Chapter XXXIV: Section XI: The Mysteries of the Hebdomad (1)

We must not close this Part on the Symbolism of Archaic History, without an attempt to explain the perpetual recurrence of this truly mystic number, the Hebdomad, in every scripture known to the Orientalists. As every religion, from the oldest to the latest, reveals its presence, and explains it on its own grounds agreeably with its own special dogmas, this is no easy task. We can, therefore, do no better or more explanatory work than to give a bird’s‐eye view of all. The numbers, 3, 4, 7, are the sacred numbers of Light, Life, and Union—especially in this present Manvantara, our Life‐Cycle; of which number _seven_ is the special representative, or the _factor_ number. This has now to be demonstrated.

If one should ask a Brâhman learned in the _Upanishads_, which are so full of the Secret Wisdom of old, why “he, of whom seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the Moon‐plant,” is Trisuparna, as Bopaveda is credited with saying;(1400) and why the Somapa Pitris should be worshipped by the Brâhman Trisuparna—very few could answer the question; or, if they knew, they would still less satisfy one’s curiosity. Let us, then, hold to what the old Esoteric Doctrine teaches. As says the Commentary:

_When the first Seven appeared on Earth, they threw the seed of everything that grows on the land into the soil. First came Three, and Four were added to these as soon as stone was transformed into plant. Then came the second Seven, who, guiding the Jîvas of the plants, produced the middle [intermediate] natures between plant and moving living animal. The third Seven evolved their Chhâyâs.... The fifth Seven imprisoned their Essence.... Thus man became a Saptaparna._

A. Saptaparna.

Such is the name given in Occult phraseology to man. It means, as shown elsewhere, a seven‐leaved plant, and the name has a great significance in the Buddhist legends. So it had, also, under disguise, in the Greek myths. The T, or τ (Tau), formed from the figure 7, and the Greek letter Γ (Gamma), was, as stated in the last Section, the symbol of life, and of Life Eternal: of earthly life, because Γ (Gamma) is the symbol of the Earth (Gaia)(1401); and of Life Eternal, because the figure 7 is the symbol of the same life _linked_ with Divine Life, the double glyph expressed in geometrical figures being:

[Symbol: a triangle over a square]

—a Triangle and a Quaternary, the symbol of Septenary Man.

Now, the number _six_ has been regarded in the Ancient Mysteries as an emblem of _physical_ Nature. For six is the representation of the six dimensions of all bodies—the _six_ directions which compose their form, namely, the four directions extending to the four cardinal points, North, South, East, and West, and the two directions of height and thickness that answer to the Zenith and the Nadir. Therefore, while the Senary was applied by the Sages to _physical_ man, the Septenary was for them the symbol of that man _plus_ his immortal Soul.(1402)

J. M. Ragon gives a very good illustration of the “hieroglyphical senary,” as he calls our double equilateral triangle.

The hieroglyphical senary is the symbol of the commingling of the
_philosophical three_ fires and _three_ waters, whence results the
procreation of the elements of all things.(1403)

The same idea is found in the Indian double equilateral triangle. For, though it is called in that country the sign of Vishnu, yet in truth it is the symbol of the Triad, or Tri‐mûrti. For, even in the exoteric rendering, the lower triangle, [Symbol: triangle], with the apex downward, is the symbol of Vishnu, the God of the Moist Principle and Water, Nârâyana being the Moving Principle in the Nârâ, or Waters;(1404) while the triangle, with its apex upward, [Symbol: triangle], is Shiva, the Principle of Fire, symbolized by the triple flame in his hand.(1405) It is these two interlaced triangles, wrongly called “Solomon’s Seal”—which also form the emblem of our Society—that produce the Septenary and the Triad at one and the same time, and are the Decad. Whatever way this [Symbol: 6‐point star] is examined, all the ten numbers are contained therein. For with a point in the middle or centre, [Symbol: 6‐point star with middle dot], it is a _sevenfold_ sign or Septenary; its triangles denote number three, or the Triad; the two triangles show the presence of the Binary; the triangles with the central point common to both yield the Quaternary; the six points are the Senary; and the central point, the Unit; the Quinary being traced by combination, as a compound of _two_ triangles, the even number, and of _three_ sides in each triangle, the first odd number. This is the reason why Pythagoras and the ancients made the number _six_ sacred to Venus, since:

The union of the two sexes, and the spagyrization of matter by
triads, are necessary to develop the generative force, that
prolific virtue and tendency to reproduction which is inherent in
all bodies.(1406)

Belief in “Creators,” or the personified Powers of Nature, is in truth no polytheism, but a philosophical necessity. Like all the other Planets of our system, the Earth has seven Logoi—the emanating Rays of the one “Father‐Ray”—the Protogonos, or the Manifested Logos, he who sacrifices his Esse (or “Flesh,” the Universe) that the World may live and every creature therein have conscious being.

Numbers 3 and 4 are respectively male and female, Spirit and Matter, and their union is the emblem of Life Eternal in Spirit on its ascending arc, and in Matter as the ever resurrecting Element—by procreation and reproduction. The spiritual male line is vertical [Symbol: bar]; the differentiated matter‐line is horizontal; the two forming the cross or ☩. The 3 is invisible; the 4 is on the plane of objective perception. This is why all the Matter of the Universe, when analyzed to its ultimates by Science, can be reduced to four Elements only—Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen; and why the three primaries, the noumena of the four, or graduated Spirit or Force, have remained a _terra incognita_, and mere speculations, mere names, to exact Science. Her servants must believe in and study first the primary causes, before they can hope to fathom the nature, and acquaint themselves with the potentialities, of the effects. Thus, while the men of Western learning had, and still have, the four, or Matter, to toy with, the Eastern Occultists and their disciples, the great Alchemists the world over, have the whole septenate to study from.(1407) As those Alchemists have it:

_When the Three and the Four kiss each other, the Quaternary joins its middle nature with that of the Triangle [or Triad, i.e., the face of one of its plane surfaces becoming the middle face of the other], and becomes a Cube; then only does it [the Cube unfolded] become the vehicle and the number of Life, the Father‐Mother Seven._

Now we are taught that all these earliest forms of organic life also appear in septenary groups of numbers. From minerals or “soft stones that hardened,” to use the phraseology of the Stanzas, followed by the “hard plants that softened,” which are the product of the mineral, for “it is from the bosom of the stone that vegetation is born”;(1408) and then to man—all the primitive models in every kingdom of Nature begin by being ethereal, transparent, films. This, of course, takes place only in the first beginning of life. With the next period they consolidate, and at the _seventh_ begin to branch off into species, _all except men_, the first of the mammalian animals(1409) in the Fourth Round.

Virgil, versed as every ancient poet was, more or less, in Esoteric Philosophy, sang of evolution in the following strains:

_Principio cælum ac terras camposque liquentes_
Lucentemque globum Lunæ, Titaniaque astra
_Spiritus_ intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
_Mens_ agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.
Inde hominum pecudumque genus vitæque volantum
Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus.(1410)

“First came three, or the Triangle.” This expression has a profound meaning in Occultism, and the fact is corroborated, in Mineralogy, Botany, and even in Geology—as has been demonstrated in the Section on “The Chronology of the Brâhmans”—by the compound number seven, the three and the four, being contained in it. Salt in solution proves this. For when its molecules, clustering together, begin to deposit themselves as a solid, the first shape they assume is that of triangles, of small pyramids and cones. It is the figure of Fire, whence the word “Pyramis”; while the second geometrical figure in _manifested_ Nature is a Square or a Cube, 4 and 6; for, as Enfield says, “the particles of earth being cubical, those of fire are pyramidal”—truly. The pyramidal shape is that assumed by the pines—the most primitive tree after the fern period. Thus the two opposites in cosmic Nature—fire and water, heat and cold—begin their metrographical manifestations, one by a trimetric, the other by a hexagonal system. For the stellate crystals of snow, viewed under a microscope, are all and each of them a double or a treble six‐pointed star, with a central nucleus, like a miniature star within the larger one. Says Mr. Darwin—showing that the inhabitants of the sea‐shore are greatly affected by the tides:

The most ancient progenitors in the kingdom of the Vertebrata ...
apparently consisted of a group of marine animals.... Animals
living either about the _mean_ high‐water mark, or about the
_mean_ low‐water mark, pass through a complete cycle of tidal
changes in a fortnight.... Now it is a mysterious fact that in the
higher and now terrestrial Vertebrata ... many normal and abnormal
processes have one or more weeks [septenates] as their periods ...
such as gestation of mammals, the duration of fevers.(1411)

The eggs of the pigeon are hatched in two weeks [or 14 days];
those of the fowl in three; those of the duck in four; those of
the goose in five; and those of the ostrich in seven.(1412)

This number is closely connected with the Moon, whose Occult influence is ever manifesting itself in septenary periods. It is the Moon which is the guide of the Occult side of terrestrial Nature, while the Sun is the regulator and factor of manifested life. This truth has ever been evident to the Seers and the Adepts. Jakob Böhme, by insisting on the fundamental doctrine of the seven properties of everlasting Mother Nature, proved himself thereby a great Occultist.

But to return to the consideration of the septenary in ancient religious symbolism. To the metrological key of the symbolism of the Hebrews, which reveals numerically the geometrical relations of the Circle (All‐Deity) to the Square, Cube, Triangle, and all the integral emanations of the divine area, may be added the theogonic key. This key explains that Noah, the Deluge‐Patriarch, is in one aspect the permutation of the Deity (the Universal Creative Law), for the purpose of the formation of our Earth, its population, and the propagation of life on it, in general.

Now bearing in mind the septenary division in divine Hierarchies, as in cosmic and human constitutions, the student will readily understand that Jah‐Noah is at the head of, and is the synthesis of the lower cosmic Quaternary. The upper Sephirothal Triad, △—of which Jehovah‐Binah (Intelligence) is the left, female, angle—emanates the Quaternary, □. The latter, symbolizing by itself the Heavenly Man, the sexless Adam Kadmon, viewed as Nature in the abstract, becomes a septenate again by emanating from itself the additional three principles, the lower terrestrial or manifested physical Nature, Matter and our Earth—the seventh being Malkuth, the “Bride of the Heavenly Man”—thus forming, with the higher Triad, or Kether, the Crown, the full number of the Sephirothal Tree—the 10, the Total in Unity, or the Universe. Apart from the higher Triad, the lower creative Sephiroth are seven.

The above is not directly to our point, though it is a necessary reminder to facilitate the comprehension of what follows. The question at issue is to show that Jah‐Noah, or the Jehovah of the Hebrew _Bible_, the alleged Creator of our Earth, of man and all upon it, is:

(_a_) The lowest Septenary, the Creative Elohim—in his cosmic aspect.

(_b_) The Tetragrammaton or the Adam Kadmon, the “Heavenly Man” of the four letters—in his theogonic and kabalistic aspects.

(_c_) The Noah—identical with the Hindû Shishta, the human Seed, left for the peopling of the Earth from a previous creation, or Manvantara, as expressed in the _Purânas_, or the pre‐diluvian period as rendered allegorically in the _Bible_—in his cosmic character.

But whether a Quaternary (Tetragrammaton) or a Triad, the biblical Creative God is not the Universal 10, unless blended with Ain Suph (as Brahmâ with Parabrahman), but a septenary, one of the many septenaries of the Universal Septenate. In the explanation of the question now in hand, his position and status as Noah may best be shown by placing the 3, △, and 4, □, on parallel lines with the cosmic and human principles. For the latter, the old familiar classification is made use of.

As an additional demonstration of the statement, let the reader turn to kabalistic works.

“_Ararat_ = _the mount of descent_ = הר‐י‐רד, _Hor‐Jared_. Hatho
mentions it out of composition by _Arath_ = ארת. Editor of Moses
Cherenensis says: ‘By this, they say, is signified _the first
place of descent_ (of the ark).’ ” (Bryant’s _Anal._, vol. iv. pp.
5, 6, 15.) Under “_Berge_,” _mountain_, Nork says of _Ararat_:
“אררט, for ארת (_i.e._, _Ararat_ for _Arath_) _earth, Aramaic_
reduplication.” Here it is seen that Nork and Hatho make use of
the same equivalent, in Arath, ארש, with the meaning of
_earth_.(1413)

Noah thus symbolizing both the Root‐Manu and the Seed‐Manu, or the Power which developed the Planetary Chain, and our Earth, and the Seed‐Race, the Fifth, which was saved while the last sub‐races of the Fourth, Vaivasvata Manu, perished, the number _seven_ will be seen to recur at every step. It is Noah who, as Jehovah’s permutation, represents the septenary Host of the Elohim, and is thus the Father or Creator (the Preserver) of all animal life. Hence the verses of _Genesis_: “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male [3], and the female [4]; of fowls also of the air by sevens,”(1414) etc., followed by all the _sevening_ of days and the rest.

B. The Tetraktys In Relation To The Heptagon.

Thus number _seven_, as a compound of 3 and 4, is the factor element in every ancient religion, because it is _the factor element in Nature_. Its adoption must be justified, and it must be shown to be _the_ number _par excellence_, for, since the appearance of _Esoteric Buddhism_, frequent objections have been made, and doubts expressed as to the correctness of these assertions.

And here let the student be told at once, that in all such numerical divisions the One universal Principle—although referred to as (the) one, because the Only One—never enters into the calculations. It stands, in its character of the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Universal Abstraction, entirely by Itself and independent of every other Power whether noumenal or phenomenal. Says the author of the article “Personal and Impersonal God”:

This entity is neither matter nor spirit; it is neither Ego nor
non‐Ego; and it is neither object nor subject.

In the language of Hindû philosophers it is the original and
eternal combination of Purusha [Spirit] and Prakriti [Matter]. As
the Advaitîs hold that an external object is merely the product of
our mental states, Prakriti is nothing more than illusion, and
Purusha is the only reality; it is the _one_ existence which
remains in the universe of Ideas. This ... then, is the
Parabrahman of the Advaitîs. Even if there were to be a personal
God with anything like a material Upâdhi (physical basis of
whatever form), from the standpoint of an Advaitî there will be as
much reason to doubt his noumenal existence, as there would be in
the case of any other object. In their opinion, a conscious God
cannot be the origin of the universe, as his Ego would be the
effect of a previous cause, if the word conscious conveys but its
ordinary meaning. They cannot admit that _the grand total of all
the states of consciousness in the universe_ is their deity, as
these states are constantly changing, and as cosmic idealism
ceases during Pralaya. There is only one permanent condition in
the Universe, which is the state of perfect unconsciousness, bare
Chidâkâsham (the field of consciousness) in fact.

When my readers once realize the fact that this grand universe is
in reality but a huge aggregation of various states of
consciousness, they will not be surprised to find that the
ultimate state of unconsciousness is considered as Parabrahman by
the Advaitîs.(1415)

Although itself entirely out of human reckoning or calculation, yet this “huge aggregation of various states of consciousness” is a septenate, in _its_ totality entirely composed of septenary groups—simply because “the capacity of perception _exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter_,”(1416) or the seven properties, or states of matter. And, therefore, the series from one to seven, begins in the Esoteric calculations with the first manifested principle, which is number one if we commence from above, and number seven when reckoning from below, or from the lowest principle.

The Tetrad is esteemed in the _Kabalah_, as it was by Pythagoras, the most perfect, or rather _sacred_ number, because it emanated from the One, the first manifested Unit, or rather the Three in One. And the latter has ever been impersonal, sexless, incomprehensible, though within the possibility of the higher mental perceptions.

The first manifestation of the eternal Monad was never meant to stand as the symbol of another symbol, the Unborn for the Element‐born, or the one Logos for the Heavenly Man. Tetragrammaton, or the Tetraktys of the Greeks, is the Second Logos, the Demiurgos.

The Tetrad, as Thomas Taylor thinks, is, however, the _animal
itself_ of Plato who, as Syrianus justly observes, was the best of
the Pythagoreans; subsists at the extremity of the intelligible
triad, as is most satisfactorily shown by Proclus in the third
book of his treatise on the theology of Plato. And between these
two triads [the double triangle], the one intelligible, and the
other intellectual, another order of gods exists, which partakes
of both extremes.(1417)...

The Pythagorean world, according to Plutarch,(1418) _consisted of a double quaternary_.

This statement corroborates what is said about the choice, by the exoteric theologies, of the _lower_ Tetraktys. For:

The quaternary of the intellectual world [the world of Mahat] is
T’Agathon, Nous, Psyche, Hyle; while that of the sensible world
[of Matter], which is properly what Pythagoras meant by the word
Kosmos, is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The four elements are
called by the name of _rhizômata_, the roots or principles of all
_mixed bodies_.(1419)

That is to say, the lower Tetraktys is the root of _illusion_, of the World of Matter; and this is the Tetragrammaton of the Jews, and the “mysterious deity,” over which the modern Kabalists make such a fuss!

This number [_four_] forms the arithmetical mean between the monad
and the heptad; and this comprehends all powers, both of the
productive and produced numbers; for this, of all numbers under
ten, is made of a certain number; the duad doubled makes a tetrad,
and the tetrad doubled [or unfolded] makes the hebdomad [the
septenary]. Two multiplied into itself produces four; and retorted
into itself makes the first cube. This first cube is a _fertile
number_, the ground of multitude and variety, constituted of two
and four [depending on the monad, the _seventh_]. Thus the two
principles of temporal things, the pyramis and cube, form and
matter, flow from one fountain, the tetragon [on earth, the monad,
in heaven].(1420)

Here Reuchlin, the great authority on the _Kabalah_, shows the cube to be “matter,” whereas the pyramid or the triad is “form.” With the Hermesians the number four becomes the symbol of truth only when _amplified into a cube_, which, unfolded, makes seven, as symbolizing the male and female elements and the element of Life.(1421)

Some students have been puzzled to account for the vertical line,(1422) which is male, becoming, in the cross, a four‐partitioned line (_four_ being a female number), while the horizontal (the line of matter) becomes three‐divisioned. But this is easy of explanation. Since the middle face of the “cube unfolded” is _common_ to both the vertical and the horizontal bar, or double‐line, it becomes _neutral_ ground so to say, and belongs to neither. The spirit line remains triadic, and the matter line two‐fold—two being an even and therefore a female number also. Moreover, according to Theon in his _Mathematica_, the Pythagoreans, who gave the name of Harmony to the Tetraktys, “because it is a diatessaron in sesquitertia,” were of opinion that:

The division of the canon of the monochord was made by the
tetraktys in the duad, triad, and tetrad; for it comprehends a
sesquitertia, a sesquialtera, a duple, a triple, and a quadruple
proportion, the section of which is 27. In the ancient musical
notation, the tetrachord consisted of _three_ degrees or
intervals, and _four_ terms of sounds called by the Greeks
diatessaron, and by us a fourth.(1423)

Moreover, the quaternary though an even, therefore a female (“infernal”) number, varied according to its form. This is shown by Stanley.(1424) The four was called by the Pythagoreans the Key‐Keeper of Nature; but in union with the three, which made it seven, it became the most perfect and harmonious number—_nature herself_. The four was “the masculine of feminine form,” when forming the cross; and seven is the “Master of the Moon,” for this Planet is forced to alter her appearance every seven days. It is on number seven that Pythagoras composed his doctrine on the Harmony and Music of the Spheres, calling a “tone” the distance of the Moon from the Earth; from the Moon to Mercury half a tone, from thence to Venus the same; from Venus to the Sun one and a half tones; from the Sun to Mars a tone; from thence to Jupiter half a tone; from Jupiter to Saturn half a tone; and thence to the Zodiac a tone; thus making seven tones—the diapason harmony.(1425) All the melody of Nature is in those seven tones, and therefore is called the “Voice of Nature.”

Plutarch explains(1426) that the most ancient Greeks regarded the Tetrad as the root and principle of all things, since it was the number of the elements which gave birth to all visible and invisible _created_ things.(1427) With the brothers of the Rosy Cross, the figure of the cross, or _cube unfolded_, formed the subject of a disquisition in one of the Theosophic degrees of Peuvret, and was treated according to the fundamental principles of light and darkness, _or good and evil_.(1428)

The intelligible world proceeds out of the divine mind [or unit]
after this manner. The Tetraktys, reflecting upon its own essence,
_the first unit, productrix of all things_, and on its own
beginning, saith thus: Once one, twice two, immediately ariseth a
tetrad, having on its top the highest unit, and _becomes a
Pyramis_, whose base is a plain tetrad, answerable to a
superficies, upon which the radiant light of the divine unity
produceth the form of incorporeal fire, by reason of the descent
of Juno (matter) to inferior things. Hence ariseth essential
light, not burning but illuminating. This is _the creation of the
middle world_, which the Hebrews call the _Supreme_, the world of
the [_their_] deity. It is termed Olympus, entirely light, and
replete with separate forms, where is the seat of the immortal
gods, _deûm domus alta_, whose top is _unity_, its wall _trinity_,
and its superficies _quaternity_.(1429)

The “superficies” has thus to remain a _meaningless surface_, if left by itself. _Unity_ only “illuminating” _quaternity_, the famous lower four has to build for itself also a wall from _trinity_, if it would be manifested. Moreover, the Tetragrammaton, or Microprosopus, is “Jehovah” arrogating to himself very improperly the “Was, Is, Will Be,” now translated into the “I am that I am,” and interpreted as referring to the highest abstract Deity; while Esoterically and in plain truth, it means only periodically chaotic, turbulent, and eternal Matter, with all its potentialities. For the Tetragrammaton is one with Nature, or Isis, and is the exoteric series of androgyne Gods such as Osiris‐Isis, Jove‐Juno, Brahmâ‐Vâch, or the Kabalistic Jah‐Hovah; all male‐females. Every anthropomorphic God, in old nations, as Marcellus Ficin well observed, has his name written with four letters. Thus with the Egyptians, he was Teut; the Arabs, Alla; the Persians, Sire; the Magi, Orsi; the Mahometans, Abdi; the Greeks, Teos; the ancient Turks, Esar; the Latins, Deus; to which John Lorenzo Anania adds the German Gott; the Sarmatian Bouh; etc.(1430)

The Monad being one, and an _odd_ number, the Ancients therefore said that the odd were the only perfect numbers; and—selfishly, perhaps, yet as a fact—considered them all as masculine and perfect, being applicable to the _celestial_ Gods, while even numbers, such as two, four, six, and especially eight, as being female, were regarded as imperfect, and given only to the _terrestrial and infernal_ Deities. Virgil records the fact by saying, “_Numero deus impare gaudet_.” “The God is pleased with an odd number.”(1431)

But number _seven_, or the Heptagon, the Pythagoreans considered to be a _religious and perfect number_. It was called Telesphoros, because by it all in the Universe and mankind is led _to its end_, _i.e._, its culmination.(1432) The doctrine of the Spheres ruled by the seven Sacred Planets(1433) shows, from Lemuria to Pythagoras, the seven Powers of terrestrial and sublunary Nature, as well as the seven great Forces of the Universe, proceeding and evolving in seven tones, which are the seven notes of the musical scale.

The Heptad [our Septenary] was considered to be _the number of a virgin, because it is unborn_ [like the Logos or the Aja of the Vedântins]:

Without a father ... or a mother, ... _but proceeding directly
from the monad_, which is the origin and crown of all
things.(1434)

And if the Heptad is made to proceed from the Monad directly, then it is, as taught in the Secret Doctrine of the oldest schools, the perfect and sacred number of this Mahâmanvantara of ours.

The Septenary, or Heptad, was sacred indeed to several Gods and Goddesses; to Mars, with his seven attendants, to Osiris, whose body was divided into seven and twice seven parts; to Apollo, the Sun, amid his seven planets, and playing the hymn to the seven‐rayed on his seven‐stringed harp; to Minerva, the fatherless and the motherless, and others.(1435)

Cis‐Himâlayan Occultism with its sevening, and because of such sevening, must be regarded as the most ancient, the original of all. It is opposed by _some_ fragments left by Neo‐Platonists; and the admirers of the latter, who hardly understand what they defend, say to us: See, your forerunners believed only in _triple_ man, composed of Spirit, Soul, and Body. Behold, the Târaka Râja Yoga of India limits that division to 3, we, to 4, and the Vedântins to 5 (Koshas). To this, we of the Archaic school ask:

Why then does the Greek poet say that it is not four but _seven_ who sing the praise of the Spiritual Sun?

Ἑπτά με κ.τ.λ.
Seven sounding letters sing the praise of me,
The immortal God, the almighty Deity.

Why again is the _triune_ Iao, the Mystery God, called the “fourfold,” and yet the triadic and tetradic symbols come under one unified name with the Christians—the Jehovah of the seven letters? Why again in the Hebrew Shebâ is the Oath (the Pythagorean Tetraktys) identical with number 7? Or, as Mr. Gerald Massey has it:

Taking an oath was synonymous with “to seven,” and the 10
expressed by the letter Jod, was the full number of Iao‐Sabaoth
[—the ten‐lettered God].(1436)

In Lucian’s _Auction_:

Pythagoras asks, “How do you reckon?” The reply is, “One, Two,
Three, Four.” Then Pythagoras says, “Do you see? In _what you
conceive_ Four there are Ten, _a perfect Triangle and our Oath_
[Tetraktys, Four!—or Seven in all].”(1437)

Why again does Proclus say:

The Father of the golden verses celebrates the Tetraktys as the
fountain of perennial nature?(1438)

Simply because those Western Kabalists who quote the _exoteric_ proofs against us have no idea of the real _Esoteric_ meaning. All the ancient Cosmologies—the oldest Cosmographies of the two most ancient people of the Fifth Root‐Race, the Hindû Âryans and the Egyptians, together with the early Chinese races, the remnants of the Fourth or Atlantean Race—based the whole of their Mysteries on number 10; the higher Triangle standing for the invisible and metaphysical World, the lower three and four, or the Septenate, for the physical Realm. It is not the Jewish _Bible_ that brought number seven into prominence. Hesiod used the words, “the seventh is the sacred day,” before the Sabbath of “Moses” was ever heard of. The use of number seven was never confined to any one nation. This is well testified by the seven vases in the Temple of the Sun, near the ruins of Babian in Upper Egypt; the seven fires burning continually for ages before the altars of Mithra; the seven holy fanes of the Arabians; the seven peninsulas, the seven islands, seven seas, mountains, and rivers of India; and of the _Zohar_; the Jewish Sephiroth of the seven splendours; the seven Gothic deities; the seven worlds of the Chaldæans and their seven Spirits; the seven constellations mentioned by Hesiod and Homer; and all the interminable sevens which the Orientalists find in every MS. they discover.(1439)

What we have to say finally is this: Enough has been brought forward to show why the human principles were and are divided in the Esoteric Schools into seven. Make it four and it will either leave man _minus_ his lower terrestrial elements, or, if viewed from a physical standpoint, make of him a soulless animal. The Quaternary must be the higher or the lower—the celestial or terrestrial Tetraktys; to become comprehensible, according to the teachings of the _ancient_ Esoteric School, man must be regarded as a septenary. This was so well understood, that even the so‐called Christian Gnostics adopted this time‐honoured system.(1440) This remained for a long time a secret, for though it was suspected, no MSS. of that time spoke of it clearly enough to satisfy the sceptic. But there comes to our rescue the literary curiosity of our age—the oldest and best preserved Gospel of the Gnostics, _Pistis Sophia_. To make the proof absolutely complete, we shall quote from an authority, C. W. King, the only Archæologist who has had a faint glimmer of this elaborate doctrine, and the best writer of the day on the Gnostics and their gems.

According to this extraordinary piece of religious literature—a true Gnostic fossil—the human Entity is the Septenary Ray from the One,(1441) just as our School teaches. It is composed of seven elements, four of which are borrowed from the four kabalistical manifested worlds. Thus:

From Asiah it gets the Nephesh, or seat of the physical appetites
[vital breath, also]; from Jezirah, the Ruach, or seat of the
passions [? !]; from Briah, the Neshamah or reason; and from
Aziluth it obtains the Chaiah, or principle of spiritual life.
This looks like an adaptation of the Platonic theory of the Soul’s
obtaining its respective faculties from the Planets in its
downward progress through their spheres. But the Pistis‐Sophia,
with its accustomed boldness, puts this theory into a much more
poetical shape (§ 282). The _Inner Man_ is similarly made up of
_four_ constituents, _but these are supplied by the rebellious
Æons of the Spheres_, being the _Power_—a particle of the Divine
light (“Divinæ particula auræ”) yet left in themselves; the _Soul_
[the fifth] “formed out of the tears of their eyes, and the sweat
of their torments”; the Ἀντιμῖμον Πνεύματος, _Counterfeit of the
Spirit_ (seemingly answering to our _Conscience_) [_the sixth_];
and lastly the Μοῖρα, _Fate_(1442) [Karmic Ego], whose business it
is to lead the man to the end appointed for him: if he hath to die
by the fire, to lead him into the fire; if he hath to die by a
wild beast, to lead him unto the wild beast—[the _seventh_]!(1443)

C. The Septenary Element In The Vedas.

_It Corroborates the Occult Teaching Concerning the Seven Globes and the Seven Races._

We have to go to the very source of historical information, if we would bring our best evidence to testify to the facts enunciated. For, though entirely allegorical, the Rig Vedic hymns are none the less suggestive. The seven Rays of Sûrya, the Sun, are therein made parallel to the seven Worlds, of every Planetary Chain, to the seven Rivers of Heaven and Earth, the former being the seven creative Hosts, and the latter the seven Men, or primitive human groups. The seven ancient Rishis—the progenitors of all that lives and breathes on Earth—are the seven friends of Agni, his seven “Horses,” or seven “Heads.” The human race has sprung from Fire and Water, it is allegorically stated; fashioned by the Fathers, or the Ancestor‐ sacrificers, from Agni; for Agni, the Ashvins, the Âdityas,(1444) are all synonymous with those “Sacrificers,” or the Fathers, variously called Pitaras (or Pitris), Angirasas,(1445) and Sâdhyas, “Divine Sacrificers,” the most Occult of all. They are all called Deva‐putra Rishayah or the “Sons of God.”(1446) The “Sacrificers,” moreover, are collectively the One Sacrificer, the Father of the Gods, Vishvakarman, who performed the great Sarva‐medha ceremony, and ended by sacrificing himself.

In these Hymns the “Heavenly Man” is called Purusha, the “Man,”(1447) from whom Virâj was born(1448); and from Virâj, the (mortal) man. It is Varuna—lowered from his sublime position to be the chief of the Lords—Dhyânîs or Devas—who regulates all natural phenomena, who “makes a path for the Sun, for him to follow.” The seven Rivers of the Sky (the descending Creative Gods), and the seven Rivers of the Earth (the seven primitive Mankinds), are under his control, as will be seen. For he who breaks Varuna’s laws (Vratâni, or “courses of natural action,” active laws), is punished by Indra(1449) the Vedic powerful God, whose Vrata, or law or power, is greater than the Vratâni of any other God.

Thus, the _Rig Veda_, the oldest of _all the known_ ancient records, may be shown to corroborate the Occult Teachings in almost every respect. Its Hymns, which are the records written by the earliest Initiates of the Fifth (our) Race concerning the Primordial Teachings, speak of the Seven Races (two still to come), allegorizing them by the seven “Streams”(1450) and of the Five Races (Panchakrishtayah) which have already inhabited this world(1451) on the five Regions (Panchapradishah)(1452) as also of the three Continents that were.(1453)

It is only those scholars who will master the secret meaning of the Purusha Sukta—in which the intuition of the modern Orientalists has chosen to see “one of the very latest hymns of the _Rig Veda_”—who may hope to understand how harmonious are its teachings and how corroborative of the Esoteric Doctrines. He must study, in all the abstruseness of their metaphysical meaning, the relations therein between the (Heavenly) Man (Purusha), _sacrificed_ for the production of the Universe and all in it,(1454) and the terrestrial mortal man(1455) before he realizes the hidden philosophy of the verse:

15. He [“Man,” Purusha, or Vishvakarman] had seven enclosing logs
of fuel, and _thrice seven_ layers of fuel; when the Gods
performed the sacrifice, they bound the Man as victim.

This relates to the three septenary primeval Races, and shows the antiquity of the _Vedas_, which knew of no other sacrifice, probably, in these earliest _oral_ teachings; and also to the seven primeval groups of Mankind, as Vishvakarman represents divine Humanity collectively.(1456)

The same doctrine is found reflected in the other old religions. It may, it must, have come down to us disfigured and misinterpreted, as in the case of the Parsîs who read it in their _Vendîdâd_ and elsewhere, though without understanding the allusions therein contained any better than do the Orientalists; yet the doctrine is plainly mentioned in their old works.(1457)

Comparing the Esoteric Teaching with the interpretations by Prof. James Darmesteter, one may see at a glance where the mistake is made, and the cause that produced it. The passage runs thus:

The Indo‐Iranian Asura [Ahura] was often conceived as _sevenfold_;
by the play of certain mythical [?] formulæ and the strength of
certain mythical [?] numbers, the ancestors of the Indo‐Iranians
had been led to speak of seven worlds,(1458) and the supreme god
was often made sevenfold, as well as the worlds over which he
ruled. The seven worlds became in Persia the seven Karshvare of
the earth: the earth is divided into seven Karshvare, _only one of
which is known and accessible to man_, the one on which we live,
namely, Hvaniratha; which amounts to saying that there are _seven
earths_.(1459) Parsi mythology knows also of seven heavens.
Hvaniratha itself is divided into seven climes. (Orm. Ahr. §
72.)(1460)

The same division and doctrine is to be found in the oldest and most revered of the Hindû scriptures—the _Rig Veda_. Mention is made therein of six Worlds, _besides_ our Earth: the six Rajamsi above Prithivî, the Earth, or “this” (Idam) as opposed to “that which is _yonder_” (_i.e._, the six Globes on the _three_ other planes or Worlds).(1461)

The italics are ours to point out the identity of the tenets with those of the Esoteric Doctrine, and to accentuate the mistake that is made. The Magi or Mazdeans only believed in what other people believed in: namely, in seven “Worlds” or Globes of our Planetary Chain, of which _only one_ is accessible to man, at the present time, our Earth; and in the successive appearance and destruction of seven Continents or Earths on this our Globe, each Continent being divided, in commemoration of the seven Globes (one visible, six invisible), into seven islands or continents, seven “climes,” etc. This was a common belief in those days when the now Secret Doctrine was open to all. It is this multiplicity of localities in septenary divisions, which has made the Orientalists—who have, moreover, been further led astray by the oblivion of their primitive doctrines of both the uninitiated Hindûs and Parsîs—feel so puzzled by this ever‐ recurring seven‐fold number as to regard it as “mythical.” It is this oblivion of first principles which has led the Orientalists off the right track and made them commit the greatest blunders. The same failure is found in the definition of the Gods. Those who are ignorant of the Esoteric Doctrine of the earliest Âryans, can never assimilate or even understand correctly the metaphysical meaning contained in these Beings.

Ahura Mazda (Ormazd) was the head and synthesis of the seven Amesha Spentas, or Amshaspands, and, therefore, an Amesha Spenta himself. Just as Jehovah‐Binah‐Elohim was the head and synthesis of the Elohim, and no more; so Agni‐Vishnu‐Sûrya was the synthesis and head, or the focus whence emanated in physics and also in metaphysics, from the spiritual as well as from the physical Sun, the seven Rays, the seven Fiery Tongues, the seven Planets or Gods. All these became supreme Gods and _the_ One God, but only after the loss of the primeval secrets; _i.e._, the sinking of Atlantis, or the “Flood,” and the occupation of India by the Brâhmans, who sought safety on the summits of the Himâlayas, for even the high table‐lands of what is now Tibet became submerged for a time. Ahura Mazda is addressed only as the “Most Blissful Spirit, Creator of the _Corporeal_ World” in the _Vendîdâd_. Ahura Mazda in its literal translation means the “Wise Lord” (Ahura “lord” and Mazda “wise”). Moreover, this name of Ahura, in Sanskrit Asura, connects him with the Mânasaputras, the Sons of Wisdom who informed the mindless man, and endowed him with his mind (Manas). Ahura (Asura) may be derived from the root _ah_ “to be,” but in its primal signification it is what the Secret Teaching shows it to be.

When Geology shall have found out how many thousands of years ago the disturbed waters of the Indian Ocean reached the highest plateaux of Central Asia, when the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf made one with it, then only will they know the age of the existing Âryan Brâhmanical nation, and also the time of its descent into the plains of Hindûstan, which did not take place till millenniums later.

Yima, the so‐called “first man” in the _Vendîdâd_, as much as his twin‐ brother Yama, the son of Vaivasvata Manu, belongs to two epochs of Universal History. He is the Progenitor of the Second human Race, hence the personification of the Shadows of the Pitris, and the Father of the Postdiluvian Humanity. The Magi said, “Yima,” as we say “man” when speaking of mankind. The “fair Yima,” the first mortal who converses with Ahura Mazda, is the _first _“man”_ who dies_ or disappears, not the first who is born. The “son of Vîvanghat”(1462) was, like the son of Vaivasvata, the symbolical man, who stood in Esotericism as the representative of the _first three_ Races and the collective Progenitor thereof. Of these Races the first two never died(1463) but only vanished, absorbed in their progeny, and the Third knew death only towards its close, after the separation of the sexes and its “Fall” into generation. This is plainly alluded to in Fargard ii of the _Vendîdâd_. Yima refuses to become the bearer of the law of Ahura Mazda, saying:

“I was not born, I was not taught to be the preacher and the
bearer of thy law.”(1464)

And then Ahura Mazda asks him to make his men increase and “watch over” his world.

He refuses to become the priest of Ahura Mazda, because he is _his own priest and sacrificer_, but he accepts the second proposal. He is made to answer:

“Yes!... Yes, I will nourish, and rule, and watch over thy world.
There shall be, while I am king, neither cold wind nor hot wind,
_neither disease nor death_.”

Then Ahura Mazda brings him a golden ring and a poniard, the emblems of sovereignty.

Thus, under the sway of Yima, three hundred _winters_ passed away,
and the earth was _replenished_ with flocks and herds, with men
and dogs and birds and with red blazing fires.

Three hundred winters mean three hundred periods or cycles. “Replenished,” mark well; that is to say, all this had been on it before; and thus is proven the knowledge of the doctrine about the successive Destructions of the World and its Life‐Cycles. Once the “three hundred winters” were over, Ahura Mazda warns Yima that the Earth is becoming too full, and men have nowhere to live. Then Yima steps forward, and with the help of Spenta Ârmaita, the female Genius, or Spirit of the Earth, makes that Earth stretch out and become larger by one‐third, after which “new flocks and herds and men” appear upon it. Ahura Mazda warns him again, and Yima makes the Earth by the same magic power to become larger by two‐thirds. “Nine hundred winters” _pass_ away, and Yima has to perform the ceremony for the _third_ time. The whole of this is allegorical. The three processes of stretching the Earth, refer to the three successive Continents and Races issuing one after and from the other, as explained more fully elsewhere. After the _third_ time, Ahura Mazda warns Yima in an assembly of “celestial gods” and “excellent mortals” that upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, and all _life_ will perish. This is the old Mazdean symbolism for the “Flood,” and the coming cataclysm to Atlantis, which sweeps away every Race in its turn. Like Vaivasvata Manu and Noah, Yima makes a Vara—an Enclosure, an Ark—under the God’s direction, and brings thither the seed of every living creature, animals and “Fires.”

It is of this “Earth” or new Continent that Zarathushtra became the law‐ giver and ruler. This was the Fourth Race in its beginning, after the men of the Third began to die out. Till then, as said above, there had been no regular death, but only a transformation, for _men had no personality_ as yet. They had Monads—“Breaths” of the One Breath, as impersonal as the source from which they proceeded. They had bodies, or rather shadows of bodies, which were sinless, hence Karma‐less. Therefore, as there was no Kâma Loka—least of all Nirvâna or even Devachan—for the “Souls” of men who had no personal Egos, there could be no intermediate periods between the incarnations. Like the Phœnix, primordial man resurrected out of his old into a new body. Each time, and with each new generation, he became more solid, more physically perfect, agreeably with the evolutionary law, which is the Law of Nature. Death came with the complete physical organism, and with it—moral decay.

This explanation shows one more old religion agreeing in its symbology with the Universal Doctrine.

Elsewhere the oldest Persian traditions, the relics of Mazdeism of the still older Magians, are given, and some of them explained. Mankind did not issue from one solitary couple. Nor was there ever a first man—whether Adam or Yima—but a first mankind.

It may, or may not, be “mitigated polygenism.” Once that both Creation _ex nihilo_ (an absurdity) and a superhuman Creator or Creators (a fact) are made away with by Science, polygenism presents no more difficulties or inconveniences—rather fewer from a scientific point of view—than monogenism does.

In fact, it is as scientific as any other claim. For in his Introduction to Nott and Gliddon’s _Types of Mankind_, Agassiz declares his belief in an indefinite number of “primordial races of men created _separately_”; and remarks that, “whilst in every zoological province animals are of _different_ species, _man_, in spite of the diversity of his races, always forms _one and the same_ human being.”

Occultism defines and limits the number of primordial races to seven, because of the seven “Progenitors,” or Prajâpatis, the evolvers of beings. These are neither Gods, nor supernatural Beings, but advanced Spirits from another and lower Planet, reborn on this Planet, and giving birth in their turn in the present Round to present Humanity. This doctrine is again corroborated by one of its echoes—among the Gnostics. In their anthropology and genesis of man they taught that “a certain company of _seven_ Angels,” formed the first men, who were no better than senseless, gigantic, shadowy forms—“a mere wriggling worm” (!) writes Irenæus,(1465) who takes, as usual, the metaphor for reality.

D. The Septenary In The Exoteric Works.

We may now examine other ancient scriptures and see whether they contain the septenary classification, and, if so, to what degree.

Scattered about in thousands of other Sanskrit texts, some still unopened, others yet unknown, as well as in all the _Purânas_, as much as, if not much more than, even in the Jewish _Bible_, the numbers seven and forty‐ nine (7 × 7) play a most prominent part. In the _Purânas_ they are found from the seven Creations, in the first chapters, down to the seven Rays of the Sun at the final Pralaya, which expand into seven Suns and absorb the material of the whole Universe. Thus the _Matsya Purâna_ has:

For the sake of promulgating the Vedas, Vishnu, in the beginning
of a Kalpa, related to Manu the story of Narasimha and the events
of _seven_ Kalpas.(1466)

Then again the same _Purâna_ shows that:

In all the Manvantaras, classes of Rishis(1467) appear by seven
and _seven_, and having established a code of law and morality
depart to felicity.(1468)

The Rishis, however, represent many other things besides living sages.

In Dr. Muir’s translation of the _Atharva Veda_, we read:

1. Time carries (us) forward, a steed, with _seven_ rays, a
thousand eyes, undecaying, full of fecundity. On him intelligent
sages mount; his wheels are all the worlds.

2. Thus Time moves on _seven_ wheels; he has _seven_ naves;
immortality is his axle. He is at present _all these worlds_. Time
hastens onward the first God.

3. A full jar is contained in Time. We behold him existing in many
forms. He is all these worlds in the future. They call him “Time
in the highest Heaven.”(1469)

Now add to this the following verse from the Esoteric Volumes:

_Space and Time are one. Space and Time are nameless, for they are the incognizable That, which can be sensed only through its seven Rays—which are the seven Creations, the seven Worlds, the seven Laws, etc._

Remembering that the _Purânas_ insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time and Space,(1470) and that even the Rabbinical symbol for God is Maqom, “Space,” it becomes clear why, for purposes of a manifesting Deity—Space, Matter, and Spirit—the one central Point became the Triangle and Quaternary—the perfect Cube—hence _seven_. Even the Pravaha Wind—the mystic and occult force that gives the impulse to, and regulates the course of the stars and planets—is septenary. The _Kûrma_ and _Linga Purânas_ enumerate seven principal winds of that name, which winds are the principles of Cosmic Space.(1471) They are intimately connected with Dhruva(1472) (now Alpha), the Pole‐Star, which is connected in its turn with the production of various phenomena through cosmic forces.

Thus, from the seven Creations, seven Rishis, Zones, Continents, Principles, etc., in the Âryan Scriptures, the number has passed through Indian, Egyptian, Chaldæan, Greek, Jewish, Roman, and finally Christian mystic thought, until it landed in, and remained indelibly impressed on, every exoteric theology. The seven old books stolen out of Noah’s Ark by Ham, and given to Cush, his son, and the seven Brazen Columns of Ham and Cheiron, are a reflection and a remembrance of the seven primordial Mysteries instituted according to the “seven secret Emanations,” the seven Sounds, and seven Rays—the spiritual and sidereal models of the seven thousand times seven copies of them in later æons.

The mysterious number is once more prominent in the no less mysterious Maruts. The _Vâyu Purâna_ shows, and the _Harivamsha_ corroborates, concerning the Maruts—the oldest as the most incomprehensible of all the secondary or lower Gods in the _Rig Veda_:

That they are _born in every Manvantara [Round], seven times
seven_ (or forty‐nine); that, in each Manvantara, _four times
seven_ (or twenty‐eight) obtain emancipation, but their places are
_filled up by persons reborn in that character_.(1473)

What are the Maruts in their Esoteric meaning, and who _those persons_ “reborn in that character”? In the _Rik_ and other _Vedas_, the Maruts are represented as the Storm Gods and the _friends and allies_ of Indra; they are the “Sons of Heaven and of Earth.” This led to an allegory that makes them the children of Shiva, the great patron of the Yogîs:

The Mahâ Yogî, the great _ascetic_, in whom is centred the highest
perfection of austere penance and abstract meditation, _by which
the most unlimited powers are attained, marvels and miracles are
worked, the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired, and union
with the great spirit of the universe is eventually gained_.(1474)

In the _Rig Veda_ the name Shiva is unknown, but the corresponding God is called Rudra, a name used for Agni, the Fire‐God, the Maruts being called therein his sons. In the _Râmâyana_ and the _Purânas_, their mother, Diti—the sister, or complement, and a form of Aditi—anxious to obtain a son who would destroy Indra, is told by Kashyapa, the Sage, that if, “with thoughts wholly pious and person entirely pure,” she carries the babe in her womb “for a hundred years,”(1475) she will have such a son. But Indra foils her in the design. With his thunderbolt he _divides the embryo in her womb into seven portions_, and then divides every such portion _into seven pieces again_, which become the swift‐moving deities, the Maruts.(1476) These Deities are only another _aspect_, or a development, of the Kumâras, who are patronymically Rudras, like many others.(1477)