)  The  10,  or  the  sum  total  of  these,  is  the  Universe  as  a  whole,  in 
all  its  aspects,  and  also  its  Microcosm — Man,  with  his  ten  orifices. 

I,aying  aside,  for  the  moment,  the  Higher  Decad  (Kosmos)  and  the 


456  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

Lower  Decad  (Man),  the  first  three  numbers  of  the  separate  sevei3» 
have  a  direct  reference  to  the  Spirit,  Soul  and  Auric  Envelope  of  the 
human  being,  as  well  as  to  the  higher  supersensual  world.  The 
lower  four,  or  the  four  aspects,  belong  to  Man  also,  as  well  as  to  the 
Universal  Kosmos,  the  whole  being  synthesized  by  the  Absolute. 

If  these  three  discrete  or  distributive  degrees  of  Being  be  conceived, 
according  to  the  Symbolog}'^  of  all  the  Eastern  Religions,  as  contained 
in  one  Ovum,  or  Egg,  the  name  of  that  Egg  will  be  Svabhavat,  or  the 
All-Being  on  the  manifested  plane.  This  Universe  has,  in  truth, 
neither  centre  nor  periphery  ;  but  in  the  individual  and  finite  mind  of 
man  it  has  such  a  definition,  the  natural  consequence  of  the  limitations 
of  human  thought. 

In  Diagram  II.,  as  already  stated  therein,  no  notice  need  be  taken  of 
the  numbers  used  in  the  left-hand  column,  as  these  refer  only  to  the 
Hierarchies  of  the  Colours  and  Sounds  on  the  metaphysical  plane,  and 
are  not  the  characteristic  numbers  of  the  human  principles  or  of  the 
planets.  The  human  principles  elude  enumeration,  because  each  man 
differs  from  ever}^  other,  just  as  no  two  blades  of  grass  on  the  whole 
earth  are  absolutelj^  alike.  Numbering  is  here  a  question  of  spiritual 
progress  and  the  natural  predominance  of  one  principle  over  another. 
With  one  man  it  may  be  Buddhi  that  stands  as  number  one ;  with 
another,  if  he  be  a  bestial  sensualist,  the  Lower  Manas.  With  one  the 
physical  bod)-,  or  perhaps  Prana,  the  life  principle,  will  be  on  the  first 
and  highest  plane,  as  would  be  the  case  in  an  extremely  health}'  man^ 
full  of  vitalit)' ;  with  another  it  may  come  as  the  sixth  or  even  seventh 
downward.  Again,  the  colours  and  metals  corresponding  to  the  planets 
and  human  principles,  as  will  be  observed,  are  not  those  known  exo- 
terically  to  modern  Astrologers  and  Western  Occultists. 

Let  us  see  whence  the  modern  Astrologer  got  his  notions  about  the 
correspondence  of  planets,  metals  and  colours.  And  here  we  are 
reminded  of  the  modern  Orientalist,  who,  judging  by  appearances 
credits  the  ancient  Akkadians  (and  also  the  Chaldseans,  Hindus  and 
Egyptians)  with  the  crude  notion  that  the  Universe,  and  in  like  manner 
the  earth,  was  like  an  inverted,  bell-shaped  bowl !  This  he  demon- 
strates by  pointing  to  the  symbolical  representations  of  some  Akkadian 
inscriptions  and  to  the  Assyrian  carvings.  It  is,  however,  no  place 
here  to  explain  how  mistaken  is  the  Assyriologist,  for  all  such  repre- 
sentations are  simply  symbolical  of  the  Khargakkurra,  the  World- 
Mountain,  or  Meru,  and  relate  only  to  the  North  Pole,  the  Land  of  the 


ASTROLOGY    AND    LUNAR    WEEKS. 


457 


Gods.       Now,  the  Assyrians  arranged  their  exoteric  teaching  about  the 
planets  and  their  correspondences  as  follows  : 


Numbers.  \    Pianels      \       Metals. 

1 

Colours. 

Solar  Days  of  Week. 

I. 

vSaturn. 

Lead. 

Black. 

Saturday.  (Whence  Sabbath, 
'-in  honour  of  Jehovah.) 

2. 

Jupiter. 

Tin. 

White,  but  a.s  often  Purple 
or  Orange. 

Thursday. 

3.                  Mars. 

Iron. 

Red. 

Tuesday. 

4- 

Sun. 

Gold. 

Yellow-golden. 

Sunday. 

5- 

Venus.     1        Copper. 

1 

Green  or  Yellow. 

Friday. 

6. 

Mercury.    [    Quicksilver. 

Blue. 

Wednesday. 

7.            1     Moou. 

Silver. 

Silver-white. 

Monday. 

This  is  the  arrangement  now  adopted  by  Christian  Astrologers,  with 
the  exception  of  the  order  of  the  days  of  the  week,  of  which,  by  asso- 
ciating the  solar  planetary  names  with  the  lunar  weeks,  they  have  made 
a  sore  mess,  as  has  been  already  shown  in  Paper  I.  This  is  the  Ptole- 
maic geocentric  system,  which  represents  the  Universe  as  in  the  follow- 
ing diagram,  showing  our  Earth  in  the  centre  of  the  Universe,  and  the 
Sun  a  Planet,  the  fourth  in  number : 


Heaven    ot 

the     Moon 

>■             » 

Mercury 

Venus 

,,             „ 

Sun 

)i             .. 

Mars 

>.             .. 

Jupiter 

Saturn 

Firmament. 

And  if  the  Christian  chronology  and  order  of  the  days  of  the  week 
are  being  daily  denounced  as  being  based  on  an  entirely  wrong  astro- 
nomical foundation,  it  is  high  time  to  begin  a  reform  also  in  Astrology 
built  on  such  lines,  and  coming  to  us  entirely  from  the  Chaldsean  and 
Assyrian  exoteric  mob. 

But  the  correspondences  given  in  these  Papers  are  purely  Esoteric. 


•  See  sHpra,  ii.  373;  and   .  152,  et  seq. 


458  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

For  this  reason  it  follows  that  when  the  Planets  of  the  Solar  S5'stem 
are  named  or  symbolized  (as  in  Diagram  II.)  it  must  not  be  supposed 
that  the  planetar)'^  bodies  themselves  are  referred  to,  except  as  types  on 
a  purely  physical  plane  of  the  septenary  nature  of  the  psychic  and 
spiritual  worlds.  A  material  planet  can  correspond  only  to  a  material 
something.  Thus  when  Mercury  is  said  to  correspond  to  the  right  eye, 
it  does  not  mean  that  the  objective  planet  has  any  influence  on  the 
right  optic  organ,  but  that  both  stand  rather  as  corresponding  mysti- 
cally through  Buddhi.  Man  derives  his  Spiritual  Soul  (Buddhi)  from 
the  essence  of  the  Manasa  Putra,  the  Sons  of  Wisdom,  who  are  the 
Divine  Beings  (or  Angels)  ruling  and  presiding  over  the  planet 
Mercury. 

In  the  same  way  Venus,  Manas  and  the  left  eye  are  set  down  as 
correspondences.  Exoterically,  there  is,  in  reality,  no  such  association 
of  physical  eyes  and  phj^sical  planets ;  but  Ksoterically  there  is ;  for 
tne  right  eye  is  the  "  Eye  of  Wisdom,"  i.e.,  it  corresponds  magnetically 
with  that  Occult  centre  in  the  brain  which  we  call  the  "Third  Eye";* 
while  the  left  corresponds  with  the  intellectual  brain,  or  those  cells 
which  are  the  organ  on  the  physical  plane  of  the  thinking  faculty. 
The  kabalistic  triangle  of  Kether,  Chokmah  and  Binah  shows  this. 
Chokmah  and  Binah,  or  Wisdom  and  Intelligence,  the  Father  and 
Mother,  or,  again,  the  Father  and  Son,  are  on  the  same  plane  and 
react  mutually  on  one  another. 

When  the  individual  consciousness  is  turned  inward,  a  conjunction 
of  Manas  and  Buddhi  takes  place.  In  the  spiritually  regenerated  man. 
this  conjunction  is  permanent,  the  Higher  Manas  clinging  to  Buddhi 
beyond  the  threshold  of  Devachan,  and  the  Soul,  or  rather  the  Spirit, 
which  should  not  be  confounded  with  Atma,  the  Super-Spirit,  is  then 
said  to  have  the  "Single  Eye."  Esoterically,  in  other  words,  the 
"  Third  Eye  "  is  active.  Now  Mercury  is  called  Hermes,  and  Venus, 
Aphrodite,  and  thus  their  conjunction  in  man  on  the  psycho-physical 
plane  gives  him  the  name  of  the  Hermaphrodite,  or  Androgyne.  The 
absolutely  Spiritual  Man  is,  however,  entirely  disconnected  from  sex. 
The  Spiritual  Man  corresponds  directly  with  the  higher  "  coloured 
circles,"  the  Divine  Prism  which  emanates  from  the  One  Infinite  White 
Circle ;  while  physical  man  emanates  from  the  Sephiroth,  which  are 
the  Voices  or  Sounds  of  Eastern   Philosoph3^     And  these  "  Voices " 


*  See  supra,  ii.  302,  et  seg. 


SEEING   SOUNDS   AND   HEARING   COI.OURS.  459 

are  lower  than  the  "  Colours,"  for  they  are  the  seven  lower  Sephiroth. 
or  the  objective  Sounds,  seen,  not  heard,  as  the  Zohar  shows,*  ana 
even  the  Old  Testament  also.  For,  when  property  translated,  verse  18 
of  chapter  xx.  Exodus  would  read  :  "  And  the  people  saw  the  Voices  " 
(or  Sounds,  not  the  "  thunderings "  as  now  translated);  and  these 
Voices,  or  Sounds,  are  the  Sephiroth. f 

In  the  same  way  the  right  and  left  nostrils,  into  which  is  breathed 
the  ''Breath  of  Lives  "J  are  here  said  to  correspond  with  Sun  and 
Moon,  as  Brahma-Prajapati  and  Vach,  or  Osiris  and  Isis,  are  the 
parents  of  the  natural  life.  This  Quaternary,  viz. :  the  two  eyes  and 
two  nostrils,  Mercury  and  Venus,  Sun  and  Moon,  constitutes  the 
Kabalistic  Guardian-Angels  of  the  Four  Corners  of  the  Earth.  It  is 
the  same  in  the  Eastern  Esoteric  Philosophy,  which,  however,  adds 
that  the  Sun  is  not  a  planet,  but  the  central  star  of  our  system,  and 
the  Moon  a  dead  planet,  from  which  all  the  principles  are  gone, 
both  being  substitutes,  the  one  for  an  invisible  inter- Mercurial  planet, 
and  the  other  for  a  planet  which  seems  to  have  now  altogether  dis- 
appeared from  view.  These  are  the  Four  Maharajahs,§  the  "  Four  Holy 
Ones"  connected  with  Karma  and  Humanity,  Kosmos  and  Man,  in  all 
their  aspects.  They  are  :  the  Sun,  or  its  substitute  Michael ;  Moon,  or 
substitute  Gabriel ;  Mercury,  Raphael ;  and  Venus,  Uriel.  It  need 
hardh"-  be  said  here  again  that  the  planetary  bodies  themselves,  being 
only  physical  symbols,  are  not  often  referred  to  in  the  Esoteric  System, 
but,  as  a  rule,  their  cosmic,  psychic,  physical  and  spiritual  forces  are 
symbolized  under  these  names.  In  short,  it  is  the  seven  physical 
planets  which  are  the  lower  Sephiroth  of  the  Kabalah,  and  our  triple 
physical  Sun  whose  reflection  only  we  see,  which  is  symbolized,  or 
rather  personified,  by  the  Upper  Triad,  or  Sephirothal  Crown.il 

Then,  again,  it  will  be  well  to  point  out  that  the  numbers  attached  to 
the  psychic  principles  in  Diagram  I.  appear  the  reverse  of  those  in 
exoteric  writings.  This  is  because  numbers  in  this  connection  are 
purely  arbitrary,  changing  with  every  school.     Some  schools  count 

•  op.  cit.,  ii.  81,  6. 

t  See  Prank's  Die  Kabbala,  p.  314,  et  seq. 

\  Genesis,  ii.  7. 

}  Supra,  i.  147. 

II  We  may  refer  for  confirmation  to  Origen's  works,  who  says  that  "the  seven  ruling  daimons" 
(gpeuii  or  planetaj^  rulers)  are  Michael,  the  Sun  (the  lion-like);  the  second  in  order,  the  Bull,  Jupiter 
or  Suriel,  etc,;  and  all  these,  the  "  Seven  of  the  Presence,"  are  the  Sephiroth.  The  Sephirothal  Tree 
is  the  Tree  of  the  Divine  Planets  as  given  by  Porphyry,  or  Porphyry's  Tree,  as  it  is  usually  called. 


460  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

three,  some  four,  some  six,  and  others  seven,  as  do  all  tne  Buddhist 
Esotericists.  As  said  before,*  the  Esoteric  School  has  been  divided 
into  two  departments  since  the  fourteenth  century,  one  for  the  inner 
Eanoos,  or  higher  Chelas,  the  other  for  the  outer  circle,  or  lay  Chelas. 
Mr.  Sinnett  was  distinctly  told  in  the  letters  he  received  from  one  of 
the  Gurus  that  he  could  not  be  taught  the  real  Esoteric  Doctrine  given 
out  only  to  the  pledged  disciples  of  the  Inner  Circle.  The  numbers 
and  principles  do  not  go  in  regular  sequence,  like  the  skins  of  an  onion, 
but  the  student  must  work  out  for  himself  the  number  appropriate  to 
each  of  his  principles,  when  the  time  comes  for  him  to  enter  upon 
practical  study.  The  above  will  suggest  to  the  student  the  necessity 
of  knowing  the  principles  by  their  names  and  their  appropriate 
faculties  apart  from  any  system  of  enumeration,  or  by  association  with 
their  corresponding  centres  of  actions,  colours,  sounds,  etc.,  until 
these  become  inseparable. 

The  old  and  familiar  mode  of  reckoning  the  principles,  given  in  the 
Theosophist  and  Esoteric  Biiddhisvi,  leads  to  another  apparently  perplex- 
ing contradiction,  though  it  is  really  none  at  all.  The  principles 
numbered  3  and  2,  viz :  Linga  Sharira  and  Prana,  or  Jiva,  stand  in  the 
reverse  order  to  that  given  in  Diagram  I.  A  moment's  consideration 
will  sufi&ce  to  explain  the  apparent  discrepancy  between  the  exoteric 
enumeration,  and  the  Esoteric  order  given  in  Diagram  I.  For  in 
Diagram  I.  the  Einga  Sharira  is  defined  as  the  vehicle  of  Prana,  or 
Jiva,  the  life  principle,  and  as  such  must  of  necessity  be  inferior  to 
Prana,  not  superior  as  the  exoteric  enumeration  would  suggest.  The 
principles  do  not  stand  one  above  the  other,  and  thus  cannot  be  taken 
in  numerical  sequence  ;  their  order  depends  upon  the  superiority  and 
predominance  of  one  or  another  principle,  and  therefore  differs  in 
every  man. 

The  Linga  Sharira  is  the  double,  or  protoplasmic  antetype  of  the 
body,  which  is  its  image.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  it  is  called  in 
Diagram  II.  the  parent  of  the  physical  body,  i.e.,  the  mother  by  con- 
ception of  Prana,  the  father.  This  idea  is  conveyed  in  the  Egyptian 
mythology  by  the  birth  of  Horus,  the  child  of  Osiris  and  Isis,  although, 
like  all  sacred  Mythoi,  this  has  both  a  threefold  spiritual,  and  a 
sevenfold  psycho-physical  application.  To  close  the  subject,  Prana, 
the  life  principle,  can,  in  sober  truth,  have  no  number,  as  it  pervade^ 

•  Supra,  i,  147. 


PI^ANETARY   AND   HUMAN   BODIES. 


461 


every  other  principle,  or  the  human  total.  Each  number  of  the  seven 
would  thus  be  naturally  applicable  to  Praua-Jiva  exoterically  as  it  is  to 
the  Auric  Body  Esoterically.  As  Pythagoras  showed,  Kosmos  was 
produced  not  through  or  by  number,  but  geometrically,  i.e.,  following  the 
proportions  of  numbers. 


To  those  who  are  unacquainted  with  the  exoteric  astrological  natures 
ascribed  in  practice  to  the  planetary  bodies,  it  may  be  useful  if  we  set 
them  down  here  after  the  manner  of  Diagram  II.,  in  relation  to  their 
dominion  over  the  human  bodj^  colours,  metals,  etc.,  and  explain  at 
the  same  time  why  genuine  Esoteric  Philosophy  diflfers  from  the  astro- 
logical claims. 


Planets. 

Days. 

Metals.                          Parts  of  the  Body. 

Colours. 

Saturn. 

Saturday. 

I^ead. 

Right  Ear,  Knees  and  Bony  System. 

Black.* 

Jupiter. 

Thursday. 

Tin.                        Left  Bar,  Thighs,  Feet  and  Arterial 
System. 

Purple.t 

Mars. 

Tuesday. 

Iron. 

Forehead  and  Nose,  the  Skull,  Sex- 
function  and  Muscular  System. 

Red. 

Sun. 

Sunday. 

Gold. 

Right  Eye,  Heart  and  Vital  Centres. 

Orange.t 

Venus.                   Friday. 

Copper. 

Chin  and  Cheeks,  Neck  and  Reins 
and  the  Venous  System. 

Yellow.? 

Mercury.              Wednesday. 

Quicksilver. 

Mouth,  Hands,  Abdominal  Viscera 
and  Nervous  System. 

Dove   or 

Cream. 11 

Moon. 

Monday. 

Silver. 

Breasts,    Left      Eye,    the     Fluidic 
System,  Saliva,  Lymph,  etc. 

Wliite.51 

*  Esoterically,  green,  there  being  no  black  in  the  prismatic  ray. 

+  Esoterically,  light  blue.  As  a  pigment,  purple  is  a  compound  of  red  and  blue,  and  in  Eastern 
Occultism  blue  is  the  spiritual  essence  of  the  colour  purple,  while  red  is  its  material  basis.  In  reality. 
Occultism  makes  Jupiter  blue  because  he  is  the  son  of  Saturn,  which  is  green,  and  light  blue  as  a 
prismatic  colour  contains  a  great  deal  of  green.  Again,  the  Auric  Body  will  contain  much  of  the 
colour  of  the  Lower  Manas  if  the  man  is  a  material  sensualist,  just  as  it  will  contain  much  of  the 
darker  hue  if  the  Higher  Manas  has  preponderance  over  the  Lower. 

t  Esoterically,  the  Sun  cannot  correspond  with  the  eye,  nose,  or  any  other  organ,  since,  as 
explained,  it  is  no  planet,  but  a  central  star.  It  was  adopt^  as  a  planet  by  the  post-Christian  Astro- 
logers, who  had  never  been  initiated.  Moreover,  the  true  colour  of  the  Sun  is  blue,  and  it  appears 
yellow  only  owing  to  the  eflfect  of  the  absorption  of  vapours  (chiefly  metalUc)  by  its  atmosphere. 
All  is  Maya  on  our  Earth. 

\  Esoterically,  indigo,  or  dark  blue,  which  is  the  complement  of  yellow  in  the  prism.  Yellow  is  a 
simple  or  primitive  colour.    Manas  being  dual  in  its  nature— as  is  its  sidereal  symbol,  the  planet 


452  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  influence  of  the  solar  system  in  the 
exoteric  kabalistic  Astrology  is  by  this  method  distributed  over  the 
entire  human  body,  the  primary  metals,  and  the  gradations  of  colour 
from  black  to  white ;  but  that  Esotericism  recognizes  neither  black  nor 
white  as  colours,  because  it  holds  religiously  to  the  seven  solar  or 
natural  colours  of  the  prism.  Black  and  white  are  artificial  tints.  They 
belong  to  the  Earth,  and  are  only  perceived  by  virtue  of  the  special 
construction  of  our  physical  organs.  White  is  the  absence  of  all 
colours,  and  therefore  no  colour;  black  is  simply  the  absence  of  light, 
and  therefore  the  negative  aspect  of  white.  The  seven  prismatic 
colours  are  direct  emanations  from  the  Seven  Hierarchies  of  Being, 
each  of  which  has  a  direct  bearing  upon  and  relation  to  one  of  the 
human  principles,  since  each  of  these  Hierarchies  is,  in  fact,  the  creator 
and  source  of  the  corresponding  human  principle.  Each  prismatic 
colour  is  called  in  Occultism  the  "  Father  of  the  Sound"  which  corre- 
sponds to  it  ;  Sound  being  the  Word,  or  the  Logos,  of  its  Father- 
Thought.  This  is  the  reason  why  sensitives,  connect  every  colour 
with  a  definite  sound,  a  fact  well  recognized  in  Modern  Science 
(<f.^., Francis    Galton's   Human   Faculty).      But   black   and  white   are 


Venus,  which  is  both  the  morning  and  evening  star— the  difference  between  the  higher  and  the  lower 
principles  of  Manas,  whose  essence  is  derived  from  the  Hierarchy  ruling  Venus,  is  denoted  by  the 
dark  blue  and  green.  Green,  the  Lower  Manas,  resembles  the  colour  of  the  sclar  spectrum  which 
appears  between  the  yellow  and  the  dark  blue,  the  Higher  Spiritual  Manas.  Indigo  is  the  intensified 
colour  of  the  heaven  or  sky,  to  derote  the  upward  tendency  of  Manas  toward  Buddhi,  or  the 
heavenly  Spiritual  Soul.  This  colour  is  obtained  from  the  indigofera  tincioria,  a  plant  of  the 
highest  occult  properties  in  India,  much  used  in  AVhite  Magic,  and  occultly  connected  with  copper. 
This  is  shown  by  the  indigo  assuming  a  copper  lustre,  especially  when  rubbed  on  any  hard  substance. 
Another  property  of  the  dye  Ls  that  it  is  insoluble  in  water  and  even  in  ether,  being  lightet  in  weight 
than  any  known  liquid.  No  symbol  has  ever  been  adopted  in  the  East  without  being  based  upon 
a  logical  and  demonstrable  reason.  Therefore  Eastern  Symbologists,  from  the  earliest  ages,  have 
connected  the  spiritual  and  the  animal  minds  of  man,  the  one  with  dark  blue  (Newton's  indigo),  or 
true  blue,  free  from  green ;  and  the  other  with  pure  green. 

II  Esoterically,  yellow,  because  the  colour  of  the  Sun  is  orange,  and  Mercury  now  stands  next  to 
the  Sun  in  di.stance,  as  it  does  in  colour.  The  planet  for  which  the  Sun  is  a  substitute  was  still 
nearer  the  Sun  than  Mercury  now  is,  and  was  one  of  the  most  secret  and  highest  planets.  It  is  said 
to  have  become  invisible  at  the  close  of  the  Third  Race. 

H  Esoterically,  violet,  because,  perhaps,  violet  is  the  colour  assumed  by  a  ray  of  sunlight  when 
transmitted  through  a  very  thin  plate  of  .silver,  and  also  because  the  Moon  shiues  upon  the  Earth 
with  light  borrowed  from  the  Sun,  as  the  human  body  shines  with  qualifications  borrowed  from  its 
double— the  aerial  man.  As  the  astral  shadow  starts  the  series  of  principles  in  man,  on  the  terres. 
trial  plane,  up  to  the  lower,  animal  Manas,  so  the  violet  ray  starts  the  series  of  prismatic  colours  from 
its  end  up  to  green,  both  being,  the  one  as  a  principle  and  the  other  as  a  colour,  the  most  refrangibVe 
of  all  the  principles  and  colours.  Besides  which,  there  is  the  same  great  Occult  mystery  attached  ta 
all  these  correspondences,  both  celestial  and  terrestrial  bodies,  colours  and  sounds.  In  clearer  wordu,, 
there  exists  the  same  law  of  relation  between  the  Moon  and  the  Earth,  the  astral  and  the  living  body 
of  »an,  as  between  the  violet  end  of  tlie  prismatic  spectrum  and  the  indigo  and  the  blue.  But  of  this 
more  anon. 


PI^NETS  AND  FACULTIES.  46^ 

entirely  negative  colours,  and  have  no  representatives  in  the  world  of 
subjective  being. 

Kabalistic  Astrology  says  that  the  dominion  of  the  planetary  bodies 
in  the  human  brain  also  is  defined  thus  :  there  are  seven  primary 
groups  of  faculties,  six  of  which  function  through  the  cerebrum,  and 
the  seventh  through  the  cerebellum.  This  is  perfectly  correct  Esoteri- 
cally.  But  when  it  is  further  said  that :  Saturn  governs  the  devotional 
faculties ;  Mercury,  the  intellectual ;  Jupiter,  the  sympathetic ;  the  Sun, 
the  governing  faculties  ;  Mars,  the  selfish  ;  Venus,  the  tenacious ;  and 
the  Moon,  the  instincts  ; — we  say  that  the  explanation  is  incomplete 
and  even  misleading.  For,  in  the  first  place,  the  physical  planets  can 
rule  only  the  physical  body  and  the  purely  physical  functions.  All  the 
mental,  emotional,  psychic  and  spiritual  faculties,  are  influenced  by 
the  Occult  properties  of  the  scale  of  causes  which  emanate  from  the 
Hierarchies  of  the  Spiritual  Rulers  of  the  planets,  and  not  by  the 
planets  themselves.  This  scale,  as  given  in  Diagram  II.,  leads  the 
student  to  perceive  in  the  following  order:  (i)  colour;  (2)  sound; 
(3)  the  sound  materializes  into  the  spirit  of  the  metals,  i.e.,  the  metallic 
Elementals ;  (4)  these  materialize  again  into  the  physical  metals ; 
(5)  then  the  harmonial  and  vibratory  radiant  essence  passes  into  the 
plants,  giving  them  colour  and  smell,  both  of  which  "  properties " 
depend  upon  the  rate  of  vibration  of  this  energy  per  unit  of  time  ;  (6) 
from  plants  it  passes  into  the  animals ;  (7)  and  finally  culminates  in  the 
"  principles  "  of  man. 

Thus  we  see  the  Divine  Essence  of  our  Progenitors  in  Heaven  circling 
through  seven  stages  ;  Spirit  becoming  Matter,  and  Matter  returning 
to  Spirit.  As  there  is  sound  in  Nature  which  is  inaudible,  so  there  is 
colour  which  is  invisible,  but  which  can  be  heard.  The  creative  force, 
at  work  in  its  incessant  task  of  transformation,  produces  colour,  sound 
and  numbers,  in  the  shape  of  rates  of  vibration  which  compound  and 
dissociate  the  atoms  and  molecules.  Though  invisible  and  inaudible 
to  us  in  detail,  yet  the  synthesis  of  the  whole  becomes  audible  to  us  on 
the  material  plane.  It  is  that  which  the  Chinese  call  the  "  Great 
Tone,"  or  Kung.  It  is,  even  by  scientific  confession,  the  actual  tonic 
of  Nature,  held  by  musicians  to  be  the  middle  Fa  on  the  keyboard 
of  a  piano.  We  hear  it  distinctly  in  the  voice  of  Nature,  in  the  roaring 
of  the  ocean,  in  the  sound  of  the  foliage  of  a  great  forest,  in  the  distant 
roar  ol  a  great  city,  in  the  wind,  the  tempest  and  the  storm  ;  in  short, 
in  everything  in  Nature  which  has  a  voice  or  produces  sound.     To  the 


464 


THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


hearing  of  all  who  hearken,  it  culminates  in  a  single  definite  tone,  of 
an  unappreciable  pitch,  which,  as  said,  is  the  F,  or  Fa,  of  the  diatonic 
scale.  From  these  particulars,  that  wherein  lies  the  difference  between 
the  exoteric  and  the  Esoteric  nomenclature  and  symbolism  will  be 
evident  to  the  student  of  Occultism.  In  short,  kabalistic  Astrology,  as 
practised  in  Europe,  is  the  semi-esoteric  Secret  Science,  adapted  for  the 
outer  and  not  for  the  inner  circle.  It  is,  furthermore,  often  left  incom- 
plete and  not  infrequently  distorted  to  conceal  the  real  truth.  While 
it  symbolizes  and  adapts  its  correspondences  on  the  mere  appearances 
of  things.  Esoteric  Philosophy,  which  concerns  itself  pre-eminently 
with  the  essence  of  things,  accepts  only  such  symbols  as  cover  the 
whole  ground,  i.e.,  such  symbols  as  yield  a  spiritual  as  well  as  a  psychic 
and  physical  meaning.  Yet  even  Western  Astrology  has  done  excel- 
lent woru:,  for  it  has  helped  to  carry  the  knowledge  of  the  existence  of 
a  Secret  Wisdom  throughout  the  dangers  of  the  Mediaeval  Ages 
and  their  dark  bigotry  up  to  the  present  day,  when  all  danger  has  dis- 
appeared. 

The  order  of  the  planets  in  exoteric  practice  is  that  defined  by  their 
geocentric  radii,  or  the  distance  of  their  several  orbits  from  the  Earth 
as  a  centre,  viz.,  Saturn,  Jupiter,  Mars,  Sun,  Venus,  Mercury  and  Moon. 
In  the  first  three  of  these  we  find  symbolized  the  celestial  Triad  of 
supreme  power  in  the  physical,  manifested  universe,  or  Brahma,  Vishnu 
and  Shiva ;  while  in  the  last  four  we  recognize  the  symbols  of  the  ter- 
restrial quaternary  ruling  over  all  natural  and  physical  revolutions  of 
the  seasons,  quarters  of  the  day,  points  of  the  compass,  and  elements. 
Thus: 


Spring. 

Summer. 

Autumn . 

Winter. 

Morning. 

Noon. 

Evening. 

Night. 

Youth. 

Adolescence. 

Manhood. 

Age. 

Fire. 

Air. 

Water. 

Earth. 

East. 

South. 

West. 

North. 

But  Esoteric  Science  is  not  content  with  analogies  on  the  purely 
objective  plane  of  the  physical  senses,  and  therefore  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  preface  further  teachings  in  this  direction  with  a  clear 
explanation  of  the  real  meaning  of  the  word  Magic. 


SIMON   MAGUS   THE  MAGICIAN.  465 

WHAT  MAGIC  IS,  IN  REALITY. 

Esoteric  Science  is,  above  all,  the  knowledge  of  our  relations  with 
and,  in  Divine  Magic,*  inseparableness  from  our  divine  Selves — the  latter 
meaning  something  else  besides  our  own  higher  Spirit.  Thus,  before 
proceeding  to  exemplify  and  explain  these  relations,  it  may  perhaps  be 
useful  to  give  the  student  a  correct  idea  of  the  full  meaning  of  this  most 
misunderstood  word  "  Magic."  Many  are  those  willing  and  eager  to 
study  Occultism,  but  very  few  have  even  an  approximate  idea  of  the 
Science  itself.  Now,  very  few  of  our  American  and  European  students 
can  derive  benefit  from  Sanskrit  works  or  even  their  translations,  as  these 
translations  are,  for  the  most  part,  merely  blinds  to  the  uninitiated.  I 
therefore  propose  to  offer  to  their  attention  demonstrations  of  the  afore- 
said drawn  from  Neo- Platonic  works.  These  are  accessible  in  transla- 
tion ;  and  in  order  ro  throw  light  on  that  which  has  hitherto  been  full 
of  darkness,  it  vvill  suffice  to  point  to  a  certain  key  in  them.  Thus  the 
Gnosis,  both  pie  Christian  and  post-Christian,  will  serve  our  purpose 
admirably. 

There  are  millions  of  Christians  who  know  the  name  of  Simon  Magus, 
and  the  little  that  is  told  about  him  in  the  Acts;  but  very  few  who  have 
even  heard  of  the  many  motley,  fantastic  and  contradictory  details  which 
tradition  records  about  his  life.  The  story  of  his  claims  and  his  death 
is  to  be  found  only  in  the  prejudiced,  half- fantastic  records  about  him 
in  the  works  of  the  Church  Fathers,  such  as  Irenaeus,  Epiphanius  and 
St.  Justin,  and  especially  in  the  anonymous  Philosophtimena.  Yet  he  is 
a  historical  character,  and  the  appellation  of  "  Magus  "  was  given  to 
him  and  was  accepted  by  all  his  contemporaries,  including  the  heads 
of  the  Christian  Church,  as  a  qualification  indicating  the  miraculous 
powers  he  possessed,  and  irrespective  of  whether  he  was  regarded  as  a 
white  (divine)  or  a  black  (infernal)  Magician.  In  this  respect,  opinion 
has  always  been  made  subservient  to  the  Gentile  or  Christian  proclivi- 
ties of  his  chronicler. 

It  is  in  his  system  and  in  that  of  Menander,  his  pupil  and  successor, 
that  we  find  what  the  term  "Magic"  meant  for  Initiates  in  those  days. 

Simon,  as  all  the  other  Gnostics,  taught  that  our  world  was  created 
by  the  lower  angels,  whom  he  called  JSons.     He  mentions  only  three 


•  Magic.  Magia,  means,  in  its  spiritual,  secret  sense,  the  "Great  Life,"  or  divine  life  in  spirit.  The 
root  is  magk,  as  seen  in  the  Sanskrit  ma  hat,  2:end  maz,  Greek  ntegas,  and  Latin  magnus,  all  signify- 
ing-"  great." 

3     HH 


466  THK    SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

degrees  of  such,  because  it  was  and  is  useless,  as  we  have  before 
explained,  to  teach  anything  about  the  four  higher  ones,  and  he  there- 
fore begins  at  the  plane  of  globes  A  and  G.  His  system  is  as  near  to 
Occult  Truth  as  any,  so  that  we  may  examine  it,  as  well  as  his  own  and 
Menander's  claims  about  "  Magic,"  to  find  out  what  they  meant  by  the 
term.  Now,  for  Simon,  the  summit  of  all  manifested  creation  was 
Fire.  It  was,  with  him  as  with  us,  the  Universal  Principle,  the  Infinite 
Potency,  born  from  the  concealed  Potentiality.  This  Fire  was  the 
primeval  cause  of  the  manifested  world  of  being,  and  was  dual,  having 
a  manifested  and  a  concealed,  or  secret,  side. 

The  secret  side  of  the  Fire  is  concealed  iu  its  evident  [or  objective]  side,  and  the 
objective  is  produced  from  the  secret  side,* 

he  writes,  which  amounts  to  saying  that  the  visible  is  ever  present  in 
the  invisible,  and  the  invisible  in  the  visible.  This  was  but  a  new  form 
of  stating  Plato's  idea  of  the  Intelligible  (NoHon)  and  the  Sensible 
(Aistheton),  and  Aristotle's  teaching  on  the  Potency  (Dunamis)  and 
the  Act  (Energeia).  For  Simon,  all  that  can  be  thought  of,  all  that  can 
be  acted  upon,  was  perfect  intelligence.  Fire  contained  all.  And  thus 
all  the  parts  of  that  Fire,  being  endowed  with  intelligence  and  reason, 
were  susceptible  of  development  by  extension  and  emanation.  This  is 
our  teaching  of  the  Manifested  Logos,  and  these  parts  in  their  primor- 
dial emanation  are  our  Dhyan  Chohans,  the  "Sons  of  Flame  and  Fire," 
or  higher  ^ons.  This  "  Fire  "  is  the  symbol  of  the  active  and  living 
side  of  Divine  Nature.  Behind  it  lay  "  infinite  Potentiality  in  Potenti- 
ality," which  Simon  named  "  that  which  has  stood,  stands  and  will 
stand,"  or  permanent  stability  and  personified  immutability. 

From  the  Potency  of  Thought,  Divine  Ideation  thus  passed  to  Action. 
Hence  the  series  of  primordial  emanations  through  Thought  begetting 
the  Act,  the  objective  side  of  Fire  being  the  Mother,  the  sacred  side  of 
it  being  the  Father.  Simon  called  these  emanations  Syzygies  (a  united 
pair,  or  couple),  for  they  emanated  two-by-two,  one  as  an  active,  and 
the  other  as  a  passive  ^on.  Three  couples  thus  emanated  (or  six  in 
all,  the  Fire  being  the  seventh),  to  which  Simon  gave  the  following 
names :  "  Mind  and  Thought ;  Voice  and  Name ;  Reason  and  Reflec- 
tion,"! the  first  in  each  pair  being  male,  the  last  female.  From  these 
primordial  six  emanated  the  six  ^ons  of  the  Middle  World.  Let  us 
see  what  Simon  himself  says  : 


•  Pkilosophumena,  vi.  9.  +  Nous,  Epinoia  ;  Phone,  Oitonta;  Logismos,  EnthutnHis. 


SERIES  OF  ^ONS.  467 

Each  of  these  six  primitive  beings  contained  the  entire  infinite  Potency  [of  its 
parent] ;  but  it  was  there  only  in  Potency,  and  not  in  Act.  That  Potency  had  to  be 
called  forth  [or  conformed]  through  an  image  in  order  that  it  should  manifest  in  all 
its  essence,  virtue,  grandeur  and  eflFects ;  for  only  then  could  the  emanated  Potency 
become  similar  to  its  parent,  the  eternal  and  infinite  Potency.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
it  remained  simply  potentially  in  the  six  Potencies  and  failed  to  be  conformed 
through  an  image,  then  the  Potency  would  not  pass  into  action,  but  would  get 
lost,* 

in  clearer  terms,  it  would  become  atrophied,  as  the  modern  expression 
goes. 

Now,  what  do  these  words  mean  if  not  that  to  be  equal  in  all  things 
to  the  Infinite  Potencj^  the  .^ons  had  to  imitate  it  in  its  action,  and 
become  themselves,  in  their  turn,  emanative  Principles,  as  was  their 
Parent,  giving  life  to  new  beings,  and  becoming  Potencies  i7i  aciu  them- 
selves ?  To  produce  emanations,  or  to  have  acquired  the  gift  of  Kriya- 
shakti.t  is  the  direct  result  of  that  power,  an  eflfect  which  depends  on 
our  own  action.  That  power,  then,  is  inherent  in  man,  as  it  is  in  the 
primordial  ^ons  and  even  in  the  secondary  Emanations,  by  the  very 
fact  of  their  and  our  descent  from  the  One  Primordial  Principle,  the 
Infinite  Power,  or  Potency.  Thus  we  find  in  the  system  of  Simon 
Magus  that  the  first  six  ^ons,  synthesized  by  the  seventh,  the  Parent 
Potenc)",  passed  into  Act,  and  emanated,  in  their  turn,  six  secondary 
^ons,  which  were  each  synthesized  by  their  respective  Parents.  In  the 
Philosophumena  we  read  that  Simon  compared  the  ^ons  to  the  "Tree 
of  lyife.'      Said  Simon  in  the  Revelation  :  \ 

It  is  written  that  there  are  two  ramifications  of  the  universal  ^ons,  having  neither 
beginning  nor  end,  issued  both  from  the  same  Root,  the  invisible  and  incomprehen- 
sible Potentiality,  Sige  [Silence].  One  of  these  [series  of  ^ons]  appears  from  above. 
This  is  the  Great  Potency,  Universal  Mind  [or  Divine  Ideation,  the  Mahat  of  the 
Hindus] ;  it  orders  all  things  and  is  male.  The  other  is  from  below,  for  it  is  the 
Great  [manifested]  Thought,  the  female  .^^on,  generating  all  things.  These  [two 
kinds  of  .^ons]  corresponding  §  with  each  other,  have  conjunction  and  manifest 
the  middle  distance  [the  intermediate  sphere,  or  plane],  the  incomprehensible  Air 
which  has  neither  beginning  nor  end.|| 

This  female  "Air"  is  our  Ether,  or  the  kabalistic  Astral  I^ight.     It 


•  Philosophumena,  vi.  12. 
t  See  supra,  sub  voce. 

t  The  Great  Revelation  (Hi  Megale  Apophasis),  of  which  Simon  himself  is  supposed  to  have  been 
the  author. 
}  Literally,  standing  opposite  each  other  in  rows  or  pairs. 
0  Philosophumena,  vi.  18. 


468  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

is,  then,  the  Second  World  of  Simon,  born  of  Fire,  the  principle  of 
everything.  We  call  it  the  One  Life,  the  Intelligent,  Divine  Flame, 
omnipresent  and  infinite.  In  Simon's  system  this  Second  World  v/as 
ruled  by  a  Being,  or  Potenc}',  both  male  and  female,  or  active  and 
passive,  good  and  bad.  This  Parent-Being,  like  the  primordial  infinite 
Potency,  is  also  called  "  that  which  has  stood,  stands  and  will  stand," 
so  long  as  the  manifested  Kosmos  shall  last.  When  it  emanated  in 
actu  and  became  like  unto  its  own  Parent,  it  was  not  dual  or  androgyne. 
It  is  the  Thought  (Sige)  that  emanated  from  it  which  became  as  itself 
(the  Parent),  having  become  like  unto  its  image  (or  antet5^pe)  ;  the 
second  had  now  become  in  its  turn  the  first  (on  its  own  plane  or  sphere). 
As  Simon  has  it : 

It  [the  Parent  or  Father]  was  one.  For  having  it  [the  Thought]  in  itself,  it  was 
alone.  It  was  not,  however,  first,  though  it  was  preexisting;  but  manifesting  itself 
to  itself  from  itself,  it  became  the  second  (or  dual).  Nor  was  it  called  Father  before 
it  [the  Thought]  gave  it  that  name.  As,  therefore,  itself  developing  itself  by  itself, 
manifested  to  itself  its  own  Thought,  so  also  the  Thought  being  manifested  did 
not  act,  but  seeing  the  Father  hid  it  in  itself,  that  is,  (hid)  that  Potency  (in  itself). 
And  the  Potency  {Dufiamis,  viz. :  Nous]  and  Thought  {Epinoia]  are  male-female. 
Whence  they  correspond  with  one  another — for  Potency  in  no  way  differs  from 
Thought — being  one.  So  from  the  things  above  is  found  Potency,  and  from  those 
below.  Thought.  It  comes  to  pass,  therefore,  that  that  which  is  manifested  from 
them,  although  being  one,  yet  is  found  to  be  twofold,  the  androgyne  having  the 
female  in  itself.  So  is  Mind  in  Thought,  things  inseparable  from  each  other 
which  though  being  one  are  yet  found  dual.* 

He  [Simon]  calls  the  first  Syzygy  of  the  six  Potencies  and  of  the  seventh,  which 
is  with  it.  Nous  and  Epinoia,  Heaven  and  Earth:  the  male  looks  down  from  on 
high  and  takes  thought  for  his  Syzygy  [or  spouse],  for  the  Earth  below  receives 
those  intellectual  fruits  which  are  brought  down  from  Heaven  and  are  cognate  to 
the  Earth.t 

Simon's  Third  World  with  its  third  series  of  six  ^ons  and  the 
seventh,  the  Parent,  is  emanated  in  the  same  way.  It  is  this  same 
note  which  runs  through  every  Gnostic  system — gradual  development 
downward  into  Matter  by  similitude  ;  and  it  is  a  law  which  is  to  be 
traced  down  to  primordial  Occultism,  or  Magic.  With  the  Gnostics, 
as  with  us,  this  seventh  Potency,  synthesizing  all,  is  the  Spirit  brooding 
over  the  dark  waters  of  undiflferentiated  Space,  NarSyana,  or  Vishnu, 
in  India;  the  Holy  Ghost  in  Christianity.  But  while  in  the  latter  the 
conception  is  conditioned   and   dwarfed   by  limitations  necessitating 

•  op.  cit.,  vi.  18.  +  op.  cit.,  i.  13. 


THE  TRIPLE  ^ON.  460 

faith  and  grace,  Eastern  Philosophy  shows  it  penradjnsj  every  atom, 
conscious  or  unconscious.  Irenasus  supplements  the  mibrmation  on 
the  further  development  of  these  six  ^ons.  We  learn  from  him  teat 
Thought,  having  separated  itself  from  its  Parent,  and  knowing  througn 
its  identity  of  Essence  with  the  latter  what  it  had  to  know,  proceeded 
on  the  second  or  intermediate  plane,  or  rather  World  (each  of  such 
Worlds  consisting  of  two  planes,  the  superior  and  inferior,  male  and 
female,  the  latter  assuming  finally  both  Potencies  and  becoming  an- 
drogyne), to  create  inferior  Hierarchies,  Angels  and  Powers,  Dominions 
and  Hosts,  of  every  description,  which  in  their  turn  created,  or  rather 
emanated  out  of  their  own  Essence,  our  world  with  its  men  and  beings, 
over  which  they  watch. 

It  thus  follows  that  every  rational  being — called  Man  on  Earth — is  of 
the  same  essence  and  possesses  potentially  all  the  attributes  of  the 
higher  -^ons,  the  primordial  Seven.  It  is  for  him  to  develope,  "  with 
the  image  before  him  of  the  highest,"  by  imitation  m  achi,  the  Potency 
with  which  the  highest  of  his  Parents,  or  Fathers,  is  endowed.  Here 
we  may  again  quote  with  advantage  from  the  Philosophumejia  : 

So  then,  according  to  Simon,  this  blissful  and  imperishable  [principle]  is  con- 
cealed in  everything  in  potency,  not  in  act.  This  is  "that  which  has  stood,  stands 
and  will  stand,"  viz.,  that  which  has  stood  above  in  ingenerable  Potency;  that 
which  stands  below  in  the  stream  of  the  waters  generated  in  an  image;  that  which 
will  stand  above,  beside  the  blissful  infinite  Potency,  if  it  makes  itself  like  unto 
this  image.  For  three,  he  says,  are  they  that  stand,  and  without  these  three  ^ons 
of  stability,  there  is  no  adornment  of  the  generable  which,  according  to  them  [the 
Simonians],  is  borne  on  the  water,  and  being  moulded  according  to  the  similitude 
is  a  perfect  and  celestial  (^on),  in  no  manner  of  thinking  inferior  to  the  ingener- 
able Potency.  Thus  they  say :  "I  and  thou  [are]  one  ;  before  me  [wast]  thou  ;  that 
which  is  after  thee  [is]  I."  This,  he  says,  is  the  one  Potency,  divided  into  above 
and  below,  generating  itself,  nourishing  itself,  seeking  itself,  finding  itself;  its  own 
mother,  father,  brother,  spouse,  daughter  and  son,  one,  for  it  is  the  Root  of  all.* 

Thus  of  this  triple  .^on,  we  learn  the  first  exists  as  "  that  which 
has  stood,  stands  and  will  stand,"  or  the  uncreate  Power,  Atman  ;  the 
second  is  generated  in  the  dark  waters  of  Space  (Chaos,  or  undifieren- 
tiated  Substance,  our  Buddhi),  from  or  through  the  image  of  the  former 
reflected  in  those  waters,  the  image  of  Him,  or  It,  which  moves  on 
them  ;  the  third  World  (or,  in  man,  Manas)  will  be  endowed  with  every 
power  of  that  eternal  and  omnipresent  Image  if  it  but  assimilates  it  to 
itself.     For, 

*  Ofi.  cii.,  vi.  17. 


470  TPIE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

All  that  is  eternal,  pure  aud  incorruptible  is  coucealed  in  everj'thing  that  is, 

if  only  potentially,  not  actually.     And 

Everything  is  that  image,  provided  the  lower  image  (man)  ascends  to  that  highest 
Source  and  Root  in  Spirit  and  Thought. 

Matter  as  Substance  is  eternal  and  has  never  been  created.  Therefore 
Simon  Magus,  with  all  the  great  Gnostic  Teachers  and  Eastern  Philo- 
sophers, never  speaks  of  its  beginning.  "  Eternal  Matter  "  receives  its 
various  forms  in  the  lower  -^on  from  the  Creative  Angels,  or  Builders, 
as  we  call  them.  Why,  then,  should  not  Man,  the  direct  heir  of  the 
highest  ^on,  do  the  same,  by  the  potency  of  his  thought,  v/hich  is 
born  from  Spirit  ?  This  is  Kriyashakti,  the  power  of  producing  forms 
on  the  objective  plane  through  the  potency  of  Ideation  and  Will,  from 
invisible,  indestructible  Matter. 

Truly  says  Jeremiah,*  quoting  the  "Word  of  the  Lord"  : 

Before  I  formed  thee  in  the  belly  I  knew  thee;  and  before  thou  earnest  forth  out 
of  the  womb  I  sanctified  thee, 

for  Jeremiah  stands  here  for  Man  when  he  was  yet  an  ^on,  or  Divine 
Man,  both  with  Simon  Magus  and  Eastern  Philosophy.  The  first  three 
chapters  of  Genesis  are  as  Occult  as  that  which  is  given  in  Paper  I.  For 
the  terrestrial  Paradise  is  the  Womb,  says  Simon, f  Eden  the  region 
surrounding  it.  The  river  which  went  out  of  Eden  to  water  the  garden 
is  the  Umbilical  Cord  ;  this  cord  is  divided  into  four  Heads,  the  streams 
that  flowed  out  of  it,  the  four  canals  which  serve  to  carry  nutrition  to  the 
Foetus,  i.e.,  the  two  arteries  and  the  two  veins  which  are  the  channels 
for  the  blood  and  convey  the  breathing  air,  the  unborn  child,  according 
to  Simon,  being  entirely  enveloped  by  the  Amnion,  fed  through  the 
Umbilical  Cord  and  given  vital  air  through  the  Aorta. J 

•  op.  cit.,  i.  5. 

t  Philosophumena,  vi.  14. 

X  At  first  there  are  the  omphalo-mesenteric  vessels,  two  arteries  and  two  veins,  but  these  afterwards 
totally  disappear,  as  does  the  "vascular  area"  on  the  Umbilical  Vesicle,  from  which  they  proceed. 
As  regards  the  •' Umbilical  Vessels"  proper,  the  Umbilical  Cord  ultimately  has  entwined  around  it 
from  right  to  left  the  one  Umbilical  Vein  which  takes  the  oxygenated  blood  from  the  mother  to  the 
Foetus,  and  two  Hypogastric  or  Umbilical  Arteries  which  take  the  used-up  blood  from  the  Foetus  to 
the  Placenta,  the  contents  of  the  vessels  being  the  reverse  of  that  which  prevails  after  birth.  Thus 
Science  corroborates  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  ancient  Occultism,  for  in  the  days  of  Simon 
Magus  no  man,  unless  an  Initiate,  knew  anything  about  the  circulation  of  the  blood  or  about  Physi- 
ology. While  this  Paper  was  being  printed,  I  received  two  small  pamphlets  from  Dr.  Jerome  A. 
Anderson,  which  were  printed  in  1884  and  1888,  and  in  which  is  to  be  found  the  scientific  demon- 
stration of  the  foetal  nutrition  as  advanced  in  Paper  I.  Briefly,  the  FcEtus  is  nourished  by  osmosis 
from  the  Amniotic  Fluid  and  respires  by  means  of  the  Placenta.  Science  knows  little  or  nothing 
about  the  Amniotic  Fluid  and  its  uses.  If  any  one  cares  to  follow  up  this  question,  I  would  recom- 
mead  Dr.  Anderson's  Remarks  on  the  Nutrition  of  the  Faius.     (Wood  &  Co.,  New  York.) 


MAGIC   AND   MIRACI^ES.  47 1 

The  above  is  given  for  the  elucidation  of  that  which  is  to  follow.  The 
disciples  of  Simon  Magus  were  numerous,  and  were  instructed  by  him 
in  Magic.  They  made  use  of  so-called  "exorcisms"  (as  in  the  New 
Testamenf),  incantations,  philtres  ;  believed  in  dreams  and  visions,  and 
produced  them  at  will ;  and  finally  forced  the  lower  orders  of  spirits  to 
obey  them.  Simon  Magus  was  called  "the  Great  Power  of  God,"  literally 
"  the  Potency  of  the  Deity  which  is  called  Great."  That  which  was 
then  termed  Magic  we  now  call  Theosophia,  or  Divine  Wisdom,  Power 
and  Knowledge. 

His  direct  disciple,  Menander,  was  also  a,  great  Magician.  Says 
Irenaeus,  among  other  writers  : 

The  successor  of  Simon  was  Menander,  a  Samaritan  by  birth,  who  reached  the 
highest  summits  in  the  Science  of  Magic. 

Thus  both  master  and  pupil  are  shown  as  having  attained  the  highest 
powers  in  the  art  of  enchantments,  powers  which  can  be  obtained  onl}^ 
through  "  the  help  of  the  Devil,"  as  Christians  claim  ;  and  j^et  their 
"works"  were  identical  with  those  spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament, 
wherein  such  phenomenal  results  are  called  divine  miracles,  and  are, 
therefore,  believed  in  and  accepted  as  coming  from  and  through  God. 
But  the  question  is,  have  these  so-called  "miracles"  of  the  "  Christ " 
and  the  Apostles  ever  been  explained  any  more  than  the  magical  achieve- 
ments of  so-called  Sorcerers  and  Magicians  ?  I  say,  never.  We  Occul- 
tists do  not  believe  in  supernatural  phenomena,  and  the  Masters  laugh 
at  the  word  "  miracle."  Let  us  see,  then,  what  is  really  the  sense  of 
the  word  Magic. 

The  source  and  basis  of  it  lie  in  Spirit  and  Thought,  whether  on  the 
purely  divine  or  the  terrestrial  plane.  Those  who  know  the  history  of 
Simon  have  the  two  versions  before  them,  that  of  White  and  of  Black 
Magic,  at  their  option,  in  the  much  talked  of  union  of  Simon  with 
Helena,  whom  he  called  his  Epinoia  (Thought).  Those  who,  like  the 
Christians,  had  to  discredit  a  dangerous  rival,  talk  of  Helena  as  being 
a  beautiful  and  actual  woman,  whom  Simon  had  met  in  a  house  of  ill- 
fame  at  Tyre,  and  who  was,  according  to  those  who  wrote  his  life,  the 
reincarnation  of  Helen  of  Troy.  How,  then,  was  she  "  Divine 
Thought "  ?  The  lower  angels,  Simon  is  made  to  say  in  Philosophu- 
mena,  or  the  third  ^ons,  being  so  material,  had  more  badness  in  them 
than  all  the  others.  Poor  man,  created  or  emanated  from  them,  had 
the  vice  of  his  origin.  What  was  it  ?  Only  this:  when  the  third  -^ons 
possessed  themselves,  in  their  turn,  of  the  Divine  Thought  through 


472  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

the  transmission  into  them  of  Fire,  instead  of  making  of  man  a  com- 
plete being,  according  to  the  universal  plan,  they  at  first  detained  from 
him  that  Divine  Spark  (Thought,  on  Earth  Manas) ;  and  that  was  the 
cause  and  origin  of  senseless  man's  committing  the  original  sin  as  the 
angels  had  committed  it  aeons  before  by  refusing  to  create.*  Finally, 
after  detaining  Epinoia  prisoner  amongst  them  and  having  subjected 
the  Divine  Thought  to  every  kind  of  insult  and  desecration,  they  ended 
by  shutting  it  into  the  already  defiled  body  of  man.  After  this,  as 
interpreted  by  the  enemies  of  Simon,  she  passed  from  one  female  body 
into  another  through  ages  and  races,  until  Simon  found  and  recognized 
her  in  the  form  of  Helena,  the  "prostitute,"  the  "lost  sheep"  of  the 
parable.  Simon  is  made  to  represent  himself  as  the  Saviour  descended 
on  Earth  to  rescue  this  "lamb"  and  those  men  in  whom  Epinoia  is  still 
under  the  dominion  of  the  lower  angels.  The  greatest  magical  feats 
are  thus  attributed  to  Simon  through  his  sexual  union  with  Helena, 
hence  Black  Magic.  Indeed,  the  chief  rites  of  this  kind  of  Magic  are 
based  on  such  disgusting  literal  interpretation  of  noble  myths,  one  of 
the  noblest  of  which  was  thus  invented  by  Simon  as  a  symbolical  mark 
of  his  own  teaching.  Those  who  understood  it  correctly  knew  what 
was  meant  by  "  Helena."  It  was  the  marriage  of  Nous  (Atma-Buddhi) 
with  Manas,  the  union  through  which  Will  and  Thought  become  one 
and  are  endowed  with  divine  powers.  For  Atman  in  man,  being  of  an 
unalloyed  essence,  the  primordial  Divine  Fire  (or  the  eternal  and  uni- 
versal "  that  which  has  stood,  stands  and  will  stand  "),  is  of  all  the 
planes ;  and  Buddhi  is  its  vehicle  or  Thought,  generated  by  and  gener- 
ating the  "Father"  in  her  turn,  and  also  Will.  She  is  "that  which 
has  stood,  stands  and  will  stand,"  thus  becoming,  in  conjunction  with 
Manas,  male-female,  in  this  sphere  only.  Hence,  when  Simon  spoke 
of  himself  as  the  Father  and  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  of 
Helena  as  his  Epinoia,  Divine  Thought,  he  meant  the  marriage  of  his 
Buddhi  with  Manas.  Helena  was  the  Shakti  of  the  inner  man,  the 
female  potency. 

Now,  what  says  Menander?  The  lower  angels,  he  taught,  were  the 
emanations  of  Ennoia  (Designing  Thought).  It  was  Ennoia  who 
taught  the  Science  of  Magic  and  imparted  it  to  him,  together  with  the 
art  of  conquering  the  creative  angels  of  the  lower  world.  The  latter 
stand  for  the  passions  of  our  lower  nature.     His  pupils,  after  receiving 

•  Supra,  vol.  ii. 


MAGIC  A  DIVINE   SCIBNCE.  473 

baptism  from  him  {i.e.,  after  Initiation),  were  said  to  "  resurrect  from 
the  dead"  and,  "growing  no  older,"  became  "immortal."*  This 
"resurrection"  promised  by  Menander  meant,  of  course,  simply  the 
passage  from  the  darkness  of  ignorance  into  the  light  of  truth,  the 
awakening  of  man's  immortal  Spirit  to  inner  and  eternal  life.  This  is 
the  Science  of  the  Raja  Yogis — Magic. 

Every  person  who  has  read  Neo- Platonic  Philosophy  knows  how  its 
chief  Adepts,  such  as  Plotinus,  and  especially  Porphyry,  fought  against 
phenomenal  Theurgy.  But,  beyond  all  of  them,  Jamblichus,  the  author 
of  the  De  Mysteriis,  lifts  high  the  veil  from  the  real  term  Theurg5%  and 
shows  us  therein  the  true  Divine  Science  of  Raja  Yoga. 

Magic,  he  says,  is  a  lofty  and  sublime  Science,  Divine,  and  exalted 
above  all  others. 

It  is  the  great  remedy  for  all.  ...  It  ueither  takes  its  source  iu,  nor  is  it 
limited  to,  the  body  or  its  passions,  to  the  human  compound  or  its  constitution  ; 
but  all  is  derived  by  it  from  our  upper  Gods, 

our  divine  Egos,  which  run  like  a  silver  thread  from  the  Spark  in  us 
up  to  the  primeval  divine  Fire.f 

Jamblichus  execrates  physical  phenomena,  produced,  as  he  says,  by 
the  bad  demons  who  deceive  men  (the  spooks  of  the  seance  room),  as 
vehemently  as  he  exalts  Divine  Theurgy.  But  to  exercise  the  latter,  he 
teaches,  the  Theurgist  must  imperatively  be  "  a  man  of  high  morality 
and  a  chaste  Soul."  The  other  kind  of  Magic  is  itsed  only  by  impure, 
selfish'men,  and  has  nothing  of  the  Divine  in  it.  No  real  Vates  would 
ever  consent  to  find  in  its  communications  anything  coming  from  our 
higher  Gods.  Thus  one  (Theurgy)  is  the  knowledge  of  our  Father  (the 
Higher  Self) ;  the  other,  subjection  to  our  lower  nature.  One  requires 
holiness  of  the  Soul,  a  holiness  which  rejects  and  excludes  everything 
corporeal ;  the  other,  the  desecration  of  it  (the  Soul).  One  is  the  union 
with  the  Gods  (with  one's  God),  the  source  of  all  Good  ;  the  other 
intercourse  with  demons  (Elementals),  which,  unless  we  subject  them, 
will  subject  us,  and  lead  us  step  by  step  to  moral  ruin  (mediumship). 
In  short : 

Theurgy  unites  us  most  strongly  to  divine  nature.  This  nature  begets  itself 
through  itself,  moves  through  its  own  powers,  supports  all,  and  is  intelligent. 
Being  the  ornament  of  the  Universe,  it  invites  us  to  intelligible  truth,  to  perfection 


•  See  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccles.,  lib.  iii.  cap.  26. 
^  Ve  Mysieiiis,  p.  100,  lines  lo  to  19;  p.  log,  fol.  i. 


474  I'HE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

and  imparting  perfection  to  others.  It  unites  us  so  intimately  to  all  the  creative 
actions  of  the  Gods,  according  to  the  capacity  of  each  of  us,  that  the  soul  having 
accomplished  the  sacred  rites  is  consolidated  in  their  [the  Gods']  actions  and  intelli- 
gences, until  it  launches  itself  into  and  is  absorbed  by  the  primordial  divine 
essence.     This  is  the  object  of  the  sacred  Initiations  of  the  Egyptians.* 

Now,  Jamblichus  shows  us  how  this  union  of  our  Higher  Soul  with 
the  Universal  Soul,  with  the  Gods,  is  to  be  effected.  He  speaks  of 
Manteia,  which  is  Samadhi,  the  highest  trance. f  He  speaks  also  of 
dream  which  is  divine  vision,  when  man  re-becomes  again  a  God.  By 
Theurg}-,  or  Raja  Yoga,  a  man  arrives  at :  (i)  Prophetic  Discernment 
through  our  God  (the  respective  Higher  Ego  of  each  of  us)  revealing 
to  us  the  truths  of  the  plane  on  which  we  happen  to  be  acting  ;  (2) 
Ecstacy  and  Illumination  ;  (3)  Action  in  Spirit  (in  Astral  Body  or 
through  Will)  ;  (4)  and  Domination  over  the  minor,  senseless  demons 
(Elementals)  by  the  very  nature  of  our  purified  Egos.  But  this  demands 
the  complete  purification  of  the  latter.  And  this  is  called  by  him  Magic, 
through  initiation  into  Theurgy. 

But  Theurgy  has  to  be  preceded  by  a  training  of  our  senses  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  human  Self  in  relation  to  the  Divine  Self.  So 
long  as  man  has  not  thoroughly  mastered  this  preliminary  study, 
it  is  idle  to  anthropomorphize  the  formless.  By  "formless"  I  mean 
the  higher  and  the  lower  Gods,  the  supermundane  as  well  as  mundane 
Spirits,  or  Beings,  which  to  beginners  can  be  revealed  only  in  Colours 
and  Sounds.  For  none  but  a  high  Adept  can  perceive  a  "  God  "  in  its 
true  transcendental  form,  which  to  the  untrained  intellect,  to  the 
Chela,  will  be  visible  only  by  its  Aura.  The  visions  of  full  figures 
casually  perceived  by  sensitives  and  mediums  belong  to  one  or  another 
of  the  only  three  categories  they  can  see  :  (a)  Astrals  of  living  men  ; 
(b)  Nirmanakayas  (Adepts,  good  or  bad,  whose  bodies  are  dead,  but 
who  have  learned  to  live  in  the  invisible  space  in  their  ethereal 
personalities^;  and  (c)  Spooks,  Elementaries  and  Elementals  masquerad- 
ing in  shapes  borrowed  from  the  Astral  Eight  in  general,  or  from  figures 
in  the  "mind's  eye"  of  the  audience,  or  of  the  medium,  which  are 
immediately  reflected  in  their  respective  Auras. 

Having  read  the  foregoing,  students  will  now  better  comprehend  the 
necessity  of  first  studying  the  correspondences  between  our  "principles" 
— which  are  but  the  various  aspects  of  the  triune  (spiritual  and  physical) 
man — and  our  Paradigm,  the  direct  roots  of  these  in  the  Universe. 

•  De  Mysteriis.  p.  290,  lines  15  to  18,  et  seq.,  caps.  v.  and  vii. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  100,  sec.  iii,  cap.  iii. 


THE   SEVEN   HIERARCHIES.  475 

In  view  of  this,  we  must  resume  our  teaching  about  the  Hierarchies 
directly  connected  and  for  ever  linked  with  man. 


Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  while  for  the  Orientalists  and 
profane  masses  the  sentence,  "  Om  Mani  Padme  Hum,''  means  simply 
"  Oh  the  Jewel  in  the  I^otus,"  Esoterically  it  signifies  "  Oh  my  God 
within  me."  Yes ;  there  is  a  God  in  each  human  being,  for  man  was, 
and  will  re-become,  God.  The  sentence  points  to  the  indissoluble  union 
between  Man  and  the  Universe.  For  the  Lotus  is  the  universal  symbol 
of  Kosmos  as  the  absolute  totality,  and  the  Jewel  is  Spiritual  Man,  or 

God. 

In  the  preceding  Paper,  the  correspondences  between  Colours, 
Sounds,  and  "  Principles  "  were  given  ;  and  those  who  have  read  our 
second  volume  will  remember  that  these  seven  principles  are  derived 
from  the  seven  great  Hierarchies  of  Angels,  or  Dhyan  Chohans,  which 
are,  in  their  turn,  associated  with  Colours  and  Sounds,  and  form  collec- 
tively the  Manifested  Logos. 

In  the  eternal  music  of  the  spheres  we  find  the  perfect  scale  corre- 
sponding to  the  colours,  and  in  the  number,  determined  by  the  vibra- 
tions of  colour  and  sound,  which  "  underlies  every  form  and  guides 
every  sound,"  we  find  the  summing-up  of  the  Manifested  Universe. 

We  may  illustrate  these  correspondences  by  showing  the  relation  of 
colour  and  sound  to  the  geometrical  figures  which*  express  the  pro- 
gressive stages  in  the  manifestation  of  Kosmos. 

But  the  student  will  certainly  be  liable  to  confusion  if,  in  studying 
the  Diagrams,  he  does  not  remember  two  things  :  (i)  That,  our  plane 
being  a  plane  of  reflection,  and  therefore  illusionary,  the  various  nota- 
tions are  reversed  and  must  be  counted  from  belozv  upwards.  The  musical 
scale  begins  from  below  upwards,  commencing  with  the  deep  Do  and 
ending  with  the  far  more  acute  Si.  (2)  That  Kama  Riipa  (correspond- 
ing to  Do  in  the  musical  scale),  containing  as  it  does  all  potentialities 
of  Matter,  is  necessarily  the  starting-point  on  our  plane.  Further,  it 
commences  the  notation  on  every  plane,  as  corresponding  to  the 
"  matter"  of  that  plane.  Again,  the  student  must  also  remember  that 
these  notes  have  to  be  arranged  in  a  circle,  thus  showing  how  Fa  is  the 
middle  note  of  Nature.     In  short,  musical  notes,  or  Sounds,  Colours 


See  supra,  i.  34  ;  i.  4,  et  seq. ;  ii.  39.  «^  -s*?-.  and  625,  et  seg. 


476 


THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 


and  Numbers  proceed  from  one  to  seven,  and  not  from  seven  to  one 
as  erroneously  shown  in  the  spectrum  of  the  prismatic  colours,  in 
which  Red  is  counted  first :  a  fact  which  necessitated  my  putting  the 
principles  and  the  days  of  the  week  at  random  in  Diagram  II.  The 
musical  scale  and  colours,  according  to  the  number  of  vibrations,  pro- 
ceed from  the  world  of  gross  Matter  to  that  of  Spirit  thus : 


Principles. 

Colours. 

Notes. 

Numbers. 

Slates  of  Matter. 

Chhaya,  Shadow  or  Double. 

Violet. 

Si. 

7- 

Ether. 

Higher  Manas,  Spiritual  In- 
telligence. 

Indigo. 

La. 

6. 

Critical  State,  called    Air 
Occultism. 

in 

Auric  Envelope. 

Blue. 

Sol. 

5- 

Steam  or  Vapour. 

I,ower  Manas,  or  Animal  Soul. 

Green. 

Fa. 

4- 

Critical  State. 

Buddhi,  or  Spiritual  Soul. 

Yellow. 

Mi. 

3- 

Water. 

Prana,  or  Life  Principle. 

Orange. 

Re. 

2. 

Critical  State. 

Kama  Rupa,  the  Seat  of  Ani- 
mal Life. 

Red. 

Do. 

1. 

Ice. 

Here  again  the  student  is  asked  to  dismiss  from  his  mind  any  corre- 
spondence between  "  principles "  and  numbers,  for  reasons  already 
given.  The  Esoteric  enumeration  cannot  be  made  to  correspond  with 
the  conventional  exoteric.  The  one  is  the  reality,  the  other  is  classified 
according  to  illusive  appearances.  The  human  principles,  as  given  in 
Esoteric  Buddhism,  were  tabulated  for  beginners,  so  as  not  to  confuse 
their  minds.     It  was  half  a  blind. 


ORIGINES. 


COLOURS,   SOUNDS   AND   FORMS. 

To  proceed : 

The  Point  in  the  Circle  is  the  Unmanifested 
IvOgos,  corresponding  to  Absolute  L,ife  and  Absolute 
Sound. 

The  first  geometrical  figure  after  the  Circle  or  the 
Spheroid  is  the  Triangle.  It  corresponds  to  Motion, 
Colour  and  Sound.  Thus  the  Point  in  the  Triangle 
represents  the  Second  Logos,  "  Father-Mother,"  or 
the  White  Ra}'  which  is  no  colour,  since  it  contains 
potentially  all  colours.  It  is  shown  radiating  from 
the  Unmanifested  Logos,  or  the  Unspoken  Word. 
Around  the  first  Triangle  is  formed  on  the  plane  of 
Primordial  Substance  in  this  order  {reversed  2iS  to  our 
p  lane) : 


477 


PLANE  OF 
SUBST 


PRIMORDIAL 
ANCE. 


PLANE  OF  MANIFESTED 

OR  DIFFERENTIATED 

MATTER. 


A. 

Violet,  (a)  Si. 


B. 

(Orange)  Red.  fa)  Do. 


Indigo. 
La. 


Green,  (d)  Fa. 


Yellow. 
Mi. 


Blue. 

{c) 
Sol. 


Red. 

(g) 
Do. 


{Yellow)  Orange, 
ib) 
Re. 


Green,  (d)  Fa. 


Blue. 

(.e) 

Sol. 


Yellow. 

{c) 

Mi. 


Indigo. 
(/ 


La. 


Orange.  (/)  Re. 


Violet,  ig)  Si. 


(a)  The  Astral  Double  of  Nature,  or  the  Paradigm  of  all  Forms. 
(^)  Divine  Ideation,  or  Universal  Mind. 

(c)  The  Synthesis  of  Occult  Nature,  the  Egg  of  Brahm^,  containing 
:all  and  radiating  all. 

(d)  Animal  or  Material  Soul  of  Nature,  source  of  animal  and  vege- 
table intelligence  and  instinct. 


The  Master- Key  or  Tonic  of  Manifested  Nature. 


47S  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

(<?)  The  aggregate  of  Dhyan  Chohanic  Intelligences,  Fohat. 

(/)  Life  Principle  in  Nature. 

(^)  The  Ivife  Procreating  Principle  in  Nature.  That  which,  on  the 
spiritual  plane,  corresponds  to  sexual  afl&nity  on  the  lower. 

Mirrored  on  the  plane  of  Gross  Nature,  the  World  of  Reality  is  reversed, 
and  becomes  on  Earth  and  our  plane  : 


B. 


(a)  Red  is  the  colour  of  manifested  dual,  or  male  and  female.  In 
man  it  is  shown  in  its  lowest  animal  form. 

{b)  Orange  is  the  colour  of  the  robes  of  the  Yogis  and  Buddhist 
Priests,  the  colour  of  the  Sun  and  Spiritual  Vitality,  also  of  the  Vital 
Principle. 

(c)  Yellow  or  radiant  Golden  is  the  colour  of  the  Spiritual,  Divine 
Ray  in  every  atom  ;  in  man  of  Buddhi. 

{d)  Green  and  Red  are,  so  to  speak,  interchangeable  colours,  for 
Green  absorbs  the  Red,  as  being  threefold  stronger  in  its  vibrations 
than  the  latter ;  and  Green  is  the  complementary  colour  of  extreme  Red. 
This  is  why  the  Lower  Manas  and  Kama  Rupa  are  respectively  shown 
as  Green  and  Red. 

(<?)  The  Astral  Plane,  or  Auric  Envelope  in  Nature  and  Man. 

(/)  The  Mind  or  rational  element  in  Man  and  Nature. 

(g)  The  most  ethereal  counterpart  of  the  Body  of  man,  the  opposite 
pole,  standing  in  point  of  vibration  and  sensitiveness  as  the  Violet 
stands  to  the  Red. 

The  above  is  on  the  manifested  plane ;  after  which  we  get  the  seven 
and  the  Manifested  Prism,  or  Man  on  Earth.  With  the  latter,  the 
Black  Magician  alone  is  concerned. 

In  Kosmos,  the  gradations  and  correlations  of  Colours  and  Sounds, 
and  therefore  of  Numbers  are  infinite.  This  is  suspected  even  in 
Physics,  for  it  is  ascertained  that  there  exist  slower  vibrations  than 
those  of  the  Red,  the  slowest  perceptible  to  us,  and  far  more  rapid 
vibrations  than  those  of  the  Violet,  the  most  rapid  that  our  senses  can 
perceive.  But  on  Earth,  in  our  physical  world,  the  range  of  perceptible 
vibrations  is  limited.  Our  physical  senses  cannot  take  cognizance  of 
vibrations  above  and  below  the  septenary  and  limited  gradations  of  the 
prismatic  colours,  for  such  vibrations  are  incapable  of  causing  in  us  the 


COLOURS  AND  PRINCIPLES.  479 

sensation  of  colour  or  sound.  It  will  always  be  the  graduated  septenan,'- 
and  no  more,  unless  we  learn  to  parah^ze  our  Quaternary  and  discern 
both  the  superior  and  inferior  vibrations  with  our  spiritual  senses 
seated  in  the  upper  Triangle. 

Now,  on  this  plane  of  illusion,  there  are  three  fundamental  colours, 
as  demonstrated  bj^  Physical  Science,  Red,  Blue  and  Yellow  (or  rather 
Orange-Yellow).  Expressed  in  terms  of  the  human  principles  they  are  : 
(i)  Kama  Rupa,  the  seat  of  the  animal  sensations,  welded  to,  and 
serving  as  a  vehicle  for  the  Animal  Soul  or  Lower  Manas  (Red  and 
Green,  as  said,  being  interchangeable)  ;  (2)  Auric  Envelope,  or  the 
essence  of  man ;  and  (3)  Prana,  or  Life  Principle.  But  if  from  the  realm 
of  illusion,  or  the  living  man  as  he  is  on  our  Earth,  subject  to  his 
sensuous  perceptions  only,  we  pass  to  that  of  semi-illusion,  and  observe 
the  natural  colours  themselves,  or  those  of  the  principles,  that  is,  if  we 
try  to  find  out  which  are  those  that  in  the  perfect  man  absorb  all  others, 
we  shall  find  that  the  colours  correspond  and  become  complementary 
in  the  following  way : 

violet. 

(i)  Red Green. 

(2)  Orange  --- Blue. 

(3)  Yellow ...  Indigo. 

Violet. 

A  faint  violet,  mist-like  form  represents  the  Astral  Man  within  an 
oviform  bluish  circle,  over  which  radiate  in  ceaseless  vibrations  the 
prismatic  colours.  That  colour  is  predominant,  of  which  the  corres- 
ponding principle  is  the  most  active  generally,  or  at  the  particular 
moment  when  the  clairvoyant  perceives  it.  Such  man  appears  during 
his  waking  states  ;  and  it  is  by  the  predominance  of  this  or  that  colour, 
and  by  the  intensity  of  its  vibrations,  that  a  clairvoj^ant,  if  he  be 
acquainted  with  correspondences,  can  judge  of  the  inner  state  or 
character  of  a  person,  for  the  latter  is  an  open  book  to  ever)^  practical 
Occultist. 

In  the  trance  state  the  Aura  changes  entirely,  the  seven  prismatic 
colours  being  no  longer  discernible.  In  sleep  also  they  are  not  all  "  at 
home."  For  those  which  belong  to  the  spiritual  elements  in  the  man, 
viz.,  Yellow,  Buddhi ;  Indigo,  Higher  Manas  ;  and  the  Blue  of  the  Auric 
Envelope  will  be  either  hardly  discernible,  or  altogether  missing.  The 
Spiritual  Man  is  free  during  sleep,  and  though  his  physical  memory 
may  not  become  aware  of  it,  lives,  robed  in  his  highest  essence,  in 
realms  on  other  planes,  in  realms  which  are  the  land  of  reality,  called 
dreams  on  our  plane  of  illusion. 


48o 


THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 


A  good  clairvoyant,  moreover,  if  he  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  a 
Yogi  in  the  trance  state  and  a  mesmerized  subject,  side  by  side,  would 
learn  an  important  lesson  in  Occultism.  He  would  learn  to  know  the 
diflference  between  self-induced  trance  and  a  hypnotic  state  resulting 
from  extraneous  influence.  In  the  Yogi,  the  "principles"  of  the  lower 
Quaternar}^  disappear  entirely.  Neither  Red,  Green,  Red-Violet  nor 
the  Auric  Blue  of  the  Body  are  to  be  seen  ;  nothing  but  hardly  percep- 
tible vibrations  of  the  golden-hued  Prana  principle  and  a  violet  flame 
streaked  with  gold  rushing  upwards  from  the  head,  in  the  region  where 
the  Third  ^^ye  rests,  and  culminating  in  a  point.  If  the  student 
remembers  that  the  true  Violet,  or  the  extreme  end  of  the  spectrum,  is 
no  compound  colour  of  Red  and  Blue,  but  a  homogeneous  colour  with 
vibrations  seven  times  more  rapid  than  those  of  the  Red,*  and  that  the 
golden  hue  is  the  essence  of  the  three  yellow  hues  from  Orange  Red  to 
Yellow-Orange  and  Yellow,  he  will  understand  the  reason  why  :  he  lives 
in  his  own  Auric  Body,  now  become  the  vehicle  of  Buddhi- Manas.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  a  subject  in  an  artificially  produced  hypnotic  or 
mesmeric  trance,  an  effect  of  unconscious  when  not  of  conscious  Black 
Magic,  unless  produced  by  a  high  Adept,  the  whole  set  of  the  principles 
will  be  present,  with  the  Higher  Manas  paralyzed,  Buddhi  severed  from 
it  through  that  paralysis,  and  the  red-violet  Astral  Body  entirely 
subjected  to  the  Lower  Manas  and  Kama  Rupa  (the  green  and  red 
animal  monsters  in  us). 

One  who  comprehends  well  the  above  explanations  will  readily  see 
how  important  it  is  for  every  student,  whether  he  is  striving  for  practical 
Occult  powers  or  only  for  the  purelj'-  psychic  and  spiritual  gifts  of  clair- 
voyance and  metaphysical  knowledge,  to  master  thoroughly  the  right 


Colours. 


Violet  extreme 

Violet 

Violet-Indigo 

Indigo 

Indigo-Blue 

Blue 

Blue-Green 

Green 

Green-Yellow 

Yellow      - 

Yellow-Orange 

Orange     - 

Orange -Red 

Red 

Red-extreme 


Wave- Lengths     in 

Milli- 

Number  of  Vibrations  in 

metres. 

Trillions. 

1                         406 

759 

423 

709 

43<) 

683 

449 

668 

459 

654 

479 

631 

492 

610 

512 

586 

532 

564 

551 

544 

^v- 

525 

583 

514 

596 

503 

620 

484 

645 

465 

THE   PRIMORDIAI,  SEVEN.  48 1 

correspondences  between  the  human,  or  nature  principles,  and  those  of 
Kosmos.  It  is  ignorance  which  leads  materialistic  Science  to  deny  the 
inner  man  and  his  Divine  powers  ;  knowledge  and  personal  experience 
that  allow  the  Occultist  to  affirm  that  such  powers  are  as  natural  to 
man  as  swimming  to  fishes.  It  is  like  a  Laplander,  in  all  sincerity, 
denying  the  possibility  of  the  catgut,  strung  loosely  on  the  sounding- 
board  of  a  violin  producing  comprehensive  sounds  or  melody.  Our 
principles  are  the  Seven-Stringed  Lyre  of  Apollo,  truly.  In  this  our 
age,  when  oblivion  has  shrouded  ancient  knowledge,  men's  faculties  are 
no  better  than  the  loose  strings  of  the  violin  to  the  Laplander.  But 
the  Occultist  who  knows  how  to  tighten  them  and  tune  his  violin  in 
harmony  with  the  vibrations  of  colour  and  sound,  will  extract  divine 
harmony  from  them.  The  combination  of  these  powers  and  the  attuning 
of  the  Microcosm  and  the  Macrocosm  will  give  the  geometrical  equiva- 
lent of  the  invocation  "  Om  Mani  Padme  Hum." 

This  was  why  the  previous  knowledge  of  music  and  geometry  was 
obligatory  in  the  School  of  Pythagoras. 


THE  ROOTS  OF  COLOUR  AND  SOUND. 

Further,  each  of  the  Primordial  Seven,  the  first  Seven  Rays  forming 
the  Manifested  Logos,  is  again  sevenfold.  Thus,  as  the  seven  colours 
of  the  solar  spectrum  correspond  to  the  seven  Rays,  or  Hierarchies,  so 
each  of  these  latter  has  again  its  seven  divisions  corresponding  to  the 
same  series  of  colours.  But  in  this  case  one  colour,  viz.,  that  which 
characterizes  the  particular  Hierarchy  as  a  whole,  is  predominant  and 
more  intense  than  the  others. 

These  Hierarchies  can  only  be  symbolized  as  concentric  circles  of 
prismatic  colours  ;  each  Hierarchy  being  represented  by  a  series  of 
seven  concentric  circles,  each  circle  representing  one  of  the  prismatic 
colours  in  their  natural  order.  But  in  each  of  these  "wheels"  one 
circle  will  be  brighter  and  more  vivid  in  colour  than  the  rest,  and  the 
wheel  will  have  a  surrounding  Aura  (a  fringe,  as  the  physicists  call  it) 
of  that  colour.  This  colour  will  be  the  characteristic  colour  of  that 
Hierarchy  as  a  whole.  Each  of  these  Hierarchies  furnishes  the  essence 
(the  Soul)  and  is  the  "Builder  "  of  one  of  the  seven  kingdoms  of  Nature 
which  are  the  three  elemental  kingdoms,  the  mineral,  the  vegetable,  the 

3    M 


^2  THJ:  secret  DOCTRINB-. 

animal,  and  the  kingdom  of  spiritual  man*  Moreover,  each  Hierarchy 
furnishes  the  Aura  of  one  of  the  seven  principles  in  man  with  its  specific 
colour.  Further,  as  each  of  these  Hierarchies  is  the  Ruler  of  one  of  the 
Sacred  Planets,  it  will  easily  be  understood  how  Astrology  came  into 
existence,  and  that  real  Astrology  has  a  strictly  scientific  basis. 

The  symbol  adopted  in  the  Eastern  School  to  represent  the  Seven 
Hierarchies  of  creative  Powers  is  a  wheel  of  seven  concentric  circles, 
each  circle  being  coloured  with  one  of  the  seven  colours ;  call  them 
Angels,  if  you  will,  or  Planetary  Spirits,  or,  again,  the  Seven  Rulers  of 
the  Seven  Sacred  Planets  of  our  system,  as  in  our  present  case.  At  all 
events,  the  concentric  circles  stand  as  symbols  for  Ezekiel's  Wheels 
with  some  Western  Occultists  and  Kabalists,  and  for  the  "  Builders  "  or 
Prajapati  with  us. 

DIAGRAM    III. 

The  student  should  carefully  examine  the  following  Diagram. 

Thus  the  lyinga  Sharira  is  derived  from  the  Violet  sub- ray  of  the 
Violet  Hierarchy;  the  Higher  Manas  is  similarly  derived  from  the 
Indigo  sub-ray  of  the  Indigo  Hierarchy,  and  so  on.  Every  man  being 
born  under  a  certain  planet,  there  will  always  be  a  predominance  of 
that  planet's  colour  in  him,  because  that  "  principle  "  will  rule  in  him 
which  has  its  origin  in  the  Hierarchy  in  question.  There  will  also  be 
a  certain  amount  of  the  colour  derived  from  the  other  planets  present  in 
his  Aura,  but  that  of  the  ruling  planet  will  be  strongest.  Now  a  person 
in  whom,  say,  the  Mercury  principle  is  predominant,  will,  by  acting 
upon  the  Mercury  principle  in  another  person  born  under  a  different 
planet,  be  able  to  get  him  entirely  under  his  control.  For  the  stronger 
Mercury  principle  in  him  will  overpower  the  weaker  Mercurial  element 
in  the  other.  But  he  will  have  little  power  over  persons  born  under  the 
same  planet  as  himself.  This  is  the  key  to  the  Occult  Sciences  of 
Magnetism  and  Hypnotism. 

The  student  will  understand  that  the  Orders  and  Hierarchies  are 
here  named  after  their  corresponding  colours,  so  as  to  avoid  using 
numerals,  which  would  be  confusing  in  connection  with  the  human 
principles,  as  the  latter  have  no  proper  numbers  of  their  own.  The 
real  Occult  names  of  these  Hierarchies  cannot  now  be  given. 

*  See  Five  Years  of  Theosophy,  pp.  273  to  278. 


THE   HIKRARCHIES  AND  MAN. 


483 


The  student  must,  however 
remember  that  the  colours 
which  we  see  with  our  physi- 
cal ej-^es  are  not  the  true 
colours  of  Occult  Nature,  but 
are  merely  the  efifects  pro- 
duced on  the  mechanism  of 
our  physical  organs  by  certain 
rates  of  vibration.  For  in- 
stance, Clerk  Maxwell  has 
demonstrated  that  the  retinal 
effects  of  any  colour  may  be 
imitated  by  properly  combin- 
ing three  other  colours.  It 
follows,  therefore,  that  our 
retina  has  only  three  distinct 
colour  sensations,  and  we 
therefore  do  not  perceive  the 
seven  colours  which  really 
exist,  but  only  their  "  imita- 
tions," so  to  speak,  in  our 
physical  organism. 

Thus,  for  instance,  the 
Orange-Red  of  the  first  "  Tri- 
angle "  is  not  a  combination 
of  Orange  and  Red,  but  the 
true  "spiritual"  Red,  if  the 
term  may  be  allowed,  while 
the  Red  (blood-red)  of  the 
spectrum  is  the  colour  of 
Kama,  animal  desire,  and  is 
inseparable  from  the  material 
plane. 


DIAGRAM    III. 


''■■■■ 

THE      \        HUMAN 

VIOLET. 

Indigo. 

Blue. 

Green. 

Yellow. 

Orange. 

Red. 

Violet. 

L,iuga   Sharira. 

Violet. 
INDIGO. 

Blue. 

Green. 

Yellow. 
Oraage. 

Indigo. 

Higher  Manas. 

Red. 

Violet. 

Indigo. 

BLUE. 

Green. 

Blue. 

Auric  Egg. 

Yellow. 

Orange. 
Red. 

Violet. 

Indigo. 

Gpeen. 

Lower  Manas. 

Blue. 

GREEN. 
Yellow. 

3 • 

• 

Orange. 

Red. 

Violet. 
Indigo. 

Velloou. 

Buddhi. 

Blue. 

Green. 

YELLOW. 

Orange. 

Ofange. 

Prana. 

Red. 

Violet. 

Indigo. 

Blue. 

Green. 

Yellow. 

Hed. 

Kama  Rupa. 

1  ORANGE. 

i        Red. 

1    Violet. 

Indigo. 

Blue. 

Green. 

Yellow. 

orange. 

RED. 

H  a 


—  <  V 


THE  UNITY  OF  DEITY. 
Esotericism,  pure  and  simple,  speaks  of  no  personal  God ;  therefore 
are  we  considered  as  Atheists.     But,  in  reality.  Occult  Philosophy,  as  a 
whole,  is  based   absolutely  on   the  ubiquitous   presence   of  God,  the 


484  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Absolute  Deit)' ;  and  if  It  Itself  is  not  speculated  upon,  as  being  too 
sacred  and  yet  incomprehensible  as  a  Unit  to  the  finite  intellect,  yet  the 
entire  Philosophy  is  based  upon  Its  Divine  Powers  as  being  the  Source 
of  all  that  breathes  and  lives  and  has  existence.  In  every  ancient  Religion 
the  One  was  demonstrated  by  the  many.  In  Egypt  and  India,  in 
Chaldsea  and  Phoenicia,  and  finally  in  Greece,  the  ideas  about  Deity 
were  expressed  by  multiples  of  three,  five  and  seven  ;  and  also  by  eight, 
nine  and  twelve  great  Gods,  which  symbolized  the  powers  and  proper- 
ties of  the  One  and  Only  Deity.  This  was  related  to  that  infinite  sub- 
division by  irregular  and  odd  numbers  to  which  the  metaphysics  of 
these  nations  subjected  their  One  Divinity.  Thus  constituted,  the 
cycle  of  the  Gods  had  all  the  qualities  and  attributes  of  the  One 
Supreme  and  Unknowable  ;  for  in  this  collection  of  divine  Personali- 
ties, or  rather  of  Symbols  personified,  dwells  the  One  God,  the  God 
One,  that  God  which,  in  India,  is  said  to  have  no  Second. 

O  God  Ani  [the  Spiritual  Sun],  thou  residest  in  the  agglomeration  of  thy  divine 
personages.* 

These  words  show  the  belief  of  the  ancients  that  all  manifestation 
proceeds  from  one  and  the  same  Source,  all  emanating  from  the  one 
identical  Principle  which  can  never  be  completely  developed  except  in 
and  through  the  collective  and  entire  aggregate  of  Its  emanations. 

The  Pleroma  of  Valentinus  is  absolutely  the  Space  of  Occult  Philo- 
sophy ;  for  Pleroma  means  the  "  Fullness,"  the  superior  regions.  It  is 
the  sum  total  of  all  the  Divine  manifestations  and  emanations  express- 
ing the  ple7ium  or  totality  of  the  rays  proceeding  from  the  One, 
differentiating  on  all  the  planes,  and  transforming  themselves  into 
Divine  Powers,  called  Angels  and  Planetary  Spirits  in  the  Philosophy 
of  every  nation.  The  Gnostic  ^ons  and  Powers  of  the  Pleroma  are 
made  to  speak  as  the  Devas  and  Siddhas  of  the  Purdjias.  The  Kpinoia, 
the  first  female  manifestation  of  God,  the  "  Principle  "  of  Simon  Magus 
and  Saturninus,  holds  the  same  language  as  the  I/)gos  of  Basilides;  and 
each  of  these  is  traced  to  the  purely  esoteric  Aletheia,  the  Truth  of  the 
Mysteries.  All  of  them,  we  are  taught,  repeat  at  difi"erent  times  and  in 
different  languages  the  magnificent  hymn  of  the  Egj'ptian  papyrus, 
thousands  of  years  old  : 

The  Gods  adore  thee,  they  greet  thee,  O  the  One  Dark  Truth. 
And  addressing  Ra,  they  add  : 

»  Apud  Gribaut  Papyrus  Orbiney,  p.  loi. 


WISDOM    AND  TRUTH.  485 

The  Gods  bow  before  thy  Majesty,  by  exalting  the  Souls  of  that  v?hich  produces 
them  .  .  •  and  say  to  thee,  Peace  to  all  emanations  from  the  Unconscious 
Father  of  the  Conscious  Fathers  of  the  Gods.  .  .  .  Thou  producer  of  beings, 
we  adore  the  souls  which  emanate  from  thee.  Thou  begettest  us,  O  thou  Unknown, 
and  we  greet  thee  in  worshipping  each  God-Soul  which  descendeth  from  thee  and 
liveth  in  us. 

This  is  the  source  of  the  assertion  : 

Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  Gods  and  the  temple  of  God. 

This  is  shown  in  the  "  Roots  of  Ritualism  in  Church  and  Masonry," 
in  Lucifer  for  March,  1889.  Truly  then,  as  said  seventeen  centuries 
ago,  "  Man  cannot  possess  Truth  (Aletheia)  except  he  participate  in 
the  Gnosis."  So  we  may  say  now :  No  man  can  know  the  Truth  unless 
he  studies  the  secrets  of  the  Pleroma  of  Occultism  ;  and  these  secrets 
are  all  in  the  Theogony  of  the  ancient  Wisdom-Religion,  which  is  the 
Aletheia  of  Occult  Science. 


PAPER  III. 

A  Word  Concerning  the  Earlier  Papers. 


As  many  have  written  and  almost  complained  to  me  that  the}'  could 
find  no  practical  clear  application  of  certain  diagrams  appended  to  the 
first  two  Papers,  and  others  have  spoken  of  their  abstruseness,  a  short 
explanation  is  necessary. 

The  reason  of  this  difficulty  in  most  cases  has  been  that  the  point 
of  view  taken  was  erroneous ;  the  purely  abstract  and  metaphj^sical 
was  mistaken  for,  and  confused  with,  the  concrete  and  the  physical. 
L,et  us  take  for  example  the  diagrams  on  page  477  (Paper  II.,)  and  say 
that  these  are  entirely  macrocosmic  and  ideal.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  study  of  Occultism  proceeds  from  Universals  to  Particulars 
and  not  the  reverse  way,  as  accepted  b)'  Science.  As  Plato  was  an  Ini- 
tiate, he  very  naturally  used  the  former  method,  while  Aristotle,  never 
having  been  initiated,  scoffed  at  his  master,  and,  elaborating  a  system 
of  his  own,  left  it  as  an  heirloom  to  be  adopted  and  improved  by  Bacon. 
Of  a  truth  the  aphorism  of  Hermetic  Wisdom,  "  As  above,  so  below," 
applies  to  all  Esoteric  instruction  ;  but  we  must  begin  with  the  above ; 
we  must  learn  the  formula  before  we  can  sum  the  series. 

The  two  figures,  therefore,  are  not  meant  to  represent  any  two 
particular  planes,  but  are  the  abstraction  of  a  pair  of  planes,  explana- 
toi-y  of  the  law  of  reflection,  just  as  the  lyOwer  Manas  is  a  reflection  of 
the  Higher.  They  must  therefore  be  taken  in  the  highest  metaphysical 
sense. 

The  diagrams  are  only  intended  to  familiarize  students  with  the  lead- 
ing ideas  of  Occult  correspondences,  the  very  genius  of  metaphysical, 
or  macrocosmic  and  spiritual  Occultism  forbidding  the  use  of  figures 
or  even  s^anbols  further  than  as  temporary  aids.  Once  define  an  idea 
in  words,  and  it  loses  its  reality  ;  once  figure  a  metaphysical  idea,  and 


OCCUI.T  SECRECY.  .gy 

you  materialize  its  spirit.  Figures  must  be  used  only  as  ladders  to 
scale  the  battlements,  ladders  to  be  disregarded  when  once  the  foot  is 
set  upon  the  rampart. 

I.et  students,  therefore,  be  very  careful  to  spiritualize  the  Papers 
and  avoid  materializing  them  ;  let  them  always  try  to  find  the  highest 
meaning  possible,  confident  that  in  proportion  as  they  approach  the 
material  and  visible  in  their  speculations  on  the  Papers,  so  far  are  they 
from  the  right  understanding  of  them.  This  is  especially  the  case  with 
these  first  Papers  and  Diagrams,  for  as  in  all  true  arts,  so  in  Occultism 
we  must  first  learn  the  theory  before  we  are  taught  the  practice. 

Concerning  Secrecy. 

Students  ask :  Why  such  secrecy  about  the  details  of  a  doctrine  the 
body  of  which  has  been  publicly  revealed,  as  in  Esoteric  BuddJiism  and 
the  Secret  Doctrine  ? 
To  this  Occultism  would  reply :  for  two  reasons  :— 
(a)    The  whole  truth  is  too  sacred  to  be  given  out  promiscuously 
{b)    The  knowledge  of  all  the  details  and  missing  links  in  the  exoteric 
teachings  is  too  dangerous  in  profane  hands. 

The  truths  revealed  to  man  by  the  "  Planetary  Spirits  "-the  highest 
Kumaras,  those  who  incarnate  no  longer  in  the  Universe  during  this 
Mahamanvantara-who  will  appear  on  earth  as  Avataras  onlv  at  the 
beginning  of  every  new  human  Race,  and  at  the  junctions  or  dose  of 
the  two  ends  of  the  small  and  great  cycles-in  time,  as  man  became 
more  animalized,  were  made  to  fade  away  from  his  memory  Yet 
though  these  Teachers  remain  with  man  no  longer  than  the  time 
required  to  impress  upon  the  plastic  minds  of  child-humanity  the 
eternal  verities  they  teach.  Their  Spirit  remains  vivid  though  latent  in 
mankind.  And  the  full  knowledge  of  the  primitive  revelation  has 
remained  always  with  a  few  elect,  and  has  been  transmitted  from  that 
time  up  to  the  present,  from  one  generation  of  Adepts  to  another.  As 
the  Teachers  say  in  the  Occult  Primer  : 

This  is  done  so  as  to  ensure  the^n  [the   eternal   truths]  from  being 
7itterly  lost  or  forgotten  in  ages  hereafter  by  the  fort hco7ning  generations 

The  mission  of  the  Planetary  Spirit  is  but  to  strike  the  key-note  of 
Truth.  When  once  He  has  directed  the  vibration  of  the  latter  to  run  its 
course  uninterruptedly  along  the  concatenation  of  the  race  to  the  end 
of  the  cycle.  He  disappears  from  our  earth  until  the  following  Plane- 
tary Manvantara.      The  mission  of  any  teacher  of  Esoteric  truths 


488  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

whether  he  stands  at  the  top  or  the  foot  of  the  ladder  of  knowledge,  is 
precisely  the  same  ;  as  above,  so  below.  I  have  only  orders  to  strike 
the  key-note  of  the  various  Esoteric  truths  among  the  learners  as  a 
body.  Those  units  among  you  who  will  have  raised  themselves  on 
the  "Path"  over  their  fellow-students,  in  their  Ksoteric  sphere,  will,  as 
the  "Elect"  spoken  of  did  and  do  in  the  Parent  Brotherhoods,  receive 
the  last  explanatory  details  and  the  ultimate  key  to  what  they  learn. 
No  one,  however,  can  hope  to  gain  this  privilege  before  the  Masters — 
not  my  humble  self — find  him  or  her  worthy. 

If  you  wish  to  know  the  real  raison  d'etre  for  this  policy,  I  now  give 
'H;  to  3'ou.  No  use  my  repeating  and  explaining  what  all  of  you  know 
as  well  as  myself ;  at  the  verj'-  beginning,  events  have  shown  that  no 
caution  can  be  dispensed  with.  Of  our  body  of  several  hundred  men 
and  women,  many  did  not  seem  to  realize  either  the  awful  sacredness 
of  the  pledge  (which  some  took  at  the  end  of  their  pen),  or  the  fact  that 
their  perso7iality  has  to  be  entirely  disregarded,  when  brought  face  to 
face  with  their  Higher  Self  ;  or  that  all  their  words  and  professions 
went  for  naught  unless  corroborated  by  actions.  This  was  human 
nature,  and  no  more ;  therefore  it  was  passed  leniently  b}^  and  a  new 
lease  accorded  by  the  Master.  But  apart  from  this  there  is  a  danger 
lurking  in  the  nature  of  the  present  cycle  itself.  Civilized  humanity, 
however  carefully  guarded  by  its  invisible  Watchers,  the  Nirmana- 
kayas,  who  watch  over  our  respective  races  and  nations,  is  yet,  owing  to 
its  collective  Karma,  terribly  under  the  sway  of  the  traditional  opposers 
of  the  Nirmanakayas — the  "  Brothers  of  the  Shadow,"  embodied  and 
disembodied  ;  and  this,  as  has  already  been  told  you,  will  last  to  the 
end  of  the  first  Kali  Yuga  cycle  (1897),  and  a  few  years  beyond,  as  the 
smaller  dark  cycle  happens  to  overlap  the  great  one.  Thus,  notwith- 
standing all  precautions,  terrible  secrets  are  often  revealed  to  entirely 
unworthy  persons  by  the  efforts  of  the  "  Dark  Brothers "  and  their 
working  on  human  brains.  This  is  entirely  owing  to  the  simple  fact 
that  in  certain  privileged  organisms,  vibrations  of  the  primitive  truth 
put  in  motion  by  the  Planetary  Beings  are  set  up,  in  what  Western 
philosophy  would  term  innateideas,  and  Occultism  "  flashes  of  genius."* 
Some  such  idea  based  on  eternal  truth  is  awakened,  and  all  that  the 
watchful  Powers  can  do  is  to  prevent  its  entire  revelation. 

Everything  in  this  Universe  of  differentiated  matter  has  its  two 
aspects,  the  light  and  the  dark  side,  and  these  two  attributes  applied 

•  See  "  Genius,"  Lucifer,  Nov.,  1889,  p.  227. 


THE   IvlGHT  AND   DARK   SIDES   OF   NATURE.  489 

practicall}',  lead  the  one  to  use,  the  other  to  abuse.  Everj-  man  may 
become  a  Botanist  without  apparent  danger  to  his  fellow-creatures ; 
and  many  a  Chemist  who  has  mastered  the  science  of  essences  knows 
that  every  one  of  them  can  both  heal  and  kill.  Not  an  ingredient,  not 
a  poison,  but  can  be  used  for  both  purposes — aye,  from  harmless  wax 
to  deadly  prussic  acid,  from  the  saliva  of  an  infant  to  that  of  the  cobra 
di  capella.  This  every  tyro  in  medicine  knows — theoretically,  at  any 
rate.  But  where  is  the  learned  Chemist  in  our  day  who  has  been  per- 
mitted to  discover  the  "  night  side  "  of  an  attribute  of  any  substance  in 
the  three  kingdoms  of  Science,  let  alone  in  the  seven  of  the  Occultists  ? 
Who  of  them  has  penetrated  into  its  Arcana,  into  the  innermost  Essence 
of  things  and  its  primary  correlations  ?  Yet  it  is  this  knowledge  alone 
which*  makes  of  an  Occultist  a  genuine  practical  Initiate,  whether  he 
turn  out  a  Brother  of  Light  or  a  Brother  of  Darkness.  The  essence  of 
that  subtle,  traceless  poison,  the  most  potent  in  nature,  which  entered 
into  the  composition  of  the  so-called  Medici  and  Borgia  poisons,  if  used 
with  discrimination  by  one  well  versed  in  the  septenary  degrees  of  its 
potentiality  on  each  of  the  planes  accessible  to  man  on  earth — could 
heal  or  kill  every  man  in  the  world  ;  the  result  depending,  of  course, 
on  whether  the  operator  was  a  Brother  of  the  Light  or  a  Brother  of  the 
Shadow.  The  former  is  prevented  from  doing  the  good  he  might,  by 
racial,  national,  and  individual  Karma  ;  the  second  is  impeded  in  his 
fiendish  work  by  the  joint  efforts  of  the  human  "  Stones"  of  the 
"  Guardian  Wall."* 

It  is  incorrect  to  think  that  there  exists  any  special  "powder  of  pro- 
jection "  or  "  philosopher's  stone,"  or  "  elixir  of  life."  The  latter  lurks 
in  every  flower,  in  every  stone  and  mineral  throughout  the  globe.  It 
is  the  ultimate  essence  of  everything  on  its  way  to  higher  and  higher 
evolution.  As  there  is  no  good  or  evil  per  se,  so  there  is  neither  "  elixir 
of  life"  nor  "elixir  of  death,"  nor  poison, /^fr  se,  but  all  this  is  con- 
tained in  one  and  the  same  universal  Essence,  this  or  the  other  effect, 
or  result,  depending  on  the  degree  of  its  differentiation  and  its  various 
correlations.  The  tight  side  of  it  produces  life,  health,  bliss,  divine 
peace,  etc.  ;  the  dark  side  brings  death,  disease,  sorrow  and  strife. 
This  is  proven  by  the  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  most  violent 
poisons ;  of  some  of  them  even  a  large  quantity  will  produce  no  evil 
effect  on  the  organism,  whereas  a  grain   of  the  same  poison  kills  with 

•  See  yoice  of  the  Silence,  pp.  68  and  94,  art.  28,  Glossary. 


490  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

the  rapidity  of  lightning;  while  the  same  grain,  again,  altered  by  a  certain 
combination,  though  its  quantity  remains  almost  identical,  will  heal. 
The  number  of  the  degrees  of  its  dififerentiation  is  septenary,  as  are  the 
planes  of  its  action,  each  degree  being  either  beneficent  or  maleficent 
in  its  effects,  according  to  the  system  into  which  it  is  introduced.  He 
who  is  skilled  in  these  degrees  is  on  the  high  road  to  practical  Adept- 
ship  ;  he  who  acts  at  hap-hazard — as  do  the  enormous  majority  of  the 
"Mind  Curers,"  whether  "Mental"  or  "Christian  Scientists" — is 
likely  to  rue  the  effects  on  himself  as  well  as  on  others.  Put  on  the 
track  by  the  example  of  the  Indian  Yogis,  and  of  their  broadl}'  but 
incorrectly  outlined  practices,  which  they  have  only  read  about,  but 
have  had  no  opportunity  to  study — these  new  sects  have  rushed  head- 
long and  guideless  into  the  practice  oi  denying  and  affirming.  Thus  they 
have  done  more  harm  than  good.  Those  who  are  successful  owe  it  to 
their  innate  magnetic  and  healing  powers,  which  verj^  often  counteract 
that  which  would  otherwise  be  conducive  to  much  evil.  Beware,  I  say  ; 
Satan  and  the  Archangel  are  more  than  twins ;  they  are  one  body  and 
one  mind — Deus  est  Demon  inversus. 

Is  THE  Practice  of  Concentration  Beneficent? 

Such  is  another  question  often  asked.  I  answer:  Genuine  concen- 
tration and  meditation,  conscious  and  cautious,  upon  one's  lower  self  in 
the  light  of  the  inner  divine  man  and  the  Paramitas,  is  an  excellent 
thing.  But  to  "sit  for  Yoga,"  with  only  a  superficial  and  often  dis- 
torted knowledge  of  the  real  practice,  is  almost  invariably  fatal ;  foi' 
ten  to  one  the  student  will  either  develop  mediumistic  powers  in  him- 
self or  lose  time  and  get  disgusted  both  with  practice  and  theory. 
Before  one  rushes  into  such  a  dangerous  experiment  and  seeks  to  go 
beyond  a  minute  examination  of  one's  lower  self  and  its  walk  in  life, 
or  that  which  is  called  in  our  phraseology,  "  The  Chela's  Daily  I^ife 
L,edger,"  he  would  do  well  to  learn  at  least  the  difference  between  the 
two  aspects  of  "  Magic,"  the  White  or  Divine,  and  the  Black  or 
Devilish,  and  assure  himself  that  by  "sitting  for  Yoga,"  with  no 
experience,  as  well  as  with  no  guide  to  show  him  the  dangers,  he  does 
not  daily  and  hourly  cross  the  boundaries  of  the  Divine  to  fall  into  the 
Satanic.  Nevertheless,  the  way  to  learn  the  difference  is  ver}'  easy ; 
one  has  only  to  remember  that  no  Esoteric  truths  entirely  unveiled  will 
ever  be  given  in  public pi-int,  in  book  or  magazine. 

I  ask  students  to  turn  to  the  Theosophist  of  November,   1887.     On 


nature's  finer  forces.  491 

page  98  they  will  find  the  beginning  of  an  excellent  article  by  Mr. 
Rama  Prasad  on  "Nature's  Finer  Forces."*  The  value  of  this  work  is 
not  so  much  in  its  literary  merit,  though  it  gained  its  author  the  gold 
medal  of  the  Theosophist,  as  in  its  exposition  of  tenets  hitherto  con- 
cealed in  a  rare  and  ancient  Sanskrit  work  on  Occultism.  But  Mr. 
Rama  Prasad  is  not  an  Occultist,  only  an  excellent  Sanskrit  scholar, 
a  university  graduate  and  a  man  of  remarkable  intelligence.  His 
essays  are  almost  entirely  based  on  Tantra  works,  which,  if  read 
indiscriminately  by  a  tyro  in  Occultism,  will  lead  to  the  practice  of 
most  unmitigated  Black  Magic.  Now,  since  the  difierence  of  primary 
importance  between  Black  and  White  Magic  is  the  object  with  which  it 
is  practised,  and  that  of  secondary  importance  the  nature  of  the  agents 
used  for  the  production  of  phenomenal  results,  the  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  two  is  very— very  thin.  The  danger  is  lessened  only  by 
the  fact  that  every  Occult  book,  so-called,  is  Occult  only  in  a  certain 
sense :  that  is,  the  text  is  Occult  merely  by  reason  of  its  blinds.  The 
symbolism  has  to  be  thoroughly  understood  before  the  reader  can  get 
at  the  correct  sense  of  the  teaching.  Moreover,  it  is  never  complete, 
its  several  portions  each  being  under  a  different  title,  and  each  contain- 
ing a  portion  of  some  other  work ;  so  that  without  a  key  to  these  no 
such  work  divulges  the  whole  truth.  Even  the  famous  Shivdgama,  on 
which  Nature's  Filter  Forces  is  based,  "  is  nowhere  to  be  found  in 
complete  form,"  as  the  author  tells  us.  Thus,  like  all  others,  it  treats 
of  only  five  Tattvas  instead  of  the  seven  as  in  Esoteric  teachings. 

Now,  the  Tattvas  being  simply  the  substratum  of  the  seven  forces  of 
Nature,  how  can  this  be?  There  are  seven  forms  of  Prakriti,  as 
Kapila's  Sankhya,  the  Vis/uiu  Purdna,  and  other  works  teach.  Pra- 
kriti is  Nature,  Matter  (primordial  and  elemental) ;  therefore  logic 
demands  that  the  Tattvas  also  should  be  seven.  For  whether  Tattvas 
mean,  as  Occultism  teaches,  "forces  of  Nature,"  or,  as  the  learned 
Rama  Prasad  explains,  "the  substance  out  of  which  the  universe  is 
formed"  and  "the  power  by  which  it  is  sustained,"  it  is  all  one;  they 


*  The  references  to  "  Nature's  Finer  Forces  "  which  follow,  have  respect  to  the  eight  articles  which 
appeared  in  the  pages  of  the  Theosophist  and  not  to  the  fifteen  essays  and  the  translation  of  a  chapter 
of  the  Shivdgama  which  are  contained  in  the  book  called  Nature's  Finer  Forces.  The  ShivUgama  in 
its  details  is  purely  Tantric,  and  nothing  but  harm  can  result  from  any  practical  following  of  its 
precepts.  I  would  most  strongly  dissuade  any  student  from  attempting  any  of  these  Hatha  Yoga 
practices,  for  he  Nvill  either  ruin  himself  entirely,  or  throw  himself  so  far  back  that  it  will  be 
almost  impossible  to  regain  the  lost  ground  in  this  incarnation.  The  translation  referred  to  has 
been  considerably  expurgated,  and  even  now  is  hardly  fit  for  publication.  It  recommends  Black 
Magic  of  the  worst  kind,  and  is  the  very  antipodes  of  spiritual  Raja  Yoga.    Beware,  I  say. 


492  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

are  Force,  Purusha,  and  Matter,  Prakriti.  And  if  the  fonns,  or  rather 
planes,  of  the  latter  are  seven,  then  its  forces  must  be  seven  also.  In 
other  words,  the  degrees  of  the  solidity  of  matter  and  the  degrees  of 
the  power  that  ensouls  it  must  go  hand  in  hand. 

The  Universe  is  made  out  of  the  Tattva,  it  is  sustained  by  the  Tattva,  and  it  dis- 
appears into  the  Tattva, 

says  Shiva,  as  quoted  from  the  Shivdgama  in  Nature's  Finer  Forces. 
This  settles  the  question ;  if  Prakriti  is  septenary,  then  the  Tattvas 
must  be  seven,  for,  as  said,  they  are  both  Substance  and  Force,  or 
atomic  Matter  and  the  Spirit  that  ensoule  it. 

This  is  explained  here  to  enable  the  student  to  read  between  the 
lines  of  the  so-called  Occult  articles  on  Sanskrit  Philosoph3%  by  which 
they  must  not  be  misled.  The  doctrine  of  the  seven  Tattvas  (the 
principles  of  the  Universe  and  also  of  man)  was  held  in  great  sacred- 
ness  and  therefore  secrecy,  in  days  of  old,  b}^  the  Brahmans,  who 
have  now  almost  forgotten  the  teaching.  Yet  it  is  taught  to  this  day 
in  the  Schools  beyond  the  Himalayan  Range,  though  now  hardly 
remembered  or  heard  of  in  India  except  through  rare  Initiates.  The 
policy  has,  however,  been  changed  gradually ;  Chelas  began  to  be 
taught  the  broad  outlines  of  it,  and  at  the  advent  of  the  T.  S.  in  India 
in  1879,  I  was  ordered  to  teach  it  in  its  exoteric  form  to  one  or  two.  I 
now  give  it  out  Esoterically. 

Knowing  that  some  students  try  to  follow  a  system  of  Yoga  in  their 
own  fashion,  guided  only  by  the  rare  hints  thej^  find  in  Theosophical 
books  and  magazines,  which  must  naturally  be  incomplete,  I  chose  one 
of  the  best  expositions  upon  ancient  Occult  works,  Natures  Finer 
Forces,  in  order  to  point  out  how  very  easily  one  can  be  misled  by  their 
blinds. 

The  author  seems  to  have  been  himself  deceived.  The  Tantras  read 
Esoterically  are  as  full  of  wisdom  as  the  noblest  Occult  works. 
Studied  without  a  guide  and  applied  to  practice,  they  may  lead  to  the 
production  of  various  phenomenal  results,  on  the  moral  and  physio- 
logical planes.  But  let  anyone  accept  their  dead-letter  rules  and  prac- 
tices, let  him  try  with  some  selfish  motive  in  view  to  carry'  out  the 
rites  prescribed  therein,  and — he  is  lost.  Followed  with  pure  heart 
and  unselfish  devotion  merely  for  the  sake  of  experiment,  either  no 
results  will  follow,  or  such  as  can  only  throw  back  the  performer. 
But  woe  to  the  selfish  man  who  seeks  to  develop  Occult  powers  only  to 


THE    "SEVEN  PRINCIPI^S."  493 

attain  earthly  benefits  or  revenge,  or  to  satisfy  his  ambition;  the 
separation  of  the  Higher  from  the  I/)wer  Principles  and  the  severing 
of  Buddhi-Manas  from  the  Tantrist's  personality  will  speedily  follow, 
the  terrible  Karmic  results  to  the  dabbler  in  Magic. 

In  the  East,  in  India  and  China,  soulless  men  and  women  are  as 
frequently  met  with  as  in  the  West,  though  vice  is,  in  truth,  far  less 
developed  there  than  it  is  here. 

It  is  Black  Magic  and  oblivion  of  their  ancestral  wisdom  that  lead 
them  thereunto.  But  of  this  I  will  speak  later,  now  merely  adding : 
you  have  to  be  warned  and  know  the  danger. 

Meanwhile,  in  view  of  what  follows,  the  real  Occult  division  of  the 
Principles  in  their  correspondences  with  the  Tattvas  and  other  minor 
forces  has  to  be  well  studied. 


About  "Principi^s"  and  "Aspects." 
Speaking  metaphysically  and  philosophically,  on  strict  Esoteric 
lines,  man  as  a  complete  unit  is  composed  of  Four  basic  Principles 
and  their  Three  Aspects  on  this  earth.  In  the  semi-esoteric  teachings, 
these  Four  and  Three  have  been  called  Seven  Principles,  to  facilitate 
the  comprehension  of  the  masses. 

The  Eternal  Basic  Principles.    Transitory  Aspects   Produced 

BY  THE  Principles. 

1.  Aftnd,  or  Jiva,  "the  One  Life,"  i.  Prdna,  the  Breath  of  Life,  the 
which  permeates  the  Monadic  Trio,  same  as  Nephesh.  At  the  death  of 
(One  in  three  and  three  in  One.)        a  living  being,  Prana  re-becomes 

Jiva.* 

2.  Auric  Envelope;  because  the  2.  Linga  Skarira,  the  Astral 
substratum  of  the  Aura  around  Form,  the  transitory  emanation  of 
man  is  the  universally  diffused  pri-  the  Auric  Egg.  This  form  pre- 
mordial  and  pure  Akasha,  the  first  cedes  the  formation  of  the  living 
film  on  the  boundless  and  shore-  Body,  and  after  death  clings  to  it, 
less  expanse  of  Jiva,  the  immutable  dissipating  only  with  the  disap- 
Root  of  all.  pearance    of    its    last    atom    (the 

skeleton  excepted). 


*  Remember  that  our  re-incamating  Bgos  are  called  the  Minasaputras,  "  Sons  of  Manas  "  (or 
Mahat),  Intelligence,  Wisdom. 


494  'I'HE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

3.  Buddhi ;  for  Buddhi  is  a  ray 
of  the   Universal    Spiritual    Soul 

(Alaya).  3.  Lower    Ma?ias,     the    Animal 

4.  Manas  (the  Higher  Ego)  ;  for  Soul,  the  reflection  or  shadow  of  the 
it  proceeds  from  Mahat,  the  first  Buddhi-Mauas,  having  the  poten- 
product  or  emanation  of  Pradhana,  tialities  of  both,  but  conquefed 
which  contains  potejitially  all  the  generally  by  its  association  with 
Gunas  (attributes).     Mahat  is  Cos-  the  Kama  elements. 

niic  Intelligence,  called  the  "Great 
Principle."* 

As  the  lower  man  is  the  combined  product  of  two  aspects — physi- 
cally, of  his  Astral  Form,  and  psycho-physiologically  of  Kama-Manas 
— he  is  not  looked  upon  even  as  an  aspect,  but  as  an  illusion. 

The  Auric  Egg,  on  account  of  its  nature  and  manifold  functions,  has 
to  be  well  studied.  As  Hiranyagarbha,  the  Golden  Womb  or  Egg, 
contains  Brahma,  the  collective  symbol  of  the  Seven  Universal  Forces, 
so  the  Auric  Egg  contains,  and  is  directly  related  to,  both  the  divine 
and  the  physical  man.  In  its  essence,  as  said,  it  is  eternal;  in  its 
constant  correlations  and  transformations,  during  the  reincarnating 
progress  of  the  Ego  on  this  earth,  it  is  a  kind  of  perpetual  motion 
machine. 

As  given  out  in  our  second  volume,  the  Egos  or  Kumaras,  incarnat- 
ing in  man,  at  the  end  of  the  Third  Root- Race,  are  not  human  Egos  of 
this  earth  or  plane,  but  become  such  only  from  the  moment  they  ensoul 
the  Animal  Man,  thus  endowing  him  with  his  Higher  Mind.  Each  is  a 
"Breath"  or  Principle,  called  the  Human  Soul,  or  Manas,  the  Mind. 
As  the  teachings  say : 

''Each  is  a  pillar  of  light.  Having  chosen  its  vehicle,  it  expanded,  sur- 
rounding with  an  Akashic  Aura  the  human  animal,  while  the  Divijie 
(Manasic)  Principle  settled  within  that  human  for7ny 

Ancient  Wisdom  teaches  us,  moreover,  that  from  this  first  incarna- 
tion, the  Eunar  Pitris,  who  had  made  men  out  of  their  Chhayas  or 
Shadows,  are  absorbed  by  this  Auric  Essence,  and  a  distinct  Astral  Form 
is  now  produced  for  each  forthcoming  personality  of  the  reincarnating 
series  of  each  Ego. 


•  Prana,  on  earth  at  any  rate,  is  thus  but  a  mode  of  life,  a  constant  cyclic  motion  from  within  out- 
wardly and  back  again,  an  out-breathing  and  in-breathing  of  the  One  Life,  or  Jiva,  the  synonym  of 
the  Absolute  and  Unknowable  Deity.  Prana  is  not  absolute  life,  or  Jiva,  but  its  aspect  in  a  world  of 
delusion.  In  the  Thcosophist,  May,  1888,  p.  478,  Prana  is  said  to  be  "  one  stage  finer  than  the  gross 
matter  of  the  earth." 


THE  AURIC  EGG.  495 

Thus  the  Anric  Egg,  reflecting  all  the  thoughts,  words  and  deeds  of 

man,  is  : 

(«)  The  preserver  of  every  Karmic  record. 

(^)  The  storehouse  of  all  the  good  and  evil  powers  of  man,  receiving 
and  giving  out  at  his  will— nay,  at  his  very  thought— every  potentiality, 
which  becomes,  then  and  there,  an  acting  potency :  this  Aura  is  the 
mirror  in  which  sensitives  and  clairvoyants  sense  and  perceive  the  real 
man,  and  see  him  as  he  is,  not  as  he  appears. 

(c)  As  it  furnishes  man  with  his  Astral  Form,  around  which  the 
physical  entity  models  itself,  first  as  a  foetus,  then  as  a  child  and  man, 
the  astral  growing  apace  with  the  human  being,  so  it  furnishes  him 
during  life,  if  an  Adept,  with  his  M^yavi  Rupa,  or  Illusion  Body,  which 
is  not  his  F//a/- Astral  Body  ;  and  after  death,  with  his  Devachanic 
Entity  and  Kama  Rupa,  or  Body  of  Desire  (the  Spook)  * 

In  the  case  of  the  Devachanic  Entity,  the  Ego,  in  order  to  be  able  to 
go  into  a  state  of  bliss,  as  the  "  I  "  of  its  immediately  preceding  incar- 
nation, has  to  be  clothed  (metaphorically  speaking)  with  the  spiritual 
elements  of  the  ideas,  aspirations  and  thoughts  of  the  now  disembodied 
personality  ;  otherwise  what  is  it  that  enjoys  bliss  and' reward  ?  Surely 
not  the  impersonal  Ego,  the  Divine  Individuality.  Therefore  it  must 
be  the  good  Karmic  records  of  the  deceased,  impressed  upon  the  Auric 
Substance,  which  furnish  the  Human  Soul  with  just  enough  of  the 
spiritual  elements  of  the  ex-personality,  to  enable  it  to  still  believe 
itself  that  body  from  which  it  has  just  been  severed,  and  to  receive  its 
fruition,  during  a  more  or  less  prolonged  period  of  "  spiritual  gesta- 
tion." For  Devachan  is  a  "  spiritual  gestation  "  within  an  ideal  matrix 
state,  a  birth  of  the  Ego  into  the  world  of  effects,  which  ideal,  subjective 
birth  precedes  its  next  terrestrial  birth,  the  latter  being  determined  by 
its  bad  Karma,  into  the  world  of  causes.f 

In  the  case  of  the  Spook,  the  Kama  Rupa  is  furnished  from  the 
animal  dregs  of  the  Auric  Envelope,  with  its  daily  Karmic  record  of 
animal  life,  so  full  of  animal  desires  and  selfish  aspirations.^ 

^t  is  erroneous  to  call  the  fourth  human  principle  •'  Kama  Kupa."  It  is  no  Rupa  or  form  at  all 
until  after  death,  but  stands  for  the  Kamic  elements  in  man,  his  animal  desires  and  passions,  such  as 
anger,  lust,  envy,  revenge,  etc.,  the  progeny  of  selfishness  and  matter. 

t'^H^-e  the  world  of  effects  is  the  Devachanic  state,  and  the  world  of  causes,  earth  life. 

t  It  is  this  Kama  Rupa  alone  that  can  maierialtze  in  mediumistic  seances,  which  occas'-Qnally 
happens  when  it  is  not  the  Astral  Double  or  Linga  Shartra,  of  the  medium  himself  which  appears. 
How  then  can  this  vile  bundle  of  passions  and  terrestrial  lusts,  resurrected  by,  and  gaining 
con.sriousness  only  through  the  organism  of  the  medium,  be  accepted  as  a  "departed  angel"  or 
the  Spirit  of  a  once  human  body  .>  As  well  say  of  the  microbic  pest  which  fastens  on  a  person,  that  ' 
'ili  a  sweet  departed  angel. 


496  THB  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Now  the  Ivinga  Sharira  remains  with  the  Physical  Body,  and  fades 
out  along  with  it.  An  astral  entity  then  has  to  be  created,  a  new  Linga 
Sharira  provided,  to  become  the  bearer  of  all  the  past  Tanhas  and 
future  Karma.  How  is  this  accomplished  ?  The  mediuraistic  Spook, 
the  "  departed  angel,"  fades  out  and  vanishes  also  in  its  turn*  as  an 
entit}'-  or  full  image  of  the  personality  that  was,  and  leaves  in  the  Kama- 
lokic  world  of  eflFects  only  the  record  of  its  misdeeds  and  sinful  thoughts 
and  acts,  known  in  the  phraseology  of  Occultists  as  Tanliic  or  human 
Elementals.  Entering  into  the  composition  of  the  Astral  Form  of  the 
new  body,  into  which  the  Ego,  upon  its  quitting  the  Devachanic  state, 
is  to  enter  according  to  Karmic  decree,  the  Elementals  form  that  new 
astral  entity  which  is  born  within  the  Auric  Envelope,  and  of  which  it 
is  often  said  : 

Bad  Karma  waits  at  the  threshold  of  Devachan,  with  its  army  of  Skandhas.t 

For  no  sooner  is  the  Devachanic  state  of  reward  ended,  than 
the  Ego  is  indissolubly  united  with  (or  rather  follows  in  the 
track  of)  the  new  Astral  Form.  Both  are  Karmically  propelled 
towards  the  family  or  woman  from  whom  is  to  be  born  the  animal  child 
chosen  by  Karma  to  become  the  vehicle  of  the  Ego  which  has  just 
awakened  from  the  Devachanic  state.  Then  the  new  Astral  Form, 
composed  partly  of  the  pure  Akashic  Essence  of  the  Auric  Egg,  and 
partly  of  the  terrestrial  elements  of  the  punishable  sins  and  misdeeds 
of  the  last  personality,  is  drawn  into  the  woman.  Once  there,  Nature 
models  the  foetus  of  flesh  around  the  Astral,  out  of  the  growing 
materials  of  the  male  seed  in  the  female  soil.  Thus  grows  out  of  the 
essence  of  a  decayed  seed  the  fruit  or  eidolon  of  the  dead  seed,  the 
physical  fruit  producing  in  its  turn  within  itself  another,  and  other 
seeds  for  future  plants. 

And  now  we  may  return  to  the  Tattvas,  and  see  what  'Ca.o.y  mean  in 
nature  and  man,  showing  thereby  the  great  danger  of  indulging  in 
fancy,  amateur  Yoga,  without  knowing  what  we  are  about. 


•  This  is  accomplished  in  more  or  less  time,  according  to  the  degree  in  which  the  personality 
(whose  dregs  it  now  is)  was  spiritual  or  material.  If  spirituality  prevailed,  then  the  Larva,  or  Spook, 
•will  fade  out  ver>'  soon  ;  but  if  the  personality  was  ver>'  materialistic,  the  KAma  Rupa  may  last  for 
centuries  and — in  some,  though  very  exceptional  cases — even  survive  with  the  help  of  some  of  its 
scattered  Skandhas,  which  are  all  transformed  in  time  into  Elementals.  See  the  Key  to  Theosophy, 
pp.  141  ft  seq.,  in  which  work  it  was  impossible  to  go  into  details,  but  where  the  Skandhas  are  spoken 
of  as  the  germs  of  Karmic  effect. 
"  +  Key  to  Theosophy,  p.  141 


five  or  seven  tattvas.  497 

The  Tattvic  Correi^ations  and  Meaning. 

In  Nature,  then,  we  find  seven  Forces,  or  seven  Centres  of  Force,  and 
everything  seems  to  respond  to  that  number,  as  for  instance,  the  sep- 
tenary scale  in  music,  or  Sounds,  and  the  septenary  spectrum  in 
Colours.  I  have  not  exhausted  its  nomenclature  and  proofs  in  the 
earlier  volumes,  yet  enough  is  given  to  show  every  thinker  that  the 
facts  adduced  are  no  coincidences,  but  very  weighty  testimony. 

There  are  several  reasons  why  only  five  Tattvas  are  given  in  the 
Hindu  systems.  One  of  these  I  have  already  mentioned ;  another 
is  that  owing  to  our  having  reached  only  the  Fifth  Race,  and 
being  (so  far  as  Science  is  able  to  ascertain)  endowed  with  only 
fives  enses,  the  two  remaining  senses  that  are  still  latent  in  man 
can  have  their  existence  proven  only  on  phenomenal  evidence  which 
to  the  Materialist  is  no  evidence  at  all.  The  five  physical  senses 
are  made  to  correspond  with  the  five  lower  Tattvas,  the  two  yet 
undeveloped  senses  in  man  ;  and  the  two  forces,  or  Tattvas,  forgotten 
by  Brahmans  and  still  unrecognized  by  Science,  being  so  subjective 
and  the  highest  of  them  so  sacred,  that  they  can  only  be  recognized  by, 
and  known  through,  the  highest  Occult  Sciences.  It  is  easy  to  see  that 
these  two  Tattvas  and  the  two  senses  (the  sixth  and  the  seventh) 
correspond  to  the  two  highest  human  principles,  Buddhi  and  the  Auric 
Envelope,  impregnated  with  the  light  of  Atma.  Unless  we  open  in 
ourselves,  by  Occult  training,  the  sixth  and  seventh  senses,  we  can 
never  comprehend  correctly  their  corresponding  types.  Thus  the 
statement  in  Natures  Finer  Forces  that,  in  the  Tattvic  scale,  the  highest 
Tattva  of  all  is  Akasha  *  (followed  by  [only]  four,  each  of  which  becomes 
grosser  than  its  predecessor),  if  made  from  the  Esoteric  standpoint,  is 
erroneous.  For  once  Akasha,  an  almost  homogeneous  and  certainly 
universal  Principle,  is  translated  Ether,  then  Akasha  is  dwarfed  and 
limited  to  our  visible  Universe,  for  assuredly  it  is  not  the  Ether  of 
Space.  Ether,  whatever  Modern  Science  makes  of  it,  is  differentiated 
Substance ;  Akasha,  having  no  attributes  save  one — Sound,  of  which  it 
is  the  substratum — is  no  substance  even  exoterically  and  in  the  minds 
of  some  Orientalists,!  but  rather  Chaos,  or  the  Great  Spatial  Void.:}: 

•  Following  Shiv&gama,  the  said  author  enumerates  the  correspondences  in  this  wise ;  Akisha, 
Bther,  is  followed  by  Vayu,  Gas  ;  Tejas,  Heat ;  Apas,  Liquid;  and  Prithivi,  Solid. 

t  See  Fitz-Edward  Hall's  notes  on  the   Vishnu  Purana. 

t  The  pair  which  we  refer  to  as  the  One  I,ife,  the  Root  of  All,  and  Akasha  in  its  pre-differentiating- 
period  answers  to  the  Brahma  (neuter)  and  Aditi  of  some  Hindus,  and  stands  in  the  same  relation  as 
the  Parabrahman  and  Mulaprakriti  of  the  Vedintins. 


4g8  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Esotericall}',  AkSsha  alone  is  Divine  Space,  and  becomes  Ether  only  on 
the  lowest  and  last  plane,  or  our  visible  Universe  and  Earth.  In  this 
case  the  blind  is  in  the  word  "  attribute,"  which  is  said  to  be  Sound. 
But  Sound  is  no  attribute  of  Akasha,  but  its  primary  correlation,  its 
primordial  manifestation,  the  EOGOS,  or  Divine  Ideation  made  Word^ 
and  that  "Word"  made  "Flesh."  Sound  may  be  considered  an 
"attribute"  of  Akasha  only  on  the  condition  of  anthropomorphizing 
the  latter.  It  is  not  a  characteristic  of  it,  though  it  is  certainly  as  innate 
in  it  as  the  idea  "  I  am  /"  is  innate  in  our  thoughts. 

Occultism  teaches  that  Akasha  contains  and  includes  the  seven 
Centres  of  Force,  therefore  the  six  Tattvas,  of  which  it  is  the  seventh, 
or  rather  their  synthesis.  But  if  Akasha  be  taken,  as  we  believe  it  is  in 
this  case,  to  represent  only  the  exoteric  idea,  then  the  author  is  right  ; 
because,  seeing  that  Akasha  is  universally  omnipresent,  following  the 
Pauranic  limitation, y^r  the  better  comprehension  of  our  finite  intellects, 
he  places  its  commencement  only  beyond  the  four  planes  of  our  Earth 
Chain,*  the  two  higher  Tattvas  being  as  concealed  to  the  average 
mortal  as  the  sixth  and  seventh  senses  are  to  the  materialistic  mind. 

Therefore,  while  Sanskrit  and  Hindu  Philosophy  generally  speak  of 
five  Tattvas  only,  Occultists  name  seven,  thus  making  them  corres- 
pond with  every  septenary  in  Nature.  The  Tattvas  stand  in  the  same 
order  as  the  seven  macro-  and  micro-cosmic  Forces :  and  as  taught  in 
Esotericism,  are  as  follows  : 

(i)  Adi  Tattva,  the  primordial  universal  Force,  issuing  at  the 
beginning  of  manifestation,  or  of  the  "creative"  period,  from  the 
eternal  immutable  Sat,  the  substratum  of  All.  It  corresponds  with 
the  Auric  Envelope  or  Brahma's  Egg,  which  surrounds  ever}^  globe,  as 
well  as  every  man,  animal  and  thing.  It  is  the  vehicle  containing 
potentially  everything — Spirit  and  Substance,  Force  and  Matter.  Adi 
Tattva,  in  Esoteric  Cosmogony,  is  the  Force  which  we  refer  to  as  pro- 
ceeding from  the  First  or  Un manifested  EoGOS. 

(2)  Anupadaka  TATTVA.t  the  first  differentiation  on  the  plane  of 
being — the  first  being  an  ideal  one — or  that  which  is  born  by  trans- 
formation from  something  higher  than  itself.  With  the  Occultists,  this 
Force  proceeds  from  the  Second  Logos. 

•  Set   above,  i.  diagram,  p.  221. 

t  Anupadaka,  Opapatika  in  Pali,  means  the  "parenUess,"  born  without  father  or  mother,  from 
itself,  as  a  transformation,  e.g.,  the  God  Brahmi  sprung  from  the  Ix«tus  (the  symbol  of  the  Universe) 
that  grows  from  Vishnu's  navel,  Vishnu  typifiying  eternal  and  limitless  Space,  and  Brahma  thft 
Universe  and  Logos  ;  the  mythical  Buddha  is  also  bom  from  a  Lotus. 


THE  TATTVAS.  499 

(3)  Akasha  Tattva,  this  is  the  point  from  which  all  exoteric  Philo- 
sophies and  Religions  start.  Akasha  Tattva  is  explained  in  them  as 
Etheric  Force,  Ether.  Hence  Jupiter,  the  "  highest "  God,  was  named 
after  Pater  ^ther ;  Indra,  once  the  highest  God  in  India,  is  the  etheric 
or  heavenly  expanse,  and  so  with  Uranus,  etc.  The  Christian  biblical 
God,  also,  is  spoken  of  as  the  Ploly  Ghost,  Pneuma,  rarefied  wind  or  air. 
This  the  Occultists  call  the  Force  of  the  Third  Logos,  the  Creative 
Force  in  the  already  Manifested  Universe. 

(4)  Vayu  Tattva,  the  aerial  plane  where  substance  is  gaseous. 

(5)  Taijas  Tattva,  the  plane  of  our  atmosphere,  from  tejas, 
luminous. 

(6)  Apas  Tattva,  waterv^  or  liquid  substance  or  force. 

(7)  Prithivi  Tattva,  solid  earthly  substance,  the  terrestrial  soirit  or 
force,  the  lowest  of  all. 

All  these  correspond  to  our  Principles,  and  to  the  seven  senses  and 
forces  in  man.  According  to  the  Tattva  or  Force  generated  or  induced 
in  us,  so  will  our  bodies  act. 

Now,  what  I  have  to  say  here  is  addressed  especially  to  those 
members  who  are  anxious  to  develop  powers  by  "  sitting  for  Yoga.'' 
You  have  seen,  from  what  has  been  already  said,  that  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Raja  Yoga,  no  extant  works  made  public  are  of  the  least  good ; 
they  can  at  best  give  inklings  of  Hatha  Yoga,  something  that  may 
develop  mediumship  at  best,  and  in  the  worst  case — consumption.  If 
those  who  practice  "meditation,"  and  try  to  learn  "the  Science  of 
Breath,"  will  read  attentively  Natures  Finer  Forces,  they  will  find  that 
it  is  by  utilizing  the  five  Tattvas  only  that  this  dangerous  science  is 
acquired.  For  in  the  exoteric  Yoga  Philosophy,  and  the  Hatha  Yoga 
practice,  Akasha  Tattva  is  placed  in  the  head  (or  physical  brain)  of 
man  ;  Tejas  Tattva  in  the  shoulders  ;  Vayu  Tattva  in  the  navel  (the 
seat  of  all  the  phallic  Gods,  "  creators  "  of  the  universe  and  man) ; 
Apas  Tattva  in  the  knees  ;  and  Prithivi  Tattva  in  the  feet.  Hence  the 
two  higher  Tattvas  and  their  correspondences  are  ignored  and 
excluded  ;  and,  as  these  are  the  chief  factors  in  Raja  Yoga,  no  spiritual 
or  intellectual  phenomena  of  a  high  nature  can  take  place.  The  best 
results  obtainable  will  be  physical  phenomena  and  no  more.  As  the 
"  Five  Breaths,"  or  rather  the  five  states  of  the  human  breath,  in  Hatha 
Yoga  correspond  to  the  above  terrestrial  planes  and  colours,  what 
spiritual  results  can  be  obtained  ?  On  the  contrary,  they  are  the  very 
reverse  of  the  plane  of  Spirit,  or  the  higher  macrocosmic  plane,  reflected 


500  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

as  they  are  upside  down,  in  the  Astral  Light.  This  is  proven  in  the 
Tantra  work,  Shivagama,  itself.     Let  us  compare. 

First  of  all,  remember  that  the  Septenary  of  visible  and  also  invisible 
Nature  is  said  in  Occultism  to  consist  of  the  three  (and  four)  Fires, 
which  grow  into  the  forty-nine  Fires.  This  shows  that  as  the  Macro- 
cosm is  divided  into  seven  great  planes  of  various  differentiations  of 
Substance — from  the  spiritual  or  subjective,  to  the  fully  objective  or 
material,  from  Akasha  down  to  the  sin-laden  atmosphere  of  our  earth — 
so,  in  its  turn,  each  of  these  great  planes  has  three  aspects,  based  on  four 
Principles,  as  already  shown  above.  This  seems  to  be  quite  natural,  as 
even  modern  Science  has  her  three  states  of  matter  and  what  are  gener- 
ally called  the  "  critical  "  or  intermediate  states  between  the  solid,  the 
fluidic,  and  the  gaseous. 

Now,  the  Astral  Light  is  not  a  universally  diffused  stuff,  but  pertains 
only  to  our  earth  and  all  other  bodies  of  the  system  on  the  same  plane 
of  matter  with  it.  Our  Astral  Light  is,  so  to  speak,  the  Linga  Sharira 
of  our  earth  ;  onl}'  instead  of  being  its  primordial  prototj'-pe,  as  in  the 
case  of  our  Chhaya,  or  Double,  it  is  the  reverse.  Human  and  animal 
bodies  grow  and  develop  on  the  model  of  their  antetj-pal  Doubles ; 
whereas  the  Astral  Light  is  born  from  the  terrene  emanations,  grows 
and  develops  after  its  prototypal  parent,  and  in  its  treacherous  waves 
everything  from  the  upper  planes  and  from  the  lower  solid  plane,  the 
earth,  both  ways,  is  reflected  reversed.  Hence  the  confusion  of  its 
colours  and  sounds  in  the  clairvoyance  and  clairaudience  of  the  sensi- 
tive who  trusts  to  its  records,  be  that  sensitive  a  Hatha  Yogi  or  a 
medium.  The  following  parallel  between  the  Esoteric  and  the  Tantra 
Tables  of  the  Tattvas  in  relation  to  Sounds  and  Colours  shows  this  very 
clearly  : 


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502  THE   SECRET   UOCTRINE. 

Such,  then,  is  the  Occult  Science  on  which  the  modern  Ascetics  and 
Yogis  of  India  base  their  Soul  development  and  powers.  They  are 
known  as  the  Hatha  Yogis.  Now,  the  science  of  Hatha  Yoga  rests 
upon  the  "  suppression  of  breath,"  or  Prauayama,  to  which  exercise 
our  Masters  are  unanimously  opposed.  For  what  is  Pranayama? 
I,iterally  translated,  it  means  the  "  death  of  (vital)  breath."  Prana,  as 
said,  is  not  Jiva,  the  eternal  fount  of  life  immortal ;  nor  is  it  connected 
in  any  waj^  with  Pranava,  as  some  think,  for  Pranava  is  a  synonym  of 
AuM  in  a  mystic  sense.  As  much  as  has  ever  been  taught  publicly  and 
clearly  about  it  is  to  be  found  in  Nature's  Filter  Forces.  If  such  direc- 
tions, however,  are  followed,  they  can  only  lead  to  Black  Magic  and 
medium.ship.  Several  impatient  Chelas,  whom  we  knew  personally  in 
India,  went  in  for  the  practice  of  Hatha  Yoga,  notwithstanding  our 
warnings.  Of  these,  two  developed  consumption,  of  which  one  died; 
others  became  almost  idiotic ;  another  committed  suicide ;  and  one 
developed  into  a  regular  Tantrika,  a  Black  Magician,  but  his  career, 
fortunately  for  himself,  was  cut  short  by  death. 

The  science  of  the  Five  Breaths,  the  moist,  the  fierj'-,  the  airy,  etc., 
has  a  twofold  significance  and  two  applications.  The  Tantrikas  take  it 
literally,  as  relating  to  the  regulation  of  the  vital,  lung  breath,  whereas 
the  ancient  Raja  Yogis  understood  it  as  referring  to  the  mental  or 
"will"  breath,  which  alone  leads  to  the  highest  clairvoyant  powers,  to 
the  function  of  the  Third  Eye,  and  the  acquisition  of  the  true  Raja 
Yoga  Occult  powers.  The  difference  between  the  two  is  enormous. 
The  former,  as  shown,  use  the  five  lower  Tattvas ;  the  latter  begin  by 
using  the  three  higher  alone,  for  mental  and  will  development,  and  the 
rest  only  when  they  have  completely  mastered  the  three ;  hence,  they 
use  only  one  (Akasha  Tattva)  out  of  the  Tantric  five.  As  well  said  in 
the  above  stated  work,  "  Tattvas  are  the  modifications  of  Svara." 
Now,  the  Svara  is  the  root  of  all  sound,  the  substratum  of  the  Pytha- 
gorean music  of  the  spheres,  Svara  being  that  which  is  beyond  Spirit, 
in  the  modern  acceptation  of  the  word,  the  Spirit  within  Spirit,  or  as 
very  properly  translated,  the  "  current  of  the  life-wave,"  the  emana- 
tion of  the  One  Life.  The  Great  Breath  spoken  of  in  our  first 
volume  is  Atma,  the  etymology  of  which  is  ''eternal  motion^ 
Now  while  the  ascetic  Chel^  of  our  school,  for  his  mental  develop- 
ment, follows  carefully  the  process  of  the  evolution  of  the  Uni- 
verse, that  is,  proceeds  from  universals  to  particulars,  the  Hatha 
Yogi  reverses  the  conditions  and  begins  by  sitting  for  the  suppression 


HATHA   AND   RAJA   YOGA.  505 

of  his  (vital)  breath.  And'  if,  as  Hindu  philosophy  teaches,  at  the 
beginning  of  kosmic  evolution,  "  Svara  threw  itself  into  the  form  of 
Akasha,"  and  thence  successively  into  the  forms  of  Vayu  (air),  Agni 
(fire),  Apas  (water),  and  Prithivi  (solid  matter),*  then  it  stands  to 
reason  that  we  have  to  begin  by  the  higher  s7ipersensuozcs  Tattvas.  The 
Raja  Yogi  does  not  descend  on  the  planes  of  substance  beyond 
Siikshma  (subtle  matter),  while  the  Hatha  Yogi  develops  and  uses  his 
powers  only  on  the  material  plane.  Some  Tantrikas  locate  the  three 
Nadis,  Sushumna,  Ida  and  Pingala,  in  the  medulla  oblongata,  the  central 
line  of  which  they  call  Sushumna,  and  the  right  and  left  divisions, 
Pingala  and  Ida,  and  also  in  the  heart,  to  the  divisions  of  which  they 
apply  the  same  names.  The  Trans-Himalayan  school  of  the  ancient 
Indian  Raja  Yogis,  with  which  the  modern  Yogis  of  India  have  little 
to  do,  locates  Sushumna,  the  chief  seat  of  these  three  Nadis,  in  the 
central  tube  of  the  spinal  cord,  and  Ida  and  Pingala  on  its  left  and 
right  sides.  Sushumna  is  the  Brahmadanda.  It  is  that  canal  (of  the 
spinal  cord),  of  the  use  of  which  Physiology  knows  no  more  than  it 
does  of  the  spleen  and  the  pineal  gland,  li  and  Pingala  are  simply 
the  sharps  and  flats  of  that  Fa  of  human  nature,  the  keynote  and  the 
middle  key  in  the  scale  of  the  septenary  harmony  of  the  Principles, 
which,  when  struck  in  a  proper  way,  awakens  the  sentries  on  either 
side,  the  spiritual  Manas  and  the  ph3-sical  Kama,  and  subdues  the 
lower  through  the  higher.  But  this  effect  has  to  be  produced  by  the 
exercise  of  will-power,  not  through  the  scientififc  or  trained  suppression 
of  the  breath.  Take  a  transverse  section  of  the  spinal  region,  and  you 
will  find  sections  across  three  columns,  one  of  which  columns  trans- 
mits the  volitional  orders,  and  a  second  a  life  current  of  Jiva — not  of 
Prana,  which  animates  the  body  of  man — during  what  is  called 
Samadhi  and  like  states. 

He  who  has  studied  both  systems,  the  Hatha  and  the  Raja  Yoga, 
finds  an  enormous  difference  between  the  two :  one  is  purely  psycho- 
physiological, the  other  purely  psycho-spiritual.  The  Tantrists  do  not 
seem  to  go  higher  than  the  six  visible  and  known  plexuses,  with  each 
of  which  they  connect  the  Tattvas ;  and  the  great  stress  they  lay  on 
the  chief  of  these,  the  Muladhara  Chakra  (the  sacral  plexus),  shows 
the  material  and  selfish  bent  of  their  efforts  towards  the  acquisition  of 
powers.     Their  five  Breaths  and  five  Tattvas  are  chiefly  concerned 

*  See  Tkeosophist,  February,  1888,  p.  276. 


504  THK   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

with  the  prostatic,  epigastric,  cardiac,  and  laryngeal  plexuses.  Almost 
ignoring  the  Ajna,  they  are  positively  ignorant  of  the  synthesizing 
laryngeal  plexus.  But  with  the  followers  of  the  old  school  it  is 
different.  We  begin  with  the  mastery  of  that  organ  which  is  situated 
at  the  base  of  the  brain,  in  the  pharynx,  and  called  by  Western  Anato- 
mists the  Pituitary  Body.  In  the  series  of  the  objective  cranial  organs, 
corresponding  to  the  subjective  Tattvic  principles,  it  stands  to  the 
Third  Eye  (Pineal  Gland)  as  Manas  stands  to  Buddhi ;  the  arousing 
and  awakening  of  the  Third  Eye  must  be  performed  by  that  vascular 
organ,  that  insignificant  little  body,  of  which,  once  again.  Physiology 
knows  nothing  at  all.  The  one  is  the  Energizer  of  Will,  the  other  that 
of  Clairvo3'ant  Perception. 

Those  who  are  Physicians,  Physiologists,  Anatomists,  etc.,  will 
understand  me  better  than  the  rest  in  the  following  explanation. 

Now,  as  to  the  functions  of  the  Pineal  Gland,  or  Conarium,  and  of 
the  Pituitary  Body,  we  find  no  explanations  vouchsafed  by  the  standard 
authorities.  Indeed,  on  looking  through  the  works  of  the  greatest 
specialists,  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  much  confused  ignorance  on 
the  human  vital  economy,  physiological  as  well  as  psychological,  is 
openly  confessed.  The  following  is  all  that  can  be  gleaned  from  the 
authorities  upon  these  two  important  organs. 

(i)  The  Pineal  Gland,  or  Conarium,  is  a  rounded,  oblong  bod}'',  from 
three  to  four  lines  long,  of  a  deep  reddish  grey,  connected  with  the  pos- 
terior part  of  the  third  ventricle  of  the  brain.  It  is  attached  at  its  base  by 
two  thin  medullary  cords,  which  diverge  forward  to  the  Optic  Thalami. 
Remember  that  the  latter  are  found  by  the  best  Physiologists  to  be  the 
organs  of  reception  and  condensation  of  the  most  sensitive  and  sen- 
sorial incitations  from  the  periphery  of  the  body  (according  to  Occult- 
ism, from  the  periphery  of  the  Auric  Egg,  which  is  our  point  of 
communication  with  the  higher,  universal  planes).  We  are  further 
told  that  the  two  bands  of  the  Optic  Thalami,  which  are  inflected  to 
meet  each  other,  unite  on  the  median  line,  where  they  become  the  two 
peduncles  of  the  Pineal  Gland. 

(-j)  The  Pituitary  Body,  or  Hypophysis  Cerebri,  is  a  small  and  hard 
organ,  about  six  lines  broad,  three  long  and  three  high.  It  is  formed 
of  an  anterior  bean-shaped,  and  of  a  posterior  and  more  rounded  lobe, 
which  are  uniformly  united.  Its  component  parts,  we  are  told,  are 
almost  identical  with  those  of  the  Pineal  Gland  ;  yet  not  the  slightest 
connection  can  be  traced  between  the  two  centces.     To  this,  however, 


THE  AWAKENING    OF  THE   SEVENTH   SENSE.  505 

Occultists  take  exception  ;  they  know  that  there  is  a  connection,  and 
this  even  anatomically  and  physical^.  Dissectors,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  to  deal  with  corpses ;  and,  as  they  themselves  admit,  brain- 
matter,  of  all  tissues  and  organs,  collapses  and  changes  form  the 
soonest — in  fact,  a  few  minutes  after  death.  When,  then,  the  pulsating 
life  which  expanded  the  mass  of  the  brain,  filled  all  its  cavities  and 
energized  all  its  organs,  vanishes,  the  cerebral  mass  shrinks  into  a  sort 
of  pasty  condition,  and  once  open  passages  become  closed.  But  the 
contraction  and  even  interblending  of  parts  in  this  process  of  shrink- 
ing, and  the  subsequent  pasty  state  of  the  brain,  do  not  imply  that 
there  is  no  connection  between  these  two  organs  before  death.  In 
point  of  fact,  as  Professor  Owen  has  shown,  a  connection  as  objective 
as  a  groove  and  tube  exists  in  the  crania  of  the  human  foetus  and  of 
certain  fishes.  When  a  man  is  in  his  normal  condition,  an  Adept  can 
see  the  golden  Aura  pulsating  in  both  the  centres,  like  the  pulsation  of 
the  heart,  which  never  ceases  throughout  life.  This  motion,  however, 
under  the  abnormal  condition  of  effort  to  develop  clairvoyant  faculties, 
becomes  intensified,  and  the  Aura  takes  on  a  stronger  vibratory  or 
swinging  action.  The  arc  of  the  pulsation  of  the  Pituitary  Body 
mounts  upward,  more  and  more,  until,  just  as  when  the  electric  current 
strikes  some  solid  object,  the  current  finally  strikes  the  Pineal  Gland, 
and  the  dormant  organ  is  awakened  and  set  all  glowing  with  the  jDure 

A, 

Akashic  Fire.  This  is  the  psycho-physiological  illustration  of  two 
organs  on  the  physical  plane,  which  are,  respectively,  the  concrete 
symbols  of  the  metaphysical  concepts  called  Manas  and  Buddhi.  The 
latter,  in  order  to  become  conscious  on  this  plane,  needs  the  more 
differentiated  fire  of  Manas  ;  but  once  the  sixth  sense  has  awakened  the 
seventh,  the  light  which  radiates  from  this  seventh  sense  illumines  the 
fields  of  infinitude.  For  a  brief  space  of  time  man  becomes  omnis- 
cient ;  the  Past  and  the  Future,  Space  and  Time,  disappear  and  become 
for  him  the  Present.  If  an  Adept,  he  will  store  the  knowledge  he 
thus  gains  in  his  physical  memory,  and  nothing,  save  the  crime  of 
indulging  in  Black  Magic,  can  obliterate  the  remembrance  of  it.  If 
only  a  Chela,  portions  alone  of  the  whole  truth  will  impress  them- 
selves on  his  memory,  and  he  will  have  to  repeat  the  process  for  years, 
never  allowing  one  speck  of  impurity  to  stain  him  mentally  or  physi- 
cally, before  he  becomes  a  fully  initiated  Adept. 

It  may  seem  strange,  almost  incomprehensible,  that  the  chief  success 
of  Gupta  Vidya,  or  Occult  Knowledge,  should  depend  upon  such  flashes 


5o6  THB   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

of  clairvoyance,  and  that  the  latter  should  depend  in  man  on  two  such 
insignificant  excrescences  in  his  cranial  cavity,  "two  horny  zvarts 
covered  with  gre)^  sand  (acervulus  cerebri),"  as  expressed  by  Bichat  in 
h\?,  A7iatoinie  Descriptive ;  yet  so  it  is.  But  this  sand  is  not  to  be  des- 
pised ;  nay,  in  truth,  it  is  only  this  landmark  of  the  internal,  indepen- 
dent activit}^  of  the  Conarium  that  prevents  Physiologists  from  classify- 
ing it  with  the  absolutely  useless  atrophied  organs,  the  relics  of  a 
previous  and  now  utterly  changed  anatomy  of  man  during  some  period 
of  his  unknown  evolution.  This  "sand"  is  ver>' mysterious,  and  baffles 
the  inquiry  of  every  Materialist.  In  the  cavity  on  the  anterior  surface 
of  this  gland,  in  young  persons,  and  in  its  substance,  in  people  of 
advanced  years,  is  found 

A  yellowish  substance,  semi-transparent,  brilliant  and  hard,  the  diameter  of  which 
does  not  exceed  half  a  line.* 

Such  is  the  acervulus  cerebri. 

This  brilliant  "sand"  is  the  concretion  of  the  gland  itself,  so  say  the 
Physiologists.  Perhaps  not,  we  answer.  The  Pineal  Gland  is  that 
which  the  Eastern  Occultist  calls  Devaksha,  the  "  Divine  Eye."  To 
this  day,  it  is  the  chief  organ  of  spirituality  in  the  human  brain,  the 
seat  of  genius,  the  magical  Sesame  uttered  by  the  purified  will  of  the 
Mystic,  which  opens  all  the  avenues  of  truth  for  him  who  knows  how 
to  use  it.  The  Esoteric  Science  teaches  that  Manas,  the  Mind  Ego, 
does  not  accomplish  its  full  union  with  the  child  before  he  is  six  or 
seven  j^ears  of  age,  before  which  period,  even  according  to  the  canon 
of  the  Church  and  Eaw,  no  child  is  deemed  responsible.!  Manas  be- 
comes a  prisoner,  one  with  the  bod)^  only  at  that  age.  Now  a  strange 
thing  was  observed  in  several  thousand  cases  by  the  famous  German 
anatomist,  Wengel.  With  a  few  extremely  rare  exceptions,  this  "  sand," 
or  golden-coloured  concretion,  is  found  only  in  subjects  after  the 
completion  of  their  seventh  year.  I  the  case  of  fools  these  calculi 
are  very  few ;  in  congenital  idiots  they  are  completely  absent.  Mor- 
gagni,:]:  Grading,^  and  Gum||  were  wise  men  in  their  generation,  and 
are  wise   men    to-day,  since    they  are   the   only  Physiologists,  so   far, 


*  Soemmerring,  Dt  Acervulo  Cerebri,  vol.  ii.  p.  322. 

+  In  the  Greek  Eastern  Church  no  child  is  allowed  to  go  to  confession  before  the  age  of  seven,  after 
which  he  is  considered  to  have  reached  the  age  of  reason. 
t  De  Cans.  Ep.,  vol  xii. 
}  Advers.  Med.,  ii.  322. 
ll  De  Lapillis  Glandules  Pinealis  in  Quinque  Menl  Alien,  1753. 


THE   MASTER  CHAKRAS.  507 

who  connect  the  calculi  with  mind.  For,  sum  up  the  facts,  that 
they  are  absent  in  young  children,  in  very  old  people,  and  in  idiots, 
and  the  unavoidable  conclusion  will  be  that  the}^  must  be  connected 
with  mind. 

Now  since  every  mineral,  vegetable  and  other  atom  is  only  a  con- 
cretion of  crj'stallized  Spirit,  or  Akasha,  the  Universal  Soul,  why, 
asks  Occultism,  should  the  fact  that  these  concretions  of  the  Pineal 
Gland,  are,  upon  analysis,  found  to  be  composed  of  animal  matter, 
phosphate  of  lime  and  carbonate,  serve  as  an  objection  to  the  state- 
ment that  they  are  the  result  of  the  work  of  mental  electricity  upon 
surrounding  matter? 

Our  seven  Chakras  are  all  situated  in  the  head,  and  it  is  these 
Master  Chakras  which  govern  and  rule  the  seven  (for  there  are  seven) 
principal  plexuses  in  the  body,  besides  the  forty-two  minor  ones  to 
which  Physiology  refuses  that  name.  The  fact  that  no  microscope  can 
detect  such  centres  on  the  objective  plane  goes  for  nothing  ;  no  micro- 
scope has  ever  yet  detected,  nor  ever  will,  the  diflFerence  between  the 
motor  and  sensory  nerve-tubes,  the  conductors  of  all  our  bodily  and 
psychic  sensations  ;  and  5'et  logic  alone  would  show  that  such  difference 
exists.  And  if  the  term  plexus,  in  this  application,  does  not  represent 
to  the  Western  mind  the  idea  conveyed  by  the  term  of  the  Anatomist, 
then  call  them  Chakras  or  Padmas,  or  the  Wheels,  the  Lotus  Heart  and 
Petals.  Remember  that  Physiolog}^  imperfect  as  it  is,  shows  septenary 
groups  all  over  the  exterior  and  interior  of  the  body ;  the  seven  head 
orifices,  the  seven  "  organs  "  at  the  base  of  the  brain,  the  seven  plexuses, 
the  pharyngeal,  laryngeal,  cavernous,  cardiac,  epigastric,  prostatic,  and 
sacral,  etc. 

When  the  time  comes,  advanced  students  will  be  given  the  minute 
details  about  the  Master  Chakras  and  taught  the  use  of  them  !  till 
then,  less  difficult  subjects  have  to  be  learned.  If  asked  whether 
the  seven  plexuses,  or  Tattvic  centres  of  action,  are  the  centres  where 
the  seven  Rays  of  the  Logos  vibrate,  I  answer  in  the  affirmative, 
simply  remarking  that  the  rays  of  the  Logos  vibrate  in  every  atom,  for 
the  matter  of  that. 

In  these  volumes  it  is  almost  revealed  that  the  "  Sons  of  Fohat " 
are  the  personified  Forces  known  in  a  general  way  as  Motion,  Sound, 
Heat,  Light,  Cohesion,  Electricity  or  Electric  Fluid,  and  Nerve-Force 
or  Magnetism.  This  truth,  however,  cannot  teach  the  student  to  attune 
and  moderate  the  Kundalini  of  the  cosmic  plane  with  the  vital  Kunda- 


508  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

lini,  the  Electric  Fluid  with  the  Nerve-Force,  and  unless  he  does  so,  he 
is  sure  to  kill  himself ;  for  the  one  travels  at  the  rate  of  about  90  feet, 
and  the  other  at  the  rate  of  115,000  leagues  a  second.  The  seven 
Shaktis  respectively  called  Para  Shakti,  Jnana  Shakti,  etc.,  are  synony- 
mous with  the  "  Sons  of  Fohat,"  for  they  are  their  female  aspects.  At 
the  present  stage,  however,  as  their  names  would  only  be  confusing  to 
the  Western  student,  it  is  better  to  remember  the  English  equivalents 
as  translated  above.  As  each  Force  is  septenary,  their  sum  is,  of 
course,  forty-nine. 

The  question  now  mooted  in  Science,  whether  a  sound  is  capable  of 
calling  forth  impressions  of  light  and  colour  in  addition  to  its  natural 
sound  impressions,  has  been  answered  by  Occult  Science  ages  ago. 
Every  impulse  oc  vibration  of  a  physical  object  producing  a  certain 
vibration  of  the  air,  that  is,  causing  the  collision  of  physical  particles, 
the  sound  of  which  is  capable  of  affecting  the  ear,  produces  at  the  same 
time  a  corresponding  flash  of  light,  which  will  assume  some  particular 
colour.  For,  in  the  realm  of  hidden  Forces,  an  audible  sound  is  but  a 
subjective  colour  ;  and  a  perceptible  colour,  but  an  inatidible  sound ; 
both  proceed  from  the  same  potential  substance,  which  Phj'-sicists  used 
to  call  ether,  and  now  refer  to  under  various  other  names  ;  but  which 
we  call  plastic,  through  invisible  Space.  This  may  appear  a  paradoxi- 
cal hypothesis,  but  facts  are  there  to  prove  it.  Complete  deafness,  for 
instance,  does  not  preclude  the  possibility  of  discerning  sounds ; 
medical  science  has  several  cases  on  record  which  prove  that  these 
sounds  are  received  by,  and  conveyed  to,  the  patient's  organ  of  sight, 
through  the  mind,  under  the  form  of  chromatic  impressions.  The  very 
fact  that  the  intermediate  tones  of  the  chromatic  musical  scale  were 
formerly  written  in  colours  shows  an  unconscious  reminiscence  of  the 
ancient  Occult  teaching  that  colour  and  sound  are  two  out  of  the  seven 
correlative  aspects,  on  our  plane,  of  one  and  the  same  thing,  viz.. 
Nature's  first  differentiated  Substance. 

Here  is  an  example  of  the  relation  of  colour  to  vibration  well  worthy 
of  the  attention  of  Occultists.  Not  only  Adepts  and  advanced  Chelas, 
but  also  the  lower  order  of  Psychics,  such  as  clairvoyants  and  psycho- 
metrists,  can  perceive  a  psychic  Aura  of  various  colours  around  every 
individual,  corresponding  to  the  temperament  of  the  person  within  it. 
In  other  words,  the  mysterious  records  within  the  Auric  Egg  are  not 
the  heirloom  of  trained  Adepts  alone,  but  sometimes  also  of  natural 
Psychics.     Ever}'  human  passion,  every  thought  and  qualit)--,  is  indi- 


THE   HUMAN   HARP. 


509 


cated  in  this  Aura  by  corresponding  colours  and  shades  of  colour,  and 
certain  of  these  are  sensed  and  felt  rather  than  perceived.  The  best  of 
such  Psychics,  as  shown  by  Galton,  can  also  perceive  colours  produced 
by  the  vibrations  of  musical  instruments,  every  note  suggesting  a 
different  colour.  As  a  string  vibrates  and  gives  forth  an  audible 
note,  so  the  nerves  of  the  human  bod)--  vibrate  and  thrill  in  correspon- 
dence with  various  emotions  under  the  general  impulse  of  the  circulat- 
ing vitality  of  Prana,  thus  producing  undulations  in  the  psychic  Aura 
of  the  person  which  result  in  chromatic  effects. 

The  human  nervous  system  as  a  whole,  then,  may  be  regarded  as  an 
-^olian  Harp,  responding  to  the  impact  of  the  vital  force,  which  is  no 
abstraction,  but  a  dynamic  reality,  and  manifests  the  subtlest  shades  of 
the  individual  character  in  colour  phenomena.  If  these  nerve  vibra- 
tions are  made  intense  enough  and  brought  into  vibratory  relation  with 
an  astral  element,  the  result  is — sound.  How,  then,  can  anyone  doubt 
the  relation  between  the  microcosmic  and  macrocosmic  forces  ? 

And  now  that  I  have  shown  that  the  Tantric  works  as  explained  by 
Rama  Prasad,  and  other  Yoga  treatises  of  the  same  character  which  have 
appeared  from  time  to  time  in  Theosophical  journals— for  note  well 
that  those  of  true  Raja  Yoga  are  never  published — tend  to  Black  Magic 
and  are  most  dangerous  to  take  for  guides  in  self-training,  I  hope  that 
students  will  be  on  their  guard. 

For,  considering  that  no  two  authorities  up  to  the  present  day  agree 
as  to  the  real  location  of  the  Chakras  and  Padmas  in  the  body,  and, 
seein"!^  that  the  colours  of  the  Tattvas  as  given  are  reversed,  e.g.: 

A 

{a)  Akasha  is  made  black  or  colourless,  whereas  corresponding  to 
Manas,  it  is  indigo  ; 

(J))  VSyu  is  made  blue,  whereas,  corresponding  to  the  Lower  Manas, 
it  is  green ; 

{c)  Apas  is  made  white,  whereas,  corresponding  to  the  Astral  Body, 
it  is  violet,  with  a  silver,  moonlike  white  substratum  ; 

Tejas,  red,  is  the  only  colour  given  correctly — from  such  con- 
siderations, I  say,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  these  disagreements  are 
dangerous  blinds. 

Further,  the  practice  of  the  Five  Breaths  results  in  deadly  injury, 
both  physiologically  and  psychically,  as  already  shown.  It  is  indeed 
that  which  it  is  called,  Pranayama,  or  the  death  of  the  breath,  for  it 
results,  for  the  practiser,  in  death — in  moral  death  always,  and  in 
physical  death  very  frequently. 


5io  the  secret  doctrine. 

On  Exoteric  "Bunds"  and  "the  Death  of  the  Soul." 

As  a  corollary  to  this,  and  before  going  into  still  more  abstruse 
teachings,  I  must  redeem  the  promise  already  given.  I  have  to  illus- 
trate by  tenets  you  already  know,  the  awful  doctrine  of  personal  annihi- 
lation. Banish  from  your  minds  all  that  you  have  hitherto  read  in 
such  works  as  Esoteric  Buddhism,  and  thought  you  understood,  of 
such  hj'potheses  as  the  eighth  sphere  and  the  moon,  and  that  man 
shares  a  common  ancestor  with  the  ape.  Even  the  details  occasionally 
given  out  by  myself  in  the  Theosophist  and  Lucifer  were  nothing  like 
the  whole  truth,  but  only  broad  general  ideas,  hardly  touched  upon  in 
their  details.  Certain  passages,  however,  give  out  hints,  especially  my 
foot-notes  on  articles  translated  from  Eliphas  Levi's  Letters  on  Magic.'^-' 

Nevertheless,  personal  immortality  is  conditional,  for  there  are  such 
things  as  "  soulless  men,"  a  teaching  barely  mentioned,  although  it  is 
spoken  of  even  in  Isis  Unveiled ;\  and  there  is  an  Avitchi,  rightly  called 
Hell,  though  it  has  no  connection  with,  or  similitude  to,  the  good 
Christian's  Hell,  either  geographically  or  ps^'^chically.  The  truth  known 
to  Occultists  and  Adepts  in  every  age  could  not  be  given  out  to  a 
promiscuous  public ;  hence,  though  almost  every  mysterj'  of  Occult 
Philosophy  lies  half  concealed  in  Isis  and  the  two  earlier  volumes  of 
the  present  work,  I  had  no  right  to  amplify  or  correct  the  details  of 
others.  Readers  may  now  compare  those  four  volumes  and  such  books 
as  Esoteric  Bziddhism  with  the  diagrams  and  explanations  in  these 
Papers,  and  see  for  themselves. 

Paramatma,  the  Spiritual  Sun,  may  be  thought  of  as  outside  the 
human  Auric  Egg,  as  it  is  also  outside  the  Macrocosmic  or  BrahmS's 
Egg.  Why  ?  Because,  though  every  particle  and  atom  are,  so  to  speak, 
cemented  with  and  soaked  through  by  this  Paramatmic  essence,  yet  it  is 
wrong  to  call  it  a  "  human  "  or  even  a  "  universal"  Principle,  for  the 
term  is  very  likely  to  give  rise  to  naught  but  an  erroneous  idea  of  the 
philosophical  and  purely  metaphysical  concept ;  it  is  not  a  Principle, 
but  the  cause  of  every  Principle,  the  latter  term  being  applied  by  Occul- 
tists only  to  its  shadow — the  Universal  Spirit  that  ensouls  the  boundless 
Kosmos  whether  within  or  beyond  Space  and  Time. 

Buddhi  serves  as  a  vehicle  for  that  Paramatmic  shadow.    This  Buddhi 


*  See  "  Stray  Thoughts  on  Death  and  Satan  "  in  the  Theosophist,  vol.  iii.  No.  i  ;  also  "  Fragrmeuts  of 
Occult  Truth,"  vols.  iii.  and  iv. 
+  Op.  cit.  ii.  368,  el  seq. 


THB   DUALITY   OF   MANAS.  51I 

is  universal,  and  so  also  is  the  human  Atma.  Within  the  Auric  Ksre" 
is  the  macracosmic  pentacle  of  L,ife,  Prana,  containing  within  itself  the 
pentagram  which  represents  man.  The  universal  pentacle  must  be 
pictured  with  its  point  soaring  upwards,  the  sign  of  White  Magic — in 
the  human  pentacle  it  is  the  lower  limbs  which  are  upward,  forming 
the  "Horns  of  Satan,"  as  the  Christian  Kabbalists  call  them.  This  is 
the  symbol  of  Matter,  that  of  the  personal  man,  and  the  recognized 
pentacle  of  the  Black  Magician.  For  this  reversed  pentacle  does  not 
stand  only  for  Kama,  the  fourth  Principle  exoterically,  but  it  also 
represents  physical  man,  the  animal  of  flesh  with  its  desires  and 
passions. 

Now,  mark  well,  in  order  to  understand  that  which  follows,  that 
Manas  may  be  pictured  as  an  upper  triangle  connected  with  the  lower 
Manas  by  a  thin  line  which  binds  the  two  together.  This  is  the  Antah- 
karana,  that  path  or  bridge  of  communication  which  serves  as  a  link 
between  the  personal  being  whose  physical  brain  is  under  the  swa}^  of 
the  lower  animal  mind,  and  the  reincarnating  Individuality,  the 
spirinial  Ego,  Manas,  Manu,  the  "  Divine  Man."  This  thinking  Manu 
alone  is  that  which  reincarnates.  In  truth  and  in  nature,  the  two 
Minds,  the  spiritual  and  the  physical  or  animal,  are  one,  but  separate 
into  two  at  reincarnation.  For  while  that  portion  of  the  Divine  which 
goes  to  animate  the  personality,  consciously  separating  itself,  like  a 
dense  but  pure  shadow,  from  the  Divine  Ego,*  wedges  itself  into  the 
brain  and  senses  f  of  the  foetus,  at  the  completion  of  its  seventh  month, 
the  Higher  Manas  does  not  unite  itself  with  the  child  before  the  com- 
pletion of  the  first  seven  years  of  its  life.  This  detached  essence,  or 
rather  the  reflection  or  shadow  of  the  Higher  Manas,  becomes,  as  the 

*  The  essence  of  the  Divine  Ego  is  "  pure  flame,"  an  entity  to  which  nothing  can  be  added  and 
from  which  nothing  can  be  taken  ;  it  cannot,  therefore,  be  diminished  even  by  countless  numbers  of 
lower  minds,  detached  from  it  like  flames  from  a  flame.  This  is  in  answer  to  an  objection  by  an 
Hsotericist  who  asked  whence  was  that  inexhaustible  essence  of  one  and  the  same  Individuality 
which  was  called  upon  to  furnish  a  human  intellect  for  every  new  personality  in  which  it  is 
incarnated. 

+  The  brain,  or  thinking  machinery,  is  not  only  in  the  head,  but,  as  every  physiologist  who  is  not 
quite  a  materialist  will  tell  you,  every  organ  in  man,  heart,  liver,  lungs,  etc.,  down  to  every  nerve 
and  muscle,  has,  so  to  speak,  its  own  distinct  brain  or  thinking  apparatus.  As  our  brain  has  naught 
to  do  in  the  guidance  of  the  collective  and  individual  work  of  every  organ  in  us,  what  is  that  which 
guides  each  so  unerringly  in  its  incessant  functions ;  that  make  these  struggle,  and  that  too  with 
disease,  throws  it  off  and  acts,  each  of  them,  even  to  the  smallest,  not  in  a  clock-work  manner,  as 
alleged  by  some  materialists  (for,  at  the  slightest  disturbance  or  breakage  the  clock  stops),  but  a.s  an 
entity  endowed  with  instinct  ?  To  say  it  is  Nature  is  to  say  nothing,  if  it  is  not  the  enunciation  of  a 
fallacy;  for  Nature  after  all  is  but  a  name  for  these  very  same  functions,  the  sum  of  the  qualities 
and  attributes,  physical,  mental,  etc.,  in  the  universe  and  man,  the  total  of  agencies  and  forces 
.guided  by  iiitelligent  laws. 


512  THE  SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

child  grows,  a  distinct  thinking  Principle  in  man,  its  chief  agent  being 
the  physical  brain.  No  wonder  the  Materialists,  who  perceive  only 
this  "  rational  soul,"  or  mind,  will  not  disconnect  it  with  the  brain 
and  matter.  But  Occult  Philosophy  has  ages  ago  solved  the  problem 
of  mind,  and  discovered  the  duality  of  Manas.  The  Divine  Ego  tends 
^vith  its  point  upwards  towards  Buddhi,  and  the  human  Ego  gravitates 
downwards,  immersed  in  Matter,  connected  with  its  higher,  subjective 
half  only  by  the  Antahkarana.  As  its  derivation  suggests,  this  is  the 
only  connecting  link  during  life  between  the  two  minds — the  higher 
consciousness  of  the  Ego  and  the  human  intelligence  of  the  lower  mind. 
To  understand  this  abstruse  metaphysical  doctrine  fully  and  correctly, 
one  has  to  be  thoroughly  impressed  with  an  idea,  which  I  have  in  vain 
endeavoured  to  impart  to  Theosophists  at  large,  namel3%  the  great 
axiomatic  truth  that  the  only  eternal  and  living  Reality  is  that  which 
the  Hindus  call  Paramatma  and  Parabrahman.  This  is  the  one  ever- 
existing  Root  Essence,  immutable  and  unknowable  to  our  physical 
senses,  but  manifest  and  clearly  perceotible  to  our  spiritual  natures. 
Once  imbued  with  that  basic  idea  and  the  further  conception  that  if  It 
is  omnipresent,  universal  and  eternal,  like  abstract  Space  itself,  we 
must  have  emanated  from  It  and  we  must,  some  day,  return  into  It, 
and  all  the  rest  becomes  easy. 

If  so,  then  it  stands  to  reason  that  life  and  death,  good  and  evil,  past 
and  future,  are  all  empty  words,  or  at  best,  figures  of  speech.  If  the 
objective  Universe  itself  is  but  a  passing  illusion  on  account  of  its  begin- 
ning and  finitude,  then  both  life  and  death  must  also  be  aspects  and 
illusions.  They  are  changes  of  state,  in  fact,  and  no  more.  Real  life 
is  in  the  spiritual  consciousness  of  that  life,  in  a  cotiscious  existence  in 
Spirit,  not  Matter ;  and  real  death  is  the  limited  perception  of  life,  the 
impossibility  of  sensing  conscious  or  even  individual  existence  outside 
of  form,  or  at  least,  of  some  form  of  Matter.  Those  who  sincerely  reject 
the  possibility  of  conscious  life  divorced  from  Matter  and  brain-sub- 
stance, are  dead  units.  The  words  of  Paul,  an  Initiate,  become  compre- 
hensible. "Ye  are  dead,  and  your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God;" 
which  is  to  say  :  Ye  are  personalh^  dead  matter,  unconscious  of  its  own 
spiritual  essence,  and  your  real  life  is  hid  with  your  Divine  Ego 
(Christos)  in,  or  merged  with,  God  (Atma)  ;  now  has  it  departed  from 
you,  ye  soulless  people.*    Speaking  on  Esoteric  lines,  every  irrevocably 

*  See  Coloss.,  > 


THE    LIVING   AND   THE   DEAD.  513 

materialistic  person  is  a  dead  Maji,  a  living  automaton,  in  spite  of  his 
being  endowed  with  great  brain  power.  Listen  to  what  Aryasangha 
says,  stating  the  same  fact : 

That  which  is  neither  Spirit  nor  Matter,  neither  Light  nor  Darkness,  but  is  verily 
the  container  and  root  of  these,  that  thou  art.  The  Root  projects  at  every  Dawn 
its  shadow  on  ITSELF,  and  that  shadow  thou  callest  Light  and  Life,  O  poor  dead 
Form.  (This)  Life-Light  streameth  downward  through  the  stairway  of  the  seven 
worlds,  the  stairs  of  which  each  step  become  denser  and  darker.  It  is  of  this  seven- 
times-seven  scale  that  tliou  art  the  faithful  climber  and  mirror,  O  little  man  !  Thou 
art  this,  but  thou  knowest  it  not. 

This  is  the  first  lesson  to  learn.  The  second  is  to  study  well  the 
Principles  of  both  the  Kosmos  and  ourselves,  dividing  the  group  into 
the  permanent  and  the  impermanent,  the  higher  and  immortal  and  the 
lower  and  mortal,  for  thus  only  can  we  master  and  guide,  first  the 
lower  cosmic  and  personal,  then  the  higher  cosmic  and  impersonal. 

Once  we  can  do  that  we  have  secured  our  immortality.  But  some 
may  say  :  "  How  few  are  those  who  can  do  so.  All  such  are  great 
Adepts,  and  none  can  reach  such  Adeptship  in  one  short  life."  Agreed  ; 
but  there  is  an  alternative.  "  If  the  Sun  thou  canst  not  be,  then  be  the 
humble  Planet,"  says  the  Book  of  ihc  Golden  Precepts.  And  if  even  that 
is  beyond  our  reach,  then  let  us  at  least  endeavour  to  keep  within  the 
ray  of  some  lesser  star,  so  that  its  silvery  light  may  penetrate  the  murky 
darkness,  through  which  the  stony  path  of  life  trends  onward ;  for 
without  this  divine  radiance  we  risk  losing  more  than  we  imagine. 

With  regard,  then,  to  "  soulless  "  men,  and  the  "  second  death  "  of  the 
"Soul,"  mentioned  in  the  .second  volume  oi  his  Uftveiled,  you  will  there 
iind  that  I  have  spoken  of  such  soulless  people,  and  even  of  Avitchi, 
though  I  leave  the  latter  unnamed.  Read  from  the  last  paragraph  on 
page  367  to  the  end  of  the  first  paragraph  on  page  370,  and  then  collate 
what  is  there  said  with  what  I  have  now  to  say. 

The  higher  triad,  Atma-Buddhi-Manas,  may  be  recognized  from  the 
first  lines  of  the  quotation  from  the  Egyptian  papyrus.  In  the  Ritual, 
now  the  Book  of  the  Dead,  the  purified  Soul,  the  dual  Manas,  appears  as 
"  the  victim  of  the  dark  influence  of  the  Dragon  Apophis,"  the  physical 
personality  of  Kamarupic  man,  with  his  passions.  "  If  it  has  attained 
the  final  knowledge  of  the  heavenly  and  infernal  Mysteries,  the 
Gnosis  " — the  divine  and  the  terrestrial  Mysteries,  of  White  and  Black 
Alao-ic — then  the  defunct  personality  "will  triumph  over  its  enemy" — 
death.     This  alludes  to  the  case  of  a  complete  re-union,  at  the  end  of 

3      LL 


51/^  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

earth  life,  of  the  lower  Manas,  full  of  "the  harvest  of  life,"  with  its 
Ego.  But  if  Apophis  conquei'S  the  Soul,  then  it  "  cannot  escape  a 
scco?id  death." 

These  few  lines  from  a  papyrus,  many  thousands  of  years  old,  contain 
a  whole  revelation,  known,  in  those  days,  only  to  the  Hierophants  and 
the  Initiates.  The  "harvest  of  life"  consists  of  the  finest  spiritual 
thoughts,  of  the  memory  of  the  noblest  and  most  unselfish  deeds  of  the 
personality,  and  the  constant  presence  during  its  bliss  after  death  of  all 
those  it  loved  with  divine,  spiritual  devotion.*  Remember  the  teaching: 
The  Human  Soul,  lower  Manas,  is  the  only  and  direct  mediator  between 
the  personality  and  the  Divine  Ego.  That  which  goes  to  make  up  on 
this  earth  fho.  personality  miscalled  iyidivid^iality  by  the  majority,  is  the 
.sum  of  all  its  mental,  physical,  and  spiritual  characteristics,  which, 
being  impressed  on  the  Human  Soul,  produces  the  maji.  Now,  of  all 
these  characteristics  it  is  the  purified  thoughts  alone  which  can  be  im- 
pressed on  the  higher,  immortal  Ego.  This  is  done  b}^  the  Human 
Soul  merging  again,  in  its  essence,  into  its  parent  source,  commingling 
with  its  Divine  Ego  during  life,  and  re-uniting  itself  entirely  with  it 
after  the  death  of  the  ph5^sical  man.  Therefore,  unless  Kama-Manas 
transmits  to  Buddhi-Manas  such  personal  ideations,  and  such  con- 
sciousness of  its  "  I"  as  can  be  assimilated  b}"  the  Divine  Ego,  nothing 
of  that  "  I  "  or  personality  can  survive  in  the  Eternal.  Only  that  which 
is  worthy  of  the  immortal  God  within  us,  and  identical  in  its  nature 
with  the  divine  quintessence,  can  survive;  for  in  this  case  it  is  its  own, 
the  Divine  Ego's,  "shadows"  or  emanations  which  ascend  to  it  and 
are  indrawn  by  it  into  itself  again,  to  become  once  more  part  of  its  own 
Essence.  No  noble  thought,  no  grand  aspiration,  desire,  or  divine 
immortal  love,  can  come  into  the  brain  of  the  man  of  clay  and  settle 
there,  except  as  a  direct  emanation  from  the  Higher  to,  and  through, 
the  lower  Ego  ;  all  the  rest,  intellectual  as  it  may  seem,  proceeds  from 
the  "  shadow,"  the  lower  mind,  in  its  association  and  commingling  with 
Kama,  and  pa.sses  awa}''  and  disappears  for  ever.  But  the  mental  and 
spiritual  ideations  of  the  personal  "  I  "  return  to  it,  as  parts  of  the 
Ego's  Essence,  and  can  never  fade  out.  Thus  of  the  personality  that 
was,  only  its  spiritual  experiences,  the  memory  of  all  that  is  good  and 
noble,  with  the  consciousness  of  its  "  I "  blended  with  that  of  all  the 
other  personal  "  I's  "  that  preceded  it,  survive  and  become  immortaL 

*  See  Key  to  Theosophy,  pp.  147,  148,  et  seq. 


GAINING   IMMORTALITY.  515 

There  is  no  distinct  or  separate  immortality  for  the  men  of  earth  out- 
side of  the  Ego  which  informed  them.  That  Higher  Ego  is  the  sole 
bearer  of  all  its  alter  egos  on  earth  and  their  sole  representative  in  the 
mental  state  called  Devachan.  As  the  last  embodied  personality,  how- 
ever, has  a  right  to  its  own  special  state  of  bliss,  unalloyed  and  free 
from'  the  memories  of  all  others,  it  is  the  last  life  only  which  is  fully  and 
realistically  vivid.  Devachan  is  often  compared  to  the  happiest  day  in 
a  series  of  many  thousands  of  other  "days"  in  the  life  of  a  person. 
The  intensity  of  its  happiness  makes  the  man  entirely  forget  all  others, 
his  past  becoming  obliterated. 

This  is  what  we  call  the  Devachanic  state,  the  reward  of  the  per- 
sonality, and  it  is  on  this  old  teaching  that  the  hazy  Christian  notion 
of  Paradise  was  built,  borrowed  with  many  other  things  from  the 
Egyptian  Mysteries,  wherein  the  doctrine  was  enacted.  And  this  is 
the  meaning  of  the  passage  quoted  in  Isis.  The  Soul  has  triumphed 
over  Apophis,  the  Dragon  of  Flesh.  Henceforth,  the  personality  will 
live  in  eternity,  in  its  highest  and  noblest  elements,  the  memory  of  its 
past  deeds,  while  the  "  characteristics  "  of  the  "  Dragon  "  will  be  fading 
out  in  Kama  Loka.  If  the  question  be  asked,  "  How  live  in  eternity, 
when  Devachan  lasts  but  from  1,000  to  2,000  years,"  the  answer  is  :  "  In 
the  same  way  as  the  recollection  of  each  day  which  is  worth  remember- 
ing lives  in  the  memory  of  each  one  of  us."  For  the  sake  of  an  example, 
the  days  passed  in  one  personal  life  may  be  taken  as  an  illustration 
of  each  personal  life,  and  this  or  that  person  may  stand  for  the  Divine 

Ego. 

To  obtain  the  key  which  will  open  the  door  of  many  a  psychological 
mystery  it  is  sufficient  to  understand  and  remember  that  which  pre- 
cedes and  that  which  follows.  Many  a  Spiritualist  has  felt  terribly 
indignant  on  being  told  that  personal  immortality  was  conditional;  and 
yet  such  is  the  philosophical  and  logical  fact.  Much  has  been  said 
already  on  the  subject,  but  no  one  to  this  day  seems  to  have  fully 
understood  the  doctrine.  Moreover,  it  is  not  enough  to  know  that 
such  a  fact  is  said  to  exist.  An  Occultist,  or  he  who  would  become  one, 
must  know  why  it  is  so ;  for  having  learned  and  comprehended  the 
raison  d'etre,  it  becomes  easier  to  set  others  right  in  their  erroneous 
speculations,  and,  most  important  of  all,  it  affords  one  an  opportunity, 
without  saying  too  much,  to  teach  other  people  to  avoid  a  calamity 
which,  sad  to  say,  occurs  in  our  age  almost  daily.  This  calamity  will 
now  be  explained  at  length. 


5l6  THE   SECRET    DOCTRINE. 

One  must  know  little  indeed  of  the  Eastern  modes  of  expression  to 
fail  to  see  in  the  passage  quoted  from  the  Book  of  the  Dead,  and  the 
pages  of  his,  (a)  an  allegory  for  the  uninitiated,  containing  our 
Esoteric  teaching  ;  and  (I?)  that  the  two  terms  "  second  death "  and 
"Soul"  are,  in  one  sense,  blinds.  "Soul"  refers  indifferently  to 
Buddhi-Manas  and  Kama-Manas.  As  to  the  term  "  second  death,"  the 
qualification  "  second "  applies  to  several  deaths  which  have  to  be 
undergone  by  the  "Principles"  during  their  incarnation,  Occultists 
alone  understanding  fully  the  sense  in  which  such  a  statement  is  made. 
For  we  have  (i)  the  death  of  the  Body  ;  (2)  the  death  of  the  Animal 
Soul  in  Kama  Loka;  (3)  the  death  of  the  Astral  Linga  Sharira, 
following  that  of  the  Body ;  (4)  the  metaphysical  death  of  the  Higher 
Ego,  the  immortal,  every  time  it  "  falls  into  matter,"  or  incarnates  in  a 
new  personality.  The  Animal  Soul,  or  lower  Manas,  that  shadow  of 
the  Divine  Ego  which  separates  from  it  to  inform  the  personality, 
cannot  b}'  any  possible  means  escape  death  in  Kama  Eoka,  at  anj*  rate 
that  portion  of  this  reflection  which  remains  as  a  terrestrial  residue  and 
cannot  be  impressed  on  the  Ego.  Thus  the  chief  and  most  important 
secret  with  regard  to  that  "  second  death,"  in  the  Esoteric  teaching, 
was  and  is  to  this  day  the  terrible  possibility  of  the  death  of  the  Soul, 
that  is,  its  sex^erance  from  the  Ego  on  earth  during  a  person's  lifetime. 
This  is  a  real  death  (though  with  chances  of  resurrection),  which  shows 
no  traces  in  a  person  and  yet  leaves  him  morally  a  living  corpse.  It  is 
difficult  to  see  why  this  teaching  should -have  been  preserved  until  now 
with  such  secrecy,  when,  by  spreading  it  among  people,  at  any  rate 
among  those  who  believe  in  reincarnation,  so  much  good  might  be 
done.  But  so  it  was,  and  I  had  no  right  to  question  the  wisdom  of  the 
prohibition,  but  have  given  it  hitherto,  as  it  was  given  to  mj^self,  under 
pledge  not  to  reveal  it  to  the  world  at  large.  But  now  I  have  permis- 
sion to  give  it  to  all,  revealing  its  tenets  first  to  the  Esotericists,  and 
then  when  they  have  assimilated  them  thoroughly  it  will  be  their  duty 
to  teach  others  this  special  tenet  of  the  "  second  death,"  and  warn  all 
the  Theosophists  of  its  dangers. 

To  make  the  teaching  clearer,  I  shall  seemingly  have  to  go  over  old 
ground ;  in  reality,  however,  it  is  given  out  with  new  light  and  new 
details.  I  have  tried  to  hint  at  it  in  the  Thcosophist  as  I  have  done  in 
Isis,  but  have  failed  to  make  myself  understood.  I  will  now  explain  it. 
point  by  point. 


light  and  life.  5i7 

The  Philosophical  Rationale  of  the  Tenet. 

(i)  Imagine,  for  illustration's  sake,  the  one  homogeneous,  absolute 
and  omnipresent  Essence,  above  the  upper  step  of  the  "  stair  of  the 
seven  planes  of  worlds,"  ready  to  start  on  its  evolutionary-  journe3\  As 
its  correlating  reflection  gradually  descends,  it  differentiates  and  trans- 
forms into  subjective,  and  finally  into  objective  matter.  Let  us  call  it 
at  its  north  pole  Absolute  Light ;  at  its  south  pole,  which  to  us  would 
be  the  fourth  or  middle  step,  or  plane,  counting  either  way,  we  know 
it  Esoterically  as  the  One  and  Universal  Life.  Now  mark  the  difi"er- 
ence.  Above,  Light  ;  below,  Life.  The  former  is  ever  immutable,  the 
latter  manifests  under  the  aspects  of  countless  dififerentiations. 
According  to  the  Occult  law,  all  potentialities  included  in  the  higher 
become  differentiated  reflections  in  the  lower ;  and  according  to  the 
same  law,  nothing  which  is  differentiated  can  be  blended  with  the 
homogeneous. 

Again,  nothing  can  endure  of  that  which  lives  and  breathes  and  has 
its  being  in  the  seething  waves  of  the  world,  or  plane  of  differentiation. 
Thus  Buddhi  and  Manas  being  both  primordial  rays  of  the  One  Flame, 
the  former  the  vehicle,  the  upadhi  or  vahana,  of  the  one  eternal  Essence, 
the  latter  the  vehicle  of  Mahat  or  Divine  Ideation  (Maha-Buddhi  in 
the  Purdnas),  the  Universal  Intelligent  Soul— neither  of  them,  as  such, 
can  become  extinct  or  be  annihilated,  either  in  essence  or  conscious- 
ness. But  the  physical  personality  with  its  Linga  Sharira,  and  the 
animal  soul,  with  its  Kama,*  can  and  do  become  so.  They  are  born  in 
the  realm  of  illusion,  and  must  vanish  like  a  fleecy  cloud  from  the  blue 
and  eternal  sky. 

He  who  has  read  these  volumes  with  any  degree  of  atten- 
tion, must  know  the  origin  of  the  human  Egos,  called  Monads, 
generically,  and  what  they  were  before  they  were  forced  to  incarnate 
in  the  human  animal.  The  divine  beings  whom  Karma  led  to  act 
in  the  drama  of  Manvantaric  life,  are  entities  from  higher  and  earlier 
worlds  and  planets,  whose  Karma  had  not  been  exhausted  when  their 
world  went  into  Pralaya.  Such  is  the  teaching ;  but  whether  it  is  so 
or  not,  the  Higher  Egos  are — as  compared  to  such  forms  of  transi- 
tory, terrestrial  mud  as  ourselves — Divine  Beings,  Gods,  immortal 
throughout  the  Mahamanvantara,  or  the  311,040,000,000,000  years 
during  which  the  Age  of  Brahma  lasts.     And  as  the  Divine  Egos,  in 

*  Kama  Riipa,  the  vehicle  of  the  Lower  Manas,  is  said  to  dwell  in  the  physical  brain,  in  the  five 
physical  senses  and  in  all  the  sense-organs  of  the  physical  body. 


5l8  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

order  to  re-become  the  One  Essence,  or  be  indrawn  again  into  the  AuM, 
have  to  purify  themselves  in  the  fire  of  suffering  and  individual  ex- 
perience, so  also  have  the  terrestrial  Egos,  the  personalities,  to  do 
likewise,  if  they  would  partake  of  the  immortality  of  the  Higher  Egos. 
This  they  can  achieve  by  crushing  in  themselves  all  that  benefits  only 
the  lower  personal  nature  of  their  "  selves"  and  by  aspiring  to  trans- 
fuse their  thinking  Kamic  Principle  into  that  of  the  Higher  Ego.  We 
(i.e.,  our  personalities)  become  immortal  b}^  the  mere  fact  of  our  think- 
ing moral  nature  being  grafted  on  our  Divine  Triune  Monad,  Atma- 
Buddhi-Manas,  the  three  in  one  and  one  in  three  (aspects).  For  the 
Monad  manifested  on  earth  by  the  incarnating  Ego  is  that  which  is 
called  the  Tree  of  Life  Eternal,  that  can  only  be  approached  by  eating 
the  fruit  of  knowledge,  the  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil,  or  of  Gnosis, 
Divine  Wisdom. 

In  the  Esoteric  teachings,  this  Ego  is  the  fifth  Principle  in  man. 
But  the  student  who  has  read  and  understood  the  first  two  Papers, 
knows  something  more.  He  is  aware  that  the  seventh  is  not  a 
human,  but  a  universal  Principle  in  which  man  participates  ;  but  so 
does  equally  every  physical  and  subjective  atom,  and  also  every  blade 
of  grass  and  everything  that  lives  or  is  in  Space,  whether  it  be  sensible 
of  it  or  not.  He  knows,  moreover,  that  if  man  is  more  closely  con- 
nected with  it,  and  assimilates  it  with  a  hundredfold  more  power,  it  is 
simply  because  he  is  endowed  with  the  highest  consciousness  on  this 
earth ;  that  man,  in  short,  may  become  a  Spirit,  a  Deva,  or  a  God,  in 
his  next  transformation,  whereas  neither  a  stone  nor  a  vegetable,  nor 
an  animal,  can  do  so  before  they  become  men  in  their  proper  turn. 

(2)  Now  what  are  the  functions  of  Buddhi  ?  On  this  plane  it  has 
none,  unless  it  is  united  with  Manas,  the  conscious  Ego.  Buddhi 
stands  to  the  divine  Root  Essence  in  the  same  relation  as  Mulaprakriti 
to  Parabrahman,  in  the  Vedanta  School ;  or  as  Alaya  the  Universal  Soul 
to  the  One  Eternal  Spirit,  or  that  which  is  beyond  Spirit.  It  is  its  human 
vehicle,  one  remove  from  that  Absolute,  which  can  have  no  relation 
whatever  to  the  finite  and  the  conditioned. 

(3)  What,  again,  is  Manas  and  its  functions  ?  In  its  purely  meta- 
physical aspect,  Manas,  though  one  remove  on  the  downward  plane 
from  Buddhi,  is  still  so  immeasurably  higher  than  the  physical  man^ 
that  it  cannot  enter  into  direct  relation  with  the  personality,  except 
through  its  reflection,  the  lower  mind.  Manas  is  Spiritual  Self- Con- 
sciousness in  itself,  and  Divine  Consciousness  when  united  with  Buddhi, 


THE   TWO   EGOS.  5IQ 

which  is  the  true  "producer"  of  that  "production"  (vikara),  or  Self- 
Consciousness,  through  Mahat.  Buddhi-Ivlauas,  therefore,  is  entirely 
unfit  to  manifest  during  its  periodical  incarnations,  except  through  the 
human  mind  or  lower  Manas.  Both  are  linked  together  and  are  in- 
separable, and  can  have  as  little  to  do  with  the  lower  Tanmatras,*  or 
rudimentary  atoms,  as  the  homogeneous  with  the  heterogeneous.  It  is, 
therefore,  the  task  of  the  lower  Manas,  or  thinking  personality,  if  it 
would  blend  itself  with  its  God,  the  Divine  Ego,  to  dissipate  and  para- 
lyze the  Tanmatras,  or  properties  of  the  material  form.  Therefore, 
Manas  is  shown  double,  as  the  Ego  and  Mind  of  Man.  It  is  Kama- 
Manas,  or  the  lower  Ego,  which,  deluded  into  a  notion  of  independent 
existence,  as  the  "producer"  in  its  turn  and  the  sovereign  of  the  five 
Tanmatras,  becomes  Ego-ism,  the  selfish  Self,  in  which  case  it  has  to 
be  considered  as  Mahablmtic  and  finite,  in  the  sense  of  its  being  con- 
nected with  Ahaukara,  the  personal  "  I-creating"  faculty.      Hence 

Manas  has  to  be  regarded  as  eternal  and  non-eternal ;  eternal  in  its  atomic 
nature  (paramanu  rupa),  as  eternal  substance  (dravya),  finite  (karya  rupa)  when 
linked  as  a  duad  with  Kama  (animal  desire  or  human  egoistic  volition),  a  lower 
production,  in  short. f 

While,  therefore,  the  Individual  Ego,  owing  o  its  essence  and  nature,  is 
immortal  throughout  eternity,  with  a  form  (riipa),  which  prevails  during 
the  whole  life  cycles  of  the  Fourth  Round,  its  Sosie,  or  resemblance,  the 
personal  Ego,  has  to  win  its  immortalit}-. 

(4)  Antahkarana  is  the  name  of  that  imaginary  bridge,  the  path  which 
lies  between  the  Divine  and  the  human  Egos,  for  they  are  Egos,  during 
human  life,  to  rebecome  one  Ego  in  Devachan  or  Nirvana.  This  maj^ 
seem  difiicult  to  understand,  but  in  reality,  with  the  help  of  a  familiar, 
though  fanciful  illustration,  it  becomes  quite  simple.  Let  us  figure  to 
ourselves  a  bright  lamp  in  the  middle  of  a  room,  casting  its  light  upon 
the  wall.  Let  the  lamp  represent  the  Divine  Ego,  and  the  light  thrown 
on  the  wall  the  lower  Manas,  and  let  the  wall  stand  for  the  body.  That 
portion  of  the  atmosphere  which  transmits  the  raj^  from  the  lamp  to  the 
wall,  will  then  represent  the  Antahkarana.  We  must  further  suppose 
that  the  light  thus  cast  is  endowed  v/ith  reason  and  intelligence,  and 


•  Tanmatra  means  subtle  and  rudimentary  form ,  the  gross  type  of  the  finer  elements.  The  five 
Tanmatras  are  really  the  characteristic  properties  or  qualities  of  matter  and  of  all  the  elements  ;  the 
real  spirit  of  the  word  is  "something"  or  "merely  transcendental,"  in  the  sense  of  properties  or 
qualities. 

+  See  Tkeosophhl,  August,  1883,  "The  Real  and  the  Unreal." 


520  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

possesses,  moreover,  the  faculty  of  dissipating  all  the  evil  shadows  which 
pass  across  the  wall,  and  of  attracting  all  brightnesses  to  itself,  receiving 
their  indelible  impressions.  Now,  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  human  Ego 
to  chase  away  the  shadows,  or  sins,  and  multiply  the  brightnesses,  or 
good  deeds,  which  make  these  impressions,  and  thus  through  Antah- 
karana,  ensure  its  own  permanent  connection,  and  its  final  re-union, 
with  the  Divine  Ego.  Remember  that  the  latter  cannot  take  place 
while  there  remains  a  single  taint  of  the  terrestrial,  or  of  matter,  in  the 
purity  of  that  light.  On  the  other  hand,  the  connection  cannot  be 
entirely  ruptured,  and  final  re-union  prevented,  so  long  as  there  remains 
one  spiritual  deed,  or  potentiality  to  serve  as  a  thread  of  union  ;  but  the 
moment  this  last  spark  is  extinguished,  and  the  last  potentiality  ex- 
hausted, then  comes  the  severance.  In  an  Eastern  parable,  the  Divine 
Ego  is  likened  to  the  Master  who  sends  out  his  labourers  to  till  the 
ground  and  to  gather  in  the  harvest,  and  who  is  content  to  keep  the 
field  so  long  as  it  can  yield  even  the  smallest  return.  But  when  the 
ground  becomes  absolutely  sterile,  not  only  is  it  abandoned,  but  the 
labourer  also  (the  lower  Manas)  perishes. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  still  using  our  simile,  when  the  light 
thrown  on  the  wall,  or  the  rational  human  Ego,  reaches  the  point  of 
actual  spiritual  exhaustion,  the  Antahkarana  disappears,  no  more  light 
is  transmitted,  and  the  lamp  becomes  non-existent  to  the  ray.  The 
light  which  has  been  absorbed  gradually  disappears  and  "  Soul  eclipse" 
occurs  ;  the  being  lives  on  earth  and  then  passes  into  Kama  Eoka  as  a 
mere  surviving  congeries  of  material  qualities ;  it  can  never  pass  on- 
wards towards  Devachan,  but  is  reborn  immediately,  a  human  animal 
and  scourge. 

This  simile,  however  fantastic,  will  help  us  to  seize  the  correct  idea. 
Save  through  the  blending  of  the  moral  nature  with  the  Divine  Ego, 
there  is  no  immortality  for  the  personal  Ego.  It  is  only  the  most 
.spiritual  emanations  of  the  personal  Human  Soul  which  survive. 
Having,  during  a  lifetime,  been  imbued  with  the  notion  and  feeling  of 
the  "I  am  I"  of  its  personality,  the  Human  Soul,  the  bearer  of  the 
very  essence  of  the  Karmic  deeds  of  the  physical  man,  becomes,  after 
the  death  of  the  latter,  part  and  parcel  of  the  Divine  Flame,  the  Ego. 
It  becomes  immortal  through  the  mere  fact  that  it  is  now  strongly 
grafted  on  the  Monad,  which  is  the  "  Tree  of  Life  Eter^ial." 

And  now  we  must  speak  of  the  tenet  of  the  "second  death."  What 
happens  to  the  Kamic  Human  Soul,  which  is  always  that  of  a  debased 


DEATH    OF   THE   SOUL.  521 

and  wicked  man  or  of  a  soulless  person  ?     This  mystery  will  now  be 
explained. 

The  personal  Soul  in  this  case,  viz.,  in  that  of  one  who  has  never 
had  a  thought  not  concerned  with  the  animal  self,  having  nothing  to 
transmit  to  the  Higher,  or  to  add  to  the  sum  of  the  experiences  gleaned 
from  past  incarnations  which  its  memory  is  to  preserve  throughout 
eternity — this  personal  Soul  becomes  separated  from  the  Ego.  It  can 
graft  nothing  of  self  on  that  eternal  trunk  whose  sap  throws  out 
millions  of  personalities,  like  leaves  from  its  branches,  leaves  which 
wither,  die  and  fall  at  the  end  of  their  season.  These  personalities 
bud,  blossom  forth  and  expire,  some  without  leaving  a  trace  behind, 
others  after  commingling  their  own  life  with  that  of  the  parent  stem. 
It  is  the  Souls  of  the  former  class  that  are  doomed  to  annihilation,  or 
Avitchi,  a  state  so  badly  understood,  and  still  worse  described  by  some 
Theosophical  writers,  but  which  is  not  only  located  on  our  earth,  but  is 
in  fact  this  very  earth  itself. 

Thus  we  see  that  Antahkarana  has  been  destroyed  before  the  lower 
man  has  had  an  opportunit}^  of  assimilating  the  Higher  and  becoming 
at  one  with  it ;  and  therefore  the  Kamic  "  Soul  "  becomes  a  separate 
entity,  to  live  henceforth,  for  a  short  or  long  period  according  to  its 
Karma,  as  a  "  soulless  "  creature. 

But  before  I  elaborate  this  question,  I  must  explain  more  clearly  the 
meaning  and  functions  of  the  Antahkarana.  As  already  said,  it  may 
be  represented  as  a  narrow  bridge  connecting  the  Higher  and  the  lower 
Manas.  If  you  look  at  the  Glossary  of  the  Voice  of  the  Silence,  pp.  88 
and  89,  you  will  find  that  it  is  a  projection  of  the  lower  Manas,  or, 
rather,  the  link  between  the  latter  and  the  Higher  Ego,  or,  between 
the  Human  and  the  Divine  or  Spiritual  Soul.* 

At  death  it  is  destroyed  as  a  path,  or  medium  of  communication,  and  its  remains 
survive  as  Kama  Rupa, 

the  "shell."  It  is  this  which  the  Spiritualists  see  sometimes  appearing 
in  the  seance  rooms  as  materialized  "  forms,"  which  thej'  foolishl)' 
mistake  for  the  "  Spirits  of  the  Departed."!     So  far  is  this  from  being 

*  As  the  author  of  Esoteric  Buddhism  and  the  Occult  IVorld  called  Manas  the  Human  Soul,  and 
Buddhi  the  Spiritual  Soul,  I  have  left  these  terms  unchanged  in  the  Voice,  seeing  that  it  was  a  book 
intended  for  the  public. 

T  In  the  exoteric  teachings  of  Raja  Yoga,  Antahkarana  is  called  the  inner  organ  of  perception 
and  is  divided  into  four  parts:  the  (lower)  Manas,  Buddhi  (reason),  Ahankara  (personality),  and 
Chitta  (thinking  faculty).  It  also,  together  with  several  other  organs,  forms  a  part  of  Jiva,  Soui 
called  also  Lingadeh       Esotericists,  however,  must  not  be  misled  by  this  popular  version. 


522  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

the  case,  that  in  dreams,  though  Antahkarana  is  there,  the  personality- 
is  only  half  awake  ;  therefore,  Antahkarana  is  said  to  be  drunk  or 
insa7ie  during  our  normal  sleeping  state.  If  such  is  the  case  during  the 
periodical  death,  or  sleep,  of  the  living  body,  one  may  judge  what  the 
consciousness  of  Antahkarana  is  like  when  it  has  been  transformed 
after  the  "eternal  sleep"  into  Kama  Riipa. 

But  to  return.  In  order  not  to  confuse  the  mind  of  the  Western 
student  with  the  abstruse  difficulties  of  Indian  metaphysics,  let  him 
view  the  lower  Manas,  or  Mind,  as  the  personal  Ego  during  the  waking 
state,  and  as  Antahkarana  only  during  those  moments  when  it  aspires 
towards  its  Higher  Ego,  and  thus  becomes  the  medium  of  communica- 
tion between  the  two.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  it  is  called  the  "  Path." 
Now,  when  a  limb  or  organ  belonging  to  the  physical  organism  is  left 
in  disuse,  it  becomes  weak  and  finally  atrophies.  So  also  is  it  with 
mental  faculties ;  and  hence  the  atrophy  of  the  lower  mind-function, 
called  Antahkarana,  becomes  comprehensible  in  both  completely 
materialistic  and  depraved  natures. 

According  to  Esoteric  Philosophy,  however,  the  teaching  is  as 
follows :  Seeing  that  the  faculty  and  function  of  Antahkarana  is  as 
necessarj'  as  the  medium  of  the  ear  for  hearing,  or  that  of  the  eye  for 
seeing;  then  so  long  as  the  feeling  of  Ahankara,  that  is,  of  the 
personal  "  I  "  or  selfishness,  is  not  entirelj'  crushed  out  in  a  man,  and 
the  lower  mind  not  entirely  merged  into  and  become  one  with  the 
Higher  Buddhi-Manas,  it  stands  to  reason  that  to  destroy  Antahkarana 
is  like  destrojdng  a  bridge  over  an  impassable  chasm  ;  the  traveller  can 
never  reach  the  goal  on  the  other  shore.  And  here  lies  the  difference 
between  the  exoteric  and  Esoteric  teaching.  The  former  makes  the 
Vedanta  state  that  so  long  as  Mind  (the  lower)  clings  through  Antah- 
karana to  Spirit  (Buddhi-Manas)  it  is  impossible  for  it  to  acquire  true 
Spiritual  Wisdom,  Guyana,  and  that  this  can  onh'  be  attained  by  seek- 
ing to  come  e7i  rapport  with  the  Universal  Soul  (Atma)  ;  that,  in  fact,  it 
is  by  ignoring  the  Higher  Mind  altogether  that  one  reaches  Raja  Yoga. 
We  say  it  is  not  so.  No  single  rung  of  the  ladder  leading  to  knowledge 
can  be  skipped.  No  personality  can  ever  reach  or  bring  itself  into 
communication  with  Atma,  except  through  Buddhi-Manas  ;  to  try  and 
become  a  Jivanmukta  or  a  Mahatma,  before  one  has  become  an  Adept 
or  even  a  Narjol  (a  sinless  man)  is  like  trying  to  reach  Ceylon  from 
India  without  crossing  the  sea.  Therefore  we  are  told  that  if  we 
destroy  Antahkarana  before  the  personal  is  absoluteh'  under  the  con- 


REINCARNATION   OF  LOWER  SOUL.  523 

trol  of  the  impersonal  Ego,  we  risk  to  lose  the  latter  and  be  severed 
for  ever  from  it,  unless  indeed  we  hasten  to  re-establish  the  communi- 
cation by  a  supreme  and  final  effort. 

It  is  onl}'  when  we  are  indissolubly  linked  with  the  essence  of  the 
Divine  Mind,  that  we  have  to  destroy  Antahkarana. 

Like  as  a  solitary  warrior  pursued  by  an  army,  seeks  refuge  in  a  stronghold  ;  to 
cut  himself  oflF  from  the  enemy,  he  first  destroys  the  drawbridge,  and  then  only  com- 
mences to  destroy  the  pursuer;  so  must  the  SrotSpatti  act  before  he  slays  Antah- 
karana. 

Or  as  an  Occult  axiom  has  it : 

The  Unit  becomes  Three,  and  Three  generate  Four.  It  is  for  the  latter  [the  Quar- 
ttrnary}  to  rebecome  Three,  and  for  the  Divine  Three  to  expand  into  the  Absolute 
One. 

Monads,  which  become  Duads  on  the  differentiated  plane,  to  develop 
into  Triads  during  the  cycle  of  incarnations,  even  when  incarnated 
know  neither  space  nor  time,  but  are  diffused  through  the  lower  Prin- 
ciples of  the  Quaternary,  being  omnipresent  and  omniscient  in  their 
nature.  But  this  omniscience  is  innate,  and  can  manifest  its  reflected 
light  only  through  that  which  is  at  least  semi-terrestrial  or  material ; 
even  as  the  physical  brain  which,  in  its  turn,  is  the  vehicle  of  the  lower 
Manas  enthroned  in  Kama  Rupa.  And  it  is  this  which  is  gradually 
annihilated  in  cases  of  "  second  death." 

But  such  annihilation — which  is  in  reality  the  absence  of  the  slightest 
trace  of  the  doomed  Soul  from  the  eternal  memory,  and  therefore 
signifies  annihilation  in  eternity — does  not  mean  simply  discontinuation 
of  human  life  on  earth,  for  earth  is  Avitchi,  and  the  worst  Avitchi 
possible.  Expelled  for  ever  from  the  consciousness  of  the  Individuality, 
the  reincarnating  Ego,  the  physical  atoms  and  psychic  vibrations  of 
the  now  separate  personality  are  immediately  reincarnated  on  the  same 
earth,  only  in  a  lower  and  still  more  abject  creature,  a  human  being 
only  in  form,  doomed  to  Karraic  torments  during  the  whole  of  its  new 
life.  Moreover,  if  it  persists  in  its  criminal  or  debauched  course,  it  will 
suffer  a  long  series  of  immediate  reincarnations. 

Here  two  questions  present  themselves  :  (i)  What  becomes  of  the 
Higher  Ego  in  such  cases  ?  (2)  What  kind  of  an  animal  is  a  human 
creature  born  soulless  ? 

Before  answering  these  two  very  natural  queries,  I  have  to  draw  the 
attention  of  all  of  you  who  are  born  in  Christian  countries  to  tne  fact 
that  the  romance  of  the  vicarious  atonement  and  the  mission  of  Jesus, 


524  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

as  it  now  stands,  was  drawn  or  borrowed  by  some  too  liberal  Initiates 
from  the  mysterious  and  weird  tenet  of  the  earthly  experience  of  the 
reincarnating  Ego.  The  latter  is  indeed  the  sacrificial  victim  of,  and 
through,  its  own  Karma  in  previous  Manvantaras,  which  takes  upon 
itself  voluntarily  the  duty  of  saving  what  would  be  otherwise  soulless 
men  or  personalities.  Eastern  truth  is  thus  more  philosophical  and 
logical  than  Western  fiction.  The  Christos,  or  Buddhi-Manas  of  each 
man  is  not  quite  an  innocent  and  sinless  God,  though  in  one  sense  it 
is  the  "  Father,"  being  of  the  same  essence  with  the  Universal  Spirit, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  "  Son,"  for  Manas  is  the  second  remove  from 
the  "  Father."  By  incarnation  the  Divine  Son  makes  itself  responsible 
for  the  sins  of  all  the.  personalities  which  it  will  inform.  This  it  can 
do  only  through  its  proxy  or  reflection,  the  lower  Manas.  The  only 
case  in  which  the  Divine  Ego  can  escape  individual  penalty  and  re- 
sponsibility as  a  guiding  Principle,  is  when  it  has  to  break  off  from  the 
personality,  because  matter,  with  its  ps^xhic  and  astral  vibrations,  is 
then,  by  the  very  intensity  of  its  combinations,  placed  beyond  the 
control  of  the  Ego.  Apophis,  the  Dragon,  having  become  the  con- 
queror, the  reincarnating  Manas,  separating  itself  gradually  from  its 
tabernable,  breaks  finally  asunder  from  the  psycho-animal  Soul. 

Thus,  in  answer  to  the  first  question,  I  say  : 

(i)  The  Divine  Ego  does  one  of  two  things  :  either  (a)  it  recom- 
mences immediately  under  its  own  Karmic  impulses  a  fresh  series  of 
incarnations  ;  or  (b)  it  seeks  and  finds  refuge  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Mother,  Alaya,  the  Universal  Soul,  of  which  the  Manvantaric  aspect  is 
Mahat.  Freed  from  the  life-impressions  of  the  personality,  it  merges 
into  a  kind  of  Nirvanic  interlude,  wherein  there  can  be  nothing  but  the 
eternal  Present,  which  absorbs  the  Past  and  Future.  Bereft  of  the 
"  labourer,"  both  field  and  harvest  now  being  lost,  the  Master,  in  the 
infinitude  of  his  thought,  naturally  preserves  no  recollection  of  the 
finite  and  evanescent  illusion  which  had  been  his  last  personalit}-.  And 
then,  indeed,  is  the  latter  annihilated. 

(2)  The  future  of  the  lower  Manas  is  more  terrible,  and  still  more 
terrible  to  humanity  than  to  the  now  animal  man.  It  sometimes 
happens  that  after  the  separation  the  exhausted  Soul,  now  become 
supremely  animal,  fades  out  in  Kama  Eoka,  as  do  all  other  animal  souls. 
But  seeing  that  the  more  material  is  the  human  mind,  the  longer  it 
lasts,  even  in  the  intermediate  stage,  it  frequently  happens  that  after 
the  present  life  of  the  soulless  man  is  ended,  he  is  again  and  again 


THE    DWEL1.ER   ON    THE   THRESHOLD.  525 

reincarnated  into  new  personalities,  each  one  more  abject  than  the 
other.  The  impulse  of  ajiimal  life  is  too  strong  ;  it  cannot  wear  itself 
out  in  one  or  two  lives  only.  In  rarer  cases,  however,  when  the  lower 
Manas  is  doomed  to  exhaust  itself  hj  starvation  ;  when  there  is  no 
longer  hope  that  even  a  remnant  of  a  lower  light  will,  owing  to  favour- 
able conditions — say,  even  a  short  period  of  spiritual  aspiration  and 
repentance — attract  back  to  itself  its  Parent  Ego,  and  Karma  leads  the 
Higher  Ego  back  to  new  incarnations,  then  something  far  more 
dreadful  may  happen.  The  Kama-Manasic  spook  may  become  that 
which  is  called  in  Occultism  the  "  Dweller  on  the  Threshold."  This 
Dweller  is  not  like  that  which  is  described  so  graphically  in  Zanoni, 
but  an  actual  fact  in  Nature  and  not  a  fiction  in  romance,  however 
beautiful  the  latter  may  be.  Bulwer,  however,  must  have  got  the  idea 
from  some  Eastern  Initiate.  This  Dweller,  led  by  affinity  and  attrac- 
tion, forces  itself  into  the  astral  current,  and  through  the  Auric  Enve- 
lope, of  the  new  tabernacle  inhabited  by  the  Parent  Ego,  and  declares 
war  to  the  lower  light  which  has  replaced  it.  This,  of  course,  can  only 
happen  in  the  case  of  the  moral  weakness  of  the  personality  so  obsessed. 
No  one  strong  in  virtue,  and  righteous  in  his  walk  of  life,  can  risk  or 
dread  any  such  thing  ;  but  only  those  depraved  in  heart.  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  had  a  glimpse  of  a  true  vision  indeed  when  he  wrote  his 
Stra7ige  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde.  His  story  is  a  true  allegory. 
Every  Chela  will  recognise  in  it  a  substratum  of  truth,  and  in  Mr.  Hyde 
a  Dweller,  an  obsessor  of  the  personality,  the  tabernacle  of  the  Parent 
Spirit. 

"This  is  a  nightmare  tale!  "  I  was  often  told  by  one,  now  no  more 
in  our  ranks,  who  had  a  most  pronounced  "  Dweller,"  a  "  Mr.  Hyde," 
as  an  almost  constant  companion.  "  How  can  such  a  process  take 
place  without  one's  knowledge  ?  "  It  can  and  does  so  happen,  and  I 
'lave  almost  described  it  once  before  in  the  Theosophist. 

The  Soul,  the  lower  Mind,  becomes  as  a  half  animal  principle  almost  paralyzed 
with  daily  vice,  and  grows  gradually  unconscious  of  its  subjective  half,  the  I^ord, 
one  of  the  mighty  Host ;  [and]  in  proportion  to  the  rapid  sensuous  development  of 
the  brain  and  nerves,  sooner  or  later,  it  (the  personal  Soul)  finally  loses  sight  of  its 
divine  mission  on  earth. 

Truly, 

Ivike  the  vampire,  the  brain  feeds  and  lives  and  grows  in  strength  at  the  expense 
of  its  spiritual  parent  .  .  .  and  the  personal  half-unconscious  Soul  becomes 
ccnseless,  beyond  hope  of  redemption.     It  is  powerless  to  discern  the  voice  of  its 


526  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

God.  It  aims  but  at  the  development  and  fuller  comprehension  of  natural,  earthly 
life  ;  and  thus  can  discover  but  the  mysteries  of  physical  nature.  ...  It  begins 
by  becoming  virtually  dead,  during  the  life  of  the  body  ;  and  ends  by  dying  com- 
pletely— that  is,  by  being  annihilated  as  a  complete  immortal  Soid.  Such  a  catas- 
trophe may  often  happen  long  years  before  one's  physical  death  :  "  We  elbow  soul- 
less men  and  women  at  every  step  in  life."  And  when  death  arrives  .  .  .  there 
is  no  more  a  Soul  (the  reincarnating  Spiritual  Ego)  to  liberate  .  .  .  for  //  has 
fled  years  before. 

Result :  Bereft  of  its  guiding  Principles,  but  strengthened  b}''  the 
material  elements,  Kama-Manas,  from  being  a  "derived  light"  now 
becomes  an  independent  Entity.  After  thus  suffering  itself  to  sink 
lower  and  lower  on  the  animal  plane,  when  the  hour  strikes  for  its 
earthly  body  to  die,  one  of  two  things  happens  :  either  Kama-Manas  is 
immediately  reborn  in  Myalba,  the  state  of  Avitchi  on  earth,*  or,  if  it 
become  too  strong  in  evil — "  immortal  in  Satan"  is  the  Occult  expres- 
sion— it  is  sometimes  allowed,  for  Karraic  purposes,  to  remain  in  an 
active  state  of  Avitchi  in  the  terrestrial  Aura.  Then  through  despair 
and  loss  of  all  hope  it  becomes  like  the  mythical  "  devil  "  in  its  endless 
wickedness  ;  it  continues  in  its  elements,  which  are  imbued  through 
and  through  with  the  essence  of  Matter ;  for  evil  is  coeval  with  Matter 
rent  asunder  from  Spirit.  And  when  its  Higher  Ego  has  once  more 
reincarnated,  evolving  a  new  reflection,  or  Kama-Manas,  the  doomed 
lower  Ego,  like  a  Frankenstein's  monster,  will  ever  feel  attracted  to  its 
Father,  who  repudiates  his  son,  and  will  become  a  regular  "  Dweller  on 
the  Threshold"  of  terrestrial  life.  I  gave  the  outlines  of  the  Occult 
doctrine  in  the  Theosophist  of  October,  1881,  and  November,  1882,  but 
could  not  go  into  details,  and  therefore  got  very  much  embarrassed 
when  called  upon  to  explain.  Yet  I  have  written  there  plainly  enough 
about  "  useless  drones,"  those  who  refuse  to  become  co-workers  with 
Nature  and  who  perish  by  millions  during  the  Manvantaric  life-cycle  ; 
those,  as  in  the  case  in  hand,  who  prefer  to  be  ever  suffering  in  Avitchi 
under  Karmic  law  rather  than  give  up  their  lives  "  in  evil,"  and  finally, 
those  who  are  co-workers  with  Nature  for  destruction.  These  are 
thoroughly  wicked  and  depraved  men,  but  yet  as  highly  intellectual 
and  acutely  spiritual  for  evil,  as  those  who  are  spiritual  for  good. 

The  (lower)  Egos  of  these  may  escape  the  law  of  final  destruction  or  annihilation 
for  ages  to  come. 

•  The  Earth,  or  earth-life  rather,  is  the  only  Avitchi  (Hell)  that  exists  for  the  men  of  our  humanity 
ou  this  grlobe.  AvHchi  is  a  state,  not  a  locality,  a  counterpart  of  Devachan.  Such  a  state  follows  the 
Soul  wherever  it  goes,  whether  into  Kama  Loka,  as  a  semi-conscious  Spook,  or  into  a  human  body, 
when  reborn  to  suffer  Avttchi.    Our  Philosophy  recog'tn;;es  uo  other  Hell. 


THE   WORD.  527 

Thus  we  find  two  kinds  of  soulless  beings  on  earth  :  those  who  have 
lost  their  Higher  Ego  in  the  present  incarnation,  and  those  who  are 
born  soulless,  having  been  severed  from  their  Spiritual  Soul  in  the  pre- 
ceding birth.  The  former  are  candidates  for  Avitclii ;  the  latter  are 
"  Mr.  Hydes,"  whether  tJi  or  out  of  human  bodies,  whether  incarnated 
or  hanging  about  as  invisible  though  potent  ghouls.  In  such  men,  cun- 
ning develops  to  an  enormous  degree,  and  no  one  except  those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  doctrine  would  suspect  them  of  being  soulless,  for 
neither  Religion  nor  Science  has  the  least  suspicion  that  such  facts 
actually  exist  in  Nature. 

There  is,  however,  still  hope  for  a  person  who  has  lost  his  Higher 
Soul  through  his  vices,  while  he  is  yet  in  the  body.  He  may  be  still 
redeemed  and  made  to  turn  on  his  material  nature.  For  either  an 
intense  feeling  of  repentance,  or  one  single  earnest  appeal  to  the  Ego 
that  has  fled,  or  best  of  all,  an  active  effort  to  amend  one's  ways,  may 
bring  the  Higher  Ego  back  again.  The  thread  of  connection  is  not 
altogether  broken,  though  the  Ego  is  now  beyond  forcible  reach,  for 
"  Antahkarana  is  destroyed,"  and  the  personal  Entity  has  one  foot 
already  in  Myalba;*  yet  it  is  not  entirely  beyond  hearing  a  strong 
spiritual  appeal.  There  is  another  statement  made  in  his  Unveiled  ^; 
on  this  subject.  It  is  said  that  this  terrible  death  may  be  some- 
times avoided  by  the  knowledge  of  the  mysterious  Name,  the  "  Word."]: 
What  this  "Word,"  which  is  not  a  "Word"  but  a  Sound,  is,  you 
all  know.  Its  potency  lies  in  the  rhythm  or  the  accent.  This 
means  simply  that  even  a  bad  person  may,  by  the  study  of  the  Sacred 
Science,  be  redeemed  and  stopped  on  the  path  of  destruction.  But 
unless  he  is  in  thorough  union  with  his  Higher  Ego,  he  may  repeat  it, 
parrot-like,  ten  thousand  times  a  day,  and  the  "  Word  "  will  not  help 
him.  On  the  contrary,  if  not  entirely  at  one  with  his  Higher  Triad,  it 
may  produce  quite  the  reverse  of  a  beneficent  effect,  the  Brothers  of  the 
Shadow  using  it  very  often  for  malicious  objects;  in  which  case  it 
awakens  and  stirs  up  naught  but  the  evil,^material  elements  of  Nature. 
But  if  one's  nature  is  good,  and  sincerely  strives  towards  the  Higher 
Self,  which  is  that  Aum,  through  one's  Higher  Ego,  which  is  its  third 


■•  See  Voice  of  the  Silence,  p.  97. 

■^  Loc.  cit. 

i  Read  the  last  footnote  on  p.  368,  vol.  ii.  of  Isis  Unveiled,  and  you  will  see  that  even  profano 
J?«rvptologists  and  men  who,  like  Bunsen,  were  igrnorant  of  Initiation,  were  struck  by  their  own 
dvs.-:overies  when  they  found  the  "  Word  "  mentioned  in  old  papiTi. 


528  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

letter,  and  Buddhi  the  second,  there  is  no  attack  of  the  Dragon 
Apophis  which  it  will  not  repel.  From  those  to  whom  much  is  given 
much  is  expected.  He  who  knocks  at  the  door  of  the  Sanctuary  in  full 
knowledge  of  its  sacredness,  and  after  obtaining  admission,  departs 
from  the  threshold,  or  turns  round  and  sa5'S,  "  Oh,  there's  nothing  in 
it !  "  and  thus  loses  his  chance  of  learning  the  whole  truth — can  but 
await  his  Karma. 

Such  are  then  the  Esoteric  explanations  of  that  which  has  perplexed 
so  many  who  have  found  what  they  thought  contradictions  in  various 
Theosophical  writings,  including  "  Fragments  of  Occult  Truth,"  in 
vols.  iii.  and  iv.  of  The  Theosophist,  etc.  Before  finally  dismissing  the 
subject,  I  must  add  a  caution,  which  pray  keep  well  in  mind.  It  will 
be  very  natural  for  those  of  you  who  are  Esotericists  to  hope  that  none 
of  5''OU  belong  so  far  to  the  soulless  portion  of  mankind,  and  that  you 
can  feel  quite  easy  about  Avitchi,  even  as  the  good  citizen  is  about  the 
penal  laws.  Though  not,  perhaps,  exactly  on  the  Path  as  yet,  you  are 
skirting  its  border,  and  many  of  you  in  the  right  direction.  Between 
such  venal  faults  as  are  inevitable  under  our  social  environment,  and 
the  blasting  wickedness  described  in  the  Editor's  note  on  Eliphas 
Levi's  "Satan,"*  there  is  an  abyss.  If  not  become  "immortal  in  good 
by  identification  with  (our)  God,"  or  Aum,  Atma-Buddhi-Manas,  we 
have  surely  not  made  ourselves  "immortal  in  evil"  by  coalescing  with 
vSatan,  the  lower  Self.  You  forget,  however,  that  everything  must 
have  a  beginning ;  that  the  first  step  on  a  slippery  mountain  slope  is 
the  necessary  antecedent  to  one's  falling  precipitatel}^  to  the  bottom 
and  into  the  arms  of  death.  Be  it  far  from  me  the  suspicion  that  any 
of  the  Esoteric  students  have  reached  to  any  considerable  point  down 
the  plane  of  spiritual  descent.  All  the  same  I  warn  3'ou  to  avoid 
taking  the  first  step.  You  may  not  reach  the  bottom  in  this  life  or  the 
next,  but  you  may  now  generate  causes  which  will  insure  5'our  spiritual 
destruction  in  your  third,  fourth,  fifth,  or  even  some  subsequent  birth. 
In  the  great  Indian  epic  you  may  read  how  a  mother  whose  whole 
family  of  warrior  sons  were  slaughtered  in  battle,  complained  to 
Krishna  that  though  she  had  the  spiritual  vision  to  enable  her  to  look 
Dack  fifty  incarnations,  yet  she  could  see  no  sin  of  hers  that  could 
nave  begotten  so  dreadful  a  Karma ;  and  Krishna  answered  her:  "If 
tnou  could'st  look  back  to  thy  fifty-first  anterior  birth,  as  I  can,  thou 
^•ouia'st  see  thyself  killing  in  wanton  cruelty   the  same   number    of 

•  See  Theosophist,  vol.  iii.,  October,  1882,  p.  13. 


THE   DIVINE   WITNESS.  529 

ants  as  that  of  the  sons  thou  hast  now  lost."  This,  of  course,  is  onl}' 
a  poetical  exaggeration  ;  j^et  it  is  a  striking  image  to  show  how  great 
results  come  from  apparently  trifling  causes. 

Good  and  evil  are  relative,  and  are  intensified  or  lessened  according 
to  the  conditions  by  which  man  is  surrounded.  One  who  belongs  to 
that  which  we  call  the  "  useless  portion  of  mankind,"  that  is  to  say,  the 
lay  majority,  is  in  many  cases  irresponsible.  Crimes  committed  in 
Avidya,  or  ignorance,  involve  physical  but  not  moral  responsibilities  or 
Karma.  Take,  for  example,  the  case  of  idiots,  children,  savages,  and 
people  who  know  no  better.  But  the  case  of  each  who  is  pledged  to  the 
Higher  Self  is  quite  another  matter.  Vojc  cannot  invoke  this  Divine 
JViiness  with  impunity,  and  once  that  you  have  put  yourselves  under 
its  tutelage,  you  have  asked  the  Radiant  Light  to  shine  and  search 
through  all  the  dark  corners  of  your  being ;  consciously  you  have  in- 
voked the  Divine  Justice  of  Karma  to  take  note  of  your  motive,  to 
scrutinize  your  actions,  and  to  enter  up  all  in  your  account.  The  step 
is  irrevocable  as  that  of  the  infant  taking  birth.  Never  again  can  you 
force  yourselves  back  into  the  matrix  of  Avidya  and  irresponsibility. 
Though  you  flee  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth,  and  hide  yourselves 
from  the  sight  of  men,  or  seek  oblivion  in  the  tumult  of  the  social  whirl, 
that  Light  will  find  you  out  and  lighten  your  every  thought,  word  and 
deed.  All  H.  P.  B.  can  do  is  to  send  to  each  earnest  one  among  you 
a  most  sincerely  fraternal  sympathy  and  hope  for  a  good  outcome  to 
your  endeavours.  Nevertheless,  be  not  discouraged,  but  try,  ever  keep 
trying  ;*  twenty  failures  are  not  irremediable  if  followed  by  as  many 
undaunted  struggles  upward.  Is  it  not  so  that  mountains  are  climbed  ? 
And  know  further,  that  if  Karma  relentlessly  records  in  the  Esotericist's 
account,  bad  deeds  that  in  the  ignorant  would  be  overlooked,  yet,  equally 
true  is  it  that  each  of  his  good  deeds  is,  by  reason  of  his  as.sociation 
with  the  Higher  Self,  a  hundredfold  intensified  as  a  potentiality  for  good. 

Finally,  keep  ever  in  mind  the  consciousness  that  though  you  see  no 
Master  by  j'our  bedside,  nor  hear  one  audible  whisper  in  the  silence  of 
the  still  night,  yet  the  Holy  Power  is  about  you,  the  Holy  Ught  is 
shining  into  your  hour  of  spiritual  need  and  aspirations,  and  it  will  be 
no  fault  of  the  Masters,  or  of  their  humble  mouthpiece  and  servant,  if 
through  perversity  or  moral  feebleness  some  of  you  cut  yourselves  off 
from  these  higher  potencies,  and  step  upon  the  declivity  that  leads  to 
Avitchi. 

*  Read  pp.  40  and  63  in  the  Vaiu  of  the  Silence. 

3  AOiC 


APPENDIX. 

NOTES  ON  PAPERS  I.,  II.  apd  III 


Page  436. 


Students  in  the  west  have  little  or  no  idea  of  the  forces  that  lie  latent 
in  Sound,  the  Akashic  vibrations  that  may  be  set  up  by  those  who 
understand  how  to  pronounce  certain  words.  The  Om,  or  the  "  O^n 
mani padme hum''  are  in  spiritual  affinity  with  cosmic  forces,  but  with- 
out a  knowledge  of  the  natural  arrangement,  or  of  the  order  in  which 
the  syllables  stand,  very  little  can  be  achieved,  "Om"  is,  of  course, 
Aum,  that  may  be  pronounced  as  two,  three  or  seven  syllables,  setting 
up  different  vibrations. 

Now,  letters,  as  vocal  sounds,  cannot  fail  to  correspond  with  musical 
notes,  and  therefore  with  numbers  and  colours  ;  hence  also  with  Forces 
and  Tattvas.  He  who  remembers  that  the  Universe  is  built  up  from 
the  Tattvas  will  readily  understand  something  of  the  power  that  may 
be  exercised  by  vocal  sounds.  Every  letter  in  the  alphabet,  whether 
divided  into  three,  four,  or  seven  septenaries,  or  forty-nine  letters,  has 
its  own  colour,  or  shade  of  colour.  He  who  has  learnt  the  colours  of 
the  alphabetical  letters,  and  the  corresponding  numbers  of  the  seven, 
and  the  forty-nine  colours  and  shades  on  the  scale  of  planes  and  forces, 
and  knows  their  respective  order  in  the  seven  planes,  will  easily  master 
the  art  of  bringing  them  into  affinity  or  interplay.  But  here  a  difficulty 
arises.  The  Senzar  and  Sanskrit  alphabets,  and  other  Occult  tongues, 
besides  other  potencies,  have  a  number,  colour,  and  distinct  syllable 
for  every  letter,  and  so  had  also  the  old  Mosaic  Hebrew.  But  how 
many  students  know  any  of  these  tongues?  When  the  time  comes, 
therefore,  it  must  suffice  to  teach  the  students  the  numbers  and  colours 
attached  to  the  Latin  letters  only  (N.B.  as  pronounced  in  Latin,  not  in 
Anglo-Saxon,  Scotch,  or  Irish).  This,  however,  would  be  at  present 
premature. 


A   MANTRA   OPERATIVK. 


531 


The  colour  and  number  of  not  only  the  planets  but  also  the  zodiacal 
constellations  corresponding  to  every  letter  of  the  alphabet,  are  neces- 
sary to  make  any  special  syllable,  and  even  letter,  operative.^  There- 
fore if  a  student  would  make  Buddhi  operative,  for  instance,  he  would 
have  to  intone  the  first  words  of  the  Mantra  on  the  note  mi.  But  he 
would  have  still  further  to  accentuate  the  mi,  and  produce  mentall)'- 
the  yellow  colour  corresponding  to  this  sound  and  note,  on  every  letter 
M  in  "■  Om.  mani  padm,c  hum'';  this,  not  because  the  note  bears  the 
same  name  in  the  vernacular,  Sanskrit,  or  even  the  Senzar,  for  it  does 
not — but  because  the  letter  M  follows  the  first  letter,  and  is  in  this 
sacred  formula  also  the  seventh  and  the  fourth.  As  Buddhi  it  is  second  ; 
as  Buddhi-Manas  it  is  the  second  and  third  combined. 

H.  P.  B. 
Page  439.! 

The  Pythagorean  Four,  or  Tetraktys,  was  the  symbol  of  the 
Kosmos,  as  containing  within  itself,  the  point,  the  line,  the  superficies, 
the  solid  ;  in  other  words,  the  essentials  of  all  forms.  Its  mystical 
representation  is  the  point  within  the  triangle.  The  Decad  or  perfect 
number  is  contained  in  thq  Four  ;  thus,  1  +  2  +  3+4=10. 

Page  453. 


Sunday.  1  Monday.ITuesday. 

i                   j 

Wed'd' Y.  iThu'day. 

Friday. 

Sat'dat. 

First 
Quarter. 

0 

1 
D            3^ 

?        n 

$ 

h 

Second 
Quarter. 

S 

5           U 

?  i  ^ 

0           D 

Third 
Quarter. 

U 

2 

b 

0 

D 

c?                  t^ 

Fourth 
Quarter. 

'? 

0 

D 

<? 

? 

'4     1      $ 

Page  477.  O. 

The  difficult  passage :  "  Bear  in  mind     ....     a.  mystery  below 
truly,"  J  may  become  a  little  more  clear  to  the  student  if  slightly  ampli- 


•  See  Voice  of  the  Silence,  p.  viii. 

t  The  following  notes  were  contributed  by  students  and  approved  by  H.  P.  B. 

t  See  page  444. 


532  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

fied.  The  "  primordial  Triangle  "  is  the  Second  lyOgos,  which  reflects 
itself  as  a  Triangle  in  the  Third  Logos,  or  Heavenly  Man,  and  then 
disappears.  The  Third  L,ogos,  containing  the  "potency  of  formative 
creation,"  develops  the  Tetraktys  from  the  Triangle,  and  so  becomes 
the  Seven,  the  Creative  Force,  making  a  Decad  with  the  primordial 
Triangle  which  originated  it.  When  this  heavenh^  Triangle  and 
Tetraktys  are  reflected  in  the  Universe  of  Matter,  as  the  astral  para- 
digmatic man,  they  are  reversed,  and  the  Triangle,  or  formative 
potenc)',  is  thrown  below  the  Quaternary,  with  its  apex  pointing 
downwards :  the  Monad  of  this  astral  paradigmatic  man  is  itself  a 
Triangle,  bearing  to  the  Quaternarv' and  Triangle  the  relation  borne  by 
the  primordial  Triangle  to  the  Heavenh'  Man.  Hence  the  phrase, 
"  the  upper  Triangle  ...  is  shifted  in  the  man  of  clay  below  the 
sevenT  Here  again  the  Point  tracing  the  Triangle,  the  Monad  becoming 
the  Ternar}",  with  the  Quaternary  and  the  lower  creative  triangle,  make 
up  the  Decad,  the  perfect  number.     "  As  above,  so  below." 

The  student  will  do  well  to  relate  the  knowledge  here  acquired  to 
that  given  on  p.  477.  Here  the  upper  Triangle  is  given  as  Violet,  Indigo, 
Blue,  associating  Violet  as  the  paradigm  of  all  forms  with  Indigo  as 
Mahat,  and  blue  as  the  Atmic  Aura.  In  the  Quaternary,  Yellow,  as 
substance,  is  associated  with  Yellow-Orange,  Life,  and  Red-Orange, 
the  creative  potenc3^     Green  is  the  plane  between. 

The  next  stage  is  not  explained.  Green  passes  upwards  to  Violet, 
Indigo,  Blue,  the  Triangle  opening  out  to  receive  it,  and  so  forming 
the  square,  Violet,  Indigo,  Blue,  Green.  This  leaves  the  Red-Orange, 
Yellow- Orange,  and  Yellow,  and  these,  having  thus  lost  their  fourfli 
member,  can  only  form  a  triangle.  This  triangle  revolves,  to  point 
downwards  for  the  descent  into  matter,  and  "  mirrored  on  the  plane 
of  gross  nature,  it  is  reversed,"  and  appears  as  in  the  diagram  following 
these  words. 

/     Monad.    A      Second  Logos. 

_-      10     '  (a      Third  Logos,  or  Heavenly  Man. 

The  7    -      ' ^ 

1 1 — I     The  Triangle  becoming  the  Quater- 
U 1        narj'  and  then  the  Septenary.* 

(Monad.    A      Astral  Paradigmatic  Man. 

I  The  7.  ^  """" 


n 


\"7     Creative   Triangle    thrown    below 
the  Seven. 


See  supra,  ;.  89,  90,  a:id  ,;:. 


COLOUR   AND    SPIRITUAI,   SOUND.  533 

111  the  perfect  man  the  Red  will  be  absorbed  by  the  Green  ;  Yellow 
will  become  one  with  Indigo  ;  Yellow-Orange  will  be  absorbed  in  Blue; 
Violet  will  remain  outside  the  True  Man,  though  connected  with  him. 
Or,  to  translate  the  colours:  Kama  will  be  absorbed  in  the  I^ower 
Manas ;  Buddhi  will  become  one  with  Manas  ;  Prana  will  be  absorbed 
in  the  Auric  Egg ;  the  physical  body  remains,  connected  but  outside 
the  real  life. 

A.  B. 
Page  481. 

To  the  five  senses  at  present  the  property  of  mankind  two  more  on 
this  globe  are  to  be  added.  The  sixth  sense  is  the  psychic  sense  of 
colour.  The  seventh  is  that  of  spiritual  sound.  In  the  second  instruc- 
tion, the  corrected  rates  of  vibration  for  the  seven  primary  colours 
and  their  modulations  are  given.  Inspecting  these,  it  appears  that 
each  colour  differs  from  the  proceeding  one  by  a  step  of  42,  or  6  x  7. 

462  Red  +42  =  5o4\ 

504  O  ran  ge  +  42  =  546 

546  Yellow  +  42  =  588 

588  Green  +  42  =  630 1   Third  Octave  of  psychic  colour 

630  Blue  +42  =  672  [         perceptions. 

672  ludi.tfo  +42  =  714 

714  Violet  +42  =  756 

756  Red  / 

Carrying  the  process  backward,  ana  subtracting  42,  we  find  that  the 
first  or  ground  colour  is  green,  for  this  globe. 

—  Green 

42  Blue 

84  Indigo 
126  Violet 
168  Red 
210  Orange 
252  Yellow 

294  Green      '    ^  At. 

336  Blue         "  Second  octave. 

378  Indigo 
420  Violet 
462  Red 

The  second  and  fourth  octaves  would  be  heat  and  actinic  rays,  and 
are  invisible  to  our  present  perception. 

The  seventh  sense  is  that  of  spiritual  sound ;  and,  since  the  vibra- 
tions of  the  sixth  progress  by  steps  of  6  x  7,  those  of  the  seventh 
progress  by  steps  of  7  x  7.     This  is  their  table  : 

—  Fa  ...  Green  Sound  ] 

49  Sol  ...  Blue         „  Tj-    .  •       . 

98  La  ...  Indigo     ;;  f     First  semi-octave. 

147  Si  ...  Violet       ,,  J 


First  semi-octave 


534 


THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


196  Do 

...     Red  Sound         x 

245  Re 

...     Orange    „ 

294  Mi 

...     Yellow     „ 

343  Fa 
392  Sol 

...     Green       ,, 
...      Blue 

■^    Second  Octave 

441  La 

...     Indigo      ,, 

490  Si 

...     Violet       „ 

539  Do 

...     Red          „          1 

Etc. 

etc. 

The  fifth  sense  is  in  our  possession  :  it  is  possibly  that  of  geometrical 
lorm,  and  its  steps  of  progression  would  be  5  x  7,  or  35. 

The  fourth  sense  is  that  of  physical  hearing,  music,  and  its  progres- 
sions are  28,  or  4  x  7.  The  truth  of  this  is  demonstrated  by  the  fact 
that  it  is  in  accord  with  the  theories  of  Science  as  to  the  vibrations  of 
musical  notes.     Our  scale  is  as  follows  : 

—  28,  56,  84,  :  :•.  140,  168,  196,  224,  252,  280,  30S,  336,  364.  392,  420,  448,  476,  504,  532, 
560,  588,  616,  644,  672,  700. 

According  to  musical  science,  the  notes  C,  E,  G,  are  as  4,  5,  6,  in  their 
ratios  of  vibrations.  The  same  ratio  obtains  between  the  notes  of  the 
triplet  G,  B,  D,  and  F,  A,  C.  This  gives  the  scale,  and  reducing  the 
vibrations  to  C  as  i,  the  ratios  of  the  seven  notes  to  C  are 

I     9/S    5/4    4/3    3/2     5/3,   15/8    2 
C      D      H       F       G      A       B      C 

Reducing  these  to  whole  numbers,  we  get  for  one  octave  : 

24    27    30    32    36    40    45    48 
CD      E     F     G     A      B    C" 

By  a  similar  calculation  we  can  put  an  octave  below  C,  and  above  C". 
Writing  these  three  octaves  in  line,  and  multiplying  by  seven  we  obtain 
a  nearly  exact  correspondence  with  our  table  of  vibration  for  the  fourth 
sense. 

MUSICAL  TABLE. 


FOURTH 
SENSE. 

28 

56 

84 
112 
140 
168 
196 

224 
252 
280 
308 


SCALE 

RATIO 

PRODUC 

4 

X 

7 

= 

28  E 

8 

X 

7 

= 

56  F 

12 

X 

= 

84  G 

16 

X 

? 

= 

112  A 

20 

X 

7 

= 

140  B 

24 

X 

7 

= 

16S  C\ 

27 

X 

7 

= 

189  D 

30 

X 

7 

= 

2io)E 

32 

X 

7 

= 

224  F 

36 

X 

7 

= 

252  G 

40 

X 

7 

— 

280  A 

45 

X 

7 

= 

315  B/ 

MUSICAL  TABI,E. 


535 


FOURTH 
SENSE. 

364 
392 
420 
448 

476 

532 
560 
588 
616 
(S44 
VJ2 


48 

54 

60 
64 

72 

So 

90 

q6 


SCALE 
RATIO. 

X 
X 


PRODUCT. 


336  C. 

37SDi 


H.  C. 


NOTES  ON  SOME  ORAL  TEACHINGS. 


THE  THREE  VITAL  AIRS. 

It  is  the  pure  Akaslia  that  passes  up  Sushumna  :  its  two  aspects 
flow  in  Ida  and  Pingala.  These  are  the  three  vital  airs,  and  are 
symbolized  by  the  Brahmanical  thread.  They  are  ruled  by  the  Will. 
Will  and  Desire  are  the  higher  and  lower  aspects  of  one  and  the  same 
thing.  Hence  the  importance  of  the  purity  of  the  canals ;  for  if  they 
soil  the  vital  airs  energized  by  the  Will,  Black  Magic  results.  This  is 
why  all  sexual  intercourse  is  forbidden  in  practical  Occultism. 

From  Sushumna,  Ida  and  Pingala  a  circulation  is  set  up,  and  from 
the  central  canal  passes  into  the  whole  body.  (Man  is  a  tree ;  he  has 
in  him  the  macrocosm  and  the  microcosm.  Hence  the  trees  used  as 
symbols  ;  the  Dhj'an-Chohanic  body  is  thus  figured.) 

THE  AURIC  EGG. 

The  Auric  Egg  is  formed  in  curves,  which  may  be  conceived  from 
the  curves  formed  bj'  sand  on  a  vibrating  metal  disk.  Each  atom,  as 
each  body,  has  its  Auric  Egg,  each  centre  forming  its  own.  This 
Auric  Egg,  with  the  appropriate  materials  thrown  into  it,  is  a  defence  ; 
no  wild  animal,  however  ferocious,  will  approach  the  Yoeri  thus 
guarded  :  it  flings  back  from  its  surface  all  malign  influences.  No 
Will  power  is  manifested  through  the  Auric  Egg. 

O.  W^iat  is  the  connection  bctweeyi  the  circulation  of  the  vital  airs  a7id 
the  power  of  the  Yogi  to  make  his  Auric  Egg  a  defence  against  aggression  ? 

A.  It  is  impossible  to  answer  this  question.  The  knowledge  is 
the  last  word  of  Magic.  It  is  connected  with  Kundalini,  that  can  as 
easily  destroy  as  preserve.     The  ignorant  tyro  might  kill  himself. 

Q.  Is  the  Auric  Egg  of  a  child  a  differentiation  of  Akdsha,  into 
which  may  be  thrown  by  the  Adept  the  materials  he  needs  for  special 
pzirposes — e.g.,  the  Mdydvi  Riipa  ? 

[The  question  was  somewhat  obscurelj'  worded.  Evidently  what 
the  questioner  wanted  to  know  was  if  the  Auric  Egg  was  a  differentia- 


538  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

tion  of  Akasha,  into  which,  as  the  child  became  a  man,  he  might,  if  an 
Adept,  weave  the  materials  needed  for  special  purposes,  etc.] 

A.  Taking  the  question  in  the  sense  of  an  Adept  putting  some- 
thing into  or  acting  on  the  Auric  Egg  of  a  child,  then  this  could  not  be 
done,  as  the  Auric  Egg  is  Karmic,  and  not  even  an  Adept  must  inter- 
fere with  such  Karmic  record.  If  the  Adept  were  to  put  anything  into 
the  Auric  Egg  of  another,  for  which  the  person  is  not  responsible,  or 
which  does  not  come  from  the  Higher  Self  of  that  personality,  how 
could  Karmic  justice  be  maintained  ? 

The  Adept  can  draw  into  his  own  Auric  Egg  from  his  planet,  or 
even  from  that  of  the  globe  or  of  the  universe,  according  to  his  degree. 
This  envelope  is  the  receptacle  of  all  Karmic  causes,  and  photographs 
all  things  like  a  sensitive  plate. 

The  child  has  a  very  small  Auric  Egg  which  is  in  colour  almost 
pure  white.  At  birth  the  Auric  Egg  consists  of  almost  pure  Akasha 
plus  the  Tanhas,  which,  until  the  seventh  year,  remain  potential  or  in 
latency. 

The  Auric  Egg  of  an  idiot  cannot  be  said  to  be  human,  that  is,  it 
is  not  tinged  with  Manas.  It  is  Akashic  vibrations  rather  than  an 
Auric  Egg — the  material  envelope,  such  as  that  of  the  plant,  the 
mineral  or  other  object. 

The  Auric  Egg  is  the  transmitter  from  the  periodical  lives  to  the 
Life  eternal,  i.e.,  from  Prana  to  Jiva.     It  disappears,  but  remains. 

The  reason  why  the  confession  of  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Greek 
Churches  is  so  great  a  sin  is  because  the  confessor  interferes  with  the 
Auric  Egg  of  the  penitent  by  means  of  his  will  power,  engrafting 
artificially  emanations  from  his  own  Auric  Egg  and  casting  seeds  for 
germination  into  the  Auric  Egg  of  his  subject.  It  is  on  the  same  lines 
as  hypnotic  suggestion. 

The  above  remarks  apply  equally  to  Hypnotism,  although  the 
latter  is  a  psycho-physical  force,  and  it  is  this  which  constitutes  one  of 
its  many  serious  dangers.  At  the  same  time  "  a  good  thing  may  pass 
through  dirty  channels,"  as  in  the  case  of  the  breaking  by  suggestion 
of  the  alcohol  or  opium  habit.  Mesmerism  may  be  used  by  the 
Occultist  to  remove  evil  habits,  if  the  intention  be  perfectly  pure  ;  as 
on  the  higher  plane  intention  is  everything,  and  good  intention 
must  work  for  good. 

O.  Is  the  Auric  Efrg  the  expansion  of  the  "Pillar  of  Light r  the 
Mdnasic  Principle,  and  so  not  surrounding  the  child  till  its  seventh  year  ? 


THE   DWEIvI,ER   ON  THE  THRESHOI,D,  539 

A.  It  is  the  Auric  Egg.  The  Auric  Egg  is  quite  pure  at  birth, 
but  it  is  a  question  whether  the  higher  or  lower  Manas  will  colour  it  at 
the  seventh  year.  The  Manasic  expansion  is  pure  AkSsha.  The  ray  of 
Manas  is  let  down  into  the  vortex  of  the  lower  Principles,  and  being 
discoloured,  and  so  limited  by  the  Kamic  Tanhas  and  by  the  defects  of 
the  bodily  organism,  forms  the  personality.  Hereditary  Karma  can 
reach  the  child  before  the  seventh  year,  but  no  individual  Karma  can 
come  into  play  till  the  descent  of  the  Manas. 

The  Auric    Egg  is  to  the  Man 
As    „    Astral  Light        „         Earth 
„     „    Ether  „         Astral  Eight 

,,     ,,    Akasha  ,,        Ether 

The  critical  states  are  left  out  in  the  enumeration.  They  are  the 
Eaya  Centres,  or  missing  links  in  our  consciousness,  and  separate  these 
four  planes  from  one  another. 

THE  DWELLER. 
The  "  Dweller  on  the  Threshold"  is  found  in  two  cases  :  (a)  In  the 
case  of  the  separation  of  the  Triangle  from  the  Quaternary ;  {b)  When 
Kamic  desires  and  passions  are  so  intense  that  the  Kama  Riipa  persist- 
in  Kama  Loka  beyond  the  Devachanic  period  of  the  Ego,  and  thu^ 
survives  the  reincarnation  of  the  Devachanic  Entity  (^e.g.,  when 
reincarnation  occurs  within  two  hundred  or  three  hundred  years). 
The  "Dweller"  being  drawn  by  affinity  towards  the  Reincarnating 
Ego  to  whom  i-t  had  belonged,  and  being  unable  to  reach  it,  fastens 
on  the  Kama  of  the  new  personality,  and  becomes  the  Dweller  on  the 
Threshold,  strengthening  the  Kamic  element  and  thus  lending  it  a 
dangerous  potency.     Some  become  mad  from  this  cause. 

INTELLECT. 

The  white  Adept  is  not  always  at  first  of  powerful  intellect.  In  fact, 
H.  P.  B  had  known  Adepts  whose  intellectual  powers  were  originally 
below  the  average.  It  is  the  Adept's  purity,  his  equal  love  to  all,  his 
working  with  Nature,  with  Karma,  with  his  "Inner  God,"  that  give 
him  his  power.  Intellect  by  itself  alone  will  make  the  Black  Magician. 
For  intellect  alone  is  accompanied  with  pride  and  selfishness  :  it  is  the 
intellectual  plus  the  spiritual  that  raises  man.  For  spirituality 
prevents  pride  and  vanity. 

Metaphysics    are    the    domain     of   the    Higher    Manas;    whereas 


540  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Physics  are  that  of  Kama-Manas,  which  does  the  thinking  in  Physical 
Science  and  on  material  things.  Kama-Manas,  like  every  other  Prin- 
ciple, is  of  seven  degrees.  The  Mathematician  without  spirituality, 
however  great  he  may  be,  will  not  reach  Metaphysics  ;  but  the  Meta- 
phj'sician  will  master  the  highest  conceptions  of  Mathematics,  and  will 
apply  them,  without  learning  the  latter.  To  a  born  Metaphysician  the 
Psychic  Plane  will  not  be  of  much  account :  he  will  see  its  errors 
immediately  he  enters  it,  inasmuch  as  it  is  not  the  thing  he  seeks. 
With  respect  to  Music  and  other  Arts,  they  are  the  children  of  either 
the  Manasic  or  Kama-Manasic  Principle,  proportionately  as  Soul  or 
technicality  predominates. 

KARMA. 
After  each  incarnation,  when  the  Manasic  Ray  returns  to  its  Father, 
the  Ego,  some  of  its  atoms  remain  behind  and  scatter.  These  Manasic 
atoms,  Tanhic  and  other  "  causes,"  being  of  the  same  nature  as  the 
Manas,  are  attracted  to  it  by  strong  bonds  of  affinity,  and  on  the 
reincarnation  of  the  Ego  are  unerringly  attracted  to  it  and  constitute 
its  Karma.  Until  these  are  all  gathered  up,  the  individuality  is  not 
free  from  rebirth.  The  Higher  Manas  is  responsible  for  the  Ray  it 
sends  forth.     If  the  Ray  be  not  soiled,  no  bad  Karma  is  generated. 

THE  TURIyA  state. 

You  should  bear  in  mind  that,  in  becoming  Karma-less,  good  Karma, 
as  well  as  bad,  has  to  be  gotten  rid  of,  and  that  Nidanas,  started 
towards  the  acquisition  of  good  Karma,  are  as  binding  as  those  induced 
in  the  other  direction.     For  both  are  Karma. 

Yogis  cannot  attain  the  Turiya  state  unless  the  Triangle  is  separated 
from  the  Quaternary. 

mahat. 

Mahat  is  the  manifested  universal  Parabrahmic  Mind  (for  one  Man- 
vantara)  on  the  Third  Plane  [of  Kosmos].  It  is  the  Law  whereby  the 
Eight  falls  from  plane  to  plane  and  differentiates.  The  Manasaputras 
are  its  emanations. 

Man  alone  is  capable  of  conceiving  the  Universe  on  this  plane  of 
existence. 

Existence  is ;  but  when  the  entity  does  not  feel  it,  for  that  entity  it  is 
not.  The  pain  of  an  operation  exists,  though  the  patient  does  not  feel 
it,  and  for  the  patient  it  is  not. 


PEAR   AND   HATRED.  54 1 

HOW  TO  ADVANCE. 

O.      What  is  the  cor7'ect  pronunciation  of  A  UM  ? 

A.  It  should  first  be  practised  physically,  always  at  the  same  pitch, 
which  must  be  discovered  in  the  same  way  as  the  particular  colour  of 
the  student  is  found,  for  each  has  his  own  tone. 

AuM  consists  of  two  vowels  and  one  semi-vowel,  which  latter  must 
be  prolonged.  Just  as  Nature  has  its  Fa,  so  each  man  has  his  :  man 
being  differentiated  from  Nature.  The  body  may  be  compared  to  an 
instrument  and  the  Ego  to  the  player.  You  begin  by  producing  effects 
on  yourself;  then  little  by  little  you  learn  to  play  on  the  Tattvas  and 
Principles ;  learn  first  the  notes,  then  the  chords,  then  the  melodies. 
Once  the  student  is  master  of  every  chord,  he  may  begin  to  be  a  co- 
worker with  Nature  and  for  others.  He  may  then,  b}'  the  experience 
he  has  gained  of  his  own  nature,  and  by  the  knowledge  of  the  chords, 
strike  such  as  will  be  beneficial  in  another,  and  so  will  serve  as  a  ke}^- 
note  for  beneficial  results. 

Try  to  have  a  clear  representation  of  the  geometrical  triangle  on 
every  plane,  the  conception  gradualh'  growing  more  metaphj'sicai,  and 

A. 

ending  with  the  subjective  Triangle,  Atma-Buddhi-Manas.  It  is  only 
by  the  knowledge  of  this  Triangle  under  all  forms  that  you  can 
succeed,  e.g.  in  enclosing  the  past  and  the  future  in  the  present. 
Remember  that  you  have  to  merge  the  Quaternary  in  the  Triangle. 
The  IvOwer  Manas  is  drawn  upwards,  with  the  Kama,  Prana  and 
Linga,  leaving  only  the  physical  body  behind,  the  lower  reinforcing  the 
higher. 

Advance  may  be  made  in  Occultism  even  in  Devachan,  if  the  Mind 
and  Soul  be  set  thereon  during  life ;  but  it  is  only  as  in  a  dream,  and 
the  knowledge  will  fade  away  as  memory  of  a  dream  fades,  unless  it  be" 
kept  alive  by  conscious  study. 

PEAR  AND  HATRED. 
Fear  and  hatred  are  essentially  one  and  the  same.     He  who  fears 
nothing  will  never  hate,  and  he  who  hates  nothing  will  never  fear. 

THE  TRIANGLE. 

Q.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  phrase :  "  Form  a  clear  image  of  the 
Triangle  on  every  plane  i"'  e.g.,  on  the  Astral  Plane,  what  should  one  think 
of  as  the  Triangle  ? 

A.     [H.  P.  B.  asked  whether  the  question   signified  the  meaning  of 


542  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

the  Triangle  or  the  way  to  represent  the  Triangle  on  the  "  screen  of 
light."  The  questioner  explaining  that  the  latter  was  the  meaning, 
H.  P.  B.  said  that]  it  was  only  in  the  Turiya  state,  the  fourth  of  the 
seven  steps  of  Raja  Yoga  that  the  Yogi  can  represent  to  himself  that 
which  is  abstract.  Below  this  state,  the  perceptive  power,  being  con- 
ditioned, must  have  some  form  to  contemplate  ;  it  cannot  represent  to 
itself  the  Arupa.  In  the  Turiya  state  the  Triangle  is  in  yourself  and  is 
felt.  Below  the  Turiya  state  there  must  be  a  symbol  to  represent 
Atma-Buddhi- Manas.  It  is  not  a  mere  geometrical  Triangle,  but  the 
Triad  imaged,  to  make  thought  possible.  Of  this  Triad,  we  can  make 
some  kind  of  representation  of  Manas,  however  indistinct ;  while  of 
Atma  no  image  can  be  formed.  We  must  try  to  represent  the  Triangle 
to  ourselves  on  higher  and  higher  planes.  We  must  figure  Manas  as 
overshadowed  by  Buddhi,  and  immersed  in  Atma.  Only  Manas,  the 
Higher  Ego,  can  be  represented  ;  we  may  think  it  as  the  Augoeides, 
the  radiant  figure  in  Zayioni.     A  ver\'  good  Psychic  might  see  this. 

PSYCHIC    VISION. 

Psychic  vision,  however,  is  not  to  be  desired,  since  Psyche  is  earthly 
and  evil.  More  and  more  as  Science  advances,  the  psychic  will  be 
reached  and  understood  ;  Psychism  has  in  it  nothing  that  is  spiritual. 
Science  is  right  on  its  own  plane,  from  its  own  standpoint.  The  law  of 
the  Conservation  of  Energy  implies  that  psychic  motion  is  generated  by 
motion.  Psychic  motion  being  only  motion  on  the  Psychic  Plane,  a 
material  plane,  the  Psychologist  is  right  who  sees  in  it  nothing  beyond 
matter.  Animals  have  no  Spirit,  but  they  have  psychic  vision,  and  are 
sensitive  to  psychic  conditions ;  observe  how  these  react  on  their 
health,  their  bodily  state. 

Motion  is  the  abstract  Deity  ;  on  the  highest  plane  it  is  Arupa, 
absolute  ;  but  on  the  lowest  it  is  merely  mechanical.  Psychic  action  is 
within  the  sphere  of  physical  motion.  Ere  pS3-chic  action  can  be 
developed  in  the  brain  and  nerves,  there  must  be  adequate  action 
which  generates  it  on  the  Physical  Plane.  The  paralyzed  animal  that 
cannot  generate  action  in  the  physical  body,  cannot  think.  Psychics 
merely  see  on  a  plane  of  different  material  density ;  the  spiritual 
glimpses  sometimes  obtained  by  them  come  from  a  plane  beyond.  A 
Psychic's  vision  is  that  of  one  coming,  as  it  were,  into  a  lighted  room, 
and  seeing  everything  there  by  an  artificial  light :  when  the  light  is 
extinguished,  vision  is  lost.     Spiritual  vision  sees  by  the  light  within. 


TRIANGLE   AND   QUATERNARY.  543 

the  light  hidden  beneath  the  bushel  of  the  body,  by  which  we  can  see 
clearly  and  independently  of  all  outside.  The  Psychic  seeing  by  an 
external  light,  the  vision  is  coloured  by  the  nature  of  that  light. 

X.  saying  that  she  felt  as  though  she  saw  on  three  planes,  H.  P.  B. 
answered  that  each  plane  was  sevenfold,  the  Astral  as  every  other. 
She  gave  as  an  example  on  the  Physical  Plane  the  vision  of  a  table  with 
the  sense  of  sight ;  seeing  it  still,  with  the  eyes  closed,  b}^  retinal 
impression  ;  the  image  of  it  conserved  in  the  brain  ;  it  can  be  recalled 
by  memory ;  it  can  be  seen  in  dream  ;  or  as  an  aggregate  of  atoms ;  or 
as  disintegrated.  All  these  are  on  the  Physical  Plane.  Then  we  can 
begin  again  on  the  Astral  Plane,  and  obtain  another  septenar5^  This 
hint  should  be  followed  and  worked  out. 

TRIANGLE   AND    QUATERNARY. 
O.      Why  is  the  violet,  the  colour  of  the  Lhiga   Shatira,  placed  at  the 
apex  of  the  l\,  when  the  Afacrocosm  is  figured  as  /\,  thus  throwing  the 
yellow,  Buddhi,  into  the  lower  Quaternary  ?  Q 

A.  It  is  wrong  to  speak  of  the  "lower  Quaternary"  in  the  Macro- 
cosm. It  is  the  Tetraktys,  the  highest,  the  most  sacred  of  all  symbols. 
There  comes  a  moment  when,  in  the  highest  meditation,  the  Lower 
Manas  is  withdrawn  into  the  Triad,  which  thus  becomes  the  Quater- 
nary, the  Tetraktys  of  Pythagoras,  leaving  what  was  the  Quaternary  as 
the  lower  Triad,  which  is  then  reversed.  The  Triad  is  reflected  in  the 
lyower  Manas.  The  Higher  Manas  cannot  reflect  itself,  but  when  the 
Green  passes  upward  it  becomes  a  mirror  for  the  Higher  ;  it  is  then  no 
more  Green,  having  passed  from  its  associations.  The  Psyche  then 
becomes  spiritual,  the  Ternary  is  reflected  in  the  Fourth,  and  the 
Tetraktys  is  formed.  So  long  as  you  are  not  dead,  there  must  be 
something  to  reflect  the  Higher  Triad  ;  for  there  must  be  something  to 
bring  back  to  the  waking  consciousness  the  experiences  passed  through 
on  the  higher  plane.  The  Lower  Manas  is  as  a  tablet  which  retains  the 
impressions  made  on  it  during  trance. 

The  Turiya  state  is  entered  on  the  Fourth  Path ;  it  is  figured  in  the 
diagram  on  p.  478,  in  the  Second  Paper. 

Q.  What  is  the  meaning  of  a  triangle  formed  of  lines  of  light  appea7'ing 
in  the  midst  of  intense  vibrating  blue  ? 

A.  Seeing  the  Triangle  outside  is  nothing  ;  it  is  merely  a  reflection 
of  the  Triad  on  the  Auric  Envelope,  and  proves  that  the  seer  is  outside 
the  Triangle.      It  should  be  seen  in  quite  another  way.     You  must 


544  THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 

endeavour  to  merge  3'our5elf  in  it,  to  assimilate  yourself  with  it.  You 
are  merely  seeing  things  in  the  Astral.  "When  the  Third  Eye  is  opened 
in  any  one  of  you,  you  will  have  something  very  different  to  tell  me." 

Q.  Wiih  reference  to  the ''  Pillar  of  Light''  in  a  previous  g7iestion.  is 
the  Auric  Envelope  the  Higher  Ego,  ajid  does  it  correspond  to  the  Ring 
Pass-Not  ? 

[This  question  was  not  answered,  as  going  too  far.  The  Ring  Pass- 
Not  is  at  the  circumference  of  the  manifested  Universe.] 

NIDANAS. 

Q.  The  root  of  the  Niddnas  is  Avidyd.  How  docs  this  differ  from  Maya  ? 
How  7nany  Niddiias  arc  there  Esoterically  ? 

A.  Again  too  much  is  asked.  The  Nidatiae,  the  concatenations  of 
causes  and  effects  (not  in  the  sense  of  the  Orientalists),  are  not  caused 
by  ignorance.  They  are  produced  by  Dhyau  Chohans  and  Devas,  who 
certainly  cannot  be  said  to  act  in  ignorance.  We  produce  Nidanas  in 
ignorance.  Each  cause  started  on  the  Physical  Plane  sets  up  action  on 
every  plane  to  all  eternity.  They  are  eternal  effects  reflected  from 
plane  to  plane  on  to  the  "  screen  of  eternit^^" 

MANAS. 

Q.  What  is  the  septenary  classificatio?i  of  Manas  ?  There  are  seve7i 
degrees  of  the  Lower  Manas,  and  presumably  there  are  seveyi  degrees  of  the 
Higher.  Are  there  then  fourteen  degrees  of  Manas,  or  is  Mayias,  taken  as  a 
whole,  divided  into  forty -nine  Mdnasic  fires  ? 

A.  Certainl)^  there  are  fourteen,  but  you  want  to  run  before  3'ou  can 
walk.  First  learn  the  three,  and  then  go  on  to  the  forty-nine.  There 
are  three  Sonr^  of  Agni ;  they  become  seven,  and  then  evolve  to  the 
forty-nine.  But  you  are  still  ignorant  how  to  produce  the  three. 
Learn  first  how  to  produce  the  "Sacred  Fire,"  spoken  of  in  the 
Purdnas.  The  forty-nine  fires  are  all  states  of  Kundalini,  to  be  pro- 
duced in  ourselves  by  the  friction  of  the  Triad.  First  learn  the  septenar}- 
of  the  body,  and  then  that  of  each  Principle.  But  first  of  all  learn  the 
first  Triad  (the  three  vital  airs) 

THE    SPINAL  CORD. 

O-  What  is  the  sympathetic  yierve  and  its  funcHon  in  Occultism  ?  If  is 
found  only  after  a  certain  stage  of  animal  evolution,  a:id  would  seem  to  be 
evolving  in  complexity  towards  a  second  spinal  cord. 

A.     At  the  end  of  the  next  Round,  Humanity  will  again  become 


PRANA   AND   ANTAHKARANA.  545 

male-female,  and  then  there  will  be  two  spinal  cords.  In  the  Seventh 
Race  the  two  will  merge  into  the  one.  The  evolution  corresponds  to 
tne  Races,  and  with  the  evolution  of  the  Races  the  sympathetic 
developes  into  a  true  spinal  cord.  We  are  returning  up  the  arc  only 
with  self-consciousness  added.  The  Sixth  Race  will  correspond  to  the 
"  pudding  bags,"  but  will  have  the  perfection  of  form  with  the  highest 
intelligence  and  spirituality. 

Anatomists  are  beginning  to  find  new  ramifications  and  new  modifi- 
cations in  the  human  body.  They  are  in  error  on  many  points,  e.g.,  as 
to  the  spleen,  which  they  call  the  manufactory  of  white  blood  corpus- 
cles, but  which  is  really  the  vehicle  of  the  lyinga  Sharira.  Occultists 
know  each  minute  portion  of  the  heart,  and  have  a  name  for  each. 
They  call  them  by  the  names  of  the  Gods,  as  Brahma's  Hall,  Vishnu's 
Hall,  etc.  They  correspond  with  parts  of  the  brain.  The  very  atoms 
of  the  body  are  the  thirty-three  crores  of  Gods. 

The  sympathetic  nerve  is  played  on  by  the  Tantrikas,  who  call  it 
Shiva's  Vina. 

prAna. 

Q.      What  is  the  relation  of  man  to  Prdna — the  periodical  life  ? 

A.    J] va  becomes  Prana  only  when  the  child  is  born  and  begins  to 

breathe.     It  is  the  breath  of  life,  Nephesh.     There  is  no  Prana  on  the 

Astral  Plane. 

ANTAHKARANA. 

Q.  The  Antahkarana  is  the  link  between  the  Higher  and  the  Lower 
Egos ;  does  it  correspoyid  to  the  umbilical  cord  in  projection  ? 

A.  No  ;  the  umbilical  cord  joining  the  astral  to  the  physical  body  is 
a  real  thing.  Antahkarana  is  imaginary,  a  figure  of  speech,  and  is  only 
the  bridging  over  from  the  Higher  to  the  Lower  Manas.  Antahkarana 
only  exists  when  you  commence  to  "  throw  your  thought  upwards  and 
downwards."  The  Mayavi  Rupa,  or  Manasic  body,  has  no  material 
connection  with  the  physical  body,  no  umbilical  cord.  It  is  spiritual 
and  ethereal,  and  passes  everywhere  without  let  or  hindrance.  It 
entirely  differs  from  the  astral  body,  which,  if  injured,  acts  by  reper- 
cussion on  the  physical  body.  The  Devachanic  entity,  even  previous 
to  birth,  can  be  affected  by  the  Skandhas,  but  these  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  Antahkarana.  It  is  affected,  e.g.,  by  the  desire  for  re- 
mcamation. 

Q.     We  are  told  in  The  Voice  of  the  Silence  that  we  have  to  become 

3      NN 


54^  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

'' ihe  f>ath  itse/fy  and  in  anoihe?' passage  iliat  Antahkarana  is  that  f>ath. 
Docs  this  7nean  anything  more  than  that  we  have  to  bridge  over  the  gap 
between  the  consciousness  of  the  Lower  and  the  Higher  Egos  ? 

A.     That  is  all. 

Q.  We  are  told  that  there  are  seven  poiials  on  the  Path  :  is  there  then 
a  sevejifold  division  of  Antahkarana  ?  Also,  is  A^itahkarana  the  battle- 
field ? 

A.  It  is  the  battlefield.  There  are  seven  divisions  in  the  Antah- 
karana. As  3''ou  pass  from  each  to  the  next  3^ou  approach  the  Higher 
Manas.  When  you  have  bridged  the  fourth  you  may  consider  yourself 
fortunate. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Q.  We  are  told  that  Aum  ''  should  be  practised  physically."  Does  this 
mean  that,  colour  being  -more  differeiitiated  than  sound,  it  is  only  thjvugh 
the  colours  that  we  shall  get  at  the  real  sound  of  each  of  us  ?  and  that  Aum 
ca7i  only  ha-ve  its  Spiritual  a?id  Occtilt  signification  when  turned  to  the 
Atma-Buddhi-Ma7ias  of  each  person  ? 

A.  Aum  means  good  action,  not  merely  lip-sound.  You  must  say  it 
in  deeds. 

Q.  With  refe?'e7ice  to  the  /\,  is  not  the  Atma-Buddhi-Manas  different 
for  each  entity,  accordi?ig  to  the  plane  on  which  he  is  ? 

A.  Each  Principle  is  on  a  different  plane.  The  Chela  must  rise 
to  one  after  the  other,  assimilating  each,  until  the  three  are  one.  This 
is  the  real  root  of  the  Trinity. 

Q.  In  The  Secret  Doctrine  we  are  told  that  Akdsha  is  the  same  as 
Pradhdna.  Akdsha  is  the  Auric  Egg  of  the  earth,  and  yet  Akdsha  is 
Mahat.      What  that  is  the  relatio7i  of  Manas  to  the  Auric  Egg  ? 

A.  M6laprakriti  is  the  same  as  Akasha  (seven  degrees).  Mahat  is 
the  positive  aspect  of  Akasha,  and  is  the  Manas  of  the  Kosmic  Body. 
Mahat  is  to  Akasha  as  Manas  is  to  Buddhi,  and  Pradhana  is  but  another 
name  for  Mulaprakriti. 

The  Auric  Egg  is  Akasha  and  has  seven  degrees.  Being  pure 
abstract  substance,  it  reflects  abstract  ideas,  but  also  reflects  lower 
concrete  things. 

The  Third  Logos  and  Mahat  are  one,  and  are  the  same  as  the  Uni- 
versal Mind,  Alaya. 

The  Tetraktys  is  the  Chatur  Vidya,  or  the  fourfold  knowledge  in  one, 
the  four- faced  Brahma. 


SACRED  CENTRES  OP   BODY.  547 

NADIS. 

Q.  Have  the  Nadis  any  fixed  relationship  to  the  vertebrcz  /  ca7i  they  be 
located  opposite  to  or  between  any  vertebrcB?  can  they  be  regarded  as  occupy- 
ing each  a  given  and  fixed  extejit  i?i  the  cord  ?  Do  they  corresp07id  to  the 
divisions  of  the  cord  known  to  Anatomists  ? 

A.  H.  P.  B.  believed  that  the  Nadis  corresponded  to  regions  of  the 
spinal  cord  known  to  Anatomists.  There  are  thus  six  or  seven  Nadis 
or  plexuses  along  the  spinal  cord.  The  term,  however,  is  not  technical 
but  general,  and  applies  to  any  knot,  centre,  ganglion,  etc.  The  sacred 
NSdis  are  those  which  run  along  or  above  Sushumna.  Six  are  known 
to  Science,  and  one  (near  the  atlas)  unknown.  Bven  the  Taraka 
Raja  Yogis  speak  only  of  six,  and  will  not  mention  the  sacre:i. 
seventh. 

Ida  and  Pingala  play  along  the  curved  wall  of  the  cord  in  which  is 
Sushumna.  They  are  semi-material,  positive  and  negative,  sun  and 
moon,  and  start  into  action  the  free  and  spiritual  current  of  Sushumna. 
They  have  distinct  paths  of  their  own,  otherwise  they  would  radiate  all 
over  the  body.  By  concentration  on  Ida  and  Pingalt  is  generated  Lhe 
"  sacred  fire." 

Another  name  for  Shiva's  Vina  (sympathetic  system)  is  Kali's 
Vina. 

The  sympathetic  cords  and  Ida  and  Pingala  start  from  a  sacred  spot 
above  the  medulla  oblongata,  called  Triveni.  This  is  one  of  the 
sacred  centres,  another  of  which  is  Brahmarandra,  which  is,  if  you 
like,  the  grey  matter  of  the  brain.  It  is  also  the  anterior  fontanelle  in 
the  new-born  child. 

The  spinal  column  is  called  Brahmadanda,  the  stick  of  Brahma. 
This  is  again  symbolized  by  the  bamboo  rod  carried  by  Ascetics.  The 
Yogis  on  the  other  sides  of  the  Himalayas,  who  assemble  regularly  at 
Lake  Mausarovara,  carry  a  triple  knotted  bamboo  stick,  and  are  called 
Tridandins.  This  has  the  same  signification  as  the  Brahmanical  cord, 
which  has  many  other  meanings  besides  the  three  vital  airs:  e.g.,  it 
symbolizes  the  three  initiations  of  a  Brahman,  taking  place:  (a)  at 
birth,  when  he  receives  his  mystery  name  from  the  family  Astrologer, 
who  is  supposed  to  have  received  it  from  the  Devas  (he  is  also  thus 
said  to  be  initiated  by  the  Devas)  ;  a  Hindu  will  sooner  die  than  reveal 
this  name ;  {b)  at  seven,  when  he  receives  the  cord ;  and  (c)  at  eleven 
or  twelve,  when  he  is  initiated  into  his  caste. 


until  it 


Prana 

Kama-Manas 
Manas- Antahkarana 
Manas 


548  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE.^ 

Q.  If  it  is  right  to  study  the  body  a7id  its  organs,  with  their  correspon- 
dences, will  you  give  the  main  outliyie  of  these  in  connection  with  the  Nddis 
and  with  the  diagram  of  the  orifices. 

A.    The  Spleen  -  corresponds  to  the  Linga  Sharira 

lyiver  -  -  „  ,,     Kama 

Heart-  -  ,, 

Corpora-quadrigemina         „ 

Pituitary  body  ,, 

Pineal  gland  ,, 

is  touched  by  the  vibrating  light  of  Kundalini,  which  pro- 
ceeds from  Buddhi,  when  it  becomes  Buddhi-Manas. 

The  pineal  gland  corresponds  with  Divine  Thought.  The  pituitary 
body  is  the  organ  of  the  Psychic  Plane.  Psychic  vision  is  caused  by  the 
molecular  motion  of  this  body,  which  is  directly  connected  with  the 
optic  nerve,  and  thus  affects  the  sight  and  gives  rise  to  hallucinations. 
Its  motion  may  readily  cause  flashes  of  light,  such  as  may  be  obtained 
b)'-  pressing  the  eyeballs.  Drunkenness  and  fever  produce  illusions  of 
sight  and  hearing  by  the  action  of  the  pituitary  body.  This  body  is 
sometimes  so  affected  by  drunkenness  that  it  is  paral5'zed.  If  an 
influence  on  the  optic  nerve  is  thus  produced  and  the  current  thus 
reversed,  the  colour  will  probably  be  complementary. 

SEVENS. 

O.  If  the  physical  body  is  no  part  of  the  real  human  septejiary,  is  the 
physical  material  world  one  of  the  seveji  planes  of  the  Kosmic  septenaiy  ? 

A.  It  is.  The  body  is  not  a  Principle  in  Esoteric  parlance,  because 
the  body  and  the  Linga  are  both  on  the  same  plane ;  then  the  Auric 
Egg  makes  the  seventh.  The  body  is  an  Upadhi  rather  than  a  Prin- 
ciple. The  earth  and  its  astral  light  are  as  closely  related  to  each 
other  as  the  body  and  its  Linga,  the  earth  being  the  Upadhi.  Our 
plane  in  its  lowest  division  is  the  earth,  in  its  highest  the  astral.  The 
terrestrial  astral  light  should  of  course  not  be  confounded  with  the 
universal  Astral  Light. 

O.  A  physical  object  was  spoken  of  as  a  septoiary  on  the  physical 
plane,  inasmuch  as  we  could  (i)  directly  contact  it;  (2)  retinally  repro- 
duce it;  (3)  remember  it;  (4)  dream  of  it;  (5)  view  it  atomically ; 
(6)  view  it  disi7itegrated ;  (7) —  What  is  the  seventh  ? 

These  are  seven  zvays  in  which  we  view  it ;  the  septenary  is  our  way  of 
seeing  one  thing.     Is  it  objectively  septenary  ? 


AKASHA   nature's    SOUNDING-BOARD.  549 

A.  The  seventh  bridges  across  from  one  plane  to  another.  The  last 
is  the  idea,  the  privation  of  matter,  and  carries  you  to  the  next  plane. 
The  highest  of  one  plane  touches  the  lowest  of  the  next.  Seven  is  a 
factor  in  nature,  as  in  colours  and  sounds.  There  are  seven  degrees  in 
the  same  piece  of  wood,  each  perceived  by  one  of  the  seven  senses. 
In  wood  the  smell  is  the  most  material  degree,  while  in  other  sub- 
stances it  may  be  the  sixth.  Substances  are  septenary  apart  from  the 
consciousness  of  the  viewer. 

The  psychometer,  seeing  a  morsel,  say  of  a  table  a  thousand  years 
hence,  would  see  the  whole ;  for  every  atom  reflects  the  whole  body  to 
which  it  belongs,  just  as  with  the  Monads  of  Leibnitz. 

After  the  seven  material  subdivisions  are  the  seven  divisions  of  the 
Astral,  which  is  its  second  Principle.  The  disintegrated  matter — the 
highest  of  the  material  subdivisions — is  the  privation  of  the  idea  of 
it — the  fourth. 

The  number  fourteen  is  the  first  step  between  seven  and  forty-nine. 
Kach  septenary  is  really  a  fourteen,  because  each  of  the  seven  has  its 
two  aspects.  Thus  fourteen  signifies  the  inter-relation  of  two  planes 
in  its  turn.  The  septenary  is  to  be  clearly  traced  in  the  lunar  months, 
fevers,  gestations,  etc.  On  it  is  based  the  week  of  the  Jews  and  the 
septenary  Hierarchies  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts. 

SOUNDS. 

O.  Sound  is  an  attribute  of  Akdsha  ;  bu.  we  cannot  cognize  anything 
V7i  the  Akdshic  plane ;  on  what  plane  theft  do  we  recogiiize  sound  ?  O71 
what  plane  is  sound  produced  by  the  physical  contact  of  bodies  ?  Is  there 
sound  on  seven  planes,  and  is  the  physical  plane  one  of  them  ? 

A.  The  physical  plane  is  one  of  them.  You  cannot  see  AkSsha, 
but  you  can  sense  it  from  the  Fourth  Path.  You  may  not  be  fully 
conscious  of  it,  and  yet  you  may  sense  it.  Akasha  is  at  the  root  of  the 
manifestation  of  all  sounds.  Sound  is  the  expression  and  manifesta- 
tion of  that  which  is  behind  it,  and  which  is  the  parent  of  many  cor- 
relations. All  Nature  is  a  sounding-board ;  or  rather  Akasha  is  the 
sounding-board  of  Nature.  It  is  the  Deity,  the  one  Life,  the  one 
Existence.  (Hearing  is  the  vibration  of  molecular  particles  ;  the  order 
is  seen  in  the  sentence,  "The  disciple  feels,  hears,  sees.") 

Sound  can  have  no  end.  H.  P.  B.  remarked  with  regard  to  a  tap 
made  by  a  pencil  on  the  table:  "  By  this  time  it  has  affected  the  whole 
universe.     The  particle  which  has  had  its  wear  and  tear  destroys  some- 


550  THE   SECRET  DOCTKINE. 

thing  which  passes  into  something  else.  It  is  eternal  in  the  NidSnas 
it  produces."  A  sound,  if  not  previously  produced  on  the  Astral  Plane, 
and  before  that  on  the  Akashic,  could  not  be  produced  at  all.  Akasha 
is  the  bridge  between  nerve  cells  and  mental  powers. 

Q.  "  Colours  are  psychic,  and  soimds  are  spiritual^  What,  assuviing 
thai  these  are  vibrations,  is  the  successive  order  (these  correspondijig  to  sight 
and  hearing)  of  the  other  senses  ? 

A.  This  phrase  was  not  to  be  taken  out  of  its  context,  otherwise 
confusion  would  arise.  All  are  on  all  planes.  The  First  Race  had 
touch  all  over  like  a  sounding  board  ;  this  touch  differentiated  into  the 
other  senses,  which  developed  with  the  Races.  The  "sense"  of  the 
First  Race  was  that  of  touch,  meaning  the  power  of  their  atoms  to 
vibrate  in  unison  with  external  atoms.  The  "touch"  would  be  almost 
the  same  as  sympathy. 

The  senses  were  on  a  different  plane  with  each  Race ;  e.g.,  the  Fourth 
Race  had  very  much  more  developed  senses  than  ourselves,  but  on 
another  plane.  It  was  also  a  very  material  Race.  The  sixth  and 
seventh  senses  will  merge  into  the  Akashic  Sound.  "  It  depends  to 
what  degree  of  matter  the  sense  of  touch  relates  itself  as  to  what  we 
call  it." 

PRANA. 

0.  Is  Prana  the  production  of  the  cottntless  "  lives"  of  the  hiinian  body, 
and  therefore,  to  some  extent,  of  the  congeries  of  the  cells  o  '  atoms  of  the 
body  ? 

A.  No;  Prana  is  the  parent  of  the  "lives."  As  an  example,  a 
sponge  may  be  immersed  in  an  ocean.  The  water  in  the  sponge's 
interior  may  be  compared  to  Prana;  outside  is  Jiva.  Prana  is  the 
motor-principle  in  life.  The  "lives"  leave  Prana;  Prana  does  not 
leave  them.  Take  out  the  sponge  from  the  water,  and  it  becomes 
dry,  thus  symbolizing  death.  Every  principle  is  a  differentiation  of 
Jiva,  but  the  life-motion  in  each  is  Prana,  the  "breath  of  life."  Kama 
depends  on  Prana,  without  which  there  would  be  no  Kama.  Prana 
wakes  the  KSmic  germs  to  life ;  it  makes  all  desires  vital  and  living. 

THE  SECOND  SPINAL  CORD. 

Q.  With  reference  to  the  a^iswer  to  the  question  on  the  second  cord,  ivhat 
is  it  that  will  become  a  second  spinal  cord  in  the  Sixth  Race  ?  Will 
Ida  and  Pingald  have  separate  physical  ducts  ? 


KOSMIC     CONSCIOUSNESS. 


551 


A.  It  is  the  sympathetic  cords  which  will  grow  together  and  form 
another  spinal  cord.  Ida  and  Pingala  will  be  joined  with  Sushumna, 
and  thej'  will  become  one.  Ida  is  on  the  left  side  of  the  cord,  and 
Pingala  on  the  right. 

INITIATES. 

Pythagoras  was  an  Initiate,  one  of  the  grandest  of  Scientists.  His 
disciple,  Archytas,  was  mar^'^ellously  apt  in  applied  Science.  Plato  and 
Euclid  were  Initiates,  but  not  Socrates.  No  real  Initiates  were  married. 
Euclid  learned  his  Geometry  in  the  Mysteries.  Modern  men  of  Science 
only  rediscover  the  old  truths. 

KOSMIC  CONSCIOUSNESS. 

H.  P.  B.  proceeded  to  explain  Kosmic  Consciousness,  which  is,  like 
all  else,  on  seven  planes,  of  which  three  are  inconceivable,  and  four  are 
cognizable  by  the  highest  Adept.  She  sketched  the  planes  as  in  the 
following  diagram  • 


Manas-Ego. 


Karaa-Matias 
or  Higher  Psycnic. 


Pranic-Karna 
or  lyOwer  Psychic. 


PrAkritic 
or  Terrestrial. 


Taking  the  lowest  only,  th^  Terrestr''?!  ^it  was  afterwards  decided  to 
call  this  plane  Prakritic),  it  is  divisible  into  seven  planes,  and  these 
TP^ain  into  seven,  making  the  fortj'-nine. 


552 


THE   SECRET   DOCTRINE. 


TERRESTRIAI.. 

She  then  took  the  lowest  plane  of  Prakriti,  or  the  true  Terrestrial, 
And  divided  it  as  follows : — 


True  terrestrial  planes, 
or  7th  Prakritic. 


Para-Ego  or  Atmic. 


Inner-Ego  or  Buddhic. 


Ego-Manas. 


Kama-Manas  or  Lower  Manas. 


Pranic  Kama  or  Psychic. 


Astral. 


objective. 


Its  objective  or  sensuous  plane  is  that  which  is  sensed  by  the  five 
physical  senses. 

On  its  second  plane  things  are  reversed. 

Its  third  plane  is  psychic :  here  is  the  instinct  which  prevents  a 
kitten  going  into  the  water  and  getting  drowned. 

The  following  table  of  the  terrestrial,  objective  consciousness  was 
given  : 

1.  Sensuous. 

2.  Instinctual. 

3.  Ph3^siological-emotional, 

4.  Passional  „ 

5.  Mental  „ 

6.  Spiritual  ^ 

7.  X. 


i 


DIVISIONS  OP    THE  ASTRAL  PLANE. 


553 


ASTRAL. 

The  three  lower  Prakritic  are  related  to  the  three  lower  of  the 
Astral  Plane  immediately  succeeding. 


-Astral  Buddhi. 


Astral  Manas. 


Astral  Kama -Manas. 


Astral  Psychic,  or  Prinic. 


Astral  Astral. 


Astral  Objective. 


With  regard  to  the  first  division  of  the  second  plane,  H.  P.  B.  re- 
minded her  pupils  that  all  seen  on  it  must  be  reversed  in  translating 
it,  e.g,  with  numbers  which  appeared  backwards.  The  Astral  Objec- 
tive corresponds  in  everything  to  the  Terrestrial  Objective. 

The  second  division  corresponds  to  the  second  of  the  lower  plane, 
but  the  objects  are  of  extreme  tenuity,  an  astralized  Astral.  This  plane 
is  the  limit  of  the  ordinary  medium,  beyond  which  he  cannot  go.  A 
non-mediumistic  person  to  reach  it  must  be  asleep  or  in  a  trance,  or 
under  the  influence  of  laughing-gas ;  or  in  ordinary  delirium  people 
pass  on  to  this  plane. 

The  third,  the  PrSnic,  is  of  an  intensely  vivid  nature.  Extreme 
delirium  carries  the  patient  to  this  plane.  In  delirium  tremens  the 
suflFerer  passes»to  this  and  to  the  one  above  it.  Lunatics  are  often  con- 
scious on  this  plane,  where  they  see  terrible  visions.     It  runs  into  the — 

Fourth  division,  the  worst  of  the  astral  planes,  KSmic  and  terrible. 
Hence  come  the  images  that  tempt ;  images  of  drunkards  in  Kama  lyoka 
impelling  others  to  drink  ;  images  of  all  vices  inoculating  men  with 
the  desire  to  commit  crimes.  The  weak  imitate  these  images  in  a  kind 
of  monkeyish  fashion,  so  falling  beneath  their  influence.  This  is  also 
the  cause  of  epidemics  of  vices,  and  cycles  of  disaster,  of  accidents  of  all 
kinds  coming  in  groups.     Extreme  delirium  tremens  is  on  this  plane. 


554 


THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


The  fifth  division  is  that  of  premonitions  in  dreams,  of  reflections  from 
the  lower  mentality,  glimpses  into  the  past  and  future,  the  plane  of 
things  mental  and  not  spiritual.  The  mesmerized  clairvoyant  can  reach 
this  plane,  and  even,  if  good,  may  go  higher. 

The  sixth  is  the  plane  from  which  come  all  beautiful  inspirations  of 
art,  poetr)',  and  music  ;  high  types  of  dreams,  flashes  of  genius.  Here 
we  have  glimpses  of  past  incarnations,  without  being  able  to  locate  or 
analyze  them. 

We  are  on  the  seventh  plane  at  the  moment  of  death  or  in  exceptional 
visions.  The  drowning  man  is  here  when  he  remembers  his  past  life. 
The  memory  of  events  of  this  plane  must  be  centred  in  the  heart,  "  the 
seat  of  Buddha."  There  it  will  remain,  but  impressions  from  this  plane 
are  not  made  on  the  physical  brain. 


4th  Kosmic  Plane 


Fohat 


Kosmic  Kaxna-^anas 


3rd  Kosmic  Plane  Kosmic  Life 

Jiva- Fohat        Pranic  Kama 


2nd  Kosmic  Plane 


Kosmic  Astral 


Kosmic  Body 


[In  this  diagram  all  the  Kosmic  Planes  should  be  figured  as  of  one  size — the  size 
given  to  the  lowest  plane,  Prakriti.  Further,  within  the  circle  all  the  Pr^kritic 
Plr.;:es  should  be  of  one  size — that  given  to  the  first,  or  lowest.  To  do  this  would 
■inuk'^  so  large  a  diagram  that  the  planes  are  compressed. — Ed.] 


KOSMIC   PI^ANES. 


555 


GENERAL  NOTES. 

The  two  planes  above  dealt  with  are  the  only  two  used  in  the  Hatha 
Yoga. 

Prana  and  the  Auric  Envelope  are  essentially  the  same,  and  again,  as 
Jiva,  it  is  the  same  as  the  Universal  Deity.  This,  in  its  Fifth  Principle, 
is  Mahat,  in  its  Sixth,  Alaya.  (The  Universal  Ijfe  is  also  seven-princi- 
pled.) Mahat  is  the  highest  Entity  in  Kosmos  ;  beyond  this  is  no 
diviner  Entity  ;  it  is  of  subtlest  matter,  Sukshma.  In  us  this  is  Manas, 
and  the  very  Logoi  are  less  high,  not  having  gained  experience.  The 
Manasic  Entit}'^  will  not  be  destroyed,  even  at  the  end  of  the  Maha- 
manvantara,  when  all  the  Gods  are  absorbed,  but  will  re-emerge  from 
Parabrahniic  latency. 

Consciousness  is  the  Kosmic  seed  of  superkosmic  omniscience.  It 
has  the  potentialit}'^  of  budding  into  the  Divine  Consciousness. 

Rude  physical  health  is  a  drawback  to  seership.  This  was  the  case 
with  Swedenborg. 

Fohat  is  everywhere  :  it  runs  like  a  threr.d  through  all,  and  has  its 
own  seven  divisions. 


Bleme;;,^ 


KoSMIC  Pl^ANES  AS  SIX  WITH  AURIC  y,OG  AS  SEVENTH. 


In  the  Kosmic  Auric  Envelope  is  all  the  Karma  of  the  manifesting 
Universe.  This  is  the  Hiranyagarbha.  Jiva  is  everywhere,  and  so 
With  the  other  Principles. 


556 


THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


The  above  diagram  represents  the  type  of  all  the  Solar  Systems, 
Mahat,  single  before  informing  the  Universe,  differentiates  when 
informing  it,  as  does  Manas  in  man. 

Mahat  as  Divine  Ideation. 


Fohat. 


Kosmic  Substance. 
Manas. 


Antahkarana. 


Lower  Manas. 

Buddhi 
Ml 


/ 

5.     Manas. 

A  Higher 

A 

7 

/    \ 

\ 

■*.  Kama-Manas. 
Lower  Ma 

nae.  1 

I      =■ 

Kamo-Prana 

\               a  Astral.              / 

1.  Obiective. 


Taking  this  figure  to  represent  the  human  Principles  and  planes  of 
consciousness,  then 

*  The  Fourth  Globe  of  every  Planetary  Chain. 


DIFFERENTIATION. 


557 


7,  6,  5  represent  respectively,  Shiva,  Vishnu,  Brahma,  Brahmd  being 
the  lowest. 

Shiva  is  the  four-faced  Brahma ;  the  Creator,  Preserver,  Destroyer, 
and  Regenerator. 

Between  5  and  4  comes  the  Antahkarana.  The  A  represents  the 
Christos,  the  Sacrificial  Victim  crucified  between  the  thieves :  this  is 
the  double-faced  entity.  The  Vedantins  make  this  a  quaternary  for  a 
blind  :  Antahkarana,  Chit,  Buddhi,  and  Manas. 

Manvantaric  Aspect  of  Parabrahman  and  Mulaprakriti. 

Mahat. 


Attributes,  Maya\'i  Rupas,  etc, 
■^•^  ~~'*'h^  number  of  Rays  is  arbitrary  and  without  significance. 

Perceptive  life  begins  with  the  Astral :  it  is  not  our  physical  atoms 
which  see,  etc. 

Consciousness  proper  begins  between  Kama  and  Manas.  Atmt- 
Buddhi  acts  more  in  the  atoms  of  the  body,  in  the  bacilli,  microbes, 
etc.,  than  in  Man  himself. 

OBJECTIVE  CONSCIOUSNESS. 

Sensuous  objective  consciousness  includes  all  that  pertains  to  the  five 
physical  senses  in  man,  and  rules  in  animals,  birds,  tisnes  and  some 
insects.  Here  are  the  "  I,ives  "  ;  their  consciousness  is  in  Atma- Buddhi  • 
these  are  entirely  without  Manas. 


558  THE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

ASTRAL  CONSCIOUSNESS. 

That  of  some  plants  {e.g.,  sensitive),  of  ants,  spiders,  ana  some 
light-flies  (Indian),  but  not  of  bees. 

The  vertebrate  animals  in  general  are  without  this  consciousness, 
but  the  placental  Mammals  have  all  the  potentialities  of  human  con- 
sciousness, though  at  present,  of  course,  dormant. 

Idiots  are  on  this  plane.  The  common  expression  "he  has  lost  his 
mind  "  is  an  Occult  truth.  For  when  through  fright  or  other  cause 
the  lower  mind  becomes  paral^'zed,  then  the  consciousness  is  on  the 
Astral  Plane.  The  studj^  of  lunacj'^  will  throw  much  light  on  these 
points.  This  may  be  called  the  "  nen^e  plane."  It  is  cognized  by  our 
"nervous  centres"  of  which  Physiology  knows  nothing,  e.g.,  the  clair- 
vo5''ant  reading  with  the  eyes  bandaged,  reading  with  the  tips  of  the 
fingers,  the  pit  of  the  stomach,  etc.  This  sense  is  greatly  developed  in 
the  deaf  and  dumb. 

KAMA-PRANIC  CONSCIOUSNESS. 
The   general  life-consciousness  which  belongs  to  all   the   objective 
world,  even  to  the  stones  ;  for  if  stones  were  not  living  the)^  could  not 
decay,  emit  a  spark,  etc.      Affinit}'^  between  chemical   elements  is  a 
manifestation  of  this  Kamic  consciousness. 

kAmA-MANASIC  CONSCIOUSNESS. 
The  instinctual  consciousness  of  animals  and  idiots  in  its  lowest 
degrees,  the  planes  of  sensation  :  in  man  these  are  rationalized,  e.g.,  a 
dog  shut  in  a  room  has  the  instinct  to  get  out,  but  cannot  because  its 
instinct  is  not  sufficientl)'^  rationalized  to  take  the  necessary  means  ; 
whereas  a  man  at  once  takes  in  the  situation  and  extricates  himself. 
The  highest  degree  of  thisKama-Manasic  consciousness  is  the  psychic. 
Thus  there  are  seven  degrees  from  the  instinctual  animal  to  the 
rationalized  instinctual  and  ps)'chic. 

mANASIC  CONSCIOUSNESS. 
From  this  plane  Manas  stretches  upwards  to  Mahat. 

BUDDHIC  CONSCIOUSNESS. 
The  plane  of  Buddhi  and  the  Auric  Envelope.     From  here  it  goes  to 
the  Father  in  heaven,    Atma,    and    reflects    all    that  is   in  the  Auric 
Envelope,     Five  and  six  therefore  cover  the  planes  from  the  psychic  to 
the  divine. 


MEN   AND   PITRIS.  559 

MISCELLANEOUS. 
Reason  is  a  thing  that  oscillates  between  right  and  wrong.      But 
Intelligence — Intuition — is  higher,  it  is  the  clear  vision. 

To  get  rid  of  Kama  we  must  crush  out  all  our  material  instincts — 
"  crush  out  matter."  The  flesh  is  a  thing  of  habit ;  it  will  repeat 
mechanically  a  good  impulse  as  well  as  a  bad  one.  It  is  not  the  flesh 
which  is  always  the  tempter ;  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  it  is  the  Lower 
Manas,  which,  by  its  images,  leads  the  flesh  into  temptation. 

The  highest  Adept  begins  his  Samadhi  on  the  Fourth  Solar  Plane, 
but  cannot  go  outside  the  Solar  System.  When  he  begins  Samadhi  he 
is  on  a  par  with  some  of  the  Dhyan  Chohans,  but  he  transcends  them 
as  he  rises  to  the  seventh  plane  (Nirvana). 
The  Silent  Watcher  is  on  the  Fourth  Kosmic  Plane. 
The  higher  Mind  directs  the  Will :  the  lower  turns  it  into  selfish 
Desire. 

The  head  should  not  be  covered  in  meditation.  It  is  covered  in 
Samadhi. 

The  Dhyan  Chohans  are  passionless,  pure  and  mindless.  They  have 
no  struggle,  no  passions  to  crush. 

The  Dhyan  Chohans  are  made  to  pass  through  the  School  of  Life. 
"  God  goes  to  School." 

The  best  of  us  in  the  future  will  be  Manasaputras  ;  the  lowest  will 
be  Pitris.  We  are  seven  intellectual  Hierarchies  here.  This  earth 
becomes  the  moon  of  the  next  earth. 

The  "  Pitris  "  are  the  Astral  overshadowed  by  Atma-Buddhi,  falling 
into  matter.  The  "  Pudding-bags  "  had  Life  and  Atma-Buddhi,  but  no 
Manas.  They  were  therefore  senseless.  The  reason  for  all  evolution 
is  the  gaining  of  experience. 

In  the  Fifth  Round  all  of  us  will  play  the  part  of  Pitris.  We  shall 
have  to  go  and  shoot  out  our  Chhayas  into  another  humanity,  and 
remain  until  that  humanity  is  perfected.  The  Pitris  have  finished 
their  office  in  this  Round  and  have  gone  into  Nirvina;  but  they  will 
return  to  do  the  same  office  up  to  the  middle  point  of  the  Fifth  Round. 
The  Fourth  or  Kamic  Hierarchy  of  the  Pitris  becomes  the  "  man  of 
flesh." 

The  astral  body  is  first  in  the  womb  ;  then  comes  the  germ  that 
fructifies  it.     It  is  then  clothed  with  matter,  as  were  the  Pitris. 

The  Chhsiya.  is  really  the  lower  Manas,  the  shadow  of  the  higher 
Mind.     This  Chhaya  makes  the  Mayavi  Rupa.     The   Ray  clothes  itself 


5^ 


THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


in  the  highest  degree  of  the  Astral  Plane.  The  Mayavi  Rupa  is  com- 
posed of  the  astral  body  as  Upadhi,  the  guiding  intelligence  irom  the 
heart,  the  attributes  and  qualities  from  the  Auric  Envelope. 

The  Auric  Envelope  takes  up  the  light  of  Atma,  and  overshadows 
the  coronal,  circling  round  the  head. 

The  Auric  Fluid  is  a  combination  of  the  Life  and  Will  principles, 
the  life  and  the  will  being  one  and  the  same  in  Kosmos.  It  emanates 
from  the  eyes  and  hands,  when  directed  by  the  will  of  the  operator. 

The  Auric  L,ight  surrounds  all  bodies :  it  is  the  "  aura "  emanating 
from  them,  whether  they  be  animal,  vegetable,  or  mineral.  It  is  the 
light,  e.g.,  seen  round  magnets. 

Atma-Buddhi-Manas  in  man  corresponds  to  the  three  Logoi  in 
Kosmos.  Thej^  not  only  correspond,  but  each  is  the  radiation  from 
Kosmos  to  Microcosmos.  The  third  Logos,  Mahat,  becomes  Manas  in 
man,  Manas  being  only  Mahat  individualized,  as  the  sun-rays  are  in- 
dividualized in  bodies  that  absorb  them.  The  sun-rays  give  life,  they 
fertilize  what  is  already  there,  and  the  individual  is  formed.  Mahat,  so 
to  say,  fertilizes,  and  Manas  is  the  result. 

Buddhi-Manas  is  the  Kshetrajna. 

There  are  seven  planes  of  Mahat,  as  of  all  else. 

THE   HUMAN   PRINCIPLES. 

Here  H.  P.  B.  drew  two  diagrams,  illustrating  diflferent  ways  of 
representing  the  human  principles.     In  the  first  • 


-A.E 


the  two  lower  are  disregarded  ;  they  go  out.  disintegrate,  are  or  no 
account.     Remain  five,  under  the  radiation  of  Atma. 


POWER   OF   IMAGINATION. 


KOI 


In  the  second : 


Auric 


Quatsmarv^ . 


the  lower  Quaternary  is  regarded  as  mere  matter,  objective  illusion, 
and  there  remain  Manas  and  the  Auric  Egg,  the  higher  Principles 
being  reflected  in  the  Auric  Egg.  In  all  these  systems  remember  the 
main  principle,  the  descent  and  re-ascent  of  the  Spirit,  in  man  as  in 
Kosmos.     The  Spirit  is  drawn  downwards  as  by  spiritual  gravitation. 

Seeking  further  for  the  cause  of  this,  the  students  were  checked, 
H.  P.  B.  giving  only  a  suggestion  on  the  three  Eogoi : 

1.  Potentiality  of  Mind  (Absolute  Thought). 

2.  Thought  in  Germ. 

3.  Ideation  in  Activity 

NOTEvS. 

Protective  variation,  e.g.,  identity  of  colouring  of  insects  and  of 
that  on  which  they  feed,  was  explained  to  be  the  work  of  Nature  Ele- 
mentals. 

Form  is  on  diflferent  planes,  and  the  forms  of  one  plane  may  be 
formless  to  dwellers  on  another.  The  Kosmocratores  build  on  planes 
in  the  Divine  Mind,  visible  to  them  though  not  to  us.  The  principle 
of  limitation — principium,  individuationis — is  Form  :  this  principle  is 
Divine  Eaw  manifested  in  Kosmic  Matter,  which,  in  its  essence,  is 
limitless.  The  Auric  Egg  is  the  limit  of  man  as  Hiranyagarbha  of  the 
Kosmos. 

The  first  step  towards  the  accomplishment  of  Kriyashakti  is  the  use 
of  the  Imagination.  To  imagine  a  thing  is  to  firmly  create  a  model  of 
what  you  desire,  perfect  in  all  its  details.  The  Will  is  then  brought  into 
action,  and  the  form  is  thereby  transferred  to  the  objective  world.  This 
is  creation  by  Kriyashakti. 

3  00 


«j62  "^HE  SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

SUNS  AND   PLANETS. 

A  comet  partially  cools  and  settles  down  as  a  sun.  It  then  gradually 
attracts  round  it  planets  that  are  as  yet  unattached  to  any  centre,  and 
thus,  in  millions  of  years,  a  Solar  System  is  formed.  The  worn-out 
planet  becomes  a  moon  to  the  planet  of  another  system. 

The  sun  we  see  is  a  reflection  of  the  true  Sun  :  this  reflection,  as  an 
outward  concrete  thing,  is  a  Kama-Rupa,  all  the  suns  forming  the 
Kama-Rupa  of  Kosmos.  To  its  own  system  the  sun  is  Buddhi,  as 
being  the  reflection  and  vehicle  of  the  true  Sun,  which  is  Atma,  invisi- 
ble on  this  plane.  All  the  Fohatic  forces — electricity,  etc. — are  in  this 
reflection. 

THE   MOON. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  evolution  of  our  globe,  the  moon  was  much 
nearer  to  the  earth,  and  larger  than  it  is  now.  It  has  retreated  from 
us,  and  shrunk  much  in  size.  (The  moon  gave  all  her  Principles  to  the 
earth,  while  the  Pitris  gave  only  their  Chhayas  to  man.) 

The  influences  of  the  moon  are  wholly  psycho-physiological.  It  is 
dead,  sending  out  injurious  emanations  like  a  corpse.  It  vampirizes 
the  earth  and  its  inhabitants,  so  that  anyone  sleeping  in  its  rays  suffers, 
losing  some  of  his  life-force.  A  white  cloth  is  a  protection,  the  raj's 
not  passing  through  it,  and  the  head  especially  should  be  thus  guarded. 
It  has  most  power  when  it  is  full.  It  throws  off"  particles  which  we 
absorb,  and  is  gradually  disintegrating.  Where  there  is  snow  the  moon 
looks  like  a  corpse,  being  unable,  through  the  white  snow,  to  vampirize 
effectually.  Hence  snow-covered  mountains  are  free  from  its  bad  in- 
fluences.    The  moon  is  phosphorescent. 

The  Rakshakas  of  Lanka  and  the  Atlanteans  are  said  to  have  sub- 
jected the  moon.     The  Thessalians  learned  from  them  their  Magic. 

Esoterically,  the  moon  is  the  symbol  of  the  IvOwer  Manas ;  it  is  also 
the  symbol  of  the  Astral. 

Plants  which  under  the  sun's  rays  are  beneficent  are  maleficent 
under  those  of  the  moon.  Herbs  containing  poisons  are  most  active 
when  gathered  under  the  moon's  rays. 

A  new  moon  wall  appear  during  the  Seventh  Round,  and  our  moon 
will  finally  disintegrate  and  disappear.  There  is  now  a  planet,  the 
"  Mystery  Planet,"  behind  the  moon,  and  it  is  gradually  dying.  Finally 
the  time  will  come  for  it  to  send  its  Principles  to  a  new  Laj'a  Centre,  and 
there  a  new  planet  will  form,  to  belong  to  another  Solar  System,  the 


WHY   CYCLES   RETURN.  563 

present  Mj^sterj'  Planet  then  functioning  as  moon  to  that  new  globe. 
This  moon  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  our  earth,  though  it  will  come 
within  our  range  of  vision. 

THE   SOLAR  vSYvSTEM. 

All  the  visible  planets  placed  in  our  Solar  System  by  Astronomers 
belong  to  it,  except  Neptune.  There  are  also  some  others  not  known 
to  Science,  belonging  to  it,  and  "  all  moons  which  are  not  yet  visible 
for  next  things." 

The  planets  only  move  in  our  consciousness.  The  Rulers  of  the 
seven  Secret  Planets  have  no  influence  on  this  earth,  as  this  earth  has 
on  other  planets.  It  is  the  sun  and  moon  which  really  have  not  only  a 
mental,  but  also  a  physical  effect.  The  effect  of  the  sun  on  humanity 
is  connected  with  Kama-Prana,  with  the  most  physical  Kamic  elements 
in  us  ;  it  is  the  vital  principle  which  helps  growth.  The  effect  of  the 
moon  is  chiefly  Kama-Manasic  or  psycho-physiological ;  it  acts  on  the 
psychological  brain,  on  the  brain-mind. 

PRECIOUS  STONES. 
In  answer  to  a  question,  H.  P.  B.  said  that  the  diamond  and  the  ruby 
were  under  the  sun.  the  sapphire  under  the  moon — "  but  what  does  it 
matter  to  you  ?  " 

TIME. 

When  once  out  of  the  body,  and  not  subject  to  the  habit  of  conscious- 
ness formed  by  others,  time  does  not  exist. 

Cycles  and  epochs  depend  on  consciousness  :  we  are  not  here  for  the 
first  time ;  the  cycles  return  because  we  come  back  into  conscious 
existence.  Cycles  are  measured  by  the  consciousness  of  humanity  and 
not  by  Nature.  It  is  because  we  are  the  same  people  as  in  past  epochs 
that  these  events  occur  to  us. 

DEATH. 

The  Hindus  look  upon  death  as  impure,  owing  to  the  disintegration 
of  the  body  and  the  passing  from  one  plane  to  another.  '- 1  believe  in 
transformation,  not  in  death." 

ATOMS. 

The  Atom  is  the  Soul  of  the  molecule.  It  is  the  six  Principles,  and 
the  molecule  is  the  body  thereof.  The  Atom  is  the  Atman  of  the  objec- 
tive Kosmos,  i.e.,  it  is  on  the  seventh  plane  of  the  lowest  Prakriti. 


564  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

TERMS. 

H.  P.  B.  began  by  saying  that  students  ought  to  know  the  correct 
meaning  of  the  Sanskrit  terms  used  in  Occultism,  and  should  learn 
the  Occult  Symbology.  To  begin  with  one  had  better  learn  the  correct 
Esoteric  classification  and  names  of  the  fourteen  (7  x  2)  and  seven 
(Sapta)  Ivokas  found  in  the  exoteric  texts.  These  are  given  there  in  a 
very  confused  manner,  and  are  full  of  "  blinds."  To  illustrate  this 
three  classifications  are  given  below. 

LOKAS. 

1.  The  general  exoteric,  orthodox  and  tan  trie  category  : 

Bhur-loka. 

Bhuvar-loka. 

Swar-loka. 

Mahar-loka.  The  second  seven  are  reflected. 

Janar-loka, 

Tapar-loka. 

Satya-loka. 

2.  The  Sankhya  category,  and  that  of  some  Vedantins 

Brahma- loka. 
Pitri-loka. 
Soma-loka. 
Indra-loka. 
Gandharva-loka. 
Rakshasa-loka 
Yaksha-loka. 
And  an  eighth, 

3.  The  Vedantic,  the  nearest  approach  to  the  Esoteric : 

Atala. 

Vitala. 
"Sutala. 

Talatala  (or  Karatala). 

Rasatala. 

Mahatala. 

Patala. 
Each  and  all  correspond  Esoterically  to  the  Kosmic  or  Dhyan  Chohanic 
Hierarchies,  and  to  the  human  States  of  Consciousness  and  their  sub- 
divisions (forty-nine).     To  appreciate  this  the  meanings  of  the  terms 
used  in  the  Vedantic  classification  must  be  first  understood. 


TAXAS  AND   LOKAS.  565 

Tala  means  place. 

Atala         means  no  place. 

Vitala         means  some  change  for  the  better:  i.e.,  better  for  matter 

in   that   more   matter  enters  into  it,  or,  in    other 

words,  it  becomes  more  differentiated.     This  is  an 

ancient  Occult  term. 
Sutala         means  good,  excellent,  place. 
Karatala     means  something  that  can  be  grasped  or  touched  (froit 

kara,    a   hand) :    i.e.,    the    state   in   which    matter 

becomes  tangible. 
Rasatala    means  place  of  taste ;  a  place  you  can  sense  with  one  of 

the  organs  of  sense. 
Mahatala  means  exoterically    "great    place";     but,    Esoterically, 

a    place    including    all    others   subjectively,    and 

potentially  including  all  that  precedes  it. 
Patala         means  something  under  the  feet  (from  pada,  foot),   the 

upadhi,    or    basis,    of    anything,    the    antipodes, 

America,  etc. 

Each  of  the  Lokas,  places,  worlds,  states,  etc.,  corresponds  with  and 
is  transformed  into  five  (exoterically)  and  seven  (Esoterically)  states  or 
Tattvas,  for  which  there  are  no  definite  names.  These  in  the  main 
divisions  cited  below  make  up  the  forty-nine  Fires : 

5  and  7  Tanmatras,  outer  and  inner  senses. 

5  and  7  Bhutas,  or  elements. 

5  and  7  Gnyanendryas,  or  organs  of  sensation. 

5  and  7  Karmendryas,  or  organs  of  action. 
These  correspond  in  general  to  States  of  Consciousness,  to  the  Hier- 
archies of  Dhyan  Chohans,  to  the  Tattvas,  etc.  These  Tattvas  transform 
themselves  into  the  whole  Universe.  The  fourteen  Lokas  are  made  of 
seven  with  seven  reflections:  above,  below;  within,  without ;  subjective, 
objective;  pure,  impure;  positive,  negative ;  etc. 

EXPLANATION  OF  THE    STATES  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 
CORRESPONDING    TO    THE    VEDANTIC    CLASSIFICATION    OF    LOKAS 

7.  Atala.  The  Atmic  or  Auric  state  or  locality :  it  emanates  directly 
from  Absoluteness,  and  is  the  first  something  in  the  Universe.  Its 
correspondence  is  the  Hierarchy  of  non-substantial  primordial  Beings, 
in  a  place  which  is  no  place  (for  us),  a  state  which  is  no  state.    This 


566  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

Hierarchy  contains  the  primordial  plane,  all  that  was,  is,  and  will  be. 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  Mahamanvantara ;  all  is  there. 
This  statement  should  not,  however,  be  taken  to  imply  Kismet :  the 
latter  is  contrary  to  all  the  teachings  of  Occultism. 

Here  are  the  Hierarchies  of  the  Dhyani  Buddhas.  Their  state  is 
chat  of  Parasamadhi,  of  the  Dharmakaya  ;  a  state  where  no  progress  is 
possible.  The  entities  there  may  be  said  to  be  crystallized  in  purity, 
in  homogeneity. 

6.  Vitala.  Here  are  the  Hierarchies  of  the  celestial  Buddhas,  or 
Bodhisattvas,  who  are  said  to  emanate  from  the  seven  Dhyani  Buddhas. 
It  is  related  on  earth  to  Samadhi,  to  the  Buddhic  consciousness  in  man. 
No  Adept,  save  one,  can  be  higher  than  this  and  live ;  if  he  passes 
into  the  Atmic  or  Dharmakaya  state  (Alaya)  he  can  return  to  earth  no 
more.     These  two  states  are  purely  hyper-metaphysical. 

5.  Sjitala.  A  differential  state  corresponding  on  earth  with  the  Higher 
Manas,  and  therefore  with  Shabda  (Sound),  the  Logos,  our  Higher 
Kgo  ;  and  also  to  the  Manushi  Buddha  state,  like  that  of  Gautama,  on 
earth.  This  is  the  third  stage  of  Samadhi  (which  is  septenary).  Here 
belong  the  Hierarchies  of  the  Kumaras — the  Agnishvattas,  etc. 

4.  Karatala  corresponds  with  Sparsha  (touch)  and  to  the  Hier- 
archies of  ethereal,  semi-objective  Dhyan  Chohans  of  the  astral  matter 
of  the  Manasa-Manas,  or  the  pure  ray  of  Manas,  that  is  the  I/)wer 
Manas  before  it  is  mixed  with  Kama  (as  in  the  young  child).  They 
are  called  Sparsha  Devas,  the  Devas  endowed  with  touch.  These 
Hierarchies  of  Devas  are  progressive :  the  first  have  one  sense ;  the 
second  two  ;  and  so  on  to  seven  :  each  containing  all  the  senses  poten- 
tially, but  not  yet  developed.  Sparsha  would  be  rendered  better  by 
affinit)^  contact. 

3.  Rasdtala,  or  Rupatala :  corresponds  to  the  Hierarchies  of  Rupa 
or  Sight  Devas,  possessed  of  three  senses,  sight,  hearing,  and  touch. 
These  are  the  Kama-Mauasic  entities,  and  the  higher  Elementals. 
With  the  Rosicrucians  they  were  the  Sylphs  and  Undines.  It  corres- 
ponds on  earth  with  an  artificial  state  of  consciousness,  such  as  that 
produced  by  hypnotism  and  drugs  (morphia,  etc.). 

2.  Mahatala.  Corresponds  to  the  Hierarchies  of  Rasa  or  Taste 
Devas,  and  includes  a  .state  of  consciousness  embracing  the  lower  five 
senses  and  emanations  of  life  and  being.  It  corresponds  to  Kama  and 
,?rana  in  man,  and  to  Salamanders  and  Gnomes  in  nature. 

r.    Patala.     Corresponds  to  the   Hierarchies  of  Gandha  or  Smei? 


STATES   OF    CONSCIOUSNESS. 


567 


Devas,  the  underworld  or  antipodes  :  Myalba.  The  sphere  of  irrational 
animals,  having  no  feeling  save  that  of  self-preservation  and  gratifica- 
tion of  the  senses:  also  of  intensely  selfish  human  beings,  waking  or 
sleeping.  This  is  why  Narada  is  said  to  have  visited  Pat^la  when  he 
was  cursed  to  be  reborn.  He  reported  that  life  there  Nras  verj^ 
pleasant  for  those  "who  had  never  left  their  birth-place";  they 
were  very  happy.  It  is  the  earthly  state,  and  corresponds  with  the 
sense  of  smell.  Here  are  also  animal  Dugpas,  Elementals  of  animals, 
and  Nature  Spirits. 

FURTHER  EXPLANATIONS   OF  THE   SAME   CLASSIFICATIONS. 

7.     Auric,  Atmic,  Alayic,  sense  or  state.     One  of  full  potentiality, 
but  not  of  activity. 

6.     Buddhic  ;  the  sense  of  being  one  with  the  universe  ;  the  impossi- 
bility of  imagining  oneself  apart  from  it. 

(It  was  asked  why  the  term  Alayic  was  here  given  to  the  Atmic  and 
not  to  the  Buddhic  state.     A?is.  These  classifications  are  not  hard  and 
fast  divisions.     A  term  may  change  places  according  as  the  classifi- 
cation is  exoteric.  Esoteric  or  practical.     For  students  the  effort  should 
be  to  bring  all  things  down  to  states   of  consciousness.      Buddhi  is 
really  one  and  indivisible.     It  is  a  feeling  within,  absolutely  inexpressi- 
ble in  words.     All  cataloguing  is  useless  to  explain  it.) 
5.     Shabdic,  sense  of  hearing. 
4.     Sparshic,  sense  of  touch. 
3.     Rupic,  the  state  of  feeling  oneself  a  body  and  perceiving  it  (rupa 

=  form). 
2.     Rasic,  sense  of  taste. 
I.     Gandhic,  sense  of  smell. 

All  the  Kosmic  and  anthropic  states  and  senses  correspond  with  our 
organs  of  sensation,  Gnyanendryas,  rudimentary  organs  for  receiving 
knowledge  through  direct  contact,  sight,  etc.  These  are  the  faculties 
of  Sharira,  through  Netra  (eyes),  nose,  speech,  etc.,  and  also  with  the 
organs  of  action,  Karmeudryas,  hands,  feet,  etc. 

Exoterically,  there  are  five  sets  of  five,  giving  twenty-five.  Of  these 
twenty  are  facultative  and  five  Buddhic.  Exoterically  Buddhi  is  said 
to  perceive  ;  Esoterically  it  reaches  perception  only  through  the  Higher 
Manas.  Each  of  these  twenty  is  both  positive  and  negative,  thus 
making  forty  in  all.  There  are  two  subjective  states  answering  to  each 
of  the  four  sets  of  five,  hence  eight  in  all.     These  being  subjective  can- 


568 


THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 


not  be  doubled.  Thus  we  have  40  +  8  =  48  "  cognitions  of  Buddhi." 
These  with  Maya,  which  includes  them  all,  make  49.  (Once  that  you 
have  reached  the  cognition  of  Mayt,  you  are  an  Adept.) 

TABLE. 

5  +  5     Tanmatras  2  subjective. 

5  +  5     Bhiitas  2 

5  +  5     Gnyanendryas  ,  2 

5  +  5     Karmendryas  2         „ 


20  +  20 


20  +20  +  8  +  Maya  =  49. 

THE   LOKAS. 
In  their  exoteric  blinds  the  Brahmans  count  fourteen  lyokas  (earth 
included),  of  which  seven  are  objective,  though  not  apparent,  and  seven 
subjective,  yet  fully  demonstrable  to  the  Inner  Man.     There  are  seven 
Divine  lyokas  and  seven  infernal  (terrestrial)  Lokas. 


Seven  Divine  Lokas. 


1.  Bhiirloka  (the  earth j. 

2.  Bhuvarloka  (between  the  earth 

and  the  sun  [Munis]). 

3.  Svarloka  (between  the  sun  and 

the  Pole  Star  [Yogis]). 

4.  Maharloka  (between   the  earth 

and  the  utmost  limit  of  the 
Solar  System).* 

5.  Janarloka    Cbeyond    the    Solar 

System,  the  abode  of  the  Ku- 
maras  who  do  not  belong  to 
this  plane). 

6.  Taparloka     (still     beyond     the 

Mahatmic  region,  the  dwelling 
of  the  Vairaja  deities). 

7.  Satyaloka    (the    abode    of    the 

Nirvanis). 


Se\':en  Infernal  (Terrestrial) 
Lokas. 

1.  Patala  (our  earth). 

2.  Mahatala. 

3.  Rasatala. 

4.  Talatala  (or  Karatala). 


Sutala. 


6.  Vitala. 


7.  Atala. 


•  All  these  "  spaces  "  denote  the  special  magnetic  currents,  the  planes  of  substance,  and  the  degrees 
of  approach  that  the  consciousness  of  the  Yogi,  or  Chela,  performs  towards  assimilsMon  with  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Lokas. 


DIAGRAM  V. 

„„,™^..=.o. 

'""wTACfe!'"?" 

^L^SS^'-""    — "■ 

— 

co.o».. 

c„.c.o..»... 

iiss:^,^:. 

ORGANS  OF  ACTION. I   ING  ORGANS    ijfo    SEATS 

BhMas 

1                          Rupa. 

I.  Gandha. 
(Smell.) 

I.  Blue. 

GnySnendriyas. 
I.  Through  ob- 

r.  Nose. 

Kannendriyas, 

I.  Upastha. 
Organ  ol  gener- 
ation. 

',.  EartI,.  ' 
Bhuiiii. 
Prkhivr. 

I.  Bhhrloka.  The  habi- 
tat  of  Ihiiikiiigand  good 
racu.    Psychic  State. 

1.  Patala.         Man's 
animal    gross    body 
and  the  personality 

I.  Abide  of  men.  animals, 
stateo  infancy.  Atouepole, 

instinc  uial  selfishness. 

I.  Body. 

eyebrows.  Highly  de- 
veloped in  some  animals, 
as  dogs  and  others. 

Apas. 

a.  Shuvarloka.       State 
in  which  the  mail  thiuks 
more  of  his  inner  condi- 
tion than  of  his  persona- 
lity.     His  Astral  passes 
into  this  sphere,  and  so 
doesitssnbstance. 
Higher  Psychic  State. 

2.  Mahatata.  Abode 

dow     of    the    gross 
body,  which  shadow 

2.  Re 
Light 

fB 

fnstini 

ion    of    the     Astral 
and  of  Kama    Loka. 
of  elementals.  nature 

her    end     the  '  Rupa 

the  guardians  of  the 

world.      Plane     of 

2.  Astral 
Image. 

'■(Taste.) 

a.  Violet. 

3.  Through  in- 
stinctual percep- 

3.   Tongue. 

Hands. 

).  spleen  and  Liver:  the 
former  more  spiritual ; 
the  latter  on  the  material 
plane.  Spleen  corresponds 
with  little  finger  of  left 
hand;  liver  with  that  of 
right. 

'vi'u 

3.  Svarloka.         State 
when  the  Yogi  has  lost 
all    Ustes    and    started 
towards  Reunion.    Holy 

3.  Jfasdtala.    Where 
the  Kama  longs  for 
the  taste    (Rasa)    of 
everything. 

orpla 

ed  happiness,  of  pure 

3. 

3.  Ritp^- 
(Sight.) 

3.  R(d. 

,,  ThroH  gh 
magnetic  per- 
ceptions: sight. 

3.  Eyes. 

3.  !h,da. 

3.  stomach:  correspcnds 
with  .spine,  and  the  little 
toes  on  both  feet. 

t.  Firt. 
Aglii, 
Tejas. 

A.  Maharloka.      Where 
the  Lower  Manas  has  lost 
allKamicaffiuity.  Super- 
holy  State. 

the     Lower     Manas 
clings  to  the  sentient 
and  objective  Ufe  ;  is 

4,   Pi! 

spheri 
selfish 

le     where     Maya     is 
way  and    becoming 
Abode  of  the  holiest 
the  Rupa  Devas.  The 
of     compassion     at 
i,  and  that  of  intense 

^'  ManZ. 

4.  Spar  ska. 
(Touch.) 

4.  Green. 

4.  Throughpsy- 
cho-physiologi- 
cal  perceptions: 

4.  Body. 

4.   Payu. 
Organ  of  evacu- 
ation, excretion. 

4.  The  Region  0/ the  Um- 
bilical Cord  :  corresponds 
with  Payn  lor  ejecting 
foreign  magnetism. 

■"•«•"• 

Rlipa.  1 

Klpineiilary 
Substances. 

5-  Etht*. 

S.  Jatiarloka.    Manas  is 
entirelyfreedfrom 

wit^^the^Ego^Kum^rl 

5.  Sutala.       Manas 
becomes  in  it  entire- 
ly the  slave  of  Kdnia. 
and  at  one  with  the 

£J! 

de  of  the  Kumiras. 

s  of  Mahat,  or  Brah- 
:)niniscience     regard- 
that  belongs  to  the 
jf  Mayi  and  is  under 

ArQpa. 

\.  HigheT^ 
Manas. 

S.  Shabda. 
'(Hearing.) 

5.  Indigo. 

5.  Through 
purely  mental 
perceptionH. 

5.    Vak. 
Organ  of  speech. 

Karniendriyas. 

S.  Heart  (spiritual). 
Throat  (physical). 

V-.- 

6.  Taparlaka.     Even  if 
it  is  again  re-bom,  it  has 
now   become    invulner- 
able, inconsumable. 
Innate  Christos  State. 

snapped. 

6.  PI 
incon; 
di  villi 
VairSj 
thsSi 

ssSI 

6.  Buddhi. 

Understand- 
(Gn'yfna.) 

'"" 

t>.  Through  soul 
perceptions. 

6.  Astral 
Body  and 
Heart. 

6.  Soul. 

tp.  Pineal  Gland. 

Klemcntary 
Substances. 

state°t'he''Yogi   rl^aches 
the,   highest     Sain.idhi. 

the  great  choice. 

7.  Ala/a.    Man  dies 
but    to    be    directly 
reborn.      No     place 

Spiritual  death,  an- 
mhUation. 

[   in    the  manifested 
e:  the  Noumenal. 

7.  Atmic 

7.   TheHigh- 
%,ts/."mb,a~ 

Timmatras. 

tliroughtheauric 
synthetical    per- 
ceptions. 

Guy4neudriyas. 

7.  The  Lie  fit 
ojKundalinX. 

7.  spirit. 

the  skull,  and  for  "which 

latter,  brain,  glands,  etc., 
are  non-existeut. 

MAN   AND   LOKAS.  569 

These  the  Brahmans  read  from  the  bottom. 

Now  all  these  fourteen  are  planes  from  without  within,  and  (the 
seven  Divine)  States  of  Consciousness  through  which  man  can  pass — 
and  must  pass,  once  he  is  determined  to  go  through  the  seven  paths 
and  portals  of  Dhyani ;  one  need  not  be  disembodied  for  this,  and  all 
this  is  reached  on  earth,  and  in  one  or  many  of  the  incarnations. 

See  the  order  :  the  four  lower  ones  (i,  2,  3,  4),  are  rupa  ;  i.e.,  they  are 
performed  by  the  Inner  Man  with  the  full  concurrence  of  the  diviner 
portions,  or, elements,  of  the  Lower  Manas,  and  consciously  by  the 
personal  man.  The  three  higher  states  cannot  be  reached  and  re- 
membered by  the  latter,  unless  he  is  a  fully  initiated  Adept.  A  Hatha 
Yogi  will  never  pass  beyond  the  Maharloka,  psychically,  and  the 
Talatala  (double  or  dual  place),  physico-mentally.  To  become  a 
Raja  Yogi,  one  has  to  ascend  up  to  the  seventh  portal,  the  Satyaloka. 
For  such,  the  Master  Yogis  tell  us,  is  the  fruition  of  Yajna,  or  sacrifice. 
When  the  Bhur,  Bhuvar  and  Svarga  (states)  are  once  passed,  and  the 
Yogi's  consciousness  centred  in  Maharloka,  it  is  in  the  last  plane  and 
state  between  entire  identification  of  the  Personal  and  the  Higher 
Manas. 

One  thing  to  remember  :  while  the  infernal  (or  terrestrial)  states  are 
also  the  seven  divisions  of  the  earth,  for  planes  and  states,  as  much  as 
they  are  Kosmic  divisions,  the  divine  Saptaloka  are  purely  subjective, 
and  begin  with  the  psychic  Astral  Light  plane,  ending  with  the  Satya  or 
Jivanmukta  state.  These  fourteen  Lokas,  or  spheres,  form  the  extent 
of  the  whole  Brahmanda  (world).  The  four  lower  are  transitory,  with 
all  their  dwellers,  and  the  three  higher  eternal ;  i.e.,  the  former  states, 
planes  and  subjects,  to  these,  last  only  a  Day  of  Brahma,  changing  with 
every  Kalpa  :  the  latter  endure  for  an  Age  of  Brahma. 

In  Diagram  V.  only  Body,  Astral,  Kama,  Lower  Manas,  Higher 
Manas,   Buddhi    and  Auric   Atma    are   given.       Life  is   a  Universal 

A 

Kosmic  principle,  and  no  more  than  Atman  does  it  belong  to  indivi- 
duals. 

In  answer  to  questions  on  the  diagram,  H.  P.  B.  said  that  Touch 
and  Taste  have  no  order.  Elements  have  a  regular  order,  but  Fire 
pervades  them  all.  Every  sense  pervades  every  other.  There  is  no 
universal  order,  that  being  first  in  each  which  is  most  developed. 

Students  must  learn  the  correspondences  :  then  concentrate  on  the 
organs  and  so  reach  their  corresponding  states  of  consciousness. 
Take  them  in  order  beginning  with  the  lowest,  and  working  std'adily 


570  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

upwards.     A  medium  might  irregularly  catch  glimpses  ol  higher,  but 
would  not  thus  gain  orderly  development. 

The  greatest  phenomena  are  produced  by  touching  and  centerin'T  tne 
attention  upon  the  little  finger. 

The  IvOkas  and  Talas  are  reflections  the  one  of  the  other.  So  also 
are  the  Hierarchies  in  each,  in  pairs  of  opposites,  at  the  two  poles  of 
the  sphere.  Everywhere  are  such  opposites  :  good  and  evil,  light  and 
darkness,  male  and  female. 

H.  P.  B.  could  not  say  wh}'  blue  was  the  colour  of  the  earth.  Blue  is 
a  colour  by  itself,  a  primary.  Indigo  is  a  colour,  not  a  shade  of  blue, 
so  is  violet. 

The  Vairajas  belong  to,  are  the  fiery  Egos  of,  other  Manvantaras. 
They  have  already  been  purified  in  the  fire  of  passions.  It  is  the}' 
who  refused  to  create.  Thej^  have  reached  the  Seventh  Portal,  and 
have  refused  Nirvana,  remaining  for  succeeding  Manvantaras. 

The  seven  steps  of  Antahkarana  correspond  with  the  Eokas. 

Samadhi  is  the  highest  state  on  earth  that  can  be  reached  in  the  body. 
Beyond  that  the  Initiate  must  have  become  a  Nirmanakaya. 

Purity  of  mind  is  of  greater  importance  than  purity  of  body.  If  the 
Upadhi  be  not  perfectly  pure,  it  cannot  preserve  recollections  coming 
from  a  higher  .state.  An  act  may  be  performed  to  which  little  or  no 
attention  is  paid,  and  it  is  of  comparatively  small  importance.  But  if 
thought  of,  dwelt  on  in  the  mind,  the  effect  is  a  thousand  times  greater. 
The  thoughts  must  be  kept  pure. 

Remember  that  Kama,  while  having  bad  passions  and  emotions, 
helps  you  to  evolve  by  giving  also  the  desire  and  impulse  necessary  for 
rising. 

The  flesh,  the  body,  the  human  being  in  his  material  part,  is,  on  this 
plane,  the  most  difiicult  thing  to  subject.  The  highest  Adept,  put  into 
a  new  body,  has  to  struggle  against  it  and  subdue  it,  and  finds  its  sub- 
jugation difficult. 

The  lyiver  is  the  General,  the  Spleen  is  the  Aide-de-Camp.  All  that 
the  Eiver  does  not  accomplish  is  taken  up  and  completed  by  the 
Spleen. 

H.  P.  B.  was  asked  whether  each  person  must  pass  through  the  four- 
teen states,  and  answered  that  the  L,okas  and  Talas  represented  planes 
on  this  earth,  through  some  of  which  all  must  pass,  and  through  all  of 
which  the  disciple  must  pass,  on  his  way  to  Adeptship.      Everyone 
passes    through  the   lower  Lokas,  but   not    necessarily   through    the 


YOGIS   IN  SVARLOKA.  57 1 

corresponding  Talas.  There  are  two  poles  in  everything :  seven  states 
in  every  state. 

Vitala  represents  a  sublime  as  well  as  an  infernal  state.  That  state 
which  for  the  mortal  is  a  complete  separation  of  the  Ego  from  the 
personality  is  for  a  Buddha  a  mere  temporary  separation.  For  the 
Buddha  it  is  a  Kosmic  state. 

The  Brahmans  and  Buddhists  regard  the  Talas  as  hells,  but  in 
reality  the  term  is  figurative.  We  are  in  hell  whenever  we  are  in 
misery,  suffer  misfortune  and  so  on. 

FORMS  IN  THE  ASTRAL  LIGHT. 
The  Elementals  in  the  Astral  light  are  reflections.  Everything  on 
earth  is  reflected  there.  It  is  from  these  that  photographs  are  some- 
times obtained  through  mediums.  The  mediums  unconsciously  pro- 
duce them  as  forms.  The  Adepts  produce  them  consciously  through 
Kriyashakti,  bringing  them  down  by  a  process  that  may  be  com- 
pared to  the  focussing  of  rays  of  light  b)-^  a  burning  glass. 

STATES  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS. 

Bhurloka  is  the  waking  state  in  which  we  normally  live  ;  it  is  the 
state  in  which  animals  also  are,  when  they  sense  food,  a  danger,  etc. 
To  be  in  Svarloka  is  to  be  completely  abstracted  on  this  plane,  leaving 
only  instinct  to  work,  so  that  on  the  material  plane  you  would  behave 
as  an  animal.  Yogis  are  known  who  have  become  crystallized  in  this 
.state,  and  then  they  must  be  nourished  by  others.  A  Yogi  near  Alla- 
habad had  been  for  fifty-three  years  sitting  on  a  stone ;  his  Chelas 
plunge  him  into  the  river  every  night  and  then  replace  him.  During 
the  day  his  consciousness  returns  to  Bhurloka,  and-  he  talks  and 
teaches.  A  Yogi  was  found  on  an  island  near  Calcutta  round  whose 
limbs  the  roots  of  trees  had  grown.  He  vras  cut  out,  and  in  the 
endeavour  to  awaken  him  so  many  outrages  were  inflicted  on  him  that 
he  died. 

Q.     Is  it  possible  to  be  iyi  more  than  one  state  of  consciousness  at  once  ? 

A.  The  consciousness  cannot  be  entirely  on  two  planes  at  once. 
The  higher  and  lower  states  are  not  wholly  incompatible,  but  if  you 
are  on  the  higher  you  will  wool-gather  on  the  lower.  In  order  to 
remember  the  higher  state  on  returning  to  the  lower,  the  memory  must 
be  carried  upwards  to  the  higher.  An  Adept  may  apparently  enjoy  a 
dual  consciousness ;  when  he  desires  not  to  see  he  can  abstract  him- 
self: he  may  be  in  a  higher  state  and  yet  return  answers  to  questions. 


572  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

addressed  to  him.  But  in  this  case  he  will  momentarily  return  to  the 
material  plane,  shooting  up  again  to  the  higher  plane.  This  is  his 
only  salvation  in  adverse  conditions. 

The  lower  you  go  in  the  Talas  the  more  intellectual  you  become 
and  the  less  spiritual.  You  may  be  a  morally  good  man  but  not 
spiritual.  Intellect  may  remain  very  closely  related  to  Kama.  A  man 
ma}'  be  in  a  Loka  and  visit  one  and  all  the  Talas,  his  condition 
depending  on  the  Loka  to  which  he  belongs.  Thus  a  man  in  Bhurloka 
only  may  pass  into  the  Talas  and  go  to  the  devil.  If  he  dwells  in 
Bhuvarloka  he  cannot  become  as  bad.  If  he  has  reached  the  Satya 
state  he  can  go  into  any  Tala  without  danger ;  buoyed  up  by  his  own 
purity  he  can  never  be  engulfed.  The  Talas  are  brain  intellect  states, 
while  the  I^okas — or  more  accurately  the  three  higher — are  spiritual. 

Manas  absorbs  the  light  of  Buddhi.  Buddhi  is  Arupa,  and  can 
absorb  nothing.  When  the  Kgo  takes  all  the  light  of  Buddhi,  it  takes 
that  of  Atma,  Buddhi  being  the  vehicle,  and  thus  the  three  become 
one.  This  done,  the  full  Adept  is  one  spiritually,  but  has  a  body. 
The  fourfold  Path  is  finished  and  he  is  one.  The  Masters'  bodies 
are,  as  far  as  they  are  concerned,  illusionary,  and  hence  do  not 
grow  old,  become  wrinkled,  etc. 

The  student,  who  is  not  naturally  psychic,  should  fix  the  fourfold 
consciousness  in  a  higher  plane  and  nail  it  there.  Let  him  make  a 
bundle  of  the  four  lower  and  pin  them  to  a  higher  state.  He  should 
centre  on  this  higher,  trying  not  to  permit  the  body  and  intellect  to 
draw  him  down  and  carry  him  away.  Play  ducks  and  drakes  with  the 
body,  eating,  drinking  and  sleeping,  but  living  always  on  the  ideal. 

MOTHER-LOVE. 

Mother-love  is  an  instinct,  the  same  in  the  human  being  and  in  the 
animal,  and  often  stronger  in  the  latter.  The  continuance  of  this  love 
in  human  beings  is  due  to  association,  to  blood  magnetism  and  to 
psychic  affinity.  Families  are  sometimes  formed  of  those  who  have 
lived  together  before,  but  often  not.  The  causes  at  work  are  very 
complex  and  have  to  be  balanced.  Sometimes  when  a  child  with  very 
bad  Karma  is  to  be  born,  parents  of  a  callous  type  are  chosen,  or  they 
ma}'  die  before  the  Karmic  results  appear.  Or  the  suiFering  through 
the  child  may  be  their  own  Karma.  Mother-love  as  an  instinct  is 
between  Ras^tala  and  Talatala. 


CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  573 

The  lyipikas  keep  man's  Karmic  record,  and  impress  it  on  the 
Astral  Light. 

Vacillating  people  pass  from  one  state  of  consciousness  to  another. 

Thought  arises  before  desire.  The  thought  acts  on  the  brain,  the 
brain  on  the  organ,  and  then  desire  awakes.  It  is  not  the  outer 
stimulus  that  arouses  the  organ.  Thought  therefore  must  be  slain  ere 
desire  can  be  extinguished.  The  student  must  guard  his  thoughts. 
Five  minutes'  thought  may  undo  the  work  of  five  years  ;  and  though 
the  five  years'  work  will  be  run  through  more  rapidly  the  second  time, 
yet  time  is  lost. 

CONSCIOUSNESS. 

H.  P.  B.  began  by  challenging  the  views  of  consciousness  in  the 
West,  commenting  on  the  lack  of  definition  in  the  leading  Philosophies. 
No  distinction  was  made  between  consciousness  and  self- conscious- 
ness, and  3'et  in  this  lay  the  difference  between  man  and  the  animal. 
The  animal  was  conscious  only,  not  self-conscious ;  the  animal  does 
not  know  the  Ego  as  Subject,  as  does  man.  There  is  therefore  an 
enormous  difference  between  the  consciousness  of  the  bird,  the  insect, 
the  beast,  and  that  of  man. 

But  the  full  consciousness  of  man  is  self-consciousness — that  which 
makes  us  say,  "  /  do  that."  If  there  is  pleasure  it  must  be  traced  to 
some  one  experiencing  it.  Now  the  difference  between  the  conscious- 
ness of  man  and  of  animals  is  that  while  there  is  a  Self  in  the  animal, 
the  animal  is  not  conscious  of  the  Self.  Spencer  reasons  on  conscious- 
ness, but  when  he  comes  to  a  gap  he  merely  jumps  over  it.  So  again 
Hume,  when  he  says  that  on  introspection  he  sees  merely  feelings  and 
can  never  find  any  "  I,"  forgets  that  without  an  "  I  "  no  seeing  of  feel- 
ings would  be  possible.  What  is  it  that  studies  the  feelings  ?  The 
animal  is  not  conscious  of  the  feeling  "  I  am  I."  It  has  instinct,  but 
instinct  is  not  self-consciousness.  Self-consciousness  is  an  attribute  of 
the  mind,  not  of  the  soul,  the  aninia,  whence  the  very  name  animal  is 
taken.  Humanity  had  no  self-consciousness  until  the  coming  of  the 
Manasaputras  in  the  Third  Race.  Consciousness,  brain-consciousness, 
is  the  field  of  the  light  of  the  Ego,  of  the  Auric  Egg,  of  the  Higher 
Manas.  The  cells  of  the  leg  are  conscious,  but  they  are  the  slaves  of 
the  idea ;  they  are  not  self-conscious,  they  cannot  originate  an  idea, 
although  when  they  are  tired  they  can  convey  to  the  brain  an  uneasy 
sensation,  and  so  give  rise  to  the  idea  of  fatigue.  Instinct  is  the  lower 
state  of  consciousness.     Man  has  consciousness  running  through  the 


574  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

four  lower  keys  of  his  septenary  consciousness  ;  there  are  seven  scales 
of  consciousness  in  his  consciousness,  which  is  none  the  less  essentially 
and  pre-eminently  one,  a  unit.  There  are  millions  and  millions  of 
states  of  consciousness,  as  there  are  millions  and  millions  of  leaves ; 
but  as  you  cannot  find  two  leaves  alike,  so  you  cannot  find  two  states 
of  consciousness  alike  ;  a  state  is  never  exactly  repeated. 

Is  memory  a  thing  born  in  us  that  it  can  give  birth  to  the  Ego  ? 
Knowledge,  feeling,  volition,  are  colleagues  of  the  mind,  not  faculties 
of  it.  Memory  is  an  artificial  thing,  an  adjunct  of  relativeness  ;  it  can 
be  sharpened  or  left  dull,  and  it  depends  on  the  condition  of  the  brain- 
cells  which  store  all  impressions  ;  knowledge,  feeling,  volition,  cannot 
be  correlated,  do  what  you  will.  They  are  not  produced  from  each 
other,  nor  produced  from  mind,  but  are  principles,  colleagues.  You 
cannot  have  knowledge  without  memory,  for  memory  stores  all  things, 
garnishing  and  furnishing.  If  you  teach  a  child  nothing,  it  will  know 
nothing.  Brain-consciousness  depends  on  the  intensity  of  the  light 
shed  by  the  Higher  Manas  on  the  Lower,  and  the  extent  of  affinity 
between  the  brain  and  this  light.  Brain-mind  is  conditioned  by  the 
responsiveness  of  the  brain  to  this  light ;  it  is  the  field  of  consciousness 
of  the  Manas.  The  animal  has  the  Monad  and  the  Manas  latent,  but  its 
brain  cannot  respond.  All  potentialities  are  there,  but  are  dormant. 
There  are  certain  accepted  errors  in  the  West  which  vitiate  all  their 
theories. 

How  many  impressions  can  a  man  receive  simultaneously  into  his 
consciousness  and  record  ?  The  Westerns  say  one :  Occultists  say 
normally  seven,  and  abnormally  fourteen,  seventeen,  nineteen,  twenty- 
one,  up  to  forty-nine,  impressions  can  be  simultaneously  received. 
Occultism  teaches  that  the  consciousness  always  receives  a  sevenfold 
impression  and  stores  it  in  the  memory.  You  can  prove  it  by  striking 
at  once  the  seven  notes  of  the  musical  scale :  the  seven  sounds  reach 
the  consciousness  simultaneously,  but  the  untrained  ear  can  only 
recognize  them  one  after  another,  and  if  you  choose  you  can  measure 
the  intervals.  The  trained  ear  will  hear  the  seven  notes  at  once, 
simultaneously.  And  experiment  has  shown  that  in  two  or  three 
weeks  a  man  may  be  trained  to  receive  seventeen  or  eighteen  impres- 
sions of  colour,  the  intervals  decreasing  with  practice. 

Memory  is  acquired  for  this  life,  and  can  be  expanded.  Genius  is  the 
greatest  responsiveness  of  the  brain  and  brain-memory  to  the  Higner 
Manas.     Impressions  on  any  sense  are  stored  in  the  memory. 


SCALES   OF   CONSCIOUSNESS.  575 

"^-efore  a  physical  sense  is  developed  there  is  a  mental  feeling  which 
Droceeds  to  become   a  physical  sense.     Fishes  who  are  blind,  living  in 
the  deep  sea,  or  subterranean  waters,  if  they  are  put  into  a  pond  will  in 
a  few  generations  develop  eyes.     But  in  their  previous  state  there  is  a 
sense  of  seeing,  though  no  ph3^sical  sight ;  how  else  should  they  in  the 
darkness  find  their  way,  avoid  dangers,  etc.  ?     The  mind  will  take  in 
and  store  all  kinds  of  things  mechanically  and  unconscious!}-,  and  will 
throw  them  into  the  memor}-  as  unconsciou^erceptions.     If  the  atten- 
tion is  greatly  engrossed  in  any  waj'',  the  sense  perception  of  any  injury 
is  not  felt  at  the  time,  but  later  the  suffering  enters  into  consciousness. 
So,  returning  to  our  example  of  the  seven  notes  struck  simultaneously, 
we  have  one  impression,  but  the  ear  is  affected  in  succession  by   the 
notes  one  after  another,  so  that  they  are  stored  in  the  brain-mind  in 
order,  for  the  untrained  consciousness  cannot  register  them  simulta- 
neously.     All   depends    on    training    and    on    attention.      Thus    the 
transference  of  a  sensation  passing  from  any  organ  to  the  conscious- 
ness is  almost  simultaneous  if  your  attention  is  fixed  on  it,  but  if  any 
noise  distracts  your  attention,  then   it  v/ill  take  a  fraction   more  of  a 
second  before  it  reaches  \'our  consciousness.     The   Occultist  should 
train  himself  to  receive  and  transmit  along  the  line  of  the  seven  scales 
of  his  consciousness  every  impression,  or  impressions,  simultaneously. 
He  who  reduces  the  intervals  of  phj'sical  time  the  most  has  made  the 
most  progress. 

CONSCIOUSNESS,  ITS  SEVEN  SCALES. 

There  are  seven  scales  or  shades  of  consciousness,  of  the  Unit ;  e.g., 
in  a  moment  of  pleasure  or  pain ;  four  lower  and  three  higher. 
T.     Physical  sense-perception  :  Perception  of  the  cell  (if  para- 

lyzed, the  sense  is  there,  though 
you  do  not  feel  it). 

2.  Self-perception  or  apperception  :  I.e.,  self-perception  of  cell. 

3.  Psychic  apperception  :  Of  astral   double,  doppelganger, 

carrying  it  higher  to  the 

4.  Vital  perception :  Physical    feeling,    sensations    of 

pleasure  and  pain,  of  quality. 
These  are  the  four  lower  scales,  and  belong  to  the  psycho-physio- 
lo?;ical  man. 

5.  Mknasic     aiscernment    of     the     Manasic  self-perceptior:, 
Lower  Manas : 


576  THE    SECRBT  DOCTRINE. 

6.  Will  perception  :  Volitional  perception,  the  volun- 

tary taking  in  of  an  idea;  you 
can  regard  or  disregard  physical 
pain. 

7.  Spiritual,    entirely    conscious        Because   it  reaches  the  Higher, 
apperception  :  self-conscious  Manas. 

[Apperception  means  self-perception,  conscious  action,  not  as  with 
Leibnitz,  but  when  attention  is  fixed  on  the  perception.] 

You  can  take  these  on  any  planes  :  e.g.,  bad  news  passes  through 
the  four  lower  stages  before  coming  to  the  heart. 

Or  take  Sound : 

1.  It  strikes  the  ear. 

2.  Self-perception  of  the  ear. 

3.  On  the  psychic  or  mental, 

which  carries  it  to 

4.  Vital  (harsh,  soft ;  strong,  weak  ;  etc.). 

THE   EGO. 

One  of  the  best  proofs  that  there  is  an  Ego,  a  true  Field  of  Conscious- 
ness, is  the  fact  already  mentioned,  that  a  state  of  consciousness  is 
never  exactly  reproduced,  though  you  should  live  a  hundred  years,  and 
pass  through  milliards  and  milliards.  In  an  active  day,  how  many 
states  and  substates  there  are ;  it  would  be  impossible  to  have  cells 
enough  for  all.  This  will  help  you  to  understand  why  some  mental 
states  and  abstract  things  follow  the  Ego  into  Devachan,  and  why 
others  merel}^  scatter  in  space.  That  which  touches  the  Entity  has 
an  affinity  for  it,  as  a  noble  action,  is  immortal  and  goes  with  it  into 
Devachan,  forming  part  and  parcel  of  the  biography  of  the  personality 
which  is  disintegrating.  A  loft}^  emotion  runs  through  the  seven 
stages,  and  touches  the  Ego,  the  mind  that  plays  its  tunes  in  the  mind- 
cells.  We  can  analyze  the  work  of  consciousness  and  describe  it ;  but 
we  cannot  define  consciousness  unless  we  postulate  a  Subject. 

BHtJRLOKA. 

The  Bhurloka  begins  with  the  Lower  Manas.  Animals  do  not  feel 
3Lfi  do  men.  The  dog  thinks  more  of  his  master  being  angry  than  of 
the  actual  pain  of  the  lash.  The  animal  does  not  suffer  in  memory  and 
in  imagination,  feeling  past  and  future  as  well  as  actual  present  pain. 


VIBRATIONS   AND   IMPRESSIONS.  cyy 

PINEAL  GLAND. 
The  special  physical  organ  of  perception  is  the  brain,  and  perception 
is  located  in  the  aura  .of  the  pineal  gland.     This  aura  answers  in  vibra- 
tions to  any  impressions,  but  it  can  only  be  sensed,  not  perceived,  in 
the  living  man.     Daring  the  process  of  thought  manifesting  in  con- 
sciousness, a  constant  vibration  occurs  in  the  light  of  this  aura,  and  a 
clairvoyant  looking  at  the  brain  of  a  living  man  may  almost  count,  see 
with  the  spiritual  eye,   the  seven    scales,  the    seven  shades  of  light 
passing  from  the  dullest  to  the  brightest.  You  touch  your  hand  ;  before' 
you  touch  it  the  vibration  is  already  in  the  aura  of  the  pineal  glana, 
and  has  its  own  shade  of  colour.      It  is  this  aura  which  causes  the 
wear  and  tear  of  the  organ,  by  the  vibrations  it  sets  up.     The  brain 
set  vibrating,  conveys  the  vibrations  to  the  spinal  cord,  and  so  to  the 
rest  of  the  body.     Happiness  as  well  as  sorrow  sets  up  these  strong 
vibrations,  and  so  wears  out  the  body.     Powerful  vibrations  of  joy  or 
sorrow  may  thus  kill. 

THE  HEART. 
The  septenary  disturbance  and  play  of  light  around  the  pineal  -laud 
are  reflected  in  the  heart,  or  rather  the  aura  of  the  heart,  which 
vibrates  and  illumines  the  seven  brains  of  the  heart,  just  as  does 
the  aura  round  the  pineal  gland.  This  is  the  exoterically  four-  b;;^ 
Esoterically  seven-leaved  lotus,  the  Saptaparna,  the  cave  of  Buddha, 
v;ith  its  seven  compartments. 

ASTRAL  AND  EGO. 
There  is  a  diflference  between  the  nature  and  the  essence  of  the  Astral 
Body  and  the  Ego.  The  Astral  Body  is  molecular,  however  etherealized 
It  may  be :  the  Ego  is  atomic,  spiritual.  The  Atoms  are  spiritual,  and 
are  for  ever  invisible  on  this  plane  ;  molecules  form  around  them,  they 
remaining  as  the  higher  invisible  principles  of  the  molecules. '  The 
eyes  are  the  most  Occult  of  our  senses  :  close  them  and  you  pass  to  the 
mental  plane.  Stop  all  the  senses  and  you  are  entirely  on  another 
plane. 

INDIVIDUALITY. 

If  twelve  people  are  smoking  together,  the  smoke  of  their  cigarettes 
3isy  mingle,  but  the  molecules  of  the  smoke  from  each  have  an  affinity 
^ith  each  other,  and  they  remain  distinct  for  ever  and  ever,  no  matter 


578  THE   SECRET  DOCTRINE. 

how  the  whole  mass  may  interblend.  So  a  drop  of  water,  though  it  fall 
into  the  ocean  retains  its  individuality.  It  has  become  a  drop  with  a 
life  of  its  own,  like  a  man,  and  cannot  be  annihilated.  Any  group  of 
people  would  appear  as  a  group  in  the  Astral  Light,  but  would  not  be 
permanent ;  but  a  group  meeting  to  study  Occultism  would  cohere,  and 
the  impression  would  be  more  permanent.  The  higher  and  the  more 
spiritual  the  afl&nit}',  the  more  permanent  the  cohesion. 

LOWER  MANAS. 
The  Lower  Manas  is  an  emanation  from  the  Higher  Manas,  and  is  of 
the  same  nature  as  the  Higher.  This  nature  can  make  no  impression 
on  this  plane,  nor  receive  any  :  an  Archangel,  having  no  experience, 
would  be  senseless  on  this  plane,  and  could  neither  give  nor  receive 
impressions.  So  the  Lower  Manas  clothes  itself  with  the  essence  of 
the  Astral  Light  ;  this  astral  envelope  shuts  it  out  from  its  Parent, 
except  through  the  Antahkarana  which  is  its  only  salvation.  Break  this 
and  you  become  an  animal. 

IC\MA. 
Kama  is  life,  it  is  the  essence  of  the  blood.     When  this  leaves  tne 
blood  the  latter  congeals.     Prana  is  universal  on  this  plane  ;  it  is  in  us 
the  vital  principle,  Pranfc,  rather  than  Prana. 

SELF-HOOD. 

Qualities  determine  the  properties  of  "  Self-hood."  As,  for  instance, 
two  Vv'olves  placed  in  the  same  environment  would  probably  not  act 
differently. 

The  field  of  the  consciousness  of  the  Higher  Ego  is  never  reflected 
in  the  Astral  Light.  The  Auric  Envelope  receives  the  impressions  of 
both  the  Higher  and  the  Lower  Manas,  and  it  is  the  latter  impressions 
that  are  also  reflected  in  the  Astral  Light.  Whereas  the  essence  of 
^11  things  spiritual,  all  that  which  reaches,  or  is  not  rejected  by,  the 
-ligher  Ego  is  not  reflected  in  the  Astral  Light,  because  it  is  on  too 
low  a  plane.  But  during  the  life  of  a  man,  this  essence,  with  a  view 
to  Karmic  ends,  is  impressed  on  the  Auric  Envelope,  and  after  deatn 
and  the  separation  of  the  Principles  is  united  with  the  Universai 
Mind  (that  is  to  say,  those  "  impressions"  which  are  superior  to  eveu 
the  Devachanic  Plane),  to  await  there  Karmically  until  the  day  when 
the  Ego  is  to  be  reincarnated.  [There  are  thus  three  sets  of  impressions, 
which  wemay  call  theKamic,  Devachanicand  Manasic]  For  the  entities, 


THE    CRUCIFIXION    OP  THE    CHRISTOS.  579 

no  matter  how  high,  must  have  their  Karmic  rewards  and  punishments  on 
earth.  These  spiritual  impressions  are  made  more  or  less  on  the  brain, 
otherwise  the  lyower  Ego  would  not  be  responsible.  There  are  some 
impressions,  however,  received  through  the  brain,  which  are  not  or" 
our  previous  experience.  In  the  case  of  the  Adept  the  brain  is  trainea 
to  retain  these  impressions. 

The  Reincarnating  Ray  may,  for  convenience,  be  separated  into  two 
aspects :  the  lower  Kamic  Ego  is  scattered  in  Kama  Loka  ;  the  Manasic 
part  accomplishes  its  cycle  and  returns  to  the  Higher  Ego.  It  is,  in 
reality,  this  Higher  Ego  which  is,  so  to  speak,  punished,  which  suffers. 
This  is  the  true  crucifixion  of  the  Christos — the  most  abstruse  but  yet  the 
most  important  mystery  of  Occultism  ;  all  the  cycle  of  our  lives  hangs 
on  it.  It  is  indeed  the  Higher  Ego  that  is  the  sufferer  ;  for  remember 
that  the  abstract  consciousness  of  the  higher  personal  consciousness 
will  remain  impressed  on  the  Ego,  since  it  must  be  part  and  parcel  of 
its  eternity.  All  our  grandest  impressions  are  impressed  on  tfhe 
Higher  Ego,  because  they  are  of  the  same  nature  as  itself. 

Patriotism  and  great  actions  in  national  service  are  not  altogether 
good,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  highest.  To  benefit  a  portion  of 
humanity  is  good  ;  but  to  do  so  at  the  expense  of  the  rest  is  bad. 
Therefore,  in  patriotism,  etc.,  the  venom  is  present  with  the  good. 
For  though  the  inner  essence  of  the  Higher  Ego  is  unsoilable,  the 
outer  garment  may  be  soiled.  Thus  both  the  bad  and  the  good  of 
such  thoughts  and  actions  are  impressed  on  the  Auric  Envelope  and 
the  Karma  of  the  bad  is  taken  up  by  the  Higher  Ego,  though  it  is 
perfectly  guiltless  of  it.  Thus  both  sets  of  impressions,  after  death, 
scatter  in  the  Universal  Mind,  and  at  reincarnation  the  Ego  sends  out 
a  Ray  which  is  itself,  into  a  new  personality,  and  there  suffers.  It 
suffers  in  the  Self-consciousness  that  it  has  created  by  its  own  accumu- 
lated experiences. 

Every  one  of  our  Egos  has  the  Karma  of  past  Manvantaras  behind. 
There  are  seven  Hierarchies  of  Egos,  some  of  which,  e.g.,  in  inferior 
tribes,  may  be  said  to  be  only  just  beginning  the  present  cycle.  The 
Ego  starts  with  'Divine  Consciousness  ;  no  past,  no  future,  no  separa- 
tion. It  is  long  before  realizing  that  it  is  itself.  Only  after  many 
births  does  it  begin  to  discern,  by  this  collectivity  of  experience,  that 
It  is  individual.  At  the  end  of  its  cycle  of  reincarnation  it  is  still 
the  same  Divine  Consciousness,  but  it  has  now  become  individualized 
Self-  consciousness. 


580  THE    SECRET    DOCTRINE. 

The  feeling  of  responsibility  is  inspired  by  the  presence  of  the  Light 
of  the  Higher  Ego.  As  the  Ego  in  its  cycle  of  re-birth  becomes  more 
and  more  individualized,  it  learns  more  and  more  oy  suffering  to 
recognize  its  own  responsibility,  by  which  it  finally  gains  Self-con- 
sciousness, the  consciousness  of  all  the  Egos  of  the  whole  Universe. 
Absolute  Being,  to  have  the  idea  or  sensation  of  all  this,  must  pass 
through  all  experience  individually,  not  universally,  so  that  when  it 
returns  it  should  be  of  the  same  omniscience  as  the  Universal  Mind 
plus  the  memor>^  of  all  that  it  has  passed  through. 

At  the  Day  "  Be  with  us"  every  Ego  has  to  remember  all  the  cycles 
of  its  past  reincarnations  for  Manvantaras.  The  Ego  comes  in  contact 
with  this  earth,  all  seven  Principles  become  one,  it  sees  all  that  it  has 
done  therein.  It  sees  the  stream  of  its  past  reincarnations  by  a  certain 
divine  light.  It  sees  all  humanity  at  once,  but  still  there  is  ever,  as  it 
were,  a  stream  which  is  always  the  "  I." 

We  should  therefore  always  endeavour  to  accentuate  our  respon- 
sibility. 

The  Higher  Ego  is,  as  it  were,  a  globe  of  pure  divine  light,  a  Unit 
from  a  higher  plane,  on  which  is  no  differentiation.  Descending  to  a 
plane  of  differentiation  it  emanates  a  Ray,  which  it  can  only  manifest 
through  the  personality  which  is  already  differentiated.  A  portion  of 
this  Ray,  the  Lower  Manas,  during  life,  may  so  crystallize  itself  and 
become  one  with  Kama  that  it  will  remain  assimilated  with  Matter. 
That  portion  which  retains  its  purity  forms  Atitahkarana.  The  whole 
fate  of  an  incarnation  depends  on  whether  Antahkarana  will  be 
able  to  restrain  the  Kama-Manas  or  not.  After  death  the  higher  light 
(Antahkarana)  which  bears  the  impressions  and  memory  of  all  good 
and  noble  aspirations,  assimilates  itself  with  the  Higher  Ego,  the  bad 
is  dissociated  in  space,  and  comes  back  as  bad  Karma  awaiting  the 
personality. 

The  feeling  of  responsibility  is  the  beginning  of  Wisdom,  a  proof 
that  Ahankara  is  beginning  to  fade  out,  the  beginning  of  losing  the 
sense  of  separateness. 

KAMA   rOpA. 

The  Kama  Rupa  eventually  breaks  up  and  goes  into  animals.  All 
red-blooded  animals  come  from  man.  The  cold-blooded  are  from  the 
matter  of  the  past.     The  blood  is  the  Kama  Riipa. 

The  white  corpuscles   are  the  scavengers,  "devourers";    they  are 


RISING   ABOVE   THE    BRAIN.  581 

oozed  out  of  the  Astral  through  the  spleen,  and  are  of  the  same  essence 
as  the  Astral.  They  are  the  sweat-born  of  the  Chhaya.  Kama  is 
evers^where  in  the  body.  The  red  cells  are  drops  of  electrical  fluid, 
the  perspiration  of  all  the  organs  oozed  out  from  every  cell.  They  are 
the  progeny  of  the  Fohatic  Principle. 

HEART. 

There  are  seven  brains  in  the  heart,  the  Upadhis  and  symbols  of  the 
seven  Hierarchies. 

THE   FIRES. 

The  fires  are  always  playing  round  the  pineal  gland,  but  when 
Kundalini  illuminates  them  for  a  brief  instant  the  whole  universe  is 
seen.  Even  in  deep  sleep  the  Third  Eye  opens.  This  is  good  for 
Manas,  who  profits  by  it,  though  we  ourselves  do  not  remember 

PERCEPTION. 

In  answer  to  a  question  on  the  seven  stages  of  perception,  H.  P.  B. 
said  that  thought  should  be  centred  on  the  highest,  the  seventh,  and 
then  an  attempt  to  transcend  this  will  prove  that  it  is  impossible  to  go 
beyond  it  on  this  plane.  There  is  nothing  in  the  brain  to  carry  the 
thinker  on,  and  if  thought  is  to  rise  yet  further  it  must  be  thought 
without  a  brain.  Let  the  eyes  be  closed,  the  will  set  not  to  let  the 
braiti  work,  and  then  the  point  may  be  transcended  and  the  student 
will  pass  to  the  next  plane.  All  the  seven  stages  of  perception  come 
before  Antahkarana;  if  you  can  pass  beyond  them  you  are  on  the 
Manasic  Plane. 

Try  to  imagine  something  which  transcends  your  power  of  thought, 
sa}',  the  nature  of  the  Dhyan  Chohans.  Then  make  the  brain  passive, 
and  pass  beyond;  you  will  see  a  white  radiant  light,  like  silver,  but 
opalescent  as  mother  of  pearl ;  then  waves  of  colour  will  pass  over  it, 
beginning  in  the  tenderest  violet,  and  through  bronze  shades  of  green 
to  indigo  with  metallic  lustre,  and  that  colour  will  remain.  If  you  see 
this  you  are  on  another  plane.     You  should  pass  through  seven  stages. 

When  a  colour  comes,  glance  at  it,  and  if  it  is  not  good  reject  it. 
I^et  your  attention  be  arrested  only  on  the  green,  indigo  and  yellow. 
These  are  good  colours.  The  eyes  being  connected  with  the  brain,  the 
colour  you  see  most  easily  will  be  the  colour  of  the  personality.  If 
you  see  red,  it  is  merely  physiological,  and  is  to  be  disregarded. 
Green-bronze  is  the  lyower  Manas,  yellow-bronze  the  Antahkarana, 


582  THE    SECRET    DOCTRINE. 

indigo-bronze  is  Manas.  These  are  to  be  observed,  and  when  the 
yellow-bronze  merges  into  the  indigo  you  are  on  the  Manasic  Plane. 

On  the  Manasic  Plane  you  see  the  Noumena,  the  essence  of  phe- 
nomena. You  do  not  see  people  or  other  consciousnesses,  but  have 
enough  to  do  to  keep  your  own.  The  trained  Seer  can  see  Noumena 
always.  The  Adept  sees  the  Noumena  on  this  plane,  the  reality  of 
things,  so  cannot  be  deceived. 

In  meditation  the  beginner  may  waver  backwards  and  forwards 
between  two  planes.  You  hear  the  ticking  of  a  clock  on  this  plane, 
then  on  the  astral — the  soul  of  the  ticking.  When  clocks  are  stopped 
here  the  ticking  goes  on  on  higher  planes,  in  the  astral,  and  then  in 
the  ether,  until  the  last  bit  of  the  clock  is  gone.  It  is  the  same  as  with 
a  dead  body,  which  sends  out  emanations  until  the  last  molecule  is 
disintegrated. 

There  is  no  time  in  meditation,  because  there  is  no  succession  of 
states  of  consciousness  on  this  plane. 

Violet  is  the  colour  of  the  Astral.  You  begin  with  it,  but  should 
not  stay  in  it ;  try  to  pass  on.  When  you  see  a  sheet  of  violet,  3'ou  are 
beginning  unconsciously  to  form  a  Mayavi  Riipa.  Fix  ^our  attention, 
and  if  you  go  away  keep  your  consciousness  firmly  to  the  Mayavic 
Body;  do  not  lose  sight  of  it,  hold  on  like  grim  death. 

CONSCIOUSNEvSS. 

The  consciousness  which  is  merely  the  animal  consciousness  is  made 
up  of  the  consciousness  of  all  the  cells  in  the  body  except  those  of  the 
heart.  The  heart  is  the  king,  the  most  important  organ  in  the  body 
of  man.  Even  if  the  head  be  severed  from  the  body,  the  heart  will 
continue  to  beat  for  thirty  minutes.  It  will  beat  for  some  hours  if 
wrapped  in  cotton  wool  and  put  in  a  warm  place.  The  spot  in  the 
heart  which  is  the  last  of  all  to  die  is  the  seat  of  life,  the  centre  of  all, 
Brahma,  the  first  spot  that  lives  in  the  foetus  and  the  last  that  dies. 
When  a  Yogi  is  buried  in  a  trance  it  is  this  spot  that  lives,  though  the 
rest  of  the  body  be  dead,  and  as  long  as  this  is  alive  the  Yogi  can  be 
resurrected.  This  spot  contains  potentially  mind,  life,  energy,  and 
will.  During  life  it  radiates  prismatic  colours,  fien,^  and  opalescent. 
The  heart  is  tlje  centre  of  spiritual  consciousness,  as  the  brain  is  the 
centre  of  intellectual.  But  this  consciousness  cannot  be  guided  by  a 
person,  nor  its  energy  directed  b}'  him  until  he  is  at  one  with  Buddhi- 
Manas ;    until   then  it   guides   him — if   it   can.      Hence   the  pangs  of 


CHRIST    AND   APOLLONIUS.  583 

remorse,  the  prickings  of  conscience ;  they  come  from  the  heart,  not 
the  head.  In  the  heart  is  the  only  manifested  God,  the  other  two  are 
invisible,  and  it  is  this  which  represents  the  Triad,  Atma-Buddhi- 
Manas. 

In  reply  to  a  question  whether  the  consciousness  might  not  be  con- 
centrated in  the  heart,  and  so  the  promptings  of  the  Spirit  caught, 
H.  P.  B.  said  that  any  one  who  could  thus  concentrate  would  be  at  one 
with  Manas,  would  have  united  Kama-Manas  to  the  Higher  Manas. 
The  Higher  Manas  could  not  directly  guide  man,  it  could  only  act 
through  the  L,ower  Manas. 

There  are  three  principal  centres  in  man,  Heart,  Head,  and  Navel : 
any  two  of  which  may  be  +  or  —  to  each  other,  according  to  the 
relative  predominance  of  the  centres. 

The  heart  represents  the  Higher  Triad  ;  the  liver  and  spleen  repre- 
sent the  Quaternary.     The  solar  plexus  is  the  brain  of  the  stomach. 

H,  P.  B.  was  asked  if  the  three  centres  above-named  would  represent 
the  Christos,  crucified  between  two  thieves ;  she  said  it  might  serve  as 
an  analogy,  but  these  figures  must  not  be  over-driven.  It  must  never 
be  forgotten  that  the  Lower  Manas  is  the  same  in  its  essence  as  the 
Higher,  and  may  become  one  with  it  by  rejecting  Kamic  impulses. 
The  crucifixion  of  the  Christos  represents  the  self-sacrifice  of  the 
Higher  Manas,  the  Father  that  sends  his  only  begotten  Son  into  the 
world  to  take  upon  him  our  sins :  the  Christ-myth  came  from  the 
Mysteries.  So  also  did  the  life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana;  this  was 
suppressed  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  because  of  its  striking  simi- 
larity to  the  life  of  Christ. 

The  psycho-intellectual  man  is  all  in  the  head  with  its  seven  gate- 
ways ;  the  spiritual  man  is  in  the  heart.  The  convolutions  are  formed 
by  thought. 

The  third  ventricle  in  life  is  filled  with  light,  and  not  with  a  liquid 
as  after  death. 

There  are  seven  cavities  in  the  brain  which  are  quite  empty  during 
life,  and  it  is  in  these  that  visions  must  be  reflected  if  they  are  to 
remain  in  the  memory.  These  centres  are,  in  Occultism,  called  the 
seven  harmonies,  the  scale  of  the  divine  harmonies.     They  are  filled 

A 

with  Akasha,  each  with  its  own  colour,  according  to  the  state  of  con- 
sciousness in  which  you  are.  The  sixth  is  the  pineal  gland,  which  is 
hollow  and  empty  during  life  :  the  seventh  is  the  whole  ;  the  fifth  is  the 
third  ventricle  :  the  fourth  the  pituitary  body.     When  Manas  is  united 


584  THE    SECRET    DOCTRLKTE. 

to  Atmi-Buddhi,  or  when  Atma-Buddhi  is  centred  in  Manas,  it  acts 
in  the  three  higher  cavities,  radiating,  sending  forth  a  halo  of  light, 
and  this  is  visible  in  the  case  of  a  very-  holy  person. 

The  cerebellum  is  the  centre,  the  storehouse,  of  all  the  forces;  it  is 
the  Kama  of  the  head.  The  pineal  gland  corresponds  to  the  uterus  ;  its 
peduncles  to  the  Fallopian  tubes.  The  pituitary  body  is  only  its 
servant,  its  torch-bearer,  like  the  servants  bearing  lights  that  used  to 
run  before  the  carriage  of  a  princess.  Man  is  thus  androg>-ne  so  far  as 
his  head  is  concerned. 

Man  contains  in  himself  every  element  that  is  found  in  the  Universe. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  Macrocosm  that  is  not  in  the  Microcosm.  The 
pineal  gland,  as  was  said,  is  quite  empty  during  life  ;  the  pituitar}^ 
contains  various  essences.  The  granules  in  the  pineal  gland  are  pre- 
cipitated after  death  within  the  cavity. 

The  cerebellum  furnishes  the  materials  for  ideation  ;  the  frontal 
lobes  of  the  cerebrum  are  the  finishers  and  polishers  of  the  materials, 
but  they  cannot  create  of  themselves. 

Clairvoyant  perception  is  the  consciousness  of  touch  :  thus  reading 
letters,  psjxhometrizing  substances,  etc.,  may  be  done  at  the  pit  of  the 
stomach.  Every  sense  has  its  consciousness,  and.  you  can  have  con- 
sciousness through  every  sense.  There  may  be  consciousness  on  the 
plane  of  sight,  though  the  brain  be  paralyzed  ;  the  eyes  of  a  paralyzed 
person  will  show  terror.  So  with  the  sense  of  hearing.  Those  who 
are  physically  blind,  deaf  or  dumb,  are  still  possessed  of  the  psychic 
counterparts  of  these  senses. 

WILL  AND  DESIRE. 

Eros  in  man  is  the  will  of  the  genius  to  create  great  pictures,  great 
music,  things  that  will  live  and  serve  the  race.  It  has  nothing  in 
common  wath  the  animal  desire  to  create.  Will  is  of  the  Higher  Manas. 
It  is  the  universal  harmonious  tendency  acting  by  the  Higher  Manas. 
Desire  is  the  outcome  of  separateness,  aiming  at  the  satisfaction  of  Self 
in  Matter.  The  path  opened  between  the  Higher  Ego  and  the  I^ower 
enables  the  Ego  to  act  on  the  personal  self. 

CONVERSION. 

It  is  not  true  that  a  man  powerful  in  evil  can  suddenly  be  converted 
and  become  as  powerful  for  good.  His  vehicle  is  too  defiled,  and  he 
can  at  best  but  neutralize  the  evil,  balancing  up  the  bad  Karmic  causes 


THE   BEGINNINGS.  535 

lie  has  set  in  motion,  at  anj'  rate  for  this  incarnation.  You  cannot 
take  a  herring  barrel  and  use  it  for  attar  of  roses  :  the  wood  is  too 
soaked  through  with  the  drippings.  When  evil  impulses  and  tendencies 
have  become  impressed  on  the  physical  nature,  the)''  cannot  at  once 
be  reversed.  The  molecules  of  the  body  have  been  set  in  a  K^mic 
direction,  and  though  they  have  sufficient  intelligence  to  discern 
between  things  on  their  own  plane,  i.e.,  to  avoid  things  harmful  to 
themselves,  they  cannot  understand  a  change  of  direction,  the  impulse 
to  which  is  from  another  plane.  If  they  are  forced  too  violentb;, 
disease,  madness  or  death  will  result. 

ORIGINES. 

Absolute  eternal  motion,  Parabrahman,  which  is  nothing  and  every- 
thing, motion  inconceivably  rapid,  in  this  motion  throws  off  a  film,  which 
is  Energy,  Eros.  It  thus  transforms  itself  to  Mulaprakriti,  primordial 
Substance  which  is  still  Energ>'.  This  Energ)%  still  transforming 
itself  in  its  ceaseless  and  inconceivable  motion,  becomes  the  Atom, 
or  rather  the  germ  of  the  Atom,  and  then  it  is  on  the  Third  Plane. 

Our  Manas  is  a  Ray  from  the  World-Soul  and  is  withdrawn  at 
Pralaya  ;  "  it  is  perhaps  the  Lower  Manas  of  Parabrahman,"  that  is,  of 
the  Parabrahman  of  the  manifested  Universe.  The  first  film  is  Energy-, 
or  motion  on  the  manifested  plane ;  Alaya  is  the  Third  Logos,  Maha- 
Buddhi,  Mahat.  We  always  begin  on  the  Third  Plane ;  beyond  that 
all  is  inconceivable.  Atma  is  focussed  in  Buddhi,  but  is  embodied 
only  in  Manas,  these  being  the  Spirit,  Soul  and   Body  of  the  Universe. 

DREAMS. 

We  may  have  evil  experiences  in  dreams  as  well  as  good.  We 
should,  therefore,  train  ourselves  so  as  to  a^.vaken  directly  we  teaid  to 
do  wrong. 

The  Lower  Manas  is  asleep  in  sense-dreams,  the  animal  consciousness 
being  then  guided  towards  the  Astral  Light  by  Kama  ;  the  tendency  of 
such  sense-dreams  is  always  towards  the  animal. 

If  we  could  remember  our  dreams  in  deep  sleep,  then  we  should  be 
able  to  remember  all  our  past  incarnations. 

nidAnas. 

There  are  twelve  Nidinas,  exoteric  and  Esoteric,  the  fundamental 
doctrine  of  Buddhism. 


586  THE    SECRET    DOCTRINE. 

So  also  there  are  twelve  exoteric  Buddhist  Suttas  called  Nidauas, 
each  giving  one  Nidaua. 

The  Nidanas  have  a  dual  meaning.     They  are  : 

(i)  The  twelve  causes  of  sentient  existence,  through  the  twelve  links 
of  subjective  with  objective  Nature,  or  between  the  subjective  and 
objective  Natures. 

(2)  A  concatenation  of  causes  and  effects. 

Every  cause  produces  an  effect,  and  this  eflfect  becomes  in  its  turn  a 
cause.  Each  of  these  has  as  Upadhi  (basis),  one  of  the  sub-divisions  of 
one  of  the  Nidanas,  and  also  an  effect  or  consequence. 

Both  bases  and  effects  belong  to  one  or  another  Nidana,  each  having 
from  three  to  seventeen,  eighteen  and  twenty-one  sub-divisions. 

The  names  of  the  twelve  Nidanas  are: 

(i)  Jaramarana.  (7)  Sparsha. 

(2)  Jati.  (8)  Chadayatana. 

(3)  Bhava.  (9.)  Namarupa. 

(4)  Upadana.  (10)  Vignana. 

(5)  Trishna.  (11)  Samskara. 

(6)  Vedana.  (12)  Avidya.* 

(i)  Jaramarana,  lit.  death  in  consequence  of  decrepitude.  Notice 
that  death  and  not  life  comes  as  the  first  of  the  Nidanas.  This  is  the 
first  fundamental  in  Buddhist  Philosophy;  every  Atom,  at  every 
moment,  as  soon  as  it  is  born  begins  dying. 

The  five  Skandhas  are  founded  on  it ;  they  are  its  effects  or  product. 
Moreover,  in  its  turn,  it  is  based  on  the  five  Skandhas.  They  are 
mutual  things,  one  gives  to  the  other. 

(2)  Jati,  lit.  Birth. 

That  is  to  say,  Birth  according  to  one  of  the  four  modes  of  Chaturyoni 
(the  four  wombs),  viz.  : 

(i)  Through  the  womb,  like  Mammalia. 

(ii)  Through  Eggs. 

(iii)  Ethereal  or  liquid  Germs— fish  spawn,  pollen,  insects,  etc. 

(iv)  Anupadaka — Nirmanakayas,  Gods,  etc. 

That  is  to  say  that  birth  takes  place  by  one  of  these  modes.  You 
must  be  born  in  one  of  the  six  objective  modes  of  existence,  or  in  the 
seventh  which  is  subjective.  These  four  are  within  six  modes  of 
existence,  viz. : 


•  [If  Ihe  Nidanas  are  read  the  reverse  way,  i.e.,  from  iz  to  i,  they  give  the  evolutionary  or^er.— t 


KARMIC   EFFECTC.  587 

Exoterically : — 

(i)  Devas ;  (ii)  Men ;  (iii)  Asuras  ;  (iv)  Men  in  Heil ;  (v)  Pretas,  de- 
vouring demons  on  earth  ;  (vi)  animals. 

Esoterically : — 

(i)  Higher  Gods;  (ii)  Devas  or  Pitris  (all  classes);  (iii)  Nirmanakaj^as; 
(iv)  Bodhisattvas  ;  (v)  Men  in  Myalba  ;  (vi)  Kama  Riipic  existences, 
whether  of  men  or  animals,  in  Kama  Loka  or  the  Astral  lyight;  (vii) 
Elementals  (Subjective  Existences). 

(3)  Bhava  =  Karmic  existence,  not  life  existence,  but  as  a  moral 
agent  which  determines  where  j-ou  will  be  born,  i.e.,  in  which  of  the 
Triloka,    Bhur,  Bhuvar  or  Svar  (seven  Eokas  in  reality). 

The  cause  or  Nidana  of  Bhava  is  Upadana,  that  is,  the  clinging  to 
existence,  that  which  makes  us  desire  life  in  whatever  form. 

Its  effect  is  Jati  in  one  or  another  of  the  Triloka  and  under  whatever 
conditions. 

Nidanas  are  the  detailed  expression  of  the  law  of  Karma  under  twelve 

aspects  ;  or  we  might   say  the   law  of   Karma    under   twelve  Nidanic 

aspects. 

SKANDHAS. 

Skandhas  are  the  germs  of  life  on  all  the  seven  planes  of  Being,  and 
make  up  the  totality  of  the  subjective  and  objective  man.  Every  vibra- 
tion we  have  made  is  a  Skandha.  The  Skandhas  are  closeh'  united 
to  the  pictures  in  the  Astral  Light,  which  is  the  medium  of  impres- 
sions, and  the  Skandhas,  or  vibrations,  connected  with  subjective  o: 
objective  man,  are  the  links  which  attract  the  Reincarnating  Ego,  the 
germs  left  behind  when  it  went  into  Devachan  which  have  to  be  picked 
up  again  and  exhausted  by  a  new  personality.  The  exoteric  Skandhas 
have  to  do  with  the  physical  atoms  and  vibrations,  or  objective  man  ; 
the  Esoteric  with  the  internal  and  subjective  man. 

A  mental  change,  or  a  glimpse  of  spiritual  truth,  may  make  a  man 
suddenly  change  to  the  truth  even  at  his  death,  thus  creating  good 
Skandhas  for  the  next  life.  The  last  acts  or  thoughts  of  a  man  have 
an  enormous  effect  upon  his  future  life,  but  he  would  still  have  to  suffer 
for  his  misdeeds,  and  this  is  the  basis  of  the  idea  of  a  death-bed  repen- 
tance. But  the  Karmic  effects  of  the  past  life  must  follow,  for  the  man 
in  his  next  birth  must  pick  up  the  Skandhas  or  vibratory  impressions 
that  he  left  in  the  Astral  Eight,  since  nothing  comes  from  nothing  in 
Occultism,  and  there  must  be  a  link  between  the  lives.  New  Skandhas 
are  bom  from  their  old  parent^. 


5S8  THE    SECRET    DOCTK.IXE. 

It  is  wrong  to  speak  of  Tanhas  in  the  plural ;  there  is  only  one  Tanha, 
the  desire  to  live.  This  develops  into  a  multitude  or  one  might  say  a 
congeries  of  ideas.  The  Skandhas  are  Karmic  and  nou-Karmic. 
Skandhas  may  produce  Elementals  by  unconscious  Kriyashakti.  Every 
Elemental  that  is  thrown  out  by  man  must  return  to  him  sooner  or 
later,  since  it  is  his  own  vibration.  They  thus  become  his  Franken- 
stein. Elementals  are  simply  eflfects  producing  effects.  They  are  dis- 
embodied thoughts,  good  and  bad.  They  remain  crystallized  in  the 
Astral  L/ight  and  are  attracted  by  affinity  and  galvanized  back  into  life 
again,  when  their  originator  returns  to  earth -life.  You  can  paralyze 
them  by  reverse  effects.  Elementals  are  caught  like  a  disease  and 
hence  are  dangerous  to  ourselves  and  to  others.  This  is  why  it  is  dan- 
gerous to  influence  others.  The  Elementals  which  live  after  your  death 
are  those  which  you  implant  in  others  :  the  rest  remain  latent  till  you 
are  reincarnated,  when  they  come  to  life  in  you.  "  Thus,"  H.  P.  B.  said, 
"if  you  are  badly  taught  by  me  or  incited  thereby  to  do  something 
wrong,  3'ou  would  go  on  after  my  death  and  sin  through  me,  but  I 
should  have  to  bear  the  Karma.  Calvin,  for  instance,  will  have  to 
suffer  for  all  the  wrong  teaching  he  has  given,  though  he  gave  it  with 
good  intentions.  The  worst  *  *  *  *  does  is  to  arrest  the  progress  of 
truth.  Even  Buddha  made  mistakes.  He  applied  his  teaching  to  people 
who  were  not  ready  ;  and  this  has  produced  Nidanas." 

SUBTLE     BODIES. 

When  a  man  visits  another  in  his  Astral  Body,  it  is  the  Einga  Sharira 
which  goes,  but  this  cannot  happen  at  any  great  distance.  When  a  man 
thinks  of  another  at  a  distance  ver}^  intently,  he  sometimes  appears  to 
that  person. 

In  this  case  it  is  the  Mayavi  Riapa,  which  is  created  by  unconscious 
Kriyashakti,  and  the  man  himself  is  not  conscious  of  appearing.  If  he 
"were,  and  projected  his  Mayavi  Rupa  consciously,  he  would  be  an 
Adept.*  No  two  persons  can  be  simultaneously  conscious  of  one 
another's  presence,  unless  one  be  an  Adept.  Dugpas  use  the  Mayavi 
Rupa  and  sorcerers  also.  Dugpas  work  on  the  Einga  Sharira  of  other 
people. 

The  Linga  Sharira  in  the  spleen  is  the  perfect  picture  of  the  man, 
and  is  good  or  bad,  according  to  his  own  nature.  The  Astral  Body  is 
the  subjective  image  of  the  man  which  is  to  be,  the  first  germ  in  the 

•  \_I.e.,  an  Initiate,  the  word  Adept  being  used  by  H.  P.  B.  to  cover  all  grades  of  Initiation.  As 
above  seen,  she  used  the  words  Mayavi  Rupa  in  more  than  one  sense.— Ed.] 


FIRE   IS    KRIYASHAKTI. 

matrix,  the  model  of  the  physical  body  in  which  the  child  is  formed 
and  developed.  The  lyinga  Sharira  may  be  hurt  by  a  sharp  instrument, 
and  would  not  face  a  sword  or  bayonet,  although  it  would  easily  pass 
through  a  table  or  other  piece  of  furniture. 

Nothing  however  can  hurt  the  Mayavi  Riipa  or  thought-body,  since 
it  is  purely  subjective.  When  swords  are  struck  at  shades,  it  is  the 
sword  itself,  not  its  Linga  Sharira  or  Astral  that  cuts.  Sharp  instru- 
ments alone  can  penetrate  Astrals,  e.g.,  under  water,  a  blow  will  not 
affect  you,  but  a  cut  will. 

The  projection  of  the  Astral  Body  should  not  be  attempted,  but  the 
power  of  Kriyashakti  should  be  exercised  in  the  projection  of  the 
Mayavi  Rupa. 

FIRE. 
Fire  is  not  an  Element  but  a  divine  thing.     The  ph3'^sical  flame  is  the 
objective  vehicle  of  the  highest  Spirit.     The  Fire  Elementals  are  the 
highest.     Everything  in  this  world  has  its  Aura  and  its  Spirit.     The 
flame  you  apply  to  the  candle  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  candle  itself. 
The  Aura  of  the  object  comes  into  conjunction  with  the  lowest  part  of 
the  other.     Granite  cannot  burn  because  its  Aura  is  Fire.     Fire  Elemen- 
lals  have  no  consciousness  on  this  plane,  they  are  too  high,  reflecting 
the  divinity  of  their  own  source.     Other  Elementals  have  consciousness 
on  this  plane  as  they  reflect  man  and  his  nature.     There  is  a  ver}'  great 
difference  between  the  mineral  and  vegetable  kingdoms.     The  wick  of 
the  lamp,  for  instance,  is  negative.     It  is  made  positive  by  fire,  the  oil 
being  the  medium,     .^ther  is  Fire.     The  lowest  part  of  -^ther  is  the 
flame  which   you    see.      Fire   is   Divinity   in   its   subjective   presence 
throughout  the  universe.     Under  other  conditions,  this  Universal  Fire 
manifests  as  water,  air  and  earth.     It  is  the  one  Element  in  our  visible 
Universe  which  is  the  Kriyashakti  of  all  forms  of  life.     It  is  that  which 
gives  light,  heat,  death,  life,  etc.     It  is  even  the  blood.    In  all  its  various 
manifestations  it  is  essentially  07ie. 
It  is  the  "seven  Cosmocratores." 

Evidence  of  the  esteem  in  which  Fire  was  held  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Old  Testame7it.  The  Pillar  of  Fire,  the  Burning  Bush,  the  Shining 
Face  of  Moses — all  Fire.  Fire  is  like  a  looking-glass  in  its  nature,  and 
reflects  the  beams  of  the  first  order  of  subjective  manifestations  which 
are  supposed  to  be  thrown  on  to  the  screen  of  the  first  outlines  of  the 
created  universe ;  in  their  lower  aspect  these  are  the  creations  of 
Fire. 


^go  THE    SECRET    DOCTRINE. 

Fire  in  the  grossest  aspect  of  its  essence  is  the  first  form  and  reflects 
the  lower  forms  of  the  first  subjective  beings  which  are  in  the  universe. 
The  first  divine  chaotic  thoughts  are  the  Fire  Elementals.  When  on 
earth  they  take  form  and  come  flitting  in  the  flame  in  the  form  of  the 
Salamanders  or  lower  Fire  Elementals.  In  the  air  you  have  millions 
of  living  and  conscious  beings,  besides  our  thoughts  which  they  catch 
up.  The  Fire  Elementals  are  related  to  the  sense  of  sight  and  absorb 
the  Elementals  of  all  the  other  senses.  Thus  through  sight  you  can 
have  the  consciousness  of  feeling,  hearing,  tasting,  etc.,  since  all  are 
included  in  the  sense  of  sight. 

HINTS  ON  THE  FUTURE. 
As  time  passes  on  there  will  be  more  and  more  ether  in  the  air. 
When  ether  fills  the  air,  then  will  be  born  children  without  fathers. 
In  Virginia  there  is  an  apple  tree  of  a  special  kind.  It  does  not  blossom 
but  bears  fruit  from  a  kind  of  berry  without  any  seeds.  This  will 
gradually  extend  to  animals  and  then  to  men.  Women  will  bear 
children  without  impregnation,  and  in  the  Seventh  Round  there  will 
appear  men  who  can  reproduce  themselves.  In  the  Seventh  Race  of 
tlie  Fourth  Round,  men  will  change  their  skins  every  5'ear  and  will 
have  new  toe  and  finger  nails.  People  will  become  more  psychic,  then 
spiritual.  Last  of  all  in  the  Seventh  Round,  Buddhas  will  be  born 
without  sin.  The  Fourth  Round  is  the  longest  in  the  Kali  Yuga,  then 
the  Fifth,  then  the  Sixth,  and  the  Seventh  Round  will  be  very  short. 

THE  EGOS. 
In  explaining  the  relations  of  the  Higher  and  Lower  Ego,  Devachan, 
and  the  "  Death  of  the  Soul,"  the  following  figure  was  drawn  : 

B 
I..M.Z IH.M 


On  the  separation  of  the  Principles  at  death  the  Higher  Ego  may  be 
said  to  go  to  Devachan  by  reason  of  the  experiences  of  the  Lower.  The 
Higher  Ego  in  its  own  plane  is  the  Kumara. 

The  Lower  Quaternary  dissolves  ;  the  body  rots,  the  Linga  Sharira 
fades  out. 

At  reincarnation  the  Higher  Ego  shoots  out  a  Ray,  the  Lower  Ego 


RESPONSIBILITY   AND  THE   EGO.  59I 

Its  energies  are  upward  and  downward.  The  upward  tendencie"? 
become  its  Devaclianic  experiences  ;  the  lower  are  Kamic.  The  Highet 
Manas  stands  to  Buddhi  as  the  Lower  Manas  to  the  Higher. 

As  to  the  question  of  responsibilit}^  it  may  be  understood  by  an 
example.  If  you  take  the  form  of  Jack  the  Ripper,  you  must  suffer 
for  its  misdeeds,  for  the  law  will  punish  the  murderer  and  hold  him 
responsible.  You  are  the  sacrificial  victim.  In  the  same  way  the 
Higher  Ego  is  the  Christos,  the  sacrificial  victim  for  the  Lower  Manas. 
The  Ego  takes  the  responsibility  of  every  body  it  informs. 

You  borrow  some  money  to  lend  it  to  another  ;  the  other  runs  away, 
but  it  is  you  who  are  responsible.  The  mission  of  the  Higher  Ego  is 
to  shoot  out  a  Ray  to  be  a  Soul  in  a  child. 

Thus  the  Ego  incarnates  in  a  thousand  bodies,  taking  upon  itself 
the  sins  and  responsibilities  of  each  body.  At  every  incarnation  a  new 
Ray  is  emitted,  and  yet  it  is  the  same  Ray  in  essence,  the  same  in  you 
and  me  and  every  one.  The  dross  of  the  incarnation  disintegrates,  the 
good  goes  to  Devachan. 

The  Flame  is  eternal.  From  the  Flame  of  the  Higher  Ego,  the 
Lower  is  lighted,  and  from  this  a  lower  vehicle,  and  so  on. 

And  yet  the  Lower  Manas  is  such  as  it  makes  itself.  It  is  possible 
for  it  to  act  differently  in  like  conditions,  for  it  has  reason  and  self- 
conscious  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong,  and  good  and  evil,  given  to 
it.  It  is  in  fact  endowed  with  all  the  attributes  of  the  Divine  Soul. 
In  this  the  Ray  is  the  Higher  Manas,  the  speck  of  responsibility  ou 
earth. 

The  part  of  the  essence  is  the  essence,  but  while  it  is  out  of  itself,  so 
to  say,  it  can  get  soiled  and  polluted.  The  Ray  can  be  manifested  on 
this  earth  because  it  can  send  forth  its  Mayavi  Rupa.  But  the  Higher 
cannot,  so  it  has  to  send  forth  a  Ray.  We  may  look  upon  the  Higher 
Ego  as  the  Sun,  and  the  personal  Manases  as  its  Rays.  If  we  take 
away  the  surrounding  air  and  light  the  Ray  may  be  said  to  return  to 
the  Sun,  so  with  the  Lower  Manas  and  Lower  Quaternary. 

The  Higher  Ego  can  only  manifest  through  its  attributes. 

In  cases  of  sudden  death,  the  Lower  Manas  no  more  disappears  than 
does  the  KSma  Rupa  after  death.  After  the  severance  the  Ray  may 
be  said  to  snap  or  be  dropped.  After  death  such  a  man  cannot  go  to 
Devachan,  nor  yet  remain  in  Kama  Loka  ;  his  fate  is  to  reincarnate 
immediately.  Such  an  entity  is  then  an  animal  Soul  plus  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  severed  Ray.     The  manifestation  of  this  intelligence  m 


592  THE    SECRET    DOCTRINE. 

the  next  birth  will  depend  entirely  on  the  physical  formation  of  the 
brain  and  on  education. 

Such  a  Soul  may  be  re-united  with  its  Higher  Ego  in  the  next  birth, 
if  the  environment  is  such  as  to  give  it  a  chance  of  aspiration  (this  is 
the  "  grace  "  of  the  Christians)  ;  or  it  may  go  on  for  two  or  three  incar- 
nations, the  Ray  becoming  weaker  and  weaker,  and  gradually  dissipat- 
ing, until  it  is  born  a  congenital  idiot  and  then  finally  dissipated  in 
lower  forms. 

There  are  enormous  mysteries  connected  with  the  Ivower  Manas. 

With  regard  to  some  intellectual  giants,  they  are  in  somewhat  the 
same  condition  as  smaller  men,  for  their  Higher  Ego  is  paral5'zed,  that 
is  to  say,  their  spiritual  nature  is  atrophied. 

The  Manas  can  pass  its  essence  to  several  vehicles,  e.g.,  the  Mayavi 
Rupa,  etc.,  and  even  to  Elementals  which  it  can  ensoul,  as  the 
Rosicrucians  taught. 

The  Mayavi  Rupa  may  be  sometimes  so  vitalized  that  it  goes  on  to 
another  plane  and  unites  with  the  beings  of  that  plane  and  so  ensouls 
them. 

People  who  bestow  great  aflfection  upon  animal  pets  are  ensouling 
them  to  a  certain  extent,  and  such  animal  Souls  progress  very  rapidly  ;  in 
return  such  persons  get  back  the  animal  vitality  and  magnetism.  It 
is,  however,  against  Nature  to  thus  accentuate  animal  evolution,  and  on 
the  whole  is  bad. 

MONADIC    EVOLUTION. 

The  Kumiras  do  not  direct  the  evolution  of  the  Lunar  Pitris. 
To  understand  the  latter,  we  might  take  the  analogy  of  the  blood. 

The  blood  may  be  compared  to  the  universal  L/ife  Principle,  the 
corpuscles  to  the  Monads.  The  different  kinds  of  corpuscles  are  the 
same  as  the  various  classes  of  Monads  and  various  kingdoms,  not, 
however,  because  of  their  essence  being  different,  but  because  of  the 
environment  in  which  they  are.  The  Chhay^  is  the  permanent  seed, 
and  Weissmann  in  his  hereditan,'  germ  theorj'  is  very  near  truth. 

H.  P.  B.  was  asked  whether  there  was  one  Ego  to  one  permanent 
Chhaya  seed,  oversouling  it  in  a  series  of  incarnations ;  her  answer  was  : 
••  No,  it  is  Heaven  and  Earth  kissing  each  other." 

The  animal  Souls  are  in  temporary  forms  and  shells  in  which  they 
gain  experience,  and  in  which  they  prepare  materials  for  higlxtr 
evolution. 


FUNCTIONS   OF   THE   ASTRAL   BODY.  593 

Until  the  age  of  seven  the  astral  atavic  germ  forms  and  moulds  the 
body  ;  after  that  the  body  forms  the  Astral. 

The  Astral  and  the  Mind  mutually  react  on  each  other. 
The  meaning  of  the  passage  in  the   Upanishads,  where  it  says  that 
the  Gods  feed  on  men,  is  that  the  Higher  Ego  obtains  its  earth  expe- 
rience through  the  Lower. 

ASTR.\L  BODY. 
The  Astral  can  get  out  unconsciously  to  the  person  and  wander 
about. 

The  Chhaya  is  the  same  as  the  Astral  Body. 
The  germ  or  life  essence  of  it  is  in  the  spleen. 

"The  Chhaya  is  coiled  up  in  the  spleen."  It  is  from  this  that  the 
Astral  is  formed ;  it  evolves  in  a  shadowy  curling  or  gyrating  essence 
like  smoke,  gradually  taking  form  as  it  grows.  But  it  is  not  projected 
from  the  physical,  atom  for  atom.  This  latter  intermolecular  form  is  the 
Kama  Rupa.  At  death  every  cell  and  molecule  gives  out  its  essence, 
and  from  it  is  formed  the  Astral  of  the  Kama  Rupa ;  but  this  can 
, never  come  out  during  life. 

The  Chhaya  in  order  to  become  visible  draws  upon  the  surrounding 
atmosphere,  attracting  the  atoms  to  itself;  the  Linga  Sharira  could  not 
form  in  vacuo.  The  fact  of  the  Astral  Body  accounts  for  the  Arabian 
and  Kastern  tales  of  Djins  and  bottle  imps,  etc. 

In  spiritualistic  phenomena,  the  resemblance  to  deceased  persons  is 
mostly  caused  by  the  imagination.  The  clothing  of  such  phantoms  is 
formed  from  the  living  atoms  of  the  medium,  and  is  no  real  clothing, 
and  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  clothing  of  the  medium.  "  All  the 
clothing  of  a  materialization  has  been  paid  for." 

The  Astral  supports  life ;  it  is  the  reservoir  or  sponge  of  life,  gather- 
ing it  up  from  all  the  natural  kingdoms  around,  and  is  the  intermediary 
between  the  kingdoms  of  Pranic  and  physical  life. 

Life  cannot  come  immediately  from  the  subjective  to  the  objective, 
for  Nature  goes  gradually  through  each  sphere.  Therefore  the  Linga 
Sharira  is  the  intermediary  between  Prana  and  our  ph3^sical  body,  and 
pumps  in  the  life. 

The  spleen  is  consequently  a  very  delicate  organ,  but  the  physical 
spleen  is  only  a  cover  for  the  real  spleen. 

Now  Life  is  in  reality  Divinity,  Parabrahman.  But  in  order  to  manifest 
on  the  Physical  Plane  it  must  be  assimilated  ;  and  as  the  purely  physical 
is  too  gross,  it  must  have  a  medium,  viz.,  the  Astral. 


594  I'HE    SECRET    DOCTRINE. 

Astral  matter  is  not  homogeneous,  and  the  Astral  Light  is  nothing 
but  the  shadow  of  the  real  Divine  Light ;  it  is  however  not  mole- 
cular. 

Those  (Kamariipic)  entities  which  are  below  the  Devachanic  Plane 
are  in  Kama  L,oka  and  only  possess  intelligence  like  monkeys.  There 
are  no  entities  in  the  four  lower  kingdoms  possessing  intelligence  which 
can  communicate  with  men,  but  the  Elementals  have  instincts  like 
animals.  It  is,  however,  possible  for  the  Sylphs  (the  Air  Elementals, 
the  wickedest  things  in  the  world)  to  communicate,  but  they  require  to 
be  propitiated. 

Spooks  (KSmarupic  entities)  can  only  give  the  information  they  see 
immediately  before  them.  They  see  things  in  the  Aura  of  people, 
although  the  people  may  not  be  aware  of  them  themselves. 

Earth-bound  spirits  are  Kamalokic  entities  that  have  been  so 
materialistic  that  they  cannot  be  dissolved  for  a  long  time.  They  have 
only  a  glimmering  of  consciousness  and  do  not  know  why  they  are  held, 
some  sleep,  some  preserve  a  glimmering  of  consciousness  and  suffer 
torture. 

In  the  case  of  people  who  have  very  little  Devachan,  the  greater  part 
of  the  consciousness  remains  in  Kama  Loka,  and  may  last  far  beyond 
the  normal  period  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  and  remain  over  until 
the  next  reincarnation  of  the  Spirit.  This  then  becomes  the  Dweller 
on  the  Threshold  and  fights  with  the  new  Astral. 

The  acme  of  Kama  is  the  sexual  instinct,  e.g.,  idiots  have  such  desires 
and  also  food  appetites,  etc.,  and  nothing  else. 

Devachan  is  a  state  on  a  plane  of  spiritual  consciousness ;  Kama 
Loka  is  a  place  of  physical  consciousness.  It  is  the  shadow  of  the 
animal  world  and  that  of  instinctual  feelings.  When  the  consciousness 
thinks  of  spiritual  things,  it  is  on  a  spiritual  plane. 

If  one's  thoughts  are  of  nature,  flowers,  etc,  then  the  consciousness  is 
on  the  material  plane. 

But  if  thoughts  are  about  eating,  drinking,  etc.,  and  the  passions, 
then  the  consciousness  is  in  the  Kamalokic  plane,  which  is  the  plane 
of  animal  instincts  pure  and  simple. 


594 

Astral  r 
but  the 
cular. 

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