Chapter XIII: Part I: Cosmic Evolution (8)

In Volume II of the same work,(315) the philosophical systems of the Gnostics and the primitive Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, are fully considered. They show the views held in those days, outside the circle of Mosaic Jews, about Jehovah. He was identified by all the Gnostics with the evil, rather than with the good principle. For them, he was Ilda‐Baoth, the “Son of Darkness,” whose mother, Sophia Achamôth, was the daughter of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom—the female Holy Ghost of the early Christians—Âkâsha; Sophia Achamôth personifying the Lower Astral Light or Ether. The Astral Light stands in the same relation to Âkâsha and Anima Mundi, as Satan stands to the Deity. They are one and the same thing _seen from two aspects_, the spiritual and the psychic—the super‐ethereal, or connecting link between matter and pure spirit—and the physical.(316) Ilda‐Baoth—a compound name, made up of _Ilda_ (ילד), child, and _Baoth_; the latter from בהוצ an egg, and בהות, chaos, emptiness, void, or desolation; or the Child born in the Egg of Chaos, like Brahmâ—or Jehovah, is simply one of the Elohim, the Seven Creative Spirits, and one of the lower Sephiroth. Ilda‐Baoth produces from himself seven other Gods, “Stellar Spirits,” or the Lunar Ancestors,(317) for they are all the same.(318) They are all _in his own image_, the “Spirits of the Face,” and the reflections one of the other, who become darker and more material, as they successively recede from their originator. They also inhabit seven regions disposed like a stair, for its steps mount and descend the scale of spirit and matter.(319) With Pagans and Christians, with Hindûs and Chaldeans, with Greek as with Roman Catholics—the texts varying slightly in their interpretations—they all were the Genii of the seven planets, and of the seven planetary spheres of our septenary Chain, of which Earth is the lowest. This connects the “Stellar” and “Lunar” Spirits with the higher planetary Angels, and the Saptarshis, the Seven Rishis of the Stars, of the Hindûs—as subordinate Angels, or Messengers, to these Rishis, their emanations, on the descending scale. Such, in the opinion of the philosophical Gnostics, were the God and the Archangels now worshipped by the Christians! The “Fallen Angels” and the legend of the “War in Heaven” are thus purely pagan in their origin, and come from India, _viá_ Persia and Chaldea. The only reference to them in the Christian canon is found in _Revelation_ xii, as quoted a few pages back.

Thus “Satan,” once he ceases to be viewed in the superstitious, dogmatic, unphilosophical spirit of the Churches, grows into the grandiose image of one who makes of a _terrestrial_, a _divine_ Man; who gives him, throughout the long cycle of Mahâkalpa, the law of the Spirit of Life, and makes him free from the Sin of Ignorance, hence of Death.

6. THE OLDER WHEELS ROTATED DOWNWARD AND UPWARD (_a_).... THE MOTHER’S SPAWN FILLED THE WHOLE.(320) THERE WERE BATTLES FOUGHT BETWEEN THE CREATORS AND THE DESTROYERS, AND BATTLES FOUGHT FOR SPACE; THE SEED APPEARING AND REÄPPEARING CONTINUOUSLY (_b_).(321)

(_a_) Here, having finished for the time being with our side‐issues—which, however they may break the flow of the narrative, are necessary for the elucidation of the whole scheme—we must return once more to Cosmogony. The phrase “Older Wheels” refers to the Worlds, or Globes, of our Chain as they were during the previous Rounds. The present Stanza, when explained esoterically, is found embodied entirely in Kabalistic works. Therein will be found the very history of the evolution of those countless Globes, which evolve after a periodical Pralaya, rebuilt from old material into new forms. The previous Globes disintegrate and reäppear, transformed and perfected for a new phase of life. In the _Kabalah_, worlds are compared to sparks which fly from under the hammer of the great Architect—_Law_, the Law which rules all the smaller Creators.

The following comparative diagram shows the identity between the two systems, the Kabalistic and the Eastern. The three upper are the three higher planes of consciousness, revealed and explained in both schools only to the Initiates; the lower represent the four lower planes—the lowest being our plane, or the visible Universe.

[Diagram III]

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. But before he can attempt to attune, he must awaken the three “seats” to life and activity. And how many are capable of bringing themselves to even a superficial comprehension of Âtmâ Vidyâ (Spirit‐Knowledge), or what is called by the Sufis, Rohanee!(322)

(_b_) “The Seed appearing and reäppearing continuously.” Here “Seed” stands for the “World‐Germ,” viewed by Science as material particles in a highly attenuated condition, but in Occult Physics as “spiritual particles,” _i.e._, supersensuous matter existing in a state of primeval differentiation. To see and appreciate the difference—the immense gulf that separates terrestrial matter from the finer grades of supersensuous matter—every Astronomer, every Chemist and Physicist ought to be a _Psychometer_, to say the least; he ought to be able to sense for himself that difference in which he now refuses to believe. Mrs. Elizabeth Denton, one of the most learned, and also one of the most materialistic and sceptical women of her age—the wife of Professor Denton, the well‐known American Geologist, and the author of _The Soul of Things_—was, in spite of her scepticism, one of the most wonderful psychometers. This is what she describes in one of her experiments. A particle of a meteorite was placed on her forehead, in an envelope, and the lady, not being aware of what it contained, said:

What a difference between that which we recognize as matter here
and that which seems like matter there! In the one, the _elements
are so coarse and so angular_, I wonder that we can endure it at
all, much more that we can desire to continue our present
relations to it; in the other, all the elements are so refined,
they are so free from those great, rough angularities, which
characterize the elements here, that I can but regard _that_ as by
so much the more than this the real existence.(323)

In Theogony, every Seed is an ethereal organism, from which evolves later on a celestial Being, a God.

In the “Beginning,” that which is called in mystic phraseology “Cosmic Desire” evolves into Absolute Light. Now light without any shadow would be absolute light; in other words, absolute darkness, as Physical Science tries to prove. This “shadow” appears under the form of primordial matter, allegorized—if you will—in the shape of the Spirit of Creative Fire or Heat. If, rejecting the poetical form and allegory, Science chooses to see in this the primordial “fire‐mist,” it is welcome to do so. Whether one way or the other, whether Fohat or the famous Force of Science, nameless and as difficult of definition as our Fohat himself, that Something “caused the Universe to move with circular motion,” as Plato has it; or, as the Occult teaching expresses it:

_The Central Sun causes Fohat to collect primordial dust in the form of balls, to impel them to move in converging lines and finally to approach __ each other and aggregate.... Being scattered in Space, without order or system, the World‐Germs come into frequent collision until their final aggregation, after which they become Wanderers [Comets]. Then the battles and struggles begin. The older [bodies] attract the younger, while others repel them. Many perish, devoured by their stronger companions. Those that escape become worlds._(324)

When carefully analyzed and reflected upon, this will be found as scientific as Science can make it, even at our late period.

We have been assured, that there exist several modern works of speculative fancy upon such struggles for life in sidereal heaven, especially in the German language. We rejoice to hear it, for ours is an Occult teaching lost in the darkness of archaic ages. We have treated of it fully in _Isis Unveiled_,(325) and the idea of Darwinian‐like evolution, of struggle for life and supremacy, and of the “survival of the fittest,” among the Hosts above as of the Hosts below, runs throughout both the volumes of our earlier work, written in 1876. But the idea is not ours, it is that of antiquity. Even the Purânic writers have ingeniously interwoven allegory with cosmic facts and human events. Any symbologist may discern their astro‐cosmical allusions, even though he be unable to grasp the whole meaning. The great “wars in heaven,” in the _Purânas_; the wars of the Titans, in Hesiod and other classical writers; the “struggles” also between Osiris and Typhon, in the Egyptian myth; and even those in the Scandinavian legends; all refer to the same subject. Northern Mythology refers to it as the battle of the Flames, the sons of Muspel who fought on the field of Wigred. All these relate to Heaven and Earth, and have a double, and often even a triple, meaning and esoteric application to things above as to things below. They severally relate to astronomical, theogonical and human struggles; to the adjustment of orbs, and the supremacy among nations and tribes. The “struggle for existence” and the “survival of the fittest” reigned supreme from the moment that Kosmos manifested into being, and could hardly escape the observant eye of the ancient Sages. Hence the incessant fights of Indra, the God of the Firmament, with the Asuras—degraded from high Gods into cosmic Demons—and with Vritra or Ahi; the battles fought between stars and constellations, between moons and planets—later on incarnated as kings and mortals. Hence also the War in Heaven of Michael and his Host against the Dragon—Jupiter and Lucifer Venus—when a third of the stars of the rebellious Host was hurled down into Space, and “its place was found no more in Heaven.” As we wrote long ago:

This is the basic and fundamental stone of the secret cycles. It
shows that the Brâhmans and Tanaïm ... speculated on the creation
and development of the world quite in a Darwinian way, both
anticipating him and his school in the natural selection, gradual
development and transformation of species.(326)

There were old worlds that perished, conquered by the new, etc., etc. The assertion that all the worlds (stars, planets, etc.)—as soon as a nucleus of primordial substance, in the laya (undifferentiated) state, is informed by the freed principles of a just _deceased_ sidereal body—become first comets, and then suns, to cool down to inhabitable worlds, is a teaching as old as the Rishis.

Thus the Secret Books, as we see, distinctly teach an astronomy that would not be rejected even by modern speculation, could the latter thoroughly understand its teachings.

For archaic astronomy and the ancient physical and mathematical sciences expressed views identical with those of Modern Science, and many of far more momentous import. A “struggle for life” and a “survival of the fittest,” in the worlds above and on our planet here below, are distinctly taught. This teaching, however, although it would not be entirely rejected by Science, is sure to be repudiated as an integral whole. For it avers that there are only seven self‐born primordial “Gods,” emanated from the trinitarian One. In other words, it means that all the worlds, or sidereal bodies—always on strict analogy—are formed one from the other, after the primordial manifestation at the beginning of the Great Age is accomplished.

The birth of the celestial bodies in space is compared to a multitude of pilgrims at the Festival of the Fires. Seven ascetics appear on the threshold of the temple with seven lighted sticks of incense. At the light of these the first row of pilgrims light their incense sticks. After which, every ascetic begins whirling his stick around his head in space, and furnishes the rest with fire. Thus with the heavenly bodies. A laya‐ centre is lighted and awakened into life by the fires of another “pilgrim,” after which, the new “centre” rushes into space and becomes a comet. It is only after losing its velocity, and hence its fiery tail, that the Fiery Dragon settles down into quiet and steady life, as a regular respectable citizen of the sidereal family. Therefore it is said:

_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 circumstances. Through a series of countless ages, it has to conquer for itself a place in the infinitudes. It circles round and round, between denser and already fixed bodies, moving by jerks, and pulling towards some given point or centre that attracts it, and, like as a ship drawn into a channel dotted with reefs and sunken rocks, trying to avoid other bodies that draw and repel it in turn. Many perish, their mass disintegrating through stronger masses, and, when born within a system, chiefly within the insatiable stomachs of various Suns. Those which move slower, and are propelled into an elliptic course, are doomed to annihilation sooner or later. Others, moving in parabolic curves, generally escape destruction, owing to their velocity._

Some very critical readers will perhaps imagine that this teaching, as to the cometary stage passed through by all heavenly bodies, is in contradiction with the statements just made as to the Moon being the mother of the Earth. They will perhaps fancy that intuition is needed to harmonize the two. But no intuition is in truth required. What does Science know of comets, their genesis, growth, and ultimate behaviour? Nothing—absolutely nothing! And what is there so impossible in that a laya‐centre—a lump of cosmic protoplasm, homogeneous and latent—when suddenly animated or fired up, should rush from its bed in space, and whirl throughout the abysmal depths, in order to strengthen its homogeneous organism by an accumulation and addition of differentiated elements? And why should not such a comet settle in life, live, and become an inhabited globe?

_“__The abodes of Fohat are many__”_—it is said. _“__He places his Four Fiery [electro‐positive] Sons in the Four Circles__”_; these Circles are the equator, the ecliptic, and the two parallels of declination, or the tropics, to preside over the _climates_ of which are placed the Four Mystical Entities. Then again: “_Other Seven [Sons] are commissioned to preside over the seven hot, and seven cold Lokas [the Hells of the orthodox Brâhmans] at the two ends of the Egg of Matter [our Earth and its poles]._” The seven Lokas are elsewhere also called the “Rings” and the “Circles.” The Ancients made the polar circles _seven_ instead of two, as do the Europeans; for Mount Meru, which is the North Pole, is said to have seven gold and seven silver steps leading to it.

The strange statements, in one of the Stanzas, that “_The Songs of __ Fohat and his Sons were_ RADIANT _as the noon‐tide Sun and the Moon combined_,” and that the Four Sons, on the _middle_ Four‐fold Circle, “SAW _their Father’s Songs and_ HEARD _his solar‐selenic Radiance_,” are explained, in the Commentary, in these words: “_The agitation of the Fohatic Forces at the two cold ends [North and South Poles] of the Earth, which results in a multicoloured radiance at night, has in it several of the properties of Âkâsha [Ether], Colour and Sound as well_.”

“Sound is the characteristic of Âkâsha [Ether]: it generates Air, the property of which is Touch; which [by friction] becomes productive of Colour and Light.”(327)

Perhaps the above will be regarded as archaic nonsense, but it will be better comprehended, if the reader remembers the Aurora Borealis and Australis, 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 receptacles and liberators, at the same time, of cosmic and terrestrial Vitality (Electricity), from the surplus of which the Earth, had it not been for these two natural safety‐valves, would have been rent to pieces long ago. At the same time it is a theory that has lately become an axiom, that the phenomenon of the polar lights is accompanied by, and productive of, strong sounds, like whistling, hissing and cracking. See Professor Humboldt’s works on the Aurora Borealis, and his correspondence regarding this moot question.

7. MAKE THY CALCULATIONS, O LANOO, IF THOU WOULDST LEARN THE CORRECT AGE OF THY SMALL WHEEL.(328) ITS FOURTH SPOKE IS OUR MOTHER(329) (_a_). REACH THE FOURTH FRUIT OF THE FOURTH PATH OF KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO NIRVÂNA, AND THOU SHALT COMPREHEND, FOR THOU SHALT SEE (_b_)....

(_a_) The “Small Wheel” is our Chain of Spheres, and the “Fourth Spoke” is our Earth, the fourth in the Chain. It is one of those on which the “hot [positive] breath of the Sun” has a direct effect.

The seven fundamental transformations of the Globes or heavenly Spheres, or rather of their constituent particles of matter, are described as follows: (1) _homogeneous_; (2) _aëriform_ and _radiant_—gaseous; (3) _curd‐like_ (nebulous); (4) _atomic, ethereal_—beginning of motion, hence of differentiation; (5) _germinal, fiery_—differentiated, but composed of the germs only of the Elements, in their earliest states, they having seven states, when completely developed on our earth; (6) _four‐fold, vapoury_—the future Earth; (7) _cold_—and depending on the Sun for life and light.

To calculate its age, however, as the pupil is asked to do in the Stanza, is rather difficult, since we are not given the figures of the Great Kalpa, and are not allowed to publish those of our small Yugas, except as to the approximate duration of these. “_The older Wheels rotated for one Eternity and one‐half of an Eternity_,” it says. We know that by “Eternity” the seventh part of 311,040,000,000,000 years, or an Age of Brahmâ is meant. But what of that? We also know that, to begin with, if we take for our basis the above figures, we have first of all to eliminate from the 100 Years of Brahmâ, or 311,040,000,000,000 years, two Years taken up by the Sandhyâs (Twilights), which leaves 98, as we have to bring it to the mystical combination 14 x 7. But _we_ have no knowledge at what time precisely the evolution and formation of our little Earth began. Therefore, it is impossible to calculate its age, unless the time of its birth is given—which the Teachers refuse to do, so far. At the close of this Volume and in Volume II, however, some chronological hints will be given. We must remember, moreover, that the law of analogy holds good for the worlds, as it does for man; and that as “_The One [Deity] becomes Two [Deva or Angel], and Two becomes Three [or Man]_,” etc., so we are taught that the Curds (World‐Stuff) become Wanderers (Comets); these become stars; and the stars (the centres of vortices), _our sun and planets_—to put it briefly. This cannot be so very _unscientific_, since Descartes also thought that “the planets rotate on their axes, because they were once lucid stars, the centres of vortices.”

(_b_) There are four grades of Initiation mentioned in exoteric works, which are known respectively in Sanskrit as Srotâpanna, Sakridâgâmin, Anâgâmin, and Arhan; the Four Paths to Nirvâna, in this our Fourth Round, bearing the same appellations. The Arhan, though he can see the Past, the Present and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate; for the Adept himself, the _initiated_ candidate, becomes Chelâ (Pupil) to a higher Initiate. Three higher grades have still to be conquered by the Arhan who would reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship. 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. Thus, there will always be Initiates and the Profane until the end of this minor Manvantara, the present Life‐Cycle. The Arhats 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 into English by several compound words—the “Ever‐Living‐Human‐Banyan.” This “Wondrous Being” descended from a “high region,” they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before the separation of sexes in the Third Race.

This Third Race is sometimes called collectively the “Sons of Passive Yoga,” _i.e._, it was produced unconsciously by the Second Race, which, as it was intellectually inactive, is supposed to have been constantly plunged in a kind of blank or abstract contemplation, as required by the conditions of the Yoga state. In the first or earlier portion of the existence of this Third Race, while it was yet in its state of purity, the “Sons of Wisdom,” who, as will be seen, incarnated in this Root‐Race, produced by Kriyâshakti a progeny, called the “Sons of Ad,” or of the “Fire‐Mist,” the “Sons of Will and Yoga,” etc. They were a conscious production, as a portion of the Race was already animated with the divine spark of spiritual, superior intelligence. This progeny was not a race. It was at first a Wondrous Being, called the “Initiator,” and after him a group of semi‐divine and semi‐human Beings. “Set apart” in archaic genesis for certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest Dhyânis—“Munis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras”—_to form the nursery for future human Adepts_, on this Earth and during the present Cycle. These “Sons of Will and Yoga,” born, so to speak, in an immaculate way, remained, it is explained, entirely apart from the rest of mankind.

The “Being” just referred to, who has to remain nameless, is the _Tree_ from which, in subsequent ages, all the great _historically_ known Sages and Hierophants, such as the Rishi Kapila, Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc., have branched off. As objective _man_, he is the mysterious (to the profane—the ever invisible, yet ever present) Personage, about whom legends are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the students of the Sacred Science. It is he who changes form, yet remains ever the same. And it is he, again, who holds spiritual sway over the _initiated_ Adepts throughout the whole world. He is, as said, the “Nameless One” who has so many names, and yet whose names and whose very nature are unknown. He is _the_ “Initiator,” called the “GREAT SACRIFICE.” For, sitting at the Threshold of LIGHT, he looks into it from within 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 at his self‐chosen post? Why does he sit by the Fountain of Primeval Wisdom, of which he drinks no longer, for he has naught to learn which he does not know—aye, neither on this Earth, nor in its Heaven? Because the lonely, sore‐footed Pilgrims, on their journey back to their Home, are never sure, to the last moment, of not losing their way, in this limitless desert of Illusion and Matter called Earth‐Life. Because he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of Mankind, though but a few elect may profit by the GREAT SACRIFICE.

It is under the direct, silent guidance of this _Mahâ‐Guru_ that all the other less divine Teachers and Instructors of Mankind became, from the first awakening of human consciousness, the guides of early Humanity. It is through these “Sons of God” that infant Humanity learned its first notions of all the arts and sciences, as well as of spiritual knowledge; and it is They who laid the first foundation‐stone of those ancient civilizations that so sorely puzzle our modern generation of students and scholars.

Let those who doubt this statement, explain, on any other equally reasonable grounds, the mystery of the extraordinary knowledge possessed by the Ancients—who, some pretend, developed from lower and animal‐like savages, the “cave‐men” of the palæolithic age! Let them turn, for instance, to such works as those of Vitruvius Pollio of the Augustan age, on architecture, in which all the rules of proportion are those _anciently taught at Initiations_, if they would acquaint themselves with this truly divine art, and understand the _deep esoteric significance hidden in every rule and law of proportion_. No man descended from a palæolithic cave‐ dweller could ever evolve such a science unaided, even in millenniums of thought and intellectual evolution. It is the pupils of those incarnated Rishis and Devas of the Third Root Race who handed on their knowledge, from one generation to another, to Egypt and to Greece with her now lost _canon of proportion_; just as the disciples of the Initiates of the Fourth, the Atlanteans, handed it over to their Cyclopes, the “Sons of Cycles” or of the “Infinite,” from whom the name passed to the still later generations of Gnostic priests.

It is owing to the divine perfection of these architectural
proportions that the Ancients could build these wonders of all the
subsequent ages, their Fanes, Pyramids, Cave‐Temples, Cromlechs,
Cairns, Altars, proving they had the powers of machinery and a
knowledge of mechanics to which modern skill is like a child’s
play, and which that skill refers to itself as the “works of
hundred‐handed giants.”(330)

Modern architects may not have altogether neglected these rules, but they have superadded enough empirical innovations to destroy the just proportions. It is Vitruvius who gave to posterity the rules of construction of the Grecian temples erected to the immortal Gods; and the ten books of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio on Architecture, of one, in short, _who was an Initiate_, can only be studied esoterically. The Druidical Circles, the Dolmens, the Temples of India, Egypt and Greece, the Towers, and the 127 towns in Europe which were found “Cyclopean in origin” by the French Institute, are all the work of initiated Priest‐Architects, the descendants of those first taught by the “Sons of God,” and justly called the “Builders.” This is what appreciative posterity says of these descendants:

They used neither mortar nor cement, nor steel, nor iron to cut
the stones with; and yet they were so artificially wrought that in
many places the joints are hardly seen, though many of the stones,
as in Peru, are 38 feet long, 18 feet broad, and 6 feet thick, and
in the walls of the fortress of Cuzco there are stones of a still
greater size.(331)

Again:

The well of Syene, made 5,400 years ago, when that spot was
exactly under the tropic, which it has now ceased to be, was ...
so constructed, that at noon, at the precise moment of the solar
solstice, the entire disk of the sun was seen reflected on its
surface—a work which the united skill of all the astronomers in
Europe would not now be able to effect.(332)

Although these matters were barely hinted at in _Isis Unveiled_, it will be well to remind the reader of what was said there(333) concerning a certain Sacred Island in Central Asia, and to refer him for further details to the Section, entitled “The Sons of God and the Sacred Island,” attached to Stanza IX of Volume II. A few more explanations, however, though thrown out in a fragmentary form, may help the student to obtain a glimpse into the present mystery.

To state at least one detail concerning these mysterious “Sons of God” in plain words: it is from them, these Brahmaputras, that the high Dvijas, the initiated Brâhmans of old, claimed descent, while the modern Brâhman would have the lower castes believe literally that they (the Brâhmans) issued direct from the mouth of Brahmâ. Such is the Esoteric teaching; and it adds moreover that, although those descended (spiritually, of course) from the “Sons of Will and Yoga” became in time divided into opposite sexes, as their “Kriyâshakti” progenitors did themselves later on; yet even their degenerate descendants have, down to the present day, retained a veneration and respect for the creative function, and still regard it in the light of a religious ceremony, whereas the more civilized nations consider it as a mere animal function. Compare the Western views and practice in these matters with the Institutions of Manu, in regard to the laws of Grihastha, or married life. The true Brâhman is, thus, indeed “he whose seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the Moon‐plant (Soma),” and who is a “Trisuparna,” for he has understood the secret of the _Vedas_.

And, to this day, such Brâhmans know that, during the early beginnings of this Race, psychic and physical intellect being dormant and consciousness still undeveloped, its spiritual conceptions were quite unconnected with its physical surroundings; that _divine_ man dwelt in his animal—though externally human—form; that, if there was instinct in him, no self‐ consciousness came to enlighten the darkness of the latent Fifth Principle. When the Lords of Wisdom, moved by the law of evolution, infused into him the spark of consciousness, the first feeling it awoke to life and activity was a sense of solidarity, of one‐ness with his spiritual creators. As the child’s first feeling is for its mother and nurse, so the first aspirations of the awakening consciousness in primitive man were for those whose element he felt within himself, and who were yet outside, and independent of him. _Devotion_ arose out of that feeling, and became the first and foremost motor in his nature; for it is the only one which is natural in his heart, which is innate in him, and which we find alike in the human babe and the young of the animal. This feeling of irrepressible, instinctive aspiration in primitive man is beautifully, and one may say intuitionally, described by Carlyle, who exclaims:

The great antique heart—how like a child’s in its simplicity, like
a man’s in its earnest solemnity and depth! Heaven lies over him
wheresoever he goes or stands on the earth; making all the earth a
mystic temple to him, the earth’s business all a kind of worship.
Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the common sunlight; angels
yet hover, doing God’s messages among men.... Wonder, miracle,
encompass the man; he lives in an element of miracle.(334)... A
great law of duty, high as these two infinitudes (heaven and
hell), dwarfing all else, annihilating all else—it was a reality,
and it is one: the garment only of it is dead; the essence of it
lives through all times and all eternity!

It lives undeniably, and has settled in all its ineradicable strength and power in the Asiatic Âryan heart, from the Third Race direct, through its first Mind‐born Sons, the fruits of Kriyâshakti. As time rolled on, the holy caste of Initiates produced, but rarely, from age to age, such perfect creatures; beings apart, inwardly, though the same as those who produced them, outwardly.

In the infancy of the Third primitive Race:

A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and therefore was designed;
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire formed and fit to rule the rest.

It was called into being, a ready and perfect vehicle for the incarnating denizens of higher spheres, who took forthwith their abodes in these forms, born of _Spiritual Will_ and the natural divine power in man. It was a child of pure spirit, mentally unalloyed with any tincture of earthly element. Its physical frame alone was of time and of life, for it drew its intelligence direct from above. It was the Living Tree of Divine Wisdom; and may therefore be likened to the Mundane Tree of the Norse Legends, which cannot wither and die until the last battle of life shall be fought, while its roots are all the time gnawed by the dragon Nidhogg. For even so, the first and holy Son of Kriyâshakti had his body gnawed by the tooth of time, but the roots of his inner being remained for ever undecaying and strong, because they grew and expanded in heaven, and not on earth. He was the first of the _First_, and he was the Seed of all the others. There were other Sons of Kriyâshakti produced by a second spiritual effort, but the first one has remained to this day the Seed of Divine Knowledge, the One and the Supreme among the terrestrial “Sons of Wisdom.” Of this subject we can say no more, except to add that in every age—aye, even in our own—there have been great intellects who have understood the problem correctly.

But how comes our physical body to the state of perfection it is now found in? Through millions of years of evolution, of course, yet never through, or from, animals, as taught by Materialism. For, as Carlyle says:

... The essence of our being, the mystery in us that calls itself
“I,”—ah, what words have we for such things?—is a breath of
Heaven; the Highest Being reveals himself in man. This body, these
faculties, this life of ours, is it not all as a vesture for that
Unnamed?

The “breath of Heaven,” or rather the breath of Life, called in the _Bible_ Nephesh, is in every animal, in every animate speck and in every mineral atom. But none of these has, like man, the consciousness of the nature of that “Highest Being,”(335) as none has that divine harmony in its form, which man possesses. It is, as Novalis said, and no one since has said it better, as repeated by Carlyle:

There is but one temple in the Universe, and that is the Body of
Man. Nothing is holier than that high form.... We touch Heaven
when we lay our hand on a human body! This sounds like a mere
flourish of rhetoric; but it is not so. If well meditated, it will
turn out to be a scientific fact; the expression ... of the actual
truth of the thing. _We_ are the miracle of miracles—the great
inscrutable Mystery....(336)

Stanza VII.

1. BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS LIFE (_a_).

FIRST, THE DIVINE(337) (_b_), THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER‐SPIRIT;(338) THEN, THE SPIRITUAL(339) (_c_); (340)THE THREE FROM THE ONE (_d_), THE FOUR FROM THE ONE (_e_), AND THE FIVE (_f_), FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE FIVE AND THE SEVEN (_g_). THESE ARE THE THREE‐FOLD AND THE FOUR‐FOLD DOWNWARD; THE MIND‐BORN SONS OF THE FIRST LORD,(341) THE SHINING SEVEN.(342) IT IS THEY WHO ARE THOU, I, HE, O LANOO; THEY WHO WATCH OVER THEE AND THY MOTHER, BHÛMI.(343)

(_a_) The Hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided esoterically into Seven (four and three), 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. All these are subdivided into numberless Groups of divine spiritual, semi‐spiritual, and ethereal Beings.

The chief Hierarchies among these are hinted at in the great Quaternary, or the “four bodies and the three faculties,” exoterically, of Brahmâ and the Panchâsya, the five Brahmâs, or the five Dhyâni‐Buddhas in the Buddhist system.

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. It is the _nucleole_ of the superior Divine World. They are the Formless Fiery Breaths, identical in one aspect with the upper Sephirothal Triad, which is placed by the Kabalists in the Archetypal World.

The same Hierarchy, with the same numbers, is found in the Japanese system, in the “Beginnings,” as taught by both the Shinto and the Buddhist sects. In this system, Anthropogenesis precedes Cosmogenesis, as the divine merges into the human, and creates—midway in its descent into matter—the visible Universe; the legendary personages, remarks reverentially Omoie, “having to be understood as the stereotyped embodiment of the higher [secret] doctrine, and its sublime truths.” To state this old system at full length would occupy too much of our space; a few words on it, however, cannot be out of place. The following is a short synopsis of this Anthropo‐Cosmogenesis, and shows how closely the most separated nations echoed one and the same archaic teaching.

When all was as yet Chaos (Kon‐ton), three spiritual Beings appeared on the stage of future creation: (1) Ame no ani naka nushi no Kami, “Divine Monarch of the Central Heaven”; (2) Taka mi onosubi no Kami, “Exalted, Imperial Divine Offspring of Heaven and Earth”; and (3) Kamu mi musubi no Kami, “Offspring of the Gods,” simply.

These were without form or substance—our Arûpa Triad—as neither the celestial nor the terrestrial substance had yet differentiated, “nor had the essence of things been formed.”

(_b_) In the _Zohar_—which, as now arranged and reëdited by Moses de Leon, with the help of Syrian and Chaldean Christian Gnostics, in the XIIIth century, and corrected and revised still later by many Christian hands, is only a little less exoteric than the _Bible_ itself—this “Divine [Vehicle]” no longer appears as it does in the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_. True enough, Ain Suph, the Absolute Endless No‐thing, uses also the form of the One, the manifested “Heavenly Man” (the First Cause), as its Chariot (Mercabah, in Hebrew; Vâhana, in Sanskrit) or Vehicle, to descend into, and manifest itself in, the phenomenal world. But the Kabalists neither make it plain how the Absolute can use anything, or exercise any attribute whatever, since, as the Absolute, it is devoid of attributes; nor do they explain that in reality it is the First Cause (Plato’s Logos), the original and eternal Idea, that manifests through Adam Kadmon, the Second Logos, so to speak. In the _Book of Numbers_, it is explained that Ain (En, or Aiôr) is the only self‐existent, whereas its “Depth,” the Bythos of the Gnostics, called Propatôr, is only periodical. The latter is Brahmâ, as differentiated from Brahman or Parabrahman. It is the Depth, the Source of Light, or Propatôr, which is the Unmanifested Logos, or the abstract Idea, and not Ain Suph, whose Ray uses Adam Kadmon—“male and female”—or the Manifested Logos, the objective Universe, as a Chariot, through which to manifest. But in the _Zohar_ we read the following incongruity: “_Senior occultatus est, et absconditus; Microprosopus manifestus est, et non manifestus_.”(344) This is a fallacy, since Microprosopus, or the Microcosm, can only exist during its manifestations, and is destroyed during the Mahâpralayas. Rosenroth’s _Kabbala_ is no guide, but very often a puzzle.

The _First Order_ are the Divine. As in the Japanese system, in the Egyptian, and every old cosmogony—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 separate Entities. These are called the Virgins of Life, the Great Illusion, etc., etc., and collectively the six‐pointed star. The latter, in almost every religion, is the symbol of the Logos as the first emanation. It is the sign of Vishnu in India, the Chakra, or Wheel; and the glyph of the Tetragrammaton, “He of the Four Letters,” in the _Kabalah_, or metaphorically the “Limbs of Microprosopus,” which are ten and six respectively.

The later Kabalists, however, especially the Christian Mystics, have played sad havoc with this magnificent symbol. Indeed, the Microprosopus—who is, philosophically speaking, quite distinct from the unmanifested eternal Logos, “one with the Father”—has finally been brought, by centuries of incessant efforts of sophistry and of paradoxes, to be considered as one with Jehovah, or the _one_ living God (!), whereas Jehovah is no better than Binah, a female Sephira. This fact cannot be too frequently impressed upon the reader. For the “Ten Limbs” of the Heavenly Man are the ten Sephiroth; but the first Heavenly Man is the unmanifested Spirit of the Universe, and ought never to be degraded into Microprosopus, the Lesser Face or Countenance, the prototype of man on the terrestrial plane. The Microprosopus is, as just said, the Logos manifested, and of such there are many. Of this, however, later on. The six‐pointed star refers to the six Forces or Powers of Nature, the six planes, principles, etc., etc., all synthesized by the seventh, or the central point in the star. All these, the upper and lower Hierarchies included, emanate from the Heavenly or Celestial Virgin, the Great Mother in all religions, the Androgyne, the Sephira Adam Kadmon. Sephira is the Crown, Kether, in the abstract principle only, as a mathematical x, the unknown quantity. On the plane of differentiated nature, she is the female counterpart of Adam Kadmon, the first Androgyne. The _Kabalah_ teaches that the words “_Fiat Lux_”(345) referred to the formation and evolution of the Sephiroth, and not to light as opposed to darkness. Rabbi Simeon says:

O companions, companions, man as an emanation was both man and
woman, Adam Kadmon verily, and this is the sense of the words,
“Let there be Light, and there was Light.” And this is the two‐
fold man.(346)

In its Unity, Primordial Light is the seventh, or highest, principle, Daiviprakriti, the Light of the Unmanifested Logos. But in its differentiation, it becomes Fohat, or the “Seven Sons.” The former is symbolized by the central point in the Double Triangle; the latter by the Hexagon itself, or the “Six Limbs” of Microprosopus, the Seventh being Malkuth, the “Bride” of the Christian Kabalists, or our Earth. Hence the expressions:

_The first after the One is Divine Fire; the second, Fire and Ether; the third is composed of Fire, Ether and Water; the fourth of Fire, Ether, Water, and Air. 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_.

These Elements of Fire, Air, etc., are not our compound elements; and this “Consciousness” has no relation to our consciousness. The Consciousness of the “One Manifested,” if not absolute, is still unconditioned. Mahat, the Universal Mind, is the first production of the Brahmâ‐Creator, but also of Pradhâna, Undifferentiated Matter.

(_c_) The _Second Order_ of Celestial Beings, those of Fire and Ether, corresponding to Spirit and Soul, or Âtmâ‐Buddhi, whose names are legion, are still formless, but more definitely “substantial.” They are the first differentiation in the Secondary Evolution or “Creation”—a misleading word. As the name shows, they are the Prototypes of the incarnating Jîvas or Monads, and are composed 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 concerned with the Hosts of the higher World of _our_ System. From these Two‐fold Units emanate the “Three‐fold.”

In the cosmogony of Japan, when, out of the chaotic mass, an egg‐like nucleus appears, having within itself the germ and potency of all universal as well as of all terrestrial life, it is the Three‐fold just named, which differentiate. The male ethereal principle (Yo) ascends, and the female grosser or more material principle (In) is precipitated into the universe of substance, when a separation occurs between the celestial and the terrestrial. From this, the female, the Mother, the first rudimentary objective being is born. It is ethereal, without form or sex, and yet it is from it and the Mother that the Seven Divine Spirits are born, from whom will emanate the seven “creations”; just as in the _Codex Nazaræus_ from Karabtanos and the Mother Spiritus the seven “evilly disposed” (material) spirits are born. It would be too long to give here the Japanese names, but in translation they stand in this order:

(1.) The “Invisible Celibate,” which is the Creative Logos of the non‐ creating “Father,” or the creative potentiality of the latter made manifest.

(2.) The “Spirit [or God] of the rayless Depths [Chaos],” which becomes differentiated matter, or the world‐stuff; also the mineral realm.

(3.) The “Spirit of the Vegetable Kingdom,” of the “Abundant Vegetation.”

(4.) The “Spirit of the Earth” and “the Spirit of the Sands”; a Being of dual nature, the former containing the potentiality of the male element, the latter that of the female element. These two were one, as yet unconscious of being two.

In this duality were contained (_a_) Isu no gai no Kami, the male, dark and muscular Being; and (_b_) Eku gai no Kami, the female, fair and weaker or more delicate Being. Then:

(5 and 6.) The Spirits who were androgynous or dual‐sexed.

(7.) The Seventh Spirit, the last emanated from the “Mother,” appears as the first divine human form distinctly male and female. It was the seventh “creation,” as in the _Purânas_, wherein man is the seventh creation of Brahmâ.

These, Tsanagi‐Tsanami, descended into the Universe by the Celestial Bridge, the Milky Way, and “Tsanagi, perceiving far below a chaotic mass of cloud and water, thrust his jewelled spear into the depths, and dry land appeared. Then the two separated to explore Onokoro, the newly‐ created island‐world.” (Omoie.)

Such are the Japanese exoteric fables, the rind that conceals the kernel of the same one truth of the Secret Doctrine.

(_d_) The _Third Order_ correspond to Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas, Spirit, Soul and Intellect; and are called the “Triads.”

(_e_) The _Fourth Order_ are substantial Entities. This is the highest Group among the Rûpas (Atomic Forms). It is the nursery of the human, conscious, spiritual Souls. They are called the “Imperishable Jîvas,” 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 is 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 that is the cause of the hereditary transmission of faculties, and all the inherent qualities in man. The Darwinian theory, however, of the transmission of acquired faculties is neither taught nor accepted in Occultism. Evolution, in the latter, proceeds on quite other lines; the physical, according to Esoteric teaching, evolving gradually from the spiritual, mental, and psychic. This inner soul of the physical cell—the “spiritual plasm” that dominates the germinal plasm—is the key that must open one day the gates of the _terra incognita_ of the Biologist, now called the dark mystery of Embryology. It is worthy of notice that Modern Chemistry, while rejecting, as a superstition of Occultism and Religion as well, the theory of substantial and invisible Beings, called Angels, Elementals, etc.—without, of course, having ever looked into the philosophy of these incorporeal Entities, or thought over them—should, owing to observation and discovery, have been unconsciously forced to recognize and adopt the same ratio of progression and order, in the evolution of chemical atoms, as Occultism does for both its Dhyânis and Atoms—analogy being its first law. As seen above, the very first Group of the Rûpa Angels is quaternary, an element being added to each in descending order. So also are the atoms, in the phraseology of Chemistry, monatomic, diatomic, triatomic, tetratomic, etc., progressing downwards.

Let it be remembered that the Fire, Water, and Air of Occultism, or the “Elements of Primary Creation” so‐called, are not the compound elements they are on earth, but noumenal homogeneous Elements—the Spirits of the former. Then follow the Septenary Groups or Hosts. Placed on parallel lines with the atoms in a diagram, the natures of these Beings would be seen to correspond, in their downward scale of progression, to composite elements in a mathematically identical manner as to analogy. This refers, of course, only to diagrams made by Occultists; for were the scale of Angelic Beings to be placed on parallel lines with the scale of the chemical atoms of Science—from the hypothetical Helium down to Uranium—they would of course be found to differ. For the latter have, as correspondents on the Astral Plane, only the four lowest orders—the three higher principles in the atom, or rather molecule, or chemical element, being perceptible to the initiated Dangma’s eye alone. But then, if Chemistry desired to find itself on the right path, it would have to correct its tabular arrangement by that of the Occultists—which it might refuse to do. 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 animate and (seemingly) inanimate Nature evolving on parallel lines, and drawing its attributes from above as well as below.

The number seven, as applied to the term Septenary Host, above mentioned, does not imply only seven Entities, but seven Groups or Hosts, as explained before. The highest Group, the Asuras born in Brahmâ’s first body, which turned into “Night,” are septenary, _i.e._, divided like the Pitris into seven Classes, three of which are bodiless (arûpa) and four with bodies.(347) They are in fact more truly our Pitris (Ancestors) than the Pitris who projected the first physical man.

(_f_) The _Fifth Order_ is a very mysterious one, as it is connected with the microcosmic pentagon, the five‐pointed star, representing man. In India and Egypt, these Dhyânis were connected with the Crocodile, and their abode is in Capricornus. But these are convertible terms in Indian Astrology, for the tenth sign of the Zodiac, which is called Makara, is loosely translated “Crocodile.” The word itself is occultly interpreted in various ways, as will be shown further on. In Egypt, the Defunct—whose symbol is the pentagram, or the five‐pointed star, the points of which represent the limbs of a man—was shown emblematically transformed into a crocodile. Sebekh, or Sevekh (or “Seventh”), as Mr. Gerald Massey says, showing it to be the type of intelligence, is a dragon in reality, not a crocodile. He is the “Dragon of Wisdom,” or Manas, the Human Soul, Mind, the Intelligent Principle, called in our Esoteric Philosophy the _Fifth_ Principle.

Says the defunct “Osirified,” in the _Book of the Dead_, or _Ritual_, under the glyph of a mummiform God with a crocodile’s head:

I am the crocodile presiding at the fear, I am the God‐crocodile,
at the arrival of his Soul among men. I am the God‐crocodile
brought for destruction.

An allusion to the destruction of divine spiritual purity when man acquires the knowledge of good and evil; also to the “fallen” Gods, or Angels of every theogony.

I am the fish of the great Horus. [As Makara is the “Crocodile,”
the Vehicle of Varuna.] I am merged in Sekhem.(348)

This last sentence gives the corroboration, and repeats the doctrine of esoteric “Buddhism,” for it alludes directly to the Fifth Principle (Manas), or the most spiritual part of its essence rather, which merges into, is absorbed by, and made one with Âtmâ‐Buddhi, after the death of man. For Sekhem is the residence, or Loka, of the God Khem (Horus‐Osiris, or Father and Son); hence the Devachan of Âtmâ‐Buddhi. In the _Book of the Dead_, the Defunct is shown entering into Sekhem, with Horus‐Thot, and “emerging from it as pure spirit.” Thus the Defunct says:

I see the forms of [myself, as various] men transforming
eternally.... I know this [chapter]. He who knows it ... takes all
kinds of living forms.(349)

And addressing in magic formula that which is called, in Egyptian Esotericism, the “ancestral heart,” or the reïncarnating principle, the permanent Ego, the Defunct says:

O my heart, my ancestral heart, necessary for my transformations,
... do not separate thyself from me before the guardian of the
scales. Thou art my personality within my breast, divine companion
_watching over my fleshes_ [bodies].(350)

It is in Sekhem that lies concealed the “Mysterious Face,” or the real Man concealed under the false personality, the triple‐crocodile of Egypt, the symbol of the higher Trinity, or human Triad, Âtmâ, Buddhi and Manas.

One of the explanations of the real though hidden meaning of this Egyptian religious glyph is easy. The crocodile is the first to await and meet the devouring fires of the morning sun, and very soon came to personify the solar heat. When the sun arose, it was like the arrival on earth, and among men, of the “divine soul which informs the Gods.” Hence the strange symbolism. The mummy donned the head of a crocodile to show that it was a Soul arriving from the earth.

In all the ancient papyri, the crocodile is called Sebekh (Seventh); water also symbolizes the fifth principle esoterically; and, as already stated, Mr. Gerald Massey shows that the crocodile was the “seventh Soul, the supreme one of seven—the Seer unseen.” Even exoterically Sekhem is the residence of the God Khem, and Khem is Horus avenging the death of his father Osiris, hence punishing the sins of man, when he becomes a disembodied Soul. Thus the defunct Osirified became the God Khem, who “gleans the field of Aanroo”; that is, he gleans either his reward or punishment, for that field is the celestial locality (Devachan), where the Defunct is given _wheat_, the food of divine justice. The Fifth Group 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 say, of Mahat, the Universal Intelligence, and the dual nature of man, the spiritual and the physical. Hence its number Five, doubled and made into Ten, connecting it with Makara, the tenth sign of the Zodiac.