YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AN ABRIDGMENT KATHARINE HILLARD The Secret Doctrine A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy By HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY IN TWO PARTS Part I. Cosmogenesis Part II. Anthropogenests NEW YORK 1910. "There being but One Truth, man requires but one church, the Temple of God within us; walled in by matter, but penetrable by any who can find the way ; the pure in heart gee God." — (Isis Unveiled, II. 635.) "Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of Soul on this plane of existence, and Soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of Spirit and these three are a trinity synthesised by Life, which pervades them all." — (Secret Doctrine, I. 49.) Copyright, 190 7, by KATHARINE HTI.i.ARD TO H. P. B. TEACHER AND FRIEND PREFACE The Editor of this Abridgment has long felt the need of a shorter, a simpler and a less expensive version of the Secret Doctrine. The wealth of ma terial that embarrassed the author of the book — or perhaps we should say the transcriber — gave rise to endless digressions wherein the thread of the subject is often lost for whole chapters, while many quotations, comprehensible only to special students, increase the bulk of the volumes, and add to the difficulty of understanding their contents. Many foreign idioms (notably the use of the word actual in the sense of present) and frequent mis prints make the meaning of the text still more ob scure, and the many and complicated parentheses add to the labor of the reader. The enormous length of the book makes it so expensive that compara tively few students can afford to buy it, and the most valuable legacy of theosophic information yet given to the world is thus unavailable to many of those who most need it. Fifteen years' study of the Secret Doctrine, to gether with the help of many other students, has enabled the Editor to trace the thread of the argu ment far more clearly than at first, and the remorse less cutting out of what is now obsolete science, and of all controversial matter (while carefully retain ing all ethical and spiritual teachings), together with occasional transpositions of sentences and paragraphs, have made the whole text very much simpler. All Sanskrit terms have been put into English, and the triune constitution of man (as 4 PEEFACE body, soul and spirit) adopted wherever possible in stead of the more complicated seven-fold division. There has been nothing added to the text, except a few notes and one or two diagrams, all marked " Ed.," and it is hoped that what is transposed and what is altogether omitted will render the book — by reducing its difficulty as well as its cost — more available to the general reader, and to the seeker after truth prove a guide and stimulus to the study of the original work. Kathaeine Hillakd, Editor. PART I— COSMOGENESIS CONTENTS Stanzas 1 to 7 Commentary on Stanza I. II. III.IV. V. VI. VII. On the Planetary Chains Summing up of these Chapters PAGE 3 Preface Introduction Summary of the First Seven Stanzas 17 203143 50 7186 103120148159 THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM. Section I. Symbolism and Ideographs .... 175 II. The Mystery Language and its Keys . . 181 " III. Primordial Substance and Divine Thought . 188 " IV. Chaos, Theos, Kosmos 194 « V. The Hidden Deity, its Symbols and Glyphs . 197 " VI. The Mundane Egg 191 " VII. The Days and Nights of Brahma . . .205 " VIII. The Lotus as a Universal Symbol . . . 209 IX. The Moon in Symbolism 213 " X. Tree, Serpent, and Crocodile Worship . . 221 " XI. Demon est Deus Inversus . . . .226 " XII. Theogony of the Creative Gods . . . 230 6 CONTENTS PAGE Section XIII. The Seven Creations 236 " XIV. The Four Elements 242 " XV. Kwan-ahi-yin and Kwan-Yin .... 247 Addenda 251 Fragments of Occult Science 254 Life, Force or Gravity 257 Solar Theory and the Elements 261 The Coming Force 264 Elements and Atoms 267 The Nebular Theory 274 Forces — Modes of Motion or Intelligences? .... 275 Gods, Monads and Atoms 277 Cyclic Evolution and Karma 285 The Zodiac and its Antiquity 290 DIAGRAMS. I. The Three Logos 14 II. Physical Identity of the Kingdoms of Nature . . 139 III. The Seven Rounds and Planes 149 IV. Lunar and Earth Chains 152 INTRODUCTION In the twelfth chapter of the second volume of Isis Unveiled (p. 587) the fundamental principles of Eastern Philosophy are laid down in a very sim ple but comprehensive manner, so that, rightly understood, these principles form a key to many of the more complex and difficult statements of the Secret Doctrine, especially as they avoid the compli cated details of the septenary division of man's na ture, and base the analysis of both man and the manifested universe upon the trinity in each. " The trinity of nature is the lock of magic; the trinity of man the hey that fits it " (Isis, n. 635). These words are in italics in the original, as being pecu liarly important, and should be read in connection with the second clause of " the fundamental prin ciples of Eastern Philosophy." The first reads : I. " There is no miracle. Everything is the re sult of law. II. " Nature is triune; there is a visible, objec tive nature; an invisible, in-dwelling and energizing nature, the exact model of the other, and its vital principle, and above these two, Spirit, source of all forces, alone, eternal, and indestructible. The lower two constantly change ; the higher third does not. III. " Man is also triune; he has his objective, physical body; his vitalizing astral body (or soul), the real man; and these two are brooded over and illumined by the third, the sovereign, the immortal Spirit. When the real man succeeds in merging himself with the latter, he becomes an immortal entity. 8 INTRODUCTION IV. " Magic as a science, is the knowledge of these principles ; as an art, its application in prac tice. V. "Arcane knowledge misapplied is sorcery; beneficently used, true magic, or wisdom. VI. " Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship, one is controlled, the other controls. VII. ' ' All things that were, that are, or that will be, are recorded in the astral light, and are visible to the initiated adept. VIII. ' ' Races of men differ in spiritual gifts. IX. " One phase of magic is the voluntary and conscious withdrawal of the astral body from the physical. Inert physical matter may be disinte grated, passed through walls and recombined — in certain cases and under certain conditions — but not living, animal organisms. X. " The corner-stone of Magic is an intimate, practical knowledge of magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations and potencies, and a familiarity with their effects on animals and men, as well as a knowledge of the qualities of plants and minerals." These ten " fundamental principles " are slightly condensed from the original, and simple as they appear upon the surface, comprise, if rightly under stood, all the most important teachings of occultism, or Magic, the Great (inaha) Science, while the tenth demands a knowledge of what we call ' ' the natural sciences," as is possessed in its completeness by no one living man. The Secret Doctrine, as published in 1888, was an epitome of the religious and philosophical teachings underlying the various ancient systems of religion (though necessarily fragmentary and incomplete), and had for its aim (1) to show that Nature is not " a fortuitous concourse of atoms "; (2) to assign INTRODUCTION 9 man his rightful place in the universe; (3) to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the foundation-stones of all religious systems; and finally (4) to show that modern science knows noth ing of the occult side of nature. The Secret Doctrine is in two volumes, entitled Cosmogenesis and Anthropo genesis, and is based upon the Stanzas of an archaic MS. known as the Book of Dzyan (phonetically Djan). This " very old Book, " mentioned as such in the first chapter of Isis Unveiled, the only original copy now in exist ence, is written in Senzar, the secret sacerdotal tongue known to all priests and Initiates, and is the original work from which the oldest religious books of all nations were compiled. The most ancient Hebrew document on occult learning, the Book of Concealed Mysteries, was compiled from its pages, as well as China's primitive Bible, the sacred vol umes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Purdnas of India, the Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself. Having described the evolution of the earth and of man, and the history of the Races from the first down to our own (the Fifth), in the Fourth Round, the old book goes no further. It stops at the beginning of the Black Age, and the death of Krishna, just (in 1907) 5,008 years ago. The history of cosmic evolution, as traced in the 'Stanzas, is, so to speak, the abstract algebraical for mula of that evolution, not an account of all its stages and transformations ; a formula which can be applied to all evolution, from that of the earth to that of the solar system, and so on, in an ascending scale. The first seven Stanzas represent the seven terms of this abstract formula. The illustrations in symbolism of this formula begin with an immaculate O white disk within a dull black ground. But the disk must be thought of as 10 INTRODUCTION a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose cir cumference is nowhere. This represents Kosmos* in Eternity (before the re-awakening of still slum bering energy), the divine Unity, from which all proceeds, whither all returns. ©The second illustration shows the circle with a point in it; the first differentiation of the ever- eternal sexless Nature, potential Space within ab stract Space. G In the third illustration, the point is trans formed into a horizontal line, and now symbolizes a divine, immaculate Mother-Nature within the all- embracing absolute Infinitude. Nature is feminine and passive, and the Spirit-Principle which fructi fies it is concealed. © By adding to the horizontal line within the cir cle a vertical line, the Tau is formed, the oldest form of that letter. This was the symbol of the third Root-race up to the time of its so-called " Fall " — that is, when the separation of the sexes by natural evolution took place. © Then the figure became a circle crossed by an upright line ; the symbol of sexless life modified or separated. © When the horizontal line is crossed by a ver tical one, it becomes the mundane cross. Humanity has reached the perfected Third Root-race, and hu man life, as we know it, begins. + When the circumference disappears, and only the cross is left, it is a sign that the fall of man into matter is completed, and marks the beginning of the fourth Root-race. * With the fifth Root-race the cross is changed into the Egyptian emblem of life — the crux ansata, and, still later, into tbe 9 sign of Venus, wherein the circle above 9 the cross signifies the domination ?Kosmos represents tbe Universe, Cosmos our solar system, INTRODUCTION 11 of spirit over matter (as in the sign of the Earth, 5, matter dominates spirit). 31 Then comes the Swastica, entirely separated from its circle, and thus in one sense becoming pure ly phallic. The added lines symbolize Motion, or the Wheel of Life, and the four points represent in suc cession birth, life, death and immortality. * The esoteric symbol of Kali-Yuga, or the present Black Age, is the five-pointed star reversed, with its two points, or horns, turned heavenward, the sign of human sorcery, a position which every Occultist will recognize as one of " the left hand," and used in ceremonial magic. Before proceeding to the consideration of th© Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan which form the basis of the present work, it is absolutely necessary that the reader should be made acquainted with the few fundamental conceptions which underlie and pervade this entire system of thought. Upon the clear" comprehension of these few basic ideas de pends the understanding of all that follows. And it must be borne in mind that the first seven Stanzas given treat only of the cosmogony of our own plane tary system, and what is visible around it after a period of dissolution and re-absorption into the Divine Life of the Universe. The Secret Doctrine, then, establishes three fun damental propositions : (a) An Omnipotent, Eternal, Boundless, and Im mutable Peinciple, which is beyond the range and reach of human thought — " unthinkable and un speakable." This Infinite and Eternal Cause, dimly formulated in the " Unconscious " and " Unknow able " of current European philosophy, is the " Rootless Root " of all that was, is, or ever shall be. It is, of course, devoid of all attributes, andis essentially without any relation to manifested, finite 12 INTRODUCTION Being. It is " Be-ness " rather than Being (in Sanskrit Sat), and is beyond all thought or specu lation. This " Be-ness " is symbolized in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On the one hand, abso lute abstract Space, the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive of by itself. On the other hand, absolute, abstract Motion, representing unconditioned Con sciousness. Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is inconceivable to us apart from change, and Motion best symbolizes change, its es sential characteristic. It is the Ohe Life, eternal, invisible, yet omnipresent, without beginning or end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations ; in eso- terie parlance, " the Great Breath." Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical Oste Absolute, or Be-hess, symbolized by finite intelligence as the theological Trinity. From this '" Causeless Cause " the Oc cultist derives the " First Cause " or the Logos, in Plato's sense; for the " first," presupposing some thing in time, space and rank cannot be the Abso lute, for it is conditioned and finite, a manifestation of the Absolute, which is the field of Absolute Con sciousness — that is, that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence. But as soon as we pass in thought from this — to us — Absolute Nega tion, duality begins in the contrast of Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object Spirit, or Consciousness, and Matter, are, how ever, to be regarded not as independent realities, but rather as the two aspects of the Absolute which constitute the basis of conditioned Being, and which are essential to the existence of the manifested uni verse. Apart from Cosmic Substance (the substra tum of matter in all its grades of differentiation), .Cosmic Ideation (the root of all individual con- INTRODUCTION 13 sciousness) could not manifest as individual con sciousness, since it is only through a vehicle of mat ter that consciousness wells up as "I am I," a physical basis being necessary to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of development. And apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction. Duality, therefore, is the very essence, as it were, of the Ex-istence of the " Manifested Universe." But just as the opposite poles of Subject and Object, Spirit and Matter, are but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so in the manifested universe there is that which impresses the " Ideas " existing in the Divine Thought, upon cosmic sub stance as " the laws of nature." It is the intelli gent medium, the guiding power of all manifesta tion, the ' ' Thought Divine ' ' transmitted and made manifest through the intelligent forces which are the architects of the visible world. Thus from Spirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes our consciousness ; from Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is individualized and attains to se£/-consciousness ; while the Divine Energy in its various manifestations is the mysterious link be tween Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life. The following diagram (p. 14) may make this clearer :* Furthermore, the Secret Doctrine affirms : (b) The eternity of the Universe in toto (the Kos mos, that is), as a boundless plane; periodically the playground of numberless Universes, incessantly manifesting and disappearing, called " the manifest ing stars," and " the sparks of eternity." " The eternity of the Pilgrim is like a wink of the Eye of Self -Existence" (Book of Dzyan). The Pilgrim is the title given to the Monad or unit of consciousness, ?Added by Editor. 14 INTRODUCTION DlAGEAM I The Absolute The " Causeless Cause," the "One Reality" (which is, as Hegel says, "both Being and Non-Being"). The First Cause; The First (or Unmanifested Logos). The Second Logos is the transition from the First to the Third (Spirit- Matter, Life). The Third Logos, "the Word," in manifestation. The Manifested Uni verse. Cosmic Ideation includes "Law," and the Forces of Nature are comprised in Cosmic Energy; while "Life" and "Motion" are convertible terms. — Ed.) INTRODUCTION 15 during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only im mortal and eternal principle in us, being an indivis ible part of the Universal Spirit. " The appearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and re-flux. ' ' This second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the confirmation of the absolute universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which physical science has observed and recorded in all departments of nature. An alternation like that of Day and Night, Life and Death, sleeping and waking, is a fact so common and so universal that it is easy to see in it one of the fundamental laws of the universe. (c) Moreover, the Secret Doctrine teaches: The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage of every Soul through "the Cycle of Necessity," or Incarnation, in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law. In other words, no purely divine Soul can have an independent conscious existence before the spark which issued from the pure Essence of the Over-Soul has passed (first) through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Cycle of existence (or Manvantara), and (second) has acquired its indi viduality, first by natural impulse, and then by self- induced and self-devised efforts, modified by its Karma, thus ascending through all degrees of in telligence from that of mineral and plant up to that of the holiest archangel. The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit throughout a long series of re-incarnations. In its absoluteness, the One Principle under its two aspects of pre-Cosmic Ideation and pre-Cosmic Substance, is sexless, unconditioned and eternal. 16 INTRODUCTION Its periodical emanation — or primal radiation— is also One, androgynous and phenomenally finite. When this radiation radiates in its turn, all its radi ations are also androgynous, to become male and female principles in their lower aspects. After a period of dissolution, the first that re-awakens to active life is plastic Space, Father-Mother, the Spirit and Soul of JEther, or the plane of the circle. Space is called "the Mother" before its cosmic activity, and "Father — Mother" at the first stage of re awakening. In the Kabala it is also "the Father — Mother — Son." But whereas the Mystics and the Philosophers synthesize their pre-genetic triad in the pure divine abstraction, the orthodox anthropo morphize it. The orthodox Christian separates his personal creative Deity into the three persons of the Trinity, and allows no higher Divinity. Such are the basic conceptions upon which the Secret Doctrine rests. It would not be in place here to enter upon any defence or proof of their inherent reasonableness ; nor can I pause to show bow they are in fact contained — though too often under a mis leading guise — in every system of thought or philos ophy worthy of the name. Once that the reader has gained a clear compre hension of these ideas, and has realized the light they throw upon every problem of life, they will need no further justification in his eyes, because their truth will be to him as evident as the sun in heaven. I pass on, therefore, to the subject-matter of the Stanzas as given in this volume, prefacing them with a skeleton outline of their contents, in the hope of thereby rendering the task of the student more easy, by placing before him in a few words the general conception of each Stanza. As a whole, they refer to and describe tbe seven great stages of the evolutionary process, which are spoken of in INTRODUCTION 17 the Purdnas as "the Seven Creations," and in the Bible as ' ' the Seven Days of Creation. ' ' The First Stanza describes the state of the One All during a period of Pralaya or dissolution, be fore the first flutter of re-awakening manifestation. A moment's thought shows that such a state can only be symbolized; to describe it is impossible. Nor can it be symbolized except in negatives, for since it is the state of Absoluteness per se it can pos sess none of those specific attributes which serve us to describe objects in positive terms. Hence that state can only be suggested by the negatives of all those most abstract attributes which men feel rather than conceive, as the limits of their powers of imag ination. The stage of evolution described in Stanza II. is, to a Western mind, so nearly identical with that spoken of in the first Stanza, that to explain the idea of its difference would require a separate treatise. Hence it must be left to the reader's intuition and higher faculties, to grasp as far as possible the meaning of the allegorical phrases used. Indeed, it must be remembered that all these Stanzas appeal to the inner faculties rather than to the ordinary comprehension of the physical brain. Stanza III. describes the re-awakening of the Uni verse after a period of Cosmic Night. It depicts the emergence of the Monads from their state of absorp tion within the One ; the earliest and highest stage in the formation of Worlds, the term "Monad" being one which may apply equally to the vastest Solar System, or the tiniest atom. Stanza IV. shows the differentiation of the "Germ" of the Universe into the septenary hier- 18 INTRODUCTION archy of conscious Divine Powers, who are the ac tive manifestation of the One Supreme Energy. They are the framers, shapers, and ultimately the creators of all the manifested Universe, in the only sense in which the term "Creator" is intelligible; they form and guide it, they are the intelligent Be ings who adjust and control evolution, as they em body in themselves those manifestations of the One Law, which we know as the "Laws of Nature. " This stage of evolution is spoken of in Hindu mythology as the "Creation of the Gods." In Stanza V. the process of world-formation is described: First, diffused Cosmic Matter, then the fiery "whirlwind," the first stage in the formation of a nebula. That nebula condenses, and after pass ing through various transformations, forms a solar system, a planetary chain, or a single planet, as the case may be. The subsequent stages in the formation of a World are indicated in Stanza VI., which brings the evolution of such a world down to its fourth great period, corresponding to the period in which we are now living. Stanza VII. continues the history, tracing the de scent of life down to the appearance of Man; and thus closes the first Book of the Secret Doctrine. The development of "Man," from his first ap pearance upon this earth in this Round to his pres ent state, forms the subject of Book II. The Stanzas which form the thesis of every sec tion are given throughout in their modern translated version, as it would be worse than useless to use the archaic phraseology of the original. Only portions INTRODUCTION 19 of the seven Stanzas are here given ; were they pub lished complete they would remain incomprehensible to all save the few higher occultists. Additional mat ter will be found in the chapters on Symbolism form ing Part II., and also in Part III., these chapters being often more full of information than the text. (To this the Editor would add that as there are three versions of the Stanzas, first, as given in the beginning of the two volumes; second, as given in the Commentary; and, third, as given in The Voice of the Silence (Ed. 1893), all differing slightly from each other, that version (or versions) has been chosen here which seemed most in harmony with the general teachings.) PART I COSMIC EVOLUTION Seven Stanzas Teanslated, with Commentaeies ebom The Seceet Book op Dzyan STANZA I 1. The Eternal Parent, wrapped in her ever-invis ible robes, had slumbered once again for seven Eternities. 2. Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite bosom of duration. 3. Universal Mind* was not, for there were no Intelligent Beings to contain it. 4. The seven ways to Bliss were not. The great causes of Misery were not, for there was no one to produce and to get ensnared by them. 5. Darkness alone filled the Boundless All; for Father, Mother, Son were once more One, and the Son had not yet awakened for the new Wheel and his pilgrimage thereon. 6. The seven sublime Lords (the Creative Spirits) and the seven Truths had ceased to be, and the Uni verse, the Son of Necessity, was immersed in the Absolute, to be out-breathed by that which is, and yet is not. Naught was. *Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of consciousnesa grouped under Thought, Will, and Feeling. S. D. I. 38. 22 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 7. The causes of existence were no more ; the vis ible that was, and the invisible that is, rested in eternal Non-Being — the One Being. 8. Alone, the One form of Existence stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in dreamless sleep; and Life pulsated unconscious in universal Space, throughout that All-presence which is sensed by the "Opened Eye" of the Seer. 9. But where was the Seer when the Over-Soul of the Universe was absorbed in the Absolute, and the great Wheel was parentless ? (In its formless, eter nal, absolute condition.) STANZA II 1. Where were the Builders, the luminous Sons of the cyclic Dawn? In the unknown Darkness, ab sorbed into the Absolute, the producers of Form from No-form — the root of the world, the Mother of the Gods and abstract Space rested in the bliss of Non-being. 2. Where was silence? Where the ears to sense it? No, there was neither silence nor sound; naught save ceaseless, eternal Breath (Motion), which knows itself not. 3. The hour had not yet struck ; the Ray had not yet flashed into the Germ; the Mother-Lotus had not yet expanded. 4. Her heart had not yet opened for the one Ray to enter, thence to fall, as three into four, into the lap of illusion. 5. The seven Sons were not yet born from the Web of Light. Darkness alone was Father-Mother, Primordial Matter; and that was in darkness. 6. These two are the Germ, and the Germ is — one. The universe was still concealed in the Divine Thought and the Divine Bosom. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 23 STANZA III 1. The last vibration of the seventh Eternity thrills through Infinitude. The Mother swells, ex panding from within without, like the bud of the lotus. 2. The vibration sweeps along, touching (simul taneously) with its swift wing the whole universe, and the Germ that dwelleth in Darkness ; the Dark ness that breathes (moves) over the slumbering Waters of Life. 3. "Darkness" radiates Light, and Light drops one solitary Ray into the Mother-deep. The Ray shoots through the virgin Egg, the Ray causes the eternal Egg to thrill, and drop the non-eternal (periodical) Germ, which condenses into the World- egg. 4. Then the three (the triangle) fall into the four (the quaternary). The radiant Essence becomes seven inside, seven outside. The luminous Egg, which in itself is three, curdles and spreads in milk- white curds throughout the depths of Mother, the Root that grows in the ocean of Life. 5. The Root remains, the Light remains, the Curds remain, and still Father-Mother is one. 6. The root of Life was in every drop of the ocean of immortality, and the ocean was radiant Light, which was Fire, and Heat, and Motion. Darkness vanished and was no more; it disappeared in its own essence, the body of Fire and Water, or Father and Mother. (The unmanifested Logos.) 7. Behold, oh, Pupil, the radiant child of the two, the unparalleled effulgent glory, Bright Space, son of Dark Space, which emerges from the depths of the great dark waters. It is the New Life, (the manifested Logos, the Word), the . He shines forth as the Sonj he is the blazing Divine Dragon 24 THE SECRET DOCTRINE of Wisdom ; the One is Four, and Four takes to it self Three, and the union produces the Seven, in whom are the Seven which become the Hosts and the Multitudes. Behold him lifting the Veil and unfurl ing it from East to West. He shuts out the above, and leaves the below to be seen as the Great Illusion. He marks the places for the Shining Ones (stars), and turns the upper (space) into a shoreless Sea of Fire, and the One manifested (element) into the Great Waters. 8. Where was the Germ and where was now Dark ness? Where is the Spirit of the flame that burns in thy lamp, oh, Pupil? The Germ is that, and that is Light, the white brilliant Son of the dark hidden Father. 9. Light is cold flame, and flame is fire, and fire produces heat, which yields water — the water of life in the Great Mother (space). 10. Father-Mother spin a Web (the Universe), whose upper end is fastened to Spirit — the light of the one darkness — and the lower one to its (the Spirit's) shadowy end, Matter; and this Web is the Universe spun out of the two substances made in one, which is Spirit-Matter. (Father-Mother.) 11. It (the Web) expands when the breath of Fire (the Father) is upon it; it contracts when the breath of the Mother (the Ether) touches it. Then the Sons (the Elements and their Intelligences) dissociate and scatter, to return into their mother's bosom at the end of the "Great Day," and re-become one with her. When it (the Web) is cooling, it becomes radi ant, and the Sons expand and contract through their own selves and hearts ; they embrace Infinitude. 12. Then Father-Mother (Spirit-Matter) send In telligent Force to harden the atoms. Each (atom) is a part of the Web (the Universe). Reflecting "the Self -Existent Lord" (Primeval Light) like a mirror, each becomes in turn a world. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 25 STANZA IV 1. Listen, ye Sons of the Earth, to your instruc tors, the Sons of the Fire. Learn there is neither first nor last, for all is One number issued from No- number. 2. Learn what we who descend from the Primor dial Seven, we who are born from the Primordial Flame, have learnt from our fathers. 3. From the effulgency of Light — the ray of the ever-darkness — sprang into Space the re-awakened Energies (the highest creative Intelligences) ; the one from the egg, the six and the five. Then the three, the one, the four, the one, the five — twice seven the sum total. And these are the Essences, the Flames, the Elements, the Builders, the Num bers, the formless, the forms, and the force of Di vine Man — the sum total. And from the Divine Man emanated the forms, the sparks, the sacred ani mals, and the messengers of the sacred fathers within the holy Four. 4. This was the army of the Voice, the divine Mother of the Seven (creative Nature). The sparks of the Seven are subject to, and the servants of, the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and the seventh of the Seven. These "sparks" are called spheres, triangles, cubes, lines and model lers ; for thus stands the eternal Cause — the Word, which is : 5. " Darkness," the boundless, or the no-number, Chaos, or Space (the o , = to x). I. The " Ancient of Days," the number, for he is One. (The Spirit of Life.) II. The voice of the Word, Father-Mother, the Numbers, for he is one and nine. (Ten, " the per fect number " applied to the Creator.) 26 THE SECRET DOCTRINE III. The " formless* square." And these enclosed within the o are Sacred Four ; and the ten are the formless Universe. Then come the " Sons " (the planets), the seven fighters, the one, the eighth (our sun) left out, and his breath, which is the light-maker. 6. . . . Then the second Seven, who are " the Recorders," produced by the three. (Word, Voice and Spirit.) The rejected Son is One; the " Son- suns ' ' are countless. STANZA V 1. The Primordial Seven, the first seven breaths of the Dragon of Wisdom, produce in their turn from their holy circumgyrating breaths, the fiery whirlwind. (Incandescent Cosmic dust.) 2. They make of the whirlwind the messenger of their will. Divine Thought becomes Motion; the swift Son of the Divine Sons, whose sons are " the Recorders," runs circular errands. Fohat-f is the steed, and Thought is the rider. He passes like lightning through the fiery clouds ; takes three, five and seven strides through the seven regions above and the seven below. (The fourteen planes of con sciousness.) He lifts his voice, and calls the innu merable sparks, and joins them. (Chemical com binations. ) 3. He is their guiding spirit and leader. When he commences work, he separates the sparks of the Lower Kingdom (mineral atoms) that float and ?"Formless square," the expression in the original, should be "in visible square," in the same sense that Proclus says : "Before the figures apparent, there are the vital figures, and before producing the material worlds which move in a circle the Creative Power produced the invisible Circles." — Editor. fin the original "Fohat," a name of many meanings, from the Logos, or the Word, to motion, life, and electricity. He is also called the "Pervader." — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 27 thrill with joy in their radiant dwellings (gaseous clouds), and forms therewith the germs of wheels (centres of force). He places them in the six direc tions of space, and one in the middle — the central wheel. 4. Fohat traces spiral lines to unite the soul in man with the Spirit — the Crown. An army of the Sons of Light stands at each angle, and " the Re corders," in the middle wheel. They (the Record ers) say: This is good; the first Divine world is ready, the first is now the second (ivorld). Then the formless Universe of Thought reflects itself in the shadowy World of primal Form ( the intellectual plane), the first garment of the Parentless. 5. Fohat takes five strides (the higher states of consciousness) and builds a winged wheel at each corner of the square, for the four Holy Ones and their armies. (The Mystic Watchers; the Angels of the Cardinal Points, and their hosts.) 6. " The Recorders," circumscribe the triangle, the first one (the I), the cube, the second one and the pentacle within the egg. ® It is the Ring called " Pass Not " (Infinity), for those who descend and ascend. As also for those who during the cycle of evolution are progressing towards the Great Day, " Be with Us " (Union with the Divine). Thus were formed the Formless World and the World of Forms ; from one Light, seven Lights ; from each of the seven, seven times seven Lights. The ' ' Wheels ' ' watch the Ring. STANZA VI 1. By the power of the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge (the magic potency of Sound in the Uni verse) — the " triple " (or mother, wife and daugh ter) of the Logos, residing in the heaven of the Di vine Voice— Fohat, the breath of their progeny, the 28 THE SECRET DOCTRINE son of the Sons (the " Spirit " of Electricity, which is Life), having called forth from the lower abyss (chaos) the illusive form of our Universe and the seven elements: 2. The swift and the radiant One (Fohat) pro duces the seven neutral points (or centres), against which none will prevail to the great Day ' ' Be-with- us," and seats the Universe on these eternal foun dations, surrounding it with the elementary germs. (Atoms of Science and Monads of Leibnitz.) 3. Of the seven (elements) — first, one manifested, six concealed ; two manifested, five concealed ; three manifested, four concealed; four produced; three hidden ; four and one fraction revealed, two and one- half concealed; six to be manifested, one laid aside. Lastly, seven small wheels revolving, one giving birth to the other. (Our planetary chain.) 4. He builds them in the likeness of older wheels (worlds of a previous Cycle), placing them on the imperishable centres (Neutral— or Zero — points of force). How does Fohat build them? (The constructive force of Cosmic Electricity.) He collects the fiery dust. He makes balls of fire, runs through them and round them, infusing life thereinto, then sets them in motion, some one way, some the other way. They are cold, he makes them hot. They are dry, he makes them moist. They shine, he fans and cools them. Thus acts Fohat from one Twilight to another, dur ing seven eternities. ( Universal Cosmogony ends here. The verses that follow relate only to our own Solar System.) 5. At the fourth (Round, or evolution of life and being on " the seven smaller wheels,") the Sons are told to create their images. One-third refuses. Two (thirds) obey. The curse is pronounced. (Rather,^ " the cause is generated.") They will be born in the Fourth THE SECRET DOCTRINE 29 (Race), suffer and cause suffering; this is the first war. 6. The older wheels (worlds in the earlier Rounds) rotated downwards and upwards. The Mother's spawn filled the whole Cosmos. There were battles fought between the Creators and the Destroyers, and battles fought for space; the seed (supersensuous matter) appearing and re-appear ing continuously. 7. Make thy calculations, oh, Pupil, if thou wouldst learn the correct age of thy small wheel (chain). Its fourth spoke is our mother (Earth). Reach the fourth " Fruit " of the fourth path of knowledge that leads to Perfectness, and thou shalt comprehend, for thou shalt see. . . . STANZA VII 1. Behold the beginning of sentient formless life: First the Divine (vehicle), the one from the Mother-Spirit; then the spiritual (soul) ; (again) the three from the one, the four from the one, and the five from which the three, the five and the seven. These are the threefold, the fourfold downward; the " Mind-born " sons of the first Lord (the Logos) ; the shining Seven (the Builders). It is they who art thou, me, him, 0 Pupil ! They who watch over thee and thy mother Earth. 2. The one ray multiplies the smaller rays. Life precedes form, and life survives the last atom of form (the external body). Through the countless rays proceeds the life-ray, the One, like a thread through many jewels. 3. When the one becomes two, the " three-fold " appears. The three are (linked into) one; and it is our thread, 0 Pupil, the heart of the man-plant called Saptaparna (the seven-leaved). 4. It (the One Ray) is the root that never dies; 30 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the three-tongued flame of the four wicks. The wicks are the sparks that draw from the three-tongued flame, shot out from the Seven — their flame — the beams and sparks of one moon reflected in the run ning waves of all the rivers of the Earth. 5. The spark (the Monad) hangs from the flame by the finest thread of Life. It journeys through the seven worlds of Illusion. (The globes and rounds.) It stops in the first (Kingdom), and is a metal and a stone; it passes into the second (Kingdom), and behold, a plant; the plant whirls through seven changes, and becomes a sacred animal. (The first shadow of physical man.) From the combined attri butes of these, Man the Thinker is formed. Who forms him? The seven lives, and the one Life. Who completes him? The five-fold Spirit. And who per fects the last body? Fish, Sin and Soma (the Moon). " Fish, Sin and Soma " make conjointly the three symbols of the immortal Being). 6. From the first-born (primitive Man), the thread between the Silent Watcher and his Shadow becomes more strong and radiant with every change (Reincarnation). The morning sunlight has changed into noon-day glory. . . . 7. " This is thy present wheel," said the Flame to the Spark. " Thou art myself, my image and my shadow. I have clothed myself in thee, and thou art my vehicle to the day ' Be-with-us,' when thou shalt re-become myself and others, thyself and me." Then the Builders, having donned their first cloth ing, descend on radiant Earth, and reign over men — who are themselves. COMMENTARY On the Seven Stanzas, Accoeding to Theie Enu- meeation in Stanzas and Veeses. STANZA I Verse I. — The Eternal Parent (Space) wrapped in her ever invisible robes, had slumbered once again for seven Eternities. The " Parent Space " is the eternal, ever-present cause of all — the incomprehensible Deity, whose " invisible robes " are the mystic root of all matter, and of the Universe Space is the one eternal thing that we can most easily imagine, immovable in its abstraction, and uninfluenced by either the presence or absence in it of an objective Universe. It is with out dimension in every sense, and self-existent. Spirit is the first differentiation from the Cause less Cause of both Spirit and Matter. Thus the ' ' robes ' ' stand for the noumenon of un differentiated Cosmic Matter. It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual essence of matter, and is co-eternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense. It is also the source of the subtile invisible properties in visible matter. It is the Soul, so to speak, of the One infinite Spirit, the primordial Sub stance, which is the basis of the vehicle of all phe nomena, whether physical, psychic or mental. It is the source from which ' ' the Ether of Space ' ' ra diates. 32 THE SECRET DOCTRINE By " the seven eternities," asons or periods are meant. The word " Eternity," as understood in Christian theology, has no meaning to the Asiatic ear. The term as used here means the seven periods (or one period of equal duration) forming a " Great age," or " a hundred years of Brahma," a total of 311,040,000,000,000 of our years. These " Eterni ties " belong to the most secret calculations, and the key to these calculations cannot be given. STANZA I.— Continued 2. Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite bosom, of Duration. Time is only an illusion produced by the succes sion of our states of consciousness, and cannot exist where no consciousness exists, but " lies asleep." The present is only a mathematical line, which di vides that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from the part which we call the past. Noth ing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains without change for the billionth part of a second; and the sensation we have of the actuality of that division of " time " known as the present, comes from the blurring of that momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses of things, given us by our senses, as those things pass from the region of ideals that we call the future, to the region of memories that we name the past. In the same way we experi ence a sensation of duration in the case of the in stantaneous electric spark, by reason of the blurred and continuous impression on the retina. The real person or thing does not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but is composed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its first appearance in the material form to its disappearance from the earth. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 33 STANZA I.— Continued 3. . . . Universal Mind was not, for there were no celestial beings to contain (hence to manifest) it. ' ' Mind " is a name given to the sum of the states of consciousness, grouped under Thought, Will and Feeling. During deep sleep thought ceases on the physical plane, and memory is in abeyance ; thus, for the time being, " Mind is not," because the organ through which the Ego manifests thought and mem ory on the material plane has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that plane through an appropriate vehicle ; and dur ing the long night of rest called Pralaya when all that exists is dissolved, the " Universal Mind " re mains as a permanent possibility of mental action, or as that abstract, absolute Thought, of which Mind is the concrete, relative manifestation. The " Celes tial beings " are the collective hosts of spiritual Beings — the Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elo- him and " Messengers " of the Hebrews — who are the vehicle for the manifestation of the Divine or universal, Thought and Will. They are the Intelli gent Forces that give to, and act out, in Nature her " laws," while acting themselves according to laws imposed upon them by still higher Powers ; but they are not the mere " personifications " of the powers of Nature as erroneously thought. This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the Universal Mind comes into action, is like an army — a " Host " truly — by means of which the power of a nation manifests itself, and which is divided into many grades, each with its separate individuality, and its limited responsibilities ; each contained in a larger individuality to which its own interests are subser vient, and each containing lesser individualities in itself. 34 THE SECRET DOCTRINE STANZA I.— Continued 4. The seven ways to Bliss were not. (a) The great causes (b) of Misery (c) were not, for there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them. (a) There are seven " Paths " or " Ways " to the bliss of Non-Existence, which is Absolute Being, Existence and Consciousness. They were not, be cause the Universe existed so far only in the Divine Thought. For it is — (b) The twelve causes of being. Each is the ef fect of an antecedent cause, and a cause in turn to its successor. They belong to that theory of law as a chain, which finally brings Karma into full sway, a theory based upon the great truth that re-incarna tion is to be dreaded, as existence in this world only entails upon man suffering, misery and pain. At the same time it is taught that man may escape the suf ferings of re-births, and even the false bliss of " Heaven," by obtaining Wisdom and Knowledge, which alone can dispel the effects of Illusion and ignorance. (c) Illusion, the other great cause of misery, is an element which enters into all finite things, for every thing that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality. Nothing is permanent except the one hidden Absolute Existence which contains in itself the nou- mena of all appearances. Whatever reality things possess, must be looked for in them before "or after they have passed like a flash through the material world ; but we cannot cognize any such existence di rectly, so long as we have sense — instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that THE SECRET DOCTRINE 35 during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward pro gress of the Ego is a series of progressive awaken ings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached " reality "; but only when we shall have reached the Absolute Conscious ness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Illusion. STANZA I.— Continued 5. Darkness alone filled the boundless All (a) for Father, Mother and Son (b) were once more one, and the Son had not yet awakened for the new Wheel and his pilgrimage thereon. (o)wDarkness is Father-Mother; Light their son." says an old Eastern proverb. Light is inconceivable except as coming from some source, and as in the instance of primordial light that source is unknown, we therefore call it ' ' Darkness, ' ' the eternal matrix in which the sources of light appear and disappear. Nothing is added to darkness to make it light, or to light to make it darkness, on this our plane. They are interchangeable, and scientifically, light is but a mode of darkness, and vice-versa. Yet both are phenomena of the same noumenon — which is abso lute darkness to the scientific mind, and but a gray twilight to the perception of the average mystic, though to the spiritual eye of the Initiate it is abso lute light. How far we discern the light that shines in darkness depends upon our powers of vision. What is light to us is darkness to certain insects, and the eye of the clairvoyant sees illumination where the normal eye perceives only blackness. When the whole universe was plunged in sleep — had returned to its one primordial element — there was neither centre of luminosity, nor eye to perceive 36 THE SECRET DOCTRINE light, and darkness necessarily filled the boundless All. (b) The Father-Mother are the male and female principles in root-nature, the opposite poles that manifest in all things on every plane of Kosmos ; or Spirit and Substance, in a less allegorical aspect, the resultant of which is the Universe, or the Son. They are " once more One," when during the Night of Dissolution all in the objective universe has returned to its one primal and eternal cause, and is held in solution in space, so to speak, to differentiate again and crystallize anew at the commencement of the new " Day," or period of active life. In esoteric parlance, the Universe is Father-Mother-Son, or Spirit, Soul and Body at once; each personage being symbolical of an attribute, and each attribute or quality being a graduated efflux of Divine Breath in its cyclic differentiation, involutionary and evolu tionary. In the cosmo-physical sense, it is the Uni verse, the planetary chain and the earth; in the purely spiritual, the Unknown Deity, Planetary Spirit and Man — the Son of the two, the creature of Spirit and Matter, and a manifestation of them in his periodical appearances on Earth, during the various great cycles of existence. STANZA I.— Continued 6. The seven sublime Lords (the Creative Spirits) and the Seven Truths had ceased to be (a), and the Universe, the son of Necessity was immersed in the (b) Absolute, to be out-breathed by that which is, and yet is not. (c) Naught was. The " seven sublime Lords " are the Seven Crea tive Spirits, who correspond to the Hebrew Elohim, and watch, successively, over one of the Rounds and the Root-races of our planetary chain. Out of the Seven Truths and Revelations (or rather revealed THE SECRET DOCTRINE 37 secrets), four only have been given us, as we are still in the Fourth Round, and the world also has had only four Buddhas, so far. This is a very com plicated subject, and is exhaustively treated in Vol. III. of the Secret Doctrine. So far, " there are only Four Truths and Four Vedas," say the Hindus and Buddhists. For a simi lar reason Irenasus insisted on the necessity of four Gospels. But as every new Root-race at the head of a Round must have its revelation and its reveal- ers, the next Round will bring the Fifth, the follow ing the Sixth, and so on. (b) This refers to the Absolute Perfection to which all existences attain at the close of a great cycle of activity, and in which they rest during the succeeding period of repose. It is absolute, however, only in a relative sense, for it must give room to still further absolute perfection, according to a higher standard of excellence in the following period of activity — just as a perfect flower must cease to be a perfect flower and die, in order to grow into a per fect fruit. The Secret Doctrine teaches the progressive de velopment of everything, worlds as well as atoms, and this stupendous development has neither con ceivable beginning nor imaginable end. Our uni verse is only one of an infinite number of universes, all of them " Sons of Necessity," because links in the great Kosmic chain of universes, each one stand ing in the relation of an effect as regards its prede cessor, and of a cause as regards its successor. The appearance and disappearance of the universe are pictured as an out-breathing and in-breathing of the ' ' Great Breath, ' ' which is eternal, and which, being Motion, is one of the three aspects of the Abso lute — Abstract Space and Duration being the other two. When the " Great Breath " is projected it is called the Divine Breath, and is regarded as the 38 THE SECRET DOCTRINE breathing of the Unknowable Deity — the One Exist ence — which breathes out a thought, as it were, that becomes the Kosmos. So when the Divine Breath is inspired again, the universe disappears into the bosom of the " Great Mother," who then sleeps, " wrapped in her invisible robes." (c) By " that which is and yet is not," is meant the Great Breath itself, which we can only speak of as absolute Existence, but cannot picture to our im agination as any form of existence that we can dis tinguish from absolute Non-Existence. The three periods — Present, Past and Future — are, in the eso teric philosophy a compound time ; for the three are a composite number only in relation to the phenom enal plane, but in the realm of noumena have no abstract validity. Our ideas, in short, of duration and time are all derived from our sensations, ac cording to the laws of association. What is time, for instance, but the panoramic succession of our states of consciousness ? That one has to acquire true Self- Consciousness in order to understand the origin of delusion — is a philosophical axiom. 7. The causes of existence were no more (a) ; the visible that was, and the invisible that is, rested in eternal Non-Being, (b) the One Being. The " Causes of Existence " mean not only the physical causes known to science, but the metaphysi cal causes, the chief of which is the desire to exist, an outcome of law and illusion. This desire for a sentient life shows itself in everything from an atom to a sun, and is a reflection of the Divine Thought propelled into objective existence, into a law that the universe should exist. According to esoteric teaching, the real cause of that supposed desire, and of all existence, remains forever hidden, and its first emanations are the most complete abstractions mind can conceive. These abstractions must of necessity be postulated as the cause of the material universe, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 39 and they underlie the secondary and subordinate powers of Nature, which have been worshipped as gods by the common herd of every age. It is impos sible to conceive of anything without a cause; the attempt to do so makes the mind a blank. This is virtually the condition to which the mind must come at last when we try to trace back the chain of causes and effects, but both science and religion jump to this condition of blankness much more quickly than is necessary; for they ignore the metaphysical abstrac tions which are the only conceivable cause of phys ical concretions. These abstractions become more and more concrete as they approach our plane of existence, until finally they take form as the material universe, by a process of conversion of metaphysics into physics analogous to that by which steam can be condensed into water, and water frozen into ice. (b) The idea of eternal Non-Being, which is the One Being, will seem a paradox to any one who does not remember that we limit our ideas of being to our present consciousness of existence, making it a specific, instead of a generic term. An unborn in fant, could it think in our acceptation of the term, would necessarily limit its conception of being to the intrauterine life which alone it knows ; and were it to endeavor to express to its consciousness the idea of life after birth (death, to its idea) would prob ably, in the absence of all knowledge on the sub ject, express that life as " Non-Being which is real Being." In our case the One Being is the nou menon of all the noumena that we know must under lie phenomena, and give them whatever shadow of reality they possess, but which we have not the senses or the intellect to cognize at present. A miner will know what gold will look like when sepa rated from the quartz, whereas the common mortal can form no conception of the reality of things sepa rated from the Illusion that veils them, and in 40 THE SECRET DOCTRINE which they are hidden. The Initiate alone, rich with the lore acquired by numberless generations of his predecessors, directs "the Eye of the Seer" to wards the essence of things in which no illusion can have any influence. It is here that the teachings of esoteric philosophy in relation to the law of causes and the four Truths become of the greatest importance, but they are secret. STANZA I.— Continued 8. Alone, the One form of Existence (a) stretched boundless, infinite, causeless, in dreamless sleep; (b) and Life pulsated unconscious in universal Space, throughout that All-presence which is sensed by the " Opened Eye " of the Seer (c). (a) The tendency of modern thought is now to recur to the archaic idea of a homogeneous basis for widely different things — heterogeneity developed from homogeneity. Biologists are now searching for their homogeneous protoplasm, and chemists for their protyle, while physicists are looking for the force of which electricity, magnetism, heat and so forth, are the correlations. The Secret Doctrine carries this idea into metaphysics, and postulates a " One Form of Existence," as the basis and source of all things. It is in its secondary stage, the Fa ther-Mother of the Buddhist philosopher, the eternal cause and effect, omnipresent yet abstract, the self- existent plastic Essence and root of all things. (b) " Dreamless sleep " is one of the seven states of consciousness enumerated in Oriental esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the mind comes into action; or, as a Vedantin would ex press it, the individual is conscious on a different plane of his being. The term " dreamless sleep " is in this case applied allegorically to the Universe, to express a condition somewhat analogous to that THE SECRET DOCTRINE 41 state of consciousness in man, which not being re membered when he wakes, seems a blank, just as the sleep of the mesmerized subject seems to him a blank when he returns to his normal condition, although he has been talking and acting like a conscious person. (c) " The Seer " here means a purified soul, one who has become a Mahatma, so-called. His " opened eye " is the inner spiritual eye of the seer, and the faculty which manifests through it is not ordinary clairvoyance (the power of seeing at a distance), but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is attainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the ' ' third eye. ' ' Fuller explanations will be found in Book II. STANZA I.— Continued 9. But where was the Seer when the Over-soul of the Universe was absorbed in the Absolute (a), and the great Wheel was parentless? (b). (a) To put it in other words, where was the Seer when the Soul as the basis of all, the Anima Mundi or Over-soul, was absorbed in self-analyzing reflec tion, or Absolute Consciousness. " Absolute Con sciousness," which is only termed unconsciousness in the absence of any element of personality, tran scends human conception. Man is powerless, from the very constitution of his being, to raise the veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute. Only the liberated Spirit is able faintly to realize the nature of the source whence it sprang and whither it must eventually return. The matter-moving Nous, the animating Soul, im manent in every atom, manifested in man, latent in the stone, has different degrees of power; and this pantheistic idea of a general Spirit-Soul pervading all Nature is the oldest of all the philosophical no tions. Nor was the Archceus a discovery of Para,- 42 THE SECRET DOCTRINE celsus nor of his pupil Van Helmont ; for it is again the same Archceus or " Father-Ether " — the mani fested basis and source of the innumerable phenom ena of life — which is localized as the Over-soul. Esoteric philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but not that all life and conscious ness are the same, even in human beings and ani mals. Life we look upon as " the one form of ex istence," manifesting in what is called matter; or, as in man, what (incorrectly separating them) we name Spirit, Soul, and Matter. Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of Soul (or Mind) on this plane of existence, and Soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of Spirit, and these three are a trinity synthesized by Life, which pervades them all. The idea of universal life is one of those ancient conceptions which are returning to the human mind in this century, as a consequence of its liberation from anthropomorphic theology. Science, it is true, contents itself with tracing or postulating the signs of universal life, and has not yet been bold enough even to whisper " Anima Mundi! " The idea of crystalline life now familiar to science would have been scouted a century ago. Botanists are now searching for the nerves of plants ; not that they suppose that plants can feel or think as animals do, but because they believe that some structure, bearing the same relation function ally to plant life that nerves bear to animal life is necessary to explain vegetable growth and nutri tion. It hardly seems possible that science can dis guise from itself much longer by the mere use of such terms as " force " and " energy," the fact that things that have life are living things, whether they be atoms or planets. (b) The term " parentless," or without progeni tors, is a mystical designation having several mean ings in the Eastern philosophy. By this name celes- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 43 tial Beings are generally referred to. The mystery in the hierarchy of " the Parentless " is great; its apex being the universal Spirit-Soul, and its lower rungs the human Buddhas; and even every Soul- endowed man has in him the latent possibility of be longing to it. Hence, when speaking of the universe in its formless, eternal or absolute condition (of latent potencies), before it was fashioned by the " Builders " — the expression is used, " the Uni verse was parentless. ' ' STANZA II Commentary 1. . . . Where were the Builders, the lumi nous Sons of the cyclic Dawn? (a) ... In the unknown Darkness, absorbed into the Absolute, the producers of form from no-form, the root of the world — the Mother of the Gods and Abstract Space, rested in the bliss of Non-Being (b). (a) The " Builders," the " Sons of Cyclic Dawn, ' ' are the real creators of the universe ; and in this philosophy, which deals only with our planetary system, they, as its architects, are also called the " Watchers " of the Seven Spheres, which exoteri- cally are the seven planets, and esoterically are the seven spheres or planes of existence of our earth (also called " the globes of our chain "). (b) The Absolute is the summum bonum, and is that state which leads one to appreciate correctly the full meaning of Non-Being, which, as explained, is absolute Being. But there is a great difference be tween conscious and unconscious " being." The condition of absorption into the Absolute without the Self-analyzing consciousness would be not bliss, but simply extinction (for Seven Eternities). It is only " with a mind clear and undarkened by per- 44 THE SECRET DOCTRINE sonality and an assimilation of the merit of manifold existences devoted to the whole living and sentient universe that one gets rid of personal existence, merging into, becoming one with, the Absolute, and continuing in full possession of Self-Consciousness." STANZA II.— Continued 2. . . . Where was Silence? Where were the ears to sense it? No, there was neither silence nor sound (a). Naught save ceaseless, eternal Breath (Motion) (b), which knows itself not (c). (a) The idea that things can cease to exist and still Be, is a fundamental one in Eastern psychology. A familiar instance of a similar paradox is afforded by chemical combinations. The question whether hydrogen and oxygen cease to exist when they com bine to form water, is still a moot one, some arguing that since they are found again when the water is decomposed, they must have been there all the while; others contending that as they actually turn into something totally different, they must have ceased to exist as themselves for the time being, but neither side seems to be able to form any conception of the real condition of a thing, which has become some thing else, and yet has not ceased to be itself. Exist ence as water may be said to be for oxygen and hydrogen, a state of non-being which is more ' ' real being " than their existence as gases; and it may faintly symbolize the condition of the universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to be, during the cyclic night — to re-awaken, or appear again when the dawn of the new cycle of active life recalls it to what we call existence. (b) The " Breath " of the One Existence is a term applied by archaic esotericism only to the spir itual aspect of cosmogony; elsewhere it is replaced by its equivalent on the material plane — Motion. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 45 The One Eternal Element, or element-containing vehicle, is Space, dimensionless in every sense; co existent with which are — endless Duration primor dial (hence indestructible) Matter, and Motion,— absolute " perpetual motion," which is the Breath of the One Element. This Breath as seen, can never cease, not even during the periods of dissolu tion. But ' ' the Breath of the One Existence ' ' does not, all the same, apply to the One Causeless Cause, or " All-Be-ness," in contradistinction to All-Being. " From It," say the Pur anas, " will proceed the potencies that will create, as they become the real cause " on the material plane. Save that One (causeless) ideal Cause there is no other to which the universe can be referred. (c) To know itself (or one's self), necessitates consciousness, and perception (both limited facul ties). Hence " the Eternal Breath which knows it self not." Consciousness implies limitations and qualifications; something to be conscious of, and some one to be conscious of it. But Absolute Con sciousness contains the cognizer, the thing cognized and the cognition, all three in itself, and all three one. We call Absolute Consciousness ' ' unconscious ness," because it seems to us that it must necessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute, " Darkness," because to our finite understanding it appears quite impenetrable, yet we recognize fully the inadequacy of such terms to express what we so dimly feel. STANZA IL— Continued 3. The hour had not yet struck ; the Ray had not yet flashed into the Germ (a); the Mother-Lotus (b) had not yet expanded. (a) The Ray of the " Ever Darkness " becomes, as it is emitted, a ray of effulgent light or Life, and 46 THE SECRET DOCTRINE flashes into the ' ' Germ ' ' — the point in the Mundane Egg represented by matter in its abstract sense. But the term point must not be understood as ap plied to any particular point in Space, for a germ exists in the centre of every atom, and these collect ively form " the Germ," or rather (as no atom can be made visible to our physical eye) the noumenon of eternal and indestructible matter. (b) One of the symbols of the dual creative power in Nature (matter and force on the material plane) is the Lotus, or water-lily of India. The Lotus is the product of fire (heat), and water (ether) ; Fire standing in every philosophical and religious sys tem, even in Christianity, as a representation of the Spirit of Deity, the active, male, generative princi ple; and Ether, or the Soul of matter, the light of the fire, representing the passive female principle from which everything in this universe emanated. Hence Ether or Water is the Mother, and Fire is the Father. Sir Wm. Jones (and before him archaic botany) showed that the seeds of the Lotus contain — even before they germinate — perfectly formed leaves, the miniature shape of the fully-de veloped plant; nature thus giving us a specimen of the pre-f ormation of its productions, ' ' the seeds of all phanerogamous plants * bearing proper flowers, containing an embryo plantlet already formed." (Gross, The Heathen Religion, p. 195.) See Part II. , " The Lotus-flower as a Universal Symbol." This explains the sentence marked (b). The Lotus is, moreover, a very ancient and fa vorite simile for the Kosmos itself and also for Man. The popular reasons given are, first, the fact just mentioned, that the Lotus-seed contains within itself a perfect miniature of the future plant, which typifies the fact that the spiritual prototypes of all things exist in the immaterial world before they be- ?Plants having visible reproductive organs. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 47 come materialized on earth, and, secondly, the fact that the Lotus plant grows in the water, having its root in the mud, and bearing its flower in the air above. The Lotus thus typifies the life of Man and also that of the Kosmos; for the Secret Doctrine teaches that the elements of both are the same, and that both develop in the same direction. The root of the Lotus sunk in the mud represents material life; the stalk passing up through the water typifies existence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the water and opening to the sky is emblematic of' spiritual being. STANZA IL— Continued 4. Her heart had not yet opened for the One Ray to enter, thence to fall, as three into four, into the lap of Illusion (a). (a) The Primordial Substance had not yet passed out of its precosmic latent condition, or even be come the (so far, to man) invisible protyle of science. But, as the hour strikes, and it becomes receptive of the Life — impulse of the Divine Thought (the Logos, or the male aspect of the Over-soul), its heart opens. It differentiates, and the Three (Father, Mother, Son) are transformed into four. Herein lies the origin of the double mystery of the Trinity and the Immaculate Conception. The first and funda mental doctrine of Occultism is Universal Unity (or Homogeneity) under three aspects. " If thou wouldst believe in the Power which acts within the root of a plant, or imagine the root concealed under the soil, thou hast to think of its stalk or trunk, and of its leaves and flowers. Thou canst not imagine that Power independently of those objects. Life can be known only by the Tree of Life." (Precepts for Toga.) The idea of Absolute Unity would be im possible for us to conceive, had we not something 48 THE SECRET DOCTRINE concrete before our eyes to contain that Unity. And the Deity being absolute must be omnipresent, hence not an atom but contains It within itself. _ The roots, the trunk and the branches are three distinct objects, yet they are one tree. The Kabalists say_: " The Deity is one because It is infinite; It is triple, be cause It is ever manifesting." This manifestation is triple in its aspects because it requires, as Aris totle has it, three principles for any natural body to become objective; privation,* form and matter. Pri vation meant in the mind of the great philosopher that which the Occultists mean by the prototypes im pressed upon the Astral Light — the lowest plane and world of the Anima Mundi, or Over-soul. The union of these three principles depends upon a fourth — the Life which radiates from the summits of the Unreachable to become a universally diffused Es sence on the manifested planes of existence. And this Quaternary (the trinity of Father, Mother, Son, as a Unity, and the manifested Life as the complete Quaternary) has been the means of leading to the very archaic idea of Immaculate Con ception, now finally crystallized into a dogma of the Christian Church, which has carnalized this meta physical idea beyond all limits of common sense. For one has but to read the Kabala and study its numerical methods of interpretation to find the ori gin of that dogma. It is purely astronomical, mathe matical and pre-eminently metaphysical: the male element in Nature (personified by the male deities and Logoi) is born through, not from, an immaculate source, personified by the ' ' Mother ' ' ; because that Male having a. mother, cannot have a ' ' father, ' ' the abstract Deity being sexless, and not even a Being, but Be-ness, or Life itself. The mystery enacted, according to the Seers, on ?Literally, the being deprived of, or without, all qualities; the thing in itself; the idea in the abstract. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 49 the divine plane, is repeated on Earth. The "Son " of the immaculate Celestial Virgin (or the undiffer entiated cosmic protyle) is born again on Earth as the Son of the terrestrial Eve — our mother Earth, and becomes Humanity as a whole — past, present and future. Above, the son is the whole Kosmos; below, he is Mankind. The triad or triangle be comes the Tetraktis, the perfect Square. It is now in the lap of ' ' the Great Illusion, ' ' and between it self and the Reality has the Astral Light, the great deceiver of man's limited senses, unless Knowledge of the Absolute Truth come to the rescue. STANZA IL— Continued 5. The Seven Sons (a) were not yet born from the Web of Light. Darkness alone was Father- Mother, Primordial Matter (b), and that was in darkness. (a) The Secret Doctrine in the Stanzas here given occupies itself chiefly, if not entirely, with our solar system, and especially with our planetary chain. The " Seven Sons," therefore, are the creators of the latter. This teaching will be explained more fully hereafter. (See Part IL, " Theogony of the Creative Gods.") (b) In the original, Svdbhdvat, the " Plastic Es sence ' ' that fills the universe, the root of all things. It is the body of the Soul, and that which Ether would be to " Akasa " its informing principle. Chinese mystics have made of it the synonym of " being." STANZA IL— Continued 6. These two are the Germ, and theGerm is— one. The Universe was still concealed in the Divine Thought and the Divine Bosom. 50 THE SECRET DOCTRINE The " Divine Thought " does not imply the idea of a Divine Thinker. The Universe, not only past, present and future — which is a finite idea expressed by finite thought — but in its totality, the Absolute Being, is that Thought itself reflected in a secondary or manifest cause. Brahma (neuter) as the Myste- rium Magnum of Paracelsus is an absolute mystery to the human mind. Brahma, the male-female, its aspect and anthropomorphic reflection, is conceiv able by blind faith, though rejected by human intel lect when it attains its majority. (See Part IL, Primordial Substance and Divine Thought.) Hence the statement that during the prologue, so to speak, of the drama of creation, or the beginning of Cosmic evolution, the Universe (or the " Son ") still lies concealed in the " Divine Thought," which had not yet penetrated into the " Divine Bosom." This idea, note well, is at the root of all the alle gories about the " Sons of God " born of immacu late virgins. STANZA III Commentary 1. The last vibration of the seventh eternity (a) thrills through infinitude (a). The Mother swells, expanding from within without (b), like the bud of the Lotus. (a) The seemingly paradoxical use of the phrase " seventh eternity," thus dividing the indivisible, is sanctioned in esoteric philosophy, which divides boundless Duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time, and conditioned time. One is the abstraction or noumenon of finite time, the other its phenomenon, appearing periodically as the effect of Universal Intelligence limited by Cyclic Law. (b) Therefore, " the last vibration of the seventh THE SECRET DOCTRINE 51 eternity " was foreordained " by no God in particu lar, but occurred in virtue of the eternal and change less Law which causes the great periods of activity and rest, called so graphically, and so poetically, ' ' the Days and Nights of Brahma. ' ' The expansion ' ' from within without ' ' of the Mother, who is called elsewhere " the Waters of Space," the "Universal Matrix," etc., does not allude to an expansion from a small centre or focus, but without reference to size or limitation or area, means the development of lim itless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity. ' ' The ever, to us, invisible and immaterial Substance present in eternity, threw its periodical shadow from its own plane into the lap of Illusion. ' ' This implies that this expansion was not an increase in size — for infinite extension admits of no enlargement — but a change of condition. It expanded " like the bud of the Lotus "; for the Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature embryo in its seed, but its prototype is present in an ideal form in the Astral Light, from "Dawn" to "Night" of the Great Cycle; like everything else as a matter of fact, in this objective universe, from man down to mite, from giant trees down to the tiniest blades of grass. All this, teaches the hidden science, is but the tem porary reflection, the shadow of the eternal proto type in the Divine Thought, the word ' ' eternal ' ' — note well again — standing here only in the sense of ' ' .ZEon, ' ' the seemingly interminable but still limited cycle of activity, called by us a Manvantara. For what is the real esoteric meaning of Manvantara, or rather Manu-antara? It means esoterically, " be tween two Manus," of whom there are fourteen in every " Day of Brahma," a Day consisting of one thousand aggregates of four Ages,* or one thousand " Great Ages," (Mahayugas). Orientalists tells us that the term " Manu " is from the root Man, " to ?4,320,000,000 of our years. 52 THE SECRET DOCTRINE think "; hence " the thinking man." But esoteri- cally, every Manu, as an anthropomorphised patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the personi fied idea of the " Thought Divine "; each of the Manus, therefore, being the special god, creator and fashioner of all that appears during his own respec tive cycle of being, or Manvantara. The Life-Spirit runs their errands (see Stanza V., 2), and causes the ideal prototypes to expand from within without — that is, to cross gradually, on a descending scale, all the planes from the noumenon to the lowest phenomenon, to bloom finally on the last into full objectivity, the acme of Illusion, or the grossest Matter. STANZA III.— Continued (2) The vibration sweeps along, touching with its swift wing (simultaneously) the whole Universe, and the Germ that dwelleth in Darkness ; the Dark ness that breathes (moves) over the slumbering Waters of Life (a). (a) The idea of the " breath " of Darkness mov ing over the slumbering Waters of Life (which is primordial Matter with the latent Spirit in it), re calls the first chapter of Genesis. Its original is the Brahminical Narayama (the Mover on the Waters), who is the personification of the eternal Breath of the unconscious All of the Eastern Oc cultists. The waters of life, or Chaos (the female principle in symbolism), are the vacuum, to our mental perception, in which lie latent Spirit and Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in the sense of space, but not of empty space, for " Na ture abhors a vacuum," according to the Peripa tetics and other ancient philosophers. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 53 In all cosmogonies, Water plays the same im portant part. It is the base and source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the thing, understand by water the definite chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen, thus giving a specific meaning to a term used by Occultists in a generic sense, and which is used in cosmogony with a metaphysical and mystical meaning. Ice is not water, neither is steam, although all three have pre cisely the same chemical composition. STANZA III.— Continued 3. " Darkness " radiates Light, and Light drops one solitary Ray (a) into the Waters, into the Mother-deep. The Ray shoots through the Virgin- egg; the Ray causes the eternal Egg to thrill, and drop the non-eternal (periodical) Germ, which con denses into the World-egg (b). (a) " The solitary ray dropping into the mother- deep ' ' may be taken as Divine Thought or Intelli gence, impregnating Chaos. This, however, occurs on the plane of metaphysical abstraction, or rather on the plane whereon that which we call a meta physical abstraction is a reality. The Virgin-egg being in one sense abstract Eggness (or the power of becoming developed through fecundation) is eter nal and forever the same. And just as the fecunda tion of an egg takes place before it is dropped (so that it contains all its possibilities of development before it comes into the external world), so the non- eternal, periodical Germ, which becomes later in symbolism the Mundane Egg, contains in itself "the promise and potency " of all the Universe. The simile of an egg also expresses the fact taught in Occultism, that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere or circle having been with 54 THE SECRET DOCTRINE all nations the emblem of eternity and infinity — a serpent swallowing its tail. To realize its full mean ing, however, the sphere must be thought of as seen from its centre. The field of vision or of thought is like a sphere whose radii proceed from one's self in every direction, and extend out into space, open ing up boundless vistas all round. It is the sym bolical circle of Pascal and the Kabalists, " whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere," a conception which enters into the com pound idea of this emblem. (b) " The Mundane Egg " is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted symbols, highly sug gestive as it is, alike in the spiritual, physiological and cosmological sense. Therefore, it is found in every world-theogony, where it is largely associated with the serpent symbol, the emblem of eternity, re generation and rejuvenation, as well as of wisdom. (See Part II., Tree, Serpent and Crocodile Wor ship.) The mystery of apparent self-generation and evolution through its own creative power, the egg repeating in miniature the process of Cosmic evolu tion, both being due to heat and moisture under the efflux of the unseen creative Spirit — justified fully the selection of this graphic symbol. The " Virgin Egg ' ' is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic prototype — the Virgin Mother — Chaos or the Pri meval Deep. The male Creator (under whatever name) springs forth from the Virgin female, the immaculate root, fructified by the Ray. Cosmos, as receptive Nature, is an Egg fertilized, yet left im maculate; once regarded as boundless it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The Golden Egg (or " luminous egg " as it is sometimes called) was surrounded by seven natural elements, " four ready, three secret "—ether, fire, air, water. (These precosmic elements are but the germs of those we know. {See note to Stanza VI., 7.) THE SECRET DOCTRINE 55 STANZA III.— Continued 4. Then the three (the triad) fall into the four (the quaternary). The radiant Essence becomes seven inside, seven outside, (a) The luminous Egg, which in itself is three (the three aspects of the Creative Spirit) curdles, and spreads in milk-white curds throughout the depths of Mother, the Root that grows in the ocean of Life (b). (a) The use of geometrical figures and the fre quent allusion to figures in all ancient scriptures (see the Purdnas, the Egyptian papyri, the Book of the Dead and even the Bible) must be explained. In the Book of Dzyan, as in the Kabala, there are two kinds of numerals to be studied; the figures, often simply blinds, and the Sacred Numbers, the values of which are all known to the Occultists through Initiation. The former are but a conven tional glyph, the latter the basic symbols of all. That is to say, the one is purely physical, the other purely metaphysical, the two standing to each other as a Matter to Spirit — the extreme poles of the One Substance. As Balzac, the unconscious Occultist of French literature, says in Louis Lambert, Number is to Mind the same as it is to matter, ' ' an incomprehen sible agent." (Perhaps so to the profane, but never to the Initiated mind.) Number is, as the great writer thought, an Entity, and at the same time a Breath emanating from what he called God and we call the All ; the breath which alone could organize the physical Kosmos, " where naught obtains its form but through the Deity, which is an effect of Number." God is a Number endowed with motion, which is felt, but not demonstrated. As Unity it be gins the Numbers, with which it has nothing in com mon. . . . The existence of Number depends on Unity, which, without a single Number, begets them 56 THE SECRET DOCTRINE all. . . . What would you think, were I to add that Motion and Number are begotten by the Word " ? (Number truly, but never Motion. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word, in Oc cultism.) (b) The " radiant essence curdled and spread throughout the depths " of Space. From an astro nomical point of view, this is easy of explanation; it is the Milky Way, the world-stuff, or primordial matter, in its first form. It is more difficult, how ever, to explain it in a few words or even lines, from the standpoint of Occult science and symbolism, as it is the most complicated of glyphs. Herein are enshrined more than a dozen symbols. To begin with, there is the whole pantheon of mysterious ob jects (" the fourteen precious things "), every one of them having some definite Occult meaning, ex tracted from the allegorical " churning of the ocean " by the Hindu gods. Besides Amrita, the water of Life or immortality, Surabhi ' ' the cow of plenty," called " the fountain of milk ahd curds," was extracted from this " Sea of Milk." Hence the universal adoration of the cow and the bull, one the productive, the other the generative, power in na ture, symbols connected with both the Solar and the Cosmic deities. The specific properties, for occult purposes, of " the fourteen precious things," being explained only at the fourth initiation cannot be given here, but the following may be said. In the Satapatha-Brahmana it is stated that the churn ing of the Ocean of Milk took place in the Golden Age, the first age after the " Deluge." As, however, neither the Rig- Veda nor Manu mention this deluge (although both preceded Vaivasvata's deluge which destroyed the bulk of the Fourth Race), it is evi dent that it is not the " Great " deluge, nor that which carried away Atlantis, nor even the flood of Noah, that is meant here. This ' ' churning ' ' relates THE SECRET DOCTRINE 57 to a period before the earth's formation, and is in direct connection with that other universal legend, of which the various and contradictory versions cul minated in the Christian dogma of " the War in Heaven," and " the Fall of the Angels." (See Book II. , XL, and also Revelations, ch. XII.) STANZA III.— Continued 5. The Root remains, the Light remains, the Curds remain, and still Father-Mother (a) is one (b). (In the original, Oeaohoo.) (a) Oeaohoo is rendered " Father-Mother of the Gods " in the Commentaries, or the Six in One, or the septenary root from which all proceeds. All de pends upon the accent given to the seven vowels of this mystic name, which may be pronounced as one, three, or even seven syllables, by adding an e after the letter " o." The name is given out, because without a thorough mastery of the triple pronuncia tion it remains forever ineffectual. (b) This refers to the Non-Separateness of all that lives and has its being, whether in the active or the passive state. In one sense Father-Mother is the " Rootless Root of All "; in another sense it is a name for the manifested One Life, the Eternal liv ing Unity. The " Root " means, as already ex plained, pure knowledge, eternal, unconditioned Reality, whether we call it Pre-cosmic Ideation or Pre-cosmic Substance, for these are the two aspects of the One. The " Light " is the same omnipresent, Spiritual Ray, which has entered and now fertilized the Divine Egg, and caused cosmic matter to begin its long series of differentiations. The " curds " are the first differentiation, and probably refer also to that cosmic matter which is supposed to be the origin of ' ' the Milky Way ' ' — the matter we know. 58 THE SECRET DOCTRINE This ' ' matter, ' ' according to the revelation received from the first Divine teachers, during the periodical sleep of the Universe, of the ultimate tenuity con ceivable to the sight of the perfect Seer, and radical and cool at the first reawakening of cosmic motion, is scattered through Space, appearing when seen from the Earth, in clusters and lumps, like curds in thin milk. These are the seeds of the future worlds, " the Star-stuff." STANZA III.— Continued 6. The root of Life was in every drop of the ocean of Immortality, and the ocean was radiant Light, which was fire, and heat, and motion. Darkness van ished, and was no more (a). It disappeared in its own essence, the body of fire and water, of Father and Mother (b). (a) The essence of darkness being absolute light. Darkness is taken as the appropriate symbol of the condition of the Universe during the term of abso lute rest, or non-being, as it appears to our finite minds. The " fire, heat and motion " here spoken of are not, of course, the fire, heat and motion of physical science, but the underlying abstractions, the noumena, or soul, of the essence of these ma terial manifestations — " the things in themselves," which as modern science confesses, entirely elude the instruments of the laboratory, and which even the mind cannot grasp, though it can as little avoid the conclusion that these underlying essences of things must exist. According to the Rosicrucian tenets, as explained by the profane for once correctly, if only partially, " Light and Darkness are identical in themselves, being only divisible in the human mind " and ac cording to Robert Fludd, " Darkness adopted il lumination in order to make itself visible," Ac- ' THE SECRET DOCTRINE 59 cording to the tenets of Eastern Occultism, Dark ness is the one true actuality, the basis and the root of light, without which the latter could never manifest itself, nor even exist. Light is matter, and Darkness pure Spirit. Darkness in its radical, metaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute light; while light, in all its seeming effulgency and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, and an illusion. Even in the mind-baffling and science-harassing Genesis, light is created out of darkness, and not vice versa. " In him (in darkness) was life, and the life was the light of men " (John i. 4). A day may come when the eyes of men will be opened; and then they may comprehend better than they do now, that verse in the Gospel of John that says : ' ' And the light shineth in darkness ; and the darkness comprehendeth it not." They will see then that the word " darkness " does not apply to man's spiritual eyesight, but indeed to Darkness, the Absolute, that comprehendeth not (cannot cog nize) transient light, however transcendent to hu man eyes. There is a whole philosophy of dogmatic craft in the reason why the first Archangel, who sprang from the depths of Chaos, was called Lucifer, " the Luminous Son of the Morning," or cyclic Dawn. (See Book II. 11. Demon est Deus inver sus.) (b) Fire and Water, or Father and Mother, may be taken here to mean the divine Ray and Chaos. (See Book II. 15. Kwan-Shai-Yin.) STANZA III.— Continued 7. Behold, O Pupil, the radiant Child of the two, the unparalleled refulgent Glory, Bright Space, Son of Dark Space, who emerges from the depths of the great Dark Waters. It is the New Life (the manifested Logos). He shines forth as the Sun. 60 THE SECRET DOCTRINE He is the blazing Divine Dragon of Wisdom (b). The One is Four, and Four takes to itself Three, and the union produces the Seven, which become the thrice-ten, the Hosts and the Multitudes. Be hold him lifting the Veil, and unfurling it from East to West. He shuts out the Above, and leaves the Below to be seen as the great Illusion. He marks the places for the shining ones (the stars) and turns the upper space into a shoreless Sea of Fire (c), and the One manifested element into the Great Waters (d). (a) " Bright Space, son of dark Space," corre sponds to the Ray dropped at the first thrill of the new Dawn into the great Cosmic depths, from which it emerges differentiated as the new Life (Oeaohoo the Younger, in the original) to become, to the end of the life-cycle, the germ of all things. He is called " the Blazing Dragon of Wisdom," because firstly he is that which the Greek philosophers called the Logos, the Word of the Thought Divine; and sec ondly, because in esoteric philosophy this first mani festation, being the synthesis or aggregate of Uni versal Wisdom, " the Son of the Son " (Oeaohoo) contains in himself the Seven Creative Hosts,* and is thus the essence of manifested Wisdom. " He who bathes in the light of the Logos will never be deceived by the veil of Illusion. ' ' (b) The " Dragon of Wisdom " is "the One." The One, and the Dragon are expressions used by the ancients in connection with their respective Logoi. Jehovah, esoterically (as the Elohim) is also the Serpent or Dragon that tempted Eve, and the Dragon is an old glyph for the Astral Light (the Primordial Principle of Matter) " which is the wis dom of Chaos." Archaic philosophy, recognizing neither Good nor Evil as independent powers, but starting from the Absolute or Universal Perfection, ?The Sephiroth of the Kabala. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 61 traced both principles through the course of natural evolution, to pure Light condensing gradually into form, and thus becoming Matter or Evil. It was left with the early and ignorant Christian fathers to de grade the philosophical idea of the Dragon into the absurd superstition called the Devil. But the Pa gans have always shown a philosophical discrimi nation in their symbols. The primitive serpent symbolized divine Wisdom and Perfection, and al ways stood for psychical regeneration and immor tality. Hence Hermes called the serpent the most spiritual of all beings ; Moses, initiated in the wis dom of Hermes, following suit in Genesis ; the Gnos tic serpent with the seven vowels over its head, was the emblem of the seven hierarchies of the Plane tary Creators. Hence, also, the Hindu serpent Sesha, or Ananta, the Infinite, a name of Vishnu, whose first vehicle on the primordial waters was this serpent. Like the Logoi and the Hierarchies of Powers, however, " the Serpents " have to be distinguished one from another. Sesha or Ananta is an allegorical abstraction, symbolizing infinite Time in Space, whereas the Gnostic Ophis contained the same triple symbolism in its seven vowels as the one, three and seven-syllabled Oeaohoo of the archaic doctrine — i.e., The One unmanifested Logos, the Second manifested, the Triad concreting into the Quaternary, and the Rays of the latter on the material plane. So was a difference always made between the good and the bad Serpent, between the embodiment of Divine Wisdom in the regions of the Spirit, and the Astral Light of the Kabalists, the embodiment of Evil, on the plane of matter. The Astral Light, or Ether of the ancients, is Spirit-Matter. Beginning with the pure spiritual plane, it becomes grosser as it descends, till it becomes Illusion, the tempting and deceitful serpent on our plane. 62 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Jesus accepted the serpent as a synonym of Wis dom : " Be ye wise as serpents, ' ' he said. The Spirit of God moving on Chaos was symbolized in every nation by a fiery serpent breathing fire and light upon the primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular shape of a serpent' with its tail in its mouth, which symbol izes not only Eternity and Infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the bodies formed within the Universe from that fiery mist. The Universe, and also Earth and Man, cast off periodically their old skins, serpent-like, to assume new ones after a period of rest. The serpent is surely no less poetical an image than the caterpillar, from whose chrysalis springs the butterfly, the emblem of the soul. The Dragon was the symbol of the Logos with the Egyp tians, as with the Gnostics. In the Book of Hermes, Pymander (the oldest and most spiritual of the Western Logoi) appears to Hermes in the shape of a Fiery Dragon, of " Light, Fire and Flame." Py mander, the personified Thought Divine, says : ' ' The Light is me; I am the Nous (or mind), I am thy God, and I am far older than the human principle which escapes from the shadow. (Darkness, or the concealed Deity.) I am the germ of thought, the resplendent Word, the Son of God. All that thus sees and hears in thee is the Word of the Master, it is the Thought which is God, the Father. (The sev enth principle in Kosmos and Man.) The celestial Ocean, the Ether ... is the Breath of the Fa ther, the life-giving principle, the Mother, the Holy Spirit . . . for these are not separated, and their union is Life." Here we find the unmistak able echo of the archaic Secret Doctrine, as now expounded. Only that does not place as the head of the evolution of Life, " the Father," who comes third, and is " the Son of the Mother," but " the Eternal and Ceaseless Breath of the All," THE SECRET DOCTRINE 63 (c) The " Sea of Fire " is then the Super- Astral (i.e., noumenal) Light, the first radiation from the undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral matter. It is also called the Fiery Serpent, as above. If the student bear in mind that there is but One Universal Element, which is infinite, unborn and undying, and that all the rest are but so many differentiated aspects and correlations of that One, from cosmical down to microcosmical effects, the totality in short of objective existence — then the first and chief difficulty will disappear, and Occult Cos mology may be mastered. All the Kabalists, East ern and Western, recognize (first) the identity of " Father-Mother " with primordial .ZEther (or the Astral Light), and (secondly) its homogeneity be fore the evolution of the ' ' Son, ' ' in the cosmic sense Fohat, or Cosmic Electricity. " Fohat hardens and scatters the Seven Brothers" (see 12th verse); which means that the primordial Electric Entity — for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an entity — electrifies into life, and separates primor dial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all (ourf) life and consciousness. " There exists a universal, sole agent, of all forms and of life that is called Od, Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night; it is the first light in Creation." (Eliphas Levi's Kabala.) 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, the Astral Light proper; the first Light of the primordial Elohim, or, scientific ally, Electricity and Life. The ancients represented it by a serpent, for " Fohat hisses as he glides hither and thither " (i.e., in zigzags). The Kabala represents it by the letter D, Teth, whose symbol is the serpent that played such a prominent part in the Mysteries. Its 64 THE SECRET DOCTRINE universal value is nine, for it is the ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, a and the ninth door of the fifty portals or gateways that lead to the concealed mysteries of being. It is the magical agent par ex cellence, and designates in the Hermetic philosophy. "Life infused into primordial matter," the essence that composes all things, and the spirit that deter mines their form. (d) It was not Zeno alone, the founder of the Stoics, who taught that the Universe evolves when its primary substance is transformed from the state of fire into that of air, then water, etc. Heraclitus of Ephesus maintained that the one principle that underlies all phenomena in nature is fire. The In telligence that moves the universe is fire, and fire is intelligence. And while Anaximenes said the same of air, and Thales of Miletus (600 b. c.) of water, the Esoteric doctrine reconciles all these systems by showing that though all were right, none was com plete. STANZA III.— Continued 8. Where was the Germ, and where was now Dark ness (a)? Where is the Spirit of the flame that burns in thy lamp, 0 pupil? The Germ is that, and that is Light, the white brilliant Son of the dark hidden Father. (a) The answer to the first question, suggested by the second (which is the reply of the teacher to the pupil), contains in a single phrase one of the most essential truths of occult philosophy. It indi cates the existence of things imperceptible to our physical senses, which are of far greater importance, more real and more permanent, than those that ap peal to these senses themselves. Before the pupil can hope to understand the transcendently meta physical problem contained in the first question, he THE SECRET DOCTRINE 65 must be able to answer the second, while the very answer he gives to the second will furnish him with the clue to the correct reply to the first. In the Sanskrit Commentary on this Stanza, the terms used for the concealed and unrevealed Prin ciple are many. In the earliest Indian MSS. this Unrevealed, Abstract Deity has no name. It is called generally " That," and means all that is, was and will be, or that can be so received by the human mind. Among such appellations, given of course, only in esoteric philosophy, it is also called ' ' the Kali Ham- sa " (the Black Swan). The same word may be read " Kalaham-sa," answering to the Biblical " I am that I am." It is useless to attempt to explain the mystery of this name in full. In order to obtain a clear understanding of it, one has first of all to admit the postulate of a universally diffused, omni present, eternal Deity in nature; secondly to have fathomed the mystery of electricity in its true es sence ; and thirdly, to credit man with being the sep tenary symbol on the terrestrial plane of the One Great Unit (the Logos), which is Itself the seven- vowelled sign, the Breath crystallized into the Word. He who believes in all this, has also to be lieve in the multiple combination of the seven plan ets of Occultism and of the Kabala, with the twelve zodiacal signs ; and to attribute, as we do, to each planet and to each constellation an influence which is proper to it, beneficent or maleficent. Since few believe in all this, all that can now be given is, that the symbol Hamsa or Hansa (whether " I," "He," " Goose," or " Swan "), is an important symbol, representing for instance, Divine Wisdom, Wisdom in darkness beyond the reach of man. For all exo teric purposes, Hansa, as every Hindu knows, is an allegorical bird, which, when given milk mixed with water for its food, separated the two, drinking the 66 THE SECRET DOCTRINE milk and leaving the water; thus showing inherent wisdom — milk being the symbol of spirit, and water of matter. The Swan, or Goose, or Pelican, it does not mat ter which, is then some aquatic bird floating or mov ing (like the Spirit) on the waters, and then issuing from those waters to give birth to other beings ; the true mystic significance of the symbol being the idea of a universal matrix figured by the primordial wa ters of the deep, opening for the reception, and sub sequently for the issue, of that one Ray (the Logos) which contains in itself the other seven Creative Rays or powers, the Logoi or Builders. Appearing with every new cycle of Life, as the Self -Existent, and penetrating into the Mundane Egg, the Ray emerges from it at the end of the divine incubation as the progenitor of the future Universe into which it expands. STANZA III.— Continued 9. Light is cold flame (a), and flame is fire, and fire produces heat, which yields water, the water of Life in the Great Mother. It must be remembered that the words light, fire and flame used in the Stanzas, have been adopted by the translators from the vocabulary of the old '' Fire-philosophers " (not the mediaeval Alchem ists, but the Magi and Fire-worshippers, from whom the successors of the theurgists borrowed all their ideas of Fire as a mystic and divine element) . This was done in order to render better the meaning of the archaic terms and symbols employed in the orig inal. All these— Light, Flame, Heat, Cold, Fire, Wa ter, and the Water of Life, are all on our plane the progeny ,_ or as a modern physicist would say, the cor-relations of Electricity. Mighty word, and a THE SECRET DOCTRINE 67 ["still mightier symbol! Sacred generator of a no I less sacred progeny ; of fire— the creator, the pre server and the destroyer; of light — the essence of our Divine ancestors ; of flame — the Soul of things. Electricity, the One Life, at the upper rung of Be ing ; the Astral Fluid (the Athanor of the Alchem ists), at its lowest; God and Devil, Good and Evil. (a) Now why is Light called in the Stanzas " cold flame "? Because in the order of Cosmic evolution (as taught by the Occultists), the energy that actu ates matter after its first formation into atoms, is generated on our plane by cosmic heat, and because Kosmos, in the sense of dissociated (or unformed) matter, was not, before that period. The first pri mordial matter, eternal and co-eval with space, " is neither hot nor cold, but is of its own special na ture," says the Commentary. Heat and cold are relative qualities, and pertain to the realms of the manifested worlds, which all proceed from the mani fested Hyle (or matter). This, in its absolutely latent aspect, is referred to as " the cold Virgin," and when awakened to life, as the " Mother." Pri mordial matter, then, before it awakens to the thrill of action under the impulse of Cosmic Electricity, is but " a cool Radiance, colorless, formless, tasteless and devoid of every quality and aspect. ' ' Even such are her first-born, the " four sons," who " are One and become Seven. ' ' These are the entities by whose qualities and names the ancient Eastern Occultists called four of the seven primal ' ' centres of forces ' ' (or atoms) that developed later into the great cos mic Elements, now divided into the seventy, or more, sub-elements, known to science. The four primal natures of the first Creative Forces are the so-called (for want of better terms) Akasic, Ethereal, Watery and Fiery, answering, in the terminology of prac tical Occultism to scientific definitions of gases, which, to convey a clear idea to both Occultists and 68 THE SECRET DOCTRINE laymen, must be defined as Parahydrogenic (para meaning beyond), Paraoxygenic, Oxyhydrogenic and Ozonic, or perhaps Nitro-zonic ; the latter forces, or gases (in Occultism supersensuous yet atomic sub stances) being the most effective and active when energizing on the plane of more grossly differen tiated matter. These are both electro-positive and electro-negative. Each of these, and many more, are probably the missing links of Chemistry. They are known by other names in Alchemy and to the Occultists who practise in phenomena. It is by combining and re- combining in a certain way (or dissociating) the " Elements " by means of astral Fire, that the greatest phenomena are produced. STANZA III.— Continued 10. Father-Mother spin a web (a) whose upper end is fastened to Spirit, the Light of the one Dark ness, and the lower one to Matter, its (the Spirit's) shadowy end ; and this web is the Universe, spun out of the two substances made in one, which is Spirit- Matter. (a) In the Mandukya Upanishad it is written: "As a spider throws out and retracts his web, as herbs spring up in the ground ... so is the Universe derived from the undecaying One." Brah ma, the Creative Deity, as " the germ of unknown Darkness," is the material from which all evolves and develops " as the web from the spider, as foam from the water, ' ' etc. This is only graphic and true if Brahma " the Creator " is, as a term, derived from the root brih to increase or expand. Brahma (here equivalent to Father-Mother) " expands," and becomes the Universe woven out of his own sub stance, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 69 The same idea has been beautifully expressed by Goethe, who says : " Thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply and weave for God the garment thou seest Him by." STANZA III.— Continued 11. It (the Web) expands when the breath of Fire (the Father) is upon it; it contracts when the breath of the mother (the root of Matter) touches it. Then the Sons (the Elements with their respect ive Powers or Intelligences) dissociate and scatter, to return into their Mother's bosom at the end of " the Great Day," and re-become one with her. When it (the Web) is cooling, it becomes radiant, its Sons expand and contract through their own selves and hearts ; they embrace Infinitude. (a) The expanding of the Universe under the breath of Fire is very suggestive in the light of " the Fire-Mist period " of which modern science says so much, and in reality knows so little. " Great heat breaks up the compound elements and resolves the heavenly bodies into their primeval one element," explains the Commentary. " Once disintegrated into its primal constituent, by getting within the attraction of a focus of heat (centre of energy), of which many are carried about in space, a body whether alive or dead, will be vaporized and held ' in the bosom of the Mother ' until Fohat (Cosmic Electricity) gathering a few of the clusters of cosmic matter (nebulae) together, will give it an impulse, and set it in motion anew, develop the required heat, and then leave it to follow its own laws of growth." (b) The expanding and contracting of the Web — i.e., the world-stuff or atoms — expresses here the pulsatory movement, for it is the regular contraction 70 THE SECRET DOCTRINE and expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean of what we may call the noumenon of matter, which causes the universal vibration of atoms. But it is also suggestive of something else. It shows that the ancients were acquainted with the puzzles of many modern astronomers, the cause of the first ignition of matter, or the world-stuff; the paradox of the heat produced by refrigerative contraction, and other such Cosmic enigmas. " There is heat in ternal and heat external in every atom " (say the MS. Commentaries to which the writer has had ac cess) ; " the breath of the Father (or Spirit) and the breath (or heat) of the Mother (matter) ; " and they give explanations which show that the modern theory of the extinction of the solar fires by loss of heat through radiation is erroneous. For, as Pro fessor Newcomb points out (Popular Astronomy, pp. 506-508), " by losing heat a gaseous body con tracts, and the heat generated by the contraction exceeds that which it had to lose in order to produce the contraction. " This paradox led to long disputes. Contraction develops heat, it was argued, but con traction (from cooling) is incapable of developing the whole amount of heat at any time existing in the mass, or even of maintaining a body at a constant temperature, etc. Professor Winchell tries to rec oncile the paradox by suggesting " something be sides heat." " May it not be," he asks, " simply a repulsion among the molecules, which varies accord ing to some law of the distance? " But even this will be found irreconcilable, unless this ' ' something besides heat" is ticketed " Causeless Heat," the " Breath of Fire," the all-creative Force, plus Ab solute Intelligence, which physical science is not likely to accept. However this may be, the explanation of this Stanza shows it to be even more scientific than mod ern science. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 71 STANZA III.— Continued 12. Then Father-Mother send Fohat (Intelligent Force) to harden the atoms, (a) Each (of these) is a part of the Web (Universe). Reflecting " the Self-Existent Lord " (Primeval Light) like a mir ror, each becomes in turn a world (b). . . . (a) " Fohat hardens the atoms," by infusing en ergy into them : he scatters the atoms of primordial matter. ' ' He scatters himself by scattering matter into atoms." (MS. Commentaries.) It is through this agency that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon matter. Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be gathered from the appellation " Cosmic Electricity " some times applied to it ; but to the commonly known prop erties of electricity must in this case be added others, including Intelligence. It is of interest to note that modern science has come to the conclusion that all cerebration and brain-activity are attended by elec trical phenomena. (See III., 5, c. and also V., et seq.) (b) This is said in the sense that the flame of a lamp or fire is inexhaustible, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be lit at one simple rush light without diminishing its flame. -. STANZA IV. Commentary. 1. Listen, ye Sons of the Earth, to your instruc tors — the Sons of the Fire (a). Learn there is neither first nor last; for all is One Number, issued from No-Number (b). (a) These terms " the Sons of the Fire," the " Sons of the Fire-mist," and the like, require ex planation. They are connected with a great primor- 72 THE SECRET DOCTRINE dial mystery, and it is not easy to make it clear. There is a passage in the Bhagavatgita (chap. VIII.), wherein Krishna, speaking symbolically and esoterically, speaks of the conditions under which devotees departing from this life, will, or will not, return to it (re-incarnate). The terms used here, " Fire," " Light," " Day," " Smoke," " Night," " Moon," etc., are all names of various deities which preside over the Cosmo-psychic Powers. With these verses the mystic sense of the solar and lunar symbols are connected: the Pitris (the fathers) are lunar deities, and our ancestors, because they cre ated physical man. The Agnishwattas, the Kumaras (the seven mystic sages) are solar deities, though the former are also our ancestors ; and these are ' ' the fashioners of the Inner Man. ' ' They are : " The Sons of Fire " — because they are the first Beings (in the Secret Doctrine they are called " Minds ") evolved from Primordial Fire. " The Lord is a consuming Fire " (Deut. iv. 24). Fire is .ZEther in its purest form, and hence is not regarded as matter. But there are two " Fires," and a distinction is made between them in the Occult teachings. The first, or the purely formless and invisible Fire con cealed in the Central Spiritual Sun, is spoken of — metaphysically — as " triple "; while the Fire of the manifested Kosmos is septenary, both throughout the Universe and our solar system. " The fire of knowledge burns up all action on the plane of illu sion," says the Commentary. " Therefore those who have acquired it and are emancipated are called ' Fires.' " (b) The expression " All is One Number, issued from No Number," relates again to that universal and philosophical tenet just explained (v. III. 4). That which is Absolute is, of course, No Number; but in its later significance it has an application in THE SECRET DOCTRINE 73 Space as in Time. It means that not only every in crement of time is part of a larger increment, up to the most indefinitely prolonged duration conceiv able by the human intellect, but also that no mani fested thing can be thought of except as part of a larger whole: the total aggregate being the One manifested Universe that issues from the unmani- fested, or Absolute — called Non-Being, or "No Number," to distinguish it from Being or " the One Number." STANZA IV.— Continued 2. Learn what we who descended from the Pri mordial Seven, we who are born from the Primor dial Flame (a), have learned from our Fathers. (a) This is explained in Book II. (Theogony of the Creative Gods), and this name " Primordial Flame," corroborates what is said in the Commen tary about ' ' the Sons of the Fire. ' ' The distinction between the " Primordial " and the subsequent seven Builders is this : the Primor dial Seven are the Ray and direct emanation of the first " Sacred Four," the Tetraktis* the eternally Self-Existent One, eternal in essence, not in mani festation. Latent during the periods of dissolution, and active during the cycles of existence, the Primor dial Seven proceed from Father-Mother (Spirit- Matter), whereas the other manifested Quaternary and the Seven Builders proceed from the Mother alone. It is the latter who is the immaculate Virgin- Mother, who is overshadowed, not impregnated, by the Universal Mystery — when she emerges from her undifferentiated condition. In reality, these Creative Forces are, of course, all one, but their as pects on the various planes of being are different. The first " Primordial Seven " are the highest *Vide v. 3, (d), 74 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Beings in the scale of Existence. They are the Arch angels of Christianity, and are those who refused to create, or rather to multiply. STANZA IV— Continued 3. From the effulgency of Light, the Ray of the ever-Darkness, sprang in Space the re-awakened Energies; the one from the Egg, the six, and the five (a); then the three, the one, the four, the one, the five — the twice seven, the sum total (b). And these are: the Essences, the Flames, the Elements, the Builders, the Numbers, the formless, the formed (having bodies) and the Force of Divine Man — the sum total. And from the Divine Man emanated the Forms, the Sparks, the sacred Animals (c), and the messengers of the sacred Fathers within the Holy Four (d). (a) This relates to the sacred Science of the numerals ; so sacred, indeed, and so important in the study of Occultism, that the subject can hardly be touched upon here. It is on the nature and correct numbers of the Hierarchies, Beings invisible to us except upon very rare occasions, that the mystery of the whole Universe is built. To make the whole somewhat clearer we have to take our illustrations from some of the Brahminical tenets, as more famil iar to many of our readers. In the Rig Veda it is said : ' ' That, the one Lord of all beings . . . the one animating principle of gods and men," arose, in the beginning, in the Golden Womb (Hiranygarbha) — which is the Mun dane Egg, or sphere of our Universe. That Being is surely androgynous, and the allegory of Brahma separating into two and creating the female ( Vach) from one of the halves, is proof of it. " The One from the Egg, the Six and the Five " give the number 1.0.6.5, the value of the first-born, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 75 (later on the male and female progenitors) answer ing to the numbers 7, 14 and 21 respectively. In the Mahabhdrata the Progenitors are 21 in number, or 10, 6, 5, thrice seven. (b) " The Three, the One, the Four, the One, the Five " (in their totality twice seven) represent 31415 — the numerical hierarchy of the Creative In telligences of various orders, and of the inner, or circumscribed world, that within the range of our present objective consciousness. Thus while in the metaphysical world the circle with the one central point in it has no number, and is called" the parentless " and numberless (because it can fall under no calculation), in the manifested world the Mundane Egg or Circle is circumscribed within the groups called the Line, the Triangle, the Pentacle, the second Line and the Cube (or 13514) ; and 'when the Point having generated a line 0 , and thus becomes a diameter which stands for the androg ynous Logos, then the figures become 31415, or a triangle, a line, a cube, the second line, and a pen tacle i% . " When the Son separates from the Mother he becomes the Father," the diameter standing for Nature, or the feminine principle. Therefore it is said : " In the world of Being, the one Point fructi fies the Line — the Virgin-Matrix of Kosmos (the egg-shaped zero) — and the immaculate Mother gives birth to the form that combines all forms." The Creative Spirit is called the first procreating male, and " his Mother's husband." The same expression is used in Egypt; one of the principal titles of the god Ammon was " the husband of his mother." This gives the key to all the later divine sons from immaculate mothers. It is corroborated by the sig nificant fact that Anna (the name of the mother of the Virgin Mary), now represented by the Roman Catholic Church as having given birth to her daugh ter in an immaculate way (" Mary conceived with- 76 THE SECRET DOCTRINE out sin "), is derived from the Chaldean Ana, heaven, or Astral Light, Anima Mundi ; and the wife of Siva is also called Annapurna, Urna-Kanya, her esoteric name, meaning ' ' the Virgin of Light, ' ' the Astral Light in one of its multitudinous aspects. (c) The Essences, Flames, Elements, etc., all have their synonyms in the Secret Doctrine, but it is use less to give their ancient names, as it would only create confusion. All the Thrones and Dominions, Virtues and Principalities, Cherubs, Seraphs, etc., of the Christian hierarchy of celestial powers, are the modern copies of archaic prototypes. The very symbolism of their names when transliterated into Greek and Latin are sufficient to show this, as will be proved in several cases later on. The " Sacred Animals " are found in the Bible as well as in the Kabala, and they have a very pro found meaning on the page that records the origins of Life. In the Sepher Jesirah it is stated that " God engraved in the Holy Four the throne of his glory, the Orphanim (or Word-spheres), the Sera phim, the Sacred Animals, and the ministering An gels, and from Air, Water and Fire (or iEther) He formed His habitation." Thus was the world made " through three Seraphim " — or " through Number, Numbers and Numbered." With the as tronomical key these ' ' sacred animals ' ' become the signs of the Zodiac. And see Stanza VII., 5, where the sacred animals are called " the first shadow of physical man." STANZA TV.— Continued. 4. This was the Army of the Voice (a)— the Di vine Septenary. The sparks of the Seven are sub ject to, and the servants of, the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and the seventh, of the Seven. These (sparks) are called spheres, triangles, cubes, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 77 lines, and modellers (b), for thus stands the Eternal Cause — the Force of ceaseless and Eternal Cosmic Motion. (a) This verse gives again a brief analysis of the Hierarchies of the conscious, intelligent Powers in nature. To these correspond the actual types into which humanity may be divided; for humanity, as a whole, is in reality a materialized and as yet an imperfect expression thereof. The " Army of the Voice " is a term closely connected with the mystery of Sound and Speech, as an effect and corollary of the cause — Divine Thought. As beautifully ex pressed by P. Christian, the learned author of The History of Magic, the words spoken by, as well as the name of, every individual largely determine his future fate. Why? Because — " When our Soul (mind) creates or evokes a thought, the representative sign of that thought is self -engraved upon the astral fluid, which is the mir ror of all the manifestations of being. " The sign expresses the thing; the thing is the hidden (or occult) virtue of the sign. ' ' To pronounce a word is to evoke a thought and make it present; the magic potency of the human speech is the commencement of every manifestation in the occult world. " Yes, names (and words) are either beneficent or maleficent; they are, in a certain sense, either venomous or health-giving, according to the hidden influences attached by Supreme Wisdom to their ele ments — that is to say, to the letters which compose them, and the numbers correlative to those letters." This is strictly true, and is an esoteric teaching accepted by all the Eastern Schools of Occultism. In the Sanskrit, as in the Hebrew and all other alphabets, every letter has its occult meaning; it is a cause, and an effect of a preceding cause, and a combination of these very often produces the most 78 THE SECRET DOCTRINE magical effect. The vowels especially contain the most occult and formidable potencies. " The Army of the Voice " is the prototype of the " Host of the Logos," or Word, and is, in one sense, the synthesis of creative Nature. From this number 10, creative nature or the Mother (the oc cult cipher or ' ' nought ' ' ever procreating and mul tiplying in union with them; the One, or the Spirit of Life), the whole Universe proceeds. In the Anugitd (ch. vi. 15) a conversation is given between a Brahmana and his wife, who asks how Speech came into existence, and which came first, Speech or Mind. He replies in an allegory, which shows that mind is immovable, but speech movable, and this is at the root of the Occult law, which pre scribes silence upon the knowledge of certain secret and invisible things perceptible only to the spiritual mind (the sixth sense) and which cannot be ex pressed by uttered speech. The Occultists claim that man has seven senses, as well as seven states of consciousness, but " spiritual mind " takes no cog nizance of the senses in physical man. (b) Next we see Cosmic Matter scattering and forming itself into elements ; grouped into the mys tic four within the fifth element — Ether* — the lining of Akasa, the Anima Mundi or " Mother " of Kos mos. " Dots, Lines, Triangles, Cubes, Circles, and finally Spheres " — why or how? Because, says the Commentary, such is the first law of Nature, and because Nature geometrizes universally in all her manifestations. There is an inherent law — not only in the primordial, but also in the manifested matter of our physical plane — by which Nature correlates her geometrical forms, and also, later, her com pound elements, and in which there is no place for accident or change. It is a fundamental law in Oc- *Ether, the fifth element, must be distinguished from Aither or Akasa, the World-Soul. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 79 cultism that there is no rest or cessation of motion in Nature. That which seems rest is only the change of one form into another ; the change of substance going hand in hand with that of form, as we are taught in Occult physics. It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Adept to per form his various phenomena, such as the disinte gration of matter, and the transport of objects from one place to another. Says the ancient Commentary to Stanza IV.: " The Mother is the fiery Fish of Life. She scat ters her spawn, and the Breath (Motion) heats and quickens it. The grains (of spawn) are soon at tracted to each other, and form the curds in the Ocean (of Space). The larger lumps coalesce and receive new spawn — in fiery dots, triangles and cubes, which ripen, and at the appointed time some of the lumps detach themselves and assume spher oidal form, a process which they effect only when not interfered with by the others. After which law No. — comes into operation. Motion (the Breath) becomes the whirlwind and sets them rotating." In a polemical scientific work, The Modern Gen esis by the Rev. W. B. Slaughter, the author asks why the astronomers have not said more about the beginning of rotation. " How does the process" of cooling and contracting the (nebulous) mass impart to it a rotatory motion? " This question material istic science can never solve. An Occult teaching says: " Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in the manifest. Heat caused by the de scent of Flame into primordial matter causes its particles to move, which motion becomes Whirl wind (i.e., rotation). A drop of liquid assumes a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in their ultimate, unresolvable and nou- menal essence; unresolvable for physical science at any rate." 80 THE SECRET DOCTRINE STANZA IV.— Continued 4. (For thus stands the Eternal Cause) which is : 5. " Darkness," the Boundless, or the No-Num ber, or Space : the 0 (for x, unknown quantity) : I. The First (a), the Number for he is One. II. The Voice of the Word, the Soul of the World, the Numbers, for he is One and Nine (b). III. " The Formless Square." And these three enclosed within the 0 (boundless circle) (c), are the Sacred Four, and the ten are the formless (subjective) Universe. Then come the " Sons," the seven Fighters, the One (d), the eighth left out, and his Breath, which is the Light- Maker (e). (a) Adi-Sanat (the term used in the original), translated literally, is the " First " or primeval Ancient, which name identifies the Kabalistic ' ' An cient of Days ' ' with Brahma the Creator. The Soul of the World is the mystic Essence, the plastic root of physical nature — ' ' Numbers, ' ' when manifested ; the Number in its Unity of Substance, on the highest plane, a synonym for the Kabalistic " Archetypal World," whence proceed the Creative, the Forma tive and the Material Worlds; the Scintillas or " Sparks," the various other worlds, being con tained in the last three. (b) " One and Nine," which make ten, or the per fect number applied to " the Creator," the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the Monotheists into one. (c) This means that the "Boundless Circle" (Zero) becomes a figure or number only when one of the nine figures precedes it, and thus manifests its value and potency; the Word or Logos in union with Voice and Spirit (the expression and source of Consciousness) standing for the nine figures, and THE SECRET DOCTRINE 81 thus forming with the cipher the Decade which con tains in itself the whole Universe. The triad forms within the circle the Tetraktis or Sacred Four, the Square within the Circle being the most potent of all the magical figures. (d) The " One rejected " is the Sun of our sys tem. " The Boundless " or infinite Space is very properly called " The Mother of the Gods," as it is from her Cosmic matrix that all the heavenly bodies of our system, Sun and Planets, were born. The Seven Sons are (astronomically) the seven planets, and the Sun being excluded from their number shows plainly that the Hindus knew of a seventh planet, without calling it Uranus. 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, exclusive of the Sun and Earth. The ancient Commentary gives an allegory and ex plains it : " Eight houses were built by Mother. Eight houses for her eight Divine sons ; four large and four small ones. Eight brilliant suns, according to their age and merits. Bal-ilu (our Sun) was not satisfied, though his house was the largest. He be gan (to work) as the huge elephants do. He breathed (drew in) into his stomach the vital airs of his brothers. He sought to devour them. The larger four were far away; far, on the margin of their kingdom. (The planetary system.) They were not robbed (affected) and laughed. Do your worst, Sir, you cannot reach us, they said. But the smaller wept. They complained to the Mother. She exiled Bal-ilu to the centre of her Kingdom, whence he could not move. (Since then) he (only) watches and threatens. He pursues them, turning slowly around himself, they turning swiftly from him, and he following from afar the direction in which his brothers move on the path that encircles their 82 THE SECRET DOCTRINE houses.* From that day he feeds on the sweat ofi the Mother's body. He fills himself with her breath and refuse. (Constituents of cosmic ether.) There fore she rejected him." The " rejected Son " being our Sun, the " Sun- Sons ' ' refer not only to our planets, but to the heav enly bodies in general. Himself only a reflection of the Central Spiritual Sun, he is the prototype of all those bodies that evolved after him. He is de picted as drawn by seven horses, and by one horse with seven heads ; the former referring to his seven planets, the latter to their one common origin from the One Cosmic Element. This " One Element" is called, figuratively, " Fire." The meaning of the allegory is plain, although astronomy and occult science differ on more than one particular. The Occult doctrine rejects the hy pothesis born out of the nebular theory, that the seven great planets have evolved from the Sun's central mass, not from this our visible Sun, at any rate. The first condensation of cosmic matter of course took place about a central nucleus, its parent Sun ; but our sun, it is taught, merely detached itself earlier than all the others as the rotating mass con tracted, and is the elder brother of the planets, therefore, not their father. They are all formed from the eternal Substance (Cometary matter — the Mother) or the World-stuff, which is the basis or vehicle of the Universal Soul, just as in man the mind, or human soul, is the vehicle of the Divine Soul. This Essence of Cometary matter, Occultism teaches, has none of the chemical or physical char acteristics with which modern science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its primitive form beyond the ?Astronomy teaches that the Sun rotates on his axis in the same direction in which the planets revolve in their orbits. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 83 solar system, but differentiates as soon as it crosses the boundaries of our Earth's region, vitiated by the atmospheres of the planets, and the already com pound matter of the interplanetary stuff, which is heterogeneous only in our manifested world. (e) There is a whole poem on the pre genetic bat tles fought by the growing planets before the final formation of Cosmos, thus accounting for the seem ingly disturbed position of the systems of several planets, the plane of the satellites of Neptune and Uranus, for instance, being tilted, thus giving them an appearance of retrograde motion. The planets are called the Warriors and the Architects, and are accepted by the Roman Church as the leaders of the heavenly hosts, thus showing that the same tradi tions are preserved in Christianity. Having evolved from Cosmic Space, before the final formation of the primaries, and the annulation of the planetary nebulae, the Sun, we are taught, drew into the depths of its mass all the cosmic vitality it could, threaten ing to engulf its weaker brothers before the law of attraction and repulsion was finally adjusted; after which it began feeding on those portions of Ether of the existence and constitution of which science is as yet absolutely ignorant. Mr. W. Mattieu Wil liams suggests that the diffused matter, or Ether, which is the recipient of the heat-radiations of the universe, is thereby drawn into the depths of the solar mass. Expelling thence the previously con densed and thermally exhausted Ether, it becomes compressed and gives up its heat, to be itself in turn driven out in a rarified and cooled condition to absorb a fresh supply of heat which is again re distributed by the suns of the Universe. This is about as close an approximation to the Occult teachings as science ever made, for Occultism explains this to be " the dead breath ' ' given back 84 THE SECRET DOCTRINE by Bal-ilu, the Sun, and the " sweat and refuse " of " Mother Space " on which he fed. What could affect Neptune, Saturn, and Jupiter but little, would have killed such comparatively small " Houses " as Mercury, Venus and Mars. When we speak of Neptune, it is not as an Occultist, but as an Euro pean. The true Eastern Occultist would maintain that while there are yet many undiscovered planets in our system, Neptune does not belong to it, his ap parent connection with our sun notwithstanding. This connection, they say, is illusory. (/) The " Breath " of all " the seven sons " is said to be " light-making," because the planets were all comets and suns in their origin. They evolve into cyclic life from primeval Chaos, by the aggre gation of the first differentiations of the Eternal Matter, according to the beautiful expression in the Commentary; " Thus the Sons of Light clothed themselves in the fabric of Darkness." They are called allegorically " the Heavenly Snails," on ac count of their (to us) formless Intelligences in habiting unseen their starry homes, and, so to speak, carrying them along as the snails do. Heat (the Breath) , Attraction and Repulsion — the three great factors of Motion — are the conditions under which all the members of this primitive family are born, develop and die, to be re-born after the cyclic " Night," during which Eternal Matter relapses periodically into its primary undifferentiated state. The most attenuated gases can give no idea of its nature to the modern physicist. At first simply cen tres of Force, the invisible sparks of primordial atoms differentiate into molecules, and become Suns — gaseous, radiant, cosmic — passing gradually into objectivity — the one " Whirlwind," or vortical Mo tion, finally giving its impulse to the form, and the initial motion regulated and sustained by the never- resting Breaths, the Intelligent Forces. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 85 STANZA TV.— Continued 6. . . . Then the second Seven, who are the Lipika (a) (the Recorders), produced by the three (Word, Voice and Spirit). The rejected Son is One, the "Son-Suns " are countless. The Lipika, from the word lipi (writing), means literally the " Scribes." Mystically these Divine Beings are connected with Karma or the law of Retribution, for they are the Recorders or annalists who impress upon the (to us) invisible tablets of the Astral Light — " the great picture-gallery of eternity " — a faithful record of every act and even thought of man, of all that was, is, or ever will be, in the phenomenal Universe. As is said in " Isis," this divine and unseen canvas is the Book of Life. As it is the Recorders who project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the Universe (upon which the Builders reconstruct the Kosmos after every cyclic Night," it is they who stand parallel to the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christian Church recognizes as the seven Planetary Spirits; for thus it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation, which Plato calls " the Divine Thought." The Eternal Record is no fantastic dream, for we meet with similar records in the world of gross matter. ' ' A shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereon a permanent trace, which might be made visible by resorting to proper processes," says Dr. Draper (Conflict between Science and Religion, p. 132 et seq.). ..." Upon the walls of our most private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out and our retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done. ' ' Drs. Jevons and Babbage (v. Principles of Science , vol. ii., p. 455) believe that every thought, displac- 86 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ing the particles of the brain and setting them in motion, scatters them throughout the universe, and they think that " each particle of existing matter must be a register of all that has happened." The forty " Assessors " who stand in the region of Amenti as the accusers of the Soul before Osiris, belong to the same class of deities as the Recorders, and might stand paralleled were not the esoteric meaning of the Egyptian gods so little understood. The Hindu Chitra-gupta (" preserved in the Ether ") who reads the account of every Soul's life from his register; the Assessors who read theirs from the heart of the defunct — are all so many vari ants of the Recorders and their Astral Records. Nevertheless, the Recorders are not deities con nected with Death, but with Life Eternal. Connected as the Recorders are with the destiny of every man (whose life is already traced in the Astral Light — because the future, like the past, is ever alive in the Present) — they may also be said to exert an influence on the science of Horoscopy. For, as observed by one of its modern adepts (Les Mysteres de I'Horoscope, p. xi.) : "Now that photog raphy has revealed to us the chemical influences of the sidereal system by fixing on a sensitized plate milliards of stars and planets that had hitherto baf fled the efforts of the most powerful telescope to discover, it becomes easier to understand how our solar system can, at the birth of a child, influence the tabula rasa of his brain in a definite manner, and according to the presence on the zenith of one or another zodiacal constellation. STANZA V Commentary 1. The Primordial Seven, the first Seven Breaths of the Dragon of Wisdom, produce in their turn THE SECRET DOCTRINE 87 from their holy circumgyrating Breaths the Fiery Whirlwind (incandescent Cosmic dust). This is, perhaps, the most difficult of all the Stan zas to explain. Its language is comprehensible only to him who is thoroughly versed in Eastern allegory, and its purposely obscure phraseology. The ques tion will surely be asked, ' ' Do the Occultists believe in all these ' Builders,' ' Recorders,' and ' Sons of Light ' as entities, or are they merely images ? " To this we answer as plainly: After due allowance for the imagery of personified Powers, we must admit the existence of such entities, if we would not reject the existence of spiritual humanity, within physical mankind. For these hosts of the " Sons of Light " and ' ' Man-born Sons ' ' of the first manifested Ray of the Unknown All, are the very root of spiritual man. Unless we want to believe the unphilosophical dogma of a specially created soul for every human birth, we have to admit the occult teachings. This doctrine teaches that in order to become a divine, fully conscious god — even the highest — the Spiritual primeval Intelligences must pass through the human stage. And when we say human, this does not apply merely to our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit any world ; to all In telligences that have reached their appropriate equi librium between matter and spirit, as we have ever since the middle point of the Fourth Root Race of the Fourth Round was passed. Each Entity must win for itself the right of becoming divine, through its own experience. Hegel, the great German thinker, must have perceived this truth intuitionally when he said that the Unconscious evolved the uni verse only " in the hope of attaining clear self-con sciousness " ; in other words, of becoming Man ; for this is also the secret meaning of the usual Puranic phrase about Brahma being constantly " moved by the desire to create. ' ' This explains also the hidden 88 THE SECRET DOCTRINE meaning of the Kabalistic saying : ' ' The Breath be comes a stone ; the stone a plant ; the plant an ani mal; the animal a man; the man a spirit, and the spirit a god." The Mind-born Sons, the Builders, etc., were all men — of whatever forms and shapes — in other worlds and preceding cycles of existence. This subject being so very mystical, is therefore the most difficult to explam in all its details and bearings; since the whole mystery of evolutionary creation is contained in it. The " fiery whirlwind " is the incandescent Cosmic dust,* which only follows magnetically (as the iron filings follow the magnet) the directing thought of the " Creative Forces." Yet this Cosmic dust is something more ; for every atom in the Universe has the potentiality of self- consciousness in it, and is, like the Monads of Leib nitz, a universe in itself and for itself. It is an atom and an angel. In this connection it should be noted that one of the leaders of the modern school of Evolutionists, Mr. A. R. Wallace, practically concedes the point in question, that of intelligent forces, and maintains that the evolution of man was directed and furthered by superior Intelligences, whose agency is a neces sary factor in the scheme of Nature. But if this be admitted of their operation in one place, it is only logical to admit it in all. ""&* STANZA V.— Continued 2. They make of him (the Whirlwind) the mes senger of their will (a), Wisdom becomes Fohat (b) (the Spirit of Life) ; the swift Son of the Divine Sons, whose sons are the Recorders, runs circular errands. He is the steed and the Thought is the rider (that is, he is under the influence of their guid- ?In the Commentary on the last Stan.ta, the difference is indi cated between the initial Motion and the later form, "Fohat." THE SECRET DOCTRINE 89 ing thought!). He passes like lightning through the fiery clouds (the cosmic mists) ; takes three and five and seven strides (c) through the seven regions above and the seven below (the world to be). He lifts his voice, and calls the innumerable sparks (atoms) and joins them together. (a) This shows the " Primordial Seven " using for their vehicle the Fiery Whirlwind (or Fohat*), the manifested subject which becomes the symbol of the Powers directing it, called in consequence " the messenger of their will." Wisdom becomes Life — the one real (magical) Knowledge, or Occult Wisdom, dealing with eternal truths and primal causes, becomes almost omnipo tence when applied in the right direction. Its an tithesis is that un-wisdom which deals with illusions and false appearances only. Here " Wisdom " is the collective wisdom of the Dhyani-Buddhas (the great Teachers of mankind). There are seven Dhyani-Buddhas, of whom five only have hitherto manifested (one for each Root- Race of mankind), and two are yet to come in the sixth and seventh Root-Races. They are, so to speak, the eternal and divine prototypes of the Buddhas who appear on this earth ; as Mr. Rhys Davids cor rectly states, ' ' they are the glorious counterparts in the mystic world, free from the debasing conditions of this material life " of every earthly mortal Buddha— the appointed governors of the Earth in this Round. They are also called " the Buddhas of Contemplation," and are all self -born of divine es sence. Their synthesis is the Logos. The exoteric teaching which says that every Dhyani-Buddha has the faculty of creating from himself an equally ce- *Fohat, the Spirit of Life, is the Divine Life and Love, the Logos, the potential creative Power, the active creative Power, cosmic Motion, cosmic Electricity, etc., according to the plane upon which it acts, and the sense in which we use the term. — Editor. 90 THE SECRET DOCTRINE lestial Son (a Bodhisattva), who after the death of the human Buddha has to carry out his work, rests on the fact that with the highest initiation per formed by one "overshadowed by "the Spirit of Buddha," a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhi sattva, created such by the High Initiator. (b) Fohat being one of the most, if not the most important character in esoteric cosmogony, should be minutely described. As in the oldest Grecian cosmogony (which differs widely from the later mythology), Eros is the third person in the primeval trinity, Chaos, Gaea, Eros ; so Fohat is one thing in the unmanifested Universe and another in the phenomenal and cosmic world. In the manifested Universe he is that occult, electric, vital power which under the will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse which in time becomes law. But in the un manifested Universe Fohat is an abstract philo sophical idea, since Kosmos is not yet born, and the gods still sleep in the bosom of" Father-Mother." He is simply that potential creative power in virtue of whose action the Noumenon of all future phe nomena divides, so to speak, but to reunite and emit the creative Ray. When ' ' the Divine Son ' ' breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power which causes the One to become Two and Three — on the cosmic plane of manifestation. The triple One differentiates into the many, and then Fohat is transformed into that Force which brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine. We find an echo of this primeval teaching in early Greek mythology. Ere bus and Nox are born out of Chaos, and under the action of Eros give birth in their turn to ^Ether and Hemera,the light of the superior and the light of the inferior terrestrial regions. Darkness generates light. See in the Pur anas Brahma's " desire " to THE SECRET DOCTRINE 91 create, and in the Phoenician cosmogony the doctrine that Desire (pothos) is the principle of creation. Fohat is closely related to the " One Life." From the Unknown One, the Infinite Totality, the manifested One or the periodical cyclic Deity, eman ates; and this is the Universal Mind, which, sepa rated from its Fountain-Source, is the Demiurgos or creative Logos of the Western Kabalists, and the four-faced Brahma of the Hindu religion. In its totality, viewed from the standpoint of Manifested Divine Thought in the esoteric doctrine, it repre sents the Hosts of the higher Creative Powers. Sim ultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom manifests itself as the Logos. By the action of this manifested wisdom, represented as these innumerable centres of spir itual energy in the Kosmos, the reflection of the Universal Mind (which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force accompanying such Ideation) be comes, objectively, the Fohat of the esoteric philos opher. Fohat, running along the seven principles of Akasa (or .ZEther), acts upon manifested Substance, or the One Element, and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the idea tion of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the solar system. Fohat, then, is the personified, electric, vital power, the transcendent binding Unity of all cosmic energies, on the unseen as on the manifested planes, the action of which resembles (on an immense scale) that of a living Force created by Will. Fohat is not only the living symbol and container of that Force, but is looked upon by Occultists as an Entity — the forces he acts through being cosmic, human, and terrestrial, exercising their influence on all those planes respectively. On the earthly plane his in fluence is felt in the active magnetic force generated 92 THE SECRET DOCTRINE by the will of the magnetizer. On the cosmic, it is present in the constructive power that carries out in the formation of things — from the planetary sys tem down to the glowworm or the daisy — the plan in the Divine Thought for the growth and develop ment of that special thing. Fohat is, metaphysically, the objectivised Thought of the Gods; the " Word made flesh " on a lower scale, and the messenger of cosmic and human ideas ; the active force in Univer sal Life. In his secondary aspect Fohat is the solar energy, the electric vital fluid, and the preserving fourth principle, the animal soul of Nature, so to speak, or Electricity.* In India Fohat is connected with Vishnu. The name Vishnu is from the root vish to pervade, and Fohat is called " the Per- vader," and " the Artificer " because he shapes the atoms from crude material. In the Rig Veda, Vishnu also is " a manifestation of the Solar energy," and he is described as taking three strides through the seven regions of the Universe, the Vedic god having little in common with the Vishnu of later times. (c) The "three and seven" strides refer not only to the seven regions of the Earth, but also to the seven Spheres of the esoteric teaching, inhabited by man, and these seven spheres or worlds of our plane tary chain are distinctly referred to in the exoteric Hindu scriptures. The three strides of Vishnu in the Rig Veda have been variously explained as meaning fire, lightning and the sun, cosmically ; and as having been taken in the Earth, the atmosphere, and the sky; also, as being, in the astronomical sense, the three positions of the sun, rising, noon and setting. The Zohar laid it down very compre hensively. It is said there that in the beginning ?Electricity is "immaterial" in the sense that its molecules are not subject to perception and experiment, but it is atomic, and therefore matter, as much as Ether is matter. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 93 the Elohim were called "Echod," one, or "the Deity one in many." Then came the change, "Jehovah is Elohim," thus unifying the multiplicity. Next, to the query, "How is Jehovah Elohim?" the an swer is, "By three steps from below." The mean ing is plain. They are all symbols, and emblematic of Spirit, Soul and Body (Man) ; of the circle trans formed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its Body (Earth). And from Man, or Jah-Heva, " male-female," the inner divine entity becomes once more on the metaphysical plane, the Elohim. The three strides relate metaphysically to the de scent of Spirit into Matter, of the Logos falling as a Ray into the Spirit, then into the Soul, and finally into the human physical form of man, in which it becomes Life. STANZA V.— Continued 3. He is their (the Sparks' or Atoms') guiding Spirit and Leader. When he begins work, he .sepa rates the sparks of the lower kingdom (the mineral atoms) that float and thrill with joy in their radiant dwellings (gaseous clouds) and forms therewith the germs of Wheels (a). He places them in the six directions of Space (b) and one in the middle — the Central Wheel. (a) " Wheels," as already explained, are centres of force, around which primordial cosmic matter expands, and passing through all the six stages of consolidation, becomes spheroidal, and ends by being transformed into globes or spheres. It is one of the fundamental dogmas of Esoteric Cosmogony, that during the aeons of life, Motion (which even during the periods of rest pulsates through every slumbering atom) has an ever-increasing tendency from the first awakening of Kosmos to a new 94 THE SECRET DOCTRINE " Day," to a circular movement. " The Deity be comes a Whirlwind."* It may be asked, as the writer has not failed to ask: " Who is there to as certain the difference in that motion, since all Na ture is reduced to its primal essence, and there can be no one to see it? " The answer is: " Everything in Nature has to be judged by analogy. Though the highest deities are unable to penetrate mysteries so far beyond our planetary system and the visible Cos mos, yet there were great seers in olden times who were enabled to perceive the mystery of Breath and Motion retrospectively, when the systems of worlds were at rest, and plunged in their periodic sleep." This law of vortical movement in primordial mat ter is one of the oldest conceptions in Greek philos ophy, whose first historical Sagas were nearly all Initiates of the Mysteries. The Greeks had it from the Egyptians, and the latteT from the Chaldeans, who had been the pupils of Brahmins of the Esoteric School. Leucippus, and Democritus of Abdera — the pupil of the Magi — taught that this gyratory move ment of the atoms and spheres existed from eternity. The heliocentric theory was taught by Pythagoras 500 b. c, while the theory of the elemental vortices was maintained by Anaxagoras nearly 2,000 years before it was taken up by Galileo and Descartes, and finally, with some slight modifications, by Sir Wm. Thomson. (See his Vortical Atoms.) (b) By " the six directions of Space " is here meant the ' ' Double Triangle, ' ' s-x the junction and blending together of pure Spirit and Matter, the Formless and the Forms, of which the interlaced Triangles are a symbol. The Double Triangle is a sign of Vishnu, as it is Solomon's seal, and the Tri- Antara (inner glory) of the Brahmins. ?Eternal vibration in the Unmanifested changes to vortical motion in the manifested. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 95 STANZA V.— Continued 4. Fohat traces spiral lines (a) to unite the sixth to the seventh — the Crown ; an army of the Sons of Light stands at each angle (b), and the Recorders in the middle wheel. They (the Recorders) say, " This is good." The first Divine World (d) is ready, the first (is now) the second (c) (world). Then the formless Universe of Thought reflects it self in the shadowy world of primal form, or the intellectual, the first garment of the Parentless. (See Com. on Stanza I. b.) (a) This " tracing of spiral lines " refers to the evolution of man's as well as nature's principles; an evolution which takes place gradually, like every thing else in nature. The Divine Soul in man, though a mere breath in our conception of it, is still some thing material when compared with Divine " Spirit," of which it is the vehicle. Fohat, as Divine Love (Eros) the electric power of affinity, is shown allegorically as trying to bring the pure Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the One absolute, into union with the Soul, the two constituting in Man the Monad, and in Nature the first link between the ever-unconditioned and the manifested. " The first is now the second world " (of the Recorders *) has reference to the same thing. (b) " The Army at each angle " is the Host of angelic Beings appointed to guide and watch over each region from the beginning to the end of the cycle. They are the " Mystic Watchers " of the Christian Kabalists and Alchemists, and relate, sym bolically as well as cosmogonically, to the numerical system of the Universe. The numbers with which these celestial Beings are connected are extremely ?In one sense "the Recorders" stand for conscience and memory, the result of the union of Spirit and Soul, or Mind. — Editor. 96 THE SECRET DOCTRINE difficult to explain, as each number refers to several groups of distinct ideas. (c) " The First is the Second," because the " First " cannot really be numbered, as that is the realm of noumena in its primary manifestation : the threshold to the World of Truth, through which the direct energy radiating from the One Reality reaches us. " This World of Truth " can be de scribed only in the words of the Commentary, as " A bright star dropped from the heart of Eternity; the beacon of hope on whose seven Rays hang the seven worlds of Being." First, this septenary Light; then: (d) " The Divine World," the countless lights lit at the primeval Light — the formless Divine Souls of the last formless world; the " Sum Total " in the mysterious language of the old Stanza. In the eso teric Catechism the Master is made to ask the pupil : " Lift thy head, 0 Pupil; dost thou see one or countless lights above thee, burning in the dark mid night sky? " ' ' I sense one flame, 0 Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks shining in it." " Thou sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light which burns inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the light that shines in thy brother-men? " "It is in no way different, though the prisoner (the soul) is held in bondage by Karma, and though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying: ' Thy soul and my soul.' " The radical unity of the ultimate essence of every thing in Nature — from star to mineral atom, from the highest Archangel to the smallest infusoria, whether applied to the spiritual, intellectual or phys ical worlds — is the one fundamental law in Occult science. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 97 STANZA V.— Continued 5. Fohat takes five strides (having already taken. the first three) (a), and builds a winged Wheel at each corner of the Square for the four Holy Ones . . . and their armies (b). (a) The " strides," as already explained, refer to both the cosmic and human principles. From a cosmic point of view, " Fohat taking five strides " refers here to the five upper planes of Consciousness and Being, the sixth and seventh counting down wards being the astral and terrestrial, the two lower planes. (The " three strides already taken," refers to the metaphysical descent of Spirit into matter, forming the spirit, soul and body of man. See Stanza V., 2.) In the esoteric division into seven princi ples, we have three rays of the Essence and their four aspects, the body, its life or vitality, and its astral double (the triad which disappears with death), and the animal soul which disintegrates more or less slowly after death. (b) " The winged wheel at each corner for the four Holy Ones and their hosts." The four Holy Ones are the Regents or Angels, who rule over the Cosmic Forces of the four cardinal points, north, south, east and west, these Forces having each a dis tinct occult property. These Beings are also con nected with Karma, which needs physical and ma terial agents to carry out its decrees, such as the four winds, admitted by science to have their good or evil influences upon the health of mankind and of every living thing. There is occult philosophy in that Roman Catholic doctrine which traces public calamities, such as wars and epidemics, etc., to the invisible " Messengers " from North and West. And St. Ambrose, commenting upon Amos, ch. iv., 98 THE SECRET DOCTRINE declares that it is precisely for that reason that " we curse the North-wind, and during the ceremony of baptism we begin by turning towards the West • (Sidereal) the better to renounce him who inhabits it; after which we turn to the East." For the Church there are two kinds of Sidereal beings, Angels and Devils ; for the Kabalist and Occultist, but one. It is not the Angel who punishes and re wards, with or without God's order, but man him self, whose deeds attract individually and collectively (as in the case of whole nations) every kind of evil and calamity. We produce Causes, and these awaken the corresponding powers in the sidereal world, which are irresistibly attracted to react upon those who produced those causes, whether such per sons are actually evil-doers or simply thinkers who brood mischief. For every thought, in addition to its physical accompaniment of molecular changes in the gray matter of the brain, exhibits an objective (though to us supersensuously objective) aspect on the astral plane. In both the Egyptian and the Hebrew temples, the curtain which separated the congregation from the tabernacle was drawn over five pillars (the Pen- tacle), symbolizing esoterically the five senses and the five Root-Races, while the four colors of the cur tain represented the four cardinal points and the four terrestrial elements. The whole was an alle gory, meaning that through the four high Rulers over the four points and elements, our senses may become cognizant of the hidden truths of Nature, and not as Clemens would have it, that the elements per se furnished the Pagans with divine knowledge. The idea may be traced also in the Zoroastrian caves, and in the rock-cut temples of India, as in all the sacred square buildings that have survived to this day. Layard finds the four cardinal points and the four primitive elements in the religious symbol- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 99 ism _ of every country, under the shape of square obelisks, four-sided pyramids, etc. The four Celestial Beings or Cosmic Angels are identical with " the four living creatures — in the likeness of a man," of Ezekiel's vision. They are the protectors of mankind and the agents of Karma on earth, whereas the Recorders are concerned with man's hereafter. There are three chief groups of the Builders, and as many of the Planetary Spirits, each group being again divided into seven sub-groups. The " Build ers " are the representatives of the first " Mind- born " entities, therefore of the primeval creative Powers. They build, or rather rebuild, every Cos mos after the " Night." The second group is the Architect of our planetary chain exclusively, and the third is the progenitor of our Humanity — the macrocosmic prototype of the microcosm. The Planetary Spirits are the informing Spirits of the stars in general, and of the planets in par ticular. They rule the destinies of men, who are all born under some one of the constellations. The Recorders (who have already been described in the Commentary on Stanza TV. 6) are the Spirits of the Universe, whereas the Builders are only our own planetary deities. The former belong to the most occult portion of Cosmogenesis, which cannot be given here. Of the highest grade of the Order only one thing is taught, that they are the direct Recorders of Karma. The symbol for sacred and secret knowledge was universally in antiquity a Tree, by which a scripture or a record was also meant. Hence the word Lipika, the " writers " or " recorders "; the Trees of Knowledge, guarded by dragons or serpents, symbols of wisdom; the Tree with golden apples of the Hesperides ; and the Trees of Mount Meru, guarded by a serpent. Juno giving to Jupiter on her marriage with him a Tree with 100 THE SECRET DOCTRINE golden fruit is another form of Eve offering Adam the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. (See Book II. X.) STANZA V.— Continued 6. The Recorders circumscribe the triangle, the first one (the vertical line, or I.), the cube or second one, and the pentacle within the Egg (circle). It is the ring called " Pass Not," (a) for those who de scend and ascend (as also for those) who, during the Cycle of Life, are progressing toward the Great Day " Be with Us." (b) . . . Thus were formed the Formless World and the World of Forms ; from one Light seven Lights ; from each of the seven, seven times seven Lights (c). The " Wheels " watch the Ring. The Stanza proceeds with a minute classification of the Orders of Angelic Hierarchies, dividing and subdividing until the mind is lost in this endless enumeration of celestial Beings, each having its dis tinct task in the ruling of the visible Kosmos during its existence. (a) The esoteric meaning of this sentence is, that those who have been called the Recorders of the Karmic ledger make an impassable barrier between the personal Ego and the impersonal Self, the Nou menon and parent Source of the Ego. Hence the allegory. They circumscribe the manifested world of matter within the Ring " Pass-Not." This world is the objective symbol of the One divided into the many on the planes of illusion, and this One is the totality of the principal Creators or Architects of this visible universe. For in Occult metaphysics there are, properly speaking, two " Ones " — the One on the unreachable plane of Absoluteness and Infinity, upon which no speculation is possible, and the second " One," on the plane of emanations. The former can neither emanate nor be divided, as it is THE SECRET DOCTRINE 101 eternal, absolute and immutable. The second, being, so to speak, the reflection of the first One, for it is the Logos in the universe of illusion, can do both. It emanates from itself the seven Rays, or Creative Powers; or, in other words, the homogeneous be comes the heterogeneous, the " protyle " differen tiates into the elements. But these, unless they re turn into their primal element, can never cross be yond the neutral centre, or zero-point, of force. The chemist goes to the zero-point of the plane of matter with which he deals, and then stops short. The physicist or the astronomer counts by billions of miles beyond the nebulae, and then he also stops short; the semi-initiated occultist will represent this point to himself as existing on some plane which, if not physical, is still conceivable to the human intel lect. But the full Initiate knows that " the ring Pass-Not " is neither a locality nor can it be meas ured by distance, but that it exists in the absolute ness of Infinity, wherein there is neither height, breadth, nor thickness, but all is fathomless pro fundity. Hence the allegory. The Recorders separate the world (or plane) of pure Spirit from that of mat ter. Those who " descend and ascend," the incar nating Monads, and men still striving towards puri fication, may cross the circle of the " Pass-Not " only on the day ' ' Be-With-Us " ; the day when man, freeing himself from the trammels of ignorance, recognizes fully the non-separateness of the Ego erroneously regarded as his own from the Universal Ego, and merges thereby into the One Essence, to become, not only one " with us " (the manifested universal lives which are One Life), but that very Life itself. The refusal to admit in the whole solar system of the existence of any other reasonable and intellect ual beings on the human plane, except ourselves, is 102 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the greatest conceit of our age. All that science has a right to affirm is that there are no invisible Intel ligences living under the same conditions as men. It cannot deny the possibility of there being worlds within worlds, under totally different conditions from our own ; nor can it deny that there may be a certain limited communication between some of those worlds and ours. To the highest, we are taught, belong the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do communicate with their progeny of the Earth, a progeny indissolubly linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the na ture of those great Beings. The philosopher Kant says (in his Trdume eines Geistersehers) , " It will hereafter be proved, I know not when or where, that the human soul stands even in this life in indissolu ble connection with all immaterial natures in the spirit-world, that it reciprocally acts upon these and receives impressions from them." (b) The " Great Day of Be-With-Us " is equiva lent to the Egyptian " Day of Come-To-Us," and the sorely materialized Day of Judgment of the Christians. Just as the Square is the symbol of the Four Sacred Powers, so the Circle shows the boun dary within the Infinity that none can cross till the day of their approach to the period of rest. If they reach it, they will rest in the bosom of the " Un known Darkness " (which shall then become for them Light), during the whole of " the Great Night," a period of 311,040,000,000,000 years. The Monad, born of the very nature and essence of the Seven (its highest principle becoming immediately enshrined in the seventh Cosmic Element), has to perform its septenary gyration through the cycle of being and forms, from the highest to the lowest ; and then again from man to God. At the threshold of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 103 Eternal Rest it reassumes its primeval Essence, and becomes the Absolute once more. (c) " Fire," says the Esoteric teaching, " is the most perfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on Earth, of the One Flame. It is Life and Death, the origin and end of every material thing. It is divine ' Substance.' The Rosicrucians, among all the mystics and Kabalists, were those who de fined fire in the most correct way. Procure a six penny lamp, and only keep it supplied with oil, and you will be able to light at its flame the lamps, can dles and fires of the whole globe, without diminish ing that flame." If the Deity is an infinite substance (" the Lord thy God is a consuming fire ") and never consumed, then the Occult teaching should not be held unphilo- sophical when it says : ' ' From One Light, seven lights; from each of the seven, seventy times seven," etc. STANZA VI Commentary 1. By the power of the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge (a) (Kwan-Yin), the "triple" (or mother, wife and daughter) of the Logos (Kwan- Shai-Tin) residing in the Heaven of the Divine Voice (b) (Kwan-Tin-Tien) — Fohat, the breath of their progeny, the Son of the Sons, having called forth from the lower Abyss (chaos) the illusive form of our Universe (Sien-Tchan) and the seven ele ments : 2. The swift and the radiant One produces the seven Laya (neutral) centres (c), against which none will prevail till the Great Day " Be-With-Us "— and seats the Universe on these eternal foundations, surrounding it (Sien-Tchan), with the Elementary Germs (d). 104 ,THE SECRET DOCTRINE This Stanza is translated from the Chinese text, and therefore the names, as the equivalents of the original terms, are preserved. The real esoteric nomenclature cannot be given. It is only in China and Egypt that the female were placed on a par with the male gods. Esotericism ignores both sexes. Its highest Deity is sexless as it is formless, neither Father nor Mother ; and its first manifested beings, celestial and terrestrial alike, become only gradually androgynous and finally separate into distinct sexes. (a) The Mother of Mercy and Knowledge is called " the triple," because in her correlations, metaphys ical and cosmical, she is the Mother, Wife and Daughter of the Logos, just as in the later theologi cal versions she became " the Father, Son and (fe male) Holy Ghost," the Essence, or Energy, of the three. So from the purely occult or cosmical stand point, the Light of the Logos is Fohat, the " Son of the Son," the androgynous energy which manifests in the plane of the objective Universe as the hid den as much as the revealed Electricity — which is Life. (b) Kwan-Tin-Tien means " the melodious heaven of Sound," the abode of Kwan-Yin, or the Divine Voice, literally. This " Voice " is a synonym of the " Word "; Speech as an expression of Thought. The Hindu ' ' Vach, ' ' the female side of Brahma, the Creative Deity, is (as well as all the other god desses) the female Logos, so to speak, the goddess of the active forces in Nature, the Word, Voice or Sound, and Speech. Vach is also called " the melo dious cow who yields us nourishment and suste nance," as Mother Nature. And she is a form of the highest principle of iEther, the synthesis of all the forces in Nature. Thus Vach and Kwan-Yin both stand for the occult potency of Sound in Nature and Ether, which ' ' Voice ' ' calls forth the illusive form THE SECRET DOCTRINE 105 of the Universe out of Chaos and the seven Ele ments. (c) The seven Lay a (or neutral) centres are the seven zero-points, using the term zero in the same sense that chemists do, to indicate a point at which in esotericism the reckoning of differentiation be gins. Lay a (from the Sanskrit) is that point of matter where all differentiation ceases. From these centres begins the differentiation of those elements which enter into the constitution of our solar system. Whether we count the principles in Kosmos and man as seven or only as three, the forces of and in physi cal nature are seven, and it is said that ' ' the capac ity of perception exists in seven different aspects, corresponding to the seven conditions of matter. For just as a human being is composed of seven principles, differentiated matter in the solar sys tem exists in seven different conditions." (Subba Row, on the Bhagavadgita.) So does Fohat. He is One and Seven, and on the Cosmic plane is behind all such manifestations as light, heat, sound, cohesion, etc., and is the ' ' spirit ' ' of Electricity, which is the Life of the Universe. As an abstraction, we call it the One Life ; as an ob jective and evident Reality, we speak of a septenary scale of manifestation, which begins at the top with the One Unknowable Causality, and ends as omni present Mind and Life immanent in every atom of matter. Thus while science speaks of evolution through inert matter, blind force and senseless mo tion, the Occultists point to intelligent Law and sen tient Life, and add that Fohat is the guiding Spirit of all this. Yet he is no personal God at all, but the emanation of those other Powers behind him, whom the Christians call " the Messengers " of their God (who is in reality only one of the seven creators called the Elohim), and whom we call " the Messen- 106 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ger of the Primordial Sons of Life and Light." Each world has its Fohat, who is omnipresent in his own sphere of action, therefore there must he many Fohats, whom we consider as conscious and intelligent Forces, as we consider all the forces of Nature as veritable, though supersensuous, states of Matter; and as possible objects of perception to Beings endowed with the requisite senses. (d) The " Elementary Germs " with which Fohat fills the Universe are the " Atoms " of Science and the " Monads " of Leibnitz. STANZA VI.— Continued 3. Of the seven (elements) first one manifested, six concealed ; two manifested, five concealed ; three manifested, four concealed; four produced, three hidden; four and one fraction revealed; two and one-half concealed; six to be manifested — one laid aside (a). Lastly, seven small wheels revolving; one giving birth to the other (b). Although these Stanzas refer to the whole Uni verse after a period of universal destruction, yet this sentence refers also by analogy to the evolution and final formation of the primitive (though com pound) Seven Elements on our Earth. Of these, four elements are now fully manifested, while the fifth — Ether — is only partially so, as we are barely within the second half of the Fourth Round, and the fifth Element can only manifest fully in the Fifth Round. The Worlds, including our own, were pri marily evolved as germs from the One Element in its second stage (Father-Mother, the differentiated Soul of the World) , whether we call it with modern Science, Cosmic dust and fire-mist, or with Occult ism, Akasa, divine Astral Light, or the Soul of the World (which is not Emerson's " Over-soul "). But this first stage of evolution was in due time followed THE SECRET DOCTRINE 107 by the second. No world, as no heavenly body, could be constructed on the objective plane, had not the Elements been sufficiently differentiated already from their primeval condition. It has been made the reproach of the ancients that " they supposed their Elements to be simple and undecomposable." But had they been ignorant of the heterogeneity of their elements, they would not have personified them, their Cosmic gods and goddesses would never have been blessed with so many sons and daughters, ele ments born from and within each respective Ele ment. But differentiated as these elements were in the beginning, still they were not the compound bodies known to the science of to-day. Neither Water, Air nor Earth (a synonym for solids gener ally) existed in their present form, for all these are already recombined by the atmospheres of globes completely formed — even to fire — so that in the first periods of the earth's formation they were quite sui generis. Now that the conditions and laws rul ing our solar system are fully developed, and that the atmosphere of our earth as of every other globe has become itself a crucible, so to speak, occult science teaches that there is a perpetual exchange of molecules, or rather atoms, taking place in space, and thus forming new correlations and combinations on every planet. The essence of cometary matter, for instance, is totally devoid of any of the charac teristics with which science is acquainted, and even that matter, during its rapid passage through our atmosphere, undergoes a certain change in its na ture. Thus not alone the elements of our planet, but even those of all its sisters in the solar system, dif fer as widely from each other in their combinations as from the Cosmic elements beyond our Solar lim its. Once caught in the atmosphere of this or any other planet, the atom is lost, its pristine purity is gone forever, unless it is led into ' ' a current of Ef- 108 THE SECRET DOCTRINE flux " (an occult term, meaning quite a different process from that which the word generally im plies) ; when it may be carried once more not into Space above, but into Space within, to be brought into a state of differential equilibrium and happily reabsorbed. ' ' The Breath of the Father-Mother is sues cold and radiant and gets hot and corrupt, to cool once more, and be purified in the eternal bosom of inner Space," says the Commentary. Man ab sorbs cold pure air on the mountain-top, and throws it out impure, hot and transformed. Thus the higher atmosphere being the mouth and the lower one the lungs of every globe, the man of our planet breathes only the refuse of " Mother," therefore "he is doomed to die on it." But he who would allotropize sluggish oxygen into Ozone to a measure of alchemical activity, reducing it to its pure essence (for which there are means), would discover thereby a substitute for an " Elixir of Life " and prepare it for practical use. (b) The process referred to as " the small wheels giving birth one to the other," takes place on our terrestrial plane, the most material of all in the manifested Kosmos. These seven Wheels are our planetary chain, for although by " Wheels " the various spheres and centres of forces are generally meant, here they refer to our own septenary ring (or world). STANZA VI.— Continued 4. He builds them in the likeness of older Wheels (worlds) (a), placing them on the imperishable centres (b). How does Fohat build them? (c). He collects the fiery dust. He makes balls of fire, runs through them and round them, infusing Life thereinto ; then sets them in motion, some one, some the other way. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 109 They are cold — he makes them hot. They are dry — he makes them moist. They shine — he fans and cools them. Thus acts Fohat from one Twilight to the other during seven Eternities. (a) The worlds are built " in the likeness of older Wheels," that is, those that existed in preceding cycles, and passed into " Night," because the Law for the birth, growth and decay of everything in Kosmos, from the Sun to the glowworm in the grass, is One. It is an everlasting growth towards perfec tion with every new cycle, though the Substance — Matter and Forces — are all one and the same. But this Law acts on every planet through minor and varying laws. (b) The " imperishable Laya centres " have a great importance, and their meaning must be fully understood if we would have a clear conception of the Archaic Cosmogony whose theories have now passed into Occultism. At present one thing may be stated. The worlds are built neither upon, nor over, nor in the Laya centres, the zero-point being a condition, not a mathematical point. The Occultists (who do not say — if they would express themselves correctly — that matter, but only the substance or essence of matter, is indestructible and eternal) assert that all the so-called Forces of Nature, far from being modes of motion of material particles, are, in their constitution, the differentiated aspects of that Universal Motion which was dis cussed and explained in the first pages of this vol ume (see Proem). When Fohat is said to produce " seven neutral centres," it means that for creative or formative purposes the Great Law stops (or rather modifies) its perpetual motion on seven invis ible points within the area of the manifested Uni verse. " The Great Breath digs through Space seven holes into Laya to cause them to circumgy- 110 THE SECRET DOCTRINE rate during the cycle of existence." (Occult Cate chism.) We have said that Laya is what science may call the zero-point or line ; the realm of absolute ne gation, the Noumenon of the Seventh State of what we ignorantly call ' ' Force " ; or again the Noume non of Undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which is itself an unreachable and unknowable object to finite perception. A ' ' neutral centre " is, in one aspect, the limiting point of any given set of senses. Imagine two con secutive planes of matter already formed; each of these corresponding to an appropriate set of per ceptive organs. We are forced to admit that between these two planes of matter an incessant circulation takes place ; and if we follow the atoms and mole cules of the lower in their passage upward, they will come to a point where they pass altogether be yond the range of the perceptive faculties of the lower plane. In fact, at that point the matter of the lower plan vanishes from our perception into noth ingness, or rather it passes on to the higher plane. The state of matter corresponding to such a point of transition must certainly possess special and not readily discoverable properties. Such are the " seven neutral centres " then, produced by Fohat, who quickens matter into activity and evolution. (c) " How does Fohat build them? " Bear in mind that Fohat, the Constructive Force of Cosmic Electricity, is said metaphorically to have sprung " from the brain of the Father and the bosom of the Mother," and then to have metamorphosed him self into a male and a female — i. e., into positive and negative electricity; polarity. He has seven sons, who are his brothers; and Fohat is forced to be born whenever any two of his son-brothers indulge in too close contact — whether an embrace or a fight. To avoid this, he binds together and unites those of un like nature, and separates those of similar tempera- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 111 ments. This, of course, relates to electricity gener ated by friction, or contact, and to the law of polar ity, involving attraction between two opposite poles, and repulsion by two of similar polarity. The seven " Sons-brothers," moreover, represent and person ify the seven forms of Cosmic magnetism, whose co operative and active progeny are, among other en ergies, Electricity, Magnetism, Sound, Light, Heat, Cohesion, Motion, etc. Occult science defines ali these as supersensuous effects in their hidden be havior, and as objective phenomena in the world of senses ; the former requiring abnormal faculties to perceive them, the latter only our ordinary physical senses. They all pertain to, and are the emanation of, still more spiritual qualities, not personated by, but belonging to, real and conscious Causes. To at tempt a description of such Entities would be worse than useless. The reader must bear in mind that ac cording to our teaching (which regards this phenom enal Universe as a great Illusion), the nearer a body is to the Unknown Substance, the more it ap proaches reality, as being so much the farther from that Illusion. Men of science may speak of these Forces as generated by matter, or as modes of its motion; Occultism sees in the effects " Elemental " (forces), and in the direct causes producing them, intelligent Divine Workmen. The intimate connec tion of those Elementals (guided by the unerring hand of the Rulers) — their correlation, we might call it, with the elements of pure Matter, results in our terrestrial phenomena of light, heat, magnetism, etc., etc. The " Elementals," the Nature-Forces, are the acting, though imperceptible secondary Causes, and in themselves the effects of primary Causes behind the veil of all terrestrial phenomena. The sensation of light, for instance, may be com pared to the sound of carriage-wheels — a purely phenomenal effect, having no existence outside the 112 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ear that perceives it — the proximate exciting cause of the sensation may be compared to the driver — and is a supersensuous state of matter, a Nature- Force or Elemental. But just as the occupant of the carriage directs the driver from within, so be hind these Nature-Forces stand the higher and noumenal Causes, the Intelligences, from whose es sence radiate these states of " Mother," generating the countless milliards of Elementals or psychic Nature-Spirits, just as every drop of water gener ates its infinitesimal inhabitants. (See " Gods, Mo nads, and Atoms," Part III.) It is Fohat who guides the transfer of the principles from one planet to another, from one star to another child-star. When a plant dies, its informing principles are transferred to a neutral or sleeping centre, with latent but po tential energy in it, which is thus awakened into life, and begins to form itself into a new sidereal body. If no physical intellect is capable of counting the grains of sand covering a few miles of sea-shore, or to fathom the ultimate nature and essence of those grains, how can any materialist limit the laws chang ing the conditions of the atoms in primordial chaos, or know anything certain about the capabilities and potencies of atoms and molecules before and after their formation into worlds? These changeless and eternal molecules may differ in constitution upon their planes of existence, as the soul-substance dif fers from its vehicle the body. Each atom has seven planes of being or existence, we are taught, and each plane is governed by its specific laws of evolution and absorption. Here ends that portion of the Stanzas which re lates to the Universal Cosmogony after the last period of universal destruction. From this verse on, the Stanzas are concerned only with our Solar Sys- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 113 tern in general, with the planetary chains therein in fer entially, and with the history of our globe (the Fourth and its chain) especially. All the Stanzas and verses which follow refer only to evolution on our Earth, and the cosmic periods which separate these verses are of immense duration.* STANZA VI.— Continued 5. At the Fourth (a) (Round, or revolution of life and being around the " seven smaller wheels ") the Sons are told to create their images. One-third re fuses. Two-thirds obey (b). The full meaning of this verse can be fully com prehended only after reading the detailed explana tions in the section on Anthropogenesis. Between this verse and the last extend long ages, and now there gleams the dawn of another aeon. This verse belongs to the general Cosmogony given in the archaic volumes, whereas Book II. will give a de tailed account of the " Creation," or rather the formation, of the first human beings, followed by the second humanity, and then by the third ; or, as they are called, " the first, second and third Root-Races." As the now solid Earth began by being a ball of liquid fire, of fiery dust and its protoplasmic phan tom, so did man. ?A chapter was interpolated here in the original edition of the Secret Doctrine, entitled, "A Few Early Theosophical Misconcep tions Concerning Planets, Rounds, and Man," which it has been thought best to print at the end of this section, other than to in terrupt the course of the Commentary on the Stanzas. Much of it properly belongs to the section on Anthropogenesis. and much of it is more or less controversial. The latter portion will be omitted, the former will be relegated to its proper place, in the hope of making the subjects treated of more clear to the general reader by their greater consecutiveness ; the advanced student can always refer to the original edition, with its embarrassing wealth of material. Meanwhile it is easy to turn to the end of this section for the explanation of "planetary chains," etc. — Editor. 114 THE SECRET DOCTRINE (a) That which is qualified as the " Fourth " can equally mean " Fourth Eternity," or even " Fourth Globe." For, as will be shown repeatedly, our Earth is the fourth sphere, on the fourth or lowest plane of material life. And we are also in the fourth Round, at the middle-point of which the perfect equilibrium between Spirit and Matter had to take place. (b) Says the Commentary explaining this verse: " The holy youths (the gods) refused to multiply and create species after their likeness, after their kind. ' They are not fit forms for us ' (they said), ' they have to grow.' They refuse to enter the shadow of their inferiors. Thus had selfish feeling prevailed from the beginning,' even among the gods, and they fell under the eye of the Karmic Record ers." They had to suffer for it in later births. STANZA VI.— Continued 5. The curse is pronounced (a). They will be born in the fourth (Race), suffer, and cause suffering. This is the first War (b). It is a universal tradition that before the physio logical " Fall," propagation of one's kind, whether human or animal, took place through the Will, of the Creators. It was the Fall of Spirit into genera tion, not the Fall of mortal man. It has already been stated, that to become Self-Conscious the Spirit must pass through every cycle of being, culminating in Man, its highest point on Earth. As the Commentary, broadly rendered, says: " Every form on earth and every atom in Space strives, in its efforts towards self -formation, to fol low the model placed for it in the ' Heavenly Man.' . . . The atom's involution and evolution, its ex ternal and internal growth and development, all have THE SECRET DOCTRINE 115 one and the same object — man ; Man as the highest physical, therefore ultimate, form on this earth ; the Monad, in its absolute totality and awakened condi tion, as the culmination of the divine incarnations on Earth." Spirit, per se, is an unconscious negative abstraction ; its purity is inherent, not acquired by merit; hence, as already shown, to become " a god " it is necessary for each Ego to attain to full self-consciousness as a human being — i. e., Man. (a) " The curse is pronounced " does not mean in this instance that any personal God or superior Being pronounced it, but simply that a cause which must create bad results had been generated, and that the effects of such a Karmic cause could lead only to bad incarnations, and hence to the suffering, of those " Beings " that, counteracted the laws of Nature, and thus impeded her legitimate progress. (b) " This is the first war " refers to several struggles of adjustment, spiritual, cosmical and as tronomical, but chiefly to the mystery of the evolu tion of man as he is now. Powers — pure Essences — that " were told to create," is a sentence relating to a mystery explained, as already said, elsewhere. It is not only one of the most hidden secrets of Nature — that of generation — but likewise a divine function that involves that other religious or rather theological mystery, the " Fall of the Angels," as it is called. Satan and his rebellious host will prove, when the meaning of the allegory is explained, to have refused to create physical man, only to become the direct Saviours and Creators of " Divine Man." The symbolical teaching is more than mystical and religious, it is purely scientific, as will be seen later on. In the Esoteric doctrine one " war " takes place before the building of the solar system; an other on earth at the " creation " of man; and a third is said to have taken place at the close of the 116 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Fourth Race, between the Initiates of the " Sacred Island " and the Sorcerers of Atlantis. (And see comment on the next verse.) STANZA VI.— Continued 6. The older Wheels rotated downward and up ward (a). . . . The Mother's spawn filled the whole Cosmos (solar system). There were battles fought between the Creators and the Destroyers, and battles fought for space; the seed appearing and reappearing continuously (b). (This is purely astronomical.) (a) Here we return once more to Cosmogony. The phrase " older wheels " refers to the globes of our chain (or the conditions of the Earth) as they were during the previous Rounds. The previous " globes " disintegrate and reappear transformed and ready for a new phase of life. (b) " The Seed appears and disappears continu ously." Here seed stands for " the World-germs," viewed by science as material particles in a highly attenuated condition, but in occult physics as " Spir itual particles " — i. e., supersensuous matter in a state of primeval differentiation. In theogony every Seed is an ethereal organism, from which evolves later on a celestial being, a god. As the Occult teaching expresses it : " The Cen tral Sun causes Fohat to collect primordial dust in the form of balls, to impel them to move in con verging lines, and finally to approach each other and aggregate." (Book of Dzyan.) ..." Be ing scattered in space, without order or system, the world-germs come into frequent collision until their final aggregation, after which they become wander ers. (Comets). Then the battles and struggles be gin. The older (bodies) attract the younger, while others repel them. Many, parish, devoured bjr their THE SECRET DOCTRINE 117 stronger companions. Those that escape become worlds." All the old legends of " the Wars in Heaven " of the Puranas, the wars of the Titans, the similar stories in Egyptian and Scandinavian mythologies, etc., relate severally to astronomical, theogonical and human struggles; to the adjustment of worlds and the supremacy between nations and tribes. Born in the unfathomable depths of Space, out of the homogeneous Element called the World-Soul, every nucleus of Cosmic matter suddenly launched into being, begins life under the most hostile circum stances. Through a series of countless ages it has to conquer for itself a place in the infinitudes. Many perish, their mass being perhaps drawn into the in satiable stomach of various suns. (v. Stanza TV. 5.) With all the worlds, the teaching holds that a nu cleus of primordial substances in the undifferen tiated (laya) state is informed by the freed princi ples- of a just deceased sidereal body, and becomes first a Comet and then a Sun, to cool down gradually to an inhabitable world. The strange statement made in one of the (omit ted) Stanzas: " The songs of Fohat and his Sons were radiant as the noontide sun and the moon com bined," and that the four Sons on the middle four fold Circle " saw their father's songs, and heard his solar-selenic radiance," is explained in the Commentary to mean: " The agitations of the elec tric (Fohatic) forces at the two cold ends of the Earth (north and south poles), which result in a multi-colored radiance at night, have in them sev eral of the properties of Ether (Akasa), color and sound as well." ..." Sound is the character istic of Ether (Akasa) ; it generates air, the prop erty of which is Touch; which (by friction) be comes productive of Color and Light." {Vishnu, Pur ana.) , 118 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Perhaps this will be better understood if the reader remember the Aurora Borealis and Aus- tralis, both of which take place at the very centres of terrestrial electric and magnetic forces. The two poles are said to be the store-houses, the re ceptacles and liberators at the same time, of cos mic and terrestrial Vitality (Electricity) ; from the surplus of which the Earth would have been rent to pieces long ago, had it not been for these two nat ural safety-valves. And we know that " the crack ling," etc., of the Northern Lights has often been heard. STANZA VI.— Continued 7. Make thy calculations, O Pupil, if thou wouldst learn the correct age of thy small Wheel (chain). Its fourth spoke (globe) is our Mother (Earth) (a). Reach the fourth " fruit " of the fourth path of Knowledge (b) that leads to Nirvana, and thou shalt comprehend, for thou shalt see. (a) The " small wheel " is our planetary chain, and the " fourth spoke " is our Earth, the fourth " globe " in the chain. It is one of those on which the " hot (positive) breath of the Sun " has a di rect effect. The seven fundamental transformations of the heavenly spheres, or rather of their constitu ent particles of matter, is described as follows : (1) The homogeneous; (2) the aeriform and ra diant (the gaseous); (3) the curd-like (nebulous); (4) the atomic, ethereal (beginning of motion, hence of differentiation) ; (5) the germinal, the fiery (dif ferentiated but composed of the germs only of the Elements in their earliest states, they also having seven states when completely developed on our Earth ; (6) the fourfold, vapory (the future Earth) ; and (7) cold, and dependent (on the Sun for life and light). To calculate the age of the Earth, however, as the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 119 pupil is asked to do, is impossible, since we are not given the time of its birth. (b) There are four grades of initiation mentioned in exoteric works, the ' ' four paths to Nirvana ' ' in this our fourth Round. Three further higher grades have to be conquered by the adept who would reach the apex of the ladder. There are those who have reached it even in this fifth Race of ours, but the faculties necessary for the attainment of these higher grades will be fully developed in the average ascetic only at the end of this Root-Race, and in the Sixth and Seventh Races. Thus there will also be the Initiates and the profane, till the end of this present life-cycle. The Adepts of the " fire-mist " of the seventh rung are but one remove from the Root-Base of their Hierarchy, the highest on earth, and our terrestrial chain. This " Root-Base " has a name which can only be translated by several com pounded words into English — " the ever-living- human-Banyan." This wondrous Being is the Tree from which in subsequent ages all the great histori cally known Sages and Hierophants, such as Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc., have branched off. In the infancy of the Third Race, while yet in its state of purity, the ' ' Sons of Wisdom ' ' who had in carnated therein, produced by will-power a progeny called " the Sons of the Fire-Mist," the " Sons of Will and Yoga " (union), etc., a conscious produc tion, as a portion of the Race was already animated with the divine spark of spiritual intelligence. It was not a Race, this progeny. It was at first the wondrous Being just referred to, called into exist ence, a child of pure Spirit, mentally unalloyed with any tincture of earthly element. He was the living Tree of Divine wisdom. He was the first of the First, and he was the seed of all the others. There were other ' ' Sons of Will and Yoga ' ' produced by a second spiritual effort, but the first one has re- 120 THE SECRET DOCTRINE mained to this day the Seed of Divine Knowledge, the One and the Supreme among the terrestrial " Sons of Wisdom." It is he who holds spiritual sway over the initiated Adepts throughout the whole world (v. Commentary on Stanza VII. 6). It is under the direct, silent guidance of this Great Teacher that all the other less divine teach ers of mankind became, from the first awakening of human consciousness, the guides of early hu manity, and it is they who laid the first foundation- stones of those ancient civilizations that puzzle so sorely our modern archaeologists. STANZA VII Commentary. 1. Behold the beginning of sentient, formless life. First, the divine (vehicle), the one from the Mother-Spirit (Atman) ; then the Spiritual (Atma- Buddhi, the Spirit-Soul; this relates to the Cosmic principles). (Again) the three from the one, the four from the one, and the five, from which the three, the five and the seven — these are the three fold and the fourfold downward; the " Mind-born Sons " of the first Lord (the Logos) the Shining Seven (the Builders, *). It is they who are Thou, I, he, 0 Pupil; they who watch over thee and thy mother the Earth. (a) The hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided into seven (or 4 and 3) within the twelve great Orders, recorded in the twelve signs of the Zodiac; the seven of the manifesting scale being connected, moreover, with the seven planets. They are again subdivided into numberless groups of divine, spir itual, semi-spiritual and ethereal Beings. ?The seven creative Powers, now. connected with the constella tion of the Great Bear. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 121 The highest group is composed of the " divine Flames," so-called, also spoken of as " the Fiery Lions " and " the Lions of Life," whose esotericism is securely hidden in the Zodiacal sign of Leo (Life). This group is the nucleole of the superior Divine world. The Commentary says: " The nucleoles are eternal and everlasting; the nuclei periodical and finite. The nucleoles form part of the Absolute. They are the embrasures of that black, impenetrable fortress, which is forever concealed from human or even angelic sight. The nuclei are the light of eternity escaping therefrom." It is that Light which condenses into the forms of the Lords of Being, the first and highest of which are, collectively, the Logos. From these downwards — formed from the ever-consolidating waves of that light, which becomes, on the objective plane, gross matter, proceed the numerous hierarchies of the Creative Forces, some formless, others having their own distinctive form; others, again, the lowest (Ele mentals), having no form of their own, but assum ing every form according to the surrounding con ditions. (b) According to all the ancient cosmogonies, at this divine Flame, " the One," are lit the three descending groups. Having their potential being in the higher group, they now become distinct and sepa rate Entities. These are called " the Virgins of Life," etc., and collectively the " Six-pointed Star." The latter is the symbol, in almost every religion, of the Logos (life) as the first emanation. The six- pointed Star refers to the six Forces or Powers of Nature, the six planes, principles, etc., all synthe sized in the seventh, or the central point in the Star. In its Unity primordial Light is the seventh or high est principle, the light of the unmanifested Logos, but in its differentiation it becomes Fohat, or the "Seven. Sons." 122 THE SECRET DOCTRINE " The first after ' the One ' is divine Fire," says the Commentary; " the second, Fire and iEther; the third, Fire, vEther and Water ; the fourth, Fire, ./Ether, Water and Air." (These Elements are not our compound elements, v. Stanza VI. 3.) " ' The One ' is not concerned with Man-bearing globes, but with the inner, invisible spheres. The ' First-born ' are the Life, the heart and pulse of the Universe; the Second are its Mind or Consciousness." (This " consciousness " has no relation to our conscious ness.) (c) The second Order of celestial Beings, those of Fire and ^Ether (corresponding to Spirit and Soul), whose names are legion, are still formless, but more definitely " substantial." They are the prototypes of the incarnating Monads, and are com posed of the fiery Spirit of Life. It is through these that passes like a pure solar beam, the Ray which is furnished by them with its future vehicle, the divine Soul (Buddhi). These are directly connected with the Hosts of the higher world of our system. From these twofold Units emanate the threefold. (d) The third Order corresponds to Spirit, Soul and Intellect (Atma-Buddhi-Manas) , and is called " the Triads." (e) The Fourth are substantial Entities. This is the highest group among the Atomic Forms. It is worthy of notice that while rejecting as superstition the theory of substantial but invisible beings, called Angels, Elementals, etc., modern chemistry should have unconsciously been forced, through observa tion and discovery, to adopt the same ratio of pro gression and order in the evolution of chemical atoms as Occultism does both for its angels and its atoms — analogy being its first law. As seen above, an element is added to each angelic group as they descend, the third Order is ternary, the fourth qua ternary, etc. So the atoms, progressing downwards. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 123 are, to adopt the language of chemistry, monatomic, diatomic, tetratomic, etc. Let it be remembered (as stated in paragraph " b ") that the Elements of Fire, Water, Air, etc., here mentioned, are not the compound Elements they are on Earth, but nou- menal, homogeneous Elements — the Spirits thereof. Then follow the septenary groups. In Esoteric philosophy, every physical particle corresponds to and depends on its higher noumenon — the Being to whose essence it belongs; and above as below, the spiritual evolves from the Divine, the psycho-mental from the spiritual — tainted from its lower plane by the astral — the whole of animate and (seemingly) inanimate Nature evolving on parallel lines, and drawing its attributes from above as well as from below. The fourth Order is the nursery of the human, conscious, spiritual Souls. They are called " the Im perishable Jivas " (or units of life), and constitute through the order below their own, the first group of the first septenary host — the great mystery of human, conscious, and intellectual being. For the latter are the field wherein lies (concealed in its privation) the germ that will fall into generation. That germ will become the spiritual potency in the physical cell that guides the development of the embryo, and which is the cause of the hereditary transmission of faculties and all the inherent quali ties in man. Evolution, in Occultism, proceeds on quite other lines than the Darwinian ; the physical, according to esoteric teaching, evolving gradually from the spiritual, mental and psychic. This inner soul of the physical cell — this " spiritual plasm " that dominates the germinal plasm — is the key that must open some day the gates of the terra incognita of the biologist, now called the dark mystery of em bryology (v. next section). (f) The fifth Group is a very mysterious one, as 124 THE SECRET DOCTRINE it is connected with the five-pointed star represent ing man. This order of celestial Beings is supposed to contain in itself the dual attributes of both the spiritual and physical aspects of the Universe; the two poles, so to speak, of the Universal Intelligence, and of the dual nature of man, the spiritual and the physical. (This subject will be treated of more fully later on.) (g) The sixth and seventh Groups partake of the lower qualities of the Quaternary. They are con scious, ethereal Entities, as invisible as ether, which spring like the boughs of a tree from the first cen tral group of the four, and shoot out in their turn numberless side groups, the lower of which are the Nature-Spirits or Elementals of countless kinds and varieties; from the formless and unsubstantial — the ideal thoughts of their creators- — down to the Atomic (though to us) invisible organisms. The latter are considered as the " Spirits of Atoms," for they are the first remove (backwards) from the physical Atom — sentient, if not intelligent creatures. They are all subject to Karma, and have to work it out through every cycle. For there are no such privileged beings in the universe as the angels of the western religion. Gods, created as such, would evince no personal merit in being gods. Such a class of beings, perfect only by virtue of the special immaculate nature inherent in them, in the face of suffering and struggling humanity and even of the lower creation, would be the symbol of an eternal injustice, an ever-present crime. It would be an anomaly and an impossibility in Nature. Therefore " the Four " and " the Three " have to incarnate like all other beings. This sixth Group, moreover, remains almost inseparable from man, who draws from it his mental and psychic principles, all, in fact, but his spirit and his body. These are the Guardian Angels of the Christians, the " Ances- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 125 tors " of the Occultist, they are the sixfold Intelli gent Powers — in fact, men, minus the physical body. It is the Divine Ray alone that proceeds directly from " the One." When asked how is it that these " gods " or angels can be at the same time their own emanations -and their personal selves, it is in the same sense as in the material world, where the son is (in one way) his father, being his blood, the bone of his bone, and the flesh of his flesh — the teachers answer, " Verily, it is so." But one has to go deep into the mystery of Being before one can fully comprehend this truth. STANZA VII.— Continued 2. The one Ray multiplies the smaller Rays. Life precedes Form, and Life survives the last atom (of Form, external body). Through the countless rays, the Life-ray, the One proceeds, like a thread through many beads. This verse expresses the conception of a life- thread running through successive generations. How can this be explained? Complete the physical plasm (mentioned in (e) of the last verse), the ger minal cell of man with all its material potentialities, with the " spiritual plasm," so to speak, or the fluid that contains the five lower principles of the six fold " Angel," and you have the secret, if you are spiritual enough to understand it. " When the seed of the animal man is cast into the soil of the animal woman, that seed cannot ger minate unless it has been fructified by the five vir tues (or the emanation from the principles) of the sixfold Heavenly Man. Wherefore the Microcosm is represented as a Pentagon within the Hexagon star, the Macrocosm." (Anthropos, Book I. An Occult work on Embryology.) Then: " The func- 126 THE SECRET DOCTRINE tions of the Universal Life on this Earth are of a fivefold character. In the mineral atom it is con nected with the lowest principle of the Spirits of the Earth (the sixfold Spirits) ; in the vegetable par ticle with their second — prana (or individual life) — in the animal with both these, plus the third and fourth (the astral body and the emotional nature) ; in man, the germ must receive the fruition of all the five." (The fifth being Mind, or the Intellectual Soul.) " Otherwise he will be born no higher than an animal," namely, a congenital idiot. Thus in man alone is the Unit of Life complete. As to his seventh principle, Atma (or the Divine Ray), it is but one ray of the Universal Sun. Each rational creature receives but the temporary loan of that which has to return to its source, while the physical body is shaped by the lowest terrestrial lives, through physical, chemical and physiological evolu tion. " The Blessed Ones have nought to do with the purgations of matter." (Chaldean Book of Numbers.) It comes to this : Mankind in its first prototypal, shadowy form is the offspring of the Elohim of Life ; in its physical aspect it is the direct progeny of " the Ancestors," the lowest Spirits of the Earth; for its moral, psychic and spiritual nature it is indebted to a group of divine Beings, whose name and characteristics will be given hereafter. During its childhood, mankind was composed wholly of that Angelic Host who were the indwelling Spirits animating the monstrous tabernacles of clay of the fourth Race — built by and composed of countless myriads of lives, as indeed our bodies are now. The " tabernacles " have improved in texture and sym metry of form, growing and developing with the globe that bore them ; but the physical improvement took place at the expense of the spiritual inner man and nature. The three middle principles in earth THE SECRET DOCTRINE 127 and man became with every race more material, the Soul stepping back to make room for the physical intellect; the essence of elements becoming the ma terial and composite elements now known. Man is, beyond any doubt, formed physically out of the dust of the earth, but his creators and fashioners were many. STANZA VII.— Continued 3. When the One becomes two — the threefold ap pears (a). The three are (linked into) one; and it is our thread, O pupil, the heart of the man-plant called Saptaparna (the seven-leafed) (b). (a) " When the One becomes two, the threefold appears ; ' ' that is, when the One Eternal drops its reflection into the region of manifestation, that re flection, " the Ray," differentiates the Waters of Space. Chaos becomes male-female, and Water, and incubated through Light, the " threefold Being is sues as its First-born." This is the metaphysical explanation, and refers to the very beginning of Theogony. The meaning of the Stanza when explained in its reference to the mystery of man and his origin is still more difficult to comprehend. In order to form a clear conception of what is meant by " the One becoming two," etc., the student must make himself thoroughly familiar with the subject of " Rounds." When evolution has run downward into matter through the whole cycle of seven " globes " (or conditions of being) on our Earth, that is one Round (see Diagram). In the middle of the fourth revolution, which is our present Round, " Evolution has reached its acme of physi cal development, crowned its work with the perfect physical man, and from this point begins its work spirit- ward." (Esoteric Buddhism.) Now every Round, on the descending scale (and 128 THE SECRET DOCTRINE every ' ' globe, ' ' down to our fourth sphere, the pres ent Earth), is a grosser and more material copy of the preceding Round or sphere. On the ascending arc, evolution spiritualizes and etherealizes, so to speak, the general nature of each, bringing it to a level with the twin-globe on the opposite side of the same plane; so that when the seventh stage is reached (in whatever Round) the nature of every thing in process of evolution returns to its first (spiritual) condition, plus each time a higher degree of consciousness. Therefore, the " origin of man," so-called, in this Round or life-cycle, must occupy the same place in the same order (save details based on local conditions and time) as in the preceding Round. And as the work of each Round is said to be apportioned to a different group of so-called " Creators " and " Architects," so is that of every "globe"; i. e., it is under the supervision and guidance of special " Builders " and " Watchers." The group of the hierarchy which is commissioned to evolve man is a special group then ; yet it evolved shadowy man in this cycle just as a higher and still more spiritual group evolved him in the third Round. But as it is the sixth on the downward scale of spirituality, this group evolves no more than the future man's shadowy form, a filmy, hardly visible, transparent copy of themselves. The seventh and last group are the terrestrial Spirits (Elementals), which gradually form, build and condense his physi cal body. It becomes the task of the fifth Hierarchy — the mysterious beings that preside over the con stellation Capricornus, Makara or " Crocodile " in India as in Egypt — to inform the empty and ethe real animal form, and make of it the Rational Man. This is one of those subjects upon which very little may be said to the general public. It is a Mystery truly, but only to him who is pre pared to reject the existence of intellectual and con- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 129 scious spiritual Beings in the Universe, attributing full Consciousness to man alone, and in him con sidering it only as " a function of the brain. ' ' Many are there among the Spiritual Entities who have in carnated bodily in man, since the beginning of his appearance in this cycle, and who, for all that, still exist as independently as they did before in the infinitudes of Space. To put it more clearly: the invisible Entity may be bodily present on earth without abandoning, how ever, its status and functions in the supersensuous regions. Just as certain persons, whether by virtue of a peculiar organization or through the power of acquired mystic knowledge, can be seen in their " double " in one place while their body is miles away in another; so the same thing (on a higher plane) may occur in the case of superior Beings. The soul, whose bodily vehicle is the astral, ethero- substantial envelope, could die, and the man still live on earth. Therefore, that which living men (Initi ates) can do, the spiritual Beings, who have no physical body to hamper them, can do still better. (b) The concluding sentence of this verse shows how ancient is the doctrine that man's constitution is sevenfold. The " man-plant called Saptaparna " of course refers to the seven principles of his nature. For further details see the sections on Saptaparna, the Septenary in the Vedas, etc. STANZA VII.— Continued 4. It is the root that never dies, the three-tongued flame of the four wicks (a). . . . The wicks are the sparks, that draw from the three-tongued flame (their upper triad) shot out by the Seven, their flame ; the beams and sparks of one moon reflected in the running waves of all the rivers of the Earth. (a) The " three-tongued flame that never dies " 130 THE SECRET DOCTRINE is the immortal spiritual triad (in the septenary di vision of man), Spirit, Spiritual Soul and Mind, the fruition of the last assimilated by the first two after every terrestrial life. (That is, the self-conscious experiences of the Ego become part of his immortal soul.) The " four wicks " that go out and are ex tinguished are the four lower principles, the animal soul (or passional nature), the life-principle, the astral and the physical body. (b) Just as milliards of bright sparks dance on the waters of the ocean above which the one moon is shining, so our evanescent personalities — the illu sive envelopes of the immortal Monad-Ego — dance on the waves of illusion. They appear and remain, like the sparks produced by the moonbeams, only while the Queen of Night radiates her lustre on the running waters of life — the period of a life-cycle; and then they disappear; the moonbeams them selves, the symbols of our eternal Spiritual Egos, alone surviving, reimmerged in, and, as they were before, one with the Mother-Source. STANZA VII.— Continued 5. The spark (the Monad) hangs from the flame by the finest thread of Fohat (Life). It journeys through the seven worlds of Illusion (a). It stops in the first (Kingdom), and is a metal and a stone; it passes into the second, and, behold, a plant; the plant whirls through seven forms and becomes a sacred animal (the first shadow of the physical Man) (b). From the combined attributes of these, Man the thinker is formed. Who forms him? The seven lives, and the One Life. Who completes him? The fivefold Spirits. And who perfects the last body? Fish, Sin and Soma (the Moon). THE SECRET DOCTRINE 131 (a) The phrase " through the seven worlds of Hlusion " refers here to the seven " globes " of the planetary chain, and the seven Rounds, or the 49 stages of active existence that are before the ' ' spark ' ' or Monad, at the beginning of every great life-cycle. The " thread of Fohat " is the life-thread, the " spiritual plasm " referred to in Stanza VII., 2, upon which the lives are strung like beads. This relates to the greatest problem of philos ophy, the physical and substantial nature of life, which is denied by modern science. The believers in Karma and reincarnation alone dimly perceive that the whole secret of Life is in the unbroken seriei3 of its manifestations, whether in or apart from the physical body. What is that " spark " which " hangs from the flame ? " It is the Monad in conjunction with Mind, or rather its aroma — that which remains from each personality when worthy to persist, and hangs from the spiritual Soul, the Flame, by the thread of life. In whatever way interpreted, and into whatever number of principles the human being is divided, it may be easily shown that this doctrine is supported by all the ancient religions, from the Vedic to the Egyptian, from the Zoroastrian to the Jewish. (b) The well-known Kabalistic maxim runs : "A stone becomes a plant; a plant a beast; the beast a man ; a man a spirit, and the spirit a god. ' ' The " spark " animates all the kingdoms in turn (as the monadic Essence, not the individual Monad) be fore it enters into and informs divine man, between whom and his predecessor, animal man, there is all the difference in the world. Genesis begins its an thropology at the wrong end, and lands nowhere. The introductory chapters of Genesis were never meant to represent even a remote allegory of the creation of our earth. They embrace a metaphysical conception of some indefinite period in eternity, 132 THE SECRET DOCTRINE when successive attempts were being made by the law of evolution at the formation of worlds. On our nascent globe things proceed differently. The Mo nad, or unit of Life, is first of all shot down by the law of evolution into the lowest form of matter, the mineral. After a sevenfold gyration in the stone (or rather in that which will become metal and stone in the Fourth Round), it creeps out of it — say as a lichen. Passing thence through all the other grades of vegetable matter, into what is termed animal matter, it has now reached the point at which it has become the germ, so to speak, of the animal that will become physical man. All this, up to the third Round, is formless as matter and senseless as mind. For the Monad, or unit of life per se cannot even be called spirit ; it is a ray, a breath, of the Absolute. or the Absoluteness rather, and the Absolute Ho mogeneity, having no relations with conditioned and relative finiteness, is unconscious on our plane. Therefore, besides the material which will be needed for its future human form, the Monad requires (a) a spiritual model or prototype, for that material to shape itself upon, and (6) an intelligent conscious ness to guide its evolution and progress, neither of which is possessed by senseless, though living mat ter, nor by the homogeneous Monad. It is only when from a potential androgyne man has become sepa rated into male and female that he will be endowed with a conscious, rational, individual Soul, the Mind- soul, to receive which he has to eat of the fruit of Knowledge from the Tree of Good and Evil. How is he to obtain this? The Occult doctrine teaches that while the Monad is circling downward into mat ter, the lower Creative Spirits are evolving with it on a higher and more spiritual plane, and descend ing also relatively into matter on their own plane of consciousness, till having reached a certain point they will meet the incarnating senseless Monad, and THE SECRET DOCTRINE 133 blending the two potencies, Spirit and Matter, the union will produce the Perfect Man, the terrestrial symbol of the ' ' Heavenly Man ' ' in Space. Though one and the same thing in their origin, Spirit and Matter, once on the plane of differentiation begin their evolutionary progress in contrary directions — Spirit falling gradually into Matter, and the lat ter ascending to its original condition, that of a pure spiritual substance. Both are inseparable, yet ever separated. In polarity, on the physical plane, two like poles will always repel each other, while the negative and positive are mutually attracted. So do Spirit and Matter stand to each other — the two poles of the same substance, the root-principle of the Universe. The rudimentary man of the first two and a half Races was only the first, gradually developing into the most perfect, of mammals, therefore, when the hour strikes, the " Celestial Ancestors " (Entities from preceding worlds) step in on our plane, as the " Lunar Ancestors " had stepped in before them for the formation of physical or animal man, and incarnate in the bodies prepared for them. Thus the two processes, for the animal and the divine man, differ greatly (v. VII., 3). " Who forms Man, and who forms his body? The Life and the Lives." Here man stands for the spir itual, heavenly man, the real and non-dying Ego in us, which is the direct emanation of the " One Life," or the Absolute Deity. As to our outward physical bodies, the esoteric doctrine teaches a strange lesson. It has been stated before now that Occultism does not believe anything in the Kosmos to be " inorganic " (that is, without life, even if without organs). The expression " inorganic sub stance " means simply that the latent life slumber ing in the molecules of so-called inert matter is in cognizable. All is Life, and every atom of even 134 THE SECRET DOCTRINE mineral dust is a Life, though beyond our compre hension and perception, because it is outside the laws known to those who reject Occultism. The Commentary says : ' ' The worlds to the profane are built up of the known Elements. To the conception of an Adept, these Elements are themselves collec tively a divine Life ; distributively, on the plane of manifestation, the numberless and countless crores of lives. Fire alone is One, on the plane of the One Reality ; on that of manifested, hence illusive being, its particles are fiery lives, which live and have their being at the expense of every other life that they consume. Therefore they are named the Devour- ers. . . . Every visible thing in this Universe was built by such Lives, from conscious and divine primordial man down to the unconscious agents that construct matter. . . . From the One Life formless and uncreate proceeds the universe of Lives. First was manifested from the Deep (Chaos) cold, luminous fire (gaseous light?) which formed the curds in Space. (Irresolvable nebulae.) These fought, and a great heat was developed by the en countering and collision, which produced rotation. Then came the first manifested material Fire, the hot flames, the wanderers in heaven (comets) ; heat generates moist vapor; that forms solid water (?) ; then dry mist, then liquid mist, watery, that puts out the luminous brightness of the pilgrims (comets?) and forms solid watery wheels (matter-globes). The Earth appears with six sisters. (Our planetary chain.) These produce by their continuous motion the inferior fire, heat and an aqueous mist, which yields the third World-Element, Water: and from the breath of all (atmospheric) Air is born. These four are the four Lives of the first four periods (Rounds) of the life-cycle. The last three will fol low." This means that each new Round develops one THE SECRET DOCTRINE 135 of the Compound Elements, known to science. Thus the first Round, we are taught, developed but one Element, and a nature and humanity in what may be called " One dimensional Space." The second Round brought forth and developed two Elements, Fire and Air, and its humanity — if we can give that name to beings living under conditions unknown to us — was " a two-dimensioned species," to use again a familiar phrase in a strictly figurative sense. The expression may be regarded, in one plane of thought, as equivalent to the second characteristic of matter corresponding to the second perceptive faculty or sense of man. The centres of consciousness (des tined to develop into humanity as we know it) of the third Round arrived at a perception of the third Element, Water. Those of the fourth Round have added Earth as a state of matter to their stock, as well as the three other elements in their present con dition. None of the so-called Elements were in the three preceding Rounds as they are now. The ele ments, simple or compound, could not have remained the same, for Nature is never stationary during the great Cycle, it is ever becoming, not simply being, and mineral, vegetable and animal life, including man, are always adapting their organisms to the then reigning elements. It will only be in the next or fifth Round that the fifth Element, Ether, will be a familiar fact of Nature to all men, as Air is now. And only during that Round will those higher senses, the growth and development of which Ether subserves, be susceptible of a complete expansion. A partial familiarity with the next characteristic of matter, permeability (which should develop concur rently with the sixth sense — let us call it normal clairvoyance), may be expected to develop at the proper period in this Round. But with the new element added to our resources in the next Round, permeability will become so manifest a character- 136 THE SECRET DOCTRINE istic of matter that its densest forms will seem to man's perceptions no more obstructive than a thick fog.* To return to the life-cycle. The Earth, we are told, is built up for the first Round by the ' ' Devour- ers, ' ' which disintegrate and differentiate the germs of other lives in the elements. Thus Occultism dis poses of the so-called Azoic Age of Science, for it shows that there never was a time when the Earth was without life upon it. Wherever there is an atom of matter, a particle or a molecule even in the most gaseous condition, there is life in it, however latent and unconscious. " Whatsoever quits the neutral state becomes active life; it is drawn into the vortex of Motion (the alchemical solvent of Life) ; Spirit and Matter are the two states of the One, which is neither Spirit nor Matter, both being the absolute life latent." (Book of Dzyan, Comm. III., par. 18.) . . . Spirit is the first differen tiation of (and in) Space; and Matter the first dif ferentiation of Spirit. That which is neither Spirit nor Matter — that is It — the Causeless Cause of Spirit and Matter which are the Cause of Kosmos. And That we call the One Life, or the Intra-Cos- mic Breath." Once more we will say — like must produce like. Absolute Life cannot produce a lifeless atom, whether simple or complex, and there is life even in the neutral state (laya) just as a man in a cataleptic state, to all appearance dead, is still a living being. When the " Devourers " (whom the scientists may call atoms of the Fire-mist, if they will) have differentiated " the fire-atoms " by a peculiar proc ess of segmentation, the latter become life-germs, which aggregate according to the laws of cohesion and affinity. Then the life-germs produce germs of ?Since this was written, in 1888, the Roentgen ray photographs have shown us that such effects are possible even now. — Editor, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 137 another kind, which work on the structure of our " globes." Thus in the First Round, the globe having been built by the primitive Fire-lives, had no solidity nor other qualities, save a cold brightness ; neither form nor color ; it was only towards the end of the First Round that it developed one element, which, from its simple essence, became in our Round the Fire we know throughout the system. The Earth was in her first form, the essence of which is an etheric principle now very erroneously termed Astral Light. Our physical light is the manifestation on our plane and the reflected radiance of the Divine Light ema nating from the collective body of those who are called the Lights and the Flames. " It is through and from the radiations of the seven bodies of the seven orders of Creative Powers that the seven Elements are born, whose motion and harmonious union produce the manifested Universe of Matter. ' ' (Commentary.) The Second Round brings into manifestation the second element — Aie, that element whose purity would ensure continuous life to him who would use it, and if separated alchemically, would yield the Spirit of Life and its Elixir, (v. VI., 3, and " The Coming Force," 6th par.). There have been two occultists only in Europe who have discovered this, and even partially applied it in practice, though its composition has always been known among the high est Eastern Initiates. The ozone of the modern chemists is poison compared with the real universal solvent, which could never be thought of unless it existed in Nature. " From the Second Round " (says the Commen tary), Earth, hitherto a foetus in the matrix of Space, began its real existence ; it had developed in dividual sentient life, its second principle " (in the septenary division). " The second corresponds to 138 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the sixth principle (the Spiritual Soul) ; the latter is life continuous; the former, life temporary." The Third Round developed the third element, Watee; while the Fourth Round transformed the gaseous fluids and plastic form of our " globe " into the hard, crusted, grossly material Earth. She will reach her true ultimate form only towards the end of the cycle after the Seventh Round. Eugenius Philalethes was right when he assured his readers that no one had yet seen the Earth — i. e., Matter in its essential form. Our globe is so far in its fourth state, the astral body of desires, of dark egotism, the progeny of the lower Mind. It is not molecularly constituted matter — least of all the human body — that is the grossest of our prin ciples, but verily the middle (or fourth) principle, the real animal centre (the animal Soul) ; for our body is but its shell, the irresponsible factor and medium through which the beast in us acts all its life. Every intellectual theosophist will understand my real meaning. (c) With every day, the physical identity of the bodies of animal and man, of plant and man, and even of the reptile and its nest the rocks, and man — is more and more clearly shown. The physical and chemical constituents of all, being found to be iden tical, chemical science may well say that there is no difference between the matter which composes the body of the ox and that which forms the body of man. But the Occult doctrine is far more explicit. It says: Not only the chemical compounds are the same, but the same infinitesimal invisible lives com pose the atoms of the bodies of the mountain and the daisy, of man and the ant, of the elephant, and of the tree that shelters him from the sun. Each par ticle — whether you call it organic or inorganic — is a life. Every atom in the Universe is both life-giving and death-giving to the form of which it is a part, Diagram II (To show the physical identity of the three kingdoms of nature.) (Falsely called Mineral World.) Carbonic Acid. Water. Anmrnonia.' Salines. Vegetable World H3w fet o w O Oo wI— I 5z! Animal World (From Huxley's Lectures — Editor.) $g 140 THE SECRET DOCTRINE inasmuch as it builds by aggregation both universes and the ephemeral vehicles ready to receive the transmigrating soul, and as eternally destroys and changes the forms it has built, and expels those souls from their temporary abodes. It creates and kills; it is self-generating and self -destroying; it brings into being and annihilates every second that mystery of mysteries — the living body, of man, ani mal or plant; and it generates equally life and death, beauty and ugliness, good and bad; and even agreeable and disagreeable, beneficent and malefi cent sensations. It is this mysterious Life, repre sented collectively by countless myriads of lives, that follows in its own sporadic way, the hitherto in comprehensible law of Atavism; that copies family resemblances as well as those it finds impressed upon the aura of the generators of every future hu man being, a mystery that will receive fuller atten tion elsewhere. For the present one instance will be cited in illustration. Modern science has found out that ptomaine (the alkaloid poison generated by de caying matter) a life also — with the help of volatile ether yields a perfume equal to that of the freshest orange blossoms ; but freed from oxygen, such alka loids yield either a most sickening, disgusting smell, or a very agreeable odor, which recalls that of the most delicately scented flowers, and it is suspected that such blossoms owe their perfume to the poison ous ptomaine. The venomous essence of certain fungi is found to be nearly identical with the venom of the cobra of India, the most deadly of serpents. The French savans Arnaud, Gautier and Villiers have found in the saliva of living men the same venomous alkaloid as in that of the cobra, and it is proved that poison of the deadliest kind is gener ated by living men, animals and plants. It is the muscular tissues, as being the most active organ in the animal economy, that are suspected of being THE SECRET DOCTRINE 141 the generators or factors of venoms having the same importance as carbonic acid and urea in the func tions of life, which venoms are the ultimate prod ucts of inner combustion, although it is not yet fully determined whether poisons can be generated by the physical system of living beings without the partic ipation of microbes. We are taught that every physiological change and pathologic phenomenon, all diseases, nay, life itself, or rather the objective phenomenon of life, are due to those unseen Creators and Destroyers that are called in such a loose and general way microbes. It might be supposed that the microbes of science are identical with these " fiery lives," but this is not true. " The fiery lives " are the seventh and highest division of the plane of matter, and cor respond in the individual with the One Life of the Universe, but only on that plane (the lowest in the cosmos). The microbes of science are the first and lowest subdivision on the second plane — that of ma terial life. The preservation and destruction of the physical body of man are due to the alternate func tions of the " fiery lives " as " builders " and " de stroyers." They are builders by sacrificing them selves in the form of vitality to restrain the destruc tive influences of the microbes, and by supplying the microbes with what is necessary they compel them, under that restraint, to build up the material body and its cells. They are destroyers when that re straint is removed, and the microbes, unsupplied with vital constructive energy, are left to run riot as destructive agents. During the first half of a man's life (the first five periods of seven years each) the " fiery lives " are indirectly engaged in the process of building up man's material body; life is on the ascending scale, and its force is used in construction and increase. After this period the age of retro gression begins, and the work of the " fiery lives " 142 THE SECRET DOCTRINE having exhausted their strength, the work of de crease and destruction commences. The restraining influence upon the microbes just mentioned is con firmed by the fact noted by Pasteur, that the cells of the organs, when they do not find sufficient oxygen for themselves, adapt themselves to that condition and form ferments, which, by absorbing oxygen from substances coming in contact with them, ruin the latter. Thus the process is begun by one cell robbing its neighbor of the source of its vitality when the supply is insufficient for both, and the ruin so commenced steadily progresses. The, knowledge of these primary causes, and of the ultimate essence of every element, of its lives, their functions, proper ties and conditions of change, constitute the'basis of Magic. Paracelsus was perhaps the only Occultist in Europe during the later centuries of the Christian era who was versed in this mystery. Had not a criminal hand put an end to his life years before the time allotted to him by Nature, physiological Magic would have fewer secrets for the civilized world than it has now. (d) But what has the Moon to do with all this? we may be asked. What have " Fish, Sin and Soma " (the Moon) to do in company with the Life- microbes? With the latter, nothing, except to avail themselves of the tabernacle of clay they have pre pared; with divine, perfect man everything, since "Fish, Sin and the Moon" make conjointly the three symbols of the immortal Being. This is all that can be given. Nor does the writer pretend to know more of this strange symbol than may be inferred about it from exoteric religions; from the mystery, perhaps, which underlies the Matsya (fish) Avatar of Vishnu ; the Chaldean Oan- nes, the Man-fish, recorded in the imperishable sign of the Zodiac, Pisces, and to be traced through the Old and New Testaments in the persons of Joshua, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 143 the Son of Nun (the fish), and Jesus ; the allegorical " Sin," or fall of Spirit into Matter, and the Moon in so far as it relates to the " Lunar Ancestors." (There are undoubtedly " blinds " in this pas sage. " Sin " is given as the Chaldean name of the Moon (male), and here as " Sin " in the English sense; and " Soma," also a masculine name of the moon, is in one sense the mystic symbol of the Secret Wisdom. This is also symbolized by " Soma," the mystic drink, which makes a new man of the Initi ate ; it bestows the divine power of inspiration, and forcibly connects the inner, highest " spirit " of man, with his astral body, so that, united by its power, they partake together of Heaven during life. (Condensed from Theos. Glossary.) Pisces, the Fish of the Zodiac, is also called ' ' the sign of all the Saviours," and is the symbol of ever lasting spiritual life. The fish-gods connected with this sign are all spoken of as " amphibious," that is, able to function on two planes, the spiritual and the physical. Can we not take, then, " Fish " as the symbol of the immortal Inner Man, " Sin," the Chaldean name of the Moon, for the knowledge of the Secret Wisdom, and " Soma " for the mystic drink above described? The reader is left to work out the details and supply other theories, for this is but a guess. — Ed.) STANZA VII.— Continued 6. From the first-born (primitive) Man, the thread between the Silent Watcher and his shadow becomes more strong and radiant with every change (reincarnation) (a). The morning sunlight has changed into noonday glory. . . . (a) This sentence, " the thread between the Silent Watcher and his shadow (man), becomes stronger with every reincarnation, ' ' is another pay- 144 THE SECRET DOCTRINE chological mystery to be explained elsewhere. For the present we may say that " Watcher " and his " shadows " (as many as there are reincarnations for the Monad) are one. The Watcher, or the Di vine prototype, is at the top of the ladder of being, the shadow at the lower. He is the " Initiator," called " the Great Sacrifice." For sitting at the threshold of Light he looks into it from the circle of Darkness which he will not cross; nor will he quit his post till the last day of this life-cycle. Why does the solitary Watcher remain by his self -chosen post? Because the lonely pilgrims on their way back to their home are never sure, up to the last moment, of not losing their way in this limitless desert of illusion called earth-life. Because, in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few elect ones may profit by the ' ' Great Sacri fice " (v. Com. on Stanza VI., 7). Moreover, the Monad of every living being, unless given over to sin, is an individual Spirit, distinct from others, a kind of spiritual individuality of its own during one life-cycle. This spirit is of course one with the Universal Spirit, but its vehicle, the Spiritual Soul, is part and parcel of that angelic Essence; and it is in this that lies the mystery of that ubiquity discussed a short time back. " My Father that is in Heaven and I are one," says the Christian Scripture, in this, at any rate, the faithful echo of the esoteric tenet. STANZA VII.— Concluded 7. " This is thy present Wheel," said the Flame to the Spark. " Thou art myself, my image and my shadow. I have clothed myself in thee, and thou art my vehicle to the day ' Be With Us, ' when thou shalt re-become myself and others, thyself and me." '(a). Then the Builders, having donned their first THE SECRET DOCTRINE 145 clothing, descend on radiant Earth and reign over men — who are themselves ( b ) . (a) The day when " the spark will re-become the Flame " (man will merge into his Guardian Spirit), " myself and others, thyself and me," means : " In the period of reabsorption into the Infinite, when not only material and psychical bodies, but even the spiritual Egos, will have been reduced to their orig inal principle, the past, present and future humani ties will be one and the same. Everything will have re-entered the Great Breath." Is this annihilation, as some think, or Atheism? Neither. To see annihilation in Nirvana, or Abso lute Perfectness, amounts to saying that a man plunged in a sound, dreamless sleep is annihilated, because that sleep leaves no impression on the phys ical memory and brain, and because the sleeper's Higher Self is in its original state of absolute con sciousness during those hours of slumber. The simile, however, answers only one side of the ques tion — the most material one, since reabsorption is by no means such " a dreamless sleep," but, on the con trary, absolute existence, an unconditioned unity, a state that human language is absolutely and hope lessly inadequate to describe. Nor is the individu ality — nor even the essence of the personality if any be left behind — lost, because reabsorbed. For how ever limitless, from a human standpoint, the Nir- vanic state may be, it has yet a limit in Eternity. This limit once reached, the monad will re-emerge therefrom as a still higher being on a far higher plane, to recommence its cycle of activity. The hu man mind, in its present stage of development, can scarcely reach this plane of thought. (b) The " Watchers " reign over man during the whole period of the " Golden Age " and the smaller subsequent ages, down to the beginning of the third 146 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Root-Race ; after which the Patriarchs, Heroes and Manes rule, the incarnated guardian angels of a lower order, up to King Menes, and the human Kings of other nations (v. Comm. on Stanza XII.). By symbologists this Mythopceic Age is of course re garded only as a fairy tale. But the Secret Doctrine says that the Guardian Spirits of the two higher groups, namely, the " Watchers " or the " Archi tects," furnished the many and various nations with divine Kings and Leaders. The latter group taught humanity their arts and sciences, and the great spir itual truths of the transcendental worlds to the in carnated Monads that had just shaken off their ve hicles of the lower kingdoms, in which they had lost every recollection of their divine origin. Thus, as expressed in the Stanza, the Watchers descended on Earth and reigned over men — " who are themselves. ' ' They had finished their own cycle on Earth and other worlds in the preceding Rounds. In future life-cycles they will have risen to higher systems than ours, and it is the elect of our human ity, the pioneers on the hard and difficult path of progress, who will take their places. The next Great Cycle of being will see the men of our own life-cycle becoming the instructors and guides of a mankind whose Monads may be still imprisoned — semi-con scious — in the most intelligent of the animal king dom, while their lower principles will perhaps be animating the highest specimens of the vegetable world. Thus proceed the cycles of septenary evolution in septennial Nature : (1) the spiritual or divine ; (2) the psychic or semi-divine ; (3) the intellectual ; (4) the passional; (5) the instinctual, or cognitional; (6) the semi-corporeal; (7) the purely material or physical natures. All these evolve and progress cyclically, passing from one into another, in a double THE SECRET DOCTRINE 147 centrifugal and centripetal way, one in their ulti mate essence, seven (or three) in their aspects. The lowest, of course, is the one depending upon and sub servient to our five physical senses, which are, in truth, seven. Thus far, for individual human, sen tient, animal and vegetable life, each is the micro cosm of its higher macrocosm. The same for the Universe, which manifests periodically, in order that through the Ever-Becoming , every cosmic atom passing from the formless and the intangible, through the mixed natures of the semi-terrestrial, down to matter in full generation and then back again, reascending at each new period nearer to the final goal — that each atom, we say, may reach through individual merits and efforts that plane where it rebecomes the one, unconditioned All. Starting upon the long journey immaculate, de scending deeper and deeper into sinful matter, and having connected himself with every atom of it in manifested Space, the Pilgrim having struggled through and suffered in every form of life and being, is only at the bottom of the valley of matter and half through his cycle, when he has identified him self with collective Humanity. This he has made in his own image. In order to progress upwards and homewards, the " God " has now to ascend the weary, uphill path of the Golgotha of Life. It is the martyrdom of self-conscious existence. Like Visvakarman, he has to sacrifice himself to himself in order to redeem all creatures, to resurrect from the many into the One Life. Then he ascends into Heaven indeed, whence he will redescend again at the next " coming," which one portion of humanity expects in its dead-letter sense as the Second Advent and another as the last (or Kalki) Avatar. 148 THE SECRET DOCTRINE On the Planetary Chains, etc. The doctrine of the Planetary Chains, already re ferred to in the Stanzas, was at first taken in al together too material a sense, and was understood to mean a string of globes, of which our earth was the lowest and most material, instead of seven states of matter and consciousness through which our earth must pass, so that the ' ' fourth Globe ' ' corresponds to the " Fourth Round," or Race, as a condition of being. The teaching described our Earth as on the fourth and lowest, because most material, plane of matter, and as the organs of perception are always adjusted to the thing to be perceived, it naturally follows that we can perceive only material things, unless we are gifted with those higher senses which are only to be the common possession of a future Humanity. Therefore it is impossible for us to see the higher " globes " of any " chain," and any planets or stars that are visible to us must be on the same plane of matter. " Our globe, as taught from the first," wrote the Teachers in answer to an inquiry, "is at the bottom of the arc of descent, where the matter of our perceptions exhibits itself in its grossest form. Hence it only stands to reason that the globes which overshadow our Earth must be on different and superior planes. In short, as globes, they are in coadunition, but not in consub- stantiality with our Earth,, and thus pertain to quite another state of consciousness." (We may have a bottle filled with sugar, into that we may pour water, and then force in a gas ; those three states of matter, solid, liquid and gaseous, would be in coadunition, that is, they would be together in a common locality, but they would not be the same in substance. We could not see the water or the gas in the bottle, but none the less they would have interpenetrated every particle of the sugar. — Ed.) THE SECRET DOCTRINE 149 Our Earth, as the visible representative of its in visible superior " globes " (or states of matter) has The four lower Planes of Cosmic (not human) Consciousness. The three higher Planes of Cosmic Consciousness. co to *3 TO Coo 150 THE SECRET DOCTRINE to live, as have the others, through seven Rounds or life-cycles. During the first three, it forms and con solidates ; during the fourth, it settles and hardens ; during the last three, it gradually returns to its first ethereal form ; it is spiritualized, so to speak. First, the descent into matter, then the reascending to spirit, the Earth and its inhabitants going through corresponding processes of evolution. The " globes," then, we may take to be its conditions of existence, the Rounds are its life-periods. The fore going diagram may make this plainer. The three upper are the three higher planes of consciousness, revealed and explained only to Initi ates; the lower ones represent the four lower planes, the lowest being our plane or the visible Uni verse. These seven planes correspond to the seven states of consciousness in man. It remains with him to attune the three higher states in himself to the three higher planes in Kosmos. The seven dots on " Globe D," our Earth, may represent the seven Races of the Fourth Round. The diagram will also represent the triune division of Nature and Man; Planes 1, 2, 3, standing for Spirit; Planes 4, 5, 6 for Soul (which includes Mind), and Plane 7 for the physical Body, whether of man or nature. When " a planetary chain " (that is, a planet composed of these sevenfold conditions of matter and consciousness) is in its last Round (or cycle of life), before finally dying out it sends all its energy and its ' ' seven principles ' ' into a neutral centre of latent force, and thereby calls into activity a new nucleus of undifferentiated matter. Imagine the Moon having thus poured forth the energy of her higher principles into the Earth, finally transferring to the Earth's material and lowest " globe " all her life-forces and powers, thus becoming virtually a dead planet, in which rotation has almost ceased since the birth of our Earth. The Moon is dead, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 151 however, only as far as regards her inner " princi ples " — i. e., psychically and spiritually, however absurd the statement may seem. Physically, she is like a semi-paralyzed body. She is aptly referred to in Occultism as the " insane mother," the great sidereal lunatic. For she is a dead, yet a living body. The particles of her decaying corpse are full of active and destruc tive life, although the body which they had formed is soulless and lifeless. The Moon is now the cold residual quantity, the shadow dragged after the new body into which her life has been transfused. Before the subject of the transference of the Mon ads from the dying planet to the new-born home of humanity can be understood, we must realize that there are many different cycles of cosmic life and of Rest, or Night. There is the individual Night of each " globe " (or condition of being), as humanity and life pass on to the next, seven minor " rests " in each Round; the planetary rest, when the seven Rounds are completed; the Solar rest, when the whole system is at an end ; and, finally, the Universal Night, at the close of ' ' the Age of Brahma. ' ' These are the chief periods of destruction, and there are many minor ones. And we must remember also that the Monads circling round any planetary chain (or any planet in its different conditions of evolution) are divided into seven classes, according to their respective stages of development, consciousness and merit. The time-spaces between their appearances on any one " Globe " are so adjusted that when the last class, 7, appears on Globe A, Class I. has just passed on to Globe B, and so on. Thus, when Globe A of the Earth was ready, the first class of Monads from the Moon incarnated upon it in the lowest kingdom, and when B was ready they passed into that ' ' globe ' ' or condition of mat ter, and Class 2d came from the " b " globe of 152 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Moon into the lowest kingdom of Globe A on the Earth. The result of this process is, that it is only the first class of Monads which attains the human state of development during the First Round, since the following classes have not time to reach that stage. Thus the Monads of Class II. reach the in- Diageam IV Future Earth Chain. Dying Lunar Chain. The Earth. The Moon. cipient human stage only in the Second Round, and so on to the Fourth. But at this point, when " the human stage " is no longer incipient, but fully de veloped, the " Door " into the human kingdom closes. For the Monads which have not reached the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 153 human stage by this time will, owing to the further progress of humanity, find themselves so far behind that they will reach the human stage only at the close of the seventh and last Round. The only ex ception to this rule are the " dumb races," whose Monads are already within the human stage, as they were half-descended from the men of the Third Race. Thus the perfect analogy between man and na ture becomes apparent. Both come into being, pass through their cycles of development and die, their higher principles to return to the Spirit, whence they came, the lower to disintegrate and be used by Nature again, to form the bodies of new men and new worlds. Before going further, it would be well to explain once more that the Monad, strictly speaking, cannot be said to either progress or develop, or even be af fected by the conditions through which it passes. It is not of this world or plane, but is that Ray of the Divine Spirit around which the personality of man clings, and thus obtains its immortality. So also is the term " Man " a very misleading one, as the first human types did not resemble the men of to day either in form or nature, but in the First Round, for instance, were only dimensionless images from the astral regions. But the word man is used as an equivalent for " thinking entities." " The Monadic Host " may be roughly divided into three classes : 1. The most developed Monads, " the Lunar An cestors," whose function it is to pass in the First Round through the whole triple cycle of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, in their most ethereal, filmy and rudimentary forms, in order to clothe themselves in, and assimilate, the nature of the newly formed world. It is they who lead and represent the human element during the Second and 154 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Third Rounds, and finally evolve their shadows at the beginning of the Fourth Round for those who follow them. 2. Those Monads that are the first to reach the human stage during the three and a half Rounds, and to become " men." 3. The laggards; the Monads that are retarded, and that, by reason of Karmic impediments, will not reach the human stage at all during this Round, with the exception of the " dumb races," before mentioned. Now the evolution of the external form or body round the astral is produced by the terrestrial forces, just as in the case of the lower kingdoms; but the evolution of the internal, or real Man, is purely spiritual. It is now no more a passage of the impersonal Monad through many and various forms of matter, as in the case of external evolutions, but a journey of the pilgrim soul through various states — not only of matter, but of self -consciousness and self-perception, (v. Book IL, xv., Gods, Monads, and Atoms.) The Monad emerges from its state of spiritual and intellectual unconsciousness, and skipping the first three planes — too near the Absolute to permit of correlation with anything on a lower plane — it en ters directly the plane of Mentality (the Intellectual, or Formative Plane. See Diagram III.), and there is no plane in the universe with a wider field of ac tion than this. But all the time it is one and the same Monad, throughout its ever succeeding cycles of partial or total obscuration of spirit, and partial or total obscuration of matter — as it descends into the depths of materiality, or reascends into the realms of spirituality. In an article called " The Mineral Atom " (Five Tears of Theosophy, p. 273, et seq.), we read: " There are seven kingdoms (of nature). The THE SECRET DOCTRINE 155 first group comprises three degrees of elementals or nascent centres of forces — from the first stage of differentiation of primordial homogeneous matter to its third degree — i. e., from full unconsciousness to semi-perception ; the second or higher group em braces the kingdoms from vegetable to man; the mineral kingdom thus forming the central or turn ing-point in the degrees of the ' Monadic Essence ' considered as an evoluting energy. Three stages (sub-physical) on the elemental side; then the min eral kingdom ; three stages on the objective physical side — these are the (first or preliminary) seven links of the evolutionary chain. " " Physical ' ' here means differentiated for cosmical purposes and work, but quite subjective to us on our plane. The same article says elsewhere: " Physically or constitutionally the mineral monad differs, of course, from the human monad, which is neither physical nor can its constitution be rendered by chemical symbols." . . . Instead of saying " a mineral monad," the more correct phraseology would be to call it ' ' the Monad manifesting in that form of matter called the mineral kingdom." The atom is not a particle of something, animated by a psychic something^ destined after aeons to blossom as a man. But it is a concrete manifestation of the Universal Energy, which itself has not yet become individualized. . . . The tendency towards sep aration into individual Monads is gradual, and in the higher animals comes almost to the point. The " Monadic Essence " begins to differentiate imper ceptibly towards individual consciousness in the veg etable kingdom. As the Monads are uncompounded things, as correctly defined by Leibnitz, it is the spir itual essence which vivifies them that properly con stitutes the Monad, not the atomic aggregation, which is only the vehicle through which thrill the varied degrees of intelligence. 156 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Thus it may be wrong, on strictly metaphysical lines, to call the Spirit-Soul a Monad, since in the materialistic view it is dual, and therefore com pound. But as Matter is Spirit, and vice versa, and since the Universe and the Deity which informs it are unthinkable apart, so in the case of the Spirit- Soul, the latter being the vehicle of the former. To go back to the Moon and our Lunar Ancestors, who have given us our physical body. It is the Earth who is really the satellite of the Moon, in every other respect but that physical attraction which causes the Moon to revolve around the Earth, as a mother might walk round the cradle of her child. The Moon's influence upon the Earth is evidenced by the tides, by the cyclic changes in many forms of disease which coincide with the lunar phases ; it can be traced in the growth of plants, and is very marked in the phenomena of human conception and gesta tion. The Lunar Monads, the ancestors of man, are those who enter on the cycle of the Earth's evolu tion on " Globe A " in the First Round, and evolve the human form, as before said. At the beginning of the human stage of the Fourth Round they ' ' ooze out " their astral doubles from the " ape-like " forms they had evolved in Round III. And it is this subtle, finer form, the astral body, which serves as the model round which Nature builds physical man. For these Lunar Spirits have to become men in or der that their Monads may reach a higher plane of activity and self-consciousness, that of the Solar An cestors, who endow the senseless shells (created and informed by the Lunar Spirits) with Mind, in the latter part of the 3d Root-Race. In the same way the Monads or Egos of the men of the Seventh Round of our Earth (after it has parted with its life-energies to animate another planet destined to live on a higher plane than ours) THE SECRET DOCTRINE 157 will, as the " Terrene Ancestors," create those who will become their superiors. It is plain, then, that there exists in Nature a triple evolutionary scheme, or rather three separate schemes of evolution, which in our system are inex tricably interwoven and interblended at every point. These are the Monadic, or spiritual, the Intellectual, and the Physical evolutions. These three are the finite aspects, or the reflections, on the field of cos mic illusion of the One Reality. 1, The Monadic is, as the name implies, concerned with the growth and development of the Monad into still higher phases of activity. This of course refers to the individual Monads or Egos, in conjunction with: 2. The Intellectual, represented by the Solar Spir its (or ancestors), the " givers of intelligence and consciousness to man," and: 3. The Physical, represented by the astral shad ows of the Lunar Spirits, round which Nature has built the present physical body. This body serves as the vehicle for the development and transforma tion, through the mind and its experiences, of the finite into the Infinite, of the transient into the Eternal and Absolute. Each of these three systems has its own laws, and is ruled and guided by different sets of the higher Intelligences or " Logoi." Each is represented in the constitution of Man, the microcosm of the great Macrocosm; and it is the union of these three streams in him that makes him the complex being he now is. " Nature," the physical evolutionary Power, could never evolve intelligence unaided, she can only create " senseless forms," as will be shown later on. The " Lunar Monads " cannot progress, for they are not yet sufficiently in touch with the forms 158 THE SECRET DOCTRINE created by " Nature " to allow of their accumulat ing experiences through her means. It is the higher Intelligences just mentioned who fill up the gap, and they represent the evolutionary power of Mind, the link between Spirit and Matter in this Round. To recapitulate : The most developed (lunar) Monads reach the human-germ stage in the First Round ; become ter restrial, though very ethereal, human beings to wards the end of the Third Round, remaining on the corresponding " globe " during the " obscuration " period as the seed for future humanity in the Fourth Round. Others reach the human stage only during later Rounds, and, finally, the most retarded, that is, those still occupying animal forms after the mid dle point of the Fourth Round, will not become men at all during this cycle of existence. They will reach to the verge of humanity only at the close of the Seventh Round, to be, in their turn, ushered into a new world after the period of Night, by older pio neers, the men who will be at the head of all at the end of our seven Rounds. From the preceding diagrams it will be seen that the fourth member of a series occupies a unique position. Unlike the others, the fourth has no cor responding " globe " on the same plane as itself, and thus forms the balance or turning-point. It is the sphere of final evolutionary adjustments, the world of Karmic scales, where the balance is struck which determines the future course of the Monad during the remainder of its incarnations in the cycle. This is the reason that after this great turning- point, the middle of the fourth Race of the fourth Round on our Globe, has been passed, no more Mon ads can enter the human kingdom. The door is closed for this cycle, and the balance struck. Meanwhile man — or rather his Monad — has ex isted on the earth from the very beginning of this THE SECRET DOCTRINE 159 Round. But up to our own Fifth Race, the external shapes which covered those divine astral doubles changed and consolidated with every sub-race ; the form and physical structure of the fauna and flora of the earth changing at the same time, as they had to be adapted to the ever-changing conditions of life on this globe during the geological periods of its formative cycle. And thus they will go on changing with every Root-Race, and every chief sub-race down to the last one of the Seventh in this Round. Every Round repeats on a higher scale the evolu tionary work of the preceding Round. With the ex ception of some of the higher anthropoids before mentioned, the Monadic inflow or inner evolution is at an end till the next cycle of existence. It can not be too often repeated that the full-blown human Monads have to be first disposed of before the new crop of candidates appears on this Globe at the be ginning of the next cycle. Thus there is a lull ; and this is the reason that during the Fourth Round man appears on Earth before the mammals. With the exception above mentioned, no units of either of the Kingdoms are animated any longer by Monads des tined to become human in their next stage, but only by the lower Elementals of their respective realms. These " Elementals " will become human Monads in their turn, only at the next great planetary cycle. Summing Up ' ' The History of Creation and of this world from its beginning up to the present time is composed of seven chapters. The seventh chapter is not yet written." (T. Subba Row, Theosophist, 1881.) The first of these seven chapters has been at tempted, and is now finished. However incomplete as an exposition, it is, at any rate, an approximation 160 THE SECRET DOCTRINE to that which is the oldest basis of all the subse quent cosmogonies. As a whole, neither the forego ing nor what follows can be found in full elsewhere. The books of the Vedanta (the last word of human knowledge) give out but the metaphysical aspect of this cosmogony, and their priceless treasury, the Upanishads, require now the additional possession of a master-key to enable the student to get at their full meaning. The reason for this I venture to state here as I learned it from a Master. Upa-ni-shad is a compound word, meaning " the conquest of ignorance by the revelation of secret, spiritual Knowledge." It is usually translated " esoteric doctrine." These treatises form part of the Sruti or ' ' revealed knowledge, ' ' and are gener ally attached to the Brahmana portion of the Vedas as their third division. ' ' The Vedas have a distinct dual meaning," says Subba Row — " one expressed by the literal sense of the words, the other indicated by the metre and the swara — intonation — which are the life of the Vedas." The Upanishads are to the Vedas what the Kabala is to the Bible. They treat of and expound the secret and mystic meaning of the Vedic texts. In a few words : They contain the beginning and the end of all human knoivledge, but they have ceased to eeveal it since the day of Bud dha. After Gautama the prince of Kapilavastu had learned the whole of the Brahmanical wisdom in the Upanishads, and had found that the teachings dif fered little, if at all, from those of the " Teachers of Life " * inhabiting the snowy ranges of the Him alaya, this Disciple of the Brahmins, feeling indig- ?Also called "the Sons of Wisdom," and of the "Fire-Mist." Thibet is mentioned in the MSS. of the sacred library of the prov ince of Fo-Kein 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 gained his knowledge from these "great teachers of the Snowy Range" in Thibet.— (H. P. BJ THE SECRET DOCTRINE 161 nant that they withheld the sacred wisdom from all but themselves, determined to save the whole world by popularizin^it. Then the Brahmins, seeing that their occult knowledge was falling into the hands of outcasts, simply abridged the Upanishads without altering one word of the text, by detaching from the MSS. the most important portions containing the last word of the mystery of Being. The key to the Brahmanical Secret Code remained henceforth with the Initiates alone, and the Brahmins were thus able to deny publicly the correctness of Buddha's teach ing, by appealing to their Upanishads, silenced for ever on the chief questions. Such is the esoteric tradition beyond the Himalayas. Therefore the writer of the present statement must be prepared beforehand to meet with great opposi tion, and even the denial of such statements as are brought forward in this work. Not that any claim to infallibility or perfect correctness of detail has ever been put forward. Let us recapitulate, and show by the vastness of the subjects expounded how difficult, if not impossible, it is to do them justice. 1. The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated wisdom of the ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system, even in the exo- tericism of the Puranas. But such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism that the facts which have occupied countless generations of initiated Seers to marshal and explain are all recorded in a few pages of geometrical signs and glyphs. It is useless to say that the system in question is no fancy of one or of several isolated individuals. It is the uninter rupted record covering thousands of generations of Seers, whose respective experiences were made to test and verify the traditions (passed orally from one early race to another) of the teachings of ex alted Beings who watched over the childhood of Hu- 162 THE SECRET DOCTRINE manity. For long ages the ' ' Wise Men ' ' of the fifth Race, of the stock saved from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, passed^ their lives in learning, not teaching; checking, testing and verify ing in every department of Nature the old traditions by the independent visions of great adepts ; that is, men who have developed and perfected their physi cal, mental, psychic and spiritual organizations to the utmost possible degree. No vision of any one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the independent visions of other adepts, and by centuries of experience. 2. The fundamental Law is that system upon which is hung the philosophy of all the rest, is the One homogeneous, divine Substance-Principle, the one radical Cause. It is called "Substance-Princi ple " because it becomes " substance " on the plane of the manifested Universe, an illusion, while it re mains a ' ' principle ' ' in the beginningless and end less abstract, visible and invisible Space. It is the omnipresent Reality; impersonal, because it con tains all and everything. Its impersonality is a fundamental conception of the system. It is latent in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself (v. Book II., § HI., Primordial Substance and Divine Thought). 3. The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute Essence. It is best described as neither Spirit nor Matter, but both. 4. The Universe is called (with everything in it) Illusion, because all is temporary therein, from the ephemeral life of a firefly to that of a sun. Yet the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself. 5. Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious; that is, endowed with a consciousness of its own kind, and on its own plane of perception. T?ecause we cannot recognize any THE SECRET DOCTRINE 163 signs of consciousness in stones, let us say, we have no right to assert that no consciousness exists there. There is no such thing as " dead " or " blind " matter, any more than ' ' blind " or " unconscious ' ' Law. These find no place among the conceptions of Occult philosophy. 6. The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards. As above, so it is below, as in heaven so on earth; and man — the microcosm and miniature copy of the macrocosm — is the living witness to this Universal Law, and to the mode of its action. We see that every external motion, act, gesture, whether voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is pro duced and preceded by internal feeling or emotion, will or volition, and thought or mind. As no out ward motion or change, when normal, in man's ex ternal body, can take place unless provoked by an inward impulse, given through one of the three func tions named, emotion, volition or thought, so with the external or manifested Universe. The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled and animated bv an almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient Be ings, each having a mission to perform, and who — whether we call them Spirits or Angels — are ' ' mes sengers " in the sense only that they are the agents of Karmic and Cosmic Laws. They vary infinitely in their respective degrees of consciousness and in telligence, for each of these Beings either was or is to be a man, if not in the present then in a past or a future life-cycle. They are either incipient or per fected men, and differ morally only in being devoid of the feeling of personality, and of the human emo tional nature, from terrestrial human beings. The " perfected men " have become free from those feelings, because they have no longer physical bodies, and the pure, spiritual element being there fore more free, they are less influenced by illusion than man can ever be, unless he is an adept who 164 THE SECRET DOCTRINE keeps his two personalities — the spiritual and the physical — entirely separate. They are finite in all respects, with the exception of their higher princi ples — the immortal sparks reflecting the universal divine flame. Having no elements of personality in their essence, they can have no personal qualities such as are attributed by men to their anthropomor phic God. " Man can neither propitiate nor com mand the Deities," it is said. But by paralyzing his lower personality, and arriving thereby at the full knowledge of the non-separateness of his Higher Self from the One Absolute Self, man can, even during his terrestrial life, become as " One of Us." 7. The chief difficulty which prevents men of sci ence from believing in divine as well as nature spir its is their materialism. The main impediment in the way of the spiritualist's belief in anything but the " spirits of the departed " is the general igno rance of the true nature and essence of matter. It is on the acceptance of the theory of the Unity of all in Nature in its ultimate Essence that mainly rests the belief in the existence of other conscious beings around us besides the spirits of the dead. It is on the right comprehension of the primeval Evolution of Spirit-Matter and its real essence that the student has to depend for the only sure clue which can guide his subsequent studies. 8. There is but one indivisible and absolute Om niscience and Intelligence in the Universe, and this thrills throughout every atom of the whole finite Kosmos which people call Space, considered inde pendently of anything contained in it. But the first differentiation of its reflection in the manifested World is purely spiritual, and the beings generated in it are not endowed with a consciousness that has any relation to the one we conceive of. They can have no human consciousness till they have acquired it, personally and individually. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 165 9. The whole order of Nature evinces a progres sive march towards a higher life. The whole process of evolution, with its endless adaptations, is a proof of the design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces. The very fact that adaptations do occur, that the fittest do survive in the struggle for exist ence, shows that what is called " unconscious Na ture " * is in reality an aggregate of forces manipu lated by semi-intelligent Beings, guided by high Planetary Spirits, whose collective aggregate forms the manifested Word of the unmanifested Logos, and constitutes, at one and the same time, the Mind of the Universe, and its immutable Law. Whatever may be the destiny of these present writings in a remote future, we hope, so far, to have proved the following facts : 1. The Secret Doctrine teaches no atheism, except in the Hindu sense of the word nastika, " the rejec tion of idols," including every anthropomorphic god. In this sense, every Occultist is a nastika. 2. It admits a Logos, or a collective " Creator " of the Universe; in the sense of an architect who furnishes the plan of an edifice, not the masons who do the manual labor ; in our case the plan was fur nished by the Ideation of the Universe, and the con structive labor was left to the Hosts of Intelligent Powers and Forces. As to the latter : 3. They are dual in their character, being com posed of the irrational brute energy inherent in mat ter, and the intelligent Soul or cosmic Consciousness which guides that energy, and which is the Angelic Thought reflecting the Ideation of the Universal Mind. This results in a perpetual series of physical ?Nature, in its abstract sense, cannot be "unconscious," as it is an aspect (on the manifested plane) of the Absolute consciousness. All we can say is, that the consciousness of minerals, etc., is beyond our comprehension, — (H. P. B.) 166 THE SECRET DOCTRINE manifestations and moral effects on Earth, during the cycles of life, the whole being subservient to Karma. As the process is not always perfect, and sometimes shows flaws and even failures, therefore neither the collective Host nor the individual Powers are proper subjects for worship. The ever-unknow able Cause alone should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever-untrodden ground of our heart — invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through " the still, small voice " of our spiritual conscious ness. Those who worship before it ought to do so in the silence and sanctified solitude of their souls; making their spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence (see Book II. , Part I., § V., The Hidden Deity, and Matt. vi., 5-6). 4. Matter is eternal. It is the physical basis upon which the ideations of the One Infinite Universal Mind are built. Therefore, the Esotericists main tain that there is no inorganic or dead matter in nature. " Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism." (Paracelsus.) 5. Everything that is, was and will be, eternally is, even the countless forms, which are finite and perishable only in their objective, not in their ideal form. They existed as Ideas in the Eternity, and when they pass away will exist as reflections. Oc cultism teaches that no form can be given to any thing, either by nature or by man, whose ideal type does not already exist on the subjective plane. More than this, no form or shape can possibly enter man's consciousness, or evolve in his imagination, whose prototype does not exist, at least, as an approxima tion. Therefore our human forms have existed in the Eternity as astral or ethereal prototypes ; and THE SECRET DOCTRINE 167 according to these models the Spiritual Beings whose duty it was to bring them into objective be ing and terrestrial life, evolved the protoplasmic forms of the future Egos from their own essence. When this human vehicle or basic mould was ready, the natural terrestrial Forces began to work on those supersensuous moulds, which contained, be sides their own, the elements of all the past vege table and future animal forms of this globe. There fore man's outward shell passed through every veg etable and animal form before it assumed the human shape. This will be fully described in Book II. Extracts from a private Commentary, hitherto secret. (These teachings do not refer to Spirit-Mat ter beyond the boundaries of our small Universe, and are all given from our plane of consciousness.) (XVII.) " The Initial Existence in the first twi light of the Great Life-Cycle is a conscious spiritual quality. In the solar systems it is, in its objective subjectivity, like the film from a Divine Breath to the gaze of the entranced seer. It spreads, as it is sues from the quiescent state, throughout infinity as a colorless spiritual fluid. It is on the seventh plane, and in its seventh state in our planetary world. (XVIII.) " It is Substance to our spiritual sight. It cannot be called so by men in their waking state ; therefore they have named it in their ignorance ' God-Spirit.' (XIX.) " It exists everywhere, and forms the first foundation on which our solar system is built. Outside that, it is to be found in its pristine purity only between (the solar systems or) the Stars of the Universe, the worlds already formed or forming; those in the neutral state resting meanwhile in its bosom. As its substance is of a different kind from that known on earth, the inhabitants of the latter, seeing through it, believe in their illusion and igno- 168 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ranee that it is empty space. There is not one fin ger's breadth of void space in the whole boundless Universe. . . . (XX.) " Matter or Substance is septenary within our World, as it is beyond it. Moreover, each of its (seven) states or principles is graduated into seven degrees of density. The Sun, in its visible reflection (its visible form, which is a reflection), exhibits the first or lowest states of the seventh (the highest state) of the Universal Presence, the pure of the pure, the first manifested Breath of the ever Unmanifested (Be-ness). All the Central physical or objective Suns are in their substance the lowest state of the first principle of the Breath. Nor are any of these any more than the reflections of their Primaries, which are concealed from the gaze of all but the Creative Powers, whose corporeal substance belongs to the fifth division of the seventh principle of the Mother-substance, and is, therefore, four de grees higher than the substance of the solar reflec tion. As there are seven principal substances in the human body, so there are seven Forces in Man and in all Nature. (XXI.) " The real substance of the concealed (in visible) Sun is a nucleus of Mother-substance." (The really homogeneous primeval matter, which no mortal can make objective in this Race or Round.) " It is the heart and the matrix of all the living and existing Forces in our solar system. It is the kernel from which proceed, on their cyclic journeys, all the Powers that set in action the atoms in their functional duties, and the focus in which they meet again in their seventh essence every eleventh year. He who tells thee he hath seen the Sun, laugh at him as if he had said that the Sun really moves onward on his diurnal path. . . . (XXIII.*) " It is on account of his septenary na- ?Several paragraphs are omitted in the original. — Editor.. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 169 ture that the Sun is spoken of by the ancients as one who is driven by seven horses equal to the metres of the Vedas; or, again, that though he is identified with the seven classes of being, in his orb he is dis tinct from them, as he is, indeed ; as also that he has seven rays, as indeed he has. . . . (XXV.) " The Seven Beings in the Sun are the send the seven principal Forces called Rays, which Seven Holy Ones, self -born from tBe inherent power in the matrix of Mother-substance. It is they who at the beginning of Universal Night will centre into seven new Suns for the next Life-cycle. The energy from which they spring into conscious existence in every Sun is what some people call Vishnu, which is the Breath of the Absoluteness." (" Vishnu in the form of the solar active energy neither rises nor sets, and is at once the sevenfold Sun and distinct from it." Vishnu Purana, II., 2.) ' ' We call it the One manifested Life — itself a re flection of the Absolute. . . . (XXVI.) ' ' The latter must never be mentioned in words or speech, lest it should take away some of OUR SPIRITUAL ENERGIES THAT ASPIRE TOWARDS ITS state, gravitating ever onward unto it spiritually, as the whole physical universe gravitates towards its manifested centre- — cosmically. (XXVII.) " The former— the initial existence — which may be called while in this state of being the One Life, is, as explained, a Film for creative or formative purposes. It manifests in seven states, which, with their septenary subdivisions, are the Foiity-nine Fires mentioned in sacred books. . . . (XXIX.) "The first is the ... ' Mother ' (prima materia). Separating itself into its primary seven states, it proceeds down cyclically; when hav ing consolidated itself in its last principle as gross majtter, it revolves around itself, and informs, with tho seventh emanation of the last, the first and low- !70 THE SECRET DOCTRINE est element (the Serpent biting its own tail). In a hierarchy, or order of being, the seventh emanation of her last principle is : . (a) In the mineral, the spark that lies latent in it, and is called to its evanescent being by the Posi tive awakening the Negative (and so forth). . . • (b) In the plant it is that vital and intelligent Force which informs the seed and develops it into the blade of grass, or the root and sapling. It is the germ which becomes the vehicle of the seven prin ciples of the thing it resides in, shooting them out as the latter grows and develops. (c) In every animal it does the same. It is its life-principle and vital power ; its instinct and qual ities; its characteristics and special idiosyncra sies. . . . (d) To man it gives all that it bestows on all the rest of the manifested units ii? -aaiure ; but develops furthermore in him the reflectior1. of all its Forty- nine Fiees. Each of his seven principles is an heir in full to, and a partaker of, the sev\n principles of ' the great Mother. ' The breath of Wier first prin ciple is his Spirit (Atma). Her seconAd principle is Soul (Buddhi). We call it erroneously the sixth. The third furnishes him with (a) the br*11"1 stuff on the physical plane, and (b) with the Mind ffi^hat moves it (which is the human soul. H. P. B.)— "jRtccording to his organic capacities. "\a (e) It is the guiding Force in the cosmic aJP^ ter" restrial elements. It resides in the Fire prov8^0^ out of its latent into active being; for the wholV^ °^ the seven subdivisions of the . . princinl VCre" side in the terrestrial Fire. It whirls in the hr er blows with the hurricane and sets the air iu mnP tht)n' which element participates in one of its DrirT° i' ^ules- Proceeding cyclically, it regulates the motion nf\ • *e water, attracts and repels the waves ,-J^- "fna-to fixed laws of which its seventh principle is th?^ '* THE SECRET DOCTRINE 171 forming soul. (It is the informing Spirit of the whole cosmic solar body that is meant here, not the physical waves and tides . H. P. B.) (/) Its four higher principles contain the germ that develops into the Cosmic Gods ; its three lower ones breed the lives of the Elementals. (g) In our Solar world, the One Existence is Heaven and Earth, the Root and the Flower, the Action and the Thought. It is in the Sun, and is as present in the glowworm. Not an atom can escape it. Therefore the ancient Sages have wisely called it the manifested God in Nature." . . . It may be interesting to summarize here what T. Subba Row has written of the six Forces in Nature, synthesized by the seventh, mystically defined. (See Five Tears of Theosophy.) He says, " these Forces (or sakti) are as follows: 1. Paeasakti. Literally, the Supreme Force or power. It means and includes the powers of light and heat. 2. Jnanasakti. The power of Intellect or Wis dom. It has two aspects. The following are some of its manifestations when placed under the influ ence or control of material conditions: (a) The power of the mind in interpreting our sensations. (b) Memory and expectation, (c) Its power of forming persisting connections between various groups of sensations, and thus generating the idea of external objects. Some of its manifestations when liberated from the bonds of matter are clair voyance and psychometry. 3. Itchasakct. The power of the Will. Its most ordinary manifestation is our control over our mus cles, etc. 4. Keiyasakti. The mysterious power of Thought, which enables it to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy. The 172 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ancients held that any idea will manifest itself ex ternally if one's attention is deeply concentrated upon it. In like manner an intense volition (itcha- sakti) will be followed by the desired result. A Yogi generally performs his wonders by means of Itchasakti and Kriyasakti. 5. Kundalini-sakti. The power or force which moves in a curved line (spiral or winding). It is the universal Life-principle manifesting everywhere in nature. This force includes the two great forces of Attraction and Repulsion. Electricity and Mag netism are but manifestations of it. 6. Manteika-sakti. The force or power (of sound) in letters, speech or music. The influence of melody is one of its ordinary manifestations. The power of the Ineffable Name is the crown of this force. Modern science has but partly investigated the 1st, 2d and 5th of the forces above named, but is al together in the dark as regards the others. The six forces are represented in their unity by the Seventh, the light of the Logos. (Fohat, Stanza VI., 4.) The above is quoted (and somewhat abridged) to show the real Hindu ideas on the subject. It is all esoteric, though not covering the tenth part of what might be said. For instance, the six names of the six forces mentioned are those of the six Hierarchies of Creative Powers, synthesized by their Primary the seventh, who personify the fifth principle of Cos mic Nature (Universal Mind), or of " the Mother " in its mystical sense. Each of these Forces has a living conscious Entity at its head, of which Entity it is an emanation. Let us compare with the Com mentary just cited the words of Hermes, " the thrice-great ": " The creation of Life by the Sim is as continuous as his light; nothing arrests or limits it. Around him, like an army of satellites, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 173 are innumerable choirs of genii. These dwell in the neighborhood of the Immortals, and thence watch over human things. They fulfill the will of the gods (Karma) by means of storms, tempests, transitions of fire and earthquakes. ... At the moment when each of us receives life and being, he is taken in charge by the genii (Elementals) who preside over births, and who are classed beneath the astral powers." (Superhuman astral Spirits.) This means that as man is composed of all the great Elements, Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Ether, the elementals which belong to each of these feel attracted to man by reason of their co-essence. That element which predominates in any constitution will be the ruling element through life. For instance, a preponderance of the earthly element will lead a man to assimilating metals, money and so on. Whether one calls the ' ' genii ' ' of Hermes, angels, spirits or powers, they are all one and the same thing — Illusion. Let not this, however, be misun derstood. Everything outside of the Absolute must be an illusion, but only so from the purely meta physical view. Everything is relative in this Uni verse, everything is an illusion. But the experience of any plane is an actuality for the percipient be ing whose consciousness is on that plane; though the said experience, regarded from the purely meta physical standpoint, may be conceived to have no ob jective reality. It is barely possible that the minds of the present generation are not quite ripe for the reception of occult truths. " If either a religion or a philosophy is too much in advance of a nation it can do no pres ent service, but must bide its time until the minds of men are ripe for its reception. " (This is cyclic law, but this law itself is often defied by human stub bornness.) " Every science, every creed, has had its martyrs. According to the ordinary course of af- 174 THE SECRET DOCTRINE fairs a few generations pass away, and then there comes a period when these very truths are looked upon as commonplace facts, and a little later there comes another period in which they are declared to be necessary, and even the dullest intellect wonders how they could ever have been denied." (H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization, Vol. I., p. 256.) Such will be the retrospect furnished to the ad vanced thinkers of the Sixth Root-race of the his tory of the acceptance of Esoteric philosophy — fully and unconditionally. The Addenda, Book IL, Part IL, gives, however, in an anticipatory manner, an swers to several of the forthcoming scientific objec tions. The so-called Forces, with Light and Elec tricity heading them, and the constitution of the Solar orb must be carefully examined ; as also Grav itation and the Nebular hypothesis. The natures of Ether and other elements must be discussed, thus contrasting scientific with occult teachings, while revealing some of the hitherto secret tenets of the latter. (Vide Addenda, S.D., Original Edition, Vol. I., p. 477, et seq.— Ed.) BOOK II. PART I The Evolution of Symbolism in Its Appeoximate Order Explanatory Sections " A symbol is ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the Godlike." — Carlyle. Section I Symbolism and Ideographs The study of the hidden meaning in every relig ious and profane legend, of whatsoever nation (and pre-eminently the traditions of the East) has oc cupied the greater portion of the present writer's life. She is one of these who feel convinced that no mythological story, no traditional event in the folk lore of a people, has ever been at any time pure fic tion, but that every one of such narratives has an actual, historical lining to it. In this the writer dis agrees with those symbologists who believe that all mythologies sprang from, and are built upon, solar myths. Such superficial thinkers were admirably disposed of by Mr. Gerald Massey, in a lecture on " Luniolatry, Ancient and Modern." He says there that ' ' Mythology was a primitive mode of thinking the early thought. It was founded on natural facts,, and is still verifiable in phenomena. . . . For example, when the Egyptians portrayed the moon as a cat, they were not ignorant enough to suppose the moon was a cat, nor was a cat-myth any mere ex pansion of verbal metaphor. They had observed the simple fact that the cat saw in the dark, and that her eyes became full-orbed and most luminous by night. The name of the cat in Egyptian is mau, which de notes the seer, from mau, to see. The moon was the seer by night in heaven, and the cat was its equivalent on earth. The moon as cat was the eye 178 THE SECRET DOCTRINE of the sun, because it reflected the solar light, and because the eye gives back the image in its mirror. In the form of the goddess Pasht (or Bubastes) the cat keeps watch for the sun, with her paw holding down and bruising the head of the serpent of dark ness, called his eternal enemy." This is a very correct exposition of the lunar mythos from its astronomical aspect. Selenography, however, is the least esoteric of the divisions of lunar symbology. To master it thoroughly one must become proficient in more than its astronomical meaning. The untiring researches of Western, and especially German, symbologists during the last two centuries have brought every Occultist and most unprejudiced persons to see that without the help of symbology (with its seven departments of which the moderns know nothing) no ancient scripture can ever be understood correctly. Symbology must be studied from every one of its aspects, for each na tion had its own peculiar methods of expression. In short, no Egyptian papyrus, no Indian carving, no Assyrian tile or Hebrew scroll should be read and accepted literally. This every scholar now knows. But the point to which even the most truth-loving and truth-search ing Orientalists seem to remain blind is the fact that every symbol in papyrus or olla * is a many-faced diamond, each of whose facets not merely bears several interpretations, but relates likewise to sev eral sciences. This is instanced in the just quoted interpretation of the moon and cat symbol, a purely astronomical one. As a learned Mason and Theosophist, the late Mr. Kenneth MacKenzie has shown in his Royal Masonic Cyclopcedia there is a great difference between an emblem and a symbol. The former " comprises a larger series of thoughts than a symbol, which may *A cinerary urn, or Oriental water-jar. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 179 be said to illustrate some single, special idea." Hence the symbols (say lunar or solar) of several countries, each illustrating such a special idea or series of ideas, form collectively an esoteric emblem, " recognizable by those who have received certain instructions." (Initiates.) Even a parable is a spoken symbol, a fiction or a fable, some think ; an allegorical representation, we say, of life-realities, events and facts. And as a moral was ever drawn from a parable, that moral being an actual truth of human life, so an historical event was deduced by those versed in the hieratic sciences, from certain emblems and symbols re corded in the ancient archives of the temples. The religious and esoteric history of every nation was embodied in symbols ; it was never expressed in so many words. Why? Because the spoken word has a potency unknown to, and unsuspected by, the mod ern " sages." Because sound and rhythm are closely related to the four Elements of the ancients ; and be cause certain vibrations in the air are sure to awaken corresponding powers, with good or bad re sults, as the case may Tbe. No student was ever al lowed to recite religious, historical or any real events in so many unmistakable words, lest the pow ers connected with the event should be once more attracted. Such events were narrated only during the Initiation, and every student had to record them in corresponding symbols, drawn out of his own mind, and examined later by his master, before they were finally accepted. Thus was created in time the Chinese alphabet, as before that the hieratic symbols were fixed upon in old Egypt. In the Chinese lan guage, the alphabet of which may be read in any tongue (like the Arabic numerals), and which is only a little less ancient than the alphabet of Thoth, every word has its corresponding symbol, conveying the word needed in a pictorial form. The language 180 THE SECRET DOCTRINE possesses many thousands of such symbol letters, each meaning a whole word; for letters proper did not exist in the Chinese language any more than in the Egyptian till a far later period. The explanation of the chief symbols and emblems is now attempted, as Volume IL, which treats of Anthropogenesis, would be most difficult to under stand without a preparatory acquaintance with the metaphysical symbols at least. Nor would it be just to enter upon an esoteric reading of symbolism without giving due honor to one who has rendered it the greatest service in this century by discovering the chief key to ancient He brew symbology, interwoven strongly with metrol ogy, one of the keys to the once universal mystery language. Mr. Ralston Skinner of Cincinnati, a mystic and a Kabalist by nature, has labored for many years in this direction, and his labors have certainly been crowned with great success. In his book called " The Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery and the Source of Measures," he says, speaking of the old language referred to, that concealed an inner meaning beneath the written words: " Such a use of ordinary language is now obso lete, but it has become a question with the writer whether at one time far back in the past such was not the language of the world and of universal use, possessed, however, as it became more and more arcane in form, by a select class or caste. . . . Indeed it would seem that in the history of the hu man race there happened from causes which, at pres ent at any rate we cannot trace, a lapse or loss from an original perfect language and a perfect system of science — shall we say perfect, because they were of divine origin and importation? " ' ' Divine origin ' ' does not mean here a revelation from an anthropomorphic god, but, as we under stand it, a language and a system of science im- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 181 parted to the early mankind by a more advanced mankind, so much higher as to be divine in the sight of that infant humanity. Who is bold enough to say that the divine Egos of our mankind will not become in their turn the " divine " instructors of a new mankind generated by them on a new globe, called to life and activity by the disembodied ' ' prin ciples " of our Earth? (v. Stanza VI.). All this may have been the experience of the Past ; and its strange records lie embedded in the ' ' Mystery lan guage " of the prehistoric ages, the language now called Symbolism. Section II The Mystery Language and Its Keys Recent discoveries made by great mathematicians and Kabalists have proved beyond a shadow of doubt that every theology, from the earliest down to the latest, has sprung not only from a common source of abstract beliefs, but from one universal, esoteric or " Mystery " language. These scholars hold the key to this language of old, and have turned it successfully, though only once, in the hermetically closed door leading to the Hall of Mysteries. The great archaic system known from prehistoric ages as the Sacred Wisdom Science had, and still has, its universal language, that of the Hierophants, which has seven " dialects," so to speak, each refer ring and being specially appropriated to one of the seven mysteries of Nature. Each had its own sym bolism, and thus Nature could be studied as a whole or in one of its special aspects. The proof of this lies to this day in the extreme difficulty experienced by the Oriental and Egyptian scholars especially in interpreting the allegorical writings of the Aryans and the hieratic records of 182 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ancient Egypt. This is because they do not know or will not remember that all the ancient records were written in a language known to all nations in days of old, but now intelligible only to the few. Like the sign & , which signifies and to all civilized na tions, though called by many different names, the words of that mystery language signified the same thing to all the ancient peoples. Its seven keys, how ever, having always been in the keeping of the high est among the initiated Hierophants of antiquity, it was only the partial use of a few out of the seven which passed (through the treason of some early Church Fathers, ex-Initiates of the Temples) into the hands of the new sect of the Nazarenes. Some of the early Popes were Initiates, but the last frag ments of their knowledge have now fallen into the power of the Jesuits, who have turned them into a system of sorcery. They are the origin of some of the Christian dogmas, such as the Trinity, the Re surrection, the seven Sacraments, seven capital Sins, seven Virtues, etc. It is maintained that India (including her ancient boundaries) is the only country in the world which still counts adepts among her sons, who have the knowledge of all the seven sub-systems, and the key to the entire system. After the fall of Memphis, Egypt began to lose those keys one by one, and Chaldea had preserved only three in the days of Berosus. As for the Hebrews in all their writings they show no more than a thorough knowledge of the astronomical, geometrical and numerical sys tems of symbolizing all the human, and especially the physiological functions. They never had the higher keys. The Egyptian priests forgot much, but they al tered nothing. The loss of a good deal of the primi tive teaching was due to the sudden deaths of the great Hierophants, who passed away before they THE SECRET DOCTRINE 183 had time to reveal all to their successors, and even more to the absence of worthy heirs to the knowl edge. Yet they have preserved in their rituals and dogmas the principal teachings of the secret doc trine. That which the Jews had from Egypt, through Moses and other Initiates, was confused and dis torted enough in later days, and that which the Church got from both is still more misinterpreted. Yet their key to the mysteries of astronomy as connected with those of generation and conception is now proved identical in this special department of symbology with those ideas of ancient religions whose theology has developed the phallic element. The Jewish system of sacred measures applied to religious symbols is the same, so far as geometrical and numerical combinations go, as those of Chaldea, Greece and Egypt, having been adopted by the Jews during the centuries of their captivity and slavery with those nations. This system and these measures are considered by some scholars to be identical with those used in the construction of the great Pyramid — but this is only partially true. Staniland Wake, in his work On the Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid, justly observes that these coinci dences ' ' must be more than mere coincidences if the builders of the Pyramid had the astronomical knowl edge displayed in its perfect orientation and in its other admitted astronomical features." They had it, and it is on this " Knowledge " that the programme of the Mysteries and of the series of Initiations was based; hence the construction of the Pyramids, the everlasting record and the inde structible symbol of these Mysteries and Initiations on earth, as the courses of the stars are in heaven. The cycle of Initiation was a reproduction in minia ture of that great series of cosmic changes to which astronomers have given the name of the sidereal year. Just as at the close of the sidereal year (25,- 184 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 868 solar years) the heavenly bodies return to the same relative positions which they occupied at its beginning, so at the close of the Cycle of Initiation the inner man has regained the pristine state of Divine purity and knowledge from which he set out on his cycle of terrestrial incarnations. Moses, an Initiate into the Egyptian Mystagogy, based the religious mysteries of the new nation which he created upon the same abstract formula derived from this sidereal cycle, which he symbolized under the form and measurements of the tabernacle that he was supposed to have constructed in the wilderness. On these data the later Jewish High Priests constructed the allegory of Solomon's Tem ple — a building which had no more real existence than Solomon himself, who is simply as much a solar myth as the still later Hiram Abif of the Ma sons, as Ragon has well demonstrated. Whether the archaic esoteric system originated the British inch or not is of little consequence to the true metaphysician. But it is extremely important to ascertain whether the measures used in the evo lution and building of the Aryan symbolic religion, in the construction of their temples, the figures given in the Puranas, and especially in their chron ology, their astronomical symbols, the duration of the cycles and other computations, were the same as those used in the Biblical measures and glyphs. For this would prove that the Jews, unless they took their sacred cubit and other measurements from the Egyptians (Moses being an Initiate of their Priests), must have got those notions from India. That it was the Jewish system of measures which led to the invention of the God-names Elohim and Je hovah, and their adaptation to phallicism, and that Jehovah is a not very flattered copy of Osiris, has been demonstrated by the author of ' ' The Source of Measures." THE SECRET DOCTRINE 185 In Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., p. 519, we said that Hero dotus when treating of the Pyramid " might have added that externally it symbolized the creative principle of Nature, and illusfrated also the princi ples of geometry, mathematics, astrology and as tronomy. Internally it was a majestic fane, in whose sombre recesses were performed the mysteries, and whose walls had often witnessed the initiations of members of the royal family. The porphyry sarcophagus was the baptismal font, upon emerging from which the neophyte was ' born again, ' and be came an adept." Our statement was laughed at in those days. And now, six or seven years later, Mr. Staniland Wake (in his book before quoted) writes : " The so-called King's Chamber, of which an enthusiastic pyramid- ist says, ' The polished walls, etc., tell of glories yet to come, was probably the place to which the ini- tiatant was admitted after he had passed through the narrow upward passage and the grand gallery with its lowly termination, which gradually prepared him for the final stage of the Sacred Mysteries. ' " * Had Mr. Staniland Wake been a Theosophist he might have added that the narrow upward passage had " a narrow gate " indeed; the same " strait gate " which " leadeth unto life," or the new spir itual rebirth alluded to by Jesus. (Matt. vii. 13, et seq.) But while supposing that the whole cycle of the universal mystery language will not be mastered for centuries to come, Judaism has at least availed it self of two keys out of the seven, and these two keys having now been rediscovered, a few years longer and this system will kill the dead letter of the Bible as it will that of all the other exoteric faiths. And then this undeniable meaning, however in- ?See also "The Book of the Master," by W. Marshman Adams, jyhere all these details are corroborated. Putnam, 1898. — Editor. 186 THE SECRET DOCTRINE complete, will unveil the mystery of Being, besides changing entirely the modern scientific systems of anthropology, ethnology and especially chronology. The element of phallicism found in every God-name and narrative in the Old (and in some degree in the New) Testament, may also in time considerably modify modern materialistic views of biology and physiology. The so-called phallic symbols have be come offensive only because of the element of mate riality and animality in them. As they originated with the archaic races, who issued to their personal knowledge from an androgyne ancestry, and were the first phenomenal manifestations of the separa tion of sexes and the ensuing mystery of creating in their turn, such symbols were but natural. If later races have degraded these symbols, especially " the chosen people," this does not affect their original status. The little Semitic tribe — one of the smallest branchlets from the mingling of the 4th and 5th sub- races (the Mongolo-Turanian and the Indo-Euro pean) — of the Fifth Race could only accept its sym bology in the spirit which was given to it by the na tions from which it was derived. Perchance in the Mosaic beginnings that symbology was not as crude as it became later under the handling of Ezra, who remodelled the whole Pentateuch. All this, notwithstanding the exoteric element found in the two Testaments, is quite sufficient to class the Bible among esoteric works, and to connect its secret system with Indian, Chaldean and Egyp tian symbolism. The whole cycle of Biblical glyphs and numbers, as suggested by astronomical observa tions — astronomy and theology being closely con nected — is found in Indian exoteric as well as eso teric systems. The earliest forms of elementary geometry must certainly have been suggested by the observation of the heavenly bodies and their group ings. Hence the most archaic symbols in Eastern THE SECRET DOCTRINE 187 Esotericism are a circle, a point, a triangle, a plane, a cube, a pentacle and a hexagon, and plane figures with various sides and angles. Starting from this, it becomes easy to understand how Nature herself could have taught primeval man kind the first principles of a numerical and geomet rical symbol-language, even without the help of di vine instructors. Hence we find numbers and fig ures used as an expression and a record of thought in every archaic symbolical scripture. They are ever the same, with only certain variations growing out of the first figures. Every cosmogony began with a circle, a point, a triangle and a cube, up to 9, when it was synthesized by the first line and a circle, 10 (or cd ) — the Pythagorean. mystic Decade, the sum of all, involving and expressing the mysteries of the entire Kosmos ; recorded a hundred times more fully in the Hindu system for him who can under stand its mystic language. The numbers 3 and 4, in their blending as 7, as well as 5, 6, 9 and 10, are the very corner-stone of occult cosmogonies. This dec ade and its thousand combinations are found in every portion of the globe. One recognizes them in the caves and rock-cut temples of Hindustan and Central Asia, as well as in the pyramids and lithoi of Egypt and America; in the catacombs of Ozi- mSandyas, in the mounds of the Caucasian snow capped fastnesses, in the ruins of Palenque, in Easter Island, everywhere whither the foot of an cient man has ever trod. The 3 and 4, the triangle and the cube, or the male and female universal glyph, the cross, showing the first aspect of the evolving deity, is stamped forever in the Southern Cross in the heavens, as in the Egyptian crux ansata. As well expressed by Mr. Skinner : ' ' The .. a cross of the tau the Christian cross cube unfolded is in display _ or Egyptian form, J, or of L form +. A circle attached to the first, °, gives the 188 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ansated cross. . . . The cross form being shown, by the connected use of the form 113 :355, the symbol is completed by the attachment of a man to the Cross. This kind of measure was made to co ordinate with the idea of the origin of human life, and hence the phallic form." (Remember the Hindu Wittoba crucified in Space ; Plato 's decussated man in Space, etc.) Identical glyphs, numbers and esoteric symbols are found in Egypt, Peru, Mexico, Easter Island, India, Chaldea and Central Asia. Crucified men, and symbols of the evolution of races from gods, and yet behold science repudiating the idea of a human race other than one made in our image; theology clinging to its 6,000 years of creation, an thropology teaching our descent from the ape, and the clergy tracing it from Adam 4004 b. c. The seven keys open the mysteries, past and fu ture, of the seven great Root-Races, as of the seven ages, and we feel certain, Scripture notwithstanding, that once the mystery language is approximately mastered, it is the archaic teaching that will be accepted. Section III Primordial Substance and Divine Thought " Assuming what is not strictly accurate as yet, that the undulatory hypothesis accounts for all "the facts, we are called upon to decide whether the exist ence of an undulating Ether is thereby proved. We cannot positively affirm that no other supposition will explain the facts. . . . Some hypotheses consist of assumptions as to the minute structure and operations of bodies. From the nature of the case these assumptions can never be proved by di rect means. Their only merit is their suitability to express the phenomena. They are representative THE SECRET DOCTRINE 189 fictions " (v. " Logic," by Alexander Bain, Pari II., p. 133). Ether, one of " the representative fictions " of modern science, is one of the lower principles of what we call Primordial Substance (in Sanskrit, Akasa), one of the boldest, as it is the greatest, of the surviving speculations of ancient philosophers. For the occultists, however, both Ether and the Pri mordial Substances are realities. To put it plainly, Ether is the Astral Light, and Primordial Substance or Akasa is the vehicle of Divine Thought. In modern language tbe latter would be better named Cosmic Ideation — Spirit; the former, Cosmic Sub stance — Matter. Divine Thought cannot be defined, or its meaning explained, except by the numberless manifestations of Cosmic Substance in which it is perceived spir itually by those who can do so. Its place is found in the old primitive symbolic charts, where it is rep resented as boundless darkness upon which appears the first central point in white — thus symbolizing coeval and coeternal Spirit-Matter making its ap pearance in the phenomenal world, before its first differentiation. When " the one becomes two," it may then be referred to as Spirit and Matter. To " Spirit " is referable every manifestation of con sciousness, reflective or direct, and of unconscious ness purposiveness (to adopt a modern expression) as evidenced in the vital principle, and Nature 's sub mission to immutable law. " Matter " must be re garded as the self-existing basis whose septenary cyclic manifestations constitute the objective reality underlying the phenomena of each phase of con scious existence. During the peripd of Universal Night, Cosmic Ideation is non-existent, and the vari ous differentiations of Cosmic Substance are re solved again into their primary condition. (Of ab stract potential objectivity.) 190 THE SECRET DOCTRINE The cyclic impulse begins with the reawakening of Cosmic Ideation (or the Universal Mind) concur rently with the emergence of Cosmic Substance (its vehicle during the life-cycle) from its dormant con dition. Then Absolute Wisdom mirrors itself in its Ideation, which, by a transcendent process, incom prehensible by human consciousness, results in Cos mic Energy. (Fohat.) Thrilling through the bosom of inert Substance, Fohat impels it to activity, and guides its primary differentiations on all the seven planes of Cosmic Consciousness. There are thus seven protyles, as they are now called (Aryan anti quity called them the seven Natures, or prakriti), serving severally as the relatively homogeneous basis, which, in the course of evolution, becomes the marvellous complexity presented by phenomena on the planes of perception. The term " relatively " is used designedly, because the very existence of such a process as the above compels us to regard the protyle of each plane as only a mediate phase as sumed by Substance as it passes into objectivity. The term protyle is due to Mr. Crookes, who has given that name to primordial matter. But the in cipient separation of primordial matter into atoms and molecules begins after the evolution of the seven Protyles. It is the last of these that Mr. Crookes is seeking. Cosmic Ideation is said to be non-existent dur ing the periods of Night, for the simple reason that there is no one and nothing to perceive its effects. There can be no manifestation of consciousness in any form except through the vehicle of matter ; that is, on our plane, where in human consciousness in its normal state cannot soar beyond what is known as transcendental metaphysics ; it is only through some molecular medium that Spirit wells up in a stream of individual or sub-conscious subjectivity. In strict accuracy, the term " Matter " ought to be applied THE SECRET DOCTRINE 191 to phenomena, and " Substance " to noumena; for inasmuch as the phenomena of our plane are the creation of the perceiving Ego, they can have but a relative existence for its inhabitants. But this does not necessarily imply that it is the same on all other planes ; from the standpoint of the highest met aphysics, the whole Universe is an illusion ; but the illusion of him who is himself an illusion differs on every plane of consciousness ; and we have no more right to dogmatize about the possible nature of the perceptive faculties of an Ego on the sixth plane, for instance, than we have to make our perceptions a standard for those of an ant, in its mode of con sciousness. The pure object apart from conscious ness is unknown to us while living on the plane of our three-dimensional world ; for we know only the mental states it excites in the perceiving Ego. Cos mic Ideation (the Universal Mind), focused in a principle or vehicle, results as the consciousness of the individual Ego. Its manifestation varies with the nature of the vehicle; through that known as the Intellectual Soul it wells up as Mind-Conscious ness; through the more finely differentiated fabric of the sixth state of matter, the Spiritual Soul (rest ing on the experience of Mind as its basis), it be comes a stream of spiritual Intuition. And so long as we enjoy our five senses and no more, and do not know how to free our all-perceiving Ego (the Higher Self) from their thraldom, so long will it be impossible for the personal Ego to break through the barrier which separates it from a knowledge of things in themselves, or Substance. That Ego must exhaust the experience of every plane. But not un til the Unit is merged in the All, whether on this or any other plane, is scaled that peak of Omniscience, the knowledge of things-in-themselves, and the solu tion of the yet more awful riddle approached, be fore which even the highest archangel must bow in 192 THE SECRET DOCTRINE silence and ignorance — the unspeakable mystery of the Absolute. Therefore, such being the case, all those who sought to give a name to the incognizable Principle have simply degraded it. Even to speak of Cosmic Ideation — save in its phenomenal aspect, is like try ing to bottle up primordial chaos, or put a printed label on Eternity. What then is that " primordial Substance," men tioned under various names in every cosmogony, re ferred to in every philosophy, and shown to be, to this day, the ever-elusive Proteus in Nature? We touch, and do not feel it ; we look at it without see ing it ; we breathe it, and do not perceive it, we hear and smell it without any recognition that it is there ; for it is in every molecule of that which in our illu sion and ignorance we regard as matter in any of its states, or conceive of as a feeling, a thought, an emotion. In short, it is the vehicle of every possible phenomenon, wheher physical, mental, or psychic. In the opening chapters of Genesis as in the Chal dean cosmogony; in the Puranas of India, and in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, it opens everywhere the cycle of Manifestation. It is termed Chaos, the Deep, Space, the Abyss, etc. It is evident, then, that Ether, the fifth element, is not the deific Entity worshipped by the Greeks and Latins under the name of Pater omnipotens 2Ether. The difference made between the seven states of Ether, one of the seven cosmic principles, while the .ZEther of the An cients is universal Fire, may be seen in the injunc tions by Zoroaster and Psellus. The former said: " Consult it only when it is without form or figure," which means without flames or burning coals. " When it has a form — heed it not," teaches Psel lus; " but when it is formless obey it, for then it is sacred fire, and all it will reveal to thee shall be true." This proves that Ether, itself an aspect of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 193 Akasa, has, in its turn, several aspects or princi ples. ' ' What is the primordial Chaos but iEther ? " is asked in Isis Unveiled. Not the modern Ether, but iEther, with all its mysterious and occult properties, containing in itself the germs of universal creation. The higher iEther or Akasa is the celestial Virgin, and the mother of every existing form and being, from whose bosom, as soon as " brooded over " by the Divine Spirit, are called into existence Matter and Life, Force and Attraction. Electricity, mag netism, heat, light and chemical action are so little understood even now that fresh facts are constantly widening the range of our knowledge. Who knows where ends the power of this protean giant, .iEther? Who, we mean, that denies the spirit that works in it and evolves out of it all visible forms? " The one Universal Light, which to Man is Dark ness, is ever existent," says the Chaldean Book of Numbers. From it proceeds periodically the En ergy that is reflected in the " Deep " or Chaos, the storehouse of future worlds, which, once awakened, stirs up and fructifies the latent Forces, the ever- present eternal potentialities in it, and a new Uni verse springs into being. This " primordial Substance " (called by some Chaos), after it had been impregnated by the Spirit which broods over the primeval waters, was named by Plato and the Pythagoreans the Soul of the World. It is the invisible, imponderable Spirit of things, and the invisible but too tangible fluid that radiates from the fingers of the healthy magnetizer, for it is Vital Electricity — Life itself. It is termed by Occultists to this day ' ' the living Fire ' ' ; and there is not a Hindu who practises at dawn a cer tain kind of meditation but knows its effects, (v. Isis Unveiled, ch. 7, Vol. I.) Spirit then, or Cosmic Ideation, and Cosmic Sub- 194 THE SECRET DOCTRINE stance— one of whose principles is Ether — are one, and include the Elements, in the sense St. Paul at taches to them. They are the veiled synthesis stand ing for Creative Powers, Archangels, etc. The Ether of science — the protyle of chemistry — constitutes, so to speak, the (relatively) crude material out of which the above-named " Builders " (following the plan traced out for them eternally in the Divine Thought) fashion the systems in the Cosmos. One of the greatest Western evolutionists, Mr. A. R. Wallace, admits the guiding action of " higher intel ligences " as a " necessary part of the great laws which govern the material Universe." (Contribu tions to Theory of Natural Selection.) These " higher Intelligences " are the " Build ers " of the Occultist. . . . In the " Forces " of science we see but the material effect of the spiritual effect of one or the other of the four primordial Ele ments, transmitted to us by the Fourth Race, as we shall transmit Ether* (or rather the gross subdi vision of it) to the Sixth Root-Race. Section IV Chaos, Theos, Kosmos Chaos is called " senseless " by the ancients, be cause it represented and contained in itself (Chaos and Space being synonymous) all the Elements in their rudimentary, undifferentiated state. They made of Ether, the fifth element, the synthesis of the other four, for their ^Ether was the Akasa of the Hindus, while the Ether accepted in physics is but one of its subdivisions on our plane— the Astral Light of the Kabalists, with all its evil as well as good effects. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 195 According to Hindu teaching, Deity in the shape of .iEther (Akasa) pervades all things ; and it was called, therefore, by the theurgists " the living Fire," the " Spirit of Light," and sometimes Mag- nes. It was the highest Deity itself which, according to Plato, built the Universe in the geometrical form of the Dodecahedron ; and its ' ' first begotten ' ' was born of Chaos and Primordial* Light (the Central Sun). (See Extracts from Commentary, XX.) This " First-born," however, was only the aggregate of the host of the " Builders," the first Constructive Forces. Chaos— Theos — Kosmos are but the three aspects of their synthesis, Space. One can never hope to solve the mystery of this Tetraktis by holding to the dead letter of even the old philosophies, as now ex tant. But even in these, Chaos — Theos — Kosmos = Space are identified in all Eternity as the One Un known Space, the last word about which will per haps never be known before our seventh Round. Nevertheless, the allegories and metaphysical sym bols of the primeval and perfect Cube are remark able, even in the exoteric Puranas. There also Brahma is the Theos evolving out of Chaos or the great Deep, the waters over which the Spirit is silently hovering in the first hour of re awakening. In Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., p. 133, it is said that in the Egyptian mythology " Kneph, the eternal Unrevealed God, is represented by a snake, the emblem of Eternity, encircling a water urn, with its head hovering over the waters which it incubates with its breath " (vide loc. cit.). The Zohar teaches that it is the primordial Elements, the four cardinal points, and all the Forces of Nature, which form collectively the Voice of the Will, or the " Word," the Logos of the Absolute Silent All. In the cos mogonies of all nations it is the ' ' Architects ' ' syn thesized by the Demiurgos (in the Bible the Elohim), 196 THE SECRET DOCTRINE who fashion Kosmos out of Chaos, and who are the collective Theos, " male-female," Spirit and Matter. In the Bible it is first Alhim (or Elohim), then Jahva-Elohim, and finally Jehovah — after the sepa ration of the sexes (Genesis iv.). Chaos-Theos-Kosmos, the triple deity, is all in all. Therefore, it is said to be male and female, good and evil, positive and negative ; the whole series of contrasted qualities. When latent (during the per iod of Night) it is unrecognizable, and becomes the unknowable Deity. It can be known only when ac tive, as matter-Force, and living Spirit, the correla tions and expression, on the visible plane, of the ulti mate and ever-unknown Unity. In its turn this triple unit is the producer of the four primary Elements, which are known in our visible, terrestrial nature as the seven (so far the five elements), each divisible into seven times seven sub-elements, with about seventy of which chemistry is acquainted (1888). Every cosmical element, such as Fire, Air, etc., partaking of the qualities and de fects of its primary, is in its nature good and evil, Force (or Spirit) and Matter, etc., and each, there fore, is at the same time Life and Death, Health and Disease, Action and Reaction (v. § XIV., The Four Elements) . The Hindus have an endless series of allegories to express this idea. In the primordial Chaos, be fore it became developed into the Seven Oceans, em blematic of the seven conditioned qualities, lie latent both Amrita (immortality) and Visha (poison, death, evil). This allegory is found in the " Churn ing of the Ocean '_' by the gods. Amrita is beyond any quality, for it is unconditioned per se, yet when fallen into the phenomenal creation it became mixed up with Evil, Chaos with latent Theos in it, before Kosmos was evolved. Hence we find Vishnu— THE SECRET DOCTRINE 197 standing here for eternal Law, periodically calling forth Kosmos into activity — churning out of the primitive Ocean (boundless Chaos) the Amrita of Eternity, reserved only for the gods ; and he has to employ in the task both good and bad spirits. The whole allegory is highly philosophical, and we find it repeated in every philosophical system. Plato, hav ing fully embraced the ideas of Pythagoras (who had brought them from India), compiled and pub lished them in a form more intelligible than the mysterious numerals of the Greek Sage. Section V. On the Hidden Deity, its Symbols and Glyphs The Logos or Creative Deity, the " Word made Flesh " of every religion, has to be traced to its ultimate source and essence. True Esoteric philos ophy, however, speaks neither of ' ' creation ' ' nor of ' ' evolution, ' ' in the sense that the exoteric religions use. The many personified Powers are not evolu tions from one another, but so many aspects of the one and sole manifestation of the Absolute All. Nor are most of the Gnostic systems, which come down to us mutilated by the Church Fathers, any thing better than the distorted shells of the original speculations. Nor were they open to the public at any time, for had their hidden meaning been re vealed, it would have been no longer an esoteric teaching. While the Logoi of all countries and re ligions are correlative (in their sexual aspects) with the female Soul of the World, or * ' the Great Deep, ' ' the Deity from which these two in one have their being is ever concealed, and called the " Hidden One," connected only indirectly with (so-called) 198 THE SECRET DOCTRINE creation, as it can act only through the Dual Force emanating from the Eternal Essence. Even ^ZEscu- lapius, called " the Saviour of all," is identical, ac cording to ancient classics, with Phta, the Egyptian Creative Intellect (or Divine Wisdom), and Phta is, in one of his aspects, the " Anima Mundi," the " Universal Soul " of Plato, the " Holy Ghost "of the early Christians and Gnostics, the Akasa of the Hindus, and, even in its lowest aspect, the Astral Light. Whence, then, all this identity of ideas if there was no primeval relation? If we turn to that most hazy of all cosmogonies, the Chinese, even there the same ideas are found. If we turn to Chaldea, we find in it Anu, the concealed deity ; Bel, the Creator, the Spirit of God moving on the face of the waters, and Hea, the Universal Soul, the wisdom of the three combined. And all of these, as symbols of water, had aquatic animals and plants sacred to them, the ibis, the swan, the goose, the crocodile, the frog, the lotus, etc. These symbols, chosen for the majestic idea of the Universal Principle, will seem little calculated to express its sacred character. A goose, or even a swan, may appear unfit to represent the grandeur of the Spirit. Nevertheless, it must have had some deep occult meaning, as it figures in every cos mogony, and was even chosen by the Crusaders (if we may credit Professor Draper) to precede them at the head of the army, a white gander being to them the vehicle of the Holy Ghost. The Egyptian God of Time, Seb, carries a goose on his head, and Jupiter and Brahma assumed the form of a swan, because the root of all this symbolism is that mys tery of mysteries — the Mundane Egg. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 199 Section VI The Mundane Egg The Egg was incorporated as a sacred symbol in the cosmogony of every people on the Earth, and was revered both on account of its form and its in ner mystery. From the earliest mental conceptions of man it was known as representing most success fully the origin and mystery of being. The gradual development of the invisible germ within the closed shell; the inward working, without any apparent outward interference, of some force that from a la tent nothing produced an active something, needing nought save heat, which, having gradually evolved into a living creature, broke its shell, appearing to the outward senses a self-generated and self -created being— this must have been a perpetual miracle from the first. The secret teaching explains the reason for the reverence of the Egg in the symbolism of the pre historic races. The " First Cause " had no name in the beginning. Later it was pictured in the fancy of the thinkers as an ever invisible, mysterious Bird that dropped an Egg into Chaos, which Egg became the Universe. Hence Brahm was called Kalahansa, " the swan in (Space and) Time." He became " the Swan of Eternity," who lays at the beginning of each great cycle a Golden Egg, The second reason why the egg was chosen as the symbolical representation of the universe, and of our earth, was its form. It was a circle and a sphere, and the ovoid shape of our globe must have been known from the beginning of symbology, since the symbol was so universally adopted. The first mani festation of the Kosmos in the form of an egg was the most widely diffused belief of antiquity. As 200 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Bryant shows, it was a symbol adopted among the Greeks, Syrians, Persians and Egyptians. In chap. 65 of the Egyptian Ritual, Seb, the god of Time and of the Earth (sometimes represented, as we have seen, with a goose on his head), is spoken of as hav ing laid an egg, or the Universe, " an Egg conceived at the hour of the great one of the Dual Force. ' ' With the Greeks, the Orphic Egg is described by Aristophanes, and was part of the Dionysiac and other Mysteries, during which the Mundane Egg was consecrated, and its significance explained. Both in Greece and in India the first visible male being, who united in himself the nature of both sexes, abode in the egg and issued from it. This ' ' first-born of the world " was Dionysius with some Greeks, the god who sprang from the mundane egg, and from whom the mortals and immortals were derived. The god Ra is shown in The Book of the Dead beaming in his egg (the Sun), and be starts off as soon as the god Shoo (the Solar energy) awakens and gives him the impulse. In view of the circular symbol, the " 1 " issuing from the " 0 " or the egg, or the male from the female in the androgyne, it is strange to find a scholar saying (on the ground that the most ancient Indian MSS. show no trace of it) that the ancient Aryans were ignorant of the decimal notation. We might reasonably answer that although we possess no certain proof (exoterically) that the decimal no tation was known to Pythagoras, who lived at the very close of the archaic ages, 608 b. c, yet we have sufficient evidence to show that the full numbers, as given by Boethius, were known to the Pythagoreans even before Alexandria was built, 332 b. c. But we know more than that; we know that the decimal sys tem must have been familiar to the mankind of the earliest archaic ages, since the whole astronomical and geometrical portion of the secret sacerdotal Ian- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 201 guage was built upon the number 10, or the combina tion of the male and female principles, and the Pyramid of " Cheops " is built upon the measures of this decimal notation, or rather upon the digits and their combinations with the nought. Of this, however, sufficient was said in Isis Unveiled. The symbolism of the Lunar and Solar deities is so inextricably mixed up that it is next to impossible to separate such glyphs as the egg, the lotus and the " sacred animals " from each other. The ibis, for instance, was held in the greatest veneration in Egypt, where it was sacred to Isis. There were two kinds, one black, the other black and white, the lat ter sacred to the moon, because of her bright and dark sides. Hermes is said to have watched over the Egyptians in the form of the ibis religiosa, and taught them the occult arts and sciences. This. means simply that this ibis had, and has, " mag ical ' ' properties in common with many other birds, the albatross pre-eminently. Were it otherwise, why should all the ancient peo ples have had such a dread of killing certain birds? The veneration of some nations for birds was such that Zoroaster, in his precepts, forbids their slaugh ter as a heinous crime. Why should so many peo ples have believed in divination by birds, and even in zoomancy, said by Suidas to have been imparted by Orpheus, who taught how to perceive in the con tents of the egg under certain conditions that which the bird born from it would have seen around it dur ing its short life ? This occult art of three thousand years ago, which demanded the greatest learning and the most abstruse mathematical calculations, has now fallen into the depths of degradation ; it is old cooks and fortune-tellers who read the future to servant-girls in search of husbands, by means of the white of an egg in a glass. As truly stated by Ragon, " the ancient Hiero- 202 THE SECRET DOCTRINE phants have combined so cleverly the dogmas and symbols of their religious philosophies that these symbols can be fully explained only by the combi nation and knowledge of all the keys." They can only be approximately interpreted even if one finds out three out of the seven systems; the anthropo logical, the psychic and the astronomical. The two chief interpretations, the highest and the lowest, the spiritual and the physiological, they preserved in the greatest secrecy until the latter fell under the dominion of the profane. Thus far, with regard only to the prehistoric Hierophants, with whom that which has now become purely (or impurely) phallic was a science as profound and as mysterious as biol ogy and physiology are now. The other two keys were those which dealt with the creative gods (the- ogony) and with creative man — i.e., the ideal and the practical mysteries. These interpretations were so cleverly veiled and combined that many who had discovered one meaning were baffled in understand ing the rest. The highest, the first and the fourth (theogony in relation to anthropogony) were al most impossible to fathom. To return to the egg. It is owing to the serpent being oviparous that it became a symbol of wisdom and an emblem of the Logoi, or the self-bom. In the temple of Philae, in Upper Egypt, an egg was artificially prepared of clay made of various in censes, and it was made to hatch by a peculiar pro cess, when a cerastes (the horned viper) was born. The same was done in antiquity for the cobra, in the Indian temples. The creative god emerges from the egg that issues from the mouth of Kneph, in the shape of a winged serpent, because the serpent is the symbol of the All-wisdom. With the Hebrews he is represented by the " flying or fiery serpents " of Moses, and with the Alexandrian mystics he becomes the Ophio-Christos, the Logos of the Gnostics. The THE SECRET DOCTRINE 203 Protestants tried to show that the brazen serpent (because it was lifted on a pole!) had a direct refer ence to the mystery of the Crucifixion, but it had a far nearer relation to the mystery of generation, since if dissociated from the egg with the central germ, or the circle with its central point, it became a purely phallic symbol. When associated with the egg, the serpent related to cosmic creation. In Egypt the Egg was the symbol of life in im mortality and eternity; as also the glyph of the gen erative matrix ; and the tau, associated with it, only of life and birth in generation. The Mundane Egg was placed in Khnoom, the " Waters of Space," or the feminine abstract principle (Khnoom becoming with the fall of mankind into generation, Ammon the creative god) ; and when Phtah the " fiery god " carries the Mundane Egg in his hand, then the sym bolism becomes quite terrestrial and concrete in its significance. In conjunction with the hawk, the sym bol of Osiris-Sun, it is dual, and relates to both lives, GEdipus Egyptiacus (vol. 3, p. 124) one can see on the papyrus engraved there an egg floating above the mummy. This is the symbol of the hope and promise of a second birth for the Osirified dead; his soul, after due purification in the Amenti, will ges- tate in this egg of immortality, to be reborn from it into a new life on earth. For this Egg, in the esoteric doctrine, is the Devachan or Heaven, the abode of bliss, of which the winged scarabaeus also is a symbol. The " winged globe " is but another form of the egg, and has the same significance as the scarabaeus, the Khopiroo (from the root Khoproo, " to become," "to be reborn "), which relates to the rebirth of man, as well as to his spiritual re generation. In the theogony of Moschus we find -ZEther first, and then Air, from which the visible universe of matter is born out of the Mundane Egg. 204 THE SECRET DOCTRINE In the Orphic Hymns, the Eros-Phanes evolves from the divine Egg, which the 2Ethereal Winds impregnate. In the Hindu Kathopanishad, the divine Spirit stands before primordial Matter, and from their union springs the great Soul of the World, Spirit of Life, etc., all such appellations being identical with Anima Mundi, the Astral Light of the Kabalist and Occultist, or the " Egg of Darkness." Besides this, there are many charming allegories scattered through the sacred books of the Brahmins. In one place it is the female Creator, who is first a germ, then a drop of heavenly dew, a pearl and then an egg. In such cases, of which there are many, the Egg gives birth to the four elements within the fifth, (ether,) and is covered with seven coverings, which become later on the seven upper and the seven lower worlds. Breaking in two, the shell becomes the heavens and the yolk the earth, the white forming the terrestrial waters. Then, again, it is Vishnu who emerges from the egg, a lotus in his hand. The egg was sacred to Isis ; the priests of Egypt never ate eggs on that account. Diodorus Siculus states that Osiris was born from an egg like Brahma. From Leda's egg Apollo and Latona were born, as also Castor and Pollux, the bright Gemini. The Chinese believe that their first man was born from an egg, which Tien, a god, dropped down from heaven into the waters. In the Scandinavian cosmogony the Mundane Egg is again discovered in the phantom-germ of the Uni verse, which is represented as lying in the cup of illusion, the boundless and void abyss. Into this world-matrix, Nebelheim (the mist-place, in the astral light, the nebular, as it is called now) dropped a ray of cold light, which overflowed the cup and froze in it. Then the Invisible blew a scorching wind, which dissolved the frozen waters, and cleared THE SECRET DOCTRINE 205 the mist. These waters (chaos) distilling in vivify ing drops, fell down and created the earth and the giant Ymir, who only had ' ' the semblance of man ' ' (the Heavenly Man), and the cow Audhumla (the " mother," or astral light) from whose udder flowed four streams of milk (the four cardinal points, the four rivers of Eden, etc.), which " four " are sym bolized by the cube in all its various and mystic meanings. The Christian, especially the Greek and Latin Churches, have fully adopted the symbol of the egg, and see in it a representation of life eternal, of sal vation and of resurrection, which they commemorate in the exchanging of " Easter eggs." From the anguinum, the " Egg " of the pagan Druid, whose name alone made Rome tremble with fear, to the red Easter egg of the Slavonian peasant, a cycle has passed, and yet, in civilized Europe as among the abject savages of Central America, we find the same archaic, primitive thought. Section VII The Days and Nights of Brahma This is the name given to the periods of active and of passive existence in the Universe; or Man vantara (between the Manus) and Pralaya (disso lution), whether it be at the end of a " Day " or- of an " Age " of Brahma. Half of the existence of Brahma (in the present Great Cycle) has already expired ; the last Age was that of the Golden Lotus, the present one being the Boar avatar, or incarna tion. The exoteric biography of Gautama Buddha shows this great Sage dying of an indigestion of pork and rice. This is explained as an allegorical reference 206 THE SECRET DOCTRINE to his having been born in the " Boar Age," when Brahma assumed the form of that animal to raise the earth out of the " Waters of Space." (This was no simple boar, however, and seems to have meant at first some antediluvian lacustrine animal " delighting to sport in water." Vayu Pur ana.) Brahminism (of the Boar Age) has slaughtered the religion of Buddha in India; therefore Buddha, identified with his philosophy, is said to have died from eating the flesh of a wild hog. The idea of one who established the most rigorous vegetarianism, and even refused to eat eggs, as vehicles of a latent future life, dying of a meat indigestion is absurdly contradictory. But the allegory explains it all. By the scholar who studies the Hindu religion from the Puranas, one thing is to be especially noted. He must not take literally and in one sense only the statements found therein, since the greater and smaller cycles are spoken of in the same terms, and the allegories relate both to the past and the present age, and also to many minor cycles. Not even Eso teric philosophy can claim to know, except by ana logical inference, what took place before the reap pearance of our solar system, and previous to the last great period of Night. But it teaches distinctly that after the first geological disturbance of the Earth's axis (which ended in the sweeping down to the bottom of the sea the whole second Continent, with its primeval races) there came another disturb ance, which restored the axis as rapidly to its pre vious degree of inclination, when the earth was in deed raised once more out of the waters. As above, so it is below, and vice versa. There are many kinds of Pralaya or Night or Dis solution; but three chief ones are specially men tioned. The first comes at the end of a Day of Brahma; it is the destruction of creatures, of all that lives and has a form, but not of the Substance THE SECRET DOCTRINE 207 which remains in statu quo till the new Dawn after that ' ' Night. ' ' The second occurs at the end of an Age of Brahma, when everything that exists is re solved into the primal element, to be remodelled at the end of that longer Night. But the third does not concern the worlds or the Universe, but only the individualities of some people ; it is thus individual Night, or Nirvana; after which there is no more future existence possible, no rebirth till after " the Great Night." This being a period of 311,040,000,- 000,000 years, is long enough to be regarded as eternal if not endless. The Bhagavata (XII., iv. 35) speaks of a fourth kind of pralaya, constant dissolu tion, the change which takes place imperceptibly in everything in this Universe, without cessation, from the globe down to the atom. It is growth and decay, life and death. After the final Night, the death of Kosmos, its Spirit rests in Nirvana, or in That for which there is neither Day nor Night, and everything, the " Gods " themselves included, is reabsorbed into its original One Element. All the other " nights " are periodical, and follow the life-cycles in regular suc cession, as night follows the day of every human creation, animal and plant. The cycle of creation of the lives of Kosmos runs down, the energy of the manifested " Word " having its growth, culmina tion and decrease, as have all things temporary, however long their duration. The Creative Force is eternal as Noumenon; as a phenomenal manifesta tion in its aspects, it has a beginning, and must, therefore, have an end. Between the two it has its periods of activity and its periods of rest. And these are " the Days and Nights of Brahma." But Brahma, the Noumenon, never rests, as It never changes, and ever is. In the Jewish Zohar we read as follows : "As Moses was keeping a vigil on Mt. Sinai in company 208 THE SECRET DOCTRINE with the Deity, who was hidden from his sight by a cloud, he felt a great fear overcome him, and sud denly asked: ' Lord, where art thou? Sleepest thou, O Lord? ' And the Spirit answered him : ' I never sleep ; were I to fall asleep for a moment before my time all creation would crumble into dissolution in one instant.' " " Before my time " is very suggestive. It shows the God of Moses to be only a temporary substitute, and an aspect of that which is immutable, and which therefore can take no part in the " days " and "nights." Vamadeva Modelyar describes the oncoming of Night most poetically. Though given in Isis Un veiled, it is worthy of repetition. " Strange noises are heard, proceeding from every point. . . . These are the precursors of the Night of Brahma, dusk rises at the horizon, and the Sun passes away behind the thirteenth degree of Makara (Capricorn), and will reach no more the sign of the Minas (Pisces). The gurus of the pago das appointed to watch the Zodiac may now break their circle and instruments, for they are henceforth useless. Gradually light pales, heat diminishes, un inhabited spots multiply on the earth, the air be comes more and more rarefied; the springs of the waters dry up, the great rivers see their waves ex hausted, the ocean shows its sandy bottom and plants die. Men and animals decrease in size daily. Life and motion lose their force, planets can hardly gravitate in space; they are extinguished, one by one, like a lamp which the hand of the servant for gets to replenish. _ The sun flickers and goes out, matter falls into dissolution, and Brahma (the Cre ative God) merges back into the unrevealed God, and his task being accomplished, falls asleep. An other day is past, another night sets in, and con tinues until the future dawn. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 209 " And now again He (Brahma) re-enters into the golden egg of His Thought, the germ of all that ex ists. During His peaceful rest the animated beings endowed with the principles of action cease their functions, and all intelligence becomes dormant. When they are all absorbed in the Supreme Soul, this Soul of all beings sleeps in complete repose till the day when it resumes its form and awakes again from its primitive darkness." (Jacolliot, L'Inde des Brahmes, p. 230.) As the Golden Age is always the first in the series of four Ages, so the Black Age ever comes last. The Black Age now reigns supreme in India, and seems to coincide with that of the West. " In the Black Age," says the Vishnu Purdna, " decay will constantly proceed, until the human race ap proaches its dissolution. . . . When the close of the Black Age shall be nigh, a portion of that Divine Being which exists of its own spiritual na ture . . . shall descend on earth . . . en dowed with the eight superhuman faculties. (Kalki, or White Horse Avatar, v. Rev. xix. 11.) He will re-establish righteousness on earth, and the minds of those who live at the close of the Dark Age shall be awakened and become as pellucid as crystal. The men who are thus changed . . . shall be the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Golden Age, the age of purity. ' ' Section VIII The Lotus as a Universal Symbol All ancient symbols have a deep and philosophical meaning, their importance and significance increas ing with their antiquitv, and this is especially the case with the Lotus. It is the flower sacred to Na- 210 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ture and her gods, and represents the abstract an'di the concrete universes, standing as the emblem of the productive powers of both physical and spiritual nature. It was held sacred from the remotest an tiquity by the Aryan Hindus, the Egyptians and the Buddhists after them ; revered in China and Japan, and adopted as a Christian emblem by the Greek and Latin Churches, who replace it with the white lily. In every picture of the Annunciation the angel Ga briel appears to the Virgin Mary with a spray of white lilies in his hand. This spray, typifying fire and water, or the idea of creation and regeneration, has precisely the same significance as the lotus in the hand of the Bodhisat, who announces to Gau tama's mother the birth of the Buddha. With the Hindus the lotus is the emblem of tbe productive power of nature through the agency of fire and water (spirit and matter). Sir Wm. Jones shows that the seeds of the lotus contain, even before they ger minate, tbe miniature shapes of the perfected leaves. (Its seed-vessel is ripened on the surface of the water, and contains seven seed-receptacles. The flower is first female and then male.) The lotus is, therefore, the twofold type of the divine and hu man hermaphrodite, as combining the two sexes. The spirit of Fire, or heat, which animates, fructi fies and develops into concrete form — from its ideal prototype — everything which is born of Water, or primordial Earth, evolved Brahma, the Creative God of the Hindus. The lotus, represented as growing out of Vishnu's navel, the god resting on the Ser pent of Infinity upon the waters of Space, is the most graphic of allegories; the Universe evolving from the central Sun, the Point, the ever-concealed germ. Lakshmi, the Hindu Venus, the female aspect of Vishnu, is shown as floating at " Creation " on a lotus-flower, springing from the foam of the sea. The underlying idea in this symbol is very beauti- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 211 ful, and the same in all religious systems. It signi fies the same philosophical idea as lotus or lily, the emanation of the objective from the subjective, di vine Ideation passing from the abstract into the concrete or visible form. At this stage of action the Demiurge is not yet the Architect. Born in the twi light of action, he has yet to perceive the plan, to realize the ideal forms which lie buried in the bosom of Eternal Ideation, as the future lotus leaves are concealed within the seed. In Esoteric philosophy the Demiurge or Logos, regarded as the Ceeator, is simply an abstract term, like " army." As the latter term comprises a body of active working units, soldiers, so " Demiurge " is the name of a multitude of Creators or Builders. In all the primitive religions the " Son of the Father " is the creative God — i.e., His thought made visible, and before the Christian era the triune god head of each nation was fully defined and substan tiated in its allegories. Such is the cosmic and ideal significance of this great symbol with the Eastern peoples. But applied to practical and exoteric worship — although that also had its esoteric symbology — the lotus became in time the carrier and container of a more terres trial idea. No dogmatic religion has been altogether free from the sexual element; and to this day that element soils the moral beauty of the root idea. Whether the early Fathers of the Church knew the esoteric meaning of the Hebrew Old Testament, or whether only a few of them were aware of it, is for posterity to decide. One thing is certain, at any rate. The esotericism of the New Testament agrees perfectly with that of the Mosaic books, and the New Testament writers have adopted several symbols that typify purely Egyptian conceptions and beliefs ¦ — in their outward and inward meaning — which are not to be found in the Jewish Canon. One of such 212 THE SECRET DOCTRINE symbols is the lily in the hands of the angel of the Annunciation, and these symbols are preserved to this day in the iconography of the Greek and Roman Churches. Thus water, fire, the cross, as well as the dove, the Lamb, and other sacred animals, yield eso- terically an identical meaning, and must have been accepted as an improvement upon Judaism pure and simple. For the Lotus and Water are among the oldest symbols, and in their origin are purely Aryan, though they became common property at the branch ing off of the Fifth Race. Let us give an example. Letters, as well as numbers, were all mystic, whether taken in combination or separately. The most sacred of all is the letter M. It is both feminine and mascu line, or androgyne, and symbolizes Water, the Great Deep, in its origin. It is mystic in all the languages, both Eastern and Western, and stands as a glyph for the waves, thus : *». So the tenth sign of the Zodiac (Capricorn) in the East is Makara, a croco dile, or rather an aquatic monster, always associated with water. The letter MA in Sanskrit is equivalent to and corresponds with number 5 — composed of a binary, the symbol of the two sexes separated, and of the ternary, symbol of the third life, their prog eny. Maiteeya is the secret name of the fifth Buddha, the last Messiah, who will come at the cul mination of the Great Cycle. M is also the initial letter of the Greek Metis, or Divine Wisdom; of Mary, the mother of Christ, and Maya, the mother of Buddha. Even Moses, found in the waters of the Nile, has the symbolical initial in his name. A re minder of the three Marys at the Crucifixion, and their connection with Mar, the sea, may close this example. This is why in Judaism and Christianity the Messiah is always connected with water, baptism, the Fish (the tenth sign of the Zodiac called Mee- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 213 nam in Sanskrit), and even with the Matsya Avatar, and the lily or lotus. In the relics of ancient Egypt, the greater the an tiquity of the votive symbols and emblems exhumed, the oftener are the lotus and the water found in con nection with the Solar gods. The god Khnoom, the moist power — sits on a throne enshrined in a lotus. (Saitic epoch, Sarapeum.) The god Bes stands on a lotus ; Thoth, the god of mystery, sits on a full blown lotus, and finally the goddess Hiquet, in the shape of a frog, rests on the lotus. The frog or toad goddess was one of the chief Cosmic deities con nected with creation, both on account of her amphibi ous nature and because of her apparent resurrection after being shut up for ages in stones, etc. She not only took part with Khnoom in the organization of the world, but was also connected with the Egyptian dogma of resurrection, after 3,000 years of purifica tion in " the fields of bliss." The early Egyptian Christian adopted the emblem, and a frog enshrined in a lotus flower, or sometimes without it, was the form chosen for the Church lamps, on which were engraved the words, " I am the resurrection." These frog goddesses are also found on all the mum mies. Section IX The Moon in Symbolism This archaic symbol is the most poetical of all symbols, as also the most philosophical. The Sun is the giver of life to the whole planetary system ; the Moon is the giver of life to our globe, and the early races understood this from their very beginning. She is the Queen, and she is the King, for she was King Soma before she became Phoebe and the chaste 214 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Diana. She is pre-eminently the deity of the Chris tians through the Mosaic and Kabalistic Jews, in fact ever since the last initiated Father of the Church died, carrying with him to the grave the se crets of the pagan temples. For such of the Fathers as Origen or Clement, the Moon was Jehovah's liv ing symbol; the giver of Life and Death, the dis poser of being — in our world. As Luna or Lucina, she presided over childbirth and life; as Hecate she was the goddess of death, and ruled in the under world over magic and enchantments ; in heaven she was the chaste Diana, the Queen of Night. As the personified moon, whose phenomena are triadic, Diana-Hecate-Luna, is the three in one, the Diva triformis. Hence she is the prototype of the Chris tian Trinity, which has not always been entirely male. The number seven derives its sacredness from the fourfold number 7 contained in the 28 days of the lunar month, each septenary portion being typi fied by one quarter of the moon. Whether the Egyptian or the Aryan Hindu relig ious philosophy is the more ancient — the Secret Doc trine says the latter — does not much matter in this instance, as the lunar and solar " worship " are the most ancient in the world. Both have survived, and prevail to this day throughout the world, with some openly, with others, as in Christian symbolism, se cretly. We have already spoken of the cat (v. § I.) as a symbol of the Moon, and therefore sacred to Isis, who was herself the Moon in one sense, as Osiris was the Sun. Though the regular Sun-worshippers, the Parsis, are few, yet not only is the bulk of the Hindu mythol ogy and history based upon and interblended with these two cults, but also the Christian religion it self. It is useless and vain for Protestants to ex claim against Roman Catholics for their " Mariol- atry," based on the ancient worship of lunar god- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 215 desses, when they themselves worship Jehovah, pre eminently a lunar god, and when both Churches have accepted in their theologies the " Sun "-Christ, and the lunar trinity. What is known of Chaldean Moon-worship, of the Babylonian god Sin, called by the Greeks Deus Lunus, is very little, and that little is apt to mislead the profane student who fails to grasp the esoteric significance of the symbols. In the unpublished MS. already mentioned on the symbolical language, a logical raison d'etre is given for this lunar-solar worship. " One of the first occupations among men," the writer says, " would be the perception of time- periods marked on the vaulted arch of the heavens. These would come to be marked as those of day and night, of the phases of the moon, the recurrence of the seasons, etc., and such knowledge must be taken to have been inherent in the human race prior to what we call the historic period." On this basis, the author seeks for some natural physical function possessed in common by the hu man race coincident with these time-periods, so that the connection between the two kinds of phenomena became fixed in popular usuage. He finds it (a) "in the feminine physiological phenomena recurring every lunar month of 28 days, or 4 weeks of 7 days each, (b) The quickening of the foetus is marked by a period of 126 days, or 18 weeks of 7 days each. (c) That period called ' the period of viability ' is one of 210 days, or 30 weeks of 7 days each, (d) The period of parturition is accomplished in 280 days, or 40 weeks of 7 days, or 10 lunar months of 28 days, or 9 calendar months of 31 days each. . . . Thus the observed periods of time marking the workings of the birth function would naturally become a basis of astronomical calculation. . . . We may al most affirm that this was the mode of reckoning 216 THE SECRET DOCTRINE among all nations, either independently or inter mediately and indirectly by tuition. It was the mode with the Hebrews, for even to-day they calculate the calendar by means of the 354 and 355 days of the lunar year, and we possess special evidence that it was the mode with the Egyptians, as to which this is the proof. . . . Notoriously Osiris was the Sun and the river Nile, the tropical year of 365 days, which number is the value of the word Neilos, and the bull, as he was also the principle of fire and life- giving force, while Isis was the Moon, the bed of the river Nile, or the mother Earth, to whose parturient energies water was a necessity; the lunar year of 354-364 days, the time-marker of the periods of ges tation; and the cow, whose horns represented the crescent new moon. . . . But the use of the cow of the Egyptians for the women of the Hebrews was merely the substitution of a symbol of common im port, which was this : the period of parturition with the cow and the woman was held to be the same, 280 days or ten lunar months of four weeks each. And in this period consisted the essential value of this animal symbol, whose mark was that of the crescent moon. (Hence the worship of the moon by the He brews. H. P. B.) . . . These periods are found to have been the subjects of symbolism all over the world. They were thus used by the Hindus, and are found to be most plainly set forth by the ancient Americans, in the Richardson and Gest tablets, in the Palenque cross ; and manifestly lay at the base of the formation of the calendar forms of the Mayas of Yucatan, the Hindus, the Assyrians and the an cient Babylonians, as well as the Egyptians and old Hebrews. The natural symbols . . . would be either the lingam, or the lingam and yoni . . . or male and female. Indeed the words translated by the generalizing terms ' male ' and ' female ' in THE SECRET DOCTRINE 217 the 27th verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis are sacr and n'cabrah, or, literally lingam and yoni, while the representation of the phallic emblems would barely indicate the genital members of the human body when their functions and the develop ment of the seed-vesicles emanating from them was considered ; then would come into indication a mode of measures of lunar time, and later of solar time." This is the physiological or anthropological key to the Moon symbol. The key that opens the mystery of theogony or the evolution of the Cyclic gods is more complicated, and has nothing phallic in it. All is mystical and divine there. But the Jews, beyond connecting Jehovah directly with the Moon as a gen erative god, preferred to ignore the higher hier archies, and have made of some of them (the zodia cal and planetary gods) their Patriarchs, thus eu- phemerizing the purely theosophical idea, and drag ging it down to the level of sinful humanity. (See § XVII., Vol. IL, ' ' The Holy of Holies. ") This MS. shows in clear language what the writer has always maintained, namely, that Jehovah was no better than the lunar symbol of the reproductive or genera tive faculty in Nature. " With the ancient wise there was no name and no idea and no symbol of a First Cause. . . . But the symbol of its first comprehensible manifes tation was the conception of a circle with its diam eter line, to carry at once a geometric, astronomic and phallic idea. . . . This idea of connecting the circle and its diameter line, that is, 10, with the signification of the reproductive organs, and the Most Holy Place, was carried out constructively in the King's Chamber, or Holy of Holies of the great Pyramid, in the Tabernacle of Moses, and in the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple. . . . It is the picture of a double womb, for in Hebrew the let- 218 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ter he n is a^ the same time the number 5 and the symbol of the womb, and twice 5 is 10, or the phallic number. ' ' This " double womb " also shows the duality of the idea carried from the highest spiritual down to the lowest or terrestrial plane and by the Jews, lim ited to the latter. With them, therefore, the number seven has acquired the most prominent place in their exoteric religion, as their Sabbath, for instance, the seventh day, sacred to their deity the moon, the sym bol of the generative Jehovah. While with other nations the number seven was typical of theogenic evolution, of cycles, cosmic planes and the seven Forces and occult Powers in Kosmos as a boundless whole, whose first upper triangle was unreachable by the finite intellect of man, the Jews centred this number solely in the moon, and based all their sacred calculations thereupon. " Jehovah " is " Binah, the upper meditating Mother, the Great Sea, or Holy Spirit," therefore rather a synonym of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, than of his Father; that " Mother," being the Latin Mare, the Sea, is here also Venus, the Star of the Sea. No symbol — the sun included — was more complex in its manifold meanings than the lunar symbol. The sex was, of course, dual. With some nations it was male, e.g., the Hindu " King Soma " and the Chaldean Sin; with other nations it was female, the goddesses Diana, Luna, Lucina. In Tauris, human victims were sacrificed to Artemis, and the Cretans called her Dictynna. Artemis-Lochia, the goddess that presided at conception and childbirth, is, in her functions and as the triple Hecate, the Orphic deity, the predecessor of the god of the Rabbis and his lu- ^iar type. The goddess Trimorphos was the personi fied symbol of the moon's phases, while the Or- nheans explained the epithet as referring to the thi'se Kingdoms of nature over which she reigned. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 219 The correlative forces in the " Queen of Night," that lie latent for modern science, but are fully active to the knowledge of Eastern adepts, explain the thousand and one images by which the moon was represented of old. The whole pantheon of the lunar gods and goddesses shows on the face of their names and titles (the " Sons " and " Husbands " of their Mothers) their identity with the Christian Trinity. In every religious system the gods were made to merge their functions as father, son and husband into one, and the goddesses were identified as wife, mother and sister of the male god ; the gods synthe- sising the human attributes as the Sun, " the giver of Life ' ' ; the goddesses merging all other titles in the grand synthesis known as Mala, Maya, Maria, etc., a generic name (and, in the maternal sense, equivalent to the Moon). Maia, in its forced deriv ation, has come to mean " mother " from the root ma (nurse) and even gave its name to the month of May, which was sacred to all these lunar goddesses before it became consecrated to Mary. Its primitive meaning, however, was Maya Durgd, as the source and cause of spells, the personification of Illusion. But whether male or female, the Moon is the oc cult mystery of mysteries, and more a symbol of evil than of good. Her seven phases, in their orig inal esoteric division, are divided into three astro nomical phenomena and four purely psychic phases. The most ancient worship of all was that of the Third Race of our (4th) Round, the Hermaphrodites, to whom the male moon became sacred, when after the so-called " Fall " the sexes had become sepa rated. " Deus Lunus " then became an androgyne, male and female in turn ; to serve, finally, as a dual power to the Fourth Root-race, the Atlanteans, for purposes of sorcery. With the Fifth Race (our own) the lunar-solar worship divided the nations into two distinct, antagonistic camps, and led to 220 THE SECRET DOCTRINE events described aeons later as the Mahabharatan War, which to Europeans is the fabulous, to Hindus and Occultists the historical, strife between the wor shippers of the sun, the Suryavansas, and those of the moon, the Indovansas. Among the Semitic races the sun was for a very long time feminine and the moon masculine — the latter notion being adopted from Atlantean traditions. The Baal of the Israel ites, the Shemesh of the Moabites, and the Moloch of the Ammonites, was the same Sun — Jehovah, and he was " the King of the Host of Heaven," the Sun, as much as Astoreth was " the Queen of Heaven " or the Moon. Besides being purely occult, the rites of lunar worship were based, as just shown, upon a knowl edge of physiology (quite a modern science with us), psychology, sacred mathematics, geometry and metrology, in their right application to symbols and figures (which are but glyphs, recording observed natural and scientific facts) ; in short, upon a most minute and profound knowledge of nature. Lunar magnetism generates life, preserves and kills it, psychically as well as physically. The ancients taught the at^o-generation so to speak, of the gods, the one divine essence unmani fested, perpetually begetting a second self, mani fested, which second self, androgynous in its nature, gives birth in an immaculate way to everything macro- and micro-cosmical in this universe. This must be remembered and taken into consideration if we are to understand the symbolical language of the ancients. All the lunar goddesses had a dual aspect, one divine, one infernal. All were the virgin mothers of an immaculately born Son — the Sun. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead Thot-Hermes is said to hide in the Moon, because he is the repre sentative of the Secret Wisdom. He is the mani fested Logos of its light side, the concealed Deity THE SECRET DOCTRINE 221 or " Dark Wisdom," when he retires to the oppo site hemisphere. As the wicked " evil " spirits warred against the Moon in days of yore, so they are now supposed to contend in vain against the present Queen of Heaven, Mary — the moon. Hence, also, the Virgin, or Madonna, standing on the myth ical Satan in the form of the Dragon, crushed and made powerless under her feet. This because the head and tail of the Dragon, which represent in Eastern astronomy to this day the ascending and descending nodes * of the moon, were also symbol ized in ancient Greece by the two serpents which Hercules kills on the day of his birth, and so does the babe in his Virgin Mother's arms. As Gerald Massey has aptly observed : ' ' All such symbols fig ured their own facts from the first. There was neither forgery nor interpolation of types; nothing but a continuity of imagery with a perversion of its meaning." Section X Tree, Serpent, and Ceocodile Woeship " Object of horror or of adoration, men have for the serpent an implacable hatred, or prostrate them selves before its genius. In hell it arms the whip of the Furies, in heaven Eternity makes it its sym bol." — De Chateaubriand. The Ophites maintained that the serpent should be constantly thanked for the signal service it had rendered humanity, in teaching Adam that if he ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he would raise himself immensely by the learn ing and wisdom he would thus acquire. Such was the exoteric reason given. •The two points at which her orbit intersects the plane of the ecliptic. — Editor. 222 THE SECRET DOCTRINE It is easy to see whence came the primal idea of this dual, Janus-like character of the serpent: the good and the bad. This symbol is one of the most ancient, because the reptile preceded the bird and the bird the mammal. The legends about the ser pent are numberless, but as most of them are alle gorical, they have now passed into the class of fables based on Ignorance and superstition. For instance, the " Serpent " and the " Dragon " were the names given to " the Wise Ones," the initiated adepts of olden times. Their wisdom and learning were devoured or assimilated by their followers, whence the story that the Scandinavian Sigurd roasted and ate the heart of Fafnir the Dragon, whom he had slain, and became, in consequence, the wisest of men. Sigurd had beeome learned in the runes and magical charms; he understood the lan guage of beast and bird; he had received the " word " from an initiate of that name (Fafnir?) or from a sorcerer, after which the latter died, as many do, after " passing the word." The " Ser pents " of the Hindu and Thibetan adepts were hu man " serpents," or wise men, not reptiles. As a symbol, the Serpent had as many aspects and occult meanings as the Tree itself; the " Tree of Life " with which it was emblematically and al most indissolubly associated. Payne Knight and Inman, who interpreted the " Tree of Life " as the cross and phallus, failed to see that their interpre tation fitted the symbol only on the lowest and last stage of the evolutionary development of the idea of the Giver of Life. It was the last and grossest transformation of nature in animal, bird, insect, or even plant; for bi-une creative magnetism, in the form of the attraction of the contraries, or sexual polarization, acts in the constitution of reptile and bird as it does in that of man. Moreover, the mod ern symbologists and Orientalists, being ignorant of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 223 the real mysteries revealed by occultism, can neces sarily see but this last stage. If told that this mode of procreation, common to all beings on this earth, is but a passing phase, a temporary expedient, which will alter with this and disappear with the next Root-Race, they would laugh at such a superstitious and unscientific idea. But the most learned Occult ists assert this because they know it. This universe of living beings is a witness to the various modes of propagation in the evolution of animal and hu man races, and the naturalist ought to sense this truth intuitionally. In the beginning of their joint existence as a glyph of Immortal Being, the Tree and Serpent were truly divine imagery. The tree was reversed, and its roots were generated in heaven, and grew out of the Rootless Root of all being. Its trunk grew and de veloped, crossmg the planes of Space (Pleroma), it shot out crossways its luxuriant branches, first on the plane of hardly differentiated matter, and then downward till they touched the terrestrial plane. Thus the Asvattha, Tree of Life and Being, whose destruction alone leads to Immortality, is said in the Bhagavadgita to grow with its roots above and its branches below. The roots represent the Supreme Being or First Cause, the Logos ; but one has to go beyond those roots to unite one's self with Krishna. He only who goes beyond the roots shall never re turn — i.e., shall reincarnate no more during this " Age of Brahma." It was only when its pure boughs had touched the terrestrial mud of the Garden of Eden of our Adamic Race that this Tree got soiled by the contact and lost its pristine purity ; and that the Serpent of Eernity — the heaven-born Logos — was finally de graded. In days of old, of the divine Dynasties on earth, the serpent was regarded as the first beam of light that radiated from the abyss of divine Mystery. 224 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Various were the forms it was made to assume, and numerous the natural symbols that were adapted to it, as it crossed into the Space and Time evolved out of human speculation. These forms were cosmic and astronomical, theistic and pantheistic, abstract and concrete. They became in turn the Polar Dragon and the Southern Cross, the Alpha Draconis of the Pyramid, and the Chinese Dragon of Wisdom. They are all seven-headed, the dragons and ser pents of antiquity, " one head for each Race, and each head with seven hairs on it," as the allegory has it. This typifies the seven principles throughout nature and man. The author of The Natural Genesis (Gerald Massey) thinks that the septenary of stars seen in the Great Bear and seven-headed Dragon furnished a visible origin for the symbolic seven of time above. He shows that the goddess of the Great Bear and mother of Time was in Egypt from the earliest times the " Living Word," and that " Sevekh-Kronus, whose type was the Crocodile- Dragon, the preplanetary form of Saturn, was called her son and consort; he was her Word-Lo gos " (v. op. cit. II. , p. 313, and I., p. 321). As shown in the work just quoted, the seven-headed or septenary Dragon-Logos had been in course of time split up, so to speak, into 28 portions. Each lunar week has a distinct occult character in the lunar month ; each day of the 28 has its special char acteristics, as each of the twelve constellations, whether separately or in combination with other signs, has an occult influence either for good or evil. This represents the sum of knowledge that men can acquire on this earth, yet few are those who acquire it, and still fewer are the wise men who get to the root of knowledge symbolized by the great Root- Dragon, the spiritual Logos of these visible signs. But those who do, receive the name of " Dragons " (or Serpents), and they are " the Arhats of the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 225 Four Truths of the 28 Faculties," or attributes, and have always been so called. The crocodile is the Egyptian dragon. It was the dual symbol of Heaven and Earth, of Sun and Moon, and was made sacred in consequence of its amphib ious nature, to both Osiris and Isis. (See Com ment on Stanza VII. f. and in Vol. IL, § XXIV., The Cross and the Pythagorean Decade, where the con nection of the crocodile with the fifth sign of the Zodiac, with the fifth hierarchy, etc., is fully ex plained, as well as its connection with the number 7. It is also the symbol of the spiritual part of man, the reincarnating principle, (v. loc. cit., Stanza VII. The Serpent became the type and symbol of evil and of the Devil only during the middle ages. The early Christians — as well as the Ophite Gnostics — had their dual Logos, the Good and the Bad Serpent, the Agathodsemon and the Kakodsemon. It is on each of the seven zones of post mortem ascent, in the Hermetic writings, that the " mortal " leaves one of his " souls " (or principles) ; until arrived on the plane above all zones, he remains as the great Formless Serpent of absolute wisdom — or the Deity itself. The seven-headed serpent has more than one signification in the arcane teachings. It is the seven- headed Draco, each of whose heads is a star of the Little Bear; but it is also, and pre-eminently, the Serpent of Darkness (i.e., inconceivable and incom prehensible), whose seven heads were the seven Logoi, the reflections of the one and first manifested Light — the Universal Logos. 226 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Section XI Demon est Deus Inversus This symbolical sentence is certainly most dan gerous and iconoclastic in the face of all the dualistic later religions, or rather theologies, and especially so in the light of Christianity. Yet it is neither just nor correct to say that it is Christianity which has conceived and brought forth Satan. As an ' ' adver sary," the opposing power required by the equili brium and harmony of things in Nature, like night to bring into greater relief the day — Satan has ever existed. One cannot claim God as the synthesis of the whole Universe, as Omnipresent, and Omniscient and Infinite, and then divorce Him from evil. As there is far more evil than good in the world, it fol lows logically that God must either include evil or stand as the direct cause of it, or else surrender His claims to absoluteness. The ancients understood this so well that their philosophers defined evil as the lining of good, or God ; Demon est Deus inversus being a very old adage. Indeed evil is reaction, op position and contrast, evil for some, good for others. There is no malum in se; only the shadow of light, without which light could have no existence, even in our perceptions. If evil disappeared from the earth good would disappear along with it. In the Syro- Chaldean magic Ophis and Ophiomorphos are joined in the Zodiac, at the sign of Virgo-Scorpio. Every where the speculations of the Kabalists treat of evil as a force, which is antagonistic, but at the same time essential to good. There would be no life pos sible (in our world of illusion) without death, nor regeneration and reconstruction without destruction. Plants would perish in eternal sunlight, and so would man, who would become an automaton with- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 227 out the exercise of his free will and his aspirations after that sunlight which would lose its being and its value for him had he nothing but light. In human nature evil denotes only the polarity of matter and spirit, a struggle for life between the two manifested principles in Space and Time, prin ciples which are one per se, inasmuch as they are rooted in the Absolute. In Kosmos the equilibrium must be preserved. The operations of the two con traries produce harmony, like the centripetal and centrifugal forces, which are necessary to each other — mutually interdependent — " in order that both should live." If one be arrested, the action of the other will immediately become self-destructive. The personification called Satan has been amply analyzed in Chapter X., Vol. 2, of Isis Unveiled, and in several subsequent chapters of this book. The present subject is touched upon here for very good reasons. Before we can approach the evolution of physical and divine man we have first to master the idea of cyclic evolution, and to acquaint our selves with the philosophies and beliefs of the four Races which preceded our own, to learn the ideas of those Titans and giants — giants, verily, mentally as well as physically. The whole of antiquity was im bued with that philosophy which teaches the invo lution of spirit into matter, the progressive, down ward cyclic descent. The Alexandrian Gnostics have sufficiently divulged the secret of initiations, and their records are full of " the sliding down of .ZEons " in their double quality of Angelic Beings and periods of Time, the one the natural evolution of the other. On the other hand, Oriental tradition is as full of allegories about the downfall of the gods. One and all allegorized and explained the Fall as the desire to learn and acquire Knowledge — to Know. This is the natural sequence of mental evolution, the spiritual becoming transmuted into the 228 THE SECRET DOCTRINE material or physical. The same law of descent into materiality and reascent into spirituality asserted itself during the Christian era, the reaction having only just stopped, in our own special sub-race. (Fifth sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race.) The allegory of the seven Planetary Spirits break ing through the seven circles of fire, an astronomical, anthropological and even chemical fact, allegorized in Pymander perhaps ten millenniums ago, was dwarfed into one material and anthropomorphic in terpretation — the rebellion and Fall of the Angels. The love of nature for Divine form and the ' ' Heav enly Man " enraptured with his own beauty mir rored in nature — i.e., Spirit attracted into matter — has now become in theology; " the seven Archan gels disobeying Jehovah, self -admiration generating Satanic pride, followed by their Fall, Jehovah per mitting no worship save of himself. ' ' In short, the beautiful Planet-Angels, the glorious cyclic iEons of the ancients, became henceforth synthesized in their most orthodox shape in Samael, the chief of the Demons in the Talmud, " that great serpent with twelve wings that draws down after him in his Fall the solar system, or the Titans. ' ' But Schemal, the Sabean type of Samael, meant in his philosophi cal and esoteric aspect, the year in its astrological evil aspect, its twelve months or wings of unavoid able evils in nature. The Kabalists show the two, Schemal and Samael, to be a symbolical form of Sa turn, Kronos, the 12 wings standing for the 12 months, and the symbol as a whole representing a racial cycle: Jehovah and Saturn are also glyphic- ally identical. Kronos stands for endless (hence immovable) Du ration, without beginning or end, beyond divided Time, and beyond Space. Those " Angels " who were born to act in space and time — i.e., to break through the seven circles of the super-spiritual THE SECRET DOCTRINE 229 planes into the phenomenal or circumscribed super- terrestrial regions, are said allegorically to have re belled against Kronos, and fought the (then) one liv ing and highest God. In his turn, when Kronos is represented as mutilating his father Uranus, the meaning of this mutilation is very simple : Absolute Time is made to become the finite and the condi tioned; a portion is robbed from the whole, thus showing that the Father of the gods has been trans formed from Eternal Duration into a limited period. The Titans of Hesiod's Theogoity were copied in Greece from the Suras and Asuras (gods and de mons) of India. These Hesiodic Titans, the Ura- nides, numbered formerly as six, have been recently discovered to be seven — the seventh being called Phoreg — in an old fragment relating to the Greek myth. The origin of the " War in Heaven " and the Fall has, to our mind, to be traced unavoidably to India, and perhaps much further back than the Puranic accounts of it. There are three accounts, each of a distinct war, to be traced in almost every cosmogony. In the esoteric doctrine one war takes place before the building of the solar system; an other on earth, at the creation of man ; and a third " war " is mentioned as taking place at the close of the Fourth Race, between its adepts and those of the Fifth Race : that is, between the Sorcerers of Atlantis and the Initiates of the " Sacred Island." Whether the Brahmin Initiates will ever give out the full meaning of the Puranic allegories is a ques tion with which the writer is not concerned. The present object is to show that while honoring the creative Powers in their multiple forms, no philos opher has ever accepted the allegory as represent ing the true Spirit, except, perhaps, some modern theologians. Whether or not the occultists regard those creative Forces as living and conscious Enti ties, they will never confuse the Cause with the 230 THE SECRET DOCTRINE effect, and accept the Spirit of the Earth for the Ab solute. At all events they know well the true nature of what was called Father-^3Ether by the Greeks. They know that the Soul of the Astral Light is di vine, and its body (the light-waves on the lower planes) infernal. This Light is symbolized by the ' ' Magic Head ' ' in the Zhar, the double Face on the Double Pyramid; the black pyramid rising against a pure white ground, with a white head and face within its black triangle; the white pyramid in verted, the reflection of the first in the dark waters, showing the black reflection of the white face. . . . This is the ' ' Astral Light, ' ' or Demon est Deus inversus. Section XII The Theogony of the Creative Gods Thoroughly to comprehend the idea underlying every ancient cosmology, necessitates the study, in a comparative analysis, of all the great religions of antiquity, as it is only by this method that the root idea will be made plain. The original transcendental and philosophical conception was one. But as sys tems began to reflect more and more with every age the idiosyncracies of nations, and as the latter set tled into distinct groups, each evolving along its own groove, the main idea became veiled with the over growth of human fancy. While in some countries the Forces, or rather the intelligent Powers, of na ture received divine honors they were hardly en titled to, in others the very thought of any such Force being endowed with intelligence seems ab surd, and is proclaimed unscientific. Therefore, one finds relief in the statements of the Introduction to Asgard and the Gods, by W. S. W. Anson. The author remarks that although in all countries " the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 231 religious conceptions of the people have taken differ ent forms, yet their common origin is still percepti ble. . . . Life and nature formed the basis of the existence and action of these divinities. . . . These fairy tales are not senseless stories written for the amusement of the idle ; they embody the pro found religion of our forefathers." Precisely so, and not only their religion, but their history. As time rolled on the archaic teaching grew dimmer; and these nations lost sight, more or less, of the highest and One principle of all things, and began to transfer the abstract attributes of the " Causeless Cause " to the caused effects, the crea tive Powers of the Universe. As Thomas Taylor shows, no nation has ever conceived the One prin ciple as the immediate creator of the visible Uni verse, for no sane man would credit an architect with having built with his own hands the edifice he had planned. " The Jews appear to have ascended no higher " (he says elsewhere) " than the immediate artificer of the Universe. ' ' Never have the Jews in their Bible, however (a purely esoteric, symbolical work), degraded so profoundly their metaphorical deity as have the Christians by accepting Jehovah as their one living yet personal God. This first, or rather One principle, was called the " circle of Heaven," symbolized by the hierogram of a point within a circle or equilateral triangle, the point being the Logos. Subba Row, in his Notes on the Bhagavat gita, compares the Logos to the sun through which light and heat radiate, but whose en ergy, light, and heat, exist in some unknown condi tion in Space, and are diffused in Space only as visible light and heat, the sun being only the agent thereof. This is the first triadic hypostasis. The quaternary is made up by the energizing light shed by the Logos. It is through this light that everything is created. 232 THE SECRET DOCTRINE In its third aspect it becomes Vdch, the daughter and mother of the Logos as Isis is the daughter and mother of Osiris, who is also Horus. In the Rig- Veda Vdch is " mystic speech," by whom occult knowledge and wisdom are communicated to man, and she is also called ' ' the melodious cow, who milks sustenance and water. ' ' * But there are two distinct aspects in universal Esotericism, of all those personations of the female power, or Nature the noumenal and phenomenal. One is its purely metaphysical aspect, the other ter restrial and physical, and at the same time divine from the standpoint of practical human conception and occultism. They are all symbols and personifi cations of Chaos, the " Great Deep," or the Primor dial Waters of Space, the impenetrable Veil be tween the Incognizable and the Logos of Creation. These feminine Logoi are all correlations in their noumenal aspect of Light and Sound and Ether, showing how well informed were the ancients in physical science. At present, however, we are only concerned with the pre-cosmic, divine gods, or the " Seven Build ers." The more one studies the Hierarchies of all nations, and thus discovers their identity, the more proofs one acquires that there is not one of the past and present personal gods, known to us from the earliest days of history, that does not belong to the third stage of Cosmic manifestation. In every re ligion we find the Concealed Deity forming the groundwork ; then the Ray therefrom that falls into primordial Cosmic Matter (first manifestation) ; then the androgyne result, the dual male and female Abstract Force, personified (second stage) ; this separates itself finally in the third stage into seven *In one sense, the Earth or mystic Nature, with all her magic powers. Isis is the same, and her cow's horns identify her with Vach, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 233 Forces, called the Creative Powers by all the ancient religions, and the " Virtues of God " by the Chris tians. (Virtues, of course, in the sense of powers.) We shall have to enter more fully upon this sub ject hereafter, but for the present it is sufficient to show by a few instances the truth of what was as serted at the beginning of this monograph, that no cosmogony, with the exception of the Christian, has ever attributed to the One Highest Cause, the Uni versal Dfeific Principle, the immediate creation of the Earth and man, or anything connected with them. This statement holds as good for the Hebrew or Chaldean Kabala as it does for Genesis, had the latter ever been thoroughly understood, and — what is still more important — correctly translated. Everywhere there is either a Logos — a Light shining in Darkness, truly — or the Architect of the worlds is esoterically a plural number. The Latin Church, while applying the epithet of Creator to Jehovah alone, adopts a whole catalogue of names for the working Forces of the latter, these names betraying the secret. For if the said Forces had nought to do with " Creation," so-called, why call them Elohim (Alhim) in the plural; " divine workmen and Ener gies," " Rulers of the World," " Sons of God," " Vigilant Counsellors," etc., etc.? In the earliest Hindu exoteric cosmogonies it is not even the Demiurge who creates. The Creators are the " Rishis " (the singers, poets, or makers), who are credited also with the authorship of the mantras of the Rig-Veda. They are sometimes seven, sometimes ten, when they become the Lords of Being ; then they rebecome the 7 and the 14 Manus, as the representatives of the 7 and 14 cycles of ex istence (" Days of Brahma "), thus answering to the seven ^?Eons, when at the end of the first stage of Evolution they are transformed into the seven stellar Rishis (the stars of the Great Bear) ; while 234 THE SECRET DOCTRINE their human doubles appear as heroes, kings and sages on this earth. The Esoteric doctrine of the East having struck the keynote — which is as scientific as it is philo sophical and poetical — every nation has followed its lead. Furthermore, every symbol — in every national religion — may be read esoterically, and the proof furnished for its being correctly read, by transliter ating it into its corresponding numerals and geo metrical forms — by the extraordinary agreement of all — however much the symbols and glyphs may vary. For in their origin all these symbols were identical. Take, for instance, the opening sentence of various cosmogonies ; in every case the symbol is either a circle, an egg, or a head. Darkness always surrounds this first symbol, as shown in the Hindu, the Egyptian, the Chaldeo-Hebrew, and even the Scandinavian systems — hence black ravens, black doves, black waters, and even black flames, the seventh tongue of Agni, the fire-god, being a black flame. Two black doves from Egypt settled on the oaks of Dodona, and gave their names to the Grecian gods. Noah lets out a black raven after the deluge, a symbol of the Cosmic Night, after which began the real creation or evolution of our earth and hu manity. Odin's black ravens " whispered of the past and of the future." What is the real mean ing of all these black birds ? They are all connected with the primeval Wisdom, which flows out of the pre-Cosmic Source of all, symbolized by the Head, the Circle, the Egg; and they all have the same meaning, and relate to the primordial Archetypal man (Adam Kadmon) the creative origin of all things, composed of the Host of Cosmic Powers — the Creative Spirits— beyond which all is darkness. It is easy to comprehend the esoteric meaning of the raven, when the like meaning of the Flood, or Noah's Deluge, is ascertained. Whatever its many THE SECRET DOCTRINE 235 other meanings may be, its chief meaning is that of a new cycle and a new Round. (Our Fourth Round.) The Raven returned not to the Ark (the womb of terrestrial nature), and is the symbol of the purely spiritual, sexless and androgyne man of the first three Races, who vanished from earth forever. The new race of men born of woman after the separation of the sexes, is the secondary meaning of the alle gory, its primary meaning being the beginning of the Fourth Round, or the new Creation. And here lies the abyss between the Aryan and Semitic systems, though built on the same founda tions. As shown by an expounder of the Kabala, it is argued that the Primal Cause being absolutely in cognizable, the symbol of its first comprehensible manifestation was a circle with its diameter line, so as to carry at once the idea of geometry, astronomy and phallicism, and finally the signification simply of the human generative organs. Hence the whole cycle of events from Adam and the Patriarchs down to Noah is made to apply to phallic and astronomical uses, the one regulating the other, as the lunar pe riods for instance. Hence, too, their genesis begins after their coming out of the ark, and the close of the Flood— at the Fourth Race. With the Aryan people it is different. Eastern Esotericism has never degraded the One Infinite Deity to such uses ; and this is shown by the absence of Brahma (the creative god) from the Rig Veda, and the modest positions occupied therein by Rudra and Vishnu, who became the powerful and great gods, the " Infinites " of the exoteric creeds, ages later. But even they, " Creators " as the three may be, are not the direct creators and " forefathers of men." The latter are shown occupying a still lower place, and are called " the Progenitors," " the lunar ancestors," etc., etc. — never the One Infinite God. Esoteric philosophy shows only physical man 236 THE SECRET DOCTRINE as created in the image of the Deity, but that deity is but " the minor gods." It is the Higher-Self, the real Ego who alone is divine and God. Section XIII The Seven Creations " The so-called ' Seven Creations ' allegorize the seven evolutionary changes, or the sub-races as we may call them, of the First Root-race of mankind." (Sec. Doc, vol. IL, p. 254.) The Seven Creations are found in almost every Purana. They are all preceded by absolute Spirit, independent of any relation with objects of sense. They are, as given by Wilson: (1) The Universal Soul, Infinite Intellect or Divine Mind; (2) Ele mental Creation, the first differentiation of Univer sal, indiscrete Substance; (3) Organic evolution; these three were the material creations, the develop ments of indiscrete nature preceded by indiscrete principle; (4) the fundamental creation of percep tible things, the creation of inanimate bodies; (5) that of animals ; (6) that of divinities ; (7) that of man. (The esoteric meaning of " animals " here is the germs of all animal life, including man.) This is the order given in the exoteric texts. Ac cording to esoteric teaching, there are seven primary and seven " secondary " creations; the former be ing the Forces self-evolving from the One Causeless Force ; the latter showing the manifested Universe emanating from the already differentiated divine elements. Esoterically as well as exoterically, all the above enumerated Creations stand for the (7) periods of evolution, whether of a " Day " or an " Age " of Brahma. This is the teaching par ex cellence of Occult philosophy, which, however, never THE SECRET DOCTRINE 237 uses the term " creation," nor even that of evolu tion with regard to primary creation, but calls the action of all such forces — ' ' the aspects of the Cause less Force." In the Bible the seven periods are dwarfed into the six days of creation and the seventh day of rest, and the Westerns adhere to the letter. In the Hindu philosophy, when the active Creator has produced the world of gods, the germs of all the undifferentiated elements, and the rudiments of future senses (the world of noumena, in short), the Universe, remains unaltered for a " Day of Brah ma," a period of 4,320,000,000 years. This is the seventh passive period or " Sabbath day " of East ern philosophy that follows six periods of active evolution. When Spirit has permeated every mi nutest atom of the seven principles of Kosmos, then the secondary creation, after the above-mentioned period of rest, begins. " The Dodecahedron lies con cealed in the perfect Cube," says the Kabalists. The mystic meaning of this is that the twelve great transformations of Spirit into matter (the 12,000 di vine years) take place during the four great ages, or the first Great Cycle. Beginning with the meta physical and the supra-human, it ends in the physi cal and purely human natures of Kosmos and man. Primary Creation is called the Creation of Light (Spirit) ; and the Secondary that of Darkness (Mat ter). This must not be confounded with precosmic " Darkness," the Divine All. Both Creations are found in Genesis, chapter i. v. 2, and at the beginning of chapter ii. The first is the emanation of self -born gods (the Elohim) ; the second of physical nature. In India the Seven Creations were described as follows : I. The primordial self-evolution of ' ' divine Mind, conscious and intelligent," esoterically, " the spirit of the Universal Soul," the operating Law. Eso teric doctrine teaches that the creative Powers are 238 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the collective aggregate of divine Intelligence, or primordial Mind, and that these are identical with the first seven ' ' mind-born ' ' Spiritual Intelligences, the future humanity called the Manus, from the root man, to think. It is, in Cosmogony, the pre- nebular period. II. The second " Creation " was that termed the Elemental. It is the period of the first breath of differentiation in the pre-Cosmic Elements or mat ter. It is the " origin of all conscious as of all un conscious being," though the Esoteric school rejects the idea of anything being " unconscious " — save on our plane of illusion and ignorance. At this stage of the Second creation, the second hierarchy of the Manus appear, the Powers who are the origin of Form, those Rishis who have become the informing souls of the seven stars of the Great Bear. In as tronomical and cosmogonical language this creation relates to the first stage of cosmic life, the Fire-mist period after its chaotic stage, when atoms issue from the neutral condition. III. The third is termed the organic Creation, or that of the senses. It is also stated that the third creation " abounding with the quality of goodness, is termed Urdhvasrotas (urdhva meaning above or superior), and it is elsewhere referred to as the sixth creation, that of the divinities." This shows plainly that earlier as well as later cycles of evolution have been purposely mixed up, to prevent the " profane " from perceiving the truth. This is the last of the primary series of creations, the " Creation of Light," or Spirit. Then comes the " Creation of Darkness," or Matter. IV. The fourth Creation is sometimes called the Primary, as it begins the second series of four. The whole subject is exceedingly confused and difficult. In this period the three elemental or rudimental kingdoms are evolved on earth, corresponding in- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 239 versely in order to the three Primary creations. In that series * * the first creation was that of Intellect, the second of rudimental principles, the third that of the senses "; in the second series the order of the Elemental Forces stands thus: 1st, the nascent centres of Force (intellectual and physical) ; 2d, the rudimental principles — nerve-force, so to speak; and 3rd, nascent apperception, which is the Intellect of the lower kingdoms, especially developed in the third order of Elementals ; these are succeeded by the ob jective Kingdom of minerals, in which that apper ception is entirely latent, to redevelop only in the plants. The Fourth Creation, then, is " the funda mental creation of inanimate things " — i.e., without the power of motion, mineral and vegetable germs — and is the middle point between the three lower and the three higher Kingdoms, which represent the seven esoteric Kingdoms of Kosmos, as of Earth. V. The Fifth Creation is that of the " sacred ani mals," corresponding only on earth to the animal creation. That which is meant by ' ' animals ' ' here is the germ of awakening consciousness or of apper ception faintly traceable in some sensitive plants on earth, and more distinctly in the protistic monera, neither plant nor animal, but an existence between the two. On our globe, during the First Round, ani mal " creation " precedes that of man, while the animals (or rather the mammals) evolve from man in our Fourth Round — on the physical plane. * In the First Round the animal atoms are drawn into a cohesive human physical form, while in the Fourth Round the reverse occurs, according to magnetic conditions developed during life. This fifth stage of evolution, called exoterically " Creation," may be viewed in both the Primary and Secondary periods, ?In the first chapter of Genesis the animals are made first, but in the second, man is created before them. — Editor. 240 THE SECRET DOCTRINE one as the Spiritual and Cosmic, the other as the material and terrestrial. It is Archibiosis, or life origination — origination so far, of course, as the manifestation of life on all the seven planes is con cerned. It is at this period of evolution that the absolutely eternal Universal Motion or vibration, that which is called in Esoteric language ' ' the Great Breath," differentiates in the primordial, first man ifested Atom. More and more as chemistry and physics progress does this occult axiom find its cor roboration in the world of science : the hypothesis that even the simplest elements of matter are identi cal in nature, differing only in the distribution of atoms in each molecule, or by the modes of its atomic vibration, gains every day more ground. Thus, as the differentiation of the primordial germ of life has to precede the evolution of the crea tive Powers of the third group or Hierarchy of Be ings in Primary Creation, before those " gods " can be embodied in their first ethereal form, so animal creation has to precede, for that same reason, divine Man on earth. And this is why we find in the Pura nas that " the fifth Creation was that of animals; and VI. The sixth Creation was that of divinities." But these " divinities " are simply the prototypes of the First Race, the fathers of their " mind-born " progeny with the soft bones. It was these who be came the evolvers of the " Sweat-born " — an ex pression explained in Vol. II. The Vishnu Purdna says: " Collecting his mind into itself (Yoga will power) Brahma creates the four orders of beings, termed gods, demons, progenitors and Men " — " progenitors " meaning the prototypes and evolv ers of the first Root-Race of men. They are the " an cestors " (Pitris), and are of seven classes. They are said, in exoteric mythology, to be born of Brah ma's side, like Eve from the rib of Adam. Finally THE SECRET DOCTRINE 241< the sixth Creation is followed, and creation in gen eral closed by VII. The seventh Creation, that of rudimentary human beings, for the first two Root-Races and a great portion of the third Root-Race were but sense less human shells, until the fifth Hierarchy, the Kumaras, or " mind-born sons of Brahma " incar nated therein, and thus created, so to speak, a new race, that of thinking, self-conscious and divine men. In the esoteric teaching, they are the progenitors of the true spiritual self in the physical man — the higher Ancestors, while the Pitris (the fathers), or the lower Ancestors, are no more than the fathers of the model, or type, of his physical form, " made in their image." The Kumaras, " the mind-born Sons " of Brah- ma-Rudra (or Siva), are mystically called the prog eny of Siva, the destroyer of human passions and physical senses, which are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the growth of the inner eternal man. Siva-Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the preserver ; and both are the regenerators of spiritual as well as of physi cal nature. To live as a plant, the seed must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity, the pas sions and senses of man must first die before his body does. " To live is to die and to die is to live," has been too little understood in the West. Siva, the destroyer, is the creator and the Saviour of spiritual man, as he is the good gardener of nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to call to life the per ceptions of the spiritual man. The Kumaras, being the Virgin-Ascetics, refused to create the material man. They were degraded, by those who were igno rant of their very name, into demons and fallen angels, the rebellious and opposing spirits, (v. S.D., Vol. II., p. 584.) 242 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Section XIV The Four Elements Metaphysically and esoterically there is but One Element, and at the root of it is the Deity ; and the so-called seven elements, of which five have already manifested, are the garment, the veil, of that Deity direct from whose essence comes Man, whether physically, psychically, mentally or spiritually con sidered. Four elements only are generally spoken of in later antiquity, five only are admitted in philos ophy. For the body of Ether is not fully manifested yet, and its noumenon is still " the omnipotent Father-Either, ' ' the synthesis of the rest. But what are these Elements whose compound bodies have now been discovered by chemistry and physics to contain many sub-elements, whose number is being increased all the time? Let us follow their evolu tion at least from the historical beginning. The four Elements were fully characterized by Plato when he said that they were ' ' that which com poses and decomposes the compound bodies." The Elements of Plato and Aristotle were thus the in corporeal principles attached to the four great divi sions of our Cosmos ; Fire, Air, Water, Earth were but the visible garb, the symbols, of the informing, invisible Souls or Spirits — the Cosmic gods to whom worship was offered by the ignorant, and simple, respectful recognition by the wiser. In their turn the phenomenal subdivisions of the noumenal Ele ments were informed by the Elementals, so-called, the " Nature Spirits " of lower grades. The hier archies of these potencies or Forces have been classi fied on a graduated scale of seven from the ponder able to the imponderable. They are septenary, not as an artificial aid to facilitate their comprehension, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 243 but in their real Cosmic gradation, from their chem ical (or physical) to their purely spiritual composi tion. Good Christians should show more reverence for the Four Elements, for the Bible manifests the mystic significance in which they were held by the Hebrew Law-giver, on every page of the Pentateuch. The tent which contained the " Holy of Holies " was a cosmic symbol, sacred in one of its meanings to the Elements, the four cardinal points, and Ether. Josephus shows it built in white, the color of Ether. And in the Hebrew as in the Egyptian temples, a gigantic curtain supported by five pillars (symbol izing the five senses) separated the sanctum sanc torum from the rest of the building. By its four colors the curtain symbolized the four principal Elements, and signified the knowledge of the Divine that the five senses of men (represented by the pil lars) can enable them to acquire with the help of- the elements. The symbols of the Elements, when traced to their source, are ever the same. For primitive religion was something better than simple preoccupation about physical phenomena, as remarked by Schil ling ; and principles more elevated than we modern Sadducees know of " were hidden under the trans parent veil of such merely natural divinities as thunder, the winds and rain." The ancients knew and could distinguish the corporeal from the spirit ual elements in the forces of Nature. The fourfold Jupiter, as the four-faced Brahma — the aerial, the fulgurant, the terrestrial and the ma rine god — the lord and master of the four elements may stand as a representative of the great Cosmic gods of every nation. While passing power over the fire to Vulcan, over the sea to Neptune and over the earth to Pluto, the aerial Jove was all these ; for -ZEther from the first had pre-eminence over, and was the synthesis, oit all the other elements. la 244 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Cory's Ancient Fragments, one of the " Chaldean Oracles " says that: " From JEther have come all things, and to it all will return ; that the images of all things are indelibly impressed upon it, and that it is the storehouse of the germs and of the remains of all visible forms, and even ideas. ' ' The Spirit of Fire, Flame, Akasa, Ether, Water, Air, Earth are the cosmic, sidereal, psychic, spir itual and mystic principles, pre-eminently occult, in every plane of being. * When included under the arts and sciences of the Fourth Race, the Atlanteans, the phenomenal manifestations of the four elements (justly attributed by the believers in Cosmic gods to the intelligent interference of the latter) assumed a scientific character. The magic of the priests in those ancient days consisted in addressing their gods in their own language. " The speech of the men of the earth cannot reach the Lords. Each must be addressed in the language of his respective ele ment," is a sentence which will be shown to be preg nant with meaning. " This Element language is composed of sounds, not words ; of sounds, numbers and figures. He who knows how to blend the three will call forth the response of the superintending Power." (The regent-god of the specific element needed.) This " language " is that of incantations, or Man tras,** as they are called in India, sound being the most potent and effectual magic agent, and the first of the keys ivhich opens the door of communication between Mortals and the Immortals. Sir Wm. Grove, in speaking of the correlation of forces, says : ' ' The ancients when they witnessed a natural phenomenon, removed from ordinary analo- ?The order is elsewhere different. It should be Akasa, Divine Flame, Ether, Fire, Air, Water, Earth.— Editor. **The Mantras are all taken from special books kept secret by the priests, and each is said to work a magical effect as the reciter or reader chants them. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 245 gies and unexplained by any mechanical action known to them, referred it to a soul, a spiritual or preternatural power. . . . Air and gases were also at first deemed spiritual, but subsequently they became invested with a more material character ; and the same words, pneuma, spirit, etc., were used to signify the soul or a gas ; the very word gas, from geist, a ghost or spirit, affords us an instance of the gradual transmutation of a spiritual into a physical conception. ' ' He considers that exact science has no business to meddle with Causes. " Cause and ef fect, ' ' he explains, ' ' are, in their abstract relation to these forces, words solely of convenience. We are totally unacquainted with the ultimate generating poiver of each and all of them, we can only ascertain the norma of their actions; we must humbly refer their causation to one omnipresent influence, and content ourselves with studying their effects, and developing by experiment their mutual relations." * The spirituality of the " ultimate generating power ' ' once admitted, it would be more than illogi cal to refuse to recognize this quality (which is in herent in the naterial elements, or rather in their compounds) as present in fire, air, water or earth. The ancients knew these powers so well that while concealing their true nature under various alle gories, they ever tried to preserve their symbols as a record for future generations, sufficiently transpar ent to permit the wise to discern the truth behind the veil of allegory. ¦,.^l> Sorcery and incantations a^e regarded as fables now, and yet special prayers for rain, for dry weather, for trade-winds and the calming of storms at sea exist to this hour in the prayer-books of the three Christian Churches, and the several hundred sects of Protestantism offer them up on every threat "Correlation of Forces, p. 89, and p. xiv of Introduction to fifth edition. 246 THE SECRET DOCTRINE of calamity. The laws of England and America against witchcraft are obsolete but unrepealed to this day, and prayers from the armies of two op posing Christian nations are still sent up to a com mon Almighty God for mutual destruction. Let us close by reminding the reader that without the smallest shadow of superstition one may believe in the dual nature of every object on earth — in the spiritual and the material, the visible and the in visible Nature. For if, as Sir Wm. Grove has it, the electricity we handle is but the result of ordinary matter affected by something invisible, the " ulti mate generating power " of every Force, the " one omnipresent influence," then it is only natural that one should believe as the ancients did, that every Element is dual in its nature. " Ethereal fire is the emanation of the Kabir proper ; the aerial is but the union (correlation) of the former with terres trial fire; and its guidance and application on our earthly plane belongs to a Kabir of a lesser dig nity " — an Elemental, perhaps, an Occultist would call it — and the same may be said of every Cosmic Element. No one will deny that the human being is pos sessed of various forces ; magnetic, sympathetic, an tipathetic, nervous, dynamical, occult, mechanical, mental — every kind of force ; and that the physical forces are all biological in their essence, seeing that they intermingle with, and often merge into, those forces that we have lu.med intellectual and moral — the first being the vaiicles, so to speak, of the sec ond. No one who does not deny a soul to men would hesitate to say that their presence and commingling are the very essence of our being; that they con stitute the Ego in man, in fact. These potencies have their physiological, physical, mechanical, as well as their nervous, ecstatic, clairaudient and clair- y.ovant phenomena, which are now recognized, even THE SECRET DOCTRINE 247 by science, as perfectly natural. Why should man be the only exception in nature, and why cannot even the Elements have their vehicles in what we call the Physical Forces? Section XV On Kwan-shi-yin and Kwan-yin (The Chinese Logos and the Goddess of Mercy, exoterically , v. Stanza III. 7.) The Logoi of all nations, from the Vedic Visva- karma of the Mysteries down to the Saviour of the civilized nations of to-day, are ' ' the Word, who was in the beginning " with the One Absolute, or the re awakening of the energizing powers of Nature. Born of Fire and Water before they became dis tinct elements, It was the " Maker " (fashioner or modeller) of all things ; " without him was not any thing made that was made " ; "in whom was life, and life was the light of men, ' ' the Alpha and Omega of manifested nature. " The great Dragon of Wis dom is born of Fire and Water, and into Fire and Water will all be reabsorbed with him." (Fa-Wha- King.) As this Bodhisatva is said " to assume any form he pleases," from the beginning of a life-cycle to its end, though his special memorial day and that of Maitreya Buddha are different, yet the two are one. He will appear as Maitreya Buddha, the last of the Avatars and Buddhas, in the Seventh Race. Both the Avalokiteshwara of India and the Kwan- Shi-Yin of China are forms of the seventh Universal Principle ; while in its highest metaphysical charac ter this Deity is the synthetic aggregation of all the Planetary Spirits. He is " the Self -manifested ; " in short, " the Son of the Father." Crowned with seven, dragons, above his statue there appears the 248 THE SECRET DOCTRINE inscription, " the universal Saviour of all living beings." In a temple of Pu'to, the sacred island of the Buddhists in China, Kwan-Shi-Yin is repre sented floating on a black aquatic bird (Kala-Hansa, v. Stanza III. 8), and pouring on the heads of mor tals the elixir of life, which as it flows is trans formed into one of the chief Planetary Spirits — the Regent of a star called " the Star of Salvation." In his third transformation Kwan-Yin (the female aspect of Kwan-Shi-Yin) is the informing spirit or genius of Water. Of course the name given in the archaic Stanzas is quite different, but that given here is a perfect equivalent. Literally interpreted, it means " the Lord that is seen," and in one sense " the divine Self perceived by Self " (the human) — the Atma, or seventh principle merged in the Universal, per ceived by, or the object of perception to, Buddhi, the sixth principle, or the divine Soul in man. In a still higher sense Kwan-Shi-Yin, referred to as the sev enth Universal Principle, is the Logos perceived by the Universal Buddhi — or Soul — as the synthetic aggregate of the Creative Powers, and is the Omni present Universal Spirit manifested in the temple of Kosmos or Nature. Kwan-Shi-Yin, then, is " the Son who is one with his Father ' ' mystically, or the Logos, the Word. He is called " the Dragon of Wisdom " in Stanza in., as all the Logoi of all the ancient religious systems are connected with and symbolized by serpents. The serpent was the emblem of the resurrection of Na ture, also of Christ with the Ophites, and of Jehovah as the brazen serpent healing those who looked at him ; and the serpent was an emblem of Christ with the Templars also. The "symbol of Knouph (and of Khoum) or the Soul of the World, says Champollion (Pantheon, text 3), "is represented, among other forms, as a huge serpent on human legs ; this reptile, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 249 being the emblem of the good genius, the veritable Agathodsemon, is sometimes bearded." The sacred animal is thus identical with the serpent of the Ophites, and is figured on many Gnostic gems. It appears with various heads, human and animal, but the gems are always inscribed with the name Chnou- bis, who seems to have been identical with Hermes, or Mercury, to which god Hermes Trismegistus at tributes the invention of magic and the first initia tion of men thereinto, and Mercury is Wisdom, En lightenment or " Reawakening " to the divine Science. To close, Kwan-Shi-Yin and Kwan-Yin are the two aspects (male and female) of the same principle in Kosmos, Nature and Man, of Divine Wisdom and intelligence. They are the " Christos-Sophia " of the mystic Gnostics — the Logos and its Sakti (fe male complement) . In their longing for the expres» sion of some mysteries never to be wholly compre hended by the profane, the ancients knowing that nothing could be preserved in human memory with out some outward symbol, have chosen, to us, often ridiculous images, to remind man of his origin and inner nature. Therefore, since the symbolic formula attempts to characterize that which is above scien tific reasoning, and as often, far beyond our intel lectual grasp, it must needs embody itself in some shape or other, or it will fade out of human remem brance. BOOK II. PART II Addenda I Reasons for These Addenda Many of the doctrines contained in the foregoing seven Stanzas and Commentaries, having been stud ied and critically examined by some Western theoso- phists, have been found wanting from the ordinary standpoint of modern scientific knowledge. But sci ence cannot, owing to the very nature of things, un veil the mystery of the universe around us. Science can, it is true, collect, classify and generalize upon phenomena, but the occultist, arguing from admitted metaphysical data, declares that the daring explorer who would probe the inmost secrets of Nature must transcend the narrow limitations of sense, and transfer his consciousness into the region of nou mena and the sphere of primal Causes. To do this, he must develop faculties which are absolutely dor mant — save in a few rare and exceptional cases — in the constitution of our present Fifth Race offshoots in Europe and America. He can in no other con ceivable manner collect the facts on which to base his speculations. On the other hand, whatever the writer may do, she will never be able to satisfy both Truth and Science. To offer the reader a systematic and un interrupted version of the archaic Stanzas is impos sible. A gap of 43 verses has to be left between the 252 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 7th, already given, and the 51st, which begins the subject of Vol. IL, though the latter verses are made to run from I. et seq. for easier reading and refer ence. The appearance of man on Earth occupies alone many Stanzas, which describe minutely his primal evolution from the human Creative Powers; the state of the globe at that time, etc., etc. A great number of names referring to chemical substances and other compounds (which no longer combine, and are therefore unknown to our Race) occupy consid erable space. As they are simply untranslatable they are omitted, together with those which cannot be made public. Before proceeding to other Stanzas, therefore, it is proposed to defend those already given. They are not in perfect accord with modern science, this we all know. For they teach belief in conscious Pow ers, and Spiritual Entities ; in semi-intelligent ter restrial and highly intellectual Forces on other planes (their intellection, of course, being quite dif ferent from any we can conceive), and in Beings that dwell around us in spheres imperceptible by microscope or telescope. We shall touch upon the constitution of the Sun and the planets, and the oc cult characteristics of what were called gods and genii, and are now termed by science Forces, and " modes of motion," and see whether esoteric be lief is defensible or not. We must bravely face sci ence, and declare in the teeth of materialistic learn ing, positivism and all-denying modern psychology that the true Occultist believes in " Lords of Light ' ' ; that he believes in a Sun, which, far from being simply " a lamp of day " moving in accord ance with physical law, is the dwelling or vehicle of a god, and a host of gods. Another good reason for these Addenda is this. Since only a certain portion of the Secret Teachings can be given out in the present age, if they were pub- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 253 lished without explanations or commentary, they could not be understood, even by theosophists. Therefore, they must be contrasted with the specu lations of modern science. Archaic axioms must be placed side by side with modern hypotheses, and the comparison left to the sagacious reader. Sir Hum phrey Davy was a great scientist, and as deeply versed in physics as any theorist of our day, yet he loathed materialism. " I heard with disgust in the dissecting-rooms," he said, " the plan of the physiologist, of the gradual secretion of matter, and its becoming endued with irritability, ripening into sensibility, acquiring such organs as were necessary by its own inherent forces, and at last rising into intellectual existence." Astronomers and physicists are even more illogical in their materialistic views than physiologists, and this has to be proved. For the occultists, Light is both Spirit and Matter. Be hind the " mode of motion," now regarded as a " property of matter " and nothing more, they per ceive the radiant noumenon. It is the " Spirit of Light," the first-born of the Eternal pure Element, whose energy (or emanation) is stored in the Sun, the great Life-giver of the physical world, as the concealed Spiritual Sun is the Light and Life-giver of the Spiritual and psychic realms. That which is meant by the allegorical sentence " Let there be Light," is, when esoterically rendered, " Let there be the Sons of Light," or the noumena of all pheno mena. These beings are " the Sons of Light," because they emanate from, and are self-generated in, that infinite Ocean of Light whose one pole is pure Spirit lost in the absoluteness of Non-Being, and the other the matter in which it condenses, crystallizing into a more and more gross type as it descends into mani festation. Therefore, matter, though it is in one sense but the illusive dregs of that Light whose limbs 254 THE SECRET DOCTRINE are the Creative Forces, yet has in it the full pres ence of the Soul thereof, which none — not even " the Sons of Light " evolved from its Absolute Dark ness — will ever know. Since God is Light, And never but in unapproached Light Dwelt from Eternity, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence, of bright essence increate." ADDENDA Fragments of Occult Science From S. D., Vol. I. 485. The origin of modern Either is found in a disfigured form of Akasa. 487. Official Science knows nothing to this day of the constitution of Ether. Neither as akasa nor as Either is it to be found in any of the states of mat ter known to modern physics. It is matter on quite another plane of perception and being. 493. The occultist sees in the manifestation of every force in Nature the action of the quality or the special characteristic of its noumenon, which noumenon is a distinct and intelligent Individuality on the other side of the manifested mechanical Uni verse. 507. Occultism says that in all cases where mat ter appears inert it is the most active, as a wooden or stone block is motionless to all intents and pur poses. Nevertheless, its particles are in ceaseless eternal vibration, and the spacial distance between those vibrating particles — considered from another THE SECRET DOCTRINE 255 plane of being and perception — is as great as that which separates snowflakes or drops of rain. 511. Inertia, so-called, is force, according to New ton, and for the student of Esoteric Sciences tbe greatest of the occult forces. 514. Matter, to the occultist, is that totality of existences in the Kosmos which falls within any of the planes of possible perception. . . . The oc cultists do not deny the correctness of the vibratory theory, only they limit its functions to our Earth — declaring its inadequacy on other planes than ours, since ' ' Masters ' ' in the occult sciences perceive the causes that produce ethereal vibrations. . . . We must seek for the ultimate causes of light, heat, etc., etc., in Matter existing in supersensuous states — states, however, as fully objective to the spiritual eye of man as a horse or a tree is to an ordinary mortal. Light and heat are the ghosts or shadows of matter in motion. Such states can be perceived by the Seer or the Adept during the hours of trance, under the Sushamna ray — the first of the seven Mystic rays of the Sun. The names of these seven rays are all mystical, and each has its distinct ap plication in a distinct state of consciousness for oc cult purposes. The Sushumna, which is said only to light up the moon, is the ray, nevertheless, cher ished by the initiated Yogis. The totality of the seven rays spread through the solar system consti tute, so to speak, the physical basis of the ether of science; in which basis the forces of orthodox science, light, heat, electricity, etc., correlate to pro duce their terrestrial effects. As psychic and spirit ual effects, they emanate from, and have their origin in, the supra-solar basis, the Ether, or Akasa, of the occultist. 523. (note). The Gandharva of the Veda is the deity who knows and reveals the secrets of heaven and divine truths to mortals. Cosmically, the Gand- 256 THE SECRET DOCTRINE harvas are the aggregate powers of the solar fire, and constitute its forces; psychically, the intelli gence residing in the Sushumna solar ray, the high est 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 spiritu ally, the noumenal causes of Sound and " the voices of Nature." 516. Why is the Sushumna ray believed to be that ray which furnishes the moon with its borrowed light? Why is it " the ray cherished by the initiated Togi " f Why is the moon held as the deity of the mind by those Yogis? We say because light, or rather all its occult properties, every combination and correlation of it with other forces, mental, psy chic and spiritual, were perfectly known to the old adepts. 520. It is on the doctrines of the illusive nature of matter and the infinite divisibility of the atom that the whole science of occultism is built. 525. Gross ponderable matter is the body, the shell, of matter or Substance, the female passive principle ; and Fohatic force is the second principle, Ufe, the male and active. On our globe this Sub stance is the second principle of the septenary ele ment — Earth; in the atmosphere, it is that of Ant, which is the cosmic gross body; in the Sun it be comes 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, the parts are all differentiations. 526. Life pervades the whole living body of man; but alone, without an atom to act upon, it would be quiescent — dead; i.e., it would be in the neutral state, or. as Mr. Crookes has it, " locked in protyle." It is the action of Fohat (cosmic electricity) upon a compound or even a simple body that produces Ufe. When a body dies it passes into the same polarity THE SECRET DOCTRINE 257 as its male energy, and repels, therefore, the active agent, which, losing its hold upon the whole, fastens upon the parts or molecules, this action being called chemical. Vishnu the Preserver transforms himself into Siva the Destroyer — a correlation seemingly un known to science. LrFE, Force or Gravity? 529. If ever the theory of the Sun-Force being the primal cause of all life on earth and motion in heaven is accepted, and if Herschel's far bolder one about certain organisms in the sun is accepted even as a provisional hypothesis, then will esoteric alle gory be shown to have anticipated modern science by millions of years, for these are the archaic teach ings. (See Commentary on verse 5, Stanza IV., S.D., vol. I.) It is the Sun-fluids or emanations that impart all motion and awaken all life in the solar system. It is attraction and repulsion, but not as understood by modern physics, and according to the law of gravity, but in harmony with the laws of mo tion during the Life-cycle from the Dawn of its re building and higher reformation. These laws are immutable, but the motion of all the bodies, which is diverse and alters with every minor cycle, is regu lated by the Movers, the Intelligences within the Cosmic Soul. 531. One of our fundamental dogmas is (a) that the Sun is the store-house of vital force, which is the noumenon of electricity; and (b) that it is from its mysterious depths that issue those life-currents that thrill through space, as through the organisms of every living thing on earth. Paracelsus wrote in the 16th century : ' ' This vital force . . . radiates around man like a luminous sphere." And again: " The whole of the Micro cosm is potentially contained in the Liquor Vita, a 258 THE SECRET DOCTRINE nerve-fluid ... in which is contained the na ture, quality, character and essence of beings . . . The Archaeus or Liquor Vitce is an essence that is equally distributed in all parts of the human body. . . . The Spiritus Vitce. takes its origin from the Spiritus Mundi. Being an emanation of the latter, it contains the elements of all cosmic influences, and is therefore the cause by which the action of the stars (cosmic forces) upon the invisible body of man (his vital linga-sarira) maybe explained." 534. The Vedic Aryans knew of a double set of senses; spiritual and material. . . . Mental as well as physical correlations of the seven senses on the physical and the mental planes are clearly de fined and explained in the Vedas, and especially in the Anugitd Upanishad. (v. pp. 278 and 279 of Sacred Books of the East, Vol. VIII.) 535. (note). The division of the physical senses into five comes to us from great antiquity. But no modern philosopher has asked himself how these senses could be used in a self-conscious way without a sixth sense, mental perception, to register and re cord them, and a Seventh to preserve the spiritual fruition and remembrance thereof, as in a Book of Life which belongs to Karma. (This for the meta physicians and occultists.) 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 (rather be came limited to this plane) at the beginning of the Fifth Race. (The Fourth Race had already begun to lose the spiritual condition so pre-eminently de veloped in the Third Race.) 536. The whole range of physical phenomena pro ceeds from the Primary of Ether — Akasa, as dual- natured Akasa proceeds from undifferentiated Chaos, so-called, or the primary aspect of Primor dial Matter. Modern science may divide its hypo- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 259 thetically conceived Ether as it chooses, the real Either of Space will remain as it is. It has its seven principles like the rest of Nature, and without Ether there would be no sound, as it is the vibrating sound ing-board in nature in all its seven differentiations. Tlds is the first mystery the Initiates of old learned. Our present normal senses were abnormal in tbe days of the slow downward evolution and fall into matter. And there was a time when all that is now called wonderful and abnormal — such as thought- transference, clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc. — be longed to the senses and faculties common to all hu manity. We are now gradually losing in the physi cal all that we are regaining once more in the spir itual re-evolution. This process must go on until the Sixth Root-Race is brought on a parallel line with the spirituality of the Second long extinct mankind. 537. The " Nervous Ether " is the lowest prin ciple of the Primordial Essence, which is Life. It is animal vitality diffused in all nature and acting ac cording to the conditions it finds. The animal tissues absorb it according to their more or less healthy state — as do physical materials and structures, in their primogenital state, nota bene — and hencefor ward, from the moment of the birth of the Entity, are regulated, strengthened and fed by it. It de scends in a larger supply to vegetation in the Su shumna sun-ray, which lights and feeds the moon, and it is through her beams that it penetrates man and animal more during their sleep and rest than when they are in full activity. Dr. Richardson is right in saying that this nervous ether is ' ' the con ductor of all vibrations of heat, of light, of sound, of electrical action, of mechanical friction " — conduc tor, in the sense of 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 (Manas). " When the de- 260 THE SECRET DOCTRINE mand for it is greater than the supply, its deficiency is indicated by nervous collapse or exhaustion." (And too great an exuberance of it in the nervous system leads as often to disease and death.) " The body fully renewed by it presents capacity for mo tion, fulness of form, life. Tbe body bereft of it presents inertia, the configuration of shrunken death, the evidence of having lost something physi cal that was in it when it lived." But this " physical something " that we call life- fluid — the Liquor Vitce of Paracelsus — has not de serted the body. It has only changed its state from activity to passivity, and become latent, owing to the morbid state of the tissues over which it has no longer any hold. Once the rigor mortis absolute, the " Liquor Vitce " will reawaken into action, and be gin its work on the atoms chemically. Brahma- Vishnu — the Creator and Preserver of life — will have transformed himself into Siva the Destroyer. And the " Nervous Ether " of one person can be poisoned by that of another person, or his auric emanations. Paracelsus said of " Nervous Ether ": " The Archseus is of a magnetic nature, and at tracts or repels other sympathetic or antipathetic forces belonging to the same plane. The less power of resistance to astral influences a person possesses, the more will he be subject to such influences. The vital force is not enclosed in man, but radiates (with in) and around him like a luminous sphere (aura), and it may be made to act at a distance. ... It may poison the essence of life (the blood) and cause diseases, or it may purify it and restore the health." (v. Life of Paracelsus, by Dr. F. Hartmann.) But the life-principle on our plane is but the effect and result of the intelligent action of the " Host " or collective Principle — the manifesting Life and Light. It is itself subordinate to and emanates from the ever invisible, eternal and Absolute One Life in THE SECRET DOCTRINE 261 a descending and reascending scale of hierarchic de grees — a true septenary ladder, with Sound (or the Logos) at the upper end, and the inferior " ances tors " at the lower. One class of these " ancestors " endowed man in the Third Race with self-conscio' ness, by incarnating in the human shells. The Solar Theory and the Elements 540. The origin of the Life Essence Occultism lo cates in the same centre of our solar system as the nucleus of prima materia, for they are one. ' ' The Sun is the heart of the solar system, and its brain is hidden behind the visible Sun. Thence sen sation is radiated into every nerve-centre of the great body, and the waves of the life-essence flow into each artery and vein. . . . The planets are its limbs and pulses." Commentary. There is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our solar system, like that of the blood in the body, during the solar life-cycle, the Sun con tracting as rhythmically at every return of it, as the human heart does. Only, instead of performing its round in a second or two, it takes the solar blood eleven years. This Science will not deny, since As tronomy knows of the fixed cycle of eleven years when the number of solar spots increases. This is due to the contraction of the Solar heart, which is similar to the regular pulsation of the human heart as the life-fluid passes through its hollow muscles. 542. Occultism has always taught that the recog nized chemical elements will one day be found to be but modifications of a single material element, and also that there is neither Spirit nor Matter in real ity, but only numberless aspects of the One ever- hidden Is. The homogeneous primordial element is simple and single only on the terrestrial plane of consciousness and sensation, since matter, after all, 262 THE SECRET DOCTRINE is nothing else than the sequence of our own states of consciousness, and Spirit an idea of psychic intui tion. Even on the next higher plane, that single ele ment defined by our science as the ultimate unde composable constituent of some kind of matter would be pronounced by that higher spiritual per ception as something very complex indeed. As in the realm of matter so in that of spirit, the shadow of that which is cognized on the plane of objectivity exists on that of pure subjectivity. Surely, then, the elements now known to us can not be the primordial elements. Those had their genesis in the depths of the primordial fire-mist — the masses of incandescent vapor of the irresolvable nebulae. The elements now known have arrived at their state of permanency in our Round and Race. They have a short period of rest before they are propelled once more on their upward spiritual evo lution, when the " living fire of Orcus " will dis sociate the most irresolvable, and scatter them into the primordial One again. 543. Spirit and Matter are two facets of the un knowable Unity, their apparently contrasted aspects depending (a) on the various degrees of differen tiation of matter, and (b) on the grades of con sciousness attained by man himself. 549. Chemical science is now compelled (see Ad dresses by Mr. Crookes, loc. cit.) to accept our il lustration of the evolution of gods and atoms so sug gestively figured in the caduceus of Mercury, the God of Wisdom, and described in the allegorical lan guage of the ancient sages. Says a Commentary on the esoteric Doctrine: " The trunk of the Asvattha (the tree of Life and Being, the Rod of the Caduceus) grows from and descends at every Beginning (every new life-cycle) from the two dark wings of the Swan (Hansa *) of *v. Com. of Stanza III., v. 8, of Vol. I. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 263 Life. The two Serpents, the ever-living and its il lusion (Spirit and matter), whose two heads grow from the one head between the wings, descend along the trunk, interlaced in close embrace. The two tails join on earth (the manifested Universe ) into one, and this is the great illusion, 0 Lanoo! " Every one knows what the caduceus is, already modified by the Greeks. The orig inal symbol, with the triple head of the ser pent, became altered into a rod with a knob, and the two lower heads were sep arated, thus disfigur ing somewhat the original meaning. (The chapter ends with long extracts from Prof. Crooke's lecture on " Elements and Meta-ele- ments," to which the student is referred. — Ed.) 583. Occultism asserts, Firstly, that neither the stars nor the sun can be said to be constituted of those terrestrial elements with which the chemist is familiar, though they are all present in the sun's outward robes — with a host more of elements as yet unknown to science. Secondly, that our globe has its own special labo ratory on the far-away outskirts of its atmosphere, crossing which every atom and molecule differen tiate from their primordial nature. And Thirdly, that though no element present in our earth could ever possibly be found wanting in the 264 THE SECRET DOCTRINE sun, there are many others, which have either not reached, or not yet been discovered on, our globe. Occult Science adds, that not one of the elements of chemistry really deserves the name. (v. Vol. I., S. D., 584.) 586 (note). Every Occultist knows that the seventh and fourth members always play a distinct part in the septenary system, whether it be a chain of worlds, a hierarchy of angels or the constitution of man, animal, plant or mineral atom, the fourth being the turning point. (Professor Crookes has pointed out the same law in the behavior of chemical elements. S. D. I. 585.) The Coming Force (A long chapter on the Keely discoveries comes in here, from which it has been thought best to glean such fragments of occult science as will be of use to the general student. — Ed.) Occultism sees in all forces and manifestations of force a ladder, the lower rungs of which belong to exoteric physics, and the higher are traced to a liv ing, intelligent, invisible Power, which is, as a rule, the unconcerned, and as an exception the conscious cause of the sense-born series of phenomena desig nated as this or that " natural law." We say that Sound, for one thing, is a tremendous occult power, and may be produced of such a nature as to raise the pyramid of Cheops in the air, or to revive and restore a dying man, even at his last breath. For Sound generates, or rather draws together, elements that produce an ozone, the fabrication of which is beyond chemistry, but within the limits of alchemy. It may even resurrect a man or animal whose astral " vital body " has not been irreparably THE SECRET DOCTRINE 265 separated from the physical body by the severance of tbe magnetic or odic chord. As one saved thrice from death by that power, the writer ought to be credited with knowing personally something about it. In the humble opinion of the Occultists, John Worrell Keely of Philadelphia was at the threshold of some of the greatest secrets of the universe ; of that chiefly on which is built the whole mystery of physical forces, and the esoteric significance of the " Mundane Egg " symbolism, (v. Evolution of Symbolism, § XII.) Occult philosophy, viewing the manifested and unmanifested Kosmos as a Unity, symbolizes the former by the " Golden Egg " with its two poles. The positive pole acts in the mani fested world of matter, while the negative pole is lost in the unknowable absoluteness of " Be-ness." Occult philosophy divulges few of its most import ant vital mysteries. It drops them like precious pearls, one by one, far and wide apart, and only when forced to do so by the evolutionary tidal wave that carries humanity slowly, silently, but steadily on, towards the dawn of the Sixth Race mankind. For once out of the custody of their legitimate keep ers, these mysteries cease to be occult, and run tbe risk of becoming, in tbe hands of the selfish, more often curses than blessings. Nevertheless, when ever such men as Keely, the discoverer of Etheric Force, men of peculiar psychic and mental capaci ties are born, they are more frequently helped than allowed to go unassisted. Only they are helped on the condition that they should not become, whether consciously or unconsciously, an additional peril to their age, or a danger to the poor. This necessitates a short explanation. It has been stated that Keely was what is called in the jargon of the Kabalists a " natural-born magician." That he would remain unconscious of the full ex tent of his powers, and would work out merely those 266 THE SECRET DOCTRINE which he had discovered in his own nature — firstly, because attributing them to a wrong source, he could never give them full sway; and, secondly, because he had no power to pass on to others that which was a capacity of his special nature. Hence the whole secret could never be made over to any one for prac tical purposes. Such individuals are not very rare. That they are not heard of oftener is due to the fact that they are almost always in utter ignorance of their possession of abnormal powers. Mr. Keely possessed powers which were called " abnormal" just because they are as little known in our day as the circulation of the blood was before Harvey's time. Blood existed and behaved as it does now, in the first man born from woman, and so does that principle in man which can control and guide ether or vibratory force. At any rate it exists in all those mortals whose inner selves are primordially con nected, by reason of their direct descent, with that group of Creative Powers who are called " the first born of Ether." Mankind, psychically considered, is divided into various groups, each of which is con nected with one of the Creative groups that first formed psychic man. (v. Comm. to Stanza VII.) But the two forms of force with which Keely ex perimented " were the very antithesis of each other." One was generated and acted upon by and through himself. No one else could produce the same results with his machines. The results ob tained from the fifth and sixth planes of the etheric (or astral) force, will never be permitted to serve for purposes of commerce and traffic. If the question is asked why Mr. Keely was not allowed to pass a certain limit, the answer is, be cause that which he had unconsciously discovered was the terrible sidereal force known to the Atlan- teans and named by them Mash-Mak, and by the Aryan Rishis called by a name we do not like to give. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 267 It is the " vril " of Bulwer 's " Coming Race," and of the coming races of our mankind. The name may be a fiction, the Force itself is mentioned in all the secret works. It is allegorized in the Vishnu Purdna, the Ramayama and other works, in the fable about the Sage Kapila, " whose glance made a mountain of ashes of King Sagara's 60,000 sons." The dis covery in its completeness is many thousand years too premature. It will be at its appointed place and time only when the great flood of poverty and under paid labor ebbs back again, as it will when the just demands of the many are granted. This may be hastened by the spread of learning, and by new openings for work and emigration on some new con tinent that may appear. Elements and Atoms Scientific and Occult When the Occultist speaks of ' ' Man ' ' and ' ' Ele ments, ' ' in remote geological ages, whose duration is as difficult to determine as to define the nature of matter, he neither means " man " in his present physiological and anthropological form, nor the ele mental atoms, nor again the compound Elements of antiquity. In Occultism the word Element means " rudiment " in every case. When we say " Ele mentary Man " we mean either the incipient sketch of man in its undeveloped condition, in that form which now lies latent in physical man during his life time, and takes shape only under certain conditions — or that form which for a time survives the ma terial body, and which is better known as an "Ele mentary." With regard to "Element," when the term is used metaphysically it means in distinction to the mortal, the incipient divine man ; and used in the physical sense it means inchoate matter in its 268 THE SECRET DOCTRINE first undifferentiated condition, or in the neutral state, which is the eternal and normal condition of Substance. For Substance differentiates only peri odically, and is during that differentiation in an ab normal state — in other words, it is a transitory illusion of the senses. As to the " Elemental Atoms," the Occultists be lieve each of them to be a Soul; not necessarily a disembodied soul, but a unit of life, a centre of Potential Vitality, with latent intelligence in it, and, in the case of compound souls, an intelligent active Existence, from the highest to the lowest order, a more or less differentiated form. All these atom-Souls are differentiations from the One, and in the same relation to it as the divine Soul to its informing and inseparable Spirit. Modern physics, while borrowing from the an cients their atomic theory, forgot its most important point, that those atoms were Animated. No ancient philosopher, not even the Jewish Kabalists, ever dis sociated Spirit from Matter. Everything originated in the One, and proceeding from the One, must finally return to the One. Atoms and Souls have ever been synonymous in the language of the Initi ates, who meant by the term " Atom " a Soul, a Genius or an Angel, the first-born of the ever-con cealed Cause of all causes. (In Isis, Vol. I., p. 297, we read: " Each of the seven chambers of the Pyramids was known by the name of a planet. The apex, lost in the clear blue sky, typified the primordial point, lost in the unseen universe, whence started the first race of the spir itual types of man. . . . The ' soul ' had to pass through the seven planetary chambers before it made its exit through the symbolical apex. Each chamber typified at the same time one of the seven spheres and one of the seven higher types of physi- co-spiritual humanity.") THE SECRET DOCTRINE 269 The Occult teaching says, " Nothing is created, but is only transformed. Nothing can manifest in this universe that was not in this universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an eternal Is, as everything on the objective plane is an ever be coming — because transitory. ' ' The monad, according to the old Initiates, is the Universal Spirit, or Life (Atma), in conjunction with the Spiritual Soul (Buddhi), and the higher Mind (Manas). This trinity is one and eternal, the latter being absorbed in the former at the termina tion of all conditioned and illusive life. The monad then and its changes of transitory vehicles, through the course of its pilgrimage, can only be traced from the incipient stage of the manifested Universe. In the intermediate period between two life-cycles it loses its name, as it loses it in spiritual ecstasy or final Nirvana; " when the disciple " (in the words of Sankara), " having attained that primeval con sciousness, absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed by the Atma, just as an actor abandons the dress put on." For the spiritual Soul (Buddhi) is but a mirror that reflects absolute bliss, a reflection not yet free from ignorance; the Supreme Spirit (Atma) alone is the one real and eternal substratum of all — the essence and absolute knowledge. It is called in esoteric philosophy " the One Witness," and is that to which St. John referred (1 John v. 7) when he said: " It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the truth." Our spirit being identical with the universal Spirit, and man being one with it in his essence, what then is the Monad? It is the homogeneous spark which radiates in millions of rays from the primeval Seven. It is the emanating spark from the uncreated Ray — a mystery. In the esoteric, and 270 THE SECRET DOCTRINE even exoteric Buddhism of the North, the One un known, without beginning or end, emits a bright ray from its darkness. This is the (first) Logos. As the Lord of all Mys teries he cannot manifest, but sends into the world of manifestation his heart, the second Logos of crea tion, from whom emanate the seven Dhyani Buddhas. called " the parentless." These are the prime val monads from the world of incorporeal being, " the formless world," wherein the Intelligences (on that plane only) have neither shape nor name in the exoteric system, though they have their dis tinct seven names in esoteric philosophy. These Dhyani Buddhas emanate from themselves, celestial selves — the superhuman Bodhisattvas. These incar nating at the beginning of every human cycle on earth as mortal men become occasionally, owing to their personal merit, Bodhisattvas among the Sons of Humanity. In the popular exoteric religion it is taught that every Buddha while preaching the good law on earth manifests himself simultaneously in three worlds; in the formless world as a Dhyani Buddha ; in the world of forms as a Bodhisattva, and in the world of desire (our own world) as a man. Esoterically the teaching differs : The divine monad manifests as the spiritual, omniscient and omnipotent root of di vine intelligence, the highest anima mundi or the Logos. This descends "like a flame spreading from the eternal Fire," ever the same to the end of the cycle of existence, and becomes universal life on the mundane plane. From this plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fairy tongues, the Sons of Light (the logoi of Life) ; then the Dhyani Buddhas of contemplation : the concrete forms of their formless Fathers. From these Dhyani Buddhas emanate their shadows, the Bodhisattvas of the celestial realms ; the prototypes of the sttper-terrestrial Bod- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 271 hisattvas, and of the terrestrial Buddhas, and, finally, of men. The " Seven Sons of Light " are also called " Stars." The star under which a human Entity is born, says the Occult teaching, will remain forever its star throughout the series of its incarnations in one life- cycle. But this is not his astrological star. That is concerned and connected with the personality, the former with the Individuality. The " Angel " of that Star, or the Dhyani-Buddha, will be the " pre siding " Angel, so to speak, in every rebirth of the monad (which is part of his own essence), though its vehicle, man, may remain forever ignorant of this fact. The Adepts have each their Dhyani- Buddha, their elder " twin Soul," and they know it, calling1 it "Father-Soul" and "Father-Fire." It is only at the last and supreme initiation, how ever, that they learn it, when placed face to face with the bright " Image." The Logos, or both the unmanifested and the man ifested Word, is called by the Hindus " the Lord." As Occultism explains, it is a compound unity of manifested living Spirits, the parent-source of all the mundane monads (plus their divine reflection), which emanate from and return into the Logos, each in its own time. There are seven chief groups of such Creative Powers, which groups may be recog nized in every religion, for they are the primeval Seven Rays. Humanity, Occultism teaches us, is di vided into seven distinct groups and their sub-divis ions, physical, mental and spiritual. Hence the seven chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling seven spirits, under each of which is born one of the human groups which is guided and influenced thereby. There are only seven planets (specially connected with Earth) and twelve houses *'; but the possible combinations of their aspects are countless ; ?The twelve great divisions of the heavens. — Editor. 272 THE SECRET DOCTRINE as infinite, in fact, as the spiritual, psychic, mental and physical capacities in men. The monad, then, viewed as One, is above the highest principle in Kosmos and man, and as a triad it is the direct radiant progeny of the Logos. The ' ' triads ' ' born under the radiations of one and the same Planetary Spirit (or Dhyani-Buddha) are, in alb their after-lives and rebirths, " twin-souls " on this Earth. It is the same idea, only still more meta physical, as that of the Christian Trinity— the Three in One — i.e., the Universal Spirit manifesting on the two higher planes, Spirit and Mind; and these are the three hypostases, metaphysical, but never per sonal. This was known to every high Initiate in every age and in every country. " I and my Father are one," said Jesus (John x. 30). When he says else where (xx. 17), " I ascend to my Father and your Father," it means what has just been stated, that the group of his followers belonged to the same * ' Star " or " Father, ' ' of the same planetary realm that he did. Speaking of the great brotherhood of adepts, Subba Row wrote : ' ' The only possible way of entering into such brotherhood ... is by bringing one's self within the influence of the Spir itual light which radiates from one's own Logos. . . . Such communion is only possible between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from the same divine bay; and as seven distinct rays radiate from ' tbe Central, Spiritual Sun,' all adepts and Creative Powers are divisible into seven classes, each of which is guided, controlled and over shadowed by one of the seven forms or manifesta tions of the Divine Wisdom." (Theosophist, Au gust, 1886.) It is then the ' ' Seven Sons of Light, ' ' called after their planets and often confused with them, who are, according to the Occult teachings, our heavenly par- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 273 ents, or " Father," synthetically. Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, the four exoteric planets, and the three others which must remain unnamed, were the heavenly bodies in direct astral and psychic com munication with the Earth, its Guides and Watchers morally and physically; the visible orbs furnishing our humanity with its outward and inward charac teristics, and their " Regents " or Rectors with our Monads and spiritual faculties. In order to avoid new misconceptions, let it be stated that neither Uranus nor Neptune were among the three secret orbs (or star-angels), because they and all other planets, however numerous, are the gods and guar dians of other septenary globes within our system. The Sun, being a central star and no planet, stands in more occult relations with its seven planets of our globe than is generally known. The Sun was, there fore, considered the great Father of all the Seven ' ' Fathers, ' ' which accounts for the variations found between the seven and eight great gods of Chaldea and other countries. Neither the earth nor the moon ¦ — its satellite — nor yet stars, for another reason, were anything else than substitutes for exoteric pur poses. There are details which, on account of their great metaphysical abstractions, cannot be entered upon. Hence we merely state that only seven of our planets are as intimately related to our globe as the Sun is to all the bodies subject to him in his system. There are a great number of planets, small and large, that have not yet been discovered, but of whose existence the ancient astronomers — all initi ated adepts — must certainly have been aware. But as their relation to the gods was sacred, it had to remain a secret, as well as the names of other planets and stars. As usual, that which is and was from its beginning divine, pure and spiritual, became human and im pure as seen through the distorted prism of man's 274 THE SECRET DOCTRINE conceptions. The nations born under Saturn — the Jewish, for instance — with whom he had become Jehovah, were eternally fighting with those born under Jupiter, Mercury or any other planet; but Jesus the initiate (or Jehoshua) — the type from whom the ' ' historical ' * Jesus was copied — was not of pure Jewish blood, and thus recognized no Jeho vah, nor did he worship any planetary god beside his own " Father," whom he knew, and with whom he communed as every high Initiate does, " Spirit to Spirit, and Soul to Soul." The Nebulae Theory In Five Tears of Theosophy, p. 245, is an article headed " Do the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory? " The answer there given is, " No; they do not deny its general propositions, nor the approximate truth of the scientific hypotheses. They only deny the completeness of the present, as well as the entire error of the many so-called * exploded ' theories." This was proclaimed at the time " an evasive an swer," but before the whole esoteric system could be given out to and appreciated by the astronomers they would have to return to some of the " anti quated ideas," not only of Herschel, but of some of the oldest Hindu astronomers. First of all, they would have to give up the theory of the Sun's solid ity and incandescence; the Sun " glows," undeni ably, but does not " burn." Then it is stated, in regard to what is now called the ' ' Xasmyth willow- leaf theory," that those " objects," as Herschel called the " willow leaves," are the immediate sources of the solar light and heat. The esoteric teaching asserts that the whole Universe is full of such " organisms," conscious and active, according to the nearness to, or distance from, our plane of consciousness and theirs ; and that finally the great THE SECRET DOCTRINE 275 astronomer was right in saying that " we do know that vital action is competent to develop at once heat, light and electricity. ' ' For the Occultists main tain that all the " Forces " of the scientists have their origin in the Vital Principle, the One Life col lectively of our solar system — that " Life " being a portion, or rather one of the aspects of the One Universal Life. (v. Five Tears of Theosophy, pp. 250-258.) Occultism does not deny the certainty of the me chanical origin of the Universe; it only claims the absolute necessity of mechanicians of some sort be hind (or within) its Elements. To become com plete and comprehensible, a cosmogonical theory has to start with a primordial Substance of an intellec tual and divine nature diffused throughout bound less Space. That Substance must be the Soul and Spirit, the synthesis and seventh principle of the manifested Kosmos, and to serve as a spiritual basis for this, there must be its vehicle, the sixth principle — primordial physical matter, so to speak, though its nature must forever escape our limited normal senses. Forces — Modes of Motion or Intelligences? The Esoteric Doctrine teaches that it is this orig inal, primordial, prima materia, divine and intelli gent, the direct emanation of the Universal Mind — the divine light emanating from the Logos — which formed the nuclei of all the ' ' Self -moving ' ' orbs in Kosmos. It is the informing, ever-present moving power and life-principle, the vital soul of the suns, moons, planets and even of our Earth. The former latent, the last one active — the invisible Ruler and Guide of the gross body attached to and connected with its Soul, which is the spiritual emanation after all of .these respective planetary Spirits. 276 THE SECRET DOCTRINE n Nor are the Occultists so foolish in rejecting the gravity " of modern science, and accepting in stead attraction and repulsion. They see, moreover, in these two opposite Forces only the two aspects of the universal unit called " Manifesting Mind "; in which aspects Occultism, through its great Seers, perceives an innumerable Host of operative Beings, Cosmic Creative Powers, Entities whose essence, in its dual nature, is the Cause of all terrestrial phe nomena. For that essence is consubstantial with the universal electric ocean, which is Life; and being dual — positive and negative — it is the effects of that duality that act now on earth under the name of " modes of motion." From Gods to men, from worlds to atoms, from a star to a rush-light, from the sun to the vital heat of the meanest organism, the world of Form and Existence is an immense chain whose links are all connected. The law of analogy is the first key to the world problem, and these links have to be studied co-ordinately in their occult relations to each other. When, therefore, the Secret Doctrine teaches that every one of the higher, as of the lower, worlds is interblended with our own objective world, the Oc cultist does not locate these spheres either outside or inside the Earth. They are, as it were, blended with our world, interpenetrating it and interpene trated by it. But their inhabitants, to whom their world is as objective as ours to us — may be, for all we know or feel, passing through and around us as if through empty space, their very habitations being interblended with ours, though we have not yet the faculties necessary for discerning them. Yet by their spiritual sight the Adepts, and even some seers and sensitives, are always able to discern, in greater or less degree, the presence and close proximity to us of Beings pertaining to other spheres of life. Those of the (spiritually) higher worlds communi- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 277 eate only with those terrestrial mortals who ascend, through individual efforts, to the higher plane they occupy. " The Sons of Earth regard the Sons of angelic spheres as their gods ; and the Sons of lower king doms look up to the men of Earth, as to their gods ; men remaining unaware of it in their blindness. . . . They (men) tremble before them while us ing them (for magical purposes). . . . (Com. on Book of Dzyan, Book II.) When we speak, therefore, as in Vol. IL, of men who inhabited this globe 18,000,000 years ago, we have in mind neither the men of our present races, nor the present atmospheric laws, thermal condi tions, etc. The Earth, the Sun and Moon, and plan ets, are born, mature and die, why should not Man kind be subject to this universal law? Says Uriel to Enoch (chap. 79, Book of Enoch) : " Thou seest the Sun, Moon and those which conduct the stars of heaven, which cause all their operations, seasons and arrivals to return. . . . In the days of sinners the years shall be shortened . . . everything on Earth shall be subverted. . . . The moon shall change its laws "... etc. The " days of sinners " referred to the days when matter would be in its full sway on Earth, and man would have reached the apex of physical develop ment in stature and animality. That came to pass about the middle point of the Atlantean (4th) Race. Since then man has decreased in physical stature, strength and years, as will be shown later on. Gods, Monads and Atoms From the very beginning of Time and Space in our Round and Globe the mysteries of Nature were recorded by the pupils of the now invisible ' ' heav enly: men " in geometrical figures and symbols. The 278 THE SECRET DOCTRINE keys thereof passed from one generation of " wise men " to the next. Some of these symbols were brought from the East by Pythagoras, who was not the inventor of his famous ' ' Triangle. ' ' The latter figure, along with the plane, cube and circle, are more eloquent and scientific representations of the order of the evolution of the Universe, spiritual and psychic, as well as physical, than volumes of de scriptive Cosmogonies and revealed " Genesis." The ten points inscribed within that ' ' Pythagorean triangle " are worth all the theogonies that ever emanated from the theological brain. For he who interprets them — on their very face and in the order given — will find in these seventeen points (the seven mathematical points hid den) the uninterrupted series of the genealogies from the first Heavenly to terrestrial man. And as they give the order of Beings, so they reveal the order in which were evolved the Kosmos, our Earth, and the primordial Elements from which the latter was generated. Begotten in the invisible Depths, and in the womb of the same " Mother " as its fellow- globes, he who will master the mysteries of our Earth will have mastered those of all the others. Philosophy never could have formed its concep tion of a logical, universal and absolute Deity if it had had no Mathematical Point Q within the Circle to base its speculations upon. And it is because it has so unwisely rejected the Pythagorean Monad and geometrical figures that Christian theology has evolved its self -created, human and personal God. Nor did the " hierogram within a Circle, or equi lateral Triangle " ever mean " the exemplification of the unity of the divine Essence/' for this was THE SECRET DOCTRINE 279 exemplified by the plane e of the boundless Circle. What the Triangle really meant was the triune co equal nature of the first differentiated Substance, or the con-substantiality of the (manifested) Spirit, Matter and the Universe — their " Son," who pro ceeds from the Point (the real, esoteric Logos) or the Pythagorean Monad. For the Greek Monas sig nifies " Unity " in its primary sense. The Monad — only the emanation and reflection of the Point (Logos) in the phenomenal world — be comes, as the apex of the equilateral triangle, the " Father." The left side or line is the Duad, the Mother, the right side represents the Son ; the basic The Father $/ <$/ \A \& / w V V Universal Plane of productive Nature line is the Universal Plane of productive Nature, unifying on the phenomenal plane Father-Mother- Son, as they were unified in the apex in the super sensuous world. God the Father God the Holy God the Son Spirit .(or Mother) 280 THE SECRET DOCTRINE By mystic transmutation they became the Quater nary — the Triangle became the Tetraktis. By omit ting the Point and the Circle, and taking no account of the apex, Aristotle reduced the metaphysical value of the idea, and limited it to a simple triad — the line, the surface and the body. The Pythagorean Triangle consists of ten pomts inscribed pyramid-iike within its three lines, and it symbolizes the Universe in the.famous Pythagorean Decad. The upper single dot is a Monad, and rep resents a Unit-Point, which is the Unity whence all proceeds, and all is of the same essence with it. While the ten dots within the triangle represent the phenomenal world, the three sides of the equilateral triangle which inclose the pyramid of dots are the barriers of noumenal Matter, or Substance, that separate it from the world of Thought. " The four points at the base of the triangle correspond with a solid or cube." (Pyth. Triangle, p. 19.) When repeated in stone, it assumed the shape of the Pyra mid — the symbol of the phenomenal merging into the noumenal Universe of thought at the apex of the four triangles — and as an " imaginary figure constructed of three mathematical lines," it sym bolized the subjective spheres — those lines " inclos ing a mathematical space, which is equal to nothing inclosing nothing." Because to the senses, and the untrained consciousness of the profane and the scientist, everything beyond the line of differen tiated matter has to remain forever equal to noth ing, the Nothing. In the realm of the esoteric sciences the unit divided ad infinitum, instead of losing its unity, approaches with every division the planes of the only eternal Reality. The eye of the Seer can follow and behold it in all its pregenetic glory. " Every atom becomes a visible complex unit (a molecule), and once attracted into the sphere of ter- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 281 restrial activity, the Monadic Essence passing through the mineral, vegetable and animal King doms, becomes man." Again: " God, Monad and Atom are the correspondences of Spirit, Mind and Body in Man." ..." The Monads are the Souls of the Atoms; both are the fabric in which the gods clothe themselves when a form is needed. ' ' (Esot. Cathechism.) The Monads of the present dissertation are treated from the standpoint of their individuality as atomic Souls before these atoms descend into pure terrestrial form. For this descent into concrete matter marks the medial point of their own individ ual pilgrimage. Then, losing in the mineral king dom their individuality, they begin to ascend through the seven states of terrestrial evolution to that point where a correspondence is firmly estab lished between the human and the divine conscious ness. No psycho-physicist ever came nearer than Leib nitz has to the general esoteric line of evolution. This evolution, viewed as that of the universal and the individualized Monad, and the chief aspects of the evolvingEnergy after differentiation — the purely Spiritual, the Intellectual, the Psychic and the Phys ical — may be thus formulated as an invariable law: a descent of Spirit into Matter, equivalent to an ascent into physical evolution ; a reascent from the depths of materiality towards its former condition, with a corresponding dissipation of concrete form and substance up to the neutral (or zero) state — and beyond. Let the reader remember the " Monads " of Leib nitz, every one of which is a living mirror of the Universe, every monad reflecting every other, and compare this definition with certain Sanskrit verses translated by Sir William Jones, in which it is said that the creative source of the Divine Mind — ;i Hid- 282 THE SECRET DOCTRINE den in a veil of thick darkness, formed mirrors of the atoms of the world, and cast reflections from its own face on every atom." " If I throw five shillings into the melting-pot, or dissolve them chemically," says Professor Crookes (Genesis of the Elements), " the mint stamp dis appears, and they all turn out to be silver." This will be the case with all the atoms and mole cules when they have separated from their com pound forms and bodies — when the period of disso lution sets in. Reverse the case, and imagine the dawn of a new life-cycle. The pure ' ' silver ' ' of the absorbed material will once more separate into Sub stance, which will generate " Divine Essences," whose " principles " (corresponding on the cosmic scale with the Spirit, Soul-mind, Life and their three vehicles, the astral, mental and physical bodies of mankind) are the primary elements, the subelements, the physical energies and subjective and objective matter ; or, as these are epitomized — Gods, Monads and Atoms. Occult science teaches that ' ' the Mother ' ' (prima materia) lies stretched in infinity (during the period of dissolution) as the great Deep, the " dry Waters of Space " (Esot. Catm.), and becomes wet only after the separation and the moving over its face of Narayana, the ' ' Spirit which is invisible Flame, which never burns, but sets on fire all that it touches, and gives it life and generation." Science tells us that " the element most nearly allied to protyle would be hydrogen, which for some time would be the only existing form of matter in the Universe." Just so; but we would call hydrogen and oxygen (which instils the fire of life into the " Mother " by incubation) the Spirit, the noumenon (in the pre- genetic and even pre-geological ages) of that which becomes in its grossest form oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen on Earth — nitrogen being of no divine OX- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 283 igin, but merely an earth-born cement to unite other gases and fluids, and serve as a sponge to carry in itself the breath of Life — pure air, which, if sepa rated Alchemically, would yield the Spirit of Life and its Elixir, (v. Stanza VI. 3, note.) Before these gases and fluids become what they are in our atmos phere, they are interstellar Ether ; still earlier, and on a deeper plane — something else, and so on ad infinitum. The " Spirit-Matter " and " Matter-Spirit " ex tend infinitely in depth, and like the " essence of things ' ' of Leibnitz, our essence of things real is at the seventh depth; while the unreal and gross mat ter of science and the external world is at the lowest end of our perceptive senses. Draw a deep line in your thought between the ever-incognizable Divine Essence, which is no " Be ing, ' ' but the root of all being, and the as invisible but comprehensible Presence, from beyond and through which vibrates the Sound of the Word, and from which evolve the numberless hierarchies of in telligent Egos, of conscious as of semi-conscious, perceptive and apperceptive Beings, whose essence is Spiritual Force, whose substance is the Ele ments, and whose bodies (when needed) are the atoms — and our doctrine is there. The Occultists say that the Monads may be roughly viewed in three divisions, corresponding to spirit, soul or mind, and body in the human consti tution. They may be separated (leaving out for the present all subdivisions) into three distinct Hosts, which counted from the highest planes are, firstly, " gods " or conscious spiritual Egos, the intelligent architects, who work after the plan in the Divine Mind. Then come the Elementals or Monads, who form collectively and unconsciously the grand Uni versal Mirrors of everything connected with their respective realms. Lastly, the atoms, or material 284 THE SECRET DOCTRINE molecules, which are informed in their turn by their apperceptive monads, just as every cell in a human body is so informed. There are shoals of such in formed atoms, which in their turn inform the mole cules; an infinitude of monads, or Elementals proper, and countless spiritual Forces — Monadless, for they are pure incorporealities, except under cer tain laws when they assume a form — not necessarily human. Whence the substance that clothes them — the apparent organism they evolve around their cen tres ? The Formless Radiations, existing in the har mony of Universal Will, and being what we term the collective or the aggregate of Cosmic Will on the plane of the subjective Universe, unite together an infinitude of monads — each the mirror of its own Universe — and thus individualize for the time being an independent Mind, omniscient and universal ; and by the same process of magnetic aggregation they create for themselves objective, visible bodies out of the interstellar atoms. For atoms and monads, sim ple or complex, associated or dissociated, are from the moment of the first differentiation but the princi ples, corporeal, psychic and spiritual, of the " Gods " — themselves the radiations of primordial Nature. Thus to the eye of the Seer the higher Planetary Powers appear under two aspects : the subjective as influences, and the objective as mystic Forms, which under Karmic law become a Presence, Spirit and Matter being One, as repeatedly stated. Spirit is matter on the seventh plane; matter is spirit on the lowest point of its cyclic activity; and both are Illusion. Atoms fill the immensity of Space, and by their continuous vibration are that Motion which keeps the wheels of Life perpetually going. It is that inner work that produces the natural phenomena called the correlation of Forces. Only, at the origin of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 285 every such " force " there stands the conscious, guiding noumenon thereof. As described by Seers, those who can see the mo tion of the interstellar hosts and follow them in their evolution clairvoyantly, they are dazzling, like specks of virgin snow in radiant sunlight. Their velocity is swifter than thought, quicker than any physical eye could follow, and, as well as can be judged, the motion is circular. Standing on a moun tain summit, and gazing into the spacial infinitudes around, the whole atmosphere seems ablaze with them. At times the intensity of their motion pro duces flashes like the Northern Lights. The sight is so marvellous that the Seer, gazing into this inner world, is filled with awe at the thought of other and still greater mysteries that lie beyond and within this radiant ocean. . . . (The student is strongly advised to study this chapter in the original edition, as only a condensa tion could be given here. — Ed.) Cyclic Evolution and Karma It is the spiritual evolution of the inner immortal man that forms the fundamental tenet in the occult sciences. To realize even partially such a process, the student has to believe (a) in the One Universal Life, independent of matter (or what science re gards as matter) ; and (b) in the individual Intelli gences that animate its various manifestations. The One Life is closely related to the one law which governs the World of Being — the law of Karma. Exoterically the word means simply " ac tion, ' ' or rather ' ' an effect-producing cause. ' ' Eso terically, it is quite a different thing in its far-reach- 286 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ing moral effects, for it is the unerring Law of Ret ribution. Throughout the first two parts of this book it was shown that at the first flutter of renascent life Pri mordial Substance, " the mutable radiance of the Immutable Darkness unconscious in Eternity," passes at every new rebirth of Kosmos from an in active state into one of intense activity ; that it dif ferentiates, and then begins its work through that differentiation. This work is Karma. The Cycles also are subservient to the effects pro duced by this activity. " The one Cosmic atom be comes seven atoms on the plane of matter, and each is transformed into a centre of energy; that same atom becomes seven rays on the plane of spirit, and the seven creative forces of nature, radiating from the root-essence . . . follow one the right, the other the left path, separate till the end of the cycle, and yet are in close embrace.* What unites them? Kaema." The atoms emanating from the Central Point emanate in their turn new centres of energy, which, under the potential breath of Fohat (cosmic electricity), begin their work from within without, and multiply other minor centres. These form in their turn the roots or developing causes of new ef fects. To make the workings of Karma in the periodical renovations of the Universe more intelligible to the student when he arrives at the origin and evolution of man, we must now examine the esoteric bearings of the Kosmic cycles upon universal ethics. According to the teachings, Illusion, or the illusive appearance of the succession of events and actions on this earth, varies with nations and places. But the chief features of one's life are always in ac cordance with the " Constellation " one is born un- ? v. the diagram of the caduceus in the section headed "The Solar Theory." — Editor, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 287 der, or rather with the characteristics of its animat ing principle, whether we call it a Creative Power as in Asia, or an Archangel, with the Greek and Latin churches. In ancient symbolism it was always the Sun (though the Spiritual, not the visible, Sun was meant) that was supposed to send forth the chief Saviours and divine Incarnations. The closer one's approach to one's prototype " in Heaven," the bet ter for the mortal whose personality was chosen by his own personal deity (his spiritual self) as its ter restrial abode.* For with every effort of will to wards purification, and unity with that ' ' Self -God, ' ' one of the lower rays breaks, and the spiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the ray that supersedes the first, until from ray to ray the inner man is drawn into the one and highest beam of the Parent — Sun. Thus " the events of humanity do run co-ordinately with the number forms," since the single units of that humanity all proceed from the same source — the Central, and its shadow, the visible Sun. For the equinoxes and solstices, the periods and various phases of the solar course, as tronomically and numerically expressed, are only the concrete symbols of the eternally living verity, though they seem abstract ideas to uninitiated mor tals. Yes, * ' our destiny is written in the stars ! ' ' Only the closer the union between the mortal reflection Man and his celestial Prototype, the less dangerous his external conditions and subsequent reincarna tions. For there are external and internal conditions which affect the determination of our will upon our actions, and though man cannot escape his ruling Destiny, he has the choice of two paths, and it is in his power to follow either. Those who believe in Karma have to believe in destiny, which from birth to death a man is weaving round himself as a spider ?See chapter on The Elements and Atoms. 288 THE SECRET DOCTRINE weaves his web ; and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the invisible prototype, or by our intimate astral or inner man, who is but too often our evil genius. Both of these lead on the outward man, and from the beginning the implacable law of compensation steps in and takes its course. When the last strand is woven, man finds himself completely under the empire of this self-made des tiny, and this is Karma. In Isis Unveiled, v. IL, p. 268, it is stated that * ' the revolution of the physical world, according to the ancient doctrine, is attended by a like revolution in the world of intellect — the spiritual evolution of the world proceeding in cycles, like the physical one. Thus we see in history a regular alternation of ebb and flow in the tide of human progress, in the rise and fall of the great kingdoms and empires of the world." But these cycles do not affect all mankind at one and the same time. Hence the difficulty of compre hending and discriminating between them, in regard to their physical and spiritual effects, without hav ing thoroughly mastered their relations with the respective positions of races and nations in their destiny and evolution. This system cannot be under stood if the spiritual action of these periods — pre ordained, so to speak, by Karmic law — is separated from their physical course. The calculations of the best astrologers would fail, or remain at any rate imperfect, unless this dual action is thoroughly taken into consideration and dealt with upon these fines. And this mastery can only be achieved through Initiation. The Grand Cycle includes the progress of man kind from the appearance of primordial men of ethereal form. It runs through the inner cycles of man's progressive evolution from the ethereal down to the semi-ethereal and the purely physical; down THE SECRET DOCTRINE 289 to the redemption of man from his coat of skin and matter, and then upward again, to meet at the cul mination of a Round, when the serpent of the life- cycle swallows its tail, and seven minor cycles are passed. These are the great Racial Cycles which affect equally all the nations and tribes included in that special Race, but there are minor tribal and national cycles within those, which run independ ently of each other. They are called, in the Eastern esotericism, the Karmic cycles. Karma-Nemesis is the creator of nations and mortals, but once created it is they who make of her either a fury or a reward ing angel. There is no return from the paths she cycles over ; yet those paths are of our own making, for it is we, collectively or individually, who prepare them. The only decree of Karma — an eternal and immutable decree — is absolute harmony in the world of matter as in the world of Spirit. It is not, there fore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we who reward or punish ourselves according to whether we work with, through and along with na ture, abiding by the laws on which that harmony depends, or break them. Nor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and harmony instead of dis union and strife. Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for nor weapons to act with. For Karma-Nemesis is no more than the (spiritual) dynamical effect of Causes produced and forces wakened into activity by our own actions. It is a law of occult dynamics that " a given amount of energy expended on the spiritual or astral plane is productive of far greater results than the same amount expended on the phys ical objective plane of existence." This (physical) state will last till man's spiritual intuitions are fully opened, which will not happen till we fairly cast off our thick coats of matter ; until £90 THE SECRET DOCTRINE we begin acting from within, instead of ever follow ing impulses from without, namely, those produced by our physical senses and gross, selfish body. Un til then the only pallative to the evils of life is union and harmony — a brotherhood in actu, and altruism not simply in name. It is true that the exoteric cycles of every nation have been correctly made to be derived from, and depend on, sidereal motions. The latter are insepa rably blended with the destinies of nations and men. But with the pagans the cycles meant something more than a mere succession of events, or a more or less prolonged space of time. Ancient Wisdom added to the cold shell of astronomy the vivifying elements of its soul and spirit — Astrology. In the prognostication of historical events, at any rate, there is no psychic phenomenon involved. It is neither prevision nor prophecy any more than the signalling of a comet or star several years before its appearance. It is simply knowledge and mathe matically correct computations which enable the wise men of the East to foretell, for instance, that France is nearing such a point of her cycle, and Europe in general on the eve of a cataclysm, which her own cycle of racial Karma has led her to. East ern Initiates maintain that they have preserved rec ords of racial development and of events of uni versal importance ever since the beginning of the Fourth Race — those which preceded being tradi tional. A proof of this is given in what to every Oc cultist is scientific evidence — the records preserved through the Zodiac for incalculable ages. The Zodiac and its Antiquity The sidereal " prophecies " of the Zodiac, as they are called by Christian mystics, never point to any THE SECRET DOCTRINE 291 one particular event, however solemn and sacred it may be for some one portion of humanity, but to ever-recurrent, periodical laws in Nature, under stood but by the Initiates of the sidereal gods them selves. Why see in Pisces a direct reference to Christ — a Saviour but for his direct followers, a great and glorious Initiate for all the rest — when that constellation shines as a symbol of all the past, present and future Spiritual Saviours who dispense light and dispel mental darkness? There are those learned iconoclasts among Egyp tologists who say that " when the Pharisees sought ' a sign from heaven,' Jesus said, ' there shall be no sign given but the sign of Jonas.' " (Matt. xvi. 4.) . . . The sign of Jonas is that of Oannes, or the fish-man of Nineveh. . . . Assuredly there was no other sign than that of the Sun reborn in Pisces. The Jews counted 4,320 lunar years from the crea tion of the world (in the Bible solar years are used), and these figures are not fanciful, even if their appli cation is erroneous,' for they are only the distorted echo of the primitive esoteric, and later Brahminical doctrine concerning the Yugas. A " Day " of Brahma equals 4,320,000,000 years, and so does a " Night " of Brahma, or the cycle of Dissolution, after which a new Sun rises triumphantly over a new life-cycle for the septenary chain it illuminates. What wonder, then, that the Messiah was made to be born in " the lunar year of the world 4,320? " The Son of Righteousness and Salvation had once more arisen, and had dispelled the cyclic darkness of chains and non-being on the plane of our objective globe sind chain. The; compilers of the mystical epithets given to the Christian Saviour were all more or less ac- quaint(ed with the significance of the Zodiacal signs ; and it (is easier to suppose that they should have arranged their claims to answer these signs than 292 THE SECRET DOCTRINE that the signs should have shone as a prophecy for one small portion of humanity for millions of years. However distorted and misunderstood the Hindu symbology, no Occultist can fail to do it justice once he knows something of the Secret Sciences; nor will he turn away from their metaphysical and mys tical interpretation of the Zodiac, even though the whole Pleiades of Royal Astronomical Societies rose in arms against their mathematical rendering of it. The descent and reascent of the Monad or Soul can not be disconnected from the Zodiacal signs, and it seems more in accord with the fitness of things to believe in a mysterious sympathy between the meta physical soul and the bright constellations, and in the influence of the stars upon that soul, than in the absurd notion that the creators of Heaven and Earth have placed in Heaven the types of twelve Jewish tribes. (Here again the student is referred to this chapter in the original for much valuable historical and as tronomical information, but which being neither ' ' ethical ' ' nor ' ' spiritual, ' ' does not properly come into the scope of the present synopsis. — Ed.) \ PART II ANTHROPOGENESIS " The whole essence of truth cannot be described by any pen, not even that of the recording angel, un less man finds its response in the sanctuary of his own heart, in the innermost depths of his divine intuition."— S. D. II., p. 516. THE SECRET DOCTRINE Part II ANTHROPOGENESIS CONTENTS Preliminary Notes on the Four Prehistoric Continents . ANTHROPOGENESIS The Stanzas, 1 to 12 COMMENTARY ON THESE STANZAS PAGE , 299 305 Stanza I. Beginnings of Sentient Life .... 305 " II. Nature, Unaided, Falls 306 III. Attempts to Create Man . . . .307 " IV. Creation of the First Races . . . .308 " v. Evolution of the Second Race . . . 309 " VI. Evolution of the Egg-born . . . .309 " VII. From the Semi-Divine to the First Human Races 309 " VIII. Evolution of Mammalia. The First Fall . 310 " IX. Final Evolution of Man . . . .311 X. History of the Fourth Race . . . .312 " XI. Civilization and Destruction of Third and Fourth Races 312 " XII. The Fifth Race, and its Divine Instructors 313 ADDITIONAL EXPLANATIONS Section I. The Divine Hermaphrodite .... 433 " II. Deluges and Floods , 434 296 CONTENTS PAGE Section III. Edens, Serpents, and Dragons . . 441 " IV. The Sons of God and the Secret Island . 446 " V. Sidereal and Cosmic Glyphs . . . 453 " VI. The "Curse" from a Philosophical Point of View 456 Additional Fragments from a Commentary . 462 VII. Adam — Adami 465 " VIII. The Holy of Holies 469 " IX. The Myth of the "Fallen Angel" . . 474 " X. Enoiehion — Henoch 485 " XI. Iao and Jehovah, Cross and Circle . . 489 XII. The Seven Vowels 503 " XIII. The Cross and the Pythagorean Decade . 507 " XIV. The Septenary in Nature . . . .516 " XV. The Septenary and the Tetraktis . . 523 " XVI. The Septenary in the Ancient Scriptures . 527 " XVII. Seven in Astronomy, Science, and Magic . 532 " XVIII. On the Antiquity of these Doctrines . . 538 Addenda to Part II 543 Parallelisms of Life 558 DIAGRAMS V. Adepts, Men, and Anthropoids .... 373 VI. Evolution of Races in Fourth Round . . . 416 VII. Principles of Man and Nature .... 518 VIII. Jehovah-Binah and the Sephiroth . . . .521 IX. Human and Cosmic Aspects : Jah-Noah and Ararat 522 X. The Root According to Occultism .... 551 XI. Primeval Astral Man 553 A SYNOPSIS OF THE EASTERN TEACHING OF CREATION The " Seven Creations " of the Pueanas I. The Fiest Round 1. Universal Mind. 2. Pre-Cosmic Elements. 3. Rudimental Senses. 4. (a) Nascent centres of Force, (b) Nerve- Force, (c) Nascent Apperception. 5. (a) Objective Mineral Kingdom, (b) Objec tive Vegetable Kingdom, (c) Dawn of Appercep tion. 6. Objective Animal Kingdom. 7. Human-Germ stage. Fourth Round (Flora and Fauna, as well as Man, vary with every Round and Race.) The " Continents " or Conditions of the Earth's surface. 1st Race. — Habitat: The Imperishable Sacred Land at the North Pole. 2d Race. — Habitat : The Hyperborean Continent. 3d Race. — Habitat : The Lemurian Continent. 4th Race. — Habitat : The Atlantean Continent. 5th Race. — Habitat: The European Continent (includes America). 298 EASTERN TEACHING OF CREATION Racial Chaeacteeistics 1st Race. — Spiritual within and ethereal without. Mindless. 2d Race.- — Semi-astral (or ethereal). First spark of intelligence. 3d Race. — 1st division, Egg-born. 2d, Androgyne. 3d, Human. Separation of sexes in 5th Subrace. 4th Race. — Human. Perfection of physical body. Lasted four or five millions years. Perished during mid-Miocene age. 5th Race. — Already more than 18 million years old. The Aryan Hindu nearly one million. Of the 7 primitive types of the 5th Race, there now remain on earth but three, the Caucasian, Mongolian and Ethiopian. The Semitic was one of the'smallest branchlets from the union of the 4th and 5th Sub- races (the Mongolo-Turanian and the Indo-Euro pean) after the sinking of Atlantis. The first two and a half Races go back to " Pri mary Creation." The 3d goes very far back into the Secondary Age. The Americans are the germs of the 6th Subrace to follow our own, the 5th Sub- race of the 5th Root-race of the 4th Round. " At the close of the 7th Race of the 7th Round, the Monad will find itself as free from matter and all its qualities as it was in the beginning, plus the fruition of all its personal lives." PRELIMINARY NOTES On the Foue Peehistoric Continents The Stanzas and Commentaries in this Book are drawn from the same archaic records as those in Book I. As far as possible, a verbatim translation is given, but where they are too obscure to be under stood without explanation, an attempt is made to make them clearer by words in brackets added to the text. As regards the evolution of mankind, the Secret Doctrine postulates three new propositions, which stand in direct antagonism to modern science as well as to current religious dogmas; it teaches (1) the simultaneous evolution of seven human groups on seven different portions of our globe ; (2) the form ation of the astral before the physical body, the for mer being a model for the latter ; and (3) that man, in this Round, preceded all the mammalia — including the anthropoids. In Genesis, chap, ii., we find that man was created before the animals, for the so- called " animals " of chap. i. are the signs of the Zodiac, while * ' man, male and female, ' ' is not man, but the Host of Forces or Angels " made in God's image and after His likeness." Adam, the man, is not made in that image, nor is it so asserted in the Bible. Moreover, the second Adam is esoterically a septenary, which represents seven human groups. The first Adam, Adam-Kadmon, is the synthesis of the ten Sephiroth (or Creative Powers). Of these, the upper triad remains in the Archetypal World as the future " Trinity," while the seven lower 300 PRELIMINARY NOTES Powers create the manifested material world, and this septenate is the second Adam. Genesis, and the Mysteries upon which it was fabricated, came from Egypt. The " God " of the first chapter of Genesis is the Logos, and the " Lord God " of the second chapter, the creative Elohim, the lower Powers. The Secret Doctrine is not alone in speaking of primeval Men born simultaneously on the seven divi sions of our globe. In the " Divine Pymander " of Hermes we find the same seven primeval Men evolv ing from Nature and " Heavenly Man " in the col lective sense of the word, that is, from the Creative Spirits; and in the fragments of Chaldean tablets collected by George Smith, on which is inscribed the Babylonian Legend of Creation, seven human beings with " the faces of ravens " (black, swarthy com plexions), whom " the seven great gods created," are mentioned. These are the seven Kings of Edom to whom ref erence is made in the Kabala; or the First Race, which was imperfect — i.e., was born before ' ' the bal ance " (sexes) existed, and which was therefore de stroyed. They were destroyed as a race by being merged in their own progeny, that is to say, the sex less race reincarnated in the (potentially) bisexual; the latter in the androgynes ; these again in the sex ual, the later Third Race. (For further explanation vide infra.) It has become undeniable of late that the Jews, who obtained their primitive ideas about creation from Moses, who had them from the Egyptians, compiled their Genesis and first cosmogenic tradi tions from the Chaldeo-Akkadian account. And we find, scattered through the Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions, not only the original meaning of the word Adam (v. Book IL, Part IV, § XVI.), but also the creation of seven Adams or roots of men, born PRELIMINARY NOTES 301 of mother Earth, physically, and of the divine fire of the progenitors, spiritually or astrally. In his Chaldean Account of Genesis, George Smith says: " The word Adam used in these legends for the first human being is evidently not a proper name, but is only used as a term for mankind." Moreover, neither the Chaldean nor the Biblical Deluge is based on tbe universal or even on the Atlantean deluge. They are the exoteric allegories based on the esoteric mysteries of Samothrace. Samothrace is known to have been overflowed very suddenly by the waters of the Euxine Sea, regarded up to that time as a lake. (v. Pliny, Strabo, et al.) But the Israelites had, moreover, another legend upon which to base their allegory, the " deluge " that transformed the present Gobi desert into a sea for the last time, some 10,000 or 12,000 years ago, and drove many Noahs and their families to the surrounding mountains. The Babylonian fragments corroborate almost every one of our teachings ; cer tainly these three: 1. That the race that was the first to fall into generation was a dark Race, which was called the Adami (dark race), and that the light Race remained pure for a long while afterwards. 2. That the Babylonians recognized two principal Races at the time of the Fall, the Race of the Gods (the ethereal doubles of the Progenitors) having preceded these two. These are our Second and Third Root-Races. 3. That the seven Gods, each of whom created a man or group of men, were " the gods imprisoned or incarnated. ' ' There are two " Creations," so-called, in the Babylonian fragments, and Genesis having adhered to this idea, one finds its first two chapters distin guished as the Elohite and Jehovite creations. Their proper Order, however, is not preserved in 302 PRELIMINARY NOTES these or any other exoteric accounts. These " Crea tions," according to the occult teachings, refer re spectively to the formation of the primordial seven men by the progenitors (the Elohim or Creative Spirits) ; and to that of the human groups after the fall. All this will be examined in the light of the ancient scriptures and of modern science as we pro ceed. Meanwhile, before we begin upon the An thropogenesis of the prehistoric Races, it may be well to decide upon the names to be given to the " Continents " (or conditions of the earth's sur face), on which the four great Races preceding our Adamic Race were born, lived and died. Their archaic and esoteric names were many, and varied of course with the language of each nation that re ferred to them. Therefore, to avoid confusion, it is thought best to adopt, for each of the four " Continents," a name more familiar to the cultured reader. It is proposed then to call the first " continent," or rather the first terra firma on which the first Race was evolved by the divine Progenitors — I. " The Imperishable Sacred Land." This " Sacred Land " is said to be the only one whose destiny it is to last from the beginning to the end of the life-cycle throughout each Round. It was the cradle of the first man, and is to be the dwelling of the last divine mortal chosen as a teacher for the future humanity. One of the Commentaries says: " The pole-star has its watchful eye upon it from the dawn to the close of the twilight of ' a day ' of the Great Breath." II. The " Hyperborean " is the name chosen for the Second Continent, the land which stretched south and west from the North Pole to receive the Second Race, and comprised the whole of what is now known as Northern Asia. PRELIMINARY NOTES 303 III. The third Continent we propose to call Lemu- ria, a name proposed by Mr. P. L. Sclater, who as serted (between 1850 and 1860), on zoological grounds, the actual existence in prehistoric times of a continent extending from Madagascar to Ceylon and Sumatra. Except some" portions which are now part of Africa, this gigantic Continent has wholly disappeared beneath the waters of the Pacific, leav ing only some mountain-tops, now islands. IV. The fourth Continent is Atlantis. Plato's fa mous island of that name was a small fragment of this great continent, (vide Esoteric Buddhism.) V. The fifth Continent was America, but it is Europe and Asia Minor, almost coeval with it, which are generally referred by the Aryan Occultists as the Fifth. If the teachings followed the appearance of the Continents in their geological order, this clas sification would have to be altered. But as the se quence of the Continents is made to follow the order of evolution of the Races from the First to the Fifth (our own Aryan Race), Europe must be called the Fifth great Continent. Since the destruction of the great Atlantis, before the end of the Miocene period, the face of the earth has changed more than once. The last important change occurred some 12,000 years ago, and was followed by the submer sion of the Atlantic island called by Plato Atlantis, after its parent Continent. Geography was part of the Mysteries in the days of old. The Zohar says : " The secrets of sea and land were divulged to the men of the secret science, but not to the geogra phers." The claim that physical man was originally a co lossal pre-Tertiary giant, and that he existed 18,000,- 000 years ago, must appear preposterous to modern biologists, who will turn away from the conception of this Third Race Titan of the Secondary age. The 304 PRELIMINARY NOTES " Ages " and " periods " in geology are in sober truth very indefinite terms, as no two geologists agree in their calculations. But the main point for us lies in the perfect ac cord of the naturalists on one point, and this a very important one. They all agree that during the Mio cene Age — whether one or ten million years ago— Greenland and even Spitzbergen (the remnants of our Second Continent) had almost a tropical climate. Now the pre-Homeric Greeks had preserved a vivid tradition of this " Land of the Eternal Sun," whither their Apollo journeyed yearly. If they knew of this blessed Hyperborean land, beyond the reach of Boreas, god of the northern wind, who told them of it? For in their day, and for ages previously, Greenland must have been already covered with per petual ice and snow. To know of this land of eternal summer, their traditions must have descended to the Greeks from some people more ancient than them selves. The archaic teachings, and likewise the Puranas — for one who understands their allegories — contain the same statements. Suffice then to us the strong probability that a people now unknown to history lived during the Miocene period of science, when Greenland was an almost tropical land. Note. — The reader is requested to bear in mind that the following sections are not strictly consecu tive in order of time. In the first section the Stanzas which form the skeleton of the exposition are given, and certain important points commented upon and explained. In the subsequent sections various addi tional details are gathered, and a fuller explanation of the subject is attempted. BOOK II. PART I Anthropogenesis Stanzas from the secret Book of Dzyan Translated with Commentaries (Only forty-nine Verses out of several hundred are here given. Not every Verse is translated ver batim. A periphrasis is sometimes used for the sake of clearness.) ANTHROPOGENESIS STANZA I Beginnings of Sentient Life 1. The Spirit which turns the fourth (globe, our earth) is subservient to the seven Planetary Spirits, they who revolve driving their chariots around their Lord, the One Eye (the Sun). His breath gave life to the Seven, it gave life to the first. 2. Said the Earth: " Lord of the Shining Face " (the Sun), " my house is empty . . . send thy sons to people this globe. Thou hast sent thy seven sons to the Lord of Wisdom (Mercury). Seven times doth he see thee nearer to himself, seven times more doth he feel thee. Thou hast forbidden thy servants, the small rings, to catch thy light and heat, 306 THE SECRET DOCTRINE thy great bounty to intercept on its passage. Send now to thy servant the same." 3. Said the Lord of the " Shining Face ": "I shall send thee a Fire when thy work is commenced. Raise thy voice to other planes ; apply to thy father, the Lord of the Lotus (the Moon) for his sons. . . . Thy people shall be under the rule of the Fathers (the god of Death). Thy men shall be mor tals. The men of the Lord of Wisdom (Mercury), not the Lunar Sons, are immortal. Cease thy com plaints. Thy seven skins are yet on thee . . . thou art not ready. Thy men are not ready. ' ' 4. After great throes she (the Earth) cast off her old three and put on her new seven skins (geological changes), and stood in her first one. STANZA II Nature, Unaided, Fails 5. The wheel whirled for thirty crores more (three hundred million years). It constructed forms : soft stones that hardened (minerals) ; hard plants that softened. Visible from invisible, insects and small lives. She shook them off her back whenever they overran the mother (by inclinations of Earth's axis). . . . After thirty crores she turned round. She lay on her back, on her side. . . . She would call no Sons of Heaven, she would ask no Sons of Wisdom. She created from her own bo som. She evolved water-men, terrible and bad. 6. The water-men, terrible and bad, she herself created from the remains of others (mineral, vege table and animal remains), from the dross and slime of her first, second and third (Rounds) she formed them. The Spirit came and looked. " Our flesh is not there, ' ' they said. " No fit forms for our broth- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 307 ers of the Fifth (Race?). No dwellings for the Lives. Pure waters, not turbid, they must drink. Let us dry them " (the waters). 8. The Flames came. The Fires with the Sparks : the night fires, and the day fires. They dried out the turbid dark waters. With their heat they quenched them. The Spirits of the high, and those of the below, came (the more terrestrial). They slew the forms which were two- and four-faced. They fought the goat-men, and the dog-headed men, and the men with fishes' bodies. 9. Mother-water, the great sea, wept. She arose, she disappeared in the Moon which had lifted her (tidal action), which had given her birth. 10. When they (the monsters) were destroyed, Mother-earth remained bare. She asked to be dried (beginning of incrustation) . STANZA III Attempts to Create Man 11. The Lord of the Lords came. From her body he separated the waters, and that was Heaven above, the first Heaven. (The atmosphere.) 12. The great Spirits called the Lords of the Moon, of the airy bodies. " Bring forth men," they were told, " men of your nature. Give them their forms within. Earth will build coverings without (external bodies). (For) males-females will they be. Lords of the Flame also." . . . 13. The Moon-gods went each on his allotted land : seven of them, each on his lot. The Lords of the Flame remain behind. They would not go, they would not create. 308 THE SECRET DOCTRINE STANZA IV Creation of the First Races 14. The Seven Hosts, the " Will- (or Mmd)-bom Lords," propelled by the Spirit of Life-giving (Fohat), separate men from themselves, each on his own zone. 15. Seven times seven Shadows of future men were thus born, each of his own color and kind. Each also inferior to his Creator. The Fathers, the boneless, could give no life to beings with bones. Their progeny were phantoms, with neither form nor mind. Therefore they are called the Shadows. 16, How are the real Men born? the men with minds, how are they made? The Fathers called to their help their own fire (the electric), which is the fire that burns in Earth. The Spirit of the Earth called to his help fhe Solar fire. (The fire of pas sion.) These three produced with their joint efforts a good form. It could stand, walk, run, recline or fly. Yet it was still but a Shadow, a shadow with no sense. , . . 17. The Breath (the Monad) needed a form; the Fathers gave it. The Breath needed a gross body; the Earth moulded it. The Breath needed the Spirit of Life; the Solar Lords breathed it into its form. The Breath needed a mirror of its body (an astral duplicate) ; " We gave it our own," said the Crea tive Spirits. The Breath needed a Vehicle of De sires; " It has it," said the Drainer of Waters (the Solar fire, the fire of passion). But the Breath needs a mind to embrace the Universe; " We can not give that," said the Fathers. " I never had it," said the Spirit of the Earth. " The Form would be consumed were I to give it mine," said the Great (Solar) Fire. . . . Man remained an empty, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 309 senseless phantom. . . . Thus have the boneless given life to those who became later men with bones in the Third (Race). STANZA V The Evolution of the Second Race 18. The First (Race) were the sons of Yoga (Will). Their sons, the children of the Yellow Father (the Sun) and the White Mother (the Moon). 19. The Second Race was the product by budding and expansion, the a-sexual form from the sexless shadow, Thus was, 0 pupil, the Second Race pro duced. 20. Their fathers were the Self-born. The Self- born, the Shadow from the brilliant bodies of the Lords, the Fathers, the Sons of Twilight. 21, When the Race became old, the old waters mixed with the fresher waters. When its drops be came turbid they vanished and disappeared in the new stream, in the hot stream of life. The outer (body) of the First became the inner of the Second. The old Wing became the new Shadow, and the Shadow of the Wing. Stanza VI accidentally omitted. See Commen tary, page 362. STANZA VII From the Semi-Dtvtne down to the Fibst Human Races 24. The Sons of Wisdom, the Sons of Night, * ready for rebirth came down. They saw the (intel- ?Issupd from tbe bpdy of Brahma when it became Night, 310 THE SECRET DOCTRINE lectually) vile forms of the first (men) of the still senseless Third Race. " We can choose," said the Lords, " we have wisdom." Some entered the Shadows, some projected a spark. Some deferred till the Fourth (Race). Those who were entered be came Adepts. Those who received but a spark re mained destitute of (higher) knowledge. The spark burnt low. The Third (Race) remained mindless. Their Monads were not ready. These were set apart among the seven (primitive human species). They (became the) narrow-headed. The Third were ready. " In these shall we dwell," said the Lords of the Flame and of the Dark Wisdom. 25. How did the Mind-born, the Sons of Wisdom, act? They rejected the Self -born (the boneless). " They are not ready." They spurned the (First) Sweat-born. " They are not quite ready." They would not enter the first Egg-born. 26. When the Sweat-born produced the Egg-born, the twofold (the androgyne Third Race), the mighty, the powerful with bones, the Lords of Wisdom said : " Now shall we create." 27. (Then) the Third Race became the vehicle of the Lords of Wisdom. It created " Sons of Will and Yoga," by Kriyasakti (the power of thought), it created them, the Holy Fathers, Ancestors of the Adepts. STANZA VIII Evolution of Mammalia. The Ftest Fall 28. From the drops of sweat, from the residue of the substance-matter from dead bodies and ani mals of the Wheel before (previous, Third Round), and from cast-off dust, the first animals (of this Round) were produced. 29. Animals with bones, dragons of the deep and THE SECRET DOCTRINE 311 flying serpents were added to the creeping things. They that creep on the ground got wings. They of the iong necks in the water became the progenitors of the fowls of the air. 30. During the Third Race the boneless animals grew and changed ; they became animals with bones, their astral bodies became solid also. 31. The animals separated the first (into male and female). They began to breed. Then the two fold (androgyne) man separated also. He said: " Let us do as they; let us unite and make crea tures." They did. 32. And those which had no spark (the narrow- brained, v. 6, 24) took huge she-animals unto them. They begat upon them dumb races. Dumb they were themselves. But their tongues untied. The tongues of their progeny remained still. Monsters they bred. A race of crooked red-hair-covered monsters, go ing on all fours. A dumb race to keep the shame untold. STANZA IX The Final Evolution of Man 33. Seeing which (the sins committed) the Spirits who had not built men (who had refused to create) wept, saying: 34. The " Mind-less " have defiled our future abodes. This is Karma. Let us dwell in the others. Let us teach them better lest worse should happen. They did. . . . 35. Then all men became endowed with mind. They saw the sin of the mindless. 36. The Fourth Race developed speech. 37. The One (androgyne) became Two; also all the living and creeping things that were still one, giant fish-birds, and serpents with shell-heads. 312 THE SECRET DOCTRINE STANZA X HlSTOEY OF THE FoUETH RACE 38. Thus two by two on the seven zones the Third Race gave birth to the Fourth Race — men ; the gods became no-gods (the sura became a-sura). 39. The first (race) on every zone was moon- colored (yellow-white) ; the second, yellow like gold; the third, red; the fourth, brown, which became black with sin. The first seven human shoots were all of one complexion (in the beginning.) The next seven (the subraces) began mixing their colors. 40. Then the Fourth became tall with pride. We are the kings, it was said ; we are the gods. 41. They took wives fair to look upon. Wives from the mindless, the narrow-headed. They bred monsters, wicked demons, also Lilith, with little minds. 42. They built temples for the human body. Male and female they worshipped. Then the Third Eye acted no longer. STANZA XI The Civilization and Destruction of the Third and Fourth Races 43. They (the Lemur o-Atlanteans) built huge cities, out of rare earths and metals they built. Out of the (lava) fires vomited. Out of the white stone of the mountains (marble) and the black stone (of the subterranean fires) they cut their own images, in their size and likeness, and worshipped them. 44. They (the Atlanteans) built great images 27 feet high, the size of their bodies. Inner fires had destroyed the land of their fathers (the Lemurians). Water threatened ,fche Fourth Race. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 313 45, The first great waters came, They swallowed the seven great islands. 46. All Holy saved, the Unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the earth. STANZA XII The Fifth Race and its Divine Insteuctoes 47. Few (men) remained. Some yellow, some brown and black, and some red, remained. The moon-colored (of the primitive Divine Stock) were gone forever. . . . 48. The Fifth Race produced from the Holy Stock (remained) . It was ruled by the first Divine Kings (the " Serpents "). 49. . . . Who re-descended, who made peace with the Fifth (Race), who taught and instructed it. . . . COMMENTAEY ON STANZAS I TO XII STANZA I (All the words in brackets in the Stanzas and Commentaries are the writer's. In some places they may be incomplete, and even inadequate, from the Hindu standpoint; but in the meaning attached to them in Trans-Himalayan esotericism, they are cor rect. In every case, the writer takes any blame upon herself. The teaching is offered as it is under stood ; and as there are seven keys of interpretation to every symbol and allegory, that which may not fit the psychological or astronomical aspect will be found quite correct from the physical or metaphysi cal. H. P„ B.1 314 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 1. The Spirit (a) which turns the fourth (Globe, our Earth) is subservient to the seven Planetary Spirits ; (b) they who revolve driving their chariots around their Lord, the One Eye (the Sun). His breath gave life to the Seven (c) (it gives light to the planets). It gave life to the first. " They are all Dragons of Wisdom " (d), adds the Commentary. (a) Lha, the ancient word in Trans-Himalayan regions for ' ' Spirit, ' ' means any celestial or super human being, and covers the whole series of heav enly Hierarchies from archangel down to an angel of darkness or a terrestrial Spirit. (b) This expression shows in plain language that the Spirit-Guardian of our " globe," the fourth in the " chain," is subordinate to the chief Spirit of the seven Planetary Spirits. As already explained, the ancients had seven chief Mystery-gods, whose chief was exoterically the visible Sun, the eighth God, and esoterically the third Logos, * the Demi urge. The sun was also the chief, exoterically, of the twelve great gods, or zodiacal constellations; and esoterically the Messiah, the Christos (the sub ject anointed by the Geeat Beeath, or the One), surrounded by his twelve subordinate powers, also subordinate, in turn, to each of the seven ' ' Mystery- gods " of the planets. " The seven Higher make the Seven Spirits create the world," states a Commentary, which means that our Earth, at least, was created or fashioned by ter restrial spirits, the "Regents " being simply the supervisors. This is the first germ of that which grew later into the tree of Astrology and Astrolatry. The Higher ones were the Kosmocratores, the fabri cators of our solar system. This is borne out by all the ancient cosmogonies: that of Hermes, of the Chaldees, of the Aryans, of the Egyptians, and even ?In the original, the second Logos, which must be a misprint— Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 315 of the Jews. Heaven's belt, the signs of the Zodiac, are as much the Sons of the Elohim as the Spirits of the Earth ; but they are prior to them. Soma and Sin, Isis and Diana, are all lunar gods and goddesses, called the fathers and mothers of our Earth which is subordinate to them. But these, in their turn, are subordinate to their " Fathers " and " Mothers " — the latter interchangeable and varying with each nation. (c) " His breath gave life to the seven," refers as much to the sun, who gives life to the planets, as to the " High One," the Spiritual Sun, who gives life to the whole Kosmos. In the apocalyptic Verses of the archaic records the language is as symbolical, if less mythical, than the Puranas. Without the help of the later Com mentaries, compiled by generations of adepts, it would be impossible to understand their meaning. In the ancient Cosmogonies, the visible and the in visible worlds are the double links of one chain. As the invisible Logos with its seven hierarchies, each represented by its chief rector, form one power, the inner and the invisible ; so in the world of Forms, the Sun and the seven chief planets constitute the visible and active potency; the latter Hierarchy being, so to speak, the visible and objective Logos of the invisible, and (except in the lowest grades) ever-subjective, angels. Thus — to anticipate a little by way of illustration — every Race in its evolution is said to be born under the direct influence of one of the planets, the First Race receiving its breath of life from the Sun ; while the Third humanity — those who from andro gynes became male and female — are said to have been under the direct influence of Venus, * ' the little sun in which the solar orb stores his light." " Every Universe (world or planet) has its own Logos," says the doctrine. The sun was always 316 THE SECRET DOCTRINE called by the Egyptians " the eye of Osiris," and was himself the Logos, the light made manifest to the world. It is only by the sevenfold ray of this light that we can become cognizant of the Logos through the Demiurge, regarding the latter as the creator of our planet and everything pertaining to it, and the former as the guiding Force of that " Creator." This " Creator " is neither good nor bad per se, but its differentiated aspects in nature make it assume one or the other character. The idea is expressed very clearly in the Books of Hermes, and in every ancient folk-lore. It is sym bolized generally by the Dragon of Good, and the Serpent of Evil, represented on Earth by the right and the left hand magic. It has been repeatedly stated that the Serpent is the symbol of Wisdom and of occult knowledge. According to Sir Henry Rawlinson, the most im portant titles of the Chaldean Hea refer to " his functions as the source of all knowledge and sci ence." Not only is he " the intelligent fish," but his name may be read as signifying both life and a serpent (an initiated adept), and he may be consid ered " as figured by the great serpent which occu pies so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on the black stones recording Babylonian benefactions. ' ' (d) In China we find twelve hierarchies of angels, with human faces and dragon bodies, the dragon standing for divine Wisdom, or Spirit, and they create men by incarnating themselves in seven fig ures of clay — earth and water — made in their own shape, a third allegory. The twelve Esirs of the Scandinavian Eddas do the same. In the Secret Catechism of the Druses of Syria men were created by the " Sons of God " descending on Earth, where, after culling seven Mandragoras, they animated these roots which became men. The mandragora is THE SECRET DOCTRINE 317 the mandrake of the Bible, its roots, in the Island of Candia and in Karamania especially, having a wonderfully human form. (It is quite a different thing from the American mandrake, or Podophyllum pellatum. — Ed.) All these allegories point to the same origin — to the dual and the triple nature of man ; dual, as male and female ; triple as being of spiritual and psychic essence within, and of a material fabric without. STANZA I.— Continued 2. Said the Earth, ' ' Lord of the Shining Face (the Sun) my house is empty. . . . Send thy sons to people this wheel (the Earth) (a). Thou hast sent thy seven sons to the Lord of Wisdom (Mercury) (b). Seven times doth He see thee nearer to Himself; seven times more doth He feel thee. Thou hast forbidden thy servants the small rings to catch thy light and heat, thy great bounty to intercept on its passage (c). Send now to thy servant the same ! " (d). (a) The modern Commentary explains these words as a reference to a well-known astronomical fact, that Mercury receives seven times more light and heat from the Sun than Earth, or even Venus, which receives but twice that amount more than " our insignificant globe." That this was known to the ancients may be inferred by this prayer of the " Earth-Spirit." (b) The Sun, however, refuses to people the Earth, as it is not yet ready to receive life. (c) Mercury, as an astrological planet, is still more occult and mysterious than Venus. He was the leader and evoker of Souls, the " great Magi cian " and Hierophant. He is the " golden-haired Hermes," whom the Hierophants forbade any to name. Says Vossius : ' ' All the theologians agree 318 THE SECRET DOCTRINE that Mercury and the Sun are one. He was the most eloquent and wise of all the gods, which is not wonderful since Mercury is in such close proximity to the Wisdom and the Word of God that he was confused with both. ' ' (Idolatry, IL, p. 373.) In the clearer words of the Commentary: " The globe, propelled onward by the Spirit of the Earth and his six assistants, gets all its vital forces, life and powers from the Spirit of the Sun, through the medium of the seven Planetary Spirits. They are his messengers of Light and Life." " Like each of the seven regions of the Earth, each of the seven First-born (the primordial human groups) receives its light and life from its own es pecial Genius — spiritually, and from the palace (planet) of that Genius physically; so with the seven great Races to be born on it. The First is born under the Sun ; the Second under Jupiter ; the Third under Venus; the Fourth under the Moon (the fourth ' Globe ' also) and Saturn; the Fifth under Mercury. ' ' " So also with man, and every principle in man. Each gets its specific quality from its primary, the Planetary Spirit, therefore every man is a septen- ate (or a combination of principles), each having its origin in a quality of that especial Spirit. Every active power or force of the earth comes to her from one of the seven Lords. Light comes through Venus, who receives a triple supply, and gives one- third of it to the Earth. (This has an occult, as well as an astronomical, meaning.) Therefore the two are called ' Twin-sisters,' but the Spirit of the Earth is subservient to the ' Lord ' of Venus. Our wise men represent the two globes, one over 9 the other 6 under the double Sign " (the primal Svas- tica bereft of its four arms, or the cross +). This " double sign " is, as every student of Oc cultism knows, the symbol of the male and the fe- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 319 male principles in Nature, of the positive and the negative, but the Svastica fti is all that, and much more. Venus is the most occult, powerful and mys terious of all the planets, the one whose influence upon, and relation to, the Earth is most prominent. ' ' " It is through Venus that the Hermaphrodites of the Third Root-Race descended from the first ' Sweat-born,' " says the Commentary. " There fore, it is represented under the symbol of 0 (the circle and diameter) during the Third Race, and of 0 during the Fourth. This needs explanation. The diameter when found isolated in a circle stands for female Nature, for the first ideal World, self -generated and self-impreg nated by the universally diffused Spirit of Life — referring thus to the primitive Root-Race also. It becomes androgynous as the Races and all on earth develop into their physical forms, and the symbol is transformed into a circle with a diameter from which runs a vertical line, expressive of male-female not yet separated — the first Egyptian Tau T — after which it becomes male and female separated +, and fallen into generation. Venus the planet is sym bolized by the sign of a globe over the cross, 2 , showing it as presiding over the natural generation of man. The Egyptians symbolized Ank " life," by the ansated cross %, which is only another form of Venus (or Isis) 9, and meant, esoterically, that mankind and all animal life had stepped out of the divine spiritual circle, and fallen into physical gene ration. This sign, from the end of the Third Race, has the same phallic significance as the " Tree of Life " in Eden. According to the occult doctrine, Venus is our Earth's primary, and its spiritual prototype. " Every sin committed on Earth is felt by Venus," says the Commentary. " The teacher of the Daityas is the Guardian Spirit of the Earth and men. Every 320 THE SECRET DOCTRINE change on Venus is felt on and reflected by the Earth." Venus is thus represented as the teacher of the Daityas, the giants of the Fourth Race, who, in the Hindu allegory, obtained at one time the sovereignty of all the Earth, and defeated the minor gods. The Titans of the Grecian allegory are as closely con nected with Venus-Lucifer, identified by later Chris tians with Satan. Therefore, as Venus and all the lunar goddesses were represented with the cow's horns on their heads, the symbol of mystic Nature, the configuration of this planet is now placed by theologians between the horns of the mystic Lucifer. St. Augustine repeats the archaic tradition, which states that Venus undergoes geological changes sim ultaneously with the Earth, and applies their several changes of form, color and even of orbital paths to the theological conception of Venus-Lucifer. (See City of God, LXXL, ch. viii.) As Venus has no satellites, it is stated allegoric- ally that she adopted the Earth, the progeny of the Moon, who " over- grew its parent, and gave much trouble," a reference to the occult connection be tween the two. The allegory, which states that for killing the mother of Sukra, the guiding Spirit of the planet, Vishnu was cursed by him to be reborn seven times on the Earth, is full of occult philosophi cal meaning, and refers to the Races on earth. Venus, or Lucifer, the planet, is the light-bearer of our Earth, in both the physical and mystic sense. One of the earliest Popes of Rome was known by his Pontifical name as Lucifer. " Every world has its parent star and sister planet," continues the Commentary. " The Earth is the adopted child and younger brother of Venus, but its inhabitants are of their own kind. . . . All sentient complete beings (full septenary men or higher beings) are furnished, in their beginnings, THE" SECRET DOCTRINE 321 with forms and organisms in full harmony with the nature and states of the sphere they inhabit. ' ' ' ' The Spheres of Being, or centres of life, which are isolated nuclei breeding their men and their animals, are numberless ; not one has any resem blance to its sister-companion or to any other in its own special progeny. ' ' * " All have a double physical and spiritual na ture. ' ' " The nucleoles are eternal and everlasting; the nuclei periodical and finite. The nucleoles form part of the Absolute. They are the embrasures of that black impenetrable fortress, which is forever con cealed from human or even spiritual sight. The nuclei are the light of eternity escaping therefrom. ' ' " It is that Light which condenses into the forms of the ' Lords of Being ' — the first and highest of which are collectively, the Logos. From these down wards — formed from the ever-consolidating waves of that Light, which becomes on the objective plane gross matter — proceed the numerous hierarchies of the Creative Forces, some formless, others having their own distinct form; others again, the lowest Elementals, having no form of their own, but assum ing every form according to the surrounding condi tions." " Thus there is but one Absolute Basis, in the spiritual sense, from, on and in which are built the countless basic centres on which proceed the uni versal, cyclic and individual evolutions during the active period." " The informing Intelligences which animate these various centres of Being, are referred to indis criminately by men beyond the Great Range (India) as the Manus, the Sages, the Progenitors, etc. ; and as divine Buddhas, Intelligences, fire-gods, human Buddhas on this side. (Thibet?) The truly ignorant ?This is a modern gloss. 322 THE SECRET DOCTRINE call them gods; the learned profane, the one God; and the wise, the Initiates, honor in them only the cyclic manifestations of That, which neither our Creators nor their creatures can ever discuss or know anything about. The Absolute is not to be defined, and no mortal nor immortal has ever seen or comprehended it during the periods of existence. The mutable cannot know the Immutable, nor can that which lives perceive Absolute Life." The explanation of the mystic numbers becomes evident when one examines the ancient symbols; these are all based upon and start from the figures given in the archaic MS. in the Proem to Book I. O , the symbol of evolution and the fall into generation and matter, is reflected in the old Mexican sculptures and paintings, as it is in the Kabalistic Sephiroth and the Egyptian Tau. Examine the Mexican MS. (Add MSS. Brit. Mus. 9789) ; you will find in it a tree whose trunk is covered with ten fruits ready to be plucked by a male and female, one on each side of it, while from the top of the trunk two branches shoot horizontally to the right and left, thus forming a perfect T (tau). The ends of the two branches moreover, each bear a triple bunch, with a bird sitting between the two ; the bird of im mortality — Atma or the Divine Spirit — thus making the seven. This represents the Sephirothal Tree, ten in all, yet when separated from its upper triad, leaving seven. These are the celestial fruits, the ten © , 10, born out of the two invisible male and female seeds, making up the 12, or the Dodecahedron of the Universe. The mystic system contains the • , the central point; the three or A, the 5, ¦&, and the seven or ja], or again $• ; the triangle in the square, and the synthesizing point in the interlaced double triangles. This for the world of the archetypes. The phenomenal world receives its culmination and the reflex of all in Matst. Therefore he is the mvstio THE SECRET DOCTRINE 323 square — in his metaphysical aspect — the Tetraktis ; and becomes the Cube on the creative plane. His symbol is the cube unfolded, and 6 becoming 7, or f, three crossways (the female), and four verti cally (the male) ; and this is man, the culmina tion of the Deity on Earth, whose body is the cross of flesh, on, through and in which he is ever crucify ing and putting to death the Divine Logos or his Higher Self. Spirit and' Nature form our illusory universe. These two inseparables remain in the Universe of Ideas so long as it lasts, and then merge back into the One ever changeless. " The Spirit, whose es sence is eternal, one and self-existent," emanates a pure, ethereal Light — a dual light not perceptible to the elementary senses. In the Kabala, which ex plains the secret meaning of Genesis, this light is the Dual-Man or the androgyne (rather the sexless) angels, whose generic name is Adam Kadmon. It is they who complete man, whose ethereal form is emanated by other divine but far lower beings, who solidify the body with clay, or " the dust of the ground," an allegory indeed, but as scientific as any Darwinian evolution, and more true. There is frequent confusion in the attributes and genealogies of the gods in the theogonies given to the world by their half-initiated writers, Brahman- ical and Biblical, the Alpha and the Omega of sym bolical science. Yet there could be no such confu sion made by the earliest nations, the descendants and pupils of divine instructors; for both the at tributes and genealogies were inseparably linked with cosmogonical symbols, the " gods " being the life and animating " soul-principle " of the various regions of the Universe. Nowhere, and by no peo ple, was speculation allowed to range beyond those manifested gods. The boundless and infinite Unity remained with every nation a virgin forbidden soil, 324 THE SECRET DOCTRINE untrodden by man's thought, untouched by fruitless speculation. The only reference made to it was the brief conception of its diastolic and systolic prop erty, of its periodical expansion or dilation and con traction. In the Universe, with all its incalculable myriads of systems and worlds disappearing and reappearing in eternity, the anthropomorphized powers or gods, their souls, had to disappear from view with their bodies, " the Breath returning to the Eternal Bosom which exhales and inhales them," says our Catechism. The goddesses are all " Mothers of all living " and of " the gods." On the other hand — cosmically and astronomically — all the male gods became at first " Sun-gods," then, theologically, the " Suns of Righteousness " and the Logoi, all symbolized by the Sun. Adam-Jehovah, Brahma and Mars are in one sense identical ; they are all symbols for primi tive or initial generative powers, for the purposes of human procreation. Adam is red, and so are Brahma and Mars, god and planet. Mars is iden tical with the god of war in one sense, and he is also called ' ' Lohita ' ' the red, like Adam, aud the other ' ' first men. ' ' In the Zohar it is said : ' ' Man was created by the Elohim, and they engendered by common power the earthly Adam. Therefore, in Genesis the Elohim say: " Behold man is become as one of us." But in Hindu cosmogony man is created spiritually, which precludes every idea of phallicism, at any rate in the earlier human nations. STANZA I.— Continued 3. Said " the Lord of the Shining Face, " " I shall send thee a fire when thy work is commenced. Raise thy voice to other planes, apply to thy Father, the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 325 Lord of the Lotus (the Moon) (a) for his Sons. . . . Thy people shall be under the rule of the Fathers. Thy men shall be mortals. The men of the Lord of Wisdom (Mercury), not the sons of Soma (the Moon) are immortal (b). Cease thy com plaints. Thy seven skins are yet on thee. . . . Thou art not ready. Thy men are not ready (c)." (a) The Moon is the Earth's parent. Though the Earth's " fathers " are the sons of the Gods else where, they are generally known as the " Lunar ancestors." (b) The lord or king of the " Fathers " is Yama, the god of Death, and the Judge of mortals. The men of Mercury are metaphorically immortal through their wisdom. Such is the common belief of those who think that every star and planet is inhabited. The Moon being an inferior body to the Earth even, to say nothing of other planets, the terrestrial men produced by her sons — the Lunar men or " ancestors " — from her shell or body, can not be immortal. They cannot hope to become real, self-conscious and intelligent men, unless they are finished, so to say, by other creators. Thus in the Puranic legend the son of the Moon (Soma) is Mer cury, " the intelligent " and " the wise," because he is the offspring of Soma, the " regent " of the visible Moon, not of the physical moon. Thus Mer cury is the elder brother of the Earth metaphorically — her step-brother, so to speak, the offspring of Spirit — while she, the Earth, is the progeny of the body. These allegories have a deeper and more scientific meaning (astronomically and geologically) than our modern physicists are willing to admit. The whole cycle of " the first War in Heaven " (the Tdraka-mdya) is as full of philosophical as of cos- mogonical and astronomical truths. One can trace therein the biographies of all the planets by the history of their gods and rulers. Venus (Usanas), 326 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the bosom-friend of the Moon (Soma) and the foe of Jupiter, the instructor of the gods, whose wife Tara (or Taraka) had been carried away by Soma — (" of whom he begat Mercury ") — took also an ac tive part in this war against ' ' the gods, ' ' and forth with was degraded into a demon deity, and so he remains to this day. Usanas or Venus is our " Lucifer," the morning star. The ingenuity of this allegory is very great. Thus Jupiter is a deity who is the symbol and proto type of the exoteric or ritualistic worship. He is the priest of the Hindu Olympus, and the spiritual teacher of the Gods. Soma is the mystery god, and presides over the mystic and occult nature in man and the Universe. Tara, the priest's wife, who sym bolizes the worshipper, prefers esoteric truth to its mere shell (exotericism), hence she is shown as car ried off by Soma. Now Soma is the sacred drink, giving mystic visions and trance revelations, the result of which union is Buddha (Wisdom), Mercury or Hermes, that science, in short, which to-day is pronounced by the theologians to be devilish and Satanic. (c) Here the word " men " refers to the celestial men, or " the progenitors," who created the first human Adams out of their sides as astral shadows. Man's organism was adapted to its surroundings in every Race. The first Root-Race was as ethereal as ours is material. The progeny of the seven Creators who evolved the seven primordial Adams surely re quired no purified gases to breathe and live upon. Therefore the Occultist maintains that such was the condition of the race ceons of years before even the evolution of the Lemurian, the first physical man, some 18,000,000 years ago. Archaic scripture teaches that at the beginning of every local Round the Earth is reborn; " as the human Monad, when passing into a new womb gets THE SECRET DOCTRINE 327 a new body, so does the Monad of the Earth ; it gets a more perfect and solid covering with each Round after emerging from the matrix of space into ob jectivity." (Commentary.) This process is at tended of course by the throes of the new birth or geological convulsions. The only reference to it is contained in one verse of the Book of Dzyan before us, where it says : STANZA I.— Continued 4. And after great throes, she (the Earth) cast off her old three and put on her new seven skins, and stood in her first one (a). (a) The Earth is said to cast off her old three skins, because this refers to the three preceding Rounds she had already passed through ; the present being the fourth Round of the seven. At the begin ning of every new Round, after a period of ' ' obscu ration," the Earth (like the other six earths, or " globes ") casts off, or is supposed to cast off, her old skins as the serpent does ; therefore she is called in the Aitareya Brahmana, " the Queen of the Ser pents," and " the mother of all that moves." The " seven skins," in the first of which she now stands, refer to the seven geological changes which accom pany and correspond to the evolution of the Seven Root-Races of humanity. Stanza IT, which speaks of this (the fourth) Round, begins with a few words of information concerning the age of this Earth. The chronology will be given in its place. The chronology and computations of the Brah min Initiates are based upon the Zodiacal records of India and the works of Asuramaya, the great At lantean astronomer and magician. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught astron omy (among other things) to mankind. 328 THE SECRET DOCTRINE STANZA II Nature, Unaided, Fails 5. The Wheel whirled for thirty crores (300,000,- 000 years, or three Occult Ages). It constructed forms ; soft stones that hardened (minerals) ; hard plants that softened (vegetation). Visible from in visible, insects and small lives. She (the Earth) shook them off her back whenever they overran the Mother. After thirty crores of years, she turned round (a). She lay on her back, on her side. . . . She would call no Sons of Heaven, she would ask no Sons of Wisdom. She created from her own bosom. She evolved water-men, terrible and bad (b). (a) This relates to an inclination of the Earth's axis — of which there were several — and to a conse quent deluge and chaotic condition (having, how ever, no relation to primeval chaos), in which mon sters, half -human, half-animal, were generated. We find this deluge mentioned in the Book of the Dead, and also in the Chaldean account of creation on the Cutha tablets. The Chaldean fragments of cosmog ony in the cuneiform inscriptions and elsewhere show two distinct creations of animals and men, the first destroyed, being a failure. The Kabala states the same. (b) Oannes (or Dagon, the Chaldean man-fish) divides his Cosmogony and Genesis into two por tions. First, the abyss of waters and darkness, wherein resided most hideous beings — men with wings, four- and two-faced men, human beings with two heads, with the legs and horns of a goat (our " goat-men "), hippo-centaurs, bulls with the heads of men, and dogs with the heads of fishes. In short, combinations of animals and men, assuming each other's shapes and countenances. The Chinese have THE SECRET DOCTRINE 329. the same traditions. In the work called Shan-Hai- King, written by Chung Ku from engravings on nine urns made by the Emperor Yii (2255 b. a), an in terview is mentioned with men having two distinct faces on their heads, before and behind, monsters with bodies of goats and human faces, etc. Accord ing to its commentator Kwoh P'oh, the Shan-Hai- King was compiled three thousand years before his time (276-324 a. d.). STANZA IL— Continued 6. The water-men, terrible and bad, she herself created. From the remains of others (from the min eral, vegetable and animal remains) of the first, sec ond and third (Rounds) she formed them (a). The Gods and Planetary Spirits came and looked. . . . The Spirits from the bright Father-Mother, from the white (Solar-lunar) regions they came, from the abodes of the Immortal-Mortals." (a) In the Cutha tablet the " Lord of Angels " destroys the men in the abyss, after which the Great Gods create men with the bodies of birds of the desert, human beings, " seven kings, brothers of the same family, etc.," a reference to the locomo tive qualities of the primary ethereal bodies of men, which could fly as well as they could walk, but who " were destroyed " because they were not " per fect " — i.e., they were sexless, like the Kings of Edom. Remember the " winged races " of Plato, and the Popol-Vuh accounts of the first human race which could walk, fly and see objects however dis tant. And arguing from the standpoint of science, does not even our own race occasionally produce monsters? If nature can indulge in such " freaks " now that the order of her evolutionary work has 830 THE SECRET DOCTRINE been settled for ages, monsters like those described by Berosus might have been quite possible in the beginning, and such a possibility may even have ex isted as a law before she had fairly sorted out her species, as the law of Reversion proves. Thus physical nature, when left to herself in the creation of animals and men, is shown to have failed. She can produce the mineral and vegetable and the lower animal kingdoms, but when it comes to the turn of man, independent, spiritual and intelligent powers are required for his creation, besides " the coats of skin " and the " Breath of animal life." The human Monads of preceding Rounds need some thing higher than purely physical materials to build their personalities with, under the penalty of re maining even lower than any " Frankenstein " ani mal. STANZA IL— Continued 7. Displeased they were. " Our flesh is not there " (they said). " This is no fit form for our brothers of the Fifth (Race) (a). No dwellings for the Lives." (The Monads of the presentments of men of the Third Round, the huge ape-like forms.) ' ' Pure waters, not turbid, they must drink. Let us dry them (the waters)." (a) Says the Catechism (Commentary) : " It is from the material worlds that they descend who fashion physical man at the new life-cycles. They are inferior spirits, possessed of a dual body. (An astral within an ethereal form.) They are the fashioners and creators of our body of illu sion. . . . " Into the forms projected by the Ancestors, the two letters (representing the highest two principles in man, and even more sacred than the letters of the Tetragrammaton), or the Monad {called also ' the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 331 Double Dragon '), descends from the spheres of ex pectation. (The intermediate spheres, wherein the Monads which have not reached Nirvana are said to slumber in unconscious inactivity between the life- cycles.) But they are like a roof with no walls nor pillars to rest upon. . . . ' ' Man needs four flames and three fires to become one on Earth, and he requires the essence of the forty-nine fires * to be perfect. (The ' flames ' are evanescent and periodical, the ' fires ' eternal in their triple unity. They correspond to the four lower and the three higher human principles.) It is those who have deserted the Superior Spheres, the Gods of Will, t who complete the Man of illu sion. For the ' Double Dragon ' has no hold upon the mere form. It is like the breeze where there is no tree or branch to receive and harbor it. It can not affect the form where there is no agent of trans^ mission (mind), and the form knows it not." " In the highest worlds the three are one (Spirit, Soul and Mind) ; on Earth (at first) the one becomes two. They are like the two (side) lines of a triangle that has lost its base line — which is the third fire." (Catechism, Book 3, sec. 9.) This requires some explanation before proceeding further. In the allegories of the Puranas, Brahma is said to be, at the beginning of the cycles, " pos sessed by the desire and the power to create, and impelled by the potencies of what is to be created." In the Vishnu Pur ana, which is certainly the earliest of the Puranas, we find (as in all the others) Brahma as the male god, assuming for purposes of creation, " four bodies, invested by three qualities." It is said: " In this manner, dawn, night, day and twi light are the four bodies of Brahma." And it is explained that when Brahma wishes to create ?The "forty-nine fires" are the 49 planes of consciousness. ¦j-The Suras, who become later the A-Suras. 332 THE SECRET DOCTRINE through his will the four orders of beings, gods, demons (or, rather, more material gods), progeni tors and men, " he collects, Yoga-like, his mind." Demons is a very loose word, as it applies to a number of inferior Spirits, so termed because they oppose the higher ones, but they are not devils. Brahma begins by creating them, before the gods or the angels, after which his body is transformed into Night. This will be understood by him who bears in mind that Universal Mind is at the root of Self-Consciousness. The so-called " Demons " are the positive poles of creation, so to speak, hence the first produced. Esoterically they are the self-as serting and (intellectually) active principle. Continuing to create, Brahma in his second form, the Day, creates from his breath the gods, who are endowed with the quality of goodness (passivity), and from his side issued the progenitors of men, be cause, as the text explains: " Brahma thought of himself (during the process) as the father of the world." This thinking of one's self as this, that or the other is the chief factor in the production of every kind of psychic or even physical phenomena. That mountains might be cast into the sea by faith are no vain words, only the word faith should be translated well. Faith without Will is like a wind mill without wind — barren of results. The power used by Brahma is Kriya-sakti — the mysterious Yoga power explained elsewhere. This second body when cast off became the evening twilight, and then Brahma assumed his last form, pervaded by the quality of foulness, and " from this men, in whom foulness and passion predominate, were produced." This body when cast off became the dawn. Here Brahma becomes collectively " the Father," and stands esoterically for " the fathers " or " progeni tors." He symbolizes personally the collective crea tors of the world and men. He is, collectively, the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 333 Lords of Being, and his four bodies typify the four classes of Creative Powers described in the com mentary on Stanza VII., Book I. The whole philos ophy of the so-called " creation " of good and evil in this world and of the whole cyclic results there from, hangs on the correct comprehension of these four bodies of Brahma. The Babylonian accounts of " Creation," as found on the Assyrian fragments of tiles, tell us, among other statements, that " in the first days the evil Gods, the angels who were in rebellion in the lower part of heaven, had been created." That is, that they belong to a material plane of evolution, though not the plane perceptible to us through our senses, and therefore generally invisible to us, and regarded as subjective. The same tablet says, farther on: " There were seven of them " (the lower gods) ; then follows a description of them, the fourth being a " serpent," the phallic symbol of the Fourth Race. " The seven of them, messengers of the God Anu, their king. ' ' Now Anu belongs to the Chaldean trinity, and is identical with Sin, the Moon, in one aspect. And the Moon in the Hebrew Kabala is the ark contain ing the seed of all material life, and is still more closely connected Kabalistically with Jehovah, who is double-sexed, as Anu is. They are both repre sented in esotericism as spirit and matter, or male and female, the two antagonistic principles. There is more than one interpretation, for there are seven Keys to the mystery of the Fall. More over, there are two " Falls " in theology, the re bellion of the Archangels and their " Fall," and the " Fall " of Adam and Eve. Thus the lower as well as the higher Hierarchies are charged with a sup posed crime; supposed, because in both cases it is founded on a misconception. Both " Falls " are considered in Occultism as Karmic effects, and both 334 THE SECRET DOCTRINE belong to the law of evolution, intellectual and spir itual on the one hand, and psychic and physical on the other. The " Fall " is a universal allegory. It sets forth at one end of the ladder of Evolution the " rebellion," that is, the action of differentiating intellection or consciousness on its varying planes, seeking union with matter; and at the other, the lower end, the rebellion of matter against Spirit, or of action against spiritual inertia. But herein lies the germ of an error which has had disastrous ef fects. In the original allegory it is matter — or the more material angels — which was regarded as the conqueror of Spirit, or the Archangels who " fell " on this plane, succumbing to the power of matter. But in theology it is Michael, the representative of Jehovah, the leader of the celestial hosts, who gets the best of Satan. Thus it was that the real mean ing of the allegory became distorted. STANZA IL— Continued 8. The Flames came (a). The Fires with the Sparks; the night fires and the day fires. They dried out the turbid dark waters. With their heat they quenched them. The Spirits of the high, and those of below (b) came. They slew the forms, which were two- and four-faced. They fought the goat-men, and the dog-headed men, and the men with fishes' bodies." (a) The Flames are a Hierarchy of Spirits paral lel to, if not identical with, the fiery Seraphim men tioned by Isaiah (vi. 2-6), those who attend, ac cording to Hebrew theogony, " the Throne of the Almighty." (b) The word " Below " must not be taken to mean infernal regions, but simply the abode of spir itual, or rather ethereal, Beings of a lower grade, because nearer to the earth, or one step higher than THE SECRET DOCTRINE 335 our terrestrial sphere ; while the other (Lhas) Spir its mentioned belong to the highest spheres. Whence the name of the capital of Thibet, Lha-ssa. Besides a statement of a purely physical nature, belonging to the evolution of life on earth, there may be more than one allegorical meaning attached to this verse. The " Flames," or Fires, represent Spirit, or the male element, and " water," matter or the opposite element. And here again we find, in the slaying of the purely material form by the Spirit, a reference to the eternal struggle between Spirit and Matter on the physical and psychic planes, besides a scientific cosmic fact. STANZA IT— Continued 9. Mother-water, the great Sea, wept. She arose, she disappeared in the Moon, which had lifted her, which had given her birth (a). (a) Is not this an evident reference to tidal action in the early stage of the history of our planet in this, its fourth Round? Mr. Darwin's theory was that not less than fifty-two million years ago — and probably much more — the Moon originated from the Earth's plastic mass. The occult teaching is the reverse of this. The Moon is far older than the Earth, and as explained in Vol. I., it is the Earth which owes its being to the Moon. Hence the at traction to the Moon as shown by the tides, the liquid portion of the globe ever striving to raise itself towards its present. This is the meaning of the last sentence of verse 9. STANZA IL— Continued 10. When the forms (a) were destroyed, Mother- Earth remained bare; she asked to be dried (b). 336 THE SECRET DOCTRINE (a) The goddess who gave birth to these primor dial monsters in the account of Berosus was the Sea. (b) The time for Earth's incrustation had ar rived. The waters had separated and the process had started. It was the beginning of a new life. This is what one key shows. Another key teaches the origin of Water, its admixture with Fire (liquid fire, it says) and enters upon an alchemical descrip tion of the progeny of the two — that is, solids, such as minerals and earths. From the " Waters of Space " we have the oceanic expanse on Earth. Varuna is dragged down from infinite Space, to reign as Neptune over the finite seas. As always, the popular legend is found to be based on a strictly scientific foundation. Hence Cupid or Love in its primitive sense is Eros, the Divine Will, or Desire of manifesting it self through visible creation. Therefore, Fohat, the prototype of Eros, becomes on Earth the great power " Life-electricity," or the Spirit of Life-giv ing. The Moon, masculine in its theogonic charac ter, is, in its cosmic aspect only, the female genera tive principle, as the Sun is the male emblem. Water is the progeny of the Moon, an androgyne deity with every nation. STANZA III Attempts to Create Man 11. The Lord of the Lords (the Demiurge) came. From her body he separated the waters, and that was heaven above, the first heaven (the atmosphere, the air or the firmament) (a). (a) Here tradition falls again into the Universal. As in the preceding cycle the Lord (the god who has the form of Brahma) had assumed the shape of a THE SECRET DOCTRINE 337 tortoise, say the Puranas, in this cycle he took the shape of a boar. In the Elohistic " creation " God creates " a firmament in the midst of the waters . . . and says, " let dry land appear." And now comes the traditional peg whereunto is hung the esoteric portion of the Kabalistic interpretation. STANZA III.— Continued 12. The great Lords called the Lords of the Moon (a), of the airy bodies. " Bring forth men " (they were told), " men of your nature. Give them (the Monads) their forms within. She (Mother-Earth or Nature) will build coverings without (external bodies). (For) males-females will they be. Lords of the Flame, also." (a) Who are the Lords of the Moon? In India they are called the Fathers, or " the Lunar ances tors," but in the Hebrew scrolls it is Jehovah him self who is " the Lord of the Moon," collectively, as the Host, and also as one of the Elohim. The astronomy of the Hebrews and their observance of times was regulated by the moon. A Kabalist says : " The vitalizing power of heaven lay chiefly with the moon. It was the Hebrew Jehovah, and St. Paul (Col. ii. 17) enjoins: ' Let no man judge you for your observance of the seventh day, and the day of the new moon, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body (or substance) is of Christ.' " Sarai or Sri, the wife of the Hebrew Abram, is identical with Sri, the wife of the Moon, and with Lakshmi, the Hindu Venus, sprung from the sea, and with all that is feminine in Nature. So Sarai the wife of Abram could have no child till her name was changed to Sarah, giving her the property of this lunar influ ence.* After studying the legends of Abram, Sarai *Masonic Review, Cincinnati, June, 1886. (Abridged.) 338 THE SECRET DOCTRINE or Sarah, and Brahma and Sri, with their relations to the Moon and Water, who can doubt that^ the story of Abram is based upon that of Brahma, or that Genesis was written upon the old lines used by every ancient nation? All in the ancient Scriptures is allegorical — all based upon and inseparably con nected with astronomy and cosmolatry. STANZA III.— Continued 13. They (the Moon-gods) went, each on his al lotted land: seven of them, each on his lot. The Lords of the Flame remained behind. They would not go, they would not create, (a). (a) The secret teachings show the divine Progeni tors creating men on seven portions of the globe, " each on his lot," that is, each a different race of men externally and internally, and on different zones. But who are the " Lords of the Flame " who would not create ? Esoteric philosophy explains the Progenitors as being of two classes: tbe Solar ancestors, who are devoid of fire (that is, of creative passion), because too divine and pure, and tbe Lunar ancestors, more closely connected with Earth, who became the crea tive Elohim of form, or the Adam of dust. The allegory says that the first progeny of Brahma " were without desire or passion, estranged from the Universe and undesirous of progeny." (Vishnu- Purdna, I. vii.) This is explained as follows: " The primordial Emanations from the Creative Power are too near the Absolute Cause. They are transi tional and latent forces, which will develop only in the next and subsequent removes." It thus becomes clear why the " Solar Ancestors," devoid of the grosser creative fire, hence unable to create physical man, and having no double or astral THE SECRET DOCTRINE 339 body to project, since they were without form, are shown in exoteric allegories, as Yogis, Kumaras (" chaste youths "), or demons, who became rebels and opposing gods. Because, as the allegory shows, the gods denounced them, having no personal merit of their own, and dreading the sanctity of those self- incarnated Beings who had become ascetics and Yogis, and threatened to upset the domination of the gods by their self-acquired powers. All this had a deep philosophical meaning, and refers to the evo lution and acquirement of divine powers by self- exertion. Secondary gods or temporary powers in nature (the Forces) are doomed to disappear; it is only the spiritual potentiality in man which can lead him to become one with the Infinite and the Absolute. Yet it is the Solar Ancestors alone who could com plete man, that is, make of him a self-conscious, al most a divine being — a god on Earth. The Lunar Ancestors, though possessed of creative fire, were devoid of the higher intellectual element. Being on a level with the lower principles — those which pre cede gross objective matter — they could only give birth to the astral man, the model of the physical. Thus the " Mystery of Creation " is repeated on Earth only in an inverted sense, as in a mirror. It is those who are unable to create the spiritual immortal man who project the senseless model (the astral) of the physical being; and it is those who would not multiply who sacrificed themselves to the good and the salvation of Spiritual Humanity. For to complete the septenary man, to add to his three lower principles and cement them with the spiritual Monad, two connecting principles are needed, Mind and Desire, or the Emotional Soul. It were impos sible for the Monad to dwell in a form without these, except in an absolutely latent state. But this living Spiritual Fire, is in the possession 340 THE SECRET DOCTRINE of the independent and free Intelligences shown in every theogony as fighting for that independence and freedom, and hence, in the ordinary sense, " re bellious to the divine passive law." These then are the " Flames " (the Solar Ancestors) who remain behind instead of going with the others to create men on Earth. But the true esoteric meaning is that most of them were destined to incarnate as the Egos of the future mankind. The human Ego is neither Spirit nor Soul, but the higher Mind; the intellectual fruition and the efflorescence of the intellectual self- conscious Egotism — in the higher, spiritual sense. The ancient works refer to it as the Casual Body on the plane of the Thread-Soul, the Sutratma, the golden thread on which, like beads, the various per sonalities of this higher Ego are strung. If the reader were told, as in the semi-esoteric allegories, that these Beings were returning Nirvanees from preceding Great Cycles (ages of incalculable dura tion), he would hardly understand the text, while some Vedantins might say that the Nirvanee can never return — which is true during the life-cycle he belongs to, and erroneous where Eternity is con cerned. For it is said in the Sacred Verses: " The thread of radiance whicb is imperishable, and dissolves only in Nirvana, re-emerges from it in its integrity on the day when the Great Law calls all things back into action." (v. Comm. to Stanza VII., Vol. I.) Hence, as the higher Ancestors had no hand in his physical creation, we find primeval man, issued from the bodies of his spiritually tireless progenitors, de scribed as aeriform, devoid of compactness, and Mindless. He had no middle principle to serve him as a medium between the spiritual man and the phys ical brain, for he lacked Intelligence. The Monads which incarnated in those empty shells remained as unconscious as when separated from their previous THE SECRET DOCTRINE 341 incomplete forms and vehicles. There is no power of creation or of self -consciousness in a pure Spirit on this our plane, unless its too homogeneous divine nature becomes mixed with and strengthened by an essence already differentiated. We find, in short, that the higher Angels had broken through the " Seven Circles " countless aeons before, and thus robbed them of the Sacred Fire, which means, in plain words, that they had assimilated, during their past incarnations in lower as well as in higher worlds, all the wisdom there from — the reflection of Universal Mind in its va rious degrees of intensity. No entity, whether an gelic or human, can reach the state of Nirvana, or Absolute perfectness, except through aeons of suf fering and the knowledge of evil as well as of good, for otherwise good would remain incomprehensible. Between man and the animal, whose Monads are fundamentally identical, there is the impassable abyss of mentality and self-consciousness. What is mind, in its higher aspect, if not a portion of the essence (and, in some rare cases of incarnation, the very essence) of a higher Being; one from a higher and diviner plane ? What is it that creates such dif ference between man and the animal, whose bodies are built of the same materials, informed by the same undeveloped Monad, unless man is an animal, plus a living god within his physical shell? To some extent it is admitted that even the eso teric teaching is allegorical. To make it compre hensible to the average intelligence requires the use of symbols cast in an intelligible form. Hence the allegorical and semi-mythical narratives in the exo teric, and the only semi-metaphysical and objective representations in the esoteric teachings. For the purely and transcendently spiritual conceptions are adapted only to the perceptions of those who " see without eyes, hear without ears and sense without 342 THE SECRET DOCTRINE organs," according to the graphic description of the Commentary. The mystery attached to the highly spiritual an cestors of the divine man within the earthly man is very great. His dual creation is hinted at in the Puranas, though its esoteric meaning can only be approached by collating the varying accounts, and reading them as symbols and allegories. In Genesis, the " Lord God " of the second chapter is in the original the Elohim (the Lords), and while one of them makes the earthly Adam of dust, another breathes into him the breath of life, and the third makes of him a living soul. In Corinthians xv. 47, St. Paul says : ' ' The first Adam was made a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." In the Kabala there is much that is veiled, but still quite comprehensible, about the "Fires," the " Sparks " and the " Flames," as well as the al legory of the Pre- Adamite Kings (the Kings of Edom), who " could not remain in their places, be cause the form of the Kings had not been formed as it ought to be, and the Holy City had not been prepared." (Zohar III., 135a.) Now the simple interpretation of this is that worlds and men were in turn formed and destroyed under the law of evolution and from pre-existing material, until both the planets and their men, in our case our Earth and its animal and human races, became what they are now in the present cycle : op posite polar forces, an equilibrized compound of Spirit and Matter, of the positive and negative, male and female. Before man could become male and fe male physically, his prototype, the creating Elohim, had to arrange his form on this sexual plane astrally. That is to say, the atoms and organic forces had to be marshalled in the order intended by Nature, so as to carry out that law called by the Kabala the Balance, under which everything becomes male and THE SECRET DOCTRINE 343 female in its final perfection, during this present stage of materiality. Therefore, the First Root- race of men, sexless and mindless, had to be " hid den until, after a time," that is, the First Race, in stead of dying, disappeared in the Second Race, as certain lower lives and plants do in their progeny. The First became the Second Root-race, without either begetting it, procreating it or dying. ' ' They passed by together," it is written. Why? Because " the Holy City had not been prepared," the Secret Place or the Shrine on Earth; in other words, the human womb, the microcosmic copy and reflection of the Heavenly Matrix, or primeval Space or Chaos, in which the male Spirit fecundates the germ of the Son, or the visible Universe. STANZA IV Creation of the First Races 14. The Seven Hosts, the Will (or Mind) born Lords, propelled by the Spirit of Life-giving (Fo hat), separate men from themselves, each on his own zone (a). (a) They threw off their " shadows " or astral bodies — if such an ethereal being as a " lunar Spirit ' ' may be supposed to have an astral, besides this hardly tangible body. In another Commentary it is said that the " Ancestors " breathed out the first man. In a third it is said that the newly created men " were the shadows of the Shadows." It is useless to enter here into details concerning the process, but who that has witnessed the phenomenon of a materializing form oozing out of the pores of a medium, or at other times out of his left side, can fail to credit the possibility, at least, of such a birth? Between the two fallacies of the miraculous creation of mam and of his descent from an ap_e,j 344 THE SECRET DOCTRINE occult philosophy steps in, and teaches that the first human stock was projected by higher and semi- divine Beings, out of their own essences. Nor was man " created," says this philosophy, the complete being he now is, however imperfect he still remains. There was a spiritual, a psychic, an intellectual and an animal evolution from the high est to the lowest, as well as a physical development from the simple and homogeneous up to the more complex and heterogeneous ; though not quite on the lines traced for us by the modern evolutionists. This double evolution in two contrary directions required various ages, of divers natures and degrees of spir ituality and intellectuality, to fabricate the being now known as man. Furthermore, the one absolute, ever-acting and never-erring law, which proceeds on the same lines from one life-cycle to another, plunging Spirit deeper and deeper into Matter and then redeeming it through flesh, uses for these pur poses Beings from other and higher planes, men, or Minds, in accordance with their Karmic exigencies. The Progenitors of Man, then, the " Lunar An cestors," are the creators of our bodies and lower principles. They are ourselves, as the first person alities, and we are they. The endowers of man with his conscious immor tal Ego are the " Solar Ancestors " — whether so regarded metaphorically or literally. The mysteries of the conscious Ego or human Soul are great. How precise and true is Plato's expression, how profound and philosophical his definition of the human soul or Ego, when he defined it as " a com pound of the same and the other." It is " the same and the other," as the great Initiate-Philosopher said; for the Ego (the " Higher Self " when merged with and in the Divine Monad) is Man, and yet the same, as the Other the Angel in him incarnated, is the same with the Universal Mind. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 345 STANZA TV.— Continued 15. Seven times seven (a) Shadows, or future Men (mindless ones) were thus born, each of his own color (complexion) and kind (b). Each (also) inferior to his Father (creator). The Fathers, the Boneless, could give no Life to beings with bones. Their progeny were phantoms, with neither form nor mind. Therefore they were called the Shadow (c) Race. (a) The Progenitors being divided into seven classes, we have here the mystic number again. Nearly all the Puranas agree that three of these are formless, while four are corporeal ; the former being intellectual and spiritual, the latter material and devoid of intellect. It is the Hosts of the four ma terial classes who create men simultaneously on the seven zones. That class of the " Fire Spirits " which we identify on undeniable grounds with the " Solar Ancestors," is called in our school the " Heart " of the Body of Creative Powers, and is said to have incarnated in the Third Race of men, and made them perfect. The esoteric mystagogy speaks of the mysterious relation existing between the seven-fold essence or substance of this angelic Heart and that of man, whose every physical organ, and psychic and spiritual function, is a reflection, so to speak, on the terrestrial plane of the model or prototype above. Why should there be such a strange repetition of the number seven in the physi cal structure of man? Why should the heart have four lower cavities, and three higher divisions, * answering so strangely to the septenary division of the human principles, with their two groups, and why should the same division be found in the various ?Right and left auricle, right and left ventricle, right and left auricular appendage, and fossa ovalis. — Editor. 346 THE SECRET DOCTRINE classes of Progenitors? Why do the seven nervous plexuses of the body radiate seven rays, and why are there these seven plexuses, and why seven dis tinct layers in the human skin? ' ' Having projected their shadows and made men of one element (ether) the Progenitors reascend to Maha-loka, whence they descend periodically, when the world is renewed, to give birth to new men. " The subtle bodies remain without understanding until the arrival of the gods, now called not-gods (Demons)." (Commentary.) " Not-gods " for the Brahmins, perhaps, but the highest Breaths for the Occultist, since those Pro genitors, the formless and intellectual, refuse to build man, but endow him with mind ; the four cor poreal classes creating only his body. Why these " gods " refuse to create man is not, as stated in exoteric accounts, because they were too proud, but because they were too pure. Esoteric philosophy teaches that one-third of the creative Spirits — that is, the three classes of the formless Ancestors, endowed with intelligence, was simply doomed by the law of Karma and evolution to be reborn (or incarnated) on Earth. (See the Apocalypse (ch. xii.) about the great red Dragon with seven heads, whose " tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth." The verse " did cast them to the Earth," plainly shows its origin in the oldest and grandest allegory of the Aryan mystics, who after the de struction of the Atlantean giants and sorcerers, con cealed the truth — astronomical, physical and divine — under various allegories.) Some of these Progenitors were Nirmanakayas * from other life-cycles. Hence we see them, in all the Puranas, reappearing on this globe in the third life- *Purifled spirits who have refused Nirvana in order to help humanity on this plane. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 347 cycle (read Third Root-Race) as Kings, Sages and Heroes. The supposed " rebels " then were simply those who had to incarnate anew. The refusal of some had reference to their having been Adepts and Yogis of long-preceding cycles ; another mystery. But later on, as Nirmanakayas, they sacrificed them selves for the good and salvation of the Monads who were waiting for their turn, and otherwise would have had to linger for ages in irresponsible, animal like, though in appearance human, forms. This may be a parable and an allegory within an allegory. Its solution is left to the intuition of the student if he can only read that which follows with his spiritual eye. The Lunar Ancestors creating the semblance of men out of their own divine Essence means, eso terically, that it is they who became the First Race, and thus shared its destiny and further evolution. They would not, simply because they could not, give to man that sacred spark which burns and ex pands into the fire of human reason and self-con sciousness, for they had it not to give. This was left to that class of gods who became symbolized in Greece under the name of Prometheus, those who had nought to do with the physical body, yet every thing with the purely spiritual man. Each class of Creators endows man with what it has to give; the one builds his external form, the other gives him its essence, which later on becomes the Human Higher Self owing to the personal exer tion of the individual; but they could not make men as they were themselves, perfect, because sinless. Where there is no struggle there is no merit. Sub servient to eternal law, the pure gods could only project out of themselves shadowy men, a little less ethereal and spiritual than themselves. The first humanity, therefore, was a pale copy of its progeni tors, too material to be gods, too spiritual and pure to be men, endowed as it was with every negative 348 THE SECRET DOCTRINE perfection. Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the incorruptible must grow out of the corruptible, having the latter as its basis, vehicle and contrast. (b) These " shadows " were born " each of his own color and kind," each also " inferior to his creator," because the latter was a complete being of his kind. The Commentaries refer the first sen tence to the color or complexion of each human race thus evolved. In all mythologies we find the same ideas. The Creative Powers produce man, but fail in their final object. All these Logoi strive to endow man with conscious immortal spirit, reflected in the Mind alone ; they fail, and they are all represented as be ing punished for the failure, if not for the attempt. What is the punishment? Imprisonment in the lower region, which is our earth for eternity (or the life- cycle) in the darkness of matter, or within animal man. The Church Fathers disfigured the graphic symbol, and turned our globe into Hell itself. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was denounced as forbidden, and the Serpent of Wisdom, the voice of reason and consciousness, remained identified with the Devil. (c) The Shadow, as already explained, is the as tral image. It bears this meaning in Sanskrit works. Thus Sanjna (Spiritual Consciousness) the wife of Surya, the Sun, is shown retiring into the jungle to lead an ascetic life, and leaving behind to her hus band her shadow, or astral image. STANZA TV.— Continued 16. How are the real men born? (a). The men with minds, how are they made? The Fathers (the Lunar Ancestors?) call to their help their own fire THE SECRET DOCTRINE 349 (the electric fire) which is the fire that burns in Earth. The Spirit of the Earth called to his help the solar fire (the Spirit in the Sun). These three (the ancestors and the two Fires) produced with their joint efforts a good form. It could stand, walk, run, recline and fly. Yet it was still but a shadow, a shadow with no sense. (a) The " men " here are equivalent to the Chal dean Adam, or collective mankind. It was the four superior orders of the seven Creative Powers ' ' who were the progenitors of the concealed (the subtle, inner) man," says the Commentary. The Lunar Ancestors, as already stated, were only the ancestors of his form, that is, of the model according to which Nature began her external work upon him. This creation of the phantom, primitive man, was a failure, as explained in the Commentary on verse 20. (b) This attempt also was a failure. It allegorizes the vanity of physical nature's unaided attempts to construct even a perfect animal — let alone man. For the " Fathers," the lower Angels, are all Nature Spirits, and the higher Elementals also possess an intelligence of their own; but this is not enough to construct a thinking man. " Living Fire " was needed, that fire which gives to the human mind its self -perception and self -consciousness ; and the progeny of the earthly (or animal electric) and the solar fires could furnish but a physical living consti tution to that first astral model of man. They could create nothing higher than animals. This Stanza is very suggestive, as it explains and fills the gap be tween the informing principle in man — the Higher Self or human Monad — and the animal Monad, one and the same, although the former is endowed with divine intelligence, the other with instinctual faculty alone. How is the presence of that Higher Self in man to be accounted for? " The Sons of Universal Mind are the quickeners 350 THE SECRET DOCTRINE of the human plant. They are the waters falling upon the arid soil of latent life, and the spark that vivifies the human animal. They are the Lords of Spiritual Life eternal. ... In the beginning (in the Second Race) some of the Lords only breathed of their essence into men ; and some took up in man their abode." (Commentary.) This shows that not all men became incarnations of the " divine Rebels," but only a few among them. The remainder simply had their intelligence quick ened by the spark thrown into it, which accounts for the great variations between the intellectual capaci ties of different men and races. Had not the ' ' Sons of Mind ' ' skipped the intermediate worlds, speaking allegorically, in their impulse towards intellectual freedom, the animal man would never have been able to reach upward from this earth and attain through self-exertion his ultimate goal. The cyclic pilgrimage would have to be performed through all the planes of existence half unconsciously, if not entirely so, as in the case of the animals. It is owing to this rebellion of intellectual life against the in activity of pure spirit that we are what we are — self- conscious, thinking men, with the capabilities and attributes of Gods for good as much as for evil. Hence the Rebels are our saviours. Let the philos opher ponder well over this, and more than one mystery will become clear to him. It is only by the attractive force of contrast that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find themselves welded in Eternity. This will reveal the meaning of many hitherto incompre hensible allegories, foolishly called fables. It ex plains the Hermetic narrative, as well as the Greek allegory of Prometheus. Most important of all, it explains the many allegories of the " Wars in Heaven," including that of the Fallen Angels. It THE SECRET DOCTRINE 351 explains the " rebellion " of the oldest and highest Angels, and the meaning of their being cast down from Heaven into the depths of Hell — i.e., Matter. STANZA TV.— Continued 17. The Breath (human Monad) needed a form; tbe Fathers gave it. The Breath needed a gross body ; the Earth moulded it. The Breath needed the Spirit of Life; the Solar Spirits breathed it into its form. The Breath needed a mirror of its body (astral shadow) ; " We gave it our own," said the Creative Powers. The Breath needed a vehicle of desires (the emotional soul) (or Kama-rupa). " It has it," said the Drainer of Waters (the fire of passion and animal instinct). The Breath needs a mind to embrace the Universe. " We cannot give that," said the Fathers. " I never had it," said the Spirit of the Earth. ' ' The form would be consumed were I to give it mine," said the Great (Solar) Fire. . . . (Nascent) man remained an empty, sense less phantom. . . . Thus have the boneless given life to those who became (later) men with bones in the Third (Race)."* STANZA V The Evolution of the Second Race 18. The First (Race) were the Sons of Yoga. Their sons, the children of the Yellow Father (the Sun) and the White Mother (the Moon). In the later Commentary the sentence is trans lated : *The Commentary following verse 17 really belongs to verse 18. Therefore they are put together here. — Editor. 352 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ' ' The Sons of the Sun and of the Moon, the nurs lings of ether (or the wind) (a). . . . They were the shadows of the shadows of the Lords. They (the shadows) expanded. The Spirits of the Earth clothed them; the Solar Spirits warmed them (i.e., preserved the vital fire in the nascent physical forms). The Breaths had life, but had no under standing. They had no fire nor water of their own. (b). (a) The " Father " of primitive physical man, or of his body, is the vital electric principle residing in the Sun. The Moon is his mother, because of that mysterious power in the Moon which has as decided an influence upon human gestation and generation, which it regulates, as it has on the growth of plants and animals. The " Wind " or Ether, standing in this case for the agent of transmission by which those influences are carried down from the two lu minaries and diffused upon Earth, is referred to as the " nurse " ; but " Spiritual Fire " alone makes of man a divine and perfect entity. Remember here the Tabula Smaragdina of Her mes, the esoteric meaning of which has seven keys. The astro-chemical is well known to students, the anthropological may be given now. The " One Thing " mentioned in it is Man. It says: " The Father of that One only thing is the Sun; its Mother the Moon ; the Wind carries it in his bosom ; and its nurse is the Spirit of the Earth." In the occult rendering of the same it is added: " And Spiritual Fire is its instructor." This fire is the Higher Self, the Spiritual Ego, or that which eternally reincarnates under the influ ences of its lower personal selves, changing with every rebirth, and full of the desire to live. It is a strange law of Nature that on this plane the higher (Spiritual) nature should be in bondage, so to speak, to the lower. Unless the Ego merges itself entirely THE SECRET DOCTRINE 353 into the essence of the All-Spirit, the personal Ego may dominate it to the last. This cannot be fully understood unless the student makes himself famil iar with the triple nature of evolution — spiritual, psychic and mental. That which forces the growth and evolution of Man towards perfection is (1st) the Monad, or that which acts in it unconsciously, through a force in herent in itself, and (2d) the lower or personal Self. Owing to its identity with the All-Force, the Monad is all-powerful on the formless planes. On our plane, its essence being too pure, it remains potential, but individually inactive : like the rays of the sun, which aid the growth of vegetation but do not select any special plant to shine upon, nor will they follow any plant that may be transplanted. So with the Spirit (or Atman) ; unless the Higher Self or Ego gravi tate towards its sun, the Monad, the lower Ego or personal Self will have the upperhand in every case. For it is this Ego, with its fierce selfishness and animal desire, which is " the maker of the taber nacle," as Buddha calls it (in the Dhammapada, 153 and 154). Hence the expression " the Spirits of the Earth clothed the shadows and expanded them." But the " Solar Spirits " warmed the shad ows. This is physically and literally true; meta physically, or on the psychic and spiritual plane, it is equally true that Spirit alone warms the inner man, that is, enlightens it with the ray of divine life, and alone is able to impart to it (the reincarnating Ego) its immortality. Thus, as we shall find, for the first three and a half Root-Races, up to the mid dle or turning-point, it is the astral shadows of the " Lunar Ancestors " which are the formative pow ers, and which build up and gradually force the physical form towards perfection — at the cost of a proportionate loss of spirituality. Then, beyond this turning-point, it is the Higher Ego, or reincar- 354 THE SECRET DOCTRINE nating principle, the Mind, which reigns over the animal Ego. In short, Spirituality is on the ascend ing arc, and the animal or physical element impedes its progress only when selfishness of the personality has so strongly infected the real inner man that the upward attraction has lost its power. Finally, it is shown in every ancient scripture and cosmogony that man evolved primarily as a lumi nous incorporeal form, over which, like the clay over the frame-work of the sculptor's statue, the physical body was built by, through and from the lower forms and types of animal terrestrial life. (b) Why had they " no fire or water of their own? " Because: That which Hydrogen is to the elements and gases on the objective plane, its noumenon is, in the world of mental or subjective phenomena; in esoteric ac tuality it is the emanation or the Ray which proceeds from the ' ' Spirit of the first Element. ' ' Hydrogen is gas only on our terrestrial plane. It is the father and generator, so to speak, or rather the basis, of both air and water, and is ' ' fire, air and water ' ' in fact, one under three aspects ; hence the chemical and alchemical trinity. Well might Godfrey Higgins have compared Hydrogen to, and even identified it with, the " To On," the " One " of the Greeks. For, as he says, Hydrogen is not Water, though it gener ates it ; it is not Fire, though it manifests or creates it; nor is it Air, though air may be regarded as a product of the union of water and fire, since Hydro gen is found in the aqueous element of the atmos phere. It is three in one. The secret of these " Fires " was taught in the Mysteries of every ancient people, pre-eminently in Samothrace. There is not the smallest doubt that the Kabiri, the most arcane of all the ancient deities, are identical with the Kumaras, and that all were the personified sacred Fires of the most occult pow- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 355 ers of Nature. If the student would learn something of the secret of the Fires, let him turn to certain works of the Alchemists, who very correctly connect Fire with every element, like the Occultists. In exo teric religions, as well as in esoteric philosophy, the elements, especially fire, water and air, are made the progenitors of our five physical senses, and hence are directly connected (in an occult way) with them. These physical senses pertain to an even lower crea tion than the one called in the Puranas ' ' the Second ary. ' ' Thus we have to study well the " Primary crea tion ' ' before we can understand ' ' the Secondary. ' ' The First Race had three rudimentary elements in it, and no fire as yet ; because, with the ancients, the evolution of man, and the growth and development of his spiritual and physical senses, were subordi nate to the evolution of the elements on the cosmic plane of this Earth. The following order on parallel lines may be found in the evolution of the Elements and the Senses; or in Cosmic, terrestrial " Man," and mor tal, physical man: 1. Ether. Hearing. Sound. 2. Air. Touch. Sound and Touch. 3. Fire, or Light. Sight. Sound, Touch and Color. 4. Water. Taste. Sound, Touch, Color and Taste. 5. Earth. Smell. Sound, Touch, Color, Taste and Smell. As seen, each Element adds to its own character istics those of its predecessor; as each Root-Race adds the characteristic sense of the preceding Race. The same is true of man, who evolves gradually in seven stages, and on the same principles, as will be shown later on, 356 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Evolutionary law compelled the Lunar " Fathers " to pass in their monadic condition through all the forms of life and being on this globe, but at the end of the Third Round they were already human in their divine nature, and were thus called upon to create the forms to serve as tabernacles for the less progressed Monads, whose turn it was to incarnate. These " Forms " are called " the Sons of Passive Yoga," because Yoga (exoterically, " union with Brahma ") is the supreme condition of the passive infinite Deity, who is said to create everything through Yoga power. (They will be more fully ex plained later on.) STANZA V.— Continued 19. The Second Race (was) the product by bud ding and expansion; the a-sexual (form) from the sexless (shadow). Thus was, 0 Pupil, the Second Race produced (a). (a) What will be most contested by our scientific readers will be this a-sexual Race, the Second, the fathers of the so-called " Sweat-born," or perhaps still more the Third Race, " the Egg-born " andro gynes. It is not denied, however, that in the begin ning of physical evolution there must have been processes now extinct, spontaneous generation, for instance. Laing, in his Modern Science and Modern Thought, tells us that microscopic research shows no permanence of any particular mode of reproducing life. " It shows that the same organism may run through various metamorphoses in the course of its life-cycle, during some of which it may be sexual and in others a-sexual — i.e., it may reproduce itself al ternately by the co-operation of two beings of oppo site sex, and also by fission or budding from one being only, which is of no sex." " Budding " is the very word used in the Stanza. How could these THE SECRET DOCTRINE 357 shadows reproduce themselves otherwise, since they were ethereal, a-sexual and even devoid as yet of the vehicle of desire, which evolved only in the Third Race? They evolved the Second Race unconsciously, as do plants, and some of the lower orders of animal life, like the Amoeba. If the microscopic cells are looked upon by physical science as independent liv ing beings — just as Occultism regards " the fiery lives ' ' * — there is no difficulty in the conception of the primitive process of procreation. Consider the first stages of the development of a germ cell. Its nucleus grows, changes and forms a double cone or spindle, thus E , within the cell. One-half of this spindle is extended, and forms what are called the polar cells. These die, and the embryo develops from the growth of the remaining part of the nucleus which is nourished by the substance of the cell. This may serve as an analogy to give some idea of the process by which the Second Race was formed from the First. The astral form clothing the Monad was sur rounded, as it still is, by its egg-shaped sphere of aura, which here corresponds to the substance of the germ-cell or ovum. Tbe astral form is the nu cleus, now as then, instinct with the principle of life. When the season of reproduction arrived, the sub- astral " extruded " a miniature of itself from the egg of surrounding aura. This germ grew and fed on the aura till fully developed, when it gradually separated from its parent, carrying with it its own aura. t " The early Second (Root) Race were the Fathers of the ' Sweat-born '; the later Second (Root) Race were the ' Sweat-born ' themselves." ?See Commentary on Stanza VII., Vol. I. fCompare Commentary on Stan~a VII. of this part. This process of budding is the second ; the first, fission, is the separation of one individual into two or more, forming each a perfect specimen, — Editor, 358 THE SECRET DOCTRINE This passage from the Commentary refers to the work of evolution during the whole Race. The ' ' Sons of Yoga, ' ' or the primitive astral Race, had its seven stages of evolution racially or collectively, as every individual had, and has now. Thus the first sub-races of the Second were born by the proc ess described as analogous to budding, while the last began, as the human body evolved, to be formed otherwise. In each Race the process of reproduc tion had its seven stages, each covering aeons of time. There is certainly no impossibility, but a great probability that hermaphroditism existed in the evo lution of the early Races, while on the ground of analogy, and of universal law in the construction of plant, animal and man, it must have been so. All the facts forcibly suggest the hypothesis of a pri meval androgynous stem from which all the mam malia sprang. It is a fact that " various accessory organs are found in a rudimentary condition in the opposite sex," and these relics of a prior androgyne stock must be placed in the same category as the pineal gland, and other organs as mysterious, which testify to the reality of functions long since atro phied, but which once played a signal part in the general economy of primeval life. STANZA V.— Continued 20. Their Fathers were the Self-born. The Self- born, the shadows from the brilliant bodies of the Lords, the Fathers, the Sons of Twilight, (a). (a) The " shadows " are called the sons of the " self -born," as the latter term is applied to all the gods and beings born through the Will, whether of Deity or Adept. The name " Sons of Twilight " identifies them with the Fathers, said by the Puranas THE SECRET DOCTRINE 359 to have issued from Brahma's " body of twilight." (See Comm. on Stanza I. v. 3.) STANZA V.— Continued 21. When the Race became old, the old waters mixed with the fresher waters (a) ; when the drops became turbid, they vanished and disappeared in the new stream, the hot stream of life. The outer of the First became the inner of the Second (6). The old wing became the shadow, and the shadow of the wing (c). (a) The old (primitive) Race merged in the Second Race, and became one with it. (b) This is the mysterious process of the trans formation and evolution of mankind. The material of the first forms — shadowy, ethereal and negative — was absorbed into and became the complement of the forms of the Second Race. The First Race being simply composed of the astral shadows of the crea tive progenitors, with neither astral nor physical bodies of. their own, never died, but were gradually absorbed in the bodies of their own progeny, more solid than their own. The old form disappeared in the new form, more human and physical, the first or parent material being used to form the body, and even the inner or lower principles of the progeny. (c) When the astral body becomes covered with more solid flesh man develops a physical body. The " wing," or the ethereal form that produced its shadow and image, became the shadow of the astral body and its own progeny. The expression is queer but original. As there may be no occasion to refer to this mys tery later, it is as well to point out at once the dual meaning contained in the Greek myth bearing upon this particular phase of evolution. It is found in 360 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the several versions of the allegory of Leda and her two sons, Castor and Pollux, each version having a special meaning. In Book XL of the Odyssey, Leda is spoken of as the spouse of Tyndarus, who bore him " two sons of valiant heart " — Castor and Pol lux. Jupiter endows them with a marvellous privi lege. They are semi-immortal; they live and die each in turn, and every alternate day. As the " sons of Tyndarus," the twins are an astronomical sym bol, and stand for Day and Night; their wives, the daughters of Apollo or the Sun, personifying the Dawn and the Twilight. In the allegory where Jupi ter is shown as the father of the two heroes — born from the egg to which Leda gives birth, after unit ing herself to the divine Swan — the myth is entirely theogonical. It relates to those of cosmic allegories in which the world is described as born from an egg. Leda becomes one of the mythical birds common to the traditions of various Aryan peoples, which all lay golden eggs. But the version of the Leda alle gory which has a direct reference to mystic man is found only in Pindar, with a slighter reference to it in the Homeric hymns. Castor and Pollux are there the highly significant symbol of the dual man, the Mortal and the Immortal. Not only this, but as will now be seen, they are also the symbol of the Third Race, and its transformation from the animal man into a divine man with only an animal body. Pindar shows Leda uniting herself in the same night to her husband, and also to the father of the gods, Zeus. Thus Castor is the son of the Mortal, Pollux of the Immortal. In the allegory made up for the occasion, it is said that in a riot of vengeance against the Apherides Pollux kills Lynceus — " of all mortals the keenest-sighted " (whence our lynx- eyed) — but Castor is wounded by Idas, " he who sees and knows." Zeus puts au end to the fight by hurling his thunderbolt at Castor and Idas. Pollux THE SECRET DOCTRINE 361 finds his brother dying. In his despair he calls Upon Zeus to slay him also. " Thou canst not altogether die," answers the master of the Gods ; ' ' thou art of a divine race. ' ' But he gives him the choice of living as an immortal in Olympus, or, if he would share his brother's fate, of passing half his existence underground, and the other half in heaven. This semi-immortality, to be shared with Castor, is ac cepted by Pollux. And thus the twin brothers live alternately, one during the day and the other dur ing the night. Is this an allegory, or a poetic fiction only? In deed it is much more. Here we have an allusion to the ' ' Egg-born ' ' Third Race, the first half of which is mortal, that is, unconscious of personality, and having nothing within itself to survive. For the Monad is impersonal and a god per se, but divorced from Mind (the base-line of the first manifested tri angle or trinity), it can have no consciousness or perception of things on this earthly plane. The lat ter half of the Third Race becomes immortal, by reason of its Mind being called to life by the inform ing gods, thus connecting the Monad with this earth. " The highest sees through the eyes of the lowest" in the manifested world ; Spirit remains blind with out the help of Matter in the material spheres, and so does the Spiritual Soul without the Mind. The immortal man, gifted with mind, is Pollux; while Castor represents the personal, mortal man, an ani mal not even of a superior kind, when unlinked from the divine individuality. " Twins " truly, yet for ever divorced by death, unless Pollux bestow on his mortal brother a share of his own divine nature. Such is the occult meaning of the metaphysical as pect of the allegory. The widespread modern inter pretation of it as a solar myth is weak and inade quate. Decharme, in his Mythologie de la Grece Antique, says : ' ' Castor and Pollux are nothing but 362 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the Sun and Moon conceived as twins — Pollux, the Sun, who sacrifices himself for Castor, who, inferior to his brother, owes to him his immortality, for the Moon, says Theophrastus, is only another but feebler Sun." If from Greek mythology we pass to the Mosaic allegories, we shall find the androgynes unmistak ably alluded to in Genesis (though unable to trace the " Egg-born " there) and the first three Races of the Secret Doctrine are hidden under most in genious symbology in its first four chapters. (The chapter on the Divine Hermaphrodite will be found at the end of the Commentary on the Stanzas.) STANZA VI The Evolution of the " Egg-born " 22. Then the Second (Race, the " Sweat-born ") evolved the " Egg-born," the Third (Race). The sweat grew, its drops grew, and the drops became hard and round. The Sun warmed it; the Moon cooled and shaped it ; the Wind fed it until its ripe ness. The white swan from the starry vault (the Moon) overshadowed the big drop, the egg of the future race, the Man-Swan of the later Third. First male-female, then Man and Woman.* Of the succession of the early Races the Com mentary says : " First come the Self-Existent on this Earth. They are the ' Spiritual Lives ' projected by the absolute Will and Law, at the dawn of every re- *In order to render this Stanza more comprehensible, it is thought better to insert here an extract from the Commentary that in the original is some thirty pages farther on. — Editor, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 363 birth of the worlds. These Lives are the divine Ancestors. ' ' From these proceed: 1. The First Race, "the Self -born," which are the (astral) shadows of their Progenitors. The body was devoid of all understanding (mind, intelligence and will). The inner being (the Higher Self or Monad), though within the earthly frame, was un connected with it. The link, the Mind, was not there as yet. 2. From the First (Race) emanated the Second, called the " Sweat-born," and " the Boneless." This is the Second Root-Race, endowed by the " Preservers " and the incarnating gods (the Kumdras) with the first primitive and weak spark (the germ of intelligence). . . . And from these in turn proceeded : 3. The Third Root-race, the two-fold. (An drogynes.) The first Races hereof are shells, till the last is " inhabited " (i.e., informed) by the Crea tive Spirits. The Second Race, as stated above (v. 22), being also sexless, at its beginning, evolved out of itself the Third Androgyne Race, by an analogous but al ready more complicated process. As described in the Commentary, the very earliest of the Third Race were: " The ' Sons of Passive Yoga.' They issued from the second human race, and became oviparous. The emanations from their bodies during the seasons of procreation were ovulary: the small spheroidal nu clei, developing into a large, soft, egg-like vehicle, gradually hardened, till after a period of gestation it broke, and the young human animal issued from it unaided, as the fowls do in our race." (a) The text of Stanza VI clearly implies that the human embryo was nourished ab extra by Cosmic 364 THE SECRET DOCTRINE forces, and that the " Father-Mother " furnished apparently the germ that ripened : in all probability a " sweat-born " egg, to be hatched out in some mysterious way unconnected with its " double " parent. It is comparatively easy to conceive of an oviparous humanity, since even now man is in one sense " egg-born." This is a very curious statement as explained in the Commentaries. To make it clear: the First Race having created the Second by " budding," as before explained, the Second Race gives birth to the Third — which itself is separated into three dis tinct divisions according to its methods of reproduc tion. The first two forms were oviparous, in a way presumably unknown to modern biology. While the early sub-races of the Third humanity carried on the species by an exudation of vital fluid, the drops of which coalesced into an egg, serving as an extra neous vehicle for the generation therein of a child, the mode of procreation by the later sub-races changed entirely. The little ones of the earlier races were entirely sexless — shapeless, even, for all one knows, but those of the later races were born andro gynous. It was in (b) the Third Race that the sep aration of sexes occurred. From being previously a-sexual, humanity became distinctly bi-sexual or hermaphrodite; and, finally, the man-bearing eggs began to give birth, gradually and almost imper ceptibly in their evolutionary development, first to beings in which one sex predominated over the other, and finally to distinct males and females. What say the old sages, the philosopher-teachers of antiquity? In the Banquet of Plato we read: " Our nature of old was not the same that it is now. It was androgynous, the form and name partaking of and being common to both the male and female. . . . Their bodies were round and the manner of their running circular." (Compare Ezekiel's THE SECRET DOCTRINE 365 vision — ch. i. 15 — of the four beings who had the likeness of a man, and yet the appearance of a wheel ; ' ' when they went, they went upon their four sides . . . for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheel.") " They were terrible in force and strength and had prodigious ambition. Hence Zeus divided each of them into two, making them weaker. Apollo, under his direction, closed up the skin." The old Persians had a double-natured divinity, and we find the same idea in the Hermetic books, in the Orphic hymns and in the statues of both Egypt and Greece. As stated in Part I., the races of humanity devel oped coordinately and on parallel lines with the four Elements, every new Race being physiologically adapted to meet the additional element. Our Fifth Race is rapidly approaching the fifth element — call it interstellar ether if you will — which has more to do, however, with psychology than physics. We have learned to live in every climate, whether frigid or tropical, but the first two Races had naught to do with climate, nor were they affected by any changes of temperature. And thus, we are taught, men lived down to the close of the Third Root-Race, while eternal spring reigned over the whole globe. It is thus a universal tradition that mankind has evolved gradually into its present shape. It has been repeatedly urged that however high the degree of metaphysical thought in India, that the old Egyp tians had nothing, but crass idolatry and zoolatry as a religion, the Hermetic books, it is alleged, being the work of Greek mystics living in Egypt. To this we may answer that the Secret Doctrine was taught to tbe Egyptians at initiation. The following is a transcription by Stobaeus (fifth century, a.d.) of an old Hermetic fragment, showing the Egyptian theory of the Soul. Translated literally, it says : 366 THE SECRET DOCTRINE " From one Soul, that of All, spring all the Souls, which spread themselves as if by perfect distribu tion, through the world. These Souls undergo many transformations ; those which are already creeping creatures turn into aquatic animals ; from these aquatic animals are derived land animals ; and from the latter the birds. From the beings who live aloft in the air (heaven) men are born. On reaching the stations of men the Souls receive the principle of (conscious) immortality, become Spirits, then pass into the choir of gods. ' ' STANZA VI.— Continued 23. The Self-born were the Shadows, from the bodies of the Sons of Twilight. Neither fire nor water could destroy them. Their sons were (so destroyed) (a). (a) This Verse cannot be understood without the help of the Commentaries. It means that the First Root-Race could not be injured or destroyed by death. Being so ethereal and so little human, they could not be affected by flood or fire. But their " sons," the Second Root-Race, could be, and were, so destroyed. As the " Progenitors " merged wholly in their own astral bodies, which were their progeny, so that progeny was absorbed in its de scendants, the " Sweat-born." These were the sec ond humanity — composed of the most gigantic, semi- human monsters — the first attempts of material na ture at building human bodies. The ever-blooming lands of the Second Continent (Greenland among others), were transformed by degrees into a hyper borean Hades. This was due to the displacement of the great waters of the globe by a change in the earth's axis, and the bulk of the Second Race per ished in the first great throes of the evolution and THE SECRET DOCTRINE 367 consolidation of the globe during the human period. (The separation of the Eternal Sacred Land, now the North Pole, from the later continents was be tween the First and Second Races, and therefore can hardly be classed as within the human period.) Of such cataclysms there have already been four, and we may expect a fifth in due course of time, the bulk of each Root-Race perishing at the end of its cycle by fire or by flood.* STANZA VII From the Semi-Divine down to the First Human Races 24. The Sons of Wisdom, the Sons of Night (is sued from the body of Brahma when it had become Night, v. Comm., Stanza IL, v. 7), ready for rebirth, came down. They saw the (intellectually) vile forms of the first Third (still senseless) (a) Race. " We can choose," said the Lords, " we have wis dom." Some entered the Shadows. Some projected a spark. Some deferred till the Fourth (Race). From their own essence they filled (intensified) the vehicle of desire. Those who were entered became Adepts. Those who received but a spark remained destitute of (higher) knowledge. The spark burnt low. (Onet) third remained mindless. Their Mo nads were not ready (b). These were set apart among the Seven (primitive human species). They (became the) narrow-brained. One Third were ready. " In these shall he dwell," said the Lords of the Flame, and of the Dark Wisdom (c). This Stanza contains in itself the whole key to ?Two chapters on Floods and the earliest forms of Life are in serted at the end of the Stanzas. — Editor. \One is substituted here for the, as making more sense. — Editor. 368 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the mystery of evil and many other problems that have puzzled the brains of the philosophers, and it gives a logical explanation of the otherwise in comprehensible Karmic course during the 930ns which followed. The best explanation which can be given of this very difficult subject shall now be attempted. (a) Up to the Fourth Round, and even to the later part of its Third Race, Man was only an animal in tellectually, even if one can give the misleading name of Man to the everchanging forms that clothed the Monads during the first three Rounds, and the first two and a half Races of the present one. It is only in the present midway Round that he has entirely developed the fourth principle (the emotional Soul) as a fit vehicle for the fifth (or intellectual Soul). But Mind will be relatively fully developed only in the following Round (the Fifth), and will have the opportunity of becoming wholly divine until the end of the Seventh Round. (b) Here the inferior races are meant, of which there are still some analogues left, such as the Aus tralians (now fast dying out) and some African and Oceanic tribes. " They were not ready," signifies that the Karmic development of these Monads had not yet fitted them to occupy the forms of men des tined for incarnation in higher intellectual Races. This is explained later on. (c) The Zohar speaks of " Black Fire," which is Absolute Light — Wisdom. Esoteric philosophy ad mits neither good nor evil per se, as existing inde pendently in nature. The cause for both is found, as regards the Kosmos, in the necessity of contrasts, and with respect to man in his human nature, his ignorance and his passions. All the " Adversaries " of the Gods in the allegories are identified with the Egos who, by incarnating in the still mindless man of the Third Race, made him consciously immortal. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 369 They are then, during the cycle of incarnations, the true dual Logos — the conflicting and two-faced di vine principle in man. The gradual evolution of man, according to the Secret Doctrine, shows that all the later Races have their physical origin in the early Fourth Race. But it is the sub-race that preceded the one in which the separation of the sexes occurred, that is to be re garded as the spiritual origin of our present hu manity, and especially of the eastern Aryan races. And the progressive order of the methods of repro duction as unveiled by science is a brilliant confir mation of esoteric ethnology. (Prof. Le Conte dis tinguishes seven stages: 1. Fission. 2. Budding — already explained. 3. Differentiation of the repro ductive cells into a special organ. 4. Withdrawal of this organ from the exterior to the interior of the structure. 5. The union of the sperm-cell and the germ-cell in the ovule, two elements in one organ. 6. Two organs coexisting in one individual (the hermaphrodite) ; and finally, 7. The two organs be long to separate individuals, the element of choice enters, and the great law of " sexual selection " comes into play.) Fission — Cf., the First Root-Race. Budding — Cf., the Second Root-Race. Intermediate hermaphroditism — Cf., Second and early Third. True sexual union. Cf., later Third Root-Race. We now come to an important point in the double evolution of the human race. The " Sons of Wis dom " had already reached through previous cycles of incarnation that degree of intellect which enabled them to become independent and self-conscious enti ties on this plane of matter. They were reborn only by reason of Karmic effects. They " entered "those who were " ready," and became the Adepts or Sages alluded to in verse 24. This needs explanation. 370 THE SECRET DOCTRINE It does not mean that the Monads entered forms already inhabited by other Monads. They were " Essences," " Intelligences " and Conscious Spir its; entities seeking to become still more conscious by uniting with more developed matter. Their es sence was too pure to be distinct from the universal essence, but their " Egos " (or Mind, since they are called " the Sons of the Universal Mind ") had to pass through earthly human experiences to become all-wise, and be able to start on the returning as cending cycle. The Monads are not discrete prin ciples, limited and conditioned, but rays from the one universal absolute Principle. It is not in the course of natural law that man should become a per fect septenary being, before the seventh race of the Seventh Round. Yet he has all the seven principles latent in him from his birth. Nor can the fifth prin ciple, Mind, receive its complete development before the Fifth Round. Even in the Seventh Race, at the close of this Fourth Round, while our four lower principles will be fully developed, that of Mind will be only proportionately so. This limitation, how ever, refers solely to the spiritual development. The intellectual, on the physical plane, was reached dur ing the Fourth Root-Race. Therefore those who were " half -ready," who received " but a spark," constitute the average humanity which has to ac quire its intellectuality during the present cycle of evolution, after which they will be ready in the next cycle for the full reception of the " Sons of Wis dom." While those who were not at all ready, the latest Monads, hardly evolved from their last tran sitional lower animal forms at the close of the Third Round, remained the ' ' narrow-brained " * of the Stanza. This explains the otherwise unaccountable differences in intellect, even now, between the va- ?Thls term has nothing to do with the size of the skull, but re lates to the quality of the brain. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 371 rious races of men, the savage Bushman and the European, for instance. Those tribes of savages whose reasoning powers are very little above those of the animals, are not unjustly treated. They are simply the latest arrivals among the human Mo^ds that were " not ready," and which have to evolve during the present Round, as on the three remaining ' ' globes ' ' — hence on four different planes of being — so as to arrive at the level of the average man when they reach the Fifth Round. One remark may prove useful as food for thought in this connection. The Monads of the lowest types of humanity (the " narrow-brained " South Sea Islander, the African, the Australian) had no Karma to work out when first born as men as their more favored brethren in intelligence had. In this respect the poor savage is more fortunate than the greatest genius of civilized countries. Recapitulating what has been said, we find that the Secret Doctrine claims for man (1) a polygenetic origin. (2) A variety of modes of reproduction be sides that of the present time. (3) That the evo lution of animals, the mammalians at any rate, fol lows that of man instead of preceding it. If man be really the microcosm of the macrocosm, this teach ing is but logical. For man becomes the macrocosm for the three lower kingdoms under him. Arguing from a physical standpoint, all the lower kingdoms save the mineral (which is light itself, crystallized and immetallized) from plants to the creatures which preceded the first mammalians, have been con solidated physically by means of the " cast-off dust " of the minerals, and the refuse of the human matter, whether from living or dead bodies, on which they fed, and which gave them their outer bodies. In his turn man grew more physical by reabsorbing into his system that which he had given out, and which became transformed in the living animal cruc- 372 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ibles through which it had passed. There were ani mals in those days of which our modern naturalists have never dreamed, and the stronger gigantic phys ical man became, the more powerful were his emana tions. Once that androgyne man had separated into sexes, he ceased to reproduce his species through drops of vital energy oozing from his body. But while man was still ignorant of his procreative pow ers on the human plane (before his Fall, as a be liever in Adam would say) all this vital energy, scattered far and wide, was used by Nature for the production of the first mammal-animal forms. Evo lution is an eternal cycle of becoming, we are taught, and Nature never leaves an atom unused. Moreover, from the beginning of this Round, everything in Nature tends to become man. All the impulses of the dual centripetal and centrifugal forces are di rected towards one point — Man. This Round began with astral man, the reflection of the Creative Pow ers, called " the Builders." Man is the alpha and the omega of objective creation. STANZA VEL— Continued 25. How did the Sons of Wisdom act? They re jected the Self -born (the boneless). They are not ready. They spurned the (first) Sweat-born. They are not quite ready. They would not enter the (first) Egg-born. As the organisms were not all sufficiently ready, the incarnating Powers chose the ripest and spurned the rest. Let us give a few moments of attention to the various modes of reproduction according to the laws of evolution, beginning with that of the later sub-races of the Third human Race. They found themselves endowed with the sacred fire from the spark of higher and then independent Beings, who THE SECRET DOCTRINE Diagram V Relationship of Man to the Anthropoid 373 374 THE SECRET DOCTRINE were the psychic and spiritual parents of man, as the lunar ancestors were the progenitors of his phys ical body. (See Diagram V.) That holypart of the Third Race consisted of men who at their zenith were described as " towering giants of godly strength and beauty, and the depositaries of all the mysteries of heaven and earth." The only thing now to be noted of these is that the chief gods and heroes of the Fourth and Fifth Races are the deified images of these men of the Third. The days of their physiological purity and those of their so-called Fall have equally left their traces upon the hearts and memories of their descendants. Hence the dual na ture of these gods, both their virtues and their sins being exalted to the highest degree by their poster ity. They were the pre-Adamite and the divine races, with which even theology now begins to busy itself. But the action of their " spiritual progenitors " has first to be disposed of. A very difficult and ab struse point has to be explained with regard to verses 26 and 27. STANZA VII.— Continued 26. When the Sweat-born produced the Egg-born, the two-fold (androgyne Third Race), the mighty, the powerful, with bones, the Lords of Wisdom said : " .Now shall we create " (a). 27. Then the Third (Race) became the vehicle of the Lords of Wisdom. It created " Sons of Will and Yoga," * by Kriyasakti (b) (Will and Imagina tion), it created them, the Holy Fathers, ancestors of the Adepts. " . . . (a) How did they create, since the " Lords of ?Matured in the man-bearing eggs, and born in the early Third, before the complete separation of the sexes. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 375 Wisdom " are identical with the Kumdras of the Puranas, who " created by Brahma without desire or passion, remained chaste, full of wisdom and un- desirous of progeny "? The power by which they first created was Kri yasakti, that mysterious and divine power latent in the will of every man, which, if not called to life, quickened and developed by Yogi-training, remains dormant in 999,999 men out of a million, and becomes atrophied. This power has already been defined as : (b) " The mysterious power of thought which en ables it to produce external, perceptible, phenom enal results by its own inherent energy." The Third Race had thus created the so-called " Sons of Will and Yoga," or the " ancestors " (the spiritual forefathers) of all the subsequent Adepts, or Mahatmas. They were indeed created, not begotten, as were their brethren of the Fourth Race, who were generated after the separation of sexes, the Fall of Man. For creation is but the re sult of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of it the primordial divine Light, and eternal Life. These " Sons of Will and Yoga " were the " holy seed-grain " of the future Saviours of Humanity. The order of the evolution of the hu man Races stands in the Fifth Book of the Commen taries thus, as already given: " The First men were shadows; the second, the Sweat-born ; the Third, the Egg-born, and the holy Fathers born by the power of Kriyasakti; the Fourth were the children of the ' Lotus-Bearer ' " (the progenitor of all the human races after the Third). Of course such descriptions of the primitive modes of reproduction are doomed to be regarded as fairy tales. But they can be shown to have nothing mi raculous about them, and to be the subject of many allegories in the Puranas and other very anicent 376 THE SECRET DOCTRINE books. Nor are they in any way more mysterious and wonderful than the conception and birth of the children of to-day, and are, in fact, more compre hensible to the mind of the metaphysical thinker. 1. If the materialized forms which are sometimes seen oozing out of the bodies of certain mediums could, instead of vanishing, be fixed and made solid, the creation of the First Race would become quite comprehensible. The allegory of Sanjna has already been quoted in connection with the First Race. 2. The Second Race, the " Sweat-born," is also allegorized in the Puranic tale of the sage Kandu, to whom a beautiful nymph is sent by the god of Desire to disturb his penance. Finally he bids her begone, and as she flies away she wipes the perspira tion from her body on the tree-tops that she skims over. The trees received the living dews, and the winds collected them into one mass. The Moon ma tured it by her rays, till the exhalation that had rested on the tree-tops became the lovely girl named Marisha. The sage stands here for the First Race, the nymph is the Hindu Lilith of the Aryan Adam, and her daughter is a symbol of the " Sweat-born " Second Race. 3. The early Third followed the method of the Second, but soon changed its mode of reproduction, according to the Commentaries. It is said to have emanated a vis formativa which gradually changed the drops of perspiration into larger ovoid bodies, which grew and expanded into huge eggs. In these the human embryo gestated for several years. In the Puranas Marisha becomes the mother of Daksha, the progenitor of real, physical men. Then the race becomes — 4. The androgyne or hermaphrodite. The polyp Stauridium passes alternately from gemmation (or budding) into the sex method of reproduction. The Medusa is utterly dissimilar to its parent organism, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 377 the Stauridium. It also reproduces itself differently, by sexual method, and from the resulting eggs Stau- ridia once more put in an appearance. This strik ing fact may assist many to understand that a form may be evolved quite unlike its immediate progeni tors, as the sexual Lemurians from Hermaphrodite parentage. The meaning of the last sentence quoted from the Commentary, that the Fourth Race were the children of " the Lotus-bearer, in complicated. Padmapani, or the Lotus-bearer, is equivalent to the Logos in the divine regions. But on the manifested planes he is (like Daksha) the progenitor (in a spiritual sense) of men. He is evidently (like Daksha again) the synthesis of all the preceding Races and the progenitor of all the human Races after the Third, the first complete one, although the physical body only developed in perfection during the Fourth Race. (v. S. D., Vol. IL, p. 178 et seq.) STANZA VIII Evolution of the Animal Mammalians The First Fall 28. From the drops of sweat (a) ; from the resi due of the substance-matter from dead bodies and animals of the wheel before (previous, Third Round) ; and from cast-off dust, the first animals (of this Round) were produced. (a) The occult doctrine maintains that in this Round the mammalians were a later evolution than man. Since the Monad has passed through all de grees of matter in the mineral, vegetable and ani mal worlds, up to the last degree of the solid state reached only at the " mid-way point of evolution " in this Round, it is but natural that at the beginning 378 THE SECRET DOCTRINE of the Fourth Round on this earth man should pre cede the animals, and also that in the early races his frame should be of the most tenuous description compatible with objectivity. As before explained, on the descending arc, it is the spiritual which is gradually transformed into the material. On the middle line of the base, Spirit and Matter are equi- librized in Man. On the ascending arc, Spirit is slowly reasserting itself, so that at the close of the seventh Race of the Seventh Round the Monad will find itself as free from matter and all its qualities as it was in the beginning; having gained in addi tion the experience and wisdom of all its personal lives. This order of evolution is found also in Genesis (chaps, i. and ii.) if one reads it in its true esoteric sense, for chapter i. contains the history of the first three Rounds, as well as that of the first three Races of the Fourth, up to the moment when man is called to conscious life by the Elohim of Wisdom. In the first chapter, animals, whales and fowls of the air are created before the androgyne Adam, an alle gorical reference to the " Sacred Animals " of the heavens. In the second chapter, Adam (the sexless) comes first, and the animals only appear after him. Even the state of mental torpor and unconscious ness of the first two Races, and the first half of 'the Third Race, is symbolized in this chapter by the deep sleep of Adam. It was the dreamless sleep of mental inaction, the slumber of the Soul and Mind, which was meant by that " sleep." The Puranas, the Chaldean and Egyptian frag ments, the Chinese traditions, and even those of the Pueblo Indians, all show an agreement with the Se cret Doctrine as to process and order of evolution. There are many allegories in the Puranas relative to Daksha, " the creator of physical man." He typifies the early Third Race, holy and pure, still devoid THE SECRET DOCTRINE 379 of an individual Ego, and having merely the passive qualities. Brahma, therefore, commands him to create, and ..." from that time forward, living creatures were engendered by sexual inter course. Before the time of Daksha they were vari ously propagated — by the will, by sight, by touch and by Toga-power." (Vishnu Purdna.) And now comes the purely zoological teaching. STANZA VIII.— Continued 29. Animals with bones, dragons of the deep and flying serpents were added to the creeping things. They that crept on the ground got wings. They of the long necks in the water became the progenitors of the fowls of the air. (a) This is a point on which the esoteric teachings and modern biology are in perfect accord. The miss ing links representing the transition process from reptile to bird are apparent to any student of zool ogy, especially in the ornithoscelidce, hesperonis and the archceopteryx of Vogt.* 30. During the Third (Race) the boneless ani mals grew and changed ; they became animals with bones (a) ; their astral bodies became solid also. The animals separated first (into male and fe male) (b). . . . They began to breed. The two fold Man (then) separated also. He said, " Let us (do) as they; let us unite and make creatures. They did. . . . (a) Vertebrates, and after that mammalians. Be fore that the animals also were ethereal proto-organ- isms, just as man was. (b) The existence of former hermaphrodite mam- ?The omithoscelidcB are related to the ostrich and the alligator ; the hesperornis was something like the great auk, and lived thou sands of years after the archozopteryx, the first known bird. — Edi tor. 380 THE SECRET DOCTRINE mais, and the subsequent separation of sexes, is now indisputable. In his Doctrine of Descent and Dar winism, Prof. Oscar Schmidt shows that " in the Vertebrata especially, each sex possesses such dis tinct traces of the reproductive apparatus character istic of the other that even antiquity assumed herma phroditism as a natural primeval form of mankind. . . . The tenacity with which the rudiments of sexual organs are inherited is remarkable. In the class of mammals, actual (present?) hermaphrodit ism is unheard of, although through the whole period of their development they drag along with them these residues borne by their unknown ancestry* no one can say how long ago." STANZA VIII.— Continued 32. And those which had no spark (' the narrow- brained ') took huge she-animals unto them (a). They begat upon them dumb races. Dumb they were themselves. But their tongues untied (b). The tongues of their progeny remained still. Monsters they bred. A race of crooked, red-hair-covered mon sters, going on all-fours (c). A dumb race, to keep the shame (of their animal origin) untold." (a) The animals " separated first," says verse 31. Bear in mind that at that period men were different, even physiologically, from what they are now — that they have passed the middle point of the Fifth Race. We are not told what the ' ' huge she-animals ' ' were, but they certainly were as different from any we now know as the men were. This was the " first fall " of some of the then existing lower races. Bear in mind verse 24. The " Sons of Wisdom " had spurned the early Third ?Which the Secret Doctrine would define as the primeval astral prototypes. See Diagram III. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 381 Race (that is, the non-developed), and are shown incarnating in, and thereby endowing with intellect, the later Third. Thus the sin of the mindless, and therefore irresponsible Races, fell upon those who failed to do by them their Karmic duty. (b) See Commentary on Stanza IX. concerning the beginning of human speech. (c) These monsters were not the anthropoid or any other apes, but what the Anthropologists might truly call " the missing link," the primitive lower man. Our teachings show that while it is quite cor rect to say that Nature built at one time around the human astral form an ape-like exernal shape, yet this shape was no more that of the " missing link " than were the coverings of that astral during the course of its evolution through the lower kingdoms of nature. Nor was it on this Fourth Round planet that such evolution took place, but only during the three earlier Rounds that man was in turn ' ' a stone, a plant and an animal," while, nevertheless, the " human " Monad (unlike the Monera of Haeckel) is ever a Human Monad, and ceases to be human only when it becomes absolutely divine. By " Man " the divine Monad is meant, and not the thinking Entity, much less his physical body. The " stones, plants and animals " just referred to were the pro totypes, the filmy presentments of those of this Round, and even those at its beginning were but the astral shadows of the present shapes — finally the forms and genera of neither man, animal nor plant were what they became later. Hence, while the non descript " animals " that preceded astral man at the beginning of this life-cycle on our earth were still, so to speak, the progeny of Third Round man, the mammalians of this Round owe their existence, in great measure, to man again. Moreover, the ' ' an cestor " of the present anthropoids was the direct production of the yet " mindless " Man, who dese- 382 THE SECRET DOCTRINE crated his human dignity by putting himself phys ically on the level of an animal. (See Diagram V.) The point insisted upon by Haeckel and other evo lutionists is that the history of the embryo is an epitome of that of the race. " Is not man in the uterus," says Lefevre (Philosophy, p. 484), " a simple cell, a vegetable with three or four leaflets, a tadpole with branchiae, a mammal with a tail, lastly a primate ( ?) and a biped? " This summary is, however, only that of the store of types hoarded up in man, the microcosm. This simple explanation meets all such objections as the presence of the rudimentary tail and teratological phenomena. It may also be pointed out that the likeness to a "vegetable with leaflets " in an early stage of the embryo is not explained on ordinary evolutionist principles. In the " tadpole " stage the embryo lives in water and develops from it. Its Monad has not yet become human or immortal, for the Kabalists tell us that this only occurs at " the fourth hour." One by one the embryo assumes the characteristics of the human being; the first flutter of the immortal Breath passes through it ; it moves, and the divine essence settles in the infant frame, which it will inhabit until the moment of physical death, when man becomes a spirit. This mysterious nine months' process of forma tion the Kabalists call the completion of " the indi vidual cycle of evolution." As the foetus develops in the liquor amnii in the womb, so the worlds ger minate in the universal ether or astral fluid in the womb of the Universe. These cosmic children, like their pigmy inhabitants, are first nuclei, then ovules, then gradually mature, and, becoming mothers in their turn, develop mineral, vegetable, animal and human forms. From centre to circumference, from the imperceptible vesicle to the uttermost conceiv able bounds of the Kosmos, the Occultists trace cycle THE SECRET DOCTRINE 383 merging into cycle, containing and contained in an endless series. " All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." The Occultist may be told that occultism, as well as Science, gives a common ancestor to ape and man. But that ancestor was not the man we know. He was mindless and soulless at the time he begot, with a female animal monster, the forefather of a series of apes. (See Diagram V.) This theory is at least logical, and fills the chasm between man and animal. Materialistic science, starting from a first protoplasmic Moneron (" originated in the course of immeasurable ages from a few or from one sim ple spontaneously arising original form, obeying one law of evolution "), makes man evolve gradually to what he is now, having passed through " unknown and unknowable types "up to the ape, and thence to the human being. These " missing links " will never be found, because they are searched for in the material world of forms, whereas they are safely hidden within the animal tabernacle of man himself. (See Isis Unveiled I. 388-9.) STANZA IX The Final Evolution of Man 33. " Seeing which (the sin committed with the animals) the Spirits (the " Sons of Wisdom ") who had not built men (had refused to create) wept, say ing: 34. " The Mindless have defiled our future abodes (a). This is Karma. Let us dwell in the others. Let us teach them better, lest worse should happen. ' ' They did. . . . 384 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 35. Then all became endowed with Mind. They saw the sin of the mindless. ' ' But they had already sinned before the ray of divine reason had awakened their slumbering minds. Yet even this seventh, henceforth degenerate, race will find itslf on the last day on one of the " seven paths." For " the wise guard the home of nature's order, they assume excellent forms in secret." This verse from the Rig Veda (X., 5-6) is one of the most pregnant in occult meaning. The " paths " are, in short, the seven Rays which fall free from the macro- cosmic centre, the seven principles in the metaphys ical, the seven Races in the physical sense. All de pends on the key used. (a) The " Fall " occurred, according to the old records, as soon as the reincarnated Creator of men and things in the early Third Race (Daksha) dis appeared, to make room for that portion of mankind which had " separated." This is how the Com mentary explains the details preceding the " Fall " — it is impossible to give a verbal translation : " In the initial period of man's Fourth cycle of evolution the human kingdom branched off in vari ous directions. The outward shape of its first speci mens was not uniform, for the vehicles (the egg like shells in which future man gestated) were often tampered with, before they hardened, by huge ani mals, of species now unknown, produced by the ten tative efforts of Nature. The result was that inter mediate races of monsters, half animals, half men, were produced. But as they were failures, they were not allowed to live and breathe long, though the in trinsically paramount power of psychic over phys ical nature being yet very weak, and hardly estab lished, the ' Egg-born ' Sons had taken several of these females unto themselves as mates, and bred other human monsters. Later, animal species and human races becoming gradually equihbrized, the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 385 two types separated, and mated no longer. Man created no more, he begot. But he begot animals as well as men in days of old. Therefore, the Sages spoke truthfully and wisely who spoke of males that had no more will-begotten offspring, but begat va rious animals along with giants on females of other species — animals being (in a manner) sons putative to them; and they (the human males) refusing in time to be regarded as (putative) fathers of dumb creatures. Upon seeing this (state of things), the Kings and Lords of the last Races (the Third and Fourth) placed the seal of prohibition upon the sin ful intercourse. It interfered with Karma; it de veloped new Karma. They (the divine Kings) struck the culprits with sterility. They destroyed the Red and Blue Races." In another Commentary we find : ' ' There were blue and red-faced animal-men even in later times; not from actual intercourse (between men and animals), but by descent." And again: " Red-haired, swarthy men, going on all-fours, who bend and unbend (stand erect, and drop on their hands again), who speak as their forefathers, and run on their hands as their giant f oremothers. " But even the lowest Australian savages are not de scended from the anthropoid apes, but from human fathers and semi-human mothers. The real anthro poids, Haeckel's Catarrhini and Platyrrhini, came far later in the closing times of Atlantis. The orang outang, the gorilla, the chimpanzee, are the latest and purely physical evolutions from lower anthro poid mammalians. They have a spark of the purely human essence in them; man, on the other hand, has not one drop of pithecoid blood in his veins. (See Diagram V.) Thus saith old Wisdom and uni versal tradition. That which is preserved in unani mous traditions only the wilfully blind could reject. Hence we believe in races of beings different from 386 THE SECRET DOCTRINE ourselves in far remote geological periods, in races of ethereal following incorporeal men, with form, but no solid substance, giants who preceded us pyg mies, and in dynasties of divine beings, the Kings and Instructors of the Third Race in arts and sci ences. A naturalist suggests that this scheme of the origin of man and the anthropoids is defective, be cause the human is the only species of which the races, however unequal, can breed together. How then could hybrids of the Fourth Race humanity and only semi-human females, not only breed freely, but produce the ancestors of the modern anthropoids? Esoteric science replies that this was in the very beginnings of physical man. Since then Nature has changed her ways, and sterility would be the only result of such unions. But the Secret Doctrine teaches that the specific unity of mankind is not without exceptions even now. For there still existed a few years ago descendants of these half-animal tribes or races, both of remote Lemurian and Le- muro-Atlantean origin. The world knows them as Tasmanians (now extinct), a portion of the Aus tralians and a mountain tribe in China, entirely covered with hair. They were the last descendants in a direct line of the semi-annual latter-day Lemu- rians referred to. There are, however, many mixed Lemuro-Atlantean peoples produced by various crossings with such semi-human stocks, as the wild men of Borneo, most of the remaining Australians,* Bushmen, Veddhas of Ceylon, etc. Darwin noted that in a certain Tasmanian tribe the women were suddenly struck with sterility en masse some time after the arrival of the European colonists. The great naturalist tried to explain this fact by change ?Australia is one of the oldest lands now above the waters, and can produce no new forms unless helped by new and fresh races.— Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 387 of diet, environment, etc., but finally gave up the solution of the mystery. For the Occultist it is evi dent. The sterility was caused by the " crossing " of Europeans with Tasmanian women — that is, the representatives of a race whose progenitors were a " soulless " and mindless monster and a real human, but still as mindless, man. This not alone as a con sequence of a physiological law, but also as a decree of Karmic evolution in the question of further sur vival of the abnormal race. In calling the animal " soulless," it is the self-conscious, immortal Ego that is meant by ' ' soul, ' ' the principle that survives the man, and incarnates in a like man. The animal has an astral body that survives the physical form for a short period, but its (animal) Monad does not reincarnate in the same, but in a higher species, and of course has no spiritual life after death (De- vachan). It has the seeds of all the human prin ciples in itself, but they are latent. To return once more to the history of the Third Race, the ' ' Sweat-born, ' ' the ' ' Egg-born ' ' and the " Androgyne." The Third Race mankind is the most mysterious of all the hitherto developed five Races. The mystery of the development of the dis tinct sexes must of course be very obscure here, as it is the business of an embryologist and a specialist. But it is evident that the units of the Third Race humanity began to separate in their pre-natal shells or eggs, and to issue from them as distinct male and female babes long ages after the appearance of its early progenitors. And as time rolled on, the newly- born sub-races began to lose their former capacities. Toward the end of the fourth sub-race the babe lost its faculty of walking as soon as liberated from the shell, and by the end of the fifth sub-race mankind was born as now. This required, of course, millions of years. 388 THE SECRET DOCTRINE STANZA IX.— Continued 36. The Fourth Race developed speech. The Commentaries explain that the First Race, the ethereal or astral, also called " Self -born," was in our sense speechless, as upon our plane it was devoid of mind. The Second Race had a " Sound- language " of chant-like sounds composed of vowels alone. The Third Race developed in the beginning a kind of language which was only a slight improve ment on the various sounds in nature. When the " Sweat-born " gave birth to the " Egg-born " (the middle Third Race) and these began to evolve into separate males and females, then only was speech developed, for the same law of evolution forced men to reproduce their kind sexually, an act which com pelled the creative gods, by the effect of Karmic law, to incarnate in mindless men. But even then lan guage was but a tentative effort, and the whole hu man race was at that time " of one language and of one lip." This did not prevent the last two sub- races of the Third Race from building cities and sowing far and wide the first seeds of civilization under the guidance of their divine instructors. It must be remembered also that as each Race is di vided into the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron Ages, so is every division of such Races. Speech then de veloped, according to occult teaching, as follows : I. Monosyllabic speech: that of the first almost fully developed human beings at the close of the Third Root-Race, the " golden-colored " men, after their separation into sexes, and the awakening of their minds. Before that, they communicated through what would now be called " thought-trans ference," though with the exception of the race called " the Sons of Will and Yoga " (the first in whom the Solar Ancestors or the " Sons of Wis- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 389 dom " had incarnated), thought was but very little developed in the incomplete physical man. Their physical bodies belonged to the earth, their Monads remained upon a higher plane. Language could not be perfectly developed before the full acquisi tion of the reasoning faculties. This monosyllabic speech was the vowel parent, so to speak, of the monosyllabic languages mixed with hard consonants still in use among the yellow races known to the anthropologist, races, however, which are the de scendants of the early branches of the Fourth Race. The only existing direct descendants of the Seventh sub-race of the Third being a portion of the degen erate Australians already mentioned. II. The agglutinative languages. These were spoken by some Atlantean races, while other parent stocks of the Fourth Race preserved the mother- language. And as languages have their cyclic evo lution, their growth, maturity and decay, so the primitive speech of the most civilized Atlantean Races decayed, and almost died out. The ' ' cream ' ' of the Fourth Race expanded both in body and mind, leaving as an heirloom to the nascent Fifth (the Aryan) Race the inflectional and highly developed languages, while the agglutinative remained as a fragmentary fossil idiom, nearly confined to the aboriginal tribes of America. Language is certainly coeval with reason, and could never have been de veloped before mind. ' ' Logos ' ' is both reason and speech. But language, proceeding in cycles, is not always adequate to express spiritual thoughts. III. The inflectional speech, the root of the San skrit, was the first language (now the mystery tongue of the Initiates) of the Fifth Race. At any rate, the " Semitic " languages are the bastard de scendants of the first phonetic corruptions of the eld est children of the early Sanskrit. The Semites, es pecially the Arabs, are later Aryans — degenerate in 390 THE SECRET DOCTRINE spirituality and perfected in materiality. To these belong all the Jews and the Arabs. The Jews are a tribe descended from the outcasts of India, who sought refuge in Chaldea, Scinde and Iran, some 8,000 years b.c. The Arabs are the descendants of Aryans who would not go into India at the time of the dispersion of nations, some of whom remained in Afghanistan and Kabul, while others penetrated into Arabia, but this was after Africa had been raised as a continent. STANZA IX.— Continued 37. The One (androgyne) became Two; also all the living and creeping things that were still one, giant fish, birds and serpents with shell-heads. This relates evidently to the so-called age of the amphibious reptiles, an age in which science main tains that man did not exist ! Nevertheless, in Book VI. of the Commentaries we find this passage: " When the Third separated and fell into sin by breeding men-animals, these (animals) became fero cious, and men and they mutually destructive. Till then there was no sin, no life taken. After (the separation) the Golden Age was at an end. The eternal Spring became constant change, and seasons succeeded. Cold forced men to build shelters and devise clothing. Then man appealed to the supe rior Fathers (the higher gods). The Nirmdnakayas of the wise Serpents and Dragons of Light came, and tbe precursors of the Enlightened (the Bud dhas). Divine Kings descended, and taught men sciences and arts, for man could live no longer in the first land (the Eden of the first races), which had turned into a white frozen corpse." (Here comes in a long digression on " Edens, Serpents and Dragons," much of it a repetition of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 391 passages in Isis, followed by another on " the Sons of God " and " the Sacred Island." The substance of the former will be found in Book II. , Part I., § X., of the latter, at the end of these Stanzas.) STANZA X The History of the Fourth Racb 38. Thus two by two, on the seven zones, the Third (Race) gave birth to the Fourth. The gods became no-gods (a). 39. The first (race) on every zone was moon- colored (yellow-white) ; the second, yellow, like gold; the third, red; the fourth, brown, which be came black with sin. The first seven (human) shoots were all of one complexion in the beginning. The next seven (the sub-races) began mixing their colors (b). (a) To understand this verse, it must be read in connection with the last three verses of Stanza IX. Up to this point of evolution man belongs more to metaphysical than physical nature. Strictly speak ing, it is only from the time of the Atlantean brown and yellow giant races that one ought to speak of Man, since it was the Fourth Race only which was the first completely human species, although much larger than we are now. It is chiefly the race that became " black with sin " that brought the divine names of the Asuras, etc., into disrepute (v. " Man," p. 97). It was only after the so-called Fall that the races began to develop rapidly into a purely human shape. The Commentaries explain, as the reader must remember, that out of the Host of Creative Spirits whose turn it was to incarnate as the Egos of the immortal (but on this plane senseless Monads) some 392 THE SECRET DOCTRINE " obeyed " (the law of evolution) as soon as the men of the Third Race were ready, that is, had sepa rated into sexes. These were those early conscious Beings who, adding conscious knowledge and will to their inherent Divine purity, created by Kriya sakti * the semi-divine men who became on earth the seed of future adepts. (The Sons of Will and Toga, v. Diagram V.) . Those, on the other hand, who, jealous of their intellectual freedom, unfettered by matter, chose to incarnate far later, had their first Karmic punishment prepared for them. The bodies they entered were inferior to their own astral models, because their " shadows " had belonged to progenitors of an inferior degree. As to those who ' ' deferred ' ' their incarnation till the Fourth Race, already tainted (physically) with sin and impurity, they produced a terrible cause, the Karmic result of which weighs on them to this day, because the bodies they had to inform became defiled through their own procrastination. This was the " Fall of the Angels," because of their rebellion against Karmic law. The " fall of man " was no fall, for he was irresponsible. Up to the time when Wisdom, in the shape of the incarnat ing Spirits of Universal Mind, descended from on high to animate the Third Race and awaken it to real, conscious life, humanity — if it can be so called in its senseless, animal state — was of course doomed to moral as well as to physical death. The Angels ' ' fallen into generation ' ' are referred to metaphor ically as Serpents and Dragons of Wisdom. On the other hand, the Christian Saviour, whether as man or Logos, may be said to have saved those who believed in the secret teachings from " eternal death " ; to have conquered the Kingdom of Dark ness, or Hell, as every Initiate does. This in the human, terrestrial form of the Initiates, and also ? The force of Imagination and Will. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 393 because the Logos is Christos, that principle of our inner nature which develops in us into the Spiritual Ego — the Higher Self — being formed by the indis soluble union of Buddhi (the Spiritual Soul) and the spiritual efflorescence of Mind (or Manas, the sixth and fifth principles). It is not correct to refer to Christ as Buddhi — the sixth principle in man. The latter per se is a passive and latent principle, the vehicle of pure Spirit (Atman) inseparable from the manifested Universal Soul. It is only in union and in conjunction with Self -Consciousness (Manas) that Buddhi becomes the Higher Self and the divine, discriminating Soul. There is an eternal cyclic law of rebirths, and the series is headed at the dawn of every new life-cycle by those who have enjoyed a rest from their rein carnations in previous cycles during incalculable aeons. It was the turn of these " Gods " to incar nate in the present life-cycle; hence their presence on earth and the ensuing allegories ; hence also the perversion of their original meaning. No concep tion of such creatures as Satan * and the devils of the Christian, Jewish and Mahomedan religions ever formed a part of the thousand and one allegories of the Aryans. A letter from a Master says : " There are, and there must be, failures in the ethereal races of the many classes of Creative Spir its, or gods (progressed entities of a previous plane tary period) as well as among men. But still, as the failures are too far progressed and spiritualized to be thrown back forcibly into the vortex of a new primordial revolution through the lower Kingdoms, this happens. Where a new solar system has to be evolved, these Creative Spirits are borne in by influx ' ahead ' of the Elementals (Entities . . . to be ?For the true esoteric view of Satan, v. Dr. Anna Kingsford's " Perfect Way" *894 THE SECRET DOCTRINE developed into humanity at a future time) and re main as a latent or inactive spiritual force in the aura of a nascent world . . . until the stage of human evolution is reached. . . . Then they be come an active force and commingle with the Ele mentals, to develop little by little the full type of humanity." That is, to develop in and give to man his Self-conscious mind, or Manas. " The Gods became no-gods," says verse 38. That is, the gods became demons — or Satan, when read literally. But Satan will be shown, in the teaching of the Secret Doctrine, allegorized as Good, and Sac rifice, and a God of Wisdom, under different names. To recognize the refusal and the failure (of the Spirits to create) one must study and understand Eastern philosophy, especially with regard to the utter fallacy of attributing functional activity to the Infinite and Absolute Deity. Esotericism maintains that during the " twilight " periods the " Central Sun ' ' emits Creative light — passively, so to speak. Causality is latent. It is only during the active periods of being that it gives rise to a stream of ceaseless energy, whose vibrating currents acquire more activity and potency with every round of the seven-fold ladder of Being which they descend. Hence it becomes comprehensible how the process of creating, or rather of fashioning, the organic Uni verse, with all its units of the seven Kingdoms, necessitated intelligent beings — who became collec tively a Being or creative God. And the Eastern Initiates maintain that as the Essence of the Un known Absolute is the same everywhere, the " Cen tral Sun " is simply the centre of Universal Life- Electricity; it is the one attracting, as also the ever- remitting life-centre. Explain, or complete, the Kabalistic teaching of the seven Suns, with the seven systems of planes of being, of which the " Suns " are the central THE SECRET DOCTRINE 395 bodies, and you have the seven angelic planes, whose Hosts are gods thereof collectively. (See Comm. to Stanza VII., Part I.) Thus, though the seventh prin ciple (Atma) reaches man through all the phases of being, pure as an indiscrete element and an imper sonal unity, it passes through Group first (the Cen tral Spiritual Sun) and Group second (the polar Sun), which two radiate on man his Atma. Group third (the equatorial Sun) cements the Buddhi to Atman, and the higher attributes of Mind (Manas), while Group fourth (the spirit of our visible Sun) endows him with Mind and its vehicle (Kama), or the body of passions and desires, the two elements of Egoism which evolve individualized conscious ness, the personal ego. Finally, it is the spirit of the Earth in its triple unity that builds the physical body, attracting to it the Spirits of Life and forming his astral body. Says the Book of Dzyan with regard to primeval man when first projected by the " Boneless," the incorporeal Creator: " First, the Breath, then Bud dhi (the Spiritual Soul) and the Shadow-Son (the body) were ' created.' But where was the pivot? (Mind, the middle principle.) Man is doomed. When alone, the undifferentiated Element and the Vehicle (Buddhi) — the cause of the causeless — break asunder from manifested life." " Unless cemented and held together by the middle principle, the vehicle of the personal consciousness of Jiva (Universal Life)," explains the Commentary. In other words, the two higher principles (Atman-Buddhi) can have no individuality on Earth, cannot be man, unless there is (1) the Mind, the Ego, to cognize itself, and (2) the terrestrial false personality, or the body of personal desires and will, to cement the whole as if round a pivot (which it is) to the physical form of man. It is the Mind and the body of desires and passions that contain the dual personality; the real 396 THE SECRET DOCTRINE immortal Ego (when united to the two higher, Atma Buddhi or the Spiritual Soul), and the false and transitory personality, the astral body or the animal soul — the two personalities having to be closely blended to make up a full terrestrial existence. The most perfect soul incarnated in the most perfect physical body would be only a beautiful and un conscious being without Mind. As said in Commentary XIV. : " Like produces like and no more at the genesis of being, and evolution with its limited conditioned laws comes later. The Self -Existent * are called Creations, for they appear in the Spirit Ray, mani fested through the potency inherent in its unborn Nature, which is beyond Time and (limited or con ditioned) Space. Terrene products, animate and inanimate, including mankind, are falsely called cre ation and creatures: they are the development ( evolution) of the discrete elements. ' ' Again : " The heavenly Form (Creative Spirit) creates (man) in his own likeness ; it is a spiritual ideation consequent on the first differentiation and awaken ing of the universal (manifested) Substance: that form is the ideal shadow of Itself: and this is the Man of the First Race." To limit the explanation to this Earth, it was the duty of the first " differentiated Egos " to imbue primordial matter ' with the evolutionary impulse, and to guide its formative powers in the fashioning of its productions. After the Earth had been made ready by the lower and more material powers, the higher Creative Spirits were compelled by evolution ary Law to descend upon Earth and construct the crown of its evolution — Man. The " Self -Created " and the " Self- Existent " projected their pale ?Angelic, Spiritual Essences, immortal In their being because un conditioned In Eternity; periodical and conditioned in their cyclic manifestations. J THE SECRET DOCTRINE 397 shadows, but Group Third, the Fire-Angels, rebelled and refused to create. Agreeably to esoteric inter pretation, this was a sacrifice for the benefit of mankind. The divine " Rebels " preferred the curse of incarnation and the long cycles of terrestrial rebirths, to seeing the misery, even if unconscious, of beings evolved as the shadows of their too-spiritual creators. If " man's uses of life should be such as neither to animalize, nor to spiritualize, but to humanize Self before he can do so, he must be born human, not an gelic. Hence tradition shows the Archangels offer ing themselves as the redeemers of man, by endow ing him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they had to take up their abode on our globe for the whole of the Great Life-cycle, thus exchang ing their impersonal individualities for individual personalities — the bliss of sidereal existence for the curse of terrestrial life. This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature was Knowledge and Love, was construed by exoteric theologies into the statement that ' ' the rebel angels were hurled down from heaven into the darkness of hell." " Our earth and man," says the Commentary, " being the products of the three Fires " — (whose names answer in Sanskrit to the electric fire, the solar fire and the fire produced by friction) — these three fires, explained on the cosmic and human planes, are Spirit, Soul and Body, the three great Root groups with their four additional divisions. In the metaphysical sense, the fire of friction means the union between Buddhi and Manas (Spirit and Mind), the latter, Mind, merging partially into and becoming part of the Monad ; in the physical sense, it relates to the creative spark or germ, which gen erates the human being. The three Fires were said to be condemned " to be born over and over again." This is clear enough. 398 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Therefore, the Flames, whose functions are con fused in the exoteric books, and who are called in differently Prajapati, Pitris, Manus, Asuras, Rishis, Kumaras, etc., are said to incarnate personally in the Third Root-Race, and thus find themselves ' ' re born over and over again." Before other Stanzas could be explained, it was, therefore, absolutely necessary to show that the " Sons of Dark Wisdom," though identical with the Archangels that theology has chosen to call " the Fallen," are as divine and pure as all the Michaels and Gabriels of the churches. The " old Book " goes into various details of astral life, which would be quite incomprehensible to the reader at present, and with the First and Second Races must be left for future explanation. Not so the Third Race, that which separated into sexes, and was the first to be endowed with reason. The globe having " incrus- tated " more than a hundred million years before, the first human sub-race had already begun to sol idify, so to speak, man evolving step by step with the Earth. But up to this point, " the inner man (the conscious Entity) was not." This Conscious Entity, says Occultism, is, in many cases, the very essence of the high Intelligences condemned by Kar mic evolution to reincarnate in this life-cycle. (b) Verse 39 relates exclusively to the racial divi sions. Strictly speaking, esoteric philosophy teaches a modified polygenesis. For while it assigns to hu manity a common origin in so far that its forefathers or " Creators " were all divine beings, though of different degrees, yet it describes men as born on seven different centres of the continent of that period. Their potentialities and mental capabilities and outward or physical forms were very different, to suit the Karma of the various reincarnating Monads, which could not be all of the same degree in their last births in other worlds. This accounts THE SECRET DOCTRINE 399 for the difference in races, the inferiority of the savage and other human varieties. Esotericism now classes these seven variations, as only three distinct primeval races — as it does not take into consideration the First Race, which had neither type nor color, and hardly an objective form. The evolution of these races went on step by step with the evolution of three geological strata, from which the human complexion was as much deter mined as by the climate of those zones. It names the three great divisions the Red- Yellow, the Black and the Brown- White. The Aryan races, for instance, now varying so much in color, are yet all of one and the same stock — the Fifth Root-Race. The light yellow is the color of the first solid human race, which appeared after the middle of the Third Root- Race, bringing on the final changes. For it was only at that period that the last transformation took place, which brought forth man as he is now, only on a large scale. This Race gave birth to the Fourth Race, that portion of humanity which became ' ' black with sin " being gradually transformed into red- yellow, and finally into brown-white races — which, together with the yellow races, now form the great bulk of mankind. When reading of that ' ' last transformation, ' ' said to have taken place 18,000,000 years ago, let the reader consider how many millions more must have passed before that stage was reached! And if man, in his gradual consolidation, developed step by step with the Earth, how many millions of years must have elapsed during the First, the Second and the first half of the Third Race! For the archaic teach ings tell us that the Earth was in a comparatively ethereal condition before it reached its last consoli dated state, and that during the middle period of the Lemuro-Atlantean Race, three and a half Races after the genesis of man, that the Earth, man, and 400 THE SECRET DOCTRINE everything upon the globe was of a still grosser and more material nature, while such things as corals and some shells were still in a semi-gelatinous, astral state. The cycles that have intervened since then have already carried us some steps upward on the ascending arc of our progress towards spirituality. It should be remembered that the word " astral " means, in occult phraseology, " shining " or " pel lucid," in various and numerous degrees, from a quite filmy to a viscid state. Hindu occultism teaches that the present humanity is eighteen million and odd years old. We say yes, but only so far as physical, or approximately physical man is con cerned, who dates from the close of the Third Root- Race. Beyond that period, Man, or his filmy image, may have existed for 300 million years for all we know, since such figures are and will remain secret with the Masters of Occult Science. The great difference between the order of animal creation as described by geologists and by the Pura nic Commentaries, and the Book of Dzyan especially, arises from the fact that the latter impute to man a spiritual and divine nature independent of his physical body, and describe it as follows. Having been in all the so-called " Seven Creations " alle gorizing the seven evolutionary changes of the First Root-Race of Mankind — Man was on earth in this Round from the beginning. Having passed through all the kingdoms of Nature in the previous three Rounds, his physical frame (one adapted to the ther mal conditions of those early periods) was ready to receive the " divine Pilgrim " (the Monad) at the first dawn of human life, that is, eighteen million and odd years ago. (Compare the evolution of the principles with that of the Races, the First and Sec ond of which are the passive spiritual progeny of Atma-Buddhi (or Spirit and Soul), while the Third Race shows three distinct divisions or aspects, physi- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 401 ologically and psychically ; the earliest, sinless ; the middle portions awaking to intelligence; and the third and last decidedly animal, that is, Mind yield ing to the temptations of Desire. (Kama.) It is only at the mid-point of the Third Root-Race that man was endowed with mind. Once united, the two (Atma-Buddhi, or the Spirit-soul), and then the three (Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or Spirit, Soul, Mind) made one; for though the lower animals, from the amoeba up, received their monads, in which all the higher qualities are potential, these have to remain dormant till each reaches its human form, before which stage mind cannot develop in them. " Men are made complete," says Commentary IX., " only during the latter part of their fourth cycle (Race). They are made ' gods ' for good and evil, and re sponsible only when the two arcs meet (after the three and a half cycles). They are made so by the incarnating Spirits, doomed in their natural turn to reincarnation in the higher ascending arc of the ter restrial cycle." In the animals every principle is dormant and in a foetus-like state, save the vital force and the astral, with the rudiments of the fourth, which is Kama (desire, or instinct), whose intensity and development varies with the species. We may be told that the law of evolution shows man developed from a speck of protoplasm, " until the cell finally attains the highly specialized develop ment of the quadrumanous , and, last of all, of the human type " (Laing, 335), and that this, and much more, is opposed to the idea of man preceding mam mals. But all this relates to the shell of man — his body, which is, of course, subject like all other phys ical forms to such metamorphoses. It is not those who teach the transformation of the mineral atom through crystallization into plant, insect and animal, and at last into man, who will reject this theory, as it will finally lead to the recognition of a Universal 402 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Deity in nature, ever present, and as ever invisible and unknowable, and of m^ra-Cosmic gods, who all were men. For crystallization is the same function, and bears the same relation to its (so-called) inor ganic basis, as the formation of cells to their organic nuclei. The whole trouble is that neither physiolo gists nor pathologists will recognize that the cell- germinating substance (the cytoblastema) and the mother-lye from which crystals originate, are one and the same essence, save in differentiation for purposes. The Monads, then, have passed through all the lower forms of being up to man during the three preceding Rounds, every Round having to be the arena of the same evolution, only repeated each time on a more solid material basis. Therefore, we can easily answer the question : ' ' What relation is there between the Third Round astral prototypes and or dinary physical development in pre-mammalian or ganic species? " One is the shadowy prototype of the other, the preliminary and indefinite sketch of objects destined to receive their final form under the brush of the painter. The fish evolved into an am phibian — a frog — in the shadowy ponds, and man passed through all his metamorphoses on this globe in the Third Round as he has in this his fourth cycle. The Third Round types contributed to the forma tion of types in the Fourth Round. On strict an alogy, the work of the Seven Rounds in the gradual formation of man through every kingdom of nature is repeated on a microscopic scale in the first seven months ' gestation of a future human being. Let the student think over and work out this analogy. As the seven months' old unborn baby, though fully formed, yet needs two months more in which to ac quire strength and consolidate, so man, having per fected his evolution during seven Rounds, remains two periods more in the womb of Mother Nature THE SECRET DOCTRINE 403 before he is born (or rather reborn) as a Creative Spirit, still more perfect than he was before he launched forth as a Monad on the newly built chain of worlds. Let the student ponder over this mystery and he will easily convince himself that as there are physical links between many classes, so there are precise domains where the astral merges into physi cal evolution. But no Occultist can accept the unreasonable prop osition that all the now existing forms, " from the structureless Amoaba to man," are the direct lineal descendants of organisms which lived millions and millions of years before the birth of man, in the pre- Silurian epochs, in the sea or land mud. The occult doctrine teaches a cyclic, never-varying law in Nature, who has herself no personal ' ' special design, ' ' but acts upon a uniform plan that prevails throughout the whole life-cycle, and deals with the earthworm as it deals with man. Neither the one nor the other has sought to come into being, hence both are under the same evolutionary law, and both have to progress according to Karmic law. Both have started from the same neutral centre of Life, and both have to remerge into it at the consumma tion of the cycle. Furthermore, we are taught that the transforma tions through which man passed on the descending arc — which is centrifugal for spirit and centripetal for matter — and those he is preparing to go through on his ascending path, when the action of these forces will be reversed — are next in store for the anthropoid ape also, for those, at any rate, who have reached the remove next to Man in this Round. These will all be men in the Fifth Round, as present men inhabited ape-like forms in the preceding Third Round. Behold in the modern anthropoids, then, the de graded and dwarfed examples of the majority of 404 THE SECRET DOCTRINE mankind in the latest Third and earliest sub-races of the Fourth Root-Race. The ape we know is not the product of natural evolution, but an accident, a cross between an animal form and man. (See Diagram V., p. 373.) The modern apes are millions of years later than the speaking human being, and are the latest contemporaries of our Fifth Race. Thus it is most important to remember that the Egos of the apes are entities compelled by their Karma to incarnate in those animal forms which resulted from the bestial ity of the latest Third and earliest Fourth Race men. They are entities who had already reached " the human stage " before this Round. Conse quently, they form an exception to the general rule. They are truly " speechless men," and will become speaking animals (or men of a lower order) in the Fifth Round, while the adepts of a certain school hope that some of the Egos of the more intelligent apes will reappear at the close of the Sixth Root- Race. What their form will be is of secondary con sideration. The form means nothing. Species and genera of flora, fauna and man change, not only with every Round, but every Root-Race, as well as after every geological cataclysm that destroys or modifies a Root-Race. In the Sixth Race the fossils of the Orang, the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee will be those of extinct quadrumanous mammals ; and new forms — though fewer and ever wider apart as ages pass on, and the close of the life-cycle approaches — will develop from the " cast-off " types of the hu man races, as they revert once again to astral, out of the mire of physical, life. There were none before man, and they will be extinct before the Seventh Race develops. Karma will lead on the Monads of the unprogressed men of our Race, and lodge them in the newly evolved human frames of the physio logically regenerated baboon. This will take place, of course, millions of years hence, and this is how THE SECRET DOCTRINE 405 Occult Science explains the absence of any link be tween ape and man, and shows the former evolving from the latter. It is, of course, impossible to attempt a consecu tive and detailed account of the evolution and prog ress of the first three Races. Race the first and Race the second had no history of their own. We shall have, therefore, to pay careful attention only to the Lemurians and Atlanteans before .the his tory of our own Fifth Race can be attempted. There is a period of a few millions of years to cover be tween the first " mindless " race, and the highly in telligent and intellectual later Lemurians; there is another between the earliest civilization of the At lanteans and the historic period. As witnesses to the Lemurians, but a few silent records in the shape of half-a-dozen colossi and old cyclopean ruins are left. Lemuria was not submerged, as Atlantis was, but was sunk under the waves (as Great Britain and Europe will be one day), owing to earthquakes and subterranean fires. Civilization dates still fur ther back than the Miocene Atlanteans. " Second ary-period " man will be discovered, and with him his long-forgotten civilization. The Third Race was, at first, pre-eminently the bright shadow of the gods, whom tradition exiles to Earth after the allegorical war in Heaven ; which became still more allegorical on Earth, for it was the war between spirit and matter. This war will last till the inner and divine man adjusts his outer terrestrial self to his own spiritual nature. But the animal will be tamed some day, because its nature will be changed, and harmony will reign once more between the two as before the " Fall," when even mortal man was created by the Elements and was not born. 406 THE SECRET DOCTRINE STANZA X.— Continued 40. Then the Third and Fourth (Races) became tall with pride. ' ' We are the Kings, ' ' it was said, " we are the gods " (a). 41. They took wives fair to look at (b). Wives from the " mindless," the narrow-headed. They bred monsters, wicked demons, male and female. Also Liliths (Dakini) with little minds. 42. They built temples for the human body. Male and female they worshipped (c). Then the third Eye acted no longer (d). (a) Such were the first truly physical men, whose first characteristic was pride! It is the Third Race (Lemurian), and the gigantic Atlanteans (Fourth Race) of whom the Roman Church has preserved so many vivid, and at the same time distorted, legends, such as the stories of Nimrod, of the builders of the Tower of Babel, and many others. And this leads us to inquire into the religious ideas of these early races, mythical as these may seem to be. What was the religion of the early Third and Fourth Races? In the common acceptation of the term, neither the Lemurians nor their progeny, the Lemuro-Atlanteans, had a religion, as they knew no dogma, nor were they required to believe anything on faith. No sooner had man been given mind than the Third Race felt itself one with the ever-present, ever-unknowable and invisible All, the One Uni versal Deity. Endowed with divine powers, and con scious of his inner God, each felt himself a Man- God in his real nature, though an animal in his phys ical self. The struggle between the two began from the very day they tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom; a struggle for life between the spiritual and the picnic, the psychic and the physical. Those THE SECRET DOCTRINE 407 who conquered the lower principles by obtaining mastery over the body joined the " Sons of Light." Those who fell victims to their lower natures became the slaves of Matter. From " Sons of Light and Wisdom " they ended by becoming the " Sons of Darkness. ' ' They had fallen in the battle of mortal life with Life Immortal, and all those so fallen be came the seed of the future Atlantean sorcerers. The Atlantean races were many, and their evolution covered millions of years, but all were not bad. They became so towards their end, as we of the Fifth Race are fast becoming now. At the dawn of his consciousness the man of the Third Root-Race had then no beliefs that could be called a religion — that is, no system of faith or outward worship. But if the term is to be defined as the binding together of the masses of mankind in one form of reverence towards those they recognize as higher than themselves, then even the earliest Lemurians had a religion — and a most beautiful one — from the very beginning of their intellectual life. Had they not their bright gods of the elements around them, and even within themselves? We are assured it was so, and we believe it. For the evolu tion of Spirit into matter could never have been achieved, nor would it even have received its first impulse, had not the bright Spirits sacrificed their own super-ethereal essences to animate the man of clay, by endowing each of his inner principles with a portion, or rather a reflection, of that essence. The Powers of the Seven Heavens (the seven planes of Being) are the noumenoi of the present and the fu ture Elements, just as the Angels of the Seven Pow ers of Nature — the grosser effects of which are per ceived by us in what Science is pleased to call " modes of motion," etc. — are the still higher nou menoi of still higher hierarchies. It was the Atlanteans, the first progeny of semi- 408 THE SECRET DOCTRINE divine man after the separation into sexes — hence the first humanly-born mortals — who became the first " Sacrificers " to the god of matter. They stand in the dim past as the prototype on which the great symbol of Cain was built, and their worship of form and matter soon degenerated into self-wor ship, and thence into phallicism. Cain is the sym bol of the first male, Abel of the first female human ity, Adam and Eve being the types of the Third Race. The ' ' murdering ' ' of Abel is blood-shedding, but not the taking of life. Thus the first Atlanteans born on the Lemurian Continent separated into those who worshipped the one unseen Spirit of Nature, and those who offered worship to the dark Powers of the Earth. This was the secret and mysterious origin of all the subse quent and modern religions. The legend of the " Fallen Angels " in its esoteric signification con tains the key to the manifold contradictions of hu man character; it points to the secret of man's self- consciousness ; it is the hinge upon which turns his entire life-cycle; the history of his evolution and growth. On a firm grasp of this doctrine depends the cor rect understanding of esoteric anthropogenesis. It gives a clue to the Origin of Evil, and shows how man himself is the separator of the One into various aspects. Nor must it be forgotten that a portion of mankind in the early Third Race — the human Mon ads who had reached the highest point possible in the preceding Life-cycle— propelled by the sexless creative instinct, had evolved an intermediate race in which the higher divine Beings had incarnated. (v. Diagram V.) This is the " undying race," as it is called in Esotericism. " When we have ascer tained the^extent of the Universe, and learned to know all that there is in it, we will multiply our race," say the Sons of Will and Toga. This means THE SECRET DOCTRINE 409 that the great Adepts and Initiated Ascetics will once more produce Mind-born immaculate Sons in the Seventh Root-Race. Happily for humanity, the " undying race " had become the vehicle of incarnation of the highest Creative Powers (intellectual and spiritual) before mankind had become quite material. When the last sub-races — save some of the lowest — of the Third Race had perished with the great Lemurian Conti nent," " the seeds of the Trinity of Wisdom " had already acquired the secret of immortality on Earth, that gift which allows the Initiate to step ad libitum from one worn-out body into another. The secret teachings affirm that these Elect were the germ of a Hierarchy which has never died since that period; and the Catechism of the Inner Schools says: " The inner man of the first . . . only changes his body from time to time ; he is ever the same, knowing neither rest nor Nirvana, spurning heaven, and remaining constantly on Earth for the salvation of mankind. . . . Out of the seven virgin-men (Kumdras) four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the world and the instruction of the ignorant, to remain till the end of the present life- cycle. Though unseen, they are ever present. When people say of one of them, ' he is dead,' behold, he is alive and in another form. These are the Head, the Heart, the Soul, and the Seed of undying knowl edge. Thou shalt never speak, 0 pupil, of these great Ones before a multitude, mentioning them by their names. The wise alone will understand." Higher than the Four is only One on Earth as in the Heavens — that still more mysterious and soli tary Being described in Part I. (b) The first war that earth knew, the first human gore shed, were the result of man's eyes and senses being opened, which made him see that the wives and daughters of his brethren were fairer than his 410 THE SECRET DOCTRINE own. This took place during the Fourth Race, that of the giants. For there were giants in days of old, as the traditions of many nations bear witness. Even Genesis begins its real history (chap, vi.) by the mention of the giants of those days and" the sons of God " marrying the daughters of men. It is around these " Sons of God," the " Mind-born " astral children of Brahma, that our physical frames have grown, and developed to what they are now. (c) But with the Fourth Race we reach the purely human period. Those who were hitherto semi-divine Beings, self-imprisoned in bodies human only in appearance, became physiologically changed, and took unto themselves wives who were entirely hu man and fair to look at, but in whom lower, more material, though sidereal beings had incarnated, with no mind — only animal instinct. These beings in female forms are called in the esoteric accounts " Khado " (Ddkini in Sanskrit). These are the be ings whose legendary existence has served as a groundwork upon which to build the rabbinical Lilith, and what the believers in the Bible would term the antediluvian women, and the Kabalists the pre-Adamite races. They are no fiction, however fantastic the later traditions. (d) This was the beginning of a worship which ages later was doomed to degenerate into phallicism and sexual worship. It began by the worship of the human body, that " miracle of miracles," as it has been called, and ended by that of the sexes. Speaking of the Giants, Creuzer describes them well in saying that: " Those children of Heaven and Earth were en dowed at their birth by the Sovereign Powers, the authors of their being, with extraordinary faculties, both moral and physical. They commanded the ele ments, knew the secrets of heaven and earth, of the s.ea and. the whole world, and r_ead. luturitii in the. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 411 stars. . . . All these beings are marked with a character of magic and sorcery." Here we must remember what was said in Stanza VII. , v. 24, that when the " Sons of Wisdom " came to incarnate for the first time, some of them incar nated fully, others projected into the forms only a spark, while some of the shadows were left to be filled and perfected in the Fourth Race. Those who were left " mindless " remained so, even after the separation of the sexes. It was they who bred the first monsters, so to speak, and thus produced a truly pithecoid species now extinct. The Commentary describes them as " having human shape, but hav ing the lower extremities, from the waist down, cov ered with hair." Hence, perhaps, the race of satyrs. If men existed two million years ago, they must have been — as the animals were — quite different physically from what they are now, and nearer to the type of pure mammalian animals. Anyhow, we learn that the animal world breeds strictly inter se — i.e., in accordance with germs and species— only since the appearance on this earth of the Atlantean (Fourth) Race. (e) " Then the third eye acted no longer." A few more occult teachings must be given here on several points, and the history of the Third and Fourth Races somewhat amplified in order to throw more light on the development of our present humanity, and to show how man's lost spiritual faculties can be regained by occult training. But the Third Eye itself must be first explained. The statement that at one stage of his develop ment man was a kind of Cyclops would certainly be contested by scientists, yet they will never be able to prove that he was not so. Nor can they admit that the first two races of men were too ethereal, in constitution, organism and shape even to be called physical men, although this is one of the reasons 412 THE SECRET DOCTRINE why those men have left no relics of themselves in the fossil world. Nevertheless, all this is maintained by occultism. Man was the store-house, so to speak, of all the seeds of life for this Round, animal and vegetable alike. It may be objected that as the First Race * appeared 300,000,000 years after vegetation had evolved, the seed of vegetable life could not be in that Race. We say it could; for up to man's ap pearance in this Round vegetation was of quite an other kind than it is now, and quite ethereal, for none could have been physical before there were animal organisms to breathe out the carbonic acid upon which vegetation depends. Vegetable and ani mal life are interdependent in their physical and achieved forms. The Zohar says : ' ' The primordial worlds could not continue, because man was not as yet." The human form contains everything; and as it did not as yet exist, the worlds were destroyed. Thus man " created " for ages the insects, rep tiles, birds and animals unconsciously to himself from his " cast-off clothes " of the earlier Rounds. It was the belief of entire antiquity that the earliest mankind was a race of giants, and we can easily believe that the Titans and Cyclopes of old really belonged to the Fourth (Atlantean) Race, and were three-eyed mortals, of tremendous physical power, for, as it has been often remarked, " the origin of nearly every popular myth and legend can be traced to a fact in nature." The so-called Cyclopean re mains will be pointed out later on as furnishing proofs of the existence of a gigantic humanity, and an indication is also found by science that before the final adjustment of the human organism (which became perfect and symmetrical only in the Fifth Race) the early Fourth Race may have been three- eyed, without having necessarily the third eye in ? This evidently means the First Race of the First Bound. — Editnr. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 413 the middle of the forehead, like the legendary Cy clopes. To the Occultists, who believe that our spiritual and psychic involution proceeds on parallel lines with physical evolution, and that the inner senses — innate in the first human races — became atrophied with the development of the outer senses, this state ment is simply a phase of the law of growth. They understand the meaning of this passage in the Com mentaries : " There were four-armed human creatures in those early days of the hermaphrodites, with one head yet three eyes. They could see before them and behind them." (That is, the third eye was at the back of the head. The statement that the latest hermaphrodite human ity was " four-armed " unriddles the mystery of the four-armed exoteric gods of India.) " After the separation of the sexes (4,320,000,000 years later), men having fallen into matter, their spiritual vision became dim, and, co-ordinately, the third eye began to lose its power. . . . When the Fourth Race arrived at its middle age the inner vision had to be awakened, and acquired by artificial stimuli, the process of which was known to the old sages. . . . The third -eye likewise, getting gradually petrified, soon disappeared." (The expression petrified instead of ossified is curious. The " back eye," which is, of course, the pineal gland, the small pea-like mass of gray ner vous matter attached to the back of the third ven tricle of the brain, is said to contain, almost in variably, mineral concretions and sand, and nothing more.) ' ' The double-faced became the one-faced, and the eye was drawn deep into the head, and is now buried under the hair. During the activity of the inner man (in trances and spiritual visions) the eye swells 414 THE SECRET DOCTRINE and expands. The Adept sees and feels it, and regu lates his action accordingly. . . . The undented disciple need fear no danger ; he who keeps himself not in purity (who is not chaste) will receive no help from the divine eye." For the majority of mankind the " divine eye " acts no longer, but it has left a witness to its exist ence in the pineal gland. When we learn that the ' ' third eye ' ' was once a physiological organ, and that later on, owing to the spiritual nature being extinguished by the physical, it became an atrophied organ, as little understood now by the physiologists as the spleen is, the question will be answered as to the necessity of chastity in the disciple of Occultism. During human life the greatest impediment in the way of spiritual development, and especially to the acquirement of Toga powers, is the activity of our physiological senses. Sexual action being closely connected by inter-action with the spinal cord and the gray matter of the brain, it is useless to give any longer explanation. Of course the normal and abnormal states of the brain and the degrees of activity in the medulla oblongata react powerfully on the pineal gland, owing to the number of " cen tres ' ' in that region. All this is quite plain to the Occultist, but very vague to the general reader. Nevertheless, the existence of an atrophied third eye in many animals, especially in the lower vertebrata, has been admitted by many of our scientists. In Sir John Lubbock's book, On the Senses, Instinct and Intelligence of Animals, he says: " The rudi mentary pineal eye of Reptilia is probably the de generate descendant of an organ which in former ages performed the functions of a true organ of vision. ... In mammals the organ is even more degenerate than in birds, though a trace is still pres ent in man himself. ... It now, however, ap pears that the vertebrate type did originally possess THE SECRET DOCTRINE 415 a central eye, of which the so-called pineal gland is the last trace. ' ' * If the third eye in man is now atrophied, it was nevertheless, an active organ in that stage of evolu tion when the spiritual element in man reigned su preme over the hardly nascent intellectual and psy chic elements. And with the interminable and com plex vicissitudes and tribulations of physiological development, that " median eye " ended by becom ing atrophied along with man's early spiritual and purely psychic characteristics. Let us remember that the First Race is shown in Occultism as spirit ual within and ethereal without ; the Second as psy cho-spiritual within and ethero-physical bodily ; the Third, still without intellect in its beginning, as astro-physical in its body, and living an inner life, in which the psycho-spiritual element is in no way interfered with as yet, by the hardly nascent physi cal senses. But the " third eye " embraces Eter nity. In the beginning, every class and family of living species was hermaphrodite and objectively one-eyed. In the animal, whose form was as ethereal (astrally) as that of man, before the bodies of both began to evolve their thick coating of physical matter, the third eye was, as in man, the only seeing organ. The two physical eyes developed later on in both brute and man, whose organ of physical sight was, at the commencement of the Third Race, hidden beneath an opaque skin, like some of the blind vertebrata (moles, etc.) at present. Only the stages of the primeval eye in man and brute are now inverted, as man had already passed the animal non-rational stage in the Third Round, and is ahead of the brute creation by a whole plane of consciousness. There- ?(See Path, Aug., 1890, and Jan., 1891. Lucifer, Dec. and June, 1889. Evolution and Disease, J. Bland Sutton, Scritmer, 1890. The Advancement of Science, Ray Lankester, 1890. Quain's Anatomy, Vol. 2, pp. 830-851, ninth ed.— Editor.) 416 THE SECRET DOCTRINE fore, while the " Cyclopean " eye was, and still is, in man the organ of spiritual sight, in the animal it was that of objective vision. And this eye, hav- Diagram VI. Evolution of Root-Races in Fourth Round mR.R. ^> Meridian of Races ing performed its function, was replaced by two eyes, and thus stored and laid aside by Nature for further use in aeons to come. This explains why the pineal gland reached its THE SECRET DOCTRINE 417 highest development proportionately with the lowest physical development. In the vertebrata it is most prominent and objective, and in man the most hid den and inaccessible, except to the anatomist. " We, the Fifth Root-Race, in our first half of duration (on the now ascending arc of the cycle) are between the First and the Second Races— falling downward. (That is, those Races were on the de scending arc.) Calculate for thyself, disciple, and see." Calculating as advised, then, we find that during that transitional period — the second half of the First spiritual ethero-astral Race, nascent mankind was devoid of intellect. As we are parallel, on our as cending line to its descending line, we are, therefore, devoid of the spiritual element, which is now re placed by the intellectual, (v. Diagram VI.) One important point, however, has to be borne in mind. We are only in the Fourth Round, and it is not till the Fifth that the full development of Mind as a direct ray from the Universal Mind, a ray un impeded by matter, will be reached. Our Race has, as a Root-Race, crossed the equatorial line, and is cycling upward, but some of our sub-races are still on the descending arc of their respective national cycles ; while others again, the oldest of all, are the apex of spiritual development as sub-races. Now that which the students of Occultism ought to know is that the " third eye " is indissolubly con nected with Karma. The ' ' eye of Siva ' ' did not become entirely atro phied before the close of the Fourth Race. When the divine powers and attributes of the godlike man of the Third had been made the servants of the newly awakened physiological and psychic passions of the physical man, instead of the reverse, then the Third eye lost its power of vision. The sin was not 418 THE SECRET DOCTRINE in using the newly developed creative powers, but in misusing them. There can be no physical iniquity, as the body is simply the irresponsible organ of the spiritual man, and in the case of the Atlanteans it was precisely the spiritual being which sinned, that being still the " master " principle at that time. Thus it was that the heaviest Karma of the Fifth Race was generated in those days by our Monads. For the law of Karma is inextricably interwoven with that of Reincarnation. It is only the knowledge of the constant rebirths of the same individuality throughout the life-cycle that can explain to us the mysterious problems of good and evil, and reconcile us to tbe terrible and apparent injustice of life. For when one unac quainted with this doctrine looks about him and ob serves the inequalities of birth and fortune, of in tellect and capacities ; the honors paid to fools and profligates, and their nearest neighbor — far more deserving in every way — perishing of want and mis ery; when one sees all this, and has to turn away, helpless to relieve such suffering, the knowledge of Karma, the Absolute and Eternal Justice, alone prevents his cursing God and men. The possession of a physical third eye, we are told, was enjoyed by the men of the Third Root-Race down to nearly the middle period of the third sub- race of the Fourth Root-Race, when the consolida tion and perfection of the human frame made it disappear from the outward anatomy of man. Psy chically and spiritually, however, its perceptions lasted till nearly the end of the Fourth Race, when, owing to the depraved condition of mankind, its functions died out altogether before the submersion of the bulk of the Atlantean continent. How many of such cataclysms have changed the whole surface of the earth may be inferred by this Stanza from Commentary XXII.: THE SECRET DOCTRINE 419 "During the first 70,000,000 years the Earth and its two kingdoms (mineral and vegetable) — one hav ing already achieved its seventh cycle, the other hardly nascent — are luminous and semi-ethereal, cold, lifeless and translucent. In the eleventh * crore (a ' crore ' being 10,000,000 years) the mother (Earth) grows opaque and in the four teenth t the throes of adolescence take place. These convulsions of nature (geological changes) last till her twentieth crore of years, uninterruptedly, after which they become periodical, and recur at long in tervals. " The last change took place nearly 120,000,800 years ago. But the Earth, with everything on her face, had become cool, hard and settled ages earlier. ' ' Thus, if we may believe esoteric teaching, there have been no more universal geological disturbances and changes for the last 120 millions of years, and Earth was ready, even before that time, to receive her human stock. The appearance of fully developed physical humanity, however, took place only about eighteen million years ago, after the first great fail ure of Nature to create men without the help of the divine ' ' Builders ' ' had been followed by the evolu tion of the first three Races. The actual duration of the first two and a half Races is withheld from all but the higher Initiates. The history of the Races begins with the separation of the sexes, when the preceding egg-bearing, androgynous race per ished rapidly, and the subsequent sub-races of the Third Root-Race appeared as an entirely new Race physiologically. *ln the period of Secondary Creation so-called. Of the Primary, when Earth was in the possession of the three Elemental kingdoms, we cannot speak. f As the life of man is divided into periods of sevens, so is that of the Earth. " A1J things depend from the seventh," says the Kabaja. 420 THE SECRET DOCTRINE STANZA XI The Civilization and Destruction of the Third and Fourth Races 43. They (the Lemur o- Atlanteans) built huge cities. Of rare earths and metals they built; out of the (lava) fires vomited. Out of the white stone of the mountains (marble) and the black stone (of the subterranean fires) they cut their own images, in their size and likeness, and worshipped them. As the history of the first two human races pro ceeds, it becomes necessary to speak of them col lectively, and treat the last of the Lemurians and the first of the Atlanteans as one race. Occultism teaches that even on the early submerged continents, and during the early geological periods, there were civilized nations, who, under the guidance of their divine Rulers, built large cities, cultivated the arts and sciences, and were well versed in astronomy, architecture and mathematics. Their primeval civi lization did not, as one might think, immediately fol low their physiological transformation. Between the final evolution and the first city built, many hun dred thousands of years had passed. Yet we find the sixth sub-race of the Lemurians building their first rock cities out of stone and lava. One of these was built entirely of lava, some thirty miles west of Easter Island, and was entirely destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions. The oldest remains of Cyclopean buildings are all the handiwork of the last sub-races of the Lemurians, and an occultist is not surprised to hear that the stone relics found on Easter Island are very much like the walls of tem ples in Peru, and that they also are in the Cyclopean style, (v. The Countries of the World — Robt. Brown, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 421 Vol 4, p. 43.) The first large cities, however, ap peared on what is now the island of Madagascar. Gradually mankind decreased in stature, for even before the real advent of the Fourth or Atlantean Race, the majority of mankind had fallen into in iquity and sin, save the hierarchy of the " Elect," the followers and disciples of the " Sons of Will and Yoga " — called later the " Sons of the Fire Mist. ' ' Then came the Atlanteans, the giants whose physical beauty and strength reached their climax, in accordance with evolutionary law, toward the middle period of their fourth sub-race. But, as said in the Commentary: ' ' The last survivors of the fair child of the White Island had perished ages before. Their (Lemuria's) Elect had taken shelter on the sacred Island (in the Gobi desert), while some of their accursed races, separating from the main stock, now lived in the jungles and underground (cave-men), when the Fourth Race became in its turn " black with sin." From pole to pole the Earth had changed her face for the third time. . . . The demi-gods of the Third had made room for the semi-demons of the Fourth Race." The earliest pioneers of the Fourth Race were not Atlanteans, nor yet the human demons which they became later. In those days large portions of the future continent of Atlantis were yet part of the Ocean floor. " Lemuria," as we have called the continent of the Third Race, was then a gigantic land, covering a large part of Southern India, Cey lon and Sumatra, Madagascar, Australia and Tas mania to within a few degrees of the Antarctic Cir cle, and extending into the Pacific Ocean beyond Easter Island. Of course, as shown in the Intro duction, neither Lemuria nor even Atlantis were the real archaic names of the lost continents, but are used for the sake of clearness. Atlantis was the 422 THE SECRET DOCTRINE name given to those portions of the submerged Fourth-Race continent which were " beyond the pillars of Hercules," and which happened to keep above water after the general cataclysm. The last remnant of these, Plato's Atlantis, or " Poseidon," perished some 11,000 years ago. Lemuria was not submerged by a flood, but was destroyed by volcanic action, and afterwards sank. (S. D., II. , 141.) The occult teaching shows the (now) polar re gions as the earliest of the seven cradles of hu manity, and as the tomb of the bulk of the mankind of that region during the Third Race, when the gigantic continent of Lemuria began separating into smaller continents. This is due, according to the explanation in the Commentary, to a decrease of ve locity in the earth's rotation. " When the Wheel runs at its usual rate, its ex tremities (the poles) agree with its middle circle (the equator) ; when it runs slower and tilts in every direction, there is a great disturbance on the face of the Earth. The waters flow towards the two ends, and new lands arise in the middle belt, while those at the ends are submerged." . . . And again: " Thus the wheel (the Earth) is subject to, and regulated by, tbe Spirit of the Moon, for the breath of its waters (tides). Toward the close of a great (Root) race, the regents of the Moon (the Progeni tors) begin drawing harder, and thus flatten the wheel about its belt, when it goes down in some places and swells in others, and the swelling run ning towards the extremities (poles), new lands will arise and old ones be sucked in." We have but to read astronomical and geological works to see the meaning of the above very clearly. In the epoch we are treating of the continent of " Lemuria " had already broken up in many places, and formed new separate continents. Neither Af- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 423 rica nor the Americas, however, and still less Eu rope, existed in those days, nor was there much of present Asia above water. Lemuria now consisted of huge islands, which were gradually disappear ing one after the other, until the final convulsion engulfed its last remains. 'Easter Island, for in stance, belongs to the earliest civilization of the Third Race. Submerged with the rest, a volcanic uplifting of the ocean floor raised the small relic of the archaic ages (with its volcano and its statues untouched) during the Champlain epoch of northern polar submersion, as a standing witness to the exist ence of Lemuria. In the same way that the evolution of the First Race (from the bodies of the " Progenitors ") took place on seven distinctly separated regions of the (then only) Earth at the Arctic pole, so did the ulti mate transformation of the Third occur: it began in those northern regions including Greenland, Si beria and Behring's Straits, and what there was of dry land in Central Asia, when the climate was semi- tropical even in the Arctic regions, and most adapted to the needs of nascent physical man. This region, however, has been more than once frigid and trop ical in turn since the appearance of man. The Com mentary tells us that the Third Race was only about the middle point of its development when — " The axle of the Wheel tilted. The Sun and Moon shone no longer over the heads of that por tion of the Sweat-born. People knew snow, ice and frost, and men, plants and animals were dwarfed in their growth. Those that did not perish remained as half-grown babes in size and intellect. (" Half- grown babes " in comparison with their giant breth ren of other zones.) This was the third pralaya* of the races." Which means, again, that our globe is subject to ? Period of dissolution or repose. — Editor, 424 THE SECRET DOCTRINE seven periodical entire changes, which go pari passu •With the Races. For the Secret Doctrine teaches that during this Round there must be seven terres trial pralayas or periods of repose, three occasioned by changes in the inclination of the earth's axis. This is an inexorable law, known in Occultism as " the great Adjuster." The face of the globe is en tirely changed each time, and it requires several thousand years to set the new house in order. After the submergence of the Third Race conti nent, Lemuria, " Men decreased considerably in stat ure, and the duration of their lives was diminished. Having fallen from godliness, they mixed with ani mal races, and intermarried with giants and pig mies (the dwarfed races of the Poles). . . . Many acquired Divine, more unlawful, knowledge, and fol lowed willingly the Left Path." (Commentary XXXIII.) Thus were the Atlanteans approaching destruc tion in their turn. How many geological periods it took to accomplish this, who can tell? STANZA XL— Continued. 44. They (the Atlanteans) built great images twenty-seven feet high — the size of their bodies (a). Inner fires had destroyed the land of their fathers (the Lemurians). Water threatened the Fourth Race (b). (a) It is worth noticing that most of the statues discovered on Easter Island, part of an undeniably submerged continent, as well as those found on the outskirts of the desert of Gobi (a lake for untold ages), are between 20 and 30 feet high. The statues found by Cook on Easter Island were almost all 27 feet high, and measured eight feet across the shoul ders. We are told that after the destruction of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 425 Lemuria by subterranean fires men went on steadily decreasing in stature, till some millions of years af ter their physical Fall they measured only five to six feet, and are now dwindling (as in the older Asiatic races) to a height nearer five feet than six. Another record of early and still more gigantic races is found in the colossal Bamian statues. Ba- mian is a small half -ruined town in Central Asia ; in days of old it formed a portion of the ancient city of Djooljool, destroyed to the last stone by Tchengis Khan in the thirteenth century. The whole valley is hemmed in by enormous rocks, full of partly natural, partly artificial, caves and grottoes, once the dwell ings of Buddhist monks. It is at the entrance to some of these that five colossal statues, supposedly of Buddha, were discovered or rather rediscovered in our century, as the famous Chinese traveller Hi- ouen Tsang speaks of them as existing when he visited Bamian in the seventh century. The largest is 173 feet high, 70 feet higher than Bartholdi's statue of Liberty. The second is only 120 feet high, and the other two still smaller, the last being only a little taller than the average tall man of our own day. The Buddhist monks covered the original statues with plaster, and remodelled them into like nesses of Buddha, probably in the first century of our era. But they were the handiwork originally of Initiates of the Fourth Race, who sought refuge, after the submersion of Atlantis, among the moun tains of Central Asia. They are an imperishable record of the esoteric teaching about the gradual evolution of the races. The largest statue represents the First Race of mankind, its ethereal body being commemorated in hard stone for the instruction of future generations, as otherwise its remembrance never would have sur vived the Atlantean deluge. The second represents the ' ' Sweat-born, ' ' and the third, 60 feet high, the 426 THE SECRET DOCTRINE race that fell, and thereby gave birth to the first physical race, the last descendants of which are rep resented by the Easter Island statues ; but they were only 20 to 25 feet in stature at the time Lemuria was submerged after being nearly destroyed by vol canic fires. The Fourth Race was still smaller, though gigantic in comparison with the Fifth, with which the series ended. Occult sciences may be less exact than the modern sciences, but they are at least more logical and con sistent in their teachings. Physical forces and natu ral affinities of atoms may be sufficient factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than an interplay of certain material aggre gates and their environment to call to life a fully conscious man. (b) How could the records of such early races be preserved? we may be asked. While the Egyp tians have on their Zodiac irrefutable proofs of rec ords more *han three and a half sidereal years, or about 87,000 years old, the Hindu calculations cover nearly thirty-three such years, or 850,000 years. And they possess recorded observations from the date of the first Great Flood within the Aryan 7ms- torical memory — that which submerged the last por tions of Atlantis 850,000 years ago. The preceding floods were, of course, more traditional than his torical. The Atlantic portion of Lemuria was the geological basis of what is generally known as At lantis rather than a new mass of land upheaved to meet the special requirements of the Fourth Root- Race. Continuity in natural processes is never broken. Thus the Fourth Race Atlanteans were developed from a nucleus of northern Lemurian Third Race men, centred, roughly speaking, on a point of land in what is now the mid- Atlantic Ocean. Their continent (Atlantis) was formed by the coa lescence of many islands and peninsulas which were THE SECRET DOCTRINE 427 upheaved in the ordinary course of time, and became ultimately the home of the great race known as the Atlanteans. STANZA XT— Continued 45. The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands (a). 46. All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals produced from the sweat of the earth (b). (a) This subject, the fourth great deluge on our globe in this Round, is fully treated later on. The " seven great islands " belonged to the continent of Atlantis. The secret teachings show that the del uge overtook the giant Fourth Race not because of its depravity, but simply because such is the fate of every continent, which, like all else under the sun, is born, grows old and dies. This destruction of Atlantis took place while the Fifth Race was in its infancy. (b) Thus the magicians and sorcerers perished, but only the unholy were destroyed. Speaking of the following Fifth Race, the Commentary says : " Alone the handful of those Elect whose divine Instructors had gone to inhabit that Sacred Island — ' whence the last Saviour will come ' — now kept mankind from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other. (As mankind does now. H. P B.) Mankind became divided. Two-thirds of it were ruled by dynasties of lower, material spirits of the earth, who took possession of the easily accessible bodies ; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent Fifth Race — the divine Incarnates. When the poles moved (for the fourth time) this did not affect those who were protected and who had separated from the Fourth Race. Like the 428 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Lemurians, alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, >> STANZA XII The Fifth Race and its Divine Insteuctoes 47. Few (men) remained. Some yellow, some brown and black and some red remained. The moon- colored (of the primitive Divine Stock) were gone forever (a). . . . 48. The Fifth Race produced from the Holy Stock (remained). It was ruled by the first Divine Kings (b). 49. The ' Serpents,' who redescended (c) ; who made peace with the Fifth Race, who taught and in structed it. . . . (a) This verse (47) relates to the Fifth Race. History does not begin with it, but living and ever- recurring tradition does. It is the sub-divisiens of the first sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race which are referred to in the sentence " Some yellow," etc. The " moon-colored " (the First and Second Races) were gone forever, and that as far back as the third Deluge of the Third or Lemurian Race, the ' ' Great Dragon " whose tail sweeps whole nations out of existence in the twinkling of an eye. And this is the true meaning of the verse in the Commentary which says: " The Great Dragon has respect but for the ' Ser pents ' of Wisdom, the Serpents whose holes are noW under the triangular stones " (i.e., the Pyra mids, at the four corners of the world). (b) This tells us clearly that which is mentioned more than once elsewhere in the Commentaries, namely, that the Adepts or " Wise " men of the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 429 three Races (Third, Fourth and Fifth) dwelt in sub terranean places, generally under some kind of pyramidal structure, if not an actual pyramid. For such " pyramids " existed in all the four corners of the world, although, until they were found scat tered all over the two Americas, they were supposed to be the exclusive property of Egypt. But the " Serpents of Wisdom " have preserved their rec ords well, and the history of human evolution is traced in heaven as well as on underground walls. Humanity and the stars are indissolubly bound to gether because of the Intelligences that rule the lat ter. " It is unquestionable that the Deluge has ever been associated by some Eastern peoples, not only with the Pyramids, but also with the constellations, ' ' writes Staniland Wake (op. cit.). " The ' Old Dragon ' is identical with the ' great Flood,' " says Mr. Proctor (Knowledge, I., p. 243). " We know that in the past the constellation of the Dragon was at the pole, or boss, of the celestial sphere. ... It is singular how closely . . . the constellations correspond in sequence and in range of right ascen sion with the events recorded respecting the Biblical Flood." The reasons for this singularity have been made clear in this work. But it shows that there were several Deluges mixed up in the memories and tra ditions of the sub-races of the Fifth Race. The first great " Flood " was astronomical and cosmical, while several others were terrestrial. (c) We shall presently return to this point. Meanwhile we shall have to consider the meaning of that other statement which mentions (verses 48 and 49) the first divine Kings, who are said to have " redescended, " guided and instructed our Fifth Race after the last deluge. We shall consider this claim historically in the sections that follow, but the rough commentaries on the archaic Stanzas end 430 THE SECRET DOCTRINE here. The forty-nine Verses and the few fragments from the Commentaries we have given are all that can be published in these volumes. These, with some still older records — to which none but Initiates have access — and a whole library of comments, glossaries and explanations form the synopsis of Man's genesis. It is from the Commentaries that we have hitherto quoted, and tried to explain the hidden meaning of some of the allegories. We shall endeavor in the following pages to establish a still closer metaphys ical connection between the earliest races and their Creators, the divine men from other worlds. The duration of the periods that separate the Fourth from the Fifth Race— in the historical, or even the legendary beginnings of the latter — is too tremendous for us to offer any more detailed ac count of them. During the course of the post-dilu vian ages — marked at certain periodical epochs by the most terrible cataclysms — too many races and nations were born and disappeared again, almost without leaving a trace, for any description of them to be of the slightest value. Nevertheless, the history of this world since its formation and to its end is recorded in the Zodiac and the Universal Symbolism, whose Keys are in the keeping of the Initiates. The human Races are born one from the other, grow, develop, become old and die. Their sub-races and nations follow the same rule. Since the begin ning of the Atlantean Race many million years have passed, yet we find the last of the Atlanteans still mixed up with the Aryan element, 11,000 years ago. This shows the enormous overlapping of one race over the race which succeeds it, though in character and external type the elder assumes the new features of the younger race. This is proved in all forma tions of mixed human races. And Occultism teaches THE SECRET DOCTRINE 431 that even now the new Race is preparing, here in America, under our very eyes. Pure Anglo-Saxons hardly three hundred years ago, the Americans of the United States have al ready become almost a separate race mentally and physically, owing to the mixture of many nationali ties. They are, in short, the germs of the sixth Sub- race, and in some few hundred years more will dis tinctly become the pioneers of that race which must succeed the present European or fifth Sub-race. After about 25,000 years, the preparations for the seventh Sub-race will begin; and then the Sixth Root-Race will appear upon the stage of our Round, after cataclysms, the first series of which must one day destroy Europe, and still later the whole Aryan race, as also most of the lands directly connected with our continent and islands. When shall this be? Who knows, save the great Masters of Wisdom per chance, and they are as silent upon the subject as the snow-clad peaks that tower above them. All we know is that the race will silently come into exist ence, so silently that for long millenniums its pio neers will be regarded as abnormal entities, physi cally and mentally, until one day they will awake to find themselves in a majority. It is the present men who will then begin to be regarded as exceptional, until these die out in their turn, perhaps millions of years hence, as the Aztecs have, and as the Nyam- Nyam and the dwarfish Moola Koorumba of the Nilghiri Hills are dying. All these are the rem nants of once mighty nations, now lost to memory, just as we shall vanish from the remembrance of the Sixth Race humanity. This process of preparation for the Sixth Race must last throughout the whole of the sixth and seventh Sub-races. But the last remnants of the Fifth Continent will not disappear until some time after the birth of the new Race ; when another and 432 THE SECRET DOCTRINE new dwelling, the Sixth Continent, will have ap peared above the new waters on the face of the globe. To it will emigrate all those who shall be fortunate enough to escape the general disaster. When this shall be, it is not for the writer to know. Only as all things in nature move by slow degrees, the final cataclysm will be preceded by many smaller catas trophes, caused by tidal waves and volcanic fires. Mankind will not grow again into giant bodies, be cause the present Race is on its ascending arc, and the Sixth will be rapidly growing out of its bonds of flesh, and even of matter. Thus it is the mankind of the New World (one by far the senior of our Old world) whose mission and Karma it is to sow the seeds of a more glorious Race than any we know at present. The cycles of Matter will be succeeded by the Cycles of Spiritual ity and fully developed Mind, and the majority of future mankind will be composed of glorious Adepts. Such is the course of Nature under the sway of Karmic Law: of the ever-present and the ever-be coming Nature. For, in the words of a Sage, known only to a few Occultists : " The Present is the child of the Past; the Fu ture, the begotten of the Present. And yet, 0 ! pres ent moment, knowest thou not that thou hast no par ent, nor canst thou have a child, that thou art ever begetting but thyself? Before thou hast even begun to say ' I am the progeny of the departed moment, the child of the Past,' thou hast become that past itself. Before thou utterest the last syllable, be hold ! thou art no more the Present, but verily that Future. Thus are the Past, tbe Present and the Future, the ever-living Trinity in one — the Great Illusion of the Absolute Is." THE SECRET DOCTRINE 433 Some Additional Explanations of the Preceding Teachings (These additional particulars have been placed at the end of the Commentary on the Stanzas, in order that the history of the evolution of the Races might be less interrupted and therefore clearer.— Ed.) §1. The Divine Hermaphrodite. After the submersion of the last remnant of the Atlantean race, some 12,000 years ago, an impen etrable veil of secrecy was thrown over the occult and religious mysteries, lest they should be shared by the unworthy, and so desecrated. It is this secrecy which led the Fifth Race to the re-establishment of those religious mysteries, in which ancient truths might be taught to the coming generations in the guise of allegory and symbolism. Behold the imperishable witness to the evolution of the human races from the divine, and especially from the androgynous . race ! In the Book of Enoch we have Adam the first divine androgyne, separating into man and woman, and becoming Jah-Heva in one form, or Race, and Cain and Abel (male and female) in its other form or Race — the double-sexed Jeho vah * — an echo of its Aryan prototype, Brahma- Vach. After which come the Third and Fourth Root- Races of mankind — that is, races of men and women, individuals of opposite sexes, no longer sexless semi- spirits and androgynes, as were the two Races which preceded them. This fact is hinted at in every an- thropogony. It is found in fable and allegory, in myth and revealed Scriptures, in legend and tradi tion. Because of all the great Mysteries, inherited by Initiates from hoary antiquity, this is one of the greatest. It accounts for the bisexual element found ? v. Isis Unveiled, II., 398. 434 THE SECRET DOCTRINE in every creative deity. The compound name of Jehovah, or Jah-Hovah, meaning male life and fe male life — first androgynous, then separated into sexes — is used in this sense in Genesis from chap. v. onwards. The first and original meaning of Enos the son of Seth was the later Third Race, born in the present way from man and woman, for Seth is no man, but a race. While Seth is the first result (physiologically) after the Fall, he is also the first man, hence his son Enos is referred to as the ' ' Son of man. ' ' Seth represents the later Third Race. How close is the identity between Brahma and Jehovah, the Bible and the Puranas compared, alone can show. In Manu (Book I., 32), Brahma, who also divides his body into male and female, stands in his esoteric meaning, as does Jehovah or Adam in the Bible, for the symbolical personification of creative and generative power, both divine and hu man. Every nation, in fact, held its first god and gods to be androgynous, nor could it be otherwise, since they regarded their primeval, dual-sexed an cestors as divine Beings. And they were divine in one sense, as also were their first human progeny, the " mind-born " primitive humanity, which was most assuredly bisexual, as all the more ancient traditions show. (For further details, v. Secret Doctrine II., pp. 124-130.) §11. Deluges and Floods In the symbolism of every nation the " Deluge " stands for chaotic, unsettled matter — Chaos itself, and " Water " for the feminine principle — the ' \ Great Deep. ' ' As the Greek Lexicon of Parkhurst gives it — " Arche (the Ark) answers to the Hebrew rasit, or Wisdom . . . and to the emblem of the female generative power, the Arg or Area, in THE SECRET DOCTRINE 435 which the germ of nature (and of man) floats and broods on the great Abyss of the waters, during the interval after every mundane (or racial) cycle." Ark is also the mystic name of the divine Spirit of life which broods over Chaos. Now Vishnu is the divine Spirit, as an abstract principle, and also as the Preserver and Generator, or Giver of life — the third person of the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity, com posed of Brahma the Creator, Siva the Destroyer and Vishnu the Preserver or Saviour. Vishnu is shown in the allegory as guiding, under the form of a fish, the Ark of Vaivasvata Manu across the waters of the Flood. The theological meaning of the word fish is phallic, but its metaphysical, divine. Jesus, as well as Vishnu and Bacchus, was called " the Fish " ; I. H. S., the monogram of the Saviour of mankind, was also that of the god Bacchus, called IcHthuS, the fish. The story of Vaivasvata Manu as told in the Ma habhdrata needs to be explained. While Vaivasvata was engaged in devotion on the river-bank, the leg end runs, a fish craved his protection from a big ger fish. He saved it, and it gave him the news of the coming deluge. Vishnu ordered Vaivasvata Manu to build a ship, in which to be saved along with the seven Rishis (or Sages). Here Vaivasvata Manu stands for the Fifth Race of humanity, and the seven Rishis for the seven principles, which be came complete in man only after the separation of the sexes, when he had become a human and no longer a divine creature. They also stand for the seven Races and several other things, for there is again a double mystery involved in this manifold allegory. It has been said elsewhere that the great Flood had several meanings, and that it referred, like the Fall, to both spiritual and physical, cosmic and ter restrial events ; as it is above, so below. The ship, 436 THE SECRET DOCTRINE or ark — navis — in short, being the symbol of the female generative principle, is typified in the heav ens by the Moon, and on earth by the womb; both being the vessels and bearers of the seeds of life and being, which the sun, or Vishnu, the male prin ciple, vivifies and fructifies. The first Cosmic Flood refers to primordial creation, or the formation of heaven and earth; in which case Chaos and the great Deep stand for the Flood, and the Moon for the Ark or the " Mother " from whom proceed all the life-germs. But the terrestrial deluge and its story has also its dual application. In one case it has reference to the mystery of man's salvation from utter destruction through mortal woman's be ing made the receptacle of the human seed at the end of the Third Race (when Lemuria was destroyed by volcanic action and afterwards submerged), and in the other case to the real and historical Atlantean deluge. In both cases the Manu that saved the seed of life is called Vaivasvata Manu. Krishna is made to say in the Bhagavad Gita (chap. x. v. 6) : " The seven great Sages, the four preceding Manus, partaking of my essence, were born from my mind: from them sprang (were born) the hu man races and the world." Here the " four preceding Manus " (seven in all) are the four Races which have already lived, since Krishna belongs to the Fifth Race, his death having inaugurated the Dark Age (its final stage). Thus Vaivasvata Manu, the son of Surya (the Sun) and the Saviour of our Race, is connected with the Seed of Life both physically and spiritually. He is shown under three distinct attributes in our esoteric cos mogony; as the " Root-Manu " on Globe A. in the First Round; as the "seed of life" (or Seed- Manu) on Globe D. in the Fourth Round ; and as the " Seed of Man " at the beginning of every Root- Race, especially our Fifth Race. (It must be remem- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 437 bered that the Humanity of the first life-cycle is that of all the seven. To the last it is a constant reincar nation of the same Monads.) There seems, then, to be no serious objection to the supposition that the first " great flood " had an allegorical as well as a cosmical meaning, and that it happened at the end of the " Golden Age," when the Second Root-Race, the " Manu (mankind) with bones," made its primeval appearance as the " Sweat-born." (The " mankind with bones " was the humanitv of the Third Race, produced by the Second, (y." Stanza, VII. 26.) The second Flood — the so-called " universal " — which affected the Fourth Root-Race, is the first flood perceived by geology. The cataclysm which destroyed Lemuria, as said before, was due to a series of subterranean convulsions and the, breaking up of the ocean floor. That which put an end to its successor — Atlantis — was brought on by successive disturbances in the axial rotation of the earth, as well as the shifting of its axis. These disturbances began during the earliest Tertiary period, and, con tinuing for long ages, carried away successively the last vestige of Atlantis, with the exception, perhaps, of Ceylon, and a small portion of what is now Africa. We have few details about the submersion of the continent inhabited by the Second Root-Race. But Lemuria is said to have perished about 700,000 years before the commencement of what is now called the Tertiary age (the Eocene), while the last remnants of Atlantis occurred about 850,000 years ago, in the later Pliocene times. This must not be confounded with the destruction of the main continent during the Miocene period, several million years earlier, or with the submersion of Plato 's island of Atlantis or Poseidonis, some 11,000 years before our day. But could men have existed 18,000,000 years ago ? To this occultism answers in the affirmative. More- 438 THE SECRET DOCTRINE over, this estimate only covers the last type of hu manity, the perfected male and female organism. The two and a half Races that preceded that event may have lived 300,000,000 years ago, for all that science can tell. For the geological and physical dif ficulties in the way of the theory could not exist for the primeval, ethereal man of the occult teachings. The whole discrepancy between the profane and the esoteric sciences consists in the belief of the latter in the existence of an astral body within the physi cal, and independent of it. The Secret Doctrine maintains that physical hu manity has existed upon this globe for the last 18,- 000,000 years, notwithstanding its general cata clysms and disturbances, which, owing to the Fourth Round being its period of greatest material develop ment, were far more terrible and intense than dur ing any of the three preceding Rounds, the cycles of its earlier psychic and spiritual life and of its semi-ethereal conditions. This period of 18,000,000 years was preceded by 300,000,000 years of mineral and vegetable development. The Occultists answer many of the objections of both theologians and scien tists by maintaining that during those periods when there must have been insufferable heat, even at the two poles, successive floods, upheavals of the valleys, and constant shifting of the great waters and seas, none of these circumstances could interfere with such human organisms and life as they say existed in those early periods. Neither deleterious gases nor the perils of a scarcely consolidated crust could prevent the First and Second Races from making their appearance during the Carboniferous or even the Silurian Age. The conditions necessary for the earliest race of mankind required no elements, either simple or compound. The spiritual ethereal Entity, which lived in spaces unknown to Earth before the first sidereal " jelly-speck " evolved in the ocean of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 439 crude cosmic matter, needed no " elements." And while even the Monera, however homogeneous their organism, still required physical conditions of life that would further their evolution, the being which became primitive Man, and the " Father of Man," after evolving on planes of existence undreamed of by science, could well remain impervious to any state of atmospheric conditions. The primitive ancestor of the Mexican legends who could live with equal ease under ground or water or upon the surface, answers only to the Second and early Third Races of our text. And if the three kingdoms of nature were so different in pre-diluvian ages, why should not man have been composed of materials and com binations of atoms now entirely unknown to physical science? The Commentary says : " Universal Gene sis starts from the one, breaks into three, then five, and finally culminates in the seven, to return into four, three and one. ' ' Such terrestrial conditions as were operative in the time of primeval men had no touch with the plane on which the evolution of the ethereal astral races proceeded. Only in relatively recent geological periods has the course of cyclic law swept mankind into the lowest grade of physical evolution — the plane of gross material causation. In those early ages astral evolution was alone in progress, and the two planes, the astral and the physical, though de veloping on parallel lines, had no direct point of contact with one another. And although these planes ran parallel with one another even in the earliest geological ages, yet they were not in the same phases of manifestation as at present. The earth did not reach its greatest degree of density till 18,000,000 years ago. Since then both the physical and astral planes have become grosser. Analogy is the guiding law in Nature, the only true Ariadne 's thread that can lead us through her 440 THE SECRET DOCTRINE labyrinthine mysteries. If we can conceive of a ball of fire-mist becoming gradually a self-luminous globe, to settle into a man-bearing world or earth, thus having passed from a soft plastic body into a rock-bound globe, and if we see everything on it evolving from the moneron into the form of an ani mal, to grow into a gigantic reptile of the Mesozoic times only to dwindle again into the comparatively dwarfish crocodile, and the small iguana lizard, can man alone escape the general law? Again, to take up the question of spontaneous generation — Pasteur and Tyndall have disposed of it, we are told. But even if it were shown to be im possible in our present world-period and actual con ditions — which the Occultists deny — still that would be no proof that it could not have taken place under different cosmic conditions. If now it almost es capes detection, it was in full swing in the genesis of terrestrial life. For life, as science shows, has not always reigned on this terrestrial plane. There was a time when even the Haeckelian Moneron, that simple globule of protoplasm, had not yet appeared at the bottom of the seas. Whence came the impulse which caused the molecules of carbon, oxygen, nitro gen, etc., to group themselves into the Urschleim of Oken, that organic " slime " now christened proto plasm? If, according to Lord Kelvin's wild theory, the life-germs of Earth fell in meteorites from other planets, who or what had carried them into those planets? Here again, unless the Occult teaching be accepted, we are compelled to adopt the theory of a personal, anthropomorphic Creator, instead of the idea of the absolute Divine Thought pervading the numberless active, creating Forces or " Creators," which entities are moved by and have their being in, from and through that Divine Thought. These crea tors are like the rays of the sun, which remains un conscious of, and unconcerned in, their work ; while THE SECRET DOCTRINE 441 its meditating agents, the rays, become the instru mental media every spring — the dawn of the Earth's life-cycle — in awakening and fructifying the dor mant vitality inherent in Nature. Plato and other philosophers taught the same: Deity cannot set its own hand to creation. §111. Edens, Serpents and Dragons Christians will maintain that the Garden of Eden is the holy Paradise desecrated by the sin of Adam and Eve, but the Occultist will deny this dead-letter interpretation. Many details as to the Garden of Eden are given in Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., p. 575 et seq. It will be, perhaps, sufficient to say here that Eden, or the Hebrew Gan-Eden, meaning the park or garden of Eden, is an archaic name of the country watered by the Euphrates and its many branches, from Asia and Armenia to the Erythraean sea. " Though containing the same substratum of eso teric truth, as does every early cosmogony, the He brew Scripture wears on its face the marks of a double origin. Its Genesis is purely a reminiscence of the Babylonian captivity. The names of places, men and even objects can be traced from the orig inal texts to the Chaldeans and Akkadians, the pro genitors and Aryan instructors of the former. . . . . They (the Akkadians) were simply emi grants on their way to Asia Minor from India, the cradle of humanity, and their sacerdotal adepts tar ried to civilize and initiate a barbarous people." (v. loc. cit.) In fact, the Jewish Biblical history was a compilation of historical facts, arranged from other people's history in Jewish garb — Genesis ex cepted, which is esotericism pure and simple. The Garden of Eden was never the property of the Jews, for China, which can hardly be suspected of having iknowjj anything of the Jews 2,000 years before 442 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Christ, has such a primitive garden in Central Asia, inhabited by the " Dragons of Wisdom," the Ini tiates. A Japanese encyclopaedia places its " Gar den of Wisdom " on the plateau of Pamir between the highest peaks of the Himalayan ranges, and de scribing it as the culminating point of Central Asia, shows the four rivers Oxus, Indus, Ganges and Silo, flowing from a common source, the " Lake of the Dragons." But this is neither the Eden of Genesis nor of the Kabala, for the former means in one sense Wisdom, a state like that of Nirvana, and in another sense refers to intellectual man himself, the container of the Eden in which grows the Tree of Knowledge, man being the Knower thereof. " Behold," say the Elohim of Genesis, " man is become as one of us." The Elohim may be accepted as gods or powers, or as the Aleim, the hierophants, initiated into the good and evil of the world, for there was a college of priests called the Aleim, while their head was known as Java- Aleim. Instead of becoming a neophyte, and gradually obtaining his esoteric knowledge through a regular initiation, an Adam, or Man, uses his intuitional faculties, and prompted by the Serpent (Woman and Matter), tastes of the Tree of Knowledge — the esoteric wis dom — unlawfully. The priests of Hercules or Mel- Karth, the " Lord of the Eden," all wore " coats of skin." The text says: " And Java-Aleim made for Adam and his wife coats of skin." (This text is usu ally applied to the physical body, the outer covering of the astral.) The " primitive humanity " of the scientists was really in its Fifth Race when the " four-mouthed Dragon," the lake (of the four rivers), of which few traces are now left, was the abode of the " Sons of Wisdom," the first Mind-born sons of the Third Race. That Eden was neither the only nor the first cradle of humanity, though it was in truth a copy THE SECRET DOCTRINE 443 of the cradle of the first thinking divine man. It was the Paradesa of the first Sanskrit-speaking people; the Hedone, the country of delights, of the Greeks, but it was not " the bower of voluptuousness " of the Chaldeans, for the latter was only a reminiscence of it, nor was it there that the Fall of Man occurred after the " separation." The Eden of the Jews was a copy of the Chaldean copy. That the Fall of man into generation occurred during what science calls the Mesozoic,* or Age of reptiles, is evidenced by the Bible phraseology con cerning the Serpent, as explained by the Zohar. The question is not whether the story be an allegory, for no one can doubt that, but to show the antiquity of the symbolism on the face of it, and the univer sality of the idea. The Zohar describes the Serpent of Eden as a sort of flying camel, and in the Avesta it is represented as a huge serpent with a camel's neck, which after the Fall lost " its nature and its name." There are no " flying camels " or winged serpents now, but that is no reason why they should not have existed during the Mesozoic age, when the Plesiosaurus, the Pterodactyl and the Mosasaurus lived, and furnished types more or less like a flying camel or a long-necked dragon. Prof. Cope has shown that the Mosasauras was a winged serpent, and that there were characteristics in its vertebrae which indicated union with the serpents rather than the lizards. Antiquity has never claimed palaeon- tography or palaeontology as among its arts and sciences, yet on Babylonian tiles, and especially in old Chinese and Japanese drawings in ancient pago das, and in the Imperial Library at Pekin, many a traveller has seen and recognized perfect represen tations of Plesiosaurii and Pterodactyls, while the Biblical prophets speak of flying serpents, (v. Is. xxx. 6.) Herewehave extinct species of animals which ?Or Secondary Age. — Editor. 444 THE SECRET DOCTRINE disappeared from the face of the earth millions of years ago, described by nations whose civilization, it is said, cannot be more than a few thousand years old. How is this? Evidently either the Secondary must be made to overlap the Quaternary period or man must be made the contemporary of the Plesio- saurus and the Pterodactyl. But as these creatures ceased to exist with the bulk of the Third Race, we should regard the mediaeval legends of flying drag ons as dreams. The sea-serpent is one thing, the dragon quite another. The Occultists know that the serpent, the Naga, and the dragon have each a septenary meaning. Mystics intuitionally see in the serpent of Genesis an animal emblem and a high spiritual essence; a super-intelligent cosmic force, " a great fallen light," a spirit sidereal, aerial and tellurian at the same time. From the beginning it was a symbol. In every ancient language the word dragon signified what it does now in Chinese, ' ' the being who excels in intelligence," and in Greek, " he who sees and watches." Could such epithets be applied to a snake, and is it not evident that they were intended for the human originals who were symbolized by serpents and dragons? These " originals " — called to this day in China " the Dragons of Wisdom " — were the first disciples of the ' ' Lords of Wisdom ' ' who were their instructors ; in short, they were the primitive adepts of the Third Race, and later of the Fourth and Fifth Races. The name became universal, and no sane man before the Christian era would ever have confounded the man and the symbol. Neither Enoch, Nebo nor Thot-Hermes is a proper name, but a generic title of many adepts. Their connec tion in symbolic allegories with the serpent is due to their enlightenment by the solar and planetary gods during the earliest intellectual Race, the Third. They are all the representative patrons of the Secret THE SECRET DOCTRINE 445 Wisdom. Asclepios is the son of the Sun-god Apollo, and he is Mercury; Nebo is the son of Bel-Mero- dach. They were all " serpents of wisdom," con nected with the Sun astronomically and with Wis dom spiritually. In Isis Unveiled (II., 293-4) we read: " From the region of unfathomable depth (By- thos, Aditi, Shekinah, the Veil of the Unknown) is sues a circle formed of spirals. This is Tiphereth (the Spiritual Sun *), which in the language of sym bolism means a grand cycle composed of smaller ones. Coiled within, so as to follow the spirals, lies the Serpent — emblem of Wisdom and Eternity— the dual Androgyne ; the cycle representing Ennoia, or the Divine Mind (a power which does not create but must assimilate), and the Serpent the Agatho- demon, the Ophis, the Shadow of the Light (non- eternal, yet the greatest divine light en our plane). Both were the Logoi of the Ophites, or the Unity as Logos manifesting itself as a double principle of Good and Evil." Were it light alone, inactive and absolute, the human mind could not appreciate or even realize it. Shadow is that which enables light to manifest itself, and gives it objective reality. Therefore, shadow is not evil, but the necessary corollary which completes Light, or Good ; it is its Creator on Earth. According to the Gnostics, these principles are immutable ; Light and Shadow, Good and Evil being virtually one, and having existed through all eter nity, as they will ever continue to exist so long as there are manifested worlds. Now it may be understood why the earliest Ini tiates and Adepts, or the " Wise Men " (for whom it is claimed that they were initiated into the mys teries of nature by the highest angels, representing the Universal Mind), were named " Serpents of *Vide Isis, II., 213.— Editor, 446 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Wisdom " and " Dragons," as also how the first physiologically complete human beings after being initiated into the mystery of human creation by Ophis, the manifested Logos, gradually began to be accused by the material spirit of posterity of hav ing committed sin, of having disobeyed the " Lord God," and of having been tempted by the Serpent. So little did the first Christians understand the esoteric meaning of the first four chapters of Genesis that they never perceived that not only was no sin in tended in this disobedience, but that the " Serpent " was actually the " Lord God " himself, who, as the Ophis, the Logos or the bearer of divine creative wisdom, taught mankind to become creators in their turn. They never realized that the Cross was an evolution from " the Tree " and " the Serpent," thus becoming the salvation of mankind. The allegory of Adam being driven away from the " Tree of Life " means esoterically that the newly separated race abused the mystery of life- giving, and dragged it down into the regions of ani malism and sensuality. Nevertheless, the separa tion of the sexes was in the programme of nature and of divine evolution, and the creative faculty in male and female was a gift of Divine Wisdom. As is said elsewhere, it was the abuse, not the use, of this power that made the sin. §IV. The Sons of God and the Sacred Island The legend given in Isis (Vol. I., p. 589), in rela tion to a portion of the globe known as one of the seven cradles of primeval humanity, ran as follows (somewhat condensed) : " Tradition says, as well as the records of the Book of Dzyan, that long before the days of Adam, where now are found but salt and barren deserts, there stretched a vast inland sea, which extended THE SECRET DOCTRINE 447 over Middle Asia, north of the Himalayas. Upon an island in this sea, unrivalled in its beauty, dwelt the last remnant of the race preceding ours." This " last remnant " meant the " Sons of Will and Yoga,"* who with a few tribes survived the great cataclysm. For it is the Third Race, inhabiting the great Lemurian Continent, that preceded the ver itable and complete human races, the Fourth and the Fifth. " This race," continues the passage quoted, ' ' could live with equal ease in water, air or fire, for it had an unlimited control over the ele ments. It was this race who imparted Nature's most weird secrets to men, and revealed to them the ineffable and now lost ' word.' . . . The hierophants of all the Sacerdotal Colleges were aware of the existence of this island, now an oasis in the middle of the great Gobi Desert, but the ' word ' was known only to the chief Lord of every college, and was passed to his successor only at the moment of death. There was no communication with the island by sea, but subterranean passages, known only to the chiefs, led to it from all directions." It is a fact, known to the initiated Brahmins and Yogis of India, that there is not a cave-temple in the coun try but has its subterranean passages running in every direction, which lead, in their turn, to other caves and corridors. . . . The hierophants were divided into two distinct classes; those who had been instructed by the " Sons of God " of the island, and who were initiated in the divine doctrine of pure revelation, and the Lemuro-Atlanteans, the first who had a dynasty of Spirit-Kings, not manes or ghosts, as some believe, but actual living demi-gods ,or angels, who had assumed bodies to rule over them, ¦and who, in their turn, instructed them in arts and sciences. Only as these Spirits were material they were not always good. And it was under the evil ? v. Diagram V. 448 THE SECRET DOCTRINE influence of one of these rulers that the Atlantean race became a race of wicked magicians. Whatever the cosmic or astronomical event that first gave rise to the allegory of the " War in Heaven," its earthly origin has to be sought in the temples of Initiation and archaic crypts. This is proved by the facts that follow: (a) We find the priests assuming the name of the gods they served; (b) the " Dragons " held throughout all antiquity as the symbols of Immor tality and Wisdom, of secret Knowledge and of Eternity; and (c) the hierophants of Egypt, of Babylonia and of India styling themselves generally the " Sons of the Dragon " and " Serpents," while the legend of the war between the Sun-god and the Dragon is found in every early religion. There were numerous catacombs in Egypt and Chaldea, some of them of vast extent. The most renowned were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis. The former extended towards the Libyan desert and were known as the " Serpent's " catacombs. It was there that were performed the sacred mysteries of the " Cycle of Necessity," and, furthermore, the ' ' War in Heaven ' ' is shown in one of its significations to have symbolized those ter rible struggles of the candidate for adeptship with his (magically) personified human passions, when the inner enlightened man either had to slay them or fail. In the former case he became the " Dragon- Slayer," as having overcome all temptations, and a " Serpent " as having cast off his old skin and being born in a new body, becoming a Son of Wis dom and Immortality in Eternity. Terrestrially all these allegories were connected with the trials of adeptship and initiation. Astro nomically they referred to the solar and lunar eclipses, the mythical explanations of which we find to this day in India and Ceylon. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 449 By simply comparing the Sun-gods of every coun try, we find their allegories corresponding perfectly with each other, and the more occult the symbols the more perfectly they agree. If from three sys tems widely differing from each other in appearance — the old Aryan, the ancient Greek and the modern Christian — we select several sun-gods and dragon myths, they will seem to be copied from each other. Take Indra, the firmament, and Kartikeya (Mars) from the Hindus ; Apollo from the Greeks, and Michael, the " Angel of the Sun," from the Chris tian scheme. While Indra the bright god of the firmament kills the Serpent-Demon, Vritra, he also leads the host of angels against other gods who have rebelled against Brahma, for which he is called " leader of the celestial Host." Kartikeya does much the same, and bears the same titles. Karti keya was commissioned to fight the Dragon, and so was Michael. Both are (like Indra) " leaders of the celestial Host," both are virgins, both " spear- holders," etc. Kartikeya is the original of St. Michael and St. George, as surely as Indra is the prototype of Kartikeya. Now take Apollo, the Grecian sun-god, and see if he does not answer to all the above. He is the sun- god par excellence, and at the moment of his birth asks for his bow to kill Python, the Demo-dragon, who attacked his mother before his birth. He is called " the pure," and Python, moreover, connects Apollo with Michael, who, " with his angels," fought the Apocalyptic Dragon. " And the dragon stood be fore the woman who was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born " (Rev. xii., 4-5), as the Python attacks the mother of Apollo. The late George Smith (in his The Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 304) gave the same tradi tion from one of the Chaldean tablets, wherein Mero- dach leads the heavenly Host against the Dragons. 450 THE SECRET DOCTRINE The war of course ends in the triumph of the prin ciples of Good. This war of the gods with the powers of the Deep refers also, in its last and terrestrial application, to the struggle between the Aryan adepts of the nascent Fifth Race and the sorcerers of Atlantis, the demons of the Deep, who disappeared in the Deluge, (v. last pages of Vol. I. of Isis Unveiled, on Atlantis.) The symbol of the dragons, and of the " War in Heaven," have more than one meaning, as already stated, religious, astronomical, geological and cos- mological events being included in one common al legory, so that the conflict between India and - e dragon may signify the slaying of the Demon of Drought by the beneficent thunder-storm and rain. We have said elsewhere that the " woman with child " of Rev. 12 answered to Binah the third Sephiroth, " whose name is Jehovah," and the " dragon " who seeks to devour her coming child (the Universe) is the Dragon of Absolute Wisdom — that Wisdom which, recognizing the non-separate- ness of the Universe and everything in it from the Absolute All, sees in it only the Great Illusion, the cause of misery and suffering. Samael or Satan, the Serpent of Genesis, is iden tical with the Simoom, the hot wind of the desert, as Typhon (or Typhoon) is the all-destroying desert- wind, and also the darkness of night. Cosmologic- ally, then, all the dragons and serpents conquered by their " Slayers " are, originally, the turbulent con fused principles in Chaos, brought to order by the Sun-gods or creative powers. The fact is, that the serpent has always been a dual symbol, as well as the dragon, according to the way it is employed. The appellation Sa'tan, in Hebrew sdtdn, " an adver sary," belongs by right to Jehovah, the first and THE SECRET DOCTRINE 451 crudest " adversary of all the other gods," not to the Serpent, which spoke only words of sympathy and wisdom. The name Jehovah was a blind, created purposely by the Rabbins, a secret preserved by them with ten-fold care after the Christians had de spoiled them of this God-name. But the personage who is named in the first four chapters of Genesis as " God," the " Lord God " and " Lord " simply is not one and the same person, and certainly not Jehovah. There are three distinct classes or groups of the Elohim (called Sephiroth in the Kabala), Jehovah appearing only in chapter iv., in the first verse of which he is named Cain, and in the last transformed into mankind — male and female, Jah- veh. In v. 26 of this chapter, correctly translated, we should read, " Then began men to call themselves by the name of the Lord," i.e., Jah-veh, or " male and female," to show that from that time the race of distinctly separated men and women began. The " Serpent," moreover, is not Satan, but the bright Angel, one of the Elohim, clothed in radiance and glory, who, promising the woman that if she and the man ate of the forbidden fruit " ye shall not surely die," kept his promise and made man im mortal in his incorruptible nature. He was the Iao of the mysteries, the chief of the androgyne creators of men. Chapter iii. (of Genesis) contains — eso terically — the withdrawal of the veil of ignorance that closed the perceptions of the Angelic Man made in the image of the " Boneless " gods, and the open ing of his consciousness to his real nature; thus showing the bright angel (Lucifer) in the light of a giver of Immortality and as the Enlightener, while the real Fall into generation and matter is to be found in chapter iv. There is no Devil, and no Evil outside mankind to produce a devil. Evil is a neces sity in, and one of the supporters of, the manifested 452 THE SECRET DOCTRINE universe. It is as necessary for progress and evolu tion as night for the production of day, and death for that of life — that man may live forever. A knowledge of the character and chronology of the Races of mankind formed part and parcel of the Mysteries, in which such knowledge was taught to the disciples, and transmitted from one hiero- phant to another. Many of these calculations as to duration, etc., were based upon the conjunction of the planets, and the signs of the Zodiac. One of the most esoteric Egyptian cycles is based upon certain conjunctions and relative positions of Virgo and the Pleiades. As the Egyptians brought their Zodiac from Southern India and Ceylon, the Hindu and Egyptian symbolisms are identical. The three " Virgins," or Virgo in three different positions, meant, with both nations, the record of the first three " divine or astronomical Dynasties," who taught the Third Root-Race, and after having abandoned the Atlanteans to their doom, returned (or redescended rather) during the third Sub-race of the Fifth Root- Race in order to reveal to saved humanity the mys teries of their birthplace, the sidereal heavens. The same symbolical record of the human races and the three dynasties (Gods, Manes, semi-divine astrals of the Third and Fourth, and the " Heroes " of the Fifth Race) which preceded the purely human kings was found in the Egyptian Labyrinth. As the three inversions of the poles alluded to of course changed the face of the Zodiac, a new one had to be con structed each time. The civilization of the Atlanteans, who must not be regarded as one race, or even one nation, was greater even than that of the Egyptians. It was their degenerate descendants, the nation of Plato's Atlantis, who built the first Pyramids, men " who, skilful in the ancient mysteries, by means of which they divined the coming of a flood, constructed also THE SECRET DOCTRINE 453 subterranean passages and winding retreats, lest the memory of their sacred ceremonies should be lost." (Ammianus Marcellinus.) The human dynasty of the older Egyptians, be ginning with Menes, had all the knowledge of the Atlanteans, though there was no more Atlantean blood in their veins. Nevertheless, they had pre served all their archaic records, and it is just be cause the Egyptian Zodiac is between 75,000 and 80,000 years old that the Zodiac of the Greeks is far later. Up to the present date (1903) 17,097 years only have elapsed since the Greek (or rather Hel lenic) origin of the Zodiac. §V. Sidereal and Cosmic Glyphs. Every astronomer — as well as Occultists and As trologers — knows that figuratively the Astral Light, the Milky Way and also the path of the Sun to the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, as well as the cycles of the Sidereal or Tropical year, were always called " Serpents," in the allegorical phraseology of the Adepts. But one ought to discriminate between the char acters of this symbol. For instance, Zoroastrian esotericism is identical with that of the Secret Doc trine, and when we read in the Vendidad of the " Serpent " whose bite transforms the eternal spring of Airyana into a winter laden with disease and death, all Occultists know that the Serpent al luded to is the North Pole, as also the Pole of the heavens. The latter changed the seasons according to the angle at which it penetrated the centre of the earth. When the two axes were no longer parallel, the beautiful eternal spring of Airyana had dis appeared. Meru, the abode of the gods, was placed at the North Pole, while Patala (the antipodes), the nether 454 THE SECRET DOCTRINE region, was supposed to lie at the South Pole. As every symbol in esoteric philosophy has seven keys, geographically Meru and Patala represent locali ties, while astronomically they stand for the two poles, which led to their being often represented exoterically as the " Mountain " and the " Pit," or Heaven and Hell. As Meru was the high abode of the Gods, they were said to ascend and descend periodically ; by whicb (astronomically) the Zodiacal gods were meant, the passing of the original North Pole of the Earth to the South Pole of the Heavens. When the gods are said to forsake the earth it does not only mean the divine Instructors and Protectors, but also the minor gods — the regents of the Zodiacal signs. The former, as actual and existing Entities which gave birth to, nourished and instructed man kind in its early youth, appear in every Scripture. In that of the Zoroastrians the " Lord of Wisdom " is the synthesis of the " Immortal Benefactors," or the Logos and its six highest aspects. They are described as " the shining, having efficacious eyes, great, helpful . . . imperishable and pure . . . which are all seven of like mind, like speech, like action . . . which are the creators and destroy ers of the creatures of the Lord of Wisdom, their creators and overseers, their protectors and rulers." These few lines alone indicate the dual, and even triple, character of these " Serpents of Wisdom." They are also the " Angels of the Stars " of the Christians, or of the seven planets, in every religion. The expression — " the shining, having efficacious eyes " proves it. This on the physical and sidereal planes. On the spiritual, they are the divine powers of the Logos; on the astral or psychic again, they are the " Builders," the Watchers, the Fathers and the first Teachers of mankind. When men shall have become sufficiently spiritual ized, they will know that there never yet was a .great THE SECRET DOCTRINE 455 World-reformer whose name has come down to us, who was not (1) a direct emanation of the Logos — under whatever name known to us — i.e., an essential incarnation of " the divine Spirit who is seven fold," and (2) who had not appeared before during earlier cycles. Men will recognize then the cause of much of the confusion as to the multiplication of Zoroasters, why the Rishis and Manus are so mixed up, why Krishna and Gautama Buddha speak of themselves as reincarnations, why Osiris is at once a great God, and a " prince on earth," who reappears in Thoth-Hermes, and why Jesus is recognized (among other personalities) in Joshua the Son of Nun. The esoteric doctrine explains it by saying that each of these (and many others) had first ap peared on earth as one of the seven powers of the Logos, individualized as a God or an angel (mes senger) ; then clothed in matter they had reappeared in turn as great sages, who taught the different Races, ruled during the Divine Dynasties, and finally sacrificed themselves to be reborn under various circumstances for the good of mankind and its sal vation at certain critical periods ; until in their last incarnations they had become truly only the ' ' parts of a part " on earth, though de facto the One Su preme in Nature. This is the metaphysics in Theogony. And as every " Power " among the seven (once individual ized) has in his charge one of the elements of crea tion and rules over it, hence the many and often confusing meanings in every symbol. ( The elements referred to are: the cosmic, the terrene, the min eral, the vegetable, the animal, the aqueous (as tral), and finally the human — in their physical, psy chic and spiritual aspects.) As Lares (from the Etruscan word " lars," to conduct or lead) these Powers were the protectors of men, while astronomi cally they were the seven planets. For purposes of 456 THE SECRET DOCTRINE exoteric or phallic worship, as also cosmically, they were the Kabiri, or Titans. They all belonged, how ever, to the septenary groups of Creative Powers. While in Samothrace and the oldest Egyptian tem ples they were the great Cosmic Gods, the 7 and 49 Sacred Fires (of Consciousness), in the Grecian fanes their rites became mostly phallic, therefore to the profane, obscene. In the latter case they were 3 and 4, or 7 — the male and female principles (the crux ansata) ; this division showing why some classical writers held that they were only three, others four. But the fact that astronomically the Kabiri or Titans were also the generators of the seasons, and cosmically the great volcanic energies, does not pre vent their being in their original divine character the beneficent Entities, symbolized in Prometheus, who brought light to the world and endowed human ity with reason. They are called the " Sons of the Fire " in India, and the name Kabiri is said to come from the Greek word Kaio, " to burn." Their cult was always connected with fire, and their temples were built in the most volcanic localities. To them is ascribed the invention of letters, of laws and legis lature, of architecture, magic and the medical use of plants, as well as the introduction upon earth of fire by friction and of wheat. For wheat has never been found in the wild state, it is not a product of this earth. §VL The " Curse " from a Philosophical Point of View Before offering to the student the history of the psvchic and spiritual evolution of the direct fore fathers of our Fifth (Aryan) Race humanity, we have to explain a few more facts, and more espe cially to dispose of that most pernicious of all theor THE SECRET DOCTRINE 457 logical dogmas — the Curse under which mankind is alleged to have suffered ever since the supposed dis obedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Creative powers in man were the gift of Divine wisdom, not the result of sin. The curse was not brought on mankind by the Fourth Race, for the comparatively sinless Third Race, the still more gigantic Antediluvians, had perished also ; hence the Deluge was no punishment, but simply the result of a periodical and geological law. Nor was the curse of Karma called down upon them for seeking natu ral union as all the mindless animal world does in its proper seasons, but for abusing the creative power, and desecrating the divine gift for no pur pose except bestial personal gratification. When understood, the third chapter of Genesis will be found to refer to the Adam and Eve of the latest Third and earliest Fourth Races. In the beginning the bearing of children was as easy for the woman as for all animal creation. Nature had never in tended that she should bring forth her young ones " in sorrow." Since that period, however, during the evolution of the Fourth Race, there came en mity between its seed and the " Serpent's " seed, the product of Karma and Divine wisdom. For the seed of woman or lust bruised the head of the seed of the fruit of wisdom and knowledge by turning the holy mystery of procreation into animal gratifi cation; hence the law of Karma bruised the heel of the Atlantean Race by gradually changing the whole nature of the Fourth Race of mankind, until from the healthy King of the animal creation in the Third Race, man has become in the Fifth, our own Race, a helpless, scrofulous being, a prey to constitutional and hereditary diseases, the most consciously and intelligently bestial of all animals ! This is the real Curse from the physiological standpoint, alm»st the only one touched upon in the 458 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Kabalistic esotericism. The intellectual evolution, in its progress hand-in-hand with the physical, has certainly been a blessing instead of a curse * — a gift quickened- by the " Lords of Wisdom," who have poured on the human mind the fresh dew of their own spirit and essence. Prometheus having endowed man, according to Plato's Protagoras, with that " wisdom which ministers to physical well-being," but the lower aspect of his animal nature having remained unchanged, instead of "an untainted mind, heaven's first gift " (iEschylus), there was created the eternal vulture of ever unsatisfied de sire, unto the day when Prometheus is released by his heaven-appointed deliverer, Herakles. Christian writers, especially Roman Catholics, have tried to connect this drama with a prophecy of the coming of Christ. No greater mistake could be made. The myth belongs neither to Hesiod nor to TEschylus, but in truth to the dawn of human con sciousness. The crucified Titan is the personified symbol of the collective Logos, " the Host," and of the " Lords of Wisdom " or the Heavenly Man, who incarnated in Humanity. Moreover, as his name shows (from pro metis, " forethought "), in the arts he devised and taught to mankind, psycho logical insight and foresight were not the least. For as he complains to the daughters of Oceanos : " Of prophecies the various modes I fixed, And among dreams did first discriminate The truthful vision . . . and mortals guided To a mysterious art. . . . All arts to mortals from Prometheus came." The Promethean myth is a prophecy indeed, but it does not relate to any of the cyclic Saviours who ?Huxley says : "Suffering came into the world not in consequence of a fall, but of a rise, in the scale of being." v. Science and Chris tian Tradition. — Editor, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 459 have appeared periodically in various countries and among various natures, in their transitional condi tions of evolution. It points to the last of the mys teries of cyclic transformations, during which man kind^ having passed from the ethereal to the solid physical state, from spiritual to physiological pro creation, is now carried upward on the opposite arc of the cycle, towards that second phase of its primi tive state, when the woman knew not man, and hu man progeny was created, not begotten. That state will return when the world at large shall discover and really appreciate the truths which underlie this vast problem of sex. Between Zeus, the abstract deity of Grecian thought, and the Olympic Zeus, there was an abyss. The latter represented during the mysteries no higher principle than the lower aspect of human physical intelligence, Mind wedded to Desire ; Pro metheus symbolized the divine aspect of the Mind merging into and aspiring to the Divine Soul. Zeus was the human soul and nothing more whenever shown as the jealous God, revengeful and cruel in its egotism. Hence Zeus is represented as a ser pent — the intellectual tempter of man — which, never theless, begets in the course of cyclic evolution the " Man-Saviour," the solar Bacchus or " Dionysus," more than a man. Dionysus is one with Osiris, with Krishna, with Buddha, and with the coming (tenth) Avatar, the glorified Spiritual Christos, who will deliver the suffering Christos (mankind), the old teachings say, at the end of the Dark Age. It is only after the appearance of this tenth, or ' ' White Horse ' ' Avatar, that man will be born from woman without sin. Then will Brahma, Zeus, Jehovah and all the gods of human fancy vanish and disappear in thin air. And with them will vanish their shad ows, the dark aspects of all these deities, their own reflections on earth — in esoteric philosophy. 460 THE SECRET DOCTRINE There is one eternal Law in nature, one that al ways tends to adjust contraries, and to produce final harmony. It is owing to this law of spiritual de velopment, which supersedes the physical and the purely intellectual, that mankind will be freed from its false gods, and find itself, finally, self-redeemed. In its final revelation, the old myth of Prometheus stands in every ancient theogony at the very origin of physical evil because at the threshold of human physical life. The demi-god robs the gods (the Elohim) of their secret — the mystery of the creative fire. For this sacrilegious attempt, he is struck down by Kronos (Time) and delivered over to Zeus, the father and creator of a mankind he would wish to remain intellectually blind and animal-like; a personal deity this Zeus, who will not allow man to become " like one of us." Hence Prometheus, " the fire and light giver," is chained on Mt. Caucasus, and condemned to suffer torture. But the Fates, whose decrees even Zeus cannot escape, ordain that these sufferings shall last only till that day when a son of Zeus is born, who will deliver Prometheus (the suffering Humanity) from his own fatal gift. Kronos is " Time," whose first law is that the order of the successive and harmonious phases in the proc ess of evolution during cyclic development should be strictly preserved, under the severe penalty of ab normal growth, with all its consequences. It was not in the programme of natural development that man should become at once — intellectually, psychic ally and spiritually — the demi-god he is on earth, while his physical frame remains weaker and more helpless than that of most of the larger mammalia. The contrast is too violent; the tabernacle too un worthy of its indwelling god. The gift of Prome theus thus became a curse — though foreknown and foreseen by the Host personified in him. It is in this that rests at the same time its sin and its re- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 461 demption. For the Host that incarnated in a por tion of humanity, though led to it by Karma (or Nemesis) preferred free-will to slavery, and even torture to imbecile beatitude. Knowing that such an incarnation was premature, the heavenly host (Prometheus), nevertheless, made the sacrifice to benefit at least one portion of mankind, which is obviously divided into God-informed men and lower human creatures. The intellectual difference be tween the Aryan and other civilized nations and such savages as the South -Sea Islanders is inex plicable on any other grounds. Verily mankind is " of one blood," but not of the same essence. Spiritual evolution being incapable of keeping pace with the physical, once its homogeneity was broken by the admixture, the gift thus became the chief cause, if not the sole origin of Evil. The philosophical view of Indian metaphysics places the Root of Evil in the differentiation of the Homo geneous into the Heterogeneous, of the unit into plurality. In the case of Prometheus, Zeus repre sents the Host of the primeval Progenitors, who created man without mind; while the divine Titan stands for the Spiritual Creators, the gods who ' ' fell ' ' into generation. The former are spiritually lower but physically stronger than the " Prome- theans," therefore the latter are shown conquered. The lower Host was on this earth in its own sphere and plane of action, whereas the superior Host was an exile from Heaven entangled in the meshes of matter. The inferior Host were masters of all the cosmic and lower Titanic forces; the higher pos sessed only the intellectual and spiritual fire. This drama we see enacted daily; the lower passions chain the higher aspirations to the rock of matter, to generate in many a case the vulture of sorrow, pain and repentance. Man will rebecome the free Titan of old, but not 462 THE SECRET DOCTRINE before cyclic evolution has re-established the broken harmony between the two natures, the terrestrial and the divine ; after which he becomes impermeable to the lower titanic forces, invulnerable in his per sonality, and immortal in his individuality, which cannot happen until every animal element is elimi nated from his nature. When man understands that God did not make Death, but that man created it himself, he will rebecome Prometheus before his Fall. (For many details of this myth, vide S. D., first ed., Vol. II. , pp. 411-22 and 519-28.) Additional Fragments from a Commentary on the Verses of Stanza XII The special MS. from which these fragments are translated is said to have been copied from stone tablets belonging to a Buddha of the very earliest Fifth Race, who had witnessed the Deluge and the submersion of the chief continents of the Atlanteans. The day is not far distant when much, if not all, of that which is here given from the archaic records, will be found correct. Events which were never written outside the human memory may have been preserved by constant transmission from brain to brain through countless aeons, with more accuracy than in any written records. Our lives are count less, but the soul or spirit that animates us through out these myriads of existences is the same; and though " the book and volume " of the physical brain may forget events within the scope of one ter restrial life, the bulk of collective recollections can never desert the divine Soul within us. Its whispers may be too soft, the sound of its words too far off the plane perceived by our physical senses ; yet the shadow of events that were, just as much as the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 463 shadows of events that are to come, is within its perceptive powers, and is ever present before its mind's eye. It is from the Fourth or Atlantean Race that the early Aryans got their knowledge of aeronautics, and, therefore, their great arts of meteorography and meteorology. It is from them again that the Aryans inherited their most valuable science of the hidden virtues of precious and other stones, of chem istry, or rather alchemy, of mineralogy, geology, physics and astronomy. Says a teacher (in Esoteric Buddhism, p. 64) : " In the Eocene Age, even in its very first part, the great cycle of theFourthRace men, like the Lemuro-Atlanteans, had already reached its highest point (of civilization) and the great con tinent . . . showed the first symptoms of sink ing." And on p. 70 it is shown that Atlantis, as a whole, perished during the Miocene period, while the Fourth Sub-Race (of the Fifth Root-Race) wit nessed the destruction of the last remnant of its last island some 11,000 years ago. (For further de tails, vide Secret Doctrine; Esoteric Buddhism, loc. cit.; and S. D. II., 434 et seq. — Ed.) BOOK II. PART IV The Archaic Symbolism of the World-Religions " The narratives of the Doctrine are its cloak. The simple look only at the garment — that is, upon the narrative of the Doctrine ; more they know not. The instructed, however, see not merely the cloak, but what the cloak covers." (The Zohar, III., 152, Franck, 119.) §VII. Adam-Adami One feels a serious doubt whether our age, with all its intellectual acuteness, is destined to discover in each Western nation even one uninitiated scholar or philosopher capable of fully comprehending the spirit of archaic philosophy. Nor can one be ex pected to do so before the real meaning of the terms Sat and Asat, so freely used in the Rig Veda and elsewhere, is thoroughly assimilated. Asat is not merely the negation of Sat, nor is it " the not-yet ex isting "; for Sat is in itself neither " the existent," nor " being." Sat is the immutable, the ever pres ent, changeless and eternal Root, from and through which all proceeds. But it is far more than the potential force in the seed which propels onward the process of development, or what is now called evolution. It is the ever becoming, though the never manifesting. Sat is born from Asat, and Asat is begotten by Sat; perpetual motion in a circle truly; yet a circle that can be sonared only at the supreme Initiation, at the threshold of Absolute Conscious ness. (Paranirvana.) 466 THE SECRET DOCTRINE The whole of the present work is an endeavor to prove that the ancient Scriptures, Indian and others, were compiled by Initiates. The mysteries of Life and Death were fathomed by the great master-minds of antiquity, and if they have preserved them in silence and secrecy it is because these problems formed part of the sacred Mysteries, and also be cause they must have been as incomprehensible to the vast majority of mankind then as they are now. A curious work was translated about 1860 by the Orientalist Chwolsohn, under the innocent titje of Nabathean Agriculture. In the opinion of the trans lator that archaic volume is " a complete initiation into the mysteries of the pre-Adamite nations, on the authority of undeniably authentic documents." It is " an invaluable compendium, the full epitome of the doctrines, and of the arts and sciences, not only of the Chaldeans, but also of the Assyrians f.-^d Canaanites of the prehistoric ages." The Naba- theans, some critics thought, were identical with the Sabeans, or Chaldean star-worshippers. The work is a retranslation from the Arabic, into which it was first translated from the Chaldean.* Chwol sohn maintains that this Chaldean original was writ ten out from the oral teachings of a wealthy Baby lonian land-owner, named Qu-tamy, who had used in these teachings still more ancient materials. The first Arabic translation is assigned by Chwolsohn to the 13th century b; c. On the first page the author or amanuensis Qu-tamy declares that the doctrines propounded therein were originally told by Saturn to the Moon, who communicated them to her idol, which idol revealed them to her devotee, the writer — the adept Scribe of the work — Qu-tamy. The details given therein for the benefit and in struction of mortals show periods of incalculable *The Encyclopaedia Britanniea calls the MS. "a forgery of tlje 10th century," but does not mention Chwolsohn. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 467 duration and a series of numberless kingdoms and Dynasties that preceded the appearance on earth of Adami (the " red-earth "). The mode of divina tion by " the idol of the moon " is the same that was practised by David, Saul and the High Priests of the Jewish Tabernacle, by means of the Teraphim. (v. S. D., III., p. 234.) This curious " Bible " of tbe Chaldean adept is noticed because it has an im portant bearing upon a great portion of the present work. The Nabathean Agriculture is a compila tion, but it is no apocrypha. It is a repetition of the tenets of the Secret Doctrine under the exo teric Chaldean form of national symbols, for the purpose of "cloaking" those tenets, just as the bboks of Hermes and the Puranas are Egyptian and Hindu attempts at the same. The work was as well known in antiquity as in the Middle Ages. Maimon- ides speaks of it more than once, calling the Naba- theans by their co-religionary name " star-wor shippers," or Sabeans, but failing to see in the dis figured word " Nabatheans," the mystic name of the caste devoted to Nebo (God of secret wisdom), which shows on its face that the Nabatheans were an oc cult Brotherhood. Nebo is the deity of the planet Mercury, and Mercury is Hermes, or the god of Wisdom, and Budha, whom the Greeks called Nabo, hence Nabatheans. The Nabatheans of Mt. Lebanon believed in the Seven Archangels as their forefath ers had believed in the Seven Great Stars, the abodes and bodies of these Archangels.. As Mercury the planet, Nebo was the " overseer " among the seven gods of the planets; and as the personification of the Secret Wisdom, he was Nabin, a seer and a prophet. The fact that Moses is made to die and disappear on the mount sacred to Nebo, shows him to have been an Initiate and a priest of that god under another name ; for this God of Wisdom was the great creative deity, and was worshipped as 468 THE SECRET DOCTRINE such by the Moabites, the Canaanites, the Assyrians, and throughout the whole of Palestine; then why not by the Israelites ? Nebo is a creator, like Budha, of the Fourth and Fifth Races. For the former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter, the Solar-Lunar Dynasty, or the men of these Races and this Round. Both are the Adams of their respective creatures. Adam- Adami is a personation of the dual Adam; of the paradigmic Adam-Kadmon, the creator, and of the lower Adam, the terrestrial, who, as the Syrian Kabalists have it, had only " the breath of life," but no living soul till after his Fall. For the Kabal ists teach the existence of four distinct Adams, or the transformation of four consecutive Adams, the emanations from the " divine phantom " of the Heavenly Man, an ethereal combination of the high est Soul and Spirit; this Adam having, of course, neither a gross human body nor a body of desire. This is the prototype of the second Adam. That they represent our Five Races is certain, as every one can see from their description in the Kabala: the first being " the perfect, Holy Adam . . . a shadow that disappeared," (the Kings of Edom), produced from the divine Image. (This Adam, " a shadow that disappeared," does not count in Mr. Isaac Myer's Qabbalah. v. p. 418 et seq.) The second is called the protoplasmic androgyne Adam of the future terrestrial and separated Adam. The third Adam is the man made of " dust " (the first, innocent Adam) ; and the fourth Adam was clothed with skin, flesh, nerves, etc. This answers to the breath of life and the physical body. He had the animal power of reproduction and continuance of species, and this is the human or Fourth Root-Race, the forefather of our own, the Fifth. Here the modern Kabalists, led into error by the long generations of Christian mystics, diverge from THE SECRET DOCTRINE 469 the Occultists, and take the later thought for the earlier idea. The original Kabala was entirely meta physical, and had no concern with the sexes; the later Kabala has suffocated the divine ideal under the phallic element. From the highest Heavenly Man, who is male-female or androgyne, down to the Adam of dust, these personified symbols are all con nected with sex and procreation. With the Eastern Occultists it is entirely the reverse. Their dual sym bols were to them but the poetical imagery of the sublime correlation of creative cosmic forces. " Adam-Adami " is a generic compound name as old as language itself. The Secret Doctrine teaches that Ad-i was the name given by the Aryans to the first speaking race of mankind in this Fourth Round. Hence the Adonim and Adonai (the ancient plural form of the word Adon) which the Jews ap plied to their Jehovah and his angels (who were simply the first spiritual and ethereal sons of the earth), and also the god Adonis, who in his many variations stood for ' ' the first Lord. ' ' Adam is the Sanskrit Ada-Ndth, also meaning first Lord, like Ad-Iswara, Ad always meaning " the first." Such truths were a common inheritance, a revelation re ceived by the first mankind before the time which, in Biblical phraseology, is called " the period of one lip and word " (or speech). Knowledge ex panded by man's own intuition later on, and still later, was hidden from profanation under an ade quate symbology. §VIII. " The Holy of Holies " Its Degradation The Sanctum Sanctorum of the Ancients, that recess on the western side of the Temple which was 470 THE SECRET DOCTRINE inclosed on three sides by blank walls, and had its only aperture or door hung over with a curtain — also called the Adytum — was common to all ancient nations. Nevertheless, although its symbology was origin ally identical with all races, a great difference is found in the secret meanings of this place, between the esotericism of the Pagans and that of the later Jews. The Gentiles, by placing in the Adytum a sarcophagus, or a tomb, and the solar god to whom the temple was consecrated, showed for it, as Pan theists, the greatest veneration. They regarded it, in its esoteric meaning, as the symbol of resurrec tion, cosmic, solar and human. It embraced the wide range of the periodical reawakenings of Kos mos, Earth and Man, to new cycles of existence, the sun being their symbol in the heavens and man in his reincarnations upon Earth. The Jews, in the course of their estrangement fromjne gods of their pagan neighbors, consummated a national and levit- ical polity by the device of setting forth their Holy of Holies as the most solemn sign of their mono theism— exoterically, while seeing in it but a uni versal phallic symbol— esoterically. The dance performed by David around the Ark was the " circle-dance," like that of the daughters of Shiloh, and the leaping of the prophets of Baal. It was simply a characteristic of the Sabean wor ship, and denoted the motion of the planets around the sun. That the dance was a Bacchic frenzy is very apparent. The Ark is the ship-formed Argha. Parkhurst, in his Greek dictionary, says that " Arche is the em blem of the female generative power, the Ark or Area in which the germ of all nature was supposed to brood during the interval taking place after every mundane cycle." The Jewish " Ark of the Cove nant " had precisely the same significance; only THE SECRET DOCTRINE 471 instead of a sarcophagus, the symbol of the matrix and resurrection of Nature, they had , two cherubs set upon the ark, facing each other with their wings spread in such a manner as to form a perfect yoni (as now seen in India), (v. Isis Unveiled, II. 49.) " The Ark, in which are preserved the germs of all living things necessary to repeople the earth, represents the survival of life, and the supremacy of spirit over matter. The Ark is the sacred Argha of the Hindus, and thus its relation to Noah's Ark may be easily inferred when we learn that the Argha was an oblong vessel used by the high-priests as a sacrificial chalice in the worship of Isis, Astarte and Venus-Aphrodite, all of whom were goddesses rep resenting the generative powers of nature." (Isis, II. , 444.) The " King's Chamber " in the pyramid of Cheops is then an Egyptian ' ' Holy of Holies. ' ' In the Mysteries of Initiation the candidate, represent ing the solar god, had to descend into the sarcopha gus as the energizing ray, entering into the fertile womb of Nature. Emerging therefrom the next morning, he typified the resurrection to Life after the change called Death. In the great Mysteries his figurative death lasted two days, when he arose with the sun on the third morning after a last night of the most cruel trials. The sarcophagus was the symbol of the female principle in Egypt; its form changed with every country, provided that it re tained the general shape of a boat-like vessel, con taining symbolically the germ or germs of life. In India it is the " golden cow " through which the candidate for Brahminism must pass, if he desire to be Dwija, or " twice-born." The crescent-shaped Argha of the Greeks was the symbol of the Queen of Heaven, Diana or the Moon, the great Mother of all existences as the Sun was the Father. The Jews worshipped Astoreth, who was in one sense an im- 472 THE SECRET DOCTRINE personal symbol of Nature, the ship of Life, carrying throughout the boundless sidereal ocean the germs of all being, and now in the Roman church she is Mary the Virgin, represented as standing on the crescent moon. The navis or ship-like form of the crescent, which blends in itself all the common sym bols of the ship of life, is the female symbol of the universal " Mother of the gods," and is found in every church as the nave (from navis, the ship). The word arcane, "hidden " or " secret," is derived from area. All the Sun-gods were called Archagetos, " born from the Area," the divine Virgin-Mother of the Heavens. Adam, as the supposed great " Progenitor of the human race," is, as Adam Kadmon, made in the image of God. The Hebrew words used in Genesis v. 27, " male and female created he them," are, when literally translated, the names of the male and fe male organs of sex, sacr and n'caboah. The sacr has passed down through the ages in the sacr-fac- tum of the Roman priest, and the sacr-t\ee and sacr ament of the English-speaking races. Hence mar riage is a sacrament in the Greek and Roman churches. The " Holy of Holies " is thus shown as a uni versal symbol. The whole difference lies in the spirit of interpretation. With the Hindus as with the ancient Egyptians, that spirit was and is entirely metaphysical and psychological; with the Hebrews it was realistic and physiological. There is no doubt, however, that with the fully educated Judean Ta- naim the inner sense of the symbolism was as holy in its abstraction as with the ancient Aryan Dwijas. The worship of ' '¦ the god in the ark ' ' dates only from David ; and for a thousand years Israel knew of no phallic Jehovah. And now the old Kabala, edited and re-edited, has become tainted with it. With the ancient Aryans the hidden meaning was THE SECRET DOCTRINE 473 grandiose, sublime and poetical, however much the eternal appearance of their symbol may now mili tate against the claim. The ceremony of passing through the Holy of Holies (now symbolized by the cow, formerly by tbe radiant Egg), in itself a symbol of Universal Abstract Nature, meant spiritual con ception and birth, or rather the rebirth of the indi vidual, and his regeneration; the stooping man at the low and narrow entrance of the Sanctum Sanc torum ready to pass through the matrix of mother Nature ; or the physical creature ready to re-become the original spiritual Being, pre-Natal Man. With the Semite that stooping man meant the fall of Spirit into matter. For the Aryan the symbol repre sented the divorce of Spirit from matter, its merging into and return to its primal Source ; for the Semite, the wedlock of spiritual man with material, female nature,. the physiological being taking pre-eminence over the psychological, and the purely immaterial. The Aryan views were those of the whole Pagan world, the Semite were pre-eminently those of a small tribe. The reason for the difference is easily accounted for. The Aryan Hindu belongs to the oldest race now on earth ; the Semite Hebrew to the latest. The one is nearly a million years old; the other is a small sub-race some 8,000 years old and no more. Strictly speaking, the Jews are an arti ficial Aryan race, born in India and belonging to the Caucasian division. No one who is familiar with the Armenians and Parsis can fail to recognize in all three the same Aryan Caucasian type. Of the seven primitive types of the Fifth Race there now remain on earth but three, the Caucasian, the Mon golian, the Ethiopian. (For further details, v. S. D., II. , 459 et seq.) 474 THE SECRET DOCTRINE IX On the Myth of the " Fallen Angel." It is quite natural that the materialist and the physicist should imagine that everything is due to blind force and chance, and to the survival of the strongest more often than the fittest. But Occul tists, who regard physical nature as a bundle of the most varied illusions on the plane of deceptive per ceptions, who recognize in all pain and suffering but a necessary series of stages towards perfection, visible in the silent influence of never-erring Karma, or abstract Nature — the Occultists, we say, view the great Mother otherwise. As the whole philosophy of the problem of evil hangs upon the correct comprehension of the con stitution of the inner being of nature and man, of the divine within the animal, we cannot take too careful precautions against theological errors, and more especially the idea embodied in the Christian Devil. The primitive origin of this personification will be found in the Akkadian conception of the cosmic powers — the Heavens and the Earth — as in eternal feud and struggle with Chaos. Their ' ' God amongst all the gods " was the Son of Hea (or Ea), the great God of Wisdom, called by the Babylonians Nebu (or Nebo). With both peoples — as well as the Hin dus — their deities were both beneficent and malefi cent. As evil and punishment are the agents of Karma, in an absolutely just retributive sense, so evil was the servant of the good. (Hibbert Lect. 1887, pp. 101-115.) The Chaldeo- Assyrian tiles have demonstrated this beyond the shadow of a doubt. We find the same idea in the Zohar. Satan was a Son, and an Angel of God. With all the Semitic THE SECRET DOCTRINE 475 nations the Spirit of the Earth was as much the creator in his own realm as the Spirit of the Heav ens. They were twin brothers, and interchangeable in their functions, when not two in one. Whence comes the Christian idea that God cursed the Devil? The God of the Jews, whomsoever he was, forbade the cursing of Satan. Philo Judaeus and Josephus both state that the Law (the Penta teuch and the Talmud) invariably forbid one to curse the Adversary, as also the Gods of the Gen tiles. " Thou shalt not revile the gods," said the God of Moses (Exodus xxii. 28), for it is God who " hath divided them into all nations " (Deut. iv. 19), and those who speak evil of Dignities (gods) are called " filthy dreamers " by Jude (v. 8). Even Michael the Archangel durst not rail against the devil, but said " the Lord rebuke thee " (Ibid. 9). All that we read in the Zohar and other Kabalistic works shows plainly that " Satan " is simply the personification of the abstract evil, which is the weapon of Karmic law and Karma. It is part of our human nature, as it is said that " Satan is always near and inextricably interwoven with man." It is only a question of that Power being latent or ac tive in us. It is a well-known fact, to those learned in sym bology at all events, that in every great religion of antiquity it is the Logos-Demiurge, or the first ema nation from the Universal Mind, who strikes the key note, so to speak, of what may be called the correla tion of individuality and personality in the subse quent scheme of evolution. It is the Logos who is shown iu the mystic symbolism of cosmogony, theog- ony and anthropogony as playing two parts in the drama of Creation and Being, that of the purely hu man personality and the divine impersonality of the so-called Avatars or _ divine incarnations, and that of the Universal Spirit, called Christos by the Gnos- 476 THE SECRET DOCTRINE tics, and the Ferouer or Favarshi of Ahura Mazda in the Mazdean philosophy. Now what is a Ferouer or Favarshi? In some Mazdean works it is plainly implied that the Favar shi is the inner, immortal man (or the reincarna ting Ego) ; that it existed before its physical body, and survives all bodies that it may be clothed in. " Not only was man endowed with the Favarshi, but gods, too, and the sky, fire, waters and plants." (Introd. to the Vendidad by James Darmstetter.) This plainly shows that the ferouer (or favarshi) is the ' ' spiritual counterpart ' ' of god, animal, plant or even element, that is, the refined and the purer part of the grosser creation, the soul of the body, whatever the body may happen to be. Therefore does Ahura Mazda (in the Vendidad) recommend Zarathustra to invoke his Favarshi and not himself (Ahura Mazda) ; that is to say, the impersonal and true Essence of Deity, one with Zarathustra' s own Atman (or Christos), not the false and personal appearance. The first lesson taught in Esoteric philosophy is that the incognizable Cause does not put forth evo lution whether consciously or unconsciously, but only exhibits periodically different aspects of itself to the perception of finite Minds. Now, the col lective Mind — the Universal — composed of various and numberless Hosts of Creative Powers, however infinite they may seem in manifested Time, is still finite when contrasted with the unborn and unde- caying Space in its supreme essential aspect. That which is finite cannot be perfect. Therefore, there are inferior Beings among those Hosts, but there never were any devils or " disobedient Angels," for the simple reason that they are all governed by Law. The seven-headed Dragon of Revelations is sim ply the symbol of the life-cycle, and of the " Sons THE SECRET DOCTRINE 477 of Cyclic Eternity " who had descended on Earth during a certain epoch of its formative period. The " clouds of smoke " (Rev. ix. 2) are a geological phenomenon. The " third part of the stars of heaven " cast down to earth (Ibid. xii. 4) refers to the divine Monads (the Spirits of the Stars in As trology) that circumambulate our globe ; that is, the human Egos destined to go through the whole cycle of incarnations. The " Asuras," or so-called demons who incar nated, followed, in so doing, a law as implacable as any other. The name of Asura (not-god) was first given by the Brahmans indiscriminately to those who opposed their mummeries and sacrifices, and it is to those ages, probably, that the origin of the idea of the demon as opposer and adversary has to be traced. The Hebrew Elohim, called " God " in the translations of the Bible, and who create ' ' light, ' ' are identical with the Aryan Asuras. They are also referred to as the " Sons of Darkness," a philosophical and logical contrast to light immutable and eternal. Tbe earliest Zoroastrians did not be lieve in Evil or Darkness, as coeternal with Good or Light, and they give the same interpretation. Ahriman (the evil Spirit) is the manifested shadow of Ahura (Asura) Mazda, himself issued from the Unknown Cause. Its prima! emanation is eternal Light, previously concealed in Darkness, but when called to manifest itself producing Ormazd the " King of Life." He is the " first-born " in Boundless Time, but like his own antetype (the pre existing Spiritual Idea) has lived within Darkness from all eternity. The six Amshaspends (with him self as chief of all, seven), the primitive Spiritual Angels and Men, are collectively his Logos. The Zoroastrian Amshaspends create the world in six days or periods, and rest on the seventh; whereas that seventh is the first period, or " day," in eso- 478 THE SECRET DOCTRINE teric philosophy (Primary creation in the Aryan cosmogony). It is that intermediate .ZEon which is the Prologue to creation, and which stands on the borderland between the uncreated eternal Caus ation and the produced finite effects; a state of nascent activity and energy as the first aspect of the eternal, immutable Quiescence. In Genesis " Creation " begins with the third stage of mani festation, " God " or the Elohim, being equivalent to ah the other Creators, including the " Seven Regents " of Pymander. But even in Genesis that intermediate period is hinted at in the " darkness " that was upon the face of the deep. The Elohim are shown as build ing or producing the double heaven (not Heaven and Earth) which means that they separated the manifested angelic or upper heaven, or plane of consciousness, from the lower or terrestrial plane. Such is the meaning of the sentence in Pymander which says that " Thought the divine, which is Light and Life, produced through its Word, or first aspect, the other, operating Thought; which, being the god of Spirit and Fire, constructed seven Re gents, enclosing within their circle the world of senses, named ' fatal destiny.' " The latter refers to Karma; the " seven circles " are the seven plan ets and planes, as also the seven invisible Spirits in the angelic spheres, whose visible symbols are the seven planets, the seven Spirits of the Great Bear, and other glyphs. The " First-born " Sons of Light were so near to the confines of pure quies cent Spirit as to be merely the " privations " (in the Aristotelian sense) the ferouers of ideal types qf those that followed. They could not create ma terial, corporeal things; and, therefore, in process of time, were said to have refused to create, as com manded by God — in other words, to have rebelled. No mention is made in Genesis of these " Sons of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 479 God " having been punished for it. The only refer ence to it in the Bible is in Jude (v. 6) : " And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." This means simply that the " Angels " doomed to incarnation are in the chains of flesh and matter under the darkness of ignorance, till the " Great Day," which will come, as always after the Seventh Round, on the seventh Sabbath, or the period of rest after the completion of the Cycle of Life. Metaphysically, the Father and the Son are the " Universal Mind," and the " periodical Uni verse "; the " angel," and the " Man "; according to Pymander, the active Idea and the passive Thought that generates the Universe; the radical keynote in Nature which gives birth to the seven notes — the septenary scale of the creative Forces, and the seven prismatic aspects of color, all born from the one white ray, or Light — itself generated in Daekness. The " War in Heaven " refers to several events on various and different planes of being. The Se cret Doctrine teaches that every event of universal importance (such as geological cataclysms at the end of one race and the beginning of another, in volving a great change each time in mankind, spir itual, moral and physical) is pre-cogitated and pre concerted, so to speak, in the sidereal regions of our planetary system. Astrology is built wholly upon this mystic and intimate connection between the heavenly bodies and mankind, and it is one of the great secrets of Initiation and occult Mysteries. The war of the Titans is but a legendary and deified copy of the real war that took place in the Hima layan Kailasa (heaven) instead of in the depths of cosmic interplanetary Space. It is the record of the terrible strife between the " Sons of God " and 480 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the " Sons of the Shadow " of the Fourth and Fifth Races. In the same manner and on the plan of the Zodiac in the heavens, a certain inland sea on Earth was consecrated and called the " Abyss of Learning "; twelve small islands in it representing the zodiacal signs (two of which remained for ages the " mys tery signs "), and were the abode of twelve Hiero phants and Masters of Wisdom. This " sea of knowledge," now the Gobi desert, existed until the last glacial period, when a local cataclysm which swept the waters south and west left only a certain oasis, with a lake and one island in the midst of it, as a relic of the Zodiacal Ring on earth. The strug gle of Bel and then of Merodach the Sun-god, with Tiamat the Sea, and its Dragon, a " war " which ended in the defeat of the latter, has a purely cosmic and geological meaning, as well as an historical one. It relates (a) to the gradual drying up of immense territories by the sun at a certain prehistoric period ; and (b) to the equally systematic persecution of the Prophets of the Right Path by those of the Left, who inaugurated the formation and evolution of the sacerdotal castes and the various exoteric religions. The rapid progress of anthropomorphism and idol atry led the early Fifth, as it had already led the Fourth Race, into sorcery once more, though on a smaller scale. Finally, even the four Adams (sym bolizing the first four races) were forgotten, or were overloaded with additional myths. Yet they exist to this day in the oldest Jewish traditions, as the " Shadow- Adam " (the " Shadowy First Race " of our doctrine); the "model" Adam, the copy of the first, and the ' ' male and female ' ' of the exoteric Genesis (chap, i.) ; the third, the " earthly Adam " before the Fall, an androgyne; and the fourth, the Adam after the Fall — i.e., the separation of the sexes, or the pure Atlantean. The Adam of the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 481 Garden of Eden, or the forefather of our race (the Fifth) is an ingenious compound of the above four. Like the " War in Heaven " itself, the Dragon is a mystery. To understand its meaning, says the Rabbi Simeon Ben-Jochai, " is not given to the Companions (students), but only to the little ones," i.e., the perfect Initiates. So most of what relates to the " little ones " in the Gospels refers to the Initiates, of whom Jesus was one. The mystery of the Serpent (or Dragon) was this: our Earth, or rather terrestrial life, is often referred to in the Secret Teachings as " the great Sea." It refers to the trials of the Initiates in this physical life, the " sea of sorrow," if read with one key; it hints at the successive destruction of the seven spheres of a chain of worlds in the great sea of space, when read with another key; for every world, star or group of stars is called in symbolism "the Dragon's head." But however we may read, the Dragon was never regarded as Evil (nor the Serpent either) in antiquity. Whatever key was used, whether astro nomical, cosmical, theogonical or simply physical, that is, phallic, the Serpent was always a divine symbol. The ' ' Old Dragon ' ' and Satan now become singly and collectively the symbol of, and the theological term for, the ' ' Fallen Angel, ' ' was originally a type of self-sacrifice for the intellectual independence of humanity. Every bright Sun-god of antiquity — a glorious deity by day, and its own opponent and adversary by night, has now been turned into the antithetical shadow of God, and has become Satan on the sole and unsupported authority of human dogma. History shows in every race and even tribe, especially in the Semitic nations, the natural impulse to exalt its own tribal deity above all others to the leadership of the gods, and proves that the God of the Israelites was such a tribal God, and nothing 482 THE SECRET DOCTRINE more. Every god of the Gentiles is connected with, and closely related to, Jehovah — the Elohim — for they are all one Host whose units differ only in name in the esoteric teachings. Between the ' ' Obedi ent " and the " Fallen " Angels there is only the difference of their respective functions, or rather in the greater or less activity of some of the Spirits, or Elohim who were commissioned to create; thai is, to fabricate the manifested world out of the eter nal material. The Kabalists say that God is light, and Satan its necessary darkness or shadow, without which pure light would be invisible and incomprehensible. Mr. Laing, in his Modern Science and Modern Thought (p. 222, 3d Ed.), says — speaking of the existence of evil — " From this dilemma there is no escape unless we give up altogether the idea of an anthropomorphic deity, and adopt frankly the scien tific idea of a First Cause, inscrutable and past find ing out ; and of a universe whose laws we can trace, but of whose real essence we know nothing, and can only suspect, or faintly discern, a fundamental law which may make the polarity of good and evil a necessary condition of existence." Were science to know " the real essence," the " faint suspicion " would turn into the certitude of the existence of such a law, and of its connection with Karma. " For the Initiates," say Eliphas Levi, " the devil is not a person but a Creative Force for Good as for Evil." The Initiates represented this Force, which presides at physical generation, under the mysteri ous form of the God Pan — or Nature; whence the horns and hoofs of that symbolic figure, as also the goat of the " Witches' Sabbath." With regard to this, too, Christians do not remember that the goat was also the victim selected for the atonement of all the sins of Israel ; that the scape-goat was indeed the sacrificial martyr, the symbol of the greatest THE SECRET DOCTRINE 483 mystery on earth, the Fall into generation. But the Jews have long forgotten the real meaning of the symbol, and the Christians never knew it. The true and uncompromising Kabalists admit that for all purposes of science and philosophy it is enough that the profane should know that what the Church calls Lucifer is the great magic agent called by the Martinists the astral light, by the mediaeval Kabalists and Alchemists the Sidereal Virgin and the Mysterium Magnum, and by the Eastern Occult- tists JEther, the reflection of Akasa. Akasa — the astral light (not the Ether of science) — can be defined in a few words ; it is the Universal Soul, the matrix of the universe, the " Mysterium Magnum " from which all that exists is born, by separation or differentiation. It is the cause of ex istence, it fills all the infinite Space ; is Space itself, in one sense, or both its sixth and seventh principles. But as the finite in the Infinite, as regards manifes tation, this light must have its shadowy side, as al ready said. And as the Infinite can never be man ifested, hence the finite world has to be satisfied with the shadow alone, which its actions draw upon hu manity, and which men attract and force to activity. Hence, while it is the universal Cause in its unmani fested unity and infinity, the Astral light becomes, with regard to mankind, simply the effects of the causes produced by men in their more or less sinful lives. It is not its bright denizens — whether they be called Spirits of Light or of Darkness — that produce good or evil, but mankind itself that determines the unavoidable action and reaction in the great magic agent. Men can overpower and master its effects; but only by the holiness of their lives, and by pro ducing good causes. It has power only over the man ifested lower principles — the shadow of the Un known and Incognizable Deity in Space. Thus may the Astral Light be God and Devil at 484 THE SECRET DOCTRINE once — Demon est Deus inversus — that is to say, through every point of Infinite Space thrill the mag netic and electric currents of animate Nature, the life-giving and the death-giving waves, for death on earth becomes life on another plane. Lucifer is di vine and terrestrial light, the " Holy Ghost " and " Satan " at one and the same time, visible Space being truly filled with the differentiated Breath in visibly ; and the Astral Light, the manifested effects of the two who are one, guided and attracted by ourselves, is the Karma of humanity, both a per sonal and impersonal entity; personal, as the mystic name given to the Host of Divine Creators, guides and rulers of this planet; impersonal, as the cause and effect of universal Life and Death. The " Fall " was the result of man's knowledge, for ' ' his eyes were opened. ' ' Indeed, he was taught Wisdom and the hidden knowledge by the " Fallen Angel, ' ' for the latter had become from that day his Mind and Self-Consciousness. In each of us that golden thread of continuous life is, from the begin ning of our appearance on this earth, periodically broken into active and passive cycles of sensuous existence on earth, and super-sensuous in heaven (Devachan). It is the Sutratma, the luminous thread of immortal impersonal Monadship, on which our earthly lives or evanescent Egos are strung as so many beads. And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, and Lucifer or the Light-bearer, is within us ; he is our Mind — our tempter and our Re deemer, our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure animalism. Without this principle — the emana tion of the very essence of the Universal Divine Mind — we should be no better than animals. The first man, Adam, was made only a living soul, says St. Paul (I Cor. 43-5), the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit. The original text, rendered Kab- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 485 alistically and esoterically, would read : " It is sown a soul-body " (not " natural body "), it is raised a spirit body." St. Paul was an Initiate, and his words have quite a different meaning when read esoterically. The body " is sown in weakness (pas sivity) ; it is raised in power " — spirituality and in tellect. Without this quickening spirit or mind, man would be as irresponsible as the animals — and as in nocent of sin. The identity of thought and meaning is the first thing that strikes the student in all the great re ligions, and in them all there is not one which does not mention the tradition of the fallen Spirits. What is, then, the absolute and complete truth, as well as the esoteric meaning, of this universal myth? The whole essence of truth cannot be described by any pen, not even that of the recording Angel, unless man find its response in the sanctuary of his own heart, in the innermost depths of his divine intui tion. Therefore, we can give it only from its philo sophical and intellectual planes, unlocked with three keys, for the last four keys of the seven that throw wide open the portals to the mysteries of nature are in the hands of the highest Initiates, and cannot be divulged to the masses at large — not in this our century, at any rate. §X Enoichion — Henoch The history of the evolution of the Satanic myth would not be complete if we omitted to notice the mysterious and ubiquitous Enoch, also called Enos, Hanoeh, and finally Enoichion by the Greeks. It is from the Book of Enoch that the first notions of the Fallen Angels were taken by the early Chris tian writers, 486 THE SECRET DOCTRINE The Book of Enoch is declared apocryphal. But the term, coming from the verb Krypto, " to hide," merely shows that it is a secret book, belonging to the temple libraries under the guardianship of the Hierophants, and not meant for the profane. Some of the writers on the subject — especially Masons — have tried to identify Enoch with the Egyptian Thoth, the Greek Hermes, and even the Latin Mer cury. As individuals these are distinct, but gener- ically they belong one and all to the same category of sacred writers, Initiators and Recorders of oc cult and ancient Wisdom. Among the Egyptians " the Initiated " bore the name of Thoth, the in ventor of the arts and sciences, of writing or letters, of music and astronomy. Among the Jews he be came Enoch, who, according to Bar-Hebraeus, " was the first inventor of writing," of books, of arts and sciences, and the first who reduced to a system the progress of the planets. In Greece he was called Orpheus, thus changing his name with every nation. Khanoch, or Hanoeh, or Enoch means the ' ' Initia tor " and " Teacher " as well as the " Son of Man," Enos (vide Genesis iv. 26) esoterically. The num ber 7 being connected with each of these primitive Initiators, as well as the number of the days in the year, 365, it identifies their mission, character and sacred office, but certainly not their personalities. Enoch is the seventh Patriarch; Orpheus is the pos sessor of the phorminx, the severe-stringed lyre, which is the seven-fold mystery of initiation. Thoth, with the seven-rayed solar discus on his head, travels in the solar boat the 365 degrees, jumping out every fourth (leap) year for one day. Finally, Thoth- Lunus is the septenary god of the week. Esoteri cally and spiritually Enoichion means ' ' the Seer of the Open Eye." The story about Enoch told by Josephus, that he had concealed under the pillars of Seth his precious THE SECRET DOCTRINE 487 rolls or books, is the same as that told of Hermes. Yet Josephus writes history. He shows those pil lars as still existing in his own time. He tells us that they were built by Seth, and so they may have been, but not by the fabled son of Adam or the Egyptian god Thoth or Set, but by the " Sons of the Dragon," the name by which the Hierophants of Egypt and Babylon were known before the Del uge, as were their forefathers, the Atlanteans. According to Josephus, the two famous pillars were entirely covered with hieroglyphics, which, copied and reproduced in the secret temples of Egypt, became the source of the exceptional wis dom and learning of that country. These pillars, moreover, are the prototypes of the " tables of stone " hewn by Moses at the command of the Lord. But when Josephus asserts that all the great adepts and mystics of antiquity got the elements of their theology from these hieroglyphics, he is right in one sense and wrong in another. The Secret Doctrine teaches us that the arts and sciences, the theology, and especially the philosophy, of every nation which preceded the last universally known but not univer sal Deluge, had been recorded ideographically from the primitive oral teachings of the Fourth Race,. and that these were its inheritance from the early Third Race before the allegorical Fall. Hence also the Egyptian pillars, the Mosaic tablets, and even the " white stone " of the Masons — (which Enoch, fearing that the precious secrets would be lost, con cealed before the Deluge in the bowels of the Earth) — were simply the more or less symbolical and al legorical copies from the primitive Records. The Book of Enoch is one of such copies, and is a Chal dean and now very incomplete compendium. The legend of Enoch, whose name meant, as already said, in. Greek " the inner eye " or the " Seer," and in Hebrew " the Initiator," is the same as that of sev- 488 THE SECRET DOCTRINE eral other prophets, with changes of details only. Enoch as well as Elijah is taken up to heaven alive. This kind of easy death, or euthanasia, has an eso teric meaning. It symbolizes the death of any adept who has reached the power and degree, as also the purification, which enable him to die only in the physical body, and still live consciously in his astral body. The Pauline expression (Heb. xi. 5) " that he (Enoch) should not see death " has thus an eso teric meaning, but nothing supernatural in it. The Biblical hints to the effect that Enoch will share with Christ and the prophet Elijah the honors and bliss of the last Advent, signify, esoterically, that some of the great adepts will return in the Seventh Race, when all error will be made away with. When Jo sephus, speaking of Elijah and Enoch, remarks that " it is written in the sacred books that they disap peared, but so that nobody knew they had died," it means simply that they had died in their per sonalities, as Yogis die to this day in India, or even some Christian monks to the world. They disappear from the sight of men and die — on the terrestrial plane — even for themselves. A seemingly figura tive way of speaking, yet literally true. Noah is heir to the Wisdom of Enoch; in other words, the Fifth is heir to the Fourth Race. In this case both represent Root-Races, the present and the preceding. In another sense, the disappear ance of Enoch referred to the disappearance of the Sacred and Secret knowledge from among men. In terpreted with the help of merely the symbolical key, Enoch is the type of the dual nature of man, spirit ual and physical. The Book of Enoch, in short, is a resume, a com pound of the main features of the history of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Races ; a very few prophe cies of the present age of the world; a long retro spective, introspective and prophetic summary of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 489 universal and quite historical events — geological, ethnological, astronomical and psychic — with a touch of theogony from the antediluvian records. The angel Uriel tells Enoch (chap. 79), " Behold I have showed thee all things, 0 Enoch; and all things have I revealed to thee. Thou seest the Sun, •the Moon and those which conduct the stars in Heaven, which cause all their operations, seasons and arrivals to return. In the days of sinners the years shall be shortened . . . the Moon shall change its laws," etc. ..." And he (Noah) said: . . . The earth labors, and is violently inclined; surely I shall perish with it " (chap. 64). A decree had come, the decree of Nature and the Law of Evolution, that the Fourth Race should be destroyed to make room for a better one. The life- cycle had reached its turning point of three and a half Rounds, and gigantic physical Humanity had reached the acme of gross materiality. Hence the apocalyptic verse that speaks of the commandment gone forth that it should be destroyed. And now a natural question. Who could have informed the author of this powerful vision (to whatever age he may be assigned before the day of Galileo) that the Earth could occasionally incline her axis? Whence did he derive such astronomical and geological knoweldge, if the Secret Wisdom is but a fancy, an invention of the later ages ? §XI The Mysteey-Names Iao and Jehovah, with their Relation to the Cross and Circle The idea of representing the hidden Deity by the circumference of a circle, and the Creative Power (the androgynous Word) by the diameter across it, is one of the oldest in symbolism. It is upon this 490 THE SECRET DOCTRINE conception that every great cosmogony was built. With the old Aryans, the Egyptians and the Chal deans, the symbol was complete, as it embraced the idea of the eternal and immovable Divine Thought in its absoluteness, separated entirely from the in cipient stage of so-called creation, and comprised psychological and even spiritual evolution, and its mechanical work, or cosmogonical construction. With the Hebrews, however (although the same idea is distinctly visible in the Zohar and in what is left of the Sepher Jezirah), that portion which was after wards embodied in the Pentateuch proper, and es pecially in Genesis, is simply this secondary stage of construction, while theogony is barely outlined. It is only in the first six chapters of Genesis, in the rejected Book of Enoch, and in the misunder stood and mistranslated poem of Job, that true echoes of the archaic doctrine may now be found. The statement that Jehovah was the tribal god of the Jews and nothing more is proved by verses 8 and 9 of Deuteronomy chap, xxxii. These verses say quite plainly that " when the Most High " (not the " Lord " or " Jehovah ") " divided to the na tions their inheritance, when he separated the Sons of Adam,* he set the bounds . . . according to the number of the children of Israel. . . . The Lord's (Jehovah's) portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." What then have other nations who call themselves Aryans to do with this Semitic deity, the tribal god of Israel? Astronomi cally, the ' ' Most High ' ' is the sun, and ' ' the Lord ' ' is one of his seven planets, whether he be Iao, the genius of the moon, or Ilda-Baoth-Jehovah, that of Saturn, according to Origen, who gives Adonai as the Sun ; Iao, the Moon ; Eloi, Jupiter ; Sabao, Mars ; Orai, Venus; Astaphoi, Mercury; and Ildabaoth, Saturn. ? Revised version — " The children of men." — Editor, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 491 It has been repeatedly stated in this work that every religious and philosophical symbol has seven meanings, each pertaining to its special plane of thought, whether metaphysical, astronomical, psy chic, physiological, etc. These seven meanings and their applications are hard enough to learn by them selves, but become ten-fold more puzzling when, in stead of being correlated one with another, any one of these meanings is accepted as the one and sole explanation of the whole symbolical idea. Symbolo- gists have discovered with dismay that their adopted deity was only a mask for many other gods, the "genius of the Moon and Saturn with the Jews, of the Sun and Jupiter with the early Christians ; that the Trinity was in truth only an astronomical triad (unless they accepted the more abstract interpreta tion of the Gentiles) composed of the Sun (the Father), Mercury (the Son), and Venus (the Holy Ghost) ; Sophia, the Spirit of Wisdom, Love and Truth, and Lucifer, as Christ, the bright and morn ing star. (v. Rev. xxii. 16.) Because, the Father being the Sun, the nearest planet to it is Mercury (the name of whose mother was Maia), the planet which receives seven times more light than any other; which fact led the Gnostics to call their Christos " the seven-fold light." In Isis Unveiled (II., 298) we are told that the name Iao neither originated with, nor was it the sole property of the Jews, but was a mystery-name from the beginning. Fiirst says that in an old reli gion of the Chaldeans, whose remains are to be found among the Neo-Platonists, the highest Divin ity .. . representing the Spiritual Light-Prin ciple . . . was called Iao. The Phoenicians had a Supreme God whose name also was triliteral and secret, and he was Iao. The Cross is one of the most ancient — nay, per haps, the most ancient of symbols. This was demon- 492 THE SECRET DOCTRINE strated at the very beginning of this book. The Eastern Initiates showed the cross as coeval with the Circle of Divine Infinitude, and the first differ entiation of the Essence, the union of Spirit and Matter. This was rejected, and the astronomical allegory alone was accepted, and made to fit certain cunningly arranged terrestrial events. For in stance, in astronomy Mercury is the son of Coelus and Lux — of the sky and light (or the Sun) ; in mythology his parents are Jupiter and Maia. He is the " messenger " of his Father, and in Greek his name, Hermes, means, among other things, the ' ' In terpreter, ' ' the ' ' Word ' ' of mouth ; the Verbum, or Logos. The symbols of Hermes-Mercury (the Dii Termini) were placed along and at the corners of roads, and they were cruciform. Every seventh day the priests anointed these termini with oil, and once a year hung them with garlands, hence they were the anointed. Mercury was often represented as three-headed, and called " Tricephalos " and " Triplex," as being one with the Sun and Venus. Finally, Mercury was sometimes figured under a cubic form without arms, because " the power of speech and eloquence can prevail without the help of arms or feet. " It is this cubic form which connects the termini directly with the cross, and the power of speech, or eloquence, of Mercury, which made the crafty Eusebius say, " Hermes is the emblem of the Word which creates and interprets all," for it is the creative word, and Porphyry taught that the speech of Hermes, a creative speech, is the seminal principle scattered throughout the Universe. In alchemy " Mercury " is the radical Moyst, primitive or elementary water, containing the seed of the Uni verse, fecundated by the solar fires. To express this fertilizing principle a phallus was often added by the Egyptians to the cross (the male and female, or vertical and horizontal united). The cruciform THE SECRET DOCTRINE 493 termini also represented this dual idea, which was found in Egypt in the cubic Hermes. As Mr. Ralston in The Source of Measures has shown, the cube unfolded becomes in display a cross of the tau, or Egyptian form; or, again, the circle attached to the tau, gives the ansated cross of the old Pharaohs. 1. The cube unfolded, *-&-, • 2. The ansated cross, * • b 3. The man attached to the cross, They had known this from their priests and " King Initiates " for ages, and also what was meant by the " attachment of a man to the cross," which idea " was made to co-ordinate with that of the origin of human life, and hence the phallic form. ' ' Only this symbol came into being aeons and aeons after the idea of the carpenter and artificer of the gods, Visvakarma, crucifying the " Sun-Initi ate " on the cruciform lathe. By the Hindus, as Mr. Ralston writes, " the attachment of a man to the cross . . . was made use of in this very form of display by the Hindus ' ' ; but made to co-ordinate with the idea of the new birth of man by spiritual, not physical regeneration. The candidate for initia tion was attached to the tau or astronomical cross with a far grander and nobler idea than that of the origin of mere terrestrial life. On the other hand, the Jewish Deity seems to be at best only the manifested duad, never the One Absolute All. This may have satisfied the practical Semite mind, but the Eastern Occultist would de cline the offer of such a God. He is, at best, one of the subordinate creative powers, the totality of which is called the Sephiroth, Adam Kadmon, the " Heavenly Man," and the second Logos of the Pla- tonists. The fact is, that the Western mystics begin their speculations only at the stage when the uni- 494 THE SECRET DOCTRINE verse " falls into matter," as the Occultists say. Throughout the whole series of Kabalistic books we have not met with one sentence that would hint in the remotest way at the psychological and spiritual, as well as the mechanical and physiological secrets of " creation." It is not then in the Bible that we have to search for the origin of the Cross and Circle, but beyond the Flood. Something of the divine and mysterious has ever been ascribed by the ancient philosophers to the shape of the circle. The old world, uniting the visible and the invisible Infinitudes into one, represented Deity and its outward Veil alike by a circle. Plato (see Cratylus) derives the word theos from theein, " to move," as suggested by the motion of the heavenly bodies which he connects with Deity. According to the Esoteric philosophy, this Deity is (during its cycles of rest and activity) the eternal perpetual motion, the Ever-Becoming, as well as the ever universally present, and the ever-Existing. The latter is the root-abstraction; the former the only conception possible to the human mind, pro viding it disconnect this deity from any shape or form. It is a perpetual, never-ceasing evolution, circling back in its incessant progress through aeons of duration to its original status — Absolute Unity. That very learned work, The Natural Genesis, by Mr. Gerald Massey, contains more information on the cross and the circle than any other work we know. He who would have proof of the antiquity of the cross is referred to these two volumes. The author also shows that the circle and the cross are inseparable. ..." The crux ansata unites the circle and the cross of the four corners. From this origin they came to be interchangeable at times. For example, the Chakra, or Disk of Vishnu, is a circle," denoting the wheel of time. " This the god uses as a weapon to hurl at the enemy. In like THE SECRET DOCTRINE 495 manner, Thor throws his weapon, the Fylfot, a form of \H the Swastica, and a type of the four quarters. Thus the cross is equivalent to the circle of the year. . . . The wheel emblem unites the cross and cir cle in one." But the most curious of the Egyptian symbols of cross and circle spoken of by Mr. Massey is one which receives its full explanation and final color from Aryan symbols of the same nature. " The most sacred cross of Egypt," he says, " was that carried in the hands of the gods, the Pharoahs and the mummied dead, the Ankh £ the sign of life, the living, an oath, the covenant. . . . The top of this is the hieroglyphic Ru t set upright on the Tau-Cross. The Ru is the gate, door, mouth, the place of outlet. This denotes the birthplace in the northern quarter of the heavens, from which the Sun is reborn. Hence the Ru of the Ankh sign is the feminine type of the birthplace in the north. The first sign of the primordial cycle made in heaven is the earliest shape of the Ankh cross r , a mere loop, containing the circle and cross in one image. This represents the circle made in the northern heaven by the Great Bear, which constituted the earliest year of time. The Ankh was the sign of all beginning (Arche) on this account, and the Ankh tie is the cross of the North." Now this again is entirely astronomical and phal lic. The Puranic version in India gives the whole another color. The Ankh tie does not belong to Egypt alone. It exists as the pdsa, a cord which Siva holds in the hand of his right back arm. It is held in such a way that it is the first finger and hand near the thumb which make the cross. In the hand of Siva it be comes linghaic and yonic. Siva, as said before, is unknown by that name 496 THE SECRET DOCTRINE in the Vedas, and it is in the white Tajur Veda that he appears for the first time as the great god whose symbol is the lingham. In the Rig Veda he is called Rudra, " the Howler," the Healer and the De stroyer. He is the divine Ego aspiring to return to its pure, deific state, and at the same time that divine Ego imprisoned in earthly form, whose fierce pas sions make of him " the Howler," " the Terrible." Hence the cruciform noose (the pdsa) in his hand when he is represented as the great ascetic, has no phallic significance. As an emblem of " the place of outlet," it signifies the " strait gate " that leads to the kingdom of heaven, far more than the ' ' birth place " in a physiological sense. It is a cross in a circle and a Crux Ansata truly; but it is a Cross on which all the human passions have to be crucified before the Yogi passes through the " strait gate," the narrow circle that widens into an infinite one, as soon as the inner man has passed the threshold. The great Circle of Time, on the face of which Indian fancy has represented the Tortoise, has the cross placed on it by nature. As the Bhagavata Purdna says (V. xxx.), " at the extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed towards the South, and whose body is in the shape of a ring (circle) Druhva (the ex-pole star) is placed; and along that tail are the Ancestors, etc.; and across its loins the Seven Rishis " (the stars of the Great Bear). This is indeed the first Cross and Circle, the Eternal Circle of Boundless Time, on whose plane lie crossways all the gods, creatures and creations born in Space and Time — and who all die at the period of Universal Night. The Secret Doctrine teaches us that everything in the universe, as well as the universe itself, is formed (created) during its periodical manifesta- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 497 tions — by accelerated Motion set into activity by the Breath of the ever-unknown Power within the phenomenal world. The Spirit of Life and Immor tality was everywhere symbolized by a circle ; hence the serpent biting its tail represents the circle of Wisdom in infinity, as does the astronomical cross, and the winged globe, which became the sacred Scarabceus of the Egyptians, its very name sug gesting the secret idea attached to it. For the scara- baeus is called in the Egyptian papyri Khopiron and Khopri from the verb Khopron, " to become," and it has thus been made a symbol of human life, and of the successive becomings of man throughout the various incarnations of the soul. This being, how ever, an esoteric doctrine, revealed only during the mysteries by the priest-hierophants, and the Kings- Initiates to the candidates, it was kept secret. The incorporeal Intelligences (the Planetary Spirits or Creative Powers) were always represented under the form of circles. In the primitive philosophy of the Hierophants these invisible circles were the pro- totypic causes and builders of all the heavenly orbs, which were their visible bodies or coverings, and of which they were the souls. (See Ezekiel, eh. i. 1-20.) " Before the mathematical numbers," says Pro- clus (in Quinto Libro Euclid), " there are the Self- moving numbers; before the figures apparent, the vital figures; and before producing the material worlds which move in a circle, the Creative Power produced the invisible Circles." Pythagoras pre scribed a circular prostration and posture during the hours of contemplation. One reason why the cat was sacred in Egypt was because it curled its body up in a circle while asleep. The posture was prescribed for occult and magnetic purposes, in order to regulate in a certain way the circulation 498 THE SECRET DOCTRINE of the vital fluid with which the cat is pre-eminently endowed. Hence the saying that the cat has nine lives is based on occult and physiological facts. The Brahmanical " Golden Egg " from which emerges Brahma, the creative deity, is " the circle with the Central Point ' ' of Pythagoras, and its fit ting symbol. In the Secret Doctrine the Concealed Unity is always found to be symbolized by a circle or " nought " (absolute No-thing and Nothing, be cause it is infinite and the All) ; while the god mani fested — by its works — is referred to as the diameter of that circle. The symbolism of the underlying idea is thus made evident : the right line passing through the centre of a circle has, in the geometrical sense, length, but neither breadth nor thickness; it is an imaginary and feminine symbol, crossing eternity and made to rest on the plane of existence of the phenomenal world. It is dimensional, whereas its circle is dimensionless, or, to use an algebraical term, it is the dimension of an equation. Another way of symbolizing the idea is found in the Pytha gorean sacred Decad, which synthesises in the dual numeral Ten (the 1 and a circle or cipher) the abso lute All manifesting itself in the Word or gen erative Power of Creation. Those who would feel inclined to argue upon this Pythagorean symbol on the ground that it is not yet ascertained at what period of antiquity the nought or cipher occurs for the first time — especially in India — are referred to Vol. II. of Isis Unveiled, p. 299 et seq. Plato having been initiated, could not believe in a personal God— a gigantic shadow of man. ""Be yond all finite existences," he says, " and secondary causes, all laws, ideas and principles, there is an Intelligence or Mind (nous) . . . the ultimate substance from which all^ things derive their being and essence. . . . This Theos, the god over all, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 499 is not the truth or the intelligence, but the Father of it, and its primal cause." Speusippus and Zeno- crates followed in the footsteps of Plato. The One, the original, had no existence, in the sense applied to it by mortal men. Between atheism and anthro pomorphism there must be a philosophical mean. The presence of the Unseen Principle throughout all nature, and its highest manifestation on Earth-MAN, can alone help to solve the problem, which is that of the mathematician whose x must ever elude the grasp of our terrestrial algebra. Alone amongst the Apostles of the Western religion, Paul seems to have fathomed— if not actually revealed — the archaic mystery of the Cross. The four arms of the X, the decussated cross, and of the Hermetic, pointing to the four cardinal points, were well understood by the mystical minds of the Hindus, Brahmins and Buddhists, thousands of years before the symbol was heard of in Europe. They bent the ends of that cross, and made of it the Swastica, "$£, an emblem that is found all over the world. It implies that the " Central Point " is not limited to one individual, however perfect. That the Principle (God) is in Humanity, and Humanity, like everything else, is in it, as drops of water are in the ocean; the four ends of the cross being turned toward the four cardinal points, hence losing them selves in Infinity. " Within its mystical precinct lies the master-key which opens the door of every science, physical as well as spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of life circum scribes the four points of the cross, which repre sent in succession birth, life, death and immortal ity." (Isis Unveiled^ I., 508.) The claim that the cross is purely a Christian symbol introduced after our era is strange indeed when we find Ezekiel stamping the foreheads of the men of Judah who feared the Lord, " with a mark," in the Vulgate 500 THE SECRET DOCTRINE translated " the signum Thau." (Ez. ix. 4.) Verily the Cross may be traced back into the depths of the archaic ages ! Its mystery deepens rather than clears, as we find it on the statues of Easter Island, in old Egypt, in Central Asia, in pre-Christian Scan dinavia, in fact, everywhere. In Joshua viii. 20, and Numbers xxv. 4, the words translated " to hang," and " to nail to," are given in the Hebrew Tar gums as " to crucify, " " Crucify them before the Lord (Jehovah) against the Sun." The Vulgate gives it correctly — ' ' to crucify. ' ' To crucify before (not against) the sun is a phrase used of initiation, which comes primarily from India. The initiated adept, who had successfully passed through all the trials, was attached, not nailed, but simply tied on a couch in the form of a tau T, and plunged in a deep sleep — the ' ' Sleep of Siloam ' ' it is called to this day among the Initiates in Asia Minor, in Syria, and even higher Egypt. He was al lowed to remain in this state for three days and three nights, during which time his Spiritual Ego was said to converse with " the gods," to descend into Hades, Amenti, or Patala (according to the country), and do works of charity to the invisible beings, whether souls of men or Elemental Spirits ; his body remaining all the time in a temple crypt or subterranean cave. In Egypt it was placed in the Sarcophagus Of the King's Chamber of the Pyramid of Cheops, and carried during the night of. the ap proaching third day to the entrance of a gallery, where at a certain hour the beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of the entranced candidate, who awoke to be initiated by Osiris and Thoth, the God of Wisdom. Then appeared the Hierophants- Initiators, and the sacramental words pronounced ostensibly to the Sun-Osiris were really addressed to the Spirit-Sun within, enlightening the newly- born man. On a fragment from the Hall of the an- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 501 cestors of Totmes III., preserved in the National Library of Paris, the disk of the Sun is represented beaming upon an ansated cross placed upon a cross like those of Calvary. The ancient MSS. mention these as " the hard couches of those who were in (spiritual) travail, the act of giving birth to them selves." A number of such cruciform "couches," on which the candidate thrown into a dead trance was placed, were found in the underground halls of the Egyptian temples after their destruction. Again, let the reader study the Hindu allegories, and remember that of Visvakarma, the Creative Power, the great architect of the world, called in the Veda, " the all-seeing god," who " sacrifices himself to himself," the Spiritual Egos of men being his own essence, and therefore one with him. Re member that he is called " the builder of the gods," and that it is he who ties his son-in-law, Surya (the Sun), on his lathe, in the exoteric allegory; on the Swastika, in esoteric tradition, as on earth he is the Hierophant-Initiator, and cuts away a portion of his (the Sun's) brightness. (In the Theosophical Glos sary, p. 313, Surya, the Sun, is described as " the husband of Sanjna, or Spiritual Self-Consciousness. Visvakarma crucifies him on his lathe, and cutting off the eighth part of his rays, deprives his head of its effulgency, creating around it a dark aureole. A mystery of the last initiation, and an allegorical rep resentation of it." — Ed.) The figure of the Hindu Wittoba, a form of Vishnu, even to the nail-marks on the feet, is that of Jesus crucified in all its details save the Cross ; and that man was meant is proved still further by the fact of the Initiate being reborn after his crucifixion on the tree of life, now become esoterically, through its use by the Romans as an instrument of torture, the tree of death. Thus one of the Seven esoteric meanings of this 502 THE SECRET DOCTRINE mystery of the Crucifixion is discovered in the geo metrical symbols containing the history of the evolu tion of man. The Hebrews, whose prophet Moses was so learned in the esoteric Wisdom of Egypt, adopted most ingeniously the cosmic and anthropo logical symbols of the " heathen " nations to their peculiar secret records. Now, the primordial system, the double glyph that underlies the idea of the Cross, is not of " human invention," for Cosmic Ideation and the spiritual representation of the divine Ego are at its basis. Later, it expanded into the beautiful idea repre sented in the Mysteries of regenerated man, the mortal who by crucifying the man of flesh and his passions became the Immortal. Leaving the body, the animal-man, behind him, tied on the Cross of Initiation like an empty chrysalis, the Ego-soul be came as free as a butterfly. Still later, owing to the gradual loss of spirituality, the cross became in cosmogony and anthropology no higher than a phal lic symbol. With theEsotericists from remotest times, the Uni versal Soul or anima mundi, the material reflection of the Immaterial Ideal, was the Source of Life of all beings, and of the life-principle of the three king doms, and it was septenary with the Hermetic philos ophers, as with all ancients. For it is represented as a seven-fold cross, whose branches are respec tively light, heat, electricity, terrestrial magnetism, astral radiation, motion and Intelligence, or what some call self-consciousness. Long before the cross or its sign was adopted as symbols of Christianity, the sign of the cross was used among adepts and neophytes as a sign of re cognition, the neophytes themselves being called Chresto, from Chrestos, man of sorrows. Eliphas Levi says : ' ' The sign of the cross is Kabalistic, and represents the opposition and four-fold equilibrium THE SECRET DOCTRINE 503 of the elements. We see by the Occult version of the Paternoster that there were originally two ways of making the sign, or at least two very different formulas to express its meaning — one reserved for priests-initiates, the other given to neophytes and the profane. Thus, for example, the Initiate, carry ing his hand to his forehead, said: To Thee; then he added, belong; and continued, carrying his hand to his breast — the kingdom; then to the left shoulder, justice; to the right shoulder, and mercy. Then he joined the two hands, adding: throughout the gen erating cycles; ' Tibi sunt Malkuth et Geborah, et Chesed per Monas ' — a sign of the Cross magnifi cently and absolutely Kabalistic, which the militant and official Church completely lost through the machinations of Gnosticism." (Dogme et Rituel, etc., II. , 88.) She never lost the inner and higher meaning, be cause she never had it. The sign of the cross adopted by the Latin Church was phallic from the beginning, while that of the Greeks was the cross of the neo phytes, the Chrest. §XII The Seven Vowels of the Gnostics and the Hindus We are reminded in King's Gnostics that the Greek language has but one word for vowel and for voice, and that this has led to many erroneous inter pretations. On the other hand, the fact may throw a flood of light upon many mystic symbols. The words Sound and Speech, for instance, so often used in the Upanishads and Puranas, may be collated with the Gnostic Vowels, and the Voices of the Thunders and Angels of the Apocalypse. The same will be found in the Pistis Sophia and other ancient MSS. Through Hippolytus, an early Church Father, we 504 THE SECRET DOCTRINE learn what Marcus — a Pythagorean rather than a Christian Gnostic, and a Kabalist most certainly- had received in mystic revelation. It is said that " Marcus had it revealed unto him that ' the seven heavens ' " (the Heavens are identical with the An gels) " sounded each one vowel, which combined to gether formed a complete doxology "; or in clearer words, " the Sound whereof being carried down (from these seven heavens) to earth, became the creator and parent of all things that be on earth." Translated from the occult phraseology into still plainer language, this would read : ' ' The seven-fold Logos having differentiated into seven Logoi or creative potencies (vowels), these (the second Logos or ' Sound ') created all on Earth." Any one acquainted with Gnostic literature can hardly help seeing in the Apocalypse a work of the same school of thought. For we find St. John say ing (Rev. chap. x. 3, 4) : " Seven thunders uttered their voices . . . and I was about to write . . . (but) I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, ' Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. ' ' ' The same injunction is given to Marcus, and to all other semi and full Initiates. Yet the sameness of the expres sions used, and of the underlying ideas, always be trays a portion of the mysteries. We must always seek for more than one meaning in every mystery treated allegorically, especially in those in which the number seven and seven times seven or forty- nine may appear. Now, in the Pistis Sophia, when the Rabbi Jesus is requested by his disciples to re veal to them " the mysteries of the Light of thy Father " (that is, of the higher Self enlightened by Initiation and Divine knowledge), Jesus answers: " No mystery is more excellent than they which shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights, unto the place of Truth and Goodness, unto the place THE SECRET DOCTRINE 505 where there is neither male nor female, neither form in that place, but only Light everlasting, not to be uttered. Nothing, therefore, is more excellent than the mysteries which ye seek after, saving only the mystery of the seven vowels and their forty and nine powers and the numbers thereof ; and no name is more excellent than all these vowels." " The Seven Fathers and the Forty-nine Sons blaze in Darkness, but they are the Life and Light, and the continuation thereof through the Great Age " — says the Commentary, speaking of the " Fires." Now it becomes evident that in every esoteric in terpretation of exoteric beliefs expressed in allegori cal forms, there was the same underlying idea — the basic number seven, the compound of three and four, preceded by the divine three, a, making the per fect number, ten. a And these numbers applied equally to divisions of time, to cosmography, metaphysical and physical, as well as to man and everything else in visible nature. Also these seven vowels with their forty- nine powers are identical with the three and the Seven and the Forty-nine Fires of the Hindus ; with the numerical mysteries of the Persian Simorgh,* and with those of the Jewish Kabalists. The mysteries of the seven Gnostic Vowels, ut tered by the Thunders of St. John, can be unriddled only by the primeval Occultism brought into India by the primeval Brahmins, who had been initiated in Central Asia. And this is the Occultism we study and try to explain as far as possible in these pages. Our doctrine of seven Races and seven Rounds of life and evolution may be found even in the Apoca lypse. When the seven " thunders," or " sounds," or " vowels " (one meaning out of the seven for each vowel relating directly to the seven Races of ?The Persian phoenix. Esoterically, the great cycle of life. — Editor, 506 THE SECRET DOCTRINE our Earth), " had uttered their voices," what did the Angel " standing upon the sea and the earth " do? He lifted his hand to heaven, " and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever . . . that there should be time no longer." " But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God " (of the cycle) " should be finished " (Rev. x. 7), which means, in theosophic phraseology, that when the Seventh Round is completed then Time will cease. " There shall be time no longer," very naturally, since the period of dissolution shall set in, and there shall re main no one upon the earth to count its divisions. Again, in the Pistis Sophia, the disciple says to Jesus : ' ' Rabbi, reveal unto us the Mysteries of the Light " (that is, the Fire of Knowledge or Enlight enment) ..." forasmuch as we have heard thee saying that there is another baptism of smoke, and another baptism of the Spirit of Holy Light," that is, the Spirit of Fire. " I baptize you with water, but ... he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire," says John of Jesus (Matt. iii. 2), meaning this esoterically. The real significance of this statement is very profound. It means that John, a non-initiated ascetic, can impart to his disciples no greater wisdom than the mys teries connected with the plane of matter, of which water is a symbol. His gnosis was that of exoteric and ritualistic dogma. In the Cycle of Initiation, which was very long, water represented the first and lower steps toward purification, while trials con nected with fire came last. Water could regenerate the body of matter; Fire alone that of the inner Spiritual man. The wisdom which Jesus, an Initiate of the higher mysteries, could reveal to his disciples, was the " Fire " Wisdom of the true gnosis, or the real spiritual enlightenment. One was Fire, the other Smoke. For Moses the fire on Mt. Sinai and THE SECRET DOCTRINE 507 the spiritual wisdom imparted ; for the multitude be low, Mt. Sinai in (through) smoke, mere exoteric ritualism. Let the student read Pistis Sophia in the light of the Bhagavadgita, the Anugita, and other Upani shads, and then the saying of Jesus in the Gnostic gospel will become clear. Read this, and compare with the Hindu scriptures. ..." And no name is more excellent than all these (seven) vowels. A name wherein be contained all names, all Lights, and all (the forty-nine) powers; knowing it, if a man quit this body of matter (either in death or trance) no smoke (no theological delusion), no dark ness, no Ruler of the Sphere (no personal genius or planetary spirit called God) nor of Fate (Karma) shall be able to hold back the soul that knoweth that Name." (All the words in parentheses here are the writer's. H. P. B.) It is easy to see what this " Light " and " Name " are: the light of Initiation, and the name of the ' ' Fire-Self, ' ' which is no name, no action, but a Spir itual, ever-living Power, higher even than the " In visible God," as this Power is Itself. §XIII The Cross and the Pythagorean Decade * For the early Gnostics the whole of the Universe, metaphysical and material, was contained within, and could be expressed and described by, the digits of the Pythagorean Decade. This Decade, representing the Universe and its evolution out of Silence and the unknown Depths of the Spiritual Soul, presented two sides or aspects to the students. It could be, and was, at first, ap plied to the Macrocosm, after which it descended ?More prpperly Decad. 508 THE SECRET DOCTRINE to the Microcosm, or Man. There was then the purely intellectual and metaphysical, or ' ' inner Sci ence," and the as purely materialistic or " surface science, ' ' both of which were contained in and could be expounded by the Decade. It could be studied from the Universals of Plato or by the inductive method of Aristotle. The former started from a Divine comprehension, when plurality proceeded from unity and the digits of the decade appeared but to be finally reabsorbed, lost in the infinite Circle. The latter depended on sensuous perception alone, when the decade could be regarded either as the unity that multiplies or as matter that differentiates, its study being limited to the plain surface ; to the Cross, or the seven which proceeds from the ten, or the perfect number, on earth as in heaven. This dual system, together with the Decade itself, was brought by Pythagoras from India. In man, as in the universe, according to the cis-Himalayan esoteric philosophy, it is the septenary division that is intended by Nature herself. We have now to speak of the Mystery language of the prehistoric races. It is not a phonetic, but a purely pictorial and symbolical tongue. At present it is known fully to very few, having been for more than 5,000 years a dead language to the masses. Yet most of the learned Gnostics, Jews and Greeks, knew and used it, although very differently. A few instances may be given. On the higher plane, the Number is no number, but a nought, a circle. On the lower plane it be comes one, which is an odd number. Each letter of the ancient alphabets having its philosophical meaning, the number I signified with the Alexan drian Initiates a body erect, a living man, standing upright, as he alone of all the animals can. And by adding to the I a head, it became P, a symbol of paternity, of the creative potency, while in like man- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 509 ner R signified " a moving man," one on his way. Hence Pater Zeus had nothing sexual or phallic, either in the sound or the form of its letters, nor had Pater Deus. If we turn now to the Hebrew alpha bet, we shall find that while the first letter, or Aleph, has a bull or an ox for its symbol, ten, the perfect number, is a yodh (y, i or j) ; and means, as the first letter of Jehovah, the procreative organ. The odd numbers are divine, the even numbers terrestrial, devilish and unlucky. With the early Pythagoreans, the duad (as the beginning of differ entiation) was that imperfect state from which the two roads — the Good and the Evil — diverged. All that was double or false they called ' ' binary. ' ' One alone was Good and Harmony, because no discord can proceed from one alone. The ternary is, properly speaking, the first of the odd numbers, as the triangle is the first of the geo metrical figures.* This number is truly the number of mystery par excellence. To study it on the exo teric lines one has to read Ragon's Cours Inter- pretatif des Initiations; on the esoteric, the Hindu symbolism of numerals and its combinations are end less. The first solid figure isjthe Quaternary, symbol of immortality. It is«the pyramid, for the pyramid is a triangle standing on ajsquare base and terminating at the top in a point, thus yielding the triad and the quaternary, or the 3 and the 4. It was the Pythago reans who taught the relations between the gods and the numbers, in a science called Arithmomancy. The Soul is a number, they said, which moves of itself and contains the number 4 ; and spiritual and physi cal man is number 3; for the ternary represented for them not only the surface, but also the principle of the formation of the physical body. Thus animals ?Because In geometry neither one line nor two can represent a perfect figure. — Editor. 510 THE SECRET DOCTRINE were ternaries only, man alone being a septenary, when virtuous, but a quinary when vicious, for — Number 5 was composed of a binary and a ter nary, which binary threw everything in the perfect form into disorder and confusion. The perfect man, said the Pythagoreans, was the combination of a quaternary and a ternary; or four material and three immaterial elements; which three spirits or elements we likewise find in 5, when it represents the microcosm. The latter (man) is composed of a binary directly relating to gross matter, and of three " Spirits "; " since 5 is the ingenious union of two Greek accents % * placed over vowels which have or have not to be aspirated." The first sign ' is called Strong Spirit, or superior Spirit, the Spirit of God aspired or breathed by man. The second lower sign ^ is the Spirit of Love, representing the secondary Spirit; the third Spirit embraces the whole man. It is the universal Quintessence, the vital fluid, or Life." (Ragon). [We have then Power and Love united to form Life, as the micro cosm, or man.] The more mystic meaning of 5 is given in an excellent article by Subba Row on ' ' The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac " (Five Tears of Theos- ophy, 110 et seq.), to which the student is referred (and also to the Secret Doctrine, first ed., II. , 576 et seq.). Let us note one more thing in relation to the mysterious number five. It symbolizes at one and the same time the Spirit of Life eternal and the Spirit of Life and Love terrestrial in the human compound ; and it includes divine and infernal magic and the universal and the individual quintessence of being. Makara (Capricornus), the constellation, is a seemingly meaningless and absurd name. Yet even besides its anagrammatical significance in con junction with " Kumara," the numerical value of ?It Is easy to recognize in these accents Divine Spirit and Its vehicle, spiritual SouL— H. P. R. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 511 its first syllable and its esoteric resolution into five has a very great and occult meaning in the mys teries of nature. Suffice it to say that as the sign of Makara is con nected with the birth of the spiritual " microcosm," and the death or dissolution of the physical uni verse (its passage into the realm of the Spiritual), so the Creative Powers, called in India Kumdras, are connected with both. Moreover, in the exoteric religions, they have become the synonyms of the Angels of Darkness. " When the Sun passes away behind the 30th degree of Makara (Capricornus), and will reach no more the sign of the Meenam (Pisces), then the night of Brahma has come." Mara is the God of Darkness and of Death, the death of the physical, but Mara is also the unconscious quickener of the birth of the spiritual. And it is one of the names of Kama, the first god in the Vedas, the Logos, from whom have sprung the Kumaras. Nor was the number 5 less sacred with the Greeks. The ' ' five words ' ' of Brahma became with the Gnos tics the five words written upon the akasic (shining) garment of Jesus at his glorification. These words were in their turn the anagrammatic blind of the five mystic powers represented on the robe of the " resurrected " Initiate after his last trial of the three days' trance; the five becoming seven only after his death, when the Adept became the full Christos, the full Krishna- Vishnu ; that is, was merged in Perfectness. (Nirvana.) The number 6 has been regarded in the ancient mysteries as an emblem of physical nature. For 6 is the representation of the six dimensions of all bodies; the six lines which compose their form, namely, the four extending to the four cardinal points, and the two lines of height and thickness that answer to the zenith and the nadir. Moreover, the figure 6 was the symbol of the Earth during the 512 THE SECRET DOCTRINE autumn and winter " sleeping months " — (7 during spring and summer) — as the Spirit of Life animated her at that time, the seventh, or central, informing Force. Ragon gives in his Magonnerie Occulte a very good illustration of " the hieroglyphical senary," as he calls our double equilateral triangle, ^s. He shows it as the symbol of the commingling of " the philo sophical three fires and the three waters, whence re sults the procreation of the elements of all things." It is these two interlaced triangles (which also form the emblem of our Society) that produce the septen ary and the triad at one and the same time, and are the Decade, no matter how we examine the sign, as all the ten numbers are contained therein. For with a point in the centre, it is a seven-fold sign; its triangles denote the number 3; the two triangles show the presence of the binary; the triangles with the central point common to both yield the quater nary; the six angles are the senary, and the central point the unit; the quinary being a compound of the two triangles, the even number, and the three sides of each triangle, the first odd number. This is why Pythagoras and the ancients made the num ber 6 sacred to Venus, since " the union of the two sexes is necessary to reproduction." (Ragon.) If we now give our attention to the Egyptian cross, or the Tau, we may discover this letter, so ex alted by Egyptians, Greeks and Jews, to be mys teriously connected with the Decade. The tau is the Alpha and the Omega of secret divine Wisdom, which is symbolized by the initial and the final letter of Thot (Hermes). Thot was the inventor of the Egyptian alphabet, and the letter tau closed the al phabets of the Jews and Samaritans, who called this character the " end " or " perfection," " culmina tion " and " security." Far earlier than the intro duction of the phallic element into religion by the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 513 Jews, the more spiritually minded nations had made of the cross (as 3+4=7) their most sacred divine symbol. The school of Pythagoras regarded the number 7 as a compound of three and four, which they explained in a dual manner. On the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle, as the first concep tion of the manifested Deity, was its image, " Father-Mother-Son; " and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane. Some students, in view of the Tetraktis and Tetragram- maton, mistake the mystic meaning of the Quater nary. The latter was with the ancients only a sec ondary " perfection," so to speak, because it related only to the manifested planes. Whereas the Tri angle, the Greek delta, A, was " the vehicle of the unknown Deity. ' ' This, in relation to the metaphysi cal conception, with regard to the meaning of the Septenary in the phenomenal world, but for purposes of profane or exoteric interpretation, the sym bolism changed. Three became the ideograph of the three material elements — air, water and earth; and four became the principle of all that is neither corporeal nor perceptible. But this has never been accepted by the real Pythagoreans. Viewed as a Compound of 6 and 1, the senary and the unity, 7 was the invisible centre, the spirit of everything, as there exists no body whose form is made up of six lines, without a seventh as its cen tral point. See crystals and snowflakes in so-called inanimate nature. Moreover, 7, said the Pythago reans, has all the perfection of the Unit — the number of numbers. For as absolute Unity is uncreated and indivisible (hence numberless) and no number can produce it, so is the seven; no digit within the decade can beget or produce it. The three figures 365, or the number of days in the solar year, have but to be read by the Pythago- 514 THE SECRET DOCTRINE rean key to yield a highly philosophical and moral meaning. One instance will suffice. It can be read : The Earth — animated by — the Spirit of Life. 3. 6. 5. Simply because 3 is equivalent to the Greek gamma or r, which letter is the symbol of Gaia (the earth) ; while 6 is the symbol of the animating or informing principle, and 5 is the universal quintessence which forms all matter. The few examples given reveal only one small por tion of the methods used to read the symbolical ideographs and numerals of antiquity. The system being of an extreme and complex difficulty, very few, even of the Initiates, could master all the seven keys. There was a time when the Eastern symbol of the Cross and Circle, the Swastica, was universally adopted. With the esoteric, and, indeed, the exo teric, Buddhist, Chinese and Mongolian, it means " the 10,000 truths." These truths, they say, be long to the mysteries of the unseen Universe, and primordial Theogony and Cosmogony. This is why the Swastica is always placed — as the ansated cross was in Egypt — on the breasts of the defunct mys tics. " The value of the Cross as a Christian sym bol," says Mr. Massey (The Natural Genesis, I. 433), " is supposed to date from the Crucifixion. . . . And yet during some six centuries after the Chris tian era . . . the crucified Redeemer is entirely absent from Christian art ! The earliest known form of the human figure on the cross is the crucifix pre sented by Pope Gregory the Great to Queen Theo- linde of Lombardy, now at Monza, whilst no image of the Crucified is found in the Catacombs of Rome earlier than that of San Giulio, belonging to the seventh or eighth century." But with the pre-Christian symbologists the Cross THE SECRET DOCTRINE 515 was, as has been said before, the bed or couch of torture during the Mystery of Initiation, the ' ' Cruci fix " being placed horizontally on the ground. Few world-symbols are more pregnant with real occult meaning than the Swastica. It is symbolized by the figure 6, for, like that figure, it points in its concrete imagery to all the directions of space ; one finds the unit everywhere, and that unit reflected in all and every unit. It is the emblem of the activity of Fohat, of the continual revolution of the " Wheels," and of the Four Elements, the " Sacred Four, ' ' in their mystical, and not alone in their cos mical, meaning ; further, its four arms, bent at right angles, are intimately related to the Pythagorean and Hermetic scales. One initiated into the mystic meanings of the Swastica, say the Commentaries, "can trace on it, with mathematical precision, the evolution of Kosmos, and the whole period of the twilight before dissolution." Also the relation of the Seen to the Unseen, and the first procreation of man and species. To the follower of the true Eastern archaic Wis dom, the Cross and Circle, the Tree or the Tau, are, after every symbol has been read, still a profound mystery in their past, and it is to that past alone that he directs his eager gaze. The Ogdoad or 8 symbolizes the eternal and spiral motion of cycles, 8, and is symbolized in its turn by the Caduceus. It shows the regular breathing of the Kosmos, presided over by the eight great gods — the seven from the primeval Mother, the One and the Triad. Then comes the number nine or the triple ternary. It is the number which reproduces itself incessantly, under all shapes and figures in every multiplica tion. It is the sign of every circumference, since its value in degrees is equal to 9, i.e., to 3+6+0. It is a bad number under certain conditions, and very ,516 THE SECRET DOCTRINE unlucky. If 6 was the symbol of our globe ready to be animated by a divine spirit, 9 symbolized our earth informed by a bad or evil spirit. Ten, or the Decade, brings all these digits back to unity, and ends the Pythagorean table. Hence this figure — Nitrogen J The lightest of all gases ; it burns in oxygen, giving off the most in tense heat of any sub stance in combustion, and forming water, the most stable of compounds. Hy drogen enters largely into ,all organic compounds. An inert gas ; the ve hicle with which Oxygen is mixed to adapt the lat ter for animal respira tion ; it also largely into all substances. enters organic r The supporter of com- J bustion ; the life-giving | gas ; the active chemical yigent in all organic life. The fuel par excellence; the basis of all organic substances ; the (chemi cal) element which forms the largest variety of compounds. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 519 Now we are taught that all the earliest forms of organic life also appear in septenary groups. From " soft stones that hardened," or minerals, followed by the " hard plants that softened," which are the product of the mineral (for "it is from the bosom of the stone that vegetation is born "), and then to man, all the primitive models in every kingdom of nature begin by being ethereal transparent films. This, of course, is only in the first beginning of life, with the next period they consolidate, and at the seventh begin to branch off into species, all except man, the first of the mammalia of the Fourth Round. When we speak of " animals," mammalia alone are meant. Crustacea, fishes and reptiles are contem porary with, and must have even preceded, physical man in this Round. All were bisexual, however, before the age of mammalia in the closing portion of the Secondary or Mezoic age, yet nearer to the Palcezoic than to the Ccenozoic (quaternary) age. Smaller marsupial mammalia are contemporary with the huge reptilian monsters of the Secondary. " First came three, or the triangle." This ex pression has a profound meaning in Occultism, and the fact is corroborated in mineralogy, botany and even geology. Salt in solution is one proof of it. For when its molecules clustering together begin to deposit themselves as a solid, the first shape they assume is that of triangles, small pyramids and cones. The pyramid is the figure of fire (whence the word) ; while the second geometrical figure in manifested Nature is a square or & cube, 4 and 6, " for the particles of earth being cubical, those of fire are pyramidal." (Enfield.) The pyramid is the shape of the pines— the most primitive tree after the fern period. Thus the two opposites in cosmic nature, fire and water, heat and cold, begin their metrographical manifestations, one by a trimetric, the other by a hexagonal system. For snow crys- 520 THE SECRET DOCTRINE tals, viewed under a microscope, are all and each of them a double or a treble six-pointed star, with a central nucleus, like a miniature star within the larger one. This brings us back to the number 7 again, a num ber closely connected with the moon, whose occult influence is ever manifesting itself in septenary periods. It is the moon which is the guide of the occult side of terrestrial nature, while the sun is the regulator and factor of manifested life, and this truth was ever evident to the seers and the adepts. Jacob Boehme, by insisting on the doctrine of the seven properties of everlasting Mother Nature, proved himself thereby a great occultist. But to return to the consideration of the septen ary in ancient religious symbolism. To the metro- logical key to the symbolism of the Hebrews, which reveals numerically the geometrical relations of the Circle (All-Deity) to the Square, Cube, Triangle and all the integral emanations of the divine area, may be added the theogonic key. This key explains that Noah, the deluge patriarch, is in one aspect a per mutation of the Deity (Universal Creative Law) for the purpose of the formation of our earth, its popu lation and the general propagation of life upon it. Now, bearing in mind the septenary division in di vine Hierarchies, the student will readily understand that Jah-Noah is at the head of and is the synthesis of the lower Cosmic quaternary. The upper Seph- irothal triad a? of which Jehovah-Binah (Intelli gence) is the left, female, angle — emanates the Qua ternary, ? . See diagram on page 521. (The arrangement and the spelling of the names of the 10 Sephiroth are taken from Meyer's Qab- balah. — Ed.) The Quaternary, symbolizing by itself the " Heavenly Man," the sexless Adam-Kadmon, viewed as Nature in the abstract, becomes a septen- THE SECRET DOCTRINE Diagram VIII Ain Soph The Without End. The A Crown 521 Understanding. Jehovah Binah Judgment. Pa-had Glory. Hod The Tiphereth Beauty 'Hokhmah. Wisdom 'Hesed. Grace or Mercy Ne-tza'h. Triumph Ye-sod Foundation Malkuth or The Kingdom ate again by emanating from itself the additional three principles, the lower terrestrial, or manifested physical Nature, Matter and our Earth (the seventh being Malkuth, " the Bride of the Heavenly Man "), thus forming with the higher Triad, or Kether, the Crown, the full number of the Sephirothal Tree — the 10, the total in Unity, or the Universe. Apart from the higher Triad, the lower creative Sephiroth are seven. This is, though not directly to the point, to facilitate the understanding of what follows. The question at issue is to show that Jah-Noah, or the Jehovah of the Hebrew Bible, the alleged creator of man and of our Earth with all upon it is : (a) The lowest Septenary, the Creative Elohim — in his Cosmic aspect. (b) The Tetragrammaton or the Adam-Kadmon, 522 THE SECRET DOCTRINE " the Heavenly Man " — in his theogonic or Kaba listic aspects. (c) Noah — identical with the Hindu Seed-Manu, or human seed, left over from a previous creation for the peopling of the Earth (as expressed in the Puranas, or the pre-diluvian period as rendered al- legorically in the Bible) — in his cosmic character. But whether a Quaternary (Tetragrammaton) or a Triad, the Biblical Creative God is not the Uni versal 10 unless blended with Ain-Soph (as Brah ma with Parabrahm), but only a septenary, one of the many septenaries of the universal Septenate. In Diageam IX Human Aspects or Principles. Cosmic Aspects or Principles. 1. Spirit. 2. Spiritual Soul. 3. Mind. Human Soul. 4. Animal Soul. 5. Astral Body. Triple Aspect of the Deity. 6. Life-Essence. 7, Physical Body. _, Spirit of the Earth Jehovah. Noah Space containing Life, the Waters of the Deluge. Mt. Ararat. "1. The unmanifested Logos. 2. Universal Ideation (latent). 3. Universal Intelli gence (active). 4. Cosmic (chaotic) Energy. 5. Astral Ideation, re flecting terrestrial things. 6. Life-Essence or Energy, _7. The Earth. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 523 explaining Jehovah's position as Noah, it may be best shown by placing the 3 a and 4 m , on parallel lines with the " Cosmic " and " Human " princi ples. In several Hebrew works (vide S. D., first Ed., Vol. II. , pp. 597 & 8) Ararat is defined as meaning the first place of descent, or the earth; ararat for arath, the earth. Noah thus symbolizing both the Root-Manu or the Power which developed the planetary chain and our earth, and the Seed-Manu, or the Fifth Race hu manity which was saved while the last sub-races of the Fourth perished — the number 7 will be seen to recur at every step. It is Noah (as Jehovah's permutation) who represents the septenary Host of the Elohim, and is thus the Creator, or Preserver, of all animal life. Esoterically, Jared is the Third Race, and Enoch the Fourth — but as Enoch is taken away alive, he symbolizes also the Elect saved in the Fourth, while Noah is the Fifth from the begin ning — the family saved from the waters, eternally and physically. Noah and his three sons are the collective symbol of the Cosmic Quaternary in the diagram, in many and various applications, Ham being the Chaotic (fourth) principle. §XV The Septenaey and the Teteaktis * Thus the number 7, as a compound of 3 and 4, is the factor element in every ancient religion, because ?Differentiated matter existing in the Solar System In seven dif ferent conditions, and the capacity of perception existing likewise in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven different conditions of matter, there must necessarily be seven states of consciousness in man (capable of a seven-fold division) ; and ac cording to the greater or smaller development of these states, the systems of religions and philosophies were schemed out. S. D. IL 597. 524 THE SECRET DOCTRINE it is the factor element in nature. But the student should understand that in all such numerical divi sions the One universal Principle — although referred to as (the) one, because the Only One — never enters into the calculations. It stands, in its character of the Absolute, the Infinite and the Universal Abstrac tion, entirely by Itself, and independent of every other Power, whether noumenal or phenomenal. It ' ' is neither matter nor spirit ; It is neither Ego nor Non-Ego; and It is neither subject nor object" (vide Art. Personal and Impersonal God, by Subba Row). Being itself entirely beyond human reckon ing or calculation, yet this " huge aggregation of various states of consciousness," as Subba Row puts it, is a Septenate, in its totality entirely com posed of septenary groups ; simply because ' ' the capacity of perception exists in seven different as pects corresponding to the seven conditions of mat ter, or the seven properties, or states, or conditions of matter." And therefore we begin in the esoteric calculations with the first manifested principle, which is number one if we commence from above, and number seven reckoned from below. The Tetrad, or Tetraktis, is esteemed in the Ka bala as it was by Pythagoras, the most perfect, or rather sacred number, because it emanated from the one, the first manifested Unit, or rather the three in one. Yet the latter has been ever impersonal, sexless, incomprehensible, though within the possi bility of the higher mental perceptions. With the Hermesians the number 4 becomes the symbol of truth only when amplified into a cube, which un folded makes 7, as symbolizing the male and female elements and the element of Life. Some students have been puzzled to account for the vertical line, which is male, becoming in the cross a four-partitioned line, 4 being a female num ber, while the horizontal female line (the line of THE SECRET DOCTRINE 525 matter) becomes three-divisioned. But this is easily explained. Since the middle division of the cross (or cube unfolded) is common to both lines, it be comes neutral ground, so to say, and belongs to neither. The line of spirit, the vertical or male line, remains triadic, and the line of matter, the horizontal or female line, two-fold — two being an even number, and therefore female. Esoteric philosophy explains that 4 is the symbol of the Uni verse in its potential state, or chaotic matter (see Diagram IX.), and that it requires Spirit to per meate it actively, in order that the Universe should manifest intelligibly. This is achieved by the Cube unfolded. Hence the ansated cross ° as the sym bol of man, generation and life. In Egypt ankh signified soul, life and blood. It is the ensouled, liv ing man, the Septenary. The 4 was called by the Pythagoreans the Key- Keeper of Nature; but in union with the 3, which made it 7, it became the most perfect and harmonious number— Nature herself. Plutarch explains that the Achaean Greeks re garded the Tetrad as the root and principle of all things, since it was the number of the elements which gave birth to all visible and invisible created things, while esoterically and in plain truth, instead of referring to the highest abstract Deity, the Tetra- grammaton means only periodically chaotic, turbu lent and eternal Mattes with all its potentialities. For it is one with Nature or Isis, and is the exoteric series of all androgyne gods, such as Osiris-Isis, Jove-Juno, etc., etc. The Monad being one, and an odd number, the ancients called the odd numbers the only perfect ones, being masculine and applicable to the celestial gods ; while even numbers 2, 4, 6, and especially 8, were regarded as female, and therefore imperfect, and were given only to the terrestrial and infernal 526 THE SECRET DOCTRINE deities. The number 7 the Pythagoreans considered to be a religious and perfect number. It was called " Telesphoros," because by it all in the Universe and man is led to its end, that is, its culmination. Being under the rule of seven sacred planets, the doctrine of the Spheres shows the 7 powers of ter restrial and sublunary nature, as well as the 7 great Forces of the Universe, proceeding and evolving in seven tones, which are the seven notes of the musical scale. The septenary was regarded as " the num ber of a virgin because it is unborn" like the Logos of the Vedantins) "without father or mother, but proceeding directly from the Monad, which is the origin and crown of all things." And if the sep tenary is made to proceed directly from the Monad, then it is (as taught in the Secret Doctrine of the oldest schools) the perfect and sacred number of this our Great Life-Cycle. All the ancient cosmologies — the oldest cosmogra phies of the two most ancient peoples of the Fifth Root-Race, the Hindu Aryans and the Egyptians, as well as the early Chinese races (the remnants of the Atlantean or Fourth-Race) — based the whole of their mysteries on the number 10 : the higher triad standing for the invisible and metaphysical world, the lower 3 and 4, or the septenate, for the physical realm. It was not the Jewish Bible that first brought the number 7 into prominence. Hesiod used the words " the seventh is the sacred day " before the Sabbath of Moses was ever heard of. Enough has been brought forward to show why the human principles were and are divided in the esoteric schools into seven. Make it four, and it will either leave man minus his lower terrestrial ele ments, or (if viewed from a physical standpoint) of his immortal soul; — to become comprehensible, man must be regarded as a septenary, the seven fold ray from the One. We have to part from all THE SECRET DOCTRINE 527 our principles before we reach the Christ-state, and centre ourselves entirely in the highest, the Seventh, or the One. §XVI The Septenaey Element in the Ancient Sceiptuees The Rig-Veda, the oldest of all the known ancient records, may be shown to corroborate the occult teachings in every respect. Its hymns — records written by the earliest Initiates of our Fifth Race concerning the primordial teachings — speak of the Seven Races (two still to come), allegorizing them by the " seven rivers of the earth," and of the five Races that have already inhabited this world, on the five regions, and also of the three continents that were. Three submerged or otherwise destroyed continents (the first " continent " of the First Race existing from first to last) are described in the oc cult teachings ; the Hyperborean, the Lemurian and the Atlantean. Most of Asia issued from under the waters after the destruction of Atlantis; Africa emerged still later, while Europe is the fifth and latest, portions of the two Americas being far older. The Initiates who recorded the Vedas, or the Teach ers of our Fifth Race, wrote at a time when Atlantis had already gone down. It is only those scholars who master the secret meaning of the hymns of the Rig-Veda who may hope to understand how completely their teachings corroborate the esoteric doctrines. In the Vendidad we have Yima, the so-called " first man," belonging to two epochs of universal history. He is the " Progenitor " of the Second Race, hence the personification of the " Shadows " of the Ancestors, and the father of post-diluvian 528 THE SECRET DOCTRINE humanity. He is the symbolical man, who stands in esotericism as the representative of the first three races, and the collective Progenitor thereof. Of these races the first two never died, but were ab sorbed in their progeny, and the third knew death only toward its close, because death came only after man had become a physical creature, after the sepa ration of the sexes, and their " fall " into genera tion. It was of the new continent of Atlantis that Zara thustra (Zoroaster) became the law-giver and ruler. This was in the beginning of the Fourth Race, after the men of the Third had begun to die out. Till then, as just said, there had been no death, but only a transformation, for men had no personality as yet. They had monads — breaths of the One Breath, and as impersonal as the source whence they proceeded. They had bodies, or rather the shadows of bodies, which were sinless, hence Karma-less, therefore for the " souls " of men who had no personal Egos, there could be no intermediate period between in carnations. Like the Phoenix, primeval man resur rected out of his old into a new body. Each time, and with each new generation, he became more solid, more physically perfect, in accordance with evolutionary law, which is the Law of Nature. Death came with the completed physical organism, and with it — moral decay. Occultism limits the number of primordial races to seven, because of the " seven progenitors," or evolvers of beings. These are neither gods nor supernatural beings, but advanced Spirits from an other and lower planet, reborn on this one, and giv ing birth in their turn in the present Round to pres ent humanity. We may now examine the other ancient Scriptures, and see to what extent they carry the septenary classification. Through thousands of Sanskrit texts, THE SECRET DOCTRINE 529 some still unopened, others yet unknown, as well as in all the Puranas, the numbers 7 and 49 (7X7) play a most important part. They are found from the seven Creations down to the seven rays of the sun at the final dissolution, which expand into seven suns, and absorb the material of the whole universe. In Hymn XIX., 53, of the Atharva Veda (Dr. Muir 's translation), we read : 1. " Time carries (us) forward, a steed with seven rays, a thousand eyes, undecaying, full of fecundity. On him intelligent sages mount; his wheels are all the worlds. 2. " Thus Time moves on seven wheels; he has seven naves; immortality is his axle. He is at pres ent all these worlds. Time hastens onward the first God." Compare with this the following verse from the Esoteric volumes; " Space and Time are one. Space and Time are nameless, for they are the incognizable That, which can be sensed only through its seven rays — which are the seven Creations, the seven Worlds, the seven Laws," etc., etc. The Puranas insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time and Space; " that which people call the high est God is not a substance, but the cause of it; not one that is here, there, or elsewhere, not what we see, but that in which all is — Space." And as even the Rabbinical symbol for God is Maqom, " Space," it becomes clear why, for purposes of a manifesting Deity — Spirit, Space and Matter — the one central point became the Triangle and Quaternary (the per fect Cube), hence seven. Even the Pravaha wind (the mystic and occult Force that gives the impulse to, and regulates the course of, the stars and planets) is septenary. The Kurma and Linga Puranas enu merate seven principal winds of that name, which winds are the principles of cosmic Space. They are 530 THE SECRET DOCTRINE intimately connected with Alpha (" the Pole-Star of 31,105 years ago." Theos. Glossary), which is connected in its turn with the production of various phenomena through cosmic forces. Thus from the Aryan Scriptures this number 7 has passed through Indian, Egyptian, Chaldaic, Greek, Jewish, Roman and finally Christian mystic thought, until it became impressed on every exoteric theology. The mysterious number is once more prominent in the no less mysterious " Maruts," who, as the Vayu Pur ana shows, " are born in every life-cycle (Round) seven times seven times (49) ; that in each Round they obtain emancipation four times seven times (28), but their places are filled up by persons reborn in that character." The allegory makes of them the children of Siva, the Great Ascetic," in whom is centred the highest perfection of austere penance and abstract meditation, by which the most unlimited powers are obtained, marvels and mir acles are worked, the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired, and union with the great Spirit of the Universe is finally gained." The Maruts represent (a) the passions that storm and rage within every candidate's breast when pre paring for an ascetic life — this mystically; (b) the occult potencies concealed in the manifold aspects of the lower principles of JEther — her body repre senting the terrestrial, lower atmosphere of every inhabited globe — this mystically and sidereally ; and (c) actual conscious Existences, Beings of a cosmic and psychic nature. At the same time, " Maruts " is, in occult par lance, one of the names given to those Egos of great Adepts who have passed away, and who are known also as Nirmanakayas ; of those Egos for whom — since they are beyond illusion — there is no heaven of rest, and who, having not yet reached Absolute THE SECRET DOCTRINE 531 Perfectness (Nirvana) or having voluntarily re nounced it for the good of mankind, remain invisible on earth. The " four times seven " emancipations refer to the four Rounds (each with its seven Races) that have preceded ours, in each of which Maruts (units of life, or Monads) have been born and reborn, and might have obtained final liberation had they chosen to avail themselves of it. Instead of which, they preferred the good of mankind, which would struggle still more hopelessly in the meshes of ignorance and misery — without their help, and therefore they are reborn over and over again " in that character, ' ' and thus ' ' fill up their own places. ' ' Who they are, " on earth," every student of occult science knows. The Puranas, as well as the other sacred texts, teem with allusions to the septenary division of Kosmos as well as man. In the Vedas — the greatest of all authorities, though needing the key for cor rect reading- — three terrestrial and three celestial earths are mentioned as having been called into ex istence simultaneously with our Earth. As there are, in fact, only six principles in man, since his body is no principle, but the covering, or the sheath of his principles, so with the planetary chain, speak ing of which, esoterically, the Earth may be left out of consideration, being (to us) the only distinct body of the seven. But supposing that six earths only, instead of seven, are meant in the Vedas, what are they, since we still know of but one? The " Earth that floats," on the Universal Ocean (of Space) mentioned in the Vedas, is Prithivi, which is not our Earth, but the World, the Solar System, and means the broad, the wide, and Brahma divides it (say the Puranas) into seven principles, a cosmic division looking metaphysical enough, but in reality physical in its occult effects. Many millions of years later our Earth is mentioned, and in its turn is di- 532 THE SECRET DOCTRINE vided into seven zones. After which we read of its seven continents, seven oceans, seven climates, etc., etc. §XVII Seven in Asteonomy, Science and Magic In astronomy the number 7 is closely connected with the occult significance of the Pleiades, the 7 daughters of Atlas, " the six present, the seventh hidden." In India they are connected with their nursling, the god of war, Kartikeya. It is the Pleiades — in Sanscrit Krittika — who gave the god their name, for Kartikeya is the planet Mars, as tronomically. As a god, he is a Kumar a, ' ' a virgin youth, ' ' born without the help of woman, of the seed of Siva. The late Dr. Kenealy believed that in India Kartikeya is the secret symbol of the cycle of Naros, composed of 600,666,777 years, accordng to whether those years are solar or lunar, divine or mortal; and the six visible or seven actual sisters, the Pleia des, are needed to complete this most secret and mys terious of all the astronomical and religious symbols. Therefore, when made to commemorate one partic ular event, Kartikeya appeared of old as a Kumdra, an ascetic, with six heads — one for each century of the Naros. When the symbolism indicated another event, then in conjunction with the 7 Pleiades, he is seen accompanied by Kaumara (or Sena.) his female aspect. He then rides a peacock, the bird of wis dom and occult knowledge, the Hindu Phoenix, whose Greek relation with the 600 years of Naros is well- known. A Six-pointed star (double triangle), a Swastica, a six and occasionally seven-pointed crown is on his brow; the peacock's tail represents the sidereal heavens, and the twelve signs of the Zodiac are hidden on his body; therefore, he is also called THE SECRET DOCTRINE 533 " the twelve-handed " and " the twelve-eyed." He is the original of St. Michael and St. George. The years of the Naros being counted in India either as divine years or as mortal years, makes it exceedingly difficult for the non-initiated to under stand this cycle, which plays such an important part in the Revelation of St. John. It is the knowledge of the natural laws that make of 7 the root nature-number, so to speak, in the manifested world — at any rate in our present life- cycle, and the wonderful comprehension of its work ings, that unveiled to the ancients so many of the mysteries of nature. It is these laws again, and their processes on the sidereal, terrestrial and moral planes, which enabled the old astronomers to calcu late correctly the duration of the cycles and their effects upon the march of events ; to record before hand (prophecy, it is called) the influence they would have on the course and development of the human races. The sun, moon and planets being the un erring time-measurers, whose potency and period icity were well known, became thus the great Ruler and rulers of our little system, in all its seven do mains, or ' ' spheres of action. ' ' The spheres of ac tion of the combined Forces of Evolution and Karma are: (1) the Super-spiritual or noumenal; (2) the Spiritual; (3) the Psychic; (4) the Astro-ethereal ; (5) the Sub-astral; (6) the Vital, and (7) the purely physical spheres. This law of periodicity has been so evident and remarkable that physicians and theologians, mathe maticians and psychologists, have repeatedly drawn attention to it. The " numbers " are explained in the Commentary in these words : ' ' The Circle is not the ' One, ' but the All. " In the higher heaven, the impenetrable Lord, it (the Circle) becomes One, because it is the indivis ible, and there can be no Tau in it. 534 THE SECRET DOCTRINE " In the second (of the ' three Worlds ') the One becomes two (male and female) ; add three (add the Son or Logos) ; and the Sacred Four (' Tetrak tis,' or ' T etragrammaton '). " In the third (the lower world, or our earth) the number becomes four, and three, and two. Take the first two (4 and 3) and thou wilt obtain Seven, the sacred number of Life; blend the 7 with the middle Lord (2), and thou wilt have Nine, the sacred number of Being and Becoming." When the Western Orientalists have mastered the real meaning of the Rig-Vedic divisions of the world — the two-fold, three-fold, six and seven-fold, and especially the nine-fold division — the mystery of the cyclic divisions applied to heaven and earth, gods and men, will become clearer to them than it is now. For — ' ' Theee is a harmony of numbers in all nature ; in the force of gravity, in the planetary movements, in the laws of heat, light, electricity and chemical affinity; in the forms of animals and plants, in the perception of the mind. The direction, indeed, of modern natural and physical science is toward a generalization which shall express the fundamental laws of all, by one simple numerical ratio. We would refer to Prof. Whewell's Philosophy of the Induc tive Sciences, and to Mr. Hay's researches into the laws of harmonious coloring and form. From these it appears that the number seven is distinguished in the laws regulating the harmonious perception of forms, colors and sounds " (Medical Review, July, 1844). More than one physician has been astonished at the periodical return of septenary cycles in the progress of various diseases, and naturalists have been at a loss to explain this law, but both physicians and naturalists have observed and recorded its work ings. Mr. Grattan Guinness, F.R.G.S., in his Ap- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 535 proaching End of the Age, says that " The birth, growth, maturity, vital functions . . . changes, diseases, decay and death of all animals, from in sects to man, are more or less controlled by a law of completion in weeks," or periods of seven days. Dr. Laycock, writing in the Lancet (1842-3) on the Periodicity of Vital Phenomena, says : "I think it impossible to come to any less general conclusion than this, that in animals changes occur every 3y2, 7, 14, 21 or 28 days, or at some definite number of weeks," all septenary cycles. And he also speaks of the septenary periods in fevers. Mr. Guinness and Dr. Laycock agree in dividing the life of man into septenary periods, and Darwin, in his Descent of Man (p. 164), connects various vital phenomena with the tides, and shows that animals living either about the mean high-water mark or about the mean low-water mark, pass through a complete series of tidal changes in a fortnight. Now it is a mysterious fact that in the higher and now terrestrial Verte brata many normal and abnormal processes have one or more weeks (septenates) as their periods . . . such as the gestation of mammals, the dura tion of fevers, etc. ..." The eggs of the pigeon are hatched in two weeks, those of the fowl in three, the duck in four, the goose in five, the ostrich in seven." (Bartlett's Land and Water.) If the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in nature, as seems to be proved, if we find it control ling all the kingdoms of nature, including man, why should it not be present and active in Kosmos gener ally, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races and mental development? There is most as suredly an occult chronological system in Hebrew Scripture, the Kabala being its warrant — which is based on the archaic Indian system. Let the im partial critic compare the accounts of creation in the Vishnu Purdna and the Bible, and he will find 536 THE SECRET DOCTRINE that the " seven creations " of Brahma are at the foundation of the " seven days " of Creation in Genesis. The two allegories are different, but the systems are built on the same foundation. The Bibie can be understood only by the light of the Kabala. Let any one turn to the English, Hebrew or Latin texts of the Kabala, now so ably translated, and he will find that the Tetragrammaton, which is the Hebrew IHVH (Jahveh), is also both the " Sephi- rothal Tree ' ' — that is, it contains all the Sephiroth except Kether, the Crown — and the united body of " the Heavenly Man " (Adam Kadmon), from whose limbs emanate the Universe and everything in it. Furthermore, he will find that the idea in the Kabalistic books is entirely phallic and far more crudely expressed than is that of the four-fold Brahma in any of the Puranas. To demonstrate more clearly the 7 in Nature, it may be added that not only does the number 7 gov ern the periodicity of the phenomena of life, but that it is also found dominating the series of chem ical elements, as well as the world of sound and that of color as revealed to us by the spectroscope. This number is the indispensable factor in the pro duction of occult astral phenomena. It is needless to refer in detail to the number of vibrations constituting tbe notes of the musical scale; they are strictly analogous to the scale of chemical elements, and also to the scale of color as unfolded by the spectroscope, although in the latter case we deal with only one octave, while both in music and chemistry we find a series of seven octaves represented theoretically, of which six are fairly complete and in ordinary use in both sciences. Verily then, as Rabbi Abbas says in the Kabala (The Greater Holy Assembly) , " We are six lights which shine forth from a seventh (light) ; thou (Lord) art the seventh light (the origin) of us all." THE SECRET DOCTRINE 537 And again: " For assuredly there is no stability in those six, save what they derive from the seventh. For all things depend from the seventh " (v. Ka bala 1 '. 160-1) . The Zuni Indians, ancient and modern, seem to have entertained similar views. Their traditions and records, as well as their present-day customs, all show that their institutions— political, social and religious— were and are shaped according to the sep tenary principle. Thus all their towns and villages were built in clusters of six (huts?) around a seventh. Again, their sacerdotal hierarchy is com posed of six " Priests of the House," seemingly syn thesized in the seventh, who is a woman, the " Priestess Mother." These receive to this day an annual tribute of corn of seven colors. Undistinguished from other Indians during the whole year, on a certain day they come out arrayed in their priestly robes, each of the color sacred to the particular god whom the priest serves and personifies; each of them representing one of the seven regions, and each receiving corn of the color corresponding to that region. Thus the white represents the East, whence comes the first sun light; the yellow, the North, from the color of the Aurora; the red, the South, whence comes the heat ; the blue, the West, the color of the Pacific Ocean; the black, the nether regions; corn with all colors on one ear represents the upper regions, the firma ment with its stars and many-tinted clouds. The " speckled c#rn," each grain containing all the colors, is that of the " Priestess-Mother "; woman containing in herself the seeds of all races, past, present and future; Eve being the mother of all living. Compare these Zuni priests with the " seven great officiating priests " spoken of in the Anugitd, the name given to the " seven senses " exoterically, and 538 THE SECRET DOCTRINE to the " seven human principles, esoterically. Whence this identity of symbolism, unless we accept the tradition of Arjuna going over to Patala (the antipodes, or America), and there marrying Ulupi, the daughter of the Naga (or rather Nargal) King? Seven is also the great magic number, as before said. In the occult records, the weapon mentioned in the Puranas and the Mahabhdrata, the Agneydstra or " fiery weapon," is said to be built of seven ele ments. This weapon is one of the many thorns in the side of modern Sanskritists. Wilson, in his Specimens of the Hindu Theatre, (p. 297), fails to explain it, though he says it " sometimes appears to be a mystical power exercised by the individual." It is the fiery javelin of Brahma. How old these seven-fold ideas are will be shown in the following section. § XVIII On the Antiquity of these Doctrines The theosophists have never claimed " original inspiration," not even as mediums, but have always pointed, and still point, to the " primary significa tion " of the symbols which they trace to other countries older even than Egypt; significations, moreover, which emanate from a hierarchy of living wise men, mortals notwithstanding their wisdom, who reject every approach to supernaturalism. But the able author of The Book of the Begin nings and of The Natural Genesis demonstrates most triumphantly the truth of our esoteric teach ings, by showing them to be identical with those of Egypt. The fact that this learned Egyptologist does not recognize in the doctrine of the " Seven Souls," as he terms our principles or metaphysical concepts, anything but " the primitive biology or physiology of the Soul," does not invalidate our THE SECRET DOCTRINE 539 argument, because Mr. Massey touches only upon two keys, those that unlock the astronomical and physiological mysteries of esotericism, and leaves out the other five. Otherwise he would have under stood that what he calls the physiological divisions of the living Soul of man are regarded by theoso- phists as also psychological and spiritual. But let the reader judge. Says our author : ' ' The first form of the mystical Seven was seen to be figured in heaven by the seven large stars of the Great Bear, the constellation as signed by the Egyptians to the Mother of Time and the Seven Elemental Powers." Just so, for the Hindus place in the Great Bear their seven primitive Sages, and call this constella tion their abode, but whether this is only an astro nomical myth, or a primordial mystery, having a deeper meaning than that it bears on its surface, is what their adepts claim to know. We are also told by Mr. Massey that " the Egyptians divided the face of the sky at night into seven parts. The primary Heaven was seven-fold." So with the Aryans. " The earliest forces recognized in nature were recognized as seven. These became seven ele mentals, devils (?) or, later, divinities. Seven prop erties were assigned to nature, as matter, cohesion, fluxion, coagulation, accumulation, station and divi sion — and seven elements or souls to man. " All this was taught in the esoteric doctrine, but it was interpreted, as already said, by seven, not two, or at most three keys ; hence causes and their effects worked in invisible or mystic as well as psychic na ture, and were made referable to metaphysics and psychology as much as to physiology. " The prin ciple of sevening "¦ — as our author says — " was in troduced, and the number 7 supplied a sacred type that could be used for manifold purposes; " and it was so used. For " the 7 souls of the Pharaoh 540 THE SECRET DOCTRINE are often mentioned in the Egyptian texts, . . , Seven Souls or principles in man were identified by our British Druids." And then the author tabulates the two teachings, the Esoteric and the Egyptian, and shows that the latter had the same series, and in the same order, Elsewhere, Mr. G. Massey adds that " the moon- god, or, later, sun-god, expressed the seven nature- powers that were prior to himself, and were summed up in him as his seven souls." (We say, principles.) The seven stars in the hand of Christ in the Apoca lypse have the same significance." And a still greater one, as these stars represent also the seven keys of the Seven Churches, or the Sodalian Mysteries, cabalistically. But here we must be allowed to remark that no true theosophist, from the most ignorant up to the most learned, will claim infallibility for anything he may say or write upon occult matters. We must be ready to admit that in many a way, in the classi fication of either cosmic or human principles, or of the order of evolution, and in metaphysical ques tions, those of us who endeavor to teach others more ignorant than ourselves are all liable to err. Thus mistakes have been made in Isis Unveiled, in Eso teric Buddhism, in Man, etc., etc., and more than one mistake is likely to be found in the present work. This cannot be helped. For any work on such ab struse subjects to be entirely exempt from error, it would have to be written from its first to its last page by a great adept, if not by an Avatar. But so long as the artist is imperfect, how can his work be perfect? " Endless is the search for truth! " Let us love it and aspire to it for its own sake, and not for the glory or benefit a minute portion of its revelation may confer on us. For who of us can presume to have the whole truth at his fingers ' ends, even upon one minor teaching of Occultism? THE SECRET DOCTRINE 541 Our chief point at present, however, is to show that the septenary division of the constitution of man was a very ancient one, and was not invented by us. What the ancient writers have said upon the subject was generally well said ; what the later ones repeated was generally distorted. Compare their jumbled accounts with the classifi cation of Jacob Boehme, the prince of all the medi aeval seers. He says : ' ' We find seven especial prop erties in Nature, whereby this only Mother works all things " (these he calls fire, light, sound, the up per three, and desire, bitterness, anguish and sub stantiality, the lower four). " Whatever the six forms are spiritually, that the seventh, the body (or substantiality), is essentially. . . . And all the stars are God's powers, and the whole body of the world consisteth in the seven qualifying or Foun tain Spirits." This is our theosophical doctrine, ren dered in mystical language. Verily ' ' Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pil lars! " (Prov. ix. 1.) (Note by the Editor.) In Vaughan 's " Hours with the Mystics" these principles are given a lit tle differently, and explained as follows: 1st. The Astringent Quality, Desire or Cohesion. 2d. The Sweet Quality, the antagonist of the first, expan sion or movement. 3d. The Bitter Quality, gener ated from the conflict of the first two, the Strife of being. 4th. The Quality of Fire, the root of the soul of man. 5th. The Quality of Love, the source of Wisdom and glory. 6th. The Quality of Sound, the harmony of the spheres, the source of under standing and speech in man. 7th. The Quality of Essential Substance, the formative principle; on earth the plastic power ruling matter; the quality by which all the rest comes into manifestation. ADDENDA TO PART II I Archaic oe Modern Anthropology Whenever the question of the origin of man is of fered seriously to an unbiased, honest and earnest man of science, the answer comes invariably: " We do not know. ' ' The real question is : What Cause — combined with other secondary causes — produces the ' ' variations ' ' in the organisms themselves? The purely second ary causes of differentiation grouped under the head of sexual selection, natural selection, climate, isolation, etc., mislead the Western evolutionist, and offer no real explanation whatever of the ' ' whence ' ' of the " ancestral types," which served as the start ing point for physical development. The truth is, that the differentiating " causes " known to mod ern science only come into operation after the phys- icalization of the primeval animal root-types out of the astral. Darwinism only meets Evolution at its midway point — that is to say, when astral evolution has given place to the play of the ordinary physical forces with which our present senses acquaint us. The underlying physiological variation in species — - one to which all other laws are subordinate and sec ondary — is a sub-conscious Intelligence pervading matter, ultimately traceable to a Reflection of the Divine Wisdom and that of the Creative Powers. Between the evolution of the spiritual nature of man from " the simple cell-soul " of Haeckel, and the alleged development of his physical frame from 544 THE SECRET DOCTRINE the protoplasmic dweller in the ocean slime, there is an abyss which will be recognized as impassable by any man in the full possession of his intellectual faculties. Haeckel says in his Pedigree of Man, etc. (pp. 34- 37), " A mechanical origin of the earliest living form was held as the necessary sequence to Darwin's teaching." To which Occultism replies: In the course of evolution when the physical triumphed over and nearly crushed under its weight both the spiritual and mental evolutions, the great gift of Kriyasakti * remained the heirloom of only a few elect men in every age. . . . Spirit strove vainly to manifest itself in its fulness in purely organic forms (as explained in Part I.), and this faculty which had been a natural attribute in the early hu manity of the Third Race, became one of the class regarded as simply phenomenal by the Occultists, and as scientifically impossible by the materialists. In our day the assertion that there exists a power which can create human forms — ready-made sheaths for the " conscious Monads," or developed Spirits of past life-cycles to incarnate in — is of course con sidered ridiculous. As to the origin of man, not from nothing, cemented with a little red clay, but from a living divine Entity consolidating the astral body with surrounding materials — this conception is too absurd to mention for the materialists. But a deep Russian thinker, N. N. Strachof, says in his Fundamental Conceptions of Psychology and Physiology, " If organisms are entities . . . then it is only just to conclude and assert that the organic life strives to beget psychic life, but it would be still more correct to say that the true cause of organic life is the tendency of spirit to manifest in substantial forms, to clothe itself in substantial ?The power of creation by Will and Imagination, (v. Comm. on Btmea yn.8 y, 27.), THE SECRET DOCTRINE 545 reality. It is the highest form which contains the complete explanation of the lowest, never the re verse." This is admitting the identity of this mys terious, integrally acting and organizing Principle with the Self-conscious and Inner Subject, which we call the Ego, and the world at large the Soul. The insuperable difficulty at the very foundation of the Darwinian theory is that no Darwinian is able to give even an approximate definition of the period and the form in which the first man appeared. And in Knowledge, Jan., 1882, we are informed that "Science cannot and does not pretend to any knowl edge of the beginnings of law, matter or life." II The Ancestors of Man Bearing in mind Darwin's theories of natural se lection, etc., we would ask Science which of the two theories of evolution herewith described is the more scientific, the one which starts from the beginning with sexual propagation, or that which shows the gradual development of organs and their solidifica tion ; and the procreation of each species, at first by simple separation of the one into two or more in dividuals. Then the first step towards a species with separate sexes — the hermaphrodite condition; then a kind of Parthenogenesis, or " virginal repro duction," when the egg-cells' are formed within the body, issuing from it as atomic emanations, and ma turing outside of it; until, finally, after a definite separation into sexes, human beings begin to propa gate through sexual connection. Of these two theories, the former is enunciated by all the exoteric Bibles (except the Puranas) and pre- 546 THE SECRET DOCTRINE eminently by the Jewish cosmogony. The latter is the one taught by the Occult philosophy.* This shows us that every living creature and thing on earth, including man, evolved from one common primal form. Physical man must have passed through the same stages of the evolutionary proc esses of propagation as other animals ; he must have divided himself (Fission and Budding) ; then as an hermaphrodite he must have given birth par- theno genetically to his young; the next stage would be the oviparous — at first without any fructifying element, then with the help of the fertilizing spore; and only after the final and definite evolution of both sexes would man become a distinct male and female, when reproduction through sexual union would grow into universal law. Archaic science allows the human physical frame to have passed through every form from the lowest to the very highest, its present one; or from the simple to the complex, to use the accepted terms. But it claims that in this, the fourth cycle, the frame having already existed among the natural types and models of preceding Rounds, was quite ready for man from the beginning of the present one. Theosophists will remember that according to oc cult teaching, cyclic periods of pralaya (or disso lution), so-called, are but obscurations, during which periods Nature (i.e., everything visible and invis ible on a resting planet) remains in statu quo. Na ture rests and slumbers, no work of destruction go ing on, even if no active work is done. All forms, ?Prof. Le Conte distinguishes seven stages of reproduction : 1st, Fission. 2d. Budding. 3d. The differentiation of the reproductive cells into a special organ. 4th. The withdrawal of that organ to the interior of the structure. 5th. The union of sperm-cell and germ-cell in the ovule, two elements in one organ. 6th. Two or gans in one individual — hermaphroditism. 7th. The two organs In separate individuals, and the beginning of choice and the law of Sexual Selection. — Editor. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 547 as well as their astral types, remain as they were at the last period of activity. The " night " of a planet has hardly any twilight preceding it. It is caught like a huge mammoth by an avalanche, and remains frozen and slumbering till the dawn of its next new days. With the beginning of this cycle the Monad had but to step into the astral body of ' ' the progenitors," in order that the work of physical consolidation should begin around the shadowy pro totype. For there can be no objective form on earth (nor in the universe) without its astral prototype being first formed in Space. From Phidias down to the humblest workman, a sculptor has to first create a model in his mind before he can reproduce it in an objective figure. We have one thing in common with the Darwinian school ; it is the law of gradual and extremely slow evolution, embracing many million years. The chief quarrel is with regard to the nature of the primitive " Ancestor." We shall be told that the Creative Spirit, or the " progenitor " of Manu is an hypo thetical being unknown on the physical plane. We reply that it was believed in by the whole of antiq uity, and by nine-tenths of the present humanity; whereas, not only is the pithecoid man, or " ape- man," a purely hypothetical creation of Haeckel 's, unknown and untraceable on this earth, but further its genealogy — as invented by him — clashes with scientific facts. It comes to this. Grant to man an immortal Soul and Spirit, endow the whole animate and inanimate creation with the Monadic principle gradually evolv ing from the latent and passive into active and posi tive polarity, and Haeckel will not have a leg to stand upon. In his Present Position of Evolution he says : " Little as we are in a position at the pres ent time to explain fully the nature of consciousness, yet the comparative and genetic observation of it 548 THE SECRET DOCTRINE clearly shows that it is only a higher and more com plex function of the nerve-cells." But where does this land him ? Once more right into the Occult and mystic teachings of the Kabala about the descent of souls as conscious and unconscious atoms; about the Pythagorean Monad and the monads of Leibnitz, and the " gods, monads and atoms " of esotericism. Occultism teaches that (1) the life-atoms of our life-principle (Prana) are never entirely lost when a man dies. That the atoms best impregnated with the life-principle (an independent, eternal, conscious factor) are partially transmitted from father to son by heredity, and partially drawn together once more, to become the animating principle of the new body in every new incarnation of the Monad. Because (2) as the individual Soul is ever the same, so are the atoms of the lower principles (the body, its astral or life-double, etc.), drawn as they are by affinity and Karmic law always to the same individ uality in a series of various bodies, etc., etc. (See Transmigration of the Life-Atoms, from Five Tears of Theosophy, pp. 533-539.) The collective aggre gation of these atoms forms thus the Anima Mundi of our solar system, the soul of our little universe, each atom of which is of course a soul, a monad, a little universe endowed with consciousness, hence with memory. We know and speak of " life-atoms " and of " sleeping-atoms," because we regard these two forms of energy, the kinetic and the potential, as produced by one and the same force, the One Life, which we regard as the source and mover of all. The Life-principle, or life-energy, which is omni present, eternal, indestructible, is a force and a Principle as noumenon; it is atoms, as phenomenon. In the transmigration of the Life-atoms, we say, in explanation of what is often misunderstood: "It (life) is omnipresent . . . though often in a THE SECRET DOCTRINE 549 dormant state (on this plane of manifestation), as in stone. The definition which states that when this indestructible foroe is disconnected with one set of atoms, or rather molecules, it is immediately at tracted by others, does not imply that it entirely abandons the first set (which would then disappear), but only that it transfers its vis viva or life-power — the energy of motion — to another set. But because it manifests in this second set as what is called ki netic energy, it does not follow that it is not still in the- first as' potential energy (static energy) or life latent. Ill* Owing to the very type of his development man cannot descend from either an ape or an ancestor common to both, but shows his origin from a type far superior to himself. And this type is the " Heav enly Man," the Creative Spirits, or " Progenitors " so-called, as shown in the first part of this volume. On the other hand, the pithecoids, the orang-outang, the gorilla and the chimpanzee can, and, as the Oc cult Sciences teach, do descend from the animalized Fourth human Root-Race, being the product of man and an extinct species of mammal that lived in the Miocene age, and whose remote ancestors were them selves the product of Lemurian bestiality. The an cestry of this semi-human monster is explained in the Stanzas as originating in the sin of the ' ' Mind less " races of the middle Third Race period. (See Diagram V.) When it is borne in mind that all forms which now people the earth are so many variations on (seven) basic types originally thrown off by the Man ?The next sections on the relation of man and the anthropoid apes give the scientific views on the subject, which have been suf ficiently explained in the chapters on the history of the Fourth Race, and they are therefore omitted here. — Editor. 550 THE SECRET DOCTRINE of the Third and Fourth Rounds, such an evolu tionist argument as that which insists on ' ' the unity of struafrtural plan characterizing all vertebrates," loses its" edge. (v. Diagram X.) The basic types referred to were very few in comparison with the multitude of organisms to which they ultimately gave rise; but a general unity of plan has, never theless, been preserved throughout the ages. The economy of Nature does not sanction the coexist ence of several utterly opposed " ground plans " of organic evolution on one planet. A similar question is that of the " rudimentary organs " discovered by anatomists in the human body. Here again Occultism comes to our assistance. The fact is, that as previously stated, the human type is the repertory of all potential organic forms,- and the central point from which they radiate. So far as our present Fourth Round terrestrial period is concerned, the mammalian fauna alone are to be regarded as traceable to prototypes shed by man. The amphibia, birds, reptiles, fishes, etc., are the resultants of the Third Round, astral fossil forms stored up in the auric envelope of the earth, and projected into physical objectivity subsequent to the deposition of the first Laurentian rocks. " Evolution " has to do with the progressive modi fications effected in the lower animal and vegetable kingdoms in the course of geological time. It does not, and from the nature of things cannot, touch on the subject of tbe pre-physical types which served as the basis of future differentiation. The mammalia whose first traces are discovered in the marsupials of the Triassic rocks of the Sec ondary period were evolved from purely astral pro genitors contemporary with the Second Race. They are thus post-human, and consequently it is easy to account for the general resemblance between their embryonic stages and those of man, who necessarily THE SECRET DOCTRINE 551 DIAGRAM X (Showing, as an example, the descent of the Un gulate Mammals.) I. The Root, according to Occultism. Which is one of the seven primeval physi- co-astral and bisexual root-types of the mammalian kingdom (animal). These were contemporaries of the early Lemu- rian races, and are the " unknown roots " of science. I The Root According to Occultism PaleotheridsB Eocene Miocene Pliocene 552 THE SECRET DOCTRINE embraces in himself and epitomizes in his own de velopment the features of the groups he originated. But how to account for the various types of lower animal life which the form of the future child shad ows forth in the cycle of its growth? " How comes it that stages in the life of fishes whose ancestors swam in the seas of the Silurian period (aeons be fore the epoch of the First Root-Race of the Fourth Round) as well as stages in that of the later amphib ian, reptilian fauna are mirrored in the " epito mized history " of human foetal development? This question is met by the reply that the Third Round terrestrial animal forms had the same rela tion to types thrown off by Third Round man as that new importation into our planet's area — the mammalian stock — has to the Fourth Round human ity of the Second Root-Race, (See Comm. on Stanza VIII., v. 32.) The process of human foetal growth epitomizes not only the general characteristics of the Fourth, but of the Third Round terrestrial life. The diapason of type is run through in brief. Oc cultists are thus at no loss to account for the birth of children with an actual caudal appendage, or for the fact that the tail in the human foetus is, at one period, double the length of the nascent legs. The potentiality of every organ useful to animal life is locked up in man — the microcosm of the Macro cosm — and abnormal conditions may not unfre- quently result in the strange phenomena which Dar winians regard as " reversion to ancestral fea tures." Reversion indeed, but hardly in their sense ! Holding, as we do, that the mammalian type was a post-human Fourth-Round product, the fol lowing diagram — as the writer understands the teaching — may make the process clearer. The unnatural union of the primeval ape with the " mindless " men was invariably fertile, be cause the mammalian types were not then remote THE SECRET DOCTRINE DIAGRAM XI Peimeval Asteal Man 553 Second Astral Mammals (prototypes). Lower (physical) Mammals, Lower Apes. Astral Race. Third (semi-astral) Race. Third Race Man. Separationinto Sexes. Fourth Race Man (physical). Fifth Race Man. 554 THE SECRET DOCTRINE enough from their Root-type — Primeval Astral Man — to develop the necessary barrier. Let us remem ber, in this connection, the esoteric teaching that Man had in the Third Round a gigantic ape-like form on the astral plane. And similarly at the close of the Third Race in this Round. Thus it accounts for the human features of the apes, especially of the later anthropoids — apart from the fact of their in herited resemblance from their Atlanto-Lemurian sires. The anatomical resemblance between man and the higher apes so frequently cited by Darwinians as pointing to some common ancestor presents an interesting problem, whose proper solution is to be sought in the esoteric explanation of the genesis of the pithecoid stocks. We have stated that the bes tiality of the primeval mindless races resulted in the production of huge man-like monsters — the off spring of human and animal parents. As time rolled on, and the still semi-astral forms consoli dated into the physical, the descendants of these creatures were modified by external conditions, un til the breed, dwindling in size, culminated in the lower apes of the Miocene period. With these the later Atlanteans renewed the sin of the ' ' Mindless, ' ' but this time with full responsibility. The results of their crime were the species of apes now known as " anthropoids." (v. Diagram V.) (For many more interesting scientific details, see Vol. II. Secret Doctrine, pp. 656-689. Two sections on Chronology are omitted here. — Ed.) TV On the Plurality of Worlds As we are assured by archaic scientists that all geological cataclysms — from the upheaval of oceans THE SECRET DOCTRINE 555 down to volcanic eruptions and tidal waves, and even extraordinary weather, are due to the influ ences of the moon and the planets, and even of neg lected and insignificant constellations — let us give a moment's attention to our sidereal rulers. What grounds have the Occultists in affirming that every globe is a septenary chain of worlds of which only one member is visible, and that all are, were or will be " man-bearing," just as every vis ible star or planet is? And what is meant by the " moral and physical influence " of the sidereal worlds on our globes ? * To the first of the two queries the answer is : We believe it because the first law in nature is uniform ity in diversity, and the second — analogy. " As above, so below." To the Occultists who believe in the knowledge acquired by countless generations of Seers and Initiates the data offered in the Secret Books are all-sufficient. The general public needs other proofs, however. Unconsciously, perhaps, in thinking of a plurality of inhabited " worlds," we imagine them to be like the globe we inhabit, and peopled by beings more or less like ourselves. But how do we know (1) what kind of beings inhabit the globes in general; and (2) whether those who rule planets superior to our own may not exercise the same influence on our earth consciously, that we may exercise on the inferior planets or asteroids unconsciously by the changes we make in the con dition of the earth's surface? We are taught that the highest Planetary Spirits (beyond their knowl edge of the law of analogy) are in ignorance of what lies beyond the visible planetary systems, since their essence cannot assimilate itself to that of worlds beyond our solar system. When they reach a higher stage of evolution other universes will be open to ? "Globes" or "worlds" of the septenary chain may be interpreted as states or conditions of matter. — Editor. 556 THE SECRET DOCTRINE them, meanwhile they have complete knowledge of all the worlds within and beneath the limits of our solar system. The ordinary man has no experience of any state of consciousness other than that to which the phys ical senses link him. Men dream ; they sleep the pro found sleep too deep for dreams, and in these states also there must be consciousness. How then, while these mysteries are still unsolved, can we hope to speculate with profit upon the nature of globes be longing to other states of consciousness than ours? For even great adepts (the initiated, of course), trained seers though they are, can claim thorough acquaintance only with planets and their inhabitants belonging to our solar system. They know that al most all the planetary worlds are inhabited, but they can have access — even in spirit — only to those of our system; and they also know how difficult it is, even for them, to put themselves in full rapport even with the three planes of the chain of spheres beyond our earth; planes of consciousness within our system, but differing from those possible on this globe. Such knowledge and intercourse are pos sible to them because they have learned how to pen etrate to planes of consciousness closed to the per ceptions of ordinary men; but were they to com municate that knowledge the world would be no wiser, because it lacks the forms of perception which alone would enable men to grasp it. When therefore we find in the Bibles of humanity " other worlds " mentioned, we may safely con clude that they not only refer to other states of our planetary chain and Earth, but also to other inhab ited globes. But no really initiated seer of any civil ized nation has ever taught that life on other stars could be judged by the standard of terrestrial life. That which is generally meant by " earths " and " worlds " relates (1) to the " rebirths " of our THE SECRET DOCTRINE 557 globe after each life-cycle and long period of " ob scuration "; and (2) to the extensive periodical changes of the Earth's surface, when continents dis appear to make room for oceans, and oceans and seas give place to new continents. M. Flammarion formulates as rigorous and exact deductions from the known facts and laws of science, the following three conclusions : 1st. The various forces which were active in the beginning of evolution gave birth to a great variety of beings on the several worlds, both in the organic and inorganic kingdoms. 2d. Animated beings were constituted from the first with forms and organisms in correlation with the physiological state of each inhabited globe. 3d. The humanities of other worlds differ from us as much in their inner organization as in their external physical type. According to the best modern calculations, there are no less than 500,000,000 stars of various mag nitudes within the range of the best telescopes. Is then our microscopical Earth — " a grain of sand on an infinite sea-shore " — the only centre of in telligent life? Our own Sun, 1,300 times larger than our planet, sinks into insignificance beside that giant sun Sirius, and the latter in its turn is dwarfed by other luminaries in infinite Space. And now let us briefly glance at the divergences between science and occultism on the question of the age of the globe and of man. With the two syn chronistic tables before him, the reader will be able to see at a glance the importance c# these diverg ences, and to perceive also that it is more than prob able that later discoveries in geology will prove esoteric science to be nearer to the truth. The sci entific names are retained in both tables, to make the parallels clearer. 558 THE SECRET DOCTRINE Parallelism of Life Scientific Hypotheses. Science divides the period of the globe's history since the be ginning of life on earth (or since the Azoic+ age) into five main divisions or periods, ac cording to Haeckel. (History of Creation, p. 20.) 1. Primordial Epoch. Laurentian, ] Cambrian, I Systems. Silurian, J The Primordial Epoch, ac cording to science, is by no means devoid of vegetable and animal life. In the Laurentian deposits are found specimens of the Eozoon Canadensc. a cham bered shell. In the Silurian are discovered sea- weeds ( Al ga}), molusks, Crustacea and lower marine organisms, also the first trace of fishes. Science teaches, therefore, that marine life was present from the very beginnings of time, leaving us, however, to speculate for our selves as to how life appeared on earth. 2. Primary Epoch. (" Devonian, ¦{ Coal, [ Permian. "Fern-forests, Sigillaria, Co- nifera, fishes, first trace of rep tiles." Thus saith modern sci- (*Azoic, without life.) Esoteric Theory. Leaving the classification of the geological periods to West ern Science, the esoteric philos ophy divides only the life-peri ods on the globe. In the present life-cycle, the actual period is separated into seven Rounds and seven great human Races. Its first Round, answering to the "Primordial Epoch." is the age of the Primeval or Divine Men, the Creators and Progenitors, of which there are seven classes, from the most perfect to the less exalted. The Esoteric Philosophy agrees with the scientific state ment, save in one particular; 300,000,000 years of vegetable life preceded the "Divine Men" or Progenitors. Also, no teach ing denies that there were traces of life within the earth (besides the Eozoon Canadense) in the Primordial Epoch. Only whereas the said vegetation be longed to this Round, the zoo logical relics now found in the Laurentian, Cambrian and Si lurian systems, so-called, are relics of the Third Round. At first astral. like the rest thev consolidated and materialized pari passu with the New veg etation. Primary Epoch. Divine Progenitors, Seco^dabt Gbofps. and the first two and a half Races. It may be said that we are incon sistent in not introducing here a Primary-Age Man. The par allelism of Races and geologi cal periods here adopted is purely tentative as far as the THE SECRET DOCTRINE 559 ence— esoteric doctrine repeats that these are all relics of the preceding Round. 3. Secondary or Mesozoic Epoch. {Triassic, Jurassic,Chalk or Cretaceous. This is the age of Reptiles, of the gigantic Megalosaurii, Ich- thyosaurii, Plesiosaurii, etc., etc. In this period also appear the first (marsupial) mammals — insectivorous, carnivorous, phy tophagous ; and as Prof. Owen thinks, an herbivorous, hoofed mammal. Geologists say that "the only mammals yet discovered in the Secondary epoch (in Europe) are the fossil remains of a small marsupial, or pouch- bearer." (Knowledge, March 31, 1882.) Science does not admit the appearance of man before the close of the Tertiary period, be cause man has to be shown younger than the higher mam mals. But Esoteric Philosophy teaches the reverse. I origin of the First and Second Races is concerned, no direct information being available. During the interim between Rounds, the globe and every thing on it remain in statu quo. Remember that vegetation be gan in its ethereal form before what is called the Primordial, running through and condens ing in the Primary, and reach ing its full physical life in the Secondary. Once, however, that the pro totypes are projected out of the astral envelope of the earth, an indefinite amount of modifica tion ensues. Secondary Epoch. According to every calcu lation the Third Race had al ready made its appearance, as during the Triassic there were already a few mam mals, and it must have sep arated into sexes. This, then, is the age of the Third Race, in which the ori gins of the early Fourth may also, perhaps, be discoverable. But no definite data are yet given out by the Initiates. The analogy is but a poor one, still it may be argued that as the early Mammalia and pre- mammaiia are shown, in the process of evolution, merging from one kind into a higher one, anatomically, so may it be with the procreative processes of the human races. A paral lel might certainly be found be tween the Monotremata, the Didelphia, and the placental mammals, divided in their turn into three orders, like the First, Second and Third Root-Races of men. (This inclusion of the First Race in the Secondary period is only a provisional working hypothesis — the actual 560 THE SECRET DOCTRINE 4. Tertiary Epoch. f Eocene, i Miocene, [ Pliocene. No man is yet allowed to have lived during this period. Says Mr. Edward Clodd (in Knowledge) : "Although the placental mammals, and the or der of Primates to which man is related, appear in Tertiary times, . . . the proofs of his existing in Europe before the close of the Tertiary epoch . . . are not generally ac cepted here." The above parallels stand good only if Professor Croll's earlier calculations are accepted, namely, of 15,000,000 years since the beginning of the Eocene period. This, however, would make the whole duration of the incrusted age of the w»rld only 131,600,000 years, ac cording to Professor Winchell, whereas, in the Esoteric doc trine, sedimentation began in this Round about 320,000,000 years ago. And it must be noted that even a greater time elapsed during the preparation of this globe for the Fourth Round previous to stratification. 5. Quaternary Epoch. Geology has now divided the periods and placed man in the Quaternary. { Paleolithic Man, Neolithic Man, Historical Period. chronology of the First, Second and early Third Races being closely veiled by the Initiates. The First Root-Race may even have been pre-Secondary, as is, indeed, taught.) 4. Tertiary Epoch. The Third Race has now al most entirely disappeared, car ried away by the fearful geolog ical cataclysms of the Second ary age, leaving behind it but a few hybrid races. The Fourth, born millions of years before these cataclysms, perished during the Miocene pe riod, when the Fifth, our Aryan Race, had already had one mil lion years of independent exist ence. How much earlier its origin, who knows? As the "Historical" Period began, for the Indian Aryans, with their Teda.s ("tens of thousands of years before Hesiod's Theog- ony," see Secret Doctrine, II., 450, and far earlier in the Eso teric Records, it is useless to establish here any parallels. Though we apply the term "truly human" only to the Fourth (Atlantean) Root-Race, yet the later Third is almost human, since it was during its fifth Sub-race that the separa tion of sexes occurred, and that the first man was born accord ing to the now normal process. This "first man" answers in Genesis to Enos or Henoch, son of Seth. {Gen. IV. v. 20, and Connn. on Stanza TV. v. 22.) 5. Quaternary Epoch. If the Quaternary Period is allowed 1,500,000 years, then only does our Fifth Race be long to it THE SECRET DOCTRINE 561 We claim that it is the " Soul," or the inner man, that descends on earth first, the psychic astral, the mould on which physical man is gradually built — his spirtual, intellectual and moral faculties awak ening later on as that physical stature grows and develops. " Thus incorporeal Spirits to smaller forms re duced their shapes immense "... and became the men of the Third and Fourth Races. Still later, ages after, appeared the men of our Fifth Race, reduced from the still gigantic (in our modern sense) stature of their primeval ancestors to about half that size at present. Man is certainly no special creation, and he is the product of Nature's gradual perfective work, like any other living unit on this earth. But this is only in regard to the human tabernacle. That which lives and thinks in man and survives his frame, that masterpiece of evolution — is the Eternal Pilgrim, the protean differentiation in space and time of the One Absolute " Unknowable." Our globe being convulsed each time that it re awakens for a new period of activity, like a field which has to be ploughed before a new crop can be sown, it seems quite hopeless that fossils belonging to its previous Rounds should be found in the beds of either its earliest or its latest geological strata. Every new life-cycle brings a renovation of forms, types and species ; every type of the preceding or ganic forms — vegetable, animal and human — changes and is perfected in the next cycle, even to the mineral, which has received in this Round its final opacity and hardness, its softer portions having formed the present vegetation, while the astral relics of previous flora and fauna have been utilized in the formation of the lower animals, and in determining the structure of the primeval Root-types of the high est mammalia. And, finally, the form of the gigan- 562 THE SECRET DOCTRINE tic Ape-Man of the former Round has been repro duced in ours by human bestiality, and transformed into the parent form in the modern anthropoid. Organic Evolution and Creative Centres While agreeing with modern science that Evolu tion works by uniform laws, and from the simpler to the more complicated, Esoteric Science adds that the law of development from the simple to the complex applies only to what is known to it as the Primary Creation — the evolution of worlds from primordial atoms, and the pre-primordial Atom, at the first differentiation of the former; and that during the period of cyclic evolution in space and time, this law is limited, and works only in the lower kingdoms. It did so work during the first geological periods, from simple to complex, on the rough material sur viving from the relics of the Third Round, which relics are projected into objectivity when terrestrial activity recommences. No more than Science does esoteric philosophy admit a special creation. It rejects everything "mi raculous, ' ' and accepts nothing outside the uniform and immutable laws of Nature. But it teaches the existence of a cyclic law, a double stream of force (or spirit) and matter, which starting from the neutral centre of Being, develops through its cyclic progress and incessant transformations. The primi tive germ from which all vertebrate life has devel oped throughout the ages, being distinct from the primitive germ from which the vegetable and (lower) animal life have evolved, there are second ary laws whose work is determined by the conditions of the materials in which they are to work, and of which science seems to be little aware. THE SECRET DOCTRINE 563 It is the " many " that proceed from the One — the living spiritual germs or centres of forces — each in a septenary form, which first generate, and then give the Primary Impulse to the law of evolution and gradual slow development. Limiting the teaching strictly to our earth, it may be shown that as the ethereal forms of the first men are first projected on seven zones by seven creative centres of Force, so there are centres of creative power for every Root or parent species of the host of forms of animal and vegetable life. This again is no " special creation, ' ' nor is there any ' ' design ' ' except in the general ground-plan worked out by the universal law. But there are certainly " de signers," though neither omniscient nor omnipotent in the absolute sense of the term. They are simply Builders, working under the impulse given them by the One Life and Law. Belonging to this sphere they have no possibility of working in any other, during the present life-cycle, at any rate. That they work in cycles, and on a strictly geometrical and mathematical scale of progression, is amply demonstrated by the extinct animal species; that they act by design in the details of minor lives (of animal side-issues) natural history can sufficiently prove. In the creation of new species, departing sometimes very widely from the parent stock, as in the great variety of the genus Felis, it is the " de signers " who direct the new evolution by the ad dition or deprivation of certain appendages, either needed or becoming useless in a new environment. It is these terrestrial Nature-spirits who form the aggregate of Nature which cannot but fail occa sionally in its designs, since, belonging to a differen tiated sum of qualities and attributes, it is, in vir tue of that alone, conditioned and imperfect. 564 THE SECRET DOCTRINE DIAGRAM XII Factors Concerned in the Oeigin of Species, Animal and Vegetable (Basic Astral Prototypes pass into the Physical) (vide Diagram X) 1. Variation transmitted by heredity. 2. Natural Selection. 3. Sexual Selection. 4. Physiological Selection. 5. Isolation. 6. Correlation of Growth. 7. Adaptation to Environment. (In telligent, as opposed to mechan ical causation.) The Spiritual Creative Impulse, equivalent to Lamarck's "inherent and necessary" law of de velopment. It lies behind all minor agencies. Species. In Diagram X, in which the ungulate mammals are traced back to one of the seven primeval physico- astral root-types alluded to above, No. II repre sents the realm explored by Western Evolutionists, the area in which climatic influences, natural selec tion, and all the other physical causes of organic differentiation are present. But even in this do main the sub-conscious workings of the spiritual creative wisdom are at the root of all "the cease less striving towards perfection," though its influ ence is vastly modified by those purely material causes which Spencer calls the " environment." The " midway point of evolution " (according to esoteric philosophy) is that stage where the astral prototypes begin definitely to pass into the physical, and thus become subject to the differentiating agencies now operating around us. Physical causa- THE SECRET DOCTRINE 565 tion supervenes immediately on the assumption of " coats of skin " — that is, the physical body. The forms of man and the other mammalia previous to the separation of the sexes were woven out of astral matter, and possessed a structure utterly unlike that of the physical organisms which eat, drink, di gest, etc. The known physical organisms were al most entirely evolved after the incipient physicali- zation of the seven Root-types out of the Astral — during the ' ' midway halt ' ' between the two planes of existence. Hardly had the " ground-plan " of evolution been laid down in these ancestral types than the influence of the accessory terrestrial laws supervened, resulting in the whole crop of mamma lian species, the product of seons of slow differen tiation, however. We should remember that though the animals— mammalians included — have all been evolved after man, and partially from his cast-off tissues, still, as a far lower being, the mammalian animal became placental and separated much earlier than man. No. 1, in Diagram X, represents the domain of the purely astral prototypes previous to their de scent into (gross) matter. Astral matter, it must be noted, is fourth-state matter, having, like our gross matter, its own " protyle." There are several ' ' protyles ' ' in nature, corresponding to the various planes of matter. The two sub-physical elemental kingdoms, the plane of mind (fifth-state matter), as also that of soul (sixth-state matter), are all evolved from one of the six " protyles " which con stitute the basis of the Object-Universe. The three " states," so-called, of our terrestrial matter, known as the solid, liquid .and gaseous, are only, in strict accuracy, sub-states. (Here follow, in the original, two long chapters on gigantic Races and submerged Continents, which it has been thought best to omit here, as not of es- 566 THE SECRET DOCTRINE pecial ethical or spiritual value, and to which stu dents can always have access. These chapters cover from p. 738 to 793 of the second volume of the Secret Doctrine. — Ed.) And now to conclude. We have concerned ourself with the ancient rec ords of the nations, with the doctrine of chrono logical and psychic cycles, of which these records are the tangible proof, and with many other sub jects which may at first sight seem out of place in this volume. But they were necessary. For in dealing with the secret annals and traditions of so many nations whose very origins have been matters of inference and supposition, in giving out the beliefs and philos ophies of earlier than prehistoric races, it is not as easy to deal with the material as it would be if only one race and its evolution were concerned. The Secret Doctrine is the common property of the countless millions of men born in various climates, in times with which history refuses to deal, and to which esoteric teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of geology and anthropology. The birth and evolution of the Sacred Science of the past are lost in the very night of Time, and even that which is historic — i.e., that which is found scattered throughout ancient classical literature — is, in almost every case, attributed by modern criticism to lack of observation in the ancient writers, or to super stition born of the ignorance of antiquity. It is therefore only by bringing before the reader an abundance of facts all tending to show that in every age and every condition of civilization and knowl edge the educated classes of every nation made them selves the more or less faithful echoes of one system and its fundamental traditions — that he can be made to see that so many streams of the same water must THE SECRET DOCTRINE 567 have had a common source. If coming events are said to cast their shadows before, past events cannot fail to leave their impress behind them. It is, then, by those shadows of the distant Past, cast upon the external screen of every religion and philosophy, that we can, by studying and comparing them, trace out finally the body that produced them. There must be truth and reality in that which every people of antiquity accepted and made the foundation of its religion and its philosophy. When it becomes undeniably proven that the claim of the modern Asiatic nations to a Secret Science and an esoteric history of the world is based on fact; that though hitherto unknown to the masses and a veiled mystery even to the learned (because they never had the key to the abundant hints thrown out by the ancient classics), it is still no fairy tale, but an actuality — then the present work will become but the pioneer of many more such books. An in stance of such hints may be given from Ragon 's Franc-Magonnerie Occulte, p. 44. He says: " Th3 Franc Macon knew well when adopting the title that it was no question of building a wall, but that of being initiated into the ancient Mysteries veiled under the name of Francmaqonnerie; that his work was only to be the continuation or the renovation of the ancient mysteries, and that he was to become a mason after the manner of Apollo or Amphion. And do not we know that the ancient initiated poets when speaking of the foundation of a city meant thereby the establishment of a doctrine? Thus Nep tune, the god of reasoning, and Apollo, the god of the hidden things, presented themselves as masons before Laomedon, Priam's father, to help him build the city of Troy — that is, to establish the Trojan religion." Such veiled sentences with double meaning abound in ancient classical writers. Therefore, had an at- 568 THE SECRET DOCTRINE tempt been made to show, for instance, that Laome- don was the founder of a branch of archaic mys teries, in which the earth-bound material soul (the fourth principle) was personified in Helen, the faith less wife of Menelaus, if Ragon had not corroborated what we asserted, we might be told that no classical author speaks of it, and that Homer shows Laome- don building a city, not an esoteric worship or mys teries! In treating of cosmogony, and then of anthropo genesis, it was necessary to show that no religion since the very earliest has been entirely based on fiction, as none was the object of special revelation; and that it is dogma alone which is ever killing pri meval truth. Finally, that no human-born doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and antiquity, can compare in sacredness with the religion of Na ture. The Key of Wisdom that unlocks the massive gates leading to the innermost sanctuaries can be found in her bosom only; and that bosom is in the countries pointed to by the great Seer of the eigh teenth century, Emanuel Swedenborg. There lies the heart of Nature, that shrine whence issued the early races of primeval humanity, and which is the cradle of physical man. Thus far have been traced the rough outlines of the beliefs and tenets of the archaic earliest Races, contained in their hitherto secret Scriptural records. But our explanations are by no means complete, nor do they pretend to give the full text, or to have been read by the help of more than three or four keys out of the seven-fold bunch of esoteric interpretation. These two volumes (of the original text) only con stitute the work of a pioneer who has forced his way into the well-nigh impenetrable jungle of the virgin forests of the Land of the Occult. These is no Religion Higher than Truth. INDEX Abel, 408, 433. Abram, 337. Absolute, 12, 14, 37, 43, 102, 120, 132, 246, 322, 524. Absoluteness, 169. Abyss, 192, 435. Action, 196. Ad, 469. Adam, 99, 188, 221, 240, 242, 300, 378, 408', 433, 442, 446, 468, 469, 472, 480. Adam-Adami, 301, 465-469. Adam-Jehovah, 324. Adam-Kadmon, 234, 299, 468, 493, 520, 521, 536. Adams, W. Marsham, 185. Ada-Nath, 469. Adepts, 119, 161, 185, 221, 222, 255, 267, 271, 276, 347, 369, 375, 409, 428, 429, 432, 445, 448, 462, 488, 500, 511, 530, 556. Ad-i, 469. Adi-Sanat, 80. Ad-Iswara, 469. Aditi, 445. Adjuster, 424. Adonai, 469. Adonim, 469. Adonis, 469. Advent, Second, 147. Adversaries, 368. Adytum, 470. .Edipus Bgypticus, 203. JEon, 51, 233. ^Ironautics, 463. iEschylus, 458. iEsculapius, 197. jEsirs, 316. JEther, 72, 76, 90, 91, 104, 121, 192-194, 203, 243, 254, 258, 483, 530. Affinity, 95, 534. Africa, 422, 527. Africans, 371. Agathdosemon, 225, 248, 445. Age, Azoic, 135 ; Black, 9, 209 ; Boar, 205, Brahma, 151, 205, 236 • Bronze, 388 ; Dark, 259 ; Golden, 145, 209, 388, 390, 437 ; Iron, 38'8 ; Miocene, 303, 304 ; MythopcBie, 145 ; Silver, 388 ; Ter tiary, 303. Ages, Great, 51, 282, 328. Agni, 234. Agnishwattas, 72, AJiriman, 477. Ahura Mazda, 475, 476. Ain-Soph, 522. Air, 76, 107, 134, 137, 172, 242, 243. Airyana, 453. Aitareye Brahmana, 327. Akasa, 49, 78, 91, 106, 117, 189, 192-194, 198, 243, 254, 258, 483. Akkadians, 441, 474. Alchemists, 492, 517, 518. Alchemy, 463. Aleim, 442. Aleph, 509. Alhim, 195, 233. All, 35, 52, 87, 147, 191, 450, 533. All-Being, 45. All-Force, 353. All-Wisdom, 202. Alon, 477. Alpha, 247, 529. Alphabets, 63, 77, 179, 512. Alpha Draconis, 223. Amenti, 85, 203, 500. America, 303, 423, 527. Ammon, 75, 203. Amoeba, 357. Amphibia, 550. Amphion, 567. Amrita, 56, 196. Amshaspends, 477. Ana, 75. Analogy, 555. Ananta, 61. Anaxagoras, 94. Ancestors, 124, 126, 133, 261, 349, 383, 439, 496, 561 ; Lunar, 133, 142, 153, 155, 157, 325, 337-339, 343, 344, 347, 374; Solar, 338, 339, 340, 344, 345. Androgynes, 103, 132, 186, 200, 219, 232, 234, 300, 315, 319, 336, 363, 364, 372, 374, 376, 387, 390, 419, 433, 445. Angels, 85, 97, 228, 271, 323, 351; Cosmic, 98 ; Fall of, 57, 115, 227, 392, 408, 474, 476, 479, 481, 482, 484 ; Guardian, 124. Anglo-Saxons, 431. Anguinum, 205. Animal-men, 385. Animals, 236, 379, 400, 401, 414, 519, 552, 562; Sacred, 74, 76, 130, 201, 211, 239. Anima Mundi, 27, 41, 42, 48, 75, 78, 198, 203, 548, Ank, 319, 570 INDEX Ankh, 495, 525. Anna, 75. Annapurana, 75. Annihilation, 145. Annunciation, 209. Ansated Cross, 514, 525. Anson, W. S. W., 230. Anthropogenesis, 568. Anthropoids, 381, 385, 403, 441, 554, 561. Anthropology, 131, 186, 188, 543. Anthropomorphism, 499. Anu, 198, 333. Anugita, 258, 507, 537. Aour, 63. Ape, 188, 373, 383, 385, 404; like, 156, 330, 547, 549, 552, 554; man, 561. Apperception, 23S, 239, 283. Apocalypse, 503-505, 540. Apollo, 204, 304, 449, 567. Arabs, 390, 466. Area, 434, 472. Arcane, 472. Archaeus, 41, 258:, 260. Archagetos, 472. Archangels, 73, 227, 397. Arche, 470, 495. Archibiosis, 239. Architects, 83, 127, 145, 195, 210, 233, 283. Architecture, 420, 456. Argha, 470, 471. Argyll, 456. Arhats, 224. Aristotle, 242, 508. Arithmomancy, 509. Aristophanes, 200. Arjuna, 538. Ark, 234, 333, 434-436, 470, 471. Arnaud, 140. Artemis, 218 ; Lochia, 218. Aryans, 181, 234, 235, 389, 390,399, 430, 431, 461, 463, 469, 473, 526, 539. Asat, 465. Asclepios, 445. Ascetics, 339. Asia, 187, 188, 423, 527. Assessors, 85, 86. Assyrians, 466. Astaphoi, 490. Astarte, 471. Astoreth. 219, 471. Astral, body, 125, 128, 129, 143, 153, 156. 282, 338, 343, 359, 395, 452, 488, 547 ; children, 410 ; double, 97, 156, 158 ; fire, 68 ; force, 266 ; fossils, 550 ; image, 348 ; life, 404 ; light, 8, 48-51, 60-62, 75, 85, 86, 106, 136, 189, 194, 198, 203, 204, 229, 245, 453, 483. 484; man, 287, 372, 552, 553 ; matter, 63, 67, 382, 565 ; plane, 98 ; root-types, 564 ; shadow, 351, 363 ; spirits, 172. Astrolatry, 314. Astrology, 185, 228, 290, 314, 317, 479. Astronomy, 185, 186, 200, 220-224, 261, 238, 317, 327, 337, 420, 448', 455, 463, 490, 492, 532, 533. Asuramaya, 327. Asuras, 228, 331, 391, 398, 477. Asvattha, 223, 262. Atavism, 140. Athanor, 67. Atharva Veda, 529. Atheism, 145, 499. Atlanteans, 38, 219, 243, 266, 267, 277, 327, 389, 405, 406, 408, 412, 418, 424, 427-430, 448, 450, 452, 457, 526. Atlantis, 56, 115, 229, 303, 405, 421, 422, 426, 427, 437. 463, 527. Atlanto-Lemurians, 554. Atlas, 532. Atma, 126, 170, 247, 269, 395. Atma-Buddhi, 120, 401. Atma-Buddhi-Manas, 122. Atman, 120, 303. Atmosphere, 336. Atmos, 37, 52, 63, 67, 69, 70, 84, 88, 90-96, 105, 107, 110, 112, 114, 122-125, 136, 138, 146, 155, 238-240, 262, 267-274, 277, 281- 283, 286, 426, 548, 549, 562. Attraction, 84, 171, 193, 276. Audhumla, 204. Aura, 260, 357. Auric-envelope, 550. Aurora Borealis, 117. Australians, 371, 385, 386. Australis, 117. Auto-generation, 220. Avalokiteshwara, 247. Avatar, 475 ; Boar, 205 ; Kalki, 147, 209 ; Maitreya-Buddha, 247 ; Mat- sya, 212 ; Vishnu, 142 ; White Horse, 459. Axis, earth's, 328, 489. Aztecs, 431. Baal, 219. Baboon, 405. Babylonians, 301. > Bacchus, 435. Bain, Alexander, 188. Balance, 343. Bal-ilu, 81, 83. Bamian, 425. Banyan, the Human, 119. Bear, Great, 224, 233, 238, 495, 496, 539. Bear, Little, 224. Beginnings, Book of, 538. Being, Absolute, 12, 33, 34, 39, 40, 42, 43, 49, 50, 73, 95, 98, 100. 123, 127, 163, 185, 223, 562; planes of, 243, 321, 395 ; the Soli tary, 409. Beings, Divine, 118, 120, 334, 386, 408, 434. Bel, 198, 480. Benefactors, Immortal, 454, INDEX 571 Be-ness, 11, 44, 45, 48, 167, 265. Berosus, 182. Bes 212 Be-With-Us, 100-103, 144. Bhagavadgita, 71, 223, 507. Bibles, 59, 186, 536, 545, 556. Binah, 218', 450. Binary, 212, 509, 510, 512. Biology, 186. Birds, 201, 221, 234, 247, 414, 550. Birth, Second, 203. Bisexual races, 300. Black, 234, 247, 300. Blood, Solar, 261. Boar Avatar, 205. Bodhisat, 210. Bodhisatva, 89, 247, 270. Bodies, inanimate, 236. Body, Astral, 125, 143, 153, 156; Casual, 340; physical, 129, 131, 141, 150, 157, 216, 359, 395, 397, vital, 265. Boehme, Jacob, 520, 541. Boneless gods, 451. Boreas, 304. Borneo, 386. Brahm, 199. Brahma, 50, 204, 207. Brahma, 32, 50, 51, 68, 80, 91, 151, 195, 198, 243, 291, 324, 331, 332, 336, 435, 459, 511, 535, 536; Days and Nights of, 205-209. Brahma-Rudra, 241. Brahma-Vaeh, 433. Brahma-Vishnu, 260. Brahminism, 205. Brahmins, 160, 447. Breath, Divine, 12, 36-38, 44, 52, 84, 86, 167, 528; Great, 79, 107, 109, 145, 239, 302, 346, 351, 352, 382, 496. Brotherhood, 289, 467. Bryant, 199. Bubastes, 178. Buckle, H. T., 173. Buddha, Gautama, 205, 455. Buddhas, 37, 43, 89, 212, 321, 425, 459; Dhyani, 270-272. Buddhi, 170, 248, 269, 393, 395, 397. Budding, 356, 357, 364, 369, 376, 546. Budha, 326, 467, 468. Builders, 43, 66, 73, 74, 85, 87, 98, 99, 120, 127, 141, 144, 194, 211, 232, 372, 454. Bulls, 53, 328', 509. Bushmen, 386. Bythos, 445. Caduceus, 262, 263, 515. Cain, 408, 433, 451. Calendars, 215, 216. Camel, 443. Canaanites, 466. Capricorn, 128, 208, 212, 453, 510. Carbon, 517. Carbonic acid, 140. Carboniferous Age, 438. Castor, 204, 360, 361. Cat, 177, 178, 497. Cataclysms, 367, 432, 554. Catacombs, 187, 448, 514. Caucasians, 473. Causality, 105, 394. Cause, Causeless, 12, 45, 136 ; First, 217 223 234. Causes, 98', 111, 162, 244, 482, 543. Caves, 98, 187. Cave-temples, 447. Cells, 357, 402, 543. Centres, Laya, 103, 104, 109. Cerastes, 202. Chain, Planetary, 118, 130, 134, 147- 150, 199 ; septenary, 291. Cbskrs 494 Chaldea, 182,' 188, 300, 441, 466. Chamber, King's, 185, 471, 500. Champollion, 248. Chaos, 52, 53, 59, 61, 90, 103, 127, 134, 192, 194-196, 232, 258, 434, 450. Chaos-Theos-Kosmos, 194-196. Chastity, 414. Chemistry, 122, 239, 264, 463, 536. Cheops, 200, 471, 500. Cherubs, 76. Chimpanzee, 404, 549. China, 441. Chinese, 386, 526. Chitra-gupta, 86. Chnoubis, 248. Chrest, 503. Chresto, 502. Chrestos, 502. Christ, 290, 337, 458, 526. Christos, 314, 393, 459, 475, 491, 511. Christos-Sophia, 248. Chronology, 186. Chwolsohn, 466. Circles, 10, 53, 78, 80, 102, 186, 199, 233, 234, 278, 319, 341, 478, 489, 494-499, 508, 514, 515, 520. Cities, 420, 421, 567. Civilization, 420. Clairaudience, 246, 259. Clairvoyance, 41, 135, 246, 259. Clement, 213. Coadunition, 148. Cobra, 140, 202. Coelus, 492. Cohesion, 110. College, Sacerdotal, 447. Color, 479, 537. Comets, 82, 116, 117, 134. "Coming Race," 267. Compensation, 287. Come-to-TJs, 102. Consciousness, 12, 34, 40, 41, 45, 78, 80, 127, 128, 132, 135, 145, 147-150, 162, 190, 191, 261, 262, 331, 395, 456, 465, 523, 547, 556. Consciousness, Cosmic, 165 ; self. 87. 88. Constellations, 286. 572 INDEX Constitution, human, 129, 283. Con-substantiality, 148, 279. Contraction, 324. Continents, 206, 267, 304, 366, 431, 565 ; American, 303 ; Atlantean, 303, 418, 527, 528 ; European, 303 ; Hyperborean, 302, 527 ; Le- murian, 302, 424, 527. Corn, 537. Cosmogony, 44, 90, 93, 109, 112, 187, 198, 204, 314, 315, 441, 568. Cosmography, 526. Cosmolatry, 338. Cosmology, 63, 230, 526. Cosmos, 9, 54, 83, 115. Couches, 501. Cow, 56, 216, 231. Cratylus, 494. Creation, Babylonian, 333 ; Chal dean, 328 ; Cosmic, 202 ; Puranic, 155. Creations, 16, 63, 90, 235-240, 301, 302, 339, 375, 396, 478, 528, 529 562. Creators, 43, 61, 80, 115, 127, 140, 141, 204, 211, 233, 235, 316, 347, 440, 461. Crocodile, 128, 198, 212, 440 ; wor ship of, 221-225. Crookes, Mr., 190, 256, 263, 282. Crores, 328'. Cross, 10, 187, 211, 222, 318, 446, 491-499, 501-503, 507, 508, 514, 515, 517, 524, ,525; Southern, 187, 223. Crown, 521, 536. Crucifixion, 202, 212, 500, 513, 514. Crux Ansata, 10, 187, 456, 494, 496, 500. Crypts, 448. Crystals, 42, 402. Cube, 75, 79, 99, 187, 195, 204, 237, 278, 492, 493, 518-520, 524, 529. Cubit, 184. Cupid, 336. Curds of Space, 55, 57, 79, 134. Curse, 114, 456-458, 460. Cycle, Great, 51, 135, 146, 205, 237; Life, 533. Cycles, 36, 286, 288, 290, 382, 400, 445, 470, 533-535, 546, 562, 566. Cyclops, 411, 412. Cytoblastema, 402. Dagon, 328. Daityas, 319, 320. Dakini, 406, 410. Daksha, 376, 384. Dancing, 470. Darkness, 35, 45, 52, 53, 58, 59, 62, 74, 84, 90, 102, 143, 18'9, 193, 233, 237, 254; Angels of, 511; Sons of, 478. Darwin, 335, 535. Darwinism, 543, 544, 547, 552, 554. David. 467, 470, 472. Davy, Sir Humphrey, 253. Dawn, 360. Day, 36. Dead, Book of the, 200, 220. Death, 226. Decade, 80, 187, 497, 507, 508, 512, 516. Decimals, 200. Deep, Great, 52, 192, 195, 197, 434. Deities, 56, 72, 200, 474. Deity, 37, 46, 48, 65, 68, 90, 133, 194-197, 278, 394, 441, 489, 520. Deluges, 56, 234, 301, 427-429, 434, 436, 457, 462, 487. Demiurgos, 91, 195, 210, 211, 233, 314, 316, 336. Demons, 225, 228, 240, 332, 339, 421. Depths, 278. Descartes, 94. Desert, Gobi, 301. Desire, 38, 90, 336, 376, 401, 459. Destiny, 287. Destroyers, 115, 140, 141. Deus, 214, 225. Devechan, 203, 484. Development, 34. Devils, 61, 97, 225, 348, 451, 475. Devourers, 134-136. Dhyani-Buddhas, 89, 270. Diagram I, 14; II, 139; III, 149; IV, 152; V, 373; VI, 416; VII, 518 ; VIII, 521 ; IX, 522 ; X, 551 ; XI, 553; XII, 564. Diana, 213-215. Dictynna, 218. Digits, 200. Dii Termini, 492. Dilation, 324. Diodorus, 204. Dionysius, 200, 459. Diseases, sevens in, 534, 535. Dissolution, 506, 529, 546. Diversity, 555. Divinity, 236. Djooljool, 425. Doctrine, Esoteric, 115, 132, 567. Dodecahedron, 195, 237, 322. Dodona, 234. Dogs, 328'. Dominions, 76. Door, 151, 158. Dots, 78, 79. Doubles, Astral, 124, 156, 158; eth ereal, 301; human, 233. Dove, 211, 234. Draco, 225. Dragon, 59, 61, 62, 220, 221, 223, 247, 331, 346, 390, 428, 442-444, 448-450, 476, 481, 482, 484, 487. Draper, Prof., 198. Druha, 496. Druids, 205, 539. Druses, 316. Duad, 279, 493, 509. Duality, 12. Duration, 37, 45, 50, 228. Dust, cosmic, 86, 88, 106. Dwija, 471, 472. Dynasty, 223, 452, 455. INDEX 573 Dzyan, Book of, 9, 55. Earth, 107, 118, 125-127, 137, 148, 172, 210, 242, 243, 314, 326, 527, 336, 395, 399, 400, 419, 521, 531, 556 557. Easter Island, 187, 188, 420, 423, 424, 426, 500. Echod, 92. Eden, Garden of, 204, 223, 390, 441, 442. Eddas, 316. Edom, Kings of, 300, 342, 468". Efflux, Current of, 107. Egg, 55, 57, 99, 233, 360, 472; Golden, 208, 498 ; Mundane, 45, 53, 54, 66, 74, 75, 198-205, 265 ; Orphic, 199. Egg-born race, 356, 361, 362, 364, 372, 375, 384, 387, 419. Eggs, Easter, 205. Egoism, 395. Egos, 35, 100, 129, 130, 133, 156, 157, 190, 191, 235, 246, 283, 340, 370, 378, 387, 392, 393, 395, 524, 528, 530 ; Divine, 181 ; Spiritual, 352, 353, 500, 501 ; Universal, 101. Egyptians, 188, 452, 453, 526, 539. Elect, 421. Electricity, 63, 66, 67, 69, 71, 89, 92, 104, 105, 110, 117, 171, 193, 245, 256, 259, 276, 286, 394, 534. Element, one cosmic, 63, 82, 207, 261. Elementals, 111, 121, 124, 128, 154, 159, 170, 172, 237, 242, 246, 283, 284, 321, 349, 394, 500. Elements, 54, 67, 74, 76, 78, 9g, 102, 106, 122, 123-127, 172, 182- 186, 204, 241-246, 261-263, 267- 274, 278, 282, 354, 355, 365, 406, 455, 515. Elijah, 487, 488. Eliphas Levi, 482, 502. Elohim, 33, 36, 60, 92, 93, 105, 126, 195, 233, 300, 324, 338. 342, 378, 442, 451, 477, 478, 490, 521. Emanations, Primordial, 338. Emblems, 178, 179, 326. Embryology, 123, 382, 550. Energy, 13, 74, 91, 92, 155, 165, 193, 281, 372, 394, 548, 549. Ennoia, 445. Enoch, 119, 433, 444, 485-489, 523. Enoichion, 485. Enos, 434, 485. Entities, 123, 128, 172, 398, 438, 544. Eocene Age, 437, 463. Equinox, 287. Erebus, 90. Eros, 90, 95, 336. Esotericism, 103, 172, 186, 197, 203, 206, 211, 229, 231, 233, 235, 236, 241, 245, 294, 299, 408, 458, 494, 502, 505, 525, 538-543, 554, 562, 564, 568. Essence, 40, 49, 55, 56, 74, 76, 97, 101, 102, 115, 144, 154, 197, 259, 261, 283, 370, 516. Eternities, 32, 43, 50, 108, 113. Ether, 31, 41, 46, 49, 61-63, 78, 83, 104, 106, 117, 135, 172, 188, 189, 192, 194, 241, 243, 258', 259, 346, 352, 365. Ethiopians, 473. Ethnology, 186. Europe, 203, 423, 527. Euthanasia, 487. Eve, 60, 99, 240, 408. Ever-Becoming, 494. Evil, 196, 225, 368, 408, 451, 461. Evolution, 9, 67, 91, 123, 127, 156, 164, 197, 227, 236, 239, 252, 278, 281, 285, 333, 334, 342, 344, 346, 372, 378, 384, 391-393, 396; 401, 403, 413, 423, 439, 440, 458, 459, 461, 462, 489, 533, 537, 546, 555, 562, 564. Existence, 34-38, 40, 43, 145, 149, 167, 289. Expectation, 171. Eye, of the Seer, 486, 487; Third, 40, 41, 347, 406, 411, 413-417. Ezekiel, 98, 364, 499. Ezra, 186. Fafnir, 222. Faith, 332. Fall of Man, 114, 227, 333, 334, 384, 391, 435, 443, 468, 484. Fates, 460. Father, 46, 69, 272, 279 ; ^Ether, 241; Mother, 16, 35, 36, 57, 73, 90, 518. Fathers, 273, 325, 348, 349. Fauna, 158. Favarshi, 475, 476. Fa-Wha-King, 247. Felis, 563. Ferments, 141. Ferouer, 475, 476, 478. Fighters, 80. Figures, 187, 244. Film, 169. Fire, 46, 59, 60, 62, 64, 69, 70, 71, 76, 102, 121, 134, 136, 172, 210, 211, 242, 243, 247, 334, 349, 354, 355, 372, 397, 398, 456, 460, 509, 519; Angels, 397; Lives, 136; Mist, 69, 71, 106, 119, 136, 262, 421, 440 ; Self, 507 ; worshippers, 66. Firmament, 336. First-born, 121, 195. Fish, 79, 130, 142, 143, 212, 310, 402, 435, 550 ; gods, 143 ; man. 291. Fission, 356, 357, 369, 546. Flame, 74, 76, 102, 120, 129, 131, 143, 144, 243, 282, 331, 334, 398 S Lords of, 338. Flammarion, 557. Floods, 426, 429, 435-437. Flora, 158. 574 INDEX Fluid, vital, 261. Foetus, 382, 552. Fohat, 63, 70, 71, 88-95, 103-105, 108-110, 116, 121, 172, 190, 256, 286, 336, 343, 515. Fo-Kein, 160. Force, 33, 40, 70, 84, 109, 111, 137, 154, 165, 197, 199, 236, 255, 257, 260, 265, 266, 529 ; Centres of, 563, 564 ; Centrifugal, 146, 226, 403 ; Centripetal, 146, 226, 403. Forces, Creative, 67, 73, 121, 229, 321 ; human, 97, 246 ; septenary, 171 244. Forefather, 375. Forms, 74, 100, 122, 125, 12g, 157, 166, 284, 354, 561. Fossils, 561. Fountain Spirits, 541. Four, Sacred, 73, 74, 80, 124, 409, 515. Franc Macon, 567. Friction, 259. Frogs, 198, 212, 402. Fungi, 140. Fylfot, 494. Gabriel, 209. Gaea, 90. Gaia, 517. Galileo, 94. Gamma, 517. Gander, 198. Gandharvas, 255, 256. Gan-Eden, 441. Ganges, 442. Gases, 244. Gautama Buddha, 160, 205. Gautier, 140. Gemini, 204. Gemmation, 376. Generation, 115, 203, 356, 440. Genesis, 131, 300, 439 ; Natural, 494, 538. Genii, 172. Geographers, 303. Geology, 206, 303, 320, 327, 336, 419, 437, 438, 463. 561, 562. Geometry, 78, 185, 186, 195, 200, 220, 277, 519, 520, 563. Germs, 45, 49, 53, 103. 105, 116, 123, 132, 136, 169, 199, 202, 210, 239, 397, 435, 470-472, 562. Germ-cell, 369, 546. Gestation, 216. Ghost, 244 ; Holy, 104, 198, 484, 491, 506. Giants, 227, 410. Globe, winged, 203, 497. Globes, 43, 116, 118, 127, 130, 147. 148, 150, 151, 158, 159, 199, 213, 314, 318, 555-557, 561. Glyphs, 56, 186, 187, 201, 203, 220, 502. Gnostics, 61, 197, 198, 202, 225, 227, 248, 445, 491, 503-50S. Goat, 482. Gobi Desert, 421, 447, 480. God, 37, 55, 105, 170, 225, 446, 451, 522, 529 ; Sons of, 50, 478 ; Spirit of, 61, 62. Goddesses, 324. Gods, 86, 124, 170, 207, 216, 217, 228, 235, 237, 240, 262, 277, 284, 323, 339, 401. Golgotha, 147. Gorilla, 404, 549. Gravity, 276, 534. Greeks, 508, 525. Greenland, 304. Gregory, Pope, 514. Grove, Sir Wm„ 244. Guinness, Grattan, 534, 535. Gurus, 208. Gyration, 131. Hades, 366, 500. Haeckel, 381, 382, 543-547. Ham, 523. Hansa, 65, 262. Hawk, 203. He, 217. Hea, 198, 316. Head, 233, 234. Heart, human, 345 ; solar, 261. Heat, 70, 84, 534. Heaven, 336. Hebrews, 33, 182, 473, 502. Hecate, 213, 214, 218. Hedone, 443. Hell, 351. Hemera, 90. Henoch, 485. Herakles, 458. Hercules, 221, 422. Heredity, 123. Hermaphrodites, 210, 219, 319, 358, 369, 376-379, 413, 433, 545, 546. Hermes, 61, 62, 119, 172, 201. 317, 467, 492. Hermes Trismegistus, 248. Herodotus, 18'5. Heroes, 145, 452. Hesiod, 228, 458, 526. Hesperides, 99. Heterogeneity. 40, 461. Hexagon, 125, 187. Hierarchies, 61, 74, 76, 119, 128, 163, 172, 224. 232, 240, 314, 315, 333, 409, 520. Hierogram, 231, 278. Hierophants, 119. 181. 182, 201, 202, 317, 447, 452, 480, 497. Himalaya, 160. Hindustan, 187. Hiouen Tsang, 425. Hippo-centaurs. 328. Hippolytus, 503. Hiquet, 212. Hiram Abif, 184. Hiranygarbha, 74. Holies, Holy of. 217, 242, 469-473. Homer, 568. Homogeneity, 40, 132, 461. Horoscope, 86. Horus, 231. INDEX 575 Hosts, 33, 60, 123, 126, 153, 165, 260, 283, 343, 395, 461. Houses, astrological, 271. Howler, 496. Humanity, 49, 76, 147, 271, 318, 328-330, 339, 419, 436, 438, 469, 489, 568. Huxley, 139. Hydrogen, 28'2, 354, 517. Hyle, 67. Iao, 489, 490, 491. Ibis, 198, 201. Ice, 53. IcHthuS, 435. Idea, 479. Ideas, 166, 171, 323, 360. Ideation, 12, 13, 15, 57, 85, 91, 165, 189-191, 210, 502. IHVH, 536. Ildabaoth, 490. Ilda-Baoth-Jehovah, 490. Illusion, 34, 39, 47, 49, 51, 60, 61, 111, 130, 144, 162, 173, 191, 219, 284, 286, 331, 432, 450. Image, 348. Imagination, 392. Immaculate Conception, 47, 48, 50. Immortals, 244. Incarnation, 15, 115, 244, 245, 287, 341, 427. Inch, 184. Incognizable, 232. Incorporealities, 284. India, 180, 182, 188. Indians, Pueblo, 378. Individuality, 144, 145. Indo-European Race, 186. Indovansas, 219. Indra, 449. Indus, 442. Inertia, 255, 260, 334. Infinities, 235. Influences, 284. Initiates, 9, 39, 94, 119, 142, 150, 160, 183, 229, 258, 259, 272, 290, 393, 409, 430, 433, 445, 448', 466, 481, 482, 493, 497, 500-504, 527, 556. Initiation, 55, 56, 118, 179, 183-185, 288, 471. Initiator, 89, 143, 436. Inman, 222. Inscriptions, 300, 328. Instructors, Divine, 454. Intellect, 171, 236. Intelligences, 50, 75, 84, 87, 101, 111, 123-127, 157, 194, 237, 275, 321, 340, 370, 497. Intonation, 160. Intuition, 41, 191. Involution, 227, 413. Is, the Absolute, 261, 432. Isis, 201, 204, 215, 224, 231, 315, 471 475 525. Isis Unveiled, 185, 193, 195, 288, 445, 491. Islands, 480; Sacred, 115, 229, 421, 427, 446. It, the Deity, 48, 169, 207, 241, 524. Itchasakti, 171. Jacob, 490. Jah-Heva, 93, 433. Jah-Noah, 520, 521. Jahva-Elohim, 196. Jah-veh, 451, 536. Jared, 523. Java-Aleim, 442. Javelin, 538. Jehoshua, 274. Jehovah, 92, 184, 196, 213, 214, 217, 219, 227, 228, 274, 333, 337, 433, 434, 451, 459, 489, 504 521-523. Jesus,' 61, 142, 185, 274, 291, 435, 455, 501, 511. Jews, 183, 184, 217, 291, 390, 441, 470, 471, 473, 508. Jiva, 123, 395. Jnanasakti, 171. Job, 490. Jonas, 291. Josephus, 242, 475, 486-488. Joshua, 142, 455. Jove, 243. Jove-Juno, 525. Judaism, 185. Jude, 478. Judgment, Day of, 102. Juno, 99. Jupiter, 83, 99, 198, 243, 272, 274, 318, 326. Justice, Eternal, 418. Kabala, 63, 323, 342, 468, 469, 472, 524, 535, 536. Kabalists, 228, 482, 483, 493. Kabir, 246. Kabiri, 354, 456. Kailasa, 479. Kakodoemon, 225. Kalahansa, 199, 247. Kali Hamsa, 65. Kali-Yuga, 11. Kalki Avater, 167, 209. Kama, 395, 401, 511 ; rupa, 351. Kandu, 376. Kapila, 267. Karma, 15, 34, 85, 97-99, 115, 124, 153, 163, 258, 284-290, 333, 346, 368, 369, 371, 385, 387, 388, 392, 398, 399, 403, 404, 417, 418, 432, 457, 461, 482, 474, 475, 478, 482, 484, 507, 528, 533, 548; Neme sis, 289. Kartikeya, 449, 532. Kathopanlshad, 203. Kaumara, 532. Keely, John W., 264-266. Kelvin, Lord, 440. Kether, 521, 536. Khado, 410. Khnoom, 203, 212. Khopiron, 497. 576 INDEX Khopirbo, 203. Khopri, 497. Khdiinl, 248. Kingdoms, 130, 154, 238, 277, 371, 372. Kings, 390, 429. Kircher, 203. Kneph, 195, 202. Knight, Payne, 22. Knouph, 248. Knowledge, 8, 72, 89, 99, 132, 159, 160, 227, 348, 409, 442. Kosmocratores, 314. Kosmos, 9, 13, 36, 37, 46, 49, 55, 62, 67, 72, 75, 78, 85, 90, 91, 100, 104, 133, 150, 163, 164, 187, 194-196, 248, 315, 368, 515. Krishna, 9, 436, 455, 459 ; Vishnu, 511. Krittika, 532. Kriyasakti, 171, 332, 374, 375, 392, 544. Kronos, 228, 460. Krypto, 485. Kumaras, 72, 240, 241, 339, 354, 363, 375, 398, 409, 511, 532. Kundalini-sakti, 171. Kurma Purana, 529. Kwan-shi-yin, 103, 246-248. Kwan-yin, 103, 104, 246-248. Kwan- Yen-Tien, 103, 104. Ladder, septenary, 261. Laggards, 153. Laihg, Andrew, 482. Lakshmi, 210, 337. Lamb, 211. Land, Sacred, 302, 304, 367. Language, 244, 388, 389, 503, 508; Chinese, 179 ; mystery, 180, 181, 508 ; Sacerdotal, 200 ; Symbol, 187. Laomeflon, 567, 568. Lares, 455. Latona, 204. Law, 15, 50, 51, 108, 109, 161, 165, 196, 340, 456, 460, 529. Laya states, 103, 104, 109, 117, 136. Laycock, Dr., 535. Leda, 204, 360. Legends, 412. Leibnitz, 155, 281. Lenluria, 302, 303, 405, 408, 421- 426, 437. Lemurians, 326, 377, 386, 405, 406, 420, 421, 424, 428, 549. Lemuro-Atlanteans, 400, 420, 447. Leo, 120. Letters, 77, 171, 212, 330, 456. Lhas, 314, 335. Lha-ssa, 335. Library of Fo-Kein, 160. Life, 10-12, 35, 38, 42, 48, 57, 58, 71, 79, 84, 92, 93, 101, 105, 120- 126, 130, 131, 133, 140, 141, 203, 256, 259, 260, 275, 394, 510, 524 ; Elixir of, 108, 283 ; Lions of, 120. Life con. Parallelism of, I, Esoteric Theory, II, Scientific Hypotheses, 558-560 ; Teachers of, 160 ; Free of, 47, 223, 262, 319, 446; Wat ers of, 52. Life-atoms, 548. Life-fluid, 260. Life-principle, 129, 169, 171. Light, 58, 75, 96, 121, 143, 193, 231, 232, 321, 479, 507, 534; Divine, 137; Sons of, 87, 252, 253, 271, 272, 408. Light-Maker, 80. Lights, Northern, 117. Lilies, 210, 211. Lilith, 376, 406, 410. Lines, 75, 76, 78', 95, 99. Linga Purana, 529. Linga-sarira, 258. Lingham, 216, 495, 496. Links, missing, 383. Lipika, 84, 85, 99. Liquor Vitse, 257, 258, 260. Lithoi, 187. Lives, 126, 130, 133, 134, 137, 138, 140, 141, 207, 330, 362, 363. Logoi, 48, 60, 62, 157, 197, 202, 225, 232, 246, 248, 345, 348, 504, 517. Logos, 75, 100, 103, 120, 121, 165, 197, 211, 220, 223-225, 232, 246, 270, 271, 279, 300, 314-316, 369, 445, 446, 454, 455, 493, 504, 511, 517 ; creative, 12, 47, 59, 60, 62, 65, 80, 89-91. Lohita, 324. Lords, 36, 71, 120. Lotus, 46, 50, 51, 198, 201, 204, 205, 209-211, 325. Lotus-Bearer, 375, 377. Love, 95, 510. Lubbock, Sir John, 414. Lucifer, 59, 326, 451, 483, 484. Lucina, 213. Luna, 213, 214. Lunar Ancestors, 153, 155-157, 200, 338, 339. Lux, 492. Lynceus, 360. Lynx, 360. Lyre, 486. M, 212. M. A„ 212. MacKenzie, Kenneth, 178. Macrocosm, 99, 125, 146, 157, 162, 371, 507, 552. Madagascar, 421. Madonna, 220. Magi, 66. Magic, 7, 8, 11, 142, 226, 244, 248, 316, 411, 456, 532. MelEJIIGS 195 Magnetism, ilO, 171, 193, 220, 222, 260. Magnum Mysterium, 50. Mahabharata, 74, 219. Maha-loka, 346. Mahatmas, 41, 375. INDEX 577 Mahayuga, 61, Maia, 219, 491. Maimonides, 467. Maitreya, 212. Makara, 128, 208, 212, 510, 511. Malkuth, 521. Mammals, 133, 159, 221, 239, 271, 279, 401, 414, 519, 549, 550, 564, 565. Man, 7, 10, 46, 62, 74, 76, 92, 93, 114, 115, 123, 125, 131, 132, 143, 153, 224, 227, 234-236, 264, 278, 300, 317, 322, 339, 353, 368-372, 382, 391, 400, 412, 430, 439, 458, 502, 519, 545, 549, 560, 561, 565. Man, Descent of, 535. Manas, 259, 269, 393-397, 401. Mandragora, 316. Mandrake, 317. Manes, 145, 452. Man-flsh, 142, 328. Man-God, 406. Manifestation, Cycle of, 192. Mankind, 126, 277, 288, 421, 427, 432. Mantras, 233, 244. Mantrika-sakti, 171. Manu, Seed, 436, 522; 523. Manus, 51, 205, 233, 237, 321, 398, 434, 436, 437, 455. Manvantara, 51, 52, 205. Magom 529. Mar, 212. Marcus, 504. Mare, 218. Maria, 219. Mariolatry, 214. Marisha, 376. Mars, 83, 324, 449, 532. Marsupials, 550. Maruts, 530, 531. Mary, 212, 218. Mash-Mak, 267. Masonry, 184, 567. Massey, Gerald, 177, 221, 494, 538. Masters, 185, 255. Materia-prima, 169. Materialism, 164. Mathematics, 185, 220, 420, 563. Matrix, 51, 81, 203, 343. Matsya Avatar, 142, 212. Matter, 105-111, 116-118, 132, 136, 137, 141, 147, 148, 155, 162, 166- 169, 189, 190, 203, 226, 232, 253, 255, 261, 262, 275, 280, 284, 348, 361, 432, 434, 492, 506, 517, 521, 523, 525, 529, 562, 565. Matter, Primordial, 31, 45, 46, 52, 56, 57, 63, 67, 69, 78, 79, 82, 84, 94. May, 219. Maya, 212, 219. Maya Durga, 219. Mayas, 216. Measures, 180, 183, 184; Source of, 493. Medicine, 456. Mediumship, 8, 376. Medusa, 376. Meenam, 212, 511. Melody, 171. Memphis, 182. Men, 163, 188, 300, 328, 329, 332, 398, 401, 411, 423-425, 431, 483. Menelaus, 568. Mercury, 83, 248, 273, 274. 317, 318, 325, 467, 492. Mercy, Goddess of, 246 ; Mother of, 103, 104. Merodach, 450, ,480. Meru, 99, 453, 454. Mesozoic Age, 443, 519. Messengers, 74, 97, 105, 163. Metamorphoses, 401. Metaphysics, 190. Meteorites, 440. Meteorography, 463. Meteorology, 463, 520. Metis, 212. Mexico, 188. Michael, 334, 449. Microbes, 140-142. Microcosm, 99, 125, 146, 157, 162. 257, 371, 507, 510, 552. Milk, 56, 65, 204. Milky Way, 56, 57, 453. Minas, 208. Mind, 105, 121, 125, 138, 156, 157, 165, 172, 189, 191, 237, 275, 276, 340, 341, 368, 370, 384, 392, 395, 396, 417, 432, 459, 484, 565. Mind, Universal, 33, 71, 78, 85, 90. 91, 475. Mind-born Race, 99, 240, 409. 410. 434, 442. Mind-Consciousness, 191 Mindless, 340, 345, 549, 552, 654. Mind-Soul, 132. Mineralogy, 238, 463, 519. Miocene Age, 303, 304, 405. 549. 554. Mist, 134. Modellers, 76. Molecules, 84, 107, 110, 112, 136, 239, 280-283, 549. Moloch, 219. Monads, 13, 88, 95, 101, 102, 105, 114, 122, 130-132, 143-145, 151- 156, 159, 269, 270-272, 277-284, 330, 331, 337-341, 349, 351, 353, 361, 368-371, 381, 382, 389, 399, 400, 402-404, 408, 437, 525, 526, 528, 530, 544, 547, 548. Monera, 239, 383, 439, 440. Mongolians, 186, 473. Monotheism, 470. Monsters, 328-330, 334, 381, 384. 411 549 554. Month, lunar, 214-216, 224. Moola Koorumba, 431. Moon, 142, 143, 150, 151, 155, 156, 177, 201, 213-221, 318, 325, 326, 335-338, 352, 422, 436, 466, 467, 471, 472, 489. Mortals, 244. Mosasaurus, 443. 578 INDEX Moschus, 203. Moses, 183, 184, 207, 212, 300, 467. Mother, 10, 38, 46, 51, 57, 67, 69, 75, 79, 81, 218, 278, 279 ; Source, 130 ; Spirit, 120 ; substance, 168 ; ¦water 335 Motion, ' 12, 37, 44, 76, 79, 84, 88, 89, 93, 109, 110, 136, 239, 276, 284, 494, 496. Moulds, 166, 560. Mounds, 187. Movement, vortical, 94. Mt. Sinai, 506, 507. Multitudes, 60. Mummies, 213. Mundane Egg, 53, 54, 198-205. Music, 171, 536. Myer, Isaac, 468. Mystagogy, 184, 345. Mysteries, 9, 181, 183, 18'5, 200, 433, 452, 466, 471, 479, 502, 568. Mysterium Magnum, 483. Mystery-Gods, 314. Mystery-language, 180-182. Mystery-Universal, 73. Mystics, Aryan, 346. Mystic-Watchers, 95. Mythology, 177. Myths, 412. Nabathean Agriculture, 466, 467. Nabatheans, 466, 467. N'cabrah, 216, 472. Naga, 444, 538. Names, 77, 172. Narayama, 52. Narayana, 282. Naros, 532, 533. Nasmyth willow leaves, 274. Nastika, 165. Nature, 7, 9, 10, 33, 38, 41, 48, 75, 77, 96, 105, 115, 121, 122, 146, 154, 157, 164, 172, 231, 248, 256, 259, 279, 319, 323, 328, 337, 372, 396, 408, 483, 521, 541, 562, 563, 568. Nature-Forces, 109, 111. Nature-Spirits, 124, 242, 563. Nave, 472. Navis, 435, 472. Nazarenes, 182. Nebelheim, 204. Nebo, 444, 467, 468, 476. Nebu, 474. Nebulas, 69, 134. Necessity, Cycle of, 15, 448 ; Sons of, 36, 37. Negative, 169. Neilos, 215. Nemesis, 461. Neophytes, 603. Neo-Platonists, 491. Neptune, 83, 243, 273, 336, 667. Nerve-force, 238'. Nervous Ether, 259, 260. Night, 84, 102, 151, 206, 207 ; Uni versal, 496. Nile, 215. Nirmftnakayas, 346, 347, 390, 530. Nirvana, 118, 145, 206, 207, 269, 339, 340, 341, 409, 530. Nirvanees, 340. Nitrogen, 282, 517. Nitr-ozone, 67. Noah, 56, 234, 471, 488, 520-523. Non-Being, 39. Non-Ego, 524. Non-Existence, 34, 38. Non-Separateness, 57, 163. Northern Lights, 285. Notation, 200. Not-gods, 346. No-thing, 280, 498. Nought, 200. Noumena, 38, 207. Nous, 41. Nox, 90. Nucleoles, 120, 321. Nuclei, 120, 321. Number, 8, 9, 55, 71, 72, 74, 76, 187, 212, 244, 322, 323, 497, 508- 512, 517, 525, 526, 532-534. Numerals, 74, 179, 509-512, 616, 517. Nun, 142. Nyam-Nyam, 431. Oannes, 142, 291, 328. Ob, 63. Obelisks, 98. Objectivity, 51. Occultism, 8, 133, 138, 166, 222, 251, 254, 261-264, 269, 271, 275, 282, 333, 400-403, 414, 420. 430, 432, 440, 444, 505, 517, 528, 540, 544, 548-552, 555, 557. Ocean, 56, 62, 196. Od, 63. Odic chord, 265. Odin, 234. Oeaohoo, 57, 60, 61. Ogdoad, 515. Oken, 440. Olla, 178. Omniscience, 164, 191. Omega, 247. One, the Absolute, 57, 73, 95, 100, 119, 124-127, 197, 526, 662, 663; number, 509, 515. One-Of-Us, 163. Ophanim, 76. Ophio-Christos, 202. Ophiomorphos, 226. Ophis, 61, 226, 445, 446. Ophites, 221, 248. Oral, 490. Orang outang, 404, 549. Orcus, 262. Orders, 120-123, 332. Organs, Rudimentary, 660. Origen, 213, 490. Ormazd, 477. Orpheus, 119, 201, 486. Orphic Deity, 218. Orphic Hymns, 203. INDEX 579 Osiris, 184, 204, 215, 218, 231, 455, 459, 500; Isis, 525; Sun, 203. OVer-soul, 15, 41, 47, 48. Ovule, 646. Ox, 609. Oxus, 442. Oxygen, 141, 282, 517. Oxyhydrogen, 67. Ozimandyas, 187. Ozone, 67, 108, 137, 264. Padmapani, 377. Palaeozoic Age, 519. Palenque, 187, 215. Pan, 482. Papyrus, 178, 203. Paracelsus, 41, 142, 166, 257, 260. Paradesa, 443. Parahydrogen, 67. Paraoxygen, 67. Parasakti, 171. Parentless, 42. Parsis, 214. Parthenogenesis, 545, 546. Parturition, 215, 216. Pasht, 178. Pass-Not, 100, 101. Pasteur, 141, 440. Patala, 453, 454, 500, 538. Paternoster, 502. Patriarchs, 145, 217, 235. Path, 424, 480. Peacock, 532. Pelican, 65. Pentacle, 75, 98, 99, 187. Pentagon, 125. Pentateuch, 9, 186, 475, 490. Perception, 148, 190, 192, 523. Periodicity, 15, 533, 534. Periods, 38. Permeability, 135. Personality, 145. Perspiration, 376. Peru, 188, 420. Phallicism, 184, 186, 188, 202, 216, 235, 324, 408, 410, 456, 470, 472, 493. Phallus, 222. Pharaoh, 539. Phenomena, 332. Phidias, 547. Phila3, 202. Philalethes, Eugenius, 137. Philo JudEBUS, 475. Philosophy, esoteric, 15, 40, 42, 123, 197, 206, 211, 338, 346, 355, 368, 394, 398; occult, 236, 265, 465; keys, to, 201. Phoebe, 213. Phoenicians, 491. Phoenix, 505, 528, 632. Phoreg, 228. Phorminx, 486. Phta, 197. Phtah, 203. Physics, 78, 264, 463. Physiology, 186, 220. Pilgrim, 13, 144, 147, 400. Pillars, 486, 487. Pineal gland, 413, 414, 416, 417. Pines, 519. Pisces, 142, 143, 208, 290, 291, 511. Pistis Sophia, 503, 504, 506, 607. Pithecoids, 385, 411, 547, 549, 554. Pitris, 72, 240, 398. Planes, 98, 150, 167, 278, 334, 335. Planet-Angels, 228. Planetary Spirits, 272, 314, 318, 535. Planets, 43, 65, 81, 83, 261, 271, 273, 315, 454, 455. Plants, 42. Plasm, 123, 125, 130. Plato, 193, 197, 198, 242, 303, 344, 364, 441, 458, 494, 497, 508. Pleiades, 452, 532. Pleroma, 223. Plexuses, 346. Pliocene Age, 437. Plutarch, 525. Pluto, 243. Pneuma, 244. Points, Cardinal, 98, 195, 204, 242; Central, 186, 202, 210, 231, 286, 498, 499 ; geometrical, 278. Poisons, 140, 196. Polar Dragon, 223. Polarity, 110. Poles, 302, 423, 427, 452-454, 529. Pollux, 204, 360, 361. Polygenesis, 398. Polytheism, 517. Popes, 182. Popol Vuh, 329. Pork, 205. Porphyry, 492. Poseidon, 422, 437. Potencies, 246, 331. Pothos, 90. Powers, 76, 102, 408, 455, 456, 607, 539 ; cosmic, 234 ; creative, 61, 72, 89, 91, 115, 120, 137, 229, 232, 271, 333, 345, 409, 457,497, 511 ; Intelligent, 165 ; Vital, 169. Prajapati, 398. Prakriti, 190. Prana, 125, 548. Pravaha, 529. Praylaya, 205-207, 423, 424, 546. Preservers, 363. Priam, 567. Prima materia, 275. Primaries, 168. Principalities, 76. Principles, cosmic, 15, 62, 96, 247, 275, 499, 522, 523 ; human, 62, 95-97, 104, 105, 128, 138, 167, 170, 172, 223, 275, 330, 331, 346, 370, 435, 522, 526, 531, 537, 540, 568. Priestess-Mother, 537. Prithivi, 531. Procreation, 222, 324, 357, 363, 364, 379, 459, 512, 515, 545. Procter, Richard, 429. Progenitors, 74, 235, 240, 301, 321, 580 INDEX 326, 332, 338, 340, 422, 423, 461, 527, 528, 547, 549. Progeny, 338. Prometheus, 347, 350, 456, 458-460. Propagation, 114, 222. Protagoras, 458. Protogonos, 515. Protoplasm, 166, 401, 440. Prototypes, 166, 380, 402, 550, 564, 565. Protyle, 47, 48, 100, 190, 194, 256, 282, 565. Psellus, 192. Psychology, 220. Ptomaine, 140. Puranas, 9, 184, 195, 206, 235, 240, 304, 315, 331, 345, 347, 375, 376, 467, 495, 528, 529, 531, 536. Pu'to, temple, 247. Pymander, Divine, 62, 227, 300, 478, 479. Pyramids, 98, 183, 185, 187, 217, 229, 268, 428, 429, 452, 519. Pythagoras, 94, 193, 197, 200, 224, 225, 278, 297, 298, 508-513. Python, 449. Qualities, 541. Quaternary, 48, 55, 73, 123, 280, 509, 512, 513, 518, 520, 522, 523, 529. Quinary, 512. Quintessence, 510. Qu-tamy, 466. Ra, 200. Race I, 113, 235, 240, 300, 302, 315, 326, 347, 359, 363-366, 369, 376, 388, 391, 396-401, 405, 412, 414, 417, 423, 425, 428, 436, 438, 480, 527 552 • Race 'il, 113, 259, 301, 302, 351, 356, 357, 359, 362-366, 369, 376, 388-391, 401, 405, 415, 417, 428, 436-439, 527, 550, 562. Race III, 10, 119, 145, 152, 219, 240, 258, 261, 300-303, 315, 319, 347, 351, 356, 357, 360-369, 374- 377, 381-388, 391, 398, 400, 405- 408, 415-429, 433-439, 442, 447, 452, 457, 487, 523, 628, 644, 549, 554, 561; Race IV, 10, 56, 87, 114, 126. 147, 194, 219, 229, 243, 258, 277, 319, 333, 367, 369, 370-377, 385-389, 391, 392, 399, 401, 404, 406, 412, 413, 417, 420, 421, 424-430, 433, 437, 452-458, 479, 480, 487-489, 526, 528, 549, 561; Race V, 10, 118, 158, 161, 186, 212, 219, 222, 227, 229, 251, 258, 262, 330, 365, 374, 380, 389, 399, 404, 405, 417, 426-436, 447, 450, 452, 456, 467, 462, 463, 468, 473, 479, 480, 488, 523, 526, 527, 581; Race VI, 89, 118, 173, 194, 222, 259, 265, 404, 431, 432. Race VII, 89, 118, 156, 158, 247, 370, 378, 404, 409, 488. Races, Sub-, I, 398, 428; II, 358 III, 418; IV, 186, 387, 404, 463, 523; V, 186, 227, 387; VI, 431 VII, 389, 431. Races, animal, 424 ; archaic, 186 a-sexual, 356, 357 ; Boneless, 351 characteristics of, 298 ; Dark, 301 Dumb, 152, 153, 380 ; prehistoric, 199 ; Shadow, 345 ; winged, 329, Radiations, 284. Radience, 67, 340. Ragon, 184, 201, 509, 510, 667, 568. Ramayana, 267. Ravens, 234, 300. Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 316. Rays, 47, 53, 57, 66, 90, 100, 122- 127, 270, 287, 384, 440, 529. Reabsorption, 145. Reaction, 196, 226. Reality, the One, 57, 95, 133, 156, 162, 280. Rebels, 350, 397. Rebirth, 203. Recorders, 84-87, 95, 98, 99, 101, 114, 468. Rectors, 273, 315. Redemption, 460. Re-evolution, 259. Regeneration, 203, 241, 493. Regents, 97, 244, 273, 314. Regions, 88, 423. Reincarnation, 34, 143, 223, 225, 352, 393, 397, 398, 401, 418, 455. Religion, Aryan, 184 ; primitive, 243. Reproduction, 364, 369, 372, 375, 376. Reptiles, 390, 414, 443, 550. Repulsion, 84, 171, 276. Resurrection, 182, 213, 470. Retribution, 85, 285. Revelations, 37. Reversion, 552. Rhythm, 179. Righteousness, Son of, 291, 324. Rigor Mortis, 260. Rig Veda, 231, 235, 384, 527. Rishis, 233, 238, 267, 398, 435, 455, 496. Roentgen Rays, 135. Root Base, 119. Roots, 129, 465. Root-types, 565. Rosicrucians, 102. Rotation, 79, 84. Rounds, 127, 128, 134, 146-151, 402, 403, 505. Rounds I, 136, 153, 156, 157, 239, 329, 378, 381, 400, 402, 412, 436, 489. Rounds II, 137, 151, 153, 329, 378, 381, 400, 402, 489. Rounds III, 132, 135, 137, 153, 156, 157, 330, 356, 370, 377, 378, 381, INDEX 581 400, 402, 41.5, 449, 650, 552, 554, 561, 662. Rounds IV, 36, 87, 106, 113, 118, 130, 181, 135, 137, 147-151, 153, 156-159, 219, 234, 239, 262, 277, 290, 335, 368-372, 377, 378, 381, 4P2-404, 412, 417, 424, 427, 431, 438, 468, 469, 519, 549-552. Rounds V, 106, 368, 370, 403, 404, 417. Bounds VII, 137, 152, 156, 368, 370, 378, 479, 506, 630. Ru, 495. Rudiments, 267. Rudra, 235, 496. Rulers, Divine, 98, 420. Sabao, 490. Sabbath, 236, 479, 482. Sabeans, 466, 467, 470. Sacr, 216, 472. Sacrament, 182, 472. Sacr-factum, 472. Sacr-flce, 472. Sacrifice, 143, 408. Sages, 72, 435, 436. Sakti, 171, 248. Samael, 228, 450. Samothrace, 301, 354. Sanctum Sanctorum, 473. Sanina, 376. Sanjna, 501. Sanscrit, 389. Saptapana, 127, 129. Sarah, 337, 338. Sarai, 337. Sarcophagus, 185, 470, 471, 500. Sat, 465. Satan, 220, 225, 320, 334, 393, 394, 450, 474, 475, 482-484. Saturn, 83, 224, 272, 318, 466. Satyrs, 41-1. Saul, 467. Saurians, 443, 444. Savages, 371. Saviours, 115, 143, 289-291, 392, 427, 436, 458. Scaraba?us, 203, 497. Schemal, 228. Schilling, 243. Schools, Inner, 409. Science, 9, 42, 96, 172, 188, 252, 253, 508, 532, 546, 557, 562 ; Sa cred, 666, 567. Scintillse, 80. Sclater, P. L., 302. Scribes, 85. Scriptures, 338, 466, 529, 530, 668. Sea, 48. Seasons, 390. Seb. 198, 199. Secondary Age, 519. Secret Doctrine, 11, 37, 62, 161, 165, 214, 276, 299, 365, 371, 386, 424, 438, 467, 469, 479, 487, 496, 510, 666. Seed, human, 436, 457 ; world-germs, 116, 119. Seers, 41, 161, 177, 255. Selection, Natural, 369, 545, 546. Selenography, 178. Self, Higher, 10Q, 145, 163, 191, 235, 323, 347, 352, 353, 363, 393. Self, One Absolute, 163. Self-Born, 358, 363, 365, 372. Self-Consciousness, 13, 38, 44, 114, 154, 332, 392. Self-Created, 397. Self-Existent, 396. Self-God, 287. Self-perception, 154. Semites, 186, 389, 493. Sena, 532. Senary, 512. Senses, 78, 135, 146, 243, 258, 283, 355, 413. Senzar, 9. Sepher Jezirah, 490. Sephiroth, 299, 322, 450, 451, 493, 520, 521, 536. Septenaries, 76, 512, 516-528, 531, 535-538, 541. Seraphim, 76, 334. Serpents, 54, 61, 62, 99, 140, 169, 202, 210, 221-225, 228, 248, 263, 288, 316, 327, 390, 392, 443-445, 448, 450-453. 481, 497. Sesha, 61. Set, 487. Seth, 434, 486, 487. Sevekh-Kronus, 224. Seven, 73, 76, 84, 86, 120, 214, 217, 269, 345, 478, 486, 490, 516, 534, 541, 546, 549. Sexes, Separation of, 10, 103, 186, 196, 219, 234, 364, 374, 379, 390, 413, 419, 434, 446, 480, 528, 565. Sexless-race, 300. Shadows, 143, 343, 344, 348, 352, 353, 367, 375, 445, 516, 527. Shan-Hai-King, 329. Shekinah, 445. Shells, 240, 261, 340. Shoo, 200. Sien-Khan, 103. Sight, spiritual, 416. Sigurd, 221, 222. Silo, 442. Siloam, Sleep of, 500. Silurian Age, 438. Simoom, 450. Simorgh, 505. Sin, 130, 142-144, 182, 214, 218, 315, 460. Sirius, 557. Siva, 241, 257, 260, 417, 435. 495, 530, 532. Siva-Rudra, 241. Skin, Coats of, 288, 442, 565. Skins, Earth, 327. Skinner, Ralston, 180, 187. Sleep, 33, 40, 145, 378, 556. Smith, George, 300. Smoke, 506. Snails, Heavenly, 84. Snake, 195. 582 INDEX Sodalian Mysteries, 540. Solar Ancestors, 150, 157, 338, 339. Solar deities, 56, 200. Solar system, 167. Solomon's seal, 94; Temple, 184. Solvent, universal, 137. Soma, 130, 142. 213, 218, 256, 315, 325, 326. Son, Divine, 48, 90, 103. Sons, 43, 49, 67, 81, 87, 113, 120, 279; of Fohat, 117. Sophia, 491. Sorcery, 8, 11, 182, 219, 245, 411. Soul, 15, 41, 95-97, 121, 123, 125, 129, 131, 137, 138, 144, 191, 236, 268, 339, 351, 366, 368, 393, 397, 483, 509, 539, 548, 560, 568; Supreme, 208. Souls, Twin, 271. Sound, 77, 104, 117, 171, 179, 232, 244, 256, 259, 261, 264, 503-507. South Sea Islanders, 371. Space, 107, 134, 195, 275, 396, 483, 629, 531; cosmic, 10, 12, 31, 37, 40, 43, 44, 51, 60, 61, 79, 81, 83, 94; Waters of, 127, 282, 336. Sparks, 74, 76, 80, 88, 93, 96, 129, 131, 144, 270, 411. Species, Origin of, 564. Spectroscope, 536. Speech, 77, 78, 104, 171, 231, 469, 503. Sperm-cell, 369, 546. Spheres, 43, 53, 76, 78, 92, 118, 199 Spiral's, 171, 445. Spirit, 10, 12, 31, 37, 52, 75, 80, 95. 114, 121, 132, 136, 144, 189, 195, 196, 226, 261, 262, 279, 284, 314, 323, 341, 361, 378, 397, 401, 432, 473, 492, 505, 517, 525-529, 562. Spirit-Kings, 447. Spirit-Matter, 61, 68, 73, 167. Spirit-Soul, 43, 120, 137, 155. Spirits, 130, 334, 335, 544, 561 ; Conscious, 370 ; Creative, 36, 391, 394, 403; Divine, 101, 102, 153, 203 ; Guardian, 145 ; Planetary, 85, 98, 99, 164, 227, 247, 272, 314, 318; terrestrial, 128. Spiritus Mundi, 258. Spiritus Vitas, 258. Spitzbergen, 304. Square, 49, 80, 102, 520. St. George, 449, 532. St. John, 504-506. St. Michael, 632. St. Paul, 484, 499. Stanzas, 16-19, 21-30, 305-313. Star, five-pointed, 123 ; six-pointed, 121. Star-angels, 273, 454. Star-stuff, 58. Stars, 13, 271, 287, 557. Statues, 425, 500. Stauridium, 376. Strachof, N. N„ 644. Strides, 88, 92, 93, 96. Subba Row, 160, 171, 231, 810, 524. Subjectivity, 51. Substance, 12, 13, 15, 31, 47, 51, 55, 57, 62, 82, 91, 102, 108, 109, 111, 133, 162, 167, 189-193, 236, 256, 275, 279, 396, 529, 541. Suffering, 457, 458. Sukra, 320. Sun, Central, 116, 126, 167, 210, 272, 286, 315, 394, 395; visible, 72, 80-83, 92, 117, 168, 172, 219, 252, 255, 256, 261, 274, 287, 291, 317, 318, 324, 471, 500. Sun-Force, 257. Sun-gods, 324, 449, 450, 472, 481. Sun-spots, 261. Sun-worshipers, 214. Surabhi, 56. Suravansas, 219. Suryas, 228, 331, 436, 501. Sushumna, 255, 256, 259. Sutratma, 340. Svabhavat, 49. Swan, 65, 198, 262, 360. Swara, 160. Swastica, 10, 318, 494, 499, 501, 514 515 532 Sweat-born,' 240,' 319, 356, 362-366, 372-376, 378, 423, 425, 437. Swedenborg, Emanuel, 568. Symbolism, 10, 178, 186, 203, 209- 212, 242, 286, 430, 434, 435. 491. 498, 520. Symbol-language, 187. Symbols, 178, 179, 188. 198, 199, 211, 218, 233, 277, 278, 322, 495, 525. System, solar, 261. Tabernacles, 98, 126, 184, 217. Tablet, Cutha, 328, 329. Tabula, Smargdine, 352. Talmud, 475. Tanaim, 472. Tara, 326. Taraka-maya, 325. Targums, 500. Tasmanians, 386. Tau, 10, 187, 203, 319, 322, 493, 495, 512, 517, 533. Tauris, 218. Taylor, Thomas, 230. Tchengis Khan, 425. Teacher, the Great, 119. Teaching, oral, 161 ; secret, 252. Telesphoros, 525. Templars, 248. Temples, Egyptian, 487 ; Pu'to, 247 ; rock cut, 98, 187, 242. Teraphim, 467. Ternary, 212, 509, 515. Terrene Ancestors, 156. Tertiary Age, 303, 437. Tetrad, 524, 525. Tetragrammaton, 330, 513, 521, 522, 525, 534, 536. INDEX 583 Tetraktis, 49, 73, 80, 195, 280, 323, 513, 523, 524, 534. That, Abstract Deity, 65, 74, 136, 207, 208, 322, 529. Theogony, 202, 455, 520. Theology, 188. Theory. Nebular, 274. Theos, 194-196, 494. Theosophists, 538, 539, 541, 546. Thibet, 160, 335. Thomson, Sir Wm, 94. Thor, 494. Thoth, 179, 212, 486, 500. Thoth-Hermes, 9, 220, 444, 455, 512. Thought, 171, 259, 280, 375, 479; Divine, 38, 47, 49, 51, 77, 91, 95, 189, 440. Thread-Soul, 340. Thrones, 76. Tiamat, 480. Tides, 422. Tienu, 204. Tiles, Assyrian, 333. Time, 32, 50, 228, 506, 529. Tiphereth, 445. Titans, 116, 227, 228, 320, 458, 461. Toad, 213. Tortoise, 337, 496. Totality, Infinite, 90. Totmes III, 500. Trance, 255, 414, 501. Tree of Life, 132, 501. Tree worship, 99, 119, 221-225, 262. Triad, 55, 122, 129, 231, 280, 331, 515, 518, 521, 532, 526. Triangles, 75-79, 94, 99, 186, 231, 278-280, 331, 332, 512, 519, 520, 529. Tri-Antara, 94. Triassic Period, 55. Trimorphos, 218. Trimurti, 435. Trinity, Chaldean, 333; Christian, 16, 182, 214, 218, 272; Hindu, 435. Troy, 667. Truth, 36, 37, 40, 95. Twilight, 358, 360. Tyndall, 440. Tyndarus, 360. Typhon, 450. Unconsciousness, 87, 237. Undulation, 188. Unit, 65, 131, 191, 511-513, 524. Universe, 36-43, 50, 51, 80, 85, 103, 106, 123, 162, 343, 525. Unknowable, 561. Upanishads, 159, 160, 507. Uranides, 228. Uranus, 81, 83, 228, 273. Urdhvasrotas, 238. Urea, 140. Uriel, 489. Urna-Kanya, 75. Urshleim, 440. Usanas, 325, 326. Vach, 74, 104, 231. Vaivasvata Manu, 56, 435, 436. Vamadeva Modelyar, 205. Vayu Purana, 530. Vedanta, 159. Vedantins, 340. Vedas, 37, 160, 168, 258, 495, 496, 501, 527, 531. Veddhas, 386. Vegetation, 232, 519, 562, 563. Vehicles, 191, 246, 269. Veil, 267. Vendidad, 453, 476, 527. Venoms, 140. Venus, 83, 210, 273, 315-320, 325, 326, 337, 490, 491, 512. Venus-Aphrodite, 471. Venus-Lucifer, 320. Verbum, 492. Vertebrates, 562. Viability, 215. Vibrations, 93, 179, 239, 259, 284, 536. Villiers, 140. Virgin, celestial, 48, 92 ; Immacu late, 50, 209, 472. Virgin-Ascetics, 241. Virgin-egg, 53. Virgin-Men, 409. Virgin-Mother, 73, 220. Virgins, 67, 121, 526. Virgo, 452. Virgo-Scorpio, 226. Visha, 196. Vishnu, 61, 92, 142, 168, 196, 204, 210, 235, 241, 257, 320, 435, 436, 494 501 529. Vishnu Purana, 267, 331, 535. Vision, 413, 416. Visvakarma, 493, 501. Vitality, 117, 259. Voice, 76, 80, 104, 195. Volcanoes, 456. Volition, 163, 171. Vossius, 317. Vortical motion, 94. Vritra, 449. Vulcan, 243. Vulgate, 500. Wake, Staniland, 183, 185, 429. Wallace, A. R., 194. War in Heaven, 57, 114, 115, 228, 229, 325, 350, 405, 448, 450, 479. War, Mahabharatan, 219. Warriors, 83. Watchers, 43, 95, 127, 143-146, 454. Water, 53, 59, 64, 65, 76, 107, 134, 137, 172, 210, 211, 242, 243, 247, 434, 506. Waters, Drainer of, 351. Waves, 212. Weapons, 538. Web, 69, 71. Whales, 378. Wheat, 456. Wheels, 41, 93, 106, 108, 113-118, 134, 144, 328, 422, 515.