Chapter VIII: Part I: Cosmic Evolution (3)

It is useless to attempt to explain the mystery in full. Materialists and the men of Modern Science will never understand it, since, in order to obtain clear perception of it, one has first of all to admit the postulate of a universally diffused, omnipresent, eternal Deity in Nature; secondly, to have fathomed the mystery of electricity in its true essence; and thirdly, to credit man with being the septenary symbol, on the terrestrial plane, of the One Great Unit, the Logos, which is Itself the seven‐ vowelled sign, the Breath crystallized into the Word.(125) He who believes in all this, has also to believe in the multiple combination of the seven planets of Occultism and of the _Kabalah_, with the twelve zodiacal signs; and attribute, as we do, to each planet and to each constellation an influence which, in the words of Mr. Ely Star (a French astrologer), “is proper to it, beneficent or maleficent, and this, after the planetary spirit which rules it, who, in his turn, is capable of influencing men and things which are found in harmony with him and with which he has any affinity.” For these reasons, and since few believe in the foregoing, all that can now be given is that in both cases the symbol of Hansa (whether I, He, Goose or Swan) is an important symbol, representing, among other things, Divine Wisdom, Wisdom in Darkness beyond the reach of men. For all exoteric purposes, Hansa, as every Hindû knows, is a fabulous bird which, when (in the allegory) given milk mixed with water for its food, separated the two, drinking the milk and leaving the water; thus showing inherent wisdom—milk standing symbolically for spirit, and water for matter.

That this allegory is very ancient and dates from the very earliest archaic period, is shown by the mention, in the _Bhâgavata Purâna_, of a certain caste named Hamsa or Hansa, which was the “one caste” _par excellence_; when far back in the mists of a forgotten past there was among the Hindûs only “One Veda, One Deity, One Caste.” There is also a range in the Himâlayas, described in the old books as being situated north of Mount Meru, called Hamsa, and connected with episodes pertaining to the history of religious mysteries and initiations. As to Kâlahansa being the supposed Vehicle of Brahmâ‐Prajâpati, in the exoteric texts and translations of the Orientalists, it is quite a mistake. Brahman, the neuter, is called by them Kâla‐hansa, and Brahmâ, the male, Hansa‐vâhana, because, forsooth, “his vehicle is a swan or goose.”(126) This is a purely exoteric gloss. Esoterically and logically, if Brahman, the infinite, is all that is described by the Orientalists, and, agreeably with the Vedântic texts, is an abstract deity, in no way characterized by the ascription of any human attributes, and at the same time it is maintained that he or it is called Kâlahansa—then how can it ever become the Vâhan of Brahmâ, the manifested finite god? It is quite the reverse. The “Swan or Goose” (Hansa) is the symbol of the male or temporary deity, Brahmâ, the emanation of the primordial Ray, which is made to serve as a Vâhan or Vehicle for the Divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe, being, antiphrastically, itself an emanation of Darkness—for our human intellect, at any rate. It is Brahmâ, then, who is Kâlahansa, and the Ray, Hansa‐vâhana.

As to the strange symbol thus chosen, it is equally suggestive; the true mystic significance being the idea of a Universal Matrix, figured by the Primordial Waters of the Deep, or the opening for the reception, and subsequently for the issuing, of that One Ray (the Logos) which contains in itself the other Seven Procreative Rays or Powers (the Logoi or Builders). Hence the choice by the Rosecroix of the aquatic fowl—whether swan or pelican(127)—with seven young ones, for a symbol, modified and adapted to the religion of every country. Ain Suph is called the “Fiery Soul of the Pelican” in the _Book of Numbers_.(128) Appearing with every Manvantara as Nârâyana, or Svâyambhuva, the Self‐Existent, and penetrating into the Mundane Egg, it emerges from it at the end of the divine incubation as Brahmâ, or Prajâpati, the progenitor of the future Universe, into which he expands. He is Purusha (Spirit), but he is also Prakriti (Matter). Therefore it is only after separating itself into two halves—Brahmâ‐Vâch (the female) and Brahmâ‐Virâj (the male)—that the Prajâpati becomes the male Brahmâ.

9. LIGHT IS COLD FLAME, AND FLAME IS FIRE, AND FIRE PRODUCES HEAT, WHICH YIELDS WATER—THE WATER OF LIFE IN THE GREAT MOTHER.(129)

It must be remembered that the words “Light,” “Flame” and “Fire,” have been adopted by the translators from the vocabulary of the old “Fire Philosophers,”(130) in order to render more clearly the meaning of the archaic terms and symbols employed in the original. Otherwise they would have remained entirely unintelligible to a European reader. To a student of the Occult, however, the above terms will be sufficiently clear.

All these—“Light,” “Flame,” “Cold,” “Fire,” “Heat,” “Water,” and “Water of Life”—are, on our plane, the progeny, or, as a modern Physicist would say, the correlations of Electricity. Mighty word, and a still mightier symbol! Sacred generator of a no less sacred progeny; of Fire—the creator, the preserver and the destroyer; of Light—the essence of our divine ancestors; of Flame—the soul of things. Electricity, the One Life at the upper rung of Being, and Astral Fluid, the Athanor of the Alchemists, at the lower; God and Devil, Good and Evil.

Now, why is Light called “Cold Flame”? In the order of Cosmic Evolution (as taught by the Occultist), the energy that actuates matter, after its first formation into atoms, is generated on our plane by Cosmic Heat; and before that period Cosmos, in the sense of dissociated matter, was not. The first Primordial Matter, eternal and coëval with Space, “_which has neither a beginning nor an end, [is] neither hot nor cold, but is of its own special nature_,” says the Commentary. Heat and cold are relative qualities and pertain to the realms of the manifested worlds, which all proceed from the manifested Hyle, which, in its absolutely latent aspect, is referred to as the “Cold Virgin,” and when awakened to life, as the “Mother.” The ancient Western cosmogonic myths state that at first there was only cold mist (the Father) and the prolific slime (the Mother, Ilus or Hyle), from which crept forth the Mundane Snake (Matter).(131) Primordial Matter, then, before it emerges from the plane of the never‐ manifesting, and awakens to the thrill of action under the impulse of Fohat, is but “a cool radiance, colourless, formless, tasteless, and devoid of every quality and aspect.” Even such are her First‐born, the “Four Sons,” who “are One, and become Seven,”—the Entities, by whose qualifications and names the ancient Eastern Occultists called the four of the seven primal “Centres of Force,” or Atoms, that develop later into the great Cosmic “Elements,” now divided into the seventy or so sub‐elements, known to Science. The four “Primal Natures” of the first Dhyân Chohans are the so‐called (for want of better terms) Âkâshic, Ethereal, Watery and Fiery. They answer, in the terminology of practical Occultism, to the scientific definitions of gases, which—to convey a clear idea to both Occultists and laymen—may be defined as parahydrogenic,(132) paraoxygenic, oxyhydrogenic, and ozonic, or perhaps nitrozonic; the latter forces, or gases (in Occultism, supersensuous, yet atomic substances), being the most effective and active when energizing on the plane of more grossly differentiated matter. These elements are both electro‐positive and electro‐negative. These and many more are probably the missing links of Chemistry. They are known by other names in Alchemy and to Occultists who practise phenomenal powers. It is by combining and recombining, or dissociating, the “Elements” in a certain way, by means of Astral Fire, that the greatest phenomena are produced.

10. FATHER‐MOTHER SPIN A WEB, WHOSE UPPER END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT,(133) THE LIGHT OF THE ONE DARKNESS, AND THE LOWER ONE TO ITS SHADOWY END, MATTER;(134) AND THIS WEB IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES MADE IN ONE, WHICH IS SVABHÂVAT.

In the _Mândukya Upanishad_(135) it is written, “As a spider throws out and retracts its web, as herbs spring up in the ground ... so is the Universe derived from the undecaying one,” Brahmâ, for the “Germ of unknown Darkness,” is the material from which all evolves and develops, “as the web from the spider, as foam from the water,” etc. This is only graphic and true, if the term Brahmâ, the “Creator,” is derived from the root _brih_, to increase or expand. Brahmâ “expands,” and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance.

The same idea has been beautifully expressed by Goethe, who says:

Thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply,
And weave for God the garment thou see’st Him by.

11. IT(136) EXPANDS WHEN THE BREATH OF FIRE(137) IS UPON IT; IT CONTRACTS WHEN THE BREATH OF THE MOTHER(138) TOUCHES IT. THEN THE SONS(139) DISSOCIATE AND SCATTER, TO RETURN INTO THEIR MOTHER’S BOSOM, AT THE END OF THE GREAT DAY, AND RE‐BECOME ONE WITH HER. WHEN IT(140) IS COOLING, IT BECOMES RADIANT. ITS SONS EXPAND AND CONTRACT THROUGH THEIR OWN SELVES AND HEARTS; THEY EMBRACE INFINITUDE.

The expanding of the Universe, under the “Breath of Fire,” is very suggestive in the light of the fire‐mist period, of which Modern Science speaks so much, and knows in reality so little.

Great heat breaks up the compound elements and resolves the heavenly bodies into their Primeval One Element, explains the Commentary.

“_Once disintegrated into its primal constituent, by getting within the attraction and reach of a focus, or centre of heat [energy], of which many are carried about to and fro in space, a body, whether alive or dead, will be vapourized, and held in the __‘__Bosom of the Mother,__’__ until Fohat, gathering a few of the clusters of Cosmic Matter [nebulæ], will, by giving it an impulse, set it in motion anew, develop the required heat, and then leave it to follow its own new growth._”

The expanding and contracting of the “Web” _i.e._, the world‐stuff, or atoms—express here the pulsatory movement; for it is the regular contraction and expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean, of that which we may call the noumenon of Matter, emanated by Svabhâvat, which causes the universal vibration of atoms. But it is also suggestive of something else. It shows that the ancients were acquainted with that which is now the puzzle of many Scientists and especially of Astronomers—the cause of the first ignition of matter, or world‐stuff, the paradox of the heat produced by refrigerative contraction, and other such cosmic riddles—for it points unmistakably to a knowledge by the ancients of such phenomena. “_There is heat internal and heat external in every atom_,” say the MSS. Commentaries, to which the writer has had access, “_the Breath of the Father [Spirit], and the Breath [or Heat] of the Mother [Matter]_”; and they give explanations which show that the modern theory of the extinction of the solar fires, by loss of heat through radiation, is erroneous. The assumption is false even on the Scientists’ own admission. For, as Professor Newcomb(141) points out, “by losing heat a gaseous body contracts, and the heat generated by the contraction exceeds that which it had to lose in order to produce the contraction.” This paradox, that a body gets hotter, as the shrinking produced by its getting colder is greater, has led to long disputes. The surplus of heat, it is argued, is lost by radiation, and to assume that the temperature is not lowered _pari passu_ with a decrease of volume under a constant pressure, is to set at naught the law of Charles. Contraction develops heat, it is true; but contraction (from cooling) is incapable of developing the whole amount of heat at any time existing in the mass, or even of maintaining a body at a constant temperature, etc. Professor Winchell tries to reconcile the paradox—only a seeming one in fact, as J. Homer Lane(142) proved—by suggesting “something besides heat.” “May it not be,” he asks, “simply a repulsion among the molecules, which varies according to some law of the distance”?(143) But even this will be found irreconcilable, unless this “something besides heat” is ticketed “Causeless Heat,” the “Breath of Fire,” the all‐creative Force _plus_ Absolute Intelligence, which Physical Science is not likely to accept.

However it may be, the reading of this Stanza, notwithstanding its archaic phraseology, shows it to be more scientific than even Modern Science.

12. THEN SVABHÂVAT SENDS FOHAT TO HARDEN THE ATOMS. EACH(144) IS A PART OF THE WEB.(145) REFLECTING THE “SELF‐EXISTENT LORD,”(146) LIKE A MIRROR, EACH BECOMES IN TURN A WORLD.(147)

Fohat hardens the Atoms; _i.e._, by infusing energy into them, he scatters the “Atoms,” or Primordial Matter. “_He scatters himself while scattering Matter into Atoms_.”

It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon Matter. Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be gathered from the appellation “Cosmic Electricity,” sometimes applied to it; but, in this case, to the commonly known properties of electricity, must be added others, including intelligence. It is of interest to note that Modern Science has come to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain‐ activity are attended by electrical phenomena.

Stanza IV.

1. ... LISTEN, YE SONS OF THE EARTH, TO YOUR INSTRUCTORS—THE SONS OF THE FIRE (_a_). LEARN THERE IS NEITHER FIRST NOR LAST; FOR ALL IS ONE NUMBER, ISSUED FROM NO‐NUMBER (_b_).

(_a_) The terms, the “Sons of the Fire,” the “Sons of the Fire‐Mist,” and the like, require explanation. They are connected with a great primordial and universal mystery, and it is not easy to make it clear. There is a passage in the _Bhagavadgîtâ_, wherein Krishna, speaking symbolically and esoterically, says:

I will state the times [conditions] ... at which devotees
departing [from this life] do so never to return [be reborn], or
to return [to incarnate again]. The fire, the flame, the day, the
bright [lucky] fortnight, the six months of the northern solstice,
departing [dying] ... in these, those who know the Brahman [Yogîs]
go to the Brahman. Smoke, night, the dark [unlucky] fortnight, the
six months of the southern solstice, (dying) in these, the devotee
goes to the lunar light [or mansion, the Astral Light also] and
returns [is reborn]. These two paths, bright and dark, are said to
be eternal in this world [or Great Kalpa (Age)]. By the one (a
man) goes never to return, by the other he comes back.(148)

Now these terms “fire,” “flame,” “day,” the “bright fortnight,” etc., “smoke,” “night,” and so on, leading only to the end of the Lunar Path, are incomprehensible without a knowledge of Esotericism. These are all _names of various deities_ which preside over the cosmo‐psychic Powers. We often speak of the Hierarchy of “Flames,” of the “Sons of Fire,” etc. Shankarâchârya, the greatest of the Esoteric Masters of India, says that Fire means a deity which presides over Time (Kâla). The able translator of the _Bhagavadgîtâ_, Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A., of Bombay, confesses he has “no clear notion of the meaning of these verses.” It seems quite clear, on the contrary, to him who knows the Occult doctrine. With these verses the mystic sense of the solar and lunar symbols are connected. The Pitris are Lunar Deities and our Ancestors, because they _created the physical man_. The Agnishvatta, the Kumâras (the Seven Mystic Sages), are Solar Deities, though they are Pitris also; and these are the “Fashioners of the _Inner_ Man.” They are “The Sons of Fire,” because they are the first Beings, called “Minds,” in the Secret Doctrine, evolved from Primordial Fire. “The Lord ... is a consuming fire.”(149) “The Lord shall be revealed ... with his mighty angels in flaming fire.”(150) The Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles as “cloven tongues like as of fire”;(151) Vishnu will return on Kalkî, the White Horse, as the last Avatâra, amid fire and flames; and Sosiosh will also descend on a White Horse in a “tornado of fire.” “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him ... and his name is called the Word of God,”(152) amid flaming Fire. Fire is Æther in its purest form, and hence is not regarded as matter, but is the unity of Æther—the second, manifested deity—in its universality. But there are two “Fires,” and a distinction is made between them in the Occult teachings. The first, or the purely _formless_ and _invisible_ Fire, concealed in the _Central Spiritual Sun_, is spoken of as Triple (metaphysically); while the Fire of the Manifested Cosmos is Septenary, throughout both the Universe and our Solar System. “_The fire of knowledge burns up all action on the plane of illusion_,” says the Commentary. “_Therefore, those who have acquired it and are emancipated, are called __‘__Fires__’__._” Speaking of the _seven_ senses, symbolized as Hotris, or Priests, Nârada says in _Anugitâ_: “Thus these seven [senses, smell and taste, and colour, and sound, etc.,] are the causes of emancipation”; and the translator adds: “It is from these seven from which the Self is to be emancipated. ‘I’ [in the sentence, ‘I am ... devoid of qualities’] must mean the Self, not the Brâhmana who speaks.”(153)

(_b_) The expression, “all is One Number, issued from No‐Number,” relates again to that universal and philosophical tenet just explained in the commentary on Shloka 4 of Stanza III. That which is absolute, is of course No‐Number; but in its later significance it has an application both in Space and in Time. It means that not only every increment of time is part of a larger increment, up to the most indefinitely prolonged duration conceivable by the human intellect, but also that no manifested thing can be thought of except as part of a whole: the total aggregate being the One Manifested Universe that issues from the Unmanifested or Absolute—called Non‐Being, or “No‐Number,” to distinguish it from Being, or the “One Number.”

2. LEARN WHAT WE, WHO DESCEND FROM THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, WE, WHO ARE BORN FROM THE PRIMORDIAL FLAME, HAVE LEARNT FROM OUR FATHERS....

This is explained in Book II, and the term, “Primordial Flame,” corroborates what is said in the first paragraph of the preceding commentary on Stanza IV.

The distinction between the “Primordial” and the subsequent Seven Builders is that the former are the Ray and direct emanation of the first “Sacred Four,” the Tetraktys, that is, the eternally Self‐Existent One—eternal in _essence_ note well, not in manifestation, and distinct from the Universal One. Latent, during Pralaya, and active, during Manvantara, the “Primordial” proceed from “Father‐Mother” (Spirit‐Hyle, or Ilus); whereas the other Manifested Quaternary and the Seven proceed from the Mother alone. It is the latter who is the immaculate Virgin‐Mother, who is overshadowed, not impregnated, by the Universal Mystery—when she emerges from her state of Laya, or undifferentiated condition. In reality, they are, of course, all one; but their aspects on the various planes of Being are different.

The first Primordial are the highest Beings on the Scale of Existence. They are the Archangels of Christianity, those who refuse to create or rather to multiply—as did Michael in the latter system, and as did the eldest “Mind‐born Sons” of Brahmâ (Vedhâs).

3. FROM THE EFFULGENCY OF LIGHT—THE RAY OF THE EVER‐DARKNESS—SPRANG IN SPACE THE REÄWAKENED ENERGIES;(154) THE ONE FROM THE EGG, THE SIX, AND THE FIVE (_a_). THEN THE THREE, THE ONE, THE FOUR, THE ONE, THE FIVE—THE TWICE SEVEN, THE SUM TOTAL (_b_). AND THESE ARE THE ESSENCES, THE FLAMES, THE ELEMENTS, THE BUILDERS, THE NUMBERS (_c_), THE ARÛPA,(155) THE RÛPA,(156) AND THE FORCE, OR DIVINE MAN—THE SUM TOTAL. AND FROM THE DIVINE MAN EMANATED THE FORMS, THE SPARKS, THE SACRED ANIMALS (_d_), AND THE MESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS(157) WITHIN THE HOLY FOUR.(158)

(a) This relates to the Sacred Science of the Numerals; so sacred, indeed, and so important in the study of Occultism that the subject can hardly be skimmed, even in such a large work as the present. It is on the Hierarchies and the correct numbers of these Beings—invisible (to us) except upon very rare occasions—that the mystery of the whole Universe is built. The Kumâras, for instance, are called the “Four”—though in reality seven in number—because Sanaka, Sananda, Sanâtana and Sanatkumâra are the chief Vaidhâtra (their patronymic name), who sprang from the “four‐fold mystery.” To make the whole clearer, we have to turn for our illustrations to tenets more familiar to some of our readers, namely the Brâhmanical.

According to _Manu_, Hiranyagarbha is Brahmâ, the first _male_, formed by the undiscernible Causeless Cause, in a “Golden Egg resplendent as the Sun,” as states the _Hindû Classical Dictionary_; Hiranyagarbha meaning the Golden, or rather the Effulgent, Womb or Egg. The meaning tallies awkwardly with the epithet “male.” Surely the esoteric meaning of the sentence is clear enough! In the _Rig Veda_ it is said—“THAT, the one Lord of all beings ... the one animating principle of gods and men,” arose, in the beginning, in the Golden Womb, Hiranyagarbha—which is the Mundane Egg, or Sphere of our Universe. That Being is surely androgynous, and the allegory of Brahmâ separating into two, and creating in one of his halves (the female Vâch) himself as Virâj, is a proof of it.

“The One from the Egg, the Six and the Five,” give the number 1065, the value of the First‐born (later on the male and female Brahmâ‐Prajâpati), who answers to the numbers 7, and 14, and 21 respectively. The Prajâpati, like the Sephiroth are only seven, including the synthetic Sephira of the Triad from which they spring. Thus from Hiranyagarbha, or Prajâpati, the Triune (the primeval Vedic Trimûrti, Agni, Vâyu, and Sûrya), emanate the other seven, or again ten, if we separate the first three which exist in one, and one in three; all, moreover, being comprehended within that one “Supreme,” Parama, called Guhya or “Secret,” and Sarvâtman, the “Super‐ Soul.” “_The seven Lords of Being lie concealed in Sarvâtman like thoughts in one brain_.” So with the Sephiroth. They are either seven when counting from the upper Triad, headed by Kether, or ten—exoterically. In the _Mahâbhârata_, the Prajâpati are 21 in number, or ten, six, and five (1065), thrice seven.(159)

(b) “The Three, the One, the Four, the One, the Five,” in their total—Twice Seven, represent 31415—the numerical Hierarchy of the Dhyân Chohans of various orders, and of the inner or circumscribed world.(160) Placed on the boundary of the great Circle, “Pass Not”—called also the Dhyânipâsha, the “Rope of the Angels,” the “Rope” that hedges off the phenomenal from the noumenal Cosmos, which does not fall within the range of our present objective consciousness—this number, when not enlarged by permutation and expansion, is ever 31415, anagrammatically and Kabalistically, being both the number of the Circle and the mystic Svastika, the “Twice Seven” once more; for whatever way the two sets of figures are counted, when added separately, one figure after another, whether crossways from right, or from left, they will always yield fourteen. Mathematically they represent the well‐known mathematical formula, that the ratio of the diameter of a circle to the circumference is as 1 to 3.1415, or the value of π (pi), as it is called. This set of figures must have the same meaning, since the 1:314,159 and again 1:3.1415927 are worked out in the secret calculations to express the various cycles and ages of the “First‐born,” or 311,040,000,000,000 with fractions, and yield the same 1.3415 by a process we are not concerned with at present. And it may be shown that Mr. Ralston Skinner, the author of _The Source of Measures_, reads the Hebrew word Alhim in the same number values—by omitting, as said, the ciphers, and by permutation—13514: since א (a) is 1; ל (l) is 3 (30); ה (h) is 5; י (i) is 1 (10); and מ (m) is 4 (40); and anagrammatically—31415, as explained by him.

Thus, while in the metaphysical world, the Circle with the one central Point in it has no number, and is called Anupâdaka—parentless and numberless, for it can fall under no calculation; in the manifested world, the Mundane Egg or Circle is circumscribed within the groups called the Line, the Triangle, the Pentagram, the second Line and the Square (or 13514); and when the Point has generated a Line, and thus becomes a diameter which stands for the androgynous Logos, then the figures become 31415, or a triangle, a line, a square, a second line, and a pentagram. “_When the Son separates from the Mother he becomes the Father_,” the diameter standing for Nature, or the feminine principle. Therefore it is said: “_In the World of Being, the One Point fructifies the Line, the Virgin Matrix of Kosmos [the egg‐shaped zero], and the immaculate Mother gives birth to the Form that combines all forms_.” Prajâpati is called the first procreating male, and “his mother’s husband.”(161) This gives the key‐note to all the later “Divine Sons” from “Immaculate Mothers.” It is strongly corroborated by the significant fact that Anna, the name of the Mother of the Virgin Mary, now represented by the Roman Catholic Church as having given birth to her daughter in an immaculate way (“Mary conceived without sin”), is derived from the Chaldean Ana, Heaven, or Astral Light, Anima Mundi; whence Anaitia, Devî‐Durgâ, the wife of Shiva, is also called Annapurna, and Kanyâ, the Virgin; Umâ‐Kanyâ being her esoteric name, and meaning the “Virgin of Light,” Astral Light in one of its multitudinous aspects.

(_c_) The Devas, Pitris, Rishis; the Suras and the Asuras; the Daityas and Âdityas; the Dânavas and Gandharvas, etc., etc., have all their synonyms in our Secret Doctrine, as well as in the _Kabalah_ and Hebrew Angelology; but it is useless to give their ancient names, as it would only create confusion. Many of these may be now also found even in the Christian Hierarchy of divine and celestial Powers. All those Thrones and Dominions, Virtues and Principalities, Cherubs, Seraphs and Demons, the various denizens of the Sidereal World, are the modern copies of archaic prototypes. The very symbolism in their names, when transliterated and arranged, in Greek and Latin, are sufficient to show it, as will be proved in several cases further on.

(_d_) The “Sacred Animals” are found in the _Bible_ as well as in the _Kabalah_, and they have their meaning—a very profound one, too—on the page of the origins of Life. In the _Sepher Jetzirah_ it is stated that: “God engraved in the Holy Four the Throne of his Glory, the Auphanim [the Wheels or World‐Spheres], the Seraphim, and the Sacred Animals, as Ministering Angels, and from these [Air, Water, and Fire or Ether] he formed his habitation.”

The following is the literal translation from the IXth and Xth Sections:

Ten numbers without what? One: the Spirit of the living God ...
who liveth in eternities! Voice and Spirit and Word, and this is
the Holy Spirit. Two: Air out of Spirit. He designed and hewed
therewith twenty‐two letters of foundation, three mothers, and
seven double and twelve single, and one Spirit out of them. Three:
Water out of Spirit; he designed and hewed with them the barren
and the void, mud and earth. He designed them as a flower‐bed,
hewed them as a wall, covered them as a paving. Four: Fire out of
Water. He designed and hewed therewith the throne of glory and the
wheels, and the seraphim and the holy animals as ministering
angels, and of the three He founded his dwelling, as it is said,
He makes his angels spirits, and his servants fiery flames!

The words “founded his dwelling” show clearly that in the _Kabalah_, as in India, the Deity was considered as the Universe, and was not, in his origin, the extra‐cosmic God he now is.

Thus was the world made “through Three Seraphim—Sepher, Saphar, and Sipur,” or “through Number, Numbers, and Numbered.” With the astronomical key, these “Sacred Animals” become the signs of the Zodiac.

4. THIS WAS THE ARMY OF THE VOICE, THE DIVINE MOTHER OF THE SEVEN. THE SPARKS OF THE SEVEN ARE SUBJECT TO, AND THE SERVANTS OF, THE FIRST, THE SECOND, THE THIRD, THE FOURTH, THE FIFTH, THE SIXTH, AND THE SEVENTH OF THE SEVEN (_a_). THESE(162) ARE CALLED SPHERES, TRIANGLES, CUBES, LINES AND MODELLERS; FOR THUS STANDS THE ETERNAL NIDÂNA—THE OI‐HA‐HOU (_b_).(163)

(a) This Shloka gives again a brief analysis of the Hierarchies of the Dhyân Chohans, called Devas (Gods) in India, or the Conscious Intelligent Powers in Nature. To this Hierarchy correspond the actual types into which Humanity may be divided; for Humanity, as a whole, is in reality a materialized, though as yet imperfect, expression thereof. The “Army of the Voice” is a term closely connected with the mystery of Sound and Speech, as an effect and corollary of the Cause—Divine Thought. As beautifully expressed by P. Christian, the learned author of _Histoire de la Magie_ and _L’Homme Rouge des Tuileries_, the words spoken by, as well as the name of, every individual largely determine his future fate. Why? Because:

When our soul [mind] creates or evokes a thought, the
representative sign of that thought is self‐engraved upon the
astral fluid, which is the receptacle and, so to say, the mirror
of all the manifestations of being.

The sign expresses the thing: the thing is the [hidden or occult]
virtue of the sign.

To pronounce a word is to evoke a thought, and make it present:
the magnetic potency of human speech is the commencement of every
manifestation in the Occult World. To utter a Name is not only to
define a Being [an Entity], but to place it under, and condemn it
through the emission of the Word [Verbum] to the influence of, one
or more Occult potencies. Things are, for every one of us, that
which it [the Word] makes them while naming them. The Word
[Verbum] or the speech of every man is, quite unconsciously to
himself, a _blessing_ or a _curse_; this is why our present
ignorance about the properties and attributes of the _idea_, as
well as about the attributes and properties of _matter_, is often
fatal to us.

Yes, names [and words] are either _beneficent_ or _maleficent_;
they are, in a certain sense, either venomous or health‐giving,
according to the hidden influences attached by Supreme Wisdom to
their elements, that is to say, to the _letters_ which compose
them, and the _numbers_ correlative to these letters.

This is strictly true as an esoteric teaching accepted by all the Eastern Schools of Occultism. In the Sanskrit, as also in the Hebrew and all other alphabets, every letter has its occult meaning and its _rationale_: it is a cause and an effect of a preceding cause, and a combination of these very often produces the most magical effect. The vowels, especially, contain the most occult and formidable potencies. The _Mantras_ (magical rather than religious invocations, esoterically) are chanted by the Brâhmans, and so are the rest of the _Vedas_ and other Scriptures.

The “Army of the Voice” is the prototype of the “Host of the Logos,” or the “Word,” of the _Sepher Jetzirah_, called in the Secret Doctrine the “One Number issued from No‐Number”—the One Eternal Principle. The Esoteric Theogony begins with the One Manifested (therefore not eternal in its presence and being, if eternal in its essence), the Number of the Numbers and Numbered—the latter proceeding from the Voice, the feminine Vâch, “of the hundred forms,” Shatarûpâ, or Nature. It is from this Number, 10, or Creative Nature, the Mother (the Occult cypher, or “0,” ever procreating and multiplying in union with the unit “1,” or the Spirit of Life), that the whole Universe proceeds.

In the _Anugîtâ_,(164) a conversation is given between a Brâhmana and his wife on the origin of Speech and its Occult properties. The wife asks how Speech came into existence, and which was prior to the other, Speech or Mind. The Brâhmana tells her that the Apâna (_inspirational __ breath_) becoming lord, changes that intelligence, which does not understand Speech or Words, into the state of Apâna, and thus opens the Mind. Thereupon he tells her a story, a dialogue between Speech and Mind. Both went to the Self of Being (_i.e._, to the individual Higher Self, as Nîlakantha thinks; to Prajâpati, according to the commentator Arjuna Mishra), and asked him to destroy their doubts, and decide which of them preceded and was superior to the other. To this the Lord said: “Mind (is superior).” But Speech answered the Self of Being, by saying: “I verily yield (you) your desires,” meaning that by Speech he acquired what he desired. Thereupon again, the Self told her that there are two Minds, the “movable” and the “immovable.” “The immovable is with me,” he said, “the movable is in your dominion” (_i.e._ of Speech), on the plane of matter. “To that you are superior.”

But inasmuch, O beautiful one, as you came personally to speak to
me (in the way you did, _i.e._ proudly), therefore, O Sarasvatî!
you shall never speak after (hard) exhalation. The goddess Speech
[Sarasvatî, a later form or aspect of Vâch, the goddess also of
secret learning, or Esoteric Wisdom], verily, dwelt always between
the Prâna and the Apâna. But, O noble one! going with the Apâna
wind [vital air], though impelled, ... without the Prâna
[expirational breath], she ran up to Prajâpati [Brahmâ], saying,
“Be pleased, O venerable sir!” Then the Prâna appeared again
nourishing Speech. And, therefore, Speech never speaks after
(hard) exhalation. It is always noisy or noiseless. Of these two,
the noiseless is the superior to the noisy (Speech).... The
(Speech) which is produced in the body by means of the Prâna, and
which then goes [is transformed] into Apâna and then becoming
assimilated with the Udâna [physical organs of Speech] ... then
finally dwells in the Samâna [“at the navel in the form of sound,
as the material cause of all words,” says Arjuna Mishra]. So
Speech formerly spoke. Hence the Mind is distinguished by reason
of its being immovable, and the Goddess (Speech) by reason of her
being movable.

The above allegory is at the root of the Occult law, which prescribes silence upon the knowledge of certain secret and invisible things, perceptible only to the spiritual mind (the sixth sense), and which cannot be expressed by “noisy” or uttered speech. This chapter of _Anugîtâ_ explains, says Arjuna Mishra, Prânâyâma, or regulation of the breath in Yoga practices. This mode, however, without the previous acquisition of, or at least full understanding of, the two higher senses (of which there are seven, as will be shown), pertains rather to the lower Yoga. The Hatha so called was and still is discountenanced by the Arhats. It is injurious to the health, and alone can never develop into Râja Yoga. This story is quoted to show how inseparably connected in the metaphysics of old, are intelligent beings, or rather “intelligences,” with every sense or function, whether physical or mental. The Occult claim that there are seven senses in man, and in nature, as there are seven states of consciousness, is corroborated in the same work, Chapter vii, on Pratyâhâra (the restraint and regulation of the senses, Prânâyâma being that of the “vital winds” or breath). The Brâhmana, speaking of the institution of the seven sacrificial Priests (Hotris), says: “The nose and the eye, and the tongue, and the skin and the ear as the fifth [or smell, sight, taste, touch, and hearing], mind and understanding are the seven sacrificial priests separately stationed,” which “dwelling in a minute space (still) do not perceive each other,” on this sensuous plane, none of them except mind. For mind says: “The nose smells not without me, the eye does not take in colour, etc., etc. I am the eternal chief among all elements [_i.e._, senses]. Without me, the senses never shine, like an empty dwelling, or like fires the flames of which are extinct. Without me, all beings, like fuel half dried and half moist, fail to apprehend qualities or objects even with the senses exerting themselves.”(165)

This, of course, only with regard to _mind on the sensuous plane_. Spiritual Mind, the upper portion or aspect of the _impersonal_ Manas, takes no cognizance of the senses in physical man. How well the ancients were acquainted with the correlation of forces, and all the recently discovered phenomena of mental and physical faculties and functions, and with many more mysteries also—may be found in reading Chapters vii and viii of this priceless work in philosophy and mystic learning. See the quarrel of the senses about their respective superiority and their taking the Brahman, the Lord of all creatures, for their arbiter. “You are all greatest and not greatest [or superior to objects, as Arjuna Mishra says, none being independent of the other]. You are all possessed of one another’s qualities. All are greatest in their own spheres and all support one another. There is one unmoving [life‐wind or breath, the _yoga‐ inhalation_, so called, which is the breath of the _One_ or Higher Self]. That one is my own Self, accumulated in numerous (forms).”

This Breath, Voice, Self or Wind (Pneuma?), is the Synthesis of the Seven Senses, _noumenally_ all minor deities, and esoterically—the _Septenary_ and the “Army of the Voice.”

(_b_) Next we see Cosmic Matter scattering and forming itself into Elements; grouped into the mystic Four within the fifth Element—Ether, the “lining” of Âkâsha, the Anima Mundi, or Mother of Cosmos. “Dots, Lines, Triangles, Cubes, Circles” and finally “Spheres”—why or how? Because, says the Commentary, such is the first law of Nature, and because Nature geometrizes universally in all her manifestations. There is an inherent law—not only in the primordial, but also in the manifested matter of our phenomenal plane—by which Nature correlates her geometrical forms, and later, also, her compound elements, and in which also there is no place for accident or chance. It is a fundamental law in Occultism, that there is no rest or cessation of motion in Nature.(166) That which seems rest is only the change of one form into another, the change of substance going hand in hand with that of form—so at least we are taught in Occult physics, which thus seem to have anticipated the discovery of the “conservation of matter” by a considerable time. Says the ancient Commentary(167) to Stanza IV:

_The Mother is the fiery Fish of Life. She scatters her Spawn and the Breath [Motion] heats and quickens it. The Grains [of Spawn] are soon attracted to each other and form the Curds in the Ocean [of Space]. The larger lumps coalesce and receive new Spawn—in fiery Dots, Triangles and Cubes, which ripen, and at the appointed time some of the lumps detach themselves and assume spheroidal form, a process which they effect only when not interfered with by the others. After which, Law No. —— comes into operation. Motion [the Breath] becomes the Whirlwind and sets them into rotation._(168)

5. THE OI‐HA‐HOU, WHICH IS DARKNESS, THE BOUNDLESS, OR THE NO‐NUMBER, ÂDI‐ NIDÂNA SVABHÂVAT, THE [circle]:(169)

I. THE ÂDI‐SANAT, THE NUMBER, FOR HE IS ONE (_a_).

II. THE VOICE OF THE WORD, SVABHÂVAT, THE NUMBERS, FOR HE IS ONE AND NINE.(170)

III. THE “FORMLESS SQUARE”.(171)

AND THESE THREE, ENCLOSED WITHIN THE [CIRCLE],(172) ARE THE SACRED FOUR; AND THE TEN ARE THE ARÛPA (173) UNIVERSE (_b_). THEN COME THE SONS, THE SEVEN FIGHTERS, THE ONE, THE EIGHTH LEFT OUT, AND HIS BREATH WHICH IS THE LIGHT‐MAKER (_c_).(174)

(_a_) “Âdi‐Sanat,” translated literally, is the First or “Primeval Ancient,” a name which identifies the Kabalistic “Ancient of Days” and the “Holy Aged” (Sephira and Adam Kadmon) with Brahmâ, the Creator, called also Sanat among his other names and titles.

“Svabhâvat” is the mystic Essence, the plastic Root of physical Nature—“Numbers” when manifested; the “Number,” in its Unity of Substance, on the highest plane. The name is of Buddhist use and a synonym for the four‐fold Anima Mundi, the Kabalistic Archetypal World, from whence proceed the Creative, Formative, and Material Worlds; and the Scintillæ or Sparks—the various other worlds contained in the last three. The Worlds are all subject to Rulers or Regents—Rishis and Pitris with the Hindûs, Angels with the Jews and Christians, Gods with the Ancients in general.

(_b_) “[circle].” This means that the “Boundless Circle,” the zero, becomes a number, only when one of the other nine figures precedes it, and thus manifests its value and potency; the “Word” or Logos, in union with “Voice” and Spirit(175) (the expression and source of Consciousness), standing for the nine figures, and thus forming, with the cypher, the Decad which contains in itself all the Universe. The Triad forms the Tetraktys, or “Sacred Four,” within the Circle, the Square within the Circle being the most potent of all the magical figures.

(_c_) The “One Rejected” is the Sun of our system. The exoteric version may be found in the oldest Sanskrit Scriptures. In the _Rig Veda_, Aditi, the “Boundless” or Infinite Space—translated by Prof. Max Müller, “the visible infinite, visible by the naked eye (!!); the endless expanse beyond the earth, beyond the clouds, beyond the sky”—is the equivalent of “Mother‐Space,” coëval with “Darkness.” She is very properly called the “Mother of the Gods,” Deva‐Mâtri, as it is from her cosmic matrix that all the heavenly bodies of our system were born—sun and planets. Thus she is described, allegorically, in this wise: “_Eight sons were born from the body of Aditi; she approached the gods with seven, but cast away the eighth, Mârttânda_,” our sun. The seven sons called the Adityas are, cosmically or astronomically, the seven planets; and the sun being excluded from their number shows plainly that the Hindûs may have known, and in fact knew, of a seventh planet, without calling it Uranus.(176) But esoterically and theologically, so to say, the Adityas, in their primitive most ancient meanings, are the eight, and twelve great gods of the Hindû Pantheon. “The Seven allow the mortals to see their dwellings, but show themselves only to the Arhats,” says an old proverb; “their dwellings” standing here for the planets. The ancient Commentary gives the following allegory and explains it:

_Eight houses were built by Mother: eight houses for her eight Divine Sons; four large and four small ones. Eight brilliant Suns, according to their age and merits. Bal‐i‐lu [Mârttânda] was not satisfied, though his house was the largest. He began [to work] as the huge elephants do. He breathed [drew in] into his stomach the vital airs of his brothers. He sought to devour them. The larger four were far away; far, on the margin __ of their kingdom._(_177_)_ They were not robbed [affected], and laughed. Do your worst, Sir, you cannot reach us, they said. But the smaller wept. They complained to the Mother. She exiled Bal‐i‐lu to the centre of her kingdom, from whence he could not move. [Since then] he [only] watches and threatens. He pursues them, turning slowly round himself; they turning swiftly from him, and he following from afar the direction in which his brothers move on the path that encircles their houses._(_178_)_ From that day he feeds on the sweat of the Mother’s body. He fills himself with her breath and refuse. Therefore, she rejected him_.

Thus the “Rejected Son” being our Sun, evidently, as shown above, the “Son‐Suns” refer not only to our planets but to the heavenly bodies in general. Sûrya, himself only a reflection of the Central Spiritual Sun, is the prototype of all those bodies that evolved after him. In the _Vedas_ he is called Loka‐Chakshuh, the “Eye of the World” (our planetary world), and he is one of the three chief deities. He is called indifferently the Son of Dyaus or of Aditi, because no distinction is made with reference to, or scope allowed for, the esoteric meaning. Thus he is depicted as drawn by seven horses, and by one horse with seven heads; the former referring to his seven planets, the latter to their one common origin from the One Cosmic Element. This “One Element” is called figuratively “Fire.” The _Vedas_ teach that “fire verily is all the deities.”(179)

The meaning of the allegory is plain, for we have both the Dzyan Commentary and Modern Science to explain it, though the two differ in more than one particular. The Occult Doctrine rejects the hypothesis born of the Nebular Theory, that the (seven) great planets have evolved from the Sun’s central mass, of this our visible Sun, at any rate. The first condensation of cosmic matter of course took place about a central nucleus, its parent Sun; but our Sun, it is taught, merely detached itself earlier than all the others, as the rotating mass contracted, and is their elder, bigger “brother” therefore, not their “father.” The eight Adityas, the “gods,” are all formed from the eternal substance (cometary matter(180)—the Mother), or the “world‐stuff,” which is both the fifth and the sixth Cosmic Principle, the Upâdhi, or Basis, of the Universal Soul, just as in man, the Microcosm, Manas(181) is the Upâdhi of Buddhi.(182)

There is a whole poem on the pregenetic battles fought by the growing planets before the final formation of Cosmos, thus accounting for the seemingly disturbed position of the systems of several planets; the plane of the satellites of some (of Neptune and Uranus, for instance, of which the ancients knew nothing, it is said) being tilted over, thus giving them an appearance of retrograde motion. These planets are called the Warriors, the Architects, and are accepted by the Roman Church as the leaders of the heavenly Hosts, thus showing the same traditions. Having evolved from Cosmic Space, the Sun, we are taught—before the final formation of the primaries and the annulation of the planetary nebulæ—drew into the depths of his mass all the cosmic vitality he could, threatening to engulf his weaker “Brothers,” before the law of attraction and repulsion was finally adjusted; after which, he began feeding on “the Mother’s refuse and sweat”; in other words, on those portions of Æther (the “Breath of the Universal Soul”), of the existence and constitution of which Science is as yet absolutely ignorant. As a theory of this kind has been propounded by Sir William Grove,(183) who theorizes that the systems “are gradually changing by atmospheric additions or subtractions, or by accretions and diminutions arising from nebular substance,” and again that “the sun may condense gaseous matter as it travels in space, and so heat may be produced”—the archaic teaching seems scientific enough, even in this age.(184) Mr. W. Mattieu Williams suggested that the diffused matter or Ether, which is the recipient of the heat radiations of the Universe, is thereby drawn into the depths of the solar mass; expelling thence the previously condensed and thermally exhausted Ether, it becomes compressed and gives up its heat, to be in turn itself driven out in a rarefied and cooled state, to absorb a fresh supply of heat, which he supposes to be in this way taken up by the Ether, and again concentrated and redistributed by the Suns of the Universe.

This is about as close an approximation to the Occult teachings as Science ever imagined; for Occultism explains it by the “dead breath,” given back by Mârttânda, and his feeding on the “sweat and refuse” of “Mother Space.” What could affect Neptune,(185) Saturn and Jupiter, but little, would have killed such comparatively small “Houses” as Mercury, Venus and Mars. As Uranus was not known before the end of the eighteenth century, the name of the fourth planet mentioned in the allegory must remain to us, so far, a mystery.

The “Breath” of all the “Seven” is said to be Bhâskara, the Light‐Maker, because they (the planets) were all comets and suns in their origin. They evolve into manvantaric life from Primeval Chaos (now the noumenon of irresolvable nebulæ), by aggregation and accumulation of the primary differentiations of eternal Matter, according to the beautiful expression in the Commentary, “_Thus the Sons of Light clothed themselves in the fabric of Darkness_.” They are called allegorically the “Heavenly Snails,” on account of their (to us) formless Intelligences inhabiting unseen their starry and planetary homes, and so to speak, carrying them, as the snails do, along with themselves in their revolution. The doctrine of a common origin for all the heavenly bodies and planets was, as we see, inculcated by the archaic astronomers, before Kepler, Newton, Leibnitz, Kant, Herschel and Laplace. Heat (the “Breath”), Attraction and Repulsion—the three great factors of Motion—are the conditions under which all the members of this primitive family are born, develop, and die; to be reborn after a Night of Brahmâ, during which eternal Matter relapses periodically into its primary undifferentiated state. The most attenuated gases can give no idea of its nature to the modern Physicist. Centres of Forces at first, the invisible Sparks, or primordial Atoms, differentiate into Molecules, and become Suns—passing gradually into objectivity—gaseous, radiant, cosmic, the one “Whirlwind” (or Motion) finally giving the impulse to the form, and the initial motion, regulated and sustained by the never‐resting “Breaths”—the Dhyân Chohans.

6. ... THEN THE SECOND SEVEN, WHO ARE THE LIPIKA, PRODUCED BY THE THREE.(186) THE REJECTED SON IS ONE. THE “SON‐SUNS” ARE COUNTLESS.

The “Lipika,” from the word _lipi_, “writing,” means literally the “Scribes.”(187) Mystically, these Divine Beings are connected with Karma, the Law of Retribution, for they are the Recorders, or Annalists, who impress on the (to us) invisible tablets of the Astral Light, “the great picture‐gallery of eternity”—a faithful record of every act, and even thought, of man; of all that was, is, or ever will be, in the phenomenal Universe. As said in _Isis Unveiled_, this divine and unseen canvas is the _Book of Life_. As it is the Lipika who project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the Universe, upon which the “Builders” reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who stand parallel to the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christians recognize in the Seven “Planetary Spirits,” or the “Spirits of the Stars”; and thus it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation—or, as Plato calls it, the “Divine Thought.” The Eternal Record is no fantastic dream, for we meet with the same records in the world of gross matter. As Dr. Draper says:

A shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon a
permanent trace which might be made visible by resorting to proper
processes.... The portraits of our friends or landscape‐views may
be hidden on the sensitive surface from the eye, but they are
ready to make their appearance as soon as proper developers are
resorted to. A spectre is concealed on a silver or a glassy
surface, until, by our necromancy, we make it come forth into the
visible world. Upon the walls of our most private apartments,
where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, and
our retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of
our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done.(188)

Drs. Jevons and Babbage believe that every thought displaces the particles of the brain and, setting them in motion, scatters them throughout the universe: they also think that “each particle of the existing matter must be a register of all that has happened.”(189) Thus the ancient doctrine has begun to acquire rights of citizenship in the speculations of the scientific world.

The forty “Assessors,” who stand in the region of Amenti as the accusers of the Soul before Osiris, belong to the same class of deities as the Lipika, and might stand as parallels, were not the Egyptian gods so little understood in their esoteric meaning. The Hindû Chitragupta who reads out the account of every Soul’s life from his register, called Agra‐Sandhânî; the Assessors who read theirs from the Heart of the Defunct, which becomes an open book before either Yama, Minos, Osiris, or Karma—are all so many copies of, and variants from, the Lipika and their Astral Records. Nevertheless, the Lipika are not deities connected with Death, but with Life Eternal.

Connected as the Lipika are with the destiny of every man, and the birth of every child, whose life is already traced in the Astral Light—not fatalistically, but only because the Future, like the Past, is ever alive in the Present—they may also be said to exercise an influence on the Science of Horoscopy. We must admit the truth of the latter whether we will or not. For, as observed by one of the modern professors of Astrology:

Now that photography has revealed to us the chemical influence of
the sidereal system, by fixing on the sensitized plate of the
apparatus milliards of stars and planets that had hitherto baffled
the efforts of the most powerful telescopes to discover, it
becomes easier to understand how our solar system can, at the
birth of a child, influence his brain—virgin of any impression—in
a definite manner and according to the presence on the zenith of
such or another zodiacal constellation.(190)

Stanza V.

1. THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, THE FIRST SEVEN BREATHS OF THE DRAGON OF WISDOM, PRODUCE IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR HOLY CIRCUMGYRATING BREATHS THE FIERY WHIRLWIND.