Chapter XII: Part I: Anthropogenesis (10)

In its proper place we will show Modern Science fully corroborating the above and other traditions of the Secret Doctrine with regard to the two lost Continents. The Easter Island relics, for instance, are the most astounding and eloquent memorials of the primeval giants. They are as grand as they are mysterious; and one has but to examine the heads of the colossal statues, that have remained unbroken, to recognize at a glance the features of the type and character attributed to the Fourth Race giants. They seem of one cast though different in features—of a distinctly sensual type, such as the Atlanteans (the Daityas and “Atalantians”) are said to have had in the Esoteric Hindû books. Compare these with the faces of some other colossal statues in Central Asia—those near Bamian, for instance—the portrait‐statues, tradition tells us, of Buddhas belonging to _previous_ Manvantaras; of those Buddhas and heroes who are mentioned in the Buddhist and Hindû works, as men of fabulous size,(518) the good and holy brothers of their wicked coüterine brothers generally, just as Râvana, the giant king of Lankâ, was the brother of Kumbhakarna; all descendants of the Gods through the Rishis, and thus, like “Titan and his enormous brood,” all “Heaven’s first‐born.” These “Buddhas,” though often spoilt by the symbolical representation of great pendent ears, show a suggestive difference, perceived at a glance, in the expression of their faces from that of the Easter Island statues. They may be of one race—but the former are “Sons of Gods”; the latter the brood of mighty sorcerers. All these are reïncarnations however, and, apart from unavoidable exaggerations in popular fancy and tradition, they are _historical characters_.(519) When did they live? How long ago lived the two Races, the Third and Fourth; and how long after did the various tribes of the Fifth begin their strife, the wars between Good and Evil? We are assured by the Orientalists that chronology is both hopelessly mixed and absurdly exaggerated in the _Purânas_ and other Hindû Scriptures. We feel quite prepared to agree with the accusation. But, if Âryan writers have occasionally allowed their chronological pendulum to swing too far one way, beyond the legitimate limit of fact; nevertheless, when the distance of that deviation is compared with the distance of the Orientalists’ deviation in the opposite direction, moderation will be found on the Brâhmanical side. It is the Pandit who will, in the long run, be found more truthful and nearer to fact than the Sanskritist. The Sanskritist’s curtailing—even when proved to have been resorted to in order to fit a personal hobby—is regarded by Western public opinion as “a _cautious_ acceptance of facts,” whereas the Pandit is brutally treated in print as a “_liar_.” But, surely, this is no reason why everyone should be compelled to see this in the same light! An impartial observer may judge it otherwise. He may either proclaim both unscrupulous historians, or justify both, each on his respective ground, and say: Hindû Âryans wrote for their Initiates, who read truth between the lines; not for the masses. If they did mix up events and confuse Ages _intentionally_, it was not with the view of deceiving any one, but in order to preserve their knowledge from the prying eye of the foreigner. But, to him who can count the _generations_ from the Manus, and the _series of incarnations_ specified in the cases of some heroes,(520) in the _Purânas_, the meaning and chronological order are very clear. As for the Western Orientalist, he must be excused, on account of his undeniable ignorance of the methods used by archaic Esotericism.

But such existing prejudices will have to give way and disappear very soon before the light of new discoveries. Already Dr. Weber’s and Prof. Max Müller’s favourite theories—namely, that writing was not known in India, even in the days of Pânini (!); that the Hindûs had all their arts and sciences—even to the Zodiac and their architecture (Fergusson)—from the Macedonian Greeks; these and other such cock‐and‐bull hypotheses, are threatened with ruin. It is the ghost of old Chaldæa that comes to the rescue of truth. In his third Hibbert Lecture (1887) Professor Sayce of Oxford, speaking of newly‐discovered Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders, refers at length to Ea, the God of Wisdom, now identified with the Oannes of Berosus, the half‐man, half‐fish, who taught the Babylonians culture and the _art of writing_. This Ea, to whom, thanks only to the Biblical Deluge, an antiquity of hardly 1,500 B.C. had been hitherto allowed, is now spoken of in the following terms, to summarize from the Professor:

The city of Ea was Eridu, which stood 6,000 years ago on the
shores of the Persian Gulf. The name means “the good city,” a
particularly holy spot, since it was the centre from which the
earliest Chaldæan civilization made its way to the north. As the
culture‐god was represented as coming from the sea, it was
possible that the culture of which Eridu was the seat was of
foreign importation. We now know that there was intercourse at a
very early period between Chaldæa and the Sinaitic peninsula, as
well as with India. The statues discovered by the French at Tel‐
loh (dating from at latest B.C. 4,000) were made of the extremely
hard stone known as diorite, and the inscriptions on them stated
the diorite to have been brought from Magan—_i.e._, the Sinaitic
peninsula, which was then ruled by the Pharaohs. The statues are
known to resemble in general style the diorite statue, Kephren,
the builder of the second Pyramid, while, according to Mr. Petrie,
the unit of measurement marked on the plan of the city, which one
of the Tel‐loh figures holds on his lap, is the same as that
employed by the Pyramid builders. Teak wood has been found at
Mugheir, or Ur of the Chaldees, although that wood is an Indian
special product; add to this that an ancient Babylonian list of
clothing mentions _sindhu_ or “muslin,” explained as “vegetable
cloth.”(521)

Muslin, best known now as Dacca muslin, known in Chaldæa as Hindu (Sindhu), and teak wood used 4,000 years B.C., and yet the Hindûs, to whom Chaldæa owes its civilization, as has been well proven by Colonel Vans Kennedy, were _ignorant of the art of writing_ before the Greeks taught them their alphabet—if, at least, we have to believe Orientalists!

Stanza X. The History Of The Fourth Race.

38. The birth of the Fourth (Atlantean) Race. 39. The sub‐races of
the Fourth Humanity begin to divide and interblend; they form the
first mixed races of various colours. 40. The superiority of the
Atlantean over other Races. 41. They fall into sin and beget
children and monsters. 42. The first germs of anthropomorphism and
sexual religion. They lose their “third eye.”

38. THUS, TWO BY TWO, ON THE SEVEN ZONES, THE THIRD RACE GAVE BIRTH TO THE FOURTH; THE SURA BECAME A‐SURA.(522)

39. THE FIRST,(523) ON EVERY ZONE, WAS MOON‐COLOURED;(524) THE SECOND YELLOW LIKE GOLD; THE THIRD RED; THE FOURTH BROWN, WHICH BECAME BLACK WITH SIN.(525) THE FIRST SEVEN HUMAN SHOOTS WERE ALL OF ONE COMPLEXION.(526) THE NEXT SEVEN,(527) BEGAN MIXING.(528)

To understand Shloka 38, it must be read together with the Shlokas of Stanza IX. Up to this point of evolution man belongs more to metaphysical than physical Nature. It is only after the so‐called “Fall,” that the Races began to develop rapidly into a purely human shape. In order that the student may correctly comprehend the full meaning of the Fall—so mystic and transcendental in its real significance—he must at once be told the details which preceded it, seeing that modern Theology has made of the event a pivot on which its most pernicious and absurd dogmas and beliefs are made to turn.

The Archaic Commentaries, as the reader may remember, explain that, of the Host of Dhyânîs, whose turn it was to incarnate as the Egos of the immortal, but, _on this plane_, senseless Monads—some “obeyed” (the Law of Evolution) immediately the men of the Third Race became physiologically and physically ready, _i.e._, when they had separated into sexes. These were those early conscious Beings who, now adding conscious knowledge and will to their inherent divine purity, “created” by Kriyâshakti the semi‐ divine man, who became the Seed on Earth for future Adepts. Those, on the other hand, who, jealous of their intellectual freedom—unfettered as it then was by the bonds of Matter—said: “We can choose, ... we have wisdom,”(529) and so incarnated far later—these had their first Karmic punishment prepared for them. They got bodies inferior (physiologically) to their Astral Models, because their Chhâyâs had belonged to Progenitors of an inferior degree in the seven Classes. As to those “Sons of Wisdom” who “deferred” their incarnation till the Fourth Race, which was already tainted (physiologically) with sin and impurity, these produced a terrible cause, the Karmic result of which weighs on them to this day. It was produced in themselves, and they became the carriers of that seed of iniquity for æons to come, because the bodies they had to inform had become defiled through their own procrastination.(530)

This was the “Fall of the Angels,” owing to their rebellion against Karmic Law. The “fall of _man_” was no fall, _for he was irresponsible_. But “creation” having been invented on the dualistic system as the “prerogative of God alone”—the legitimate _attribute_ patented by Theology in the name of an _infinite_ Deity of their own making—the power of Kriyâshakti had to be regarded as “Satanic,” and as a usurpation of divine rights. Thus, in the light of such narrow views, the foregoing must naturally be considered as a terrible slander on man, “created in the image of God,” and a still more dreadful blasphemy in the face of the dead‐letter dogma. “Your doctrine,” the Occultists have already been told, “makes of man, created out of dust in the likeness of his God, a vehicle of the Devil, from the first.” “Why do you make of your God a Devil—both, moreover, created in _your own_ image?”—is our reply. The Esoteric interpretation of the _Bible_, however, sufficiently refutes this slanderous invention of Theology; the Secret Doctrine must some day become the just Karma of the Churches—more anti‐Christian than the representative assemblies of the most confirmed Materialists and Atheists.

The true meaning of the old doctrine of the “Fallen Angels,” in its anthropological and evolutionary sense, is contained in the _Kabalah_, and explains the _Bible_. It is found preëminently in _Genesis_ when the latter is read in a spirit of research for truth, with no eye to dogma, and in no mood of preconception. This is easily proven. In _Genesis_ (vi), the “Sons of God”—B’ne Aleim—become enamoured of the daughters of men, marry, and reveal to their wives the mysteries unlawfully learnt by them in Heaven, according to Enoch; and this is the “Fall of the Angels.”(531) But what, in reality, is the _Book of Enoch_ itself, from which the author of _Revelation_ and even the St. John of the Fourth Gospel(532) have so profusely quoted? Simply a _Book of Initiation_, giving out in allegory and cautious phraseology the programme of certain Archaic Mysteries performed in the _inner_ Temples. The author of the _Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and Quichés_ very justly suggests that the so‐called “Visions” of Enoch relate to his (Enoch’s) experience at Initiation, and what he learned in the Mysteries; while he very erroneously states his opinion that Enoch had learned them before being converted to Christianity (! !); furthermore, he believes that this book was written “at the beginning of the Christian era, when ... the customs and religion of the Egyptians fell into decadency”! This is hardly possible, since Jude, in his Epistle,(533) quotes from the _Book of Enoch_; and, therefore, as Archbishop Laurence, the translator of the _Book of Enoch_ from the Ethiopic version, remarks, it “could not have been the production of a writer who lived after ... or was even coëval with” the writers of the _New Testament_, unless, indeed, Jude and the Gospels, and all that follows, were also a production of the already established Church—which, some critics say, is not impossible. But we are now concerned with the “Fallen Angels” of Enoch, rather than with Enoch himself.

In Indian exotericism, these Angels (Asuras) are also denounced as the “enemies of the Gods”; those who oppose sacrificial worship offered to the Devas. In Christian Theology they are broadly referred to as the “Fallen Spirits,” the heroes of various conflicting and contradictory legends, gathered from Pagan sources. The _coluber tortuosus_, the “tortuous snake”—a qualification said to have originated with the Jews—had quite another meaning before the Roman Church distorted it; among others, _a purely astronomical_ signification.

The “Serpent” fallen from on high (_deorsum fluens_) was credited with the possession of the Keys of the Empire of the Dead (τοῦ θανάτου ἀρχή) to the day when Jesus saw it fall “as lightning ... from heaven,”(534) notwithstanding the Roman Catholic interpretation of “_cadebat ut fulgur_.” It means indeed that even “the devils are subject” to the Logos—who is Wisdom, but at the same time, as the opponent of ignorance, Satan or Lucifer. This remark refers to divine Wisdom falling like lightning on, and so quickening, the intellects of those who fight the devils of ignorance and superstition. Up to the time when Wisdom, in the shape of the incarnating Spirits of Mahat, descended from on high to animate and call the Third Race to real conscious life—Humanity, if it can be so called in its animal, senseless state, was of course doomed to _moral_ as well as to physical death. The Angels _fallen into generation_ are referred to metaphorically as Serpents and Dragons of Wisdom. On the other hand, regarded in the light of the Logos, the Christian Saviour, like Krishna, whether as man or Logos, may be said to have saved those who believed in the Secret Teachings, from “eternal death,” and to have conquered the Kingdom of Darkness, or Hell, as every Initiate does. This is the human, terrestrial form of the Initiates, and also—because the Logos is Christos—that “principle” of our inner nature which develops in us into the Spiritual Ego—the Higher Self—formed of the indissoluble union of Buddhi, the sixth, and the spiritual efflorescence of Manas, the fifth “principle.”(535) “The Logos is passive Wisdom in Heaven and conscious, self‐active Wisdom on Earth,” we are taught. It is the Marriage of the “Heavenly Man” with the “Virgin of the World,” or Nature, as described in _Pymander_; the result of which is their progeny—immortal man. It is this which is called in St. John’s _Revelation_(536) the marriage of the Lamb with his Bride. This “wife” is now identified with the Church of Rome owing to the arbitrary interpretations of her votaries. But they seem to forget that her “linen” may be “clean and white” _outwardly_, like the “whited sepulchre,” but that the rottenness she is inwardly filled with, is not the “righteousness of saints,”(537) but rather the blood of the saints she has “slain upon the earth.”(538) Thus the remark made by the great Initiate, in _Luke_—referring allegorically to the ray of enlightenment and reason, _falling like lightning_ from on high into the hearts and minds of the converts to the old Wisdom‐Religion, then presented in a new form by the wise Galilean Adept(539)—was distorted out of all recognition, as was also his own personality, and made to fit in with one of the most cruel and the most pernicious of all theological dogmas.

But if Western Theology alone holds the patent and copyright of Satan—in all the dogmatic horror of that fiction—other nationalities and religions have committed equal errors in their misinterpretation of a tenet, which is one of the most profoundly philosophical and ideal conceptions of ancient thought. They have both disfigured, and hinted at, the correct meaning of it in their numerous allegories on the subject. Nor have the semi‐esoteric dogmas of Paurânic Hindûism failed to evolve very suggestive symbols and allegories concerning the rebellious and fallen Gods. The _Purânas_ teem with them; and we find a direct hint at the truth in the frequent allusions of Parâshara, in the _Vishnu Purâna_, to all those Rudras, Rishis, Asuras, Kumâras and Munis, who have _to be born in every age_—to reïncarnate in every Manvantara. This, Esoterically, is equivalent to saying that the “Flames” born of the Universal Mind, or Mahat, owing to the mysterious workings of Karmic Will and the impulse of Evolutionary Law, had—without any gradual transition—landed on this Earth, after having, as in _Pymander_, broken through the “Seven Circles of Fire,” or, in short, the seven intermediate Worlds.

There is an Eternal Cyclic Law of Re‐births, and the series is headed at every new Manvantaric Dawn by those who have enjoyed their rest from reïncarnations in previous Kalpas for incalculable Æons—by the highest and the earliest Nirvânîs. It was the turn of these “Gods” to incarnate in the present Manvantara; hence their presence on Earth, and the ensuing allegories; hence, also, the perversion of the original meaning.(540) The Gods who had “_fallen_ into generation,” whose mission it was to complete _Divine_ Man, are found represented later on as Demons, Evil Spirits, and Fiends, at feud and war with Gods, or the irresponsible agents of the one Eternal Law. But no conception of such creatures as the Devils and the Satan of the Christian, Jewish, and Mahommedan religions was ever intended by these thousand and one Âryan allegories.(541)

The true Esoteric view about “Satan,” the opinion held on this subject by the whole of philosophic antiquity, is admirably brought out in an Appendix, entitled “The Secret of Satan,” to the second edition of Dr. A. Kingsford’s _Perfect Way_.(542) No better and clearer indication of the truth could be offered to the intelligent reader, and it is therefore quoted here at some length:

1. And on the seventh day [seventh creation of the Hindûs],(543)
there went forth from the presence of God a _mighty Angel_, full
of wrath and consuming, and God gave him the dominion of the
outermost sphere.(544)

2. Eternity brought forth Time; the Boundless gave birth to Limit;
Being descended into generation.(545)

4. _Among the Gods is none like unto him_, into whose hands are
committed the kingdoms, the power and the glory of the worlds:

5. Thrones and empires, the dynasties of kings,(546) the fall of
nations, the birth of churches, the triumphs of Time.

For, as is said in Hermes:

20. Satan is the door‐keeper of the _Temple of the King_; he
standeth in Solomon’s porch; he holdeth _the Keys of the
Sanctuary_;

21. That no man may enter therein save the anointed, having the
arcanum of Hermes.

These suggestive and majestic verses had reference, with the ancient Egyptians and other civilized peoples of antiquity, to the _creative and __ generative Light of the Logos_—Horus, Brahmâ, Ahura Mazda, etc., as primeval manifestations of the Ever‐unmanifested Principle, whether called Ain Suph, Parabrahman, or Zeruâna Akerne, or Boundless Time, Kâla—but the meaning is now degraded in the _Kabalah_. The “Anointed”—who has the secrets and mysteries of Hermes, or Budha, Wisdom, and who alone is entrusted with the “Keys of the Sanctuary,” the Womb of Nature, in order to fructify it and call to active life and being the whole Kosmos—has become, with the Jews, Jehovah, the “God of Generation” on the Lunar Mountain—Sinai, the Mountain of the Moon (Sin). The “Sanctuary” has become the “Holy of Holies,” and the arcanum has been anthropomorphized, and “phallicized,” and dragged down into Matter, indeed. Hence arose the necessity of making of the “Dragon of Wisdom,” the “Serpent” of _Genesis_; of the conscious God who needed a body to clothe his too subjective divinity, Satan. But the “innumerable incarnations of Spirit,” and “the ceaseless pulse and current of Desire,”(547) refer, the first, to our doctrine of Karmic and Cyclic Rebirths, the second—to Erôs, not the later God of material, physiological love, but to the Divine Desire in the Gods, as well as in all Nature, to create and give life to Beings. This, the Rays of the one “Dark,” because invisible and incomprehensible, “Flame” could achieve only by themselves descending into Matter. Therefore, as continued in the Appendix:

12. Many names hath God given him [Satan], names of mystery,
secret and terrible.

13. ... The Adversary, because Matter opposeth Spirit, and Time
accuseth even the saints of the Lord.

28. Stand in awe of him, and sin not: speak his name with
trembling....

29. For Satan is the magistrate of the Justice of God [Karma]; he
beareth the balance and the sword.

31. For to him are committed _Weight and Measure and Number_.

Compare the last sentence with what the Rabbi, who explains the Kabalah to the Prince in the Book of _Al Chazari_, says, and it will be found that Weight and Measure and Number are, in the _Sepher Jetzirah_, the attributes of the Sephiroth (the three Sephrim, or figures, ciphers), covering the whole collective number of 10; and that the Sephiroth are the collective Adam Kadmon, the “Heavenly Man” or the Logos. Thus Satan and the Anointed were identified in ancient thought. Therefore:

33. Satan is the minister of God, Lord of the seven mansions of
Hades, the Angel of the manifest Worlds.

The seven Lokas, or Saptaloka, of the Earth with the Hindûs; for Hades, or the Limbo of Illusion, of which Theology makes a region bordering on Hell, _is simply our Globe_, the Earth, and thus Satan is called the “Angel of the _manifest_ Worlds.”

It is “Satan who is the God of our planet and _the only_ God,” and this without any metaphorical allusion to its wickedness and depravity. For he is one with the Logos.

The first and “eldest of the gods,” in the order of microcosmic
[divine] evolution, Saturn (Satan) [astronomically] is the
_seventh and last_ in the order of macrocosmic emanation, being
the circumference of the Kingdom of which Phœbus [the Light of
Wisdom, also the Sun] is the centre.

The Gnostics were right, then, in calling the Jewish God an “Angel of Matter,” or he who breathed (conscious) life into Adam, and whose Planet was Saturn.

34. And God hath put a girdle about his loins [the rings of
Saturn], and the name of the girdle is Death.

In Anthropogony this “girdle” is the human body with its two lower principles. These three die, while the innermost Man is immortal. And now we approach the _secret_ of Satan.

37. ... Upon Satan only _is the shame of generation_.

38. He hath lost his virginal estate [so hath the Kumâra, by
incarnating]: _uncovering heavenly secrets_, he hath entered into
bondage.

39. He encompasseth with bonds and limits all things....

42. Twain are the armies of God: in heaven the hosts of Michael;
in the abyss [the manifested world] the legions of Satan.

43. These are the Unmanifest and the Manifest; the free and the
bound [in Matter]; the virginal and the fallen.

44. And both are the ministers of the Father, fulfilling the Word
divine.

Therefore:

55. Holy and venerable is the Sabbath of God: _blessed and
sanctified is the name of the Angel of Hades_ [Satan].

For:

41. The glory of Satan is the shadow of the Lord [God in the
manifested World]: the throne of Satan is the footstool of Adonai
[the whole Kosmos].

When the Church, therefore, curses Satan, it curses the Kosmic reflection of God; it anathematizes God made manifest in Matter or in the objective; it maledicts God, or the ever‐incomprehensible Wisdom, revealing itself as Light and Shadow, Good and Evil in Nature, in the only manner comprehensible to the limited intellect of Man.

This is the true philosophical and metaphysical interpretation of Samael, or Satan, the Adversary in the _Kabalah_; the same tenets and spirit being found in the allegorical interpretations of every other ancient religion. This philosophical view does not interfere, however, with the historical records connected with it. We say “historical,” because allegory and mythical ornamentation round the kernel of tradition, in nowise prevent that kernel being a record of real events. Thus, the _Kabalah_, repeating the time‐honoured revelations of the once universal history of our Globe and the evolution of its Races, has presented it under the legendary form of the various records which have formed the _Bible_. Its historical foundation, in however imperfect a form, is now offered in these pages from the Secret Doctrine of the East; and thus the allegorical and symbolical meaning of the Serpent of _Genesis_ is found explained by the “Sons of Wisdom”—or Angels from higher Spheres, though all and each pertain to the Kingdom of Satan, or Matter—revealing to men the mysteries of Heaven. Hence, also, all the so‐called myths of the Hindû, Grecian, Chaldæan, and Jewish Pantheons are found to be built on fact and truth. The Giants of _Genesis_ are the historical Atlanteans of Lankâ, and the Greek Titans.

Who can forget that Troy was once upon a time proclaimed a myth, and Homer a non‐existent personage, while the existence of such cities as Herculaneum and Pompeii was denied, and attributed to mere fairy legends? Yet Schliemann has proved that Troy did really exist, and the two latter cities, though buried for long ages under the Vesuvian lava, have had their resurrection day, and live again on the surface of the Earth. How many more cities and localities called “fabulous” are on the list of future discoveries, how many more personages regarded as mythical(548) will one day become historical, those alone can tell who read the decrees of Fate in the Astral Light.

As the tenets of the Eastern Doctrine, however, have always been kept secret, and as the reader can hardly hope to be shown the original texts unless he becomes an accepted disciple, let the Greek and Latin scholar turn to the original texts of Hermetic literature. Let him, for instance, read carefully the opening pages of the _Pymander_ of Hermes Trismegistus, and he will see our doctrines corroborated therein, however veiled its text. There also he will find the evolution of the Universe, of our Earth, called “Nature” in _Pymander_, as of everything else, from the “Moyst Principle,” or the great Deep, Father‐Mother—the first differentiation in the manifested Kosmos. First the “Universal Mind,” which the hand of the Christian translator has metamorphosed in the earliest renderings into God, the Father; then the “Heavenly Man,”(549) the great Total of that Host of Angels, which was too pure for the creation of the inferior Worlds or of the Men of our Globe, but which nevertheless _fell_ into Matter by virtue of that same evolution, as the Second Logos of the “Father.”(550)

Synthetically, every Creative Logos, or “the Son who is one with the Father,” is the Host of the Rectores Mundi in itself. Even Christian Theology makes of the seven “Angels of the Presence” the Virtues, or the personified attributes, of God, which, being created by him, as the Manus were by Brahmâ, became Archangels. The Roman Catholic Theodice itself, recognizing in its creative Verbum Princeps the Head of these Angels (_caput angelorum_) and the Angel of the great Counsel (_magni consilii angelus_), thus recognizes the identity of Christ with them.

“The Sura became A‐Sura”—the Gods became No‐Gods—says the text; _i.e._, Gods became Fiends—Satan, when read literally. But Satan will now be shown, in the teaching of the Secret Doctrine, to be allegorized as Good and Sacrifice, a God of Wisdom, under different names.

The _Kabalah_ teaches that Pride and Presumption—the two chief prompters of Selfishness and Egotism—are the causes that emptied Heaven of _one‐ third_ of its divine denizens, mystically, and of _one‐third_ of the stars, astronomically; in other words, the first statement is an allegory, and the second a fact. The former, nevertheless, is, as shown, intimately connected with humanity.

In their turn the Rosicrucians, who were well acquainted with the secret meaning of the tradition, kept it to themselves, teaching merely that the whole of “creation” was due to, and the result of, that legendary “War in Heaven,” brought on by the rebellion of the Angels(551) against Creative Law, or the Demiurge. The statement is correct, but the _inner_ meaning is to this day a mystery. To elude further explanation of the difficulty, by appealing to divine mystery, or to the sin of prying into its policy—is to say nothing at all. It may prove sufficient for believers in the Pope’s infallibility, but will hardly satisfy the philosophical mind. Yet the truth, although known to most of the higher Kabalists, has never been told by any of their number. One and all, Kabalists and Symbologists, have shown an extraordinary reluctance to confess the primitive meaning of the Fall of the Angels. In a Christian such silence is only natural. Neither Alchemist nor Philosopher during the Mediæval Ages could have uttered that(552) which in the sight of Orthodox Theology was terrible blasphemy, for it would have led them directly through the “Holy” Office of the Inquisition, to rack and stake. But for our modern Kabalists and Freethinkers the case is different. With the latter, we fear, it is merely human pride, vanity based on a loudly rejected but ineradicable superstition. Since the Church, in her struggle with Manicheeïsm, invented the Devil, and by placing a theological extinguisher on the radiant Star‐ God Lucifer, the “Son of the Morning,” thus created the most gigantic of all her paradoxes, _a black and tenebrous_ Light—the myth has struck its roots too deeply into the soil of blind faith to permit, in our age, even those, who do not acquiesce in her dogmas, and laugh at her horned and cloven‐footed Satan, to come out bravely and confess the antiquity of the oldest of all traditions. In a few brief words it is this. Semi‐ exoterically, the “First‐born” of the Almighty—Fiat Lux—or the Angels of Primordial Light, were commanded to “create”; one‐third of them rebelled and “refused”; while those who “obeyed” as Fetahil did—_failed_ most signally.

To realize the refusal and failure in their correct physical meaning, one must study and understand Eastern Philosophy; one has to be acquainted with the fundamental mystical tenets of the Vedântins, as to the utter fallacy of attributing functional activity to the Infinite and Absolute Deity. Esoteric Philosophy maintains that during the Sandhyâs, the “Central Sun” emits _Creative Light_—passively, so to say. Causality is latent. It is only during the active periods of Being that it gives rise to a stream of ceaseless Energy, whose vibrating currents acquire more activity and potency with every rung of the hebdomadic ladder of Being which they descend. Hence it becomes comprehensible how the process of “creating,” or rather of fashioning, the organic Universe, with all its units of the seven kingdoms, necessitated intelligent Beings—who became collectively a Being or Creative God, differentiated already from the One Absolute Unity, unrelated as the latter is to conditioned “creation.”(553)

Now the Vatican MS. of the _Kabalah_—the only copy of which (in Europe) is said to have been in the possession of Count St. Germain—contains the most complete exposition of the doctrine, including the peculiar version accepted by the Luciferians(554) and other Gnostics; and in that parchment the “Seven Suns of Life” are given in the order in which they are found in the Saptasûrya. Only four of these, however, are mentioned in the editions of the _Kabalah_ which are procurable in public libraries, and that even in a more or less veiled phraseology. Nevertheless even this reduced number is amply sufficient to show an identical origin, as it refers to the quaternary group of the Dhyân Chohans, and proves the speculation to have had its origin in the Secret Doctrines of the Âryans. As is well known, the _Kabalah_ did not originate with the Jews, for the latter got their ideas from the Chaldæans and the Egyptians.

Thus even the _exoteric_ Kabalistic teachings speak of a “Central Sun,” and of three secondary Suns in each Solar System—our own included. As shown in that able though too materialistic work, _New Aspects of Life and Religion_, which is a synopsis of the views of the Kabalists in an aspect deeply thought out and assimilated:

The central sun ... was to them [as much as to the Âryans] the
_centre of rest_; the centre to which all motion was to be
ultimately referred. Round this central sun ... “the first of
three systemic suns ... revolved on a polar plane ... the second,
on an equatorial plane” ... and the third only was our visible
sun. These four solar bodies were “_the organs on whose action
what man calls the creation, the evolution of life on the planet
earth, depends_.” The channels through which the influence of
these bodies was conveyed to the earth they [the Kabalists] held
to be electrical.... The radiant energy flowing from the central
sun(555) called the earth into being as a watery globe, ... [whose
tendency], as the nucleus of a planetary body, was to rush to the
(central) sun ... within the sphere of whose attraction it had
been created.... But the radiant energy, similarly electrifying
both, withheld the one from the other, and so changed motion
towards into motion round the centre of attraction, which the
revolving planet [earth] thus sought to reach.

In the organic cell the _visible sun_ found its own proper matrix,
and produced through this the animal [while maturing the
vegetable] kingdom, finally placing man at its head, in whom,
through the animating action of that kingdom, it originated the
psychic cell. But the man so placed at the head of the animal
kingdom, at the head of the creation, was the animal, the _soul‐
less, the perishable man_.... Hence man, although apparently its
crown, would, by his advent have marked the close of creation;
since creation, culminating in him, would at his death have
entered on its decline.(556)

This Kabalistic view is here quoted, to show its perfect identity in spirit with the Eastern Doctrine. Explain, or complete the teaching of the Seven Suns with the seven systems of Planes of Being, of which the “Suns” are the central bodies, and you have the seven Angelic Planes, whose “Host” collectively are the Gods thereof.(557) They are the Head Group divided into four Classes, from the Incorporeal down to the Semi‐ corporeal. These Classes are directly connected—though in very different ways as regards voluntary connection and functions—with our mankind. They are three, synthesized by the fourth, the first and highest, which is called the “Central Sun” in the Kabalistic doctrine just quoted. This is the great difference between the Semitic and the Âryan Cosmogony—one materializing, humanizes the mysteries of Nature; the other spiritualizes Matter, and its physiology is always made subservient to metaphysics. Thus, though the seventh “principle” reaches man through all the phases of Being, pure as an indiscrete element and an impersonal unity, it passes through—the _Kabalah_ teaches _from_—the Central Spiritual Sun and Group the Second, the Polar Sun, which two radiate on man his Âtmâ. Group Three, the Equatorial Sun, cements the Buddhi to Âtman and the higher attributes of Manas; while Group Four, the Spirit of our visible Sun, endows him with his Manas and its vehicle, the Kâma Rûpa, or body of passions and desires—the two elements of Ahamkâra which evolve _individualized consciousness_, the personal Ego. Finally, it is the Spirit of the Earth, in its triple unity, that builds the Physical Body, attracting to it the Spirits of Life and forming his Linga Sharîra.

But everything proceeds cyclically, the evolution of man like everything else, and the order in which he is generated is described fully in the Eastern Teachings, whereas it is only hinted at in the _Kabalah_. Says the _Book of Dzyan_ with regard to Primeval Man when first projected by the “Boneless,” the Incorporeal Creator:

_First, the Breath, then Buddhi, and the Shadow‐Son [the Body] were __“__created.__”__ But where was the Pivot [the Middle Principle, Manas]? Man is doomed. When alone, the Indiscrete [Undifferentiated Element] and the Vâhan [Buddhi]—the Cause of the Causeless—break asunder from manifested life._

“_Unless_,” explains the Commentary:

_Unless cemented and held together by the Middle Principle, the Vehicle of the personal consciousness of Jîva._

In other words, the two higher “principles” _can have no individuality on Earth_, cannot be _man_, unless there is (_a_) the Mind, the Manas‐Ego, to cognize itself, and (_b_) the terrestrial false Personality, or the Body of egotistical desires and personal Will, to cement the whole, as if round a Pivot—which it is, truly—to the physical form of man. It is the _fifth_ and the _fourth_ “principles”(558)—Manas and Kâma Rûpa—that contain the dual Personality; the real immortal Ego, if it assimilates itself to the two higher, and the false and transitory Personality, the Mâyâvi or Astral Body, so‐called, or the Animal‐human Soul—the two having to be closely blended for purposes of a _full_ terrestrial existence. Incarnate the Spiritual Monad of a Newton, grafted on that of the greatest saint on Earth, in a physical body the most perfect you can think of—_i.e._, in a two or even a three‐principled Body composed of its Sthûla Sharîra, Prâna (Life‐principle) and Linga Sharîra—and, if it lacks its middle and fifth “principles,” you will have created _an idiot_—at best a beautiful, soul‐ less, empty and unconscious appearance. “_Cogito—ergo sum_” can find no room in the brain of such a creature, not on this plane, at any rate.

There are students, however, who have long ago understood the philosophical meaning underlying the allegory—so tortured and disfigured by the Roman Church—of the “Fallen Angels.”

The kingdom of spirits and spiritual action, which flows from and
is the product of spirit volition, is outside and contrasted with
and in contradiction to the kingdom of [divine] souls and divine
action.(559)

As said in the text of Commentary xiv:

_Like produces like and no more at the genesis of Being, and evolution with its limited conditioned laws comes later. The Self Existent_(_560_)_ are called __“__Creations,__”__ for they appear in the Spirit‐Ray, manifested through the potency inherent in its Unborn Nature, which is beyond Time and [limited or conditioned] Space. Terrene products, animate and inanimate, including mankind, are falsely called creation and creatures; they are the development [evolution] of the Discrete Elements._

Again:

_The Heavenly Rûpa [Dhyân Chohan] creates [man] in his own form; it is a spiritual ideation consequent on the first differentiation and awakening of the universal [manifested] Substance; that form is the ideal Shadow of Itself: and this is the Man of the First Race._

To express it in still clearer form, limiting the explanation to this Earth only, it was the duty of the first “differentiated” Egos—the Church calls them Archangels—to imbue Primordial Matter with the evolutionary impulse and guide its formative powers in the fashioning of its productions. This it is which is referred to in the sentences both in the Eastern and Western tradition—“the Angels were _commanded to create_.” After the Earth had been made ready by the _lower_ and more material Powers, and its three Kingdoms fairly started on their way to be “fruitful and multiply,” the higher Powers, the Archangels or Dhyânîs, were compelled by the Evolutionary Law to descend on Earth, in order to construct the crown of its evolution—Man. Thus the “Self‐created” and the “Self‐existent” projected their pale Shadows; but Group the Third, the Fire‐Angels, _rebelled and refused_ to join their fellow Devas.

Hindû exotericism represents them all as Yogins, whose piety inspired them to refuse to “create,” as they desired to remain eternally Kumâras, “Virgin Youths,” in order, if possible, to anticipate their fellows in progress towards Nirvâna‐the final liberation. But, agreeably to Esoteric interpretation, it was a self‐sacrifice for the benefit of mankind. The “Rebels” would not create will‐less irresponsible men, as the “obedient” Angels did; nor could they endow human beings with even the temporary reflections of their own attributes; for the latter, belonging to another and a so much higher plane of consciousness, would leave man still irresponsible, hence interfere with any possibility of higher progress. No spiritual and psychic evolution is possible on Earth—the lowest and most material plane—for one who, on that plane at all events, is inherently _perfect_ and cannot accumulate either merit or demerit. Had Man remained the pale Shadow of the inert, immutable, and motionless Perfection, the one negative and passive attribute of the real _I am that I am_, he would have been doomed to pass through life on Earth as in a heavy dreamless sleep; hence a failure on this plane. The Beings, or the Being, collectively called Elohim, who first pronounced (if, indeed, they ever were pronounced) the cruel words, “Behold, the man is become _as one of us_, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ...”—must have been indeed the Ilda‐baoth, the Demiurge of the Nazarenes, filled with rage and envy against his own creature, the reflection of which created Ophiomorphos. In this case it is but natural—even from the dead‐letter standpoint—to view Satan, the Serpent of _Genesis_, as the real creator and benefactor, the Father of Spiritual Mankind. For it is he who was the “Harbinger of Light,” bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton “created” by Jehovah, as alleged. And he who was the first to whisper, “in the day ye eat thereof ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil,” can only be regarded in the light of a Saviour. An “Adversary” to Jehovah, the “_personating_ spirit,” he still remains in Esoteric Truth the ever‐loving “Messenger,” the Angel, the Seraphim and Cherubim who both “knew” well, and “loved” still more, and who conferred on us Spiritual, instead of Physical Immortality—the latter a kind of _static_ immortality that would have transformed man into an undying “Wandering Jew.”

As narrated in King’s _Gnostics and their Remains_ concerning Ildabaoth, whom several sects regarded as the God of Moses:

Ildabaoth was far from being a pure spirit; ambition and pride
dominated in his composition. He therefore resolved to break off
all connection with his mother, Achamoth, and to create a world
entirely for himself. Aided by his own Six Spirits, he created
Man, intending him for the image of his power; but he failed
utterly in his work, his Man proving a vast, soulless monster,
crawling upon the earth. The Six Spirits were obliged to bring
their work again before their father, to be animated: he did so by
communicating the ray of Divine Light which he himself had
inherited from Achamoth, who by this loss punished him for his
pride and self‐sufficiency.

Man, thus favoured by Achamoth at the expense of her own son,
followed the impulse of the Divine Light that she had transferred
to him, collected a further supply out of the creation with which
it was intermingled, and began to present not the image of his
creator Ildabaoth, but rather that of the Supreme Being, the
“Primal Man.” At this spectacle the Demiurgus was filled with rage
and envy at having produced a being so superior to himself. His
looks, inspired by his passions, were reflected in the Abyss, as
in a mirror, the image became instinct with life, and forth arose
“Satan Serpent‐formed,” _Ophiomorphos_, the embodiment of envy and
cunning.(561)

This is the exoteric rendering of the Gnostics, and the allegory, though a sectarian version, is suggestive, and seems true to life. It is the natural deduction from the dead‐letter text of Chapter iii of _Genesis_. Hence the allegory of Prometheus, who steals the Divine Fire so as to allow men to proceed consciously on the path of Spiritual Evolution, thus transforming the most perfect of _animals_ on Earth into a potential God, and making him free to “take the kingdom of heaven by violence.” Hence, also, the _curse_ pronounced by Zeus against Prometheus, and by Jehovah‐ Ilda‐baoth against his “rebellious son,” Satan. The cold, pure snows of the Caucasian mountain and the never‐dying, singeing fire and flames of an inextinguishable Hell, two poles, yet the same idea, the dual aspect of a refined torture; a “Fire‐producer”—the personified emblem of Φωσφόρος (_Phósphoros_), of the Astral Fire and Light in the Anima Mundi (that Element of which the German materialist philosopher Moleschott said: “ohne _Phosphor_ kein Gedanke,” or “without phosphorus no thought”)—burning in the fierce Flames of his terrestrial Passions; the conflagration fired by his Thought, discerning as it now does good from evil, and yet a slave to the passions of its earthly Adam; feeling the vulture of doubt and full consciousness gnawing at its heart—a Prometheus indeed, because a _conscious_, and hence a _responsible_ entity.(562) The curse of life is great, yet, with the exception of some Hindû and Sufi mystics, how few are those who would exchange all the tortures of conscious life, all the evils of a responsible existence, for the unconscious perfection of a passive (objectively) _incorporeal_ Being, or even the universal static Inertia personified in Brahmâ during his “Night’s” Rest. For, to quote from an able article by one(563) who, confusing the planes of existence and consciousness, fell a victim thereto:

Satan [or Lucifer] represents the _Active_, or, as [M. Jules]
Baissac calls it, the “Centrifugal” Energy of the Universe [in a
cosmic sense]. He is Fire, Light, Life, Struggle, Effort, Thought,
Consciousness, Progress, Civilization, Liberty, Independence. At
the same time he is _Pain_, which is the Reaction of the
_Pleasure_ of Action, and _Death_—which is the Revolution of
_Life_—Satan, burning in his own Hell, produced by the fury of his
own momentum—the expansive disintegration of the Nebula which is
to concentrate into New Worlds. And fitly is he again and again
baffled by the Eternal Inertia of the _Passive_ Energy of the
Kosmos—the inexorable “_I am_”—the Flint from which the sparks are
beaten out. And fitly ... are he and his adherents ... consigned
to the “Sea of Fire”—because _it is_ the Sun [in one sense only in
the cosmic allegory], the Fount of Life in _our_ system, where
they are purified (meaning thereby disintegrated) and churned up
to reärrange them for another life (the Resurrection)—that _Sun_
which, as the Origin of the Active Principle of our Earth, is at
once the _Home_ and the _Source_ of the Mundane Satan....

Furthermore, as if to demonstrate the accuracy of Baissac’s
general theory [in _Le Diable et Satan_] cold is known to have a
“Centripetal” effect. Under the influence of Cold everything
contracts.... Under it Life _hybernates_, or dies out, Thought
congeals, and Fire is extinguished. Satan is immortal in his own
Fire‐Sea—it is only in the “Nifl‐Heim” [the cold Hell of the
Scandinavian _Eddas_] of the “_I am_” that he cannot exist. But
for all that there is a kind of _Immortal_ Existence in Nifl‐Heim,
and that Existence must be _Painless_ and _Peaceful_, because it
is _Unconscious_ and _Inactive_. In the Kingdom of _Jehovah_ [if
this God were all that the Jews and Christians claim for him]
there is no misery, no war, no marrying and giving in marriage, no
change, no _Individual Consciousness_.(564) All is absorbed in the
spirit of the Most Powerful. _It is emphatically a Kingdom of
Peace and loyal Submission, as that of the __“__Arch‐Rebel__”__ is
one of War and Revolution...._ It [the former] is in fact what
Theosophy calls Nirvâna. But then Theosophy teaches that
Separation from the Primal Source _having once occurred_, Reünion
can only be achieved by _Will‐Effort_—which is distinctly Satanic
in the sense of this essay.(565)

It _is_ “Satanic” from the standpoint of orthodox Romanism, for it is owing to the prototype of that which became in time the Christian Devil—to the Radiant Archangels, Dhyân Chohans, who refused to create, because they wanted Man _to become his own creator_ and an immortal God—that men can reach Nirvâna and the Haven of heavenly Divine Peace.

To close this rather lengthy comment, the Secret Doctrine teaches that the Fire‐Devas, the Rudras, and the Kumâras, the “Virgin‐Angels,” (to whom the Archangels, Michael and Gabriel, both belong,) the Divine “Rebels”—called by the all‐materializing and positive Jews, the Nahash or “Deprived”—preferred the _curse_ of _incarnation_ and the long cycles of terrestrial existence and rebirths, to seeing the misery, even if _unconscious_, of the beings who were evolved as Shadows out of their Brethren, through the semi‐passive energy of their _too spiritual_ Creators. If “man’s uses of life should be such as neither to animalize nor to spiritualize, but to _humanize_ Self,”(566) to do so, he must be born _human_ not angelic. Hence, tradition shows the celestial Yogîs offering themselves as voluntary victims in order to redeem Humanity, which was created god‐like and perfect at first, and endow him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they had to give up their natural status, descend on our Globe, and take up their abode on it for the whole cycle of the Mahâyuga, thus exchanging their impersonal Individualities for individual Personalities—the bliss of sidereal existence for the curse of terrestrial life. This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature was _Knowledge_ and _Love_, has been construed by the exoteric theologies into a statement that shows “the Rebel Angels hurled down from Heaven into the darkness of Hell”—our Earth. Hindû Philosophy hints at the truth by teaching that the Asuras, hurled down by Shiva, are only in an _intermediate state_, in which they prepare for higher degrees of purification and redemption from their wretched condition; but Christian Theology—claiming to be based on the rock of the divine love, charity, and justice of him it appeals to as its Saviour—to paradoxically enforce that claim, has invented the dreary dogma of Hell, that Archimedean lever of Roman Catholic philosophy.

Whereas Rabbinical wisdom—than which there is none more positive, materialistic, or grossly terrestrial, as it brings everything down to physiological mysteries—calls these Beings, the “Evil One”; and the Kabalists—Nahash, “Deprived,” as just said, and the Souls that have, _after having been alienated in Heaven from the Holy One_, thrown themselves into an Abyss at the dawn of their very existence, and have anticipated the time when they are to descend on Earth.(567)

And let me explain at once that our quarrel is not with the _Zohar_ or any other book of the _Kabalah_ in its right interpretation—for the latter is the same as our own—but only with the gross, _pseudo_‐esoteric explanations of the later, and especially of the Christian Kabalists.

Says the Commentary:

_Our earth and man [are] the products of the three Fires._

The names of these three answer, in Sanskrit, to the “Electric Fire,” the “Solar Fire,” and the “Fire produced by Friction.” Explained on the cosmic and human planes, these three Fires are Spirit, Soul, and Body, the three great Root Groups, with their four additional divisions. These vary with the Schools, and—according to their applications—become the Upâdhis and the Vehicles, or the Noumena of these. In the exoteric accounts, they are personified by the “three sons of surpassing brilliancy and splendour” of Agni Abhimânin, the eldest son of Brahmâ, the Cosmic Logos, by Svâhâ, one of Daksha’s(568) daughters. In the metaphysical sense, the “Fire by Friction” means the union between Buddhi, the sixth, and Manas, the fifth “principle,” which thus are united or cemented together, the fifth merging partially into and becoming part of the Monad; in the physical, it relates to the “creative spark,” or germ, which fructifies and generates the human being. The three Fires, whose names are Pâvaka, Pavamâna and Shuchi, were condemned, it is said, by a curse of Vasishtha, the great Sage, “to be born over and over again.”(569) This is clear enough.

Therefore, the Flames, whose functions are confused in the exoteric books, and who are called indifferently Prajâpatis, Pitris, Manus, Asuras, Rishis, Kumâras,(570) etc., are said to incarnate personally in the Third Root‐Race and thus find themselves “reborn over and over again.” In the Esoteric Doctrine they are generally named Asuras, or the Asura Devatâ or Pitar Devatâ (Gods), for, as said, they were first Gods—and the highest—before they became “_No_‐Gods,” and had from Spirits of Heaven fallen into Spirits of Earth(571)—_exoterically_, note well, in orthodox dogma.

No Theologian or Orientalist can ever understand the genealogies of the Prajâpatis, the Manus, and the Rishis, or the direct connection of these—their correlation rather—with the Gods, unless he has the key to the old primitive Cosmogony and Theogony, which all nations originally had in common. All these Gods and Demi‐gods are found reborn on Earth, in various Kalpas and in as various characters; each, moreover, _having his Karma distinctly traced, and every effect assigned to its cause_.

Before other Stanzas could be explained, it was, as may be seen, absolutely necessary to show that the Sons of “Dark Wisdom,” though identical with the Archangels which Theology has chosen to call the “Fallen,” are as divine and as pure, if not more pure, than all the Michaels and Gabriels so glorified in the Churches. The “Old Book” also goes into various details of Astral Life, which at this juncture would be quite incomprehensible to the reader. It must, therefore, be left for later explanation, and the First and Second Races will now receive only bare notice. Not so the Third Race—the Root‐Race which separated into sexes, and which was the first to be endowed with reason; men evolving _pari passu_ with the Globe, and the latter having “incrustated” more than a hundred millions of years before the first human sub‐race had yet begun to materialize or solidify, so to say. But, as the Stanza has it:

_The Inner Man [the Conscious Entity] was not._

This “Conscious Entity” Occultism says, comes from, nay, in many cases _is_, the very essence and _esse_ of the high Intelligences, condemned, by the undeviating law of Karmic evolution, to reïncarnate in this Manvantara.