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OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 

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Call No. 1 99 . 3/B6 43 V" .4 Accession No. 21248 

Author Blavn t sky , II P 
ntic Secret doctrine 

This book should be returned on or before the date last marked below. 



THE WORKS OF H. P. BLAVATSKY 

ISIS UNVEILED 

THE STANZAS OF DZYAN 

THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE 

THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY 
THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY 

PRACTICAL OCCULTISM AND OCCULTISM 
VERSUS THE OCCULT ARTS 

NIGHTMARE TALES 

A MODERN PANARION 

CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDUSTAN 

THE PEOPLE OF CHE BLUE MOUNTAINS 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

THE SYNTHESIS OF SCIENCE, RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY 

by 

H. P. BLAVATSKY 

Volume 4 
ANTHROPOGENESIS 

PARTS 2 & 3 




THE ADYAR EDITION 



1938. 



THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE 
ADYAR MADRAS INDIA 



6 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

PAGE 
Logos plays two Parts in the Drama of Creation and Being The Angel 

of the Face Fravarshi or Ferouer Fraudulent Translation of the Bible 

The Book of Enoch and the New Testament The Vec/as, once Universal. 

B. The Gods of Light Proceed from the Gods of Darkness : Effects 52 
of the Metaphorical Fall, Atonement and Crucifixion, on Western 
Humanity Sons of Manvantaric Eternity All Nations have had their 

" Falling " Demon Universal Collective Mind is still Finite when contrast- 
ed with the Unborn and Undecaying Space Ahriman the Shadow of 
Ahura Mazda The Elohim " create " the Two Heavens, i.e., They sepa- 
rate the Upper and Lower Planes of Consciousness The Seven Hosts 
and the Adityas The Unknown and Passive Deity emanates the Active 
Power The Mystery that is called Wisdom, the Son The Zohar on the 
" Fallen Ones " -Esotencism in Pymander. 

C. The Many Meanings of the War in Heaven : From the One 60 
Breath proceed Countless Breaths Reminders of the Fate of the 
Atlanteans in Ezekiel Last of the Divine Titans Various Names 

for Initiates Manas is Dual, Lunar and Solar The Symbol of the 
Tree Meaning of the Heavenly War in Revelation The Taraka and 
ether Wars Soma is the Moon Astronomically The Strife between the 
" Sons of God " and the " Sons of the Shadow " The Daityas and 
Danavas are the Demons and Giants of the Bible Sarpas, Serpents, 
Nagas and Sages A Centre of Learning in the Gobi Desert Origin 
of Exoteric Religions The Mystery and the Sacredness of the Serpent. 

SECTION 5 is PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? . . . .74 

" Old Dragon " and Satan have become Theological Terms for " Fallen 
Angels" The God of the Israelites a Tribal God- The Church invented 
an Anthropomorphic Devil Jehovah a Personating Spirit Every God of 
the Gentiles closely related to Jehovah The Elohim God is Light, 
Satan is Darkness or Shadow The Great Magic Agent is Aether, or 
Lucifer Akasha is the Matrix of the Universe The Soul and Heart of 
the Great Mother Lucifer is Divine and Terrestrial Light Sutratma is 
the Gold Thread of Continuous Life- The First Man Adam and the Last 
Spirit Adam God and Satan are Identical The Seventh Mystery of 
Creation Dualism in the Mazdean Religion The Number 888. 

SECTION 6 PROMETHEUS, THE TITAN . His ORIGIN IN ANCIENT INDIA . 88 

The Ash-Tree in Norse and Greek Mythology Seven Celestial Fires 
The First Production of Fire Skull Capacity, Ancient and Modern 
Fire existed on Earth since its Beginning The Titan represents Active, 
Industrious, Intelligent Humanity The Female Arani is Aditi, Primordial 
Substance The Matrix or Mother of the Gods Meaning of the 
Six Brothers of Krishna No Resemblance between the Serpent of Eden 
and the Devil of Christianity. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 7 

PAGE 

SECTION 7 ENOICHION-HENOCH . . . . 98 

Is the Book of Enoch Apochryphal ?- Enoch's Precious Rolls and 
Hermes' Books of Wisdom Antediluvian Arts, Sciences, Theology, etc. 
preserved Ideographicalfy The Adept Dies but to Live What Enoch 
is Esoterically Symbols of the Great Races The Deluge and the 
Inclination of the Earth's Axis The Behaviour of the Globe has altered 
more than once The Book of Enoch is a Resume of the History of the 
Third, Fourth and Fifth Races 

SECTION 8 THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH, 

WITH THEIR RELATION TO THE CROSS AND CIRCLE . 106 

Value of God-Names, Angel-Names, and Patriarch-Names -The Hidden 
Deity represented by the Circumference of a Circle Archaic Doctrine 
in the First Six Chapters of Genesis, the Rejected Boole of Enoch 
and the Mistranslated Job The Jews alone the Heirloom of Jehovah 
The Trinity and the Planets The "Sevenfold Light ", Christos and 
Hermes Antiquity of the Cross The Cube Unfolded displays the Tau 
The Jewish Deity is a Number Mystery of the Third Creation of 
Brahma. 

A. Cross and Circle . The Typology of the Cross The Cross becomes 1 15 
the Symbol of Human Procreation Variations of the Cross Symbol 

The " Third Eye " and the " Tau Cross" -Human Passions have to be 
crucified on the Cross The Earliest Cross and Circle Fire and Water 
and the Circle and the Cross Symbolism The Rishis and the Pleiades - 
The Pleiades the Central Point round which Our Universe revolves 
The Astronomical Cross and the Winged Globe become the Sacred 
Scarabaeus of the Egyptians- -Mysticism of the Circle in Ezekiel The 
Eternal Light symbolized by a Circle God-manifested is the Diameter 
of the Circle. 

B. The Fall of the Cross into Matter The Circle and Diameter the 123 
First Symbol in Cosmogony Cross and Circle a Universal Conception 

The Presence of the Unseen Principle in Nature The Four Arms of 
the X when bent at the ends makes the Svastika The Hermetic Riddle 
of the Cross Different ways of forming the Cross- The Scene of Initia- 
tion in the Temple of Philae Different kinds of Crosses in the Egyptian 

Mysteries Meaning of the Crucifixion Original Idea of the Man 

crucified fCosmic Ideation underlies the Symbol of the Cross The real 
Paternoster The Cross of the Chrestoi. 

SECTION 9 THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE . . .133 

" Sound," " Speech," " Gnostic Vowels," and " Voices " of the 
Thunders and Angels in Revelation The Seven Vowels and their 



8 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

PAGE 

Forty-nine Powers The Seven Vowels and the Seven Root Races 
When the Seventh Round is completed, Time will cease Significance 
of Water and Fire in the Mysteries "Life-Winds" Fire is identical 
with the Self Knowing the " Name ". Cycle of Garuda Antiquity of 
the Kapilas Kapila the Generic Name of the Kumaras. 

SECTION 10 .THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD . .145 

The Decad represents the Evolution of the Universe out of Silence The 
Septenary Division is intended by Nature herself Prehistoric Mystery 
Language was Pictorial and Symbolic The Value of Odd and Even 
Numbers The Quaternary the Symbol of Immortality The Perfect Man 
is a Quaternary and a Ternary The Mystic Meaning of Makara 
Allegories of Cannes and the Matsya (Fish) Avataras The Black and 
White sides of Shakti The Sacred Five The Significance of Numbers 
Six to Ten Three and the Four among the Ancients Numerical 
Value of the word Nile All Dogmas grow out of the Root of Wisdom 
Those who developed their Five-fold Nature The Hosts of the Blessed 
OnesAntiquity of the Cross The Four Elements and the Svastika 
Attraction of the Profound Mysteries of the Past The Sage is 
Silent on Universal Mysteries. 

SECTION 11 THE MYSTERIES OF THE HEBDOMAD 162 

A. Saptaparna : The Occult Name for Man The Number Six the 
Emblem of the Physical Nature jB is a Seven-fold Sign Numbers three 
and^four are spirit and Matter Human Principles and Principles of Physical 
Nature Man the first Mammalian in the Fourth Round The Moon guides 
the Occult Side of Terrestrial Nature while the Sun regulates Manifested Life 

The Septenary in Ancient Religious Symbolism The Sephirothal Triad 

emanates the Quaternary Human and Cosmic Aspects or Principles 
Noah Symbolizes both the Root and the Seed-Manu. 

B. The Tetraktys in Relation to the Heptagon: Consciousness in its 169 
Totality is composed of Septenary Groups Why the Tetrad is a Sacredf 
Number The Lower Tetraktys is the root of Illusion The Four in Union 

with the Three is Nature Herself The Tetragrammaton is One with 
Nature Sacredness of the Septenary- Ancient Cosmologies based 
their Mysteries on the Number Ten Proofs from a Gnostic Gospel. 

C. The Septenary Element in the Vedas : The Seven Rays of the Sun 1 76 

The Rig-Veda corroborates the Occult Teachings The Same Doctrine in 

the Vendidad The Zoroastrian Septenary The First Two Races never 
Died, but were absorbed in their Progeny Beginnings of the Fourth 
Race Occultism limits the Number of Primordial Races to Seven. 

D. The Septenary in the Exoteric Works : The Septenate in the Puranas 1 82 
The Maruts in their Esoteric Meaning Aditi or Akasha is the Egyptian 
Sevenfold Heaven Maruts and Occult Potencies The Doom of 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 9* 

PAGE 

Continual Re-birth The Seven Earths in Hindu and other Scriptures The 
Forty-nine Manus and the Seven Rounds The Five Kings that have 
fallen. 

E. Seven in Astronomy, Science, and Magic The Phoenix and the Cycle 190 
of the Naros The Chronology of Western Peoples borrowed from 

India Sun, Moon and Planets, the Never-erring Time-Measurers The 
Mystery of Cyclic division applied to Heaven and Earth, Gods and Men 
The Septenate in Physiology Chaldean Figures in the New Testament 
-The " Mind-born Sons " begin the Division of Mankind into Races 
Two Tetragrammatons : the Macroprosopus and the Microprosopus The 
Number Seven in Chemistry The Seven Priests of the Zunis Seven is 
the Great Magic Number. 

F. The Seven Souls of the Egyptologists : The Septenary in Egypt 20 J ; 
Esoteric Hindu and Egyptian tabulations of the Seven Principles 
Kabalistic and Hieroglyphic Names of Human Principles The SECRET 
DOCTRINE on the Pre-human Evolution Every Mammal has sprung from 

Man Trans- and Cis-Himalayan Esoteric Doctrine An Allegory from 
the Anugita Absorption of the lower Principles into the Higher The 
Septenary Doctrine is very Ancient Necessity to Understand the 
Seven States of Consciousness. 

SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED 
SECTION 1 ARCHAIC OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? . . .215- 

Scientific Theories of Genesis " Physiological " or " Natural " Selection 
Natural Selection cannot originate " Species " Primeval Animal Root- 
types emerge out of the Astral Esoteric Teachings on the first three 
Pre-animal Human Races not Fiction Occult Disagreement with Material- 
istic Thinkers Esoteric Teachings opposed to the Darwinian theory of 
Evolution What is it that guides the Forces of Evolution ? Physical and 
Spiritual Evolution reconciled. 

SECTION 2 THE ANCESTORS MANKIND is OFFERED BY SCIENCE . . 226 

Two Contrasted Theories of Evolution Archaic Wisdom the Primitive 
Foundation on which all Religious Work was built Various Modes of 
Reproduction from one Common Primal Form The Monad steps into 
the Astral Body of the Progenitors Theories on how Human Speech 
developed Stages of Linguistic Growth Duty of Science is to 
Observe and Verify Scientific Speculation on Man's Origin The 
Law of Permanent Characterization A Theoretical Pithecoid Man 
All Antiquity believed in the Dhyan-Chohanic origin of Man Neces- 
sity to grant the Presence of the Monadic Essence. 



10 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

PAGE 

Plastidular Souls, and Conscious Nerve-Cells : Atoms of the Lower 240 
Principles drawn by Affinity to the same Individuality The Life 
Energy is a Principle as Noumenon and is Atoms as Phenomenon The 
Meaning of " Soul " with Haeckel. 

SECTION 3_ THE FOSSIL RELICS OF MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID APE . 245 

A. Genealogical Facts bearing on the Question of their Relationship : 
Which imitated the other, Man or Beast? Did Man exist in the early 

Tertiary Period? There was a " Special Creation " for Man, and also 

for the Ape, his Progeny There was no Anthropoid Ape in the best 
Days of the Fourth Race Lemuria was the Cradle of Physical Mankind. 

B. Western Evolutionism - The Comparative Anatomy of Man and the 250 
Anthropoid in no Way a Confirmation of Darwinism : Rudimentary Organs 

in Man Man from the Apes would be an Unnatural Descent Basic 
Types were thrown off by the Man of the Third and Fourth Rounds- 
Mammalians are Post-human Human Foetal Growth epitomizes the Third 
and Fourth Rounds of Terrestrial Life Pedigree of the Apes. 

SECTION 4 DURATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL PERIOD, RACE CYCLES AND THE 

ANTIQUITY OF MAN . . . . .261 

Jewish Chronology requires Kabalistic Computation, with the Key Baby- 
lonian Dates The Occult Doctrine gives clear Information on the Age of 
Vaivasvata Manu's Humanity. 

A. Modern Scientific Speculations about the Ages of the Globe, Animal 264 
Evolution, and Man : Scientific Figures for the whole Incrusted Age of 

the World Nature's Slowness and Dignified Progression Planetary Life- 
Impulses Little known about the Aryan Root Race and its Origins. 

B. On Chains of Planets and Jheir Plurality : The Sufficiency of Data in 269 
the Secret Books Adepts know that almost all the Planetary Worlds 

are inhabited Biblical " other Worlds " refer to other inhabited Globes 
St. Paul, an Initiate, knew other "Worlds" Who were the Kings of 
Edom ? Astronomy speaks in favour of Organized Life on other 
Planets A Great Variety of Beings on the several Worlds Why Christian- 
ity denied that the other Globes are inhabited. 

C. Supplementary Remarks on Esoteric Geological Chronology : Occult 278 
Data of the Time elapsed since the first Sedimentary Deposits Diver- 
gencies between Orthodox and Esoteric Science Man is always of the 
same Genus Palaeolithic Tools and Highly Civilized Nations Contem- 
poraneous How Germs of Life came to our Earth Primitive Artists The 
Esoteric Doctrine on the Rise and Fall of Civilizations Conformation of 

the Earth after the Fourth Race Cataclysm Periodical Redistributions 
of Land and Water The Reality of Submerged Continents Higher 
intellectual and Moral Faculties play the Leading Part in a Progressive 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 1 

PAGE 

Scheme Nothing is lost in Nature Every New Manvantara brings the 
Renovation of Forms, Types and Species. 

SECTION 5 ORGANIC EVOLUTION AND CREATIVE CENTRES . .301 

Esoteric Philosophy teaches a Cyclic Law, a double Stream of Force and 
Matter Ethereal Forms of the First Men are projected on Seven Zones 
The Process of Development works from the less to the more Perfect 
Occultism classifies the Human Body with the Brute Creation, 

A. The Origin and Evolution of the Mammalia, Science and Esoteric 303 
Phylogeny : The Root of Ungulate Mammals according to Occultism 
Several Protyles in Nature, corresponding to the various Planes of 
Matter Factors concerned in the Origin of Species, Animal and 
Vegetable. 

B. The European Palaeolithic Races ; Whence and How Distributed : 307 
Types of Skulls found in Europe Whence radiated the successive 
Streams of " Primitive " Men ? The Incubus of Atlantean Karma. 

SECTION 6 GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS TRACED IN 

HISTORY . . . . .311 

The Greeks a Dwarfed Remnant of a once Glorious Atlantean Nation- 
Man, the Associate of Apes and Angels Resemblance between Cyclop- 
ean and Ancient European Architecture Necessity of an Occult Inter- 
pretation of the Bible The Sabbaths of the Mysteries are Seven 

Pralayas between Manvantaras or Rounds Former Average Height 

of Humanity Ancient European Geography Significance of Druidic 
Stones and Circles, and Serpent Mounds Giants play an Important Part 
in Mythologies Who were the Druids ? The Mazdean View of the Seven 
Earths The last Gigantic Plants and Animals. 

A. Some Statements about the Sacred Islands and Continents in the 330 
Classics, explained Esoterically : Homer speaks of Atlantis in his Odyssey 
Diodorus records Facts about the Atlanteans The Priests of Egypt, 
Plato and the Neo-Platonists knew of Atlantis Hesiod's Theogony is 

historical The Gods of Olympus were Septiform Personalities The 

Greater Gods of Olympus The SECRET DOCTRINE is the Esoteric Key to 

the Mysteries of Christian and Grecian Theogonies and Sciences 

The Power of Names Greek Allegories of the Seven Daughters of 
Atlas, or Atlantis When the Pole of the Earth pointed to Ursa Minor's 
TailUlysses belongs to the Cycle of the Heroes of the Fourth Race 
Latona is geologically the Hyperborean Continent The Graphic Symbol 
of the tears of Niobe Age of Bronze and the Giants of the First 
Physical Races The Island of the Divine Kings Noah's Deluge is Astro- 
nomical and Allegorical The Nephilim were Palaeolithic and Neolithic 
Men in Palestine Zeus the Deity of the Fourth Race Mythology built 
on History. 



12 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

PAGE 

SECTION /SCIENTIFIC AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF 

SEVERAL SUBMERGED CONTINENTS . . . 347 

Geology corroborates Occultism The Cyclic Law accounts for the Dis- 
appearance of Races Atlantis necessary to Ethnology The Age when 
the Gods forsook the Earth Esoteric Truths given to the Public under 
Guise of Allegories Evidence in Favour of Former Continents now sub- 
merged Lemuria was the Home of the first Physical Human Stock 
North -West Africa was connected with Atlantis by a Network of Islands 
Remnants of a Gigantic Continent which once united Africa with 
America Facts which prove the Existence of Atlantis. 

CONCLUSION . 362 

The SECRET DOCTRINE was once Common Property Esoteric History is 
based on Fact Esoteric Calculations and so-called Historical Periods 
The Key of Wisdom hidden in the Bosom of Nature. 

ADDITIONAL NOTES . . . . . .367 

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 369 

ADDITIONAL BOOKS FOR REFERENCE . ... 370 



VOLUME 4 
ANTHROPOGENESIS 



PART 2 



THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE 
WORLD-RELIGIONS 



THE narratives of the Doctrine are its cloak. The 
simple look only at the garment that is, upon the 
narrative of the Doctrine ; more they know not. 
The instructed, however, see not merely the cloak, 
but what the cloak covers. Zohar (iii, 152 ; 
Franck, 119). 

The Mysteries of the Faith (are) not to be 
divulged to all. . . . It is requisite to hide in a 
mystery the wisdom spoken. Stromata (Vol. I, 
Bk. I, Ch. 12, p. 388 ; Clemens Alexandrinus). 



THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE 
WORLD-RELIGIONS 



SECTION 1 

ESOTERIC TENETS CORROBORATED IN EVERY SCRIPTURE 

IN view of the strangeness of the teachings, and of many a doctrine which* 
from the modern scientific standpoint must seem absurd, some necessary and 
additional explanations have to be made. The theories contained in the 
STANZAS of Volume 3 are even more difficult to assimilate than those which 
are embodied in Volume 1 , on Cosmogony, Theology, therefore, has to be 
questioned in this Volume, Part 2, as Science will be in Part 3, for since our 
doctrines differ so widely from the current ideas of both Materialism and 
Theology, the Occultists must be ever prepared to repel the attacks of either 
or of both. 

The reader can never be too often reminded that, as the abundant 
quotations from various old Scriptures prove, these teachings are as old as the 
world ; and that the present work is simply an attempt to render, in modern 
language and in a phraseology with which the scientific and educated student 
is familiar, archaic Genesis and History as taught in certain Asiatic centres of 
Esoteric Learning. These must be accepted or rejected on their own merits, 
fully or partially ; but not before they have been carefully compared with the 
corresponding theological dogmas and the modern scientific theories and 
speculations. 

One feels serious doubt whether, with all its intellectual acuteness, our 
age is destined to discover in each Western nation even one solitary unin- 
itiated Scholar or Philosopher capable of fully comprehending the spirit of 
Archaic Philosophy. Nor can either be expected to do so, before the real 
meaning of the Alpha and the Omega of Eastern Esotericism, the terms Sat 



16 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

and Asat so freely used in the Rig Veda and elsewhere is thoroughly 
-assimilated. Without this key to Aryan Wisdom, the Cosmogony of the Rishis 
-and the Arhats is in danger of remaining a dead letter to the average Orient- 
alists. Asat is not merely the negation of Sat, nor is it the " not yet existing"; 
for Sat is in itself neither the " existent," nor "being," Sat is the immutable, 
the ever-present, changeless, and eternal Root, from and through which all 
proceeds. But it is far more than the potential force in the seed, which 
propels onward the process of development, or what is now called evolution. 
It is the ever becoming, though the never manifesting. 1 Sat is born from 
Asat, and Asat is begotten by Sat perpetual motion in a circle truly ; yet a 
circle that can be squared only at the Supreme Initiation, at the threshold of 
Parinirvana. 

Barth started a reflection on the Rig Veda which was meant for a stern 
criticism, an unusual, therefore, as was thought,, an original, view of this 
archaic volume. It so happened, however, that, in his criticism, this scholar 
revealed a truth, without being himself aware of its full importance. He 
premises by saying that "neither in the language nor in the thought of the 
Rig Veda" has he "been able to discover that quality of primitive natural 
simplicity, which so many are fain to see in it." Barth had Max Muller in his 
mind's eye when writing this. For the famous Oxford professor has through- 
out characterized the hymns of the Rig Veda, as the unsophisticated expression 
of the religious feeling of a pastoral innocent people. " In the Vedic hymns 
the ideas and myths appear in their simplest and freshest form " the Sans- 
krit scholar thinks. Barth is of a different opinion, however. 

So divided and personal are the opinions of Sanskritists as to the import- 
ance and intrinsic value of the Rig Veda, that these opinions become entirely 
.biassed whichever way they incline. Thus Prof. Max Muller declares that : 

Nowhere is the wide distance which separates the ancient poems of India from 
the most ancient literature of Greece more clearly felt, than when we compare the 
growing myths of the Veda with the full grown and decayed myths on which the poetry 
of Homer is founded. The Veda is the real Theogony of the >Aryan races, while that of 
Hesiod is a distorted caricature of the original image. 

This is a sweeping assertion, and perhaps rather unjust in its general 
application. But why not try to account for it? Orientalists cannot do so, 
for they reject the chronology of the SECRET DOCTRINE, and can hardly admit 
the fact that between the Rig Vedic hymns and Hesiod 's Theogony tens of 
thousands of years have elapsed. So they fail to see that the Greek myths 
are no longer the primitive symbolical language of the Initiates, the Disciples 

1 The Hegelian doctrine, which identifies Absolute Being or " Be-ness" with " Non-Being," and 
represents the Universe as an eternal becoming, is identical with the Vedanta Philosophy. 



ESOTERIC TENETS CORROBORATED IN EVERY SCRIPTURE 17 

of the Gods-Hierophants, the divine ancient " Sacrificers ; " and that disfigured 
by the distance, and encumbered by the exuberant growth of human profane 
fancy, they now stand like distorted images of stars in running waves. But if 
Hesiod's Cosmogony and Theogony are to be viewed as caricatures of the 
original images, how much more so the myths in the Hebrew Genesis, in the 
sight of those for whom they are no more divine revelation or the word of 
God, than is Hesiod's Theogony for Mr. Gladstone. 
As Barth says : 

The poetry it [the Rig Veda] contains appears to me, on the contrary, to be of 
a singularly refined character and artificially elaborated, full of allusions and reticences, 
of pretensions [?] to mysticism and theosophic insight ; and the manner of its expression 
is such as reminds one more frequently of the phraseology in use among certain small 
groups of initiated than the poetic language of a large community. 1 

We will not stop to enquire of the critic what he can know of the 
phraseology in use among the " initiated," or whether he belongs himself to 
such a group ; for, in the latter case, he would hardly have used such language. 
But the above shows the remarkable disagreement between scholars even 
with regard to the external character of the Rig Veda. What, then, can any 
of the modern Sanskritists know about its internal or esoteric meaning, beyond 
the correct inference of Barth, that this Scripture has been compiled by 
INITIATES? 

The whole of the present work is an endeavour to prove this truth. 
The ancient Adepts have solved the great problems of Science, however 
unwilling modern Materialism may be to admit the fact. The mysteries of 
Life and Death were fathomed by the great master-minds of antiquity ; and 
if they have preserved them in secrecy and silence, it is because these prob- 
lems formed part of the Sacred Mysteries, which must have remained 
incomprehensible to the vast majority of men then, as they do now. If such 
teachings are still regarded as chimeras by our opponents in Philosophy, it 
may be a consolation to Theosophists to learn, on good proof, that 
the speculations of modern Psychologists -whether serious Idealists, like 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, or wool-gathering Pseudo-idealists are far more chimeric- 
al. Indeed, instead of resting on the firm foundation of facts in Nature, they are 
the unhealthy will-o'-the-wisps of materialistic imagination, of the brains that 
evolved them and no more. While they deny, we affirm ; and our 
affirmation is corroborated by almost all the Sages of antiquity. Believing in 
Occultism and a host of invisible Potencies for good reasons, we say, Certus 
sum, sc/o quod credidi ; [I am certain, I know what I have believed] to which 
our critics reply, Credat Judaeus Apella. [Apella, the credulous Jew, might believe 

1 The Religions of India, p xni 
F 2 



18 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

that.] Neither is converted by the other, nor does such result affect even our 
little planet. E pur se muove \ [But it does move, all the same.] 

Nor is there any need of proselytizing. As remarked by the wise 
Cicero : 

Time destroys the speculations of man, but it confirms the judgment of nature 

Let us bide our time. Meanwhile, it is not in the human constitution to 
witness in silence the destruction of one's Gods, whether they be true or false. 
And as Theology and Materialism have combined together to destroy the 
old Gods of antiquity and seek to disfigure every old philosophical conception, 
it is but just that the lovers of the Old Wisdom should defend their position, 
by proving that the whole arsenal of the two is, at best, formed of new? 
weapons made out of very old material 



SECTION 2 

ADAM-ADAMI 

NAMES such as Adam-Adami, used by Dr. Chwolsohn in his Nabathean 
Agriculture and derided by M. Renan, may prove little to the profane. To 
the Occultist, however, once that the term is found in a work of such immense 
antiquity as that above cited, it proves a good deal. It proves, for instance, 
that Adami was a manifold symbol, originating with the Aryan people, as the 
root word shows, and having been taken from them by the Semites and the 
Turanians as many other things were. 

Adam-Adami is a generic compound name as old as language is. The 
SECRET DOCTRINE teaches that Ad-i was the name given by the Aryans to the 
first speaking race of mankind, in this Round. Hence the terms Adonim and 
Adonai (the ancient plural form of the word Adon), which the Jews applied to 
their Jehovah and Angels, who were simply the first spiritual and ethereal sons 
of the Earth, and the God Adonis, who in his many variations stood for the 
" First Lord." Adam is the Sanskrit Adi-Nath, also meaning First Lord, as 
Ad-fshvara, or any Adi (the First) prefixed to an adjective or substantive. The 
reason for this is that such truths were a common inheritance. It was a 
revelation received by the first mankind before that time which, in biblical 
phraseology, is called "the period of one lip and word," or speech ; know- 
ledge expanded by man's own intuition later on, still later hidden from pro- 
fanation under an adequate symbology. The author of the Qabbalah r 
according to the philosophical writings of Ibn Gebirol, shows the Israelites using 
Ad-onai' (A Do Na Y), " Lord," instead of Eh'yeh, " I am," and YHVH, and 
adds that, while Adonai is rendered " Lord " in the Bible, 

The lowest designation, or the Deity in Nature, the more general term Elohim, 
is translated God. 1 

A curious work was translated in 1860 or thereabout, by the Orientalist 
Chwolsohn, and presented to ever-incredulous and flippant Europe under the 

1 Myer's Qabbalah, p. 175. 



20 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

innocent title of Nabathean Agriculture. In the opinion of the translator that 
archaic volume is a complete initiation into the mysteries of the Pre-Adamite 
nations, on the authority of undeniably authentic documents. It is an invalu- 
able compendium, the full epitome of the doctrines, arts and sciences, not 
only of the Chaldeans, but also of the Assyrians and Canaanites of the pre- 
historic ages. * These Nabatheans as some critics thought were simply the 
Sabaeans, or Chaldean star-worshippers. The work is a retranslation from the 
Arabic, into which language it was at first translated from the Chaldean. 

Masoudi, the Arabian historian, speaks of these Nabatheans, and explains 
their origin in this wise : 

After the Deluge [?] the nations established themselves in various countries. 
Among these were the Nabatheans, who founded the city of Babylon, and were those 
descendants of Ham who settled in the same province under the leadership of Nimrod, 
the son of Cush, who was the son of Ham and great-grandson of Noah . . . This took 
place at the time when Nimrod received the governorship of Babylonia as the delegate 
of Dzahhak named Biourasp. * 

The translator, Chwolsohn, finds that the assertions of this historian are in 
perfect accord with those of Moses in Genesis ; while more irreverent critics might 
express the opinion that for this very reason their truth should be suspected. 
It is useless, however, to argue the point, which is of no value in the present 
question. The weather-beaten, long-since-buried problem, and the difficulty 
of accounting, on any logical ground, for the phenomenal derivation of millions 
of people of various races, of many civilized nations and tribes, from three 
couples Noah's sons and their wives in 346 years * after the Deluge, may 
be left to the Karma of the author of Genesis, whether he is called Moses or 
Ezra. That Which is interesting in the work under notice, however, are its 
contents, the doctrines enunciated in it, which are again, if read esoterically, 
almost all of them identical with the Secret Teachings. 

Quatremere suggested that this book might have been simply a copy 
made under Nebuchadnezzar II from some Hamitic treatise, " infinitely 
more ancient," while the author maintains, on internal and external evi- 
dence, that its Chaldean original was written out from the oral discourses 
and teachings of a wealthy Babylonian landowner, named Qu-tamy, who 
had used for those lectures still more ancient materials. The first Arabic 
translation is placed by Chwolsohn so far back as the thirteenth century B.C. 
On the first page of this " revelation," the author, or amanuensis, Qu-tamy, 
declares that " the doctrines propounded therein, were originally told by 

1 See De M/rville, Des E sprits. Tome lii, pp. 215, et seq. 
- Op. cit., ibid. 

{ See Genesis and the authorized chronology. In chapter vin, " Noah leaveth the ark " 2,348 
B.C. In chapter x, " Nimrod the first monarch," stands over 1,998 B. C 



ADAM-ADAMI 21 

Saturn ... to the Moon, who communicated them to her /do/," and the 
Idol revealed them to her devotee, the writer the Adept Scribe of that work 
Qu-tamy. 

The details given by the God for the benefit and instruction of mortals, 
show periods of incalculable duration and a series of numberless kingdoms 
and Dynasties that preceded the appearance on Earth of Adami (the " red- 
earth "). These periods, as might have been expected, have roused the 
defenders of the chronology of the biblical dead -letter meaning almost to 
fury. De Rougemont was the first to make a /evee-in-arms against the 
translator. He reproaches him with sacrificing Moses to anonymous authors. 1 
Berosus, he urges, however great were his chronological errors, was at least 
in perfect accord with the prophet with regard to the first men, since he 
speaks of x Alorus-Adam, of Xisuthrus-Noah, and of Belus-Nimrod, etc. There- 
fore, he adds, the work must be an apocryphon to be ranged with its con- 
temporaries the Fourth Book of Esdras t the Book of Enoch, the Sibylline 
Oracles, and the Boofc of Hermes every one of these dating no further back 
than two or three centuries B C. Ewald came down still harder on Chwolsohn, 
and finally M. Renan, who in the Revue Germanique 2 asks him to show reason 
why his Nabathean Agriculture should not be the fraudulent work of some 
Jew of the third or fourth century of our era ? It can hardly be otherwise 
argues the romancer of the Vie de Jesus, since, in this infolio on Astrology 
and Sorcery : 

We recognize in the personages introduced by Qu-tamy, all the patriarchs of 
the biblical legends, such as Adam-Adami, Anouka-Noah, and his Ibrahim-Abraham, etc. 

But this is no reason, since Adam and others are generic names. Mean- 
while it is humbly submitted that, all things considered, an apocryphon if 
even of the third century A.D., instead of the thirteenth century B.C., is old 
enough to appear genuine as a document, and so satisfy the demands of the 
most exacting archaeologist and critic. For even admitting, for argument's 
sake, that this literary relic has been compiled by " some Jew of the third 
century of our era " what of that? Leaving the credibility of its doctrines 
for a moment aside, why should it be less entitled to a hearing, or less 
instructive as reflecting older opinions, than any other religious work, also a 
" compilation from old texts " or oral tradition of the same or even a later 
age? In such case we should have to reject and call "apocryphal" the 
Quran three centuries later, though we know it to have sprung, Minerva- 
like, direct from the brain of the Arabian prophet ; and we should have to 
pooh-pooh all the information we can get from the Jalmud, which, in its 

1 Anna/es de Phifosophie Chretienne, June, 1860, p. 415. - April 30, 1860 



22 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

present form, was also compiled from older materials, and is not earlier than 
the ninth century of our era. 

This curious " Bible " of the Chaldean Adept and the various criticisms 
upon it (as in Chwolsohn's translation) are noticed, because it has an im- 
portant bearing upon a great portion of the present work. With the excep- 
tion of the contention of'M. Renari, an iconoclast on principle so pointedly 
called by Jules Lemaitre " le Paganini du neant " [the Paganini of nothingness] 
the worst fault found with the work is, it would seem, that the apocryphon 
pretends to have been communicated as a revelation to an Adept by, and 
from, the " idol of the Moon," who received it from " Saturn." Hence, very 
naturally, it is " a fairy tale all round." To this there is but one answer : It 
is no more a fairy tale than the Bible, and if one falls, the other must follow it. 
Even the mode of divination through " the idol of the Moon " is the same as 
that practised by David, Saul and the High Priests of the Jewish Tabernacle by 
means of the Teraphim. 1 

The Nabathean Agriculture is a compilation indeed ; it is no apocryphon, 
but the repetition of the tenets of the SECRET DOCTRINE under the exoteric 
Chaldean form of national symbols, for the purpose of " cloaking " the 
tenets, just as the Books of Hermes and the Puranas are alike attempts by 
Egyptians and Hindus. The work was as well known in antiquity as it was 
during the Middle Ages. Maimonides speaks of it, and refers more than 
once to this Chaldeo-Arabic MS , calling the Nabatheans by the name of their 
co-religionists, the " star-worshippers," or Sabaeans, but yet failing to see in 
the disfigured word " Nabathean " the mystic name of the caste devoted to 
Nebo, the God of Secret wisdom, which shows on its face that the Nabatheans 
were an Occult Brotherhood." The Nabatheans who, according to the Persian 
Yezidi, originally came to Syria from Basra, were the degenerate members of 
that fraternity ; still their religion, even at that late day, was purely kabalistic. 5 
Nebo is the Deity of the Planet Mercury, and Mercury is the God of 'Wisdom, 
or Hermes, or Budha, which the Jews called Kokab (nM), " the Lord on 
high, the aspiring," and the Greeks Nabo (Na/3w), hence Nabatheans. 

1 [In the 1888 edition Madame Blavatsky wrote here " In Volume III, Part II of this present work, 
the practical methods of such ancient divination will be found."] 

2 " I will mention to thee the writings . respecting the belief and institutions of the Sabaeans," 
he says. " The most famous is the Book, The Agriculture of the Nabatheans, which has been trans- 
lated by Ibn Wahohijah. This book is full of heathenish foolishness. ... It speaks of preparations of 
Talismans, the drawing down of the powers of the Spirits, Magic, Demons, and Ghouls, which make 
their abode in the desert." (Maimonides, quoted by Dr. D Chwolsohn ; Die Ssabier und der 
Ssabismus, Vol. II, p. 458.) The Nabatheans of Mount Lebanon believed in the seven Archangels, as 
their forefathers had believed in the seven Great Stars, the abodes and bodies of these Archangels, 
which are believed in to this day by the Roman Catholics, as is shown elsewhere. 

<See/s/.s Unveiled. II, p. 197. 



ADAM-ADAM! 23 

.Notwithstanding that Maimonides calls their doctrines " heathenish foolishness " 
<and their archaic literature " Sabaeorum foetum [Sabean rubbish]," he places 
their " agriculture," the Bible of Qu-tamy, in the first rank of archaic literature ; 
and Abarbanel praises it in unmeasured terms. Spencer 1 , quoting the latter, 
.speaks of it as that " most excellent oriental work," adding that by Nabatheans, 
the Sabaeans, the Chaldeans, and the Egyptians, in short all those nations 
against whom the laws of Moses were most severely enacted, have to be 
understood. 

Nebo, the oldest God of Wisdom of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, was 
Identical with the Hindu Budha and the Hermes-Mercury of the Greeks. A 
slight change in the sexes of the parents is the only alteration. As Budha 
was the Son of Soma (the Moon) in India, and of the wife of Brihaspati 
(Jupiter), so Nebo was the son of Zarpanitu (the Moon) and of Merodach, 
who became Jupiter, after having been a Sun-god. As Mercury the Planet, 
Nebo was the " overseer " among the seven Gods of the Planets ; and as the 
personification of the Secret Wisdom he was Nabin, a seer and a prophet. 
Moses is made to die and disappear on the mount sacred to Nebo. This 
shows him to have been an Initiate, and a priest of that God under another 
name ; for this God of Wisdom was the great Creative Deity, and was wor- 
shipped as such. And this not only at Borsippa in his gorgeous Temple, or 
planet-tower ; he was likewise adored by the Moabites, the Canaanites, the 
Assyrians, and throughout the whole of Palestine. Then why not by the 
Israelites? "The planetary temple of Babylon" had its " Holy of Holies ' 
within the shrine of Nebo, the Prophet-God of Wisdom. We are told in the 
Hibbert Lectures ; 

The ancient Babylonians had an intercessor between men and the gods . . 
and Nebo, was the " proclaimer " or prophet," as he made known the desire of his 
father Merodach." 

Nebo is a Creator, like Budha, of the Fourth, and also of the Fifth, 
Race. For the former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter, the Solar- 
Lunar Dynasty, or the men of these Races and Round. Both are the Adams 
of their respective creatures. Adam-Adami is a personation of the dua/ 
Adam : of the paradigmatic Adam-Kadmon, the Creator, and of the lower 
Adam, the terrestrial, who, as the Syrian Kabalists have it, had only Nephesh, 
the " breath of life," but no Living Soul, until after his Fall. 

If, therefore, Renan persists in regarding the Chaldean Scriptures or 
what remains of them as apocryphal, it is quite immaterial to truth and fact. 
There are other Orientalists who may be of a different opinion , and even 

J Vol. I, p. 354 - Sayce , cf., p. 115, 2nd ed 



24 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

were they not, it would still really matter very little. These doctrines contain 
the teachings of Esoteric Philosophy, and this must suffice. To those who 
understand nothing of symbology it may appear astrolatry, pure and simple, 
or to him who would conceal the Esoteric Truth, even " heathenish foolish- 
ness." Maimonides, however, while expressing scorn for the Esotericism in 
the religion of other nations, confessed Esotericism and Symbology in his own, 
preached silence and secrecy upon the true meaning of Mosaic sayings, and 
thus came to grief. The Doctrines of Qu-tamy, the Chaldean, are, in short, 
the allegorical rendering of the religion of the earliest nations of the 
Fifth Race. 

Why then should M. Renan treat the name " Adam-Adami " with such 
academical contempt ? The author of the Origins of Christianity evidently 
knows nothing of the, origins of Pagan symbolism or of Esotercism either, 
otherwise he would have known that the name Adam-Adami was a form of a 
universal symbol, referring, even with the Jews, not to one man, but to four 
distinct humanities or mankinds. This is very easily proven. 

The Kabalists teach the existence of four distinct Adams, or the transfor- 
mation of four consecutive Adams, the emanations from the Dyooknah, 
(divine phantom), of the Heavenly Man, an ethereal combination of Neshamah, 
the highest Soul or Spirit ; this Adam having, of course, neither a gross human 
body, nor a body of desire. This Adam is the Prototype (Tzure) of the second 
Adam. That they represent our Five Races, is certain, as everyone can see 
by their description in the Kabalah. The first is the Perfect Holy Adam, " a 
shadow that disappeared " (the Kings of Edom), produced from the divine 
Tzelem (Image); the second is called the Protoplastic Androgyne Adam of the 
future terrestrial and separated Adam ; the third Adam is the man made of 
" dust " (the first, Innocent Adam); and the fourth, is the supposed fore- 
father of our own race the Fallen Adam. See, however, the admirably 
clear description of these in Isaac Myer's Qabbalah. He gives only four 
Adams, because of the Kings of the Edom, no doubt, and adds : 

The fourth Adam . . . was clothed with skin, flesh, nerves, etc. This answers 
to the Lower Nephesh and Guff, i.e., body, united. He has the animal power of 
Reproduction and continuance of species. ' 

This is the human Root Race. 

It is just at this point that the modern Kabalists led into error by the 
long generations of Christian Mystics who have tampered with the kabalistic 
records wherever they could diverge from the Occultists in their interpreta- 
tions, and take the later thought for the earlier idea. The original Kabalah 

1 Op cit , pp 418-9. 



ADAM-ADAMI 25 

was entirely metaphysical, and had no concern with animal, or terrestrial 
sexes ; the later Kabalah has suffocated the divine ideal under the heavy 
phallic element. The Kabalists say: -God made man male and female." 
Says the author of the Qabbalah : 

Among the Qabbalists, this necessity to continued creation and existence is 
called the Balance. i 

And being without this " Balance," connected with Maqom (the mysteri- 
ous "Place "),- even the First Race is not, as we have seen, recognized by 
the Sons of the Fifth Adam. From the highest Heavenly Man, the Upper 
Adam who is "male-female" or Androgyne, down to the Adam of dust r 
these personified symbols are all connected with sex and procreation. With 
the Eastern Occultists it is entirely the reverse. The sexual relation they con- 
sider as a " Karma " pertaining only to the mundane relation of man, who is 
dominated by Illusion, a thing to be put aside, the moment that the person 
becomes "wise." They considered it a most fortunate circumstance if the 
Guru (teacher) found in his pupil an aptitude for the pure life of BrahmS- 
charya. Their dual symbols were to them but the poetical imagery of the 
sublime correlation of creative cosmic forces. And this ideal conception 
is found beaming like a golden ray upon each idol, however coarse and 
grotesque, in the crowded galleries of the sombre fanes of India and other 
mother-lands of cults. 

This will be demonstrated in the following Section. 

Meanwhile, it may be added that, with the Gnostics, the second Adam 
also emanates from the Primeval Man, the Ophite Adamas, in "whose image 
he is made"; the third, from this second an Androgyne. The latter is 
symbolized in the sixth and seventh pairs of the male-female /Eons, Amphain- 
Essumen (*A/uf>olv Qva-ovpev), and Vananin-Lamertade (Ovavavlv Aapeprdfa) 
Father and Mother 3 while the fourth Adam, or Race, is represented by a 
Priapean monster. The latter a Post-Christian fancy is the degraded copy 
of the Ante-Christian Gnostic symbol of the "Good One," or " He who 
created before anything existed/' the Celestial Priapus truly born from Venus 
and Bacchus when that God returned from his expedition into India, for Venus 
and Bacchus are the post-types of Aditi and the Spirit. The later Priapus, 
one, however, with Agathodaemon, the Gnostic Saviour, and even with 
Abraxas, is no longer the glyph for abstract creative Power, but symbolized 
the four Adams, or Races, the fifth being represented by the five branches 
cut off from the Tree of Life on which the old man stands in the Gnostic 

1 Ibid , p. 118. 2 Simply, the womb, the " Holy of Holies " with the Semites. 

1 See the Valentmian Table in Epiphanius, Adv. Haer., I, xxxi, 2 



26 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

gems. The number of the Root Races was recorded in the ancient Greek 
temples by seven vowels, of which five were framed in a panel in the Initia- 
tion Halls of the Adyta. The Egyptian glyph for it was a hand with five 
fingers spread out, the fifth or little finger being only half-grown, and also five 
" NTs " hieroglyphs standing for that letter. The Romans used the five 
vowels A E I O U in their fanes ; and this archaic symbol was adopted during 
the Middle Ages as a motto by the House of the Hapsburgs. Sic transit 
gloria ! 



SECTION 3 

THE --HOLY OF HOLIES." ITS DEGRADATION 

THE Sanctum Sanctorum of the Ancients, also called the Adytum the recess 
at the West end of the Temple which was enclosed on three sides by blank 
walls and had its only aperture or door hung over with a curtain- was 
common to all ancient nations. 

A great difference is now found between the secret meaning of this 
symbolical place as given in the Esotericism of the Pagans and in that of the 
later Jews, though its symbology was originally identical throughout the ancient 
races and nations. The Gentiles placed in the Adytum a sarcophagus, or a 
tomb (taphos), in which was the Solar God to whom the temple was conse- 
crated, holding it, as Pantheists, in the greatest veneration. They regarded it, 
in its esoteric meaning, as the symbol of resurrection, cosmic, solar, or diurnal, 
and human. It embraced the wide range of periodical, and (in time) punctual, 
Manvantaras, or the reawakenings of Kosmos, Earth, and Man to new 
existences ; the Sun being the most poetical and also the most grandiose 
symbol of such Cycles in Heaven, and man -in his reincarnations on Earth. 
The Jews whose realism, if judged by the dead-letter, was as practical and 
gross in the days of Moses at it is now l in the course of their estrangement 
from the Gods of their Pagan neighbours, consummated a national and levitical 
polity, by the device of setting forth their Holy of Holies as the most solemn 
sign of their Monotheism exoterically, while seeing in it but a universal phallic 
symbol esoterically. While the Kabalists knew but Ain Soph and the 
"' Gods " of the Mysteries, the Levites had no tomb, no God in their Adytum 
but the " Sacred " Ark of the Covenant their " Holy of Holies." 

When the esoteric meaning of this recess is made clear, however, the 
profane will be better able to understand why David danced " uncovered " 

1 But it was not so in reality, as witness their prophets It is the later Rabbis and the Talmudic 
scheme that killed out all spirituality from the body of their symbols , leaving only their Scriptures 
a dead shell, from which the soul has departed. 



28 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

before the Ark of the Covenant, and was so anxious to appear vile for the 
sake of his " Lord," and base in his own sight. 1 

The Ark is the navi-form Argha of the Mysteries. Parkhurst, who has a 
long dissertation upon it in his Greek dictionary, and who never breathes a 
word about it in his Hebrew lexicon, explains it thus : 

Arche ('A/>%?;') in this application answers to the Hebrew Rasit or wisdom, . . . 
a word which had the meaning of the emblem of the female generative power, the 
Arg or Area, in which the germ of all nature was supposed to float or brood on the 
great abyss during the interval which took place after every mundane cycle. 

Quite so ; and the Jewish Ark of the Covenant had precisely the same 
significance ; with the supplementary addition that, instead of a beautiful and 
chaste sarcophagus (the symbol of the Matrix of Nature and Resurrection), as in 
the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Pagans, they had the Ark made still more realistic 
in its construction by the two Cherubs set up on the coffer or Ark of the Cove- 
nant, facing each other, with their wings spread in such a manner as to form a 
perfect Yoni (as now seen in India). Besides which, this generative symbol 
had its significance enforced by the four mystic letters of Jehovah's name, 
namely, IHVH (mm) ; Jod () meaning the membrum virile ; He (n), the womb ; 
Vau (l), a crook or a hook, a nail, and He (n) again, meaning also "an 
opening " ; the whole forming the perfect bisexual emblem or symbol or 
I (e) H (o) V (a) H, the male and female symbol. 

Perhaps also, when people realize the true meaning of the office and 
title of the Kadesh Kadeshim, the "holy ones," or "the consecrated to the 
Temple of the Lord" the "Holy of Holies" of these "holy ones" may 
assume an aspect far from edifying, 

lacchus again is lao or Jehovah ; and Baal or Adon, like Bacchus, was 
a phallic God. 

"Who shall ascend into the hill [the high place] of the Lord ?" asks the holy 
king David, " Who shall stand in his holy place [the place of his Kadushu (Wlp] ?" 
Kadesh may mean in one sense to " devote," " hallow," " sanctify," and even to " ini- 
tiate " or to " set apart" ; but it also means the ministry of lascivious rites the Venus- 
worship and the true interpretation of the world Kadesh is bluntly rendered [as harlot] 
in Deuteronomy, xxiii, 17 ; Hosea, iv, 14 ; and Genesis, xxxviii, 15-22. The " holy " 
Kadeshim of the Bible were identical, as to the duties of their office, with the Nautch- 
girls of the later Hindu pagodas. The Hebrew Kadeshim, or Galli, lived " by the house 
of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove," or the bust of Venus- 
Astarte. 1 

The dance performed by David round the Ark was the "circle-dance," said to 
have been prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries. Such was the dance of the 
daughters of Shiloh, 4 and the leaping of the prophets of Baal.' It was simply a 

1 See // Samuel, vi, 16-22. 2 Psalms, xxiv, 3. 

' // Kings, xxiii, 7 ; see Dunlap, Sod The Mysteries of Adoni, p. 41 . 

1 Judges, xxi. 21, 23 et passim. ' / Kings, xviii, 26. 



THE -HOLY OF HOLIES." ITS DEGRADATION . 29 

characteristic of the Sabaean worship, for it denoted the motion of the Planets round the 
Sun. That the dance was a Bacchic frenzy is apparent. Sistra were used on the occa- 
sion, and the taunt of Michal and the King's reply are very expressive. 1 

The Ark, in which are preserved the germs of ail living things necessary to re- 
people the earth, represents the survival of life, and the supremacy of spirit over matter, 
through the conflict of the opposing powers of nature. In the Astro-theosophic chart 
of the Western Rite, the Ark corresponds with the navel, and is placed at the sinister 
side, the side of the woman (the moon), one of whose symbols is the left pillar of 
Solomon's Temple- Boaz. The umbilicus is connected (through the placenta) with the 
receptacle in which are fructified the embryos of the race. The Ark is the sacred Argha 
of the Hindus, and thus the relation in which it stands to Noah's Ark may be easily 
inferred when we learn that the Argha was an oblong vessel, used by the high priests as 
a sacrificial chalice in the worship of Isis, Astarte, and Venus-Aphrodite, all of whom 
were goddesses of the generative powers of nature, or of matter hence representing 
symbolically the Ark containing the germs of all living things - 

Mistaken is he who accepts the Kabalistic works of to-day, and the inter- 
pretations of the Zohar by the Rabbis, for the genuine kabalistic lore of old ! 5 
For no more to-day than in the day of Frederick von Schelling does the 
Kabalah accessible to Europe and America contain much more than 

Ruins and fragments, much distorted remnants still of that primitive system 
which is the key to all religious systems .' 

The oldest system and the Chaldean Kabalah were identical. The latest 
renderings of the Zohar are those of the Synagogue in the early centuries 
I.e., the Thorah (or Law), dogmatic and uncompromising. 

The " King's Chamber " in Cheops' Pyramid is thus an Egyptian "Holy 
of Holies." On the days of the Mysteries of Initiation, the Candidate, repre- 
senting the Solar God, had to descend into the Sarcophagus, and represent 
the energizing ray, entering into the fecund womb of Nature. Emerging 
from it on the following morning, he typified the resurrection of Life after the 

1 Is/s Unveiled, p 45 2 Ibid., n. 444, 

* The author of the Qa6ba/ah, makes several attempts to prove conclusively the antiquity of the 
Zofiar. Thus he shows that Moses de Leon could not be the author or the forger of the Zoharic works 
in the thirteenth century, as he is accused of being, since Ibn Gebirol gave out the same philosophical 
teaching 225 years before the day of Moses de Leon. No true Kabalist or scholar will ever deny the 
fact. It is certain that Ibn Gebirol based his doctrines upon the oldest Kabalistic sources, namely, the 
Chaldean Book of Numbers, as well as some no longer extant Midrashim, the same, no doubt, as 
those used by Moses de Leon But it is just the difference between the two ways of treating the same 
Esoteric subjects, which -while proving the enormous antiquity of the Esoteric System points to a 
decided ring of Talmudistic and even Christian sectarianism in the compilation and glossaries of the 
Zoharic system by Rabbi Moses Ibn Gebirol never quoted from the Scriptures to enforce the teach- 
ings (Myer's Qabba/ah, p 7). Whereas Moses de Leon has made of the Zohar that which it has 
remained to this day, " a running commentary on the Five Books, or Pentateuch " (ibid.), with a few 
later additions made by Christian hands. One follows the Archaic Esoteric Philosophy , the other, 
only that portion which was adapted to the lost Books of Moses restored by Ezra. Thus, while the 
system, or the trunk on which the primitive original Zohar was engrafted, is of an immense antiquity, 
many of the (later) Zoharic offshoots are strongly coloured by the peculiar views held by Christian 
Gnostics (Syrian and Chaldean), the friends and co-workers of Moses de Leon who, as shown by 
Munk, accepted their interpretations. 

4 See Franck's Kabbala, Preface. 



30 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

change called Death. In the Great MYSTERIES his figurative " death " lasted' 
two days, when with the Sun he arose on the third morning, after a last night 
of the most cruel trials. While the Postulant represented the Sun the all- 
vivifying orb that "resurrects" every morning but to impart life to all the 
Sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle. This, in Egypt ; its form 
and shape changed with every country, provided it remained a vessel, a 
symbolic " navis " or boat-shaped vehicle, and a container, symbolically, of 
germs or the germ of life. In India, it is the " golden " Cow through which 
the candidate for Brahmanism has to pass if he desires to be a Brahman, and 
to become Dw-ja, " born a second time." The crescent-form Argha of the 
Greeks was the type of the Queen of Heaven Diana, or the Moon. She 
was the Great Mother of all Existences, as the Sun was the Father. The Jews,, 
previous to, as well as after, their metamorphosis of Jehovah into a male God, 
worshipped Astoreth, which made Isaiah declare: "Your new moons and 
. feasts my soul hateth 'V in saying which, he was evidently unjust. 
Astoreth and the New Moon (the crescent Argha) Festivals, had no worse 
significance as a form of public worship than had the hidden meaning of the 
Moon in general, which was kabalistically connected directly with, and sacred 
to, Jehovah, as is well known ; with the sole difference, however, that one was 
the female and the other the male aspect of the Moon, and of the star Venus. 
The Sun (the Father), the Moon (the Mother), and Mercury-Thoth (the 
Son), were the earliest Trinity of the Egyptians, who personified them in 
Osiris, Isis, and Thoth (Hermes). In the Gnostic Gospel IIIST12 SCXMA, 
P/st/s Sophia, the seven Great Gods, divided into two Triads and the highest 
God (the Sun), are the lower [Triple] Powers (fpt&vvdpeis), whose powers 
reside respectively in Mars, Mercury and Venus ; and the higher Triad the 
three " Unseen Gods," who dwell in the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn." 

This requires no proof. Astoreth was in one sense an impersonal 
symbol of Nature, the Ship of Life carrying throughout the boundless Sidereat 
Ocean the germs of all being. And when she was not identified with Venus, 
like every other " Queen of Heaven " to whom cakes and buns were offered 
in sacrifice, Astoreth became the reflection of the Chaldean " Nuah, the 
Universal Mother " (the female Noah, considered as one with the Ark), and 
of the female Triad, Ana, Belita and Davkina ; called, when blended into one, 
" Sovereign Goddess, Lady of the Nether Abyss, Mother of Gods, Queen of 
the Earth, and Queen of Fecundity." Later, Belita or Tamtu * (the sea), the 
Mother of the City of Erech (the great Chaldean Necropolis), became Eve ; 

1 i, 14. 3 See Schwartze, op. cit . pp 359-61, et seq. 

< Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, 1887, p. 374 



THE -HOLY OF HOLIES." ITS DEGRADATION 31! 

and now she is Mary the Virgin, in the Latin Church, represented as standing? 
on the Crescent Moon, and, at times on the Globe, to vary the programme. 
The Navis, or ship-like form of the crescent, which blends in itself all those 
common symbols of the Ship of Life, such as Noah's Ark, the Yoni of the 
Hindus, and the Ark of the Covenant, is the female symbol of the Universal 
" Mother of the Gods," and is now found under its Christian symbol in every 
Church, as the nave (from naw's). 1 The Navis, the Sidereal Vessel, is fructi- 
fied by the Spirit of Life the male God ; or, as the learned Kenealy, in his. 
Apocalypse, very appropriately calls it the Holy Spirit. In Western religious, 
symbology the crescent was the male, the full Moon the female, aspect of 
that Universal Spirit. The mystic word ALM, which the prophet Mahomet 
prefixed to many chapters of the Quran, alludes to her as the Aim, the Immac- 
ulate Virgin of the Heavens." And the sublime ever falling into the 
ridiculous it is from this root Aim that we have to derive the word Almeh 
the Egyptian dancing girls. The latter are " virgins " of the same type as. 
the Nachnis in India, and the (female) Kadeshim, the " holy ones " of the 
Jewish temples consecrated to Jehovah, who represented both sexes whose 
holy functions in the Israelite fanes were identical with those of the Nachnis. 

Now Eustathius declares that 1C) (HI) means the Moon, in the dialect 
of the Argians ; it was also one of the names of the Moon in Egypt. Says 
Jablonski : 

HI, loh, /Egyptiis Lunam significat neque habent illi, in communi sermonis 
usu, aliud nomen quo Lunam designent praeter 10.' 

The Pillar and Circle (IO), which with Pythagoras was the perfect number 
contained in the Tetraktys, ' became later a pre-emment/y phallic number 
amongst the Jews, foremost of all, with whom it is the male and female 
Jehovah. 

This is how a scholar explains it : 

I find, on the Rosetta stone of Uhlemann, the word mooth (also in Seiffarth), 
the name of the moon, used as a cycle of time, hence the lunar month, from the 
hieroglyph f\/>\, with J$> and Q as determinatives, given as the Coptic I O H, or 

' Timaeus, the Locnan, speaking of " Arka " [Arche], calls her " the principle of best things " 
I A0Y TCOZ/ apLCTTWv] The word arcane, " hidden," or secret, is derived from this. "To no 
one is the Arcane exhibited . except to the . . Most High " (Codex Nazaraeus) alluding to 
Nature the female, and Spirit, the male Power. ^Esculapius, as a Sun-God was called Archagetas, 
"born of the Archa," the divine Virgin-Mother of the Heavens (See Kenealy, The Book of 
God, p 10 ) 

- Kenealy, op. cit., ibid 

' [lo or loh with the Egyptians signified the Moon, and they had not, in their common speech, 
any other name by which the moon was knov/n except lo] 

1 This is composed of ten dots arranged triangularly in four rows. It is the Tetragrammaton of 
the Western Kabalists 



32 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

\ O H The Hebrew Tl may also be used as I O H, for the letter vau (i) was used 
tor o and for u r and for v or w. This, before the Masora, of which the point (*) was 
used as 1 o, V u, and 1 v or w. Now I had worked it out by original search 
that the great distinctive function of the god-name Jehovah was designative of the 
influence of the moon as the causative of generation, and as of its exact value as a 
iunar year in the natural measure of days, as you will fully see, . . . And here comes 
this linguistic same word from a source far more ancient ; viz, t the Coptic, or rather 
from the old Egyptian in time of the Coptic. 1 

This is the more remarkable when Egyptology compares this with the little 
which it knows about the Theban Triad composed of Ammon, Mooth (or 
Moot) and their son Khonsoo. This Triad was, when united, contained in the 
Moon as their common symbol ; and when separated, it was Khonsoo who 
was the God Lunus, being thus confounded with Thoth and Phtah, His 
mother Moot the name signifying " Mother," by the bye, and not the 
Moon, which was only her symbol is called the " Queen of Heaven," the 
" Virgin," etc., as she is an aspect of Isis, Hathor, and other Mother God- 
desses. She was less the wife than the mother of Ammon, whose distinct 
title is the ''husband of his mother." In a statuette at Boulaq, Cairo, this 
Triad is represented as a mummy-god holding in his hand three different 
sceptres, and bearing the lunar disk on his head, the characteristic tress of 
hair showing the design of representing it as that of an infant God, or the 
" Sun," in the Triad. He was the God of Destinies in Thebes, and appears 
under two aspects (1) as Khonsoo, the Lunar God, and Lord of Thebes, Nof/r- 
hotpoo, " he who is in absolute repose," and (2) as " Khonsoo /ri-solchroo," 
or " Khonsoo, who executes Destiny " ; the former preparing the events 
and conceiving them for those born under his generative influence, the 
latter putting them into action. - Under theogonic permutations Ammon 
becomes Horus, Hor-Ammon, and Moot(h)-lsis is seen suckling him 
in a statuette of the Saitic period." In his turn, in this transformed Triad, 
Khonsoo becomes Thoth-Lunus, " he who operates salvation." His brow is 
crowned with the head of an ibis decorated with the lunar disk and the diadem 
-called lo-tef (lO-tef).' 

Now all these symbols are certainly found reflected in (some believe 
them identical with) the Yave, or Jehovah of the 8/6/e. This will be made 
plain to any one who reads The Source of Measures, or " The Hebrew- 
Egyptian Mystery," and understands its undeniable, clear, and mathematical 
proofs that the esoteric foundations, or the system used in the building of the 
Great Pyramid, and the architectural measurements in the Temple of Solomon 
(whether the latter be mythical or real), Noah's Ark, and the Ark of the 

1 From an MS. -' See G. Maspero, Guide au Musee Bou/aq, 1884, p. 168, No. 1981 

Mbid , p. 169, No. 1998. 4 Ibid., p. 172, No. 2068. 



THE HOLY OF HOLIES." ITS DEGRADATION 33 

Covenant, are the same. If anything in the world can settle the dispute that 
the old, as much as the later Post-Babylonian, Jews, and especially the former, 
built their Theogony and Religion on the very same foundation as did all the 
Pagans, it is the work in question. 

And now it may be as well to remind the reader of what we said of IAO 
in I sis Unveiled : 

No other deity affords such a variety of etymologies as laho, nor is there any 
name which can be so variously pronounced. It is only by associating it with the 
Masoretic points that the later Rabbins succeeded in making Jehovah read " Adonai " 
or Lord. Philo Byblus spells it in Greek letters I ETH -I EVO. Theodoret says that 
the Samaritans pronounced it labe (Yahva), and the Jews Yaho ; which would make it 
33 we have shown, I- Ah O. Diodorus states that " among the Jews they relate that 
Moses called the God IAO."* It is on the authority of the Bible itself, that we main- 
iain that, before his initiation by Jethro, his father-in-law, Moses had never known the 
word laho ' 

The above receives corroboration in a private letter from a very learned 
Kabalist. In our first Volume," it is stated that exoterically Brahma (neuter), 
so flippantly and so often confused by the Orientalists with Brahma (the male), 
iis sometimes called Kalahamsa, the " Swan in Eternity," and the Esoteric 
meaning of Aham-sa, is given as " l-am-he," So-ham being equal to Sah 
" he," and Aham " I " a mystic anagram and permutation. It is also the 
41 four-faced " Brahma, the Chatur-mukham (the Perfect Cube) forming itself 
within, and from, the Infinite Circle; and again the use of the 1, 3, 5, and 
I 14, as the Esoteric Hierarchy of the Dhyan Chohans, is explained. On 
this, the said correspondent comments in the following manner : 

Of the 1, 3, 5. and twice 7, intending, and very especially, 13514, which on a 
circle may be read as 31415 (or TT value), I think there cannot be a possibility of doubting ; 
and especially when considered with symbol marks on SacrV " Chakra," or Circle of 
Vishnu. 

But let me carry your description a step further You say, " The One from the 
gg, the Six, and the F/Ve, 4 give the numbers 1065, the value of the First-born." If it 
,be so, then in 1065 we have the famous Jehovah's name, the Jve or Jave, or Jupiter, 
and by change of H to 3, or h to n, then "H3 or the Latin Jun or Juno, the base of the 
Chinese riddle, the key measuring numbers of Sni (Sinai) and Jehovah coming down on 
that Mount, which numbers (1065) are but the use of our ratio of 113 to 355, because 
1065 355 x 3 which is circumference to a diameter of 113 x 3 339. Thus the first 
born of Brahma-Prajapati (or any Demiurgus) indicates a measuring use of a circular 

1 Vol n, p. 301. The student must be aware that Jethro is not called the " father-in law " of 
'Moses because Moses was really married to one of his seven daughters. Moses was an Initiate, if he 
ever existed, and as such an Ascetic, a Nazar, and could never have been married It is an allegory 
4ike everything else. Zipporah (the " shining ") is one of the personified Occult Sciences given by 
Reueklethro, the Midian priest Initiator, to Moses, his Egyptian pupil. The " well " by which Moses 
jsat down in his flight from the Pharaoh symbolizes the " Well of Knowledge " 

2 p p 144_5 ( an d elsewhere. 

* In Hebrew the phallic symbol Lmgam and Yoni 
' See Vol 1 , Stanza 4, Shloka 3 
F 3 




34 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

relation taken from the Chakra (or Vishnu) and, as stated above, the Divine Manifesta- 
tion takes the form of Life and the First-born. 

It is a most singular thing : At the entrance passage to the King's Chamber the 
measurement from the surface of the Great Step ' 
and the Grand Gallery to the top of the said Gallery 
is, by the very careful measures of Piazzi Smyth, 339 
inches Take a as a centre and with this- radius des- 
cribe a circle ; the diameter of that circle will be 
339 X 2 678, and these numbers are those of the 
expression and the raven, in the " dove and raven 
scenes or pictures of the Flood of Noah ; (the radius is taken to show division into two 
parts, which are 1065 each) for 113 (man) x 6 678, and the diameter to a circum- 
ference of 1065 X 2 so we have here an indication of cosmic man on this high grade 
or step, at the entrance of the King's Chamber (the Holy of Holies) which is the 
womb. Now this passage is of such a height that a man to enter it must stoop. But 
a man upright is 113, and broken, or stooping, he becomes l ~~ 56*5 or 5*65 x 10 
(nfi"P), Jehovah. That is, he personifies " him as entering the Holy of Holies. But by 
Hebrew Esotericism the chief function of Jehovah was child giving, etc., and that 
because, by the numbers of his name, he was the measure of t/ie lunar year, which 
cycle of time because by its factor of 7 (seven) it ran so co-ordinately with the 
periods c*f the quickening, viability, and gestation- was taken as the causative of the 
generative action and therefore was worshipped and besought. 

This discovery connects Jehovah still more with all the other Creative and 
Generative Gods, Solar and Lunar, and especially with " King " Soma, the 
Hindu Deus Lunus, the Moon, because of the Esoteric influence attributed to 
this planet in Occultism. There are other corroborations of this, however, in 
Hebrew tradition itself. Adam is spoken of in the More Nevochim (or 
" Guide of the Perplexed " truly !) of Maimonides in two aspects ; as a man, 
like all others born of a man and a woman, and as the Prophet of the Moon ; 
the reason of which is now made apparent, and has to be explained. 

Adam, as the supposed great " Progenitor of the Human Race/' is, as 
Adam Kadmon, made in the image of God a priapic image, therefore. The 
Hebrew words Sacr' and N'cabvah are, literally translated, Lingam (Phallus) 
and Yoni (Cteis), notwithstanding their translation in the 6/b/e " male and 
female." ' As said there. " God creates ' man in his own image/ in the 
image of God created he him ; male and female created he them " the 
androgyne Adam Kadmon. Now this kabalistic name is not that of a living 
man, nor even of a human or divine Being, but of the two sexes or organs 
of procreation, called in Hebrew with that usual sincerity of language 

1 It is at that step that one arrives on the plane of the level or floor and open entrance to the 
King's Chamber, the Egyptian " Holy of Holies " 

- The Candidate for Initiation always personified the God of the Temple he belonged to, as the 
High Priest personified the God at all times ; just as the Pope now personates Peter and even Jesus 
Christ upon entering the inner sanctuary the Christian " Holy of Holies." 

' Genes;*, i, 27. 



THE - HOLY OF HOLIES." ITS DEGRADATION 35 

pre-eminently biblical, Sacr' and N'cabvah l ; these two being, therefore, the 
image under which the " Lord God " appeared usually to his chosen people. 
That this is so, is now undeniably proven by almost all the symbologists and 
Hebrew scholars as well as by the Kabalah. Therefore Adam is in one sense 
Jehovah. This makes plain another general tradition in the East mentioned ir> 
Gregorie's Notes and Observations upon several Passages in Scripture," and 
quoted by Hargrave Jennings in his Phallicism : 

That Adam was commanded by God that his dead body should be kept above 
ground till a fulness of time should come to commit it ... to the middle of the earth 
by a priest of the Most High God. . . . 

Therefore, 
Noah daily prayed in the Ark before the " Body of Adam " ' 

or before the Phallus in the Ark, or Holy of Holies, again. He who is a 
Kabalist and accustomed to the incessant permutation of biblical names, once 
they are interpreted numerically and symbolically, will understand what 
is meant. 

The two words of which Jehovah is composed, make up the original idea of 
male-female, as birth-originator, (for the n was the membrum virile and Hovah was 
Eve.) So ... the perfect one, as orginator of measures, takes also the form of birth 
origin, as hermaphrodite one ; hence, the phallic form and use. 1 

Besides, the same author shows and demonstrates numerically and 
geometrically that (a) Arets, " earth," Adam, " man," and H-adam-h, are 
cognate with each other, and are personified in the Bible under one form, as 
the Egyptian and Hebrew Mars, God of Generation ; 5 and (fc) the Jehovah, 
or Jah, is Noah, for Jehovah is Noah in Hebrew would be nr, or literally in 
English, Inch. 

The above affords, then, a key to the said traditions. Noah, a divine 
permutation, the supposed Saviour of Humanity, who carries in his Ark or 
Argha (the Moon), the germs of all living things, worships before the " Body 
of Adam," which body is the image of the Creator, and a Creator itself. 
Hence Adam is called the " Prophet of the Moon," the Argha or " Holy of 
Holies " of the Yod ( v ). This also shows the origin of the Jewish popular 
belief that the face of Moses is in the Moon i.e., the spots in the Moon. 

1 Jehovah says to Moses: "the summation of my name is sacr', the carrier of the germ " 
phallus. " It is . . . the vehicle of enunciation, and truly enough, as the sacr', or carrier of the germ, 
its use passed down through ages to the sacr-factum of the Roman priest, and the sacr-f/ce, and sacra- 
ment of the English speaking race." (Source of Measures, p. 236.) Hence marriage is a sacrament 
in the Greek and Roman Churches. 

- London, 1684, Vol i, pp. 120-1. 3 Op. cit., p. 67. 

1 Source of Measures, 159. :> Op. cit., p. 187. 



36 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

For Moses and Jehovah are kabalistically once more permutations, as has 
been shown. Says the author of The Source of Measures : 

There is one fact in regard to Moses and his works too important to be omitted. 
When he is instructed by the Lord as to his mission, the power name assumed by the 
Deity is / am that / am, the Hebrew words being. 



a various reading of nifT Now, Moses is ntPD, and equals 

345. 

Add the values of the new form of the name Jehovah, 21+501+21 543, or, by the 
reverse reading, 345 , thus showing Moses to be a form of Jehovah in this combination. 
21-7-2 10.5, or, reversed, 501, so that the as/ier or the tfiat in / am-that-l am is simply a 
guide to a use of 21 ,or 7x3 , 501 251 4- . a very valuable pyramid number, etc. 1 

For a clearer explanation for the benefit of Non-Kabalists we put it thus : 
41 I am that I am " is in Hebrew : 

Ahiye Asher Ahiye 

n ^ n x i tzr x n^nx 

5, 10, 5, 1 200, 300, 1 5, 10, 5, 1 

Add the numbers of these separate words and you have : 



mnx TOX rrnx 

21 501 21 

This relates to the process of descending in Fire on the Mount to make Man, 
etc., and is explained to be but a check and use of the numbers of the 
mountains ; for on one side we have 104-54-6 21, down the middle 501, and 
on the other side 645 + 10 21. - 

The " Holy of Holies," both kabalistic and rabbinical, is thus shown as an 
international symbol, and common property. Neither had originated with the 
Hebrews ; but owing to the too realistic handling of the half-initiated Levites, 
the symbol had acquired with them a significance which it scarcely has with 
any other people to this day, and which it was originally never meant to have 
by the true Kabalist. The Lingam and Yoni of the modern average Hindu is, 
on the face of it, of course, no better than the rabbinical " Holy of Holies " 
but It Is no worse ; and this is a point gained on the Christian traducers of 
the Asiatic religious Philosophies. For, in such religious myths, in the hidden 
symbolism of a creed and philosophy, the spirit of the tenets propounded 
ought to decide their relative value. And who will say, that, examined either 
way, this so-called " Wisdom," applied solely to the uses and benefit of one 
little nation, has ever developed in it anything like national ethics. The 

i Op. cit., p. 271. 

-From the same author See Vol 4, Part 2, Sect. 8 the Section on "The Symbolism of the 
Mystery Names lao and Jehovah " 



THE HOLY OF HOLIES." ITS DEGRADATION 37 

Prophets are there, to show the walk in life of the chosen but " stiff-necked " 
people before, during, and after, the days of Moses. That they have had at 
one time the Wisdom-Religion and the use of its universal language and 
symbols is proved by the same Esotericism existing to this day in India with 
regard to the " Holy of Holies." This, as said above, was and still is the 
passage through the "Golden" Cow in the same stooping position as was 
necessitated by the Gallery of the Pyramid, which identified man with Jehovah 
in Hebrew Esotericism. The whole difference lies in the spirit of the inter- 
pretation. With the Hindus as with the ancient Egyptians that spirit was and 
is entirely metaphysical and psychological ; with the Hebrews it was realistic 
and physiological. It pointed to the first sexual separation of the human race 
Eve giving birth to Cain-Jehovah, as shown in The Source of Measures ; to 
the consummation of terrestrial physiological union and conception as in the 
allegory of Cain shedding Abel's blood, Habel being the feminine principle ; 
and to child-bearing a process shown to have begun in the Third Race, or 
with Adam's Third Son, Seth, with whose Son Henoch, men began to call 
themselves Jehovah or Jah-hovah, the male Jod and Havah or Eve, to wit, 
male and female beings. 1 Thus the difference lies in the religious and ethical 
feeling, but the two symbols are identical. There is no doubt that, with the 
fully initiated Judean Tanaim, the inner sense of the symbolism was as holy ir> 
its abstraction as with the ancient Aryan Dvijas. The worship of the " God 
in the Ark " dates only from David ; and for a thousand years Israel knew of 
no phallic Jehovah. And now the old Kabalah edited and re-edited, has 
become tainted with it. 

With the ancient Aryans the hidden meaning was grandiose, sublime and 
poetical, however much the external appearance of their symbol may now 
militate against the claim. The ceremony of passing through the Holy of 
Holies now symbolized by the Cow, but in the beginning through the temple 
Hiranyagarbha, the Radiant Egg, in itself a symbol of Universal, Abstract 
Nature meant spiritual conception and birth, or rather the re-birth of the 
individual and his regeneration ; the stooping man at the entrance of the 
Sanctum Sanctorum, ready to pass through the Matrix of Mother Nature, or the 
physical creature ready to re-become the original Spiritual Being, pre-nataf 
MAN With the Semite, that stooping man meant the fall of Spirit into 
Matter, and that fall and degradation were apotheosized by him with the result 
of dragging Deity down to the level of man. For the Aryan, the symbol repre- 
sented the divorce of Spirit from Matter, its merging into and return to its 

1 In Genesis (iv, 26), it is mis-translated, " And he called his name Enos [man] : then began men 
to call upon the name of the Lord "which has no sense in it, since Adam and the others must have 
done the same. 



38 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

primal Source ; for the Semite, the wedlock of Spiritual Man with Material 
Female Nature, the physiological taking pre-eminence over the psychological 
and the purely immaterial. The Aryan views of the symbolism were those of 
the whole Pagan world ; the Semite interpretations emanated from, and were 
pre-eminently those of a small tribe, thus marking its national features and the 
Idiosyncratic defects that characterize many of the Jews to this day gross 
realism, selfishness, and sensuality. They had made a bargain, through their 
father Jacob, with their tribal deity, self-exalted above all others, and a 
covenant that his " seed shall be as the dust of the earth " ; and that deity 
could have no better image henceforth than that of the symbol of genera- 
tion, and as representation a number and numbers. 

Carlyle has wise words for both these nations. With the Hindu Aryan 
the most metaphysical and spiritual people on earth religion has ever 
been, in his words, 

An everlasting lode-star, that beams the brighter in the heavens the darker here 
on earth grows the night around him. 

The religion of the Hindu detaches him from this Earth ; therefore, even 
now, the cow-symbol is one of the grandest and most philosophical among all 
others in its inner meaning. To the "Masters" and " Lords" of European 
potencies, the Israelites, certain words of Carlyle apply still more admirably ; 
for them 

Religion is a wise prudential feeling grounded on mere calculation 

and it was so from its beginnings. Having burdened themselves with it, 
Christian Cations feel bound to defend and poetize it, at the expense of all 
other religions. 

But it was not so with the ancient nations. For them the passage- 
entrance and the sarcophagus in the King's Chamber meant regeneration 
not generation. It was the most solemn symbol, a Holy of Holies, indeed, 
wherein were created Immortal Hierophants and " Sons of God " never 
mortal men and sons of lust and flesh, as now in the hidden sense of the 
Semite Kabalist. The reason for the difference in the views of the two races 
is easy to account for. The Aryan Hindu belongs to the oldest races now on 
Earth ; the Semite Hebrew to the latest. The former is nearly one million 
years old ; the latter is a small sub-race some 8,000 years of age and no more. 1 

1 Strictly speaking, the Jews are an artificial Aryan race, born in India, and belonging to the 
Caucasian division. No one who is familiar with the Armenians and the Parsis can fail to recognize 
in the three the same Aryan, Caucasian type. From the seven primitive types of the Fifth Race there 
now remain on Earth but three. As Prof. W. H. Flower aptly said in 1 885 : " I cannot resist the 
conclusion so often arrived at by various anthropologists that the primitive man, whatever he may 
have been, has in the course of ages diverged into three extreme types, represented by the Caucasian 



THE HOLY OF HOLIES." ITS DEGRADATION 39 

But phallic worship has developed only with the gradual loss of the keys 
to the inner meaning of religious symbols, and there was a day when the 
Israelites had beliefs as pure as the Aryans have. But now Judaism, built 
.solely on phallic worship, has become one of the latest creeds in Asia, and 
theologically a religion of hate and malice toward everyone and everything 
outside itself. Philo Judceus shows what was the genuine Hebrew faith. The 
Sacred Writings, he says, prescribe what we ought to do, commanding us to 
hate the heathen and their laws and institutions. True, they did hate Baal or 
Bacchus worship publicly, but left its worst features to be followed secretly. It 
Js with the Talmudic Jews that the grand symbols of Nature were the most 
profaned. With them, as now shown by the discovery of the key to the 
correct Bible reading, Geometry, the fifth Divine Science "fifth" in the 
series of the Seven Keys to the universal Esoteric Language and Symbology 
was desecrated, and by them applied to conceal the most terrestrial and 
grossly sexual mysteries, wherein both Deity and Religion were degraded. 

We are told that it is just the same with our Brahma-Prajapati, with Osiris 
and all other Creative Gods. Quite so, when their rites are judged exoteric- 
ally and externally ; the reverse when their inner meaning is unveiled, as we 
see. The Hindu Lingam is identical with Jacob's " Pillar " most undeniably. 
-But the difference, as said, seems to consist in the fact that the esoteric 
significance of the Lingam was too truly sacred and metaphysical to be reveal- 
ed to the profane and the vulgar ; hence its superficial appearance was left 
to the speculations of the mob. Nor would the Aryan Hierophant and 
Brahman, in their proud exclusiveness and the satisfaction of their knowledge, 
go to the trouble of concealing its primeval nakedness under cunningly de- 
vised fables ; whereas the Rabbi, having interpreted the symbol to suit his own 
tendencies, had to veil the crude significance ; and this served a double pur- 
pose that of keeping his secret to himself and of exalting himself in his sup- 
posed monotheism over the Heathen, whom his Law commanded him to hate 1 
a commandment now gladly accepted by the Christian too, in spite of another 

of Europe, the Mongolian of Asia, and the Ethiopian of Africa, and that all existing individuals of the 
speaes can be ranged around these types." (The Presidential Address at the Anthropological 
Institute of Great Britain, etc ) Considering that our Race has reached its fifth sub-race, how can it 
,be otherwise ? 

1 Whenever such analogies between the Gentiles and the Jews, and later the Christians, have been 
pointed out, it has been the invariable custom of the latter to say that it was the work of the Devil 
who forced the Pagans to imitate the Jews for the purpose of throwing a slur on the religion of the 
one, true living God. To this Faber says very justly " Some have imagmed that the Gentiles were 
servile copyists of the Israelites, and that each point of similitude was borrowed from the Mosaical 
Institutes. But this theory will by no means solve the problem. Both because we find the very same 
resemblance in the ceremonies of nations far distant from Palestine, as we do in the rites of those 
who are in its immediate vicinity, and because it seems incredible that all should have borrowed from 
-one which was universally disliked and despised." (Pagan Idolatry, Vol. i, p. 104 ) 



40 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

and later commandment, " Love one another." Both India and Egypt had and 
have their sacred lotuses, symbolic of the same " Holy of Holies " the 
lotus growing in the water, a double feminine symbol the bearer of its own, 
seed and root of all. Viraj and Horus are both male symbols, emanating from, 
androgyne Nature, one from Brahma and his female counterpart Vach, the 
other, from Osiris and Isis never from the One Infinite God. In the Judaeo- 
Christian systems it is different. Whereas the lotus, containing Brahma, the 
Universe, is shown growing out of Vishnu's Navel, the Central Point in the 
Waters of Infinite Space, and whereas Horus springs from the lotus of the 
Celestial Nile all these abstract pantheistic ideas are dwarfed and made 
terrestrially concrete in the Bible. One is almost inclined to say that in the 
esoteric they are grosser and still more anthropomorphic, than in their exoteric 
rendering. Take as an example the same symbol, even in its Christian applica- 
tion the //7/es in the hand of the Archangel Gabriel. 1 In Hinduism the 
" Holy of Holies is a universal abstraction, whose dramatis personae are 
Infinite Spirit and Nature ; in Christian Judaism, it is a personal God, outside of 
that Nature, and the human womb Eve, Sarah, etc. ; hence, an anthropo- 
morphic phallic God, and his image man. 

Thus it is maintained, that with regard to the contents of the Bible, one 
of two hypotheses has to be admitted. Either behind the symbolic substitute 
Jehovah, there was the Unknown, Incognizable Deity, the kabalistic Ain Soph ; 
or, the Jews have been from the beginning no better than the dead-letter 
Lingam-worshippers ~ of the India of today. We say it was the former ; and 
that, therefore, the secret or esoteric worship of the Jews was the same 
Pantheism that the Vedantin Philosophers are reproached with to-day ; Jehovah 
was a substitute for purposes of an exoteric national faith, and had no impor- 
tance or reality in the eyes of the erudite Priests and Philosophers the Saddu- 
cees, the most refined and the most learned of all the Israelite sects, who 
stand as a living proof of it, with their contemptuous rejection of every belief,, 
save the Law. For how could those who invented the stupendous scheme 
now known as the Bible, or their successors who knew, as all Kabalists do, that 
it was so invented for a popular "blind" how could they, we ask, feel 
reverence for such a phallic symbol and a number, as Jehovah is shown most 
undeniably to be in the kabalistic works ? How could anyone worthy of the 
name of a Philosopher, and knowing the real secret meaning of their " Pillar 
of Jacob," their Bethels, oil-anointed Phalli, and their " Brazen Serpent," 

1 Luke, i, 28. [Lilies in this connection are not mentioned in the text , but medieval painters por- 
trayed Gabriel as carrying a stem of lilies in his left hand. See Douay. Ed.] 

2 Their consecrated Pillars (unhewn stones) erected by Abraham and Jacob were Lngams. 



THE -HOLY OF HOLIES." ITS DEGRADATION 41 

worship such a gross symbol, and minister unto it, seeing in it their " Covenant " 
-the Lord Himself ! Let the reader turn to Gemara Sanhedrim and judge. 
As various writers have shown, and as brutally stated in Hargrave Jennings' 
Phallicism : 

We know from the Jewish records that the Ark was supposed to contain a table ot 
stone , and if it can be demonstrated that that stone was phallic, and yet identical with 
the sacred name Jehovah or Yehovah, which, written in unpointed Hebrew with four 
letters, is J-E-V-E or J-H-V-H (the H being merely an aspirate and the same as E). This 
process leaves us the two letters I and V (or in another 6f its forms U) ; then if we place 
the I in the U we have the " holy of holies ' , we also have the Linga and Yoni and 
Argha of the Hindus, the Iswarra [Ishvara] or " supreme Lord " ; and here we have the 
whole secret of its mystic and arc-celestial import, confirmed in itself by being identical 
with the Linyoni [?] of the Ark of the Covenant ' 

The biblical Jews of to-day do not date from Moses but from David 
even admitting the identity of the old and genuine with the later and remodel- 
led Mosaic scrolls. Before that time their nationality is lost in the mists of 
pre-historic darkness, the veil from which is now withdrawn as much as we 
have space to do. It is only to the days of the Babylonian captivity that the 
Old Testament may be referred by the most lenient criticism as the approxi- 
mately correct views that were current about the days of Moses. Even such 
fanatical Christians and worshippers of Jehovah as the Rev. Mr. Home, have 
to admit the numerous changes and alterations made by the later compilers of 
the " Book of God," since it was found by Hilkiah," and since 

The Pentateuch arose out of the primitive or older documents, by means of a 
supplementary one. 

The Elohistic texts were re-written 500 years after the date of Moses ; the 
Jehovistic 800, on the authority of the biblical chronology itself. Hence, it is 
maintained that the deity, represented as the organ of generation in his pillar- 
form, and as a symbol of the double-sexed organ in the numeral value of the 
letters of his name the Yod, \ or " phallus," and He, n, the " opening," or 
the " womb," according to Kabalistic authority is of a far later date than the 
Elohim-symbols and is borrowed from the Pagan exoteric rites ; and Jehovah 
is thus on a par with the Lingam and Yoni found on every roadside in India. 

Just as the IAO of the Mysteries was distinct from Jehovah, so was the 
later lao and Abraxas, or Abrasax, of some Gnostic sects identical with 
the God of the Hebrews, who was the same as the Egyptian Horus. 
This is undeniably proven on "Heathen" as on the Gnostic " Christian " 
gems. In Matter's collection of such gems there is a "Horus" 

Seated on the lotus, inscribed ABPASA5 1AH (Abrasax lao)- an address 
exactly parallel to the so frequent EIS ZET2 SAPATII (Eis Zeus Sarapi) on the 

1 Op. at., p. 67. 

2 See Introduction to the Old Testament, and also Bishop Colenso's Elohistic and Jehovistic Writers. 



42 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

contemporary Heathen gems, and therefore only to be translated by "Abraxas is the 
One Jehovah." 1 

But who was Abraxas ? As the same author shows : 

The numerical or Kabbalistic value of the name Abraxas directly refers to the 
Persian title of the god " Mithras," Ruler of the year, worshipped from the earliest 
times under the appellation of lao. 2 

Thus, he was the Sun, in one aspect, the Moon or the Lunar Genius, in 
another, that Generative Deity whom the Gnostics saluted as "Thou that 
presidest over the Mysteries of the Father and the Son, who shinest in the 
night-time, holding the second rank, the first Lord of Death/' 

It is only in his capacity of the Genius of the Moon the latter being 
credited in the old cosmogony with being the parent of our Earth that 
Jehovah could ever be regarded as the Creator of our Globe and its Heaven, 
namely, the Firmament. 

The knowledge of all this will be no proof, however, to the average 
bigot. Missionaries will go on with the most virulent attacks on the religions 
of India, and Christians read with the same benighted smile of satisfaction as 
ever these preposterously unjust words of Coleridge : 

It is highly worthy of observation that the inspired writings received by Christians 
are distinguishable from all other books pretending to inspiration, from the Scriptures 
of the Brahmins, and even from the Koran, [Qu'ran] in their strong and frequent 
recommendat/on of truth [t !]. 



1 King's Gnostics and their Remains, p 327, 2nd ed - Ibid., p. 326. 



SECTION 4 

ON THE MYTH OF THE -FALLEN ANGELS" IN ITS 
VARIOUS ASPECTS 

A. THE EVIL SPIRIT: WHO, AND WHAT? 

OUR present quarrel is exclusively with Theology. The Church enforces 
belief in a Personal God and a Personal Devil, while Occultism shows the 
fallacy of such a belief. For the Pantheists and Occultists, as much as for the 
Pessimists, " Nature " is no better than "a comely mother, but stone cold" ; 
but this is true only so far as regards external Physical Nature. They both 
agree that, to the superficial observer, she is no better than an immense 
slaughter-house wherein butchers become victims, and victims executioners in 
their turn. It is quite natural that the pessimistically inclined profane, once 
convinced of Nature's numerous shortcomings and failures, and especially of 
her autophagous propensities, should imagine this to be the best evidence 
that there is no Deity in abscond/to within Nature, nor anything divine in her. 
Nor is it less natural that the Materialist and the Physicist should imagine that 
everything is due to blind force and chance, and to the survival of the 
strongest, even more often than of the fittest. But the Occultists, who regard 
Physical Nature as a bundle of most varied illusions on the plane of deceptive 
perceptions ; who recognize in every pain and suffering but the necessary 
pangs of incessant procreation ; a series of stages toward an ever-growing 
perfectibility, which is visible in the silent influence of never-erring Karma, or 
Abstract Nature the Occultists, we say, view the Great Mother otherwise. 
Woe to those who live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the future 
of all that vegetates without change. And how can there be any change for 
the better without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage? Is 
it not those only who have learnt the deceptive value of earthly hopes and 
the illusive allurements of external nature who are destined to solve the great 
problems of life, pain, and death ? 



44 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

If our modern Philosophers preceded by the medieval scholars 
have helped themselves to more than one fundamental idea of antiquity. 
Theologians have built their God and his Archangels, their Satan and his 
Angels, along with the Logos and his staff, entirely out of the dramatis 
personae of the old heathen Pantheons. They would have been welcome to- 
these, had they not cunningly distorted the original characters, perverted the 
philosophical meaning, and, taking advantage of the ignorance of Christen- 
dom the result of long ages of mental sleep, during which humanity was per- 
mitted to think only by proxy tossed every symbol into the most inextricable 
confusion. One of their most sinful achievements in this direction, was the 
transformation of the divine Alter Ego into the grotesque Satan of their Theology. 

As the whole philosophy of the problem of evil hangs upon the correct 
comprehension of the constitution of the Inner Being of Nature and Man, of 
the divine within the animal, and hence also the correctness of the whole 
system as given in these pages, with regard to the crown piece of evolution 
Man we cannot take sufficient precautions against theological subterfuges _ 
When the good St. Augustine and the fiery Tertullian call the Devil the 
" monkey of God," we can attribute it to the ignorance of the age they 
lived in. It is more difficult to excuse our modern writers on the same 
ground. The translation of Mazdean literature has afforded Roman Catholic 
writers the pretext for proving their point in the same direction once more. 
They have taken advantage of the dual nature of Ahura Mazda and of his 
Amshaspends in the Zend A vesta and the Vend/dad, to emphasize still further 
their wild theories. Satan is the plagiarist and the copyist by anticipation of 
the religion which came ages later. This was one of the master strokes of 
the Latin Church, its best trump-card after the appearance of Spiritualism in 
Europe. Though only a succes d'est/me, in general, even among those who 
are not interested in either Theosophy or Spiritualism, yet the weapon is often 
used by the Christian (Roman Catholic) Kabalists against the Eastern Occultists. 

Now even the Materialists are quite harmless, and may be regarded as 
the friends of Theosophy, when compared to some fanatical " Christian " 
as they call themselves, " Sectarian as we call them Kabalists, on the 
Continent. These read the Zohar, not to find in it ancient Wisdom, but, by 
mangling the texts and meaning, to discover in its verses Christian dogmas, 
where none could ever have been meant ; and, having fished them out with 
the collective help of Jesuitical casuistry and learning, the supposed " Kabalists " 
proceed to write books and to mislead less far-sighted students of the Kabalah. 1 

1 Such a Pseudo-Kabalist was the Marquis de Mirville in France, who studied the Zohar and other 
old remnants of Jewish Wisdom under the " Chevalier " Drach, an ancient Rabbi Kabalist converted 
to the Romish Church, and with his help wrote half a dozen volumes full of slander and calumnies 



ON THE MYTH OF THE - FALLEN ANGELS " 45 

May we not then be permitted to drag the deep rivers of the Past, and 
thus bring to the surface the root idea that led to the transformation of the 
Wisdom-God, who had first been regarded as the Creator of everything that 
exists, into an Angel of Evil a ridiculous horned biped, half goat and half 
monkey, with hoofs and a tail ? We need not go out of the way to compare 
the Pagan Demons of either Egypt, India, or Chaldea with the Devil of 
Christianity, for no such comparison is possible. But we may stop to glance 
at the biography of the Christian Devil, a piratical reprint from the Chaldeo- 
Judean mythology. 

The primitive origin of this personification rests upon the Akkadian 
-conception of the Cosmic Powers the Heavens and the Earth in eternal 
feud and struggle with Chaos. Their Silik-Muludag (? Muru-dug), " the God 
.amongst all the Gods," the " merciful guardian of men on Earth," was the 
son of Hea (or Ea) the gceat God of Wisdom, called by the Babylonians 
Nebo. With both peoples, as also in the case of the Hindu Gods, their 
deities were both beneficent and maleficent. As evil and punishment are the 
agents of Karma, in an absolutely just retributive sense, so Evil was the 
servant of the Good. 1 The reading of the Chaldeo-Assyrian tiles has now 
demonstrated this beyond a shadow of doubt. We find the same idea in the 
Zohar. Satan was a Son and an Angel of God. With all the Semitic nations, 
the Spirit of the Earth was as much the Creator in his own realm as the Spirit 
of the Heavens. They were twin brothers and interchangeable in their 
functions, when not two in one. Nothing of that which we find in Genesis 
is absent from the Chaldeo-Assyrian religious beliefs, even in the little that 
has hitherto been deciphered. The great " Face of the Deep " of Genesis 
is traced in the Tohu Bohu (" Deep " or " Primeval Space "), or Chaos, of 
the Babylonians. Wisdom, the great Unseen God called in Genesis 
the " Spirit of God " lived, for the older Babylonians as for the Akkadians, 
in the Sea of Space. Toward the days described by Berosus, this Sea 
became the Visible Waters on the face of the Earth the crystalline abode 
of the Great Mother, the Mother of Ea and all the Gods, which became, still 
later, the great Dragon Tiamat, the Sea Serpent. Its last stage of develop- 
ment was the great struggle of Bel with the Dragon the Devil ! 

Whence the Christian idea that God cursed the Devil ? The God of the 
Jews, whosoever he was, forbids cursing Satan. Philo Judaeus and Josephus 

against every prominent Spiritualist and Kabalist. From 1848 up to 1860 he persecuted unrelentingly 
the old Count d'Ourches, one of the earliest Eastern Occultists in France, a man the scope of whose 
Occult knowledge will never be appreciated correctly by his survivors, because he screened his real 
beliefs and knowledge under the mask of Spiritism. 
1 See Hibbert Lectures, 1887, pp. 101-15 



46 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

both state the Law (the Pentateuch and the Talmud) undeviatingly forbid one 
to curse the Adversary, and also the Gods of the Gentiles. " Thou shalt not 
revile the gods/' quoth the God of Moses, 1 for it is God who " hath divided 
[them] unto all nations " ; ~ and those who speak evil of " Dignities " (Gods) 
are called " filthy dreamers " by Jude. 

Yet Michael the Archangel . durst not bring against him [the Devil] a railing 
accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. ! 

Finally the same is repeated in the Talmud : { 

Satan appeared one day to a man who used to curse him daily, and said to- 
him: "Why dost thou this?" Consider that God himself would not curse me, but 
merely said : " The Lord rebuke thee, Satan."' 

This piece of Talmudic information shows plainly (a) that St. Michael 
is called " God " in the Talmud, and somebody else the " Lord/' and (fa) 
that Satan is a God, of whom even the " Lor<jj " is in fear. All we read in 
the Zohar and other kabalistic works on Satan shows plainly that this " person- 
age " is simply the personification of the abstract Evil, which is the weapon 
of Karmic Law and Karma. It is our human nature and man himself, as it is 
said that " Satan is always near and inextricably interwoven with man." It is 
only a question of that Power being latent or active in us. 

It is a well-known fact to learned Symbologists at all events that in 
every great religion of antiquity, it is the Logos Demiurge the Second Logos, 
or the first emanation from the Mind, Mahat who is made to strike, so to 
say, the key-note of that which may be called the correlation of Individuality 
and Personality in the subsequent scheme of evolution. It is the Logos who 
is shown, in the mystic symbolism of Cosmogony, Theogony, and Anthro- 
pogony, playing two parts in the drama of Creation and Being that of the 
purely human Personality and the divine Impersonality of the so-called 
Avataras, or divine Incarnations, and of the Universal Spirit, called Christos by 
the Gnostics, and the Fravashi (or Ferouer) of Ahura Mazda in the Mazdean 
Philosophy. On the lower rungs of Theogony the Celestial Beings of lower 
Hierarchies had each a Fravashi, or a Celestial " Double." It is the same, 
only still more mystic, reassertion of the kabalistic axiom, " Deus est Demon 
inversus " : the word " Demon," however, as in the case of Socrates, and 
in the Spirit of the meaning given to it by the whole of antiquity, standing 
for the Guardian Spirit, an " Angel," not a Devil of Satanic descent as Theol- 
ogy would have it. The Roman Catholic Church shows its usual logic and 

1 Exodus, xxxn, 28 ~ Deut., iv, 19. l Jude, 8, 9. 

* See Isis Unveiled, u. 487, et seq 

' Treat. Kiddusheem, p. 81 But see Myer's Qabbalah, pp 93-4. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE - FALLEN ANGELS " 47 

consistency by accepting St. Michael as the Ferouer of Christ. This Ferouer 
was his " Angel Guardfan," as proved by St. Thomas/ who, however, calls 
the prototypes and synonyms of Michael, such as Mercury for example, 
Devils ! 

The Church positively accepts the tenet that Christ has his Ferouer as 
any other God or mortal has. Writes De Mirville : 

Here we have the two heroes of the Old Testament, the Verbum [?] (or 
second Jehovah), and his Face [" Presence," as the Protestants translate], both making 
but one, and yet being two, a mystery which seemed to us unsolvable before we had 
studied the doctrine of the Mazdean Ferouers, and learnt that the Ferouer was the 
spiritual potency, at once image, face, and guardian of the Soul which finally assimilates 
the Ferouer/' 

This is a/most correct. 

Among other absurdities, the Kabalists maintain that the word Metatron,. 
being divided into meta-thronon (^era, Qpovov), means near the throne."" It 
means quite the reverse, as meta means " beyond " and not " near." This is 
of great importance in our argument. St. Michael, then, the " quis ut 
Deus" [who is as God], is the translator, so to speak, of the invisible world 
into the visible and the objective. 

They maintain, furthermore, along with the Roman Catholic Church, that 
in the Biblical and Christian Theology there does not exist a " higher celestial per- 
sonality after the Trinity, than that of the Archangel, or the Seraphim, Michael." 
According to them, the conqueror of the Dragon is the Archisatrap of the 
sacred militia, the guardian of the planets, the king of the stars, the slayer of 
Satan and the powerful rector. In the mystic Astronomy of these gentlemen, 
he is the conqueror of Ahriman, who having upset the sidereal throne of the 
usurper, bathes in his stead in the solar fires ; and, defender of the Christ- 
Sun, he approaches so near his Master, "that he seems to become one with, 
him." : Owing to this fusion with the Word (Verbum) the Protestants, and 
among them Calvin, ended by losing sight entirely of the duality, and saw no 
Michael " but only his Master," writes the Abbe Caron. The Roman Catholics, 
and especially their Kabalists, know better ; and it is they who explain to the 
world this duality, which affords them the means of glorifying the chosen ones 
of the Church, and of rejecting and anathematizing all those Gods who may 
be in the way of their dogmas. 

1 Marangone, in his Dello Grandezze del Archangelo Sancti Mikaele, exclaims " O grandest Star, 
who followest the Sun who is Christ ! . . living image of Divinity ' O great thaumaturgist of the 
Old Testament ' O invisible Vicar of Christ in his Church ' . . ." The work is held in great honour in 
the Latin Church 

- Des Espnts, Tome v, p 516 '* Ibid., p. 515 

Ibid , v, p 514. 



48 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Thus the same titles and the same names are given in turn to God and 
the Archangel. Both are called Metatron, " both have the name of Jehovah 
applied to them when they speak one in the other " (sic), for, according to the 
Zohar, the term signifies equally the " Master and the ambassador." Both are 
the " angel of the face," because, as we are informed, if on the one hand the 
"Word " is called "the face [or the Presence] and the image of the sub- 
stance of God," on the other, "when speaking of the Saviour to the Israelites, 
Isaiah tells them " that " in all their affliction the angel of his presence saved 
them " "so he was their Saviour." l Elsewhere Michael is called very plainly 
the "Prince of the faces of the Lord," the " Glory of the Lord." Both 
Jehovah and Michael are the ' ' Guides of Israel ~ . . . Chiefs of the armies of 
the Lord, supreme judges of the souls and even seraphs." ' 5 

The whole of the above is given on the authority of various works by 
Roman Catholics, and must, therefore, be orthodox. Some expressions are 
translated to show what subtle Theologians and Casuists mean by the term 
Ferouer,' a word borrowed by some French writers from the Zend A vesta, as 
said, and utilized in Roman Catholicism for a purpose Zoroaster was very far 
-from anticipating. In Fargard xix (verse u), of the Vend/dad it is said : 

Invoke, O Zarathushtra ' my Fravashi, who am Ahura Mazda, the greatest, the 
best, the fairest of all beings, the most solid, the most intelligent, . . . and whose soul 
is the holy Word (Mathra Spenta).' 

The French Orientalists translate Fravashi by Ferouer. 

Now what is a Ferouer, or Fravashi ? In some Mazdean works it is plainly 
implied that Fravashi is the inner, immortal Man, or the Ego which reincar- 
nates ; that it existed before the physical body and survives all such bodies it 
'happens to be clothed in. 

Not only man was endowed with a Fravashi, but gods too, and the sky, fire, 
waters, and plants.' 1 

This shows as plainly as can be shown that the Ferouer is the " spiritual 
counterpart" of either God, animal, plant, or even element, i.e.. the refined 
-and the purer part of the grosser creation, the soul of the body, whatever the 
body may happen to be. Therefore does Ahura Mazda recommend Zara- 
thustra to invoke his Fravashi and not himself (Ahura Mazda) ; that is to say, 

1 Isaiah, Ixin, 8, 9. - Metator and f)<y/J,(t)V. 

{ Des Esprits, Tome v, pp 514-5 " La Face et le Representant du Verbe." 

'That which is called in the Vend/dad Fravashi, the immortal part of an individual , that which 
.outlives man*- the Higher Ego, say the Occultists, or the Divine Double. 

1 Darmesteter's Trans , Sacred Books of the East, Vol. iv, p. 208. 

'"' Orm. Ahr., 112-3 , quoted by Darmesteter, Sacred Books of the East, Vol iv, introd., p Ixxiv. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE - FALLEN ANGELS " 49 

the impersonal and true Essence of Deity, one with Zoroaster's own Atma (or 
Christos), not the false and personal appearance. This is quite clear. 

Now it is on this divine and ethereal prototype that the Roman Catholics 
have seized so as to build up the supposed difference between their God and 
Angels and the Deity and its aspects, or the Gods of the old religions. Thus, 
while calling Mercury, Venus, Jupiter (whether as Gods or Planets) Devils, they 
at the same time make of the same Mercury the Ferouer of their Christ. This 
fact is undeniable. Vossius ] proves that Michael is the Mercury of the Pagans, 
and Maury and other French writers corroborate him, and add that according 
to great Theologians Mercury and the Sun are one, (?) and no wonder, they 
think, since Mercury being so near the Wisdom and the Verbum (the Sun), 
must be absorbed by and confounded with him. 2 

This " Pagan " view was accepted from the first century of our era, as 
shown in the original Acts of the Apostles (the English translation being 
worthless). So much is Michael the Mercury of the Greeks and other 
nations, that when the inhabitants of Lystra mistook Paul and Barnabas for 
Mercury and Jupiter, saying, " The gods are come down to us in the likeness 
of men " 3 the text adds : " And they called Barnabas, Jupiter [Zeus], and 
Paul, Mercury, [Hermes], because he was the leader of the Word (Logos)," ' 
and not " the chief speaker," as erroneously translated in the Authorized, and 
repeated even in the Revised, English Bible. Michael is the Angel of the 
vision in Daniel, the Son of God, " who was like unto a Son of Man." It is 
the Hermes-Christos of the Gnostics, the Anubis-Syrius of the Egyptians, 
the Counsellor of Osiris in ^Amenti, the Leontoid Michael-Ophiomorphos 
(o<f>io/jiop<f>os) of the Ophites, who wears on certain Gnostic jewels a lion's 
head, like his father lldabaoth/' 

Now to all this the Roman Catholic Church tacitly consents, many of her 
writers even avowing it publicly. Unable to deny the flagrant " borrowing " 
of their Church, who " spoiled " her seniors of their symbols, as the Jews 
had " spoiled " the Egyptians of their jewels of silver and gold, they explain 
the fact quite coolly and seriously. Thus the writers who have hitherto been 
timid enough to see. in this repetition by Christian dogmas of old Pagan ideas, 
" a legendary plagiarism perpetrated by man," are gravely assured that, far 
from such a simple solution of the almost perfect resemblance, it has to be 
attributed to quite another cause "to a pre-historical plagiarism, of a super- 
human origin." 

1 De Idol., ii, p. 373. J See De Mirville, Tome v, p. 515. 

1 Acts, xiv, 11. 4 Ibid., 12. 

1 Ibid. See also plates in King's Gnostics and their Remains, 
F 4 



50 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

If the reader would know how, he must again kindly turn to the same 
volume of De Mirville's work. 1 Please note that this author was the official 
and recognized defender of the Roman Church, and was helped by the learn- 
ing of all the Jesuits. There we read : 

We have pointed out several demi-gods, and also " very historical " heroes of 
the Pagans, who were predestined from the moment of their birth, to ape, while at the 
same time they dishonoured, the nativity of the hero, who was quite God, before 
whom the whole earth had to bow , we have traced them being born as he was, from- 
an immaculate mother : we have seen them strangling serpents in their cradles, 
fighting against demons, performing miracles, dying as martyrs, descending to the 
nether world and rising again from the dead And we have bitterly deplored that 
timid and shy Christians should feel compelled to explain all such identities on the 
ground of coincidence of myth and symbol. They forget apparently these words of 
the Saviour, " all that came before me are thieves [and robbers] " a word which ex- 
plains all without any absurd negation and which we have commented on in these- 
words, " The Evangel is a sublime drama, parodied and played before its appointed 
time by ruffians." 

The " ruffians " (les dro/es), are of course Demons whose manager is 
Satan. Now this is the easiest and the most sublime and simple way of 
getting out of the difficulty ! The Rev. Dr. Lundy, a Protestant De Mirville, 
followed the happy suggestion in his Monumental Christianity, and so did 1 
Dr. Sepp' of Munich in his works written to prove the divinity of Jesus and the 
Satanic origin of all other Saviours. So much greater the pity that a system- 
atic and collective plagiarism which went on for several centuries on the 
most gigantic scale, should be explained by another plagiarism, this time in* 
the fourth Gospel. For the sentence quoted from it, " All that ever came 
before me," etc., is a verbatim repetition of words written in the Book of 
Enoch. In the Introduction to Archbishop Laurence's translation from an 
Ethiopic MS. in the Bodleian Library, the editor, author of the Evolution of 
Christianity, remarks : 

In revising the proof-sheets of the Book of Enoch, we have been still further 
impressed by relationship with New Testament Scripture. Thus, the parable of the 
sheep, rescued by the good Shepherd from hireling guardians and ferocious wolves, 
is obviously borrowed by the fourth Evangelist from 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 " lan- 
guage in which we now detect an obvious reference to the allegorical shepherds of 
Enoch. 2 

It is too late in the day to claim that it is Enoch who borrowed from the 
New Testament, instead of vice versa. Jude (14, 15) quotes verbatim from 

1 Tome v, p. 518 - The Book of Enoch the Prophet, p. xlviii, 1883. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE "FALLEN ANGELS" 5t 

Enoch a long passage about the coming of the Lord with his ten thousand 
saints, and naming the prophet specifically acknowledges the source. 

In ... perfecting the parallelism between prophet and apostle, [we] have 
placed beyond controversy that, in the eyes of the author of an Epistle accepted as 
Divine revelation, the Book of Enoch was the inspired production of an antediluvian- 
patriarch . . . 

The cumulative coincidence of language and ideas in Enoch and the authors of 
New Testament Scripture, . . . 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, im- 
mortality, 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 Enocn 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 l 

" Antediluvian," truly ; but if the phraseology of the text dates hardly a 
few centuries or even millenniums before the historical era, then it is no longer 
the original prediction of the events to come, but is, in its turn, a copy of 
some scripture of a pre-historic religion. 

In the Krita age, Vishnu, in the form of Kapila and other (inspired teachers) 
. . . imparts . . . true wisdom [as Enoch did]. In the Treta age he restrains the wicked, 
in the form of a universal monarch [Chakravartin, the " Everlasting King " of Enocif] 
and protects the three worlds [or Races]. In the Dvapara age, in the person of Veda- 
vyasa, he divides the one Veda into four, and distributes it into hundreds (Shata) of 
branches ' 

Truly so ; the Veda of the earliest Aryans, before it was written, went 
forth into every nation of the Atlanto-Lemurians, and sowed the first seeds of 
all the now existing old religions. The off-shoots of the never dying Tree of 
Wisdom have scattered their dead leaves even on Judaeo-Christianity. And 
at the end of the Kali, our present Age, Vishnu, or the " Everlasting King," 
will appear as Kalki, and re-establish righteousness upon earth. The minds of 
those who live at that time shall be awakened, and become as pellucid as 
crystal. 

The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time [the Sixth Race] 
shall be as the seeds of other human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall 
follow the laws of the Krita age of purity ; 

i.e., it shall be the Seventh Race, the Race of " Buddhas," the " Sons of 
God," born of immaculate parents. 

1 Op. cit., pp. xxxiv, xxxv. 

- Saith Uriel in the Book of Enoch (xxvi, 3)- " Those who have received mercy shall for ever 
bless God ... the Everlasting King "who will reign over them. 

' Vishnu Parana, Wilson's Trans., Vol. iii, p. 31. 



52 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

B. THE GODS OF LIGHT PROCEED FROM THE 
GODS OF DARKNESS 

Thus it is pretty well established that Christ, the Logos, or the God in 
Space and the Saviour on Earth, is but one of the echoes of this same ante- 
diluvian and sorely misunderstood Wisdom. Its history begins by the descent 
on Earth of the " Gods " who incarnate in mankind, and this is the " Fall." 
Whether Brahma hurled down on Earth by Bhagavan in the allegory, or Jupiter 
by Kronos, all are the symbols of the human races. Once having touched 
this planet of dense Matter, the snow-white wings of even the highest Angel 
can no longer remain immaculate, or the Avatara (or incarnation) be perfect, 
as every such Avatara is the fall of a God into generation. Nowhere is the 
metaphysical truth more clear, when explained Esoterically, or more hidden 
from the average comprehension of those who instead of appreciating the 
sublimity of the idea can only degrade it than in the Upanishads, the esoteric 
glossaries of the Vedas. The Rig Veda, as Guignault characterized it, " is the 
most sublime conception of the great highways of humanity." The Vedas are, 
and will remain for ever, in the Esotericism of the Vedanta and the Upanishads, 
"jkhe mirror of the Eternal Wisdom." 

For upwards of sixteen centuries the new masks, forced over the faces 
of the old Gods, have screened them from public curiosity, but they have 
finally proved a misfit. Yet the metaphorical FALL, and the as metaphorical 
Atonement and Crucifixion, have led Western Humanity through roads knee- 
deep in blood. Worse than all, they have led it to believe in the dogma of 
the Evil Spirit distinct from the Spirit of all Good, whereas the former lives in 
all Matter and pre-eminently in man. Finally it has created the God-slandering 
dogma of Hell and eternal perdition ; it has spread a thick film between the 
higher intuitions of man and divine verities ; and, most pernicious result of all, 
it has made people remain ignorant of the fact that there were no fiends, no 
dark demons in the Universe before man's own appearance on this, and 
probably on other Earths. Hence the people have been led to accept, as 
the problematical consolation for this world's sorrows, the thought of 
original sin. 

The philosophy of that Law in Nature, which implants in man as well as 
in every beast a passionate, inherent, and instinctive desire for freedom and 
self-guidance, pertains to Psychology and cannot be touched on now, for to 
demonstrate this feeling in higher Intelligences, to analyze and give a 
natural reason for it, would necessitate an endless philosophical explanation 
for which there is here no room. Perhaps the best synthesis of this 



ON THE MYTH OF THE FALLEN ANGELS " 53 

feeling is found in three lines of Milton's Paradise Lost, Book i. Says the 
" Fallen One " : 

Here we may reign secure ; and in my choice, 

To reign is worth ambition, though in hell f 

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven ! 

Better be man, the crown of terrestrial production and king over its opus 
operatum, than be lost among the will-less Spiritual Hosts in Heaven. 

We have said elsewhere that the dogma of the first Fall rested on a 
few verses in Revelation, which are now shown to be a plagiarism from 
Enoch by some scholars. These have given rise to endless theories and 
speculations, which have gradually acquired the importance of dogma and in- 
spired tradition. Every one sought to explain the verse about the seven- 
headed dragon with his ten horns and seven crowns, whose tail " drew the 
third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth," and whose 
place, with that of his Angels, " was found no more in heaven." What the 
seven heads of the Dragon (or Cycle) mean, and its five wicked kings also r 
may be learned in the Addenda which close Part 3 of this Volume. 

From Newton to Bossuet speculations were incessantly evolved in Christian 
brains with regard to these obscure verses. Says Bossuet : 

The star that falls is the heresiarch Theodosius. . . . The clouds of smoke are 
the heresies of the Montanists. . . . The third part of the stars are the martyrs, and 
especially the doctors of divinity. 

Bossuet ought to have known, however, that the events described in 
Revelation were not original, and may, as shown, be found in other and Pagan 
traditions. There were no scholastics nor Montanists during Vedic times, nor 
yet far earlier in China. But Christian Theology had to be protected and saved. 

This is only natural. But why should truth be sacrificed in order to pro- 
tect from destruction the lucubrations of Christian Theologians ? 

The " princeps aeris fiu/us," the "Prince of the Air," of St. Paul, is not 
the Devil, but the effects of the Astral Light, as Eliphas Levi correctly explains. 
The Devil is not the "God of this period," as he says, for it is the Deity of 
every age and period since Man appeared on Earth, and Matter in its count- 
less forms and states had to fight for its evanescent existence against other 
disintegrating Forces. 

The " Dragon " is simply the symbol of the Cycle and of the " Sons of 
Manvantaric Eternity," who had descended on Earth during a certain epoch of 
its formative period. The " clouds of smoke " are geological phenomena. 
The " third part of the stars of heaven," cast down to the Earth, refers to the 
Divine Monads the Spirits of the Stars in Astrology that circumambulate 
our Globe ; i.e., the human Egos destined to perform the whole Cycle of 



54 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Incarnations. The sentence, " qui circumambulat terram " [who " walketh 
about/' (the earth) 1 ], however, is again referred to the Devil in Theology, 
the mythical Father of Evil being said to " fall like lightning." Unfortunately 
for this interpretation, the " Son of Man," or Christ, is expected, on the 
personal testimony of Jesus, to descend on Earth likewise, " as the lightning 
cometh out of the east," 2 just in the same shape and under the same symbol 
as Satan, who is seen to fall " as lightning . . . from heaven. " :{ All these 
metaphors and figures of speech, pre-eminently Oriental in their character, 
must have their origin searched for in the East. In all the ancient Cosmog- 
onies Light comes from Darkness. In Egypt, as elsewhere, Darkness was " the 
principle of all things." Hence Pymander, the " Thought Divine," issues as 
Light from Darkness. Behemoth l is the principle of Darkness, or Satan, in 
Roman Catholic Theology, and yet Job says of him that Behemoth is " the chief 
principle] of the ways of God " " Principium viarum Domini Behemoth !" r> 

Consistency does not seem to be a favourite virtue in any portion of 
Divine Revelation, so-called not as interpreted by Theologians, at any rate. 

The Egyptians and the Chaldeans referred the birth of their Divine 
Dynasties to that period when creative Earth was in her last final throes in 
giving birth to her pre-historic mountain ranges, which have since disappeared, 
her seas and her continents. Her face was covered with " deep Darkness 
and in that [Secondary] Chaos was the principle of all things " that developed 
on the Globe later on. Our Geologists have now ascertained that there was 
such a terrestrial conflagration in the early geological periods, several hundred 
millions of years ago.' 1 As to the tradition itself, every country and nation 
had it, each under its respective national form. 

It is not alone Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia or Mexico, that had its Typhon, 
Python, Loki, and its " falling " Demon, but China also. The Celestials have 
a whole literature upon the subject. It is said that in consequence of the 
rebellion against Ti of a proud Spirit, who said he was Ti himself, seven Choirs 
of Celestial Spirits were exiled upon Earth, which " brought a change in all 
Nature, Heaven itself bending down and uniting with Earth." 

In the Y-f\/ng, one reads : 

The flying Dragon, superb and rebellious, suffers now, /ind his pride is punished ; 
he thought he would reign in Heaven, he reigns only on the E/arth. 

1 I Peter, v, 8. Matthew, xxiv, 27. ;{ Luke, x, 18. 

4 The Protestant Bible defines Behemoth innocently " The elephant as some think " , see mar- 
ginal note (Job, xl. 15) in the Authorized Version 

1 Job, xl, 19. 

(J Astronomy, however, knows nothing of stars that have disappeared, unless it be simply from visi- 
bility ; but never from existence since the science of Astronomy became known. Temporary stars are 
only variable stars, and it is believed that even the new stars of Kepler and Tycho Brahe 1 may still 
be seen. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE -FALLEN ANGELS" 55 

Again; the Tchoon-Ts/eoo 1 says allegorically : 

One night the stars ceased shining in darkness, and deserted it, falling down like 
rain upon the Earth, where they are now hidden. 

These stars are the Monads. 

Chinese Cosmogonies have their "Lord of the Flame" and their 
" Celestial Virgin/' with little " Spirits to help and minister to her ; and big 
Spirits to fight those who are the enemies of other Gods." But all this does 
not prove that the said allegories are presentments or prophetic writings which 
all refer to Christian Theology. 

The best proof one can offer to Christian Theologians that the Esoteric 
statements in the Bible in both Testaments are the assertion of the same 
idea as in our Archaic Teachings, to wit, that the " Fall of the Angels " 
referred simply to the Incarnation of Angels "who had broken through the 
Seven Circles" is found in the Zohar. Now the Kabalah of Simeon Ben 
Jochai is the soul and essence of the allegorical narrative, as the later Christian 
Kabalah is the " dark cloaked " Mosaic Pentateuch. And it says (in the 
Agrippa MSS.) : 

The Wisdom of the Kabalah rests in the Science of the Equilibrium and Harmony. 

Forces that manifest without having been first equilibrized perish in Space 
[" equilibrized " meaning differentiated]. 

Thus perished the first Kings [the Divine Dynasties] of the Ancient World, the 
self-Produced Princes of Giants. They fell like rootless tre^ps, and were seen no more ; 
for they were the Shadow of the Shadow [to wit, the Chhaya of the Shadowy Pitris]. ' 

But those that came after them, who shooting down like falling stars were en- 
shrined in the Shadows prevailed to this day [Dhyanis, who by incarnating in those 
" empty Shadows," inaugurated the era of mankind]. 

Every sentence in the ancient Cosmogonies unfolds to him who can read 
between the lines the identity of the ideas, though under different garbs. 

The first lesson taught in Esoteric Philosophy is, that the Incognizable Cause 
does not put forth evolution, whether consciously or unconsciously, but only 
exhibits periodically different aspects of Itself to the perception of finite minds. 
Now the Collective Mind the Universal composed of various and number* 
less Hosts of Creative Powers, however infinite in Manifested Time, is still 
finite when contrasted with the Unborn and Undecaying Space in its supreme 
essential aspect. That which is finite cannot be perfect. Therefore there are 
inferior Beings among those Hosts, but there never have been any Devils or 
"disobedient Angels," for the simple reason that they are all governed by 
Law. The Asuras (call them by any other name you will) who incarnated, 

1 [Or Chuan Hsueh pien a work on education ] 
* This refers to the " King of Edom." 



56 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

followed in this a law as implacable as any other. They had manifested prior 
to the Pitris, and as Time (in Space) proceeds in Cycles, their turn had come 
hence the numerous allegories. The name " Asura " was first given by the 
Brahmans indiscriminately to those who opposed their mummeries and sacri- 
fices, as did the great Asura called Asurendra. It is to those ages, probably, 
that the origin of the idea of the Demon, as opposer and adversary, has to 
be traced. 

The Hebrew Elohim, called " God " in the translations, who create 
" Light," are identical with the Aryan Asuras. They are also referred to as 
the " Sons of Darkness," as a philosophical and logical contrast to Light 
Immutable and Eternal. The earliest Zoroastrians did not believe in Evil or 
Darkness being co-eternal with Good or Light, and they give the same inter- 
pretation. Ahriman is the manifested Shadow of Ahura Mazda (Asura Mazda), 
himself issued from Zeruana Akerne, the " Boundless [Circle of] Time," or the 
Unknown Cause. They say of the latter : 

Its glory is too exalted, its light too resplendent for either human intellect or 
mortal eye to grasp and see. 

Its primal emanation Is Eternal Light, which, from having been previously 
concealed in DARKNESS, was called to manifest itself and thus was formed 
Ormazd, the " King of Lite." He is the " First-born " in Boundless Time, 
but, like his own antetype (pre-existing spiritual idea), has lived within Dark- 
ness from all Eternity. n The six Amshaspends seven with himself, the Chief 
of all the primitive Spiritual Angels and Men, are collectively his Logos. The 
Zoroastrian Amshaspends create the World in six Days or periods also, and 
rest on the seventh ; but in the Esoteric Philosophy, that seventh is the first 
period or " Day," the so-called Primary Creation in Aryan Cosmogony. It is 
that intermediate >Eon which is the Prologue to creation, and which stands on 
the borderland between the uncreated eternal Causation and the produced 
finite effects ; a state of nascent activity and energy as the first aspect of the 
eternal immutable Quiescence. In Genesis, on which no metaphysical energy 
has been spent, but only an extraordinary acuteness and ingenuity to veil the 
Esoteric Truth, Creation begins at the third stage of manifestation. " God " 
or the Elohim are the " Seven Regents " of Pymander. They are identical 
with all the other Creators. 

But even in Genesis that period is hinted at by the abruptness of the 
picture, and the " Darkness " that was on the face of the Deep. The Elohim 
are shown to " create " that is to say, to build or to produce the two 
Heavens or " double " Heaven (not Heaven and Earth) ; which means, in so 
many words, that they separated the upper manifested (Angelic) Heaven, or 



ON THE MYTH OF THE - FALLEN ANGELS " 57 

plane of consciousness, from the lower or terrestrial plane ; the (to us) 
Eternal and Immutable /Cons from those Periods that are in space, time and 
duration ; Heaven from Earth, the Unknown from the Known to the pro- 
fane. Such is the meaning of the sentence in Pymander, which says that : 

Thought, the divine, which is Light and Life [Zeruana Akerne] produced through 
its Word, or first aspect, the other, operating Thought, which being the God of Spirit 
and Fire, constructed Seven Regents enclosing within their Circle the World of Senses 
named " Fatal Destiny." 

The latter refers to Karma ; the " Seven Circles " are the seven planets 
and planes, as also the seven Invisible Spirits, in the Angelic Spheres, whose 
visible symbols are the seven planets, 1 the seven Rishis of the Great Bear and 
other glyphs. As said of the Adityas by Roth : 

They are neither sun. nor moon, nor stars, nor dawn, but the eternal sustainers 
of this luminous life which exists as it were behind all these phenomena. 

It is they the "Seven Hosts" who, having "considered in their 
Father [Divine Thought] the plan of the operator," as says Pymander, desired 
to operate (or build the world with its creatures) likewise ; for, having been 
born " within the Sphere of Operation " the manifesting Universe such is 
the Manvantaric Law. And now comes the second portion of the passage, 
or rather of two passages merged into one to conceal the full meaning. Those 
who were born within the Sphere of Operation were " the brothers who 
loved him well." The latter the " him " were the Primordial Angels ; the 
Asuras, the Ahriman, the Elohim, or " Sons of God," of whom Satan was 
one all those Spiritual Beings who were called the " Angels of Darkness," 
because that Darkness is absolute Light, a fact now neglected if not entirely 
forgotten in Theology. Nevertheless, the spirituality of those much abused 
" Sons of Light " which is Darkness, must be evidently as great, in comparison 
with that of the Angels next in order, as the ethereality of the latter would be 
when contrasted with the density of the human body. The former are the 
" First-born," and therefore so near to the confines of pure quiescent Spirit 
as to be merely the " Privations " in the Aristotelian sense the Ferouers 
or the ideal types of those who followed. They could not create material, 
corporeal things ; and, therefore, were said in process of time to have refused 
to create, as commanded by "GOD" otherwise, to have rebelled. 

Perchance this is justified on the principle of the scientific theory which 
teaches us as to the effect of two sound waves of equal length meeting : 

If the two sounds be of the same intensity, their coincidence produces a sound 
four times the intensity of either, while their interference produces absolute silence. 

1 Another proof, if any were needed, that the ancient Initiates knew of more than seven planets 
is to be found in the V/snnu Parana, Vol. 11. p. 305 where, describing the chariots attached to Dhruva 
(the Pole Star), Parashara speaks of "the chariots of the nine planets," which are attached by 
aerial cords. 



58 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

While explaining some of the " heresies " of his day, Justin Martyr shows 
the identity of all the world religions at their starting points. The first Begin- 
ning opens invariably with the Unknown and Passive Deity, from which ema- 
nates a certain Active Power or Virtue, the Mystery that is sometimes called 
'WISDOM, sometimes the Son, very often God, Angel, Lord, and Logos. 1 The 
Hatter is sometimes applied to the very first Emanation, but in several systems 
it proceeds from the first Androgyne or Double Ray produced at the begin- 
ning by the Unseen. Philo depicts this Wisdom as male and female. But 
though its first manifestation had a beginning for it proceeded from Oulom 2 
(Aion, Time), the highest of the /Eons when emitted from the Father 
.it had remained with the Father before all creations, for it is part of 
him/ Therefore Philo Judaeus calls Adam Kadmon by the name " Mind 
the Ennoia of Bythos in the Gnostic System. " The Mind, let it be 
named Adam." 4 

As the old Magian books explain it, the whole event becomes clear. A 
thing can only exist through its opposite Hegel teaches us ; and only a little 
philosophy and spirituality are needed to comprehend the origin of the later 
dogma, which is so truly satanic and infernal in its cold and cruel wickedness. 
The Magians accounted for the Origin of Evil in their exoteric teachings in 
this way. " Light can produce nothing but Light, and can never be the origin 
of Evil " ; how then was Evil produced, since there was nothing coequal or 
like the Light in its production ? Light, say they, produced several Beings, all 
of them spiritual, luminous, and powerful. But a great One (the " Great 
Asura," Ahriman, Lucifer, etc.) had an evil thought, contrary to the Light. 
He doubted, and by that doubt he became dark. 

This is a little nearer to the truth, but still wide of the mark. There 
was no " evil thought " that originated the opposing Power, but simply 
Thought per se ; something which, being cogitative, and containing design 
and purpose, is therefore finite, and must thus find itself naturally in opposi- 
tion to pure Quiescence, the as natural state of absolute Spirituality and Per- 
fection. It was simply the Law of Evolution that asserted itself ; the progress 
of Mental Unfolding, differentiated from Spirit, involved and entangled already 
with Matter, into which it is irresistibly drawn. Ideas, in their very nature and 
essence, as conceptions bearing relation to objects, whether true or imaginary, 
are opposed to Absolute Thought, that Unknowable All of whose mysterious 

1 Justin, Cum Jryphone, p. 284. 

- A division indicative of time. 

* Sanchuniathon calls Time the oldest /Con, Protogonos, the " First-born." 
' Philo Judaeus, Cain and his Birth, p. xvii. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE FALLEN ANGELS " 59 

operations Mr. Spencer predicates that nothing can be said, but that " it has 
no kinship of nature with Evolution " 1 which it certainly has not. 2 

The Zohar gives it very suggestively. When the " Holy One " (the 
Logos) desired to create man, he called the highest Host of Angels and spake 
unto them what he wanted, but they doubted the wisdom of this desire and 
.answered : " Man will not continue one night in his glory " for which they 
were burnt (annihilated ?), by the " Holy " Lord. Then he called another, 
tower Host, and said the same. And they contradicted the " Holy One " : 
"What is the good of Man?" they argued. Still Elohim created Man, 
and when Man sinned there came the Hosts of Uzza and Azael, and twitted 
God : " Here is the Son of Man that thou hast made " they said. " Behold, 
he sinned ! " Then the Holy One replied : " If you had been among them 
{Men] you would have been worse than they." And he threw them from 
their exalted position in Heaven even down on to the Earth ; and " they were 
changed [into Men] and sinned after the women of the earth." 5 This is quite 
plain. No mention is made in Genesis (vi) of these " Sons of God " receiving 
punishment. The only reference to it in the Bible is in Jude : 

And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he 
jhath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.' 

And this means simply that the " Angels," doomed to incarnation, are 
tin the chains of flesh and matter, under the darkness of ignorance, till the 
" Great Day," which will come as always after the Seventh Round, after the 
expiration of the "Week," on the SEVENTH SABBATH, or in the post-Manvan- 
taric Nirvana. 

How truly Esoteric and consonant with the SECRET DOCTRINE is Pymander, 
the Thought Divine, of Hermes, may be inferred from its original and primitive 
translations in Latin and Greek only. On the other hand how disfigured it 
has been later on by Christians in Europe, is seen from the remarks and 
unconscious confess/ons made by de St. Marc, in his Preface and Letter to the 
Bishop of Ayre, in 1578. Therein, the whole cycle of transformations from a 
'Pantheistic and Egyptian into a Mystic Roman Catholic treatise is given, and 
we see how Pymander has become what it Is now. Still, even in St. Marc's 
translation, traces are found of the real PYMANDER the'" Universal Thought " 

1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2, p. 474. 

2 It is suggestive of that spirit of paradoxical negation so conspicuous in our day, that while the 
evolution hypothesis has won its rights of citizenship in Science as taught by Darwm and Haeckel, 
^et both the Eternity of the Universe and the Pre-existence of a Universal Consciousness, are rejected 
by modern Psychologists. " Should the Idealist be right, the doctrine of evolution is a dream," says 
Mr. Herbert Spencer. 

' Zohar, 9b 4 Verse 6. 



60 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

or " MIND." This is the translation from the old French translation, the 
original being given in the foot-note l in its quaint old French : 

Seven men [principles] were generated in Man. . . . The nature of the harmony 
of the Seven of the Father and of the Spirit. Nature . . . produced seven men ir> 
accordance with the natures of the Seven Spirits . . . having in them, potentially, the 
two sexes. 

Metaphysically, the Father and the Son are the " Universal Mind " and 
the " Periodical Universe " ; the " Angel " and the " Man." It is the SON 
and the FATHER at one and the same time ; in Pymander, the active IDEA and 
the passive THOUGHT that generates it ; the radical keynote in Nature which 
gives birth to the seven notes the septenary scale of the Creative Forces, 
and to the seven prismatic aspects of colour, all born from the one white ray r 
or LIGHT itself generated in DARKNESS. 

C. THE MANY MEANINGS OF THE "WAR IN HEAVEN" 

The SECRET DOCTRINE points out, as a self-evident fact, that Mankind, 
collectively and individually, is with all manifested Nature the vehicle 

(a) of the Breath of One Universal Principle, in its primal differentiation ; and 

(b) of the countless "breaths" proceeding from that One BREATH in its 
secondary and further differentiations, as Nature with its many mankinds 
proceeds downwards toward the planes that are ever increasing in materiality- 
The Primary Breath informs the higher Hierarchies ; the secondary the lower, 
on the constantly descending planes. 

Now there are many passages in the Bible which prove on their face, 
exoter/ca//y, that this belief was at one time universal ; and the two most 
convincing are Ezekiel, ch. xxviii and Isaiah, ch. xiv. Christian Theologians are 
welcome to interpret both as referring to the great War before Creation, the 
Epos of Satan's Rebellion, etc., if they so choose, but the absurdity of the 
idea is too apparent. Ezekiel addresses his lamentations and reproofs to the 
King of Tyre ; Isaiah to King Ahaz, who indulged in the worship of idols, as 
did the rest of the nation with the exception of a few Initiates (the Prophets, 

1 Mercure Trismegiste, Pimandre, chap, i, sec. 16 " Oh, ma pensee, que s'ensuit-il ? car je desire 
grandement ce propos Pimandre diet, ceci est un mystere cele, jusques a ce jour d'hui. Car nature, 
soit mestant avec Thome, a produit le miracle tres merveilleux, aiant celluy qui ie t'ay diet, la nature 
de I'harmonie des sept du pere, et de I'espnt. Nature ne s'arresta pas la, mats incontinent a produict 
sept homes, se/on les natures des sept gouverneurs en puissance des deux sexes et esleuez . . . La> 
generation de ces sept s'est donnee en ceste maniere ..." 

And a gap is made in the translation, which can be filled partially by resorting to the Latin text of 
Apuleius. The commentator, the Bishop, says : " Nature produced in him [man] seven men " (sever* 
principles). 



ON THE MYTH OF THE -FALLEN ANGELS" 61 

so-called), who tried to arrest it on its way to exotericism or idolatry, which 
is the same thing. Let the student judge. 
In Ezekiel, it is said : 

Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God [as we 
understand it, the " God" Karma]; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast 
said I am a God, . , . yet thou art a man. . . Behold, therefore, I will bring 
strangers upon thee, . . . and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy 
wisdom, . . . and they shall bring thee down to the pit [or Earth-life] . . .' 

The origin of the "prince of Tyrus" is to be traced to the " Divine 
Dynasties" of the iniquitous Atlanteans, the great Sorcerers. There is no 
metaphor in the words of Ezekiel, but actual history this time. For the voice 
in the prophet, the voice of the " Lord," his own Spirit, which spake unto him, 
says : 

Because . thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God(s) [Divine 
Dynasties], in the midst of the seas ; yet thou art a man. . . . Behold, thou art wiser 
than Daniel ; there is no secret that they can hide from thee . with thy wisdom . . . 
hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches. 
Behold, therefore . . . strangers . . shall draw their swords against the beauty of 
thy wisdom . They shall bring thee down . . . and thou shalt die the deaths of 
them that are slain in the midst of the seas." 

All such imprecations are not prophecy, but simply reminders of the fate 
of the Atlanteans, the " Giants on Earth." 

What can be the meaning of this last sentence if it is not a narrative of 
the fate of the Atlanteans? Again, "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy 
beauty,"' 5 may refer to the "Heavenly Man" in Pymander, or to the Fallen 
Angels, who are accused of having fallen through pride on account of the 
great beauty and wisdom which became their lot. There is no metaphor here, 
except in the preconceived ideas of our Theologians, perhaps. These verses 
relate to the Past and belong more to the Knowledge acquired at the 
Mysteries of Initiation than to retrospective clairvoyance ! Says the voice, again : 

Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God [in the Satya Yuga] ; every precious 
stone was thy covering . . . the workmanship of thy tabrets and thy pipes was 
prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub 
thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. . . . Thou 
wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in 
thee. Therefore I will cast thee . . out of the mountain of God, and . . . destroy 
thee. 4 

The " Mountain of God " means the " Mountain of the Gods " or Meru, 
whose representative in the Fourth Race was Mount Atlas, the last form of 
one of the divine Jitans, so high in those days that the ancients believed that 
the Heavens rested on its top. Did not Atlas assist the Giants in their War 

1 Ezekiel. ch. xxvm. 2-8. ' Ibid ' Ibid , 17. ' Ibid., 13-16. 



62 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

against the Gods (Hyginus) ? Another version shows the fable as arising from 
the fondness of Atlas, son of lapetus and Clymene, for Astronomy, and from 
his dwelling for that reason on the highest mountain peaks. The truth is that 
Atlas, the " Mountain of the Gods, and also the hero of that name, are the 
esoteric symbols of the Fourth Race, and his seven daughters, the Atlantides, 
are the symbols of its seven sub-races. Mount Atlas, according to all the 
legends, was three times as high as it is now ; for it has sunk at two different 
times. It is of a volcanic origin, and therefore the voice within Ezekiel says 

Therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee. 1 

Surely it does not mean, as seems to be the case from the translated 
texts, that this fire was to be brought from the midst of the Prince of Tyrus, 
or his people, but from Mount Atlas, symbolizing the proud Race, learned in 
Magic and high in arts and civilization, whose last remnant was destroyed 
almost at the foot of the range of those once gigantic mountains. 

Truly, " thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more " ; * 
as the very name of the Race and its fate is now annihilated from man's 
memory. Bear in mind that almost every ancient king and priest was an 
Initiate ; that from toward the close of the Fourth Race there had been a 
feud between the Initiates of the Right and those of the Left Path ; finally, 
that the Garden of Eden is referred to by other personages than the Jews of 
the Adamic Race, since even Pharaoh is compared to the fairest tree of Eden 
by this same Ezekiel, who shows : 

All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, . . . comforted in the 
nether parts of the earth. [For] they also went down into hell with him [Pharaoh] ' 

unto the nether parts, which are in fact the bottom of the ocean, whose 
floor gaped wide to devour the lands of the Atlanteans and themselves. If 
one bears all this in mind and compares the various accounts, then one will 
find out that chapters xxviii and xxxi of Ezekiel do not relate to Babylon, 
Assyria, nor yet to Egypt, since none of these have been so destroyed, having 
simply fallen into ruins on the surface, not beneath the earth but indeed to 
Atlantis and most of its nations. And he will see that the " Garden of Eden " 
of the Initiates was no myth, but a locality now submerged. Light will dawn 
upon him, and he will appreciate such sentences as these at their true Esoteric 
value : " Thou hast been in Eden ; . . . thou wast upon the holy mountain 

I Ibid., 18. -Ibid., 19. 

II Ch. xxxi, 16, 17. The only Pharaoh whom the Bible shows going down into the Red Sea was the 
king who pursued the Israelites,, and who remained unnamed, for very good reasons perhaps. The 
story was surely made up from the Atlantean legend. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE FALLEN ANGELS " 63 

of God " l for every nation had and many still have holy mountains ; some- 
Himalayan Peaks, others Parnassus and Sinai. They were all places of Initiation-' 
and the abodes of the Chiefs of the communities of ancient and even modern; 
Adepts. And again : 

Behold, the Assyrian [why not Atlantean, Initiate ?] was a cedar in Lebanon ; 
... his height was exalted above all the trees. . . . The cedars in the garden of God 
could not hide him ... so that all the trees of Eden . . envied him. J 

Throughout all Asia Minor, the Initiates were called the " Trees of Right- 
eousness," and the Cedars of Lebanon, as also were some kings of Israel. So 
were the great Adepts in India, but only the Adepts of the Left Hand. When 
Vishnu Parana narrates that " the world was over-run with trees," while the- 
Prachetasas, who " passed 10,000 years of austerity in the vast ocean," were 
absorbed in their devotions, the allegory relates to the Atlanteans and the 
Adepts of the early Fifth Race the Aryans. Other " trees [Adept Sorcerers] 1 
spread, and overshadowed the unprotected earth ; and the people perished* 
. . . unable to labour for ten thousand years." Then the Sages, the Rishis 
of the Aryan Race, called Prachetasas, are shown " coming forth from the 
deep," :< and destroying by the wind and flame issuing from their mouths the 
iniquitous " Trees " and the whole vegetable kingdom ; until Soma (the 
Moon), the sovereign of the vegetable world, pacifies them by making alliance 
with the Adepts of the Right Path, to whom he offers as bride Marisha, the- 
" offspring of the trees." 1 This hints at the great struggle between the 
" Sons of God " and the Sons of the Dark Wisdom our forefathers ; or the: 
Atlantean and the Aryan Adepts. 

The whole history of that period is allegorized in the Ramayana, which- 
is the mystic narrative in epic form of the struggle between Rama the first 
king of the Divine Dynasty of the early Aryans and Ravana, the symbolical 
personation of the Atlantean (Lanka) Race. The former were the incarnations 
of the Solar Gods ; the latter, of the Lunar Devas. This was the great battle 
between Good and Evil, between White and Black Magic, for the supremacy 
of the divine forces over the lower terrestrial, or cosmic powers. 

J Ch. xxvin, 13-14. >J Ch xxxi ( 3-9. 

1 Vishnu Parana, Wilson, Vol. Ill, p. 1 

4 This is pure allegory. The Waters are a symbol of Wisdom and of Occult Learning Hermes 
represented the Sacred Science under the symbol of Fire ; the Northern Initiates, under that of Water. 
The latter is the production of Nara, the "Spirit of God," or rather Paramitman, the "Supreme 
Soul," says Kulluka Bhatta , NarSyana meaning "he who abides in the deep " or is plunged in the- 
Waters of Wisdom "water being the body of Nara" (Vayu Purana) Hence arises the statement 
that for 10,000 years they remained in austerity " in the vast ocean " , and are shown emerging from> 
it Ea, the God of Wisdom, is the " Sublime Fish," and Dagon or Cannes is the Chaldean Man-Fish,, 
who emerges from the Waters to teach Wisdom 



64 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

If the student would understand better the last statement, let him turn to 
the Anugita episode of the Mahabharata, where the Brahmana tells his wife : 

I have, perceived by means of the self the seat abiding in the self (the seat) 
where dwells the Brahman free from the pairs of opposites, and the moon, together 
with the fire [or the sun], upholding (all) beings (as) the mover of the intellectual 
principle. 1 

The Moon is the deity of the mind (Manas) but only on the lower plane. 
Says a Commentary : 

Manas is dual Lunar in the lower, Solar in its upper portion. 

That is to say, it is attracted in its higher aspect towards Buddhi, and 
an its lower descends into, and listens to the voice of, its animal Soul 
full of selfish and sensual desires ; and herein is contained the mystery of an 
Adept's and of a profane man's life, as also that of the post mortem separa- 
tion of the divine from the animal Man. The Mahabharata every line of 
which has to be read esoterically discloses in magnificent symbolism and 
allegory the tribulations of both Man and Soul. Says the Brahmana in the 
Anugita : 

In the interior (within the body), in the midst of all these (life-winds) [ ? prin- 
ciples], which move about in the body and swallow up one another/ blazes the Vaish- 
vanara fire ' sevenfold. 1 

But the chief " Soul " is Manas or mind ; hence, Soma, the Moon, is 
shown as making an alliance with the solar portion in it, personified as the 
'Prachetasas. But of the seven keys that open the seven aspects of the 
Ramayana, as of every other Scripture, this is only one the metaphysical. 

The symbol of the "Tree" standing for various Initiates was almost 
universal. Jesus is called the " Tree of Life," as are also all the Adepts of the 
Good Law, while those of the Left Path are referred to as the "withering 
trees." John the Baptist speaks of the " axe " which " is laid unto the root of 
the trees "; 5 and the king of Assyria's armies are called "trees." G 

The true meaning of the Garden of Eden has been sufficiently given in 
/s/'s Unveiled. Now the writer has more than once heard surprise expressed 
that Isis Unveiled should contain so few of the doctrines now taught. This is 
quite erroneous. For the allusions to such teachings are plentiful, even if the 
teachings themselves were withheld. The time had not arrived then, as the 

1 Chap, v ; " Sacred Books of the East," vol. vin. p. 257. 

- This is explained by the able translator of Anugita in a foot-note (p. 258) in these words : " The 
sense appears to be this The course of worldly life is due to the operations of the life-winds which are 
.attached to the Self, and lead to its manifestations as individual souls/' 

* Vaishvanara is a word often used to denote the Self explains Nilakantha. 
4 Ibid., p. 259. Translated by Kashinath Trimbak Telang, M A.. Bombay. 
' Matthew, iii, 10. " Isaiah, x, 19. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE - FALLEN ANGELS " 65 

hour has not struck even now, to say all. " No Atlanteans, or the Fourth 
Race which preceded our Fifth Race, are mentioned in Isis Unveiled," wrote a 
critic on Esoteric Buddhism one day. I, who wrote Isis Unveiled, maintain 
that the Atlanteans are mentioned as our predecessors. For what can be 
plainer than the following statement, when speaking of the Book of Job : 

In the original text, instead of " dead things," it is written dead Rephaim (giants, 
or mighty primitive men), from whom " Evolution " may one day trace our present race. 1 

It is invited to do so now, now that this hint is explained quite openly ; 
but Evolutionists are as sure to decline nowadays as they did ten years ago. 
Science and Theology are against us : therefore we question both, and have 
to do so in self-defence. On the strength of hazy metaphors scattered 
throughout the prophets, and in St. John's Revelation, a grand but re-edited 
version of the Boofc of Enoch, on these insecure grounds Christian Theology 
ihas built its dogmatic Epos of the War in Heaven. It has done more : it has 
used the symbolical visions, intelligible only to the Initiates, as pillars upon 
which to support the whole bulky edifice of its religion ; and now the pillars 
have been found very weak reeds, and the cunning structure is foundering. 
The entire Christian scheme rests upon this Jakin and Boaz the two contrary 
"forces of Good and Evil, Christ and Satan, ai uyaBal /cal ai tea real Swdpcis 
good and evil forces]. Take away from Christianity its main prop of the 
Fallen Angels, and the Eden Bower vanishes, with its Adam and Eve, into thin 
.air ; and Christ, in the exclusive character of the One God and Saviour, and 
the Victim of Atonement for the sin of animal-man, becomes forthwith a use- 
Jess, meaningless myth. 

In an old number of the Revue Archeologique, a French writer, M. Maury, 
remarks : 

This universal strife between good and bad spirits seems to be only the reproduc- 
tion of another more ancient and more terrible strife, which, according to an ancient 
myth, took place before the creation of the universe, between the faithful and the 
^rebellious legions. 2 

Once more, it is a simple question of priority. Had John's Revelation 
been written during the Vedic period, and were not one sure now of its being 
simply another version of the Book of Enoch and the Dragon legends of Pagan 
antiquity the grandeur and the beauty of the imagery might have biassed 
the critics' opinion in favour of the Christian interpretation of that first War, 
whose battle-field was starry Heaven, and the first slaughterers the Angels. 
.As the matter now stands, however, one has to trace Revelation, event by 
event, to other and far older visions. For the better comprehension of t;he 

1 Op. c.t . I. 133. 8 1845, p. 41. 

F 5 



66 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

apocalyptic allegories and of the Esoteric epos we ask the reader to turn to 
Revelation, and to read chapter xii, from verse 1 to verse 7. 

This has several meanings, and much has been found out with regard 
to the astronomical and numerical keys of this universal myth. That which, 
may be now given, is a fragment, a few hints as to its secret meaning, as 
embodying the record of a real war, the struggle between the Initiates of the 
two Schools. Many and various are the still existing allegories built on this 
same foundation stone. The true narrative that which gives the full Esoteric 
meaning is in the Secret Books, but the writer has had no access to these. 

In the exoteric works, however, the episode of the Taraka War, and 
some Esoteric Commentaries, may offer a clue perhaps. In every Parana- 
the event is described with more or less variations which show its allegorical) 
character. 

In the Mythology of the earliest Vaidic Aryans as in the later Puranic 
narratives, mention is made of Budha, the "Wise," one "learned in the 
Secret Wisdom," who is the planet Mercury in his euhemerization. The Hindu 
Classical Dictionary credits Budha with being the author of a hymn in the Rig 
Veda. Therefore, he can by no means be " a later fiction of the Br^hmans," 
but is a very old personation indeed. 

It is by enquiring into his genealogy, or theogony rather, that the follow- 
ing facts are disclosed. As a myth, he is the son of Tara, the wife of Brihas- 
pati, the "gold coloured," and of Soma, the (male) Moon who, Paris-like, 
carries this new Helen of the Hindu Sidereal Kingdom away from her husband. 
This causes a great strife and war in Svarga (Heaven). The episode brings on 
a battle between the Gods and the Asuras. King Soma finds allies in Ushanas 
(Venus), the leader of the Danavas ; and the Gods are led by Indra and 
Rudra, who side with Brihaspati. The latter is helped by Shankara (Shiva), 
who, having had for his Guru Brihaspati's father, Angiras, befriends his son. 
Indra is here the Indian prototype of Michael, the Archistrategus and the slayer 
of the " Dragon's " Angels since one of his names is Jishnu, " leader of the 
celestial host." Both fight, as some Titans did against other Titans in defence 
of revengeful Gods, the one party in defence of Jupiter Tonans (in India, 
Brihaspati is the planet Jupiter, which is a curious coincidence) ; the other in 
support of the ever-thundering Rudra. During this war, Indra is deserted b>r 
his body-guard, the Storm-Gods (Maruts). The story is very suggestive in> 
some of its details. 

Let us examine some of them, and seek to discover their meaning. 

The presiding Genius, or " Regent " of the planet Jupiter is BRIHASPATI, 
the wronged husband. He is the Instructor or Spiritual Guru of the Gods,. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE FALLEN ANGELS " 67 

who are the representatives of the Procreative Powers. In the Rig Veda, he 
is called Brahmanaspati, the name "of a deity in whom the action of the 
worshipped upon the gods is personified." Hence Brahmanaspati represents 
the materialization of the " Divine Grace," so to say, by means of ritual and 
ceremonies, or the exoteric worship. 

TARA, 1 his wife, is, on the other hand, the personification of the powers, 
of one initiated into Gupta Vidya (Secret Knowledge), as will be shown. 

SOMA is the Moon astronomically ; but in mystical phraseology it is also 
the name of the sacred beverage drunk by the Brahmans and the Initiates 
during their mysteries and sacrificial rites. The Soma plant is the asc/ep/as 
ac/da, which yields a juice from which that mystic beverage, the Soma drink, 
is made. Alone the descendants of the Rishis, the Agnihotris, or Fire-priests, 
of the great Mysteries knew all its powers. But the real property of the true 
Soma was (and is) to make a new man of the Initiate, after he is reborn, 
namely once that he begins to live in his Astra/ Body ; " for, his spiritual nature 
overcoming the physical, he would soon snap it off and part even from that 
etherealized form/' 

Soma was never given in days of old to the non-initiated Brahman the 
simple Grihasta, or priest of the exoteric ritual. Thus Brihaspati, " Guru of 
the Gods " though he was, still represented the dead-letter form of worship. 
It is Tara, his wife, the symbol of one who, though wedded to dogmatic 
worship, longs for true Wisdom, who is shown as initiated in his mysteries by 
King Soma, the giver of that Wisdom. Soma is thus made to carry her away 
in the allegory. The result of this is the birth of Budha, Esoteric Wisdom 
Mercury, or Hermes, in Greece and Egypt. He is represented as "so 
beautiful," that even the husband, though well aware that Budha is not the 
progeny of his dead -letter worship claims the " new-born " as his Son, the 
fruit of his ritualistic and meaningless forms. 1 Such is, in brief, one of the 
meanings of the allegory. 

The War in Heaven refers to several events of this kind on various and 
different planes of being. The first is a purely astronomical and cosmical 
fact pertaining to Cosmogony. Mr. John Bentley thought that with the 

1 See Dowson's Hindu Classical Dictionary for further information on above 
- See Five Years of Theosophy, art., "The Elixir of Life." 

' The partaker of Soma finds himself both linked to his external body, and yet away from it in his 
spiritual form. Freed from the former, he soars for the time being in the ethereal higher regions, 
becoming virtually "as one of the Gods," and yet preserving in his physical brain the memory of 
what he sees and learns. Plainly speaking, Soma is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge forbidden by 
the jealous Elohim to Adam and Eve or Yah-ve, " lest man should become as one of us." 

4 We see the same in the modern exoteric religions. 



68 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Hindus the War in Heaven was only a figure referring to their calculations of 
time periods. 1 

This served as a prototype, he thinks, for the Western nations to build 
their War of the Titans upon. The author is not quite wrong, but neither is 
he quite right. If the sidereal prototype refers indeed to a pre-manvantaric 
period, and rests entirely on the knowledge which the Aryan Initiates claim 
they have of the whole programme and progress of cosmogony, 2 the War of 
the Titans is but a legendary and deified copy of the real war that took place 
in the Himalayan Kailasa (Heaven) instead of in the depths of cosmic inter- 
planetary Space. It is the record of the terrible strife between the " Sons of 
God " and the " Sons of the Shadow " of the Fourth and the Fifth Races. 
It is on these two events, blended together by legends borrowed from the 
exoteric account of the War waged by the Asuras against the Gods, that 
every subsequent national tradition on the subject has been built. 

Esoterically, the Asuras, transformed subsequently into evil Spirits and 
lower Gods, who are eternally at war with the Great Deities are the Gods 
of the Secret Wisdom. In the oldest portions of the Rig Veda, they are the 
Spiritual and the Divine, the term Asura being used for the Supreme Spirit 
and being the same as the great Ahura of the Zoroastrians. 3 There was a 
time when the Gods Indra, Agni, and Varuna themselves belonged to the 
Asuras. 

In the Jaittinya Brahmana, the Breath (Asu) of Brahma-Prajapati 
became alive, and from that Breath he created the Asuras. Later on, after 
the War, the Asuras are called the enemies of the Gods, hence " A -suras,' 
the initial a being a negative prefix or " No-Gods " ; the " Gods" being 

1 Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy. Quoting from the work in reference to " Argabhatta " 
[? Aryabhatta] who is said to give a near approach to the true relation among the various values for 
the computations of the value of 7T, the author of The Source of Measures reproduces a curious state- 
ment " Mr. Bentley," it is said, " was greatly familiar with the Hindu astronomical and mathemati- 
cal knowledge. . . . This statement of nis may then be taken as authentic The same remarkable 
trait, among so many Eastern and ancient nations, of sedulously concealing the arcana of this kind of 
knowledge, is a marked one among the Hindus. That which was given out to be popularly taught, 
and to be exposed to public inspection, was but the approximate of a more exact but hidden know- 
ledge And this very formulation of Mr. Bentley will strangely exemplify the assertion , and, explained, 
will show that it [the Hindu exoteric astronomy and sciences] was derived from a system exact beyond 
the European one, in which Mr. Bentley himself, of course, trusted, as far in advance of the Hindu 
knowledge, at any time, in any generation " (pp. 86, 87). 

This is Mr. Bentley's misfortune, and does not take away from the glory of the ancient Hindu 
Astronomers, who were all Initiates. 

2 The SECRET DOCTRINE teaches that every event of universal importance, such as geological 
cataclysms at the end of one Race and the beginning of a new one, involving a great change each 
time in mankind, spiritual, moral and physical- is precogitated and preconcerted, so to say, in the 
sidereal regions of our planetary system. Astrology is built wholly upon this mystic and intimate 
connection between the heavenly bodies and mankind , and it is one of the great secrets of Initiation 
and Occult Mysteries. 

:{ See Darmesteter's Vendidad, Introd , p. Iviit, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. ii. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE -FALLEN ANGELS" 69 

referred to as Suras. This then connects the Asuras and their " Hosts/' 
enumerated further on, with the " Fallen Angels" of the Christian Churches, 
a Hierarchy of Spiritual Beings to be found in every Pantheon of ancient and 
even modern nations from the Zoroastrian down to that of the Chinaman. 
They are the Sons of the primeval Creative Breath at the beginning of every 
new Maha Kalpa, or Manvantara, in the same rank as the Angels who had 
remained "faithful." These were the a///es of Soma (the parent of the 
Esoteric Wisdom) as against Brihaspati (representing ritualistic or ceremonial 
worship). Evidently they have been degraded in Space and Time into 
opposing Powers or Demons by the ceremonialists, on account of their rebel- 
lion against hypocrisy, sham-worship, and the dead-letter form. 

Now what is the real character of all those who fought along with them ? 
They are : 

(1) Ushanas, or the "Host" of the Planet Venus, become now irv 
Roman Catholicism Lucifer, the Genius of the "day star," 1 the Tsaba, or 
Army of " Satan." 

(2) The Daityas and Danavas are the Titans, the Demons and Giants 
whom we find in the Bible 2 the progeny of the " Sons of God " and the 
" Daughters of Men." Their generic name shows their alleged character, and 
discloses at the same time the secret animus of the Brahmans ; for they are 
the Kratu-dvishas the " enemies of the sacrifices " or exoteric shams. These 
are the " Hosts " that fought against Brihaspati, the representative of exoter/c 
popular and national religions ; and Indra the God of the visible Heaven, 
the Firmament, who, in the early Veda, is the highest God of cosmic Heaven, 
the fit habitation for an extra-cosmic and personal God, higher than whom no 
exoteric worship can ever soar. 

(3) Then come the Nagas," the Sarpas, Serpents or Seraphs. These, 
again, show their character by the hidden meaning of their glyph. In mythol- 
ogy they are semi-divine beings with a human face and the tail of a dragon. 
They are therefore, undeniably, the Jewish Seraphim (compare Serapis, Sarpa, 
Serpent) ; the singular being Saraph, " burning, fiery." l Christian and Jewish 
angelology distinguishes between the Seraphim and the Cherubim or Cherubs, 
who come second in order : esoterically, and kabalistically, they are identical ; 
the Cherubim being simply the name for the images or likenesses of any of 

1 See Isaiah, x.v, 12 [Revised Version]. * Genes/s, vi. 

1 The Nagas are described by the Orientalists as a mysterious people whose landmarks are found" 
abundantly in India to this day, and who lived in Naga-dvtpa, one of the seven continents or divisions 
of Bharatavarsha (old India) ; the town of NUgpur being one of the most ancient cities in the country. 

4 See Isaiah, vi, 2, 3. 



70 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

the divisions of the celestial Hosts. Now, as said before, the Dragons and 
Nagas were the names given to the Initiate-hermits, on account of their great 
Wisdom and Spirituality and their living in caves. Thus, when Ezekiel l applies 
the adjective Cherub to the King of Tyre, and tells him that by his wisdom and 
his understanding there is no secret that can be hidden from him, he shows 
the Occultist that it is a " Prophet," perhaps still a follower of exoteric wor- 
ship, who fulminates against an /n/t/ate of another school and not against an 
imaginary Lucifer, a fallen Cherub from the stars, and then from the Garden 
of Eden. Thus the so-called " War " is, in one of its many meanings, also an 
allegorical record of the strife between the two classes of Adepts of the 
Right and of the Left Path. There were three classes of Rishis in India, who 
were the earliest Adepts known ; the Royal, or Rajarishis, kings and princes, 
who adopted the ascetic life ; the Divine, or Devarishis, or the sons of Dharma 
or Yoga ; and the Brahmarishis, descendants of those Rishis who were the 
founders of Gotras of Brahmans, or caste-races. Now, leaving the mythical 
and astronomical keys for one moment aside, the secret teachings show many 
Atlanteans who belonged to these divisions ; and there were strifes and wars 
between them, de facto and de jure. Narada, one of the greatest Rishis, was 
a Devarishi ; and he is shown in constant and everlasting feud with Brahma, 
Daksha, and other Gods and Sages. Therefore we may safely maintain that 
whatever the astronom/ca/ meaning of this universally accepted legend may be, 
its human phase is based on real and historical events, disfigured into a theo- 
logical dogma only to suit ecclesiastical purposes. As above so below. Sidereal 
phenomena, and the behaviour of the celestial bodies in the Heavens, were 
taken as a model, and the plan was carried out below, on Earth. Thus, Space, 
in its abstract sense, was called the " realm of divine knowledge," and by the 
Chaldees or Initiates Ab Soo, the habitat (or father, i.e., the source) of know- 
ledge, because it is in Space that dwell the intelligent Powers which invisibly 
rule the Universe. 2 

In the same manner, and on the plan of the Zodiac in the upper Ocean 
or the Heavens, a certain realm on Earth, an inland sea, was consecrated and 
called the " Abyss of Learning " ; twelve centres on it, in the shape of twelve 

1 Ch. xxvni, 3, 4 

2 Not less suggestive are the qualities attributed to Rudra Shiva, the great Yogi, the forefather of 
-all the Adepts in Esotericism one of the greatest Kings of the Divine Dynasties. Called the " ear- 
liest " and the " last," he is the patron of the Third, Fourth, and the Fifth Root-Races. For, in his 
earliest character, he is the ascetic Dig-ambara, "clothed with the elements," Tri-lochana, the 
" three-eyed," Panchfinana, the " five-faced," an allusion to the past Four and the present Fifth Race, 
for, though five-faced, he is only " four-armed," as the Fifth Race is still alive. He is the " God of 
Time," Saturn-Kronos, as his " drum " Damaru, in the shape of an hour-glass, shows ; and if he is 
accused of having cut off Brahma's fifth head, and left him with only four, it is again an allusion to a 
certain degree in initiation, and also to the Races, 



ON THE MYTH OF THE FALLEN ANGELS " 71 

.small islands, representing the Zodiacal Signs two of which remained for ages 
the " mystery Signs " l were the abodes of twelve Hierophants and Masters 
of Wisdom. This " Sea of Knowledge " or learning ~ remained for ages there, 
where now stretches the Shamo or Gobi Desert. It existed until the last great 
glacial period, when a local cataclysm, which swept the waters South and West 
.and so formed the present great desolate desert, left only a certain oasis, with 
a lake and one island in the midst of it, as a relic of the Zodiacal Ring on 
Earth. For ages the Watery Abyss which, with the nations that preceded 
"the later Babylonians, was the abode of the " Great Mother," the terrestrial 
post-type of the " Great Mother Chaos " in Heaven, the parent of Ea 
{Wisdom), himself the early prototype of Cannes, the Man-Fish of the Baby- 
lonians for ages, then, the " Abyss " or Chaos was the abode of Wisdom 
and not of Evil. The struggle of Bel and then of Merodach, the Sun-God, 
with Tiamat, the Sea and its Dragon a "War" which ended in the defeat of 
the latter has a purely cosmic and geological meaning, as well as a historical 
one. It is a page torn out of the history of the Secret and Sacred Sciences, 
their evolution, growth and DEATH for the profane masses. It relates (a) 
to the systematic and gradual drying up of immense territories by the fiercfc 
Sun at a certain pre-historic period, one of the terrible droughts which ended 
by a gradual transformation of once fertile lands abundantly watered into the 
sandy deserts which they are now ; and (t) to the as systematic persecution 
of the Prophets of the Right Path by those of the Left. The latter, having 
inaugurated the birth and evolution of the sacerdotal castes, have finally led 
the world into all those exoteric religions, which have been invented to satisfy 
the depraved taste of the fioi po//o/ and the ignorant for ritualistic pomp and 
the materialization of the ever-immaterial and Unknowable Principle. 

This was a certain improvement on the Atlantean sorcery, the memory 
of which lingers in the remembrance of all the literary and Sanskrit-reading 
tportion of India, as well as in the popular legends. Still it was a parody on, 
and the desecration of, the Sacred Mysteries and their Science. The rapid 
progress of anthropomorphism and idolatry led the early Fifth, as it had 
already led the Fourth Race, into sorcery once more, though on a smaller 
scale. Finally, even the four " Adams " (symbolizing, under other names, 
the four preceding Races) were forgotten, and, passing from one generation 

1 Gustav Seiffarth's idea that the signs of the Zodiac were in ancient times only ten is erroneous. 
Ten only were known to the profane , the Initiates, however, knew them all, from trie time of the 
separation of mankind into sexes, whence arose the separation of Virgo-Scorpio into two. This separa- 
tion, owing to the addition of a secret sign and the Libra invented by the Greeks, instead of the secret 
mame which was not given, made twelve. (See his Unveiled, ti, 456.) 

-The above is, perhaps, a key to the Dalai Lama's symbolical namethe "Ocean" Lima, 
meaning the Wisdom-Ocean. Abbe" Hue speaks of this 



72 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

nto another, each, loaded with some additional myths, were at last drowned 
n that ocean of popular symbolism called the Pantheons. Yet they exist to- 
:his day in the oldest Jewish traditions : the first as the Tzelem, the " Shadow- 
Xdam," the Chhayas of our doctrine ; the second, the " model " Adam, the 
:opy of the first, and the male and female " of the exoteric Genesis : the 
hird, the " earthly Adam " before the Fall, an androgyne ; and the fourth, 
,he Adam after his " fall," i.e., separated into sexes, or the pure Atlantean. 
ihe Adam of the Garden of Eden, or the forefather of our Race the fifth 
s an ingenious compound of the above four. As stated in the Zohar, Adam r 
he first Man, is not found now on Earth, he "is not found in all Below." 
: or where does the lower Earth come from ? " From the Chain of the Earth, 
\nd from the Heaven Above," i.e., from the superior Globes, those which 
>recede and are above our Earth. 

And there came out from it [the Cham] creatures differing one from the other, 
>ome of them in garments [solid] (skins), some in shells (Q'/;ppoth), . . . some of them 
i red shells, some in black, some in white, and some from all the colours. 1 

As in the Chaldean Cosmogony of Berosus and the STANZAS just given, 
ome treatises on the Kabalah speak of creatures with two faces, some with 
our, and some with one face ; for the highest Adam did not come down 
T all the countries, or produce progeny and have many wives," but is a 
nystery. 

So is the Dragon a mystery. Truly says Rabbi Simeon Ben Jocha'i, 
hat to understand the meaning of the Dragon is not given to the "com- 
panions " (students, or chelas), but only to the " little ones," i.e., the perfect 
nitiates." 

The work of the beginning the companions understand , but it is only the little 
>nes who understand the parable on the work in the Principium by the Mystery of the 
erpent of the Great Sea* 

And those Christians, who may happen to read this, will also understand 
>y the light of the above sentence who their " Christ " was. For Jesus states 
epeatedly that he who " shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little 
hild, he shall not enter therein " ; and if some of his sayings have been 
neant to apply to children without any metaphor, most of the references to 

1 Zohar, iii, 9b, lOa, Brody Ed. Cremona Ed. in, fol 4a, col. 14. Myer's Qabbalah, pp. 416, 417. 

Such was the name given in ancient Judea to the Initiates, called also the " Innocents " and the 
Infants," i.e., once more " reborn." This key opens a vista into one of the New Testament mys- 
sries ; the slaughter by Herod of the 40,000 " Innocents." There is a legend to this effect, and the 
vent, which took place almost a century B.C., shows the origin of the tradition blended at the same 
me with that of Krishna and his uncle Kansa. In the case of the New Testament, Herod stands for 
lexander Jannaeus (of Lyda), whose persecution and murder of hundreds and thousands of Initiates 
sd to the adoption of the Bible story. 

:l Zohar, ii. 34. 



ON THE MYTH OF THE -FALLEN ANGELS" 73 

the " little ones " in the Gospels, relate to the Initiates, of whom Jesus was 
one. Paul (Saul) is referred to in the Talmud as the " little one." 

The " Mystery of the Serpent " was this : Our Earth, or rather terrestrial 
life, is often referred to in the Secret Teachings as the Great Sea, the " Sea 
of Life " having remained to this day a favourite metaphor. The Siphra 
Dzenioutha speaks of Primeval Chaos and the Evolution of the Universe after 
a Destruction (Pralaya), comparing it to an uncoiling serpent : 

Extending hither and thither, its tail in its mouth, the head twisting on its neck, 
it is enraged and angry. . . It watches and conceals itself Every thousand Days it 
is manifested. 1 

A commentary on the Puranas says : 

Ananta-Shesha is a form of Vishnu, the Holy Spirit of Preservation, and a symbol 
of the Universe, on which it is supposed to sleep during the intervals of the Days of 
Brahma. The seven heads of Shesha support the Universe. 

So the Spirit of God " sleeps," or is " breathing " over the Chaos of 
Undifferentiated Matter, before each new "Creation," says the Siphra Dzeni- 
outha. Now one Day of Brahma is composed, as already explained, of one 
thousand Maha Yugas ; and as each Night, or period of rest, is equal in dura- 
tion to this Day, it is easy to see what this sentence in the Siphra Dzenioutha 
refers to viz., that the Serpent manifests " once in a thousand days." Nor 
is it more difficult to see whither the initiated writer of the Siphra is leading 
us, when he says : 

Its head is broken in the waters of the Great Sea, as it is written . Thou dividest 
the sea by thy strength, thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. - 

It refers to the trials of the Initiates in this physical life, the " Sea of 
Sorrow," if read with one key; it hints at the successive destruction of the 
seven Spheres of a Chain of Worlds in the Great Sea of Space, when read 
with another key ; for every sidereal globe or sphere, every world, star, or 
group of stars, is called in symbolism a " Dragon's Head," But however it 
may read, the Dragon was never regarded as Evil, nor was the Serpent either 
in antiquity. In the metaphors, whether astronomical, cosmical, theogonic- 
al or simply physiological (or phallic), the Serpent was always regarded as a 
divine symbol. When mention is made of "the [Cosmic] Serpent which runs 
with 370 leaps," " it means the cyclic periods of the great Tropical Year of 
25,868 years, divided in the Esoteric calculation into 370 periods or cycles, as 
one solar year is divided into 365 days. And if Michael was regarded by the 
Christians as the Conqueror of Satan, the Dragon, it is because in the Talmud 
this fighting personage is represented as the Prince of Waters, who had seven 

1 i, $ 16. - Op at , Ixxiv, 13. " Ibid., $ 33. 



74 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

subordinate Spirits under him a good reason why the Latin Church made 
him the patron saint of every promontory in Europe. In the Siphra Dzenioutha 
the Creative Force "makes sketches and spiral lines of his creation in the 
shape of a Serpent." It " holds its tail in its mouth/' because it is tkfe symbol 
of endless eternity and of cyclic periods. Its meanings, however, would 
require a volume, and we must end. 

Thus the reader may now see for himself what are the several meanings 
of the "War in Heaven," and of the "Great Dragon." Thus the most 
solemn and dreaded of Church dogmas, the alpha and omega of the Christian 
faith, and the pillar of its Fall and Atonement, dwindles down to a Pagan 
symbol, in the many allegories of these pre-historic struggles. 



SECTION 5 

IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? 

THE subject is not yet exhausted, and has to be examined from still other 
aspects. 

Whether Milton's grandiose description of the three days' Battle of the 
Angels of Light against those of Darkness justifies the suspicion that he must 
have heard of the corresponding Eastern tradition it is impossible to say. 
Nevertheless, if not himself in connection with some Mystic, then it must have 
been through some one who had obtained access to the secret works of the 
Vatican. Among these there is a tradition concerning the "Beni Shamash " 
the " Children of the Sun " relating to the Eastern allegory, with far more 
minute details in its triple version, than one can get either from the Book of 
Enoch, or the far more recent Revelation of St. John concerning the " Old 
Dragon " and his various Slayers, as has been just shown. 

It seems inexplicable to find, to this day, authors belonging to mystical 
societies who yet continue in their preconceived doubts as to the " alleged " 
antiquity of the Book of Enoch. Thus, while the author of the Sacred Myster- 
ies among the Mayas and Quiches is inclined to see in Enoch an Initiate con- 
verted to Christianity (! !), } the English compiler of Eliphas Levi's works, The 
Mysteries of Magic, is also of a like opinion. He remarks that : 

Outside the erudition of Dr. Kenealy, no modern scholarship attributes any 
more remote antiquity to the latter work [the Book of Enoch] than the fourth 
century B.C. * 

Modern scholarship has been guilty of worse errors than this one. It 
seems but yesterday that the greatest literary critics in Europe denied the very 
authenticity of that work, together with the Orphic Hymns, and even the 
Book of Hermes or Thoth, until whole verses from the latter were discovered 
on Egyptian monuments and tombs of the earliest dynasties. The opinion of 
Archbishop Laurence is quoted elsewhere. 

1 P 16 - "Biographical and Critical Essay," p xxxviii. 



76 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

The " Old Dragon " and Satan, which have now become singly and 
collectively the symbol of, and the theological term for, the " Fallen Angel," 
are not so described either in the original Kabalah (the Chaldean Book of 
Numbers) or in the modern. For the most learned, if not the greatest 
of modern Kabalists, namely Eliphas Levi, describes Satan in the following 
glowing terms : 

It is that Angel who was proud enough to believe himself God ; brave enough 
to buy his independence at the price of eternal suffering and torture ; beautiful enough 
to have adored himself in full divine light ; strong enough to still reign in darkness 
amidst agony, and to have made himsetf a throne out of his inextinguishable pyre. It 
is the Satan of the republican and heretical Milton . the prince of anarchy, served 
by a hierarchy of pure spirits (' '). ' 

This description one which reconciles so cunningly Theological dogma 
and Kabalistic allegory, and even contrives to include a political compliment in; 
its phraseology is, when read in the right spirit, quite correct. 

Yes, indeed ; it is this grandest of ideals, this ever-living symbol nay 
apotheosis of self-sacrifice for the intellectual independence of humanity ; 
this ever Active Energy protesting against Static Inertia the principle to 
which Self-assertion is a crime, and Thought and the Light of Knowledge 
odious. As Eliphas says with unparalleled justice and irony : 

It is this pretended hero of tenebrous eternities, who, slanderously charged with 
ugliness, is decorated with horns and claws, which would fit far better his implacable 
tormentor. : ' 

It is he who has been finally transformed into a Serpent the Red 
Dragon. But Eliphas Levi was yet too subservient to his Roman Catholic 
authorities one may add, too Jesuitical to confess that this Devil was 
mankind, and never had any existence on Earth outside of that mankind. * 

In this, Christian Theology, although following slavishly in the steps of 
Paganism, has only been true to its own time-honoured policy. It had to 
isolate itself, and to assert its authority. Hence it could not do better than 
turn every Pagan Deity into a Devil. Every bright Sun-God of antiquity a 
glorious Deity by day, and its own opponent and adversary by night, named 
the Dragon of Wisdom, because it was supposed to contain the germs of night 
and day has now been turned into the antithetical Shadow of God, and has 
become Satan on the sole and unsupported authority of despotic human 

1 Histoire de la Mag/e, pp. 16-7. - Ibid., loc. cit. 

'* What devil could be possessed of more cunning, craft and cruelty than the Whitechapel mur- 
derer, " Jack the Ripper " of 1888, whose unparalleled, blood-thirsty and cool wickedness led him to 
slaughter and mutilate in cold blood seven unfortunate and otherwise innocent women ! One has but 
to read the daily papers to find in those wife- and child-beating, drunken brutes (husbands and fathers!), 
a small percentage of whom is daily brought before the courts, the complete personifications of the 
devils of the Christian Hell ! 



IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? 77 

dogma. After which all these producers of light and shadow, all the Sun- and 
the Moon-Gods, have been cursed, and thus the one God chosen out of the 
many and Satan have both been anthropomorphized. But Theology seems to 
have lost sight of the human capacity for discriminating and finally analyzing 
all that is artificially forced upon its reverence. History shows in every race 
and even tribe, especially in the Semitic nations, the natural impulse to exalt 
its own tribal deity above all others to the hegemony of the Gods, and proves 
that the God of the Israelites was such a tribal God, and no more, even 
though the Christian Church, following the lead of the " chosen " people, is 
pleased to enforce the worship of that one particular deity, and to anathema- 
tize all the others. Whether originally a conscious or an unconscious blunder, 
nevertheless, it was one. Jehovah has ever been in antiquity only a God 
" among " other " Gods." 1 The Lord appears to Abraham, and while saying, 
" I am the Almighty God," yet adds, " I will establish my covenant ... to 
be a God unto thee " (Abraham) ; and unto his seed after him but not 
unto Aryan Europeans. 

But, then, there was the grandiose and ideal figure of Jesus of Nazareth 
to be set off against a dark background, to gain in radiance by the contrast ; 
and a darker one the Church could hardly invent. Lacking the Old Testament 
symbology, ignorant of the real connotation of the name of Jehovah- the 
Rabbinical secret substitute for the Ineffable and Unpronounceable Name the. 
Church mistook the cunningly fabricated shadow for the reality, the anthropo- 
morphized generative symbol for the one Secondless Reality, the ever 
Unknowable Cause of All. As a logical sequence the Church, for purposes of 
duality, had to invent an anthropomorphic Devil created, as taught by her, 
by God himself. Satan has now turned out to be the monster fabricated by 
the Jehovah-Frankenstein his father's curse and a thorn in the divine side, a 
monster, than whom no earthly Frankenstein could have fabricated a more 
ridiculous bogey. 

The author of New Aspects of Lite describes the Jewish God very 
correctly from the kabalistic standpoint as : 

the spirit of the earth, which had revealed itself to the Jew as Jehovah. 1 . 
[It was that Spirit again who, after the death of Jesus], assumed his form and personated 
him as the risen Christ 

the doctrine of Cerinthus and several Gnostic sects with slight variation, as 

one can see. But the author's explanations and deductions are remarkable : 

None knew . . . better than Moses, . . [and] so well as he, how great was 
the power of those [Gods of Egypt] with whose priests he had contended, ... the 
gods of which Jehovah is claimed to be the God [by the Jews only]. 

1 Psalm, Ixxxii, 1 2 Genesis, xviii, 1 7 '' Op. cit., p. 209. 



78 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Asks the author . 

What were these gods, these Achar of which Jehovah, the Achad, is claimed to 
be the God ... by overcoming them ? 

To which our Occultism answers : Those whom the Church now calls the 
Fallen Angels and collectively Satan, the Dragon overcome, if we have to 
accept her dictum, by Michael and his Host, that Michael being simply Jehovah 
himself, one of the subordinate Spirits at best. Therefore, the author is again 
right in saying : 

The Greeks believed in the existence of . daimons. But . . . they were 
anticipated by the Hebrews, who held that there was a class of personating spirits which 
they designated demons, " personators." . . . Admitting with Jehovah, who expressly 
asserts it, the existence of other gods, which . . . were personators of the One God, 
were these other gods simply a higher class of personating spirits, . . . which had 
acquired and exercised greater powers ? And is not personation the key to the mystery 
of the spirit state ? But once granting this position, how are we to know that Jehovah was 
not a personating spirit, a spirit which arrogated to itself that it was, and thus became, 
the personator of the one unknown and unknowable God ? Nay, how do we know that 
the spirit calling itself Jehovah, in arrogating to itself his attributes did not thus cause its 
own designation to be imputed to the One who is in reality as nameless as incogni- 
zable ? l 

Then the author shows that "the spirit Jehovah is a personator " on its 
own admission. It acknowledged to Moses "that it had appeared to the 
patriarchs as the God Shaddai " and the " God Helion." 

With the same breath it assumed the name of Jehovah ; and it is on the faith of 
the assertion of this personator that the names El, Eloah, Elohim, and Shaddai, have 
been read and interpreted in juxtaposition with Jehovah as the " Lord God Almighty." 
[Then when] the name Jehovah became ineffable, the designation Adonai, " Lord," was 
substituted for it, and . . it was owing to this substitution that the " Lord " passed 
from the Jewish to the Christian " Word " and World as a designation of God.' 

And how are we to know, the author may add, that Jehovah was not 
many spirits personating even that seemingly one Jod or Jod-He ? 

But if the Christian Church was the first to make the existence of Satan 
a dogma, it was because, as shown in /s/s Unveiled, the Devil the powerful 
Enemy of God ( ? ! !) had to become the corner stone and pillar of the Church, 
For, as a Theosophist, M. Jules Baissac, truly observes in his Satan ou le Diable : 

II fallait eviter de paraitre autoriser le dogme du double principe en faisant de 
ce Satan createur une puissance reelle, et pour expliquer le mal originel, on profere 
contre Manes I'hypothese d'une permission de I'unique Tout-Puissant. :1 

1 Ibid., pp. 142-5 - Ibid., p. 146. 

:i Op. cit., p. 9 [It was necessary to avoid any appearance, by making this creative Satan a real 
power, of subscribing to the dogma of a dual principle, and so to explain original sin Manes was said to 
postulate the permission of the one Almighty]. After the polymorphic Pantheism of some Gnostics 
came the exoteric Dualism of Manes, who was accused of personifying Evil and making of the Devil a 
God the rival of God himself. We do not see that the Christian Church has so much improved 
on that exoteric idea of the Mamcheans, for she calls God her King of Light, and Satan the King of 
Darkness, to this day. 



IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? 79 

The choice and policy were unfortunate, anyhow. Either the personator 
of the lower God of Abraham and Jacob ought to have been made entirely 
distinct from the mystic " Father " of Jesus, or the " Fallen " Angels should 
have been left unslandered by further fictions. 

Every God of the Gentiles is connected with, and closely related to^ 
Jehovah the Elohim ; for they are all One Host, whose units differ only irv 
name in the Esoteric Teachings. Between the " Obedient " and the " Fallen '" 
Angels there is no difference whatever, except in their respective functions, or 
rather in the inertia of some, and the activity of others, among those Dhyan 
Chohans, or Elohim, who were "commissioned to create," i.e., to fabricate 
the manifested world out of the eternal material. 

The Kabalists say that the true name of Satan is that of Jehovah turned 
upside down, for " Satan is not a black God but the negation of the white 
Deity/' or the Light of Truth. God is Light and Satan is the necessary 
Darkness of Shadow to set if off, without which pure Light would 
be invisible and incomprehensible. 1 " For the Initiates," says Eliphas 
Levi, "the Devil is not a person but a creative Force, for Good as for 
Evil." The Initiates represented this Force, which presides at physical 
generation, under the mysterious form of God Pan or Nature ; whence the 
horns and hoofs of that mythical and symbolic figure, as also the Christian* 
goat of the " Witches' Sabbath." With regard to this too, Christians have 
imprudently forgotten that the goat was also the victim selected for the atone- 
ment of all the sins of Israel, that the scape-goat was indeed the sacrificial 
martyr, the symbol of the greatest mystery on earth the " fall into genera- 
tion." Only, the Jews have long forgotten the real meaning of their (to the 
non-initiated) ridiculous hero, selected from the drama of life in the Great 
Mysteries enacted by them in the desert, and the Christians have never 
known it. 

Eliphas Levi seeks to explain the dogma of his Church by paradoxes and 
metaphors, but succeeds very poorly in the face of the many volumes written- 
by pious Roman Catholic Demonologists under the approbation and auspices 
of Rome, in this nineteenth century of ours. For the true Roman Catholic, 
the Devil or Satan is a rea//ty ; the drama enacted in the Sidereal Light 
according to the seer of Patmos who desired, perhaps, to improve upon the 

1 To quote in this relation Mr. S. Laing, in his admirable work Modern Science and Modern- 
Thought (p. 222) " From this dilemma [the existence of evil in the world] there is no escape, unless 
we give up altogether the idea of an anthropomorphic deity, and adopt frankly the scientific idea of ar 
First Cause, inscrutable and past finding out , and of a universe whose laws we can trace, but of whose 
real essence we know nothing, and can only suspect or faintly discern a fundamental law which may 
make the polarity of good and evil a necessary condition of existence." Were Science to know " the 
real essence," instead of knowing nothing of it, the faint suspicion would turn into the certitude of the 
existence of such a law, and the knowledge that this law is connected with Karma. 



80 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

narrative in the Book of Enoch is as real, and as historical a fact as any 
other allegory and symbolical event in the 6/6/e. But the Initiates give an 
explanation which differs from that given by Eliphas Levi, whose genius and 
crafty intellect had to submit to a certain compromise dictated to him 
from Rome. 

Thus, the true and " uncompromising " Kabalists admit that, for all pur- 
poses of Science and Philosophy, it is enough that the profane should know 
that the Great Magic Agent called by the followers of the Marquis de 
St. Martin, the Martinists, the Astral Light, by the mediaeval Kabalists and 
Alchemists the Sidereal Virgin and the Mystehum Magnum, and by the 
Eastern Occultists ther, the reflection of Akasha is that which the Church 
calls Lucifer. That the Latin scholastics have succeeded in transforming the 
Universal Soul and Pleroma the Vehicle of Light and the receptacle of all 
forms, a Force spread throughout the whole Universe, with its direct and 
indirect effects into Satan and his works, is no news to any one. But now 
they are prepared to give out to the above-mentioned profane even the 
secrets hinted at by Eliphas Levi, without adequate explanation, for the latter's 
policy of veiled revelations could only lead to further superstition and mis- 
understanding. What, indeed, can a student of Occultism, who is a beginner, 
gather from the following highly poetical sentences of Eliphas Levi, which are 
as apocalyptic as the writings of any of the Alchemists ? 

Lucifer [the Astral Light] ... is an intermediate force existing in all creation ; 
*t serves to create and to destroy, and the Fall of Adam was an erotic intoxication 
which has rendered his generation a slave to this fatal Light, . . . every sexual passion 
that overpowers our senses is a whirlwind of that Light which seeks to drag us towards 
the abyss of death Madness, hallucinations, visions, extasies, are all forms of a very 
dangerous excitation due to this interior phosphorus [?]. Thus light, finally, is of the 
nature 'of fire, the intelligent use of which warms and vivifies, and the excess of which, 
on the contrary, dissolves and annihilates 

Thus man is called upon to assume a sovereign empire over this [Astral] Light 
and conquer thereby his immortality, and is threatened at the same time with being 
intoxicated, absorbed, and eternally destroyed by it. 

This Light, therefore, inasmuch as it is devouring, revengeful, and fatal, would 
thus really be hell-fire, the serpent of the legend ; the tormented errors of which it is 
full, the tears and the gnashing of teeth of the abortive beings it devours, the phantom 
of life that escapes them, and seems to mock and insult their agony, ail this would be 
the Devil or Satan indeed. 1 

There is no false statement in all this ; nothing save a superabundance of 
ill-applied metaphors, as, for instance, in the application of the myth of Adam 



IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? 81 

to the illustration of the astral effects. Akasha, 1 the Astral Light, can be 
defined in a few words ; it is the Universal Soul, the Matrix of the Universe, 
the Mysterium Magnum from which all that exists is born by separation or 
differentiation. It is the cause of existence ; it fills all the infinite Space, /$ 
Space itself, in one sense, or both its sixth and seventh principles." But as the 
finite in the Infinite, as regards manifestation the Light must have its shadowy 
side as already remarked. And as the Infinite can never be manifested, 
hence the finite world has to be satisfied with the shadow a/one, which 
4ts actions draw upon humanity and which men attract and force into 
activity. Hence, while the Astral Light is the Universal Cause in its unmani- 
fested unity and infinity, it becomes, with regard to mankind, simply the 
effects of the causes produced by men in their sinful lives. It is not its bright 
denizens whether they are called Spirits of Light or Darkness- that produce 
Good or Evil, but mankind itself that determines the unavoidable action and 
reaction in the Great Magic Agent. It is mankind which has become the 
11 Serpent of Genesis," and thus causes daily and hourly the Fall and Sin of 
the " Celestial Virgin "- -which thus becomes the Mother of Gods and Devils 
at one and the same time ; for she is the ever-loving, beneficent Deity to all 
those who stir her Soul and Heart, instead of attracting to themselves her 
shadowy manifested essence, called by Eliphas Levi the " fatal light " which 
'kills and destroys. Humanity, in its units, can overpower and master its 
effects ; but only by the holiness of their lives and by producing good 
causes. It has power only on the manifested lower principles the shadow 
of the Unknown and Incognizable Deity in Space. But in antiquity and 
reality, Lucifer, or Luciferus, is the name of the Angelic Entity presiding over 
the Light of Truth as over the light of the day. In the great Valentinian 
Gospel P/st/'s Sophia it is taught that of the three Powers emanating from 
the Holy Names of the three Triple Powers ('fpiSwd/juew), that of Sophia 
(the Holy Ghost according to these Gnostics the most cultured of all), resides 
in the planet Venus or Lucifer. 

1 Akasha is not the Ether of Science, as some Orientalists translate it. 

2 Says Johannes Tntheim, the Abbot of Spanheim, the greatest Astrologer and Kabalist of his day 
" The art of divine magic consists in the ability to perceive the essence of things m the light of Nature 
[Astral Light], and by using the soul-powers of the spirit to produce material things from the unseen 
universe, and in such operations the Above and the Below must be brought together and made to act 
harmoniously The spirit of Nature [Astral Light] is a unity, creating and forming everything, and by 
acting through the instrumentality of man it may produce wonderful things Such processes take 
place according to law. You will learn the law by which these things are accomplished, if you learn 
to know yourself You will know it by the power of the spint that is in yourself, and accomplish it by 
mixing your spirit with the essence that comes out of yourself. If you wish to succeed in such a work 
you must know how to separate spirit and life in Nature, and, moreover, to separate the astral soul in 
yourself and to make it tangible, and then the substance of the soul will appear visibly and 
tangibly, rendered objective by the power of the spirit." (Quoted in Dr. Franz Hartmann's 
.Paracelsus, pp. 164, 165). 

F 6 



82 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Thus to the profane, the Astral Light may be God and Devil at once 
Demon est Deus inversus that is to say, through every point of Infinite Space 
thrill the magnetic and electrical currents of an/mate Nature, the life-giving and 
death-giving waves, for death on earth becomes life on another plane. Lucifer 
is divine and terrestrial Light, the " Holy Ghost" and " Satan," at one and 
the same time, visible Space being truly filled with the differentiated Breath 
invisibly ; and the Astral Light, the manifested effects of the two who are one r 
guided and attracted by ourselves, is the Karma of Humanity, both a personal 
and impersonal entity personal, because it is the mystic name given by 
St. Martin to the Host of Divine Creators, Guides and Rulers of this Planet ; 
impersonal, as the Cause and Effect of Universal Life and Death. 

The Fall was the result of man's knowledge, for his " eyes were opened." 
Indeed, he was taught Wisdom and the Hidden Knowledge by the " Fallen 
Angel," for the latter had become from that day his Manas, Mind and Self- 
consciousness. In each of us that golden thread of continuous Life periodi- 
cally broken into active and passive cycles of sensuous existence on Earth, and 
super-sensuous in Devachan is from the beginning of our appearance upon 
this Earth. It is the Sutratma, the luminous thread of immortal impersonal 
Monadship, on which our earthly " lives " or evanescent Egos are strung as 
so many beadsaccording to the beautiful expression of the Vedantic 
Philosophy. 

And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the 
" Lord of Phosphoros " brimstone was a Theological improvement- and 
Lucifer, or " Light-Bearer," is in us : it is our Mind, our Tempter and Redeem- 
er, our intelligent Liberator and Saviour from pure animalism. Without this 
princ pie the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine principle 
Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine Mind we would 
be surely no better than animals. The first man Adam was made only a living 
soul (Nephesh), the last Adam was made a quickening spirit ] says Paul, his 
words referring to the building or creation of man. Without this quickening 1 
spirit, or human mind or soul, there would be no difference between man and 
beast ; as there is none, in fact, between animals with respect to their actions. 
The tiger and the donkey, the hawk and the dove, are each one as pure and 
as innocent as the other, because /rrespons/t/e. Each follows its instinct, the 
tiger and the hawk killing with the same unconcern as the donkey eats a 
thistle, or the dove pecks at a grain of corn If the Fall had the significance 

1 I Corinthians, xv, 45. The real original text of / Corinthians, xv, 44, rendered kabalistically and 
esoterically would read : "It is sown a sou/ body [not ' natural ' body], it is raised a spint body ' ' 
St. Paul was an Initiate, and his words have quite a different meaning when read esotencaliy. The 
body " is sown in weakness [passivity] , it is raised in power " (v, 43) -or in spirituality and intellect 



IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR ? 83 

given to it by Theology ; if that Fall 'occurred as a result of an act never 
intended by Nature a sin, how about the animals ? If we are told that they 
procreate their species in consequence of that same " original sin," for which 
God cursed the Earth hence everything living on it we will put another 
question. We are told by Theology, as also by Science, that the animal was 
on Earth far earlier than man. We ask the former : How did it procreate its 
species, before the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had been 
plucked off? As said : 

The " Christians," far less clear-sighted than the great Mystic and Liberator whose 
name they have assumed, whose doctrines they have misunderstood and travestied, 
and whose memory they have blackened by their deeds took the Jewish Jehovah as 
he was, and of course strove vainly to reconcile the " Gospel of Light and Liberty" 
with the Deity of Darkness and Submission. 1 

But it is sufficiently proven now that all the soi-disant evil Spirits who are 
credited with having made war on the Gods, are identical as personalities ; 
that, moreover, all the ancient religions taught the same tenet, save the final 
conclusion, which differs from the Christian. The seven primeval Gods had 
all a dual state, one essential, the other accidental. In their essential state 
they were all the Builders or Fashioners, the Preservers and the Rulers of this 
World ; and in the accidental state, clothing themselves in visible corporeality, 
they descended on the Earth and reigned on it as Kings and Instructors of 
the lower Hosts, who had incarnated once more upon it as men. 

Thus, Esoteric Philosophy shows that man is truly the manifested deity 
in both its aspects good and evil, but Theology cannot admit this philo- 
sophical truth. Teaching as it does the dogma of the Fallen Angels in its dead- 
letter meaning, and having made of Satan the corner-stone and pillar of the 
dogma of redemption to do so would be suicidal. Having once shown the 
rebellious Angels distinct from God and the Logos in their personalities, to 

1 "The War in Heaven " (The Jheosophist, 1881, pp. 24, 36, 67, 69) by Godolphin Mitford, later 
in life Mirza Murad Ah Beg. Born in India, the son of a missionary, G Mitford was converted to 
Islam, and died a Mahometan in 1884. He was a most extraordinary Mystic, of great learning and 
remarkable intelligence. But he left the Right Path and forthwith fell under KSrmic retribution. As 
wel! shown by the author of the article quoted, "The followers of the defeated ' Elohim ' first 
massacred by the victorious Jews [the Jehovites], and then persuaded by the victorious Christians and 
Mohamedans, continued [nevertheless] . . . Some [of these scattered sects] . . . have lost even the 
tradition of the true rationale of their belief- to worship in secrecy and mystery the Principle of Fire, 
Light, and Liberty. Why do the Sabean Bedouins (avowedly Monotheists when dwelling in the 
Mohamedan cities,) in the solitude of the desert night yet invoke the starry ' Host of Heaven ' ? Why 
do the Yezidis, the 'Devil Worshippers,' worship the ' Muluk-Taoos ' the 'Lord Peacock 'the 
emblem of Pride and of Hundred-eyed Intelligence [and of Initiation also], which was expelled from 
Heaven with Satan, according to an old Oriental tradition ? Why do the Gholaites and their kindred 
Mesopotamo-lranian Mohamedan Sects believe in the ' Nocr Illahee ' the ' Light of the Elohim '- 
transmitted in anastasis through a hundred Prophet-Leaders ? It is because they have continued in 
ignorant superstition the traditional religion of the ' Light Deities ' whom Jahveh overthrew ! " (p. 69) 
is said to have overthrown rather . for by overthrowing them he would have overthrown himself. 
The Muluk-Taoos is Maluk, " Ruler," as is shown in the foot-note. It is only a new form of Moloch. 
Melek, Molech, Malayak, and Malachim -Messengers, Angels, etc. 



84 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

admit that the downfall of the disobedient Spirits means simply their fall into 
generation and matter, would be equivalent to saying that God and Satan 
were identical. For since the Logos, or God, is the aggregate of that once 
divine Host accused of having fallen, it would naturally follow that the Logos 
and Satan are one. 

Yet such was the real philosophical view in antiquity of the now disfigured 
tenet. The Verbum, or the " Son," was shown in a dual aspect by the 
Pagan Gnostics in fact, he was a duality in full unity. Hence, the endless 
and various national versions. The Greeks had Jupiter, the son of Kronos, 
the Father, who hurls him down into the depths of Kosmos. The Aryans 
had Brahma (in later theology) precipitated by Shiva into the Abyss of Dark- 
ness, etc. But the Fall of all these Logoi and Demiourgoi from their primitive 
exalted position, contained in all cases one and the same Esoteric significa- 
tion ; the Curse, in its philosophical meaning, of being incarnated on this 
Earth ; an unavoidable rung in the Ladder of Cosmic Evolution, a highly 
philosophical and fitting Karmic Law, without which the presence of Evil on 
Earth would have to remain for ever a closed mystery to the understanding 
of true Philosophy. To say, as the author of Esprits Jombes des Pa/ens does, 
that since 

Christianity is made to rest on two pillars, that of Evil (Trovrjpoii), and of Good 
(dryaffov) ; on two forces, in short (dyaOal /cai tcatcal Swapeis) : hence, if we 
suppress the punishment of the evil forces, the protecting mission of the good powers 
will have neither value nor sense 

is to utter the most unphilosophical absurdity. If it fits in with, and 

explains, Christian dogma, it obscures the facts and truth of the primitive 
Wisdom of the ages. The cautious hints of Paul have all the true Esoteric 
meaning, and it took centuries of scholastic casuistry to give them the false 
colouring in their present interpretations. The Verbum and Lucifer are one 
in their dual aspect ; and the " Prince of the Air " (pr/nceps aer/s hujus) is 
not the " God of that period," but an everlasting principle. When the latter 
was said to be ever circling around the world (qui circumambulat terrain), 
the great Apostle referred simply to the never-ceasing cycles of human 
incarnations, in which evil will ever predominate unto the day when Humanity 
is redeemed by the true divine Enlightenment which gives the correct percep- 
tion of things. 

It is easy to disfigure vague expressions written in dead and long- 
forgotten languages, and palm them off on the ignorant masses as truths and 
revealed facts. The identity of thought and meaning is the one thing that 
strikes the student in all the religions which mention the tradition of the 



IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? 85 

Fallen Spirits, and in those great religions there is not one that fails to men- 
tion and describe it in one or another form. Thus, Hoang-ty, the Great 
Spirit, sees his Sons, who had acquired active wisdom, falling into the Valley 
of Pain. Their leader, the FLYING DRAGON, having drunk of the forbidden 
Ambrosia, fell to the Earth with his Host (Kings). In the Zend Avesta, Angra 
Mainyu (Ahriman), surrounding himself with Fire (the " Flames " of the 
STANZAS), seeks to conquer the Heavens, 1 when Ahura Mazda, descending from 
the so//d Heaven he inhabits, to the help of the Heavens that revolve (in time 
and space, the manifested worlds of cycles including those of incarnation), and 
the Amshaspends, the "seven bright Sravah," accompanied by their stars, 
fight Ahriman, and the vanquished Devas fall to the Earth along with him." In 
the Vend/dad the Daevas are called "evil-doing," and are shown to rush 
away "into the depths of the . . . world of hell," or Matter/ 1 This is an 
allegory which shows the Devas compelled to incarnate, once that they have 
separated themselves from their Parent Essence, or, in other words, after the 
Unit had become multiple, after differentiation and manifestation. 

Typhon the Egyptian Python, the Titans, the Suras and the Asuras, all 
belong to the same legend of Spirits peopling the Earth. They are not 
" Demons commissioned to create and organize this visible universe," but the 
Fashioners or " Architects " of the Worlds, and the Progenitors of Man. They 
are the Fallen Angels, metaphorically the " true mirrors " of the " Eternal 
Wisdom." 

What is the complete truth as well as the Esoteric meaning about this 
universal myth ? The whole essence of truth cannot be transmitted from mouth 
to ear. Nor can any pen describe it, not even that of the Recording Angel, 
unless man finds the answer in the sanctuary of his own heart, in the inner- 
most depths of his divine intuition. It is the great SEVENTH MYSTERY of Creation, 
the first and the last; and those who read St. John's Apocalypse may find its 
shadow lurking under the seventh seal. It can be represented only in its 
apparent, objective form, like the eternal riddle of the Sphinx. If the Sphinx 
threw herself into the sea and perished, it is not because CEdipus had unriddled 
the secret of the ages, but because, by anthropomorphizing the ever-spiritual 
and the subjective, he had dishonoured the great truth for ever. Therefore, 
we can give it only from its philosophical and intellectual planes, unlocked with 
three keys respectively for the last four keys of the seven that throw wide 

1 So does every Yogi and even Christian, for one must take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence 
we are taught. Why then should such a desire make of any one a Devil ? 

- Acad. des Inscnp., xxxix, p. 690. 

{ Fargard xix, v, 47 , Darmesteter's Trans., Sacred Books of the East, Vol. v, p. 218. 



86 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

open the portals to the Mysteries of Nature are in the hands of the highest 
Initiates, and cannot be divulged to the masses at large not in this century, 
at any rate. 

The dead-letter is everywhere the same. The dualism in the Mazdean 
religion was born from exoteric interpretation. The holy Airyaman, the 
44 bestower of weal," 1 invoked in the prayer called Airyama-ishyo, is the divine 
aspect of Ahriman, "the deadly, the Daeva of the Daevas," 2 and Angra 
Mainyu is the dark material aspect of the former. " Keep us from our hater, 
O' Mazda and Armaita Spenta," ! has, as a prayer and invocation, an identical 
meaning with " Lead us not into temptation," and is addressed by man to the 
terrible spirit of duality in man itself. For Ahura Mazda is the Spiritual, Divine, 
and Purified Man, and Armaita Spenta, the Spirit of the Earth or materiality, is 
the same as Ahriman or Angra Mainyu in one sense. 

The whole of the Magian or Mazdean literature or what remains of it 
is magical, occult, hence allegorical and symbolical, even its " mystery of the 
law." 4 Now the Mobed and the Pars!" keep their eye on the Baresma during 
the sacrifice the divine twig off Ormazd's " Tree " having been transformed 
into a bunch of metallic rods and wonder why neither the Amesha Spentas, 
nor "the high and beautiful golden Haomas, nor even their Vohu-Mano (good 
thoughts), nor their Rata (sacrificial offering)," help them much. Let them 
meditate on the "Tree of Wisdom," and by study assimilate, one by one, the 
fruits thereof. The way to the Tree of Eternal Life, the white Haoma, the 
Gaokerena, is through one end of the Earth to the other ; and Haoma is in 
Heaven as it is on Earth. But to become once more a priest of it, and a 
4 'healer," man must heal himself, for this must be done before he can 
heal others. 

This proves once more that, in order to be dealt with, with at least an 
approximate degree of justice, the so-called "myths" have to be closely 
examined from all their aspects. In truth, every one of the seven Keys has to 
be used in its right place, and never mixed with the others if we would 
unveil the entire cycle of mysteries. In our day of dreary soul-killing 
Materialism, the ancient Priest-Initiates have become, in the opinion of our 
learned generations, the synonyms of clever impostors, kindling the fires of 
superstition in order to obtain an easier sway over the minds of men. This is an 
unfounded calumny, generated by scepticism and uncharitable thoughts. No one 

1 Vendidad, Far xx, v. 12 ; op. cit., p 222. 

Ibid., Far. v, xix, 43 , op. at., p. 218. 

5 From the Vendidad Sac/ah, quoted by Darmesteter, op. cit,, p. 223. 

1 See the G&tha in Yasna, xliv. 



IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? 87 

believed more than they did in Gods or, we may call them, the spiritual and 
now invisible Powers, or Spirits, the Noumena of the phenomena ; and they 
believed simply because they knew. And though after being initiated into the 
Mysteries of Nature, they were forced to withhold their knowledge from the 
profane, who would have surely abused it, such secrecy was undeniably less 
dangerous than the policy of their usurpers and successors. The former 
taught only that which they well knew. The latter, teaching what they do not 
know, have invented, as a secure haven for their ignorance, a jealous and 
cruel Deity, who forbids man to pry into his mysteries under the penalty of 
damnation ; as well they may, for his mysteries can at best be only hinted at 
in polite ears, never described. Turn to King's Gnostics and their Remains, 
and see for youself what was the primitive Ark of the Covenant, according to 
the author, who says : 

There is a Rabbinical tradition . . that the Cherubim placed over it were 
represented as male and female, in the act of copulation, in order to express the grand 
doctrine of the Essence of Form and Matter, the two principles of all things When 
the Chaldeans broke into the Sanctuary and beheld this most astounding emblem, they 
naturally enough exclaimed. " Is this your God, of whom you boast, that He is such a 
lover of purity ' " l 

King thinks that this tradition " savours too much of Alexandrian philoso- 
phy to demand any credit," to which we demur. The shape and form of the 
wings of the two Cherubim standing on the right and left sides of the Ark, 
these wings meeting over the " Holy of Holies," are an emblem quite eloquent 
in itself, not to speak of the " holy " Jod within the Ark ! The Mystery of 
Agathodaemon, whose legend states, " I am Chnumis, Sun of the Universe, 
700," can alone solve the mystery of Jesus, the number of whose name is 
"888." It is not the key of St. Peter, or the Church dogma, but the Narthex 
the Wand of the Candidate for Initiation that has to be wrenched from 
the grasp of the long-silent Sphinx of the ages. Meanwhile : 

The augurs, who, upon meeting each other, have to thrust their tongues 
into their cheeks to suppress a fit of laughter, may be more numerous in our 
-own age than they ever were in the day of Sylla. 



! Op. cit , p. 441. 



SECTION 6 

PROMETHEUS, THE TITAN 
HIS ORIGIN IN ANCIENT INDIA 

IN our modern day there is not the slightest doubt in the minds of the best 
European symbologists that the name Prometheus possessed the greatest and 
most mysterious significance in antiquity. While giving the history of Deuca- 
lion, whom the Boeotians regarded as the ancestor of the human races, and 
who was the son of Prometheus, according to the significant legend, the author 
of the Mythologie de la Grece Antique remarks : 

Thus Prometheus is something more than the archetype of humanity ; he is its 
generator. In the same way that we saw Hephaestus moulding the first woman 
[Pandora] and endowing her with life, so Prometheus kneads the moist clay, of which 
he fashions the body of the first man whom he will endow with the soul-spark l After 
the flood of Deucalion, Zeus, they said, had commanded Prometheus and Athena to 
call forth a new race of men from the mire left by the waters of the deluge/- and, in 
the day of Pausanias, the slime which the hero had used for this purpose was still shown 
in Phocis/' On several archaic monuments we still see Prometheus modelling a human 
body, either alone or with Athena's help ' 

The same author reminds us of another equally mysterious personage, 
though one less generally known than Prometheus, whose legend offers remark- 
able analogies with that of the Titan. The name of this second ancestor and 
generator is Phoroneus, the hero of an ancient poem, now unfortunately no 
longer extant, the Phoroneidae. His legend was localized in Argolis, where a 
perpetual flame was preserved on his altar as a reminder that he was the 
bringer of fire upon earth. 5 A benefactor of men, like Prometheus, he had 
made them participators of every bliss on earth. Plato" and Clemens Alex- 
andrinus 7 say that Phoroneus was the first man, or the " father of mortals." 
His genealogy, which assigns to him the river Inachos as his father, reminds 

1 Apollodorus. I, 7 ', 1 - Ovid., Metam , I, 81 E/ym M , v, TIpOfji?)@V$. 

< Pausanias. X, 4, 4 ' Op. at, p. 264 ' Pausanias, II, 19, 5 ; cf. 20, 3. 

<( Timdtius. p 22. 7 Stromata. I, p. 380. 



PROMETHEUS, THE TITAN 89 

us of that of Prometheus, which makes that Titan the son of the Oceanid 
Clymene. But the mother of Phoroneus was the nymph Melia ; a significant 
descent which distinguishes him from Prometheus 1 

Melia, Decharme thinks, is the personification of the Ash-tree, whence, 
according to Hesiod, issued the race of the age of Bronze,- and which with 
the Greeks is the celestial tree common to every Aryan mythology. This 
Ash is the Yggdrasil of Norse antiquity, which the Norns sprinkle daily with 
the waters from the fountain of Urd, that it may not wither. It remains 
verdant till the last days of the Golden Age. Then the Norns the three 
sisters who gaze respectively into the Past, the Present, and the Future make 
known the decree of Orlog or Fate (Karma), but men are conscious only 
of the Present. 

[But when] Gullweig (gold-ore) comes, the bewitching enchantress . . who, 
thrice cast into the fire, arises each time more beautiful than before and fills the souls 
of gods and men with unappeasable longing, then the Norns . . . enter into being, 
and the blessed peace of childhood's dreams passes away, and sin comes into existence 
with all its evil consequences [and Karma] '* 

The thrice-purified Gold is Manas, the Conscious Soul. 

With the Greeks, the Ash -tree represented the same idea. Its luxuriant 
boughs are the Sidereal Heaven, golden by day and studded with stars by 
night the fruits of Melia and Yggdrasil, under whose protecting shadow 
humanity lived during the Golden Age without desire as without fear. " That 
tree had a fruit, or an inflamed bough, which was lightning " Decharme 
guesses. 

And here steps in the killing Materialism of the age, that peculiar twist 
in the modern mind, which, like a Northern blast, bends all on its way, and 
freezes every intuition, allowing it no hand in the physical speculations of the 
day. After having seen in Prometheus no more than " fire by friction," the 
learned author of the Mytho/og/e c/e la Grece Antique perceives in this " fruit " 
a trifle more than an allusion to terrestrial fire and its discovery. It is no- 
longer fire, owing to the fall of lightning setting some dry fuel in a blaze, 
and thus revealing all its priceless benefits to palaeolithic men but something 
more mysterious this time, though still as earthly ! 

A divine bird, nestled in the branches [of the celestial Ash-tree], stole that 
bough [or the fruit] and carried it down on the earth in its bill. Now the Greek word 
<$>op<i)Vvs is the rigid equivalent of the Sanskrit word bhuranyu, "the rapid," an 

1 Decharme, ibid., p 265, 

2 Opera et Dies. 142-5. According to the Occult Teaching, three Yugas passed away during the 
time of the Third Root Race, i.e., the Satya, the Treta, and the Dvapara Yuga answering to the 
Golden Age in its early innocence ; to the Silver, when it reached its maturity ; and to the Bronze 
Age, when, separating into sexes, it became the mighty demi-gods of old 

1 Asgard and the Gods. pp. 11-3 



90 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

epithet of Agni, considered as the carrier of the divine spark. Phoroneus, son of 
Melia or of the celestial ash, thus corresponds to a conception far more ancient, 
probably, than that one which transformed the pramantha [of the old Aryan Hindus] 
into the Greek Prometheus. Phoroneus is the [personified] bird, that brings the 
heavenly lightning to the earth. Traditions relating to the birth of the race of Bronze, 
and those which made of Phoroneus the father of the Argolians, are an evidence to us 
that this thunderbolt [or lightning], as in the legend of Hephaestus or Prometheus, was 
the origin of the human race. 1 

This still affords us no more than the external meaning of the symbols 
and the allegory. It is now supposed that the name of Prometheus has been 
unriddled. But the modern Mythologists and Orientalists see in it no longer 
what their fathers saw on the authority of the whole of classical antiquity. They 
only find therein something far more appropriate to the spirit of the age, 
namely, a phallic element. But the name of Phoroneus, as well as that of 
'Prometheus, bears not one, nor even two, but a series of Esoteric meanings. 
Both relate to the seven Celestial Fires ; to Agni Abhimanin, his three sons, 
and their forty-five sons, constituting the Forty-nine Fires. Do all these 
numbers relate only to the terrestrial mode of fire and to the flame of sexual 
passion ? Did the Hindu Aryan mind never soar above such purely sensual 
conceptions ; that mind which is declared by Prof. Max Muller to be the most 
spiritual and mystically inclined on the whole globe ? The number of those 
fires alone ought to have suggested an inkling of the truth. 

We are told that one is no longer permitted, in this age of rational 
thought, to explain the name of Pro-metheus as the old Greeks did. The 
latter, it seems : 

Basing themselves on the apparent analogy of Trpofi^dev^ with the verb 
TTpopav-Odvew [to foresee], saw in him the type of the " foreseeing " man, to whom, 
for the sake of symmetry, a brother was added~~-Epi-metheus, or " he who takes 
counsel after the event." :> 

But now the Orientalists have decided otherwise. They know the real 
'meaning of the two names better than those who invented them. 

The legend is based upon an event of universal importance. It was built 
to commemorate 

A great event which must have strongly impressed itself upon the imagination 
of the first witnesses, and its remembrance has never since faded out from popular 
tnemory.' 

What was this ? Laying aside every poetical fiction, all those dreams of 
the Golden Age, let us imagine argue the modern scholars in all its gross 
realism, the first miserable state of humanity, the striking picture of which was 
traced for us after >4Eschylus by Lucretius, and the exact truth of which is now 

1 Op. cit, p. 266 * Ibid., p. 258 Ibid , p. 257. 



PROMETHEUS, THE TITAN 91 

confirmed by Science : and then we may understand better that a new life 
really began for man, on that day when he saw the first spark produced by 
the friction of two pieces of wood, or from the veins of a flint. How could 
men help feeling gratitude to that mysterious and marvellous being which they 
were henceforth enabled to create at their will, and which was no sooner 
born, than it grew and expanded, developing with singular power. 

This terrestrial flame, was it not analogous in nature to that which sent them 
from above its light and heat, or which frightened them in the thunderbolt ? Was it not 
derived from the same source ? And if its origin was in heaven, must it not have been 
brought down some day on earth ? If so, who was the powerful being, the beneficent 
being, God or man, who had conquered it ? Such are the questions which the curiosity 
of the Aryans offered in the early days of their existence, and which found their answer 
in the myth of Prometheus. 1 

The Philosophy of Occult Science finds two weak points in the above 
reflections, and proceeds to point them out. The miserable state of Humanity 
described by /Eschylus and Lucretius was no more wretched then, in the early 
days of the Aryans, than it is now. That " state " was limited to the savage 
tribes ; and the now-existing savages are not a whit more happy or unhappy 
than their forefathers were a million years ago. 

It is an accepted fact in Science that " rude implements, exactly resem- 
bling those in use among existing savages/' are found in river-gravels and 
caves, geologically " implying an enormous antiquity." So great is that re- 
semblance that, as the author of A Modern Zoroastnan tells us : 

if the collection in the Colonial Exhibition of stone celts and arrow-heads used by 
the Bushmen of South Africa were placed side by side with one from the British Museum 
of similar objects from Kent's Cavern or the Caves of the Dordogne, no one but an 
expert could distinguish between them/ 

And if there are Bushmen existing now, in our age of the highest civiliza- 
tion, who are no higher intellectually than the race of men which inhabited 
Devonshire and Southern France during the Palaeolithic age, why could not the 
latter have lived simultaneously with, and have been the contemporary of, 
other races as highly civilized for their day as we are for ours ? That the sum 
of knowledge increases daily in mankind, " but that intellectual capacity does 
not increase with it," is shown when the intellect, if not the physical know- 
ledge, of the Euclids, Pythagorases, Paninis, Kapilas, Platos, and Socrates, is 
compared with that of the Newtons, Kants, and the modern Huxleys and 
Haeckels. On comparing the results obtained by Dr. J. Barnard Davis, the 
Craniologist,* with regard to the internal capacity of the skull its volume 
being taken as the standard and test for judging of the intellectual capacities 

1 Ibid., p. 258. 2 Op. at., p. 145. 

1 Transactions of the Royal Society, London, 1868. 



92 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Dr. Pfaff finds that this capacity among the French (certainly in the highest 
rank of mankind) is 88 4 cubic inches, being thus " perceptibly smaller than 
that of the Polynesians generally, which, even among many Papuans and 
Alfuras of the lowest grade, amounts to 89 and 897 cubic inches "; which 
shows that it is the quality and not the quantity of the brain that is the cause 
of intellectual capacity. The average index of skulls among various races 
having been now recognized to be " one of the most characteristic marks of 
difference between different races," the following comparison is suggestive : 

The index of breadth among the Scandinavians [is] at 75 ; among the English at 
76 ; among Holsteiners at 77 , in Bresgau at 80 ; Schiller's skull shows an index of 
breadth even of 82 ... the Madurese also 82 ! 

Finally, the same comparison between the oldest skulls known and the 
European, brings to light the startling fact that : 

Most of these old skulls, belonging to the stone period, are above rather than 
below the average of the brain of the now living man in volume. 

Calculating the measures for the height, breadth, and length in inches 
from the average measurements of several skulls, the following sums are 
obtained : 

1. Old Northern skulls of the stone age 18877 ins, 

2. Average of 48 skulls of the same period from England.... 18-858 ,, 

3. Average of 7 skulls of the same period from Wales 18*649 ,, 

4. Average of 36 skulls of the stone age from France .*.. 18-220 ,, 

The average of the now living Europeans is 18-579 inches ; of Hottentots, 

17-795 inches ! 

These figures show plainly that : 

The size of the brain of the oldest populations known to us is not such as to 
place them on a lower level than that of the now living inhabitants of the Earth. 1 

Besides which, they show the " missing link " vanishing into thin air. Of 
these, however, more anon : we must return to our direct subject. 

[As the Prometheus Vinctus of >Eschylus tells us], the race which Jupiter 
so ardently desired " to quench, and plant a new one in its stead " (v. 241), 
suffered mental, not physical misery. The first boon Prometheus gave to 
mortals, as he tells the Chorus, was to hinder them " from foreseeing death " 
(v. 256) ; he " saved the mortal race from sinking blasted down to Hades' 
gloom " (v. 244) ; and then only, " besides " that, he gave them fire (v. 260). 
This shows plainly the dual character at any rate of the Promethean myth, if 
Orientalists will not accept the existence of the seven fceys taught in Occultism. 
This relates to the first opening of man's spiritual perceptions, not to his first 

1 The Aoe and Or/cr/n of Man 



PROMETHEUS, THE TITAN yo 

seeing or discovering fire. For tire was never " discovered," but existed on 
Earth since its beginning. It existed in the seismic activity of the early ages, 
volcanic eruptions being as frequent and constant in those periods as fog is in 
England now. And if we are told that men appeared so late on Earth that 
all but a few volcanoes were already extinct, and that geological disturbances 
had made room for a more settled state of things, we answer : Let a new 
race of men whether evolved from Angel or Gorilla appear now on any 
uninhabited spot of the Globe, with the exception perhaps of the Sahara, and 
a thousand to one it would not be a year or two old before " discovering 
fire," through lightning setting the grass or something else in flames. This 
assumption, that primitive man lived ages on Earth before he was made 
acquainted with fire, is one of the most painfully illogical of all. But old 
>schylus was an Initiate, and knew well what he was giving out. 1 

No occultist acquainted with symbology and the fact that Wisdom came 
to us from the East, will for a moment deny that the myth of Prometheus has 
reached Europe from Aryavarta. Nor is he likely to deny that in one sense 
Prometheus represents fire by friction. Therefore, he admires the sagacity 
of F.Baudry, who shows in " Les Mythes du Feu et du Breuvage Celeste," 2 
one of the aspects of Prometheus and his origin from India. He shows the 
reader the supposed primitive process to obtain fire, still in use to-day in India 
to light the sacrificial flame. This is what he says : 

This process, such as it is minutely described in the Vedic Sutras, consists in 
rapidly turning a stick in a socket made in the centre of a piece of wood. The friction 
develops intense heat and ends by setting on fire the particles of wood in contact. 
The motion of the stick is not a continuous rotation, but a series of motions in contrary 
senses, by means of a cord fixed to the stick in its middle ; the operator holds one of 
the ends in each hand and pulls them alternately. . . . The full process is designated 
jn Sanskrit by the verb manthami, mathnani, which means "to rub, agitate, shake and 
obtain by rubbing," and is especially applied to rotatory friction, as is proved by its 
derivative mandala, which signifies a circle . . The pieces of wood serving for the pro- 
duction of fire have each their name in Sanskrit. The stick which turns is called pra~ 
mantha , the discus which receives it is called arani and arani . " the two aranis " 
designating the ensemble of the instrument/' 

1 The modern attempt of some Greek scholars (poor and pseudo scholars, they would have 
appeared in the day of the old Greek writers ') to explain the real meaning of the ideas of /Eschylus 
which, as being an ignorant ancient Greek, he could not express so well himself is absurdly ludicrous ! 

Revue Germanique, 1861, pp. 356, et seq. See also Memo/res de la Societe de la Linguistique, 
Vol. i, pp. 337, et seq. 

{ Quoted by Decharme, op cit., pp. 258-9. There is the upper and nether piece of timber used to 
produce this sacred fire by attrition at sacrifices, and it is the Arani which contains the socket. This 
is proven by an allegory in the Vayu and other Puranas, which tell us that Nimi the son of Ikshvaku, 
had left no successor, and that the Rishis, fearing to leave the Earth without a ruler, introduced the 
king's body into the socket of an Arani like an upper Aram and produced from it a prince named 
Janaka. " It was by reason of the peculiar way in which he was engendered that he was called Janaka " 
See also Goldstucker's Sanskrit Dictionary, sub voce. (Vishnu Purana, Wilson's Trans., Vol. in, p. 330 ) 
Devaki, Krishna's mother, in a prayer addressed to her, is called "the Aran? whose attrition 
engenders fire." 



94 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

It remains to be seen what the Brahmans will say to this. But even 
supposing that Prometheus, in one of the aspects of his myth, was conceived 
as the producer of fire by means of the Pramantha, or as an animate and 
divine Pramantha, would this imply that the symbolisro had no other than the 
phallic meaning attributed to it by modern symbologists ? Decharme, at any 
.rate, seems to have a correct glimmering of the truth ; for he unconsciously 
corroborates all that the Occult Sciences teach with regard to the Manasa 
Devas, who have endowed man with the consciousness of his immortal soul 
that consciousness which hinders man " from foreseeing death," and makes 
him know he is immortal. 1 " How did Prometheus come into possession of 
the [divine] spark ? " he asks. 

Fire having its abode in heaven, it is there he must have gone to find it before 
he could carry it down to men, and, to approach the gods, he must have been a god 
himself.-' 

The Greeks held that he was of the Divine Race, " the son of the Titan 
lapetos " ; :; the Hindus, that he was a Deva. 

But celestial fire belonged in the beginning to the gods alone ; it was a treasure 
they reserved for themselves . . . over which they jealously watched. . . " The 
prudent son of lapetus," says Hesiod, " deceived Jupiter by stealing and concealing in 
the cavity of a narthex, the indefatigable fire of the resplendent glow." ' . . Thus the 
gift made by Prometheus to men was a conquest made from heaven. Now according 
to Greek ideas [in this identical with those of the Occultists], this possession forced from 
Jupiter, this human trespassing upon the property of the gods, had to be followed by 
an expiation. . . . Prometheus, moreover, belongs to that race of Titans who had 
rebelled " against the gods, and whom the master of Olympus had hurled down into 
Tartarus ; like them, he is the genius of evil, doomed to cruel suffering/ 1 

What is most revolting in the explanations that follow, is the one-sided 
view taken of this grandest of all myths. The most intuitional among modern 
writers cannot, or will not, rise in their conceptions above the level of the 
Earth and cosrnic phenomena. It is not denied that the moral idea in the 
myth, as presented in the Theogony of Hesiod, plays a certain part in the 
primitive Greek conception. The Titan is more than a chief of the celestial 
fire. He is the representation of humanity active, industrious, intelligent, 
but at the same time ambitious, which aims at equalling divine powers. There- 
fore it is humanity punished in the person of Prometheus, but it is only so 
with the Greeks. With them, Prometheus is not a criminal, save in the eyes 

1 The Monad of the animal is as immortal as that of man, yet the brute knows nothing of this ; it 
lives an animal life of sensation just as the first human would have lived, on attaining ph>sical develop- 
ment in the Third Race, had it not been for the Agnishvatta and the Manasa Pitns. 

-Op. cit., p. 259. ;l ia7TTioviSri$. Theogony, p. 528. 

4 Ibid., 565. '"' The Fallen Angels, therefore ; the Asuras of the Indian Pantheon 

b Decharme, op. at., pp. 259-60. 



PROMETHEUS, THE TITAN 95 

of the Gods. In his relation with the Earth, he is, on the contrary, a God 
himself, a friend of mankind (tyiKdvdpwrros), which he has raised to civiliza- 
tion and initiated into the knowledge of all the arts ; a conception which found 
its most poetical expounder in schylus. But with all other nations Prometheus, 
is what ? The Fallen Angel, Satan, as the Church would have it ? Not at all. 
He is simply the image of the pernicious and dreaded effects of lightning. He 
is the "evil fire" (ma/ feu) 1 and the symbol of the divine reproductive 
male organ. 

Reduced to its simple expression, the myth we are trying to explain is then, 
simply a [cosmic] genius of fire. 1 ' 

It is the former idea (the phallic) which was pre-eminently Aryan, if we 
believe Adalbert Kuhn :; and F. Baudry. For : 

The fire used by rpan being the result of the action of pramantha in the aran/, 
the Aryas must have ascribed [ ? ] the same origin to celestial fire, and they must have ' 
imagined [?] that a god aYmed with the pramantha, or a divine pramantha, caused 
a violent friction in the bosom of the clouds, which gave birth to lightning and 
thunderbolts. 1 ' 4 

This idea is supported by the fact that, according to Plutarch's testimony/' the 
Stoics thought that thunder was the result of the struggle of storm-clouds, and lightning 
a conflagration due to friction ; while Aristotle saw in the thunderbolt only the action of 
clouds which clashed with each other. What was this theory, if not the scientific trans- 
lation of the production of fire by friction ? . . . Everything leads us to think that, 
from the highest antiquity, and before the dispersion of the Aryas, it was believed that 
the pramantha lighted the fire in the storm-cloud as well as in the aranis. 7 

Thus, suppositions and idle hypotheses are made to stand for discovered 
truths. Defenders of the biblical dead-letter could not help the writers of 
missionary tracts more effectually than do materialistic Symbologists in thus 
taking for granted that the ancient Aryans based their religious conceptions on 
no higher thought than the physiological. 

But it is not so, and the very spirit of Vedic Philosophy is against such an, 
interpretation. For if, as Decharme himself confesses : 

This idea of the creative power of fire is explained . . by the ancient 
assimilation of the human soul to a celestial spark. s 

as shown by the imagery often made use of in the Vedas when speaking of 
Aranl, it would mean something higher than simply a gross sexual conception. 
A Hymn to Agni in the Veda is cited as an example : 

Here is the pramantha ; the generator is ready Bring the mistress of the race 
(the female arani). Let us produce Agni by attrition, according to ancient custom. 

1 Ibid., p. 263. -Ibid , p. 261. 

{ Die Herabkunst des Feuers und des Gottertranks (Berlin, 1859). 

1 The italics are ours : they show how assumptions are raised to laws in our day 

"' Decharme, op. cit., p. 262. <; Philosoph. Placit , in, 3 

7 Baudry, Revue German/que, 14 avril, 1861, p. 368 s Op at., pp. 264, 265. 



96 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

This means no worse than an abstract idea expressed in the tongue of 
mortals. The female Arani, the "mistress of the race," is Aditi, the Mother 
of the Gods, or Shekinah, Eternal Light in the World of Spirit, the " Great 
Deep " and CHAOS; or Primordial Substance in its first remove from the 
UNKNOWN, in the Manifested Kosmos. If, ages later, the same epithet is 
applied to Devaki, the Mother of Krishna, or the incarnated LOGOS, and if 
the symbol, owing to the gradual and irrepressible spread of exoteric religions, 
may now be regarded as having a sexual significance, this in no way mars the 
original purity of the image. The subjective had been transformed into the 
objective ; Spirit had fallen into Matter. The universal kosmic polarity of 
Spirit-Substance had become, in human thought, the mystic, but still sexual, 
union of Spirit and Matter, and had thus acquired an anthropomorphic colour- 
ing which it had never had in the beginning. Between the Vecfas and the 
Puranas there is an abyss of which they are the poles, like as are the seventh 
principle, the Atma, and the first or lowest principle, the Physical Body, in the 
septenary constitution of Man. The primitive and purely spiritual language of 
the Vedas, conceived many decades of millenniums earlier [than the Puranic 
accounts], found a purely human expression for the purpose of describing 
events which took place 5,000 years ago, the date of Krishna's death, from 
which day the Kali Yuga, or Black Age, began for mankind. 

As Aditi is called Surarani, the Matrix or " Mother " of the Suras or 
Gods, so Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas, is called in the Mahabharata 
Pandavarani ] and the term is now physiologized. But Devaki, the antetype 
of the Roman Catholic Madonna, is a later anthropomorphized form of Aditi. 
The latter is the Goddess-mother, or Devamatri, of seven Sons (the six and 
the seven Adityas of early Vedic times) ; the mother of Krishna, Devaki, has 
six embryos conveyed into her womb by Jagad-dhatri, the " Nurse of the 
World," the seventh, Krishna, the Logos, being transferred to that of Rohini. 
Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the mother of seven children, of five sons and 
two daughters (a later transformation of sex), in Matthew's Gospel. 2 No one 
of the worshippers of the Roman Catholic Virgin would object to reciting in 
her honour the prayer addressed by the Gods to Devaki. Let the reader judge. 

Thou ... art that Prakriti [essence], infinite and subtile, which formerly bore 
Brahma in its womb. . . . Thou, eternal being, comprising, in thy substance, the 
essence of all created things, wast identical with creation ; thou wast the parent of the 
triform sacrifice, becoming the germ of all things. Thou art sacrifice, whence all fruit 
proceeds , thou art the wood [Arani], whose attrition engenders fire/ 5 As Aditi, thou 

1 See Vishnu Parana, Wilson, Vol. v, p. 96, note. - Ch xiii, 55-6. 

* " Womb of Light," " Holy Vessel," are the epithets of the Virgin. 



PROMETHEUS, THE TITAN 97 

art the parent of the gods. . . . Thou art light [Jyotsna, the morning twilight], 1 whence 
day is begotten ; thou art humility [Sannati, a daughter of Daksha], the mother of 
(true) wisdom ; thou art kingly policy [Nlti], the parent of order [Naya] ; thou art 
modesty, the progenitrix of affection [prashraya, explained by vinaya] ; thou art desire, 
of whom love is born. . . . Thou art ... the mother of knowledge [Avabodha] ; 
thou art patience [Dhriti], the parent of fortitude [Dhairya]. 2 

Thus Aram is shown here to be the same as the Roman Catholic "Vase 
of Election." As to its primitive meaning, it was purely metaphysical. No 
unclean thought traversed these conceptions in the ancient mind. Even in 
the Zohar far less metaphysical in its symbology than any other symbolism 
the idea is an abstraction and nothing more. Thus, when the Zohar says : 

All that which exists, all that which has been formed by the ancient, whose 
name is holy, can only exist through a male and female principle/ 

It means no more than that the divine Spirit of Life is ever coalescing 
with Matter. It MS the WILL of the Deity that acts ; and the idea is purely 
Schopenhauerian. 

When Atteekah Kaddosha, the ancient and the concealed of the concealed 
desired to form all things, it formed all things like male and female. This wisdom com- 
prises all when it goeth forth. 

Hence Chokmah (male Wisdom) and Binah (female Consciousness or 
Intellect) are said to create all between the two the active and the passive 
principles. As the eye of the expert jeweller discerns under the rough and 
uncouth oyster shell the pure immaculate pearl, enshrined within its bosom, 
his hand touching the shell but to get at its contents, so the eye of the true 
Philosopher reads between the lines of the Puranas the sublime Vedic truths, 
and corrects the form with the help of the Vedantic Wisdom. Our Oriental- 
ists, however, never perceive the pearl under the thick coating of the shell and 
act accordingly. 

From all that has been said in this Section, one sees clearly that, be- 
tween the Serpent of Eden and the Devil of Christianity, there is an abyss. 
Alone the sledge hammer of Ancient Philosophy can kill this dogma. 



1 The Virgin is often addressed as the " Morning Star " and the " Star of Salvation." 

2 Vishnu Purana, Wilson, Vol. iv, pp. 264-5. 
J Vol. iii. p. 290. 

F 7 



SECTION 7 

ENOICHION-HENOCH 

THE history of the evolution, of the Satanic Myth would not be complete 
if we omitted to notice the character of the mysterious and cosmopolitan 
Enoch, variously called Enos, Hanoch, and finally EnoTchion by the Greeks. 
It is from his book that the first notions of the Fallen Angels were taken by 
the early Christian writers. 

The Book of Enoch is declared apocryphal. But what is an apocryphon? 
The very etymology of the term shows that it is simply a secret book, i.e., one 
that belonged to the catalogue of temple-libraries under the guardianship of 
the Hierophants and Initiated Priests, and was never meant for the profane. 
Apocryphon comes from the verb crypto Kpvirro) "to hide." For ages the 
Enoichion, the Book of the Seer, was preserved in the " city of letters" and 
secret works the ancient Kirjath-sepher, later on, Debir. 1 

Some of the writers interested in the subject especially Masons have 
tried to identify Enoch with Thoth of Memphis, the Greek Hermes, and even 
with the Latin Mercury. As individuals, all of these are distinct one from the 
other ; professionally if one may use this word, now so limited in its sense 
one and all belong to the same category of sacred writers, of Initiators and 
Recorders of Occult and ancient Wisdom. Those who in the Qu'ran ' 2 are 
generically termed the Ec/ris, or the " Learned," the Initiated, bore in Egypt 
the name of " Thoth," the inventor of Arts, Sciences, of writing or letters, of 
Music and Astronomy. Among the Jews Edris became " Enoch," who, 
according to Bar-Hebraeus, " was the first inventor of writing," books, Arts, 
and Sciences, the first who reduced to a system the progress of the planets. * 
In Greece he was called Orpheus, and thus changed his name with every 
nation. The number seven being attached to, and connected with, each of 

1 See Joshua, xv, 15. 2 Surat xix. 

J See Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, sub voce " Enoch." 



ENOTCHION-HENOCH 99 

those primitive Initiators, 1 as well as the number 365, of the days in the year, 
astronomically, it identifies the mission, character, and the sacred office of alt 
these men, but certainly not their personalities. Enoch is the seventh 
Patriarch ; Orpheus is the possessor of the Phorminx, the seven-stringed lyre, 
which is the seven-fold mystery of Initiation. Thoth, with the seven-rayed 
Solar Discus on his head, travels in the Solar Boat (the 365 degrees), jumping 
out every fourth (leap) year for one day. Finally, Thoth-Lunus is the septen- 
ary God of the seven days, or the week. Esoterically and spiritually, EnoTchiorv 
means the " Seer of the Open Eye." 

The story about Enoch, told by Josephus, namely, that he had concealed 
his precious Rolls or Books under the pillars of Mercury or Seth, is the same 
as that told of Hermes, the " Father of Wisdom," who concealed his Books 
of Wisdom under a pillar, and then, discovering the two pillars of stone, found 
the Science written thereon. Yet Josephus, notwithstanding his constant 
efforts in the direction of Israel's unmerited glorification, and though he does 
attribute that Science (of Wisdom) to the Jewish Enoch writes history. He 
shows these pillars as still existing during his own time. 2 He tells us that they 
were built by Seth ; and so they may have been, only neither by the Patriarch 
of that name, the fabled son of Adam, nor by the Egyptian God of Wisdom 
Teth, Set, Thoth, Tat, Sat (the later Sat-an), or Hermes, who are all one 
but by the " Sons of the Serpent-God," or " Sons of the Dragon," the name 
under which the Hierophants of Egypt and Babylon were known before the 
Deluge, as were their forefathers, the Atlanteans. 

What Josephus tells us, therefore, with the exception of the application 
made of it, must be true allegorically. According to his version the two 
famous pillars were entirely covered with hieroglyphics, which, after their dis- 
covery, were copied and reproduced in the most secret corners of the inner 
temples of Egypt, and thus became the source of its Wisdom and exceptional 
learning. These two " pillars," however, are the prototypes of the two "tables 
of stone " hewn by Moses at the command of the " Lord." Hence, in say- 
ing that all the great Adepts and Mystics of antiquity such as Orpheus, Hesiod, 
Pythagoras and Plato got the elements of their Theology from those 
hieroglyphics, he is right in one sense, and wrong in another. The SECRET 
DOCTRINE teaches us that the Arts, Sciences, Theology, and especially the 
Philosophy of every nation which preceded the last universally known, but not 
universal, Deluge, had been recorded ideographically from the primitive oral 
records of the Fourth Race, and that these were the inheritance of the latter 

1 Khanoch, or Hanoch, or Enoch esoterically means the "Initiator " and '' Teacher," as well as 
Enos, the " Son of Man." (See Genesis, iv, 26.) 

2 De Mirville. Des Esprits, Tome iii, p. 70. 



100 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

from the early Third Root Race before the allegorical Fall. Hence, also, the 
Egyptian pillars, the tablets, and even the "white oriental porphyry stone" of 
the Masonic legend which Enoch, fearing that the real and precious secrets 
would be lost, concealed before the Deluge in the bowels of the Earth were 
simply the more or less symbolical and allegorical copies from the primitive 
Records. The Book of Enoch is one of such copies, and is, moreover, a 
Chaldean, and now very incomplete, compendium. As already said, Enoichion 
means in Greek the " Inner Eye," or the Seer; in Hebrew, with the help of 
Masoretic points, it means the "Initiator" and "Instructor" (^n). Enoch 
is a generic title ; and, moreover, his legend is that of several other prophets, 
Jewish and Heathen, with changes of made-up details, the root-form being 
the same. Elijah is also taken up into Heaven "alive" ; and the Astrologer, 
at the court of Isdubar, the Chaldean Hea-bani, is likewise raised to Heaven 
by the God Hea, who was his patron, as Jehovah was of Elijah, whose name 
means in Hebrew "God-Jah," Jehovah (n^bs), 1 and again of EHhu, which 
Shas the same meaning. This kind of easy death, or euthanasia, has an 
esoteric meaning. It symbolizes the " death " of any Adept who has reached 
the power and degree, and also the purification, which enable him to " die " 
.in the physical Body, and still live and lead a conscious life in his Astral Body. 
The variations on this theme are endless, but the secret meaning is ever the 
same. The Pauline expression, 2 " that he should not see death " (ut non videret 
mortem), has thus an esoteric meaning, but nothing supernatural in it. The 
.mangled interpretation given of some biblical hints to the effect that Enoch, 
" whose years will equal those of the world " (of the Solar year, 365 days), 
will share with Christ and the prophet Elijah the honours and bliss of the last 
Advent and of the destruction of Antichrist 3 signify esoterically, that some 
of the great Adepts will return in the Seventh Race, when all Error will be 
made away with, and the advent of TRUTH will be heralded by those Shishta, 
the holy " Sons of Light." 

The Latin Church is not always logical, nor prudent. She declares the 
Book of Enoch an apocryphon, and has gone so far as to claim, through 
Cardinal Cajetan and other luminaries of the Church, the rejection from the 
Canon of even the Book of Jude, who, otherwise, as an inspired apostle, 
would quote from and thus sanctify the Book of Enoch, which is alleged to be 
an apocryphal work. Fortunately, some of the dogmatics perceived the peril 
in time. Had they accepted Cajetan's resolution, they would have been 
forced to reject likewise the Fourth Gospel ; as St. John borrows literally 

1 Mackenzie, op. cit., sub voc. - Hebrews, xi, 5. 3 Oes Esprits, Tome iii, p. 71. 



ENOICHION-HENOCH 101 

from Enoch, and places a whole sentence from him, in the mouth of 
Jesus ! * 

Ludolph, the " father of Ethiopic literature/' commissioned to investigate 
the various Enochian MSS. presented by Pereisc, the traveller, to the Mazarine 
Library, declared that " no Book of Enoch could exist among the Abyssinians " ! 
Further researches and discoveries worsted this too dogmatic assertion, as all 
know. Bruce and Ruppel did find the Book of Enoch in Abyssinia, and what 
is more, brought it to Europe some years later, and Bishop Laurence translated 
it. But Bruce despised it, and scoffed at its contents ; as did all the rest of 
the Scientists. He declared it a Gnostic work, concerning the Age of Giants 
who devour men and bearing a strong resemblance to the Apocalypse. 2 
Giants ! another fairy-tale ! 

Such, however, has not been the opinion of all the best critics. 
Dr. Hanneberg places the Book of Enoch along with the Third Book of the 
Maccabees at the head of the list of those whose authority stands the nearest 
to that of the canonical works. 3 

Verily, " where doctors disagree. . . ." ! 

As usual, however, they are all right and all wrong. To accept Enoch as 
a biblical character, a single living person, is like accepting Adam as the first 
man. Enoch was a generic title, applied to, and borne by, scores of individu- 
als, at all times and ages, and in every race and nation. This may be easily 
inferred from the fact that the ancient Talmudists and the teachers of Midrashim 
are not agreed generally in their views about Hanokh, the Son of Yered. 
Some say Enoch was a great Saint, beloved by God, and "taken alive to 
heaven," i.e., one who reached Mukti or Nirvana, on Earth, as Buddha did 
and others still do ; and others maintain that he was a sorcerer, a wicked 
magician. This shows only that " Enoch," or its equivalent, was a 
term, even during the days of the later Talmudists, which meant " Seer," 
" Adept in the Secret Wisdom," etc., without any specification as to the 
character of the title-bearer. Josephus, speaking of Elijah and Enoch, 4 
remarks that : 

It is written in the sacred books they [Elijah and Enoch] disappeared, but so that 
nobody knew that they died. 

It means simply that they had died in their personalities, as Yogis 
die to this day in India, or even some Christian monks to the world. 
They disappear from the sight of men and die on the terrestrial plane 

1 Compare the "thieves and robbers " incident, p. 50, supra. 

2 De Mirville, ibid., p. 73. 3 Ibid., p. 76. 4 Antiquities, ix, 2. 



102 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

even for themselves. A seemingly figurative way of speaking, yet 
literally true. 

44 Hanokh transmitted the science of (astronomical) calculation and of 
computing the seasons to Noah," says the Midrash P/rka/i; 1 R. Eliezar refer- 
ring to Enoch that which others did to Hermes Trismegistus, for the two are 
identical in their esoteric meaning. "Hanokh" in this case, and his 
"Wisdom," belong to the cycle of the Fourth Atlantean Race,- and Noah to 
that of the Fifth. 3 In this case both represent the Root Races, the present 
one and the one that preceded it. In another sense, Enoch disappeared, 
" he walked with God, and he was not, for God took him " ; the allegory 
referring to the disappearance of the Sacred and Secret Knowledge from 
among men ; for " God " (or Java Aleim the high Hierophants, the Heads 
of the Colleges of Initiated Priests 4 ) took him; in other words, the Enochs or 
the Enoichions, the Seers and their Knowledge and Wisdom, became strictly 
confined to the Secret Colleges of the Prophets with the Jews, and to the 
Temples with the Gentiles. 

Interpreted with the help of merely the symbolical key, Enoch is the type 
of the dual nature of man spiritual and physical. Hence he occupies the 
centre of the astronomical Cross, as given by Eliphas Levi from a secret 
work, which is a Six-pointed Star, the "Adonai." In the upper angle 
of the upper Triangle is the Eagle ; in the left lower angle stands the 
Lion ; in the right, the Bull ; while between the Bull and the Lion, over them 
and under the Eagle, is the face of Enoch or Man. 5 Now the figures on the 
upper Triangle represent the Four Races, omitting the First, the Chhayas or 
Shadows, and the " Son of Man," Enos or Enoch, is in the centre, where he 
stands between the Fourth and the Fifth Races, for he represents the Secret 
Wisdom of both. These are the Four Animals of Ezekiel and of the Revela- 
tion. This Double Triangle which, in Isis Unveiled, is faced by the Hindu 
Ardhanari, is by far the best. For in the latter, only the three (for us) 
historical Races are symbolized ; the Third, the Androgynous, by Ardha-nari ; 
the Fourth, symbolized by the strong, powerful Lion ; and the Fifth, the 
Aryan, by that which is its most sacred symbol to this day, the Bull (and 
the Cow). 

1 Cap. viii. 

2 Says the Zohar, " Hanokh had a book which was one with the Book of the Generation of Adam ; 
-this is the Mystery of Wisdom." 

3 Noah is heir to the Wisdom of Enoch ; in other words, the Fifth is heir to the Fourth Race. 

4 See Isis Unveiled, I, p. 575, et seq. 

;> See the illustration in Isis Unveiled, II, p. 452. 



ENOICHION-HENOCH 1 03 

A man of great erudition, a French savant, M. de Sacy, finds several 
most singular statements in the Book of Enoch, "worthy of the most serious 
examination/' he says. For instance: 

The author [Enoch] makes the solar year consist of 364 days, and seems to 
know periods of three, of five, and of eight years, followed by four supplementary 
days, which, in his system, appear to be those of the equinoxes and solstices. 1 

To which he adds, later on : 

I see but one means to palliate them [these " absurdities "] ; it is to suppose 
that the author expounds some fanciful system which may have existed before the 
order of Nature had been altered at the period of the Universal Deluge* 

Precisely so ; and the SECRECT DOCTRINE teaches that this " order of nature " 
has been thus altered, and the series of the Earth's humanities too. For, as 
the angel Uriel tells Enoch : 

Behold, I have showed thee all things, O Enoch ; and all things have I revealed 
to thee. Thou seest the sun, the moon, and those which conduct the stars of heaven, 
which cause all their operations, seasons, and arrivals to return. In the days of sinners 
the years shall be shortened. . . The moon shall change its laws . . . 3 

In those days also, years before the great Deluge that carried away the 
Atlanteans and changed the face of the whole Earth (because "the Earth [on 
its axis] became inclined"). Nature, geologically, astronomically, and cosmic- 
ally in general, could not have been the same, just because the Earth had 
Inclined. To quote from Enoch : 

And Noah cried with a bitter voice, Hear me ; hear me ; hear me ; three times. 
And he said, . . . The earth labours and is violently shaken. Surely, I shall perish 
with it. 4 

This, by the way, looks like one of those many "inconsistencies," 
if the Bible is read literally. For, to say the least, this is a very strange 
fear in one who had " found grace in the eyes of the Lord " and been told 
to build an Ark ! But here we find the venerable Patriarch expressing as much 
fear as if, instead of a "friend" of God, he had been one of the Giants 
doomed by the wrathful Deity. The Earth had already inclined, and the deluge 
of waters had become simply a question of time, and yet Noah seems to know 
nothing of his intended salvation. 

A decree had come indeed; the decree of Nature and the Law of 
Evolution, that the Earth should change its Race, and that the Fourth Race 
should be destroyed to make room for a better one. The Manvantara had 
reached its turning point of three and a halt Rounds, and gigantic physical 
.Humanity had reached the acme of gross materiality. Hence the apocalyptic 

1 See Danielo's criticisms upon De Sacy, in the Annales c/e Philosophic, p. 393, deuxieme article. 
Des Espr/ts, Tome iii, pp. 77-8. 3 Ch. Ixxix, Laurence's Trans. 4 Ibid., ch. Ixiv. 



104 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

verse that speaks of a commandment gone forth that they may be destroyed, 
"that their end may be " the end of the Race : 

For they knew [truly] every secret of the angels, every oppressive and secret 
power of the Satans, and every power of those who commit sorcery, as well as of 
those who make molten images in the whole earth. 1 

And now a natural question. Who could have informed the apocryphal 1 
author of this powerful vision no matter to what age he may be assigned 
before the day of Galileo that the Earth could occasionally incline her axis ? 
Whence did he derive such astronomical and geological knowledge if the 
Secret Wisdom, of which the ancient Rishis and Pythagoras had drunk, is but 
a fancy, an invention of later ages ? Has Enoch read prophetically perchance 
in Frederic Klee's work on the Deluge the lines : 

The position of the terrestrial globe with reference to the sun has evidently been, 
in primitive times, different from what it is now ; and this difference must have been 
caused by a displacement of the axis of rotation of the earth. 

This reminds one of that unscientific statement made by the Egyptian^ 
priests to Herodotus, namely, that the Sun has not always risen where it rises 
now, and that in former times the ecliptic had cut the equator at right angles. 2 

There are many such "dark sayings" scattered throughout the Puranas, 
Bible and other Mythologies, and to the Occultist they divulge two facts ; (a) 
that the Ancients knew as well as, and perhaps better than, the moderns do, 
Astronomy, Geognosy and Cosmography in general ; and (fa) that the be- 
haviour of the Globe has altered more than once since the primitive state of 
things. Thus, Xenophantes on the blind faith of his "ignorant" religion, 
which taught that Phaethon, in his desire to learn the hidden truth, made the 
Sun deviate from its usual course asserts somewhere that, "the Sun turned 
toward another country "; which is a parallel slightly more scientific, however, 
if not as bold of Joshua stopping the course of the Sun altogether. Yet it 
may explain the teaching of the Northern Mythology that before the actual 
order of things the Sun arose in the South, and its placing the Frigid Zone 
(Jeruskoven) in the East, whereas now it is in the North. 3 

The Book of Enoch, in short, is a resume, a compound of the mair> 
features of the history of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Races ; a very few pro- 
phecies from the present age of the world ; a long retrospective, introspective 
and prophetic summary of universal and quite historical events geological,, 
ethnological, astronomical, and psychic with a touch of Theogony out of the 

1 Ibid., loc. cit., Tome v, p. 6. 

2 Bailiy, Astronomic Anc/enne, i, p. 203, and ii, 216 ; Des Esprits, Tome lii, p. 79. 

3 Des Esprits, Tome iii, p. 80. 



ENOICHION-HENOCH 105 

antediluvian records. The Book of this mysterious personage is referred to 
and quoted copiously in the P/st/s Sophia, and also in the Zohar and its most 
ancient Midrashim. Origen and Clement of Alexandria held it in the highest 
esteem. To say, therefore, that it is a Post-Christian forgery is to utter an 
absurdity and to become guilty of an anachronism, for Origen, among others, 
who lived in the second century of the Christian era, mentions it as an ancient 
and venerable work. The secret and sacred Name and its potency are well 
and clearly though allegorically described in the old volume. From the 
eighteenth to the fiftieth chapter, the Visions of Enoch are all descriptive 
of the Mysteries of Initiation, one of which is the Burning Valley of the 
" Fallen Angels." 

Perhaps St. Augustine was quite right in saying that the Church rejected 
the Book of Enoch out of her canon owing to its too great antiquity (ob nimiam 
ant/qu/tatem). 1 There was no room for the events noticed in it within the 
limit of the 4004 years B.C. assigned to the world from its " creation " ! 



1 The Gty of God, Bk. XV, ch xxin. 



SECTION 8 

THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY-NAMES IAO 

AND JEHOVAH, WITH THEIR RELATION TO 

THE CROSS AND CIRCLE 

WHEN the Abbe Louis Constant, better known as Eliphas Levi, said in his 
Histoire de la Magle that the Sepher Yetzireh, the Zohar, and the Apocalypse 
of St. John, are the masterpieces of The Occult Sciences, he ought, if he had 
wished to be correct and clear, to have added in Europe. It is quite true 
that these works contain " more significance than words " ; and that their " ex- 
pression is poetical," while " in numbers " they are " exact." Unfortunately, 
however, before any one can appreciate the poetry of the expressions, or 
the exactness of the numbers, he will have to learn the real significance and 
meaning of the terms and symbols employed. But man will never learn this 
so long as he remains ignorant of the fundamental principle of the SECRET 
DOCTRINE, whether in Oriental Esotericism, or in the kabalistical Symbology 
the key, or value, in all their aspects, of the " God" -names, " Angel ''-names, 
and " Patriarch "-names in the Bible, their mathematical or geometrical value, 
and their relations to manifested Nature. 

Therefore, if, on the one hand, the Zohar " astonishes [the mystic] by 
the profundity of its views and the great simplicity of its images," on the 
other hand, that work misleads the student by such expressions as 
those used with respect to Ain Soph and Jehovah, notwithstanding the 
assurance that : 

The book is careful to explain that the human form with which it clothes God is 
but an image of the Word, and that God should not be expressed by any thought, 
or any form. 

It is well known that Origen, Clemens, and the Rabbis confessed that 
the Kabalah and the Bible were ve//ed and secret books ; but few know that 
the Esotericism of the kabalistic books in their present re-edited form is simply 



SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY-NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH 107 

another and still more cunning veil thrown upon the primitive symbolism of 
these secret volumes. 

The idea of representing the hidden Deity by the circumference of a 
circle, and the Creative Power male and female, or the Androgynous Word 
by the diameter across it, is one of the oldest symbols. It is upon this 
conception that every great Cosmogony has been built. With the old Aryans, 
the Egyptians, and the Chaldeans, the symbol was complete, as it embraced 
the i^ea of the eternal and immovable Divine Thought in its absoluteness, 
separated entirely from the incipient stage of the so-called "creation," and 
comprised psychological and even spiritual evolution, and its mechanical work, 
or cosmogonical construction. With the Hebrews, however, though the 
former conception is to be distinctly found in the Zohar, and the Sepher 
Yetzireh, or what remains of the latter that which has. been subsequently 
embodied in the Pentateuch proper, and especially in Genesis, is simply this 
secondary stage, to wit, the mechanical law of creation, or rather of construc- 
tion ; while Theogony is hardly, if at all, outlined. 

It is only in the first six chapters of Genesis, in the rejected Book of 
Enoch, and the misunderstood and mistranslated poem of Job, that true 
^echoes of the Archaic Doctrine may now be found. The key to it is lost now, 
^ven among the most learned Rabbis, whose predecessors in the early period 
of the Middle Ages, in their national exclusiveness and pride, and especially 
iin their profound hatred of Christianity, preferred to cast it into the deep sea 
of oblivion, rather than to share their knowledge with their relentless and fierce 
persecutors. Jehovah was their own tribal property, inseparable from, and unfit 
to play a part in, any other but the Mosaic Law. Violently torn out of his 
original frame, which he fitted and which fitted him, the " Lord God of Abraham 
and Jacob " could hardly be crammed without damage and breakage into the 
new Christian Canon. Being the weaker, the Judeans could not help the 
desecration. They kept, however, the secret of the origin of their Adam 
Kadmon, or male-female Jehovah, and the new tabernacle proved a complete 
misfit for the old God. They were, indeed, avenged ! 

The statement that Jehovah was the tribal God of the Jews and no 
higher, will be denied like many other things. Yet the Theologians are not 
in a position to tell us, in that case, the meaning of the verses in Deuteronomy, 
which say quite plainly : 

When the Most High [not the " Lord," or "Jehovah " either] divided to the 
nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds . . . 
according to the number of the children of Israel. . . . The Lord's [Jehovah's] portion 
is his people ; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. 1 

1 Op. cit., xxxii, 8, 9. 



108 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

This settles the question. So impudent have been the modern translators 
of Bibles and Scriptures, and so damaging are these verses, that, following in 
the steps traced for them by their worthy Church Fathers, each translator has 
rendered these lines in his own way. While the above-cited quotation is taken 
verbatim from the English Authorized Version, in the French Bible, 1 we find 
the " Most High " translated by " Souverain " (Sovereign ! !), the " sons of 
Adam " rendered by " the children of men," and the " Lord " changed into 
the " Eternal." For impudent sleight-of-hand, the French Protestant Church 
seems thus to have surpassed even English ecclesiasticism. 

Nevertheless, one thing is patent : the "Lord's [Jehovah's] portion " is 
his " chosen people " and none else, for, Jacob alone is the lot of his inherit- 
ance. What, then, have other nations, who call themselves Aryans, to do 
with this Semitic Deity, the tribal God of Israel ? Astronomically, the " Most 
High " is the Sun, and the " Lord " is one of his seven planets, whether it be 
lao, the Genius of the Moon, or Ildabaoth-Jehovah, the Genius of Saturn, 
according to Origen and the Egyptian Gnostics. 2 Let the "Angel Gabriel," 
the " Lord " of Iran, watch over his people, and Michael-Jehovah, over his 
Hebrews. These are not the Gods of other nations, nor were they ever those 
of Jesus. As each Persian Dev is chained to his planet, 3 so each Hindu Deva 
(a " Lord ") has its allotted portion, a world, a plpnet, a nation or a race. 
Plurality of worlds implies plurality of Gods. We believe in the former, and 
may recognize, but will never worship the latter. 4 

It has been repeatedly stated in this work that every religious and philo- 
sophical symbol had seven meanings attached to it, each pertaining to its 
legitimate plane of thought, i.e., either purely metaphysical or astronomical ; 
psychic or physiological, etc. These seven meanings and their applications are 
difficult enough to learn when taken by themselves ; but the interpretation 
and the right comprehension of them become tenfold more puzzling, when, 
instead of being correlated, or made to flow consecutively out of, and to 
follow, each other, each, or any one of these meanings, is accepted as the one 
and sole explanation of the whole symbolical idea. An instance may be given, 
as it admirably illustrates the statement. Here are two interpretations, given by 
two learned Kabalists and scholars, of one and the same verse in Exodus, 

1 Of the Protestant Biblical Society of Paris, according to the version revised in 1824 by 
J. E. Ostervald. 

* With the Egyptian Gnostics it was Thoth (Hermes), who was chief of the Seven (see Book of the 
Dead). Their names are given by Origen, as Adonai (of the Sun), lao (of the Moon), Eloi (Jupiter), 
Sabao (Mars), Orai (Venus), Astaphai (Mercury), and, finally, lldabaoth (Saturn). See King's Gnostics, 
and their Remains, p. 344. 

:| See Origen's Copy of the Chart or Diagramma of the Ophites, in his Contra Ce/sum. 

4 See Part 3 of this Volume, Section 4, B, " On Chains of Planets and their Plurality." 



SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY-NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH 109 

Moses beseeches the Lord to show him his " glory." Evidently it is not the 
crude dead-letter phraseology as found in the Bible that is to be accepted. 
There are seven meanings in the Kabalah, of which we may give two as inter- 
preted by the said two scholars. One of them translates while explaining : 

" Thou canst not see My face ; . . . I will put thee in a cleft of the rock and 
\ will cover thee with My hand while I pass by. And then I will take away Mine hand, 
,and thou shalt see My a'hoor," i.e., My back. 1 

And then the translator adds in a gloss : 

That is, I will show you " My back," i.e., My visible universe, My lower manifes- 
tations, but, as a man still in the flesh, thou canst not see My invisible nature. So 
proceeds the Qabbalah. 2 

This is correct, and is the cosmo-metaphysical explanation. And now 
speaks the other Kabalist, giving the numerical meaning. As it involves a 
good many suggestive ideas, and is far more fully given, we may allow it more 
space. This synopsis is from an unpublished MS., and explains more fully what 
was given, in Section 3, on the " Holy of Holies." ' { 

The numbers of the name " Moses " are those of " I AM THAT I AM," so 
that the names Moses and Jehovah are at one in numerical harmony. The 
word Moses is n W D (5 + 3004-40), and the sum of the values of its letters is 345 ; 
Jehovah the Genius par excellence of the Lunar Year assumes the value of 
543, or the reverse of 345. 

In the third chapter of Exodus, in the 13th and 14th verses, it is said : And 
Moses said, . . . Behold I come unto the children of Israel, and I shall say unto them, The 
God of your fathers hath sent me unto you ; and they shall say unto me, What is his 
name ? What shall I say unto them ? And God said unto Moses, 

I Am That I Am. 

The Hebrew words for this expression are ah/ye asher ahiye, and in the value of 
the sums of their letters stand thus : 

mnx -itpx rrnx 

21 501 21 

. . . This being his [God's] name, the sum of the values composing it, 21, 501, 
21 is 543, or simply a use of the simple digit numbers in the name of Moses, . . . but 
now so ordered that the name of 345 is reversed, and reads 543. 

So that when Moses asks, " Let me see Thy face or glory," the other 
rightly and truly replies, " Thou canst not see my face . . . but thou shalt 
see me behind " the true sense, though not the precise words ; for the 
corner and the behind of 543 is the face of 345. This is 

For check and to keep a strict use of a set of numbers to develop certain grand 
results, for the object of which they are specifically employed. 

1 Exodus, xxxiii, 20-3 ; see Myer's Qabbalah, p. 226. - Ibid, loc. cit. 3 Supra, p. 27. 



1 ! 10 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

As the learned Kabalist adds : 

In other uses of the numbers, they saw each other face to face. It is strange 
that if we add 345 to 543 we have 888, which was the Gnostic Cabbalistic value of the 
name Christ, who was Jehoshua or Joshua. And so also the division of the 24 hours of 
the day gives three eights as quotient. . . . The chief end of all this system of Number 
Checks was to preserve in perpetuity the exact value of the Lunar Year in the Natural) 
measure of Days. 

These are the astronomical and numerical meanings in the secret Theog- 
ony of sidereo-cosmical Gods invented by the Chaldeo-Hebrews, two 
meanings out of seven. The other five would astonish the Christians still more. 

The series of GEdipuses who have endeavoured to interpret the riddle of 
the Sphinx, is long indeed. For many ages she has been devouring the 
brightest and the noblest intellects of Christendom ; but now the Sphinx is 
conquered. In the great intellectual struggle which has ended in the complete 
victory of the GEdipuses of Symbolism, it is, however, not the Sphinx, who, 
burning with the shame of defeat, has had to bury herself in the sea, but 
verily the many-sided symbol, named Jehovah, whom Christians the civilized 
nations have accepted for their God. The Jehovah symbol has collapsed 
under the too close analysis, and is drowned. Symbologists have discovered 
with dismay that their adopted Deity was only a mask for many other Gods, a 
euhemerized extinct planet, at best, the Genius of the Moon and Saturn with 
the Jews, of the Sun and Jupiter with early Christians ; that the Trinity 
unless they accepted the more abstract and metaphysical meanings given to 
it by the Gentiles was, in truth, only an astronomical triad, composed of the 
Sun (the Father), and the two planets Mercury (the Son) and Venus (the Holy 
Ghost), Sophia, the Spirit of Wisdom, Love and Truth, and Lucifer, as Christ, 
the " bright and morning star." 1 For, if the Father is the Sun (the " Elder 
Brother," in the Eastern inner Philosophy), the nearest planet to it is Mercury 
(Hermes, Budha, Thoth), the name of whose Mother on Earth was Maia. 
Now this planet receives seven times more light than any other ; a fact which 
led the Gnostics to call their Christos, and the Kabalists their Hermes (in the 
astronomical meaning), the " Seven-fold Light." Finally, this God was Bel 
the Sun being Bel with the Gauls ; Helios, with the Greeks ; Baal, with the 
Phoenicians ; El, in Chaldean, hence El-ohim, Emanu-el, and El, " God," in 
Hebrew. But even the kabalistic God has vanished in the rabbinical work- 
manship, and one has now to turn to the innermost metaphysical sense of the 
Zohar to find in it anything like Ain Soph, the Nameless Deity and the Abso- 
lute, so authoritatively and loudly claimed by the Christians. But it is certainly 
not to be found in the Mosaic books, at any rate by those who try to read. 

1 See Revelation, xxii, 16. 



SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY-NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH 1 1 1 

without a key to them. Ever since this key was lost, Jews and Christians have 
tried their best to blend these two conceptions, but in vain. They have only 
succeeded in finally robbing even the Universal Deity of Its majestic character 
and primitive meaning. 

As was said in Isis Unveiled : 

It would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between the mystery- 
god law, adopted from the highest antiquity by all who participated in the esoteric 
knowledge of the priests, and his phonetic counterparts, whom we find treated with so 
little reverence by the Ophites and other Gnostics. 1 

In the Ophite gems of King,- we find the name of lao repeated, and often con- 
founded with that of levo, while the latter simply represents one of the Genii antagonis- 
tic to Abraxas. . . . But the name lao neither originated with, nor was it the sole 
property of the Jews. Even if it had pleased Moses to bestow the name upon the 
tutelary " Spirit," the alleged protector and national deity of the " chosen people of 
Israel," there is yet no possible reason why other nationalities should receive Him as 
the Highest and One-living God. But we deny the assumption altogether. Besides, 
there is the fact that laho or lao was a " mystery name " from the beginning, for 
rrrp and fP never came into use before the time of king David. Anterior to his time, 
few or no proper names were compounded with lah or Jah. It looks rather as though 
David, being a sojourner among the Tyrians and Philistines,' brought thence the 
name of Jehovah. He made Zadok high priest, from whom came the Zadokites or 
Sadducees. He lived and ruled first at Hebron (fVinn), Habir-on or Kabeir-town, where 
the rites of the four (mystery-gods) were celebrated. Neither David nor Solomon 
recognized either Moses or the law of Moses. Ihey aspired to build a temple to 
mrP, like the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules and Venus, Adon and Astarte. 

Says Furst : " The very ancient name of God, Yaho, written in the Greek law, 
appears, apart from its derivation, to have been an old mystic name of the Supreme . 
Deity of the Shemites. Hence it was told to Moses when he was initiated at 
Hor-eb the Cave under the direction of Jethro, the Kenite (or Cainite) priest of 
Midian. In an old religion of the Chaldeans, whose remains are to be found among 
the Neo-Platonists, the highest Divinity, enthroned above the seven Heavens, represent- 
ing the Spiritual Light-Principle, . . . and also conceived of as Demiurgus,' was called 
lao) (VTi) who was, like the Hebrew Yaho, mysterious and unmentionable, and whose 
name was communicated to the Initiated. The Phoenicians had a Supreme God, whose 
name was triliteral and secret, and he was law." r> 

The cross, say the Kabalists, repeating the lesson of the Occultists, is one 
of the most ancient nay, perhaps, the most ancient of symbols. This has 
been demonstrated at the very beginning of the Proem in Volume 1 . The 
Eastern Initiates show it coeval with the circle of Deific Infinitude and the first 
differentiation of the Essence, the union of Spirit and Matter. This inter- 
pretation has been rejected, and the astronomical allegory alone has been 
accepted and made to fit into cunningly imagined terrestrial events. 

1 Op. at., ii, 301. 2 Gnostics and their Remains. 3 // Samuel, ii, 11. 

1 By very few though, for the creators of the material universe were always considered as sub- 
ordinate Gods to the Most High Deity. 

5 Op c/t., ii, 296, 297. FUrst gives citations from Lydus and Cedrenus in support of his statements. 



112 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Let us demonstrate this statement. In Astronomy, as said, Mercury is the 
son of Coelus and Lux of the Sky and Light, or the Sun ; in Mythology he is 
the progeny of Jupiter and Maia. He is the "Messenger" of his Father 
Jupiter, the Messiah of the Sun ; in Greek, his name Hermes means, among 
other things, the "Interpreter" the Word, 1 the LOGOS, or VERBUM. Now 
Mercury is born on Mount Cyllene among shepherds, and is the patron of the 
latter. As a psychopompic Genius, he conducted the Souls of the Dead to 
Hades and brought them back again, an office attributed to Jesus after his 
death and resurrection. The symbols of Hermes-Mercury (Dii Termini) were 
placed along, and at the turning points of, highways, as crosses are now 
placed in Italy, and they were cruciform.' Every seventh day the priests 
anointed these Termini with oil, and once a year hung them with garlands, 
hence they were the anointed. Mercury, when speaking through his oracles, 
says : 

I am he whom you call the Son of the Father [Jupiter] and Maia. Leaving the 
King of Heaven [the Sun] I come to help you, mortals. 

Mercury heals the blind and restores sight, mental and physical. <? He 
was often represented as three-headed and called Tricephalus, Triplex, as one 
with the Sun and Venus. Finally, Mercury, as Cornutus * shows, was some- 
times figured under a cubic form, without arms, because "the power of 
speech and eloquence can prevail without the assistance of arms or feet." It 
is this cubic form which connects the Termini directly with the cross, and it is 
the eloquence or the power of speech of Mercury which made the crafty 
Eusebius say, " Hermes is the emblem of the Word which creates and inter- 
prets all," for it is the Creative Word ; and he shows Porphyry teaching that 
the Speech of Hermes now interpreted " Word of God " (!) in Pymander 
a Creative Speech (Vertt/m), is the Seminal Principle scattered throughout the 
Universe. 5 In Alchemy " Mercury" is the radical Moyst Principle, Primitive or 
Elementary Water, containing the Seed of the Universe, fecundated by the 
Solar Fires. To express this fecundating principle, a phallus was often added 
to the cross (the male and female, or the vertical and the horizontal united) 
by the Egyptians. The cruciform Termini also represented this dual idea, 
which was found in Egypt in the cubic Hermes. The author of The Source of 
Measures tells us why. 6 

1 The " Word " by mouth, in the 1888 edition. 

a See plate 77 tn Vol. i of Montfaucon's Antiquities. The disciples of Hermes, after their death, 
go to his planet, Mercury their Kingdom of Heaven. 

3 Lydus, De Mensibus, iv. 4 Preparat. Evang,, I, iii, 2. 

:> But see Sect 2, concerning the Gnostic Priapus. G Cornutus. 



THE SYMBOLISM OF MYSTERY-NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH 113 

As shown by him, the cube unfolded becomes in display a cross of the 
Tau, or the Egyptian, form; or again, "the circle attached to the Tau gives 
the ansated cross" of the old Pharaohs. They had known this from their 
priests and their " King-Initiates " for ages, and also what was meant by "the 
attachment of a man to the cross," which idea " was made to co-ordinate 
with that of the origin of human life, and hence the phallic form. Only the 
latter came into action aeons and ages after the idea of the Carpenter and 
Artificer of the Gods, Vishvakarman, crucifying the "Sun-Initiate" on the 
cruciform lathe. As the same author writes : 

The attachment of a man to the cross . . was made use of in this form of 
display by the Hindus. 1 

But, it was made " to co-ordinate " with the idea of the new rebirth of 
man by spiritual, not physical regeneration. The Candidate for Initiation was 
attached to the Tau or astronomical cross with a far grander and nobler idea 
than that >of the origin of mere terrestrial life. 

On the other hand, the Semites seem to have had no other or higher 
purpose in life than that of procreating their species. Thus, geometri- 
cally, and according to the reading of the Bible by means of the numerical 
method, the author of The Source of Measures is quite correct : 

. . . the entire [Jewish] system seems to have been anciently regarded as one 
resting in nature, and one which was adopted by nature, or God, as the basis or law of the 
exertion practically of creative power i.e., it was the creative design, of which creation 
was practically the application. This seems to be established by the fact that, under 
the system set forth, measures of planetary times serve co-ordinately as measures of 
the size of planets, and of the peculiarity of their shapes i.e., in the extension of their 
equatorial and polar diameters . . . this system [that of creative design] seems to 
underlie the whole Biblical structure, as a foundation for its ritualism and for its display 
of the works of the Deity in the way of architecture, by use of the sacred unit of 
measure in the Garden of Eden, the Ark of Noah, the Tabernacle, and the Temple of 
Solomon. 2 

Thus, on the very showing of the defenders of this system, the Jewish 
Deity is proved to be, at best, only the manifested Duad, never the One 
absolute ALL. Geometrically demonstrated, he is a NUMBER ; symbolically, a 
euhemerized Priapus ; and this can hardly satisfy a mankind thirsting after the 
demonstration of real spiritual truths, and the possession of a God with a 
divine, not anthropomorphic, nature. It is strange that the most learned of 
modern Kabalists can see in the cross and circle nothing but a symbol of the 

'Op. cit, p.52. * Ibid, pp. 3, 4. 

F 8 



t14 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

manifested creative and androgyne Deity in its relation to, and interference 
with, this phenomenal world. 1 One author believes that : 

However man [tead, the Jew and Rabbi] obtained knowledge of the practical 1 
measure, . . by which nature was thought to adjust the planets in size to harmonize 
with the notation of their movements, it seems he did obtain it, and esteemed its 
possession as the means of his realization of the Deity that is, he approached so 
nearly to a conception of a Being having a mind like his own, only infinitely more 
powerful, as to be able to realize a law of creation established by that Being, which 
must have existed prior to any creation (kabalistically called the Word).- 

This may have satisfied the practical Semite mind, but the Eastern. 
Occultist has to decline the offer of such a God ; indeed, a Deity, a Being, 
" having a mind like that of man, only infinitely more powerful," is no God 
that has any room beyond the cycle of creation. He has nought to do with 
the ideal conception of the Eternal Universe. He is, at best, one of the- 
subordinate creative powers, the Totality of which is called the Sephiroth, the 
Heavenly Man, and Adam Kadmon, the Second Logos of the Platonists. 

This very same idea is clearly found at the bottom of the ablest defini- 
tions of the Kabalah and its mysteries, e.g., by John A. Parker, as quoted in. 
the same work : 

[The] key of the Kabbala is thought to be the geometrical relation of the area 
of the circle inscribed in the square, or of the cube to the sphere, giving rise to the 
relation of diameter to circumference of a circle, with the numerical value of this rela- 
tion expressed in integrals. The relation of diameter to circumference being a supreme* 
one connected with the god-names Elohim and Jehovah (which terms are expressions 
numerically of these relations, respectively the first being of circumference, the latter 
of diameter), embraces all other subordinations under it. Two expressions of circum- 
ference to diameter in integrals are used in the Bible : (1) The perfect ; and (2) The 
imperfect. One of the relations between these is such that (2) subtracted from (1} v 
will leave a unit of a diameter value in terms, or in the denomination, of the circum- 
ference value of the perfect circle, or a unit straight line having a perfect circular value, 
or a factor of circular value.* 

Such calculations can lead one no further than to unriddle the mysteries 
of the third stage of Evolution, or the " third creation of Brahma." The 
initiated Hindus know how to " square the circle " far better than any- 
European. But of this more anon. The fact is that the Western Mystics 
commence their speculation only at that stage when the Universe " falls into 
matter," as the Occultists say. Throughout the whole series of Kabalistic 
books we have not met with one sentence that would hint in the remotest way 
at the psychological and spiritual, as well as at the mechanical and physiological 
secrets of " creation." Shall we, then, regard the evolution of the Universe 

1 Let the reader -refer to the Zohar and the two Qabbalahs of Isaac Myer and S. L. MacGregor 
Mathers, with interpretations, if he would satisfy himself of this. 

'-'Ibid , p. 5. J Ibid., p. 12. 



CROSS AND CIRCLE 115 

as simply a prototype, on a gigantic scale, of the act of procreation ; as 
" divine " Phallicism, and rhapsodize on it as the evilly-inspired author of a 
late work of this name has done ? The writer does not think so. And she 
feels justified in saying so, since the most careful reading of the Old Testa- 
ment esoterically, as well as exoterically seems to have carried the most 
enthusiastic enquirers no further than a certainty on mathematical grounds that 
from the first to the last chapter of the Pentateuch every scene, every 
character or event are shown connected, directly or indirectly, with the origin 
of birth in its crudest and most brutal form. Thus, however interesting and 
ingenious the rabbinical methods, the writer, in common with other Eastern 
Occultists, must prefer those of the Pagans. 

It is not, then, in the Bible that we have to search for the origin of the 
cross and circle, but beyond the Flood. Therefore, returning to Eliphas 
Levi and the Zohar, we answer for the Eastern Occultists and say that, apply- 
ing practice to principle, they agree entirely with Pascal, who says that : 

God is a circle, the centre of which Is everywhere and the circumference 
nowhere. 

Whereas the Kabalists say the reverse, and maintain it, solely out of 
their desire to veil their doctrine. By the way, the definition of Deity by the 
circle is not Pascal's at all, as Eliphas Levi thought. It was borrowed by the 
French Philosopher from either Mercury [Hermes] Trismegistus or Cardinal 
Cusa's Latin work, De Docta /gnorant/a, in which he makes use of it. It is, 
moreover, disfigured by Pascal, who replaces the words "Cosmic Circle," 
which stand symbolically in the original inscription, by the word Theos. With 
the Ancients both words were synonymous. 

A. CROSS AND CIRCLE 

In the minds of the ancient Philosophers something of the divine and the 
mysterious has ever been ascribed to the shape of the circle. The old 
world, consistent in its symbolism and with its Pantheistic intuitions, uniting the 
visible and the invisible Infinitudes into one, represented Deity and its outward 
Veil alike by a circle. This merging of the two into a unity, and the name 
Theos being given indifferently to both, is explained, and becomes thereby 
still more scientific and philosophical. Plato's etymological definition of the 
word tfieos (tfeo?) has been given elsewhere. In his Craty/us, he derives it from 
the verb the-e/n (deeiv), "to move," as suggested by the motion of the 
heavenly bodies which he connects with Deity. According to the Esoteric 
Philosophy, this Deity, during its " Nights " and its " Days," or Cycles of Rest 



116 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

and Activity, is the Eternal Perpetual Motion, the ''EVER-BECOMING, as well as 
the ever universally Present, and the Ever-Existing." The latter is the root- 
abstraction ; the former is the only possible conception in the human mind, if 
it disconnects this Deity from any shape or form. It is a perpetual, never- 
ceasing evolution, circling back in its incessant progress through aeons of 
duration into its original status ABSOLUTE UNITY. 

It was only the minor Gods who were made to carry the symbolical 
attributes of the higher ones. Thus, the God Shoo, the personification of Ra, 
who appears as the " Great Cat of the Basin of Persaea in An " L was often 
represented in the Egyptian monuments seated and holding a cross, symbol 
of the four Quarters, or the Elements, attached to a circle. 

In that very learned work, The Natural Genesis, by Gerald Massey, under 
the heading, " Typology of the Cross," there is more information to be had 
on the cross and circle than in any other work we know of. He who would 
fain have proofs of the antiquity of the cross is referred to these two volumes. 
The author says : 

The circle and cross are inseparable. . . The Crux Ansata unites the circle and 
cross of the four corners. From this origin the circle and the cross came to be inter- 
changeable at times. For example, the Chakra, or Disk of Vishnu is a circle. The 
name denotes the circling, wheeling round, periodicity, the wheel of time. This the 
god uses as a weapon to hurl at the enemy. In like manner, Thor throws his weapon, 
the Fylfot, a form of the four-footed cross [Svastika], and a type of the four quarters. 
Thus the cross is equivalent to the circle of the year. The wheel emblem unites the 
cross and circle in one, as does the hieroglyphic cake and the Ankh-tie ^5^.* 

Nor was the double glyph sacred with the profane, but only with the 
Initiates. For Raoul Rochette shows that : 3 

The sign ^ occurs as the reverse of a Phoenician coin, with a Ram as the obverse. 
. . . The same sign, sometimes called Venus' Looking-Glass, because it typified repro- 
duction, was employed to mark the hind quarters of valuable brood mares of Corinthian 
and other beautiful breeds of horses. 

This proves that so far back as those early days the cross had already 
become the symbol of human procreation, and that oblivion of the divine 
origin of cross and circle had begun. 

Another form of the cross is given from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic 
Society : 4 

At each of the four corners is placed a quarter arc of an oviform curve, and 
when the four are put together they form an oval ; thus the figure combines the cross 
with the circle round it in four parts, corresponding to the four corners of the cross. 

1 See Book of the Dead, xvii, 45-7. '- Op cit, i, 421-2. 

3 De la Croix Ansee, Mem. de /' Academie des Sciences, pi. 2 Nos. 8, 9, also 16, 2, p. 320 ; quoted 
in Natural Genesis, p. 423. 

4 Vol. xviii, p. 393, pi. 4 ; Inman, fig. 38 ; Gerald Massey, op. cit., ibid., p. 421-2. 



CROSS AND CIRCLE 117 

The four segments answer to the four feet of the Svastika cross and the Fylfot of Thor. 
The four-leaved lotus flower of Buddha is likewise figured at the centre of this cross, 
the lotus being an Egyptian and Hindu type of the four quarters. The four quarter 
arcs, if joined together, would form an ellipse, and the ellipse is also figured on 
each arm of the cross. This ellipse therefore denotes the path of the earth. . . . 
Sir J. Y. Simpson copied the following specimen, fi\ which is here presented as the 
cross of the two equinoxes and the two solstices \j/ placed within the figure of the 
earth's path. The same ovoid or boat-shaped figure appears at times in the Hindu 
drawings with seven steps at each end as a form or a mode of Meru. 

This is the astronomical aspect of the double glyph. There are six more 
aspects, however, and an attempt may be made to interpret a few of these. 
The subject is so vast that it would require in itself alone many volumes. 

But the most curious of these Egyptian symbols of cross and circle, 
spoken of in the above cited work, is one which receives its full explanation 
and final colour from Aryan symbols of the same nature. Says the author : 

The four-armed cross is simply the cross of the four quarters, but the cross-sign 
is not always simple. 1 This is a type that was developed from an identifiable beginning 
which was adapted to the expression of various ideas afterwards. The most sacred cross 
of Egypt that was carried in the hands of the Gods, the Pharaohs, and the mummied 
dead is the Ankh 9 the sign of life, the living, an oath, a covenant. . . . The top of 
this is the hieroglyphic Ru ^^ set upright on the Tau-cross. The Ru is the door, 
gate, mouth, the place of outlet. This denotes the birthplace in the northern quarter 
of the heavens from which the sun is reborn. Hence the Ru of the Ankh-sign is the 
feminine type of the birthplace representing the north. It was in the northern quarter 
that the goddess of the Seven Stars, called the " Mother of the Revolutions," gave 
birth to time in the earliest circle of the year. The first sign of this primordial circle 
and cycle made in heaven is the earliest shape of the Ankh-cross ^^, a mere loop 
which contains both a circle and the cross in one image. This loop or noose is carried 
in front of the oldest genitrix, Typhon of the Great Bear, as her Ark, the ideograph of 
a period, an ending, a time, shown to mean one revolution. This, then, represents the 
circle made in the northern heaven by the Great Bear which constituted the earliest 
year of time, from which fact we infer that the loop or Ru of the north represents that 
quarter, the birthplace of time when figured as the Ru of the Ankh symbol. Indeed 
this can be proved. The noose is an Ark or Rek type of reckoning. The Ru of the 

Ankh-cross was continued in the Cypriote R, L and the Coptic Ro, j-J. B The Ro was 
carried into the Greek cross, Jr' which is formed of the Ro and Chi or R-k. . . . The 



Rak, or Ark, was the sign of all beginning (Arche) on this account, and the Ark-tie is 
the cross of the north, the hind part of heaven. :{ 

Now this, again, is entirely astronomical and phallic. The PurSnic 
version in India gives the whole matter another colour. Without destroying 

1 Certainly not ; for very often there are symbols made to symbolize other symbols, and these are 
in turn used in ideographs 

' '-' The R of the Slavonian and Russian alphabets (the Kyriletza alphabet) is also the Latin P. 
:l lbid., p. 423. 




118 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

the above interpretation, it is made to reveal a portion of its mysteries with 
the help of the astronomical key, and thus offers a more metaphysical render- 
ing. The Ankh-tie O^ does not belong to Egypt alone. It 
exists under the name of pasha, a cord which the four- 
armed Shiva holds in the hand of his right back arm. 1 The 
Mahadeva is represented in the posture of an ascetic, as 

Mahayogi, with his third eye (0Y which is " the Ru <[o^, set 

upright on the Tau-cross " in another form. The pasha is 
held in the hand in such a way that the first finger and hand 
near the thumb make the cross, or loop and crossing. Our 
Orientalists would have it to represent a cord to bind refractory offenders 
with, because, forsooth, Kali, Shiva's consort, has the same as an attribute ! 

The pasha has here a double significance, as also has Shiva's trishula and 
every other divine attribute. This dual significance lies in Shiva, for Rudra 
has certainly the same meaning as the Egyptian Ansated Cross in its cosmic 
and mystic meaning. In the hand of Shiva, the pasha becomes linga-yonic. 
Shiva, as said before, is a name unknown to the Vedas. It is in the White 
Yajur Veda that Rudra appears for the first time as the Great God, Mahadeva, 
whose symbol is the Lingam. In the Rig Veda he is called Rudra, the " how- 
ler," the beneficent and the maleficent Deity at the same time, the Healer 
and the Destroyer. In the Vishnu Purana, he is the God who springs from 
the forehead of Brahma, who separates into male and female, and he is the 
parent of the Rudras or Maruts, half of whom are brilliant and gentle, others, 
black and ferocious. In the Vedas, he is the Divine Ego aspiring to return 
to its pure, deific state, and at the same time that Divine Ego imprisoned in 
earthly form, whose fierce passions make of him the " roarer," the " terrible." 
This is well shown in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, wherein the Rudras, the 
progeny of Rudra, God of Fire, are called the " ten vital breaths (prana, life), 
with the heart (manas), as eleventh,"' 2 whereas as Shiva, he is the destroyer 
of that life. Brahma calls him Rudra, and gives him, besides, seven other 
names, signifying seven forms of manifestation, and also the seven powers of 
nature which destroy but to recreate or regenerate. 

Hence the cruciform noose, or pasha, in the hand of Shiva, when he 
is represented as an ascetic, the Mahayogin, has no phallic signification, and, 
indeed, it requires an imagination strongly bent in this direction to find such a 
signification even in an astronomical symbol. As an emblem of " door, gate, 

1 See Moor's Hindu Pantheon, plate xiii. 

2 See Dowson's Hindu Classical Dictionary, sub voc. " Rudra." 



CROSS AND CIRCLE 119 

mouth, the place of outlet " it signifies the " strait gate " that leads to the 
Kingdom of Heaven, far more than the " birthplace in a physiological sense- 

It is a Cross in a Circle and Crux Ansata, truly ; but it is a cross on 
which all the human passions have to be crucified before the Yogi passes 
through the " strait gate," the narrow circle that widens into an infinite one* 
as soon as the Inner Man has passed the threshold. 

As to the mysterious seven Rishis in the constellation of the Great Bear ; 
if Egypt made them sacred to " the oldest genitrix, Typhon," India has 
connected these symbols ages ago with Time or Yuga revolutions, and the 
Saptarishis are intimately connected with our present age the dark Kali Yuga. 1 
The great Circle of Time, on the face of which Indian fancy has represented 
the Porpoise, or Shishumara, has the cross placed on it by nature in its 
division and localization of stars, planets and constellations. In Bhagavata 
Purana,' 2 it is said : 

At the extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed toward the 
south, and , whose body is curved in the shape of a ring [circle], Dhruva [the ex-pole 
star] is placed ; along its tail are Prajapati, Agni, Indra, Dharma, . . . across its loins 
are the seven Rishis. 1 

This is then the first and earliest cross and circle, formed by the Deity, 
symbolized by Vishnu, the Eternal Circle of Boundless Time, Kala, on whose 
plane lie crossways all the Gods, creatures, and creations born in Space and 
Time who, as the Philosophy has it, all die at the Mahapralaya. 

Meanwhile it is the seven Rishis who mark the time and the duration 
of events in our septenary Life-cycle. They are as mysterious as their suppos- 
ed wives, the Pleiades, of whom only one she who hides has proven 
virtuous. The Pleiades, or Krittika, are the nurses of Kartikeya, the God of 
War (the Mars of the Western Pagans), who is called the Commander of the 
Celestial Armies, or rather of the Siddhas Siddha-sena (translated Yogis in 
Heaven, and holy Sages on the Earth) which would make Kartikeya 
identical with Michael, the " Leader of the Celestial Hosts " and, like 
himself, a virgin Kumara. 4 Verily he is the Guha, the Mysterious One, 
as much so as are the Saptarishis and the Krittika, the seven Rishis 
and the Pleiades, for the interpretation of all these combined reveal to 
the Adept the greatest mysteries of Occult Nature. One point is worth 

1 Described in the Mission des Juils, by the Marquis St. Yves d'Alveydre, the hierophant and 
leader of a large party of French Kabalists, as the Golden Age ! 

2 Skanda v, ch. xxiii. 

* Translated from Burnouf's French Translation, quoted by Fifzedward Hall, in Vishnu Parana, 
Wilson, Vol. n, p. 307. 

4 The more so since he is the reputed slayer of Tripurasura and the Titan Taraka. Michael is the 
conqueror of the dragon, and Indra and Kartikeya are often made identical. 



120 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

mention in this question of cross and circle, as it bears strongly upon 
the elements of Fire and Water, which play such an important part in the 
circle and cross symbolism. Like Mars, who is alleged by Ovid to have been 
born of his mother Juno alone, without the participation of a father, or like 
the Avataras (Krishna, for instance) in the West as in the East Kartikeya 
is born, but in a still more miraculous manner, begotten by neither father nor 
mother but out of a seed of Rudra-Shiva, which was cast into the Fire (Agni) 
and then received by the Water (Ganges). 1 Thus he is born from Fire and 
Water a " boy bright as the Sun and beautiful as the Moon." Hence he 
is called Agnibhu (son of Agni) and Gangaputra (son of Ganges). Add to 
this the fact that the Krittika, his nurses, as the Mats/a Parana shows, are 
presided over by Agni, or, in the authentic words, " the seven Rishis are on 
a line with the brilliant Agni," and hence " Krittika has Agneya as a syno- 
nym " 2 and the connection is easy to follow. 

It is, then, the Rishis who mark the time and the periods of Kali Yuga, 
the age of sin and sorrow. As the Bhagavata Purana tells us : 

When the splendour of Vishnu, named Krishna, departed for heaven, then did 
the Kali age, during which men delight in sin, invade the world . . . 

When the seven Rishis were in Magha, the Kali age, comprising 1,200 [divine] 
years [432,000 common years] began ; and, when, from Magha, they shall reach Pur- 
vashdha, then will this Kali age attain its growth, under Nanda and his successors.' 

This is the revolution of the Rishis 

When the two first stars of the seven Rishis (the Great Bear) rise in the heavens, 
and some lunar asterism is seen at night, at an equal distance between them, then the 
seven Rishis continue stationary in that conjunction for a hundred years, 

as a hater of Nanda makes Parashara say. According to Bentley, it was in 
order to show the quantity of the precession of the equinoxes that this notion 
originated among the Astronomers. 

This was by assuming an imaginary line, or great circle, passing through the poles 
of the ecliptic and the beginning of the fixed Magha, which circle was supposed to cut 
some of the stars in the Great Bear. . . . The seven stars in the Great Bear being 
called the Rishis, the circle so assumed was called the line of the Rishis ; and, being 
invariably fixed to the beginning of the lunar asterism Magha, the precession would be 
noted by stating the degree, etc., of any movable lunar mansion cut by that line or 
circle, as an index. 1 

1 " Out of a seed of Rudra-Shiva, via Agni. who dropped it into the Ganges " is the reading in the 
1888 edition. 

-Ibid., iv, 235. 

3 Op. cit., XII, ii, 26-32; quoted in Vishnu Purana. Wilson, Vol. iv, p. 230. Nanda is the first 
Buddhist sovereign. Chandragupta, against whom all the Brahmans were so arrayed, he of the Morya 
Dynasty, and the grandfather of Ashoka. This is one of those passages that do not exist in the earlier 
Pur&nic MSS. They were added by the Vaishnavas, who, out of sectarian spite, were almost as great 
interpolators as the Christian Fathers. 

1 Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy, p. 65, as quoted in the Vishnu Purana, Wilson, Vol. iv, 
p. 233. 



CROSS AND CIRCLE 121 

There has been, and there still exists, a seemingly endless controversy 
about the chronology of the Hindus. Here is, however, a point that could 
help to determine approximately at least the age when the symbolism of 
the seven Rishis and their connection with the Pleiades began. When Karti- 
keya was delivered to the Krittika by the Gods to be nursed, they were only 
six, whence Kartikeya is represented with six heads ; but when the poetical 
fancy of the early Aryan Symbologists made of them the consorts of the seven 
Rishis, they were seven. Their names are given, and these are Amba, Dula, 
Nitatui, Abrayanti, Maghayanti, Varshayanti, and Chupunika. There are other 
sets of names which differ, however. Anyhow, the seven Rishis were made 
to marry the seven Krittika before the disappearance of the seventh Pleiad. 
Otherwise, how could the Hindu astronomers speak of a star which no one 
can see without the help of the strongest telescopes ? This is why, perhaps, 
in every such case the majority of the events described in the Hindu allegories 
is fixed upon as " a very recent invention, certainly within the Christian era." 

The oldest Sanskrit MSS. on Astronomy begin their series of Nakshatras, 
the twenty-seven lunar asterisms, with the sign of Krittika, and this can hardly 
make them earlier than 2,780 B.C, This is according to the " Vedic Calendar," 
which is accepted even by the Orientalists, though they get out of the diffi- 
culty by saying that the said Calendar does not prove that the Hindus knew 
anything of Astronomy at that date, and assure their readers that, Calendars 
notwithstanding, the Indian Pandits may have acquired their knowledge of the 
lunar mansions headed by Krittika from the Phoenicians, etc. However that 
may be, the Pleiades are the central group of the system of sidereal symbo- 
logy. They are situated in the neck of the constellation Taurus, regarded by 
Madler and others, in Astronomy, as the central group of the system of the 
Milky Way, and in the Kabalah and Eastern Esotericism, as the sidereal septen- 
ate born from the first manifested side of the upper triangle, the concealed 
/\. This manifested side is Taurus, the symbol of ONE (the figure 1), or of 
the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph (K) "bull" or "ox," whose 
synthesis is Ten (10), or Yod (^), the perfect letter and number. The Pleiades 
(Alcyone, especially), are thus considered, even in Astronomy, as th central 
point around which our universe of fixed stars revolves, the focus from which, 
and into which, the Divine Breath, Motion, works incessantly during the Man- 
vantara. Hence, in the sidereal symbols of the Occult Philosophy, it is this 
circle with the starry cross on its face which plays the most prominent part. 

The SECRET DOCTRINE teaches us that everything in the Universe, as 
well as the Universe itself, is formed ("created") during its periodical 
manifestations by accelerated MOTION set into activity by the BREATH of the 



122 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Ever-to-be-unknown Power unknown to present mankind, at any rate within 
the phenomenal world. The Spirit of Life and Immortality was everywhere 
symbolized by a circle ; hence the serpent biting its tail, represents the Circle 
of Wisdom in Infinity ; as does the astronomical cross the cross within a circle 
and the globe, with two wings added to it f which then became the sacred 
Scarabaeus of the Egyptians, its very name being suggestive of the secret idea 
attached to it. For the Scarabaeus is called in the Egyptian papyri, Khopirron 
and Khopri from the verb khopron, "to become," and has thus been made a 
symbol and an emblem of human life, and of the successive " becomings " of 
man, through the various peregrinations and metempsychoses, or reincarna- 
tions, of the liberated soul. This mystical symbol shows plainly that the 
Egyptians believed in reincarnation and the successive lives and existences of 
the Immortal Entity. As this, however, was an Esoteric Doctrine, revealed 
only during the Mysteries, by the Priest-hierophants and the King-initiates to 
the Candidates, it was kept secret. The Incorporeal Intelligences (the Plane- 
tary Spirits, or Creative Powers) were always represented under the form of 
circles. In the primitive Philosophy of the Hierophants these invisible circles 
were the prototypic causes and builders of all the heavenly orbs, which were 
their visible bodies or coverings, and of which they were the souls. It was 
certainly a universal teaching in antiquity. 1 As Proclus says : 

Before the mathematical numbers, there are the self-moving numbers ; before 
the figures apparent the vital figures, and before producing the material worlds which 
move in a circle, the Creative Power produced the invisible circles/-' 

"Det/s enim et circulus est," [For God also is a circle] says Pherecydes, 
in his Hymn to Jupiter. This was a Hermetic axiom, and Pythagoras pre- 
scribed such a circular prostration and posture during the hours of contem- 
plation. "The devotee must approach as much as possible the form of a 
perfect circle/' prescribes the Secret Book. Numa tried to spread the same 
custom among the people, Pierius tells his readers ; and Pliny says : 

During our worship, we roll up, so to say, our body in a ring totum corpus 
circumagimur* [We make our whole body into a circle.] 

1 See Ezehel, i. - In Quint, Lib. Euclid 

:< The Goddess Basht, or Pasht, was represented with the head of a cat. This animal was held 
sacred in Egypt for several reasons It was a symbol of the Moon, the " Eye of Osiris" or the " Sun," 
during night The cat was also sacred to Sokhit. One of the mystic reasons was because of its body 
being rolled up in a circle when asleep. The posture is prescribed for occult and magnetic purposes, 
in order to regulate, in a certain way, the circulation of the vital fluid, with Which the cat is pre- 
eminently endowed. " The nine lives of a cat is a popular saying based on good physiological and 
occult reasons. Mr. Gerald Massey gives also an astronomical reason for it which may be found in 
Vol. 2, pp. 15, et seq , of the present work. " The cat saw the sun, had it in its eye by night [was 
the eye of night], when it was otherwise unseen by men [for as the Moon reflects the light of the Sun, 
so the cat was supposed to reflect it on account of its phosphorescent eyes]. We might say the moon 
mirrored the solar light, because we have looking glasses. With them the cat's eye was the mirror." 
{luniolatry Ancient and Modern, p. 2.) 



THE FALL OF THE CROSS INTO MATTER 123 

The Vision of the prophet Ezekiel reminds one forcibly of this mysticism 
of the circle, when he beheld a "whirlwind" from which came out " one 
wheel upon the earth " whose work " was as it were a wheel in the middle of 
a wheel " " for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels." ! 

" [Sp/r/t] whirleth about continually, and . . . returneth again according 
to his circuits" says Solomon/' who is made in the English translation to 
speak of the " wind/' and in the original text to refer both to the spirit and 
the sun. But the Zohar, the only true gloss of the Kabalistic Preacher in 
explanation of this verse, which is, perhaps, rather hazy and difficult to com- 
prehend says : 

It seems to say that the sun moves in circuits, whereas it refers to the Spirit 
under the sun, called the Holy Spirit, that moves circularly, toward both sides, that they 
fit and the sun] should be united in the same Essence* 

The Brahmanical "Golden Egg," from within which emerges Brahma, 
the Creative Deity, is the " Circle with the Central Point " of Pythagoras, and 
its fitting symbol. In the SECRET DOCTRINE the concealed Unity whether 
representing Parabrahman, or the " Great Extreme" of Confucius, or the 
Deity concealed by Phtah, the Eternal Light, or again the Jewish Ain Soph, is 
always found to be symbolized by a circle or the "nought" (absolute No-Thing 
and Nothing, because it is Infinite and the ALL) ; while the God -manifested (by 
its works) is referred to as the Diameter of that Circle. The symbolism of the 
underlying idea is thus made evident : the right line passing through the centre 
of a circle has, in the geometrical sense, length, but neither breadth nor thick- 
ness ; it is an imaginary and feminine symbol, crossing eternity, and made to 
rest on the plane of existence of the phenomenal world. It is dimensional, 
whereas its circle is dimensionless, or, to use an algebraical term, it is the 
dimension of an equation. Another way of symbolizing the idea is found in 
the Pythagorean sacred Decad which synthesizes, in the dual numeral Ten (the 
one and a circle or cipher), the Absolute ALL manifesting itself in the Word or 
Generative Power of Creation. 

B. THE FALL OF THE CROSS INTO MATTER 

Those who would feel inclined to argue upon this Pythagorean symbol by 
objecting that it is not yet ascertained, so far, at what period of antiquity the 
nought or cipher occurs for the first time especially in India are referred 
to Isis Unveiled * 

1 Ezehel, i, 4, 15, 16, 20. * Eccles., \, 6, ' Fol 87, col. 346 

4 Vol. II, pp. 299, 300. 



124 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Admitting for argument's sake that the ancient world was not acquainted 
with our modes of calculation or Arabic figures though in reality we know it 
was yet the circle and diameter idea is there to show that it was the first 
symbol in Cosmogony. Before the Trigrams of Fo-hi, Yang, the unity, and 
Yin, the binary, 

i ; 

YANG YIN 

explained cunningly enough by Eliphas Levi, 1 China had her Confucius, and 
her Tao-ists. The former circumscribes the " Great Extreme" within a circle 
with a horizontal line across ; the latter place three concentric circles beneath 
the great circle, while the Sung Sages showed the "Great Extreme" in an 
upper circle, and Heaven and Earth in two lower and smaller circles. The Yangs 
and the Yins are a far later invention. Plato and his school never under- 
stood the Deity otherwise, notwithstanding the many epithets applied by 
him to the ''God over all" (6 fal Traai 0eo<?). Plato having been initiated, could 
not believe in a personal God a gigantic Shadow of Man. His epithets of 
" Monarch " and " Law-giver of the Universe " bear an abstract meaning 
well understood by every Occultist, who, no less than any Christian, believes 
in the One Law that governs the Universe, and recognizes it at the same 
time as immutable. As Plato says : 

Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws, ideas and principles, 
there is an Intelligence or Mind (you?), the first principle of all principles, the Supreme 
Idea on which all other ideas are grounded, . . . the ultimate substance from which 
all things derive their being and essence, the First and efficient Cause of all the order, 
and harmony, and beauty and excellency, and goodness, which pervade the Universe. 

This Mind is called, by way of pre-eminence and excellence, the Supreme 
Good, 2 " The God " (d Oeo^), and the " God over all." These words apply, 
as Plato himself shows, neither to the " Creator " nor to the " Father " of 
our modern Monotheist, but to the Ideal and Abstract Cause. For, as he 
says : " This 0eos% the God over all, is not the truth or the intelligence, but 
the FATHER of it," and its primal Cause. Is it Plato, the greatest pupil of the 
archaic Sages, a Sage himself, for whom there was but a single object of 
attainment in this life REAL KNOWLEDGE who would have ever believed in a 
Deity that curses and damns men for ever, on the slightest provocation 1 3 

1 Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Mag/e, i, 124. Also in Tsang-t-ung-ky, by Wei-Pa-Yang. 
- Cocker's Christianity and Greek Philosophy, xi, p. 377. [See /sis Unveiled, Vol. i, xii.] 

:i The cry of despair uttered by Count de Montlosier, in his Mysteres de la Vie Humaine (p. 117), 
is a warrant that the Cause of " excellence and goodness," supposed by Plato to pervade the Universe 
is neither his Deity, nor our World. " Au spectacle de tant de grandeur oppos6 a celui de tant de 
misere, 1'esprit qui se met a observer ce vaste ensemble, se represente je ne sais quelle grande 



THE FALL OF THE CROSS INTO MATTER 125 

Surely not he who considered only those to be genuine Philosophers and 
students of truth who possessed the knowledge of the rea//y-ex/st/ng in opposi- 
tion to mere seeming ; of the a/ways-ex/st/ng in opposition to the transitory : 
and of that which exists permanently in opposition to that which waxes, wanes, 
and is developed and destroyed alternately. 1 Speusippus and Xenocrates 
followed in his footsteps. The ONE, the original, had no existence, in the 
sense applied to it by mortal men. The TL/JLIOV (the honoured) dwells in the 
centre as in the circumference, but it is only the reflection of the Deity the 
World Soul - the plane of the surface of the circle. The cross and circle 
are a universal conception as old as the human mind itself. They stand 
foremost on the list of the long series of, so to say, international symbols, 
which expressed very often great scientific truths, besides their direct bearing 
upon psychological, and even physiological mysteries. 

It is no explanation to say, as does Eliphas Levi, that God, the universal 
Love, having caused the male Unit to dig an abyss in the female Binary, or 
Chaos, thereby produced the world. In addition to the grossness of the 
conception, it does not remove the difficulty of conceiving it without losing 
one's veneration for the rather too human-like ways of the Deity. It is to 
avoid such anthropomorphic conceptions that the Initiates never used the 
epithet " God " to designate the One and Secondless Principle in the Universe ; 
anc | that faithful in this to the oldest traditions of the SECRET DOCTRINE the 
world over they deny that such imperfect and often not very clean work could 
ever be produced by Absolute Perfection. There is no need to mention here 
other still greater metaphysical difficulties. Between speculative Atheism and 
idiotic Anthropomorphism there must be a philosophical mean, and a recon- 
ciliation. The Presence of the Unseen Principle throughout all Nature, and the 
highest manifestation of it on Earth Man, can alone help to solve the pro- 
blem, which is that of the mathematician whose x must ever elude the grasp 
of our terrestrial algebra. The Hindus have tried to solve it by their Avataras, 
the Christians think they have done so by their one divine Incarnation. 
Exoterically both are wrong ; Esoterically both of them are very near the 

divinit6, qu'une divinite, plus grande et p/us pressante encore, aurait com me brise'e et mise en pieces 
en dispersant les debris dans tout I'Univers." [At the sight of so much grandeur contrasted with that 
of so much misery, the mind set on observing this vast totality imagines some kind of great divine 
being which a greater and still more exacting divinity has, as it were, broken into pieces and scattered 
the remains throughout the universe.] The "still greater and still more exacting divinity " than the 
God of this world, supposed to be so " good " is Karma. And this true Divinity shows well that the 
lesser one, our inner God (personal for the time being), has no power to arrest the mighty hand of 
this greater Deitythe Cause awakened by our actions generating smaller causes which is called the 
Law of Retribution. 

1 See fs's Unveiled, Vol. i, pp. xii and xviii. 

2 Stbbaeus EC/., i, 862. [See Isis, Vol. I, p. xviii.] 



126 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

truth. Alone, among the Apostles of the Western religion, Paul seems to 
have fathomed if not actually revealed the archaic mystery of the Cross. 
As for the rest of those who, by unifying and individualizing the Universal 
Presence, have synthesized it into one symbol the central Point in the Crucifix 
they show thereby that they have never seized the true spirit of the teaching 
of Christ, but rather that they have degraded it in more than one way by 
their erroneous interpretations. They have forgotten the spirit of that 
universal symbol and have selfishly monopolized it as though the Boundless 
and the Infinite could ever be limited and conditioned to one manifestation 
individualized in one man, or even in a nation ! 

The four arms of the x , or decussated cross, and of the Hermetic 
cross, pointing to the four cardinal points were well understood by the 
mystical minds of the Hindus, Brahmans and Buddhists, hundreds of years 
before it was heard of in Europe, for that symbol was and is found all over 
the world. They bent the ends of that cross and made of it their Svastika, l$E, 
now the Wan of the Mongolian Buddhist. 1 It implies that the " central point " 
is not limited to one individual, however perfect ; that the Principle (God) is 
in Humanity, and Humanity, as all the rest, is in It, like drops of water are 
in the ocean, the four ends being toward the four cardinal points, hence 
losing themselves in infinity. 

Isarim, an Initiate, is said to have found at Hebron, on the dead body of 
Hermes, the well known Smaragdine Tablet, which, it is said, contained the 
essence of Hermetic Wisdom. Upon it were traced, among others, the 
sentences : 

Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the gross. . 

Ascend . . . from the earth to heaven and then descend again to earth. 

The riddle of the cross is contained in these words, and its double 
mystery is solved to the Occultist. 

The philosophical cross, the two lines running in opposite directions, the horizontal 
and the perpendicular, the height and breadth, which the geometrizing Deity divides at 
the intersecting point, and which forms the magical as well as the scientific quaternary 
when it is inscribed within the perfect square, is the basis of the Occultist Within its 
mystical precinct lies the master-key which opens the door of every science physical as 
well as spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of life circumscribes 
the four points of the cross, which represent in succession, birth, life death and 
immortality* 



* l Ju e p S t? St M a L S C6rta ;p y , n S, f the ld ? st s y mbols f the Ancient Races. In our century says 
Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie (*oya Masonic Cyc/opasdia). the Svastika " has survived in the fo m of the 
mallet in the Masonic Fraternity Among the many ' meanings/' given by the author wdo not 
find the most important. Masons evidently being ignorant of it. "", we ao not 



/sis Unveiled, I. p. 508. 



THE FALL OF THE CROSS INTO MATTER 127" 

" Attach thyself/' says the alchemist, " to the four letters of the tetragram dis- 
posed in the following manner. The letters of the ineffable name are there, although 
thou mayest not discern them at first. The incommunicable axiom is kabalistically 
contained therein, and this is what is called the magic arcanum by the masters." * 

Again : 

The Tau, I , and the astronomical cross of Egypt, ^ are conspicuous in 
several apertures ' of the remains of Palenque. In one of the basso-rel/evcs of the 
Palace of Palenque, on the west side, sculptured as a hieroglyphic right under the 
seated figure, is a Tau. The standing figure, which leans over the first one, is in the 
act of covering its head with the left hand with the veil of initiation ; while it extends 
its right with the index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The position is precisely 
that of a Christian bishop giving his blessing, or the one in which Jesus is often re- 
presented while at the Last Supper/* 

The Egyptian Hierophant had a square head-dress which he had to wear 
always during his functions. These square hats are worn unto this day by the 
Armenian priests. The perfect Tau formed of the perpendicular (descending, 
male ray) and the horizontal line (Matter, female principle) and the mun- 
dane circle- were attributes of Isis, and it was only at death that the Egyptian 
cross was laid on the breast of the mummy. The claim that the cross is purely 
a Christian symbol introduced after our era, is strange indeed, when we find; 
Ezekiel stamping the foreheads of the men of Judah who feared the Lord, 1 
with the signum Thau, as it is translated in the Vulgate. In the ancient Hebrew 
this sign was formed thus ^ , but in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics as a< 
perfect Christian cross j- (That, the emblem of stability). In the Revelation, 
also, the " Alpha and Omega" Spirit and Matter the first and the last, 
stamps the name of his Father on the foreheads of the elect. Moses 5 orders 
his people to mark their door-posts and lintels with blood, lest the " Lord 
God " should make a mistake and smite some of his chosen people, instead 
of the doomed Egyptians. And this mark is a Tau ! the identical Egyptian 
handled cross, with the half of which talisman Horus raised the dead, as is 
shown on a sculptured ruin at Philae. 

Enough has been said in the text about the Svastika and the Tau. 
Verily may the cross be traced back into the very depths of the unfathomable 
archaic ages ! Its mystery deepens rather than clears, as we find it*on the 
statues of Easter Island, in old Egypt, in Central Asia, engraved on rocks as 
the Tau and Svastika, in Pre-Christian Scandinavia, everywhere ! The author 
of the Source of Measures stands perplexed before the endless shadow it 
throws back into antiquity, and is unable to trace it to any particular nation 
or man. He shows the Targums handed down by the Hebrews, obscured by 

1 Ibid., p. 506. s [Thus in the 1888 edition ; four-armed in Isis Unveiled and the 1893 edition.], 
:{ Ibid., p. 572 4 Ezekiel, ix, 4. ' Exodus, xii, 22.' 



128 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

translation. In Joshua 1 read in Arabic, and in the Targum of Jonathan, it is 
said : " The king of Ai he crucified upon a tree." 

The Septuagint rendering is of suspension from a double word or cross, (Words- 
worth on Joshua.) . . . The strangest expression of this kind is in Numbers (xxv, 4) 
where, by Onkelos (?) it is read : " Crucify them before the Lord (Jehovah) against the 
sun." The word here JTjT, to nail to, rendered properly (Fuerst) by the Vulgate, to 
crucify. The very construction of this sentence is mystic. 2 

So it is, but the spirit of it has been ever misunderstood. " To 
crucify before (not against) the Sun is a phrase used of Initiation. It 
comes from Egypt, and primarily from India. The enigma can be unriddled 
only by searching for its key in the Mysteries of Initiation. The Initiated Adept, 
who had successfully passed through all the trials, was attached, not nailed, but 
simply tied on a couch in the form of a Tau, I , in Egypt, of a Svastika without 
the four additional prolongations (+ not Lf^ ) in India, plunged in a deep sleep 
the " Sleep of Siloam," as it is called to this day among the Initiates in 
Asia Minor, in Syria, and even higher Egypt. He was allowed to remain in 
this state for three days and three nights, during which time his Spiritual Ego 
was said to " confabulate " with the " Gods," descend into Hades, Amenti, 
or Patala according to the country and do works of charity to the invisible 
Beings, whether Souls of men or Elemental Spirits ; his body remaining all the 
time in a temple crypt or subterranean cave. In Egypt it was placed in the 
Sarcophagus in the King's Chamber of the Pyramid of Cheops, and carried 
during the night of the approaching third day to the entrance of a gallery, 
where at a certain hour the beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of 
the entranced Candidate, who awoke to be initiated by Osiris and Thoth, the 
God of Wisdom. 

Let the reader who doubts the statement consult the Hebrew originals 
before he denies. Let him turn to some most suggestive Egyptian bas reliefs. 
One especially from the temple of Philae, represents a scene of initiation. 
Two God-Hierophants, one with the head of a hawk (the Sun), the other ibis- 
headed (Mercury, Thoth, the God of Wisdom and Secret Learning, the assessor 
of Osiris-Sun), are standing over the body of a Candidate just initiated. They 
are in the act of pouring on his head a double stream of " water " (the 
Water of Life and of New-birth), the streams being interlaced in the shape of 
,a cross and full of small ansated crosses. This is allegorical of the awakening 
of the Candidate who is now an Initiate, when the beams of the morning Sun, 
Osiris, strike the crown of his head ; his entranced body being placed on its 
wooden Tau so as to receive the rays. Then appeared the Hierophant-lnitiators, 

'Ch. vii, 29. 2 Op. cit., p. 204. 



THE FALL OF THE CROSS INTO MATTER 129 

and the sacramental words were pronounced, ostensibly to the Sun-Osiris, in 
reality to the Spirit-Sun within, enlightening the newly-born man. 

Let the reader meditate on the connection of the Sun with the cross 
from the highest antiquity, in both its generative and spiritually regenerative 
capacities. Let him examine the tomb of Bait-Oxly, in the reign of Ramses II, 
where he will find the crosses in every shape and position ; as also on the 
throne of that sovereign, and finally on a fragment representing the adoration 
of Bakhan-Aleare, from the Hall of the ancestors of Totmes III, now preserved 
an the National Library of Paris. In this extraordinary sculpture and painting 
one sees the disk of the Sun beaming upon an ansated cross placed upon a 
cross of which those of the Calvary are perfect copies. The ancient MSS. 
mention these as the " hard couches of those who were in [spiritual] travail, 
the act of giving birth to themselves.'' A quantity of such cruciform " couch- 
es," on which the Candidate, thrown into a dead trance at the end of his 
supreme Initiation, was placed and secured, were found in the underground 
halls of the Egyptian Temples after their destruction. The worthy and holy 
Fathers of the Cyril and Theophilus types used them freely, believing they had 
been brought and concealed there by some new converts. Alone Origen, 
and after him Clemens Alexandrinus and other ex-initiates, knew better. But 
they preferred to keep silent. 

Again, let the reader read the Hindu " fables," as the Orientalists call 
them, and remember the allegory of Visvakarman, the Creative Power, the 
Great Architect of the World, called in the Rig Veda the " All-seeing God," 
who " sacrifices himself to himself." The Spiritual Egos of mortals are his own 
essence, one with him, therefore. Remember that he is called Deva-vardhika, 
the " Builder of the Gods," and that it is he who ties the Sun, Surya, his son- 
in-law, on his lathe in the exoteric allegory, but on the Svastika, in Esoteric 
tradition, for on Earth he is the Hierophant-lnitiator and cuts away a portion 
of his brightness. Vishvakarman, remember again, is the son of Yoga-siddha, 
i.e., the holy power of Yoga, and the fabricator of the " fiery weapon," the 
magic Agneyastra. 1 The narrative is given more fully elsewhere. 

The author of the kabalistic work so often quoted from, asks : 

The theoretical use of crucifixion then, must have been somehow conn ,. WVi ww ,^ 

the personification of this symbol [the structure of the Garden of Paradise symbolized 
by a crucified man]. But how ? And as showing what ? The symbol was of the origin 
of measures, shadowing forth creative law or design. What, practically, as regards 
humanity, could actual crucifixion betoken ? Yet that it was held as the effigy of some 
mysterious working of the same system, is shown from the very fact of the use. There 
seems to be deep below deep as to the mysterious workings of these number values 

1 See Dowson's Hindu Classical Dictionary. 
F 9 



130 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

(the symbolization of the connection of 113 355, with 20612- 6561, by a crucified man). 
Not only are they shown to work in the cosmos but, ... By sympathy, they seem to 
work out conditions relating to an unseen and spiritual world, and the prophets seem to- 
have held knowledge of the connecting links. Reflection becomes more involved when 
it is considered that the power of expression of the law, exactly, by numbers clearly 
defining a system, was not the accident of the language, but was its very essence, and 
of its primary organic construction ; therefore, neither the language, nor the mathemat- 
ical system attaching to it, could be of man's invention, unless both were founded' 
upon a prior language which afterwards became obsolete. 1 

The author proves these points by further elucidation, and reveals the 
secret meaning of more than one dead-letter narrative, by showing that 
probably, UTX, man, was the primordial word : 

. . . the very first word possessed by the Hebrews, whoever they were, to carry 
the idea, by sound, of a man. The essential of this word was 113 [the numerical value of 
that word] from the beginning, and carried with it the elements of the cosmical system 
displayed ~ 

This is demonstrated by the Hindu Vithoba, a form of Vishnu, as has 
already been stated. The figure of Vithoba, even to the nail-marks on the 
feet, 3 is that of Jesus crucified, in all its details save the cross. That MAN was 
meant is proved to us further by the fact of the Initiate being reborn after 
his crucifixion on the TREE OF LIFE. This " Tree " has now become exoterically 
through its use by the .Romans as an instrument of torture and the 
ignorance of the early Christian schemers the tree of death ! 

Thus, one of the seven Esoteric meanings intended by this mystery of 
crucifixion by the mystic inventors of the system the original elaboration and; 
adoption of which dates back to the very establishment of the MYSTERIES 
is discovered in the geometrical symbols containing the history of the evolution 
of man. The Hebrews whose prophet Moses was so learned in the Esoteric 
Wisdom of Egypt, and who adopted their numerical system from the 
Phoenicians, and later from the Gentiles, from whom also they borrowed most 
of their Kabalistic Mysticism most ingeniously adapted the cosmic and 
anthropological symbols of the " Heathen " nations to their peculiar secret 
records. If Christian sacerdotalism has lost the key of this to-day, the early 
compilers of the Christian Mysteries were well versed in Esoteric Philosophy 
and the Hebrew Occult Metrology, and used it dexterously. Thus they took 
the word Aish, one of the Hebrew word-forms for MAN, and used it in con- 
junction with that of Shanah or lunar year, so mystically connected with the 
name of Jehovah, the supposed " Father " of Jesus, and embosomed the 
mystic idea in an astronomical value and formula. 

1 The Source of Measures, pp. 204-5 - Ibid., p 205. 

* See Moor's Hindu Pantheon, where Vithoba's [Wittoba] left foot, in the figure of his idol, bears 
the mark of the nails, p 418, also Plate II. 



THE FALL OF THE CROSS INTO MATTER 13t 

The original idea of the " man crucified " in space certainly belongs to- 
the ancient Hindus. Moor shows this in his Hindu Pantheon, in the engraving 
that represents Vithoba. Plato adopted it in his decussated cross in space, the 
X , the " second God who impressed himself on the universe in the form of 
the cross " ; Krishna is likewise shown " crucified." * Again it is repeated in the 
Old Testament in the queer injunction to crucify men before the Lord, the 
Sun which is no prophecy at all, but has a direct phallic significance. In that 
same most suggestive work on the kabalistic meanings, we read again : 

In symbol, the nails of the cross have for the shape of the heads thereof a solid 
pyramid, and a tapering square obeliscal shaft, or phallic emblem, for the nail. Taking 
the position of the three nails in the man's extremities and on the cross, they form or 
mark a triangle in shape, one nail being at each corner of the triangle. The wounds, 
or stigmata in the extremities are necessarily four, designative of the square. . . . The 
three nails with the three wounds are in number 6, which denotes the 6 faces of the 
cube unfolded [which make the cross or man-form, or 7, counting three horizontal and 
four vertical squares], on which the man is placed ; and this in turn points to the 
circular measure transferred on to the edges of the cube. The one wound of the feet 
separates into two when the feet are separated, making three together for a//, and four 
when separated, or 7 in all another and most holy [with the Jews] feminine base 
number. - 

Thus, while the phallic or sexual meaning of the " crucifixion nails " is 
proven by the geometrical and numerical reading, its mystical meaning is 
indicated by the short remarks upon it, as given above, in its connection with, 
and bearing upon, Prometheus. He is another victim, for he is crucified on 
the Cross of Love, on the rock of human passions, a sacrifice to his devotion 
to the cause of the spiritual element in Humanity. 

Now, the primordial system, the double glyph that underlies the idea of 
the cross, is not of " human invention," for Cosmic Ideation and the spiritual 
representation of the Divine Ego-man are at its basis. Later, it expanded into 
the beautiful idea adopted by, and represented in, the Mysteries, that of 
regenerated man, the mortal, who, by crucifying the man of flesh and his 
passions on the Procrustean bed of torture, became reborn as an Immortal, 
Leaving the body, the animal-man, behind him, tied on the Cross of Initiation 
like an empty chrysalis, the Ego-Soul became as free as a butterfly. Still 
later, owing to the gradual loss of spirituality, the cross became in Cosmogony 
and Anthropology no higher than a phallic symbol, 

With the Esotericists from the remotest times, the Universal Soul or 
Anima Mundi, the material reflection of the Immaterial Ideal, was the Source 
of Life of all beings and of the Life-Principle of the three kingdoms. This was 

1 See Dr. Lundy's Monumental Christianity, fig 72. 
- Source of Measures, p 52. 



132 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

septenary with the Hermetic Philosophers, as with all Ancients. For it is repre- 
sented as a sevenfold cross, whose branches are respectively, light, heat, 
electricity, terrestrial magnetism, astral radiation, motion, and intelligence, or 
what some call self-consciousness. 

As we have said elsewhere, long before the cross or its sign were 
adopted as symbols of Christianity, the sign of the cross was used as a mark 
of recognition among Adepts and Neophytes, the latter being called Chrests 
from Chrestos, the man of tribulation and sorrow. Says Eliphas Levi : 

The sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong to them exclu- 
sively. It is also kabalistic, and represents the opposition and quaternary equilibrium of 
the elements. We see by the occult verse of the Paternoster . . that there were 
originally two ways of doing it, or, at least two very different formulas to express its 
meaning . one reserved for the priests and initiates ; the other given to neophytes and 
the profane. Thus, for example, the initiate, carrying his hand to his forehead, said, Jo 
thee ; then he added, belong , and continued, carrying his hand to the breast, the 
kingdom ; then to the left shoulder, justice ; to the right shoulder, and mercy. Then he 
joined the two hands adding, throughout the generating cycles- Tibi sunt Malchut ei 
Geburah et Chesed per /Eonas an absolutely and magnificently kabalistic sign of the 
cross, which the profanations of Gnosticism made the militant and official Church com- 
pletely lose. 1 

The "militant and official Church " did more : having helped herself to 
what had never belonged to her, she took only that which the " Profane " 
had the kabalistic meaning of the male and female Sephiroth. She never 
lost the inner and higher meaning since she never had it- Eliphas Levi's 
pandering to Rome notwithstanding. The sign of the cross adopted by the 
Latin Church was phal//c from the beginning, while that of the Greeks was the 
cross of the Neophytes, the Chrestoi. 



1 Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Mag/e, vol. n, p 88. 



SECTION 9 

THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE 

WE are reminded in King's Gnostics and their Remains that the Greek 
language had but one word for vowel and voice. This has led the uninitiated 
to many erroneous interpretations. On the simple knowledge, however, of 
this well-known fact a comparison may be attempted, and a flood of light 
thrown upon several mystic meanings. Thus the words, so often used in the 
Upanishads and the Puranas, " Sound " and "" Speech/' may be collated with 
the Gnostic "Vowels" and the "Voices" of the Thunders and Angels in 
Revelation. The same will be found in Pistis Sophia, and other ancient 
Fragments and MSS This was remarked even by the matter-of-fact author 
of the above mentioned work. 

Through Hippolytus, an early Church Father, we learn what Marcus a 
Pythagorean rather than a Christian Gnostic, and a Kabalist most certainly 
had received in mystic revelation. It is said that Marcus had it revealed unto 
him that : 

The seven heavens l . . . . sounded each one vowel, which, all combined to- 
gether, formed a single doxology, " the sound whereof being carried down [from these 
seven heavens] to earth, becomes the creator and parent of all things that be on 
earth." 

Translated from the Occult phraseology into still plainer language this 
would read : The Sevenfold Logos having differentiated into seven Logo/, or 
Creative Potencies (Vowels), these (the Second Logos, or "Sound") created 
all on Earth. 

Assuredly one who is acquainted with Gnostic literature can hardly help 
seeing in St. John's Apocalypse, a work of the same school of thought. For 
we find John saying : 

Seven thunders uttered their voices . . . [and] I was about to write . . . [but] 
I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven 
thunders uttered, and write them not. :i 

1 The " Heavens " are identical with " Angels," as already stated. 

PMosopfiumena, vi, 48 ; quoted by King, op. cit., p. 200. :{ Op. cit., x, 3, 4. 



134 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

The same injunction is given to Marcus, the same to all other semi- and 
iull Initiates. The very sameness of the expressions used, and of the under- 
lying ideas, always betrays a portion of the Mysteries. We must always seek 
for more than one meaning in every mystery allegorically revealed, especially 
in those in which the number seven and its multiplication seven by seven, or 
forty-nine, appear. Now when, in P/st/'s Sophia, the Rabbi Jesus is requested 
by his disciples to reveal to them the " Mysteries of the Light of his Father " 
i.e., of the Higher Self enlightened by Initiation and Divine Knowledge 
Jesus answers : 

Do ye seek after these mysteries ? No mystery is more excellent than they ; 
which shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights, unto the place of Truth and Good- 
ness, unto the place where there is neither male nor female, neither form in that place 
but Light, everlasting, not to be uttered. Nothing therefore is more excellent than the 
mysteries which ye seek after, saving only the mystery of the seven Vowels and their 
forty and nine Powers, and their numbers thereof. And no name is more excellent 
than all these (Vowels). 1 

As says the Commentary, speaking of the " Fires " : 

The Seven Fathers and the Forty-nine Sons blaze in DARKNESS, but they 
are the LIFE and LIGHT and the continuation thereof through the Great Age. 

Now it becomes evident that, in every Esoteric interpretation of exoteric 
beliefs expressed in allegorical forms, there is the same underlying idea the 
basic number seven, the compound of three and four, preceded by the divine 
THREE ^ making the perfect number ten. 

Also, these numbers apply equally to divisions of time, to cosmography, 
metaphysical and physical, as well as to man and everything else in visible 
Nature. Thus these Seven Vowels with their forty-nine Powers are identical 
with the Three and the Seven Fires of the Hindus and their forty-nine Fires ; 
identical with the numerical mysteries of the Persian Simorgh ; identical with 
those of the Jewish Kabalists. The latter, dwarfing the numbers (their mode 
of "blinds"), made the duration of each successive Renewal, (or what we call 
in Esoteric parlance Round), 1,000 years only or of the seven Renewals of the 
Globe 7,000 years, instead of, as is more likely, 7,000,000,000, and assigned to 
the total duration of the Universe 49.000 years only." 

Now, the SECRET DOCTRINE furnishes a key which reveals to us on the 
indisputable grounds of comparative analogy that Garuda, the allegorical and 
monstrous half-man and half-bird the Vahana or vehicle on which Vishnu, as 
Kala or "Time," is shown to ride is the origin of all such allegories. He is 

1 Pistis Sophia, p. 378 ; King, ibid., loc cit. 

- See ante " The Chronology of the BrShmans," Vol. 3, p. 76. 



THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE 135 

the Indian Phoenix, the emblem of cyclic and periodical time, the " Man-lion " 
(Sinha), of whose representations the so-called Gnostic gems are so full. 1 

Over the seven rays of the lion's crown, and corresponding to their points, stand 
often the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet, AEHIOTfl, testifying to the Seven 
Heavens." 

This is the Solar Lion or the emblem of the Solar Cycle, as Garuda : * is 
that of the Great Cycle, the Maha Kalpa, co-eternal with Vishnu, and also, of 
course, the emblem of the Sun and Solar Cycle, This is shown by the details 
of the allegory. At his birth, Garuda, on account of his " dazzling splendour," 
is mistaken for Agni, the God of Fire, and was thence called Gaganeshvara, 
" Lord of the Sky." Its representation as Osiris, on the Abraxas (Gnostic) 
gems, and by many heads of allegorical monsters, with the head and beak of 
an eagle or a hawk both solar birds denotes Garuda's solar and cyclic 
character. His son is Jatayu, the cycle of 60,000 years. As well remarked by 
C W. King : 

Whatever its primary meaning [of the gem with the solar lion and vowels] it was 
probably imported in its present shape from India (that true fountain head of Gnostic 
iconography). 4 

The mysteries of the seven Gnostic Vowels, uttered by the Thunders 
of St. John, can be unriddled only by the primeval and original Occultism of 
Aryavarta, brought into India by the primeval Brahmans, who had been 
Initiated in Central Asia. And this is the Occultism we study and try to 
explain, as much as is possible, in these pages. Our doctrine of seven Races* 
-and seven Rounds of life and evolution around our Terrestrial Chain of 
Spheres, may be found even in Revelation.'' When the seven "Thunders," or 
" Sounds," or Vowels " one meaning out of the seven for each such vowel 
relates directly to our own Earth and its seven Root Races in each Round 
" had uttered their voices," but had forbidden the Seer to write them, and 

1 As confessed by C. W King, the great authority on Gnostic antiquities, these "Gnostic " gems 
-are not the work of the Gnostics, but belong to Pre-Christian periods, and are the work of 
"' magicians " (op. at., p. 241). 

- King, ibid., p 218 

< The lack of intuition in Orientalists and Antiquarians past and present, is remarkable. Thus, 
Wilson, the translator of Vishnu Purana, declares in his Preface that m the Garuda Purana he found 
"no account of the birth of Garuda " Considering that an account of " Creation " in general is 
given therein, and that Garuda is coeternal with Vishnu, the Maha Kalpa, or Great Life-Cycle, begin- 
ning with and ending with the manifesting Vishnu, what other account of Garuda's birth could be 
expected ! 

1 Ibid., loc cit. 

"' See Revelation, xvu, 2 and 10 ; and Leviticus' xxiii, 15 to 18 ; the first passage speaking of the 
" seven Kings," of whom five have gone , and the second about the " seven sabbaths," etc. 



136 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

made him " seal up those things/' what did the Angel, "standing upon the 
sea and upon the earth/' do? 

[He] lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and 
ever, . . that there should be time no longer : but in the days of the voice of the 
seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God [of the Cycle] should 
be finished.' 

This means, in Theosophic phraseology, that when the Seventh Round is 
completed, then Time will cease. "There shall be time no longer " very 
naturally, since Pralaya shall set in and there will remain no one on Earth to 
keep a division of time, during that periodical dissolution and arrest of 
conscious life. 

Dr. Kenealy and others believed that the calculations of the cyclic seven 
and forty-nine were brought by the Rabbis from Chaldea. This is more 
than likely. But the Babylonians, who had all those cycles and taught them 
only at their great initiatory mysteries of astrological Magic, got their wisdom 
and learning from India. It is not difficult, therefore, to recognize in them 
our own Esoteric Doctrine. In their secret computations, the Japanese have 
the same figures in their cycles. As to the Brahmans, their Puranas and 
Upanishads are good proof of it, The latter have passed entirely into Gnostic 
literature ; and a Brahman needs only to read P/st/s Sophia ~ to recognize his 
forefather's property, even to the phraseology and similes used. Let us 
compare. In P/st/s Sophia the disciples say to Jesus : 

Rabbi, reveal unto us the mysteries of the Light [i.e., the " Fire of Knowledge 
or Enlightenment "], . . . forasmuch as we have heard thee saying that there is 
another baptism of smoke, and another baptism of the Spirit of Holy Light [/ e , the 
Spirit of Fire]. 1 

As John says of Jesus : 

I indeed baptize you with water ; . . . but he shall baptize you with the 

Holy Ghost and with fire. 1 

The real significance of this statement is very profound. It means that 
John, a non-initiated ascetic, can impart to his disciples no greater wisdom 
than the Mysteries connected with the plane of Matter, of which Water is the 
symbol. His Gnosis was that of exoteric and ritualistic dogma, of dead-letter 

1 Op. cit., x, 5-7. 

2 Pistis Sophia is an extremely important document a genuine Evangel of the Gnostics, ascribed 
at random to Valentmus, but much more probably a Pre-Lhristian work as to its original. A Coptic 
MS. of this work was brought back by Bruce from Abyssinia and discovered by Schwartze, in the 
British Museum, quite accidentally, and translated by him into Latin. The text and Schwartze's 
version were published by Petermann in the year 1853. In the text itself the authorship of this Book 
is ascribed to Philip the Apostle, whom Jesus bids sit down and write the revelation. It is genuine 
and ought to be as canonical as any other Gospel. Unfortunately it remains to this day untranslated 
into English. [See Additional Notes.] 

' King, op. cit., p. 200. ' Matt, iii, 11. 



THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE 137 

orthodoxy ; 1 while the wisdom which Jesus, an Initiate of the Higher Mysteries, 
would reveal to them, was of a higher character, for it was the " Fire " 
Wisdom of the true Gnosis or real Spiritual Enlightenment. One was Fire, 
the other the Smoke. For Moses, the Fire on Mount Sinai and the Spiritual 
Wisdom ; for the multitudes of the " people " below, for the profane, Mount 
Sinai in (through) Smoke, /.e., the exoteric husks of orthodox or sectarian 
ritualism. 

Now, having the above in view, read the dialogue between the sages 
Narada and Devamata in the Anugita, * J an episode from the Mahabharata t the 
antiquity and importance of which one can learn in the Sacred Books of the 
East, edited by Prof. Max Muller.' 5 Narada is discoursing upon the "breaths" 
or the " life-winds," as they are called in the clumsy translations of such words 
as Prana, Apana, etc., whose full Esoteric meaning and application to individual 
functions can hardly be rendered in English. He says of this science that : 

It is the teaching of the Veda, that the tire verily is all the deities, and knowledge 
(of it) arises among Brahmanas, being accompanied by intelligence. 1 

By "fire," says the Commentator, he means the Self. By " intelligence," 
the Occultist says, Narada meant neither "discussion " nor "argumentation," 
as Arjuna Mishra believes, but " intelligence " truly, or the adaptation of the 
Fire of Wisdom to exoteric ritualism tor the profane. This is the chief concern 
of the Brahmans, who were the first to set the example to other nations who 
thus anthropomorphized and carnalized the grandest metaphysical truths. 
Narada shows this plainly and is made to say : 

The smoke of that (fire) which is of excellent glory (appears) in the shape of 
darkness [verily so '] ; (its) ashes, . . . [are] passion : and . goodness is 
that in connection with it, in which the offering is thrown. ' 

That is to say, that faculty in the disciple which apprehends the subtle 
truth (the flame) which escapes heavenward, while the objective sacrifice 
remains as a proof and evidence of piety only to the profane. For what else 
can .Narada mean by the following ? 

Those who understand the sacrifice understand the Samana and the Vyana as 
the principal (offering). The Prana and Apana are portions of the offering, . . and 
between them is the fire. That is the excellent seat of the Udana as understood by 
Brahmanas. As to that which is distinct from these pairs, hear me speak about that. 
Day and night are a pair, between them is the fire. . . . That which exists and that 
which does not exist are a pair, between them is the fire. . . (1 

1 In the Cycle of Initiation, which was very long. Water represented the first and lower steps 
toward purification, while trials connected with Fire came last. Water could regenerate the Body of 
Matter . Fire alone, that of the Inner Spiritual Man. 

:> Chap, ix ' See the Introduction by KashinSth Trimbak Telang, M.A 

' Sacred Books of the East, vol. viii, p 276. ' Ibid. () Ib/d 



138 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

And after every such contrast Narada adds : 
That is the excellent seat of the Udana as understood by Brahmanas. 

Now many people do not know the full meaning of the statement that 
Samana and Vyana, Prana and Apana which are explained as being " life- 
winds/' but which we say are principles and their respective faculties and 
senses are offered up to Udana, the soi-disant principal " life-wind," (?) 
which is said to act at all the joints. And so the reader who is ignorant that 
the word " Fire " in these allegories means both the " Self" and the higher 
Divine Knowledge, will understand nothing in this, and will entirely miss the 
point of our argument, as the translator and even the editor, the great Oxford 
Sanskritist, Max Muller, have missed the true meaning of Narada's words. 
Exoterically, this enumeration of "life-winds" has, of course, the meaning, 
approximately, which is surmised in the foot-notes, namely : 

The sense appears to be this : The course of worldly life is due to the operations 
of the life-winds which are attached to the self^and lead to its manifestations as individ- 
ual souls [?]. Of these, the Samana and Vyana are controlled and held under check 
by the Prana and Apana. . . . The latter two are held in check and controlled by the 
Udana, which thus controls all. And the control of this, which is the control of all five, 
. . leads to the supreme self. 1 

The above is given as an explanation of the text, which records the words 
of the Brahmana, who narrates how he reached the ultimate Wisdom of 
Yogism, and in this wise reached All-knowledge. Saying that he had " per- 
ceived by means of the self the seat abiding in the self."" where dwells the 
Brahman free from all ; and explaining that that indestructible principle was 
entirely beyond the perception of the senses i.e., of the five " life-winds " 
he adds that : 

In the midst of all these (life-winds) which move about in the body and swallow 
up one another, blazes the Vaishvanara fire sevenfold l{ 

This " Fire," according to Nilakantha's commentary, is identical with the 
44 1," the SELF, which is the goal of the ascetic ; Vaishvanara being a word often 
used for the Self. Then the Brahmana goes on to enumerate that which is 
meant by the word " sevenfold," and says : 

The nose [or smell], and the tongue [taste], and the eye, and the skin, and the 
ear of the fifth, the mind, and the understanding, these are the seven tongues of the 
blaze of Vaishvanara. 4 . . . Those are the seven (kinds of) fuel for me.' . . . These 
are the seven great officiating priests." 

1 Pp. 258-9. * Ibid., p. 257. l Ibid., p. 259. 

4 In the astronomical and cosmical key, Vaishvanara is Agni, son of the Sun, or Vishvanara, but 
in the psycho-metaphysical symbolism it is the Self, in the sense of non-separateness, i.e., both divine 
and human 

1 Here the speaker personifies the said divine Self '' Ibid. 



THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE 139 

These seven priests are accepted by Arjuna Mishra in the sense of 
meaning "the soul distinguished as so many [souls, or principles] with refer- 
ence to these several powers " ; and, finally, the translator seems to accept 
the explanation, and reluctantly admits that "they may mean" this; though 
he himself takes the sense to mean : 

The powers of hearing, etc. [the physical senses, in short], which are presided 
over by the several deities. 1 

But whatever it may mean, whether in scientific or orthodox interpre- 
tations, this passage on page 259 explains Narada's statements on page 276, 
and shows them referring to exoteric and esoteric methods and contrasting 
them. Thus the Samana and the Vyana, though subject to the Prana and the 
Apana, and all the four to Udana in the matter of acquiring the Pranayama 
(of the Hatha Yogi, chiefly, or the lower form of Yoga), are yet referred to 
as the principal offering, for, as rightly argued [by K. Trimbak Telang], their 
"operations are more practically important for vitality"; i.e., they are the 
grossest, and are offered in the sacrifice, in order that they may disappear, 
so to speak, in the quality of darkness of that fire or its SMOKE mere exoteric 
ritualistic form. But Prana and Apana, though shown as subordinate (because 
Jess gross or more purified), have the FIRE between them ; the Self and the 
Secret Knowledge possessed by that Self. So for the good and evil, and for 
"that which exists and that which does not exist"; all these " pairs"'"' have 
Fire between them, i.e., Esoteric Knowledge, the Wisdom of the Divine SELF. 
Let those who are satisfied with the Smoke of the Fire remain wherein they 
are, that is to say within the Egyptian darkness of theological fictions and 
dead-letter interpretations. 

The above is written only for the Western students of Occultism and 
Theosophy. The writer presumes to explain these things neither to the 
Hindus, who have their own Gurus ; nor to the Orientalists, who think they 
know more than all the Gurus and Rishis, past and present, put together. 

1 Ibid., footnote. 

' Compare with these "pairs of opposites," in the Anugita, the " pairs " of /Eons, in the elaborate 
system of Valentinus, the most learned and profound Master of the Gnosis. As the " pairs ,pf oppo- 
sites," male and female, are all derived from Akasha (undeveloped and developed, differentiated and 
undifferentiated, or Self or Prajapati), so are the Valentmian " pairs " of male and female /Eons shown 
to emanate from Bythos, the pre-existing eternal Depth, and in their secondary emanation from 
Ampsiu-Ouraan, or sempiternal Depth and Silence, the second Logos In the Esoteric emanation 
there are seven chief " pairs of opposites ", and so also in the Valentmian system there were fourteen, 
or twice seven. Epiphanius " copied one pair twice over," Mr. C. W. King thinks, " and thus adds 
one pair to the proper fifteen." (Tfie Gnostics and their Remains, pp. 263-4.) Here King falls into 
the opposite error , the pairs of /Cons are not 15 (a " blind ") but 14, as the first /con is That from 
which others emanate, Depth and Silence being the first and only emanation from Bythos. As 
Hippolytus shows : " The /Eons of Valentinus are confessedly the six Radicals of Simon (Magus)," with 
the seventh, Fire, at their head. And these are . Mind, Intelligence, Voice, Name, Reason and 
Thought, subordinate to Fire, the Higher Self, or precisely the "Seven Winds" or the " Seven 
Priests " of Anugita. 



140 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

These rather lengthy quotations and examples are necessary, if only to point 
out to the student the works he has to study so as to derive benefit and 
learning from comparison. Let him read P/st/s Sophia in the light of the 
Bhagavad Gita, the Anuglta and others ; and then the statement made by 
Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel will become clear, and the dead-letter " blinds " 
disappear at once. Read the following and compare it with the explanation 
from the Hindu scriptures just given. 

And no Name is more excellent than all these, a Name wherein be contained all* 
Names, and all Lights, and all the [forty-nine] Powers Knowing that Name, if a man 
quits this body of matter, 1 no smoke [i.e., no theological delusion],- no darkness, nor 
Power, nor Ruler of the Sphere [no Personal Genius or Planetary Spirit called God] or of 
Fate [Karma] . . . shall be able to hold back the Soul that knoweth that Name. . 
If he shall utter that Name unto the fire, . . . the darkness shall flee away. . . . And 
if he shall utter that name unto ... all their Powers, nay, even unto Barbelo/' and the 
Invisible God, and the three triple-powered Gods, so soon as he shall have uttered that 
name in those places, they shall all be thrown one upon the other, so that they shall be 
ready to melt and perish, and shall cry aloud, O Light of every light that is in the bound- 
less lights, remember us also and purify us ' 4 

It is easy to see what this Light and Name are : the Light of Initiation* 
and the name of the " Fire-Self," which is no name, no Action, but a Spirit- 
ual, Ever-living Power, higher even than the real " Invisible God," as this 
Power is ITSELF. 

But if the able and learned author of the Gnostics and their Remains has 
not sufficiently allowed for the spirit of allegory and mysticism in the fragments 
translated and quoted by him, in the above named work, from P/st/s Sophia 
other Orientalists have done far worse. Having neither his intuitional percep- 
tion of the Indian origin of the Gnostic Wisdom, still less of the meaning of 
their "gems," most of them, beginning with Wilson and ending with the 
dogmatic Weber, have made most extraordinary blunders with regard to 
almost every symbol. Sir M. Monier Williams and others show a very decided 
contempt for the " Esoteric Buddhists" as Theosophists are now called ; yet 
no student of Occult Philosophy has ever mistaken a cycle for a living per- 
sonage and vice versa, as is very often the case with our learned Orientalists. 
An instance or two may illustrate the statement more graphically. Let us 
choose the best known. 

1 Not necessarily at death only, out during Samadhi or mystic trance. 

2 All the words and sentences between parenthetical marks are the writer's This is translated 1 
directly from the Latin translation. King's translation conforms too much to Gnosticism as explained 
by the Church Fathers 

s Barbelo is one of the three " Invisible Gods," and, as C W. King believes, includes the " Divine- 
Mother of the Saviour," or rather Sophia Achamoth (ct P/st/s Sophia, p. 359). 

4 Pp. 378. 375 



THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE 141 

In the Ramayana, Garuda is called "the maternal uncle of Sagara's 
60,000 sons"; and Amshumant, Sagara's grandson, "the nephew of the 60,000 
uncles " who were reduced to ashes by the look of Kapila the Purushottama, 
or Infinite Spirit, who caused the horse which Sagara was keeping for the 
Ashvamedha sacrifice to disappear. Again, Garuda 's son 1 Garuda being 
himself the Maha Kalpa or Great Cycle Jatayu, the king of the feathered 
tribe (when on the point of being slain by Ravana who carries off Sita) says, 
speaking of himself: "It is 60,000 years O king, that I am born "; after which, 
turning his back on the Sun he dies. 

Jatayu is, of course, the cycle of 60,000 years within the Great Cycle 
of Garuda ; hence he is represented as his son, or nephew, ad libitum, 
since the whole meaning rests on his being placed in the line of Garuda 's 
descendants. Then, again, there is Diti, the mother of the Maruts, whose 
descendants and progeny belonged to the posterity of Hiranyaksha, 
44 whose number was 77 crores (or 770 millions) of men," according to the 
Padma Purana. All such narratives are pronounced meaningless fictions and 
absurdities. But truth is the daughter of time, verily ; and time will show. 

Meanwhile, what could be easier than an attempt, at least, to verify 
Puranic chronology ? There are many Kapilas ; but the Kapila who slew king 
Sagara's progeny 60,000 men strong was undeniably Kapila, the founder 
of the Sankhya philosophy, since it is so stated in the Puranas ; although one 
of them flatly denies the imputation without explaining its Esoteric meaning. 
It is the Bhagavata Purana - which says that : 

The tradition is not true, which asserts that the sons of the king were scorched 
by the wrath of the sage For how can the quality of Darkness, which produces anger, 
exist in a Sage whose body was Goodness and who purified the world- the earth s 
dust, as it were, attributed to the heavens ' How should mental perturbation distract 
that sage, identified with the Supreme Spirit, who has steered here [on earth] that 
solid vessel of the Sankhya philosophy, with help of which he who desires to obtain 
liberation crosses the dreaded ocean of existence, this path of death ? s 

The Purana is in duty bound to speak as it does. It has a dogma to 
promulgate and a policy to carry out that of great secrecy with regard to 
mystical divine truths divulged for countless ages only at Initiation. It is not 
in the Puranas, therefore, that we have to look for an explanation of the 
mystery connected with various transcendental states of being. That the 
story is an allegory is seen upon its very face . the 60,000 " sons," brutal, 
vicious, and impious, are the personification of the human passions that a 

1 In other Puranas Jatayu is the son of Aruna, Garuda's brother, both the Sons of Kashyapa But 
all this is external allegory 

IX, vni. 12, 13 From Burnoufs Translation , see Vishnu Purana, Wilson, Vol. iii, p. 300-1. 



142 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

" mere glance of the Sage " the Self who represents the highest state of 
purity that can be reached on Earth reduces to ashes. But it has also other 
significations, cyclic and chronological meanings, a method of marking the 
periods when certain Sages flourished, found also in other Puranas. 

Now it is as well ascertained as any tradition can be, that it was at 
Hardwar, or Gangadvara, the " door or gate of the Ganges," at the foot of 
the Himalayas, that Kapila sat in meditation for a number of years. Not far 
from the Sewalik range, the pass of Hardwar is called to this day " Kapila's 
Pass," and the place also is named " Kapilasthan " by the ascetics. It is there 
that the Ganges, Ganga, emerging from its mountainous gorge, begins its 
course over the sultry plains of India. And it is clearly ascertained by geo- 
logical survey that the tradition which claims that the ocean washed the base 
of the Himalayas ages ago, is not entirely without foundation, for distinct 
traces of this still remain. 

The Sankhya Philosophy may have been brought down and taught by 
the first, and written out by the last Kapila. 

Now Sagara is the name of the ocean, and especially of the Bay of 
Bengal, at the mouth of the Ganges, to this day in India. 1 Have Geologists 
ever calculated the number of millenniums it must have taken the sea to 
recede the distance it is now from Hardwar, which is at present 1,024 feet 
above its level ? If they had, those Orientalists who show Kapila flourishing 
from the first to the ninth century A D , might change their opinions, if only 
for one of two very good reasons. Firstly, the true number of years which 
have elapsed since Kapila's day is unmistakably in the Puranas, though the 
translators may fail to see it ; and secondly, the Kapila of the Satya, and the 
Kapila of the Kali Yuga, may be one and the same INDIVIDUALITY, without being 
the same PERSONALITY. 

Kapila, besides being the name of a personage, of the once living Sage 
and the author of the Sankhya Philosophy, is also the generic name of the 
Kumaras, the celestial Ascetics and Virgins ; therefore the very fact of the 
Bhagavata Purana calling that Kapila whom it had showed just before as a 
portion of Vishnu the author of the Sankhya Philosophy, ought to have 
warned the reader of a " blind " containing an Esoteric meaning. Whether 
he was the son of Vitatha, as the Harivamsha shows him to be, or of any one 
else, the author of the Sankhya cannot be the same as the Sage of the Satya 
Yuga at the very beginning of the Manvantara, when Vishnu is shown in the 
form of Kapila, " imparting to all creatures true Wisdom " ; for this relates to 
that primordial period when the " Sons of God " taught to the newly created 

1 Wilson, ibid , p. 302, note. 



THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE 143 

men those arts and sciences, which have since been cultivated and preserved 
in the sanctuaries by the Initiates. There are several well-known Kapilas in 
the Puranas. First the primeval Sage, then Kapila one of the three " secret" 
Kumaras, and Kapila son of Kashyapa and Kadru the " many-headed ser- 
pent " 1 besides Kapila the great Sage and Philosopher of the Kali Yuga. 
The latter, being an Initiate, a " Serpent of Wisdom," a Naga, was purposely 
blended with the Kapilas of the former ages. 



See Vayu Purana, which places him in the list of the forty renowned Sons of Kashyapa. 



SECTION 10 

THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 

THE early Gnostics claimed that their Science, the GNOSIS, rested on a square, 
the angles of which represented respectively S/ge (Silence), Bythos (Depth), 
JVous (Spiritual Soul or Mind), and Aletheia (Truth). 

It is they who were the first to reveal to the world that which had re- 
gained concealed for ages ; namely, the Tau, in the shape of a Procrustean 
.bed, and Christos as incarnating in Chrestos, he who became for certain 
purposes a willing candidate for a series of tortures, mental and physical. 

For them the whole of the Universe, metaphysical and material, was 
^contained within, and could be expressed and described by the digits contained 
;in the number 10, the Pythagorean Decad. 

This Decad, representing the Universe and its evolution out of Silence and 
the unknown Depths of the Spiritual Soul, or Anima Mundi, presented two 
sides or aspects to the student. It could be, and was at first, applied to the 
Macrocosm, after which it descended to the Microcosm, or man. There was, 
then, the purely intellectual and metaphysical or the " inner Science," and 
the as purely materialistic or " surface science," both of which could be ex- 
pounded by and contained in the Decad. It could be studied, in short, both 
by the deductive method of Plato, and the inductive method of Aristotle. The 
former started from a divine comprehension, when the plurality proceeded from 
unity, or the digits of the Decad appeared, only to be finally reabsorbed, lost 
an the infinite Circle. The latter depended on sensuous perception alone, 
when the Decad could be regarded either as the unity that multiplies, or 
matter which differentiates ; its study being limited to the plane surface, to 
the Cross, or the seven which proceeds from the ten, or the perfect number, 
on Earth as in Heaven. 

This dual system was brought, together with the Decad, by Pythagoras 
from India, That it was that of the Brahmans and Iranians, as they are called 
by the ancient Greek Philosophers, is warranted to us by the whole range of 
Sanskrit literature, such as the Puranas and the Laws of Mane/. In these Laws 



THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 145 

or Ordinances of Manu, it is said that Brahma first creates the "ten Lords of 
Being," the ten Prajapati or creative Forces ; which ten produce seven other 
Manus, or, rather, as some MSS. have it, Munin (instead of Manun) " devo- 
tees/' or holy beings, which are the seven Angels of the Presence in the 
Western religion. This mysterious number seven, born from the upper Triangle 
A> the latter itself born from the apex thereof, or the Silent Depths of 
the Unknown Universal Soul (Sige and Bythos), is the sevenfold Saptaparna 
plant, born and manifested on the surface of the soil of mystery, from 
the threefold root buried deep under that impenetrable soil. This idea 
is fully elaborated in Volume 2, Part 2, Section 3, " Primordial Substance 
and Divine Thought," which the reader should notice carefully, if he would 
grasp the metaphysical idea involved in the above symbol. In man as in 
nature, according to the Cis-Himalayan Esoteric Philosophy, which is that 
of the Cosmogony of the original Manu, it is the septenary division that is 
intended by Nature herself. The seventh principle (Purusha) alone is the 
Divine SELF, strictly speaking ; for, as said in Manu, " he [Brahma] having 
pervaded the subtile parts of those six, of unmeasured brightness," 1 created 
or called them forth to " Self "-consciousness or the consciousness of that 
One Self. Of these six, five elements (or principles, or Tattvas, as Medhatithi, 
the commentator thinks) " are called the atomic destructible elements " ; 2 
these are described in the above-named Section. 3 

We have now to speak of the Mystery language, that of the prehistoric 
races. It is not a phonetic, but a purely pictorial and symbolical tongue. It 
is known at present in its fulness to the very few, having become with the 
masses for more than 5,000 years an absolutely dead language. Yet most of 
the learned Gnostics, Greeks and Jews, knew it, and used it, though very 
differently. A few instances may be given. 

On the plane above, the Number is no Number but a nought a 
CIRCLE. On the plane below, it becomes one which is an odd number. 
Each letter of the ancient alphabets had its philosophical meaning and 
raison d'etre. The number one (l) signified with the Alexandrian Initiates 
a body erect, a living standing man, he being the only animal that nas this 
privilege. And, by adding to the " 1 " a head, it was transformed into a 
" P," a symbol of paternity, of the creative potency; while " R" signified a 
"moving man/' one on his way. Hence PATER ZEUS had nothing sexual or 
phallic either in its sound or the form of its letters ; nor had Tlarrjp 

1 The Ordinances of Manu, i, 16 ; Burncll's Translation, p. 3, note. 
* Ibid., 27 ; p 5. <J Vol. 2, pp. 39, et seq. 

F 10 



146 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

[Pater Deus] (according to Ragon). 1 If we turn now to the Hebrew alphabet,, 
we shall find that while 1 or Aleph (N) has a bull or an ox for its symbol, ten,. 
the perfect number, or one of the Kabalah, is a Yod (\, y, /, or /'), and means, 
as the first letter of Jehovah, the procreative organ, and the rest. 

The odd numbers are divine, the even numbers are terrestrial, devilish,, 
and unlucky. The Pythagoreans hated the Binary. With them it was the 
origin of differentiation, hence of contrasts, discord, or matter, the beginning 
of evil. In the Valentinian Theogony, Bythos and Sige (Depth, Chaos, Matter 
born in Silence) are the primordial Binary. With the early Pythagoreans,, 
however, the Duad was that imperfect state into which the first manifested 
being fell when it got detached from the Monad. It was the point from 
which the two roads the Good and the Evil bifurcated. All that which was 
double-faced or false was called by them "binary." ONE was alone good 
and harmony, because no disharmony can proceed from One alone. Hence 
the Latin word Solus in relation to the One and Only God, the Unknown of 
Paul. So/us, however, very soon became Sol the Sun. 

The Ternary is the first of the odd numbers, as the triangle is the first 
of the geometrical figures.' 2 This number is truly the number of mystery 
par excellence. To study it on the exoteric lines one has to read Ragon 's 
Cours Philosophique $t Interpretatif des Initiations, on the Esoteric the Hindu 
symbolism of numerals ; for the combinations which were applied to it are 
numberless. It is on the Occult properties of the three equal sides of the 
Triangle that Ragon based his studies and founded the famous Masonic Society 
of the Trinosophists those who study three sciences ; an improvement upon, 
the ordinary three Masonic degrees, given to those who study nothing except 
eating and drinking at the meetings of their Lodges. As the founder writes : 

The first line of the triangle offered to the apprentice for study is the mineral 
kingdom, symbolized by [Tubalc/. Tubal-Cain]. 

The second side on which the companion has to meditate, is the vegetable 
kingdom, symbolized by Shibb/. [Shibboleth]. In this kingdom begins the genera- 
tion of the bodies. This is why the letter G is presented radiant before the eyes of 
the adept [ ? !]. 

The third side is left to the master mason, who has to complete his education 
by the study of the animal kingdom. It is symbolized by Mac-benah/. (son of 
putrefaction)/* 

1 Orthodoxie Maconmque Suivie de la Maconnner/e Occulte et de /' Initiation Hermetique, J. M. 
Ragon, .p., 430 ; see also the whole of Chapter xxvii, " Puissance des Nombres d'apres Pythagore " 
for what follows. 

- The reason for it is simple, and was given in Isis Unveiled. In geometry, one straight line fails 
to represent a perfect figure, nor can two straight lines constitute a perfect figure. The triangle alone 
is the first perfect figure. 

:l Ragon, ibid., p. 428, note.* 



THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 147 

The first solid figure is the Quaternary, the symbol of immortality. It is 
the Pyramid, for the Pyramid stands on a triangular 1 base, and terminates with 
a point at the top, thus yielding the Triad and the Quaternary or the 3 and 4. 

The Pythagoreans taught the connection and relation between the Gods 
and the numbers, in a science called Arithmomancy. The Soul is a number,, 
they said, which moves of itself and contains the number 4 ; and spiritual and 
physical man is number 3, as the Ternary represented for them not only the 
surface but also the principle of the formation of the physical body. Thus 
animals were Ternaries only, man alone being a Septenary, when virtuous ; a 
Quinary when bad, for : 

Number Five was composed of a Binary and a Ternary, and of these the 
Binary threw everything in the perfect form into disorder and confusion. The 
perfect man, they said, was a Quaternary and a Ternary, or tour material and 
three immaterial elements ; and these three Spirits or Elements we likewise 
find in Five when it represents the microcosm. The latter is a compound of a 
Binary directly relating to gross Matter and of three Spirits. Since, as 
Ragon says : 

this ingenious figure is the union of two Greek breathings (',) placed over vowels 
which have or have not to be aspirated. The first sign ( f ) is called the " strong " or 
superior " spiritus," the Spirit of God aspired (sp/ratus) and breathed by man. The 
second sign (') the lower, is the soft " spiritus " representing the secondary spirit ; . . . 
the whole embraces the whole man. It is the universal quintessence, the vital fluid 
or life. 2 

The more mystic meaning of the number 5 [Five] is given in an excel- 
lent article by Mr. T. Subba Row, in Five Years of Theosophy, in an 
article entitled "The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac," in which he gives 
some rules that may help the enquirer to ferret out "the deep signifi- 
cance of ancient Sanskrit nomenclature in the old Aryan myths and 
allegories." Meanwhile, let us see what has been hitherto stated about 
the constellation Capricornus in Theosophical publications, and what is known 
of it generally. Every one knows that YJ ' s ^ e ten *h s '9 n of the Zodiac, 
into which the Sun enters at the winter solstice, about December 2tt. But 
very few are those who know even in India, unless they are initiated the 
real mystic connection which seems to exist, as we are told, between the 
names Makara and Kumara. The first means some amphibious animal, 
flippantly called the "crocodile," as some Orientalists think, and the second is 
the title of the great patrons of Yogis, according to the Shaiva Puranas, the 
sons of, and even one with, Rudra (Shiva), who is a Kumara himself. It is 

1 [Square or polygonaladded in the 1888 ed.j - Ibid., p. 431. 



148 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

through their connection with Man that the Kumaras are likewise connected 
with the Zodiac. Let us try to find out what the word Makara means. 
Says the author of " The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac " : 

Makara . . . contains within itself the clue to its correct interpretation. The 
letter ma is equivalent to number 5, and kara means hand. Now in Sanskrit Tribhujam 
means a triangle, bhujam or karam (both synonymous) being understood to mean a 
side. So, Makaram or Panchakaram means a Pentagon. 1 

Now the five-pointed star or pentagon represents the five limbs of 
man. 2 Under the old system, we are told, Makara was the eighth instead of 
the tenth sign. 3 

The sign in question is intended to represent the faces of the universe, and indi- 
cates that the figure of the universe is bounded by Pentagons. ' 

The Sanskrit writers " speak also of Ashtadisha or eight faces bounding 
Space," referring thus to the Loka-palas, the eight points of the compass, the 
four cardinal and the four intermediate points. 

From an objective point of view the " microcosm " is represented by the human 
.body. Makaram may be taken to represent simultaneously both the microcosm and the 
macrocosm, as external objects of perception. ' 

But the true Esoteric sense of the word Makara is not, in truth, "croco- 
dile " at all, even when it is compared with the animal depicted on the Hindu 
Zodiac. For it has the head and the fore-legs of an antelope and the body 
and tail of a fish. Hence the tenth sign of the Zodiac has been taken 
variously to mean a shark, a dolphin, etc, ; as it is the Vahana of Varuna, the 
Ocean God, and is often called, for this reason, Jala-rupa or "water-form." 
The dolphin was the vehicle of Poseidon-Neptune with the Greeks, and one 
with him, esoterically ; and this " dolphin " is the " sea-dragon " as much as 
the crocodile of the Sacred Nile is the Vehicle of Horus, and Horus himself. 
Says the mummy-form God with the crocodile's head : 

I am the fish [and seat] of the great Horus of Kem-oor/' 

With the Peratae Gnostics it is Chozzar (Neptune) who converts the 
dodecagonal pyramid into a sphere, " and paints its gate with many colours." 7 
He has FIVE androgyne ministers he is Makara, the Leviathan. 

As the rising Sun was considered the Soul of the Gods sent to manifest 
itself to men every day, and as the crocodile rose out of the water at the first 

iQp. cit., p. 113. 

2 Now what is the meaning and the reason of this figure ? The reason is that Manas is the tilth 
.principle, and that the Pentagon is the symbol of Man not only of the five-limbed, but rather of the 
thinking, conscious MAN. 

3 The reason for it becomes apparent when Egyptian symbology is studied. See further on. 

4 Ibid., p. 114. 5 Ibid., pp. 114-5. 

6 Book of the Dead. Ixxxviii, 2. r Philosophumena, v, 14. 



THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 149 

sunbeam, that animal came finally to personify a solar-fire devotee in India, as 
it personified that Fire, or the highest Soul with the Egyptians. 

In the Puranas, the number of the Kumaras changes according to the 
exigencies of the allegory. For Occult purposes their number is given in one 
place as seven, then as four, then as five. In the Kurma Purana it is said of 
them : 

These five [Kumaras], O Brahman, were Yogins who acquired entire exemption 
from passion. 

Their very name shows their connection with the said constellation 
Makara, and with some other Puranic characters connected with the zodiacal 
signs. This is done in order to veil what was one of the most suggestive 
glyphs of the primitive Temples. The Kumaras are mixed up, astronomically, 
physiologically, and mystically in general, with a number of Puranic personages 
and events. Hardly hinted alf in the Vishnu, they figure in various dramas 
and events throughout all the other Puranas and sacred literature ; so that the 
Orientalists, having to pick up the threads of connection hither and thither, 
have ended by proclaiming the Kumaras " due chiefly to the fancy of the 
Puranic writers." But 

Ma we are told by the author of the " Twelve Signs of the Zodiac " 
is " five " ; kara, a " hand " with its five fingers, as also a five-sided sign 
or a Pentagon. The Kumara (in this case an anagram for Occult pur- 
poses), as Yogis, are five in Esotericism, because the last two names 
have ever been kept secret ; they are the fifth order of Brahma -devas, 
and the five-fold Chohans, having the Soul of the five Elements in 
them, Water and Ether predominating, and therefore their symbols were both 
aquatic and fiery. 

Wisdom lies concealed under the couch of him who rests on the Golden Lotus 
(Padma) floating on the Water. 

In India this is Vishnu, one of whose Avataras was Buddha, as claimed ir> 
days of old. The Prachetasas, the worshippers of Narayana who, like 
Poseidon, moved or dwelt over not under the Waters plunged into the 
depths of the Ocean for their devotions and remained therein 10,000 years ; 
and the Prachetasas are ten exoterically, but five, esoterically. Prachetas is, 
in Sanskrit, the name of Varuna, the Water God, Nereus, an aspect of Neptune^ 
the Prachetasas being thus identical with the " five ministers" of the male- 
female Chozzar (X&>fa/> or Xopgdp), or Poseidon, of the Peratae Gnostics. 
These are respectively called Ou, Aoai, Ouo, Ouoab and . . . (O#, 'Aoeu, 
o>, Ovcodfi . . . ), 1 the fifth, a triple name (making seven in all) being 

1 See Philosophumena, v. 14. 



150 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

lost l i.e., kept secret. Thus much for the " aquatic " symbol ; the " fiery " 
connecting them with the fiery symbol spiritually. For purposes of identity, let 
us remember that as the mother of the Prachetasas was Savarna, the daughter 
of the Ocean, so was Amphitrite the mother of Neptune's mystic " ministers." 
Now the reader is reminded that these " five ministers " are symbolized 
both in the Dolphin, who had overcome the chaste Amphitrite's unwillingness 
to wed Poseidon, and in Triton their son. The latter, whose body above the 
waist is that of a man and below a dolphin, a fish, is, again, most mysteriously 
connected with Cannes, the Babylonian Dag, and further also with the Matsya 
(Fish) Avatara of Vishnu, both teaching mortals Wisdom. The Dolphin, as 
every Mythologist knows, was placed, for his service, by Poseidon, among the 
constellations, and became with the Greeks, Capricornus, the Goat, whose 
hind part is that of a dolphin, and is thus identical with Makara, whose head 
is also that of an antelope and the body and tail those of a fish. This is why 
the sign of the Makara was borne on the banner of Kamadeva, the Hindu 
God of Love, identified, in the Atharva Veda, with Agni, the Fire-god, the son 
of Lakshmi, as correctly given in the Harivamsha. For Lakshmi and Venus 
are one, and Amphitrite is the early form of Venus. Now Kama, the Makara- 
ketu, is Aja, the " unborn," and Atma-bhu, the " self -existent," and Aja is the 
LOGOS in the Rig Veda, as he is shown therein to be the first manifestation of 
the ONE; for " Desire first arose in IT, which was the primal germ of mind," 
that "which connects entity with non-entity" or Manas, the fifth, with 
Atma, the seventh, Esoterically say the Sages. This is the first stage. The 
second, on the following plane of manifestation, shows Brahma whom we 
select as a representative for all the other First Gods of the nations causing 
to issue from his body his Mind-born Sons, " Sanandana and others," who, 
in the fifth " creation," and again in the ninth (for purposes of a " blind ") 
become the Kumara. Let us close by reminding the reader that goats were 
sacrificed to Amphitrite and the Nereids on the sea-shore as goats are 
sacrificed to this day to Durga Kali, who is only the black side of Lakshmi 
(Venus), the white side of Shakti and by suggesting what connection these 
animals may have with Capricornus, in which appear twenty-eight stars in the 
form of a goat, which goat was transformed by the Greeks into Amalthaea, 
Jupiter's foster-mother. Pan, the God of Nature, had goat's feet, and changed 
himself into a goat at the approach of Typhon. But this is a mystery which 
the writer dares not dwell upon at length, not being sure of being understood 

1 So is Brahma's fifth head, said to be lost, burnt to ashes by Shiva's " central eye " ; Shiva being 
also Panchanana " five-faced." Thus the number is preserved and secrecy maintained on the true 
Esoteric meaning. 



THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 151 

Thus the mystical side of the interpretation must be left to the intuition of the 
student. Let us note one more thing in relation to the mysterious number 
Five. It symbolizes at one and the same time the Spirit of Life Eternal and 
the spirit of life and love terrestrial in the human compound ; and, it includes 
divine and infernal magic, and the universal and the individual quintessence of 
being. Thus, the five mystic words or vowels uttered by Brahma at " crea- 
tion," which forthwith became the Panchadasha (certain Vedic Hymns, attribu- 
ted to that God), are in their creative and magical potentiality, the white side 
of the black Tantric five Ma-karas, or the five m's. Makara, the constellation, 
is a seemingly meaningless and absurd name ; yet, even besides its anagram- 
matical significance in conjunctibn with the term Kumara, the numerical value 
of its first syllable and its Esoteric resolution into five has a very great and 
Occult meaning in the mysteries of Nature. 

Suffice it to say that, as the sign of Makara is connected with the birth 
of the spiritual Microcosm, and the death or dissolution of the physical 
Universe its passage into the realm of the Spiritual ; ] so the Dhyan 
Chohans, called in India Kumaras, are connected with both. Moreover, in 
the exoteric religions, they have become the synonyms of the Angels of 
Darkness. Mara is the God of Darkness, the Fallen One, and Death ; 2 and 
yet it is one of the names of Kama, the First God in the Vedas, the Logos, 
from whom have sprung the Kumaras, and this connects them still more with 
our "fabulous" Indian Makara, and the crocodile-headed God in Egypt. 3 
The Crocodiles in the Celestial Nile are five, and the God Toom, the Primordial 
Deity, creating the heavenly bodies and living beings, calls forth these Croc- 
odiles in his fifth " creation." When Osiris, the " Defunct Sun," is buried 
and enters into Amenti, the sacred Crocodiles plunge into the abyss of 
primordial Waters the " great Green One." When the Sun of Life rises, 
they re-emerge out of the sacred river. All this is highly symbolical, and 
shows how primeval Esoteric truths found their expression in identical symbols. 
But, as Mr. T. Subba Row truly declares : 

The veil that was dexterously thrown over certain portions of the mystery con- 
nected with these [Zodical] signs by the ancient philosophers, will never be lilted up for 
the amusement or edification of the uninitiated public. 4 

1 " When the Sun passes away behind the 30th degree of Makara and will reach no more the sign 
of the Mtna (Pisces) then the Night of BrahmS has come." 

2 Death of every physical thing truly ; but Mara is also the unconscious quickener of the birth of 
the Spiritual. 

3 Osiris is called in the Book of the Dead (cxlii. B. 17) " Osiris, the double crocodile/' " He is 
the good and the bad Principle; the Day and the Night Sun, the God and the mortal man." Thus 
far the Macrocosm and the Microcosm. 

'Op. cit., p. 117. 



152 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Nor was number Five less sacred with the Greeks. The " Five Words " 
of Brahma have become with the Gnostics the " Five Words " written upon 
the Akashic (Shining) Garment of Jesus at his glorification the words " Zama 
Zama Ozza Rachama Ozai " (ZAMA ZAMA HZZA RAX AM A HZAI), trans- 
lated by the Orientalists " the robe, the glorious robe of my strength." These 
words were, in their turn, the anagrammatic " blind " of the five mystic 
Powers represented on the robe of the " resurrected " Initiate after his last 
trial of three days' trance ; the five becoming seven only after his " death/' 
when the Adept became the full Christos, the full Krishna-Vishnu, i.e.. merged 
in Nirvana. The E Delphicum, a sacred symbol, was the numeral five, again ; 
and how sacred it was is shown by the fact that the Corinthians, according to 
Plutarch, replaced the wooden numeral in the Delphic Temple by a bronze 
one, and this one was transmuted by Livia Augusta, into a facsimile in gold. 1 

It is easy to recognize in the two " Spiritus " the Greek signs Q spoken 
of by Ragon Atma and Buddhi, or Divine Spirit and its Vehicle, the Spiritual 
Soul. 

The Six or the Senary is dealt with later in this Section, while the 
Septenary will be fully treated in the course of this Volume in Section 11 on 
" The Mysteries of the Hebdomad." 

The Ogdoad or Eight symbolizes the eternal and spiral motion of cycles, 
the 8 oo , and is symbolized in its turn by the Caduceus. It shows the regular 
breathing of the Kosmos presided over by the Eight Great Gods the Seven 
from the primeval Mother, the one and the Triad. 

Then comes the number Nine, or the triple Ternary. It is the number 
which reproduces itself incessantly under all shapes and figures in every 
multiplication. It is the sign of every circumference, since its value in degrees 
is equal to 9, i.e., to 3 +6 4-0. It is a bad number under certain conditions, 
and very unlucky. If number 6 was the symbol of our Globe ready to be 
animated, by a divine Spirit, 9 symbolized our Earth informed by a bad or evil 
Spirit. 

Ten, or the Decad, brings all these digits back to unity,, and ends the 
Pythagorean table. Hence this figure, @ unity, within zero was the symbol 
of the Deity, of the Universe, and of Man. Such is the secret meaning of " the 
strong grip of the lion's paw, of the tribe of Judah " (the " master mason's 
grip ") between two hands, the joint number of whose fingers is ten. 

If we now give our attention to the Egyptian cross, or the Tau, we may 
discover this letter, which was so exalted by Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews, to 
be mysteriously connected with the Decad. The Tau is the Alpha and the 

1 King's Gnostics and their Remains, p. 297. 



THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 155 

Omega of Secret Divine Wisdom, which is symbolized by the initial and the 
final letters of Thot (Hermes). Thot was the inventor of the Egyptian 
alphabet, and the letter Tau closed the alphabets of the Jews and the 
Samaritans, who called this character the " end " or " perfection," " culmina- 
tion " and " security." Hence, Ragon tells us, the words Terminus (end) and 
Tectum (roof) are symbols of shelter and security which is rather a prosaic 
definition. But such is the usual destiny of ideas and things in this world of 
spiritual decadence, though at the same time of physical progress. PAN was 
at one time absolute Nature, the One and Great All ; but when history catches, 
a first glimpse of him, Pan has already tumbled down into a godling of the 
fields, a rural God ; history will not recognize him, while theology makes of 
him the Devil ! Yet his seven-piped flute, the emblem of the seven 
forces of Nature, of the seven planets, the seven musical notes, of 
all the septenary harmony in short, shows well his primordial character. 
So with the Cross. Far earlier than the Jews had devised their golden* 
candlestick of the Temple with three sockets on one side, and four 
on the other, and made of number seven a feminine number of gene- 
ration 1 thus introducing the phallic element into religion the more 
spiritually-minded nations had made of the cross (as 3+47) their most sacred 
divine symbol. In fact, circle, cross, and seven the latter being made a 
base of circular measurement are the first primordial symbols. Pythagoras, 
who brought his wisdom from India, left to posterity a glimpse into this truth. 
His school regarded number 7 as a compound of numbers 3 and 4, which they 
explained in a dual manner. On the plane of the noumenal world, the 
Triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image, 
" Father-Mother-Son " ; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the 
noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane. Some 
students, in view of the sacredness of the Tetraktys and the Tetragrammaton, 
mistake the mystic meaning of the Quaternary. The latter was with the 
Ancients only a secondary " perfection," so to speak, because it related only 
to the manifested planes. Whereas it is the Triangle, the Greek Delta, A, 
which was the " vehicle of the unknown Deity." A good proof of Ft lies in 

1 Reflecting on the Cross, the author of The Source of Measures shows that this candlestick in the 
Temple " was so composed that, counting on either side, there were four candle-sockets ; while, at 
the apex, there being one in common to both sides, there were in fact 3 to be counted on the one 
side and 4 on the other, making in all the number 7, upon the self-same idea of one in common with 
the cross display. Take a line of one unit in breadth by 3 units long, and place it on an incline ; take 
another of 4 units long, and lean it upon this one, from an opposite incline, making the top unit of the 
4 in length the corner or apex of a triangle. This is the display of the candlestick. Now, take away 
the line of 3 units in length, and cross it on the one of 4 units in length, and the cross form results. 
The same idea is conveyed in the six days of the week in Genesis, crowned by the seventh, which 
was used by itself as a base of circular measure " (p. 51). 



154 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

the name of the Deity beginning with Delta. Zeus was written Aeu? (Deus) 
by the Boeotians, thence the Deus of the Latins. This, in relation to the 
metaphysical conception, with regard to the meaning of the septenary in the 
phenomenal world ; but for purposes of profane or exoteric interpretation, the 
symbolism changed. Three became the ideograph of the three material 
Elements Air, Water, Earth ; and four became the principle of all that which 
is neither corporeal nor perceptible. But this has never been accepted by 
the real Pythagoreans. Viewed as a compound of 6 and 1, the Senary and 
the Unity, number 7 was the invisible centre, the Spirit of everything, as there 
exists no hexagonal body without a seventh property being found as the 
central point in it, as, for instance, crystals and snow-flakes in so-called " in- 
animate " nature. Moreover, number seven, they said, has all the perfection 
of the UNIT the number of numbers. For as absolute unity is uncreated, and 
impartite, hence number-less, and no number can produce it, so is the seven ; 
no digit contained within the Decad can beget or produce it. And it is four 
which affords an arithmetical division between unity and seven, for it surpasses 
the former by the same number (three), as it is itself surpassed by the seven, 
since four is by as many numbers above one, as seven is above four. 1 

14 With the Egyptians number 7 was the symbol of life eternal," says 
Ragon, and adds that this is why the Greek letter Z, which is but a double, 7 
is the initial letter of Zao, " I live," and of Zeus, the " father of all living." 

Moreover, figure 6 was the symbol of the Earth during the autumn and 
winter " sleeping " months, and figure 7 during spring and summer, as the 
Spirit of Life animated her at that time the seventh or central informing 
Force. We find the same in the Egyptian mythos and symbol of Osiris and 
Isis, personifying Fire and Water metaphysically, and the Sun and the Nile 
physically. The number of the solar year, 365 in days, is the numerical value 
of the word Neilos (Nile). This, together with the Bull, with the crescent and 
the ansated cross between its horns, and the Earth under its astronomical 
symbol $ , are the most phallic symbols of later antiquity. 

The Nile was the river of time with the number of a year, or a year and a day 
(364+1 365). It represented the parturient water of Isis, or Mother Earth, the moon, 
the woman, and the cow, also the workshop of Osiris, representing the T'sod Olaum of 
the Hebrews. The ancient name of this river was Eridanus, or the Hebrew lardan, 
with the Coptic or old Greek suffix. This was the door of the Hebrew word Jared, or 
source, or descent ... of the river Jordan, which had the same mythical use with the 
Hebrews that the Nile had with the Egyptians, 3 it was the source of descent, and held 
the waters of life. 3 

1 From a MS. supposed to be by " St. Germain," embodied by Ragon, op cit., p. 434. 

2 It had no such meaning in the beginnings, nor during the earlier dynasties. 
J From an unpublished MS. 



THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 155 

It was, to put it plainly, the symbol of the personified Earth, or Isis 
regarded as the womb of that Earth. This is shown clearly enough ; 
and Jordan the river so sacred now to Christians held no more 
sublime or poetical meaning in it than the parturient waters of the 
Moon Isis, or Jehovah in his female aspect. Now, as shown by the 
same scholar, Osiris was the Sun, and the river Nile, and the year of 365 days ; 
while Isis was the Moon, the bed of that river, or Mother Earth " for the par- 
turient energies of which water was a necessity," as also the lunar year of 
354 days, "the time-maker of the periods of gestation." All this then is 
sexual and phallic, our modern scholars seeming to find in these symbols 
nothing beyond a physiological or phallic meaning. Nevertheless, the three 
figures 365, or the number of days in a solar year, have but to be read with 
the Pythagorean key to find in them a highly philosophical and moral meaning. 
One instance will be sufficient. It can read : 

The Earth (3) animated by (6) the Spirit of Life (5). 

Simply because 3 is equivalent to the Greek Gamma (F) which is the 
symbol of Gaia, the Earth, while the figure 6 is the symbol of the animating 
or informing principle, and the 5 is the universal quintessence which spreads in 
every direction and forms all matter. 1 

The few instances and examples brought forward reveal only one small 
portion of the methods used to read the symbolical ideographs and numerals 
of antiquity. The system being of an extreme and complex difficulty, very 
few, even among the Initiates, could master all the seven keys. Is it to be 
wondered, then, that the metaphysical gradually dwindled down into the 
physical Nature ; that the Sun, once upon a time the symbol of Deity, be- 
came, as aeons glided by, that of its creative ardour only ; and that thence it 
fell into a glyph of phallic significance ? But surely, it is not those whose 
method, like Plato's, was to proceed from universals down to particulars, who 
could ever have begun by symbolizing their religions by sexual emblems ! It 
is quite true, though uttered by that incarnated paradox Eliphas Levi, that 
" man is God on Earth, and God is man in Heaven." But this could not, and 
never did apply to the One Deity, only to the Hosts of ITS incarnated beams, 
called by us Dhyan Chohans, by the Ancients, Gods, and now transformed by 
the Church into Devils on the /eft, and into the Saviour on the right side ! 

But all such dogmas grew out of the one root, the root of Wisdom, 
which grows and thrives on the Indian soil. There is not an Archangel that 
could not be traced back to its prototype in the sacred land of Aryavarta. 
These prototypes are all connected with the Kumaras who appear on the 

1 From St. Germain's MS. 



156 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

scene of action by " refusing" as Sanatkumara and Sananda to "create 
progeny," Yet they are called the "creators" of (thinking) man. More 
than once they are brought into connection with Narada another bundle of 
apparent incongruities, yet a wealth of philosophical tenets. Narada is the 
leader of the Gandharvas, the celestial singers and musicians ; Esoterically, 
the reason for this is explained by the fact that the Gandharvas are "the 
instructors of men in the Secret m Sciences." It is they, who " loving the 
women of the Earth " disclosed to them the mysteries of creation ; or, as in 
the Veda, the " heavenly " Gandharva is a deity who knew and revealed the 
secrets of heaven and divine truths, in general. If we remember what is said 
of this class of Angels in Enoch and in the Bible, then the allegory is plain ; 
their leader, Narada, while refusing to procreate, leads men to become Gods, 
Moreover, all of these, as stated in the Vedas, are Chhandajas, "will-born," 
or incarnated, in different Manvantaras, of their own will. They are shown in 
exoteric literature as existing age after age ; some being " cursed to be 
reborn," others incarnating as a duty. Finally, as the Sanakadikas, the seven 
Kumaras who went to visit Vishnu on the " White Island " (Shveta-dvipa), the 
Island inhabited by the Maha Yogis they are connected with Shaka-dvipa and 
the Lemurians and Atlanteans of the Third and Fourth Races. 

In the Esoteric Philosophy, the Rudras (Kumaras, Adityas, Gandharvas, 
Asuras, etc.) are the highest Dhyan Chohans or Devas as regards intellectu- 
ality. They are those who, owing to their having acquired by self-develop- 
ment the five-told nature hence the sacredness of number five became 
independent of the pure Arupa Devas. This is a mystery very difficult to 
realize and understand correctly. For we see that those who were "obedient 
to law " are, equally with the " rebels," doomed to be reborn in every age. 
Narada, the Rishi, is cursed by Brahma to incessant peripateticism on Earth, 
i.e., to be constantly reborn. He is a rebel against Brahma, and yet has no 
worse fate than the Jayas the twelve great creative Gods produced by 
Brahma as his assistants in the functions of creation. For the latter, lost ir* 
meditation, only forgot to create; and for this, they were equally cursed by 
Brahma to be born in every Manvantara. And still they are termed together 
with the rebels Chhandajas, or those born of their own will in human form. 

All this is very puzzling to one who is unable to read and under- 
stand the Puranas except in their dead -letter sense. l Hence we find the 

1 Yet this sense, if once mastered, will turn out to be the secure casket which holds the keys to 
the Secret Wisdom. True, a casket so profusely ornamented that its fancy-work hides and conceals, 
entirely any spring for opening it, and thus makes the unintuitional believe it has not, and cannot have, 
any opening at all. Still the keys are there, deeply buried, yet ever present to him who searches 
for them. 



THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 157 

Orientalists refusing to be puzzled, and cutting the Gordian knot of per- 
plexity by declaring the whole scheme "figments ... of Brahmanical fancy 
and love of exaggeration." But to the student of Occultism, the whole is 
pregnant with deep philosophical meaning. We willingly leave the rind to the 
Western Sanskritist, but claim the essence of the fruit for ourselves. We do 
more: we concede that in one sense much in these so-called "fables" 
refers to astronomical allegories about constellations, asterisms, stars, and 
planets. Yet, while the Gandharva of the Rig Veda may there be made to 
personify the fire of the Sun, the Gandharva Devas are entities both of a 
physical and psychic character, while the Apsarasas (with other Rudras) are 
both qualities and quantities. In short, if ever unravelled, the Theogony of 
the Vedic Gods will reveal fathomless mysteries of Creation and Being. Truly 
says Parashara : 

These classes of thirty-three divinities . . . exist age after age . . . and their 
appearance and disappearance is ... in the same manner as the sun sets and 
rises again. 1 

There was a time, when the Eastern symbol of the cross and circle, the 
Svastika, was universally adopted. With the Esoteric, and for the matter of 
that exoteric, Buddhist, the Chinaman and the Mongolian, it means the '-ten 
thousand truths." These truths, they say, belong to the mysteries of the 
Unseen Universe and Primordial Cosmogony and Theogony. 

Since Fohat crossed the Circle like two lines of flame [horizontally -and 
vertically], the Hosts of the Blessed Ones have never failed to send their 
representatives upon the Planets they are made to watch over from the 
beginning. 

This is why the Svastika is always placed as the ansated cross was in 
Egypt on the breast of the defunct Mystics. It is found on the heart of the 
images and statues of Buddha, in Tibet and Mongolia. It is the seal placed 
also on the hearts of the living Initiates, burnt into the flesh for ever 
with some. This, because they have to keep these truths inviolate and 
intact, in eternal silence and secrecy to the day they are perceived and read 
by their chosen successors new Initiates "worthy of being entrusted with 
the ten thousand perfections." So degraded, however, has it now become, 
that it is often placed on the headgear of the " Gods," the hideous idols of 
the sacrilegious Bons the Dugpas or Sorcerers, of the Tibetan borderlands 
until found out by a Gelugpa, and torn off together with the head of the 
41 God," though it would be better were it that of the worshipper which was 
severed from his sinful body. Still, it can never lose its mysterious properties. 

1 Vishnu Purana, Wilson, vol. ii, p. 29. 



158 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Throw a retrospective glance, and see it used alike by the Initiates and Seers,, 
as by the Priests of Troy, for many specimens of it have been found by 
Schliemann on the site of that old city. One finds it with the old Peruvians, 
the Assyrians, Chaldeans, as well as on the walls of the old-world Cyclopean 
buildings; in the catacombs of the New World, and in those of the Old (?). 
at Rome, where because the first Christians are supposed to have concealed 
themselves and their religion it is called Crux Dissimulate. 

According to De Rossi the Svastika from an early period was a favourite form 
of the cross employed with an occult signification which shows the secret was not that 
of the Christian cross. One Svastika cross in the catacombs is the sign of an inscrip- 
tion which reads " ZflTlKH ZOTIKH [? XflTIKH], Vitalis Vital/a," or life of life. ' 

But the best evidence to the antiquity of the cross is that which is 
brought forward by the author of T/ie Natural Genesis himself : 

The value of the cross as a Christian symbol is supposed to date from the time 
when Jesus Christ was crucified. And yet in the " Christian " iconography of the 
catacombs no figure of a man appears upon the Cross during the first six or seven 
centuries. There are all forms of the cross except that the alleged starting-point of 
the new religion. That was not the initial but the final form of the Crucifix/' During 
some six centuries after the Christian era the foundation of the Christian religion in a 
crucified Redeemer is entirely absent from Christian art ! The earliest known form of 
the human figure on the cross is the crucifix presented by Pope Gregory the Great to 
Queen Theodolinde of Lombardy, now in the Church of St. John at Monza, whilst no 
image of the Crucified is found in the catacombs at Rome earlier than that of San 
Giulio, belonging to the seventh or eighth century. . . . There is no Christ and no 
Crucified ; the Cross is the Christ even as the Stauros (Cross) was a type and a name 
of Horus the Gnostic Christ. The Cross, not the Crucified, is the primary symbol of 
the Christian Church. The Cross, not the Crucified, is the essential object of repre- 
sentation in its art, and of adoration in its religion. The germ of the whole growth and 
development can be traced to the cross And that cross is pre-Christian, is pagan and 
heathen, in half a dozen different shapes. The Cult began with the cross, and Julian 
was right in saying he waged a " Warfare with the X " ; which he obviously considered 
had been adopted by the A-Gnostics and Mytholators to convey an impossible signifi- 
cance. 1 During centuries the cross stood for the Christ, and was addressed as if it 
were a living being. It was divinized at first and humanized at last. 4 

Few world-symbols are more pregnant with real Occult meaning than 
the Svastika. It is symbolized by the figure 6. Like that figure, it points, in 
its concrete imagery, as does the ideograph of the number, to the Zenith and 
the Nadir, to North, South, West, and East ; one finds the unit everywhere, 

1 Quoted in Gerald Massey's The Natural Genesis, vol i, p. 427. 

2 With the Christians, most undeniably. With the Pre-Christian Symbologists it was, as said, the 
Bed or Couch of Torture during the Initiation Mystery, the " Crucifix" being placed horizontally, on 
the ground, and not erect, as at the time when it became the Roman gallows 

:< So it was, and could not be otherwise. Julian, the Emperor, was an Initiate, and as such knew 
well the "mystery-meaning " both metaphysical and physical. 

4 Op. cit., ibid., p. 433. 



THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 159 

and that unit reflected in all and every unit. It is the emblem of the activity 
of Fohat, of the continual revolution of the "Wheels," and of the Four 
Elements, the " Sacred Four," in their mystical, and not alone in their cosmical 
meaning ; further, its four arms, bent at right angles, are intimately related, 
as shown elsewhere, to the Pythagorean and Hermetic scales. One initiated 
into the mysteries of the meaning of the Svastika, say the Commentaries, 
"can trace on it, with mathematical precision, the evolution of Kosmos and 
the whole period of Sandhya." Also "the relation of the Seen to the 
Unseen/' and "the first procreation of man and species." 

To the Eastern Occultist the Tree of Knowledge, in the Paradise of man's 
own heart, becomes the Tree of Life Eternal, and has nought to do with man's 
animal senses. It is an absolute mystery that reveals itself only through the 
efforts of the imprisoned Manas, the Ego, to liberate itself from the thraldom 
of sensuous perception, and see in the light of the one eternal present Reality. 
To the Western Kabalist, and far more now to the superficial Symbologist, 
nursed in the lethal atmosphere of Materialistic Science, the chief explanation 
of the mysteries of the Cross is its sexual element. Even the otherwise 
spiritualistic modern commentator discerns this feature in the Cross and 
Svastika before all others. 

The cross was used in Egypt as a protecting talisman and a symbol of saving 
power. Typhon, or Satan, is actually found chained to and bound by the cross. In the 
Ritual, the Osirian cries, " The Apophis is overthrown, their cgrds bind the South, North, 
East, and West, their cords are on him Har-ru-bah has knotted him." l These were 
the Cords of the four quarters, or the cross. Thor is said to smite the head of the 
serpent with his hammer, ... a form of the Svastika or four-footed cross. ... In 
the primitive sepulchres of Egypt the model of the Chamber had the form of a cross. <J 
The pagoda of Mathura . . the birth-place of Krishna, was built in the form of 
a cross/ 

This is perfect, and no one can discern in it that " sexual worship," with 
which the Orientalists love to break the head of Paganism. But how about 
the Jews, and the exoteric religions of some Hindu sects, especially the rites 
of the Vallabacharyas ? For, as said, Shiva-worship, with its Lingam and Yoni, 
stands too high philosophically, its modern degeneration notwithstanding, to be 

1 Book ol the Dead, xxxix. Apophis or Apap is the Serpent of Evil, the symbol of human passions 
The Sun (Osins-Horus) destroys him, and Apap is thrown down, bound and chained. The God Aker, 
the " Chief of the Gate of the Abyss " of Aker, the Realm of the Sun (xv, 39), binds him. Apophis 
is the enemy of Ra (Light), but the " great Apap has fallen ! " exclaims the Defunct. " The Scorpion 
has hurt thy mouth," he says to the conquered enemy (xxxix, 7). The Scorpion is the "worm that 
never dies " of the Christians. Apophis is bound on the Tau or Tat, the " emblem of stability " (See 
the erection of Tat in Tatoo, xviii.) 

- So have the crypts in Cis-Himalayan regions where Initiates live, and where their ashes are placed 
For seven lunar years. 

' 7he Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 432. 



160 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

oiled a simple phallic worship. But the Tree- or Cross-worship ] of the Jews, 
as denounced by their own Prophets, can hardly escape the charge. The 
"sons of the sorcerers, the seed of the adulterer,"" as Isaiah calls rhem, 
<never lost an opportunity of " enf laming yourselves [themselve^j with idols 
under every green tree" 3 which denotes no metaphysical recreation. It is 
from these monotheistic Jews that the Christian nations have derived their 
religion, their "God of Gods, the One living God," while despising and 
deriding the worship of the Deity of the ancient Philosophers. Let such 
believe in and worship the physical form of the Cross, by all means. 

But to the follower of the true Eastern archaic Wisdom, to him who 
worships in spirit nought outside the Absolute Unity, that ever-pulsating great 
Heart that beats throughout, as in, every atom of Nature, each such atom 
contains the germ from which he may raise the Tree of Knowledge, whose 
fruits give Life Eternal and not physical life alone. For him, the Cross and 
Circle, the Tree or the Tau even after every symbol relating thereto has been 
referred to and read, one after another still remain a profound mystery in 
their Past, and it is to that Past alone that he directs his eager gaze. He cares 
little whether it be the Seed from which grows the genealogical Tree of Being, 
called the Universe. Nor is it the Three in One, the triple aspect of the Seed 
its form, colour, and substance that interest him, but rather the FORCE 
which directs its growth, the ever mysterious, as the ever unknown. For this 
vital Force, that makes the Seed germinate, burst open and throw out shoots, 
then form the trunk and branches, which, in their turn, bend down like the 
boughs of the Ashvattha, the holy Tree of Bodhi, throw their seed out, take root 
and procreate other trees this is the only FORCE that has reality for him, as it 
is the never-dying Breath of Life. The Pagan philosopher sought for the cause, 
the modern is content with only the effects and seeks the former in the latter. 
What is beyond, he does not know, nor does the modern A-gnostic care ; 
thus rejecting the only knowledge upon which he can with full security base 
his Science, Yet this manifested Force has an answer for him who seeks to 
fathom it. He who sees in the cross, the decussated circle of Plato, the 
Pagan, not the antitype of circumcision, as Christian (St.) Augustine did, 4 is 
forthwith regarded by the Church as a heathen ; by Science, as a lunatic. 
This, because, while refusing to worship the God of physical generation, he 
confesses that he can know nothing of the Cause which underlies the so-called 
First Cause, the Causeless Cause of this Vital Cause. Tacitly admitting the 
All-Presence of the Boundless Circle and making of it the Universal Postulate 

1 The Cross and the Tree are identical and synonymous in symbolism. 

- Ch. Ivii. 3. J Ibid , 5. 4 Sermon clx. 



THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECAD 161 

upon which the whole of the Manifested Universe is based, the Sage keeps 
a reverential silence concerning that upon which no mortal man should dare 
to speculate. " The Logos of God is the revealer of man, and the Logos 
(the Verb) of man is the revealer of God," says lipha$ Levi in one of his 
paradoxes. To this, the Eastern Occultist would reply : On this condition, 
however, that man should be dumb on the CAUSE that produced both God and 
its Logos. Otherwise, he becomes invariably the reviler, not the revealer, of 
the Incognizable Deity. 

We have now to approach a mystery the Hebdomad in Nature, Per- 
chance, all that we may say, will be attributed to coincidence. We may be 
told that this number in Nature is quite natural as indeed we say it is and 
has no more significance than the illusion of motion which forms the so-called 
" strobic-circles." No great importance was given to these " singular illu- 
sions " when Professor Sylvanus Thompson exhibited them at the meeting of 
the British Association in 1877. Nevertheless, we should like to learn the 
scientific explanation why seven should ever form itself as a pre-eminent 
number six concentric circles around a seventh, and seven rings within one 
another round a central point, etc. in this illusion, produced by a swaying 
saucer, or any other vessel. We give the solution refused by Science in the 
Section which follows. 



F 11 



SECTION 11 

THE MYSTERIES OF THE HEBDOMAD 

WE must not close this Part on the Symbolism of Archaic History, without an 
attempt to explain the perpetual recurrence of this truly mystic number, the 
Hebdomad, in every scripture known to the Orientalists. As every religion, 
from the oldest to the latest, reveals its presence, and explains it on its own 
grounds agreeably with its own special dogmas, this is no easy task. We can,, 
therefore, do no better or more explanatory work than to give a bird's-eye 
view of all. The numbers, 3, 4, 7, are the sacred numbers of Light, Life, and 
Union especially in this present Manvantara, our Life-Cycle ; of which, 
number seven is the special representative, or the factor number. This has 
now to be demonstrated. 

If one should ask a Brahman learned in the Upanishads, which are so 
full of the Secret Wisdom of old, why " he of whom seven fore-fathers have 
drunk the juice of the moon-plant," is Trisuparna, as Bopadeva is credited 
with saying ; ' and why the Somapa Pitris should be worshipped by the Brah- 
man Trisuparna very few could answer the question ; or, if they knew, they 
would still less satisfy one's curiosity. Let us, then, hold to what the old 
Esoteric Doctrine teaches. As says the Commentary : 

When the first Seven appeared on Earth, they threw the seed of every- 
thing that grows on the land into the soil. First came Three, and Four were 
added to these as soon as stone was transformed into plant. Then came the 
second Seven who, guiding the Jivas of the plants, produced the middle 
[intermediate] natures between plant and moving living animal. The third' 
Seven evolved their Chhayas. . . . The fifth Seven imprisoned their ESSENCE. 
. . . Thus man became a Saptaparna. 

A. SAPTAPARNA 

Such is the name given in Occult phraseology to man. It means, as 
shown elsewhere, a seven-leaved plant, and the name has a great significance. 

1 Vishnu Parana. Wilson. Vol. iii, p. 174, note by Fitzedward Hall. 



SAPTAPARNA 163 

in the Buddhist legends. So it had, also, under disguise, in the Greek myths. 
The T, or T (Tau), formed from the figure 7, and the Greek letter P 
(Gamma), was, as stated in the last Section, the symbol of life, and of Life 
Eternal : of earthly life, because T (Gamma) is the symbol of the Earth 
(Gaia) 1 ; and of Life Eternal, because the figure 7 is the symbol of the same 
life linked with Divine Life, the double glyph expressed in geometrical figures 
being : 

A 
D 

a Triangle and a Quaternary, the symbol of septenary MAN. 

Now, the number six has been regarded in the Ancient Mysteries as arc 
emblem of physical Nature. For six is the representation of the six dimensions 
of all bodies the six directions which compose their form, namely, the four 
directions extending to the four cardinal points, North, South, East, and West, 
and the 'two directions of height and thickness that answer to the Zenith and 
the Nadir. Therefore, while the Senary was applied by the Sages to physical 
man, the Septenary was for them the symbol of that man plus his immortal 
Soul. 2 

J. M. Ragon gives a very good illustration of the " hieroglyphical senary," 
as he calls our double equilateral triangle. 

The hieroglyphical senary is the symbol of the commingling of the philosophical 
three fires and three waters, whence results the procreation of the elements of all 
things: 5 

The same idea is found in the Indian double equilateral triangle. For, 
though it is called in that country he sign of Vishnu, yet in truth it is the 
symbol of the Triad, or Tri-murti. For, even in the exoteric rendering, the 
lower triangle, v, with the apex downward, is the symbol of Vishnu, the God 
of the Moist Principle and Water, Narayana being the Moving Principle in the 
Nara, or Waters; 4 while the triangle, with its apex upward, A, is Shiva, the 
Principle of Fire, symbolized by the triple flame in his hand. 5 It is these two 
interlaced triangles, wrongly called " Solomon's Seal " which also ?orm the 
emblem of our Society that produce the Septenary and the Triad at one 

1 Hence the Initiates in Greece called the Tau Yavqio?, " son of Gaia," " sprung from Earth," 
like Tityos in the Odyssey (vii, 324). 

- Ragon, Orthodox/e Maconm'que, etc., pp. 432-3. ll Ibid., p. 433, note. 

4 See the Mahabharata, e.g., Ill, 189, 3, where Vishnu says, " I called the name of water Nara in 
ancient times, and am hence called Narayana, for that was always the abode I moved in (Ay ana)." It 
is into the Water, or Chaos, the " Moist Principle " of the Greeks and Hermes, that the first seed of 
the Universe is thrown. "The ' Spirit of God ' moves on the dark waters of Space "; hence Thales 
makes of it the primordial element and prior to Fire, which was yet latent in that Spirit. 

:> [See the bronze statue of Tripurantaka Shiva, " MahSdeva destroying TripurSsura," at the 
Museum of India House, London.] 



164 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

and the same time, and are the Decad. Whatever way this sjK is examined, 
all the ten numbers are contained therein. For with a point in the middle or 
centre, j@, it is a sevenfold sign or Septenary; its triangles denote number 
three [or the Triad] ; the two triangles show the presence of the Binary ; the 
triangles with the central point common to both yield the Quaternary ; the 
six points are the Senary ; and the central point, the Unit ; the Quinary being 
traced by combination, as a compound of two triangles, the even number, and 
of three sides in each triangle, the first odd number. This is the reason why 
Pythagoras and the ancients made the number six sacred to Venus, since : 

The union of the two sexes, and the spagyrization of matter by triads, are 
necessary to develop the generative force, that prolific virtue and tendency to 
reproduction which is inherent in all bodies. 1 

Belief in " Creators," or the personified Powers of Nature, is in truth no 
polytheism, but a philosophical necessity. Like all the other Planets of our 
system, the Earth has seven Logo! the emanating Rays of the one " Father- 
Ray " the PROTOGONOS, or the Manifested Logos, he who sacrifices his Esse 
(or Flesh, the Universe) that the World may live and every creature therein 
have conscious being. 

Numbers, 3 and 4 are respectively male and female, Spirit and Matter, and 
their union is the emblem of Life Eternal in Spirit on its ascending arc, and in 
Matter as the ever resurrecting Element by procreation and reproduction. 
The spiritual male line is vertical J ; the differentiated matter-line is horizontal ; 
the two forming the cross or + The 3 is invisible ; the 4 is on the plane of 
objective perception. This is why all the Matter of the Universe, when 
analyzed to its ultimates by Science, can be reduced to four Elements only 
Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen ; and why the three primaries, 
the noumena of the four, or graduated Spirit or Force, have remained a 
terra incognita, and mere speculations, mere names, to exact Science. Her 
servants must believe in and study first the primary causes, before they can 
hope to fathom the nature, and acquaint themselves with the potentialities, of 
the effects. Thus, while the men of Western learning had, and still have, the 
four, or Matter, to toy with, the Eastern Occultists and their disciples, the 
great Alchemists the world over, have the whole septenate to study from. 2 
As those Alchemists have it : 

1 Ragon, ibid., p. 433, note. 

2 There are learned Brahmans who have protested against our septenary division. They are right 
-from their own standpoint, as we are right from ours. Leaving the three aspects, or ad/t/nct princi- 
ples out of calculation, they accept only four UpSdhis, or Bases, including the Ego the reflected 
image of the Logos in the KSrana Sharira and even " strictly-speaking . . . only three Upadhis." For 
purely theoretical metaphysical philosophy, or purposes of meditation, these three may be sufficient, 
as shown by the TSraka Yoga system ; but for practical occult teaching our septenary division is the 
best and easiest. It is, however, a matter of school and choice. 



SAPTAPARNA 



165 



When the Three and the Four kiss each other, the Quaternary loins its 
middle nature with that of the Triangle [or Triad, i.e., the face of one of its 
plane surfaces becoming the middle face of the other], and becomes a Cube ; 
then only does it [the Cube unfolded] become the vehicle and the number of 
LIFE, the Father-Mother SEVEN. 

The following diagram will perhaps assist the student to grasp these 
parallelisms. 



HUMAN PRINCIPLES 

7. At ma 
6. Buddhi 
5. Manas 

4. Kama Rupa ; the principle of 
animal desire, which burns 
fiercely during life in Mat- 
ter, resulting in satiety ; it 
is inseparable from animal 
existence. 

3. Linga Sharfra ; the inert vehicle 
or form on which the body is 
moulded ; the vehicle of Life. 
It is dissipated very shortly 
after the disintegration of the 
body. 

2. Prana ; Life, the active power' 
producing all vital pheno- 
mena. 

1 . The gross matter of the body ; 
the substance formed and 
moulded over the Linga 
Sharira (ChhayS), by the action 
of Prana. 




HYDROGEN 



NITROGEN 



OXYGEN 



CARBON 



PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICAL 
NATURE 



The lightest of all gases ; it burns 
in Oxygen giving off the most 
intense heat of any substance in 
combustion, and forming water, 
the most stable of compounds ; 
Hydrogen enters largely into all 
organic compounds. 

An inert gas ; the vehicle with which 
Oxygen is mixed to adapt the 
latter for animal respiration ; it 
also enters largely into all organic 
substances. 



| The supporter of combustion ; the 
life-giving gas, the active chemi- 
( cai agent in ail organic life. 

The fuel par excellence ; the basis 
- of all organic substances the 
chemical element which forms 
the largest variety of com- 
pounds. 



Now we are taught that all these earliest forms of organic life alsQ appear 
in septenary groups of numbers. From minerals or " soft stones that hard- 
ened," to use the phraseology of the STANZAS, followed by the " hard plants 
that softened," which are the product of the mineral, for " it is from the 
bosom of the stone that vegetation is born " ; * and then to man all the 
primitive models in every kingdom of Nature begin by being ethereal, trans- 
parent films. This, of course, takes place only in the first beginning of life. 
With the next period they consolidate, and at the seventh begin to branch off 

1 Commentary, Book ix, F. 19. 



166 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

into species, all except men, the first of the mammalian animals l in the Fourth 
Round. 

Virgil, versed as every ancient poet was, more or less, in Esoteric 
Philosophy, sang of evolution in the following strains : 

Principle ccelum ac terras camposque liquentes 
Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque astra 
Spihtus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem et magno se corpora miscet. 
Inde hominum pecudumque genus vitaeque volantum 
Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub asquore pontus. 2 

" First came three, or the Triangle." This expression has a profound 
meaning in Occultism, and the fact is corroborated, in Mineralogy, Botany, 
and even in Geology as has been demonstrated in the Section on " The 
Chronology of the Brahmans " by the compound number seven, the three 
and the four, being contained in it. Salt in solution proves this. For when 
its molecules, clustering together, begin to deposit themselves as a solid, the 
first shape they assume is that of triangles, of small pyramids and cones. It is 
the figure of Fire, whence the word " Pyramis " ; while the second geometrical 
figure in manifested Nature is a Square or a Cube, 4 and 6 ; for, as Enfield 
says, " the particles of earth being cubical, those of fire are pyramidal " 
truly. The pyramidal shape is that assumed by the pines the most primitive 
tree after the fern period. Thus the two opposites in cosmic Nature fire 
and water, heat and cold begin their metrographical manifestations, one by 
a trimetric, the other by a hexagonal system. For the stellate crystals of 
snow, viewed under a microscope, are all and each of them a double or a 
treble six-pointed star, with a central nucleus, like a miniature star within the 
larger one. Says Mr. Darwin showing that the inhabitants of the sea-shore 
are greatly affected by the tides : 

The most ancient progenitors in the kingdom of the Vertebrata . . . apparently 
consisted of a group of marine animals. . . . Animals living either about the mean high- 
water mark, or about the mean low-water mark, pass through a complete cycle of tidal 
changes in a fortnight. . . . Now it is a mysterious fact that in the higher and now 
terrestrial Vertebrata . . . many normal and abnormal processes have one or more 

1 Protista are not animals. The reader is asked to bear in mind that when we speak of "animals," 
the mammalians alone are meant. Crustacea, fishes, and reptiles are contemporary with, and most 
have preceded, physical man in this Round. All were bi-sexual, however, before the age of mam- 
malia in the closing portion of the Secondary or Mesozoic ages, yet nearer to the Palaeozoic than the 
Casnozo/c ages. Smaller marsupial mammalia are contemporary with the huge reptilian monsters of 
the Secondary. 

y /Eneid, vi, 725-9." First [Divine] Spirit within sustains the heavens, the earth and watery plains, 
the moon's orb and shining stars and the [Eternal] Mind diffused through all the parts [of Nature], 
actuates the whole stupendous frame and mingles with the vast body [of the Universe]. Thence 
proceed the race of men and beasts, the vital principles of the flying kind and the monsters which 
the Ocean breeds under its smooth crystal plane." " All proceeds from Ether and from its seven 
natures " said the Alchemists. Science knows these only in their superficial effects. 



SAPTAPARNA 167 

weeks [septenates] as their periods . . . such as gestation of mammals, the duration 
of fevers. 1 

The eggs of the pigeon are hatched in two weeks [or 14 days] ; those of the 
fowl in three ; those of the duck in four ; those of the goose in five ; and those of the 
ostrich in seven. 2 

This number is closely connected with the Moon, whose Occult influence 
is ever manifesting itself in septenary periods. It is the Moon which is the 
guide of the Occult side of .terrestrial Nature, while the Sun is the regulator 
and factor of manifested life*. v This truth has ever been evident to the Seers 
and the Adepts. Jakob Bohme, by insisting on the fundamental doctrine of 
the seven properties of everlasting Mother Nature, proved himself thereby a 
great Occultist. 

But to return to the consideration of the septenary in ancient religious 
symbolism. To the metrological key of the symbolism of the Hebrews, which 
reveals numerically the geometrical relations of the Circle (All-Deity) to the 
Square, Cube, Triangle, and all the integral emanations of the divine area, 
may be added the theogonic Key. This Key explains that Noah, the Deluge- 
Patriarch, is in one aspect the permutation of the Deity (the Universal Creative 
Law), for the purpose of the formation of our Earth, its population, and the 
propagation of life on it, in general. 

Now bearing in mind the septenary division in divine Hierarchies, as in 
Cosmic and human constitutions, the student will readily understand that Jah- 
Noah is at the head of, and is the synthesis of the lower cosmic Quaternary. 
The upper Sephirothal Triad, A of which Jehovah-Binah (Intelligence) is the 
left, female, angle emanates the Quaternary, Q. The latter, symbolizing by 
itself the Heavenly Man, the sexless Adam Kadmon, viewed as Nature in the 
abstract, becomes a septenate again by emanating from itself the additional 
three principles, the lower terrestrial or manifested physical Nature, Matter 
and our Earth the seventh being Malkuth, the " Bride of the Heavenly Man " 
thus forming, with the higher Triad, or Kether, the Crown, the full number 
of the Sephirothal Tree the 10, the Total in Unity, or the Universe. Apart 
from the higher Triad, the lower creative Sephiroth are seven. 

The above is not directly to our point, though it is a necessary reminder 
to facilitate the comprehension of what follows. The question at issue is to 
show that Jah-Noah, or the Jehovah of the Hebrew Bible, the alleged Creator 
of our Earth, of man and all upon it, is : 

(a) The lowest Septenary, the Creative Elohim in his Cosmic aspect. 

(b) The Tetragrammaton or the Adam Kadmon, the " Heavenly Man " 
of the four letters in his theogonic and kabalistic aspects. 

1 Compare Descent of Man, p. 164. * Bartlett's Land and Water. 



168 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE 



(c) The Noah identical with the Hindu Shishta, the human Seed, left 
for the peopling of the Earth from a previous creation, or Manvantara, as 
expressed in the Puranas, or the pre-diluvian period as rendered allegorically 
in the Bible in his Cosmic character* 

But whether a Quaternary (Tetragrammaton) or a Triad, the biblical 
Creative God is not the Universal 10, unless blended with Ain Soph (as 
Brahma with Parabrahman), but a septenary, ope of the many septenaries of 
the Universal Septenate. In the explanation o$-the question now in hand, his 
position and status as Noah may best be shown by placing the 3, A, and 
4, Q, on parallel lines with the cosmic and human principles. For the latter, 
the old familiar classification is made use of. Thus : 



HUMAN ASPECTS, or 
PRINCIPLES 



1 . Universal Spirit (Atma) 

2. Spiritual Soul (Buddhi) 

3. Human Soul, Mind (Manas) 




Triple aspect of 
the Deity 



COSMIC ASPECTS or 
PRINCIPLES 



The Unmanifested Logos 
Universal Latent Ideation l 
Universal (or Cosmic) Ac- 
tive * Intelligence 



4. Animal Soul (Kama Rupa) 

5. Astral Body (Linga Shartra) 

6. Life Essence (Prana) 

7. Body (Sthula Sharira) 



Spirit of the 

Earth. Jehovah.' 

Noah. 

Space containing 
Life the Waters 

of the Deluge. 

Mount Ararat. 1 



4. Cosmic (Chaotic) Energy 

5. Astral Ideation, reflecting 

terrestrial things. 

6. Life Essence or Energy 



7. The Earth 



1 The Advaitin Vedantic Philosophy classifies this as the highest Trinity, or rather the Trinitarian 
aspect of Chinmatra (Parabrahman); explained by them as the " Bare Potentiality of Prajna," the 
power or the capacity that gives rise to perception ; Chidakasham, the infinite field or plane of Uni- 
versal Consciousness ; and Asat (Mulaprakriti), or Undifferentiated Matter. (See " Personal and Im- 
personal God " in Five Years of fheosophy, p. 203.) 

2 Differentiated Matter existing in the Solar System let us refrain from touching the whole Kosmos 
in seven different conditions, and Prajna, or the capacity of perception, existing likewise in seven 
different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of Matter, there must necessarily be seven 
states of consciousness in man ; and according to the greater or smaller development of these states, 
the systems of religions and philosophies were schemed out. 

3 Represented as the jealous, angry, turbulent and ever-active God, revengeful, and kind only to 
his " chosen people " when propitiated by them. 

4 Noah and his three Sons are the collective symbol of this Quaternary in many and various appli- 
cations, Ham being the Chaotic principle. 



THE JETRAKTYS IN RELATION TO THE HEPTAGON 169 

As an additional demonstration of the statement, let the reader turn to 
kabalistic works. 

" Ararat^ the mount of descent - TV-v^p, Hor- Jared. Hatho mentions it out 
of composition by Arath mx. Editor of Moses Cherenensis says : ' By this, they say, 
is signified the first place of descent (of the ark.)' " (Bryant's Anal., vol. iv, 
pp. 5, 6, 15.) Under " Berge," mountain, Nork says of Ararat : " CniX, for mK (i.e., 
Ararat for Arath) earth, Aramaic reduplication." Here it is seen that Nork and Hatho 
make use of the same equivalent, in Arath, MIX, with the meaning of earth. l 

Noah thus symb6lizing both the Root-Manu and the Seed-Manu, or the 
Power which developed the Planetary Chain, and our Earth, and the Seed- 
Race, the Fifth, which was saved while the last sub-races of the Fourth, 
Vaivasvata Manu, perished, the number seven will be seen to recur at every 
step. It is Noah who, as Jehovah's permutation, represents the septenary 
Host of the Elohim, and is thus the Father or Creator (the Preserver) of all 
animal life. Hence the verses of Genesis : "Of every clean beast thou 
shalt take to thee by sevens, the male [3], and the female [4] ; of fowls also 
of the air by sevens," 2 etc., followed by all the sevening of days and the rest. 

B. THE TETRAKTYS IN RELATION TO THE HEPTAGON 

Thus number seven, as a compound of 3 and 4, is the factor element in 
every ancient religion, because it is the factor element In Nature. Its adoption 
must be justified, and it must be shown to be the number par excellence, for, 
since the appearance of Esoteric Buddhism, frequent objections have been 
made, and doubts expressed as to the correctness of these assertions. 

And here let the student be told at once, that in all such numerical 
divisions the ONE universal Principle although referred to as (the) one, 
because the Only One never enters into the calculations. IT stands, in its 
character of the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Universal Abstraction, entirely 

1 Source of Measures, p. 65. The author explains : " Note that in Hebrew, Jared, the father of 
Enoch, is construed to be ' the mount of descent,' and it is said to be the same with Arara^ on which 
the cubical structure of Noah, or foundation measure, rested. Jared, in Hebrew, is TW The root 
derivations are the same with those of Ararat, of acre, of earth. The Hebrew "TV\ is literally, in 
British, Y R D ; hence, in Jared, is to be found literally, our English word yard (and also T"V\ for Jah, 
or Jehovah, is rod). It is noteworthy that the son of Jared, viz., Enoch, lived 365 years ; and it is 
said of him, by rabbinical commentators, that the year period of 365 days was discovered by him, 
thus bringing, again, time and distance values together, I.e., year time descended, by co-ordination, 
through the yard, or Jared, who thus was its father, in or through Enoch ; and truly enough, 1296 - 
yard (or Jared) X 4 -5184, the characteristic value of the solar day, in thirds, which, as stated, may be 
styled the parent, numerically, of the solar year." This, however, by the astronomical and numerical 
kabalistic methods. Esoterically, Jared is the Third Race and Enoch the Fourth but as he is taken 
away alive he symbolizes also the Elect saved in the Fourth, while Noah is the Fifth from the beginning 
the family saved from the Waters, eternally and physically. 

2 Ch. vii, 2, 3. 



170 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

by ITSELF and independent of every other Power whether noumenal or pheno- 
menal. Says the author of the article " Personal and Impersonal God " : 

This entity is neither matter nor spirit ; it is neither Ego nor non-Ego ; and it is 
neither object nor subject. 

In the language of Hindu philosophers it is the original and eternal combination 
of Purusha [Spirit] and Prakriti [Matter]. As the Advaitis hold that an external object 
is merely the product of our mental states, Prakriti is nothing more than illusion, and 
Purusha is the only reality ; it is the one existence which remains in the universe of 
Ideas. This . . . then, is the Parabrahmart of the Advaitis. Even if there were to be 
a personal God with anything like a material Upadhi (physical basis of whatever form), 
from the standpoint of an Advaiti there will be as much reason to doubt his noumenal 
existence, as there would be in the case of any other object. In their opinion, a 
conscious God cannot be the origin of the universe, as his Ego would be the effect of 
a previous cause, if the word conscious conveys but its ordinary meaning. They cannot 
admit that the grand total of all the states of consciousness in the universe is their 
deity, as these states are constantly changing, and as cosmic idealism ceases during 
Pralaya. There is only one permanent condition in the Universe, which is the state of 
perfect unconsciousness, bare Chidakasham (the field of consciousness) in fact. 

When my readers once realize the fact that this grand universe is in reality but a 
huge aggregation of various states of consciousness, they will not be surprised to find 
that the ultimate state of unconsciousness is considered as Parabrahman by the Advaitis. 1 

Although itself entirely out of human reckoning or calculation, yet this 
44 huge aggregation of various states of consciousness is a septenate, in its 
totality entirely composed of septenary groups simply because " the capacity 
of perception exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven 
conditions of matter," 2 or the seven properties, or states of matter. And, 
therefore, the series from one to seven, begins in the Esoteric calculations 
with the first manifested principle, which is number one if we commence from 
above, and number seven when reckoning from below, or the lowest principle. 

The Tetrad is esteemed in the Kabalah, as it was by Pythagoras, the most 
perfect, or rather sacred number, because it emanated from the One, the 
first manifested Unit, or rather the Three in One. And the latter has ever 
been impersonal, sexless, incomprehensible, though within the possibility of 
the higher mental perceptions. 

The first manifestation of the eternal Monad was never meant to stand 
as the symbol of another symbol, the UNBORN for the Element-born, or the 
one LOGOS for the Heavenly Man. Tetragrammaton, or the Tetraktys of the 
Greeks, is the second logos, the Demiourgos. 

The Tetrad, as Thomas Taylor thinks, is, however, the animal itself of Plato who, 
as Syrianus justly observes, was the best of the Pythagoreans ; it subsists at the extremity 
of the intelligible triad, as is most satisfactorily shown by Proclus in the third book of 
his treatise on the theology of Plato. And between these two triads [the double 

1 Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 202-3. 2 Ibid., p. 200. 



WE TETRAKTYS IN RELATION TO THE HEPTAGON 171 

triangle], the one intelligible, and the other intellectual, another order of gods exists, 
which partakes of both extremes. . 

The Pythagorean world, according to Plutarch, 2 consisted of a double 
quaternary. 

This statement corroborates what is said about the choice, by the 
exoteric theologies, of the lower Tetraktys. For : 

The quaternary of the intellectual world [the world of Mahat] is T' Agathon, 
Nous, Psyche, Hyle ; while that of the sensible world [of Matter], which is properly 
what Pythagoras meant by the word Kosmos, is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The four 
'elements are called by the name of rhizomata, the roots or principles of all mixed 
bodies. 3 

That is to say, the lower Tetraktys is the root of illusion, of the World 
of Matter; and this is the Tetragrammaton of the Jews, and the " myster- 
ous deity," over which the modern Kabalists make such a fuss! 

This number [four] forms the arithmetical mean between the monad and the 
.heptad ; and this comprehends all powers, both of the productive and produced 
numbers ; for this, of all numbers under ten, is made of a certain number ; the duad 
doubled makes a tetrad, and the tetrad doubled [or unfolded] makes the hebdomad 
[the septenary]. Two multiplied into itself produces four ; and retorted into itself 
makes the first cube. This first cube is a fertile number, the ground of multitude and 
variety, constituted of two and four [depending on the monad, the seventh]. Thus 
the two principles of temporal things, the pyramis and cube, form and matter, flow 
-from one fountain, the tetragon [on earth, the monad, in heaven]. 4 

Here Reuchlin, the great authority on the Kaba/ah, shows the cube to 
be " matter," whereas the pyramid or the triad is " form." With the 
Hermesians the number four becomes the symbol of truth only when ampli- 
fied into a cube, which, unfolded, makes seven, as symbolizing the male 
.and female elements and the element of Life. 5 

Some students have been puzzled to account for the vertical line/ 5 which 
.is male, becoming, in the cross, a four-partitioned line (four being a female 

1 Oliver's Pythagorean Triangle, p. 104. 2 De Anim. Procr., 1027. 

3 Oliver, ibid, p. 112. 4 Reuchlin e Cabala, 1, ii ; Oliver, ibid., p. 104. 

:> In The Source of Measures, the author shows (pp. 50, 51) that the figure of the cube unfolded 
in connection with the circle " becomes . . . a cross proper, or of the tau form, and the attachment 
of the circle to this last gives the ansated cross of the Egyptians . . . while there are but 6 faces to a 
.cube, the representation of the cross as the cube unfolded, as to the cross-bars, displays one face 
CUBE f tne CUDe as common to two bars, counted as belonging to either [i.e., once counted 
UNFOLDED horizontally, and once vertically] ; ... 4 for the upright, and 3 for the cross-bar, making 
7 in all. Here we have the famous 4 and 3 and 7." Esoteric Philosophy explains that 
four is the symbol of the Universe in its potential state, or Chaotic Matter, and that it 
requires Spirit to permeate it actively ; i.e., the primordial abstract Triangle has to quit 
its one-dimensional quality and spread across that Matter, thus forming a manifested 
basis on the three-dimensional space, in order that the Universe should manifest intellig- 
ibly. This is achieved by the cube unfolded. Hence the ansated cross Q as the symbol 
f man, generation and life. In Egypt Ank signified " soul," " life " and " blood." It is the en- 
s ouled, living man, the septenary. 
15 Supra p. 164. 




172 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

number), whi izontal (the line of matter) becomes three-divisionecL 

But this is easy of explanation. Since the middle face of the "cube unfolded" 
is common to both the vertical and the horizontal bar, or double-line, it be- 
comes neutral ground so to say, and belongs to neither. The spirit line 
remains triadic, and the matter line two-fold two being an even and there- 
fore a female number also. Moreover, according to Theon [in his 
Mathemat/ca], the Pythagoreans, who gave the name of Harmony to the 
Tetraktys, " because it is a diatessaron in sesquitertia," were of opinion that : 

The division of the canon of the monochord was made by the tetraktys in the 
duad, triad, and tetrad ; for it comprehends a sesquitertia, a sesquialtera, a duple, a 
triple, and a quadruple proportion, the section of which is 27. In the ancient musical 
notation, the tetrachord consisted of three degrees or intervals, and four terms of 
sounds called by the Greeks diatessaron, and by us a fourth. 1 

Moreover, the quaternary though an even, therefore a female 
(" infernal ") number, varied according to its form. This is shown by Stanley. 2 
The four was called by the Pythagoreans the Key-Keeper of Nature ; but irv 
union with the three, which made it seven, it became the most perfect and 
harmonious number nature herself. The four was " the masculine of 
feminine form," when forming the cross; and seven is the " Master of the 
Moon," for this Planet is forced to alter her appearance every seven days. 
It is on number seven that Pythagoras composed his doctrine on the Harmony 
and Music of the Spheres, calling a "tone " the distance of the Moon from 
the Earth ; from the Moon to Mercury half a tone, from thence to Venus the 
same ; from Venus to the Sun one and a half tones ; from the Sun to Mars a 
tone ; from thence to Jupiter half a tone ; from Jupiter to Saturn half a tone ; 
and thence to the Zodiac a tone ; thus making seven tones the diapason 
harmony. p5 All the melody of Nature is in those seven tones, and therefore 
is called the "Voice of Nature." 

Plutarch explains 4 that the most ancient Greeks regarded the Tetrad as 
the root and principle of all things, since it was the number of the elements 
which gave birth to all visible and invisible created things. 5 With the brothers, 
of the Rosy Cross, the figure of the cross, or cube unfolded, formed the 
subject of a disquisition in one of the Theosophic degrees of Peuvret, and was 
treated according to the fundamental principles of light and darkness, or good 
and ew/. <; 

The intelligible world proceeds out of the divine mind [or unit] after this 
manner. The Tetraktys, reflecting upon its own essence, the first unit, productrix of all' 
things, and on its own beginning, saith thus : Once one, twice two, immediately ariseth 

1 Oliver, ibid., p. 114. 2 Pythag., p. 61. 3 Oliver, ibid., p. 172. 

4 De P/ac. Phil., p. 878, ' See Oliver, ibid., p. 106. 6 Ibid., p. 108. 



THE TETRAKTYS IN RELATION TO THE HEPTAGON 173 

a tetrad, having on its top the highest unit, and becomes a Pyram/s, whose base is a 
plain tetrad, answerable to a superficies, upon which the radiant light of the divine 
unity produceth the form of incorporeal fire, by reason of the descent of Juno (matter) 
to inferior things. Hence ariseth essential light, not burning but illuminating. This is 
trie creation of the middle world, which the Hebrews call the Supreme, the world of the 
[their] deity. It is termed Olympus, entirely light, and replete with separate forms, 
where is the seat of the immortal gods, cfeOm domus a/ta, whose top is unity, its wall 
trinity, and its superficies quatern/ty. 1 

The "superficies" has thus to remain a meaningless surface, if left by 
itself. UNITY only "illuminating" quatern/ty, the famous lower four has to 
build for itself also a wall from trinity, if it would be manifested. Moreover, 
the Tetragrammaton, or Microprosopus, is " Jehovah " arrogating to himself 
very improperly the "Was, Is, Will Be," now translated into the "I am that 
I am," and interpreted as referring to the highest abstract Deity ; while Esoteric- 
ally and in plain truth, it means only periodically chaotic, turbulent, and 
eternal MATTER, with all its potentialities. For the Tetragrammaton is one with 
Nature, or Isis, and is the exoteric series of androgyne Gods such as Osiris- 
Isis, Jove-Juno, Brahma-Vach, or the Kabalistic Jah-Hovah ; all male-females. 
Every anthropomorphic God, in old nations, as Marcellus Ficin 2 well observed, 
has his name written with four letters. Thus with the Egyptians, he was Teut ; 
the Arabs, Allah; the Persians, Sire ; the Magi, Orsi ; the Muhammedans, Abdi ; 
the Greeks, Teos ; the ancient Turks, Esar ; the Latins, Deus ; to which John 
Lorenzo Anania adds the German Gott ; the Sarmatian Bouh ; etc. A 

The Monad being one, and an odd number, the Ancients therefore said 
that the odd were the only perfect numbers ; and selfishly, perhaps, yet as 
a fact considered them all as masculine and perfect, being applicable to the 
celestial Gods, while even numbers, such as two, four, six, and especially 
eight, as being female, were regarded as imperfect, and given only to the 
terrestrial and infernal Deities. Virgil records the fact by saying, " Numero 
deus impare gaudet." "The God is pleased with an odd number." 4 

But number seven, or the Heptagon, the Pythagoreans considered to be 
a religious and perfect number. It was called Telesphoros, because fay it all 
in the Universe and mankind is led to its end, i.e., its culmination. 5 The doc- 
trine of the Spheres ruled by the sever Sacred Planets 6 shows, from Lemuria 
to Pythagoras, the seven Powers of terrestrial and sublunary Nature, as we(l as 

1 Reuchlin, see above, p. 689 ; Oliver, ibid., pp. 112-3. 

2 Marcelinus Vicinus, in the 1888 edition. :< Oliver, ibid., p. 118. 

4 Bucolica, Eel. viii, 75. :> Philo, De mund. Opif. ; Oliver, Ibid., p 172. 

(i The seven Planets are not limited to this number because the Ancients knew of no others, but 
jimply because they were the primitive or primordial " Houses " of the seven Logoi. There may be 
-ine and ninety-nine other planets discovered this does not alter the fact of these seven alone 
Deing sacred. 



174 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

the seven great Forces of the Universe, proceeding and evolving in seven, 
tones, which are the seven notes of the musical scale. 

The Heptad [our Septenary] was considered to be the number of a virgin, 
because it is unborn [like the Logos or the Aja of the Vedantins] : 

Without a father . . . or a mother, . . . but proceeding directly from the 
monad, which is the origin and crown of all things. 1 

And if the Heptad is made to proceed from the Monad directly, then it 
is, as taught in the SECRET DOCTRINE of the oldest schools, the perfect and 
sacred number of this Mahamanvantara of ours. 

The Septenary, or Heptad, was sacred indeed to several Gods and God- 
desses ; to Mars, with his seven attendants, to Osiris, whose body was divided 
into seven and twice seven parts ; to Apollo, the Sun, amid his seven planets, 
and playing the hymn to the seven-rayed on his seven-stringed harp ; to 
Minerva, the fatherless and the motherless, and others. 2 

Cis-Himalayan Occultism with its seven/ng, and because of such sevening, 
must be regarded as the most ancient, the original of all. It is opposed by 
some fragments left by Neo-Platonists ; and the admirers of the latter, who 
hardly understand what they defend, say to us: See, your forerunners be- 
lieved only in triple man, composed of Spirit, Soul, and Body. Behold, the 
Taraka Raja Yoga of India limits that division to 3, we, to 4, and the Vedantins 
to 5 (Koshas). To this, we of the Archaic School ask : 

Why then does the Greek poet say that it is not four but seven who 
sing the praise of the Spiritual Sun ? 

'E-TTTa /JL tf.r.A,. [Seven, me, etc.] 

Seven sounding letters sing the praise of me, 

The immortal God, the almighty Deity. 

Why again is the-tr/une lao, the Mystery God, called the "fourfold," 
and yet the triadic and tetradic symbols come under one unified name with 
the Christians the Jehovah of the seven letters ? Why again in the Hebrew 
Sheba is the Oath (the Pythagorean Tetraktys) identical with number 7 ? Or, 
as Mr. Gerald Massey has it : 

Taking an oath was synonymous with " to seven," and the 10 expressed by the 
letter [Jod], was the full number of lao-Sabaoth [ the ten-lettered God]. :< 

In Lucian's Auction : 

Pythagoras asks, "How do you reckon?" The reply is, " One, Two, Three 
Four." Then Pythagoras says, "Do you see? In what you conceive Four there are 
Ten, a perfect Triangle and our Oath [Tetraktys, Four ! or Seven in all]." 4 

1 Oliver, Ibid., pp. 173-4. 2 Ibid., loc. cit. 

3 The Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 545. 4 Ibid. 



THE TETRAKTYS IN RELATION TO THE HEPTAGON 175 

Why again does Proclus say : 

The Father of the golden verses celebrates the Tetraktys as the fountain of 
perennial nature ? l 

Simply because those Western Kabalists who quote the exoteric proofs 
against us have no idea of the real esoteric meaning. All the ancient Cos- 
mologies the oldest Cosmographies of the two most ancient people of the 
Fifth Root Race, the Hindu Aryans and the Egyptians, together with the early 
Chinese races, the remnants of the Fourth or Atlantean Race based the 
whole of their Mysteries on number 10 ; the higher Triangle standing for the 
invisible and metaphysical World, the lower three and four, or the Septenate, 
for the physical Realm. It is not the Jewish Bible that brought number seven 
into prominence. Hesiod used the words, "the seventh is the sacred day," 
before the Sabbath of "Moses" was ever heard of. The use of number 
seven was never confined to any one nation. This is well testified by the 
seven vases in the Temple of the Sun, near the ruins of Babian in Upper 
Egypt ; the seven fires burning continually for ages before the altars of Mithra ; 
the seven holy fanes of the Arabians ; the seven peninsulas, the seven islands, 
seven seas, mountains, and rivers of India ; and of the Zohar (see Ibn Gebirol) ; 
the Jewish Sephiroth of the seven splendours ; the seven Gothic deities ; the 
seven worlds of the Chaldeans and their seven Spirits ; the seven constel- 
lations mentioned by Hesiod and Homer ; and all the interminable sevens 
which the Orientalists find in every MS. they discover.- 

What we have to say finally is this : Enough has been brought forward 
to show why the human principles were and are divided in the Esoteric Schools 
into seven. Make it four and it will either leave man minus his lower terres- 
trial elements, or, if viewed from a physical standpoint, make of him a soulless 
animal. The Quaternary must be the higher or the lower the celestial or 
terrestrial Tetraktys ; to become comprehensible, according to the teachings 
of the ancient Esoteric School, man must be regarded as a septenary. This 
was so well understood, that even the so-called Christian Gnostics adopted 
this time-honoured system. 3 This remained for a long time a secrfet, for 
though it was suspected, no MSS. of that time spoke of it clearly enough to 
satisfy the sceptic. But there comes to our rescue the literary curiosity of 
our age the oldest and best preserved Gospel of the Gnostics, Pistis Sophia, 
Trterm (ro<f>ia. To make the proof absolutely complete, we shall quote from an 
authority, C.W.King, the only Archaeologist who has had a faint glimmer of 

1 In T/maeus, iii ; ibid. 2 Oliver, Ibid., p 175. 

: * See Section F , " The Seven Souls of the Egyptologists." 



176 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

this elaborate doctrine, and the best writer of the day on the Gnostics and 
their gems. 

According to this extraordinary piece of religious literature a true 
Gnostic fossil the human Entity is the Septenary Ray from the One, 1 just 35 
our School teaches. It is composed of seven elements, four of which are 
borrowed from the four kabalistical manifested worlds. Thus : 

From Asiah it gets the Nephesh or seat of the physical appetites [vital breath, 
also] ; from Jezirah, the Ruach, or seat of the passions [? !] ; from Brian, the Neshamah 
or reason ; and from Aziluth it obtains the Chaiah, or principle of spiritual life. This 
looks like an adaptation of the Platonic theory of the Soul's obtaining its respective 
faculties from the Planets in its downward progress through their spheres. But the 
Pistis-Sophia, with its accustomed boldness, puts this theory into a much more poetical 
shape ($ 282) The Inner Man is similarly made up of four constituents, but these are 
supplied by the rebellious /Eons of the Spheres, being the Power a particle of the 
Divine light (" Divinae particula aurae ") yet left in themselves; the Soul [the fifth] 
" formed out of the tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their torments "; the 
^AVTI/M/J,OV flvevfiaros, Counterfeit of the Spirit (seemingly answering to our Con- 
science [the sixth] ; and lastly the Mopa, Fate * 2 [Karmic Ego], whose business it is to 
lead the man to the end appointed for him : if he hath to die by the fire, to lead him 
into the fire ; if he hath to die by a wild beast, to lead him unto the wild beast [the 
seventh] ! :1 

C. THE SEPTENARY ELEMENT IN THE VEDAS 

IT CORROBORATES THE OCCULT TEACHING CONCERNING THE SEVEN GLOBES 
AND THE SEVEN RACES 

We have to go to the very source of historical information, if we would 
bring our best evidence to testify to the facts enunciated. For, though 
entirely allegorical, the Rig Vedic hymns are none the less suggestive. The 
seven Rays of Surya, the Sun, are therein made parallel to the seven Worlds, 
of every Planetary Chain, to the seven Rivers of Heaven and Earth, the 

1 The Seven Centres of Energy evolved, or rendered objective by the action of Fohat upon the One 
Element; or, in fact, the " Seventh Principle " of the Seven Elements which exist throughout mani- 
fested Kosmos. We may here point out that they are in truth the Sephiroth of the Kabalists ; the 

"Seven gifts of the Holy Ghost " in the Christian system ; and in a mystical sense, the seven children 
or sons of Devaki killed before the birth of Krishna by Kansa. Our seven principles symbolize all of 
these. We have to part or separate from them before we reach the Krishna or Christ-state, that of a 
Jlvanmukta, and centre ourselves entirely in the highest, the Seventh or the One. 

2 MoZpa is destiny, not " Fate," in this case, as it is an appellation, not a proper noun. (See 
Wolf's trans., Odyssey, xxii, 413.) But Moira, the Goddess of Fate, is a deity who, like AZcra, gives 
to all their portion of good and evil (Liddell and Scott's Lexicon), and is therefore Karma. By this 
abbreviation, however, the subject to Destiny or Karma is meant, the Self or Ego, and that which is 
reborn Nor is A-VTi/jiifjiOV TlvevfjLCLTOS our conscience, but our Buddhi ; nor is it again the 
" counterfeit" of Spirit but " modelled after," or a " counterpart " (Anstoph., Tfiesmopfior. , 27) of 
the Spirit which Buddhi is, as the vehicle of Atma. 

3 The Gnostics and their Remains, pp.. 37, 38. 



THE SEPTENARY ELEMENT IN THE VEDAS 177 

former being the seven creative Hosts, and the latter the seven Men, or 
primitive human groups. The seven ancient Rishis the progenitors of all that 
Jives and breathes on Earth are the seven friends of Agni, his seven 
"Horses," or seven "HEADS." The human race has sprung from Fire and 
Water, it is allegorically stated ; fashioned by the FATHERS, or the Ancestor- 
sacrifices, from Agni ; for Agni, the Ashvifts, the Adityas, 1 are all synonymous 
with those " Sacrifices," or the Fathers, variously called Pitaras (or PitrisY 
Angirasas, 2 and Sadhyas, " Divine Sacrifices," the most Occult of all. They 
are called Deva-putra Rishayah or the " Sons of God." 3 The " Sacrifices," 
moreover, are collectively the ONE Sacrificer, the Father of the Gods, Vishva- 
karman, who performed the great Sarva-medha ceremony, and ended by 
sacrificing himself. 

In these Hymns the "Heavenly Man" is called Purusha, the Man/' 4 
from whom Viraj was born <r> ; and from Viraj, the (mortal) man. It is Varuna 
lowered from his sublime position to be the chief of the Lords-Dhyanis or 
Devas who regulates all natural phenomena, who " makes a path for the 
Sun, for him to follow." The seven Rivers of the Sky (the descending 
Creative Gods), and the seven Rivers of the Earth (the seven primitive Man- 
kinds), are under his control, as will be seen. For he who breaks Varuna's 
laws (Vratani, or "courses of natural action," active laws), is punished by 
Indra (i the Vedic powerful God, whose Vrata, or law or power, is greater 
than the Vratani of any other God. 

Thus, the Rig Veda, the oldest of all the known ancient records, may be 
shown to corroborate the Occult teachings in almost every respect. Its Hymns, 
which are the records written by the earliest Initiates of the Fifth (our) Race 
concerning the Primordial Teachings, speak of the Seven Races (two still to 
come), allegorizing them by the seven " Streams " 7 and of the Five Races 
(Panchakrishtayah) which have already inhabited this world * on the five 
Regions (Panchapradishah) 9 as also of the three Continents that were. 10 

1 Rig Veda, Hi, 54. 16; ii, 29. 3, 4. 

2 Prof. Roth (in Peter's Lexicon) defines the Angirasas as an intermediate race of higher Beings 
between Gods and Men , while Prof Weber, according to his invariable custom of modernizing and 
anthropomorphizing the divine, sees in them the original priests of the religion which was common to 
the Aryan Hindus and Persians Roth is right. " Angirasas " was one of the names of the Dhy^nis, 
or Deva-lnstructors (Guru-Devas), of the late Third, the Fourth, and even of the Fifth Race Initiates 

3 Ibid., x, 62. 1,4. 4 Ibid., x, 90. 1. * Ibid., x, 90 5 

fl Rig Veda, x, 113-5. 7 Ibid., i, 35-8. * Ibid., loc cit Ibid., ix, 86. 29. 

10 Only three submerged, or otherwise destroyed, Continents for the first Continent of the First 
Race exists to this day and will prevail to the last are described in the Occult Doctrine, the Hyper- 
borean, the Lemurian (adopting a name now known in Science), and the Atlantean. Most of Asia 
issued from under the waters after the destruction of Atlantis , Africa came still later, while Europe 
is the fifth and the latest continent portions of the two Americas being far older. But of these, more 
anon. The Initiates who recorded the Vedas or the Rishis of our Firth Racewrote at a time when 
Atlantis had already gone down. Atlantis is the fourth Continent that appeared, but the third that 
disappeared. 

F 12 



178 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

It is only those scholars who will master the secret meaning of the 
Purusha Sukta [a Rig Vedic hymn] in which the intuition of the modern 
Orientalists has chosen to see " one of the very latest hymns of the Rig 
Veda" who may hope to understand how harmonious are its teachings and how 
corroborative of the Esoteric Doctrines. He must study, in all the abstruse- 
ness of their metaphysical meaning, the relations therein between the 
(Heavenly) Man, " Purusha," SACRIFICED for the production of the Universe and 
all in it, 1 and the terrestrial mortal man 2 before he realizes the hidden philo- 
sophy of the verse : 

15. He [" Man," Purusha, or Vishvakarman] had seven enclosing logs of fuel 
and thrice seven layers of fuel ; when the Gods performed the sacrifice, they bound 
the Man as victim. 

This relates to the three septenary primeval Races, and shows the antiq- 
uity of the Vedas, which knew of no other sacrifice, probably, in these 
earliest oral teachings ; and also to the seven primeval groups of Mankind, as 
Vishvakarman represents divine Humanity collectively. 5 

The same doctrine is found reflected in the other old religions. It may,, 
it must, have come down to us disfigured and misinterpreted, as in the case 
of the Parsis who read it in their Vendidad and elsewhere, though without 
understanding the allusions therein contained any better than do the Oriental- 
ists ; yet the doctrine is plainly mentioned in their old works. 4 

Comparing the Esoteric Teaching with the interpretations by Prof. James 
Darmesteter, one may see at a glance where the mistake is made, and the 
cause that produced it. The passage runs thus : 

The Indo-lranian Asura [Ahura] was often conceived as sevenfold ; by the play 
of certain mythical [?] formulae and the strength of certain mythical [ ? ] numbers, the 
ancestors of the Indo-lranians had been led to speak of seven worlds, ' and the supreme 
god was often made sevenfold, as well as the worlds over which he ruled. . . . The 

1 Compare Vishvakarman - Ibid, x, 20. I, 16 

* Nor is this Archaic Teaching so very unscientific, since one of the greatest Naturalists of the age 
the late Professor Agassiz admitted the multiplicity of the geographical origins of man, and sup- 
ported it to the end of his life. The unity of the human species was accepted by the illustrious 
Professor of Cambridge (U.S A ) in the same way as it is by the Occultists namely, in the sense of 
their essential and original homogeneity and their origin from one and the same source, e.g., Negroes, 
Aryans, Mongols, etc., have all originated in the same way and from the same ancestors. These latter 
were all of one essence, though differentiated, since they belonged to seven planes which differed 
in degree though not in kind. That original physical difference was only a little more accentuated by 
that of geographical and climatic conditions, later on. This is not the theory of Agassiz, of course, 
but the Esoteric version It is fully discussed in the Addenda, Part 3 

4 See the enumeration of the seven Spheres not the " Karshvare of the earth," as generally 
believedm Fargard, xix, 30, et seq. 

5 The seven Worlds are, as has been said, the seven Spheres of the Chain, each presided over by 
one of the seven "Great Gods" of every religion. When the religions became degraded and 
anthropomorphized, and the metaphysical ideas nearly forgotten, the synthesis or the highest, the 
seventh, was separated from the rest, and that personification became the eighth God, whom Mono- 
theism tried to unify but failed. In no exoteric religion is God really one, if analyzed metaphysically. 



THE SEPTENARY ELEMENT IN THE VEDAS 179 

seven worlds became in Persia the seven Karshvare of the earth : the earth is divided 
into seven Karshvare, only one of which is known and accessible to man, the one on. 
which we live, namely, Hvaniratha ; which amounts to saying that there are seven 
earths. 1 Parsi mythology knows also of seven heavens. Hvaniratha itself is divided into 
seven climes. (Orm. Ahr. 72.) " 

The same division and doctrine is to be found in the oldest and most 
revered of the Hindu scriptures Rig Veda. Mention is made therein of six 
Worlds, besides our Earth : the six Rajamsi above Prithivi, the Earth, or 
" this " (Idam) as opposed to " that which is yonder " (i.e., the six Globes on- 
the three other planes or Worlds). 3 

The italics are ours to point out the identity of the tenets with those 
of the Esoteric Doctrine, and to accentuate the mistake that is made. The 
Magi or Mazdeans only believed in what other people believed in : namely, 
in seven " Worlds " or Globes of our Planetary Chain, of which only one is 
accessible to man, at the present time, our Earth ; and in the successive 
appearance and destruction of seven Continents or Earths on this our Globe, 
each Continent being divided, in commemoration of the seven Globes (one 
visible, six invisible), into seven islands or continents, seven " climes," etc. 
This was a common belief in those days when the now SECRET DOCTRINE was 
open to all. It is this multiplicity of localities in septenary divisions, which has 
made the Orientalists who have, moreover, been further led astray by the 
oblivion of their primitive doctrines of both the uninitiated Hindus and Parsis 
feel so puzzled by this ever-recurring seven-fold number as to regard it as 
" mythical." It is this oblivion of first principles which has led the Orientalists 
off the right track and made them commit the greatest blunders. The same 
failure is found in the definition of the Gods. Those who are ignorant of the 
Esoteric Doctrine of the earliest Aryans, can never assimilate or even under- 
stand correctly the metaphysical meaning contained in these Beings. 

Ahura Mazda (Ormazd) was the head and synthesis of the seven Amesha 
Spentas, or Amshaspends, and, therefore, an Amesha Spenta himself. Just 
as Jehovah-Binah-Elohim was the head and synthesis of the Elohim, and no 
more ; so Agni-Vishnu-Surya was the synthesis and head, or the focus whence 
emanated in physics and also in metaphysics, from the spiritual as well as from 
the physical Sun, the seven Rays, the seven Fiery Tongues, the seven Planets 
or Gods. All these became supreme Gods and the ONE GOD, but only after 
the loss of the primeval secrets ; i.e., the sinking of Atlantis, or the " Flood," 
and the occupation of India by the Brahmans, who sought safety on the 

1 The six invisible Globes of our Chain are both " Worlds " and " Earths " as is our own, although 
invisible. But where could be the six invisible Earths on this Globe ? 

Vendidad, Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv, pp. lix, Ix, and footnote. 
3 See Rig Veda. I, 34 ; iii, 56 ; vii, 21. 16 and v, 60, 6. 



180 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

summits of the Himalayas, for even the high table-lands of what is now Tibet 
became submerged for a time. Ahura Mazda is addressed only as the " Most 
Blissful Spirit, Creator of the Corporeal World " in the Vendidad. Ahura 
Mazda in its literal translation means the " Wise Lord " (Ahura " lord " and 
Mazda " wise "). Moreover, this name of Ahura, in Sanskrit Asura, connects 
him with the Manasaputras, the Sons of Wisdom who informed the mindless 
man, and endowed him with his mind (Manas). Ahura (Asura) may be derived 
from the root ah "to be," but in its primal signification it is what the Secret 
Teaching shows it to be. 

When Geology shall have found out how many thousands of years ago 
the disturbed waters of the Indian Ocean reached the highest plateaux of 
Central Asia, when the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf made one with it, 
then only will they know the age of the existing Aryan Brahmanical nation, 
and also the time of its descent into the plains of Hindustan, which did not 
take place till millenniums later. 

Yima, the so-called " first man " in the Vend/dad, as much as his twin- 
brother Yama, the son of Vaivasvata Manu, belongs to two epochs of Univer- 
sal History. He is the Progenitor of the Second human Race, hence the 
personification of the Shadows of the Pitris, and the Father of the postdiluvian 
Humanity. The Magi said, " Yima," as we say " man " when speaking of 
mankind. The " fair Yima," the first mortal who converses with Ahura Mazda, 
is the f/rst " man " who dies or disappears, not the first who is born. The 
" son of Vivanghat " 1 was, like the son of Vaivasvata, the symbolica! man, 
who stood in Esotericism as the representative of the first three Races and the 
collective Progenitor thereof. Of these Races the first two never died ~ but 
only vanished, absorbed in their progeny, and the Third knew death only 
towards its close, after the separation of the sexes and its " Fall " into gene- 
ration. This is plainly alluded to in Fargard ii of the Vencf/dad. Yima refuses 
to become the bearer of the law of Ahura Mazda, saying : 

" I was not born, I was not taught to be the preacher and the bearer of thy law." 3 

And then Ahura Mazda asks him to make his men increase and " watch 
over " his world. 

He refuses to become the priest of Ahura Mazda, because he is his own 
priest and sacr/f/cer, but he accepts the second proposal. He is made to answer : 

" Yes ! . . . Yes, I will nourish, and rule, and watch over thy world. There 
shall be, while I am king, neither cold wind nor hot wind, neither disease nor death." 

1 Vendtdad, op. cit., p. 13. 

2 Death came only after man had become a physical creature. The men of the First Race, and 
also of the Second, dissolved and disappeared in their progeny. 

3 Op. cit., p. 12. 



THE SEPTENARY ELEMENT IN THE VEDAS 181 

Then Ahura Mazda brings him a golden ring and a poniard, the emblems 
of sovereignty. 

Thus, under the sway of Yima, three hundred winters passed away, and the earth was 
replenished with flocks and herds, with men and dogs and birds and with red blazing fires. 

Three hundred winters mean three hundred periods or cycles. 

" Replenished," mark well ; that is to say, all this had been on it before ; 
and thus is proven the knowledge of the doctrine about the successive 
Destructions of the World and its Life-Cycles. Once the "three hundred 
winters " were over, Ahura Mazda warns Yima that the Earth is becoming too 
full, and men have nowhere to live. Then Yima steps forward, and with the 
help of Spenta Armaita, the female Genius, or Spirit of the Earth, makes that 
Earth stretch out and become larger by one-third, after which " new flocks 
and herds and men" appear upon it. Ahura Mazda warns him again, and 
Yima makes the Earth by the same magic power to become larger by two- 
thirds. "Nine hundred winters" pass away, and Yima has to perform the 
ceremony for the third time. The whole of this is allegorical. The three 
processes of stretching the Earth, refer to the three successive Continents and 
Races issuing one after and from the other, as explained more fully elsewhere. 
After the third time, Ahura Mazda warns Yima in an assembly of " celestial 
gods" and "excellent mortals" that upon the material world the fatal winters 
are going to fall, and all life will perish. This is the old Mazdean symbolism 
For the " Flood," and the coming cataclysm to Atlantis, which sweeps away 
every Race in its turn. Like Vaivasvata Manu and Noah, Yima makes a Vara 
an Enclosure, an Ark under the God's direction, and brings thither the 
seed of every living creature, animals and "Fires." 

It is of this " Earth " or new Continent that Zarathushtra became the law- 
giver and ruler. This was the Fourth Race in its beginning, after the men of 
the Third began to die out. Till then, as said above, there had been no 
regular death, but only a transformation, for men had no personality as yet. 
They had Monads "Breaths" of the One Breath, as impersonal as the 
source from which they proceeded. They had bodies, or rather shadows of 
bodies, which were sinless, hence Karmaless. Therefore, as there was no 
Kama Loka least of all Nirvana or even Devachan for the "souls " of men 
who had no personal Egos, there could be no intermediate periods between 
:he incarnations. Like the Phoenix, primordial man resurrected out of his old 
nto a new body. Each time, and with each new generation, he became 
nore solid, more physically perfect, agreeably with the evolutionary law, which 
s the Law of Nature. Death came with the complete physical organism, and 
vith it moral decay. 



182 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

This explanation shows one more old religion agreeing in its symbology 
with the Universal Doctrine. 

Elsewhere the oldest Persian traditions, the relics of Mazdeism of the still 
older Magians, are given, and some of them explained. Mankind did not 
issue from one solitary couple. Nor was there ever a first man whether 
Adam or Yima but a first mankind. 

It may, or may not, be " mitigated polygenism." Once that both Crea- 
tion ex nihilo (an absurdity) and a superhuman Creator or Creators (a fact) 
.are made away with by Science, polygenism presents no more difficulties or 
inconveniences rather fewer from a scientific point of view than mono- 
genism does. 

In fact, it is as scientific as any other claim. For in his Introduction to 
Nott and Gliddon's Types of Mankind, Agassiz declares his belief in an 
indefinite number of ''primordial races of men created separately " ; and 
remarks that, " whilst in every zoological province animals are of different 
species, man, in spite of the diversity of his races, always forms one and the 
same human being." 

Occultism defines and limits the number of primordial races to seven, 
because of the seven "Progenitors," or Prajapatis, the evolvers of beings. 
These are neither Gods, nor supernatural Beings, but advanced Spirits from 
another and lower Planet, reborn on this Planet, and giving birth in their turn 
in the present Round to present Humanity. This doctrine is again corroborated 
by one of its echoes among the Gnostics. In their Anthropology and Genesis 
of man they taught that "a certain company of seven Angels," formed the 
first men, who were no better than senseless, gigantic, shadowy forms "a 
imere wriggling worm " (!) writes Irenaeus, 1 who takes, as usual, the metaphor 
for reality. 

D. THE SEPTENARY IN THE EXOTERIC WORKS 

We may now examine other ancient scriptures and see whether they 
contain the septenary classification, and, if so to what degree. 

Scattered about in thousands of other Sanskrit texts, some still un- 
opened, others yet unknown, as well as in all the Pt/ranas, as much as, if not 
much more than, even in the Jewish Bible, the numbers seven and forty-nine 
(7 x 7) play a most prominent part. In the Puranas they are found from 
the Seven Creations, in the first chapters, down to the seven Rays of the Sun 

l l, xx.v, 1. 



THE SEPTENARY IN THE EXOTERIC WORKS 183 

at the final Pralaya, which expand into seven Suns and absorb the material 
of the whole Universe. Thus the Matsya Parana has : 

For the sake of promulgating the Vedas, Vishnu, in the beginning of a Kalpa, 
related to Manu the story of Narasimha and the events of seven Kalpas. 1 

Then again the same Parana shows that : 

In all the Manvantaras, classes of Rishis :> appear by seven and seven, and having 
established a code of law and morality, depart to felicity. 3 

Tine Rishis, however, represent many other things besides living sages. 
In Dr. Muir's translation of the Atharva Veda, we read : 

1. Time carries (us) forward, a steed, with seven rays, a thousand eyes, 
undecaying, full of fecundity. On him intelligent sages mount , his wheels are all the 
worlds. 

2. Thus Time moves on seven wheels , he has seven naves ; immortality is his 
axle. He is at present all these worlds. Time hastens onward the first God. 

3. A full jar is contained in Time. We behold him existing in many forms. He 
is all these worlds in the future. They call him " Time in the highest Heaven." 4 

Now add to this the following verse from the Esoteric Volumes : 
Space and Time are one. Space and Time are nameless, for they are 
the incognizable THAT, which can be sensed only through its seven Rays 
which are the Seven Creations, the Seven Worlds, the Seven Laws, etc. 

Remembering that the Puranas insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time 
and Space, 5 and that even the Rabbinical symbol for God is MAQOM, 
" Space," it becomes clear why, for purposes of a manifesting Deity Space, 
Matter, and Spirit the one central Point became the Triangle and Quaternary 
the perfect Cube hence Seven. Even the Pravaha Wind the mystic 
and occult force that gives the impulse to, and regulates the course of the 
stars and planets is septenary. The Kurma and L/nga Puranas enumerate 
seven principal winds of that name, which winds are the principles of 
Cosmic Space. They are intimately connected with Dhruva 7 (now Alpha), 

1 Vishnu Purana, Wilson, Vol. i, p. Ixxx. 

' As Parashara says " These are the seven persons by whom, in the several Manvantaras, created 
beings have been protected. Because this whole world has been pervaded by the energy of the deity, 
he is entitled Vishnu, from the root Vish, ' to enter,' or ' pervade ' , for all the gods, the Manus, the 
seven Rishis, the sons of the Manus, the Indras, the sovereigns of the gods, all are but the impersona- 
ted might [Vibhutayah, potencies] of Vishnu." (Ibid., Vol. ni, pp. 18-9.) Vishnu is the Universe ; 
and the Universe itself is divided in the Rig Veda into seven regions which ought to be sufficient 
authority, for the Brahmans at all events. 

3 Ibid., Vol. iii, p. 15. 4 Hymn, xix/53. 

"' Vishnu is all the worlds, the stars, the seas, etc. Vishnu " is all that is, all that is not. . . . 
(But] he is not a substance (Vastubhuta). " (Vishnu Purana, Wilson's Trans., Vol. ii, p. 309.) "That 
which people call the highest God is not a substance but the cause of it; not one that is here, there or 
-elsewhere, not what we see, but that in which all is Space." 

<J Vishnu Purana, Wilson, Vol. ii, p. 306. 

7 Therefore it is said in the Puranas that the sight at night of Dhruva, the polar star, and of the 
celestial Porpoise (Shishumara, a constellation) " expiates whatever sin has been committed during the 
day." (Ibid., Vol. ii, p. 306 ) The fact is that the rays of the four stars in the " circle of perpetual 



184 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

the Pole-Star, which is connected in its turn with the production of various 
phenomeha through cosmic forces. 

Thus, from the seven Creations, seven Rishis, Zones, Continents. Prin- 
ciples, etc., in the Aryan Scriptures, the number has passed through Indian, 
Egyptian, Chaldean, Greek, Jewish, Roman, and finally Christian mystic 
thought, until it landed in, and remained indelibly impressed on, every exoteric 
theology. The seven old books stolen out of Noah's Ark by Ham, and given 
to Cush, his son, and the seven Brazen Columns of Ham and Cheirofc, are a 
reflection and a remembrance of the seven primordial Mysteries instituted 
according to the " Seven secret Emanations," the seven Sounds, and Seven 
Rays the spiritual and sidereal models of the seven thousand times seven 
copies of them in later aeons. 

The mysterious number is once more prominent in the no less mysterious 
Maruts. The Vayu Parana shows, and the Harivamsha corroborates, con- 
cerning the Maruts the oldest as the most incomprehensible of all the 
secondary or lower Gods in the Rig Veda : 

That they are born in every Manvantara [Round], seven times seven (or forty- 
nine) ; that, in each Manvantara, four times seven (or twenty-eight) obtain emancipa- 
tion, but their places are filled up by persons reborn in that character. } 

What are the Maruts in their Esoteric meaning, and who those persons 
" reborn in that character " ? In the Rig and other Vedas, the Maruts are 
represented as the Storm Gods and the friends and allies of Indra ; they are 
the " Sons of Heaven and of Earth." This led to an allegory that makes 
them the children of Shiva, the great patron of the Yogis : 

The MAHA YOGI, the great ascetic, in whom is centred the highest perfection of 
austere penance and abstract meditation, by which the most unlimited powers are 
attained, marvels and miracles are worked, the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired, 
and union with the great spirit of the universe is eventually gained? 

In the Rig Veda the name Shiva is unknown, but the corresponding 
God is called Rudra, a name used for Agni, the Fire-God, the Maruts 
being called therein his sons. In the Ramayana and the Puranas, their mother, 
Diti the sister, or complement, and a form of Aditi anxious to obtain 
a son who would destroy Indra, is told by Kashyapa, the Sage, that 
if, "with thoughts wholly pious, and person entirely pure," she carries 
the babe in her womb "for a hundred years," 3 she will have such a 

apparition "the Agni, Mahendra, Kashyapa, and Dhruva, placed in the tail of Ursa Minor (ShishumSra) 
focussed in a certain way and on a certain object, produce extraordinary results. The Astro-magians. 
of India will understand what is meant. 

1 Ibid., Vol. iii, p. 15. 

* Dowson's Hindu Classical Dictionary, sub voc. " Shiva," p. 298. 

3 Vishnu Pur&na, op. cit., Vol. ii, p. 78. 



THE SEPTENARY IN THE EXOTERIC WORKS 18S 

son. But Indra foils her in the design. With his thunderbolt he divides the 
embryo in her womb into seven portions, and then divides every such portion 
into seven pieces again, which become the swift-moving deities, the Maruts. 1 
These Deities are only another aspect, or a development, of the Kumaras, who 
are patronymically Rudras, like many others. * 

Diti, being Aditi unless the contrary is proven to us Aditi, we say, or 
Akasha in her highest form, is the Egyptian seven-fold Heaven. Every true 
Occultist will understand what this means. Diti, we repeat, is the sixth prin- 
ciple of metaphys/ca/ Nature, the Buddhi of Akasha. Diti, the Mother of the 
Maruts, is one of her terrestrial forms, made to represent, at one and the 
same time, the Divine Soul in the ascetic, and the divine aspirations of mystic 
Humanity toward deliverance from the webs of Maya, and consequent final 
bliss. Indra is now degraded, because of the Kali Yuga, when such aspirations 
are no more general but have become abnormal through a general spread of 
Ahamkara, the feeling of Egotism, self or " I-AM-NESS " and ignorance ; but in the 
beginning Indra was one of the greatest Gods of the Hindu Pantheon, as the 
Rig Veda shows. Suradhipa the " chief of the gods," has fallen down from 
Jishnu, the " Leader of the Celestial Hbst " the Hindu St. Michael to an 
opponent of asceticism, the enemy of every holy aspiration. He is shown 
married to Aindri (Indrani), the personification of Aindriyaka, the evolution of 
the element of senses, whom he married " because of her voluptuous attrac- 
tions " ; after which he began sending celestial female demons to excite the 
passions of holy men, Yogis, and "to beguile them from the potent 
penances which he dreaded." Therefore, Indra, now characterized as " the 
god of the firmament, the personified atmosphere " is in reality the cosmic 
principle of Mahat, and the fifth human principle, Manas in its dual aspect as 
connected with Buddhi, and as allowing itself to be dragged down by the 
Kama principle, the body of passions and desires. This is demonstrated by 
Brahma telling the conquered God that his frequent defeats were due to- 
Karma, and were a punishment for his licentiousness, and the seduction of 
various nymphs. It is in this latter character that he seeks, to save himself 
from destruction, to destroy the coming "babe," destined to conquer him 
the babe, of course, allegorizing the divine and steady will of the Yogi, deter- 
mined to resist all such temptations, and thus destroy the passions within his^ 

1 In the Ramayana it is Bala-R^ma, Krishna's elder brother, who does this. 

2 With regard to the origin of Rudra, it is stated in several Puranas that his (spiritual) progeny, 
created in him by Brahma, is not confined to either the seven KumaYas or the eleven Rudras, etc. But 
" comprehends infinite numbers of beings in person and equipments like their (virgin) father. Alarmed 
at their fierceness, numbers, and immortality, Brahma desires his son Rudra to form creatures of a 
different and mortal nature." Rudra refusing to create, desists, etc., hence Rudra is the first rebel- 
(tinga, Vayu, Mats/a, and other Puranas.) 



186 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

earthly personality. Indra succeeds again, because flesh conquers spirit. 1 He 
divides the " embryo " (of new divine Adeptship, begotten once more by the 
Ascetics of the Aryan Fifth Race) into seven portions (a reference not alone 
to the seven sub-races of the new Root Race, in each of which there will be a 
Manu, 2 but also to the seven degrees of Adeptship), and then each portion 
into seven pieces alluding to the Manu-Rishis of each Root Race, and even 
sub-race. 

It does not seem difficult to perceive what is meant by the Maruts 
obtaining "/our times seven" emancipations in every Manvantara, and by 
those persons who are re-born in that character, viz., of the Maruts in their 
Esoteric meaning, and who "fill up their places." The Maruts represent (a) 
the passions that storm and rage within every Candidate's breast, when pre- 
paring for an ascetic life this mystically ; (b) the Occult potencies concealed 
in the manifold aspects of Akasha's lower principles her body, or sthula 
sharira, representing the terrestrial, lower atmosphere of every inhabited Globe 
this mystically and sidereally ; (c) actual conscious existences, beings of a 
cosmic and psychic nature. 

At the same time, " Maruts " in Occult parlance is one of the names 
given to those EGOS of great Adepts who have passed away, and are 
known also as Nirmanakayas ; of those Egos for whom since they are 
beyond illusion there is no Devachan, who, having either voluntarily 
renounced Nirvana for the good of mankind, or who not yet having 
reached it, remain invisible on Earth. Therefore are the Maruts :J shown, 
firstly, as the sons of Shiva-Rgdra, the Patron Yogi, whose Third Eye (mystically) 
must be acquired by the Ascetic before he becomes an Adept ; then, in their 
cosmic character, as the subordinates of Indra and his opponents, under 
various characters. The "four times seven " emancipations have a reference 

1 Diti is shown to have been thus frustrated in the Dvapara Yuga, during that period when the 
Fourth Race was flourishing. 

L> Notwithstanding the terrible, and evidently purposed, confusion of Manus, Rishis, and their 
progeny in the Puranas, one thing is made clear : there have been and there will be seven Rishis in 
<every Root Race, called also Manvantara in the sacred books, just as there are fourteen Manus in every 
Round, the presiding Gods, the Rishis and sons of the Manus, being identical. (See Vishnu Purana, 
Wilson, Vol. iii, p 19.) Six Manvantaras are given, the seventh being our own, in the Vishnu Purana. 
The Vayu Purana furnishes the nomenclature of the sons of the fourteen Manus in every Manvantara, 
and the sons of the seven Sages or Rishis. The latter are the progeny of the Progenitors of mankind. 
All the Puranas speak of the seven PrajSpatis of this period or Round, 

>} " ChSkshusha was the Manu of the sixth period [Third Round and Third Race], in which the Indra 
was Manojava " Mantradruma, in the Bhagavata Purana. (Vishnu Purana, Wilson's, Vol. in, pp. 11-12 ) 
As there is a perfect analogy between the Great Round (Mahakalpa), each of the seven Rounds, and 
each of the seven great Races in every one of the Rounds therefore, Indra of the sixth period, or 
Third Round, corresponds to the close of the Third Race, at the time of the Fall or the separation of 
sexes. Rudra, as the father of the Maruts, has many points of contact with Indra, the Marutvan, or 
" Lord of the Maruts." Rudra is said to have received his name because of his weeping. Hence 
Brahma called him Rudra ; but he wept yet seven times more and so obtained seven other names of 
which he uses one during eacri " period." 



THE SEPTENARY IN THE EXOTERIC WORKS 187 

to the four Rounds, and the four Races that preceded ours, in each of which 
Maruta-J/vas (Monads) have been re-born, and would have obtained final 
liberation, if only they had chosen to avail themselves of it. But instead of 
this, out of love for the good of mankind, which would struggle still more 
hopelessly in the meshes of ignorance and misery were it not for this extra- 
neous help, they are re-born over and over again "in that character," and 
thus "fill up their own places." Who they are, " on Earth " every student 
of Occult Science knows. And he also knows that the Maruts are Rudras, 
among whom also the family of Tvashtri, a synonym of Vishvakarman, the 
great Patron of the Initiates, is included. This gives us an ample knowledge 
of their true nature. 

The same for the Septenary Division of Kosmos and the human principles. 
The Puranas, along with other sacred texts, teem with allusions to this. First 
of all, the Mundane Egg which contained Brahma, or the Universe, was exter- 
nally invested with seven natural elements, at first loosely enumerated as 
Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and three secret elements ; then the " World " is said 
to be " encompassed on every side " by seven elements, also within the Egg 
as explained : 

The world is encompassed on every side, and above, and below, by the shell of 
the egg (of Brahma) [Andakataha]. 1 

Around the shell flows Water, which is surrounded with Fire ; Fire by 
.Air ; Air by Ether ; Ether by the Origin of the Elements (Ahamkara) ; the 
latter by Universal Mind, or " Intellect," as Wilson translates. It relates to 
Spheres of Being as much as to Principles. Prithivi is not our Earth but the 
World, the Solar System, and means the "broad," the "wide." In the 
Vedas the greatest of all authorities, though needing a key to be read cor- 
rectly three terrestrial and three celestial Earths are mentioned as having 
been called into existence simultaneously with Bhumi, our Earth. We have 
often been told that six, not seven, appears to be the number of spheres, 
principles, etc. We answer that there are, in fact, only six principles in man ; 
-since his body is no principle, but the covering, the shell of a principle. So 
with the Planetary Chain ; therein, speaking esoterically, the Earth as well as 
the seventh, or rather fourth plane, one that stands as the seventh, if we 
count from the first triple kingdom of the Elementals that begin its formation 
may be left out of consideration, being (to us) the only distinct body of the 
seven. The language of Occultism is varied. But supposing that three 
Earths only, instead of seven, are meant in the Vedas, what are those three, 
since we still know of but one ? Evidently there must be an Occult meaning 

1 Ibid., Vol. ii, p. 231. 



188 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

in the statement under consideration. Let us see. The " Earth that floats " 
on the Universal Ocean of Space, which Brahma divides in the Puranas into 
seven Zones, is Prithivi, the world divided into seven principles a cosmic 
division, looking metaphysical enough, but, in reality, physical in its Occult 
effects. Many Kalpas later, our Earth is mentioned, and again, in its turn, is 
divided into seven Zones according to the law of analogy which guided ancient 
Philosophers. After which we find on it seven Continents, seven Isles, seven. 
Oceans, seven Seas and Rivers, seven Mountains, seven Climates, etc. 1 

Furthermore, it is not only in the Hindu scriptures and philosophy that one 
finds references to the seven Earths, but in the Persian, Phoenician, Chaldean, 
and Egyptian cosmogonies, and even in Rabbinical literature. The Phoenix' 2 
called by the Hebrews Onech pay, from Phenoch, Enoch, the symbol of a 
secret cycle and initiation, and by the Turks, Kerkes lives a thousand years, 
after which, kindling a flame, it is self-consumed ; and then, reborn from itself,, 
it lives another thousand years, up to seven times seven/ when comes the 
Day of Judgment. The " seven times seven," or forty-nine, are a transparent 
allegory, and an allusion to the forty-nine Manus, the seven Rounds, and the 
seven times seven human Cycles in each Round on each Globe. The Kerkes 
and the Onech stand for a Race Cycle, and the mystical Tree Ababel, the 
"Father Tree" in the Quran, shoots out new branches and vegetation at 
every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phoenix; the " Day of Judgment" mean- 
ing a minor Pralaya. The author of the Book of God and the Apocalypse 
believes that : 

The Phoenix is ... very plainly the same as the Simorgh of Persian romance ; 
and the account which is given us of this last bird yet more decisively establishes the 
opinion that the death and revival of the Phoenix exhibit the successive destruction and! 
reproduction of the world, which many believed to be effected by the agency of a fiery 
deluge [and also a watery one in its turn]. When the Simorgh was asked her age, she 
informed Caherman that this world is very ancient, for it has been already seven times 
replenished, with beings different from men, and seven times depopulated : 4 that the 

1 In Vishnu Purana, Wilson, Vol. ii, pp. 205-7, it is stated that the "earth," "with its continents, 
mountains, oceans and exterior shell, is fifty crores [five hundred millions] of Yojanas in extent " ; to- 
which the translator remarks ' ' Th/s comprises the planetary spheres ; for the diameter of the seven 
zones and oceans each ocean being of the same diameter as the continent it encloses, and each 
successive continent being twice the diameter of that which precedes it amounts to but two crores. 
and fifty-four lakhs. . . . ' Whenever any contradictions in different Pur&nas are observed, they are to 
be ascribed ... to differences of Kalpas and the like.' " " The like" ought to read " occult meaning," 
an explanation which is withheld by the commentator, who wrote for exoteric, sectarian purposes, and 
was misunderstood by the translator for various other reasons, the least of which is ignorance of the 
Esoteric Philosophy. 

2 The Phoenix, although generally connected with the Solar Cycle of 600 years the Western cycle 
of the Greeks and other nations is a generic symbol for several kinds of cycles, ciphers being taken, 
out or more added according to which cycle is meant. 

3 See Book of All, Russian trans. 

4 The tense is past, because the book is allegorical, and has to veil the truths it contains. 



THE SEPTENARY IN THE EXOTERIC WORKS 189 

age of the human race in which we now are, is to endure seven thousand years, an'd 
that she herself had seen twelve of these revolutions, and knew not how many more 
she had to see. 1 

The above, however, is no new statement. From Bailly, in the last 
century, down to Dr. Kenealy, in the present, these facts have been noticed 
by a number of writers ; but now a connection can be established between 
the Persian oracle and the Nazarene prophet. Says the author of the Book 
of God : 

The Simorgh is in reality the same as the winged Singh of the Hindus, and the 
Sphinx of the Egyptians. It is said that the former will appear at the end of the world 
... [as a] monstrous lion-bird. . . . From these the Rabbins have borrowed their 
mythos of an enormous Bird, sometimes standing on the earth, sometimes walking in 
the ocean . . while its head props the sky ; and with the symbol, they have also 
adopted the doctrine to which it relates. They teach that there are to be seven suc- 
cessive renewals of the globe ; that each reproduced system will last seven thousand 
years [?]; and that the total duration of the Universe will be 49,000 years. This opinion, 
which involves the doctrine of the pre-existence of each renewed creature, they may 
either have learned during their Babylonian captivity, or it may have been part of the 
primeval religion which their priests had preserved from remote times.' 2 

It shows rather that the initiated Jews borrowed, and their non-initiated 
successors, the Talmudists, lost, the sense, and applied the seven Rounds, and 
the forty-nine Races, etc., wrongly. 

Not only their priests, but those of every other country. The Gnostics, 
whose various teachings are the many echoes of the one primitive and 
universal doctrine, put the same numbers, under another form, in the mouth 
of Jesus in the very occult Pistis Sophia. We say more : even the Christian 
editor or author of Revelation has preserved this tradition and speaks of the 
Seven RACES, four of which, with part of the fifth, are gone, and two have to 
come. It is stated as plainly as can be. Thus saith the angel : 

And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven moun- 
tains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings ; five are fallen, and one 

is, and the other is not yet come. 3 

< 
Who, in the least acquainted with the symbolical language of old, will fail 

to discern in the five Kings that have fallen, the four Root Races that were, 
and part of the Fifth, the one that is; and in the other, that " is not yet 
come," the Sixth and Seventh coming Root Races, as also the sub-races of 
this, our present Race? Another still more forcible allusion to the seven 
Rounds and the forty-nine Root Races in Leviticus, will be found in Part 3. 4 

1 Oriental Collections, ii, 119 ; quoted by Kenealy, op. cit., pp. 175, 176. 

- Ibid., loc. cit. 3 Op. cit., xvii, 9, 10. 4 Section VI ; Leviticus, xxiii, 15 et seq. 



190 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

E. SEVEN IN ASTRONOMY, SCIENCE, AND MAGIC 

Again, number seven is closely connected with the Occult significance of 
the Pleiades, those seven daughters of Atlas, "the six present, the seventh 
hidden." In India they are connected with their nursling, the war God, 
Kartikeya. It was the Pleiades (in Sanskrit, Krittikas) who gave this name to 
the God, Kartikeya being the planet Mars, astronomically. As a God he is 
the son of Rudra, born without the intervention of a woman. He is a Kumara, 
a " virgin youth " again, generated in the fire from the Seed of Shiva the 
Holy Spirit hence called Agni-bhu. The late Dr, Kenealy believed that, 
in India, Kartikeya is the secret symbol of the Cycle of the Naros, composed 
of 600, 666 and 777 years, according to whether solar or lunar, divine or 
mortal, years are counted ; and that the six visible, or the seven actual 
sisters, the Pleiades, are needed for the completion of this most secret and 
mysterious of all the astronomical and religious symbols. Therefore, when, 
intended to commemorate one particular event, Kartikeya was shown, of old, 
as a Kumara, an Ascetic, with six heads one for each century of the Naros. 
When the symbolism was needed for another event, then, in conjuction with 
the seven sidereal sisters, Kartikeya is seen accompanied by Kaumari, or 
Sena, his female aspect. He is then riding on a peacock, the bird of Wisdom 
and Occult Knowledge, and the Hindu Phoenix, whose Greek relation with 
the 600 years of the Naros is well known. A six-rayed star (double triangle), 
a Svastika, a six and occasionally seven-pointed crown, is on his brow ; the 
peacock's tail represents the sidereal heavens ; and the twelve signs of the 
Zodiac are hidden on his body ; for which he is also called Dvadasha-kara, 
" twelve handed," and Dvadashaksha, " twelve-eyed." It is as Shakti-dhara, 
however, the " spear-holder," and the conqueror of Taraka, Taraka-jit, that 
he is shown to be most famous. 

As the years of the Naros are, in India, counted in two ways, either by 
one hundred " years of the gods " (divine years), or one hundred " mortal, 
years," we can see the tremendous difficulty the non-initiated have in arriving 
at a correct comprehension of this cycle, which plays such an important part 
in St. John's Revelation. It is the truly apocalyptic cycle, because of its being 
of various lengths and relating to various pre-historic events, and in none of 
the numerous speculations about it have we found any but a few approximate 
truths. 

Against the duration claimed by the Babylonians for their divine ages, it 
has been urged that Suidas shows the Ancients counting days for years, in 
their chronological computations. It is to Suidas and his authority that 



SEVEN IN ASTRONOMY, SCIENCE, AND MAGIC 19T 

Dr. Sepp appeals in his ingenious plagiarism which we have already exposed 
of the Hindu figures 432. These they give in thousands and millions of 
years, the duration of their Yugas, but Sepp dwarfed them to 4,320 lunar 
years, 1 " before the birth of Christ," as " foreordained " in the sidereal, irv 
addition to the invisible, heavens, and proved " by the apparition of the Star 
of Bethlehem." But Suidas had no other warrant for this assertion than Kis 
own speculations, and he was not an Initiate. He cites, as a proof, Vulcan, 
and shows him reigning 4,477 years, or 4,477 days, as he thinks, or again 
rendered in years, 12 years, 3 months,* and 7 days ; he has, however, 5 days, 
in his original thus committing an error even in such an easy calculation. 2 
True, there are other ancient writers guilty of like fallacious speculations ; 
Callisthenes, for instance, who assigns to the astronomical observations of the 
Chaldeans only 1,903 years, whereas Epigenes recognizes 720,000 years. :{ The 
whole of these hypotheses made by profane writers are due to a misunder- 
standing. The chronology of the Western peoples, ancient Greeks and 
Romans, was borrowed from India. Now, it is said in the Tamil edition of 
Bagavadam that 15 solar days make a Paccham ; two Pacchams, or 30 days, 
make a month of mortals, which is only one day of the Pitara Devata or Pitris. 
Again, 2 of these months constitute a Rudu, 3 Rudus make an Ayanam, and 
2 Ayanams a year of mortals, which is only a day of the Gods. It is from 
such misunderstood teachings that some Greeks have imagined that all the 
initiated priests had transformed days into years ! 

This mistake of the ancient Greek and Latin writers became pregnant 
with results in Europe. At the close of the past and the beginning of the 
present century, Bailly, Dupuis, and others, relying upon the purposely muti- 
lated accounts of Hindu chronology, brought from India by certain unscrupu- 
lous and too zealous missionaries, built quite a fantastic theory on the subject. 
Because the Hindus had made of half a revolution of the moon a measure 
of time ; and because a month composed of only fifteen days, of which 
Quintus Curtius speaks, * is found mentioned in Hindu literature, therefore, it 
becomes a verified fact that their year was only half a year, when it was not 
called a day ! The Chinese, also, divided their Zodiac into twenty-four parts, 
and hence their year into twenty-four fortnights but such computation did not, 
nor does it, prevent them having an astronomical year just the same as ours. 

1 V/e de Notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ, Introduction ; quoted by De Mirville, Des Espnts, 
Vol. iv, p. 50. 

2 See Suidas, sub voc. ' V H\09. :< Pliny, Hist. Nat., vii, 56. 

1 " Menses in quinos dies descripserunt dies" [They distributed the days into months of five* 
days each,] (Iviii, 9). 



192 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

They also have a period of 60 days the Southern Indian Rudu to this day in 
some provinces. Moreover, Diodorus Siculus l calls " thirty days an Egyptian 
year," or that period during which the moon performs a complete revolution. 
Pliny and Plutarch 2 both speak of it ; but does it stand to reason that the Egyp- 
tians, who knew Astronomy as well as any other nation, made the lunar month 
c8nsists of 30 days, when it is only 28 days with fractions ? This lunar period 
had an Occult meaning surely as well as had also the Ayanam and the Rudu 
of the Hindus. The year of 2 months' duration, and the period of 60 days 
also, was a universal measure of tirane in antiquity, as Bailly himself shows in 
his Traite cfe /'Astronom/e Indienne et Orientate. The Chinamen, according to 
their own books, divided their year into two parts, from one equinox to the 
other ; 3 the Arabs anciently divided the year into six seasons, each composed 
of two months ; in the Chinese astronomical work called Kioo-tche, it is said 
that two moons make a measure of time, and six measures a year ; and to 
this day the aborigines of Kamschatka have their years of six months, as they 
had when visited by Abbe Chappe. 1 But is all this any reason for claiming 
that when the Hindu Puranas say a solar year, they mean one solar day ! 

It was the knowledge of the natural laws which make of seven the root 
inature-number, so to say, in the manifested world, or at any rate in our 
present terrestrial life-cycle, and the wonderful comprehension of its workings, 
that unveiled to the Ancients so many of the mysteries of Nature. It is these 
laws, again, and their processes on the sidereal, terrestrial, and moral planes, 
which enabled the old Astronomers to calculate correctly the duration of the 
cycles and their respective effects on the march of events ; to record before- 
hand to prophesy, it is called the influence which they would have on the 
course and development of the human races. The Sun, Moon, and Planets 
being the never-erring time-measurers, whose potency and periodicity were 
well known, became thus respectively the great ruler and rulers of our little 
system in all its seven domains, or " spheres of action." s 

This has been so evident and remarkable, that even many of the modern 
men of Science, Materialists as well as Mystics, have had their attention called 
to this law. Physicians and Theologians, Mathematicians and Psychologists, 
have repeatedly drawn the attention of the world to this fact of periodicity in 
the behaviour of " Nature." These numbers are explained in the Commen- 
taries in the following words : 

1 Lib. i, c. 26. 2 Hist. Nat., vii, 48, and Life of Numa, 16. 

:< Mem. Acad. Ins., xvi, c. 48 ; iii, 183. 4 Voyage en 5/berie, hi, 19. 

' The spheres of action of the combined Forces of Evolution and Karma are (1) the Super-spiritual 
or Noumenal , (2) the Spiritual ; (3) the Psychic ; (4) the Astro-ethereal ; (5) the Sub-astral ; (6) the 
Vital ; and (7) the purely Physical Spheres. 



SEVEN IN ASTRONOMY, SCIENCE, AND MAGIC 193 

Jhe Circle is not the " One " but the ALL 

In the higher [Heaven], the impenetrable Rajah, 1 it [the Circle^ 
becomes One, because [ft is] the indivisible, and there can be no 
Tau in it. 

In the second [of the three Rajamsi, or the three " Worlds "], the One 
becomes Two [male and female], and Three [with the Son or Logos], and the 
Sacred Four [the Tetrafctys, or Tetragrammaton]. 

In the third [the lower World or our Earth], the number becomes Four, 
and Three, and Two. Jake the first two, and thou wilt obtain Seven, the 
.sacred number of lite ; blend [the latter] with the middle Rajah, and thou wilt 
have Nine, the sacred number of BEING and BECOMING. 2 

When the Western Orientalists have mastered the real meaning of the 
Rig Vedic divisions of the World the two-fold, three-fold, six- and seven-fold, 
and especially the nine-fold division the mystery of the cyclic divisions applied 
to Heaven and Earth, Gods and Men, will become clearer to them than it is 
now, For : 

There is a harmony of numbers in all nature ; in the force of gravity, in the 
planetary movements, in the laws of heat, light, electricity, and chemical affinity, in the 
forms of animals and plants, in the perceptions of the mind. The direction, indeed, of 
modern natural and physical science is towards a generalization which shall express the 
fundamental laws of all, by one simple numerical ratio. We would refer to Professor 
Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, and to Mr. Hay's researches into the 
laws of harmonious colouring and form. From these it appears that the number seven /s 
distinguished in the laws regulating the harmonious perception of forms, colours, and 
sounds, and probably of taste also, if we could analyze our sensations of this kind with 
.mathematical accuracy. 1 

So much so, indeed, that more than one Physician has stood aghast at 
the septenary periodical return of the cycles in the rise and fall of various 
complaints, and Naturalists have felt themselves at an utter loss to explain 
this law. 

The birth, growth, maturity, vital functions, healthy revolutions of change, 
diseases, decay and death, of insects, reptiles, fishes, birds, mammals, and even of man, 
are more or less controlled by a law of completion in weeks [or seven days.] 4 

1 Adbhutam, see Rig Veda, x, 105. 

3 In Hinduism, as understood by the Orientalists from the Rig Veda, the three Rajamsi refer to the 
three " strides " of Vishnu ; his ascending higher step being taken in the highest world (Rig Veda, 
vii, 99, 1; cf. i, 155, 5). It is the Divo Rajah, or the " sky," as they think it. But it is something 
besides this in Occultism. The sentence, pareshu gahyeshu vrateshu [in good unknown acts] (d., \, 
155, 3, and ix, 75, 2, or again, x, 114), in Rig Veda, has yet to be explained. 

3 Medical Review, July. 1844. 

4 H. Grattan Guinness, F.R.G.S., in his Approaching End of the Age, p. 258. 

F 13 



194 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Dr. Laycock, writing on the " Periodicity of Vital Phenomena/' 1 records 
a " most remarkable illustration and confirmation of the law in insects." 2 

To all of which Mr. Grattan Guinness remarks very pertinently, as he 
defends biblical chronology : 

And man's life ... is a week, a week of decades. " The days of our years- 
are three-score years and ten." Combining the testimony of all these facts, we are 
bound to admit that there prevails in organic nature a law of septiform periodicity, a 
law of completion in weeks/ 

Without accepting the conclusions, and especially the premises of 
the learned founder of " The East London Institute for Home and Foreign 
Missions," the writer accepts and welcomes his researches in the Occult 
chronology of the Bible ; just as, while rejecting the theories, hypo- 
theses, and generalizations of Modern Science, we bow before its great 

1 Lancet, 1842, 1&43. 

2 Having given a number of illustrations from natural history, the doctor adds : " The facts I have 
briefly glanced at are general facts, and cannot happen day after day in so many millions of animals of 
every kind, FROM THE LARVA OR OVUM OF A MINUTE INSECT UP TO MAN, at definite periods,. 
from a mere cnance or coincidence. . . Upon the whole it is, I think, impossible to come to any 
less general conclusion than this, that, in animals, changes occur every three and a half, seven,, 
fourteen, twenty-one, or twenty-eight days, or at some definite number of weeks " or septenary 
cycles. Again, the same Dr. Laycock states that " Whatever type the fever may exhibit, there will 
be a paroxysm on the seventh day. . . . the fourteenth will be remarkable as a day of amendent . . , 
[either cure or death taking place]. If the fourth [paroxysm] be severe, and the fifth less so, the 
disease will end at the seventh paroxysm, and . . the change for the better . . . will be seen on* 
the fourteenth day . . . namely, about three or four o'clock a.m., when the system is most languid." 
(Approaching End of the Age, by Grattan Guinness, pp 258 to 269, wherein this is quoted). 

This is pure " soothsaying " by cyclic calculations, and it is connected with Chaldean Astrolatry 
and Astrology. Thus Materialistic Science in its medicine, the most material/she of all applies our 
Occult laws to diseases, studies natural history with its help, recognizes its presence as a fact in 
Nature, and yet must needs pooh-pooh the same archaic knowledge when claimed by the Occultists. 
For if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in Nature, and it is one, as proven , if it is found con- 
trolling both evolution ,and involution (or death) in the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornith- 
ology, as in the kingdom of the animal mammalia and man why cannot it be present and acting in 
Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races, and mental development? 
And why, furthermore, should not the most ancient Adepts have studied and thoroughly mastered 
these cyclic laws under alt their aspects ? Indeed, Dr. Stratton states as a physiological and patho- 
logical fact, that "in health the human pulse is more frequent in the morning than in the evening 
for six days out of seven; and that on the seventh day it is slower." (Edinburgh Medical and 
Surgical Journal, Jan. 1843; ibid., loc. cit.) Why, then, should not an Occultist show the same in 
cosmic and terrestrial life in the pulse of the Planet and Races ? Dr. Laycock divides life by three 
great septenary periods ; the (first and last, each stretching over 21 years, and the central period or 
prime of life lasting 28 years, or four times seven. He subdivides the first into seven distinct stages, 
and the other two into three minor periods, and says that . " The fundamental unit of the greater 
periods is one week of seven days, each day being twelve hours, and that single and compound 
multiples of this unit, determine the length of these periods by the same ratio, as multiples of the unit 
of twelve hours determine the lesser periods. This law binds all periodic vital phenomena together, 
and links the periods observed in the lowest annuhse animals, with those of man himself, the highest of 
the vertebrata." (Ibid., p. 267.) If Science does this, why should she scorn the Occult information,, 
that t o use Dr. Laycock's language one Week of the Manvantaric (Lunar) Fortnight, of fourteen 
Days (or seven Menus), that Fortnight of twelve Hours in a Day representing seven Periods or seven 
Races is now passed ? This language of Science fits our Doctrine admirably. We (mankind) have lived 1 
over " a week of seven days, each Jay being twelve hours," since three and a half Races are now gone 
for ever, the Fourth is submerged, and we are now in the Fifth Race. 

3 Op, cit., p. 269: 



SEVEN IN ASTRONOMY, SCIENCE, AND MAGIC 195 

achievements in the world of the Physical, or in all the minor details of 
material Nature. 

There is most assuredly an Occult " chronological system in Hebrew 
scripture," the Kabalah being its warrant ; moreover there is in it " a system 
of weeks," based on the archaic Indian system, which may still be found in* 
the old Jyotisha. 1 And there are in it cycles of the " week of days," of the 
" week of months," of years, of centuries, and even of millenniums, and 
more, of the " week of years of years." 2 But all this can be found in the 
Archaic Doctrine. And if the common source of the chronology in every 
scripture, however veiled, is denied in the case of the Bible ; then it will have 
to be shown how, in face of the six days and the seventh (a Sabbath), we 
can escape connecting the Genetic with the Puranic Cosmogonies. For the 
first " week of creation " shows the septiformity of its chronology and thus 
connects it with Brahma's " Seven Creations." The able volume from the 
pen of Mr. Grattan Guinness, in which he has collected in some 760 pages 
every proof of this septiform calculation, is good evidence. For if the 
biblical chronology is, as he says, " regulated by the law of weeks," and if it 
is septenary, whatever the measures of the creation week and the length 
of its days may be, and if, finally, " the Bible system includes weeks on a 
great variety of scales," then this system is shown to be identical with all the 
Pagan systems. Moreover, the attempt to show that 4,320 years, in lunar 
months, elapsed between the " Creation " and the " Nativity," is a clear 
and unmistakable connection with 4.320,000 years of the Hindu Yugas. Other- 
wise, why make such efforts to prove that these figures, which are pre-eminent- 
ly Chaldean and Indo-Aryan, play such a part in the New Testament ? This 
we shall now prove still more forcibly. 

Let the impartial critic compare the two accounts the Vishnu 
Purana and the Bible and he will find that the " seven Creations " of 
Brahma are at the foundation of the "week of creation" in Genesis. 
The two allegories are different, but the systems are both built on the same 
foundation-stone. The Bible can be understood only by the light" of the 
Kabalah. Take the Zohar, the " Book of Concealed Mystery," however now 
disfigured, and compare. The seven Rishis and the fourteen Manus, of the 
seven Manvantaras, issue from Brahma's head ; they are his " Mind-born 

1 See for the length of such cycles or Yugas in Vriddha Garga and other ancient astronomical 
sections (Jyotisha). They vary from the cycle of five years which Colebrooke calls " the cycle of 
the Vedas," specified in the institutes of Pardshara, " and the basis of calculation for larger cycles " 
(M/sce//. Essays, i, 106 and 108) up to the Maha Yuga or the famous cycle of 4,320,000 years. 

2 The Hebrew word for " week " is Seven ; and any length of time divided by Seven would have 
been a " week " with them even 49,000,000 years, as it is seven times seven millions. But their 
calculation is throughout septiform. 



196 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Sons," and it is with them that begins the division of mankind into its Races 
from the Heavenly Man, the manifested Logos, who is Brahma Prajapati. 
Speaking of the "Skull" (Head) of Macroprosopus, the Ancient One * (in 
Sanskrit Sanat is an appellation of Brahma), the Ha Idra Rabba Quadisha, or 
" Greater Holy Assembly," says that in every one of his hairs is a "hidden 
fountain issuing from the concealed brain." 

And it shineth and goeth forth through that hair unto the hair of Microprosopus, 
and from it [which is the manifest Quaternary, the Tetragrammaton] is His brain 
formed ; and thence that brain goeth forth into thirty and two paths [or the Triad and 
the Duad, or again 432]. 

And again : 

Thirteen curls of hair exist on the one side and on the other of the skull [i.e., 
six on one and six on the other, the thirteenth being also the fourteenth, as it is male- 
female] ; . . . and through them commenceth the division of the hair [the divisions of 
things, of Mankind and Races]/ 

" We six are lights which shine forth from a seventh (light)," saith Rabbi 
Abba ; " thou art the seventh light " the synthesis of us all he adds, 
speaking of Tetragrammaton and his seven " companions," whom he calls the 
" eyes of Tetragrammaton." 3 

TETRAGRAMMATON is Brahma Prajapati, who assumed four forms, in order 
to create four kinds of supernal creatures, i.e,, made himself fourfold, or the 
manifest Quaternary ; 4 after that, he is re-born in the seven Rishis, his 
Manasaputras, " Mind-born Sons," who became later, nine, twenty-one, and 
so on, and who are all said to be born from various parts of Brahma. 5 

1 BrahmS creates in the first Kalpa, or on the first Day, various " sacrificial animals " (Pashavah), 
or the celestial bodies and the Zodiacal signs, and "plants," which he uses in sacrifices at the opening 
of Treta Yuga. The Esoteric meaning shows him proceeding cyclically and creating astral Prototypes 
on the descending, spiritual arc and then on the ascending physical arc. The latter is the sub-division 
of a two-hid creation, sub-divided again into seven descending and seven ascending degrees of 
Spirit falling, and of Matter ascending ; the inverse of what takes place as in a mirror which reflects 
the right on the left side in this Manvantara of ours. It is the same Esoterically in the Elohistic 
Genesis (chap, i), and in the Jehovistic copy, as in Hindu cosmogony. 

2 Op. cit., vv. 70, 71, 80 ; The Kabbalah Unveiled, S. L. MacGregor Mathers, pp. 120, 121. 

3 The Greater Holy Assembly," v. 1,160. (Ibid., p. 255.) 

4 See Vishnu Parana, Vol. I, ch. v. 

:> It is very surprising to see theologians and Oriental scholars expressing indignation at the 
" depraved taste " of the Hindu mystics, who, not content with having " invented " the Mind-born 
Sons of Brahma, make the Rishis, Manus, and Prajapatis of every kind spring from various parts of the 
body of their primal Progenitor, Brahma. (See Wilson's footnote in his Vishnu Purana, Vol. i, p. 102.) 
Because the average public is unacquainted with the Kabalah, the key to, and glossary of, the much 
veiled Mosaic Books, therefore, the clergy imagines the truth will never out. Let any one turn to the 
English, Hebrew, or Latin texts of the Kabalah, now so ably translated by several scholars, and he will 
-find that the Tetragrammaton, which is the Hebrew IHVH, is also both the " Sephirothal Tree " i.e., 
it contains all the Sephiroth except Kether, the crown and the united Body of the Heavenly Man 
(Adam Kadmon) from whose Limbs emanate the Universe and everything in it. Furthermore, he will 
iind that the idea in the Kabalistic Books, the chief of which in the Zohar are the " Book of Concealed 
Mystery," and of the " Greater " and the " Lesser Holy Assembly," is entirely phallic and far more 



SEVEN IN ASTRONOMY, SCIENCE, AND MAGIC 197 

There are two Tetragrammatons : the Macroprosopus and the Micro- 
prosopus. The first is the absolute perfect Square, or the Tetraktys within the 
Circle, both abstract conceptions, and is therefore called Ain Non-being, i.e., 
illimitable or absolute " Be-ness." But when viewed as Microprosopus, or the 
Heavenly Man, the Manifested Logos, he is the Triangle in the Square the 
sevenfold Cube, not the fourfold, or the plane Square. For it is written in 
" The Greater Holy Assembly " : 

And concerning this, the children of Israel wished to inquire in their hearts [know 
in their minds], like as it is written, Exod. xvii. 7 : "Is the Tetragrammaton in the midst 
of us, or the Negatively Existent One ? " ! 

Where did they distinguished between Microprosopus, who is called Tetragram- 
maton, and between Macroprosopus, who is called Ain, the negatively 
existent ?* 

Therefore, Tetragrammaton is the THREE made four and the FOUR made 
three, and is represented on this Earth by his seven " Companions," or 
" Eyes " the " seven eyes of the " Lord." Microprosopus is, at best, only 
a secondary manifested Deity. For " The Greater Holy Assembly " else- 
where says : 

We have learned that there were ten (Rabbis) [Companions] entered into (the 
Assembly) [the Sod, " mysterious assembly or mystery "] and that seven came forth* 
[i.e., ten for the ummanifested, seven for the manifested Universe]. 

And when Rabbi Schimeon revealed the Arcana, there were found none present 
there save those [seven] (companions). And Rabbi Schimeon called them the seven 
eyes of Tetragrammaton, like as it is written, Zech. iii, 9 : " These are the seven eyes 
[or principles] of Tetragrammaton " [ i.e., the four-fold Heavenly Man, or pure Spirit, 
is resolved into septenary man, pure Matter and Spirit]. 4 

Thus the Tetrad is Microprosopus, and the latter is the male-female 
Chokmah-Binah, the second and third Sephiroth. The Tetragrammaton is the 
very essence of number seven, in its terrestrial significance. Seven stands 
between four and nine the basis and foundation, astrally, of our physical 
world and man, in the kingdom of Malkuth. 

crudely expressed than is the four-fold Brahma in any of the Puranas. (See The Kabbalah Unveiled, 
by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, chapter xxii, of " The Lesser Holy Assembly," concerning the remaining 
members of Microprosopus.) For, this " Tree of Life " is also the " Tree of Knowledge of Good and 
Evil," whose chief mystery is that of human procreation. It is a mistake to regard the Kabalah as 
explaining the mysteries of Kosmos or Nature ; it explains and unveils only a few allegories in the 
Bible, and is more esoteric than is the latter. 

1 Simplified in the English Bible to : "Is the Lord [! !] among us, or not ? " 

2 Verse 83; op. cit., p. 121. 

3 Translators often render the word " Companion " (Angel, also Adept) by " Rabbi," just as the 
Rishis are called Gurus. The Zohar is, if possible, more occult than the Book of Moses ; to read the 
"Book of Concealed Mystery" one requires the keys furnished by the genuine Chaldean Book of 
Numbers, which is not extant. 

4 Verses 1152, 1158, 1159 ; op. cit., p. 254. 



198 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE 



For Christians and believers, this reference to Zechariah and especially 
to the Epistle of Peter, 1 ought to be conclusive. In the old symbolism, 
" man," chiefly the Inner Spiritual Man is called a " stone." Christ is the 
corner-stone, and Peter refers to all men as " lively " (living) stones. There- 
fore a " Stone with seven eyes on it can only mean a man whose constitu- 
tion (i.e., his " principles ") is septenary. 

To demonstrate more clearly the seven in Nature, it may be added that 
not only does the number seven govern the periodicity of the phenomena 
of life, but that it is also found dominating the series of chemical elements, 
and equally paramount in the world of sound and in that of colour as revealed 
to us by the spectroscope. This number is the factor, sine qua non, in the 
production of occult astral phenomena. 

Thus, if the chemical elements are arranged in groups according to their 
atomic weights, they will be found to constitute a series of rows of seven ; 
the first, second, etc., members of each row bearing a close analogy in all 
their properties to the corresponding members of the next row. The follow- 
ing table, 2 copied from Hellenbach's Mag/e der Zahlen, and corrected, exhibits 
this law and fully warrants the conclusion he draws in the following words : 

We thus see that chemical variety, so far as we can grasp its inner nature, 
depends upon numerical relations, and we have further found in this variety a ruling 
Jaw for which we can assign no cause ; we find a law of periodicity governed by the 
number seven. 



Row 


Group 
1 


Group 
II 


Group 
III 


Group 
IV 


Group 
V 


Group 
VI 


Group 
VII 






HI 
















1 


Li 7 


Be 9*3 


B 11 


C12 


N14 


O 16 


F 19 





2 


Na23 


Mg 24 


Al 27-3 


Si 28 


P 31 


S32 


Cl 35-4 




3 


K39 


Ca40 


Sc44 


Ti48 


V51 


Cr 52-4 


Mn 54-8 


(Fe 56. Co 58-6 
\Ni 58. [Cu 63-3] 


4 


Cu 63'3 


Zn65 


Ga 68-2 


Ge72 


As 75 


Se78 


Br 79-5 






5 


Rb 85 2 


Sr 87-2 


Y89-5 


Zr90 


Nb94 


Mo 96 


-100 


(Ru 103. Rh 104 
(Pd 106. [Ag 107-6] 


6 


Ag 107'6 


Cd 111-6 


In 113-4 


Sn 118 


Sb 122 


Te 125 


1 126-5 





7 


Cs 132'5 


Ba 136-8 


La 139 


Ce 140 


Di 144 











8 











_ 














9 








Er 170 





Ta 182 


W 184 





fOs 196. Ir 196-7 
(Pt 1967. [Au 197] 


10 


Au197 


Hg200 


TI204 


Ph 206 


BS206 











1 / Peter, ii, 4-5. 



[For a more complete table, see Additional Notes.] 



SEVEN IN ASTRONOMY, SCIENCE, AND MAGIC 199 

The eighth element in this list is, as it were, the octave of the first, and 
the ninth of the second, and so on ; each element being almost identical 
in its properties with the corresponding element in each of the septenary 
rows; a phenomenon which accentuates the septenary -law of periodicity. 
For further details the reader is referred to Hellenbach's work, where it is 
-also shown that this classification is confirmed by the spectroscopic peculiarities 
of the elements. 

It is needless to refer in detail to the number of vibrations constituting 
the notes of the musical scale ; they are strictly analogous to the scale of 
chemical elements, and also to the scale of colour as unfolded by the 
spectroscope, although in the latter case we deal with only one octave, while 
both in music and chemistry we find a series of seven octaves represented 
theoretically, of which six are fairly complete and in ordinary use in both 
sciences. Thus, to quote Hellenbach : 

It has been established that, from the standpoint of phenomenal law, upon 
which all our knowledge rests, the vibrations of sound and light increase regularly, that 
they divide themselves into seven columns, and that the successive numbers in each 
column are closely allied ; i.e., that they exhibit a close relationship which not only is 
expressed in the figures themselves, but also is practically confirmed in chemistry as in 
music, in the latter of which the ear confirms the verdict of the figures. . . . The fact 
that this periodicity and variety is governed by the number seven is undeniable, and it 
far surpasses the limits of mere chance, and must be assumed to have an adequate 
cause, which cause must be discovered. 

Verily, then, as Rabbi Abba said : 

We are six lights which shine forth from a seventh (light) ; thou [Tetragramma- 
ton] art the seventh light (the origin of) us all. 

For assuredly there is no stability in those six, save (what they derive) from the 
seventh. For all things depend from the seventh. 1 

The ancient and modern Western American Zufii Indians seem to have 
^entertained similar views. Their present-day customs, their traditions and 
records, all point to the fact that, from time immemorial, their institutions, 
political, social and religious, were, and still are, shaped according to the 
septenary principle. Thus all their ancient towns and villages were built in 
clusters of six, around a seventh. It is always a group of seven, or of thirteen, 
.and always the six surround the seventh. Again, their sacerdotal hierarchy 
,is composed of six " Priests of the House" seemingly synthesized in the 
.seventh, who is a woman, the " PRIESTESS MOTHER." Compare this with the 

1 " The Greater Holy Assembly," vv. 1160, 1161 ; op. cit., p. 255. [The Kabbalah Unveiled.] 



200 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

" seven great officiating priests " spoken of in the Anugita, the name given to 
the " seven senses/' exoterically, and to the seven human principles, 
esoterically. Whence this identity of symbolism ? Shall we still doubt the fact 
of Arjuna going over to Patala, the Antipodes, America, and there marrying 
Ulupi, the daughter of the Naga, or rather Nargal, king? But to the Zuni 
priests. 

These receive, to this day, an annual tribute of corn of seven colours. 
Undistinguished from other Indians during the rest of the year, on a certain, 
day they come out six priests and one priestess arrayed in their priestly 
robes, each of a colour sacred to the particular God whom the priest serves 
and personifies ; each of them representing one of the seven regions, and 
each receiving corn of the colour corresponding to that region. Thus, the 
white represents the East, because from the East comes the first sun-light ; 
the yellow corresponds to the North, from the colour of the flames produced 
by the Aurora Borealis ; the red, the South, as from that quarter comes the 
heat ; the blue stands for the West, the colour of the Pacific Ocean, which 
lies to the West ; black is the colour of the nether underground region 
darkness ; corn with grains of all colours on one ear represents the colours of 
the upper region of the firmament, with its rosy and yellow clouds, shining 
stars, etc. The " speckled " corn, each grain containing all the colours, is that 
of the " Priestess- Mother " woman containing in herself the seeds of all 
races past, present and future ; Eve being the mother of all living. 

Apart from these was the Sun the Great Deity whose priest was the 
spiritual head of the nation. These facts were ascertained by Mr. F. Hamilton 
Gushing, who, as many are aware, became a Zuni, lived with them, was 
initiated into their religious mysteries, and learned more about them than any 
other man [then] living. 

Seven is also the great magic number. In the Occult Records the 
weapon mentioned in the Puranas and the Mahabharata the Agneyastra or 
"fiery weapon " bestowed by Aurva upon his chela Sagara is said to be 
constructed of seven elements. This weapon supposed by some ingenious 
Orientalists to have been a "rocket " (!) is one of the many thorns in the 
side of our modern Sanskritists. Wilson exercises his penetration over it, on 
several pages in his Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus, and finally 
fails to explain it. He can make nothing out of the Agneyastra, for he argues : 

These weapons are of a very unintelligible character. Some of them are occa- 
sionally wielded as missiles ; but, in general, they appear to be mystical powers exercised! 



THE SEVEN SOULS OF THE EGYPTOLOGISTS 20t 

by the individual such as those of paralyzing an enemy, or lockinging his senses fast in 
sleep, or bringing down storm, and rain, and fire, from heaven. 1 . . . They are 
supposed to assume celestial shapes, endowed with human faculties. . . . The 
Ramayana calls them also the sons of Krishashva. 2 

The Shastra-devatas, " Gods of the divine weapons/' are no more* 
Agneyastras, the weapons, than the gunners of modern artillery are the 
cannon they direct. But this simple solution did not seem to strike the 
eminent Sanskritist. Nevertheless, as he himself says of the armiform progeny 
of Krishashva, " the allegorical origin of the [Agneyastra] weapons is, undoubt- 
edly, the more ancient." :i It is the fiery javelin of Brahma. 

The seven-fold Agneyastra, like the seven senses and the seven prin- 
ciples, symbolized by the seven priests, are of untold antiquity. How old is. 
the doctrine believed in by Theosophists, the following Section will tell. 

F. THE SEVEN SOULS OF THE EGYPTOLOGISTS 

If one turns to those wells of information, The Natural Genesis and the 
Lectures of Mr. Gerald Massey, the proofs of the antiquity of the doctrine 
under analysis become positively overwhelming. That the belief of the 
author differs from ours can hardly invalidate the facts. He views the symboE 
from a purely natural standpoint, one perhaps a trifle too materialistic, because 
too much that of an ardent Evolutionist and follower of the modern Darwinian 
dogmas. Thus he shows that : 

The student of Bohme's books finds much in them concerning these Seven* 
" Fountain Spirits," and primary powers, treated as seven properties of Nature in the 
alchemistic and astrological phase of the mediaeval mysteries. . . . 

The followers of Bohme look on such matter as the divine revelation of his in- 
spired Seership. They know nothing of the natural genesis, the history and persistence 
of the "Wisdom 4 of the past (or of the broken links), and are unable to recognize 
the physical features of the ancient " Seven Spirits " beneath their modern metaphysical 
or alchemist mask. A second connecting link between the theosophy of Bohme and 
the physical origins of Egyptian thought, is extant in the fragments of Hermes Trisme- 
gistus.' No matter whether these teachings are called Illuminatist, Buddhist, Kabalist- 

1 See supra, Vol. 3, pp. 424-6. - Op. cit., i, 297, 2nd ed. 

: * It is. But Agneyastra are fiery " missile weapons," not " edged " weapons, as there is some 
difference between Shastra and Astra in Sanskrit. 

4 Yet there are some, who may know something of these, even outside the author's lines, wide as 
they undeniably are. 

'' This connecting link, like others, was pointed out by the present writer nine years before the 
appearance of the work from which the above is quoted, namely in Isis Unveiled, a work full of such 
guiding links between ancient, medieval, and modern thought, but, unfortunately, too loosely edited. 



202 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Gnostic, Masonic, or Christian, the elemental types can only be truly known in their 
beginnings. l When the prophets or visionary showmen of cloudland come to us 
claiming original inspiration, and utter something new, we judge of its value by what it 
is in itself. But if we find they bring us the ancient matter which they cannot account 
for, and we can, it is natural that we should judge it by the primary significations rather 
than the latest pretensions. ' 2 It is useless for us to read our later thought into the earliest 
types of expression, and then say the ancients meant that ! >{ Subtilized interpretations 
which have become doctrines and dogmas in theosophy have now to be tested by 
their genesis in physical phenomena, in order that we may explode their false preten- 
sions to supernatural origin or superhuman knowledge. 4 

But the able author of The Book of the Beginnings and of The Natural 
Genesis does very fortunately, for us quite the reverse. He demonstrates 
most triumphantly our Esoteric (Buddhist) teachings, by showing them identical 
with those of Egypt. Let the reader judge from his learned lecture on " The 
Seven Souls of Man." 6 Says the author : 

The first form of the mystical Seven was seen to be figured in heaven by the 
seven large stars of the Great Bear, the constellation assigned by the Egyptians to the 
Mother of Time, and of the seven Elemental Powers," 

Just so, for the Hindus place their seven primitive Rishis in the Great 
Bear, and call this constellation the abode of the Saptarishi, Riksha and Chitra- 
shikhandinas. And their Adepts claim to know whether it is only an 
astronomical myth, or a primordial mystery having a deeper meaning than it 
bears on its surface. We are also told that : 

The Egyptians divided the face of the sky by night into seven parts. The 
primary Heaven was sevenfold. 7 

1 Ay ; but how can the learned writer prove that these " beginnings " were precisely in Egypt 
and nowhere else ; and only 50,000 years ago ? 

2 Precisely ; and this is just what the Theosophists do. They have never claimed " original inspira- 
tion," not even as mediums claim it, but have always pointed, and do now point, to the " primary 
signification " of the symbols, which they trace to other countries, older even than Egypt ; significa- 
tions, moreover, which emanate from a Hierarchy (or Hierarchies, if preferred) of living Wise Men 
mortals notwithstanding that Wisdom who reject every approach to st/pernatura//sm. 

3 But where is the proof that the Ancients did not mean precisely that which the Theosophists 
claim ? Records exist for what they say, just as other records exist for what Mr. Gerald Massey says. 
His interpretations are very correct, but are also very one-sided. Surely Nature has more than one 
physical aspect ; for Astronomy, Astrology, and so on, are all on the physical, not the spiritual, plane. 

4 The Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 318. It is to be feared that Mr. Massey has not succeeded. We 
have our followers as he has his followers, and Materialistic Science steps in and takes little account of 
both his and our speculations ' 

'' The fact that this learned Egyptologist does not recognize in the doctrine of the " Seven Souls," 
as he terms our " principles," or " metaphysical ' concepts,' " anything but " the primitive biology or 
physiology of the soul," does not invalidate our argument. The lecturer touches on only two keys, 
those that unlock the astronomical and the phys-ological mysteries of Esotericism, and leaves out the 
other five. Otherwise he would have promptly understood that what he calls the physiological divi- 
sions of the living Soul of man, are regarded by Theosophists as also psychological and spiritual. 

"Op. cit., p. 2. 7 Ibid., loc. cit. 



THE SEVEN SOULS OF JHE EGYPTOLOGISTS . 



203 



So it was with the Aryans. One has but to read the Puranas about the 
beginnings of Brahma and his Egg, to see this. Have the Aryans then, taken 
the idea from the Egyptians ? But, as the lecturer proceeds : 

The earliest forces recognized in Nature were reckoned as seven in number. 
These became Seven Elementals, devils [?], or later divinities. Seven properties were 
assigned to Nature as matter, cohesion, fluxion, coagulation, accumulation, station, and 
division and seven elements or souls to man. [ 

All this was taught in the Esoteric Doctrine, but it was interpreted 
and its mysteries unlocked, as already stated, with seven, not two or, 
at the utmost, three keys ; hence the causes and their effects worked in 
invisible or mystic as well as in psychic Nature, and were made refer- 
able to Metaphysics and Psychology as much as to Physiology. As the 
-author says : 

A principle of seven/ng, so to say, was introduced, and the number seven sup- 
plied a sacred type that could be used for manifold purposes* 

And it was so used. For : 

The seven souls of the Pharaoh are often mentioned in the Egyptian texts. . . . 
Seven souls, or principles in man were identified by our British Druids. . . . The 
Rabbis also ran the number of souls up to seven ; so, likewise, do the Karens of 
India. 3 

And then, the author, with several misspellings, tabulates the two teach- 
ings the Esoteric and the Egyptian and shows that the latter had the same 
series and in the same order. 



[ESOTERIC] INDIAN 

1 . Rupa, body or element of form. 

2. Prana, the breath of fife. 

3. Astral body. 

4. Manas, or intelligence. 4 

5. Kama Rupa, or animal soul. 

6. Buddhi, or spiritual soul. 

7. Atma, pure spirit. 



EGYPTIAN 

1. Kha, body. 

2. Ba, the soul of breath. 

3. Khaba, the shade. 

4. Akhu, intelligence or perception. 

5. Seb, ancestral soul. 

6. Putan, the first intellectual father. 

7. Atmu, a divine, or eternal soul/' 



1 Ibid., loc. cit. 



2 Ibid., loc. cit. 



3 Ibid., p. 4. 



4 This is a great mistake made in the Esoteric enumeration. Manas is the fifth, not the fourth ; 
.and Manas corresponds precisely with Seb, the Egyptian fifth principle, for that portion of Manas 
which follows the two higher principles, is the ancestral soul, indeed, the bright, immortal thread of 
.the higher Ego, to which clings the spiritual aroma of all the lives or births. 

5 Ibid., p. 2. 



204 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Further on, the lecturer formulates these seven (Egyptian) Souls, as (1) 
The Soul of Blood the formative ; (2) The Soul of Breath that breathes ; (3) 
The Shade or Covering Soul that envelopes ; (4) The Soul of Perception 
that perceives ; (5) The Soul of Pubescence that procreates ; (6) The Intel- 
lectual Soul that reproduces intellectually ; and (7) The Spiritual Soul that 
is perpetuated permanently. 

From the exoteric and physiological standpoint this may be very correct ; 
it becomes less so from the Esoteric point of view. To maintain this, does 
not at all mean that the " Esoteric Buddhists" resolve men into a number of 
elementary spirits, as Mr. G. Massey, in the same lecture, accuses them of 
maintaining. No "Esoteric Buddhist" has ever been guilty of any such 
absurdity. Nor has it been ever imagined that these shadows " become 
spiritual beings in another world," or "seven potential spirits or elementaries 
of another life." What is maintained is simply that every time the immortal 
Ego incarnates it becomes as a total, a compound unit of Matter and Spirit, 
which together act on seven different planes of being and consciousness. 
Elsewhere, Mr. Gerald Massey adds : 

The seven souls [our "principles"] . . . are often mentioned in the Egyptian 
texts. The moon-god, Taht-Esmun, or the later sun-god, expressed the seven nature- 
powers that were prior to himself, and were summed up in him as his seven souls [we 
say "principles"]. . . . The seven stars in the hand of the Christ in Revelation, have 
the same significance. 1 

And a still greater one, as these stars represent also the seven keys of 
the Seven Churches or the SODALIAN MYSTERIES, kabalistically. However, we 
will not stop to discuss, but add that other Egyptologists have also discovered 
that the septenary constitution of man was a cardinal doctrine with the old 
Egyptians. In a series of remarkable articles in the Sphinx (Munich), Herr 
Franz Lambert gives incontrovertible proof of his conclusions from the 
Book of the Dead and other Egyptian records. For details the reader 
must be referred to the articles themselves, but the following diagram,, 
summing up the author's conclusions, is demonstrative evidence of the 
identity of Egyptian Psychology with the septenary division in Esoteric 
Buddhism. 

On the left hand side the kabalistic names of the corresponding human 
principles are placed, and on the right the hieroglyphic names with their ren- 
derings as in the diagram of Franz Lambert. 

1 Ibid., pp. 2,3. 



THE SEVEN SOULS OF THE EGYPTOLOGISTS 



205 



KABALAH 



HIEROGLYPHICS 



Upper circle: 
Tzelem of 
Neshamah 



Yechida 



Chayah 



Neshamah 



Middle circle:] 



Middle circle: 
Tzelem of [Roach 1 
Ruach J 



Nephesh 



Lower circle: 
Tzelem of 
Nephesh 



Kuch 
ha 
Guf 



Guf 




Chu Divine Spirit 



Cheybi Spiritual Soul 



u . (Intellectual Soul, 
Bai | the Intelligence. 



a, [The Heart, 
t/T: {Feeling, 
Hatl [Animal SouL 

(The Astral Body, 
Ka (Evestrum, 
(Sidereal Man. 



f Vital Force, 
Anch \ Archaeus, 
Mumia. 



Chat The Elementary Body 



This is a very fair representation of the number of the " principles" of 
Occultism, but much confused ; and this is what we call the seven ' 'principles" 
in man, and what Mr. Massey calls "souls," giving the same name to the Ego 
or the Monad which reincarnates and " resurrects," so to speak, at each 
rebirth, as the Egyptians did, namely the "Renewed." But how can Ruach 
(Spirit) be lodged in Kama Rupa ? What does Bohme, the prince of all the 
mediaeval seers, say? 

We find seven especial properties in nature whereby this only Mother wrrks all 
things [which he calls fire, light, sound (the upper three) and desire, bitterness, anguish, 
and substantiality, thus analyzing the lower in his own mystic way] ; whatever the six 
forms are spiritually that the seventh [the body or substantiality] is essentially. These 
are the seven forms of the Mother of all Beings, from whence all that is in this world is 
generated. 2 

1 There seems a confusion, lasting for many centuries, in the minds of Western Kabalists. They 
-call Ruach (Spirit) what we call Kama Rupa ; whereas, with us, Ruach would be the " Spiritual Soul," 
Buddhi, and Nephesh the fourth principle, the Vital, Animal Soul. liphas Levi falls into the same 



- S/gnatura Rerum, xiv, pars. 10, 14, 15 ; The Natural Genesis, Vol. i, p. 317. 



206 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

And again : 

The Creator hath, in the body of this world, generated himself as it were crea- 
ture/y in his qualifying or Fountain Spirits, and all the stars are . . . God's powers, and 
the whole body of this world consisteth in the seven qualifying or fountain spirits. 1 

This is rendering in mystical language our Theosophical doctrine. But 
how can we agree with Mr. Gerald Massey when he states that : 

The Seven Races of Men that have been sublimated and made Planetary [?] by 
Esoteric Buddhism, * may be met with in the Bundahish as (1) the earth-men ; (2) water- 
men ; (3) breast-eared men ; (4) breast-eyed men ; (5) one-legged men ; (6) bat- 
winged men ; (?) men with tails. 1 

Each of these descriptions, allegorical and even perverted in their later 
form, is, nevertheless, an echo of the SECRET DOCTRINE teaching. They all 
refer to the pre-human evolution of the "Water-men terrible and bad" by 
unaided Nature through millions of years, as previously described. But we 
deny point-blank the assertion that "these were never real races," and point 
to the Archaic STANZAS for our answer. It is easy to infer and to say that our 
" instructors have mistaken these shadows of the Past, for things human and 
spiritual "; but that " they are neither, and never were either," it is less easy 
to prove. The assertion must ever remain on a par with the Darwinian claim 
that man and the ape had a common pithecoid ancestor. What the lecturer 
takes for a " mode of expression " and nothing more, in the Egyptian Ritual, 
we take as having quite another and an important meaning. Here is one 
instance. Says the Ritual, the Book of trie Dead : 

" I am the mouse." " I am the hawk." " I am the ape." ... "I am the 
crocodile whose soul comes from MEN " . . . " / am the soul of the gods." * 

The last sentence but one is explained by the lecturer, who says paren- 
thetically, "that is, as a type of intelligence,'' and the last as meaning, "the 
Horus, or Christ, as the outcome of all." 

The Occult Teaching answers : It means far more. . . . 

It gives first of all a corroboration of the teaching that, while the human 
Monad has passed on Globe A and others, in the First Round, through all the 
three kingdoms the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal in this our 
Fourth Round, every mammal has sprung from Man, if the semi-ethereal, 
many-shaped creature with the human Monad in it, of the first two Races, car> 
be regarded as Man. But it must be so called ; for, in the Esoteric language, 
it is not the form of flesh, blood, and bones, now referred to as man, which 

1 Aurora, ch. xxiv, p. 27. 

- This is indeed news ! It makes us fear that the lecturer had never read Esoteric Buddhism be- 
fore criticizing it. There are too many such misconceptions in his notices of it. 
: < " The Seven Souls of Man," pp. 26-7. 4 Ibid., p. 26. 



THE SEVEN SOULS OF THE EGYPTOLOGISTS 207 

is in any way the MAN, but the inner divine MONAD with its manifold principles 
or aspects. 

The lecture referred to, however, much as it opposes Esoteric Buddhism 
and its teachings, is an eloquent answer to those who have tried to represent 
the whole as a new-fangled doctrine. And there are many such, in Europe, 
America, and even India. Yet, between the Esotericism of the old Arhats, 
and that which has now survived in India among the few Brahmans who have 
seriously studied their Secret Philosophy, the difference does not appear so> 
very great. It seems centred in, and limited to, the question of the order of 
the evolution of cosmic and other principles, more than anything else. At all 
events it is no greater divergence than the everlasting question of the filioque- 
dogma, which since the eighth century has separated the Roman Catholic from* 
the older Greek Eastern Church. Yet, whatever the differences in the forms 
in which the septenary dogma is presented, the substance is there, and its- 
presence and importance in the Brahmanical system may be judged by what 
one of India's learned metaphysicians and Vedantic scholars says of it : 

The real esoteric seven-fold classification is one of the most important, if not the 
most important classification, which has received its arrangement from the mysterious, 
constitution of this eternal type. I may also mention in this connection that the four- 
fold classification claims the same origin. The light of life, as it were, seems to be 
refracted by the treble-faced prism of Praknti, having the three Gunams for its three 
faces, and divided into seven rays, which develop in course of time the seven principles 
of this classification. The progress of development presents some points of similarity to 
the gradual development of the rays of the spectrum. While the four-fold classification 
is amply sufficient for all practical purposes, this real seven-fold classification is of great 
theoretical and scientific importance. It will be necessary to adopt it to explain certain 
classes of phenomena noticed by occultists ; and it is perhaps better fitted to be the 
basis of a perfect system of psychology. It is not the peculiar property of the " Trans- 
Himalayan Esoteric Doctrine." In fact, it has a closer connection with the Bra"h- 
manical Logos than with the Buddhist Logos. In order to make my meaning clear 
I may point out here that the Logos has seven forms. In other words, there are seven- 
kinds of Logoi in the Cosmos. Each of these has became the central figure of one of 
the seven main branches of the ancient Wisdom-Religion. This classification is not the 
seven-fold classification we have adopted. I make this assertion without the slightest 
fear of contradiction. The real classification has all the requisites of a scientific classifi- 
cation. It has seven distinct principles, which correspond with seven distinct states of 
Prajna or consciousness. It bridges the gulf between the objective and subjective, and 
indicates the mysterious circuit through which ideation passes. The seven principles 
are allied to seven states of matter, and to seven forms of force. These principles 
are harmoniously arranged between two poles, which define the limits of human 
consciousness. 1 

The above is perfectly correct, save, perhaps, on one point. The 
" sevenfold classification " in the Esoteric System has never (to the writer's, 

1 The Jheosophist. 1887, pp. 705-6. 



208 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

knowledge) been claimed by any one belonging to it, as " the peculiar 
property of the ' Trans-Himalayan Esoteric Doctrine ' " ; but only as having 
survived in that old School alone. It is no more the property of the Trans-, 
than it is of the Cis-Himalayan Esoteric Doctrine, but is simply the common 
inheritance of all such Schools, left to the Sages of the Fifth Root Race by 
the great Siddhas ] of the Fourth. Let us remember that the Atlanteans be- 
came the terrible sorcerers, now celebrated in so many of the oldest MSS. of 
India, only toward their " Fall," whereby the submersion of their Continent 
was brought on. What is claimed is simply that the Wisdom imparted by 
the " Divine Ones " born through the Kriyashaktic powers of the Third Race 
before its Fall and separation into sexes to the Adepts of the early Fourth 
Race, has remained in all its pristine purity in a certain Brotherhood. The 
said School or Fraternity being closely connected with a certain island of an 
inland sea believed in by both Hindus and Buddhists, but called " mythical " 
by Geographers and Orientalists the less one talks of it, the wiser he will be. 
Nor can one accept the said " seven-fold classification " as having " a closer 
connection with the Brahmanical Logos than with the Buddhist Logos," since 
both are identical, whether the one Logos is called Ishvara or Avalokiteshvara, 
Brahma or Padmapani. These are, however, very small differences, more 
fanciful than real, in fact. Brahmanism and Buddhism, both viewed from 
their orthodox aspects, are as inimical and as irreconcilable as water and oil. 
Each of these great bodies, however, has a vulnerable place in its constitution. 
While even in their esoteric interpretation both can agree but to disagree, 
once that their respective vulnerable points are confronted, every disagree- 
ment must fall, for the two will find themselves on common ground. The 
" Achilles' heel " of orthodox Brahmanism is the Advaita philosophy, whose 
followers are called by the pious " Buddhists in disguise " ; as that of orthodox 
Buddhism is Northern Mysticism, as represented by the disciples of the philo- 
sophies of the Yogacharya School of Aryasanga and the Mahayana, who are 
twitted in their turn by their co-religonists as " Vedantins in disguise." The 
Esoteric Philosophy of both these can be but one if carefully analyzed and 
compared, as Gautama Buddha and Shankaracharya are most closely connected, 
if one believes tradition and certain Esoteric Teachings. Thus every difference 
between the two will be found one of form rather than of substance. 

1 According to Shvetasfivatara-Upan/shad (ch. i, vs. 3, 5, 7) the Siddhas are those who are 
possessed from birth of "superhuman" powers, as also of "knowledge and indffference to the 
world." According to the Occult teachings, however, the Siddhas are Nirmanakayas or the " spirits " 
-in the sense of an individual, or conscious spirit of great Sages from spheres on a higher plane 
than our own, who voluntarily incarnate in mortal bodies in order to help the human race in its upward 
progress Hence their innate knowledge, wisdom and powers. 



THE SEVEN SOULS OF THE EGYPTOLOGISTS 209 

A most mystic discourse, full of septenary symbology, may be found in 
the Anugita. 1 There the Brahmana narrates the bliss of having crossed 
beyond the regions of illusion : 

lw which fancies are the gadflies and mosquitoes, in which grief and joy are cold 
and heat, in which delusion is the blinding darkness, in which avarice is the beasts of 
prey and reptiles, in which desire and anger are the obstructors. 

The sage describes the entrance into and exit from the forest a symbol 
for man's life-time and also that forest itself : " 

In that forest are seven large trees [the senses, mind and understanding, or 
Manas and Buddhi, included], seven fruits, and seven guests ; seven hermitages, seven 
(forms of) concentration, and seven (forms of) initiation. This is the description of the 
forest. That forest is filled with trees producing splendid flowers and fruits of five 



The senses, says the commentator : 

Are called trees, as being producers of the fruits . . . pleasures and pains 
. . . ; the guests are the powers of each sense personified they receive the fruits 
above described ; the hermitages are the trees ... in which the guests take 
shelter ; the seven forms of concentration are the exclusion from the self of the 
seven functions of the seven senses, etc., already referred to ; the seven forms of 
.initiation refer to the initiation into the higher life, by repudiating as not one's own the 
actions of each member out of the group of seven. 3 

The explanation is harmless, if unsatisfactory. Says the Brahmana, 
continuing his description : 

That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of four colours. That 
forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of three colours, and mixed. That 
forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of two colours, and of beautiful 
colours. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of one colour, and 
fragrant. That forest is filled [instead of with seven] with two large trees producing 
numerous flowers and fruits of undistinguished colours [mind and understanding _ the 
two higher senses, or theosophically, Manas and Buddhi]. There is one fire [the Self] 
here, connected with the Brahman, 4 and having a good mind [or true knowledge, 
according to Arjuna Mishra]. And there is fuel here, (namely) the five senses [or 
human passions]. The seven (forms of) emancipation from them are the seven (forms 
of) initiation. The qualities are the fruits. . . . There . . . the great sages receive 
hospitality. And when they have been worshipped and have disappeared, another forest 
shines forth, in which intelligence is the tree, and emancipation the fruit, and which 
possesses shade (in the form of) tranquillity, which depends on knowledge, which has 
contentment for its water, and which has the Kshetrajna J within for the sun.' ; 

1 The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. viii, 284, et seq. 

3 I propose to follow here the text and not the editor's commentaries, who accepts Arjuna Mishra 
nd Nilakantha's dead letter explanations. Our Orientalists never trouble to think that if a Hindu 
commentator is a non-initiate, he could not explain correctly, and if an Initiate, would not. 

:l See Chhandogya, p. 219, and Shankara's commentary thereupon. [In Sacred Books of the East, 
Anugita.] 

4 The editor explains here, saying, " I presume devoted to the Brahman." We venture to assert 
that the " Fire " or Self is the real Higher SELF " connected with," that is to say one with Brahma^ 
<tne One Deity. The " Self " separates itself no longer from the Universal Spirit. 

' The " Supreme Self," says Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, [Sacred Books ol the East], pp. 105, 
t seq. 

* Ibid., 285, etseq. 

F 14 



210 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Now, all the above is very plain, and no Theosophist, even among the 
east learned, can fail to understand the allegory. And yet, we see great 
Drientalists making a perfect mess of it in their explanations. The " great 
;ages " who receive hospitality " are explained as meaning the senses, '* which, 
laving worked as unconnected with the self are finally absorbed into it." But 
>ne fails to understand, if the senses are " unconnected " with the " Higher 
>elf," in what manner they can be " absorbed into it." One would think, on 
he contrary, that it is just because the personal senses gravitate and strive to 
>e connected with the impersonal Self, that the latter, which is FIRE, burns the 
Dwer five and purifies thereby the higher two, " mind and understanding," or 
he higher aspects of Manas 1 and Buddhi. This is quite apparent from the 
ext. The " great sages " disappear after having " been worshipped." Wor- 
hipped by whom if they (the presumed senses) are " unconnected with the 
elf " ? By MIND, of course ; by Manas (in this case merged in the sixth sense) 
fhich is not, and cannot be, the Brahman, the Self, or Kshetrajna the Soul's 
piritual Sun. Into the latter, in time, Manas itself must be absorbed. It has 
worshipped " great sages " and given hospitality to terrestrial wisdom ; but 
>nce that " another -forest shone forth " upon it, it is Intelligence (Buddhi, the 
eventh sense, but sixth principle) which is transformed into the Tree that 
ree whose fruit is emancipation which finally destroys the very roots of the 
^shvattha tree, the symbol of life and of its illusive joys and pleasures. And 
herefore, those who attain to that state of emancipation have, in the words 
f the above-cited Sage, "no fear afterwards." In this state "the end 
annot be perceived because it extends on all sides." 

" There always dwell seven females there," he goes on to say, carrying 
>ut the imagery. These females who, according to Arjuna Mishra, are the 
4ahat, Ahamkara and five Tanmatras have always their faces turned down- 
yards, as they are obstacles in the way of spiritual ascension. 

In that same [Brahman, the Self] the seven perfect sages, together with their 
:hiefs, . . . abide, and again emerge from the same. Glory, brilliance and greatness, 
enlightenment, victory, perfection and power these seven rays follow after this same 
;un [Kshetrajna, the Higher Self]. . . . Those whose wishes are reduced [the unselfish] ; 
. . whose sins [passions] are burnt up by penance, merging the self in the self, 2 devote 
.hemselves to Brahman. Those people who understand the forest of knowledge 

1 As Mahat, or Universal Intelligence, is first born, or manifests, as Vishnu, and then, when it falls 
nto Matter and develops self-consciousness, becomes egoism, selfishness, so Manas is of a dual nature 
t is respectively under the Sun and Moon, for as Shankaracharya savs : " The moon is the mind, and 
he sun the understanding." The Sun and Moon are the deities of our planetary Macrocosmos, and 
heref ore Shankara adds that : ' ' The mind and the understanding are the respective deities of the 
human] organs," (See Brihadaranyaka, pp. 521, et seq.) This is perhaps why Arjuna Mishra says 
hat the Moon and the Fire (the Self, the Sun) constitute the universe. 

The body in the soul," as Arjuna Mishra is credited with saying, or rather " the soul in the 
pirit " , and on a still higher plane of development, the Self or Atman in the Universal Self. 



THE SEVEN SOULS OF THE EGYPTOLOGISTS 21 1 

[Brahman, or the Self], praise tranquillity. And aspiring to that forest, they are [re-] 
born so as not to lose courage. Such, indeed, is thus holy forest. . . . And understand* 
ing it, they [the sages] act (accordingly), being directed by the Kshetrajna. 1 

No translator among the Western Orientalists has yet perceived in the 
foregoing allegory anything higher than mysteries connected with sacrificial 
ritualism, penance, or ascetic ceremonies, and Hatha Yoga. But he who 
understands symbolical imagery, and hears the voice of SELF WITHIN SELF, will 
see in this something far higher than mere ritualism, however often he may 
err in minor details of the Philosophy. 

And here we must be allowed a last remark. No true Theosophist, 
from the most ignorant up to the most learned, ought to claim infallibility 
for anything he may say or write upon Occult matters. The chief point is 
to admit that, in many a way, in the classification of either cosmic or humar> 
principles, in addition to mistakes in the order of evolution, and especially 
on metaphysical questions, those of us who pretend to teach others more 
ignorant than ourselves are all liable to err. Thus mistakes have been made 
in Isis Unveiled, in Esoteric Buddhism, in Man, in Magic : White and Black, 
etc., and more than one mistake is likely to be found in the present work. 
This cannot be helped For a large or even a small work on such abstruse 
subjects to be entirely exempt from error and blunder, it would have 
to be written from its first to its last page by a great Adept, if not by an. 
Avatara. Then only should we say, " This is verily a work without sin or 
blemish in it!" But so long as the artist is imperfect, how can his work 
be perfect? "Endless is the search for truth!" Let us love it and 
aspire to it for its own sake, and not for the glory or benefit a minute 
portion of its revelation may confer on us. For who of us can presume to 
have whole truth at his fingers' ends, even upon one minor teaching of 
Occultism ? 

Our chief point in the present subject, however, has been to show that 
the septenary doctrine, or division of the constitution of man, was a very 
ancient one, and was not invented by us. This has been successfully done, 
for we are supported in this, consciously and unconsciously, by a number of 
ancient, medieval, and modern writers. What the former said, was well 
said ; what the latter repeated, has generally been distorted. An instance : 
Read the Pythagorean Fragments, and study the septenary man as given by 
the Rev. G. Oliver, the learned Mason, in his Pythagorean Triangle, who 
speaks as follows : 

The Theosophic Philosophy . . . counted seven properties [or principles] in 
man viz. : 

1 Ibid., p. 288. 



212 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

(1) The divine golden man. 

(2) The inward holy body from fire and light, like pure silver. 

(3) The elemental man. 

(4) The mercurial . . . paradisiacal man. 

(5) The martial soul-like man. 

(6) The venerine, ascending to the outward desire, 1 

(7) The solar man, [a witness to and] an inspector of the wonders of God [the 
Universe]. 

They had also seven fountain spirits or powers of nature. 2 

Compare this jumbled account and distribution of Western Theosophic 
Philosophy with the latest Theosophic explanations by the Eastern School of 
Theosophy, and then decide which is the more correct. Verily : 

Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars* 

As to the charge that our School has not adopted the sevenfold 
classification of the Brahmans, but has confused it, this is quite unjust. To 
begin with, the " School " is one thing, its exponents (to Europeans) quite 
another. The latter have first to learn the A B C of practical Eastern 
Occultism, before they can be made to understand correctly the tremendously 
abstruse classification based on the seven distinct states of Prajna or Con- 
sciousness ; and, above all, to realize thoroughly what Prajna is, in Eastern 
metaphysics. To give a Western student that classification is to try to make 
him suppose that he can account for the origin of consciousness, by accounting 
for the process by which a certain knowledge, though only one of the states 
of that consciousness, came to him ; in other words, it is to make him account 
for something he knows on this plane, by something he knows nothing about 
on the other planes ; i.e., to lead him from the spiritual and the psychological, 
direct to the ontological. This is why the primary, old classification was 
adopted by the Theosophists of which classifications in truth there are many. 

To busy oneself, after such a tremendous number of independent 
witnesses and proofs have been brought before the public, with an additional 
enumeration from theological sources, would be quite useless. The seven 
capital sins and seven virtues of the Christian scheme are far less philosophical 
than even the Seven Liberal and the Seven Accursed Sciences or the Seven 
/Vrts of Enchantment of the Gnostics. For one of the latter is now before 
the public, pregnant with danger in the present as for the future. The 
ircodern name for it is Hypnotism ; used as it is by scientific and ignorant 
Materialists, in the general ignorance of the seven principles, it will soon 
Decome Satanism in the full acceptation of the term. 

1 The passionate man of desires in the 1888 edition. - Op, cit., p. 179. 3 Prov., ix, 1. 



VOLUME 4 
PART 3 

ADDENDA 

SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED 



The knowledge of this nether world 
Say, friend, what is it, false or true? 

The false, what mortal cares to know ? 
The true, what mortal ever knew? 



ADDENDA 

SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE 
SECTION 1 

ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? 

WHENEVER the question of the Origin of Man is offered seriously to an 
unbiassed, honest, and earnest man of Science, the answer comes invariably : 
"We do not know." De Quatrefages with his agnostic attitude is one of 
such Anthropologists. 

This does not imply that the rest of the men of Science are neither fair- 
minded nor honest, as such a remark would be questionably discreet. But it 
is estimated that 75 per cent, of European Scientists are Evolutionists. Are 
these representatives of modern thought all guilty of flagrant misrepresenta- 
tion of the facts ? No one says this but there are a few very exceptional 
cases. However, the Scientists, in their anti-clerical enthusiasm and in desp'air 
of any alternative theory to Darwinism except that of "special creation," are 
unconsciously insincere in "forcing" a hypothesis the elasticity of which is 
inadequate, and which resents the severe strain to which it is now subjected. 
Insincerity on the same subject is, however, patent in ecclesiastical circles. 
Bishop Temple has come forward as a thorough-going supporter^of Darwinism 
in his Religion and Science. This clerical writer goes so far as to regard 
Matter after it has received its "primal impress" as the unaided evolver 
of all cosmic phenomena. This view only differs from that of Haeckel, in 
postulating a hypothetical Deity at "the back of beyond," a Deity which 
stands entirely aloof from the interplay of forces. Such a metaphysical entity 
is no more the Theological God than is that of Kant. Bishop Temple's truce 
with materialistic Science is, in our opinion, impolitic apart from the fact that 
it involves a total rejection of the biblical cosmogony. In the presence of 



216 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

this display of flunkeyism before the materialism of our "learned " age, we 
Occultists can but smile. But how about loyalty to the Master such theologi- 
cal truants profess to serve Christ, and Christendom at large ? 

However, we have no desire, for the present, to throw down the 
gauntlet to the clergy, our business being now with materialistic Science alone. 
The latter, in the person of its best representatives, answers to our question, 
" We do not know ; " yet the majority of them act as though Omniscience 
were their heirloom, and they knew all things. 

For, indeed, this negative reply has not prevented the majority of 
Scientists from speculating on the question, each seeking to have his own 
special theory accepted to the exclusion of all others. Thus, from Maillet in 
1748, down to Haeckel in 1870, theories on the origin of the human race have 
differed as much as the personalities of their inventors themselves. Buffon, 
Bory de St. Vincent, Lamarck, E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Gaudry, Naudin, 
Wallace, Darwin, Owen, Haeckel, Filippi, Vogt, Huxley, Agassiz, etc., each has 
evolved a more or less scientific hypothesis of genesis. De Quatrefages 
arranges these theories in two principal groups one based on a rapid, and 
the other on a very gradual transmutation ; the former favouring a new type 
(man) produced by a being entirely different, the latter teaching the evolution 
of man by progressive differentiations. 

Strangely enough, it is from the most scientific of these authorities that 
has emanated the most unscientific of all the theories upon the subject of the 
Origin of Man. This is now so evident, that the hour is rapidly approaching 
when the current teaching about the descent of man from an ape-like mam- 
mal will be regarded with less respect than the formation of Adam out of clay, 
and of Eve out of Adam's rib. For 

It is evident, especially after the most fundamental principles of Darwinism, that 
an organized being cannot be a descendant of another whose development is in an 
inverse order to its own. Consequently, in accordance with these principles, man can- 
not be considered as the descendant of any simian type whatever. 1 

Lucae's argument versus the Ape- theory, based on the different flexures 
of the bones constituting the axis of the skull in the cases of mart and the 
anthropoids, is fairly discussed by Schmidt. He admits that : 

The ape as he grows becomes more bestial ; man . . . more human 
and seems, indeed, to hesitate a moment before he passes on : 

This flexure of the cranial axis may, therefore, still be emphasized as a human* 
character, in contradistinction to the apes ; the peculiar characteristic of an order can 

1 De Quatrefages, The Human Species, p. 111. The respective developments of the human and' 
simian brains are referred to. "In the ape the temporo-sphenoidal convolutions, which form the 
middle lobe, make their appearance and are completed before the anterior convolutions which form, 
the frontal lobe. In man, on the contrary, the frontal convolutions are the first to appear, and those 
pf the middle lobe are formed later." (Ibid.) 



ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? 217" 

scarcely be elicited from it ; and especially as to the doctrine of descent, this circum- 
stance seems in no way decisive. 1 

The writer is evidently not a little disquieted by his own argument. He 
assures us that it upsets any possibility of the present apes having been the 
progenitors of mankind. But does it not also negative the bare possibility of 
the man and the anthropoid having had a common though, so far, an 
absolutely theoretical ancestor ? 

Even " Natural Selection " itself is with every day more threatened. 
The deserters from the Darwinian camp are many, and those who were at 
one time its most ardent disciples are, owing to new discoveries, slowly but 
steadily preparing to turn over a new leaf. In the Journal of the Royal Micro- 
scopical Society tor October, 1886, we may read as follows : 

PHYSIOLOGICAL SELECTION. Mr. G. J. Romanes finds certain difficulties in re- 
garding natural selection as a theory for the origin of species, as it is rather a theory of 
the origin of adaptive structures. He proposes to replace it by what he calls physio- 
logical selection, or segregation of the fit. His view is based on the extreme sensitiveness* 
of the reproductive system to small changes in the conditions of life, and he thinks that 
variations in the direction of greater or less sterility must frequently occur in wild- 
species. If the variation be such that the reproductive system, while showing some 
degree of sterility with the parent form, continues to be fertile within the limits of the- 
varietal form, the variation would neither be swamped by intercrossing nor die out on 
account of sterility. When a variation of this kind occurs, the physiological barrier must 
divide the species into two parts. The author, in fine, regards mutual sterility, not as 
one of the effects of specific differentiation, but as the cause of it. a 

An attempt is made to show the above to be a complement of, and 
sequence to, the Darwinian theory : This is a clumsy attempt at best. The 
public will soon be asked to believe that Mr. C. Dixon's Evolution without 
Natural Selection is also Darwinism expanded, as the author certainly claims 
it to be ! 

But it is like splitting the body of a man into three pieces, and then 
maintaining that each piece is the identical man he was before, only ex- 
panded. Yet the author states : 

Let it be clearly understood that not one single syllable in the foregoing pages 
has been written antagonistic to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. All I have done 
is to explain certain phenomena . . . the more one studies Darwin's works, the more 
one is convinced of the truth of his hypothesis [! !]. 3 

1 Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, p. 290. 

2 Series II, Vol. VI, p. 769 (Ed. 1886). To this an editorial remark adds that an " F.J.B.," in the 
Athenaeum (No. 3069, Aug. 21, 1886, pp. 242-3), points out that Naturalists have long recognized that 
there are " morphological " and " physiological " species. The former have their origin in men's 
minds, the latter in a series of changes sufficient to affect the internal as well as the external organs 
of a group of allied individuals. The " physiological selection " of morphological species is a con- 
fusion of ideas ; that of physiological species a redundancy of terms. 

3 Op. cit., p. 79. 



218 int SECRET DOCTRINE 

And before this, he alludes to : 

The overwhelming array of facts which Darwin gave in support of his hypothesis, 
and which triumphantly carried the theory of Natural Selection over all obstacles and 
objections. 1 

This does not prevent the learned author, however, from upsetting this 
theory as " triumphantly," and from even openly calling his work Evolution 
without Natural Selection, or, in so many words, with Darwin's fundamental 
idea knocked to atoms in it. 

As to Natural Selection itself, the utmost misconception prevails among 
many present-day thinkers, who tacitly accept the conclusions of Darwinism. 
It is, for instance, a mere device of rhetoric to credit Natural Selection with 
the power of originating species. Natural Selection is no Entity ; it is merely 
a convenient phrase for describing the mode in which the survival of the fit 
and the elimination of the unfit among organisms are brought about by the 
struggle for existence. Every group of organisms tends to multiply beyond 
the means of subsistence; the constant battle for life the " struggle to 
obtain enough to eat and to escape being eaten " added to the environ- 
mental conditions necessitates a perpetual weeding out of the unfit. The 
e//te of any stock, thus sorted out, propagate the species and transmit their 
organic characteristics to their descendants. All useful variations are thus 
perpetuated, and a progressive improvement is effected. But Natural Selec- 
tion in the writer's humble opinion, " Selection, as a Power " is in reality 
a pure myth ; especially when it is resorted to as an explanation of the Origin 
of Species. It is merely a representative term expressive of the manner in 
which " useful variations " are stereotyped when produced. Of itself, " it " can 
produce nothing, and only operates on the rough material presented to " it." The 
real question at issue is : What CAUSE combined with other secondary causes 
produces the " variations " in the organisms themselves ? Many of these secon- 
dary causes are purely physical climatic, dietary, etc. Very well. But beyond 
the secondary aspects of organic evolution, a deeper principle has to be 
sought for. The Materialist's " spontaneous variations," and " accidental 
divergencies " are self -contradictory terms in a universe of " Matter, Force 
and NECESSITY." Mere variability of type, apart from the supervisory presence 
of a quasi-intelligent impulse, is powerless to account for the stupendous com- 
plexities and marvels of the human body, for instance. The insufficiency of 
the Darwinists' mechanical theory has been exposed at length by Dr. Von 
Hartmann among other purely negative thinkers. It is an abuse of the reader's 
intelligence to write, as does Haeckel, of blind indifferent cells, " arranging 

1 Ibid., p. 48. 



ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? 219 

themselves into organs." The Esoteric solution of the origin of animal species 
is given elsewhere. 

Those purely secondary causes of differentiation, grouped under the 
head of sexual selection, natural selection, climate, isolation, etc., mislead the 
Western Evolutionist and offer no real explanation whatever of the " whence " 
of the " ancestral types " which served as the starting point for physical 
development. The truth is that the differentiating " causes " known to 
Modern Science only come into operation after the physicalization of the 
primeval animal root-types out of the astral. Darwinism only meets Evolution 
at its midway point that is to say, when astral evolution has given place to 
the play of the ordinary physical forces with which our present senses acquaint 
us. But even here the Darwinian Theory, even with the "expansions" 
recently attempted, is inadequate to meet the facts of the case. The cause 
underlying physiological variation in species one to which all other laws are 
subordinate and secondary v-is a sub-conscious intelligence pervading matter, 
ultimately traceable to a REFLECTION of the Divine and Dhyan-Chohanic 
wisdom. 1 A not altogether dissimilar conclusion has been arrived at by so 
well known a thinker as Ed. von Hartmann, who, despairing of the efficacy of 
unaided Natural Selection, regards Evolution as being intelligently guided by 
the UNCONSCIOUS the Cosmic Logos of Occultism. But the latter acts only 
mediately through FOHAT, or Dhyan-Chohanic energy, and not quite in the 
direct manner which the great pessimist describes. 

It is this divergence among men of Science, their mutual, and often 
their se/f-contradictions, that gives the writer of the present volumes the 
courage to bring to light other and older teachings if only as hypotheses for 
future scientific appreciation. So evident, even to the humble recorder of 
this archaic teaching, though not in any way very learned in modern Sciences, 
are the scientific fallacies and gaps, that she has determined to touch upon all 
these, in order to place the two teachings on parallel lines. For Occultism, 
it is a question of self-defence, and nothing more. 

So far, THE SECRET DOCTRINE has concerned itself with metaphysics, pure 
and simple. It has now landed on Earth, and finds itself within the domain of 
physical Science and practical Anthropology, or those branches of study which 
materialistic Naturalists claim as their rightful domain, coolly asserting, further- 
more, that the higher and more perfect the working of the Soul, the more 
amenable it is to the analysis and explanations of the Zoologist and the 

1 Nageli's " principle of perfectibility " , von de Baer's " striving towards the purpose " ; Braun's 
"divine breath as the inward impulse in the evolutionary history of Nature" ; Professor Owen's 
"tendency to perfectibility," etc., are all expressive of the veiled manifestations of the universal 
guiding Fohat, rich with the Divine and DhySn-Chohanic thought. 



220 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Physiologist alone. 1 This stupendous pretension comes from one, who, to 
prove his pithecoid descent, has not hesitated to include the Lemuridae among 
the ancestors of man ; these have been promoted by him to the rank of 
Prosimiae, indeciduate mammals, to which he very incorrectly contributes a 
decidua and a discoidal placenta." For this Haeckel was taken severely to 
task by de Quatrefages, and criticised by his own brother Materialists and 
Agnostics Virchow and du Bois-Reymond, as great, if not greater authorities, 
than himself. * 

Such opposition notwithstanding, Haeckel's wild theories are, to this day, 
still called by some scientific and logical. The mysterious nature of Conscious- 
ness, of Soul, of Spirit in Man being now explained as a mere advance on the 
functions of the protoplasmic molecules of the lively Protista, and the gradual 
evolution and growth of human mind and " social instincts " toward civilization* 
having to be traced back to their origin in the civilization of ants, bees, and 
other creatures the chances left for an impartial hearing of the doctrines of 
Archaic Wisdom are few indeed. The educated profane are told that : 

The social instincts of the lower animals have, of late, been regarded for various, 
reasons as clearly the origin of morals, even of those of man [?], . . 

and that our divine consciousness, our soul, intellect, and aspirations have 
worked their " way up from the lower stages of the simple cell-soul " of the 
gelatinous Bathybius* and they seem to believe it. For such men, the 
Metaphysics of Occultism must produce the effect that our grandest oratorios 
produce on the Chinaman sounds that jar upon their nerves. 

Yet, are our Esoteric teachings about " Angels," the first three pre- 
animal human Races, and the downfall of the Fourth, on a lower level of fiction 
and self-delusion than the Haeckelian " plastidular," or the inorganic " mole- 
cular souls of the Protista " ? Between the evolution of the spiritual nature of 
man from the above amoebian souls, and the alleged development of his 
physical frame from the protoplastic dweller in the ocean slime, there is an abyss 
which will not easily be crossed by any man in the full possession of his intel- 
lectual faculties. Physical Evolution, as modern Science teaches it, is a 

1 Haeckel on " Cell-Souls and Soul-Cells," Pedigree of Man, Aveling's Trans., see pp. 136, 150. 

2 See infra, M. de Quatrefages' expos4 of Hasckel, in Section II, " The Ancestors Mankind is 
offered by Science." 

3 Strictly speaking, du Bois-Reymond is an Agnostic, and not a Materialist. He has protested 
most vehemently against the materialistic doctrine, which affirms mental phenomena to be merely the 
product of molecular motion. The most accurate physiological knowledge of the structure of the brain 
leaves us " nothing but matter in motion," he asserts ; " we must 90 further, and admit the utterly 
incomprehensible nature of the psychical principle, which it is impossible to regard as a mere outcome 
of material causes." 

4 See Haackel's " Present Position of Evolution," op. cit., pp. 23, 24, 296, 297, notes. 



ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? 221 

subject for open controversy ; spiritual and moral development on the same 
lines is the insane dream of a crass Materialism. 

Furthermore, past as well as present daily experience teaches that no 
truth has ever been accepted by learned bodies unless it has dovetailed with 
the habitually preconceived ideas of their professors. "The crown of the 
.innovator is a crown of thorns " said Geoffrey St. Hilaire. It is only that 
which fits in with popular hobbies and accepted notions that as a general rule 
gains ground. Hence the triumph of the Haeckelian ideas, notwithstanding 
that they are proclaimed by Virchow, du Bois-Reymond, and others as the 
" testimonium paupertat/s of .Natural Science." 

Diametrically opposed as may be the materialism of the German Evolution- 
ists to the spiritual conceptions of Esoteric Philosophy, radically inconsistent as 
is their accepted anthropological system with the real facts of Nature the 
pseudo-idealistic bias now colouring English thought is almost more pernicious. 
The pure materialistic doctrine admits of a direct refutation and an appeal to 
the logic of facts. The Idealism of the present day, not only contrives to 
absorb, on the one hand, the basic negations of Atheism, but lands its votaries 
in a tangle of unreality, which culminates in a practical Nihilism. Argument 
with such writers is almost out of the question. Idealists, therefore, will be 
still more antagonistic than even the Materialists to the Occult teachings now 
given. But as no worse fate can befall the exponents of Esoteric Anthropo- 
genesis at the hands of their foes than being openly called by their old and 
time-honoured names of " lunatics " and ignoramuses," the present archaic 
theories may be safely added to the many modern speculations, and bide 
their time for their full or even partial recognition. Only, as the very exist- 
ence of these archaic theories will probably be denied, we have to give our 
best proofs and stand by them to the bitter end. 

In our race and generation the one " temple in the universe " is in rare 
cases within us ; but our body and mind have been too defiled by both 
" sin " and " science to be outwardly anything better now than a fane of 
iniquity and error. And here our mutual position that of Occultism and 
Modern Science ought to be once for all defined. 

We, Theosophists, are willing to bow before such men of learning as the 
late Prof. Balfour Stewart, Messrs. Crookes, de Quatrefages, Wallace, Agassiz, 
Butlerof, and others, though, from the stand-point of the Esoteric Philosophy, 
we may not agree with all they say. But nothing will make us consent to even 
a show of respect for the opinions of such other men of Science as Haeckel, 
Carl Vogt, or Ludwig Buchner, in Germany, or even Mr. Huxley and his co- 
thinkers in Materialism in England the colossal erudition of the first named, 



222 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

notwithstanding. Such men are simply the intellectual and moral murderers 
of future generations ; especially Haeckel, whose crass Materialism often rises 
to the height of idiotic naivetes in his reasonings. One has but to read his 
Pedigree of Man, and Other Essays (Aveling's translation) to feel a desire that, 
in the words of Job, his remembrance should perish from the Earth, and that 
he " shall have no name in the streets." Hear [the creator of the mythical 
Sozura] deriding the idea of the origin of the human race " as a supernatu- 
ral [?] phenomenon," as one 

That could not result from simple mechanical causes, from physical and chemical 
forces, but requires the direct intervention of a creative personality. . . . Now the 
central point of Darwin's teaching . . . lies in this, that it demonstrates the simplest 
mechanical causes, purely physico-chemical phenomena of nature, as wholly sufficient 
to explain the highest and most difficult problems. Darwin puts in the place of a con- 
scious creative force, building and arranging the organic bodies of animals and plants 
on a designed plan, a series of natural forces working blindly (as we say) without aim, 
without design. In place of an arbitrary act of operation, we have a necessary law of 
Evolution . . . [So had Manu and Kapila, and, at the same time, guiding, conscious 
and intelligent Powers]. Darwin very wisely . . . had put on one side the question as 
to the first appearance of life. But very soon that consequence, so full of meaning, 
so wide-reaching, was openly discussed by able and brave scientific men, such as 
Huxley, Carl Vogt, Ludwig Buchner. A mechanical origin of the earliest living form was 
held as the necessary sequence to Darwin's teaching ... we are at present only 
concerned with a single consequence of the theory, the natural origin of the human 
race through almighty Evolution. 1 

To this, unabashed by such a scientific farrago, Occultism replies : In the 
course of Evolution, when the physical triumphed over the spiritual and 
mental evolution, and nearly crushed it under its weight, the great gift of 
Kriyashakti remained the heirloom of only a few elect men in every age. 
Spirit strove vainly to manifest itself in its fulness in purely organic forms (as 
has been explained in Part 1 of Volume 3), and the faculty, which had been 
a natural attribute in the early humanity of the Third Race, became one of 
the class regarded as simply phenomenal by Spiritualists and Occultists, and as 
scientifically impossible by Materialists. 

In our modern day the mere assertion that there exists a power which 
can create human forms ready-made sbeatfis within which can incarnate 
the conscious Monads or Nirmanakayas of past Manvantaras is, of course, 
absurd, ridiculous ! That which is regarded as quite natural, on the other 
hand, is the production of a Frankenstein's monster, plus moral consciousness, 
religious aspirations, genius, and a feeling of his own immortal nature within 
himself by " physico-chemical forces," guided by blind " Almighty Evolution." 
As to the origin of that man, not ex nihilo, cemented by a little red clay, but 

1 Op. cit., pp. 34, 35, 36. 



ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? 223 

from a living divine Entity consolidating the Astral Body with surrounding 
materials such a conception is too absurd even to be mentioned, in the 
opinion of the Materialists. Nevertheless, Occultists and Theosophists are 
ready to have their claims and theories compared as to their intrinsic value 
and probability with those of the modern Evolutionists however unscientific 
and superstitious these theories may at the first glance appear. Hence 
the Esoteric teaching is absolutely opposed to the Darwinian evolution, as 
applied to man and partially so with regard to other species. 

It would be interesting to obtain a glimpse of the mental representation* 
of Evolution in the scientific brain of a Materialist. What is EVOLUTION ? If 
asked to define the full and complete meaning of the term, neither Huxley 
nor Haeckel will be able to do so any better than does Webster : 

The act of unfolding ; the process of growth, development ; as the evolution of 
a flower from a bud, or an animal from the egg. 

Yet the bud must be traced through its parent-plant to the seed* 
and the egg to the animal or bird that laid it ; or at any rate to the 
speck of protoplasm from which it expanded and grew. And both the seed 
and the speck must have the latent potentialities in them for the reproduction, 
and gradual development, the unfolding of the thousand and one forms or 
phases of evolution, through which they must pass before the flower or the 
animal is fully developed ? Hence, the future plan if not a DESIGN must be 
there. Moreover, that seed has to be traced, and its nature ascertained. 
Have the Darwinians been successful in this ? Or will the Moneron be cast irv 
our teeth ? But this atom of the Watery Abysses is not homogeneous matter ; 
and there must he something or somebody that had moulded and cast it into 
being. 

Here Science is once more silent. But since there is no self-conscious- 
ness as yet in speck, seed, or germ, according to both Materialists and ! 
Psychologists of the modern school Occultists agreeing in this for once with 
their natural enemies what is it that guides the force or forces so unerringly in 
this process of Evolution ? "Blind force " ? As well call " blind" the brain which 
evolved in Haeckel his Pedigree of Man and other lucubrations. We can 
easily conceive that the said brain lacks an important centre or two ; for 
whoever knows anything of the anatomy of the human, or even of any 
animal, body, and is still an Atheist and a Materialist, must be " hopelessly 
insane/' according to Lord Herbert, who rightly sees in the frame of man's 
body and the coherence of its parts, something so strange and paradoxical 
that he holds it to be the " greatest miracle of nature." Blind forces and 
" no design " in anything under the Sun ! When no sane man of Science 



-224 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

would hesitate to say that, even from the little he knows and has hitherto 
vdiscovered of the forces at work in Kosmos, he sees very plainly that every 
part, every speck and atom, are in harmony with their fellow atoms, and 
these with the whole, each having its distinct mission throughout the life- 
.cycle. But, fortunately, the greatest, the most eminent Thinkers and 
Scientists of the day are now beginning to rise against this " Pedigree," and 
-even against Darwin's Natural Selection theory, though its author had never, 
probably, contemplated such widely stretched conclusions. The Russian 
.scientist N. T. Danilevsky, in his remarkable work, Darwinism, a Critical 
.Investigation of the Theory, upsets such Darwinism completely and without 
.appeal, and so does de Quatrefages in his last work. Our readers are re- 
commended to examine the learned paper by Dr. Bourges, a member of the 
Paris Anthropological Society, read by its author at a recent meeting of that 
society and called " Evolutionary Psychology ; the Evolution of Spirit, etc." 
In it he completely reconciles the two teachings namely of physical and 
spiritual evolution. He explains the origin of the variety of organic forms 
.which are made to fit their environments with such evidently intelligent design 
by the existence and the mutual help and interaction of two Principles in 
manifested Nature, the inner conscious Principle adapting itself to physical 
Nature and the innate potentialities of the latter. Thus the French scientist 
has to return to our old friend Archaeus, or the Life-Principle without naming 
it as Dr. Richardson has done in England in his "Nerve-Force." The same 
idea was recently developed in Germany by Baron Hellenbach, in his remark- 
able work, Individuality in the Light of Biology and Modern Philosophy. 

We find the same conclusions arrived at in yet another excellent volume 
by a deep thinking Russian, N. N. Strachof, who says in his Fundamental Con- 
ceptions of Psychology and Physiology : 

The most clear, as the most familiar, type of development may be found in our 
own mental or physical evolution, which has served others as a model to follow. . . . 
If organisms are entities . . . then it is only just to conclude and assert that the organic 
life strives to beget psychic life ; but it would be still more correct and in accordance 
with the spirit of these two categories of evolution to say, that the true cause of organic 
We is the tendency of spirit to manifest in substantial forms, to clothe itself in substan- 
tial reality. It is the highest form which contains the complete explanation of the 
lowest, never the reverse. 

This is admitting, as Bourges does in the Memo/re above mentioned, 
the identity of this mysterious, integrally acting and organizing Principle with 
,the Self-Conscious and Inner Subject, which we call the EGO and the world at 
large the Soul. Thus all the best Scientists and Thinkers are gradually approach- 
.ing the Occultist in their general conclusions. 



ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? 225 

But such metaphysically inclined men of Science are out of court and 
will hardly be listened to. Schiller, in his magnificent poem on the Veil of Isis, 
makes the mortal youth who dared to lift the impenetrable covering fall down 
dead, after beholding the naked Truth in the face of the stern Goddess. 
Have some of our Darwinians, so tenderly united in natural selection and 
affinity, also gazed at the Saitic Mother bereft of her veils ? One might almost 
suspect it after reading their theories. Their great intellects must have 
collapsed while gauging too closely the uncovered face of Nature, leaving only 
the grey matter and ganglia in their brains to respond to blind physico- 
chemical forces. At any rate Shakespeare's lines apply admirably to our modern 
.Evolutionist, who symbolizes that " proud man," who 

Drest in a little brief authority, 

Most ignorant of what he's most assured, 

His glassy essence, like an angry ape, 

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 

As make the angels weep ! 1 

These have nought to do with the " Angels." Their only concern is 
with the human ancestor, the pithecoid Noah who gave birth to three sons 
the tailed Cynocephalus, the tailless Ape, and the "arboreal" Palaeolithic 
man. On this point, they will not be contradicted. Every doubt expressed 
is immediately set down as an attempt to cripple scientific enquiry. The 
insuperable difficulty at the very foundation of the Evolution theory, namely, 
that no Darwinian is able to give even an approximate definition of the period 
at which, and the form in which, the first man appeared, is smoothed down 
to a trifling impediment, which is "really of no account." Every branch of 
knowledge is in the same predicament, we are informed. The Chemist bases 
his most abstruse calculations simply 

upon a hypothesis of atoms and molecules, of which not one has ever been 
seen, isolated, weighed, or defined. The electrician speaks of magnetic fluids which 
have never tangibly revealed themselves. No definite origin can be assigned either to 
molecules or magnetism. Science cannot and does not pretend to any knowledge of 
the beginnings of law, matter, or life. 2 

And, withal, to reject a scientific hypothesis, however absurd, is to com- 
mit the one unpardonable sin ! We risk it. 



1 Measure for Measure, Act ii. Scene 2. 2 Knowledge, January, 1882* 

F 15 



SECTION 2 

THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE 

The question of questions for mankind the problem which underlies all others, and is more- 
deeply interesting than any other is the ascertainment of the place which man occupies in Nature,- 
and of his relations to the universe of things. 1 

THE world stands divided this 'day and hesitates between divine Progenitors 
be they Adam and Eve or the Lunar Pitris and Bathybius Haeckelii, the 
gelatinous hermit of the briny deep. Having explained the Occult theory, 
it may now be compared with that of modern Materialism. The reader is 
invited to choose between the two after having judged them on their re- 
spective merits. 

We may derive some consolation for the rejection of our Divine Ances- 
tors, in finding that the Haeckelian speculations receive no better treatment 
at the hands of strictly exact Science than do our own. Haeckel's Phylogenesis 
is no less laughed at by the foes of his fantastic evolution, by other and 
greater Scientists, than our primeval Races will be. As du Bois-Reymonrf 
puts it, we may believe him easily when he says that the 

Ancestral trees of our race sketched in the Schopfungsgeschichte are of about 
as much value as are the pedigrees of the Homeric heroes in the eyes of the his- 
torical critic. 

This settled, everyone will see that one hypothesis is as good as another. 
And as we find Haeckel himself confessing that neither Geology in its history 
of the past nor the ancestral history of organisms will ever " rise to the 
position of a real 'exact' science/' 2 a large margin is thus left to Occult 
Science to make its annotations and lodge its protests. The world is left to 
choose between the teachings of Paracelsus, the " father of modern chemistry/' 
and those of Haeckel, the ''father of the mythical Sozura/' We demandl 
no more. 

1 T Huxley, Man's Place in Nature, p. 77. 

2 Op* ck., " The Proofs of Evolution," p. 273. 



THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE 227 

Without presuming to take part in the quarrel of such very learned 
Naturalists as du Bois-Reymond and Haeckel apropos of our blood re- 
lationship to 

Those ancestors [of ours] which have led up from the unicellular classes, Vermes, 
Acrania, Pisces, Amphibia, Reptilia to the Aves 

~^-we may put a brief question or two, for the information of our readers. 
Availing ourselves of the opportunity, and bearing in mind Darwin's theories 
of Natural Selection, etc., we would ask Science with regard to the origin 
of the human and animal species which theory of Evolution of the two 
herewith described is the more scientific, or the more unscientific, if so 
preferred. 

(1) Is it that of an Evolution which starts from the beginning with 
sexual propagation ? 

(2) Or that teaching which shows the gradual development of organs ; 
their solidification, and the procreation of each species, at first by simple easy 
separation from one into two or even several individuals ; then a fresh develop* 
ment the first step to a species of separate distinct sexes the her- 
maphrodite condition ; then again, a kind of parthenogenesis, " virginal 
reproduction," when the egg-cells are formed within the body, issuing from 
it in atomic emanations and becoming matured outside of it ; until, finally, 
after a definite separation into sexes, the human beings begin procreating 
through sexual connection ? 

Of these two, the first "theory" or rather, "revealed fact" is 
enunciated by all the exoteric Bibles, except the Puranas, pre-eminently by 
the Jewish Cosmogony. The second is that which is taught by the Occult 
Philosophy, as has been explained. 

An answer is found to our question in a volume just published by 
Mr. Samuel Laing the best lay exponent of modern Science. 1 In Chapter 
viii of his work, A Modern Zoroastr/an, the author begins by twitting " all 
ancient religions and philosophies" for "assuming a male and female principle 
for their gods." At first sight, he says : 

this distinction of sex appears as fundamental as that of plant and animal. . . . 
The Spirit of God brooding over Chaos and producing the world, is only a later 
edition, revised according to monotheistic ideas, of the far older Chaldean legend 
which describes the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos by the co-operation of great 
gods, male and female. . . . Thus, in the orthodox Christian creed we are taught 
to repeat " begotten, not made," a phrase which is absolute nonsense, or non-sense 
that is, an instance of using words like counterfeit notes, which have no solid value 
of an idea behind them. For " begotten " is a very definite term, which implies the 
conjunction of two opposite sexes to produce a new individual. 8 

1 Author of Modern Science and Modern Thought. ~ Op. cit., pp. 102, 103. 



228 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

However we may agree with the learned author as to the inadvisability 
of using wrong words, and the terrible anthropomorphic and phallic element 
in the old Scriptures especially in the orthodox Christian B/6/e nevertheless 
there may be two extenuating circumstances in the case. Firstly, all these 
" ancient philosophies " and " modern religions " are as has been suffi- 
ciently shown in these Volumes an exoteric veil thrown over the face of 
Esoteric Truth; and as the direct result of this they are allegorical, i.e., 
mythological in form ; but still they are immensely more philosophical in 
essence than any of the new scientific theories, so-called. Secondly, from the 
Orphic Theogony down to Ezra's last remodelling of the Pentateuch, every old 
Scripture, having in its origin borrowed its facts from the East, has been 
subjected to constant alterations by friend and foe, until of the original version 
there has remained but the name, a dead shell from which the spirit had been 
gradually eliminated. 

This alone ought to show that no religious work now extant can be 
understood without the help of the Archaic Wisdom, the primitive foundation 
on which they were all built. 

But to return to the direct answer expected from Science to our direct 
question. It is given by the same author, when, following his train of thought 
on the unscientific euhemerization of the powers of Nature in ancient creeds, 
he pronounces a condemnatory verdict upon them in the following terms : 

Science, however, makes sad havoc with this impression of sexual generation 
being the original and only mode of reproduction, and the microscope and dissecting 
knife of the naturalist introduce us to new and altogether unsuspected [?] worlds of life. 

So little " unsuspected," indeed, that the original a-sexual " modes of 
reproduction " must have been known to the ancient Hindus, at any rate 
Mr. Laing's assertion to the contrary notwithstanding. In view of the statement 
in the Vishnu Parana, quoted by us elsewhere, that Daksha " established 
sexual intercourse as the means of multiplication," only after a series of other 
41 modes," which are all enumerated therein, 1 it becomes difficult to deny the 
fact. This assertion, moreover, is found, note well, in an exoteric work. Next, 
Mr. Laing goes on to tell us that : 

By far the larger proportion of living forms, in number at any rate if not in size, 
have come into existence, without the aid of sexual propagation. 

He then instances Haeckel's Moneron, " multiplying by self -division." 
The next stage the author shows in the nucleated cell, " which does exactly 
the same thing." The following stage is that in which 

The organism does not divide into two equal parts, but a small portion of 
it swells out . . . and finally parts company and starts on a separate existence, which 

1 Op. cit.. Vol. ii, p. 12. 



THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE 229 

grows to the size of the parent by its inherent faculty of manufacturing fresh protoplasm 
from surrounding inorganic materials. 1 

This is followed by a many-celled organism which is formed by 

Germ-buds reduced to spores, or single cells, which are emitted from the parent. 
. . . We are now at the threshold of that system of sexual propagation, which has 
[now] become the rule in all the higher families of animals . . . This organism, having 
advantages in the struggle for life, established itself permanently . . . and special organs 
developed to meet the altered conditions. Thus at length the distinction would be firmly 
established of a female organ or ovary containing the egg or primitive cell from which 
the new being was to be developed, and a male organ supplying the fertilizing spore or 
cell. . . . This is confirmed by a study of embryology, which shows that in the human 
and higher animal species the distinction of sex is not developed until a considerable 
progress has been made in the growth of the embryo. ... In the great majority of 
plants, and in some of the lower families of animals . . . the male and female organs are 
developed within the same being, and they are what is called hermaphrodites. Another 
transition form is Parthenogenesis, or virginal reproduction, in which germ-cells, ap- 
parently similar in all respects to egg-cells, develop themselves into new individuals, 
without any fructifying element.'" 

Of all this we are as perfectly well aware as we are aware that the above 
was never applied by the very learned English popularizer of Huxley-Haeckelian 
theories to the genus homo. He limits this to specks of protoplasm, plants, 
bees, snails, and so on. But if he would be true to the theory of descent, he 
must be as true to ontogenesis, in which the fundamental biogenetic law, we 
are told, runs as follows : 

The development of the embryo (ontogeny) is a condensed and abbreviated 
repetition of the evolution of the race (phylogeny). This repetition is the more com- 
plete, the more the true original order of evolution (palingenesis) has been retained by 
continual heredity. On the other hand, this repetition is the less complete, the more 
by varying adaptations the later spurious development (caenogenesis) has obtained. 3 

This shows us that every living creature and thing on Earth, including 
man, evolved from one common primal form. Physical man must have passed 
through the same stages of the evolutionary process in the various modes of 
procreation as other animals have done ; he must have divided himself ; then, 
hermaphrodite, have given birth parthenogenetically (on the immaculate 
principle) to his young ones ; the next stage would be the oviparous at first 
"without any fructifying element/' then "with the help of the fertilitary 
spore " ; and only after the final and definite evolution of both sexes, would 
he become a distinct " male and female," when reproduction through sexual 
union would grow into universal law. So far, all this is scientifically proven. 
There remains but one thing to be ascertained ; viz., the plain and compre- 
hensively described processes of such ante-sexual reproduction. This is done 

1 Op. cit., p. 104. In this, as has been shown in Vol. 3, Part 1, Stanza 8, Modern Science has 
again been anticipated, far beyond its own speculations, by Archaic Science. 

2 Ibid., pp. 104-6. 3 Anthrop., 3rd edition, p. 11. 



230 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

in the Occult books, a slight outline of which has been attempted by the 
writer in Part 1, Volume 3. 

Either this, or man is a distinct being. Occult Philosophy may call him 
that, because of his distinctly dual nature. Science cannot do so, once that 
it rejects every interference save mechanical laws, and admits of no principle 
outside Matter. The former Archaic Science allows the human physical 
frame to have passed through every form, from the lowest to the very highest, 
its present one, or from the simple to the complex to use the accepted 
terms. But it claims that in this Cycle, the Fourth, the frame having already 
existed among the types and models of Nature from the preceding Rounds 
it was quite ready for man from the beginning of this Round. 1 The Monad 
had but to step into the Astral Body of the Progenitors, in order that the 
work of physical consolidation should begin around the shadowy prototype. 2 

What would Science say to this? It would answer, of course, that as 
man appeared on Earth as the latest of the mammalians, he had no need, 
any more than these mammals, to pass through the primitive stages of pro- 
creation as above described. His mode of procreation was already established 
on Earth when he appeared. In this case, we may reply : Since to this day 
not the remotest sign of a link between man and the animal has yet been 
found, then (if the Occult Doctrine is to be repudiated) he must have sprung 
miraculously in Nature, like a fully armed Minerva from Jupiter's brain ; and 
in such case the Bible is right, along with other national " revelations." Hence 
the scientific scorn, so freely lavished by the author of A Modern Zoroastrian 
upon ancient philosophies and exoteric creeds, becomes premature and un- 
called for. Nor would the sudden discovery of a " missing-link "-like fossil 
mend matters at all. For neither one such solitary specimen nor the scientific 
inductions therefrom, could insure its being the long-sought-for relic, i.e., that 
of an undeveloped, still a once-speafc/ng, MAN. Something more would be 
required as a final proof. Besides this, even Genesis takes up man, her 

1 Theosophists will remember that, according to Occult teaching, cyclic Pralayas so-called are but 
" Obscurations," during which periods Nature, i.e., everything visible and invisible on a resting Planet 
remains in statu quo. Nature rests and slumbers, no work of destruction going on upon the Globe 
even if no active work be done. All forms, as well as their astral types, remain as they were at the 
last moment of its activity. The " Night " of a Planet has hardly any twilight preceding it. It is caught 
like a huge mammoth by an avalanche, and remains slumbering and frozen till the next dawn of its new 
Day a very short one indeed in comparison to the " Day of Brahma." 

2 This will be pooh-poohed, because it will not be understood by our modern men of Science ; but 
every Occultist and Theosophist will easily realize the process. There can be no ob/ect/Ve form on 
Earth, nor in the Universe either, without its astral prototype being first formed in Space. From 
Phidias down to the humblest workman in the ceramic art, a sculptor has had to create first of all a 
model in his mind, then sketch it in dimensional lines, and then only can he reproduce it in a three 
dimensional or objective figure. And if the human mind is a living demonstration of such successive 
stages in the process of Evolution, how can it be otherwise when Nature's Mind and creative powers 
are concerned ? 



THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE 231 

Adam of dust, only where the SECRET DOCTRINE leaves her " Sons of God and 
Wisdom " and picks up the physical man of the Jhird Race. Eve is not 
41 begotten," but is extracted out of Adam in the manner of " Amoeba A," 
contracting in the middle and splitting into Amoeba B by division. 1 

Nor has human speech developed from the various animal sounds. 
Haeckel's theory that " speech arose gradually from a few simple, crude 
animal sounds," as such " speech still remains amongst a few races of lowest 
rank," 2 is altogether unsound, as argued by Professor Max Mtiller, among 
others. He contends that no plausible explanation has yet been given as 
to how the " roots " of language came into existence. A human brain is 
necessary for human speech. And figures relating to the size of the respec- 
tive brains of man and ape show how deep is the gulf which separates the 
two. Vogt says that the brain of the largest ape, the gorilla, measures no 
more than 30-51 cubic inches ; while the average brains of the flat-headed 
Australian natives the lowest now of the human races amount to 99*35 cubic 
inches ! Figures are awkward witnesses and cannot lie. Therefore as truly 
observed by Dr. F. Pfaff, whose premises are as sound and correct as his 
biblical conclusions are silly : 

The brain of the apes most like man does not amount to quite a third of the 
brain of the lowest races of men : it is not half the size of the brain of a new-born 
-child. 3 

From the foregoing it is thus very easy to perceive that in order to 
iprove the Huxley-Haeckelian theories of the descent of man, it is not one, but 
a great number of " missing links " a true ladder of progressive evolutionary 
steps that would have to be first found and then presented by Science to 
thinking and reasoning humanity, before it would abandon belief in Gods and 
the immortal Soul for the worship of quadrumanic ancestors. Mere myths are 
now greeted as "axiomatic truths." Even Alfred Russel Wallace maintains 
with Haeckel that primitive man was a speechless ape-creature. To this 
Prof. Joly answers : 

. . . man never was, in my opinion, this pithecanthropus a/a/us whose portrait 
Haeckel has drawn as if he had seen and known him, whose singular and completely 
hypothetical genealogy he has even given, from the mere mass of living protoplasm to 
the man endowed with speech and a civilization analogous to that of the Australians 
and Papuans. 4 

Haeckel, among other things, often comes into direct conflict with 
the "science of languages." In the course of his attack on Evolutionism 5 

1 See A Modern Zoroastr/an, p. 103. 2 " Darwinian Theory " in Pedigree of Man, p. 22. 

3 "the Age and Origin of Man. 4 Man before Metals, p. 320, " International Scientific Series." 

' Mr. Darwin's Philosophy of Language, 1873. 



232 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Prof. Max Muller stigmatized the Darwinian theory as " vulnerable at the 
beginning and at the end." The fact is, that only the partial truth of many of 
the secondary " laws " of Darwinism is beyond question M. de Quatrefages 
evidently accepting Natural Selection, the struggle for existence, and transforma- 
tion within species, as proven not once and for ever, but only pro tempore. 
But it may not be amiss, perhaps, to condense the linguistic case against the 
" ape ancestor " theory : 

Languages have their phases of growth, etc., like all else in Nature. It 
is almost certain that the great linguistic families pass through three stages. 

(1) All words are roots and are merely placed in juxtaposition (Radical 
languages). 

(2) One root defines the other, and becomes merely a determinative 
element (Agglutinative). 

(3) The determinative element (the determinating meaning of which has 
long lapsed) unites into a whole with the formative element (Inflected). 

The problem then is: Whence these ROOTS? Prof. Max Muller argues 
that the existence of these ready-made materials of speech is a proof that man 
cannot be the crown of a long organic series. This potentiality of forming 
roots is the great crux which Materialists almost invariably avoid. 

Von Hartmann explains it as a manifestation of the " Unconscious," and 
admits its cogency versus mechanical Atheism. Von Hartmann is a fair repre- 
sentative of the Metaphysician and Idealist of the present age. 

The argument has never been met by the non-pantheistic Evolutionists. 
To say with Schmidt: "Forsooth we are to halt before the origin of 
language ! " is an avowal of dogmatism and of speedy defeat. 1 

We respect those men of Science who, wise in their generation, say : 
The Prehistoric Past being utterly beyond our powers of direct observation, 
we are too honest, too devoted to the truth or what we regard as truth to 
speculate upon the unknown, giving out our unproven theories along with 
facts absolutely established in Modern Science. 

This borderland of [metaphysical] knowledge is, therefore, best left to time, 
which is the best test as to truth. 2 

This is a wise and an honest sentence in the mouth of a Materialist. But 
when a Haeckel, after just saying that " historical events of past time," having 
" occurred many millions of years ago, 3 . . . are for ever removed from 

1 Cf his Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, p. 304. 

2 A Modern Zoroastrian, p. 136. \ 

:t It thus appears that in its anxiety to prove our noble descent from the catarrhme " baboon/' 
Haeckel' s school has pushed back the times of pre-historic man millions of years. (See Pedigree of 
Man, p. 273.) Occultists, render thanks to Science for such corroboration of our claims ' 



THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE 233 

direct observation," and that neither Geology nor Phylogeny l can or will 
" rise to the position of a real exact ' science," then insists on the develop- 
ment of all organisms from the lowest vertebrate to the highest, from 
amphioxus to man " we ask for a weightier proof than he can give, Mere 
" empirical sources of knowledge/' so extolled by the author of Anthropogeny 
when he has to be satisfied with the qualification for his own views are 
not competent to settle problems lying beyond their domain ; nor is it the pro- 
vince of exact Science to place any reliance on them." If " empirical " and 
Haeckel himself declares so repeatedly then they are no better, nor any 
more reliable, in the sight of exact research, when extended into the remote 
past, than are our Occult teachings of the East, both having to be placed on 
the same level. Nor are his phylogenetic and palingenetic speculations 
treated any more favourably by the real Scientists, than are our cyclic 
repetitions of the evolution of the great in the minor races, and the 
original order of Evolution. For the province of exact, real Science, 
materialistic though it be, is to carefully avoid anything like guess-work, 
speculation which cannot be verified ; in short, all suppressio veri and all 
suggestio falsi. The business of the men of exact Science is to observe, each 
in his chosen department, the phenomena of Nature ; to record, tabulate, 
compare and classify the facts, down to the smallest minutiae which are 
presented to the observation of the senses with the help of all the exquisite 
mechanism that modern invention supplies, not by the aid of metaphysical 
flights of fancy. All that he has a legitimate right to do, is to correct by the 
assistance of physical instruments the defects or illusions of his own coarser 
vision, auditory powers, and other senses. He has no right to trespass on 
the grounds of Metaphysics and Psychology. His duty is to verify and to 
rectify all the facts that fall under his direct observation ; to profit by the 
experiences and mistakes of the Past in endeavouring to trace the working of 
a certain concatenation of cause and effect, which but only by its constant 
and unvarying repetition may be called a LAW. This it is which a man of 

1 This seems a poor compliment to pay Geology, which is not a speculative but as exact a Science 
as Astronomy save, perhaps, its too risky chronological speculations It is mainly a " descriptive " 
as opposed to an " abstract" Science. 

2 Such newly-coined words as " perigenesis of plastids," " plastidule souls " (!), and others less 
comely, invented by Haeckel, may be very learned and correct in so far as they may express very 
graphically the ideas in his own vivid fancy. As facts, however, they remain for his less imaginative 
colleagues painfully caenogenetic to use his own terminology , I.e., for true Science they are 
spurious speculations, so long as they are derived from " empirical sources." Therefore, when he 
seeks to prove that " the origin of man from other mammals, and most directly from the catarrhine 
apes, is a deductive law, that follows necessarily from the inductive law of the theory of descent " 
(Anthropogeny, p. 392, quoted in Pedigree of Man, p 295) his no less learned foes (du Bois- 
Reymond for one) have a right to see in this sentence a mere jugglery of words , a testf'mon/um 
paupertatis of Natural Science " as he himself complains, speaking, in return, of du Bois-Reymond's 
" astonishing ignorance." (See Pedigree of Man, notes on pp 295, 296.) 



234 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Science is expected to do, if he would become a teacher of men and remain 
true to his original programme of natural or physical Sciences. Any side path 
from this royal road becomes speculation. 

Instead of keeping to this, what does many a so-called man of Science 
do in these days ? He rushes into the domain of pure Metaphysics, while 
deriding them. He delights in rash conclusions and calls them " a deductive 
law from the inductive law" of a theory based upon and drawn out of the 
depths of his own consciousness that consciousness being perverted by, and 
honeycombed with, one-sided Materialism. He attempts to explain the 
4t origin " of things, which are yet embosomed only in his own conceptions. 
He attacks spiritual beliefs and religious traditions millenniums old, and 
denounces everything, save his own hobbies, as superstition. He suggests 
theories of the Universe, a cosmogony developed by blind, mechanical forces 
of Nature alone, far more miraculous and impossible than even one based 
upon the assumption of fiat lux ex nlhilo and tries to astonish the world by 
his wild theory ; and this theory, being known to emanate from a scientific 
brain, is taken, on blind faith, as very scientific and as the outcome of 
SCIENCE. 

Are these the opponents Occultism should dread? Most decidedly not. 
For such theories are treated no better by real Science than are our own by 
empirical Science. Haeckel, hurt in his vanity by du Bois-Reymond, is never 
tired of publicly complaining of the latter's onslaught on his fantastic theory 
of descent. Rhapsodizing on "the exceedingly rich storehouse of empirical 
evidence," he calls those "recognized Physiologists" who oppose every 
speculation of his drawn from the said "storehouse" ignorant men, and 
declares : 

If many men, and among them even some Scientists of repute hold that the 
whole of phylogeny is a castle in the air, and genealogical trees [from monkeys ?] are 
empty plays of phantasy, they only in speaking thus demonstrate their ignorance of 
that wealth of empirical sources of knowledge to which reference has already been 
made. 1 

We open Webster's Dictionary and read the definitions of the word 
41 empirical " : 

Depending upon experience or observation alone, without due regard to modern 
science and theory. 

This applies to the Occultists, Spiritualists, Mystics, etc. Again : 

An empiric ; one who confines himself to applying the results of his own observa- 
tions only [which is Haeckel's case] ; one wanting science ... an ignorant and 
unlicensed practitioner ; a quack ; a charlatan. 

1 Pedigree of Man, p. 273. 



THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE 235 

No Occultist or ''Magician," has ever been treated to any worse 
epithets. Yet the Occultist remains on his own metaphysical grounds, 
and does not endeavour to rank his knowledge, the fruits of his personal 
observation and experience, among the exact Sciences of modern learning. 
He keeps within his legitimate sphere, where he is master. But what is one 
to think of a rank Materialist, whose duty is clearly .traced before him, who 
uses such an expression as this : 

The origin of man from other mammals, and most directly from the catarrhine 
-ape, is a deductive law, that follows necessarily from the inductive law of the Theory 
of Descent, 1 

A " theory" is simply a hypothesis, a speculation, and not a law. To say 
otherwise is one of the many liberties taken now-a-days by Scientists. They 
enunciate an absurdity, and then hide it behind the shield of Science. A 
deduction from theoretical speculation is nothing more than a speculation on 
a speculation. Sir William Hamilton has already shown that the word theory 
is now used 

in a very loose and improper sense . . . that it is convertible into hypothesis, 
and hypothesis is commonly used as another term for conjecture, whereas the terms 
"theory " and " theoretical " are properly used in opposition to the terms practice and 
practical. 

But modern Science puts an extinguisher on the latter statement, and 
mocks at the idea. Materialistic Philosophers and Idealists of Europe and 
America may be agreed with the Evolutionists as to the physical origin of man, 
yet it will never become a general truth with the true Metaphysician ; and the 
latter defies the Materialists to make good their arbitrary assumptions. That 
the ape-theory theme 2 of Vogt and Darwin, on which the Huxley-Haeckelians 
have of late composed such extraordinary variations, is far less scientific 
because clashing with the fundamental laws of that theme itself than ours 
can ever be shown to be, is very easy of demonstration. Let the reader only 
turn to the excellent work on Human Species by the great French Naturalist 
de Quatrefages, and our statement will at once be verified. 

1 Anthropogeny, p. 392. Quoted in Pedigree of Man, p. 295. 

2 The mental barrier between man and ape, characterized by Huxley as an " enormous gap, a 
distance practically immeasurable " (! !) is, indeed, in itself conclusive. Certainly it constitutes a 
standing puzzle to the Materialist, who relies on the frail reed of " natural selection." The physio- 
logical differences between Man and the Apes are in reality despite a curious community of certain 
features equally striking. Says Dr. Schweinfurth, one of the most cautious and experienced of 
Naturalists : 

" In modern times there are no animals in creation that have attracted a larger amount of atten- 
tion from the scientific student of nature than these great quadrumana [the anthropoids], which are 
stamped with such a singular resemblance to the human form as to have justified the epithet of 
anthropomorphic. . . . But all investigation at present only leads human intelligence to a confession 
of its insufficiency; and nowhere is caution more to be advocated, nowhere is premature judgment 
more to be deprecated than in the attempt to bridge over the mysterious chasm which separates man 
and beast." (Heart of Africa, i, 520. Ed., 1873.) 



236 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Moreover, between the Esoteric teaching concerning the Origin of Man 
and Darwin's speculations, no man, unless he is a rank Materialist, will hesitate. 
This is the description given by Mr. Darwin of " the early progenitors of man." 

[They] must have been once covered with hair, both sexes having beards ; their 
ears were probably pointed and capable of movement ; and their bodies were provided 
with a tail, having the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies were also acted on by 
many muscles which now only occasionally reappear, but are normally present in the 
Quadrumana. . . . The foot was then prehensile, judging from the condition of the 
great toe in the foetus ; and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, 
and frequented some warm forest-clad land. The males had great canine teeth, which 
served them as formidable weapons. 1 

Darwin connects man with the type of the tailed catarrhines : 

And consequently removes him a stage backward in the scale of evolution. The 
English naturalist is not satisfied to take his stand upon the ground of his own doctrines, 
and, like Haeckel, on this point places himself in direct variance with one of the funda- 
mental laws which constitute the principal charm of Darwinism. 

And then the learned French Naturalist proceeds to show how this 
fundamental law is broken. He says : 

In fact, in the theory of Darwin, transmutations do not take place, either by 
chance or in every direction. They are ruled by certain laws which are due to the 
organization itself. If an organism is once modified in a given direction, it can undergo 
secondary or tertiary transmutations, but will still preserve the impress of the original. 
It is the law of permanent characterization, which alone permits Darwin to explain the 
filiation of groups, their characteristics, and their numerous relations. It is by virtue of 
this law that all the descendants of the first mollusc have been molluscs ; all the descen- 
dants of the first vertebrate have been vertebrates. It is clear that this constitutes one 
of the foundations of the doctrine. It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct 
types can be referred to a common ancestor, but the one cannot be the descendant 
of the other. 

Now man and apes present a very striking contrast in respect to type Their 
organs . . . correspond almost exactly term for term : but these organs are arranged 
after a very different plan. In man they are so arranged that he is essentially a walker, 
while in apes they necessitate his being a climber. . . . There is here an anatomicaF 
and mechanical distinction ... A glance at the page where Huxley has figured side 
by side a human skeleton and the skeletons of the most highly developed apes is a 
sufficiently convincing proof. 

The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of the logical application 
of the law of permanent characterizations, is that man cannot be descended from an 
ancestor who is already characterized as an ape, any more than a catarrhine tailless ape 
can be descended from a tailed catarrhine. A walking animal cannot be descended 
from a climbing one. This was clearly understood by Vogt. 

In placing man among the primates, he declares without hesitation that the 
lowest class of apes have passed the landmark (the common ancestor), from which the 
different types of this family have originated and diverged. [This ancestor of the apes, 

1 The Descent of Man, p. 160. Ed. 1888. A ridiculous instance of evolutionist contradictions is 
afforded by [Prof. Oscar] Schmidt (Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, p. 292). He says : " Man's 
kinship with the apes is ... not impugned by the bestial strength of the teeth of a male orang or 
gorilla." Mr. Darwin, on the contrary, endows this fabulous being with teeth used as weapons I 



THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE 237 

Occult Science sees in the lowest human group during the Atlantean period as shown 
before.] We must, then, place the origin of man beyond the last ape [corroborating 
our doctrine], if we wish to adhere to one of the laws most emphatically necessary to 
the Darwinian theory. We then come to the prosimiae of Haeckel, the Ion's, indris, etc. 
But these animals also are climbers ; we must go further, therefore, in search of our 
first direct ancestor. But the genealogy by Haeckel brings us from the latter to the 
marsupials. From men to the kangaroo the distance is certainly great. Now neither 
living nor extinct fauna show the intermediate types which ought to serve as landmarks. 
This difficulty causes but slight embarrassment to Darwin. 1 We know that he considers 
the want of information upon similar questions as a proof in his favour. Haeckel 
doubtless is as little embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical 
pithecoid man. 

Thus, since it has been proved that, according to Darwinism itself, the origin of 
man must be placed beyond the eighteenth stage, and since it becomes, in conse- 
quence, necessary to fill up the gap between marsupials and man, will Haeckel admit 
the existence of four unknown intermediate groups instead of one ? Will he complete 
his genealogy in this manner ? It is not for me to answer. 3 

But see Haeckel's famous genealogy, in The Pedigree of Man, called by 
him the " Ancestral Series of Man." In the " Second Division " (eighteenth 
stage) he describes 

Prosimiae, allied to the Loris (Stenops) and Makis (Lemur), without marsupial 
bones and cloaca, with placenta. 3 

And now turn to de Quatrefages' The Human Species ' and see his 
proofs, based on the latest discoveries, to show that the Prosimiae of Haeckel 
have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. They cannot be the ancestors of 
the apes even, let alone man, according to a fundamental law of Darwin 
himself, as the great French Naturalist shows. But this does not dismay the 
" animal theorists " in the least, for self-contradiction and paradoxes are the 
very soul of modern Darwinism. Witness Mr. Huxley ; having himself 
shown, with regard to fossil man and the " missing link," that : 

Neither in Quaternary ages nor at the present time does any intermediary being 
fill the gap which separates man from the Troglodyte ; 

and that to " deny the existence of this gap would be as reprehensible as 
absurd," the great man of Science denies his own words in actu by support- 
ing with all the weight of his scientific authority that most " absurd " of all 
theories the descent of man from an ape ! 
Says de Quatrefages : 
This genealogy is wrong throughout, and is founded on a material error. 

1 According even to a fellow-thinker, Professor Schmidt, Darwin has evolved " a certainly not 
flattering, and perhaps in many points not correct, portrait of our presumptive ancestors in the phase 
of dawning humanity." (Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, p. 284.) 

~ The Human Species, pp. 106-8. 3 Op. cit., p. 77, 

4 Pp. 109, 110. 



238 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Indeed, Haeckel bases his descent of man on the seventeenth and 
eighteenth stages, the Marsupialia and Prosimiae (genus Haeckelii?). Applying 
the latter term to the Lemuridae hence making of them animals with a 
placenta he commits a zoological blunder. For after having himself divided 
mammals according to their anatomical differences into two groups the 
mdec/duata, which have no decidua (or special membrane uniting the 
placentae), and the dec/c/uata, those who possess it he includes the Pro- 
simiae in the latter group. Now we have shown elsewhere what other men of 
Science had to say to this. As de Quatrefages says : 

The anatomical investigations of ... Milne Edwards and Grandidier upon the 
animals . . . place it beyond all doubt that the prosimiae of Haeckel have no decidua 
and a diffuse placenta. They are mdec/duata. Far from any possibility of their being 
the ancestors of the apes, according to the principles laid down by Haeckel himself, 
they cannot even be regarded as the ancestors of the zonoplacental mammals . . . 
and ought to be connected with the Pachydermata, the Edentata, and the Cetacea. 1 

And yet Haeckel's inventions pass with some as exact Science ! 

The above mistake, if indeed it be one, is not even hinted at in Haeckel's 
Pedigree of Man, translated by Aveling. If the excuse may stand good that 
at the time the famous " genealogies " were made, "the embryogenesis of 
the Prosimiae was not known," it is familiar now. We shall see whether the 
next edition of Aveling's translation will have this important error rectified, or 
if the seventeenth and eighteenth stages will remain as they are to blind the 
profane, as one of the real intermediate links. But, as the French Naturalist 
observes : 

Their [Darwin's and Haeckel's] process is always the same, considering the un- 
known as a proof in favour of their theory. 

It comes to this. Grant to man an immortal Spirit and Soul ; endow 
the whole animate and inanimate creation with the monadic principle gradually 
evolving from latent and passive into active and positive polarity and Haeckel 
will not have a leg to stand upon, whatever his admirers may say. 

But there are important divergencies even between Darwin and Haeckel. 
While the former makes us proceed from the tailed catarrhine, Haeckel traces 
our hypothetical ancestor to the ta///ess ape, though, at the same time, he 
places him in a hypothetical " stage " immediately preceding this Meno- 
cerca with tails (nineteenth stage). 

Nevertheless, we have one thing in common with the Darwinian 
school, that is the law of gradual and extremely slow Evolution, em- 
bracing many million years. The chief quarrel, it appears, is with 

1 Op. cit., p. 110. 



THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE 239 

regard to the nature of the primitive " ancestor." We shall be told 
that the Dhyan Chohan, or the " progenitor " of Manu, is a hypothetical 
being unknown on the physical plane. We reply that it was believed in by 
the whole of Antiquity, and is by nine-tenths of the present humanity ; where- 
as not only is the pithecoid man, or ape-man, a purely hypothetical creature 
of Haeckel's creation, unknown and untraceable on this Earth, but further its 
genealogy as invented by him clashes with scientific facts and all the known 
data of modern discovery in Zoology. It is simply absurd, even as a fiction. 
As de Quatrefages demonstrates in a few words, Haeckel "admits the exist- 
ence of an absolutely theoretical pithecoid man" a hundred times more 
difficult to accept than any Deva ancestor. And it is not the only instance in 
which he proceeds in a similar manner in order to complete his genealogical 
table. In fact he very naively admits his inventions himself Does he not 
confess the non-existence of his Sozura (fourteenth stage) a creature entirely 
unknown to Science by confessing over his own signature, that : 

The proof of its existence arises from the necessity of an intermediate type 
between the thirteenth and the fourteenth stages [!]. 

If so, we might maintain with as much scientific right, that the proof of 
the existence of our three ethereal Races, and of the three-eyed men of the 
Third and Fourth Root Races, "arises also from the necessity of an intermedi- 
ate type " between the animal and the Gods. What reason would the 
Haeckelians have to protest in this special case ? 

Of course there is a ready answer : Because we do not grant the pre- 
sence of the Monadic Essence. The manifestation of the Logos as individual 
consc/ousness in the animal and human creation is not accepted by exact 
Science, nor does it cover the whole ground, of course. But the failures of 
Science and its arbitrary assumptions are far greater on the whole than any 
"extravagant" Esoteric doctrine can ever furnish. 1 Even thinkers of the 
school of Von Hartmann have become tainted with the general epidemic. 
They accept the Darwinian Anthropology (more or less), though they also 
postulate the individual Ego as a manifestation of the Unconscious (the Western 
presentation of the Logos or Primeval Divine Thought). They say the evolu- 
tion of the physical man is from the animal, but that mind in its various phases 
is altogether a thing apart from material facts, though organism, as an upadhi, 
is necessary for its manifestation. 

1 Of course the Esoteric system of Fourth Round Evolution is much more complex than the para- 
graph and quotations referred to categorically assert. It is practically a reversal both in embryo- 
logical inference and succession in time of species of the current Western conception. 



240 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

PLASTIDULE SOULS, AND CONSCIOUS NERVE-CELLS 

But one can never see the end of such wonders with Haeckel and his 
school, whom the Occultists and Theosophists have every right to consider as 
materialistic tramps trespassing on private metaphysical grounds. Not satisfied 
with the paternity of Bathybius (Haeckelii), " plastidule souls " and " atom- 
souls" 1 are now invented, on the basis of purely blind mechanical forces of 
matter. We are informed that : 

The study of the evolution of soul-life shows us that this has worked its way up 
from the lower stages of the simple cell-soul, through an astonishing series of gradual 
stages in evolution, up to the soul of man." 

"Astonishing," truly based as this wild speculation is on the conscious- 
ness of the " nerve cells." For as he tells us : 

Little as we are in a position, at the present time, to explain fully the nature of 
consciousness/* yet the comparative and genetic observation of it clearly shows, that it 
is only a higher and more complex function of the nerve cells. 4 

Mr. Herbert Spencer's song on consciousness is sung, it seems, and 
may henceforth be safely stored up in the lumber room of obsolete specula- 
tions. Where, however, do Haeckel's " complex functions " of his scientific 
"nerve-cells" land him? Once more right into the Occult and mystic 
teachings of the Kabalah about the descent of Souls as conscious and uncon- 
scious Atoms ; among the Pythagorean MONAD and the Monads of Leibnitz, 
and the " Gods, Monads, and Atoms" of our Esoteric teaching : ' into the 
dead letter of Occult teachings, left to the amateur Kabalists and professors of 

1 According to Haeckel, there are also " cell-souls " and " atom-cells" , an " inorganic molecular 
soul " without, and a " plastidule soul " with, or possessing, memory. What are our Esoteric teach- 
ings to this? The divine and human soul of the seven principles in man must, of course, pale and 
give way before such a stupendous revelation ! 

2 The Pedigree of Man, p 296. 

* A valuable confession, this. Only it makes the attempt to trace the descent of consciousness 
in man, as well as of his physical body, from Bathybius Haeckelii, still more humorous and empirical in 
the sense of Webster's second definition. 

4 Ibid. 

'* Those who take the opposite view and look upon the existence of the human Soul " as a super- 
natural, a spiritual phenomenon, conditioned by forces altogether different from ordinary physical 
forces," mock, he thinks, " in consequence, all explanation that is simply scientific." They have no 
right it seems, to assert that " psychology is, in part, or in whole, a spiritual science, not a physical 
one." The new discovery by Haeckel one taught for thousands of years in all the Eastern religions, 
however that animals have souls, will, and sensation, hence, soul-functions, leads him to make of 
Psychology the science of the Zoologists The archaic teaching that the " soul " (tRe animal and 
human souls, or Kama and Manas) " has its developmental history" is claimed by Haeckel as his own 
discovery and innovation on an ' untrodden [?] path " ' He, Haeckel , will work out the comparative 
evolution of the soul in man and in other animals The comparative morphology of the soul-organs, 
and the comparative physiology of the soul-functions, both founded on Evolution, thus become the 
psychological [really materialistic] problem of the scientific man. ("Cell-souls and Soul-cells," 
,pp. 135, 136, 137, Pedigree of Man.) 



PLASTIDULE SOULS AND CONSCIOUS NERVE-CELLS 241 

ceremonial Magic. For this is what he says, in explaining his newly-coined 
terminology : 

Plastiduie-Souls. The plastidules or protoplasmic molecules, the smallest, homo- 
geneous parts of the protoplasm are, on our plastid theory, to be regarded as the active 
factors of all life-functions. The plastidule soul differs from the inorganic molecular 
soul in that it possesses memory. 1 

This he develops in his mirific lecture on the " Perigenesis of the Plastidule, 
or the Wave-motions of Living Particles." It is an improvement on Darwin's 
theory of " Pangenesis," and a further approach, a cautious move, towards 
" Magic." The former is a conjecture that : 

Some of the actual identical atoms which formed part of ancestral bodies are 
thus transmitted through their descendants for generation after generation, so that we 
are literally "flesh of the flesh " of the primeval creature who has developed into man 

explains the author of A Modern Zoroastrian.' 2 The latter, Occultism, 
teaches that (a) the life-atoms of our (Prana) Life-Principle, are never entirely 
lost when a man dies. That the atoms best impregnated with the Life- 
Principle, an independent, eternal, conscious factor, are partially transmitted 
from father to son by heredity, and are partially drawn once more together 
and become the animating principle of the new body in every new incarnation 
of the Monads. Because (b), as the Individual Soul is ever the same, so are 
the atoms of the lower principles (the body, its astral, or life-double, etc.), 
drawn as they are by affinity and Karmic law always to the same individuality 
in a series of various bodies. 3 

To be just and, to say the least, logical, our modern Haeckelians ought to 
pass a resolution that henceforth the " Perigenesis of the Plastidule/' and other 
similar lectures, should be bound up with those on " Esoteric Buddhism " and 
" The Seven Principles in Man." Thus the public will have a chance, at any 
rate, of comparing the two teachings and then of judging which is'the most or 
the least absurd, even from the standpoint* of materialistic and exact Science. 

Now the Occultists, who trace every atom in the Universe, whether an 
aggregate or single, to One Unity, the Universal Life ; who do not recognize 
that anything in Nature can be inorganic ; who know of no such thing as dead 
Matter the Occultists are consistent with their doctrine of Spirit and Soul 
when speaking of memory in every atom, of will and sensation. But what can 
a Materialist mean by the qualification ? The law of biogenesis, in the sense 
applied to it by the Haeckelians, is the result of the ignorance on the part of 

1 The Pedigree of Man, note 20, p. 296. 2 P. 119. 

:{ See "Transmigration of Life-Atoms," in Five Years of fheosophy, pp. 533-9. The collective 
aggregation of these atoms forms thus the Am ma Mundi of our Solar System, the Soul of our little 
Universe, each atom of which is of course a Soul, a Monad, a little universe endowed with conscious- 
ness, hence with memory. (Vol. 2, Part 3, " Gods, Monads, and Atoms.") 

F 16 



242 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

the man of Science of Occult Physics. We know and speak of " life-atoms/' 
and of " sleeping -atoms/' because we regard these two forms of energy 
the kinetic and the potential as produced by one and the same force, or the 
ONE LIFE, and regard the latter as the source and mover of all. But what is it 
that furnished with energy, and especially with memory, the " plastidule 
souls" of Haeckel? The "wave motion of living particles" becomes com- 
prehensible on the theory of a Spiritual One Life, of a universal Vital Principle 
independent of our Matter, and manifesting as atomic energy only on our 
plane of consciousness. It is that which, individualized in the human cycle, is 
transmitted from father to son. 

Now Haeckel, modifying Darwin's theory, suggests "more plausibly," as 
the author of A Modern Zoroastrian thinks : 

That not the identical atoms, but their peculiar motions and mode of aggrega- 
tion have been thus transmitted [by heredity]. 1 

If Haeckel, or any other Scientist, knew more than any of them does 
know of the nature of the atom, he would not have improved the occasion in 
this way. For he only states, in more metaphysical language than Darwin, 
one and the same thing. The Life-Principle, or Life Energy, which is omni- 
present, eternal, indestructible, is a Force and a PRINCIPLE as noumenon, while 
it is Atoms, as phenomenon. It is one and the same thing, and cannot be 
considered as separate except in Materialism/' 

Further, Haeckel enunciates concerning the Atom-Souls that which, at 
first sight, appears as occult as the Monad of Leibnitz : 

The recent contest as to the nature of atoms, which we must regard as in some 
form or other the ultimate factors in all physical and chemical processes, seems to 
be capable of easiest settlement by the conception that these very minute masses 
possess, as centres of force, a persistent soul, that every atom has sensation and the 
power of movement.' 

He does not say a word concerning the fact that this is Leibnitz' theory, 
and one that is pre-eminently Occult. Nor does he understand the term 

1 Op at., p. 119. 

- In "The Transmigration of Life-Atoms " (Five Years of Theosophy. pp. 535-6, we say of the Jiva, 
or Life-Principle, in order to better explain a position which is but too often misunderstood : " It is 
omnipresent ... though [on this plane of manifestation] often . .ma dormant state [as in stone] 
... the definition which states that when this indestructible force is ' disconnected with one set of 
atoms [molecules ought to have been said] it becomes immediately attracted by others,' does not 
imply that it abandons entirely the first set [because the atoms themselves would then disappear], but 
only that it transfers its vis viva, or living powerthe energy of motion, to another set. But because 
it manifests itself in the next set as what is called kinetic energy, it does not follow that the first set is 
deprived of it altogether , for it is still in it, as potential energy or life latent." Now what can Hckef 
mean by his " not identical atoms, but their peculiar motion and mode of aggregation," if it is not 
the same kinetic energy we have been explaining ? Before evolving such theories, he must have read 
Paracelsus and studied Five Years of Theosophy without properly digesting the teachings. 

3 Op. cit., note 21. p. 296. 



PLASTIDULE SOULS AND CONSCIOUS NERVE-CELLS 243 

" soul as we do ; for, with Haeckel it is simply, along with consciousness, 
the product of the grey matter of the brain, a thing which, as the cell-soul 

is as indissolubly bound up with the protoplasmic body as is the human soul with 
the brain and spinal cord. 1 

He rejects the conclusions of Kant, Herbert Spencer, of du Bois-Reymond 
and Tyndall. The latter expresses the opinion of all the great men of Science, 
as of the greatest thinkers of this and past ages, in saying that : 

The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of con- 
sciousness is unthinkable. Were our minds and senses so ... illuminated as to enable 
us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain ; were we capable of following alt 
their motions, all their groupings . . electric discharges ... we should be as far as 
ever from the solution of the problem. . . . The chasm between the two classes of 
phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable. 

But the complex function of the nerve-cells of the great German 
Empiric, or, in other words, his consciousness, will not permit him to follow 
the conclusions of the greatest thinkers of our globe. He is greater than 
they. He asserts this, and protests against all : 

No one has the right to hold that in the future we shall not be able to pass 
beyond these limits of our knowledge that to-day seem impassable.* 

And he quotes from Darwin's introduction to The Descent of Man the 
following words, which he modestly applies to his scientific opponents and 
himself : 

It is always those who know little, and not those who know much, that positively 
affirm that this or that problem will never be solved by Science. 5 

The world may rest satisfied. The day is not far off when the " thrice 
great " Haeckel will have shown, to his own satisfaction, that the conscious- 
ness of Sir Isaac Newton was, physiologically speaking, but the reflex action 
(or minus consciousness) caused by the perigenesis of the plastidules of our 
common ancestor and old friend, the Moneron Haeckelii. Though the said 
Bathybius has been found out and exposed as a pretender simulating the 
organic substance it is not, and though among the children of men, Lot's 
wife alone and even this, only after her disagreeable metamorphosis could 
claim as her forefather the pinch of salt it is ; all this will not dismay him in 
the least. He will go on asserting, as coolly as he has always done, that it 
was only the peculiar mode and motion of the ghost of the long-vanished 
atoms of our Father Bathybius, which transmitted across aeons of time into 
the cell-tissue of the grey matter of the brains of every great man caused 
Sophocles and >schylus, and Shakespeare as well, to write their tragedies, 
Newton, his Pr/nc/p/a, Humboldt, his Cosmos, etc. It also prompted Haeckel 

1 Ibid., note 19. * Ibid., note 23. >l Op. cit. p. 2. 



244 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

to invent Graeco-Latin names three inches long, pretending to mean a good 
deal, and meaning nothing. 

Of course we are quite aware that the true, honest Evolutionist agrees 
with us ; and that he is the first to say that not only is the geological record 
imperfect, but that^ there are enormous gaps in the series of hitherto dis- 
covered fossils, which can never be filled. He will tell us, moreover, that 
" no Evolutionist assumes that man is descended from any existing ape or any 
extinct ape either," but that man and apes originated probably aeons back, in 
some common root stock. Still, as de Quatrefages points out, he will urge 
as an evidence corroborating his claim this wealth of absent proofs as well, 
saying that : 

All living forms have not been preserved in the fossil series, the chances of pre- 
servation being few Jand far between . . . [even primitive man] burying or burning 
his dead. 

This is just what we ourselves claim. It is just as possible that the future 
may have in store for us the discovery of the giant skeleton of an Atlantean, 
thirty feet high, as of the fossil of a pithecoid " missing link "; only the former 
is more probable. 



SECTION 3 

THE FOSSIL RELICS OF MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID APE 

A. GEOLOGICAL FACTS BEARING ON THE QUESTION 
OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP 

THE data derived from scientific research as to " primeval man " and the 
ape lend no countenance to theories deriving the former from the latter. 
" Where, then, must we look for primeval man ? " still queries Mr. Huxley, 
after having vainly searched for him in the very depths of the Quaternary strata. 

Was the oldest Homo sapiens Pliocene or Miocene, or yet more ancient ? In 
still older strata do the fossilized bones of an ape more anthropoid, or a man more 
pithecoid than any yet known, await the researches of some unborn palaeontologist ? 
Time will show. 1 

It will undeniably and thus vindicate the Anthropology of the Occult- 
ists. Meanwhile, in his eagerness to vindicate Mr. Darwin's Descent of Man, 
Mr. Boyd Dawkins believes that he has all but found the " missing link " in 
theory. It was due to Theologians more than the Geologists that, till nearly 
1860, man had been considered as a relic no older than the Adamic orthodox 
6,000 years. As Karma would have it, though, it was left to a Frenchman, 
I'Abbe Bourgeois, to give this easy-going theory even a worse blow than had 
been given to it by the discoveries of Boucher de Perthes. Everyone knows 
that the Abbe discovered and brought to light good evidence that man was 
already in existence during the Miocene period, for flints of undeniably human 
making were excavated from Miocene strata. In the words of the author of 
Modem Science and Modern Thought : 

They must either have been chipped by man, or, as Mr. Boyd Dawkins supposes, 
by the Dryopithecus or some other anthropoid ape which had a dose of intelligence so 
much superior to the gorilla or chimpanzee, as to be able to fabricate tools. But in 
this case the problem would be solved and the missing link discovered, for such an ape 
might well have been the ancestor of Palaeolithic man/ 

1 Man's Place in Nature, p.208. * Op cit., p. 157. 



246 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Or, the descendant of Eocene man, which is a variant offered to the theory. 
Meanwhile, the dryopithecus with such fine mental endowments is yet to be 
discovered. On the other hand, Neolithic and even Palaeolithic man having 
become an absolute certainty, and as the same author justly observes : 

If 100,000,000 years have elapsed since the earth became sufficiently solidified to 
support vegetable and animal life, the Tertiary period may have lasted for 5,000,000, 
or for 10,000,000 years, if the life-sustaining order of things has lasted, as Lyell supposes 
for at least 200,000,000 years l 

why should not another theory be tried ? Let us carry man, as a hypothesis, 
to the close of Mesozoic times admitting argument/ causa that the (much 
more recent) higher apes then existed ! This would allow ample time for 
man and the modern apes to have diverged from the mythical " ape more 
anthropoid," and even for the latter to have degenerated into those that 
are found mimicking man in using " branches of trees as clubs, and cracking 
cocoa-nuts with hammer and stones"." Some savage tribes of hillmen in India 
build their abodes on trees, just as the gorillas build their dens. The ques- 
tion, which of the two, the beast or the man, has become the imitator of the 
other, is scarcely an open one, even granting Mr. Boyd Dawkins' theory. 
The fanciful character of this hypothesis, is, however, generally admitted. It 
is argued that while in the Pliocene and Miocene periods there were true 
apes and baboons, and man was undeniably contemporaneous with the 
former of these times though, as we see, orthodox Anthropology still hesi- 
tates, in the teeth of facts, to place him m the era of the dryopithecus, which 
latter 

has been considered by some anatomists as in some respects superior to the 
chimpanzee or the gorilla { 

yet, in the Eocene there have been no other fossil primates unearthed and 
no pithecoid stocks found save a few extinct lemurian forms. And we find 
it also hinted that the dryopithecus may have been the " missing link," though 
the brain of the creature no more warrants the theory than does the brain of 
the modern gorilla. (See also Gaudry's speculations.) 

Now we would ask who among the Scientists is ready to prove that there 
was no man in existence in the early Tertiary period ? What is it that prevented 

Hb.d., p. 161. 

2 [Is] this the way primitive man must have acted ? We are not aware of men, not even of savages, 
in our age, who are known to have imitated the apes which lived side by side with them in the 
forests of America and the islands. But we do know of large apes who, tamed and living in houses, 
will mimic men to the length of donning hats and coats. The writer once had a chimpanzee who, 
without being taught, opened a newspaper and pretended to read it. It is the descending generations, 
the children, who mimic their parents not the reverse. 

Mbid.,p. 151. 



THE FOSSIL RELICS OF MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID APE 247 

his presence ? Hardly thirty years ago his existence any farther back than six 
or seven thousand years was indignantly denied. Now he is refused admission 
into the Eocene age. Next century it may become a question whether man 
was not contemporary with the " flying dragon," the pterodactyl, the 
plesiosaurus and iguanodon, etc. Let us listen, however, to the echo of 
Science. 

Now, wherever anthropoid apes lived it is clear that, whether as a question of 
anatomical structure, or of climate and surroundings, man, or some creature which was 
the ancestor of man, might have lived also. Anatomically speaking, apes and monkeys 
,are as much special variations of the mammalian type as man, whom they resemble 
hone for bone, and muscle for muscle, and the physical animal man is simply an 
.instance of the quadrumanous type specialized for erect posture and a larger brain l . . . 
If he could survive, as we know he did, the adverse conditions and extreme vicissitudes 
of the Glacial period, there is no reason why he might not have lived in the semi- 
tropical climate of the Miocene period, when a genial climate extended even to Green- 
land and Spitzbergen. 2 

When most of the men of Science who are uncompromising in their 
belief in the descent of man from an "extinct anthropoid mammal," will not 
accept even the bare tenability of any other theory than an ancestor common 
to man and the dryopithecus, it is refreshing to find in a work of real scientific 
value such a margin for compromise. Indeed, it is as wide as it can be made 
under the circumstances, I.e., without immediate danger of getting knocked 
off one's feet by the tidal wave of science-adulation. Believing that the 
difficulty of accounting 

for the development of intellect and morality by evolution is not so great as 
that presented by the difference as to physical structure 3 between man and the highest 
animal 

the same author says : 

But it is not so easy to see how this difference of physical structure arose, and 
how a being came into existence which had such a brain and hand, and such un- 
developed capabilities for an almost unlimited progress. The difficulty is this : the 

1 It is asked, whether it would change one iota of the scientific truth and fact contained in the 
above sentence if it were to read : " the ape is simply an instance of the biped type specialized for 
going on all fours generally, and with a smaller brain." Esotencally speaking, this is the real truth, 
and not the reverse. 

2 Modern Science and Modern Thought, pp. 151-2. 

{ We cannot follow Mr. Laing here. When avowed Darwinists like Huxley point to " the great 
gulf which intervenes between the lowest man and the highest ape in intellectual power/' the 
"enormous gulf . . . between them," the "immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of 
the Human from the Simian Stirps " (Man's Place in Nature, pp. 142-3 and note) ; when even the 
physical basis of mind the brain so vastly exceeds in size that of the highest existing apes ; when 
men like Wallace are forced to invoke the agency of extra-terrestrial intelligences in order to explain 
the rise of such a creature as the pithecanthropus alalus, or speechless savage of Haeckel, to the level 
of the large-brained and moral man of to-day when all this is the case, it is idle to dismiss evolutionist 
puzzles so lightly. If the structural evidence is so unconvincing and, taken as a whole, so hostile to 
Darwinism, the difficulties as to the " how " of the evolution of the human mind by natural selection 
are tenfold greater. 



248 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

difference in structure between the lowest existing race of man and the highest existing 
ape is too great to admit of the possibility of one being the direct descendant of the 
other. The negro in some respects makes a slight approximation towards the Simian 
type. His skull is narrower, his brain less capacious, his muzzle more projecting, his 
arm longer than those of the average European man. Still he is essentially a man, and 
separated by a wide gulf from the chimpanzee or the gorilla. Even the idiot or cretin, 
whose brain is no larger and intelligence no greater than that of the chimpanzee, is an 
arrested man and not an ape. 

If, therefore, the Darwinian theory holds good in the case of man and ape, we 
must go back to some common ancestor from whom both may have originated. . . . 
But to establish this as a fact and not a theory we require to find that ancestral form, 
or, at any rate, some intermediate forms tending towards it ... in other words . . . 
the " missing link." Now it must be admitted that, hitherto, not only have no such 
missing links been discovered, but the oldest known human skulls and skeletons which 
date from the Glacial period, and are probably at least 100,000 years old, show no very 
decided approximation towards any such prehuman type. On the contrary, one of the 
oldest types, that of the men of the sepulchral cave of Cro-Magnon, 1 is that of a fine 
race, tall in stature, large in brain, and on the whole superior to many of the existing 
races of mankind. The reply of course is that the time is insufficient, and if man and 
the ape had a common ancestor, that as a highly developed anthropoid ape, certainly, 
and man, probably, already existed in the Miocene period, such ancestor must be 
sought still further back at a distance compared with which the whole Quaternary 
period sinks intp insignificance. . . All this is true, and it may well make us hesitate 
before we admit that man ... is alone an exception to the general law of the 
universe, and is the creature of a special creation. This is the more difficult to believe, 
as the ape family which man so closely resembles [?] in physical structure contains 
numerous branches which graduate into one another, but the extremes of which differ 
more widely than man does from the highest of the ape series. If a special creation is 
required for man, must there not have been special creations for the chimpanzee, the 
gorilla, the orang, and for at least 100 different species of apes and monkeys which are 
all built on the same lines ? ' 

There was a " special creation " for man, and a " special creation " 
for the ape, his progeny ; only on other lines than ever bargained for 
by Science. Albert Gaudry and others give some weighty reasons why man 
cannot be regarded as the crown of an ape-stock. When one finds that 
not only was the " primeval savage " (?) a reality in the Miocene times, 
but that, as de Mortillet shows, the flint relics he has left behind him 
were splintered by fire in that remote epoch ; when we learn that 
the dryopithecus, alone of the anthropoids, appears in those strata, what 
is the natural inference ? That the Darwinians are in a quandary. The very 
man-like gibbon is still in the same low grade of development, as it was when 
it co-existed with man at the close of the Glacial Period. It has not appreciably 
altered since the Pliocene times. Now there is little to choose between the 

1 A race which MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy regard as a branch of the same stock whence the 
Canary Island Guanches sprung offshoots of the Atlanteans, in short. 

2 Ibid., pp. 180. 



THE FOSSIL RELICS OF MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID APE 249 

dryopithecus and the existing anthropoids gibbon, gorilla, etc. If, then, the 
Darwinian theory is ail-sufficient, how are we to " explain " the evolution of 
this ape into man during the first half of the Miocene ? The time is far too 
short for such a theoretical transformation. The extreme slowness with which 
variation in species supervenes renders the thi^g inconceivable more espe- 
cially on the "natural selection" hypothesis. The enormous mental and 
structural gulf between a savage acquainted with fire and the mode of kindling 
it, and a brutal anthropoid, is too great to bridge even in idea, during so 
contracted a period. Let the Evolutionists push back the process into the 
preceding Eocene, if they prefer to do so ; let them even trace both man and 
dryopithecus to a common ancestor ; the unpleasant consideration has, never- 
theless, to be faced that in Eocene strata the anthropoid fossils are as 
conspicuous by their absence, as is the fabulous pithecanthropus of Haeckel. 
Is an exit out of this cul de sac to be found by an appeal to the " unknown/' 
and a reference, with Darwin, to the " imperfection of the geological record "? 
So be it ; but the same right of appeal must then be equally accorded to the 
Occultists, instead of remaining the monopoly of puzzled Materialism. Physical 
man, we say, existed before the first bed of the Cretaceous rocks was deposit- 
ed. In the early part of the Tertiary age, the most brilliaht civilization the 
world has ever known flourished at a period when the Haeckelian man-ape is 
conceived as roaming through primeval forests, and Mr. Grant Allen's putative 
ancestor as swinging himself from bough to bough with his hairy mates, the 
degenerated Liliths of the Third Race Adam. Yet there were no anthropoid 
apes in the brighter days of the civilization of the Fourth Race ; but Karma is 
a mysterious law, and no respecter of persons. The monsters bred in sin and 
shame by the Atlantean Giants, " blurred copies " of their bestial sires, and 
hence of modern man, according to Huxley, now mislead and overwhelm with 
error the speculative Anthropologist of European Science. 

Where did the first men live ? Some Darwinists say in Western Africa, some 
in Southern Asia, others again believe in an independent origin of human stocks 
in Asia and America from a simian ancestry (Vogt). Haeckel, however, advances 
gaily to the charge. Starting from his prosimia, " the ancestor common to 
all other catarrhini including man " a "link " now, however, disposed of for 
good by recent anatomical discoveries ! he endeavours to find a habitat for 
the primeval pithecanthropus alalus. 

In all probability it [the transformation of animal into man] occurred in Southern 
Asia, in which region many evidences are forthcoming that here was the original home 
of the different species of man. Probably Southern Asia itself was not the earliest 
cradle of the human race, but Lemuria, a continent that lay to the south of Asia, and 
sank later on beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean. The period during which the 



250 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

evolution of the anthropoid apes into ape-like men took place was probably the last 
part of the Tertiary period, the Pliocene age, and perhaps the Miocene age, its 
forerunner. 1 

Of the above speculations, the only one of any worth is that referring to 
Lemuria, which was the cradle of mankind of the physical sexual creature 
who materialized through long aeons out of the ethereal hermaphrodites. 
Only, if it is proved that Easter Island is an actual relic of Lemuria, we must 
believe that according to Haeckel the " dumb ape-men," just removed from a 
brutal mammalian monster, built the gigantic portrait-statues, two of which are 
now in the British Museum. Critics are mistaken in terming Haeckelian doctrines 
"abominable, revolutionary, immoral" though Materialism is the legitimate 
outcome of the ape-ancestor myth they are simply too absurd to demand 
disproof. 

B. WESTERN EVOLUTIONISM: THE COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF 
MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID IN NO WAY A CONFIRMATION 

OF DARWINISM 

We are told that while every other heresy against modern Science may 
be disregarded, this, our denial of the Darwinian theory as applied to man, 
will be the one " unpardonable " sin. The Evolutionists stand firm as rock on 
the evidence of similarity of structure between the ape and man. The anatom- 
ical evidence, it is urged, is quite overpowering in this case ; it is bone for 
bone, and muscle for muscle, even the brain conformation being very much 
the same. 

Well, what of that ? All this was known before King Herod ; and the 
writers of the Ramayana, the poets who sang the prowess and valour of 
Hanuman, the Monkey-God, " whose feats were great and wisdom never 
rivalled," must have known as much about his anatomy and brain as does any 
Haeckel or Huxley in our modern day. Volumes upon volumes have been 
written upon this similarity, in antiquity as in more modern times. Therefore, 
there is nothing new given to the world or to philosophy in such volumes as 
Mivart's Man and Apes, or Messrs. Fiske and Huxley's defence of Darwinism. 
But what are those crucial proofs of man's descent from a pithecoid ancestor? 
If the Darwinian theory is not the true one, we are told, if man and ape do 
not descend from a common ancestor, then we must explain the reason of : 

1, The similarity of structure between the two; the fact that the higher 
animal world man and beast is physically of one type or pattern. 

1 Pedigree of Man, p. 73. 



COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF MAN AND ANTHROPOID 251 

2. The presence of rudimentary organs in man, i.e., traces of former 
organs now atrophied by disuse. Some of these organs, it is asserted, could 
not have had any scope for employment, except in a semi-animal, semi- 
arboreal monster. Why, again, do we find in man those " rudimentary " 
organs as useless as its rudimentary wing is to the apteryx of Australia the 
vermiform appendix of the caecum, the ear muscles, 1 the "rudimentary tail" 
with which children are still sometimes born, etc. ? 

Such is the war cry ; and the cackle of the smaller fry among the 
Darwinians is louder, if possible, than even that of the scientific Evolutionists 
themselves ! 

Furthermore, the latter with their great leader Mr. Huxley, and such 
eminent Zoologists as Mr. Romanes and others while defending the Darwin- 
ian theory, are the first to confess the almost insuperable difficulties in the 
way of its final demonstration. And there are as great men of Science as the 
above-named, who deny, most emphatically, the uncalled-for assumption, and 
loudly denounce the unwarrantable exaggerations on the question of this 
supposed similarity. It is sufficient to glance at the works of Broca, Gratiolet, 
Owen, Pruner-Bey, and finally at the last great work of de Quatrefages, 
Introduction a /' Etude des Races Humaines, Questions Generates, to discover 
the fallacy of the Evolutionists. We may say more : the exaggerations 
concerning this alleged similarity of structure between man and the anthropo- 
morphous ape have become so glaring and absurd of late, that even 
Mr. Huxley has found himself forced to protest against the too sanguine ex- 
pectations. It was that great Anatomist personally who called the " smaller fry " 
to order, by declaring in one of his articles that the differences between the 
structure of the human body and that of the highest anthropomorphous 
pithecoid, were not only far from being trifling and unimportant, but were, on 
the contrary, very great and suggestive : 

Every bone of a gorilla bears marks by which it might be distinguished from the 
corresponding bone of a man. 3 

1 Professor Owen believes that these muscles the attollens, retrahens, and attrahens aurem 
were actively functioning in men of the Stone age. This may or may not be the case. The question 
falls under the ordinary " occult " explanation, and involves no postulate of an " animal progenitor " 
to solve it. 

2 Man's Place m Nature, p 104. To cite another good authority . " We find one of the most man-like 
apes (gibbon) in the Tertiary period, and this species is still in the same low grade, and side by side 
with it at the end of the Ice period, man is found in the same high grade as to-day, the ape not 
having approximated more nearly to the man, and modern man not having become further removed 
from the ape than the first (fossil) man . . these facts contradict a theory of constant progressive 
development." (Pfaff.) When according to Vogt, the average Australian brain 99*35 cub. 
inches ; that of the gorilla 30'51, and that of the chimpanzee only 25'45, the giant gap to be bridged 
by the advocate of " Natural " Selection becomes apparent. 



252 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Among the existing creatures there is not one single intermediate form 
that could fill the gap between man and the ape. To ignore that gap, he 
added, "would be no less wrong than absurd." 

Finally, the absurdity of such an unnatural descent of man is so palpable 
in the face of all the proofs and evidence as to the skull of the pithecoid 
compared to that of man, that de Quatrefages resorted unconsciously to our 
Esoteric theory by saying that it is rather the apes that can claim descent 
from man than wee versa. As proven by Gratiolet, with regard to the cavities 
of the brain of the anthropoids in which species that organ develops in 
an inverse ratio to what would be the case were the corresponding organs 
in man really the product of the development of the said organs in the apes 
the size of the human skull and its brain, as well as the cavities, increase with 
the individual development of man. His intellect develops and increases with 
age, while his facial bones and jaws diminish and straighten, thus becoming 
more and more spiritualized , whereas with the ape it is the reverse. 
In its youth the anthropoid is far more intelligent and good-natured, 
while with age it becomes duller ; and, as its skull recedes and seems to 
diminish as it grows, its facial bones and jaws develop, the brain being 
finally crushed, and thrown entirely back, to make with every day more 
room for the anima! type. The organ of thought the brain recedes and 
diminishes, entirely conquered and replaced by that of the wild beast the 
jaw apparatus. 

Thus, as wittily remarked in the French work, a gorilla could with perfect 
justice address an Evolutionist, claiming its right of descent from him. It 
would say to him : We, anthropoid apes, form a retrogressive departure from 
the human type, and therefore our development and evolution are expressed 
by a transition from a human-like to an animal-like structure of organism ; but 
in what way could you, men, descend from us how can you form a continu- 
ation of our genus ? For, to make this possible, your organization would have 
to differ still more than ours does from the human structure, it would have to 
approach still closer to that of the beast than ours does ; and in such a case 
justice demands that you should give up to us your place in nature. You are 
lower than we are, once that you insist on tracing your genealogy from our 
kind ; for the structure of our organization and its development are such that 
we are unable to generate forms of a higher organization than our own. 

This is where the Occult Sciences agree entirely with de Quatrefages. 
Owing to the very type of his development man cannot descend from either 
an ape or an ancestor common to both apes and men, but shows his origin 
to be from a type far superior to himself. And this type is the " Heavenly 



COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF MAN AND ANTHROPOID 253 

Man" the Dhyan Chohans, or the Pitris so-called, as shown in Volume 3, 
Part 1. On the other hand, the pithecoids, the orang-outang, the gorilla, 
and the chimpanzee can, and, as the Occult Sciences teach, do, descend 
from the animalized Fourth human Root Race, being the product of man and 
an extinct species of mammal whose remote ancestors were themselves the 
product of Lemurian bestiality which lived in the Miocene age. The ancestry 
of this semi-human monster is explained in the Stanzas as originating in the 
sin of the " mind-less " races of the middle Third Race period. 

When it is borne in mind that all forms which now people the Earth are 
so many variations on basic types originally thrown off by the Man of the 
Third and Fourth Round, such an evolutionist argument as that insisting on the 
"unity of structural plan" characterizing all vertebrates, loses its edge. The 
basic types referred to were very few in number in comparison with the multi- 
tude of organisms to which they ultimately gave rise ; but a general unity of 
type has, nevertheless, been preserved throughout the ages. The economy 
of Nature does not sanction the co-existence of several utterly opposed 
"ground plans" of organic evolution on one planet. Once, however, that 
the general drift of the Occult explanation is formulated, inference as to detail 
may well be left to the intuitive reader. 

Similarly with the important question of the "rudimentary" organs dis- 
covered by Anatomists in the human organism. Doubtless this line of argu- 
ment, when wielded by Darwin and Haeckel against their European adversaries, 
proved of great weight. Anthropologists, who ventured to dispute the 
derivation of man from an animal ancestry, were sorely puzzled how to deal 
with the presence of gill-clefts, with the "tail" problem, and so on. Here 
again Occultism comes to our assistance with the necessary data. 

The fact is that, as previously stated, the human type is the repertory 
of all potential organic forms, and the central point from which these latter 
radiate. In this postulate we find a true " evolution or " unfolding " in a 
sense which cannot be said to belong to the mechanical theory of Natural 
Selection. Criticizing Darwin's inference from " rudiments," an able writer 
remarks : 

Why is it not just as probably a true hypothesis to suppose that man was first 
created with these rudimentary sketches in his organization, and that they became 
useful appendages in the lower animals into which man degenerated, as it is to suppose 
that these parts existed in full development, activity and practical use, in the lower 
animals out of whom man was generated ? l 

Read for "into which man degenerated," "the prototypes which man 
shed in the course of his astral developments," and an aspect of the true 

1 Creation or Evolution ? Geo. L Curtis, p. 76. 



254 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Esoteric solution is before us. But a wider generalization is now to be 
formulated. 

So far as our present Fourth Round terrestrial period is concerned, the 
mammalian fauna are alone to be regarded as traceable to prototypes shed 
by Man. The amphibia, birds, reptiles, fishes, etc., are the resultants of the 
Third Round, astral fossil forms stored up in the auric envelope of the Earth 
and projected into physical objectivity subsequent to the deposition of the 
first Laurentian rocks. " Evolution " has to deal with the progressive modifi- 
cations, which Palaeontology shows to have affected the lower animal and 
vegetable kingdoms in the course of geological time. It does not, and 
from the nature of things cannot, touch on the subject of the pre-physical 
types which served as the basis for future differentiation. Tabulate the general 
laws controlling the development of physical organisms it certainly may, and 
to a certain extent it has acquitted itself ably of the task. 

To return to the immediate subject of discussion. The mammalia, 
whose first traces are discovered in the marsupials of the Triassic rocks of the 
Secondary Period, were evolved from purely astral progenitors contemporary 
with the Second Race. They are thus post-Human, and, consequently, it is 
easy to account for the general resemblance between their embryonic stages 
and those of Man, who necessarily embraces in himself and epitomizes in his 
development the features of the group he originated. This explanation 
disposes of a portion of the Darwinist brief. 

But how to account for the presence of the gill-clefts in the human foetus, 
which represent the stage through which the branchiae of the fish are developed ; l for 
the pulsating vessel corresponding to the heart of the lower fishes, which constitutes 
the foetal heart ; for the entire analogy presented by the segmentation of the human 
ovum, the formation of the blastoderm, and the appearance of the " gastrula " stage, 
with corresponding stages in lower vertebrate life and even among the sponges ; for 
the various types of lower animal life which the form of the future child shadows forth 
in the cycle of its growth ? . . . How comes it to pass that stages in the life of fishes, 
whose ancestors swam [aeons before the epoch of the First Root Race] in the seas of 
the Silurian period, as well as stages in that of the later amphibian, reptilian fauna, are 
mirrored in the " epitomized history" of human foetal development? 

This plausible objection is met by the reply that the Third Round 
terrestrial animal forms were just as much referable to types thrown off by 
Third Round Man, as that new importation into our planet's area the 
mammalian stock is to the Fourth Round Humanity of the Second Root 

1 "At this period," writes Darwin, "the arteries run in arcMtke branches, as if to carry the 
blood to branchiae which are not present in the higher vertebrata, though the slits on the side of the 
neck still remain, marking their former [?] position." 

It is noteworthy that, though gill-clefts are absolutely useless to all but amphibia and fishes, etc., 
their appearance is regularly noted in the foetal development of vertebrates. Even children are 
occasionally born with an opening in the neck corresponding to one of the clefts. 



THE ANTHROPOIDS AND THEIR ANCESTRY 255 

Race. The process of human foetal growth epitomizes not only the general 
characteristics of the Fourth, but of the Third Round terrestrial life. The 
diapason of type is run through in brief. Occultists are thus at no loss to 
"account for" the birth of children with an actual caudal appendage, or 
for the fact that the tail in the human foetus is, at one period, double the 
length of the nascent legs. The potentiality of every organ useful to animal 
life is locked up in Man the Microcosm of the Macrocosm and abnormal 
conditions may not unfrequently result in the strange phenomena which 
Darwinists regard as'" reversion to ancestral features." l Reversion, indeed, 
but scarcely in the sense contemplated by our present-day empiricists ! 

C. DARWINISM AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN : THE ANTHROPOIDS 

AND THEIR ANCESTRY 

The public has been notified by more than one eminent modern 
Geologist and man of Science, that : 

All estimate of geological duration is not merely imperfect, but necessarily im- 
possible ; for we are ignorant of the causes, though they must have existed, which 
quickened or retarded the progress of the sedimentary deposits.' 2 

And now another man of Science, as well known (Dr. Croll), calculating 
that the Tertiary age began either fifteen or two-and-a-half million years 
ago the former being a more correct calculation, according to Esoteric 
Doctrine, than the latter there seems in this case, at least, no very great 
disagreement. Exact Science, refusing to see in man a " special creation " 
(to a certain degree the Secret Sciences do the same), is at liberty to ignore 
the first three, or rather two-and-a-half Races the Spiritual, the semi -astral, 
and the semi-human of our teachings. But it can hardly do the same in 
the case of the Third, at its closing period, the Fourth, and the Fifth Races^ 
since it already divides mankind into Palaeolithic and Neolithic man. :j The 
Geologists of France place man in the Mid-Miocene age (Gabriel de Mortillet), 
and some even in the Secondary period, as de Quatrefages suggests ; 

1 Those who with Haeckel regard the gill-clefts with their attendant phenomena as illustrative of 
an active function in our amphibian and piscine ancestors (see his twelfth and thirteenth stages), ought 
to explain why the "vegetable with leaflets" (Prof. Andre Lefevre) represented in foetal growth, 
does not appear in his twenty-two stages through which the Monera have passed in their ascent to 
Man. Haeckel does not postulate a vegetable ancestor. The embryological argument is thus a two- 
edged sword and here cuts its possessor. 

Lefevre, Philosophy Historical and Critical, pt. n, p. 480, " Library of Contemporary Science." 

l We confess to not being able to see any good reasons for Mr. E. Clodd's positive statement in. 
Knowledge. Speaking of the men of Neolithic times, " concerning whom Mr. Grant Allen has given 
... a vivid and accurate sketch," and who are "the direct ancestors of peoples of whom remnants 
yet lurk in out-of-the-way corners of Europe, where they have been squeezed or stranded," he adds. 



256 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

while the English savants do not generally accept such antiquity for their 
species. But they may know better some day. For, as says Sir Charles Lyell : 

If we consider the absence or extreme scarcity of human bones and works of art 
in all strata, whether marine or fresh-water, even in those formed in the immediate 
proximity of land inhabited by millions of human beings, we shall be prepared for the 
general dearth of human memorials in glacial formations, whether^recent, pleistocene, or 
of more ancient date. If there were a few wanderers over lands covered with glaciers, 
or over seas infested with icebergs, and if a few of them left their bones or weapons 
in moraines or in marine drifts, the chances, after the lapse of thousand of years, of a 
geologist meeting with one of them must be infinitesimally small. 1 

The men of Science avoid pinning themselves down to any definite state- 
ment concerning the age of man, as indeed they are hardly able to make any, 
and thus leave enormous latitude to bolder speculations. Nevertheless, while 
the majority of the Anthropologists carry back the existence of man only into 
the period of the post-glacial drift, or what is called the Quaternary period, 
those of them who, as Evolutionists, trace man to a common origin with the 
monkey, do not show great consistency in their speculations. The Darwinian 
hypothesis demands, in reality, a far greater antiquity for man, than is even 
dimly suspected by superficial thinkers. This is proven by the greatest authori- 
ties on the question Mr. Huxley, for instance. Those, therefore, who accept 
the Darwinian evolution, ipso facto hold very tenaciously to an antiquity of man 
so very great, indeed, that it falls not so far short of the Occultist's estimate. 2 
The modest thousands of years of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the 100,000 
years, to which Anthropology in general limits the age of Humanity, seem 
quite microscopical when compared with the figures implied in Mr. Huxley's 
bold speculations. The former, indeed, makes of the original race of men 
ape-like cave-dwellers. The great English Biologist, in his desire to prove 

" but the men of Palaeolithic times can be identified with no existing races ; they were savages of a 
more degraded type than any extant ; tall, yet barely erect, with short legs and twisted knees, with 
prognathous, that is, projecting ape-like jaws, and small brains Whence they come we cannot tell, 
.and their ' grave knoweth no man to this day '." 

Besides the possibility that there may be men who know whence they came and how they 
perished it is not true to say that the Palasolithic men, or their fossils, are all found with "small 
.brains " The oldest skull of all those hitherto found, the " Neanderthal skull," is of average 
<:apac/ty, and Mr. Huxley was compelled to confess that it was no real approximation whatever to that 
of the " missing link " There are aboriginal tribes in India whose brains are far smaller and nearer to 
that of the ape than any hitherto found among the skulls of Paleolithic man. 

1 Antiquity of Man, p. 246. 

* The actual time required for such a theoretical transformation is necessarily enormous. " If," 
says Professor Pfaff, "in the hundreds of thousands of years which you [the Evolutionists] accept 
between the rise of palaeolithic man and our own day, a greater distance of man from the brute is not 
demonstrable [the most ancient man was just as far removed from the brute as the now living man], 
what reasonable ground can be advanced for believing that man has been developed from the brute, 
and has receded further from it by infinitely small gradations. . . The longer the interval of time 
placed between our times and the so-called palaeolithic men, the more ominous and destructive for the 
theory of the gradual development of man from the animal kingdom is the result stated." Huxley 
writes (Man's Place in Nature, p. 208) that the most liberal estimates for the antiquity of man must be 
still further extended. 



THE ANTHROPOIDS AND THEIR ANCESTRY 257 

jnan's pithecoid origin, insists that the transformation of the primordial ape 
into a human being must have occurred millions of years back. For in criti- 
cizing the excellent cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull, notwithstanding 
his assertion that it is overlaid with "pithecoid bony walls," coupled with 
Mr. Grant Allen's assurances that this skull 

Possesses large bosses on the forehead, strikingly [?] suggestive of those which 
<jive the gorilla its peculiarly fierce appearance. 1 

.still Mr. Huxley is forced to admit that, in the said skull, his theory is once 
more defeated by the 

Completely human proportions of the accompanying limb-bones, together with 
.the fair development of the Engis skull. 

In consequence of all this we are notified that these skulls 

Clearly indicate that the first traces of the primordial stock whence man has 
proceeded, need no longer be sought by those who entertain any form of the doctrine 
of progressive development in the newest Tertiaries ; but that they may be looked for 
in an epoch more distant from the age of the elephas primigenius than that is from us. 2 

An untold antiquity for man is thus, then, the scientific sine qua non in 
the question of Darwinian Evolution, since the oldest Palaeolithic man shows as 
yet no appreciable differentiation from his modern descendant. It is only of 
late that modern Science has with every year begun to widen the abyss that 
now separates her from ancient Science, as that of Pliny and Hippocrates ; 
none of the old writers would have derided the Archaic Teachings with respect 
to the evolution of the human races and animal species, as the present day 
Scientist Geologist or Anthropologist is sure to do. 

1 Fortnightly Review., .1882. The baselessness of this assertion, as well as that of many other 
exaggerations of the imaginative Mr. Grant Allen, was ably exposed by the eminent Anatomist, 
Professor R. Owen, in Longman's Magazine, No. 1. Must it be repeated, moreover, that the Cro- 
Magnon Palaeolithic type is superior to that of a very large number of existing races ? 

2 It thus stands to reason that Science would never dream of a Pre-Tertiary man, and that 
de Quatrefages' Secondary man makes every Academician and F.R.S. faint with horror because, to 
.preserve the ape-theory, Science must make man Post-Secondary. This is just what de Quatrefages 
has twitted the Darwinists with, adding, that on the whole there were more scientific reasons for tracing 
the ape from man than man from the anthropoid. With this exceptron Science has not one single 
valid argument to offer against the antiquity of man. But in this case modern Evolution demands far 
more than the fifteen million years of Dr. Croll for the Tertiary period, for two very simple but good 
reasons : (a), no anthropoid ape has been found before the Miocene period ; (6) man's flint relics have 
been traced to the Pliocene and their presence suspected, if not accepted by all, in the Miocene strata. 
Again, where is the " missing link " in such case? And how could even a Palaeolithic savage, a '*man 
of Canstadt," evolve into a thinking man from the brute dryopithecus of the Miocene in so short a 
time ? One sees now the reason why Darwin rejected the theory that only 60,000,000 years had 
elapsed since the Cambrian period. '" He judges from the small amount of organic change since the 
commencement of the glacial epoch, and adds that the previous one hundred and forty million years 
can hardly be considered as sufficient for the development of the varied forms of life which certainly 
existed toward the close of the Cambrian period." (Ch. Gould, Mytri/cal Monsters, p. 84.) 

F 17 



258 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE 



Holding, as we do, that the mammalian type was a post-human FourtK 
Round product, the following diagram as the writer understands the teaching 
may make the process clear : 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE APES 
Primeval Astral Man 



(Astral) 
Mammal Prototypes 




Second Race (Astral) 

Third Race (Semi-Astral)* 
(Separation into sexes) 

Fourth Race (Physical) 
Fifth Race 



(Physical) 
Lower Mammals 

Lower Apes 



The unnatural union was invariably fertile, because the then mammalian* 
types were not remote enough from their root-type l Primeval Astral Man 
to develop the necessary barrier. Medical Science records such cases of 
monsters, bred from human and animal parents, even in our own day. The 
possibility is, therefore, only one of degree, not of fact. Thus it is that 
Occultism solves one of the strangest problems presented to the consideration 
of the Anthropologist. 

The pendulum of thought oscillates between extremes. Having now 
, finally emancipated herself from the shackles of Theology, Science has 

1 Let us remember in this connection the Esoteric Teaching which tells that Man in the Third 
Round was possessed of a gigantic ape-like form on the astral plane. And similarly at the close of 
the Third Race in this Round. Thus it accounts for the human features of the apes, especially of the 
later anthropoids apart from the fact that these latter preserve by heredity a resemblance to their 
Atlanto-Lemurian series. 



THE ANTHROPOIDS AND THEIR ANCESTRY 259 

embraced the opposite fallacy ; and in the attempt to interpret Nature on purely 
materialistic lines, she has built up that most extravagant theory of the ages 
the derivation of man from a ferocious and brutal ape. So rooted has this 
doctrine now become, in one form and another, that the most Herculean 
efforts will be needed to bring about its final rejection. The Darwinian 
Anthropology is the incubus of the Ethnologist, a sturdy child of modern 
Materialism, which has grown up and acquired increasing vigour, as the 
ineptitude of the theological legend of Man's "creation" became more and 
more apparent. It has thriven on account of the strange delusion that as a 
Scientist of repute puts it : 

All hypotheses and theories with respect to the rise of man can be reduced to 
two [the evolutionist and the biblical exoteric account]. . . . There is no other hypo- 
thesis conceivable [! !], 

The anthropology of the Secret Volumes is, however, the best possible 
answer to such a worthless contention. 

The anatomical resemblance between man and the higher ape, so fre- 
quently cited by Darwinists as pointing to some former ancestor common to 
both, presents an interesting problem, the proper solution of which is to be 
sought for in the Esoteric explanation of the genesis of the pithecoid stocks. 
We have given it as far as it was useful, by stating that the bestiality of the 
primeval mindless races resulted in the production of huge man-like monsters 

the offspring of human and animal parents. As time rolled on, and the 

still semi-astral forms consolidated into the physical, the descendants of these 
creatures were modified by external conditions, until the breed, dwindling in 
size, culminated in the lower apes of the Miocene period. With these the 
later Atlanteans renewed the sin of the "Mindless" this time with full 
responsibility. The resultants of their crime were the apes now known as 
anthropoid. 

It may be useful to compare this very simple theory and we are willing 
to offer it merely as a hypothesis to the unbelievers with the Darwinian 
scheme, so full of insurmountable obstacles, that no sooner is one of them 
overcome by a more or less ingenious hypothesis, than ten worse difficulties 
are forthwith discovered behind the one disposed of. 



SECTION 4 

DURATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL PERIODS, RACE 
CYCLES, AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 

MILLIONS of years have sunk into Lethe, leaving no more recollection in the 
memory of the profane than the few millenniums of the orthodox Western 
chronology as to the Origin of Man and the history of the primeval races. 

All depends on the proofs found for the antiquity of the Human Race. 
If the still-debated man of the Pliocene or even the Miocene period was the 
Homo primigenius, then Science may be right (argument/ causa) in basing its 
present Anthropology as to the date and mode of origin of Homo sapiens 
on the Darwinian theory. 1 But if the skeletons of man should at any time 
be discovered in the Eocene strata, while no fossil ape is found there, and 
the existence of man is thus proved to be prior to that of the anthropoid 
then Darwinians will have to exercise their ingenuity in another direction. 
Moreover, it is said in well-informed quarters that the twentieth century will 
be still in its earliest teens when such undeniable proof of man's priority will 
be forthcoming. 

Even now much evidence is being brought forward to prove that the 
dates hitherto assigned for the foundations of cities, civilizations and various 
other historical events have been absurdly curtailed. This was done as 
a peace-offering to biblical chronology. The well-known Palaeontologist 
Ed. Lartet writes : 

No date is to be found in Genesis, which assigns a time for the birth of primitive 
humanity. 

But Chronologists have for fifteen centuries endeavoured to force the 
Bible facts into agreement with their systems. Thus, no less than one hundred 

1 It may here be remarked that those Darwinians who, with Mr. Grant Allen, place our " hairy 
arboreal " ancestors so far back as the Eocene age, are landed in rather an awkward dilemma. No 
fossil anthropoid ape much less the fabulous common ancestor assigned to man and the pithecoid 
appears in Eocene strata. The first presentment of an anthropoid ape is Miocene. 



THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 26 1 

and forty different opinions have been formed about the single date of 
" Creation." 

And between the extreme variations there is a discrepancy of 3,194 years, in the 
reckoning of the period between the beginning of the world and the birth of Christ. 
Within the last few years, archaeologists have had also to throw back by nearly, 3,000 
years the beginnings of Babylonian civilization. On the foundation cylinder deposited by 
Nabonidus, the Babylonian king, conquered by Cyrus are found the records of the 
former, in which he speaks of his discovery of the foundation stone that belonged to 
the original temple built by Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, of Accadia, the conqueror of 
Babylonia, who, says Nabonidus, lived 3,200 years before his own time. 1 

We have shown in Isis Unveiled that those who based history on the 
chronology of the Jews a race which had none of its own and rejected the 
Western till the twelfth century would lose their way, for the Jewish account 
could only be followed through kabalistic computation, and only then with 
a key in hand. We characterized the late George Smith's chronology of the 
Chaldeans and Assyrians, which he had made to fit in with that of Moses, as 
quite fantastic. And now, in this respect at least, later Assyriologists have 
corroborated our denial. For, whereas George Smith makes Sargon I (the 
prototype of Moses) reign in the city of Akkad about 1600 B.C. probably 
out of a latent respect for Moses, whom the Bible makes to flourish 1571 B.C. 
we now learn from the first of the six Hibbert Lectures delivered by 
Professor A. H. Sayce of Oxford, in 1887, that : 

Old views of the early annals of Babylonia and its religions have been much 
modified by recent discovery. The first Semitic Empire, it is now agreed, was that of 
Sargon of Accad, who established a great library, patronized literature, and extended 
his conquests across the sea into Cyprus. It is now known that he reigned as early as 
B.C. 3,750. . . . The Accadian monuments found by the French at Tel-loh must be 
even older, reaching back to about B.C. 4,000. 

In other words, to the fourth year of the World's creation agreeably 
with Bible chronology, and when Adam was in his swaddling clothes. Per- 
chance, in a few years more, the 4,000 years may be further extended. The 
well-known Oxford lecturer remarked in his disquisitions upon " The Origin 
and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Baby- 
lonians," that : 

The diffculties of systematically tracing the origin and history of the Babylonian 
Religion were considerable. The sources of our Knowledge of the subject were almost 
wholly monumental, very little help being obtainable from classical or Oriental writers. 
Indeed, it was an undeniable fact that the Babylonian priesthood intentionally swaddled 
up the study of the religious texts in coils of almost insuperable difficulty. 

That they have confused the dates, and especially the order of events 
" intentionally," is undeniable, and for a very good reason : their writings 

1 Ed. Lartet, " Nouvelles Recherches sur la Co-existence de I'Homme et des Grands Mammi- 
feres Fossils de la Derniere Pe*riode Ge*o!ogique." Anna/es eyes Soc. Nat., xv, p. 256. 



262 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

and records were all Esoteric. The Babylonian priests did no more than the 
priests of other ancient nations. Their records were meant only for the 
Initiates and their disciples, and it is only the latter who were furnished with 
the keys to the true meaning. But Professor Sayce's remarks are promising. 
For he explains the difficulty by saying that as : 

The Nineveh library contained mostly copies of older Babylonian texts, and the 
copyists pitched upon such tablets only as were of special interest to the Assyrian 
conquerors, belonging to a comparatively late epoch, this added much to the greatest 
of ail our difficulties namely, our being so often left in the dark as to the age of our 
documentary evidence, and the precise worth of our materials for history. 

Thus one has a right to infer that some still fresher discovery may lead to a 
new necessity for pushing the Babylonian dates so far beyond the year 4,000 B.C., 
as to make them pre-Kosmic in the judgment of every Bible worshipper. 

How much more would Palaeontology have learned had not millions of 
works been destroyed ! We talk of the Alexandrian Library, which has been 
thrice destroyed, namely, by Julius Caesar 48 B.C., in A D. 390, and lastly in the 
year A.D. 640 by the general of Kaliph Omar. What is this in comparison with 
the works and records destroyed in the primitive Atlantean Libraries, wherein 
records are said to have been traced on the tanned skins of gigantic ante- 
diluvian monsters ? Or again in comparison with the destruction of the countless 
Chinese books by command of the founder of the Imperial Tsin dynasty, Tsin 
Shi Hwang-ti, in 213 B.C. ? Surely the brick-clay tablets of the Imperial Baby- 
Ionian Library, and the priceless treasures of the Chinese collections, could 
never have contained such information as one of the aforesaid " Atlantean " 
skins would have furnished to the ignorant world. 

But even with the extremely meagre data at hand, Science has been able 
to see the necessity of throwing back nearly every Babylonian date, and has 
done so quite generously. We learn from Professor Sayce that even the 
archaic statues at Tel-loh, in Lower Babylonia, have suddenly been assigned a 
date contemporary with the fourth dynasty in Egypt. 1 Unfortunately, dynasties 
and pyramids share the fate of geological periods ; their dates are arbitrary, 
and depend on the whims of the respective men of Science. Archaeologists 
know now, it is said, that the afore-mentioned statues are fashioned out of 
green diorite, that can only be got in the Peninsula of Sinai ; and 

They accord in the style of art, and in the standard of measurement employed, 
with the similar diorite statues of the pyramid builders of the third and fourth Egyptian 
dynasties . . . Moreover, the only possible period for a Babylonian occupation of the 
Smaitic quarries must be placed shortly after the close of the epoch at which the 
pyramids were built ; and thus only can we understand how the name of Sinai could 
have been derived from that of Sin, the primitive Babylonian moon-god. 
1 See the Hibbert Lectures for 1887, p. 33. 



THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 263 

This is very logical, but what is the date fixed for these dynasties ? 
Sanchuniathon's and Manetho's synchronistic tables or whatever remained of 
these after holy Eusebius had the handling of them have been rejected ; 
and still we have to remain satisfied with the four or five thousand years B.C., 
so liberally allotted to Egypt. At all events one point is gained. There is, at 
Jast, a city on the face of the Earth which is allowed, at least, 6,000 years, and 
it is Eridu. Geology has Discovered it. According to Professor Sayce again : 

They are now also able to obtain time for the silting up of the head of the 
Persian Gulf, which demands a lapse of between 5,000 and 6,000 years since the period 
when Eridu, now twenty-five miles inland, was the seaport at the mouth of the Euph- 
rates, and the seat of Babylonian commerce with Southern Arabia and India. More than 
all, the new chronology gives time for the long series of eclipses recorded in the great 
astronomical work called " The Observations of Bel " ; and we are also enabled to 
understand the otherwise perplexing change in the position of the vernal equinox, which 
has occurred since our present zodiacal signs were named by the earliest Babylonian 
astronomers. When the Accadian calendar was arranged and the Accadian months 
were named, the sun at the vernal equinox was not, as now, in Pisces, or even in Aries, 
but in Taurus. The rate of the precession of the equinoxes being known, we learn 
that at the vernal equinox the sun was in Taurus from about 4,700 years B.C., and we 
thus obtain astronomical limits of date which cannot be impugned. 1 . 

It may make our position plainer if we state at once that we use 
Sir C. Lyell's nomenclature for the ages and periods, and that when we talk of 
the Secondary and Tertiary age, of the Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene periods 
this is simply to make our facts more comprehensible. Since these ages 
and periods have not yet been allowed fixed and determined durations, two- 
and-a-half and fifteen million years being assigned at different times to one 
and the same age (the Tertiary) ; and since no two Geologists or Naturalists 
seem to agree on this point Esoteric Teachings may remain quite indifferent 
to the appearance of man in the Secondary or the Tertiary age. If the latter 
age may be allowed even so much as fifteen million years' duration well and 
good ; for the Occult Doctrine, jealously guarding its real and correct figures 
so far as concerns the First, Second, and two-thirds of the Third Root Race, 
gives clear information upon one point only the age of Vaivasvata Manu's 
humanity. 2 

Another definite statement is that during the so-called Eocene period the 
Continent to which the Fourth Race belonged, and on which it lived and 
perished, showed the first symptoms of sinking, and that it was in the Miocene 
age that it was finally destroyed save the small island mentioned by Plato. 
These points have now to be checked by scientific data. 

1 From a Report of the Hibbert Lectures, 1887.' Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, 
.as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians. By A. H. Sayce. 
3 See Vol. 3, Part 1, " Chronology of the Brahmans." 



264 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

A. SCIENTIFIC SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE AGES OF THE 
GLOBE. ANIMAL EVOLUTION, AND MAN 

May we not be permitted to throw a glance at the works of specialists ? 
The work on World-Life or Comparative Geology, by Prof. A. Winchell, 
furnishes us with curious data. Here we find an opponent of the nebular 
theory smiting with all the force of the hammer of his odium theologicum on 
the rather contradictory hypotheses of the great stars of Science, in the matter 
of sidereal and cosmic phenomena based on their respective relations to 
terrestrial durations. The " too imaginative physicists and naturalists" do not 
fare very easily under this shower of their own speculative computations placed 
side by side, and cut rather a sorry figure. Thus he writes : 

Sir William Thompson, on the basis of the observed principles of cooling, con- 
cludes that not more than ten million years [elsewhere he makes it 100,000,000] can 
have elapsed since the temperature of the earth was sufficiently reduced to sustain 
vegetable life. 1 . . . Helmholtz calculates that twenty million years would suffice for 
the original nebula to condense to the present dimensions of the sun. Prof. S. Newcomb 
requires only ten millions to attain a temperature of 212 Fahr. 2 Dr. Croll estimates seventy 
million years for the diffusion of the heat. . . . 3 Bischof calculates that 350 million years 
would be required for the earth to cool from a temperature of 2,000 to 200 centigrade. 
Reade, basing his estimate on observed rates of denudation, demands 500 million years 
since sedimentation began in Europe. 4 Lyell ventured a rough guess of 240 million- 
years ; Darwin thought 300 million years demanded by the organic transformations 
which his theory contemplates ; and Huxley is disposed to demand a thousand millions 
[! !].... Some biologists . . . seem to close their eyes tight and leap at one bound 
into the abyss of millions of years, of which they have no more adequate estimate than 
of infinity/' 

Then he proceeds to give what he takes to be more correct geological 
figures : a few will suffice. 

According to Sir William Thompson " the whole incrusted age of the 
world is 80.000,000 years " ; and agreeably with Prof. Houghton's calculations 
of a minimum limit for the time since the elevation of Europe and Asia, three 
hypothetical ages for three possible and different modes of upheaval are given, 
varying from the modest figure of 640,730 years, through 4,170,000 years to the 
tremendous figure of 27,491,000 years ! ! 

This is enough, as one can see, to cover our claims for the four Conti- 
nents and even the figures of the Brahmans. 

Further calculations, the details of which the reader may find irr 
Prof. Winchell 's work, 6 bring Houghton to an approximation of the sedimentary 

1 Nat. Philos.. by Thomson and Tait, App. D. Trans. Royal Soc., Edin., xxiii, pt. 1, 157 (1862). 

2 Popular Astronomy, p. 509. 3 Climate and Time, p. 335. 

4 Address. Liverpool Geological Society, 1876. : ' World-Life, pp. 179-80. 6 /bid., pp. 367-8. 



AGES OF THE GLOBE, ANIMAL EVOLUTION, AND MAN 265- 

age of the globe 11,700,000 years. These figures are found too small by the- 
author, who forthwith extends them to 37,000,000 years. 

Again, according to Dr. Croll, 1 2,500,000 years " represents the time since 
the beginning of the Tertiary age " in one work ; and according to another 
modification of his view, 15,000,000 only have elapsed " since the beginning of 
the Eocene period ",' 2 this, being the first of the three Tertiary periods, leaves 
the student suspended between two-and-a-half and fifteen millions. But if one 
has to hold to the former moderate figures, then the whole incrusted age of 
the world would be 131,600.000 years. 3 

As the last Glacial period extended from 240,000 to 80,000 years ago 
(Dr. Croll's view), therefore, man must have appeared on Earth from 100,000 
to 120,000 years ago. But, as says Prof. Winchell with reference to the antiquity 
of the Mediterranean race : 

It is generally believed to have made its appearance during the later decline of 
the continental glaciers. It does not concern, however, the antiquity of the Black and 
Brown races, since there are numerous evidences of their existence in more southern 
regions, in times remotely pre-glacial. 4 

As a specimen of geological certainty and agreement, these figures also 
may be added. Three authorities Messrs. T. Belt, F.G.S., Robert Hunt, 
F.R.S , and J. Croll, F.R.S., in estimating the time that has elapsed since the 
Glacial epoch, give figures that vary to an almost incredible extent : 
Belt .... .... .... 20,000 years. 

Hunt .... .... .... 80,000 ,, 

Croll .... .... .... 240,000 ,, 5 

No wonder that Mr. Pengelly confesses that : 

It is at present and perhaps always will be impossible to reduce, even approxi- 
mately, geological time into years or even into millenniums. 

A wise word of advice from the Occultists to the gentlemen Geolo- 
gists ; they ought to imitate the cautious example of Masons. As chronology,, 
they say, cannot measure the era of the creation, therefore, their " Antient 
and Primitive Rite " uses 000,000,000 as the nearest approach to reality. 

The same uncertainty, contradictions and disagreement reign on all other 
subjects. 

1 Climate and Time, y Quoted in Mr. Ch. Gould's Mythical Monsters, p. 84. 

3 According to Bischof, 1,004,177 years, according to Chevandier's calculations 672,788 years^ 
were required for the so-called Coal formation. "The time required for the development of the 
strata of the Tertiary period, ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 feet in thickness, must have been at least 
350,000 years." (See Force and Matter, Buchner, p. 159, Ed. 1884). 

4 Op. cit., p. 379. 

"' But see " The Ice-Age Climate and Time," Popular Science Review, xiv, 242. 



266 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

The scientific authorities on the Descent of Man are again, for all practi- 
cal purposes, a delusion and a snare. There are many Anti-Darwinists in the 
British Association, and Natural Selection begins to lose ground. Though at 
one time the saviour, which seemed to rescue the learned theorists from a 
final intellectual collapse into the abyss of fruitless hypothesis, it begins to be 
distrusted. Even Mr. Huxley is showing signs of truancy, and thinks " natural 
selection not the sole factor " : 

We greatly suspect that she [Nature] does make considerable jumps in the way 
of variation now and then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the gaps which 
appear to exist in the series of known forms. 1 

Again, C.R. Bree, M.D., argues in this wise in considering the fatal gaps 
in Mr. Darwin's theory : 

It must be again called to mind that the intermediate forms must have been 
vast in numbers. . . . Mr, St. George Mivart believes that change in evolution may 
occur more quickly than is generally believed ; but Mr. Darwin sticks manfully to his 
belief, and again tells us " natura non tacit saltum." * 

Herein the Occultists are at one with Mr. Darwin. 

Esoteric teaching fully corroborates the idea of Nature's slowness and 
dignified progression. " Planetary impulses " are all periodical. Yet this 
Darwinian theory, correct as it is in minor particulars, agrees no more with 
Occultism than with Mr. Wallace, who, in his Contributions to the Theory of 
Natural Selection, shows pretty conclusively that something more than Natural 
Selection is requisite to produce physical man. 

Let us, meanwhile, examine the scientific objections to this scientific 
theory, and see what they are. 

Mr. St. George Mivart is found arguing that : 

It will be a moderate computation to allow 25,000,000 for the deposit of the 
strata down to and including the Upper Silurian. If, then, the evolutionary work done 
during this deposition only represents a hundredth part of the sum total, we shall 
require 2,500,000,000 (two thousand five hundred million) years for the complete develop- 
ment of the whole animal kingdom to its present state. Even one quarter of this, 
however, would far exceed the time which physics and astronomy seem able to allow 
for the completion of the process. 

Finally, a difficulty exists as to the reason of the absence of rich fossiliferous 
deposits in the oldest strata if life was then as abundant and varied, as, on the 
Darwinian theory, it must have been. Mr. Darwin himself admits " the case at present 
must remain inexplicable ; and this may be truly urged as a valid argument against the 
views " entertained in his book. 

Thus, then, we find a remarkable (and on Darwinian principles all but inexpli- 
cable) absence of minutely graduated transitional forms. All the most marked groups 
bats, pterodactyles, chelonians, ichthyosaurians, amoura, etc. appear at once upon the 
scene. Even the horse, the animal whose pedigree has been probably best preserved, 

1 Review of Kolliker's Criticisms. ~ Fallacies of Darwinism, p. 160. 



AGES OF THE GLOBE, ANIMAL EVOLUTION, AND MAN 267 

.affords no conclusive evidence of specific origin by significant fortuitous variations ; 
while some forms, as the labyrinthodonts and trilobites, which seemed to exhibit gradual 
change, are shown by further investigation to do nothing of the sort. ... All these 
difficulties are avoided if we admit that new forms of animal life of all degrees of com- 
plexity appear from time to time with comparative suddenness, being evolved according 
to laws in part depending on surrounding conditions, in part internal similar to the way 
in which crystals (and, perhaps from recent researches, the lowest forms of life) build 
themselves up according to the internal laws of their component substance, and in 
harmony and correspondence with all environing influences and conditions. 1 

"The internal laws of their component substance." These are wise 
words, and the admission of the possibility is prudent. But how can these 
-internal laws be ever recognized, if Occult teaching be discarded ? As a friend 
writes, while drawing our attention to the above speculations : 

In other words, the doctrine of Planetary Life-Impulses must be admitted. 
Otherwise, why are species now stereotyped, and why do even domesticated breeds of 
pigeons and many animals relapse into their ancestral types when left to themselves ? 

But the teaching about Planetary Life-Impulses has to be clearly defined 
and as clearly understood, if present confusion is not to be made still more 
perplexing. All these difficulties would vanish as the shadows of night dis- 
appear before the light of the rising Sun, if the following Esoteric Axioms 
were admitted ; 

(a) The existence and the enormous antiquity of our Planetary Chain ; 

(6) The actuality of the Seven Rounds ; 

(c) The separation of human Races (outside the purely anthropological 
division) into seven distinct Root Races, of which our present European 
Humanity is the Fifth ; 

(d) The antiquity of man in this (Fourth) Round ; and finally 

(e) That as these Races evolve from ethereality to materiality, and from 
the latter back again into relative physical tenuity of texture, so every living 
(so-called) organic species of animals, with vegetation included, changes with 
every new Root Race. 

Were this admitted, if even only along with other, and surely, on 
maturer consideration, no less absurd, suppositions if Occult theories have to 
be considered " absurd " at present then every difficulty would be made 
away with. Surely Science ought to try and be more logical than it now is, 
as it can hardly maintain the theory of man's descent from an anthropoidal 
ancestor, and deny in the same breath any reasonable antiquity to such a 
man ! Once Mr. Huxley talks of "the vast intellectual chasm between the ape 
and man," and "the present enormous gulf between them," 2 and admits the 

1 The Genesis of Species, Chap, VI, pp. 160-162, Ed. 1871. 

2 Man's Place in Nature, p. 142, note. 



268 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

necessity of extending scientific allowances for the age of man on Earth for 
such slow and progressive development, then all those men of Science who 
are of his way of thinking, at any rate, ought to come to at least some 
approximate figures, and agree upon the probable duration of those 
Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene periods of which so much is said, and about 
which nothing definite is known even if they dare not venture beyond. But 
no two Scientists seem to agree. Every period seems to be a mystery in its 
duration, and a thorn in the side of the Geologists ; and, as just shown, they 
are unable to harmonize their conclusions even with regard to the compara- 
tively recent geological formations. Thus, no reliance can be placed on their 
figures when they do give any, for with them it is all either millions or simply 
thousands of years ! 

That which is said may be strengthened by the confessions made by 
themselves and the synopsis of these, to be found in that " Circle of Sciences," 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, which shows the mean accepted in the geological 
and anthropological riddles. In that work the cream of the most authoritative 
opinions is skimmed off and presented ; nevertheless, we find in it a refusal to 
assign any definite chronological date, even to such comparatively speaking 
late epochs as the Neolithic era, though, for a wonder, an age is established 
for the beginnings of certain geological periods ; at any rate for some few, 
the durations of which could hardly be any more shortened, without an imme- 
diate conflict with facts. 

Thus, it is surmised in the great Encyclopaedia that : 

One hundred million years have passed . . . since the solidification of our 
earth, when the earliest form of life appeared upon it. 1 

But it seems quite as hopeless to try to convert the modern Geologists 
and Ethnologists, as it is to make Darwinian Naturalists perceive their mistakes. 
About the Aryan Root Race and its origins, Science knows as little as of the 
men from other Planets. With the exception of Flammarion, and of a few 
Mystics among Astronomers, even the habitableness of other Planets is mostly 
denied. Yet such great Adept Astronomers were the Scientists of the earliest 
races of the Aryan stock, that they seem to have known far more about the 
races of Mars and Venus than the modern Anthropologist knows of those of 
the early stages of the Earth. 

Let us leave Modern Science aside for a moment and turn to Ancient 
Knowledge. As we are assured by Archaic Scientists that all such 

1 Vol. x, art. " Geology," p. 227. " 100,000,000 of years is probably amply sufficient for all the 
requirements of Geology," says the text. In France, some savants do not find it nearly " sufficient." 
Le Couturier claims 350 million years ; Buffon was satisfied with 34 millions but there are those ir% 
the more modern schools who will not be content with less than 500 million years. 



CHAINS OF PLANETS AND THEIR PLURALITY 269 

geological cataclysms from the upheaval of oceans, deluges, and 
shifting of continents, down to the present year's cyclones, hurricanes, earth- 
quakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, and even the extraordinary weather 
and seeming shifting of seasons which are perplexing all European and 
American Meteorologists are due to, and depend on the Moon and Planets ; 
aye, that even modest and neglected constellations have the greatest influence 
on the meteorological and cosmical changes, over, and within our Earth let 
us give one moment's attention to our sidereal despots, the rulers of our globe 
and men. Modern Science denies any such influence : Archaic Science 
affirms it. We will see what both say with regard to this question. 

B. ON CHAINS OF PLANETS AND THEIR PLURALITY 

Did the Ancients know of Worlds besides their own ? What are the data 
of the Occultists in affirming that every Globe is a Septenary Chain of 
Worlds of which only one member is visible and that these are, were, or 
will be, " man-bearing," just as is every visible Star or Planet? What do they 
mean by "a moral and physical influence" exerted on our Globe by the 
Sidereal Worlds? 

Such are the questions often put to us, and they have to be considered 
-from every aspect. To the first of the two queries the answer is : We believe 
it because the first law in nature is uniformity in diversity, and the second is 
analogy. "As above, so below." The time is gone by for ever when our 
pious ancestors believed that our Earth was in the centre of the Universe, and 
the Church and her arrogant servants could insist that the supposition that 
any other Planet could be inhabited should be regarded as blasphemy. Adam 
and Eve, the Serpent and Original Sin, followed by Atonement through Blood, 
have been too long in the way of progress, and universal truth has thus been 
sacrificed to the insane conceit of us little men. 

Now what are the proofs thereof? Beyond inferential evidence and 
logical reasoning, there are none for the profane. To the Occultists, who 
believe in the knowledge acquired by countless generations of Seers and 
Initiates, the data offered in the Secret Books are all-sufficient. The general 
public needs other proofs, however. There are some Kabalists, and even 
some Eastern Occultists, who, failing to find uniform evidence upon this point 
in all the mystic works of the nations, hesitate to accept the teaching. Even 
such " uniform evidence " will be forthcoming presently. Meanwhile, we may 
approach the subject from its general aspect, and see whether belief in it is so 
very absurd, as some Scientists along with other Nicodemuses would have it. 



270 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Unconsciously, perhaps, in thinking of a plurality of inhabited "Worlds," we 
imagine them to be like the Globe we inhabit, and to be peopled by 
beings more or less resembling ourselves. And in so doing we are only 
following a natural instinct. Indeed so long as the enquiry is confined to the 
life-history of this Globe, we can speculate on the question with some profit, 
and ask ourselves, with some hope of at least asking an intelligible question^ 
what were the "Worlds" spoken of in all the ancient scriptures of Humanity? 
But how do we know (a) what kind of beings inhabit the Globes in general ; 
and (fa) whether those who rule planets superior to our own do not exercise 
the same influence on our Earth consciously, that we may exercise uncon- 
sc/ous/y, say on the small planets (planetoids or asteroids) in the long run, by 
our cutting the Earth in pieces, opening canals, and thereby entirely changing 
our climates. Of course, like Caesar's wife, the planetoids, cannot be 
affected by our suspicion. They are too far, etc. Believing in Esoteric 
Astronomy, however, we are not so sure of that. 

But when, extending our speculations beyond our Planetary Chain we 
try to cross the limits of the Solar System, then indeed we act as do pre- 
sumptuous fools. For while accepting the old Hermetic axiom, "as above, 
so below" as we may well believe that Nature on Earth displays the most 
careful economy, utilizing every vile and waste thing in her marvellous trans- 
formations, and withal never repeating herself, so we may justly conclude that 
there is no other Globe in all her infinite systems so closely resembling this 
Earth, that the ordinary powers of man's thought should be able to imagine 
and reproduce its semblance and containment. 1 

And indeed we find in the romances as in all the so-called scientific 
fictions and spiritistic revelations from Moon, Stars, and Planets, merely fresh 
combinations or modifications of the men and things, the passions and forms 
of life, with which we are familiar, though even on the other planets of our 
own System nature and life are entirely different from those prevailing on our 
own. Swedenborg was pre-eminent in inculcating such an erroneous belief. 

But even more. The ordinary man has no experience of any state of 
consciousness other than that to which the physical senses link him. Men 
dream ; they sleep the profound sleep which is too deep for its dreams to 
impress the physical brain ; and in these states there must still be conscious- 
ness. How, then, while these mysteries remain unexplored, can we hope to 

1 We are taught that the highest Dhyan Chohans. or Planetary Spirits (beyond the cognizance of 
the law of analogy), are in ignorance of what lies beyond the visible Planetary Systems, since their 
essence cannot assimilate itself to that of worlds beyond our Solar System. When they reach a 
higher stage of evolution these other universes will be open to them ; meanwhile they have complete 
knowledge of all the worlds within the limits of our Solar System. 



CHAINS OF PLANETS AND THEIR PLURALITY 27 f 

speculate with profit on the nature of Globes which, in the economy of 
Nature, must needs belong to states of consciousness other and quite 
different from any which man experiences here ? 

And this is true to the letter. For even great Adepts (those initiated 
of course), trained Seers though they be, can only claim thorough acquaint- 
ance with the nature and appearance of planets and their inhabitants 
belonging to our Solar System. They know that almost all the Planetary 
Worlds are inhabited, but even in spirit they can have access only to those 
of our System ; and they are also aware how difficult it is, even tor them, to 
put themselves into full rapport even with the planes of consciousness within 
our System, differing as they do from the states of consciousness possible on 
this Globe ; such, for instance, as those which exist on the Chain of Sphere* 
on the three planes beyond that of our Earth. Such knowledge and inter- 
course are possible to them because they have learned how to penetrate to- 
planes of consciousness which are closed to the perceptions of ordinary 
men ; but were they to communicate their knowledge, the world would 
be no wiser, because men lack that experience of other forms of per- 
ception which alone could enable them to grasp what they might be told. 

Still the fact remains that most of the Planets, like the Stars beyond our 
System, are inhabited, a fact which has been admitted by the men of Science 
themselves. Laplace and Herschel believed it, though they wisely abstained 
from imprudent speculation ; and the same conclusion has been worked out 
and supported with an array of scientific considerations by C. Flammarion, the 
well-known French Astronomer. The arguments he brings forward are 
strictly scientific, and are such as appeal even to a materialistic mind, which 
would remain unmoved by such thoughts as those of Sir David Brewster, the 
famous Physicist, who writes : 

Those " barren spirits or " base souls," as the poet calls them, who might be 
led to believe that the earth is the only inhabited body in the universe, would have no 
difficulty in conceiving the earth also to have been destitute of inhabitants. What 
is more, if such minds were acquainted with the deductions of geology, they would 
admit that it was uninhabited for myriads of years ; and here we come to the im- 
possible conclusion that during these myriads of years there was not a single intelligent 
creature in the vast domains of the Universal King, and that before the protozoic 
formations there existed neither plant nor animal in all the infinity of space. 1 

Flammarion shows, in addition, that all the conditions of life even as 
we know it are present on some at least of the planets, and points to the 

1 Since no single atom in the entire Kosmos is without life and consciousness, how much more 
then must its mighty globes be filled with both though they remain sealed books to us men who can 
hardly enter even into the consciousness of the forms of life nearest us ? 

We do not know ourselves, then how can we, if we have never been trained and initiated, fancy 
that we can penetrate the consciousness of the smallest of the animals around us ? 



272 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

fact that these conditions must be much more favourable on them than they 
.are on our Earth. 

Thus scientific reasoning, as well as observed facts, concurs with the 
statements of the Seer, and the innate voice in man's own heart in declaring 
that life intelligent, conscious life must exist on other worlds than ours. 

But this is the limit beyond which the ordinary faculties of man cannot 
carry him. Many are the romances and tales, some purely fanciful, others 
.bristling with scientific knowledge, which have attempted to imagine and 
describe life on other Globes. But one and all they give but some distorted 
.copy of the drama of life around us. It is either, with Voltaire, the men of 
our own race under a microscope, or, with de Bergerac, a graceful play of 
fancy and satire ; but we always find that at bottom the new world is but the 
-one we ourselves live in. So strong is this tendency that even great natural, 
.though non-initiated, Seers, fall victims to it when untrained ; witness Sweden- 
borg, who goes so far as to dress the inhabitants of Mercury, whom he meets 
with in the spirit-world, in clothes such as are worn in Europe ! 

Commenting on this tendency, Flammarion says : 

It seems as it in the eyes of those authors who have written on this subject, the 
arth were the type of the Universe, and the man of Earth, the type of the inhabitants 
of the Heavens. It is, on the contrary, much more probable, that, since the nature of 
other planets is essentially varied, and the surroundings and conditions of existence 
essentially different, while the forces which preside over the creation of beings and the 
substances which enter into their mutual constitution are essentially distinct, it would 
follow that our mode of existence cannot be regarded as in any way applicable to 
other globes. Those who have written on this subject have allowed themselves to be 
dominated by terrestrial ideas, and have therefore fallen into error. 1 

But Flammarion himself falls into the very error which he here condemns, 
for he tacitly takes the conditions of life on Earth as the standard by which to 
determine the degree to which other planets are adapted for habitation by 
*" other humanities." 

Let us, however, leave these profitless and empty speculations, which, 
though they seem to fill our hearts with a glow of enthusiasm and to enlarge 
.our mental and spiritual grasp, do but in reality cause a factitious stimulation, 
and blind us more and more to our ignorance not only of the world we inhabit, 
but even of the infinitude contained within ourselves. 

When, therefore, we find "other worlds" spoken of in the Bibles of 
Humanity, we may safely conclude that they not only refer to other states of 
our Planetary Chain and Earth, but also to other inhabited Globes Stars and 
Planets ; withal, that no speculations were ever made about the latter. The 

1 Pluralite des Mondes, p. 439. 



CHAINS OF PLANETS AND THEIR PLURALITY 273 

whole of antiquity believed in the Universality of Life. But no really initiated 
Seer of any civilized nation has ever taught that life on other Stars could be 
judged by the standard of terrestrial life. What is generally meant by 
" Earths " -and " Worlds," relates (a) to the " rebirths " of our Globe after 
<each Manvantara and a long period of Obscuration ; and (b) to the periodical 
.and entire changes of the Earth's surface, when continents disappear to make 
room for oceans, and oceans and seas are violently displaced and sent rolling 
to the poles, to cede their emplacements to new continents. 

We may begin with the Bible the youngest of the World-scriptures. In 
f cc/es/astes, we read these words of the King-Initiate : 

One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth 
abideth for ever. ... The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ; and that 
which is done, is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun. 1 

Under these words it is not easy to see the reference to the successive 
cataclysms by which the Races of mankind are swept away, or, going further 
back, to the various transitions of the Globe during the process of its forma- 
tion. But if we are told that this refers only to our world as we now see it, 
then we shall refer the reader to the New Testament, where St. Paul speaks 
of the Son (the manifested Power) whom God hath appointed heir of all 
things, "by whom also he made the worlds" (plural). 2 This -Power" is 
Chokmah, the Wisdom and the Word. We shall probably be told that by the 
term " worlds," the stars, heavenly bodies, etc., were meant. But apart from 
the fact that " stars " were not known as " worlds " to the ignorant editors of 
the Epistles, even if they must have been thus known to Paul, who was an 
Initiate, a " Master-Builder," we can quote on this point an eminent Theologian, 
Cardinal Wiseman. In his work (i. 309) treating of the indefinite period of the 

s ; x d^ or shall we say " too definite " period of the six days of creation 

.and the 6,000 years, he confesses that we are in total darkness as to the mean- 
Jng of this statement of St. Paul, unless we are permitted to suppose that 
allusion is made in it to the period which elapsed between the first and second 
verses of chapter i of Genesis, and thus to those primitive revolutions, i.e., the 
destructions and the reproductions of the world, indicated in chapter i of 
Ecc/es/astes ; or, to accept, with so many others, and in its literal sense, the 
passage in chapter i, v. 2 of Hebrews, that speaks of the creation of " worlds " 

1 Op. cit.,-i, 4, 9. 

* Hebrews i 2 This relates to the Logos of every Cosmogony. The unknown Light with which 
he is said ,to Ibi coeternal and coeval-is reflected in the -'First-Born," the Protogonos ; and the 
Demiourgos or the Universal Mind directs the Divine Thought .nto the Chaos that under the fash.on.ng 
of m'mor Gods will be divided into the Seven Oceans-Sapta Sarnudras Jt is Purusha, Ahura Mazda, 
Osiris etc , and finally the Gnostic Christos, who is in the Kabalah, Chokmah, or Wisdom, the 
"Word." 

F 18 



274 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

in the plural. It is very singular, he adds, that all the cosmogonies should 
agree to suggest the same idea, and preserve the tradition of a first series of 
revolutions, owing to which the world was destroyed and again renewed. 

Had the Cardinal studied the Zohar his doubts would have been changed 
into certainties. Thus saith the " Idra Suta ": 

There were old worlds which perished as soon as they came into existence ; 
worlds with and without form called Scintillas for they were like the sparks under the 
smith's hammer, flying in all directions. Some were the primordial worlds which could 

not continue long, because the " Aged "- -his name be sanctified had not as yet 

assumed his form, 1 the workman was not yet the " Heavenly Man." * 

Again in the Midrash, written long before the Kabalah of Simeon Ber> 
Jochai, Rabbi Abahu explains : 

The Holy One, blessed be his name, has successively formed and destroyed 
sundry worlds before this one ' . . . Now this refers both to the first races [the " Kings 
of Edom "] and to the worlds destroyed. 1 

" Destroyed " means here what we call "obscuration." This becomes 
evident when we read the explanation given further on : 

Still when it is said that they [the worlds] perished, it is only meant thereby that 
they [their humanities] lacked the true form, till the human [our] form came into- 
being, in which all things are comprised and which contains all forms . . .'it does 
not mean death, but only denotes a sinking down from their status [that of worlds 
in activity].'* 

When, therefore, we read of the " destruction " of the Worlds, the 
word has many meanings, which are very clear in several of the Commentaries 
on the Zohar and in Kabalistic treatises. As said elsewhere it means not only 
the destruction of many Worlds which have ended their life-career, but also 
that of the several Continents which have disappeared, as also their decline 
and geographical change of place. 

The mysterious " Kings of Edom " are sometimes referred to as the 
"Worlds" that had been destroyed; but it is a "cloak." The Kings who 
reigned in Edom before there reigned a King in Israel, or the " Edomite 
Kings," could never symbolize the "prior worlds," but only the "attempts 
at men " on this Globe the Pre-Adamite Races, of which the Zohar speaks, 

1 The form of Tikkun or the Protogonos, " First-Born, "'i.e., the Universal Form and Idea, had not 
yet been mirrored in Chaos. 

2 Zohar, lii, 292c. The "Heavenly Man " is A'dam Kadmonthe synthesis of the Sephiroth, as 
" Manu Svayambhuva " is the synthesis of the Prajapatis 

* Bereshith Rabba, Parsha ix 

1 This refers to the three Rounds that preceded our fourth Round. 

"' This sentence contains a dual sense and a profound mystery in the Occuft Sciences, the secret 
of which if. and when, knownconfers tremendous powers on the Adept to change his visible form. 

<; " Idra Suta," Zohar, iii, 136c. "A sinking down from their status "is plain , from active 
worlds they have fallen into a temporary obscuration- they rest, and hence are entirely changed. 



CHAINS OF PLANETS AND THEIR PLURALITY 275 

and which we explain as the First Root Race. For as, speaking of the six 
Earths (the six " Limbs " of Microprosopus), it is said that the seventh (our 
Earth) came not into the computation when the six were created (the six 
Spheres above our Globe in the Terrestrial Chain), so the first seven Kings 
of Edom are left out of calculation in Genesis. By the law of analogy and 
permutation, in the Chaldean Book of Numbers, as also in the Boofcs of 
Knowledge and of Wisdom, the " seven primordial worlds " mean also the 
" seven primordial " races (sub-races of the First Root Race of the Shadows) ; 
and, again, the Kings of Edom are the sons of " Esau, the father of the 
Edomites " ; 1 /.e , Esau represents in the Bible the race which stands between 
the Fourth and the Fifth, the Atlantean and the Aryan. " Two nations are in 
thy womb," said the Lord to Rebekah ; and Esau was red and hairy. From 
verse 24 to 34, chapter xxv of Genesis contains the allegorical history of the 
birth of the Fifth Race. 

Says the Siphra Dzenioutha : 

And the Kings of ancient days died and their chiefs [crowns] were found 
no more. 

And the Zohar states : 

The Head of a nation that has not been formed at the beginning in the likeness 
of the White Head : its people is not from this Form. . . . Before it [the White Head, 
the Fifth Race or Ancient of the Ancients] arranged itself in its [own, or present] Form 
... all Worlds have been destroyed ; therefore it is written : and Bela, the Son of 
Beor, reigned in Edom [Gen., xxxvi. Here the "Worlds " stand for Races]. And he 
[such or another King of Edom] died, and another reigned in his stead. 

No Kabalist who has hitherto treated of the symbolism and allegory 
hidden under these " Kings of Edom " seems to have perceived more than 
one aspect of them. They are neither the " worlds that were destroyed," 
nor the " Kings that died " alone ; but both, and much more, to treat of 
which there is no space at present. Therefore, leaving the mystic parables of 
the Zohar, we will return to the hard facts of materialistic Science ; first, 
however, citing a few from the long list of great thinkers who have believed 
in the plurality of inhabited Worlds in general, and in Worlds that preceded 
our own. These are, the great mathematicians Leibnitz and Bernoulli!, Sir 
Isaac Newton himself, as may be read in his Optics ; Buffon, the Naturalist ; 
Condillac, the Sceptic ; Bailly, Lavater, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and, as a 
contrast to the two last named suspected at least of Mysticism Diderot 
and most of the writers of the Encyc/opaed/a. Following these come Kant, 
the founder of modern Philosophy ; the poet Philosophers, Goethe, Krause, 

1 Gen., xxxvi, 43. 



276 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Schelling ; and many Astronomers, from Bode, Fergusson and Herschel, to 
Lalande and Laplace, with their many disciples in more recent years. 

A brilliant list of honoured names indeed ; but the facts of physical 
Astronomy speak even more strongly than these names in favour of the 
presence of life, of even organized life, on other Planets. Thus in four 
meteorites which fell respectively at Alais in France, in the Cape of Good Hope, 
in Hungary, and again in France, on analysis, there was found graphite, a 
form of carbon known to be invariably associated with organic life on this 
Earth of ours. And that the presence of this carbon is not due to any action 
occurring within our atmosphere is shown by the fact that carbon has been 
found in the very centre of a meteorite ; while in one which fell at Argueil, 
in the south of France, in 1857, there was found water and turf, the latter 
being always formed by the decomposition of vegetable substances. 

And further, examining the astronomical conditions of the other Planets, 
it is easy to show that several are far better adapted for the development of 
life and intelligence even under the conditions with which men are acquainted 
than is our Earth. For instance, on the planet Jupiter the seasons, instead 
of varying between wide limits as do ours, change by almost imperceptible 
degrees, and last twelve times as long as ours. Owing to the inclination 
of its axis the seasons on Jupiter are due almost entirely to the eccentricity 
of its orbit, and hence change slowly and regularly. We shall be told, that 
no life is possible on Jupiter, as it is in an incandescent state. But not all 
Astronomers agree with this. For instance, what we state is declared by 
M. Flammarion ; and he ought to know. 

On the other hand Venus would be less adapted for human life such as 
exists on Earth, since its seasons are more extreme and its changes of 
temperature more sudden ; though it is curious that the duration of the day is 
nearly the same on the four inner planets, Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Mars. 
On Mercury, the Sun's heat and light are seven times what they are on 
the Earth, and Astronomy teaches that it is enveloped in a very dense 
atmosphere. And as we see that life appears more active on Earth in pro- 
portion to the light and heat of the Sun, it would seem more than probable 
that its intensity is far, far greater on Mercury than here. 

Venus, like Mercury, has a very dense atmosphere, as also has Mars, and 
the snows which cover their poles, the clouds which hide their surface, the 
geographical configuration of their seas and continents, the variations of 
seasons and climates, are all closely analogous at least to the eye of the 
physical Astronomer. But such facts and the considerations to which they 
give rise have reference only to the possibility of the existence on these 



CHAINS OF PLANETS AND THEIR PLURALITY 277 

planets of human life as known on Earth. That some forms of life such as we 
know are possible on these planets, has been long since abundantly de- 
monstrated, and it seems perfectly useless to go into detailed questions of the 
physiology, etc., of these hypothetical inhabitants, since, after all, the reader 
can arrive only at an imaginary extension of his familiar surroundings. It is 
better to rest content with the three conclusions which M. Flammarion, whom 
we have so largely quoted, formulates as rigorous and exact deductions from 
the known facts and laws of Science. 

1. The various forces which were active in the beginning of evolution 
gave birth to a great variety of beings on the several worlds ; both in the 
organic and inorganic kingdoms. 

2. The animated beings were constituted from the first according to 
forms and organisms in correlation with the physiological state of each 
inhabited globe. 

3. The humanities of other worlds differ from us, as much in their inner 
organization as in their external physical type. 

Finally the reader who may be disposed to question the validity of these 
conclusions as being opposed to the Bible, may be referred to an Appendix 
in C. Flammarion's work dealing in detail with this question, since in a work 
like the present it seems unnecessary to point out the logical absurdity of those 
churchmen who deny the plurality of worlds on the ground of biblical authority. 

In this connection we may well recall those days when the burning zeal 
of the Primitive Church opposed the doctrine of the Earth's rotundity, on the 
ground that the nations at the Antipodes would be outside the pale of salva- 
tion ; and again, we may remember how long it took for a nascent Science to 
break down the idea of a solid firmament, in the grooves of which the stars 
moved for the special edification of terrestrial humanity. 

The theory of the Earth's rotation was met by a like opposition even 
to the martyrdom of its discoverers because, besides depriving our orb of 
its dignified central position in space, the theory produced an appalling con- 
fusion of ideas as to the Ascension the terms "up" and "down" being 
proved to be merely relative, thus complicating not a little the question of the 
precise locality of Heaven ! l 

According to the best modern calculations, there are no less than 
500,000,000 Stars of various magnitudes, within the range of the best telescopes. 

1 In that learned and witty work, God and his Book, by the redoubtable " Saiadin " of Agnostic 
repute, the amusing calculation that, if Christ had ascended with the rapidity of a cannon ball, he 
would not have reached even Sirius, reminds one vividly of the past. It raises, perhaps, a not ill- 
founded suspicion that even our age of scientific enlightenment may be as grossly absurd in its 
materialistic negations as the men of the Middle Ages were absurd and materialistic in their religious 
affirmations. 



278 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

As to the distances between them, they are incalculable. Is, then, our 
microscopical Earth a " grain of sand on an infinite sea-shore " the only 
centre of intelligent life? Our own Sun, itself 1,300,000 times larger than our 
planet, sinks into insignificance beside the giant Sun, Sirius, and the latter in 
its turn is dwarfed by other luminaries in infinite Space. The self-centred 
conception of Jehovah as the special guardian of a small and obscure semi- 
nomadic tribe, is tolerable beside that which confines sentient existence 
to our microscopical Globe. The primary reasons were without doubt : 
(a) astronomical ignorance on the part of the early Christians, coupled 
with an exaggerated appreciation of man's own importance a crude 
form of selfishness ; and (b) the dread that, if the hypothesis of millions 
of other inhabited Globes were accepted, the crushing rejoinder would ensue : 
44 Was there then a Revelation to each World ? " involving the idea of the 
Son of God eternally " going the rounds," as it were. Happily it is now un- 
necessary to waste time and energy in proving the possibility of the existence 
of such Worlds. All intelligent persons admit it. That which now remains to 
be demonstrated is, that if it is once proven that there are inhabited Worlds 
besides our own, with humanities entirely different from each other as from 
our own as maintained in the Occult Sciences then the evolution of the 
preceding Races is half proved. For where is that Physicist or Geologist who 
is prepared to maintain that the Earth has not changed scores of times, in the 
millions of years which have elapsed in the course of its existence ; and that 
changing its " skin," as it is called in Occultism, the Earth has not had each 
time her special Humanities adapted to such atmospheric and climatic condi- 
tions as were entailed by such change ? And if so, why should not our pre- 
ceding four and entirely different Mankinds have existed and thrived before 
our Adamic (Fifth Root) Race ? 

Before closing our debate, however, we have to examine the so-called 
organic evolution more closely. Let us search well and see whether it is quite 
impossible to make our Occult data and chronology agree up to a certain 
point with those of Science. 

C. SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS ON ESOTERIC GEOLOGICAL 

CHRONOLOGY 

It seems possible to calculate the approximate duration at any rate of the 
geological periods from the combined data of Science and Occultism now 
before us. Geology is, of course, able to determine one thing with almost 
certainty the thickness of the several deposits. Now, it also stands to reason 



REMARKS ON ESOTERIC GEOLOGICAL CHRONOLOGY 279 

that the time required for the deposition of -any stratum on a sea-bottom 
nnust bear a strict proportion to the thickness of the mass thus formed. 
Doubtless the rate of the erosion of land, and of the sorting out of matter on 
to ocean beds, has varied from age to age, and cataclysmic changes of various 
kinds have broken the " uniformity " of ordinary geological processes. Pro- 
vided, then, that we have some definite numerical basis on which to work, 
our task is rendered less difficult than it might at first sight appear. Making 
due allowance for variations in the rate of deposit, Professor Lefevre gives us 
the relative figures which sum up geological time. He does not attempt to 
calculate the lapse of years since the first bed of the Laurentian rocks was 
deposited, but postulating that time as X, he presents us with the relative 
proportions in which the various periods stand to it. Let us premise our 
estimate by stating that, roughly speaking, the Primordial rocks are 70,000 ft., 
the Primary 42.000 ft., the Secondary 15,000 ft., the Tertiary 5,000 ft., and the 
Quaternary some 500 ft. in thickness : 

Dividing into a hundred parts the time, whatever its actual length, that has 
passed since the dawn of life on this earth [lower Laurentian strata], we shall be led to 
attribute to the Primordial age more than half of the whole duration, say 53'5 ; to the 
Primary 32 2 ; to the Secondary ITS ; to the Tertiary 2*3 , to the Quaternary 0'5 or one 
half per cent. 1 

Now, as it is certain, on Occult data, that the time which has elapsed 
since the first sedimentary deposits is 320,000,000 years, we are able to construct 
the following table : 

ROUGH APPROXIMATIONS OF LENGTH OF GEOLOGICAL PERIODS IN YEARS' 

I Laurentian } 

Primordial - Cambrian I 171,200,000 

( Silurian ) 

( Devonian ] 

Primary - Coal [ 103,040,000 

( Permian ) 

( Triassic } 

Secondary | Jurassic [ 36,800,000 

( Cretaceous ) 

| Eocene j 

Tertiary - Miocene - 7,360,000 -' 

( Pliocene ) 

Quaternary 1, 600,000 2 

1 Philosophy Historical and Critical, p. 481. - Probably in excess. 



280 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Such estimates harmonize with the statements of Esoteric Ethnology in 
almost every particular. The Tertiary Atlantean part-cycle, from the "apex 
of glory" of that Race in the early Eocene to the great mid-Miocene 
cataclysm, would appear to have lasted some three-and-a-half to four million 
years. If the duration of the Quaternary is not, as seems likely, rather over- 
estimated, the sinking of Ruta and Daitya would be post-Tertiary. It is prob- 
able that the results here given allow somewhat too long a period to both the 
Tertiary and Quaternary, as the Third Race goes very far back into the 
Secondary age. Nevertheless, the figures are most suggestive. 

But the argument from geological evidence being in favour of only 
100,000,000 years, let us compare our claims and teachings with those of exact 
Science. 

Mr. Edward Clodd, 1 in referring to M. de Mortillet's work Mater/aux pour 
/' Histoire de I' Homme, which places man in the Mid-Miocene period, 2 
remarks that : 

It would be in defiance of all that the doctrine of evolution teaches, and more- 
over win no support from believers in special creation and the fixity of species, to seek 
for so highly specialized a mammalian as man at an early stage in the life-history of 
the globe. 

To this, one could answer : (a) the doctrine of evolution, as inaugurated 
by Darwin and developed by later evolutionists, is hot only the reverse of 
infallible, but it is repudiated by several great men of Science, e.g., 
de Quatrefages, in France, Dr. A. Weismann, an ex-evolutionist in Germany, 
and many others, the ranks of the Anti-Darwinists growing stronger with every 
year ; 3 and (b) truth to be worthy of its name, and remain truth and fact, 
hardly needs to beg for support from any class or sect. For were it to win 
support from believers in special creation, it would never gain the favour of 
the evolutionists, and wee versa. Truth must rest upon its own firm founda- 
tion of facts, and take its chance of recognition, when every prejudice in the 
way is disposed of. Though the question has been already fully considered in 
its main aspect, it is, nevertheless, advisable to combat every so-called 
" scientific " objection as we go along, when making what are regarded as 
heretical and anti-scientific statements. 

1 Knowledge. Art " The Antiquity of Man in Western Europe," March 31st, 1882 

2 Who, in another work, La Prehistorique Antiquite de I'Homme, years ago, generously allowed only 
230,000 years to our mankind ! Since we learn now that he places man in the Mid-Miocene period, we 
must say that the much respected Professor of Prehistoric Anthropology in Paris is somewhat contradic- 
tory and inconsistent if not naif in his views. 

;< The root and basic idea of the origin and transformation of species the heredity of acquired 
faculties seems to have found lately very serious opponents in Germany. Du Bois-Reymond and 
Or. PflUger. the Physiologists, besides other men of Science as eminent as any, find insuperable 
difficulties and even impossibilities in the doctrine. 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 



281 



Let us briefly glance at the divergencies between orthodox and Esoteric 
Science, on the question of the age of the globe and of man. With the two 
respective synchronistic tables before him, the reader will be enabled to see 
at a glance the importance of these divergencies ; and to perceive, at the 
same time, that it is not impossible nay, it is most likely that further dis- 
coveries in Geology and the finding of fossil remains of man will force Science 
to confess that it is Esoteric Philosophy which is right after all, or, at any rate, 
nearer to the truth. 

PARALLELISM OF LIFE 



SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESES 

Science divides the period of the Globe's 
history, since the beginning of life on 
Earth (or the Azoic age), into five main 
divisions or periods, according to Haeckel. 1 



PRIMORDIAL EPOCH 
Laurentian, Cambrian, Silurian 
The Primordial epoch, Science tells us, 
is by no means devoid of vegetable and 
animal life. In the Laurentian deposits 
are found specimens of the Eozoon cana- 
dense a chambered shell. In the Silurian 
are discovered sea-weeds (a/gae), molluscs, 
Crustacea, and lower marine organisms, 
also the first trace of fishes. The Pri- 
mordial epoch shows algae, molluscs, crus- 
tacea, polyps, and marine organisms, etc. 
Science teaches, therefore, that marine 
life was present from the very beginnings 
of time, leaving us, however, to speculate 
for ourselves as to how life appeared on 
Earth. If it rejects the biblical " crea- 
tion " (as we do), why does it not give 
us another, approximately plausible hypo- 
thesis ? 



ESOTERIC THEORY 

Leaving the classification of the geo- 
logical periods to Western Science, Eso- 
teric Philosophy divides only the life- 
periods on the Globe. In the present 
Manvantara the actual period is separated 
into seven Kalpas and seven great human 
Races. Its first Kalpa, answering to the 
" Primordial Epoch " is the age of the : 

" PRIMEVAL "- 

Devas or Divine Men, the " Creators " 
and Progenitors.* 

The Esoteric Philosophy agrees with 
the statement made by Science (see 
parallel column), demurring, however, to 
one particular. The 300,000,000 years of 
vegetable life (see " Chronology of the 
Brahmans ") preceded the " Divine Men," 
or Progenitors. Also, no teaching denies 
that there were traces of life within the 
Earth, besides the Eozoon canac/ense, in 
the Primordial Epoch. Only, whereas 
the said vegetation belonged to this 
Round, the zoological relics now found 
in the Laurentian, Cambrian, and Silurian 
systems, so called, are the relics of the 
Third Round. At first astral like the rest, 
they consolidated and materialized pan 
passu with the new vegetation. 



1 History of Great/on, p. 20. 

- The same names are retained as those given by Science, to make the parallels clearer. Our 
terms are quite different. 

3 Let the student remember that the Doctrine teaches that there are seven degrees of Devas or 
" Proqenitors. " or seven Classes, from the most perfect to the less exalted. 



282 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE 



PRIMARY 

Devonian, 1 Coal, Permian 
" Fern-forests, sigillaria, coniferae, fishes, 
first trace of reptiles." Thus saith modern 
Science. 



SECONDARY 
Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous 

This is the age of Reptiles, of the 
gigantic megalosauri, ichthyosauri, plesio- 
sauri, etc. Science denies the presence 
of man in this period. But it has still to 
explain how men came to know of these 
monsters and describe them before the 
age of Cuvier ! The old annals of China, 
India, Egypt, and even of Judea are full 
of them, as demonstrated elsewhere. In 
this period also appear the first marsupial 
mammals '' insectivorous, carnivorous, 
phytophagous ; and, as Prof. Owen thinks, 
a herbivorous hoofed mammal. 

Science does not admit the appearance 
of man before the close of the Tertiary 
period." 1 Why ? Because man has to be 



" PRIMARY " 

Divine Progenitors (Secondary Groups), 
and the two and a half Races. The Esoteric 
Doctrine repeats that which was said above. 
These are all relics of the preceding Round.* 

Once, however, the prototypes are pro- 
jected out of the Astral Envelope of the 
Earth, an indefinite amount of modification 
ensues. 

"SECONDARY" 

According to every calculation the 
Third Race had already made its appear- 
ance, as during the Triassic there were 
already a few mammals, and it must have 
separated before their appearance. 

This, then, is the age of the Third Race, 
in which the origins of the early Fourth 
may be perhaps also discoverable. We 
are, however, here left entirely to conjec- 
ture, as no definite data are yet given out 
by the Initiates. 

The analogy is but a poor one, still it 
may be argued that, as the early mam- 
malia and pre-mammalia are shown in 
their evolution merging from one kind 
into a higher one, anatomically, so are the 
human races in their procreative processes. 



1 It may be said that we are inconsistent in not introducing into this table a Primary-age Man. The 
parallelism of Races and geological periods here adopted, is, so far as the origin of the First and 
Second are concerned, purely tentative, no direct information being available. Having previously 
discussed the question of a possible race in the Carboniferous age, it is needless to renew the debate. 

2 During the interim between one Round and another, the Globe and everything on it remains in 
statu quo. Remember, vegetation began in its ethereal form before what is called the Primordial, 
running through the Primary, and condensing in it, and reaching its full physical life in the 
Secondary, 

3 Geologists tell us that " in the Secondary epoch, the only mammals which have been [hitherto] 
discovered in Europe are the fossil remains of a small marsupial or pouch-bearer." (Knowledge, 
March 31st, 1882, p. 464.) Surely the marsupial or didelphis (the only surviving animal of the family 
of those which were on Earth during the presence on it of androgyne man) cannot be the only animal 
that was then on Earth? Its presence speaks loudly for that of other (though unknown) mammals, 
beside the monotremes and marsupials, and thus shows the appellation of " mammalian age " given 
only to the Tertiary period to be misleading and erroneous, as it allows one to infer that there were no 
mammals, but reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fishes alone in the Mesozoic times the Secondary. 

* Those who feel inclined to sneer at that doctrine of Esoteric Ethnology, which pre-supposes the 
existence of Men m the Secondary age, will do well to note the fact that one of the most distinguished 
Anthropologists of the day, M. de Quatrefages, seriously argues in that direction. He writes . "There 
is then nothing impossible in the idea that he [man] . . should have appeared upon the globe with 
the first representatives of the type to which he belongs by his organization." (The Human Species, 
p. 153.) This statement approximates most closely to our fundamental assertion that man preceded 
the other mammalia. 

Professor Lefevre admits that the " labours of Boucher de Perthes, Lartet, Christy, Bourgeois, 
Desnoyers, Broca, De Mortillet, Hamy, Gaudry, Capellini, and a hundred others, have overcome all 
doubts, and clearly established the progressive development of the human organism and industries 
from the miocene epoch of the tertiary age." (Phf/osophy Historical and Critical, Pt. II, p. 499, 
Chapter II, On Organic Evolution. " Library of Contemporary Science.") Why does he reject the 
possibility of a Secondary-age man ? Simply because he is involved in the meshes of the Darwinian 
Anthropology. "The origin of man is bound up with that of the higher mammals "; he appeared 
" only with the last types of his class " ' This is not argument, but dogmatism. Theory can never 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 283 

shown younger than the higher mammals. A parallel might certainly be found be- 
But Esoteric Philosophy teaches us the tween the , monotremata, didelphia (or 
reverse. And as Science is quite unable marsupialia) and the placental mammals, 
to come to anything like an approximate divided in their turn into three orders l 
conclusion as to the age of man, or even like the First, Second, and Third Root 
as to the geological periods, the Occult Races of men. 2 But this would require 
teaching is, therefore, more logical and more space than can be now allotted to 
reasonable, even if accepted only as an the subject, 
hypothesis 

TERTIARY- 1 "TERTIARY" 

Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene The Third Race has now almost utterly 

No man is yet allowed to have lived disappeared, carried away by the fearful 

during this period. geological cataclysms of the Secondary 

Says Mr. E. Clodd, in Knowledge. " A!- age, leaving behind it but a few hybrid 

though the placental mammals and the races. 

order of primates to which man is related, The Fourth, born millions of years 

appear in Tertiary times, and the climate, before 4 the said cataclysm took place, 

tropical in the Eocene age, warm in the perished during the Miocene period,'* 

Miocene, and temperate in the Pliocene, when the Fifth (our Aryan Race) had 

was favourable to his presence, the proofs had one million years of independent 

excommunicate fact. Must everything give place to the mere working hypotheses of Western 
Evolutionists ? Surely not ! 

1 These placentalia of the third sub-class are divided, it appears, into villiplacentalia (placenta com- 
posed of many separate scattered tufts), the zonoplacentalia (girdle-shaped placenta), and the 
discoplacentalia (or discoid). Haeckel sees in the marsupialia didelphia, one of the connecting links 
genealogically between man and the moneron ! ' 

" This inclusion of the First Race in the Secondary is necessarily only a provisional working 
hypothesis the actual chronology of the First, Second, and early Third Races being closely veiled by 
the Initiates. For all that can be said on the subject, the First Root Race may have been Pre- 
Secondary, as is, indeed, taught. 

* The above parallels stand good only if Dr. Croll's earlier calculations are adopted, namely, of 
15,000,000 years since the beginning of the Eocene period (see Charles Gould's Mythical Monsters, 
p. 84), not those in his Climate and Time, which allow only two-and-a-half million years, or at the 
utmost three million years' duration to the Tertiary age. This, however, would make the whole dura- 
tion of the mcrusted age of the world only 131,600,000 years, according to Professor Winchell, 
whereas in the Esoteric Doctrine, sedimentation began in this Round approximately over 320,000,000 
years ago. Yet his calculations do not clash much with ours with regard to the epochs of glacial 
periods in the Tertiary age, which is called in our Esoteric books the " Age of the Pigmies." With 
regard to the 320,000,000 of years assigned to sedimentation, it must be noted that even a greater 
time elapsed during the preparation of this Globe for the Fourth Round previous to stratification. 

4 Though we apply the term " truly human," only to the Fourth Atlantean Root Race, yet the 
Third Race is almost human in its latest portion, since it is during its fifth sub-race that mankind separated 
sexually, and that the first man was born according to the now normal process. This " first man " 
answers, in the Bible, to Enos or Henoch, son of Seth (Genesis, iv). 

"' Geology records the former existence of a universal ocean, and sheets of marine sediment uni- 
formly present everywhere testify to it , but it is not even the epoch referred to in the allegory of 
Vaivasvata Manu. The latter is a Deva-Man (or Manu) saving in an Ark (the female.'pnnciple) the germs 
of humanity, and also the seven Rishis who stand here as the symbols for the seven human principles 
of which allegory we have spoken elsewhere. The " Universal Deluge " is the Watery Abyss of the 
Primordial Principle of Berosus. (See STANZAS 2 to 8, in Part 1. Vol. 3.) How, if 15 milion years are 
allowed by Croll to have elapsed since the Eocene period (which we state on the authority of a Geo- 
logist, Mr. Ch. Gould), only 60 millions are assigned by him " since the beginning of the Cambrian 
period, in the Primordial age " passes comprehension. The Secondary strata are twice the thickness of 
the Tertiary, and Geology thus shows the Secondary age alone to be of twice the length of the Tertiary. 
Shall we then accept only 15 million years for both the Primary and the Primordial ? No wonder Darwin 
rejected the calculation. 



284 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

of his existence in Europe before the close existence. 1 How much older it is from 
of the Tertiary epoch . . . are not gener- its origin who knows ? As the "historical" 
ally accepted here." period began with the Indian Aryans, 

with their Vedas for their multitudes," 
and far earlier in the Esoteric Records,, 
it is useless to establish here any parallels. 

Geology has now divided the periods and placed man in the 

QUATERNARY " QUATERNARY" 

Palaeolithic Man, Neolithic Man, His- If the Quaternary period is allowed 

torical Period. 1,500,000 years, then only does our Fifth 

Race belong to it. 

Yet mirabile dictu while the non-cannibal Palaeolithic man, who must 
have certainly antedated cannibal Neolithic man by hundreds of thousands of 
years, :l is shown to be a remarkable artist, Neolithic man is made out to be 
almost an abject savage, his lake dwellings notwithstanding. 4 For see what a 
learned Geologist, Mr. Charles Gould, tells the reader in his Myth/cal Monsters : 

Palaeolithic men were unacquainted with pottery and the art of weaving, and 
apparently had no domesticated animals or system of cultivation ; but the Neolithic lake- 
dwellers of Switzerland had looms, pottery, cereals, sheep, horses, etc. Implements, 
of horn, bone, and wood were in common use among both races, but those of the 
older are frequently distinguished by their being sculptured with great ability, or 
ornamented with life-like engravings of the various animals living at the period ; whereas 
there appears to have been a marked absence of any similar artistic ability *' on the part 
of Neolithic man. G 

Let us give the reasons for this. 

1. The oldest fossil man, the primitive cave-men of the old Palaeolithic 
period, and of the Pre-Glacial period (of whatever length, and however far 

1 See Esoteric Buddhism, pp. 53-5, Fourth Ed. [Eighth Ed., p. 60], 

- We hope that we have furnished all the scientific data for it elsewhere. 

'' It is conceded by Geology to be " beyond doubt that a considerable period must have super- 
vened after the departure of Palaeolithic man and before the arrival of his Neolithic successor." (See 
James Geikie's Prehistoric Europe, and Ch. Gould's Mythical Monsters, p. 98.) 

4 Resembling in a manner the pile-villages of Northern Borneo. 

" The most clever sculptor of modern times would probably not succeed very much better, if 
his graver were a splinter of flint, and stone and bone were the materials to be engraved " ! Prof. 
Boyd Dawkins' Cave-Hunt/ng, p. 344). It is needless after such a concession to further insist on 
Huxley's, Schmidt's, Laing's, and others' statements to the effect that Palaeolithic man cannot be con- 
sidered to lead us back in any way to a pithecoid human race ; thus they demolish the fantasies of 
many superficial evolutionists The relic of artistic merit here reappearing in the Chipped-Stone-age 
men, is traceable to their Atlantean ancestry Neolithic man was a fore-runner of the great Aryan in- 
vasion, and immigrated from quite another quarter Asia, and in a measure Northern Africa. The 
tribes peopling the latter towards the North-West, were certainly of an Atlantean origin dating back 
hundreds of thousands of years before the Neolithic Period in Europe but they had so diverged fronr 
the parent type as to present no longer any marked characteristic peculiar to it. As to the contrast 
between Neolithic and Palaeolithic man, it is a remarkable fact that, as Carl Vogt points out, the former 
was a cannibal, the much earlier man of the Mammoth era was not. Human manners and customs dc* 
not seem to improve with time, then ? Not in this instance at any rate. 

r 'Op. cit., p. 97. 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 285 

back), is always the same genus man, and there are no fossil remains proving 
for him 

what the Hipparion and Anchitherium have proved for the genus horse that is 
gradual progressive specialization from a simple ancestral type to more complex existing 
forms. 1 

2. As to the so-called Palaeolithic hatchets : 

When placed side by side with the rudest forms of stone hatchets actually used 
by the Australian and other savages, it is difficult to detect any difference.' 2 

This goes to prove that there have been savages at all times ; and the 
inference would be that there might have been civilized people in those days 
as well, cultured nations contemporary with those rude savages. We see 
such a thing in Egypt 7,000 years ago. 

3. An obstacle which is the direct consequence of the two preceding : 
Man, if no older than the Palaeolithic period, could not possibly have had the 
actual time necessary for his transformation from the " missing link" into what 
he is known to have been even during that remote geological time, /.e., even 
a finer specimen of manhood than many of the now existing races. 

The above lends itself naturally to the following syllogism : 1 . The 
primitive man (known to Science) was, in some respects, even a finer 
man of his genus than he is now. 2. The earliest monkey known, 
the lemur, was less anthropoid than the modern pithecoid species. 3. 
Conclusion : Even though a missing link were found, the balance of evidence 
would remain more in favour of the ape being a degenerated man, made 
dumb by some fortuitous circumstances/ 5 than in favour of the descent of 
man from a pithecoid ancestor. The theory cuts both ways. 

On the other hand, if the existence of Atlantis be accepted and the 
statement be believed that in the Eocene age 

Even in its very first part, the great cycle of the fourth-race men, the Atlan- 
teans, had already reached its highest point. 4 

then some of the present difficulties of Science might easily be made to 
disappear. The rude workmanship of the Palaeolithic tools proves nothing 
against the idea that, side by side with their makers, there lived nations highly 
civilized. We are told that : 

Only a very small portion of the earth's surface has been explored, and of this a 
very small portion consists of ancient land surfaces or fresh water formations, where 

1 Modern Science and Modem Jhought, p. 181. - Ibid., p. 112. 

3 On the data furnished by Modern Science, Physiology, and Natural Selection, and without 
resorting to any miraculous creation, two human negro specimens of the lowest intelligence say 
idiots born dumbmight by breeding produce a dumb Pastrana species, which would start a new 
modified race, and thus produce, in the course of geological time, the regular anthropoid ape. 

4 Esoteric Buddhism, p 64. [Eighth Ed., p. 67.] 



286 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

alone we can expect to meet with traces of the higher forms of animal life. And even 
these have been so imperfectly explored, that where we now meet with thousands and 
tens of thousands of undoubted human remains lying almost under our feet, it is only 
within the last thirty years that their existence has even been suspected l 

It is very suggestive also that along with the rude hatchets of the lowest 
savage, explorers meet with specimens of workmanship of such artistic merit 
as could hardly be found, or expected, in a modern peasant belonging to 
any European country unless in exceptional cases. The "portrait" of the 
" Reindeer Feeding/' from the Thayngin grotto in Switzerland, and those of 
the man running, with two horses' heads sketched close to him a work of 
the Reindeer period, i.e., at least 50,000 years ago are pronounced by 
Mr. Laing to be not only exceedingly well done, but the former, the " Reindeer 
Feeding," is described as one that " would do credit to any modern animal 
painter " by no means exaggerated praise, as anyone may see, by glancing 
at the sketch given below from Mr. Gould's work. Now, since we have our 
greatest painters of Europe side by side with the modern Esquimaux, who 
also have a tendency, like their Palaeolithic ancestors of the Reindeer period, 
the rude and savage human species, to be constantly drawing with the points 
of their knives sketches of animals, scenes of the chase, etc., why could not 
the same have happened in those days ? Compared with the specimens of 
Egyptian drawing and sketching 7,000 years ago the " earliest portraits " 
of men, horses' heads, and reindeer, made 50,000 years ago, are certainly 
superior. Nevertheless, the Egyptians of those periods are known to have 
been a highly civilized nation, whereas the Palaeolithic men are called savages 
of the lower type. This is a small matter seemingly, yet it is extremely 
suggestive as showing how every new geological discovery is made to fit in 
with current theories, instead of fitting the theories to include the discovery. 
Yes; Mr. Huxley is right in saying, " Time will show." It will, and it must 
vindicate Occultism. 

Meanwhile, the most uncompromising Materialists are driven by necessity 
into the most Occult-like admissions. Strange to say, it is the most material- 
istic those of the German school who, with regard to physical develop- 
ment, come the nearest to the teachings of the Occultists. Thus, Professor 
Baumgartner believes that : 

The germs for the higher animals could only be the eggs of the lower animals ; 
. . . besides the advance of the vegetable and animal world in development, there 
occurred in that period the formation of new original germs [which formed the basis of 
new metamorphoses, etc.] ... the first men who proceeded from the germs of 
animals beneath them, lived first in a larva state. 

1 Modern Science and Modern Thought, p. 98. 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 287 

Just so ; in a larva state, we say too, only from no " animal " germ ; 
and that " larva " was the soulless astral form of the pre-physical Races. 
And we believe, as the German professor does, with several other men of 
Science in Europe now, that the human races 

Have not descended from one pair, but appeared immediately in numerous. 
races. 1 

Therefore, when we read Force and Matter, and find that emperor of 
Materialists, Buchner, repeating after Manu and Hermes, that : 

Imperceptibly the plant glides into the animal, the animal into the man ~ 

we need only add " and man into a spirit," to complete the kabalistic 
axiom. The more so, since we read the following admission : 

Evolved by spontaneous generation . . . that whole rich and multiform organic 
world . . . has developed itself progressively, in the course of endless periods of time, 
by the aid- of natural phenomena/' 

The whole difference lies in this : modern Science places her materialistic 
theory of primordial germs on Earth, and the last germ of life on this Globe,, 
of man, and everything else, between two voids. Whence the first germ, if 
both spontaneous generation and the interference of external forces, are 
absolutely rejected now? Germs of organic life, we are told, by Sir William 
Thompson, came to our Earth in some meteor. This helps in no way, and 
only shifts the difficulty from this Earth to the supposed meteor. 

These are our agreements and disagreements with Science. About the 
" endless periods " we are, of course, at one even with materialistic specula- 
tion ; for we believe in Evolution, though on different lines. Professor 
Huxley very wisely says : 

If any form of the doctrine of progressive development is correct, we must 
extend by long epochs the most liberal estimate that has yet been made of the antiquity 
of man.' 

But when we are told that this man is a product of the natural forces 
inherent In Matter Force, according to modern views, being but a quality 
of Matter, a "mode of motion," etc. and when we find Sir William Thomp- 
son repeating in 1885 what was asserted by Buchner and his school thirty years 

1 Anfange zu emer Physiologischen Schopfungs-geschichte der Pflanzen-und Thterwelt, 1885. 

2 Op at., p. 212 

{ Ibid., p. 11. [In the 1888 edition another sentence follows here as from Force and Matter . 
"Spontaneous generation played, no doubt, a more important part in the primeval epoch than at 
present nor can it be denied that in this way beings of a higher organization were produced than 
now," for this is the claim of Occultism.] 

4 Man's Place in Nature, p. 208. 



288 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

ago [previously], we fear all our reverence for real Science is vanishing into 
thin air ! One can hardly help thinking that Materialism is, in certain cases, a 
disease. For when men of Science, in the face of magnetic phenomena and 
the attraction of iron particles through insulating substances, like glass, main- 
tain that the said attraction is due to " molecular motion," or to the " rotation 
of the molecules of the magnet," then, whether the teaching comes from a 
"credulous" Theosophist innocent of any notion of Physics, or from an 
eminent man of Science, it is equally ridiculous, The individual who asserts 
such a theory in the teeth of fact, is only one more proof that : "When 
people have not a niche in their minds into which to shoot facts, so much the 
worse for the facts." 

At present the dispute between the spontaneous generationists and their 
opponents is at rest, having ended in the provisional victory of the latter. 
But even they are forced to admit, as Biichner did, and Messrs. Tyndall 
and Huxley still do that spontaneous generation must have occurred once, 
under "special thermal conditions." Virchow refuses even to argue the 
question ; it must have taken place some time in the history of our planet ; 
and there's an end of it. This seems to look more natural than Sir William 
Thompson's hypothesis just quoted, that the germs of organic life fell on our 
Earth in some meteor ; or the other scientific hypothesis coupled with the 
recently adopted belief that there exists no " vital principle" whatever, but 
only vital phenomena, which can all be traced to the molecular forces of the 
original protoplasm. But this does not help Science to solve the still greater 
problem the origin and the descent of Man, for here is a still worse plaint 
and lamentation. 

While we can trace the skeletons of Eocene mammals through several direc- 
tions of specialization in succeeding Tertiary times, man presents the phenomenon 
of an unspedalized skeleton which cannot fairly be connected with any of these lines. 1 

The secret could be soon told, not only from the Esoteric but even from 
the standpoint of every religion the world over, without mentioning the 
Occultists. The "specialized skeleton" is sought for in the wrong place, 
where it can never be found. Scientists expect to discover it in the physical 
remains of man, in some pithecoid "missing link," with a skull larger than 
that of the ape's, and with a cranial capacity smaller than in man, instead of 
looking for that specialization in tfie super-physical essence of his inner astral 
constitution, which can hardly be excavated from any geological strata ! Such 
a tenacious, hopeful clinging to a self-degrading theory is the most wonderful 
feature of the day. 

1 Origin of the World, by Sir W. Dawson, L.L.D., F.R.S., p. 39. 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 



289 



Meanwhile, below is a specimen of an engraving made by a Palaeolithic 
4 'savage": Palaeolithic meaning the ''earlier Stone-age" man, one 
supposed to have been as savage and brutal as the brutes he lived with. 




REINDEER ENGRAVED ON ANTLER BY PALEOLITHIC MAN 
(After Geik/e) l 

Leaving the modern South Sea islander, or even any Asiatic race, aside, 
we defy any grown-up schoolboy, or even a European youth, one who has 
never studied drawing, to execute such an engraving or even a pencil sketch 
as good. Here we have the true artistic raccourci, and correct lights and 
shadows without any plane model before the artist, who copied direct from 
nature, thus exhibiting a knowledge of anatomy and proportion. The artist who 
engraved this reindeer belonged, we are asked to believe, to the primitive 
" semi-animal " savages (contemporaneous with the mammoth and the woolly 
rhinoceros), whom some over-zealous Evolutionists once sought to picture to 
xis as distinct approximations to the type of their hypothetical " pithecoid 
man " ! 

This engraved antler proves as eloquently as any fact can do, that the 
evolution of the Races has ever proceeded in a series of rises and falls, that 
man is, perhaps, as old as incrustated Earth, and if we can call his divine 
-ancestor " Man " is far older still. 

Even de Mortillet himself seems to experience a vague distrust of the 
conclusions of modern Archaeologists, when he writes : 

The pre-historic is a new science, far, very far, from having said its last word. 2 



1 Mythical Monsters, p. 97. 
F 19 



- Prehistoric Antiquity of Man, 1883. 



290 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

According to Lyell, one of the highest authorities on the subject, and 
the " father " of Geology : 

The expectation of always meeting with a lower type of human skull, the older 
the formation in which it occurs, is based on the theory of progressive development, 
and it may prove to be sound ; nevertheless we must remember that as yet we have 
no distinct geological evidence that the appearance of what are called the inferior races 
of mankind has always preceded in chronological order that of the higher races. 1 

Nor has such evidence been found to this day. Science is thus 
offering for sale the skin of a bear, which has hitherto never been seen by 
mortal eye ! 

This concession of Lyell's reads most suggestively with the subjoined 
utterance of Professor Max Muller, whose attack on Darwinian Anthropology 
from the standpoint of LANGUAGE has, by the way, never been satisfactorily 
answered : 

What d6 we know of savage tribes beyond the last chapter of their history ? 
[Compare this with the Esoteric view of the Australians, Bushmen, as well as of 
Palaeolithic European man, the Atlantean offshoots retaining a relic of a lost culture, 
which throve when the parent Root Race was in its prime.] Do we ever get an 
insight into their antecedents ? Can we understand, what after all is everywhere the- 
most important and the most instructive lesson to learn, how they have come to be 
what they are ? . . . Their language proves, indeed, that these so-called heathens, with 
their complicated systems of mythology, their artificial customs, their unintelligible 
whims and savageries, are not the creatures of to-day or yesterday. Unless we admit 
a special creation for these savages, they must be as old as the Hindus, the Greeks 
and Romans [far older] . . . They may have passed through ever so many vicissitudes, 
and what we consider as primitive, may be, for all we know, a relapse into savagery or 
a corruption of something that was more rational and intelligible in former stages ~ 

Professor George Rawlinson, M.A., remarks : 

" The primeval savage " is a familiar term in modern literature, but there is no 
evidence that the primeval savage ever existed Rather all the evidence looks the 
other way.* 

In his Origin of Nations, he rightly adds : 

The mythical traditions of almost all nations place at the beginning of human 
history a time of happiness and perfection, a " golden age " which has no features of 
savagery or barbarism, but many of civilization and refinement. 4 

How is the modern Evolutionist to meet this consensus of evidence ? 
We repeat the question asked in Isis Unveiled : 

Does the finding of the remains in the cave of Devon prove that there were no 
contemporary races then who were highly civilized ? When the present population of 

1 Antiquity of Ma*n, p. 25. 

- Incf/a, What can ;t Teach Us ? A course of Lectures delivered before the University of Cam- 
bridge in 1882. Lecture III, p. 110. Ed. 1892. 

'* Antiquity of Man Historica/fy Considered " Present Day Tracts," Vol. II, Essay IX, p. 25. 
4 Op. cit, pp. 10, 11. 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 29 f 

the Earth has disappeared, and some Archaeologist belonging to the " coming race " 
of the distant future shall excavate the domestic implements of one of our Indian or 
Andaman Island tribes, will he be justified in concluding that mankind in the nineteenth 
century was " just emerging from the Stone age " ? l 

Another strange inconsistency in scientific theories is that Neolithic 
man is shown as being far more of a primitive savage than the Palaeolithic. 
Either Lubbock's Pre-historic Man, or Evans' Ancient Stone Implements 
must be at fault, or both. For this is what we learn from these works 
and others : 

(1) As we pass from Neolithic to Palaeolithic man, the stone imple- 
ments become rude lumbering makeshifts, instead of gracefully shaped 
and polished instruments. PotteYy, and other useful arts disappear as 
we descend the scale. And yet the latter could engrave such a reindeer ! 

(2) Palaeolithic man lived in caves which he shared with hyenas and 
lions, a whereas Neolithic man dwelt in lake-villages and buildings. 

Every one who has followed even superficially the geological discoveries 
of our day, knows that a gradual improvement in workmanship is found, from 
the clumsy chipping and rude chopping of the early Palaeolithic hatchets, to 
the relatively graceful stone celts of that part of the Neolithic period imme- 
diately preceding the use of metals. But this is in Europe, only a few portions 
of which were barely rising from the waters in the days of the highest 
Atlantean civilization. There were rude savages and highly civilized people 
then, as there are now. If 50,000 years hence, pigmy Bushmen are exhumed 
from some African cavern together with far earlier pigmy elephants, such as 
were found in the cave deposits of Malta by Milne Edwards, will that be a 
reason for maintaining that in our age all men and all elephants were pigmies ? 
Or if the weapons of the Veddhas of Ceylon are found, will our descendants 
be justified in setting us all down as Palaeolithic savages? All the articles which 
Geologists now excavate in Europe can certainly never date earlier than the 
close of the Eocene age, since the lands of Europe were not even above 
water before that period. Nor can what we have said be in the least invali- 
dated by theorists telling us that these quaint sketches of animals and men by 
Palaeolithic man, were executed only toward the close of the Reindeer period 
for this explanation would be a very lame one indeed, in view of the 
Geologists' ignorance of even the approximate duration of periods. 

1 Op. cit., i, 4. 

* Palaeolithic man must have been endowed in his day with thnce Herculean force and magic in- 
vulnerability, or else the lion was as weak as a lamb at the period, for both to share the same dwelling. 
We may as well be asked to believe that it is that lion or hyena which engraved the deer on the 
antler, as be told that this piece of workmanship was done by a savage of such a kind. 



292 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

The Esoteric Doctrine teaches distinctly the dogma of the risings and falls 
of civilization ; and now we learn that : 

It is a remarkable fact that cannibalism seems to have become more frequent 
as man advanced in civilization, and that while its traces are frequent in Neolithic times 
they become very scarce or altogether disappear in the age of the mammoth and the 
reindeer . . . ] 

another evidence of the cyclic law and the truth of our teachings. Esoteric 
history teaches that idols and their worship died out with the Fourth Race, 
until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African negroes, 
etc.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols ; 
all the modern Hindu writings do. 

In the early Egyptian tombs, and in the remains of the pre-historic cities ex- 
cavated by Dr. Schliemann, images of owl- and ox-headed goddesses, and other 
symbolical figures or idols, are found in abundance. But when we ascend into Neolithic 
times, such idols are no longer found, or, if found, it is so rarely that archaeologists still 
dispute as to their existence . . . the only ones which may be said with some certainty 
to have been idols are one or two discovered by M. de Braye in some artificial caves of 
the Neolithic period . . . which appear to be intended for female figures of life size. 2 

And these may have been simply statues. Anyhow, all this is one among 
the many proofs of the cyclic rise and fall of civilization and religion. The 
fact that no traces of human relics or skeletons are so far found beyond Post- 
Tertiary or Quaternary times though Abbe Bourgeois' flints may serve as a 
warning 3 seems to point to the truth of another Esoteric statement, which 
runs thus : 

Seek for the remains of thy forefathers in the high places. The vales 
have grown into mountains and the mountains have crumbled to the bottom of 
the seas. 

Fourth Race mankind, thinned after the last cataclysm by two-thirds of 
its population, instead of settling on the new continents and islands that 
reappeared while their predecessors formed the floors of new oceans 
deserted that which is now Europe and parts of Asia and Africa for the summits 
of gigantic mountains, the seas that surrounded some of the latter having since 
" retreated " and made room for the table lands of Central Asia. 

The most interesting example of this progressive march is perhaps afforded 
by the celebrated Kent's Cavern at Torquay. In that strange recess, exca- 
vated by water out of the Devonian limestone, we find a most curious record 
preserved for us in the geological memoirs of the Earth. Under the blocks 

1 Modern Science and Modern Thought, p. 164. 2 Ibid., p. 199. 

' More than twenty specimens of fossil monkeys have been found in one locality alone, in Miocene 
strata (Pikermi, near Athens). If man was not then, the period is too short for him to have been 
transformed- stretch it as one may. And if he was, and if no monkey is found earlier, what follows? 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 293 

of limestone, which heaped the floor of the cavern, were discovered, embed- 
ded in a deposit of black earth, many implements of the Neolithic period of 
fairly excellent workmanship, with a few fragments of pottery possibly 
traceable to the era of the Roman colonization. There is no trace of Palaeo- 
lithic man here. No flints or traces of the extinct animals of the Quaternary 
period. When, however, we penetrate still deeper through the dense layer 
of stalagmite beneath the black mould into the red earth, which, of course, 
itself once formed the pavement of the retreat, things assume a very different 
aspect. Not one implement fit to bear comparison with the finely-chipped 
weapons found in the overlying stratum is to be seen ; only a host of the 
rude and lumbering little hatchets (with which the monstrous giants of the 
animal world were subdued and killed by little man, we have to think ?) and 
scrapers of the Palaeolithic age, mixed up confusedly with the bones of species 
now either extinct or emigrated, driven away by change of climate. It is the 
artificer of these ugly little hatchets, you see, who sculptured the reindeer over 
the brook, on the antler as shown above ! In all cases we meet with the same 
evidence that, from historic to Neolithic and from Neolithic to Palaeolithic man, 
things slope downwards on an inclined plane from the rudiments of civilization 
to the most abject barbarism m Europe again. We are made also to face 
the " Mammoth age " the extreme or earliest division of the Palaeolithic age 
in which the great rudeness of implements reaches its maximum, and the 
brutal (?) appearance of contemporary skulls, such as the Neanderthal, points 
to a very low type of humanity. But they may sometimes point also to some- 
thing else ; to a race of men quite distinct from our (Fifth Race) Humanity. 
As said by an Anthropologist in Modern Thought : 

The Theory, scientifically based or not, of Peyrere may be considered to be 
equivalent to that which divided man in two species. Broca, Virey, and a number 
of the French anthropologists have recognized that the lower race of man, comprising 
the Australian, Tasmanian, and Negro race, excluding the Kaffirs and the Northern 
Africans, should be placed apart. The fact that in this species, or rather sub-species, 
the third lower molars are usually larger than the second, and the squamosal and frontal 
bones are generally united by suture, places the Homo afer on the level of being as 
good a distinct species as many of the kinds of finches. I shall abstain on the present 
occasion from mentioning the facts of hybridity, whereon the late Professor Broca has 
so exhaustively commented. The history, in the past ages of the world, of this race 
is peculiar. It has never originated a system of architecture or a religion of its own. 1 

It is peculiar, indeed, as we have shown in the case of the Tasmanians. 
However it may be, foss/7 man in Europe can neither prove nor disprove the 
antiquity of man on this Earth, nor the age of his earliest civilizations, 

1 Dr, C 4 Carter Blake. Art., " The Genesis of Man." 



294 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

It is time that the Occultists should disregard any attempts to laugh at 
them, scorning the heavy guns of the satire of the men of Science as much 
as the pop-guns of the profane, since it is impossible, so far, to obtain either 
proof or disproof, while their theories can stand the test better than can the 
hypotheses of the Scientists, at any rate. As to the proof of the antiquity 
which they claim for man, they have Darwin himself and Lyell with them. 
The latter confesses that they, the Naturalists 

Have already obtained evidence of the existence of man at so remote a period 
that there has been time for many conspicuous mammalia, once his contemporaries, to 
die out, and this even before the era of the earliest historical records. 1 

This is a statement made by one of England's great authorities upon 
the question. The two sentences that follow are as suggestive, and may well 
be remembered by students of Occultism, for with all others he says : 

In spite of the long lapse of prehistoric ages during which he [man] must have 
flourished on earth, there is no proof of any perceptible change in his bodily structure. 
If, therefore, he ever diverged from some unreasoning brute ancestor, we must suppose 
him to have existed at a far more distant epoch, possibly on some continents or islands 
now submerged beneath the ocean. 

Thus lost continents are officially suspected. That worlds, and also races, 
are periodically destroyed by fire (volcanoes and earthquakes) and water, 
in turn, and are periodically renewed, is a doctine as old as man. Manu, 
Hermes, the Chaldeans, all antiquity, believed in this. Twice already has the 
face of the Globe been changed by fire, and twice by water, since man 
appeared on it. As land needs rest and renovation, new forces, and a change 
for its soil, so does water. Thence arises a periodical redistribution of land 
and water, change of climates, etc., all brought on by geological revolution, 
and ending in a final change in the axis of the Earth. Astronomers may 
pooh-pooh the idea of a periodical change in the behaviour of the Globe's 
axis, and smile at the conversation given in the Book of Enoch between Noah 
and his " grandfather " Enoch ; the allegory is, nevertheless, a geological and 
an astronomical fact. There is a secular change in the inclination of the 
Earth's axis, and its appointed time is recorded in one of the great Secret 
Cycles. As in many other questions, Science is gradually moving toward our 
way of thinking. Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., FGS., writes in the Popular 
Science Review : 

If it be necessary to call in extra-mundane causes to explain the great increase of 
ice at this glacial period, I would prefer the theory propounded by Dr. Robert Hooke 
in 1688 ; since, by Sir Richard Phillips and others ; and lastly by Mr. Thomas Belt, 
C.E., F.G.S. , namely, a slight increase in the present obliquity of the ecliptic, a pro- 
posal in perfect accord with other known astronomical facts, and the introduction of 

1 Antiquity of Man, p. 530. 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 295 

which involves no disturbance of the harmony which is essential to our cosmical condi- 
tion as a unit in the great solar system. 1 

The following, quoted from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, F.R.S. F.G.S., 
delivered in March, 1885, on " The Extinct Lake of Bovey Tracey," shows the 
hesitation, in the face of every evidence in favour of Atlantis, to accept 
the fact. 

Evergreen figs, laurels, palms, and ferns having gigantic rhizomes have their 
-existing congeners in a sub-tropical climate, such, it cannot be doubted, as prevailed in 
Devonshire in Miocene times, and are thus calculated to suggest caution when the 
present climate of any district is regarded as normal. 

When, moreover, Miocene plants are found in Disco Island, on the west coast of 
Greenland, lying between 69 20' and 70 30 f N. lat. ; when we learn that among them 
were two species found also at Bovey (Sequoia couttsiae, Quercus lyelli) ; when, to 
quote Professor Heer, we find that " the ' splendid evergreen ' (Magnolia Inglefieldi) 
' ripened its fruits so far north as. on the parallel of 70 '" (Phil. Trans., clix, 457, 1~8o9) ; 
when also the number, variety, and luxuriance of the Greenland Miocene plants are 
found to have been such that, had land continued so far, some of them would in all 
probability have flourished at the Pole itself, the problem of changes of climate is 
brought prominently into view, but only to be dismissed apparently with the feeling that 
the time for its solution has not yet arrived. 

It seems to be admitted on all hands that the Miocene plants of Europe have 
their nearest and most numerous existing analogues in North America, and hence arises 
the question How was the migration from one area to the other effected ? Was there, 
as some have believed, an Atlantis ? a continent, or an archipelago of large islands, 
occupying the area of the North Atlantic. There is perhaps nothing unphilosophical in 
this hypothesis ; for since, as geologists state, " the Alps have acquired 4,000 and even 
in some places more than j 0,000 feet of their present altitude since the com- 
mencement of the Eocene period " (Lyell's Principles, 11th ed., p. 256, 1872), a Post- 
Miocene [?] depression might have carried the hypothetical Atlantis into almost abysmal 
depths But an Atlantis is* apparently unnecessary and uncalled for. According to 
Professor Oliver, " A close and very peculiar analogy subsists between the Flora of 
Tertiary Central Europe and the recent Floras of the American States and of the 
Japanese region ; an analogy much closer and more intimate than is to be traced 
between the Tertiary and recent Floras of Europe. We find the Tertiary element 
of the Old World to be intensified towards its extreme eastern margin, if not in numer- 
ical preponderance of genera, yet in features which especially give a character to the 
Fossil Flora, . . . This accession of the Tertiary element is rather gradual and not 
abruptly assumed in the Japan islands only. Although it there attains a maximum, we 
may trace it from the Mediterranean, Levant, Caucasus, and Persia . . . then along the 
Himalaya and through China. . . . We learn also that during the Tertiary epoch, 
counterparts of Central European Miocene genera certainly grew in North-West 
America. . . . We note further that the present Atlantic Islands' Flora affords no sub- 
stantial evidence of a former direct communication with the mainland of the New 
World. . . . The consideration of these facts leads me to the opinion that botanical 
evidence does not favour the hypothesis of an Atlantis. On the other hand, it strongly 
favours the view that at some period of the Tertiary epoch North-Eastern Asia was 

1 New Series, i, p. 115, Art, " Evidences of the Age of Ice." 



296 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

united to North-Western America, perhaps by the line where the Aleutian chain of 
islands now extends." ! 

See, however, on these points, " Scientific and Geological Proofs of the 
Reality of Several Submerged Continents." 

But nothing short of a pithecoid man will ever satisfy the luckless search- 
ers after the thrice hypothetical " missing link." Yet, if beneath the vast 
floors of the Atlantic, from the Teneriffe Pic to Gibraltar, the ancient emplace- 
ment of the lost Atlantis, all the submarine strata were to be broken up miles 
deep, no such skull as would satisfy the Darwinists would be found. As 
Dr.C.R.Bree remarks, no missing links between man and ape having been 
discovered in various gravels and formations above the Tertiary strata, if these 
forms had gone down with the continents now covered with the sea, they 
might still have been found 

in those beds of contemporary geological strata which have not gone down to 
the bottom of the sea.' 2 

Yet they are as fatally absent from the latter as from the former. Did 
not preconceptions fasten vampire-like on man's mind, the author of The 
Antiquity of Man would have found a clue to the difficulty in that same work 
of his, by going ten pages back (to p. 530 ) and reading over a quotation of 
his own from Professor G. Rolleston's work. This Physiologist, he says, suggests 
that as there is considerable plasticity in the human frame, not only in youth 
and during growth, but even in the adult, we ought not always to take for 
granted, as some advocates of the development theory seem to do, that each 
advance in physical power depends on an improvement in bodily structure, for 
why may not the soul, or the higher intellectual and moral faculties play the 
first instead of the second part in a progressive scheme ? 

This hypothesis is made in relation to Evolution not being entirely due to 
" natural selection " ; but it applies as well to the case in hand. For we, too, 
claim that it is the " Soul," or the Inner Man, that descends on Earth first, the 
psychic Astral, the mould on which physical man is gradually built his Spirit, 
intellectual and moral faculties awakening later on as that physical stature 
grows and develops. 

" Thus incorporeal Spirits to smaller forms reduced their shapes im- 
mense," and became the men of the Third and the Fourth Races. Still later, 
ages after, appeared the men of our Fifth Race, reduced from what we should 
call the still gigantic stature of their primeval ancestors, to about half that size 
at present. 

1 Nat. Hist. Rev., ii, 164, 1862, Art., "The Atlantis Hypothesis in its Botanical Aspect." 
Fallacies of Darwinism* 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 297 

Man is certainly no special creation. He is the product of Nature's 
gradual perfective work, like any other living unit on this Earth. But this is 
only with regard to the human tabernacle. That which lives and thinks in man. 
and survives that frame, the masterpiece of evolution is the " Eternal 
Pilgrim," the Protean differentiation in Space and Time of the One Absolute 
" Unknowable." 

In his Antiquity of Man l Sir Charles Lyell quotes perhaps in rather 
a mocking spirit what Hallam says in his Introduction to the Literature 
of Europe : 

If man was made in the image of God, he was also made in the image of am 
ape. The framework of the body of him who has weighed the stars and made the 
lightning his slave, approaches to that of a speechless brute who wanders in the forests 
of Sumatra. Thus standing on the frontier land between animal and angelic natures, 
what wonder that he should partake of both ' - 

An Occultist would have put it otherwise. He would say that man was 
indeed made in the image of a type projected by his progenitor, the creating 
Angel-Force, or Dhyan Chohan ; while the wanderer of the forest of Sumatra 
was made in the image of man, since the framework of the ape, we say again, 
is the revival, the resuscitation by abnormal means, of the actual form of the 
Third Round and of the Fourth Round Man as well, later on. Nothing is lost 
in Nature, not an atom : this is at least certain on scientific data. Analogy 
would appear to demand that form should be equally endowed with 
permanency. 

And yet what do we find ? Says Sir William Dawson, F.R.S. : 

It is farther significant that Professor Huxley, in his lectures in New York, while 
resting his case as to the lower animals mainly on the supposed genealogy of the 
horse, which has often been shown to amount to no certain evidence, avoided alto- 
gether the discussion of the origin of men from the apes, now obviously complicated 
with so many difficulties that both Wallace and Mivart are staggered by them. Professor 
Thomas in his recent lectures (Nature, 1876), admits that there is no lower man known 
than the Australian, and that there is no known link of connection with the monkeys ; 
and Haeckel has to admit that the penultimate link in his phylogeny. the ape-like man, 
is absolutely unknown (History of Creation). . . . The so-called " tallies " found with 
the bones of Palaeocosmic men in European caves, and illustrated in the admirable 
works of Christy and Lartet, show that the rudiments even of writing were already in 
possession of the oldest race of men known to archaeology or geology.' 

Again, in Dr. C. R. Bree's Fallacies of Darwinism, we read : 

Mr. Darwin justly says that the difference physically and, more especially, 
mentally, between the lowest form of man and the highest anthropomorphous ape, 
is enormous. Therefore, the time which in Darwinian evolution must be almost 
inconceivably slow must have been enormous also during man's development from 

1 Op. cit., p. 501, Ed. 1863. - Op. at., Vol. iv, p. 162. 

3 See on this question Wilson's Prehistoric Man, Vol. ii, p. 54 ; Or/gin of the World, pp. 393-4. 



298 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

the monkey. 1 The chance, therefore, of some of these variations being found in the 
different gravels or fresh water formations above the tertiaries, must be very great. 
And yet not one single variation, not one single specimen of a being between a monkey 
and a man has ever been found ! Neither in the gravel, nor the drift-clay, nor the fresh- 
water beds and gravel and drift, nor in the tertiaries below them, has there ever been 
discovered the remains of any member of the missing families between the monkey 
and the man, as assumed to have existed by Mr. Darwin. Have they gone down with 
the depression of the earth's surface and are they now covered with the sea ? If so, it 
is beyond all probability that they should not also be found in those beds of contem- 
porary geological strata which have not gone down to the bottom of the sea , still 
more improbable that some portions should not be dredged from the ocean-bed like 
the remains of the mammoth and the rhinoceros, which are also found in fresh-water 
beds and gravel and drift ! . . . The celebrated Neanderthal skull, about which so much 
has been said, belongs confessedly to this remote period [bronze and stone ages], 
and yet presents, although it may have been the skull of an idiot, immense differences 
from the highest known anthropomorphous ape. y 

Our Globe being convulsed each time that it reawakens for a new period 
of activity, like a field which has to be ploughed and furrowed before fresh 
seed for its new crop is thrown into it it does seem quite hopeless that fossils 
belonging to its previous Rounds should be found in the beds of either its 
oldest or its latest geological strata. Every new Manvantara brings along with 
it the renovation of forms, types and species ; every type of the preceding 
organic forms vegetable, animal and human changes and is perfected in 
the next, even to the mineral, which has received in this Round its final opacity 
and hardness ; its softer portions formed the present vegetation ; the astral 
relics of previous vegetation and fauna were utilized in the formation of the 
lower animals, and in determining the structure of the primeval Root-Types 
of the highest mammalia. And, finally, the form of the gigantic ape-man of 
the former Round has been reproduced in this one by human bestiality, and 
transfigured into the parent form in the modern anthropoid. 

This doctrine, even imperfectly delineated as it is under our inefficient 
pen, is assuredly more logical, more consistent with facts, and far more 
probable, than many "scientific" theories; that, for instance, of the 
first organic germ descending on a meteor to our Earth like Ain Soph 
on its Vehicle, Adam Kadmon. Only, the latter descent is allegorical, 
as every one knows, and the Kabalists have never offered this figure of 
speech for acceptance in its dead-letter garb. But the germ-on-the-meteor 
theory, as coming from such high scientific quarters, is an eligible candidate 
for axiomatic truth and law, a theory people are in honour bound to accept, 
if they would be on a right level with modern Science. What the next theory 

1 And how much more " enormous " if we reverse the subjects, and say during the monkey's 
development from the Third Race Man. 

-Op. cit., pp. 160. 



PARALLELISM OF LIFE 299 

necessitated by the materialistic premisses will be no one can tell. Mean- 
while, the present theories, as anyone can see, clash far more discordantly 
among themselves than even with those of the Occultists outside the sacred 
precincts of learning. For what is there, next in order, now that exact 
Science has made even of the life-principle an empty word, a meaningless 
term, and insists that life is an effect due to the molecular action of the pri- 
mordial protoplasm ? The new doctrine of the Darwinists may be defined and 
summarized in the few words, from Mr. Herbert Spencer : 

The hypothesis of special creations turns out to be worthless worthless, by its 
derivation ; worthless, in its intrinsic incoherence ; worthless, as absolutely without evi- 
dence ; worthless, as not supplying an intellectual need ; worthless, as not satisfying a 
moral want. We must, therefore, consider it as counting for nothing in opposition to 
any other hypothesis respecting the origin of organic beings. 1 



1 Principles of Biology, Vol. i, p. 345. 



SECTION 5 

ORGANIC EVOLUTION AND CREATIVE CENTRES 

IT is argued that Universal Evolution, otherwise the gradual development of 
species in all the kingdoms of Nature, works by uniform laws. This is admitted, 
and the law is enforced far more strictly in Esoteric than in modern Science. 
But we are also told, that it is equally a law that : 

Development works from the less to the more perfect, and from the simpler to 
the more complicated, by incessant changes, small in themselves, but constantly accumu- 
lating in the required direction l 

It is from the infinitesimally small that the comparatively gigantic species 
are produced. 

Esoteric Science agrees with this, but adds that this law applies only to 
what is known to it as the Primary Creation the evolution of worlds from 
Primordial Atoms, and the pre-primordial ATOM, at the first differentiation of 
the former ; and that during the period of cyclic evolution in Space and Time r 
this law is limited and works only in the lower kingdoms. It did so work 
during the first geological periods, from simple to complex, on the rough 
material surviving from the relics of the Third Round, which relics are project- 
ed into objectivity when terrestrial activity recommences. 

No more than Science, does the Esoteric Philosophy admit " design " or 
" special creation." It rejects every claim to the " miraculous," and accepts 
nothing outside the uniform and immutable laws of Nature. But it* teaches 
a cyclic law, a double stream of Force (or Spirit) and of Matter, which, starting 
from the Neutral Centre of Being, develops by its cyclic progress and inces- 
sant transformations. The primitive germ from which all vertebrate life has 
developed throughout the ages, being distinct from the primitive germ from 
which vegetable and animal life have evolved, there are side laws whose work 

1 Modern Science and Modern Thought, p. 94 



ORGANIC EVOLUTION AND CREATIVE CENTRES 301 

is determined by the conditions in which the materials to be worked upon 
are found by them, and of which Science Physiology and Anthropology 
especially seems to be little aware. Its votaries speak of this " primitive 
germ," and maintain that it is shown beyond any doubt that: 

The design [and the " designer "], if there be any [in the case of man, with the 
wonderful structure of his limbs, and his hand especially], must be placed very much 
farther back, and is, in fact, involved in the primitive germ, from which all vertebrate 
Jife certainly, and probably all life, animal or vegetable, have been slowly developed. 1 

This is as true of the " primitive germ as it is false that that " germ " 
is only " very much farther back " than man is ; for it is at an immeasurable 
and inconceivable distance, in Time, though not in Space, from the origin even 
of our Solar System. As the Hindu philosophy very justly teaches, the 
" Aniyamsam An/yasam," can be known only through false notions. It is the 
" Many " that proceed from the ONE the living spiritual germs or centres of 
forces each in a septenary form, which first generate, and then give the 
PRIMARY IMPULSE to the law of evolution and gradual slow development. 

Limiting the teaching strictly to this our Earth, it may be shown that, as 
the ethereal forms of the first Men are first projected on seven zones by 
seven Dhyan-Chohanic Centres of Force, so there are centres of creative 
power for every root or parent species of the host of forms of vegetable 
and animal life. This is, again, no "special creation," nor is there any 
4t design," except in the general " ground-plan " worked out by the Universal 
Law. But there are certainly " designers," though these are neither omni- 
potent nor omniscient in the absolute sense of the term. They are simply 
Builders, or Masons, working under the impulse given them by the ever-to-be- 
unknown (on our plane) Master Mason the ONE LIFE and Law. Belonging to 
this sphere, they have no hand in, nor possibility of working on any other, 
during the present Manvantara, at any rate. That they work in cycles and on 
a strictly geometrical and mathematical scale of progression, is what the extinct 
animal species amply demonstrate ; that they act by design in the details 
of minor lives (of side animal issues, etc.) is sufficiently proved by natural 
history. In the "creation " of new species, departing sometimes very widely 
-from the parent stock, as in the great variety of the genus Fe//s like the 
lynx, the tiger, the cat, etc. it is the "designers" who direct the new 
evolution by adding to, or depriving the species of certain appendages, either 

Mbid 



302 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

needed or becoming useless in the new environments. Thus, when we say 
that Nature provides for every animal and plant, whether large or small, we 
speak correctly. For it is these terrestrial Spirits of Nature, who form the 
aggregated Nature which, if it fails occasionally in its design, is neither to be 
considered blind, nor to be taxed with the failure; since, belonging to a 
differentiated sum of qualities and attributes, it is in virtue of that alone 
conditioned and imperfect. 

Were there no such thing as evolutionary cycles, as an eternal spiral 
progress into Matter with a proportionate otscurat/on of Spirit (though the 
two are one) followed by an inverse ascent into Spirit and the defeat of 
Matter active and passive by turn how could we explain the discoveries of 
Zoology and Geology ? How is it that, on the dictum of authoritative Science, 
one can trace the animal life from the mollusc up to the great sea-dragon, 
from the smallest land-worm up again to the gigantic animals of the Tertiary 
period ; and that the latter were once crossed is shown by the fact of all 
those species decreasing, dwindling down and becoming dwarfed. If the 
seeming process of development working from the less to the more perfect, 
and from the simpler to the more complex, were a universal law indeed, 
instead of being a very imperfect generalization of a mere secondary nature 
in the great Cosmic process, and if there were no such cycles as those claimed, 
then the Mesozoic fauna and flora ought to change places with the latest 
Neolithic, It is the plesiosauri and the ichthyosauri that we ought to find 
developing from the present sea and river reptiles, instead of these giving 
place to their dwarfed modern analogies. It is, again, our old friend, the 
good-tempered elephant, that would be the fossil antediluvian ancestor, and 
the mammoth of the Pliocene age who would be in the menagerie ; the 
megalonyx and the gigantic megatherium would be found instead of the lazy 
sloth in the forests of South America, in which the colossal ferns of the 
carboniferous periods would take the place of the mosses and the present 
trees dwarfs, even the giants of California, in comparison with the Titan- 
trees of past geological periods. Surely the organisms of the megasthenian 
world of the Tertiary and the Mesozoic ages must have been more complex 
and perfect than those of the microsthenian plants and animals of the present 
age ? The dryopithecus, for instance, is more perfect anatomically, is more 
fit for a greater development of brain power, than the modern gorilla 
or gibbon. How is all this, then ? Are we to believe that the constitution of 
all those colossal land- and sea-dragons, of the gigantic flying reptiles, was not 



SCIENCE AND ESOTERIC PHYLOGENY 303 

far more developed and complex than the anatomy of the lizards, turtles, 
crocodiles, and even of the whales in short, of all those animals with which 
we are acquainted ? 

Let us admit, however, for argument's sake; that all those cycles, races, 
septenary forms of evolution, and the tutti quanti of Esoteric teaching, are no 
better than a delusion and a snare. Let us agree with Science and say that 
man instead of being an imprisoned " spirit," and his vehicle, the shell or 
body, a gradually perfected and now complete mechanism for material and 
terrestrial uses, as claimed by the Occultists is simply a more developed 
animal, whose primal form emerged from one and the same primitive germi 
on this Earth as the flying dragon and the gnat, the whale and the amoeba,, 
the crocodile and the frog, etc. In this case, he must have passed through 
the identical developments and through the same process of growth as all the 
other mammals. If man is an animal, and nothing more, a highly intellectual 
" ex-brute/' he should at least be allowed to have been a gigantic mammal' 
of his kind, a " meganthropus " in his day. This is exactly what Esoteric 
Science shows to have taken place in the first three Rounds, and in this, as in. 
most other things, it is more logical and consistent than modern Science. It 
classifies the human body with the brute creation, and maintains it in the path 
of animal evolution, from first to last, while Science leaves man a parentless 
orphan born of sires unknown, an " unspecialized skeleton " truly ! And this 
mistake is due to a stubborn rejection of the doctrine of cycles. 

A. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THE MAMMALIA: SCIENCE AND 

ESOTERIC PHYLOGENY 

Having dealt almost exclusively with the question of the origin of man in 
the foregoing criticism of Western Evolutionism, it may not be amiss to define 
the position of the Occultists with regard to the differentiation of species. 
The pre-human fauna and flora have been already dealt with generally in the 
Commentary on the STANZAS, and the truth of much of modern biological 
speculation has been admitted, e.g., the derivation of birds from reptiles, the 
part/a/ truth of " natural selection," and the transformation theory generally. 
It now remains to clear up the mystery of the origin of those first mammalian 
faunae which M. de Quatrefages so brilliantly endeavours to prove contenv 
porary with the Homo primigenius of the Secondary Age. 



304 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

The somewhat complicated problem relating to the " Origin of Species " 
more especially of the varied groups of fossil or existing mammalian faunae 
will be rendered less obscure by the aid of a diagram. It will then be 
apparent to what extent the " factors of organic evolution," relied upon by 
Western Biologists, 1 are to be considered as adequate to meet the facts. The 
line of demarcation between ethereo-spiritual, astral and physical evolution 
must be drawn. Perhaps, if Darwinians deigned to consider the possi- 
bility of the second process, they would no longer have to lament the 
fact that : 

We are referred entirely to conjecture and inference for the origin of the 
imammals ! ' 2 

At present the admitted chasm between the systems of reproduction of 
the oviparous vertebrates and mammalia constitutes a hopeless crux to those 
thinkers who, with the Evolutionists, seek to link all existing organic forms in a 
continuous line of descent. 

Let us take, for instance, the case of the ungulate mammals, since it is 
said that in no other division do we possess such abundant fossil material. So 
fnuch progress has been made in this direction, that in some instances the 
intermediate links between the modern and Eocene ungulates have been 
unearthed ; a notable example being that of the complete proof of the 
derivation of the present one-toed horse from the three-toed anchitherium of 
the old Tertiary. This standard of comparison between Western Biology and 
the Eastern Doctrine could not, therefore, be improved upon. The pedigree 
here utilized, as embodying the views of Scientists in general, is that of 
Schmidt, based on the exhaustive researches of Rutimeyer. Its approxi- 
mate accuracy from the standpoint of evolutionism leaves little to be 
desired : 

1 The Darwinian theory has been so strained, that even Huxley was forced at one time to 
deprecate its occasional degeneration into " fanaticism." Oscar Schmidt presents a good instance of 
.a thinker who unconsciously exaggerates the worth of a hypothesis. He admits (The Doctrine of 
Descent and Darwinism, p. 158), that " natural selection . . . is in some cases . . . inadequate, 

,n others . . not requisite, as the solution of the formation of species is found in other natural 
conditions" He also asserts the "intermediate grades are ... wanting, which would entitle us 
to infer with certainty the direct transition from implacental to placental mammals" (p. 271) that 
"we are referred entirely to conjecture and inference for the origin of the mammals " (p 268) ' and 
he speaks of the repeated failures of the framers of " hypothetical pedigrees," more especially of 
Haeckel, while regarding their attempts as valuable (p. 250) Nevertheless he asserts (p 194) that 
"what we have gained by the doctrine of descent based on the theory of selection . . is the 
knowledge of the connection of organisms as consanguineous beings." Knowledge, in the face of 
the above-cited concessions, is, then, the synonym for conjecture and theory only ? 

2 The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, p. 268. 



THE -ROOT" ACCORDING TO OCCULTISM 



305 



UNGULATE MAMMALS 



Tragulidae 



Hippopotami 



Pigs 




Tapirs Horses 



Antelopes Rhinoceroses 



Deer 




Oxen 



Anoplotheridae 



Hipparion 

Macrauchenidae 
Anchitherium 

Palaeotheridae 



At this, the midway point of evolution, Science comes to a standstill. 
The root to which these two families lead back is unknown. 1 

THE " ROOT " ACCORDING TO OCCULTISM 



Anoplotheridae 



Palaeotheridae 




One of the Seven 

primeval physico-astral and bisexual Root-Types of the mammalian 
animal kingdom. These were contemporaries of the early Lemurian 
races the " UNKNOWN ROOTS " of Science. 

Prof. Schmidt's diagram represents the realm explored by Western 
Evolutionists, the area in which climatic influences, " natural selection," and 
all the other physical causes of organic differentiation are present. Biology 
and Palaeontology find their province here in investigating the many physical 
agencies which so largely contribute, as has been shown by Darwin, Spencer 
and others, to the segregat/on of species. But even in this domain the sub- 
conscious workings of the Dhyan-Chohanic wisdom are at the root of all the 
"' ceaseless striving towards perfection," though its influence is vastly modified 
by those purely material causes which de Quatref ages terms the milled " 
and Spencer the " environment." 



Mbid., pp. 273-5. 
F 20 



306 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

The " midway point of evolution " is that stage where the astral proto- 
types definitely begin to pass into the physical, and thus become subject to 
the differentiating agencies now operative around us. Physical causation 
supervenes immediately on the assumption of the " coats of skin " 
i.e., the physiological equipment in general. The forms of men and of other 
mammals previous to the separation of the sexes ' are woven out of astral 
matter, and possess a structure utterly* unlike that of the physical organisms 
which eat, drink, digest, etc. The known physiological contrivances requisite 
for these functions were almost entirely evolved subsequently to the incipient 
physicalization of the seven Root-Types out of the astral during the " mid- 
way halt" between the two planes of existence. Hardly had the " ground- 
plan " of evolution been limned out in these ancestral types, than there 
supervened the influence of the accessory terrestrial laws, familiar to us, 
resulting in the whole crop of mammalian species. ons of slow differentia- 
tion were, however, required to effect this end. 

The second diagram represents the domain of the purely astral proto- 
types previous to their descent into gross matter. Astral matter, it must be 
noted, is fourth-state matter, having, like our gross matter, its own "protyle." 
There are several protyles in Nature, corresponding to the various planes of 
matter. The two sub-physical elemental kingdoms, the plane of mind, 
Manas, or fifth-state matter, as also that of Buddhi, sixth-state matter, are 
each and all evolved from one of the six protyles which constitute the basis of 
the Object-Universe. The three " states " so-called of our terrestrial matter, 
known as the "solid," "liquid," and "gaseous/' are only, in strict accuracy, 
sub-states. As to the former reality of the descent into the physical, which 
culminated in physiological man and animal, we have a palpable testimony in 
the fact of the so-called spiritualistic " materializations." 

In all these instances a complete temporary mergence of the astral into 
the physical takes place. The evolution of physiological man out of the astral 
races of the early Lemurian age the Jurassic age of Geology is exactly 
paralleled by the " materialization " of " spirits " (?) in the seance room. In 
the case of Professor Crookes' " Katie King," the presence of a physiological 
mechanism heart, lungs, etc. was indubitably demonstrated ! 

This, in a way, is the ARCHETYPE of Goethe. Listen to his words : 

Thus much we should have gained ... all the nine perfect organic beings 
. . . [are] formed according to an archetype which merely fluctuates more or less in 

1 Bear in mind, please, that though the animals mammalians included have all been evolved 
after and partially from man's cast-off tissues, still, as a far lower being, the mammalian animal became 
placental and separated far earlier than man. 



THE EUROPEAN PALXEOLITHIC RACES 



307 



its very persistent parts and, moreover, day by day, completes and transforms itself by 
means of reproduction. 

This is a seemingly imperfect foreshadowing of the Occult fact of th^ 
differentiation of species from the primal astral Root-Types. Whatever the 
whole posse comitatus of "natural selection," etc., may effect, the funda- 
mental unity of structural plan remains practically unaffected by all subsequent 
modifications. The " unity of type " common, in a sense, to all the animal 
and human kingdoms, is not, as Spencer and others appear to hold, a proof 
of the consanguinity of all organic forms, but a witness to the essential unity of 
the " ground-plan " Nature has followed in fashioning her creatures. 

To sum up the case we may again avail ourselves of a tabulation of the 
actual factors concerned in the differentiation of species. The stages of the 
process itself need no further comment here, for they follow the basic prin- 
ciples underlying organic development, and we do not need to enter on the 
domain of the biological specialist. 

FACTORS CONCERNED IN THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, ANIMAL AND 

VEGETABLE 



Basic Astral Prototypes pass into the Physical 



The Dhyan-Chohanic Impulse, 
constituting Lamarck's " in- 
herent and necessary" law 
of development. It lies be- 
hind all minor agencies. 



1. Variation transmitted by Heredity. 

2. Natural Selection. 

3. Sexual Selection. 

4. Physiological Selection. 

5. Isolation. 

6. Correlation of Growth. 

7. Adaptation to Environment. (Intelligent as opposed 

to Mechanical Causation.) 




3pciM 



B. THE EUROPEAN PALXEOLITHIC RACES : WHENCE, AND HOW 

DISTRIBUTED 

Is Science opposed to those who maintain that, down to the Quaternary 
period, the distribution of the human races was widely different from what it 
is now ? Is Science against those who, further, maintain that the fossil men 
found in Europe although they have almost reached a plane of sameness 



308 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

and unity which continues till this day, regarded from the fundamental physio- 
logical and anthropological aspects still differ, sometimes greatly, from the 
type of the now existing populations? Littre admits this in an article published 
by him in the Revue des Deux Mondes (March 1st, 1859) on the Memoire 
called Antiquites Celtiques et Antediluviennes by Boucher de Perthes (1849). 
Littre therein states that : (a) in these periods when the mammoths, exhumed 
in Picardy in company with man-made hatchets, lived in the latter region, 
there must have been an eternal spring reigning over all the terrestrial globe j 1 
nature was the contrary of what it is now, and thus is left an enormous margin 
for the antiquity of those " periods " ; he then adds (fa) : 

Spring, Professor of the Faculty of Medicine at Liege, found in a grotto near 
Namur, in the mountain of Chauvaux, numerous human bones " of a race quite distinct 
from ours." 

Skulls exhumed in Austria offer a great analogy with those of negro races 
in Africa, according to Littre, while others, discovered on the shores of the 
Danube and the Rhine, resemble the skulls of the Caribs and of the ancient 
inhabitants of Peru and Chile. Still, the Deluge, whether Biblical or Atlantean, 
is denied. But further geological discoveries made Gaudry write conclusively: 

Our forefathers were positively contemporaneous with the rhinoceros tichorrhi- 
nus, the hippopotamus major. 

And he added that the soil called diluvial in geology 
Was formed partially at least after man's apparition on earth. 

Upon this, Littre pronounced himself finally. He then showed the 
necessity, in face of " the resurrection of so many old witnesses," of rehand- 
Jing all the origins, all the durations, and added that there was AN AGE hitherto 
unknown to study 

Either at the dawn of the actual epoch, or, as I believe, at the beginning of the 
epoch which preceded it. 

The types of the skulls found in Europe are of two kinds, as is well 
known : the orthognathous and the prognathous, or the Caucasian and 
the Negroid types such as are now found only among the African and 
the lower savage tribes. Professor Heer who argues that the facts of 
Botany necessitate the hypothesis of an Atlantis has shown that the plants 
of the Neolithic lake-villagers are mainly of African origin. How did these 

1 Scientists now admit that Europe enjoyed in the Miocene times a warm, in the Pliocene or later 
Tertiary, a temperate climate. Littre^ s contention as to the balmy spring of the Quaternary to 
which deposits M. de Perthes' discoveries of flint implements are traceable (since when the Somme 
has worn down its valley many scores of feet) must be accepted with much reservation. The 
-Somme-Valley relics are post-glacial, and possibly point to the immigration of savages during one of 
the more temperate periods intervening between minor ages of Ice. 



THE EUROPEAN PAL/EOLITHIC RACES 309 

plants appear in Europe if there were no former point of union between 
Europe and Africa ? How many thousand years ago did the seventeen men 
live whose skeletons were exhumed in the department of the Haute Garonne, 
in a squatting posture near remains of a coal fire, with some amulets and broken 
crockery around them, and in company with the ursus spelaeus, the elephas 
primigenius, the aurochs (regarded by Cuvier as a distinct species), the mega- 
ceros hibernicus all antediluvian mammals ? Certainly they must have lived 
in a most distant epoch, but not in one which carries us further back than the 
Quaternary. A much greater antiquity for man has yet to be proved. 
Dr. James Hunt, the late President of the Anthropological Society, puts it at 
nine million years. This man of Science, at any rate, makes some approach 
to our Esoteric computation, if we leave out of the computation the first two 
semi-human, ethereal Races, and the early Third Race. 

The question, however, arises who were these Palaeolithic men of the 
European Quaternary epoch ? Were they aboriginal, or were they the out- 
come of some immigration dating back into the unknown past ? The latter 
is the only tenable hypothesis, as all Scientists agree in eliminating Europe 
from the category of possible " cradles of mankind." Whence, then, 
radiated the various successive streams of " primitive " men ? 

The earliest Palaeolithic men in Europe about whose origin Ethnology is 
silent, and whose very characteristics are but imperfectly known, though 
expatiated on as " ape-like " by imaginative writers such as Mr. Grant Allen 
were of pure Atlantean and " Africo "-Atlantean stocks. 1 (It must be 
borne in mind that by this time the Atlantean Continent itself was a dream of 
the past.) Europe in the Quaternary epoch was very different from the 
Europe of to-day, being then only in process of formation. It was united to 
Northern Africa or rather to what is now Northern Africa by a neck of land 
running across the present Straits of Gibraltar Northern Africa thus consti- 
tuting as it were an extension of the present Spain, while a broad sea 
filled the great basin of the Sahara. Of the vast Atlantis, the main 
bulk of which sank in the Miocene, there remained only Ruta and Daitya and 
a stray island or so. The Atlantean connections of the forefathers 2 of the 
Palaeolithic cave-men are evidenced by the up-turning of fossil skulls in Europe, 

^'Whence they [the old cave-men] came, we cannot tell " (Grant Allen). " The palaeolithic 
hunters of the Somme Valley did not originate in that inhospitable climate, but moved into Europe 
from some more genial region " (Dr. Southall. Epoch of the Mammoth, p. 315). 

2 The pure Atlantean stocks of which the tall Quaternary cave-men were, in part, the direct 
descendants immigrated into Europe long prior to the Glacial period , in fact as far back as the 
Pliocene and Miocene times in the Tertiary. The worked Miocene flints of Thenay, and the traces of 
Pliocene man discovered by Professor Capellini in Italy, are witnesses to the fact. These colonists 
were portions of the once glorious Race, whose cycle from the Eocene onwards had been running 
down the scale. 



310 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

reverting closely to the type of the West Indian Carib and ancient Peruvian 
a mystery indeed for gll those who refuse to sanction the " hypothesis of a 
former Atlantic continent to bridge what is now an ocean. What are we 
also to make of the fact that while de Quatrefages points to that " magnifi- 
cent race/' the tall Cro-Magnon cave-men, and to the Guanches of the 
Canary Islands, as representatives of one type, Virchow also allies the Basques 
with the latter in a similar way ? Professor Retzius independently proves the 
relationship of the aboriginal American dolichocephalous tribes and these 
same Guanches. The several links in the chain of evidence are thus securely 
joined together. Legions of similar facts could be adduced. As to the 
African tribes themselves diverging offshoots of Atlanteans modified by 
climate and conditions they crossed into Europe over the peninsula which 
made the Mediterranean an inland sea. Fine races were many of these 
European cave-men, as the Cro-Magnon, for instance. But, as was to be 
expected, progress is almost non-existent through the whole of the vast 
period allotted by Science to the Xhipped-Stone age. 1 The cyclic impulse 
downwards weighs heavily on the stocks thus transplanted the incubus of the 
>4t/antean Karma is upon them. Finally, Palaeolithic man makes room for his 
successor and disappears almost entirely from the scene. Professor Andre 
iefevre asks in this connection : 

Has the Polished succeeded the Chipped-Stone Age by an imperceptible transi- 
tion, or was it due to an invasion of brachycephalous Kelts ? But whether the deteriora- 
tion produced in the populations of La Vezere was the result of violent crossings, 
or of a general retreat northwards in the wake of the reindeer, is of little moment 
to us. 

He continues : 

Meantime the bed of the ocean has been upheaved, Europe is now fully formed, 
her flora and fauna are fixed. With the taming of the dog begins the pastoral life. 
We enter on those polished stone and bronze periods, which succeed each other at 
irregular intervals, which even overlap one another in the midst of ethnical migrations 
and fusions, at once more confused and of shorter duration than less advanced and 
more rudimentary ages. The primitive European populations are interrupted in their 
special evolution, and without perishing, become absorbed in other races, engulfed, as 
it were, by the successive waves of migration overflowing from Africa, possibly from a 
lost Atlantis [? far too late by aeons of years] and from prolific Asia. On the one hand 
came the Iberians, on the other Pelasgians, Ligurians, Sicanians, Etruscans all fore- 
runners of the great Aryan Invasion [Fifth Race].* 

1 The artistic skill displayed by the old cave-men renders the hypothesis which regards them as 
approximations to the pithecanthropus alalus that very rriythical Haeckelian monster an absurdity 
requiring no Huxley or Schmidt to expose it. We see in their skill in engraving a gleam of Atlan- 
tean culture atavistically reappearing. It will be remembered that Donnelly regards modern European 
civilization as a renaissance of the Atlantean. (Atlantis, pp. 237-264.) 

- Philosophy Historical and Critical, Pt. II, p. 504, chap, " On Organic Evolution." 



SECTION 6 

GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 
TRACED IN HISTORY 

"WHEN statements such as are comprised in the above heading are brought 
forward, the writer is, of course, expected to furnish historical instead of 
legendary evidence in support of such claims. Is this possible ? Yes ; for 
evidence of such a nature is plentiful, and has simply to be collected and 
brought together in order to become overwhelming in the eyes of the 
unprejudiced. 

Once the sagacious student gets hold of the guiding thread he may find 
out such evidence for himself. We give facts and show landmarks ; let the 
wayfarer follow them. What is adduced here is amply sufficient for this 
century. 

In a letter to Voltaire, Bailly finds it quite natural that the sympathies 
of the " grand old invalid of Ferney " should be attracted to the representa- 
tives of " knowledge and wisdom," the ancient Brahmans. He then adds a 
curious statement. He says : 

But your Brahmans are very young in comparison with their archaic instructors. 1 

Bailly, who knew nought of the Esoteric teachings, nor of Lemuria, 
believed, nevertheless, unreservedly in the lost Atlantis, and also in several 
pre-historic and civilized nations which had disappeared without leaving any 
undeniable trace. He had studied the ancient classics and traditions exten- 
sively, and he saw that the Arts and Sciences known to those we now call the 
" ancients," were *- 

not the achievements of any of the now or even then existing nations, nor of 
any of the historical peoples of Asia. . . . 

.and that, notwithstanding the learning of the Hindus, their undeniable priority 
in the early part of their race had to be referred to a people or a 

1 lettres sur /' Atlantide, p. 12. 



312 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

race still more ancient and more learned than were even the Brahmans 
themselves. 1 

Voltaire, the greatest sceptic of his day, the materialist par excellence, 
shared Bailly's belief. He thought it quite likely that : 

Long before the empires of China and India, there had been nations cultured, 
learned, and powerful, which a deluge of barbarians overpowered and thus replunged 
into their primitive state of ignorance and savagery, or what they call the state of 
pure nature.' 2 

That which with Voltaire was the shrewd conjecture of a great intellect, 
was with Bailly a " question of historical facts." For, he wrote : 

( make great case of ancient traditions preserved through a long series of 
generations. 

It was possible, he thought, that a foreign nation should, after instructing 
another nation, so disappear that it should leave no traces behind. When* 
asked how it could have happened that this ancient, or rather archaic, nation 
should not have left at least some recollection in the human mind, he 
answered that Time was a pitiless devourer of facts and events. But the 
history of the Past was never entirely lost, for the Sages of old Egypt had 
preserved it, and " it is so preserved to this day elsewhere." The priests of 
Sai's said to Solon, according to Plato : 

You are unacquainted with that most noble and excellent race of men. who once 
inhabited your country, from whom you and your whole present state are descended, 3 
though only a small remnant of this admirable people is now remaining. . . . These 
writings relate what a prodigious force your city once overcame, when a mighty war- 
like power, rushing from the Atlantic sea, spread itself with hostile fury over all Europe 
and Asia.* 

The Greeks were but the dwarfed and weak remnant of that once 
glorious nation. 5 

What was this nation ? The SECRET DOCTRINE teaches that it was the latest 
seventh sub-race of the Atlantean, already swallowed up in one of the early 
sub-races of the Aryan stock, one that had been gradually spreading over the 

1 Histoire de I' Astronomic Ancienne, pp. 25, et seq. 

l Lettres w I' Atlantide, p. 15. This conjecture is but a half-guess. There were such " deluges 
of barbarians in the Fifth Race. With regard to the Fourth, it was a bona fide deluge of water which 
swept it away. Neither Voltaire nor Bailly, however, knew anything of tfce SECRET DOCTRINE of 
the East. 

s For a full discussion of the relations between the old Greeks and Romans, and the Atlantean 
colonists, see Five Years of fheosophy. pp. 308-46. 

4 Jimseus, translated by H. Davis, pp. 326-8. 

5 The story about Atlantis and all the traditions thereon were told, as all know, by Plato in his 
iimaus and Crit/as. Plato, when a child, had it from his grand-sire Critias, aged ninety, who in his 
youth had been told of it by Solon, his father Dropides' friend Solon, one of the Seven Sages of 
oreece. No more reliable source could be found, we should think. 



GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 313 

continent and islands of Europe, as soon as they had begun to emerge from 
the seas. Descending from the high plateaux of Asia, where the two races 
had sought refuge in the days of the agony of Atlantis, it had been slowly 
settling and colonizing the freshly emerged lands. The immigrant sub-race 
had rapidly increased and multiplied on that virgin soil ; had divided into many 
family races, which in their turn divided into nations. Egypt and Greece, the 
Phoenicians, and the Northern stocks, had thus proceeded from that one sub- 
race. Thousands of years later, other races the remnants of the Atlanteans 
"yellow and red, brown and black," began to invade the new continent. 
There were wars in which the new comers were defeated, and they fled, some 
to Africa, others to remote countries. Some of these lands became islands in 
course of time, owing to new geological convulsions. Being thus forcibly 
separated from the continents, the result was that the undeveloped tribes and 
families of the Atlantean stock fell gradually into a still more abject and savage 
condition. 

Did not the Spaniards in the Cibola expeditions meet with white savage 
chiefs ; and has not the presence of African negro types in Europe in the 
pre-historic ages been now ascertained ? It is this presence of a foreign type 
associated with that of the negro, and also with that of the Mongolian, which 
is the stumbling-block of Anthropology. The individual who lived at an incal- 
culably distant period at La Naulette, in Belgium, is an example. Says an 
Anthropologist : 

The caves on the banks of the Lesse, in South-Eastern Belgium, afford evidence 
of what is, perhaps, the lowest man, as shown by the Naulette jaw. Such man, how- 
ever, had amulets of stone, perforated for the purpose of ornament ; these are made 
of a psammite now found in the basin of the Gironde. 1 

Thus Belgian man was extremely ancient. The man who was antecedent 
to the great flood of waters which covered the highlands of Belgium with a 
deposit of lehm or upland gravel thirty metres above the level of the present 
rivers must have combined the characters of the Turanian and the Negro. 
The Canstadt, or La Naulette, man may have been black, and he had nothing 
to do with the Aryan type whose remains are contemporary with those of the 
cave bear at Engis. The denizens of the Aquitaine bone-caves belong to a 
far later period of history, and may not be as ancient as the former. 

If the statement be objected to on the ground that Science does not 
deny the presence of man on Earth from an enormous antiquity, though 
that antiquity cannot be determined, since such presence is conditioned by 
the duration of geological periods, the age of which is not ascertained ; if it 

1 See Dr. Carter Blake's paper " On the Naulette Jaw," Anthropological Review, Sept. 1867. 



314 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

is argued that the Scientists object most decidedly to the claim that man 
preceded the animals, for instance ; or that civilization dates from the earliest 
Eocene period ; or again, that there have ever existed giants, three-eyed 
and four-armed and four-legged men, androgynes, etc. then the objectors 
are asked in their turn, " How do you know ? What proof have you besides 
your personal hypotheses, each of which may be upset any day by new dis- 
coveries ?" And these future discoveries are sure to prove that, whatever 
this earlier type of man known to Anthropologists may have been in com- 
plexion, he was in no respect apish. The Canstadt man, the Engis man, alike 
possessed essentially human attributes. 1 People have looked for the missing 
link at the wrong end of the chain ; and the Neanderthal man has long since 
been dismissed to the " limbo of all hasty blunders." Disraeli divided man 
into the associates of the apes and the angels. Reasons are here given in 
favour of an " angelic theory " as Christians would call it, as applicable to at 
least some of the races of men. At all events, if man be held to exist only 
since the Miocene period, even then humanity as a whole could not be com- 
posed of the abject savages of the Palaeolithic age, as they are now repre- 
sented by the Scientists. All they say is mere arbitrary speculative guess- 
work, invented by them to answer to, and fit in with, their own fanciful 
theories. 

We speak of events hundreds of thousands of years old, nay, even 
millions of years old if man date from the geological periods 2 not of any 
of those events which happened during the few thousand years of the pre- 
historic margin allowed by timid and ever-cautious history. Yet there are 
men of Science who are almost of our way of thinking. From the brave 
confession of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, who says that : 

Traditions, whose traces recur in Mexico, in Central America, in Peru, and in 
Bolivia, suggest the idea that man existed in these different countries at the time of 
the gigantic upheaval of the Andes, and that he has retained the memory of it 

down to the latest Palaeontologists and Anthropologists, the majority of scien- 
tific men is in favour of just such an antiquity. Apropos of Peru, has any 
satisfactory attempt been made to determine the ethnological affinities and 
characteristics of the race which reared those Cyclopean erections, the ruins 

1 See de Quatrefages and Hamy, Cranes des Races Huma/nes. 

2 Haeckel's " man-ape " of the Miocene period is the dream of a monomaniac, which de Quatre- 
fages (Human Species, pp. 105-113) has cleverly disposed of. It is not clear why the world should 
accept the lucubrations of a pyschophobic Materialist to accept whose theory necessitates the accept- 
ance on faith of various animals unknown to Science or Nature, like the Sozura, for instance, that 
amphibian which has never existed anywhere outside Haeckel's imagination rather than the traditions 
of antiquity. 



GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 315 

of which display the relics of a great civilization ? At Cuelap, for instance, 
such are found, consisting 

of a wall of wrought stones, 3,600 feet long, 560 broad, and 150 feet high, 
constituting a solid mass with a level summit. On this mass was another, 600 feet 
long, 500 broad, and 150 feet high, making an aggregate height of 300 feet. In it were 
rooms and cells. 1 

A most suggestive fact is the startling resemblance between the archi- 
tecture of these colossal buildings and that of the archaic European nations. 
Mr. Fergusson regards the analogies between the ruins of " Inca " civilization 
and the Cyclopean remains of the Pelasgians in Italy and Greece, as a 
coincidence 

The most remarkable in the history of architecture. ... It is difficult to resist 
the conclusion that there may be some relation between them. 

The " relation " is simply explained by the derivation of the stocks who 
devised these erections, from a common centre in an Atlantic continent. The 
acceptance of the latter can alone assist us to approach a solution of this and 
similar problems in almost every branch of Modern Science. 

Dr. Lartet, treating upon the subject, settles the question by declaring 
that : 

The truth, so long contested, of the co-existence of man with the great extinct 
species [elephas primigenius, rhinoceros tichorrhinus, hyaena spelaea, ursus spelaaus, 
etc.], appears to me to be henceforth unassailable and definitely conquered by science." 

It is shown elsewhere that such is also de Quatrefages' opinion. He 
says : 

Man has in all probability seen miocene times :i and consequently the entire 
pliocene epoch. Are there any reasons for believing that his traces will be found 
further back still ? ... He may then have been contemporaneous with the earliest 
mammalia, and go back as far as the secondary period. 4 

Egypt is far older than Europe as now traced on the map. Atlanto- 
Aryan tribes began to settle on it when the British Islands 5 and France were 
not even in existence. It is well known that " the tongue of the ^Egyptian 
Sea," or the Delta of lower Egypt, became firm land very gradually, and 

1 But see the mass of evidence collected by Donnelly to prove the Peruvian colony an offshoot 
of the Atlanteans. 

- Cavernes de Pertgord, p 35. 

:< The ingenious author of Atlantis, the Ante-diluvian World, in discussing the origin of various 
Grecian and Roman institutions, expresses his conviction that " the roots of the institutions of to-day 
reach back to the Miocene age." Ay, and further yet, as already stated. [See ch 3, p. 30.] 

4 The Human Species, p. 152. , 

>( As we know them, however. For not only does Geology prove that the British Islands have been 
four times submerged and re-elevated, but that the straits between them and Europe were dry land at 
a former remote epoch. 



316 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

followed the highlands of Abyssinia ; unlike the latter, which arose suddenly, 
comparatively speaking, it was very slowly formed, through long ages, from 
successive layers of sea-slime and mud, deposited annually by the soil brought 
down by a large river, the present Nile. Yet even the Delta, as a firm and 
fertile land, has been inhabited for more than 100,000 years. Later tribes, with 
still more Aryan blood in them than their predecessors, arrived from the East, 
and conquered it from a people whose very name is lost to posterity, except 
in the Secret Books. It is this natural barrier of slime, which sucked in slowly 
and surely every boat that approached those inhospitable shores, that was, till 
within a few thousand years B.C., the best safeguard of the later Egyptians, 
who had managed to reach it through Arabia, Abyssinia, and Nubia, led on by 
Manu Vina in the day of Vishvamitra. 1 

So evident does the antiquity of man become with every day, that even 
the Church is preparing for an honourable surrender and retreat. The learned 
Abbe Fabre, professor at the Sorbonne, has categorically declared that pre- 
historic Palaeontology and Archaeology may, without any harm to the Scriptures, 
discover in the Tertiary beds as many traces as they please of pre- Adamite man. 

Since it disregards all creations anterior to the last deluge but one (that which 
produced the diluvium, according to the Abbe), Bible revelation leaves us free to admit 
the existence of man in the grey diluvium, in Pliocene, and even Eocene strata. On the 
other hand, however, geologists are not all agreed on regarding the men who inhabited 
the globe in these primitive ages as our ancestors/' 

The day on which the Church shall find that its only salvation lies in the 
Occult interpretation of the Bible may not be so far off as some imagine. 
Already many an Abbe and ecclesiastic has become an ardent Kabalist, and as 
many appear publicly in the arena, breaking a lance with Theosophists and 
Occultists in support of the metaphysical interpretation of the Bible. But they 
commence, unfortunately for them, at the wrong end. They are advised, 
before they begin to speculate upon the metaphysical in their Scriptures, to 
study and master that which relates to the purely physical e.g., its hints on 
Geology and Ethnology. For such allusions to the septenary constitution of 
the Earth and Man, to the seven Rounds and Races, abound in the New as 
in the Old Testament, and are as visible as the Sun in the heavens to him who 
reads both symbolically. To what do the laws in chapter xxiii of Leviticus 

1 See. in Isis Unveiled, I, p. 627, what Kulluka Bhatta says. 

- Les Origines de la Terre et de I'Homme, p 454. To this, Professor N. Joly, of Toulouse, who 
thus quotes the Abbe in his Man before Metals, expresses the hope that M. Fabre will permit him " to 
differ from him on this last point" (p. 186). So do the Occultists; for though they claim a vast 
difference in the physiology and outward appearance of the five Races so far evolved, still they main- 
tain that the present human species has descended from one and the same primitive stock, evolved 
from the " Divine Men " our common ancestors and progenitors. 



GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 317 

apply ? What is the philosophy of reason for all such hebdomadal offerings 
and symbolical calculations as : 

Ye shall count . . . from the morrow after the sabbath . , . that ye brought the 
sheaf of the wave offering ; seven sabbaths shall be complete. . . . And ye shall offer 
with the bread seven lambs without blemish, etc. 1 

We shall be contradicted, no doubt, when we say that all these " wave " 
and " peace " offerings were in commemoration of the seven " Sabbaths " of 
the Mysteries. These Sabbaths are seven Pralayas between seven Manvan- 
taras, or what we call Rounds ; for " Sabbath " Is an elastic word, meaning a 
period of rest of whatever nature, as explained elsewhere. And if this is not 
sufficiently conclusive, then we may turn to the verse which adds : 

Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days 
{forty-nine, 7x7, stages of activity, and forty-nine stages of rest, on the seven Globes 
of the Chain, and then comes the rest of Sabbath, the fiftieth'] ; and ye shall offer a 
new meat offering unto the Lord.* 

That is, ye shall make an offering of your flesh or " coats of skin," and, 
divesting yourselves of your bodies, ye shall remain pure spirits. This law of 
offering, degraded and materialized with ages, was an institution that dated 
from the earliest Atlanteans ; it came to the Hebrews via the " Chaldees," 
who were the " wise men " of a caste, not of a nation, a community of great 
Adepts come from their " Serpent-holes," who had settled in Babylonia ages 
before. And if this interpretation from Leviticus (full of the disfigured Laws 
of Manu) is found too far-fetched, then turn to Revelation. Whatever inter- 
pretation profane mystics may give to the famous chapter xvii, with its riddle 
of the woman in purple and scarlet ; whether Protestants nod at the Roman 
Catholics, when reading " Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots 
and Abominations of the Earth," or Roman Catholics glare at the Protestants, 
the Occultists pronounce, in their impartiality, that these words have applied 
from the first to all and every exoteric Churchianity " ceremonial magic " of 
old, with its terrible effects, and now the harmless, because distorted, farce of 
ritualistic worship. The " mystery " of the woman and of the beast, are the 
symbols of soul-killing Churchianity and of SUPERSTITION. 

The beast that . . . was, and is not, . . . and yet is. And there is the mind which 
hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains [seven Continents and seven 
Races] on which the woman sitteth 

the symbol of all the exoteric, barbarous, idolatrous faiths which have covered 
that symbol " with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs " 
who protested and do protest. 

And there are seven kings [seven Races] ; five are fallen [our Fifth Race in- 
cluded], and one is [the Fifth continues], and the other [the Sixth and the Seventh 

Loc. cit., 15, 18. -Ibid, 16. 



318 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Races] is not yet come ; and when he [the Race " king "] cometh, he must continue 
a short space. 1 

There are many such apocalyptic allusions, but the student has to find 
them out for himself. These five kings were mentioned before. 

If the 6/6/e combines with Archaeology and Geology to show that human 
civilization has passed through three more or less distinct stages, in Europe at 
least ; and if man, both in America and Europe, as much as in Asia, dates from 
geological epochs why should not the statements of THE SECRET DOCTRINE be 
taken into consideration ? Is it more philosophical or logical and scientific to 
disbelieve, with Mr. Albert Gaudry, in Miocene man, while believing that the 
famous Thenay flints" " were carved by the dryopithecus monkey " ; or, with 
the Occultist, that the anthropomorphous monkey came ages after man ? For 
if it is once conceded, and even scientifically demonstrated, that : 

There was not in the middle of the Miocene epoch a single species of mammaf 
identical with species now extant.' 

and that man was then just as he is now ; only taller, and more athletic 
than we are ' then where is the difficulty ? That they could hardly be the 
descendants of monkeys, which are themselves not traced before the Miocene 
epoch, 5 is, on the other hand, testified to by several eminent Naturalists : 

Thus, in the savage of quaternary ages, who had to fight against the mammoth 
with stone weapons for arms, we find all those craniological characters generally 
considered as the sign of great intellectual development/ 1 

Unless man emerged spontaneously, endowed with all his intellect and 
wisdom, from his brainless cattarrhine ancestor, he could not have acquired 
such brain within the limits of the Miocene period, if we are to believe the 
learned Abbe Bourgeois. 

As to the matter of giants, though the tallest man hitherto found in. 
Europe among fossils is the " Mentone man " (6ft. 8in.), others may yet be 
excavated. Nilsson, quoted by Lubbock, states that : 

In a tomb of the Neolithic age ... a skeleton of extraordinary size was 
found in 1807. 

l Op. at., 8-10. 

- " The flints of Thenay bear unmistakable trace of the work of human hands " (G de Mortillet, 
Promenades au Musee de St. Germain, p 76.) 

3 Albert Gaudry, Les Encha/nements du Monde Animal dans les Temps G&ologiques, p. 240 

4 Speaking of the reindeer hunters of Pe>igord, Joly says that they " were of great height, athletic, 
with a strongly built skeleton," (Man before Metals, p. 353.) 

5 " On the shores of the lake of Beauce," says the Abbe" Bourgeois, " man lived in the midst of a 
fauna which completely disappeared (acerathenum, tapir, mastodon). With the fluviatile sands of 
Orl6anais came the anthropomorphous monkey (pliopithecus antiquus) ; therefore, later than man." 
(See Comptes Rendus of the " Prehistoric Congress " of 1867 at Paris.) 

(; De Quatrefages, The Human Species, p 312. 



GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 319 

It was attributed to a king of Scotland, Aibus McGaldus. 

And if in our own day we occasionally find men and woman from 7ft. to 
even 9ft. and lift, high, this only proves on the law of atavism, or the 
reappearance of ancestral features of character that there was a time 
when 9ft. and 10ft. was the average height of humanity, even in our latest 
Indo-European race. 

But as the subject has been sufficiently treated elsewhere, we may pass 
on to the Lemurians and the Atlanteans, and see what the old Greeks knew 
of these early races and what the moderns now know. 

The great nation mentioned by the Egyptian priests, from which descend- 
ed the forefathers of the Greeks of the age of Troy, and which, as averred,, 
had fought with the Atlantic race, was then, as we see, assuredly no race of 
Palaeolithic savages. Nevertheless, even in the days of Plato, with the excep- 
tion of priests and Initiates, no one seems to have preserved any distinct 
recollection of the preceding races. The earliest Egyptians had been separated 
from the latest Atlanteans for ages upon ages ; they were themselves 
descended from an alien race, and had settled in Egypt some 400,000 years 
before, * but their Initiates had preserved all the records. Even so late as the 
time of Herodotus, they had still in their possession the statues of 341 kings 
who had reigned over their little Atlanto-Aryan sub-race. 1 ' If we allow only 
twenty years as an average figure for the reign of each king, the duration 
of the Egyptian Empire has to be pushed back, from the days of Herodotus, 
about 17,000 years. 

Bunsen allowed the Great Pyramid an antiquity of 20,000 years. More 
modern Archaeologists will not give it more than 5,000, or at the utmost 6,000 
years, and generously concede to Thebes, with its hundred gates, 7,000 years 
from the date of its foundation. And yet there are records which show 
Egyptian priests Initiates journeying in a north-westerly direction, fay /and, 
via what became later the Straits of Gibraltar ; turning North and travelling 
through the future Phoenician settlements of Southern Gaul ; then still further 
North, until reaching Carnac (Morbihan) they turned to the West again and 

1 " In making soundings in the slimy soil of the Nile Valley, two baked bricks were discovered, 
one at the depth of 20, the other at 24 yards. If we estimate the thickness of the annual deposit 
formed by the river at 8 inches a century [more careful calculations have shown no more than from 
three to five per century], we must assign to the first of these bricks an age of 12,000 years, and to 
the second that of 14,000 years. By means of analogous calculations, Burmeis*ter supposes 72,000- 
years to have elapsed since the first appearance of man upon the soil of Egypt, and Draper attributes 
to the European man who witnessed the last glacial epoch, an antiquity of more than 2 50, 000 years." 
(Man before Metals, p. 183) Egyptian Zodiacs show more than 75,000 years of observation ' Note well, 
also that Burmeister speaks only of the Delta population. 

- See Esoteric Buddhism, p. 66, 5th edition, (eighth ed., pp. 68-9). 



320 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

arrived, st/7/ travelling by land, on the north-western promontory of the New 
Continent. 1 

What was the object of their long journey ? And how far back must we 
place the date of such visits ? The Archaic Records show the Initiates of the 
second sub-race of the Aryan family moving from one land to the other for 
the purpose of supervising the building of menhirs and dolmens, of colossal 
-Zodiacs in stone, and places of sepulchre to serve as receptacles for the ashes 
of generations to come. When did this occur ? The fact of their crossing 
from France to Great Britain fay land may give an idea of the date when such 
,a journey could have been performed on terra firma. 

It was when : 

The level of the Baltic and of the North Sea was 400 feet higher than it is at the 
present day. The valley of the Somme was not hollowed to the depth it has now 
attained ; Sicily was joined to Africa, Barbary to Spain. Carthage, the pyramids of 
Egypt, the palaces of Uxmal and Palenque were not yet in existence, and the bold 
navigators of Tyre and Sidon, who at a later date were to undertake their perilous 
voyages along the coasts of Africa, were yet unborn. What we know with certainty 
is that European man was contemporaneous with the extinct species of the quaternary 
epoch . . . that he witnessed the upheaval of the Alps a and the extension of the 
glaciers, in a word that he lived for thousands of years before the dawn of the remotest 
historical traditions. It is even possible that man was the contemporary of extinct 
mammalia of species yet more ancient ... of the e/ephas meridionals of the sands 
of St. Prest, or at the least of the e/ephas antiquus assumed to be prior to the e/ephas 
pr/m/gen/us, since their bones are found in company with carved flints in several 
English caves, associated with those of the rhinoceros haemitechus and even of the 
machairodus latidens, which is of still earlier date. M. Ed. Lartet is also of opinon 
that there is nothing really impossible in the existence of man as early as the Tertiary 
period. 11 

If " there is nothing impossible " scientifically, in the idea, and it may be 
admitted that man was already in existence as early as the Tertiary period, 
then it is just as well to remind the reader that Dr. Croll places the beginning 
of that period 2,500,000 years back ; but there was a time when he assigned to 
it 15,000,000 years. 

And if all this may be said of European man, how great is the antiquity 
of the Lemuro-Atlantean and of the Atlanto-Aryan man ? Every educated 

1 Or on what are now the British Isles, which were not yet detached from the mam continent in 
those days. The ancient inhabitant of Picardy " could pass into Great Britain without crossing the 
Channel. The British Isles were united to Gaul by an isthmus which has since been submerged." 
{Man before Meta/s, p. 184.) 

2 He witnessed" and remembered it too, as "the final disappearance of the largest continent [of 
Atlantis] was an event coincident with the elevation of the Alps," a Master writes (see Esoteric Buddhism 
p. 70 , eighth ed., p. 73), Par; passu, as one portion of the dry land of our hemisphere disappeared, 
some land of the new continent emerged from the seas. It is on this colossal cataclysm, which lasted 
during a period of 150,000 years that traditions of all the " deluges " are built, the Jews constructing 
their version on an event which took place later, on Poseidonis. 

3 " The Antiquity of the Human Race," in Man before Metals, by M. Joly, p. 184. 



GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 321 

person who follows the progress of Science, knows how all vestiges of man 
during the Tertiary period are received. The calumnies that were poured on 
Desnoyers in 1863, when he announced to the Institute of France that he had 
made a discovery 

in the undisturbed Pliocene sands of St. Prest near Chartres, proving the coexist- 
ence of man and the elephas meridlonalis 

were equal to the occasion. The later discovery, in 187, by the Abbe 
Bourgeois, that man lived in the Miocene epoch, and the reception it was 
given at the Pre-historic Congress held at Brussels in 1872, proves that the 
average man of Science will see only that which he wishes to see. 1 , 

The modern Archaeologist, though speculating ad infinitum upon the 
dolmens and their builders, knows, in fact, nothing either of them or of their 
origin. Yet these weird and often colossal monuments of unhewn stones 
which consist generally of four or seven gigantic blocks placed together are 
strewn over Asia, Europe, America, and Africa, in groups or rows. Stones of 
<enormous size are found placed horizontally and variously upon two, three, 
four, and as in Poitou, upon six and seven blocks. People name them " devil's 
altars," druidic stones, and giant tombs. The stones of Carnac in Morbihan, 
Brittany nearly a mile in length and numbering 11,000 ranged in eleven rows 
are twin sisters of those at Stonehenge. The conical menhir of Loch-maria- 
;ker, in Morbihan, measures twenty yards in length and nearly two yards 
across. The menhir of Champ Dolent (near St. Malo) rises thirty feet above 
the ground, and is fifteen feet in depth below. Such dolmens and pre- 
historic monuments are met with in almost every latitude. They are found in 
the Mediterranean basin ; in Denmark (among the local tumuli from twenty- 
seven to thirty-five feet in height) ; in Shetland ; in Sweden, where they are 
called Ganggriften (or tombs with corridors) ; in Germany, where they are 
known as the giant tombs (Hunengraben) ; in Spain, where is the dolmen of 
Antiguera near Malaga ; in Africa ; in Palestine and Algeria ; in Sardinia, with 
the Nuraghi and Sepolture dei Giganti, or tombs of giants ; in Malabar ; in 
India, where they are called the tombs of the Daityas (Giants) and of the 
Rakshasas, the Men-demons of Lanka ; in Russia and Siberia, where they are 
known as the Koorgan ; in Peru and Bolivia, where they are termed the 
Chulpas or burial places, etc. 

There is no country from which they are absent. Who built them ? Why 
are they all connected with serpents and dragons, with alligators and crocodiles ? 

1 The scientific "jury" disagreed, as usual; white de Quatrefages, de Mortillet, Worsaae, 
Engelhardt, Waldemar, Schmidt, Capellini, Hamy, and Cartailhac, saw upon the flints the traces of 
human handiwork, Steenstrup, Virchow and Desor refused to do so. Still the majority, if we except 
some English Scientists, are for Bourgeois. 
F 21 



322 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Because remains of " Palaeolithic man " were, it is thought, found in some of 
them, and because, in the funeral mounds of America, bodies of later races 
were discovered with the usual paraphernalia of bone necklaces, weapons, 
stone and copper urns, etc., they are, therefore, ancient tombs ! But surely 
the two famous mounds one in the Mississippi valley and the other in Ohio 
known respectively as the " Alligator Mound" and the "Great Serpent 
Mound/' were never meant for tombs. 1 Yet one is told authoritatively that 
the mounds, and the mound or dolmen builders, are all " Pelasgic " in Europe, 
antecedent to the Incas in America, yet not of " extremely distant times." 
They are built by "no race of dolmen builders," who never existed save in the 
earlier archaeological fancy (opinion of De Mortillet, Bastian, and Westropp). 
Finally Virchow's opinion of the giant tombs of Germany is now accepted as 
an axiom. Says that German Biologist : 

The tombs alone are gigantic, and not the bones they contain 

And Archaeology has but to bow and submit to the decision.' 2 
That no gigantic skeletons have been hitherto found in the "tombs " is 
no reason for saying that the remains of giants were never in them. Cremation 
was universal till a comparatively recent period some 80,000 or 100,000 years 
ago. The real giants, moreover, were nearly all drowned with Atlantis. 
Nevertheless,, classical writers, as we have shown elsewhere, often speak of 
giant skeletons being excavated in their day. Moreover, human fossils may 
be counted on the fingers, as yet. No skeleton ever yet found is older than 
between 50,000 or 60,000 years, : and man's size was reduced from 15 to 10 or 
12 feet, from the time of the third sub-race of the Aryan stock, which sub- 
race born and developed in Europe and Asia Minor under new climates and 
conditions had become European. Since then, as we have said, it has been 
steadily decreasing. It is truer, therefore, to say that the tombs alone are 
archaic, and not necessarily the bodies of men occasionally found in them ; 

'We take the following description from a scientific work " The first of these animals [the 
alligator] designed with considerable skill, is no less than 250 ft. long . . The interior is formed of 
a heap of stones, over which the form has been moulded in fine stiff clay. The great serpent is 
represented with open mouth, in the act of swallowing an egg of which the diameter is 100 ft. in the 
thickest part ; the body of the animal is wound in graceful curves and the tail is rolled into a spiral. 
The entire length of the animal is 1 ,100 ft This work is unique . . . and there is nothing on the old 
continent which offers any analogy to ft." Except, however, its symbolism of the Serpent (the Cycle 
of Time) swallowing the Egg (Kosmos). 

2 It might be better, perhaps, for fact had we more " specialists " in Science and fewer " autho- 
rities " on universal questions. We have never heard that Humboldt gave authoritative and final 
decisions m the matter of polypi, or on the nature of an excrescence 

3 57,000 years is the date assigned by Or Dowler to the remains of the human skeleton, found; 
buried beneath four ancient forests at New Orleans on the banks of the Mississippi river. 



GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 323 

and that those tombs, since they are gigantic, must have contained giants, 1 or 
rather the ashes of generations of giants. 

Nor were all such cyclopean structures intended for sepulchres. It is 
with the so-called Druidical remains, such as Carnac in Brittany and Stonehenge 
in Great Britain, that the travelling Initiates above alluded to had to do. And 
these gigantic monuments are all symbolic records of the World's history. 
They are not Druidical, but universal. Nor did the Druids build them, for they 
were only the heirs of the cyclopean lore left to them by generations of 
mighty builders and "magicians/' both good and bad. 

It will always be a subject of regret that History, rejecting a priori the 
actual existence of giants, has preserved to us so little of the records of anti- 
quity concerning them. Yet in nearly every Mythology which after all is 
Ancient History the giants play an important part. In the old Norse Mythology,, 
the giants, Skrymir and his brethren, against whom the sons of the Gods fought, 
were potent factors in the histories of deities and men. The modern exegesis, that 
makes these giants the brethren of the dwarfs, and reduces the combats of 
the Gods to the history of the development of the Aryan Race, will only 
receive credence amongst the believers in the Aryan theory as expounded by 
Max Muller. Granting that the Turanian races were typified by the dwarfs 
(Dwergar), and that a dark, round-headed, and dwarfish race was driven 
northward by the fair-faced Scandinavians, or ^Esir, the Gods being like unto- 
men, there still exists neither in history nor in any other scientific work any 
anthropological proof whatever of the existence in Time or Space of a race of 
giants. Yet that such exist, relatively and de facto side by side with dwarfs, 
Schweinfurth can testify. The Nyam-Nyam of Africa are regular dwarfs, 
while their next neighbours, several tribes of comparatively fair-complexioned 
Africans, are giants when confronted with the Nyam-Nyams, and very talf 
even among Europeans, for their women are all above six and a half feet 
high. 

In Cornwall and in ancient Britain the traditions of these giants are, on 
the other hand, excessively common ; they are said to have lived even down 
to the time of King Arthur. All this shows that giants lived to a later date 
amongst the Celtic than among the Teutonic peoples. 

If we turn to the New World, we have traditions of a race of giants of 
Tarija on the eastern slopes of the Andes and in Ecuador, who combated 
Gods and men. These old beliefs, which term certain localities " Los Campos 

1 Murray says of the Mediterranean barbarians that they marvelled at the prowess of the At/an* 
teans. " Their physical strength was extraordinary [witness indeed their cyclopean buildings], the 
earth shaking sometimes under their tread. Whatever they did, was done speedily. . . . They were 
wise and communicated their wisdom to men " (Mythology, p. 4). 



324 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

de los Giantes," the " Fields of Giants," are always concomitant with the 
existence of Pliocene mammalia and the occurrence of Pliocene raised 
beaches. "All the giants are not under Mount Ossa," and it would be poor 
Anthropology indeed that would restrict the traditions of giants to Greek and 
Bible mythologies. Slavonian countries, Russia especially, teem with legends 
about the Bogaterey (mighty giants) of old ; and Slavonian folklore, most of 
which has served for the foundation of national histories, the oldest songs, 
and the most archaic traditions, speaks of the giants of old. Thus we may 
safely reject the modern theory that would make of the Titans mere symbols 
standing for cosmic forces. They were real living men, whether twenty or 
only twelve feet high. Even the Homeric heroes, who, of course, belonged 
to a far more recent period in the history of the races, appear to have 
wielded weapons of a size and weight beyond the strength of the strongest 
men of modern times. 

Not twice ten men the mighty bulk could raise, 
Such men as live in these degenerate days. 

If the fossil footprints at Carson, Nevada, U.S.A., are human, they 
indicate gigantic men, and of their genuineness there can remain no doubt. 
It is to be deplored that the modern and scientific evidence for gigantic men 
should rest on footprints alone. Over and over again, the skeletons of 
hypothetical giants have been identified with those of elephants and mas- 
todons. But all such blunders before the days of Geology, and even the 
traveller's tales of Sir John Mandeville, who says that he saw giants fifty-six 
feet high, in India, only show that belief in the existence of giants has never, 
at any time, died out of the thoughts of men. 

That which is known and accepted is, that several races of gigantic men 
have existed and left distinct traces. In the Journal of the Anthropological 
Institute l such a race is shown as having existed at Palmyra and possibly in 
Midian, exhibiting cranial forms quite different from those of the Jews. It is 
not improbable that another such race existed in Samaria, and that the 
mysterious people who built the stone circles in Galilee, hewed Neolithic flints 
m the Jordan valley, and preserved an ancient Semitic language quite distinct 
from the square Hebrew character, were of very large stature. The English 
translations of the Bible can never be relied upon, even in their modern 
revised forms. They tell us of the Nephilim, translating the word by "giants," 
and further adding that they were "hairy" men, probably the large and 
powerful prototypes of the later satyrs so eloquently described by patristic 
fancy ; some of the Church Fathers assuring their admirers and followers that 
1 Art. by Dr. C. Carter Blake, 1871. 



GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 325 

they had themselves seen these " satyrs " some alive, others " pickled " 
and "preserved." The word "giants" being once adopted as a synonym 
of Nephilim, the commentators have since identified them with the sons of 
Anak. The filibusters who seized on the Promised Land found a pre-existing 
population far exceeding their own in stature, and called it a race of giants. 
But the races of really gigantic men had disappeared ages before the birth of 
Moses. These tall people existed in Canaan, and even in Bashan, and may 
have had representatives in the Nabatheans of Midian. They were of far 
greater stature than the undersized Jews. Four thousand years ago their 
cranial conformation and large stature separated them from the children 
of Heber. Forty thousand years ago their ancestors may have been of 
still more gigantic size, and four hundred thousand years earlier they 
must have been in proportion to men in our days as the Brobdingnagians 
were to the Lilliputians. The Atlanteans of the middle period were called 
the "Great Dragons," and the first symbol of their tribal deities, when 
the " Gods " and the Divine Dynasties had forsaken them, was that of a giant 
serpent. 

The mystery veiling the origin and the religion of the Druids is as great 
as that of their supposed fanes to the modern Symbologist, but not to the 
initiated Occultists. Their priests were the descendants of the last Atlanteans, 
and what is known of them is sufficient to allow the inference that they were 
Eastern priests, akin to the Chaldeans and Indians, though little more. It 
may be inferred that they symbolized their deity as the Hindus do their Vishnu, 
as the Egyptians did their Mystery God, and as the builders of the Ohio great 
Serpent Mound worshipped theirs namely under the form of the " Mighty 
Serpent," the emblem of the eternal deity Time the Hindu Kala. Pliny 
called them the " Magi of the Gauls and Britons." But they were more than 
that. The author of Indian Antiquities finds much affinity between the Druids 
and the Brahmans of India. Dr. Borlase points to a close analogy between 
them and the Magi of Persia ; l others will see an identity between them and 
the Orphic priesthood of Thrace simply because they were connected, in 
their Esoteric Teachings, with the universal Wisdom Religion, and thus 
presented affinities with the exoteric worship of all. 

Like the Hindus, the Greeks and Romans we speak of the Initiates 
the Chaldees and the Egyptians, the Druids believed in the doctrine of a 
succession of "worlds," as also in that of seven "creations" (of new 

1 But the Magi of Persia were never Persians not even Chaldeans. They came from a far-off 
land, the Orientalists being of opinion that the said land was Media. This may be so, but from what 
part of Media ? To this we receive no answer. 



326 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

continents) and transformations of the face of the Earth, and in a seven-fold 
night and day for each Earth or Globe. Wherever the serpent with the egg is 
found, there this tenet was surely present. Their Dracontia are a proof of it. 
This belief was so universal that, if we seek for it in the Esotericism of various 
religions, we shall discover it in all. We shall find it among the Aryan Hindus 
and Mazdeans, the Greeks, the Latins, and even among the old Jews and 
early Christians, whose modern stocks hardly comprehend now what they read 
in their Scriptures. In the Book of God we read : 

The world, says Seneca, being melted, and having re-entered into the bosom of 
Jupiter, this god continues for some time totally concentered in himself, and remains 
concealed, as it were, wholly immersed in the contemplation of his own ideas. After- 
wards we see a new world spring from him, perfect in ail its parts. Animals are 
produced anew. An innocent race of men is formed . . . And again, speaking of a 
mundane dissolution, as involving the destruction or death of all, he teaches us, that 
when the laws of nature 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 ; 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 into their original chaos. 1 

One might imagine oneself reading the Puranic account by Parashara of 
the great Pralaya. It is nearly the same thing, idea for idea. Has Christianity 
nothing of the kind ? It has. we say. Let the reader open any English Bible 
and read chapter iii of the Second Epistle of Peter, and he will find there the 
same ideas : 

There shall come in the last days scoffers . . . saying, Where is the promise of 
his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the 
beginnfng 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 kept in store, reserved 
unto fire . . . the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat. . . . Nevertheless we ... look for new heavens and a new earth. 2 

If the interpreters choose to see in this a reference to the creation, the 
deluge, and the promised coming of Christ, when they shall live in a New 
Jerusalem in Heaven, this is no fault of " Peter." What the writer of the 
Epistle meant was the destruction of this Fifth Race of ours by subterranean 
fires and inundations, and the appearance of new continents for the Sixth 
Root Race. For the writers of the Epistles were all learned in symbology if 
not in science. 

1 Op. cit. [with references], p. 160. 
"Op. cit., vs. 3-7, 10, 12, 13. 



GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 327 

It has been mentioned elsewhere that the belief in the septenary consti- 
tution of our' " Chain " was the oldest tenet of the early Iranians, who got it 
from the first Zarathushtra. It is time to prove it to thgse Parsis who have 
lost the key to the meaning of their Scriptures. In the Avesta the Earth is 
considered septempartite and tripartite at one and the same time. This is 
regarded by Dr. Geiger as an incongruity, for the following reasons, which he 
calls discrepancies. The Avesta speaks of the three thirds of the Earth 
because the Rig Veda mentions : 

Three earths. . . . Three strata or layers, one lying above the other, are said 
to be meant by this. 1 

But he is quite mistaken, as are all exoteric profane translators. The 
Avesta has not borrowed the idea from the Rig Veda, but simply repeats the 
Esoteric Teaching. The " three strata or layers " do not refer to our Globe 
alone, but to three layers of the Globes of our Terrestrial Chain two by 
two, on each plane, one on the descending, the other on the ascending arc. 
Thus, with reference to the six Spheres or Globes above our Earth, the 
seventh and the fourth, the Earth is septempartite, while with regard to the 
planes over our plane it is tripartite. This meaning is carried out and 
corroborated by the text of the Avesta, and even by the speculation most 
laborious and unsatisfactory guess-work of the translators and commentators. 
It thus follows that the division of the Earth, or rather the Earth's Chain, 
into seven Karshvars is not in contradiction with the three " zones," if this 
word is read " planes." As Geiger remarks, this septenary division is very 
old the oldest of all since the Gathas already speak of the " septempartite 
earth." 2 For : 

According to the statements of the later Pars! Scriptures, the seven Keshvars 
are to be considered as completely disconnected parts of the earth [which they surely 
are. For] between them there flows the ocean, so that it is impossible, as stated in 
several passages, to pass from one Keshvar to another. * 

The " Ocean " is Space, of course, for the latter was called " Waters 
of Space " before it was known as Ether. Moreover, the word Karshvar is 
consistently rendered as Dvipa, and Hvaniratha is rendered by Jambudvipa 
(Neryosangh, the translator of the Yasna). 4 But this fact is not taken into 
account by the Orientalists, and therefore we find even such a learned 
Zoroastrian and Pars! by birth as the translator of Dr. W. Geiger's work, pass- 
ing unnoticed and without a word of comment sundry remarks of the former 

1 Civilization of the Eastern Iranians in Ancient Jimes, pp. 130, 131. [Kfeshvars is also written 
Karshvars] 

- Bu mi haptaita, Yasna, xxxii, 3. 

t! Cf., for instance, vol. i, p. 4, of the Pahlavi Translation , Bdh. xxi, 2, 3. 

4 Footnote by DaYab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana, B.A., the translator of Dr. Wilhelm Geiger's work 
on the Civilization of the Eastern Iranians. 



328 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

on the " incongruities " of this kind abounding in the Mazdean Scriptures. 
One of such " incongruities " and " concidences " concerns the similarity of 
the Zoroastrian with the Indian tenet with regard to the seven Dvipas 
islands, or continents, rather as met with in the Puranas, namely : 

The Dvipas form concentric rings, which, separated by the ocean, surround 
Jambudvipa, which is situated in the centre, [and] according to the Iranian view, the 
Kershvar Qaniratha is likewise situated in the centre of the rest, they form no con- 
centric circles; but each of them [the six other Karshvars] is a peculiar individual space, 
and so they group themselves round [above] Qaniratha. 1 

Now Qaniratha better Hvaniratha is not, as believed by Geiger and 
his translator, " the country inhabited by the Iranian tribes," and " the other 
names" do not mean "the adjacent territories of foreign nations in the 
North, South, West, and East," but signify our Globe or Earth. For that 
which is meant by the sentence which follows the last quoted, namely, that: 

Two, Vourubarshti and Vouruzarshti, lie in the North ; two, Vidadhafsha and Fra- 
dadhafsha, in the South ; Savahi and Arzahi in the East and West. 

is simply the very graphic and accurate description of the Chain of our 
Planet, the Earth, represented in the BOOK OF DZYAN (1 1) thus : 

N. 
Vourubarshti, N W. A A N. E., Vouruzarshti 



Arzahi, W. A A E Savahi 



Fradadhafsha, S. W. S. E., Vidadhafsha 

S. 



Qaniratha 

The Mazdean names given above have only to be replaced by those 
used in the SECRET DOCTRINE to present us with the Esoteric tenet. The 
" Earth " (our world) is tripartite, because the Chain of the Worlds is situated 
on three different planes above our Globe ; and it is septempartite because 
of the seven Globes or Spheres which compose the Chain. Hence the 
further meaning given in Vendidad (xix, 39), showing that : 

Qaniratha alone is combined with /mat, " this " (earth), while all other Karsh- 
vars are combined with the word " a vat," " that " or those upper earths. 

'Op. cit., pp. 130. 131. 



GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 329 

Nothing could be plainer. The same may be said of the modern 
comprehension of all other ancient beliefs. 

The Druids, then, understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus, when,, 
all other fires being extinguished on the first of November, their sacred and 
inextinguishable fires alone remained to illumine the horizon, like those of 
the Magi and the modern Zoroastrians. And like the early Fifth Race and 
later Chaldees, like the Greeks, and again like the Christians who do the 
same to this day, without suspecting the real meaning they greeted the 
Morning Star, the beautiful Venus-Lucifer. 1 Strabo speaks of an island near 
to Britannia : 

Where Ceres and Persephone were worshipped with the same rites as in Samo- 
thrace and this island was 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 says, they 
declared that the souls of men, after determinate periods, would pass inta 
other bodies. '* 

These tenets came to the Fifth Race Aryans from their predecessors of 
the Fourth Race, the Atlanteans. They had piously preserved the teachings, 
which told them how their parent Root Race, becoming with every generation 
more arrogant, owing to the acquisition of super-human powers, had been 
gradually gliding toward its end. Those records reminded them of the giant 
intellect of the preceding races as well as of their giant size. We find the 
repetition of those records in every age of history, in almost every old frag- 
ment which has descended to us from antiquity. 

lian preserved an extract from Theophrastus written during the days of 
Alexander the Great. It is a dialogue between Midas, the Phrygian, and 
Silenus. The former is told of a continent that had existed in times of old, so 
immense, that Asia, Europe and Africa seemed like poor islands compared 
w|th it. It was the last to produce animals and plants of gigantic magnitudes. 
There, said Silenus, men grew to double the size of the tallest man in his (the 

1 Dr. Kenealy, in his Book of God, quotes Valiancy, 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 . . . when 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 Maddina Nag of the Chaldean " 
(pp 162, 163.) 

Lib. iv. 

3 There was a time when the whole world, the totality of mankind, had one religion, and when 
they were of "one lip." All the religions of the earth were at first one and emanated from one 
centre," says Faber very truly. 



330 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

narrator's) time, and they lived till they were twice as old. They had wealthy 
cities with temples, and one of such cities held more than a million of inhabit- 
ants in it, gold and silver being found there in great abundance. 

Grote's suggestion that Atlantis was but a myth arisen from a mirage 
clouds on a dazzling sky taking the appearance of islands on a golden sea is 
too disingenuous to be further noticed. 

A. SOME STATEMENTS ABOUT THE SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTI- 
NENTS IN THE CLASSICS, EXPLAINED ESOTERICALLY. 

All that which precedes was known to Plato, and to many others. But 
as no Initiate had the right to divulge and declare all he knew, posterity got 
only hints. Aiming more to instruct as a Moralist than as a Geographer and 
Ethnologist or Historian, the Greek Philosopher merged the history of Atlantis, 
which covered several million years, into one event which he located on one 
comparatively small island 3,000 stadia long by 2,000 wide (or about 350 miles 
by 200, which is about the size of Ireland) ; whereas the priests spoke of 
Atlantis as a continent vast as " all Asia and Lybia " put together. 1 But, how- 
ever altered in its general aspect, Plato's narrative bears the impress of truth 
upon it." It was not he who invented it, at any rate, since Homer, who pre- 
ceded him by many centuries, also speaks in his Odyssey of the Atlantes 
who are our Atlanteans and of their island. Therefore the tradition was 
older than the bard of Ulysses. The Atlantes and the Atlantides of Mythology 
are based upon the Atlantes and the Atlantides of History. Both Sanchunia- 
thon and Diodorus have preserved the histories of those heroes and heroines, 
however much their accounts may have become mixed up with the mythical 
element. 

In our own day we witness the extraordinary fact that such comparatively 
recent personages as Shakespeare and William Tell are all but denied, an 
attempt being made to show one to be a nom de plume, and the other a person 
who never existed. What wonder then, that the two powerful Races the 

1 Grit/as, translated by Davis, p. 415 

Plato's veracity has been so unwarrantedly impeached by even such friendly critics as Professor 
Jowett, when the story of Atlantis has been discussed, that it seems well to cite the testimony of a 
specialist on the subject. It is sufficient to place mere literary cavillers in a very ridiculous position : 

" If our knowledge of Atlantis was more thorough, it would no doubt appear that in every instance 
wherein the people of Europe accord with the people of America, they were both in accord with the 
people of Atlantis. ... It will be seen that in every case where Plato gives us any information in 
this respect as to Atlantis, we find this agreement to exist. It existed in architecture, sculpture, 
navigation, engraving, writing, an established priesthood, the mode of worship, agriculture, and the 
construction of roads and canals , and it is reasonable to suppose that the same correspondence 
^extended down to all the minor details." (Donnelly, Atlantis, p. 164 ) 



SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTINENTS 331 

Lemurians and the Atlanteans have been merged into and identified, in time, 
with a few half mythical peoples, who all bore the same patronymic. 

Herodotus speaks of the Atlantes a people of Western Africa who 
gave their name to Mount Atlas ; who were vegetarians, and " whose sleep 
was never disturbed by dreams " ; and who, moreover, 

Daily cursed the sun at his rising and at his setting because his excessive heat 
scorched and tormented them. 

These statements are based upon moral and psychic facts and not on 
physiological disturbance. The story of Atlas gives the key to this. If the 
Atlanteans never had their sleep disturbed by dreams, it is because that 
particular tradition is concerned with the earliest Atlanteans, whose physical 
frame and brain were not yet sufficiently consolidated, in the physiological 
sense, to permit the nervous centres to act during sleep. With regard to 
the other statement that they daily "cursed the sun" this again had 
nothing to do with the heat, but with the moral degeneration that grew with 
the Race. It is explained in our Commentaries. 

They [the sixth sub-race of the Atlanteans'] used magic incantations even 
against the Sun 

failing in which they cursed it. The sorcerers of Thessaly were credited with 
the power of calling down the Moon, as Greek history assures us. The 
Atlanteans of the later period were renowned for their magic powers and 
wickedness, their ambition and defiance of the Gods. Thence the same 
traditions, taking form in the Bible, about the antediluvian giants and the 
Tower of Babel, and found also in the Book of Enoch. 

Diodorus records another fact or two : the Atlanteans boasted of 
possessing the land in which all the Gods had received their birth ; as also of 
having had Uranus for their first King, he being also the first to teach them 
Astronomy. Very little more than this has come down to us from antiquity. 

The myth of Atlas is an allegory easily understood. Atlas is the old 
Continents of Lemuria and Atlantis, combined and personified in one symbol. 
The poets attribute to Atlas, as to Proteus, a superior wisdom and a universal 
knowledge, and especially a thorough acquaintance with the depths of the 
ocean ; for both Continents bore Races instructed by divine Masters, and 
both were transferred to the bottom of the seas, where they now slumber 
until their next reappearance above the waters. Atlas is the son of an 
ocean nymph, and his daughter is Calypso the " watery deep." Atlantis 
has been submerged beneath the waters of the ocean, and its progeny is 
now sleeping its eternal sleep on the ocean floors. The Odyssey makes of 
him the guardian and the "sustainer " of the huge pillars that separate the 



332 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Heavens from the Earth. He is their "supporter," And as both Lemuria, 
destroyed by submarine fires, and Atlantis, submerged by the waves, perished 
in the ocean deeps, 1 Atlas is said to have been compelled to leave the 
surface of the Earth, and join his brother lapetus in the depths of Tartarus." 
Sir Theodore Martin is right in interpreting this allegory as meaning : 

[Atlas] standing on the solid floor of the inferior hemisphere of the universe, 
and thus carrying at the same time the disc of the earth and the celestial vault the 
solid envelope of the superior hemisphere.' 

For Atlas is Atlantis, which supports the new continents and their 
horizons on its " shoulders." 

Decharme, in his Mythologie de la Grece Antique, expresses a doubt as 
to the correctness of Pierron's translation of the Homeric word e^ei [hold up} 
by sustinet, as it is not possible to see : 

How Atlas can support or bear at once several pillars situated in various 
localities. 

If Atlas were an individual it would be an awkward translation. But, 
as he personifies a Continent in the West said to support Heaven and Earth 
at once, 1 /.e., the feet of the giant tread the earth while his shoulders support 
the celestial vault an allusion to the gigantic peaks of the Lemurian and 
Atlantean Continents the epithet " supporter " becomes very correct. The 
term conservator for the Greek word e%, which Decharme, following 
Sir Theodore Martin, understands as meaning <j>v\d<r<rei [watches or guards} 
and eTTifie^elrai, [has charge of] does not render the same sense. 

The conception was certainly due to the gigantic mountain chain running 
along the terrestrial border or disc. These mountain peaks plunged their 
roots into the very bottom of the seas, while they raised their heads heaven- 
ward, their summits being lost in the clouds. The ancient continents had 
more mountains than valleys on them. Atlas and the Teneriffe Peak, now two 
of the dwarfed relics of the two lost Continents, were thrice as lofty during 
the day of Lemuria and twice as high in that of Atlantis. Thus, the Lybians 
called Mount Atlas the " Pillar of Heaven," according to Herodotus, 5 and 
Pindar qualified the later >tna as the " Celestial Pillar." 6 Atlas was an inacces- 
sible island peak in the days of Lemuria, when the African continent had not yet 

1 Christians ought not to object to this doctrine of the periodical destruction of continents by fire 
and water ; for St. Peter speaks of " the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby 
the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished, but [is now] reserved unto fire " 
(II, iii, pp. 5-7. See also the Lives of A/chemyst/cal Philosophers, p. 4, London, 1815) 

2 See Hesiod's Theogony, 507-509, and Odyssey, i, 51-53. 

3 M6mo/res de I'Academie des Inscriptions, p. 176. 

4 /Eschylus, Prometheus Vinctus, pp. 351, 429, etc. 

' Bk. iv, 184. 6 Pyth., i, 20 ; Decharme, op. cit., p. 315. 



SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTINENTS 333 

been raised. It is the sole Western relic which survives, independent, belong- 
ing to the Continent on which the Third Race was born, developed and tell, 1 
for Australia is now part of the Eastern Continent. Proud Atlas, according to 
Esoteric tradition, having sunk one-third of its size into the waters, its two 
parts remained as an heirloom of Atlantis. 

This again was known to the priests of Egypt and to Plato himself, the 
solemn oath of secrecy, which extended even to the mysteries of Neo- 
Platonism, alone preventing the whole truth from being told. 3 So secret was 
the knowledge of the last island of Atlantis, indeed on account of the super- 
human powers possessed by its inhabitants, the last direct descendants of the 
Gods or Divine Kings, as it was thought that to divulge its whereabouts and 
existence was punished by death. Theopompus says as much in his ever- 
suspected Merop/s, when he speaks of the Phoenicians as being the only 
navigators in the seas which wash the Western coast of Africa ; who did it 
with such mystery that very often they sunk their own vessels to make the too 
inquisitive foreigners lose all trace of them. 

There are Orientalists and Historians and they form the majority who, 
while feeling quite unmoved at the rather crude language of the Bible, and 
some of the events narrated in it, show great disgust at the " immorality " in 
the Pantheons of India and Greece/ We may be told that before them 
Euripides, Pindar, and even Plato, express the same disgust ; that they too felt 
irritated with the tales invented "those miserable stories of the poets," 
utv otSe Bvarijvoc \6yot,, as Euripides phrases it. 4 



1 This does not mean that Atlas is the locality where it fell, for this took place in Northern and 
Central Asia ; but that Atlas formed part of the Continent. 

8 Had not Diocletian burned the Esoteric works of the Egyptians in A.D. 296, together with their 
books on Alchemy, " 7Tpl %f//.eta9 dpyvpov Kal J(pv<rov " [concerning the alchemical pro- 
perties of gold and silver] ; Caesar 700,000 rolls at Alexandria , Leo Isaurus 300,000 at Constantinople 
{eighth cent.) , and the Mohammedans all they could lay their sacrilegious hands on the world might 
know to-day more of Atlantis than it does. For Alchemy had its birthplace in Atlantis during the 
Fourth Race and had only its rena/ssance m Egypt 

3 Professor Max Muller's Lectures On the Philosophy of Mythology are before us. We read his 
citations of Heracleitus (460 B C.), declaring that Homer deserved "to be ejected from public assem- 
blies and flogged"; and of Xenophanes "holding Homer and Hesiod responsible for the popular 
superstitions of Greece," and for ascribing "to the gods whatever is disgraceful and scandalous among 
men . . . unlawful acts, such as theft, adultery, and fraud " Finally the Oxford Professor quotes 
from Professor Jowett's translation of Plato, where the latter tells Adaimantus (Republic) that " the 
young man [in the state] should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes, he is far from 
doing anything outrageous, and that he may chastise his father [as Zeus did with Kronos] . . jn any 
manner that he likes, and in this will only be following the example of the first and greatest of the 
gods. ... In my opinion, these stories are not fit to be repeated." To this Prof. Max Muller observes 
that : " the Greek religion was clearly a national and traditional religion, and, as such, it shared both 
the advantages and disadvantages of this form of religious be'/ef "; while the Christian religion is " an 
h/stor/ca/ and, to a great extent, an individual religion, and it possesses the advantage of an authorized 
codex and of a settled system of faith " (p. 349). So much the worse if it is " historical," for surely 
Lot's incident with his daughters would only gain, were it "allegorical." 

4 Hercules Furens, 1346, Dindorf's Edition. 



334 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

But there may have been another reason for this, perhaps. To those 
who knew that there was more than one key to Theogonic Symbolism, it was 
a mistake to have expressed it in a language so crude and misleading. For 
if the educated and learned Philosopher could discern the kernel of wisdom 
under the coarse rind of the fruit, and knew that the latter concealed the 
greatest laws and truths of psychic and physical nature, as well as the origin 
of all things not so with the uninitiated profane. For him the dead-letter 
was religion ; the interpretation sacrilege. And this dead-letter could neither 
edify nor make him more perfect, seeing that such an example was given him 
by his Gods. But to the Philosopher especially the Initiate Hesiod's 
Jheogony is as historical as any history can be. Plato accepts it as such, and 
gives out as much of its truths as his pledges permitted, 

The fact that the Atlantes claimed Uranus for their first king, and that 
Plato commences his story of Atlantis by the division of the great Continent 
by Neptune, the grandson of Uranus, shows that there were continents before 
Atlantis and kings before Uranus. For Neptune, to whose lot the great 
Continent fell, finds on a small island only one human couple made of clay 
i.e., the first physical human man, whose origin began with the last sub-races 
of the Third Root Race. It is their daughter Clito that the God marries, and 
it is his eldest son Atlas who receives for his part the mountain and the con- 
tinent which were called by his name. 1 

Now all the Gods of Olympus, as well as those of the Hindu Pantheon 
and the Rishis, were the septiform personations (1) of the Noumena of the 
Intelligent Powers of Nature ; (2) of Cosmic Forces ; (3) of Celestial Bodies ; 
(4) of Gods or Dhyan Chohans ; (5) of Psychic and Spiritual Powers ; (6) of 
Divine Kings on Earth, or the incarnations of the Gods ; and (7) of Terrestrial 
Heroes or Men. The knowledge how to discern among these seven forms 
the one that is intended, belonged at all times to the Initiates, whose earliest 
predecessors had created this symbolical and allegorical system. 

Thus while Uranus, or the Host representing this celestial group, reigned 
and ruled over the Second Race and their then Continent ; Kronos or Saturn 
governed the Lemurians ; and Jupiter, Neptune 1 ' and others fought in the 
allegory for Atlantis, which was the whole Earth in the day of the Fourth Race. 
Poseidonis, or the last island of Atlantis the "third step " of Idas-pati, or 
Vishnu, in the mystic language of the Secret Books lasted till about 12,000 

l Critias, 421. 

2 Neptune or Poseidon is the Hindu Idas-pati, identical with Narayana (the Mover on the Waters) 
or Vishnu, and like this Hindu God he is shown crossing the whole horizon in three steps. Idas-pati 
means also the " Master of the Waters." 



SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTINENTS 335 

years ago. 1 The Atlantes of Diodorus were right in claiming that it was their 
country, the region surrounding Mount Atlas, where " the Gods were born 
i.e., " incarnated." But it was after their fourth incarnation that they 
became, for the first time, human kings and rulers. 

Diodorus speaks of Uranus as the first king of Atlantis, confusing, either 
consciously or otherwise, the Continents ; but as we have shown, Plato in- 
directly corrects the statement. The first astronomical teacher of men was 
Uranus, because he is one of the seven Dhyan Chohans of that Second Period 
or Race. Thus also in the second Manvantara, that of Svarochisha, among the 
seven sons of the Manu, the presiding Gods or Rishis of that race, we findi 
Jyotis, 2 the teacher of Astronomy (Jyotisha), one of the names of Brahma. 
And thus also the Chinese revere Tien (or the Sky, Ouranos), and name him 
as their first teacher of Astronomy. Uranus gave birth to the Titans of the 
Third Race, and it is they, personified by Saturn-Kronos, who mutilated him. 
For as it is the Titans who tell Into generation, when " creation by will was 
superseded by physical procreation," they needed Uranus no more. 

And here a short digression must be permitted and pardoned. In con- 
sequence of the last scholarly production of Mr. Gladstone in the Nineteenth 
Century, " The Greater Gods of Olympos," the ideas of the general public 
about Greek Mythology have been still further perverted and biassed. Homer 
is credited with an inner thought, which is regarded by Mr. Gladstone as, 
"the true key to the Homeric conception," whereas this "key" is merely 
a blind. 

[Poseidon] is indeed essentially of the earth earthy . . . strong and self -asserting, 
sensual and intensely jealous and vindictive 

but this is because he symbolizes the Spirit of the Fourth Root Race, the 
Ruler of the Seas, that Race which lives about the surface of the seas/ 5 which 
is composed of the giants, the children of Eurymedon, the race which is the 
father of Polyphemus, the Titan, and the one-eyed Cyclops. Though Zeus 
reigns over the Fourth Race, it is Poseidon who rules, and who is the true key 
to the triad of the Kronid Brothers, and to our human races. Poseidon and 
Nereus are one ; the former the Ruler or Spirit of Atlantis before the begin- 
ning of its submersion, the latter, after. Neptune is the titanic strength of the 
living Race, Nereus, its Spirit, reincarnated in the subsequent Fifth or Aryan 
Race ; and this is what the Greek scholar of England has not yet discovered, 

1 Bailly's assertion that the 9,000 years mentioned by the Egyptian priests do not represent " solar 
years " is groundless. Bailly knew nothing of Geology and its calculations , otherwise he would have 
spoken differently. 

- See Matsya Parana, which places him among the seven Prajapatis of the period. 

Iliad, xxiv, 79 



336 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

or even dimly perceived. And yet he makes many observations upon the 
11 artfulness " of Homer, who never names Nereus, at whose designation we 
arrive only through the patronymic of the Nereids ! 

Thus the tendency of even the most erudite Hellenists is to confine their 
speculations to the exoteric images of Mythology and to lose sight of their 
.inner meaning ; and it is remarkably illustrated in the case of Mr. Gladstone, 
.as we have shown. While almost the most conspicuous figure of our age as 
.a statesman, he is at the same time one of the most cultured scholars to 
whom England has given birth. Grecian literature has been the beloved study 
of his life, and he has found time amid the bustle of public affairs to enrich 
contemporary literature with contributions to Greek scholarship, which will 
make his name famous through coming generations. At the same time, as his 
sincere admirer, the present writer cannot but feel a deep regret that poster- 
ity, while acknowledging his profound erudition and splendid culture, will yet, 
in the greater light which must then shine upon the whole question of Sym- 
bolism and Mythology, judge that he has failed to grasp the spirit of the 
religious system which he has often criticized from the dogmatic Christian 
standpoint. In that future day it will be perceived that the Esoteric key to 
the mysteries of the Christian as well as of the Grecian Theogonies and 
Sciences, is the SECRET DOCTRINE of the pre-historic nations, which, along with 
others, he has denied. It is that doctrine alone which can trace the kinship 
of all human religious speculations, or even of so-called "revelations," and it 
is this teaching which infuses the spirit of life into the lay figures on the 
Mounts of Meru, Olympus, Valhalla, or Sinai. If Mr. Gladstone were a 
younger man, his admirers might hope that his scholastic studies would be 
crowned by the discovery of this underlying truth. As it is, he but wastes 
the golden hours of his declining years in futile disputations with that giant 
free-thinker, Col. Ingersoll, each fighting with the weapons of exoteric temper, 
drawn from the arsenals of ignorant Literalism. These two great controversial- 
ists are equally blind to the true Esoteric meaning of the texts which they hurl 
-at each other's heads like iron bullets, while the world alone suffers by such 
controversies ; since the one helps to strengthen the ranks of Materialism, 
.and the other those of blind Sectarianism of the dead-letter. And now we 
may return once more to our immediate subject. 

Many a time Atlantis is spoken of under another name, one unknown to 
our commentators. The power of names is great, and has been known since 
the first men were instructed by the divine Masters, And as Solon had 
studied it, he translated the " Atlantean " names into names devised by 
ihimself. In connection with the continent of Atlantis, it is desirable to bear in 



SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTINENTS 337 

mind that the accounts which have come down to us from the old Greek 
writers contain a confusion of statements, some referring to the great Con- 
tinent and others to the last small island of Poseidonis. It has become 
customary to take them all as referring to the latter only, but that this is 
incorrect is evident from the incompatibility of the various statements as to 
the size, etc., of "Atlantis." 

Thus, in the Grit/as, Plato says, that the plain surrounding the city was 
itself surrounded by mountain chains, and the plain was smooth and level, 
and of an oblong shape, lying north and south, three thousand stadia in one 
direction and two thousand in the other ; they surrounded the plain by an 
enormous canal or dike, 101 feet deep, 606 feet broad, and 1,250 miles in 
length. 1 

Now in other places the entire size of the island of Poseidonis is given 
as about the same as that assigned here to the "plain around the city " alone. 
Obviously, one set of statements refers to the great Continent, and the other 
to its last remnant Plato's island. 

And, again, the standing army of Atlantis is given as upwards of a million 
men; its navy as 1,200 ships and 240,000 men. Such statements are quite 
inapplicable to a small island state, of about the size of Ireland ! 

The Greek allegories give to Atlas, or Atlantis, seven daughters seven 
sub-races whose respective names are Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Asterope, 
Merope, Alcyone and Celaeno. This ethnologically as they are credited with 
having married Gods and with having become the mothers of fambus heroes, 
the founders of many nations and cities. Astronomically, the Atlantides have 
become the seven Pleiades (?). In Occult Science the two are connected 
with the destinies of nations, those destinies being shaped by the past events 
<of their early lives according to Karmic Law. 

Three great nations claimed in antiquity a direct descent from the 
kingdom of Saturn or Lemuria, confused with Atlantis several thousands of 
^ears before our era ; and these were the Egyptians, the Phoenicians (Sanchu- 
niathon), and the old Greeks (Diodorus, after Plato). But the oldest 
civilized country of Asia India can likewise be shown to claim the same 
descent. Sub-races, guided by Karmic Law or destiny, repeat unconsciously 
the first steps of their respective pother-races. As the comparatively fair 
Brahmans when invading India with its dark-coloured Dravidians have come 
-from the North, so the Aryan Fifth Race must claim its origin from northern 
/egions. The Occult Sciences show that the founders, the respective groups 

* Op. cit., p. 426. 
F 22 



338 THE SECRET DOCTRfNE 

of the seven Prajapatis, of the Root Races have all been connected with the 
Pole Star. In the Commentary we find : 

He who understands the age of Dhruva l who measures 9090 mortal years, 
will understand the times of the Pralayas, the final destiny of nations, O Lanoo, 

Moreover there must have been a good reason why an Asiatic nation 
should locate its great Progenitors and Saints in Ursa Major, a northern con- 
stellation. It is 70,000 years, however, since the Pole of the Earth pointed to- 
the further end of Ursa Minor's tail ; and many more thousand years since 
the seven Rishis could have been identified with the constellation of Ursa 
Major. 

The Aryan Race was born and developed in the far North, though- 
after the sinking of the continent of Atlantis its tribes emigrated further 
South into Asia. Hence Prometheus is the son of Asia, and Deucalion, his 
son, the Greek Noah he who created men out of the stones of mother 
Earth is called a northern Scythe, by Lucian, and Prometheus is made the 
brother of Atlas and is tied down to Mount Caucasus amid the snows. ' J 

Greece had her Hyperborean as well as her Southern Apollo. Thus 
nearly all the Gods of Egypt, Greece, and Phoenicia, as well as those 
of other Pantheons, are of a northern origin and originated in Lemuria,. 
towards the close of the Third Race, after its full physical and physio- 
logical evolution had been completed.' 5 All the "fables " of Greece would be 
found to be built on historical facts, if that history had only passed to posterity 
unadulterated by myths. The " one-eyed" Cyclops, the giants fabled as the 
sons of Coe/us and Terra three in number, according to Hesiod were the 
last three sub-races of the Lemurians, the " one-eye " referring to the Wis- 
dom-eye ; * for the two front eyes were fully developed as physical organs 
only in the beginning of the Fourth Race. The allegory of Ulysses, whose 
companions were devoured while the king of Ithaca himself was saved by 
putting out the eye of Polyphemus with a fire-brand, is based upon the 
psycho-physiological atrophy of the " third eye." Ulysses belongs to the cycle 

1 The equivalent of this name is given in the original. 

' J Deucalion is said to have brought the worship of Adonis and Osiris into Phoanicia. Now this, 
worship is that of the Sun. lost and found again' in its astronomical significance It is only at the Pole 
that the Sun dies out for such a length of time as six months, for in latitude 68 it remains dead only 
for forty days, as in the Festival of Osiris. The two worships were born in the north of Lemuria, or 
on that Continent of which Asia was a, kind of broken prolongation, and which stretched up to the 
polar regions This is well shown by de Gebelm's Allegories d' Orient, p. 246, and by Bailly ; though, 
neither Hercules nor Osiris are solar myths, save in one of their seven aspects. 

J The Hyperboreans, npw regarded as mythical, are described (Herod., iv, 33-5 , Pagsanius, i, 31, 
32 , v, 7, 8 ; x, 5, 1 , 8) as the beloved priests and servants of the Gods, and of Apollo chiefly. 

4 The Cyclopes are not the only " one-eyed " representatives in tradition. The Arimaspes were a 
Scythian people, and were also credited with but one eye. (Geographic Ancienne, Vol. ii, p. 321. ^ 
It is they whom Apollo destroyed with his shafts. 



SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTINENTS 339 

of the heroes of the Fourth Race, and, though a " Sage " in the sight of the 
latter, must have been a profligate in the opinion of the pastoral Cyclops. 1 
His adventure with the latter a savage gigantic race, the antithesis of cultured 
civilization in the Odyssey is an allegorical record of the gradual passage 
from the Cyclopean civilization of stone and colossal buildings to the more 
sensual and physical culture of the Atlanteans, which finally caused the last of 
the Third Race to lose their all-penetrating spiritual eye. The other allegory,, 
which makes Apollo kill the Cyclops to avenge the death of his son Asclepius, 
does not refer to the three sub-races represented by the three sons of 
Heaven and Earth, but to the Hyperborean Arimaspian Cyclops, the last of 
the race endowed with the " Wisdom-eye." The former have left relics of 
their buildings everywhere, in the South as much as in the North ; the latter 
were confined to the North solely. Thus Apollo pre-eminently the God of 
the Seers, whose duty it is to punish desecration, killed them his shafts re- 
presenting human passions, fiery and lethal and hid his shaft behind a 
mountain in the Hyperborean regions. 2 Cosmically and astronomically this 
Hyperborean God is the Sun personified, which during the course of the 
Sidereal Year 25,868 years changes the climates on the Earth's surface, 
making frigid regions of tropical, and vice versa. Psychically and spiritually 
his significance is far more important. As Mr. Gladstone pertinently remarks 
in his " The Greater Gods of Olympos " : 

The qualities of Apollo (jointly with Athene) are impossible to be accounted for 
without repairing to sources, which lie beyond the limit of the traditions most 
commonly explored for the elucidation of the Greek mythology.* 

This history of Latona (Leto), Apollo's mother, is most pregnant irv 
various meanings. Astronomically, Latona is the polar region and the night, 
giving birth to the Sun, Apollo, Phoebus, etc. She is born in the Hyperborean 
countries, wherein all the inhabitants were priests of her son, celebrating his 
resurrection and descent to their country every nineteen years at the renewal 
of the lunar cycle. Latona is the Hyperborean Continent, and its Race 
geologically. 5 

1 Ulysses was wrecked on the isle of xtaea, where Circe changed all his companions into pigs for 
their voluptuousness ; and after that he was thrown into Ogygia, the island of Calypso, where for some 
seven years he lived with the nymph in illicit connection. Now Calypso was a daughter of Atlas 
(Odys., Bk. xii), and all the traditional ancient versions, when speaking of the Isle of Ogygia, say that 
it was very distant from Greece, and right in the middle of the Ocean ; thus identifying it with Atlantis. 

2 Hygin., Astron, Poetique, Bk. ii, cap. 15. :l Nineteenth Century, July, 1887. 
4 Diod. Sic.,ii, 307. 

5 To make a difference between Lemuria and Atlantis, the ancient writers referred to the later as 
the Northern or Hyperborean Atlantis, and to the former as the Southern. Thus Apollodorus says 
(Mythology, Book ii) : "The golden apples carried away by Hercules are not, as some think, in Lybia ; 
they are in the Hyperborean Atlantis." The Greeks naturalized all the Gods they borrowed and made 
Hellenes of them, and the moderns helped them. Thus also the Mythologists have tried to make of 



340 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

When the astronomical meaning cedes its place to the spiritual and 
divine Apollo and Athene transforming themselves into the form of " birds," 
the symbol and glyph of the higher divinities and angels then the bright 
God assumes divine creative powers. Apollo becomes the personification of 
seership, when he sends the astral double of /Eneas to the battle field, 1 and 
has the gift of appearing to his seers without being visible to other persons 
present, 2 a gift, however, shared by every high Adept. 

The King of the Hyperboreans was, therefore, the son of Boreas, 
the North Wind, and the High Priest of Apollo. The quarrel of Latona 
with Niobe the Atlantean Race the mother of seven sons and seven 
daughters, personifying the seven sub-races of the Fourth Race and 
their seven branches 3 allegorizes the history of the two Continents. The 
wrath of the "Sons of God," or of "Will and Yoga," at seeing the steady 
degradation of the Atlanteans/was great ; 4 and the destruction of the children 
of Niobe by the children of Latona Apollo and Diana, the deities of light, 
wisdom and purity, or the Sun and Moon astronomically, whose influence 
causes changes in the Earth's axis, deluges and other cosmic cataclysms is 
thus very clear. 5 The fable about the never-ceasing tears of Niobe, whose 

Eridanus the river Po, in Italy. In the myth of Phaeton it is said that at his death his sisters dropped 
hot tears which fell into Eridanus and were changed into amber ! Now amber is found only in the 
northern seas, in the Baltic. Phaeton, meeting with his death while carrying heat to the frozen stars 
of the boreal regions, awakening at the Pole the Dragon made rigid by cold, and being hurled down 
into the Eridanus, is an allegory referring directly to the changes of climate in those distant times 
when, from a frigid zone, the polar lands had become a country with a moderate and warm climate. 
The usurper of the functions of the Sun, Phaeton, being hurled into the Eridanus by Jupiter's 
thunderbolt, is an allusion to the second change that took place in those regions when, once more, the 
land where " the magnolia blossomed " became the desolate forbidding land of the farthest north and 
eternal ice. This allegory covers then the events of two Pralayas ; and if well understood ought to be 
a demonstration of the enormous antiquity of the human races. 

* Iliad, xvii, 431-53. 2 Ibid., 322-36. 

3 See Apollodorus for this number. 

4 See " The Sons of God and the Sacred Island," ante Vol. 3, p. 223. 

> So occult and mystic is one of the aspects of Latona that she is made to reappear even in Revela- 
tion (xii, 1 , 2), as the woman clothed with the Sun (Apollo) and the Moon (Diana) under her feet, 
who being with child " cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered." A great red Dragon 
stands before the woman ready to devour the child. She brings forth the man-child who was to rule 
all nations with a rod of iron, and who was caught unto the throne of God the Sun. The woman fled 
to the wilderness still pursued by the Dragon, who flees again, and casts out of his mouth water as a 
flood, when the Earth helped the woman and swallowed the flood ; and the Dragon went to make war 
with the remnant of her seed who kept the commandments of God. (See Rev. xii, 1, 17.) Anyone 
who reads the allegory of Latona pursued by the revenge of jealous Juno, will recognize the identity of 
the two versions Juno sends Python, the Dragon, to persecute and destroy Latona and devour her 
babe. The latter is Apollo, the Sun, for the man-child of Re velation, " who was to rule all nations 
with a rod of iron " is surely not the meek " Son of God," Jesus, but the physical Sun, " who rules 
all nations " ; the Dragon being the North Pole, gradually chasing the early Lemurians from the lands 
which became more and more Hyperborean and unfit to be inhabited by those who were fast devel- 
oping into physical men, for they now had to deal with the climatic variations. The Dragon will not 
allow Latona " to bring forth " the Sun to appear. " She is driven from heaven, and finds no place 
where she can bring forth," until Neptune, the Ocean, in pity, makes immovable the floating isle of 
Delos the nymph Asteria, hitherto hiding from Jupiter under the waves of the Ocean on which 
Latona finds refuge, and where the bright God A?;Xt09 [Delius] is born, the God, who no sooner 



SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTINENTS 341 

grief causes Zeus to change her into a fountain Atlantis covered with water 
is no less graphic as a symbol. Niobe, let it be remembered, is the 
daughter of one of the Pleiades, or Atlantides, the grand-daughter of Atlas 
therefore, 1 because she represents the last generations of the doomed 
Continent. 

A true remark, that of Bailly, which says that Atlantis had an enormous 
influence on antiquity. He adds : 

If these mythical names are mere allegories, then aii that they have of truth 
comes from Atlantis ; if the fable is a real tradition however altered then the ancient 
history is wholly their history. 2 

So much so, that all ancient writings prose and poetry are full of the 
reminiscences of the Lemuro-Atlanteans, the first physical Races, though the 
Third and the Fourth in number in the evolution of Fourth Round Humanity 
on our Globe. Hesiod records the tradition about the men of the Age of 
Bronze, whom Jupiter had made out of ash-wood and who had hearts harder 
than diamond. Clad in bronze from head to foot, they passed their lives 
in fighting. Monstrous in size, endowed with a terrible strength, invincible 
arms and hands descended from their shoulders, says the poet. 3 Such were 
the giants of the first physical Races. 

The Iranians have a reference to the later Atlanteans in Yasna, ix, 15 
Tradition maintains that the " Sons of God," or the great Initiates of the 
Sacred Island, took advantage of the Deluge to rid the Earth of all the 
Sorcerers among the Atlanteans. The said verse addresses Zarathushtra as 
one of the " Sons of God." It says : 

Thou, O Zarathushtra, didst make all demons [Sorcerers], who before roamed the 
world in human forms, conceal themselves in the earth [helped them to submersion]. 

The Lemurians, and also the early Atlanteans, were divided into two 
distinct classes the " Sons of Night " or Darkness, and the " Sons of the 
Sun " or Light. The old books tell us of terrible battles between the two, 
when the former, leaving their land of Darkness, whence the Sun departed 
for long months, descended from their inhospitable regions and " tried to 

appears than he kills Python, the cold and frost of the Arctic region, in whose deadly coils all life be- 
comes extinct. In other words, Latona-Lemuria is transformed into Niobe-Atlantis, over which her son 
Apollo, or the Sun, reigns with an iron rod, truly, since Herodotus makes the Atlantes curse his too- 
great heat. This allegory is reproduced in its other mystic meaning (another of the seven keys) in the 
just cited chapter of Revelation. Latona became a powerful Goddess indeed, and saw her son receive 
worship (solar worship) in almost every fane of antiquity. In his Occult aspect Apollo is patron of 
number Seven. He is born on the seventh of the month, and the swans of Myorica swim seven times 
round Delos singing that event ; he is given seven chords to his Lyre the seven rays of the Sun and 
the seven forces of Nature. But this is only in the astronomical meaning, whereas the above is 
purely geological. 

1 See Ovid, Metamorphoses, vi. ' iettres sur I'Atlantide, p. 137. 

3 Hesiod, Opera et Dies, v, 143. 



342 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

wrench the Lord of Light " from their better-favoured brothers of the equa- 
torial regions. We may be told that the Ancients knew nothing of the long 
night of six months' duration in the polar regions. Even Herodotus, more 
learned than the rest, only mentions a people who slept for six months in the 
year, and remained awake the other half. Yet the Greeks knew well that 
there was a country in the North where the year was divided into a day and 
night each of six months' duration, for Pliny distinctly says so. 1 They speak of 
the Cimmerians and of the Hyperboreans, and draw a distinction between the 
two. The former inhabited the Palus Maeotis between 45 and 50 latitude, 
Plutarch explains that they were but a small portion of a great nation driven 
away by the Scythians which nation stopped near the Tanais, after having 
crossed Asia. 

These warlike multitudes lived formerly on the ocean shores, in dense forests, 
and under a tenebrous sky. There the pole is almost touching the head, there long 
nights and days divide the year. 2 

As to the Hyperboreans, these peoples, as expressed by Solinus 
Polyhistor : 

Sow in the morning, reap at noon, gather their fruits in the evening, and store 
them during the night in their caves. 3 

Even the writers of the Zohar knew this fact, as it is written : 

In the Book of Hammannunah, the Old (or the Ancient), we learn . . . there 
are some countries of the earth which are lightened, whilst others are in darkness ; 
these have the day, when for the former it is night ; and there are countries in which it 
is constantly day, or in which at least the night continues only some instants. 4 

The island of Delos, the Asteria of Greek Mythology, was never in 
Greece, for this country, in that day, was not yet in existence, not even in its 
molecular form. Several writers have shown that it represented a country or 
an island, far larger than the small dots of land which became Greece. Both 
Pliny and Diodorus Siculus place it in the Northern Seas, One calls it Basilea, 
or " Royal" ; r> the other, Pliny, names it Osericta, 6 a word which, according 
to Rudbeck, 7 had 

A significance in the northern languages, equivalent to the Island of the divine 
Kings or god-kings 

or again the " Royal Island of the Gods," because the Gods were born there, 
j.e., the Divine Dynasties of the Kings of Atlantis proceeded from the place. 
Let Geographers and Geologists seek for it among that group of islands 

1 Hist. Nat., Bk. Cap. iv, 12, - Mar/us. ' Op. cit., c. 16. 

4 Isaac Myer's Qabbalah, p. 139. ' Diod., Vol. ii, p. 225. 

t} Op. cit., xxxvii, 2. '" Vol. i, pp. 462-4. 



SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTINENTS 343 

discovered by Nordenskidld on his " Vega " voyage in the Arctic region. 1 The 
Secret Books inform us that the climate has changed in those regions more 
than once, since the first men inhabited those now almost inaccessible latitudes. 
They were a Paradise before they became Hell ; the dark Hades of the 
Greeks, and the cold Realm of Shades where the Scandinavian Hel, the 
Goddess-Queen of the country of the dead, " holds sway deep down in 
Helheim and Niflheim." Yet it was the birthplace of Apollo, who was the 
brightest of Gods, in Heaven astronomically as he was the most enlightened 
of the Divine Kings who ruled over the early nations, in his human meaning. 
The latter fact is borne out in the Iliad, wherein Apollo is said to have 
appeared four times in his own form (as the God of the Four Races) and six 
times in human form, 2 i.e., as connected with the Divine Dynasties of the 
earlier unseparated Lemurians. 

It is those early mysterious peoples, their countries which have now 
become uninhabitable as well as the name given to " man " both dead and 
alive, which have furnished an opportunity to the ignorant Church Fathers for 
inventing a Hell, which they have transformed into a burning instead of a 
freezing locality. 3 

It is, of course, evident that it is neither the Hyperboreans, nor the 
Cimmerians, the A r imaspes, nor even the Scythes known to and communicat- 
ing with the Greeks who were our Atlanteans. But they were all the 
descendants of their last sub-races. The Pelasgians were certainly one of the 
root-races of future Greece, and were a remnant of a sub-race of Atlantis. 
Plato hints as much in speaking of the latter, whose name, it is averred, came 
from pelagus, the "great sea." Noah's Deluge is astronomical and allegoric- 
al, but it is not mythical, for the story is based upon the same archaic 
tradition of men or rather of nations who were saved during the cataclysms, 
in canoes, arks, and ships. No one would presume to say that the Chaldean 
Xisuthrus, the Hindu Vaivasvata, the Chinese Peirun the " Beloved of the 

1 These islands were "found strewn with fossils of horses, sheep, oxen, etc., among gigantic 
bones of elephants, mammoths, rhinoceroses," etc. If there was no man on Earth at that period "how 
came horses and sheep to be found in company with the huge antediluvians ?" asks a Master in a 
letter. (Esoteric Buddhism, p. 67, eighth Ed. p. 70). The reply is given above in the text. 

2 Op. cit., iv, 239-62 

' A good proof that all the Gods, and religious beliefs, and myths have come from the North, 
which was also the cradle of physical man, lies in several suggestive words which have originated and 
remain to this day among the northern tribes in their primeval significance ; but, although there was a 
time when all the nations were of " one lip," these words have received a different meaning with the 
Greeks and Latins. One such word is mann, man, a living being, and manes, dead men. The Lap- 
landers call their corpses to this day manee (Voyage de R&nard en Lapom'e, i, 184). Mannus is the 
ancestor of the German race ; the Hindu Manu, the thinking being, from man ; the Egyptian Menes ; 
and Minos, the King of Crete, judge of the infernal regions after his death all proceed from the 
same word or root. 



344 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Gods," who rescued him from the flood in a canoe or the Swedish Belgamer, 
for whom the Gods did the same in the North, are all identical as personages. 
But their legends have all sprung from the catastrophe which involved both 
the Continent and the Island of Atlantis. 

The allegory about the antediluvian giants and their achievements in 
sorcery is no myth. Biblical events are revealed indeed. But it is neither by 
the voice of God amid thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai, nor by a divine 
finger tracing the record on tablets of stone, but simply through tradition via 
Pagan sources. It was not surely the Pentateuch that Diodorus was repeating 
when he wrote about the Titans the giants born of Heaven and Earth, or, rather, 
born of the Sons of God who took to themselves for wives the daughters of men 
who were fair. Nor was Pherecydes quoting from Genesis when giving details on 
those giants which are not to be found in the Jewish Scriptures. He says that 
the Hyperboreans were of the race of the Titans, a race which descended 
from the earliest giants, and that it was that Hyperborean region which was 
the birthplace of the first giants. The Commentaries on the Sacred Books 
explain that the said region was the far North, the Polar Lands now, the Pre- 
Lemurian earliest Continent, embracing once upon a time the present Green- 
land, Spitzbergen, Sweden, Norway, etc. 

But who were the Nephilim, [giants] of Genesis (vi, 4)? There were 
Palaeolithic and Neolithic men in Palestine ages before the events recorded in 
the Book of the Beginnings. The theological tradition identifies these 
Nephilim with hairy men or satyrs, the latter being mythical in the Fifth Race,, 
and the former historical in both the Fourth and Fifth Races. We have stated 
elsewhere what the prototypes of these satyrs were, and have spoken of the 
bestiality of the early and later Atlantean Race. What is the meaning of 
Poseidon's amours under such a variety of animal forms? He became a 
dolphin to win Amphitrite ; a horse, to seduce Ceres ; a ram, to deceive 
Theophane, etc. Poseidon is not only the personation of the Spirit and Race 
of Atlantis, but also of the vices of these giants. Gesenius and others devote 
an enormous space to the meaning of the word Nephilim and explain very 
little. But Esoteric Records show these hairy creatures to be the last descen- 
dants of those Lemuro-Atlantean Races, which begot children on female 
animals, of species now long extinct ; thus producing dumb men, " monsters," 
as the STANZAS have it. 

Now Mythology, built upon Hesiod's Theogony, which is but a poetized 
record of actual traditions, or oral history, speaks of three giants, called 
Briareus, Cottus, and Gyges, living in a dark country where they were impri- 
soned by Kronos for their rebellion against him. All the three are endowed 



SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTINENTS 345 

by myth with a hundred arms and fifty heads, the latter standing for races, 
the former for sub-races and tribes* Bearing in mind that in Mythology 
every personage almost is a God or Demi-god, and also a king or simple 
mortal in his second aspect, 1 and that both stand as symbols for lands, islands, 
powers of nature, elements, nations, races and sub-races, the Esoteric Com- 
Aentary will become comprehensible. It says that the three giants are three 
polar lands which have changed form several times, at each new cataclysm, 
or disappearance of one continent to make room for another. The whole 
Globe is convulsed periodically ; and has been so convulsed, since the appear- 
ance of the First Race, four times. Yet, though the whole face of the Earth 
was transformed thereby each time, the conformation of the Arctic and 
Antarctic Poles has but little altered. The polar lands unite and break off 
from each other into islands and peninsulas, yet remain ever the same. 
Therefore Northern Asia is called the " Eternal or Perpetual Land," and the 
Antarctic the " Ever-living " and the " Concealed " ; while the Mediterranean, 
Atlantic, Pacific and other regions disappear and reappear in turn, into and 
above the Great Waters. 

From the first appearance of the great Continent of Lemuria, the three 
polar giants have been imprisoned in their circle by Kronos. Their gaol is 
surrounded by a wall of bronze, and the exit is through gates fabricated by 
Poseidon or Neptune hence by the seas, which they cannot cross ; and it 
is in that damp region, where eternal darkness reigns, that the three brothers 
languish. The Iliad makes it Tartarus." When the Gods and Titans rebelled 
in their turn against Zeus the deity of the Fourth Race the t Father of the 
Gods bethought himself of the imprisoned giants that they might help him to 
conquer the Gods and Titans, and to precipitate the latter into Hades ; or, in 
clearer words, to have Lemuria hurled amid thunder and lightning to the 
bottom of the seas, so as to make room for Atlantis, which was to be sub- 
merged and perish in its turn. 3 The geological upheaval and deluge of 
Thessaly was a repetition on a small scale of the great cataclysm ; and, 
remaining impressed on the memory of the Greeks, was merged by them 
into, and confused with, the general fate of Atlantis. So, also, the war 
between the Rakshasas of Lanka and the Bharateans, the melee of the Atlan- 
teans and Aryans in their supreme struggle, or the conflict between the Devs 

1 Thus, for instance. Gyges is a hundred-armed and fifty-headed monster, a Demi-god in one case, 
and a Lydian, the successor of Candaules, king of the country, in another version. The same is found 
in the Indian Pantheon, where Rishis and the Sons of Brahma are reborn as mortals, 

2 Op. cit, viii, 13. 

3 The continent* perish m turn by fire and water , either through earthquakes and volcanic erup- 
tions, or by sinking and the great displacement of waters. Our continents have to perish by the form- 
er cataclysmal process. The incessant earthquakes of the past years may be a warning. 



346 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

and Izeds, or Peris, became, ages later, the struggle of Titans, separated into 
two inimical camps, and still later the war between the Angels of God and 
the Angels of Satan. Historical facts became theological dogmas. Ambitious 
scholiasts, men of a small sub-race born but yesterday, and one of the latest 
issues of the Aryan stock, took upon themselves to overturn the religious 
thought of the world, and succeeded. For nearly two thousand years th^ 
impressed thinking humanity with the belief in the existence of Satan. 

But as it is now the conviction of more than one Greek scholar as it 
was that of Bailly and Voltaire that Hesiod's Theogony is based upon historic- 
al facts, 1 it becomes easier for the Occult Teachings to find their way into 
the minds of thoughtful men, and therefore are these passages from Myth- 
ology brought forward in our discussion upon modern learning in this 
Addendum. 

Such symbols as are found in all the exoteric creeds are so many land- 
marks of pre-historic truths. The sunny, happy land, the primitive cradle of 
the earliest human races, has become several times since then Hyperborean 
and Saturnine ; ~ thus showing the Golden Age and Reign of Saturn from 
multiform aspects. It was many-sided in its character indeed climatically, 
ethnologically and morally. For the Third, Lemurian, Race must be physiologic- 
ally divided into the early androgynous and the later bi-sexual race ; and the 
climate of its dwelling-places and continents into that of an eternal spring and 
eternal winter, into life and death, purity and impurity. The Cycle of legends 
is ever being transformed on its journey by popular fancy. Yet it may be 
cleansed frorp the dross it has picked up on its way through many nations, 
and through the countless minds which have added their own exuberant 
additions to the original facts. Leaving for a while the Greek interpretations, 
we may seek for some more corroborations of the latter in the scientific and 
geological proofs. 



1 See Decharme's Mythologie de la Grece Antique 

~ Denis, the Geographer, tells us that the great sea north of Asia was called glacial, or Saturnine 
{v, 35.) Orpheus (v, 1077) and Pliny (iv, 16) corroborate the statement by showing that it was its 
giant inhabitants who gave it the name. And the SECRET DOCTRINE explains both assertions by 
telling us that all the continents were formed from North to South , and that as the sudden change of 
climate dwarfed the race that had been born on it, arresting its growth, so, several degrees southward, 
various conditions had always produced the tallest men in every new humanity, or race. We see it to 
this day. The tallest men now found are those m Northern countries, while the smallest are Southern 
Asiatics, Hindus, Chinamen, Japanese, etc. Compare the tall Sikhs and Punjabis, the Afghans, 
Norwegians, Russians, Northern Germans, Scotchmen, and English, with the Inhabitants of Central 
India and the average European on the continent. Thus also the Giants of Atlantis, and hence the 
Titans of Hesiod, are all Northerners. 



SECTION 7 

SCIENTIFIC AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE 
OF SEVERAL SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 

IT may not be amiss for the benefit of those who resolve the tradition of a 
lost Miocene Atlantis into an " antiquated myth" to append a few scientific 
admissions on this point. Science, it is true, is largely indifferent to such 
questions. But there are Scientists ready to admit that, in any case, a cau- 
tious agnosticism as to geological problems concerning the remote past is far 
more philosophical than a priori denial, or even hasty generalizations on 
insufficient data. 

Meanwhile two very interesting instances, that have been lately met with, 
may be pointed out as "confirming" certain passages in the letter of a 
Master, published in Esoteric Buddhism. The eminence of the authorities will 
not be questioned (we italicize the corresponding passages) : 

Extract from Esoteric Buddhism, p. 70. Extract from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, 
(eighth Ed., p. 73). F.R.S., F.G.S. 

0) (1) 

The sinking of Atlantis (the group of Was there, as some have believed, an 
continents and isles) begun during the Atlantis a continent or archipelago of 
Miocene period . . . culminated first in large islands occupying the area of the 
the final disappearance of the largest con- North Atlantic ? There is, perhaps, no- 
tinent, an event coincident with the eleva- thing unphilosophical in the hypothesis, 
t/on of the Alps, and second, with that of For since, as geologists state, " The Alps 
the last of the fair Islands mentioned by have acquired 4.000 and even in some 
Plato. 1 places more than \ 0,000 feet of their 

present altitude since the commencement 
of the Eocene epoch " (Lyell's Principles, 
p. 256, 2nd Ed.) a Post-M/ocene depres- 
sion might have carried the hypothetical 
Atlantis into almost abysmal depths. 2 

1 [See also The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, p. 155.] 

2 Having already given several instances of the vagaries of Science, it is delightful to find such 
agreement in this particular case. Read in connection with the scientific admission (cited elsewhere) 
of the Geologists' ignorance of even the approximate duration of periods, the following passage is 
'highly instructive : " We are not yet able to assign an approximate date for the most recent epoch at 
which our northern hemisphere was covered with glaciers. According to Mr. Wallace, this epoch 



348 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Extract from Esoteric Buddhism, pp. 64, Extract from an article In the Popular 
6S (eighth Ed., p. 67-) Science Review. Vol. v, p. 18, by Pro- 

fessor Seemann, Ph.D., F.L.S., V.-P.A.S. 

(2) (2) 

Lemuria can no more be confounded It would be premature to say, because 
with the Atlantic Continent than Europe no evidence has yet been adduced, that 
with America. Both sunk and were drown- men may not have existed in the Eocene 
ed with their high civilizations and " gods ", age, especially as it can be shown that a' 
yet between the two catastrophes a short race of men, the lowest we know of, co- 
period of about 700,000 years elapsed, exists with that remnant of the Eocene 
" Lemuria " flourishing and ending her flora which still survives on the continent 
career just about that trifling lapse of time and islands of Australia. 
before the early part of the Eocene age, 

since its race was the third. Behold the Extract from The Pedigree of Man, p. 81 . 
re//cs of that once great nation in some of Haeckel, who fully accepts the reality of 
the f/at-heac/ecf aborigines of your A us- a former Lemuria, also regards the Aus- 
tralia ! ! tralians, as direct descendants of the 

Lemurians. " Persistent forms of both 
[his Lemurian] stems are in all probability 
still surviving, of the former in the Papu- 
ans and Hottentots, of the latter in the 
Australians and in one division of the 
Malays. 

With regard to a former civilization, of which a portion of these de- 
graded Australians are the last surviving offshoot, the opinion of Gerland is 
strongly suggestive. Commenting upon the religion and mythology of the 
tribes, he writes : 

The statement that Australian civilization [?] indicates a higher grade, is nowhere 
more clearly proved than here [in the province of religion] where everything resounds, 
like the expiring voices of a previous and richer age. . . . The idea that the Australians, 
have no trace of religion or mythology is thoroughly false. But this religion is certainly 
quite deteriorated. 3 

As to Haeckel 's view of the relationship between the Australians and the 
Malays, [as two branches of a common stock], he is in error when he classes- 
the Australians with the rest. The Malays and Papuans are a mixed stock, 
resulting from the intermarriages of the low Atlantean sub-races with the 
seventh sub-race of the Third Root Race, Like the Hottentots, they are of 
indirect Lemuro-At/antean descent. It is a most suggestive fact to those 

may have occurred no more than seventy thousand years ago, while others would assign to it an 
antiquity of at least two hundred thousand years, and there are yet others who urge strong arguments- 
on behalf of the opinion that a million of years is barely enough to have produced the changes which, 
have taken place since that event." (Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, Vol, i, p. 394, Ed. 1874.) Prof. 
Lefevre, again, gives us as his estimate one hundred thousand years. Clearly, then, if modern 
Science is unable to estimate the date of so comparatively recent an era as the Glacial Epoch, it can- 
hardly impeach the Esoteric Chronology of Race-Periods and Geological Ages. 

l [See also The Mahatma Letters, etc, p. 151.] 

2 Cited in Schmidt's Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, pp. 300-1. 



PROOFS OF SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 349 

concrete thinkers who demand a physical proof of Karma that the lowest 
races of men are now rapidly dying out ; a phenomenon largely due to an 
extraordinary sterility setting in among the women, from the time that they 
were first approached by the Europeans. A process of decimation is taking 
place all over the Globe, among those races, whose " time is up" among 
just those stocks, be it remarked, which Esoteric Philosophy regards as the 
senile representatives of lost archaic nations. It is inaccurate to maintain that 
the extinction of a lower race is invariably due to cruelties or abuses per- 
petrated by colonists. Change of diet, drunkenness, etc., have done much ; 
but those who rely on such data as offering an all-sufficient explanation of the 
crux, cannot meet the phalanx of facts now so closely arrayed. Even the 
Materialist Lefevre says : 

Nothing can save those that have run their course. It would be necessary to 
extend their destined cycle. . . . The peoples that have been relatively most spared, 
those who have defended themselves most valiantly, Hawaiian* or Maories, have been 
no less decimated than the tribes massacred or tainted by European intrusion. 1 

True ; but is not the phenomenon here confirmed, an instance of the 
operation of Cyclic Law, difficult to account for on materialist lines ? Whence 
the "destined cycle" and the order here testified to? Why does this 
(Karmic) sterility attack and root out certain races at their " appointed hour " ? 
The answer that it is due to a " mental disproportion " between the colonizing 
and aboriginal races is obviously evasive, since it does not explain the sudden 
"checks to fertility" which so frequently supervene. The dying out of the 
Hawaiians, for instance, is one of the most mysterious problems of the day. 
Ethnology will sooner or later have to recognize, with Occultists, that the true 
solution has to be sought for in a comprehension of the workings of Karma. 
As Lefevre remarks : 

The time is drawing near when there will remain nothing but three great human 
types. 

The time is before the Sixth Root Race dawns ; the three types are 
the white (Aryan, Fifth Root Race); the yellow, and the African negro with 
their crossings (Atlanto-European divisions). Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans, 
Australians, Polynesians, etc. all are dying out. Those who realize that every 
Root Race runs through a gamut of seven sub-races with seven branchlets, 
etc., will understand the "why." The tide-wave of incarnating Egos has 
rolled past them to harvest experience in more developed and less senile 
stocks ; and their extinction is hence a Karmic necessity. Some extraordinary 
and unexplained statistics as to race extinction are given by de Quatrefages. 2 
No solution, except on Occult lines, is able to account for these. 

1 Philosophy Historical and Critical, p. 508. 2 Human Sp$c/es,,pp. 428, et seq. 



350 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

But we have digressed from our direct subject. Let us hear now what 
Professor Huxley has to say on the subject of former Atlantic and Pacific 
Continents. 

He writes in Nature : 

There is nothing, so far as I am aware, in the biological or geological evidence at 
present accessible, to render untenable the hypothesis that an area of the Mid-Atlantic 
or Pacific sea-bed as big as Europe, should have been upheaved as high as Mont Blanc, 
and have subsided again any time since the Palaeozoic epoch, if there were any grounds 
for entertaining it. 1 

That is to say, then, that there is nothing to militate against positive evi- 
dence of the fact ; nothing, therefore, against the geological postulates of the 
Esoteric Philosophy. Dr. Berthold Seemann assures us in the Popular Science 
Review that : 

The facts which botanists have accumulated for reconstructing these lost maps 
of the globe are rather comprehensive ; and they have not been backward in demon- 
strating the former existence of several large tracts of solid land in parts now occupied 
by great oceans. The many striking points of contact between the present floras of 
the United States and Eastern Asia, induced them to assume that, during the present 
order of things, there existed a continental connection between South- Eastern Asia and 
Western America. The singular correspondence of the present flora of the Southern 
United States with that of the lignite flora of Europe induces them to believe that, in 
the Miocene period, Europe and America were connected by a land passage, of which 
Iceland, Madeira, and the other Atlantic islands are remnants ; that, in fact, the story 
of an Atlantis, which an Egyptian priest told to Solon, is not purely fictitious, but rests 
upon a solid historical basis. . . . Europe of the Eocene period received the plants 
which spread over mountains and plains, valleys and river-banks (from Asia generally), 
neither exclusively from the South nor from the East. The West also furnished addi- 
tions, and if at that period these were rather meagre, they show, at all events, that the 
bridge was already building, which, at a later period, was to facilitate communication 
between the two continents in such a remarkable manner. At that time some plants 
of the Western Continent began to reach Europe by means of the island of Atlantis, 
then probably just [?] rising above the ocean.' 

And in another number of the same review'' Mr. W. Duppa Crotch, 
M.A., F.L.S., in an article entitled " The Norwegian Lemming and its Migrations," 
alludes to the same subject : 

Is it probable that land could have existed where now the broad Atlantic rolls ? 
All tradition says so old Egyptian records speak of Atlantis, as Strabo and others have 
told us. The Sahara itself is the sand of an ancient sea, and the shells which are found 
upon its surface prove that, no longer ago than the Miocene period, a sea rolled over 
what is now desert. The voyage of the " Challenger " has proved the existence of 

1 Art., "The First Volume of the Publications of the ' Challenger/ " p. 2, Nov. 4th, 1880. 

2 Op at.. Art., " Australia and Europe formerly one Continent " (v, 19, 25) Undoubtedly a fact, 
and a confirmation of the Esoteric conception of Lemuna, which originally not only embraced great 
areas in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but projected round South Africa into the North Atlantic. Its 
Atlantic portion subsequently became the geological basis of the future home of the Fourth Race 
Atlanteans. 

3 Ibid,, Vol. i, p. 143. 



PROOFS OF SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 35t 

three long ridges ! in the Atlantic Ocean, * one extending fcr more than three thousand 
miles, and lateral spurs may, by connecting these ridges, account for the marvellous 
similarity of the fauna of the Atlantic islands.* . . . 

The submerged continent of Lemur/a, in what is now the Indian Ocean, is con- 
sidered to afford an explanation of many difficulties in the distribution of organic life, 
and, I think, the existence of a Miocene Atlantis will be found to have a strong elucida- 
tive bearing on subjects of greater interest [truly so !] than the migration of the lem- 
ming. At all events, if it can be shown that land existed in former ages where the 
North Atlantic now rolls, not only is a motive found for these apparently suicidal 
migrations, but also a strong collateral proof that what we call instincts are but the 
blind and sometimes even prejudicial inheritance of previously acquired experience. 

At certain periods, we learn, multitudes of these animals swim to sea 
and perish. Coming, as they do, from all parts of Norway, the powerful 
instinct which survives throughout ages as an inheritance from their progeni- 
tors impels them to seek a continent, once existing but now submerged 
beneath the ocean, and to court a watery grave. 

In an article containing a criticism of Mr. A. R. Wallace's Island Life a 
work devoted largely to the question of the distribution of animals, etc. 
Mr. Starkie Gardiner writes : 

By a process of reasoning supported by a large array of facts of different kinds, 
he arrives at the conclusion that the distribution of life upon the land as we now see 
it has been accomplished without the aid of important changes in the relative positions 
of continents and seas. Yet if we accept his views, we must believe that Asia and 
Africa, Madagascar and Africa, New Zealand and Australia, Europe and America, have 
been united at some period not remote geologically, and that seas to the depth of 
1,000 fathoms have heen bridged over , but we must treat as " utterly gratuitous and 
entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command " [' !], the supposition that 
temperate Europe and temperate America, Australia, and South America, have ever 
been connected, except by way of the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, and that lands now 
separated by seas of more than 1,000 fathoms depth have ever been united. 

Mr. Wallace, it must be admitted, has succeeded in explaining the chief features 
of existing life distribution, without bridging the Atlantic or Pacific, except towards 
the Poles, yet I cannot help thinking that some of the facts might perhaps be 
more easily explained by admitting the former existence of the connection between 
the coast of Chile and Polynesia * and Great Britain and Florida, shadowed by the 
sub-marine banks which stretch between them. Nothing is urged that renders these 

1 Cf., the published reports of the " Challenger " expedition , also Donnelly's Atlantis, p. 468 and 
pp. 46-56, Ch " The Testimony of the Sea." 

- Even the cautious Lefevre speaks of the existence of Tertiary men on " upheaved lands, islands, 
and continents then flourishing, but since submerged beneath the waters," and elsewhere introduces a 
" possible Atlantis" to explain ethnological facts Cf. his Philosophy Historical and Critical, pp. 478 
and 504. Mr. Donnelly remarks with rare intuition that " modern civilization is Atlantean . . . the 
inventive faculty of the present age is taking up the great delegated work of creation where Atlantis 
left it thousands of years ago " (Atlantis, p. 177). He also refers the origin of culture to the Miocene 
times. It is, however, to be sought for in the teachings given to the Third Race men by their Divine 
Rulers at a vastly earlier period. 

3 An equally " curious " similarity may be traced between some of the West Indian and West 
African fauna. 

1 The Pacific portion of the giant Lemurian Continent christened by Dr. Carter Blake, the Anthro- 
pologist, " Pacificus." 



352 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

/more direct connections impossible, and no physical reason is advanced why the floor 
of the ocean should not be upheaved from any depth. The route by which [according 
to the Anti-Atlantean and Lemurian hypotheses of Wallace] the floras of South 
America and Australia are supposed to have mingled, is beset by almost insurmountable 
obstacles, and the apparently sudden arrival of a number of sub-tropical American plants 
in our Eocenes necessitates a connection more to the South than the present 1,000 
fathom line. Forces are unceasingly acting, and there is no reason why an elevating 
force, once set in action in the centre of an ocean should cease to act until a continent 
,is formed. They have acted and lifted out from the sea, in comparatively recent 
geological time, the loftiest mountains on earth. Mr. Wallace himself admits repeated- 
ly that sea-beds have been elevated 1,000 fathoms, and islands have risen up from the 
depths of 3,000 fathoms ; and to suppose that the upheaving forces are limited in 
power, is, it seems to me, to again quote from Island Life, " utterly gratuitous and 
entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command." l 

The "father" of English Geology Sir Charier* Lyell was a uni* 
^ormitarian in his views of continental formation. We find him saying : 

Professors Unger (Die Versunkene Insel Atlantis) and Heer (Flora Jertiaria He/- 
vet/as) have advocated on botanical grounds the former existence of an Atlantic 
Continent during some part of the tertiary period, as affording the only plausible 
-explanation that can be imagined of the analogy between the Miocene flora of 
Central Europe, and the existing flora of Eastern America. Professor Oliver, on 
the other hand, after showing how many of the American types found fossil in Europe 
.are common to Japan, inclines to the theory, first advanced by Dr. Asa Gray, that the 
migration of species, to which the community of types in the Eastern States of North 
America, and the Miocene flora of Europe is due, took place when there was an over- 
land communication from America to Eastern Asia between the fiftieth and sixtieth 
parallels of latitude, or south of Behring's Straits, following the direction of the Aleutian 
islands. By this course they may have made their way, at any epoch, Miocene, 
Pliocene, or Postpliocene, antecedently to the Glacial epoch, to Amoorland, on the 
ast coast of Northern Asia. 2 

The unnecessary difficulties and complications here incurred in order 
to avoid the hypothesis of an Atlantic Continent, are really too apparent to 
escape notice. If the botanical evidences stood alone, scepticism would be 
partially reasonable ; but in this case all branches of Science converge to one 
point. Science has made blunders, and has exposed itself to greater errors 
than it would be exposed to by the admission of our two now invisible 
Continents. It has denied even the undeniable, from the days of the 
iMathematician Laplace down to our own, and that only a few years ago. 3 

1 " Subsidence and Elevation," Geological Magazine, pp. 241-5, June 1881. 

2 Antiquity of Man, p. 492. 

3 When Howard read, before the Royal Society of London, a paper on the first serious researches 
that were made on the aerolites, the Geneva Naturalist Pictet, who was present communicated, on 
his return to Paris, the facts reported to the French Academy of Sciences. But he was forthwith in- 
terrupted by Laplace, the great Astronomer, who cried : " Stop ! we have had enough of such fables, 
and know all about them," thus making Pictet feel very small. Globular-shaped lightnings or 
thunder-bolts have been admitted by Science only since Arago demonstrated their existence. Says 
de Rochat (Forces Non-definies, p. 4): "Every one remembers Dr. Bouilland's misadventure at the 

. Academy &t Medicine when he had declared Edison's phonograph 'a trick of ventriloquism ' / " 



PROOFS OF SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 353 

We have Professor Huxley's authority for saying that there is no a priori im- 
probability whatever against possible evidences supporting the belief, But 
now that the positive evidence is brought forward, will that eminent Scientist 
admit the corollary ? 

Touching on the problem in another place $ir Charles Lyell tells us : 

Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian priests, .we gather much information 
from writers of the Grecian sects, who borrowed almost all their tenets from Egypt, 
.and amongst others that of the former successive destruction and renovation of 
the world [continental, not cosmic, catastrophes]. We learn from Plutarch that 
this was the theme of one of the hymns of Orpheus, so celebrated in the fabulous 
ages of Greece. It was brought by him from the banks of the Nile ; and we even 
find in his verses, as in the Indian systems, a definite period assigned for the dura- 
tion of every successive world. The returns of great catastrophes were determined 
by the period of the Annus Magnus, or great year, a cycle composed of the revolu- 
tions of the sun, moon, and planets, and terminating -when these return together 
to the same sign whence they were supposed at some remote epoch to have set out. 
. . . We learn particularly from the Timaeus of Plato that the Egyptians believed the 
world to be subject to occasional conflagrations and deluges. The sect of Stoics 
adopted most fully the system of catastrophes destined at certain intervals to 
destroy the world. These, they taught, were of two kinds the cataclysm, or 
destruction by deluge, which sweeps, away the whole human race, and annihilates all 
the animal and vegetable productions of nature, and the ecpyros/s, or conflagration, 
which destroys the globe itself [submarine volcanoes]. From the Egyptians they 
derived the doctrine of the gradual debasement of man from a state of innocence 
[nascent simplicity of the first sub-races of each Root Race]. Towards the termination 
of each era the gods could no longer, bear with the wickedness of men [degeneracy into 
.magical practices and gross animality of the Atlanteans], and a shock of the elements, 
or a deluge, overwhelmed them ; after which calamity, Astraea again descended on the 
-earth to renew the golden age [dawn of a new Root Race]. 1 

Astraea, the Goddess of Justice, is the last of the deities to forsake the 
Earth, when the Gods are said to abandon it, and to be taken up again into 
heaven by Jupiter. But, no sooner does Zeus carry from Earth Ganymedes 
the object of lust, personified than the Father of the Gods throws down 
Astraea on the Earth again, on which she falls upon her head. Astraea is 
Virgo, the constellation of the Zodiac. . Astronomically it has a very plain 
significance, and one which gives the Key to the occult meaning. ' But it is 
inseparable from Leo, the sign that precedes it, and from the Pleiades and 
their sisters, the Hyades, of which Aldebaran is the brilliant leader. AH these 
are connected with the periodical renovations of the Earth, with regard to its 
continents even Ganymedes, who in astronomy is Aquarius. It has already 
been shown that while the South Pole is the Pit (or the infernal regions figura- 
tively and cosmologically), the North Pole is geographically the First Continent ; 

1 Principles of Geology, i, 9, 10. 
F 23 



354 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

while astronomically and metaphorically the Celestial Pole, with its Pole Star in 
Heaven, is Meru, or the Seat of Brahma, the Throne of Jupiter, etc. For in 
the age when the Gods forsook the Earth and were said to ascend into 
Heaven, the ecliptic had become parallel with the meridian, and part of the 
Zodiac appeared to descend from the North Pole to the north horizon. 
Aldebaran was in conjunction then with the Sun, as it was 40,000 years ago, at 
the great festival in commemoration of that Annus Magnus, of which Plutarch 
spoke. Since that Year 40.000 years ago there has been a retrograde 
motion of the equator, and about 31,000 years ago Aldebaran was in conjunc- 
tion with the vernal equinoctial point. The part assigned to Taurus, even 
in Christian Mysticism, is too well known to need repetition. The famous 
Orphic Hymn on the great periodical cataclysm divulges the whole Esotericism 
of the event. Pluto, in the pit, carries off Eurydice, bitten by the Polar Serpent. 
Then Leo, the Lion, is vanquished. Now, when the Lion is " in the Pit," or 
below the South Pole, then Virgo, as the next sign, follows him and when her 
head, down to the waist, is below the southern horizon she is inverted. On 
the other hand, the Hyades are the rain or Deluge constellations ; and 
Aldebaran he who follows, or succeeds the daughters of Atlas, or the Pleiades 
looks down from the eye of Taurus. It is from this point of the ecliptic 
that the calculations of the new cycle were commenced. The student has to 
remember also, that when Ganymedes (Aquarius) is raised to heaven or 
above the horizon of the North Pole Virgo or Astraea, who is Venus-Lucifer, 
descends head downwards below the horizon of the South Pole, or the Pit ; 
which p/t, or the Pole, is also the Great Dragon, or the Flood. Let the 
student exercise his intuition by placing these facts together ; no more can be 
said. Lyell comments : 

The connection between the doctrine of successive catastrophes and repeated 
deteriorations in the moral character of the human race, is more intimate and natural 
than might at first be imagined. For, in a rude state of society, all great calamities 
are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man. ... In 
like manner in the account given to Solon by the Egyptian priests of the submersion of 
the island of Atlantis under the waters of the ocean, after repeated shocks of an earth- 
quake, we find that the event happened when Jupiter had seen the moral depravity of 
the inhabitants.* 

True ; but was it not owing to the fact that all Esoteric truths were given 
out to the public ,by the Initiates of the temples under the guise of allegories ? 
"Jupiter," is merely the personification of that immutable Cyclic Law, which 
arrests the downward tendency of each Root Race after attaining the zenith 

1 Ibid 



PROOFS OF SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 355 

of its glory. 1 We must admit allegorical teaching, unless we hold with 
Prof. John Fiske's singularly dogmatic opinion that every myth : 

is an explanation by the uncivilized mind, of some natural phenomenon , not an 
allegory, not an esoteric symbol, for the ingenuity is wasted [! !] which strives to detect 
in myths the remnants of a refined primeval science but an explanation. Primitive 
men had no profound science to perpetuate by means of allegory [how does 
Mr. Fiske know ?], nor were they such sorry pedants as to talk in riddles when 
plain language would serve their purpose.' 2 

We venture to say the language of the initiated few was far more 
" plain," and their Science-Philosophy far more comprehensive and satisfying 
alike to the physical and spiritual wants of men, than even the terminology 
and system elaborated by Mr. Fiske's master Herbert Spencer. What, 
however, is Sir Charles Lyell's " explanation " of the " myth " ? Certainly, he 
in no way countenances the idea of its " astronomical " origin, as asserted by 
some writers. 

The two interpreters are entirely at variance with one another. Lyell's 
solution is as follows. A disbeliever in cataclysmal changes from the absence (?) 
of any reliable historical data on the point as well as from a strong bias 
to the uniformitarian conceptions of geologic changes, * he attempts to trace 
the Atlantis " tradition " to the following sources : 

1 . Barbarous tribes connect catastrophes with an avenging God, who is 
assumed in this way to punish immoral races. 

1 The Cyclic Law of Race-Evolution is most unwelcome to Scientists. It is sufficient to mention 
the fact of "primeval civilization" to excite the frenzy of Darwinians; it being obvious that the 
further culture and science are pushed back, the more precarious becomes the basis of the ape-ancestor 
theory. But as Jacolliot says: "Whatever there may be in these traditions [submerged continents, 
etc.], and whatever may have been the place where a civi/ization more ancient than that of Rome, of 
Greece, of Egypt, and of India, was developed, it is certain that this civilization did exist, and it is 
highly important for science to recover its traces, however feeble and fugitive they be." (H/sto/re des 
V/erges , les Peuples et les Continents Disparus, p. 15.) Donnelly has proved the fact from the clearest 
premises, but the Evolutionists will not listen. A Miocene civilization upsets the " universal Stone- 
age " theory, and that of a continuous ascent of man from animalism. And yet Egypt, at least, runs 
counter to current hypotheses. There is no Stone age visible there, but a more glorious culture is 
apparent the further back we are enabled to carry our retrospect. 

2 Myths and Myth-Makers, p. 21 . 

3 Violent minor cataclysms and colossal earthquakes are recorded in the annals of most nations 
if not of all. Elevation and subsidence of continents is always in progress. The whole coast of 
South America has been raised up 10 to 15 feet and settled down again in an hour. Huxley has shown 
that the British Islands have been four times depressed beneath the ocean and subsequently raised 
again and peopled. The Alps, Himalayas and Cordilleras were all the result of depositions drifted 
on to sea-bottoms and upheaved by Titanic forces to their present elevation. The Sahara was the 
basin of a Miocene sea. Within the last five or six thousand years the shores of Sweden, Denmark 
and Norway, have risen from 200 to 600 feet ; in Scotland there are raised beaches with outlying 
stacks and skerries surmounting the shore now eroded by the hungry wave. The North of Europe is 
still rising from the sea, and South America presents the phenomenon of raised beaches of over 1 ,000 
miles in length, now at a height varying from 100 to 1,000 feet above the sea-level. On the other 
hand, the coast of Greenland is sinking fast, so much so that the Greenlander will not build by the 
shore. All these phenomena are certain. Why then may not a gradual change have given place to a 
violent cataclysm in remote epochs such cataclysms occurring on a minor scale even now, e.g., the 
case of Sunda Islands with the destruction of 80,000 Malays ? 



356 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

2. Hence the commencement of a new race is logically a virtuous one. 

3. The primary source of the geologic basis of the tradition was Asia a 
continent subject to violent earthquakes. Exaggerated accounts would thus 
be handed down the ages. 

4. Egypt, being herself free from earthquakes, nevertheless based her 
not inconsiderable geologic knowledge on these cataclysmal traditions. 

An ingenious " explanation," as all such are ! But proving a negative is 
proverbially a difficult task. Students of Esotoric Science, who know what the 
resources of the Egyptian priesthood really were, need no such laboured 
hypothesis. Moreover, while an imaginative theorist is always able to furnish 
a reasonable solution of problems which, in one branch of Science seem to 
necessitate the hypothesis of periodical cataclysmic changes on the surface of 
our planet, the impartial critic who is not a specialist, will recognize the im- 
mense difficulty of explaining away the cumulative evidences namely, the 
archaeological, ethnological, geological, traditional, botanical, and even 
biological in favour of former continents now submerged. When each 
science is fighting for its own hand, the cumulative force of the evidence is 
almost invariably lost sight of. 

In The Jheosophlst we wrote : 

We have as evidences the most ancient traditions of various and wide-separated 

peoples legends in India, in ancient Greece, Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, and all 

the principal isles of Polynesia, as well as the legends of both Americas. Among 
savages, and in the traditions of the richest literature in the world the Sanskrit 
literature of India there is an agreement in saying, that, ages ago, there existed 
in the Pacific Ocean, a large continent, which by a geological upheaval was en- 
gulfed by the sea l [Lemuria]. And it is our firm belief . . . that most, if not 
all, of the islands from the Malayan Archipelago to Polynesia, are fragments of that 
once immense submerged continent. Both Malacca and Polynesia, which lie at 
the two extremities of the ocean, and which, since the memory of man, never had 
nor could have any intercourse with, or even a knowledge of each other, have yet 
a tradition common to all the islands and islets, that their respective countries 
extended far, far into the sea ; that there were in the world but two immense 
continents, one inhabited by yellow, the other by dark men ; and that the ocean, 
by command of the gods, and to punish them for their incessant quarrelling, 
swallowed them up. Notwithstanding the geographical fact that New Zealand, and 
Sandwich and Easter Islands, are at a distance from each other of between 800 and 
1,000 leagues, and that, according to every testimony, neither these nor any other 
ntermediate islands, for instance, the Marquesan, Society, Fiji, Tahitian, Samoan, 
and other islands, could, since they became islands, ignorant as their people were 
jf the compass, have communicated with each other before the arrival of Euro- 
peans ; yet they one and all maintain that their respective countries extended far 
oward the West, on the Asian side. Moreover with very small differences, they 
ill speak dialects evidently of the same language, and understand each other with 

1 For the opinions of Jacolliot, after long travels through the Polynesian Islands, and his proofs of 
former great geological cataclysm in the Pacific Ocean, see his Histoire des Vierges ; les Peuples et 
ss Continents Disparus, p. 308. 



PROOFS OF SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 357 

little difficulty, have the same religious beliefs and superstitions, and pretty much 
the same customs. And as few of the Polynesian islands were discovered earlier 
than a century ago, and the Pacific Ocean itself was unknown to Europe until the days 
of Columbus, and these islanders have never ceased repeating the same old traditions 
since the Europeans first set foot on their shores, it seems to us a logical inference that 
our theory is nearer to the truth than any other. Chance would have to change its 
name and meaning, were all this due but to chance alone. 1 

Professor Schmidt, writing in defence of the hypothesis of a former 
Lemuria, declares : 

A great series of animal-geographical facts is explicable only on the hypothesis 
of the former existence of a Southern Continent of which the Australian mainland is a 
remnant . . . [The distribution of species] points to the vanished land of the south, 
where perhaps the home of the progenitors of the Maki of Madagascar may also be 
looked for. 2 

Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his Malay Archipelago, arrives at the following 
conclusion after a review of the mass of evidence at hand : 

The inference that we must draw from these facts is undoubtedly that the whole 
of the islands eastwards beyond Java and Borneo do essentially form a part of a former 
Australian or Pacific Continent, although some of them may never have been actually 
joined to it. This continent must have been broken up not only before the Western 
Islands were separated from Asia, but probably before the extreme south-eastern, 
portion of Asia was raised above the waters of the ocean, for a great part of the land 
of Borneo and Java is known to be geologically of quite recent formation:* 

According to Haeckel : 

Probably Southern Asia itself was not the earliest cradle of the human race ; but 
Lemuria, a continent that lay to the South of Asia, and sank later on beneath the 
surface of the Indian Ocean. 4 

In one sense Haeckel is right as to Lemuria the 4< cradle of the human, 
race." That Continent was the home of the first physical human stock the 
later Third Race Men. Previous to that epoch the Races were far less con- 
solidated and physiologically quite different. Haeckel makes Lemuria extend 
from Sunda Island to Africa and Madagascar and eastwards to Upper India. 

Professor Rutimeyer, the eminent Palaeontologist, asks : 

Need the conjecture that the almost exclusively graminivorous and insectivorous 
marsupials, sloths, armadilloes, ant-eaters and ostriches, once possessed an actual point 
of union in a Southern Continent of which the present flora of Terra del Fuego and 
Australia must be the remains need this conjecture raise difficulties at a moment 
when, from their fossil remains, Heer restores to our sight the ancient forests of 
Smith's Sound and Spitzbergen ? ; ' 

Having now dealt generally with the broad scientific attitude on the two 
questions, it will, perhaps, conduce to an agreeable brevity, if we sum up the 

1 August, 1880, p. 279. 

2 Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, pp. 236-7. Cf. also his lengthy arguments on the subject, 
pp. 231-5. 

3 Op. cit., i, 22-3. Ed. 1869. 4 Pedigree of Man. p. 73. 
' Cited in Schmidt's Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, p. 238. 



358 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

more striking isolated facts in favour of that fundamental contention of 
Esoteric Ethnologists the reality of Atlantis. Lemuria is so widely accepted, 
that further pursuit of the subject is unnecessary. With regard, however, to 
the former, it is found that : 

1. The Miocene flora of Europe have their most numerous and striking 
analogues in the flora of the United States. In the forests of Virginia and 
Florida are found the magnolias, tulip-trees, evergreen oaks, plane trees, etc., 
which correspond with European Tertiary flora, term for term. How was the 
migration effected, if we exclude the theory of an Atlantic Continent bridging 
the ocean between America and Europe? The proposed " explanation " to 
the effect that the transition was by way of Asia and the Aleutian Islands is a 
mere uncalled-for theory, obviously upset by the fact that a large humber of 
these flora only appear east of the Rocky Mountains. This also negatives 
the idea of a trans-Pacific migration. They are now superseded by European 
continents and islands to the North. 

2. Skulls exhumed on the banks of the Danube and Rhine bear a 
striking similarity to those of the Caribs and Old Peruvians (Littre). Monu- 
ments have been exhumed in Central America, which bear representations of 
undoubted negro heads and faces. How are such facts to be accounted for 
except on the Atlantean hypothesis ? What is now N. W. Africa was once 
connected with Atlantis by a network of islands, few of which now remain. 

3. According to Farrar the "isolated language " of the Basques has 
no affinities with the other languages of Europe, 1 but with : 

The aboriginal languages of the vast opposite continent [America] and those 
alone. 2 

Professor Broca is also of the same opinion. 

Palaeolithic European man of the Miocene and Pliocene times was a 
pure Atlantean, as we have previously stated The Basques are, of course, 
of a much later date than this, but their affinities, as here shown, go far to 
prove the original extraction of their remote ancestors. The "mysterious" 
affinity between their tongue and that of the Dravidian races of India will be 
understood by those who have followed our outline of continental formations 
and shiftings. 

1 For further facts as to the isolation of the Basques in Europe and their ethnological relations, see 
Joly, Man before Metals, p. 316. B. Davis is disposed to concede, from an examination of the skulls 
of the Guanches of the Canary Islands and modern Basques, that both belong to a race proper to 
those ancient islands, of which the Canaries are the remains ! This is a step in advance indeed. De 
Quatrefages and Hamy also both assign the Cro-Magnon men of South France and the Guanches to 
one type a proposition which involves a certain corollary which both these writers may not care to 
father. 

- Families of Speech. 



PROOFS OF SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 359 

4. Stones have been found in the Canary Islands bearing sculptured 
symbols similar to those found on the shore of Lake Superior. Berthollet was 
induced by such evidence to postulate the unity of race of the early men of 
Tthe Canary Islands and America. 1 

The Guanches of the Canary Islands were lineal descendants of the 
Atlantearcs. This fact will account for the great stature evidenced by their old 
skeletons, as well as by those of their European congeners, the Cro-Magnon 
'Palaeolithic men. 

5. Any experienced mariner has but to navigate the fathomless ocean 
along the Canary Islands to ask himself the question when or how that group 
of volcanic and rocky little islands has been formed, surrounded on every side 
iby that vast watery space. Frequent questions of this kind led finally to the 
expedition of the famous Leopold von Buch, which took place in the first 
quarter of the present century. Some Geologists maintained that the volcanic 
islands had been raised right from the bottom of the ocean, the depth of 
which in the immediate vicinity of the island varies from 6,000 to 18,000 feet. 
Others were inclined to see in these groups including Madeira, the Azores, 
and the islands of Cape de Verde the remnants-] of a gigantic but sub- 
merged continent which had once united Africa with America, The 
latter men of Science supported therr hypothesis by a mass of evidence 
in its favour, drawn from ancient "myths." Hoary "superstitions," such 
as the fairy-like Atlantis of Plato, the Garden of the Hesperides, Atlas 
-supporting the world on his shoulders, all of them mythoi connected with the 
Peak of Teneriffe, did not go far with sceptical Science. The identity of 
animal and vegetable species, showing either a previous connection between 
America and the remaining groups of the islands the hypothesis of their 
having been drifted from the New to the Old World by the waves was too 
absurd to stand long found more serious consideration. But it is only quite 
lately, and after Donnelly's book had been published several years, that the 
theory has had a greater chance than ever of becoming an accepted fact. 
Fossils found on the Eastern Coast of South America have now been proved to 
belong to the Jurassic formations, and are nearly identical with the Jurassic 
fossils of Western Europe aod Northern Africa. The geological structure of 
both coasts is also almost identical ; the resemblance between the smaller 
marine animals dwelling in the more shallow waters of the South American, 
the Western African, and the South European coasts, is also very great. All 
such facts are bound to bring Naturalists to the conclusion that there has 
taeen, in distant pre-historic ages, a continent which extended from the coast of 

1 Cf., Benjamin, The Atlantic Islands, p. 130. 



360 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Venezuela, across the Atlantic Ocean, to the Canarese Islands and North 
Africa, and from Newfoundland nearly to the coast of France. 

6. The great resemblance between the Jurassic fossils of South America,. 
North Africa, and Western Europe is a striking enough fact in itself, and 
admits of no explanation, unless the ocean is bridged with an Atlantis. But 
why, also, is there so marked a similarity between the fauna of the (now) 
solated Atlantic islands ? Why did* the specimens of Brazilian fauna dredged 
up by Sir C. Wyville Thompson resemble those of Western Europe? Why 
does a resemblance exist between many of the West African and West Indian 
animal groups ? Again : 

When the animals and plants of the Old and New World are compared, one 
cannot but be struck with their identity ; all, or nearly all, belong to the same genera, 
while many, even of the species, are common to both continents . . . indicating 
that they radiated from a common centre [Atlantis]. 1 

The horse, according to Science, originated in America. At least, a 
large proportion of the once " missing links " connecting it with inferior forms 
have been exhumed from American strata. How did the horse penetrate into 
Europe and Asia, if no land communication bridged the oceanic interspaces ? 
Or if it is asserted that the horse originated in the Old World, how did such 
forms as the hipparion, etc., get into America in the first instance on the 
migration hypothesis ? 

Again : 

Buffon had . . . remarked the repetition of the African in the American fauna,, 
how, for example, the llama is a juvenescent and feeble copy of the camel, and how 
the puma of the New represents the lion of the Old World.- 

7. The following quotation runs with No. 2, but its significance is such and 
the writer cited is so authoritative, that it deserves a place to itself : 

With regard to the primitive dolichocephalae of America, I entertain a hypothesis 
still more bold, namely, that they are nearly related to the Guanches of the Canary 
Islands, and to the Atlantic populations of Africa, the Moors, Tuaricks, Copts, which 
Latham comprises under the name of Egyptian-Atlantidae. We find one and the same 
form of skull in the Canary Islands, in front of the African coast, and in the Carib Islands, 
on the opposite coast which faces Africa. The colour of the skin on both sides of the 
Atlantic is represented in these populations as being of a reddish-brown. 11 

If, then, Basques and Cro-Magnon Cave*Men are of the same race as 
the Canarese Guanches, it follows that the former are also allied to the 
aborigines of America. This is the conclusion necessitated by the independent 
investigations of Retzius, Virchow, and de Quatrefages. The Atlantean 
affinities of these three types become patent. 

1 Westminster Review. Jan., 1872. 2 Schmidt, Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, p. 223. 

3 Professor Retzius, Smithsonian Report, 1859, p. 266. 



PROOFS OF SUBMERGED CONTINENTS 361 

8. The sea-soundings undertaken by H.M.S. "Challenger" and the 
" Dolphin," have established the fact that a huge elevation some 3,000 miles 
in length, projecting upwards from the abysmal depths of the Atlantic, extends 
from a point near the British Islands southwards, curving round near Cape de 
Verde, and running in a south-easterly direction along the West African coast. 
This elevation averages some 9,000 feet in height, and rises above the waves at 
the Azores, Ascension, and other places. In the ocean depths around the 
neighbourhood of the former the ribs of a once massive piece of land have 
been discovered. 1 

The inequalities, the mountains and valleys of its surface could never have been, 
produced in accordance with any known laws for the deposition of sediment, nor by 
submarine elevation ; but, on the contrary, must have been carved by agencies acting 
above the water-level/ 

It is most probable that necks of land formerly existed knitting Atlantis to- 
South America, somewhere above the mouth of the Amazon, to Africa near 
Cape de Verde, while a similar point of juncture with Spain is not unlikely, as 
contended for by Donnelly. 3 Whether the latter existed or not, is of no 
consequence, in view of the fact that what is now N.W. Africa was before 
the elevation of the Sahara and the rupture of the Gibraltar connection an. 
extension of Spain. Consequently no difficulty can be raised as to how the 
migration of the European fauna, etc., took place. 

Enough has now been said from the purely scientific standpoint, and it 
is needless, in view of the manner in which the subject has already been 
developed on the lines of Esoteric Knowledge, to swell the mass of testimony 
further. In conclusion, the words of one of the most intuitive writers of the 
day may be cited as admirably illustrative of the opinions of the Occultist, who 
awaits in patience the dawn of the coming day : 

We are but beginning to understand the past ; one hundred years ago the world 
knew nothing of Pompeii or Herculaneum ; nothing of the lingual tie that binds together 
the Indo-European nations ; nothing of the significance of the vast volume of inscriptions, 
upon the tombs and temples of Egypt ; nothing of the meaning of the arrow-headed 
inscriptions of Babylon ; nothing of the marvellous civilizations revealed in the remains of 
Yucatan, Mexico, and Peru. We are on the threshold. Scientific investigation is advanc- 
ing with giant strides. Who shall say that one hundred years from now, the great 
museums of the world may not be adorned with gems, statues, arms, and implements 
from Atlantis, while the libraries of the world shall contain translations of its inscriptions, 
throwing new light upon all the past history of the human race, and all the great 
problems which now perplex the thinkers of to-day. 4 

And now to conclude. 

1 See the investigations of United States ship " Dolphin " and others. 

2 Scientific American, July 28th, 1877. 

: * See his chart, Atlantis, p. 46, though he deals with only a fragment of the real Continent. 
4 Donnelly, Atlantis, p. 480. 



362 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

CONCLUSION 

We have concerned ourself with the ancient records of the nations, with 
the doctrine of chronological and psychic cycles, of which these records are 
the tangible proof ; and with many other subjects, which may, at first sight, 
seem out of place in this Volume. But they are necessary in truth. In deal- 
ing with the secret annals and traditions of so many nations, whose very 
origins have never been ascertained on more secure grounds than inferential 
suppositions, in giving out the beliefs and philosophy of more than pre-historic 
races, it is not quite as easy to deal with the subject matter as it would be if 
only the philosophy and evolution of one special race, were concerned. The 
.SECRET DOCTRINE was the common property of the countless millions of men 
born under various climates, in times with which history refuses to deal, and 
to which Esoteric Teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of 
Geology and Anthropology. The birth and evolution of the Sacred Science 
of the Past are lost in the very night of Time, and that even which is historic 
/.e., that which is found scattered hither and thither throughout ancient 
classical literature is, in almost every case, attributed by modern criticism to 
lack of observation in the ancient writers, or to superstition born out of the ignor- 
ance of antiquity. It is, therefore, impossible to treat this subject as one would the 
ordinary evolution of an art or science in some well-known historical nation. It 
is only by bringing before the reader an abundance of proofs all tending to show 
that in every age, under every condition of civilization and knowledge, the 
educated classes of every nation made themselves the more or less faithful 
echoes of one identical system and its fundamental traditions that he can be 
made to see that so many streams of the same water must have had a com- 
mon source from which they started. What was this source? If coming 
events are said to cast their shadows before, past events cannot fail to leave 
their impress behind them. It is, then, by those shadows of the hoary Past 
and their fantastic silhouettes on the external screen of every Religion and 
Philosophy, that we can, by checking them as we go along and comparing 
them, trace out finally the body that produced them. There must be truth 
and fact in that which every people of antiquity accepted and made the 
foundation of its religions and its faith. Moreover, as Haliburton sa'd : 

Hear one side, and you will be in the dark, hear both sides, and all will be 
<:lear. 

The public has hitherto had access to, and has heard but one side, or 
rather the one-sided views of two diametrically opposed classes of men, whose 
prims facie propositions or respective premisses differ widely, but whose final 



CONCLUSION 363 

conclusions are the same the men of Science and Theology. And now our 
readers have an opportunity of hearing the other, and so of learning the 
defendants' justification and the nature of our arguments. 

If the public is to be left to its old opinions namely, on one side, that 
Occultism, Magic, the legends of old, etc., are all the outcome of ignorance 
and superstition ; and on the other, that everything outside the orthodox 
groove is the work of the devil what will be the result? In other words, 
had no Theosophical and Mystic literature obtained a hearing for the last few 
years, the present work would have had but a poor chance of impartial con- 
sideration. It would have been proclaimed and by many will still be pro- 
claimed a fairy tale woven out of abstruse problems, poised in, and based 
on the air ; built of soap-bubbles, bursting at the slightest touch of serious 
reflection, with no foundation to stand upon. Even the ancient " superstitious 
and credulous " classical writers have no word of reference to it in clear and 
unmistakable terms, and the symbols themselves fail to yield a hint of the 
existence of such a system. Such would be the verdict of all. But when it 
becomes undeniably proven that the claim of the modern Asiatic nations to a 
Secret Science and an Esoteric History of the world is based on fact ; that 
though hitherto unknown to the masses and a veiled mystery even to the 
learned because they have never had the key to a right understanding of 
the abundant hints thrown out by the ancient classics it is still no fairy tale, 
but an actuality ; then the present work will become but the pioneer of many 
more such books. The statement that hitherto even the keys discovered by 
some great scholars have proved too rusty for use, and that they are but the 
silent witnesses that there do exist mysteries behind the veil which are unreach- 
able without a new key, is borne out by too many proofs to be easily dis- 
missed. An instance may be given as an illustration out of the history of 
Freemasonry. 

In his Magonnerie Occulte, Ragon, an illustrious and learned Belgian 
Mason, rightly or wrongly reproaches the English Masons with having material- 
ized and dishonoured Masonry, once based upon the Ancient Mysteries, by 
adopting, owing to a mistaken notion of the origin of the craft, the name of 
"Free Masonry" and "Free Masons." The mistake is due, he says, to 
those who connect Masonry with the building of Solomon's Temple. He 
derides the idea, and says : 

The Frenchman knew well, when he adopted the title of Freemason, that it was 
no question of building the smallest wall but that, initiated into the Mysteries veiled 
under the name of Freemasonry, which could only be the continuation or the renovation' 
of the ancient Mysteries, he was to become a " Mason " after the manner of Apollo or 
Amphion. And do not we know that the ancient initiated poets, when speaking of the 



364 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

foundation of a city, meant thereby the establishment of a doctrine ? Thus Neptune, 
God of reasoning, and Apollo, God of hidden things, presented themselves as masons 
before Laomedon, Priam's father, to help him to build the city of Troy that is to say, 
to establish the Trojan religion. 1 

Such veiled sentences with double meaning abound in ancient classical 
writers. Therefore, if an attempt had been made to show that, for instance, 
Laomedon was the founder of a branch of Archaic Mysteries, in which the 
earth-bound material soul, the Fourth Principle, was personified in Menelaus' 
faithless wife, the fair Helen, and if Ragon had not come to corroborate what 
we asserted, we might have been told that no classical author speaks of it, 
and that Homer shows Laomedon building a city, not founding an Esoteric 
Worship or MYSTERIES. Who are those left now, save a few Initiates, who 
understand the language and correct meaning of such symbolical terms? 

But though we have pointed to many a misconceived symbol bearing 
on our thesis, there still remains more than one difficulty to be overcome. 
Most important among several such obstacles is that of chronology. But this 
could hardly be helped. Wedged in between theological chronology and 
that of the Geologists, backed by all the materialistic Anthropologists, who 
assign dates to man and nature which fit in with their own theories alone 
what could the writer do except what she has done ? Since Theology places 
the Deluge 2448 B.C., and the World's Creation only 5890 years ago ; and 
since the accurate researches by the methods of " exact " Science, have led 
the Geologists and Physicists to assign to the incrusted age of our Globe 
between ten million and one thousand million of years - (a trifling difference,, 
verily !) ; and since the Anthropologists, to vary their divergence of opinion 
as to the appearance of man, ask for between 25,000 and 500,000 years what 
can one who studies the Occult Doctrine do, but bravely present the Esoteric 
calculations before the world ? 

But to do this, corroboration by even a few " historical " proofs has 
been necessary, though all know the real value of the so-called " historical 
evidence." For, whether man appeared on Earth 18,000 or 18,000,000 years 
ago, can make no difference to profane history, since it only begins about 
a couple of thousand years before our era, and since, even then, it grapples 
hopelessly with the clash and din of contradictory and mutually-destroying 
opinions around it. Nevertheless, in view of the respect in which the average 
reader has been brought up for exact Science, even 'that short Past would 
remain meaningless, unless the Esoteric Teachings were corroborated and 

1 Orthodoxie Ma$onnique, p. 44, [of which Mafonner/e Occulte is the latter half. See p. 146 for 
full title.] 

- Vide Sir William Thompson and Mr. Huxley. 



CONCLUSION 365 

supported on the spot whenever possible by references to historical names 
of a so-called historical period. This is the only guide that can be given to 
the beginner before he is permitted to start among the, to him, unfamiliar 
windings of that dark labyrinth called the pre-historic ages. This necessity 
has been complied with. It is only hoped that the desire to do so, which 
has led the writer to be constantly bringing ancient and modern evidence as 
a corroboration of the archaic and quite unhistoric Past, will not bring on her 
the accusation of having sorely jumbled up, without order or method, the 
various and widely-separated periods of history and tradition. But literary 
form and method had to be sacrificed to the greater clearness of the general 
exposition. 

To accomplish the proposed task, the writer has had to resort to the 
rather unusual means of dividing each Volume into three Parts ; * the first 
of which only is the consecutive, though very fragmentary, history of 
the Cosmogony and the Evolution of Man on this Globe. But these two 
Volumes had to serve as a PROLOGUE, and prepare the reader's mind for 
those which shall now follow/' In treating of Cosmogony and then 
of the Anthropogenesis of mankind, it was necessary to show that 
no religion, from the very earliest, has ever been based entirely on 
fiction, that none was the object of special revelation, and that it is dogma 
alone which has ever been killing primeval truth ; finally, that no human-born 
doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and antiquity, can compare 
in sacredness with the religion of Nature. The Key of Wisdom that unlocks 
the massive gates leading to the arcana of the innermost sanctuaries can be 
found hidden in her bosom only ; and that bosom is in the countries pointed 
to by the great seer of the past century, Emanuel Swedenborg. There lies 
the Heart of Nature, that shrine whence issued the early races of primeval 
humanity, and which is the cradle of physical man. 

Thus far have proceeded the rough outlines of the beliefs and tenets 
of the archaic, earliest Races, contained in their hitherto secret scriptural 
Records. But our explanations are by no means complete, nor do they 
pretend to give out the full text, or to have been read by the help of more 
than three or four keys out of the sevenfold bunch of Esoteric interpretation ; 
and even this has only been partially accomplished. The work is too gigantic 
for any one person to undertake, far more to accomplish. Our main 
concern has been simply to prepare the soil. This, we trust we have done. 

1 [In the 1888 edition and followed in the 1893 edition.] 

2 [As H. P. Blavatsky died before she could complete the promised two Volumes, what remained 
of her MSS. is found in Vol. 5 of this edition , former Volume iii, 1897.] 



366 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

These two Volumes 1 only constitute the work of a pioneer who has forced his 
way into the well-nigh impenetrable jungle of the virgin forests of the Land of 
the Occult. A commencement has been made in felling and uprooting the 
deadly upas trees of superstition, prejudice, and conceited ignorance, so that 
these two Volumes should form for the student a fitting prelude for other 
works. Until the rubbish of the ages is cleared away from the minds of the 
Theosophists to whom these pages are dedicated, it is impossible that the 
more practical teaching contained in the Third Volume should be understood. 
Consequently, it entirely depends upon the reception with which Volumes If 
and II shall meet at the hands of Theosophists and Mystics, whether the last 
Volume will ever be published. 2 

1 [Volumes 1-4 in this Edition.] 

- [See " How THE SECRET DOCTRINE was Written," Vol. 1, pp. 18, et seq.] 



SATYAT NASTI PARO DHARMAH 
THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH 



ADDITIONAL NOTES 

Opus Operatum, p. 53 

This technical expression conveys the sense of the vwork (of charity or sacrifice) 
having been completed. It has come to be used in an almost exclusively theological 
sense to mean " the act conveys grace irrespectively of the receiver." (Brewer). 

Pistis Sophia, p. 136, footnote. 

This important document was translated by G.R.S. Mead, Madame Blavatsky's 
secretary and pupil and a competent Greek scholar. It appeared first in Lucifer 
(a magazine edited by Madame Blavatsky during her life-time) beginning April, 
1890, p. 107. 

It was afterwards published as a book by the Theosophical Publishing Society, 
London, 1896. 

Diapason Harmony, p. 172. 

A student suggests that the diapason harmony contains only six tones ; and 
further, that the total number of tones mentioned in the text appears to add up to 6. 
(See Pythagoras, p 93. Wheaton, III., U.S. A , Theosophical Press. 1938.) 

Bagavatam, etc. p. 191 

Bagavatam, Paccham Rudu (Ritu) Ayanam, are colloquial Tamil forms of the 
Sanskrit word Bhagavatam, Paksha, Ritu and Ayana. 

The impenetrable Rajah, p. 193. 

Rajah (Rajah) is another, a case form, of Rajas. It means " dust " in the 
classical Sanskrit ; and in Vedic language, means lolca or world. 

Manu-V/na, p. 316. 

See Isis Unveiled, I, p. 627, where the story of Manu-Vina is told as follows : 
" Under the reign of Vishvamitra, first king of the Dynasty of Soma-Vanga, in conse- 
quence of a battle which lasted five days, Manu-Vina, heir of the ancient kings, being 
abandoned by the Brahmans, emigrated with all his companions, passing through Arya, 
and the countries of Barria, till he came to the shores of Masra " (History of India, by 
Kulluka-Bhatta). Unquestionably this Manu-Vina and Menes, the first Egyptian king 
are identical. 

Arya, is Eran Persia ; Barria, is Arabia, and Masra was the name of Cairo, which 
to this day is called, Masr, Musr, and Misro .... 



.368 



THE SECRET DOCTRINE 



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BIBLIOGRAPHY 

BOOKS in the Adyar Library from which quotations have been verified : 

Anugita, The, Trans. K.T. Telang, M.A. Sacred Books of the East Series, Oxford. Claren- 
don Press. 1908. 

Asgard and the Gods, Dr. W. Wagner, adapted by M. W. MacDowall. London. Swan, 
Sonnenschein, Le Bas and Lowry, 1886. 

Atlantis. The Antediluvian World, Ignatius Donnelly. New York. Harper and Brothers. 
1882. 

Bhagavad Gita, The, Trans. K.T. Telang, M.A. Sacred Books of the East Series. Oxford, 
Clarendon Press. 1908. 

Book of God, The, (Kenealy) London. Reeves and Turner, No date. 

C//mate and lime, James Croll, London. Dalby, Isbiston & Co. 1875. 

Coming and Evolution of Life, The, H.E.Crampton. London. Chapman and Hall. 

Descent of Man, The, Charles Darwin. London. John Murray. 1890. 

Esoteric Buddhism, A. P. Sinnett, eighth ed. London. The Theosophical Publishing 

House. 1918. 

Esprits, Des, J. E. De Mirville. Paris. H. Vrayet de Surcy. 1863. 
Five Years of Theosophy, The Theosophical Publishing Society. 1885. 
Hindu Pantheon, The, Edward Moor, F.R.S. London. J. Johnson, 1810. 
Human Species, The, A. de Quatrefages. London. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trtibner & Co. 

Ltd. 5th ed. 1890. 
India : What can it Teach us ? F. Max Muller, K.M London. Longmans Green & Co. 

1883. 
Iranians, Civilization of the Eastern, Dr.W.Geiger, trans, by Darab Dastur Peshotan 

SanganS, B.A.. London. Henry Frowde, 1885-86. 2 Vols. 
Isis Unveiled, H. P. Blavatsky. New York. J. W. Bouton. 1886. 
Kabbalah, The, Adolf Franck ; revised and trans. Dr. T. Sossnitz. New York. The 

Kabbalah Publishing Co. 1926. 
Kabbalah Unveiled, The, trans. S.L.Macgregor Mathers. London. George Redway. 

1887. 
Life and Religion, New Aspects of, Henry Pratt, M.D. London. Williams and Norgate 

1886. 

Ma$onnerie Occulte, La, J.-M.Ragon. Paris. E. Dentu. 1853. 
Mahatma Letters to A.P.Sinnett, The, Compiled by A.Trevor Barker. London. Rider & 

Co. 1930. 

Man Before Metals, N. Joly. London. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd. 1892. 
Man's Place in Nature, T.H.Huxley. London. Macmillan & Co. Ltd. 1900. 
Modern Science and Modern Thought, S.Laing. London. Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 1902. 
Modern Zoroastrian, A, S. Laing. London. F. V. White & Co. 1887. 
Mythical Monsters, Charles Gould. London. W. H. Allen & Co. 1886. 
Natural Genesis, The, Gerald Massey. London. Williams and Norgate. 1883. 
Paracelsus, Franz Hartmann, M.D. London. George Redway. 1887. 
Phallicism, Hargrave Jennings. London. George Redway. 1884. 

F 24 



370 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 

Psychology, The Principles of, Herbert Spencer. London. Williams and Norgate. 3rd 

ed. 1881. 

Qabbalah, trans. Isaac Myer, LL.B. Philadelphia. Published by the Author. 1888. 
Religions of India, The, A. Barth, trans. Rev. J. Wood. London. Trubner & Co. 1882. 
Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and Quiches, A. Le Plongeon. New York. Robert 

Macoy. 1886. 
Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus. Trans, from the original Sanskrit by 

H. H. Wilson. 3rd ed., 2 Vols. These two Vols. constitute Vols. xi and xii of 

works by Horace Hayman Wilson. London. Trubner & Co. 1871. 
Source of Measures, The, J. Ralston Skinner. MS. 
Source of Measures, The Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery, J. Ralston Skinner. 

Philadelphia. David McKay Company. (No date.) 
Vishnu Purana, The, trans. H.H.Wilson ; edited by Fitzedward Hall. London. Trubner 

& Co. 5. Vols. 1864-70. 
World-Life or Comparative Geology, Alexander Winchell. Chicago. S.C.Griggs & 

Co. 1883. 
Zend-Avesta, The, trans. J. Darmesteter. Sacred Books of the East Series. Oxford. 

Clarendon Press. 1880. 



ADDITIONAL BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, G.R.S. Mead. London. The Theosophical Publishing 

House. 1906. 2nd ed. 

Pistis Sophia, G.R.S. Mead. London. John M. Watkins. 1921. 
Echoes from the Gnosis, G.R.S. Mead. London. Theosophical Publishing Society. 

1907-18. 11 Vols. Including: Hymn of Jesus, Tfie, Vol. vi. Mysteries of Mithra, 

Vol. v. Chaldean Oracles, Vols. viii, ix. Hymns of Hermes, Vol. ii. 
Gnosis or Ancient Wisdom in the Christian Scriptures, The, William Kingsland. London. 

George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. 1936. 
Graces of Interior Prayer, The, Rev. A. Poulain. London. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner 

& Co. Ltd. 

Science of Living, The, Alfred Adlar. London. George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. 
Creative Evolution, Henri Bergson. London. Macmillan & Co. Ltd. 
Psychology of the Unconscious, C.G. Jung. London. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. 

Ltd. 1919. 

Social Psychology, William McDougall, F.R.S. London. Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1924. 19th ed. 
Psychology, The Study of Behaviour, William McDougall, F.R.S. London. Williams & 

Norgate. 

Psychology, Principles of, William James. London. Macmillan & Co. Ltd. 1891. 2. Vols. 
Ego and the Id, The, Sigmund Freud. London. Hogarth Press. 
Science and New Civilization, R.A. Milligan. London. Scribner's. 1930. 
Evo/ut/on in Science and Religion, R.A. Milligan, London. Oxford University Press. 1927. 
Time, Matter and Value, R.A. Milligan. London. Oxford University Press. 1932. 



ADDITIONAL BOOKS FOR REFERENCE 371 

Birth of Indian Psychology and its Development in Buddhism, The, Mrs. Rhys Davids, 

D. Litt. London. Luzac & Co. 1936. 
Philosophy of Religion, Lectures on the, G.W, F.Hegel, trans. E.B. Spiers, B.D. London. 

Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd. 1895. 2 Vols. 

Science of Thought, The, F. Max Muller. London. Longmans, Green & Co. 1887. 
Age of the Earth, The, Arthur Holmes, D.Sc., A.R.C.S. London. Ernest Benn, Ltd. 
Earth and Its Cycles, The, E.W. Preston, M.Sc. London. The Theosophical Publishing 

House. 1931. 
Essays upon Heredity, Dr. August Weismann. Authorised trans. Edited by Edward 

B. Poulton, M.A., F.L.S.. F.G.S. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1889. 

History of the Dew/, The, Dr. Paul Carus. Chicago. The Open Court Publishing Co. 1900. 
Science and Music, Sir J. Jeans. London. Cambridge University Press, 1937. 
History of Babylon, A, Leonard W. King, Litt. D. F.S.A. London. Chatto & Windus. 1919- 
Teutonic Mythology, Viktor Rydberg, Ph.D. trans, from the Swedish by Rasmus 

B. Anderson, LLD. London. Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 1889. 



ERRATA 



Page 



82 


line 26 


103 


11 


140 


Footnote 1 


142 


line 20 


197 


11 


201 


1 


203 


No. 2 in list 


258 


Footnote 1 


283 


5 


332 


1 


360 


line 7 



For princple read principle, 
,, secrect read secret. 
,, out read but. 
,, Hardwar read Hardwar. 
,, distinguished read distinguish. 
,, lockinging read locking. 
,, breath of fife read breath of 

life. 

,, series read sires. 
,, milion read million. 
,, pp. 5-7 read vs. 5-7. 
,, solated read isolated.