Chapter XVIII: Part I: Anthropogenesis (16)

This may help us to get at the key of the seemingly hopeless confusion among the numbers of names and titles given to one and the same Gods, and classes of Gods. Faber, at the beginning of this century, showed the identity of the Corybantes, Curetes, Dioscuri, Anactes, Dii Magni, Idei, Dactyli, Lares, Penates, Manes,(803) Titans, and Aletæ with the Kabiri. And we have shown that the latter were the same as the Manus, the Rishis, and our Dhyân Chohans who incarnated in the Elect of the Third and Fourth Races. Thus, while in Theogony the Kabiri‐Titans were seven Great Gods, cosmically and astronomically the Titans were called Atlantes, because, perhaps, as Faber says, they were connected with _at‐al‐as_, the “divine sun,” and with _tit_, the “deluge.” But this, if true, is only the exoteric version. Esoterically, the meaning of their symbols depends on the appellation, or title, used. The seven mysterious, awe‐inspiring Great Gods—the Dioscuri,(804) the deities surrounded with the darkness of Occult Nature—become the Idei Dactyli, or Ideic “Fingers,” with the Adept‐healers by metals. The true etymology of the name Lares, now signifying “Ghosts,” must be sought in the Etruscan word _lars_, “conductor,” “leader.” Sanchuniathon translates the word Aletæ as “fire worshippers,” and Faber believes it to be derived from _al‐orit_, the “God of fire.” Both are right, for in both cases it is a reference to the Sun, the “highest” God, toward whom the Planetary Gods “gravitate” (astronomically and allegorically), and whom they worship. As Lares, they are truly the Solar Deities, though Faber’s etymology, that “Lar is a contraction of El‐Ar, the solar deity,”(805) is not very correct. They are the Lares, the Conductors and Leaders of men. As Aletæ, they were the seven Planets—astronomically; and as Lares, the Regents of these Planets, our Protectors and Rulers—mystically. For purposes of exoteric or phallic worship, and also cosmically, they were the Kabiri, whose attributes and dual capacities were denoted by the names of the temples to which they respectively belonged, and also by those of their priests. They all belonged, however, to the septenary creative and informing groups of Dhyân Chohans. The Sabæans, who worshipped the “Regents of the Seven Planets” just as the Hindûs worship their Rishis, held Seth and his son Hermes (Enoch or Enos) as the highest among the Planetary Gods. Seth and Enos were borrowed from the Sabæans and then disfigured by the Jews (exoterically); but the truth about them can still be discovered even in _Genesis_.(806) Seth is the “Progenitor” of those early men of the Third Race in whom the Planetary Angels had incarnated; he was himself a Dhyân Chohan and belonged to the _informing_ Gods, and Enos (Hanoch or Enoch), or Hermes, was said to be his _son_—Enos being a generic name for all the early “Seers” (Enoïchion). Thence the worship. The Arabic writer Soyuti says that the earliest records mention Seth, or Set, as the founder of Sabaism, and that the pyramids which embody the planetary system were regarded as the place of sepulchre of both Seth and Idrus (Hermes or Enoch);(807) that thither Sabæans proceeded on pilgrimage, and chanted prayers _seven times_ a day, _turning to the North_ (Mount Meru, Kaph, Olympus, etc.).(808) Abd Allatif also tells us some curious things about the Sabæans and their books. So also does Eddin Ahmed Ben Yahya, who wrote 200 years later. While the latter maintains “that each pyramid was consecrated to a _star_” (a Star _Regent_ rather), Abd Allatif assures us that he had read in ancient Sabæan books that “one pyramid was the tomb of Agathodæmon and the other of Hermes”:(809)

Agathodæmon was none other than Seth, and, according to some
writers, Hermes was his son,

adds Mr. Staniland Wake in _The Great Pyramid_.(810)

Thus, while in Samothrace and the oldest Egyptian temples the Kabiri were the Great Cosmic Gods—the Seven and the _Forty‐nine_ Sacred Fires—in the Grecian fanes their rites became mostly phallic, and therefore, to the profane, obscene. In the latter case they were three and four, or seven—the male and female principles—the _crux ansata_. This division shows why some classical writers held that they were only three, while others named four. And these were Axieros (in his female aspect Demeter); Axiokersa (Persephone);(811) Axiokersos (Pluto or Hades); and Kadmos or Kasmilos (Hermes—not the ithyphallic Hermes mentioned by Herodotus,(812) but “he of the sacred legend,” which was explained only during the Samothracian Mysteries). This identification, which is due, according to the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius,(813) to an indiscretion of Mnaseas, is really no identification at all, as names alone do not reveal much.(814) Others again have maintained, being equally right in their way, that there were only two Kabiri. These were, esoterically, the two Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, and exoterically, Jupiter and Bacchus. These two personified the terrestrial poles, geodesically; the terrestrial pole, and the pole of the heavens, astronomically; and also the physical and the spiritual man. The story of Semele and Jupiter and the birth of Bacchus, Bimater, with all the circumstances attending it, needs only to be read esoterically for the understanding of the allegory. The parts played in the event by the Fire, Water, Earth, etc., in the many versions, will show how the “Father of the Gods” and the “merry God of Wine” were also made to personify the two terrestrial poles. The telluric, metalline, magnetic, electric and the fiery elements are all so many allusions and references to the cosmic and astronomic character of the diluvian tragedy. In Astronomy, the poles are indeed the “heavenly measure”; and so are the Kabiri‐Dioscuri, as will be shown, and the Kabiri‐Titans, to whom Diodorus ascribes the “invention of Fire”(815) and the art of manufacturing iron. Moreover, Pausanias(816) shows that the original Kabiric deity was Prometheus.

But the fact that, astronomically, the Titan‐Kabirim were also the Generators and Regulators of the Seasons, and, cosmically, the great Volcanic Energies—the Gods presiding over all the metals and terrestrial works—does not prevent them from being, in their original divine characters, the beneficent Entities who, symbolized in Prometheus, brought light to the world, and endowed Humanity with intellect and reason. They are preëminently in every Theogony—especially in the Hindû—the Sacred Divine Fires, Three, Seven, or Forty‐nine, according as the allegory demands it. Their very names prove it, for they are the Agni‐putra, or Sons of the Fire, in India, and the Genii of the Fire under numerous names in Greece and elsewhere. Welcker, Maury, and now Decharme, show the name _kabeiros_ meaning “the powerful through fire,” from the Greek καίω “to burn.” The Semitic word _kabirim_ contains the idea of “the powerful, the mighty, and the great,” answering to the Greek μεγάλοι, δυνατοί, but these are later epithets. These Gods were universally worshipped, and their origin is lost in the night of time. Yet whether propitiated in Phrygia, Phœnicia, the Troad, Thrace, Egypt, Lemnos or Sicily, their cult was always connected with Fire, their temples ever built in the most volcanic localities, and in exoteric worship they belonged to the Chthonian Divinities, and therefore has Christianity made of them _Infernal_ Gods.

They are truly “the great, beneficent and powerful Gods,” as Cassius Hermone calls them.(817) At Thebes, Core and Demeter, the Kabirim, had a sanctuary,(818) and at Memphis, the Kabiri had a temple so sacred, that none, excepting the priests, were suffered to enter its holy precincts.(819) But we must not, at the same time, lose sight of the fact that the title of Kabiri was generic; that the Kabiri, the mighty Gods as well as mortals, were of both sexes, and also terrestrial, celestial and cosmic; that while, in their later capacity of rulers of sidereal and terrestrial powers, a purely geological phenomenon—as it is now regarded—was symbolized in the persons of those rulers, they were also, in the beginning of times, the Rulers of Mankind, when, incarnated as Kings of the “Divine Dynasties,” they gave the first impulse to civilization, and directed the mind with which they had endued men, to the invention and perfection of all the arts and sciences. Thus the Kabiri are said to have appeared as the benefactors of men, and as such they lived for ages in the memory of nations. To these Kabiri or Titans is ascribed the invention of letters (the Deva‐nâgari, or alphabet and language of the Gods), of laws and legislature, of architecture, as also of the various modes of magic, so‐called, and of the medical use of plants. Hermes, Orpheus, Cadmus, Asclepius, all those Demi‐gods and Heroes, to whom is ascribed the revelation of sciences to men, and in whom Bryant, Faber, Bishop Cumberland, and so many other Christian writers—too zealous for plain truth—would force posterity to see only Pagan copies of one sole prototype, named Noah—all are generic names.

It is the Kabiri who are credited with having revealed the great boon of agriculture, by _producing_ corn or wheat. What Isis‐Osiris, the once living Kabiria, did in Egypt, that Ceres is said to have done in Sicily; they all belong to one class.

That serpents were ever emblems of wisdom and prudence is again shown by the Caduceus of Mercury, one with Thot, the God of Wisdom, with Hermes, and so on. The two serpents, entwined round the rod, are phallic symbols of Jupiter and other Gods who transformed themselves into snakes for purposes of seducing Goddesses—only in the unclean fancies of profane Symbologists. The serpent has ever been the symbol of the Adept, and of his powers of immortality and divine knowledge. Mercury, in his psychopompic character, conducting and guiding the souls of the dead to Hades with his Caduceus and even raising them to life with it, is a simple and very transparent allegory. It shows the dual power of the Secret Wisdom: black and white Magic. It shows this personified Wisdom guiding the Soul after death, and displaying the power of calling to life that which is dead—a very deep metaphor if one but thinks over its meaning. All the peoples of antiquity, with one exception, reverenced this symbol; the exception being the Christians, who chose to forget the “brazen serpent” of Moses, and even the implied acknowledgment of the great wisdom and prudence of the “serpent” by Jesus himself, “Be ye _wise_ as serpents and harmless as doves.” The Chinese, one of the oldest nations of our Fifth Race, made of it the emblem of their Emperors, who are thus the degenerate successors of the “Serpents” or Initiates, who ruled the early races of the Fifth Humanity. The Emperor’s throne is the “Dragon’s Seat,” and his dresses of State are embroidered with the likeness of the Dragon. The aphorisms in the oldest books of China, moreover, say plainly that the Dragon is a human, albeit _divine_, Being. Speaking of the “Yellow Dragon,” the chief of the others, the _Twan‐ying‐t’u_ says:

His wisdom and virtue are unfathomable ... he does not go in
company and does not live in herds [he is an ascetic].... He
wanders in the wilds beyond the heavens. He goes and comes,
fulfilling the decree [Karma]; at the proper seasons if there is
perfection he comes forth, if not he remains [invisible].

And Lü‐lan asserts that Confucius said:

The Dragon feeds in the pure (water) [of Wisdom] and disports in
the clear (water) [of Life].(820)

Our Divine Instructors.

Now Atlantis and the Phlegyan Isle are not the only records left of the Deluge. China has also her tradition and the story of an island or continent, which it calls Ma‐li‐ga‐si‐ma, and which Kæmpfer and Faber spell “Maurigasima,” for some mysterious phonetic reasons of their own. Kæmpfer, in his _Japan_,(821) gives the tradition: The island, owing to the iniquity of its giants, sinks to the bottom of the ocean, and Peiruun, the king, the Chinese Noah, escapes alone with his family owing to a warning of the Gods through two idols. It is that pious prince and his descendants who have peopled China. The Chinese traditions speak of the Divine Dynasties of Kings as frequently as do those of any other nation.

At the same time there is not an old fragment but shows belief in a multiform and even multigeneric evolution of human beings—spiritual, psychic, intellectual, and physical—just as is described in the present work. A few of these claims have now to be considered.

Our races—they all show—have sprung from Divine Races, by whatever name the latter may be called. Whether we deal with the Indian Rishis or Pitris; with the Chinese Chim‐nang and Tchan‐gy—their “Divine Man” and Demi‐gods; with the Akkadian Dingir and Mul‐lil—the Creative God and the “Gods of the Ghost‐world”; with the Egyptian Isis‐Osiris and Thot; with the Hebrew Elohim; or again with Manco‐Capac and his Peruvian progeny—the story varies nowhere. Every nation has either the _seven_ and _ten_ Rishi‐ Manus and Prajâpatis; the seven and ten Ki‐y; or _ten_ and _seven_ Amshaspands(822) (six exoterically); ten and seven Chaldæan Annedoti; ten and seven Sephiroth, etc. One and all have been derived from the primitive Dhyân Chohans of the Esoteric Doctrine, or the “Builders” of the Stanzas of Volume I. From Manu, Thot‐Hermes, Oannes‐Dagon, and Edris‐Enoch, down to Plato Panodorus, all tell us of seven Divine Dynasties, of seven Lemurian, and seven Atlantean divisions of the Earth; of the seven primitive and dual Gods who descend from their Celestial Abode(823) and reign on Earth, teaching mankind Astronomy, Architecture, and all the other sciences that have come down to us. These Beings appear first as Gods and Creators; then they merge in nascent man, to finally emerge as “Divine Kings and Rulers.” But this fact has been gradually forgotten. As Basnage shows, the Egyptians themselves confessed that Science had flourished in their country only since the time of Isis‐Osiris, whom they continued to adore as Gods, “though they had become princes in human form.” And he adds of the Divine Androgyne:

It is said that this prince [Isis‐Osiris] built cities in Egypt,
stopped the overflowing of the Nile; invented agriculture, the use
of the vine, music, astronomy, and geometry.

When Abul Feda, in his _Historia Anteïslamitica_,(824) says that the “Sabæan language” was established by Seth and Edris (Enoch)—he means Astronomy. In the _Melelwa Nahil_,(825) Hermes is called the disciple of Agathodæmon. And in another account,(826) Agathodæmon is mentioned as a “King of Egypt.” The _Celepas Geraldinus_ gives us some curious traditions about Henoch, who is called the “Divine Giant.” In his _Book of the Various Names of the Nile_, the historian Ahmed Ben Yusouf Eltiphas tells us of the belief among the Semitic Arabs that Seth, who became later the Egyptian Typhon, Set, had been one of the Seven Angels, or Patriarchs, in the _Bible_; then he became a mortal and Adam’s son, after which he communicated the gift of prophecy and astronomical science to Jared, who passed it to his son Henoch. But Henoch (Idris), “the author of thirty books,” was “Sabæan by origin”—_i.e._, belonged to the Saba, “a Host”:

Having established the rites and ceremonies of primitive worship,
he went to the East, where he constructed one hundred and forty
cities, of which Edessa was the least important, then returned to
Egypt where he became its King.(827)

Thus, he is identified with Hermes. But there were five Hermes—or rather one, who appeared, as did some Manus and Rishis, in several different characters. In the _Burham i Kati_, he is mentioned as Hormig, a name of the Planet Mercury or Budha; and Wednesday was sacred both to Hermes and Thot.(828) The Hermes of Oriental tradition was worshipped by the Phineatæ, and is said to have fled after the death of Argus into Egypt, and civilized it under the name of Thoth.(829) But under whichever of these characters, he is always credited with having transferred all the sciences from _latent to active potency_, _i.e._, with having been the first to teach Magic to Egypt and to Greece, before the days of Magna Græcia, and when the Greeks were not even Hellenes.

Not only does Herodotus, the “father of history,” tell us of the marvellous Dynasties of Gods that preceded the reign of mortals, followed by the Dynasties of Demi‐gods, Heroes, and finally men, but the whole series of classical authors support him. Diodorus, Eratosthenes, Plato, Manetho, etc., repeat the same story, and never vary in the order given.

As Creuzer shows:

It is, indeed, from the spheres of the stars wherein dwell the
gods of light, that wisdom descends to the inferior spheres.... In
the system of the ancient priests [Hierophants and Adepts] all
things without exception, Gods, Genii, Souls [Manes], the whole
world, are conjointly developed in space and duration. The pyramid
may be considered as the symbol of this magnificent hierarchy of
spirits.(830)

It is the modern historians—French Academicians, like Renan, chiefly—who have made more efforts to suppress truth by ignoring the ancient annals of Divine Kings, than is strictly consistent with honesty. But M. Renan could never have been more unwilling than was Eratosthenes (260 B.C.) to accept the unpalatable fact; and yet the latter found himself obliged to recognize its truth. For this, the great Astronomer is treated with much contempt by his colleagues 2,000 years later. Manetho becomes with them “a superstitious priest born and bred in the atmosphere of other lying priests of Heliopolis.” As the Demonologist De Mirville justly remarks:

All those historians and priests, so _veracious_ when repeating
stories of _human_ kings and men, suddenly become _extremely
suspicious_ no sooner do they go back _to their gods_.

But there is the synchronistic table of Abydos, which, thanks to the genius of Champollion, has now vindicated the good faith of the priests of Egypt (of Manetho above all), and of Ptolemy, in the Turin papyrus, the most remarkable of all. In the words of the Egyptologist, De Rougé:

Champollion, struck with amazement, found that he had under his
own eyes the remains of a list of Dynasties embracing the furthest
mythic times, or the _Reigns of the Gods and Heroes_.... At the
very beginning of this curious papyrus we have to arrive at the
conviction that, so far back as even the period of Ramses, these
mythic and heroical traditions were just as Manetho had
transmitted them to us; we see figuring in them, as Kings of
Egypt, the Gods Seb, Osiris, Set, Horus, Thoth‐Hermes, and the
Goddess Ma, a long period of centuries being assigned to the reign
of each of these.(831)

These synchronistic tables, besides the fact that they were disfigured by Eusebius for dishonest purposes, had never gone beyond Manetho. The chronology of the Divine Kings and Dynasties, like that of the age of humanity, has ever been in the hands of the priests, and kept secret from the profane multitudes.

Now though Africa, as a continent, it is said, appeared before that of Europe, nevertheless it came up later than Lemuria and even the earliest Atlantis. The whole region of what is now Egypt and the deserts was once upon a time covered with the sea. This was made known, firstly, by Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, and others, and, secondly, through Geology. Abyssinia was once upon a time an island, and the Delta was the first country occupied by the pioneer emigrants who came with their Gods from the north‐east.

When was it? History is silent upon the subject. Fortunately we have the Dendera Zodiac, the planisphere on the ceiling of one of the oldest Egyptian temples, to record the fact. This Zodiac, with its mysterious three Virgos between Leo and Libra, has found its Œdipus to understand the riddle of its signs, and justify the truthfulness of those priests who told Herodotus, that their Initiates taught (_a_) that the poles of the Earth and the Ecliptic had formerly coincided, and (_b_) that even since their first Zodiacal records were commenced, the Poles have been three times within the plane of the Ecliptic.

Bailly had not sufficient words at command to express his surprise at the _sameness_ of all such traditions about the Divine Races, and exclaims:

What are finally all those reigns of Indian Devas and [Persian]
Peris; or, those reigns of the Chinese legends; those Tien‐hoang
or the Kings of Heaven, quite distinct from the Ti‐hoang, or Kings
on Earth, and the Gin‐hoang, the King men, distinctions which are
in perfect accord with those of the Greeks and Egyptians, in
enumerating their Dynasties of Gods, of Demi‐gods and
Mortals.(832)

As says Panodorus:

Now, it is during these thousand years [before the Deluge], that
the _Reign of the Seven Gods_ who rule the world took place. It
was during that period that those benefactors of humanity
_descended_ on Earth and taught men to calculate the course of the
sun and moon by the twelve signs of the Ecliptic.(833)

Nearly five hundred years before the present era, the priests of Egypt showed Herodotus the statues of their human Kings and Pontiffs‐Piromis—the Arch‐prophets or Mahâ Chohans of the temples, _born one from the other_, without the intervention of woman—who had reigned before Menes, their first _human_ King. These statues, he says, were enormous colossi in wood, three hundred and forty‐five in number, _each of which had its name, history and annals_. They also assured Herodotus—unless the most truthful of historians, the “father of history,” is now to be accused of fibbing, _just in this instance_—that no historian could ever understand or write an account of these superhuman Kings, unless he had studied and learned the history of the _three_ Dynasties that preceded the human—namely, the Dynasties of the Gods, of the Demi‐gods, and of the Heroes, or Giants.(834) These “three” Dynasties are the three Races.

Translated into the language of the Esoteric Doctrine, these three Dynasties would also be those of the Devas, of the Kimpurushas, and of the Dânavas and Daityas—otherwise Gods, Celestial Spirits, and Giants or Titans. “Happy are those who are born, even from the condition of Gods, as men in Bhârata‐varsha!”—exclaim the incarnated Gods themselves, during the Third Root‐Race. Bhârata is generally India, but in this case it symbolizes the Chosen Land of those days, which was considered the best of the divisions of Jambu‐dvîpa, as it was the land of active (spiritual) works _par excellence_; the land of Initiation and of Divine Knowledge.(835)

Can one fail to recognize in Creuzer great powers of intuition, when, although he was almost unacquainted with the Âryan Hindû philosophies, which were but little known in his day, we find him writing:

We modern Europeans feel surprised when hearing talk of the
Spirits of the Sun, Moon, etc. But we repeat again, _the natural
good sense and the upright judgment_ of the ancient peoples, quite
foreign to our _entirely material_ ideas of mechanics and physical
sciences ... could not see in the stars and planets nothing but
simple masses of light, or opaque bodies moving in circuits in
sidereal space, merely according to the laws of attraction or
repulsion; they saw in them _living_ bodies, _animated_ by spirits
as they saw the same in every kingdom of nature.... _This doctrine
of spirits, so consistent and conformable to nature_, from which
it was derived, formed a grand and unique conception, wherein the
physical, the moral, and the political aspects were all blended
together.(836)

It is such a conception only that can lead man to form a correct conclusion about his origin and the genesis of everything in the Universe—of Heaven and Earth, between which he is a living link. Without such a psychological link, and the feeling of its presence, no Science can ever progress, and the realm of knowledge must be limited to the analysis of physical matter only.

Occultists believe in “spirits,” because they _feel_—and some see—themselves surrounded by them on every side.(837) Materialists do not. They live on this Earth, just as some creatures, in the world of insects and even of fishes, live surrounded by myriads of their own genus, without seeing, or so much as sensing them.(838)

Plato is the first sage among classical writers who speaks at length of the Divine Dynasties. He locates them on a vast continent which he calls Atlantis. Nor was Bailly the first or last to believe this. He had been preceded and anticipated in this theory by Father Kircher, the learned Jesuit, who in his _Œdipus Ægyptiacus_, writes:

I confess, for a long time I had regarded all this [the Dynasties
and Atlantis] as pure fables (_meras nugas_) to the day when,
better instructed in Oriental languages, I judged that all those
legends must be, after all, only the development of a great
truth.(839)

As De Rougemont shows, Theopompus, in his _Meropis_, made the priests of Phrygia and Asia Minor speak exactly as did the priests of Saïs when they revealed to Solon the history and fate of Atlantis. According to Theopompus, it was a unique continent of an indefinite size, containing two countries inhabited by two races—a fighting, warrior race, and a pious, meditative race(840)—which Theopompus symbolizes by two cities.(841) The pious “city” was _continually visited by the Gods_: the belligerent “city” was inhabited by various beings _invulnerable_ by iron, who could be _mortally wounded_ only by stone and wood.(842) De Rougemont treats this as a pure _fiction_ of Theopompus and even sees a fraud (_supercherie_) in the assertion of the Saïtic priests. This was denounced by the Demonologists as illogical. In the ironical words of De Mirville:

A _supercherie_ which was based on a belief, the product of the
faith of the whole of antiquity; a _supposition_ which yet gave
its name to a whole mountain chain (Atlas); which specified with
the greatest precision a topographical region (by placing this
land at a small distance from Cadiz and the Strait of Calpe),
which prophesied, 2,000 years before Columbus, _the great
transoceanic land_ situated beyond that Atlantis and which “is
reached,” it said, “by the Islands not of the Blessed, but of the
Good Spirits,” εὐδαιμόνια (our Îles Fortunées)—such a supposition
can well be nothing else but a _universal chimera_!(843)

It is certain that, whether “chimera” or reality, the priests of the whole world had it from one and the same source—the universal tradition about the third great Continent which perished some 850,000 years ago,(844) a Continent inhabited by two distinct races, distinct physically and especially morally, both deeply versed in primeval wisdom and the secrets of nature, and mutually antagonistic in their struggle, during the course and progress of their double evolution. For whence even the Chinese teachings upon the subject, if it is but a “fiction”? Have they not recorded the existence once upon a time of a _Holy_ Island beyond the sun, Tcheou, beyond which were situated the lands of _Immortal_ Men?(845) Do they not still believe that the remnants of those Immortal Men—who survived when the Holy Island became black with sin and perished—have found refuge in the great Desert of Gobi, where they still reside, invisible to all and defended from approach by hosts of Spirits?

As the very unbelieving Boulanger writes:

If one has to lend ear to traditions, the latter place before the
reign of Kings, that of the Heroes and Demi‐gods; and still
earlier beyond they place the marvellous reign of the Gods and all
the fables of the Golden Age.... One feels surprised that annals
so interesting should have been rejected by almost all our
historians. And yet the ideas presented by them were once
universally admitted and revered by all nations; not a few revere
them still, making them the basis of their daily life. Such
considerations seem to necessitate a less hurried judgment.... The
ancients, from whom we hold these traditions, which _we accept no
longer because we no longer understand them_, must have had
motives for believing in them, furnished by their greater
proximity to the first ages, which the distance that separates us
from them refuses to us.... Plato in the fourth book of his
_Laws_, says that, long before the construction of the first
cities, Saturn had established on earth a _certain_ form of
government under which man was very happy. Now as it is the Golden
Age he refers to, or to that reign of Gods so celebrated in
ancient fables, ... let us see the ideas he had of that happy age,
and what was the occasion he had to introduce this _fable_ into a
treatise on politics. According to Plato, in order to obtain clear
and precise ideas on royalty, its origin and power, one has to
turn back to the first principles of history and tradition. Great
changes, he says, have occurred in days of old, _in heaven and on
earth_, and the present state of things is one of the results
[Karma]. Our traditions tell us of many marvels, of changes that
have taken place in the course of the sun, of Saturn’s reign, and
of a thousand other matters that remain scattered in human memory;
but _one never hears anything of the evil which has produced these
revolutions, nor of the evil which directly followed them_. Yet
... that Evil is the principle one has to talk about, to be able
to treat of royalty and the origin of power.(846)

That Evil, Plato seems to see in the sameness or consubstantiality of the natures of the rulers and the ruled, for he says that long before man built his cities, in the Golden Age, there was naught but happiness on Earth, for there were no needs. Why? Because Saturn, knowing that man could not rule man, without injustice forthwith filling the universe through his whims and vanity, would not allow any mortal to obtain power over his fellow creatures. To do this the God used the same means we ourselves use with regard to our flocks. We do not place a bullock or a ram over our bullocks and rams, but give them a leader, a shepherd, _i.e._, _a being of a species quite different from their own and of a superior nature_. This is just what Saturn did. He loved mankind and placed to rule over it no mortal king or prince but—“Spirits and Genii (δαίμονες) of a divine nature more excellent than that of man.”

It was God (the Logos, the Synthesis of the Host), who thus presiding over the Genii became the first Shepherd and Leader of men.(847) When the world had ceased to be so governed and the Gods retired, ferocious beasts devoured a portion of mankind. Left to their own resources and industry, Inventors then appeared among them successively and discovered fire, wheat, wine; and public gratitude deified them.(848)

And mankind was right, as fire by friction was the first mystery of nature, the first and chief property of matter that was revealed to man.

As say the Commentaries:

_Fruits and grain, unknown to Earth to that day, were brought by the __“__Lords of Wisdom,__”__ for the benefit of those they ruled from other Lokas [Spheres]._

Now:

The earliest inventions [?] of mankind are the most wonderful that
the race has ever made.... The _first use of fire_, and the
discovery of the methods by which it can be kindled; the
domestication of animals; and, above all, _the processes by which
the various cereals were first developed_ out of some wild grasses
[?]—these are all _discoveries with which, in ingenuity and in
importance, no subsequent discoveries may compare_. They are all
unknown to history—all lost in the light of an _effulgent
dawn_.(849)

This will be doubted and denied in our proud generation. But if it be asserted that there are no grains and fruits _unknown to earth_, then we may remind the reader _that wheat has never been found in the wild state; it is not a product of the earth_. All the other cereals have been traced to their primogenital forms in various species of wild grasses, but wheat has hitherto defied the efforts of Botanists to trace it to its origin. And let us bear in mind, in this connection, how sacred was this cereal with the Egyptian priests; wheat was placed even in their mummies, and has been found thousands of years later in their coffins. Remember how the servants of Horus glean the wheat in the field of Aanroo, wheat _seven cubits high_.(850)

Says the Egyptian Isis:

I am the Queen of these regions; I was the first to reveal to
mortals the mysteries of wheat and corn.... I am she who rises in
the constellation of the Dog.... Rejoice, O Egypt! thou who wert
my nurse.(851)

Sirius was called the Dog‐star. It was the star of Mercury or Budha, called the great Instructor of Mankind.

The Chinese _Y‐King_ attributes the discovery of agriculture to “the instruction given to men by celestial genii.”

Woe, woe to the men who know nought, observe nought, nor will they
see. They are all blind,(852) since they remain ignorant how full
the world is of various and invisible creatures which crowd even
in the most sacred places.(853)

The “Sons of God” _have_ existed and _do_ exist. From the Hindû Brahmaputras and Mânasaputras, Sons of Brahmâ and Mind‐born Sons, down to the Bne Aleim of the Jewish _Bible_, the faith of the centuries and universal tradition force reason to yield to such evidence. Of what value is “independent criticism” so‐called, or “internal evidence”—based usually on the respective hobbies of the critics—in the face of the universal testimony, which has never varied throughout the historical cycles? For instance, read Esoterically the sixth chapter of _Genesis_, which repeats the statements of the Secret Doctrine, though slightly changing its form, and drawing a different conclusion which clashes even with the _Zohar_.

There were giants in the earth in those days; _and also after
that_, when the sons of God Bne Aleim came in unto the daughters
of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men
which were of old, men of renown [or giants].(854)

What does this sentence, “and also after that,” signify unless it means: There were Giants in the Earth _before_, _i.e._, before the Sinless Sons of the Third Race; _and also after that_ when other Sons of God, lower in nature, inaugurated sexual connection on Earth—as Daksha did, when he saw that his Mânasaputras would not people the Earth? And then comes a long break in the chapter between verses 4 and 5. For surely, it was not in or through the wickedness of the “mighty men ... men of renown,” among whom is placed Nimrod the “mighty hunter before the Lord,” that “God saw that the wickedness of man was great,” nor in the builders of Babel, for this was _after_ the Deluge; but in the progeny of the Giants who produced _monstra quædam de genere giganteo_, monsters from whence sprang the lower races of men, now represented on Earth by a few miserable dying‐out tribes and the huge anthropoid apes.

And if we are taken to task by Theologians, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, we have only to refer them to their own literal texts. The above quoted verse has ever been a dilemma, not alone for the men of Science and biblical scholars, but also for priests. For, as the Rev. Father Péronne puts it:

Either they (the Bne Aleim) were good Angels, and in such case how
could they fall? Or they were bad (Angels), and in that case could
not be called Bne Aleim, or sons of God.(855)

This biblical riddle—“the real sense of which no author has ever understood,” as is candidly confessed by Fourmont(856)—can only be explained by the Occult doctrine, through the _Zohar_ to the Western, and the _Book of Dzyan_ to the Eastern. What the latter says we have seen; what the _Zohar_ tells us is that Bne Aleim was a name common to the Malachim, the good Messengers, and to the Ischins, the lower Angels.(857)

We may add for the benefit of the Demonologists that their Satan, the “Adversary,” is included in _Job_ among the “sons” of God or Bne Aleim who visit their father.(858) But of this later on.

Now the _Zohar_ says that the Ischins, the beautiful Bne Aleim, were _not_ guilty, but mixed _themselves with mortal men because they were sent on earth to do so_.(859) Elsewhere the same volume shows these Bne Aleim belonging to the tenth sub‐division of the “Thrones.”(860) It also explains that the Ischins—“Men‐spirits,” _viri spirituales_(861)—now that men can see them no longer, help Magicians to produce, by their Science, Homunculi which are not “small men” but “men _smaller_ (in the sense of inferiority) than men.” Both show themselves under the form that the Ischins had then, _i.e._, gaseous and ethereal. Their chief is Azazel.

But Azazel, whom the Church dogma persists in associating with Satan, is nothing of the kind. Azazel is a _mystery_, as explained elsewhere, and it is so expressed by Maimonides:

There is an impenetrable mystery in the narrative concerning
Azazel.(862)

And so there is, as Lanci, a librarian to the Vatican, whom we have quoted before, and one who ought to know, says:

This venerable divine name (_nome divino e venerabile_) has become
through the pen of biblical scholars, a devil, a wilderness, a
mountain, and a he‐goat.(863)

Therefore it seems foolish to derive the name, as Spencer does, from Azal (separated) and El (God), hence “one separated from God”—the Devil. In the _Zohar_, Azazel is rather the “sacrificial victim” than the “formal adversary of Jehovah,” as Spencer would have it.(864)

The amount of malicious fancy and fiction bestowed on this “Host” by various fanatical writers is quite extraordinary. Azazel and his “Host” are simply the Hebrew “Prometheus,” and ought to be viewed from the same standpoint. The _Zohar_ shows the Ischins chained to the mountain in the desert. This is allegorical, and simply alludes to these “Spirits” as being chained to the Earth during the Cycle of Incarnation. Azazel, or Azazyel, is one of the chiefs of the “transgressing” Angels in the _Book of Enoch_, who descending upon Ardis, the top of Mount Armon, bound themselves by swearing loyalty to each other. It is said that Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, to fabricate mirrors (?), to make _one see what is behind him_—viz., “magic mirrors.” Amazarak taught all the sorcerers and dividers of roots; Amers taught the solution of Magic; Barkayal, Astrology; Akibeel, the meaning of portents and signs; Tamiel, Astronomy; and Asaradel taught the motion of the Moon.(865) “These seven were the first instructors of the fourth man” (_i.e._, of the Fourth Race). But why should allegory be always understood as meaning just what its dead‐letter expresses?

It is the symbolical representation of the great struggle between Divine Wisdom, Nous, and its Earthly Reflection, Psyche, or between Spirit and Soul, in Heaven and on Earth. In Heaven—because the Divine Monad had voluntarily exiled itself therefrom, to descend, for incarnating purposes, to a lower plane and thus transform the _animal_ of clay into an immortal _God_. For, as Éliphas Lévi tells us:

The Angels aspire to become Men; for the perfect Man, the Man‐God,
is above even Angels.

On Earth—because no sooner had Spirit descended than it was strangled in the coils of Matter.

Strange to say, the Occult Teaching reverses the characters; it is the anthropomorphous Archangel in the case of the Christians, and the man‐like God with the Hindûs, which represent Matter in this case; and the Dragon, or Serpent, Spirit. Occult symbolism furnishes the key to the mystery; theological symbolism conceals it still more. For the former explains many a saying in the _Bible_ and even in the _New Testament_ which has hitherto remained incomprehensible; while the latter, owing to its dogma of Satan and his rebellion, has belittled the character and nature of its would‐be infinite, absolutely perfect God, and created the greatest evil and curse on Earth—belief in a personal Devil. This mystery is now partially revealed. The key to its metaphysical interpretation has now been restored, while the key to its theological interpretation shows the Gods and Archangels standing as symbols for the dead‐letter or dogmatic religions, as arrayed against the pure truths of Spirit, naked and unadorned with fancy.

Many were the hints thrown out in this direction in _Isis Unveiled_, and a still greater number of references to the mystery may be found scattered throughout these volumes. To make the point clear once for all; that which the clergy of every dogmatic religion, preëminently the Christian, points out as Satan, the enemy of God, is, in reality, the highest divine Spirit—Occult Wisdom on Earth—which is naturally antagonistic to every worldly, evanescent illusion, dogmatic or ecclesiastical religions included. Thus, the Latin Church, intolerant, bigoted and cruel to all who do not choose to be its slaves, the Church which calls itself the “bride” of Christ, and at the same time the trustee of Peter, to whom the rebuke of the Master “Get thee behind me, Satan” was justly addressed; and again the Protestant Church which, while calling itself Christian, paradoxically replaces the New Dispensation by the old Law of Moses which Christ openly repudiated—both these Churches are fighting against divine Truth, when repudiating and slandering the Dragon of Esoteric Divine Wisdom. Whenever they anathematize the Gnostic Solar Chnouphis, the Agathodæmon Christos, or the Theosophical Serpent of Eternity, or even the Serpent of _Genesis_—they are moved by the same spirit of dark fanaticism that moved the Pharisees to curse Jesus with the words: “Say we not well thou hast a devil?”

Read the account of Indra (Vâyu) in the _Rig Veda_, the Occult volume _par excellence_ of Âryanism, and then compare it with the same in the _Purânas_—the exoteric version thereof, and the purposely garbled account of the true Wisdom Religion. In the _Rig Veda_, Indra is the highest and greatest of the Gods, and his Soma‐drinking is allegorical of his highly spiritual nature. In the _Purânas_, Indra becomes a profligate, and a regular drunkard on the Soma‐juice, in the ordinary terrestrial way. He is the conqueror of all the “enemies of the Gods” the Daityas, Nâgas (Serpents), Asuras, all the Serpent‐gods, and of Vritra, the Cosmic Serpent. Indra is the St. Michael of the Hindû Pantheon—the chief of the _militant_ Host. Turning to the _Bible_, we find Satan, one of the “Sons of God,”(866) becoming in exoteric interpretation the Devil, and the Dragon, in its infernal, evil sense. But in the _Kabalah_,(867) Samael, who is Satan, is shown to be identical with St. Michael, the Slayer of the Dragon. How is this, when it is said that Tselem (the Image) reflects alike Michael and Samael, _who are one_? Both proceed, it is taught, from Ruach (Spirit), Neshamah (Soul) and Nephesh (Life). In the Chaldæan _Book of Numbers_ Samael is the concealed (Occult) Wisdom, and Michael the higher _terrestrial_ Wisdom, both emanating from the same source, but diverging after their issue from the Mundane Soul, which on Earth is Mahat, intellectual understanding, or Manas, the seat of intellect. They diverge, because the one (Michael) is _influenced_ by Neshamah, while the other (Samael) remains _uninfluenced_. This tenet was perverted by the dogmatic spirit of the Church, which, loathing independent Spirit, uninfluenced by the external form, hence by dogma, forthwith made of Samael‐Satan—the most wise and spiritual spirit of all—the Adversary of its anthropomorphic God and sensual physical man, the Devil!

The Origin Of The Satanic Myth.

Let us, then, fathom this creation of the Patristic fancy still deeper, and find its prototype with the Pagans. The origin of the new Satanic myth is easy to trace. The tradition of the Dragon and the Sun is echoed in every part of the world, both in its civilized and semi‐savage regions. It took rise in the whisperings about secret Initiations among the profane, and was once universally established through the formerly universal heliolatrous religion. There was a time when the four parts of the world were covered with the temples sacred to the Sun and the Dragon; but the cult is now preserved mostly in China and Buddhist countries,

Bel and the Dragon being uniformly coupled together, and the
priest of the Ophite religion as uniformly assuming the name of
his God.(868)

Among the religions of the past, it is in Egypt we have to seek for its Western origin. The Ophites adopted their rites from Hermes Trismegistus, and heliolatrous worship with its Sun‐gods crossed over into the land of the Pharaohs from India. In the Gods of Stonehenge we recognize the divinities of Delphi and Babylon, and in those of the latter the Devas of the Vedic nations. Bel and the Dragon, Apollo and Python, Krishna and Kâliya, Osiris and Typhon, are all one under many names—the latest of which are Michael and the Red Dragon, and St. George and his Dragon. As Michael is “one as God,” or his “Double” for terrestrial purposes, and is one of the Elohim, the fighting Angel, he is thus simply a permutation of Jehovah. Whatever the cosmic or astronomical event that first gave rise to the allegory of the “War in Heaven,” its earthly origin has to be sought in the temples of Initiation and archaic crypts; and the proof is that we find (_a_) the priests assuming the name of the Gods they served; (_b_) the “Dragons” held throughout all antiquity as the symbols of Immortality and Wisdom, of secret Knowledge and of Eternity; and (_c_) the Hierophants of Egypt, of Babylon, and India, styling themselves generally the “Sons of the Dragon” and “Serpents”; thus corroborating the teachings of the Secret Doctrine.

There were numerous catacombs in Egypt and Chaldæa, some of them of a very vast extent. The most renowned of these were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis. The former, beginning on the western side of the Nile, extended towards the Libyan desert, and were known as the Serpent’s Catacombs, or passages. It was there that were performed the Sacred Mysteries of the Kuklos Anagkês, the “Unavoidable Cycle,” more generally known as the “Circle of Necessity”; the inexorable doom imposed upon every Soul after bodily death, when it has been judged in the Amentian region.

In De Bourbourg’s book, Votan, the Mexican Demi‐god, in narrating his expedition, describes a subterranean passage which ran on underground, and terminated at the root of the heavens, adding that this passage was a Snake’s hole, “_un agujero de colubra_”; and that he was admitted to it because he was himself a “Son of the Snakes,” or a Serpent.(869)

This is, indeed, very suggestive; for his description of the “Snake’s hole” is that of the ancient Egyptian crypt, as above mentioned. The Hierophants, moreover, of Egypt, and also of Babylon, generally styled themselves during the Mysteries, the “Sons of the Serpent‐god,” or “Sons of the Dragon.”

“The Assyrian priest always bore the name of his God,” says Movers. The Druids of the Celto‐Britannic regions also called themselves Snakes. “I am a Serpent, I am a Druid,” they exclaimed. The Egyptian Karnak is twin brother to the Carnac of Bretagne, the latter Carnac meaning the Serpent’s Mount. The Dracontia once covered the surface of the globe, and these temples were sacred to the Dragon, only because it was the symbol of the Sun, which, in its turn, was the symbol of the Highest God—the Phœnician Elon or Elion, whom Abraham recognized as El Elion.(870) Besides the surname of Serpents, they had also the appellation of “Builders” or “Architects,” for the immense grandeur of their temples and monuments was such that even now the pulverized remains of them “frighten the mathematical calculations of our modern engineers,” as Taliesin says.(871)

De Bourbourg hints that the chiefs of the name of Votan, the Quetzo‐ Cohuatl, or Serpent deity of the Mexicans, are the descendants of Ham and Canaan. “I am Hivim,” they say. “Being a Hivim, I am of the great race of the Dragon (Snake). I am a Snake myself, for I am a Hivim.”(872)

Furthermore, the “War in Heaven” is shown, in one of its significations, to have referred to those terrible struggles in store for the Candidate for Adeptship—struggles between himself and his (by Magic) personified human passions, when the enlightened _Inner Man_ had to either slay them or fail. In the former case he became the “Dragon‐Slayer,” as having happily overcome all the temptations, and a “Son of the Serpent” and a Serpent himself, having cast off his old skin and being born in a _new_ body, becoming a Son of Wisdom and Immortality in Eternity.

Seth, the reputed forefather of Israel, is only a Jewish travesty of Hermes, the God of Wisdom, called also Thoth, Tat, Seth, Set, and Satan. He is also Typhon, the same as Apophis, the Dragon slain by Horus; for Typhon was also called Set. He is simply the _dark side_ of Osiris, his brother, as Angra Mainyu is the black shadow of Ahura Mazda. Terrestrially, all these allegories were connected with the trials of Adeptship and Initiation. Astronomically, they referred to the Solar and Lunar eclipses, the mythical explanations of which we find to this day in India and Ceylon, where anyone can study the allegorical narratives and traditions which have remained unchanged for many thousands of years.

Râhu, mythologically, is a Daitya—a Giant, a Demi‐god, the lower part of whose body ended in a Dragon’s or Serpent’s tail. During the Churning of the Ocean, when the Gods produced the Amrita, the Water of Immortality, he stole some of it, and, drinking, became immortal. The Sun and Moon, who had detected him in his theft, denounced him to Vishnu, who placed him in the stellar spheres, the upper portion of his body representing the Dragon’s head and the lower (Ketu) the Dragon’s tail; the two being the ascending and descending nodes. Since then, Râhu wreaks his vengeance on the Sun and Moon by occasionally swallowing them. But this fable has another mystic meaning, for Râhu, the Dragon’s head, played a prominent part in the Mysteries of the Sun’s (Vikartana’s) Initiation, when the Candidate and the Dragon had a supreme fight.

The caves of the Rishis, the abodes of Teiresias and the Greek seers, were modelled on those of the Nâgas—the Hindû King‐Snakes, who dwelt in cavities of the rocks under the ground. From Shesha, the thousand‐headed Serpent, on which Vishnu rests, down to Python, the Dragon‐serpent oracle, all point to the secret meaning of the myth. In India we find the fact mentioned in the earliest _Purânas_. The children of Surasâ are the mighty “Dragons.” The _Vâyu Purâna_ replacing the “Dragons” of Surasâ of the _Vishnu Purâna_ by the Dânavas, the descendants of Danu by the sage Kashyapa, and these Dânavas being the Giants, or Titans, who warred against the Gods, they are thus shown identical with the “Dragons” and “Serpents” of Wisdom.

We have only to compare the Sun‐gods of every country, to find their allegories agreeing perfectly with each other; and the more the allegorical symbol is Occult the more its corresponding symbol in exoteric systems agrees with it. Thus, if from three systems widely differing from each other in appearance—the old Âryan, the ancient Greek, and the modern Christian schemes—several Sun‐gods and Dragons are selected at random, they will be found to be copied from each other.

Let us take Agni the Fire‐god, Indra the firmament, and Kârttikeya from the Hindûs; the Greek Apollo; and Michael, the “Angel of the Sun,” the first of the Æons, called by the Gnostics the “Saviour”—and proceed in order.

(1) Agni, the Fire‐god, is called Vaishvânara in the _Rig Veda_. Now Vaishvânara is a Dânava, a Giant‐demon,(873) whose daughters Pulomâ and Kâlakâ are the mothers of numberless Dânavas (30 millions), by Kashyapa,(874) and live in Hiranyapura, “_the golden city, floating in the air_.”(875) Therefore, Indra is, in a fashion, the step‐son of these two as a son of Kashyapa; and Kashyapa is, in this sense, identical with Agni, the Fire‐god, or Sun (Kashyapa‐Âditya). To this same group belongs Skanda or Kârttikeya, God of War, the _six‐faced_ planet Mars astronomically, a Kumâra, or Virgin‐youth, born of Agni,(876) for the purpose of destroying Târaka, the Dânava Demon, the grandson of Kashyapa by his son Hiranyâksha.(877) Târaka’s Yoga austerities were so extraordinary that they became formidable to the Gods, who feared such a rival in power.(878) While Indra, the bright God of the Firmament, kills Vritra, or Ahi, the Serpent‐Demon—for which feat he is called Vritra‐han, the “Destroyer of Vritra”—he also leads the hosts of Devas (Angels or Gods) against other Gods who rebel against Brahmâ, for which he is surnamed Jishnu, “Leader of the Celestial Host.” Kârttikeya is also found bearing the same titles. For killing Târaka, the Dânava, he is called Târaka‐jit, “Vanquisher of Târaka,”(879) Kumâra Guha, the “mysterious Virgin‐youth,” Siddha‐sena, “Leader of the Siddhas,” and Shakti‐dhara, “Spear‐holder.”

(2) Now take Apollo, the Grecian Sun‐god, and by comparing the mythical accounts given of him, see whether he does not answer both to Indra, Kârttikeya, and even Kashyapa‐Âditya, and at the same time to Michael (as the Angelic form of Jehovah) the “Angel of the Sun,” who is “like,” and “one with, God.” Later ingenious interpretations for monotheistic purposes, elevated though they be into not‐to‐be‐questioned Church dogmas, prove nothing, except, perhaps, the abuse of human authority and power.