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The Secret Doctrine Vol I

By H.P. Blavatsky

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Footnotes

See Theosophist, June, 1883.
2.
Preface to the original edition.
3.
Dan, in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics Chhan, is the general term for the esoteric schools and their literature. In the old books, the word Janna is defined as “reforming one's self by meditation and knowledge,” a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically; the Book of Dzyan. See Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 129, note.
4.
Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagâya, and a distinguished archæologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it.
5.
See Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, p. 27.
6.
Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 23.
7.
Ain í Akbari, translated by Dr. Blochmann, quoted by Max Müller, op. cit.
8.
Tao-te-King, p. xxvii.
9.
Max Müller, op. cit., p. 114.
10.
Found out and proven only now, through the discoveries made by George Smith (see his Chaldean Account of Genesis), and which, thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the “civilized nations” for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish derivations for direct Divine Revelation.
11.
Egypt's Place in History, i. 200.
12.
Spence Hardy, The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists, p. 66.
13.
E. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, p. 77.
14.
Lassen (Ind. Althersumkunde, II, 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery erected in the Kailâs. Range in 137 B.C.; and General Cunningham, one earlier than that.
15.
Rev. J. Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, p. 87.
16.
See, for example, Max Müller's Lectures.
17.
Op. cit., p. 118.
18.
Op. cit., p. 318.
19.
Asiatic Researches, I, 272.
20.
See Max Müller, op. cit., pp. 288 et seq. This relates to the clever forgery, on leaves inserted in old Purânic MSS., and written in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pandits had heard from Colonel Wilford about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three sons, etc., etc.
21.
From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky.
22.
Lün-Yü (§ I a); Schott, Chinesische Literatur, p. 7; quoted by Max Müller.
23.
Life and Teachings of Confucius, p. 96.
24.
Op. cit., p. 257.
25.
The name is used in the sense of the Greek word ?νθρωπς.
26.
Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared that he had performed “miracles” by means of the book Sepher Jetzirah, and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina and Oshoi. (See Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, c. 7, etc.; and Franck, Die Kabbalah, pp. 55, 56). Many of the mediæval Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists have made the same claim; and even the late modern Magus, Éliphas Lévi, publicly asserts it in his books on Magic.
27.
It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the term Divine Thought, like that of Universal Mind, must not be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man. The “Unconscious,” according to von Hartmann, arrived at the vast creative, or rather evolutionary plan, “by a clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness,” which in Vedântic language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realize how far intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc., all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Mâyâ. Sensation, again, necessarily postulates limitation. The Personal God of orthodox Theism perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels “fierce anger.” But the notion of such mental states clearly involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a being whose emotions fluctuate with events in the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse, unphilosophical.
28.
Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that θε?ς is derived from θ?ειν, to move, to run, for the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the planets θεο?, gods. Later the word produced another term, ?λ?θεια—the breath of God.
29.
Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that “it is impossible ... to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving” (Principles of Human Knowledge, Introd., par. 10), may put the question, What is that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God? etc., etc. This will be answered farther on, in a further part of this work; meanwhile, we claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against Roscelini's materialistic views of Realism and Nominalism. “Has science,” says one of its ablest advocates, Edward Clodd, “revealed anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient words in which the essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?” And we agree, provided we connote by the word God, not the crude anthropomorphism which is still the backbone of our current theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is the Life and Motion of the Universe, to know which in the physical order is to know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of successions of phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know what has been, is, and will be, within human consciousness. (See Science and the Emotions, a Discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London, December 27th, 1885.)
30.
Isis Unveiled, II, 264-5.
31.
Rig Veda.
32.
We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in the Kabalah also “the value of the Jehovah name is that of the diameter of a circle.” Add to this the fact that Jehovah is the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, a feminine word, and you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic transformations this name, which is androgynous in the first chapters of Genesis, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and phallic. The choosing of a deity among the pagan gods and making of it a special national God, to call upon it as the “One Living God,” the “God of Gods,” and then proclaiming this worship monotheistic, does not change it into the One Principle whose “Unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form,” especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah is now demonstrated to be.
33.
See that suggestive work, The Source of Measures, where the author explains the real meaning of the word Sacr' from which “sacred,” “sacrament,” are derived, words which have now become synonyms of holiness, though purely phallic!
34.
Mândûkya Upanishad, I. 28.
35.
Bodhimür, Book II.
36.
See the Vedânta Sâra, by Major G. A. Jacob; and also The Aphorisms of Shândilya, translated by Cowell, p. 42.
37.
Aitareya Upanishad.
38.
Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists would like to prove this to be pure Atheism. For proof of this, compare Major Jacob's Vedânta Sâra. Yet, the whole of antiquity echoes the thought:
Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est
Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur—
as Lucretius has it—a purely Vedântic conception.
39.
The very names of the two chief deities, Brahmâ and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. Brahman, or Brahm, is derived by some from the root brih, to grow or to expand (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); Vishnu, from the root vish, to pervade, to enter into the nature of the essence; Brahmâ-Vishnu thus being infinite Space, of which the Gods, the Rishis, the Manus, and all in this Universe are simply the Potencies (Vibhûtayah).
40.
See Manu's account of Brahmâ separating his body into male and female, the latter the female Vâch, in whom he creates Virâj, and compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II, III, and IV of Genesis.
41.
Occultism is indeed “in the air” at the close of this our century. Among many other works recently published, we would recommend especially to students of theoretical Occultism who would not venture beyond the realm of our special human plane, New Aspects of Life and Religion, by Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric dogmas and philosophy, the latter, however, in the concluding chapters, rather limited by what seems to be a spirit of conditioned positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as “the Unknown First Cause,” merits quotation.
“This unknown something, thus recognized as, and identified with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable [as abstract space, granted]: and because invisible and impalpable, therefore incognizable. And this incognizability has led to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be admitted to be either self-existent, infinite, and eternal, or to have had a first cause outside, behind, and beyond itself.
“And yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only lead to the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise accruing to space, and thus merely throw the difficulty of origination a step farther back, without gaining additional light as to primary causation.” (Op. cit., p. 5.)
This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic creator, an extra-cosmic, instead of an intra-cosmic God. Many of Dr. Pratt's subjects—most of them we may say—are old Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents in quite a new garb—“New Aspects” of the Occult in Nature, indeed. Space, however, viewed as a Substantial Unity—the living Source of Life—is, as the Unknown Causeless Cause, the oldest dogma in Occultism, millenniums earlier than the Pater-Æther of the Greeks and Latins. So are “Force and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable, and the unknown revealers of the Unknown.” They are all found in Âryan philosophy personified as Vishvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they are expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects, in the work referred to.
42.
In contradistinction to the manifested Universe of matter, the term Mûlaprakriti (from mûla, root, and prakriti, nature), or the unmanifested primordial Matter—called by Western Alchemists Adam's Earth—is applied by the Vedântins to Parabrahman. Matter is dual in religious metaphysics, and in esoteric teachings septenary, like everything else in the Universe. As Mûlaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and eternal: as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated and conditioned, according to Shvetâshvatara Upanishad, I, 8, and Devî Bhâgavata Purâna. The author of the Four lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, in speaking of Mûlaprakriti, says: “From its [the Logos'] objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as Mûlaprakriti.... Of course this Mûlaprakriti is material to it, as any material object is material to us.... Parabrahman is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mûlaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it.” (Theosophist, VIII, 304.)
43.
Esoteric Philosophy, regarding every finite thing as Mâyâ (or the illusion of ignorance), must necessarily view in the same light every intra-cosmic planet and body, seeing that it is something organized, hence finite. The sentence, therefore, “it proceeds from without inwardly, etc.”, in its first clause, refers to the dawn of the Mahâmanvantara, or the great reëvolution after one of the complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature, from planet to molecule, into its ultimate essence or element; and in its second clause, to the partial or local Manvantara, which may be a solar or even a planetary one.
44.
By Centre, a centre of energy or a cosmic focus is meant; when the so-called “creation,” or formation, of a planet, is accomplished by that force which is designated by Occultists Life and by Science Energy, then the process takes place from within outwardly, every atom being said to contain in itself the creative energy of the divine Breath. And, whereas after an Absolute Pralaya, when the preëxisting material consists but of One Element, and Breath “is everywhere,” the latter acts from without inwardly; after a Minor Pralaya, when everything having remained in statu quo—in a refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon—then at the first flutter of Manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within outwardly.
45.
In the evolutionary cycles of ideas, it is curious to notice how ancient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr. Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindû philosophers when he wrote a certain passage in his First Principles (p. 482)? Or is it an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half correctly, half incorrectly, “motion as well as matter, being fixed in quantity [?], it would seem that the change in the distribution of matter which motion effects, coming to a limit in whichever direction it is carried [?], the indestructible motion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally coëxistent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes—produce now an immeasurable period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces predominating, cause universal diffusion—alternate eras of evolution and dissolution.”
46.
Whatever the news of Physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has been teaching for ages that Âkâsha (of which Ether is the grossest form), the Fifth universal cosmic Principle—to which corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas—is, cosmically, a radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions, immutable in its higher principles. In the creative condition it is called the Sub-Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it recalls “dead worlds to life.” In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the World; in its lower—the Destroyer.
47.
Hypoth., 1675.
48.
The “First” presupposes necessarily something which is the “first brought forth,” “the first in time, space, and rank”—and therefore finite and conditioned. The “first” cannot be Absolute for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the One Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root, and limits the “First Cause” to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term.
49.
See T. Subba Row's four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ, in The Theosophist, Feb. 1887.
50.
Called by Christian theology, Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc.
51.
“Pilgrim” is the appellation given to our Monad (the Two in one) during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and eternal Principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole—the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate from the One Spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be used for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedântins call it Sûtrâtmâ (Thread-Soul), but their explanation differs somewhat from that of the Occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the Vedântins themselves.
52.
It is not the physical organisms that remain in statu quo, least of all their psychic principles, during the great Cosmic or even Solar Pralayas, but only their âkâshic or astral “photographs.” But during the Minor Pralayas, once overtaken by the “Night,” the planets remain intact, though dead, just as a huge animal, caught and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages.
53.
Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair—reverently formulates the grand mystery; “that which persists unchanging in quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the Universe presents to us, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit in Space and without beginning or end in Time.” It is only daring Theology—never Science or Philosophy—which seeks to gauge the Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable.
54.
Space.
55.
It is stated in Book II, ch. viii, of Vishnu Purâna: “By immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa”; and Wilson, the translator, remarks in a foot-note: “This, according to the Vedas, is all that is to be understood of the immortality [or eternity] of the gods; they perish at the end of universal dissolution [or Pralaya].” And Esoteric Philosophy says: “They ‘perish’ not, but are reäbsorbed.”
56.
Celestial Beings.
57.
And hence to manifest it.
58.
Nirvâna. Nippang in Chinese; Neibban in Burmese; Moksha in India.
59.
Nidâna and Mâyâ. The “Twelve” Nidânas (in Tibetan Ten-brel Chug-nyi) are the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes produced.
60.
See Wassilief, Der Buddhismus, pp. 97-128.
61.
The term “Wheel” is the symbolical expression for a world or globe, which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers taught. The “Great Wheel” is the whole duration of our Cycle of Being, or Mahâkalpa, i.e., the whole revolution of our special Chain of seven Globes or Spheres from beginning to end; the “Small Wheels” meaning the Rounds, of which there are also seven.
62.
Absolute Perfection, Paranirvâna, which is Yong-Grub.
63.
See Dzungarian Mani Kumbum, the “Book of the 10,000 Precepts.” Also consult Wassilief's Der Buddhismus, pp. 327 and 357, etc.
64.
In clearer words: One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti, or the “origin of delusion.” Paramârtha is the synonym of the term Svasamvedanâ, or the “reflection which analyses itself.” There is a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of Paramârtha between the Yogâchâryas and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression.
65.
In India it is called the “Eye of Shiva,” but beyond the Great Range it is known in Esoteric phraseology as “Dangma's Opened Eye.” Dangma means a purified soul, one who has become a Jîvanmukta, the highest Adept, or rather a Mahâtmâ so-called. His “Opened Eye” is the inner spiritual eye of the seer; and the faculty which manifests through it, is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, i.e., the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the “third eye,” which mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men.
66.
Vishnu Purâna, I. 21.
67.
And yet, one, claiming authority, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied the fact. This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain: “Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism ... to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no esoteric system of doctrine ... withheld from ordinary men” (!!). And, again: “... When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known.” And then, contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his audience that “we learn from Lalita-Vistara that various forms of bodily torture, self-maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama's time.” (!!) But the lecturer seems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self-maceration is precisely the lower form of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, which was “little known” and yet so “common” in Gautama's time.
68.
It is even argued that all the Six Darshanas, or Schools of Philosophy, show traces of Buddha's influence, being either taken from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Müller, etc.) We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, “the highest authority” in such matters, had long ago settled the question by showing that “the Hindûs were in this instance the teachers, not the learners.”
69.
Soul, as the basis of all, Anima Mundi.
70.
Absolute Being and Consciousness, which are Absolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness.
71.
“Paramârthasatya” is self-consciousness; Svasamvedanâ, or self-analyzing reflection—from parama, above everything, and artha, comprehension; satya meaning absolute true being, or esse. In Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya—the relative truth only—Samvriti meaning “false conception” and being the origin of Illusion, Mâyâ; in Tibetan Kundzabchidenpa, “illusion-creating appearance.”
72.
Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas.
73.
Âryâsanga was a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma de Körös places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh century A.D. There was another Aryâsanga, who lived during the first centuries of our era, and the Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two.
74.
Vâyu Purâna.
75.
Vishnu Purâna, Wilson, I. 20.
76.
Finite self-consciousness, I mean. For how can the Absolute attain this otherwise than simply as an aspect, the highest of which aspects known to us is human consciousness?
77.
See Schwegler's Handbook of the History of Philosophy, in Sterling's translation, p. 28.
78.
Vajrapâni or Vajradhara means the diamond-holder; in Tibetan Dorjesempa, sempa meaning the soul; its adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation with regard to the Anupâdaka given in the Kâla Chakra, the first in the Gyut division of the Kanjur, is half esoteric. It has misled the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to the Dhyâni-Buddhas and their earthly correspondencies, the Mânushi-Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a subsequent volume, and will be more fully explained in its proper place.
79.
To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatâras (special incarnations of the World-Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great religious reformers): “The essence of man is spirit ... only by stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ-man, as man in whom the Unity of God-man [identity of the individual with the universal Consciousness as taught by the Vedântins and some Advaitees] appeared, has, in his death and history generally, himself presented the eternal history of Spirit—a history which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit.”—Philosophy of History, Sibree's English Translation, p. 340.
80.
Chohanic, Dhyâni-Buddhic.
81.
Rûpa.
82.
Arûpa.
83.
“Mother of the Gods,” Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the Zohar, she is called Sephira, the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her primordial form, in abscondita.
84.
Hence Non-Being is “Absolute Being,” in Esoteric Philosophy. In the tenets of the latter even Âdi-Buddha (the First or Primeval Wisdom) is, while manifested, in one sense an Illusion, Mâyâ, since all the gods, including Brahmâ, have to die at the end of the Age of Brahmâ; the abstraction called Parabrahman—whether we call it Ain Suph, or with Herbert Spencer the Unknowable—alone being the One Absolute Reality. The One Secondless Existence is Advaita, “Without a Second,” and all the rest is Mâyâ, so teaches the Advaita Philosophy.
85.
Motion.
86.
Wilson, I. iv.
87.
Mother-Lotus.
88.
An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic.
89.
Gross, The Heathen Religion, p. 195.
90.
Precepts for Yoga.
91.
A Vedântin of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy would say that, though the only independent Reality, Parabrahman is inseparable from His Trinity. That He is three, “Parabrahman, Chit, and Achit,” the last two being dependent Realities unable to exist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahman is the Substance—changeless, eternal, and incognizable—and Chit (Âtmâ) and Achit (Anâtmâ) and its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather aspect (sharîra) of Parabrahman. But an Occultist would find much to say against this claim, and so would the Advaiti Vedântin.
92.
Sc., Sons.
93.
Simultaneously.
94.
Moves.
95.
Periodical.
96.
Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, I. 40.
97.
Triangle.
98.
Quaternary.
99.
Hiranyagarbha.
100.
The three hypostases of Brahmâ, or Vishnu, the three Avasthâs.
101.
Number, truly; but never Motion. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word, in Occultism.
102.
The “fourteen precious things.” The narrative or allegory is found in the Shatapatha Brâmanah and others. The Japanese Secret Science of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has “seven precious things.” We will speak of them, hereafter.
103.
“The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Shankara renders Antaskarana. ‘Refined,’ he says, ‘by sacrifices and other sanctifying operations.’ In the Katha, at p. 148, Sattva is rendered by Shankara to mean Buddhi—a common use of the word.” (Bhagavadgîtâ, etc., translated by Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A.; edited by Max Müller, p. 193.) Whatever meaning various schools may give the term, Sattva is the name given among Occult students of the Âryâsanga School to the dual Monad, or Âtmâ-Buddhi, and Âtmâ-Buddhi on this plane corresponds to Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti on the higher plane.
104.
Amrita.
105.
Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 314.
106.
On Rosenkranz.
107.
i. 2.
108.
John, i. 4.
109.
Lanoo is a student, a Chelâ who studies practical Esotericism.
110.
“Whom thou knowest now as Kwan-Shai-Yin.”—Comment.
111.
Eka is One; Chatur, Four; Tri, Three; and Sapta, Seven.
112.
“Tridasha,” or Thirty, three times ten, alludes to the Vedic deities in round numbers, or more accurately 33—a sacred number. They are the 12 Âdityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and the 2 Ashvins—the twin sons of the Sun and Sky. This is the root-number of the Hindû Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores, or three hundred and thirty millions of gods and goddesses.
113.
Stars.
114.
The Upper Space.
115.
Element.
116.
The Gnostic Sophia, “Wisdom,” who is the “Mother” of the Ogdoad (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The “Father” is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere—the mother of the seven planetary powers.
117.
See Chinese Buddhism, by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who always gives correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently erroneous.
118.
Book of Sarparâjni.
119.
By “God, the Father,” the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are here unmistakably meant, this principle being inseparable in its Esse and Nature from the seventh cosmic principle. In one sense it is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteshvara of the Esoteric “Buddhists.”
120.
Fitzedward Hall's edition, in the Bibliotheca Indica, p. 16.
121.
Anugîtâ, ch. xxvi, K. T. Telang's Translation, p. 333.
122.
See Mariette's Abydos, II. 63, and III. 413, 414, No. 1,122.
123.
Book of Dzyan, III.
124.
Od is the pure life-giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the messenger of death used by sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the Philologists tell why Od—a term used by Reichenbach to denominate the vital fluid—is also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness, radiancy? It also means “sky” in an Occult sense. Whence the root of the word? But Âkâsha is not quite Ether, but far higher than that, as will be shown.
125.
This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God-Spirit or Universal Principle (the Advaita doctrine). It is difficult to find a single speculation in Western metaphysics which has not been anticipated by archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dvaita, Advaita, and Vedântic doctrines generally.
126.
Compare Dowson's Dictionary of Hindû Mythology, p. 57.
127.
Whether the genus of the bird be cygnus, anser, or pelecanus, it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the Eighteenth Degree of the Rosecroix is precisely this, though it was later on poetised into the motherly feeling of the pelican rending its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood.
128.
The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan (Deuteronomy, xiv. 16, 17), classing the two among the unclean fowls, and permits eating “the bald locusts, beetles, and the grasshopper after his kind” (Leviticus xi. 22.), is a purely physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so far as the word “unclean,” like every other word, ought not to be understood literally; for it is esoteric like all the rest, and may as well mean “holy” as not. It is a very suggestive blind in connection with certain superstitions—e.g., that of the Russian people, who will not use the pigeon for food; not because it is “unclean” but because the “Holy Ghost” is credited with having appeared under the form of a dove.
129.
Chaos.
130.
Not the Mediæval Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire-Worshippers, from whom the Rosicrucians, or the Philosophers per ignem, the successors of the Theurgists, borrowed all their ideas concerning Fire, as a mystic and divine element.
131.
Isis Unveiled, I. 146.
132.
“Para” gives the force of beyond, outside.
133.
Purusha.
134.
Prakriti.
135.
I, I. 7.
136.
The Web.
137.
The Father.
138.
The Root of Matter.
139.
The Elements, with their respective Powers, or Intelligences.
140.
The Web.
141.
Popular Astronomy, pp. 507, 508.
142.
American Journal of Science, July, 1870.
143.
Winchell, World-Life, pp. 83-5.
144.
Of the Atoms.
145.
The Universe.
146.
Primeval Light.
147.
This is said in view of the fact that the flame from a fire is inexhaustible, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be lit from one simple rush-light without diminishing the flame.
148.
Chap. viii., p. 80, Telang's Translation.
149.
Deuteronomy, iv 24.
150.
Thess., i. 7, 8.
151.
Acts, ii. 3.
152.
Rev., xix. 13.
153.
Telang's Translation, Sacred Books of the East, viii. 278.
154.
Dhyân Chohans.
155.
Formless.
156.
With Bodies.
157.
Pitris.
158.
The Four, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktys, the Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the Mystics of every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in Brâhmanism, Buddhism, in Kabalism and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and other numerical systems.
159.
In the Kabalah, the same numbers, viz., 1065 are a value of Jehovah, since the numerical values of the three letters which compose his name—Jod, Vau and twice Hé—are respectively 10 (?), 6 (?) and 5 (?); or again thrice seven, 21. “Ten is the Mother of the Soul, for Life and Light are therein united,” says Hermes. “For number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from Matter [Chaos, feminine]; the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity.” (Book of the Keys.) By means of Temura, the anagrammatical method of the Kabalah, and the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal science may be obtained regarding Cosmos and its mysteries (Rabbi Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as the most sacred of all.
160.
The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered the same number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chaldæa. See “Hebrew Metrology,” in The Masonic Review, July, 1885, McMillan Lodge, No. 141.
161.
We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing, “Mother,” and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of that country. She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one of the principal titles of the god being “the husband of his mother.” The goddess Mout, or Mût, is addressed as “Our Lady,” the “Queen of Heaven” and “of the Earth,” thus “sharing these titles with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc.” (Maspero).
162.
The Sparks.
163.
The permutation of Oeaohoo. The literal signification of the word is, among the Eastern Occultists of the North, a circular wind, whirlwind; but in this instance, it is a term to denote the ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion, or rather the Force that moves it, which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity, but never named. It is the eternal Kârana, the ever-acting Cause.
164.
vi. 15. The Anugîtâ forms part of the Ashvamedha Parvan of the Mahâbhârata. The translator of the Bhagavadgîtâ, edited by Max Müller, regards it as a continuation of the Bhagavadgîtâ. Its original is one of the oldest Upanishads.
165.
This shows the modern metaphysicians, added to all past and present Hegels, Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns, Herbert Spencers, and even the modern Hylo-Idealists to boot, no better than the pale copyists of hoary antiquity.
166.
It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Arhat to perform his Siddhis, or various phenomena, such as the disintegration of matter, the transport of objects from one place to another, etc.
167.
These are ancient Commentaries attached with modern Glossaries to the Stanzas, for the Commentaries in their symbolical language are usually as difficult to understand as the Stanzas themselves.
168.
In a polemical scientific work, The Modern Genesis (p. 48), the Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticizing the position assumed by the astronomers, says: “It is to be regretted that the advocates of this [nebular] theory have not entered more largely into the discussion of it [the beginning of rotation] No one condescends to give us the rationale of it. How does the process of cooling and contracting the mass impart to it a rotatory motion?” (Quoted by Winchell, World-Life, p. 94.) It is not materialistic Science that can ever solve it. “Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in the manifest,” says an Occult teaching. It is “when heat caused by the descent of Flame into primordial matter causes its particles to move, which motion becomes the Whirlwind.” A drop of liquid assumes a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal essence; unresolvable for Physical Science, at any rate. The question is amply treated later on.
169.
The x, the unknown quantity.
170.
Which makes Ten, or the perfect number, applied to the “Creator,” the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the Monotheists into One, as the “Elohim,” Adam Kadmon or Sephira, the Crown—are the androgyne synthesis of the ten Sephiroth, who stand for the symbol of the manifested Universe in the popularized Kabalah. The Esoteric Kabalists, however, following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle (or Sephira, Chokmah and Binah) from the rest, which leaves seven Sephiroth. As for Svabhâvat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the universal plastic matter diffused through space, with, perhaps, half an eye to the Ether of Science. But the Occultists identify it with “Father-Mother” on the mystic plane.
171.
Arûpa.
172.
Boundless Circle.
173.
Subjective, Formless.
174.
Bhâskara.
175.
This refers to the Abstract Thought and concrete Voice, or the manifestation thereof, the effect of the Cause. Adam Kadmon, or Tetragrammaton, is the Logos in the Kabalah. Therefore this Triad answers in the latter to the highest Triangle of Kether, Chokmah and Binah, the last a female potency, and at the same time the male Jehovah, as partaking of the nature of Chokmah, or the male Wisdom.
176.
The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central star and not a planet. Yet the ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods, excluding the Sun and Earth. Which was that “Mystery God” they set apart? Of course not Uranus, only discovered by Herschel in 1781. But could it not be known by another name? Says Ragon: “Occult Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that the number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to introduce the Sun into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and make him occupy the vacant place. Thus, every time they perceived an influence that pertained to none of the six planets known, they attributed it to the Sun.... The error seems important, but was not so in practical results, if the astrologers replaced Uranus by the Sun, which ... is a central Star relatively motionless, turning only on its axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be turned aside from its true functions.” (Maçonnerie Occulte, p. 447.) The nomenclature of the days of the week is also faulty. “The Sun-day ought to be Uranus-day (Urani dies, Urandi),” adds the learned writer.
177.
Planetary System.
178.
“The Sun rotates on its axis always in the same direction in which the planets revolve in their respective orbits,” astronomy teaches us.
179.
See Anugîtâ, Telang, x. 9; and Aitareya Brâhmana, Haug, p. 1.
180.
This essence of cometary matter, Occult Science teaches, is totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which Modern Science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its primitive form beyond the Solar Systems, and differentiates entirely once it crosses the boundaries of our Earth's region; vitiated by the atmospheres of the planets and the already compound matter of the interplanetary stuff, it is heterogeneous only in our manifested world.
181.
Manas—the Mind-Principle, or the Human Soul.
182.
Buddhi—the Divine Soul.
183.
See Correlation of Physical Forces, 1843, p. 81; and Address to the British Association, 1866.
184.
Very similar ideas were those of W. Mattieu Williams, in The Fuel of the Sun; of Dr. C. William Siemens, On the Conservation of Solar Energy (Nature, XXV, 440-444, March 9, 1882); and also of Dr. P. Martin Duncan in an Address, as the President of the Geological Society, London, May, 1877. See World-Life, by Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 53, et seq.
185.
When we speak of Neptune, it is not as an Occultist but as a European. The true Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas there are many yet undiscovered planets in our system, Neptune does not really belong to it, in spite of its apparent connection with our Sun and the influence of the latter upon it. This connection is mâyâvic, imaginary, they say.
186.
Word, Voice and Spirit.
187.
These are the four “Immortals,” which are mentioned in the Atharva Veda as the “Watchers” or Guardians of the four quarters of the sky. (See Ch. lxxvi., 1-4, et seq.)
188.
Conflict between Religion and Science, pp. 132 and 133.
189.
Principles of Science, II. 455.
190.
Les Mystères de l'Horoscope, Ely Star, p. xi.
191.
Psalms, civ. 4.
192.
The difference between the Builders, the Planetary Spirits, and the Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Shlokas 5 and 6 of this Commentary.)
193.
That is, he is under the influence of their guiding thought.
194.
Cosmic mists.
195.
The World to be.
196.
Atoms.
197.
See A. P. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism, 5th annotated edition, pp. 171-173.
198.
The first and greatest Tibetan Reformer who founded the “Yellow-Caps,” Gelukpas. He was born in the year 1355 A.D., in the district of Amdo, and was the Avatâra of Amitâbha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha.
199.
T. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the Logos. (See his Lectures on the Bhagavadgîtâ, in the Theosophist, vol. ix.)
200.
Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881.
201.
It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration, assumes a series of regular figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a complete explanation of this fact?
202.
See The Masonic Cyclopædia, Mackenzie; and The Pythagorean Triangle, Oliver.
203.
Ormazd is the Logos, the “First Born,” and the Sun.
204.
Against Apion, I, 25.
205.
See Isis Unveiled, II., 430-438.
206.
See Dowson's Hindû Classical Dictionary.
207.
The mineral atoms.
208.
Gaseous clouds.
209.
See Kabbalah Denudata, “De Anima,” p. 113.
210.
“The doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis was taught by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 B.C. It was also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of Plato. The immobility of the sun and the orbital rotation of the earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 B.C. to be suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The heliocentric theory was also taught about 150 B.C., by Seleucus of Seleucia on the Tigris. [It was taught 500 B.C. by Pythagoras.—H.P.B.] It is said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled Psammites, inculcated the heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was distinctly taught by Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure of the earth's shadow on the moon in eclipses. (Aristotle, De Cælo, lib. II., cap, XIV.) The same idea was defended by Pliny. (Nat. Hist., II., 65.) These views seem to have been lost from knowledge for more than a thousand years....” (Winchell, World-Life, 551-2.)
211.
On Vortex Atoms.
212.
Op. cit., 567.
213.
Abridged from Principia Rerum Naturalium.
214.
The Lipika.
215.
That is: the First is now the Second World.
216.
The Formless Universe of Thought.
217.
The Shadowy World of Primal Form, or the Intellectual.
218.
In the Rig Veda, we find the names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati alternating with, and equivalent to, each other. Also see Brihadâranyaka Upanishad; Brihaspati is a deity called the “Father of the Gods.”
219.
Logic, II. 125.
220.
Having already taken the first three.
221.
Hosts.
222.
The four Aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the “double” of the body—the triad which disappears with the death of the person—and the Kâma Rûpa which disintegrates in Kâma Loka.
223.
On Amos, iv.
224.
Theol. Cir., I. vii.
225.
See The Occult World, pp. 89, 90.
226.
Thus the sentence, “Natura Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei” (Clemens, Stromata, IV. 6), is applicable to both or neither. Consult the Zends, II. 228, and Plutarch De Iside, as compared by Layard, Académie des Inscriptions, 1854, Vol. XV.
227.
Exodus xxvi, xxvii.
228.
Antiquities, I. VIII, ch. xxii.
229.
Chinese Buddhism, p. 216.
230.
“Man” was here substituted for “Dragon.” Compare the Ophite Spirits. The Angels recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, who correspond to these “Faces,” were with the Ophites: Dragon—Raphael; Lion—Michael; Bull, or Ox—Uriel; and Eagle—Gabriel. The four keep company with the four Evangelists, and preface the Gospels.
231.
Ezekiel, i.
232.
The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no names for East, West, South, and North, expressed the idea by words signifying before, behind, right and left, and very often confounded the terms exoterically, thus making the blinds in the Bible more confused and difficult to interpret. Add to this the fact that out of the forty-seven translators of King James' Bible “only three understood Hebrew, and of these two died before the Psalms were translated” (Royal Masonic Cyclopædia), and one may easily understand what reliance can be placed on the English version of the Bible. In this work the Douay Roman Catholic version is generally followed.
233.
The vertical line or the figure 1.
234.
Circle.
235.
Also for those who, etc.
236.
The Formless World and the World of Forms.
237.
Theosophist, Feb., 1877, p. 303.
238.
These voluntary reïncarnations are referred to in our Doctrine as Nirmânakâyas—the surviving spiritual principles of men.
239.
Sûkshma Sharîra, “dream-like” illusive body, with which are clothed the inferior Dhyânis of the celestial Hierarchy.
240.
Compare this Esoteric tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in Pistis-Sophia (Knowledge-Wisdom), in which treatise Sophia (Achamôth) is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (Matter), on her way to the Supreme Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the right Path. Note well, that “Christos” with the Gnostics meant the Impersonal Principle, the Âtman of the Universe, and the Âtmâ within every man's soul—and not Jesus; though in the old Coptic MS., in the British Museum, “Christos” is replaced by “Jesus” and other terms.
241.
A Catechism of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy, by N. Bhâshiyacharya, F.T.S., late Pandit of the Adyar Library.
242.
Träume eines Geistersehers, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface to Von Hartmann's Spiritismus.
243.
Le Livre des Morts, Paul Pierret, Chap. xvii. p. 61.
244.
See also for other data on this peculiar expression, the Day of “Come To Us,” The Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians, by Viscount de Rougé.
245.
Chaos.
246.
Our Universe.
247.
The Theosophist, Feb., 1887, p. 305.
248.
Op. cit., p. 306.
249.
Madhya is said of something whose commencement and end are unknown, and Para means infinite. These expressions all relate to infinitude and to division of time.
250.
Op. cit., p. 307.
251.
From the Sanskrit Laya, the point of matter where every differentiation has ceased.
252.
Five Years of Theosophy, Art., “Personal and Impersonal God,” p. 200.
253.
Elements.
254.
Fraction.
255.
Presidential Address before the Royal Society of Chemists, March, 1888.
256.
P. 242.
257.
Worlds.
258.
A period of 311,040,000,000,000 years, according to Brâhmanical calculations.
259.
See the Scientific Arena, a monthly journal devoted to current philosophical teaching and its bearing upon the religious thought of the age. New York: A. Wilford Hall, Ph.D., LL.D., Editor, July, August, and September, 1886.
260.
Such, we believe, is the name applied to what he also calls “Etheric Centres,” by J. W. Keely, of Philadelphia, the inventor of the famous “Motor”—destined, as his admirers have hoped, to revolutionize the motor power of the world.
261.
The moon is dead only so far as regards her inner principles—i.e., psychically and spiritually, however absurd the statement may seem. Physically, she is only as a semi-paralysed body may be. She is aptly referred to in Occultism as the “Insane Mother,” the great sidereal lunatic.
262.
Occultists, however, having the most perfect faith in their own exact records, astronomical and mathematical, calculate the age of humanity, and assert that men (as separate sexes) have existed in this Round just 18,618,727 years, as the Brâhmanical teachings and even some Hindû calendars declare.
263.
The commentaries on the Stanzas are resumed on p. 213.
264.
In Esoteric Buddhism and Man: Fragments of Forgotten History.
265.
Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern astronomical works.
266.
p. 48.
267.
See, in Esoteric Buddhism, “The Constitution of Man,” and the “Planetary Chain.”
268.
Winchell's World-Life.
269.
P. 113 (5th edition).
270.
pp. 185-6.
271.
Kosha is “sheath” literally, the sheath of every principle.
272.
Sthûla-upâdhi, or basis of the principle.
273.
Life.
274.
The Astral Body, or Linga Sharîra.
275.
Buddhi.
276.
See Diagram II, p. 195.
277.
Extract from the Teacher's letters on various topics.
278.
We are not concerned with the other Globes in this work except incidentally.
279.
Esoteric Buddhism, p. 136.
280.
Lucifer, May, 1888.
281.
Esoteric Buddhism (5th ed.), p. 46.
282.
Op. cit., p. 49.
283.
Op. cit., p. 140.
284.
p. 177 supra.
285.
Occultism divides the periods of Rest (Pralaya) into several kinds: there is the Individual Pralaya of each Globe, as humanity and life pass on to the next—seven minor Pralayas in each Round; the Planetary Pralaya, when seven Rounds are completed; the Solar Pralaya, when the whole system is at an end; and finally the Universal Pralaya, Mahâ or Brahmâ Pralaya, at the close of the Age of Brahmâ. These are the chief Pralayas or “destruction periods.” There are many other minor ones, but with these we are not concerned at present.
286.
Pp. 48, 49.
287.
Ibid.
288.
“Physical” here means differentiated for cosmical purposes and work; that “physical side,” nevertheless, if objective to the apperception of beings from other planes, is yet quite subjective to us on our plane.
289.
Pp. 276 et seq.
290.
Ibid.
291.
See diagram, op. cit., p. 277.
292.
Op. cit., pp. 273-4.
293.
Op. cit., p. 274-5.
294.
II. 278-9.
295.
P. 48.
296.
The Natures of the seven Hierarchies or Classes of Pitris and Dhyân Chohans which compose our nature and bodies are here meant.
297.
Round, or revolution of Life and Being round the seven smaller Wheels.
298.
Thirds.
299.
Race.
300.
P. 235.
301.
Rev., xii. 7-9.
302.
See Vol. II, Shloka 17.
303.
Isis Unveiled, I. 299, 300. Compare also Dunlap, Sôd: the Son of the Man, pp. 51 et seq.
304.
On the authority of Irenæus, of Justin Martyr and of the Codex itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes regarded “Spirit” as a female and evil Power, in its connection with our Earth.
305.
Fetahil is identical with the host of the Pitris, who “created man” as a “shell” only. He was, with the Nazarenes, the King of Light, and the Creator; but in this instance he is the unlucky Prometheus, who fails to get hold of the Living Fire necessary for the formation of the Divine Soul, as he is ignorant of the secret name, the ineffable or incommunicable name of the Kabalists.
306.
The spirit of Matter and Concupiscence; Kâma Rûpa minus Manas, Mind.
307.
Codex Nazaræus, ii. 233.
308.
This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hindû Manu, the Heavenly Man of the Rig Veda.
309.
“I am the true Vine, and my father is the husbandman.” (John, xv. 1.)
310.
With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael who is identical with him in some respects, was the “Chief of the Æons.”
311.
Codex Nazaræus, i. 135.
312.
See the Cosmogony of Pherecydes.
313.
I. 301, note.
314.
They are found, however, in the Chaldean Book of Numbers.
315.
Op. cit., II. 183 et seq.
316.
For the difference between nous, the higher divine Wisdom, and psyche, the lower and terrestrial, see St. James, iii. 15-17.
317.
Jehovah's connection with the Moon in the Kabalah is well known to students.
318.
For the Nazarenes, see Isis Unveiled, II. 131 and 132. The true followers of the true Christos were all Nazarenes and Christians, and were the opponents of the later Christians.
319.
See the diagram of the Lunar Chain of seven worlds, p. 195, where, as in our own or any other Chain, the upper worlds are spiritual, while the lowest, whether Moon, Earth, or any other planet, is dark with matter.
320.
The whole Kosmos. The reader is reminded that in the Stanzas Kosmos often means only our own Solar System, not the Infinite Universe.
321.
This is purely astronomical.
322.
For a clearer explanation of the above, see “Saptaparna” in the Index.
323.
Op. cit., III. 346.
324.
Book of Dzyan.
325.
See Index, at the words “Evolution,” “Darwin,” “Kapila,” “Battle of Life,” etc.
326.
Isis Unveiled, II. 260.
327.
Vishnu Purâna.
328.
Chain.
329.
Earth.
330.
Kenealy, Book of God, p. 118.
331.
Acosta, vi. 14.
332.
Kenealy, Ibid.
333.
I, 587-93.
334.
That which was natural in the sight of primitive man, has only now become miracle to us; and that which was to him a miracle, could never be expressed in our language.
335.
There is no nation in the world in which the feeling of devotion, or of religious mysticism, is more developed and prominent than in the Hindû people. See what Max Müller says of this idiosyncrasy and national feature in his works. This is a direct inheritance from the primitive conscious men of the Third Race.
336.
Lectures on Heroes.
337.
Vehicle.
338.
Âtman.
339.
Âtmâ-Buddhi, Spirit-Soul. This relates to the cosmic principles.
340.
Again.
341.
Avalokiteshvara.
342.
Builders. The seven creative Rishis, now connected with the constellation of the Great Bear.
343.
Earth.
344.
Rosenroth, Liber Mysterii IV. 1.
345.
Genesis i.
346.
Auszüge aus dem Zohar, pp. 13-15.
347.
See Vishnu Purâna, Book I.
348.
Ch. lxxxviii.
349.
Ch. lxiv. 29, 30.
350.
Ibid., 34, 35.
351.
A World, when called a “higher World,” is not higher by reason of its location, but because it is superior in quality or essence. Yet such a World is generally understood by the profane as “Heaven,” and located above our heads.
352.
Of Form, the Sthûla Sharîra, External Body.
353.
Pearls.
354.
?νθρωπος, a work on Occult Embryology, Book I.
355.
Namely, a congenital idiot.
356.
John iii, 8.
357.
Ch. cxlviii.
358.
Ibid., cxlix. 51.
359.
The Seven Souls of Man, p. 2; a Lecture by Gerald Massey.
360.
De Iside et Osiride, xliii.
361.
Ch. xli.
362.
iv. 5.
363.
Mariette's Abydos, plate 51.
364.
P. Pierret, Études Égyptologiques.
365.
Ritual, ch. ii.
366.
Linked into.
367.
Op. cit., xvii. 4.
368.
Several inimical critics are anxious to prove that no Seven Principles of Man, or Septenary Constitution of our Chain, were taught in our earlier volumes, Isis Unveiled. Though in that work the doctrine could only be hinted at, there are many passages, nevertheless, in which the Septenary Constitution of both Man and the Chain is openly mentioned. Speaking of the Elohim (II. 420), it is said: “They remain over the seventh heaven (or spiritual world), for it is they who, according to the Kabalists, formed in succession the six material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds, that preceded our own, which, they say, is the seventh.” Our Globe, in the diagram representing the Chain, is, of course, the seventh and lowest; though, as the evolution on these Globes is cyclic, it is the fourth, on the descending arc of matter. And again (II. 367) it is written: “In the Egyptian notions, as in those of all other faiths founded on philosophy, man was not merely ... a union of soul and body; he was a trinity, when spirit was added to it. Besides, that doctrine made him consist of ... body, ... astral form, or shadow, ... animal soul, ... the higher soul, and ... terrestrial intelligence ... [and] a sixth principle, etc., etc.”—the seventh—SPIRIT. So clearly are these principles mentioned, that even in the Index (II. 683), one finds “Six Principles of Man,” the seventh being, in strict truth, the synthesis of the six, and not a principle but a ray of the Absolute ALL.
369.
See Diagram III, p. 221.
370.
pp. 340-351, “Genesis of the Soul.”
371.
De Mysteriis, ii. 3.
372.
Asiatic Researches, xi. 99, 100.
373.
Ch. xxxii. 9.
374.
Their Upper Triad.
375.
Bhûmi or Prithivî.
376.
Book of the Dead, i. 7. Compare also Mysteries of Rostan.
377.
Kingdom.
378.
Kingdom.
379.
The first Shadow of the Physical Man.
380.
Man.
381.
The Moon.
382.
See Mantuan Codex.
383.
The formation of the “Living Soul,” or Man, would render the idea more clearly. A “Living Soul” is a synonym of Man in the Bible. These are our seven “Principles.”
384.
Ha Idra Zuta Kadisha, xxii. 746.
385.
xviii. 12.
386.
Hebrews, iv.
387.
Cruden, sub voce.
388.
Book of Numbers, 1. viii. 3.
389.
p. 389.
390.
Plate VII. p. 37.
391.
Esotericism teaches the same. But Manas is not Nephesh; nor is the latter the Astral, but the Fourth Principle, and also the Second, Prâna, for Nephesh is the “Breath of Life” in man, as in beast or insect; of physical, material life, which has no spirituality in it.
392.
Éliphas Lévi, whether purposely or otherwise, has confused the numbers: with us his No. 2 is No. 1 (Spirit); and by making of Nephesh both the Plastic Mediator and Life, he thus makes in reality only six principles, because he repeats the first two.
393.
Zohar, “Idra Suta,” Book iii., p. 292b.
394.
1. 302.
395.
Read, in Isis Unveiled (ii. 297-303), the doctrine of the Codex Nazaræus. Every tenet of our teaching is found there under a different form and allegory.
396.
Manu, Bk. I.
397.
The word “Sin” is curious, but has a particular Occult relation to the Moon, besides being its Chaldean equivalent.
398.
Professor Zöllner's theory has been more than welcomed by several Scientists, who are also Spiritualists; Professors Butlerof and Wagner, of St. Petersburg, for instance.
399.
“The giving reality to abstractions is the error of Realism. Space and Time are frequently viewed as separated from all the concrete experiences of the mind, instead of being generalizations of these in certain aspects.” (Bain, Logic, Part II. p. 389.)
400.
The Mysteries of Magic, by A. E. Waite.
401.
Wilson, I. 23, 24.
402.
Five Years of Theosophy, p. 169.
403.
In the Sânkhya philosophy, the seven Prakritis, or “productive productions,” are Mahat, Ahamkâra, and the five Tanmâtras. See Sânkhya Kârikâ, III., and the Commentary thereon.
404.
See Linga Purâna, Prior Section, lxx. 12 et seq.; and Vâyu Purâna, ch. iv., but especially the former Purâna—Prior Section, viii. 67-74.
405.
Vishnu Purâna, Book vi., ch. iv. No use to say so to the Hindûs, who know their Purânas by heart, but very useful to remind our Orientalists and those Westerns who regard Wilson's translations as authoritative, that, in his English translation of the Vishnu Purâna, he is guilty of the most ludicrous contradictions and errors. So on this identical subject of the seven Prakritis, or the seven zones of Brahmâ's Egg, the two accounts differ totally. In Vol. i. p. 40, the Egg is said to be externally invested by seven envelopes. Wilson comments: “by Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and Ahamkâra”—which last word does not exist in the Sanskrit texts. And in Vol. v. p. 198, of the same Purâna, it is written: “in this manner were the seven forms of nature (Prakriti) reckoned from Mahat to Earth” (?). Between Mahat, or Mahâ-Buddhi, and “Water, etc.”, the difference is very considerable.
406.
According to the great metaphysician Hegel also. For him Nature was a perpetual becoming. A purely Esoteric conception. Creation or Origin, in the Christian sense of the term, is absolutely unthinkable. As the above-quoted thinker said: “God (the Universal Spirit) objectivizes himself as Nature, and again rises out of it.”
407.
Book of Dzyan, Comm. III, par. 18.
408.
P. 19.
409.
Primitive, or First Man.
410.
Reïncarnation.
411.
Vehicle.
412.
See, for example, Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quichés, by Augustus le Plongeon, who shows the identity between the Egyptian rites and beliefs and those of the people he describes. The ancient hieratic alphabets of the Mayas and the Egyptians are almost identical.
413.
In The Theosophist, 1881.
414.
T. Subba Row, Five Years of Theosophy, p. 154.
415.
Also called the “Sons of Wisdom” and of the “Fire-Mist,” and the “Brothers of the Sun,” in the Chinese records. Si-dzang (Tibet) is mentioned, in the MSS. of the sacred library of the province of Fo-Kien, as the great seat of Occult learning from time immemorial, ages before Buddha. The Emperor Yu, the “Great” (2,207 B.C.), a pious Mystic and great Adept, is said to have obtained his Knowledge from the “Great Teachers of the Snowy Range” in Si-dzang.
416.
Matt. vi. 5, 6.
417.
The Virgin of the World, pp. 134-5.
418.
Paracelsus, Franz Hartmann, M.D., p. 44.
419.
This word is explained by Dr. Hartmann, from the original texts of Paracelsus before him, as follows. According to this great Rosicrucian; “Mysterium is everything out of which something may be developed, which is only germinally contained in it. A seed is the ‘Mysterium’ of a plant, an egg that of a living bird, etc.”
420.
Op. cit., pp. 41, 42.
421.
It is only the mediæval Kabalists who, following the Jewish and one or two Neo-Platonists, applied the term Microcosm to man. Ancient philosophy called the Earth the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, and man the outcome of the two.
422.
“This doctrine, preached 300 years ago,” remarks the translator, “is identical with the one that has revolutionized modern thought, after having been put into new shape and elaborated by Darwin. It is still more elaborated by Kapila in the Sânkhya philosophy.”
423.
The Eastern Occultist says that they are guided and informed by Spiritual Beings, the Workmen in the invisible Worlds, and behind the veil of Occult Nature, or Nature in abscondito.
424.
Wilson, I. ii., (Vol. I. 35).
425.
A frequent expression in the said “Fragments,” to which we take exception. The Universal Mind is not a Being or “God.”
426.
The Virgin of the World, p. 47. “Asclepios,” Pt. I.
427.
Divine Pymander, ix. 64.
428.
The Virgin of the World, p. 153.
429.
Op. cit., pp. 139, 140. Fragments from the “Physical Eclogues” and “Florilegium” of Stobæus.
430.
Vishnu Purâna, I. ii, Wilson, I. 13-15.
431.
Op. cit., pp. 135-138.
432.
This teaching does not refer to Prakriti-Purusha beyond the boundaries of our small universe.
433.
The ultimate quiescent state; the Nirvânic condition of the Seventh Principle.
434.
The teaching is all given from our plane of consciousness.
435.
Or the “dream of Science,” the primeval really homogeneous matter, which no mortal can make objective in this Race, or Round either.
436.
“Vishnu, in the form of his active energy, neither ever rises nor sets, and is at once, the seven-fold sun and distinct from it,” says Vishnu Purâna, II. xi., (Wilson, II. 296).
437.
“In the same manner as a man approaching a mirror placed upon a stand, beholds in it his own image, so the energy (or reflection) of Vishnu [the Sun] is never disjoined but remains ... in the Sun (as in a mirror), that is there stationed.” (Ibid., loc. cit.)
438.
Compare the Hermetic “Nature” “going down cyclically into matter when she meets the ‘Heavenly Man’.”
439.
The writers of the above knew perfectly well the physical cause of the tides, of the waves, etc. It is the informing Spirit of the whole cosmic solar body that is meant here, and which is referred to whenever such expressions are used from the mystic point of view.
440.
Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 110, 111, art., “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac.”
441.
See Stanzas III and IV, and the Commentaries thereupon, and especially compare the comments on Stanza IV, concerning the Lipika and the four Mahârâjahs, the agents of Karma.
442.
And “Gods” or Dhyânis, too, not only the Genii or “guided Forces.”
443.
The meaning of this is that as man is composed of all the Great Elements—Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Ether—the Elementals which respectively belong to these Elements feel attracted to man by reason of their coëssence. That Element which predominates in a certain constitution will be the ruling Element throughout life. For instance, if man has a preponderance of the earthly, gnomic Element, the Gnomes will lead him towards assimilating metals—money and wealth, and so on. “Animal man is the son of the animal elements out of which his Soul [life] was born, and animals are the mirrors of man,” says Paracelsus. (De Fundamento Sapientiæ.) Paracelsus was cautious, and wanted the Bible to agree with what he said, and therefore did not say all.
444.
Cyclic progress in development.
445.
The God in man and often the incarnation of a God, a highly Spiritual Dhyân Chohan in him, besides the presence of his own Seventh Principle.
446.
Now, what “God” is meant here? Not God the “Father,” the anthropomorphic fiction; for that God is the Elohim collectively, and has no being apart from the Host. Besides, such a God is finite and imperfect. It is the high Initiates and Adepts who are meant here by the “few in number.” And it is precisely such men who believe in “Gods”, and know no “God” but one Universal unrelated and unconditioned Deity.
447.
The Virgin of the World, pp. 104-5, “The Definitions of Asclepios.”
448.
P. 120.
449.
National Reformer, January 9th, 1887. Article “Phreno-Kosmo-Biology,” by Dr. Lewins.
450.
This is Cyclic law; but this law itself is often defied by human stubbornness.
451.
Vol. I. p. 256.
452.
Sepher Jetzirah.
453.
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.
454.
When the “false theologies” disappear, then true prehistoric realities will be found, contained especially in the mythology of the Âryans and ancient Hindûs, and even the pre-Homeric Hellenes.
455.
See Section VII, “Deus Lunus.”
456.
From an MS.
457.
Guide au Musée de Boulaq, pp. 148, 149.
458.
As we said in Isis Unveiled (II. 438-9): “To the present moment, in spite of all controversies and researches, History and Science remain as much as ever in the dark as to the origin of the Jews. They may as well be the exiled Chandâlas of old India, the ‘bricklayers’ mentioned by Veda-Vyâsa and Manu, as the Phœnicians of Herodotus, or the Hyksos of Josephus, or the descendants of Pali shepherds, or a mixture of all these. The Bible names the Tyrians as a kindred people and claims dominion over them.... Yet whatever they may have been, they became a hybrid people, not long after the time of Moses, for the Bible shows them freely intermarrying not alone with the Canaanites, but with every other nation or race they came in contact with.”
459.
Knowledge, Vol. I; see also Petrie's letter to The Academy, Dec. 17, 1881.
460.
The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid, p. 9.
461.
Op. cit., I. 519.
462.
The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid, p. 93.
463.
vii. 13 et seq.
464.
P. 224.
465.
Vol. I. Part I. 46.
466.
x. 10.
467.
See Isis Unveiled, II. 442-3.
468.
Exodus, 11. 21.
469.
George Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 299, 300.
470.
II. 3.
471.
As a reminder how the esoteric religion of Moses was crushed several times, and the worship of Jehovah, as reëstablished by David, put in its place, by Hezekiah for instance, compare Isis Unveiled (II. 436-42). Surely there must have been some very good reasons why the Sadducees, who furnished almost all the High Priests of Judæa, held to the Laws of Moses and spurned the alleged “Books of Moses,” the Pentateuch of the Synagogue and the Talmud?
472.
Once more, remember the Hindû Wittoba crucified in space; the significance of the “sacred sign,” the Svastika; Plato's Decussated Man in Space, etc.
473.
See farther on the description given of the early Âryan Initiation: of Vishvakarman crucifying the Sun, Vikarttana, shorn of his beams—on a cruciform lathe.
474.
Primeval Man Unveiled; or the Anthropology of the Bible, by the author (unknown) of The Stars and the Angels, 1870, p. 14.
475.
Op. cit., p. 195.
476.
Especially in the face of the evidence furnished by the authorized Bible itself in Genesis (iv. 16, 17), which shows Cain going to the land of Nod and there marrying a wife.
477.
Ibid., p. 194.
478.
Ibid., p. 55.
479.
Ibid., pp. 206-7.
480.
Acts, xvii. 23, 24.
481.
Taittirîyaka Upanishad, Second Vallî, First Anuvâka.
482.
Ephesians, vi, 12.
483.
Oracles of Zoroaster, “Effatum,” xvi.
484.
Georgica, Book II. 325.
485.
Isis Unveiled.
486.
Op. cit., I. 5-13, Burnell's translation.
487.
The ideal apex of the Pythagorean Triangle.
488.
See A. Coke Burnell's translation, edited by Ed. W. Hopkins, Ph. D.
489.
Ahamkâra, as universal Self-Consciousness, has a triple aspect, as has also Manas. For this “conception of I,” or the Ego, is either sattva, “pure quietude,” or appears as rajas, “active,” or remains tamas, “stagnant,” in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and Earth, and assumes the properties of Ether.
490.
See Sânkhya Kârikâ III, and Commentaries.
491.
The word “eternity,” by which Christian theologians interpret the term “for ever and ever,” does not exist in the Hebrew tongue. “Oulam,” says Le Clerc, only imports a time when beginning or end is not known. It does not mean “infinite duration,” and the term “for ever,” in the Old Testament, only signifies a “long time.” Nor is the word “eternity” used in the Christian sense in the Purânas. For in Vishnu Purâna, it is clearly stated that by “eternity” and “immortality” only “existence to the end of the Kalpa” is meant. (Book II. chap. viii.)
492.
Orphic Theogony is purely Oriental and Indian in its spirit. The successive transformations it has undergone, have now separated it widely from the spirit of ancient Cosmogony, as may be seen by comparing it even with Hesiod's Theogony. Yet the truly Âryan Hindû spirit breaks forth everywhere in both the Hesiodic and Orphic systems. (See the remarkable work of James Darmesteter, “Cosmogonies Âryennes,” in his Essais Orientaux.) Thus the original Greek conception of Chaos is that of the Secret Wisdom Religion. In Hesiod, therefore, Chaos is infinite, boundless, endless and beginningless in duration, an abstraction and a visible presence at the same time, Space filled with darkness, which is primordial matter in its pre-cosmic state. For in its etymological sense, Chaos is Space, according to Aristotle, and Space is the ever Unseen and Unknowable Deity, in our philosophy.
493.
The manifested Spirit: Absolute, Divine Spirit is one with absolute Divine Substance; Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti are one in essence. Therefore, Cosmic Ideation and Cosmic Substance, in their primal character, are one also.
494.
Sepher Yetzirah, Chap. I. Mishna ix.
495.
Ibid. It is from “Arba” that Abram is derived.
496.
Zohar, I. 2a.
497.
Sepher Yetzirah, Mishna ix. 10.
498.
Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection.
499.
Plato, Timæus.
500.
Suidas, sub voc. “Tyrrhenia.” See Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 309, 2nd ed.
501.
The reader will understand that by “years” is meant “ages,” not mere periods of 13 lunar months each.
502.
See the Greek translation by Philon Byblius.
503.
Cory, Op. cit., p. 3.
504.
Isis Unveiled, I. 342.
505.
Mithras was regarded among the Persians as the theos ek petras—the God from the rock.
506.
Bordj is called a fire-mountain, a volcano: therefore it contains fire, rock, earth and water; the male, or active, and the female, or passive, elements. The myth is suggestive.
507.
Op. cit., I. 156.
508.
Henry Pratt, M.D., New Aspects of Life.
509.
Siphrah Dtzenioutha, i. 16.
510.
Damascius, in his Theogony, calls it Dis, “the disposer of all things.” Cory, Ancient Fragments, p. 314.
511.
Isis Unveiled, I. 341.
512.
“Migration of Abraham,” 32.
513.
With the Greeks, the River-Gods, all of them the Sons of the Primeval Ocean—Chaos, in its masculine aspect—were the respective ancestors of the Hellenic races. For them the Ocean was the Father of the Gods; and thus in this connection they had anticipated the theories of Thales, as rightly observed by Aristotle. (Metaph. I. 3-5.)
514.
xxvi. 5.
515.
Isis Unveiled, I. 133-4.
516.
The Spirit, or hidden voice of the Mantras; the active manifestation of the latent force, or Occult potency.
517.
Orthography of the Archaic Dictionary.
518.
We do not mean the current or accepted Bible, but the real Jewish Scripture, now kabatistically explained.
519.
See Genesis, ii. 4.
520.
It is “unutterable” for the simple reason that it is non-existent. It never was either a name, or any word at all, but an idea that could not be expressed. A substitute was created for it in the century preceding our era.
521.
The Cosmic Tabernacle of Moses, erected by him in the Desert, was square, representing the four Cardinal Points and the four Elements, as Josephus tells his readers. (Antiq. I. viii. ch. xxii.) The idea was taken from the pyramids in Egypt, and also in Tyre, where the pyramids became pillars. The Genii, or Angels, have their abodes in these four points respectively.
522.
Isaac Myer's Qabbalah, published 1888, p. 415.
523.
As, for instance, in Vishnu Purâna, Bk. I.
524.
Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, lvi.
525.
Spirit History of Man, p. 88.
526.
Movers, Phoinizer, 268.
527.
Cory, Ancient Fragments, 240.
528.
Vishnu Purâna, Bk. I. Ch. iv., Fitzedward Hall's rendering.
529.
Just as Mûlaprakriti is known only to Îshvara, the Logos, as he is called by T. Subba Row.
530.
Franck, Die Kabbala, 126.
531.
Philo, Quæst. et Solut.
532.
Franck, Op. cit., 153.
533.
The “Seven Angels of the Face,” with the Christians.
534.
Philosophumena, vi. 42.
535.
The Kabbalah Unveiled, 47.
536.
Qabbalah, 233.
537.
p. 79.
538.
Arnobius, VI. xii.
539.
We employ the term as one accepted and sanctioned by use, and therefore more comprehensible to the reader.
540.
See Dunlap, Sôd: the Mysteries of Adoni, 23.
541.
With the ancient Jews, as shown by Le Clerc, the word Oulom meant simply a time whose beginning or end was not known. The term “Eternity,” properly speaking, did not exist in the Hebrew tongue with the meaning applied by Vedântins to Parabrahman, for instance.
542.
Zohar, Part I. fol. 20a.
543.
In the Indian Pantheon the double-sexed Logos is Brahmâ, the Creator, whose seven “Mind-born” Sons are the primeval Rishis—the Builders.
544.
Says Rabbi Simeon: “Oh, 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 spake, Let there be Light, and it was Light’; ... and this is the two-fold man.” (Auszüge ans dem Sohar, 13, 15.) Light, then, in Genesis, stood for the Androgyne Ray, or “Heavenly Man.”
545.
Zohar, iii. 290.
546.
Op. cit., ii. 261.
547.
ix. 1.
548.
Chaldean Account of Genesis, 62, 63.
549.
The Seven Swans that are believed to descend from Heaven on Lake Mânsarovara, 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.
550.
See Petronius, Satyricon, cxxxvi.
551.
Progress of Religious Ideas, I. 17 et seq.
552.
iii. 165.
553.
Ch. liv. 3.
554.
Ch. xxii. 1.
555.
Ch. xlii. 13.
556.
Ch. liv. 1, 2; ch. lxxvii. i.
557.
Vishnu Purâna, I. 39.
558.
Op. cit., ibid.
559.
Ch. xvii. 50, 51.
560.
Ch. xlii. 13.
561.
Ch. lxxx. 9.
562.
See Max Müller's “Our Figures.”
563.
A Kabalist would be rather inclined to believe that as the Arabic cifron was taken from the Indian sunyan, nought, so the Jewish Kabalistic Sephiroth (Sephrim) were taken from the word cipher, not in the sense of emptiness, but in that of creation by number and degrees of evolution. And the Sephiroth are 10 or [circle split by vertical line].
564.
See King's Gnostics and their Remains, 370 (2nd ed.).
565.
De Vita Pithag.
566.
The year of his birth is given as 608 B.C.
567.
That is to say 332 B.C.
568.
Metaphysics, vii., F.
569.
Euterpe, 75, 76.
570.
De Cultu Egypt.
571.
xxi. 5 et seq.
572.
II Kings, xviii. 4.
573.
Supra, pp. 386, 387.
574.
III. 124.
575.
Movers, Phoinizer, 282.
576.
See Isis Unveiled, I. 56.
577.
Weber, Akad-Vorles, 213, et seq.
578.
The Chinese seem to have thus anticipated Sir William Thomson's theory that the first living germ had dropped to the earth from some passing comet. Query: Why should this be called scientific and the Chinese idea a superstitious, foolish theory?
579.
Compare Movers, Phoinizer, 268.
580.
His triadic Goddesses are Sati and Anouki.
581.
Ptah was originally the god of Death, of Destruction, like Shiva. He is a Solar God only by virtue of the Sun's fire killing as well as vivifying. He was the national God of Memphis, the radiant and “fair-faced” God.
582.
Book of Numbers.
583.
Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, I. Pref. lxxxiv-v.
584.
There is a curious piece of information in the Buddhist esoteric traditions. The exoteric or allegorical biography of Gautama Buddha shows this great Sage dying of an indigestion of “pork and rice”; a very prosaic end, indeed, with little of the solemn element in it! This is explained as an allegorical reference to his having been born in the “Boar” or Varâha Kalpa, when Vishnu assumed the form of that animal to raise the Earth out of the “Waters of Space.” Now as the Brâhmans descend direct from Brahmâ and are, so to speak, identified with him; and as they are at the same time the mortal enemies of Buddha and Buddhism, we have this curious allegorical hint and combination. The Brâhmanism of the Boar or Varâha Kalpa has slaughtered the religion of Buddha in India, swept it from its face. Therefore Buddha, who is identified with his philosophy, is said to have died from the effects of eating of the flesh of a wild hog. The very idea of one who established the most rigorous vegetarianism and respect for animal life—even to refusing to eat eggs as being vehicles of latent life—dying of an indigestion of meat, is absurdly contradictory and has puzzled more than one Orientalist. But the present explanation, however, unveils the allegory, and makes clear all the rest. The Varâha, however, is no simple Boar, but seems to have meant at first some antediluvian lacustrine animal “delighting to sport in water.” (Vâyu Purâna.)
585.
According to Colonel Wilford, the conclusion of the “Great War” took place in 1370 B.C., (Asiatic Researches, xi. 116.); according to Bentley, 575 B.C.!! We may yet hope, before the end of this century, to see the Mahâbhâratan epic proclaimed identical with the wars of the great Napoleon.
586.
See Royal Asiat. Soc. ix. 364.
587.
Bk. vi. ch. iii.
588.
In the Vedânta and Nyâya, Nimitta, from which Naimittika, is rendered as the Efficient Cause, when antithesized with Upâdâna, the Physical or Material Cause. In the Sânkhya, Pradhâna is a cause inferior to Brahmâ, or rather Brahmâ being himself a cause, is superior to Pradhâna. Hence “Incidental” is a wrong translation, and ought to be rendered, as shown by some scholars, “Ideal” Cause: even Real Cause would have been better.
589.
XII. iv, 35.
590.
Vâyu Purâna.
591.
Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, VI, iii.
592.
The chief Kumâra, or Virgin-God, a Dhyân Chohan who refuses to create. A prototype of St. Michael, who also refuses to do so.
593.
See concluding lines in Section, “Chaos: Theos: Kosmos.”
594.
Ibid., iv.
595.
This prospect would hardly suit Christian theology, which prefers an eternal, everlasting Hell for its followers.
596.
The term “Elements” must be here understood to mean not only the visible and physical elements, but also that which St. Paul calls Elements—the Spiritual, Intelligent Potencies—Angels and Demons in their manvantaric forms.
597.
When this description is correctly understood by Orientalists, in its esoteric significance, then it will be found that this cosmic correlation of World-Elements may explain the correlation of physical forces better than those now known. At any rate, Theosophists will perceive that Prakriti has seven forms, or principles, “reckoned from Mahat to Earth.” The “Waters” mean here the mystic “Mother”; the Womb of Abstract Nature, in which the Manifested Universe is conceived. The seven “zones” have reference to the Seven Divisions of that Universe, or the Noumena of the Forces that bring it into being. It is all allegorical.
598.
Vishnu Purâna, Bk. VI. Ch. iv., Wilson's mistakes being corrected and the original terms put in brackets.
599.
As it is the Mahâ, the Great, or so-called Final, Pralaya which is here described, every thing is reäbsorbed into its original One Element; the “Gods themselves, Brahmâ and the rest” being said to die and disappear during that long “Night.”
600.
The “Builders” of the Stanzas.
601.
From the Siphra Dtzenioutha, c. i. § 16 et seq.; as quoted in Myer's Qabbalah, 232-3.
602.
Compare the Siphra Dtzenioutha.
603.
Bk. I. Ch. iii.
604.
pp. 219, 221.
605.
See Jacolliot's Les Fils de Dieu, and L'Inde des Brahmes, p. 230.
606.
If this is not prophetic, what is?
607.
Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, Bk. IV. Ch. xxiv.
608.
The Matsya Purâna gives Katâpa.
609.
Vishnu Purâna, Ibid.
610.
Max Müller translates the name as Morya, of the Morya dynasty, to which Chandragupta belonged. (See History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature). In Matsya Purâna, chapter cclxxii, the dynasty of ten Moryas, or Maureyas, is spoken of. In the same chapter, it is stated that the Moryas will one day reign over India, after restoring the Kshattriya race many thousand years hence. Only that reign will be purely spiritual and “not of this world.” It will be the kingdom of the next Avatâra. Colonel Tod believes the name Morya, or Maurya, a corruption of Mori, a Rajpût tribe, and the commentary on the Mahâvanso thinks that some princes have taken their name Maurya from their town called Mori, or as Professor Max Müller gives it, Morya-Nâgara, which is more correct, after the original Mahâvanso. The Sanskrit Encyclopedia, Vâchaspattya, we are informed by our Brother, Devan Bâdhâdur R. Ragoonath Rao, of Madras, places Katâpa (Kalâpa) on the northern side of the Himâlayas, hence in Tibet. The same is stated in the Bhâgavata Purâna, Skanda xii.
611.
Ibid., ch. iv. The Vayu Purâna declares that Moru will reëstablish the Kshattriyas in the Nineteenth coming Yuga. (See Five Years of Theosophy, 483, art. “The Moryas and Koothoomi.”)
612.
See Dissertations Relating to Asia.
613.
Ch. lxxxi.
614.
I. 11.
615.
In the Indian Purânas, it is Vishnu, the First, and Brahmâ, the Second Logos, or the Ideal and Practical Creators, who are respectively represented, one as manifesting the Lotus, the other as issuing from it.
616.
Not the efforts, however, of the trained psychic faculties of an Initiate into Eastern Metaphysics, and the Mysteries of Creative Nature. It is the Profane of the past ages, who have degraded the pure ideal of cosmic creation into an emblem of mere human reproduction and sexual functions: it is the Esoteric Teachings, and the Initiates of the Future, whose mission it is, and will be, to redeem and ennoble once more the primitive conception, so sadly profaned by its crude and gross application to exoteric dogmas and personations, by theological and ecclesiastical religionists. The silent worship of abstract or noumenal Nature, the only divine manifestation, is the one ennobling religion of Humanity.
617.
Surely the words of the old Initiate into the primitive Mysteries of Christianity, “Know ye not ye are the Temple of God” (1 Corinth, iii. 16), could not be applied in this sense to men; though the meaning was, undeniably, so stated, in the minds of the Hebrew compilers of the Old Testament. And here is the abyss that lies between the symbolism of the New Testament and the Jewish canon. This gulf would have remained, and have ever widened, had not Christianity, especially and most glaringly the Latin Church, thrown a bridge over it. Modern Popery has now spanned it entirely, by its dogma of the two immaculate conceptions, and the anthropomorphic and, at the same time idolatrous, character it has conferred upon the Mother of its God.
618.
It was so carried only in the Hebrew Bible, and its servile copyist, Christian theology.
619.
The same idea is carried out exoterically in the incidents of the exodus from Egypt. The Lord God tempts Pharaoh sorely, and “plagues him with great plagues,” lest the king should escape punishment, and thus afford no pretext for one more triumph to his “chosen people.”
620.
Exodus, ii. 10. Even to the seven daughters of the Midianite priest, who came to draw water, and whom Moses helped to water their flock; for which service the Midian gives Moses his daughter Zipporah, or Sippara, the shining Wave, as wife. (Exod. ii. 16-21.) All this has the same secret meaning.
621.
With the Egyptians it was the resurrection in rebirth, after 3,000 years of purification, either in Devachan or the “Fields of Bliss.”
622.
Such “frog-Goddesses” may be seen at Boulak, in the Cairo Museum. For the statement about the Church-lamps and inscriptions, the learned ex-director of the Boulak Museum, M. Gaston Maspero, must be held responsible. (See his Guide au Musée de Boulaq, p. 146.)
623.
The Goddess Τρ?μορφος in the statuary of Alcamenes.
624.
Ancient Mythology includes ancient Astronomy as well as Astrology. The planets were the hands pointing out, on the dial of our Solar System, the hours of certain periodical events. Thus, Mercury was the messenger, appointed to keep time during the daily solar and lunar phenomena, and was otherwise connected with the God and Goddess of Light.
625.
A caricatured and dwarfed Vedântin notion of Parabrahman containing within itself the whole Universe, as being that boundless Universe itself, and nothing existing outside of itself.
626.
Just as they are to this day in India; the bull of Shiva, and the cow representing several Shaktis or Goddesses.
627.
Hence the worship of the Moon by the Hebrews.
628.
“Male and female, created he them.”
629.
Because it was too sacred. It is referred to as THAT in the Vedas. It is the “Eternal Cause,” and cannot, therefore, be spoken of as a “First Cause,” a term implying the absence of Cause, at one time.
630.
Pneumatologie: Des Esprits, tom. III. p. 117; “Archéologie de la Vierge Mère.”
631.
p. 23.
632.
Myer's Qabbalah, 335-6.
633.
Moreh Nebhuchim, III. xxx.
634.
See De Diis Syriis, Teraph., II. Synt. p. 31.
635.
I. i. 21.
636.
See Pausanias, viii. 35-8.
637.
Cornutus, De Natura Deorum, xxxiv. 1.
638.
The Roman Catholics are indebted for the idea of consecrating the month of May to the Virgin to the pagan Plutarch, who shows that “May is sacred to Maia (Μα?α) or Vesta” (Aulus Gellius, sub voc. Maia), our mother-earth, our nurse and nourisher, personified.
639.
Thot-Lunus is the Budha-Soma of India, or Mercury and the Moon.
640.
Ezekiel, viii. 16.
641.
The Earth flees for her life, in the allegory, before Prithu, who pursues her. She assumes the shape of a cow, and, trembling with terror, runs away and hides even in the regions of Brahmâ. Therefore, it is not our Earth. Again, in every Purâna, the calf changes name. In one it is Manu Svâyambhuva, in another Indra, in a third the Himavat (Himâlayas) itself, while Meru was the milker. This is a deeper allegory than one may be inclined to think.
642.
His clear realization is, that the Egyptians prophesied Jehovah (!) and his incarnated Redeemer (the good serpent), etc.; even to identifying Typhon with the wicked dragon of the garden of Eden. And this passes as serious and sober science!
643.
Hathor is the infernal Isis, the Goddess preëminently of the West or the Nether World.
644.
This is from De Mirville, who proudly confesses the similarity, and he ought to know. See “Archéologie de la Vierge Mère,” in his Des Esprits, pp. 111-113.
645.
Magie, p. 153.
646.
De Mirville, Ibid., pp. 116 and 119.
647.
Hymns to Minerva, p. 19.
648.
Sermon sur la Sainte Vierge.
649.
Apoc., ch. xii.
650.
Wägner and McDowall, Asgard and the Gods, p. 86.
651.
See De Vitâ Apollionii, I. xiv.
652.
Adv. Hæres. xxxvii.
653.
Gerald Massey, The Natural Genesis, I. 340.
654.
Ch. xv.
655.
Ch. xi.
656.
De Mundi Opif., Par., pp. 30 and 419.
657.
For the same reason the division of the principles in man into seven is thus reckoned, as they describe the same circle in the higher and lower human nature.
658.
Thus the septenary division is the oldest and preceded the four-fold division. It is the root of archaic classification.
659.
In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism, the Genii are represented by four Dragons—the Mahârâjahs of the Stanzas.
660.
Op. cit., II. 312-13.
661.
Ibid., I. 321.
662.
Proclus, Tim., I.
663.
Prep. Evang., I. iii. 3.
664.
Op. cit., pp. 366-8.
665.
Job, ii.
666.
Genesis, vi.
667.
James, i. 13.
668.
James, i. 2, 12; Matth., vi. 13. See Cruden, sub voc.
669.
Padma Purâna.
670.
Vishnu Purâna, I. i.
671.
Vol. II. ch. x.
672.
See Chwolsohn, Nabathean Agriculture, II. 217.
673.
One Day of Brahmâ lasts 4,320,000,000 years—multiply this by 360! The A-suras (No-gods, or Demons) are here still Suras, Gods higher in hierarchy than such secondary Gods as are not even mentioned in the Vedas. The duration of the War shows its significance, and also shows that the combatants are only the personified Cosmic Powers. It is evidently for sectarian purposes and out of odium theologicum that the illusive form Mâyâmoha, assumed by Vishnu, was attributed in later reärrangements of old texts to Buddha and the Daityas, as in the Vishnu Purâna, unless it was a fancy of Wilson himself. He also fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in the Bhagavadgîtâ, whereas, as proved by K. T. Telang, he had only confused the Buddhists and the older Chârvâka materialists. The version exists nowhere in other Purânas if the inference does, as Professor Wilson claims, in the Vishnu Purâna; the translation of which, especially of Book III. ch. xviii, where the reverend Orientalist arbitrarily introduces Buddha, and shows him teaching Buddhism to Daityas, led to another “great war” between himself and Col. Vans Kennedy. The latter charged him publicly with wilfully distorting Purânic texts. “I affirm,” wrote the Colonel at Bombay, in 1840, “that the Purânas do not contain what Professor Wilson has stated is contained in them; ... until such passages are produced I may be allowed to repeat my former conclusions that Professor Wilson's opinion, that the Purânas as now extant are compilations made between the eighth and seventeenth centuries [A.D.!], rests solely on gratuitous assumptions and unfounded assertions, and that his reasoning in support of it is either futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable.” (See Vishnu Purâna, trans. by Wilson, edit, by Fitzedward Hall, Vol. V, Appendix.)
674.
This statement belongs to the third War, since the terrestrial continents, seas and rivers are mentioned in connection with it.
675.
Vishnu Purâna, III. xvii (Wilson, Vol. III. 204-5).
676.
Book I. chap. xvii (Wilson, Vol. II. 36), in the story of Prahlâda—the Son of Hiranyakashipu, the Purânic Satan, the great enemy of Vishnu, and the King of the Three Worlds—into whose heart Vishnu entered.
677.
Ibid., I. iv (Wilson, Vol. I. 64).
678.
II Chronicles, ii. 5.
679.
“There was a day when the Sons of God came before the Lord, and Satan came with his brothers, also before the Lord.” (Job ii., Abyss., Ethiopic text.)
680.
Ibid., Vol. III. 205-7.
681.
Journal of the Royal Asiat. Society, xix. 302.
682.
Wilson's opinion that the Vishnu Purâna is a production of our era, and that in its present form it is not earlier than between the VIIIth and the XVIIth (!!) century, is absurd beyond noticing.
683.
P. 3.
684.
Ibid., p. 2.
685.
Ibid., p. 21.
686.
See The Monthly Magazine, for April, 1797.
687.
?τοι μ?ν πρ?τιστα Χ?ος γ'eνετ? (l. 166); γ?νετο being considered in antiquity as meaning: “was generated” and not simply “was.” (See Taylor's “Introd. to the Parmenides of Plato,” p. 260.)
688.
It is the confusion between the “Bound,” and the “Infinite,” that Kapila overwhelms with sarcasms in his disputations with the Brâhman Yogis, who claim in their mystical visions to see the “Highest One.”
689.
Ibid.
690.
See T. Taylor's article in his Monthly Magazine, quoted in the Platonist of Feb., 1887, edited by T. M. Johnson, F.T.S., Osceola, Missouri.
691.
Vit. Pythag., p. 47.
692.
Asgard and the Gods, 22.
693.
Vâch—the “melodious cow, who milks sustenance and Water,” and yields us “nourishment and sustenance,” as described in the Rig Veda.
694.
The Theosophist, Feb., 1887, pp. 302-3.
695.
Ibid., p. 304.
696.
The Masonic Review, June, 1886.
697.
Objective—in the world of Mâyâ, of course; still as real as we are.
698.
“In the course of cosmic manifestation, this Daiviprakriti, instead of being the Mother of the Logos, should, strictly speaking, be called his Daughter.” (“Notes on the Bhagavad Gîtâ,” op. cit., p. 305.)
699.
The wise men who, like Stanley Jevons amongst the moderns, invented a method to make the incomprehensible assume a tangible form, could only do so by resorting to numbers and geometrical figures.
700.
The Pranava, Om, is a mystic term pronounced by the Yogis during meditation; of the terms called, according to exoteric commentators, Vyâkritis, or Aum, Bhûh, Bhuvah, Svah, (Om, Earth, Sky, Heaven), Pranava is, perhaps, the most sacred. They are pronounced with breath suppressed. See Manu II. 76-81, and Mitakshara commenting on the Yâjnavâkhya-Smriti, I. 23. But the esoteric explanation goes a great deal further.
701.
“Lectures on the Bhagavad Gîtâ,” ibid., p. 307.
702.
It is this Trinity that is allegorized by the “Three Steps of Vishnu,” which mean—Vishnu being considered as the Infinite in exotericism—that from Parabrahman issued Mûlaprakriti, Purusha (the Logos) and Prakriti; the four forms—with itself, the synthesis—of Vâch. And in the Kabalah, Ain Suph, Shekinah, Adam Kadmon and Sephira, the four, or the three, emanations being distinct—yet One.
703.
Chaldean Book of Numbers. In the current Kabalah the name Jehovah replaces that of Adam Kadmon.
704.
Justin Martyr tells us that, owing to his ignorance of these four sciences, he was rejected by the Pythagoreans as a candidate for admission into their school.
705.
Diogenes Laërtius, in Vit. Pythag.
706.
31415, or π, the synthesis, or the Host unified in the Logos and the Point, called in Roman Catholicism the “Angel of the Face,” and in Hebrew, Michael, ?????, “who [is like unto, or the same] as God,” the manifested representation.
707.
Appearing at the beginning of Cycles, as also of every Sidereal Year, of 25,868 years. Therefore, the Kabeira or Kabarim received their name in Chaldæa, for it means the Measures of Heaven, from Kob, “measure of,” and Urim, “Heavens.”
708.
The Natural Genesis, II. 316.
709.
See Kircher's Œdipus Ægypt., II. 423.
710.
This Egyptian word Naja reminds one a good deal of the Indian Nâga, the Serpent-God. Brahmâ and Shiva and Vishnu are all crowned and connected with Nâgas—a sign of their cyclic and cosmic character.
711.
Comment. on the Yashna, 174.
712.
First Treatise, p. 59.
713.
Says the translator of Avicebron's Qabbalah of this “Sum Total”: “The letter of Kether is ? (Yod), of Binah ? (Heh), together YaH, the feminine Name; the third letter, that of 'Hokhmah, is ? (Vav), making together ??? YHV of ???? YHVH, the Tetragrammaton, and really the complete symbols of its efficaciousness. The last ? (Heh) of this Ineffable Name being always applied to the Six Lower and the last, together the Seven remaining Sephiroth.” (Myer's Qabbalah, p. 263). Thus the Tetragrammaton is holy only in its abstract synthesis. As a Quaternary containing the lower Seven Sephiroth, it is phallic.
714.
The statement will, of course, be found preposterous and absurd, and simply laughed at. But if one believes in the final submersion of Atlantis, 850,000 years ago, as taught in Esoteric Buddhism—the gradual first sinking having begun during the Eocene Age—one has also to accept the statement for the so-called Lemuria, the continent of the Third Root-Race, which was first nearly destroyed by combustion, and then submerged. As the Commentary teaches: “The First Earth having been purified by the Forty-nine Fires, her people, born of Fire and Water, could not die ...; the Second Earth [with its Race] disappeared as vapour vanishes in the air ...; the Third Earth had everything consumed on it after the Separation, and went down into the lower Deep [the Ocean]. This was twice eighty-two Cyclic Years ago.” Now a Cyclic Year is what we call a Sidereal Year, and is founded on the Precession of the Equinoxes. The length of this Sidereal Year is 25,868 years, and the period mentioned in the Commentary is, therefore, in all equal to 4,242,352 years. More details will be found in Volume II. Meanwhile, this doctrine is embodied in the “Kings of Edom.”
715.
The same reserve is found in the Talmud and in every national system of religion whether monotheistic or exoterically polytheistic. From the superb religious poem by the Kabalist Rabbi Solomon ben Yehudah Ibn Gabirol, the “Kether Malchuth,” we select a few definitions given in the prayers of Kippûr: “Thou art One, the beginning of all numbers, and the foundation of all edifices; Thou art One, and in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are lost, because they know it not. Thou art One, and Thy Unity is never diminished, never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art One, but not as an element of numeration; for Thy Unity admits not of multiplication, change or form. Thou art Existent; but the understanding and vision of mortals cannot attain to thy existence, nor determine for thee the Where, the How, and the Why. Thou art Existent, but in thyself alone, there being none other that can exist with thee. Thou art Existent, before all time and without place. Thou art Existent, and thy existence is so profound and secret that none can penetrate and discover thy secrecy. Thou art living, but within no time that can be fixed or known; Thou art living, but not by a spirit or a soul, for Thou art Thyself, the Soul of all Souls.” There is a distance between this Kabalistical Deity and the Biblical Jehovah, the spiteful and revengeful God of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, who tempted the first and wrestled with the last. No Vedântin but would repudiate such a Parabrahman!
716.
Edkins, Chinese Buddhism, ch. xx. And very wisely have they acted.
717.
If he rejected it, it was on the ground of what he calls the “changes,” in other words, rebirths of man, and constant transformations. He denied immortality to the Personality of man, as we do, not to Man.
718.
He may be laughed at by the Protestants; but the Roman Catholics have no right to mock him, without becoming guilty of blasphemy and sacrilege. For it is over 200 years since Confucius was canonized as a Saint in China by the Roman Catholics, who have thereby obtained many converts among the ignorant Confucianists.
719.
The animals regarded as sacred in the Bible are by no means few in number; as, for instance, the Goat, the Azaz-el, or God of Victory. As Aben Ezra says: “If thou art capable of comprehending the mystery of Azazel, thou wilt learn the mystery of His [God's] name, for it has similar associates in Scriptures. I will tell thee by allusion one portion of the mystery; when thou shalt have thirty three years of age thou wilt comprehend me.” So with the mystery of the Tortoise. Rejoicing over the poetry of biblical metaphors, associating “incandescent stones,” “sacred animals,” etc., with the name of Jehovah, and quoting from the Bible de Vence (XIX. 318) a pious French writer says: “Indeed all of them are Elohim, like their God”; for, these Angels, “ ‘assume,’ through a holy usurpation, ‘the very divine name of Jehovah each time they represent him’.” (De Mirville, Des Esprits.) No one ever doubted that the Name must have been assumed, when under the guise of the Infinite, One Incognizable, the Malachim, or Messengers, descended to eat and drink with men. But if the Elohim and even lower Beings, assuming the God-name, were and are still worshipped, why should the same Elohim be called Devils, when appearing under the names of other Gods?
720.
Matth., xxiv. 28.
721.
Bryant is right in saying “Druid bardism says of Noah that when he came out of the ark (the birth of a new cycle), after a stay therein of a year and a day, that is 364 + 1=365 days, he was congratulated by Neptune upon his birth from the waters of the Flood, who wished him a Happy New Year.” The “Year,” or cycle, esoterically, was the new race of men, born from woman, after the Separation of the Sexes, which is the secondary meaning of the allegory; its primary meaning being the beginning of the Fourth Round, or the new Creation.
722.
From an unpublished MS.
723.
Or literally: “One Prâdhânika Brahma Spirit: THAT was.” The “Prâdhânika Brahma Spirit” is Mûlaprakriti and Parabrahman.
724.
Wilson, Vishnu Purâna, I. 73-5.
725.
Origen, Contra Celsum, VI. xxii.
726.
Timæus.
727.
“And the fourth creation is here the primary, for things immovable are emphatically known as primary”—according to a commentary translated by Fitzedward Hall in his editing of Wilson's translation.
728.
How can “divinities” have been created after the animals? The esoteric meaning of the expression “animals” is the germs of all animal life, including man. Man is called a sacrificial animal, that is, the only one among the animal creation who sacrifices to the Gods. Moreover, by “sacred animals” the twelve Signs of the Zodiac are often meant in the sacred texts, as already stated.
729.
Vishnu Purâna, ibid.
730.
Op. cit., I. ix.
731.
Myer's Qabbalah, 415-16.
732.
Contra Hær., I. xvii. 1.
733.
Ibid., I. xxx.
734.
Superior to the Spirits, or “Heavens,” of the Earth only.
735.
Ibid., I. v. 2.
736.
See Isis Unveiled, II. 183.
737.
See also King's Gnostics and their Remains, p. 97. Other sects regarded Jehovah as Ialdabaoth himself. King identifies him with Saturn.
738.
Ordinances of Manu, I. 33.
739.
Irenæus, op. cit., I. xxx. 6.
740.
Elsewhere, however, the identity is revealed. See supra the quotation from Iba Gabirol and his 7 heavens, 7 earths, etc.
741.
This must not be confused with precosmic “DARKNESS,” the Divine ALL.
742.
I. 2; and also at the beginning of II.
743.
The quotations that follow in treating of the seven Creations, except when otherwise stated, are all from Vishnu Purâna, Bk. I. Ch. i-v.
744.
I. 240.
745.
Brucker, ibid.
746.
Compare Genesis xix. 34-8 and iv. 1.
747.
Vishnu is both Bhûtesha, “Lord of the Elements,” and of all things, and Vishvarûpa, “Universal Substance” or Soul.
748.
Compare, for their “post-types,” the Treatise written by Trithemius, Agrippa's master, in the sixteenth century, “Concerning the Seven Secondaries, or Spiritual Intelligences, who, after God, actuate the Universe,” which, in addition to secret cycles and several prophecies, discloses certain facts and beliefs about the Genii, or the Elohim, which preside over and guide the septenary stages of the World's Course.
749.
From the first, the Orientalists have found themselves beset with great difficulties in regard to any possible order in the Purânic “Creations.” Brahman is very often confused by Wilson with Brahmâ, for which he is criticized by his successors. The Original Sanscrit Texts are preferred by Mr. Fitzedward Hall for the translation of the Vishnu Purâna, to the text used by Wilson. “Had Professor Wilson enjoyed the advantages which are now at the command of the student of Indian philosophy, unquestionably he would have expressed himself differently,” says the editor of his work. This reminds one of the answer given by one of Thomas Taylor's admirers to those scholars who criticized his translations of Plato: “Taylor might have known less Greek than his critics, but he knew more Plato.” Our present Orientalists disfigure the mystic sense of the Sanskrit texts far more than Wilson ever did, though the latter is undeniably guilty of very gross errors.
750.
Vâyu Purâna.
751.
Collected Works, III. 381.
752.
Professor Wilson translates as though animals were higher in the scale of “creation” than divinities, or angels, although the truth about the Devas is very plainly stated further on. This “Creation,” says the text, is both Primary (Prâkrita) and Secondary (Vaikrita). It is the Secondary, as regards the origin of the Gods from Brahmâ, the personal anthropomorphic creator of our material universe; it is the Primary as affecting Rudra, who is the immediate production of the First Principle. The term Rudra is not only a title of Shiva, but embraces agents of creation, angels and men, as will be shown further on.
753.
Neither plant nor animal, but an existence between the two.
754.
Five Years of Theosophy, p. 276, art., “Mineral Monad.”
755.
“These notions,” remarks Professor Wilson, “the birth of Rudra and the saints, seem to have been borrowed from the Shaivas, and to have been awkwardly engrafted upon the Vaishnava system.” The esoteric meaning ought to have been consulted before venturing such a hypothesis.
756.
See Sânkhya Kârikâ, v. 46. p. 146.
757.
Parâshara, the Vedic Rishi, who received the Vishnu Purâna from Pulastya and taught it to Maitreya, is placed by the Orientalists at various epochs. As correctly observed, in the Hindû Classical Dictionary: “Speculations as to his era differ widely, from 575 B.C. to 1391 B.C., and cannot be trusted.” Quite so; but they are no more untrustworthy than any other date, as assigned by the Sanskritists, so famous in the department of arbitrary fancy.
758.
They may indeed mark a “special” or extra “creation,” since it is they who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human shells of the two first Root-Races, and a great portion of the Third Root-Race, create, so to speak, a new race: that of thinking, self-conscious and divine men.
759.
Hindû Classical Dictionary.
760.
Linga Purâna, Prior Section, lxx. 174.
761.
See Manu, I. 10.
762.
See Linga, Vâyu and Mârkandeya Purânas.
763.
Movers, Phoinizer, 282.
764.
Weber, Akad. Vorles, 213, 214, etc.
765.
IX. 850.
766.
Stromata, I. v. 6.
767.
The Gehenna of the Bible was a valley near Jerusalem, where the monotheistic Jews immolated their children to Moloch, if the word of the prophet Jeremiah is to be believed. The Scandinavian Abode of Hel or Hela was a frigid region—Kâma Loka again—and the Egyptian Amenti a place of purification. (See Isis Unveiled, II. 11.)
768.
I. vi. i.
769.
Cod. Naz., I. 47; see also Psalms, lxxxix. 18.
770.
I Cor., viii. 5.
771.
Concerning Divine Names, traduction Darboy, 364.
772.
See de Mirville, Des Esprits, ii. 322.
773.
The Correlation of Physical Forces, p. 89.
774.
Ibid., xiv.
775.
II Sam., xxii. 9, 11.
776.
Deut., iv. 24.
777.
Op. cit., III. 415.
778.
II Sam., xxii. 14, 15.
779.
Herodotus, Polymnia, 190, 191.
780.
viii. 24.
781.
Fa-hwa-King.
782.
See La Mission des Juifs.
783.
China Revealed, as quoted in Hargrave Jennings' Phallicism, p. 273.
784.
p. 202.
785.
Op. cit., p. 60.
786.
Ibid.
787.
O'Brien, Round Towers of Ireland, p. 61, quoted by Hargrave Jennings in his Phallicism, p. 246.
788.
Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 332.
789.
Pantheon, text 3.
790.
Their intellection, of course, being of quite a different nature to any we can conceive of on Earth.
791.
See his Third Letter to Bentley.
792.
Concepts of Modern Physics, pp. xi, xii, Introd. to 2nd Ed.
793.
“Recherches expérimentales sur la relation qui existe entre la résistance de l'air et sa température,” p. 68, translated from Stallo's quotation.
794.
From the criticism of Concepts of Modern Physics, in Nature. See Stallo's work, p. xvi of Introduction.
795.
Mr. Robert Ward, discussing the questions of Heat and Light in the November Journal of Science, 1881, shows us how utterly ignorant is Science about one of the commonest facts of Nature—the heat of the Sun. He says: “The question of the temperature of the sun has been the subject of investigation with many scientists: Newton, one of the first investigators of this problem, tried to determine it, and after him all the scientists who have been occupied with calorimetry have followed his example. All have believed themselves successful, and have formulated their results with great confidence. The following, in the chronological order of the publication of the results, are the temperatures (in centigrade degrees) found by each of them: Newton, 1,699,300°; Pouillet, 1,461°; Tollner, 102,200°; Secchi, 5,344,840°; Ericsson, 2,726,700°; Fizeau, 7,500°; Waterston, 9,000,000°; Spoëren, 27,000°; Deville, 9,500°; Soret, 5,801,846°; Vicaire, 1,500°; Rosetti, 20,000°. The difference is as 1,400° against 9,000,000°, or no less than 8,998,600°!! There probably does not exist in science a more astonishing contradiction than that revealed in these figures.” And yet without doubt if an Occultist were to give out an estimate, each of these gentlemen would vehemently protest in the name of “exact” Science at the rejection of his special result.
796.
See Correlation of the Physical Forces, Preface.
797.
Soirées, vol. ii.
798.
Stallo's above-cited work, Concepts of Modern Physics, a volume which has called forth the liveliest protests and criticisms, is recommended to anyone inclined to doubt this statement. “The professed antagonism of science to metaphysical speculation,” he writes, “has led the majority of scientific specialists to assume that the methods and results of empirical research are wholly independent of the control of the laws of thought. They either silently ignore, or openly repudiate, the simplest canons of logic, including the laws of non-contradiction, and ... resent with the utmost vehemence every application of the rule of consistency to their hypotheses and theories ... and they regard an examination (of them) ... in the light of these laws as an impertinent intrusion of ‘à priori principles and methods’ into the domains of empirical science. Persons of this cast of mind find no difficulty in holding that atoms are absolutely inert, and at the same time asserting that these atoms are perfectly elastic; or in maintaining that the physical universe, in its last analysis, resolves itself into ‘dead’ matter and motion, and yet denying that all physical energy is in reality kinetic; or in proclaiming that all phenomenal differences in the objective world are ultimately due to the various motions of absolutely simple material units, and, nevertheless, repudiating the proposition that these units are equal.” (p. xix.) The blindness of eminent Physicists to some of the most obvious consequences of their own theories is marvellous. “When Prof. Tait, in conjunction with Prof. Stewart, announces that ‘matter is simply passive’ (The Unseen Universe, sec. 104), and then, in connection with Sir William Thomson, declares that ‘matter has an innate power of resisting external influences’ (Treat. on Nat. Phil., Vol. I. sec. 216), it is hardly impertinent to inquire how these statements are to be reconciled. When Prof. Du Bois Reymond ... insists upon the necessity of reducing all the processes of nature to motions of a substantial, indifferent substratum, wholly destitute of quality (Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens, p. 5), having declared shortly before in the same lecture that ‘resolution of all changes in the material world into motions of atoms caused by their constant central forces would be the completion of natural science,’ we are in a perplexity from which we have the right to be relieved.” (Pref. xliii.)
799.
Stallo, loc. cit., p. x.
800.
Silliman's Journal, vol. viii. pp. 364 et seq.
801.
See Clerk Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity, and compare with Cauchy's Mémoire sur la Dispersion de la Lumière.
802.
Stallo, loc. cit., p. x.
803.
Nature, vol. xxvii. p. 304.
804.
Op. cit., p. xxiv.
805.
“Somewhat different!” exclaims Stallo. “The real import of this ‘somewhat’ is, that the medium in question is not, in any intelligible sense, material at all, having none of the properties of matter.” All the properties of matter depend upon differences and changes, and the “hypothetical” Ether here defined is not only destitute of differences, but incapable of difference and change—in the physical sense let us add. This proves that if Ether is “matter,” it is so only as something visible, tangible and existing, for spiritual senses alone; that it is a Being indeed—but not of our plane—Pater Æther, or Âkâsha.
806.
Veræ causæ for Physical Science are mâyâvic or illusionary causes for the Occultist, and vice versâ.
807.
Very much “differentiated,” on the contrary, since the day it left its laya condition.
808.
Op. cit., pp. xxiv-xxvi.
809.
Sept Leçons de Physique Générale, p. 38, et seq., Ed. Moigno.
810.
Defin. 8, B. I. Prop. 69, “Scholium.”
811.
See Modern Materialism, by the Rev. W. F. Wilkinson.
812.
“Attraction,” Le Couturier, a Materialist, writes, “has now become for the public that which it was for Newton himself—a simple word, an Idea” (Panorama des Mondes), since its cause is unknown. Herschell virtually says the same, when remarking, that whenever studying the motion of the heavenly bodies, and the phenomena of attraction, he feels penetrated at every moment with the idea of “the existence of causes that act for us under a veil, disguising their direct action.” (Musée des Sciences, August, 1856.)
813.
If we are taken to task for believing in operating Gods and Spirits while rejecting a personal God, we answer to the Theists and Monotheists: Admit that your Jehovah is one of the Elohim, and we are ready to recognize him. Make of him, as you do, the Infinite, the ONE and the Eternal God, and we will never accept him in this character. Of tribal Gods there were many; the One Universal Deity is a principle, an abstract Root-Idea, which has nought to do with the unclean work of finite Form. We do not worship the Gods, we only honour Them, as beings superior to ourselves. In this we obey the Mosaic injunction, while Christians disobey their Bible—missionaries foremost of all. “Thou shalt not revile the Gods,” says one of them—Jehovah—in Exodus, xxii. 28; but at the same time in verse 20 it is commanded: “He that sacrificeth to any God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.” Now in the original texts it is not “God” but Elohim—and we challenge contradiction—and Jehovah is one of the Elohim, as proved by his own words in Genesis, iii. 22, when “the Lord God said: Behold the Man is become as one of us.” Hence both those who worship and sacrifice to the Elohim, the Angels, and to Jehovah, and those who revile the Gods of their fellowmen, are far greater transgressors than the Occultists or than any Theosophist. Meanwhile many of the latter prefer believing in some one “Lord” or other, and are quite welcome to do as they like.
814.
To liken the “immateriate species to wooden iron,” and to laugh at Spiller for referring to them as “incorporeal matter” does not solve the mystery. (See Concepts of Modern Physics, p. 165 et infra.)
815.
See Vossius, Vol. II. p. 528.
816.
De Carlo, I. 9.
817.
De Motibus Planetarum Harmonicis, p. 248.
818.
World-Life, Prof. Winchell, LL.D., pp. 49 and 50.
819.
Panorama des Mondes, pp. 47 and 53.
820.
Newton, Optics, III. Query 28, 1704; quoted in World-Life, p. 50.
821.
Ibid.
822.
When read in a fair and unprejudiced spirit, Sir Isaac Newton's works are an ever ready witness to show how he must have hesitated between gravitation and attraction, impulse, and some other unknown cause, to explain the regular course of the planetary motion. But see his Treatise on Colour (Vol. III. Question 31). We are told by Herschell that Newton left with his successors the duty of drawing all the scientific conclusions from his discovery. How Modern Science has abused the privilege of building its newest theories upon the law of gravitation, may be realized when one remembers how profoundly religious was that great man.
823.
The materialistic notion that because, in Physics, real or sensible motion is impossible in pure space or vacuum, therefore, the eternal Motion of and in Cosmos—regarded as infinite Space—is a fiction, only shows once more that such expressions of Eastern metaphysics as “pure Space,” “pure Being,” the “Absolute” etc., have never been understood in the West.
824.
From Winchell's World-Life, p. 379.
825.
Correl. Phys. Forces, p. 173.
826.
See Revue Germanique of the 31st Dec. 1860, art., “Lettres et Conversations d'Alexandre Humboldt.”
827.
Prof. Winchell.
828.
World-Life, p. 553.
829.
But see Astronomie du Moyen Age, by Delambre.
830.
See Isis Unveiled, I. 270, 271.
831.
World-Life, 554.
832.
Godefroy, Cosmogonie de la Révélation.
833.
The terms “high” and “low” being only relative to the position of the observer in Space, any use of those terms tending to convey the impression that they stand for abstract realities, is necessarily fallacious.
834.
Jacob Ennis, The Origin of the Stars.
835.
P. 99, note.
836.
If such is the case, how does Science explain the comparatively small size of the planets nearest the Sun? The theory of meteoric aggregation is only a step farther from truth than the nebular conception, and has not even the quality of the latter—its metaphysical element.
837.
Laplace, Système du Monde, p. 414, ed. 1824.
838.
Faye, Comptes Rendus, t. xc. pp. 640-2.
839.
Wolf.
840.
Panorama des Mondes, Le Couturier.
841.
World-Life, Winchell, p. 140.
842.
Sir William Thomson's lecture on “The latent dynamical theory regarding the probable origin, total amount of heat, and duration of the Sun,” 1887.
843.
Thomson and Tait, Natural Philosophy. And even on these figures Bischof disagrees with Thomson, and calculates that 350,000,000 years would be required for the Earth to cool from a temperature of 20,000° to 200° centigrade. This is, also, the opinion of Helmholtz.
844.
Coulomb's Law.
845.
Musée des Sciences, 15 August, 1857.
846.
Panorama des Mondes, p. 55.
847.
Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15, 1860.
848.
Cosmographie.
849.
Soirées.
850.
Discours, 165.
851.
p. 28.
852.
Des Esprits, III. 155, Deuxième Mémoire.
853.
Laing's Modern Science and Modern Thought.
854.
Ibid., p. 17.
855.
Heaven and Earth.
856.
Winchell, World-Life, p. 196.
857.
L'Univers expliqué par la Révélation, and Cosmogonie de la Révélation. But see De Mirville's Deuxième Mémoire. The author, a terrible enemy of Occultism, was yet one who wrote great truths.
858.
See Kabbala Denudata, II. 67.
859.
“Sur la Distinction des Forces,” published in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences de Montpellier, Vol. II. fasc. i, 1854.
860.
P. 123.
861.
Der Weltæther als Kosmische Kraft, p. 4.
862.
See Popular Science Review, Vol. V. pp. 329-34.
863.
See Correlation of Physical Forces, p. 110.
864.
See Buckwell's Electric Science.
865.
Schelling, Ideen, etc., p. 18.
866.
Op. cit., p. 161.
867.
Princ., Def. iii.
868.
Philosophical Magazine, Vol. II. p. 252.
869.
Concepts of Modern Physics, xxxi., Introductory to the 2nd Edition.
870.
Loc. cit.
871.
J. P. Cooke, The New Chemistry, p. 13.
872.
“It imports that equal volumes of all substances, when in the gaseous state, and under like conditions of pressure and temperature, contain the same number of molecules—whence it follows that the weights of the molecules are proportional to the specific gravities of the gases; that therefore, these being different, the weights of the molecule are different also; and inasmuch as the molecules of certain elementary substances are monatomic (consist of but one atom each) while the molecules of various other substances contain the same number of atoms, that the ultimate atoms of such substances are of different weights.” (Concepts of Modern Physics, p. 34.) As shown further on in the same volume, this cardinal principle of modern theoretical chemistry is in utter and irreconcilable conflict with the first proposition of the atomo-mechanical theory—namely, the absolute equality of the primordial units of mass.
873.
Wundt, Die Theorie der Materie, p. 381.
874.
Nazesmann, Thermochemie, p. 150.
875.
Krœnig, Clausius, Maxwell, etc., Philosophical Magazine, Vol. XIX. p. 18.
876.
Philosophical Magazine, Vol. XIV. p. 321.
877.
Referring to the “Aura,” one of the Masters says in the Occult World: “How could you make yourself understood by, command in fact, those semi-intelligent Forces, whose means of communication with us are not through spoken words, but through sounds and colours in correlation between the vibrations of the two.” It is this “correlation” that is unknown to Modern Science, although it has been many times explained by the Alchemists.
878.
The Substance of the Occultist, however, is to the most refined Substance of the Physicist, what Radiant Matter is to the leather of the Chemist's boots.
879.
The names of the Seven Rays—which are, Sushumnâ, Harikesha, Vishvakarman, Vishvatryarchâs, Sannaddha, Sarvâvasu and Svarâj—are all mystical, and each has its distinct application in a distinct state of consciousness, for Occult purposes. The Sushumnâ, which, as said in the Nirukta (11, 6), is only to light up the Moon, is the Ray nevertheless cherished by the initiated Yogîs. The totality of the Seven Rays spread through the Solar System constitutes, so to say, the physical Upâdhi (Basis) of the Ether of Science; in which Upâdhi, light, heat, electricity, etc., the Forces of orthodox Science, correlate to produce their terrestrial effects. As psychic and spiritual effects, they emanate from, and have their origin in, the supra-solar Upâdhi, in the Æther of the Occultist—or Âkâsha.
880.
Leslie's Fluid Theory of Light and Heat.
881.
Buckle's History of Civilization, Vol. III. p. 384.
882.
On the plane of manifestation and illusionary matter it may be so; not that it is nothing more, for it is vastly more.
883.
Neutral, or Laya.
884.
Scientific Letters, Professor Butlerof.
885.
Ibid.
886.
Ibid.
887.
Ibid.
888.
Called the “drinker of waters,” solar heat causing water to evaporate.
889.
I. ii. (Wilson, I. 38.)
890.
Its founder, Râmânujâchârya, was born A.D. 1017.
891.
The Gandharva of the Veda is the deity who knows and reveals the secrets of heaven and divine truths to mortals. Cosmically, the Gandharvas are the aggregate Powers of the Solar Fire, and constitute its Forces; psychically, the Intelligence residing in the Sushumnâ, the Solar Ray, the highest of the Seven Rays; mystically, the Occult Force in the Soma, the Moon, or lunar plant, and the drink made of it; physically, the phenomenal, and spiritually, the noumenal, causes of Sound and the “Voice of Nature.” Hence, they are called the 6,333 heavenly singers, and musicians of Indra's Loka, who personify, even in number, the various and manifold sounds in Nature, both above and below. In the later allegories they are said to have mystic power over women, and to be fond of them. The Esoteric meaning is plain. They are one of the forms, if not the prototypes, of Enoch's Angels, the Sons of God, who saw that the daughters of men were fair (Gen., vi.), who married them, and taught the daughters of Earth the secrets of Heaven.
892.
Pp. 329-334.
893.
Not only “through space,” but filling every point of our Solar System, for it is the physical residue, so to say, of Ether, its “lining” (envelope) on our plane; Ether having to serve other cosmic and terrestrial purposes besides being the “agent” for transmitting light. It is the Astral Fluid or Light of the Kabalists, and the Seven Rays of Sun-Vishnu.
894.
What need, then, of etheric waves for the transmission of light, heat, etc., if this substance can pass through vacuum.
895.
And how can it be otherwise? Gross ponderable matter is the body, the shell, of Matter or Substance, the female passive principle; and this Fohatic Force is the second principle, Prâna—the male and the active. On our globe this Substance is the second principle of the septenary Element—Earth; in the atmosphere, it is that of Air, which is the cosmic gross body; in the Sun it becomes the Solar Body and that of the Seven Rays; in Sidereal Space it corresponds with another principle, and so on. The whole is a homogeneous Unity alone, the parts are all differentiations.
896.
Or the reverberation, and for Sound repercussion, on our plane of that which is a perpetual motion of that Substance on higher planes. Our world and senses are ceaselessly victims of Mâyâ.
897.
An honest admission, this.
898.
Yet it is not Ether, but only one of the principles of Ether, the latter being itself one of the principles of Âkâsha.
899.
And so does Prâna (Jîva) pervade the whole living body of man; but alone, without having an atom to act upon, it would be quiescent—dead; i.e., would be in Laya, or, as Mr. Crookes has it, “locked in Protyle.” It is the action of Fohat upon a compound or even upon a simple, body that produces life. When a body dies, it passes into the same polarity as its male energy, and repels therefore the active agent, which, losing hold of the whole, fastens on the parts or molecules, this action being called chemical. Vishnu, the Preserver, transforms himself into Rudra-Shiva, the Destroyer—a correlation seemingly unknown to Science.
900.
Verily, unless the Occult terms of the Kabalists are adopted!
901.
“Unchangeable” only during manvantaric periods, after which it merges once more into Mûlaprakriti; “invisible” for ever, in its own essence, but seen in its reflected coruscations, called the Astral Light by the modern Kabalists. Yet, conscious and grand Beings, clothed in that same Essence, move in it.
902.
One has to add ponderable, to distinguish it from that Ether which is Matter still, though a substratum.
903.
The Occult Sciences reverse the statement, and say that it is the Sun, and all the Suns that are from it, which emanate at the manvantaric dawn from the Central Sun.
904.
Here, we decidedly beg to differ from the learned gentleman. Let us remember that this Ether—whether Âkâsha, or its lower principle, Ether, is meant by the term—is septenary. Âkâsha is Aditi in the allegory, and the mother of Mârttânda, the Sun, the Devamâtri, Mother of the Gods. In the Solar System, the Sun is her Buddhi and Vâhana, the Vehicle, hence the sixth principle; in Kosmos all the Suns are the Kâma Rûpa of Âkâsha and so is ours. It is only when regarded as an individual Entity in his own Kingdom, that Sûrya, the Sun, is the seventh principle of the great body of Matter.
905.
To be more correct, let us rather call it Agnosticism. Brutal but frank Materialism is more honest than Janus-faced Agnosticism in our days. Western Monism, so-called, is the Pecksniff of modern Philosophy, turning a pharisaical face to Psychology and Idealism, and its natural face of a Roman Augur, swelling his cheek with his tongue, to Materialism. Such Monists are worse than Materialists; because, while looking at the Universe and at psycho-spiritual man from the same negative stand-point, the latter put their case far less plausibly than do sceptics of Mr. Tyndall's or even of Mr. Huxley's stamp. Herbert Spencer, Bain and Lewes are more dangerous to universal truths than is Büchner.
906.
Geology, by Professor A. Winchell.
907.
See Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 245-262—Arts. “Do the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory?” and “Is the Sun merely a Cooling Mass?”—for the true Occult teaching.
908.
Philosophie Naturelle, art. 142.
909.
Astronomie, p. 342.
910.
Commentary on Stanza IV, ante, pp. 126-7.
911.
Popular Science Review, Vol. IV. p. 148.
912.
And the central mass, too, as will be found, or rather the centre of the reflection.
913.
This “matter” is just like the reflection in a mirror of the flame from a “photogenic” lamp-wick.
914.
See Five Years of Theosophy, p. 258, for an answer to this speculation of Herschell.
915.
Ibid., p. 156.
916.
Paracelsus for one, who called it Liquor Vitæ, and Archæus.
917.
Alchemical “composition,” rather.
918.
“This vital force ... radiates around man like a luminous sphere,” says Paracelsus in Paragranum.
919.
Popular Science Review, Vol. X. pp. 380-3.
920.
De Generatione Hominis.
921.
De Viribus Membrorum. See Life of Paracelsus, by Franz Hartmann, M.D., F.T.S.
922.
P. 384.
923.
Ch. xiii; Telang's translation, p. 292.
924.
Ibid., ch. xxxvi; p. 385.
925.
The division of the physical senses into five, comes to us from a great antiquity. But while adopting the number, no modern Philosopher has asked himself how these senses could exist, i.e., be perceived and used in a self-conscious way, unless there were the sixth sense, mental perception, to register and record them; and—this for the Metaphysicians and Occultists—the seventh to preserve the spiritual fruitage and remembrance thereof, as in a Book of Life which belongs to Karma. The Ancients divided the senses into five, simply because their teachers, the Initiates, stopped at hearing, as being that sense which developed on the physical plane, or rather, got dwarfed and limited to this plane, only at the beginning of the Fifth Race. The Fourth Race already had begun to lose the spiritual condition, so preëminently developed in the Third Race.
926.
Ibid., ch. x: pp. 277, 278.
927.
Mundakopanishad, p. 298.
928.
Bhagavadgîtâ, ch. vii; ibid., pp. 73, 74.
929.
Ahamkâra, I suppose, that “Egoship,” or “Ahamship,” which leads to every error.
930.
The Elements are the five Tanmâtras of earth, water, fire, air and ether, the producers of the grosser elements.
931.
Anugîtâ, ch. xx; ibid., p. 313.
932.
The conductor in the sense of Upâdhi—a material or physical basis; but, as the second principle of the universal Soul and Vital Force in Nature, it is intelligently guided by the fifth principle thereof.
933.
And too great an exuberance of it in the nervous system leads as often to disease and death. If it were the animal system which generated it, such would not be the case, surely. Hence, the latter emergency shows its independence of the system, and its connection with the Sun-Force, as Metcalfe and Hunt explain.
934.
P. 387.
935.
Paragranum; Life of Paracelsus, by Dr. F. Hartmann.
936.
In a recent work on Symbolism in Buddhism and Christianity—in Buddhism and Roman Catholicism, rather, many later rituals and dogmas in Northern Buddhism, in its popular exoteric form, being identical with those of the Latin Church—some curious facts are to be found. The author of this volume, with more pretensions than erudition, has indiscriminately crammed into his work ancient and modern Buddhist teachings, and has sorely confused Lamaïsm with Buddhism. On page 404 of this volume, called Buddhism in Christendom, or Jesus the Essene, our pseudo-Orientalist devotes himself to criticizing the “Seven Principles” of the “Esoteric Buddhists,” and attempts to ridicule them. On page 405, the closing page, he speaks enthusiastically of the Vidyâdharas, “the seven great legions of dead men made wise.” Now, these Vidyâdharas, whom some Orientalists call “demi-gods,” are in fact, exoterically, a kind of Siddhas, “affluent in devotion,” and, esoterically, they are identical with the seven classes of Pitris, one class of which endow man in the Third Race with Self-consciousness, by incarnating in the human shells. The “Hymn to the Sun,” at the end of his queer volume of mosaic, which endows Buddhism with a Personal God (!!), is an unfortunate thrust at the very proofs so elaborately collected by the unlucky author.
Theosophists are fully aware that Mr. Rhys Davids has likewise expressed his opinion on their beliefs. He said that the theories propounded by the author of Esoteric Buddhism “were not Buddhism, and were not esoteric.” The remark is the result of (a) the unfortunate mistake of writing “Buddhism” instead of “Budhaïsm,” or “Budhism,” i.e., of connecting the system with Gautama's religion instead of with the Secret Wisdom taught by Krishna, Shankarâchârya, and many others, as much as by Buddha; and (b) of the impossibility of Mr. Rhys Davids knowing anything of the true Esoteric Teachings. Nevertheless as he is the greatest Pâli and Buddhist scholar of the day, whatever he may say is entitled to respectful hearing. But when one who knows no more of exoteric Buddhism on Scientific and Materialistic lines, than he knows of Esoteric Philosophy, defames those whom he honours with his spite, and assumes with the Theosophists the airs of a profound scholar, one can only smile or—heartily laugh at him.
937.
The Human Species, pp. 10, 11.
938.
The Theosophist.
939.
Not only does it not deny the occurrence, though attributing it to a wrong cause, as always, each theory contradicting every other (see the theories of Secchi, of Faye, and of Young), the spots depending on the superficial accumulation of vapours cooler than the photosphere (?), etc., etc., but we have men of Science who astrologize upon the spots. Professor Jevons attributes all the great periodical commercial crises to the influence of the sun-spots every eleventh cyclic year. (See his Investigations into Currency and Finance.) This is worthy of praise and encouragement surely.
940.
Le Soleil, II. 184.
941.
World-Life, p. 48.
942.
Unfortunately, as these pages are being written, the “archebiosis of terrestrial existence” has turned, under a somewhat stricter chemical analysis, into a simple precipitate of sulphate of lime—hence, from the scientific standpoint, not even an organic substance! Sic transit gloria mundi!
943.
Vishnu Purâna, Wilson, I. 16, Fitzedward Hall's rendering.
944.
Popular Astronomy, p. 444.
945.
In his World-Life (page 48), in the appended footnotes, Professor Winchell says, “It is generally admitted that at excessively high temperatures matter exists in a state of dissociation—that is, no chemical combination can exist”; and, to prove the unity of Matter, would appeal to the spectrum, which in every case of homogeneity will show a bright line, whereas in the case of several molecular arrangements existing—in the nebulæ say, or a star—“the spectrum should consist of two or three bright lines”! This would be no proof either way to the Physicist-Occultist, who maintains that beyond a certain limit of visible Matter, no spectrum, no telescope and no microscope are of any use. The unity of Matter, of that which is real cosmic Matter to the Alchemist, or “Adam's Earth” as the Kabalists call it, can hardly be proved or disproved, by either the French savant Dumas, who suggests “the composite nature” of the “elements” on “certain relations of atomic weights,” or even by Mr. Crookes' “radiant matter,” though his experiments may seem “to be best understood on the hypothesis of the homogeneity of the elements of matter, and the continuity of the states of matter.” For all this does not go beyond material Matter, so to say, even in what is shown by the spectrum, that modern “eye of Shiva” of physical experiments. It is only of this Matter, that H. St. Claire Deville could say that “when bodies, deemed to be simple, combine with one another, they vanish, they are individually annihilated”; simply because he could not follow those bodies in their further transformation in the world of spiritual cosmic Matter. Verily Modern Science will never be able to dig deep enough into the cosmological formations to find the Roots of the World-Stuff or Matter, unless she works on the same lines of thought as the mediæval Alchemist did.
946.
Concepts of Modern Physics, p. vi.
947.
Book I. ch. II. p. 25. Vishnu Purâna, Fitzedward Hall's Translation.
948.
Vide in preceding Section VII., “Life, Force, or Gravity,” quotation from Anugitâ.
949.
The word “supernatural” implies above or outside nature. Nature and Space are one. Now Space for the metaphysician exists outside any act of sensation, and is a purely subjective representation, notwithstanding the contention of Materialism, which would connect it forcibly with one or another datum of sensation. For our senses, it is fairly subjective when independent of anything within it. How then can any phenomenon, or anything else, step outside, or be performed beyond, that which has no limits? But when spatial extension becomes simply conceptual, and is thought of in an idea connected with certain actions, as by the Materialists and the Physicists, then again they have hardly a right to define and claim that which can, or cannot, be produced by Forces generated within even limited spaces, as they have not even an approximate idea of what those Forces are.
950.
It is not correct, when speaking of Idealism, to show it based upon “the old ontological assumptions that things or entities exist independently of each other, and otherwise than as terms of relations” (Stallo). At any rate, it is incorrect to say so of Idealism in Eastern Philosophy and its cognition, for it is just the reverse.
951.
Independent, in a certain sense, but not disconnected with it.
952.
“By Fohat, more likely,” would be an Occultist's reply.
953.
The reason for such psychic capacities is given farther on.
954.
The above was written in 1886, at a time when hopes of success for the “Keely Motor” were at their highest. Every word then said by the writer proved true, and now only a few remarks are added with regard to the failure of Mr. Keely's expectations, so far, a failure now admitted by the discoverer himself. Though, however, the word failure is here used, the reader should understand it in a relative sense, for, as Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore explains: “What Mr. Keely does admit is that, baffled in applying vibratory force to mechanics, upon his first and second lines of experimental research, he was obliged either to confess a commercial failure, or to try a third departure from his base or principle, seeking success through another channel.” And this “channel” is on the physical plane.
955.
We learn that these remarks are not applicable to Mr. Keely's latest discovery; time alone can show the exact limit of his achievements.
956.
Theosophical Siftings, No. 9.
957.
This is also the division made by the Occultists, under other names.
958.
Quite so, since there is the seventh beyond, which begins the same enumeration from the first to the last, on another and higher plane.
959.
From Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore's paper, The New Philosophy.
960.
In answer to a friend, that eminent Geologist writes: “I can only say, in reply to your letter, that it is at present, and perhaps always will be, impossible to reduce, even approximately, geological time into years, or even into millenniums.” (Signed, William Pengelly, F.R.S.)
961.
Plato, in speaking of the irrational, turbulent Elements, “composed of fire, air, water, and earth,” means Elementary Dæmons. (See Timæus.)
962.
Plato in the Timæus uses the word “secretions” of turbulent Elements.
963.
Valentinus' Esoteric Treatise on the Doctrine of Gilgul.
964.
See Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopædia.
965.
See Isis Unveiled, II. 152.
966.
See Mackenzie, ibid., sub voc.
967.
Isis Unveiled, I. 317.
968.
Viveka Chudamani, translated by Mohini M. Chatterji, as “The Crest Jewel of Wisdom.” See Theosophist, July and August, 1886.
969.
The Tanmâtras are literally the type or rudiment of an element devoid of qualities; but esoterically, they are the primeval Noumena of that which becomes in the progress of evolution, a Cosmic Element, in the sense given to the term in Antiquity, not in that of Physics. They are the Logoi, the seven emanations or rays of the Logos.
970.
Ch. xxxvi; Telang's translation, pp. 387-8.
971.
See Theosophist, August, 1886.
972.
The now universal error of attributing to the Ancients the knowledge of only seven planets, simply because they mentioned no others, is based on the same general ignorance of their Occult doctrines. The question is not whether they were, or were not, aware of the existence of the later discovered planets; but whether the reverence paid by them to the four exoteric and three secret Great Gods—the Star-Angels, had not some special reason. The writer ventures to say there was such a reason, and it is this. Had they known of as many planets as we do now—and this question can hardly be decided at present, either way—they would still have only connected the seven with their religious worship, because these seven are directly and specially connected with our Earth, or, using esoteric phraseology, with our septenary Ring of Spheres.
973.
John, x. 30.
974.
Ibid., xx. 17.
975.
Ibid., xiv. 28.
976.
Matt., v. 16.
977.
Ibid., xiii. 43.
978.
1 Cor., iii. 16.
979.
Theosophist, Aug., 1886.
980.
These are planets accepted for purposes of Judicial Astrology only. The astro-theogonical division differed from the above. The Sun, being a central star and not a planet, stands, with its seven planets, in more occult and mysterious relations to our Globe than is generally known. The Sun was, therefore, considered the great Father of all the Seven “Fathers,” and this accounts for the variations found between the Seven and Eight Great Gods of Chaldean and other countries. Neither the Earth, nor the Moon, its satellite, nor yet the stars, for another reason, were anything more than substitutes used for Esoteric purposes. Yet, even with the exclusion of the Sun and the Moon from the calculation, the Ancients seem to have known of seven planets. How many more are known to us, so far, if we throw out the Earth and Moon? Seven, and no more: Seven primary or principal planets, the rest planetoids rather than planets.
981.
When one remembers that under the powerful telescope of Sir William Herschell, that eminent Astronomer—gauging merely that portion of heaven in the equatorial plane, the approximate centre of which is occupied by our Earth—saw in one quarter of an hour, 16,000 stars pass; and applying this calculation to the totality of the “Milky Way” he found in it no less than eighteen millions of Suns, one wonders no longer that Laplace, in conversation with Napoleon I, should have called God a hypothesis—perfectly useless to speculate upon for exact Physical Science, at any rate. Occult Metaphysics and transcendental Philosophy will alone be able to lift the smallest corner of the impenetrable veil in this direction.
982.
Numb., xi. 16.
983.
Deut., xxxii. 8, 9.
984.
Ibid., 9.
985.
C. W. King in The Gnostics and their Remains (p. 344), identifies it with “that summum bonum of Oriental aspiration, the Buddhist Nirvâna, ‘perfect repose, the Epicurean Indolentia’;” a view that looks flippant enough in its expression, though not quite untrue.
986.
See Origen's Copy of the Chart, or Diagramma of the Ophites.
987.
See also Section XIV.
988.
Abraham and Saturn are identical in astro-symbology, and he is the forefather of the Jehovistic Jews.
989.
John, viii. 37, 38, 41, 44.
990.
Matthew, v. 22.
991.
The Elemental Vortices inaugurated by the “Mind” have not been improved by their modern transformation.
992.
I have often been taken to task for using expressions in Isis denoting belief in a personal and anthropomorphic God. This is not my idea. Kabalistically speaking, the “Architect” is the generic name for the Sephiroth, the Builders of the Universe, as the “Universal Mind” represents the collectivity of the Dhyân Chohanic Minds.
993.
Timæus.
994.
I. 258.
995.
Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations.
996.
Modern Chemistry.
997.
Isis Unveiled, I. 137.
998.
Faraday Lectures, 1881.
999.
Thus, what the writer of the present work said ten years ago in Isis Unveiled was, it seems, prophetic. These are the words: “Many of these mystics, by following what they were taught by some treatises, secretly preserved from one generation to another, achieved discoveries which would not be despised even in our modern days of exact sciences. Roger Bacon, the friar, was laughed at as a quack, and is now generally numbered among ‘pretenders’ to magic art; but his discoveries were nevertheless accepted, and are now used by those who ridicule him the most. Roger Bacon belonged by right, if not by fact, to that Brotherhood which includes all those who study the Occult Sciences. Living in the thirteenth century, almost a contemporary, therefore, of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, his discoveries—such as gunpowder and optical glasses, and his mechanical achievements—were considered by everyone as so many miracles. He was accused of having made a compact with the Evil One.” (Vol. I, pp. 64, 65.)
1000.
Just so; “those forms of energy ... which become evident ...” in the laboratory of the Chemist and Physicist; but there are other forms of energy wedded to other forms of matter, which are supersensuous, yet are known to the Adepts.
1001.
Presidential Address, p. 16.
1002.
It is just the existence of such worlds on other planes of consciousness that is asserted by the Occultist. The Secret Science teaches that the primitive race was boneless, and that there are worlds invisible to us, peopled as our own, besides the populations of Dhyân Chohans.
1003.
Five Years of Theosophy, p. 258 et seq.
1004.
Says Mr. Crookes in the same address: “The first riddle which we encounter in chemistry is: ‘What are the elements?’ Of the attempts hitherto made to define or explain an element, none satisfy the demands of the human intellect. The text books tell us that an element is ‘a body which has not been decomposed;’ that it is ‘a something to which we can add, but from which we can take nothing,’ or ‘a body which increases in weight with every chemical change.’ Such definitions are doubly unsatisfactory: they are provisional, and may cease to-morrow to be applicable in any given case. They take their stand, not on any attribute of the things to be defined, but on the limitations of human power: they are confessions of intellectual impotence.”
1005.
And the lecturer quotes Sir George Airy, who says (in Faraday's Life and Letters, Vol. II., p. 354): “I can easily conceive that there are plenty of bodies about us not subject to this intermutual action, and therefore not subject to the law of gravitation.”
1006.
The Vedântic philosophy conceives of such; but then it is not physics, but metaphysics, called by Mr. Tyndall “poetry” and “fiction.”
1007.
In the form they are now, we conceive?
1008.
And to Kapila and Manu—especially and originally.
1009.
Here is a scientific corroboration of the eternal law of correspondences and analogy.
1010.
This method of illustrating the periodic law in the classification of elements is, in the words of Mr. Crookes, proposed by Professor Emerson Reynolds, of Dublin University, who ... “points out that in each period, the general properties of the elements vary from one to another, with approximate regularity until we reach the seventh member, which is in more or less striking contrast with the first element of the same period, as well as with the first of the next. Thus chlorine, the seventh member of Mendeleef's third period, contrasts sharply with both sodium, the first member of the same series, and with potassium, the first member of the next series; whilst on the other hand, sodium and potassium are closely analogous. The six elements, whose atomic weights intervene between sodium and potassium, vary in properties, step by step, until chlorine, the contrast to sodium, is reached. But from chlorine to potassium, the analogue of sodium, there is a change in properties per saltum..... If we thus recognize a contrast in properties—more or less decided—between the first and the last members of each series, we can scarcely help admitting the existence of a point of mean variation within each system. In general the fourth element of each series possesses the property we might expect a transition-element to exhibit.... Thus for the purpose of graphic translation, Professor Reynolds considers that the fourth member of a period—silicon, for example—may be placed at the apex of a symmetrical curve, which shall represent for that particular period, the direction in which the properties of the series of elements vary with rising atomic weights.”
Now, the writer humbly confesses complete ignorance of modern Chemistry and its mysteries. But she is pretty well acquainted with the Occult Doctrine with regard to correspondences of types and antetypes in nature, and to perfect analogy as a fundamental law in Occultism. Hence she ventures on a remark which will strike every Occultist, however it may be derided by orthodox Science. This method of illustrating the periodic law in the behaviour of elements, whether or not still a hypothesis in Chemistry, is a law in Occult Sciences. Every well-read Occultist knows that the seventh and fourth members—whether in a septenary chain of worlds, the septenary hierarchy of angels, or in the constitution of man, animal, plant, or mineral atom—that the seventh and fourth members, we say, in the geometrically and mathematically uniform workings of the immutable laws of Nature, always play a distinct and specific part in the septenary system. From the stars twinkling high in heaven, to the sparks flying asunder from the rude fire built by the savage in his forest; from the hierarchies and the essential constitution of the Dhyân Chohans—organized for diviner apprehensions and a loftier range of perception than the greatest Western Psychologist ever dreamed of, down to Nature's classification of species among the humblest insects; finally from Worlds to Atoms, everything in the Universe, from great to small, proceeds in its spiritual and physical evolution, cyclically and septennially, showing its seventh and fourth number (the latter the turning point) behaving in the same way as is shown in that periodic law of Atoms. Nature never proceeds per saltum. Therefore, when Mr. Crookes remarks on this that he does not “wish to infer that the gaps in Mendeleef's table, and in this graphic representation of it [the diagram showing the evolution of Atoms] necessarily mean that there are elements actually existing to fill up the gaps; these gaps may only mean that at the birth of the elements there was an easy potentiality of the formation of an element which would fit into the place”—an Occultist would respectfully remark to him that the latter hypothesis can only hold good, if the septenary arrangement of Atoms is not interfered with. This is the one law, and an infallible method that must always lead one who follows it to success.
1011.
A group of electricians has just protested against the new theory of Clausius, the famous professor of the University of Bonn. The character of the protest is shown in the signature, which has “Jules Bourdin, in the name of the group of Electricians, which had the honour of being introduced to Professor Clausius in 1881, and whose war-cry (cri de ralliement) is À bas l'Ether”—down with Ether, even; they want Universal Void, you see!
1012.
Smithsonian Contributions, xxi., Art. 1. pp. 79-97.
1013.
System of Logic, p. 229.
1014.
Beyond the zero-line of action.
1015.
Progymnasmata, p. 795.
1016.
De Stellâ Novâ in Pede Serpentarii, p. 115.
1017.
Hypothèses Cosmogoniques, p. 2, C. Wolf, 1886.
1018.
See Philosophical Transactions, p. 269, et seq.
1019.
Laplace conceived that the external and internal zones of the ring would rotate with the same angular velocity, which would be the case with a solid ring; but the principle of equal areas requires the inner zones to rotate more rapidly than the outer. (World-Life, p. 121.) Prof. Winchell points out a good many mistakes of Laplace; but as a geologist he is not infallible himself in his “astronomical speculations.”
1020.
Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 249-251, Art. “Do the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory?”
1021.
Had Astronomers, in their present state of knowledge, merely held to the hypothesis of Laplace, which was simply the formation of the Planetary System, it might in time have resulted in something like an approximate truth. But the two parts of the general problem—that of the formation of the Universe, or the formation of the Suns and Stars from the Primitive Matter, and then the development of the Planets round their Sun—rest on quite different facts in Nature and are even so viewed by Science itself. They are at the opposite poles of Being.
1022.
Aristotle's Physica, viii. 1.
1023.
Hypothèses Cosmogoniques, p. 3, Wolf.
1024.
Vol. I., p. 185, quoted by Wolf, p. 3. Wolf's argument is here summarised.
1025.
Note vii. Summarized from Wolf, p. 6.
1026.
Five Years of Theosophy, pp. 241, 242, and 239.
1027.
But the spectra of these nebulæ have never yet been ascertained. When they are found with bright lines, then only may they be cited.
1028.
Hypothèses Cosmogoniques, p. 3.
1029.
Mr. Crookes' Protyle must not be regarded as the primary stuff, out of which the Dhyân Chohans, in accordance with the immutable laws of Nature, wove our Solar System. This Protyle cannot even be the Prima Materia of Kant, which that great mind saw used up in the formation of the worlds, and thus existing no longer in a diffused state. Protyle is a mediate phase in the progressive differentiation of Cosmic Substance from its normal undifferentiated state. It is, then, the aspect assumed by Matter in its middle passage into full objectivity.
1030.
See Stanza III, Commentary 9, (p. 109) about “Light,” or “Cold Flame,” where it is explained that the “Mother”—Chaos—is a cold Fire, a cool Radiance, colourless, formless, devoid of every quality. “Motion as the One Eternal IS, and contains the potentialities of every quality in the Manvantaric Worlds,” it is said.
1031.
Hypothèses Cosmogoniques, pp. 4, 5.
1032.
World-Life, p. 196.
1033.
Westminster Review, XX., July 27, 1868.
1034.
Vol. XIV. p. 252.
1035.
Hypothèses Cosmogoniques.
1036.
Which “Light” we call Fohat.
1037.
This is a mistake, which implies a material agent, distinct from the influences which move it, i.e., blind matter and perhaps “God” again, whereas this One Life is the very God and Gods “Itself.”
1038.
The same error.
1039.
Popular Science Review, Vol. X.
1040.
“Is the Jîva a myth, as Science says, or is it not?” ask some Theosophists, wavering between materialistic and idealistic Science. The difficulty of really grasping Esoteric problems concerning the “ultimate state of Matter” is again the old crux of the objective and the subjective. What is Matter? Is the Matter of our present objective consciousness anything but our sensations? True, the sensations we receive come from without, but can we really—except in terms of phenomena—speak of the “gross matter” of this plane as an entity apart from and independent of us? To all such arguments Occultism answers: True, in reality Matter is not independent of, or existent outside, our perceptions. Man is an illusion: granted. But the existence and actuality of other, still more illusive, but not less actual, entities than we are, is not a claim which is lessened, but rather strengthened, by this doctrine of Vedântic and even Kantian Idealism.
1041.
See Musée des Sciences, August, 1856.
1042.
Book II. of the Commentary on the Book of Dzyan.
1043.
Even the question of the plurality of worlds inhabited by sentient creatures is rejected, or is approached with the greatest caution! And yet see what the great astronomer, Camille Flammarion, says in his Pluralité des Mondes.
1044.
Nevertheless, it may be shown on the testimony of the Bible itself, and of such good Christian theologians as Cardinal Wiseman, that this plurality is taught in both the Old and the New Testaments.
1045.
See Plurality of Worlds, Vol. II.
1046.
See on this La Pluralité des Mondes Habités, par C. Flammarion, wherein is given a list of the many men of Science who have written to prove the theory.
1047.
World-Life, pp. 496-498, et seq.
1048.
World-Life.
1049.
The Book of Enoch. Trans. by Archbishop Laurence, Ch. LXXIX.
1050.
The Âtmâ, or Spirit, the Spiritual SELF, passing like a thread through the five Subtle Bodies, or Principles, Koshas, is called “Thread-soul,” or Sûtrâtmâ in Vedântic Philosophy.
1051.
“The Septenary Principle,” Five Years of Theosophy, p. 197.
1052.
Pythagorean Triangle, by the Rev. G. Oliver, p. 36.
1053.
See Kant's Critique de la Raison Pure, Barui's transl., II. 54.
1054.
Plutarch, De Placitis Philosophorum.
1055.
In the Greek and Latin Churches—which regard marriage as one of the sacraments—the officiating priest during the marriage ceremony represents the apex of the triangle; the bride, its left feminine side, and the bridegroom the right side, while the base line is symbolized by the row of witnesses, the bridesmaids and best men. But behind the priest there is the Holy of Holies, with its mysterious containments and symbolic meaning, inside of which no one but the consecrated priests should enter. In the early days of Christianity the marriage ceremony was a mystery and a true symbol. Now, however, even the Churches have lost the true meaning of this symbolism.
1056.
New Aspects of Life and Religion, by Henry Pratt, M.D., p. 7. Ed. 1886.
1057.
Ibid., pp. 7, 8.
1058.
Ibid., p. 9.
1059.
Pythagorean Triangle, by the Rev. G. Oliver, pp. 18, 19.
1060.
P. 387.
1061.
P. 387.
1062.
In the World of Form, symbolism finding expression in the Pyramids, has in them both triangle and square, four co-equal triangles or surfaces, four basic points, and the fifth—the apex.
1063.
Pp. 385, 386.
1064.
Op. cit. By Isaac Myer. P. 174.
1065.
P. 175.
1066.
P. 175.
1067.
“The lowest designation, or the Deity in Nature, the more general term Elohim, is translated God.” (P. 175.) Such recent works as the Qabbalah of Mr. Isaac Myer, and of Mr. S. L. MacGregor Mathers, fully justify our attitude towards the Jehovistic Deity. It is not the transcendental, philosophical, and highly metaphysical abstraction of the original Kabalistic thought—Ain-Suph-Shekinah-Adam-Kadmon, and all that follows—that we oppose, but the crystallization of all these into the highly unphilosophical, repulsive, and anthropomorphic Jehovah, the androgynous and finite deity, for which eternity, omnipotence, and omniscience are claimed. We do not war against the Ideal Reality, but the hideous theological Shadow.
1068.
Let not the word “Psychology” cause the reader, by association of ideas, to carry his thought to modern “Psychologists,” so-called, whose Idealism is another name for uncompromising Materialism, and whose pretended Monism is no better than a mask to conceal the void of final annihilation—even of consciousness. Here spiritual Psychology is meant.
1069.
“Vishvânara is not merely the manifested objective world, but the one physical basis [the horizontal line of the triangle] from which the whole objective world starts into existence.” And this is the Cosmic Duad, the Androgynous Substance. Only beyond this is the true Protyle.
1070.
T. Subba Row. See Theosophist, Feb. 1887.
1071.
By W. Crookes, F.R.S., V.P.C.S., delivered at the Royal Institution, London, on Friday, February 18th, 1887.
1072.
How true it is will be fully demonstrated only on that day when Mr. Crookes' discovery of radiant matter will have resulted in a further elucidation with regard to the true source of light, and will have revolutionized all the present speculations. Further familiarity with the northern streamers of the aurora borealis may help the recognition of this truth.
1073.
Genesis of the Elements, p. 1.
1074.
De Placit. Philos.
1075.
The Path, I. 10, p. 297.
1076.
P. 11.
1077.
Corresponding on the cosmic scale with the Spirit, Soul, Mind, Life, and the three Vehicles—the Astral, the Mâyâvic and the Physical Bodies (of mankind), whatever division is made.
1078.
Ibid. p. 16.
1079.
Vol. I, p. 429.
1080.
Ibid., p. 21.
1081.
“The Lord is a consuming fire.” “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
1082.
Which if separated alchemically would yield the Spirit of Life, and its Elixir.
1083.
Foremost of all, the postulate that there is no such thing in Nature as inorganic substances or bodies. Stones, minerals, rocks, and even chemical “atoms” are simply organic units in profound lethargy. Their coma has an end and their inertia becomes activity.
1084.
Ibid., p. 144.
1085.
The orthography of the name—as spelt by himself—is Leibniz. He was of Slavonian descent though born in Germany.
1086.
Monadologie, Introd.
1087.
“Leibnitz's dynamism,” says Professor Lachelier, “would offer but little difficulty if, with him, the monad had remained a simple atom of blind force. But....” One perfectly understands the perplexity of Modern Materialism!
1088.
The Path, I. 10, p. 297.
1089.
Leibnitz was an absolute Idealist in maintaining that “material atoms are contrary to reason.” (Système Nouveau, Erdmann, p. 126, col. 2.) For him Matter was a simple representation of the Monad, whether human or atomic. Monads, he thought (as do we), are everywhere. Thus the human soul is a Monad, and every cell in the human body has its Monad, as has every cell in animal, vegetable, and even in the so-called inorganic bodies. His Atoms are the molecules of modern Science, and his Monads those simple atoms that Materialistic Science takes on faith, though it will never succeed in interviewing them—except in imagination. But Leibnitz is rather contradictory in his views about Monads. He speaks of his “Metaphysical Points” and “Formal Atoms,” at one time as realities, occupying space; at another as pure spiritual ideas; then he again endows them with objectivity and aggregates and positions in their co-relations.
1090.
Examen des Principes du P. Malebranche.
1091.
The Atoms of Leibnitz have, in truth, nothing but the name in common with the atoms of the Greek Materialists, or even the molecules of Modem Science. He calls them “Formal Atoms,” and compares them to the “Substantial Forms” of Aristotle. (See Système Nouveau, § 3.)
1092.
Letter to Father Desbosses, Correspondence, xviii.
1093.
Monadologie, § 60. Leibnitz, like Aristotle, calls the “created” or emanated Monads (the Elementals issued from Cosmic Spirits or Gods)—Entelechies, ?ντελ?χειαι, and “incorporeal automata.” (Monadologie § 18.)
1094.
These three “rough divisions” correspond to Spirit, Mind (or Soul), and Body, in the human constitution.
1095.
Brother C. H. A. Bjerregaard, in the lecture already mentioned, warns his audience not to regard the Sephiroth too much as individualities, but to avoid at the same time seeing in them abstractions. “We shall never arrive at the truth,” he says, “much less the power of associating with these celestials, until we return to the simplicity and fearlessness of the primitive ages, when men mixed freely with the gods, and the gods descended among men and guided them in truth and holiness.” (P. 296.) “There are several designations for ‘angels’ in the Bible, which clearly show that beings like the elementals of the Kabbala and the monads of Leibnitz, must be understood by that term rather than that which is commonly understood. They are called ‘morning stars,’ ‘flaming fires,’ ‘the mighty ones,’ and St. Paul sees them in his cosmogonic vision as ‘Principalities and Powers.’ Such names as these preclude the idea of personality, and we find ourselves compelled to think of them as impersonal existences ... as an influence, a spiritual substance, or conscious force.” (Pp. 321, 322.)
1096.
Buddhist Catechism, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society, p. 51.
1097.
Ibid. 51, 52.
1098.
We refer those who would regard the statement as an impertinence or irreverence levelled at accepted Science, to Dr. James Hutchinson Stirling's work As regards Protoplasm, which is a defence of a Vital Principle versus the Molecularists—Huxley, Tyndall, Vogt, and Co.—and request them to examine whether it is true or not to say that, though the scientific premisses may not be always correct, they are, nevertheless, accepted, to fill up a gap or a hole in some beloved materialistic hobby. Speaking of protoplasm and the organs of man, as “viewed by Mr. Huxley,” the author says: “Probably then, in regard to any continuity in protoplasm of power, of form, or of substance, we have seen lacunæ enow. Nay, Mr. Huxley himself can be adduced in evidence on the same side. Not rarely do we find in his essay admissions of probability, where it is certainty that is alone in place. He says, for example: ‘It is more than probable that when the vegetable world is thoroughly explored we shall find all plants in possession of the same powers.’ When a conclusion is decidedly announced, it is rather disappointing to be told, as here, that the premisses are still to collect [!!].... Again, here is a passage in which he is seen to cut his own ‘basis’ from beneath his own feet. After telling us that all forms of protoplasm consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen ‘in very complex union,’ he continues: ‘To this complex combination, the nature of which has never been determined with exactness [!!], the name of protein has been applied.’ This, plainly, is an identification, on Mr. Huxley's own part, of protoplasm and protein; and what is said of one, being necessarily true of the other, it follows that he admits the nature of protoplasm never to have been determined with exactness, and that even in his eyes the lis is still sub judice. This admission is strengthened by the words, too, ‘If we use this term (protein) with such caution as may properly arise out of our comparative ignorance of the things for which it stands’ ” ... etc. (pp. 33 and 34, ed. 1872, in reply to Mr. Huxley in Yeast).
This is the eminent Huxley, the king of physiology and biology, who is proven playing at blind man's buff with premisses and facts! What may not the “smaller fry” of Science do after this!
1099.
“The Cycles of Matter,” a name given by Professor Winchell to an Essay written in 1860.
1100.
World-Life, pp. 535, 548.
1101.
Quoted in Büchner's Force and Matter.
1102.
Men of Science will say: We deny, because nothing of the kind has ever come within the scope of our experience. But, as argued by Charles Richet, the Physiologist: “So be it, but have you at least demonstrated the contrary?... Do not, at any rate, deny à priori. Actual Science is not sufficiently advanced to give you such right.”—La Suggestion Mentale et le Calcul des Probabilités.
1103.
Lectures on the Philosophy of History, p. 26. Sibree's Eng. Transl.
1104.
Isis Unveiled, Vol. 1, p. 34.
1105.
This symbolism does not prevent these now seemingly mythic personages from having ruled the Earth once upon a time under the human form of actual living, though truly divine and god-like Men. The opinion of Colonel Vallancey—and also of Count de Gebelin—that the “names of the Kabiri appear to be all allegorical, and to have signified no more [?] than an almanac of the vicissitudes of the seasons—calculated for the operations of agriculture” (Collect. de Reb. Hibern., No. 13, Præf. Sect. 5), is as absurd as his assertion that Æon, Cronus, Saturn and Dagon are all one, namely, the “Patriarch Adam.” The Kabiri were the instructors of mankind in agriculture, because they were the Regents over the seasons and Cosmic Cycles. Hence it was they who regulated, as Planetary Spirits or Angels (Messengers), the mysteries of the art of agriculture.
1106.
“Who dread Karma-Nemesis,” would be better.
1107.
Dryden.
1108.
Not all, however, for there are men of Science awakening to truth. This is what we read: “Whatever way we turn our eyes we encounter a mystery ... all in Nature for us is the unknown.... Yet they are numerous, those superficial minds for whom nothing can be produced by natural forces outside of facts observed long ago, consecrated in books and grouped more or less skilfully with the help of theories whose ephemeral duration ought, by this time, to have demonstrated their insufficiency, .... I do not pretend to contest the possibility of invisible beings, of a nature different from ours and capable of moving matter to action. Profound philosophers have admitted this in all epochs, as a consequence of the great law of continuity which rules the universe. That intellectual life, which we see starting in some way from non-being (néant) and gradually reaching man, can it stop abruptly at man to reäppear only in the infinite, in the sovereign regulator of the world? This is little probable.” Therefore, “I no more deny the existence of spirits than I deny soul, while I yet try to explain certain facts without this hypothesis.” The Non-Defined Forces, Historical and Experimental Researches, p. 3. (Paris, 1877.) The author is A. de Rochas, a well-known man of Science in France, and his work is one of the signs of the time.
1109.
ix. 9.
1110.
xxxviii. 31, 32.
1111.
Astronomie Antique.
1112.
The Pleiades, as all know, are the seven stars beyond the Bull, which appear at the beginning of spring. They have a very Occult meaning in the Hindû Esoteric Philosophy, and are connected with Sound and other mystic principles in Nature.
1113.
See Astronomie Antique, pp. 63 to 74.
1114.
Temple de Jerusalem, Vol. II, Part II, Chap. xxx.
1115.
Ch. vii.
1116.
Quoted by De Mirville, Des Esprits, iv. p. 58.
1117.
Natural Genesis, ii. p. 318.
1118.
Proœm, 2.
1119.
Astronomy of the Ancients, Lewis, p. 264.
1120.
Natural Genesis, ii. p. 319.
1121.
Proclus, In Timæum, i.
1122.
Genesis, xlix.
1123.
Creuzer, iii. p. 930.
1124.
Cyropædia, viii. p. 7, as quoted in Des Esprits, iv. p. 55.
1125.
Des Esprits, iv. pp. 59, 60.
1126.
Origine de tous les Cultes, “Zodiaque.”
1127.
Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ, I. p. 9.
1128.
Whether many nations have seen that identical star, or not, we all know that the sepulchres of the “three Magi”—who rejoice in the quite Teutonic names of Kaspar and Melchior, Balthazar being the only exception, and the two having little of the Chaldean ring in them—are shown by the priests in the famous cathedral of Cologne, where the Magian bodies are not only supposed, but firmly believed to have been buried.
1129.
This tradition about the “seventy planets” that preside over the destinies of nations, is based on the Occult cosmogonical teaching that besides our own septenary chain of World-Planets, there are many more in the Solar System.
1130.
Des Esprits, iv. p. 67.
1131.
The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients Demonstrated; Part the Second, or The Key of Urania: pp. 23, 24. Ed. 1823.
1132.
Every scholar is aware, of course, that the Chaldeans claimed the same digits (432), or 432,000, for their Divine Dynasties as the Hindûs do for their Mahâyuga, namely 4,320,000. Therefore has Dr. Sepp, of Munich, undertaken to support Kepler and Wilford in their charge that the Hindûs borrowed them from the Christians, and the Chaldeans from the Jews, who, it is claimed, expected their Messiah in the lunar year of the world 4,320!!! As these figures, according to ancient writers, were based by Berosus on the 120 Saroses—each of the divisions meaning six Neroses of 600 years each, making a sum total of 432,000 years—they would appear to be peremptory, remarks De Mirville (Des Esprits, iii. p. 24). So the pious professor of Munich undertook to explain them in the correct way. He claims to have solved the riddle by showing that “the saros being composed, according to Pliny, of 222 synodial months, to wit, 18 years 6/10,” the calculator naturally fell back on the figures “given by Suidas,” who affirmed that the “120 saroses made 2,222 sacerdotal and cyclic years, which equalled 1,656 solar years.” (Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ, ii. p. 417.)
But Suidas said nothing of the kind; and, even supposing he had, he would prove little, if anything, by such a statement. The Neroses and Saroses were the same thorn in the side of uninitiated ancient writers as the apocalyptic 666 of the “Great Beast” is in that of the modern, and the former figures have found their unlucky Newtons, as have the latter.
1133.
See Isis Unveiled, ii. p. 132.
1134.
The reader has to bear in mind that the phrase “climacteric year” has more than the usual significance, when used by Occultists and Mystics. It is not only a critical period, during which some great change is periodically expected, whether in human or cosmic constitution, but it likewise pertains to universal spiritual changes. The Europeans called every 63rd year the “grand climacteric,” and perhaps justly supposed those years to be the years produced by multiplying 7 into the odd numbers 3, 5, 7 and 9. But 7 is the real scale of Nature, in Occultism, and 7 has to be multiplied in quite a different way and method than is as yet known to European nations.
1135.
Des Espirits; iv. p. 61.
1136.
ii. p. 490.
1137.
See Recueil de l'Académie des Inscriptions, 1853, quoted in Des Esprits, iv. p. 62.
1138.
Ruins of Empires, p. 360.
1139.
See pp. 54, 196, et seqq.
1140.
For a detailed scientific proof of this conclusion, see page 121 of M. Bailly's work, where the subject is discussed technically.
1141.
Why it should be “fictitious” can never be made plain by European Scientists.
1142.
Bailly's Traité de l'Astronomie Indienne et Orientale, pp. xx. et seq. Ed. 1787.
1143.
Ch. III. “On Matter.”
1144.
Lecture on Protoplasm, by Mr. Huxley.
1145.
Ganot's Physics, p. 68, Atkinson's Translation.
1146.
See Vol. I. pp. 338, 339, quoted from Le Mystère et la Science, Conférences, Père Félix de Notre Dame.
1147.
Behold the work of Cycles and their periodical return! Those who denied such “Entities” (Forces) to be bodies, and called them “Spaces,” were the prototypes of our modern “science-struck” public, and their official teachers, who speak of the Forces of Nature as the imponderable energy of Matter and as modes of motion, and yet hold electricity, for one, as being as atomic as Matter itself—(Helmholtz). Inconsistency and contradiction reign as much in official as in heterodox Science.
1148.
The Virgin of the World of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, rendered into English by Dr. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Pp. 83, 84.
1149.
“Hermes here includes as Gods the sensible Forces of Nature, the elements and phenomena of the Universe,” remarks Dr. A. Kingsford in a foot-note explaining it very correctly. So does Eastern Philosophy.
1150.
Ibid., pp. 64, 65.
1151.
See also Section IX, THE COMING FORCE.
1152.
“O Toom, Toom! issued from the great [female] which is in the bosom of the waters [the great Deep or Space], luminous through the two Lions,” the dual Force, or power of the two solar eyes, or the electro-positive and the electro-negative forces. See Book of the Dead, ch. iii.
1153.
See Book of the Dead, chapter xvii.
1154.
Chapter lxxix.
1155.
An image expressing the succession of divine functions, the transmutation of one form into another, or the correlation of forces. Aam is the electro-positive force, devouring all others, as Saturn devoured his progeny.
1156.
Aanroo is in the domain of Osiris, a field divided into fourteen sections, “surrounded with an iron enclosure, within which grows the corn of life seven cubits high,” the Kâma Loka of the Egyptians. Those only of the dead, who know the names of the janitors of the “seven halls,” will be admitted into Amenti for ever; i.e., those who have passed through the Seven Races of each Round—otherwise they will rest in the lower fields; and it represents also the seven successive Devachans, or Lokas. In Amenti one becomes pure spirit for the eternity (xxx. 4); while in Aanroo the “soul of the spirit,” or the Defunct, is devoured each time by Uræus—the Serpent, Son of the Earth (in another sense the primordial vital principles in the Sun), i.e., the Astral Body of the deceased or the “Elementary” fades out and disappears in the “Son of the Earth,” limited time. The soul quits the fields of Aanroo and goes on earth under any shape it likes to assume. (See chapter xcix., Book of the Dead.)
1157.
See Book of the Dead, chapter cviii. 4.
1158.
Maspero in the Guide au Musée de Boulaq, p. 152. Ed. 1883.
1159.
See Book of the Dead, ch. xciv.
1160.
Revue des Deux Mondes, 1865, pp. 157 and 158.
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