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COSMIC EVOLUTION

The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky — Vol. 1
Theosophical University Press Online Edition
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FACTS AND EXPLANATIONS CONCERNING THE MONADS AND THE GLOBES

Vol. 1, Page 296 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

Neither the Occultists generally, nor the Theosophists, reject, as erroneously believed by some, the views and theories of the modern scientists, only because these views are opposed to Theosophy. The first rule of our Society is to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. The Theosophists, therefore, are the first to recognize the intrinsic value of science. But when its high priests resolve consciousness into a secretion from the grey matter of the brain, and everything else in nature into a mode of motion, we protest against the doctrine as being unphilosophical, self-contradictory, and simply absurd, from a scientific point of view, as much and even more than from the occult aspect of the esoteric knowledge.

For truly the astral light of the derided Kabalists has strange and weird secrets for him who can see in it; and the mysteries concealed within its incessantly disturbed waves are there, the whole body of Materialists and scoffers notwithstanding.* These secrets, along with

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* The astral light of the Kabalists is very incorrectly translated by some “Aether;” the latter is confused with the hypothetical Ether of Science, and both are referred to by some theosophists as synonymous with Akasa. This is a great mistake.
“A characteristic of Akasa will serve to show how inadequately it is represented by Ether,” writes the author of Rational Refutations, thus unconsciously helping Occultism. “In dimension it is infinite; it is not made up of parts; and colour, taste, smell, and tangibility do not appertain to it. So far forth it corresponds exactly to time, space, Isvara, (“The Lord,” but rather creative potency and soul — anima mundi). Its speciality, as compared therewith, consists in its being the material cause of sound. Except for its being so, one might take it to be one with vacuity” (p. 120.)
It is vacuity, no doubt, especially for Rationalists. At any rate Akasa is sure to produce vacuity in the brain of a materialist. Nevertheless, though Akasa is not that Ether of Science, not even the Ether of the Occultist, who defines the latter as one of the principles of Akasa only, it is as certainly, together with its primary, the cause of sound, only a physical and spiritual, not a material cause by any means. The relations [[Footnote continued on next page]]

Vol. 1, Page 297 NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN.

many other mysteries, will remain non-existent to the materialists of our age, in the same way as America was a non-existent myth for Europeans during the early part of the mediaeval ages, whereas Scandinavians and Norwegians had actually reached and settled in that very old “New World” several centuries before. But, as a Columbus was born to re-discover, and to force the Old World to believe in Antipodal countries, so will there be born scientists who will discover the marvels now claimed by Occultists to exist in the regions of Ether, with their varied and multiform denizens and conscious Entities. Then, nolens volens, Science will have to accept the old “Superstition,” as it has several others. And having been once forced to accept it — judging from past experience — its learned professors will, in all probability, as in the case of Mesmerism and Magnetism, now re-baptised Hypnotism, father the thing and reject its name. The choice of the new appellation will depend, in its turn, on the “modes of motion,” the new name for the older “automatic physical processes among the nerve fibrils of the (Scientific) brain” of Moleschott; as also, very likely, upon the last meal of the namer; since, according to the Founder of the new Hylo-Idealistic Scheme, “Cerebration is generically the same as chylification.”* Thus, were one to believe this preposterous proposition, the new name of the archaic thing would have to take its chance, on the inspiration of the namer’s liver, and then only would these truths have a chance of becoming scientific!

But truth, however distasteful to the generally blind majorities, has always had her champions, ready to die for her, and it is not the Occultists who will protest against its adoption by Science under whatever new name. But, until absolutely forced on the notice and acceptance of Scientists, many an Occult truth will be tabooed, as the phenomena of the Spiritualists and other psychic manifestations were, to be finally appropriated by its ex-traducers without the least acknowledgment or thanks. Nitrogen has added considerably to chemical knowledge, but its discoverer, Paracelsus, is to this day called a “quack.”

Footnote(s) ———————————————
[[Footnote continued from previous page]] of Ether to Akasa may be defined by applying to both Akasa and Ether the words said of the god in the Vedas, “So himself was indeed (his own) son,” one being the progeny of the other and yet itself. This may be a difficult riddle to the profane, but very easy to understand for any Hindu — though not even a mystic.
* National Reformer, January 9th, 1887. Article “Phreno-Kosmo-Biology,” by Dr. Lewins.

Vol. 1, Page 298 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

How profoundly true are the words of H. T. Buckle, in his admirable “History of Civilization” (Vol. I., p. 256), when he says: —

“Owing to circumstances still unknown (Karmic provision, H.P.B.) there appear from time to time great thinkers, who, devoting their lives to a single purpose, are able to anticipate the progress of mankind, and to produce a religion or a philosophy by which important effects are eventually brought about. But if we look into history we shall clearly see that, although the origin of a new opinion may be thus due to a single man, the result which the new opinion produces will depend on the condition of the people among whom it is propagated. If either a religion or a philosophy is too much in advance of a nation it can do no present service but must bide its time* until the minds of men are ripe for its reception. . . . Every science, every creed has had its martyrs. According to the ordinary course of affairs, a few generations pass away, and then there comes a period when these very truths are looked upon as commonplace facts, and a little later there comes another period in which they are declared to be necessary, and even the dullest intellect wonders how they could ever have been denied.”

It is barely possible that the minds of the present generations are not quite ripe for the reception of Occult truths. Such will be the retrospect furnished to the advanced thinkers of the Sixth Root Race of the history of the acceptance of Esoteric Philosophy — fully and unconditionally. Meanwhile the generations of our Fifth Race will continue to be led away by prejudice and preconceptions. Occult Sciences will have the finger of scorn pointed at them from every street corner, and everyone will seek to ridicule and crush them in the name, and for the greater glory, of Materialism and its so-called Science. The Addendum which completes the present Book shows, however, in an anticipatory answer to several of the forthcoming Scientific objections, the true and mutual positions of the defendant and plaintiff. The Theosophists and Occultists stand arraigned by public opinion, which still holds high the banner of the inductive Sciences. The latter have, then, to be examined; and it must be shown how far their achievements and discoveries in the realm of natural laws are opposed, not so much to our claims, as to the facts in nature. The hour has now struck to ascertain whether the

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* This is Cyclic law, but this law itself is often defied by human stubbornness.

Vol. 1, Page 299 MEN WELCOME ERROR, AND CRUCIFY THE TRUTH.

walls of the modern Jericho are so impregnable that no blast of the Occult trumpet is ever likely to make them crumble.

The so-called Forces, with Light and Electricity heading them, and the constitution of the Solar orb must be carefully examined; as also Gravitation and the Nebular theories. The Natures of Ether and of other Elements must be discussed: thus contrasting scientific with other Occult teachings, while revealing some of the hitherto secret tenets of the latter. (Vide Addendum.)

Some fifteen years ago, the writer was the first to repeat, after the Kabalists, the wise Commandments in the Esoteric Catechism. “Close thy mouth, lest thou shouldst speak of this (the mystery), and thy heart, lest thou shouldst think aloud; and if thy heart has escaped thee, bring it back to its place, for such is the object of our alliance.” (Sepher Jezireh, Book of Creation.) And again: — “This is a secret which gives death: close thy mouth lest thou shouldst reveal it to the vulgar; compress thy brain lest something should escape from it and fall outside.” (Rules of Initiation.)

A few years later, a corner of the Veil of Isis had to be lifted; and now another and a larger rent is made. . . .

But old and time-honoured errors — such as become with every day more glaring and self-evident — stand arrayed in battle-order now, as they did then. Marshalled by blind conservatism, conceit and prejudice, they are constantly on the watch, ready to strangle every truth, which, awakening from its age-long sleep, happens to knock for admission. Such has been the case ever since man became an animal. That this proves in every case moral death to the revealers, who bring to light any of these old, old truths, is as certain as that it gives life and regeneration to those who are fit to profit even by the little that is now revealed to them.

End of Part One.
Part Two commences below...

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CONTENTS.

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§§. PAGE.

I. — Symbolism and Ideographs ... 303

II. — Mystery Language ... 310

III. — Primordial Substance and Divine Thought ... 325

IV. — Chaos, Theos, Kosmos ... 342

V. — The Hidden Deity and its Glyphs ... 349

VI. — The Mundane Egg ... 359

VII. — The Days and Nights of Brahma ... 368

VIII. — The Lotus as a Universal Symbol ... 379

IX. — Deus Lunus ... 386

X. — Tree and Serpent and Crocodile Worship ... 403

XI. — Demon est Deus Inversus ... 411

XII. — Theogony of the Creative Gods ... 424

XIII. — The Seven Creations ... 445

XIV. — The Four Elements of the Ancients ... 460

XV. — On Kwan-Shi Yin and Kwan-Yin ... 470
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Vol. 1, Page 303
BOOK I. — PART II.
§ I.

SYMBOLISM AND IDEOGRAPHS.

“A symbol is ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the God-like. Through all there glimmers something of a divine idea; nay, the highest ensign that men ever met and embraced under the cross itself, had no meaning, save an accidental extrinsic one.” Carlyle.

The study of the hidden meaning in every religious and profane legend, of whatsoever nation, large or small — pre-eminently the traditions of the East — has occupied the greater portion of the present writer’s life. She is one of those who feel convinced that no mythological story, no traditional event in the folk-lore of a people has ever been, at any time, pure fiction, but that every one of such narratives has an actual, historical lining to it. In this the writer disagrees with those symbologists, however great their reputation, who find in every myth nothing save additional proofs of the superstitious bent of mind of the ancients, and believe that all mythologies sprung from and are built upon solar myths. Such superficial thinkers were admirably disposed of by Mr. Gerald Massey, the poet and Egyptologist, in a lecture on “Luniolatry, Ancient and Modern.” His pointed criticism is worthy of reproduction in this part of this work, as it echoes so well our own feelings, expressed openly so far back as 1875, when “Isis Unveiled” was written.

“For thirty years past Professor Max Muller has been teaching in his books and lectures, in the Times and various magazines, from the platform of the Royal Institution, the pulpit of Westminster Abbey, and his chair at Oxford, that mythology is a disease of language, and that the ancient symbolism was a result of something like a primitive aberration.

“ ‘We know,’ says Renouf, echoing Max Muller, in his Hibbert lectures, ‘we know that mythology is the disease which springs up at a peculiar stage of human culture.’ Such is the shallow explanation of the non-evolutionists, and such explanations are still accepted by the British public, that gets its think-

Vol. 1, Page 304 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

ing done by proxy. Professor Max Muller, Cox, Gubernatis, and other propounders of the Solar Mythos, have portrayed the primitive myth-maker for us as a sort of Germanised-Hindu metaphysician, projecting his own shadow on a mental mist, and talking ingeniously concerning smoke, or, at least, cloud; the sky overhead becoming like the dome of dreamland, scribbled over with the imagery of aboriginal nightmares! They conceive the early man in their own likeness, and look upon him as perversely prone to self-mystification, or, as Fontenelle has it, ‘subject to beholding things that are not there.’ They have misrepresented primitive or archaic man as having been idiotically misled from the first by an active but untutored imagination into believing all sorts of fallacies, which were directly and constantly contradicted by his own daily experience; a fool of fancy in the midst of those grim realities that were grinding his experience into him, like the grinding icebergs making their imprints upon the rocks submerged beneath the sea. It remains to be said, and will one day be acknowledged, that these accepted teachers have been no nearer to the beginnings of mythology and language than Burns’ poet Willie had been near to Pegasus. My reply is, ‘Tis but a dream of the metaphysical theorist that mythology was a disease of language, or of anything else except his own brain. The origin and meaning of mythology have been missed altogether by these solarites and weather-mongers! Mythology was a primitive mode of thinking the early thought. It was founded on natural facts, and is still verifiable in phenomena. There is nothing insane, nothing irrational in it, when considered in the light of evolution, and when its mode of expression by sign-language is thoroughly understood. The insanity lies in mistaking it for human history or Divine Revelation.* Mythology is the repository of man’s most ancient science, and what concerns us chiefly is this — when truly interpreted once more, it is destined to be the death of those false theologies to which it has unwittingly given birth.† In modern phraseology a statement is sometimes said to be mythical in proportion to its being untrue; but the ancient mythology was not a system or mode of falsifying in that sense. Its fables were the means of conveying facts; they were neither forgeries nor fictions. . . . For example, when the Egyptians portrayed the moon as a Cat, they were not ignorant enough to suppose that the moon was a cat; nor did their wandering fancies see any likeness in the moon to a cat; nor was a cat-myth any mere expansion of verbal metaphor; nor had they any intention of making puzzles or riddles. . . . They had observed the simple fact that the cat saw in the dark, and that her eyes became full-orbed, and grew most luminous by night. The moon was the seer by night in heaven, and the cat was its equivalent on the earth; and so the familiar cat was adopted as a representative, a natural sign, a living pictograph of the lunar orb. . . . And so it followed that the sun which saw down in the under-world at night could also be called the cat, as it was, because it also saw in the dark. The name of the

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* As far as divine revelation is concerned, we agree. Not so with regard to “human history.”. . . For there is “history” in most of the allegories and “myths” of India, and events, real actual events, are concealed under them.
† When the “false theologies” disappear, then true prehistoric realities will be found, contained especially in the mythology of the Aryans — ancient Hindoos, and even the pre-Homeric Hellenes.

Vol. 1, Page 305 EMBLEM AND SYMBOL DIFFER.

cat in Egyptian is mau, which denotes the seer, from mau, to see. One writer on mythology asserts that the Egyptians ‘imagined a great cat behind the sun, which is the pupil of the cat’s eye.’ But this imagining is all modern. It is the Mullerite stock in trade. The moon as cat was the eye of the sun, because it reflected the solar light, and because the eye gives back image in its mirror. In the form of the goddess Pasht, the cat keeps watch for the sun, with her paw holding down and bruising the head of the serpent of darkness, called his eternal enemy. . . .”

This is a very correct exposition of the lunar-mythos from its astronomical aspect. Selenography, however, is the least esoteric of the divisions of lunar Symbology. To master thoroughly — if one is permitted to coin a new word — Selenognosis, one must become proficient in more than its astronomical meaning. The moon (vide § VII. Deus Lunus) is intimately related to the Earth, as shown in Stanza VI. of Book I., and is more directly concerned with all the mysteries of our globe than is even Venus-Lucifer, the occult sister and alter-ego of the Earth.

The untiring researches of Western, and especially German, symbologists, during the last and the present centuries, have brought every Occultist and most unprejudiced persons to see that without the help of symbology (with its seven departments, of which the moderns know nothing) no ancient Scripture can ever be correctly understood. Symbology must be studied from every one of its aspects, for each nation had its own peculiar methods of expression. In short, no Egyptian papyrus, no Indian tolla, no Assyrian tile, or Hebrew scroll, should be read and accepted literally.

This every scholar now knows. The able lectures of Mr. G. Massey alone are sufficient in themselves to convince any fair-minded Christian that to accept the dead-letter of the Bible is equivalent to falling into a grosser error and superstition than any hitherto evolved by the brain of the savage South Sea Islander. But the point to which even the most truth-loving and truth-searching Orientalists — whether Aryanists or Egyptologists — seem to remain blind, is the fact that every symbol in papyrus or olla is a many-faced diamond, each of whose facets not merely bears several interpretations, but relates likewise to several sciences. This is instanced in the just quoted interpretation of the moon symbolized by the cat — an example of sidero-terrestrial imagery; the moon bearing many other meanings besides this with other nations.

As a learned Mason and Theosophist, the late Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie, has shown in his Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, there is a great difference between emblem and symbol. The former “comprises a larger series of thoughts than a symbol, which may be said rather to illustrate some single special idea.” Hence, the symbols (say lunar, or solar) of several countries, each illustrating such a special idea, or series of ideas, form collectively an esoteric emblem. The latter is “a concrete visible

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picture or sign representing principles, or a series of principles, recognizable by those who have received certain instructions” (initiates). To put it still plainer, an emblem is usually a series of graphic pictures viewed and explained allegorically, and unfolding an idea in panoramic views, one after the other. Thus the Puranas are written emblems. So are the Mosaic and Christian Testaments, or the Bible, and all other exoteric Scriptures. As the same authority shows: —

“All esoteric Societies have made use of emblems and symbols, such as the Pythagorean Society, the Eleusinian, the Hermetic Brethren of Egypt, the Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons. Many of these emblems it is not proper to divulge to the general eye, and a very minute difference may make the emblem or symbol differ widely in its meaning. The magical sigillae, being founded on certain principles of numbers, partake of this character, and although monstrous or ridiculous in the eyes of the uninstructed, convey a whole body of doctrine to those who have been trained to recognise them.”

The above enumerated societies are all comparatively modern, none dating back earlier than the middle ages. How much more proper, then, that the students of the oldest Archaic School should be careful not to divulge secrets of far more importance to humanity (in the sense of being dangerous in the hands of the latter) than any of the so-called “Masonic Secrets,” which have now become, as the French say, those of “Polichinelle!” But this restriction can apply only to the psychological or rather psycho-physiological and Cosmical significance of symbol and emblem, and even to that only partially. An adept must refuse to impart the conditions and means that lead to a correlation of elements, whether psychic or physical, that may produce a hurtful result as well as a beneficent one. But he is ever ready to impart to the earnest student the secret of the ancient thought in anything that regards history concealed under mythological symbolism, and thus to furnish a few more land-marks towards a retrospective view of the past, as containing useful information with regard to the origin of man, the evolution of the races and geognosy; yet it is the crying complaint of to-day, not only among theosophists, but also among the few profane interested in the subject. “Why do not the adepts reveal that which they know?” To this, one might answer, “Why should they, since one knows beforehand that no man of science will accept, even as an hypothesis, let alone as a theory or axiom, the facts imparted. Have you so much as accepted or believed in the A B C of the Occult philosophy contained in the Theosophist, “Esoteric Buddhism,” and other works and periodicals? Has not even the little which was given, been ridiculed and derided, and made to face the “animal” and “ape theory” of Huxley — Haeckel, on one hand, and the rib of Adam and the apple on the other? Notwithstanding such an unenviable prospect, a mass of facts is given in the present work. And now the origin of man, the evolution of the globe and

Vol. 1, Page 307 MAGIC POTENCY OF SOUND.

the races, human and animal, are as fully treated here as the writer is able to treat them.

The proofs brought forward in corroboration of the old teachings are scattered widely throughout the old scriptures of ancient civilizations. The Puranas, the Zendavesta, and the old classics are full of them; but no one has ever gone to the trouble of collecting and collating together those facts. The reason for this is, that all such events were recorded symbolically; and that the best scholars, the most acute minds, among our Aryanists and Egyptologists, have been too often darkened by one or another preconception; still oftener, by one-sided views of the secret meaning. Yet even a parable is a spoken symbol: a fiction or a fable, as some think; an allegorical representation, we say, of life-realities, events, and facts. And, as a moral was ever drawn from a parable, that moral being an actual truth and fact in human life, so an historical, real event was deduced — by those versed in the hieratic sciences — from certain emblems and symbols recorded in the ancient archives of the temples. The religious and esoteric history of every nation was embedded in symbols; it was never expressed in so many words. All the thoughts and emotions, all the learning and knowledge, revealed and acquired, of the early races, found their pictorial expression in allegory and parable. Why? Because the spoken word has a potency unknown to, unsuspected and disbelieved in, by the modern “sages.” Because sound and rhythm are closely related to the four Elements of the Ancients; and because such or another vibration in the air is sure to awaken corresponding powers, union with which produces good or bad results, as the case may be. No student was ever allowed to recite historical, religious, or any real events in so many unmistakable words, lest the powers connected with the event should be once more attracted. Such events were narrated only during the Initiation, and every student had to record them in corresponding symbols, drawn out of his own mind and examined later by his master, before they were finally accepted. Thus was created in time the Chinese Alphabet, as, before that, the hieratic symbols were fixed upon in old Egypt. In the Chinese language, the alphabet of which may be read in any language,* and which is only a little less ancient than the Egyptian alphabet of Thoth, every word has its corresponding symbol conveying the word needed in a pictorial form. The language possesses many thousands of such symbol letters, or logograms, each meaning a whole word; for letters proper, or an alphabet, do not exist in the Chinese language any more than they did in the Egyptian till a far later period.

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* Thus, a Japanese who does not understand one word of Chinese, meeting with a Chinaman who has never heard the language of the former, will communicate in writing with him, and they will understand each other perfectly — because the writing is symbolical.

Vol. 1, Page 308 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

The explanation of the chief symbols and emblems is now attempted, as Book II., which treats of Anthropogenesis, would be most difficult to understand without a preparatory acquaintance with the metaphysical symbols at least.

Nor would it be just to enter upon an esoteric reading of symbolism without giving due honour to one who has rendered it the greatest service in this century, by discovering the chief key to ancient Hebrew symbology, interwoven strongly with metrology, one of the keys to the once universal mystery language. Mr. Ralston Skinner, of Cincinnati, the author of “The Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery and the Source of Measures” has our thanks. A mystic and a Kabalist by nature, he has laboured for many years in this direction, and his efforts were certainly crowned with great success. In his own words: —

“The writer is quite certain that there was an ancient language which modernly and up to this time appears to have been lost, the vestiges of which, however, abundantly exist. . . . The author discovered that this (integral ratio in numbers of diameter to circumference of a circle) geometrical ratio was the very ancient, and probably the divine origin of linear measures. . . . It appears almost proven that the same system of geometry, numbers, ratio, and measures were known and made use of on the continent of North America, even prior to the knowledge of the same by the descending Semites. . . . .”

“The peculiarity of this language was that it could be contained in another, concealed and not to be perceived, save through the help of special instruction; letters and syllabic signs possessing at the same time the powers or meaning of numbers, of geometrical shapes, pictures, or ideographs and symbols, the designed scope of which would be determinatively helped out by parables in the shape of narratives or parts of narratives; while also it could be set forth separately, independently, and variously, by pictures, in stone work, or in earth construction.”

“To clear up an ambiguity as to the term language: Primarily the word means the expression of ideas by human speech; but, secondarily, it may mean the expression of ideas by any other instrumentality. This old language is so composed in the Hebrew text, that by the use of the written characters, which will be the language first defined, a distinctly separated series of ideas may be intentionally communicated, other than those ideas expressed by the reading of the sound signs. This secondary language sets forth, under a veil, series of ideas, copies in imagination of things sensible, which may be pictured, and of things which may be classed as real without being sensible; as, for instance, the number 9 may be taken as a reality, though it has no sensible existence, so also a revolution of the moon, as separate from the moon itself by which that revolution has been made, may be taken as giving rise to, or causing a real idea, though such a revolution has no substance. This idea-language may consist of symbols restricted to arbitrary terms and signs, having a very limited range of conceptions, and quite valueless, or it may be a reading of nature in some of her manifestations of a value almost immeasurable, as regards human civilization. A picture of something natural may give rise to ideas of co-ordina-

Vol. 1, Page 309 MYSTERY LANGUAGE.

tive subject-matter, radiating out in various and even opposing directions, like the spokes of a wheel, and producing natural realities in departments very foreign to the apparent tendency of the reading of the first or starting picture. Notion may give rise to connected notion, but if it does, then, however apparently incongruous, all resulting ideas must spring from the original picture and be harmonically connected, or related. . . . Thus with a pictured idea radical enough, the imagination of the Cosmos itself even in its details of construction might result. Such a use of ordinary language is now obsolete, but it has become a question with the writer whether at one time, far back in the past, it, or such, was not the language of the world and of universal use, possessed, however, as it became more and more moulded into its arcane forms, by a select class or caste. By this I mean that the popular tongue or vernacular commenced even in its origin to be made use of as the vehicle of this peculiar mode of conveying ideas. Of this the evidences are very strong; and, indeed, it would seem that in the history of the human race there happened, from causes which at present, at any rate, we cannot trace, a lapse or loss from an original perfect language and a perfect system of science — shall we say perfect because they were of divine origin and importation?”

“Divine origin” does not mean here a revelation from an anthropomorphic god on a mount amidst thunder and lightning; but, as we understand it, a language and a system of science imparted to the early mankind by a more advanced mankind, so much higher as to be divine in the sight of that infant humanity. By a “mankind,” in short, from other spheres; an idea which contains nothing supernatural in it, but the acceptance or rejection of which depends upon the degree of conceit and arrogance in the mind of him to whom it is stated. For, if the professors of modern knowledge would only confess that, though they know nothing of the future of the disembodied man — or rather will accept nothing — yet this future may be pregnant with surprises and unexpected revelations to them, once their Egos are rid of their gross bodies — then materialistic unbelief would have fewer chances than it has. Who of them knows, or can tell, what may happen when once the life cycle of this globe is run down and our mother earth herself falls into her last sleep? Who is bold enough to say that the divine Egos of our mankind — at least the elect out of the multitudes passing on to other spheres — will not become in their turn the “divine” instructors of a new mankind generated by them on a new globe, called to life and activity by the disembodied “principles” of our Earth? (See Stanza VI., Book I., Part 1.) All this may have been the experience of the Past, and these strange records lie embedded in the “Mystery language” of the prehistoric ages, the language now called Symbolism.

Vol. 1, Page 349 THE MANY ARE ONE.

ON THE HIDDEN DEITY, ITS SYMBOLS AND GLYPHS.

The Logos or Creative deity, the “Word made Flesh,” of every religion, has to be traced to its ultimate source and Essence. In India, it is a Proteus of 1,008 divine names and aspects in each of its personal transformations, from Brahma-Purusha down through the Seven divine Rishis and ten semi-divine Prajapati (also Rishis) to the divine-human Avatars. The same puzzling problem of the “One in many” and the multitude in One, is found in other Pantheons, in the Egyptian, the Greek and the Chaldeo-Judaic, the latter having made confusion still more confused by presenting its Gods as euhemerizations, in the shapes of Patriarchs. The latter are now accepted by those who reject Romulus as a myth, and are represented as living and historical Entities.
Verbum satis sapienti.

In the Zohar, En-Soph is also the One, and the infinite Unity. This was known to the very few learned Fathers of the Church, who were aware that Jehovah was but a third rate potency and no “highest” God. But while complaining bitterly of the Gnostics and saying . . . “our Heretics hold . . . that Propator is known but to the Only begotten Son* (who is Brahma among the rest) that is to the mind” (nous), Irenaeus never mentioned that the Jews did the same in their real secret books. Valentinus, “the profoundest doctor of the Gnosis,” held that “there was a perfect aion who existed before Bythos, or Buthon (the first father of unfathomable nature, which is the second Logos) called Propator.” It is thus Aion, who springs as a Ray from Ain-Soph (who does not create), and Aion, who creates, or through whom, rather, everything is created, or evolves.

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* As Mulaprakriti is known only to Iswar, the Logos, as he is called now by Mr. T. Subba Row, of Madras. (See his Bhagavadgita Lectures.)

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For, as the Basilidians taught, “there was a supreme god, Abraxax, by whom was created mind” (Mahat, in Sanskrit, Nous in Greek). “From Mind proceeded the word, Logos, from the word, Providence (Divine Light, rather), then from it Virtue and Wisdom in Principalities, Powers, Angels, etc., etc.” By these (Angels) the 365 AEons were created. “Amongst the lowest, indeed, and those who made this world, he (Basilides) sets last of all the God of the Jews, whom he denies to be God (and very rightly), affirming he is one of the angels” (Ibid.). Here, then, we find the same system as in the Puranas, wherein the Incomprehensible drops a seed, which becomes the golden egg, from which Brahma is produced. Brahma produces Mahat, etc., etc. True Esoteric philosophy, however, speaks neither of “creation” nor of “evolution” in the sense the exoteric religions do. All these personified Powers are not evolutions from one another, but so many aspects of the one and sole manifestation of the Absolute all. The same system as the gnostic prevails in the Sephirothal aspects of Ain-Soph, yet, as these aspects are in Space and Time, a certain order is maintained in their successive appearances. Therefore, it becomes impossible not to take notice of the great changes that the Zohar has undergone under the handling of generations of Christian Mystics. For, even in the metaphysics of the Talmud, the “lower Face” (or “Lesser Countenance”), the microprosopus, in fact, could never be placed on the plane of the same abstract ideal as the Higher, or “Greater Countenance,” macroprosopus. The latter is, in the Chaldean Kabala, a pure abstraction; the Word or Logos, or Dabar (in Hebrew), which Word, though it becomes in fact a plural number, or “Words” — D(a)B(a)Rim, when it reflects itself, or falls into the aspect of a Host (of angels, or Sephiroth, “numbers”) is still collectively One, and on the ideal plane a nought — 0, a “No-thing.” It is without form or being, “with no likeness with anything else.” (Franck, “Die Kabbala,” p. 126.) And even Philo calls the Creator, the Logos who stands next God, “the Second God,” and “the second God who is his (Highest God’s) Wisdom” (Philo. Quaest. et Solut). Deity is not God. It is nothing, and darkness. It is nameless, and therefore called Ain-Soph — “the word Ayin meaning nothing.” See Franck “Die Kabbala,” p. 153. See also Section XII., “Theogony of the Creative Gods.” The “Highest God” (the unmanifested Logos) is its Son.

Nor are most of the gnostic systems, which come down to us mutilated by the Church Fathers, anything better than the distorted shells of the original speculations. Nor were they open to the public or reader, at any time; i.e., had their hidden meaning or esotericism been revealed, it would have been no more an esoteric teaching, and this could never be. Alone Marcus (the chief of the Marcosians, 2nd century), who taught

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that deity had to be viewed under the symbol of four syllables, gave out more of the esoteric truths than any other Gnostic. But even he was never well understood. For it is only on the surface or dead letter of his Revelation that it appears that God is a quaternary, to wit: “the Ineffable, the Silence, the Father, and Truth,” — in reality it is quite erroneous, and divulges only one more esoteric riddle. This teaching of Marcus was that of the early Kabalists and ours. For he makes of Deity, the number 30 in 4 syllables, which, translated esoterically, means a Triad or Triangle, and a Quaternary or a square, in all seven, which, on the lower plane made the seven divine or secret letters of which the God-name is composed. This requires demonstration. In his “Revelation,” speaking of divine mysteries expressed by means of letters and numbers, Marcus narrates how the “Supreme Tetrad came down unto me (him) from the region which cannot be seen nor named, in a female form, because the world would have been unable to bear her appearing under a male figure,” and revealed to him “the generation of the universe, untold before to either gods or men.”

This first sentence already contains a double meaning. Why should a female figure be more easily borne or listened to by the world than a male figure? On the very face of it this appears nonsensical. Withal it is quite simple and clear to one who is acquainted with the mystery-language. Esoteric Philosophy, or the Secret Wisdom, was symbolized by a female form, while a male figure stood for the Unveiled mystery. Hence, the world not being ready to receive, could not bear it, and the Revelation of Marcus had to be given allegorically. Then he writes:

“When first the Inconceivable, the Beingless and Sexless (the Kabalistic Ain-Soph) began to be in labour (i.e., when the hour of manifesting Itself had struck) and desired that Its Ineffable should be born (the first Logos, or AEon, or Aion), and its invisible should be clothed with form, its mouth opened and uttered the word like unto itself. This word (logos) manifested itself in the form of the Invisible One. The uttering of the (ineffable) name (through the word) came to pass in this manner. He (the Supreme Logos) uttered the first word of his name, which is a syllable of four letters. Then the second syllable was added, also of four letters. Then the third, composed of ten letters; and after this the fourth, which contains twelve letters. The whole name consists thus of thirty letters and of four syllables. Each letter has its own accent and way of writing, but neither understands nor ever beholds that form of the whole Name, — no; not even the power of the letter that stands next to Itself (to the Beingless and the Inconceivable.)* All these sounds when united are the collective Beingless,

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* Iswara, or the Logos, cannot see Parabrahmam, but only Mulaprakriti, says the lecturer, in the Four Lectures on Bhagavatgita. (See Theosophist, Feb., 1887.)

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unbegotten AEon, and these are the Angels that are ever beholding the face of the Father* (the Logos, the “second God,” who stands next God, “the Inconceivable,” according to Philo).

This is as plain as ancient esoteric secrecy would make it. It is as Kabalistic, but less veiled than the Zohar in which the mystic names or attributes are also four syllabled, twelve, forty-two, and even seventy-two syllabled words! The Tetrad shows to Marcus the truth in the shape of a naked woman, and letters every limb of that figure, calling her head [[omega]], her neck [[psi]], shoulders and hands [[gamma]], and [[chi]], etc., etc. In this Sephira is easily recognised, the Crown (Kether) or head being numbered one; the brain or Chochmah, 2; the heart, or Intelligence (Binah), 3; and the other seven Sephiroth representing the limbs of the body. The Sephirothal Tree is the Universe, and Adam Kadmon represents it in the West as Brahma represents it in India.

Throughout, the 10 Sephiroth are represented as divided into the three higher, or the spiritual Triad, and the lower Septenary. The true Esoteric meaning of the sacred number seven is cleverly veiled in the Zohar; yet was betrayed by the double way of writing “in the beginning” or Be-resheeth, and Be-raishath, the latter the “Higher, or Upper Wisdom.” As shown by Mr. Macgregor Mathers in his Kabbalah (p. 47), and in the Qabbalah of Mr. T. Myer (p. 233), both of these Kabalists being supported by the best ancient authorities, these words have a dual and secret meaning. Braisheeth bara Elohim means that the six, over which stands the seventh Sephiroth, belong to the lower material class, or, as the author says: “Seven . . . . are applied to the Lower Creation, and three to the spiritual man, the Heavenly Prototypic or first Adam.”

When the Theosophists and Occultists say that God is no Being, for It is nothing, No-Thing, they are more reverential and religiously respectful to the Deity than those who call God a He, and thus make of Him a gigantic Male.

He who studies the Kabala will soon find the same idea in the ultimate thought of its authors, the earlier and great Hebrew Initiates, who got this secret Wisdom at Babylonia from the Chaldean Hierophants, while Moses got his in Egypt. The Zohar cannot well be judged by its after translations in Latin and other tongues, as all those ideas were, of course, softened and made to fit in with the views and policy of its Christian arrangers; but in truth its ideas are identical with those of all other religious systems. The various Cosmogonies show that the Archaic Universal Soul was held by every nation as the “Mind” of the Demiurgic Creator; and that it

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* The “Seven Angels of the Face,” with the Christians.

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was called the “Mother,” Sophia with the Gnostics (or the female Wisdom), the Sephira with the Jews, Saraswati or Vach, with the Hindus, the Holy Ghost being a female Principle.

Hence, born from it, the Kurios or Logos was, with the Greeks, the “God, mind” (nous). “Now Koros (Kurios) signifies the pure and unmixed nature of intellect — wisdom,” says Plato in “Cratylus”; and Kurios is Mercury, the Divine Wisdom, and “mercury is the Sol” (Sun) (“Arnobius” vi., xii.), from whom Thot-Hermes received this divine Wisdom. While, then, the Logoi of all countries and religions are correlative (in their sexual aspects) with the female Soul of the World or the “Great Deep;” the deity, from which these two in one have their being, is ever concealed and called the “Hidden One,” connected only indirectly with Creation,* as it can act only through the Dual Force emanating from the Eternal Essence. Even AEsculapius, called the “Saviour of all,” is identical, according to ancient classics, with Phta, the Egyptian Creative Intellect (or Divine Wisdom), and with Apollo, Baal, Adonis and Hercules (see Dunlap’s “Mystery of Adonis,” pp. 23 and 95); and Phta is, in one of its aspects, the “Anima Mundi,” the Universal Soul of Plato, the “Divine Spirit” of the Egyptians, the “Holy Ghost” of the early Christians and Gnostics, and the Akasa of the Hindus, and even, in its lower aspect, the Astral Light. For Phta was originally the “God of the Dead,” he in whose bosom they were received, hence the Limbus of the Greek Christians, or the Astral Light. It is far later that Phta was classed with the Sun-gods, his name signifying “he who opens,” as he is shown to be the first to unveil the face of the dead mummy, to call the soul to life in his bosom. (See Maspero’s “Bulaq Museum.”) Kneph, the Eternal Unrevealed, is represented by the snake-emblem of eternity encircling a water-urn, with its head hovering over the “waters” which it incubates with its breath — another form of one and the same idea of “Darkness,” its ray moving on the waters, &c. As “Logos-Soul,” this permutation is called Phta; as Logos-Creator, he becomes Imhot-pou, his son, “the god of the handsome face.” In their primitive characters these two were the first Cosmic Duad, Noot, “space or Sky,” and Noo, “the primordial Waters,” the Androgyne Unity, above whom was the Concealed Breath of Kneph. And all of them had the aquatic animals and plants sacred to them, the ibis, the swan, the goose, the crocodile, and the lotus.

Returning to the Kabalistic deity, this Concealed Unity is then = [[to pan]] = [[apeiros]], Endless, Boundless, non-Existent, so

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* We use the term as one accepted and sanctioned by use, and therefore more comprehensible to the reader.

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long as the Absolute is within Oulom,* the boundless and termless time, as such, En-Soph cannot be the Creator or even the modeller of the Universe, nor can he be Aur (light). Therefore En-Soph is also Darkness. The immutably Infinite and the absolutely Boundless can neither will, think, nor act. To do this it has to become finite, and it does so, by its ray penetrating into the mundane egg — infinite space — and emanating from it as a finite god. All this is left to the ray latent in the one. When the period arrives, the absolute will expands naturally the force within it, according to the Law of which it is the inner and ultimate Essence. The Hebrews did not adopt the egg as a symbol, but they substituted for it the “Duplex heavens,” for, translated correctly, the sentence “God made the heavens and the earth” would read: — “In and out of his own essence as a womb (the mundane egg), God created the two heavens.” But the Christians have chosen as the symbol of their Holy Ghost, the dove.

“Whosoever acquaints himself with the Mercaba and the lahgash (secret speech or incantation), will learn the secret of secrets.” Lahgash is nearly identical in meaning with Vach, the hidden power of the Mantras.

When the active period has arrived, from within the eternal essence of Ain-Soph, comes forth Sephira, the active Power, called the Primordial Point, and the Crown, Kether. It is only through her that the “Un-bounded Wisdom” could give a concrete form to the abstract Thought. Two sides of the upper triangle by which the ineffable Essence and the universe — its manifested body — are symbolized, the right side and the base are composed of unbroken lines; the third, the left side, is dotted. It is through the latter that emerges Sephira. Spreading in every direction, she finally encompasses the whole triangle. In this emanation the triple triad is formed. From the invisible Dew falling from the higher Uni-triad (thus leaving 7 sephiroths only), the “Head” Sephira creates primeval waters, i.e., Chaos takes shape. It is the first stage towards the solidification of spirit which through various modifications will produce earth. “It requires earth and water to make a living soul,” says Moses. It requires the image of an aquatic bird to connect it with water, the female element of procreation with the egg and the bird that fecundates it.

When Sephira emerges like an active power from within the latent Deity, she is female; when she assumes the office of a creator, she becomes a male; hence, she is androgyne. She is the “Father and

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* With the ancient Jews, as shown by Le Clerc, the word Oulom meant only a time whose beginning or end is not known. The term “eternity,” properly speaking, did not exist in the Hebrew tongue with the meaning, for instance, applied by the Vedantins to Parabrahm.

Vol. 1, Page 355 INTERNATIONAL CORRELATION OF GODS.

Mother Aditi,” of the Hindu Cosmogony and of the Secret Doctrine. If the oldest Hebrew scrolls had been preserved, the modern Jehovah-worshipper would have found that many and uncomely were the symbols of the creative god. The frog in the moon, typical of his generative character, was the most frequent. All the birds and animals now held “unclean” in the Bible had been the symbols of the Deity in days of old. It was because they were too sacred that a mask of uncleanness was placed over them, in order to preserve them from destruction. The brazen serpent was not a bit more poetical than the goose or swan, if symbols are to be accepted a la lettre.

In the words of the Zohar: “The Indivisible Point, which has no limit and cannot be comprehended because of its purity and brightness, expanded from without, forming a brightness that served the indivisible Point as a veil;” yet the latter also “could not be viewed in consequence of its immeasurable light. It too expanded from without, and this expansion was its garment. Thus through a constant upheaving (motion) finally the world originated” (Zohar I. 20a). The Spiritual substance sent forth by the Infinite Light is the first Sephira or Shekinah: Sephira exoterically contains all the other nine Sephiroths in her. Esoterically she contains but two,* Chochmah or Wisdom, “a masculine, active potency whose divine name is Jah (),” and Binah, a feminine passive potency, Intelligence, represented by the divine name Jehovah (); which two potencies form, with Sephira the third, the Jewish trinity or the Crown, Kether. These two Sephiroths called Father, Abba, and Mother Amona, are the duad or the double-sexed logos from which issued the other seven Sephiroths. (See Zohar.) This first Jewish triad (Sephira, Chochmah, and Binah) is the Hindu Trimurti.* However veiled, even in the Zohar, and more still in the exoteric Pantheon of India, every particular connected with one is reproduced in the other. The Prajapati are the Sephiroths. Ten with Brahma they dwindle to seven, when the Trimurti, and the Kabalistic triad, are separated from the rest. The seven Builders (Creators) become the seven Prajapati, or the seven Rishis, in the same order as the Sephiroths become the Creators; then the Patriarchs, etc. In both Secret Systems, the One Universal Essence is incomprehensible and inactive in its absoluteness, and can be connected with the building of the Universe only in an indirect way. In both, the primeval Male-female or androgynous Principle, and their ten and seven Emanations (Brahma-Viraj and Aditi-Vach on the one part and the Elohim-Jehovah, or Adam-Adami (Adam Kadmon) and Sephira Eve on the

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* In the Indian Pantheon the double-sexed Logos is Brahma, the Creator, whose seven “mind born” sons are the primeval Rishis — the “Builders.”

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other), with their Prajapati and Sephiroths, represent in their totality, first of all the Archetypal man, the Proto-logos; and only in their secondary aspect do they become Cosmic powers, and astronomical or sidereal bodies. If Aditi is the mother of the gods, Deva-Matri, Eve is the mother of all living; they are the Sakti or generative power in their female aspect of the “Heavenly man,” and they are all compound Creators. Says a “Gupta Vidya” Sutra: “In the beginning, a ray issuing from Paramarthika (the one and only true existence), it became manifested in Vyavaharika (conventional existence) which was used as a Vahan to descend into the Universal Mother, and to cause her to expand (swell, brih).” And in the Zohar it is stated: “The Infinite Unity, formless and without similitude, after the form of the heavenly man was created, used it. The Unknown Light* (Darkness) used the (heavenly form) as a chariot through which to descend, and wished to be called by this form, which is the sacred name Jehovah.”

As the Zohar says: “In the beginning was the Will of the King, prior to any other existence. . . . It (the Will) sketched the forms of all things that had been concealed but now came into view. And there went forth as a sealed secret from the head of Ain Soph, a nebulous spark of matter, without shape or form. . . . Life is drawn from below, and from above the source renews itself, the sea is always full and spreads its waters everywhere.” Thus the deity is compared to a shoreless sea, to water which is “the fountain of life” (Zohar iii., 290). “The seventh palace, the fountain of life, is the first in the order from above” (ii. 261). Hence the Kabalistic tenet on the lips of the very Kabalistic Solomon, who says in Proverbs ix., 1: “Wisdom hath builded her house; it hath hewn out its seven pillars.”

Whence then, all this identity of ideas, if there was no primeval Universal Revelation? The few points shown are like a few straws in a hayrick, in comparison to that which will be shown as the work proceeds. If we turn to that most hazy of all Cosmogonies — the Chinese, even there the same idea is found. Tsi-tsai (the Self-Existent) is the unknown Darkness, the root of the Wuliang-sheu (Boundless Age), Amitabhe, and Tien (heaven) come later on. The “great Extreme” of Confucius gives the same idea, his “straws” notwithstanding. The latter are a source of great amusement to the missionaries. These laugh at every “heathen” religion, despise and hate that of their

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* Says Rabbi Simeon: “Ah, companions, companions, man as an emanation was both man and woman, as well on the side of the ‘Father’ as on the side of the ‘Mother.’ And this is the sense of the words: ‘And Elohim spoke; Let there be Light, and it was Light’ . . . and this is the two-fold man.” (“Auszuge aus dem Sohar,” p. 13, 15.) Light, then, in Genesis stood for the Androgyne Ray or “Heavenly Man.”

Vol. 1, Page 357 ORNITHOLOGICAL SYMBOLS.

brother Christians of other denominations, and yet one and all accept a la lettre their own Genesis. If we turn to Chaldea we find in it Anu, the concealed deity, the One, whose name, moreover, shows it to be of Sanskrit origin. Anu, which means in Sanskrit “atom,” aniyamsam aniyasam (smallest of the small), is a name of Parabrahm in the Vedantic philosophy; Parabrahm being described as smaller than the smallest atom, and greater than the greatest sphere or universe: “Anagraniyam and Mahatorvavat.” This is what George Smith gives as the first verses of the Akkadian Genesis as found in the Cuneiform Texts on the “Lateras Coctiles.” There also, we find Anu the passive deity or En-Soph, Bel, the Creator, the Spirit of God (Sephira) moving on the face of the waters, hence water itself, and Hea, the Universal Soul or wisdom of the three combined.

The first eight verses read thus:

1. When above, were not raised the heavens;
2. And below on the earth a plant had not grown up.
3. The abyss had not broken its boundaries.
4. The chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the producing mother of the whole of them. (This is the Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.)
5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained but —
6. A tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.
7. When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them.
8. A plant had not grown, and order did not exist.

This was the chaotic or ante-genetic period — the double Swan and the Dark Swan, which becomes white, when Light is created.*

The symbol chosen for the majestic ideal of the Universal Principle will seem little calculated to answer its sacred character. A goose, or even a swan, may appear unfit, no doubt, to represent the grandeur of the Spirit. Nevertheless, it must have had some deep occult meaning, since it figures not only in every cosmogony and world religion, but even was chosen by the mediaeval Christians, the Crusaders, as the vehicle of the Holy Ghost supposed to lead the army to Palestine, to wrench the Tomb of the Saviour from the hands of the Saracen. If we are to credit Professor Draper’s statement in his “Intellectual Development of Europe,” the Crusaders, led on by Peter the Hermit, were preceded, at the head of the army, by the Holy Ghost under the shape of a white gander in company of a goat. The Egyptian God of Time, Seb, carries a goose on his head. Jupiter assumes the form of a swan and Brahma also, because the root of all this is that mystery of mysteries — the Mundane Egg. (See preceding §).

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* The Seven Swans that are believed to land from Heaven into Lake Mansarovara, are in the popular fancy the Seven Rishis of the Great Bear, who assume that form to visit the locality where the Vedas were written.

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One has to learn the reason of a symbol before one depreciates it. The dual element of Air and Water is that of the ibis, swan, goose and pelican, of crocodiles and frogs, lotus flowers and water lilies, &c.; and the result is the choice of the most unseemly symbols among the modern as much as the ancient mystics. Pan, the great god of nature, was generally figured in connection with aquatic birds, geese especially, and so were other gods. If, later on, with the gradual degeneration of religion, the gods to whom geese were sacred, became Priapic deities, it does not stand to reason that water fowls were made sacred to Pan and other Phallic deities as some scoffers even of antiquity would have it (see Petronii Satyrica, cxxxvi.); but that the abstract and divine power of procreative nature had become grossly anthropomorphized. Nor does the Swan of Leda show “Priapic doings and her enjoyment thereof,” as Mr. Hargrave Jennings chastely expresses it; for the myth is but another version of the same philosophical idea of cosmogony. Swans are frequently found associated with Apollo, as they are the emblems of water and fire (sun-light also), before the separation of the Elements.

Our modern symbologists might profit by some remarks made by a well-known writer, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child. “From time immemorial an emblem has been worshipped in Hindostan as the type of creation, or the origin of life. . . . Siva or the Mahadeva being not only the reproducer of human forms, but also the fructifying principle, the generative power that pervades the Universe. The maternal emblem is likewise a religious type. This reverence for the production of life, introduced into the worship of Osiris the sexual emblems. Is it strange that they regarded with reverence the great mystery of human birth? Were they impure thus to regard it? Or are we impure that do not so regard it? But no clean and thoughtful mind could so regard them. . . . We have travelled far, and unclean have been the paths, since those old Anchorites first spoke of God and the soul in the solemn depths of their first sanctuaries. Let us not smile at their mode of tracing the infinite and the incomprehensible Cause throughout all the mysteries of nature, lest by so doing we cast the shadow of our own grossness on their patriarchal simplicity.” (“Progress of Religious Ideas,” Vol. 1, p. 17, et seq.)