Chapter IV: Part I: Anthropogenesis (2)

The reader is asked to turn to Stanza IV of Volume I, Shloka 3 and Commentary,(75) to find that the 3, 4, (7), and the thrice seven, or 1065, the number of Jehovah, is the number of the 21 Prajâpati mentioned in the _Mahâbhârata_, or the three Sephrim (words in ciphers or figures). And this comparison between the Creative Powers of Archaic Philosophy and the anthropomorphic Creator of _exoteric_ Judaism (since the _Esotericism_ of the Jews shows its identity with the Secret Doctrine) will lead the student to perceive and discover that, in truth, Jehovah is but a “lunar” and “generation” God. It is a fact well known to every conscientious student of the Kabalah, that the deeper he dives into it, the more he feels convinced that unless the Kabalah—or what is left of it—is read by the light of the Eastern Esoteric Philosophy, its study leads only to the discovery that, on the lines traced by exoteric Judaism and Christianity, the monotheism of both is nothing more exalted than ancient Astrolatry, now vindicated by modern Astronomy. The Kabalists never cease to repeat that Primal Intelligence can never be understood. It cannot be comprehended, nor can it be located, therefore it has to remain nameless and negative. Hence the Ain Suph—the “Unknowable” and “UNNAMEABLE”—as It could not be made manifest, was imagined as emanating Manifesting Powers. It is then with its Emanations alone that human intellect has to, and can, deal. Christian theology, having rejected the doctrine of Emanations and replaced them with direct, conscious Creations of Angels and the rest out of _nothing_, now finds itself hopelessly stranded between Supernaturalism, or Miracle, and Materialism. An _extra_‐cosmic God is fatal to Philosophy: an _intra_‐cosmic Deity—_i.e._, Spirit and Matter inseparable from each other—is a philosophical necessity. Separate them and that which is left is a gross superstition under a mask of emotionalism. But why “geometrize,” as Plato has it, why represent these Emanations under the form of an immense arithmetical table? The question is well answered by the author just cited, who says:

Mental perception, to become physical perception, must have the
cosmic principle of _Light_:—and, by this, our mental circle must
become visible through light; or, for its complete manifestation,
the circle must be that of physical visibility, or Light itself.

Such conceptions, thus formulated, became the ground‐work of the
philosophy of the Divine manifesting in the universe.(76)

This is Philosophy. It is otherwise when we find the Rabbi in _Al‐Chazari_ saying that:

Under s’ph‐r is to be understood—_calculation_ and _weighing_ of
the created bodies. For the _calculation_, by means of which a
body must be constructed in harmony or symmetry, by which it must
be in construction rightly arranged and made to correspond to the
object in design, consists at last in _number_, _extension_,
_mass_, _weight_;—co‐ordinate relation of movements, then harmony
of music, must consist altogether _by number_, that is s’ph‐r....
By Sippor (s’phor) is to be understood the words of Alhim (206—1
of 31415 to one), whereunto joins or adapts itself the design to
the frame or form of construction; for example—it was said “Let
Light be.” The work became as the _words_ were spoken, that is, as
the numbers of the work came forth.(77)

This is _materializing_ the _spiritual_ without scruple. But the Kabalah was not always so well adapted to anthropo‐monotheistic conceptions. Compare this with any of the six schools of India. For instance in Kapila’s Sânkhya Philosophy, unless, allegorically speaking, Purusha mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti, the latter remains irrational, while the former remains inactive without her. Therefore Nature (in man) must become a compound of Spirit and Matter before he becomes what he is; and the Spirit latent in Matter must be awakened to life and consciousness gradually. The Monad has to pass through its mineral, vegetable and animal forms, before the Light of the Logos is awakened in the animal man. Therefore, till then, the latter cannot be referred to as “man,” but has to be regarded as a Monad imprisoned in ever‐changing forms. _Evolution_, not _Creation_, by means of _Words_ is recognized in the Philosophies of the East, even in their exoteric records. _Ex oriente lux._ Even the name of the first man in the Mosaic _Bible_ had its origin in India, Professor Max Müller’s negation notwithstanding. The Jews got their Adam from Chaldæa; and Adam‐Adami is a compound word and therefore a manifold symbol, and proves the Occult dogmas.

This is no place for philological disquisitions. But the reader may be reminded that the words _Ad_ and _Adi_ mean in Sanskrit the “first”; in Aramæan, “one” (_Ad‐ad_, the “only one”); in Assyrian, “Father,” whence _Ak‐ad_ or “father‐creator.”(78) And once the statement is found correct, it becomes rather difficult to confine Adam to the Mosaic _Bible_ alone, and to see therein simply a Jewish name.

There is frequent confusion in the attributes and genealogies of the Gods in their Theogonies, the Alpha and the Omega of the records of that symbolical science, as given to the world by the half‐initiated writers, Brâhmanical and Biblical. Yet there could be no such confusion made by the earliest nations, the descendants and pupils of the Divine Instructors; for both the attributes and the genealogies were inseparably linked with cosmogonical symbols, the “Gods” being the life and animating “soul‐ principle” of the various regions of the Universe. Nowhere and by no people was speculation allowed to range _beyond_ those _manifested_ Gods. The boundless and infinite Unity remained with every nation a virgin forbidden soil, untrodden by man’s thought, untouched by fruitless speculation. The only reference made to it was the brief conception of its diastolic and systolic property, of its periodical expansion, or dilatation, and contraction. In the Universe, with all its incalculable myriads of Systems and Worlds disappearing and reäppearing in eternity, the anthropomorphized Powers, or Gods, their Souls, had to disappear from view with their Bodies. As our _Catechism_ says:

“_The Breath returning to the Eternal Bosom which exhales and inhales them_.”

Ideal Nature, the Abstract Space in which everything in the Universe is mysteriously and invisibly generated, is the same female side of the procreative power in Nature in the Vedic as in every other Cosmogony. Aditi is Sephira, and the Sophia of the Gnostics, and Isis, the Virgin Mother of Horus. In every Cosmogony, behind and higher than the “Creative” Deity, there is a Superior Deity, a Planner, an Architect, of whom the Creator is but the executive agent. And still higher, _over_ and _around_, _within_ and _without_, there is the Unknowable and the _Unknown_, the Source and Cause of all these Emanations.

It thus becomes easy to account for the reason why Adam‐Adami is found in the Chaldæan scripture, certainly earlier than the Mosaic Books. In Assyrian _Ad_ is the “father,” and in Aramæan _Ad_ is “one,” and _Ad‐ad_ the “only one,” while _Ak_ is in Assyrian “creator.” Thus _Ad‐am‐ak‐ad‐ mon_ became Adam‐Kadmon in the Kabalah (_Zohar_), meaning as it did, the “One (Son) of the divine Father, or the Creator,” for the words _am_ and _om_ meant at one time in nearly every language the _divine_, or the _deity_. Thus Adam‐Kadmon and Adam‐Adami came to mean “The first Emanation of the Father‐Mother or Divine Nature,” and literally the “first Divine One.” And it is easy to see that _Ad_‐Argat (or Aster’t, the Syrian Goddess, the consort of _Ad‐on_, the Lord God of Syria or the Jewish Adonai), and Venus, Isis, Ister, Mylitta, Eve, etc., are identical with the Aditi and Vâch of the Hindûs. They are all the “Mothers of all living” and “of the Gods.” On the other hand—cosmically and astronomically—all the male Gods became at first “Sun‐Gods,” then, theologically, the “Suns of Righteousness,” and the Logoi, all symbolized by the Sun.(79) They are all Protogonoi—First‐born—and Mikroprosopoi. With the Jews Adam‐Kadmon was the same as Athamaz, Tamaz, or the Adonis of the Greeks—“the One _with_, and _of_ his Father”—the “Father” becoming during the later Races Helios, the Sun, as Apollo Karneios,(80) for instance, who was the “Sun‐born”; Osiris, Ormazd, and so on, were all followed by, and found themselves transformed later on into, still more earthly types: such as Prometheus, the crucified of Mount Kajbee, Hercules, and so many others, Sun‐Gods and Heroes, until all of them came to have no better significance than phallic symbols.

In the _Zohar_ it is said:

Man was created by the Sephiroth (Elohim‐Javeh, also) and they
engendered by common power the _earthly_ Adam.

Therefore in _Genesis_ the Elohim say: “Behold Man is become _as one of us_.” But in Hindû Cosmogony or “Creation,” Brahmâ‐Prajâpati _creates_ Virâj and the Rishis, spiritually; therefore the latter are distinctly called the “Mind‐born Sons of Brahmâ”; and this specified mode of _engendering_ precluded every idea of Phallicism, at any rate in the earlier human nations. This instance well illustrates the respective _spirituality_ of the two nations.

3. SAID THE LORD OF THE SHINING FACE: “I SHALL SEND THEE A FIRE WHEN THY WORK IS COMMENCED. RAISE THY VOICE TO OTHER LOKAS; APPLY TO THY FATHER, THE LORD OF THE LOTUS(81) (_A_), FOR HIS SONS.... THY PEOPLE SHALL BE UNDER THE RULE OF THE FATHERS.(82) THY MEN SHALL BE MORTALS. THE MEN OF THE LORD OF WISDOM,(83) NOT THE SONS OF SOMA,(84) ARE IMMORTAL. CEASE THY COMPLAINTS (_B_). THY SEVEN SKINS ARE YET ON THEE.... THOU ART NOT READY. THY MEN ARE NOT READY” (_C_).

(_a_) Kumuda‐Pati is the Moon, the Earth’s parent, in his region of Soma‐ loka. Though the Pitris, or Fathers, are Sons of the Gods, elsewhere Sons of Brahmâ and even Rishis, they are generally known as the Lunar Ancestors.

(_b_) Pitri‐Pati is the Lord or King of the Pitris, Yama, the God of Death and the Judge of mortals. The men of Budha, Mercury, are metaphorically “immortal” through their Wisdom. Such is the common belief of those who credit every Star or Planet with being inhabited—and there are men of Science, M. Flammarion among others, who believe in this fervently, on logical as well as on astronomical data. The Moon being an inferior body—even to the Earth, to say nothing of other Planets, the terrestrial men produced by her Sons—the Lunar Men or Ancestors—from her shell or body, cannot be immortal. They cannot hope to become real, self‐conscious and intelligent men, unless they are “finished,” so to say, by other creators. Thus in the Purânic legend, the son of the Moon (Soma) is Budha (Mercury), the intelligent and the wise, because he is the offspring of Soma, the Regent of the visible Moon, not of Indu, the physical Moon. Thus Mercury is the elder brother of the Earth, metaphorically—his step‐ brother, so to say, the offspring of Spirit—while she (the Earth) is the progeny of the Body. These allegories have a deeper and more scientific meaning—astronomically and geologically—than our modern Physicists are willing to admit. The whole cycle of the first “War in Heaven,” the Târakâ‐maya, is as full of philosophical as of cosmogonical and astronomical truths. One can trace therein the biographies of all the Planets by the history of their Gods and Rulers. Ushanas (Shukra, or Venus), the bosom‐friend of Soma and the foe of Brihaspati (Jupiter), the “Instructor of the Gods,” whose wife Târâ, or Tarakâ, had been carried away by the Moon, Soma—“of whom he begat Budha”—took also an active part in this war against the “Gods” and forthwith was degraded into a Demon (Asura) Deity, and so he remains to this day.(85)

Here the word “men” refers to the Celestial men, or what are called in India the Pitaras or Pitris, the Fathers, the Progenitors of men. This does not remove the seeming difficulty, in view of modern hypotheses, of the teaching, which shows these Progenitors or Ancestors creating the first human Adams out of their sides, as astral shadows. And though it is an improvement on Adam’s rib, still geological and climatic difficulties will be brought forward. Such, however, is the teaching of Occultism.

(_c_) Man’s organism was adapted in every Race to its surroundings. The first Root‐Race was as ethereal as ours is material. The progeny of the Seven Creators, who evolved the Seven Primordial Adams,(86) surely required no purified gases to breathe and live upon. Therefore, however strongly the impossibility of this teaching may be urged by the devotees of Modern Science, the Occultist maintains that the case was as stated _æons of years_ before even the evolution of the Lemurian, the first physical man, which took place 18,000,000 years ago. Archaic Scripture teaches that at the commencement of every local Kalpa, or Round, the Earth is reborn, and preliminary evolution is described in one of the _Books of Dzyan_ and the Commentaries thereon in this wise:

“_As the human Jîva [Monad], when passing into a new womb, gets recovered with a new body, so does the Jîva of the Earth; it gets a more perfect and solid covering with each Round after reëmerging once more from the matrix of space into objectivity._”

This process is attended, of course, by the throes of the new birth, or geological convulsions.

The only reference to it is contained in one verse of the volume of the _Book of Dzyan_ before us, where it says:

4. AFTER GREAT THROES SHE(87) CAST OFF HER OLD THREE AND PUT ON HER NEW SEVEN SKINS, AND STOOD IN HER FIRST ONE.

This refers to the growth of the Earth, whereas in the Stanza treating of the First Round it is said in the Commentary:

“_After the changeless [Avikâra] immutable Nature [Essence, Sadaikarûpa] had awakened and changed [differentiated] into [a state of] causality [Avyakta], and from cause [Kârana] had become its own discrete effect [Vyakta], from invisible it became visible. The smallest of the small [the most atomic of atoms, or anîyânsam anîyasâm] became one and the many [Ekânekarûpa]; and producing the Universe produced also the fourth Loka [our Earth] in the garland of the seven lotuses. The Achyuta then became the Chyuta._”(88)

The Earth is said to cast off “her old _three_” Skins, because this refers to the three preceding Rounds she has already passed through; the present being the Fourth Round out of the seven. At the beginning of every new Round, after a period of Obscuration, the Earth—as do also the other six “Earths”—casts off, or is supposed to cast off, her old Skins as the Serpent does; therefore she is called in the _Aitareya‐Brâhmana_ the Sarpa‐Râjnî, the “Queen of the Serpents,” and “the mother of all that moves.” The “Seven Skins,” in the first of which she now stands, refer to the seven geological changes which accompany and correspond to the evolution of the Seven Root‐Races of Humanity.

Stanza II, which speaks of this Round, begins with a few words of information concerning the age of our Earth. The chronology will be given in its place. In the Commentary appended to the Stanza, two personages are mentioned, Nârada and Asuramaya, especially the latter. All the calculations are attributed to this archaic celebrity; and what follows will make the reader superficially acquainted with some of these figures.

Two Antediluvian Astronomers.

To the mind of the Eastern student of Occultism, two figures are indissolubly connected with mystic Astronomy, Chronology, and their cycles. Two grand and mysterious figures, towering like two giants in the Archaic Past, emerge before him, whenever he has to refer to Yugas and Kalpas. When, at what period of pre‐history they lived, none save a few men in the world know, or ever can know, with that certainty which is required by exact chronology. It may have been 100,000 years ago, it may have been 1,000,000, for all that the outside world will ever know. The mystic West and Freemasonry talk loudly of Enoch and Hermes. The mystic East speaks of Nârada, the old Vedic Rishi, and of Asuramaya, the Atlantean.

It has already been hinted that of all the incomprehensible characters in the _Mahâbhârata_ and the _Purânas_, Nârada, the son of Brahmâ in the _Matsya Purâna_, the progeny of Kashyapa and the daughter of Daksha, in the _Vishnu Purâna_, is the most mysterious. He is referred to by the honourable title of Deva‐Rishi (Divine Rishi, rather than Demi‐God) by Parâshara, and yet he is cursed by Daksha and even by Brahmâ. He informs Kansha that Bhagavân, or Vishnu in exotericism, would incarnate in the eighth child of Devakî, and thus brings the wrath of the Indian Herod upon Krishna’s mother; and then, from the cloud on which he is seated—invisible as a true Mânasaputra—he lauds Krishna, in delight at the Avatâr’s feat of killing the monster Keshin. Nârada is here, there, and everywhere; and yet, none of the _Purânas_ gives the true characteristics of this great enemy of physical procreation. Whatever those characteristics may be in Hindû Esotericism, Nârada—who is called in Cis‐Himâlayan Occultism Pesh‐ Hun, the “Messenger,” or the Greek Angelos—is the sole confidant and the executor of the universal decrees of Karma and Adi‐Budha: a kind of active and ever‐incarnating Logos, who leads and guides human affairs from the beginning to the end of the Kalpa.

Pesh‐Hun is a general not a special Hindû possession. He is the mysterious guiding intelligent power, which gives the impulse to, and regulates the impetus of Cycles, Kalpas and universal events.(89) He is Karma’s visible adjuster on a general scale; the inspirer and the leader of the greatest heroes of this Manvantara. In the exoteric works he is referred to by some very uncomplimentary names; such as Kali‐kâraka, Strife‐maker, Kapi‐ vaktra, Monkey‐faced, and even Pishuna, the Spy, though elsewhere he is called Deva‐Brahmâ. Even Sir William Jones was strongly impressed with this mysterious character from what he gathered in his Sanskrit studies. He compares him to Hermes and Mercury, and calls him “the eloquent messenger of the gods.”(90) All this, besides the fact that the Hindûs believe him to be a great Rishi, “who is for ever wandering about the earth, giving good counsel,” led the late Dr. Kenealy(91) to see in him one of his twelve Messiahs. He was, perhaps, not so far off the real track as some imagine.

What Nârada _really_ is, cannot be explained in print; nor would the modern generations of the profane gather much from the information. But it may be remarked, that if there be in the Hindû Pantheon a Deity which resembles Jehovah, in tempting by “suggestion” of thoughts, and “hardening” of the hearts of those whom he would make his tools and victims, it is Nârada. Only with the latter it is no desire to obtain a pretext for “plaguing,” and thus showing that “_I am_ the Lord God.” Nor is it through any ambitious or selfish motive; but, verily, to serve and guide universal progress and evolution.

Nârada is one of the few prominent characters, if we except some Gods, in the _Purânas_, who visit the so‐called nether or infernal regions, Pâtâla. Whether or not it was from his intercourse with the thousand‐headed Shesha, the Serpent who bears the Seven Pâtâlas and the entire world like a diadem upon his heads, and who is the great teacher of Astronomy,(92) that Nârada learned all that he knew, certain it is that he surpasses Garga’s Guru in his knowledge of cyclic intricacies. It is he who has charge of our progress and national weal or woe. It is he who brings on wars and puts an end to them. In the old Stanzas, Pesh‐Hun is credited with having calculated and recorded all the astronomical and cosmic Cycles to come, and with having taught the Science to the first gazers at the starry vault. And it is Asuramaya, who is said to have based all his astronomical works upon those records, to have determined the duration of all the past geological and cosmical periods, and the length of all the Cycles to come, till the end of this Life‐Cycle, or the end of the Seventh Race.

There is a work among the Secret Books, called the _Mirror of Futurity_, wherein all the Kalpas within Kalpas, and Cycles within the bosom of Shesha, or infinite Time, are recorded. This work is ascribed to Pesh‐Hun‐ Nârada. There is another old work which is attributed to various Atlanteans. It is these two records which furnish us with the figures of our Cycles, and the possibility of calculating the date of Cycles to come. The chronological calculations which will presently be given are, however, those of the Brâhmans, as explained further on: but most of them are also those of the Secret Doctrine.

The chronology and computations of the Brâhman Initiates are based upon the zodiacal records of India, and the works of the above‐mentioned Astronomer and Magician—Asuramaya. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught Astronomy, among other things, to mankind.

But here again we are deliberately and recklessly facing a new difficulty. We shall be told that our statement is contradicted by Science, in the person of a man regarded as a great authority (in the West) upon all subjects of Sanskrit literature—Professor Albrecht Weber, of Berlin. This, to our great regret, cannot be helped; and we are ready to maintain what is now stated. Asuramaya, to whom the epic tradition points as the earliest Astronomer in Âryâvarta, one to whom “the Sun‐God imparted the knowledge of the stars,” _in propriâ personâ_, as Dr. Weber himself states, is identified by him, in some very mysterious way, with the “Ptolemaios” of the Greeks. No more valid reason is given for this identification than that:

This latter name (Ptolemaios), as we see from the inscription of
Piyadasi, became the Indian “Turamaya,” out of which the name
“Asura Maya” might very easily grow.

No doubt it “might,” but the vital question is: Are there any good proofs that it _has_ thus grown? The only evidence that is given for this is, that it _must_ be so:

Since ... this Maya is distinctly assigned to Romaka‐pura in the
West.(93)

The Mâyâ is evident, since no Sanskritist among Europeans can tell where that locality of Romaka‐pura was, except, indeed, that it was somewhere “in the West.” In any case, as no member of the Asiatic Society, or Western Orientalist, will ever listen to a Brâhmanical teaching, it is useless to take the objections of European Orientalists into consideration. Romaka‐pura was “in the West,” certainly, since it was part and parcel of the lost continent of Atlantis. And it is equally certain that it is Atlantis, to which is assigned in the Hindû _Purânas_ the birth‐place of Asuramaya, “as great a Magician as he was an Astrologer and an Astronomer.” Moreover, Prof. Weber refuses to assign any great antiquity to the Indian Zodiac, and feels inclined to think that the Hindûs never knew of a Zodiac at all till

They had borrowed one from the Greeks.(94)

This statement clashes with the most ancient traditions of India, and must therefore be ignored. We are the more justified in ignoring it, as the learned German Professor himself tells us in the introduction to his work, that:

In addition to the natural obstacles which impede investigation
[in India], there still prevails a dense mist of prejudice and
preconceived opinions hovering over the land, and enfolding it as
with a veil.(95)

Caught in that veil, it is no wonder that Dr. Weber should himself have been led into involuntary errors. Let us hope that he knows better now.

Now whether Asuramaya is to be considered a modern myth, a personage who flourished in the day of the Macedonian Greeks, or that which he is claimed to be by the Occultists, in any case his calculations agree entirely with those of the Secret Records.

From fragments of immensely old works attributed to the Atlantean Astronomer, and found in Southern India, the calendar elsewhere mentioned was compiled by two very learned Brâhmans(96) in 1884 and 1885. The work is proclaimed by the best Pandits as faultless—from the Brâhmanical standpoint—and thus far relates to the chronology of the orthodox teachings. If we compare its statements with those made several years earlier in _Isis Unveiled_, with the fragmentary teachings published by some Theosophists, and with the present data derived from the Secret Books of Occultism, the whole will be found to agree perfectly, save in some details which may not be explained; for secrets of higher Initiation—as unknown to the writer as they are to the reader—would have to be revealed, and that _cannot be done_.

Stanza II. Nature Unaided Fails.

5. After enormous periods the Earth creates monsters. 6. The
“Creators” are displeased. 7. They dry the Earth. 8. The forms are
destroyed by them. 9. The first great tides. 10. The beginning of
incrustation.

5. THE WHEEL WHIRLED FOR THIRTY CRORES MORE.(97) IT CONSTRUCTED RÛPAS;(98) SOFT STONES THAT HARDENED,(99) HARD PLANTS THAT SOFTENED.(100) VISIBLE FROM INVISIBLE, INSECTS AND SMALL LIVES.(101) SHE(102) SHOOK THEM OFF HER BACK WHENEVER THEY OVERRAN THE MOTHER (_A_).... AFTER THIRTY CRORES, SHE TURNED ROUND. SHE LAY ON HER BACK; ON HER SIDE.... SHE WOULD CALL NO SONS OF HEAVEN, SHE WOULD ASK NO SONS OF WISDOM. SHE CREATED FROM HER OWN BOSOM. SHE EVOLVED WATER‐MEN, TERRIBLE AND BAD (_B_).

(_a_) This relates to an inclination of the axis—of which there were several—to a consequent deluge and chaos on Earth (having, however, no reference to Primeval Chaos), in which monsters, half‐human, half‐animal, were generated. We find it mentioned in the _Book of the Dead_, and also in the Chaldæan account of creation, on the Cutha Tablets, however mutilated.

It is not even allegory. Here we have _facts_, that are found repeated in the account of the _Pymander_, as well as in the Chaldæan tablets of creation. The verses may almost be checked by the Cosmogony, as given by Berosus, which has been disfigured out of recognition by Eusebius, but some of the features of which may yet be found in fragments left by ancient Greek authors—Apollodorus, Alexander Polyhistor, etc. “The water‐ men terrible and bad”—who were the production of Physical Nature alone, a result of the “evolutionary impulse” and the first attempt to create “man,” the crown, and the aim and goal of all animal life on Earth—are shown to be failures in our Stanzas. Do we not find the same in the Berosian Cosmogony, denounced with such vehemence as the culmination of heathen absurdity? And yet who of the Evolutionists can say that things in the beginning have not come to pass as they are described? That, as maintained in the _Purânas_, the Egyptian and Chaldæan fragments, and even in _Genesis_, there have not been two, and even more, “creations,” before the last formation of the Globe; which, changing its geological and atmospheric conditions, changed also its flora, its fauna, and its men? This claim agrees not only with every ancient Cosmogony, but also with Modern Science, and even, to a certain degree, with the theory of evolution, as may be demonstrated in a few words.

There is no “Dark Creation,” no “Evil Dragon” conquered by a Sun‐God, in the earliest World‐Cosmogonies. Even with the Akkads, the Great Deep—the Watery Abyss, or Space—was the birthplace and abode of Ea, Wisdom, the incognizable infinite Deity. But with the Semites and the later Chaldæans, the fathomless Deep of Wisdom becomes gross Matter, sinful substance, and Ea is changed into Tiamat, the Dragon slain by Merodach, or Satan, in the astral waves.

In the Hindû _Purânas_, Brahmâ, the Creator, is seen recommencing _de novo_ several “Creations” after as many failures; and two great Creations are mentioned,(103) the Pâdma and the Vârâha, the present, when the Earth was lifted out of the water by Brahmâ, in the shape of a Boar, the Varâha Avatâra. Creation is shown as a sport, an amusement (Lîlâ) of the Creative God. The _Zohar_ speaks of primordial worlds, which perished as soon as they came into existence. And the same is said in the _Midraish_, Rabbi Abahu explaining distinctly(104) that “the Holy One” had successively created and destroyed sundry Worlds, before he succeeded in the present one. This does not relate only to other Worlds in Space, but to a mystery of our own Globe contained in the allegory about the “Kings of Edom.” For the words, “This one pleases me,” are repeated in _Genesis_,(105) though in disfigured terms, as usual. The Chaldæan fragments of Cosmogony in the cuneiform inscriptions, and elsewhere, show two distinct creations of animals and men, the first being destroyed, as it was a failure. The Cosmogonical tablets prove that this our actual creation was preceded by others;(106) and as shown by the author of _The Qabbalah_, in the _Zohar_, _Siphra Dtzenioutha_, in _Jovah Rabba_, 128a, etc., the Kabalah states the same.

(_b_) Oannes, or Dagon, the Chaldæan “Man‐fish,” divides his Cosmogony and Genesis into two portions. First the abyss of waters and darkness, wherein resided most hideous beings—men with wings, four and two‐winged men, human beings with two heads, with the legs and horns of a goat—our “goat‐ men”(107)—hippocentaurs, bulls with the heads of men, and dogs with tails of fishes. In short, combinations of various animals and men, of fishes, reptiles and other monstrous animals, assuming each other’s shapes and countenances. The feminine element they resided in is personified by Thalatth—the Sea, or “Water”—which was finally conquered by Belus, the male principle. And Polyhistor says:

Belus came, and cut the woman asunder; and of one half of her he
formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens; and at the
same time destroyed the animals within her.(108)

As pertinently remarked by Isaac Myer:

With the Akkadians each object and power of Nature had its _Zi_ or
Spirit. The Akkadians formed their deities into triads, usually of
males [sexless, rather?], the Semites also had triadic deities,
but introduced sex(109)

—or phallicism. With the Âryan and the earliest Akkadians all things are emanations _through_, not _by_, a Creator or Logos. With the Semites everything is _begotten_.

6. THE WATER‐MEN, TERRIBLE AND BAD, SHE HERSELF CREATED FROM THE REMAINS OF OTHERS.(110) FROM THE DROSS AND SLIME OF HER FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD,(111) SHE FORMED THEM. THE DHYÂNI CAME AND LOOKED.... THE DHYÂNI FROM THE BRIGHT FATHER‐MOTHER, FROM THE WHITE(112) REGIONS THEY(113) CAME, FROM THE ABODES OF THE IMMORTAL MORTALS (_A_).

(_a_) The explanations given in our Stanzas are far more clear than that which the legend of creation from the Cutha tablet would give, even were it complete. What is preserved on it, however, corroborates them. For, in the tablet, the “Lord of Angels” destroys the men in the abyss, when “there were not left the carcases and waste” after they were slaughtered. After which they, the Great Gods, create men with the bodies of birds of the desert, human beings, “seven kings, brothers of the same family,” etc., which is a reference to the locomotive qualities of the primary ethereal bodies of men, which could fly as well as they could walk,(114) but who “were destroyed” because they were not “perfect,” _i.e._, they “were sexless, like the Kings of Edom.”

Weeded of metaphors and allegories, what will Science say to this idea of a primordial creation of species? It will object to the “Angels” and “Spirits” having anything to do therewith; but if it be Nature and the physical law of evolution that are the creators of all there is now on Earth, why could there be “no such abyss,” when the Globe was covered with waters, in which numbers of monstrous beings were generated? Is it the “human beings” and animals with human heads and double faces, which are a point of the objection? But if man is only a higher animal and has evolved from the brute species by an infinite series of transformations, why could not the “missing links” have had human heads attached to the bodies of animals, or, being two‐headed, have heads of beasts and _vice versâ_, in Nature’s early efforts? Are we not shown, during the geological periods, in the ages of the reptiles and the mammalia, lizards with birds’ wings, and serpents’ heads on animal bodies?(115) And, arguing from the standpoint of Science, does not even our modern human race occasionally furnish us with monster‐specimens: two‐headed children, animal bodies with human heads, dog‐headed babies, etc.? And this proves that, if Nature will still play such freaks now that she has been settled for ages in the order of her evolutionary work, monsters, like those described by Berosus, were a possibility in her opening programme; a possibility which may even have existed once upon a time as a law, before she sorted out her species and began regular work upon them. And this indeed now admits of definite proof by the bare fact of “Reversion,” as Science puts it.

This is what the Doctrine teaches, and demonstrates by numerous proofs. But we shall not wait for the approval of either dogmatic Theology or Materialistic Science, but proceed with the Stanzas. Let these speak for themselves, with the help of the light thrown on them by the Commentaries and their explanations; the scientific aspect of these questions will be considered later on.

Thus Physical Nature, when left to herself in the creation of animal and man, is shown to have failed. She can produce the first two kingdoms, as well as that of the lower animals, but when it comes to the turn of man, spiritual, independent and intelligent powers are required for his creation, besides the “coats of skin” and the “breath of animal life.” The human Monads of preceding Rounds need something higher than purely physical materials with which to build their personalities, under the penalty of remaining even below any “Frankenstein” animal.(116)

7. DISPLEASED THEY WERE. “OUR FLESH IS NOT THERE.(117) NO FIT RÛPAS FOR OUR BROTHERS OF THE FIFTH. NO DWELLINGS FOR THE LIVES.(118) PURE WATERS, NOT TURBID, THEY MUST DRINK (_A_). LET US DRY THEM.”(119)

(_a_) Says the _Catechism_ on the Commentaries:

_It is from the material Worlds that descend they, who fashion physical man at the new Manvantaras. They are inferior Lha [Spirits], possessed of a dual body [an Astral within an Ethereal Form]. They are the fashioners and creators of our body of illusion_....

_Into the forms projected by the Lha [Pitris] the Two Letters_(_120_)_ [the Monad, called also the __“__Double Dragon__”__] descend from the Spheres of Expectation._(_121_)_ But they are like a roof with no walls, nor pillars to rest upon_....

_Man needs four Flames and three Fires to become one on Earth, and he requires the essence of the forty‐nine Fires_(_122_)_ to be perfect. It is those who have deserted the Superior Spheres, the Gods of Will,_(_123_)_ who complete the Manu of illusion. For the __“__Double Dragon__”__ has no hold upon the mere form. It is like the breeze where there is no tree or branch to receive and harbour it. It cannot affect the form where there is no agent of transmission [Manas, __“__Mind__”__] and the form knows it not._

_In the highest worlds, the three are one,_(_124_)_ on Earth [at first] the one becomes two. They are like the two [side] lines of a triangle that has lost its bottom line—which is the third Fire._(125)

Now this requires some explanation before proceeding any further. To do so especially for the benefit of our Âryan Hindû brethren—whose Esoteric interpretations may differ from our own—we shall have to explain to them the foregoing by certain passages in their own exoteric books, namely, the _Purânas_. In the allegories of the latter, Brahmâ, who is collectively the Creative Force of the Universe, is thus described:

At the beginning of the Yugas [Cycles] ... possessed of the desire
and of the power to create, and impelled by the potencies of what
is to be created, again and again does he, at the outset of a
Kalpa, put forth a similar creation.(126)

It is now proposed to examine the exoteric account in the _Vishnu Purâna_, and see how much it may agree or disagree with our Occult version.

Creation of Divine Beings in the Exoteric Accounts.

In the _Vishnu Purâna_, which is certainly the earliest of all the scriptures of that name, we find, as in all the others, Brahmâ, as the male God, assuming, for purposes of creation, “_four_ Bodies invested by _three_ qualities.”(127) It is said:

In this manner, Maitreya, Jyotsnâ (dawn), Râtri (night), Ahan
(day), and Sandhyâ (evening [twilight]) are the four bodies of
Brahmâ.(128)

As Parâshara explains it, when Brahmâ wishes to create the world anew and construct progeny _through his will_, in the fourfold condition, or the four Orders of Beings, termed Gods (Dhyân Chohans), Demons(129) (_i.e._, more material Devas), Progenitors (Pitris) and Men, “he collects [Yoga‐ like] his mind into itself” (Yûyuge).

Strange to say, he begins by creating Demons, who thus take precedence over the Angels or Gods. This is no incongruity, nor is it due to inconsistency, but has, like all the rest, a profound Esoteric meaning, quite clear to one free from Christian theological prejudice. He who bears in mind that the principle Mahat, or Intellect, the “Universal Mind” (literally the “Great”), which Esoteric Philosophy explains as the “Manifested Omniscience”—the “first product” of Pradhâna, Primordial Matter, as the _Vishnu Purâna_ says, but the first Cosmic Aspect of Parabrahman or the Esoteric Sat, the Universal Soul,(130) as Occultism teaches—is at the root of SELF‐Consciousness, will understand the reason why. The so‐called Demons—who are Esoterically the Self‐asserting and intellectually active Principle—are the _positive pole of creation_, so to say; hence, the first produced. This is in brief the process as narrated allegorically in the _Purânas_.

Having concentrated his mind into itself and the Quality of
Darkness pervading Brahmâ’s assumed body, the Asuras, issuing from
his Thigh, were first produced; after which, abandoning this body,
it was transformed into Night.

Two important points are involved herein: (_a_) Primarily in the _Rig Veda_, the Asuras are shown as _spiritual divine Beings_; their etymology is derived from Asu, breath, the “Breath of God,” and they mean the same as the Supreme Spirit or the Zoroastrian Ahura. It is later on, for purposes of theology and dogma, that they are shown issuing from Brahmâ’s Thigh, and that their name began to be derived from _a_, privative, and _Sura_, a God, or “not‐a‐God,” and that they became the enemies of the Gods. (_b_) Every ancient Theogony without exception—from the Aryan and the Egyptian down to that of Hesiod—in the order of Cosmogonical evolution, places Night before Day; even _Genesis_, where “darkness is upon the face of the deep” before the “first day.” The reason for this is that every Cosmogony—except in the Secret Doctrine—begins by the “Secondary Creation” so‐called; to wit, the _Manifested_ Universe, the Genesis of which has to begin by a marked differentiation between the eternal Light of “Primary Creation,” whose mystery must remain for ever “Darkness” to the prying finite conception and intellect of the profane, and the Secondary Evolution of manifested visible Nature. The _Veda_ contains the whole philosophy of that division, without having ever been correctly explained by our Orientalists, since it has _never been understood_ by them.

Continuing to create, Brahmâ assumes another form, that of the Day, and creates from his Breath the Gods, who are endowed with the Quality of Goodness (Passivity).(131) In his next body the Quality of great Passivity prevailed, which is also (negative) goodness, and from the side of that personage issued the Pitris, the Progenitors of men, because, as the text explains, Brahmâ “thought of himself [during the process] as the father of the world.”(132) This is Kriyâ‐shakti—the mysterious Yoga‐power explained elsewhere. This body of Brahmâ when cast off became the Sandhyâ, Evening Twilight, the interval between Day and Night.

Finally Brahmâ assumed his last form pervaded by the Quality of Foulness.

And from this, Men, in whom foulness (or passion) predominates,
were produced.

This body when cast off became the Dawn, or Morning Twilight—the Twilight of Humanity. Here Brahmâ stands Esoterically for the Pitris. He is collectively the Pitâ, “Father.”

The true Esoteric meaning of this allegory must now be explained. Brahmâ here symbolizes personally the Collective Creators of the World and Men—the Universe with all its numberless productions of things movable and (seemingly) immovable.(133) He is collectively the Prajâpatis, the Lords of Being; and the four bodies typify the four Classes of Creative Powers or Dhyân Chohans, described in the Commentary on Shloka I, Stanza VII, in Volume I. The whole philosophy of the so‐called “Creation” of the good and evil in this World, and of the whole Cycle of Manvantaric results therefrom, hangs on the correct comprehension of these Four Bodies of Brahmâ.

The reader will now be prepared to understand the real, the Esoteric significance of what follows. Moreover there is an important point to be cleared up. Christian Theology having arbitrarily settled and agreed that Satan with his Fallen Angels belonged to the earliest creation, Satan being the first‐created, the wisest and most beautiful of God’s Archangels, the word was given, the key‐note struck. Henceforth all the Pagan Scriptures were made to yield the same meaning, and all were shown to be demoniacal, and it _was_ and _is_ claimed that _truth and fact_ belong to, and commence only with, Christianity. Even the Orientalists and Mythologists, some of them no Christians at all but “infidels,” or men of Science, entered, unconsciously to themselves and by the mere force of association of ideas and habit, into the theological groove.

Purely Brâhmanical considerations, based on greed of power and ambition, allowed the masses to remain in ignorance of great truths; and the same causes led the Initiates among the early Christians to remain silent, while those who had never known the truth disfigured the order of things, judging of the Hierarchy of “Angels” by their exoteric form. Thus, as the Asuras had become the rebellious inferior Gods fighting the higher ones in popular creeds, so the highest Archangel, in truth the Agathodæmon, the eldest benevolent Logos, became in theology the “Adversary” or Satan. But is this warranted by the correct interpretation of any old Scripture? The answer is: most certainly not. As the Mazdean Scriptures of the _Zend Avesta_, the _Vendidâd_ and others correct and expose the later cunning shuffling of the Gods in the Hindû Pantheon, and restore through Ahura the Asuras to their legitimate place in Theogony, so the recent discoveries of the Chaldæan tablets vindicate the good name of the first divine Emanations. This is easily proved. Christian Angelology is directly and solely derived from that of the Pharisees, who brought their tenets from Babylonia. The Sadducees, the real guardians of the Laws of Moses, knew not of any Angels, opposing even the immortality of the human Soul (not the impersonal Spirit). In the _Bible_ the only Angels spoken of are the “Sons of God” mentioned in _Genesis_ vi—who are now regarded as the Nephilim, the Fallen Angels—and several Angels in human form, the “Messengers” of the Jewish God, whose own rank needs a closer analysis than heretofore given. As shown above, the early Akkadians called Ea Wisdom, which was disfigured by the later Chaldees and Semites into Tiamat, Tisalat and the Thalatth of Berosus, the female Sea Dragon, now Satan. Truly—“How art thou fallen [by the hand of man], O bright Star and Son of the Morning”!

Now what do the Babylonian accounts of “Creation,” as found on the Assyrian fragments of tiles, tell us; those very accounts upon which the Pharisees built their Angelology? Compare Mr. George Smith’s _Assyrian Discoveries_,(134) and his _Chaldean Account of Genesis_.(135) The Tablet with the story of the Seven Wicked Gods or Spirits, has the following account; we print the important passages in italics:

1. In the _first days_ the evil Gods,

2. the _angels who were in rebellion_, who _in the lower part of
heaven_

3. _had been created_,

4. they caused their evil work

5. devising with wicked heads ... etc.

Thus we are shown, as plainly as can be, on a fragment which remained unbroken, so that there can be no dubious reading, that the “Rebellious Angels” had been created in the “lower part of heaven,” _i.e._, that they belonged and do belong to a _material plane of evolution_, although as it is not the plane of which we are made cognizant through our senses, it remains generally invisible to us, and is thus regarded as subjective. Were the Gnostics so wrong, after this, in affirming that this our Visible World, and especially the Earth, had been created by _Lower_ Angels, the inferior Elohim, of which, as they taught, the God of Israel was one? These Gnostics were nearer in time to the records of the Archaic Secret Doctrine, and therefore ought to be allowed to have known what it contained better than non‐initiated Christians, who took upon themselves, hundreds of years later, to remodel and _correct_ what was said. But let us see what the same Tablet says further on:

7. There were seven of them [the wicked gods].

Then follows the description of these, the fourth being a “serpent,” the phallic symbol of the Fourth Race in human Evolution.

15. The seven of them, messengers of the God Anu their king.

Now Anu belongs to the Chaldæan Trinity, and is identical with Sin, the “Moon,” in one aspect. And the Moon in the Hebrew Kabalah is the Argha of the seed of all material life, and is still more closely connected, kabalistically, with Jehovah, who is double‐sexed, as Anu is. They are both represented in Esotericism, and viewed, from a dual aspect: male or spiritual, female or material, or Spirit and Matter, the two antagonistic principles. Hence the “Messengers of Anu,” who is Sin, the “Moon,” are shown, in lines 28 to 41, as being finally overpowered by the same Sin with the help of Bel, the Sun, and Ishtar, Venus. This is regarded as a contradiction by the Assyriologists, but it is simply _metaphysics_ in the Esoteric teaching.

There is more than one interpretation, for there are seven keys to the mystery of the “Fall.” Moreover there are two “Falls” in Theology: the rebellion of the Archangels and their “Fall,” and the “Fall” of Adam and Eve. Thus the lower as well as the higher Hierarchies are charged with a supposed crime. The word “supposed” is the true and correct term, for in both cases it is founded on misconception. Both are considered in Occultism as Karmic effects, and both belong to the law of Evolution—intellectual and spiritual on the one hand, physical and psychic on the other. The “Fall” is a universal allegory. It sets forth at one end of the ladder of Evolution the “rebellion,” _i.e._, the action of differentiating intellection, or consciousness, on its various planes, seeking union with Matter; and at the other, the lower end, the rebellion of Matter against Spirit, or of action against spiritual inertia. And here lies the germ of an error which has had such disastrous effects on the intelligence of civilized societies for over 1,800 years. In the original allegory it is Matter—hence the more material Angels—which was regarded as the conqueror of Spirit, or the Archangels who “fell” on this plane.

They of the _flaming sword_ [or animal passions] had put to flight
the Spirits of Darkness.

Yet it is the latter who fought for the supremacy of the conscious and divine spirituality on Earth and failed, succumbing to the power of Matter. But in theological dogma we see the reverse. It is Michael, “who is like unto God,” the representative of Jehovah, who is the Leader of the Celestial Hosts—as Lucifer, in Milton’s fancy, is of the Infernal Hosts—who has the best of Satan. It is true that the nature of Michael depends upon that of his Creator and Master. Who the latter is, one may find out by carefully studying the allegory of the “War in Heaven” with the astronomical key. As shown by Bentley, the “War of the Titans against the Gods” in Hesiod, and also the War of the Asuras, or the Târakâmaya, against the Devas in Purânic legend, are identical in all save the names. The aspects of the stars show—Bentley taking the year 945 B.C. as the nearest date for such conjunction—that:

All the planets, except Saturn, were on the same side of the
heavens as the Sun and Moon.

And hence were his opponents. And yet it is Saturn, or the Jewish “Moon‐ God,” who is shown as prevailing, both by Hesiod and Moses, neither of whom was understood. Thus it was that the real meaning became distorted.

Stanza II.—_Continued._

8. THE FLAMES CAME. THE FIRES WITH THE SPARKS; THE NIGHT‐FIRES AND THE DAY‐FIRES (_A_). THEY DRIED OUT THE TURBID DARK WATERS. WITH THEIR HEAT THEY QUENCHED THEM. THE LHAS(136) OF THE HIGH; THE LHAMAYIN(137) OF BELOW, CAME (_B_). THEY SLEW THE FORMS, WHICH WERE TWO‐ AND FOUR‐FACED. THEY FOUGHT THE GOAT‐MEN, AND THE DOG‐HEADED MEN, AND THE MEN WITH FISHES’ BODIES.

(_a_) The “Flames” are a Hierarchy of Spirits parallel to, if not identical with, the “burning” fiery Saraph (Seraphim), mentioned by Isaiah(138) those who, according to Hebrew Theogony, attend the “Throne of the Almighty.” Melha is the Lord of the “Flames.” When he appears on Earth, he assumes the personality of a Buddha, says a popular legend. He is one of the most ancient and revered Lhas, a Buddhist St. Michael.

(_b_) The word “Below” must not be taken to mean Infernal Regions, but simply a spiritual, or rather ethereal, Being of a lower grade, because nearer to the Earth, or one step higher than our Terrestrial Sphere; while the Lhas are Spirits of the highest Spheres—whence the name of the capital of Tibet, Lha‐ssa.

Besides a statement of a purely physical nature and belonging to the evolution of life on Earth, there may be another allegorical meaning attached to this shloka, or indeed, as is taught, several. The “Flames,” or “Fires,” represent Spirit, or the male element, and “Water,” Matter, or the opposite element. And here again we find, in the action of the Spirit slaying the purely material form, a reference to the eternal struggle, on the physical and psychic planes, between Spirit and Matter, besides a scientific cosmic fact. For, as said in the next verse:

9. MOTHER‐WATER, THE GREAT SEA, WEPT. SHE AROSE, SHE DISAPPEARED IN THE MOON, WHICH HAD LIFTED HER, WHICH HAD GIVEN HER BIRTH.

Now what can this mean? Is it not an evident reference to tidal action in the early stage of the history of our Planet in its Fourth Round? Modern research has been busy of late in its speculations on the Palæozoic high‐ tides. Mr. G. H. Darwin’s theory was that not less than 52,000,000 years ago—and probably much more—the Moon originated from the Earth’s plastic mass. Starting from the point where research was left by Helmholtz, Ferrel, Sir William Thomson and others, he retraced the course of tidal retardation of the Earth’s rotary motions far back into the very night of time, and placed the Moon during the infancy of our Planet at only “a fraction of its present distance.” In short, his theory was that it was the Moon which separated from the Earth. The tidal elevation concurring with the swing of the globular mass—centrifugal tendency being then nearly equal to gravity—the latter was overcome, and the tidally elevated mass could thus separate completely from the Earth.(139)

The Occult teaching is the reverse of this. The Moon is far older than the Earth; and, as explained in Volume I, it is the latter which owes its being to the former, however Astronomy and Geology may explain the fact. Hence, the tides and the attraction to the Moon, as shown by the liquid portion of the Globe ever striving to raise itself towards its parent. This is the meaning of the sentence that the Mother‐Water “arose, she disappeared in the Moon, which had lifted her, which had given her birth.”

10. WHEN(140) THEY WERE DESTROYED, MOTHER EARTH REMAINED BARE.(141) SHE ASKED TO BE DRIED.(142)

The time for the Earth’s incrustation had arrived. The waters had separated and the process was started. It was the beginning of a new life. This is what one key divulges to us. Another key teaches the origin of Water, its admixture with Fire—“Liquid Fire” it calls it—and enters upon an Alchemical description of the progeny of the two—solid matters such as minerals and earths. From the “Waters of Space,” the progeny of the male Spirit‐Fire and the female (gaseous) Water has become the Oceanic expanse on Earth. Varuna is dragged down from the infinite Space, to reign as Neptune over the finite Seas. As always, the popular fancy is found to be based on a strictly scientific foundation.

Water is the symbol of the Female Element everywhere; Mater, from which comes the letter M, is derived pictorially from [Symbol like three mountains, rather like the letter “M”], a water hieroglyph. It is the Universal Matrix or the “Great Deep.” Venus, the great Mother‐Virgin, issues forth from the sea‐wave, and Cupid or Erôs is her son. But Venus is the later mythological variant of Gæa, Gaia, the Earth, which, in its higher aspect is Prakriti, Nature, and metaphysically Aditi, and even Mûlaprakriti, the Root of Prakriti, or its noumenon.