The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 Author: H. P. Blavatsky Release date: April 4, 2017 [eBook #54488] Language: English *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET DOCTRINE, VOL. 2 OF 4 *** The Secret Doctrine The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy By Helena Petrovna Blavatsky Author of "Isis Unveiled." Third and Revised Edition. SATYÂT NÂSTI PARO DHARMAH. "There is no Religion higher than Truth." Volume II. Anthropogenesis The Theosophical Publishing House London 1893 CONTENTS Preliminary Notes on The Archaic Stanzas, and the Four Pre-Historic Continents. Part I. Anthropogenesis. Text. Stanza I. Stanza II. Stanza III. Stanza IV. Stanza V. Stanza VI. Stanza VII. Stanza VIII. Stanza IX. Stanza X. Stanza XI. Stanza XII. Commentaries On the Twelve Stanzas and Their Terms, According To Their Numeration, In Stanzas And Shlokas. Stanza I. Beginnings of Sentient Life. Two Antediluvian Astronomers. Stanza II. Nature Unaided Fails. Creation of Divine Beings in the Exoteric Accounts. Stanza II.--_Continued._ The Chronology of the Brâhmans. Stanza III. Attempts To Create Man. Stanza IV. Creation Of The First Races. On The Identity And Differences Of The Incarnating Powers. Stanza IV.--_Continued._ Stanza V. The Evolution of the Second Race. The Divine Hermaphrodite. Stanza VI. The Evolution Of The "Sweat-Born." A Few Words About "Deluges" And "Noahs." Stanza VII. From The Semi-Divine Down To The First Human Races. I. Fission. II. Budding. III. Spores. IV. Intermediate Hermaphroditism. V. True Sexual Union. Stanza VIII. Evolution Of The Animal Mammalians: The First Fall. What May Be The Objections To The Foregoing. Stanza IX. The Final Evolution Of Man. Edens, Serpents, And Dragons. The "Sons Of God" And The "Sacred Island." Stanza X. The History Of The Fourth Race. Archaic Teachings In The "Purânas" And "Genesis." Physical Evolution. A Panoramic View Of The Early Races. Are Giants A Fiction? The Races With The "Third Eye." The Primeval Manus Of Humanity. Stanza XI. The Civilization And Destruction Of The Fourth And Fifth Races. Cyclopean Ruins And Colossal Stones As Witnesses To Giants. Stanza XII. The Fifth Race And Its Divine Instructors. Serpents And Dragons Under Different Symbolisms. The Sidereal And Cosmic Glyphs. Our Divine Instructors. The Origin Of The Satanic Myth. Noah Was A Kabir, Hence He Must Have Been A Demon. The Oldest Persian Traditions About The Polar, And The Submerged Continents. Western Speculations, Founded On The Greek And Paurânic Traditions. The "Curse" From A Philosophical Point Of View. Additional Fragments From A Commentary On The Verses Of Stanza XII. Conclusion. Part II. The Archaic Symbolism Of The World-Religions. Section I. Esoteric Tenets Corroborated in Every Scripture. Section II. Adam=Adami. Section III. The "Holy of Holies." Its Degradation. Section IV. On the Myth of the "Fallen Angels" in its Various Aspects. A. The Evil Spirit: Who, And What? B. The Gods Of Light Proceed From The Gods Of Darkness. C. The Many Meanings Of The "War In Heaven." Section V. Is Plerôma Satan's Lair? Section VI. Prometheus, the Titan. His Origin In Ancient India. Section VII. Enoďchion-Henoch. Section VIII. The Symbolism of the Mystery-Names Iao and Jehovah, with their Relation to the Cross and Circle. A. Cross And Circle. B. The Fall Of The Cross Into Matter. Section IX. The Upanishads in Gnostic Literature. Section X. The Cross and the Pythagorean Decad. Section XI. The Mysteries of the Hebdomad. A. Saptaparna. B. The Tetraktys In Relation To The Heptagon. C. The Septenary Element In The Vedas. D. The Septenary In The Exoteric Works. E. Seven In Astronomy, Science, And Magic. F. The Seven Souls Of The Egyptologists. Part III. Addenda. Science And The Secret Doctrine Contrasted. Section I. Archaic, or Modern Anthropology? Section II. The Ancestors Mankind is Offered by Science. Plastidular Souls, And Conscious Nerve-Cells. Section III. The Fossil Relics of Man and the Anthropoid Ape. A. Geological Facts Bearing On The Question Of Their Relationship. B. Western Evolutionism: The Comparative Anatomy Of Man And The Anthropoid In No Way A Confirmation Of Darwinism. C. Darwinism And The Antiquity Of Man: The Anthropoids And Their Ancestry. Section IV. Duration of the Geological Periods, Race Cycles, and the Antiquity of Man. A. Modern Scientific Speculations About The Ages Of The Globe, Animal Evolution, And Man. B. On Chains Of Planets And Their Plurality. C. Supplementary Remarks On Esoteric Geological Chronology. Section V. Organic Evolution and Creative Centres. A. The Origin And Evolution Of The Mammalia: Science And Esoteric Phylogeny. B. The European Palćolithic Races: Whence, And How Distributed. Section VI. Giants, Civilizations, and Submerged Continents Traced in History. A. Some Statements About The Sacred Islands And Continents In The Classics, Explained Esoterically. Section VII. Scientific and Geological Proofs of the Existence of Several Submerged Continents. Footnotes [Cover Art] [Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.] {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PSI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}. My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. JOHN vii. 16. Modern Science insists upon the doctrine of evolution; so do human reason and the Secret Doctrine, and the idea is corroborated by the ancient legends and myths, and even by the _Bible_ itself, when it is read between the lines. We see a flower slowly developing from a bud, and the bud from its seed. But whence the latter, with all its predetermined programme of physical transformation, and its invisible, therefore _spiritual_, forces which gradually develop its form, colour, and odour? The word _evolution_ speaks for itself. The germ of the present human race must have preëxisted in the parent of this race, as the seed, in which lies hidden the flower of next summer, was developed in the capsule of its parent flower; the parent may be but _slightly_ different, but it still differs from its future progeny. The antediluvian ancestors of the present elephant and lizard were, perhaps, the mammoth and the plesiosaurus; why should not the progenitors of our human race have been the "giants" of the _Vedas_, the _Voluspa_, and the _Book of Genesis_? While it is positively absurd to believe the "transformation of species" to have taken place according to some of the more materialistic views of the Evolutionists, it is but natural to think that each genus, beginning with the molluscs and ending with monkey-man, has modified from its own primordial and distinctive form.--ISIS UNVEILED, I. 152-3. PRELIMINARY NOTES ON THE ARCHAIC STANZAS, AND THE FOUR PRE-HISTORIC CONTINENTS. Facies totius universi, quamvis infinitis modis variet, Manet tamen semper eadem.--SPINOZA. The Stanzas, with the Commentaries thereon, in this Volume, are drawn from the same Archaic Records as the Stanzas on Cosmogony in Volume I. As far as possible a verbatim translation is given: but some of the Stanzas are too obscure to be understood without explanation, and therefore, as in Volume I, they are first given in full as they stand, and then, when taken verse by verse with their Commentaries, an attempt is made to make them clearer, by words added in foot-notes, in anticipation of the fuller explanation of the Commentary. As regards the Evolution of mankind, the Secret Doctrine postulates three new propositions, which stand in direct antagonism to Modern Science as well as to current religious dogmas. It teaches: (_a_) the simultaneous evolution of seven human Groups on seven different portions of our globe; (_b_) the birth of the _astral_, before the _physical_ body, the former being a model for the latter; and (_c_) that man, in this Round, preceded every mammalian--the anthropoids included--in the animal kingdom.(1) The Secret Doctrine is not alone in speaking of primeval Men born simultaneously on the seven divisions of our Globe. In the _Divine Pymander_ of Hermes Trismegistus, we find the same seven primeval Men(2) evolving from Nature and the Heavenly Man, in the collective sense of the word, namely, from the Creative Spirits; and in the fragments of Chaldćan tablets, collected by George Smith, on which is inscribed the Babylonian Legend of Creation, in the first column of the Cutha tablet, seven human Beings "with the faces of ravens," that is to say, of black swarthy complexions, whom "the [seven] Great Gods created," are mentioned. Or, as explained in lines 16, 17 and 18: In the midst of the earth they grew up and became great, And increased in number, Seven kings, brothers of the same family.(3) These are the seven Kings of Edom to whom reference is made in the _Kabalah_; the First Race, which was _imperfect_, that is to say, was born before the "balance" (sexes) existed, and which was therefore destroyed.(4) Seven Kings, brethren, appeared and begat children, 6,000 in number were their peoples. The God Nergas [death] destroyed them. "How did he destroy them?" By bringing into equilibrium [or balance] those who did not yet exist.(5) They were "destroyed," as a Race, by being merged in their own progeny (by exudation): that is to say, the sexless Race reďncarnated in the (potentially) bisexual; the latter, in the androgynes; these again, in the sexual, the later Third Race. Were the tablets less mutilated, they would be found to contain word for word the same account as is given in the Archaic Records and in Hermes, at least as regards the fundamental facts, if not as regards minute details; for Hermes is a good deal disfigured by mistranslations. It is quite certain that the seeming supernaturalism of these teachings, although allegorical, is so diametrically opposed to the dead-letter statements of the Bible,(6) as well as to the latest hypotheses of Science, that it will evoke passionate denial. The Occultists, however, know that the traditions of Esoteric Philosophy must be the right ones, simply because they are the most logical, and reconcile every difficulty. Besides, we have the Egyptian _Books of Thoth_, and _Book of the Dead_, and the Hindű _Purânas_ with their seven Manus, as well as the Chaldćo- Assyrian accounts, whose tiles mention seven primitive Men, or Adams, the real meaning of which name may be ascertained by means of the _Kabalah_. Those who know anything of the Samothracian Mysteries will also remember that the generic name of the Kabiri was the "Holy Fires," which created on seven localities of the island of Electria, or Samothrace, the "Kabir born of the Holy Lemnos"--the island sacred to Vulcan. According to Pindar, this Kabir, whose name was Adamas,(7) was, in the traditions of Lemnos, the type of the primitive man born from the bosom of the Earth. He was the archetype of the first males in the order of generation, and was one of the seven autochthonous ancestors or progenitors of mankind.(8) If, coupling with this the fact that Samothrace was colonized by the Phoenicians, and before them by the mysterious Pelasgians who came from the East, we also remember the identity of the "Mystery" Gods of the Phoenicians, Chaldćans, and Israelites, it will be easy to discover whence came also the confused account of the Noachian Deluge. It has become undeniable of late that the Jews, who obtained their primitive ideas about creation from Moses, who had them from the Egyptians, compiled their Genesis and first cosmogonic traditions, when rewritten by Ezra and others, from the Chaldćo-Akkadian account. It is, therefore, sufficient to examine the Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform and other inscriptions to find also therein, scattered here and there, not only the original meaning of the name Adam, Admi, or Adami, but also the creation of seven Adams or roots of Men, born of Mother Earth, physically, and of the Divine Fire of the Progenitors, spiritually or astrally. The Assyriologists, ignorant of the Esoteric teachings, could hardly be expected to pay any greater attention to the mysterious and ever-recurring number _seven_ on the Babylonian cylinders, than they pay to it on finding it in _Genesis_ and the rest of the _Bible_. Yet the numbers of the ancestral spirits and their seven groups of human progeny are on the cylinders, notwithstanding the dilapidated condition of the fragments, and are to be found as plainly, as they are in _Pymander_ and in the _Book of the Concealed Mystery_ of the _Kabalah_. In the latter Adam Kadmon is the Sephirothal Tree, as also the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." And that Tree, says verse 32, "hath around it seven columns," or palaces, of the seven creative Angels operating in the Spheres of the seven Planets on our Globe. As Adam Kadmon is a _collective_ name, so also is the name of the man Adam. Says George Smith, in his _Chaldean Account of Genesis_: The word Adam used in these legends for the first human being is evidently _not a proper name, but is only used as a term for mankind_. Adam appears as a proper name in _Genesis_, but certainly in some passages is only used in the same sense as the Assyrian word.(9) Moreover, neither the Chaldćan nor the Biblical Deluge, with their stories of Xisuthrus and Noah, is based on the universal or even on the Atlantean Deluges, recorded in the Indian allegory of Vaivasvata Manu. They are the exoteric allegories based on the Esoteric Mysteries of Samothrace. If the older Chaldćans knew the Esoteric truth concealed in the Purânic legends, the other nations were aware only of the Samothracian Mystery, and allegorized it. They adapted it to their astronomical and anthropological, or rather phallic, notions. Samothrace is known historically to have been famous in antiquity for a deluge, which submerged the country and reached the top of the highest mountains; an event which happened before the age of the Argonauts. It was overflowed very suddenly by waters from the Euxine, which had been regarded up to that time as a lake.(10) But the Israelites had, moreover, another legend upon which to base their allegory, the legend of the Deluge, that transformed the present Gobi Desert into a sea _for the last time_, some 10,000 or 12,000 years ago, and which drove many Noahs and their families to the surrounding mountains. As the Babylonian accounts are only now restored from hundreds of thousands of broken fragments--the mound of Kouyunjik alone having yielded from Layard's excavations upwards of twenty thousand fragments of inscriptions--the proofs here cited are comparatively scanty; yet such as they are, they corroborate almost every one of our teachings; three most certainty, at the very least. These are: (1) That the race which was the first to fall into generation was a dark race (zalmat-qaqadi), which they call the Adamu or Dark Race, and that Sarku, or the Light Race, remained pure for a long while subsequently. (2) That the Babylonians recognized two principal Races at the time of the Fall, the Race of the Gods, the Ethereal Doubles of the Pitris, having preceded these two. This is Sir H. Rawlinson's opinion. These Races are our Second and Third Root-Races. (3) That these seven Gods, each of whom created a Man, or Group of men, were "the Gods imprisoned or incarnated." These Gods were: the God Zi; the God Zi-ku, Noble Life, Director of Purity; the God Mir-ku, Noble Crown, "Saviour from death of the Gods [later on] imprisoned," and the creator of "the dark races which his hand has made"; the God Libzu, "wise among the Gods"; the God Nissi; the God Suhhab; and Hea or Sa, their synthesis, the God of Wisdom and of the Deep, identified with Oannes-Dagon, at the time of the Fall, and called, collectively, the Demiurge, or Creator.(11) There are two "Creations" so-called, in the Babylonian fragments, and as _Genesis_ has adhered to this, we find its first two chapters distinguished as the Elohite and the Jehovite Creations. Their proper order, however, is not preserved in these or in any other exoteric accounts. Now these "Creations," according to the Occult Teachings, refer respectively to the formation of the primordial seven Men by the Progenitors, the Pitris, or Elohim, and to that of the human Groups after the Fall. All this will be examined in the light of Science and comparisons drawn from the scriptures of all the ancient nations, the _Bible_ included, as we proceed. Meanwhile, before we turn to the Anthropogenesis of the prehistoric Races, it may be useful to agree upon the names to be given to the Continents on which the four great Races, which preceded our Adamic Race, were born, lived, and died. Their archaic and Esoteric names were many, and varied with the language of the nation which mentioned them in its annals and scriptures. That which in the _Vendîdâd_, for instance, is referred to as Airyana Vaęjô(12) wherein was born the original Zoroaster,(13) is called in the Purânic literature Shveta Dvîpa, Mount Meru, the Abode of Vishnu, etc.; and in the Secret Doctrine is simply named the "Land of the Gods," under their chiefs, the "Spirits of this Planet." Therefore, in view of the possible, and even very probable confusion, that may arise, it is considered more convenient to adopt, for each of the four Continents constantly referred to, a name more familiar to the cultured reader. It is proposed, then, to call the first Continent, or rather the first _terra firma_ on which the First Race was evolved by the divine Progenitors: I. The Imperishable Sacred Land. The reason for the name is that it is stated that: this "Imperishable Sacred Land" never shared the fate of the other Continents, because it is the only one whose destiny it is to last from the beginning to the end of the Manvantara throughout each Round. It is the cradle of the first man and the dwelling of the last _divine_ mortal, chosen as a Shishta for the future seed of humanity. Of this mysterious and sacred land very little can be said, except, perhaps, according to a poetical expression in one of the Commentaries, that the "_Pole-star has its watchful eye upon it, from the dawn to the close of the twilight of a Day of the Great Breath_."(14) II. The Hyperborean. This will be the name chosen for the second Continent, the land which stretched out its promontories southward and westward from the North Pole to receive the Second Race, and comprised the whole of what is now known as Northern Asia. Such was the name given by the oldest Greeks to the far- off and mysterious region, whither their tradition made Apollo, the Hyperborean, travel every year. Astronomically, Apollo is, of course, the Sun, who, abandoning his Hellenic sanctuaries, loved to annually visit his far-away country, where the Sun was said to never set for one half of the year. "{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}," says a verse in the Odyssey.(15) But historically, or better, perhaps, ethnologically and geologically, the meaning is different. The land of the Hyperboreans, the country that extended beyond Boreas, the frozen-hearted God of snows and hurricanes, who loved to slumber heavily on the chain of Mount Rhipćus, was neither an ideal country, as surmized by the Mythologists, nor yet a land in the neighbourhood of Scythia and the Danube.(16) It was a real Continent, a _bonâ fide_ land, which knew no winter in those early days, nor have its sorry remains more than one night and day during the year, even now. The nocturnal shadows never fall upon it, said the Greeks; for it is the "Land of the Gods," the favourite abode of Apollo, the God of light, and its inhabitants are his beloved priests and servants. This may be regarded as poetized _fiction_ now; but it was poetized _truth_ then. III. Lemuria. The third Continent, we propose to call Lemuria. The name is an invention, or an idea, of Mr. P. L. Sclater, who, between 1850 and 1860, asserted on zoological grounds the actual existence, in prehistoric times, of a Continent which he showed to have extended from Madagascar to Ceylon and Sumatra. It included some portions of what is now Africa; but otherwise this gigantic Continent, which stretched from the Indian Ocean to Australia, has now wholly disappeared beneath the waters of the Pacific, leaving here and there only some of its highland tops which are now islands. Mr. A. R. Wallace, the Naturalist, writes Mr. Charles Gould: Extends the Australia of Tertiary periods to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and perhaps to Fiji, and from its marsupial types infers a connection with the northern continent during the Secondary period.(17) The subject is treated at length elsewhere.(18) IV. Atlantis. Thus we name the fourth Continent. It would be the first historical land, were the traditions of the Ancients to receive more attention than they have hitherto. The famous island of Plato of that name was but a fragment of this great Continent.(19) V. Europe. The fifth Continent was America; but, as it is situated at the Antipodes, it is Europe and Asia Minor, almost coëval with it, which are generally referred to by the Indo-Aryan Occultists as the fifth. If their teaching followed the appearance of the Continents in their geological and geographical order, then this classification would have to be altered. But as the sequence of the Continents is made to follow the order of evolution of the Races, from the First to the Fifth, our Âryan Root-Race, Europe must be called the fifth great Continent. The Secret Doctrine takes no account of islands and peninsulas, nor does it follow the modern geographical distribution of land and sea. Since the day of its earliest teachings and the destruction of the great Atlantis, the face of the Earth has changed more than once. There was a time when the delta of Egypt and Northern Africa belonged to Europe, before the formation of the Straits of Gibraltar and a further upheaval of the Continent entirely changed the face of the map of Europe. The last serious change occurred some 12,000 years ago,(20) and was followed by the submersion of Plato's little Atlantic island, which he calls Atlantis after its parent continent. Geography was part of the Mysteries, in days of old. Says the _Zohar_: These secrets [of land and sea] were divulged to the _men of the secret science_, but not to the geographers.(21) The claim that physical man was originally a colossal pre-tertiary giant, and that he existed 18,000,000 years ago, must of course appear preposterous to admirers of, and believers in, modern learning. The whole _posse comitatus_ of Biologists will turn away from the conception of this Third Race Titan of the Secondary Age, a being fit to fight successfully with the then gigantic monsters of the air, sea, and land; so his forefathers, the ethereal prototypes of the Atlantean, had little need to fear that which could not hurt them. The modern Anthropologist is quite welcome to laugh at our Titans, as he laughs at the Biblical Adam, and as the Theologian laughs at the former's pithecoid ancestor. The Occultists and their severe critics may feel that they have pretty well mutually squared their accounts by this time. Occult Sciences claim less and give more, at all events, than either Darwinian Anthropology or Biblical Theology. Nor ought the Esoteric Chronology to frighten anyone; for, with regard to figures, the greatest authorities of the day are as fickle and as uncertain as the Mediterranean waves. As regards the duration of the geological periods alone, the learned men of the Royal Society are all hopelessly at sea, and jump from one million to five hundred millions of years with the utmost ease, as will be seen more than once during this comparison. Take one instance for our present purpose--the calculations of Mr. Croll. Whether, according to this authority, 2,500,000 years represent the time since the beginning of the Tertiary Age, or the Eocene period, as an American geologist makes him say;(22) or whether again Mr. Croll "allows fifteen millions since the beginning of the Eocene period," as quoted by an English geologist,(23) both sets of figures cover the claims made by the Secret Doctrine.(24) For assigning as the latter does from four to five million years between the incipient and the final evolution of the Fourth Root-Race, on the Lemuro-Atlantean Continents; one million years for the Fifth, or Âryan Race, to the present date; and about 850,000 since the submersion of the last large peninsula of the great Atlantis--all this may have easily taken place within the 15,000,000 years conceded by Mr. Croll to the Tertiary Age. But, chronologically speaking, the duration of the period is of secondary importance, as we have, after all, certain American Scientists to fall back upon. These gentlemen, unmoved by the fact that their assertions are called not only dubious but absurd, yet maintain that man existed so far back as in the Secondary Age. They have found human footprints on rocks of that formation; and furthermore, M. de Quatrefages finds no valid scientific reason why man should not have existed during the Secondary Age. The Ages and periods in Geology are, in sober truth, purely conventional terms, as they are still barely delineated, and, moreover, no two Geologists or Naturalists agree as to the figures. Thus, there is a wide margin for choice offered to the Occultist by the learned fraternity. Shall we take for one of our supports Mr. T. Mellard Read? This gentleman, in a paper on "Limestone as an Index of Geological Time," read by him in 1878 before the Royal Society, claims that the _minimum_ time required for the formation of the sedimentary strata and the elimination of the calcareous matter is in round numbers 600 million years;(25) or shall we ask support for our chronology from Mr. Darwin's works, wherein, according to his theory, he demands for the organic transformations from 300 to 500 million years? Sir Charles Lyell and Prof. Houghton were satisfied with placing the beginning of the Cambrian Age at 200 and 240 millions of years ago, respectively. Geologists and Zoologists claim the maximum time, though Mr. Huxley, at one time, placed the beginning of the incrustation of the earth at 1,000 million years ago, and would not surrender a millennium of it. But the main point for us lies not in the agreement or disagreement of the Naturalists as to the duration of geological periods, but rather in their perfect accord on one point, for a wonder, and this a very important one. They all agree that during the Miocene Age--whether one or ten million years ago--Greenland and even Spitzbergen, the remnants of our second or Hyperborean Continent, "had an almost tropical climate." Now the pre- Homeric Greeks had preserved a vivid tradition of this "Land of the Eternal Sun," whither their Apollo journeyed yearly. Science tells us: During the Miocene age, Greenland (in N. Lat. 70°) developed an abundance of trees, such as the yew, the redwood, the sequoia, allied to the Californian species, beeches, planes, willows, oaks, poplars and walnuts, as well as a magnolia and a zamia.(26) In short Greenland had southern plants unknown to northern regions. And now arises this natural question. If the Greeks, in the days of Homer, knew of a Hyperborean land, _i.e._, a blessed land beyond the reach of Boreas, the God of winter and of the hurricane, an ideal region which the later Greeks and their writers have vainly tried to locate beyond Scythia, a country where nights were short and days long, and beyond that a land where the Sun never set and the palm grew freely--if they knew of all this, who then told them of it? In their day, and for ages previously, Greenland must certainly have been already covered with perpetual snows, with never- thawing ice, just as it is now. Everything tends to show that the land of the short nights and the long days was Norway or Scandinavia, beyond which was the blessed land of eternal light and summer. For the Greeks to know of this, the tradition must have descended to them from some people more ancient than themselves, who were acquainted with those climatic details of which the Greeks themselves could know nothing. Even in our day, Science suspects that beyond the Polar seas, at the very circle of the Arctic Pole, there exists a sea which never freezes and a continent which is ever green. The Archaic Teachings, and also the _Purânas_--for one who understands their allegories--contain the same statements. Suffice, then, for us the strong probability that, during the Miocene period of Modern Science, at a time when Greenland was an almost tropical land, there lived a people, now unknown to history. NOTE. The reader is requested to bear in mind that the following Sections are not strictly consecutive in order of time. In Part I the Stanzas which form the skeleton of the exposition are given, and certain important points commented upon and explained. In the subsequent Sections of Parts II and III various additional details are gathered, and a fuller explanation of the subject is attempted. PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS. Twelve Stanzas From the "Book Of Dzyan,"(27) With Commentaries. In primeval times, a maiden, Beauteous Daughter of the Ether, Passed for ages her existence In the great expanse of Heaven. Seven hundred years she wandered, Seven hundred years she laboured, Ere her first-born was delivered. Ere a beauteous duck descending, Hastens toward the water-mother, Lightly on the knee she settles, Finds a nesting-place befitting, Where to lay her eggs in safety. Lays her eggs within, at pleasure, Six, the golden eggs she lays there, Then a Seventh, an egg of iron. _Kalevala_ (CRAWFORD). Text. Stanza I. 1. The Lha which turns the Fourth is Servant to the Lha(s) of the Seven, they who revolve, driving their Chariots around their Lord, the One Eye of our World. His Breath gave Life to the Seven. It gave Life to the First. 2. Said the Earth: "Lord of the Shining Face, my House is empty.... Send thy Sons to people this Wheel. Thou hast sent thy Seven Sons to the Lord of Wisdom. Seven times doth he see thee nearer to himself, seven times more doth he feel thee. Thou hast forbidden thy Servants, the small Rings, to catch thy Light and Heat, thy great Bounty to intercept on its passage. Send now to thy Servant the same." 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, for his Sons.... Thy People shall be under the rule of the Fathers. Thy Men shall be mortals. The Men of the Lord of Wisdom, not the Sons of Soma, are immortal. Cease thy complaints. Thy Seven Skins are yet on thee.... Thou art not ready. Thy Men are not ready." 4. After great throes she cast off her old Three and put on her new Seven Skins, and stood in her first one. Stanza II. 5. The Wheel whirled for thirty crores more. It constructed Rűpas; soft Stones that hardened, hard Plants that softened. Visible from invisible, Insects and small Lives. She shook them off her back whenever they overran the Mother.... 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. 6. The Water-Men, terrible and bad, she herself created from the remains of others. From the dross and slime of her First, Second, and Third, she formed them. The Dhyâni came and looked ... the Dhyâni from the bright Father-Mother, from the White Regions they came, from the Abodes of the immortal Mortals. 7. Displeased they were. "Our Flesh is not there. No fit Rűpas for our Brothers of the Fifth. No Dwellings for the Lives. Pure Waters, not turbid, they must drink. Let us dry them." 8. The Flames came. The Fires with the Sparks; the Night-Fires and the Day-Fires. They dried out the turbid dark Waters. With their heat they quenched them. The Lhas of the High, the Lhamayin of Below, came. 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. 9. Mother-Water, the Great Sea, wept. She arose, she disappeared in the Moon, which had lifted her, which had given her birth. 10. When they were destroyed, Mother Earth remained bare. She asked to be dried. Stanza III. 11. The Lord of the Lords came. From her Body he separated the Waters, and that was Heaven above, the First Heaven. 12. The great Chohans called the Lords of the Moon, of the Airy Bodies: "Bring forth Men, Men of your nature. Give them their Forms within. She will build Coverings without. Males-Females will they be. Lords of the Flame also...." 13. They went each on his allotted Land; Seven of them, each on his Lot. The Lords of the Flame remain behind. They would not go, they would not create. Stanza IV. 14. The Seven Hosts, the Will-Born Lords, propelled by the Spirit of Life- Giving, separate Men from themselves, each on his own Zone. 15. Seven times seven Shadows of Future Men were born, each of his own Colour and Kind. Each inferior to his Father. The Fathers, the Boneless, could give no Life to Beings with Bones. Their progeny were Bhűta, with neither Form nor Mind. Therefore they are called the Chhâyâ Race. 16. How are the Manushya born? The Manus with minds, how are they made? The Fathers called to their help their own Fire, which is the Fire that burns in Earth. The Spirit of the Earth called to his help the Solar Fire. These Three produced in their joint efforts a good Rűpa. It could stand, walk, run, recline, or fly. Yet it was still but a Chhâyâ, a Shadow with no Sense.... 17. The Breath needed a Form; the Fathers gave it. The Breath needed a Gross Body; the Earth moulded it. The Breath needed the Spirit of Life; the Solar Lhas breathed it into its Form. The Breath needed a Mirror of its Body; "We gave it our own!"--said the Dhyânis. The Breath needed a Vehicle of Desires; "It has it!"--said the Drainer of Waters. But Breath needs a Mind to embrace the Universe; "We cannot give that!"--said the Fathers. "I never had it!"--said the Spirit of the Earth. "The Form would be consumed were I to give it mine!"--said the Great Fire.... Man remained an empty senseless Bhűta.... Thus have the Boneless given Life to those who became Men with Bones in the Third. Stanza V. 18. The First were the Sons of Yoga. Their sons, the children of the Yellow Father and the White Mother. 19. The Second Race was the product by budding and expansion, the A-sexual from the Sexless.(28) Thus was, O Lanoo, the Second Race produced. 20. Their Fathers were the Self-born. The Self-born, the Chhâyâ from the brilliant Bodies of the Lords, the Fathers, the Sons of Twilight. 21. When the Race became old, the old Waters mixed with the fresher Waters. When its Drops became turbid, they vanished and disappeared in the new Stream, in the hot Stream of Life. The Outer of the First became the Inner of the Second. The old Wing became the new Shadow, and the Shadow of the Wing. Stanza VI. 22. Then the Second evolved the Egg-born, the Third. The Sweat grew, its Drops grew, and the Drops became hard and round. The Sun warmed it; the Moon cooled and shaped it; the Wind fed it until its ripeness. The White Swan from the Starry Vault overshadowed the big Drop. The Egg of the Future Race, the Man-swan of the later Third. First male-female, then man and woman. 23. The Self-born were the Chhâyâs, the Shadows from the Bodies of the Sons of Twilight. Neither water nor fire could destroy them. Their sons were. Stanza VII. 24. The Sons of Wisdom, the Sons of Night, ready for rebirth, came down. They saw the vile forms of the First Third. "We can choose," said the Lords, "we have wisdom." Some entered the Chhâyâs. Some projected a Spark. Some deferred till the Fourth. From their own Rűpa they filled the Kâma. Those who entered became Arhats. Those who received but a Spark, remained destitute of knowledge; the Spark burned low. The Third remained mind- less. Their Jîvas were not ready. These were set apart among the Seven. They became narrow-headed. The Third were ready. "In these shall we dwell," said the Lords of the Flame and of the Dark Wisdom. 25. How did the Mânasa, the Sons of Wisdom, act? They rejected the Self- born. They are not ready. They spurned the Sweat-born. They are not quite ready. They would not enter the first Egg-born. 26. When the Sweat-born produced the Egg-born, the twofold, the mighty, the powerful with bones, the Lords of Wisdom said: "Now shall we create." 27. The Third Race became the Vâhan of the Lords of Wisdom. It created Sons of Will and Yoga, by Kriyâshakti it created them, the Holy Fathers, Ancestors of the Arhats.... Stanza VIII. 28. From the drops of sweat, from the residue of the substance, matter from dead bodies of men and animals of the Wheel before, and from cast-off dust, the first animals were produced. 29. Animals with bones, dragons of the deep, and flying Sarpas were added to the creeping things. They that creep on the ground got wings. They of the long necks in the water became the progenitors of the fowls of the air. 30. During the Third, the boneless animals grew and changed; they became animals with bones, their Chhâyâs became solid. 31. The animals separated the first. They began to breed. The two-fold man separated also. He said: "Let us as they; let us unite and make creatures." They did.... 32. And those which had no Spark took huge she-animals unto them. They begat upon them dumb races. Dumb they were themselves. But their tongues untied. The tongues of their progeny remained still. Monsters they bred. A race of crooked red-hair-covered monsters going on all fours. A dumb race to keep the shame untold. Stanza IX. 33. Seeing which, the Lhas who had not built men, wept, saying: 34. "The Amânasa have defiled our future abodes. This is Karma. Let us dwell in the others. Let us teach them better, lest worse should happen." They did.... 35. Then all men became endowed with Manas. They saw the sin of the mindless. 36. The Fourth Race developed speech. 37. The one became two; also all the living and creeping things that were still one, giant fish, birds and serpents with shell-heads. Stanza X. 38. Thus, two by two, on the seven Zones, the Third Race gave birth to the Fourth; the Sura became A-sura. 39. The First, on every Zone, was moon-coloured; the Second yellow like gold; the Third red; the Fourth brown, which became black with sin. The first seven human shoots were all of one complexion. The next seven began mixing. 40. Then the Third and Fourth became tall with pride. "We are the kings; we are the gods." 41. They took wives fair to look upon. Wives from the mindless, the narrow-headed. They bred monsters, wicked demons, male and female, also Khado, with little minds. 42. They built temples for the human body. Male and female they worshipped. Then the Third Eye acted no longer. Stanza XI. 43. They built huge cities. Of rare earths and metals they built. Out of the fires vomited, out of the white stone of the mountains and of the black stone, they cut their own images, in their size and likeness, and worshipped them. 44. They built great images nine yatis high, the size of their bodies. Inner fires had destroyed the land of their fathers. The water threatened the Fourth. 45. The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands. 46. All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the earth. Stanza XII. 47. Few remained. Some yellow, some brown and black, and some red remained. The moon-coloured were gone for ever. 48. The Fifth produced from the holy stock remained; it was ruled over by the first Divine Kings. 49. ... The Serpents who re-descended, who made peace with the Fifth, who taught and instructed it.... Commentaries On the Twelve Stanzas and Their Terms, According To Their Numeration, In Stanzas And Shlokas. Stanza I. Beginnings of Sentient Life. 1. The Lha, or Spirit of the Earth. 2. Invocation of the Earth to the Sun. 3. What the Sun answers. 4. Transformation of the Earth. 1. THE LHA (_a_) WHICH TURNS THE FOURTH(29) IS SERVANT TO THE LHA(S) OF THE SEVEN(30) (_b_), THEY WHO REVOLVE, DRIVING THEIR CHARIOTS AROUND THEIR LORD, THE ONE EYE(31) OF OUR WORLD. HIS BREATH GAVE LIFE TO THE SEVEN.(32) IT GAVE LIFE TO THE FIRST (_c_). "_They are all Dragons of Wisdom_," adds the Commentary (_d_). (_a_) "Lha" is the ancient term in Trans-Himâlayan regions for "Spirit," any celestial or _super-human_ Being, and it covers the whole series of heavenly hierarchies, from an Archangel, or Dhyâni, down to an Angel of darkness, or terrestrial Spirit. (_b_) This expression shows in plain language that the Spirit-Guardian of our Globe, which is the fourth in the Chain, is subordinate to the chief Spirit (or God) of the Seven Planetary Genii or Spirits. As already explained, the Ancients had, in their Kyriel of Gods, seven chief Mystery- Gods, whose leader was, _exoterically_, the visible Sun, or the eighth, and, _Esoterically_, the Second Logos, the Demiurge. The Seven--who have now, in the Christian religion, become the "Seven Eyes of the Lord"--were the Regents of the seven _chief_ planets; but these were not reckoned according to the enumeration devised later by people who had forgotten, or who had an inadequate notion of, the real Mysteries, and included neither the Sun, the Moon, nor the Earth. The Sun was the chief, exoterically, of the twelve Great Gods, or zodiacal constellations; and, Esoterically, the Messiah, the Christos--the subject "anointed" by the Great Breath, or the One--surrounded by his twelve subordinate powers, also subordinate, in turn, to each of the seven Mystery-Gods of the planets. "_The Seven Higher make the Seven Lhas create the world_," states a Commentary; which means that our Earth--to leave aside the rest--was "created" or fashioned by Terrestrial Spirits, the Regents being simply the supervisors. This is the first germ of that which grew later into the Tree of Astrology and Astrolatry. The Higher Ones were the Cosmocratores, the fabricators of our Solar System. This is borne out by all the ancient Cosmogonies, such as those of Hermes, of the Chaldćans, of the Aryans, of the Egyptians, and even of the Jews. The Signs of the Zodiac--the "_Sacred Animals_" or "Heaven's Belt"--are as much the Bne' Alhim--Sons of the Gods or the Elohim--as the Spirits of the Earth; but they are prior to them. Soma and Sin, Isis and Diana, are all lunar Gods or Goddesses, called the Fathers and Mothers of our Earth, which is subordinate to them. But these, in their turn, are subordinate to their "Fathers" and "Mothers"--the latter being interchangeable and varying with each nation--the Gods and their Planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn, Bel, Brihaspati, etc. (_c_) "His Breath gave Life to the Seven," refers as much to the Sun, who gives life to the Planets, as to the "High One," the _Spiritual Sun_, who gives life to the whole Kosmos. The astronomical and astrological keys opening the gate leading to the mysteries of Theogony can be found only in the later glossaries, which accompany the Stanzas. In the apocalyptic Shlokas of the Archaic Records, the language is as symbolical, if less mythical, than in the _Purânas_. Without the help of the later Commentaries, compiled by generations of Adepts, it would be impossible to understand the meaning correctly. In the ancient Cosmogonies, the visible and the invisible worlds are the double links of one and the same chain. As the Invisible Logos, with its Seven Hierarchies--each represented or personified by its chief Angel or Rector--form one POWER, the inner and the invisible; so, in the world of Forms, the Sun and the seven chief Planets constitute the visible and active potency; the latter Hierarchy being, so to speak, the visible and objective Logos of the Invisible and--except in the lowest grades--ever- subjective Angels. Thus--to anticipate a little by way of illustration--every Race in its evolution is said to be born under the direct influence of one of the Planets; Race the First receiving its breath of life from the Sun, as will be seen later on; while the Third Humanity--those who fell into generation, or from androgynes became separate entities, one male and the other female--is said to be under the direct influence of Venus, "_the __'__little sun__'__ in which the solar orb stores his light_." The summary of the Stanzas in Volume I showed the genesis(33) of Gods and men taking rise in, and from, one and the same Point, which is the One Universal, Immutable, Eternal, and Absolute UNITY. In its primary manifested aspect we have seen it become: (1) in the sphere of objectivity and Physics, PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE and FORCE--centripetal and centrifugal, positive and negative, male and female, etc.; (2) in the world of Metaphysics, the SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSE, or Cosmic Ideation, called by some the LOGOS. This Logos is the apex of the Pythagorean Triangle. When the Triangle is complete it becomes the Tetraktys, or the Triangle in the Square, and is the dual symbol of the four-lettered Tetragrammaton in the manifested Kosmos, and of its radical triple Ray in the unmanifested--its Noumenon. Put more metaphysically, the classification given here of Cosmic Ultimates, is more one of convenience than of absolute philosophical accuracy. At the commencement of a great Manvantara, Parabrahman manifests as Műlaprakriti and then as the Logos. This Logos is equivalent to the "Unconscious Universal Mind," etc., of Western Pantheists. It constitutes the Basis of the _subject_-side of manifested Being, and is the source of all manifestations of individual consciousness. Műlaprakriti or Primordial Cosmic Substance, is the foundation of the _object_-side of things--the basis of all objective evolution and cosmo-genesis. Force, then, does not emerge with Primordial Substance from Parabrahmanic latency. It is the _transformation into energy of the supra-conscious thought of the Logos_, infused, so to speak, into the objectivation of the latter out of potential latency in the One Reality. Hence spring the wondrous laws of Matter; hence the "primal impress" so vainly discussed by Bishop Temple. Force thus is _not synchronous_ with the first objectivation of Műlaprakriti. Nevertheless as, apart from it, the latter is absolutely and necessarily inert--_a mere abstraction_--it is unnecessary to weave too fine a cobweb of subtleties as to the order of succession of the Cosmic Ultimates. Force _succeeds_ Műlaprakriti; but, _minus_ Force, Műlaprakriti is for all practical intents and purposes non-existent.(34) The Heavenly Man or Tetragrammaton, who is the Protogonos, Tikkoun, the Firstborn from the passive Deity and the first manifestation of that Deity's Shadow, is the Universal Form and Idea, which engenders the Manifested Logos, Adam Kadmon, or the four-lettered symbol, in the Kabalah, of the Universe itself, also called the Second Logos. The Second springs from the First and develops the Third Triangle;(35) from the last of which (the lower host of Angels) _Men_ are generated. It is with this third aspect that we shall deal at present. The reader must bear in mind that there is a great difference between the Logos and the Demiurgos, for one is _Spirit_ and the other is _Soul_; or as Dr. Wilder has it: Dianoia and Logos are synonymous, Nous being superior and closely in affinity with {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, one being the superior apprehending, the other the comprehending--one noëtic and the other phrenic. Moreover, Man was regarded in several systems as the Third Logos. The Esoteric meaning of the word Logos--Speech or Word, Verbum--is the rendering in objective expression, as in a photograph, of the concealed thought. The Logos is the mirror reflecting DIVINE MIND, and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the _esse_ of that Universe. As the Logos reflects _all_ in the Universe of Plerôma, so Man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in _his_ Universe, the Earth. It is the Three Heads of the Kabalah--"_unum intra alterum, et alterum super alterum._"(36) "Every Universe (World or Planet) has its own Logos," says the Doctrine. The Sun was always called by the Egyptians the "Eye of Osiris," and was himself the Logos, the First-begotten, or Light made manifest to the world, "which is the Mind and divine Intellect of the Concealed." It is only by the seven-fold Ray of this Light that we can become cognizant of the Logos through the Demiurge, regarding the latter as the "Creator" of our Planet and everything pertaining to it, and the former as the guiding Force of that "Creator"--good and bad at the same time, the origin of good and the origin of evil. This "Creator" is neither good nor bad _per se_, but its differentiated aspects in Nature make it assume one or the other character. With the invisible and the unknown Universes disseminated through Space, none of the Sun-Gods had anything to do. The idea is expressed very clearly in the Books of Hermes, and in every ancient folk-lore. It is symbolized generally by the Dragon and the Serpent--the Dragon of Good and the Serpent of Evil, represented on Earth by the right and the left-hand Magic. In the epic poem of Finland, the _Kalevala_,(37) the origin of the Serpent of Evil is given: it is born from the spittle of Suoyatar, and endowed with a Living Soul by the Principle of Evil, Hisi. A strife is described between the two, the "thing of evil," the Serpent or Sorcerer, and Ahti, the Dragon of the white magician, Lemminkainen. The latter is one of the seven sons of Ilmatar, the virgin "daughter of the air," she "who fell from heaven into the sea," before Creation, _i.e._, Spirit transformed into the matter of sensuous life. There is a world of meaning and Occult thought in the following few lines, admirably rendered by Dr. J. M. Crawford, of Cincinnati. The hero Lemminkainen, Hews the wall with might of magic, Breaks the palisade in pieces, Hews to atoms _seven_ pickets, Chops the _serpent-wall_ to fragments. When the monster little heeding, Pounces with his mouth of venom At the head of Lemminkainen. But the hero, quick recalling, Speaks the _master-words of knowledge_, Words that came from distant ages, Words his ancestors had taught him. (_d_) In China the men of Fohi, or the "Heavenly Man," are called the twelve Tien-Hoang, the twelve Hierarchies of Dhyânis or Angels, with human faces, and dragon bodies; the Dragon standing for Divine Wisdom or Spirit;(38) and they create men by incarnating themselves in seven figures of clay--earth and water--made in the shape of these Tien-Hoang, a third allegory.(39) The twelve Ćsers of the Scandinavian Eddas do the same. In the Secret Catechism of the Druses of Syria--a legend which is repeated word for word by the oldest tribes about and around the Euphrates--men were created by the "Sons of God," who descended on Earth, and after gathering seven Mandragoras, they animated the roots, which forthwith became men.(40) All these allegories point to one and the same origin--to the dual and triple nature of man; dual, as male and female; triple, as being of spiritual and psychic essence _within_, and of a material fabric without. 2. SAID THE EARTH, "LORD OF THE SHINING FACE,(41) MY HOUSE IS EMPTY.... SEND THY SONS TO PEOPLE THIS WHEEL.(42) THOU HAST SENT THY SEVEN SONS TO THE LORD OF WISDOM (_A_). SEVEN TIMES DOTH HE SEE THEE NEARER TO HIMSELF; SEVEN TIMES MORE DOTH HE FEEL THEE (_B_). THOU HAST FORBIDDEN THY SERVANTS, THE SMALL RINGS, TO CATCH THY LIGHT AND HEAT, THY GREAT BOUNTY TO INTERCEPT ON ITS PASSAGE. SEND NOW TO THY SERVANT THE SAME!" (_a_) The "Lord of Wisdom" is Mercury, or Budha. (_b_) The modern Commentary explains the words as a reference to a well- known astronomical fact, that Mercury receives seven times more light and heat from the Sun than the Earth, or even the beautiful Venus, which receives but twice the amount falling on our insignificant Globe. Whether the fact was known in antiquity may be inferred from the prayer of the "Earth Spirit" to the Sun as given in the text.(43) The Sun, however, refuses to people the Globe, as it is not ready to receive life as yet. Mercury, as an astrological Planet, is still more Occult and mysterious than Venus. It is identical with the Mazdean Mithra, the Genius, or God, "established between the Sun and the Moon, the perpetual companion of the 'Sun' of Wisdom." Pausanias (Bk. v.) shows him as having an altar in common with Jupiter. He had wings to express his attendance upon the Sun in its course; and he was called the Nuntius and Sun-wolf, "_solaris luminis particeps_." He was the leader and evocator of Souls, the great Magician and the Hierophant. Virgil depicts him as taking his wand to evoke from Orcus the souls plunged therein--_tum virgam capit, hac animas ille evocat Orco_.(44) He is the Golden-coloured Mercury, the {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} whom the Hierophants forbade to name. He is symbolized in Grecian mythology by one of the "dogs" (vigilance), which watch over the celestial flock (Occult Wisdom), or Hermes Anubis, or again Agathodćmon. He is the Argus watching over the Earth, mistaken by the latter for the Sun itself. It is through the intercession of Mercury that the Emperor Julian prayed to the Occult Sun every night; for, as says Vossius: All the theologians assert that _Mercury and the Sun are one_.... He was the most eloquent and the most wise of all the Gods, which is not to be wondered at, since _Mercury is in such close proximity to the Wisdom and the Word of God_ [the Sun] that he was confused with both.(45) Vossius here utters a greater Occult truth than he suspected. The Hermes of the Greeks is closely related to the Hindű Saramâ and Sârameya, the divine watchman, "who watches over the golden flock of stars and solar rays." In the clearer words of the Commentary: _The Globe, propelled onward by the Spirit of the Earth and his six Assistants, gets all its vital forces, life, and powers through the medium of the seven planetary Dhyânis from the Spirit of the Sun. They are his messengers of Light and Life._ _Like each of the Seven Regions of the Earth, each of the seven_(_46_)_ First-born [the primordial Human Groups] receives its light and life from its own especial Dhyâni--spiritually, and from the Palace [House, the Planet] of that Dhyâni--physically; so with the seven great Races to be born on it. The First is born under the Sun; the Second under Brihaspati [Jupiter]; the Third under Lohitânga [Mars, the __"__Fiery-bodied,__"__ and also under Venus or Shukra]; the Fourth, under Soma [the Moon, our Globe also, the Fourth Sphere being born under and from the Moon] and Shani, Saturn,_(_47_)_ the Krűra-lochana [Evil-eyed], and the Asita [the Dark]; the Fifth, under Budha [Mercury]._ _So also with man and every __"__man__"__ [every principle] in man. Each gets its specific quality from its Primary [the Planetary Spirit], therefore every man is a septenate [or a combination of principles, each having its origin in a quality of that special Dhyâni]. Every active power or force __ of the Earth comes to her from one of the seven Lords. Light comes through Shukra [Venus], who receives a triple supply, and gives one- third of it to the Earth. Therefore the two are called __"__Twin- sisters,__"__ but the Spirit of the Earth is subservient to the __"__Lord__"__ of Shukra. Our wise men represent the two Globes, one over, the other under the double Sign [the primeval Svastika bereft of its four arms, or the cross, {~CROSS OF JERUSALEM~}]._(48) The "double sign" is, as every student of Occultism knows, the symbol of the male and the female principles in Nature, of the positive and the negative, for the Svastika or {~UNKNOWN~} is all that and much more. All antiquity, ever since the birth of Astronomy--imparted to the Fourth Race by one of the Kings of the Divine Dynasty--and also of Astrology, represented Venus in its astronomical tables as a _Globe poised over a Cross_, and the Earth, as a _Globe under a Cross_. The Esoteric meaning of this is the Earth fallen into generation, or into the production of its species through sexual union. But the later Western nations have not failed to give it quite a different interpretation. They explained the sign through their Mystics--guided by the light of the Latin Church--as meaning that our Earth and all on it were redeemed _by the Cross_, while Venus--otherwise Lucifer or Satan--was trampling upon it. Venus is the most Occult, powerful, and mysterious of all the Planets; the one whose influence upon, and relation to, the Earth is most prominent. In exoteric Brâhmanism, Venus or Shukra--a male deity(49)--is the son of Bhrigu, one of the Prajâpati and a Vedic sage, and is Daitya-Guru, or the priest-instructor of the primeval giants. The whole history of Shukra in the _Purânas_, refers to the Third and Fourth Races. As says the Commentary: _It is through Shukra that the __"__double ones__"__ [the hermaphrodites] of the Third [__Root-Race__] descended from the first __"__Sweat- born.__"__ Therefore it is represented under the symbol [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it] [the circle and diameter], during the Third [Race], and [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom], during the Fourth._ This needs explanation. The diameter, when found isolated in a circle, stands for female Nature; for the first ideal World, _self-generated_ and _self-impregnated_ by the universally diffused Spirit of Life--thus also referring to the primitive Root-Race. It becomes androgynous as the Races and all else on Earth develop into their physical forms, and the symbol is transformed into a circle with a diameter from which runs a vertical line, expressive of male and female, not separated as yet--the first and earliest Egyptian Tau; [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom] after which it becomes {~CROSS OF JERUSALEM~}, or male female separated(50) and fallen into generation. Venus (the Planet), is symbolized by the sign of a globe over a cross, which shows the former as presiding over the natural generation of man. The Egyptians symbolized Ankh, "life," by the ansated cross, or {~ANKH~}, which is only another form of Venus (Isis), {~FEMALE SIGN~}, and meant, Esoterically, that mankind and all animal life had stepped out of the divine spiritual circle and had fallen into physical male and female generation. This sign, from the end of the Third Race, has the same phallic significance as the "_Tree_ of Life" in Eden. Anouki, a form of Isis, is the Goddess of Life; and Ankh was taken by the Hebrews from the Egyptians. It was introduced into the language by Moses, one learned in the Wisdom of the priests of Egypt, with many other mystical words. The word Ankh in Hebrew, with the personal suffix, means "my life"--my being--which "is the personal pronoun Anochi," from the name of the Egyptian Goddess Anouki.(51) In one of the most ancient Catechisms of Southern India, Madras Presidency, the hermaphrodite Goddess Ardhanârî,(52) has the ansated cross, the Svastika, the "male and female sign," right in the central part, to denote the pre-sexual state of the Third Race. Vishnu, who is now represented with a lotus growing out of his navel--or the Universe of Brahmâ evolving out of the central point, Nara--is shown in one of the oldest carvings as double-sexed (Vishnu and Lakshmî) standing on a lotus- leaf floating on the water, the water rising in a semicircle and pouring through the Svastika, "the source of generation," or of the descent of man. Pythagoras calls Shukra-Venus the _Sol alter_, the "other Sun." Of the "seven Palaces of the Sun," that of Lucifer-Venus is the third in Christian and Jewish Kabalah, the _Zohar_ making of it the abode of Samael. According to the Occult Doctrine, this Planet is our Earth's _primary_, and its spiritual prototype. Hence, Shukra's car (Venus- Lucifer's) is said to be drawn by an _Ogdoad_ of "_earth-born_ horses," while the steeds of the chariots of the other Planets are different. _Every sin committed on Earth is felt by Ushanas-Shukra. The Guru of the Daityas is the Guardian Spirit of the Earth and Men. Every change on Shukra is felt on, and reflected by, the Earth._ Shukra, or Venus, is thus represented as the Preceptor of the Daityas, the giants of the Fourth Race, who, in the Hindű allegory, at one time obtained the sovereignty of all the Earth, and defeated the minor Gods. The Titans of the Western allegory also are as closely connected with Venus-Lucifer, which was identified by later Christians with Satan. And, as Venus, equally with Isis, was represented with cow's horns on her head, the symbol of mystic Nature--one convertible with, and significant of, the Moon, since all these were lunar Goddesses--the configuration of this Planet is now placed by theologians between the horns of the mystic Lucifer.(53) It is owing to the fanciful interpretation of the archaic tradition, which states that Venus changes simultaneously (geologically) with the Earth, that whatever takes place on the one takes place on the other, and that many and great were their common changes--it is for these reasons that St. Augustine repeats it, applying the several changes of configuration, colour, and even of the orbital paths, to that theologically-woven character of Venus-Lucifer. He even goes so far in his pious fancy as to connect the last changes of the Planet with the Noachian and mythical Deluge alleged to have taken place 1796 B.C.(54) As Venus has no satellites, it is stated allegorically, that Âsphujit (this "Planet") adopted the Earth, the progeny of the Moon, "_who overgrew its parent and gave much trouble_"--a reference to the Occult connection between the two. The Regent (of the Planet) Shukra(55) loved his adopted child so well that he incarnated as Ushanas and gave it perfect laws, which were disregarded and rejected in later ages. Another allegory, in the _Harivansha_, is that Shukra went to Shiva and asked him to protect his pupils, the Daityas and Asuras, from the fighting Gods; and that to further his object he performed a Yoga rite "imbibing the _smoke_ of chaff with his _head downwards_ for 1,000 years." This refers to the great inclination of the axis of Venus--amounting to fifty degrees--and to its being enveloped in eternal clouds. But it relates only to the physical constitution of the Planet. It is with its Regent, the informing Dhyân Chohan, that Occult Mysticism has to deal. The allegory which states that Vishnu was cursed by Shukra to be _reborn seven times_ on the Earth as a punishment for killing his (Shukra's) mother, is full of Occult philosophical meaning. It does not refer to Vishnu's Avatâras, since these number nine--the tenth being still to come--but to the Races on Earth. Venus, or Lucifer--also Shukra and Ushanas--the Planet, is the light-bearer of our Earth, in both the physical and mystic sense. The Christians knew it well in early times, since one of the earliest popes of Rome is known by his pontiff-name as Lucifer. _Every world has its parent Star and sister Planet. Thus Earth is the adopted, child and younger brother of Venus, but its inhabitants are of their own kind.... All sentient complete beings [full septenary men or higher beings] are furnished, in their beginnings, with forms and organisms in full harmony with the nature and state of the Sphere they inhabit._(56) _The Spheres of Being, or Centres of Life, which are isolated nuclei breeding their men and their animals, are numberless; not one has any resemblance to its sister-companion or to any other in its own special progeny._(57) _All have a double physical and spiritual nature._ _The nucleoles are eternal and everlasting; the nuclei periodical and finite. The nucleoles form part of the Absolute. They are the embrasures of that black impenetrable fortress, which is for ever concealed from human or even Dhyânic sight. The nuclei are the light of eternity escaping therefrom._ _It is that __LIGHT__ which condenses into the Forms of the __"__Lords of Being__"__--the first and the highest of which are, collectively, __JÎVÂTMÂ__, or Pratyagâtmâ [which is said figuratively to issue from Paramâtmâ. It is the Logos of the Greek philosophers--appearing at the beginning of every new Manvantara]. From these downwards--formed from the ever-consolidating waves of that Light, which becomes on the objective plane gross Matter--proceed the numerous Hierarchies of the Creative Forces; some formless, others having their own distinctive form, others, again, the lowest [Elementals], having no form of their own, but assuming every form according to the surrounding conditions._ _Thus there is but one Absolute Upâdhi [Basis] in the spiritual sense, from, on, and in which, are built for manvantaric purposes the countless basic centres on which proceed the universal, cyclic, and individual Evolutions during the active period._ _The informing Intelligences, which animate these various Centres of Being, are referred to indiscriminately by men beyond the Great Range_(_58_)_ as the Manus, the Rishis, the Pitris,_(_59_)_ the Prajâpati, and so on; and as Dhyâni-Buddhas, the Chohans, Melhas [Fire-Gods], Bodhisattvas,_(_60_)_ and others, on this side. The truly ignorant call them Gods; the learned profane, the One God; and the wise, the Initiates, honour in them only the manvantaric manifestations of __THAT__ which neither our Creators [the Dhyân Chohans] nor their creatures can ever discuss or know anything about. The __ABSOLUTE__ is not to be defined, and no mortal or immortal has ever seen or comprehended it during the periods of Existence. The mutable cannot know the Immutable, nor can that which lives perceive Absolute Life._ "Therefore, man cannot know higher Beings than his own Progenitors." "_Nor shall he worship them_," but he ought to learn _how_ he came into the world. Number Seven, the fundamental figure among all other figures in every national religious system, from Cosmogony down to man, must have its _raison d'ętre_. It is found among the ancient Americans, as prominently as among the archaic Âryans and Egyptians. The question will be fully dealt with in the second Part of this Volume; meanwhile a few facts may be given here. Says the author of the _Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 years ago_:(61) Seven seems to have been the sacred number _par excellence_ among all civilized nations of antiquity. Why? This query has never been satisfactorily answered. Each separate people has given a different explanation, according to the peculiar tenets of their [exoteric] religion. That it was the number of numbers for those initiated to the sacred mysteries there can be no doubt. Pythagoras ... calls it the "Vehicle of life," containing body and soul, since it is formed of a quaternary, that is: _Wisdom and Intellect_; and a Trinity, or _action_ and _matter_. The Emperor Julian, in _Matrem_ and in _Oratio_,(62) expresses himself thus: "Were I to touch upon the initiation into our secret mysteries, which the Chaldees bacchized respecting the _seven-rayed_ god, lighting up the soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to the blessed Theurgists."(63) And who that is acquainted with the _Purânas_, the _Book of the Dead_, the _Zendavesta_, the Assyrian Tiles, and finally the _Bible_, and has observed the constant occurrence of the number seven in these records of people from the remotest times upwards unconnected and so far apart, can regard as a coincidence the following fact, given by the same explorer of ancient Mysteries? Speaking of the prevalence of seven as a mystic number, among the inhabitants of the "Western Continent" of America, he adds that it is not less remarkable. For: It frequently occurs in the _Popul-Vuh_. We find it besides in the _seven families_ said by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied the mystical personage named _Votan_, the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by some with Palenque. In the _seven caves_(64) from which the ancestors of the Nahualts are reported to have emerged. In the _seven cities_ of Cibola, described by Coronado and Niza.... In the _seven Antilles_; in the _seven heroes_ who, we are told, escaped the Deluge. Heroes, moreover, whose number is found the same in every Deluge story--from the seven Rishis who were saved with Vaivasvata Manu, down to Noah's ark, into which beasts, fowls, and living creatures were taken by "sevens." Thus we see the figures 1, 3, 5, 7, as perfect, because thoroughly mystic, numbers playing a prominent part in every Cosmogony and evolution of living Beings. In China, 1, 3, 5, 7, are called "celestial numbers" in the canonical "Book of Changes"--_Yi King_, or _transformation_, as in "evolution." The explanation of it becomes evident when one examines the ancient Symbols: all these are based upon and start from the figures given from the Archaic Manuscript in the Proem of Volume I. [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom], the symbol of evolution and fall into generation or Matter, is reflected in the old Mexican sculptures or paintings, as it is in the Kabalistic Sephiroth, and the Egyptian Tau. Examine the Mexican MS. (_Add. MSS._ Brit. Mus. 9789)(65); you will find it in a tree whose trunk is covered with _ten_ fruits ready to be plucked by a male and female, one on each side of it, while from the top of the trunk two branches shoot horizontally to the right and left, thus forming a perfect {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~} (Tau), the ends of the two branches, moreover, each bearing a triple bunch, with a bird--the bird of immortality, Âtmâ or the Divine Spirit--sitting between the two, and thus making the _seventh_. This represents the same idea as the Sephirothal Tree, _ten_ in all, yet, when separated from its upper triad, leaving _seven_. These are the celestial fruits, the ten, or [Symbol: circle with "i" inside], 10, born out of the two invisible male and female seeds, making up the 12, or the Dodecahedron of the Universe. The mystic system contains the ·, the central point; the 3, or [symbol: triangle]; the 5, [symbol: 5-point star]; and the 7, or [symbol: triangle in square]; or again [symbol: 6-point star]; the triangle in the square and the synthesizing point in the interlaced double triangles. This for the world of the archetypes. The phenomenal world receives its culmination and the reflex of all in MAN. Therefore he is the mystic square--in his metaphysical aspect--the Tetraktys; and becomes the Cube on the creative plane. His symbol is the cube unfolded(66) and 6 becoming 7, or the [Symbol: cross], 3 crossways (the female) and 4 vertically; and this is man, the culmination of the deity on earth, whose body is the cross of flesh, _on_, _through_, and _in_ which he is ever crucifying and putting to death the divine Logos, or his HIGHER SELF. Says every Philosophy and Cosmogony: The universe hath a Ruler [Rulers collectively] set over it, which is called the WORD (Logos); the fabricating Spirit is its Queen: which two are the First Power after the ONE. These are the Spirit and Nature, which two form our Illusory Universe. The two inseparables remain in the _Universe of Ideas_ so long as it lasts, and then merge back into Parabrahman, the One ever changeless. "The Spirit, whose essence is eternal, one and self-existent," emanates a pure ethereal Light--a dual light not perceptible to the elementary senses--according to the _Purânas_, the _Bible_, the _Sepher Yetzirah_, the Greek and Latin Hymns, the _Book of Hermes_, the Chaldćan _Book of Numbers_, the Esotericism of Lao-tse, and everywhere else. In the Kabalah, which explains the secret meaning of _Genesis_, this Light is the Dual- Man, or the Androgyne (rather Sexless) Angels, whose generic name is Adam Kadmon. It is they who complete man, whose ethereal form is emanated by other divine, but far lower Beings, who solidify the body with clay, or the "dust of the ground"--an allegory indeed, but as scientific as any Darwinian evolution and more _true_. The author of the _Source of Measures_ says that the foundation of the Kabalah and of all its mystic books is made to rest upon the _ten_ Sephiroth; which is a fundamental truth. He shows these Ten Sephiroth or the 10 Numbers as follows: [Illustration: Circle with numbers 2 through 9, and vertical line through it] The circle is the _naught_; its vertical diameter line is the first or primal _One_ [the Word or Logos], from which spring the 2, the 3, and so on to 9, the limit of the digits. The 10 is the first Divine Manifestation,(67) which contains every possible power of exact expression of proportion--the sacred _Jod_. By this Cabbalah we are taught that these Sephiroth were the _numbers_ or emanations of the heavenly Light (20612 to 6561), they were the 10 Words, DBRIM, 41224, the light of which they were the flux was the Heavenly man, the Adam-KDM (the 144-144); and the Light, by the New Testament or Covenant (41224) created God; just as by the Old Testament God (Alhim, 31415) creates Light (20612 to 6561).(68) Now there are three kinds of Light in Occultism, as in the Kabalah. (1) The Abstract and Absolute Light, which is Darkness; (2) The Light of the Manifested-Unmanifested, called by some the Logos: and (3) The latter Light reflected in the Dhyân Chohans, the minor Logoi--the Elohim, collectively--who, in their turn, shed it on the objective Universe. But in the Kabalah--reëdited and carefully adjusted to fit the Christian tenets by the Kabalists of the thirteenth century--the three Lights are described as: (1) The clear and penetrating, that of Jehovah; (2) reflected light; and (3) light _in the abstract_. This Light, abstractly taken, (in a metaphysical or symbolical sense) is Alhim (Elohim, God), while the clear penetrating Light is Jehovah. The light of Alhim belongs to the world in general, in its allness and general fulness, but the light of Jehovah is that pertaining to the chiefest production, man, whom this light penetrated to and made.(69) The author of the _Source of Measures_ pertinently refers the reader to Inman's _Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names_, ii. 648. There, an engraving of The _vesica piscis_, Mary, and the female emblem, copied from a Rosary of the blessed Virgin Mary, which was printed at Venice, 1542, and therefore, as Inman remarks, "with a licence from the Inquisition, and consequently orthodox," will show the reader what the Latin Church understood by this "penetrating power of light and its effects." How sadly disfigured--applied as they were to the grossest anthropomorphic conceptions--have, under Christian interpretation, become the noblest and grandest, as the most exalted, ideas of Deity of the Eastern Philosophy! The Occultists in the East call this Light Daiviprakriti, and in the West the Light of Christos. It is the Light of the Logos, the direct reflection of the ever Unknowable on the plane of Universal Manifestation. But here is the interpretation thereof given by the modern Christians from the Kabalah. As declared by the author just cited; To the fulness of the world in general with its chiefest content, man, the term Elohim-Jehovah applies. In extracts from Sohar, the Rev. Dr. Cassell [a Kabalist], to prove that the Cabbalah sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity, among other things says: "Jehovah is Elohim (Alhim)" ... By _three_ steps God, (Alhim) and Jehovah become the same, and though separated, each and together they are of the same One.(70) Similarly, Vishnu becomes the Sun, the visible symbol of the Impersonal Deity. Vishnu is described as "striding through the seven regions of the Universe in _three steps_." But with the Hindűs this is an _exoteric_ account, a surface tenet and an allegory, while the Kabalists give it out as the Esoteric and final meaning. But to proceed: Now Light, as shown, is 20612 to 6561, as the proper enunciation of the integral and numerical relation of diameter to circumference of a circle. God (Alhim, that is, 31415 to One, a modified form of the above) is the reduction of this, so as to obtain a standard unit _One_, as the basis, in general, of all calculation and all mensuration. But for the production of animal life, and for especial _time measure_, or the lunar year, that influence which causes conception and embryotic development, the numbers of the Jehovah measure (the "_man even Jehovah_" measure), viz., 113 to 355, have to be specialized.(71) But this last ratio is but a modified form of Light, or 20612 to 6561, as a _pi value_, being only a variation of the same (that is 20612 to 6561 is 31415 to one, and 355 to 113 is 31415 or Alhim or God), and in such a manner that one can be made to flow into and be derived from the other:--and these are the three steps by which the _Unity_ and sameness can be shown of the Divine names. That is, the two are but variations of the same ratio, viz., that of _pi_. The object of this comment is to show the same symbolic measuring use for the Cabbalah, as taught, with that of the Three Covenants of the _Bible_, and with that of Masonry as just noticed. First, then, the Sephiroth are described as _Light_, that is, they themselves are a function of, indeed, the same as, the manifestation of the Ain Soph; and they are so from the fact that "_Light_" represents the ratio 20612 to 6561, as part of the "Words," DBRIM, 41224, or, as to the Word, Dabar, 206 (= 10 cubits). "_Light_" is so much the burden of the Cabbalah as to explaining the Sephiroth, that the most famous book on the Cabbalah is called _Sohar_, or "_Light_." In this we find expressions of this kind: "The infinite was entirely unknown and diffused no light before the luminous point violently broke through into vision." "When He first assumed the form (of the crown, or the first Sephira), He caused 9 splendid lights to emanate from it, which, shining through it, diffused a bright light in all directions:"--that is, these 9 with his one (which was the origin, as above, of the 9), together, made the 10, that is [Symbol: circle with vertical line through it], or [Symbol: circle with "x" inside], or the sacred Ten (numbers or Sephiroth), or _Jod_--and these numbers were "_the Light_." Just as in the Gospel of St. John, God (Alhim, 31415 to one) was that Light (20612 to 6561) by which (Light) all things were made.(72) In the _Sepher Yetzirah_, or "Number of Creation," the whole process of evolution is given out in numbers. In its "thirty-two Paths of Wisdom" the number 3 is repeated four times, and the number 4 five times. Therefore, the Wisdom of God is contained in numbers (Sephrim or Sephiroth), for Sepher (or S-ph-r when unvowelled) means "to cipher." And therefore, also, we find Plato stating that the Deity "geometrizes" in fabricating the Universe. The Kabalistic book, the _Sepher Yetzirah_, opens with a statement of the hidden wisdom of Alhim in Sephrim, _i.e._, the Elohim in the Sephiroth. In thirty and two paths, hidden wisdom, established Jah, IHVH, Tzabaoth, Elohi of Israel, Alhim of Life, El of Grace and Mercy--exalted uplifted Dweller on high, and King of Everlasting, and His name--Holy! in Three Sephrim, viz.: B--S'ph-r, V--S'ph-r, V--Siph-o-r. Mr. Ralston Skinner goes on to say: This comment sets forth the "_hidden wisdom_" of the original text by hidden wisdom, that is, by the use of words carrying a special set of numbers and a special phraseology, which will set forth the very explanatory system which we find to fit so accurately in the Hebrew Bible.... In setting forth his scheme, to enforce it, and to finish out his detailed exposition in a general postulate,--viz., the one word "_Sephrim_" (_Sephiroth_), of the Number Jezirah, the author explains the separation of this word in the three subordinate ones, a play upon a common word, _s-ph-r_, or number. The prince Al-Chazari(73) says to the Rabbi: "I wish now that thou wouldest impart to me some of the chiefest or leading principles of _Natural Philosophy_, which, as thou sayest, were in former times worked out by them (the ancient wise ones);"--to which the Rabbi makes answer: "To such principles appertains the Number of Creation of our race-father Abraham" that is Abram and Abraham, or numbers 41224 and 41252. He then says that this book of number treats of teaching the "_Alhim_-ness and _One_-ness through (DBRIM)" viz., the numbers of the word "_Words_." That is, it teaches the use of the ratio 31415 to One, through 41224, which last, in the description of the Ark of the Covenant, was divided into two parts by the _two_ tables of stone, on which these DBRIM, or 41224, were written or engraved--or 20612 × 2. He then comments on these three subordinately used words, and takes care as to one of them to make the comment, "and _Alhim_ (31415 to One) said let there be Light (20612 to 6561)." The words as given in the text are: {~HEBREW LETTER SAMEKH~}{~HEBREW LETTER PE~}{~HEBREW LETTER RESH~} {~HEBREW LETTER SAMEKH~}{~HEBREW LETTER PE~}{~HEBREW LETTER RESH~} {~HEBREW LETTER SAMEKH~}{~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER PE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER RESH~} and the Rabbi, in commenting upon them, says: "It teaches the _Alhim_-ness (31415) and _One_-ness (the diameter to Alhim), through Words (DBRIM = 41224), by which on the one side there is infinite expression in heterogeneous creations, and on the other a final harmonic tendency to _One_-ness" (which, as everyone knows, is the mathematical function of _pi_ of the schools, which measures, weighs, and numbers the stars of heaven, and yet resolves them back into the final oneness of the Uni-verse) "through Words. Their final accord perfects itself in that _One_-ness that ordains them, and which consists in {~HEBREW LETTER SAMEKH~}{~HEBREW LETTER PE~}{~HEBREW LETTER RESH~} {~HEBREW LETTER SAMEKH~}{~HEBREW LETTER PE~}{~HEBREW LETTER RESH~} {~HEBREW LETTER SAMEKH~}{~HEBREW LETTER PE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER RESH~} " that is, the Rabbi, in his first comment, leaves the _jod_, or _i_, out of one of the words, whereas afterwards he restores it again. If we take the values of those subordinate words, we find them to be 340, 340 and 346;--together these are 1026, and the division of the general word into these has been to produce these numbers--which by T'mura may be changed in various ways, for various purposes.(74) 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 Chaldća; 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 Aramćan, "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 Chaldćan scripture, certainly earlier than the Mosaic Books. In Assyrian _Ad_ is the "father," and in Aramćan _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 Hindűs. 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 Hindű 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 _ćons 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, Sadaikarűpa] 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 [Ekânekarűpa]; 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 Hindű 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 Hindű 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 Hindűs 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 Hindű 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 Hindű _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 Hindűs 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 RŰPAS;(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 Chaldćan 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 Chaldćan 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 Chaldćan 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 Chaldćans, 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 Hindű _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 Chaldćan 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 Chaldćan "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 RŰPAS 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 Hindű 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" (Yűyuge). 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 Agathodćmon, 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 Hindű Pantheon, and restore through Ahura the Asuras to their legitimate place in Theogony, so the recent discoveries of the Chaldćan 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 Chaldćan 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 Palćozoic 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 Gća, Gaia, the Earth, which, in its higher aspect is Prakriti, Nature, and metaphysically Aditi, and even Műlaprakriti, the Root of Prakriti, or its noumenon. Hence Cupid or Love in his primitive sense is Erôs, the Divine Will, or Desire of manifesting itself through visible creation. Thence Fohat, the prototype of Erôs, becomes on Earth the Great Power "Life-Electricity," or the Spirit of "Life-giving." Let us remember the Greek Theogony and enter into the spirit of its Philosophy. We are taught by the Greeks that all things, Gods included, owe their being to the Ocean and his wife Tethys, the latter being Gća, the Earth or Nature. But who is Ocean? Ocean is the immeasurable Space--Spirit in Chaos--which, is the Deity; and Tethys is not the Earth, but Primordial Matter in the process of formation. In our case it is no longer Aditi-Gća who begets Ouranos or Varuna, the chief Âditya among the seven Planetary Gods, but Prakriti, materialized and localized. The Moon, masculine in its theogonic character, is, in its cosmic aspect only, the female generative principle, as the Sun is the male emblem thereof. Water is the progeny of the Moon, an androgyne deity with every nation. Evolution proceeds on the laws of analogy in Kosmos as in the formation of the smallest Globe. Thus the above, applying to the _modus operandi_ at the time when the Universe was appearing, applies also in the case of our Earth's formation. The Stanza now being commented upon opens by speaking of thirty crores, 300,000,000 of years. We may be asked: What could the ancients know of the duration of geological periods, when no modern Scientist or Mathematician is able to calculate their duration with anything like approximate accuracy? Whether they had or had not better means--and it is maintained that they had them as is evidenced by their Zodiacs--still the chronology of the ancient Brâhmans shall now be given as faithfully as possible. The Chronology of the Brâhmans. No greater riddle exists in Science, no problem is more hopelessly insoluble, than the question: How old--even approximately--are the Sun and Moon, the Earth and Man? What does Modern Science know of the duration of the Ages of the World, or even of the length of Geological Periods? Nothing; absolutely nothing. If one turns to Science for chronological information, one is told by those who are straightforward and truthful, as for instance Mr. Pengelly, the eminent Geologist, "We do not know."(143) One will learn that, so far, no trustworthy numerical estimate of the ages of the World and Man could be made, and that both Geology and Anthropology are at sea. Yet when a student of Esoteric Philosophy presumes to bring forward the teachings of Occult Science, he is at once sat upon. Why should this be so, since, when reduced to their own physical methods, the greatest Scientists have failed to arrive even at an approximate agreement? It is true that Science can hardly be blamed for it. Indeed, in the Cimmerian darkness of the prehistoric ages, the explorers are lost in a labyrinth, whose great corridors are doorless, allowing no visible exit into the archaic past. Lost in the maze of their own conflicting speculations, rejecting, as they have always done, the evidence of Eastern tradition, without any clue, or one single certain milestone to guide them, what can Geologists or Anthropologists do but pick up the slender thread of Ariadne where they first perceive it, and then proceed at perfect random? Therefore we are first told that the farthest date to which documentary record extends is now generally regarded by Anthropology as but "the earliest distinctly visible point of the pre-historic period"--in the words of the writer of the article in the _Encyclopćdia Britannica_. At the same time it is confessed that "beyond that period stretches back a vast indefinite series of pre-historic ages." It is with those specified "ages" that we shall begin. They are "pre- historic" to the naked eye of Matter only. To the spiritual eagle eye of the Seer and the Prophet of every race, Ariadne's thread stretches beyond that "historic period" without break or flaw, surely and steadily, into the very night of time; and the hand which holds it is too mighty to drop it, or even let it break. Records exist, although they may be rejected as fanciful by the profane; though, indeed, many of them are tacitly accepted by Philosophers and men of great learning, and meet with an unvarying refusal only from the official and collective body of _orthodox_ Science. And since the latter refuses to give us even an approximate idea of the duration of the geological Ages--save in a few conflicting and contradictory hypotheses--let us see what Âryan Philosophy can teach us. Such computations as are given in _Manu_ and the _Purânas_--save trifling and most evidently _intentional_ exaggerations--are, as already stated, almost identical with those taught in Esoteric Philosophy. This may be seen by comparing the two in any Hindű calendar of recognized orthodoxy. The best and most complete of all such calendars, at present, as vouched for by the learned Brâhmans of Southern India, is the already mentioned Tamil calendar called the _Tirukkanda Panchanga_, compiled, as we are told, from, and in full accordance with, secret fragments of Asuramaya's data. As Asuramaya is said to have been the greatest Astronomer, so he is whispered to have also been the most powerful "Sorcerer" of the "White Island, which had become Black with sin," _i.e._, of the islands of Atlantis. The "White Island" is a symbolical name. Asuramaya is said to have lived, as in the tradition of the _Jńâna-bhâskara_, in Romaka-pura, in the West; because the name is an allusion to the land and cradle of the "Sweat-born" of the Third Race. That land or continent had disappeared ages before Asuramaya lived, since he was an Atlantean; but he was a direct descendant of the Wise Race, _the Race that never dies_. Many are the legends concerning this hero, the pupil of Sűrya, the Sun-God, himself, as the Indian accounts allege. It matters little whether he lived on one or another island, but the question is to prove that he was no myth, as Dr. Weber and others would make him. The fact of Romaka-pura, in the West, being named as the birthplace of this hero of the Archaic Ages, is the more interesting because it is so very suggestive of the Esoteric Teaching about the Sweat-born Races, the men born from the "pores of their parents." "_Roma-kűpas_" mean "hair-pores" in Sanskrit. In the _Mahâbhârata_,(144) a people named Raumas are said to have been created from the pores of Vîrabhadra, the terrible giant, who destroyed Daksha's sacrifice. Other tribes and people are also represented as born in this way. All these are references to the later Second and the earlier Third Root-Races. The following figures are from the calendar just referred to; a foot-note marks the points of disagreement with the figures of the Ârya Samâj school: I. From the beginning of Cosmic Evolution,(145) up to the Hindű year Tarana (or 1887), 1,955,884,687 years. II. The (astral), mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms up to Man, have taken to evolve, 300,000,000 years.(146) III. Time, from the first appearance of "Humanity" (on our Planetary Chain), 1,664,500,987 years.(147) IV. The number that elapsed since the Vaivasvata, Manvantara(148)--or the _Human_ Period--up to the year 1887, is just 18,618,728 years. V. The full period of one Manvantara is 308,448,000 years. VI. Fourteen Manvantaras, _plus_ the period of one Satya Yuga make one Day of Brahmâ, or a complete Manvantara, or 4,320,000,000 years. Therefore a Mahâ Yuga consists of 4,320,000 years.(149) The year 1887 is from the commencement of Kali Yuga, 4,989 years. To make this still clearer in its details, the following computations by Rao Bahadur P. Sreenivas Row, are given from the _Theosophist_ of November, 1885. 360 days of mortals make a year Krita Yuga contains 1,728,000 Tretâ Yuga contains 1,296,000 Dvâpara Yuga contains 864,000 Kali Yuga contains 432,000 The total of the said four Yugas constitute a Mahâ Yuga, 4,320,000 Seventy-one of such Mahâ Yugas form the period of the reign of one Manu, 306,720,000 The reign of fourteen Manus embraces the duration of 994 Mahâ Yugas, which is equal to 4,294,080,000 Add Sandhis, _i.e._, intervals between the reign of each Manu, which amount to six Mahâ Yugas, equal to 25,920,000 The total of these reigns and interregnums of fourteen Manus, is 1,000 Mahâ Yugas, which constitute a Kalpa, _i.e._, one Day of Brahmâ, 4,320,000,000 As Brahmâ's Night is of equal duration, one Day and Night of Brahmâ would contain 8,640,000,000 360 of such days and nights make one Year of Brahmâ equal to 3,110,400,000,000 100 such Years constitute the whole period of Brahmâ's Age, _i.e._, Mahâ Kalpa, 311,040,000,000,000 These are the exoteric figures accepted throughout India, and they dovetail pretty nearly with those of the Secret Works. The latter, moreover, amplify them by a division into a number of Esoteric Cycles, never mentioned in Brâhmanical popular writings--one of which, the division of the Yugas into Racial Cycles, is given elsewhere as an instance. The rest, in their details, have of course never been made public. They are, nevertheless, known to every "Twice-born" (Dvija, or Initiated) Brâhman, and the _Purânas_ contain references to some of them in veiled terms, which no matter-of-fact Orientalist has yet endeavoured to make out, nor could he if he would. These sacred Astronomical Cycles are of immense antiquity, and most of them pertain, as stated, to the calculations of Nârada and Asuramaya. The latter has the reputation of a Giant and a Sorcerer. But the Antediluvian Giants--the Gibborim of the Bible--were not all bad or Sorcerers, as Christian Theology, which sees in every Occultist a servant of the Evil One, would have it; nor were they worse than many of "the faithful sons of the Church." A Torquemada and a Catherine de Médicis certainly did more harm in their day, and in the name of their Master, than any Atlantean Giant or Demigod of antiquity ever did, whether named Cyclops, or Medusa, or yet the Orphic Titan, the anguipedal monster known as Ephialtes. There were _good_ "giants" in days of old just as there are _bad_ "pigmies" now; and the Râkshasas and Yakshas of Lankâ are no worse than our modern dynamiters, and certain Christian and civilized generals during modern wars. Nor are they myths. He who would laugh at Briareus and Orion ought to abstain from going to, or even talking of, Carnac or Stonehenge. remarks somewhere a modern writer. As the Brâhmanical figures given above are approximately the basic calculations of our Esoteric System, the reader is requested to carefully keep them in mind. In the _Encyclopćdia Britannica_ we find, as the last word of Science, that the antiquity of man is allowed to stretch _only over_ "tens of thousands of years." It becomes evident that as these figures may be made to fluctuate between 10,000 and 100,000, therefore they mean very little if anything, and only render still denser the darkness surrounding the question. Moreover, what matters it that Science places the birth of man in the "pre- or post- glacial drift," if we are told at the same time that the so-called "Ice Age" is simply a long succession of ages which Shaded without abrupt change of any kind into what is termed the human or recent period ... the overlapping of geological periods having been the rule from the beginning of time.(150) The latter "rule" only results in the still more puzzling, even if strictly scientific and correct, information, that: Even to-day man is contemporary with the ice-age in the Alpine valleys and in the Finmark.(151) Thus, had it not been for the lessons taught by the Secret Doctrine, and even by exoteric Hindűism and its traditions, we should to this day be left to float in perplexed uncertainty between the indefinite "Ages" of one school of Science, the "tens of thousands" of years of the other, and the 6,000 years of the Bible interpreters. This is one of the several reasons why, with all the respect due to the conclusions of the men of learning of our modern day, we are forced to ignore them in all such questions of pre-historic antiquity. Modern Geology and Anthropology must, of course, disagree with our views. But Occultism will find as many weapons against these two Sciences as it has against astronomical and physical theories, in spite of Mr. Laing's assurances that: In [chronological] calculations of this sort, concerning older and later formations, there is no _theory_, they are based on positive facts, limited only by a certain possible [?] amount of error either way.(152) Occultism will prove, scientific confessions in hand, that Geology is very much in error, and very often even more so than Astronomy. In this very passage by Mr. Laing, which gives to Geology preëminence for correctness over Astronomy, we find a passage in flagrant contradiction to the admissions of the best Geologists themselves. Says the author: In short, the conclusions of Geology, at any rate up to the Silurian period(153) when the present order of things was fairly inaugurated, are approximate [truly so] _facts_ and not _theories_, while the astronomical conclusions are _theories_ based on _data_ so uncertain, that while in some cases they give results incredibly short, ... in others they give results almost incredibly long.(154) After which, the reader is advised that the "safest course" Seems to be to assume that Geology really proves the duration of the present order of things to have been somewhere over 100 millions of years, and that Astronomy gives an enormous though unknown time beyond in the past, and to come in the future, for the birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death of the solar system, of which our earth is a small planet now passing through the habitable phase.(155) Judging from past experience, we do not entertain the slightest doubt that, once called upon to answer "the absurd unscientific and preposterous claims of exoteric (and Esoteric) Âryan chronology," the Scientist of the "results incredibly short," _i.e._, only 15,000,000 years, and the Scientist, who "would require 600,000,000 years," together with those who accept Mr. Huxley's figures of 1,000,000,000(156) "since sedimentation began in Europe," would all be as dogmatic the one as the other. Nor would they fail to remind the Occultist and the Brâhman, that it is the modern men of Science alone who represent exact Science, whose duty it is to fight "inaccuracy" and "superstition." The Earth is passing through the "habitable phase" only for the _present order_ of things, and as far as our present mankind is concerned with its actual "coats of skin" and phosphorus for bones and brain. We are ready to concede the 100 millions of years offered by Geology, since we are taught that our present physical mankind--or the Vaivasvata Humanity--began only eighteen millions of years ago. But Geology has no facts to give us for the duration of geological periods, as we have shown, no more indeed than has Astronomy. The authentic letter from Mr. W. Pengelly, F.R.S., quoted elsewhere, says: It is at present, and perhaps always will be, _impossible_ to reduce, even approximately, geological time into years or even into millenniums. And having never, hitherto, excavated a fossil man of any other than the _present form_--what does Geology know of him? It has traced zones or strata and, with these, primordial zoological life, down to the Silurian. When it has, in the same way, traced man down to his primordial protoplasmic form, then we will admit that it may know something of primordial man. If it is not very material to "the bearings of modern scientific discovery on modern thought," whether Man has existed in a state of constant though slow progression for the last 50,000 years of a period of 15 millions, or for the last 500,000 years of a period of 150 millions,(157) as Mr. S. Laing tells his readers, it is very much so for the claims of the Occultists. Unless the latter show that it is a _possibility_, if not a perfect certainty, that man lived eighteen millions of years ago, the _Secret Doctrine_ might as well have remained unwritten. An attempt must, therefore, be made in this direction, and it is our modern Geologists and men of Science generally who will be brought to testify to this fact in the Third Part of this Volume. Meanwhile, and notwithstanding the fact that Hindű Chronology is constantly represented by the Orientalists as a fiction based on no "actual" computation,(158) but simply a "childish boasting," it is nevertheless often twisted out of recognition to make it yield to, and fit in with, Western theories. No figures have ever been more meddled with and tortured than the famous 4, 3, 2, followed by cyphers, of the Yugas and Mahâ Yugas. As the whole Cycle of pre-historic events, such as the evolution and transformation of Races and the extreme antiquity of man, hangs upon the said Chronology, it becomes extremely important to check it by other existing calculations. If the Eastern Chronology is rejected, we shall at least have the consolation of proving that no other--whether in the figures of Science or of the Churches--is one whit more reliable. As Professor Max Müller expresses it, it is often as useful to prove what a thing is not as to show what it may be. And once we succeed in pointing out the fallacies of both Christian and Scientific computations--by allowing them a fair chance of comparison with our Chronology--neither of these will have a reasonable ground to stand upon, in pronouncing the Esoteric figures less reliable than its own. We may here refer the reader to our earlier work, _Isis Unveiled_,(159) for some remarks concerning the figures which were cited a few pages back. To-day a few more facts may be added to the information there given, which is already known to every Orientalist. The sacredness of the cycle of 4,320, with additional cyphers, lies in the fact that the figures which compose it, taken separately or joined in various combinations, are each and all symbolical of the greatest mysteries in Nature. Indeed, whether one takes the 4 separately, or the 3 by itself, or the two together making 7, or again the three, 4, 3, 2, added together and yielding 9, all these numbers have their application in the most sacred and Occult matters, and record the workings of Nature in her eternally periodical phenomena. They are never erring, perpetually recurring numbers, unveiling, to him who studies the secrets of Nature, a truly divine System, an intelligent plan in Cosmogony, which results in natural cosmic divisions of times, seasons, invisible influences, astronomical phenomena, with their action and reäction on terrestrial and even moral nature; on birth, death, and growth, on health and disease. All these natural events are based and depend upon cyclical processes in the Kosmos itself, producing periodic agencies which, acting from without, affect the Earth and all that lives and breathes on it, from the one end to the other of any Manvantara. Causes and effects are esoteric, exoteric and "endexoteric," so to say. In _Isis Unveiled_ we wrote that which we now repeat: _We are at the bottom of a cycle and evidently in a transitory state_. Plato divides the intellectual progress of the Universe during every Cycle into fertile and barren periods. In the sublunary regions, the spheres of the various elements remain eternally in perfect harmony with the Divine Nature, he says; "but their parts," owing to a too close proximity to earth, and their commingling with the earthly (which is Matter, and therefore the realm of evil), "are sometimes according, and sometimes contrary to (Divine) Nature." When those circulations--which Éliphas Lévi calls "currents of the Astral Light"--in the universal Ether which contains in itself every element, take place in harmony with the Divine Spirit, our Earth and everything pertaining to it enjoys a fertile period. The Occult powers of plants, animals, and minerals magically sympathize with the "superior natures," and the Divine Soul of man is in perfect intelligence with these "inferior" ones. But during the barren periods, the latter lose their magic sympathy, and the spiritual sight of the majority of mankind is so blinded as to lose every notion of the superior powers of its own Divine Spirit. We are in a barren period; the eighteenth century, during which the malignant fever of scepticism broke out so irrepressibly, has entailed unbelief as a hereditary disease upon the nineteenth. The divine intellect is veiled in man; his animal brain alone "philosophizes." And philosophizing alone, how can it understand the "Soul Doctrine"? In order not to break the thread of the narrative we shall give some striking proofs of these cyclic laws in Part II, proceeding meanwhile with our explanations of Geological and Racial Cycles. Stanza III. Attempts To Create Man. 11. The Descent of the Demiurge. 12. The Lunar Gods ordered to create. 13. The Higher Gods refuse. 11. THE LORD OF THE LORDS CAME. FROM HER BODY HE SEPARATED THE WATERS, AND THAT WAS HEAVEN ABOVE, THE FIRST HEAVEN.(160) Here tradition falls again into the Universal. As in the earliest version, repeated in the _Purânas_, so in the latest, the Mosaic account. In the first it is said: He the Lord [the God who has the form of Brahmâ], when the world had become one ocean, concluding that within the waters lay the earth, and desirous to raise it up [to separate it], created himself in another form. As in the preceding Kalpa [Manvantara] he had assumed the shape of a tortoise, so in this one he took the shape of a boar, etc.(161) In the Elohistic "creation,"(162) "God" creates "a firmament in the midst of the waters," and says "let _dry land_ appear." And now comes the traditional peg whereunto is hung the Esoteric portion of the Kabalistic interpretation. 12. THE GREAT CHOHANS(163) CALLED THE LORDS OF THE MOON, OF THE AIRY BODIES: "BRING FORTH MEN,(164) MEN OF YOUR NATURE. GIVE THEM(165) THEIR FORMS WITHIN. SHE(166) WILL BUILD COVERINGS WITHOUT.(167) MALES-FEMALES WILL THEY BE. LORDS OF THE FLAME ALSO...." Who are the "Lords of the Moon"? In India they are called Pitris or "Lunar Ancestors," but in the Hebrew scrolls it is Jehovah himself who is the "Lord of the Moon," collectively as the Host, and also as one of the Elohim. The Astronomy of the Hebrews and their "observance of _times_" was regulated by the Moon. A Kabalist, having shown that "Daniel ... told off God's providence by set _times_" and that the _Revelation_ of John "speaks of a carefully measured _cubical_ city descending out of the heavens," etc., adds: But the vitalizing power of heaven lay chiefly with _the moon_.... It was the Hebrew {~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~} [Jehovah],--and St. Paul enjoins:--"Let no man judge you for your observance of the 7th day, and the day of _new moon,--which are a shadow of things to come_; but the body (or substance) is of Christ," _i.e._, Jehovah,--that function of this power that "made the barren woman the joyful mother of children,"--"for they are the gift of Jehovah," ... which is a key to the objection which her husband made to the Shunamite, as to her going to the man of God:--"for it is neither the 7th day nor the day of _new moon_." The living spiritual powers of the constellations had mighty wars marked by the movements and positions of the stars and planets, and especially as the result of the conjunction of the moon, earth and sun. Bentley comments on the Hindű "war between the gods and the giants," as marked by the eclipse of the sun at the ascending node of the moon, 945 B.C. [!], at which time was born,(168) or produced from the sea, SRI (Sarai), S-r-i, the wife of the Hebrew Abram(169), who was the Venus-Aphroditus [_sic_] of the Westerns, emblem "of the luni- solar year, or the moon, [as Sri is the wife of the Moon; see foot-note], the goddess of increase."(170) ... [Therefore] the grand monument and land-mark of the exact period of the lunar year and month, by which this cycle [of 19 tropical years of the sun and 235 revolutions of the moon] could be calculated, was Mount Sinai,--the Lord Jehovah coming down thereon.... Paul speaks [then] as a mystagogue, when he says concerning the freed woman and bond woman of Abraham:--"For this Hagar (the bond woman of Abraham) is Mount Sinai in Arabia." How could a woman be a mountain? and such a mountain! Yet, in one sense, ... she was, and in a very marvellously true one. Her name was Hagar, {~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW LETTER GIMEL~}{~HEBREW LETTER RESH~} whose numbers read 235, or in exact measure, the very number of lunar months to equal 19 tropical years to complete this cycle and make the likeness and similitude good; Mount Sinai being, in the esoteric language of this wisdom, the monument of the exact time of the lunar year and month, by which this spiritual vitalizing cycle could be computed, and which mountain, indeed, was called (Fuerst) "the Mountain of the Moon (Sin)." So also Sarai (SRI), the wife of Abram, could have no child until her name was changed to Sarah, {~HEBREW LETTER SHIN~}{~HEBREW LETTER RESH~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}, giving to her the property of this lunar influence.(171) This may be regarded as a digression from the main subject; but it is a very necessary one with a view to Christian readers. For who, after studying dispassionately the respective legends of Abram or Abraham, Sarai or Sarah, who was "fair to look upon," and those of Brahmâ and Sarasvatî, or Shrî, Lakshmî-Venus, with the relations of all these to the Moon and Water;--and especially one who understands the real Kabalistic meaning of the name Jehovah and its relation to, and connection with, the Moon--who can doubt that the story of Abram is based upon that of Brahmâ, or that _Genesis_ was written upon the old lines used by every ancient nation? All in the ancient Scriptures is allegorical--all based upon and inseparably connected with Astronomy and Cosmolatry. 13. THEY(172) WENT EACH ON HIS ALLOTTED LAND: SEVEN OF THEM, EACH ON HIS LOT. THE LORDS OF THE FLAME REMAIN BEHIND. THEY WOULD NOT GO, THEY WOULD NOT CREATE. The Secret Teachings show the divine Progenitors creating men on seven portions of the Globe "each on his lot"--_i.e._, each a different Race of men externally and internally, and on different Zones. This polygenistic claim is considered elsewhere, in Stanza VII. But who are "They" who create, and the "Lords of the Flame," "who would not"? Occultism divides the "Creators" into Twelve Classes; of which four have reached "Liberation" to the end of the "Great Age," the fifth is ready to reach it, but still remains active on the intellectual planes, while seven are still under direct Karmic Law. These last act on the man-bearing Globes of our Chain. Exoteric Hindű books mention Seven Classes of Pitris, and among them two distinct kinds of Progenitors or Ancestors: the Barhishad and the Agnishvâtta; or those possessed of the "sacred fire" and those devoid of it. Hindű ritualism seems to connect them with sacrificial fires, and with Grihastha Brâhmans in earlier incarnations; those who have, and those who have _not_ attended as they should to their household sacred fires in their previous births. The distinction, as said, is derived from the _Vedas_. The first and highest class (Esoterically), the Agnishvâtta, are represented in the exoteric allegory as Grihastha or Brâhman-householders, who, having failed to maintain their domestic fires and to offer burnt sacrifices, in their past births in other Manvantaras, have lost every right to have oblations with fire presented to them. Whereas the Barhishad, being Brâhmans who have kept up their household sacred fires, are thus honoured to this day. Thence the Agnishvâtta are represented as devoid of, and the Barhishad as possessed of, fires. But Esoteric Philosophy explains the original qualifications as being due to the difference between the natures of the two Classes: the Agnishvâtta Pitris are devoid of "fire" _i.e._, of creative passion, because they are too divine and pure; whereas the Barhishad, being the Lunar Spirits more closely connected with Earth, became the creative Elohim of form, or the Adam of dust. The allegory says that Sanandana and other Vedhas, the Sons of Brahmâ, his first progeny: Were without desire or passion, inspired with holy wisdom, estranged from the universe and _undesirous of progeny_.(173) This also is what is meant in the shloka by the words, "They would not create," and is explained as follows: "_The Primordial Emanations from the Creative Power are too near the Absolute Cause. They are transitional and latent forces, which will develop only in the next and subsequent removes._" This makes it plain. Hence Brahmâ is said to have felt wrathful when he saw that those Embodied spirits, produced from his limbs [_gâtra_], would not multiply themselves. After which, in the allegory, he creates other seven Mind-born Sons(174) namely, Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu and Vasishtha, the latter being often replaced by Daksha, the most prolific of the Creators. In most of the texts these Seven Sons of Vasishtha-Daksha are called the Seven Rishis of the _Third_ Manvantara; the latter referring both to the Third Round and also to the Third Root-Race and its Branch-Races in the Fourth Round. These are all the Creators of the various Beings on this Earth, the Prajâpati, and at the same time they appear as divers reďncarnations in the early Manvantaras or Races. It thus becomes clear why the Agnishvâtta, devoid of the grosser "creative fire," hence unable to create physical man, having no Double, or Astral Body, to project, since they were without any "form," are shown in exoteric allegories as Yogîs, Kumâras (chaste youths), who became "rebels," Asuras, fighting and opposing Gods,(175) etc. Yet it is they alone who could complete man, _i.e._, make of him a self-conscious, almost a divine Being--a God on Earth. The Barhishad, though possessed of "creative fire," were devoid of the higher Mahat-ic element. Being on a level with the lower "Principles"--those which precede gross objective matter--they could only give birth to the outer man, or rather to the model of the physical, the astral man. Thus, though we see them intrusted with the task by Brahmâ--the collective Mahat or Universal Divine Mind--the "Mystery of Creation" is repeated on Earth, only in an inverted sense, as in a _mirror_. It is those who are unable to create the spiritual immortal man, who project the senseless model (the Astral) of the physical Being; and, as will be seen, it was those who would not multiply, who sacrificed themselves to the good and salvation of Spiritual Humanity. For, to complete the _septenary man_, to add to his three lower Principles and cement them with the Spiritual Monad--which could never dwell in such a form otherwise than in an _absolutely latent state_--two connecting "Principles" are needed: Manas and Kâma. This requires a living Spiritual Fire of the middle Principle from the Fifth and Third States of Plerôma. But this Fire is the possession of the Triangles, not of the (perfect) Cubes, which symbolize the Angelic Beings;(176) the former having from the First Creation possessed themselves of it and being said to have appropriated it for themselves, as in the allegory of Prometheus. These are the active, and therefore--in Heaven--no longer "pure" Beings. They have become the independent and free Intelligences, shown in every Theogony as fighting for that independence and freedom, and hence--in the ordinary sense--"rebellious to the divine passive law." These are then those "Flames"--the Agnishvâtta--who, as shown in the shloka, "remain behind," instead of going along with the others to create men on Earth. But the true Esoteric meaning is that most of them were destined to incarnate as the Egos of the forthcoming crop of Mankind. The human Ego is neither Âtman nor Buddhi, but the Higher Manas; the intellectual fruitage and the efflorescence of the intellectual self- conscious Egotism--in the higher spiritual sense. The ancient works refer to it as Kârana Sharîra on the plane of Sűtrâtmâ, which is the "golden thread" on which, like beads, the various Personalities of this Higher Ego are strung. If the reader were told, as in the _semi-Esoteric_ allegories, that these Beings were returning Nirvânîs from preceding Mahâ-Manvantaras--Ages of incalculable duration which have rolled away in the Eternity, a still more incalculable time ago--he would hardly understand the text correctly; while some Vedântins might say: "This is not so; the Nirvânî can never return"; which is true during the Manvantara he belongs to, and erroneous where Eternity is concerned. For it is said in the Sacred Shlokas: "_The Thread of Radiance which is imperishable and dissolves only in __ Nirvâna, reëmerges from it in its integrity on the day when the Great Law calls all things back into action._" Hence, as the higher Pitris or Dhyânîs had no hand in his physical creation, we find Primeval Man--issued from the bodies of his _spiritually_ "fireless" Progenitors--described as aëriform, devoid of compactness, and "mindless." He had no middle Principle to serve him as a medium between the Highest and the Lowest--the Spiritual Man and the physical brain--for he lacked Manas. The Monads which incarnated in those _empty_ Shells, remained as unconscious as when separated from their previous incomplete forms and vehicles. There is no potentiality for Creation, or Self- Consciousness, in a _pure_ Spirit on this our plane, unless its too homogeneous, perfect--because divine--nature is, so to say, mixed with, and strengthened by, an essence already differentiated. It is only the lower line of the Triangle--representing the first Triad that emanates from the Universal Monad--that can furnish this needed consciousness on the plane of differentiated Nature. But how could these pure Emanations, which, on this principle, must have originally been themselves "unconscious" (in our sense), be of any use in supplying the required Principle, as they could hardly have possessed it themselves? The answer is difficult to comprehend, unless one is well acquainted with the philosophical metaphysics of a beginningless and endless series of Cosmic Re-births, and becomes well impressed and familiarized with that immutable law of Nature which is ETERNAL MOTION, cyclic and spiral--therefore progressive even in its seeming retrogression. The one Divine Principle, the nameless THAT of the _Vedas_, is the Universal Total, which, neither in its spiritual aspects and emanations, nor in its physical Atoms, can ever be at "Absolute Rest" except during the Nights of Brahmâ. Hence, also, the "First-born" are those who are first set in motion at the beginning of a Manvantara, and thus the first to fall into the lower spheres of materiality. They who are called in Theology the "Thrones," and are the "Seat of God," must be the first incarnated men on Earth; and it becomes comprehensible, if we think of the endless series of past Manvantaras, to find that the last had to come first, and the first last. We find, in short, that the higher Angels had broken, countless ćons before, through the "Seven Circles," and thus "robbed" them of the Sacred Fire; this means in plain words, that they had assimilated during their past incarnations, in lower as well as in higher Worlds, all the wisdom therefrom--the reflection of Mahat in its various degrees of intensity. No Entity, whether angelic or human, can reach the state of Nirvâna, or of absolute purity, except through ćons of suffering and the _knowledge_ of evil as well as of good, as otherwise the latter would remain incomprehensible. Between man and the animal--whose Monads, or Jîvas, are fundamentally identical--there is the impassable abyss of Mentality and Self- consciousness. What is human mind in its higher aspect, whence comes it, if it be not a portion of the essence--and, in some rare cases of incarnation, the _very essence_--of a higher Being; one from a higher and divine plane? Can man--a God in the animal form--be the product of Material Nature by evolution alone, even as is the animal which differs from man in external shape, but by no means in the materials of its physical fabric, and is informed by the same, though undeveloped, Monad--seeing that the intellectual potentialities of the two differ as the sun does from the glow-worm? And what is it that creates such difference, unless man is an animal _plus a living God_ within his physical shell? Let us pause and ask ourselves seriously the question, regardless of the vagaries and sophisms of both the materialistic and the psychological modern Sciences. To some extent, it is admitted that even the Esoteric Teaching is allegorical. To make the latter comprehensible to the average intelligence, the use of symbols cast in an intelligible form is needed. Hence the allegorical and semi-mythical narratives in the exoteric, and the only _semi_-metaphysical and objective representations in the Esoteric Teachings. For the purely and transcendentally spiritual conceptions are adapted only to the perceptions of those who "_see without eyes, hear without ears, and sense without organs_," according to the graphic expression of the Commentary. The too puritan Idealist is at liberty to spiritualize the tenet, whereas the modern Psychologist would simply try to spirit away our "fallen," yet still divine, human Soul--divine in its connection with Buddhi. The mystery attached to the highly spiritual Ancestors of the _Divine_ Man within the earthly man is very great. His dual creation is hinted at in the _Purânas_, though its Esoteric meaning can be approached only by collating together the many varying accounts, and reading them in their symbolical and allegorical character. So it is in the _Bible_, both in _Genesis_ and even in the _Epistles_ of Paul. For that "Creator," who is called in the second chapter of _Genesis_ the "Lord God," is in the original the Elohim, or Gods (the Lords), in the plural; and while one of them makes the earthly Adam of Dust, the other breathes into him the Breath of Life, and the third makes of him a Living Soul, all of which readings are implied in the plural number of the word Elohim.(177) Or again, as Paul says: The first man is of the earth, the second [the last, or rather highest] is the Lord from heaven.(178) In the Âryan allegory the rebellious Sons of Brahmâ are all represented as holy Ascetics and Yogîs. Re-born in every Kalpa, they generally try to impede the work of human procreation. When Daksha, the chief of the Prajâpatis or Creators, brings forth 10,000 sons for the purpose of peopling the world, Nârada--a son of Brahmâ, the great Rishi, and _virtually_ a Kumâra, if not so in name--interferes with, and twice frustrates Daksha's aim, by persuading those Sons to remain holy Ascetics and eschew marriage. For this, Daksha curses Nârada to be "re-born as a man," as Brahmâ had cursed him before for refusing to marry, and obtain progeny, saying: "Perish in thy (present [Deva or Angelic] form); and take up thy abode in the womb"--_i.e._, become a man.(179) Notwithstanding several conflicting versions of the same story, it is easy to see that Nârada belongs to that Class of Brahmâ's "First-born," who have all proven rebellious to the law of animal procreation, for which they had to incarnate as _men_. Of all the Vedic Rishis, Nârada, as already shown, is the most incomprehensible, because the most closely connected with the Occult Doctrines--especially with the Secret Cycles and Kalpas. Certain contradictory statements about this Sage have much distracted the Orientalists. Thus he is shown as refusing positively to "create" or have progeny, and even as calling his father Brahmâ a "false teacher" for advising him to get married, as related in the _Nârada-Pancha-Râtra_; nevertheless, he is referred to as one of the Prajâpatis or Progenitors! In the _Nâradîya Purâna_, he describes the laws and the duties of the celibate Adepts; and as these Occult duties do not happen to be found in the fragment of about 3,000 Stanzas in the possession of European museums, the Brâhmans are proclaimed liars; the Orientalists forgetting that the _Nâradîya_ is credited with containing 25,000 Stanzas, and that it is not very likely that such MSS. should be found in the hands of the Hindű profane, those who are ready to sell any precious Olla for a red pottage. Suffice it to say, that Nârada is _the_ Deva-Rishi of Occultism _par excellence_, and that the Occultist who does not ponder, analyze, and study Nârada from his seven Esoteric facets, will never be able to fathom certain anthropological, chronological, and even cosmic Mysteries. He is one of the Fires above-mentioned, and plays a part in the evolution of this Kalpa from its incipient down to its final stage. He is an actor who appears in each of the successive acts, or Root-Races, of the present Manvantaric drama, in the world-allegories which strike the key-note of Esotericism, and are now becoming more familiar to the reader. But shall we turn to other ancient Scriptures and documents for the corroboration of the "Fires," "Sparks," and "Flames"? They are plentiful, if one only seeks for them in the right places. In the Kabalistic _Book of the Concealed Mystery_ they are clearly enunciated, as also in the _Ha Idra Zuta Qadisha_, or "The Lesser Holy Assembly." The language is very mystical and veiled, yet still comprehensible. In the latter, among the sparks of Prior Worlds, "vibrating Flames and Sparks," from the divine flint, the "Workman" proceeds to create man, "male and female" (427). These "Flames and Sparks"--Angels and their Worlds, Stars and Planets--are said, figuratively, to become extinct and die, that is to say, remain "unmanifested" until a certain process of Nature is accomplished. To show how thickly veiled from public view are the most important facts of Anthropogenesis, two passages are now quoted from two Kabalistic books. The first is from the _Ha Idra Zuta Qadisha_: 429. From a Light-Bearer [one of the Seven Sacred Planets] of insupportable brightness proceeded a Radiating Flame, dashing off like a vast and mighty hammer those sparks which were the Prior Worlds. 430. And with most subtle ether were these intermingled and bound mutually together, but _only when they were conjoined together_, even the Great Father and Great Mother. 431. From _Hoa_, Himself, is AB, the Father; and from _Hoa_, Himself, is Ruach, the Spirit; Who are hidden in the Ancient of Days, and therein is that ether concealed. 432. And It was connected with a light-bearer [a Planet and its Angel or Regent], which went forth from that Light-Bearer of insupportable brightness, which is hidden in the bosom of Aima, the Great Mother.(180) Now the following extract from the _Zohar_,(181) under the heading, "The Pre-Adamite Kings," also deals with the same mystery: We have learned in the Siphrah D'Tznioothah: That the _At-tee' kah D'At-tee' keen_, Ancient of Ancients, before He prepared His Form, built kings and engraved kings, and sketched out kings [men, the "kings" of the animals], and they could not exist: till He overthrew them and _hid them until after a time_, therefore it is written; "And these are the kings which reigned in the land of Edom."... And they could not exist till _Resha'Hiv'rah_, the White Head, the _At'-tee'-kah D'At-tee'-keen_, Ancient of the Ancients, arranged Himself. When he arranged Himself He formed all forms Above and Below.... Before He arranged Himself in His Form, had not been formed all those whom He desired to form, and all worlds have been destroyed.... They did not remain in their places, because the form of the kings had not been formed as it ought to be, and _the Holy City had not been prepared_.(182) Now the plain meaning of these two allegorical and metaphysical disquisitions is simply this: Worlds and men were in turn formed and destroyed, _under the law of evolution_ and _from preëxisting material_, until both the Planets and their men, in our case our Earth and its animal and human races, became what they are now in the present cycle--opposite polar forces, an equilibrized compound of Spirit and Matter, of the positive and the negative, of the male and the female. Before man could become male and female _physically_, his prototype, the creating Elohim, had to arrange his Form on this sexual plane _astrally_. That is to say, the Atoms and the organic forces, descending into the plane of the given differentiation, had to be marshalled in the order intended by Nature, so as to be ever carrying out, in an immaculate way, that law which the Kabalah calls the "Balance," through which everything that exists does so as male and female in its final perfection, in this present stage of materiality. Chokmah, Wisdom, the Male Sephira, had to diffuse itself _in_, and _through_, Binah, intelligent Nature, or Understanding. Therefore the First Root-Race of men, sexless and mindless, had to be overthrown and "hidden until after a time"; _i.e._, the First Race, instead of dying, disappeared _in_ the Second Race, as certain lower lives and plants do in their progeny. It was a wholesale transformation. The First became the Second Root-Race, without either begetting it, procreating it, or dying. "They _passed by_ together," as it is written: "And he died" and another "reigned in his stead."(183) Why? Because the "_Holy City_ had not been prepared." And what is the "Holy City"? The Ma-qom--the Secret Place or the Shrine--on Earth; in other words, the human womb, the microcosmic copy and reflection of the Heavenly Matrix, the female Space or primeval Chaos, in which the male Spirit fecundates the germ of the Son, or the visible Universe. So much so, that in the paragraph on "The Emanation of the Male and Female Principles" in the _Zohar_, it is said that, on this Earth, the Wisdom from the "Holy Ancient" "does not shine except in male and female." (_Hokhmah_ Wisdom, is the Father, and _Binah_ Understanding, is the Mother.)... And when they connect one with the other, they bring forth and diffuse and emanate Truth. In the sayings of Rabbi Ye-yeva, Sabbah, _i.e._, the Old, we learned this; What is Binah Understanding? But when they connect in one another, the {~HEBREW LETTER YOD~} (Yod) in the {~HEBREW LETTER HE~} (Heh), they become impregnated and produce a Son. And, therefore, it is called _Binah_, Understanding. It means BeN YaH, _i.e._, Son of YaH. This is the completeness of the Whole.(184) This is also the "completeness" of phallicism by the Rabbis, its perfect apotheosis, the divine being dragged into the animal, the sublime into the grossness of the terrestrial. Nothing so graphically gross exists in Eastern Occultism, nor in the primitive Kabalah--the Chaldćan _Book of Numbers_. We have said so already in _Isis Unveiled_: We find it rather unwise on the part of Catholic writers to pour out their vials of wrath in such sentences as these: "In a multitude of pagodas, the phallic stone, ever and always assuming, like the Grecian _batylos_, the brutally indecent form of the _lingham_ ... the Mahâ Deva." Before casting slurs on a symbol whose profound metaphysical meaning is too much for the modern champions of that religion of sensualism _par excellence_, Roman Catholicism, to grasp, they are in duty bound to destroy their oldest churches, and change the form of the cupolas of their own temples. The Mahadeo of Elephanta, the Round Tower of Bhagulpore, the minarets of Islam--either rounded or pointed--are the originals of the Campanile column of San Marco, at Venice, of Rochester Cathedral, and of the modern Duomo of Milan. All of these steeples, turrets, domes, and Christian temples, are the reproductions of the primitive idea of the _lithos_, the upright phallus.(185) Nevertheless, and however it may be, the fact that all these Hebrew Elohim, Sparks, and Cherubs are identical with the Devas, Rishis and the Fires and Flames, the Rudras and the forty-nine Agnis of the ancient Âryas, is sufficiently proven by and in the Kabalah. Stanza IV. Creation Of The First Races. 14. Creation of men. 15. They are empty shadows. 16. The Creators are perplexed how to create a _thinking_ man. 17. What is needed for the formation of a perfect Man. 14. THE SEVEN HOSTS, THE WILL-BORN(186) LORDS, PROPELLED BY THE SPIRIT OF LIFE-GIVING,(187) SEPARATE MEN FROM THEMSELVES, EACH ON HIS OWN ZONE. They threw off their "Shadows" or Astral Bodies--if such an ethereal being as a "Lunar Spirit" may be supposed to rejoice in an Astral, besides a hardly tangible Body. In another Commentary it is said that the Ancestors _breathed_ out the first man, as Brahmâ is explained to have breathed out the Suras, or Gods, when they became Asuras (from Asu, breath). In a third it is said that they, the newly-created Men, were the "shadows of the Shadows." With regard to this sentence--"They were the shadows of the Shadows"--a few more words may be said and a fuller explanation attempted. This first process of the evolution of mankind is far easier to accept than the one which follows it, though one and all such processes will be rejected and doubted even by some Kabalists, especially the Western, who study the present effects, but have neglected to study their primary causes. Nor does the writer feel competent to explain a mode of procreation so difficult of appreciation save for an Eastern Occultist. Therefore it is useless to enter here into details concerning the process, though it is minutely described in the Secret Books, as it would only lead to speaking of facts hitherto unknown to the profane world, and hence to their being misunderstood. An Adam made of the dust of the ground will always be found preferable, by a certain class of students, to one projected out of the ethereal body of his creator; though the former process has never been heard of, while the latter is familiar, as all know, to many Spiritualists in Europe and America, who, of all men, ought to understand it. For who of those who have witnessed the phenomenon of a materializing form oozing out of the pores of a medium or, at other times, out of his _left side_, can fail to credit the possibility, at least, of such a _birth_? If there are in the Universe such beings as Angels or Spirits, whose _incorporeal_ essence may constitute an intelligent Entity, notwithstanding the absence of any (to us) solid organism; and if there are those who believe that a God made the first man out of dust, and breathed into him a living Soul--and there are millions upon millions who believe both--what does this doctrine of ours contain that is so impossible? Very soon the day will dawn, when the world will have to choose whether it will accept the miraculous creation of man (and Kosmos too) out of _nothing_, according to the dead letter of _Genesis_, or a first man born from a fantastic link--absolutely "missing" so far--the common ancestor of man, and of the "true ape."(188) Between these two fallacies, Occult Philosophy steps in. It teaches that the first human stock was projected by higher and semi- divine Beings out of their own essences. If the latter process is to be considered as abnormal or even inconceivable--because obsolete in Nature at this point of evolution--it is yet proven possible on the authority of certain "spiritualistic" _facts_. Which, then, we ask of the three hypotheses or theories is the most reasonable and the least absurd? Certainly no one--provided he be not a soul-blind Materialist--can ever object to the Occult Teaching. Now, as shown, we gather from the latter that man was not "created" the complete being he is now, however imperfect he still remains. There was a spiritual, a psychic, an intellectual, and an animal evolution, from the highest to the lowest, as well as a physical development--from the simple and homogeneous, up to the more complex and heterogeneous; though not quite on the lines traced for us by the modern Evolutionists. This double evolution in two contrary directions, required various ages, of divers natures and degrees of spirituality and intellectuality, to fabricate the being now known as man. Furthermore, the one absolute, ever acting and never erring law, which proceeds on the same lines from one Eternity (or Manvantara) to the other--ever furnishing an ascending scale for the manifested, or that which we call the great Illusion (Mahâ-Mâyâ), but plunging Spirit deeper and deeper into materiality on the one hand, and then _redeeming it through flesh_ and liberating it--this law, we say, uses for these purposes the Beings from other and higher planes, men, or Minds (Manus), in accordance with their Karmic exigencies. At this juncture, the reader is again asked to turn to the Indian Philosophy and Religion. The Esotericism of both is at one with our Secret Doctrine, however much the form may differ and vary. On The Identity And Differences Of The Incarnating Powers. The Progenitors of Man, called in India Fathers, Pitaras, or Pitris, are the "Creators" of our bodies and lower principles. They are ourselves, as the _first personalities_, and _we are they_. Primeval man would be "the bone of their bone and the flesh of their flesh," if they had bones and flesh. As stated, they were "Lunar Beings." The endowers of man with his conscious, immortal Ego, are the "Solar Angels"--whether so regarded metaphorically or literally. The mysteries of the Conscious Ego or Human Soul are great. The Esoteric name of these Solar Angels is, literally, the "Lords" (Nâth) of "persevering ceaseless devotion" (Pranidhâna). Therefore they of the _Fifth_ Principle (Manas) seem to be connected with, or to have originated the system of the Yogîs who make of Pranidhâna their _fifth_ observance.(189) It has already been explained why the Trans-Himâlayan Occultists regard them as evidently identical with those who in India are termed Kumâras, Agnishvâttas, and the Barhishads. How precise and true is Plato's expression, how profound and philosophical his remark on the (Human) Soul or Ego, when he defined it as "a compound of the _same_ and the _other_." And yet how little this hint has been understood, since the world took it to mean that the Soul was the Breath of God, of Jehovah. It is "the _same_ and the _other_," as the great Initiate-Philosopher said; for the Ego--the "Higher Self" when merged with and in the Divine Monad--is Man, and yet the _same_ as the "_other_"; the Angel in him incarnated is the same with the Universal Mahat. The great classical writers and philosophers felt this truth, when saying that: There must be something within us which produces our thoughts. Something very subtle; it is a breath; it is fire; it is ether; it is quintessence; it is a slender likeness; it is an intellection; it is a number; it is harmony.(190) All these are the Mânasas and Râjasas; the Kumâras, Asuras, and other Rulers and Pitris, who incarnated in the Third Race, and in this and various other ways endowed mankind with Mind. There are Seven Classes of Pitris, as shown below, three Incorporeal and four Corporeal; and two kinds, the Agnishvâtta and the Barhishad. And we may add that, as there are two kinds of Pitris, so there is a double and a triple set of Barhishad and Agnishvâtta. The former, having given birth to their Astral Doubles, are reborn as Sons of Atri, and are the "Pitris of the Demons," or Corporeal Beings, on the authority of Manu;(191) while the Agnishvâtta are reborn as Sons of Marîchi, a Son of Brahmâ, and are the "Pitris of the Gods."(192) The _Vâyu Purâna_ declares the Seven Orders of Pitris to have been originally the _first Gods_, the Vairâjas, whom Brahmâ, with the eye of Yoga, beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the _gods of the gods_.... The _Matsya_ ... adds, that the Gods worshipped them.(193) The _Harivamsha_ distinguishes the Vairâjas as one class of the Pitris only,(194) a statement corroborated in the Secret Teachings, which, however, identify the Vairâjas with the _elder_ Agnishvâttas(195) and the Râjasas, or Âbhűtarajasas, who are Incorporeal without even an Astral Phantom. Vishnu is said, in most of the MSS., to have incarnated in and through them. In the Raivata Manvantara, again, Hari, best of gods, was born of Sambhűti, as the divine Mânasa--originating with the deities called Râjasas.(196) Sambhűti was a daughter of Daksha, and wife of Marîchi, the father of the Agnishvâtta, who, along with the Râjasas, are ever associated with Mânasas. As remarked by a far more able Sanskritist than Wilson, Mr. Fitzedward Hall: Mânasa is no inappropriate name for a deity associated with the Râjasas. We appear to have in it _mânasam_--the same as _manas_--with the change of termination required to express male personification.(197) All the Sons of Virâja are Mânasa, says Nîlakantha. And Virâja is Brahmâ, and, therefore, the Incorporeal Pitris are called Vairâjas from being the Sons of Virâja, says _Vayu Purâna_. We could multiply our proofs _ad infinitum_, but it is useless. The wise will understand our meaning, the unwise are not required to. There are thirty-three crores, or three hundred and thirty millions, of Gods in India. But, as remarked by the learned lecturer on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_: They may be all devas, but are by no means all "gods," in the high spiritual sense one attributes to the term. This is an unfortunate blunder generally committed by Europeans. Deva is a kind of spiritual being, and because the same word is used in ordinary parlance to mean god, it by no means follows that we have and worship thirty-three crores of gods. These beings, as may be naturally inferred, have a _certain affinity_ with one of the three component Upâdhis [basic principles] into which we have divided man.(198) The names of the deities of a certain mystic class change with every Manvantara. Thus the twelve Great Gods, Jayas, created by Brahmâ to assist him in the work of creation in the very beginning of the Kalpa, and who, lost in Samâdhi, neglected to create--whereupon they were cursed to be repeatedly born in each Manvantara till the seventh--are respectively called Ajitas, Tushitas, Satyas, Haris, Vaikunthas, Sâdhyas, and Adityas:(199) they are Tushitas, in the second Kalpa, and Âdityas in this Vaivasvata Period,(200) besides other names for each age. But they are identical with the Mânasas or Râjasas, and these with our incarnating Dhyân Chohans. Yes; besides those Beings, who, like the Yakshas, Gandharvas, Kinnaras, etc., taken in their _individualities_, inhabit the Astral Plane, there are real Devas, and to these classes belong the Adityas, the Vairâjas, the Kumâras, the Asuras, and all those high celestial Beings whom Occult teaching calls Manasvin, the Wise, foremost of all, and who would have made all men the _self-conscious_ spiritually intellectual Beings they will be, had they not been "cursed" to fall into generation, and to be reborn themselves as mortals for their neglect of duty. Stanza IV.--_Continued._ 15. SEVEN TIMES SEVEN SHADOWS(201) OF FUTURE MEN(202) (_A_) WERE(203) BORN, EACH OF HIS OWN COLOUR(204) AND KIND (_B_). EACH(205) INFERIOR TO HIS FATHER.(206) THE FATHERS, THE BONELESS, COULD GIVE NO LIFE TO BEINGS WITH BONES. THEIR PROGENY WERE BHŰTA,(207) WITH NEITHER FORM NOR MIND. THEREFORE THEY ARE CALLED THE CHHÂYÂ(208) RACE(_C_). (_a_) Manu, as already remarked, comes from the root _man_, to think, hence a "thinker." It is from this Sanskrit word very likely that sprung the Latin _mens_, Mind, the Egyptian _Menes_, the "Master-Mind," the Pythagorean _monas_, or conscious "thinking unit," mind also, and even our _manas_ or mind, the fifth principle in man. Hence these Shadows are called _Amânasa_, "Mindless." With the Brâhmans, the Pitris are very sacred, because they are the Progenitors,(209) or Ancestors of men--the first Manushyas on this Earth--and offerings are made to them by the Brâhman when a son is born unto him. They are more honoured and their ritual is more important than the worship of the Gods.(210) May we not now search for a philosophical meaning in this dual group of Progenitors? The Pitris being divided into _seven_ Classes, we have here the mystic number again. Nearly all the _Purânas_ agree that three of these are Arűpa, formless, while four are Corporeal; the former being intellectual and spiritual, the latter material and devoid of intellect. Esoterically, it is the Asuras who form the first three Classes of Pitris--"born in the Body of Night"--whereas the other four were produced from the "Body of Twilight." Their Fathers, the Gods, were doomed to be born fools on Earth, according to the _Vâyu Purâna_. The legends are purposely mixed up and made very hazy: the Pitris being in one the Sons of the Gods, and, in another, those of Brahmâ; while a third makes them instructors of their own Fathers. It is the Hosts of the four material Classes who create men simultaneously on the seven Zones. Now, with regard to the seven Classes of Pitris, each of which is again divided into seven, a word to students and a query to the profane. That Class of the "Fire Dhyânîs," which we identify on undeniable grounds with the Agnishvâttas, is called in our school the "Heart" of the Dhyân- Chohanic Body, and is said to have incarnated in the Third Race of men and made them perfect. The Esoteric Mystagogy speaks of the mysterious relation existing between the hebdomadic essence or substance of this angelic Heart and that of man, whose every physical organ, and psychic, and spiritual function, is a reflection, so to say, a copy on the terrestrial plane, of the model or prototype _above_. Why, it is asked, should there be such a strange repetition of the number seven in the anatomical structure of man? Why should the heart have _four lower_ cavities and _three higher_ divisions, answering so strangely to the septenary division of the human principles, separated into two groups, the higher and the lower; and why should the same division be found in the various classes of Pitris, and especially our Fire Dhyânîs? For, as already stated, these Beings fall into four Corporeal, or grosser, and three Incorporeal, or subtler, "Principles," or call them by any other name you please. Why do the seven nervous plexuses of the body radiate seven rays? Why are there these seven plexuses, and why seven distinct layers in the human skin? Says the Commentary: _Having projected their Shadows and made men of one Element [Ether], the Progenitors reäscend to Mahâ-Loka, whence they descend periodically, when the World is renewed, to give birth to new Men._ _The Subtle Bodies remain without understanding [Manas] until the advent of the Suras [Gods] now called Asuras [Not-Gods]._ "Not-Gods," for the Brâhmans, perhaps, but the highest "Breaths," for the Occultist; since those Progenitors (Pitaras), the formless and the intellectual, refuse to build man, but endow him with Mind; the four corporeal Classes creating only his body. This is very plainly shown in various texts of the _Rig Veda_--the highest authority for a Hindű of any sect whatever. Therein Asura means "spiritual, divine," and the word is used as a synonym for Supreme Spirit, and the term Asura, in the sense of a "God," is applied to Varuna and Indra and preëminently to Agni--the three having been in days of old the three _highest_ Gods, before Brâhmanical Theo-Mythology distorted the true meaning of almost everything in the Archaic Scriptures. But, as the key is now lost, the Asuras are hardly mentioned. In the _Zend Avesta_ the same is found. In the Mazdean, or Magian, religion, Asura is the Lord Asura Vishvavedas, the "all-knowing" or "omniscient Lord"; and Asura Mazdhâ, becoming later Ahura Mazdhâ, is, as Benfey shows, "the Lord who bestows _Intelligence_"--Asura Medhâ and Ahura Mazdâo.(211) Elsewhere in this work it is shown, on equally good authority, that the Indo-Iranian Asura was always regarded as _sevenfold_. This fact, combined with the name Mazdhâ, as above, which makes of the sevenfold Asura the "Lord," or "Lords" collectively "who bestow _Intelligence_," connects the Amshaspands with the Asuras and with our incarnating Dhyân Chohans, as well as with the Elohim, and the seven informing Gods of Egypt, Chaldća, and every other country. Why these "Gods" refused to create men is not, as stated in exoteric accounts, because their pride was too great to share the celestial power of their essence with the Children of Earth, but for reasons already suggested. However, allegory has indulged in endless fancies and Theology has taken advantage thereof in every country, to make out its case against these First-born, or the Logoi, and to impress it as a truth on the minds of the ignorant and credulous.(212) The Christian system is not the only one which has degraded these Gods into Demons. Zoroastrianism and even Brâhmanism have profited thereby to obtain hold over the people's mind. Even in Chaldćan exotericism, Beings who _refuse to create_, and are said to oppose thereby the Demiurgus, are also denounced as Spirits of Darkness. The Suras, who win their intellectual independence, fight the Suras, who are devoid thereof and are shown as passing their lives in profitless ceremonial worship based on blind faith--a hint now ignored by the _orthodox_ Brâhmans--and forthwith the former become _A_-Suras. The First- and Mind-born Sons of the Deity refuse to create progeny, and are _cursed_ by Brahmâ to be _born as men_. They are hurled _down to Earth_, which, later on, is transformed, in theological dogma, into the _Infernal_ Regions. Ahriman destroys the Bull created by Ormazd--which is the emblem of terrestrial _illusive_ life, the "germ of sorrow"--and, forgetting that the perishing finite seed must die, in order that the plant of immortality, the plant of spiritual, eternal life, should sprout and live, Ahriman is proclaimed the enemy, the opposing power, the Devil. Typhon cuts Osiris into fourteen pieces, in order to prevent him peopling the world and thus creating misery; and Typhon becomes, in the exoteric, theological teaching, the Power of Darkness. But all this is the exoteric shell. It is the worshippers of the latter who attribute to disobedience and rebellion the effort and self- sacrifice of those who would help men to their original status of divinity through _self-conscious_ efforts; and it is these worshippers of _form_ who have made Demons of the Angels of Light. Esoteric Philosophy, however, teaches that _one-third_(213) of the Dhyânîs--_i.e._, the three Classes of the Arűpa Pitris, endowed with intelligence, "which is a formless breath, composed of _intellectual_ not elementary substances"(214)--was simply _doomed by the law of Karma and evolution to be re-born_, or incarnated, on Earth.(215) Some of these were Nirmânakâyas from other Manvantaras. Hence we see them, in all the _Purânas_, re-appearing on this Globe, in the Third Manvantara--read Third Root-Race--as Kings, Rishis and Heroes. This tenet, being too philosophical and metaphysical to be grasped by the multitudes, was, as already stated, disfigured by the priesthood for the purpose of preserving a hold over the former through superstitious fear. The supposed "Rebels," then, were simply those who, compelled by Karmic law to drink the cup of gall to its last bitter drop, _had to incarnate_ anew, and thus make responsible thinking entities of the astral statues projected by their inferior brethren. Some are said to have refused, because they had not in them the requisite materials--_i.e._, an astral body--for they were Arűpa. The refusal of others had reference to their having been Adepts and Yogîs of long past preceding Manvantaras; another mystery. But, later on, as Nirmânakâyas, they sacrificed themselves for the good and salvation of the Monads which were waiting for their turn, and which otherwise would have had to linger for countless ages in irresponsible, animal-like, though in appearance human, forms. It may be a parable and an allegory _within an allegory_. Its solution is left to the intuition of the student, if he only reads that which follows with his _spiritual_ eye. As to their Fashioners or Ancestors--those Angels who, in the exoteric legends, obeyed the law--they must be identical with the Barhishad Pitris, or the Pitri-Devatâs, _i.e._, those possessed of the _physical creative fire_. They could only create, or rather clothe, the human Monads with their own astral Selves, but they could not make man in their image and likeness. "Man must not be like one of us," say the _Creative_ Gods, entrusted with the fabrication of the lower animal--but higher.(216) Their creating the semblance of men out of their own divine Essence means, Esoterically, that it is they who became the First Race, and thus shared its destiny and further evolution. They _would_ not, simply because they _could_ not, give to man that sacred spark which burns and expands into the flower of human reason and self-consciousness, for they had it not to give. This was left to that Class of Devas who became symbolized in Greece under the name of Prometheus; to those who had nought to do with the physical body, yet everything with the purely spiritual man. Each Class of Creators endows man with what it has to give: the one builds his external form; the other gives him its essence, which later on becomes the Human Higher Self owing to the _personal exertion of the individual_; but they could not make men as they were themselves--perfect, because sinless; sinless, because having only the first, pale shadowy outlines of attributes, and these all perfect--from the human standpoint--white, pure and cold as the virgin snow. Where there is no struggle, there is no merit. Humanity, "of the earth earthy," was not destined to be created by the Angels of the First Divine Breath. Therefore they are said to have _refused_ to create, and man had to be formed by more material Creators,(217) who, in their turn, could give only what they had in their own natures, and no more. Subservient to eternal law, the pure Gods could only project out of themselves _shadowy_ men, a little less ethereal and spiritual, less _divine_ and _perfect_ than themselves--shadows still. The first Humanity, therefore, was a pale copy of its Progenitors; too material, even in its ethereality, to be a hierarchy of Gods; too spiritual and pure to be Men--endowed as it is with every _negative_ (nirguna) perfection. Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the _incorruptible_ must grow out of the corruptible, having the latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast. Absolute Light is absolute Darkness, and _vice versâ_. In fact, there is neither Light nor Darkness in the realms of Truth. Good and Evil are twins, the progeny of Space and Time, under the sway of Mâyâ. Separate them, by cutting off one from the other, and they will both die. Neither exists _per se_, since each has to be generated and created out of the other, in order to come into being; both must be known and appreciated before becoming objects of perception, hence, in mortal mind, they must be divided. Nevertheless, as the illusionary distinction exists, it requires a _lower_ Order of Creative Angels to "create" inhabited Globes--especially ours--or to deal with Matter on this earthly plane. The philosophical Gnostics were the first to think so, in the historical period, and to invent various systems upon this theory. Therefore in their schemes of creation, one always finds their "Creators" occupying a place at the very foot of the ladder of Spiritual Being. With them, those who created our Earth and its mortals were placed on the very limit of mâyâvic Matter, and their followers were taught to think--to the great disgust of the Church Fathers--that for the creation of those wretched races, in a spiritual and moral sense, which grace our Globe, no high Divinity could be made responsible, but only Angels of a low Hierarchy,(218) to which Class they relegated the Jewish God, Jehovah. Mankinds different from the present are mentioned in all the ancient Cosmogonies. Plato speaks, in the _Phćdrus_, of a "winged" race of men. Aristophanes, in Plato's _Banquet_, speaks of a race androgynous and with round bodies. In _Pymander_, all the animal kingdom even is double-sexed. Thus it is said: The circuit having been accomplished, _the knot was loosened_ ... and all the animals, which were equally androgynous, were _untied_ [separated] _together with man_ ... [for] ... the causes had to produce effects on earth.(219) Again, in the ancient Quiché Manuscript, the _Popol Vuh_--published by the late Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg--the first men are described as a race "whose sight was unlimited, and who knew all things at once"; thus showing the _divine knowledge of Gods_, not mortals. The Secret Doctrine, correcting the unavoidable exaggerations of popular fancy, gives the facts as they are recorded in the archaic symbols. (_b_) These "Shadows" were born "each of his own colour and kind," each also "inferior to his Father," or Creator, because the latter was a complete Being of his kind. The Commentaries refer the first sentence to the colour or complexion of each human race thus evolved. In _Pymander_, the Seven Primitive Men, created by Nature from the "Heavenly Man," all partake of the qualities of the Seven "Governors," or Rulers, who loved Man--their own reflection and synthesis. In the Norse Legends, one recognizes in Asgard, the habitat of the Gods, as also in the Ases themselves, the same mystical Loci and personifications woven into the popular "myths," as in our Secret Doctrine; and we find them in the _Vedas_, the _Purânas_, the Mazdean Scriptures and the _Kabalah_. The Ases of Scandinavia, the Rulers of the World which preceded ours, whose name means literally the "Pillars of the World," its "Supports," are thus identical with the Greek Cosmocratores, the seven "Workmen" or Rectors of _Pymander_, the seven Rishis and Pitris of India, the seven Chaldćan Gods and seven Evil Spirits, the seven Kabalistic Sephiroth, synthesized by the upper Triad, and even the seven Planetary Spirits of the Christian Mystics. The Ases create the earth, the seas, the sky and the clouds, the whole visible world, from the remains of the slain giant Ymir; but they do not create MAN, but only his form from the Ask or Ash tree. It is Odin who endows him with life and soul, after Lodur had given him blood and bones, and finally it is Hönir who furnishes him with his intellect (Manas) and with his conscious senses.(220) The Norse Ask, the Hesiodic Ash-tree, whence issued the men of the generation of bronze, the Third Root-Race, and the Tzité tree of the _Popol Vuh_, out of which the Mexican _third_ race of men was created, are all one. This may be plainly seen by any reader. But the Occult reason why the Norse Yggdrasil, the Hindű Ashvattha, the Gogard, the Hellenic tree of life, and the Tibetan Zampun, are one with the Kabalistic Sephirothic Tree, and even with the Holy Tree made by Ahura Mazda, and the Tree of Eden--who among the Western scholars can tell?(221) Nevertheless, the fruits of all those "Trees," whether Pippala, or Haoma, or even the more prosaic Apple, are the "plants of life," in fact and verity. The prototypes of our races were all enclosed in the Microcosmic Tree, which grew and developed _within and under_ the great mundane Macrocosmic Tree;(222) and the mystery is half revealed in the _Dîrghotamas_, where it is said: Pippala, the sweet fruit of that tree upon which come _spirits who love the science_, and where the gods produce all marvels. As in the Gogard, among the luxuriant branches of all these Mundane Trees, the "Serpent" dwells. But while the Macrocosmic Tree is the Serpent of Eternity and of absolute Wisdom itself, those who dwell in the Microcosmic Tree are the Serpents of the Manifested Wisdom. One is the One and All; the others are its _reflected_ parts. The "Tree" is man himself, of course, and the Serpent dwelling in each, the conscious Manas, the connecting link between Spirit and Matter, Heaven and Earth. Everywhere, it is the same. The "Creating" Powers produce Man, but fail in their final object. All these Logoi strive to endow man with _conscious_ immortal Spirit, reflected in the Mind (Manas) alone; they fail, and they are all represented as being punished for the failure, if not for the attempt. What is the nature of the punishment? A sentence of imprisonment in the lower or nether region, which is _our Earth, the lowest_ in its Chain; an "Eternity"--meaning the duration of the Life-cycle--in the _darkness_ of Matter, or _within animal Man_. It pleased the half ignorant and half designing Church Fathers to disfigure the graphic symbol. They took advantage of the metaphor and allegory in every old religion to turn them to the benefit of the new one. Thus man was transformed into the darkness of a material Hell; his divine consciousness, obtained from his indwelling Principle, the Mânasa, or the incarnated Deva, became the glaring flames of the Infernal Region, and our Globe that Hell itself. Pippala, Haoma, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, were denounced as the _forbidden_ fruit, and the "Serpent of Wisdom," the voice of reason and consciousness, remained identified for ages with the Fallen Angel, which is the old Dragon, the Devil! The same for the other high symbols. The Svastika, the most sacred and mystic symbol in India, the "Jaina Cross" as it is now called by the Masons, notwithstanding its direct connection, and even identity, with the Christian Cross, has become dishonoured in the same manner. It is the "devil's sign," we are told by the Indian missionaries. Does it not shine on the head of the great Serpent of Vishnu, on the thousand-headed Shesha- Ananta, in the depths of Pâtâla, the Hindű Naraka or Hell? It does: but what is Ananta? As Shesha, it is the almost endless Manvantaric Cycle of Time, and becomes _Infinite_ Time itself, when called Ananta, the great Seven-headed Serpent, on which rests Vishnu, the _Eternal Deity_, during Pralayic inactivity. What has Satan to do with this highly metaphysical symbol? The Svastika is the most philosophically scientific of all symbols, as also the most comprehensible. It is the summary in a few lines of the whole work of "creation," or evolution as one should rather say, from Cosmotheogony down to Anthropogony, from the indivisible unknown Parabrahman to the humble Moneron of materialistic Science, whose _genesis is as unknown_ to that Science as is that of the All-Deity Itself. The Svastika is found heading the religious symbols of every old nation. It is the "Worker's Hammer" in the Chaldćan _Book of Numbers_, the "Hammer," above referred to, in the _Book of Concealed Mystery_, "which striketh sparks from the flint" (Space), those sparks becoming Worlds. It is Thor's Hammer, the magic weapon forged by the Dwarfs against the Giants, or the Pre-cosmic Titanic Forces of Nature, which rebel and, while alive in the region of Matter, will not be subdued by the Gods--the agents of Universal Harmony--but have first to be destroyed. This is why the World is formed out of the relics of the murdered Ymir. The Svastika is the Miölnir, the "Storm-hammer"; and therefore it is said that when the Ases, the holy Gods, after having been purified by fire--the fire of the passions and suffering in their life-incarnations--become fit to dwell in Ida in eternal peace, then Miölnir will become useless. This will be when the bonds of Hel--the Goddess-queen of the region of the Dead--will bind them no longer, for the kingdom of evil will have passed away. Surtur's flames had not destroyed them, nor yet had the raging waters [of the several deluges].... There were ... the sons of Thor. They brought Miölnir with them, not as a weapon of war, but as the hammer with which to consecrate the new heavens and the new earth.(223) Verily many are its meanings! In the macrocosmic work, the "Hammer of Creation," with its four arms bent at right angles, refers to the continual _motion_ and revolution of the invisible Kosmos of Forces. In that of the manifested Cosmos and our Earth, it points to the rotation in the Cycles of Time of the world's axes and their equatorial belts; the two lines forming the Svastika {~UNKNOWN~}, meaning Spirit and Matter, the four hooks suggesting the motion in the revolving cycles. Applied to the microcosm, Man, it shows him to be a link between Heaven and Earth; the right hand being raised at the end of a horizontal arm, the left pointing to the Earth. In the _Smaragdine Tablet_ of Hermes, the uplifted right hand is inscribed with the word "Solve," the left with the word "Coagula." It is at one and the same time an Alchemical, Cosmogonical, Anthropological, and Magical sign, with seven keys to its inner meaning. It is not too much to say that the compound symbolism of this universal and most suggestive of signs contains the key to the seven great mysteries of Kosmos. Born in the mystical conceptions of the early Âryans, and by them placed at the very threshold of eternity, on the head of the serpent Ananta, it found its spiritual death in the scholastic interpretations of medićval Anthropomorphists. It is the Alpha and the Omega of universal Creative Force, evolving from pure Spirit and ending in gross Matter. It is also the key to the Cycle of Science, divine and human; and he who comprehends its full meaning is for ever liberated from the toils of Mahâ-Mâyâ, the great Illusion and Deceiver. The Light that shines from under the Divine Hammer, now degraded into the mallet or gavel of the Grand Masters of Masonic Lodges, is sufficient to dissipate the darkness of any human schemes or fictions. How prophetic are the songs of the three Norse Goddesses, to whom the ravens of Odin whisper of the past and the future, as they flutter round in their abode of crystal beneath the flowing river. The songs are all written down in the "Scrolls of Wisdom," of which many are lost but some still remain; and they repeat in poetical allegory the teachings of the Archaic Ages. To summarize from Dr. Wagner's _Asgard and the Gods_, concerning the "Renewal of the World," which is a prophecy about the Seventh Race of our Round told in the past tense. The Miölnir had done its duty in this Round, and: On the field of Ida, the field of resurrection [for the Fifth Round], the sons of the highest gods assembled, and _in them their fathers rose again_ [the Egos of all their past incarnations]. They talked of the Past and the Present, and remembered the wisdom and prophecies of their ancestors which had all been fulfilled. Near them, but _unseen by them_, was the strong, the mighty One, who rules all things, makes peace between those who are angry with each other, and ordains the eternal laws that govern the world. _They all knew he was there, they felt his presence and his power, but were ignorant of his name. At his command the new earth rose out of the waters_ [of Space]. To the south above the Field of Ida, he made another heaven called Audlang, and further off, a third, known as Widblain. Over Gimil's cave a wondrous palace was erected, which was covered with gold and shining bright in the sun. [These are the three gradually ascending Globes of our Chain.] There the gods were enthroned, as _they used to be_, and they rejoiced in the restoration and in the better time. From Gimil's heights [the Seventh Globe, the highest and purest], they looked down upon the happy descendants of Lif [and Lifthrasir, the coming Adam and Eve of purified Humanity] and signed to them to _climb up higher_, to _rise in knowledge and wisdom_, in piety and in deeds of love, step by step, from one heaven to another, until they were at last fit to be united to the divinities in the house of All father.(224) He who knows the doctrines of Esoteric Budhism, or Wisdom, though so imperfectly sketched hitherto, will see clearly the allegory contained in the above. Its more philosophical meaning will be better understood if the reader thinks carefully over the myth of Prometheus. It is examined, further on, in the light of the Hindű Pramantha. Degraded into a purely physiological symbol by some Orientalists, and taken in connection with terrestrial fire only, their interpretation is an insult to every religion, including Christianity, whose greatest mystery is thus dragged down to Matter. The "friction" of divine Pramantha and Arani could suggest itself under this image only to the brutal conceptions of the German Materialists--than whom there are none worse. It is true that the Divine Babe, Agni with the Sanskrit-speaking Race, who became Ignis with the Latins, is born from the conjunction of Pramantha and Arani--the Svastika--during the sacrificial ceremony. But what of that? Tvashtri (Vishvakarman) is the "divine artist and _carpenter_,"(225) and is also the Father of the Gods and of "Creative Fire" in the _Vedas_. So ancient is the symbol and so sacred, that there is hardly an excavation made on the sites of old cities without its being found. A number of such terra-cotta discs, called _fusaďoles_, were found by Dr. Schliemann _under_ the ruins of ancient Troy. Both the forms, [Symbol: swastika with dots around the center] and [Symbol: Cross with dot in the middle], were excavated in great abundance; their presence being one more proof that the ancient Trojans and their ancestors were pure Aryans. (_c_) Chhâyâ, as already explained, is the Astral Image. It bears this meaning in Sanskrit works. Thus Sanjnâ, Spiritual Consciousness, the wife of Sűrya, the Sun, is shown retiring into the jungle to lead an ascetic life, and leaving behind to her husband her Chhâyâ, Shadow or Image. 16. HOW ARE THE MANUSHYA(226) BORN? THE MANUS WITH MINDS, HOW ARE THEY MADE? (_A_) THE FATHERS(227) CALLED TO THEIR HELP THEIR OWN FIRE,(228) WHICH IS THE FIRE THAT BURNS IN EARTH. THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH CALLED TO HIS HELP THE SOLAR FIRE.(229) THESE THREE(230) PRODUCED IN THEIR JOINT EFFORTS A GOOD RŰPA. IT(231) COULD STAND, WALK, RUN, RECLINE, OR FLY. YET IT WAS STILL BUT A CHHÂYÂ, A SHADOW WITH NO SENSE. (_B_) ... (_a_) Here an explanation again becomes necessary in the light and with the help of the exoteric added to the Esoteric Scriptures. The Manushyas (Men) and the Manus are here equivalent to the Chaldćan Adam--this term not meaning at all the first man, as with the Jews, or one solitary individual, but Mankind collectively, as with the Chaldćans and Assyrians. It is the four Orders or Classes of Dhyân Chohans out of the Seven, says the Commentary, "_who were the Progenitors of the Concealed Man_"--_i.e._, the subtle Inner Man. The Lha of the Moon, the Lunar Spirits, were, as already stated, only the Ancestors of his Form, _i.e._, of the model according to which Nature began her external work upon him. Thus Primitive Man was, when he appeared, only a senseless Bhűta(232) or "phantom." This "creation" was a failure. (_b_) This attempt again was a failure. It allegorizes the vanity of _physical_ Nature's unaided attempts to construct even a perfect animal--let alone man. For the Fathers, the Lower Angels, are all Nature- Spirits, and the higher Elementals also possess an intelligence of their own; but this is not enough to construct a _thinking_ man. "_Living_ Fire" was needed, that Fire which gives the human mind its self-perception and self-consciousness, or Manas; and the progeny of Pârvaka and Shuchi are the Animal-Electric and Solar Fires, which create animals, and could thus furnish only a physical living constitution to that first astral model of man. The first Creators, then, were the Pygmalions of Primeval Man: they failed to animate the statue--_intellectually_. This Stanza we shall see is very suggestive. It explains the mystery of, and fills the gap between, the Informing Principle in man--the Higher Self or Human Monad--and the Animal Monad, both one and the same, although the former is endowed with _divine_ intelligence, the latter with _instinctual_ faculty alone. How is the difference to be explained, and the presence of that Higher Self in man accounted for? Says the Commentary: _The Sons of Mahat are the quickeners of the human Plant. They are the Waters falling upon the arid soil of latent life, and the Spark that vivifies the human Animal. They are the Lords of Spiritual Life Eternal.... In the beginning [in the Second Race] some [of the Lords] only breathed of their essence into Manushya [men], and some took in man their abode._ This shows that not all men became incarnations of the "Divine Rebels," but only a few among them. The remainder had their fifth Principle simply quickened by the spark thrown into it, which accounts for the great difference between the intellectual capacities of men and races. Had not the "Sons of Mahat," speaking allegorically, skipped the Intermediate Worlds, in their impulse toward intellectual freedom, the animal man would never have been able to reach upward from this Earth, and attain through self-exertion his ultimate goal. The Cyclic Pilgrimage would have had to be performed through all the planes of existence half unconsciously, if not entirely so, as in the case of the animals. It is owing to this rebellion of intellectual life against the morbid inactivity of pure spirit, that we are what we are--self-conscious, thinking men, with the capabilities and attributes of Gods in us, for good as much as for evil. Hence the Rebels are our Saviours. Let the Philosopher ponder well over this, and more than one mystery will become clear to him. It is only by the attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites--Spirit and Matter--can be cemented together on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find themselves wedded in Eternity. This will reveal the meaning of many hitherto incomprehensible allegories, foolishly called "fables." It explains, to begin with, the statement made in _Pymander_, that the "Heavenly Man," the "Son of the Father," who partook of the nature and essence of the Seven Governors, or Creators and Rulers of the Material World, Peeped through the Harmony, and breaking through the strength of the [Seven] Circles [of Fire], so showed and made manifest the downward-borne nature.(233) It explains every verse in the Hermetic narrative, as also the Greek allegory of Prometheus. Most important of all, it explains the many allegorical accounts about the "Wars in Heaven," including that of _Revelation_ with respect to the Christian dogma of the "Fallen Angels." It explains the "Rebellion" of the oldest and highest Angels, and the meaning of their being cast down from Heaven into the depths of Hell, _i.e._, Matter. It even solves the recent perplexity of the Assyriologists, who express their wonder through the late George Smith, as follows: My first idea of this part [of the rebellion] was that the war with the powers of evil _preceded_ the Creation; I now think it followed the account of the Fall.(234) In the same work,(235) Mr. George Smith gives an engraving, from an early Babylonian Cylinder, of the Sacred Tree, the Serpent, man and woman. The Tree has seven branches; _three_ on the man's side, _four_ on that of the female. These branches are typical of the seven Root-Races, in the _third_ of which, at its very close, occurred the separation of the sexes and the so-called Fall into generation. The three earliest Races were sexless, then hermaphrodite; the other four, male and female, as distinct from each other. As the writer tells us: The dragon, which, in the Chaldean account of the Creation, leads man to sin, is the creature of Tiamat, the living principle of the sea and of chaos ... which was opposed to the deities at the creation of the world.(236) This is an error. The Dragon is the male principle, or Phallus, personified, or rather _animalized_; and Tiamat, "the embodiment of the spirit of chaos," of the Deep, or Abyss, is the female principle, the Womb. The "spirit of chaos and disorder" refers to the mental perturbation which it led to. It is the sensual, attractive, magnetic principle which fascinates and seduces, the ever-living active element which throws the whole world into disorder, chaos and sin. The Serpent seduces the woman, but it is the latter who seduces man, and both are included in the Karmic curse, though only as a natural result of a cause produced. Says George Smith: It is clear that the dragon is included in the curse for the Fall, and that the gods [the Elohim, jealous at seeing the man of clay becoming a Creator in his turn, like all the animals] invoke on the head of the human Race all the evils which afflict humanity. Wisdom and knowledge shall injure him, he shall have family quarrels, shall submit to tyranny, he will anger the gods ... he shall be disappointed in his desires, he shall pour out _useless prayer_, ... he shall commit future sin. No doubt subsequent lines continue these topics, but again our narrative is broken, and it only reopens where the gods are preparing for war with the powers of evil, which are led by Tiamat (the woman).(237) This account is omitted in _Genesis_, for monotheistic purposes. But it is a mistaken policy--born no doubt of fear, and regard for dogmatic religion and its superstitions--to seek to restore the Chaldćan fragments by _Genesis_, whereas it is the latter, far younger than any of the fragments, which ought to be explained by the former. 17. THE BREATH(238) NEEDED A FORM; THE FATHERS GAVE IT. THE BREATH NEEDED A GROSS BODY; THE EARTH MOULDED IT. THE BREATH NEEDED THE SPIRIT OF LIFE; THE SOLAR LHAS BREATHED IT INTO ITS FORM. THE BREATH NEEDED A MIRROR OF ITS BODY;(239) "WE GAVE IT OUR OWN!"--SAID THE DHYÂNÎS. THE BREATH NEEDED A VEHICLE OF DESIRES;(240) "IT HAS IT!"--SAID THE DRAINER OF WATERS.(241) BUT BREATH NEEDS A MIND TO EMBRACE THE UNIVERSE; "WE CANNOT GIVE THAT!"--SAID THE FATHERS. "I NEVER HAD IT!"--SAID THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH. "THE FORM WOULD BE CONSUMED WERE I TO GIVE IT MINE!"--SAID THE GREAT FIRE.(242)... MAN(243) REMAINED AN EMPTY SENSELESS BHŰTA.... THUS HAVE THE BONELESS GIVEN LIFE TO THOSE WHO(244) BECAME MEN WITH BONES IN THE THIRD.(245) As a full explanation is found in the commentary on Stanza V, a few remarks will now suffice. The "Father" of primitive physical man, or of his body, is the Vital Electric Principle residing in the Sun. The Moon is its "Mother," because of that mysterious power in the Moon, which has as decided an influence upon human gestation and generation, which it regulates, as it has on the growth of plants and animals. The "Wind" or Ether, standing in this case for the agent of transmission by which those influences are carried down from the two luminaries and diffused upon earth, is referred to as the "Nurse";(246) while "Spiritual Fire" alone makes of man a divine and perfect entity. Now what is that "Spiritual Fire"? In Alchemy it is Hydrogen, in general; while in Esoteric actuality it is the emanation, or the Ray which proceeds from its Noumenon, the "Dhyân of the First Element." Hydrogen is _gas_ only on our terrestrial plane. But even in Chemistry, Hydrogen "would be the only existing form of matter, in our sense of the term,"(247) and is very nearly allied to Protyle, which is our Layam. It is the father and generator, so to say, or rather the Upâdhi (basis), of both Air and Water, and is "fire, air and water," in fact: _one_ under three aspects; hence the chemical and alchemical trinity. In the world of manifestation, or Matter, it is the objective symbol and the material emanation from the subjective and purely spiritual entitative Being in the region of Noumena. Well might Godfrey Higgins have compared Hydrogen to, and even identified it with, the To On, the "One" of the Greeks. For, as he remarks, Hydrogen is _not_ water, though it generates it; Hydrogen is not fire, though it manifests or creates it; nor is it air, though air may be regarded as a product of the union of water and fire--since Hydrogen is found in the aqueous element of the atmosphere. It is three in one. If one studies comparative Theogony, it is easy to find that the secret of these "Fires" was taught in the Mysteries of every ancient people, preëminently in Samothrace. There is not the smallest doubt that the Kabiri, the most arcane of all the ancient Deities, Gods and Men, great Deities and Titans, are identical with the Kumâras and Rudras headed by Kârttikeya--a Kumâra also. This is quite evident even exoterically; and these Hindű Deities were, like the Kabiri, the _personified sacred Fires of the most Occult Powers of Nature_. The several branches of the Âryan Race, the Asiatic and the European, the Hindű and the Greek, did their best to conceal their true nature, if not their importance. As in the case of the Kumâras, the number of the Kabiri is uncertain. Some say that there were three or four only; others say seven. Axierus, Axiocersa, Axiocersus, and Casmilus may very well stand for the _alter egos_ of the four Kumâras--Sanat-Kumâra, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanâtana. The former deities, whose reputed father was Vulcan, were often confounded with the Dioscori, Corybantes, Anactes, etc.; just as the Kumâras, whose reputed father is Brahmâ--or rather, the "Flame of his Wrath," which prompted him to perform the ninth or Kaumâra Creation, resulting in Rudra or Nîlalohita (Shiva) and the Kumâras--were confounded with the Asuras, the Rudras, and the Pitris, for the simple reason that they are all one--_i.e._, correlative Forces and Fires. There is no space to describe these "Fires" and their real meaning here, though we may attempt to do so if the rest of this work is ever published. Meanwhile a few more explanations may be added. The foregoing are all mysteries which must be left to the personal intuition of the student for solution, rather than described. If he would learn something of the secret of the Fires, let him turn to certain works of the Alchemists, who very correctly connect Fire with every Element, as do the Occultists. The reader must remember that the Ancients considered Religion and the Natural Sciences along with Philosophy, as closely and inseparably linked together. Ćsculapius was the Son of Apollo--the Sun or Fire of Life; at once Helius, Pythius, and the God of oracular Wisdom. In exoteric religions, as much as in Esoteric Philosophy, the Elements--especially Fire, Water, and Air--are made the Progenitors of our _five physical senses_, and hence are directly connected, in an Occult way, with them. These physical senses pertain even to a lower Creation than the one called in the _Purânas_ Pratisarga, or "Secondary Creation." "_Liquid Fire proceeds from Indiscrete Fire_," says an Occult axiom. _The Circle is the Thought; the Diameter [or the line] is the Word; and their union is Life._ In the Kabalah, Bath-Kol is the Daughter of the Divine Voice, or Primordial Light, Shekinah. In the _Purânas_ and Hindű exotericism, Vâch, the Voice, is the female Logos of Brahmâ--a permutation of Aditi, Primordial Light. And if Bath-Kol, in Jewish Mysticism, is an articulate prćter-natural voice from heaven, revealing to the "chosen people" the sacred traditions and laws, it is only because Vâch was called, before Judaism, the "Mother of the _Vedas_," who entered into the Rishis and inspired them by her revelations; just as Bath-Kol is said to have inspired the prophets of Israël and the Jewish High-Priests. And both exist to this day, in their respective sacred symbologies, because the Ancients associated Sound or Speech with the Ether of Space, of which Sound is the characteristic. Hence Fire, Water and Air are the primordial Cosmic Trinity. I am thy Thought, thy God, more ancient than the Moist Principle, the _Light that radiates within Darkness_ [Chaos], and the shining Word of God [Sound] is the Son of the Deity.(248) Thus we have to study well the "Primary Creation" before we can understand the Secondary. The first Race had three _rudimentary_ Elements in it; and _no Fire_ as yet; because, with the Ancients, the evolution of man, and the growth and development of his spiritual and physical senses, were subordinate to the evolution of the Elements on the Cosmic plane of this Earth. All proceeds from Prabhavâpyaya, the evolution of the creative and sentient principles in the Gods, and even of the so-called Creative Deity himself. This is found in the names and appellations given to Vishnu in exoteric Scriptures. As the Orphic Protologos, he is called Pűrvaja, "pregenetic," and the other names connect him in their descending order more and more with Matter. The following order on parallel lines may be found in the evolution of the Elements and the Senses; or in Cosmic Terrestrial "Man" or "Spirit," and mortal physical man: 1. Ether ... Hearing ... Sound. 2. Air ... Touch ... Sound and Touch. 3. Fire, or Light ... Sight ... Sound, Touch and Colour. 4. Water ... Taste ... Sound, Touch, Colour and Taste. 5. Earth ... Smell ... Sound, Touch, Colour, Taste and Smell. As seen, each Element adds to its own characteristics, those of its predecessor; as each Root-Race adds the characterizing sense of the preceding Race. The same is true in the septenary "creation" of man, who evolves gradually in seven stages, and on the same principles, as will be shown further on. Thus, while Gods, or Dhyân Chohans (Devas), proceed from the First Cause--which is not Parabrahman, for the latter is the ALL CAUSE, and cannot be referred to as the "_First_ Cause,"--which First Cause is called in the Brâhmanical Books Jagad-Yoni, the "Womb of the World," mankind emanates from these active agents in Kosmos. But men, during the First and Second Races, were not physical beings, but merely _rudiments_ of the future men; Bhűtas, which proceeded from Bhűtâdi, "origin," or the "original place whence sprang the Elements." Hence they proceeded with all the rest from Prabhavâpyaya, "the place whence is the origination, and into which is the resolution of all things," as explained by the Commentator on the _Vishnu Purâna_. Whence also our physical senses. Whence even the highest "created" Deity itself, in our Philosophy. As one with the Universe, whether we call him Brahmâ, Îshvara, or Purusha, he is a Manifested Deity--hence "created," or limited and conditioned. This is easily proven, even from the exoteric teachings. After being called the _incognizable_, eternal Brahma (neuter or abstract), the Pundarîkâksha, "supreme and imperishable glory," once that instead of Sadaika-Rűpa, "changeless" or "immutable" Nature, he is addressed as Ekâneka-Rűpa, "both single and manifold," he, the Cause, becomes merged with his own effects; and his names, if placed in Esoteric order, show the following descending scale: Mahâpurusha or Paramâtman: Supreme Spirit. Âtman or Pűrvaja (Protologos): The Living Spirit of Nature. Indriyâtman, or Hrishîkesha: Spiritual or Intellectual Soul (one with the senses). Bhűtâtman: The Living, or Life Soul. Kshetrajńa: Embodied Soul, or the Universe of Spirit and Matter. Bhrântidarshanatah: False Perception--Material Universe. The last name means something perceived or conceived of, owing to false and erroneous apprehension, as a material form, but is, in fact, only Mâyâ, Illusion, as all is in our physical universe. It is in strict analogy with the attributes of this Brahma in both the spiritual and material worlds, that the evolution of the Dhyân-Chohanic Essences takes place; the characteristics of the latter being reflected, in their turn, in Man, collectively, and in each of his principles; _every one of which contains in itself, in the same progressive order, a portion of their various __"__Fires__"__ and Elements_. Stanza V. The Evolution of the Second Race. 18. The Sons of Yoga. 19. The Sexless Second Race. 20. The Sons of the "Sons of Twilight." 21. The "Shadow," or the Astral Man, retires within, and man develops a Physical Body. 18. THE FIRST(249) WERE THE SONS OF YOGA. THEIR SONS, THE CHILDREN OF THE YELLOW FATHER AND THE WHITE MOTHER. In the later Commentary, the sentence is translated: _The Sons of the Sun and of the Moon, the nursling of Ether [or the __"__Wind__"__] (a)_.... _They were the shadows of the Shadows of the Lords (b). They [the shadows] expanded. The Spirits of the Earth clothed them; the Solar Lhas warmed them [__i.e.__, preserved the Vital Fire in the nascent physical Forms]. The Breaths had life, but had no understanding. They had no Fire or Water of their own (c)._ (_a_) Remember in this connection the _Tabula Smaragdina_ of Hermes, the Esoteric meaning of which has seven keys to it. The Astro-chemical is well known to students, the Anthropological may now be given. The "One Thing" mentioned in it is Man. It is said: The Father of that One Only Thing is the Sun; its Mother the Moon; the Wind carries it in his bosom, and its Nurse is the Spirituous Earth. In the Occult rendering of the same it is added: "and _Spiritual_ Fire is its instructor [Guru]." This Fire is the Higher Self, the Spiritual Ego, or that which is eternally reďncarnating under the influence of its lower personal Selves, changing with every re-birth, full of Tanha or desire to live. It is a strange law of Nature that, on this plane, the higher (Spiritual) Nature should be, so to say, in bondage to the lower. Unless the Ego takes refuge in the Âtman, the ALL-SPIRIT, and merges entirely into the essence thereof, the personal Ego may goad it to the bitter end. This cannot be thoroughly understood unless the student makes himself familiar with the mystery of evolution, which proceeds on triple lines--Spiritual, Psychic and Physical. That which propels towards, and forces evolution, _i.e._, compels the growth and development of Man towards perfection, is (_a_) the Monad, or that which acts in it unconsciously through a Force inherent in itself; and (_b_) the lower Astral Body or the _Personal_ Self. The former, whether imprisoned in a vegetable or an animal body, is endowed with, is indeed itself, that Force. Owing to its identity with the ALL-FORCE, which, as said, is inherent in the Monad, it is all-potent on the Arűpa, or formless plane. On our plane, its essence being too pure, it remains all-potential, but individually becomes inactive. For instance, the rays of the Sun, which contribute to the growth of vegetation, do not select this or that plant to shine upon. Uproot the plant and transfer it to a piece of soil where the sunbeam cannot reach it, and the latter will not follow it. So with the Âtman: unless the Higher Self or Ego gravitates towards its Sun--the Monad--the Lower Ego, or _Personal_ Self, will have the upper hand in every case. For it is this Ego, with its fierce selfishness and animal desire to live a senseless life (Tanha), which is the "maker of the tabernacle," as Buddha calls it in the _Dhammapada_.(250) Hence the expression, the Spirits of the Earth clothed the shadows and expanded them. To these "Spirits" belong temporarily the human Astral Selves; and it is they who give, or build, the physical tabernacle of man, for the Monad and its conscious principle, Manas, to dwell in. But the "Solar" Lhas, or Spirits, warm the Shadows. This is physically and literally true; metaphysically, or on the psychic and spiritual plane, it is equally true that the Âtman alone _warms_ the Inner Man; _i.e._, it enlightens it with the Ray of Divine Life and alone is able to impart to the Inner Man, or the Reďncarnating Ego, its immortality. Thus, we shall find, for the first three and a half Root-Races, up to the middle or turning point, it is the Astral Shadows of the "Progenitors," the Lunar Pitris, which are the formative powers in the Races, and which build and gradually force the evolution of the physical form towards perfection--this, at the cost of a proportionate loss of Spirituality. Then, from the turning point, it is the Higher Ego, or Incarnating Principle, the Nous or Mind, which reigns over the Animal Ego, and rules it whenever it is not carried down by the latter. In short, Spirituality is on its ascending arc, and the animal or physical impedes it from steadily progressing on the path of its evolution, only when the selfishness of the Personality has so strongly infected the real Inner Man with its lethal _virus_, that the upward attraction has lost all its power on the thinking reasonable man. In sober truth, vice and wickedness are an _abnormal, unnatural_ manifestation, at this period of our human evolution--at least they ought to be so. The fact that mankind was never more selfish and vicious than it is now--civilized nations having succeeded in making of the former an ethical characteristic, of the latter an art--is an additional proof of the exceptional nature of the phenomenon. The entire scheme is in the _Chaldćan Book of Numbers_, and even in the _Zohar_, if one only understands the meaning of the apocalyptic hints. First comes Ain Suph, the "Concealed of the Concealed," then the _Point_, Sephira and the later Sephiroth; then the Atzilatic World, a _World of Emanations_ that gives birth to three other Worlds--the first the Briatic World called the Throne, the abode of pure Spirits; the second, the _World of Formation_, or Jetziratic, the habitat of the Angels who sent forth the Third, or _World of Action_, the Asiatic World, which is the Earth or _our_ World; and yet it is said of this World--also called Kliphoth, containing the (six other) Spheres, {~HEBREW LETTER NUN~}{~HEBREW LETTER LAMED~}{~HEBREW LETTER GIMEL~}{~HEBREW LETTER LAMED~}{~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER FINAL MEM~}, and Matter--that it is the residence of the "Prince of Darkness." This is as clearly stated as can be; for Metatron, the Angel of the second Briatic World, the first habitable World, means Messenger, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, Angel, called the great Teacher; and under him are the Angels of the third World, or Jetziratic, whose ten and seven classes are the Sephiroth,(251) of whom it is said that: They inhabit or vivify this world as essential [_entities_ and] _intelligences_, and their _correlates_ and logical _contraries_ inhabit the third habitable world, called the Asiatic. These "contraries" are called the "Shells," {~HEBREW LETTER QOF~}{~HEBREW LETTER LAMED~}{~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER PE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER TAV~}, or Demons,(252) who inhabit the seven habitations called Sheba Hachaloth, which are simply the seven Zones of our Globe.(253) Their prince is called in the Kabalah Samaël, the Angel of Death, who is also the seducing Serpent Satan; but this Satan is also Lucifer, the bright Angel of Light, the Light- and Life-bringer, the "Soul" alienated from the Holy Ones, the other Angels, and for a period, _anticipating the time_ when they would descend on Earth to incarnate in their turn. The _Book of Wisdom_ teaches that: All Souls [Monads] are preëxistent in the Worlds of Emanations.(254) And the _Zohar_ teaches that in the "Soul" is the _real man_, _i.e._, the Ego and the conscious _I am_, the Manas. Says Josephus, repeating the belief of the Essenes, [Souls] descend from the pure air to be _chained to bodies_.(255) And Philo states that: The air was full of [Souls], and that those which were nearest the earth, descending to be tied to mortal bodies, return back to bodies, being desirous to live in them.(256) Because through, and in, the human form they will become _progressive_ Beings, whereas the nature of the Angel is purely _intransitive_; therefore Man has in him the potency of transcending the faculties of the Angels. Hence the Initiates in India say that it is the Brâhman, the Twice-born, who rules the Gods or Devas; and Paul repeated it in his _Epistle to the Corinthians_: Know ye not that we [the Initiates] shall judge angels?(257) Finally, it is shown in every ancient Scripture and Cosmogony that man evolved primarily as a _luminous incorporeal form_, over which, like molten brass poured into the model of the sculptor, the physical frame of his body was built by, through and from, the lower forms and types of animal terrestrial life. Says the _Zohar_: The Soul and the _Form_ when descending on Earth put on an earthly garment. His protoplastic body was not formed of that matter of which our mortal frames are fashioned. When Adam dwelled in the garden of Eden, he was dressed in the celestial garment, which is the garment of heavenly light ... _light of that light which was used in the garden of Eden_.(258) Man [the Heavenly Adam] was _created_ by the ten Sephiroth of the Jetziratic World, and by their _common power_ the seven Angels of a still lower World engendered the Earthly Adam. First Samaël fell, and then _deceiving_ (?) man, caused his fall also. (_b_) The sentence, "they were the shadows of the Shadows of the Lords"--_i.e._, the Progenitors created man out of their own Astral Bodies--explains a universal belief. The Devas are credited in the East with having no "shadows" of their own. "The Devas cast no shadows," and this is the sure sign of a _good holy Spirit_. (_c_) Why had they "no Fire or Water of their own"?(259) Because that which Hydrogen is to the elements and gases on the objective plane, its Noumenon is in the world of mental or subjective phenomena; since its trinitarian latent nature is mirrored in its three active emanations from the three higher principles in man, namely, Spirit, Soul, and Mind, or Âtmâ, Buddhi, and Manas. It is the spiritual and also the material human basis. Rudimentary man, having been nursed by the "Air" or the "Wind," becomes the perfect man later on; when, with the development of "Spiritual Fire," the Noumenon of the "Three in One" within his Self, he acquires from his Inner Self, or Instructor, the Wisdom of Self-Consciousness, which he does not possess in the beginning. Thus here again Divine Spirit is symbolized by the Sun or Fire; Divine Soul by Water and the Moon, both standing for the Father and Mother of Pneuma, the Human Soul, or Mind, symbolized by the Wind or Air, for Pneuma, means "Breath." Hence in the _Smaragdine Tablet_, disfigured by Christian hands: The Superior agrees with the Inferior; and the Inferior with the Superior; to effect that one truly wonderful work--[which is Man]. For the Secret Work of Chiram, or King Hiram in the Kabalah, "one in essence, but three in aspect," is the Universal Agent or Lapis Philosophorum. The culmination of the Secret Work is Spiritual Perfect Man, at one end of the line; the union of the three Elements is the Occult Solvent in the "Soul of the World," the Cosmic Soul or Astral Light, at the other; and, on the material plane, it is Hydrogen in its relation to the other gases. The TO ON, truly; the ONE "whom no person has seen except the Son"; this sentence applying both to the metaphysical and physical Kosmos, and to the spiritual and material Man. For how could the latter understand the TO ON, the "One Father," if his Manas, the "Son," does not become (_as_) "One with the Father," and through this absorption receive enlightenment from the divine "Instructor," or Guru--Âtmâ-Buddhi? As says the Commentary: _If thou would'st understand the_ SECONDARY ["Creation," so-called], _O Lanoo, thou should'st first study its relation to the_ PRIMARY.(260) The First Race had three Elements, but no _Living_ Fire. Why? Because: "We say _four_ Elements, my Son, but ought to say three," says Hermes Trismegistus. "In the Primary Circle," or Creation that which is marked [Symbol: Like a large letter H, with dots above and below, and tildes above and below] reads "Root," as in the Secondary likewise. Thus in Alchemy or Western Hermeticism--a variant on Eastern Esotericism--we find: Sulphur ... Flamma ... Spiritus Mercury ... Natura ... Aqua Salt ... Mater ... Sanguis And these three are all quaternaries completed by their Root, Fire. The Spirit, beyond Manifested Nature, is the Fiery BREATH in its absolute Unity. In the Manifested Universe, it is the Central Spiritual Sun, the electric Fire of all Life. In our System it is the visible Sun, the Spirit of Nature, the terrestrial God. And in, on, and around the Earth, the fiery spirit thereof--Air, fluidic Fire; Water, liquid Fire; Earth, solid Fire. All is Fire--Ignis, in its ultimate constitution, or I, the root of which is 0 (nought) in our conceptions, the All in Nature and its Mind. "Pro-Metor" is divine Fire. It is the Creator, the Destroyer, the Preserver. The primitive names of the Gods are all connected with fire, from Agni, the Âryan, to the Jewish God who is a "consuming fire." In India, God is called in various dialects, Eashoor, Esur, Iswur, and Îshvara, in Sanskrit, the Lord, from Isha, but this is primarily the name of Shiva, the Destroyer; and the three chief Vedic Gods are Agni (Ignis), Vâyu, and Sűrya--Fire, Air, and the Sun, three Occult degrees of Fire. In the Hebrew, {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}{~HEBREW LETTER ZAYIN~}{~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} (Aza) means to "illuminate," and {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}{~HEBREW LETTER SHIN~}{~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~} (Asha) is "Fire." In Occultism, to "kindle a fire" is synonymous to evoking one of the three great Fire-powers, or to "call on God." In Sanskrit the root Ush is fire or heat; and the Egyptian word Osiris is compounded, as shown by Schelling, of the two primitives Aish and Asr, or a "fire-enchanter." Aesar in the old Etruscan meant a God, being perhaps derived from Asura of the _Vedas_. Îshvara is an analogous term, as Dr. Kenealy thought, who quotes the _Bhagavad Gitâ_ to the effect that: Îshvara resides in every mortal being and puts in motion, by his supernatural powers, all things which mount on the wheel of time. It is the Creator and the Destroyer, truly. The primitive Fire was supposed to have an insatiable appetite for devouring. Maximus of Tyre relates that the ancient Persians threw into the fire combustible matter crying, _Devour, O Lord!_ In the Irish language _easam_, or _asam_, means to _make_ or _create_. [And] _Aesar_ was the name also of one of the ancient Irish gods; the literal meaning of the word is "to kindle a fire."(261) The Christian Kabalists and Symbologists who disfigured _Pymander_--prominent among them the Bishop of Ayre, François de Tours, in the 16th century--divide the Elements in the following way: _The four Elements formed from divine Substances and the Spirits of the Salts of Nature represented by_: [Symbol: Root symbol] ... St. Matthew ... Angel-Man ... Water (Jesus- Christ, Angel-Man, Mikael) {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}-{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA~} ... St. Mark ... The Lion ... Fire {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}-{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~} ... St. Luke ... The Bull ... Earth {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}-{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~} ... St. John ... The Eagle ... Air(262) {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~} ... _The Quintessence_, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~}, _Flamma-Virgo_ [Virgin Oil], _Flamma Durissima_, _Virgo_, _Lucis Ćterna Mater_. The First Race of men were, then, simply the Images, the Astral Doubles, of their Fathers, who were the pioneers, or the most progressed Entities from a preceding though _lower_ Sphere, the shell of which is now our Moon. But even this shell is all-potential, for, the Moon having generated the Earth, its _phantom_, attracted by magnetic affinity, sought to form its first inhabitants, the pre-human monsters. To assure himself of this, the student has again to turn to the Chaldćan Fragments, and read what Berosus says. Berosus obtained his information, he tells us, from Ea, the male-female Deity of Wisdom. While the Gods were generated in the androgynous bosom of this Wisdom (Svabhâvat, Mother-Space), its reflections became on Earth the woman Omorôka, who is the Chaldćan Thavatth (or Thalatth), the Greek Thalassa, the Deep or the Sea, which Esoterically and even exoterically is the _Moon_. It was the Moon (Omorôka) who presided over the monstrous creation of nondescript beings which were slain by the Dhyânîs.(263) Evolutionary law compelled the Lunar Fathers to pass, in their monadic condition, through all the forms of life and being on this Globe; but at the end of the Third Round, they were already human in their divine nature, and were thus called upon to become the creators of the forms destined to fashion the tabernacles of the less progressed Monads, whose turn it was to incarnate. These "Forms" are called "Sons of Yoga," because Yoga--union with Brahmâ, exoterically--is the supreme condition of the passive infinite Deity, since it contains all the divine energies and is the essence of Brahmâ, who is said, as Brahmâ, to create everything through Yoga power. Brahmâ, Vishnu and Shiva are the most powerful energies of God, Brahma (Neuter), says a Paurânic text. Yoga here is the same as Dhyâna, which word is again synonymous with Yoga in the Tibetan text, where the "Sons of Yoga" are called "Sons of Dhyâna," or of that abstract meditation through which the Dhyâni-Buddhas create their celestial sons, the Dhyâni-Bodhisattvas. All the creatures in the world have each a superior above. This superior, whose inner pleasure it is _to emanate into them_, cannot impart efflux until they have adored [_i.e._, meditated as during Yoga].(264) 19. THE SECOND RACE (WAS) THE PRODUCT BY BUDDING AND EXPANSION, THE A- SEXUAL(265) FROM THE SEXLESS.(266) THUS WAS, O LANOO, THE SECOND RACE PRODUCED. What will be most contested by scientific authorities is this A-sexual Race, the Second, the Fathers of the "Sweat-born" so-called, and perhaps still more the Third Race, the "Egg-born" Androgynes. These two modes of procreation are the most difficult to comprehend, especially for the Western mind. It is evident that no explanation can be attempted for those who are not students of Occult Metaphysics. European language has no words to express things which Nature repeats no more at this stage of evolution, things which therefore can have no meaning for the Materialist. But there are analogies. It is not denied that in the beginning of physical evolution there must have been processes in Nature, spontaneous generation, for instance, now extinct, which are repeated in other forms. Thus we are told that microscopic research shows no permanence of any particular mode of reproducing life. For it shows that: The same organism may run through various metamorphoses in the course of its life-cycle, during some of which it may be _sexual_, and in others _a-sexual_, _i.e._, it may reproduce itself alternately by the coöperation of two beings of opposite sex, and also by fissure or _budding_ from one being only, which is of no sex.(267) "Budding" is the very word used in the Stanza. How could these Chhâyâs reproduce themselves otherwise; viz., procreate the Second Race, since they were ethereal, a-sexual, and even devoid, as yet, of the vehicle of desire, or Kâma Rűpa, which evolved only in the Third Race? They evolved the Second Race unconsciously, as do some plants. Or, perhaps, as the Amoeba, only on a more ethereal, impressive, and larger scale. If, indeed, the cell-theory applies equally to Botany and Zoology, and extends to Morphology, as well as to the Physiology of organisms, and if the microscopic cells are looked upon by Physical Science as independent living beings--just as Occultism regards the "Fiery Lives"--there is no difficulty in the conception of the primitive process of procreation. Consider the first stages of the development of a germ-cell. Its nucleus grows, changes, and forms a double cone or spindle, thus, [Symbol: Large X with horizontal lines across tops and bottoms] _within_ the cell. This spindle approaches the surface of the cell, and one half of it is _extruded_ in the form of what are called the "polar cells." These polar cells _now_ die, and the embryo develops from the growth and segmentation of the remaining part of the nucleus which is _nourished_ by the substance of the cell. Then why could not beings have lived thus, and been created in _this_ way--at the very beginning of _human and mammalian evolution_? This may, perhaps, serve as an analogy to give some idea of the process by which the Second Race was formed from the First. The Astral Form clothing the Monad was surrounded, as it still is, by its egg-shaped sphere of Aura, which here corresponds to the substance of the germ-cell or Ovum. The Astral Form itself is the nucleus, now, as then, instinct with the Principle of Life. When the season of reproduction arrives, the _Sub_-astral "extrudes" a miniature of itself from the egg of surrounding Aura. This germ grows and feeds on the Aura till it becomes fully developed, when it gradually separates from its parent, carrying with it its own sphere of Aura; just as we see living cells reproducing their like by growth and subsequent division into two. The analogy with the "polar cells" would seem to hold good, since their death would _now_ correspond to the change introduced by the separation of the sexes, when gestation _in utero_, _i.e._, within the cell, became the rule. As the Commentary tells us: _The early Second [Root] Race were the Fathers of the __"__Sweat- born__"__; the later Second [Root] Race were __"__Sweat-born__"__ themselves._ This passage from the Commentary refers to the work of evolution from the beginning of a Race to its close. The "Sons of Yoga," or the Primitive Astral Race, had seven stages of evolution _racially_, or collectively; as every individual Being in it had, and has now. It is not Shakespeare only who divided the ages of man into a series of seven, but Nature herself. Thus the first Sub-races of the Second Race were born at first by the process described on the law of analogy; while the last began gradually, _pari passu_ with the evolution of the human body, to be formed otherwise. The process of reproduction had seven stages also in each Race, each covering ćons of time. What Physiologist or Biologist can tell whether the present mode of generation, with all its phases of gestation, is older than half a million, or at most one million of years, since their cycle of observation began hardly half a century ago? Primeval human Hermaphrodites are a fact in Nature well known to the Ancients, and form one of Darwin's greatest perplexities. Yet there is certainly no impossibility, but, on the contrary, a great probability that hermaphroditism existed in the evolution of the early Races; while on the grounds of analogy, and on that of the existence of one universal law in physical evolution, acting indifferently in the construction of plant, animal, and man, it must be so. The mistaken theories of Monogenesis, and the descent of man from the mammal, instead of the mammals from man, are fatal to the completeness of evolution as taught in modern schools on Darwinian lines, and they will have to be abandoned in view of the insuperable difficulties which they encounter. Occult tradition--if the terms Science and Knowledge are denied in this particular to Antiquity--can alone reconcile the inconsistencies and fill the gap. Says a Talmudic axiom: If thou wilt know the invisible, open thine eyes wide on the visible. In the _Descent of Man_ occurs the following passage, which shows how near Darwin came to the acceptance of this ancient teaching. It has long been known that in the vertebrate kingdom one sex bears rudiments of various accessory parts, appertaining to the reproductive system, which properly belong to the opposite sex.... Some remote progenitor of the whole vertebrate kingdom appears to have been hermaphrodite or androgynous.(268) But here we encounter a singular difficulty. _In the mammalian class the males possess rudiments of a uterus with the adjacent passages in the vesiculć prostaticć; they bear also rudiments of mammć, and some male marsupials have traces of a marsupial sac._ Other analogous facts could be added. Are we, then, to suppose that some extremely ancient mammal continued androgynous, after it had acquired the chief distinctions of its class, and therefore after it had diverged from the lower classes of the vertebrate kingdom? This seems very improbable,(269) _for we have to look to fishes, the lowest of all the classes, to find any still existent androgynous forms_.(270) Mr. Darwin is evidently strongly disinclined to adopt the hypothesis which the facts so forcibly suggest, viz., that of a primeval androgynous stem from which the Mammalia sprang. His explanation runs: That various accessory organs, proper to each sex, are found in a rudimentary condition in the opposite sex, may be explained by such organs having been gradually acquired by the one sex, and then transmitted in a more or less imperfect state to the other.(271) He instances the case of "spurs, plumes, and brilliant colours, acquired for battle or ornament by male birds" and only _partially_ inherited by their female descendants. In the problem to be dealt with, however, the need of a more satisfactory explanation is evident, the facts being of so much more prominent and important a character than the mere superficial details with which they are compared by Darwin. Why not candidly admit the argument in favour of the hermaphroditism which characterizes the old fauna? Occultism proposes a solution which embraces the facts in a most comprehensive and simple manner. These relics of a prior androgyne stock must be placed in the same category as the pineal gland, and other organs equally mysterious, which afford us silent testimony as to the reality of functions which have long since become atrophied in the course of animal and human progress, but which once played a signal part in the general economy of primeval life. The Occult doctrine, in any case, can be advantageously compared with that of the most liberal men of Science, who have theorized upon the origin of the first man. Long before Darwin, Naudin, who gave the name of Blastema to that which the Darwinists call Protoplasm, put forward a theory half Occult and half scientifico-materialistic. He made Adam, the A-sexual, spring suddenly from the _clay_, as it is called in the _Bible_, the Blastema of Science. As Naudin explains: It is from this larval form of mankind, that the evolutive force effected the completion of species. For the accomplishment of this great phenomenon, Adam had to pass through a phase of immobility and unconsciousness, very analogous to the nymphal state of animals undergoing metamorphosis.(272) For the eminent Botanist, Adam was not one man, however, but _mankind_, which remained Concealed within a temporary organism, already distinct from all others, and incapable of contracting an alliance with any of them. He shows the differentiation of sexes accomplished by A process of germination similar to that of medusć and ascidians. Mankind, thus constituted physiologically, Would retain a sufficient evolutive force for the rapid production of the various great human races. De Quatrefages criticizes this position in _The Human Species_. It is _unscientific_, he says, or, properly speaking, Naudin's ideas "do not form a scientific theory," inasmuch as Primordial Blastema is connected in his theory with the "_first cause_," which is credited with having made potentially in the Blastema all past, present, and future beings, and thus of having in reality _created_ these beings _en masse_; moreover, Naudin does not even consider the "_second causes_," or their action in this evolution of the organic world. Science, which is only occupied with "second causes," has thus Nothing to say to the theory of M. Naudin.(273) Nor will it have any more to say to the Occult teachings, which are to some extent approached by Naudin. For if we but see in his "Primordial Blastema" the Dhyân-Chohanic Essence, the Chhâyâ or Double of the Pitris, which contains within itself the potentiality of all forms, we are quite in accord. But there are two real and vital differences between our teachings. M. Naudin declares that evolution has progressed by sudden leaps and bounds, instead of extending slowly over millions of years; and his Primordial Blastema is endowed only with blind instincts--a kind of _unconscious_ First Cause in the Manifested Kosmos--which is an absurdity. Whereas it is our Dhyân-Chohanic Essence--the _Causality_ of the Primal Cause which creates _physical_ man--which is the living, active and potential Matter (pregnant _per se_ with that animal consciousness of a superior kind, such as is found in the ant and the beaver) which produces the long series of physiological differentiations. Apart from this, his "ancient and general process of _creation_" from Proto-organisms is as Occult as any theory of Paracelsus or Khunrath could be. Moreover, the Kabalistic works are full of the proof of this. The _Zohar_, for instance, says that every type in the visible has its prototype in the invisible Universe. All that which is in the Lower (our) World is found in the Upper. The Lower and the Upper act and reäct upon each other.(274) 20. THEIR FATHERS WERE THE SELF-BORN. THE SELF-BORN, THE CHHÂYÂ FROM THE BRILLIANT BODIES OF THE LORDS, THE FATHERS, THE SONS OF TWILIGHT. The "Shadows," or Chhâyâs, are called the Sons of the "Self-born," as the latter name is applied to all the Gods and Beings, born through the Will, whether of Deity or Adept. The Homunculi of Paracelsus would, perhaps, be also given this name, though the latter process is on a far more material plane. The name "Sons of Twilight" shows that the "Self-born" Progenitors of our Doctrine are identical with the Pitris of the Brâhmanical System, as the title is a reference to their mode of birth; these Pitris being stated to have issued from Brahmâ's "Body of Twilight," as stated in the _Purânas_. 21. WHEN THE RACE BECAME OLD, THE OLD WATERS MIXED WITH THE FRESHER WATERS (_A_). WHEN ITS DROPS BECAME TURBID, THEY VANISHED AND DISAPPEARED IN THE NEW STREAM, IN THE HOT STREAM OF LIFE. THE OUTER OF THE FIRST BECAME THE INNER OF THE SECOND (_B_). THE OLD WING BECAME THE NEW SHADOW, AND THE SHADOW OF THE WING (_C_). (_a_) The old or Primitive Race merged in the Second Race, and became one with it. (_b_) This is the mysterious process of the transformation and evolution of mankind. The material of the first Forms--shadowy, ethereal, and negative--was drawn or absorbed into, and thus became the complement of the Forms of the Second Race. The Commentary explains this by saying that, as the First Race was simply composed of the Astral Shadows of the Creative Progenitors, having of course neither astral nor physical bodies of its own--the Race _never died_. Its "Men" melted gradually away, becoming absorbed in the bodies of their own "Sweat-born" progeny, more solid than their own. The old Form vanished and was absorbed by, disappeared in, the new Form, more human and physical. There was no death in those days of a period more blissful than the Golden Age; but the first, or parent, material was used for the formation of the new being, to form the Body and even the inner or _lower_ Principles or Bodies of the progeny. (_c_) When the "Shadow" retires, _i.e._, when the Astral Body becomes covered with more solid flesh, man develops a Physical Body. The "Wing," or the ethereal Form that produced its Shadow and Image, became the Shadow of the Astral Body and its own progeny. The expression is queer and original. As there may be no occasion to refer to this mystery later, it is as well to point out at once the dual meaning contained in the Greek myth bearing upon this particular phase of evolution. It is found in the several variants of the allegory of Leda and her two sons Castor and Pollux, each of which variants has a special meaning. Thus in Book XI of the _Odyssey_, Leda is spoken of as the spouse of Tyndarus, who gave birth by her husband "to two sons of valiant heart"--Castor and Pollux. Jupiter endows them with a marvellous gift and privilege. They are semi-immortal; they live and die, each in turn, and every alternate day ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}(275)). As the Tyndaridć, the twin brothers are an astronomical symbol, and stand for Day and Night; their two wives, Phoebe and Hilaeira, the daughters of Apollo or the Sun, personifying the Dawn and the Twilight.(276) Again, in the allegory where Zeus is shown as the father of the two heroes--born from the Egg to which Leda gives birth--the myth is entirely theogonical. It relates to that group of cosmic allegories in which the world is described as born from an Egg. For Leda assumes in it the shape of a white swan, when uniting herself to the Divine Swan or Brahma-Kalahamsa. Leda is the mythical Bird, then, to which, in the traditions of various peoples of the Âryan race, are attributed various ornithological forms of birds which all lay golden Eggs.(277) In the _Kalevala_, the Epic Poem of Finland, the beauteous daughter of the Ether, the "Water-Mother," creates the World in conjunction with a "Duck"--another form of the Swan or Goose, Kalahamsa--who lays six golden eggs, and the seventh, an "egg of iron," in her lap. But the variant of the Leda allegory which has a direct reference to mystic man is found in Pindar(278) only, with a slighter reference to it in the Homeric Hymns.(279) Castor and Pollux are in it no longer the Dioscuri of Apollodorus(280); but become the highly significant symbol of the dual man, the Mortal and the Immortal. Not only this, but as will now be seen, they are also the symbol of the Third Race, and its transformation from the Animal-man into a God-man with only an animal body. Pindar shows Leda uniting herself in the same night to her husband and also to the Father of the Gods--Zeus. Thus Castor is the son of the Mortal, Pollux the progeny of the Immortal. In the allegory made up for the occasion, it is said that in a riot of vengeance against the Apharides,(281) Pollux kills Lynceus--"of all mortals he whose sight is the most penetrating"--but Castor is wounded by Idas, "he who sees and knows." Zeus puts an end to the fight by hurling his thunderbolt and killing the last two combatants. Pollux finds his brother dying.(282) In his despair he calls upon Zeus to slay him also. "Thou canst not die altogether," answers the master of the Gods; "thou art of a divine race." But he gives him the choice: Pollux will either remain immortal, living eternally in Olympus; or, if he would share his brother's fate in all things, he must pass half his existence underground, and the other half in the golden heavenly abodes. This semi-immortality, which is also to be shared by Castor, is accepted by Pollux.(283) _And thus the twin brothers live alternately, one during the day, and the other during the night._(284) Is this a poetical fiction only? An allegory, one of those "solar myth" interpretations, higher than which no modern Orientalist seems able to soar? Indeed, it is much more. Here we have an allusion to the "Egg-born" Third Race; the first half of which is mortal, _i.e._, unconscious in its Personality, and having nothing within itself to survive;(285) and the latter half of which becomes immortal in its Individuality, by reason of its Fifth Principle being called to life by the _Informing Gods_, and thus connecting the Monad with this Earth. This is Pollux; while Castor represents the _personal_, mortal man, an animal of not even a superior kind, when unlinked from the divine _Individuality_. "Twins" truly; yet divorced by death for ever, unless Pollux, moved by the voice of twinship, bestows on his less favoured mortal brother a share of his own divine nature, thus associating him with his own immortality. Such is the Occult meaning of the metaphysical aspect of the allegory. The widely spread modern interpretation of it--so celebrated in antiquity, Plutarch tells us,(286) as symbolical of brotherly devotion--namely, that it was an image of the Sun and Moon borrowed from the spectacle of Nature, is weak and inadequate to explain the secret meaning. Besides the fact that the Moon, with the Greeks, was feminine in exoteric mythology, and could therefore hardly be regarded as Castor, and at the same time be identified with Diana, ancient Symbologists who held the Sun, the king of all sidereal orbs, as the visible image of the highest Deity, would not have personified it by Pollux, a demi-god only.(287) If from Greek mythology we pass to the Mosaic allegories and symbolism, we shall find a still more striking corroboration of the same tenet under another form. Unable to trace in them the "Egg-born," we shall still unmistakably find in the first four chapters of _Genesis_ the Androgynes and the first Three Races of the Secret Doctrine, hidden under most ingenious symbology. The Divine Hermaphrodite. An impenetrable veil of secrecy was thrown over the Occult and Religious Mysteries, after the submersion of the last remnant of the Atlantean Race, some 12,000 years ago, lest they should be shared by the unworthy, and so desecrated. Of these Sciences several have now become exoteric--such as Astronomy, for instance, in its purely mathematical and physical aspects. But their dogmas and tenets, being all symbolized and left to the sole guardianship of parable and allegory, have been forgotten, and hence the meaning has become perverted. Nevertheless, one finds the Hermaphrodite in the scriptures and traditions of almost every nation; and why such unanimous agreement if the statement is only a fiction? Under cover of this secrecy the Fifth Race were led to the establishment, or rather the reëstablishment of the Religious Mysteries, in which ancient truths might be taught to the coming generations under the veil of allegory and symbolism. Behold the imperishable witness to the evolution of the Human Races from the Divine, and especially from the Androgynous Race--the Egyptian Sphinx, that riddle of the Ages! Divine Wisdom incarnating on Earth, and forced to taste of the bitter fruit of personal experience of pain and suffering, generated on Earth only under the shade of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil--a secret first known only to the Elohim, the Self-Initiated, "Higher Gods."(288) In the _Book of Enoch_ we have Adam,(289) the first Divine Androgyne, separating into man and woman, and becoming Jah-Heva in one form, or Race, and Cain and Abel(290)--male and female--in its other form or Race--the double-sexed Jehovah,(291) an echo of its Âryan prototype, Brahmâ-Vâch. After which come the Third and Fourth Root-Races of mankind(292)--that is to say, Races of men and women, or individuals of opposite sexes, no longer sexless Semi-spirits and Androgynes, as were the two Races which precede them. This fact is hinted at in every Anthropogony. It is found in fable and allegory, in myth and revealed Scriptures, in legend and tradition. For, of all the great Mysteries, inherited by Initiates from hoary antiquity, this is _one of the greatest_. It accounts for the bi- sexual element found in every Creative Deity, in Brahmâ-Virâj-Vâch, as in Adam-Jehovah-Eve, also in Cain-Jehovah-Abel. For "The Book of the Generations of Adam" does not even mention Cain and Abel, but says only: Male and female created he them; ... and called their name Adam.(293) Then it proceeds to say: And Adam ... begat a son in _his own likeness_, after his image; and called his name Seth.(294) After which he begets other sons and daughters, thus proving that Cain and Abel are his own allegorical permutations. Adam stands for the primitive _Human_ Race, especially in its cosmo-sidereal sense. Not so, however, in its theo-anthropological meaning. The compound name of Jehovah, or Jah- Hovah, meaning _male life_ and _female life_--first androgynous, then separated into sexes--is used in this sense in _Genesis_ from Chapter V onwards. As the author of the _Source of Measures_ says: The two words of which _Jehovah_ is composed make up the original idea of male-female, as the birth originator.(295) For the Hebrew letter _Jod_ was the _membrum virile_ and _Hovah_ was Eve, the mother of all living, or the procreatrix, Earth and Nature. The author believes, therefore, that: It is seen that the _perfect one_ [the perfect female circle or Yoni, 20612, numerically], as _originator of measures_, takes also the form of _birth_ origin, as _hermaphrodite one_; hence the phallic form and use. Precisely; only "the phallic form and use" came long ages later; and the first and original meaning of Enos, the son of Seth, was the first Race born in the present usual way from man and woman--for Seth is no man, but a _race_. Before him humanity was hermaphrodite. While Seth is the first result (physiologically) after the "Fall," he is also the first _man_; hence his son Enos is referred to as the "Son of _Man_." Seth represents the _later_ Third Race. To screen the real mystery name of Ain Suph--the Boundless and Endless No- Thing--the Kabalists have brought forward the compound attribute- appellation of one of the personal Creative Elohim, whose name was Yah or Jah--the letters _i_ or _j_ or _y_ being interchangeable--or Jah-Hovah, _i.e._, _male_ and _female_;(296) Jah-Eve a hermaphrodite, or the _first form of humanity_, the original Adam of Earth, not even Adam Kadmon, whose "Mind-born Son" is the earthly Jah-Hovah, mystically. And knowing this, the crafty Rabbin-Kabalist has made of it a name so _secret_, that he could not divulge it later on without exposing the whole scheme; and thus he was obliged to make it _sacred_. How close is the identity between Brahmâ-Prajâpati and Jehovah-Sephiroth, between Brahmâ-Virâj and Jehovah-Adam, the _Bible_ and the _Purânas_ compared alone can show. Analyzed, and read in the same light, they afford cogent evidence that they are two copies of the same original--made at two periods far distant from each other. Compare once more in relation to this subject _Genesis_ iv. 1 and 26 and _Manu_ i. 32 and they will both yield their meaning. In Manu, Brahmâ, who, like Jehovah or Adam in _Genesis_, is both man and God, and divides his body into male and female, stands, in his Esoteric meaning, for the symbolical personification of creative and _generative_ power, both divine and human. The _Zohar_ affords still more convincing proof of identity, while some Rabbins repeat word for word certain original Paurânic expressions; _e.g._, the "creation" of the world is generally considered in the Brâhmanical books to be the Lîlâ, the delight or sport, the amusement of the Supreme Creator. Vishnu, being thus discrete and indiscrete substance, spirit, and time, sports like a playful boy, as you shall learn by listening to his frolics.(297) Now compare this with what is said in the Book, _Nobeleth 'Hokhmah_: The Qabbalists say, that the entering into existence of the worlds happened through delight, in that Ain Suph [? !] rejoiced in Itself, and flashed and beamed from Itself to Itself ... which are all called delight.(298) Thus it is not a "curious idea of the Qabbalists," as the author just quoted remarks, but a purely Paurânic, Âryan idea. Only, why make of Ain Suph a Creator? The "Divine Hermaphrodite" is, then, Brahmâ-Vâch-Virâj; and that of the Semites, or rather of the Jews, is Jehovah-Cain-Abel. Only the "Heathen" were, and are, more sincere and frank than were the later Israëlites and Rabbis, who undeniably knew the real meaning of their exoteric deity. The Jews regard the name given to them--the Yah-oudi--as an insult. Yet they have, or would have if they only wished it, as undeniable a right to call themselves the ancient Yah-oudi, "Jah-hovians," as the Brâhmans have to call themselves Brâhmans _after their national deity_. For Jah-hovah is the generic name of that Group or Hierarchy of Creative Planetary Angels, under whose Star their nation has evolved. He is one of the Planetary Elohim of the Regent Group of Saturn. Verse 26 of Chapter iv of _Genesis_, when read correctly, would alone give them such a right, for it calls the new Race of men--sprung from Seth and Enos--_Jehovah_, something quite different from the translation adopted in the _Bible_, which ought to read: To him also, was born a son, Enos; then began men to call themselves Jah, or Yah-hovah, to wit, _men and women_, the "Lords of Creation." One has but to read the above-mentioned verse in the original Hebrew text and by the light of the Kabalah, to find that, instead of the words as they now stand translated, the correct translation should be: Then began men to _call themselves_ Jehovah; and not: Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord the latter being a mistranslation, whether deliberate or not. Again the well-known passage: I have gotten a man from the Lord, should read: I have gotten a man, even Jehovah.(299) Luther translated the passage one way, the Roman Catholics quite differently. Bishop Wordsworth renders it: Cain--_I have gotten--Kain_, from _Kâ'nithi, I have gotten_. Luther: I have gotten a man--even the Lord [Jehovah]. And the author of _The Source of Measures_: I have _measured a man_, even _Jehovah_. The last is the correct rendering for--(_a_) a famous Rabbin, a Kabalist, explained the passage to the writer in precisely this way, and (_b_) this rendering is identical with that in the Secret Doctrine of the East with regard to Brahmâ. In _Isis Unveiled_,(300) it was explained by the writer that: Cain ... is the son of the "Lord" not of Adam. The "Lord" is Adam Kadmon, the "Father" of Yod-Heva, "Adam-Eve," or Jehovah, the son of sinful thought, not the progeny of flesh and blood. Seth, on the other hand, is the _leader and the progenitor of the Races of the Earth_; for he is the son of Adam, exoterically, but Esoterically he is the progeny of Cain and Abel, since Abel or Hebel is a female, the counterpart and female half of the male Cain, and Adam is the collective name for man and woman: Male and female (_zachar va nakobeh_) created he them ... and called _their_ name Adam. The verses in _Genesis_ from Chapters i to v, are purposely mixed up for Kabalistic reasons. After the "Man" of _Genesis_ i. 26, and Enos, the Son of Man, of iv. 26; after Adam, the first Androgyne; after Adam Kadmon--the sexless (the first) Logos--Adam and Eve once separated, come finally Jehovah-Eve and Cain-Jehovah. These represent distinct Root-Races, for millions of years elapsed between them. Hence the Âryan and the Semitic Theo-anthropographies are two leaves on the same stem; their respective personifications and symbolic personages standing in relation to each other in the following way: I. The "Unknowable" referred to in various ways in Rig Vedic verse, such as "_Nought_ was," called, later on, Parabrahman--the {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}{~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER FINAL NUN~}, Ain, No-thing, or Ain Suph of the Kabalists--and again, the "Spirit" (of God) that moves upon the face of the Waters, in _Genesis_. All these are _identical_. Moreover, in _Genesis_ i, verse 2 is placed as verse 1 in the _secret_ Kabalistic texts, where it is followed by the Elohim "creating the Heaven and the Earth." This deliberate shifting of the order of the verses was necessary for _monotheistic_ and Kabalistic purposes. Jeremiah's curse against those Elohim (Gods) who _have not created_ the Heavens and the Earth,(301) shows that there were other Elohim who had. II. The Heavenly Manu-Svâyambhuva, who sprang from Svayambhű-Nârâyana, the "Self-existent," the Adam Kadmon of the Kabalists, and the Androgyne "Man," of _Genesis_ i, are also identical. III. Manu-Svâyambhuva is Brahmâ, or the Logos; and he is Adam Kadmon, who in _Genesis_, iv. 5, separates himself into two halves, male and female, thus becoming Jah-Hovah or Jehovah-Eve; as Manu-Svâyambhuva, or Brahmâ, separates himself to become "Brahmâ-Virâj and Vâch-Virâj," male and female. All the rest of the texts and versions are "blinds." IV. Vâch is the daughter of Brahmâ and is named Shata-Rűpâ, "the hundred- formed," and Sâvitrî, Generatrix, the Mother of the Gods and of all living. She is identical with Eve, "the Mother [of all the Lords or Gods or] of all living." Besides this there are many other Occult meanings. What is written on the subject in _Isis Unveiled_, although scattered about and very cautiously expressed at the time, is correct. Explaining Esoterically Ezekiel's Wheel, it is said of Jodhevah or Jehovah: When the Ternary is taken in the beginning of the Tetragram, it expresses the Divine Creation _spiritually_, _i.e._, without any carnal sin: taken at its opposite end it expresses the latter; it is feminine. The name of Eve is composed of three letters, that of the primitive or heavenly Adam, is written with one letter, Jod or Yod; therefore it must not be read Jehovah but Ieva, or Eve. The Adam of the first chapter is the spiritual, therefore pure androgyne, Adam Kadmon. When woman issues from the left rib of the second Adam (of dust), the pure Virgo is separated, and falling into "generation," or the downward cycle, becomes Scorpio, emblem of sin and matter. While the ascending cycle points to the purely Spiritual Races, or the ten Prediluvian Patriarchs, the Prajâpatis and Sephiroth, led on by the creative Deity itself, who is Adam Kadmon or Yodcheva, [spiritually,] the lower one [Jehovah] is that of the Terrestrial Races, led on by Enoch or Libra, the seventh; who, because he is half-divine, half-terrestrial, is said to have been taken by God alive. Enoch, or Hermes, or Libra, are one.(302) This is only one of the several meanings. No need to remind the scholar that Scorpio is the astrological sign of the organs of reproduction. Like the Indian Rishis, the Patriarchs are all convertible in their numbers, as well as interchangeable. According to the subject to which they relate they become ten, twelve, seven or five, and even _fourteen_, and they have the same Esoteric meaning as the Manus or Rishis. Moreover, Jehovah, as may be shown, has a variety of etymologies, but only those are _true_ which are found in the Kabalah. {~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~} (Ieve) is the _Old Testament_ term, and was pronounced Ya-va. Inman suggests that it is contracted from the two words {~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~} {~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}, Yaho-Iah, Jaho-Jah, or Jaho is Jah. Punctuated it is {~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW POINT SHEVA~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW POINT HOLAM~}{~HEBREW POINT SEGOL~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}, which is, however, a Rabbinical caprice to associate it with the name Adoni, or {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}{~HEBREW POINT HATAF PATAH~}{~HEBREW LETTER DALET~}{~HEBREW LETTER NUN~}{~HEBREW POINT QAMATS~}{~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}, which has the same points. It is curious, and indeed hardly conceivable, that the Jews anciently read the name {~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~} Adoni, when they had so many names of which Jeho, and Jah, and Iah, constituted a part. But so it was; and Philo Byblus, who gives us the so-called fragment of Sanchuniathon, spelt it in Greek letters {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}, Javo or Jevo. Theodoret says that the Samaritans pronounced it Yahva, and the Jews Yaho. Prof. Gibbs, however, suggests its punctuation thus: {~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW POINT TSERE~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW POINT HIRIQ~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW POINT SEGOL~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~} (Ye-hou-vih); and he cut the Gordian knot of its true Occult meaning. For in this last form, as a Hebrew verb, it means "he will--be."(303) It was also derived from the Chaldaic verb {~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW POINT HATAF PATAH~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW POINT QAMATS~}{~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}, or {~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW POINT HIRIQ~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW POINT QAMATS~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}, eue (eve), or eua (eva), "to be." And so it was, since from Enosh, the "Son of Man," only, were the truly human Races to begin and "to be," as males and females. This statement receives further corroboration, inasmuch as Parkhurst makes the verb {~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~} to mean, (1) "to fall down" (_i.e._ into generation or Matter); and (2) "to be, to continue"--as a _race_. The aspirate of the word eua (Eva), "to be," being {~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}, Heve (Eve), which is the feminine of {~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}, and the same as Hebe, the Grecian Goddess of youth and the Olympian bride of Heracles, makes the name Jehovah appear still more clearly in its primitive double-sexed form. Finding in Sanskrit such syllables as Jah and Yah, _e.g._, Jâh-navî, "Ganges," and Jagan-nâtha, "Lord of the World," it becomes clear why Mr. Rawlinson is so very confident in his works of an Âryan or Vedic influence on the early mythology of Babylon. Nor is it to be much wondered at that the alleged ten tribes of Israel disappeared during the captivity period, without leaving a trace behind them, when we are informed that the Jews had _de facto_ but two tribes--those of Judah and of Levi. The Levites, moreover, were not a tribe at all, but a priestly caste. The descendants have only followed their progenitors, the various patriarchs, into thin, sidereal air. There were _Brahms_ and _A-brahms_, in days of old, truly, and before the first Jew had been born. Every nation held its first God and Gods to be androgynous; nor could it be otherwise, since they regarded their distant primeval progenitors, their dual-sexed ancestors, as divine Beings and Gods, just as do the Chinese to this day. And they were divine in one sense, as also was their first human progeny, the "mind-born" primitive humanity, which was most assuredly bi-sexual, as all the more ancient symbols and traditions show. Under the emblematical devices and peculiar phraseology of the priesthood of old, lie latent hints of sciences as yet undiscovered during the present cycle. Well acquainted as may be a scholar with the hieratic writing and hieroglyphical system of the Egyptians, he must first of all learn to sift their records. He has to assure himself, compasses and rule in hand, that the picture-writing he is examining fits, to a line, _certain fixed geometrical figures_ which are the hidden keys to such records, before he ventures on an interpretation. But there are myths which speak for themselves. In this class we may include the double-sexed first creators of every Cosmogony. The Greek Zeus-Zęn (Ćther), and Chthonia (the Chaotic Earth) and Metis (Water), his wives; Osiris and Isis-Latona--the former God also representing Ćther, the first emanation of the Supreme Deity, Amun, the primeval source of Light; the Goddess Earth and Water again; Mithras, the rock-born God, the symbol of the male Mundane Fire, or the personified Primordial Light, and Mithra, the Fire- Goddess, at once his mother and his wife; the pure element of Fire (the active, or male principle) regarded as light and heat, in conjunction with Earth and Water, or Matter (the female or passive element of cosmical generation).(304) All these are records of the primeval divine Hermaphrodite. Stanza VI. The Evolution Of The "Sweat-Born." 22. The evolution of the three Races continued. 23. The Second Race creates the Third and perishes. 22. THEN THE SECOND EVOLVED THE EGG-BORN, THE THIRD.(305) THE SWEAT GREW, ITS DROPS GREW, AND THE DROPS BECAME HARD AND ROUND. THE SUN WARMED IT; THE MOON COOLED AND SHAPED IT; THE WIND FED IT UNTIL ITS RIPENESS. THE WHITE SWAN FROM THE STARRY VAULT(306) OVERSHADOWED THE BIG DROP. THE EGG OF THE FUTURE RACE, THE MAN-SWAN(307) OF THE LATER THIRD (_A_). FIRST MALE-FEMALE, THEN MAN AND WOMAN (_B_). (_a_) The text of the Stanza clearly implies that the human embryo was nourished _ab extra_ by Cosmic Forces, and that the "Father-Mother" furnished apparently the germ that ripened; in all probability a "sweat- born egg," to be hatched out, in some mysterious way, disconnected from the "double" parent. It is comparatively easy to conceive of an oviparous humanity, since even now man is, in one sense, "egg-born." Magendie, moreover, in his _Precis Élémentaire de Physiologie_, citing A case where the umbilical cord was ruptured and perfectly cicatrized, yet the infant was born alive, pertinently asks: How was the circulation carried on in this organ? On the next page he says: Nothing is at present known respecting the use of digestion in the foetus. And respecting its nutrition, he propounds this query: What, then, can we say of the nutrition of the foetus? Physiological works contain only _vague conjectures_ on this point. "Ah, but," the sceptic may urge, "Magendie's book belongs to the last generation, and Science has since made such strides that his stigma of ignorance can no longer be fixed upon the profession." Indeed; then let us turn to a very great authority upon Physiology, viz., Sir Michael Foster, and, to the disadvantage of Modern Science, we shall find him saying: Concerning the rise and development of the functional activities of the embryo, our knowledge is almost a blank. We know scarcely anything about the various steps by which the primary fundamental qualities of the protoplasm of the ovum are differentiated into the complex phenomena which we have attempted in this book to explain.(308) The students of Trin. Coll. Cantab, will now kindly draw a veil before the statue of Hygieia and bandage the eyes of the busts of Galen and Hippocrates, lest they look reproachfully at their degenerate descendants. One further fact we must note. Sir Michael Foster is discreetly silent about the case of the ruptured umbilical cord cited by his great French _confrčre_. (_b_) This is a very curious statement as explained in the Commentaries. To make it clear: The First Race having created the Second by "budding," as explained above, the Second Race gives birth to the Third--which itself is separated into three distinct divisions, consisting of men differently procreated. The first two of these are produced by an oviparous method, presumably unknown to modern Natural History. While the early sub-races of the Third Humanity procreated their species by a kind of exudation of moisture or vital fluid, the drops of which coalescing formed an oviform ball--or shall we say egg--that served as an extraneous vehicle for the generation therein of a foetus and child, the mode of procreation by the later sub-races changed, in its results at all events. The little ones of the earlier sub-races were entirely sexless--shapeless even for all one knows;(309) but those of the later sub-races were born androgynous. It is in the Third Race that the separation of sexes occurred. From being previously a-sexual, Humanity became distinctly hermaphrodite or bi- sexual; and finally the man-bearing Eggs began to give birth, gradually and almost imperceptibly in their evolutionary development, first, to beings in which one sex predominated over the other, and, finally, to distinct men and women. And now let us search for corroboration of these statements in the religious legends of East and West. Let us take the "Egg-born Race" first. Think of Kashyapa, the Vedic sage, and the most prolific of creators. He was the son of Marichi, Brahmâ's Mind-born Son; and he is made to become the father of the Nâgas, or Serpents, among other beings. Exoterically, the Nâgas are semi-divine beings which have a human face and the tail of a serpent. Yet there was a race of Nâgas, said to be a thousand in number only, born or rather sprung from Kadrű, Kashyapa's wife, for _the purpose of peopling Pâtâla_, which is undeniably America, as will be shown; and there was a Nâga-Dvîpa, one of the seven divisions of Bhâratavarsha, India, inhabited by a people bearing the same name, who are allowed, even by some Orientalists, to be _historical_, and to have left many a trace behind them to this day. Now the point most insisted upon at present is that, whatever origin be claimed for man, his evolution took place in this order: (1) sexless, as all the earlier forms are; (2) then, by a natural transition, he became a "solitary hermaphrodite," a bi-sexual being; and (3) finally separated and became what he is now. Science teaches us that all the primitive forms, though sexless, "still retained the power of undergoing the processes of a-sexual multiplication"; why, then, should man be excluded from that law of Nature? Bi-sexual reproduction is an evolution, a specialized and perfected form on the scale of Matter of the fissiparous act of reproduction. Occult teachings are preëminently panspermic, and the early history of humanity is hidden only "from ordinary mortals"; nor is the history of the primitive Races buried for the Initiates in the tomb of time, as it is for profane Science. Therefore, supported on the one hand by that Science which shows us progressive development and an internal cause for every external modification, as a law in Nature; and, on the other hand, by an implicit faith in the Wisdom--we may say Pansophia even--of the universal traditions gathered and preserved by the Initiates, who have perfected them into an almost faultless system--thus supported, we venture to state the doctrine clearly. In an able article, written some fifteen years ago, our learned and respected friend Prof. Alexander Wilder, of New York, shows the absolute logic and necessity of believing "The Primeval Race Double-Sexed," and gives a number of scientific reasons for it.(310) He argues firstly, that a large part of the vegetable creation exhibits the phenomenon of bi- sexuality, the Linnćan classification enumerating thus almost all plants. This is the case in the superior families of the vegetable kingdoms as much as in the lower forms, from the hemp to the Lombardy poplar and ailanthus. In the animal kingdom also it is the same. In insect life, the moth generates a worm, and the worm becomes a moth, as in the Mysteries the great secret was expressed--_Taurus __ Taurus Draconem genuit, et Taurum Draco_. The coral-producing family, which, according to Agassiz, has spent many hundreds of thousands of years, during the present geological period, in building out the peninsula of Florida, produce their offspring from themselves like the buds and ramifications in a tree. Bees are somewhat in the same line. The aphides, or plant lice, keep house like Amazons, and _virgin parents_ perpetuate the race for ten successive generations. What say the old Sages, the Philosopher-teachers of antiquity? Aristophanes speaks thus on the subject in Plato's _Banquet_: Our nature of old was not the same as it is now. It was _androgynous_; the form and name partaking of, and being common to both the male and female.... Their bodies ... were round, and the manner of their running circular.(311) They were terrible in force and strength and had prodigious ambition. Hence Zeus divided each of them into two, making them weaker; Apollo, under his direction, closed up the skin. Meshia and Meshiane were but a single individual with the old Persians. They also taught that man was the product of the Tree of Life, growing in androgynous pairs, till they were separated at a subsequent modification of the human form. In the Book of the Generations (_Toleduth_) of Adam, the verse: God created (_bara_, brought forth) man in his image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them, --if read Esoterically will yield the true sense, viz.: The Elohim [Gods] brought forth from themselves [by modification] man in their image ... created they _him_ [collective Humanity, or Adam], male and female created _he_ [collective Deity] them.(312) This will show the Esoteric point. The _Sexless_ Race was their first production, a modification _of_ and _from_ themselves, the pure Spiritual Existences; and this was Adam _solus_. Thence came the _Second_ Race: Adam-Eve, or Jod-Heva, inactive Androgynes; and finally the _Third_, or the "_Separating_ Hermaphrodite," Cain and Abel, who produce the Fourth, Seth-Enos, etc. It is this Third, the last semi-spiritual Race, which was also the last vehicle of the divine and innate Wisdom, ingenerate in the Enochs, the Seers of that Mankind. The _Fourth_, which had tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil--Wisdom already united to earthy, and therefore _impure_, intelligence(313)--had consequently to acquire that Wisdom by initiation and great struggle. And the union of Wisdom and Intelligence, the former _ruling_ the latter, is called in the Hermetic books "the God possessing the double fecundity of the two sexes." Mystically Jesus was held to be man-woman. So also in the Orphic Hymns, sung during the Mysteries, we find: "Zeus is a male, Zeus is an immortal maid." The Egyptian Ammon was the Goddess Neďth, in his other half. Jupiter has female breasts, Venus is bearded in some of her statues, and Ilâ, the Goddess, is also Su-dyumna, the God, as Vaivasvata's progeny. Says Professor Wilder: The name _Adam_, or man, itself implies this double form of existence. It is identical with _Athamas_, or _Thomas_ (Tamil, _Tam_), which is rendered by the Greek _Didumos_, a twin; if, therefore, the first woman was formed subsequently to the first man, she must, as a logical necessity, be "taken out of man." Accordingly we read: "And the _side_ which the Lord God [Elohim] had taken from man, made he a woman." The Hebrew word here used is _Tzala_, which bears the translation we have given. It is easy to trace the legend in Berosus, who says that _Thalatth_ (the _Omorôka_, or Lady of Urka) was the beginning of creation. She was also Telita [? Melita], the queen of the Moon.... The two memorable twin-births of _Genesis_, that of Cain and Abel, and of Esau and Jacob, shadow the same idea. The name _Hebel_ is the same as Eve, and its characteristic seems to be feminine. "Unto thee shall be his desire," said the Lord God to Cain; "and thou shalt rule over him." The same language had been uttered to Eve: "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Thus the pristine bi-sexual unity of the human Third Root-Race is an axiom in the Secret Doctrine. Its virgin individuals were raised to "Gods," because that Race represented their "Divine Dynasty." The moderns are satisfied with worshipping the male heroes of the Fourth Race, who created Gods after their own sexual image, whereas the Gods of primeval mankind were "male _and_ female." As stated in Volume I, the Humanities developed coördinately, and on parallel lines with the four Elements, every new Race being physiologically adapted to meet the additional Element. Our Fifth Race is rapidly approaching the Fifth Element--call it interstellar ether, if you will--which has more to do, however, with psychology than with physics. We men have learned to live in every climate, whether frigid or tropical, but the first two Races had nought to do with climate, nor were they subservient to any temperature or change therein. And thus, we are taught, men lived down to the close of the Third Root-Race, when eternal spring reigned over the whole Globe, such as is now enjoyed by the inhabitants of Jupiter; a world, which, as M. Camille Flammarion says: Is not subject like our own to the vicissitudes of seasons nor to abrupt alternations of temperature, but is enriched with all the treasures of eternal spring.(314) Those Astronomers who maintain that Jupiter is in a molten condition, in our sense of the term, are invited to settle their dispute with this learned French Astronomer.(315) It must, however, be always borne in mind that the "eternal spring" referred to is only a condition _cognized as such by the Jovians_. It is not "spring," _as we know it_. In this reservation is to be found the reconciliation between the two theories here cited. Both embrace _partial_ truths. It is thus a universal tradition that mankind has evolved gradually into its present shape from an almost transparent condition of texture, and neither by miracle nor by sexual intercourse. Moreover, this is in full accord with the ancient Philosophies; from those of Egypt and India, with their Divine Dynasties, down to that of Plato. And all these universal beliefs must be classed with the "presentiments" and "obstinate conceptions," some of them ineradicable, in popular faiths. Such beliefs, as remarked by Louis Figuier, are: Frequently the outcome of the wisdom and observation of an infinite number of generations of men.... [For], a tradition which has a uniform and universal existence, has all the weight of scientific testimony.(316) And there is more than one such tradition in the Paurânic allegories, as has been shown. Moreover, the doctrine that the First Race of mankind was formed out of the Chhâyâs, or Astral Images, of the Pitris, is fully corroborated in the _Zohar_: In the _Tzelem_, shadow image of Elohim [the Pitris], He made Adam (man).(317) It has been repeatedly urged as an objection that, however high the degree of metaphysical thought in ancient India, yet the old Egyptians had nothing but crass idolatry and zoolatry to boast of; Hermes, as alleged, being the work of Greek Mystics who lived in Egypt. To this, an answer can be given: a direct proof that the Egyptians believed in the Secret Doctrine is, that it was taught to them at Initiation. Let the objectors open the _Eclogć Physicoe et Ethicć_ of Stobćus, the Greek compiler of ancient fragments, who lived in the fifth century, A.D. The following is a transcription by him of an old Hermetic fragment, showing the Egyptian theory of the Soul. Translated word for word, it says: From one Soul, that of All, spring all the souls, which spread themselves as if purposely distributed through the world. These souls undergo many transformations; those which are already creeping creatures turn into aquatic animals; from these aquatic animals are derived land animals; and from the latter the birds. From the beings who live aloft in the air (heaven) men are born. On reaching that status of men, the souls receive the principle of (conscious) immortality, become spirits, then pass into the choir of Gods. 23. THE SELF-BORN WERE THE CHHÂYÂS, THE SHADOWS FROM THE BODIES OF THE SONS OF TWILIGHT. NEITHER WATER NOR FIRE COULD DESTROY THEM. THEIR SONS WERE.(318) This verse cannot be understood without the help of the Commentaries. It means that the First Root-Race, the "Shadows" of the Progenitors, could not be injured, or destroyed by death. Being so ethereal and so little human in constitution, they could not be affected by any element--flood or fire. But their "Sons," the Second Root-Race, could be and were so destroyed. As the Progenitors merged wholly in their own Astral Bodies, which were their progeny, so that progeny was absorbed in its descendants, the "Sweat-born." These were the Second Humanity--composed of the most heterogeneous gigantic semi-human monsters--the first attempts of material nature at building human bodies. The ever-blooming lands (Greenland, among others) of the Second Continent were transformed, successively, from Edens with their eternal spring, into hyperborean Hades. This transformation was due to the displacement of the great waters of the Globe, to oceans changing their beds; and the bulk of the Second Race perished in this first great throe of the evolution and consolidation of the Globe during the human period. Of such great cataclysms there have already been four.(319) And we may expect a fifth for ourselves in due course of time. A Few Words About "Deluges" And "Noahs." The accounts in the various _Purânas_ about our Progenitors are as contradictory, _in their details_, as everything else. Thus while, in the _Rig Veda_, Idâ, or Ilâ, is called the Instructress of Vaivasvata Manu, Sâyana makes of her a Goddess presiding over the Earth, and the _Shatapatha Brâhmana_ shows her to be the Manu's daughter, an offspring of _his sacrifice_, and later on, his (Vaivasvata's) _wife, by whom he begat the race of Manus_. In the _Purânas_ she is, again, Vaivasvata's daughter, yet the wife of Budha (Wisdom), the illegitimate son of the Moon (Soma) and the planet Jupiter's (Brihaspati's) wife, Târâ. All this, which seems a jumble to the profane, is full of philosophical meaning to the Occultist. On the very face of the narrative a secret and sacred meaning is perceivable; all the details, however, being so purposely mixed up that the experienced eye of an Initiate alone can follow them and place the events in their proper order. The story as told in the _Mahâbhârata_ strikes the key-note, and yet it needs to be explained by the secret sense contained in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_. It is the _prologue_ to the drama of our (Fifth) Humanity. While Vaivasvata was engaged in devotion on the river bank, a fish craves his protection from a bigger fish. He saves it and places it in a jar; where, growing larger and larger, it communicates to him the news of the forthcoming Deluge. This Fish is the well-known Matsya Avatâra, the first Avatâra of Vishnu, the Dagon(320) of the Chaldćan Xisuthrus, and many other things besides. The story is too well known to need repetition. Vishnu orders a ship to be built, in which Manu is saved along with the seven Rishis, according to the _Mahâbhârata_; this, however, being absent from other texts. Here the seven Rishis stand for the seven Races, the seven Principles, and various other things; for there is again a double mystery involved in this manifold allegory. We have said elsewhere that the Great Flood had several meanings, and that it referred, as also does the "Fall," to both spiritual and physical, both cosmic and terrestrial, events: as above, so it is below. The Ship or Ark--Navis--in short, being the symbol of the female generative Principle, is typified in the heavens by the Moon, and on Earth by the Womb; both being the vessels and bearers of the seeds of life and being, which the Sun, or Vishnu, the male Principle, vivifies and fructifies. The First Cosmic Flood refers to Primordial Creation, or the formation of Heaven and the Earths; in which case Chaos and the great Deep stand for the "Flood," and the Moon for the "Mother," from whom proceed all the life-germs.(321) But the Terrestrial Deluge and its story has also its dual application. In one case it has reference to that mystery when mankind was saved from utter destruction, by the mortal woman being made the receptacle of the human seed at the end of the Third Race,(322) and in the other to the real and historical Atlantean Submersion. In both cases the "Host"--or the Manu which saved the "seed"--is called Vaivasvata Manu. Hence the diversity between the Paurânic and other versions; while in the _Shatapatha Brâhmana_, Vaivasvata produces a daughter and begets from her the race of Manu--a reference to the first human Manushyas, who had to create women by Will (Kriyâshakti), before they were naturally born from the Hermaphrodites as an independent sex, and were, therefore, regarded as their creator's "daughters." The Paurânic accounts make Idâ, or Ilâ, the wife of Budha (Wisdom). This version refers to the events of the Atlantean Flood, when Vaivasvata, the great Sage on Earth, saved the Fifth Root-Race from being destroyed along with the remnants of the Fourth. This is shown very clearly in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, where Krishna is made to say: The seven Great Rishis, the _four preceding_ Manus, partaking of my essence, were born from my mind: from them sprang (was born) the human race and the world.(323) Here the four preceding Manus, out of the seven, are the four Races(324) which have already lived, for Krishna belongs to the Fifth Race, his death having inaugurated the Kali Yuga. Thus Vaivasvata Manu, the son of Sűrya, the Sun, and the Saviour of our Race, is connected with the "Seed of Life," both physically and spiritually. But, at present, while speaking of all, we have to concern ourselves only with the first two. The "Deluge" is undeniably a "universal tradition." "Glacial Periods" were numerous, and so were the "Deluges," for various reasons. Stockwell and Croll enumerate some half-dozen Glacial Periods and subsequent Deluges--the earliest of all being dated by them 850,000, and the last about 100,000 years ago.(325) But which was _our_ Deluge? Assuredly the former, the one which to this date remains recorded in the traditions of all the peoples from the remotest antiquity; the one that finally swept away the last peninsulas of Atlantis, beginning with Ruta and Daitya and ending with the comparatively small island mentioned by Plato. This is shown by the agreement of certain details in all the legends. It was the last of its gigantic character. The little deluge, the traces of which Baron Bunsen found in Central Asia, and which he places at about 10,000 years B.C., had nothing to do with either the _semi_-universal Deluge, or Noah's Flood--the latter being a purely mythical rendering of old traditions--nor even with the submersion of the last Atlantean island; or, at least, having with them only a moral connection. Our Fifth Race--the non-initiated portions of it--hearing of many Deluges, have confused them, and now know of but one. This one altered the whole aspect of the Globe in its interchange, and shifting, of land and sea. We may compare the tradition of the Peruvians that: The Incas, _seven_ in number, have repeopled the earth after the deluge.(326) Humboldt mentions the Mexican version of the same legend, but confuses somewhat the details of the still-preserved legend concerning the American Noah. Nevertheless, the eminent Naturalist mentions _twice seven_ companions and the "divine bird" which preceded the boat of the Aztecs, and thus makes fifteen elect instead of the seven and the fourteen. This was written probably under some involuntary reminiscence of Moses, who is said to have mentioned fifteen grandsons of Noah, who escaped with their grandsire. Then again Xisuthrus, the Chaldćan Noah, is saved and translated "alive" to heaven--like Enoch--with the seven Gods, the Kabirim, or the seven divine Titans. Again the Chinese Yao has _seven_ figures which sail with him and which he will "animate" when he lands, and use for "human seed." Osiris, when he enters the Ark, or Solar Boat, takes _seven_ Rays with him, etc. Sanchuniathon makes the Aletć or Titans (the Kabirim) contemporary with Agruerus, the great Phoenician God--whom Faber sought to identify with Noah;(327) further, it is suspected that the name "Titan" is derived from Tit-Ain,--the "fountains of the chaotic abyss"(328) (Tit-Theus, or Tityus is the "divine deluge"); and thus the Titans, who are _seven_, are shown to be connected with the Flood and the seven Rishis saved by Vaivasvata Manu.(329) These Titans are the sons of Kronos, Time, and Rhea, the Earth; and as Agruerus, Saturn and Sydyk are one and the same personage, and as the seven Kabiri are also said to be the sons of Sydyk or Kronos-Saturn, the Kabiri and Titans are identical. For once the pious Faber was right in his conclusions when he wrote: I have no doubt of the seven Titans or Cabiri being the same also as the seven Rishis of the Hindoo mythology (?), who are said to have escaped in a boat along with Menu the head (?) of the family.(330) But he is less fortunate in his speculations when he adds: The Hindoos, in their wild _legends_ have variously perverted the _history_ of the Noachidć (? !), yet it is remarkable that they seem to have religiously adhered to the number seven:(331) hence Capt. Wilford very judiciously observes, that, "perhaps, the seven Menus, the seven Brahmâdicas, with the seven Rishis, are the same, and make only seven individual persons.(332) The seven Brahmâdicas were _prajâpatis_, or lords of the _prajas_, or creatures. From them mankind was born, and they are probably the same with the seven Menus.... These seven grand ancestors of the human race were ... created for the purpose of replenishing the earth with inhabitants."(333) The mutual resemblance of the Cabiri, the Titans, the Rishis, and the Noëtic family, is too striking to be the effect of mere accident.(334) Faber was led into this mistake, and subsequently built his entire theory concerning the Kabiri, on the fact that the name of the scriptural Japhet is on the list of the Titans contained in a verse of the Orphic Hymns. According to Orpheus the names of the seven Arkite Titans--whom Faber refuses to identify with the _impious_ Titans, their descendants--were Koeus, Kroeus, Phorcys, Cronus, Oceanus, Hyperion, and _Iapetus_. {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK KORONIS~}, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK KORONIS~}, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}.(335) But why could not the Babylonian Ezra have adopted the name of Iapetus for one of Noah's sons? The Kabiri, who are the Titans, are also called Manes and their mother Mania, according to Arnobius.(336) The Hindűs can therefore claim with far more reason that the Manes mean their Manus, and that Mania is the _female_ Manu of the _Râmâyana_. Mania is Ilâ, or Idâ, the wife and daughter of Vaivasvata Manu, from whom "he begat the race of Manus." Like Rhea, the mother of the Titans, she is the Earth--Sâyana making her the Goddess of the Earth--and she is but the second edition and repetition of Vâch. Both Idâ and Vâch are turned into males and females; Idâ becoming Sudyumna, and Vâch, the "female Virâj," turning into a woman in order to punish the Gandharvas; one version referring to cosmic and divine Theogony, the other to the later period. The Manes and Mania of Arnobius are names of Indian origin, appropriated by the Greeks and Latins and disfigured by them. Thus it is no accident, but the result of one archaic doctrine, common to all, of which the Israëlites, through Ezra, the author of the modernized Mosaic books, were the latest adapters. So unceremonious were they with other people's property, that the Pseudo-Berosus,(337) shows that Titća--of whom Diodorus Siculus(338) makes the mother of the Titans or Diluvians--was the _wife of Noah_. Faber calls him the "Pseudo-Berosus," yet accepts the information in order to register one proof more that the Pagans have borrowed all their Gods from the Jews, by transforming patriarchal material. According to our humble opinion, this is one of the best proofs possible of exactly the reverse. It shows as clearly as facts can show, that it is the Biblical pseudo-personages which are all borrowed from Pagan myths, if myths they must be. It shows, at any rate, that Berosus was well aware of the source of _Genesis_, and that it bore the same cosmic astronomical character as the allegories of Isis-Osiris, and the Ark, and other older "Arkite" symbols. For, Berosus says that "Titća Magna" was afterwards called Aretia,(339) and worshipped with the Earth; and this identifies Titća, Noah's consort, with Rhea, the Mother of the Titans, and with Idâ; both being Goddesses who preside over the Earth, and the Mothers of the Manus and Manes, or Titan-Kabiri. And Titća-Aretia was worshipped as Horchia, says the same Berosus, and this is a title of Vesta, Goddess of the Earth. Sicanus deificavit Aretiam, et nominavit eam linguâ Janigenâ Horchiam.(340) Scarcely an ancient poet of historic or prehistoric days fails to mention the sinking of the two continents--often called isles--in one form or another. Hence the destruction, besides Atlantis, of the Phlegyan Island. Pausanius and Nonnus both tell how: From its deep-rooted base the Phlegyan isle Stern Neptune shook, and plunged beneath the waves Its impious inhabitants.(341) Faber felt convinced that the Phlegyan Island was Atlantis. But all such allegories are more or less distorted echoes of the Hindű tradition about that great Cataclysm, which befell the Fourth, really human, though gigantic, Race, the one which preceded the Âryan. Yet, as just said, like all other legends, the legend of the Deluge has more than one meaning. It refers, in Theogony, to _pre-cosmic transformations_, to _spiritual correlations_--however absurd the term may sound to a scientific ear--and also to subsequent Cosmogony; to the great Flood of Waters (Matter) in Chaos, awakened and fructified by those Spirit-Rays which were swamped by, and _perished_ in, the mysterious differentiation--a pre-cosmic mystery, the Prologue to the drama of Being. Anu, Bel, and Noah preceded Adam Kadmon, Adam the Red, and Noah; just as Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Shiva preceded Vaivasvata and the rest.(342) All this goes to show that the _semi_-universal deluge known to Geology--the first Glacial Period--must have occurred just at the time allotted to it by the Secret Doctrine: namely, 200,000 years, in round numbers, after the commencement of our Fifth Race, or about the time assigned by Messrs. Croll and Stockwell for the first Glacial Period: _i.e._, about 850,000 years ago. Thus, as the latter disturbance is attributed by Geologists and Astronomers to "an extreme eccentricity of the earth's orbit," and as the Secret Doctrine attributes it to the same source, but with the addition of another factor, the shifting of the Earth's axis--a proof of which may be found in the _Book of Enoch_,(343) if the veiled language of the _Purânas_ be not understood--all this should tend to show that the Ancients knew something of the "modern discoveries" of Science. Enoch, when speaking of "the great inclination of the Earth," which "is in travail," is quite significant and clear. Is not this evident? Nuah is Noah, _floating on the waters_ in his ark; the latter being the emblem of the Argha, or Moon, the feminine Principle; Noah is the "Spirit" falling into Matter. We find him, as soon as he descends upon the Earth, planting a vineyard, drinking of the wine, and getting drunk thereon, _i.e._, the pure Spirit becomes intoxicated as soon as it is finally imprisoned in Matter. The seventh chapter of _Genesis_ is only another version of the first. Thus, while the latter reads: "And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters"; in the former it is said: "And the waters prevailed; ... and the ark went [with Noah, the Spirit] upon the face of the waters." Thus Noah, if identical with the Chaldćan Nuah, is the Spirit vivifying Matter, which latter is Chaos, represented by the Deep, or the Waters of the Flood. In the Babylonian legend (the pre-cosmical blended with the terrestrial event) it is Istar (Ashteroth, or Venus, the Lunar Goddess) who is shut up in the ark and sends out a _dove_ in search of dry land.(344) George Smith notes in the "Tablets," first the creation of the Moon, and then that of the Sun: "Its beauty and perfection are extolled, and the regularity of its orbit, which led to its being considered the type of a judge and the regulator of the world." If this story related simply to a cosmogonical cataclysm-even were this latter universal-why should the goddess Istar or Ashteroth, the Moon, speak of the _creation of the sun_ after the deluge? The waters might have reached as high as the mountain of Nizir of the Chaldćan version, or Jebel Djudi, the deluge mountains of the Arabian legend, or yet Ararat of the Biblical narrative, and even the Himalaya of the Hindű tradition, and yet not have reached the Sun; the _Bible_ itself stopped short of such a miracle! It is evident that the deluge to the people who first recorded it had another meaning, less problematical and far more philosophical than that of a _universal_ deluge, of which there are no geological traces whatever.(345) As all such Cataclysms are periodical and cyclical, and as Manu Vaivasvata figures as a _generic_ character, under various circumstances and events, there seems to be no serious objection to the supposition that the first "great flood" had an allegorical, as well as a cosmic meaning, and that it happened at the end of the Satya Yuga, the "Age of Truth," when the Second Root-Race, "the Manu with bones," made its primeval appearance as the "Sweat-born." The Second Flood--the so-called "universal"--which affected the Fourth Root- Race--now conveniently regarded by Theology as "the accursed race of giants," the Cainites, and the "sons of Ham"--is the flood which was first perceived by Geology. If one carefully compares the accounts in the various legends of the Chaldees and other exoteric works of the nations, it will be found that all of them agree with the orthodox narratives given in the Brâhmanical books. And it may be perceived that while, in the first account, "there is no God or mortal yet on Earth," when Manu Vaivasvata lands on Himavân, in the second, the Seven Rishis are allowed to keep him company; thus showing that whereas some accounts refer to the Sidereal and Cosmic Flood before the so-called "Creation," the others treat, one of the Great Flood of Matter on Earth, and the other of a real watery deluge. In the _Shatapatha Brâhmana_, Manu finds that the Flood had swept away all living creatures, and he alone was left--_i.e._, _the seed of life_ alone remained from the previous Dissolution of the Universe, or Mahâpralaya, after a "Day of Brahmâ"; and the _Mahâbhârata_ refers simply to the geological cataclysm which swept away nearly all the Fourth Race to make room for the Fifth. Therefore is Vaivasvata Manu shown under three distinct attributes in our Esoteric Cosmogony:(346) as the "Root-Manu," on Globe A, in the First Round; (_b_) as the "_Seed_ of Life," on Globe D, in the Fourth Round; and (_c_) as the "Seed of Man," at the beginning of every Root-Race--in our Fifth Race especially. The very commencement of the latter witnesses, during the Dvâpara Yuga,(347) the destruction of the accursed sorcerers; Of that island [Plato speaks only of its last island] beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in the Atlantic Ocean, from which there was an easy transition to other islands in the neighbourhood of another _large continent_ [America]. It is this Atlantic Land which was connected with the "White Island," and this White Island was Ruta; but it was not the Atala and the "White Devil" of Colonel Wilford,(348) as already shown. It may well be remarked here that the Dvâpara Yuga lasts 864,000 years, according to the Sanskrit texts; and that, if the Kali Yuga began only about 5,000 years ago, that it is just 869,000 years since that destruction took place. Again, these figures are not very widely different from those given by the Geologists, who place their Glacial Period at 850,000 years ago. The _Shatapatha_ then tells us that a woman was produced who came to Manu and declared _herself his daughter, with whom he lived and begat the offspring of Manu_. This refers to the physiological transformation of sexes during the Third Root-Race. And the allegory is too transparently clear to need much explanation. Of course, as already remarked, in the separation of sexes an androgyne being was supposed to divide his body into two halves--as in the case of Brahmâ and Vâch, and even of Adam and Eve--and thus the female is, in a certain sense, his daughter, just as he will be her son, "the flesh of his [and her] flesh and the bone of his [and her] bone." Let it be also well remembered that not one of our Orientalists has yet learned to discern in those "contradictions and amazing nonsense," as some call the _Purânas_, that a reference to a Yuga may mean a Round, a Root-Race, and often a sub-race, as well as form a page torn out of pre-cosmic Theogony. This double and triple meaning is proved by various references to one and the same individual apparently, under an identical name, while in reality the references are to events divided by entire Kalpas. A good instance is that of Ilâ. She is first represented as one thing and then as another. In the exoteric legends it is said that Manu Vaivasvata, desiring to create sons, instituted a sacrifice to Mitra and Varuna; but, through a mistake of the officiating Brâhman, a daughter only was obtained--Ilâ or Idâ. Then, "through the favour of the two deities," her _sex is changed_ and she becomes a man, Sudyumna. Then she is again turned into a woman, and so on; the fable adding that Shiva and his consort were pleased that "she should be a male one month and a female another." This has a direct reference to the Third Root-Race, whose men were androgynes. But some very learned Orientalists(349) think and have declared that: Idâ is primarily food, nourishment, or a libation of milk; thence a stream of praise, personified as the goddess of speech. The "profane" are not told, however, the reason why "a libation of milk," or "a stream of praise," should be _male_ and _female_ by turn: unless, indeed, there is some "internal evidence" which the Occultists fail to perceive. In its most mystical meaning, the union of Svâyambhuva Manu with Vâch- Shata-Rűpâ, his own daughter--this being the first "euhemerization" of the dual principle of which Vaivasvata Manu and Ilâ are a secondary and a third form--stands in cosmic symbolism as the Root-Life, the Germ from which spring all the Solar Systems, the Worlds, Angels and the Gods. For, as says Vishnu: From Manu all creation, gods, Asuras, man must be produced: By him the world must be created, that which moves and moveth not. But we may find worse opponents than even the Western Scientists and Orientalists. If, on the question of figures, Brâhmans may agree with our teaching, we are not so sure that some of the orthodox conservatives may not raise objections to the modes of procreation attributed to their Pitri Devatâs. We shall be called upon to produce the works from which we quote, and we will invite them to read their own _Purânas_ a little more carefully and with an eye to the esoteric meaning. And then, we repeat again, they will find, under the veil of more or less transparent allegories, every statement made herein corroborated by their own works. One or two instances have already been given as regards the appearance of the Second Race, which is called the "Sweat-born." This allegory is regarded as a fairy-tale, and yet it conceals a psycho-physiological phenomenon, and one of the greatest mysteries of Nature. But in view of the chronological statements made herein, it is natural to ask: COULD MEN EXIST 18,000,000 YEARS AGO? To this Occultism answers in the affirmative, notwithstanding all scientific objectors. Moreover, this duration covers only the Vaivasvata- Manu Man, _i.e._, the male and female entity already separated into distinct sexes. The two and a half Races that preceded that event may have lived 300,000,000 years ago for all that Science can tell. For the geological and physical difficulties in the way of the theory could not exist for the _primeval, ethereal_ Man of the Occult Teachings. _The whole issue of the quarrel between the Profane and the Esoteric Sciences depends upon the belief in, and demonstration of, the existence of an Astral Body within the Physical_, the former independent of the latter. Paul d'Assier, the Positivist, seems to have proven the fact pretty plainly,(350) not to speak of the accumulated testimony of the ages, and that of the modern "Spiritualists" and Mystics. It will be found difficult to reject this fact in our age of proofs, tests, and ocular demonstrations. The Secret Doctrine maintains that, notwithstanding the general cataclysms and disturbances of the Fourth Round of our Globe, which--owing to its being the period of its greatest physical development, for the Fourth Round is the middle-point of the Life Cycle allotted to it--were far more terrible and intense than during any of the three preceding Rounds--the Cycles of its earlier psychic and spiritual life and of its semi-ethereal conditions--Physical Humanity has existed upon it for the last 18,000,000 years.(351) This period was preceded by 300,000,000 years of the mineral and vegetable development. To this, all those who refuse to accept the theory of a "boneless," purely ethereal, man, will object. Science, which knows only of physical organisms, will feel indignant; and materialistic Theology still more so. The former will object on logical and reasonable grounds, based on the preconception that all animate organisms have always existed on the same plane of materiality in all the ages; the latter on a tissue of most absurd fictions. The ridiculous claim usually brought forward by Theologians is based on the virtual assumption that mankind (read Christians) on this Planet have the honour of being the only human beings in the whole Kosmos, who dwell on a Globe, and that they are consequently, the best of their kind.(352) The Occultists, who believe firmly in the teachings of the Mother- Philosophy, repel the objections of both Theologians and Scientists. They maintain, on their side, that, even during those periods when there must have been insufferable heat, even at the two poles, with successive floods, upheaval of the valleys and constant shifting of the great waters and seas, none of these circumstances could form an impediment to human life and organization, such _as is assigned by them_ to early mankind. Neither the heterogeneity of ambient regions, full of deleterious gases, nor the perils of a crust hardly consolidated, could prevent the First and Second Races from making their appearance even during the Carboniferous, or the Silurian Age itself. Thus the Monads destined to animate future Races were ready for the new transformation. They had passed their phases of "immetalization," of plant and animal life, from the lowest to the highest, and were waiting for their human, more intelligent form. Yet what could the Plastic Modellers do but follow the laws of evolutionary Nature? Could they, as claimed by the biblical dead-letter, form, "Lord-God"-like, or as Pygmalion in the Greek allegory, Adam-Galatea out of volcanic dust, and breathe a "Living Soul" into Man? No; because the Soul was already there, latent in its Monad, and needed but a "coating." Pygmalion, who fails to _animate his statue_, and Bahak Zivo of the Nazarćan Gnostics, who fails to construct "a human soul in the creature," are, as conceptions, far more philosophical and scientific than Adam, taken in the dead-letter sense, or the biblical Elohim-Creators. Esoteric Philosophy, which teaches spontaneous generation--after the Shishta and Prajâpati have thrown the seed of life on the Earth--shows the Lower Angels able to construct _physical_ man only, even with the help of Nature, after having evolved the Ethereal Form out of themselves, and leaving the physical form to evolve gradually from its ethereal, or what would now be called, protoplasmic, model. This will again be objected to; "spontaneous generation" is an exploded theory, we shall be told. Pasteur's experiments disposed of it twenty years ago, and Professor Tyndall is against it. Well, suppose he is? He ought to know that, should spontaneous generation be indeed proven impossible in our present world-period and actual conditions--which the Occultists deny--still it would be no demonstration that it could not have taken place under different cosmic conditions, not only in the seas of the Laurentian Period, but even on the then convulsed Earth. It would be interesting to know how Science could ever account for the appearance of species and life on Earth, especially of Man, once that she rejects both the biblical teachings and spontaneous generation. Pasteur's observations, however, are far from being perfect or proven. Blanchard and Dr. Lutaud reject their importance, and, in fact, show that they have none. The question is so far left _sub judice_, as well as the other as to when, at what period, life appeared on the Earth? As to the idea that Hćckel's Moneron--a pinch of salt!--has solved the problem of the origin of life; it is simply absurd. Those Materialists, who feel inclined to pooh-pooh the theory of the "Self-existent," the "Self-born Heavenly Man," represented as an Ethereal, Astral Man, must excuse even a tyro in Occultism laughing, in his turn, at some speculations of Modern Thought. After proving most learnedly that the primitive speck of Protoplasm (Moneron) is neither animal nor plant, but both, and that it has _no ancestors_ among either of these, since it is that Moneron which serves as a point of departure for all organized existence, we are finally told that the Monera are _their own ancestors_. This may be very scientific, but it is very metaphysical also; too much so, even for the Occultist. If spontaneous generation has changed its methods now--owing, perhaps, to accumulated material on hand--so as to almost escape detection, it was, nevertheless, in full swing in the genesis of terrestrial life. Even the simple physical form and the evolution of species show how Nature proceeds. The scale-bound, gigantic Saurian, the winged Pterodactyl, the Megalosaurus, and the hundred feet long Iguanodon of the later period, are the transformations of the earliest representatives of the animal kingdom found in the sediments of the primary epoch. There was a time when all the above enumerated "antediluvian" monsters appeared as filamentoid Infusoria without shell or crust, with neither nerves, muscles, organs nor sex, and reproduced their kind by gemmation; as do microscopical animals also, the architects and builders of our mountain ranges, agreeably to the teachings of Science. Why not man in this case? Why should he not have followed the same law in his growth, _i.e._, gradual condensation? Every unprejudiced person would prefer to believe that Primeval Humanity had at first an Ethereal--or, if so preferred, a huge filamentoid, jelly-like Form, evolved by Gods or natural "Forces," which grew, condensed throughout millions of ages, and became gigantic in its physical impulse and tendency, until it settled into the huge, physical form of the Fourth Race Man--rather than believe him created of the dust of the Earth (literally), or from some unknown anthropoid ancestor. Nor does our Esoteric theory clash with scientific data, except on first appearance, as Dr. A. Wilson, F.R.S., says, in a letter to _Knowledge_ (Dec. 23, 1881): Evolution--rather nature, in the light of evolution--has only been studied for some _twenty-five years or so_. That is, of course, a mere fractional space in the history of human thought. And just because of this we do not lose all hope that Materialistic Science will amend its ways, and will gradually accept the Esoteric Teachings--if even at first divorced from their (to Science) too metaphysical elements. Has the last word on the subject of human evolution yet been said? As Processor Huxley says: Each such answer to the great question [man's real place in nature], invariably asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be _complete and final_, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, it may be for twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a _mere approximation to the truth--tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their successors_.(353) Will this eminent Darwinian admit the possibility of his "Pithecoid Ancestry" being assignable to the list of "wholly intolerable beliefs," in the "larger knowledge" of Occultists? But whence the savage? Mere "rising to the civilized state" does not account for the evolution of form. In the same letter, "The Evolution of Man," Dr. Wilson makes other strange confessions. Thus, he observes, in answer to the queries put to _Knowledge_, by "G. M.": "Has evolution effected any change in man? If so, what change? If not, why not?"... If we refuse to admit [as science does] that man was created a perfect being, and then became degraded, there exists only another supposition--that of evolution. If man has arisen from a savage to a civilized state, that surely is evolution. _We do not yet know because such knowledge is difficult to acquire, if the human frame is subject to the same influences as those of lower animals._ But there is little doubt that elevation from savagery to civilized life means and implies "evolution," and that of considerable extent. Mentally, man's evolution cannot be doubted; the ever-widening sphere of thought has sprung from small and rude beginnings, like language itself. But man's ways of life, his power of adaptation to his surroundings, and countless other circumstances, have made the facts and course of his "evolution" very difficult to trace. This very difficulty ought to make the Evolutionists more cautious in their affirmations. But why is evolution impossible, if "man was created a perfect being, and then became degraded"? At best it can only apply to the _outward, physical man_. As remarked in _Isis Unveiled_, Darwin's evolution begins at the middle point, instead of commencing for man, as for everything else, from universals. The Aristotle-Baconian method may have its advantages, but it has, undeniably, already demonstrated its defects. Pythagoras and Plato, who proceeded from universals downwards, are now shown more learned, in the light of Modern Science, than was Aristotle. For the latter opposed and denounced the idea of the revolution of the Earth and even of its rotundity, when writing: Almost all those who affirm that they have studied heaven in its uniformity, claim that the earth is in the centre, but the philosophers of the Italian School, otherwise called the Pythagoreans, teach entirely the contrary. This, because the Pythagoreans were Initiates, and followed the deductive method. Whereas Aristotle, the father of the inductive system, complained of those who taught that: The centre of our system was occupied by the sun, and the earth was only a star, which by a rotatory motion around the same centre, produces night and day.(354) The same with regard to man. The theory taught in the Secret Doctrine, and now expounded, is the only one, which--without falling into the absurdity of a "miraculous" man created out of the dust of the earth, or the still greater fallacy of man evolving from a pinch of lime-salt, the ex- protoplasmic Moneron--can account for his appearance on Earth. _Analogy_ is the guiding law in Nature, the only true Ariadne's thread that can lead us, through the inextricable paths of her domain, toward her primal and final mysteries. Nature, as a creative potency, is infinite, and no generation of Physical Scientists can ever boast of having exhausted the list of her ways and methods, however uniform the laws upon which she proceeds. If we can conceive of a ball of "fire-mist"--as it rolls through ćons of time in the interstellar spaces--becoming gradually a Planet, a self-luminous Globe, to settle into a _man-bearing_ World or Earth, thus having passed from a soft plastic body into a rock-bound Globe; and if we see on it everything evolving from the non-nucleated jelly-speck that becomes the Sarcode(355) of the Moneron, then passes from its protistic state(356) into the form of an animal, to grow into a gigantic reptilian monster of the Mesozoic times; then dwindling again into the (comparatively) dwarfish crocodile, now confined solely to tropical regions, and the universally common lizard(357)--if we can conceive all this, then how can man alone escape the general law? "There were giants on earth in those days" says _Genesis_, repeating the statement of all the other Eastern Scriptures; and the Titans are founded on an anthropological and physiological fact. And, as the hard-shelled crustacean was once upon a time a jelly-speck, a "thoroughly homogeneous particle of albumen in a firmly adhesive condition," so was the outward covering of primitive man, his early "coat of skin," _plus_ an immortal spiritual Monad, and a psychic temporary form and body within that shell. The modern, hard, muscular man, almost impervious to any climate, was, perhaps, some 25,000,000 years ago, just what the Hćckelian Moneron is, strictly an "organism without organs," an entirely homogeneous substance with a structureless albumen body within, and a human form only outwardly. No man of Science has the right, in this century, to find the figures of the Brâhmans in the question of chronology preposterous; for their own calculations often exceed by far the claims made by Esoteric Science. This may easily be shown. Helmholtz calculated that the cooling of our Earth from a temperature of 2,000° to 200° Cent. must have occupied a period of no less than 350,000,000 years. Western Science (including Geology) seems generally to allow our Globe an age of about 500,000,000 years altogether. Sir William Thomson, however, limits the appearance of the earliest vegetable life to 100,000,000 years ago--a statement respectfully contradicted by the Archaic Records. Speculations, furthermore, vary daily in the domains of Science. Meanwhile, some Geologists are very much opposed to such limitation. Volger calculates: That the time requisite for the deposit of the strata known to us must at least have amounted to 648 millions of years. Both time and space are infinite and eternal. The earth, as a material existence, is indeed infinite; the changes only which it has undergone can be determined by finite periods of time.... We must therefore assume that the starry heaven is not merely in space, which no astronomer doubts, but also in time, without beginning or end; that it never was created, and is imperishable.(358) Czolbe repeats exactly what the Occultists say. But the Âryan Occultists, we may be told, knew nothing of these later speculations. As Coleman says: They were even ignorant of the globular form of our earth. To this the _Vishnu Purâna_ contains a reply, which has forced certain Orientalists to open their eyes very wide. The sun is stationed, for all time, in the middle of the day, and over against mid-night, in all the Dvîpas [Continents], Maitreya. But the rising and the setting _of the sun_ being perpetually opposite _to each other_,--and, in the same way, all the cardinal points, and so the cross-points, Maitreya, people speak of the rising of the sun where they see it; and where the sun disappears, there, _to them_, is his setting. Of the sun, which is always _in one and the same place_, there is neither setting nor rising; for what is called rising and setting are _only_ the seeing and the not seeing the sun.(359) To this Fitzedward Hall remarks: The heliocentricism taught in this passage is remarkable. It is contradicted, however, a little further on.(360) Contradicted _purposely_, because it was a secret temple-teaching. Martin Haug remarked the same teaching in another passage. It is useless to calumniate the Âryans any longer. To return to the chronology of the Geologists and Anthropologists. We are afraid Science has no reasonable grounds on which she could oppose the views of the Occultists in this direction. Except that "of man, the highest organic being of creation, not a trace was found in the primary strata; only in the uppermost, the so-called alluvial layer," is all that can be urged, so far. That man was _not the last member in the mammalian family_, but the _first_ in _this_ Round, is something that Science will be forced to acknowledge one day. A similar view also has already been mooted in France on very high authority. That man can be shown to have lived in the Mid-Tertiary Period, and in a geological age _when there did not yet exist one single specimen of the now known species of mammals_, is a statement that Science _cannot_ deny and which has now been proven by de Quatrefages.(361) But even supposing his existence in the Eocene Period is not yet demonstrated, what period of time has elapsed since the Cretaceous Period? We are aware of the fact that only the boldest Geologists dare place man further back than the Miocene Age. But how long, we ask, is the duration of those ages and periods since the Mesozoic time? On this, after a good deal of speculation and wrangling, Science is silent, the greatest authorities upon the subject being compelled to answer to the question: "We do not know." This ought to show that the men of Science are no greater authorities in this matter than are the profane. If, according to Professor Huxley, "the time represented by the Coal formation alone would be six millions of years,"(362) how many more millions would be required to cover the time from the Jurassic Period, or the middle of the so-called Reptilian Age--when the Third Race appeared--up to the Miocene, when the bulk of the Fourth Race was submerged?(363) The writer is aware that those specialists, whose computations of the ages of the Globe and Man are the most liberal, have always had the shyer majority against them. But this proves very little, since the majority rarely, if ever, turns out to be right in the long run. Harvey stood alone for many years. The advocates for crossing the Atlantic with steamers were in danger of ending their days in a lunatic asylum. Mesmer is classed to this day--in the Encyclopćdias--along with Cagliostro and St. Germain, as a charlatan and impostor. And now that Messrs. Charcot and Richet have vindicated Mesmer's claims, and that Mesmerism under its new name of "Hypnotism"--a false nose on a very old face--is accepted by Science, it does not strengthen our respect for that majority, when we see the ease and unconcern with which its members treat of "Hypnotism," of "telepathic impacts," and its other phenomena. They speak of it, in short, as if they had believed therein since the days of Solomon, and had not, only a few years ago, called its votaries lunatics and impostors!(364) The same revulsion of thought is in store for the long period of years which Esoteric Philosophy claims as the age of sexual and physiological mankind. Therefore even the Stanza which says: "_The Mind-born, the boneless, gave being to the Will-born with bones_;"--adding that this took place in the middle of the Third Race 18,000,000 years ago--has yet a chance of being accepted by future Scientists. As far as nineteenth century thought is concerned, we shall be told, even by some personal friends who are imbued with an abnormal respect for the shifting conclusions of Science, that such a statement is absurd. How much more improbable will appear our further assertion, viz., that the antiquity of the First Race dates back millions of years beyond this again. For, although the exact figures are withheld--and it is out of the question to refer the incipient evolution of the primeval Divine Races with _certainty_ to either the early Secondary, or the Primary Ages of Geology--one thing is clear, that the figures 18,000,000 of years, which embrace the duration of _sexual, physical_, man, have to be enormously increased if the whole process of spiritual, astral and physical development is taken into account. Many Geologists, indeed, consider that the duration of the Quaternary and Tertiary Ages demands the concession of such an estimate; and it is quite certain that no terrestrial conditions whatever negative the hypothesis of an Eocene man, if evidence for his reality is forthcoming. Occultists, who maintain that the above date carries us far back into the Secondary or "Reptilian" Age, may refer to M. de Quatrefages in support of the possible existence of man in that remote antiquity. But with regard to the earliest Root-Races the case is very different. If the thick agglomeration of vapours, charged with carbonic acid, that escaped from the soil, or was held in suspension in the atmosphere since the commencement of sedimentation, offered a fatal obstacle to the life of human organisms as now known, how, it will be asked, could the primeval men have existed? This consideration is, in reality, out of court. Such terrestrial conditions as were then operative had no touch with the plane on which the evolution of the _ethereal astral_ Races proceeded. Only in relatively recent geological periods, has the spiral course of cyclic law swept mankind into the lowest grade of physical evolution--the plane of gross material causation. In those early ages, _astral_ evolution was alone in progress, and the two planes, the astral and the physical,(365) though developing on parallel lines, had no direct point of contact with one another. It is obvious that a shadow-like _ethereal_ man is related by virtue of his organization--if such it can be called--only to that plane from which the substance of his Upâdhi is derived. There are things, perhaps, that may have escaped the far-seeing--but not _all-seeing_--eyes of our modern Naturalists; yet it is Nature herself who undertakes to furnish the missing links. Agnostic speculative thinkers have to choose between the version given by the Secret Doctrine of the East, and the hopelessly materialistic Darwinian and Biblical accounts of the origin of man; between no soul and no spiritual evolution, and the Occult doctrine which repudiates "special creation" and the "Evolutionist" anthropogenesis equally. Again, to take up the question of "spontaneous generation"; life--as Science shows--has not always reigned on this terrestrial plane. There was a time when even the Hćckelian Moneron--that simple globule of Protoplasm--had not yet appeared at the bottom of the seas. Whence came the _Impulse_ which caused the molecules of Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, etc., to group themselves into the Urschleim of Oken, that organic "Slime," now christened Protoplasm? What were the prototypes of the Monera? They, at least, could not have fallen in meteorites from other Globes already formed, Sir William Thomson's wild theory to this effect notwithstanding. And even if they had so fallen; if our Earth got its supply of life-germs from other Planets; who, or _what_, had carried them on to these Planets? Here, again, unless the Occult Teaching is accepted, we are compelled once more to face a _miracle_--to accept the theory of a personal, anthropomorphic Creator, the attributes and definitions of whom, as formulated by the Monotheists, clash as much with philosophy and logic, as they degrade the ideal of an infinite Universal Deity, before whose incomprehensible awful grandeur the highest human intellect feels dwarfed. Let not the modern Philosopher, while arbitrarily placing himself on the highest pinnacle of human intellectuality hitherto evolved, show himself spiritually and intuitionally so far below the conceptions of even the ancient Greeks, themselves on a far lower level, in these respects, than the Philosophers of Eastern Âryan antiquity. Hylozoism, when philosophically understood, is the highest aspect of Pantheism. It is the only possible escape from idiotic Atheism based on lethal materiality, and the still more idiotic anthropomorphic conceptions of the Monotheists; between which it stands on its own entirely neutral ground. Hylozoism _demands_ absolute Divine Thought, which would _pervade_ the numberless active, creating Forces, or "Creators," which _Entities_ are moved by, and have their being in, from, and through, that Divine Thought; the latter, nevertheless, having no more personal concern in them or _their_ creations, than the Sun has in the sun-flower and its seeds, or in vegetation in general. Such active "Creators" are known to exist and are believed in, because perceived and sensed by the _Inner_ Man in the Occultist. Thus the latter says that an Absolute Deity, having to be unconditioned and unrelated, cannot be thought of at the same time as an active, creating, one living God, without immediate degradation of the ideal.(366) A Deity that manifests in Space and Time--these two being simply the forms of THAT which is the Absolute ALL--can be but a fractional part of the whole. And since that "All" cannot be divided in its absoluteness, therefore that _sensed_ Creator (we say Creators) can be at best but the mere _aspect_ thereof. To use the same metaphor--inadequate to express the full idea, yet well adapted to the case in hand--these Creators are like the numerous rays of the solar orb, which remains unconscious of, and unconcerned in, the work; while its mediating agents, the rays, become the instrumental media every spring--the Manvantaric dawn of the Earth--in fructifying and awakening the dormant vitality inherent in Nature and its differentiated matter. This was so well understood in antiquity, that even the moderately religious Aristotle remarked that such work of direct creation would be quite unbecoming to God--{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI AND YPOGEGRAMMENI~}. Plato and other philosophers taught the same: deity cannot set its own hand to creation--{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH DASIA AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}. This Cudworth calls "Hylozoism." As old Zeno is credited by Laërtius with having said: Nature is a habit moved from itself, according to seminal principles; perfecting and containing those several things which in determinate times are produced from it, and acting agreeably to that from which it was secreted.(367) Let us return to our subject, pausing to think over it. Indeed, if there was vegetable life during those periods that could feed on the then deleterious elements; and if there was even animal life whose aquatic organization could be developed, notwithstanding the supposed scarcity of Oxygen, why could there not be human life also, in its incipient physical form, _i.e._, in a race of beings adapted for that geological period and its surroundings? Besides, Science confesses that it knows nothing of the real length of geological periods. But the chief question before us is, whether it is quite certain that, from the time of that which is called the Azoic Age, there ever was such an atmosphere as that hypothesized by the Naturalists. Not all the Physicists agree with this idea. Were the writer anxious to corroborate the teachings of the Secret Doctrine by exact Science, it would be easy to show, on the admission of more than one Physicist, that the atmosphere has changed little, if at all, since the first condensation of the oceans--_i.e._, since the Laurentian Period, the Pyrolithic Age. Such, at any rate, is the opinion of Blanchard, S. Meunier, and even of Bischof--as the experiments of the last Scientist with basalts have shown. For were we to take the word of the majority of Scientists as to the quantity of deadly gases, and of elements entirely saturated with Carbon and Nitrogen, in which the vegetable and animal kingdoms are shown to have lived, thriven, and developed, then one would have to come to the curious conclusion that there were, in those days, oceans of _liquid carbonic acid_, instead of water. With such an element, it becomes doubtful whether the Ganoids, or even the Primitive Trilobites themselves could live in the oceans of the Primary Age--let alone in those of the Silurian, as shown by Blanchard. The conditions that were necessary for the earliest Race of mankind, however, require no elements, whether simple or compound. That which was stated at the beginning is maintained. The spiritual ethereal Entity which lived in Spaces unknown to Earth, before the first sidereal "jelly-speck" evolved in the Ocean of crude Cosmic Matter--billions and trillions of years before our globular speck in infinity, called Earth, came into being and generated the Monera in its drops, called oceans--needed no "elements." The "Manu with soft bones," could well dispense with Calcium Phosphate, as he had no bones, save in a figurative sense. And while even the Monera, however homogeneous their organism, still required physical conditions of life that would help them toward further evolution, the Being which became Primitive Man and the "Father of Man," after evolving on planes of existence undreamed of by Science, could well remain impervious to any state of atmospheric conditions around him. The primitive ancestor, in Brasseur de Bourbourg's _Popol Vuh_, who--in the Mexican legends--could act and live with equal ease under ground and water as upon the earth, answers only to the Second and early Third Races in our texts. And if the three kingdoms of Nature were so different in pre-diluvian ages, why should not man have been composed of materials and combinations of atoms now entirely unknown to Physical Science? The plants and animals now known, in almost numberless varieties and species, have all developed, according to scientific hypotheses, from primitive and far fewer organic forms. Why should not the same have occurred in the case of man, the elements, and the rest? As the Commentary says: _Universal Genesis starts from the One, breaks into Three, then Five, and finally culminates in Seven, to return into Four, Three, and One._ Stanza VII. From The Semi-Divine Down To The First Human Races. 24. The higher Creators reject in their pride the Forms evolved by the "Sons of Yoga." 25. They will not incarnate in the early Egg- born. 26. They select the later Androgynes. 27. The first man endowed with mind. 24. THE SONS OF WISDOM, THE SONS OF NIGHT,(368) READY FOR REBIRTH, CAME DOWN. THEY SAW THE VILE(369) FORMS OF THE FIRST THIRD(370) (_A_). "WE CAN CHOOSE," SAID THE LORDS, "WE HAVE WISDOM." SOME ENTERED THE CHHÂYÂS. SOME PROJECTED A SPARK. SOME DEFERRED TILL THE FOURTH.(371) FROM THEIR OWN RŰPA THEY FILLED(372) THE KÂMA.(373) THOSE WHO ENTERED BECAME ARHATS. THOSE WHO RECEIVED BUT A SPARK, REMAINED DESTITUTE OF KNOWLEDGE;(374) THE SPARK BURNED LOW (_B_). THE THIRD REMAINED MIND-LESS. THEIR JÎVAS(375) WERE NOT READY. THESE WERE SET APART AMONG THE SEVEN.(376) THEY BECAME NARROW- HEADED. THE THIRD WERE READY. "IN THESE SHALL WE DWELL," SAID THE LORDS OF THE FLAME AND OF THE DARK WISDOM (_C_). This Stanza contains, in itself, the whole key to the mysteries of evil, the so-called Fall of the Angels, and the many problems that have puzzled the brains of the Philosophers from the time that the memory of man began. It solves the secret of the subsequent inequalities or intellectual capacity, of birth or social position, and gives a logical explanation to the incomprehensible Karmic course throughout the ćons which followed. The best explanation which can be given, in view of the difficulties of the subject, will now be attempted. (_a_) Up to the Fourth Round, and even to the later part of the Third Race in this Round, _Man_--if the ever-changing forms that clothed the Monads during the first three Rounds and the first two and a half Races of the present Round can be given that misleading name--is, so far, only an animal intellectually. It is only in the present _midway_ Round that he entirely develops in himself the Fourth Principle as a fit vehicle for the Fifth. But Manas will be relatively _fully_ developed only in the following Round, when it will have an opportunity of becoming entirely divine until the end of the Rounds. As Christian Schoettgen says in _Horć Hebraicć_, etc., the first terrestrial Adam "had only the breath of life,"--Nephesh, _but not the living Soul_. (_b_) Here the inferior Races, of which there are still some analogues left--as the Australians, now fast dying out, and some African and Oceanic tribes--are meant. "They were not ready" signifies that the Karmic development of these Monads had not yet fitted them to occupy the forms of men destined for incarnation in higher intellectual Races. But this is explained later on. (_c_) The _Zohar_ speaks of "Black Fire," which is Absolute Light--Wisdom. To those who, prompted by old theological prejudice, may say: But the Asuras are the rebel Devas, the opponents of the Gods--hence Devils, and the Spirits of Evil--it is answered: Esoteric Philosophy admits neither good nor evil _per se_, as existing independently in Nature. The cause for both is found, as regards the Kosmos, in the necessity of contraries or contrasts, and with respect to man, in his human nature, his ignorance and passions. There are no Devils or the utterly depraved, as there are no Angels absolutely perfect, though there may be Spirits of Light and of Darkness; thus Lucifer--the Spirit of Intellectual Enlightenment and Freedom of Thought--is metaphorically the guiding beacon, which helps man to find his way through the rocks and sand-banks of Life, for Lucifer is the Logos in his highest, and the "Adversary" in his lowest aspect--both of which are reflected in our Ego. Lactantius, speaking of the Nature of Christ, makes the Logos, the Word, "the _first-born brother of Satan_, and _the first of all creatures_."(377) The _Vishnu Purâna_ describes these primeval creatures (Tiryaksrotas) with _crooked_ digestive canals: [They were] endowed with inward manifestations, but mutually in ignorance _about their kind and nature_.(378) The twenty-eight kinds of Badhas, or "imperfections," do not apply, as Wilson thought, to the animals now known, which are specified by him, for they did not exist in those geological periods. This is quite plain from the said work, in which the first created are the "five-fold (immovable) world," minerals and vegetables; then come those fabulous animals, Tiryaksrotas--the monsters of the Abyss, slain by the "Lords," of Stanzas II and III; then the Űrdhvasrotas, the happy celestial beings, which feed on ambrosia; and lastly, the Arvâksrotas, human beings--Brahmâ's seventh "creation" so-called. But these "creations," including the latter, did not occur on this Globe, wherever else they may have taken place. It is not Brahmâ who creates things and men on this Earth, but the Chief and Lord of the Prajâpatis, the Lords of Being and terrestrial Creation. "Obeying the command of Brahmâ," Daksha--the synthesis, or the aggregate, of the Terrestrial Creators and Progenitors, the Pitris included--made superior and inferior (vara and avara) things, "referring to putra" progeny, and "_bipeds_ and _quadrupeds_, and subsequently, by his will [referring to the Sons of Will and Yoga], gave birth to females"(379)--_i.e._, separated the androgynes. Here, again, we have "bipeds" or men, created before the "quadrupeds" as in the Esoteric Teachings. Since, in the exoteric accounts, the Asuras are the first Beings created from the "Body of Night," while the Pitris issue from that of "Twilight"; the "Gods" being placed by Parâshara, in the _Vishnu Purâna_, between the two, and shown to evolve from the "Body of the Day," it is easy to discover a determined purpose to veil the order of creation. Man is the Arvâksrota coming from the "Body of the Dawn"; and elsewhere, man is again referred to, when the Creator of the World, Brahmâ, is shown "creating fierce beings, who were denominated Bhűtas, and eaters of flesh," or as the text has it, "fiends, frightful from being monkey-coloured and carnivorous."(380) Whereas the Râkshasas are generally translated by "evil Spirits" and "enemies of the Gods," which identifies them with the Asuras. In the _Râmâyana_, when Hanumân is reconnoitering the enemy in Lankâ, he finds there Râkshasas, some hideous, "while some were beautiful to look upon," and, in the _Vishnu Purâna_, there is a direct reference to their becoming the Saviours of "Humanity," or of Brahmâ. The allegory is very ingenious. Great intellect and too much knowledge are a two-edged weapon in life, and instruments for evil as well as for good. When combined with selfishness, they will make of the whole of Humanity a footstool for the elevation of him who possesses them, and a means for the attainment of his objects; while, applied to altruistic humanitarian purposes, they may become the means of the salvation of many. At all events, the absence of self-consciousness and intellect will make of man an idiot, a brute in human form. Brahmâ is Mahat, the Universal Mind; hence the too selfish among the Râkshasas showing the desire to become possessed of it all--to "devour" Mahat. The allegory is transparent. At any rate, Esoteric Philosophy identifies the pre-Brâhmanical Asuras, Rudras,(381) Râkshasas and all the "Adversaries" of the Gods in the allegories, with the Egos, which, by incarnating in the still witless man of the Third Race, made him _consciously_ immortal. They are, then, during the cycle of Incarnations, the true _dual_ Logos--the conflicting and two- faced Divine Principle in Man. The Commentary that follows, and the next Stanzas may, no doubt, throw more light on this very difficult tenet, but the writer does not feel competent to give it out fully. Of the succession of Races, however, the Commentary says: _First come the __SELF-EXISTENT__ on this Earth. They are the __"__Spiritual Lives__"__ projected by the absolute __WILL__ and __LAW__, at the Dawn of every Rebirth of the Worlds. These Lives are the divine __"__Shishta__"__ [the Seed-Manus, or the Prajâpatis and the Pitris]._ From these proceed: 1. _The First Race, the __"__Self-born,__"__ which are the [Astral] Shadows of their Progenitors. The Body was devoid of all understanding [mind, intelligence, and will]. The Inner Being [the Higher Self, or Monad], though within the earthly frame, was unconnected with it. The link, the Manas, was not there as yet._ 2. _From the First [Race] emanated the Second, called the __"__Sweat- born__"_(_382_)_ and the __"__Boneless.__"__ This is the Second Root-Race, endowed by the Preservers [Râkshasas]_(_383_)_ and the Incarnating Gods [the Asuras and Kumâras] with the first primitive and weak Spark [the germ of intelligence]...._ And from these in turn proceeds: 3. _The Third Root-Race, the __"__Two-fold__"__ [Androgynes]. The first Races thereof are Shells, till the last is __"__inhabited__"__ [i.e., informed] by the Dhyânîs._ The Second Race, as stated above, being also sexless, evolved out of itself, at its beginning, the Third, Androgyne Race by an analogous, but already more complicated process. As described in the Commentary, the very earliest of that Race were: _The __"__Sons of Passive Yoga.__"_(_384_)_ They issued from the Second Manushyas [Human Race], and became oviparous. The emanations that came out of their bodies during the seasons of procreation were ovulary; the small spheroidal nuclei developing into a large soft, egg-like vehicle, gradually hardened, when, after a period of gestation, it broke and the young human animal issued from it unaided, as the fowls do in our Race._ This must seem to the reader ludicrously absurd. Nevertheless, it is strictly on the lines of evolutionary analogy, which Science perceives in the development of the living animal species. First the moneron-like procreation by "self-division"; then, after a few stages, the oviparous, as in the case of the reptiles, which are followed by the birds; then, finally, the mammals with their ovoviviparous modes of producing their young ones. If the term "ovoviviparous" is applied to some fish and reptiles, which hatch their eggs within their bodies, why should it not be applied to female mammalians, including woman? The ovule, in which, after impregnation, the development of the foetus takes place, is an egg. At all events, this conception is more philosophical than that of Eve with a suddenly created placenta giving birth to Cain, because of the "apple," when even the marsupial, the earliest of mammals, is not placental yet. Moreover, the progressive order of the methods of reproduction, as unveiled by Science, is a brilliant confirmation of Esoteric Ethnology, It is only necessary to tabulate the data in order to prove our assertion.(385) I. Fission. (_a_) As seen in the division of the homogeneous speck of Protoplasm, known as Moneron or Amoeba, into two. (_b_) As seen in the division of the nucleated cell, in which the cell- nucleus splits into two sub-nuclei, which either develop within the original cell-wall or burst it, and multiply outside as independent entities. (_Cf._ the First Root-Race.) II. Budding. A small portion of the parent structure swells out at the surface and finally parts company, growing to the size of the original organism; _e.g._, many vegetables, the sea-anemone, etc. (_Cf._ the Second Root- Race.)(386) III. Spores. A single cell thrown off by the parent organism, which develops into a multicellular organism reproducing the features of the latter, _e.g._, Bacteria and mosses. IV. Intermediate Hermaphroditism. Male and female organs inhering in the same individual; _e.g._, the majority of plants, worms, and snails, etc.; allied to budding. (_Cf._ Second and early Third Root-Races.) V. True Sexual Union. (_Cf._ later Third Root-Race.) We now come to an important point with regard to the double evolution of the human race. The Sons of Wisdom, or the _Spiritual_, Dhyânîs had become "intellectual" through their contact with Matter, because they had already reached, during previous cycles of incarnation, that degree of intellect which enabled them to become independent and self-conscious entities, _on this plane_ of Matter. They were reborn only by reason of Karmic effects. They _entered_ those who were "ready," and became the Arhats, or Sages, alluded to above. This needs explanation. It does not mean that Monads entered Forms in which other Monads already were. They were "Essences," "Intelligences," and Conscious Spirits; Entities seeking to become still more conscious by uniting with more developed Matter. Their essence was too pure to be distinct from the Universal Essence; but their "Egos," or Manas (since they are called Mânasaputra, born of Mahat, or Brahmâ) had to pass through earthly human experiences to become _all-wise_, and be able to start on the returning ascending cycle. The Monads are not _discrete_ principles, limited or conditioned, but rays from that one universal _absolute_ Principle. The entrance of one ray of sunlight following another through the same aperture into a dark room will not constitute _two_ rays, but one ray intensified. It is not in the course of natural law that man should become a _perfect_ Septenary Being before the Seventh Race in the Seventh Round. Yet he has all these principles latent in him from his birth. Nor is it part of the evolutionary law that the Fifth Principle (Manas), should receive its complete development before the Fifth Round. All such prematurely developed intellects (on the _spiritual_ plane) in our Race are _abnormal_; they are those whom we have called the "Fifth-Rounders." Even in the coming Seventh Race, at the close of this Fourth Round, while our four lower principles will be fully developed, that of Manas will be only proportionately so. This limitation, however, refers solely to the spiritual development. The intellectual, on the physical plane, was reached during the Fourth Root-Race. Thus, those who were "half ready," who received "but a spark," constitute the average humanity which have to acquire their intellectuality during the present Manvantaric evolution, after which they will be ready in the next for the full reception of the "Sons of Wisdom." While those which "were not ready" at all, the latest Monads, which had hardly evolved from their last transitional and lower animal forms at the close of the Third Round, remained the "narrow- brained" of the Stanza. This explains the otherwise unaccountable degrees of intellectuality among the various races of men--the savage Bushman and the European--even now. Those tribes of savages, whose reasoning powers are very little above the level of the animals, are not the unjustly disinherited, or the "unfavoured," as some may think--nothing of the kind. They are simply those _latest arrivals_ among the human Monads, which "were not ready"; which have to evolve during the present Round, as also on the three remaining Globes--hence on four different planes of being--so as to arrive at the level of the average class when they reach the Fifth Round. One remark may prove useful, as food for thought to the student in this connection. The Monads of the lowest specimens of humanity--the "narrow-brained"(387) savage South-Sea Islander, the African, the Australian--_had no Karma to work out when first born as men, as their more favoured brethren in intelligence had_. The former are spinning out Karma only now; the latter are burdened with past, present and future Karma. In this respect the poor savage is more fortunate than the greatest genius of _civilized countries_. Let us pause before giving any more such strange teachings. Let us try and find out how far any ancient Scriptures, and even Science, permit the possibility of, or even distinctly corroborate, such wild notions as are found in our Anthropogenesis. Recapitulating that which has been said, we find that the Secret Doctrine claims for man: (1) a polygenetic origin; (2) a variety of modes of procreation before humanity fell into the ordinary method of generation; (3) that the evolution of animals--of the mammalians at any rate--follows that of man instead of preceding it. And this is diametrically opposed to the now generally accepted theories of evolution and the descent of man from an animal ancestor. Let us, giving to Cćsar what is Cćsar's, examine, first of all, the chances for the polygenetic theory among the men of Science. Now the majority of the Darwinian Evolutionists incline to a polygenetic explanation of the origin of races. On this particular question, however, as in many other cases, Scientists are at sixes and sevens; they agree to disagree. Does man descend from one _single couple_ or from _several groups_--monogenism or polygenism? As far as one can venture to pronounce on what in the absence of witnesses [?] will never be known [?], the second hypothesis is far the most probable.(388) Abel Hovelacque, in his _Science of Language_, comes to a similar conclusion, arguing from the evidence available to a linguistic enquirer. In an address delivered before the British Association, Professor W. H. Flower remarked on this question: The view which appears best to accord with what is now known of the characters and distribution of the races of man ... is a modification of the monogenistic hypothesis[!]. Without entering into the difficult question of the method of man's first appearance upon the world, we must assume for it a vast antiquity, at all events as measured by any historical standard. _If we had any approach to a complete palćontological record, the history of man could be re-constructed, but nothing of the kind is forthcoming._ Such an admission must be regarded as fatal to the dogmatism of the Physical Evolutionists, and as opening a wide margin to Occult speculations. The opponents of the Darwinian theory were, and still remain, polygenists. Such "intellectual giants" as John Crawford and James Hunt discussed the problem and favoured polygenesis, and in their day there was a far stronger feeling in favour of than against this theory. It was only in 1864 that Darwinians began to be wedded to the theory of unity, of which Messrs. Huxley and Lubbock became the first coryphći. As regards the other question, of the priority of man to the animals in the order of evolution, the answer is as promptly given. If man is really the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, then the teaching has nothing so very impossible in it, and is but logical. For, man becomes that Macrocosm for the three lower kingdoms under him. Arguing from a physical standpoint, all the lower kingdoms, save the mineral--which is light itself, crystallized and immetallized--from plants to the creatures which preceded the first mammalians, all have been consolidated in their physical structures by means of the "cast-off dust" of those minerals, and _the refuse of the human matter, whether from living or dead bodies, on which they fed and which gave them their outer bodies_. In his turn also, man grew more physical, by reäbsorbing into his system that which he had given out, and which became transformed in the living animal crucibles through which it had passed, owing to Nature's alchemical transmutations. There were animals in those days of which our Modern Naturalists have never dreamed; and the stronger became physical material man--the giants of those times--the more powerful were his emanations. Once that Androgyne Humanity separated into sexes, transformed by Nature into child-bearing engines, it ceased to procreate its like through drops of vital energy oozing out of the body. But while man was still ignorant of his procreative powers on the human plane--before his Fall, as a believer in Adam would say--all this vital energy, scattered far and wide from him, was used by Nature for the production of the first mammal-animal forms. Evolution is _an eternal cycle of becoming_, we are taught; and Nature never leaves an atom unused. Moreover, from the beginning of the Round, all in Nature tends to become Man. All the impulses of the dual, centripetal and centrifugal Force are directed towards one point--_Man_. The progress in the succession of beings, says Agassiz: Consists in an increasing similarity of the living fauna, and among the vertebrates, especially, in the increasing resemblance to man. Man is the end towards which all _animal_ creation has tended from the first appearance of the first palćozoic fishes.(389) Just so; but the "palćozoic fishes" are at the lower curve of the arc of the evolution of _forms_, and this Round began with Astral Man, the _reflection_ of the Dhyân Chohans, called the "Builders." Man is the _alpha and the omega_ of objective creation. As said in _Isis Unveiled_: All things had their origin in Spirit--evolution having originally begun from above and proceeding downwards, instead of the reverse, as taught in the Darwinian theory.(390) Therefore, the tendency spoken of by the eminent Naturalist above quoted is one inherent in every atom. Only, were one to apply it to both sides of evolution, the observations made would greatly interfere with the modern theory, which has now almost become (Darwinian) law. But in citing the passage from Agassiz' work with approval, it must not be understood that the Occultists are making any _concession_ to the theory which derives man from the animal kingdom. The fact that in this Round he preceded the mammalia is obviously not impugned by the consideration that the latter follow in the wake of man. 25. HOW DID THE MÂNASA, THE SONS OF WISDOM, ACT? THEY REJECTED THE SELF- BORN.(391) THEY ARE NOT READY. THEY SPURNED THE SWEAT-BORN.(392) THEY ARE NOT QUITE READY. THEY WOULD NOT ENTER THE FIRST EGG-BORN.(393) To a Theist or a Christian this verse would suggest a rather theological idea: that of the Fall of the Angels through Pride. In the Secret Doctrine, however, the reasons for the refusal to incarnate in _half- ready_ physical bodies seem to be more connected with physiological than metaphysical reasons. Not all the organisms were sufficiently ready. The Incarnating Powers chose the ripest fruits and spurned the rest. By a curious coincidence, when selecting a familiar name for the continent on which the first Androgynes, the Third Root-Race, separated, the writer chose, on geographical considerations, that of "Lemuria," invented by Mr. P. L. Sclater. It was only later that, on reading Hćckel's _Pedigree of Man_, it was found that the German "Animalist" had chosen the name for his late continent. He traces, properly enough, the centre of human evolution to Lemuria, but with a slight scientific variation. Speaking of it as that "cradle of mankind," he pictures the gradual transformation of the anthropoid mammal into the primeval savage!! Vogt, again, holds that in America man sprang from a branch of the platyrrhine apes, _independently_ of the origination of the African and Asian root-stocks from the old world catarrhinians. Anthropologists are, as usual, at loggerheads on this question, as on many others. We shall examine this claim in the light of Esoteric Philosophy in Stanza VIII. Meanwhile, let us give a few moments of attention to the various consecutive modes of procreation according to the laws of Evolution. Let us begin by the mode of reproduction of the later sub-races of the Third Human Race, by those who found themselves endowed with the "Sacred Fire" from the Spark of higher and then independent Beings, who were the psychic and spiritual Parents of Man, as the lower Pitri Devatâs (the Pitris) were the Progenitors of his physical body. That Third and holy Race consisted of men who, at their zenith, were described as "towering giants of godly strength and beauty, and the depositories of all the mysteries of Heaven and Earth." Have they likewise _fallen_, if, then, incarnation was the "Fall"? Of this presently. The only thing now to be noted of these is, that the chief Gods and Heroes of the Fourth and Fifth Races, as of later antiquity, are the _deified images of these Men of the Third_. The days of their physiological purity, and those of their so-called Fall, have equally survived in the hearts and memories of their descendants. Hence, the dual nature shown in these Gods, both virtue and sin being exalted to their highest degree, in the biographies composed by posterity. They were the Pre-Adamite and the Divine Races, with which even Theology, in whose sight they are all the "accursed Cainite races," now begins to busy itself. But the action of the "Spiritual Progenitors" of that Race has first to be disposed of. A very difficult and abstruse point has to be explained with regard to Shlokas 26 and 27. 26. WHEN THE SWEAT-BORN PRODUCED THE EGG-BORN, THE TWO-FOLD,(394) THE MIGHTY, THE POWERFUL WITH BONES, THE LORDS OF WISDOM SAID: "NOW SHALL WE CREATE." Why "now"--and not earlier? This the following Shloka explains. 27. THE THIRD RACE BECAME THE VÂHAN(395) OF THE LORDS OF WISDOM. IT CREATED SONS OF WILL AND YOGA, BY KRIYÂSHAKTI IT CREATED THEM, THE HOLY FATHERS, ANCESTORS OF THE ARHATS.... How did they "create," since the "Lords of Wisdom" are identical with the Hindű Devas, who refuse to "create"? Clearly they are the Kumâras of the Hindű Pantheon and _Purânas_, those Elder Sons of Brahmâ: Sanandana and the other sous of Vedhas [who], previously created by him ... without desire or passion, [remained chaste] inspired with holy wisdom ... and undesirous of progeny.(396) The power, by which they first created, is that which has since caused them to be degraded from their high status to the position of Evil Spirits, of Satan and his Host--created in their turn by the unclean fancy of exoteric creeds. It was by Kriyâshakti, that mysterious and divine power, latent in the _will_ of every man, which, if not called to life, quickened and developed by Yoga-training, remains dormant in 999,999 men out of a million, and so gets atrophied. This power is explained in the "Twelve Signs of the Zodiac,"(397) as follows: _Kriyâshakti_:--The mysterious _power of thought_ which enables it to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy. The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself _externally_, if one's attention [and _will_] is deeply concentrated upon it. Similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result. A Yogî generally performs his wonders by means of Ichchhâshakti (Will-power) and Kriyâshakti. The Third Race had thus created the so-called "Sons of Will and Yoga," or the "Ancestors"--the _Spiritual_ Forefathers--of all the subsequent and present Arhats, or Mahâtmâs, in a truly _immaculate_ way. They were indeed _created_, not _begotten_, as were their brethren of the Fourth Race, who were generated sexually after the separation of sexes, the "Fall of Man." For Creation is but the result of Will acting on phenomenal Matter, the calling forth out of it the Primordial Divine Light and Eternal Life. They were the "Holy Seed Grain" of the future Saviours of Humanity. Here we have to again make a break, in order to explain certain difficult points, of which there are so many. It is almost impossible to avoid such interruptions.(398) The order of the evolution of the Human Races stands as follows in the Fifth Book of the Commentaries, and has already been given: _The first men were Chhâyâs (1); the Second, the __"__Sweat-born__"__ (2); the Third, __"__Egg-born,__"__ and the holy Fathers born by the power of Kriyâshakti (3); the Fourth were the children of the Padmapâni [Chenresi] (4)._ Of course such primeval modes of procreation--by the evolution of one's image; through drops of perspiration; after that by Yoga; and then by what people will regard as magic (Kriyâshakti)--are doomed beforehand to be regarded as fairy-tales. Nevertheless, beginning with the first and ending with the last, there is really nothing miraculous in them, nor anything which may not be shown to be natural. This must be proven. 1. Chhâyâ-birth, or that primeval mode of _sexless_ procreation--the First Race having _oozed out_, so to say, from the bodies of the Pitris--is hinted at in a cosmic allegory in the _Purânas_.(399) It is the beautiful allegory and story of Sanjńâ, the daughter of Vishvakarman--married to the Sun, who, "unable to endure the fervours of her Lord," gave him her Chhâyâ (shadow, image, or astral body), while she herself repaired to the jungle to perform religious devotions, or Tapas. The Sun, supposing the Chhâyâ to be his wife, begat by her children, like Adam with Lilith--an _ethereal shadow_ also, as in the legend, though an actual living female monster millions of years ago. But, perhaps, this instance proves little except the exuberant fancy of the Paurânic authors. We have another proof ready. If the materialized forms, which are sometimes seen oozing out of the bodies of certain mediums could, instead of vanishing, be fixed and made solid--the "creation" of the First Race would become quite comprehensible. This kind of procreation cannot fail to be suggestive to the student. Neither the mystery nor the impossibility of such a mode is certainly any greater--while it is far more comprehensible to the mind of the true metaphysical thinker--than the mystery of the conception of the foetus, its gestation and birth as a child, as we now know it. Now to the curious and little understood corroboration in the _Purânas_ about the "Sweat-born." 2. Kandu is a sage and a Yogî, eminent in holy wisdom and pious austerities, which, finally, awaken the jealousy of the Gods, who are represented in the Hindű Scriptures as being in never-ending strife with the Ascetics. Indra, the "King of the Gods,"(400) finally sends one of his female Apsarases to tempt the sage. This is no worse than Jehovah sending Sarah, Abraham's wife, to tempt Pharaoh; but in truth it is these Gods (and God), who are ever trying to disturb Ascetics and thus make them lose the fruit of their austerities, who ought to be regarded as "tempting demons," instead of applying the term to the Rudras, Kumâras, and Asuras, whose great sanctity and chastity seem a standing reproach to the Don Juanic Gods of the Pantheon. But it is the reverse that we find in all the Paurânic allegories, and not without good esoteric reason. The King of the Gods, or Indra, sends a beautiful Apsaras (nymph) named Pramlochâ to seduce Kandu and disturb his penance. She succeeds in her unholy purpose and "nine hundred and seven years six months and three days"(401) spent in her company seem to the Sage as one day. When this psychological or hypnotic state ends, the Muni bitterly curses the creature who has seduced him, thus disturbing his devotions. "Depart, begone!" he cries, "vile bundle of delusions!" And Pramlochâ, terrified, flies away, _wiping the perspiration __ from her body_ with the leaves of the trees as she passes through the air. The nymph went from tree to tree, and, as, with the dusky shoots that crowned their summits, she dried her limbs, the child she had conceived by the Rishi came forth from the pores of her skin in drops of perspiration. The trees received the living dews; and the winds collected them into one mass. "This," said Soma [the Moon], "I matured by my rays; and gradually it increased in size, till the exhalation that had rested on the tree tops became the lovely girl named Mârishâ."(402) Now Kandu stands for the First Race. He is a son of the Pitris, hence one "devoid of mind," a fact hinted at by his being unable to discern a period of nearly one thousand years from one day; therefore he is shown to be so easily deluded and blinded. Here is a variant of the allegory in _Genesis_, of Adam, born an image of clay, into which the "Lord God" breathes the "breath of life" but not of intellect and discrimination, which are developed only after he had tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge; in other words when he has acquired the first development of Mind, and had implanted in him Manas, whose terrestrial aspect is of the earth earthy, though its highest faculties connect it with Spirit and the Divine Soul. Pramlochâ is the Hindű Lilith of the Âryan Adam; and Mârishâ, the daughter born of the perspiration from her pores, is the "Sweat-born," and stands as a symbol for the Second Race of mankind. It is not Indra, who in this case figures in the _Purânas_, but Kâmadeva, the God of love and desire, who sends Pramlochâ on Earth. Logic, as well as the Esoteric Doctrine, shows that it must be so. For Kâma is the king and lord of the Apsarases, of whom Pramlochâ is one; and, therefore, when Kandu, cursing her, exclaims: "Thou hast performed the office assigned by the monarch of the gods, go!"--he must mean by that monarch Kâma, and not Indra, to whom the Apsarases are not subservient. For Kâma, again, is in the _Rig Veda_(403) the personification of that feeling which leads and propels to creation. He was the _First Movement_ that stirred the ONE, after its manifestation from the purely Abstract Principle, to create. Desire first arose in IT, which was the Primal Germ of Mind; and which Sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered to be the bond which connects Entity with Non-Entity. A Hymn in the _Atharva Veda_ exalts Kâma into a supreme God and Creator, and says: Kâma was born the first. Him, neither Gods nor Fathers [Pitris] nor Men have equalled. The _Atharva Veda_ identifies him with Agni, but makes him superior to that God. The _Taittirîya Brâhmana_ makes him allegorically the son of Dharma (moral religious duty, piety and justice) and of Shraddhâ (faith). Elsewhere Kâma is born from the heart of Brahmâ; therefore he is Âtmabhű "Self-Existent," and Aja, the "Unborn." His sending Pramlochâ has a deep philosophical meaning; sent by Indra--the narrative has none. As Erôs was connected in early Greek mythology with the world's creation, and only afterwards became the sexual Cupid, so was Kâma in his original Vedic character; the _Harivamsha_ making him a son of Lakshmî, who is Venus. The allegory, as said, shows the psychic element developing the physiological, before the birth of Daksha--_the progenitor of real physical men_--who is made to be born from Mârishâ and before whose time living beings and men were procreated "by the will, by sight, by touch, and by yoga," as will be shown. This, then, is the allegory on the mode of procreation of the Second or the "Sweat-born." The same for the Third Race in its final development. Mârishâ, through the exertions of Soma, the Moon, is taken to wife by the Prachetases, the production of the "Mind-born" sons of Brahmâ also,(404) from whom they beget the Patriarch Daksha--a son of Brahmâ also in a former Kalpa or life, explain and add the _Purânas_, in order to mislead, yet speaking the truth. 3. The early Third Race, then, is formed from drops of "Sweat," which, after many a transformation, grow into human bodies. This is not more difficult to imagine or realize than the growth of the foetus from an imperceptible germ, and its subsequent development into a child, and then into a strong, heavy man. But the Third Race changes yet again its mode of procreation according to the Commentaries. It is said to have emanated a _vis formativa_, which changed the drops of perspiration into greater drops, which grew, expanded, and became ovoid bodies--huge eggs. In these the human foetus gestated for several years. In the _Purânas_, Mârishâ, the daughter of Kandu, the sage, becomes the wife of the Prachetases, and the mother of Daksha. Now Daksha is the father of the first _human-like_ Progenitors, having been born in this way. He is mentioned later on. The evolution of man, the microcosm, is analogous to that of the universe, the macrocosm. His evolution stands between that of the latter and that of the animal, for which man, in his turn, is a macrocosm. Then the Third Race becomes: 4. The Androgyne, or Hermaphrodite. This process of men-bearing explains, perhaps, why Aristophanes, in Plato's _Banquet_, describes the nature of the old race as "androgynous," the form of every individual being rounded, "having the back and sides as _in a circle_," whose "manner of running was circular ... terrible in force and strength and with prodigious ambition." Therefore, to make them weaker, "Zeus divided them [in the Third Root- Race] into two, and Apollo [the Sun], under his direction, closed up the skin." The Madagascans--the island belonged to Lemuria--have a tradition about the first man. He lived at first without eating, and, having indulged in food, a swelling appeared in his leg; this bursting, there emerged from it a female, who became the mother of their race. Truly, "we have our sciences of Heterogenesis and Parthenogenesis, showing that the field is yet open.... The polyps ... produce their offspring from themselves, like the buds and ramifications of a tree...." Why not the primitive _human_ polyp? The very interesting polyp Stauridium passes alternately from gemmation into the sex method of reproduction. Curiously enough, though it grows merely as a polyp on a stalk, it produces gemmules, which ultimately develop into a sea-nettle or Medusa. The Medusa is utterly dissimilar to its parent-organism, the Stauridium. It also reproduces itself differently, by sexual method, and from the resulting eggs Stauridia once more put in an appearance. This striking fact may assist many to understand that a form may be evolved--as in the _sexual_ Lemurians from _hermaphrodite_ parentage--quite unlike its immediate progenitors. It is, moreover, unquestionable that in the case of _human_ incarnations the law of Karma, racial or individual, overrides the subordinate tendencies of Heredity, its servant. The meaning of the last sentence in the above-quoted Commentary on Shloka 27, namely, that the Fourth Race were the children of Padmapâni, may find its explanation in a certain letter from the Inspirer of _Esoteric Buddhism_: _The majority of mankind belongs to the seventh sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race--the above-mentioned Chinamen and their off-shoots and branchlets (Malayans, Mongolians, Tibetans, Hungarians, Finns, and even the Esquimaux are all remnants of this last offshoot)._ Padmapâni or Avalokiteshvara, in Sanskrit, is, in Tibetan, Chenresi. Now, Avalokiteshvara is the great Logos in its higher aspect and in the divine regions. But in the manifested planes, he is, like Daksha, the Progenitor (in a spiritual sense) of men. Padmapâni-Avalokiteshvara is called _esoterically_ Bodhisattva (or Dhyân Chohan) Chenresi Vanchug, "the powerful and all-seeing." He is considered now as the greatest protector of Asia in general, and of Tibet in particular. In order to guide the Tibetans and Lamas in holiness, and preserve the great Arhats in the world, this heavenly Being is credited with manifesting himself from age to age in human form. A popular legend has it that whenever faith begins to die out in the world, Padmapâni Chenresi, the "Lotus-bearer," emits a brilliant ray of light, and forthwith incarnates himself in one of the two great Lamas--the Dalai and Teschu Lamas; finally, it is believed that he will incarnate as the "most perfect Buddha" in Tibet, instead of in India, where his predecessors, the great Rishis and Manus had appeared in the beginning of our Race, but now appear no longer. Even the exoteric appearance of Dhyâni Chenresi is suggestive of the Esoteric Teaching. He is evidently, like Daksha, the synthesis of all the preceding Races and the progenitor of all the _human_ Races after the Third--the first complete one--and thus is represented as the _culmination_ of the _four_ Primeval Races in his _eleven-faced_ form. This is a column built in four rows, each series having three faces or heads of different complexions; the three faces for each Race being typical of its three fundamental physiological transformations. The first is white (moon-coloured); the second is yellow; the third, red-brown; the fourth, in which are only two faces--the third face being left a blank; a reference to the untimely end of the Atlanteans--is brown-black. Padmapâni (Daksha) is seated on the column, and forms the apex. In this reference compare Shloka 39. The Dhyân Chohan is represented with four arms, another allusion to the four Races. For while two are folded, the third hand holds a lotus--Padmapâni, the "Lotus-bearer"; the flower symbolizing generation--and the fourth holds a serpent, emblem of the Wisdom in his power. On his neck is a rosary, and on his head the sign of water [Symbol: two horizontal rows of wave-like symbols]--matter, deluge--while on his brow rests the third eye, Shiva's eye, that of spiritual insight. His name is "Protector" (of Tibet), "Saviour of Humanity." On other occasions when he has only two arms, he is Chenresi the Dhyânî, and Bodhisattva, Chakna Padma Karpo, "he who holds a white lotus." His other name is Chantong, "he of the thousand eyes," when he is endowed with a thousand arms and hands, on the palm of each of which is represented an eye of Wisdom, these arms radiating from his body like a forest of rays. Another of his names in Sanskrit is Lokapati or Lokanâtha, "Lord of the World"; and in Tibetan Jigten Gonpo, "Protector and Saviour" against evil of any kind.(405) Padmapâni, however, is the "Lotus-bearer" symbolically only for the profane; esoterically, it means the supporter of the Kalpas, the last of which is called Pâdma, and represents one half of the life of Brahmâ. Though really a minor Kalpa, it is called Mahâ, "great," because it comprises the age in which Brahmâ sprang from a lotus. Theoretically, the Kalpas are infinite, but practically they are divided and subdivided in Space and Time, each division--down to the smallest--having its own Dhyânî as patron or regent. Padmapâni (Avalokiteshvara) becomes, in China, in his female aspect, Kwan-yin, "who assumes any form, at pleasure, in order to save mankind." The knowledge of the astrological aspect of the constellations on the respective "birthdays" of these Dhyânîs--Amitabha (the A-mi-to Fo, of China), included: _e.g._, on the 19th day of the second month, on the 17th day of the eleventh month, and on the 7th day of the third month,(406) etc.--gives the Occultist the greatest facilities for performing what are called "magic" feats. The future of an individual is seen, with all its coming events marshalled in order, in a _magic_ mirror placed under the ray of certain constellations. But--beware of the reverse of the medal, SORCERY. Stanza VIII. Evolution Of The Animal Mammalians: The First Fall. 28. How the first mammals were produced. 29. A quasi-Darwinian evolution. 30. The animals get solid bodies. 31. Their separation into sexes. 32. The first sin of the mindless men. 28. FROM THE DROPS OF SWEAT, FROM THE RESIDUE OF THE SUBSTANCE, MATTER FROM DEAD BODIES OF MEN AND ANIMALS OF THE WHEEL BEFORE,(407) AND FROM CAST-OFF DUST, THE FIRST ANIMALS(408) WERE PRODUCED. The Occult Doctrine maintains that, in this Round, the mammalians were a later work of evolution than man. Evolution proceeds in Cycles. The great Manvantaric Cycle of Seven Rounds, beginning in the First Round with the mineral, vegetable, and animal, brings its evolutionary work on the descending arc to a dead stop in the middle of the Fourth Race, at the close of the first half of the Fourth Round. It is on our Earth, then--the Fourth Sphere and the lowest--and in the present Round, that this middle point has been reached. And since the Monad has passed, after its first "immetallization" on Globe A, through the mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds in every degree of the three states of matter, except the last degree of the third or solid state, which it reached only at the "mid- point of evolution," it is but logical and natural that at the beginning of the Fourth Round on Globe D, Man should be the first to appear; and also that his frame should be of the most tenuous matter that is compatible with objectivity. To make it still clearer: if the Monad begins its cycle of incarnations through the three objective kingdoms on the descending curved line, it has necessarily to enter on the reäscending curved line of the Sphere as a man also. On the descending arc it is the spiritual which gradually transforms into the material. On the middle line of the base, Spirit and Matter are equilibrized in Man. On the ascending arc, Spirit is slowly reässerting itself at the expense of the physical, or Matter, so that, at the close of the Seventh Race of the Seventh Round, the Monad will find itself as free from Matter and all its qualities as it was in the beginning; having gained in addition the experience and wisdom, the fruitage of all its personal lives, without their evil and temptations. This order of evolution is found also in the first and second chapters of _Genesis_, if one reads it in its true esoteric sense; for Chapter i contains the history of the first Three Rounds, as well as that of the first Three Races of the Fourth, up to the moment when Man is called to conscious life by the Elohim of Wisdom. In Chapter i, animals, whales and fowls of the air, are created before the androgyne Adam.(409) In Chapter ii, Adam (the sexless) comes first, and the animals only appear after him. Even the state of mental torpor and unconsciousness of the first two Races, and of the first half of the Third Race, is symbolized, in the second chapter of _Genesis_, by the _deep sleep of Adam_. It is the dreamless sleep of mental inaction, the slumber of the Soul and Mind, which is meant by that "sleep," and not at all the physiological process of differentiation of sexes, as a learned French theorist, M. Naudin, imagined. The _Purânas_, the Chaldćan and Egyptian fragments, and also the Chinese traditions, all show an agreement with the Secret Doctrine as to the process and order of evolution. We find in them the corroboration of almost all our teaching: for instance, the statement concerning the oviparous mode of procreation of the Third Race, and even a hint at a less innocent mode of procreation of the first mammal forms. "_Gigantic, transparent, dumb and monstrous they were_," says the Commentary. Study in this connection the stories of the several Rishis and their multifarious progeny. Pulastya is the father of all the Serpents and Nâgas--an oviparous brood; Kashyapa is grandsire, through his wife Tâmrâ, of the birds and of Garuda, king of the feathered tribe; while by his wife Surabhi, he was the parent of cows and buffaloes, etc. In the Secret Doctrine, the first Nâgas--Beings wiser than Serpents--are the "Sons of Will and Yoga," born before the complete separation of the sexes, "matured in the man-bearing eggs(410) produced by the power (Kriyâshakti) of the holy Sages" of the early Third Race.(411) "In these were incarnated the Lords of the three [upper] worlds--the various classes of Rudras, who had been Tushitas, who had been Jayas, who are Âdityas;" for, as explained by Parâshara: "There are a hundred appellations of the immeasurably mighty Rudras." Some of the descendants of the primitive Nâgas, the Serpents of Wisdom, peopled America, when its continent arose during the palmy days of the great Atlantis; America being the Pâtâla or Antipodes of Jambu-dvîpa, not of Bhârata-varsha. Otherwise, whence the traditions and legends--the latter _always more true than history_, as says Augustin Thierry--and even the identity in the names of certain "medicine men" and priests, who exist to this day in Mexico? We shall have to say something of the Nargals and the Nagals, and also of Nagalism, called "devil-worship" by the missionaries. In almost all the _Purânas_, the story of the "Sacrifice of Daksha" is given, the oldest account of which is to be found in the _Vâyu Purâna_. Allegorical as it is, there is more meaning and biological revelation in it to a Naturalist, than in all the pseudo-scientific vagaries, which are regarded as learned theories and hypotheses. Daksha, who is regarded as the Chief Progenitor, is, moreover, pointed out as the creator of _physical man_, in the "fable" which makes him lose his head from his body in the general strife between the Gods and the Raumas. This head, being burnt in the fire, is replaced by the _head of a ram_, according to the Kâshi Khanda of the _Skanda Purâna_. Now the ram's head and horns are ever the symbol of generating power and of reproductive force, and are phallic. As we have shown, it is Daksha who establishes the era of men engendered by sexual intercourse. This mode of procreation did not occur suddenly, however, as one might think, but required long ages before it became the one "natural" way. Therefore, Daksha's sacrifice to the Gods is shown to have been interfered with by Shiva--the _Destroying_ Deity, _Evolution and Progress personified_, who is the _Regenerator_ at the same time; who destroys things under one form but to recall them to life under another more perfect type. Shiva-Rudra creates the terrible Vîrabhadra, born of his breath, the "thousand-headed, thousand-armed" monster, and commissions him to destroy the sacrifice prepared by Daksha. Then Vîrabhadra, "abiding in the region of ghosts (ethereal men) ... created from _the pores of his skin_ (Roma-kűpas) powerful Raumas."(412) Now, however mythical the allegory, the _Mahâbhârata_(413)--which is as much history as is the _Iliad_--shows the Raumas and other races springing in the same manner from the Roma-kűpas, hair or skin pores. This allegorical description of Daksha's "sacrifice" is full of significance to the students of the Secret Doctrine who know of the "Sweat-born." In the _Vâyu Purâna's_ account of the sacrifice, moreover, it is said to have taken place in the presence of creatures _born from the egg_, from the vapour, vegetation, pores of the skin, and, finally only, from the womb.(414) Daksha typifies the early Third Race, holy and pure, as yet devoid of an Individual Ego, and possessing passive capacities only. Brahmâ, therefore, commands him to create (in the exoteric texts); when, obeying the command, he made "inferior and superior" (Avara and Vara) progeny (Putra), _bipeds_ and _quadrupeds_; and by his _will_, gave birth to females, to the Gods, the Daityas (Giants of the Fourth Race), the snake-gods, animals, cattle and the Dânavas (Titans and Demon Magicians) and other beings. From that period forward, _living creatures were engendered by sexual intercourse. Before the time of Daksha, they were variously propagated_--by the _will_, by sight, by touch, and by the influence of religious austerities practised by devout sages and holy saints.(415) And now comes the simply zoölogical teaching. 29. ANIMALS WITH BONES, DRAGONS OF THE DEEP, AND FLYING SARPAS(416) WERE ADDED TO THE CREEPING THINGS. THEY THAT CREEP ON THE GROUND GOT WINGS. THEY OF THE LONG NECKS IN THE WATER BECAME THE PROGENITORS OF THE FOWLS OF THE AIR. This is a point on which the teachings and modern biological speculation are in perfect accord. The missing links representing this transition process between reptile and bird are apparent to the veriest bigot, especially in the Ornithoscelidć, Hesperornis, and the Archćopteryx of Vogt. 30. DURING THE THIRD,(417) THE BONELESS ANIMALS GREW AND CHANGED; THEY BECAME ANIMALS WITH BONES, THEIR CHHÂYÂS BECAME SOLID.(418) Vertebrates, and after that mammalians. Before that the animals were also ethereal proto-organisms, just as man was. 31. THE ANIMALS SEPARATED THE FIRST.(419) THEY BEGAN TO BREED. THE TWO- FOLD MAN(420) SEPARATED ALSO. HE(421) SAID: "LET US AS THEY; LET US UNITE AND MAKE CREATURES." THEY DID.... 32. AND THOSE WHICH HAD NO SPARK(422) TOOK HUGE SHE-ANIMALS UNTO THEM. THEY BEGAT UPON THEM DUMB RACES. DUMB THEY(423) WERE THEMSELVES. BUT THEIR TONGUES UNTIED.(424) THE TONGUES OF THEIR PROGENY REMAINED STILL. MONSTERS THEY BRED. A RACE OF CROOKED RED-HAIR-COVERED MONSTERS GOING ON ALL FOURS.(425) A DUMB RACE, TO KEEP THE SHAME UNTOLD.(426) The fact of former hermaphrodite mammals and the subsequent separation of sexes is now indisputable, even from the standpoint of Biology. As Prof. Oscar Schmidt, an avowed Darwinist, shows: Use and disuse, combined with selection, elucidate [?] _the separation of the sexes_, and the existence, otherwise totally incomprehensible, of rudimentary sexual organs. In the Vertebrata especially, _each sex possesses such distinct traces of the reproductive apparatus characteristic of the other_, that even antiquity assumed hermaphroditism as a natural primćval condition of mankind.... The tenacity with which these rudiments of sexual organs are inherited is remarkable. In the class of mammals, actual hermaphroditism is unheard of, although through the whole period of their development they drag along with them these residues, borne by _their unknown ancestry_, no one can say how long.(427) "The animals separated the first," says Shloka 31. Bear in mind that at that period men were different, even physiologically, to what they are now; the middle point of the Fifth Race being already passed. We are not told what the "huge she-animals" were; but they certainly were as different from any we now know, as were the "men" from the men of to-day. This was the first physical "fall into matter" of some of the then existing and lower races. Bear in mind Shloka 24. The "Sons of Wisdom" had spurned the _early_ Third Race, _i.e._, the non-developed, and are shown incarnating in, and thereby endowing with intellect, the _later_ Third Race. Thus the sin of the brainless or "mindless" Races, who had no "spark" and were irresponsible, fell upon those who failed to do by them their Karmic duty. What May Be The Objections To The Foregoing. Thus Occultism rejects the idea that Nature developed man from the ape, or even from an ancestor common to both; but, on the contrary, traces some of the most anthropoid species to the Third Race man of the early Atlantean Period. As this proposition will be maintained and defended elsewhere, a few words more are all that are needed at present. For greater clearness, however, we shall repeat in brief what was said previously in Volume I, Stanza VI. Our teachings show that, while it is quite correct to say that Nature had, at one time, built round the human astral form an _ape-like external_ shape, it is also as correct that this shape was no more that of the "missing link," than were the multitudinous other coverings of that astral form, during the course of its natural evolution through all the kingdoms of Nature. Nor was it, as has been shown, on this Fourth Round Planet that such evolution took place, but only during the First, Second, and Third Rounds, when Man was, in turn, "a stone, a plant, and an animal" until he became what he was in the First Root-Race of present Humanity. The real line of evolution differs from the Darwinian, and the two systems are irreconcilable, unless the latter is divorced from the dogmas of "natural selection" and the like. Indeed, between the Moneron of Hćckel and the Sarîsripa of Manu, there lies an impassable chasm in the shape of the Jîva; for the "human" Monad, whether "immetallized" in the stone-atom, or "in-vegetalized" in the plant, or "inanimalized" in the animal, is still ever a divine, hence also a _human_ Monad. It ceases to be human only when it becomes _absolutely divine_. The terms "mineral," "vegetable" and "animal" Monad are intended to create a superficial distinction: there is no such thing as a Monad (Jîva) other than divine, and consequently having once been, or having in the future to become, human. The latter term has to remain meaningless unless this difference is well understood. The Monad is a drop out of the Shoreless Ocean beyond, or, to be correct, _within_, the plane of primćval differentiation. It is _divine_ in its higher and _human_ in its lower condition--the adjectives "higher" and "lower" being used for lack of better words--but a Monad it remains at all times, save in the Nirvânic state, under whatever conditions, or whatever external forms. As the Logos reflects the Universe in the Divine Mind, and the Manifested Universe reflects itself in each of its Monads, as Leibnitz put it repeating an Eastern teaching, so the Monad has, during the cycle of its incarnations, to reflect in itself every _root-form_ of each kingdom. Therefore, the Kabalists say correctly that "Man becomes a stone, a plant, an animal, a man, a spirit, and finally God," thus accomplishing his cycle or circuit and returning to the point from which he had started as the _Heavenly Man_. But by "Man" the Divine Monad is meant, and not the Thinking Entity, much less his Physical Body. The men of Science now try to trace the immortal Soul, while rejecting its existence, through a series of animal forms from the lowest to the highest; whereas, in truth, all the present fauna are the descendants of those primordial monsters of which the Stanzas speak. The animals--the creeping beasts and those in the waters that preceded Man in this Fourth Round, as well as those contemporary with the Third Race, and again the mammalia that are posterior to the Third and Fourth Races--all are either directly or indirectly the mutual and correlative product, _physically_, of Man. It is correct to say that the man of this Manvantara, _i.e._, of the three preceding Rounds, has passed through all the kingdoms of Nature. That he was "a stone, a plant, an animal." But (_a_) these stones, plants, and animals were the prototypes, the filmy presentments of those of the Fourth Round; and (_b_) even those at the beginning of the Fourth Round were the astral shadows, as the Occultists express it, of the present stones, plants and animals. And finally, neither the forms nor genera of either man, animal, or plant were what they became later. Thus the astral prototypes of the lower beings of the animal kingdom of the Fourth Round, which _preceded_ the Chhâyâs of Men, were the consolidated, though still very ethereal _sheaths_ of the still more ethereal forms, or models, produced at the close of the Third Round on Globe D, as set forth in _Esoteric Buddhism_; produced "from the residue of the substance; matter from dead bodies of men and [other _extinct_] animals of the Wheel before," or the previous _Third_ Round--as Shloka 28 tells us. Hence, while the nondescript "animals" that preceded the Astral Man at the beginning of this Life-cycle on our Earth were still, so to speak, the progeny of the Man of the Third Round, the mammalians of this Round owe their existence, in a great measure, to Man again. Moreover, the "ancestor" of the present anthropoid animal, the ape, is the direct production of the yet mindless Man, who desecrated his human dignity by putting himself physically on the level of an animal. The above accounts for some of the alleged physiological proofs, brought forward by the Anthropologists as a demonstration of the descent of man from the animals. The point most insisted upon by the Evolutionists is that, "The history of the embryo is an epitome of that of the race." That: Every organism, in its development from the egg, runs through a series of forms, through which, in like succession, its ancestors have passed in the long course of earth's history.(428) The history of the embryo ... is a picture in little, and outline of that of the race. _This conception forms the gist of our fundamental biogenetic law, which we are obliged to place at the head of the study of the fundamental law of organic development._(429) This modern theory was known as a fact to, and far more philosophically expressed by, the Sages and Occultists from the remotest ages. A passage from _Isis Unveiled_ may here be cited to furnish a few points of comparison. It was asked why, with all their great learning, Physiologists were unable to explain teratological phenomena? Any Anatomist who has made the development and growth of the embryo ... "a subject of special study," can tell, without much brain-work, what daily experience and the evidence of his own eyes show him, viz., that up to a certain period, the human embryo is a facsimile of a young batrachian in its first remove from the spawn--a tadpole. But no Physiologist or Anatomist seems to have had the idea of applying to the development of the human being--from the first instant of its physical appearance as a germ to its ultimate formation and birth--the Pythagorean esoteric doctrine of metempsychosis, so erroneously interpreted by critics. The meaning of the Kabalistic axiom: "A stone becomes a plant; a plant, a beast; a beast, a man," etc., was mentioned in another place in relation to the spiritual and physical evolution of men on this Earth. We will now add a few more words to make the matter clearer. What is the primitive shape of the future man? A grain, a corpuscle, say some Physiologists; a molecule, an ovum of the ovum, say others. If it could be analyzed--by the microscope or otherwise--of what ought we to expect to find it composed? Analogically, we should say, of a nucleus of inorganic matter, deposited from the circulation at the germinating point, and united with a deposit of organic matter. In other words, this infinitesimal nucleus of the future man is composed of the same elements as a stone--of the same elements as the Earth, which the man is destined to inhabit. Moses is cited by the Kabalists as authority for the remark, that it required earth and water to make a living being, and thus it may be said that man first appears as a stone. At the end of three or four weeks the ovum has assumed a plant- like appearance, one extremity having become spheroidal and the other tapering, like a carrot. Upon dissection it is found to be composed, like an onion, of very delicate laminć or coats, enclosing a liquid. The laminć approach each other at the lower end, and the embryo hangs from the root of the umbilicus almost like the fruit from the bough. The stone has now become changed, by "metempsychosis," into a plant. Then the embryonic creature begins to shoot out, from the inside outward, its limbs, and develops its features. The eyes are visible as two black dots; the ears, nose, and mouth form depressions, like the points of a pineapple, before they begin to project. The embryo develops into an animal-like foetus--the shape of a tadpole--and, like an amphibious reptile, lives in water and develops from it. Its monad has not yet become either human or immortal, for the Kabalists tell us that this only occurs at the "fourth hour." One by one the foetus assumes the characteristics of the human being, the first flutter of the immortal breath passes through its being: it moves; ... and the divine essence settles in the infant frame, which it will inhabit until the moment of physical death, when man becomes a spirit. This mysterious process of a nine-months' formation, the Kabalists call the completion of the "individual cycle of evolution." As the foetus develops amidst the _liquor amnii_ in the womb, so the Earths germinate in the Universal Ether, or Astral Fluid, in the Womb of the Universe. These cosmic children, like their pigmy inhabitants, are first nuclei; then ovules; then gradually mature; and becoming mothers, in their turn, develop mineral, vegetable, animal, and human forms. From centre to circumference, from the imperceptible vesicle to the uttermost conceivable bounds of the cosmos, those glorious thinkers, the Occultists, trace cycle merging into cycle, containing and contained in an endless series. The embryo evolving in its pre-natal sphere, the individual in his family, the family in the state, the state in mankind, the earth in our system, that system in its central universe, the universe in the Kosmos, and the Kosmos in the ONE CAUSE--the Boundless and Endless.(430) Thus runs _their_ philosophy of evolution, differing as we see, from that of Hćckel. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and (Parabrahm) the Soul. These are the proofs of Occultism, and they are rejected by Science. But how is the chasm between the mind of man and animal to be bridged in this case? How, if the anthropoid and homo primigenius had, _argumenti gratiâ_, a common ancestor--in the way modern speculation puts it--how did the two groups diverge so widely from one another as regards mental capacity? True, the Occultist may be told that in every case Occultism does what Science repeats; it gives a _common_ ancestor to ape and man, since it makes the former issue from Primćval Man. Aye, but that "Primćval Man" was _man_ only in external form. He was _mindless_ and _soulless_ at the time he begot, with a female animal monster, the forefather of a series of apes. This speculation--if speculation it be--is at least logical, and fills the chasm between the mind of man and animal. Thus it accounts for and explains the hitherto unaccountable and inexplicable. The fact--of which Science is almost certain--that, in the present stage of evolution, no issue can follow from the union of man and animal, is considered and explained elsewhere. Now what is the fundamental difference between the accepted (or nearly so) conclusions--as enunciated in _The Pedigree of Man_--that man and ape have a common ancestor, and the teachings of Occultism, which deny this conclusion and accept the fact that all things and all living beings have originated from one common source? Materialistic Science makes man evolve gradually to what _he is now_. Starting from the first protoplasmic speck called Moneron--which we are told has, like the rest, "originated in the course of immeasurable ages from a few, or from one simple, _spontaneously arising_ original form, that has obeyed one law of evolution"--he is made to pass through "unknown and unknowable" types up to the ape, and thence to the human being. Where the transitional shapes are discoverable we are not told; for the simple reason that no "missing-links" between man and the apes have ever yet been found, though this fact in no way prevents men like Hćckel from inventing them _ad libitum_. Nor will they ever be met with; simply, again, because that link which unites man with his real ancestry is searched for on the objective plane and in the material world of forms, whereas it is safely hidden from the microscope and dissecting knife _within_ the animal tabernacle of man himself. We repeat what we have said in _Isis Unveiled_: All things had their origin in Spirit--evolution having originally begun from above and proceeded downward, instead of the reverse, as taught in the Darwinian theory. In other words, there has been a gradual materialization of forms until a fixed ultimate of debasement is reached. This point is that at which the doctrine of modern evolution enters into the arena of speculative hypothesis. Arrived at this period we shall find it easier to understand Hćckel's _Anthropogeny_, which traces the pedigree of man "from its protoplasmic root, sodden in the mud of seas which existed before the oldest of the fossiliferous rocks were deposited," according to Mr. Huxley's exposition. We may more easily still believe man (of the Third Round) evolved "by gradual modification of an [astral] mammal of ape-like organization," when we remember that the same theory, in a more condensed and less elegant, but equally comprehensible, phraseology, was said by Berosus to have been taught many thousands of years before his time by the man- fish Oannes or Dagon, the semi-demon of Babylonia(431) (though on somewhat modified lines). But what lies back of the Darwinian line of descent? So far as Darwin is concerned nothing but "unverifiable hypotheses." For, as he puts it, he views all beings "as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited."(432) He does not attempt to show us what these "few beings" were. But it answers our purpose quite as well, for, in the bare admission of their existence, recourse to the ancients for corroboration and elaboration of the idea receives the stamp of scientific approbation.(433) Truly, as we said in our first work, if we accept Darwin's theory of the development of species, we find that his starting-point lies in front of an open door. We are at liberty either to remain within with him, or cross the threshold, beyond which lies the limitless and the incomprehensible, or rather the Unutterable. If our mortal language is inadequate to express what our spirit--while on this earth--dimly foresees in the great "Beyond," it _must_ realize it at some point in the timeless Eternity. But what lies "beyond" Hćckel's theory? Why Bathybius Hćckelii, and no more! Stanza IX. The Final Evolution Of Man. 33. The creators repent. 34. They atone for their neglect. 35. Men become endowed with minds. 36. The Fourth Race develops perfect speech. 37. Every androgynous unit is separated and becomes bisexual. 33. SEEING WHICH,(434) THE LHAS(435) WHO HAD NOT BUILT MEN,(436) WEPT, SAYING: 34. "THE AMÂNASA(437) HAVE DEFILED OUR FUTURE ABODES. THIS IS KARMA. LET US DWELL IN THE OTHERS. LET US TEACH THEM BETTER, LEST WORSE SHOULD HAPPEN." THEY DID.... 35. THEN ALL MEN BECAME ENDOWED WITH MANAS.(438) THEY SAW THE SIN OF THE MINDLESS. But they had already _separated_, before the ray of divine reason had enlightened the dark region of their hitherto slumbering minds, and had _sinned_. That is to say, they had committed evil unconsciously, by producing an effect which was unnatural. Yet, like the other six primitive brother or fellow races, even so this seventh, henceforth degenerated race, which will have to bide its time for its final development on account of the _sin_ committed--even this race will find itself _on the last day_ on one of the Seven Paths. For: The Wise(439) guard the home of nature's order, they assume excellent forms in secret.(440) But we must see whether the "animals" tampered with, were of the same kind as those known to Zoölogy. The "Fall" occurred, according to the testimony of ancient Wisdom and the old records, as soon as Daksha--the reďncarnated Creator of men and things in the early Third Race--disappeared to make room for that portion of mankind which had "separated." This is how one Commentary explains the details that preceded the "Fall": _In the initial period of man's Fourth Evolution, the human kingdom branched off in several and various directions. The outward shape of its first specimens was not uniform, for the vehicles [the egg-like, external shells, in which the future fully physical man gestated] were often tampered with, before they hardened, by huge animals, of species now unknown, and belonging to the tentative efforts of Nature. The result was that intermediate races of monsters, half animals, half men, were produced. But as they were failures, they were not allowed to breathe long and live, although, the intrinsically paramount power of psychic over physical nature being yet very weak, and hardly established, the __"__Egg- born__"__ Sons had taken several of their females unto themselves as mates, and bred other human monsters. Later, animal species and human races becoming gradually equilibrized, they separated, and mated no longer. Man created no more--he begot. But he also begot animals as well as men, in days of old. Therefore the Sages [or wise men], who speak of males who had no more will-begotten offspring, but begat various animals along with Dânavas [Giants] on females of other species--animals being as [or in the manner of] sons putative to them; and they [the human males] refusing in time to be regarded as [putative] fathers of dumb creatures--spoke truthfully and wisely. Upon seeing this [state of things], the Kings and Lords of the last Races [of the Third and the Fourth] placed the seal of prohibition upon the sinful intercourse. It interfered with Karma, it developed new [Karma]_(_441_)_. They [the Divine Kings] struck the culprits with sterility. They destroyed the Red and Blue Races._(442) In another we find: _There were blue and red-faced animal-men even in later times; not from actual intercourse [between the human and animal species], but by descent._ And still another passage mentions: _Red-haired, swarthy men going on all-fours, who bend and unbend [stand erect and fall on their hands again], who speak as their forefathers, and run on their hands as their giant fore-mothers._ Perchance in these specimens Hćckelians might recognize, not the "Homo Primigenius," but some of the lower tribes, such as some tribes of the Australian savages. Nevertheless, even these are not descended from the anthropoid apes, but from human fathers and semi-human mothers, or, to speak more correctly, from human monsters--those "failures" mentioned in the first Commentary. The real anthropoids, Hćckel's Catarrhini and Platyrrhini, came far later, in the closing times of Atlantis. The Orang- Outang, the Gorilla, the Chimpanzee and Cynocephalus are the latest and purely physical evolutions from lower anthropoid mammalians. They have a spark of the purely human essence in them; man on the other hand, has not one drop of pithecoid(443) blood in his veins. Thus saith old Wisdom and universal tradition. How was the separation of sexes effected? it is asked. Are we to believe in the old Jewish fable of the rib of Adam yielding Eve? Even such belief is more logical and reasonable than the descent of man from the Quadrumana without any reservation; as the former hides an Esoteric truth under a fabulous version, while the latter conceals no deeper fact than a desire to force upon mankind a materialistic fiction. The rib is bone, and when we read in _Genesis_ that Eve was made out of the rib, it only means that the Race "with bones" was produced out of a previous Race and Races, which were "boneless." This is an Esoteric tenet spread far and wide. It is almost universal under its various forms. A Tahitian tradition states that man was created out of Arća, "red earth." Taaroa, the Creative Power, the chief God, "put man to sleep for long years, for several lives." This means racial periods, and is a reference to his _mental sleep_, as shown elsewhere. During that time the deity pulled an Ivi (bone) out of man and she became a woman.(444) Nevertheless, whatever the allegory may signify, even its exoteric meaning necessitates a _divine_ Builder of man--a "Progenitor." Do we then believe in such "supernatural" Beings? We say: No. Occultism has never believed in anything, whether animate or inanimate, _outside_ Nature. Nor are we Cosmolaters or Polytheists for believing in "Heavenly Man" and Divine Men, for we have the accumulated testimony of the ages, with its unvarying evidence on every essential point, to support us in this; the Wisdom of the Ancients and _universal_ tradition. We reject, however, such groundless and baseless traditions as have outgrown strict allegory and symbolism, although they may have found acceptance in exoteric creeds. But that which is preserved in _unanimous_ tradition, only the wilfully blind could reject. Hence we believe in races of Beings other than our own in far remote geological periods; in races of ethereal, following _incorporeal_ (Arűpa) Men, with form but no solid substance, giants who preceded us pigmies; in Dynasties of Divine Beings, those Kings and Instructors of the Third Race in arts and sciences, compared with which our little Modern Science stands less chance than elementary arithmetic with geometry. No, certainly not. We do not believe in _supernatural_ but only in _superhuman_, or rather _interhuman_, intelligences. One can easily appreciate the feeling of reluctance that an educated person would have to being classed with the superstitious and ignorant; and even realize the great truth uttered by Renan when he says that: The supernatural has become like the original sin, a blemish that everyone seems ashamed of--even those most religious persons who refuse in our day to accept be it a minimum of Bible miracles in all their crudeness, and who, seeking to reduce them to the minimum, hide and conceal it in the furthermost corners of the past.(445) But the "supernatural" of Renan belongs to dogma and its dead letter. It has nought to do with its spirit nor with the reality of facts in Nature. If Theology asks us to believe that it was only four or five thousand years ago that men lived 900 years and more, that a portion of mankind, the enemies of the people of Israel exclusively, was composed of giants and monsters, we decline to believe that such a thing existed in Nature only five _thousand_ years back. For Nature never proceeds by jumps and starts, and logic and common sense, besides Geology, Anthropology and Ethnology, have justly rebelled against such assertions. But if this same Theology, giving up her fantastic chronology, had claimed that men lived 969 years--the age of Methuselah--five _million_ years ago, we should have nothing to say against the claim. For in those days the physical frame of men was, compared to the present human body, as that of a Megalosaurus to a common lizard. A Naturalist suggests another difficulty. The human is the only species which, however unequal in its races, can breed together. "There is no question of selection between _human races_," say the anti-Darwinists, and no Evolutionist can deny the argument--one which very triumphantly proves _specific unity_. How then can Occultism insist that a portion of the Fourth Race humanity begot young ones from females of another, only semi- human, if not quite an animal, race; the hybrids resulting from which union not only bred freely but produced the ancestors of the modern anthropoid apes? Esoteric Science replies to this that it was in the very beginnings of physical man. Since then, Nature has changed her ways, and sterility is the only result of the crime of man's bestiality. But we have even to-day proofs of this. The Secret Doctrine teaches that the _specific unity of mankind_ is not without exceptions even now. For there are, or rather still were a few years ago, descendants of these half-animal tribes or races, both of remote Lemurian and Lemuro-Atlantean origin. The world knows them as Tasmanians (now extinct), Australians, Andaman Islanders, etc. The descent of the Tasmanians can be almost proved by a fact, which struck Darwin a good deal, without his being able to make anything of it. This fact deserves notice. De Quatrefages and other Naturalists, who seek to prove Monogenesis by the very fact of every race of mankind being capable of crossing with every other, have left out of their calculations _exceptions_, which do not in this case confirm the rule. Human crossing may have been a general rule from the time of the separation of sexes, but this does not prevent another law asserting itself, viz., sterility between two human races, just as between two animal species of different kinds, in those rare cases when a European, condescending to see in a female of a savage tribe a mate, happens to choose a member of such mixed tribes.(446) Darwin notes such a case in a Tasmanian tribe, whose women were suddenly struck with sterility, _en masse_, some time after the arrival among them of European colonists. The great Naturalist tried to explain this fact by change of diet, food conditions, etc., but finally gave up the solution of the mystery. For the Occultist it is very evident. "Crossing," as it is called, of Europeans with Tasmanian women--_i.e._, the representatives of a race, whose progenitors were a "soulless"(447) and mindless monster, with a real human, though still as mindless a man--brought on sterility; and this, not only as a consequence of a physiological law, but also as a decree of Karmic evolution in the question of further survival of the abnormal race. In no one point of the above is Science prepared to believe _as yet_--but it will have to in the long run. Esoteric Philosophy, let us remember, only fills the gaps left by Science and corrects her false premisses. Yet, in this particular, Geology and even Botany and Zoology support the Esoteric Teachings. It has been suggested by many Geologists that the Australian native--coëxisting as he does with an _archaic fauna and flora_--must date back to an enormous antiquity. The whole environment of this mysterious race, about whose origin Ethnology is silent, is a testimony to the truth of the Esoteric position. As Jukes says: It is a very curious fact that not only these marsupial animals [the mammals found in the Oxfordshire Stone-field Slates], but several of the shells--as for instance, the Trigonias and even some of the plants found fossil in the Oolitic rocks--much more nearly resemble those now living in Australia than the living forms of any other part of the globe. This might be explained on the supposition that, since the Oolitic [Jurassic] period _less change has taken place in Australia than elsewhere_, and that the Australian flora and fauna consequently retain something of the Oolitic type, _while it had been altogether supplanted and replaced on the rest of the globe_ [! !].(448) Now why has less change taken place in Australia than elsewhere? Where is the _raison d'ętre_ for such a "curse of retardation"? It is simply because the nature of the environment develops _pari passu_ with the race concerned. Correspondences rule in every quarter. The survivors of those later Lemurians, who escaped the destruction of their fellows when the main Continent was submerged, became the ancestors of a portion of the present native tribes. Being a very low sub-race, begotten originally of animals, of monsters, whose very fossils are now resting miles under the sea floors, their stock has since existed in an environment strongly subjected to the _law of retardation_. Australia is one of the oldest lands now above the waters, and in the senile decrepitude of old age, its "_virgin_ soil" notwithstanding. It can produce no new forms, unless helped by new and fresh races, and artificial cultivation and breeding. To return once more, however, to the history of the Third Race, the "Sweat-born," the "Egg-bearing," and the "Androgyne." Almost sexless, in its early beginnings, it became bisexual or androgynous; very gradually of course. The passage from the first to the last transformation required numberless generations, during which the simple cell that issued from the earliest parent (the two in one), first developed into a bisexual being; and then the cell, becoming a regular egg, gave forth a unisexual creature. The Third Race mankind is the most mysterious of all the five hitherto developed Races. The mystery of the "How" of the generation of the distinct sexes must, of course, be very obscure here, as it is the business of an embryologist and a specialist; the present work giving only faint outlines of the process. But it is evident that the units of the Third Race humanity began to separate in their pre-natal shells, or eggs,(449) and to issue out of them as distinct male and female babes, ages after the appearance of its early progenitors. And, as time rolled on its geological periods, the newly born sub-races began to lose their natal capacities. Toward the end of the fourth sub-race of the Third Race, the babe lost its faculty of walking as soon as liberated from its shell, and by the end of the fifth, mankind was born under the same conditions and by identically the same process as our historical generations. This required, of course, millions of years. The reader has been made acquainted with the approximate figures, at least of the exoteric calculations.(450) We are approaching the turning-point of the evolution of the Races. Let us see what Occult Philosophy says on the origin of language. 36. THE FOURTH RACE DEVELOPED SPEECH. The Commentaries explain that the First Race--the ethereal or astral Sons of Yoga, also called "Self-born"--was, in our sense, speechless, for it was devoid of mind on our plane. The Second Race had a "sound-language," to wit, chant-like sounds composed of vowels alone. The Third Race developed in the beginning a kind of language which was only a slight improvement on the various sounds in Nature, on the cry of gigantic insects and of the first animals, which, however, were hardly nascent in the day of the "Sweat-born" or the _early_ Third Race. In its second half, when the "Sweat-born" gave birth to the "Egg-born," the _middle_ Third Race; and when these, instead of "hatching out"--may the reader pardon the rather ridiculous expression when applied to human beings in our age--as androgynous beings, began to evolve into separate males and females; and when the same law of evolution led them to reproduce their kind sexually--an act which forced the Creative Gods, compelled by Karmic law, to incarnate in _mindless_ men; then only was speech developed. But even then it was still no better than a tentative effort. The whole human race was at that time of "one language and of one lip." This did not prevent the last two sub-races of the Third Race(451) from building cities, and sowing far and wide the first seeds of civilization under the guidance of their Divine Instructors,(452) and their own already awakened minds. Let the reader also bear in mind that, as each of the seven Races is divided into four Ages--the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Age--so is every smallest division of such Races. Speech then developed, according to Occult Teaching, in the following order: I. _Monosyllabic speech_: that of the first approximately fully developed human beings at the close of the Third Root-Race, the "golden-coloured," yellow-complexioned men, after their separation into sexes, and the full awakening of their minds. Before that, they communicated through what would now be called "thought-transference," though, with the exception of the Race called the "Sons of Will and Yoga"--the first in whom the "Sons of Wisdom" had incarnated--thought was but very little developed in nascent physical man, and never soared above a low terrestrial level. Their physical bodies belonging to the Earth, their Monads remained on a higher plane altogether. Language could not be well developed before the full acquisition and development of their reasoning faculties. This monosyllabic speech was the vowel-parent, so to speak, of the monosyllabic languages mixed with hard consonants, still in use amongst the yellow races which are known to the Anthropologist.(453) II. _Agglutinative speech_: these linguistic characteristics developed into the agglutinative languages. The latter were spoken by some Atlantean races, while other parent stocks of the Fourth Race preserved the mother- language. And as languages have their cyclic evolution, their childhood, purity, growth, _fall into matter_, admixture with other languages, maturity, decay and finally death,(454) so the primitive speech of the most civilized Atlantean races--that language, which is referred to as Râkshasî Bhâshâ, in old Sanskrit works--decayed and almost died out. While the "cream" of the Fourth Race gravitated more and more toward the apex of physical and intellectual evolution, thus leaving as an heirloom to the nascent Fifth (the Âryan) Race the inflectional, highly developed languages, the agglutinative decayed and remained as a fragmentary fossil idiom, now scattered, and nearly limited to the aboriginal tribes of America. III. _Inflectional speech_: the root of the Sanskrit, very erroneously called the "elder sister" of the Greek, instead of its mother--was the first language, now the mystery tongue of the Initiates, of the Fifth Race. The "Semitic" languages are the bastard descendants of the first phonetic corruptions of the eldest children of the early Sanskrit. The Occult Doctrine admits of no such divisions as the Âryan and the Semite, and accepts even the Turanian with ample reservations. The Semites, especially the Arabs, are later Âryans--degenerate in spirituality and perfected in materiality. To these belong all the Jews and the Arabs. The former are a tribe descended from the Chandâlas of India, the outcasts, many of them ex-Brâhmans, who sought refuge in Chaldća, in Scinde, and Aria (Iran), and were truly born from their father A-Bram (No-Brâhman) some 8,000 years B.C. The latter, the Arabs, are the descendants of those Âryans who would not go into India at the time of the dispersion of nations, some of whom remained on the borderlands thereof, in Afghanistan and Kabul(455) and along the Oxus, while others penetrated into and invaded Arabia. But this was when Africa had already been raised as a continent. We have meanwhile to follow, as closely as limited space will permit, the gradual evolution of the now truly human species. It is in the suddenly arrested evolution of certain sub-races, and their forced and violent diversion into the purely animal line by artificial cross-breeding, truly analogous to the hybridization which we have now learned to utilize in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, that we have to look for the origin of the anthropoids. In these red-haired and hair-covered monsters, the fruit of the unnatural connection between men and animals, the "Lords of Wisdom" did not incarnate, as we see. Thus through a long series of transformations due to unnatural cross-breeding--unnatural "sexual selection"--originated in due course of time the lowest specimens of humanity; while further bestiality and the fruit of their first animal efforts of reproduction begat a species which developed into mammalian apes ages later.(456) As to the separation of sexes, it did not occur suddenly, as one may think. Nature proceeds slowly in whatever she does. 37. THE ONE(457) BECAME TWO; ALSO ALL THE LIVING AND CREEPING THINGS THAT WERE STILL ONE, GIANT FISH, BIRDS AND SERPENTS WITH SHELL-HEADS. This relates evidently to the so-called age of amphibious reptiles, during which Science denies that man existed! But what could the Ancients know of antediluvian prehistoric animals and monsters? Nevertheless, in Book VI of the Commentaries is found a passage which, freely translated, says: _When the Third separated and fell into sin by breeding men-animals, these [the animals] became ferocious, and men and they mutually destructive. Till then, there was no sin, no life taken. After [the separation] the Satya [Yuga] was at an end. The eternal spring became constant change and seasons succeeded. Cold forced men to build shelters and devise clothing. Then man appealed to the superior Fathers [the higher Gods or Angels]. The Nirmânakâyas, of the Nâgas, the wise Serpents and Dragons of Light, came, and the precursors of the Enlightened [the Buddhas]. Divine Kings descended and taught men sciences and arts, for man could live no longer in the first land [Âdi-Varsha, the Eden of the first Races], which had turned into a white frozen corpse._ The above is suggestive. We will see what can be inferred from this brief statement. Some may incline to think that there is more in it than is apparent at first sight. Edens, Serpents, And Dragons. Whence the idea, and the true meaning of the term "Eden"? Christians will maintain that the Garden of Eden is the holy Paradise, the place _desecrated by the sin_ of Adam and Eve; the Occultist will deny this dead-letter interpretation, and show the reverse. One need not believe in the _Bible_ and see in it divine revelation, to say that this ancient book, if read esoterically, is based upon the same universal traditions as the other ancient scriptures. What Eden was is partially shown in _Isis Unveiled_, where it is said that: The Garden of Eden as a locality is no myth at all; it belongs to those landmarks of history which occasionally disclose to the student that the _Bible_ is not all mere allegory. "Eden, or the Hebrew {~HEBREW LETTER GIMEL~}{~HEBREW LETTER FINAL NUN~} {~HEBREW LETTER AYIN~}{~HEBREW LETTER DALET~}{~HEBREW LETTER FINAL NUN~}, Gan-Eden, meaning the Park or the Garden of Eden, is an archaic name of the country watered by the Euphrates and its many branches, from Asia and Armenia to the Erythraian sea."(458) In the Chaldćan _Book of Numbers_, its location is designated in numerals, and in the cypher Rosicrucian manuscript, left by Count St. Germain, it is fully described. In the Assyrian _Tablets_ it is rendered Gan-duniyas. "Behold," say the {~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}{~HEBREW LETTER LAMED~}{~HEBREW LETTER HE~}{~HEBREW POINT HIRIQ~}{~HEBREW LETTER FINAL MEM~}, Elohim, of _Genesis_, "the man is become as one of us." The Elohim may be accepted in one sense for _gods_ or powers, and in another for Aleim, or priests--the hierophants initiated into the good and evil of this world; for there was a college of priests called the Aleim, while the head of their caste, or the chief of the hierophants, was known as Java-Aleim. Instead of becoming a neophyte, and gradually obtaining his esoteric knowledge through a regular initiation, an Adam, or Man, uses his intuitional faculties and, prompted by the serpent--_Woman_ and Matter--tastes of the Tree of Knowledge, the Esoteric or Secret Doctrine, unlawfully. The priests of Hercules, or Mel-karth, the "Lord" of the Eden, all wore "coats of skin." The text says: "And Java-Aleim made for Adam and his wife, {~HEBREW LETTER KAF~}{~HEBREW LETTER TAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER NUN~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER TAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER AYIN~}{~HEBREW LETTER VAV~}{~HEBREW LETTER RESH~}. Chitonuth-our." The first Hebrew word, Chiton, is the Greek {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} (Chitôn). It became a Slavonic word by adoption from the _Bible_, and means a _coat_, an upper garment. Though containing the same substratum of esoteric truth as does every early Cosmogony, the Hebrew Scripture wears on its face the marks of a double origin. Its _Genesis_ is purely a reminiscence of the Babylonian captivity. The names of places, men, and even objects, can be traced from the original text to the Chaldćans and the Akkadians, the progenitors and Âryan instructors of the former. It is strongly contested that the Akkad tribes of Chaldća, Babylonia and Assyria were in any way cognate with the Brâhmans of Hindűstan; but there are more proofs in favour of this opinion than otherwise. The Shemite or Assyrian ought, perchance, to have been called the Turanian, and the Mongolians have been denominated Scyths. But if the Akkadians ever existed, otherwise than in the imagination of some Philologists and Ethnologists, they certainly would never have been a Turanian tribe, as some Assyriologists have striven to make us believe. They were simply emigrants on their way to Asia Minor from India, the cradle of humanity, and their sacerdotal adepts tarried to civilize and initiate a barbarian people. Halévy proved the fallacy of the Turanian mania in regard to Akkadian people, and other scientists have proved that the Babylonian civilization was neither born nor developed in that country. It was imported from India, and the importers were Brâhmanical Hindűs.(459) And now, ten years after this was written, we find ourselves corroborated by Professor Sayce, who says in his first Hibbert Lecture that the culture of the Babylonian city Eridu was of "foreign importation." It came from India. Much of the theology was borrowed by the Semites from the non- Semitic Akkadians or Proto-Chaldćans, whom they supplanted, and whose local cults they had neither the will nor the power to uproot. Indeed, throughout a long course of ages the two races, Semites and Akkadians, lived side by side, their notions and worship of the gods blending insensibly together. Here, the Akkadians are called "non-Semitic," as we had insisted they were in _Isis Unveiled_, which is another corroboration. Nor are we less right in always maintaining that the Jewish biblical history was a compilation of _historical_ facts, arranged from other people's history in Jewish garb--_Genesis_ excluded, which is Esotericism pure and simple. But it is really from the Euxine to Kashmir, and beyond, that Science has to search for the cradle--or rather one of the chief cradles--of mankind and the sons of Ad-ah; especially in after times, when the Garden of Ed-en on the Euphrates became the College of the Astrologers and Magi, the Aleim. But this College and this Eden belong to the Fifth Race, and are simply a faint reminiscence of the Âdi-Varsha, of the primeval Third Race. What is the etymological meaning of the word Eden? In Greek it is {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}, signifying "voluptuousness." In this aspect it is no better than the Olympus of the Greeks, Indra's Heaven, Svarga, on Mount Meru, and even the Paradise full of Houris, promised by Mahomet to the faithful. The Garden of Eden was never the property of the Jews, for China, which can hardly be suspected of having known anything of the Jews 2,000 B.C., had such a primitive Garden in Central Asia inhabited by the "Dragons of Wisdom," the Initiates. And according to Klaproth, the hieroglyphical chart copied from a Japanese Cyclopćdia in the book of _Foe-koue-ki_(460) places its "Garden of Wisdom" on the Plateau of Pamir between the highest peaks of the Himâlayan ranges; and, describing it as the culminating point of Central Asia, shows the four rivers--Oxus, Indus, Ganges, and Silo--flowing from a common source, the "Lake of the Dragons." But this is not the Genetic Eden; nor is it the Kabalistical Garden of Eden. For the former--Eden Illa-ah--means in one sense Wisdom, a state like that of Nirvâna, a Paradise of Bliss; while in another sense it refers to Intellectual Man himself, the container of the Eden in which grows the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil; man being the Knower thereof. Renan and Barthélemy St. Hilaire, basing themselves "on the most solid inductions," think it impossible to doubt any longer, and both place the cradle of humanity "in the region of the Timaus." Finally, the _Journal Asiatique_(461) concludes that: All the traditions of the human race gathering its primitive families at the region of their birth-place, show them to us grouped around the countries where Jewish tradition places the Garden of Eden; where the Âryans [Zoroastrians] established their Airyana Vaęjô or the Meru [?]. They are hemmed in to the North by the countries which join Lake Aral, and to the South by Baltistan, or Little Tibet. Everything concurs in proving that there was the abode of that primitive humanity to which we have to be traced. That "primitive humanity" was in its Fifth Race, when the "Four-mouthed Dragon," the lake, of which very few traces are now left, was the abode of the "Sons of Wisdom," the first Mind-born Sons of the Third Race. Yet it was neither the only nor the primitive cradle of humanity, though it was the copy of the cradle, verily, of the first thinking _divine_ Man. It was the Paradesha, the highland of the first Sanskrit-speaking people, the Hedone, the country of delight of the Greeks, but it was not the "Bower of Voluptuousness" of the Chaldćans, for the latter was but the reminiscence of it; nor again was it there that the "Fall of Man" occurred after the "separation." The Eden of the Jews was _copied_ from the Chaldćan _copy_. That the Fall of Man into generation occurred during the earliest portion of what Science calls the Mesozoic times, or the age of the reptiles, is evidenced by the bible phraseology concerning the serpent, the nature of which is explained in the _Zohar_. The question is not whether Eve's incident with the tempting reptile is allegorical or textual, for no one can doubt that it is the former, but to show the antiquity of the symbolism on the very face of it, and that it was not a Jewish but a universal idea. Now we find in the _Zohar_ a very strange assertion, one that is calculated to provoke the reader to merry laughter by its ludicrous absurdity. It tells us that the serpent, which was used by Shamaël, the supposed Satan, to seduce Eve, was a kind of "flying camel"--{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}.(462) A "flying camel" is indeed too much for the most liberal-minded F.R.S. Nevertheless, the _Zohar_, which can hardly be expected to use the language of a Cuvier, was right in its description; for we find it called in the old Zoroastrian MSS. Aschmogh, which in the _Avesta_ is represented as having after the Fall lost its _nature_ and its _name_, and is described as a huge serpent with a camel's neck. Salverte asserts that: There are no winged serpents nor veritable dragons.... Grasshoppers are still called by the Greeks _winged serpents_, and this metaphor may have created several narratives on the existence of winged serpents.(463) There are none _now_; but there is no reason why they should not have existed during the Mesozoic Age; and Cuvier, who has reconstructed their skeletons, is a witness to "flying camels." Already, after finding simple fossils of certain saurians, the great Naturalist has written, that: If anything can justify the hydras and other monsters, whose figures were so often repeated by medićval historians, it is incontestably the Plesiosaurus.(464) We are unaware if Cuvier has added anything in the way of a further _mea culpa_, but we may well imagine his confusion for all his slanders against archaic veracity, when he found himself in the presence of a _flying_ saurian, the Pterodactyl, found in Germany, seventy-eight feet long, and carrying vigorous wings attached to its reptilian body. This fossil is described as a reptile, the _little fingers of whose hands_ are so elongated as to bear a long membranous wing. Here, then, the "flying camel" of the _Zohar_ is vindicated. For surely, between the long neck of the Plesiosaurus and the membranous wing of the Pterodactyl, or still better the Mosasaurus, there is enough scientific probability on which to build a "flying camel," or a long-necked dragon. Prof. Cope, of Philadelphia, has shown that the Mosasaurus fossil in the chalk was a winged serpent of this kind. There are characters in its vertebrć, which indicate union with the Ophidia rather than with the Lacertilia. And now to the main question. It is well known that Antiquity has never claimed Palćontography and Palćontology among its arts and sciences; and it never had its Cuviers. Yet on Babylonian tiles, and especially in old Chinese and Japanese drawings, in the oldest Pagodas and monuments, and in the Imperial Library at Pekin, many a traveller has seen and recognized perfect representations of Plesiosauri and Pterodactyls in the multiform Chinese dragons.(465) Moreover, the prophets speak in the _Bible_ of the flying fiery serpents,(466) and Job mentions the Leviathan.(467) Now the following questions are put very directly: I. How could the ancient nations know anything of the extinct monsters of the Carboniferous and Mesozoic times, and even represent and describe them orally and pictorially, unless they had either _seen those monsters themselves_ or _possessed descriptions of them in their traditions_; which descriptions necessitate _living and intelligent eye-witnesses_? II. And if such eye-witnesses are once admitted (unless retrospective clairvoyance is granted), how can humanity and the first palćolithic men be no earlier than about the middle of the Tertiary period? We must bear in mind that most of the men of Science do not allow man to have appeared before the Quaternary period, and thus shut him out completely from the Cainozoic times. Here we have extinct species of animals, which disappeared from the face of the Earth millions of years ago, described by, and known to, nations whose civilization, it is said, could hardly have begun a few thousand years ago. How is this? Evidently either the Mesozoic time has to be made to overlap the Quaternary period, or man must be made the contemporary of the Pterodactyl and the Plesiosaurus. It does not follow that, because the Occultists believe in and defend Ancient Wisdom and Science, even though winged saurians are called "flying camels" in the translations of the _Zohar_, we therefore as readily believe in all the stories which the Middle Ages give us of such dragons. Pterodactyls and Plesiosauri ceased to exist with the bulk of the Third Race. When, therefore, we are gravely asked by Roman Catholic writers to credit Christopher Scherer's and Father Kircher's cock-and-bull stories of their having seen with their own eyes living fiery and flying dragons, respectively in 1619 and 1669, we may be allowed to regard their assertions as either dreams or fibs.(468) Nor shall we regard otherwise than as a "poetical license" the story told of Petrarch, who, while following one day his Laura in the woods and passing near a cave, is credited with having found a dragon, whom he forthwith stabbed with his dagger and killed, thus preventing the monster from devouring the lady of his heart.(469) We would willingly believe the story had Petrarch lived in the days of Atlantis, when such antediluvian monsters may still have existed. We deny their existence in our present era. The sea-serpent is one thing, the dragon quite another. The former is denied by the majority because it lives in the very depths of the ocean, is very scarce, and rises to the surface only when compelled, perhaps, by hunger. Thus keeping invisible, it may exist and still be denied. But if there was such a thing as a dragon of the above description, how could it have ever escaped detection? It is a creature contemporary with the earliest Fifth Race, and exists no more. The reader may enquire why we speak of dragons at all? We answer: firstly, because the knowledge of such animals is a proof of the enormous antiquity of the human race; and, secondly, to show the difference between the real zoological meaning of the words "Dragon," "Nâga," and "Serpent," and the metaphorical meaning, when used symbolically. The profane reader, who knows nothing of the mystery language, is likely, whenever he finds one of these words mentioned, to accept it literally. Hence, the _quidproquos_ and unjust accusations. A couple of instances will suffice. "Sed et Serpens?" Aye: but what was the nature of the serpent? Mystics intuitionally see in the serpent of _Genesis_ an animal emblem and a high spiritual essence: a cosmic force, superintelligent, a "great fallen light," a spirit, sidereal, aërial and tellurian at the same time, "whose influence circumambulates the globe" (_qui circumambulat terram_), as De Mirville,(470) a Christian fanatic of the dead-letter, has it, and which only "manifested itself under the physical emblem which agreed the better with its moral and intellectual _coils_"--_i.e._, under the ophidian form. But what will Christians make of the Brazen Serpent, the "Divine Healer," if the serpent is to be regarded as the emblem of cunning and evil; the "Evil One" itself? How can the line of demarcation ever be settled, when it is traced arbitrarily in a sectarian theological spirit? For, if the followers of the Roman Church are taught that Mercury and Ćsculapius, or Asclepios, who are, in truth, one, are "devils and sons of devils," and the wand and serpent of the latter, the "Devil's wand"; how about the Brazen Serpent of Moses? Every scholar knows that both the Heathen "wand" and the Jewish "serpent" are one and the same, namely, the Caduceus of Mercury, son of Apollo-Python. It is easy to comprehend why the Jews adopted the ophidian shape for their "seducer." With them it was purely _physiological_ and _phallic_; and no amount of casuistical reasoning on the part of the Roman Catholic Church can give it another meaning, once that the mystery language is well studied, and that the Hebrew scrolls are read numerically. The Occultists know that the Serpent, the Nâga, and the Dragon have each a septenary meaning; that the Sun, for instance, was the astronomical and cosmic emblem of the two contrasted Lights and the two Serpents of the Gnostics, the good and the evil. They also know that, when _generalized_, the conclusions of both Science and Theology present two most ridiculous extremes. For, when the former tells us that it is sufficient to trace the legends of the serpents to their primal source, the astronomical legend, and to meditate seriously on the Sun, the conqueror of Python, and the celestial Virgin in the Zodiac forcing back the devouring Dragon, if we would have the key of all the subsequent religious dogmas--it is easy to perceive that, instead of generalizing, the author simply has his eye on Christian religion and _Revelation_. We call this the one extreme. We see the other when Theology, repeating the famous decision of the Council of Trent, seeks to convince the masses that: From the fall of man until the hour of his baptism the Devil has full power over him, and possesses him _by right_--_diabolum dominium et potestatem super homines habere et jure eos possidere_.(471) To this Occult Philosophy answers: Prove first the existence of the Devil _as an entity_, and then we may believe in such congenital possession. A very small amount of observation and knowledge of human nature may be sufficient to prove the fallacy of this theological dogma. Had Satan any reality, in the objective or even subjective world (in the ecclesiastical sense), it is the poor Devil who would find himself chronically obsessed and even possessed by the wicked--hence by the bulk of mankind. It is humanity itself, and especially the clergy, headed by the haughty, unscrupulous and intolerant Roman Church, which has begotten, given birth to, and reared in love the Evil One. But this is a digression. The whole world of thought is reproached by the Church with having adored the serpent. The whole of humanity burnt incense to it or stoned it. The _Zends_ speak of it as do the _Kings_ and _Vedas_, as the _Edda_ ... and the _Bible_.... Everywhere the sacred serpent [the Nâga] has its shrine and its priest; in Rome it is the Vestal who ... prepares its meal with the same care that she bestows on the sacred fire. In Greece, Ćsculapius cannot cure without its assistance, and delegates to it his powers. Every one has heard of the famous Roman embassy sent by the Senate to the god of medicine and its return with the not less famous serpent, which proceeded of its own will and by itself toward its master's temple on one of the islands of the Tiber. Not a Bacchante that did not wind it [the serpent] in her hair, not an Augur but questioned it with care, not a Necromancer whose tombs are free from its presence! The Cainites and the Ophites call it Creator, while recognizing, as Schelling did, that the serpent is "evil in substance and in person."(472) Yes, the author is right, and if one would have a complete idea of the prestige which the serpent enjoys to our own day, he ought to study the matter in India and learn all that is believed about, and still attributed to, the Nâgas (cobras) in that country; one should also visit the Africans of Whydah, the Voodoos of Port-au-Prince and Jamaica, the Nagals of Mexico, and the Pâ, or Men-serpents of China, etc. But why wonder that the serpent is "adored" and at the same time cursed, since we know that from the beginning it was a symbol? In every ancient language the word _dragon_ signified what it now does in Chinese, _long_ or "the being who excels in intelligence," and in Greek, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, or "he who sees and watches."(473) Is it to the animal of this name that any of these epithets can apply? Is it not evident, wherever superstition and oblivion of the primitive meaning may have led savages now, that the above qualifications were intended to apply to the human originals, who were symbolized by Serpents and Dragons? These originals--called to this day in China the "Dragons of Wisdom"--were the first disciples of the Dhyânîs, who were their Instructors; in short, the Primitive Adepts of the Third Race, and later, of the Fourth and Fifth Races. The name became universal, and no sane man before the Christian era would ever have confounded the man and the symbol. The symbol of Chnouphis, or the Soul of the World, writes Champollion: Is among others that of an enormous serpent standing on human legs; this reptile, the emblem of the Good Genius, is a veritable Agathodćmon. It is often represented bearded.... This sacred animal, identical with the serpent of the Ophites, is found engraved on numerous Gnostic or Basilidean stones.... The serpent has various heads, but is constantly inscribed with the letters {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}.(474) Agathodćmon was endowed "with the knowledge of good and evil," _i.e._, with Divine Wisdom, for without the latter the former is impossible.(475) Repeating Jamblichus, Champollion shows him to be: The deity called {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} [or the Fire of the Celestial Gods--the Great Thot-Hermes],(476) to whom Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention of magic.(477) The "invention of magic"! A strange term to use, as though the unveiling of the eternal and actual mysteries of Nature could be _invented_! As well attribute, millenniums hence, the _invention_ instead of the discovery of radiant matter to Mr. Crookes. Hermes was not the inventor, or even the discoverer, for, as said in the last footnote but one, Thot-Hermes is a generic name, as is Enoch--Enoďchion, the "inner, spiritual eye"--Nebo, the prophet and seer, etc. It is not the proper name of any one living man, but a generic title of many Adepts. Their connection with the serpent in symbolic allegories is due to their enlightenment by the Solar and Planetary Gods during the earliest intellectual Race, the Third. They are all the representative patrons of the Secret Wisdom. Asclepios is the son of the Sun-God Apollo, and he is Mercury; Nebo is the son of Bel-Merodach; Vaivasvata Manu, the great Rishi, is the son of Vivasvat--the Sun or Sűrya, etc. And while, astronomically, the Nâgas along with the Rishis, the Gandharvas, Apsarases, Grâmanîs (or Yakshas, minor Gods), Yâtudhânas and Devas, are the Sun's attendants throughout the twelve solar months; in theogony, and also in anthropological evolution, they are Gods and Men--when incarnated in the _Nether_ World. Let the reader be reminded, in this connection, of the fact that Apollonius met in Kashmir Buddhist Nâgas. These are neither serpents zoologically, nor yet the Nâgas ethnologically, but "wise men." The _Bible_, from _Genesis_ to _Revelation_, is but a series of historical records of the great struggle between White and Black Magic, between the Adepts of the Right Path, the Prophets, and those of the Left, the Levites, the clergy of the brutal masses. Even the students of Occultism, though some of them have more archaic MSS. and direct teaching to rely upon, find it difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the Sodales of the Right Path and those of the Left. The great schism that arose between the sons of the Fourth Race, as soon as the first Temples and Halls of Initiation had been erected under the guidance of the "Sons of God," is allegorized in the Sons of Jacob. That there were two Schools of Magic, and that the orthodox Levites did not belong to the holy one, is shown in the words pronounced by the dying Jacob. And here it may be well to quote a few sentences from _Isis Unveiled_.(478) The dying Jacob thus describes his sons: "Dan," he says, "shall be a _serpent_ by the way, an _adder_ in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall backwards [_i.e._, he will teach candidates _Black_ Magic]. I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!" Of Simeon and Levi the patriarch remarks that they "are brethren; instruments of _cruelty_ are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their _secret_; unto their _assembly_."(479) Now in the original, the words "their secret" read--"their Sod."(480) And Sod was the name for the great Mysteries of Baal, Adonis and Bacchus, who were all Sun-Gods and had serpents for symbols. The Kabalists explain the allegory of the fiery serpents by saying that this was the name given to the tribe of Levi, to all the Levites, in short, and that Moses was the chief of the Sodales.(481) It is to the Mysteries that the original meaning of the "Dragon-Slayers" has to be traced, and the question is fully treated of hereafter. Meanwhile it follows that, if Moses was the Chief of the Mysteries, he was the Hierophant thereof; and further, if, at the same time, we find the Prophets thundering against the "abominations" of the people of Israël, that there were two Schools. "Fiery serpents" was, then, simply the epithet given to the Levites of the priestly caste, after they had departed from the Good Law, the traditional teachings of Moses, and to all those who followed Black Magic. Isaiah, when referring to the "rebellious children" who will have to carry their riches into the lands whence come "the viper and _fiery_ flying _serpent_,"(482) or Chaldća and Egypt, whose Initiates had already greatly degenerated in his day (700 B.C.), meant the sorcerers of those lands.(483) But these must be carefully distinguished from the "Fiery Dragons of Wisdom" and the "Sons of the Fire-Mist." In the _Great Book of the Mysteries_ we are told that: _Seven Lords created seven Men; three Lords [Dhyân Chohans or Pitris] were holy and good, four less heavenly and full of passion.... The Chhâyâs [phantoms] of the Fathers were as they._ This accounts for the differences in human nature, which is divided into seven gradations of good and evil. There were seven tabernacles ready to be inhabited by Monads under seven different Karmic conditions. The Commentaries explain on this basis the easy spread of evil, as soon as the human Forms had become real men. Some ancient philosophers, however, in their genetical accounts, ignored the seven and gave only four. Thus the Mexican local _Genesis_ has "four _good_ men," described as the four real ancestors of the human race, "who were neither begotten by the Gods nor born of woman"; but whose creation was a wonder wrought by the Creative Powers, and who were made only after "_three attempts at manufacturing men had failed_." The Egyptians in their theology had only "four Sons of God"--whereas in _Pymander_ _seven_ are given--thus avoiding any mention of the evil nature of man. When, however, Set from a God sank into Set- Typhon, he began to be called the "seventh son"; whence probably arose the belief that "the seventh son of the seventh son" is always a natural-born magician--though at first only a _sorcerer_ was meant. Apap, the serpent symbolizing evil, is slain by Aker, Set's serpent;(484) therefore Set- Typhon could not be that evil. In the _Book of the Dead_, it is commanded that Chapter clxiii should be read "in the presence of a serpent on two legs," which means a high Initiate, a Hierophant, for the discus and ram's horns(485) that adorn his "serpent's" head in the hieroglyphics of the title of the said chapter, denote this. Over the "serpent" are represented the two mystic eyes of Ammon,(486) the hidden "Mystery God." The above passages corroborate our assertion, and show what the word "serpent" really meant in antiquity. But as to the Nagals and Nargals; whence came the similarity or names between the Indian Nâgas and the American Nagals? The Nargal was the Chaldćan and Assyrian chief of the Magi [Rab- Mag], and the Nagal was the chief sorcerer of the Mexican Indians. Both derive their names from Nergal-Serezer, the Assyrian god, and the Hindű Nâgas. Both have the same faculties and the power to have an attendant Dćmon, with whom they identify themselves completely. The Chaldćan and Assyrian Nargal kept his Dćmon, in the shape of some animal considered sacred, inside the temple; the Indian Nagal keeps his wherever he can--in the neighbouring lake, or wood, or in the house, in the shape of some household animal.(487) Such similarity cannot be attributed to _coincidence_. A new world is discovered, and we find that, for our forefathers of the Fourth Race, it was already an old one; that Arjuna, Krishna's companion and Chelâ, is said to have descended into Pâtâla, the "antipodes" and therein married Ulűpî,(488) a Nâga, or Nâgî rather, the daughter of the king of the Nâgas, Kauravya.(489) And now it may be hoped the full meaning of the serpent emblem is proven. It is neither that of evil, nor, least of all, that of the devil; but is, indeed, the {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER XI~}, the "Eternal Sun Abrasax," the Central Spiritual Sun of all the Kabalists, represented in some diagrams by the circle of Tiphereth. And here, again, we may quote from our earlier volumes and enter into further explanations. From this region of unfathomable Depth (Bythos, Aditi, Shekinah, the Veil of the Unknown) issues forth a Circle formed of spirals. This is Tiphereth; which, in the language of symbolism, means a grand Cycle, composed of smaller ones. Coiled within, so as to follow the spirals, lies the Serpent--emblem of Wisdom and Eternity--the Dual Androgyne; the cycle representing Ennoia, or the Divine Mind (a Power which does not create but which must assimilate), and the Serpent, the Agathodćmon, the Ophis, the _Shadow_ of the Light (non-eternal, yet the greatest Divine Light on our plane). Both were the Logoi of the Ophites; or the Unity as Logos manifesting itself as a double principle of Good and Evil.(490) Were it Light alone, inactive and absolute, the human mind could not appreciate nor even realize it. Shadow is that which enables Light to manifest itself, and gives it objective reality. Therefore, Shadow is not evil, but is the necessary and indispensable corollary which completes Light or Good; it is its _creator_ on Earth. According to the views of the Gnostics, these two principles are immutable Light and Shadow; Good and Evil being virtually one and having existed through all eternity, as they will ever continue to exist so long as there are manifested worlds. This symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent, as the Saviour, coiled either round the sacramental loaf, or a Tau (the phallic emblem). As a unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the Logos. When separated, one is the Tree of Spiritual Life, the other, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, we find Ophis urging the first human couple--the material production of Ilda-baoth, but owing its spiritual principle to Sophia- Achamoth--to eat of the forbidden fruit, although Ophis represents divine Wisdom. The Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life, are all symbols transplanted from the soil of India. The Arasa-maram [?], the banyan tree, so sacred with the Hindűs--since Vishnu during one of his incarnations, reposed under its mighty shade and there taught human philosophy and sciences--is called the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Under the protecting foliage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils their first lessons on immortality and initiate them into the mysteries of life and death. The Java-Aleim of the Sacerdotal College are said, in the Chaldćan tradition, to have taught the sons of men to become like one of them. To the present day Foh- tchou(491) who lives in his Foh-Maëyu, or the temple of Buddha, on the top of the Kouin-Long-Sang,(492) the great mountain, produces his greatest religious miracles under a tree called in Chinese Sung-Ming-Shu, or the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, for ignorance is death, and knowledge alone gives immortality. This marvellous display takes place every three years, when an immense concourse of Chinese Buddhists assembles in pilgrimage at the holy place.(493) Now it may become comprehensible why the earliest Initiates and Adepts, or the "Wise Men," who are claimed to have been initiated into the Mysteries of Nature by the Universal Mind, represented by the highest Angels, were named the "Serpents of Wisdom" and "Dragons"; and also how the first physiologically complete couples--after being initiated into the Mystery of Human Creation through Ophis, the Manifested Logos and the Androgyne, by eating of the fruit of knowledge--gradually began to be accused by the material spirit of posterity of having _committed sin_, of having disobeyed the "Lord God," and of having been tempted by the Serpent. So little have the first Christians--who despoiled the Jews of their _Bible_--understood the first four chapters of _Genesis_ in their esoteric meaning, that they have never perceived that not only was no sin intended in this disobedience, but that the "Serpent" was actually the "Lord God" himself, who, as the Ophis, the Logos, or the bearer of divine creative wisdom, taught mankind to become creators in their turn.(494) They never realized that the Cross was an evolution from the Tree and the Serpent, and thus became the _salvation of mankind_. By this it would become the very first fundamental symbol of Creative Cause, applying to geometry, to numbers, to astronomy, to measure and to animal reproduction. According to the _Kabalah_, _the curse on man came with the formation of woman_.(495) The circle was separated from its diameter line. From the possession of the double principle in one, that is, the Androgyne condition, the separation of the dual principle was made, presenting two opposites, whose destiny it was, for ever after, to seek reünion into the original _one_ condition. The curse was this, viz., that Nature, impelling the search, evaded the desired result by the production of a new being, distinct from that reünion or oneness desired, by which the natural longing to recover a lost state was and is for ever being cheated. It is by this tantalizing process of a continued curse that Nature lives.(496) The allegory of Adam being driven away from the Tree of Life means, Esoterically, that the newly separated Race abused and dragged down the mystery of Life into the region of animalism and bestiality. For, as the _Zohar_ shows, Matronethah--Shekinah, the wife of Metatron symbolically--"is the way to the great Tree of Life, the Mighty Tree," and Shekinah is Divine Grace. As explained, this Tree reaches the heavenly vale and is hidden between three mountains (the upper Triad of Principles, in man). From these three mountains, the Tree ascends above (the Adept's knowledge aspires heavenward), and then redescends below (into the Adept's Ego on earth). This Tree is revealed in the day time and is hidden during the night, _i.e._, revealed to an enlightened mind and hidden to ignorance, which is night.(497) As says the Commentary: _The Tree of the Knowledge of the Good and the Evil grows from the roots of the Tree of Life._ But then also, as the author of _The Source of Measures_ writes: In the Kabalah it is plainly to be found that the "Tree of Life" was the ansated cross in its sexual aspect, and that the "Tree of Knowledge" was the separation and the coming together again to fulfil the fatal condition. To display this in numbers the values of the letters composing the word Otz ({~HEBREW LETTER AYIN~}{~HEBREW LETTER FINAL TSADI~}), tree, are 7 and 9, the seven being the holy feminine number and the nine the number of the phallic or male energy. This ansated cross is the symbol of the Egyptian _female-male_, Isis-Osiris, the germinal principle in all forms, based on the primal manifestation applicable in all directions and in all senses. This is the Kabalistic view of the Western Occultists, and it differs from the more philosophical Eastern or Âryan views upon the subject.(498) The separation of the sexes was in the programme of Nature and of natural evolution; and the creative faculty in male and female was a gift of Divine Wisdom. In the truth of such traditions the whole of Antiquity, from the patrician philosopher to the humblest spiritually inclined plebeian, has believed. And as we proceed, we may successfully show that the _relative_ truth of such legends, if not their absolute exactness--vouched for by such giants of intellect as were Solon, Pythagoras, Plato, and others--begins to dawn upon more than one modern Scientist. He is perplexed; he stands startled and confused before proofs that are being daily accumulated before him; he feels that there is no way of solving the many historical problems that stare him in the face, unless he begins by accepting ancient traditions. Therefore, in saying that we believe absolutely in ancient records and _universal_ legends, we need hardly plead guilty before the impartial observer, for other and far more learned writers, and that too among those who belong to the modern Scientific School, evidently believe in much that the Occultists do--in "dragons," for instance, and not only symbolically, but also in their actual existence at one time. It would have indeed been a bold step for anyone, some thirty years ago, to have thought of treating the public to a collection of stories ordinarily reputed fabulous, and of claiming for them the consideration due to genuine realities, or to have advocated tales, time-honoured as fictions, as actual facts; and those of the nursery as being, in many instances, legends, more or less distorted, descriptive of real beings or events. Nowadays it is a less hazardous proceeding.(499) Thus opens the Introduction to a recent (1886) and most interesting work by Mr. Charles Gould, called _Mythical Monsters_. He boldly states his belief in most of these monsters. He submits that: Many of the so-called mythical animals, which throughout long ages and in all nations have been the fertile subjects of fiction and fable, come legitimately within the scope of plain matter-of-fact Natural History, and that they may be considered, not as the outcome of exuberant fancy, but as creatures which really once existed, and of which, unfortunately, only imperfect and inaccurate descriptions have filtered down to us, probably very much refracted, through the mists of time; ... traditions of creatures _once coëxisting with man, some of which are so weird and terrible as to appear at first sight to be impossible_.... For me the major part of those creatures are not chimeras but objects of rational study. The dragon, in place of being a creature evolved out of the imagination of Âryan man by the contemplation of lightning flashing through the caverns which he tenanted, as is held by some mythologists, is an animal which once lived and dragged its ponderous coils and perhaps flew.... To me the specific existence of the unicorn seems not incredible, and, in fact, more probable than that theory which assigns its origin to a lunar myth.(500)... For my part I doubt the general derivation of myths from "the contemplation of the visible workings of external nature." It seems to me easier to suppose that the palsy of time has enfeebled the utterance of these oft-told tales until their original appearance is almost unrecognizable, than that _uncultured savages should possess powers of imagination and poetical invention far beyond those enjoyed by the most instructed nations of the present day_; less hard to believe that these wonderful stories of gods and demigods, of giants and dwarfs, of dragons and monsters of all descriptions are _transformations_ than to believe them to be _inventions_.(501) It is shown by the same Geologist that: Palćontologists have successively traced back the existence of man to periods variously estimated at from _thirty thousand to one million_ years--to periods when he coëxisted with animals which have long since become extinct.(502) These animals, "weird and terrible," were, to give a few instances: (1) The genus Cidastes, whose huge bones and vertebrć show them to have attained a length of nearly two hundred feet. The remains of such monsters, no less than ten in number, were seen by Professor Marsh in the Mauvaises Terres of Colorado, strewn upon the plains. (2) The Titanosaurus Montanus, reaching fifty or sixty feet in length. (3) The Dinosaurians, in the Jurassic beds of the Rocky Mountains, of still more gigantic proportions. (4) The Atlantosaurus Immanis, a femur of which alone is over six feet in length, and which would be thus over one hundred feet in length. But even yet the line has not been reached, and we hear of the discovery of remains of such titanic proportions as to possess a thigh- bone over twelve feet in length!(503) Then we read of the monstrous Sivatherium in the Himâlayas, the four-horned stag, as large as an elephant, and exceeding the latter in height; of the gigantic Megatherium; of colossal flying lizards, Pterodactyli, with crocodile jaws on a duck's head, etc. _All these were coëxistent with man, most probably attacked man, as man attacked them._ And we are asked to believe that the said man was no larger then than he is now! Is it possible to conceive that, surrounded in Nature with such monstrous creatures, man, unless himself a colossal giant, could have survived, while all his foes have perished? Is it with his stone hatchet that he had the best of a Sivatherium or a gigantic flying saurian? Let us always bear in mind that at least one great man of Science, de Quatrefages, sees no good scientific reasons why man should not have been "contemporaneous with the earliest mammalia and go back _as far as the Secondary Period_."(504) The very conservative Professor Jukes writes: It appears that the flying dragons of romance had something like a real existence in former ages of the world.(505) And the author goes on to ask. Does the written history of man, comprising a few thousand years, embrace the whole course of his intelligent existence? Or have we in the long mythical eras, extending over hundreds of thousands of years, and recorded in the chronologies of Chaldća and China, shadowy mementoes of prehistoric man, handed down by tradition, and perhaps transported by a few survivors to existing lands, from others which, like the fabled Atlantis of Plato, may have been submerged, or the scene of some great catastrophe which destroyed them with all their civilization?(506) The few remaining giant animals, such as elephants--themselves smaller than their ancestors the Mastodons--and hippopotami, are the only surviving relics, and tend to disappear more entirely every day. But even they have already had a few pioneers of their future genus, and have decreased in size in the same proportion as men have done. For the remains of a pigmy elephant, E. Falconeri, were found in the cave deposits of Malta; and the same author asserts that they were associated with the remains of pigmy hippopotami, the former being only two feet six inches high. There is also the still existing Hippopotamus (Choeropsis) Liberiensis, "which M. Milne- Edwards figures as little more than two feet in height."(507) Sceptics may smile and denounce our work as full of nonsense or fairy- tales. But by so doing they only justify the wisdom of the Chinese philosopher Chuang, who said that: The things that men do know can in no way be compared, numerically speaking, to the things that are unknown.(508) Thus they laugh only at their own ignorance. The "Sons Of God" And The "Sacred Island." The "legend" given in _Isis Unveiled_(509) in relation to a portion of the globe which Science now concedes to have been the cradle of humanity--though it was but one of the _seven_ cradles, in truth--runs as follows: Tradition says, and the records of the _Great Book_ (the _Book of Dzyan_) explain, that long before the days of Ad-am, and his inquisitive wife, He-va, where now are found but salt lakes and desolate barren deserts, there was a vast inland sea, which extended over Middle Asia, north of the proud Himâlayan range, and its western prolongation. In it an island, which, for its unparalleled beauty, had no rival in the world, was inhabited by the last remnant of the Race which preceded ours. "The last remnant" means the "Sons of Will and Yoga," who, with a few tribes, survived the great cataclysm. For it was the Third Race, inhabiting the great Lemurian Continent, which preceded the veritable and complete human Races--the Fourth and the Fifth. Therefore was it said in _Isis Unveiled_ that: This race could live with equal ease in water, air, or fire, for it had an unlimited control over the elements. These were the "Sons of God"; not those who saw the daughters of men, but the real Elohim, though in the oriental _Kabalah_ they have another name. It was they who imparted Nature's most weird secrets to men, and revealed to them the ineffable, and now _lost_ "word." The "Island," according to belief, exists to the present hour, as an oasis surrounded by the dreadful wildernesses of the great Gobi Desert--whose sands "no foot hath crossed in the memory of man." This word, which is no word, has travelled once round the globe, and still lingers as a far-off dying echo in the hearts of some privileged men. The hierophants of all the Sacerdotal Colleges were aware of the existence of this island; but the "word" was known only to the Java Aleim (Mahâ Chohan in another tongue), or chief Lord of every College, and was passed to his successor only at the moment of death. There were many such Colleges, and the old classical authors speak of them. There was no communication with the fair island by sea, but subterranean passages, known only to the chiefs, communicated with it in all directions.(510) Tradition asserts, and Archćology accepts the truth of the legend, that there is more than one city now flourishing in India, which is built on several other cities, making thus a subterranean city of six or seven stories high. Delhi is one of them, Allahabad another; examples being found even in Europe, _e.g._, in Florence, which is built on several defunct Etruscan and other cities. Why, then, could not Ellora, Elephanta, Karli, and Ajunta have been built over subterranean labyrinths and passages, as it is claimed? Of course we do not allude to the caves which are known to every European, whether _de visu_ or by hearsay, notwithstanding their enormous antiquity, though that even is disputed by modern Archćology; but to a fact, known to the initiated Brâhmans of India and especially to Yogîs, viz., that there is not a cave-temple in the country but has its subterranean passages running in every direction, and that these underground caves and endless corridors have in their turn _their_ caves and corridors. Who can tell whether the lost Atlantis--which is also mentioned in the _Secret Book_, but, again, under another name, peculiar to the sacred language--did not still exist in those days?-- we went on to ask. It _did_ exist most assuredly, for it was approaching its greatest days of glory and civilization when the last of the Lemurian continents went down. The great lost Continent might have, perhaps, been situated south of Asia, extending from India to Tasmania.(511) If the hypothesis--now so much doubted, and positively denied by some learned authors, who regard it as a joke of Plato--is ever verified, then, perhaps, will the Scientists believe that the description of the God-inhabited continent was not altogether a fable.(512) And they may then perceive that Plato's guarded hints and his attributing the narrative to Solon and the Egyptian priests, were but a prudent way of imparting the fact to the world, and at the same time, by cleverly combining truth and fiction, of disconnecting himself from a story which the obligations imposed at Initiation forbade him to divulge. To continue the tradition, we have to add that the class of hierophants was divided into two distinct categories;(513) those who were instructed by the "Sons of God" of the island, and who were initiated in the divine doctrine of pure revelation; and others who inhabited the lost Atlantis--if such must be its name--and who, being of another race (produced _sexually_ but of _divine_ parents), were born with a sight which embraced all hidden things, and was independent of both distance and material obstacle. In short, they were the Fourth Race of men mentioned in the _Popol Vuh_, whose sight was unlimited, and who knew all things at once. In other words, they were the Lemuro-Atlanteans, the first who had a Dynasty of Spirit-Kings; not of Manes, or "Ghosts," as some believe,(514) but of actual living Devas, or Demi-gods or Angels, again, who had assumed bodies to rule over this Race, and who, in their turn, instructed them in arts and sciences. Only, as these Dhyânîs were Rűpa or material Spirits, they were not always good. Their King Thevetat was one of the latter, and it is under the evil influence of this King-Demon that the Atlantis-Race became a nation of wicked "magicians." In consequence of this, war was declared, the story of which would be too long to narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured allegories of the race of Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his righteous family. The conflict came to an end by the submersion of Atlantis, which finds its imitation in the stories of the Babylonian and Mosaic flood. The giants and magicians "and all flesh died ... and every man." All except Xisuthrus and Noah, who are substantially identical with the great Father of the Thlinkithians,(515) who, they say, also escaped in a large boat like the Hindű Noah Vaivasvata. If we believe the tradition at all, we have to credit the further story that, from the intermarrying of the progeny of the hierophants of the island and the descendants of the Atlantean Noah, a mixed race of righteous and wicked sprang up. On the one side the world had its Enochs, Moseses, various Buddhas, its numerous "Saviours," and great hierophants; on the other hand, its "_natural_ magicians" who, through lack of the restraining power of proper spiritual enlightenment, ... perverted their gifts to evil purposes. We may supplement this by the testimony of some records and traditions. In _L'Histoire des Vierges: les Peuples et les Continents Disparus_, Louis Jacolliot says: One of the most ancient legends of India, preserved in the temples by oral and written tradition, relates that several hundred thousand years ago there existed in the Pacific Ocean an immense continent, which was destroyed by geological upheaval, and the fragments of which must be sought in Madagascar, Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and the principal isles of Polynesia. The high plateaux of Hindűstan and Asia, according to this hypothesis, would only have been represented in those distant epochs by great islands contiguous to the central continent.... According to the Brâhmans, this country had attained a high civilization, and the peninsula of Hindűstan, enlarged by the displacement of the waters, at the time of the grand cataclysm, has but continued the chain of the primitive traditions born in this place. These traditions give the name of Rutas to the peoples which inhabited this immense equinoctial continent, and from their speech _was derived the Sanskrit_. The Indo-Hellenic tradition, preserved by the most intelligent population which emigrated from the plains of India, also relates the existence of a continent and a people to which it gives the name of Atlantis and Atlantides, and which it locates in the Atlantic in the northern portion of the Tropics. Apart from this fact, the supposition of an ancient continent in those latitudes, the vestiges of which may be found in the volcanic islands and mountainous surface of the Azores, the Canaries and Cape de Verd Islands, is not devoid of geographical probability. The Greeks, who, moreover, never dared to pass beyond the Pillars of Hercules, on account of their dread of the mysterious Ocean, appeared too late in antiquity for the stories preserved by Plato to be anything else than an echo of the Indian legend. Moreover, when we cast a look on a planisphere, at the sight of the islands and islets strewn from the Malayan Archipelago to Polynesia, from the Straits of Sunda to Easter Island, it is impossible, upon the hypothesis of continents preceding those which we inhabit, not to place there the most important of all. A religious belief, common to Malacca and Polynesia, that is to say, to the two opposite extremes of the Oceanic world, affirms "that all these islands once formed two immense countries, inhabited by yellow men and black men, always at war; and that the gods, wearied with their quarrels, having charged Ocean to pacify them, the latter swallowed up the two continents, and, since then, it has been impossible to make him give up his captives. Alone, the mountain-peaks and high plateaux escaped the flood, by the power of the gods, who perceived too late the mistake they had committed." Whatever there may be in these traditions, and whatever may have been the place where a civilization more ancient than that of Rome, of Greece, of Egypt, and of India was developed, it is certain that this civilization did exist, and it is highly important to Science to recover its traces, however feeble and fugitive they may be.(516) This Oceanic tradition corroborates the legend given from the "Records of the Secret Doctrine." The war mentioned between the yellow and the black men, relates to a struggle between the "Sons of Gods" and the "Sons of Giants," or the inhabitants and magicians of Atlantis. The final conclusion of the author, who personally visited all the islands of Polynesia, and devoted years to the study of the religion, language, and traditions of nearly all the peoples, is as follows: As to the Polynesian continent which disappeared at the time of the final geological cataclysms, its existence rests on such proofs that to be logical we can doubt no longer. The three summits of this continent, the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, Easter Island, are distant from each other from fifteen to eighteen hundred leagues, and the groups of intermediate islands, Viti (Fiji), Samoa, Tonga, Foutouna (? Foutouha), Ouvea (? Oueeha), the Marquesas, Tahiti, Poumoutou (? Pomatou), the Gambiers, are themselves distant from these extreme points from seven or eight hundred to one thousand leagues. All navigators agree in saying that the extreme and the central groups could never have communicated in view of their actual geographical position, and with the insufficient means they had at hand. It is physically impossible to cross such distances in a pirogue ... without a compass, and travel months without provisions. On the other hand, the aborigines of the Sandwich Islands, of Viti, of New Zealand, of the central groups, of Samoa, Tahiti, etc., _had never known each other, had never heard of each other_, before the arrival of the Europeans. _And yet each of these people maintained that their island had at one time formed part of an immense stretch of land which extended towards the West on the side of Asia._ And all, brought together, were found to speak the same language, to have the same usages, the same customs, the same religious belief. And all to the question, "Where is the cradle of your race?" for sole response, _extended their hand toward the setting sun_.(517) Geographically, this description clashes slightly with the facts in the Secret Records; but it shows the existence of such traditions, and this is all one cares for. For, as there is no smoke without fire, so a tradition must be based on some approximate truth. In its proper place we will show Modern Science fully corroborating the above and other traditions of the Secret Doctrine with regard to the two lost Continents. The Easter Island relics, for instance, are the most astounding and eloquent memorials of the primeval giants. They are as grand as they are mysterious; and one has but to examine the heads of the colossal statues, that have remained unbroken, to recognize at a glance the features of the type and character attributed to the Fourth Race giants. They seem of one cast though different in features--of a distinctly sensual type, such as the Atlanteans (the Daityas and "Atalantians") are said to have had in the Esoteric Hindű books. Compare these with the faces of some other colossal statues in Central Asia--those near Bamian, for instance--the portrait-statues, tradition tells us, of Buddhas belonging to _previous_ Manvantaras; of those Buddhas and heroes who are mentioned in the Buddhist and Hindű works, as men of fabulous size,(518) the good and holy brothers of their wicked coüterine brothers generally, just as Râvana, the giant king of Lankâ, was the brother of Kumbhakarna; all descendants of the Gods through the Rishis, and thus, like "Titan and his enormous brood," all "Heaven's first-born." These "Buddhas," though often spoilt by the symbolical representation of great pendent ears, show a suggestive difference, perceived at a glance, in the expression of their faces from that of the Easter Island statues. They may be of one race--but the former are "Sons of Gods"; the latter the brood of mighty sorcerers. All these are reďncarnations however, and, apart from unavoidable exaggerations in popular fancy and tradition, they are _historical characters_.(519) When did they live? How long ago lived the two Races, the Third and Fourth; and how long after did the various tribes of the Fifth begin their strife, the wars between Good and Evil? We are assured by the Orientalists that chronology is both hopelessly mixed and absurdly exaggerated in the _Purânas_ and other Hindű Scriptures. We feel quite prepared to agree with the accusation. But, if Âryan writers have occasionally allowed their chronological pendulum to swing too far one way, beyond the legitimate limit of fact; nevertheless, when the distance of that deviation is compared with the distance of the Orientalists' deviation in the opposite direction, moderation will be found on the Brâhmanical side. It is the Pandit who will, in the long run, be found more truthful and nearer to fact than the Sanskritist. The Sanskritist's curtailing--even when proved to have been resorted to in order to fit a personal hobby--is regarded by Western public opinion as "a _cautious_ acceptance of facts," whereas the Pandit is brutally treated in print as a "_liar_." But, surely, this is no reason why everyone should be compelled to see this in the same light! An impartial observer may judge it otherwise. He may either proclaim both unscrupulous historians, or justify both, each on his respective ground, and say: Hindű Âryans wrote for their Initiates, who read truth between the lines; not for the masses. If they did mix up events and confuse Ages _intentionally_, it was not with the view of deceiving any one, but in order to preserve their knowledge from the prying eye of the foreigner. But, to him who can count the _generations_ from the Manus, and the _series of incarnations_ specified in the cases of some heroes,(520) in the _Purânas_, the meaning and chronological order are very clear. As for the Western Orientalist, he must be excused, on account of his undeniable ignorance of the methods used by archaic Esotericism. But such existing prejudices will have to give way and disappear very soon before the light of new discoveries. Already Dr. Weber's and Prof. Max Müller's favourite theories--namely, that writing was not known in India, even in the days of Pânini (!); that the Hindűs had all their arts and sciences--even to the Zodiac and their architecture (Fergusson)--from the Macedonian Greeks; these and other such cock-and-bull hypotheses, are threatened with ruin. It is the ghost of old Chaldća that comes to the rescue of truth. In his third Hibbert Lecture (1887) Professor Sayce of Oxford, speaking of newly-discovered Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders, refers at length to Ea, the God of Wisdom, now identified with the Oannes of Berosus, the half-man, half-fish, who taught the Babylonians culture and the _art of writing_. This Ea, to whom, thanks only to the Biblical Deluge, an antiquity of hardly 1,500 B.C. had been hitherto allowed, is now spoken of in the following terms, to summarize from the Professor: The city of Ea was Eridu, which stood 6,000 years ago on the shores of the Persian Gulf. The name means "the good city," a particularly holy spot, since it was the centre from which the earliest Chaldćan civilization made its way to the north. As the culture-god was represented as coming from the sea, it was possible that the culture of which Eridu was the seat was of foreign importation. We now know that there was intercourse at a very early period between Chaldća and the Sinaitic peninsula, as well as with India. The statues discovered by the French at Tel- loh (dating from at latest B.C. 4,000) were made of the extremely hard stone known as diorite, and the inscriptions on them stated the diorite to have been brought from Magan--_i.e._, the Sinaitic peninsula, which was then ruled by the Pharaohs. The statues are known to resemble in general style the diorite statue, Kephren, the builder of the second Pyramid, while, according to Mr. Petrie, the unit of measurement marked on the plan of the city, which one of the Tel-loh figures holds on his lap, is the same as that employed by the Pyramid builders. Teak wood has been found at Mugheir, or Ur of the Chaldees, although that wood is an Indian special product; add to this that an ancient Babylonian list of clothing mentions _sindhu_ or "muslin," explained as "vegetable cloth."(521) Muslin, best known now as Dacca muslin, known in Chaldća as Hindu (Sindhu), and teak wood used 4,000 years B.C., and yet the Hindűs, to whom Chaldća owes its civilization, as has been well proven by Colonel Vans Kennedy, were _ignorant of the art of writing_ before the Greeks taught them their alphabet--if, at least, we have to believe Orientalists! Stanza X. The History Of The Fourth Race. 38. The birth of the Fourth (Atlantean) Race. 39. The sub-races of the Fourth Humanity begin to divide and interblend; they form the first mixed races of various colours. 40. The superiority of the Atlantean over other Races. 41. They fall into sin and beget children and monsters. 42. The first germs of anthropomorphism and sexual religion. They lose their "third eye." 38. THUS, TWO BY TWO, ON THE SEVEN ZONES, THE THIRD RACE GAVE BIRTH TO THE FOURTH; THE SURA BECAME A-SURA.(522) 39. THE FIRST,(523) ON EVERY ZONE, WAS MOON-COLOURED;(524) THE SECOND YELLOW LIKE GOLD; THE THIRD RED; THE FOURTH BROWN, WHICH BECAME BLACK WITH SIN.(525) THE FIRST SEVEN HUMAN SHOOTS WERE ALL OF ONE COMPLEXION.(526) THE NEXT SEVEN,(527) BEGAN MIXING.(528) To understand Shloka 38, it must be read together with the Shlokas of Stanza IX. Up to this point of evolution man belongs more to metaphysical than physical Nature. It is only after the so-called "Fall," that the Races began to develop rapidly into a purely human shape. In order that the student may correctly comprehend the full meaning of the Fall--so mystic and transcendental in its real significance--he must at once be told the details which preceded it, seeing that modern Theology has made of the event a pivot on which its most pernicious and absurd dogmas and beliefs are made to turn. The Archaic Commentaries, as the reader may remember, explain that, of the Host of Dhyânîs, whose turn it was to incarnate as the Egos of the immortal, but, _on this plane_, senseless Monads--some "obeyed" (the Law of Evolution) immediately the men of the Third Race became physiologically and physically ready, _i.e._, when they had separated into sexes. These were those early conscious Beings who, now adding conscious knowledge and will to their inherent divine purity, "created" by Kriyâshakti the semi- divine man, who became the Seed on Earth for future Adepts. Those, on the other hand, who, jealous of their intellectual freedom--unfettered as it then was by the bonds of Matter--said: "We can choose, ... we have wisdom,"(529) and so incarnated far later--these had their first Karmic punishment prepared for them. They got bodies inferior (physiologically) to their Astral Models, because their Chhâyâs had belonged to Progenitors of an inferior degree in the seven Classes. As to those "Sons of Wisdom" who "deferred" their incarnation till the Fourth Race, which was already tainted (physiologically) with sin and impurity, these produced a terrible cause, the Karmic result of which weighs on them to this day. It was produced in themselves, and they became the carriers of that seed of iniquity for ćons to come, because the bodies they had to inform had become defiled through their own procrastination.(530) This was the "Fall of the Angels," owing to their rebellion against Karmic Law. The "fall of _man_" was no fall, _for he was irresponsible_. But "creation" having been invented on the dualistic system as the "prerogative of God alone"--the legitimate _attribute_ patented by Theology in the name of an _infinite_ Deity of their own making--the power of Kriyâshakti had to be regarded as "Satanic," and as a usurpation of divine rights. Thus, in the light of such narrow views, the foregoing must naturally be considered as a terrible slander on man, "created in the image of God," and a still more dreadful blasphemy in the face of the dead-letter dogma. "Your doctrine," the Occultists have already been told, "makes of man, created out of dust in the likeness of his God, a vehicle of the Devil, from the first." "Why do you make of your God a Devil--both, moreover, created in _your own_ image?"--is our reply. The Esoteric interpretation of the _Bible_, however, sufficiently refutes this slanderous invention of Theology; the Secret Doctrine must some day become the just Karma of the Churches--more anti-Christian than the representative assemblies of the most confirmed Materialists and Atheists. The true meaning of the old doctrine of the "Fallen Angels," in its anthropological and evolutionary sense, is contained in the _Kabalah_, and explains the _Bible_. It is found preëminently in _Genesis_ when the latter is read in a spirit of research for truth, with no eye to dogma, and in no mood of preconception. This is easily proven. In _Genesis_ (vi), the "Sons of God"--B'ne Aleim--become enamoured of the daughters of men, marry, and reveal to their wives the mysteries unlawfully learnt by them in Heaven, according to Enoch; and this is the "Fall of the Angels."(531) But what, in reality, is the _Book of Enoch_ itself, from which the author of _Revelation_ and even the St. John of the Fourth Gospel(532) have so profusely quoted? Simply a _Book of Initiation_, giving out in allegory and cautious phraseology the programme of certain Archaic Mysteries performed in the _inner_ Temples. The author of the _Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and Quichés_ very justly suggests that the so-called "Visions" of Enoch relate to his (Enoch's) experience at Initiation, and what he learned in the Mysteries; while he very erroneously states his opinion that Enoch had learned them before being converted to Christianity (! !); furthermore, he believes that this book was written "at the beginning of the Christian era, when ... the customs and religion of the Egyptians fell into decadency"! This is hardly possible, since Jude, in his Epistle,(533) quotes from the _Book of Enoch_; and, therefore, as Archbishop Laurence, the translator of the _Book of Enoch_ from the Ethiopic version, remarks, it "could not have been the production of a writer who lived after ... or was even coëval with" the writers of the _New Testament_, unless, indeed, Jude and the Gospels, and all that follows, were also a production of the already established Church--which, some critics say, is not impossible. But we are now concerned with the "Fallen Angels" of Enoch, rather than with Enoch himself. In Indian exotericism, these Angels (Asuras) are also denounced as the "enemies of the Gods"; those who oppose sacrificial worship offered to the Devas. In Christian Theology they are broadly referred to as the "Fallen Spirits," the heroes of various conflicting and contradictory legends, gathered from Pagan sources. The _coluber tortuosus_, the "tortuous snake"--a qualification said to have originated with the Jews--had quite another meaning before the Roman Church distorted it; among others, _a purely astronomical_ signification. The "Serpent" fallen from on high (_deorsum fluens_) was credited with the possession of the Keys of the Empire of the Dead ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH OXIA~}) to the day when Jesus saw it fall "as lightning ... from heaven,"(534) notwithstanding the Roman Catholic interpretation of "_cadebat ut fulgur_." It means indeed that even "the devils are subject" to the Logos--who is Wisdom, but at the same time, as the opponent of ignorance, Satan or Lucifer. This remark refers to divine Wisdom falling like lightning on, and so quickening, the intellects of those who fight the devils of ignorance and superstition. Up to the time when Wisdom, in the shape of the incarnating Spirits of Mahat, descended from on high to animate and call the Third Race to real conscious life--Humanity, if it can be so called in its animal, senseless state, was of course doomed to _moral_ as well as to physical death. The Angels _fallen into generation_ are referred to metaphorically as Serpents and Dragons of Wisdom. On the other hand, regarded in the light of the Logos, the Christian Saviour, like Krishna, whether as man or Logos, may be said to have saved those who believed in the Secret Teachings, from "eternal death," and to have conquered the Kingdom of Darkness, or Hell, as every Initiate does. This is the human, terrestrial form of the Initiates, and also--because the Logos is Christos--that "principle" of our inner nature which develops in us into the Spiritual Ego--the Higher Self--formed of the indissoluble union of Buddhi, the sixth, and the spiritual efflorescence of Manas, the fifth "principle."(535) "The Logos is passive Wisdom in Heaven and conscious, self-active Wisdom on Earth," we are taught. It is the Marriage of the "Heavenly Man" with the "Virgin of the World," or Nature, as described in _Pymander_; the result of which is their progeny--immortal man. It is this which is called in St. John's _Revelation_(536) the marriage of the Lamb with his Bride. This "wife" is now identified with the Church of Rome owing to the arbitrary interpretations of her votaries. But they seem to forget that her "linen" may be "clean and white" _outwardly_, like the "whited sepulchre," but that the rottenness she is inwardly filled with, is not the "righteousness of saints,"(537) but rather the blood of the saints she has "slain upon the earth."(538) Thus the remark made by the great Initiate, in _Luke_--referring allegorically to the ray of enlightenment and reason, _falling like lightning_ from on high into the hearts and minds of the converts to the old Wisdom-Religion, then presented in a new form by the wise Galilean Adept(539)--was distorted out of all recognition, as was also his own personality, and made to fit in with one of the most cruel and the most pernicious of all theological dogmas. But if Western Theology alone holds the patent and copyright of Satan--in all the dogmatic horror of that fiction--other nationalities and religions have committed equal errors in their misinterpretation of a tenet, which is one of the most profoundly philosophical and ideal conceptions of ancient thought. They have both disfigured, and hinted at, the correct meaning of it in their numerous allegories on the subject. Nor have the semi-esoteric dogmas of Paurânic Hindűism failed to evolve very suggestive symbols and allegories concerning the rebellious and fallen Gods. The _Purânas_ teem with them; and we find a direct hint at the truth in the frequent allusions of Parâshara, in the _Vishnu Purâna_, to all those Rudras, Rishis, Asuras, Kumâras and Munis, who have _to be born in every age_--to reďncarnate in every Manvantara. This, Esoterically, is equivalent to saying that the "Flames" born of the Universal Mind, or Mahat, owing to the mysterious workings of Karmic Will and the impulse of Evolutionary Law, had--without any gradual transition--landed on this Earth, after having, as in _Pymander_, broken through the "Seven Circles of Fire," or, in short, the seven intermediate Worlds. There is an Eternal Cyclic Law of Re-births, and the series is headed at every new Manvantaric Dawn by those who have enjoyed their rest from reďncarnations in previous Kalpas for incalculable Ćons--by the highest and the earliest Nirvânîs. It was the turn of these "Gods" to incarnate in the present Manvantara; hence their presence on Earth, and the ensuing allegories; hence, also, the perversion of the original meaning.(540) The Gods who had "_fallen_ into generation," whose mission it was to complete _Divine_ Man, are found represented later on as Demons, Evil Spirits, and Fiends, at feud and war with Gods, or the irresponsible agents of the one Eternal Law. But no conception of such creatures as the Devils and the Satan of the Christian, Jewish, and Mahommedan religions was ever intended by these thousand and one Âryan allegories.(541) The true Esoteric view about "Satan," the opinion held on this subject by the whole of philosophic antiquity, is admirably brought out in an Appendix, entitled "The Secret of Satan," to the second edition of Dr. A. Kingsford's _Perfect Way_.(542) No better and clearer indication of the truth could be offered to the intelligent reader, and it is therefore quoted here at some length: 1. And on the seventh day [seventh creation of the Hindűs],(543) there went forth from the presence of God a _mighty Angel_, full of wrath and consuming, and God gave him the dominion of the outermost sphere.(544) 2. Eternity brought forth Time; the Boundless gave birth to Limit; Being descended into generation.(545) 4. _Among the Gods is none like unto him_, into whose hands are committed the kingdoms, the power and the glory of the worlds: 5. Thrones and empires, the dynasties of kings,(546) the fall of nations, the birth of churches, the triumphs of Time. For, as is said in Hermes: 20. Satan is the door-keeper of the _Temple of the King_; he standeth in Solomon's porch; he holdeth _the Keys of the Sanctuary_; 21. That no man may enter therein save the anointed, having the arcanum of Hermes. These suggestive and majestic verses had reference, with the ancient Egyptians and other civilized peoples of antiquity, to the _creative and __ generative Light of the Logos_--Horus, Brahmâ, Ahura Mazda, etc., as primeval manifestations of the Ever-unmanifested Principle, whether called Ain Suph, Parabrahman, or Zeruâna Akerne, or Boundless Time, Kâla--but the meaning is now degraded in the _Kabalah_. The "Anointed"--who has the secrets and mysteries of Hermes, or Budha, Wisdom, and who alone is entrusted with the "Keys of the Sanctuary," the Womb of Nature, in order to fructify it and call to active life and being the whole Kosmos--has become, with the Jews, Jehovah, the "God of Generation" on the Lunar Mountain--Sinai, the Mountain of the Moon (Sin). The "Sanctuary" has become the "Holy of Holies," and the arcanum has been anthropomorphized, and "phallicized," and dragged down into Matter, indeed. Hence arose the necessity of making of the "Dragon of Wisdom," the "Serpent" of _Genesis_; of the conscious God who needed a body to clothe his too subjective divinity, Satan. But the "innumerable incarnations of Spirit," and "the ceaseless pulse and current of Desire,"(547) refer, the first, to our doctrine of Karmic and Cyclic Rebirths, the second--to Erôs, not the later God of material, physiological love, but to the Divine Desire in the Gods, as well as in all Nature, to create and give life to Beings. This, the Rays of the one "Dark," because invisible and incomprehensible, "Flame" could achieve only by themselves descending into Matter. Therefore, as continued in the Appendix: 12. Many names hath God given him [Satan], names of mystery, secret and terrible. 13. ... The Adversary, because Matter opposeth Spirit, and Time accuseth even the saints of the Lord. 28. Stand in awe of him, and sin not: speak his name with trembling.... 29. For Satan is the magistrate of the Justice of God [Karma]; he beareth the balance and the sword. 31. For to him are committed _Weight and Measure and Number_. Compare the last sentence with what the Rabbi, who explains the Kabalah to the Prince in the Book of _Al Chazari_, says, and it will be found that Weight and Measure and Number are, in the _Sepher Jetzirah_, the attributes of the Sephiroth (the three Sephrim, or figures, ciphers), covering the whole collective number of 10; and that the Sephiroth are the collective Adam Kadmon, the "Heavenly Man" or the Logos. Thus Satan and the Anointed were identified in ancient thought. Therefore: 33. Satan is the minister of God, Lord of the seven mansions of Hades, the Angel of the manifest Worlds. The seven Lokas, or Saptaloka, of the Earth with the Hindűs; for Hades, or the Limbo of Illusion, of which Theology makes a region bordering on Hell, _is simply our Globe_, the Earth, and thus Satan is called the "Angel of the _manifest_ Worlds." It is "Satan who is the God of our planet and _the only_ God," and this without any metaphorical allusion to its wickedness and depravity. For he is one with the Logos. The first and "eldest of the gods," in the order of microcosmic [divine] evolution, Saturn (Satan) [astronomically] is the _seventh and last_ in the order of macrocosmic emanation, being the circumference of the Kingdom of which Phoebus [the Light of Wisdom, also the Sun] is the centre. The Gnostics were right, then, in calling the Jewish God an "Angel of Matter," or he who breathed (conscious) life into Adam, and whose Planet was Saturn. 34. And God hath put a girdle about his loins [the rings of Saturn], and the name of the girdle is Death. In Anthropogony this "girdle" is the human body with its two lower principles. These three die, while the innermost Man is immortal. And now we approach the _secret_ of Satan. 37. ... Upon Satan only _is the shame of generation_. 38. He hath lost his virginal estate [so hath the Kumâra, by incarnating]: _uncovering heavenly secrets_, he hath entered into bondage. 39. He encompasseth with bonds and limits all things.... 42. Twain are the armies of God: in heaven the hosts of Michael; in the abyss [the manifested world] the legions of Satan. 43. These are the Unmanifest and the Manifest; the free and the bound [in Matter]; the virginal and the fallen. 44. And both are the ministers of the Father, fulfilling the Word divine. Therefore: 55. Holy and venerable is the Sabbath of God: _blessed and sanctified is the name of the Angel of Hades_ [Satan]. For: 41. The glory of Satan is the shadow of the Lord [God in the manifested World]: the throne of Satan is the footstool of Adonai [the whole Kosmos]. When the Church, therefore, curses Satan, it curses the Kosmic reflection of God; it anathematizes God made manifest in Matter or in the objective; it maledicts God, or the ever-incomprehensible Wisdom, revealing itself as Light and Shadow, Good and Evil in Nature, in the only manner comprehensible to the limited intellect of Man. This is the true philosophical and metaphysical interpretation of Samael, or Satan, the Adversary in the _Kabalah_; the same tenets and spirit being found in the allegorical interpretations of every other ancient religion. This philosophical view does not interfere, however, with the historical records connected with it. We say "historical," because allegory and mythical ornamentation round the kernel of tradition, in nowise prevent that kernel being a record of real events. Thus, the _Kabalah_, repeating the time-honoured revelations of the once universal history of our Globe and the evolution of its Races, has presented it under the legendary form of the various records which have formed the _Bible_. Its historical foundation, in however imperfect a form, is now offered in these pages from the Secret Doctrine of the East; and thus the allegorical and symbolical meaning of the Serpent of _Genesis_ is found explained by the "Sons of Wisdom"--or Angels from higher Spheres, though all and each pertain to the Kingdom of Satan, or Matter--revealing to men the mysteries of Heaven. Hence, also, all the so-called myths of the Hindű, Grecian, Chaldćan, and Jewish Pantheons are found to be built on fact and truth. The Giants of _Genesis_ are the historical Atlanteans of Lankâ, and the Greek Titans. Who can forget that Troy was once upon a time proclaimed a myth, and Homer a non-existent personage, while the existence of such cities as Herculaneum and Pompeii was denied, and attributed to mere fairy legends? Yet Schliemann has proved that Troy did really exist, and the two latter cities, though buried for long ages under the Vesuvian lava, have had their resurrection day, and live again on the surface of the Earth. How many more cities and localities called "fabulous" are on the list of future discoveries, how many more personages regarded as mythical(548) will one day become historical, those alone can tell who read the decrees of Fate in the Astral Light. As the tenets of the Eastern Doctrine, however, have always been kept secret, and as the reader can hardly hope to be shown the original texts unless he becomes an accepted disciple, let the Greek and Latin scholar turn to the original texts of Hermetic literature. Let him, for instance, read carefully the opening pages of the _Pymander_ of Hermes Trismegistus, and he will see our doctrines corroborated therein, however veiled its text. There also he will find the evolution of the Universe, of our Earth, called "Nature" in _Pymander_, as of everything else, from the "Moyst Principle," or the great Deep, Father-Mother--the first differentiation in the manifested Kosmos. First the "Universal Mind," which the hand of the Christian translator has metamorphosed in the earliest renderings into God, the Father; then the "Heavenly Man,"(549) the great Total of that Host of Angels, which was too pure for the creation of the inferior Worlds or of the Men of our Globe, but which nevertheless _fell_ into Matter by virtue of that same evolution, as the Second Logos of the "Father."(550) Synthetically, every Creative Logos, or "the Son who is one with the Father," is the Host of the Rectores Mundi in itself. Even Christian Theology makes of the seven "Angels of the Presence" the Virtues, or the personified attributes, of God, which, being created by him, as the Manus were by Brahmâ, became Archangels. The Roman Catholic Theodice itself, recognizing in its creative Verbum Princeps the Head of these Angels (_caput angelorum_) and the Angel of the great Counsel (_magni consilii angelus_), thus recognizes the identity of Christ with them. "The Sura became A-Sura"--the Gods became No-Gods--says the text; _i.e._, Gods became Fiends--Satan, when read literally. But Satan will now be shown, in the teaching of the Secret Doctrine, to be allegorized as Good and Sacrifice, a God of Wisdom, under different names. The _Kabalah_ teaches that Pride and Presumption--the two chief prompters of Selfishness and Egotism--are the causes that emptied Heaven of _one- third_ of its divine denizens, mystically, and of _one-third_ of the stars, astronomically; in other words, the first statement is an allegory, and the second a fact. The former, nevertheless, is, as shown, intimately connected with humanity. In their turn the Rosicrucians, who were well acquainted with the secret meaning of the tradition, kept it to themselves, teaching merely that the whole of "creation" was due to, and the result of, that legendary "War in Heaven," brought on by the rebellion of the Angels(551) against Creative Law, or the Demiurge. The statement is correct, but the _inner_ meaning is to this day a mystery. To elude further explanation of the difficulty, by appealing to divine mystery, or to the sin of prying into its policy--is to say nothing at all. It may prove sufficient for believers in the Pope's infallibility, but will hardly satisfy the philosophical mind. Yet the truth, although known to most of the higher Kabalists, has never been told by any of their number. One and all, Kabalists and Symbologists, have shown an extraordinary reluctance to confess the primitive meaning of the Fall of the Angels. In a Christian such silence is only natural. Neither Alchemist nor Philosopher during the Medićval Ages could have uttered that(552) which in the sight of Orthodox Theology was terrible blasphemy, for it would have led them directly through the "Holy" Office of the Inquisition, to rack and stake. But for our modern Kabalists and Freethinkers the case is different. With the latter, we fear, it is merely human pride, vanity based on a loudly rejected but ineradicable superstition. Since the Church, in her struggle with Manicheeďsm, invented the Devil, and by placing a theological extinguisher on the radiant Star- God Lucifer, the "Son of the Morning," thus created the most gigantic of all her paradoxes, _a black and tenebrous_ Light--the myth has struck its roots too deeply into the soil of blind faith to permit, in our age, even those, who do not acquiesce in her dogmas, and laugh at her horned and cloven-footed Satan, to come out bravely and confess the antiquity of the oldest of all traditions. In a few brief words it is this. Semi- exoterically, the "First-born" of the Almighty--Fiat Lux--or the Angels of Primordial Light, were commanded to "create"; one-third of them rebelled and "refused"; while those who "obeyed" as Fetahil did--_failed_ most signally. To realize the refusal and failure in their correct physical meaning, one must study and understand Eastern Philosophy; one has to be acquainted with the fundamental mystical tenets of the Vedântins, as to the utter fallacy of attributing functional activity to the Infinite and Absolute Deity. Esoteric Philosophy maintains that during the Sandhyâs, the "Central Sun" emits _Creative Light_--passively, so to say. Causality is latent. It is only during the active periods of Being that it gives rise to a stream of ceaseless Energy, whose vibrating currents acquire more activity and potency with every rung of the hebdomadic ladder of Being which they descend. Hence it becomes comprehensible how the process of "creating," or rather of fashioning, the organic Universe, with all its units of the seven kingdoms, necessitated intelligent Beings--who became collectively a Being or Creative God, differentiated already from the One Absolute Unity, unrelated as the latter is to conditioned "creation."(553) Now the Vatican MS. of the _Kabalah_--the only copy of which (in Europe) is said to have been in the possession of Count St. Germain--contains the most complete exposition of the doctrine, including the peculiar version accepted by the Luciferians(554) and other Gnostics; and in that parchment the "Seven Suns of Life" are given in the order in which they are found in the Saptasűrya. Only four of these, however, are mentioned in the editions of the _Kabalah_ which are procurable in public libraries, and that even in a more or less veiled phraseology. Nevertheless even this reduced number is amply sufficient to show an identical origin, as it refers to the quaternary group of the Dhyân Chohans, and proves the speculation to have had its origin in the Secret Doctrines of the Âryans. As is well known, the _Kabalah_ did not originate with the Jews, for the latter got their ideas from the Chaldćans and the Egyptians. Thus even the _exoteric_ Kabalistic teachings speak of a "Central Sun," and of three secondary Suns in each Solar System--our own included. As shown in that able though too materialistic work, _New Aspects of Life and Religion_, which is a synopsis of the views of the Kabalists in an aspect deeply thought out and assimilated: The central sun ... was to them [as much as to the Âryans] the _centre of rest_; the centre to which all motion was to be ultimately referred. Round this central sun ... "the first of three systemic suns ... revolved on a polar plane ... the second, on an equatorial plane" ... and the third only was our visible sun. These four solar bodies were "_the organs on whose action what man calls the creation, the evolution of life on the planet earth, depends_." The channels through which the influence of these bodies was conveyed to the earth they [the Kabalists] held to be electrical.... The radiant energy flowing from the central sun(555) called the earth into being as a watery globe, ... [whose tendency], as the nucleus of a planetary body, was to rush to the (central) sun ... within the sphere of whose attraction it had been created.... But the radiant energy, similarly electrifying both, withheld the one from the other, and so changed motion towards into motion round the centre of attraction, which the revolving planet [earth] thus sought to reach. In the organic cell the _visible sun_ found its own proper matrix, and produced through this the animal [while maturing the vegetable] kingdom, finally placing man at its head, in whom, through the animating action of that kingdom, it originated the psychic cell. But the man so placed at the head of the animal kingdom, at the head of the creation, was the animal, the _soul- less, the perishable man_.... Hence man, although apparently its crown, would, by his advent have marked the close of creation; since creation, culminating in him, would at his death have entered on its decline.(556) This Kabalistic view is here quoted, to show its perfect identity in spirit with the Eastern Doctrine. Explain, or complete the teaching of the Seven Suns with the seven systems of Planes of Being, of which the "Suns" are the central bodies, and you have the seven Angelic Planes, whose "Host" collectively are the Gods thereof.(557) They are the Head Group divided into four Classes, from the Incorporeal down to the Semi- corporeal. These Classes are directly connected--though in very different ways as regards voluntary connection and functions--with our mankind. They are three, synthesized by the fourth, the first and highest, which is called the "Central Sun" in the Kabalistic doctrine just quoted. This is the great difference between the Semitic and the Âryan Cosmogony--one materializing, humanizes the mysteries of Nature; the other spiritualizes Matter, and its physiology is always made subservient to metaphysics. Thus, though the seventh "principle" reaches man through all the phases of Being, pure as an indiscrete element and an impersonal unity, it passes through--the _Kabalah_ teaches _from_--the Central Spiritual Sun and Group the Second, the Polar Sun, which two radiate on man his Âtmâ. Group Three, the Equatorial Sun, cements the Buddhi to Âtman and the higher attributes of Manas; while Group Four, the Spirit of our visible Sun, endows him with his Manas and its vehicle, the Kâma Rűpa, or body of passions and desires--the two elements of Ahamkâra which evolve _individualized consciousness_, the personal Ego. Finally, it is the Spirit of the Earth, in its triple unity, that builds the Physical Body, attracting to it the Spirits of Life and forming his Linga Sharîra. But everything proceeds cyclically, the evolution of man like everything else, and the order in which he is generated is described fully in the Eastern Teachings, whereas it is only hinted at in the _Kabalah_. Says the _Book of Dzyan_ with regard to Primeval Man when first projected by the "Boneless," the Incorporeal Creator: _First, the Breath, then Buddhi, and the Shadow-Son [the Body] were __"__created.__"__ But where was the Pivot [the Middle Principle, Manas]? Man is doomed. When alone, the Indiscrete [Undifferentiated Element] and the Vâhan [Buddhi]--the Cause of the Causeless--break asunder from manifested life._ "_Unless_," explains the Commentary: _Unless cemented and held together by the Middle Principle, the Vehicle of the personal consciousness of Jîva._ In other words, the two higher "principles" _can have no individuality on Earth_, cannot be _man_, unless there is (_a_) the Mind, the Manas-Ego, to cognize itself, and (_b_) the terrestrial false Personality, or the Body of egotistical desires and personal Will, to cement the whole, as if round a Pivot--which it is, truly--to the physical form of man. It is the _fifth_ and the _fourth_ "principles"(558)--Manas and Kâma Rűpa--that contain the dual Personality; the real immortal Ego, if it assimilates itself to the two higher, and the false and transitory Personality, the Mâyâvi or Astral Body, so-called, or the Animal-human Soul--the two having to be closely blended for purposes of a _full_ terrestrial existence. Incarnate the Spiritual Monad of a Newton, grafted on that of the greatest saint on Earth, in a physical body the most perfect you can think of--_i.e._, in a two or even a three-principled Body composed of its Sthűla Sharîra, Prâna (Life-principle) and Linga Sharîra--and, if it lacks its middle and fifth "principles," you will have created _an idiot_--at best a beautiful, soul- less, empty and unconscious appearance. "_Cogito--ergo sum_" can find no room in the brain of such a creature, not on this plane, at any rate. There are students, however, who have long ago understood the philosophical meaning underlying the allegory--so tortured and disfigured by the Roman Church--of the "Fallen Angels." The kingdom of spirits and spiritual action, which flows from and is the product of spirit volition, is outside and contrasted with and in contradiction to the kingdom of [divine] souls and divine action.(559) As said in the text of Commentary xiv: _Like produces like and no more at the genesis of Being, and evolution with its limited conditioned laws comes later. The Self Existent_(_560_)_ are called __"__Creations,__"__ for they appear in the Spirit-Ray, manifested through the potency inherent in its Unborn Nature, which is beyond Time and [limited or conditioned] Space. Terrene products, animate and inanimate, including mankind, are falsely called creation and creatures; they are the development [evolution] of the Discrete Elements._ Again: _The Heavenly Rűpa [Dhyân Chohan] creates [man] in his own form; it is a spiritual ideation consequent on the first differentiation and awakening of the universal [manifested] Substance; that form is the ideal Shadow of Itself: and this is the Man of the First Race._ To express it in still clearer form, limiting the explanation to this Earth only, it was the duty of the first "differentiated" Egos--the Church calls them Archangels--to imbue Primordial Matter with the evolutionary impulse and guide its formative powers in the fashioning of its productions. This it is which is referred to in the sentences both in the Eastern and Western tradition--"the Angels were _commanded to create_." After the Earth had been made ready by the _lower_ and more material Powers, and its three Kingdoms fairly started on their way to be "fruitful and multiply," the higher Powers, the Archangels or Dhyânîs, were compelled by the Evolutionary Law to descend on Earth, in order to construct the crown of its evolution--Man. Thus the "Self-created" and the "Self-existent" projected their pale Shadows; but Group the Third, the Fire-Angels, _rebelled and refused_ to join their fellow Devas. Hindű exotericism represents them all as Yogins, whose piety inspired them to refuse to "create," as they desired to remain eternally Kumâras, "Virgin Youths," in order, if possible, to anticipate their fellows in progress towards Nirvâna-the final liberation. But, agreeably to Esoteric interpretation, it was a self-sacrifice for the benefit of mankind. The "Rebels" would not create will-less irresponsible men, as the "obedient" Angels did; nor could they endow human beings with even the temporary reflections of their own attributes; for the latter, belonging to another and a so much higher plane of consciousness, would leave man still irresponsible, hence interfere with any possibility of higher progress. No spiritual and psychic evolution is possible on Earth--the lowest and most material plane--for one who, on that plane at all events, is inherently _perfect_ and cannot accumulate either merit or demerit. Had Man remained the pale Shadow of the inert, immutable, and motionless Perfection, the one negative and passive attribute of the real _I am that I am_, he would have been doomed to pass through life on Earth as in a heavy dreamless sleep; hence a failure on this plane. The Beings, or the Being, collectively called Elohim, who first pronounced (if, indeed, they ever were pronounced) the cruel words, "Behold, the man is become _as one of us_, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ..."--must have been indeed the Ilda-baoth, the Demiurge of the Nazarenes, filled with rage and envy against his own creature, the reflection of which created Ophiomorphos. In this case it is but natural--even from the dead-letter standpoint--to view Satan, the Serpent of _Genesis_, as the real creator and benefactor, the Father of Spiritual Mankind. For it is he who was the "Harbinger of Light," bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton "created" by Jehovah, as alleged. And he who was the first to whisper, "in the day ye eat thereof ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil," can only be regarded in the light of a Saviour. An "Adversary" to Jehovah, the "_personating_ spirit," he still remains in Esoteric Truth the ever-loving "Messenger," the Angel, the Seraphim and Cherubim who both "knew" well, and "loved" still more, and who conferred on us Spiritual, instead of Physical Immortality--the latter a kind of _static_ immortality that would have transformed man into an undying "Wandering Jew." As narrated in King's _Gnostics and their Remains_ concerning Ildabaoth, whom several sects regarded as the God of Moses: Ildabaoth was far from being a pure spirit; ambition and pride dominated in his composition. He therefore resolved to break off all connection with his mother, Achamoth, and to create a world entirely for himself. Aided by his own Six Spirits, he created Man, intending him for the image of his power; but he failed utterly in his work, his Man proving a vast, soulless monster, crawling upon the earth. The Six Spirits were obliged to bring their work again before their father, to be animated: he did so by communicating the ray of Divine Light which he himself had inherited from Achamoth, who by this loss punished him for his pride and self-sufficiency. Man, thus favoured by Achamoth at the expense of her own son, followed the impulse of the Divine Light that she had transferred to him, collected a further supply out of the creation with which it was intermingled, and began to present not the image of his creator Ildabaoth, but rather that of the Supreme Being, the "Primal Man." At this spectacle the Demiurgus was filled with rage and envy at having produced a being so superior to himself. His looks, inspired by his passions, were reflected in the Abyss, as in a mirror, the image became instinct with life, and forth arose "Satan Serpent-formed," _Ophiomorphos_, the embodiment of envy and cunning.(561) This is the exoteric rendering of the Gnostics, and the allegory, though a sectarian version, is suggestive, and seems true to life. It is the natural deduction from the dead-letter text of Chapter iii of _Genesis_. Hence the allegory of Prometheus, who steals the Divine Fire so as to allow men to proceed consciously on the path of Spiritual Evolution, thus transforming the most perfect of _animals_ on Earth into a potential God, and making him free to "take the kingdom of heaven by violence." Hence, also, the _curse_ pronounced by Zeus against Prometheus, and by Jehovah- Ilda-baoth against his "rebellious son," Satan. The cold, pure snows of the Caucasian mountain and the never-dying, singeing fire and flames of an inextinguishable Hell, two poles, yet the same idea, the dual aspect of a refined torture; a "Fire-producer"--the personified emblem of {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} (_Phósphoros_), of the Astral Fire and Light in the Anima Mundi (that Element of which the German materialist philosopher Moleschott said: "ohne _Phosphor_ kein Gedanke," or "without phosphorus no thought")--burning in the fierce Flames of his terrestrial Passions; the conflagration fired by his Thought, discerning as it now does good from evil, and yet a slave to the passions of its earthly Adam; feeling the vulture of doubt and full consciousness gnawing at its heart--a Prometheus indeed, because a _conscious_, and hence a _responsible_ entity.(562) The curse of life is great, yet, with the exception of some Hindű and Sufi mystics, how few are those who would exchange all the tortures of conscious life, all the evils of a responsible existence, for the unconscious perfection of a passive (objectively) _incorporeal_ Being, or even the universal static Inertia personified in Brahmâ during his "Night's" Rest. For, to quote from an able article by one(563) who, confusing the planes of existence and consciousness, fell a victim thereto: Satan [or Lucifer] represents the _Active_, or, as [M. Jules] Baissac calls it, the "Centrifugal" Energy of the Universe [in a cosmic sense]. He is Fire, Light, Life, Struggle, Effort, Thought, Consciousness, Progress, Civilization, Liberty, Independence. At the same time he is _Pain_, which is the Reaction of the _Pleasure_ of Action, and _Death_--which is the Revolution of _Life_--Satan, burning in his own Hell, produced by the fury of his own momentum--the expansive disintegration of the Nebula which is to concentrate into New Worlds. And fitly is he again and again baffled by the Eternal Inertia of the _Passive_ Energy of the Kosmos--the inexorable "_I am_"--the Flint from which the sparks are beaten out. And fitly ... are he and his adherents ... consigned to the "Sea of Fire"--because _it is_ the Sun [in one sense only in the cosmic allegory], the Fount of Life in _our_ system, where they are purified (meaning thereby disintegrated) and churned up to reärrange them for another life (the Resurrection)--that _Sun_ which, as the Origin of the Active Principle of our Earth, is at once the _Home_ and the _Source_ of the Mundane Satan.... Furthermore, as if to demonstrate the accuracy of Baissac's general theory [in _Le Diable et Satan_] cold is known to have a "Centripetal" effect. Under the influence of Cold everything contracts.... Under it Life _hybernates_, or dies out, Thought congeals, and Fire is extinguished. Satan is immortal in his own Fire-Sea--it is only in the "Nifl-Heim" [the cold Hell of the Scandinavian _Eddas_] of the "_I am_" that he cannot exist. But for all that there is a kind of _Immortal_ Existence in Nifl-Heim, and that Existence must be _Painless_ and _Peaceful_, because it is _Unconscious_ and _Inactive_. In the Kingdom of _Jehovah_ [if this God were all that the Jews and Christians claim for him] there is no misery, no war, no marrying and giving in marriage, no change, no _Individual Consciousness_.(564) All is absorbed in the spirit of the Most Powerful. _It is emphatically a Kingdom of Peace and loyal Submission, as that of the __"__Arch-Rebel__"__ is one of War and Revolution...._ It [the former] is in fact what Theosophy calls Nirvâna. But then Theosophy teaches that Separation from the Primal Source _having once occurred_, Reünion can only be achieved by _Will-Effort_--which is distinctly Satanic in the sense of this essay.(565) It _is_ "Satanic" from the standpoint of orthodox Romanism, for it is owing to the prototype of that which became in time the Christian Devil--to the Radiant Archangels, Dhyân Chohans, who refused to create, because they wanted Man _to become his own creator_ and an immortal God--that men can reach Nirvâna and the Haven of heavenly Divine Peace. To close this rather lengthy comment, the Secret Doctrine teaches that the Fire-Devas, the Rudras, and the Kumâras, the "Virgin-Angels," (to whom the Archangels, Michael and Gabriel, both belong,) the Divine "Rebels"--called by the all-materializing and positive Jews, the Nahash or "Deprived"--preferred the _curse_ of _incarnation_ and the long cycles of terrestrial existence and rebirths, to seeing the misery, even if _unconscious_, of the beings who were evolved as Shadows out of their Brethren, through the semi-passive energy of their _too spiritual_ Creators. If "man's uses of life should be such as neither to animalize nor to spiritualize, but to _humanize_ Self,"(566) to do so, he must be born _human_ not angelic. Hence, tradition shows the celestial Yogîs offering themselves as voluntary victims in order to redeem Humanity, which was created god-like and perfect at first, and endow him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they had to give up their natural status, descend on our Globe, and take up their abode on it for the whole cycle of the Mahâyuga, thus exchanging their impersonal Individualities for individual Personalities--the bliss of sidereal existence for the curse of terrestrial life. This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature was _Knowledge_ and _Love_, has been construed by the exoteric theologies into a statement that shows "the Rebel Angels hurled down from Heaven into the darkness of Hell"--our Earth. Hindű Philosophy hints at the truth by teaching that the Asuras, hurled down by Shiva, are only in an _intermediate state_, in which they prepare for higher degrees of purification and redemption from their wretched condition; but Christian Theology--claiming to be based on the rock of the divine love, charity, and justice of him it appeals to as its Saviour--to paradoxically enforce that claim, has invented the dreary dogma of Hell, that Archimedean lever of Roman Catholic philosophy. Whereas Rabbinical wisdom--than which there is none more positive, materialistic, or grossly terrestrial, as it brings everything down to physiological mysteries--calls these Beings, the "Evil One"; and the Kabalists--Nahash, "Deprived," as just said, and the Souls that have, _after having been alienated in Heaven from the Holy One_, thrown themselves into an Abyss at the dawn of their very existence, and have anticipated the time when they are to descend on Earth.(567) And let me explain at once that our quarrel is not with the _Zohar_ or any other book of the _Kabalah_ in its right interpretation--for the latter is the same as our own--but only with the gross, _pseudo_-esoteric explanations of the later, and especially of the Christian Kabalists. Says the Commentary: _Our earth and man [are] the products of the three Fires._ The names of these three answer, in Sanskrit, to the "Electric Fire," the "Solar Fire," and the "Fire produced by Friction." Explained on the cosmic and human planes, these three Fires are Spirit, Soul, and Body, the three great Root Groups, with their four additional divisions. These vary with the Schools, and--according to their applications--become the Upâdhis and the Vehicles, or the Noumena of these. In the exoteric accounts, they are personified by the "three sons of surpassing brilliancy and splendour" of Agni Abhimânin, the eldest son of Brahmâ, the Cosmic Logos, by Svâhâ, one of Daksha's(568) daughters. In the metaphysical sense, the "Fire by Friction" means the union between Buddhi, the sixth, and Manas, the fifth "principle," which thus are united or cemented together, the fifth merging partially into and becoming part of the Monad; in the physical, it relates to the "creative spark," or germ, which fructifies and generates the human being. The three Fires, whose names are Pâvaka, Pavamâna and Shuchi, were condemned, it is said, by a curse of Vasishtha, the great Sage, "to be born over and over again."(569) This is clear enough. Therefore, the Flames, whose functions are confused in the exoteric books, and who are called indifferently Prajâpatis, Pitris, Manus, Asuras, Rishis, Kumâras,(570) etc., are said to incarnate personally in the Third Root-Race and thus find themselves "reborn over and over again." In the Esoteric Doctrine they are generally named Asuras, or the Asura Devatâ or Pitar Devatâ (Gods), for, as said, they were first Gods--and the highest--before they became "_No_-Gods," and had from Spirits of Heaven fallen into Spirits of Earth(571)--_exoterically_, note well, in orthodox dogma. No Theologian or Orientalist can ever understand the genealogies of the Prajâpatis, the Manus, and the Rishis, or the direct connection of these--their correlation rather--with the Gods, unless he has the key to the old primitive Cosmogony and Theogony, which all nations originally had in common. All these Gods and Demi-gods are found reborn on Earth, in various Kalpas and in as various characters; each, moreover, _having his Karma distinctly traced, and every effect assigned to its cause_. Before other Stanzas could be explained, it was, as may be seen, absolutely necessary to show that the Sons of "Dark Wisdom," though identical with the Archangels which Theology has chosen to call the "Fallen," are as divine and as pure, if not more pure, than all the Michaels and Gabriels so glorified in the Churches. The "Old Book" also goes into various details of Astral Life, which at this juncture would be quite incomprehensible to the reader. It must, therefore, be left for later explanation, and the First and Second Races will now receive only bare notice. Not so the Third Race--the Root-Race which separated into sexes, and which was the first to be endowed with reason; men evolving _pari passu_ with the Globe, and the latter having "incrustated" more than a hundred millions of years before the first human sub-race had yet begun to materialize or solidify, so to say. But, as the Stanza has it: _The Inner Man [the Conscious Entity] was not._ This "Conscious Entity" Occultism says, comes from, nay, in many cases _is_, the very essence and _esse_ of the high Intelligences, condemned, by the undeviating law of Karmic evolution, to reďncarnate in this Manvantara. (_b_) Shloka 39 relates exclusively to the racial divisions. Strictly speaking, Esoteric Philosophy teaches a modified polygenesis. For, while it assigns to humanity a oneness of origin, in so far that its Forefathers or "Creators" were all Divine Beings--though of different classes or degrees of perfection in their Hierarchy--it teaches that men were nevertheless born at seven different centres of the Continent of that period. Though all were of one common origin, yet, for reasons given, their potentialities and mental capabilities, outward or physical forms, and future characteristics, were very different.(572) As to their complexions, there is a suggestive allegory told in _Linga Purâna_. The Kumâras--the Rudra Gods, so called--are described as incarnations of Shiva, the Destroyer (of _outward forms_), called also Vâmadeva. The latter, as a Kumâra, the "Eternal Celibate," the chaste Virgin Youth, springs from Brahmâ in each great Manvantara, and "again becomes four"; a reference to the four great divisions of the human Races, as regards complexion and type--and the three chief variations of these. Thus in the twenty-ninth Kalpa--in this case a reference to the transformation and evolution of the human form, which Shiva ever destroys and remodels periodically down to the great Manvantaric turning point, about the middle of the Fourth (Atlantean) Race--in the twenty-ninth Kalpa, Shiva, as Shvetalohita, the Root-Kumâra, from moon-coloured becomes _white_; in his next transformation, he is _red_ (and in this the exoteric version differs from the Esoteric Teaching); in the third, _yellow_; in the fourth, _black_. Esotericism now classes these seven variations, with their four great divisions, into only three distinct primeval Races--as it does not take into consideration the First Race, which had neither type nor colour, and a hardly objective, though colossal, form. The evolution of these Races, their formation and development, proceeded on parallel lines with the evolution, formation, and development of three geological strata, from which the human complexion was as much derived as it was determined by the climates of these zones. The Esoteric Teaching names three great divisions, namely, the _red-yellow_, the _black_, and the _brown- white_.(573) The Âryan races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are nevertheless all of one and the same stock, the Fifth Root-Race, and spring from one single Progenitor, called in Hindű _exotericism_ by the generic name of Vaivasvata Manu; the latter, remember, being that Generic Personage, the Sage, who is said to have lived over 18,000,000 years ago, and also 850,000 years ago--at the time of the sinking of the last remnants of the Great Continent of Atlantis,(574) and who is said to live even now in his mankind.(575) The light yellow is the colour of the first _solid_ human race, which appeared after the middle of the Third Root-Race--after its fall into generation, as just explained--bringing on the final changes. For, it is only at that period that the last transformation took place, which brought forth man as he is now, only on a magnified scale. This Race gave birth to the Fourth Race; "Shiva" gradually transforming that portion of Humanity which became "black with sin" into red-yellow, of which the red Indians and the Mongolians are the descendants, and finally into brown-white races--which now, together with the yellow races, form the great bulk of Humanity. The allegory in _Linga Purâna_ is curious, as showing the great ethnological knowledge of the ancients. When reading of the "last transformation," which is said to have taken place 18,000,000 years ago, let the reader at this juncture, consider how many millions more it must have required to reach that final stage. And if Man, in his gradual consolidation, developed _pari passu_ with the Earth, how many millions of years must have elapsed during the First, Second, and the first half of the Third Race. For the Earth was in a comparatively ethereal condition before it reached its last consolidated state. The Archaic Teachings, moreover, tell us that, during the middle period of the Lemuro-Atlantean Race, three and a half Races after the Genesis of Man, the Earth, Man, and everything on the Globe, were of a still grosser and more material nature, while such things as corals and some shells were still in a semi-gelatinous, astral state. The cycles that have intervened since then, have already carried us onward, on the opposite ascending arc, some steps toward our "dematerialization," as the Spiritualists would say. The Earth, ourselves, and all things have softened since then--aye, even our brains. But it has been objected by some Theosophists that an ethereal Earth even some 15 or 20,000,000 years ago, "does not square with Geology," which teaches us that winds blew, rains fell, waves broke on the shore, sands shifted and accumulated, etc.; that, in short, all natural causes now in operation were then in force, "in the very earliest ages of geological time, aye, that of the oldest palćozoic rocks." To this the following answers are given. Firstly, what is the date assigned by Geology to these "oldest palćozoic rocks"? And secondly, why could not the winds blow, rain fall, and waves--of "carbonic acid" apparently, as Science seems to imply--break on the shore, on an Earth semi-astral, _i.e._, viscid? The word "astral" does not necessarily, in Occult phraseology, mean as thin as smoke, but rather "starry," shining or pellucid, in various and numerous degrees, from a quite filmy to a viscid state, as just observed. But it is further objected: "How could an astral Earth have affected the other Planets in this System? Would not the whole process get out of gear now if the attraction of one Planet were suddenly removed?" The objection is evidently invalid, since our System is composed of older and younger Planets, some dead--like the Moon--others in process of formation, for all that Astronomy knows to the contrary. Nor has the latter ever affirmed, so far as we know, that all the bodies of our System have sprung into existence and developed simultaneously. The Cis-Himâlayan Secret Teachings differ from those of India in this respect. Hindű Occultism teaches that the Vaivasvata Manu Humanity is 18,000,000 and odd years old. We say, yes; but only so far as _physical_ or approximately physical, Man is concerned, who dates from the close of the Third Root-Race. Beyond that period _Man_, or his filmy image, may have existed for 300,000,000 years, for all we know; _since we are not taught figures_ which are and will remain secret with the Masters of Occult Science, as justly stated in _Esoteric Buddhism_. Moreover, whereas the Hindű _Purânas_ speak of one Vaivasvata Manu, we affirm that there were several, the name being a generic one. We must now say a few more words on the physical evolution of man. Archaic Teachings In The "Purânas" And "Genesis." Physical Evolution. The writer cannot give too much proof that the system of Cosmogony and Anthropogony above described actually existed, that its records _are_ preserved, and that it is found mirrored even in the modern versions of ancient Scriptures. The _Purânas_ on the one hand, and the Jewish Scriptures on the other, are based on the same scheme of evolution, which, if read Esoterically and expressed in modern language, would be found to be quite as scientific as much of what now passes current as the final word of recent discovery. The only difference between the two schemes is, that the _Purânas_, giving as much, and perhaps more, attention to causes than to effects, allude to the pre-cosmic and pre-genetic periods rather than to those of so-called "creation," whereas the _Bible_, after saying only a few words on the former period, plunges forthwith into material genesis, and, while almost skipping the Pre-Adamic races, proceeds with its allegories concerning the Fifth Race. Now, whatever the onslaught made on the "order of creation" in _Genesis_--and its dead-letter account certainly lends itself admirably to criticism(576)--the Hindű _Purânas_, notwithstanding their allegorical exaggerations will be found quite in accordance with Physical Science. Even what, on the face of it, appears to be the perfectly nonsensical allegory of Brahmâ assuming the form of a Boar to rescue the Earth from under the waters, finds a perfectly scientific explanation in the Secret Commentaries, relating as it does to the many risings and sinkings, the constant alternation of water and land from the earliest to the latest geological periods of our Globe; for Science teaches us now that nine- tenths of the stratified formations of the Earth's crust have been gradually constructed beneath the water at the bottom of the seas. The ancient Âryans are credited with having known nothing whatever of Natural History, Geology, and so on. The Jewish race is, on the other hand, proclaimed even by its severest critic, an uncompromising opponent of the _Bible_, to have the merit of having conceived the idea of monotheism "earlier, and retained it more firmly, than any of the _less philosophical and more immoral religions_ (!!) of the ancient world."(577) Only, while in biblical Esotericism, we find physiological sexual mysteries symbolized, and very little more, something for which _very little real Philosophy_ is requisite--in the _Purânas_ one can find the most scientific and philosophical "dawn of creation," which, if impartially analyzed and rendered into plain language from its fairy-tale-like allegories, would show that modern Zoology, Geology, Astronomy, and nearly all the branches of modern knowledge, have been anticipated in ancient Science, and were known to ancient Philosophers in their general features, if not in such detail as at present. Paurânic Astronomy, with all its deliberate concealment and confusion for the purpose of leading the profane off the real track, has been shown even by Bentley to be a real science; and those who are versed in the mysteries of Hindű astronomical treatises, will prove that the modern theories of the progressive condensation of nebulć, nebulous stars and suns, with the most minute details about the cyclic progress of asterisms for chronological and other purposes--far more correct than Europeans have even now--were known in India to perfection. If we turn to Geology and Zoology we find the same. What are all the myths and endless genealogies of the seven Prajâpatis, of their sons, the seven Rishis or Manus, and of their wives, sons and progeny, but a vast detailed account of the progressive development and evolution of animal creation, one species after the other? Were the highly philosophical and metaphysical Âryans--the authors of the most perfect philosophical system of transcendental Psychology, of codes of Ethics, of such a grammar as Pânini's, of the Sânkhya and Vedânta systems, of a moral code (Buddhism), proclaimed by Max Müller the most perfect on earth--were the Âryans such fools, or children, as to lose their time in writing "fairy tales," such as the _Purânas_ now seem to be in the eyes of those who have not the remotest idea of their secret meaning? What is the "fable," the genealogy and origin of Kashyapa, with his twelve wives by whom he had a numerous and diversified progeny of serpents (Nâgas), reptiles, birds, and all kinds of living things, who was thus the "father" of all kinds of animals, but a _veiled_ record of the order of evolution in _this_ Round? So far, we do not see that any Orientalist has ever had the remotest conception of the truths concealed under the allegories and personifications. The _Shatapatha Brâhmana_, says one, gives "_a not very intelligible_ account" of Kashyapa's origin. According to the _Mahâbhârata_, the _Râmâyana_, and the _Purânas_, he was the son of Marîchi, the son of Brahmâ, the father of Vivasvat, the father of Manu, the progenitor of mankind. According to the _Shatapatha Brahmâna_: Having assumed the form of a tortoise, Prajâpati created offspring. That which he created he made (_akarot_); hence the word _kűrma_ (tortoise). Kashyapa means tortoise; hence men say, "All creatures are descendants of Kashyapa."(578) He was all this; he was also the father of the bird Garuda, the "king of the feathered tribe," who _descends from_, and is of one stock with _the reptiles_, the Nâgas, and who becomes their mortal enemy _subsequently_--as he is also a _cycle_, a period of time, when, in the course of evolution, the birds which developed from reptiles in their "struggle for life" and "survival of the fittest," etc., turned in preference on those from whom they issued to devour them, perhaps prompted by natural law, in order to make room for other and more perfect species. In that admirable epitome, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, a lesson in Natural History is offered to Mr. Gladstone, showing the utter variance of the _Bible_ with it. The author remarks that Geology traces the "dawn of creation" through a line of scientific research: Commencing with the earliest known fossil, the Eozoon Canadense of the Laurentian, and continued in a chain, every link of which is firmly welded, through the Silurian, with its abundance of molluscous, crustacean, and vermiform life, and first indication of fishes; the Devonian, with its predominance of fish and first appearance of reptiles; the Mesozoic with its batrachians; the Secondary formations, in which reptiles of the sea, land and air preponderated, and the first humble forms of vertebrate land animals began to appear; and finally the Tertiary, in which mammalian life has become abundant, and type succeeding to type and species to species, are gradually differentiated and specialized, through the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene periods, until we arrive at the Glacial and Prehistoric periods, and at positive proof of the existence of man.(579) The same order, _plus_ the description of animals unknown to Modern Science, is found in the Commentaries on the _Purânas_ in general, and in the _Book of Dzyan_ especially. The only difference--a grave one, no doubt, as implying a spiritual and divine nature of man independent of his physical body in this illusionary world, in which the _false personality_ and its cerebral basis alone is known to orthodox Psychology--is as follows. Having been in all the so-called seven "creations," which stand allegorically for the seven evolutionary changes, or sub-races, as we may call them, of the First Root-Race of Mankind--Man has been on Earth in this Round from the beginning. Having passed through all the Kingdoms of Nature in the previous _three_ Rounds,(580) his _physical_ frame--one adapted to the thermal conditions of those early periods--was ready to receive the Divine Pilgrim at the first dawn of human life, _i.e._, 18,000,000 years ago. It is only at the mid-point of the Third Root-Race that man was endowed with Manas. Once united, the Two and then the Three made One; for though the lower animals, from the amoeba to man, received _their_ Monads, in which all the higher qualities are potential, these qualities have to remain dormant till the animal reaches its human form, before which stage Manas (mind) has no development in them. In the animals every principle is paralyzed, and in a foetus-like state, save the second, the Vital, and the third, the Astral, and the rudiments of the fourth, Kâma, which is desire, instinct--whose intensity and development varies and changes with the species. To the materialist wedded to the Darwinian theory, this will read like a fairy-tale, a mystification; to the believer in the inner, spiritual man, the statement will have nothing unnatural in it. As Commentary ix says: _Men are made complete only during their Third, toward the Fourth Cycle [Race]. They are made __"__Gods__"__ for good and evil, and responsible, only when the two arcs meet [after three and a half Rounds towards the Fifth Race]. They are made so by the Nirmânakâya [Spiritual or Astral remains] of the Rudra-Kumâras, __"__cursed to be reborn on Earth again__"__ [meaning--doomed in their natural turn to reďncarnation in the higher ascending arc of the terrestrial Cycle]._ Now the writer is certain to be met with what will be termed insuperable objections. We shall be told that the line of embryology, the gradual development of every individual life, and the progress of what is known to take place in the order of progressive stages of specialization--that all this is opposed to the idea of man preceding mammals. Man begins as the humblest and most primitive vermiform creature: From the primitive speck of protoplasm, and the nucleated cell in which all life originates ... and "is developed through stages undistinguishable from those of fish, reptile and mammal, until the cell finally attains the highly specialized development of the quadrumanous, and, last of all, of the human type."(581) This is perfectly scientific, and we have nothing against _that_; for it all relates to the _shell_ of man--his body, which, in its growth, is subject, of course, like every other once so-called morphological unit, to such metamorphoses. It is not those who teach the transformation of the mineral atom through crystallization--which is the same function, and bears the same relation to its so-called _inorganic_ Upâdhi, or basis, as the formation of _cells_ to their organic nuclei, through plant, insect and animal into man--it is not they who will reject this theory, as it will finally lead to the recognition of a Universal Deity in Nature, ever- present, and as ever invisible and unknowable, and of intra-cosmic Gods, who were all once men.(582) But we would ask, what does Science and its exact discoveries and now axiomatic theories prove against _our_ Occult theory? Those who believe in the law of evolution and gradual progressive development from a cell--which from a vital became a morphological cell, until it finally awoke as protoplasm pure and simple--can surely never limit their belief to one line of evolution! The types of life are innumerable; and the progress of evolution, moreover, does not go at the same rate in every kind of species. The constitution of primordial matter in the Silurian age--we mean the "primordial" _matter_ of Science--was the same in every essential particular, save its degree of present grossness, as the primordial _living_ matter of to-day. Nor do we find that which ought to be found, if the now orthodox theory of evolution were _quite_ correct, namely, a constant, ever-flowing progress in every species of being. Instead of this, what does one see? While the intermediate groups of animal beings all tend toward a higher type, and while specializations, now of one type and now of another, develop through the geological ages, change forms, assume new shapes, appear and disappear with a kaleidoscopic rapidity, in the description of Palćontologists from one period to another, the two solitary exceptions to the general rule are those at the two opposite poles of life and type, namely--_man_ and the _lower genera_ of being! Certain well-marked forms of living beings have existed through enormous epochs, surviving not only the changes of physical conditions, _but persisting comparatively unaltered_, while other forms of life have appeared and disappeared. Such forms may be termed "persistent types" of life; and examples of them are abundant enough in both the animal and the vegetable worlds.(583) Nevertheless, we are not given any good reason why Darwin links together reptiles, birds, amphibians, fishes, mollusca, etc., as off-shoots of a moneric ancestry. Nor are we told whether reptiles, for instance, are direct descendants of the amphibia, the latter of fishes, and fishes of lower forms--which they certainly are. For the Monads have passed through all these forms of being up to Man, on every Globe, in the _three preceding_ Rounds; every Round, as well as every subsequent Globe, from A to G, having been, and still having to be, the arena of the same evolution, only repeated each time on a more solid material basis. Therefore the question, "What relation is there between the Third Round astral prototypes and ordinary physical development in the course of the origination of pre-mammalian organic species?"--is easily answered. One is the shadowy prototype of the other, the preliminary, hardly defined, and evanescent sketch on the canvas, of objects which are destined to receive their final and vivid form under the brush of the painter. The fish evolved into an amphibian--a frog--in the _shadows_ of ponds, and man passed through all his metamorphoses on this Globe in the Third Round as he did in this, his Fourth Cycle. The Third Round types contributed to the formation of the types in the present Round. On strict analogy, the cycle of seven Rounds in their work of the gradual formation of man through every Kingdom of Nature, is repeated on a microscopical scale in the first seven months of gestation of a future human being. Let the student think over and work out this analogy. As the seven months' old unborn baby, though quite ready, yet needs two months more in which to acquire strength and consolidate; so man, having perfected his evolution during seven Rounds, remains two periods more in the womb of Mother-Nature before he is born, or rather reborn a Dhyâni, still more perfect than he was before he launched forth as a Monad on the newly built Chain of Worlds. Let the student ponder over this mystery, and then he will easily convince himself that, as there are also physical links between many classes, so there are precise domains wherein the Astral merges into Physical Evolution. Of this Science breathes not one word. Man has evolved with and from the monkey, it says. But now see the contradiction. Huxley proceeds to point out plants, ferns, club-mosses, some of them generically identical with those now living, which are met with in the Carboniferous epoch, for: The cone of the oolitic Araucaria is hardly distinguishable from that of existing species.... Sub-kingdoms of animals yield the same instances. The Globigerina of the Atlantic soundings is identical with the cretaceous species of the same genus ... the tabulate corals of the Silurian epoch are wonderfully like the millepores of our own seas.... The Arachnida, the highest group of which, the scorpions, is represented in the coal by a genus differing from its living congeners only in ... the eyes. [etc.] All of which may be closed with Dr. Carpenter's authoritative statement about the Foraminifera: There is no evidence of any fundamental modification or advance in the foraminiferous type from the palćozoic period to the present time.... The foraminiferous fauna of our own series probably present a greater range of variety than existed at any previous period; but _there is no indication of any tendency to elevation towards a higher type_.(584) Now, as in the Foraminifera, Protozoa of the lowest type of life, mouthless and eyeless, there is no indication of change except their now greater variety--so man, who is on the uppermost rung of the ladder of being, indicates still less change, as we have seen; the skeleton of his palćolithic ancestor being even found superior in some respects to his present frame. Where is, then, the uniformity of law which is claimed--the _absolute rule_ for one species shading off into another and thus, by insensible gradations, into higher types? We see Sir William Thomson admitting as much as 400,000,000 years for the time since the surface of the Globe became sufficiently cool to permit of the presence of living things;(585) and during that enormous lapse of time in the Oolitic period alone, the so-called "Age of Reptiles," we find a most extraordinary variety and abundance of Saurian forms, the Amphibian type reaching _its highest development_. We learn of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri in the lakes and rivers, and of winged crocodiles or lizards flying in the air. After which, in the Tertiary period: We find the Mammalian type exhibiting remarkable divergences from previously existing forms ... Mastodons, Megatheriums, and other unwieldy denizens of the ancient forests and plains. And, subsequently, we are notified of: The gradual modification of one of the ramifications of the Quadrumanous order, into those beings from whom primeval Man himself may claim to have been evolved.(586) He _may_; but no one, except a Materialist, can see why he should; as there is not the slightest necessity for it, nor is such an evolution warranted by facts, for those most interested in the proofs thereof confess their utter failure to find one single fact to support their theory. There is no need for the numberless types of life to represent the members of one progressive series. They are "the products of various and different evolutional divergences, taking place now in one direction and now in another." Therefore it is far more justifiable to say that the monkey evolved into the quadrumanous order, than that primeval man--who has _remained stationary_ in his human specialization since the first fossil skeleton found in the oldest strata, and of whom no variety is found save in colour and facial type--has developed from a common ancestor together with the ape. That man originates like other animals in a cell and develops "through stages indistinguishable from those of fish, reptile, and mammal until the cell attains the highly specialized development of the quadrumanous and _at last the human type_," is an Occult axiom thousands of years old. The Kabalistic axiom: "A stone becomes a plant; a plant a beast; a beast a man; a man a God," holds good throughout the ages. Hćckel, in his _Schöpfungsgeschichte_, shows a double drawing representing two embryos--that of a dog six weeks old, and that of a man, eight weeks. The two, with the exception of a slight difference in the head, which is larger and wider about the brain in the man, are indistinguishable. In fact, we may say that every human being passes through the stage of fish and reptile before arriving at that of mammal, and finally of man. If we take him up at the more advanced stage, where the embryo has already passed the reptilian form, we find that for a considerable time, the line of development remains the same as that of other mammalia. The rudimentary limbs are exactly similar, the five fingers and toes develop in the same way, and the resemblance after the first four weeks' growth _between the embryo of a man and a dog is such that it is scarcely possible to distinguish them_. Even at the age of eight weeks the embryo man is an animal with a tail, hardly to be distinguished from an embryo puppy.(587) Why, then, not make man and dog evolve from a common ancestor, or from a reptile--a Nâga, instead of coupling man with the Quadrumana? This would be just as logical as the latter, if not more so. The shape and the stages of the human embryo have not changed since historical times, and these metamorphoses were known to Ćsculapius and Hippocrates as well as to Mr. Huxley. Therefore, since the Kabalists had remarked it from prehistoric times, it is no new discovery.(588) As the embryo of man has no more of the ape in it than of any other mammal, but contains in itself _the totality of the kingdoms of nature_, and since it seems to be a "persistent type" of life, far more so than even the Foraminifera, it seems as illogical to make him evolve from the ape as it would be to trace his origin to the frog or the dog. Both Occult and Eastern Philosophies believe in Evolution, which Manu and Kapila(589) give with far more clearness than any Scientist does at present. No need to repeat what has been fully debated in _Isis Unveiled_, as the reader may find all these arguments and the description of the basis on which all the Eastern doctrines of Evolution rest, in our earlier volumes.(590) But no Occultist can accept the unreasonable proposition that all the now existing forms, "from the structureless Amoeba to man," are the direct lineal descendants of organisms which lived millions and millions of years before the birth of man, in the pre-Silurian epochs, in the sea or land- mud. The Occultists believe in an _Inherent Law of Progressive Development_.(591) Mr. Darwin never did, and says so himself; for we find him stating that, since _there can be no advantage_ "to the infusorian animalcule or an intestinal worm ... to become highly organized," therefore, "natural selection," _not necessarily including progressive development_--leaves the animalcule and the worm, the "persistent types," quiet.(592) There does not appear much _uniform_ law in such behaviour of Nature; and it looks more like the discriminative action of some _super_-physical selection; perhaps, that aspect of Karma, which Eastern Occultists would call the "Law of Retardation," may have something to do with it. But there is every reason to doubt whether Mr. Darwin himself ever gave such an importance to his law as is now given to it by his atheistic followers. The knowledge of the various living forms in the geological periods that have gone by is very meagre. The reasons given for this by Dr. Bastian are very suggestive: First, on account of the imperfect manner in which the several forms may be represented in the strata pertaining to the period; secondly, on account of the extremely limited nature of the explorations which have been made in these imperfectly representative strata; and, thirdly, because so many parts of the record are absolutely inaccessible to use--nearly all beneath the Silurian system having been blotted out by time, whilst those two- thirds of the earth's surface in which the remaining strata are to be found are now covered over by seas. Hence Mr. Darwin says: "For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; _of this history we possess the last volume alone_, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, _only here and there a short chapter has been preserved_; and of each page _only here and there a few lines_."(593) It is not on such meagre data, certainly, that the last word of Science can be said. Nor is it on any ground of human pride, or unreasonable belief in man's representing even here on Earth--in _our_ period, perhaps--the highest type of life, that Occultism denies that all the preceding forms of human life belonged to types lower than our own; for it is not so. But simply because the "missing link," which will prove the existing theory undeniably, will never be found by Palćontologists. Believing as we do that man has, during the preceding Rounds, evolved from, and passed through, the lowest forms of every life, vegetable and animal, on Earth, there is nothing very degrading in the idea of having the Orang Outang as an ancestor of our physical form. Quite the reverse; as it would most irresistibly forward the Occult Doctrine with regard to the final evolution of everything in terrestrial nature into man. One may even enquire how it is that Biologists and Anthropologists, having once firmly accepted the theory of the descent of man from the ape--how it is that they have hitherto left untouched the future evolution of the existing apes into man? This is only a logical sequence of the first theory--unless Science would make of man a privileged being, and his evolution a _non_-precedent in Nature, quite a _special_ and unique case. And that is what all this leads Physical Science to. The reason, however, why the Occultists reject the Darwinian, and especially the Hćckelian, hypothesis is because it is the ape, not man, which is, in sober truth, a special and unique instance. The Pithecoid is _an accidental creation_, a forced growth, the result of an unnatural process. The Occult Doctrine is, we think, more logical. It teaches a cyclic, never varying Law in Nature, the latter having no personal "special design," but acting on a uniform plan that prevails through the whole Manvantaric period and deals with the land-worm as it deals with man. Neither the one nor the other have sought to come into being, hence both are under the same Evolutionary Law, and both have to progress according to Karmic Law. Both have started from the same Neutral Centre of Life and both have to re-merge into it at the consummation of the Cycle. It is not denied that in the preceding Round man _was_ a gigantic ape-like creature; and when we say "man" we ought perhaps to say, the rough mould that was developing for the use of man in this Round only--the middle, or the transition, point of which we have hardly reached. Nor was man during the first two and a half Root-Races what he is now. That point he reached, as said before, only 18,000,000 years ago, during the Secondary period, as we claim. Till then he was, according to tradition and Occult Teaching, "a God on Earth who had fallen into Matter," or generation. This may or may not be accepted, since the Secret Doctrine does not impose itself as an infallible dogma, and since, whether its prehistoric records are accepted or rejected, it has nothing to do with the question of the _actual_ Man and his Inner Nature; the Fall mentioned above having left no "original sin" on Humanity. But all this has been sufficiently dealt with. Furthermore, we are taught that the transformations through which man passed on the descending arc--which is centrifugal for Spirit and centripetal for Matter--and those he is preparing to go through, henceforward, on his ascending path, which will reverse the direction of the two forces--viz., Matter will become centrifugal and Spirit centripetal--that all such transformations _are next in store for the anthropoid apes also_; all those, at any rate, who have reached the remove next to man in this Round--for these will all be men in the Fifth Round, just as the present men inhabited ape-like forms in the Third, the preceding Round. Behold, then, in the modern denizens of the great forests of Sumatra the degraded and dwarfed examples--"blurred copies," as Mr. Huxley has it--of ourselves, as we (the majority of mankind) were in the earliest sub-races of the Fourth Root-Race during the period of what is called the "fall into generation." The ape we know is not the product of natural evolution but an _accident_, a cross-breed between an animal being, or form, and man. As has been shown in the present volume, it is the speechless animal that first began sexual connection, for it was the first to separate into male and female. Nor was it intended by Nature that man should follow this bestial example--as is now shown by the comparatively painless procreation of their species by animals, and the terrible suffering and danger of the same in woman. The ape is, indeed, as remarked in _Isis Unveiled_: A transformation of species most directly connected with that of the human family-_a bastard branch engrafted on their own stock before the final perfection of the latter_.(594) The apes are millions of years later than the speaking human being, and are the latest contemporaries of our Fifth Race. Thus, it is most important to remember that the "Egos" of the apes are entities compelled by their Karma to incarnate in the animal forms, which resulted from the bestiality of the _latest_ Third and the earliest Fourth Race men. They are entities who had already reached the "human stage" before this Round. Consequently, they form an exception to the general rule. The numberless traditions about Satyrs are no fables, but represent an extinct race of animal men. The animal "Eves" were their foremothers, and the human "Adams" their forefathers; hence the Kabalistic allegory of Lilith or Lilatu, Adam's _first_ wife, whom the Talmud describes as a "charming" woman, "with long wavy hair," _i.e._--a female hairy animal of a character now unknown, still a female animal, who in the Kabalistic and Talmudic allegories is called the female reflection of Samael, Samael-Lilith, or man-animal united, a being called, in the _Zohar_, Hayo Bischat, the Beast or Evil Beast. It is from this unnatural union that the present apes descended. The latter are truly "speechless men," and will become speaking animals, or men of a lower order, in the Fifth Round, while the Adepts of a certain School hope that some of the "Egos" of the apes of a higher intelligence will reäppear at the close of the Sixth Root-Race. What their form will be is of secondary consideration. The form means nothing. Genera and species of the flora, fauna, and the highest animal, its crown--man, change and vary according to the environments and climatic variations, not only with every Round, but every Root-Race likewise, as well as after every geological cataclysm that puts an end to, or produces a turning point in, the latter. In the Sixth Root-Race, the fossils of the Orang, the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee will be those of extinct quadrumanous mammals; and new forms--though fewer and ever wider apart as ages pass on and the close of the Manvantara approaches--will develop from the "cast off" types of the human races as they revert once again to astral, out of the mire of physical, life. There were no apes before man, and they will be extinct before the Seventh Race develops. Karma will lead on the Monads of the unprogressed men of our Race and lodge them in the newly evolved human frames of the thus physiologically regenerated Baboon. This will take place, of course, millions of years hence. But the picture of this cyclic precession of all that lives and breathes now on Earth, of each species in its turn, is a true one, and needs no "special creation" or miraculous formation of man, beast, and plant _ex nihilo_. This is how Occult Science explains the absence of any link between ape and man, and shows the former evolving from the latter. A Panoramic View Of The Early Races. There is a period of a few millions of years to cover between the first "mindless" race and the highly intelligent and intellectual later Lemurians; there is another between the earliest civilization of the Atlanteans and the historic period. As witnesses to the Lemurians but a few silent records in the shape of half a dozen broken colossi and old cyclopean ruins are left. These are not allowed a hearing, as they are "productions of blind natural forces," we are assured by some; "quite modern" we are told by others. Tradition is left contemptuously unnoticed by Sceptic and Materialist, and made subservient to the _Bible_ in every case by the too zealous Churchman. Whenever a legend, however, refuses to fit in with the Noachian Deluge theory, it is declared by the Christian clergy to be "the insanely delirious voice of old superstition." Atlantis is denied, when not confused with Lemuria and other departed Continents, because, perhaps, Lemuria is half the creation of Modern Science, and has, therefore, to be believed in; while Plato's Atlantis is regarded by most of the Scientists as a dream. Atlantis is often described by believers in Plato as a prolongation of Africa. An old continent is also suspected to have existed on the Eastern coast. But Africa, as a continent, was never part and parcel of either Lemuria or Atlantis, as we have agreed to call the Third and Fourth Continents. Their archaic appellations are never mentioned in the _Purânas_, nor anywhere else. But with only one of the Esoteric keys in hand, it becomes an easy task to identify these departed lands in the numberless "Lands of the Gods," Devas and Munis described in the _Purânas_, in their Varshas, Dvîpas, and Zones. Their Shveta-dvîpa, during the early days of Lemuria, stood out like a giant-peak from the bottom of the sea; the area between Atlas and Madagascar being occupied by the waters till about the early period of Atlantis, after the disappearance of Lemuria, when Africa emerged from the bottom of the ocean, and Atlas was half-sunk. It is of course impossible to attempt, within the compass of even several volumes, a consecutive and detailed account of the evolution and progress of the first three Races-except so far as to give a general view of it, as will be done presently. Race the First had no history of its own. Of Race the Second the same may be said. We shall have, therefore, to pay careful attention to the Lemurians and the Atlanteans only, before the history of our own Race, the Fifth, can be attempted. What is known of other Continents, besides our own, and what does history know or accept of the early Races? Everything outside the repulsive speculations of Materialistic Science is daubed with the contemptuous term "superstition." The wise men of to-day will believe nothing. Plato's "winged" and "hermaphrodite" races, and his Golden Age, under the reign of Saturn and the Gods, are quietly brought back by Hćckel to their _new_ place in Nature; our Divine Races are shown to be the descendants of Catarrhine apes, and our ancestor, a piece of "sea slime"! Nevertheless, as expressed by Faber: The _fictions_ of ancient poetry ... will be found to comprehend some portion of historical truth. However one-sided the efforts of the learned author of _A Dissertation on the Mysteries of the Cabiri_--efforts directed throughout his two volumes to constrain the classical myths and symbols of old Paganism, "to bear testimony to the truth of Scripture"--time and further research have avenged, partially at least, that "truth" by showing it unveiled. Thus it is the clever adaptations of Scripture, on the contrary, which are made to bear evidence to the great wisdom of Archaic Paganism. This, notwithstanding the inextricable confusion into which the truth about the Kabiri--the most mysterious Gods of antiquity--has been thrown by the wild and contradictory speculations of Bishop Cumberland, Dr. Shuckford, Cudworth, Vallancey, etc., and finally by Faber. Nevertheless, all of these scholars, from first to last, had to come to a certain conclusion framed by the latter, as follows: We have no reason to think that the idolatry of the Gentile world was of a merely arbitrary contrivance; on the contrary, it seems to have been built, almost universally, upon _a traditional remembrance of certain real events. These events I apprehend to be the destruction of the first_ [the Fourth in Esoteric Teaching] _race of mankind by the waters of the Deluge_.(595) To this, Faber adds: I am persuaded that the tradition of the sinking of the Phlegyan isle is the very same as that of the sinking of the island Atlantis. They both appear to me to allude to one great event, the sinking of the whole world beneath the waters of the deluge, or, if we suppose the arch of the earth to have remained in its original position, the rising of the central water above it. M. Bailly indeed in his work upon the Atlantis of Plato, the object of which is evidently to depreciate the authority of the scriptural chronology, labours to prove that the Atlantians were a very ancient northern nation, long prior to the Hindoos, the Phenicians, and the Egyptians.(596) In this Faber is in agreement with Bailly, who shows himself more learned and intuitional than those who accept biblical chronology. Nor is the latter wrong when saying that the Atlanteans were the same as the Titans and the Giants.(597) Faber adopts the more willingly the opinion of his French _confrčre_, as Bailly mentions Cosmas Indicopleustes, who preserved an ancient tradition about Noah--that he "formerly inhabited the _island_ Atlantis." This island, whether it was the "Poseidonis" mentioned in _Esoteric Buddhism_, or the Continent of Atlantis, does not much matter. The tradition is there, recorded by a Christian. No Occultist would ever think of dispossessing Noah of his prerogatives if he is claimed to be an Atlantean; for this would simply show that the Israelites repeated the story of Vaivasvata Manu, Xisuthrus, and so many others, and that they only changed the name, which they had the same right to do as any other nation or tribe. What we object to is the literal acceptation of biblical chronology, as it is absurd, and in accord with neither geological data nor reason. Moreover, if Noah was an Atlantean, then he was a Titan, a Giant, as Faber shows; and if a Giant, then why is he not shown as such in _Genesis_?(598) Bailly's mistake was to reject the submersion of Atlantis, and to call the Atlanteans simply a Northern and _post-diluvian_ nation, which, however, as he says, certainly flourished before the foundation of the Hindű, Egyptian, and Phoenician empires. In this, had he only known of the existence of what we have agreed to call Lemuria, he would have again been right. For the Atlanteans were post-diluvian to the Lemurians, and Lemuria was not submerged as Atlantis was, but was _sunk_ under the waves, owing to earthquakes and subterranean fires, as Great Britain and Europe will be one day. It is the ignorance of our men of Science, who will accept neither the tradition that several Continents have already sunk, nor the periodical law which acts throughout the Manvantaric Cycle--it is this ignorance that is the chief cause of all the confusion. Nor is Bailly wrong again in assuring us that the Hindűs, Egyptians, and Phoenicians came after the Atlanteans, for the latter belonged to the Fourth, while the Âryans and their Semitic Branch are of the Fifth Race. Plato, while repeating the story as narrated to Solon by the priests of Egypt, intentionally confuses--as every Initiate would--the two Continents, and assigns to the small island which last sunk, all the events pertaining to the two enormous Continents, the prehistoric and traditional. Therefore, he describes the _first couple_, from whom the whole island was peopled, as being formed of the Earth. In so saying, he means neither Adam and Eve, nor yet his own Hellenic forefathers. His language is simply allegorical, and by alluding to "Earth," he means Matter, as the Atlanteans were really the first purely _human_ and _terrestrial_ Race--those that preceded it being more divine and ethereal than human and solid. Yet Plato must have known, as would any other initiated Adept, about the history of the Third Race after its "Fall," though as one pledged to silence and secrecy he never showed his knowledge in so many words. Nevertheless, it may become easier now, after acquainting oneself with even the approximate chronology of the Eastern nations--all of which was based upon, and followed the early Âryan calculations--to realize the immense periods of time that must have elapsed since the separation of the sexes, without mentioning the First or even the Second Root-Races. As these must remain beyond the comprehension of minds trained in Western thought, it is found useless to speak in detail of the First and Second, and even of the Third Race in its earliest stage.(599) It is only when the latter has reached its full human period that a beginning can be made, without the uninitiated reader finding himself hopelessly bewildered. The Third Race _fell_--and created no longer; it _begat_ its progeny. Being still mindless at the period of separation, it begat, moreover, anomalous offspring, until its physiological nature had adjusted its instincts in the right direction. Like the "Lords Gods" of the _Bible_, the "Sons of Wisdom," the Dhyân Chohans, had warned it to leave alone the fruit forbidden by Nature; but the warning proved of no value. Men realized the unfitness--we must not say sin--of what they had done, only when too late; after the Angelic Monads from higher Spheres had incarnated in, and endowed them with understanding. To that day they had remained simply physical, like the animals generated from them. For what is the distinction? The Doctrine teaches that the only difference between animate and inanimate objects on Earth, between an animal and a human frame, is that in some the various "Fires" are latent, and in others they are active. The _Vital_ Fires are in all things and not an atom is devoid of them. But no animal has the three higher "principles" awakened in him; they are simply potential, latent, and thus _non-existing_. And so would the animal frames of men be to this day, had they been left as they came out from the bodies of their Progenitors, whose Shadows they were, to grow, unfolded only by the powers and forces immanent in Matter. But as said in _Pymander_: This is a Mystery that to this day was sealed and hidden. Nature(600) being mingled with Man(601) brought forth a wondrous miracle; the harmonious commingling of the _essence of the Seven_ [Pitris, or Governors] and her own; the _Fire_ and the _Spirit_ and _Nature_ [the Noumenon of Matter]; which [commingling] forthwith brought forth seven men of opposite sexes [negative and positive] according to the essences of the Seven Governors.(602) Thus saith Hermes, the thrice great Initiate,(603) the "Power of the Thought Divine." St. Paul, another Initiate, called our World, "the enigmatical mirror of pure truth," and St. Gregory of Nazianzen corroborated Hermes by stating that: Things visible are but the shadow and delineation of things that we cannot see. It is an eternal combination, and images are repeated from the higher rung of the Ladder of Being down to the lower. The "Fall of the Angels," and the "War in Heaven" are repeated on every plane, the lower "mirror" disfiguring the image of the superior "mirror," and each repeating it in its own way. Thus the Christian dogmas are but the reminiscences of the paradigms of Plato, who spoke of these things cautiously, as every Initiate would. But it is all as expressed in these few sentences of the _Desatir_: All that is on earth, saith the Lord [Ormazd], is the _shadow of something that is in the superior spheres_. This luminious object [light, fire, etc.] is the shadow of that which is still more luminous than itself, and so on till it reaches me, who am the light of lights. In the Kabalistic books, in the _Zohar_ prëeminently, the idea that every objective thing on Earth or in this Universe is the "Shadow" (Dyooknah) of the eternal Light or Deity, is very strong. The Third Race was prëeminently the bright "Shadow," at first, of the Gods, whom tradition exiles on to the Earth after the allegorical War in Heaven. This became still more allegorical on Earth, for it was the War between Spirit and Matter. This War will last till the Inner and Divine Man adjusts his outer terrestrial self to his own spiritual nature. Till then the dark and fierce passions of that self will be at eternal feud with his Master, the Divine Man. But the animal will be tamed one day, because its nature will be changed, and harmony will reign once more between the two as before the "Fall," when even mortal man was "created" by the Elements and was not born. The above is made clear in all the great Theogonies, principally in the Grecian, as in that of Hesiod. The _mutilation_ of Uranus by his son Cronus, who thus condemns him to impotency, has never been understood by the modern Mythographers. Yet, it is very plain; and as it was universal(604) it must have contained a great abstract and philosophical idea, now lost to our modern sages. This punishment in the allegory marks, indeed, "a new period, a second phase in the development of creation," as justly remarked by Decharme,(605) who, however, does not attempt to explain it. Uranus tried to oppose an impediment to that development, or natural evolution, by _destroying all his children as soon as born_. Uranus, who personifies all the creative powers of, and in, Chaos--Space, or the Unmanifested Deity--is thus made to pay the penalty; for it is these powers which cause the Pitris to evolve primordial "men" from themselves--as, later on, these men, in their turn, evolve _their_ progeny--without any sense or desire for procreation. The work of generation, suspended for a moment, passes into the hands of Cronus (_Chronos_) Time,(606) who unites himself with Rhea (the Earth---in Esotericism, Matter in general), and thus produces celestial and terrestrial Titans. The whole of this symbolism relates to the mysteries of evolution. This allegory is the exoteric version of the Esoteric Doctrine given in this part of our work. For in Cronus we see the same story repeated again. As Uranus destroyed his children by Gća (one in the world of manifestation with Aditi, or the Great Cosmic Deep), by confining them in the bosom of the Earth, Titća, so Cronus, at this second stage of creation, destroyed his children by Rhea--by devouring them. This is an allusion to the fruitless efforts of Earth, or Nature, alone to create real _human_ "men."(607) Time swallows its own fruitless work. Then comes Zeus, Jupiter, who dethrones his father in his turn.(608) Jupiter the Titan, is Prometheus, in one sense,(609) and varies from Zeus, the great "Father of the Gods." He is the "disrespectful son" in Hesiod. Hermes calls him the "Heavenly Man" in _Pymander_; and even in the _Bible_ he is found again under the name of Adam, and, later on--by transmutation--under that of Ham. Yet these are all personifications of the "Sons of Wisdom." The necessary corroboration that Jupiter belongs to the purely _human_ Atlantean Cycle--if Uranus and Cronus who precede him are found insufficient--may be read in Hesiod, who tells us that: The Immortals made the race of the Golden and Silver Age [First and Second Races]; Jupiter made the generation of Bronze [an admixture of _two_ elements], that of the Heroes, and of the Iron Age.(610) After this he sends his fatal present, Pandora, to Epimetheus.(611) Hesiod calls this present of the _first woman_ "a fatal gift." It was a punishment, he explains, sent to man "for the theft of [divine creative] fire." Her apparition on Earth is the signal for every kind of evil. Before her appearance, the human races lived happy, exempt from sickness and suffering--as the same races are made to live under Yima's rule, in the Mazdean _Vendidâd_. Two Deluges may also be traced, in universal tradition, by carefully comparing Hesiod, the _Rig Veda_, the _Zend Avesta_, etc., but no _first_ man is ever mentioned in any of the Theogonies save in the _Bible_.(612) Everywhere the man of _our_ Race appears after a cataclysm of water. After this, tradition mentions only the several designations of continents and islands which sink under the ocean waves in due time.(613) Gods and mortals have one common origin according to Hesiod;(614) and Pindar echoes the statement.(615) Deucalion and Pyrrha, who escape the Deluge by constructing an Ark like Noah's,(616) ask Jupiter to reänimate the human race whom he had made to perish under the waters of the Flood. In the Slavonian mythology all men are drowned, and two old people, a man and his wife, alone remain. Then Pram'zimas, the "master of all," advises them to jump seven times on the rocks of the Earth, and seven new races (couples) are born, from which come the nine Lithuanian tribes.(617) As well understood by the author of _Mythologie de la Grčce Antique_--the Four Ages signify periods of time, and are also an allegorical allusion to the Races. As he says: The successive races, destroyed and replaced by others, without any period of transition, are characterized in Greece by the name of metals, to express their ever-decreasing value. Gold, the most brilliant and precious of all, symbol of brightness ... qualifies the first race.... The men of the second race, those of the Age of Silver, are already far inferior to the first. Inert and weak creatures, all their life is no better than a long and stupid infancy.... They disappear.... The men of the Age of Bronze are robust and violent [the Third Race]; ... their strength is extreme. "They had arms made of bronze, habitations of bronze; used nought but bronze. Iron, the black metal, was yet unknown."(618) The fourth race is, with Hesiod, that of the heroes who fell before Thebes,(619) or under the walls of Troy.(620) Thus, as the four Races are found mentioned by the oldest Greek poets, though very much confused and anachronistically, our doctrines are once more corroborated in the classics. But this is all "mythology" and poetry. What can Modern Science have to say to such a euhemerization of old fictions? The verdict is not difficult to foresee. Therefore, an attempt must be made to answer by anticipation, and to prove that so much of the domain of this same Science is taken up by fictions and empirical speculations that none of the men of learning have the slightest right, with such a heavy beam in their own eye, to point to the speck in the eye of the Occultist, even supposing that speck were not a figment of their own imagination. 40. THEN THE THIRD AND FOURTH(621) BECAME TALL WITH PRIDE. "WE ARE THE KINGS;(622) WE ARE THE GODS" (_A_). 41. THEY TOOK WIVES FAIR TO LOOK UPON. WIVES FROM THE MINDLESS, THE NARROW-HEADED. THEY BRED MONSTERS, WICKED DEMONS, MALE AND FEMALE, ALSO KHADO,(623) WITH LITTLE MINDS (_B_). 42. THEY BUILT TEMPLES FOR THE HUMAN BODY. MALE AND FEMALE THEY WORSHIPPED (_C_). THEN THE THIRD EYE ACTED NO LONGER (_D_). (_a_) Such were the first truly physical men, whose first characteristic was--pride! It is the memory of this Third Race and the gigantic Atlanteans, which has lingered from one generation and race to another generation and race down to the days of Moses, and has found an objective form in those antediluvian giants, those terrible sorcerers and magicians, of whom the Roman Church has preserved such vivid, and at the same time distorted, legends. Anyone who has read and studied the Commentaries on the Archaic Doctrine, will easily recognize in some of these Atlanteans the prototypes of the Nimrods, the Builders of the Tower of Babel, the Hamites, and all those _tutti quanti_ of "accursed memory," as theological literature expresses it; of those, in short, who have furnished posterity with the orthodox types of Satan. And this naturally leads us to enquire into the religious ethics of these early Races, mythical as they may be. What was the religion of the Third and Fourth Races? In the common acceptation of the term, neither the Lemurians, nor yet their progeny, the Lemuro-Atlanteans, had any; for they knew no dogma, nor had they to believe _on faith_. No sooner had the mental eye of man been opened to understanding, than the Third Race felt itself one with the ever-present, as also the ever to be unknown and invisible, All, the One Universal Deity. Endowed with divine powers, and feeling in himself his _inner_ God, each felt he was a Man-God in his nature, though an animal in his physical self. The struggle between the two began from the very day they tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom; a struggle for life between the spiritual and the psychic, the psychic and the physical. Those who conquered the lower "principles" by obtaining mastery over the body, joined the "Sons of Light." Those who fell victims to their lower natures, became the slaves of Matter. From "Sons of Light and Wisdom" they ended by becoming the "Sons of Darkness." They fell in the battle of mortal life with Life Immortal, and all those so fallen became the seed of the future generations of Atlanteans.(624) At the dawn of his consciousness, the man of the Third Root-Race had thus no beliefs that could be called _religion_. That is to say, he was not only ignorant of "gay religions, full of pomp and gold" but even of any system of faith or outward worship. But if the term is to be defined as the binding together of the masses in one form of reverence paid to those we feel higher than ourselves, of piety--as a feeling expressed by a child toward a loved parent--then even the earliest Lemurians from the very beginning of their intellectual life, had a religion, and a most beautiful one. Had they not their bright Gods of the Elements around them, and even within themselves?(625) Was not their childhood passed with, nursed and tended by, those who had given them being and called them forth to intelligent, conscious life? We are assured it was so, and we believe it. For the evolution of Spirit into Matter could never have been achieved, nor would it have received its first impulse, had not the bright Spirits sacrificed their own respective super-ethereal essences to animate the man of clay, by endowing each of his inner "principles" with a portion, or rather, a reflection, of that essence. The Dhyânîs of the Seven Heavens--the seven planes of Being--are the Noumena of the actual and the future Elements, just as the Angels of the Seven Powers of Nature--the grosser effects of which we perceive in what Science is pleased to call "modes of motion," the imponderable forces and what not--are the still higher Noumena of still higher Hierarchies. It was the "Golden Age" in those days of old, the Age when the "Gods walked the earth, and mixed freely with the mortals." When it ceased, the Gods departed--_i.e._, became invisible--and later generations ended by worshipping their kingdoms--the Elements. It was the Atlanteans, the first progeny of semi-divine man after his separation into sexes--hence the first-begotten and humanly-born mortals--who became the first "sacrificers" to the _God of Matter_. They stand, in the dim far-away past, in ages more than prehistoric, as the prototype on which the great symbol of Cain was built,(626) as the first Anthropomorphists who worshipped Form and Matter--a worship which very soon degenerated into _self-worship_, and thence led to phallicism, which reigns supreme to this day in the symbolism of every exoteric religion of ritual, dogma, and form. Adam and Eve _became matter_, or furnished the soil, Cain and Abel--the latter the life-bearing soil, the former "the tiller of that ground or field." Thus the first Atlantean races, born on the Lemurian Continent, separated from their earliest tribes into the righteous and the unrighteous; into those who worshipped the one unseen Spirit of Nature, the Ray of which man feels within himself--or the Pantheists, and those who offered fanatical worship to the Spirits of the Earth, the dark, cosmic, anthropomorphic Powers, with whom they made alliance. These were the earliest Gibborim, the "mighty men ... of renown" in those days,(627) who become with the Fifth Race the Kabirim, Kabiri with the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, Titans with the Greeks, and Râkshasas and Daityas with the Indian races. Such was the secret and mysterious origin of all the subsequent and modern religions, especially of the worship of the later Hebrews for their tribal God. At the same time this sexual religion was closely allied to, based upon, and, so to say, blended with, astronomical phenomena. The Lemurians gravitated toward the North Pole, or the Heaven of their Progenitors--the Hyperborean Continent; the Atlanteans, toward the South Pole, the "_Pit_," cosmically and terrestrially--whence breathe the hot passions blown into hurricanes by the cosmic Elementals, whose abode it is. The two Poles were denominated, by the Ancients, Dragons and Serpents--hence good and bad Dragons and Serpents, and also the names given to the "Sons of God"--Sons of Spirit and Matter--the good and bad Magicians. This is the origin of the dual and triple nature in man. The legend of the "Fallen Angels" in its Esoteric signification, contains the key to the manifold contradictions of human character; it points to the secret of man's self-consciousness; it is the support on which hinges his entire Life-Cycle--the history of his evolution and growth. On a firm grasp of this doctrine depends the correct understanding of Esoteric Anthropogenesis. It gives a clue to the vexed question of the Origin of Evil; and shows how man himself is the separator of the One into various contrasted aspects. The reader, therefore, will not be surprised if so much space is devoted to an attempt to elucidate this difficult and obscure subject every time it presents itself. A good deal must necessarily be said on its symbological aspect; because, by so doing, hints are given to the thoughtful student for his own investigations, and more light can thus be suggested than it is possible to convey in the technical phrases of a more formal, philosophical exposition. The "Fallen Angels," so-called, are _Humanity_ itself. The Demon of Pride, Lust, Rebellion, and Hatred, had no being _before_ the appearance of physical conscious man. It is man who has begotten and nurtured the fiend, and allowed it to develop in his heart; it is he, again, who has contaminated the Indwelling God in himself, by linking the pure Spirit with the impure Demon of Matter. And, if the Kabalistic saying, "_Demon est Deus inversus_," finds its metaphysical and theoretical corroboration in dual manifested Nature, nevertheless, its practical application is found in Mankind alone. Thus it has now become self-evident that, postulating as we do, (_a_) the appearance of Man before that of other Mammalia, and even before the Ages of the huge Reptiles; (_b_) Periodical Deluges and Glacial Periods owing to the Karmic disturbance of the axis; and chiefly (_c_) the birth of man from a Superior Being, or what Materialism would call a "supernatural" Being, though it is only super-_human_--our teachings have very few chances of an impartial hearing. Add to it the claim that a portion of Mankind in the Third Race--all those Monads of men who had reached the highest point of Merit and Karma in the preceding Manvantara--owed their psychic and rational natures to divine Beings "hypostasizing" into their Fifth Principles, and the Secret Doctrine must lose caste in the eyes of not only Materialism but even of dogmatic Christianity. For, no sooner will the latter have learned that these Angels are identical with their "Fallen" Spirits, than the Esoteric tenet will be proclaimed most terribly heretical and pernicious.(628) The _Divine_ Man dwelt in the animal, and therefore, when the physiological separation took place in the natural course of evolution--when also "all the animal creation was _untied_," and males were attracted to females--_that race fell_; not because they had eaten of the Fruit of Knowledge and knew Good from Evil, but because they knew no better. Propelled by the sexless creative instinct, the early sub- races had evolved an intermediate race in which, as hinted in the Stanzas, the higher Dhyân Chohans had incarnated.(629) "When we have ascertained the extent of the universe (and learnt to know all that there is in it) we will multiply our race," answer the Sons of Will and Yoga to their brethren of the same race, who invite them to do as they do. This means that the great Adepts and Initiated Ascetics will "multiply," _i.e._, once more produce "mind-born" immaculate sons--in the Seventh Root-Race. It is so stated in the _Vishnu_ and _Brahmâ Purânas_, in the _Mahâbhârata_(630) and in the _Harivamsha_. In one portion of the _Pushkara Mâhâtmya_, moreover, the separation of the sexes is allegorized by Daksha, who, seeing that his will-born progeny, the "Sons of passive Yoga," will not create men, "_converts half himself into a female_ by whom he begets daughters," the future females of the Third Race which begat the Giants of Atlantis, the Fourth Race, so called. In the _Vishnu Purâna_ it is simply said that Daksha, the father of mankind, established sexual intercourse as the means of peopling the world.(631) Happily for the Human Race the "Elect Race" had already become the vehicle of incarnation of the highest Dhyânîs (intellectually and spiritually) before Humanity had become quite material. When the last sub-races--save some of the lowest--of the Third Race had perished with the great Lemurian Continent, the "Seeds of the _Trinity of Wisdom_" had already acquired the secret of immortality on Earth, that gift which allows the same Great Personality to step _ad libitum_ from one worn-out body into another. (_b_) The first War that Earth knew, the first shedding of human gore, was the result of man's eyes and senses being opened, which made him see that the daughters of his brethren were fairer than his own--and their wives also. There were rapes committed before that of the Sabines, and Menelauses robbed of their Helens before the Fifth Race was born. The Titans or Giants were the stronger; their adversaries, the wiser. This took place during the Fourth Race--that of the Giants. For "there _were_ Giants" in the days of old, indeed.(632) The evolutionary series of the animal world is a warrant that the same thing took place within the human races. Lower still in the order of creation we find witnesses for the same proportionate size in the flora going _pari passu_ with the fauna. The pretty ferns we collect and dry among the leaves of our favourite volumes are the descendants of the gigantic ferns which grew during the Carboniferous period. Scriptures, and fragments of philosophical and scientific works--in short, almost every record that has come down to us from antiquity--contain references to Giants. No one can fail to recognize the Atlanteans of the Secret Doctrine in the Râkshasas of Lankâ--the opponents conquered by Râma. Are these accounts no better than the production of empty fancy? Let us give the subject a few moments' attention. Are Giants A Fiction? Here, again, we come into collision with Science, which so far denies that man has ever been much larger than the average of tall and powerful men now met with occasionally. Dr. Henry Gregor denounces the traditions of Giants as resting upon ill-digested facts, and instances of mistaken judgments are brought forward as disproof of such traditions. Thus, in 1613, in a locality, called from time immemorial the "Field of Giants," in Lower Dauphiné, France, four miles from St. Romans, enormous bones were found deeply buried in the sandy soil. They were attributed to human remains, and even to Teutobodus, the Teuton chief slain by Marius. But Cuvier's later research proved them to be the fossil remains of the Dinotherium Giganteum, 18 feet long. Ancient buildings are pointed to as an evidence that our earliest ancestors were not much larger than we are, the entrance doors being of no larger size then than now. The tallest man of antiquity known to us, we are told, was the Roman Emperor Maximus, whose height was only seven and a half feet. Nevertheless, in our modern day, every year we see men taller than this. The Hungarian who exhibited himself in the London Pavilion was nearly 9 feet high. In America a giant was shown 9 feet 6 inches tall; the Montenegrin Danilo was 8 feet 7 inches. In Russia and Germany one often sees men in the lower classes above 7 feet. Now, as the ape-theorists are told by Mr. Darwin that the species of animals which result from cross breeding always betray "_a tendency to revert to the original type_," they ought to apply the same law to men. Had there been no giants as a type in ancient days, there would be none now. All this applies only to the historic period. And if the skeletons of the prehistoric ages have failed so far to prove undeniably in the opinion of Science the claim here advanced, it is but a question of time. We, however, positively deny the reality of the failure. Moreover, as already stated, human stature is little changed since the last Racial Cycle. The giants of old are all buried under the oceans, and hundreds of thousands of years of constant friction by water would reduce to dust a brazen, much more a human skeleton. And whence the testimony of well-known classical writers, of philosophers and men who, otherwise, never had the reputation for lying? Let us bear in mind, furthermore, that before the year 1847, when Boucher de Perthes forced it upon the attention of Science, hardly anything was known of fossil man, for Archćology complacently ignored his existence. Of giants who were "in the earth in those days" of old, the _Bible_ alone had spoken to the wise men of the West; the Zodiac being the solitary witness called upon to corroborate the statement in the persons of Orion or Atlas, whose mighty shoulders were said to support the world. Nevertheless, even the giants have not been left without their witnesses, and one may as well examine both sides of the question. The three Sciences--geological, sidereal and scriptural, the latter in its universal character--may furnish us with the needed proofs. To begin with Geology: it has already confessed that the older the excavated skeletons, the larger, taller and the more powerful their structure. This is already a certain proof in hand. Frédéric de Rougemont, who, though believing too piously in the _Bible_ and Noah's Ark, is none the less a scientific witness, writes: All those bones, found in the Departments of the Gard, in Austria, Ličge, etc., those skulls which all remind one of the negro type ... and which by reason of their type might be mistaken for animals, have all belonged to men of _high stature_.(633) The same is repeated by Lartet, an authority, who attributes a "tall stature" to those who were submerged in the Deluge--not necessarily "Noah's"--and a smaller stature to the races which lived subsequently. As for the evidence furnished by ancient writers, we need not trouble ourselves with that of Tertullian, who assures us that in his day a number of giants were found at Carthage--for, before his testimony can be accepted, his own identity,(634) if not actual existence, would have to be proven. We may, however, turn to the papers of 1858, which speak of a "sarcophagus of giants" found that year on the site of this same city. As to the ancient Pagan writers, we have the evidence of Philostratus, who speaks of a giant skeleton twenty-two cubits long, as well as of another of twelve cubits, seen by himself on the promontory of Sigćum. This skeleton may perhaps not have belonged, as believed by Protesilas, to the giant killed by Apollo at the siege of Troy; nevertheless, it was that of a giant, as was that of the other discovered by Messecrates of Stira, in Lemnos--"horrible to behold," according to Philostratus.(635) Is it possible that prejudice would carry Science so far as to class _all_ these men as either fools or liars? Pliny speaks of a giant in whom he thought he recognized Orion, or Otus, the brother of Ephialtes.(636) Plutarch declares that Sertorius saw the tomb of Antćus, the Giant; and Pausanias vouches for the actual existence of the tombs of Asterius and of Geryon, or of Hillus, son of Hercules--all Giants, Titans and mighty men. Finally the Abbé Pegues, affirms in his curious work, _Les Volcans de la Grčce_, that: In the neighbourhood of the volcanoes of the isle of Thera, giants with enormous skulls were found laid out under colossal stones, the erection of which in every place must have necessitated the use of titanic powers, and which tradition associates in all countries with the ideas about giants, volcanoes and magic.(637) In the same work above cited, the author wonders why in the _Bible_ and tradition the Gibborim, the giants or the "mighty ones," the Rephaim, the spectres or the "phantoms," the Nephilim, or the "fallen ones" (_irruentes_), are shown as if identical, though they are "all _men_," since the _Bible_ calls them the primitive and the mighty ones--_e.g._, Nimrod. The Secret Doctrine explains the secret. These names, which belong by right only to the four preceding Races and the earliest beginning of the Fifth, allude very clearly to the first two _Phantom_ (Astral) Races, to the "Fallen" Race--the Third, and to the Race of the Atlantean Giants--the Fourth, after which "men began to decrease in stature." Bossuet sees the cause of subsequent universal idolatry in the "original sin." "Ye shall be as Gods," says the Serpent of _Genesis_ to Eve, thus laying the first germ of the worship of _false divinities_.(638) Hence, he thinks, came idolatry, or the cult and adoration of _images_, of anthropomorphized or human figures. But, if it is this that idolatry is made to rest upon, then the two Churches--the Greek, and the Latin especially--are as idolatrous and pagan as any other religion.(639) It was only in the Fourth Race that men, who had lost all right to be considered divine, resorted to body worship, in other words to phallicism. Till then, they had been truly Gods, as pure and as divine as their Progenitors, and the expression of the allegorical "Serpent," as has been sufficiently shown in the preceding pages, does not refer at all to the physiological "Fall" of men, but to their acquiring the Knowledge of Good and Evil; and this knowledge came to them _prior_ to their fall. It must not be forgotten that it is only after his forced expulsion from Eden that "Adam knew Eve his wife." We shall not, however, check the tenets of the Secret Doctrine by the dead-letter of the Hebrew _Bible_, but rather point out the great similarities between the two in their Esoteric meaning. It was only after his defection from the Neo-Platonists, that Clement of Alexandria began to translate _gigantes_ by _serpentes_, explaining that "serpents and giants signify _demons_."(640) We may be told that, before we draw parallels between our tenets and those of the _Bible_, we have to show better evidence of the existence of the Giants of the Fourth Race than the reference to them found in _Genesis_. We answer, that the proofs we give are more satisfactory, at any rate are supported by more literary and scientific evidence, than those of Noah's Deluge will ever be. Even the historical works of China are full of such reminiscences about the Fourth Race. In the French translation of the _Shoo-King_,(641) we read: When the Miao-tse (that antediluvian and perverted race [explains the annotator] which retired in the days of old to the rocky caves, and the descendants of whom are said to be still found in the neighbourhood of Canton),(642) _according to our ancient documents_, had, owing to the beguilements of Tchy-Yeoo, troubled all the earth, it became full of brigands.... The Lord (Chang-ty [a King of the _Divine_ Dynasty]) cast his eyes over the people, and saw no longer among them any trace of virtue. Then he commanded Tchong and Ly [two lower Dhyân Chohans] to cut away every communication between heaven and earth. Since then, there has been no more _going up and down_!(643) "Going up and down" means an untrammelled communication and intercourse between the two Worlds. As we are not in a position to give out a full and detailed history of the Third and Fourth Races, as many isolated facts concerning them as are permitted must be now collated together, especially those corroborated by direct as well as by inferential evidence found in ancient literature and history. As the "coats of skin" of men thickened, and they fell more and more into physical sin, the intercourse between Physical and Ethereal _Divine_ Man was stopped. The Veil of Matter between the two planes became too dense for even the Inner Man to penetrate. The Mysteries of Heaven and Earth, revealed to the Third Race by their Celestial Teachers in the days of their purity, became a great focus of light, the rays from which became necessarily weakened as they were diffused and shed upon an uncongenial, because too material, soil. With the masses they degenerated into Sorcery, taking later on the shape of exoteric religions, of idolatry full of superstitions, and man-, or hero-worship. Alone a handful of primitive men--in whom the spark of Divine Wisdom burnt bright, and became only strengthened in its intensity as it got dimmer and dimmer with every age in those who turned it to evil purposes--remained the elect custodians of the Mysteries revealed to mankind by the Divine Teachers. There were those among them, who remained in their Kaumâric condition from the beginning; and tradition whispers, what the Secret Teachings affirm, namely, that these Elect were the germ of a Hierarchy _which has never died since that period_. As the _Catechism_ of the Inner Schools says: _The Inner Man of the First ... only changes his body from time to time; he is ever the same, knowing neither rest nor Nirvâna, spurning Devachan and remaining constantly on Earth for the salvation of mankind.... Out of the seven Virgin-men [Kumâra]_(_644_)_ four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the world and the instruction of the ignorant, to remain till the end of the present Manvantara. Though unseen, they are ever present. When people say of one of them, __"__He is dead__"__; behold, he is alive __ and under another form. These are the Head, the Heart, the Soul, and the Seed of undying Knowledge [Jńâna]. Thou shall never speak, O Lanoo, of these great ones [Mahâ ...] before a multitude, mentioning them by their names. The wise alone will understand._(645) It is these sacred "Four" who have been allegorized and symbolized in the _Linga Purâna_, which states that Vâmadeva (Shiva) as a Kumâra is reborn in each Kalpa (Race, in this instance), as four youths--four, white; four, red; four, yellow; and four, dark or brown. Let us remember that Shiva is preëminently and chiefly an ascetic, the patron of all Yogîs and Adepts, and the allegory will become quite comprehensible. It is the spirit of Divine Wisdom and chaste Asceticism itself which incarnates in these Elect. It is only after _getting married_ and being dragged by the Gods from his terrible ascetic life, that Rudra becomes Shiva, a God--and not one of a very virtuous or merciful type--in the Hindű Pantheon. Higher than the "Four" is only ONE on Earth as in Heavens--that still more mysterious and solitary Being described in Volume I. We have now to examine the nature of the "Sons of the Flame" and of "Dark Wisdom," as well as the _pros_ and _cons_ of the Satanic assumption. Such broken sentences as could be made out from the fragments of the tile, which George Smith calls "The Curse after the Fall,"(646) are of course allegorical; yet they corroborate that which is taught of the true nature of the Fall of the Angels in our Books. Thus, it is said that the "Lord of the Earth his name called out, the Father Elu [Elohim]," and pronounced his "curse," which "the God Hea heard, and his liver was angry, because _his_ man [Angelic Man] had corrupted his purity," for which Hea expresses the desire that "_wisdom and knowledge_ hostilely may they injure him [man]."(647) The latter sentence points to the direct connection of the Chaldćan with the Genetic account. While Hea tries to bring to nought the wisdom and knowledge gained by man, through his newly-acquired intellectual and conscious capacity of creating in his turn--thus taking the monopoly of creation out of the hands of God (the Gods)--the Elohim do the same in the third chapter of _Genesis_. Therefore the Elohim sent him out of Eden. But this was of no avail. For the Spirit of Divine Wisdom being upon and _in_ man--verily the Serpent of Eternity and all Knowledge, that Mânasic Spirit, which made him learn the secret of "creation" on the Kriyâshaktic, and of procreation on the Earthly planes--led him as naturally to discover his way to immortality, notwithstanding the jealousy of all the Gods. The early Atlanto-Lemurians are charged with taking unto themselves (the divine incarnations) wives of a lower race, namely, the race of the hitherto mindless men. Every ancient Scripture has the same, more or less disfigured, legend. Primarily, the Angelic "Fall," which has transformed the "First-born" of God into the Asuras, or into the Ahriman or Typhon of the "Pagans"--_i.e._, if the accounts given in the _Book of Enoch_,(648) and in _Hermes_, in _Purânas_ and _Bible_ are taken literally--has, when read Esoterically, the following simple signification: Sentences such as, "In his [Satan's] ambition he raises his hand against the Sanctuary of the God of Heaven," etc., ought to read: Prompted by the Law of Eternal Evolution and Karma, the Angel incarnated on Earth in Man; and as his Wisdom and Knowledge are still divine, although his Body is earthly, he is (allegorically) accused of divulging the Mysteries of Heaven. He combines and uses the two for purposes of human, instead of super-human, procreation. Henceforth, "man will _beget_, not _create_."(649) But as, by so doing, he has to use his weak Body as the means of procreation, that Body will pay the penalty for this Wisdom, carried from Heaven down to the Earth; hence the corruption of physical purity will become a temporary curse. The Medićval Kabalists knew this well, since one of them did not fear to write: The Kabalah was first taught by God himself to a select Company of Angels who formed a theosophic school in Paradise. After the Fall the Angels most _graciously communicated this heavenly doctrine to the disobedient child of Earth_, to furnish the protoplasts with the means of returning to their pristine nobility and felicity.(650) This shows how the incident of the Sons of God, marrying and imparting the Divine Secrets of Heaven to the Daughters of Men--as allegorically told by Enoch and in the sixth chapter of _Genesis_--was interpreted by the Christian Kabalists. The whole of this period may be regarded as the _pre_-human period, that of Divine Man, or as plastic Protestant Theology now has it--the _Pre_-Adamite period. But even _Genesis_ begins its _real_ history (Chap. vi) by the giants of "those days" and the "sons of God" marrying and teaching their wives--the "daughters of men." This period is the one described in the _Purânas_; and relating as it does to days lost in archaic ages, hence pre-historic, how can any Anthropologist feel certain whether the mankind of that period was or was not as he knows it now? The whole _personnel_ of the _Brâhmanas_ and _Purânas_--the Rishis, Prajâpatis, Manus, their wives and progeny--belong to that pre-human period. All these are the _Seed_ of Humanity, so to speak. It is around these "Sons of God," the "mind-born" astral Children of Brahmâ, that our physical frames have grown and developed to what they are now. For, the Paurânic histories of all those men are those of our Monads, in their various and numberless incarnations on this and other Spheres, events perceived by the "Shiva Eye" of the ancient Seers--the "Third Eye" of our Stanzas--and described allegorically. Later on, they were disfigured for sectarian purposes; mutilated, but still left with a considerable ground-work of truth in them. Nor is the philosophy less profound in such allegories for being so thickly veiled by the overgrowth of fancy. But with the Fourth Race we reach the purely human period. Those who were hitherto semi-divine Beings, self-imprisoned in bodies which were human only in appearance, became physiologically changed and took unto themselves wives who were entirely human and fair to look upon, but in whom _lower, more material_, though sidereal, Beings had incarnated. These Beings in female forms--Lilith is the prototype of them in the Jewish traditions--are called in the Esoteric accounts Khado (Dâkinî, in Sanskrit). Allegorical legends call the Chief of these Liliths Sangye Khado (Buddha Dâkinî, in Sanskrit); all are credited with the art of "walking in the air," and the "greatest _kindness to mortals_;" but with no _mind_--only animal instinct.(651) (_c_) This is the beginning of a worship which, ages later, was doomed to degenerate into phallicism and sexual worship. It began by the worship of the human body--that "miracle of miracles," as an English author calls it--and ended by that of its respective sexes. The worshippers were giants in stature; but they were not giants in knowledge and learning, though it came to them more easily than it does to the men of our modern times. Their science was innate in them. The Lemuro-Atlantean had no need of discovering and fixing in his memory that which his informing principle _knew_ at the moment of its incarnation. Time alone, and the ever-growing obtuseness of the Matter in which the "principles" had clothed themselves, could, the one, weaken the memory of their pre-natal knowledge, the other, blunt and even extinguish every spark of the spiritual and divine in them. Therefore had they, from the first, fallen victims to their animal natures and bred "monsters"--_i.e._, men of distinct varieties from themselves. Speaking of the Giants, Creuzer well describes them in saying that: Those children of Heaven and Earth were endowed at their birth by the _Sovereign Powers_, the authors of their being, with extraordinary faculties both moral and physical. They _commanded the Elements, knew the secrets of Heaven and the Earth, of the sea and the whole world, and read futurity in_ the stars.... It seems, indeed, as though, when reading of them, one has to deal _not with men as we are_ but with Spirits of the Elements sprung from the bosom of Nature and having full sway over her.... All these beings are marked with a character of _magic_ and _sorcery_.... And so they were, those now legendary heroes of the pre-historic, still once really existing, races. Creuzer was wise in his generation, for he did not charge with deliberate deceit, or dulness and superstition, an endless series of recognized Philosophers, who mention these races and assert that, even in their own time, they had seen their fossils. There were sceptics in days of old--as many and great as they are now. But even a Lucian, a Democritus and an Epicurus, yielded to the evidence of _facts_ and showed the discriminative capacity of really great intellects, which can distinguish fiction from fact, and truth from exaggeration and fraud. Ancient writers were no more fools than are our modern wise men; for, as well remarked by the author of "Notes on Aristotle's Psychology in Relation to Modern Thought," in _Mind_: The common division of history into ancient and modern is ... misleading. The Greeks in the fourth century, B.C., were in many respects moderns; especially, we may add, in their scepticism. They were not very likely to accept _fables_ so easily. Yet the Lemurians and the Atlanteans, those "children of Heaven and Earth," were indeed marked with a character of _sorcery_; for the Esoteric Doctrine charges them precisely with what, if believed, would put an end to the difficulties of Science with regard to the origin of man, or rather, his anatomical similarities to the anthropoid ape. It accuses them of having committed the (to us) abominable crime of breeding with so- called "animals," and thus producing a truly pithecoid species, now extinct. Of course, as also in the question of spontaneous generation--in which Esoteric Science believes, and which it teaches--the possibility of such a cross-breed between man and an animal of any kind will be denied. But apart from the consideration that in those early days, as already remarked, neither the human Atlantean Giants, nor yet the "animals," were the physiologically perfect men and mammalians that are now known to us, the modern notions upon this subject--those of the Physiologists included--are too uncertain and fluctuating to permit them an absolute _ŕ priori_ denial of such a fact. A careful perusal of the Commentaries would make one think that the Being with which the new "Incarnate" bred, was called an "animal," not because he was no human being, but rather because he was so dissimilar physically and mentally to the more perfect races, which had developed physiologically at an earlier period. Remember Stanza VII and what is said in Shloka 24, viz., that when the "Sons of Wisdom" came to incarnate the first time, some of them incarnated fully, others projected into the forms only a Spark, while some of the Shadows were left over from the _filling_ and perfecting, till the Fourth Race. Those races, then, which "remained destitute of knowledge," or those again which were left "mindless," remained as they were, even after the natural separation of the sexes. It is these who committed the first cross-breeding, so to speak, and bred monsters; and it is from the descendants of these that the Atlanteans chose their wives. Adam and Eve, with Cain and Abel, were supposed to be the only _human_ family on Earth. Yet we see Cain going to the land of Nod and taking there a wife. Evidently one race only was supposed perfect enough to be called human; and, even in our own day, while the Sinhalese regard the Veddhas of their jungles as _speaking animals_ and no more, some British people, in their arrogance, firmly believe that every other human family--especially the dark Indians--is an _inferior_ race. Moreover there are Naturalists who have seriously considered the problem whether some savage tribes--like the Bushmen, for instance--can be regarded as _men_ at all. The Commentary says, in describing that species (or race) of animals "fair to look upon," as a biped: _Having human shape, but having the lower extremities, from the waist down, covered with hair._ Hence the race of the satyrs, perhaps. If men existed two million years ago, they must have been--just as were the animals--quite different physically and anatomically from what they have now become, and nearer then to the type of pure mammalian animal than they are now. Anyhow, we learn that the animal world has bred strictly _inter se_--_i.e._, in accordance with genus and species--only since the appearance _on this Earth_ of the Atlantean Race. As demonstrated by the author of that able work, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, this idea of the refusal to breed with another species, or that sterility is the only result of such breeding, "appears to be a _primâ facie_ deduction rather than an absolute law" even now. He shows that: Different species do, in fact, often breed together, as is seen in the familiar instance of the horse and ass. It is true that in this case the mule is sterile.... But this rule is not universal, and quite recently one new hybrid race, that of the leporine, or hare-rabbit, has been created which is perfectly fertile. The progeny of wolf and dog is also instanced, as also that of several other domestic animals; foxes and dogs again, and the modern Swiss cattle shown by Rütimeyer as descended from "three distinct species of fossil- oxen, the _Bos primigenius_, _Bos longifrons_ and _Bos frontosus_."(652) Yet some of those species, _as the ape family_, which so clearly resembles man in physical structure, contain, we are told, Numerous branches, which graduate into one another, but the extremes of which differ more widely than man does from the highest of the ape series. The gorilla and chimpanzee, for instance. Thus Mr. Darwin's remark--or shall we say the remark of Linnćus?--_natura non facit saltum_, is not only corroborated by Esoteric Science but would--were there any chance of the real doctrine being accepted by any others than its direct votaries--reconcile the modern evolution theory, in more than one way, if not entirely, with facts, as also with the absolute failure of the Anthropologists to meet with the "missing link" in our Fourth Round geological formations. We will show elsewhere that Modern Science, however unconsciously to itself, pleads our case by its own admissions, and that de Quatrefages is perfectly right, when he suggests in his last work, that it is far more likely that the anthropoid ape should be discovered to be _the descendant of man_, than that these two types should have a common, fantastic and nowhere-to-be-found ancestor. Thus the wisdom of the compilers of the old Stanzas is vindicated by at least one eminent man of Science, and the Occultist prefers to believe, as he has ever done, that, as the Commentary says: _Man was the first and highest [mammalian] animal that appeared in this [Fourth Round] creation. Then came still huger animals; and last of all the dumb man who walks on all fours. [For] the Râkshasas [Giant-Demons] and Daityas [Titans] of the White Dvipa [Continent] spoiled his [the dumb man's] sires._ Furthermore, as we see, there are Anthropologists who have traced man back to an epoch which goes far to break down the apparent barrier that exists between the chronologies of Modern Science and the Archaic Doctrine. It is true that English Scientists generally have declined to commit themselves to the sanction of the hypothesis of even a Tertiary man. They, each and all, measure the antiquity of Homo Primigenius by their own lights and prejudices. Huxley, indeed, ventures to speculate on a possible Pliocene or Miocene man. Prof. Seeman and Mr. Grant Allen have relegated his advent to the Eocene, but, speaking generally, English Scientists consider that we cannot safely go beyond the Quaternary. Unfortunately, the facts do not accommodate the too cautious reserve of these latter. The French school of Anthropology, basing their views on the discoveries of l'Abbé Bourgeois, Capellini, and others, has accepted, almost without exception, the doctrine that the traces of our ancestors are certainly to be found in the Miocene, while M. de Quatrefages now inclines to postulate a Secondary-Age man. Further on we shall compare such estimates with the figures given in the Brâhmanical exoteric books which approximate to the Esoteric Teaching. (_d_) "Then the Third Eye acted no longer," says the Shloka, because Man had sunk too deep into the mire of Matter. What is the meaning of this strange and weird statement in Shloka 42, concerning the Third Eye of the Third Race which had died and acted no longer? A few more Occult Teachings must now be given with reference to this point as well as some others. The history of the Third and Fourth Races must be amplified, in order that it may throw some more light on the development of our present humanity; and show how the faculties, called into activity by Occult training, restore man to the position he previously occupied in reference to spiritual perception and consciousness. But the phenomenon of the Third Eye has to be first explained. The Races With The "Third Eye." The subject is so unusual, the paths pursued so intricate, so full of dangerous pitfalls prepared by adverse theories and criticism, that good reasons have to be given for every step taken. While turning the light of the bull's-eye, called Esotericism, on almost every inch of the Occult ground travelled over, we have also to use its lens to throw into stronger objectivity the regions explored by exact Science; this, not only in order to contrast the two, but to defend our position.(653) It may be complained by some that too little is said of the physical, _human_ side of the extinct races, in the history of their growth and evolution. Much more might be said, assuredly, if simple prudence did not make us hesitate at the threshold of every new revelation. All that finds possibility and landmarks in the discoveries of Modern Science, is given; all that of which exact knowledge knows nothing and upon which it is unable to speculate--and therefore denies as fact in nature--is withheld. But even such statements as, for instance, that, of all the mammalians, man was the earliest, that it is man who is the indirect ancestor of the ape, and that he was a kind of Cyclops in days of old--all will be contested; yet Scientists will never be able to prove, except to their own satisfaction, that _it was not so_. Nor can they admit that the first two Races of men were too ethereal and phantom-like in their constitution, organism, and _shape_ even, to be called physical men. For, if they do, it will be found that this is one of the reasons why their relics can never be expected to be exhumed among other fossils. Nevertheless all this is maintained. Man was the Store-house, so to speak, of _all the seeds of life_ for this Round, vegetable and animal alike.(654) As Ain Suph is "One, _notwithstanding the innumerable forms which are in him_,"(655) so is man, on Earth the microcosm of the macrocosm. As soon as man appeared, everything was complete ... for everything is comprised in man. He _unites in himself all forms_.(656) The mystery of the _earthly_ man is after the mystery of the Heavenly Man.(657) The human form--so called because it is the vehicle (under whatever shape) of the _Divine_ Man--is, as so intuitionally remarked by the author of "Esoteric Studies," the _new type_, at the beginning of every Round. As man never can be, so he never has been, manifested in a shape belonging to the animal kingdom _in esse_, _i.e._, he never formed part of that kingdom. Derived, only derived, from the most finished class of the latter, a new human form must always have been _the_ new type of the cycle. The human shape in one ring [?], as I imagine, becomes cast-off clothes in the next; it is then appropriated by the highest order in the servant-kingdom below.(658) If the idea is what we understand it to mean--for the "rings" spoken of somewhat confuse the matter--then it is the correct Esoteric Teaching. Having appeared at the very beginning, and at the head of sentient and conscious life, Man--the Astral, or the "Soul," for the _Zohar_, repeating the Archaic Teaching, distinctly says that "the _real_ man is the soul, and his material frame no part of him"--Man became the living and animal _Unit_, from which the "cast-off clothes" determined the shape of every life and animal in this Round.(659) Thus, he "created," for ages, the insects, reptiles, birds, and animals, unconsciously to himself, from his remains and relics from the Third and the Fourth Rounds. The same idea and teaching are as distinctly given in the _Vendîdâd_ of the Mazdeans, as they are in the Chaldćan and Mosaic allegory of the Ark, all of which are the many national versions of the original legend given in the Hindű Scriptures. It is found in the allegory of Vaivasvata Manu and _his_ Ark with the Seven Rishis, each of whom is shown the Father and Progenitor of specified animals, reptiles, and even monsters, as in the _Vishnu_ and other _Purânas_. Open the Mazdean _Vendîdâd_, and read the command of Ahura Mazda to Yima, a Spirit of the Earth, who symbolizes the three Races, after telling him to build a Vara--"an enclosure," an Argha or Vehicle. Thither [into the Vara] thou shalt bring _the seeds of men and women_, of the greatest, best, and finest kinds on this earth; thither thou shalt bring the seeds of every kind of cattle, etc.... All those seeds shalt thou bring, two of every kind _to be kept inexhaustible there_, so long _as those men shall stay in the Vara_.(660) Those "men" in the "Vara" are the "Progenitors," the Heavenly Men or Dhyânîs, the future Egos who are commissioned to inform mankind. For the Vara, or Ark, or again the Vehicle, simply means _Man_.(661) Thou shalt seal up the Vara [after filling it up with the seeds], and thou shalt make a door, and a window _self-shining within_ [which is the Soul].(662) And when Yima enquires of Ahura Mazda how he shall manage to make that Vara, he is answered: Crush the earth ... and knead it with thy hands, as the potter does when kneading the potter's clay.(663) The Egyptian ram-headed God makes man of clay on a potter's wheel, and so in _Genesis_ do the Elohim fashion him out of the same material. When the "Maker of the material world," Ahura Mazda, is asked, furthermore, what is to give light "to the Vara which Yima made," he answers that: There are _uncreated_ lights and _created_ lights. There [in Airyana Vaęjô, where Vara is built], the stars, the moon, and the sun are only once (a year) seen to rise and set, and a year seems only as a day [and night].(664) This is a clear reference to the "Land of the Gods" or the (now) Polar Regions. Moreover another hint is contained in this verse, a distinct allusion to the "uncreated lights" which enlighten man within--his "principles." Otherwise, no sense or reason could be found in Ahura Mazda's answer which is forthwith followed by the words: Every fortieth year, to every couple [hermaphrodite] _two are born, a male and female_.(665) The latter is a distinct echo of the Secret Doctrine, of a Stanza which says: _At the expiration of every forty [annual] Suns, at the end of every fortieth Day, the double one becomes four; male and female in one, in the first and second and the third...._ This is clear, since every "Sun" meant a whole year, the latter being composed of one Day then, as in the Arctic Circle it is now composed of six months. According to the old teaching, the axis of the Earth gradually changes its inclination to the ecliptic, and at the period referred to, this inclination was such that a polar Day lasted during the whole period of the Earth's revolution about the Sun, when a kind of twilight of very short duration intervened; after which the polar land resumed its position directly under the solar rays. This may be contrary to Astronomy as now taught and understood; but who can say that changes in the motion of the Earth, which do not take place now, did not occur millions of years back? Returning once more to the statement that Vara meant the Man of the Fourth Round, as much as the Earth of those days, the Moon, and even Noah's Ark, if one will so have it--this is again shown in the dialogue between Ahura Mazda and Zarathushtra. Thus when the latter asks: O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Who is he who brought the law of Mazda into the Vara which Yima made? Ahura Mazda answered: "It was the bird Karshipta, O holy Zarathushtra!"(666) And the note explains: The bird Karshipta dwells in the heavens: were he living on the earth, he would be king of birds. He brought the law into the Var of Yima, and recites the Avesta _in the language of birds_.(667) This again is an allegory and a symbol misunderstood by the Orientalists only, who see in this bird "an incarnation of lightning," and say its song was "often thought to be the utterance of a god and a revelation," and what not. Karshipta is the human Mind-Soul, and the deity thereof, symbolized in ancient Magianism by a bird, as the Greeks symbolized it by a butterfly. No sooner had Karshipta entered the Vara or Man, than he understood the law of Mazda, or Divine Wisdom. In the "Book of Concealed Mystery" it is said of the Tree, which is the Tree of knowledge of good and evil: In its branches the birds lodge and build their nests (the _souls_ and the angels have their place).(668) Therefore, with the Kabalists it was a like symbol. "Bird" was a Chaldćan, and has become a Hebrew, synonym and symbol for Angel, a Soul, a Spirit, or Deva; and the "Bird's Nest" was, with both, Heaven, and is God's Bosom, in the _Zohar_. The perfect Messiah enters Eden "into that place which is called the Bird's Nest."(669) "Like a bird that is flying from its nest," and that is the Soul from which the She'kheen-ah [divine wisdom or grace] does not move away.(670) _The Nest of the Eternal Bird, the flutter of whose wings produces Life, is boundless Space_, --says the Commentary, meaning Hamsa, the Bird of Wisdom. It is Adam Kadmon who is the tree of the Sephiroth, and it is he who becomes the "tree of knowledge of good and evil," Esoterically. And that "tree hath around it seven columns [seven pillars] of the world, or Rectores [the same Progenitors or Sephiroth again], operating through the respective orders of Angels in the spheres of the seven planets," etc., one of which orders begets Giants (Nephilim) on Earth. It was the belief of all antiquity, Pagan and Christian, that the earliest mankind was a race of giants. Certain excavations in America in mounds and in caves, have already, in isolated cases, yielded groups of skeletons of nine and twelve feet high.(671) These belong to tribes of the early Fifth Race, now degenerated to an average size of between five and six feet. But we can easily believe that the Titans and Cyclopes of old really belonged to the Fourth (Atlantean) Race, and that all the subsequent legends and allegories found in the Hindű _Purânas_ and the Greek poems of Hesiod and Homer, were based on the hazy reminiscences of real Titans--men of a tremendous super-human physical power, which enabled them to defend themselves, and hold at bay the gigantic monsters of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times--and of actual Cyclopes, "three-eyed" mortals. It has been often remarked by observant writers, that the "origin of nearly every popular myth and legend could be traced invariably to a fact in Nature." In these fantastic creations of an exuberant subjectivism, there is always an element of the objective and real. The imagination of the masses, disorderly and ill-regulated as it may be, could never have conceived and fabricated _ex nihilo_ so many monstrous figures, such a wealth of extraordinary tales, had it not had, to serve it as a central nucleus, those floating reminiscences, obscure and vague, which unite the broken links of the chain of time to form with them the mysterious, dream foundation of our collective consciousness.(672) The evidence for the Cyclopes--a race of Giants--will, in forthcoming Sections, be pointed out in the Cyclopean remnants, which are so called to this day. An indication that the early Fourth Race--during its evolution and before the final adjustment of the human organism, which became perfect and symmetrical only in the Fifth Race--may have been three-eyed, without having necessarily a third eye in the middle of the brow, like the legendary Cyclops, is also furnished by Science. To Occultists who believe that spiritual and psychic _involution_ proceeds on parallel lines with physical _evolution_--that the _inner_ senses, innate in the first human races, atrophied during racial growth and the material development of the outer senses--to the students of Esoteric symbology the above statement is no conjecture or possibility, but simply _a phase of the law of growth_, a proven fact, in short. They understand the meaning of the passage in the Commentaries which says: _There were four-armed human creatures in those early days of the male- females [hermaphrodites]; with one head, yet three eyes. They could see before them and behind them._(_673_)_ A Kalpa later [after the separation of the sexes] men having fallen into matter, their spiritual vision became dim; and coördinately the Third Eye commenced to lose its power.... When the Fourth [Race] arrived at its middle age, the Inner Vision had to be awakened, and acquired by artificial stimuli, the process of which was known to the old Sages._(_674_)_... The Third Eye, likewise, getting gradually petrified,_(_675_)_ soon disappeared. The double-faced became the one-faced, and the eye was drawn deep into the head and is now buried under the hair. During the activity of the Inner Man [during trances and spiritual visions] the eye swells and expands. The Arhat sees and feels it, and regulates his action accordingly.... The undefiled Lanoo [Disciple, Chelâ] need fear no danger; he who keeps himself not in purity [who is not chaste] will receive no help from the __"__Deva Eye.__"_ Unfortunately not. The "Deva Eye" exists no more for the majority of mankind. The Third Eye _is dead_, and acts no longer; but it has left behind a witness to its existence. This witness is now the Pineal Gland. As for the "four-armed" men, it is they who became the prototypes of the four-armed Hindű Gods, as shown in a preceding footnote. Such is the mystery of the _human eye_ that some Scientists have been forced to resort to Occult explanations in their vain endeavours to explain and account for all the difficulties surrounding its action. The development of the human eye gives more support to Occult Anthropology than to that of the Materialistic Physiologists. "The eyes in the human embryo grow _from within without_"--out of the brain, instead of being part of the skin, as in the insects and cuttlefish. Professor Lankester--thinking the brain a queer place for the eye, and attempting to explain the phenomenon on Darwinian lines--suggests the curious view that "our" earliest vertebrate ancestor was a "_transparent_" creature and hence did not mind where the eye was! And so was man a "transparent creature" once upon a time, we are taught; and hence our theory holds good. But how does the Lankester hypothesis square with the Hćckelian view that the vertebrate eye originated by changes _in the epidermis_? If it started _inside_, the latter theory goes into the waste basket. This seems to be proved by embryology. Moreover, Professor Lankester's extraordinary suggestion--or shall we say admission?--is perhaps rendered necessary by evolutionist necessities. Occultism, with its teaching as to the gradual development of senses "_from within without_," from astral prototypes, is far more satisfactory. The Third Eye _retreated inwards_ when its course was run--another point in favour of Occultism. The allegorical expression of the Hindű mystics who speak of the "Eye of Shiva," the Tri-lochana, or "three-eyed," thus receives its justification and _raison d'ętre_: the transference of the Pineal Gland (once that Third Eye) to the forehead, being an exoteric licence. This throws also a light on the mystery--incomprehensible to some--of the connection between _abnormal_, or spiritual Seership, and the physiological purity of the Seer. The question is often asked: Why should celibacy and chastity be a _sine quâ non_ condition of regular Chelâship, or the development of psychic and occult powers? The answer is contained in the Commentary. When we learn that the Third Eye was once a physiological organ, and that later on, owing to the gradual disappearance of spirituality and increase of materiality, the spiritual nature being extinguished by the physical, it became an atrophied organ, as little understood now by Physiologists as is the spleen--when we learn this, the connection becomes clear. During human life the greatest impediment in the way of spiritual development, and especially to the acquirement of Yoga powers, is the activity of our physiological senses. Sexual action also being closely connected, by interaction, with the spinal cord and the grey matter of the brain, it is useless to give any longer explanation. Of course, the normal and abnormal state of the brain, and the degree of active work in the Medulla Oblongata, reacts powerfully on the Pineal Gland, for, owing to the number of "centres" in that region, which controls by far the greatest number of the physiological actions of the animal economy, and also owing to the close and intimate neighbourhood of the two, a very powerful "inductive" action must be exerted by the Medulla on the Pineal Gland. All this is quite plain to the Occultist, but is very vague in the sight of the general reader. The latter must then be shown the possibility of a three-eyed man in Nature, in those periods when his formation was yet in a comparatively chaotic state. Such a possibility may be inferred from anatomical and zoological knowledge, first of all, and then it may rest on the assumptions of Materialistic Science itself. It is asserted upon the authority of Science, and upon evidence, which is this time not merely a fiction of theoretical speculation, that many of the animals--especially among the lower orders of the vertebrata--have a _third_ eye, now atrophied, but which was necessarily active in its origin.(676) The Hatteria species, a lizard of the order Lacertilia, recently discovered in New Zealand--_a part of ancient Lemuria so called, mark well_--presents this peculiarity in a most extraordinary manner; and not only the Hatteria Punctata, but the Chameleon, and certain reptiles, and even fishes. It was thought, at first, that this was no more than the prolongation of the brain which ended with a small protuberance, called Epiphysis, a little bone separated from the main bone by a cartilage, and found in every animal. But it was soon found to be more than this. As its development and anatomical structure showed, it offered such an analogy with that of the eye, that it was found impossible to see in it anything else. There are Palćontologists who to this day feel convinced that this Third Eye originally functioned, and they are certainly right. For this is what is said of the Pineal Gland in Quain's _Anatomy_: It is from this part, constituting at first the whole and subsequently the hinder part of the anterior primary encephalic vesicle, that the optic vesicles are developed in the earliest period, and the fore part is that in connection with which the cerebral hemispheres and accompanying parts are formed. The thalamus opticus of each side is formed by a lateral thickening of the medullary wall, while the interval between, descending towards the base, constitutes the cavity of the third ventricle with its prolongation in the infundibulum. The grey commissure afterwards stretches across the ventricular cavity.... The hinder part of the roof is developed by a peculiar process to be noticed later into the pineal gland, which remains united on each side by its pedicles to the thalamus, and behind these a transverse band is formed as posterior commissure. The lamina terminalis (lamina cinerea) continues to close the third ventricle in front, below it the optic commissure forms the floor of the ventricle, and further back the infundibulum descends to be united in the sella turcica with the tissue adjoining the posterior lobe of the pituitary body. The two _optic thalami_, formed from the posterior and outer part of the anterior vesicle, consist at first of a single hollow sac of nervous matter, the cavity of which communicates on each side in front with that of the commencing cerebral hemispheres, and behind with that of the middle cephalic vesicle (corpora quadrigemina). Soon, however, by increased deposit taking place in their interior behind, below, and at the sides, the thalami become solid, and at the same time a cleft or fissure appears between them above, and penetrates down to the internal cavity, which continues open at the back part opposite the entrance of the Sylvian aqueduct. This cleft or fissure is the _third ventricle_. Behind, the two thalami continue united by the _posterior commissure_, which is distinguishable about the end of the third month, and also by the _peduncles of the pineal gland_.... At an early period the _optic tracts_ may be recognized as hollow prolongations from the outer part of the wall of the thalami while they are still vesicular. At the fourth month these tracts are distinctly formed. They subsequently are prolonged backwards into connection with the corpora quadrigemina. The formation of the pineal gland and pituitary body presents some of the most interesting phenomena which are connected with the development of the thalamencephalon.(677) The above is specially interesting when it is remembered that, were it not for the development of the posterior part of the cerebral hemispheres, the Pineal Gland would be perfectly visible on the removal of the parietal bones. It is very interesting also to note the obvious connection which can be traced between the originally hollow Optic Tract and the Eyes anteriorly, and the Pineal Gland and its Peduncles posteriorly, and between all of these and the Optic Thalami. So that the recent discoveries in connection with the third eye of Hatteria Punctata have a very important bearing on the history of the development of the human senses, and on the Occult assertions in the text. It is well known that Descartes saw in the Pineal Gland the _Seat of the Soul_, though this is now regarded as a fiction by those who have ceased to believe in the existence of an immortal principle in man. Although the Soul is joined to every part of the body, he said, there is one special portion of the latter in which the Soul exercises its functions more specially than in any other. And, as neither the heart, nor yet the brain could be that "special" locality, he concluded that it was that little gland which was tied to the brain, and yet had an action independent of it, as it could easily be put into a kind of swinging motion "by the _animal spirits_(678) which cross the cavities of the skull in every sense." Unscientific as this may appear in our day of exact learning, Descartes was yet far nearer the Occult truth than is any Hćckel. For the Pineal Gland is, as shown, far more closely connected with Soul and Spirit than with the physiological senses of man. Had the leading Scientists a glimmer of the _real_ processes employed by the Evolutionary Impulse, and the winding _cyclic_ course of this great Law, they would _know_ instead of conjecturing, and would feel certain of the future physical transformations which await the human kind by the knowledge of its past forms. Then would they see the fallacy and the absurdity of their modern "blind-force" and "mechanical" processes of Nature; and, in consequence of such knowledge, would realize that the said Pineal Gland, for instance, could not but be disabled for _physical_ use at this stage of our Cycle. If the odd "eye" is now atrophied in man, it is a proof that, as in the lower animal, it has once been active; for Nature never creates the smallest, the most insignificant, form without some definite purpose and for some use. It was an active organ, we say, at that stage of evolution when the spiritual element in man reigned supreme over the hardly nascent intellectual and psychic elements. And, as the Cycle ran down towards that point where the physiological senses were developed by, and went _pari passu_ with, the growth and consolidation of physical man--the interminable and complex vicissitudes and tribulations of zoological development--this median "eye" at last atrophied together with the early spiritual and purely psychic characteristics in man. The eye is the mirror and also the window of the Soul, says popular wisdom,(679) and _Vox populi, vox Dei_. In the beginning, every class and family of the living species was hermaphrodite and objectively one-eyed. In the animal--whose form was as ethereal (astrally) as that of man, before the bodies of both began to evolve their "coats of skin," viz., to evolve, from _within without_, the thick coating of physical substance or matter with its internal physiological mechanism--the Third Eye was primarily, as in man, the only seeing organ. The two physical front eyes only developed(680) later on in both brute and man, whose organ of physical sight was, at the commencement of the Third Race, in the same position as that of some of the blind vertebrates, in our day, _i.e._, beneath an opaque skin.(681) Only, the stages of the odd, or primeval, eye, in man and brute, are now inverted, as the former has already passed that animal non-rational stage in the Third Round, and is ahead of mere brute creation by a whole plane of consciousness. Therefore, while the Cyclopean eye was, and still _is_, in man the organ of _spiritual_ sight, in the animal it was that of objective vision. And this eye, having performed its function, was replaced, in the course of physical evolution from the simple to the complex, by two eyes, and thus was stored and laid aside by Nature for further use in ćons to come. This explains why the Pineal Gland reached its highest development proportionately with the lowest physical development. It is in the Vertebrata that it is the most prominent and objective, whereas in man it is most carefully hidden and inaccessible, except to the Anatomist. No less light, however, is thereby thrown on the future physical, spiritual, and intellectual state of mankind, in periods corresponding on parallel lines with other past periods, and always on the lines of ascending and descending cyclic evolution and development. Thus, a few centuries before the Kali Yuga--the Age which began nearly 5,000 years ago--it was said in Commentary Twenty, if it is paraphrased into comprehensible sentences: _We [the Fifth Root-Race] in our first half [of duration] onward [on the now ascending arc of the Cycle] are on the mid point of [or between] the First and Second Races--falling downward [i.e., the Races were then on the descending arc of the Cycle].... Calculate for thyself, Lanoo, and see._ Calculating as advised, we find that during that transitional period--namely, in the second half of the First spiritual ethereo-astral Race--nascent mankind was devoid of the intellectual brain element, as it was on its _descending_ line. And as we are parallel to it, on the _ascending_, we are, therefore, devoid of the spiritual element, which is now replaced by the intellectual. For, remember well, as we are in the Mânasa period of our Cycle of Races, or in the Fifth, we have, therefore, crossed the meridian point of the perfect adjustment of Spirit and Matter--or the equilibrium between brain intellect and spiritual perception. One important point, has, however, to be borne in mind. [Illustration: Evolution of Root-Races in the Fourth Round] [Transcriber's Note: The graph shows, to the left, "Downward Cycle. Evolution of Physical and Intellectual Nature and the Gradual Regression of Spirituality." To the right is "Ascending Cycle. Reëvolution or Reversion of Spirituality and the Gradual Decrease of Materiality and mere Brain-intellectuality." Below is "Meridian of Races."] We are only in the Fourth Round, and it is in the Fifth that the full development of Manas, as a direct ray from the Universal Mahat--a ray unimpeded by Matter--will be finally reached. Nevertheless, as every sub- race and nation have their cycles and stages of evolutionary development repeated on a smaller scale, much more must it be so in the case of a Root-Race. Our Race then has, as a Root-Race, crossed the equatorial line and is cycling onward on the spiritual side; but some of our sub-races still find themselves on the shadowy descending arc of their respective national cycles; while others again--the oldest--having crossed the crucial point, which alone decides whether a race, a nation, or a tribe, will live or perish, are at the apex of spiritual development as sub-races. It now becomes comprehensible why the Third Eye was gradually transformed into a simple gland, after the physical Fall of those we have agreed to call the Lemurians. It is a curious fact that in human beings the cerebral hemispheres and the lateral ventricles have been especially developed, whereas it is the Optic Thalami, Corpora Quadrigemina, and Corpora Striata which are the principal parts developed in other mammalian brains. Moreover, it is asserted that the intellect of a man may, to some extent, be gauged by the development of the central convolutions and the fore part of the cerebral hemispheres. It would seem a natural corollary to this that if the development of the Pineal Gland may be considered to be an index of the astral capacities and spiritual proclivities of any man, there will be a corresponding development of that part of the cranium, or an increase in the size of the Pineal Gland at the expense of the posterior part of the cerebral hemispheres. This is a curious speculation and would receive confirmation in the present case. We should see, below and behind, the cerebellum which has been held to be the seat of all the animal proclivities of the human being, and which is allowed by Science to be the great centre for all the physiologically coördinated movements of the body, such as walking, eating, etc.; in front, the fore-part of the brain, the cerebral hemispheres, the part especially connected with the development of the intellectual powers in man; and in the middle, dominating them both, and especially the animal functions, the developed Pineal Gland, in connection with the more highly evolved, or spiritual man. It must be remembered that these are only physical correspondences; just as the ordinary human brain is the registering organ of memory, but not memory itself. This is, then, the organ which has given rise to so many legends and traditions, among others to that of men with one head but two faces. These legends may be found in several Chinese works, besides being referred to in the Chaldćan fragments. Apart from the work already cited, the _Shan Hai King_, compiled by Kung Chia from engravings on nine urns made by the Emperor Yü, 2,255 B.C., they may be found in another work, called the _Bamboo Books_, and in a third, the _'Rh Ya_, whose author was "initiated according to tradition by Chow Kung, uncle of Wu Wang, the first Emperor of the Chow Dynasty, 1,122 B.C." The _Bamboo Books_ contain the ancient annals of China, found A.D. 279 on opening the grave of King Seang of Wei, who died 295 B.C.(682) Both these works mention men with two faces on one head--one in front and one behind. Now what students of Occultism ought to know is that the Third Eye _is indissolubly connected with Karma_. The tenet is so mysterious that very few have heard of it. The "Eye of Shiva" did not become entirety atrophied before the close of the Fourth Race. When spirituality and all the divine powers and attributes of the Deva-Man of the Third Race had been made the hand- maidens of the newly-awakened physiological and psychic passions of the physical man, instead of the reverse, the Eye lost its powers. But such was the law of evolution, and it was, in strict accuracy, no _Fall_. The sin was not in using those newly-developed powers, but in _misusing_ them; in making of the tabernacle, designed to contain a God, the fane of every _spiritual_ iniquity. And if we say "sin" it is merely that everyone should understand our meaning, for Karma(683) would be the more correct term to use in this case; moreover the reader who should feel perplexed at the use of the term "spiritual" instead of "physical" iniquity, is reminded of the fact that there can be no physical iniquity. The body is simply the irresponsible organ, the tool of the Psychic, if not of the Spiritual, Man. And in the case of the Atlanteans, it was precisely the Spiritual Being which sinned, the Spirit Element being still the "Master" Principle in man, in those days. Thus it is in those days that the heaviest Karma of the Fifth Race was generated by our Monads. As this sentence may again be found puzzling, it is better that it should be explained for the benefit of those who are ignorant of Theosophical Teachings. Questions with regard to Karma and Re-births are constantly being put forward, and great confusion seems to exist upon the subject. Those who are born and bred in the Christian faith, and have been trained in the idea that a new Soul is created by God for every newly-born infant, are among the most perplexed. They ask whether the number of Monads incarnating on Earth is limited; to which they are answered in the affirmative. For, however countless, in our conception, the number of the incarnating Monads, still, there must be a limit. This is so even if we take into account the fact that ever since the Second Race, when their respective seven Groups were furnished with bodies, several births and deaths may be allowed for every second of time in the ćons already passed. It has been stated that Karma-Nemesis, whose bond-maid is Nature, adjusted everything in the most harmonious manner; and that, therefore, the fresh pouring-in, or arrival of new Monads, ceased as soon as Humanity had reached its full physical development. No fresh Monads have incarnated since the middle-point of the Atlanteans. Let us remember that, save in the case of young children, and of individuals whose lives have been violently cut off by some accident, no Spiritual Entity can reďncarnate before a period of many centuries has elapsed, and such gaps alone must show that the number of Monads is necessarily finite and limited. Moreover, a reasonable time must be given to other animals for their evolutionary progress. Hence the assertion that many of us are now working off the effects of the evil Karmic causes produced by us in Atlantean bodies. The Law of Karma is inextricably interwoven with that of Reďncarnation. It is only the knowledge of the constant re-births of one and the same Individuality throughout the Life-Cycle; the assurance that the same Monads--among whom are many Dhyân Chohans, or the "Gods" themselves--have to pass through the "Circle of Necessity," rewarded or punished by such rebirth for the suffering endured or crimes committed in the former life; that those very Monads, which entered the empty, senseless Shells, or Astral Figures of the First Race emanated by the Pitris, are the same who are now amongst us--nay, ourselves, perchance; it is only this doctrine, we say, that can explain to us the mysterious problem of Good and Evil, and reconcile man to the terrible _apparent_ injustice of life. Nothing but such certainty can quiet our revolted sense of justice. For, when one unacquainted with the noble doctrine looks around him, and observes the inequalities of birth and fortune, of intellect and capacities; when one sees honour paid to fools and profligates, on whom fortune has heaped her favours by mere privilege of birth, and their nearest neighbour, with all his intellect and noble virtues--far more deserving in every way--perishing of want and for lack of sympathy; when one sees all this and has to turn away, helpless to relieve the undeserved suffering, one's ears ringing and heart aching with the cries of pain around him--that blessed knowledge of Karma alone prevents him from cursing life and men, as well as their supposed Creator.(684) Of all the terrible blasphemies and what are virtually accusations thrown at their God by the Monotheists, none is greater or more unpardonable than that (almost always) false humility which makes the presumably "pious" Christian assert, in the face of every evil and undeserved blow, that "such _is the will_ of God." Dolts and hypocrites! Blasphemers and impious Pharisees who speak in the same breath of the endless merciful love and care of their God and Creator for helpless man, and of that God _scourging the good, the very best of his creatures, bleeding them to death like an insatiable Moloch_! Shall we be answered to this, in Congreve's words: But who shall dare to tax Eternal Justice? Logic and simple common sense, we answer. If we are asked to believe in "original sin," in _one_ life _only_ on this Earth for every Soul, and in an anthropomorphic Deity, who seems to have created some men only for the pleasure of condemning them to eternal hell-fire--and this whether they be good or bad, says the Predestinarian(685)--why should not everyone of us who is endowed with reasoning powers, condemn in his turn such a villainous Deity? Life would become unbearable, if one had to believe in the God created by man's unclean fancy. Luckily he exists only in human dogmas, and in the unhealthy imagination of some poets, who believe they have solved the problem by addressing him as: Thou great Mysterious Power, who hast _involved_ The pride of human wisdom, _to confound_ The _daring scrutiny_ and prove _the faith_ Of thy _presuming_ creatures! Truly a robust "faith" is required to believe that it is "presumption" to question the justice of one, who creates helpless little man but to "perplex" him, and to test a "faith" with which that "Power," moreover, may have forgotten, if not neglected, to endow him, as happens sometimes. Compare this blind faith with the philosophical belief, based on every reasonable evidence and on life-experience, in Karma-Nemesis, or the Law of Retribution. This Law--whether Conscious or Unconscious--predestines nothing and no one. It exists from and in Eternity, truly, for it is Eternity itself; and as such, since no act can be coëqual with Eternity, it cannot be said to act, for it is Action itself. It is not the _wave_ which drowns a man, but the _personal_ action of the wretch who goes deliberately and places himself under the _impersonal_ action of the laws that govern the _ocean's_ motion. Karma creates nothing, nor does it design. It is man who plans and creates causes, and Karmic Law adjusts the effects, which adjustment is not an act, but universal harmony, tending ever to resume its original position, like a bough, which, bent down too forcibly, rebounds with corresponding vigour. If it happen to dislocate the arm that tried to bend it out of its natural position, shall we say that it is the bough which broke our arm, or that our own folly has brought us to grief? Karma has never sought to destroy intellectual and individual liberty, like the God invented by the Monotheists. It has not involved its decrees in darkness purposely to perplex man; nor shall it punish him who dares to scrutinize its mysteries. On the contrary, he who through study and meditation unveils its intricate paths, and throws light on those dark ways, in the windings of which so many men perish owing to their ignorance of the labyrinth of life--is working for the good of his fellow-men. Karma is an Absolute and Eternal Law in the World of Manifestation; and as there can only be one Absolute, as One eternal ever- present Cause, believers in Karma cannot be regarded as Atheists or Materialists--still less as Fatalists,(686) for Karma is one with the Unknowable, of which it is an aspect, in its effects in the phenomenal world. Intimately, or rather indissolubly, connected with Karma, then, is the Law of Re-birth, or of the reďncarnation of the same spiritual Individuality in a long, almost interminable, series of Personalities. The latter are like the various characters played by the same actor, with each of which that actor identifies himself and is identified by the public, for the space of a few hours. The _inner_, or real Man, who personates those characters, knows the whole time that he is Hamlet only for the brief space of a few acts, which, however, on the plane of human illusion, represent the whole life of Hamlet. He knows also that he was, the night before, King Lear, the transformation in his turn of the Othello of a still earlier preceding night. And though the outer, visible character is supposed to be ignorant of the fact, and in actual life that ignorance is, unfortunately, but too real, nevertheless, the _permanent_ Individuality is fully aware of it, and it is through the atrophy of the "spiritual" Eye in the physical body, that that knowledge is unable to impress itself on the consciousness of the false Personality. The possession of a physical Third Eye, we are told, was enjoyed by the men of the Third Root-Race down to nearly the middle period of the third sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race, when the consolidation and perfection of the human frame caused it to disappear from the outward anatomy of man. Psychically and spiritually, however, its mental and visual perception lasted till nearly the end of the Fourth Race, when its functions, owing to the materiality and depraved condition of mankind, died out altogether. This was prior to the submersion of the bulk of the Atlantean Continent. And now we may return to the Deluges and their many "Noahs." The student has to bear in mind that there were many such Deluges as that mentioned in _Genesis_, and three far more important ones, which will be mentioned and described in the Section of Part III devoted to the subject of pre-historic "Submerged Continents." To avoid erroneous conjectures, however, with regard to the claim that the Esoteric Doctrine has much in common with the legends contained in the Hindű Scriptures; that, again, the chronology of the latter is almost that of the former--only explained and made clear; and that finally the belief that Vaivasvata Manu--a generic term indeed!--was the Noah of the Âryans and the prototype of the biblical patriarch, all this--as pertaining also to the belief of the Occultists--necessitates a new explanation at this juncture. The Primeval Manus Of Humanity. Those who are aware that the "Great Flood," which was connected with the sinking of an entire Continent (save only a few islands) could not have happened so far back as 18,000,000 years ago, and that Vaivasvata Manu is the Indian Noah connected with the Matsya, or the Fish, Avatâra of Vishnu, may feel perplexed at the apparent discrepancy between the facts stated and the chronology previously given. But there is no discrepancy in truth. The reader is asked to turn to _The Theosophist_ of July, 1883, for by studying the article therein, on "The Septenary Principle in Esotericism," the whole question can be explained to him. It is in the explanation there given, I believe, that the Occultists differ from the Brâhmans. For the benefit of those, however, who may not have _The Theosophist_ of that date to hand, a passage or two may now be quoted from it: Who was Manu, the son of Svâyambhuva? The Secret Doctrine tells us that _this_ Manu was no man, but the representation of the first human races, evolved with the help of the Dhyân Chohans (Devas), at the beginning of the First Round. But we are told in his _Laws_ (i. 80) that there are fourteen Manus for every Kalpa, or "interval from creation to creation"--read rather interval from one _minor_ Pralaya to another(687)--and that "in the present divine age, there have been as yet _seven_ Manus." Those who know that there are seven Rounds, of which we have passed three, and are now in the Fourth; and who are taught that there are seven Dawns and seven Twilights, or fourteen Manvantaras; that at the beginning of every Round and at the end, and on, and between, the planets [Globes] there is an "awakening to _illusive_ life," and an "awakening to _real_ life"; and that, moreover, there are Root- Manus, and what we have to clumsily translate as Seed-Manus--_the seeds for the human races of the forthcoming_ Round (or the Shishtas--the surviving fittest(688); a mystery divulged only to those who have passed their third degree in Initiation)--those who have learned all this will be better prepared to understand the meaning of the following. We are told in the Hindű Sacred Scriptures that, "The first Manu produced _six_ other Manus [_seven_ primary Manus in all], and these produced in their turn each seven other Manus"(689) (_Bhrigu_, i. 61-63)--the production of the latter standing in the Occult treatises as 7 x 7. Thus it becomes clear that Manu--the last one, the Progenitor of our Fourth-Round Humanity--must be the _seventh_, since we are on our Fourth Round,(690) and there is a _Root_-Manu at Globe A, and a _Seed_-Manu at Globe G. Just as each planetary Round commences with the appearance of a Root-Manu (Dhyân Chohan) and closes with a Seed-Manu, so a Root- and a Seed-Manu appear respectively at the beginning and the termination of the human period on any particular planet [Globe].(691) It will be easily seen from the foregoing statement that a Manvantaric period (Manu-antara) means, as the term implies, the time _between_ the appearance of two Manus or Dhyân Chohans; and hence a Minor Manvantara is the duration of the _seven_ Races on any particular planet [Globe], and a Major Manvantara is the period of one human Round along the Planetary Chain. Moreover, as it is said that each of the seven Manus _creates_ 7 x 7 Manus, and that there are 49 Root-Races on the seven planets [Globes] during each Round, then every Root-Race has its Manu. The present seventh Manu is called "Vaivasvata" and stands in the exoteric texts for that Manu who in India represents the Babylonian Xisuthrus and the Jewish Noah. But in the Esoteric books we are told that Manu Vaivasvata, the progenitor of our _Fifth_ Race--who saved it from the flood that nearly exterminated the Fourth or Atlantean--is not the seventh Manu, mentioned in the nomenclature of the Root or Primitive Manus, but one of the 49 Manus emanated from this Root-Manu. For clearer comprehension we here give the names of the 14 Manus in their respective order and in their relation to each Round: 1st Round, 1st (Root) Manu on Planet A--Svâyambhuva. 1st Round, 1st (Seed) Manu on Planet G--Svârochi, or Svârochisha. 2nd Round, 2nd (Root) Manu on Planet A--Auttami. 2nd Round, 2nd (Seed) Manu on Planet G--Tâmasa. 3rd Round, 3rd (Root) Manu on Planet A--Raivata. 3rd Round, 3rd (Seed) Manu on Planet G--Châkshusha. 4th Round, 4th (Root) Manu on Planet A--Vaivasvata (our Progenitor). 4th Round, 4th (Seed) Manu on Planet G--Sâvarna. 5th Round, 5th (Root) Manu on Planet A--Daksha-sâvarna. 5th Round, 5th (Seed) Manu on Planet G--Brahma-sâvarna. 6th Round, 6th (Root) Manu on Planet A--Dharma-sâvarna. 6th Round, 6th (Seed) Manu on Planet G--Rudra-sâvarna. 7th Round, 7th (Root) Manu on Planet A--Rauchya. 7th Round, 7th (Seed) Manu on Planet G--Bhautya. Vaivasvata, thus, though seventh in the order given, is the primitive Root-Manu of our Fourth Human Wave (the reader must always remember that Manu is not a man but collective humanity), while _our_ Vaivasvata was but one of the seven Minor Manus, who are made to preside over the seven Races of this our planet [Globe]. Each of these has to become the witness of one of the periodical and ever-recurring cataclysms (by fire and water) that close the cycle of every Root-Race. And it is this Vaivasvata--the Hindű ideal embodiment, called respectively Xisuthrus, Deucalion, Noah and other names--who is the allegorical "Man" who rescued our Race, when nearly the whole population of one hemisphere perished by water, while the other hemisphere was awakening from its temporary obscuration.(692) Thus it is shown that there is no real discrepancy in speaking of the Vaivasvata Manvantara (Manu-antara, lit., "between two Manus") as 18,000,000 odd years ago, when physical, or the truly human, Man first appeared in his Fourth Round on this Earth; and of the other Vaivasvatas, _e.g._, the Manu of the Great Cosmic or Sidereal Flood--a mystery--or again the Manu Vaivasvata of the submerged Atlantis, when the _Racial_ Vaivasvata saved the elect of Humanity, the Fifth Race, from utter destruction. As these several and quite distinct events are purposely blended in the _Vishnu_ and other _Purânas_ in one narrative, there may yet be a great deal of perplexity left in the profane reader's mind. Therefore, as constant elucidation is needed, we must be forgiven unavoidable repetitions. The "blinds" which conceal the real mysteries of Esoteric Philosophy are great and puzzling, and even now the last word cannot be given. The veil, however, may be a little more removed, and some explanations, hitherto denied, may now be offered to the earnest student. As Colonel Vans Kennedy, if we do not mistake, remarked: "the first principle in Hindű religious philosophy is _unity in diversity_." If all those Manus and Rishis are called by one generic name, it is due to the fact that they are one and all the manifested Energies of one and the same Logos, the celestial as well as the terrestrial Messengers and Permutations of that Principle which is ever in a state of activity--conscious during the period of Cosmic Evolution, unconscious (from our point of view) during Cosmic Rest--for the Logos sleepeth in the bosom of THAT which "sleepeth not," nor is it ever awake, for it is Sat or "Be-ness," not a Being. It is from IT that issues the great _Unseen_ Logos, who evolves all the other Logoi; the Primeval Manu who gives being to the other Manus, who emanate the universe and all in it collectively, and who represent in their aggregate the _Manifested_ Logos.(693) Hence we learn in the Commentaries that while no Dhyân Chohan, not even the highest, can realize completely _The condition of the preceding Cosmic Evolution, ... the Manus retain a knowledge of their experiences in all the Cosmic Evolutions throughout Eternity._ This is very plain: the first Manu is called Svâyambhuva, the "Self- manifested," the Son of the _Unmanifested_ Father. The Manus are the Creators of the Creators of our First Race--the Spirit of Mankind--which does not prevent the _seven_ Manus from having been the first "Pre-Adamic" Men on Earth. Manu declares himself created by Virâj,(694) or Vaishvânara, the Spirit of Humanity,(695) which means that his Monad emanates from the never resting Principle in the beginning of every new Cosmic Activity--that Logos or Universal Monad (collective Elohim) which radiates _from within himself_ all those Cosmic Monads that become the centres of activity--Progenitors of the numberless Solar Systems as well as of the yet undifferentiated _human_ Monads of Planetary Chains as well as of every being thereon. Svâyambhuva, or Self-born, is the name of every Cosmic Monad _which becomes the Centre of Force, from within which emerges a Planetary Chain_ (of which Chains there are seven in our System). And the radiations of this Centre become again so many Manus Svâyambhuva (a mysterious generic name, meaning far more than appears), each of them becoming, as a Host, the Creator of his own Humanity. As to the question of the four distinct Races of mankind that preceded our Fifth Race, there is nothing mystical in the subject, except the ethereal bodies of the first Races; and this is a matter of legendary, nevertheless very correct, history. The legend is universal. And if the Western _savant_ pleases to see in it only a myth, it does not make the slightest difference. The Mexicans had, and still have, the tradition of the fourfold destruction of the world by fire and water, just as the Egyptians had, and the Hindűs have, to this day. Trying to account for the community of legends held by Chinese, Chaldćans, Egyptians, Indians and Greeks, in remote antiquity, and for the absence of any certain vestige of civilization more ancient than 5,000 years, the author of _Mythical Monsters_ remarks that: We must ... not be surprised if we do not immediately discover the vestiges of the people of ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand years ago. With an ephemeral architecture ... [as in China], the sites of vast cities may have become entirely lost to recollection in a few thousands of years from natural decay, and how much more ... if ... minor cataclysms have intervened, such as local inundations, earthquakes, deposition of volcanic ashes, ... the spread of sandy deserts, destruction of life by deadly pestilence, by miasma, or by the outpour of sulphurous fumes.(696) How many of such cataclysms have changed the whole surface of the earth may be inferred from the following Stanza of Commentary Twenty-two: _During the first seven crores [70,000,000 years] of the Kalpa the Earth and its two Kingdoms [mineral and vegetable], one already having achieved its seventh circle, the other, hardly nascent, are luminous and semi- ethereal, cold, lifeless, and translucid. In the eleventh crore_(_697_)_ the Mother [Earth] grows opaque, and in the fourteenth_(_698_)_ the throes of adolescence take place. These convulsions of Nature [geological changes] last till her twentieth crore of years, uninterruptedly, after which they become periodical, and at long intervals._ _The last change took place nearly twelve crores [120,000,000] of years ago. But the Earth with everything on her face had become cool, hard and settled ages earlier._ Thus, if we are to believe Esoteric Teaching, _universal_ geological disturbances and changes have not occurred for the last 120 million years, but the Earth, even before that time, was ready to receive her human stock. The appearance of the latter, however, in its full physical development, as already stated, took place only about 18,000,000 years ago, after the first great failure of Nature to create beings alone--_i.e._, without the help of the divine "Fashioners"--had been followed by the successive evolution of the first three Races.(699) The actual duration of the first two and a half Races is withheld from all but the higher Initiates. The history of the Races begins at the separation of the sexes, when the preceding egg-bearing androgynous Race perished rapidly, and the subsequent sub-races of the Third Root-Race appeared as an entirely new race _physiologically_. It is this "Destruction" which is allegorically called the great "Vaivasvata Manu Deluge," when the account shows Vaivasvata Manu, or Humanity, remaining alone on Earth in the Ark of Salvation towed by Vishnu in the shape of a monstrous fish, and the Seven Rishis "with him." The allegory is very plain. In the symbolism of every nation, the "Deluge" stands for chaotic unsettled Matter--Chaos itself; and Water for the Feminine Principle--the "Great Deep." As the Greek Lexicon of Parkhurst gives it: {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~} answers to the Hebrew _rasit_, or Wisdom ... and [at the same time] to the emblem of the female generative power, the _arg_ or _arca_, in which the germ of nature [and of mankind] floats or broods on the great abyss of the waters, during the interval which takes place after every mundane [or racial] cycle. Archę ({~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH VARIA~}) or Ark is also the mystic name of the Divine Spirit of Life which broods over Chaos. Now Vishnu _is_ the Divine Spirit, as an abstract principle, and also as the Preserver and Generator, or Giver of Life--the third Person of the Triműrti--composed of Brahmâ, the Creator, Shiva, the Destroyer, and Vishnu, the Preserver. Vishnu is shown, in the allegory, under the form of a _Fish_, guiding the Ark of Vaivasvata Manu across the Waters of the Flood. There is no use in expatiating upon the esoteric meaning of the word _Fish_ (as Payne Knight, Inman, Gerald Massey, and others have done). Its theological meaning is phallic, but the metaphysical, divine. Jesus was called the Fish, as were Vishnu and Bacchus; {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}, the "Saviour" of Mankind, being but the monogram of the God Bacchus, who was also called {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}, the Fish.(700) Moreover, the Seven Rishis in the Ark symbolized the seven "principles," which became complete in man only after he had separated, and become a _human_, and thus ceased to be a divine creature. But to return to the Races; details as to the submersion of the Continent inhabited by the Second Root-Race are not numerous. The history of the Third, or Lemuria, is given, as is also that of Atlantis, but the others are only alluded to. Lemuria is said to have perished about 700,000 years before the commencement of what is now called the Tertiary Age (the Eocene).(701) During this Deluge--an actual geological deluge this time--Vaivasvata Manu is also shown saving mankind, allegorically--in reality, a portion of it, the Fourth Race--just as he saved the Fifth Race during the destruction of the last Atlanteans, the remnants that perished 850,000 years ago,(702) after which there was no great submersion until the day of Plato's Atlantis, or Poseidonis, which was known to the Egyptians only because it happened in such relatively recent times. It is the submersion of the great Atlantis which is the most interesting. This is the Cataclysm of which the old records, as in the _Book of Enoch_, say, "the ends of the Earth got loose"; and upon which have been built the legends and allegories of Vaivasvata, Xisuthrus, Noah, Deucalion and all the _tutti quanti_ of the Elect Saved. Tradition, not taking into account the difference between sidereal and geological phenomena, calls both "Deluges" indifferently. Yet there is a great difference. The Cataclysm which destroyed the huge Continent of which Australia is the largest relic, was due to a series of subterranean convulsions and the breaking asunder of the ocean floors. That which put an end to its successor--the Fourth Continent--was brought on by successive disturbances in the axial rotation. It began during the earliest Tertiary periods, and, continuing for long ages, carried away successively the last vestige of Atlantis, with the exception, perhaps, of Ceylon and a small portion of what is now Africa. It changed the face of the globe, and no memory of its flourishing continents and isles, of its civilizations and sciences, have remained in the annals of history, save in the Sacred Records of the East. Hence, Modern Science denies the existence of Atlantis. It even denies any violent shiftings of the Earth's axis, and would attribute the change of climate to other causes. But this question is still an open one. If Dr. Croll will have it that all such alterations can be accounted for by the effects of nutation and the precession of the equinoxes, there are others, such as Sir Henry James and Sir John Lubbock,(703) who feel more inclined to accept the idea that they are due to a change in the position of the axis of rotation. Against this the majority of the Astronomers are again arrayed. But then, what have they not denied before now, and what have they not denounced--only to accept it later on, whenever the hypothesis became undeniable fact? How far our figures agree, or rather disagree, with Modern Science will be seen further in the Addenda to this Volume, where the Geology and Anthropology of our modern day are carefully compared with the teachings of Archaic Science. At any rate, the period assigned by the Secret Doctrine for the sinking of Atlantis, does not seem to disagree very much with the calculations of Modern Science, which, however, calls Atlantis "Lemuria" whenever it accepts such a submerged Continent. With regard to the pre-human period, all that can be said, at present, is, that even prior to the appearance of the "mindless" First Race, the Earth was not without its inhabitants. We might, however, add that what Science, which recognizes _physical man only_, has a right to regard as the _pre-human_ period, may be conceded to have extended from the First Race down to the first half of the Atlantean Race, since it is only then that man became the "complete _organic_ being he is now." And this would make Adamic Man no older than a few millions of years.(704) The author of the _Qabbalah_ truly remarks that: "Man to-day, as an individual, is only a concatenation of the being-hood of precedent human life," or _lives_, rather. According to the Qabbalah, the soul sparks contained in Adam, went into three principal classes corresponding to his three sons, viz.: _Hesed_, Habel, _Ge'boor-ah_, Qai-yin and _Ra'h-min_ Seth. These three were divided into ... 70 species, called; the principal roots of the human race.(705) Said Rabbi Yehudah: "How many garments [of the incorporeal man] are these which are crowned (from the day man was created)?" Said R. El'azar: "The mountains of the world (the great men of the generation) are in discussion upon it, but there are three: one to clothe in that garment the _Rua'h_ spirit, which is in the garden (of Eden) on earth: one which is more precious than all, in which the _Neshamah_ is clothed in that Bundle of Life, between the angels of the Kings ...: and one outside garment, which exists and does not exist, is seen and not seen. In that garment, the _Nephesh_ is clothed, and she goes and flies in it, to and fro in the world."(706) This relates to the Races, their "garments," or degree of materiality, and to the three "principles" of man in their three vehicles. Stanza XI. The Civilization And Destruction Of The Fourth And Fifth Races. 43. The Lemuro-Atlanteans build cities and spread civilization. The incipient stage of anthropomorphism. 44. Statues, witnesses to the size of the Lemuro-Atlanteans. 45. Lemuria destroyed by fire, Atlantis by water. The Flood. 46. The destruction of the Fourth Race and of the last antediluvian monster-animals. 43. THEY(707) BUILT HUGE CITIES. OF RARE EARTHS AND METALS THEY BUILT. OUT OF THE FIRES(708) VOMITED, OUT OF THE WHITE STONE(709) OF THE MOUNTAINS AND OF THE BLACK STONE,(710) THEY CUT THEIR OWN IMAGES, IN THEIR SIZE AND LIKENESS, AND WORSHIPPED THEM. At this point, as the history of the first two _human_ races--the last of the Lemurians and the first of the future Atlanteans--proceeds, we have to blend the two, and speak of them for a time collectively. Here reference is also made to the _divine_ Dynasties, which were claimed by the Egyptians, Chaldćans, Greeks, etc., to have preceded their _human_ Kings. These are still believed in by the modern Hindűs, and are enumerated in their sacred books. Of these, however, we shall treat in their proper place. What remains to be shown is, that our modern Geologists are now being driven into admitting the demonstrable existence of submerged continents. But to confess the existence of the continents is quite a different thing from admitting that there were men on them during the early geological periods(711)--ay, men and civilized nations, not Palćolithic savages only; who, under the guidance of their _divine_ Rulers, built large cities, cultivated Arts and Sciences, and knew Astronomy, Architecture and Mathematics to perfection. The primeval civilization of the Lemurians did not, as one may think, immediately follow their physiological transformation. Between the final physiological evolution and the first city built, many hundred thousands of years had passed. Nevertheless, we find the Lemurians in their sixth sub-race building their first rock-cities out of stone and lava.(712) One of these great cities of primitive structure was built entirely of lava, some thirty miles west from where Easter Island now stretches its narrow strip of sterile ground, and was totally destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions. The oldest remains of Cyclopean buildings were all the handiwork of the last sub-races of the Lemurians; and an Occultist, therefore, shows no surprise on learning that the stone relics which were found on the small piece of land called Easter Island by Captain Cook, are Very much like the walls of the Temple of Pachacamac or the Ruins of Tia-Huanaco in Peru,(713) and also that they are in the _Cyclopean style_. The first large cities, however, were built in that region of the Continent which is now known as the island of Madagascar. There were civilized people and savages in those days as there are now. Evolution achieved its work of perfection on the former, and Karma--its work of destruction on the latter. The Australians and their like are the descendants of those, who, instead of vivifying the Spark projected into them by the "Flames," extinguished it by long generations of bestiality.(714) Whereas the Âryan nations could trace their descent through the Atlanteans from the more spiritual races of the Lemurians, in whom the "Sons of Wisdom" had personally incarnated.(715) It is with the advent of the divine Dynasties that the first civilizations were started. And while, in some regions of the Earth, a portion of mankind preferred leading a nomadic and patriarchal life, and in others savage man was hardly learning to build a fire and to protect himself against the Elements--his brothers, more favoured than he by their Karma, and helped by the divine intelligence which informed them, built cities, and cultivated Arts and Sciences. Nevertheless, notwithstanding civilization, while their pastoral brethren enjoyed wondrous powers as their birthright, the "builders" could now obtain their powers only gradually; even those they did obtain being generally used for conquest over physical nature and selfish and unholy purposes. Civilization has ever developed the physical and the intellectual at the cost of the psychic and spiritual. The command over and the guidance of one's own psychic nature, which foolish men now associate with the supernatural, were with early Humanity innate and congenital, and came to man as naturally as walking and thinking. "There is no such thing as magic" philosophizes "She"--the author forgetting that "magic" in early days still meant the great Science of Wisdom, and that Ayesha could not possibly know anything of the modern perversion of thought--"though," she adds, "there is such a thing as knowledge of the Secrets of Nature."(716) But they have become "Secrets" only in our Race, and were public property with the Third. Gradually, mankind decreased in stature, for, even before the real advent of the Fourth or Atlantean Race, the majority of mankind had fallen into iniquity and sin, save only the Hierarchy of the "Elect," the followers and disciples of the "Sons of Will and Yoga"--called later the "Sons of the Fire-Mist." Then came the Atlanteans; the giants whose physical beauty and strength reached their climax, in accordance with evolutionary law, toward the middle period of their fourth sub-race. But, as said in the Commentary: _The last survivors of the fair child of the White Island [the primitive Shveta-dvîpa] had perished ages before. Their [Lemuria's] Elect, had taken shelter on the Sacred Island [now the __"__fabled__"__ Shamballah, in the Gobi Desert], while some of their accursed races, separating from the main stock, now lived in the jungles and underground [__"__cave-men__"__], when the golden yellow Race [the Fourth] became in its turn __"__black with sin.__"__ From pole to pole the Earth had changed her face for the third time, and was no longer inhabited by the Sons of Shveta-dvîpa, the blessed, and Adbhitanya [?], east and west, the first, the one and the pure, had become corrupted.... The Demi-Gods of the Third had made room for the Semi-Demons of the Fourth Race. Shveta-dvîpa,_(_717_)_ the White Island, had veiled her face. Her children now lived on the Black Land, wherein, later on, Daityas from the seventh Dvîpa (Pushkara) and Râkshasas from the seventh climate replaced the Sâdhus and the Ascetics of the Third Age, who had descended to them from other and higher regions...._ In their dead letter, the _Purânas_, in general, read like an absurd tissue of fairy tales and no better. And if one were to read the first three chapters of Book II of _Vishnu Purâna_ and accept _verbatim_ the geography, geodesy, and ethnology in the account of Priyavrata's seven sons among whom their father divides the seven Dvîpas (Islands or Continents); and then proceed to study how his eldest son, Agnîdhra, the King of Jambu-dvîpa, apportioned Jambu-dvîpa among his nine sons; and then how Nâbhi, _his_ son, had a hundred sons and apportioned lands to all these in his turn--he would most likely throw the book away and pronounce it a farrago of nonsense. But the student of Esotericism will understand that, when the _Purânas_ were written, their true meaning was intended to be clear only to the Initiated Brâhmans, and so the compilers wrote these works allegorically and would not give the _whole_ truth to the masses. And he will, further, explain to the Orientalists--who, beginning with Colonel Wilford and ending with Professor Weber, have made and still are making such a mess of it--that the first three chapters purposely confuse the following subjects and events: I. The series of Kalpas, or Ages, and also of Races, are never taken into account; and events which have happened in one are allowed to stand along with those which took place in another. The chronological order is entirely ignored. This is shown by several of the Sanskrit commentators, who explain the incompatibility of events and calculations in saying: Whenever any contradictions in different Purânas are observed, they are ascribed ... to differences of Kalpas and the like. II. The several meanings of the words "Manvantara" and "Kalpa" or Age, are withheld, the general signification only being given. III. In the genealogy of the Kings and the geography of their dominions, the Varshas (countries) and Dvîpas are all regarded as terrestrial regions. Now, the truth is that, without entering into too minute details, it is permissible and easy to show that: (_a_) The Seven Dvîpas apportioned to Priyavrata's septenary progeny refer to several localities--first of all to our Planetary Chain. In this Jambu- dvîpa alone represents our Globe, while the six others are the (to us) invisible companion Globes of the Chain. This is shown by the very nature of the allegorical and symbolic descriptions. Jambu-dvîpa "is _in the centre of all_ these"--the so-called "Insular Continents"--and is surrounded by a _sea of salt water_ (Lavana), whereas Plaksha, Shâlmalia, Kusha, Krauncha, Shâka, and Pushkara, are surrounded severally "by great seas ... of sugar-cane juice, of wine, of clarified butter, of curds, of milk," etc., and such like metaphorical names.(718) (_b_) Bhâskara Âchârya, who uses expressions from the books of the Secret Doctrine, in his description of the sidereal position of all these Dvîpas, speaks of: "the sea of milk and the sea of curds," etc., as meaning the Milky Way, and the various congeries of Nebulć; the more so, since he calls "the country to the south of the equator" Bhűr Loka, that to the north Bhuva, Svar, Mahar, Jana, Tapo and Satya Lokas; and adds: "These lokas are gradually attained by increasing religious merits," _i.e._, they are various "Paradises."(719) (_c_) That this geographical distribution of seven allegorical continents, islands, mountains, seas and countries, does not belong only to _our_ Round, or even to _our_ Races--the name of Bhârata-varsha (India) notwithstanding--is explained in the texts themselves by the narrator of _Vishnu Purâna_, who tells us that: Bharata [the son of Nâbhi, who gave his name to Bhârata-varsha or India] ... consigned the kingdom to his son Sumati ... and abandoned his life at ... Shâlagrâma. He was afterwards born again, as a Brahman, in a distinguished family of ascetics.... Under these princes [Bharata's descendants] Bhârata-varsha was divided into nine portions; and their descendants successively held possession of the country for seventy-one periods of the aggregate of the four ages (or for the reign of a Manu) [representing a Mahâyuga of 4,320,000 years].(720) But having said so much, Parâshara suddenly explains that: This was the creation of Svâyambhuva (Manu), by which the earth was peopled when he presided over the _first_ Manvantara, in the Kalpa of Varâha [_i.e._, the _Boar_ incarnation, or Avatâra]. Now every Brâhman knows that _our_ Humanity began on this Earth (or Round) _only with Vaivasvata Manu_. And if the Western reader turns to the sub- section on "The Primeval Manus of Humanity,"(721) he will see that Vaivasvata is the _seventh_ of the fourteen Manus who preside over our Planetary Chain during its Life Cycle; but as every Round has two Manus (a Root- and a Seed-Manu), he is the Root-Manu of the Fourth Round, hence the seventh. Wilson finds in this only incongruity, and speculates that: The patriarchial genealogies are older than the chronological system of Manvantaras and Kalpas, and [thus] have been rather clumsily distributed amongst the different periods. It is nothing of the kind; but as Orientalists know nothing of the Secret Teaching, they persist in taking everything _literally_, and then turn round and abuse the writers for that which they do not comprehend! These Genealogies embrace a period of _three and a half_ Rounds; they speak of _pre-human_ periods, and explain the descent into generation of every Manu--the first manifested sparks of the One Unity--and, furthermore, show each of these human Sparks dividing into, and multiplying by, first, the Pitaras, the human Ancestors, then by the human Races. No Being can become God, or Deva, unless he passes through the human Cycles. Therefore the Shloka says: Happy are those who are born, even from the [latent] condition of gods, _as men_, in Bhârata-varsha; as that is the way to ... final liberation.(722) In Jambu-dvîpa Bhârata is considered _the best of its divisions_, because it is _the land of works_. In it alone it is that: The succession of four Yugas, or ages, the Krita, the Tretâ, the Dvâpara, and Kali take place. When, therefore, Parâshara, on being asked by Maitreya "to give him the descriptions of the Earth," returns again to the enumeration of the same Dvîpas with the same seas, etc., as those he had described in the Svâyambhuva Manvantara--it is simply a "blind"; yet, to him who reads between the lines, the Four great Races and the Fifth are there, ay, with their sub-divisions, islands and continents, some of which were called by the names of celestial Lokas, and by those of other Globes. Hence the confusion. All these islands and lands are called by the Orientalists "mythical" and "fabulous."(723) Very true, some are _not of this Earth_, but they still exist. The White Island and Atala, at all events, are no myths, since Atala was the name contemptuously applied by the earliest pioneers of the Fifth Race to the Land of Sin--Atlantis, in general, not to Plato's island alone; and since the White Island was (_a_) the Shveta-dvîpa of Theogony, and (_b_) Shâka-dvîpa, or Atlantis (its earliest portions rather) in its beginnings. This was when it yet had its "seven holy rivers that washed away all sin," and its "seven districts, wherein there was no dereliction of virtue, no contention, no deviation from virtue," as it was then inhabited by the caste of the Magas--that caste which even the Brâhmans acknowledged as not inferior to their own, and which was the nursery of the first Zarathushtra. The Brâhmans are shown consulting with Gauramukha, on Nârada's advice, who told them to invite the Magas as priests of the Sun to the temple built by Sâmba the _reputed_ son of Krishna, for in reality the latter had none. In this the _Purânas_ are _historical_, allegory notwithstanding, and Occultism is stating facts. The whole story is told in _Bhavishya Purâna_. It is stated that Sâmba having been cured of leprosy by Sűrya (the Sun), built a temple and dedicated it to the Deity. But when he was looking for pious Brâhmans to perform the appointed rites in it, and receive donations made to the God, Nârada--the virgin Ascetic who is found in every age in the _Purânas_--advised him not to do so, as Manu forbade the Brâhmans to receive emoluments for the performance of religious rites. He therefore referred Sâmba to Gauramukha (White-face), the Purohita, or family priest, of Ugrasena, King of Mathura, who would tell him whom he could best employ. The priest directed Sâmba to invite the Magas, the worshippers of Sűrya, to discharge the duty. But as he was ignorant of the place where they lived, Sűrya, the Sun himself, directs Sâmba to Shâka-dvîpa _beyond the salt water_. Then Sâmba performs the journey, using Garuda, the Great Bird, the vehicle of Vishnu and Krishna, who transports him to the Magas, etc.(724) Now Krishna, who lived 5,000 years ago, and Nârada, who is found reborn in every Cycle (or Race), in addition to Garuda--the symbol Esoterically of the Great Cycle--give the key to the allegory; nevertheless the Magas are the Magi of Chaldća, and their caste and worship were born on the earlier Atlantis, in Shâka-dvîpa, the Sinless. All the Orientalists are agreed that the Magas of Shâka-dvîpa are the forefathers of the fire-worshipping Parsîs. Our quarrel with them rests, as usual, on their dwarfing periods of hundreds of thousands of years this time into only a few centuries; in spite of Nârada and Sâmba, they carry the event only to the days of the flight of the Parsîs to Gujerat. This is simply absurd, as this took place only in the eighth century of our era. True, the Magas are credited in the _Bhavishya Purâna_ with still living in Shâka-dvîpa in the day of Krishna's "son," nevertheless the last portion of that Continent--Plato's "Atlantis"--had perished 6,000 years before. They were Magas "late of" Shâkadvîpa, and in those days lived in Chaldća. This, again, is an intentional confusion. The earliest pioneers of the Fourth Race were not Atlanteans, nor yet were they the human Asuras and the Râkshasas which they became later. In those days large portions of the future Continent of Atlantis were yet part and parcel of the ocean floors. Lemuria, as we have called the Continent of the Third Race, was then a gigantic land.(725) It covered the whole area from the foot of the Himâlayas, which separated it from the inland sea rolling its waves over what is now Tibet, Mongolia, and the Great Desert of Shamo (Gobi); from Chittagong, westward to Hardwar, and eastward to Assam [? Annam]. From thence, it stretched south across what is known to us as Southern India, Ceylon, and Sumatra; then embracing on its way, as we go south, Madagascar on its right hand and Australia and Tasmania on its left, it ran down to within a few degrees of the Antarctic Circle; and from Australia, an inland region on the Mother Continent in those ages, it extended far into the Pacific Ocean, beyond Rapa-nui (Teapy, or Easter Island) which now lies in latitude 26°S., and longitude 110°W.(726) This statement seems to be corroborated by Science--even if only partially. When discussing continental trends, and showing the infra-Arctic masses trending generally with the meridian, several ancient continents are mentioned, though inferentially. Among such are mentioned the "Mascarene continent," which included Madagascar, stretching north and south, and another ancient continent which "stretched from Spitzbergen to the Straits of Dover, while most of the other parts of Europe were sea bottom."(727) This corroborates the Occult teaching which says that what are now the polar regions were formerly the earliest of the seven cradles of Humanity, and the tomb of the bulk of the Mankind of that region during the Third Race, when the gigantic Continent of Lemuria began separating into smaller continents. This is due, according to the explanation in the Commentary, to a decrease of velocity in the Earth's rotation: _When the Wheel runs at the usual rate, its extremities [the poles] agree with its middle Circle [the equator], when it runs slower and tilts in every direction, there is a great disturbance on the face of the Earth. The waters flow toward the two ends, and new lands arise in the middle Belt [equatorial lands], while those at the ends are subject to Pralayas by submersion._ And again: _Thus the Wheel [the Earth] is subject to, and regulated by, the Spirit of the Moon, for the breath of its waters [tides]. Toward the close of the age [Kalpa] of a great [Root-] Race, the Regents of the Moon [the Fathers, or Pitris] begin drawing harder, and thus flatten the Wheel about its Belt, when it goes down in some places and swells in others, and the swelling running toward the extremities [poles], new lands will arise and old ones be sucked in._ We have only to read astronomical and geological works, to see the meaning of the above very clearly. Scientists--_modern_ Specialists--have ascertained the influence of the tides on the geological distribution of land and water on the planet, and have noted the shifting of the oceans with a corresponding subsidence and rise of continents and new lands. Science knows, or thinks it knows, that this occurs periodically.(728) Professor Todd believes he can trace the series of oscillations backward to the periods of the Earth's first incrustation.(729) Therefore it seems easy for Science to verify the Esoteric statement. We propose to treat of this at greater length in the Addenda. Some Theosophists who have understood from a few words in _Esoteric Buddhism_ that "old continents" which have been submerged will reäppear, have asked the question: "What will Atlantis be like when raised?" Here, again, there is a slight misconception. Were identically the _same_ lands of Atlantis that were submerged to be raised again, then they would, indeed, be _barren for ages_. But because the Atlantic sea-bottom is covered with some 5,000 feet of chalk at present, and more is forming--a new "cretaceous formation" of strata, in fact--that is no reason why, when the time for a new Continent to appear arrives, a geological convulsion and upraising of the sea-bottom should not dispose of these 5,000 feet of chalk for the formation of some mountains and 5,000 more come to the surface. The Racial Cataclysms are not a Noah's Deluge of forty days--a kind of Bombay monsoon. That the periodical sinking and reäppearance of the mighty Continents, now called Atlantis and Lemuria by modern writers, is no fiction, will be demonstrated in the Section in which all the evidence has been collated together. The most archaic Sanskrit and Tamil works teem with references to both Continents. The seven sacred Islands (Dvîpas) are mentioned in the _Sűrya Siddhânta_, the oldest astronomical work in the whole world, and in the works of Asura Maya, the Atlantean Astronomer whom Professor Weber has made out to be "reďncarnated" in Ptolemy. Yet, it is a mistake to call these "Sacred Islands" Atlantean--as is done by us; for, like everything else in the Hindű Sacred Books, they are made to refer to several things. The heirloom left by Priyavrata, the Son of Svâyambhuva Manu, to his seven sons--was not Atlantis, even though one or two of these Islands survived the subsidence of their fellows, and offered shelter, ages later, to Atlanteans, whose Continent had been submerged in its turn. When first mentioned by Parâshara in the _Vishnu Purâna_, the seven refer to an Esoteric Doctrine which is explained further on. In this connection, of all the seven Islands, Jambu-dvîpa (our Globe) is the only one that is terrestrial. In the _Purânas_ every reference to the North of Meru is connected with that Primeval Eldorado, now the North Polar region, which, when the magnolia blossomed where now we see an unexplored endless desert of ice, was then a Continent. Science speaks of an "ancient continent" which stretched from Spitzbergen down to the Straits of Dover. The Secret Doctrine teaches that, in the earliest geological periods, these regions formed a horse-shoe-like continent, whose one end, the Eastern, far more northward than North Cornwall, included Greenland, and the other contained Behring's Straits as an inland piece of ground, and descended southward in its natural trend down to the British Isles, which in those days must have been right under the lower curve of the semi-circle. This Continent was raised simultaneously with the submersion of the equatorial portions of Lemuria. Ages later, some of the Lemurian remains reäppeared again on the face of the oceans. Therefore, though it can be said, without departing from truth, that Atlantis is included in the seven great Insular Continents since the Fourth Race Atlanteans came into possession of some of the Lemurian relics, and settling on the islands, included them among _their_ lands and continents, yet a difference should be made and an explanation given, once that a fuller and more accurate account is attempted, as in the present work. Easter Island was also taken possession of in this manner by some Atlanteans; who, having escaped from the Cataclysm which befell their own land, settled on this remnant of Lemuria, but only to perish thereon, when it was destroyed in one day by volcanic fires and lava. This may be regarded as fiction by certain Geographers and Geologists; to the Occultists, however, it is _history_. What does Science know to the contrary? Until the appearance of a map, published at Basle in 1522, wherein the name of America appears for the first time, _the latter was believed to be part of India_.... Science also refuses to sanction the wild hypothesis that there was a time when the Indian peninsula at one end of the line, and South America at the other, connected by a belt of islands and continents. The India of the pre-historic ages ... was doubly connected with the two Americas. The lands of the ancestors of those whom Ammianus Marcellinus calls the "Brâhmans of Upper India," stretched from Kashmir far into the (now) deserts of Shamo. A pedestrian from the north might then have reached--hardly wetting his feet--the Alaskan Peninsula, through Manchooria, across the _future_ Gulf of Tartary, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands; while another traveller, furnished with a canoe, and starting from the south, could have walked over from Siam, crossed the Polynesian Islands and trudged into any part of the continent of South America.(730) This was written from the words of a Master--a rather doubtful authority for the Materialists and Sceptics. But here we have one of their own flock, and a bird of the same feather, Ernst Hćckel, who, in _his_ distribution of races, corroborates the statement almost _verbatim_: It would seem that the region on the earth's surface where the evolution of these primitive men from the _closely related catarrhine apes_ [!!] took place, must be sought either in Southern Asia or Eastern Africa [which, by the bye, was not even in existence when the Third Race flourished], or in Lemuria. Lemuria is an ancient continent now sunk beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean which, lying to the South of the Asia of to-day, stretched on the one hand eastwards to Upper India and Sunda Island, on the other westward as far as Madagascar and Africa.(731) In the epoch of which we are treating, the Continent of Lemuria had already broken asunder in many places, and formed new separate continents. Nevertheless, neither Africa nor the Americas, still less Europe, existed in those days; all of them slumbering as yet on the ocean-floors. Nor was there much of present Asia; for the Cis-Himâlayan regions were covered with seas, and beyond them stretched the "lotus leaves" of Shveta-dvîpa, the countries now called Greenland, Eastern and Western Siberia, etc. The immense Continent, which had once reigned supreme over the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans, now consisted of huge islands which were gradually disappearing one after the other, until the final convulsion engulfed the last remains of it. Easter Island, for instance, belongs to the earliest civilization of the Third Race. It was a volcanic and sudden uplifting of the ocean-floor, which raised this small relic of the Archaic Ages--after it had been submerged with the rest--untouched, with its volcano and statues, during the Champlain epoch of north polar submersion, as a standing witness to the existence of Lemuria. It is said that some of the Australian tribes are the last remnants of the last descendants of the Third Race. In this we are again corroborated to a degree by Materialistic Science. Hćckel, when speaking of Blumenbach's brown or Malay race, and the Australians and Papuans, remarks: There is much likeness between these last and the Aborigines of Polynesia, that Australian island-world, that _seems to have been once on a time a gigantic and continuous continent_.(732) It certainly was "a gigantic and continuous continent," for, during the Third Race, it stretched east and west, as far as where the two Americas now lie. The present Australia was but a portion of it, and in addition to this there are a few surviving islands strewn hither and thither on the face of the Pacific, and a large strip of California, which belonged to it. Funnily enough, Hćckel, in his fantastic _Pedigree of Man_, considers: The Australians of to-day as the lineal descendants, almost unchanged [?!], of that _second_ branch of the primitive human race ... that spread northwards, at first chiefly in Asia, from the home of man's infancy, and seems to have been the parent of all the other straight-haired races of men.... The one, woolly- haired, migrated in part westwards [_i.e._, to Africa and eastwards to New Guinea, which countries had then, as said, no existence as yet].... The other, straight-haired, was evolved farther to the North, in Asia, and ... peopled Australia.(733) As writes a Master: Behold the relics of that once great nation [Lemuria of the Third Race] in _some_ of the flat-headed aborigines of your Australia.(734) But they belong to the last remnants of the seventh sub-race of the Third. Professor Hćckel must also have _dreamt_ a dream and seen for once a _true_ vision! It is to this period that we have to look for the first appearance of the ancestors of those, whom we term the most ancient peoples of the world--now called respectively the Âryan Hindűs, the Egyptians, and the oldest Persians, on the one hand, and the Chaldees and Phoenicians on the other. These were governed by the Divine Dynasties, _i.e._, Kings and Rulers who had of mortal man only his physical appearance _as it was then_, but who were Beings from Spheres higher and more celestial than our own Sphere will be, long Manvantaras hence. It is, of course, useless to attempt to force the existence of such Beings on sceptics. _Their_ greatest pride consists in proving their patronymic denomination as Catarrhinides--a fact which they try to demonstrate on the alleged authority of the Coccyx appended to their Os Sacrum, that rudimentary tail which, if it were only long enough, they would wag with joy and for ever, in honour of its eminent discoverer. These will remain as faithful to their Ape-ancestors as Christians will to tailless Adam. The Secret Doctrine, however, sets Theosophists and students of the Occult Sciences right on this point. If we regard the second portion of the Third Race as the first representatives of the _really human race_ with solid bones, then Hćckel's surmise that "the evolution of the primitive men took place ...in _either_ Southern Asia or ... Lemuria"--Africa, whether Eastern or Western being out of the question--is correct enough, if not entirely so. To be accurate, however, just as the evolution of the First Race, from the bodies of the Pitris, took place on seven distinctly separated regions, at the Arctic Pole of the (then) only Earth--so did the ultimate transformation of the Third occur. It began in those northern regions, which have just been described as including Behring's Straits, and what there then was of dry land in Central Asia, when the climate was semi-tropical even in the Arctic regions and excellently adapted to the primitive wants of nascent physical man. That region, however, has been more than once frigid and tropical in turn since the appearance of man. The Commentary tells us that the Third Race was only about the middle point of its development when: _The axle of the Wheel tilted. The Sun and Moon shone no longer over __ the heads of that portion of the Sweat-born; people knew snow, ice, and frost, and men, plants, and animals were dwarfed in their growth. Those that did not perish remained as half-grown babes_(_735_)_ in size and intellect. This was the third Pralaya of the Races._(736) This means again, that our Globe is subject to seven periodical and _entire_ changes which go _pari passu_ with the Races. For the Secret Doctrine teaches that, during this Round, there must be seven terrestrial Pralayas, occasioned by the change in the inclination of the Earth's axis. It is a Law which acts at its appointed time, and not at all blindly, as Science may think, but in strict accordance and harmony with Karmic Law. In Occultism this Inexorable Law is referred to as the "Great Adjuster." Science confesses its ignorance of the cause producing climatic vicissitudes and also the changes in the axial direction, which are always followed by these vicissitudes. In fact, it does not seem at all sure of the axial changes. And being unable to account for them, it is prepared to deny the axial phenomena altogether, rather than admit the intelligent hand of the Karmic Law which alone can reasonably explain these sudden changes and their accompanying results. It has tried to account for them by various and more or less fantastic speculations; one of which, as de Boucheporn imagined, would be the sudden collision of our Earth with a Comet, thus causing all the geological revolutions. But we prefer holding to our Esoteric explanation, since Fohat is as good as any Comet, and, in addition, has universal Intelligence to guide him. Thus, since Vaivasvata Manu's Humanity appeared on this Earth, there have already been four such axial disturbances. The old Continents--save the first--were sucked in by the oceans, other lands appeared, and huge mountain chains arose where there had been none before. The face of the Globe was completely changed each time; the "survival of the fittest" nations and races was secured through timely help; and the unfit ones--the failures--were disposed of by being swept off the Earth. Such sorting and shifting does not happen between sunset and sunrise, as one may think, but requires several thousands of years before the new house is set in order. The sub-races are also subject to the same cleansing process, and the side-branchlets or family-races as well. Let any one, well acquainted with astronomy and mathematics, throw a retrospective glance into the twilight and shadows of the Past. Let him observe and take notes of what he knows of the history of peoples and nations, and collate their respective rises and falls with what is known of astronomical cycles--especially with the Sidereal Year, which is equal to 25,868 of our solar years.(737) Then, if the observer is gifted with the faintest intuition, he will find how the weal and woe of nations are intimately connected with the beginning and close of this Sidereal Cycle. True, the non-occultist has the disadvantage that he has no such far distant times to rely upon. He knows nothing, through exact Science, of what took place nearly 10,000 years ago; yet he may find consolation in the knowledge of, or--if he so prefers--speculation about, the fate of every one of the modern nations he knows of--some 16,000 years hence. Our meaning is very clear. Every Sidereal Year the tropics recede from the pole _four degrees_ in each revolution from the equinoctial points, as the equator turns through the Zodiacal constellations. Now, as every Astronomer knows, at present the tropic is only twenty-three degrees and a fraction less than half a degree from the equator. Hence it has still two and a half degrees to run before the end of the Sidereal Year. This gives humanity in general, and our civilized races in particular, a reprieve of about 16,000 years. After the Great Flood of the Third Race (the Lemurians) as Commentary Thirty-three tells us: _Men decreased considerably in stature, and the duration of their lives was diminished. Having fallen down in godliness they mixed with animal races, and intermarried among giants and pigmies [the dwarfed races of the Poles].... Many acquired divine, nay more--unlawful knowledge, and followed willingly the Left Path._ Thus were the Atlanteans approaching destruction in their turn. How many geological periods it took to accomplish this _fourth_ destruction who can tell! But we are told that: 44. THEY(738) BUILT GREAT IMAGES NINE YATIS HIGH,(739) THE SIZE OF THEIR BODIES (_a_). INNER FIRES HAD DESTROYED THE LAND OF THEIR FATHERS.(740) WATER THREATENED THE FOURTH(741) (_b_). (_a_) It is well worth noticing that most of the gigantic statues discovered on Easter Island, a portion of an undeniably submerged continent, as also those found on the outskirts of Gobi, a region which had been submerged for untold ages, are all between twenty and thirty feet high. The statues found by Cook on Easter Island measured almost all twenty-seven feet in height, and eight feet across the shoulders.(742) The writer is well aware that the modern Archćologists have decided that "these statues are not very old," as declared by one of the high officials of the British Museum, where some of them now are. But this is one of those arbitrary decisions of Modern Science which does not carry much weight. We are told that after the destruction of Lemuria by subterranean fires men went on steadily decreasing in stature--a process already commenced after their _physical_ Fall--and that finally, some millions of years later, they decreased to between six and seven feet, and are now, as in the older Asiatic races, dwindling down to nearer five than six feet. As Pickering shows, there is in the Malay race (a sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race) a singular diversity of stature; the members of the Polynesian family, such as the Tahitians, Samoans, and Tonga islanders, are of a _higher stature than the rest of mankind_; but the Indian tribes and the inhabitants of the Indo-Chinese countries are decidedly below the general average. This is easily explained. The Polynesians belong to the very earliest of the surviving sub-races, the others to the very latest and most transitory stock. As the Tasmanians are now completely extinct, and the Australians rapidly dying out, so will the other old races soon follow. (_b_) How could those records have been preserved? we may be asked. Even the knowledge of the Zodiac by the Hindűs is denied by our kind and learned Orientalists, who conclude that the Âryan Hindűs knew nothing of it, before the Greeks brought it into the country. This uncalled-for slander has been so sufficiently refuted by Bailly, and what is more, by the clear _evidence of facts_, as not to need very much additional refutation. While the Egyptian Zodiacs(743) preserve irrefutable proofs of records embracing more than three-and-a-half Sidereal Years--or about 87,000 years--the Hindű calculations cover nearly thirty-three such years, or 850,000 years. The Egyptian priests assured Herodotus that the Pole of the Earth and the Pole of the Ecliptic had formerly coincided. But, as remarked by the author of the _Sphinxiad_: These _poor benighted_ Hindoos have registered a knowledge of Astronomy for ten times 25,000 years since the [last local] Flood [in Asia], or Age of Horror. And they possess recorded observations from the date of the first Great Flood within the Âryan _historical_ memory--the Flood which submerged the last portions of Atlantis 850,000 years ago. The Floods which preceded are, of course, more traditional than historical. The sinking and transformation of Lemuria began nearly at the Arctic Circle (Norway), and the Third Race ended its career in Lankâ, or rather on that which became Lankâ with the Atlanteans. The small remnant now known as Ceylon is the Northern highland of ancient Lankâ, while the enormous Island of that name was, in the Lemurian period, the gigantic Continent already described. As a Master says: _Why should not your geologists bear in mind that under the continents explored and fathomed by them ... there may be hidden, deep in the fathomless, or rather unfathomed ocean beds, other and far older continents whose strata have never been geologically explored; and that they may some day upset entirely their present theories? Why not admit that our present continents have, like Lemuria and Atlantis, been several times already submerged, and had the time to reäppear again, and bear their new groups of mankind and civilizations; and that at the first great geological upheaval at the next cataclysm, in the series of periodical cataclysms that occur from the beginning to the end of every Round, our already autopsized continents will go down, and the Lemurias and Atlantises come up again?_(744) Not identically the _same_ Continents, of course. But here an explanation is needed. No confusion need arise as regards the postulation of a Northern Lemuria. The prolongation of that great Continent into the North Atlantic Ocean is in no way subversive of the opinions so widely held as to the site of the lost Atlantis, and one corroborates the other. It must be noted that the Lemuria, which served as the cradle of the Third Root- Race, not only embraced a vast area in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but extended in the shape of a horse-shoe past Madagascar, round "South Africa" (then a mere fragment in process of formation), through the Atlantic up to Norway. The great English fresh-water deposit called the Wealden--which every Geologist regards as the mouth of a former great river--is the bed of _the main stream which drained Northern Lemuria in the Secondary age_. The former actual existence of this river is a fact of Science--its votaries acknowledge the necessity of accepting the Secondary- age Northern Lemuria, demanded by their data? Professor Berthold Seemann not only accepted the reality of such a mighty continent, but regarded Australia and Europe _as formerly portions of one continent_--thus corroborating the whole "horse-shoe" doctrine already enunciated. No more striking confirmation of our position could be given, than the fact that the _elevated ridge_ in the Atlantic basin, 9,000 feet in height, which runs for some two or three thousand miles southwards from a point near the British Islands, first slopes towards South America, then _shifts almost at right angles_ to proceed in a _south-easterly_ line _toward the African coast_, whence it runs on southward to Tristan d'Acunha. This ridge is a remnant of an Atlantic continent, and, could it be traced further, would establish the reality of a submarine horse-shoe junction with a former continent in the Indian Ocean.(745) The _Atlantic portion of Lemuria_ was the geological basis of what is generally known as Atlantis, but which must be regarded rather as a development of the Atlantic prolongation of Lemuria than as an entirely new mass of land upheaved to meet the special requirements of the Fourth Root-Race. Just as in the case of Race evolution, so in that of the shifting and re-shifting of Continental masses, no hard and fast line can be drawn as to where a new order ends and another begins. Continuity in natural processes is never broken. Thus the Fourth-Race Atlanteans were developed from a nucleus of Northern Lemurian Third-Race Men, centred, roughly speaking, toward a point of land in what is now the mid-Atlantic Ocean. Their Continent was formed by the coalescence of many islands and peninsulas which were upheaved in the ordinary course of time and ultimately became the true home of the great Race known as the Atlanteans. After this consummation was once attained it follows, as stated on the highest Occult authority, that: _Lemuria should no more be confounded with the Atlantis Continent, than Europe with America._(746) The above, coming from quarters so discredited by orthodox Science, will, of course, be regarded as a more or less happy fiction. Even the clever work of Donnelly, already mentioned, is put aside, notwithstanding that its statements are all confined within a frame of strictly scientific proofs. But we write for the future. New discoveries in this direction will vindicate the claim of the Asiatic Philosophers, that sciences--Geology, Ethnology, and History included--were pursued by the Antediluvian nations who lived untold ages ago. Future "finds" will justify the correctness of the present observations of such acute minds as H. A. Taine and Renan. The former shows that the civilizations of such archaic nations as the Egyptians, Âryans of India, Chaldćans, Chinese, and Assyrians are the result of preceding civilizations lasting "_myriads_ of centuries";(747) and the latter points to the fact that: Egypt at the beginning appears mature, old, and entirely without mythical and heroic ages, as if the country had never known youth. Its civilization has no infancy, and its art no archaic period. The civilization of the Old Monarchy did not begin with infancy. It was already mature.(748) To this Professor R. Owen adds that: Egypt is recorded to have been a civilized and governed community _before_ the time of Menes. And Winchell states that: At the epoch of Menes the Egyptians were already a civilized and numerous people. Manetho tells us that Athotis, the son of this first king Menes, built the palace of Memphis; that he was a physician, and left _anatomical books_. This is quite natural if we are to believe the statement of Herodotus, who records in Euterpe (cxlii), that the written history of the Egyptian priests dated from about 12,000 years before his time. But what are 12,000 or even 120,000 years compared with the millions of years which have elapsed since the Lemurian period? The latter, however, has not been left without witnesses, notwithstanding its tremendous antiquity. The complete records of the growth, development, social and even political life of the Lemurians, have been preserved in the Secret Annals. Unfortunately, few are those who can read them; and those who could would still be unable to understand the language, unless acquainted with all the seven keys of its symbolism. For the comprehension of the Occult Doctrine is based on that of the Seven Sciences; and these Sciences find their expression in the seven different applications of the Secret Records to the exoteric texts. Thus we have to deal with modes of thought on seven entirely different planes of Ideality. Every text relates to, and has to be rendered from, one of the following standpoints: 1. The Realistic Plane of Thought. 2. The Idealistic. 3. The purely Divine or Spiritual. The other planes too far transcend the average consciousness, especially of the materialistic mind, to admit of their being even symbolized in terms of ordinary phraseology. There is no purely _mythical_ element in any of the ancient religious texts; but the mode of thought in which they were originally written has to be found out and closely adhered to during the process of interpretation. For it is symbolical, the archaic mode of thought; emblematical, a later though very ancient mode of thought; parabolical or allegorical; hieroglyphical; or again logogrammical, the most difficult method of all; every letter, as in the Chinese language, representing a whole word. Thus, almost every proper name, whether in the _Vedas_, the _Book of the Dead_, or, to a certain degree, in the _Bible_, is composed of such logograms. No one not initiated into the mystery of the Occult religious logography can presume to know what a name in any ancient fragment means, before he has mastered the meaning of every letter that composes it. How is it to be expected that the merely profane thinker, however great may be his erudition in orthodox symbolism, so to say--_i.e._, in that symbolism which can never get out of the old grooves of solar myth and sexual worship--how is it to be expected that the profane scholar should penetrate into the arcana behind the veil? One who deals with the husk or shell of the dead-letter, and devotes himself to the kaleidoscopic transformation of barren word-symbols, can never expect to get beyond the vagaries of modern Mythologists. Thus, Vaivasvata, Xisuthrus, Deucalion, Noah, etc.,--all the head-figures of the World-Deluges, universal and partial, astronomical or geological--all furnish in their very names the records of the causes and effects which led to the event, if one can but read them fully. All such Deluges are based on events that took place in Nature, and stand as _historical_ records, therefore--whether they were sidereal, geological, or even simply allegorical--of a moral event on other and higher planes of being. This we believe has now been sufficiently demonstrated during the long explanation necessitated by the allegorical Stanzas. To speak of a race nine "yatis," or twenty-seven feet, high, in a work claiming a more scientific character than, let us say, the story of "Jack the Giant-Killer," is a somewhat unusual proceeding. Where are your proofs?--the writer will be asked. In history and tradition, is the answer. Traditions about a race of giants in days of old are universal; they exist in oral and written lore. India had her Dânavas and Daityas; Ceylon had her Râkshasas; Greece, her Titans; Egypt, her colossal Heroes; Chaldća, her Izdubars (Nimrod); and the Jews their Emims of the land of Moab, with the famous giants, Anakim.(749) Moses speaks of Og, a king whose "bedstead" was nine cubits long (15ft. 4in.) and four wide,(750) and Goliath was "six cubits and a span in height" (or 10ft. 7in.). The only difference found between "revealed scripture" and the evidence furnished to us by Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Homer, Pliny, Plutarch, Philostratus, etc., is this: While the Pagans mention only the _skeletons of giants_, dead untold ages before, relics that some of them _had personally seen_, the _Bible_ interpreters unblushingly demand that Geology and Archćology should believe, that several countries were inhabited by such giants in the day of Moses; giants before whom the Jews were as grasshoppers, and who still existed in the days of Joshua and David. Unfortunately their own chronology is in the way. Either the latter or the giants has to be given up. Of yet standing witnesses to the submerged Continents, and the colossal men that inhabited them, there are still a few. Archćology claims several such on this Earth, though beyond wondering "what these may be"--it has never made any serious attempt to solve the mystery. Not to speak of the Easter Island statues already mentioned, to what epoch belong the colossal statues, still erect and intact near Bamian? Archćology, as usual, assigns them to the first centuries of Christianity, and errs in this as it does in many other speculations. A few words of description will show the readers what are the statues of both Easter Isle and Bamian. We will first examine what is known of them to orthodox Science. Teapi, Rapa-nui, or Easter Island, is an isolated spot almost 2,000 miles from the South American coast.... In length it is about twelve miles, in breadth four ... and there is an extinct crater 1,050 feet high in its centre. The island abounds in craters, which have been extinct for so long that no tradition of their activity remains.(751) But who made the great stone images(752) which are now the chief attraction of the island to visitors? "_No one knows_," says a reviewer. It is more than likely that they were here when the present inhabitants [a handful of Polynesian savages] arrived.... Their workmanship _is of a high order_, ... and it is believed that the race who formed them were the frequenters of the natives of Peru and other portions of South America.... Even at the date of Cook's visit, some of the statues, measuring twenty-seven feet in height and eight across the shoulders, were lying overthrown, while others still standing appeared much larger. One of the latter was so lofty that the shade was sufficient to shelter a party of thirty persons from the heat of the sun. The platforms on which these colossal images stood averaged from thirty to forty feet in length, twelve to sixteen broad ... all built of hewn stone in the Cyclopean style, very much like the walls of the Temple of Pachacamac, _or the ruins of Tia-Huanaco in Peru_.(753) "_There is no reason to believe that any of the statues have been built up, bit by bit, by scaffolding erected around them_," adds the reviewer very suggestively--without explaining _how_ they could be built otherwise, unless made by giants of the same size as the statues themselves. Two of the best of these colossal images are now in the British Museum. The images at Ronororaka are four in number, three deeply sunk in the soil, and one resting on the back of its head like a man asleep. Their types, though all are long-headed, are different; and they are evidently meant for portraits, as the noses, the mouths, and chins differ greatly in form; their head-dress, moreover--a kind of flat cap with a piece attached to it to cover the back portion of the head--shows that the originals were no savages of the stone period. Verily the question may be asked, Who made them?--but it is not Archćology nor yet Geology that is likely to answer, even though the latter recognizes in the island a portion of a submerged continent. But who cut the Bamian, still more colossal, statues, the tallest and the most gigantic in the whole world?--for Bartholdi's "Statue of Liberty," now at New York, _is a dwarf_ when compared with the largest of the five images. Burnes, and several learned Jesuits who have visited the place, speak of a mountain "all honeycombed with gigantic cells," with two immense giants cut in the same rock. They are referred to as the modern Miaotse (_vide supra_, quotation from _Shoo-King_), the last surviving witnesses of the Miaotse who had "troubled the earth"; the Jesuits are right, and the Archćologists, who see Buddhas in the largest of these statues, are mistaken. For all those numberless gigantic ruins which are discovered one after the other in our day, all those immense avenues of colossal ruins that cross North America along and beyond the Rocky Mountains, are the work of the Cyclopes, the true and actual Giants of old. "Masses of enormous human bones" were found "in America, near Munte [?]" a celebrated modern traveller tells us, precisely on the spot which local tradition points out as the landing spot of those giants who overran America when it had hardly arisen from the waters.(754) Central Asian traditions say the same of the Bamian statues. What are they, and what is the place where they have stood for countless ages, defying the cataclysms around them, and even the hand of man, as in the instance of the hordes of Timoor and the Vandal-warriors of Nadir Shah? Bamian is a small, miserable, half-ruined town in Central Asia, half-way between Cabul and Balkh, at the foot of Koh-i-baba, a huge mountain of the Paropamisian, or Hindu-Kush, Chain, some 8,500 feet above the level of the sea. In days of old, Bamian was a portion of the ancient city of Djooljool, ruined and destroyed to the last stone by Tchengis-Khan in the thirteenth century. The whole valley is hemmed in by colossal rocks, which are full of partially natural and partially artificial caves and grottoes, once the dwellings of Buddhist monks who had established in them their Vihâras. Such Vihâras are to be met with in profusion, to this day, in the rock-cut temples of India and the valleys of Jellalabad. In front of some of these caves five enormous statues--of what is regarded as Buddha--have been discovered or rather _rediscovered_ in our century, for the famous Chinese traveller Hiouen Thsang speaks of having seen them, when he visited Bamian in the seventh century. The contention that no larger statues exist on the whole globe, is easily proven on the evidence of all the travellers who have examined them and taken their measurements. Thus, the largest is 173 feet high, or _seventy_ feet higher than the "Statue of Liberty" now at New York, as the latter is only 105 feet or 34 mčtres high. The famous Colossus of Rhodes itself, between whose legs the largest vessels of those days passed with ease, measured only 120 to 130 feet in height. The second largest statue, which is also cut out in the rock like the first, is only 120 feet or fifteen feet taller than the said "Liberty."(755) The third statue is only 60 feet high, the two others still smaller, the last being only a little larger than the average tall man of our present Race. The first and largest of the colossi represents a man draped in a kind of "toga"; M. de Nadeylac thinks that the general appearance of the figure, the lines of the head, the drapery, and especially the large hanging ears, are undeniable indications that Buddha was meant to be represented. But they really prove nothing. Notwithstanding the fact that most of the now existing figures of Buddha, represented in the posture of Samâdhi, have large drooping ears, this is a later innovation and an afterthought. The primitive idea was due to Esoteric allegory. The unnaturally large ears symbolize the omniscience of wisdom, and were meant as a reminder of the power of Him who _knows and hears all_, and whose benevolent love and attention for all creatures nothing can escape. As a Shloka says: _The merciful Lord, our Master, hears the cry of agony of the smallest of the small, beyond vale and mountain, and hastens to its deliverance._ Gautama Buddha was an Âryan Hindű, and an approach to such ears is found only among the Mongolian Burmese and Siamese, who, as in Cochin, distort their ears artificially. The Buddhist monks, who turned the grottoes of the Miao-tse into Vihâras and cells, came into Central Asia about or in the first century of the Christian era. Therefore, Hiouen Thsang, speaking of the colossal statue, says that "the shining of the gold ornamentation that overlaid the statue" in his day "dazzled one's eyes," but of such gilding there remains not a vestige in modern times. The drapery, in contrast to the figure itself, which is cut out of the standing rock, is made of plaster and modelled over the stone image. Talbot, who has made the most careful examination, found that this drapery belonged to a far later epoch. The statue itself has therefore to be assigned to a far earlier period than Buddhism. In such case, it may be asked, Whom does it represent? Once more tradition, corroborated by written records, answers the query, and explains the mystery. The Buddhist Arhats and Ascetics found the five statues, and many more, now crumbled down to dust. Three of them standing in colossal niches at the entrance of their future abode, they covered with plaster, and, over the old, modelled new statues made to represent Lord Tathâgata. The interior walls of the niches are covered to this day with bright paintings of human figures, and the sacred image of Buddha is repeated in every group. These frescoes and ornaments--which remind one of the Byzantine style of painting--are all due to the piety of the monk- ascetics, as also are some other minor figures and rock-cut ornamentations. But the five statues belong to the handiwork of the Initiates of the Fourth Race, who, after the submersion of their Continent, sought refuge in the fastnesses and on the summits of the Central Asian mountain chains. Thus, the five statues are an imperishable record of the Esoteric Teaching as to the gradual evolution of the Races. The largest is made to represent the First Race of mankind, its ethereal body being commemorated in hard, everlasting stone, for the instruction of future generations, as its remembrance would otherwise never have survived the Atlantean Deluge. The second--120 feet high--represents the Sweat-born; and the third--measuring 60 feet--immortalizes the Race that fell, and thereby inaugurated the first _physical_ Race, born of father and mother, the last descendants of which are represented in the statues found on Easter Isle. These were only from 20 to 25 feet in stature at the epoch when Lemuria was submerged, after it had been nearly destroyed by volcanic fires. The Fourth Race was still smaller, though gigantic in comparison with our present Fifth Race, and the series culminated finally in the latter. These are, then, the "Giants" of antiquity, the ante- and post-diluvian Gibborim of the _Bible_. They lived and flourished one million years ago rather than between three and four thousand only. The Anakim of Joshua, whose hosts were as "grasshoppers" in comparison with the Jews, are thus a piece of Israelite fancy, unless indeed the people of Israel claim for Joshua an antiquity and origin in the Eocene, or at any rate in the Miocene age, and change the millenniums of their chronology into millions of years. In everything that pertains to prehistoric times the reader ought to bear in mind the wise words of Montaigne. Saith the great French Philosopher: It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false, which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an ordinarie fault in those who perswade themselves to be of more sufficiencie than the vulgar sort.... But reason hath taught me, that so resolutely to condemne a thing for false and impossible, is to assume unto himself the advantage to have the bounds and limits of God's will, and the power of our common mother Nature tied to his sleeve, and that there is no greater folly in the world than to reduce them to the measure of our capacitie and bounds of our sufficiencie.... If we term those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attain, how many such doe daily present themselves unto our sight? Let us consider through what cloudes, and how blinde-folde, we are led to the knowledge of most things that passe our hands; verily we shall finde it is rather custome than science that receiveth the strangenesse of them from us: and that those things, were they newly presented unto us, wee should doubtless deeme them as much or more unlikely and incredible than any other.(756) A fair-minded scholar, before denying the possibility of _our_ history and records, should search modern history, as well as the universal traditions scattered throughout ancient and modern literature, for traces left by these marvellous early races. Few among the unbelievers suspect the wealth of corroborative evidence which is to be found scattered about and buried, even in the British Museum alone. The reader is asked to throw one more glance at the subject-matter treated of in the Section which follows. Cyclopean Ruins And Colossal Stones As Witnesses To Giants. De Mirville, in his enormous works, "Mémoires Adressées aux Académies," carrying out the task of proving the reality of the Devil and showing his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages of "historical evidence" that, in the days of "miracle," both pagan and biblical, stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sang. That finally, the "Christ-stone," or Christ-rock, "the spiritual Rock" that followed Israel,(757) "became a Jupiter-lapis," swallowed by his father Saturn, "under the shape of a stone."(758) We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and materialization of biblical metaphors simply for the sake of proving the "Satanism" of idols, though a good deal might be said(759) on this subject. But without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence to hand, to show that: (_a_) had there been no giants to move such colossal rocks, there could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany), or other such Cyclopean structures; and (_b_) were there no such thing as Magic, there could never have been so many witnesses to "oracular" and "speaking" stones. In the _Achaica_ we find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work, he had regarded the Greeks as mighty _stupid_ "for worshipping stones." But, having reached Arcadia, he adds: "I have changed my way of thinking."(760) Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and statues, which is the same thing--a crime with which Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach Pagans, as they do--one may be allowed to believe in what so many great Philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be called an "idiot" by modern Pausaniuses. The reader is referred to the _Académie des Inscriptions_, if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles from the standpoint of magic and psychic powers. In a poem on "Stones" attributed to Orpheus, these stones are divided into Ophites and Sideritęs, the "Serpent-stone" and "Star-stone." The Ophitęs is shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and has _the gift of speech_; when one prepares to cast it away, it produces a sound _similar to the cry of a child_. It is by means of this stone that Helenus foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland.(761) Sanchuniathon and Philo Byblus, in referring to these "bétyles," call them "_animated_ stones." Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the physician Eusebius had asserted before him. Eusebius especially never parted with his Ophitęs, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from it, delivered _in a small voice resembling a low whistling_.(762) Arnobius, a holy man, who "from a Pagan had become one of the _lights of the Church_," as Christians tell their readers, confesses he could never meet with one of such stones without putting it a question, "which it answered occasionally in a _clear and sharp small voice_." Where, then, is the difference between the Christian and the Pagan Ophitęs, we ask? The famous stone at Westminster was called _liafail_, "the speaking stone," and raised its voice only to name the king that had to be chosen. Cambry, in his _Monuments Celtiques_, says he saw it when it still bore the inscription:(763) _Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatum_ _Invenient lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem_. Finally, Suidas speaks of a certain Herćscus, who could distinguish at a glance the inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions stones which "ran away when a hand approached them."(764) De Mirville--who seeks to justify the _Bible_--enquires very pertinently, why the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of old _chior- gaur_ or the "dance of giants" (from _côr_, "dance," whence _chorea_, and _gaur_, "giant")? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop St. Gildas. But the authors of such works as _Voyage dans le Comté de Cornouailles, sur les Traces des Géants_, and of various learned works on the ruins of Stonehenge,(765) Carnac, and West Hoadley, give far fuller and more reliable information upon this particular subject. In those regions--true forests of rocks--immense monoliths are found, "some weighing over 500,000 kilograms." These "hanging stones" of Salisbury Plain are believed to be the remains of a Druidical temple. But the Druids were historical men and not Cyclopes, or giants. Who then, _if not giants_, could ever raise such masses--especially those at Carnac and West Hoadley--range them in such symmetrical order that they should represent the planisphere, and place them in such wonderful equipoise that they seem to hardly touch the ground, and though set in motion at the slightest touch of the finger, would nevertheless resist the efforts of twenty men should they attempt to displace them. Now if we say that most of these stones are relics of the last Atlanteans, we shall be answered that all the Geologists claim them to be of a natural origin; that, a rock when "weathering"--_i.e._, losing flake after flake of its substance under the influence of the weather--assumes this form; that, the "tors" in West England exhibit curious forms, also produced by this cause. And thus since all Scientists consider the "rocking stones to be of purely natural origin, wind, rain, etc., causing disintegration of rocks in layers"--our statement will be justly denied, especially as "we see this process of rock-modification in progress around us to-day." Let us then examine the case. First read what Geology has to say, and you will then learn that often these gigantic masses are entire strangers in the countries wherein they are now fixed; that their geological congeners often pertain to strata unknown in those countries and which are only to be found far beyond the seas. Mr. William Tooke, in speculating upon the enormous blocks of granite which are strewn over Southern Russia and Siberia, tells the reader that where they now rest, there are neither rocks nor mountains; and that they must have been brought over "from immense distances and with prodigious efforts."(766) Charton speaks of a specimen of such rock from Ireland, which had been submitted to the analysis of an eminent English Geologist, who assigned to it a foreign origin "_perhaps even African_."(767) This is a strange _coincidence_, for Irish tradition attributes the origin of her circular stones to a _Sorcerer who brought them from Africa_. De Mirville sees in this Sorcerer "an accursed Hamite."(768) We see in him a dark Atlantean, or perhaps even some earlier Lemurian, who had survived till the birth of the British Islands--a giant in any and every case.(769) Says Cambry, naively: Men have nothing to do with it ... for never could _human_ power and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has accomplished it all [!!] and Science will demonstrate it some day [!!].(770) Nevertheless, it was _human_, though gigantic power, which accomplished it, and no more "Nature" alone than God or Devil. "Science," having undertaken to demonstrate that even the Mind and Spirit of man are simply the production of "blind forces," is quite capable of accepting the task, and it may be that she will come out some fine morning, and seek to prove that Nature alone has marshalled the gigantic rocks of Stonehenge, traced their position with mathematical precision, given them the form of the Dendera planisphere and of the signs of the Zodiac, and brought stones weighing over one million of pounds from Africa and Asia to England and Ireland! It is true that Cambry recanted later on, when saying: I believed for a long time in _Nature_, but I _recant_, ... for chance _is unable to create_ such marvellous combinations, ... and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau. Dr. John Watson, quoted by the same author, when speaking of the _moving_ rocks, or "rocking stones" situated on the slope of Golcar (the "Enchanter") says: The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the Celts compare them to Gods.(771) In _Stonehenge_, by Flinders Petrie, it is said that: Stonehenge is built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or "sarsen" stone, locally called "grey wethers." But some of the stones, especially those which are said to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a distance, probably the North of Ireland. To close, the reflections of a man of Science, in an article upon the subject published in 1850 in the _Revue Archéologique_, are worthy of being quoted: Every stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are, in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the word _materials_ seems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the things themselves. Besides which, these _immense rocking_ stones, called sometimes _routers_, placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion ... betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion, surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn ... all this allies them to Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating De la Vega, that "the demons seem to have worked on them more than men."(772) For once we agree with our friends and foes, the Roman Catholics, and ask whether such prodigies of statics and equilibrium, with masses weighing millions of pounds, can be the work of Palćolithic _savages_, of cave-men, taller than the average man in our century, yet ordinary mortals as we are? It is not our purpose to refer to the various traditions attached to the rocking stones. Still, it may be as well to remind the English reader of Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of such a stone on the Isle of Mona, which returned to its place, notwithstanding every effort to keep it elsewhere. At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II, a Count Hugo Cestrensis, desiring to convince himself of the reality of the fact, tied the Mona stone to a far larger one and had them thrown into the sea. On the following morning it was found in its accustomed place. The learned William of Salisbury warrants the fact by testifying to its presence in the wall of a church where he had seen it in 1554. And this reminds one of what Pliny said of the stone left by the Argonauts at Cyzicum, which the Cyzicans had placed in the Prytaneum, "whence it _ran away several times_, and so they were forced to weight it with lead."(773) Here we have immense stones stated by all antiquity to be "living, moving, speaking, and self- perambulating." They were also capable, it seems, of making people run away, since they were called _routers_, from the word to "rout," or "put to flight"; and Des Mousseaux shows them all to be prophetic stones, and sometimes called "_mad_ stones."(774) The rocking stone is accepted by Science. But why did it rock? One must be blind not to see that this motion was one more means of divination, and that they were called for this very reason the "stones of truth."(775) _This is history_, the past of prehistoric times warranting the same in later ages. The Dracontia, sacred to the Moon and the Serpent, were the more ancient "rocks of destiny" of older nations; and their motion, or _rocking_, was a code perfectly clear to the initiated priests, who alone had the key to this ancient _reading_. Vormius and Olaus Magnus show that it was according to the orders of the oracle, whose voice spoke through "these immense rocks raised by the colossal powers of [ancient] giants," that the kings of Scandinavia were elected. Says Pliny: In India and Persia it is she (the Persian Otizoë) whom the Magi had to consult for the election of their sovereigns;(776) and he further describes a rock overshadowing Harpasa, in Asia, and placed in such a manner that "a single finger can move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist."(777) Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brimham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode of _divination_ or oracular communications? The hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller, such as Brimham Rocks, with revolving stones on their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the Bishops of the Middle Ages destroyed all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would know more of these.(778) As it is, we know that they were universally used during long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy and _magic_. É. Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in the _Antiquités de France_ (vol. ix), an article showing the Chatampéramba (the "Field of Death," or ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical in situation with the old tombs at Carnac; that is to say, "a prominence and a central tomb." Bones are found in the tombs, and Mr. Halliwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives calling the tombs the "dwellings of the Râkshasas" or giants. Several stone circles, "considered the work of the Panch Pândava (five Pândus), as all such monuments are in India, where they are to be found in such great numbers," when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi, "were found to contain _human bones of a very large size_."(779) Again, De Mirville is right in his _generalization_, if not in his conclusions. As the long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly witnesses to "great natural geological commotions" (Charton), and "the work of Nature" (Cambry), is now exploded, his remarks are very just: We advise Science to reflect .... and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive legends; for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking masses will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to realize once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity.(780) This is just what we can never repeat too often, though it may be that the voices of both Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its modern speculations, as was ancient and medićval Theology in _its_ interpretations of the so-called _Revelation_. Science would have men descend from the pithecoid ape--a transformation requiring millions of years--and yet fears to make Mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual transformation of species, natural selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest, from mollusc to fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian--yet it refuses to man, who is physiologically only a higher mammal and animal, such a transformation of his external form. But if the monstrous Iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the ancestor of the diminutive Iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man--the link between Animal and Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this "theory" than in that of refusing to man a spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton, and ranking him, at the same time, _as a distinct genus_ in the system of Nature? Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present Exact Sciences, they are nevertheless more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and the natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant into an animal; but it requires more than the mere interplay between certain material aggregates and their environment, to call to life a _fully conscious man_, even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two "poor cousins" of the quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Hćckel that (objective) Life on our Globe "is a logical postulate of scientific natural history," but add that the rejection of a like _spiritual_ involution, from _within without_, of invisible subjective Spirit- Life--Eternal and a Principle in Nature--is more illogical, if possible, than to say that the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by "blind forces" inherent in Matter, without any _external_ help. Suppose an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come originally into being as follows: first, there was a progressive and gradual elaboration in space of an organizable material, which resulted in the production of a state of matter named _organic protein_; then, under the influence of incident forces, these states having been thrown into a phase of unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows; after which, having adapted all its parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed forth Mozart's "Requiem"; this was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc., _ad infinitum_, its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes by its own inherent force and fancy. What would Science say to such a theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialistic _savants_ tell us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its spiritual crown. Whatever may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on the subject of the gradual transformation of species, his words apply to our doctrine. Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications wrought by insensible gradations _on a preëxisting kind of being_.(781) Then why, in this case, should not historical man be the product of a modification on a preëxistent and prehistorical kind of man, even supposing for argument's sake that there is _nothing_ within him to last longer than, or live independently of, his physical structure? But this is not so! For, when we are told that "organic matters are produced in the laboratory by what we may literally call _artificial evolution_"(782)--we answer the distinguished English philosopher, that Alchemists and great Adepts did as much, and, indeed, far more, before the Chemists ever attempted to "build out of dissociated elements complex combinations." The Homunculi of Paracelsus are a fact in Alchemy, and will become one in Chemistry very likely, and then Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein's monster will have to be regarded as a prophecy. But no Chemist, or Alchemist either, will ever endow such a monster with more than animal instinct, unless indeed he does that with which the "Progenitors" are credited, namely, leave his own Physical Body, and incarnate in the "Empty Form." But even this would be an _artificial_, not a natural man, for our "Progenitors" had, in the course of eternal evolution, to become _Gods_ before they became Men. The above digression--if indeed it is one--is an attempt at justification before the few thinking men of the coming century who may read this. It also gives the reason why the best and most spiritual men of our present day can no longer be satisfied with either Science or Theology, and why they prefer any "psychic craze" to the dogmatic assertions of the pair, since neither of them, in its infallibility, has anything better to offer than _blind_ faith. _Universal_ tradition is by far the safer guide in life. And universal tradition shows Primitive Man living for ages together with his Creators and first Instructors--the Elohim--in the World's "Garden of Eden," or "Delight."(783) 45. THE FIRST GREAT WATERS CAME. THEY SWALLOWED THE SEVEN GREAT ISLANDS (_A_). 46. ALL HOLY SAVED, THE UNHOLY DESTROYED. WITH THEM MOST OF THE HUGE ANIMALS, PRODUCED FROM THE SWEAT OF THE EARTH (_B_). (_a_) As this subject--the fourth great Deluge on our Globe in this Round--is fully treated in the Sections that follow the last Stanza, to say anything more at present would be a mere anticipation. The seven Great Islands (Dvîpas) belonged to the Continent of Atlantis. The Secret Teachings show that the Deluge overtook the Fourth, Giant Race, not on account of its depravity, or because it had become "black with sin," but simply because such is the fate of every Continent, which--like everything else under our Sun--is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies. This was when the Fifth Race was in its infancy. (_b_) Thus the Giants perished--the Magicians and the Sorcerers, adds the fancy of popular tradition. But "all holy saved," and alone the "unholy" were "destroyed." This was due, however, as much to the _prevision_ of the "holy" ones, who had not lost the use of their Third Eye, as to Karma and Natural Law. Speaking of the subsequent Race, our Fifth Humanity, the Commentary says: _Alone the handful of those Elect, whose Divine Instructors had gone to __ inhabit that Sacred Island--__"__from whence the last Saviour will come__"__--now kept mankind from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other [as mankind is now_--H. P. B.]. _It [mankind] became divided. Two- thirds of it were ruled by Dynasties of lower, material Spirits of the Earth, who took possession of the easily accessible bodies; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent Fifth Race--the Divine Incarnates. When the Poles moved [for the fourth time] this did not affect those who were protected, and who had separated from the Fourth Race. Like the Lemurians--alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, and __"__were seen no more__"__...!_ Stanza XII. The Fifth Race And Its Divine Instructors. 47. The remnants of the first two Races disappear for ever. Groups of the various Atlantean races saved from the Deluge along with the Forefathers of the Fifth. 48. The origins of our present Race, the Fifth. The first Divine Dynasties. 49. The earliest glimmerings in history, now pinned to the allegorical chronology of the _Bible_, and "universal" history slavishly following it. The nature of the first Instructors and Civilizers of mankind. 47. FEW(784) REMAINED. SOME YELLOW, SOME BROWN AND BLACK, AND SOME RED REMAINED. THE MOON-COLOURED(785) WERE GONE FOR EVER (_A_). 48. THE FIFTH(786) PRODUCED FROM THE HOLY STOCK REMAINED; IT WAS RULED OVER BY THE FIRST DIVINE KINGS. 49. ... THE SERPENTS WHO RE-DESCENDED, WHO MADE PEACE WITH THE FIFTH,(787) WHO TAUGHT AND INSTRUCTED IT (_b_).... (_a_) This Shloka relates to the Fifth Race. History does not begin with it, but living and ever-recurring tradition does. History--or what is called history--does not go back further than the fantastic origins of our fifth sub-race, a "few thousands" of years. It is the sub-divisions of the first sub-race of the Fifth Root-Race which are referred to in the sentence, "Some yellow, some brown and black, and some red remained." The "moon-coloured"--_i.e._, the First and the Second Races--were gone for ever; ay, without leaving any traces whatever--and that, so far back as the third "Deluge" of the Third Lemurian Race, that "Great Dragon," whose tail sweeps whole nations out of existence in the twinkling of an eye. And this is the true meaning of the verse in the Commentary which says: _The Great Dragon has respect but for the Serpents of Wisdom, the Serpents whose holes are now under the Triangular Stones._ Or in other words, "the pyramids, at the four corners of the world." (_b_) This puts clearly what is mentioned more than once elsewhere in the Commentaries; namely, that the Adepts or "Wise" men of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Races dwelt in subterranean habitats, generally under some kind of pyramidal structure, if not actually under a pyramid. For such "pyramids" existed in the "four corners of the world" and were never the monopoly of the land of the Pharaohs, though indeed until they were found scattered all over the two Americas, under and above ground, beneath and amidst virgin forests, and also in plain and vale, they were generally supposed to be the exclusive property of Egypt. If true geometrically correct pyramids are no longer found in European regions, nevertheless many of the supposed early neolithic caves, of the colossal triangular pyramidal and conical "menhirs" in Morbihan, and Brittany generally, many of the Danish "tumuli" and even of the "giant tombs" of Sardinia with their inseparable companions, the "nuraghi," are so many more or less clumsy copies of the pyramids. Most of these are the works of the first settlers on the newly-born continent and isles of Europe, the "some yellow, some brown and black, and some red" races that remained after the submersion of the last Atlantean continents and islands, 850,000 years ago--Plato's Island excepted--and before the arrival of the great Âryan races; while others were built by the earliest immigrants from the East. Those who can hardly accept the placing of the antiquity of the human race so far back as the 57,000 years, the age assigned by Dr. Dowler to the skeleton found by him at New Orleans on the banks of the Mississippi, will, of course, reject these facts. But they may find themselves mistaken some day. We may disparage the foolish self-glorification of the Arcadians who styled themselves "older than the Moon" ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}), and of the people of Attica, who claimed that they had existed before the Sun appeared in Heaven--but not their undeniable antiquity. Nor can we laugh at the universal belief that we had giant ancestors. The fact that the bones of the Mammoth and Mastodon, and, in one case, those of a gigantic Salamander, have been mistaken for human bones, does not make away with the difficulty that, of all the Mammalians, man is the only one whom Science will not allow to have dwarfed down, like all other animal frames, from the giant Homo Diluvii to the creature between five and six feet that he is now. But the "Serpents of Wisdom" have preserved their records well, and the history of human evolution _is_ traced in Heaven as it is traced on underground walls. Humanity and the _Stars_ are bound together indissolubly, because of the _Intelligences_ that rule the latter. Modern Symbologists may scoff at this and call it "fancy," but as Mr. Staniland Wake writes: It is unquestionable that the Deluge has [ever] been associated in the legends of some Eastern peoples not only with the Pyramids, but also with the constellations.(788) The "Old Dragon" is identical with the "Great Flood," says Mr. Proctor: We know that in the past the constellation of the Dragon was at the pole, or boss, of the celestial sphere. In stellar temples, ... the Dragon would be the uppermost or ruling constellation.... It is singular how closely these constellations ... correspond in sequence and in range of right ascension with the events recorded respecting the [Biblical] Flood.(789) The reasons for this _singularity_, however, have been made abundantly clear in this work. It only shows that there were _several_ Deluges confused in the memories and traditions of the sub-races of the Fifth Race. The first great Flood was astronomical and cosmical, while several others were terrestrial. And yet our very learned friend Mr. Gerald Massey--an initiate truly in the mysteries of the British Museum, still only a self-initiate--declared and insisted that the Atlantean Submersion and Deluge were only the anthropomorphized fancies of ignorant people, and that Atlantis was no better than an "astronomical allegory." But the great zodiacal allegory is based upon historical events, and allegory can hardly interfere with history; moreover, every student of Occultism knows what that astronomical and zodiacal allegory means. Dr. Smith shows in the Nimrod Epic of the Assyrian tablets the real meaning of the allegory. [Its twelve cantos] refer to the annual course of the Sun through the twelve months of the year. Each tablet answers to a special month, and contains a distinct reference to the animal forms in the signs of the Zodiac; ... [the eleventh canto being] consecrated to Rimmon, the God of storms and rain, and harmonizes with the eleventh sign of the Zodiac--Aquarius, or the Waterman.(790) But even this is preceded in the old Records by the _pre_-astronomical Cosmic Flood, which became allegorized and symbolized in the above Zodiacal or Noah's Flood. But this has nothing to do with Atlantis. The Pyramids are closely connected with the ideas of both the constellation of the Great Dragon, the "Dragons of Wisdom," or the great Initiates of the Third and Fourth Races, and the floods of the Nile, regarded as a divine reminder of the great Atlantic Flood. The astronomical records of Universal History, however, are said to have had their beginnings with the third sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race or the Atlanteans. When was it? Occult data show that even since the time of the regular establishment of the zodiacal calculations in Egypt, _the poles have been thrice inverted_. We will presently return again to this statement. Such symbols as are represented by the Signs of the Zodiac--a fact which offers a handle to Materialists upon which to hang their one-sided theories and opinions--have too profound a signification, and their bearing upon our Humanity is too important, to suffer dismissal in a few words. Meanwhile, we have to consider the meaning of the statement, in Shloka 48, concerning the "first Divine Kings," who are said to have "redescended," guided and _instructed_ our Fifth Race after the last Deluge! We shall consider this last claim historically in the Sections that follow, but must end with a few more details on the subject of "Serpents." The rough commentaries on the Archaic Stanzas have to end here. Further elucidation requires proofs obtained from ancient, medićval, and modern works which have treated of these subjects. All such evidence has now to be gathered in, collated and brought together in better order, so as to compel the attention of the reader to this wealth of historical proofs. And as the manifold meaning of the weird and suggestive symbol (so often referred to) of the "tempter of man"--in the orthodox light of the Church--can never be too strongly insisted upon, it seems more advisable to exhaust the subject by every available proof, at this juncture, even at the risk of repetition. The Titans and Kabirs have been invariably made out by our Theologians and some pious Symbologists to be indissolubly connected with the grotesque personage called the "Devil," and every proof which goes against their theory has been hitherto as invariably rejected and ignored. The Occultist must, therefore, neglect nothing which may tend to defeat this conspiracy of slander. And so we propose to divide the subjects involved in these last three Verses into several groups, and to examine them as carefully and as fully as space permits. A few more details may thus be added to the general evidences of antiquity, on the most disputed tenets of Occultism and the Esoteric Doctrine--the bulk of which, however, will be found in Part II, on Symbology. Serpents And Dragons Under Different Symbolisms. The name of the Dragon in Chaldća was not written phonetically, but was represented by two monograms, meaning _probably_, according to the Orientalists, the "scaly one." "This description," very pertinently remarks G. Smith, "of course might apply either to a fabulous dragon, a serpent, or a fish." To this we may add that, in one aspect, it applies to Makara, the tenth Zodiacal Sign, the Sanskrit term for a nondescript amphibious animal, generally called Crocodile, but really signifying something else. This, then, is a virtual admission that the Assyriologists, at all events, know nothing certain as to the status of the Dragon in ancient Chaldća. It was from Chaldća that the Hebrews got _their_ symbolism, only to be afterwards robbed of it by the Christians, who made of the "scaly one" a living entity and a maleficent power. A specimen of Dragons, "winged and scaled," may be seen in the British Museum. In this representation of the events of the Fall, according to the same authority, there are also two figures sitting on each side of a "tree," and holding out their hands to the "apple," while at the back of the "tree" is the Dragon-Serpent. Esoterically, the two figures are two "Chaldees" ready for Initiation, the Serpent symbolizing the Initiator; while the jealous Gods, who curse the three, are the exoteric profane clergy. Not much of the literal "biblical event" there, as any Occultist can see! "The Great Dragon has respect but for the Serpents of Wisdom," says the Stanza; thus proving the correctness of our explanation of the two figures and the "Serpent." "The Serpents who redescended, .... who taught and instructed" the Fifth Race. What sane man, in our day, is capable of believing that _real_ serpents are hereby meant? Hence the rough guess--now become almost an axiom with men of Science--that those who in antiquity wrote upon various sacred Dragons and Serpents were either superstitious and credulous people, or were bent upon deceiving those more ignorant than themselves. Yet, from Homer downwards, the term implied something hidden from the Profane. "Terrible are the Gods when they manifest themselves"--those _Gods_ whom men call _Dragons_. And Ćlianus, treating in his _De Naturâ Animalium_ of these ophidian symbols, makes certain remarks which show that he well understood the nature of these most ancient of symbols. Thus with reference to the above Homeric verse he most pertinently explains: For the Dragon, while sacred and to be worshipped, _has within himself something still more of the divine nature_ of which it is better [for others?] to remain in ignorance.(791) The "Dragon" symbol has a septenary meaning, and of these seven meanings, the highest and the lowest may be given. The highest is identical with the "Self-born," the Logos, the Hindű Aja. With the Christian Gnostics called the Naasenians, or Serpent-worshippers, he was the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son. His symbol was the constellation of the Dragon.(792) Its seven "Stars" are the seven stars held in the hand of the "Alpha and Omega" in _Revelation_. In its most terrestrial meaning, the term "Dragon" was applied to the "Wise" men. This portion of the religious symbolism of antiquity is very abstruse and mysterious, and may remain incomprehensible to the profane. In our modern day it so jars on the Christian ear that, in spite of our boasted civilization, it can hardly escape being regarded as a direct denunciation of the most cherished of Christian dogmas. Such a subject required, to do it justice, the pen and genius of Milton, whose poetical fiction has now taken root in the Church as a revealed dogma. Did the allegory of the Dragon and his supposed conqueror in Heaven originate with St. John, in his _Revelation_? Emphatically we answer--No. St. John's "Dragon" is Neptune, the symbol of Atlantean Magic. In order that we may demonstrate this negation, the reader is asked to examine the symbolism of the Serpent or the Dragon under its several aspects. The Sidereal And Cosmic Glyphs. Every Astronomer--not to speak of Occultists and Astrologers--knows that, figuratively speaking, the Astral Light, the Milky Way, and also the Path of the Sun to the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, as well as the Circles of the Sidereal or Tropical Year, were always called "Serpents" in the allegorical and mystic phraseology of the Adepts. This, cosmically, as well as metaphorically. Poseidon is a "Dragon"--the Dragon "Chozzar, called by the profane Neptune" according to the Peratć Gnostics, the "Good and Perfect Serpent," the Messiah of the Naaseni, whose symbol in Heaven is Draco. But we ought to discriminate between the various characters of this symbol. Now Zoroastrian Esotericism is identical with that of the Secret Doctrine, and when an Occultist reads in the _Vendîdâd_ complaints uttered against the "Serpent," whose bites have transformed the beautiful, eternal spring of Airyana Vaęjô, changing it into winter, generating disease and death, and at the same time mental and psychic consumption--he knows that the Serpent alluded to is the North Pole, and also the Pole of the Heavens.(793) These two axes produce the seasons according to their angle of inclination to each other. The two axes were _no more parallel_; hence the eternal spring of Airyana Vaęjô "by the good river Dâitya" had disappeared, and "the Âryan Magi had to emigrate to Sogdiana"--say the exoteric accounts. But the Esoteric Teaching states that the pole had passed from the equator, and that the "Land of Bliss" of the Fourth Race, its inheritance from the Third, had now become the region of desolation and woe. This alone ought to be an incontrovertible proof of the great antiquity of the Zoroastrian Scriptures. The Neo-Âryans of the post- diluvian age could, of course, hardly recognize the mountains, on the summits of which their forefathers had met _before_ the Flood, and conversed with the pure "Yazatas" or celestial Spirits of the Elements, whose life and _food_ they had once shared. As shown by Eckstein: The _Vendîdâd_ seems to point out a great change in the atmosphere of central Asia; strong volcanic eruptions and the collapse of a whole range of mountains in the neighbourhood of the Kara-Korum chain.(794) The Egyptians, according to Eusebius, who, for a wonder, once wrote the truth, symbolized Kosmos by a large fiery circle, with a serpent with a hawk's head lying across its diameter. Here we see the pole of the earth within the plane of the ecliptic, attended with all the fiery consequences that must arise from such a state of the heavens: when the whole Zodiac, in 25,000 [odd] years, must have "redden'd with the solar blaze"; and _each sign must have been vertical_ to the polar region.(795) Meru, the Abode of the Gods, as explained before, was placed in the North Pole, while Pâtâla, the Nether Region, was supposed to lie towards the South. As each symbol in Esoteric Philosophy has _seven_ keys, Meru and Pâtâla have, geographically, one significance and represent localities, while, astronomically, they have another, and mean the "two poles"; the latter meaning led to their being often rendered in _exoteric_ sectarianism as the "Mountain" and the "Pit," or Heaven and Hell. If we for the present hold only to the astronomical and geographical significance, it may be found that the Ancients knew the topography and nature of the Arctic and Antarctic regions better than any of our modern Astronomers. They had reasons, and good ones, for naming one the "Mountain" and the other the "Pit." As the author just quoted half explains, Helion and Acheron meant nearly the same. "Heli-on is the Sun in his highest," Heli-os or Eli-os meaning the "most high," and Acheron is 32 degrees above the pole, and 32 below it, the allegorical river being thus supposed to touch the northern horizon in the latitude of 32 degrees. The vast concave, that is for ever hidden from our sight and which surrounded the southern pole, the first astronomers called the Pit, while observing, toward the northern pole, that a certain circuit in the heavens always appeared above the horizon--they called it the Mountain. As Meru is the high abode of the Gods, these were said to _ascend_ and _descend_ periodically; by which (astronomically) the _Zodiacal_ Gods were meant, the passing of the original north pole of the Earth to the south pole of the Heaven. In that age at noon, the ecliptic would be parallel with the meridian, and part of the Zodiac would descend from the north pole to the north horizon; crossing the _eight coils of the serpent_ [eight sidereal years, or over 200,000 solar years], which would seem like an imaginary _ladder_ with _eight staves_ reaching from the earth up to the pole, _i.e._, the throne of Jove. Up this ladder, then, the Gods, _i.e._, the Signs of the Zodiac, ascended and descended. [Jacob's ladder and the Angels] .... It is more than 400,000 years since the Zodiac formed the sides of this ladder.(796) This is an ingenious explanation, even if it is not altogether free from Occult heresy. Yet it is nearer the truth than many of a more scientific and especially theological character. As said, the Christian Trinity was purely astronomical from its beginning. This it was which made Rutilius say of those who euhemerized it: "_Judća gens, radix stultorum_." But the profane, and especially Christian fanatics who are ever in search of scientific corroboration for their dead-letter texts, persist in seeing in the Celestial Pole the true Serpent of _Genesis_, Satan, the enemy of mankind; whereas it is really--a cosmic metaphor. When the Gods are said to forsake the Earth, it means not only the Gods, the Protectors and Instructors, but also the _minor_ Gods--the Regents of the Zodiacal Signs. The former, as actual and existing Entities which gave birth to, nursed, and instructed Mankind in its early youth, appear in every Scripture, in that of the Zoroastrians as well as in the Hindű Gospels. Ormazd, or Ahura Mazda, the "Lord of Wisdom," is the synthesis of the Amshaspands, or Amesha Spentas, the "Immortal Benefactors,"(797) the "Word," or the Logos, and its six highest aspects in Mazdeanism. These "Immortal Benefactors" are described in _Zamyad Yasht_ as: The Amesha Spentas, the shining, having efficacious eyes, great, helpful ... imperishable and pure ... which are all seven of like mind, like speech, all seven doing alike ... which are _the creators and destroyers of the creatures_ of Ahura Mazda, their creators and overseers, their protectors and rulers. These few lines are sufficient to indicate the dual and even the triple character of the Amshaspands, our Dhyân Chohans or the "Serpents of Wisdom." They are identical with, and yet separate from Ormazd (Ahura Mazda). They are also the Angels of the Stars of the Christians--the Star- Yazatas of the Zoroastrians--or again the seven Planets (including the Sun) of every religion.(798) The epithet, "the shining, having efficacious eyes," proves it. This on the physical and sidereal planes. On the spiritual, they are the Divine Powers of Ahura Mazda; but on the astral or psychic plane again, they are the "Builders," the "Watchers," the Pitris, or Fathers, and the first Preceptors of Mankind. When mortals have become sufficiently spiritualized, there will be no more need of _forcing_ them into a correct comprehension of ancient Wisdom. Men will _know_ then, that there never yet was a great World-reformer whose name has passed into our generation, who (_a_) was not a direct emanation of the Logos (under whatever name known to us) _i.e._, an _essential_ incarnation of one of the "Seven," of the "Divine Spirit who is sevenfold"; and (_b_) who had not appeared before, in past Cycles. They will recognize, then, the cause which produces certain riddles of the ages, in both history and chronology; the reason, for instance, why it is impossible _for them_ to assign any reliable date to Zoroaster, who is found multiplied by twelve and fourteen in the _Dabistan_; why the numbers and individualities of the Rishis and Manus are so mixed up; why Krishna and Buddha speak of themselves as reďncarnations, Krishna identifying himself with the Rishi Nârâyana, and Gautama giving a series of his previous births; and why the former, especially, being "the _very supreme_ Brahmâ," is yet called Anshânshâvatâra--"a part of a part" only of the Supreme on Earth; finally, why Osiris is a Great God, and at the same time a "Prince on Earth," who reäppears in Thoth Hermes; and why Jesus (in Hebrew, Joshua) of Nazareth is recognized, kabalistically, in Joshua, the son of Nun, as well as in other personages. The Esoteric Doctrine explains all this by saying that each of these, as also many others, had first appeared on Earth as one of the Seven Powers of the Logos, individualized as a God or Angel (Messenger); then, mixed with Matter, they had reäppeared in turn as great Sages and Instructors who "taught" the Fifth Race, after having instructed the two preceding Races, had ruled during the Divine Dynasties, and had finally sacrificed themselves, to be reborn under various circumstances for the good of Mankind, and for its salvation at certain critical periods; until in their last incarnations they had become truly only the "parts of a part" on Earth, though _de facto_ the One Supreme in Nature. This is the metaphysics of Theogony. Now every "Power" among the Seven, once he is individualized, has in his charge one of the elements of creation, and rules over it;(799) hence the many meanings in every symbol. These, unless interpreted according to the Esoteric methods, generally lead to inextricable confusion. Does the Western Kabalist, who is generally an opponent of the Eastern Occultist, require a proof? Let him open Éliphas Lévi's _Histoire de la Magie_,(800) and carefully examine his "Grand Symbole Kabbalistique" from the _Zohar_. He will find there, in the engraving, a development of the "interlaced triangles," a _white_ man above and a _black_ woman below reversed, the legs passing under the extended arms of the male figure, and protruding behind the shoulders, while their hands join at an angle on each side. Éliphas Lévi makes of this symbol, God and Nature; or God, "Light," mirrored inversely in Nature and Matter, "Darkness." Kabalistically and symbolically he is right; but only so far as emblematical cosmogony goes. Neither has he invented the symbol, nor have the Kabalists. The two figures in white and black stone have existed in the temples of Egypt from time immemorial, agreeably to tradition, and historically-ever since the day of King Cambyses, who personally saw them. Therefore the symbol must have been in existence for nearly 2,500 years. This, at the very least, for Cambyses, who was a son of Cyrus the Great, succeeded his father in the year 529 B.C. These figures were the two Kabiri personifying the _opposite poles_. Herodotus(801) tells posterity that when Cambyses entered the temple of the Kabirim, he burst into an inextinguishable fit of laughter, on perceiving what he thought to be a man erect and a woman standing on the top of her head before him. These were the poles, however, whose symbol was intended to commemorate "the passing of the original north pole of the earth to the south pole of the heaven," as perceived by Mackey.(802) But they also represented the poles _inverted_, in consequence of the great inclination of the axis, which each time resulted in the displacement of the oceans, the submersion of the polar lands, and the consequent upheaval of new continents in the equatorial regions, and _vice versâ_. These Kabirim were the "Deluge" Gods. This may help us to get at the key of the seemingly hopeless confusion among the numbers of names and titles given to one and the same Gods, and classes of Gods. Faber, at the beginning of this century, showed the identity of the Corybantes, Curetes, Dioscuri, Anactes, Dii Magni, Idei, Dactyli, Lares, Penates, Manes,(803) Titans, and Aletć with the Kabiri. And we have shown that the latter were the same as the Manus, the Rishis, and our Dhyân Chohans who incarnated in the Elect of the Third and Fourth Races. Thus, while in Theogony the Kabiri-Titans were seven Great Gods, cosmically and astronomically the Titans were called Atlantes, because, perhaps, as Faber says, they were connected with _at-al-as_, the "divine sun," and with _tit_, the "deluge." But this, if true, is only the exoteric version. Esoterically, the meaning of their symbols depends on the appellation, or title, used. The seven mysterious, awe-inspiring Great Gods--the Dioscuri,(804) the deities surrounded with the darkness of Occult Nature--become the Idei Dactyli, or Ideic "Fingers," with the Adept-healers by metals. The true etymology of the name Lares, now signifying "Ghosts," must be sought in the Etruscan word _lars_, "conductor," "leader." Sanchuniathon translates the word Aletć as "fire worshippers," and Faber believes it to be derived from _al-orit_, the "God of fire." Both are right, for in both cases it is a reference to the Sun, the "highest" God, toward whom the Planetary Gods "gravitate" (astronomically and allegorically), and whom they worship. As Lares, they are truly the Solar Deities, though Faber's etymology, that "Lar is a contraction of El-Ar, the solar deity,"(805) is not very correct. They are the Lares, the Conductors and Leaders of men. As Aletć, they were the seven Planets--astronomically; and as Lares, the Regents of these Planets, our Protectors and Rulers--mystically. For purposes of exoteric or phallic worship, and also cosmically, they were the Kabiri, whose attributes and dual capacities were denoted by the names of the temples to which they respectively belonged, and also by those of their priests. They all belonged, however, to the septenary creative and informing groups of Dhyân Chohans. The Sabćans, who worshipped the "Regents of the Seven Planets" just as the Hindűs worship their Rishis, held Seth and his son Hermes (Enoch or Enos) as the highest among the Planetary Gods. Seth and Enos were borrowed from the Sabćans and then disfigured by the Jews (exoterically); but the truth about them can still be discovered even in _Genesis_.(806) Seth is the "Progenitor" of those early men of the Third Race in whom the Planetary Angels had incarnated; he was himself a Dhyân Chohan and belonged to the _informing_ Gods, and Enos (Hanoch or Enoch), or Hermes, was said to be his _son_--Enos being a generic name for all the early "Seers" (Enoďchion). Thence the worship. The Arabic writer Soyuti says that the earliest records mention Seth, or Set, as the founder of Sabaism, and that the pyramids which embody the planetary system were regarded as the place of sepulchre of both Seth and Idrus (Hermes or Enoch);(807) that thither Sabćans proceeded on pilgrimage, and chanted prayers _seven times_ a day, _turning to the North_ (Mount Meru, Kaph, Olympus, etc.).(808) Abd Allatif also tells us some curious things about the Sabćans and their books. So also does Eddin Ahmed Ben Yahya, who wrote 200 years later. While the latter maintains "that each pyramid was consecrated to a _star_" (a Star _Regent_ rather), Abd Allatif assures us that he had read in ancient Sabćan books that "one pyramid was the tomb of Agathodćmon and the other of Hermes":(809) Agathodćmon was none other than Seth, and, according to some writers, Hermes was his son, adds Mr. Staniland Wake in _The Great Pyramid_.(810) Thus, while in Samothrace and the oldest Egyptian temples the Kabiri were the Great Cosmic Gods--the Seven and the _Forty-nine_ Sacred Fires--in the Grecian fanes their rites became mostly phallic, and therefore, to the profane, obscene. In the latter case they were three and four, or seven--the male and female principles--the _crux ansata_. This division shows why some classical writers held that they were only three, while others named four. And these were Axieros (in his female aspect Demeter); Axiokersa (Persephone);(811) Axiokersos (Pluto or Hades); and Kadmos or Kasmilos (Hermes--not the ithyphallic Hermes mentioned by Herodotus,(812) but "he of the sacred legend," which was explained only during the Samothracian Mysteries). This identification, which is due, according to the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius,(813) to an indiscretion of Mnaseas, is really no identification at all, as names alone do not reveal much.(814) Others again have maintained, being equally right in their way, that there were only two Kabiri. These were, esoterically, the two Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, and exoterically, Jupiter and Bacchus. These two personified the terrestrial poles, geodesically; the terrestrial pole, and the pole of the heavens, astronomically; and also the physical and the spiritual man. The story of Semele and Jupiter and the birth of Bacchus, Bimater, with all the circumstances attending it, needs only to be read esoterically for the understanding of the allegory. The parts played in the event by the Fire, Water, Earth, etc., in the many versions, will show how the "Father of the Gods" and the "merry God of Wine" were also made to personify the two terrestrial poles. The telluric, metalline, magnetic, electric and the fiery elements are all so many allusions and references to the cosmic and astronomic character of the diluvian tragedy. In Astronomy, the poles are indeed the "heavenly measure"; and so are the Kabiri-Dioscuri, as will be shown, and the Kabiri-Titans, to whom Diodorus ascribes the "invention of Fire"(815) and the art of manufacturing iron. Moreover, Pausanias(816) shows that the original Kabiric deity was Prometheus. But the fact that, astronomically, the Titan-Kabirim were also the Generators and Regulators of the Seasons, and, cosmically, the great Volcanic Energies--the Gods presiding over all the metals and terrestrial works--does not prevent them from being, in their original divine characters, the beneficent Entities who, symbolized in Prometheus, brought light to the world, and endowed Humanity with intellect and reason. They are preëminently in every Theogony--especially in the Hindű--the Sacred Divine Fires, Three, Seven, or Forty-nine, according as the allegory demands it. Their very names prove it, for they are the Agni-putra, or Sons of the Fire, in India, and the Genii of the Fire under numerous names in Greece and elsewhere. Welcker, Maury, and now Decharme, show the name _kabeiros_ meaning "the powerful through fire," from the Greek {~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~} "to burn." The Semitic word _kabirim_ contains the idea of "the powerful, the mighty, and the great," answering to the Greek {~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}, but these are later epithets. These Gods were universally worshipped, and their origin is lost in the night of time. Yet whether propitiated in Phrygia, Phoenicia, the Troad, Thrace, Egypt, Lemnos or Sicily, their cult was always connected with Fire, their temples ever built in the most volcanic localities, and in exoteric worship they belonged to the Chthonian Divinities, and therefore has Christianity made of them _Infernal_ Gods. They are truly "the great, beneficent and powerful Gods," as Cassius Hermone calls them.(817) At Thebes, Core and Demeter, the Kabirim, had a sanctuary,(818) and at Memphis, the Kabiri had a temple so sacred, that none, excepting the priests, were suffered to enter its holy precincts.(819) But we must not, at the same time, lose sight of the fact that the title of Kabiri was generic; that the Kabiri, the mighty Gods as well as mortals, were of both sexes, and also terrestrial, celestial and cosmic; that while, in their later capacity of rulers of sidereal and terrestrial powers, a purely geological phenomenon--as it is now regarded--was symbolized in the persons of those rulers, they were also, in the beginning of times, the Rulers of Mankind, when, incarnated as Kings of the "Divine Dynasties," they gave the first impulse to civilization, and directed the mind with which they had endued men, to the invention and perfection of all the arts and sciences. Thus the Kabiri are said to have appeared as the benefactors of men, and as such they lived for ages in the memory of nations. To these Kabiri or Titans is ascribed the invention of letters (the Deva-nâgari, or alphabet and language of the Gods), of laws and legislature, of architecture, as also of the various modes of magic, so-called, and of the medical use of plants. Hermes, Orpheus, Cadmus, Asclepius, all those Demi-gods and Heroes, to whom is ascribed the revelation of sciences to men, and in whom Bryant, Faber, Bishop Cumberland, and so many other Christian writers--too zealous for plain truth--would force posterity to see only Pagan copies of one sole prototype, named Noah--all are generic names. It is the Kabiri who are credited with having revealed the great boon of agriculture, by _producing_ corn or wheat. What Isis-Osiris, the once living Kabiria, did in Egypt, that Ceres is said to have done in Sicily; they all belong to one class. That serpents were ever emblems of wisdom and prudence is again shown by the Caduceus of Mercury, one with Thot, the God of Wisdom, with Hermes, and so on. The two serpents, entwined round the rod, are phallic symbols of Jupiter and other Gods who transformed themselves into snakes for purposes of seducing Goddesses--only in the unclean fancies of profane Symbologists. The serpent has ever been the symbol of the Adept, and of his powers of immortality and divine knowledge. Mercury, in his psychopompic character, conducting and guiding the souls of the dead to Hades with his Caduceus and even raising them to life with it, is a simple and very transparent allegory. It shows the dual power of the Secret Wisdom: black and white Magic. It shows this personified Wisdom guiding the Soul after death, and displaying the power of calling to life that which is dead--a very deep metaphor if one but thinks over its meaning. All the peoples of antiquity, with one exception, reverenced this symbol; the exception being the Christians, who chose to forget the "brazen serpent" of Moses, and even the implied acknowledgment of the great wisdom and prudence of the "serpent" by Jesus himself, "Be ye _wise_ as serpents and harmless as doves." The Chinese, one of the oldest nations of our Fifth Race, made of it the emblem of their Emperors, who are thus the degenerate successors of the "Serpents" or Initiates, who ruled the early races of the Fifth Humanity. The Emperor's throne is the "Dragon's Seat," and his dresses of State are embroidered with the likeness of the Dragon. The aphorisms in the oldest books of China, moreover, say plainly that the Dragon is a human, albeit _divine_, Being. Speaking of the "Yellow Dragon," the chief of the others, the _Twan-ying-t'u_ says: His wisdom and virtue are unfathomable ... he does not go in company and does not live in herds [he is an ascetic].... He wanders in the wilds beyond the heavens. He goes and comes, fulfilling the decree [Karma]; at the proper seasons if there is perfection he comes forth, if not he remains [invisible]. And Lü-lan asserts that Confucius said: The Dragon feeds in the pure (water) [of Wisdom] and disports in the clear (water) [of Life].(820) Our Divine Instructors. Now Atlantis and the Phlegyan Isle are not the only records left of the Deluge. China has also her tradition and the story of an island or continent, which it calls Ma-li-ga-si-ma, and which Kćmpfer and Faber spell "Maurigasima," for some mysterious phonetic reasons of their own. Kćmpfer, in his _Japan_,(821) gives the tradition: The island, owing to the iniquity of its giants, sinks to the bottom of the ocean, and Peiruun, the king, the Chinese Noah, escapes alone with his family owing to a warning of the Gods through two idols. It is that pious prince and his descendants who have peopled China. The Chinese traditions speak of the Divine Dynasties of Kings as frequently as do those of any other nation. At the same time there is not an old fragment but shows belief in a multiform and even multigeneric evolution of human beings--spiritual, psychic, intellectual, and physical--just as is described in the present work. A few of these claims have now to be considered. Our races--they all show--have sprung from Divine Races, by whatever name the latter may be called. Whether we deal with the Indian Rishis or Pitris; with the Chinese Chim-nang and Tchan-gy--their "Divine Man" and Demi-gods; with the Akkadian Dingir and Mul-lil--the Creative God and the "Gods of the Ghost-world"; with the Egyptian Isis-Osiris and Thot; with the Hebrew Elohim; or again with Manco-Capac and his Peruvian progeny--the story varies nowhere. Every nation has either the _seven_ and _ten_ Rishi- Manus and Prajâpatis; the seven and ten Ki-y; or _ten_ and _seven_ Amshaspands(822) (six exoterically); ten and seven Chaldćan Annedoti; ten and seven Sephiroth, etc. One and all have been derived from the primitive Dhyân Chohans of the Esoteric Doctrine, or the "Builders" of the Stanzas of Volume I. From Manu, Thot-Hermes, Oannes-Dagon, and Edris-Enoch, down to Plato Panodorus, all tell us of seven Divine Dynasties, of seven Lemurian, and seven Atlantean divisions of the Earth; of the seven primitive and dual Gods who descend from their Celestial Abode(823) and reign on Earth, teaching mankind Astronomy, Architecture, and all the other sciences that have come down to us. These Beings appear first as Gods and Creators; then they merge in nascent man, to finally emerge as "Divine Kings and Rulers." But this fact has been gradually forgotten. As Basnage shows, the Egyptians themselves confessed that Science had flourished in their country only since the time of Isis-Osiris, whom they continued to adore as Gods, "though they had become princes in human form." And he adds of the Divine Androgyne: It is said that this prince [Isis-Osiris] built cities in Egypt, stopped the overflowing of the Nile; invented agriculture, the use of the vine, music, astronomy, and geometry. When Abul Feda, in his _Historia Anteďslamitica_,(824) says that the "Sabćan language" was established by Seth and Edris (Enoch)--he means Astronomy. In the _Melelwa Nahil_,(825) Hermes is called the disciple of Agathodćmon. And in another account,(826) Agathodćmon is mentioned as a "King of Egypt." The _Celepas Geraldinus_ gives us some curious traditions about Henoch, who is called the "Divine Giant." In his _Book of the Various Names of the Nile_, the historian Ahmed Ben Yusouf Eltiphas tells us of the belief among the Semitic Arabs that Seth, who became later the Egyptian Typhon, Set, had been one of the Seven Angels, or Patriarchs, in the _Bible_; then he became a mortal and Adam's son, after which he communicated the gift of prophecy and astronomical science to Jared, who passed it to his son Henoch. But Henoch (Idris), "the author of thirty books," was "Sabćan by origin"--_i.e._, belonged to the Saba, "a Host": Having established the rites and ceremonies of primitive worship, he went to the East, where he constructed one hundred and forty cities, of which Edessa was the least important, then returned to Egypt where he became its King.(827) Thus, he is identified with Hermes. But there were five Hermes--or rather one, who appeared, as did some Manus and Rishis, in several different characters. In the _Burham i Kati_, he is mentioned as Hormig, a name of the Planet Mercury or Budha; and Wednesday was sacred both to Hermes and Thot.(828) The Hermes of Oriental tradition was worshipped by the Phineatć, and is said to have fled after the death of Argus into Egypt, and civilized it under the name of Thoth.(829) But under whichever of these characters, he is always credited with having transferred all the sciences from _latent to active potency_, _i.e._, with having been the first to teach Magic to Egypt and to Greece, before the days of Magna Grćcia, and when the Greeks were not even Hellenes. Not only does Herodotus, the "father of history," tell us of the marvellous Dynasties of Gods that preceded the reign of mortals, followed by the Dynasties of Demi-gods, Heroes, and finally men, but the whole series of classical authors support him. Diodorus, Eratosthenes, Plato, Manetho, etc., repeat the same story, and never vary in the order given. As Creuzer shows: It is, indeed, from the spheres of the stars wherein dwell the gods of light, that wisdom descends to the inferior spheres.... In the system of the ancient priests [Hierophants and Adepts] all things without exception, Gods, Genii, Souls [Manes], the whole world, are conjointly developed in space and duration. The pyramid may be considered as the symbol of this magnificent hierarchy of spirits.(830) It is the modern historians--French Academicians, like Renan, chiefly--who have made more efforts to suppress truth by ignoring the ancient annals of Divine Kings, than is strictly consistent with honesty. But M. Renan could never have been more unwilling than was Eratosthenes (260 B.C.) to accept the unpalatable fact; and yet the latter found himself obliged to recognize its truth. For this, the great Astronomer is treated with much contempt by his colleagues 2,000 years later. Manetho becomes with them "a superstitious priest born and bred in the atmosphere of other lying priests of Heliopolis." As the Demonologist De Mirville justly remarks: All those historians and priests, so _veracious_ when repeating stories of _human_ kings and men, suddenly become _extremely suspicious_ no sooner do they go back _to their gods_. But there is the synchronistic table of Abydos, which, thanks to the genius of Champollion, has now vindicated the good faith of the priests of Egypt (of Manetho above all), and of Ptolemy, in the Turin papyrus, the most remarkable of all. In the words of the Egyptologist, De Rougé: Champollion, struck with amazement, found that he had under his own eyes the remains of a list of Dynasties embracing the furthest mythic times, or the _Reigns of the Gods and Heroes_.... At the very beginning of this curious papyrus we have to arrive at the conviction that, so far back as even the period of Ramses, these mythic and heroical traditions were just as Manetho had transmitted them to us; we see figuring in them, as Kings of Egypt, the Gods Seb, Osiris, Set, Horus, Thoth-Hermes, and the Goddess Ma, a long period of centuries being assigned to the reign of each of these.(831) These synchronistic tables, besides the fact that they were disfigured by Eusebius for dishonest purposes, had never gone beyond Manetho. The chronology of the Divine Kings and Dynasties, like that of the age of humanity, has ever been in the hands of the priests, and kept secret from the profane multitudes. Now though Africa, as a continent, it is said, appeared before that of Europe, nevertheless it came up later than Lemuria and even the earliest Atlantis. The whole region of what is now Egypt and the deserts was once upon a time covered with the sea. This was made known, firstly, by Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, and others, and, secondly, through Geology. Abyssinia was once upon a time an island, and the Delta was the first country occupied by the pioneer emigrants who came with their Gods from the north-east. When was it? History is silent upon the subject. Fortunately we have the Dendera Zodiac, the planisphere on the ceiling of one of the oldest Egyptian temples, to record the fact. This Zodiac, with its mysterious three Virgos between Leo and Libra, has found its OEdipus to understand the riddle of its signs, and justify the truthfulness of those priests who told Herodotus, that their Initiates taught (_a_) that the poles of the Earth and the Ecliptic had formerly coincided, and (_b_) that even since their first Zodiacal records were commenced, the Poles have been three times within the plane of the Ecliptic. Bailly had not sufficient words at command to express his surprise at the _sameness_ of all such traditions about the Divine Races, and exclaims: What are finally all those reigns of Indian Devas and [Persian] Peris; or, those reigns of the Chinese legends; those Tien-hoang or the Kings of Heaven, quite distinct from the Ti-hoang, or Kings on Earth, and the Gin-hoang, the King men, distinctions which are in perfect accord with those of the Greeks and Egyptians, in enumerating their Dynasties of Gods, of Demi-gods and Mortals.(832) As says Panodorus: Now, it is during these thousand years [before the Deluge], that the _Reign of the Seven Gods_ who rule the world took place. It was during that period that those benefactors of humanity _descended_ on Earth and taught men to calculate the course of the sun and moon by the twelve signs of the Ecliptic.(833) Nearly five hundred years before the present era, the priests of Egypt showed Herodotus the statues of their human Kings and Pontiffs-Piromis--the Arch-prophets or Mahâ Chohans of the temples, _born one from the other_, without the intervention of woman--who had reigned before Menes, their first _human_ King. These statues, he says, were enormous colossi in wood, three hundred and forty-five in number, _each of which had its name, history and annals_. They also assured Herodotus--unless the most truthful of historians, the "father of history," is now to be accused of fibbing, _just in this instance_--that no historian could ever understand or write an account of these superhuman Kings, unless he had studied and learned the history of the _three_ Dynasties that preceded the human--namely, the Dynasties of the Gods, of the Demi-gods, and of the Heroes, or Giants.(834) These "three" Dynasties are the three Races. Translated into the language of the Esoteric Doctrine, these three Dynasties would also be those of the Devas, of the Kimpurushas, and of the Dânavas and Daityas--otherwise Gods, Celestial Spirits, and Giants or Titans. "Happy are those who are born, even from the condition of Gods, as men in Bhârata-varsha!"--exclaim the incarnated Gods themselves, during the Third Root-Race. Bhârata is generally India, but in this case it symbolizes the Chosen Land of those days, which was considered the best of the divisions of Jambu-dvîpa, as it was the land of active (spiritual) works _par excellence_; the land of Initiation and of Divine Knowledge.(835) Can one fail to recognize in Creuzer great powers of intuition, when, although he was almost unacquainted with the Âryan Hindű philosophies, which were but little known in his day, we find him writing: We modern Europeans feel surprised when hearing talk of the Spirits of the Sun, Moon, etc. But we repeat again, _the natural good sense and the upright judgment_ of the ancient peoples, quite foreign to our _entirely material_ ideas of mechanics and physical sciences ... could not see in the stars and planets nothing but simple masses of light, or opaque bodies moving in circuits in sidereal space, merely according to the laws of attraction or repulsion; they saw in them _living_ bodies, _animated_ by spirits as they saw the same in every kingdom of nature.... _This doctrine of spirits, so consistent and conformable to nature_, from which it was derived, formed a grand and unique conception, wherein the physical, the moral, and the political aspects were all blended together.(836) It is such a conception only that can lead man to form a correct conclusion about his origin and the genesis of everything in the Universe--of Heaven and Earth, between which he is a living link. Without such a psychological link, and the feeling of its presence, no Science can ever progress, and the realm of knowledge must be limited to the analysis of physical matter only. Occultists believe in "spirits," because they _feel_--and some see--themselves surrounded by them on every side.(837) Materialists do not. They live on this Earth, just as some creatures, in the world of insects and even of fishes, live surrounded by myriads of their own genus, without seeing, or so much as sensing them.(838) Plato is the first sage among classical writers who speaks at length of the Divine Dynasties. He locates them on a vast continent which he calls Atlantis. Nor was Bailly the first or last to believe this. He had been preceded and anticipated in this theory by Father Kircher, the learned Jesuit, who in his _OEdipus Ćgyptiacus_, writes: I confess, for a long time I had regarded all this [the Dynasties and Atlantis] as pure fables (_meras nugas_) to the day when, better instructed in Oriental languages, I judged that all those legends must be, after all, only the development of a great truth.(839) As De Rougemont shows, Theopompus, in his _Meropis_, made the priests of Phrygia and Asia Minor speak exactly as did the priests of Saďs when they revealed to Solon the history and fate of Atlantis. According to Theopompus, it was a unique continent of an indefinite size, containing two countries inhabited by two races--a fighting, warrior race, and a pious, meditative race(840)--which Theopompus symbolizes by two cities.(841) The pious "city" was _continually visited by the Gods_: the belligerent "city" was inhabited by various beings _invulnerable_ by iron, who could be _mortally wounded_ only by stone and wood.(842) De Rougemont treats this as a pure _fiction_ of Theopompus and even sees a fraud (_supercherie_) in the assertion of the Saďtic priests. This was denounced by the Demonologists as illogical. In the ironical words of De Mirville: A _supercherie_ which was based on a belief, the product of the faith of the whole of antiquity; a _supposition_ which yet gave its name to a whole mountain chain (Atlas); which specified with the greatest precision a topographical region (by placing this land at a small distance from Cadiz and the Strait of Calpe), which prophesied, 2,000 years before Columbus, _the great transoceanic land_ situated beyond that Atlantis and which "is reached," it said, "by the Islands not of the Blessed, but of the Good Spirits," {~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~} (our Îles Fortunées)--such a supposition can well be nothing else but a _universal chimera_!(843) It is certain that, whether "chimera" or reality, the priests of the whole world had it from one and the same source--the universal tradition about the third great Continent which perished some 850,000 years ago,(844) a Continent inhabited by two distinct races, distinct physically and especially morally, both deeply versed in primeval wisdom and the secrets of nature, and mutually antagonistic in their struggle, during the course and progress of their double evolution. For whence even the Chinese teachings upon the subject, if it is but a "fiction"? Have they not recorded the existence once upon a time of a _Holy_ Island beyond the sun, Tcheou, beyond which were situated the lands of _Immortal_ Men?(845) Do they not still believe that the remnants of those Immortal Men--who survived when the Holy Island became black with sin and perished--have found refuge in the great Desert of Gobi, where they still reside, invisible to all and defended from approach by hosts of Spirits? As the very unbelieving Boulanger writes: If one has to lend ear to traditions, the latter place before the reign of Kings, that of the Heroes and Demi-gods; and still earlier beyond they place the marvellous reign of the Gods and all the fables of the Golden Age.... One feels surprised that annals so interesting should have been rejected by almost all our historians. And yet the ideas presented by them were once universally admitted and revered by all nations; not a few revere them still, making them the basis of their daily life. Such considerations seem to necessitate a less hurried judgment.... The ancients, from whom we hold these traditions, which _we accept no longer because we no longer understand them_, must have had motives for believing in them, furnished by their greater proximity to the first ages, which the distance that separates us from them refuses to us.... Plato in the fourth book of his _Laws_, says that, long before the construction of the first cities, Saturn had established on earth a _certain_ form of government under which man was very happy. Now as it is the Golden Age he refers to, or to that reign of Gods so celebrated in ancient fables, ... let us see the ideas he had of that happy age, and what was the occasion he had to introduce this _fable_ into a treatise on politics. According to Plato, in order to obtain clear and precise ideas on royalty, its origin and power, one has to turn back to the first principles of history and tradition. Great changes, he says, have occurred in days of old, _in heaven and on earth_, and the present state of things is one of the results [Karma]. Our traditions tell us of many marvels, of changes that have taken place in the course of the sun, of Saturn's reign, and of a thousand other matters that remain scattered in human memory; but _one never hears anything of the evil which has produced these revolutions, nor of the evil which directly followed them_. Yet ... that Evil is the principle one has to talk about, to be able to treat of royalty and the origin of power.(846) That Evil, Plato seems to see in the sameness or consubstantiality of the natures of the rulers and the ruled, for he says that long before man built his cities, in the Golden Age, there was naught but happiness on Earth, for there were no needs. Why? Because Saturn, knowing that man could not rule man, without injustice forthwith filling the universe through his whims and vanity, would not allow any mortal to obtain power over his fellow creatures. To do this the God used the same means we ourselves use with regard to our flocks. We do not place a bullock or a ram over our bullocks and rams, but give them a leader, a shepherd, _i.e._, _a being of a species quite different from their own and of a superior nature_. This is just what Saturn did. He loved mankind and placed to rule over it no mortal king or prince but--"Spirits and Genii ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}) of a divine nature more excellent than that of man." It was God (the Logos, the Synthesis of the Host), who thus presiding over the Genii became the first Shepherd and Leader of men.(847) When the world had ceased to be so governed and the Gods retired, ferocious beasts devoured a portion of mankind. Left to their own resources and industry, Inventors then appeared among them successively and discovered fire, wheat, wine; and public gratitude deified them.(848) And mankind was right, as fire by friction was the first mystery of nature, the first and chief property of matter that was revealed to man. As say the Commentaries: _Fruits and grain, unknown to Earth to that day, were brought by the __"__Lords of Wisdom,__"__ for the benefit of those they ruled from other Lokas [Spheres]._ Now: The earliest inventions [?] of mankind are the most wonderful that the race has ever made.... The _first use of fire_, and the discovery of the methods by which it can be kindled; the domestication of animals; and, above all, _the processes by which the various cereals were first developed_ out of some wild grasses [?]--these are all _discoveries with which, in ingenuity and in importance, no subsequent discoveries may compare_. They are all unknown to history--all lost in the light of an _effulgent dawn_.(849) This will be doubted and denied in our proud generation. But if it be asserted that there are no grains and fruits _unknown to earth_, then we may remind the reader _that wheat has never been found in the wild state; it is not a product of the earth_. All the other cereals have been traced to their primogenital forms in various species of wild grasses, but wheat has hitherto defied the efforts of Botanists to trace it to its origin. And let us bear in mind, in this connection, how sacred was this cereal with the Egyptian priests; wheat was placed even in their mummies, and has been found thousands of years later in their coffins. Remember how the servants of Horus glean the wheat in the field of Aanroo, wheat _seven cubits high_.(850) Says the Egyptian Isis: I am the Queen of these regions; I was the first to reveal to mortals the mysteries of wheat and corn.... I am she who rises in the constellation of the Dog.... Rejoice, O Egypt! thou who wert my nurse.(851) Sirius was called the Dog-star. It was the star of Mercury or Budha, called the great Instructor of Mankind. The Chinese _Y-King_ attributes the discovery of agriculture to "the instruction given to men by celestial genii." Woe, woe to the men who know nought, observe nought, nor will they see. They are all blind,(852) since they remain ignorant how full the world is of various and invisible creatures which crowd even in the most sacred places.(853) The "Sons of God" _have_ existed and _do_ exist. From the Hindű Brahmaputras and Mânasaputras, Sons of Brahmâ and Mind-born Sons, down to the Bne Aleim of the Jewish _Bible_, the faith of the centuries and universal tradition force reason to yield to such evidence. Of what value is "independent criticism" so-called, or "internal evidence"--based usually on the respective hobbies of the critics--in the face of the universal testimony, which has never varied throughout the historical cycles? For instance, read Esoterically the sixth chapter of _Genesis_, which repeats the statements of the Secret Doctrine, though slightly changing its form, and drawing a different conclusion which clashes even with the _Zohar_. There were giants in the earth in those days; _and also after that_, when the sons of God Bne Aleim came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown [or giants].(854) What does this sentence, "and also after that," signify unless it means: There were Giants in the Earth _before_, _i.e._, before the Sinless Sons of the Third Race; _and also after that_ when other Sons of God, lower in nature, inaugurated sexual connection on Earth--as Daksha did, when he saw that his Mânasaputras would not people the Earth? And then comes a long break in the chapter between verses 4 and 5. For surely, it was not in or through the wickedness of the "mighty men ... men of renown," among whom is placed Nimrod the "mighty hunter before the Lord," that "God saw that the wickedness of man was great," nor in the builders of Babel, for this was _after_ the Deluge; but in the progeny of the Giants who produced _monstra qućdam de genere giganteo_, monsters from whence sprang the lower races of men, now represented on Earth by a few miserable dying-out tribes and the huge anthropoid apes. And if we are taken to task by Theologians, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, we have only to refer them to their own literal texts. The above quoted verse has ever been a dilemma, not alone for the men of Science and biblical scholars, but also for priests. For, as the Rev. Father Péronne puts it: Either they (the Bne Aleim) were good Angels, and in such case how could they fall? Or they were bad (Angels), and in that case could not be called Bne Aleim, or sons of God.(855) This biblical riddle--"the real sense of which no author has ever understood," as is candidly confessed by Fourmont(856)--can only be explained by the Occult doctrine, through the _Zohar_ to the Western, and the _Book of Dzyan_ to the Eastern. What the latter says we have seen; what the _Zohar_ tells us is that Bne Aleim was a name common to the Malachim, the good Messengers, and to the Ischins, the lower Angels.(857) We may add for the benefit of the Demonologists that their Satan, the "Adversary," is included in _Job_ among the "sons" of God or Bne Aleim who visit their father.(858) But of this later on. Now the _Zohar_ says that the Ischins, the beautiful Bne Aleim, were _not_ guilty, but mixed _themselves with mortal men because they were sent on earth to do so_.(859) Elsewhere the same volume shows these Bne Aleim belonging to the tenth sub-division of the "Thrones."(860) It also explains that the Ischins--"Men-spirits," _viri spirituales_(861)--now that men can see them no longer, help Magicians to produce, by their Science, Homunculi which are not "small men" but "men _smaller_ (in the sense of inferiority) than men." Both show themselves under the form that the Ischins had then, _i.e._, gaseous and ethereal. Their chief is Azazel. But Azazel, whom the Church dogma persists in associating with Satan, is nothing of the kind. Azazel is a _mystery_, as explained elsewhere, and it is so expressed by Maimonides: There is an impenetrable mystery in the narrative concerning Azazel.(862) And so there is, as Lanci, a librarian to the Vatican, whom we have quoted before, and one who ought to know, says: This venerable divine name (_nome divino e venerabile_) has become through the pen of biblical scholars, a devil, a wilderness, a mountain, and a he-goat.(863) Therefore it seems foolish to derive the name, as Spencer does, from Azal (separated) and El (God), hence "one separated from God"--the Devil. In the _Zohar_, Azazel is rather the "sacrificial victim" than the "formal adversary of Jehovah," as Spencer would have it.(864) The amount of malicious fancy and fiction bestowed on this "Host" by various fanatical writers is quite extraordinary. Azazel and his "Host" are simply the Hebrew "Prometheus," and ought to be viewed from the same standpoint. The _Zohar_ shows the Ischins chained to the mountain in the desert. This is allegorical, and simply alludes to these "Spirits" as being chained to the Earth during the Cycle of Incarnation. Azazel, or Azazyel, is one of the chiefs of the "transgressing" Angels in the _Book of Enoch_, who descending upon Ardis, the top of Mount Armon, bound themselves by swearing loyalty to each other. It is said that Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, to fabricate mirrors (?), to make _one see what is behind him_--viz., "magic mirrors." Amazarak taught all the sorcerers and dividers of roots; Amers taught the solution of Magic; Barkayal, Astrology; Akibeel, the meaning of portents and signs; Tamiel, Astronomy; and Asaradel taught the motion of the Moon.(865) "These seven were the first instructors of the fourth man" (_i.e._, of the Fourth Race). But why should allegory be always understood as meaning just what its dead-letter expresses? It is the symbolical representation of the great struggle between Divine Wisdom, Nous, and its Earthly Reflection, Psyche, or between Spirit and Soul, in Heaven and on Earth. In Heaven--because the Divine Monad had voluntarily exiled itself therefrom, to descend, for incarnating purposes, to a lower plane and thus transform the _animal_ of clay into an immortal _God_. For, as Éliphas Lévi tells us: The Angels aspire to become Men; for the perfect Man, the Man-God, is above even Angels. On Earth--because no sooner had Spirit descended than it was strangled in the coils of Matter. Strange to say, the Occult Teaching reverses the characters; it is the anthropomorphous Archangel in the case of the Christians, and the man-like God with the Hindűs, which represent Matter in this case; and the Dragon, or Serpent, Spirit. Occult symbolism furnishes the key to the mystery; theological symbolism conceals it still more. For the former explains many a saying in the _Bible_ and even in the _New Testament_ which has hitherto remained incomprehensible; while the latter, owing to its dogma of Satan and his rebellion, has belittled the character and nature of its would-be infinite, absolutely perfect God, and created the greatest evil and curse on Earth--belief in a personal Devil. This mystery is now partially revealed. The key to its metaphysical interpretation has now been restored, while the key to its theological interpretation shows the Gods and Archangels standing as symbols for the dead-letter or dogmatic religions, as arrayed against the pure truths of Spirit, naked and unadorned with fancy. Many were the hints thrown out in this direction in _Isis Unveiled_, and a still greater number of references to the mystery may be found scattered throughout these volumes. To make the point clear once for all; that which the clergy of every dogmatic religion, preëminently the Christian, points out as Satan, the enemy of God, is, in reality, the highest divine Spirit--Occult Wisdom on Earth--which is naturally antagonistic to every worldly, evanescent illusion, dogmatic or ecclesiastical religions included. Thus, the Latin Church, intolerant, bigoted and cruel to all who do not choose to be its slaves, the Church which calls itself the "bride" of Christ, and at the same time the trustee of Peter, to whom the rebuke of the Master "Get thee behind me, Satan" was justly addressed; and again the Protestant Church which, while calling itself Christian, paradoxically replaces the New Dispensation by the old Law of Moses which Christ openly repudiated--both these Churches are fighting against divine Truth, when repudiating and slandering the Dragon of Esoteric Divine Wisdom. Whenever they anathematize the Gnostic Solar Chnouphis, the Agathodćmon Christos, or the Theosophical Serpent of Eternity, or even the Serpent of _Genesis_--they are moved by the same spirit of dark fanaticism that moved the Pharisees to curse Jesus with the words: "Say we not well thou hast a devil?" Read the account of Indra (Vâyu) in the _Rig Veda_, the Occult volume _par excellence_ of Âryanism, and then compare it with the same in the _Purânas_--the exoteric version thereof, and the purposely garbled account of the true Wisdom Religion. In the _Rig Veda_, Indra is the highest and greatest of the Gods, and his Soma-drinking is allegorical of his highly spiritual nature. In the _Purânas_, Indra becomes a profligate, and a regular drunkard on the Soma-juice, in the ordinary terrestrial way. He is the conqueror of all the "enemies of the Gods" the Daityas, Nâgas (Serpents), Asuras, all the Serpent-gods, and of Vritra, the Cosmic Serpent. Indra is the St. Michael of the Hindű Pantheon--the chief of the _militant_ Host. Turning to the _Bible_, we find Satan, one of the "Sons of God,"(866) becoming in exoteric interpretation the Devil, and the Dragon, in its infernal, evil sense. But in the _Kabalah_,(867) Samael, who is Satan, is shown to be identical with St. Michael, the Slayer of the Dragon. How is this, when it is said that Tselem (the Image) reflects alike Michael and Samael, _who are one_? Both proceed, it is taught, from Ruach (Spirit), Neshamah (Soul) and Nephesh (Life). In the Chaldćan _Book of Numbers_ Samael is the concealed (Occult) Wisdom, and Michael the higher _terrestrial_ Wisdom, both emanating from the same source, but diverging after their issue from the Mundane Soul, which on Earth is Mahat, intellectual understanding, or Manas, the seat of intellect. They diverge, because the one (Michael) is _influenced_ by Neshamah, while the other (Samael) remains _uninfluenced_. This tenet was perverted by the dogmatic spirit of the Church, which, loathing independent Spirit, uninfluenced by the external form, hence by dogma, forthwith made of Samael-Satan--the most wise and spiritual spirit of all--the Adversary of its anthropomorphic God and sensual physical man, the Devil! The Origin Of The Satanic Myth. Let us, then, fathom this creation of the Patristic fancy still deeper, and find its prototype with the Pagans. The origin of the new Satanic myth is easy to trace. The tradition of the Dragon and the Sun is echoed in every part of the world, both in its civilized and semi-savage regions. It took rise in the whisperings about secret Initiations among the profane, and was once universally established through the formerly universal heliolatrous religion. There was a time when the four parts of the world were covered with the temples sacred to the Sun and the Dragon; but the cult is now preserved mostly in China and Buddhist countries, Bel and the Dragon being uniformly coupled together, and the priest of the Ophite religion as uniformly assuming the name of his God.(868) Among the religions of the past, it is in Egypt we have to seek for its Western origin. The Ophites adopted their rites from Hermes Trismegistus, and heliolatrous worship with its Sun-gods crossed over into the land of the Pharaohs from India. In the Gods of Stonehenge we recognize the divinities of Delphi and Babylon, and in those of the latter the Devas of the Vedic nations. Bel and the Dragon, Apollo and Python, Krishna and Kâliya, Osiris and Typhon, are all one under many names--the latest of which are Michael and the Red Dragon, and St. George and his Dragon. As Michael is "one as God," or his "Double" for terrestrial purposes, and is one of the Elohim, the fighting Angel, he is thus simply a permutation of Jehovah. Whatever the cosmic or astronomical event that first gave rise to the allegory of the "War in Heaven," its earthly origin has to be sought in the temples of Initiation and archaic crypts; and the proof is that we find (_a_) the priests assuming the name of the Gods they served; (_b_) the "Dragons" held throughout all antiquity as the symbols of Immortality and Wisdom, of secret Knowledge and of Eternity; and (_c_) the Hierophants of Egypt, of Babylon, and India, styling themselves generally the "Sons of the Dragon" and "Serpents"; thus corroborating the teachings of the Secret Doctrine. There were numerous catacombs in Egypt and Chaldća, some of them of a very vast extent. The most renowned of these were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis. The former, beginning on the western side of the Nile, extended towards the Libyan desert, and were known as the Serpent's Catacombs, or passages. It was there that were performed the Sacred Mysteries of the Kuklos Anagkęs, the "Unavoidable Cycle," more generally known as the "Circle of Necessity"; the inexorable doom imposed upon every Soul after bodily death, when it has been judged in the Amentian region. In De Bourbourg's book, Votan, the Mexican Demi-god, in narrating his expedition, describes a subterranean passage which ran on underground, and terminated at the root of the heavens, adding that this passage was a Snake's hole, "_un agujero de colubra_"; and that he was admitted to it because he was himself a "Son of the Snakes," or a Serpent.(869) This is, indeed, very suggestive; for his description of the "Snake's hole" is that of the ancient Egyptian crypt, as above mentioned. The Hierophants, moreover, of Egypt, and also of Babylon, generally styled themselves during the Mysteries, the "Sons of the Serpent-god," or "Sons of the Dragon." "The Assyrian priest always bore the name of his God," says Movers. The Druids of the Celto-Britannic regions also called themselves Snakes. "I am a Serpent, I am a Druid," they exclaimed. The Egyptian Karnak is twin brother to the Carnac of Bretagne, the latter Carnac meaning the Serpent's Mount. The Dracontia once covered the surface of the globe, and these temples were sacred to the Dragon, only because it was the symbol of the Sun, which, in its turn, was the symbol of the Highest God--the Phoenician Elon or Elion, whom Abraham recognized as El Elion.(870) Besides the surname of Serpents, they had also the appellation of "Builders" or "Architects," for the immense grandeur of their temples and monuments was such that even now the pulverized remains of them "frighten the mathematical calculations of our modern engineers," as Taliesin says.(871) De Bourbourg hints that the chiefs of the name of Votan, the Quetzo- Cohuatl, or Serpent deity of the Mexicans, are the descendants of Ham and Canaan. "I am Hivim," they say. "Being a Hivim, I am of the great race of the Dragon (Snake). I am a Snake myself, for I am a Hivim."(872) Furthermore, the "War in Heaven" is shown, in one of its significations, to have referred to those terrible struggles in store for the Candidate for Adeptship--struggles between himself and his (by Magic) personified human passions, when the enlightened _Inner Man_ had to either slay them or fail. In the former case he became the "Dragon-Slayer," as having happily overcome all the temptations, and a "Son of the Serpent" and a Serpent himself, having cast off his old skin and being born in a _new_ body, becoming a Son of Wisdom and Immortality in Eternity. Seth, the reputed forefather of Israel, is only a Jewish travesty of Hermes, the God of Wisdom, called also Thoth, Tat, Seth, Set, and Satan. He is also Typhon, the same as Apophis, the Dragon slain by Horus; for Typhon was also called Set. He is simply the _dark side_ of Osiris, his brother, as Angra Mainyu is the black shadow of Ahura Mazda. Terrestrially, all these allegories were connected with the trials of Adeptship and Initiation. Astronomically, they referred to the Solar and Lunar eclipses, the mythical explanations of which we find to this day in India and Ceylon, where anyone can study the allegorical narratives and traditions which have remained unchanged for many thousands of years. Râhu, mythologically, is a Daitya--a Giant, a Demi-god, the lower part of whose body ended in a Dragon's or Serpent's tail. During the Churning of the Ocean, when the Gods produced the Amrita, the Water of Immortality, he stole some of it, and, drinking, became immortal. The Sun and Moon, who had detected him in his theft, denounced him to Vishnu, who placed him in the stellar spheres, the upper portion of his body representing the Dragon's head and the lower (Ketu) the Dragon's tail; the two being the ascending and descending nodes. Since then, Râhu wreaks his vengeance on the Sun and Moon by occasionally swallowing them. But this fable has another mystic meaning, for Râhu, the Dragon's head, played a prominent part in the Mysteries of the Sun's (Vikartana's) Initiation, when the Candidate and the Dragon had a supreme fight. The caves of the Rishis, the abodes of Teiresias and the Greek seers, were modelled on those of the Nâgas--the Hindű King-Snakes, who dwelt in cavities of the rocks under the ground. From Shesha, the thousand-headed Serpent, on which Vishnu rests, down to Python, the Dragon-serpent oracle, all point to the secret meaning of the myth. In India we find the fact mentioned in the earliest _Purânas_. The children of Surasâ are the mighty "Dragons." The _Vâyu Purâna_ replacing the "Dragons" of Surasâ of the _Vishnu Purâna_ by the Dânavas, the descendants of Danu by the sage Kashyapa, and these Dânavas being the Giants, or Titans, who warred against the Gods, they are thus shown identical with the "Dragons" and "Serpents" of Wisdom. We have only to compare the Sun-gods of every country, to find their allegories agreeing perfectly with each other; and the more the allegorical symbol is Occult the more its corresponding symbol in exoteric systems agrees with it. Thus, if from three systems widely differing from each other in appearance--the old Âryan, the ancient Greek, and the modern Christian schemes--several Sun-gods and Dragons are selected at random, they will be found to be copied from each other. Let us take Agni the Fire-god, Indra the firmament, and Kârttikeya from the Hindűs; the Greek Apollo; and Michael, the "Angel of the Sun," the first of the Ćons, called by the Gnostics the "Saviour"--and proceed in order. (1) Agni, the Fire-god, is called Vaishvânara in the _Rig Veda_. Now Vaishvânara is a Dânava, a Giant-demon,(873) whose daughters Pulomâ and Kâlakâ are the mothers of numberless Dânavas (30 millions), by Kashyapa,(874) and live in Hiranyapura, "_the golden city, floating in the air_."(875) Therefore, Indra is, in a fashion, the step-son of these two as a son of Kashyapa; and Kashyapa is, in this sense, identical with Agni, the Fire-god, or Sun (Kashyapa-Âditya). To this same group belongs Skanda or Kârttikeya, God of War, the _six-faced_ planet Mars astronomically, a Kumâra, or Virgin-youth, born of Agni,(876) for the purpose of destroying Târaka, the Dânava Demon, the grandson of Kashyapa by his son Hiranyâksha.(877) Târaka's Yoga austerities were so extraordinary that they became formidable to the Gods, who feared such a rival in power.(878) While Indra, the bright God of the Firmament, kills Vritra, or Ahi, the Serpent-Demon--for which feat he is called Vritra-han, the "Destroyer of Vritra"--he also leads the hosts of Devas (Angels or Gods) against other Gods who rebel against Brahmâ, for which he is surnamed Jishnu, "Leader of the Celestial Host." Kârttikeya is also found bearing the same titles. For killing Târaka, the Dânava, he is called Târaka-jit, "Vanquisher of Târaka,"(879) Kumâra Guha, the "mysterious Virgin-youth," Siddha-sena, "Leader of the Siddhas," and Shakti-dhara, "Spear-holder." (2) Now take Apollo, the Grecian Sun-god, and by comparing the mythical accounts given of him, see whether he does not answer both to Indra, Kârttikeya, and even Kashyapa-Âditya, and at the same time to Michael (as the Angelic form of Jehovah) the "Angel of the Sun," who is "like," and "one with, God." Later ingenious interpretations for monotheistic purposes, elevated though they be into not-to-be-questioned Church dogmas, prove nothing, except, perhaps, the abuse of human authority and power. Apollo is Helios, the Sun, Phoibos-Apollo, the "Light of Life and of the World,"(880) who arises out of the Golden-winged Cup (the Sun); hence he is the Sun-god _par excellence_. At the moment of his birth he asks for his bow to kill Python, the Demon Dragon, who attacked his mother before his birth,(881) and whom he is divinely commissioned to destroy--like Kârttikeya, who is born for the purpose of killing Târaka, the _too holy and wise_ Demon. Apollo is born on a sidereal island called Asteria--the "golden star island," the "earth which floats in the air," which is the Hindű golden Hiranyapura; he is called the Pure ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH DASIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}) Agnus Dei, the Indian Agni, as Dr. Kenealy thinks; and in the primal myth he is exempt "from all sensual love."(882) He is, therefore, a Kumâra, like Kârttikeya, and as Indra was in his earlier life and biographies. Python, moreover, the "red Dragon," connects Apollo with Michael, who fights the Apocalyptic Dragon, seeking to attack the woman in child-birth, as Python attacks Apollo's mother. Can any one fail to see the identity? Had the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, who prides himself on his Greek scholarship and understanding of the spirit of Homer's allegories, ever had a real inkling of the _esoteric_ meaning of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, he would have understood St. John's _Revelation_, and even the _Pentateuch_, better than he does. For the way to the _Bible_ lies through Hermes, Bel, and Homer, as the way to these is through the Hindű and Chaldćan religious symbols. (3) The repetition of this archaic tradition is found in chapter xii of St. John's _Revelation_, and comes from the Babylonian legends, without the smallest doubt, though the Babylonian story, in its turn, had its origin in the allegories of the Âryans. The fragment read by the late George Smith is sufficient to disclose the source of this chapter of the Apocalypse. Here it is as given by the eminent Assyriologist: Our ... fragment refers to the creation of mankind, called Adam, as [the man] in the Bible; he is made perfect, ... but afterwards he joins with the dragon of the deep, the animal of Tiamat, the spirit of chaos, and offends against his god, who _curses him_, and calls down on his head all the evils and troubles of humanity.(883) This is followed by a war between the dragon and the powers of evil, or chaos on one side and the gods on the other. The gods have weapons forged for them,(884) and Merodach [the Archangel Michael in _Revelation_] undertakes to lead the heavenly host against the dragon. The war, which is described with spirit, ends of course in the triumph of the principles of good.(885) This War of the Gods with the Powers of the Deep, refers also, in its last and terrestrial application, to the struggle between the Âryan Adepts of the nascent Fifth Race and the Sorcerers of Atlantis, the Demons of the Deep, the Islanders surrounded with water who disappeared in the Deluge. The symbols of the "Dragon" and "War in Heaven" have, as already stated, more than one significance; religious, astronomical and geological events being included in the one common allegory. But they had also a cosmological meaning. In India the Dragon story is repeated in one of its forms in the battles of Indra with Vritra. In the _Vedas_ this Ahi-Vritra is referred to as the Demon of Drought, the terrible hot Wind. Indra is shown to be constantly at war with him; and with the help of his thunder and lightning the God compels Ahi-Vritra to pour down in rain on Earth, and then slays him. Hence, Indra is called the Vritra-han or the "Slayer of Vritra," as Michael is called the Conqueror and "Slayer of the Dragon." Both these "Enemies" are then the "Old Dragon" precipitated into the depths of the Earth, in this one sense. The Avestaic Amshaspands are a Host with a leader like St. Michael over them, and seem identical with the legions of Heaven, to judge from the account in the _Vendîdâd_. Thus in Fargard xix, Zarathushtra is told by Ahura Mazda to "invoke the Amesha Spentas who rule over the seven Karshvares(886) of the Earth";(887) which Karshvares in their seven applications refer equally to the seven Spheres of our Planetary Chain, to the seven Planets, the seven Heavens, etc., according to whether the sense is applied to a physical, supra-mundane, or simply a sidereal World. In the same Fargard, in his invocation against Angra Mainyu and his Host, Zarathushtra appeals to them in these words: "I invoke the seven bright Sravah with their sons and their flocks."(888) The "Sravah"--a word which the Orientalists have given up as one "of unknown meaning"--means the same Amshaspands, but in their highest Occult meaning. The Sravah are the Noumenoi of the phenomenal Amshaspands, the Souls or Spirits of those _manifested_ Powers; and "their sons and their flocks" refer to the Planetary Angels and their sidereal flocks of stars and constellations. "Amshaspand" is the exoteric term used in terrestrial combinations and affairs only. Zarathushtra addresses Ahura Mazda constantly as the "maker of the _material_ world." Ormazd is the father of our Earth (Spenta Ârmaiti), who is referred to, when personified, as "the fair daughter of Ahura Mazda,"(889) who is also the creator of the Tree (of Occult and Spiritual Knowledge and Wisdom) from which the mystic and mysterious Baresma is taken. But the Occult name of the bright God was never pronounced outside the temple. Samael or Satan the seducing Serpent of _Genesis_, and one of the primeval Angels who rebelled, is the name of the "Red Dragon." He is the Angel of Death, for the _Talmud_ says that "the Angel of Death and Satan are the same." He is killed by Michael, and once more killed by St. George, who also is a Dragon Slayer. But see the transformations of this. Samael is identical with the Simoom, the hot wind of the desert, or again with the Vedic Demon of Drought, as Vritra. "Simoon is called Atabutos" or--Diabolos, the Devil. Typhon, or the Dragon Apophis--the Accuser in the _Book of the Dead_--is worsted by Horus, who pierces his opponent's head with a spear; and Typhon is the all-destroying wind of the desert, the rebellious element that throws everything into confusion. As Set, he is the darkness of night, the murderer of Osiris, who is the light of day and the Sun. Archćology demonstrates that Horus is identical with Anubis,(890) whose effigy was discovered upon an Egyptian monument, with a cuirass and a spear, like Michael and St. George. Anubis is also represented as slaying a Dragon, that has the head and tail of a serpent.(891) Cosmologically, then, all the Dragons and Serpents conquered by their "Slayers" are, in their origin, the turbulent confused principles in Chaos, brought to order by the Sun-gods or _Creative_ Powers. In the _Book of the Dead_ those principles are called the "Sons of Rebellion."(892) In that night, the oppressor, the murderer of Osiris, otherwise called the _deceiving Serpent_ ... calls the Sons of Rebellion in _Air_, and when they arrive to the East of the Heavens, then there is War in Heaven and in the entire World.(893) In the Scandinavian _Eddas_ the "War" of the Ases with the Hrimthurses or Frost giants, and of Asathor with the Jotuns, the Serpents and Dragons and the "Wolf" who comes out of "Darkness"--is the repetition of the same myth. The "Evil Spirits,"(894) who began by being simply the emblems of Chaos, have become euhemerized by the superstition of the rabble, until they have finally won the right of citizenship in what are claimed to be the most civilized and learned races of this globe _since its creation_, and have become a dogma with Christians. As George Smith has it: The evil principles [Spirits], emblems of Chaos [in Chaldća and Assyria as in Egypt, we see], ... resist this change and make war on the Moon, the eldest son of Bel, drawing over to their side the Sun, Venus and the atmospheric god Vul.(895) This is only another version of the Hindű "War in Heaven," between Soma, the Moon, and the Gods; Indra being the atmospheric Vul--which shows it plainly to be both a cosmogonical and an astronomical allegory, woven into and drawn from the earliest Theogony as taught in the Mysteries. It is in the religious doctrines of the Gnostics that we can best see the real meaning of the Dragon, the Serpent, the Goat, and all those symbols of Powers now called Evil; for it is they who, in their teachings, divulged the Esoteric nature of the Jewish substitute for Ain Suph, the true meaning of which the Rabbins concealed, while the Christians, with a few exceptions, knew nothing of it. Surely Jesus of Nazareth would have hardly advised his apostles to show themselves as _wise_ as the serpent, had the latter been a symbol of the Evil One; nor would the Ophites, the learned Egyptian Gnostics of the "Brotherhood of the Serpent," have reverenced a living snake in their ceremonies as the emblem of _Wisdom_, the divine Sophia, and a type of the All-good, not the All-bad, were that reptile so closely connected with Satan. The fact is, that even as a common ophidian it has ever been a dual symbol, and as a dragon it has never been anything else than a symbol of the Manifested Deity in its great Wisdom. The _draco volans_, the "flying dragon" of the early painters, may be an exaggerated picture of the real extinct antediluvian animal, and those who have faith in the Occult Teachings believe that in the days of old there were such creatures as flying dragons, a kind of Pterodactyl, and that it is those gigantic winged lizards that served as prototypes for the Seraph of Moses and his great Brazen Serpent.(896) The Jews formerly worshipped the latter _idol_ themselves, but, after the religious reforms brought about by Hezekiah, they turned round, and called that symbol of the Great or Higher God of every other nation a Devil, and their own usurper--the "One God."(897) The appellation Sa'tan, in Hebrew Sâtân, an "Adversary" (from the verb _shatana_, "to be adverse," "to persecute") belongs by right to the first and cruellest "Adversary" _of all the other Gods_--Jehovah; not to the Serpent, which spoke only words of sympathy and wisdom, and is at the worst, even in the dogma, the "Adversary" _of men_. This dogma, based as it is on the third chapter of _Genesis_, is as illogical and unjust as it is paradoxical. For who was the first to _create_ that original and henceforward universal tempter of man--the woman? Not the Serpent surely, but the "Lord God" himself, who, saying, "It is not good that the man should be alone," made woman, and "brought her unto the man."(898) If the unpleasant little incident that followed _was_ and is still to be regarded as the "original sin," then it exhibits the Creator's divine foresight in a poor light indeed. It would have been far better for the first Adam of the first chapter to have been left either "male and female," or "alone." It is the Lord God, evidently, who was the real cause of all the mischief, the "_agent provocateur_," and the Serpent--only a prototype of Azazel, "the scapegoat for the sin of [the God of] Israel," the poor Tragos having to pay the penalty for his Master's and Creator's blunder. This, of course, is addressed only to those who accept the opening events of the drama of humanity in _Genesis_ in their dead-letter sense. Those who read them Esoterically, are not reduced to fanciful speculations and hypotheses; they _know_ how to read the symbolism therein contained, and cannot err. There is at present no need to touch upon the mystic and manifold meaning of the name Jehovah in its abstract sense, one independent of the Deity falsely called by that name. It was a "blind" purposely created by the Rabbins, a secret preserved by them with ten-fold care after the Christians had despoiled them of this God-name which was their own property.(899) The following statement, however, is now made. The personage who is named in the first four chapters of _Genesis_ variously as "God," the "Lord God," and "Lord" simply, is not one and the same person; certainly it is not Jehovah. There are three distinct classes or groups of the Elohim called Sephiroth in the _Kabalah_. Jehovah appears only in chapter iv of _Genesis_, in the first verse of which he is named Cain, and in the last transformed into _mankind_--male and female, Jah- veh.(900) The Serpent, moreover, is not Satan, but the bright Angel, one of the Elohim clothed in radiance and glory, who--promising the woman, if they ate of the forbidden fruit, "ye shall not surely die"--kept his promise, and made man immortal in his _incorruptible nature_. He is the Iao of the Mysteries, the chief of the Androgyne Creators of men. Chapter iii contains (Esoterically) the withdrawal of the veil of ignorance that closed the perceptions of the Angelic Man, made in the image of the "boneless" Gods, and the opening of his consciousness to his real nature; thus showing the Bright Angel (Lucifer) in the light of a giver of Immortality, and as the "Enlightener"; while the real Fall into generation and matter is to be sought in chapter iv. There, Jehovah-Cain, the male part of Adam the _dual_ man, having separated himself from Eve, creates in her Abel, _the first natural woman_,(901) and sheds the _virgin blood_. Now Cain, being shown identical with Jehovah, on the authority of the correct reading of the first verse of chapter iv of _Genesis_, in the original Hebrew text, and the Rabbins teaching that "Kin (Cain) the Evil was the Son of Eve by Samael, the Devil, who occupied the place of Adam,"(902) and the _Talmud_ adding that "the evil Spirit, Satan, and Samael, the angel of Death, are the same"(903)--it becomes easy to see that Jehovah (mankind, or Jah-hovah) and Satan (therefore the tempting Serpent) are one and the same in every particular. _There is no Devil, no Evil outside mankind to produce a Devil._ Evil is a necessity in, and one of the supporters of the Manifested Universe. It is a necessity for progress and evolution, as night is necessary for the production of day, and death for that of life--_that man may live for ever_. Satan represents metaphysically simply the _reverse_ or the _polar opposite_ of everything in Nature.(904) He is the "Adversary," allegorically, the "Murderer," and the great Enemy of _all_, because there is nothing in the whole Universe that has not two sides--the reverses of the same medal. But in that case, light, goodness, beauty, etc., may be called Satan with as much propriety as the Devil, since they are the Adversaries of darkness, badness, and ugliness. And now the philosophy and the _rationale_ of certain early Christian sects--called _heretical_ and viewed as the abomination of the times--will become more comprehensible. We may understand how it was that the sect of Satanians came to be degraded, and were anathematized without any hope of vindication in a future day, since they kept their tenets secret. How, on the same principle, the Cainites came to be degraded, and even the (Judas) Iscariotes; the true character of the _treacherous_ apostle having never been correctly presented before the tribunal of humanity. As a direct consequence, the tenets of the Gnostic sects also become clear. Each of these sects was founded by an Initiate, while their tenets were based on the correct knowledge of the symbolism of every nation. Thus it becomes comprehensible why Ilda-baoth was regarded by most of them as the God of Moses, and was held to be a proud, ambitious, and impure Spirit, who had abused his power by usurping the place of the Highest God, though he was no better, and in some respects far worse than his brother Elohim; the latter representing the all-embracing, manifested Deity only in their collectivity, since they were the Fashioners of the first differentiations of the primary Cosmic Substance for the creation of the phenomenal Universe. Therefore Jehovah was called by the Gnostics the Creator of, and one with, Ophiomorphos, the Serpent, Satan, or Evil.(905) They taught that Iurbo and Adonai were names of Iao-Jehovah, who is an emanation of Ilda-baoth.(906) This, in their language, amounted to saying what the Rabbins expressed in a more veiled way, by stating that "Cain had been generated by Samael or Satan." The Fallen Angels, in every ancient system, are made the prototypes of _fallen_ men--allegorically, and _those men themselves_--Esoterically. Thus the Elohim of the hour of creation became the Beni-Elohim, the Sons of God, among whom is Satan, in the Semitic traditions. War in Heaven between Thrćtaona and Azhi-dahaka, the destroying Serpent, ends on Earth, according to Burnouf, in the battle of pious men against the power of Evil, "of the Iranians with the Âryan Brâhmans of India." And the conflict of the Gods with the Asuras is repeated in the Great War--the Mahâbhârata. In the latest religion of all, Christianity, all the combatants, Gods and Demons, Adversaries in both the camps, are now transformed into Dragons and Satans, simply in order to connect Evil personified with the Serpent of _Genesis_, and thus prove the new dogma. Noah Was A Kabir, Hence He Must Have Been A Demon. It matters little whether it were Isis, or Ceres, the Kabiria, or again the Kabiri, who taught men agriculture; but it is very important to prevent fanatics from monopolizing all the facts in history and legend, and from fathering their distortions of truth, history, and legend upon one man. Noah is either a _myth_ along with the others, or one whose legend was built upon the Kabirian or Titanic tradition, as taught in Samothrace; he has, therefore, no claim to be monopolized by either Jew or Christian. If, as Faber tried to demonstrate at such cost of learning and research, Noah is an Atlantean and a Titan, and his family are the Kabiri or pious Titans, etc.--then biblical chronology falls by its own weight, and along with it all the Patriarchs--the Antediluvian and Pre-Atlantean Titans. As has now been discovered and proven, Cain is Mars, the God of _power and generation_, and of the first (sexual) bloodshed.(907) Tubal- Cain is a Kabir, "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron"; or--if this will please better--he is one with Hephćstus or Vulcan. Jabal again is taken from the Kabiri, instructors in agriculture, "such as have cattle," and Jubal is "the father of all those who handle the harp," he, or _they_ who fabricated the harp for Cronus and the trident for Poseidon.(908) The history or "fables" about the mysterious Telchines--fables echoing each and all the archaic events of our Esoteric Teachings--furnish us with a key to the origin of Cain's genealogy in the third chapter of _Genesis_; they give the reason why the Roman Catholic Church identifies "the accursed blood" of Cain and Ham with Sorcery, and makes it responsible for the Deluge. Were not the Telchines--it is argued--the mysterious ironworkers of Rhodes; they who were the first to raise statues to the Gods, furnish them with weapons, and men with magic arts? And is it not they who were destroyed by a Deluge at the command of Zeus, as the Cainites were by that of Jehovah? The Telchines are simply the Kabiri and the Titans, in another form. They are the Atlanteans also. Says Decharme: Like Lemnos and Samothrace, Rhodes, the birth-place of the Telchines, is an island of volcanic formation.(909) The island of Rhodes emerged suddenly out of the seas, after having been previously engulfed by the Ocean, say the traditions. Like the Samothrace of the Kabiri, it is connected by the memory of men with the Flood legends. As enough has been said on this subject, however, it may be left for the present. But we may add a few more words about Noah, the Jewish representative of nearly every Pagan God in one or another character. The Homeric songs contain, in poetized form, all the later fables about the Patriarchs, who are all sidereal, cosmic, and numerical symbols and signs. The attempt to disconnect the two genealogies of Seth and Cain,(910) and the further equally futile attempt to show them as _real_, _historical_ men, has only led to more serious enquiries into the history of the past, and to discoveries which have damaged for ever the supposed _revelation_. For instance, the identity of Noah and Melchizedek being established, the further identity of Melchizedek, or Father Sadik, with Cronus-Saturn is also proved. That it is so may be easily demonstrated. It is not denied by any of the Christian writers. Bryant(911) concurs with all those who are of opinion that Sydic, or Sadic, was the Patriarch Noah, and also Melchizedek; and that the name by which he is called, Sadic, corresponds with the character given him in _Genesis_.(912) He was {~HEBREW LETTER TSADI~}{~HEBREW LETTER DALET~}{~HEBREW LETTER YOD~}{~HEBREW LETTER QOF~}, Sadic, a _just man_, and perfect in his generation. All science and every useful art were attributed to him, and through his sons transmitted to posterity.(913) Now it is Sanchuniathon, who informs the world that the Kabiri were the Sons of Sydic or Zedek (Melchi-zedek). True enough, as this information has descended to us through the _Preparatio Evangelica_ of Eusebius, it may be regarded with a certain amount of suspicion, as it is more than likely that he dealt with Sanchuniathon's works as he has with Manetho's Synchronistic Tables. But let us suppose that the identification of Sydic, Cronus, or Saturn, with Noah and Melchizedek, is based on one of the Eusebian pious hypotheses. Let us accept it as such, along with Noah's characteristic as a _just man_, and his supposed duplicate, the mysterious Melchizedek, "king of Salem, and priest of the most high God," after "his own order";(914) and finally, having seen what they all were spiritually, astronomically, psychically and cosmically, let us now see what they became rabbinically and kabalistically. In speaking of Adam, Cain, Mars, etc., as _personifications_, we find the author of the _Source of Measures_ enunciating our very Esoteric Teachings in his kabalistic researches. Thus he says: Now, Mars was the Lord of _birth_, and of _death_, of _generation_ and of _destruction_, of _ploughing_, of _building_, of _sculpture_ or stone-cutting, of _architecture_, ... in fine, of all comprised under our English word ARTS. He was the _primal principle_, disintegrating into the modification of _two opposites for production_. Astronomically, too,(915) he held the birthplace of the day and year, _the place of its increase of strength_, Aries, and likewise the place of its death, Scorpio. He held the house of Venus, and that of the Scorpion. He, as _birth_, was _Good_; as _death_, was _Evil_. As _good_, he was _light_; as _bad_, he was _night_. As _good_, he was _man_; as _bad_, he was _woman_. He held the cardinal points, and as _Cain_, or _Vulcan_,(916) or _Pater Sadic_, or _Melchizadek_, he was lord of the _ecliptic_, or _balance_, or _line of adjustment_, and therefore was _The Just One_. The ancients held to there being seven planets, or great gods, growing out of eight, and Pater Sadic, _The Just or Right One_, was Lord of the eighth, which was _Mater Terra_.(917) This makes their functions, after they had been degraded, plain enough, and establishes the identity. The Noachian Deluge, as described in its dead-letter and within the period of biblical chronology, having been shown to have never existed, the pious, but very arbitrary, supposition of Bishop Cumberland has but to follow that Deluge into the land of fiction. Indeed it seems rather fanciful to any impartial observer to be told that: There were two distinct races of Cabiri, the first consisting of Ham and Mizraim, whom he conceives to be Jupiter and Dionusus of Mnaseas; the second, of the children of Shem, who are the Cabiri of Sanchoniatho, while their father Sydyk is consequently the scriptural Shem.(918) The Kabirim, the "Mighty Ones," are identical with our primeval Dhyân Chohans, with the corporeal and the incorporeal Pitris, and with all the Rulers and Instructors of the primeval races, who are referred to as the Gods and Kings of the Divine Dynasties. The Oldest Persian Traditions About The Polar, And The Submerged Continents. Legendary lore could not distort facts so effectually as to reduce them to unrecognizable shape. Between the traditions of Egypt and Greece on the one hand, and Persia on the other--a country ever at war with the former--there is too great a similarity of figures and numbers to admit of such coincidence being due to simple chance. This has been well proven by Bailly. Let us pause for a moment to examine these traditions from every available source, in order to the better compare those of the Magi with the so-called Grecian "fables." Those legends have now passed into popular tales, the folklore of Persia, as many a real fiction has found its way into our universal history. The stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table are also fairy tales to all appearance; yet they are based on facts, and pertain to the history of England. Why should not the folklore of Iran be part and parcel of the history and the pre-historic events of Atlantis? That folklore says as follows: Before the creation of Adam, two races lived on Earth, the one succeeding the other; the Devs who reigned 7,000 years, and the Peris (the Izeds) who reigned but 2,000, and while the former were still in existence. The Devs were giants, strong and wicked; the Peris were smaller in stature, but wiser and kinder. Here we recognize the Atlantean Giants and the Âryans, or the Râkshasas of the _Râmâyana_ and the children of Bharata-varsha, or India; the Ante- and the Post-diluvians of the _Bible_. Gyan (or Gnan, Jnâna, True or Occult Wisdom and Knowledge), also called Gian-ben-Gian (or Wisdom, son of Wisdom), was the king of the Peris.(919) He had a shield as famous as that of Achilles, only instead of serving against an enemy in war, it served as a protection against black magic, the _sorcery_ of the Devs. Gian-ben-Gian had reigned 2,000 years when Iblis, the Devil, was permitted by God to defeat the Peris and scatter them to the other end of the world. Even the magic shield, which, by being produced on the principles of Astrology, destroyed charms, enchantments, and bad spells, could not prevail against Iblis, who was an agent of Fate, or Karma.(920) They count ten kings in their last metropolis called Khanoom, and make the tenth, Kaimurath, identical with the Hebrew Adam. These kings answer to the ten antediluvian generations of kings as given by Berosus. Distorted as these legends are now found to be, one can hardly fail to identify them with the Chaldćan, Egyptian, Greek, and even Hebrew traditions, for the Jewish myth, though disdaining in its exclusiveness to speak of Pre-Adamite nations, nevertheless allows these to be clearly inferred, by sending out Cain--_one of the only two living men on earth_--into the land of Nod, where he gets married and builds a city.(921) Now if we compare the 9,000 years mentioned by the Persian tales with the 9,000 years which Plato declared had passed since the submersion of the last Atlantis, a very strange fact is made apparent. Bailly remarked on this, but distorted it by his interpretation. The Secret Doctrine may restore the figures to their true meaning. We read in the _Critias_: First of all one must remember that 9,000 years have elapsed _since the war of the nations_, which lived above and outside the Pillars of Hercules, and those which peopled the lands on this side. In the _Timćus_ Plato says the same. The Secret Doctrine declaring that most of the later islander Atlanteans perished in the interval between 850,000 and 700,000 years ago, and that the Âryans were 200,000 years old when the first great "Island," or Continent, was submerged, there seems hardly any reconciliation possible between the figures. But there is, in truth. Plato, being an Initiate, had to use the veiled language of the Sanctuary, and so had the Magi of Chaldća and Persia through whose exoteric revelations the Persian legends were preserved and passed to posterity. Thus, we find the Hebrews calling a week "seven days," and speaking of a "week of years" when each of its days represents 360 solar years, and the whole "week" is 2,520 years, in fact. They had a Sabbatical week, a Sabbatical year, etc., and their Sabbath lasted indifferently 24 hours or 24,000 years, in the secret calculations of their Sods. We of the present times call an age a "century." They of Plato's day, the initiated writers, at any rate, by a millennium meant not 1,000 but 100,000 years; while the Hindűs, more independent than any, have never concealed their chronology. Thus, for 9,000 years, the Initiates will read 900,000 years, during which space of time--_i.e._, from the first appearance of the Âryan Race, when the Pliocene portions of the once great Atlantis began gradually sinking(922) and other continents to appear on the surface, down to the final disappearance of Plato's small island of Atlantis--the Âryan races had never ceased to fight with the descendants of the first giant races. This war lasted till nearly the close of the age which preceded the Kali Yuga, and was the Mahâbhârata, or Great War, so famous in Indian history. Such blending of events and epochs, and the bringing down of hundreds of thousands into thousands of years, does not interfere with the numbers of years that have elapsed, according to the statement made by the Egyptian priests to Solon, since the destruction of the last portion of Atlantis. The 9,000 years were the correct figures. The latter event had never been kept a secret, and had only faded out of the memory of the Greeks. The Egyptians had their records complete, because of their isolation; being surrounded by sea and desert, they had been left untrammelled by other nations, till about a few millenniums before our era. History catches a glimpse of Egypt and its great Mysteries for the first time through Herodotus, if we do not take into account the _Bible_, and its queer chronology.(923) And how little Herodotus _could_ tell is confessed by himself when, speaking of a mysterious tomb of an Initiate at Saďs, in the sacred precinct of Minerva, he says: Behind the chapel ... is the tomb of One, _whose name I consider it impious to divulge_.... In the enclosure stand large obelisks and there is a _lake_ near, surrounded with a stone wall formed _in a circle_.... In this lake they perform by night, that person's adventures, which the Egyptians call _Mysteries_: on these matters, however, though I am accurately acquainted with the particulars of them, _I must observe a discreet silence_.(924) On the other hand, it is well to know that no secret was so well preserved and so sacred with the Ancients, as that of their cycles and computations. From the Egyptians down to the Jews it was held as the highest sin to divulge anything pertaining to the correct measure of time. It was for divulging the secrets of the Gods, that Tantalus was plunged into the infernal regions; the keepers of the sacred Sibylline Books were threatened with the death penalty for revealing a word from them. Sigalions, or images of Harpocrates, were in every temple--especially in those of Isis and Serapis--each pressing a finger to the lips. And the Hebrews taught that to divulge the secrets of the Kabalah, after initiation into the Rabbinical Mysteries, was like eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge; it was punishable by death. And yet we Europeans have accepted the exoteric chronology of the Jews! What wonder that it has ever since influenced and coloured all our conceptions of Science and the duration of things! The Persian traditions, then, are full of two nations or races, now entirely extinct, as some think. But this is not so; they are only transformed. These traditions are ever speaking of the Mountains of Kaf (Kafaristan?), which contain a gallery built by the giant Argeak, wherein statues of the ancient men under all their forms are preserved. They call them Sulimans (Solomons) or the wise kings of the East, and count seventy- two kings of that name.(925) Three among them reigned for 1,000 years each.(926) Siamek, the beloved son of Kaimurath (Adam), their first king, was murdered by his giant brother. His father had a perpetual fire preserved in the tomb which contained his cremated ashes; hence--the origin of fire- worship, as some Orientalists think! Then came Huschenk, the prudent and the wise. It was his Dynasty which re- discovered metals and precious stones, after they had been concealed by the Devs or Giants in the bowels of the Earth, and also how to make brass- work, to cut canals, and improve agriculture. As usual, it is Huschenk, again, who is credited with having written the work called _Eternal Wisdom_, and even with having built the cities of Luz, Babylon and Ispahan, though indeed they were built ages later. But as modern Delhi is built on six other older cities, so these cities may be built on emplacements of other cities of an immense antiquity. As to his date, it can only be inferred from another legend. In the same tradition this wise prince is credited with having made war against the Giants on a twelve-legged Horse, whose birth is attributed to the _amours_ of a crocodile with a female hippopotamus. This "Dodecapod" was found on the "dry island" or new continent; much force and cunning had to be used to secure the wonderful animal, but no sooner had Huschenk mounted him, than he defeated every enemy. No Giants could withstand his tremendous power. Finally, however, this king of kings was killed by an enormous rock which the Giants threw at him from the great mountains of Damavend.(927) Tahmurath is the third king of Persia, the St. George of Iran, the knight who always has the best of, and finally kills, the Dragon. He is the great enemy of the Devs who, in his day, dwelt in the Mountains of Kaf, and occasionally made raids on the Peris. The old French chronicles of the Persian folklore call him the Dev-bend, the conqueror of the Giants. He, too, is credited with having founded Babylon, Nineveh, Diarbek, etc. Like his grand-sire Huschenk, Tahmurath (Taimuraz) also had his steed, only far more rare and rapid--a bird called Simorgh-Anke. A marvellous bird, in truth, intelligent, a polyglot, and even very religious.(928) What says that Persian Phoenix? It complains of its old age, for it was born cycles and cycles before the days of Adam (Kaimurath). It has witnessed the revolutions of long centuries. It has seen the birth and the close of twelve cycles of 7,000 years each, which multiplied Esoterically will give us again 840,000 years.(929) Simorgh is born with the last Deluge of the Pre-Adamites, says the "Romance of Simorgh and the good Khalif"!(930) What says the _Book of Numbers_? Esoterically, Adam Rishoon is the Lunar Spirit (Jehovah, in a sense, or the Pitris), and his three sons--Ka-yin, Habel, and Seth--represent the three Races, as already explained. Noah- Xisuthrus represents, in his turn (in the cosmo-geological key), the Third Race separated, and his three sons, its last three races; Ham, moreover, symbolizing that race which uncovered the "nakedness" of the Parent Race, and of the "Mindless," _i.e._, committed sin. Tahmurath visits on his winged steed the Mountains of Koh-Kaf or Kaph. He finds there the Peris ill-treated by the Giants, and slays Argen, and the giant Demrusch. Then he liberates the good Peri, Mergiana,(931) whom Demrusch had kept as a prisoner, and takes her over to the "dry island," _i.e._, the new continent of Europe.(932) After him came Giamschid, who builds Esikekar, or Persepolis. This king reigns 700 years, and, in his great pride, believes himself immortal, and demands divine honours. Fate punishes him; he wanders for 100 years in the world under the name of Dhulkarnayn, the "two-horned." But this epithet has no connection with the "two-horned" gentleman of the cloven foot. The "two-horned" is the epithet given in Asia--which is uncivilized enough to know nothing of the attributes of the Devil--to those conquerors who have subdued the world from the East to the West. Then come the usurper Zohac, and Feridan, one of the Persian heroes, who vanquishes the former, and shuts him up in the mountains of Damavend. These are followed by many others down to Kaikobad, who founded a new Dynasty. Such is the legendary history of Persia, and we have to analyze it. To begin with, what are the Mountains of Kaf? Whatever they may be in their geographical status, whether they are the Caucasian or Central Asian mountains, legend places the Devs and Peris far beyond these mountains to the North, the Peris being the remote ancestors of the Parsîs or Farsîs. Oriental tradition is ever referring to an unknown glacial, gloomy sea, and to a dark region, within which, nevertheless, are situated the "Fortunate Islands," wherein, from the beginning of life on earth, bubbles the "Fountain of Life."(933) The legend asserts, moreover, that a portion of the first "dry island" (continent), having detached itself from the main body, has remained, since then, beyond the Mountains of Koh-Kaf, "the stony girdle that surrounds the world." A journey of seven months' duration will bring him who is possessed of "Soliman's Ring" to that "Fountain," if he keep on journeying North, straight before him as the bird flies. Journeying, therefore, from Persia _straight_ North, will bring one along the sixtieth degree of longitude, holding to the West, to Nova Zembla; and from the Caucasus to the eternal ice beyond the Arctic Circle would land one between the sixtieth and forty-fifth degrees of longitude, or between Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen. This, of course, if one has the dodecapodian Horse of Huschenk or the winged Simorgh of Tahmurath, or Taimuraz, upon which to cross over the Arctic Ocean.(934) Nevertheless, the wandering songsters of Persia and the Caucasus will maintain, to this day, that far beyond the snow-capped summits of Kap, or Caucasus, _there is a great continent now concealed from all_; that it is reached by those who can secure the services of the twelve-legged progeny of the crocodile and the female hippopotamus, whose legs become at will twelve _wings_,(935) or by those who have the patience to wait for the good pleasure of Simorgh-Anke, who promised that before she dies she will reveal the hidden continent to all, and make it once more visible and within easy reach, by means of a bridge, which the Ocean Devs will build between that portion of the "dry island" and its severed parts.(936) This relates, of course, to the Seventh Race, Simorgh being the Manvantaric Cycle. It is very curious that Cosmas Indicopleustes, who lived in the sixth century A.D., should have always maintained that man was born, and dwelt at first, in a country "beyond the Ocean," a proof of which had been given him in India, by a learned Chaldćan. He says: The lands we live in are surrounded by the Ocean, but beyond that Ocean there is another land which touches the walls of the sky; and it is in this land that man was created and lived in Paradise. During the Deluge, Noah was carried in his ark into the land his posterity now inhabits.(937) The twelve-legged Horse of Huschenk was found on that continent named the "dry island." The "Christian Topography" of Cosmas Indicopleustes and its merits are well known; but here the good father repeats a universal tradition, which has now, moreover, been corroborated by facts. Every arctic traveller suspects a continent or a "dry island" beyond the line of eternal ice. Perhaps now the meaning of the following passage from one of the Commentaries may become clearer. _In the first beginnings of [human] life, the only dry land was on the right end_(_938_)_ of the Sphere, where it [the Globe] is motionless._(_939_)_ The whole Earth was one vast watery desert, and the waters were tepid.... There, man was born on the seven zones of the immortal, the indestructible of the Manvantara._(_940_)_ There was eternal spring in darkness. [But] that which is darkness to the man of to-day, was light to the man of his dawn. There, the Gods rested, and Fohat_(_941_)_ reigns ever since.... Thus the wise Fathers say that man is born in the head of his Mother [Earth], and that her feet at the left end generated [begot] the evil winds that blow from the mouth of the lower Dragon ... Between the First and Second [Races] the Eternal Central [Land] was divided by the Water of Life._(_942_) _It flows around and animates her [Mother Earth's] body. Its one end issues from her head; it becomes foul at her feet [the Southern Pole]. It gets purified [on its return] to her heart--which beats under the foot of the sacred Shambalah, which then [in the beginnings] was not yet born. For it is in the belt of man's dwelling [the Earth] that lies concealed the life and health of all that lives and breathes._(_943_)_ During the First and Second [Races] the belt was covered with the great waters. [But] the great __ Mother travailed under the waves and a new land was joined to the first one which our wise men call the head-gear [the cap]. She travailed harder for the Third [Race] and her waist and navel appeared above the water. It was the belt, the sacred Himavat, which stretches around the World._(_944_)_ She broke toward the setting Sun from her neck_(_945_)_ downward [to the South-West], into many lands and islands, but the Eternal Land [the cap] broke not asunder. Dry lands covered the face of the silent waters to the four sides of the World. All these perished [in their turn]. Then appeared the abode of the wicked [the Atlantis]. The Eternal Land was now hid, for the waters became solid [frozen] under the breath of her nostrils and the evil winds from the Dragon's mouth, etc._ This shows that Northern Asia is as old as the Second Race. One may even say that Asia is contemporary with man, since from the very beginnings of human life its Root-Continent, so to speak, already existed, and that part of the world now known as Asia was only cut off from it in a later age, and divided by the glacial waters. If, then, the teaching is understood correctly, the first Continent which came into existence capped over the whole North Pole like one unbroken crust, and remains so to this day, beyond that inland sea which seemed like an unreachable _mirage_ to the few arctic travellers who perceived it. During the Second Race more land emerged from under the waters as a continuation of the "head" from the "neck." Beginning on both hemispheres, on the line above the most noryhern part of Spitzbergen,(946) on Mercator's Projection, on our side, it may have included, on the American side, the localities that are now occupied by Baffin's Bay and the neighbouring islands and promontories. _There_ it hardly reached, southward, the seventieth degree of latitude; _here_ it formed the horseshoe continent of which the Commentary speaks; of the two ends of which, one included Greenland with a prolongation which crossed the fiftieth degree a little South-West, and the other Kamschatka, the two ends being united by what is now the northern fringe of the coasts of Eastern and Western Siberia. This broke asunder and disappeared. In the early part of the Third Race, Lemuria was formed. When it was destroyed in its turn, Atlantis appeared. Western Speculations, Founded On The Greek And Paurânic Traditions. Thus it becomes natural to find that, on even such meagre data as have reached the profane historian, Rudbeck, a Swedish Scientist, about two centuries ago, tried to prove that Sweden was the Atlantis of Plato. He even thought that he had found in the configuration of ancient Upsala, the situation and measurements of the capital of "Atlantis" as given by the Greek sage. As Bailly proved, Rudbeck was mistaken; but so was Bailly likewise, and still more so, for Sweden and Norway had formed part and parcel of ancient Lemuria, and also of Atlantis on the European side, just as Eastern and Western Siberia and Kamschatka had belonged to it, on the Asiatic. Only, once more, when was it? We can find it out approximately only by studying the _Purânas_, that is to say if we will have nought to do with the Secret Teachings. Three-quarters of a century have already elapsed since Wilford brought forward his fanciful theories about the British islands being the "White Island," the Atala of the _Purânas_. This was sheer nonsense, as the Atala is one of the seven Dvîpas, or Islands, belonging to the nether Lokas, one of the seven regions of Pâtâla (the antipodes). Moreover, as Wilford(947) shows, the _Purânas_ place it "on the seventh zone or seventh climate"--rather, on the seventh measure of heat--which thus locates it between the latitudes of 24° and 28° North. It is then to be sought on the same degree as the Tropic of Cancer, whereas England is between the latitudes of 50° and 60°. Wilford speaks of it as Atala, Atlantis, the White Island. Its enemy is called the "White Devil," the Demon of Terror, for he says: In their [the Hindű and Persian] romances, we see Cai-caus going to the mountain of _Az-burj_, or _As-burj_, _at the foot of which_ the sun sets, to fight the _Div-sefid_, or white devil, the _Târa- daitya_ of the _Purânas_, and whose abode was on the _seventh stage_ of the world, answering to the seventh zone of the Bauddhists; ... or, in other words, to the White Island.(948) Now here the Orientalists have been, and are still, facing the Sphinx's riddle, the erroneous solution of which will ever destroy their authority--if not their persons--in the eyes of every Hindű scholar, whether or not an Initiate. For there is not a statement in the _Purânas_--on the conflicting details of which Wilford based his speculations--which has not several meanings, and which does not apply to both the physical and the metaphysical worlds. If the old Hindűs divided the face of the Globe into seven Zones, Climates, Dvîpas, geographically, and into seven Hells and seven Heavens, allegorically, the measure of seven did not apply in both cases to the same localities. Now it is the North Pole, the country of "Meru," which is the seventh division, as it answers to the seventh Principle (or fourth metaphysically), of the Occult calculation. It represents the region of Âtmâ, of pure Soul, and Spirituality. Hence Pushkara is shown as the seventh Zone, or Dvîpa, which encompasses the Kshîra Ocean, or Ocean of Milk (the ever-frozen white region) in the _Vishnu_ and other _Purânas_.(949) And Pushkara, with its two Varshas, lies directly at the foot of Meru. For it is said that: The two countries north and south of Meru are _shaped like a bow_, ... [and that] one half of the surface of the earth is on the south of Meru and the other half on the north of Meru--_beyond which is half of Pushkara_. Geographically, then, Pushkara is America, Northern and Southern; and allegorically it is the prolongation of Jambu-dvîpa,(950) in the middle of which stands Meru, for it is the country inhabited by beings who live ten thousand years, who are free from sickness or failing; where there is neither virtue nor vice, caste or laws, for these men are "of the same nature as the Gods."(951) Wilford is inclined to see Meru in Mount Atlas, and locates there also the Lokâloka. Now Meru, we are told, which is the Svar-loka, the abode of Brahmâ, of Vishnu, and the Olympus of Indian exoteric religions, is described geographically as "passing through the middle of the earth-globe, and protruding on either side."(952) On its upper station are the Gods, at the nether, or South Pole, is the abode of Demons (Hells). How then can Meru be Mount Atlas? Besides which, Târadaitya, a Demon, cannot be placed on the seventh zone if the latter be identified with the White Island, which is Shveta-dvîpa, for reasons given in the foot-note above. Wilford accuses the modern Brâhmans "of having jumbled them [islands and countries] all together"; but it is _he_ who has jumbled them still more. He believes that as the _Brahmânda_ and _Vâyu Purânas_ divide the old Continent into seven Dvîpas, said to be surrounded by a vast ocean, beyond which lie the regions and mountains of Atala, hence: Most probably the Greeks derived their notion of the celebrated Atlantis, which, as it could not be found after having once been discovered, they conceived to have been destroyed by some shock of nature.(953) As we find certain difficulties in believing that the Egyptian priests, Plato, and even Homer, all built their notions of Atlantis on Atala--a nether region located at the Southern Pole--we prefer holding to the statements given in the Secret Books. We believe in the seven Continents, four of which have already lived their day, the fifth still exists, and two are to appear in the future. We believe that each of these is not strictly a continent in the modern sense of the word, but that each name, from Jambu down to Pushkara,(954) refers to the geographical names given (i) to the dry lands covering the face of the whole Earth during the period of a Root-Race, in general; (ii) to what remained of these after a geological Race Pralaya, as Jambu, for instance; and (iii) to those localities which will enter, after future cataclysms, into the formation of new universal Continents, Peninsulas, or Dvîpas(955)--each Continent being, in one sense, a greater or smaller region of dry land surrounded with water. Thus, that whatever "jumble" the nomenclature of these may represent to the profane, there is none, in fact, to him who has the key. Thus, we believe we know that, though two of the Paurânic Islands--the Sixth and Seventh Continents--are yet to come, nevertheless there _were_, or there _are_, lands which will enter into the composition of the future dry lands, of new Earths whose geographical faces will be entirely changed, as were those of the past. Therefore we find in the _Purânas_ that Shâka-dvîpa is (or will be) a Continent, and that Shankha-dvîpa, as shown in the _Vâyu Purâna_, is only "a minor island," one of the nine divisions (to which _Vâyu_ adds six more) of Bhârata-varsha. Because Shankha-dvîpa was peopled by "Mlechchhas [unclean foreigners], who worshipped Hindű divinities," therefore they were connected with India.(956) This accounts for Shankhâsura, a King of a portion of Shankha- dvîpa, who was killed by Krishna; that King who resided in the palace "which was an ocean shell, and whose subjects lived in shells also," says Wilford. On the banks of the Nîlâ(957) there were frequent contests between the Devatâs [Divine Beings, Demi-gods] and the Daityas [Giants]: but the latter tribe having prevailed, their king and leader, Shankhâsura, who resided in the ocean, made frequent incursions ... in the night.(958) It is not on the banks of the Nile, as Wilford supposes, but on the coasts of Western Africa, South of where now lies Morocco, that these battles took place. There was a time when the whole of the Sahara Desert was a sea, then a continent as fertile as the Delta, and then, only after another temporary submersion, it became a desert similar to that other wilderness, the Desert of Shamo or Gobi. This is shown in Paurânic tradition, for on the same page as above cited, it is said: The people were between two fires; for, while Shankhâsura was ravaging one side of the continent, Cracacha [or Krauncha], king of Crauncha-dwîp [Krauncha-dvîpa], used to desolate the other: both armies ... thus _changed the most fertile of regions into a barren desert_. That not only the last island of Atlantis, spoken of by Plato, but a large Continent, first divided, and then broken later on into seven peninsulas and islands (called Dvîpas), preceded Europe, is sure. It covered the whole of the North and South Atlantic regions, as well as portions of the North and South Pacific, and had islands even in the Indian Ocean (relics of Lemuria). The claim is corroborated by Indian _Purânas_, Greek writers, and Asiatic, Persian, and Mahommedan traditions. Wilford, who sorely confuses the Hindű and the Mussulman legends, shows this, however, clearly.(959) His facts and quotations from the _Purânas_ give direct and conclusive evidence that the Âryan Hindűs and other ancient nations were earlier navigators than the Phoenicians, who are now credited with having been the first seamen that appeared in the post-diluvian times. This is what we read in the _Asiatick Researches_: In this distress the few natives, who survived [in the war between Devatâs and Daityas] raised their hands and hearts to Bhagavân, and exclaimed, "Let him that can deliver us ... be our king"; using the word ÎT [a _magic_ term not understood by Wilford, evidently] which reëchoed through the whole country.(960) Then comes a violent storm, the waters of the Kâlî are strangely agitated, "when there appeared from the waves ... a man, afterwards called ÎT, at the head of a numerous army, saying '_abhayan_,' or _there is no fear_"; and scattered the enemy. "The King ÎT," explains Wilford, "is a subordinate incarnation of Mrira"--Mrida, a form of Rudra, probably?--who "reëstablished peace and prosperity throughout all Shankha-dvîpa, through Barbaradęsa, Misra-st'hân and Arva-st'hân, or Arabia,"(961) etc. Surely, if the Hindű _Purânas_ give a description of wars on continents and islands situated beyond Western Africa in the Atlantic Ocean; if their writers speak of Barbaras and other people such as Arabs--they who were never known to navigate, or cross the Kâla-pâni, the Black Waters of the Ocean, in the days of Phoenician navigation--then these _Purânas_ must be older than those Phoenicians who are placed at from 2,000 to 3,000 years B.C. At any rate, their traditions must have been older,(962) for an Adept writes: _In the above accounts, the Hindűs speak of this island as existing and in great power; it must, therefore, have been more than eleven thousand years ago._ But another proof may be adduced of the great antiquity of these Hindű Âryans who described the last surviving island of Atlantis, or rather of that remnant of the Eastern portion of that Continent which had perished soon after the upheaval of the two Americas(963)--the two Varshas of Pushkara. And they described what they knew, for they had once dwelt on it. This may be demonstrated, moreover, on an astronomical calculation by an Adept who criticizes Wilford. Recalling what that Orientalist had brought forward concerning the Mount Ashburj "at the foot of which the sun sets," where was the war between the Devatâs and the Daityas,(964) he says: _We will consider, then, the latitude and longitude of the lost island, and of the remaining Mount Ashburj. It was on the seventh stage of the world_, _i.e._, _in the seventh climate (which is between the latitude of 24 degrees and latitude 28 degrees north).... This island, the daughter of the Ocean, is frequently described as lying in the West; and the Sun is represented as setting at the foot of its mountain (Ashburj, Atlas, Teneriffe or Nila, no matter the name), and fighting the White Devil of the __"__White Island.__"_ Now, if we consider this statement from its astronomical aspect, as Krishna is the incarnated Sun (Vishnu), a solar God, and as he is said to have killed Div-sefid, the White Devil--a _possible_ personification of the ancient inhabitants at the foot of the Atlas--he may perchance be only a representation of the vertical beams of the Sun. Again, these inhabitants, the Atlantides, as we have seen, are accused by Diodorus of daily _cursing_ the Sun, and ever fighting his influence. This is, however, only an astronomical interpretation. It will now be proved that Shankhâsura, and Shankha-dvîpa, and all their history, is also geographically and ethnologically Plato's Atlantis in Hindű dress. It has just been remarked that since, in the Paurânic accounts, the island is _still existing_, these accounts must be older than the 11,000 years which have elapsed since Shankha-dvîpa, or the Poseidonis of Atlantis, disappeared. But is it not barely possible that Hindűs should have known the island still earlier? Let us turn again to astronomical demonstrations, which make this quite plain if with the said Adept one assumes that: _At the time when the summer tropical __"__colure__"__ passed through the Pleiades, when Cor Leonis would be upon the equator, and when Leo_ was vertical _to Ceylon at sunset, then would Taurus be vertical to the island of Atlantis at noon_. This explains, perhaps, why the Sinhalese, the heirs of the Râkshasas and Giants of Lankâ, and the direct descendants of Sinha, or Leo, became connected with Shankha-dvîpa or Poseidonis (Plato's Atlantis). Only, as shown by Mackey's _Sphinxiad_, this must have occurred about 23,000 years ago, _astronomically_; at which time the obliquity of the ecliptic must have been rather more than 27 degrees, and consequently Taurus must have passed over Atlantis or Shankha-dvîpa. And that it was so is clearly demonstrated. Say the Commentaries: _The sacred bull Nandi was brought from Bhârata to Shankha to meet Rishabha [Taurus] every Kalpa. But when those of the White Island [who descended originally from Shveta-dvîpa],_(_965_)_ who had mixed with the Daityas [Giants] of the land of iniquity, had become black with sin, then Nandi remained for ever in the White Island [or Shveta-dvîpa].... Those of the Fourth World [Race] lost AUM._ Asburj, or Azburj, whether the peak of Teneriffe or not, was a volcano, when the sinking of the "Western Atala," or Hell, began, and those who were saved told the tale to their children. Plato's Atlantis perished between water below and fire above; the great mountain vomiting flames all the while. _The __"__fire-vomiting Monster__"__ survived alone out of the ruins of the unfortunate island._ Do the Greeks, who are accused of borrowing a Hindű fiction (Atala), and inventing from it another (Atlantis), stand also accused of getting their geographical notions and the number seven from them? "The famous Atlantis exists no longer, but we can hardly doubt that it did once," says Proclus, "for Marcellus, who wrote a history of Ethiopian affairs, says that such, and so great, an island once existed, and this is evidenced by those who composed histories relative to the external sea. For _they relate that in this time there were seven islands_ in the Atlantic sea sacred to Proserpine; and besides these, three of immense magnitude, sacred to Pluto, ... Jupiter, ... and Neptune. And, besides this, the inhabitants of the last island [Poseidonis] _preserved the memory of the prodigious magnitude_ of the Atlantic island as related by their ancestors, and of its governing for many periods all the islands in the Atlantic sea. From this _isle_ one may pass to other large islands beyond, which are not far from the firm land, near which is the true sea." These seven Dvîpas [inaccurately rendered islands] constitute, according to Marcellus, the body of the famous Atlantis.... This evidently shows that _Atlantis is the old continent_.... The Atlantis was destroyed after a violent storm [?]: this is well known to the Paurâunics, some of whom assert that in consequence of this dreadful convulsion of nature, six of the Dvîpas disappeared.(966) Enough proofs have now been given to satisfy the greatest sceptic. Nevertheless, direct proofs based on exact Science will also be added. And yet even though volumes were written, it would be to no purpose for those who will neither see nor hear, except through the eyes and ears of their respective authorities. Hence the teaching of the Roman Catholic scholiasts, namely, that Hermon, the mount in the land of Mizpeth--meaning "anathema," "destruction"--is the same as Mount Armon. As a proof of this, Josephus is often quoted, as affirming that still in his own day enormous bones of giants were daily discovered on it. But it was the land of Balaam the prophet, whom the "Lord loved well." And so mixed up are facts and personages in the said scholiasts' brains, that, when the _Zohar_ explains the "Birds" which inspired Balaam to mean "Serpents," to wit, the Wise Men and Adepts at whose School he had learnt the mysteries of prophecy--the opportunity is again taken of showing Mount Hermon inhabited by the "winged dragons of Evil, whose chief is Samael"--the Jewish Satan! As Spencer says: It is to those unclean spirits chained on Mount Hermon of the Desert, that the scape-goat of Israel, who assumed the name of one of them [Azaz(y)el], was sent. We say it is not so. The _Zohar_ has the following explanation on the practice of magic which is called in Hebrew Nehhaschim, or the "Serpents' Works." It says (part iii. col. 302): It is called Nehhaschim, because the magicians [practical Kabalists] work _surrounded by the light of the Primordial Serpent_, which they perceive in heaven as a luminous zone composed of myriads of small stars. This means simply the Astral Eight, so called by the Martinists, by Éliphas Lévi, and now by all the modern Occultists. The "Curse" From A Philosophical Point Of View. The foregoing teachings of the Secret Doctrine, supplemented by universal traditions, must now have demonstrated that the _Brâhmanas_ and _Purânas_, the _Vendîdâd_ and other Mazdean scriptures, down to the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman, and finally to the Jewish sacred records, all have the same origin. None are meaningless and baseless stories, invented to entrap the unwary profane; all are allegories intended to convey, under a more or less fantastic veil, the great truths gathered in the same field of pre- historic tradition. Space forbids us, in these volumes, from entering into further and more minute details with respect to the four Races which preceded our own. But before offering to the student the history of the psychic and spiritual evolution of the direct antediluvian fathers of our Fifth (Âryan) Humanity, and before demonstrating its bearing upon all the other side branches grown from the same trunk, we have to elucidate a few more facts. It has been shown, on the evidence of the whole ancient literary world, and the intuitional speculations of more than one Philosopher and Scientist of the later ages, that the tenets of our Esoteric Doctrine are, in almost every case, corroborated by inferential as well as by direct proof, that neither the "legendary" Giants, nor the lost Continents, nor yet the evolution of the preceding Races, are quite baseless tales. In the Addenda which close this volume, Science will find itself more than once unable to reply; these Addenda, will, it is hoped, finally dispose of every sceptical remark with regard to the sacred number in nature, and our figures in general. Meanwhile, one task is left incomplete--the disposing of that most pernicious of all the theological dogmas, the Curse under which man-kind is alleged to have suffered ever since the supposed disobedience of Adam and Eve in the bower of Eden. Creative powers in man were the gift of Divine Wisdom, not the result of sin. This is clearly instanced in the paradoxical behaviour of Jehovah, who first _curses_ Adam and Eve (or Humanity) for the supposed crime committed, and then _blesses_ his "chosen people" by saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."(967) The Curse was not brought on mankind by the Fourth Race, for the comparatively sinless Third Race, the still more gigantic Antediluvians, had perished in the same way; hence the Deluge was no punishment, but simply a result of a periodical and geological law. Nor was the Curse of Karma called down upon them for seeking _natural_ union, as all the mindless animal-world does in its proper seasons; but, for abusing the creative power, for desecrating the divine gift, and wasting the life-essence for no purpose except bestial personal gratification. When understood, the third chapter of _Genesis_ will be found to refer to the Adam and Eve of the closing Third and the commencing Fourth Races. In the beginning, conception was as easy for woman as it was for all animal creation. Nature had never intended that woman should bring forth her young ones "in sorrow." Since that period, however, during the evolution of the Fourth Race, there came enmity between its seed and the "Serpent's" seed, the seed or product of Karma and Divine Wisdom. For the seed of woman, or lust, _bruised the head_ of the seed of _the fruit of wisdom and knowledge_, by turning the holy mystery of procreation into animal gratification; hence the Law of Karma "bruised the _heel_" of the Atlantean Race, by gradually changing physiologically, morally, physically, and mentally, the whole nature of the Fourth Race of mankind,(968) until, from being the healthy king of animal creation in the Third Race, man became in the Fifth, our Race, a helpless, scrofulous being, and has now become the wealthiest heir on the Globe to constitutional and hereditary diseases, the most consciously and intelligently bestial of all animals!(969) This is the real Curse from the physiological standpoint, almost the only one touched upon in Kabalistic Esotericism. Viewed from this aspect, the Curse is undeniable, for it is evident. The intellectual evolution, in its progress hand-in-hand with the physical, has certainly been a curse instead of a blessing--a gift quickened by the "Lords of Wisdom," who have poured on the human Manas the fresh dew of their own Spirit and Essence. The Divine Titan has then suffered in vain; and one feels inclined to regret his benefaction to mankind, and sigh for those days so graphically depicted by Ćschylus in his "Prometheus Bound," when, at the close of the first Titanic Age (the Age that followed that of Ethereal Man, of the pious Kandu and Pramlochâ), nascent, physical mankind, still mindless and (physiologically) senseless, is described as-- Seeing, they saw in vain; Hearing, they heard not; but like shapes in dreams, Through the long time all things at random mixed. Our Saviours, the Agnishvâtta and other divine "Sons of the Flame of Wisdom"--personified by the Greeks in Prometheus(970)--may well be left unrecognized and unthanked, in the injustice of the human heart. They may, in our ignorance of the truth, be indirectly cursed for Pandora's gift; but to find themselves proclaimed and declared by the mouth of the clergy, as the Evil Ones, is too heavy a Karma for "Him" who, when Zeus "ardently desired" to quench the entire human race, "dared alone" to save that "mortal race" from perdition, or, as the suffering Titan is make to say: From sinking blasted down to Hades' gloom. For this by these dire tortures I am bent, Grievous to suffer, piteous to behold, I who did mortals pity.... The chorus remarking very pertinently: Vast boon was this thou gavest unto mortals! Prometheus answers: Yea, and besides 'twas I that gave them fire. CHORUS: Have now these short-lived creatures flame-eyed fire? PROM.: Ay, and by it full many arts will learn.... But, with the arts, the "fire" received has turned into the greatest curse; the animal element, and _consciousness_ of its possession, has changed periodical instinct into chronic animalism and sensuality.(971) It is this which hangs over humanity like a heavy funereal pall. Thus arises the responsibility of free-will; the Titanic passions which represent humanity in its darkest aspect; The restless insatiability of the lower passions and desires, when, with self-asserting insolence, they bid defiance to the restraints of law.(972) Prometheus having endowed man, according to Plato's _Protagoras_, with that "wisdom which ministers to physical well-being," but the lower aspect of Manas of the animal (Kâma) having remained unchanged, instead of "an untainted mind, heaven's first gift," there was created the eternal vulture of ever unsatisfied desire, of regret and despair, coupled with "the dreamlike feebleness that fetters the blind race of mortals" (556), unto the day when Prometheus is released by his heaven-appointed deliverer, Herakles. Now Christians--Roman Catholics especially--have tried to prophetically connect this drama with the coming of Christ. No greater mistake could be made. The true Theosophist, the pursuer of Divine Wisdom and worshipper of Absolute Perfection--the Unknown Deity which is neither Zeus nor Jehovah--will demur to such an idea. Pointing to antiquity he will prove that there never has been an _original_ sin, but only an abuse of physical intelligence--the Psychic being guided by the Animal, and both putting out the light of the Spiritual. He will say: All you who can read between the lines, study Ancient Wisdom in the old dramas, the Indian and the Greek; read carefully the "Prometheus Bound," enacted in the theatres of Athens 2,400 years ago! The myth belongs to neither Hesiod nor Ćschylus; but, as Bunsen says, it "is older than the Hellenes themselves," for it belongs, in truth, to the dawn of human consciousness. The _crucified_ Titan is the personified symbol of the collective Logos, the "Host," and of the "Lords of Wisdom" or the Heavenly Man, who incarnated in Humanity. Moreover, as his name (_Pro_-me-_theus_, "he who sees before him" or futurity) shows(973)--in the arts he devised and taught to humanity, psychological insight was not the least. For as he complains to the daughters of Oceanus: Of prophecies the various modes I fixed, (492) And among dreams did first discriminate The truthful vision ... and mortals guided To a mysterious art.... All arts to mortals from Prometheus came.... Leaving for a few pages the main subject, let us pause and see what may be the hidden meaning of this, the most ancient as it is the most suggestive of traditional allegories. As it relates directly to the early Races, this will be no real digression. The subject of Ćschylus' trilogy, of which two plays are lost, is known to all cultured readers. The Demi-god robs the Gods (the Elohim) of their secret--the mystery of the _Creative Fire_. For this sacrilegious attempt he is struck down by Cronus(974) and delivered unto Zeus, the Father and Creator of a mankind which he would have wished to have blind intellectually, and animal-like; a _Personal_ Deity, which will not see Man "like one of us." Hence Prometheus, the "Fire and Light-giver," is chained on Mount Caucasus and condemned to suffer torture. But the triform Fates (Karma), whose decrees, as the Titan says, even Zeus-- E'en he the fore-ordained cannot escape.... --ordain that those sufferings will last only to that day when a son of Zeus-- Ay, a son bearing stronger than his sire (787) One of thine [Io's] own descendants it must be (791) --is born. This "Son" will deliver Prometheus (suffering Humanity) from his own fatal gift. His name is, "He who has to come." On the authority, then, of these few lines, which, like any other allegorical sentence, may be twisted into almost any meaning--on the authority of the words pronounced by Prometheus and addressed to Io, the daughter of Inachus, persecuted by Zeus--a whole prophecy is constructed by some Catholic writers. Says the crucified Titan: And, portent past belief, the speaking oaks By which full clearly, in no riddling phrase, Wast hailed _as the illustrious spouse of Zeus_ ... (853) ... stroking thee With _touch alone of unalarming hand_; Then thou _dark Epaphos_ shalt bear, whose name Records his sacred gendering ... (870). This was construed by several fanatics--Des Mousseaux and De Mirville amongst others--into a clear prophecy. Io "is the mother of God," we are told, and "dark Epaphos"--Christ. But, the latter has not dethroned his Father, except metaphorically, if one has to regard Jehovah as that Father; nor has the Christian Saviour hurled _his_ Father down into Hades. Prometheus says (in verse 930) that Zeus will be humbled yet: ... such marriage he prepares Which from his throne of power to nothingness Shall hurl him down; so shall be all fulfilled His father Kronos' curse.... .... Then let him sit Confiding in his lofty thunder-peals, And wielding with both hands the fiery bolt; For _these shall not avail, but fall he shall,_ _A fall disgraceful_, not to be endured.... (980). "Dark Epaphos" was the Dionysus-Sabasius, the son of Zeus and of Demeter in the Sabasian Mysteries, during which the "Father of the Gods," assuming the shape of a _Serpent_, begot on Demeter Dionysus, or the Solar Bacchus. Io is the Moon, and at the same time the Eve of a _new race_, and so is Demeter--in the present case. The Promethean myth is a prophecy indeed; but it does not relate to any of the cyclic Saviours who have appeared periodically in various countries and among various nations, in their transitionary conditions of evolution. It points to the last of the mysteries of cyclic transformations, in the series of which mankind, having passed from the ethereal to the solid physical state, from spiritual to physiological procreation, is now carried onward on the opposite arc of the cycle, toward that second phase of its primitive state, when _woman knew no man_, and human progeny _was created, not begotten_. That state will return to it and to the world at large, when the latter shall discover and really appreciate the truths which underlie this vast problem of sex. It will be like "the light that never shone on sea or land," and has to come to men through the Theosophical Society. That light will lead on and up to _true spiritual intuition_. Then, as expressed once in a letter to a Theosophist, _The world will have a race of Buddhas and Christs, for the world will have discovered that individuals have it in their own powers to procreate Buddha-like children--or Demons_.... When that knowledge comes, all dogmatic religions, and with these the Demons, will die out. If we reflect upon the serial development of the allegory, and the character of the heroes, the mystery may be unriddled. Cronus is of course "Time" in its cyclic course. He swallows his children--the _personal_ Gods of exoteric dogmas included. Instead of Zeus he has swallowed his stone idol; but the symbol has grown, and has only developed in human fancy as mankind has been cycling down toward only its physical and intellectual--not spiritual--perfection. When it is as far advanced in its spiritual evolution Cronus will be no longer deceived. Instead of the stone image he will have swallowed the anthropomorphic fiction itself. Because, the Serpent of Wisdom, represented in the Sabasian Mysteries by the anthropomorphized Logos, the unity of spiritual and physical Powers, will have begotten in Time (Cronus) a progeny--Dionysus-Bacchus, or the "dark Epaphos," the "mighty one," the Race that will overthrow him. Where will he be born? Prometheus traces him to his origin and birth-place in his prophecy to Io. Io is the Moon-goddess of generation--for she is Isis and she is Eve, the Great Mother.(975) He traces the path of the (racial) wanderings as plainly as words can express it. She has to quit Europe and go to Asia's continent, reaching there the highest of the mountains of Caucasus (v. 737), the Titan telling her: When thou hast crossed the flood, limit betwixt Two continents, fronting the burning East.... (810)-- that she must travel Eastward, after passing the "Kimmerian Bosphorus," and cross what is evidently the Volga and now Astrakhân on the Caspian Sea. After this she will encounter "fierce northern blasts" and cross thither to the land of the "Arimaspian host" (East of Herodotus' Scythia) to-- Pluto's gold-abounding flood.... (825). This is rightly conjectured by Professor Newman to have meant the Ural, the Arimaspi of Herodotus being "the recognized inhabitants of this golden region." And here comes (between verses 825 and 835) a puzzle to all the European interpreters. Says the Titan: To these [Arimaspi and Grypes] approach not; a far border land Thou next shalt reach, where dwells a swarthy race Near the Sun's founts, whence is the Ćthiop river; Along its banks proceed till thou attain The mighty rapids, where from Bybline heights Pure draughts of sacred water Neilos sends. There Io was ordained to found a colony for herself and her sons. Now we must see how the passage is interpreted. Io is told that she has to travel Eastward till she comes to the river Ethiops, which she is to follow till it falls into the Nile--hence the perplexity. "According to the geographical theories of the earliest Greeks," we are informed by the author of the version of "Prometheus Bound": This condition was fulfilled by the river Indus. Arrian (vi. 1) mentions that Alexander the Great, when preparing to sail down the Indus [having seen crocodiles in the river Indus, and in no other river except the Nile ...], seemed to himself to have discovered the sources of the Nile; as though the Nile, rising from some place in India, and flowing through much desert land, and thereby losing its name Indus, next ... flowed through inhabited land, being now called Nile by the Ethiopians of those parts and afterwards by the Egyptians. Virgil in the IVth Georgic echoes the obsolete error.(976) Both Alexander and Virgil may have erred considerably in their geographical notions; but the prophecy of Prometheus has not in the least so sinned--not, at any rate, in its Esoteric spirit. When a certain Race is symbolized, and events pertaining to its history are rendered allegorically, no topographical accuracy ought to be expected in the itinerary traced for its personification. Yet it so happens, that the river Ethiops is certainly the Indus, and it is also the Nîl or Nîlâ. It is the river born on the Kailâsa Heaven mountain, the Mansion of the Gods--22,000 feet above the level of the sea. It was the Ethiops river, and was so called by the Greeks, long before the days of Alexander, because its banks, from Attock down to Sind, were peopled by tribes generally referred to as the Eastern Ethiopians. India and Egypt were two kindred nations, and the Eastern Ethiopians--the mighty builders--have come from India, as is pretty well proved, it is hoped, in _Isis Unveiled_.(977) Then why could not Alexander, and even the learned Virgil, have used the word Nile or Neilos when speaking of the Indus, since it is one of its names? To this day the Indus is called, in the regions around Kalabagh, Nîl, "blue," and Nîlâ, the "blue river." The water there is of such a dark blue colour that this name was given to it from time immemorial; a small town on its banks being called by the same name, and existing to this day. Evidently Arrian, who wrote far later than the days of Alexander, and who was ignorant of the old name of the Indus, has unconsciously slandered the Greek conqueror. Nor are our modern historians much wiser, in judging as they do, for they often make the most sweeping declarations on mere appearances, as much as their ancient colleagues ever did in days of old, when no Encyclopćdias were yet ready for them. The race of Io, the "cow-horned maid," is then simply the first pioneer race of the Ćthiopians brought by her from the Indus to the Nile, which received its name in memory of the mother river of the colonists from India.(978) Therefore Prometheus says to Io(979) that the sacred Neilos--the God, not the river--shall guide her "to the land, _three- cornered_," namely, to the Delta, where her sons are foreordained to found "that far-off colony." (833 _et seqq._) It is there that a new race (the Egyptians) will begin, and a "female race" (873) which, "fifth in descent" from dark Epaphos-- Fifty in number shall return to Argos. Then one of the fifty virgins will fail through love and shall-- ... A kingly race in Argos bear.... But from this seed shall dauntless heroes spring, Bow--famous, who shall free me from these ills. When these heroes shall arise, the Titan does not reveal; for as he remarks: This, to set forth at large needs lengthy speech. But "Argos" is Arghyavarsha, the Land of Libations of the old Hierophants, whence the Deliverer of Humanity will appear, a name which became ages later that of its neighbour, India--the Aryâvarta of old. That the subject formed part of the Sabasian Mysteries is made known by several ancient writers; among others by Cicero(980) and by Clemens Alexandrinus.(981) The latter writers are the only ones who attribute the fact of Ćschylus being charged by the Athenians with sacrilege and condemned to be stoned to death to its true cause. They say that being himself uninitiated, Ćschylus had profaned the Mysteries by exposing them in his Trilogies on a public stage.(982) But he would have incurred the same condemnation had he been initiated; which must have been the case, as otherwise he must, like Socrates, have had a Daimon to reveal to him the secret and sacred allegorical Drama of Initiation. At all events, it is not the "father of the Greek tragedy" who invented the prophecy of Prometheus; for he only repeated in dramatic form that which was revealed by the priests during the Mysteria of the Sabasia.(983) The latter was one of the oldest sacred festivals, whose origin is to this day unknown to history. Mythologists connect it through Mithras, the Sun, called Sabasius on some old monuments, with Jupiter and Bacchus. It was never, however, the property of the Greeks, but dates from days immemorial. The translator of the drama wonders how Ćschylus could become guilty of such Discrepancy between the character of Zeus as portrayed in the "Prometheus Bound" and that depicted in the remaining dramas.(984) This is just because Ćschylus, like Shakespeare, was and will ever remain the intellectual "Sphinx" of the ages. Between Zeus, the Abstract Deity of Grecian thought, and the Olympic Zeus, there was an abyss. The latter represented in the Mysteries no higher a principle than the lower aspect of human physical intelligence--Manas wedded to Kâma; whereas Prometheus--the divine aspect of Manas merging into and aspiring to Buddhi--was the divine Soul. Zeus, whenever shown as yielding to his lower passions, is the Human Soul and nothing more--the _jealous_ God, revengeful and cruel in its Egotism or "I-am-ness." Hence, Zeus is represented as a Serpent--the intellectual tempter of man--which, nevertheless, begets in the course of cyclic evolution the "Man-Saviour," the Solar Bacchus or Dionysus--_more than a man_. Dionysus is one with Osiris, with Krishna, and with Buddha, the heavenly Wise One, and with the coming (tenth) Avatâra, the glorified Spiritual Christos, who will deliver the suffering Chrestos--mankind, or Prometheus, on its trial. This, say Brâhmanical and Buddhistic legends, echoed by the Zoroastrian and now by the Christian teachings (the latter only occasionally), will happen at the end of the Kali Yuga. It is only after the appearance of Kalki Avatâra, or Sosiosh, that man will be born from woman without sin. Then will Brahmâ, the Hindű deity, Ahura Mazda (Ormazd), the Zoroastrian, Zeus, the Greco-Olympian Don Juan, Jehovah, the jealous, repenting, cruel, tribal God of the Israelites, and all their likes in the universal Pantheon of human fancy--vanish and disappear in thin air. And along with these will vanish their shadows, the _dark aspects_ of all these Deities, ever represented as their "twin brothers" and creatures, in exoteric legend--their own _reflection_ on Earth, in Esoteric Philosophy. The Ahrimans and Typhons, the Samaels and Satans, must be all dethroned on that day, when every dark evil passion will be subdued. There is one Eternal Law in Nature, one that always tends to adjust contraries, and to produce final harmony. It is owing to this Law of spiritual development superseding the physical and purely intellectual, that mankind will become freed from its false Gods, and find itself finally--Self-redeemed. In its final revelation, the old myth of Prometheus, of whom the proto- and anti-types are found in every ancient Theogony, stands in each of them at the very origin of physical evil, because at the threshold of human physical life. Cronus is "Time," whose first law is that the order of the successive and harmonious phases, in the process of evolution during cyclic development, should be strictly preserved--under the severe penalty of abnormal growth with all its ensuing results. It was not in the programme of natural development, that man--higher animal though he may be--should become at once, intellectually, spiritually, and psychically, the Demi-god he is on Earth, while his physical frame remains weaker, more helpless and ephemeral, than that of almost any huge mammal. The contrast is too grotesque and violent; the tabernacle much too unworthy of its indwelling God. The gift of Prometheus thus became a Curse--though _foreknown_ and _foreseen_ by the Host personified in that personage, as his name well shows.(985) It is in this that rests, at one and the same time, its sin and its redemption. For the Host that incarnated in a portion of humanity, though led to it by Karma or Nemesis, preferred free- will to passive slavery, intellectual self-conscious pain and even torture, "while myriad time shall flow," to inane, imbecile, instinctual beatitude. Knowing such an incarnation was premature and not in the programme of Nature, the Heavenly Host, "Prometheus," still sacrificed itself to benefit thereby, at least, one portion of mankind.(986) But while saving man from mental darkness, they inflicted upon him the tortures of the self-consciousness of his responsibility--the result of his free will--besides every ill to which mortal man and flesh are heir. This torture Prometheus accepted for himself, since the Host became henceforward blended with the tabernacle prepared for them, which was still un-achieved at that period of formation. Spiritual evolution being incapable of keeping pace with the physical, once its homogeneity was broken by the admixture, the gift thus became the chief cause, if not the sole origin, of Evil.(987) Highly philosophical is the allegory which shows Cronus cursing Zeus for dethroning him, in the primitive Golden Age of Saturn, when all men were Demi-gods, and for creating a physical race of men weak and helpless in comparison; and then as delivering to his (Zeus') revenge the culprit, who despoiled the Gods of their prerogative of creation and who thereby raised man to their level, intellectually and spiritually. In the case of Prometheus, Zeus represents the Host of the Primeval Progenitors, of the Pitaras, the "Fathers" who created man senseless and without mind; while the Divine Titan stands for the Spiritual Creators, the Devas who "fell" into generation. The former are spiritually lower, but physically stronger, than the "Prometheans"; therefore, the latter are shown conquered. "The lower Host, whose work the Titan spoiled and thus defeated the plans of Zeus," was on this Earth in its own sphere and plane of action; whereas the superior Host was an exile from Heaven, who had got entangled in the meshes of Matter. The inferior Host were masters of all the Cosmic and lower Titanic Forces; the higher Titan possessed only the Intellectual and Spiritual Fire. This drama of the struggle of Prometheus with the Olympic tyrant and despot, sensual Zeus, one sees enacted daily within our actual mankind; the lower passions chain the higher aspirations to the rock of Matter, to generate in many a case the vulture of sorrow, pain, and repentance. In every such case one sees once more-- A god ... in fetters, anguish fraught; The foe of Zeus, in hatred held of all-- a God, bereft even of that supreme consolation of Prometheus, who suffered in self-sacrifice-- For that to men he [I] bore too fond a mind-- as the divine Titan is moved by altruism, but the mortal man by selfishness and egoďsm in every instance. The modern Prometheus has now become Epi-metneus, "he who sees only after the event"; because the universal philanthropy of the former has long ago degenerated into selfishness and self-adoration. Man will become the _free_ Titan of old, but not before cyclic evolution has reestablished the broken harmony between the two natures--the terrestrial and the divine; after which he becomes impermeable to the lower Titanic Forces, invulnerable in his Personality, and immortal in his Individuality--but this cannot happen before every animal element is eliminated from his nature. When man understands that "_Deus non __ fecit mortem_,"(988) but that man has created it himself, he will re-become the Prometheus before his Fall. For the full symbolism of Prometheus and the origin of this mythos in Greece, the reader is referred to Part II of this Volume, Section XX, "Prometheus, the Titan," etc. In the said Part--a kind of supplement to the present portion--every additional information is given upon those tenets that will be the most controverted and questioned. This work is so heterodox, when confronted with the acknowledged standards of Theology and Modern Science, that no proof which tends to show that these standards often usurp an illegal authority should be neglected. Additional Fragments From A Commentary On The Verses Of Stanza XII. The MS. from which these additional explanations are taken belongs to the group called _Tongshaktchi Sangye Songa_, or the "Records of the Thirty- five Buddhas of Confession," as they are _exoterically_ called. These personages, however, though called in the Northern Buddhist religion Buddhas, may just as well be called Rishis, Avatâras, etc., as they are "Buddhas who have preceded Shâkyamuni" only for the Northern followers of the ethics preached by Gautama. These great Mahâtmâs, or Buddhas, are a universal and common property; they are _historical_ Sages--at any rate for all the Occultists who believe in such a Hierarchy of Sages, and who have had its existence proved to them by the learned ones of the Fraternity. They are chosen from among some ninety-seven Buddhas in one group, and fifty-three in another,(989) mostly imaginary personages, who are really the personifications of the powers of the first-named.(990) These "Baskets" of the oldest writings on "palm leaves" are kept very secret. Each MS. has appended to it a short synopsis of the history of that sub- race to which the particular Buddha-Lha belonged. The one special MS. from which the fragments which follow have been extracted, and then rendered into more comprehensible language, is said to have been copied from stone tablets which belonged to a Buddha of the earliest days of the Fifth Race, who had witnessed the Deluge and the submersion of the chief continents of the Atlantean Race. The day when much, if not all, of that which is given here from the Archaic Records, will be found correct, is not far distant. Then the modern Symbologists will acquire the certitude that even Odin, or the God Woden, the highest God in the German and Scandinavian mythology, is one of these thirty-five Buddhas; one of the earliest, indeed, for the Continent to which he and his Race belonged is also one of the earliest--so early, in truth, that in those days tropical nature was to be found, where now lie eternal unthawing snows, and one could cross almost by dry land from Norway _viâ_ Iceland and Greenland, to the lands that at present surround Hudson's Bay.(991) In similar fashion, in the palmy days of the Atlantean Giants, the sons of the "Giants from the East," a pilgrim could perform a journey from what in our days is termed the Sahara Desert, to the lands which now rest in dreamless sleep at the bottom of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Events which were never written outside the human memory, but which were religiously transmitted from one generation to another, and from race to race, may have been preserved by constant transmission "within the book volume of the brain," and through countless ćons, with more truth and accuracy than inside any written document or record. "That which is part of our souls is eternal," says Thackeray; and what can be nearer to our Souls than that which happens at the dawn of our lives? Those lives are countless, but the Soul or Spirit that animates us throughout these myriads of existences is the same; and though "the book volume" of the _physical brain_ may forget events within the scope of one terrestrial life, the bulk of collective recollections can never desert the Divine Soul within us. Its whispers may be too soft, the sound of its words too far off the plane perceived by our physical senses; yet the shadow of events _that were_, just as much as the shadow of the events _that are to come_, is within its perceptive powers, and is ever present before its mind's eye. It is this Soul-voice, perhaps, which tells those who believe in tradition more than in written history, that what is said below is all true, and relates to pre-historic facts. This is what is written in one passage: _The Kings of Light have departed in wrath. The sins of men have become so black that Earth quivers in her great agony.... The Azure Seats remain empty. Who of the Brown, who of the Red, or yet among the Black [Races], can sit in the Seats of the Blessed, the Seats of Knowledge and Mercy? Who can assume the Flower of Power, the Plant of the Golden Stem and the Azure Blossom?_ The "Kings of Light" is the name given in all old records to the Sovereigns of the Divine Dynasties. The "Azure Seats" are translated "Celestial Thrones" in certain documents. The "Flower of Power" is now the Lotus; what it may have been at that period, who can tell? The writer proceeds, like the later Jeremiah, to bewail the fate of his people. They had become bereft of their "Azure" (Celestial) Kings, and "they of the deva-hue," the moon-like complexion, and "they of the refulgent (golden) face" have gone "to the Land of Bliss, the Land of Fire and Metal"--or, agreeably with the rules of symbolism, to the lands lying North and East, from whence "the Great Waters have been swept away, sucked in by the Earth and dissipated in the Air." The wise races had perceived "the black Storm-dragons, called down by the Dragons of Wisdom"--and "had fled, led on by the shining Protectors of the most Excellent Land"--the great ancient Adepts, presumably; those the Hindűs refer to as their Manus and Rishis. One of them was Vaivasvata Manu. They "of the yellow hue" are the forefathers of those whom Ethnology now classes as the Turanians, the Mongols, Chinese and other ancient nations; and the land they fled to was no other than Central Asia. There, entirely new races were born; there, they lived and died until the separation of the nations. But this "separation" did not take place either in the localities assigned for it by Modern Science, nor in the way the Âryans are shown to have divided and separated by Prof. Max Müller and other Âryanists. Nearly two-thirds of one million years have elapsed since that period. The yellow-faced giants of the Post-Atlantean day had ample time, through this forced confinement to one part of the world, with the same racial blood and without any fresh infusion or admixture in it, during a period of nearly 700,000 years, to branch off into the most heterogeneous and diversified types. The same is shown in Africa; nowhere does a more extraordinary variability of types exist, from black to almost white, from gigantic men to dwarfish races; and this only because of their forced isolation. The Africans have not left their continent for several hundred thousands of years. If to-morrow the continent of Europe were to disappear and other lands to reëmerge instead, and if the African tribes were to separate and scatter on the face of the Earth, it is they who, in about a hundred thousand years hence, would form the bulk of the civilized nations. And it is the descendants of those of our highly cultured nations, who might have survived on some one island, without any means of crossing the new seas, that would fall back into a state of relative savagery. Thus the reason given for dividing humanity into _superior_ and _inferior_ races falls to the ground and becomes a fallacy. Such are the facts given in the Archaic Records. Collating and comparing them with some modern theories of evolution, _minus_ Natural Selection,(992) these statements appear quite reasonable and logical. Thus, while the Âryans are the descendants of the _yellow_ Adam, the gigantic and highly civilized Atlanto-Âryan race, the Semites--and the Jews along with them--are those of the _red_ Adam, and thus both De Quatrefages and the writers of the Mosaic _Genesis_ are right. For, could chapter v of the First Book of Moses be compared with the genealogies found in our Archaic Bible, the period from Adam unto Noah would be found noticed therein, though of course under different names, the respective years of the Patriarchs being turned into periods, and the whole being symbolical and allegorical. In the MS. under consideration many and frequent are the references to the great knowledge and civilization of the Atlantean nations, showing the polity of several of them and the nature of their arts and sciences. If the Third Root-Race, the Lemuro-Atlanteans, are already spoken of as having been drowned "with their high civilizations and Gods,"(993) how much more may the same be said of the Atlanteans! It is from the Fourth Race that the early Âryans got their knowledge of "the bundle of wonderful things," the Sabhâ and Mâyâsabhâ, mentioned in the _Mahâbhârata_, the gift of Mâyâsura to the Pândavas. It is from them that they learnt ćronautics, Vimâna Vidyâ, the "knowledge of flying in air-vehicles," and, therefore, their great arts of Meteorography and Meteorology. It is from them, again, that the Âryans inherited their most valuable Science of the hidden virtues of precious and other stones, of Chemistry, or rather Alchemy, of Mineralogy, Geology, Physics and Astronomy. Several times the writer has put to herself the question: Is the story of _Exodus_--in its details at least--as narrated in the _Old Testament_, original? Or is it, like the story of Moses himself and many others, simply another version of the legends told of the Atlanteans? For who, upon hearing the story told of the latter, will fail to perceive the great similarity of the fundamental features? Remember the anger of "God" at the obduracy of Pharaoh, his command to the "chosen" ones to spoil the Egyptians, before departing, of their "jewels of silver and jewels of gold,"(994) and finally the Egyptians and their Pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea. Then read the following fragment of the earlier story from the Commentary: _And the __"__Great King of the Dazzling Face__"__ the chief of all the Yellow-faced, was sad, seeing the sins of the Black-faced._ _He sent his air-vehicles [Vimânas] to all his brother-chiefs [chiefs of other nations and tribes] with pious men within, saying:_ "_Prepare. Arise, ye men of the Good Law, and cross the land while [yet] dry._ "_The Lords of the storm are approaching. Their chariots are nearing the land. One night and two days only shall the Lords of the Dark Face [the Sorcerers] live on this patient land. She is doomed, and they have to descend with her. The nether Lords of the Fires [the Gnomes and Fire Elementals] are preparing their magic Agnyastra [fire-weapons worked by Magic]. But the Lords of the Dark Eye [__'__Evil Eye__'__] are stronger than they [the Elementals] and they are the slaves of the mighty ones. They are versed in Astra [Vidyâ, the highest magical knowledge]._(_995_)_ Come and use yours_ [i.e., _your magic powers, in order to counteract those of the Sorcerers]. Let every Lord of the Dazzling Face [an Adept of the White Magic] cause the Vimâna of every Lord of the Dark Face to come into his hands [or possession], lest any [of the Sorcerers] should by its means escape from the waters, avoid the Rod of the Four [Karmic Deities], and save his wicked [followers, or people]._ "_May every Yellow Face send sleep from himself to [mesmerize?] every Black Face. May even they [the Sorcerers] avoid pain and suffering. May __ every man true to the Solar Gods bind [paralyze] every man under the Lunar Gods, lest he should suffer or escape his destiny._ "_And may every Yellow Face offer of his life-water [blood] to the speaking animal of a Black Face, lest he awaken his master._(996) "_The hour has struck, the black night is ready._ "_Let their destiny be accomplished. We are the servants of the Great Four._(_997_)_ May the Kings of Light return._" _The great King fell upon his Dazzling Face and wept...._ _When the Kings assembled, the waters had already moved...._ _[But] the nations had now crossed the dry lands. They were beyond the water-mark. Their Kings reached them in their Vimânas, and led them on to the lands of Fire and Metal [East and North]._ Still, in another passage, it is said: _Stars [meteors] showered on the lands of the Black Faces; but they slept._ _The speaking beasts [the magic watchers] kept quiet._ _The nether Lords waited for orders, but they came not, for their masters slept._ _The waters arose, and covered the valleys from one end of the Earth to the other. High lands remained, the bottom of the Earth [the lands of the antipodes] remained dry. There dwelt those who escaped; the men of the Yellow Faces and of the straight eye [the frank and sincere people]._ _When the Lords of the Dark Faces awoke and bethought themselves of their Vimânas in order to escape from the rising waters, they found them gone._ Then a passage shows some of the more powerful Magicians of the "Dark Faces," who awoke earlier than the others, pursuing those who had "spoilt them" and who were in the rear-guard, for--"the nations that were led away were as thick as the stars of the milky way," says a more modern Commentary, written in Sanskrit only. _Like as a dragon-snake uncoils slowly its body, so the Sons of Men, led on by the Sons of Wisdom, opened their folds, and spreading out, expanded like a running stream of sweet waters ... many of the faint-hearted among them perished on their way. But most were saved._ Yet the pursuers, "whose heads and chests soared high above the water," chased them "for three lunar terms" until finally reached by the rising waves, they perished to the last man, the soil sinking under their feet and the Earth engulfing those who had desecrated her. This sounds a good deal like the original material upon which the similar story in _Exodus_ was built many hundred thousands of years later. The biography of Moses, the story of his birth, childhood and rescue from the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter, is now shown to have been adapted from the Chaldćan narrative about Sargon. And if so, the Assyrian tiles in the British Museum being a good proof of it, why not that of the Jews robbing the Egyptians of their jewels, the death of Pharaoh and his army, and so on? The gigantic Magicians of Ruta and Daitya, the "Lords of the Dark Face," may, in the later narrative, have become the Egyptian Magi, and the yellow-faced nations of the Fifth Race, the virtuous sons of Jacob, the "chosen people"! One more statement has to be made. There have been several Divine Dynasties--a series for every Root-Race beginning with the Third, each series according and adapted to its Humanity. The last seven Dynasties referred to in the Egyptian and Chaldćan records belonged to the Fifth Race, which, though generally called Âryan, was not entirely so, as it was ever largely mixed up with races to which Ethnology gives other names. It would be impossible, in view of the limited space at our disposal, to go any further into the description of the Atlanteans, in whom the whole East believes as much as we believe in the ancient Egyptians, but whose existence the majority of the Western Scientists deny, as they have denied, before this, many a truth, from the existence of Homer down to that of the carrier pigeon. The civilization of the Atlanteans was greater than even that of the Egyptians. It is their degenerate descendants, the nation of Plato's Atlantis, who built the first Pyramids in the country, and that certainty before the advent of the "Eastern Ćthiopians," as Herodotus calls the Egyptians. This may be well inferred from the statement made by Ammianus Marcellinus, who says of the Pyramids that: There are also subterranean passages and winding retreats, which, it is said, men skilful in the ancient mysteries, by means of which they divined the coming of a flood, constructed in different places lest the memory of all their sacred ceremonies should be lost. These men who "divined the coming of floods" were not Egyptians, who never had any, except the periodical rising of the Nile. Who were they? The last remnants of the Atlanteans, we maintain; those races which are dimly suspected by Science, and thinking of which Mr. Charles Gould, the well- known Geologist, says: Can we suppose that we have at all exhausted the great museum of nature? Have we, in fact, penetrated yet beyond its antechambers? Does the written history of man, comprising a few thousand years, embrace the whole course of his intelligent existence? or have we in the long mythical eras, extending over hundreds of thousands of years, and recorded in the chronologies of Chaldća and of China, shadowy mementoes of pre-historic man, handed down by tradition, and perhaps transported by a few survivors to existing lands from others, which, like the fabled (?) Atlantis of Plato, may have been submerged, or the scene of some great catastrophe which destroyed them with all their civilization.(998) After this one can turn with more confidence to the words of a Master who wrote, several years before these words were penned by Mr. Gould: _The Fourth Race had its periods of the highest civilization. Greek and Roman and even Egyptian civilizations are nothing compared to the civilizations that began with the Third Race [--after its separation]._ But if this civilization and the mastery of arts and sciences are denied to the Third and Fourth Races, no one will deny that between the great civilizations of antiquity, such as those of Egypt and India, there stretched the dark ages of crass ignorance and barbarism ever since the beginning of the Christian era up to our modern civilization, during which period all recollection of these traditions was lost. As said in _Isis Unveiled_: Why should we forget that, ages before the prows of the adventurous Genoese clove the Western waters, the Phoenician vessels had circumnavigated the Globe, and spread civilization in regions now silent and deserted? What Archćologist will dare assert that the same hand which planned the Pyramids of Egypt, Karnak, and the thousand ruins now crumbling to oblivion on the sandy banks of the Nile, did _not_ erect the monumental Nagkon-Wat of Cambodia; or trace the hieroglyphics on the obelisks and doors of the deserted Indian village, newly discovered in British Columbia by Lord Dufferin; or those on the ruins of Palenque and Uxmal, of Central America? Do not the relics we treasure in our museums--last mementoes of the long "lost arts"--speak loudly in favour of ancient civilization? And do they not prove, over and over again, that nations and continents that have passed away have buried along with them arts and sciences, which neither the first crucible ever heated in a medićval cloister, nor the last cracked by a modern chemist, have revived, nor will--at least, in the present century. And the same question may be put now that was put then; it may be once more asked: How does it happen that the most advanced standpoint that has been reached in our times, only enables us to see in the dim distance up the Alpine path of knowledge the monumental proofs that earlier explorers have left to mark the plateaux they had reached and occupied? If modern masters are so much in advance of the old ones, why do they not restore to us the lost arts of our postdiluvian forefathers? Why do they not give us the unfading colours of Luxor--the Tyrian purple, the bright vermilion, and dazzling blue which decorate the walls of this place, and are as bright as on the first day of their application; the indestructible cement of the pyramids and of ancient aqueducts; the Damascus blade, which can be turned like a corkscrew in its scabbard without breaking; the gorgeous, unparalleled tints of the stained glass that is found amid the dust of old ruins and beams in the windows of ancient cathedrals; and the secret of the true malleable glass? And if Chemistry is so little able to rival even the early medićval ages in some arts, why boast of achievements which, according to strong probability, were perfectly known thousands of years ago. The more Archćology and Philology advance, the more humiliating to our pride are the discoveries which are daily made, the more glorious testimony do they bear in behalf of those who, perhaps on account of the distance of their remote antiquity, have been until now considered ignorant flounderers in the deepest mire of superstition. Among other Arts and Sciences, the Ancients--ay, as an heirloom from the Atlanteans--had those of Astronomy and Symbolism, which included the knowledge of the Zodiac. As already explained, the whole of Antiquity believed, with good reason, that humanity and its races are all intimately connected with the Planets, and these with the Zodiacal Signs. The whole world's history is recorded in the latter. In the ancient temples of Egypt there is an example in the Dendera Zodiac; but except in an Arabic work, the property of a Sűfî, the writer has never met with a correct copy of these marvellous records of the past--and also of the _future_--history of our Globe. Yet the original records exist, most undeniably. As Europeans are unacquainted with the real Zodiacs of India, and those they do happen to know of they fail to understand, as witness Bentley, the reader is advised, in order to verify the statement, to turn to the work of Denon(999) in which the two famous Egyptian Zodiacs can be found and examined. Having seen them personally, the writer has no longer need to trust to what other students--who have examined and studied both very carefully--have to say of them. The assertion of the Egyptian Priests to Herodotus, that the terrestrial Pole and the Pole of the Ecliptic had formerly coincided, has been corroborated by Mackey, who states that the Poles are represented on the Zodiacs in both positions. And in that which shows the Poles [polar axes] at right angles, there are marks which show, that it was not the last time they were in that position; _but the first_ [--after the Zodiacs had been traced]. Capricorn, is, therein, represented at the North Pole; and Cancer is divided, near its middle, at the South Pole; which is a confirmation that, originally they had their winter when the Sun was in Cancer. But the chief characteristics of its being a monument commemorating the _first time_ that the Pole had been in that position, are the Lion and the Virgin.(1000) Broadly calculated, it is believed by Egyptologists that the Great Pyramid was built 3,350 B.C.;(1001) and that Menes and his Dynasty existed 750 years before the appearance of the Fourth Dynasty--during which the Pyramids are _supposed_ to have been built. Thus 4,100 years B.C. is the age assigned to Menes. Now Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson's declaration that all the facts lead to the conclusion that the Egyptians had already-- Made very great progress in the arts of civilization _before the age of Menes, and perhaps before they immigrated into the valley of the Nile_--(1002) is very suggestive, as destroying this hypothesis of the comparatively modern civilizing of Egypt. It points to a great civilization in _pre- historic_ times, and a still greater antiquity. The Schesoo-Hor, the "servants of Horus," were the people who had settled in Egypt; and, as M. Maspéro affirms, it is to this "pre-historic race" that-- Belongs the honour of having constituted Egypt, such as we know it, from the commencement of the historic period. And Staniland Wake adds: They founded the principal cities of Egypt, and established the most important sanctuaries.(1003) This was _before_ the Great Pyramid epoch, and when Egypt had hardly arisen from the waters. Yet: They possessed the hieroglyphic form of writing special to the Egyptians, and must have been already cons