Chapter VII: Part I: Cosmic Evolution (2)

(a) The idea that things can cease to _exist_ and still _be_, is a fundamental one in Eastern psychology. Under this apparent contradiction in terms, there rests a fact of Nature, to realize which in the mind, rather than to argue about words, is the important thing. A familiar instance of a similar paradox is afforded by chemical combination. The question whether hydrogen and oxygen cease to exist, when they combine to form water, is still a moot one; some arguing that since they are found again when the water is decomposed, they must be there all the while; others contending that as they actually turn into something totally different, they must cease to exist as themselves for the time being; but neither side is able to form the faintest conception of the real condition of a thing, which has become something else and yet has not ceased to be itself. Existence as water for oxygen and hydrogen may be said to be a state of Non‐Being, which is more real Being than their existence as gases; and it may faintly symbolize the condition of the Universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to be, during the Nights of Brahmâ—to awaken or reäppear again, when the dawn of the new Manvantara recalls it to what we call existence.

(b) The “Breath” of the One Existence is only used in application to the spiritual aspect of Cosmogony by Archaic Esotericism; in other cases, it is replaced by its equivalent on the material plane—Motion. The One Eternal Element, or element‐containing Vehicle, is Space, dimensionless in every sense; coëxistent with which are Endless Duration, Primordial (hence Indestructible) Matter, and Motion—Absolute “Perpetual Motion,” which is the “Breath” of the One Element. This Breath, as seen, can never cease, not even during the Pralayic Eternities.

But the Breath of the One Existence does not, all the same, apply to the One Causeless Cause or the All‐Be‐ness, in contradistinction to All‐Being, which is Brahmâ, or the Universe. Brahmâ, the four‐faced god, who, after lifting the Earth out of the waters, “accomplished the creation,” is held to be only the Instrumental, and not, as clearly implied, the Ideal Cause. No Orientalist, so far, seems to have thoroughly comprehended the real sense of the verses in the _Purânas_, that treat of “creation.”

Therein Brahmâ is the cause of the potencies that are to be generated subsequently for the work of “creation.” For instance, in the _Vishnu Purâna_,(86) the translation, “and from him proceed the potencies to be created, after they have become the real cause,” would perhaps be more correctly rendered, “and from IT proceed the potencies that _will create_ as they _become_ the real cause [on the material plane].” Save that One Causeless Ideal Cause there is no other to which the Universe can be referred. “Worthiest of ascetics, through its potency—_i.e._, through the potency of that cause—every created thing comes by its inherent or proper nature.” If, “in the Vedânta and Nyâya, _nimitta_ is the efficient cause, as contrasted with _upâdâna_, the material cause, [and] in the Sânkhya, _pradhâna_ implies the functions of both”; in the Esoteric Philosophy, which reconciles all these systems, and the nearest exponent of which is the Vedânta as expounded by the Advaita Vedântists, none but the _upâdâna_ can be speculated upon. That which is, in the minds of the Vaishnavas (the Visishthadvaitas), as the ideal in contradistinction to the real—or Parabrahman and Îshvara—can find no room in published speculations, since that ideal even is a misnomer, when applied to that of which no human reason, even that of an Adept, can conceive.

To know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception to be cognized—both limited faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahman. Hence the “Eternal Breath which knows itself not.” Infinity cannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the Bounded and the Conditioned. In the Occult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable Mover, or the Self‐Existing, is the Absolute Divine Essence. And thus being Absolute Consciousness, and Absolute Motion—to the limited senses of those who describe this indescribable—it is unconsciousness and immovableness. Concrete consciousness cannot be predicated of abstract consciousness, any more than the quality wet can be predicated of water—wetness being its own attribute and the cause of the wet quality in other things. Consciousness implies limitations and qualifications; something to be conscious of, and someone to be conscious of it. But Absolute Consciousness contains the cognizer, the thing cognized and the cognition, all three in itself and all three _one_. No man is conscious of more than that portion of his knowledge which happens to be recalled to his mind at any particular time, yet such is the poverty of language that we have no term to distinguish the knowledge not actively thought of, from knowledge we are unable to recall to memory. To forget is synonymous with not to remember. How much greater must be the difficulty of finding terms to describe, and to distinguish between, abstract metaphysical facts or differences! It must not be forgotten, also, that we give names to things according to the appearances they assume for ourselves. We call Absolute Consciousness “unconsciousness,” because it seems to us that it must necessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute, “Darkness,” because to our finite understanding it appears quite impenetrable; yet we recognize fully that our perception of such things does not do them justice. We involuntarily distinguish in our minds, for instance, between unconscious Absolute Consciousness, and unconsciousness, by secretly endowing the former with some indefinite quality that corresponds, on a higher plane than our thoughts can reach, with what we know as consciousness in ourselves. But this is not any kind of consciousness that we can manage to distinguish from what appears to us as unconsciousness.

3. THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM (_a_); THE MÂTRIPADMA(87) HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN (_b_).(88)

(_a_) The “Ray” of the “Ever Darkness” becomes, as it is emitted, a Ray of effulgent Light or Life, and flashes into the “Germ”—the Point in the Mundane Egg, represented by Matter in its abstract sense. But the term “Point” must not be understood as applying to any particular point in Space, for a germ exists in the centre of every atom, and these collectively form the “Germ;” or rather, as no atom can be made visible to our physical eye, the collectivity of these (if the term can be applied to something which is boundless and infinite) forms the noumenon of eternal and indestructible Matter.

(_b_) One of the symbolical figures for the Dual Creative Power in Nature (matter and force on the material plane) is “Padma,” the water‐lily of India. The Lotus is the product of heat (fire) and water (vapour or ether); fire standing in every philosophical and religious system, even in Christianity, as a representation of the Spirit of Deity, the active, male, generative principle; and ether, or the soul of matter, the light of the fire, for the passive female principle, from which everything in this Universe emanated. Hence, ether or water is the Mother, and fire is the Father. Sir William Jones—and before him archaic botany—showed that the seeds of the Lotus contain—even before they germinate—perfectly formed leaves, with the miniature shape of what one day, as perfect plants, they will become: nature thus giving us a specimen of the preformation of its production ... the seeds of all phanerogamous plants bearing proper flowers containing an embryo plantlet ready formed.(89) This explains the sentence, “The Mâtri‐Padma had not yet swollen”—the form being usually sacrificed to the inner or root idea in archaic symbology.

The Lotus, or Padma, is, moreover, a very ancient and favourite symbol for the Cosmos itself, and also for man. The popular reasons given are, firstly, the fact just mentioned, that the Lotus‐seed contains within itself a perfect miniature of the future plant, which typifies the fact that the spiritual prototypes of all things exist in the immaterial world, before these things become materialized on earth. Secondly, the fact that the Lotus‐plant grows up through the water, having its root in the Ilus, or mud, and spreading its flower in the air above. The Lotus thus typifies the life of man and also that of the Cosmos; for the Secret Doctrine teaches that the elements of both are the same, and that both are developing in the same direction. The root of the Lotus sunk in the mud represents material life, the stalk passing up through the water typifies existence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the water and opening to the sky is emblematical of spiritual being.

4. HER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED FOR THE ONE RAY TO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL, AS THREE INTO FOUR, INTO THE LAP OF MÂYÂ.

The Primordial Substance had not yet passed out of its precosmic latency into differentiated objectivity, or even become the (to man, so far) invisible Protyle of Science. But, as the “Hour strikes” and it becomes receptive of the Fohatic impress of the Divine Thought—the Logos, or the male aspect of the Anima Mundi, Alaya—its “Heart” opens. It differentiates, and the Three (Father, Mother, Son) are transformed into Four. Herein lies the origin of the double mystery of the Trinity and the Immaculate Conception. The first and fundamental dogma of Occultism is Universal Unity (or Homogeneity) under three aspects. This leads to a possible conception of Deity, which as an absolute Unity must remain forever incomprehensible to finite intellects.

If thou wouldest believe in the Power which acts within the root
of a plant, or imagine the root concealed under the soul, thou
hast to think of its stalk or trunk, and of its leaves and
flowers. Thou canst not imagine that Power independently of these
objects. Life can be known only by the Tree of Life....(90)

The idea of Absolute Unity would be broken entirely in our conception, had we not something concrete before our eyes to contain that Unity. And the Deity being absolute, must be omnipresent; hence not an atom but contains It within itself. The roots, the trunk, and its many branches, are three distinct objects, yet they are one tree. Say the Kabalists: “The Deity is one, because It is infinite. It is triple, because It is ever manifesting.” This manifestation is triple in its aspects, for it requires, as Aristotle has it, three principles for every natural body to become objective: privation, form, and matter.(91) Privation meant in the mind of the great philosopher that which the Occultists call the prototypes impressed in the Astral Light—the lowest plane and world of Anima Mundi. The union of these three principles depends upon a fourth—the Life which radiates from the summits of the Unreachable, to become a universally diffused Essence on the manifested planes of Existence. And this Quaternary (Father, Mother, Son, as a Unity, and a Quaternary—as a living manifestation) has been the means of leading to the very archaic idea of Immaculate Conception, now finally crystallized into a dogma of the Christian Church, which has carnalized this metaphysical idea beyond any common sense. For one has but to read the _Kabalah_ and study its numerical methods of interpretation to find the origin of the dogma. It is purely astronomical, mathematical, and preëminently metaphysical: the Male Element in Nature (personified by the male deities and Logoi—Virâj, or Brahmâ, Horus, or Osiris, etc., etc.) is born through, not from, an immaculate source, personified by the “Mother,” for—the Abstract Deity being sexless, and not even a Being but Be‐ness, or Life itself—that Male having a “Mother” cannot have a “Father.” Let us render this in the mathematical language of the author of _The Source of Measures_. Speaking of the “Measure of a Man” and his numerical (Kabalistic) value, he writes that in _Genesis_, iv. 1—

It is called the “Man even Jehovah” Measure, and this is obtained
in this way, viz.: 113 x 5 = 565, and the value 565 can be placed
under the form of expression 56.5 x 10 = 565. Here the Man‐number
113 becomes a factor of 56.5 x 10, and the (Kabalistic) reading of
this last numbered expression is Jod, He, Vau, He, or Jehovah....
The expansion of 565 into 56·5 x 10 is purposed to show the
emanation of the male (Jod) from the female (Eva) principle; or,
so to speak, the birth of a male element from an immaculate
source, in other words, an immaculate conception.

Thus is repeated on earth the mystery enacted, according to the Seers, on the divine plane. The Son of the Immaculate Celestial Virgin (or the Undifferentiated Cosmic Protyle, Matter in its infinitude) is born again on earth as the Son of the terrestrial Eve, our mother Earth, and becomes Humanity as a total—past, present, and future—for Jehovah, or Jod‐Hé‐Vau‐ Hé, is androgyne, or both male and female. Above, the Son is the whole Kosmos; below, he is Mankind. The Triad or Triangle becomes Tetraktys, the sacred Pythagorean number, the perfect Square, and a six‐faced Cube on earth. The Macroprosopus (the Great Face) is now Microprosopus (the Lesser Face); or, as the Kabbalists have it, the Ancient of Days, descending on Adam Kadmon whom he uses as his vehicle to manifest through, gets transformed into Tetragrammaton. It is now in the “Lap of Mâyâ,” the Great Illusion, and between itself and the Reality has the Astral Light, the Great Deceiver of man’s limited senses, unless Knowledge through Paramârthasatya comes to the rescue.

5. THE SEVEN(92) WERE NOT YET BORN FROM THE WEB OF LIGHT, DARKNESS ALONE WAS FATHER‐MOTHER, SVABHÂVAT; AND SVABHÂVAT WAS IN DARKNESS.

The Secret Doctrine, in the Stanzas here given, occupies itself chiefly, if not entirely, with our Solar System, and especially with our Planetary Chain. The “Seven Sons,” therefore, are the creators of the latter. This teaching will be explained more fully hereafter.

Svabhâvat, the “Plastic Essence” that fills the Universe, is the root of all things. Svabhâvat is, so to say, the Buddhistic concrete aspect of the abstraction called in Hindû philosophy Mûlaprakriti. It is the body of the Soul, and that which Ether would be to Âkâsha, the latter being the informing principle of the former. Chinese mystics have made of it the synonym of “Being.” In the Chinese translation of the _Ekashloka‐Shâstra_ of Nâgârjuna (the Lung‐shu of China), called the _Yih‐shu‐lu‐kia‐lun_, it is said that the term “Being,” or “Subhâva,” (Yeu in Chinese) means “the Substance giving substance to itself”; it is also explained by him as meaning “without action and with action,” “the nature which has no nature of its own.” Subhâva, from which Svabhâvat, is composed of two words: _su_ fair, handsome, good; _sva_, self, and _bhâva_, being or states of being.

6. THESE TWO ARE THE GERM, AND THE GERM IS ONE. THE UNIVERSE WAS STILL CONCEALED IN THE DIVINE THOUGHT AND THE DIVINE BOSOM.

The “Divine Thought” does not imply the idea of a Divine Thinker. The Universe, not only past, present and future—a human and finite idea expressed by finite thought—but in its totality, the Sat (an untranslateable term), Absolute Being, with the Past and Future crystallized in an eternal Present, is that Thought itself reflected in a secondary or manifested cause. Brahman (neuter), as the Mysterium Magnum of Paracelsus, is an absolute mystery to the human mind. Brahmâ, the male‐ female, the aspect and anthropomorphic reflection of Brahman, is conceivable to the perceptions of blind faith, though rejected by human intellect when it attains its majority.

Hence the statement that during the prologue, so to say, of the drama of creation, or the beginning of cosmic evolution, the Universe, or the Son, lies still concealed “in the Divine Thought,” which had not yet penetrated into the “Divine Bosom.” This idea, note well, is at the root, and forms the origin, of all the allegories about the “Sons of God” born of immaculate virgins.

Stanza III.

1. ... THE LAST VIBRATION OF THE SEVENTH ETERNITY THRILLS THROUGH INFINITUDE (_a_). THE MOTHER SWELLS, EXPANDING FROM WITHIN WITHOUT, LIKE THE BUD OF THE LOTUS (_b_).

(_a_) The seemingly paradoxical use of the term, “Seventh Eternity,” thus dividing the indivisible, is sanctified in Esoteric Philosophy. The latter divides boundless Duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time (Kâla); and conditioned Time (Khandakâla). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite Time, the other its phenomenon appearing periodically, as the effect of Mahat—the Universal Intelligence, limited by manvantaric duration. With some schools, Mahat is the first‐born of Pradhâna (undifferentiated Substance, or the periodical aspect of Mûlaprakriti, the Root of Nature), which (Pradhâna) is called Mâyâ, Illusion. In this respect, I believe, Esoteric teaching differs from the Vedântin doctrines of both the Advaita and the Visishthadvaita schools. For it says that, while Mûlaprakriti, the noumenon, is self‐existing and without any origin—is, in short, parentless, Anupâdaka, as one with Brahman—Prakriti, its phenomenon, is periodical and no better than a phantasm of the former; so Mahat, the first‐born of Jñâna (or Gnôsis), Knowledge, Wisdom or the Logos—is a phantasm reflected from the Absolute Nirguna (Parabrahman), the One Reality, “devoid of attributes and qualities”; while with some Vedântins Mahat is a manifestation of Prakriti, or Matter.

(_b_) Therefore, the “last Vibration of the Seventh Eternity” was “fore‐ ordained”—by no God in particular, but occurred in virtue of the eternal and changeless Law which causes the great periods of Activity and Rest, called so graphically, and at the same time so poetically, the Days and Nights of Brahmâ. The expansion “from within without” of the Mother, called elsewhere the “Waters of Space,” “Universal Matrix,” etc., does not allude to an expansion from a small centre or focus, but means the development of limitless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity, without reference to size or limitation or area. “_The ever [to us] invisible and immaterial Substance present in eternity, threw its periodical Shadow from its own plane into the Lap of Mâyâ._” It implies that this expansion, not being an increase in size—for infinite extension admits of no enlargement—was a change of condition. It expanded “like the Bud of the Lotus”; for the Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its prototype is present in an ideal form in the Astral Light from “Dawn” to “Night” during the manvantaric period, like everything else, as a matter of fact, in this objective Universe; from man to mite, from giant trees to the tiniest blades of grass.

All this, teaches the Hidden Science, is but the temporary reflection, the shadow of the eternal ideal prototype in Divine Thought; the word “Eternity,” note well again, standing here only in the sense of “Æon,” as lasting throughout the seemingly interminable, but still limited cycle of activity, called by us Manvantara. For what is the real esoteric meaning of Manvantara, or rather a Manu‐antara? It means, literally, “between two Manus,” of whom there are fourteen in every Day of Brahmâ, such a Day consisting of 1,000 aggregates of four Ages, 1,000 “Great Ages” or Mahâyugas. Let us now analyse the word or name Manu. Orientalists in their dictionaries tell us that the term “Manu” is from the root _man_, “to think”; hence “the thinking man.” But, esoterically, every Manu, as an anthropomorphized patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the personified idea of the “Thought Divine” (as the Hermetic Pymander); each of the Manus, therefore, being the special god, the creator and fashioner of all that appears during his own respective cycle of being or Manvantara. Fohat runs the Manus’ (or Dhyân Chohans’) errands, and causes the ideal prototypes to expand from within without—that is, to cross gradually, on a descending scale, all the planes, from the noumenal to the lowest phenomenal, to bloom finally on the last into full objectivity—the acme of Illusion, or the grossest matter.

2. THE VIBRATION SWEEPS ALONG, TOUCHING(93) WITH ITS SWIFT WING THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND THE GERM THAT DWELLETH IN DARKNESS, THE DARKNESS THAT BREATHES(94) OVER THE SLUMBERING WATERS OF LIFE.

The Pythagorean Monas is also said to dwell in solitude and “Darkness” like the “Germ.” The idea of the Breath of Darkness moving over “the slumbering Waters of Life,” which is Primordial Matter with the latent Spirit in it, recalls the first chapter of _Genesis_. Its original is the Brâhmanical Nârâyana (the Mover on the Waters), who is the personification of the Eternal Breath of the unconscious All (or Parabrahaman) of the Eastern Occultists. The Waters of Life, or Chaos—the female principle in symbolism—are the vacuum (to our mental sight), in which lie the latent Spirit and Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in the sense of space, but not of empty space, for “Nature abhors a vacuum,” according to the Peripatetics and every ancient philosopher.

In all Cosmogonies “Water” plays the same important part. It is the base and source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the thing, understand by it the definite chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen, thus giving a specific meaning to a term used by Occultists in a generic sense, and which is employed in Cosmogony with a metaphysical and mystical meaning. Ice is not water, neither is steam, although all three have precisely the same chemical composition.

3. DARKNESS RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY INTO THE WATERS, INTO THE MOTHER‐DEEP. THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN EGG, THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO THRILL, AND DROP THE NON‐ETERNAL GERM,(95) WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD‐EGG.

The “solitary Ray” dropping into the “Mother‐Deep” may be taken to mean Divine Thought, or Intelligence, impregnating Chaos. This, however, occurs on the plane of metaphysical abstraction, or rather the plane whereon that which we call a metaphysical abstraction, is a reality. The “Virgin‐Egg,” being in one sense the abstract of all ova, or the power of becoming developed through fecundation, is eternal and for ever the same. And just as the fecundation of an egg takes place before it is dropped; so the non‐ eternal periodical Germ, which later becomes in symbolism the Mundane Egg, contains in itself, when it emerges from the said symbol, “the promise and potency” of all the Universe. Though the idea _per se_ is, of course, an abstraction, a symbolical mode of expression, it is a true symbol, for it suggests the idea of infinity as an endless circle. It brings before the mind’s eye the picture of Kosmos emerging from and in boundless Space, a Universe as shoreless in magnitude, if not as endless in its objective manifestation. The symbol of an egg also expresses the fact taught in Occultism that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere being with all nations the emblem of eternity and infinity—a serpent swallowing its tail. To realize the meaning, however, the sphere must be thought of as seen from its centre. The field of vision, or of thought, is like a sphere whose radii proceed from one’s self in every direction, and extend out into space, opening up boundless vistas all around. It is the symbolical circle of Pascal and the Kabalists, “whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere”—a conception which enters into the compound idea of this emblem.

The “World‐Egg” is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted symbols, highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological, and cosmological sense. Therefore, it is found in every world‐theogony, where it is largely associated with the serpent symbol, the latter being everywhere, in philosophy as in religious symbolism, an emblem of eternity, infinitude, regeneration, and rejuvenation, as well as of wisdom. The mystery of apparent self‐generation and evolution through its own creative power, repeating in miniature, in the egg, the process of cosmic evolution—both due to heat and moisture under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit—fully justified the selection of this graphic symbol. The “Virgin‐Egg” is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic prototype, the “Virgin Mother”—Chaos or the Primeval Deep. The male creator (under whatever name) springs forth from the virgin female, the Immaculate Root fructified by the Ray. Who, if versed in astronomy and natural sciences, can fail to see its suggestiveness? Kosmos, as receptive Nature, is an egg fructified—yet left immaculate; for once regarded as boundless, it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural Elements, “four ready [ether, fire, air, water], three secret.” This may be found stated in _Vishnu Purâna_, where elements are translated “envelopes,” and a _secret_ one is added—Ahamkâra.(96) The original text has no Ahamkâra; it mentions seven Elements without specifying the last three.

4. THE THREE(97) FALL INTO THE FOUR(98). THE RADIANT ESSENCE BECOMES SEVEN INSIDE, SEVEN OUTSIDE (_a_). THE LUMINOUS EGG,(99) WHICH IN ITSELF IS THREE,(100) CURDLES AND SPREADS IN MILK‐WHITE CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN OF LIFE (_b_).

The use of geometrical figures and the frequent allusions to figures in all ancient scriptures, as in the _Purânas_, the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_ and even the _Bible_—must be explained. In the _Book of Dzyan_, as in the _Kabalah_, there are two kinds of numerals to be studied—the Figures, often simple blinds, and the Sacred Numbers, the values of which are all known to the Occultists through Initiation. The former are but conventional glyphs; the latter, the basic symbols of all. That is to say, the one are purely physical, the other purely metaphysical, the two standing in relation to each other as Matter stands to Spirit—the extreme poles of the One Substance.

As Balzac, the unconscious Occultist of French literature, says somewhere, the Number is to Mind the same as it is to Matter, “an incomprehensible agent.” Perhaps so to the profane, never to the initiated mind. Number is, as the great writer thought, an Entity, and, at the same time, a Breath emanating from what he called God and what we call the ALL, the Breath which alone could organize the physical Cosmos, “where naught obtains its form but through the Deity, which is an effect of Number.” It is instructive to quote Balzac’s words upon this subject:

The smallest as the most immense creations, are they not to be
distinguished from each other by their quantities, their
qualities, their dimensions, their forces and attributes, all
begotten by Number? The infinitude of Numbers is a fact proven to
our mind, but of which no proof can be physically given. The
mathematician will tell us that the infinitude of Numbers exists
but is not to be demonstrated. God is a Number endowed with
motion, which is felt but not demonstrated. _As Unity, it begins
the Numbers, with which it has nothing in common._... The
existence of Numbers depends on Unity, which without a single
Number, begets them all.... What! unable either to measure the
first abstraction yielded to you by the Deity, or to get hold of
it, you still hope to subject to your measurements the mystery of
the Secret Sciences which emanate from that Deity? .... And what
would you feel, were I to plunge you into the abysses of Motion,
the Force which organizes the Numbers? What would you think, were
I to add that _Motion_ and _Number_(101) are begotten by the Word,
the Supreme Reason of the Seers and Prophets, who, in days of old,
sensed the mighty Breath of God, a witness to which is the
Apocalypse?

(_b_) “The Radiant Essence curdles and spreads throughout the Depths” of Space. From an astronomical point of view this is easy of explanation: it is the Milky Way, the World‐Stuff, or Primordial Matter in its first form. It is more difficult, however, to explain it in a few words, or even lines, from the standpoint of Occult Science and Symbolism, as it is the most complicated of glyphs. Herein are enshrined more than a dozen symbols. To begin with, it contains the whole pantheon of mysterious objects,(102) every one of them having some definite Occult meaning, extracted from the Hindû allegorical “Churning of the Ocean” by the Gods. Besides Amrita, the water of life or immortality, Surabhi, the “cow of plenty,” called “the fountain of milk and curds,” was extracted from this “sea of milk.” Hence the universal adoration of the cow and bull, one the productive, the other the generative power in Nature: symbols connected with both the solar and the cosmic deities. The specific properties, for Occult purposes, of the “fourteen precious things,” being explained only at the Fourth Initiation, cannot be given here; but the following may be remarked. In the _Shatapatha Brâhmana_ it is stated that the Churning of the Ocean of Milk took place in the Satya Yuga, the first Age which immediately followed the “Deluge.” As, however, neither the _Rig Veda_ nor _Manu_—both preceding Vaivasvata’s “Deluge,” that of the bulk of the Fourth Race—mention this Deluge, it is evident that it is neither the Great Deluge, nor that which carried away Atlantis, nor even the Deluge of Noah, which is here meant. This “Churning” relates to a period before the earth’s formation, and is in direct connection with another universal legend, the various and contradictory versions of which culminated in the Christian dogma of the “War in Heaven,” and the “Fall of the Angels.” The _Brâhmanas_, reproached by the Orientalists with their versions on the same subjects often clashing with each other, _are preëminently occult works_, hence used purposely as blinds. They are allowed to survive for public use and property only because they were and are absolutely unintelligible to the masses. Otherwise they would have disappeared from circulation as long ago as the days of Akbar.

5. THE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL OEAOHOO IS ONE.

“Oeaohoo” is rendered “Father‐Mother of the Gods” in the Commentaries, or the “Six in One,” or _the Septenary Root from which all proceeds_. All depends upon the accent given to these seven vowels, which may be pronounced as one, three, or even seven syllables, by adding an _e_ after the final _o_. This mystic name is given out, because without a thorough mastery of the triple pronunciation it remains for ever ineffectual.

“Is One” refers to the Non‐Separateness of all that lives and has its being, whether in an active or passive state. In one sense, Oeaohoo is the Rootless Root of All; hence, one with Parabrahman: in another sense it is a name for the manifested One Life, the eternal living Unity. The “Root” means, as already explained, Pure Knowledge (Sattva),(103) eternal (_nitya_) unconditioned Reality, or Sat (Satya), whether we call it Parabrahman or Mûlaprakriti, for these are but the two symbols of the One. The “Light” is the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered and now fecundated the Divine Egg, and calls cosmic matter to begin its long series of differentiations. The “Curds” are the first differentiation, and probably also refer to that cosmic matter which is supposed to be the origin of the Milky Way—the matter we know. This “matter,” which, according to the revelation received from the primeval Dhyâni‐Buddhas, is, during the periodical Sleep of the Universe, of the ultimate tenuity conceivable to the eye of the perfect Bodhisattva—this matter, radiant and cool, becomes, at the first reawakening of cosmic motion, scattered through Space; appearing, when seen from the Earth, in clusters and lumps, like curds in thin milk. These are the seeds of the future worlds, the “star‐stuff.”

6. THE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY,(104) AND THE OCEAN WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE, AND HEAT, AND MOTION. DARKNESS VANISHED AND WAS NO MORE; IT DISAPPEARED IN ITS OWN ESSENCE, THE BODY OF FIRE AND WATER, OF FATHER AND MOTHER.

The Essence of Darkness being Absolute Light, Darkness is taken as the appropriate allegorical representation of the condition of the Universe during Pralaya, or the term of Absolute Rest, or Non‐Being, as it appears to our finite minds. The “Fire, and Heat, and Motion,” here spoken of, are, of course, not the fire, heat, and motion of Physical Science, but the underlying abstractions, the noumena, or the soul, of the essence of these material manifestations—the “things in themselves,” which, as Modern Science confesses, entirely elude the instruments of the laboratory, and which even the mind cannot grasp, although it can equally as little avoid the conclusion that these underlying essences of things must exist. “Fire and Water, or Father and Mother,” may be taken here to mean the divine Ray and Chaos. “Chaos, from this union with Spirit obtaining sense, shone with pleasure, and thus was produced the Protogonos [the first‐born Light],” says a fragment of Hermas. Damascius calls it Dis, the “disposer of all things.”(105)

According to the Rosicrucian tenets, as handled and explained by the profane for once correctly, if only partially, “Light and Darkness are identical in themselves, being only divisible in the human mind”; and according to Robert Fludd, “Darkness adopted illumination in order to make itself visible.”(106) According to the tenets of Eastern Occultism, Darkness is the one true actuality, the basis and the root of Light, without which the latter could never manifest itself, nor even exist. Light is Matter, and Darkness pure Spirit. Darkness, in its radical, metaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute Light; while the latter in all its seeming effulgence and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, as it can never be eternal, and is simply an Illusion, or Mâyâ.

Even in the mind‐baffling and science‐harassing _Genesis_,(107) light is created out of darkness—“and darkness was upon the face of the deep”—and not _vice versâ_. “In him [in darkness] was life; and the life was the _light_ of men.”(108) A day may come when the eyes of men will be opened; and then they may comprehend better than they do now the verse in the Gospel of John that says, “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” They will see then that the word “darkness” does not apply to man’s spiritual eyesight, but indeed to Darkness, the Absolute, that comprehendeth not (cannot cognize) transient Light, however transcendent to human eyes. _Demon est Deus inversus._ The Devil is now called “darkness” by the Church, whereas in the _Bible_, in the _Book of Job_, he is called the “Son of God,” the bright star of the early morning, Lucifer. There is a whole philosophy of dogmatic craft in the reason why the first Archangel, who sprang from the depths of Chaos, was called Lux (Lucifer), the luminous “Son of the Morning,” or Manvantaric Dawn. He has been transformed by the Church into Lucifer or Satan, because he is higher and older than Jehovah, and had to be sacrificed to the new dogma.

7. BEHOLD, O LANOO,(109) THE RADIANT CHILD OF THE TWO, THE UNPARALLELED REFULGENT GLORY—BRIGHT SPACE, SON OF DARK SPACE, WHO EMERGES FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE GREAT DARK WATERS. IT IS OEAOHOO, THE YOUNGER, THE —— (110) (_a_). HE SHINES FORTH AS THE SUN, HE IS THE BLAZING DIVINE DRAGON OF WISDOM; THE EKA(111) IS CHATUR, AND CHATUR TAKES TO ITSELF TRI, AND THE UNION PRODUCES THE SAPTA, IN WHOM ARE THE SEVEN, WHICH BECOME THE TRIDASHA,(112) THE HOSTS AND THE MULTITUDES (_b_). BEHOLD HIM LIFTING THE VEIL, AND UNFURLING IT FROM EAST TO WEST. HE SHUTS OUT THE ABOVE, AND LEAVES THE BELOW TO BE SEEN AS THE GREAT ILLUSION. HE MARKS THE PLACES FOR THE SHINING ONES,(113) AND TURNS THE UPPER(114) INTO A SHORELESS SEA OF FIRE (_c_), AND THE ONE MANIFESTED(115) INTO THE GREAT WATERS.

(_a_) “Bright Space, Son of Dark Space,” corresponds to the Ray dropped at the first thrill of the new Dawn into the great Cosmic Depths, from which it reëmerges differentiated as “Oeaohoo, the Younger” (the “New Life”), to be to the end of the Life‐Cycle the Germ of all things. He is “the Incorporeal Man who contains in himself the Divine Idea,” the generator of Light and Life, to use an expression of Philo Judæus. He is called the “Blazing Dragon of Wisdom,” because, firstly, he is that which the Greek philosophers called the Logos, the Verbum of the Thought Divine; and secondly, because in Esoteric Philosophy this first manifestation, being the synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom, Oeaohoo, the “Son of the Sun,” contains in himself the Seven Creative Hosts (Sephiroth), and is thus the essence of manifested Wisdom. “_He who bathes in the Light of Oeaohoo will never be deceived by the Veil of Mâyâ._”

“Kwan‐Shai‐Yin” is identical with, and an equivalent of the Sanskrit Avalokiteshvara, and as such is an androgynous deity, like the Tetragrammaton and all the Logoi of antiquity. It is only by some sects in China that he is anthropomorphized, and represented with female attributes; under his female aspect becoming Kwan‐Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, called the “Divine Voice.”(116) The latter is the patron deity of Tibet and of the island of Puto in China, where both deities have a number of monasteries.(117)

The higher gods of antiquity are all “Sons of the Mother” before they become “Sons of the Father.” The Logoi, like Jupiter or Zeus, son of Cronus‐Saturn, “Infinite Time” (Kâla), in their origin were represented as male‐female. Zeus is said to be the “beautiful virgin,” and Venus is made bearded. Apollo was originally bisexual, so is Brahmâ‐Vâch in _Manu_ and the _Purânas_. Osiris is interchangeable with Isis, and Horus is of both sexes. Finally in St. John’s vision in _Revelation_, the Logos, who is now connected with Jesus, is hermaphrodite, for he is described as having female breasts. So also is Tetragrammaton, or Jehovah. But there are two Avalokiteshvaras in Esotericism; the First and the Second Logos.

No religious symbol can escape profanation and even derision in our days of politics and science. In Southern India the writer has seen a converted native making pûjâ with offerings before a statue of Jesus clad in woman’s clothes and with a ring in its nose. On asking the meaning of this masquerade, we were answered that it was Jesu‐Maria blended in one, and that it was done by the permission of the Padre, as the zealous convert had no money to purchase two statues, or “idols” as they, very properly, were called by a witness, another but a non‐converted Hindû. Blasphemous this will appear to a dogmatic Christian, but the Theosophist and the Occultist must award the palm of logic to the converted Hindû. The esoteric Christos in the Gnôsis is, of course, sexless, but in exoteric Theology he is male and female.

(b) The “Dragon of Wisdom” is the One, the “Eka” or Saka. It is curious that Jehovah’s name in Hebrew should also be One, Achad. “His name is Achad,” say the Rabbins. The Philologists ought to decide which of the two is derived from the other, linguistically and symbolically; surely, not the Sanskrit. The “One” and the “Dragon” are expressions used by the ancients in connection with their respective Logoi. Jehovah—esoterically Elohim—is also the Serpent or Dragon that tempted Eve; and the Dragon is an old glyph for the Astral Light (Primordial Principle), “which is the Wisdom of Chaos.” Archaic philosophy, recognizing neither Good nor Evil as a fundamental or independent power, but starting from the Absolute ALL (Universal Perfection eternally), traces both through the course of natural evolution to pure Light condensing gradually into form, and hence becoming Matter or Evil. It was left with the early and ignorant Christian Fathers to degrade the philosophical and highly scientific idea of this emblem into the absurd superstition called the “Devil.” They took this from the later Zoroastrians, who saw Devils or Evil in the Hindû Devas, and the word Evil has become by a double transmutation D’Evil (Diabolos, Diable, Diavolo, Teufel). But the Pagans have always shown a philosophical discrimination in their symbols. The primitive symbol of the serpent symbolized divine Wisdom and Perfection, and has always stood for psychical Regeneration and Immortality. Hence, Hermes calling the serpent the most spiritual of all beings; Moses, initiated into the Wisdom of Hermes, following suit in _Genesis_; the Gnostic Serpent with the seven vowels over its head, being the emblem of the Seven Hierarchies of the Septenary or Planetary Creators. Hence, also, the Hindû serpent Shesha or Ananta, the Infinite, a name of Vishnu, and his first Vâhana, or Vehicle, on the Primordial Waters. Like the Logoi and the Hierarchies of Powers, however, these serpents have to be distinguished one from the other. Shesha or Ananta, the “Couch of Vishnu,” is an allegorical abstraction, symbolizing infinite Time in Space, which contains the Germ and throws off periodically the efflorescence of this Germ, the Manifested Universe; whereas, the Gnostic Ophis contains the same triple symbolism in its seven vowels as the one, three and seven‐syllabled Oeaohoo of the archaic doctrine; _i.e._, the First Unmanifested Logos, the Second Manifested, the Triangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton, and the Rays of the latter on the material plane.

Yet they all made a difference between the good and the bad Serpent (the Astral Light of the Kabalists)—between the former, the embodiment of divine Wisdom in the region of the Spiritual, and the latter, Evil, on the plane of Matter. For the Astral Light, or the Ether, of the ancient Pagans—the name Astral Light is quite modern—is Spirit‐Matter. Beginning with the pure spiritual plane, it becomes grosser as it descends, until it becomes Mâyâ, or the tempting and deceitful Serpent on our plane.

Jesus accepted the serpent as a synonym of Wisdom, and this formed part of his teaching: “Be ye wise as serpents,” he says. “_In the beginning, before Mother became Father‐Mother, the Fiery Dragon moved in the Infinitudes alone._”(118) The _Aitareya Brahmana_ calls the Earth Sarparâjni, the “Serpent Queen,” and the “Mother of all that moves.” Before our globe became egg‐shaped (and the Universe also), “a long trail of cosmic dust [or fire‐mist] moved and writhed like a serpent in Space.” The “Spirit of God moving on Chaos” was symbolized by every nation in the shape of a fiery serpent breathing fire and light upon the primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth—which symbolizes not only eternity and infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the bodies formed within the Universe from that fiery mist. The Universe, as also the Earth and Man, serpent‐like, periodically cast off their old skins, to assume new ones after a time of rest. The serpent is surely not a less graceful or a more unpoetical image than the caterpillar and chrysalis from which springs the butterfly, the Greek emblem of Psyche, the human soul! The Dragon was also the symbol of the Logos with the Egyptians, as with the Gnostics. In the _Book of Hermes_, Pymander, the oldest and the most spiritual of the Logoi of the Western Continent, appears to Hermes in the shape of a Fiery Dragon of “Light, Fire, and Flame.” Pymander, the “Thought Divine” personified, says:

The Light is I, I am the Nous [the Mind or Manu], I am thy God,
and I am far older than the human principle which escapes from the
shadow [Darkness, or the concealed Deity]. I am the germ of
thought, the resplendent Word, the Son of God. All that thus sees
and hears in thee is the Verbum of the Master; it is the Thought
[Mahat] which is God, the Father.(119) The celestial Ocean, the
Æther, ... is the Breath of the Father, the life‐giving principle,
the Mother, the Holy Spirit, ... for these are not separated, and
their union is Life.

Here we find the unmistakable echo of the archaic Secret Doctrine, as now expounded. Only the latter does not place at the head of the Evolution of Life the “Father,” who comes third and is the “Son of the Mother,” but the “Eternal and Ceaseless Breath of the ALL.” Mahat (Understanding, Universal Mind, Thought, etc.), before it manifests itself as Brahmâ or Shiva, appears as Vishnu, says the _Sânkhya Sâra_.(120) Hence it has several aspects, just as the Logos has. Mahat is called the Lord, in the _Primary_ Creation, and is, in this sense, Universal Cognition or Thought Divine; but, “that Mahat which was first produced is (afterwards) called _Ego‐ ism_, when it is born as (the feeling itself) ‘I,’ that is said to be the _Secondary_ Creation.”(121) And the translator (an able and learned Brâhman, not a European Orientalist) explains in a foot‐note, “_i.e._, when Mahat develops into the feeling of Self‐Consciousness—I—then it assumes the name of Egoism,” which, translated into our Esoteric phraseology, means—when Mahat is transformed into the human Manas (or even that of the finite gods), and becomes _Aham_‐ship. Why it is called the Mahat of the _Secondary_ Creation (or the _Ninth_, the Kaumâra in _Vishnu Purâna_), will be explained hereafter.

(c) The “Sea of Fire” is, then, the Super‐Astral (_i.e._, Noumenal) Light, the first radiation from the Root Mûlaprakriti, Undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter. It is also called the “Fiery Serpent,” as above described. If the student bears in mind that there is but One Universal Element, which is infinite, unborn, and undying and that all the rest—as in the world of phenomena—are but so many various differentiated aspects and transformations (correlations, they are now called) of that One, from macrocosmical down to microcosmical effects, from super‐human down to human and sub‐human beings, the totality, in short, of objective existence—then the first and chief difficulty will disappear and Occult Cosmology may be mastered. Thus in the Egyptian also as in the Indian Theogony there was a _Concealed_ Deity, the ONE, and a creative, androgynous god; Shoo being the god of creation, and Osiris in his original primary form, the god “whose name is unknown.”(122)

All the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern and Western, recognize (_a_) the identity of “Father‐Mother” with Primordial Æther, or Âkâsha (Astral Light); and (_b_) its homogeneity before the evolution of the “Son,” cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. “_Fohat hardens and scatters the Seven Brothers_”;(123) which means that the Primordial Electric Entity—for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity—electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness. “There exists a universal _agent unique_ of all forms and of life, that is called Od, Ob, and Aour,(124) active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night: it is the first light in Creation” (Éliphas Lévi)—the “first light” of the primordial Elohim, the Adam, “male and female,” or (scientifically) Electricity and Life.

The ancients represented it by a serpent, for “_Fohat hisses as he glides hither and thither_,” in zigzags. The Kabalah figures it with the Hebrew letter Teth, ט, whose symbol is the serpent which played such a prominent part in the Mysteries. Its universal value is nine, for it is the ninth letter of the alphabet, and the ninth door of the fifty portals, or gateways, that lead to the concealed mysteries of being. It is the magical agent _par excellence_, and designates in Hermetic philosophy “Life infused into Primordial Matter,” the essence that composes all things, and the spirit that determines their form. But there are two secret Hermetical operations, one spiritual, the other material, correlative and for ever united. As Hermes says:

Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the
solid ... that which ascends from earth to heaven and descends
again from heaven to earth. It [the subtile light] is the strong
force of every force, for it conquers every subtile thing and
penetrates into every solid. Thus was the world formed.

It was not Zeno, the founder of the Stoics, alone, who taught that the Universe evolves, and its primary substance is transformed from the state of fire into that of air, then into that of water, etc. Heraclitus of Ephesus maintained that the one principle that underlies all phenomena in Nature is fire. The intelligence that moves the Universe is fire, and fire is intelligence. And while Anaximenes said the same of air, and Thales of Miletus (600 years B.C.) of water, the Esoteric Doctrine reconciles all these philosophers, by showing that though each was right, the system of none was complete.

8. WHERE WAS THE GERM, AND WHERE WAS NOW DARKNESS? WHERE IS THE SPIRIT OF THE FLAME THAT BURNS IN THY LAMP, O LANOO? THE GERM IS THAT, AND THAT IS LIGHT, THE WHITE BRILLIANT SON OF THE DARK HIDDEN FATHER..

The answer to the first question, suggested by the second, which is the reply of the teacher to the pupil, contains in a single phrase one of the most essential truths of Occult Philosophy. It indicates the existence of things imperceptible to our physical senses which are of far greater importance, more real and more permanent, than those that appeal to these senses themselves. Before the Lanoo can hope to understand the transcendentally metaphysical problem contained in the first question, he must be able to answer the second; while the very answer he gives to the second will furnish him with the clue to the correct reply to the first.

In the Sanskrit Commentary on this Stanza, the terms used for the concealed and the unrevealed Principle are many. In the earliest MSS. of Indian literature this Unrevealed Abstract Deity has no name. It is generally called “That” (Tad, in Sanskrit), and means all that is, was, and will be, or that can be so received by the human mind.

Among such appellations given—of course, only in Esoteric Philosophy—as the “Unfathomable Darkness,” the “Whirlwind,” etc., it is also called the “It of the Kâlahansa,” the “Kâla‐ham‐sa,” and even the “Kâli Hamsa” (Black Swan). Here the m and the n are convertible, and both sound like the nasal French an or am. As in the Hebrew so also in the Sanskrit many a mysterious sacred name conveys to the profane ear no more than some ordinary, and often vulgar word, because it is concealed anagrammatically or otherwise. This word Hansa, or Hamsa, is just such a case. Hamsa is equal to “A‐ham‐sa”—three words meaning “I am He”; while divided in still another way it will read “So‐ham,” “He [is] I.” In this single word is contained, for him who understands the language of wisdom, the universal mystery, the doctrine of the identity of man’s essence with god‐essence. Hence the glyph of, and the allegory about, Kâlahansa (or Hamsa), and the name given to Brahman (neuter), later on to the male Brahmâ, of Hamsa‐ vâhana, “he who uses the Hamsa as his vehicle.” The same word may be read “Kâlaham‐sa,” or “I am I, in the eternity of time,” answering to the Biblical, or rather Zoroastrian, “I am that I am.” The same doctrine is found in the _Kabalah_, as witness the following extract from an unpublished MS. by Mr. S. Liddell McGregor Mathers, the learned Kabalist:

The three pronouns, הוא, אתה, אני, Hua, Ateh, Ani—He, Thou, I—are
used to symbolize the ideas of Macroposopus and Microprosopus in
the Hebrew Qabalah. Hua, “He,” is applied to the hidden and
concealed Macroprosopus; Ateh, “Thou,” to Microprosopus; and Ani,
“I,” to the latter when He is represented as speaking. (See
_Lesser Holy Assembly_, 204 _et seq_.) It is to be noted that each
of these names consists of three letters, of which the letter
Aleph א, A, forms the conclusion of the first word Hua, and the
commencement of Atah and Ani, as if it were the connecting link
between them. But א is the symbol of the Unity and consequently of
the unvarying Idea of the Divine operating through all these. But
behind the א in the name Hua are the letters ו and ה, the symbols
of the numbers Six and Five, the Male and the Female, the Hexagram
and the Pentagram. And the numbers of these three words, Hua,
Ateh, Ani, are 12, 406, and 61, which are resumed in the key
numbers of 3, 10, and 7, by the Qabalah of the Nine Chambers which
is a form of the exegetical rule of Temura.