Chapter XLIX: Section XVII: Summary of the Position (1)

The reader has had the whole case presented to him from both sides, and it remains with him to decide whether its summary stands in our favour or not. If there were such a thing as a void, a vacuum in Nature, one ought to find it produced, according to a physical law, in the minds of helpless admirers of the “lights” of Science, who pass their time in mutually destroying their teachings. If ever the theory that “two lights make darkness” found its application it is in this case, where one‐half of the “lights” imposes its forces and “modes of motion” on the belief of the faithful, and the other half opposes the very existence of the same. “Ether, Matter, Energy”—the sacred hypostatical trinity, the three principles of the truly _unknown_ God of Science, called by them PHYSICAL NATURE!

Theology is taken to task and ridiculed for believing in the union of three persons in one Godhead—one God as to substance, three persons as to individuality; and we are laughed at for our belief in unproved and unprovable doctrines, in Angels and Devils, Gods and Spirits. And, indeed, that which made the Scientists win the day over Theology in the Great “Conflict between Religion and Science,” was precisely the argument that neither the identity of that substance, nor the triple individuality claimed—after having been conceived, invented, and worked out in the depths of Theological Consciousness—could be proved to exist by any scientific inductive process of reasoning, least of all by the evidence of our senses. Religion must perish, it is said, because it teaches “mysteries.” “Mystery is the negation of Common Sense,” and Science repels it. According to Mr. Tyndall, Metaphysics is “fiction,” like poetry. The man of Science “takes nothing on trust”; rejects everything “that is not proven to him,” while the Theologian accepts “everything on blind faith.” The Theosophist and the Occultist, who take nothing on trust, not even _exact_ Science, the Spiritualist who denies dogma but believes in Spirits and in _invisible but potent influences_, all share in the same contempt. Very well, then; what we have to do now, is to examine for the last time whether _exact_ Science does not act precisely in the same way as do Theosophy, Spiritualism, and Theology.

In a work by Mr. S. Laing, considered a standard book on Science, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, the author of which, according to the laudatory review of the _Times_, “exhibits with much power and effect the immense discoveries of Science, and its numerous victories over old opinions, whenever they have the rashness to challenge conclusions with it,” we read as follows:

What is the material universe composed of? Ether, Matter, Energy.

We stop to ask, What is Ether? And Mr. Laing answers in the name of Science:

Ether is not actually known to us by any test of which the senses
can take cognizance, but is a sort of mathematical substance which
we are compelled to assume in order to account for the phenomena
of light and heat.(1143)

And what is Matter? Do you know more about it than you do about the “hypothetical” agent, Ether?

In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigations can
tell us ... nothing directly of the composition of living matter,
and ... it is also in strictness true, that we know nothing about
the compositions of any [material] body whatever as it is.(1144)

And Energy? Surely you can define the third person of the Trinity of your Material Universe? We can take the answer from any book on Physics:

Energy is that which is only known to us by its effects.

Pray explain, for this is rather hazy.

[In mechanics there is actual and potential energy: work actually
performed, and the capacity for performing it. As to the nature of
molecular Energy or Forces], the various phenomena which bodies
present show that their molecules are under the influence of two
contrary forces, one which tends to bring them together, and the
other to separate them.... The first force ... is called
_molecular attraction_ ... the second force is due to the _vis
viva_, or moving force.(1145)

Just so: it is the nature of this _moving force_, of this _vis viva_, that we want to know. What is it?

“We do not know!” is the invariable answer. “It is an empty shadow of my imagination,” explains Mr. Huxley in his _Physical Basis of Life_.

Thus the whole structure of Modern Science is built on a kind of “mathematical abstraction,” on a Protean “Substance which eludes the senses” (Dubois Reymond), and on _effects_, the shadowy and illusive will‐ o’‐the wisps of a _something_ entirely unknown to, and beyond the reach of, Science. “_Self‐moving_” Atoms! _Self‐moving_ Suns, Planets, and Stars! But who, then, or _what_ are they all, if they are self‐endowed with motion? Why then should you, Physicists, laugh at and deride our “Self‐moving Archæus”? Mystery is rejected and scorned by Science, and as Father Felix has truly said:

She cannot escape it. Mystery is the fatality of Science.

The language of the French preacher is ours, and we quote it in _Isis Unveiled_. Who—he asks—who of you, men of Science:

Has been able to penetrate the secret of the formation of a body,
the generation of a single atom? What is there, I will not say at
the centre of a sun, but at the centre of an atom? Who has sounded
to the bottom the abyss in a grain of sand? The grain of sand,
gentlemen, has been studied four thousand years by science; she
has turned and returned it; she divides it and subdivides it; she
torments it with her experiments; she vexes it with her questions
to snatch from it the final word as to its secret constitution;
she asks it, with an insatiable curiosity: “Shall I divide thee
infinitesimally?” Then suspended over this abyss, science
hesitates, she stumbles, she feels dazzled, she becomes dizzy, and
in despair says: “I DO NOT KNOW.”

But if you are so fatally ignorant of the genesis and hidden
nature of a grain of sand, how should you have an intuition as to
the generation of a single living being? Whence in the living
being does life come? Where does it commence? What is the life
principle?(1146)

Do the men of Science deny all these charges? By no means: for here is a confession of Tyndall, which shows how powerless is Science, even over the world of Matter.

The first marshalling of the atoms, on which all subsequent action
depends, baffles a keener power than that of the microscope....
Through pure excess of complexity, and long before observation can
have any voice in the matter, the most highly trained intellect,
the most refined and disciplined imagination, retires in
bewilderment from the contemplation of the problem. We are struck
dumb by an astonishment which no microscope can relieve, doubting
not only the power of our instrument, but even whether we
ourselves possess the intellectual elements which will ever enable
us to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of nature.

How little is known of the material Universe, indeed, has now been suspected for years, on the very admissions of these men of Science themselves. And now there are some Materialists who would even make away with Ether—or whatever Science calls the infinite Substance, the noumenon of which the Buddhists call Svabhâvat—as well as with Atoms, too dangerous both on account of their ancient philosophical, and their present Christian and theological, associations. From the earliest Philosophers, whose records passed to posterity, down to our present age—which, if it denies Invisible Beings in Space, can never be so insane as to deny a Plenum of some sort—the Fulness of the Universe has been an accepted belief. And what it was said to contain, one learns from Hermes Trismegistus (in Dr. Anna Kingsford’s able rendering), who is made to say:

Concerning the void ... my judgment is that it does not exist,
that it never has existed, and that it never will exist, for all
the various parts of the universe are filled, as the earth also is
complete and full of bodies, differing in quality and in form,
having their species and their magnitude, one larger, one smaller,
one solid, one tenuous. The larger ... are easily perceived; the
smaller ... are difficult to apprehend, or altogether invisible.
We know only of their existence by the sensation of feeling,
wherefore many persons deny such entities to be bodies, and regard
them as simply spaces,(1147) but it is impossible there should be
such spaces. For if indeed there should be anything outside the
universe ... then it would be a space occupied by intelligible
beings analogous to its [the universe’s] Divinity.... I speak of
the genii, for I hold they dwell with us, and of the heroes who
dwell above us, between the earth and the higher airs; wherein are
neither clouds nor any tempest.(1148)

And we “hold” it too. Only, as already remarked, no Eastern Initiate would speak of spheres “_above_ us, between the earth and the airs,” even the highest, as there is no such division or measurement in Occult speech, no _above_, as no _below_, but an eternal _within, within two other withins_, or the planes of subjectivity merging gradually into that of terrestrial objectivity—this being for _man_ the last one, his own plane. This necessary explanation may be closed here by giving, in the words of Hermes, the belief on this particular point of the whole world of Mystics:

There are many orders of the Gods; and in all there is an
intelligible part. It is not to be supposed they do not come
within the range of our senses; on the contrary, we perceive them,
better even than those which are called visible.... There are then
Gods, superior to all appearances; after them come the Gods whose
principle is spiritual; these Gods being sensible, in conformity
with their double origin, manifest all things by a sensible
nature, each of them illuminating his works one by another.(1149)
The supreme Being of heaven, or of all that is comprehended under
this name, is Zeus, for it is by heaven that Zeus gives life to
all things. The supreme Being of the sun is light, for it is by
the disk of the sun that we receive the benefit of the light. The
thirty‐six horoscopes of the fixed stars have for supreme Being,
or prince, him whose name is _Pantomorphos_, or having all forms,
because he gives divine forms to divers types. The seven planets,
or wandering spheres, have for supreme Spirits Fortune and
Destiny, who uphold the eternal stability of the laws of Nature
throughout incessant transformation and perpetual agitation. The
ether is the instrument or medium by which all is produced.(1150)

This is quite philosophical and in accordance with the spirit of Eastern Esotericism: for all the Forces, such as Light, Heat, Electricity, etc., are called the “Gods”—Esoterically.

This, indeed, must be so, since the Esoteric Teachings in Egypt and India were identical. And, therefore, the personification of Fohat, synthesizing all the manifesting Forces in Nature is a legitimate result. Moreover, as will be shown later, the real and Occult Forces in Nature only now begin to be known—and even in this case, by heterodox, not orthodox, Science,(1151) though their existence, in one instance at any rate, is corroborated and certified by an immense number of educated people, and even by some official men of Science.

The statement, moreover, in Stanza VI—that Fohat sets in motion the primordial World‐Germs, or the aggregation of Cosmic Atoms and Matter, “some one way, some the other way,” in the opposite direction—looks orthodox and scientific enough. For there is, at all events, in support of this position, one fact fully recognized by Science, and it is this. The meteoric showers, periodical in November and August, belong to a system moving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun. The aphelion of this ring is 1,732 millions of miles beyond the orbit of Neptune, its plane is inclined to the Earth’s orbit at an angle of 64° 3´, and the direction of the meteoric swarm moving round this orbit _is contrary to that of the Earth’s revolution_.

This fact, recognized only in 1833, shows it to be the modern rediscovery of what was very anciently known. Fohat turns with his two hands in contrary directions the “seed” and the “curds,” or Cosmic Matter; in clearer language, is turning particles in a highly attenuated condition, and nebulæ.

Outside the boundaries of the Solar System, it is other Suns, and especially the mysterious Central Sun—the “Abode of the Invisible Deity” as some reverend gentlemen have called it—that determines the motion and the direction of bodies. That motion serves also to differentiate the homogeneous Matter, round and between the several bodies, into Elements and Sub‐elements unknown to our Earth, and these are regarded by Modern Science as distinct individual Elements, whereas they are merely temporary appearances, changing with every small cycle within the Manvantara, some Esoteric works calling them “Kalpic Masks.”

Fohat is the key in Occultism which opens and unriddles the multiform symbols and allegories in the so‐called mythology of every nation; demonstrating the wonderful Philosophy and the deep insight into the mysteries of Nature, contained in the Egyptian and Chaldean as well as in the Âryan religions. Fohat, shown in his true character, proves how deeply versed were all those prehistoric nations in every Science of Nature, now called the physical and chemical branches of Natural Philosophy. In India, Fohat is the scientific aspect of both Vishnu and Indra, the latter older and more important in the _Rig Veda_ than his sectarian successor; while in Egypt, Fohat was known as Toom issued of Noot,(1152) or Osiris in his character of a primordial God, creator of heaven and of beings.(1153) For Toom is spoken of as the Protean God who _generates other Gods_ and gives himself the form he likes; the “Master of Life, giving their vigour to the Gods.”(1154) He is the _overseer_ of the Gods, and he “who creates spirits and gives them shape and life”; he is “the North Wind and the Spirit of the West”; and finally the “Setting Sun of Life,” or the vital electric force that leaves the body at death; wherefore the Defunct begs that Toom should give him the breath from his _right_ nostril (positive electricity) that he might live in his _second_ form. Both the hieroglyph, and the text of chapter xlii in the _Book of the Dead_, show the identity of Toom and Fohat. The former represents a man standing erect with the hieroglyph of the _breaths_ in his hands. The latter says:

I open to the chief of An (Heliopolis). I am Toom. I cross the
water spilt by Thot‐Hapi, the lord of the horizon, and am the
divider of the earth [Fohat divides Space and, with his Sons, the
Earth into seven zones]....

I cross the heavens; I am the two Lions. I am Ra, I am Aam, I eat
my heir.(1155).... I glide on the soil of the field of
Aanroo,(1156) given me by the master of limitless eternity. I am a
germ of eternity. I am Toom, to whom eternity is accorded.

The very words used by Fohat in the XIth Book, and the very titles given him. In the Egyptian Papyri the whole Cosmogony of the Secret Doctrine is found scattered about in isolated sentences, even in the _Book of the Dead_. Number seven is quite as much insisted upon and emphasized therein as in the _Book of Dzyan_. “The Great Water [the Deep or Chaos] is said to be seven cubits deep”—“cubits” standing here of course for divisions, zones, and principles. Therein, “in the great Mother, all the Gods, and the Seven Great Ones are born.” Both Fohat and Toom are addressed as the “Great Ones of the Seven Magic Forces,” who, “conquer the Serpent Apap” or Matter.(1157)

No student of Occultism, however, ought to be betrayed, by the usual phraseology used in the translations of Hermetic Works, into believing that the ancient Egyptians or Greeks spoke of, and referred, monk‐like, at every moment in conversation, to a Supreme Being, God, the “One Father and Creator of all,” etc., in the way found on every page of such translations. No such thing indeed; and those texts _are not the original Egyptian_ texts. They are Greek compilations, the earliest of which does not go beyond the early period of Neo‐Platonism. No Hermetic work written by Egyptians—as we may see by the _Book of the Dead_—would speak of the one universal God of the Monotheistic systems; the one _Absolute_ Cause of all, was as unnameable and unpronounceable in the mind of the ancient Philosopher of Egypt, as it is for ever _Unknowable_ in the conception of Mr. Herbert Spencer. As for the Egyptian in general, as M. Maspero well remarks, whenever he

Arrived at the notion of divine Unity, the God One was never “God”
simply. M. Lepage‐Renouf very justly observed that the word
Nouter, Nouti, “God” had never ceased to be _a generic name_ to
become a personal one.

Every God was the “one living and unique God” with them. Their

Monotheism was purely geographical. If the Egyptian of Memphis
proclaimed the Unity of Phtah to the exclusion of Ammon, the
Thebeian Egyptian proclaimed the unity of Ammon to the exclusion
of Phtah [as we now see done in India in the case of the Shaivas
and the Vaishnavas]. Ra, the “One God” at Heliopolis is not the
same as Osiris, the “One God” at Abydos, and can be worshipped
side by side with him, without being absorbed by him. The one God
is but the God of the nome or the city, Nouter Nouti, and does not
exclude the existence of the one God of the neighbouring town or
nome. In short, whenever we are speaking of Egyptian Monotheism,
we ought to speak of the Gods One of Egypt, and not of the One
God.(1158)

It is by this feature, preëminently Egyptian, that the authenticity of the various so‐called _Hermetic Books_, ought to be tested; and it is totally absent from the Greek fragments known under this name. This proves that a Greek Neo‐Platonic, or perhaps a Christian hand, had no small share in the editing of such works. Of course the fundamental Philosophy is there, and in many a place—intact. But the style has been altered and smoothed in a monotheistic direction, as much, if not more than that of the Hebrew Genesis in its Greek and Latin translations. They _may_ be _Hermetic_ works, but not works written by either of the two Hermes—or rather, by Thot Hermes, the directing Intelligence of the Universe(1159) or by Thot his terrestrial incarnation called Trismegistus, of the Rosetta stone.

But all is doubt, negation, iconoclasm and brutal indifference, in our age of a hundred “isms” and no religion. Every idol is broken save the Golden Calf.

Unfortunately, no nation or nations can escape their Karmic fate, any more than can units and individuals. History itself is dealt with by the so‐ called historians as unscrupulously as legendary lore. For this, Augustin Thierry has made the _amende honorable_, if one may believe his biographers. He deplored the erroneous principle that made all the _would‐ be_ historiographers lose their way, and each presume to correct tradition, “that _vox populi_ which nine times out of ten is _vox Dei_”; and he finally admitted that _in legend alone rests real history_; for he adds:

Legend is living tradition, and three times out of four it is
truer than what we call History.(1160)

While Materialists deny everything in the Universe, save Matter, Archæologists are trying to dwarf Antiquity, and seek to destroy every claim of Ancient Wisdom by tampering with Chronology. Our present‐day Orientalists and historical writers are to Ancient History that which the white ants are to the buildings in India. More dangerous even than those Termites, the modern Archæologists—the “authorities” of the future in the matter of Universal History—are preparing for the history of past nations the fate of certain edifices in tropical countries. As said Michelet:

History will tumble down and break into atoms in the lap of the
twentieth century, devoured to its foundations by her annalists.

Very soon, indeed, under their combined efforts, it will share the fate of those ruined cities in both Americas, which lie deeply buried under impassable virgin forests. Historical facts will remain concealed from view by the inextricable jungles of modern hypotheses, denials and scepticism. But very happily _actual_ History repeats herself, for she proceeds, like everything else, in cycles; and dead facts, and events deliberately drowned in the sea of modern scepticism, will ascend once more and reappear on the surface.

In Volume II, the very fact that a work with pretensions to Philosophy, which is also an exposition of the most abstruse problems, has to be commenced by tracing the evolution of mankind from what are regarded as supernatural beings—Spirits—will arouse the most malevolent criticism. Believers in, and the defenders of, the Secret Doctrine, however, will have to bear the accusation of madness _and worse_, as philosophically as for long years already the writer has done. Whenever a Theosophist is taxed with insanity, he ought to reply by quoting from Montesquieu’s _Lettres Persanes_:

By opening so freely their lunatic asylums to their supposed
madmen, men only seek to assure each other that they are not
themselves mad.

[Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.]

FOOTNOTES

1 See _Theosophist_, June, 1883.

2 _Preface_ to the original edition.

3 _Dan_, in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics _Chhan_, is the
general term for the esoteric schools and their literature. In the
old books, the word _Janna_ is defined as “reforming one’s self by
meditation and knowledge,” a second _inner_ birth. Hence _Dzan_,
_Djan_ phonetically; the _Book of Dzyan_. See Edkins, _Chinese
Buddhism_, p. 129, note.

4 Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagâya, and a distinguished
archæologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it.

5 See _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. II, p. 27.

6 _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 23.

7 _Ain í Akbari_, translated by Dr. Blochmann, quoted by Max Müller,
_op. cit._

8 _Tao‐te‐King_, p. xxvii.

9 Max Müller, _op. cit._, p. 114.

10 Found out and proven only _now_, through the discoveries made by
George Smith (see his _Chaldean Account of Genesis_), and which,
thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the “civilized
nations” for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish derivations for
direct _Divine_ Revelation.

11 _Egypt’s Place in History_, i. 200.

12 Spence Hardy, _The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists_, p. 66.

13 E. Schlagintweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 77.

14 Lassen (_Ind. Althersumkunde_, II, 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery
erected in the Kailâs. Range in 137 B.C.; and General Cunningham,
one earlier than that.

15 Rev. J. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 87.

16 See, for example, Max Müller’s _Lectures_.

17 _Op. cit._, p. 118.

18 _Op. cit._, p. 318.

19 _Asiatic Researches_, I, 272.

20 See Max Müller, _op. cit._, pp. 288 _et seq._ This relates to the
clever forgery, on leaves inserted in old Purânic MSS., and written
in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pandits had heard
from Colonel Wilford about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three
sons, etc., etc.

21 From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky.

22 Lün‐Yü (§ I a); Schott, _Chinesische Literatur_, p. 7; quoted by Max
Müller.

23 _Life and Teachings of Confucius_, p. 96.

24 Op. cit., p. 257.

25 The name is used in the sense of the Greek word ἅνθρωπς.

26 Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared
that he had performed “miracles” by means of the book _Sepher
Jetzirah_, and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the
Babylonian _Talmud_, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina
and Oshoi. (See _Jerusalem Talmud_, _Sanhedrin_, c. 7, etc.; and
Franck, _Die Kabbalah_, pp. 55, 56). Many of the mediæval
Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists have made the same claim; and
even the late modern Magus, Éliphas Lévi, publicly asserts it in his
books on Magic.

27 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the term Divine
Thought, like that of Universal Mind, must not be regarded as even
vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that
exhibited by man. The “Unconscious,” according to von Hartmann,
arrived at the vast creative, or rather evolutionary plan, “by a
clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness,” which in Vedântic
language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realize how far
intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought
can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which
transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is
resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration,
intensity, complexity, etc., all, in the ultimate, resting on
sensation, which is again Mâyâ. Sensation, again, necessarily
postulates limitation. The Personal God of orthodox Theism
perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels
“fierce anger.” But the notion of such mental states clearly
involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the
exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing
changelessness to a being whose emotions fluctuate with events in
the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as
changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse,
unphilosophical.

28 Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in _Cratylus_ that
θεός is derived from θέειν, to move, to run, for the first
astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called
the planets θεοί, gods. Later the word produced another term,
ἀλήθεια—the breath of God.

29 Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that “it is impossible ... to
form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving”
(_Principles of Human Knowledge_, Introd., par. 10), may put the
question, What is that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a
substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God? etc., etc. This
will be answered farther on, in a further part of this work;
meanwhile, we claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against
Roscelini’s materialistic views of Realism and Nominalism. “Has
science,” says one of its ablest advocates, Edward Clodd, “revealed
anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient words in
which the essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is
given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?”
And we agree, provided we connote by the word God, not the crude
anthropomorphism which is still the backbone of our current
theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is the Life and
Motion of the Universe, to know which in the physical order is to
know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of
successions of phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know
what has been, is, and will be, within human consciousness. (See
_Science and the Emotions_, a Discourse delivered at South Place
Chapel, Finsbury, London, December 27th, 1885.)

30 _Isis Unveiled_, II, 264‐5.

31 Rig Veda.

32 We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American
Kabalists, that in the _Kabalah_ also “the value of the Jehovah name
is that of the diameter of a circle.” Add to this the fact that
Jehovah is the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, a feminine word, and
you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic
transformations this name, which is androgynous in the first
chapters of _Genesis_, becomes in its transformations entirely
masculine, Cainite and phallic. The choosing of a deity among the
pagan gods and making of it a special national God, to call upon it
as the “One Living God,” the “God of Gods,” and then proclaiming
this worship monotheistic, does not change it into the One Principle
whose “Unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form,”
especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah is now
demonstrated to be.

33 See that suggestive work, _The Source of Measures_, where the author
explains the real meaning of the word _Sacr’_ from which “sacred,”
“sacrament,” are derived, words which have now become synonyms of
holiness, though purely phallic!

34 _Mândûkya Upanishad_, I. 28.

35 _Bodhimür_, Book II.

36 See the _Vedânta Sâra_, by Major G. A. Jacob; and also _The
Aphorisms of Shândilya_, translated by Cowell, p. 42.

37 _Aitareya Upanishad._

38 Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists
would like to prove this to be pure Atheism. For proof of this,
compare Major Jacob’s _Vedânta Sâra_. Yet, the whole of antiquity
echoes the thought:

Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est
Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur—

as Lucretius has it—a purely Vedântic conception.

39 The very names of the two chief deities, Brahmâ and Vishnu, ought to
have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. Brahman, or Brahm,
is derived by some from the root _brih_, to grow or to expand (see
_Calcutta Review_, vol. lxvi., p. 14); Vishnu, from the root _vish_,
to pervade, to enter into the nature of the essence; Brahmâ‐Vishnu
thus being infinite Space, of which the Gods, the Rishis, the Manus,
and all in this Universe are simply the Potencies (Vibhûtayah).

40 See Manu’s account of Brahmâ separating his body into male and
female, the latter the female Vâch, in whom he creates Virâj, and
compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II, III, and IV of
_Genesis_.

41 Occultism is indeed “in the air” at the close of this our century.
Among many other works recently published, we would recommend
especially to students of theoretical Occultism who would not
venture beyond the realm of our special human plane, _New Aspects of
Life and Religion_, by Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric
dogmas and philosophy, the latter, however, in the concluding
chapters, rather limited by what seems to be a spirit of conditioned
positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as “the Unknown
First Cause,” merits quotation.

“This unknown something, thus recognized as, and identified with,
the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable
[as _abstract_ space, granted]: and because invisible and
impalpable, therefore incognizable. And this incognizability has led
to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive
capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be
admitted to be either self‐existent, infinite, and eternal, or to
have had a first cause outside, behind, and beyond itself.

“And yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only
lead to the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise
accruing to space, and thus merely throw the difficulty of
origination a step farther back, without gaining additional light as
to primary causation.” (_Op. cit._, p. 5.)

This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an
anthropomorphic creator, an extra‐cosmic, instead of an intra‐cosmic
God. Many of Dr. Pratt’s subjects—most of them we may say—are old
Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents in quite a new
garb—“New Aspects” of the Occult in Nature, indeed. Space, however,
viewed as a Substantial Unity—the living Source of Life—is, as the
Unknown Causeless Cause, the oldest dogma in Occultism, millenniums
earlier than the Pater‐Æther of the Greeks and Latins. So are “Force
and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable, and the unknown
revealers of the Unknown.” They are all found in Âryan philosophy
personified as Vishvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they
are expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects,
in the work referred to.

42 In contradistinction to the manifested Universe of matter, the term
Mûlaprakriti (from _mûla_, root, and prakriti, nature), or the
unmanifested primordial Matter—called by Western Alchemists Adam’s
Earth—is applied by the Vedântins to _Parabrahman_. Matter is dual
in religious metaphysics, and in esoteric teachings septenary, like
everything else in the Universe. As Mûlaprakriti, it is
undifferentiated and eternal: as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated
and conditioned, according to _Shvetâshvatara Upanishad_, I, 8, and
_Devî Bhâgavata Purâna_. The author of the Four lectures on the
_Bhagavad Gîtâ_, in speaking of Mûlaprakriti, says: “From its [the
Logos’] objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as
Mûlaprakriti.... Of course this Mûlaprakriti is material to it, as
any material object is material to us.... Parabrahman is an
unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mûlaprakriti is a sort of
veil thrown over it.” (_Theosophist_, VIII, 304.)

43 Esoteric Philosophy, regarding every finite thing as Mâyâ (or the
illusion of ignorance), must necessarily view in the same light
every intra‐cosmic planet and body, seeing that it is something
organized, hence finite. The sentence, therefore, “it proceeds from
without inwardly, etc.”, in its first clause, refers to the dawn of
the Mahâmanvantara, or the great reëvolution after one of the
complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature,
from planet to molecule, into its ultimate essence or element; and
in its second clause, to the partial or local Manvantara, which may
be a solar or even a planetary one.

44 By Centre, a centre of energy or a cosmic focus is meant; when the
so‐called “creation,” or formation, of a planet, is accomplished by
that force which is designated by Occultists Life and by Science
Energy, then the process takes place from within outwardly, every
atom being said to contain in itself the creative energy of the
divine Breath. And, whereas after an Absolute Pralaya, when the
preëxisting material consists but of One Element, and Breath “is
everywhere,” the latter acts from without inwardly; after a Minor
Pralaya, when everything having remained _in statu quo_—in a
refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon—then at the first
flutter of Manvantara, the planet or planets begin their
resurrection to life from within outwardly.

45 In the evolutionary cycles of ideas, it is curious to notice how
ancient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr.
Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindû philosophers when he
wrote a certain passage in his _First Principles_ (p. 482)? Or is it
an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half
correctly, half incorrectly, “motion as well as matter, being fixed
in quantity [?], it would seem that the change in the distribution
of matter which motion effects, coming to a limit in whichever
direction it is carried [?], the indestructible motion thereupon
necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally
coëxistent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have
seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the
Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its
changes—produce now an immeasurable period during which the
attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and
then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces
predominating, cause universal diffusion—alternate eras of evolution
and dissolution.”

46 Whatever the news of Physical Science upon the subject, Occult
Science has been teaching for ages that Âkâsha (of which Ether is
the grossest form), the Fifth universal cosmic Principle—to which
corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas—is, cosmically, a
radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative in its
physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions,
immutable in its higher principles. In the creative condition it is
called the Sub‐Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it
recalls “dead worlds to life.” In its higher aspect it is the Soul
of the World; in its lower—the Destroyer.

47 _Hypoth._, 1675.

48 The “First” presupposes necessarily something which is the “first
brought forth,” “the first in time, space, and rank”—and therefore
finite and conditioned. The “first” _cannot be Absolute_ for it is a
manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All
the One Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root, and limits the “First
Cause” to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term.

49 See T. Subba Row’s four able lectures on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, in
_The Theosophist_, Feb. 1887.

50 Called by Christian theology, Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc.

51 “Pilgrim” is the appellation given to our Monad (the Two in one)
during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and
eternal Principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral
whole—the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which
it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate
from the One Spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be
used for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedântins call it
Sûtrâtmâ (Thread‐Soul), but their explanation differs somewhat from
that of the Occultists; to explain which difference, however, is
left to the Vedântins themselves.

52 It is not the physical organisms that remain _in statu quo_, least
of all their psychic principles, during the great Cosmic or even
Solar Pralayas, but only their âkâshic or astral “photographs.” But
during the Minor Pralayas, once overtaken by the “Night,” the
planets remain intact, though dead, just as a huge animal, caught
and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages.

53 Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann,
only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence
lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair—reverently
formulates the grand mystery; “that which persists unchanging in
quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible
appearances which the Universe presents to us, is an unknown and
unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit
in Space and without beginning or end in Time.” It is only daring
Theology—never Science or Philosophy—which seeks to gauge the
Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable.

54 Space.

55 It is stated in Book II, ch. viii, of _Vishnu Purâna_: “By
immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa”; and Wilson,
the translator, remarks in a foot‐note: “This, according to the
_Vedas_, is all that is to be understood of the immortality [or
eternity] of the gods; they perish at the end of universal
dissolution [or Pralaya].” And Esoteric Philosophy says: “They
‘perish’ not, but are _reäbsorbed_.”

56 Celestial Beings.

57 And hence to manifest it.

58 Nirvâna. Nippang in Chinese; Neibban in Burmese; Moksha in India.

59 Nidâna and Mâyâ. The “Twelve” Nidânas (in Tibetan Ten‐brel Chug‐nyi)
are the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a
concatenation of causes produced.

60 See Wassilief, _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 97‐128.

61 The term “Wheel” is the symbolical expression for a world or globe,
which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a
revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers
taught. The “Great Wheel” is the whole duration of our Cycle of
Being, or Mahâkalpa, _i.e._, the whole revolution of our special
Chain of seven Globes or Spheres from beginning to end; the “Small
Wheels” meaning the Rounds, of which there are also seven.

62 Absolute Perfection, Paranirvâna, which is Yong‐Grub.

63 See Dzungarian _Mani Kumbum_, the “Book of the 10,000 Precepts.”
Also consult Wassilief’s _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 327 and 357, etc.

64 In clearer words: One has to acquire true Self‐Consciousness in
order to understand Samvriti, or the “origin of delusion.”
Paramârtha is the synonym of the term Svasamvedanâ, or the
“reflection which analyses itself.” There is a difference in the
interpretation of the meaning of Paramârtha between the Yogâchâryas
and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and
true esoteric sense of the expression.

65 In India it is called the “Eye of Shiva,” but beyond the Great Range
it is known in Esoteric phraseology as “Dangma’s Opened Eye.” Dangma
means a purified soul, one who has become a Jîvanmukta, the highest
Adept, or rather a Mahâtmâ so‐called. His “Opened Eye” is the inner
spiritual eye of the seer; and the faculty which manifests through
it, is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, _i.e._, the power
of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual
intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable.
This faculty is intimately connected with the “third eye,” which
mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men.

66 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 21.

67 And yet, one, _claiming authority_, namely, Sir Monier Williams,
Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied the fact.
This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his
annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain:
“Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism
... to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no
esoteric system of doctrine ... withheld from ordinary men” (!!).
And, again: “... When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and
lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known.” And then,
contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his
audience that “we learn from _Lalita‐Vistara_ that various forms of
bodily torture, self‐maceration, and austerity were common in
Gautama’s time.” (!!) But the lecturer seems quite unaware that this
kind of torture and self‐maceration is precisely the lower form of
Yoga, _Hatha_ Yoga, which was “little known” and yet so “common” in
Gautama’s time.

68 It is even argued that all the Six Darshanas, or Schools of
Philosophy, show traces of Buddha’s influence, being either taken
from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Müller,
etc.) We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, “the highest
authority” in such matters, had long ago settled the question by
showing that “the Hindûs were in this instance the teachers, not the
learners.”

69 Soul, as the basis of all, Anima Mundi.

70 Absolute Being and Consciousness, which are Absolute Non‐Being and
Unconsciousness.

71 “Paramârthasatya” is self‐consciousness; Svasamvedanâ, or self‐
analyzing reflection—from _parama_, above everything, and _artha_,
comprehension; _satya_ meaning absolute true being, or _esse_. In
Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this
absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya—the relative truth
only—Samvriti meaning “false conception” and being the origin of
Illusion, Mâyâ; in Tibetan Kundzabchidenpa, “illusion‐creating
appearance.”

72 _Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas._

73 Âryâsanga was a pre‐Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist
esoteric school, though Csoma de Körös places him, for some reasons
of his own, in the seventh century A.D. There was another Aryâsanga,
who lived during the first centuries of our era, and the Hungarian
scholar most probably confuses the two.

74 _Vâyu Purâna_.

75 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson, I. 20.

76 Finite self‐consciousness, I mean. For how can the _Absolute_ attain
this otherwise than simply as an _aspect_, the highest of which
aspects known to us is human consciousness?

77 See Schwegler’s _Handbook of the History of Philosophy_, in
Sterling’s translation, p. 28.

78 Vajrapâni or Vajradhara means the diamond‐holder; in Tibetan
Dorjesempa, _sempa_ meaning the soul; its adamantine quality
referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation
with regard to the Anupâdaka given in the _Kâla Chakra_, the first
in the Gyut division of the _Kanjur_, is half esoteric. It has
misled the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to
the Dhyâni‐Buddhas and their earthly correspondencies, the Mânushi‐
Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a subsequent volume, and
will be more fully explained in its proper place.

79 To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the
Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatâras (special incarnations
of the World‐Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great
religious reformers): “The essence of man is spirit ... only by
stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure
self‐consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ‐man, as man in
whom the Unity of God‐man [identity of the individual with the
universal Consciousness as taught by the Vedântins and some
Advaitees] appeared, has, in his death and history generally,
himself presented the eternal history of Spirit—a history which
every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as
Spirit.”—_Philosophy of History_, Sibree’s English Translation, p.
340.

80 Chohanic, Dhyâni‐Buddhic.

81 Rûpa.

82 Arûpa.

83 “Mother of the Gods,” Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the _Zohar_, she is
called Sephira, the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her
primordial form, _in abscondita_.

84 Hence Non‐Being is “Absolute Being,” in Esoteric Philosophy. In the
tenets of the latter even Âdi‐Buddha (the First or Primeval Wisdom)
is, while manifested, in one sense an Illusion, Mâyâ, since all the
gods, including Brahmâ, have to die at the end of the Age of Brahmâ;
the abstraction called Parabrahman—whether we call it Ain Suph, or
with Herbert Spencer the Unknowable—alone being the One Absolute
Reality. The One Secondless Existence is Advaita, “Without a
Second,” and all the rest is Mâyâ, so teaches the Advaita
Philosophy.

85 Motion.

86 Wilson, I. iv.

87 Mother‐Lotus.

88 An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic.

89 Gross, _The Heathen Religion_, p. 195.

90 _Precepts for Yoga_.

91 A Vedântin of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy would say that, though
the only independent Reality, Parabrahman is inseparable from His
Trinity. That He is three, “Parabrahman, Chit, and Achit,” the last
two being dependent Realities unable to exist separately; or, to
make it clearer, Parabrahman is the Substance—changeless, eternal,
and incognizable—and Chit (Âtmâ) and Achit (Anâtmâ) and its
qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any object. The
two are the garment, or body, or rather aspect (sharîra) of
Parabrahman. But an Occultist would find much to say against this
claim, and so would the Advaiti Vedântin.

92 _Sc._, Sons.

93 Simultaneously.

94 Moves.

95 Periodical.

96 Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 40.

97 Triangle.

98 Quaternary.

99 Hiranyagarbha.

100 The three hypostases of Brahmâ, or Vishnu, the three Avasthâs.

101 Number, truly; but never Motion. It is Motion which begets the
Logos, the Word, in Occultism.

102 The “fourteen precious things.” The narrative or allegory is found
in the _Shatapatha Brâmanah_ and others. The Japanese Secret Science
of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has “seven precious
things.” We will speak of them, hereafter.

103 “The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Shankara renders
Antaskarana. ‘Refined,’ he says, ‘by sacrifices and other
sanctifying operations.’ In the _Katha_, at p. 148, Sattva is
rendered by Shankara to mean Buddhi—a common use of the word.”
(_Bhagavadgîtâ_, etc., translated by Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A.;
edited by Max Müller, p. 193.) Whatever meaning various schools may
give the term, Sattva is the name given among Occult students of the
Âryâsanga School to the dual Monad, or Âtmâ‐Buddhi, and Âtmâ‐Buddhi
on this plane corresponds to Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti on the
higher plane.

104 Amrita.

105 Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, p. 314.

106 On Rosenkranz.

107 i. 2.

108 _John_, i. 4.

109 Lanoo is a student, a Chelâ who studies practical Esotericism.

110 “Whom thou knowest now as Kwan‐Shai‐Yin.”—_Comment._

111 Eka is One; Chatur, Four; Tri, Three; and Sapta, Seven.

112 “Tridasha,” or Thirty, three times ten, alludes to the Vedic deities
in round numbers, or more accurately 33—a sacred number. They are
the 12 Âdityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and the 2 Ashvins—the
twin sons of the Sun and Sky. This is the root‐number of the Hindû
Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores, or three hundred and thirty
millions of gods and goddesses.

113 Stars.

114 The Upper Space.

115 Element.

116 The Gnostic Sophia, “Wisdom,” who is the “Mother” of the Ogdoad
(Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost
and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The “Father” is a
far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female
everywhere—the mother of the seven planetary powers.

117 See _Chinese Buddhism_, by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who always gives
correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently
erroneous.

118 _Book of Sarparâjni_.

119 By “God, the Father,” the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are
here unmistakably meant, this principle being inseparable in its
Esse and Nature from the seventh cosmic principle. In one sense it
is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteshvara of the Esoteric
“Buddhists.”

120 Fitzedward Hall’s edition, in the _Bibliotheca Indica_, p. 16.

121 _Anugîtâ_, ch. xxvi, K. T. Telang’s Translation, p. 333.

122 See Mariette’s _Abydos_, II. 63, and III. 413, 414, No. 1,122.

123 _Book of Dzyan_, III.

124 Od is the pure life‐giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the
messenger of death used by sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour
is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the
Philologists tell why Od—a term used by Reichenbach to denominate
the vital fluid—is also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness,
radiancy? It also means “sky” in an Occult sense. Whence the root of
the word? But Âkâsha is not quite Ether, but far higher than that,
as will be shown.

125 This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German
Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who
inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God‐Spirit or
Universal Principle (the Advaita doctrine). It is difficult to find
a single speculation in Western metaphysics which has not been
anticipated by archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert
Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dvaita,
Advaita, and Vedântic doctrines generally.

126 Compare Dowson’s _Dictionary of Hindû Mythology_, p. 57.

127 Whether the genus of the bird be _cygnus_, _anser_, or _pelecanus_,
it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the
waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give
birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the
Eighteenth Degree of the Rosecroix is precisely this, though it was
later on poetised into the motherly feeling of the pelican rending
its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood.

128 The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan
(_Deuteronomy_, xiv. 16, 17), classing the two among the unclean
fowls, and permits eating “the bald locusts, beetles, and the
grasshopper after his kind” (_Leviticus_ xi. 22.), is a purely
physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so
far as the word “unclean,” like every other word, ought not to be
understood literally; for it is esoteric like all the rest, and may
as well mean “holy” as not. It is a very suggestive blind in
connection with certain superstitions—_e.g._, that of the Russian
people, who will not use the pigeon for food; not because it is
“unclean” but because the “Holy Ghost” is credited with having
appeared under the form of a dove.

129 Chaos.

130 Not the Mediæval Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire‐Worshippers, from
whom the Rosicrucians, or the Philosophers _per ignem_, the
successors of the Theurgists, borrowed all their ideas concerning
Fire, as a mystic and divine element.

131 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 146.

132 “Para” gives the force of beyond, outside.

133 Purusha.

134 Prakriti.

135 I, I. 7.

136 The Web.

137 The Father.

138 The Root of Matter.

139 The Elements, with their respective Powers, or Intelligences.

140 The Web.

141 _Popular Astronomy_, pp. 507, 508.

142 _American Journal of Science_, July, 1870.

143 Winchell, _World‐Life_, pp. 83‐5.

144 Of the Atoms.

145 The Universe.

146 Primeval Light.

147 This is said in view of the fact that the flame from a fire is
inexhaustible, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be
lit from one simple rush‐light without diminishing the flame.

148 Chap. viii., p. 80, Telang’s Translation.

149 _Deuteronomy_, iv 24.

150 _Thess._, i. 7, 8.

151 _Acts_, ii. 3.

152 _Rev._, xix. 13.

153 Telang’s Translation, _Sacred Books of the East_, viii. 278.

154 Dhyân Chohans.

155 Formless.

156 With Bodies.

157 Pitris.

158 The Four, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktys, the
Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the Mystics of
every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in
Brâhmanism, Buddhism, in Kabalism and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and
other numerical systems.

159 In the _Kabalah_, the same numbers, viz., 1065 are a value of
Jehovah, since the numerical values of the three letters which
compose his name—Jod, Vau and twice Hé—are respectively 10 (י), 6
(ו) and 5 (ה); or again thrice seven, 21. “Ten is the Mother of the
Soul, for Life and Light are therein united,” says Hermes. “For
number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from Matter
[Chaos, feminine]; the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity.”
(_Book of the Keys_.) By means of Temura, the anagrammatical method
of the _Kabalah_, and the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal
science may be obtained regarding Cosmos and its mysteries (Rabbi
Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as the most
sacred of all.

160 The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered
the same number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chaldæa.
See “Hebrew Metrology,” in _The Masonic Review_, July, 1885,
McMillan Lodge, No. 141.

161 We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing,
“Mother,” and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of
that country. She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one
of the principal titles of the god being “the husband of his
mother.” The goddess Mout, or Mût, is addressed as “Our Lady,” the
“Queen of Heaven” and “of the Earth,” thus “sharing these titles
with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc.” (Maspero).

162 The Sparks.

163 The permutation of Oeaohoo. The literal signification of the word
is, among the Eastern Occultists of the North, a circular wind,
whirlwind; but in this instance, it is a term to denote the
ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion, or rather the Force that moves
it, which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity, but never named.
It is the eternal Kârana, the ever‐acting Cause.