Chapter xii

. of _Revelation_: “There was war in heaven, Mikael and his angels fought against the Dragon,” etc. (7) and the great dragon was cast out (9).

615 He is also the informing Spirit of the Sun and Jupiter, and even of Venus.

616 _Dogme et Rituel_, ii. 116.

617 If enumerated, they will be found to be the Hindu “divisions” and choirs of Devas, and the Dhyân Chohans of Esoteric Buddhism.

618 But this fact has not prevented the Roman Church from adopting them all the same, accepting them from ignorant, though perchance sincere Church Fathers, who had borrowed them from Kaballists—Jews and Pagans.

619 To call “usurpers” those who preceded the Christian Beings for whose benefit these same titles were borrowed, is carrying paradoxical anachronism a little too far!

620 Or the _divine ages_, the “days and years of Brahmâ.”

621 De Mirville, ii. 325, 326. So we say too. And this shows that it is to the Kabalists and _Magicians_ that the Church is indebted for her dogmas and names. Paul never condemned _real_ Gnosis, but the _false_ one, now accepted by the Church.

622 Sesostris, or Pharaoh Ramses II., whose mummy was unswathed in 1886 by Maspero of the Bulak Museum, and recognised as that of the greatest king of Egypt, whose grandson, Ramses III. was the last king of an ancient kingdom.

623 _Op. cit._, p. 422.

624 _Summa_, Quest. xv. Art. v., upon Astrologers, and Vol. III. pp. 2‐29.

625 “The principalities and powers [born] in heavenly places” (_Ephes._, iii. 10). The verse, “For though there be that are called Gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there be Gods many and lords many” (I. _Corinth._, viii. 5), shows, at any rate, the recognition by Paul of a plurality of “Gods” whom he calls “dæmons” (“spirits”—never _devils_). Principalities, Thrones, Dominions, Rectors, etc. are all Jewish and Christian names for the Gods of the ancients—the Archangels and Angels of the former being in every case the Devas and the Dhyân Chohans of the more ancient religions.

626 Answer by Reuvens to Letronne with regard to his mistaken notions about the Zodiac of Dendera.

627 St. Augustine (_De Gen._, I. iii.) and Delrio (_Disquisit._, Vol. IV., chap. iii.) are quoted by De Mirville, to show that “the more astrologers speak the truth and the better they prophesy it, the more one has to feel diffident, seeing that their agreement with the devil becomes thereby the more apparent.” The famous statement made by Juvenal (_Satires_, vi.) to the effect that “not one single astrologer could be found who did not pay dearly for the help he received from his genius”—no more proves the latter to be a devil than the death of Socrates proves his daimon to have been a native from the nether world—if such there be. Such argument only demonstrates human stupidity and wickedness, once reason is made subservient to prejudice and fanaticism of every sort. “Most of the great writers of antiquity, Cicero and Tacitus among them, believed in Astrology and the realization of its prophecies;” and “the penalty of death decreed nearly everywhere against those mathematicians [astrologers] who happened to predict falsely diminished neither their number nor their tranquillity of mind.”

628 _Preparatio Evangelica_, I. xiv.

629 _Ast._, iv. 60.

630 _Hist._, I. ii.

631 All these particulars may be found more fully and far more completely in Champollion Figeac’s _Égypte_.

632 _Op. cit._, p. 230.

633 _Op. cit._, p. 230.

634 In the 1,326 places in the _New Testament_ where the word “God” is mentioned nothing signifies that in God are included more beings than God. On the contrary in 17 places God is called the only God. The places where the Father is so‐called amount to 320. In 105 places God is addressed with high‐sounding titles. In 90 places all prayers and thanks are addressed to the Father; 300 times in the _New Testament_ is the Son declared to be inferior to the Father; 85 times is Jesus called the “Son of Man;” 70 times is he called a man. In not one single place in the bible is it said that God holds within him three different Beings or Persons, and yet is one Being or Person.—Dr. Karl von Bergen’s _Lectures in Sweden_.

635 Kali Yuga, the Black or Iron Age.

636 Virgil, _Eclogue_, iv.

637 At the close of our Race, people, it is said, through suffering and discontent will become more spiritual. Clairvoyance will become a general faculty. We shall be approaching the spiritual state of the Third and Second Races.

638 _Vishnu Purâna_, IV., xxiv. 228, Wilson’s translation.

639 _Op. cit._, p. 212.

640 At any rate, the temple secret meaning was the same.

641 _Asiat. Res._, vol. viii. p. 470, _et seq._

642 _Theosophist_, August, 1881.

643 Aug., 1881 to Feb., 1882.

644 _Loc. cit._, iv. 127.

645 _Theosophist_, vol. iii. p. 22.

646 The impartial study of Vaidic and Post‐Vaidic works shows that the ancient Âryans knew well the precession of the equinoxes, and “that they changed their position from a certain asterism to two (occasionally three) asterisms back whenever the precession amounted to two, properly speaking, to 2 11/61 asterisms or about 29°, being the motion of the sun in a lunar month, and so caused the seasons to fall back a complete lunar month.... It appears certain that at the date of _Sûrya Siddhânta_, _Brahmâ Siddânta_, and other ancient treatises on astronomy, the vernal equinoctial point had not actually reached the beginning of Ashvinî, but was a few degrees east of it.... The astronomers of Europe change westward the beginning of Aries and of all other signs of the Zodiac every year by about 50" 25, and thus make the names of the signs meaningless. But these signs are as much fixed as the asterisms themselves, and hence the Western astronomers of the present day appear to us in this respect less wary and scientific in their observations than their very ancient brethren—the Âryas.”—_Theosophist_, iii. 23.

647 A great deal of misconception is raised by a confusion of planes of being and misuse of expressions. For instance, certain spiritual states have been confounded with the Nirvâna of BUDDHA. The Nirvâna of BUDDHA is totally different from any other spiritual state of Samâdhi or even the highest Theophania enjoyed by lesser Adepts. After physical death the kinds of spiritual states reached by Adepts differ greatly.

648 This region is the one possible point of conciliation between the two diametrically opposed poles of religion and science, the one with its barren fields of dogmas on faith, the other over‐running with empty hypotheses, both overgrown with the weeds of error. They will never meet. The two are at feud, at an everlasting warfare with each other, but this does not prevent them from uniting against Esoteric Philosophy, which for two millenniums has had to fight against infallibility in both directions, or “mere vanity and pretence” as Antoninus defined it, and now finds the materialism of Modern Science arrayed against its truths.

649 Whence some of the Gnostic ideas? Cerinthus taught that the world and Jehovah having fallen off from virtue and primitive dignity the Supreme permitted one of his glorious Æons, whose name was the “Anointed” (Christ) to incarnate in the man Jesus. Basilides denied the reality of the body of Jesus, and calling it an “illusion” held that it was Simon of Cyrene who suffered on the Cross in his stead. All such teachings are echoes of the Eastern Doctrines.

650 A genuine initiated Adept will retain his Adeptship, though there may be for our world of illusion numberless incarnations of him. The propelling power that lies at the root of a series of such incarnations is not Karma, as ordinarily understood, but a still more inscrutable power. During the period of his lives the Adept does not lose his Adeptship, though he cannot rise in it to a higher degree.

651 From the so‐called Brahmâ Loka—the seventh and higher world, beyond which all is arûpa, formless, purely spiritual—to the lowest world and insect, or even to an object such as a leaf, there is perpetual revolution of the condition of existence, evolution and re‐birth. Some human beings attain states or spheres from which there is only a return in a new Kalpa (a day of Brahmâ); there are other states or spheres from which there is only return after 100 years of Brahmâ (Mahâ‐Kalpa, a period covering 311,040,000,000,000 years). Nirvâna, it is said, is a state from which there is no return. Yet it is maintained that there may be, as exceptional cases, re‐incarnation from that state; only such incarnations are illusion, like everything else on this plane, as will be shown.

652 This fact of the disappearance of the vehicle of Egotism in the fully developed Yogî, who is supposed to have reached Nirvâna on earth, years before his corporeal death, has led to the law in Manu, sanctioned by millenniums of Brâhmanical authority, that such a Paramâtmâ should be held as absolutely blameless and free from sin or responsibility, do whatever he may (see last chapter of the _Laws of Manu_). Indeed, caste itself—that most despotic, uncompromising and autocratic tyrant in India—can be broken with impunity by the Yogî, who is above caste. This will give the key to our statements.

653 [The word “Adept” is very loosely used by H. P. B., who often seems to have implied by it no more than the possession of special knowledge of some kind. Here it seems to mean first an uninitiated disciple and then an initiated one.—EDS.]

654 About fifty years before the birth of Copernicus, de Cusa wrote as follows: “Though the world may not be absolutely infinite, no one can represent it to himself as finite, since human reason is incapable of assigning to it any term.... For in the same way that our earth cannot be in the centre of the Universe, as thought, no more could the sphere of the fixed stars be in it.... Thus this world is like a vast machine, having its centre [Deity] everywhere, and its circumference nowhere [_machina mundi, quasi habens ubique centrum, et nullibi circumferentiam_].... Hence, the earth not being in the centre, cannot therefore be motionless ... and though it is far smaller than the sun, one must not conclude for all that, that she is worse [_vilior_—more vile].... One cannot see whether its inhabitants are superior to those who dwell nearer to the sun, or in other stars, as sidereal space cannot be deprived of inhabitants.... The earth, very likely [_fortasse_] one of the smallest globes, is nevertheless the cradle of intelligent beings, most noble and perfect.” One cannot fail to agree with the biographer of Cardinal de Cusa, who, having no suspicion of the Occult truth, and the reason of such erudition in a writer of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, simply marvels at such a miraculous foreknowledge, and attributes it to God, saying of him that he was a man incomparable in every kind of philosophy, by whom many a theological mystery inaccessible to the human mind (!), veiled and neglected for centuries (_velata et neglecta_) were once more brought to light. “Pascal might have read De Cusa’s works; but whence could the Cardinal have borrowed his ideas?” asks Moreri. Evidently from Hermes and the works of Pythagoras, even if the mystery of his incarnation and re‐incarnation be dismissed.

655 This is the secret meaning of the statements about the Hierarchy of Prajâpatis or Rishis. First seven are mentioned, then ten, then twenty‐one, and so on. They are “Gods” and creators of men—many of them the “Lords of Beings”; they are the “Mind‐born Sons” of Brahmâ, and then they became mortal heroes, and are often shown as of a very sinful character. The Occult meaning of the Biblical Patriarchs, their genealogy, and their descendants dividing among themselves the earth, is the same. Again, Jacob’s dream has the same significance.

656 He “of the Seven Virtues” is one who, without the benefit of Initiation, becomes as pure as any Adept by the simple exertion of his own merit. Being so holy, his body at his next incarnation becomes the Avatâra of his “Watcher” or Guardian Angel, as the Christian would put it.

657 The title of the highest Dhyân Chohans.

658 _Op. cit._, ii. 367.

659 “After death, the soul continueth in the aerial (astral) body, till it is entirely purified from all angry, sensual passions; then doth it put off by a _second death_ [when arising to Devachan] the aerial body as it did the earthly one. Wherefore the ancients say that there is a celestial body always joined with the soul, which is immortal, luminous and star‐like.” It becomes natural then, that the “aerial body” of an Adept should have no such second dying, since it has been cleansed of all its natural impurity before its separation from the physical body. The high Initiate is a “Son of the Resurrection,” “being equal unto the angels,” and cannot die any more (see _Luke_, xx. 36).

660 _St. John_, xxi. 21.

661 See the extract made in the _Theosophist_ from a glorious novel by Dostoievsky—a fragment entitled “The Great Inquisitor.” It is a fiction, naturally, still a sublime fiction of Christ returning in Spain during the palmy days of the Inquisition, and being imprisoned and put to death by the Inquisitor, who fears lest Christ should ruin the work of Jesuit hands.

662 When we say the “great Teacher,” we do not mean His Buddhic Ego, but that principle in Him which was the vehicle of His personal or terrestrial Ego.

663 _Five Years of Theosophy_, New Edition, p. 3.

664 _Op. cit._, p. 175, Fifth Edition.

665 It would be useless to raise objections from exoteric works to statements in this, which aims to expound, however superficially, the Esoteric Teachings alone. It is because they are misled by the exoteric doctrine that Bishop Bigandet and others aver that the notion of a supreme eternal Âdi‐Buddha is to be found only in writings of comparatively recent date. What is given here is taken from the secret portions of Dus Kyi Khorlo (Kâla Chakra, in Sanskrit, or the “Wheel of Time,” or duration).

666 The three bodies are (1) the Nirmânakâya (Pru‐lpai‐Ku in Tibetan), in which the Bodhisattva after entering by the six Pâramitâs the Path to Nirvâna, appears to men in order to teach them; (2) Sambhogakâya (Dzog‐pai‐Ku), the, body of bliss impervious to all physical sensations, received by one who has fulfilled the three conditions of moral perfection; and (3) Dharmakâya (in Tibetan, Chos‐Ku), the Nirvânic body.

667 _Five Years of Theosophy_, art. “Personal and Impersonal God,” p. 129.

668 Adhishtâthâ, the active or working agent in Prakriti (or matter).

669 _Vedânta‐Sûtras_, Ad. I. Pâda iv. Shi. 23. Commentary. The passage is given as follows in Thibaut’s translation (Sacred Books of the East, xxxiv.), p. 286: “The Self is thus the operative cause, because there is no other ruling principle, and the material cause because there is no other substance from which the world could originate.”

670 In _Five Years of Theosophy_ (art. “Shâkya Muni’s Place in History,” p. 234, note) it is stated that one day when our Lord sat in the Sattapanni Cave (Saptaparna) he compared man to a Saptaparna (seven leaved) plant.

“Mendicants,” he said, “there are seven Buddhas in every Buddha, and there are _six_ Bhikshus and but one Buddha in each mendicant. What are the _seven_? The seven branches of complete knowledge. What are the _six_? The six organs of sense. What are the five? The five elements of illusive being. And the One which is also ten? He is a true Buddha who develops in him the ten forms of holiness and subjects them all to the One.” Which means that every principle in the Buddha was the highest that could be evolved on this earth; whereas in the case of other men who attain to Nirvâna this is not necessarily the case. Even as a mere human (Manushya) Buddha Gautama was a pattern for all men. But his Arhats were not necessarily so.

671 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii., 132.

672 “Before one becomes a Buddha he must be a Bodhisattva; before evolving into a Bodhisattva he must be a Dhyâni‐Buddha.... A Bodhisattva is the way and Path to his Father, and thence to the One Supreme Essence” (_Descent of Buddhas_, p. 17, from Âryâsanga). “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me” (_St. John_, xiv. 6). The “way” is not the goal. Nowhere throughout the _New Testament_ is Jesus found calling himself God, or anything higher than “a son of God,” the son of a “Father” common to all, synthetically. Paul never said (I. _Tim._, iii. 10), “God was manifest in the flesh,” but “He who was manifested in the flesh” (Revised Edition). While the common herd among the Buddhists—the Burmese especially—regard Jesus as an incarnation of Devadatta, a relative who opposed the teachings of Buddha, the students of Esoteric Philosophy see in the Nazarene Sage a Bodhisattva with the spirit of Buddha Himself in Him.

673 I. _Corinth._, xv. 36.

674 _Op. cit._, Mandala x., hymn 90.

675 Literally, “he who walks [or follows] in the way [or path] of his predecessors.”

676 Schmidt, in _Slanong Seetsen_, p. 471, and Schlagintweit, in _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 53, accept these precious things _literally_, enumerating them as “the wheel, the precious stone, the royal consort, the best treasurer, the best horse, the elephant, the best leader.” After this one can little wonder if “besides a Dhyâni‐ Buddhi and a Dhyâni‐Bodhisattva” each human Buddha is furnished with “a female companion, a Shakti”—when in truth “Shakti” is simply the Soul‐power, the psychic energy of the God as of the Adept. The “royal consort,” the third of the “seven precious gifts,” very likely led the learned Orientalist into this ludicrous error.

677 A Bodhisattva can reach Nirvâna and live, as Buddha did, and after death he can either refuse objective reincarnation or accept and use it at his convenience for the benefit of mankind whom he can instruct in various ways while he remains in the Devachanic regions within the attraction of our earth. But having once reached Paranirvâna or “Nirvâna without remains”—the highest Dharmakâya condition, in which state he remains entirely outside of every earthly condition—he will return no more until the commencement of a new Manvantara, since he has crossed beyond the cycle of births.

678 Tulpa is the voluntary incarnation of an Adept into a living body, whether of an adult, child, or new‐born babe.

679 Ku‐sum is the triple form of the Nirvâna state and its respective duration in the “cycle of Non‐Being.” The number seven here refers to the seven Rounds of our septenary System.

680 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 52. This same generic use of a name is found among Hindus with that of Shankarâchârya, to take but one instance. All His successors bear his name, but are not reincarnations of Him. So with the “Buddhas.”

681 [The words within brackets are supplied to introduce the following statements that are confused and contradictory as they stand, and which H. P. B. had probably intended to elucidate to some slight extent, as they are written two or three times with different sentences following them. The MS. is exceedingly confused, and everything H. P. B. said is here pieced together, the addition above made being marked in brackets to distinguish it from hers.—A. B.]

682 King Suddhodana.

683 There are several names marked simply by asterisks.

684 Shankarâchârya died also at thirty‐two years of age, or rather disappeared from the sight of his disciples, as the legend goes.

685 Does “Tiani‐Tsang” stand for Apollonius of Tyana? This is a simple surmise. Some things in the life of that Adept would seem to tally with the hypothesis—others to go against it.

686 According to Esoteric teaching Buddha lived one hundred years in reality, though having reached Nirvâna in his eightieth year he was regarded as one dead to the world of the living. See article “Shâkyamuni’s Place in History” in _Five Years of Theosophy_.

687 It is a _secret_ rite, pertaining to high Initiation, and has the same significance as the one to which Clement of Alexandria alludes when he speaks of “the token of recognition being in common with us, as by cutting off Christ” (Strom., 13). Schlagintweit wonders what it may be. “The typical representation of a hermit,” he says, “is always that of a man with long, uncut hair and beard.... A rite very often selected, though I am unable to state for what reason, is that of Chod (‘to cut’ or ‘to destroy’) the meaning of which is anxiously kept a profound secret by the Lamas.” (_Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 163.)

688 Hlun‐Chub is the divining spirit in man, the highest degree of seership.

689 The secret meaning of this sentence is that Karma exercises its sway over the Adept as much as over any other man; “Gods” can escape it as little as simple mortals. The Adept who, having reached the Path and won His Dharmakâya—the Nirvâna from which there is no return until the new grand Kalpa—prefers to use His right of choosing a condition inferior to that which belongs to Him, but that will leave him free to return whenever He thinks it advisable and under whatever personality He may select, must be prepared to take all the chances of failure—possibly—and a lower condition than was His lot—for a certainty—as it is an occult law. Karma alone is absolute justice and infallible in its selections. He who uses his rights with it (Karma) must bear the consequences—if any. Thus Buddha’s first reincarnation was produced by Karma—and it led Him higher than ever; the two following were “out of pity” and * * *.

690 The Universe of Brahmâ (Sien‐Chan; Nam‐Kha) is Universal Illusion, or our phenomenal world.

691 Âkâsha. It is next to impossible to render the mystic word “Tho‐og” by any other term than “Space,” and yet, unless coined on purpose, no new appellation can render it so well to the mind of the Occultist. The term “Aditi” is also translated “Space,” and there is a world of meaning in it.

692 Dang‐ma, a purified soul, and Lha, a freed spirit within a living body; an Adept or Arhat. In the popular opinion in Tibet, a Lha is a disembodied spirit, something similar to the Burmese Nat—only higher.

693 Kwan‐yin is a synonym, for in the original another term is used, but the meaning is identical. It is the divine voice of Self, or the “Spirit‐voice” in man, and the same as Vâchîshvara (the “Voice‐ deity”) of the Brâhmans. In China, the Buddhist ritualists have degraded its meaning by anthropomorphizing it into a Goddess of the same name, with one thousand hands and eyes, and they call it Kwan‐ shai‐yin‐Bodhisat. It is the Buddhist “daïmon”‐voice of Socrates.

694 Sangharama is the _sanctum sanctorum_ of an ascetic, a cave or any place he chooses for his meditation.

695 Amitâbha Buddha is in this connection the “boundless light” by which things of the subjective world are perceived.

696 Esoterically, “the unsurpassingly merciful and enlightened heart,” said of the “Perfect Ones,” the Jîvan‐muktas, collectively.

697 These six worlds—seven with us—are the worlds of Nats or Spirits, with the Burmese Buddhists, and the seven higher worlds of the Vedântins.

698 Two things entirely distinct from each other. The “faculty is not distinguished from the subject” only on this material plane, while thought generated by our physical brain, one that has never impressed itself at the same time on the spiritual counterpart, whether through the atrophy of the latter or the intrinsic weakness of that thought, can never survive our body; this much is sure.

699 _Vedânta Sâra_, translated by Major Jacob, p. 123.

700 Aditi is, according to the _Rig Veda_, “the Father and Mother of all the Gods”; and Âkâsha is held by Southern Buddhism as the Root of all, whence everything in the Universe came out, in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it; and this is the Tibetan “Space” (Tho‐ og).

701 _Mânava‐Dharma‐Shâstra_, i. 6, 7.

702 The “God” of Pythagoras, the disciple of the Âryan Sages, is no personal God. Let it be remembered that he taught as a cardinal tenet that there exists a permanent Principle of Unity beneath all forms, changes, and other phenomena of the Universe.

703 _Isis Unveiled_, i. xvi.

704 _Isis Unveiled_, i. xviii.

705 _Isis Unveiled_ i. 58.

706 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 59.

707 While they are to a great extent identical with those of Esoteric Buddhism, the Secret Doctrine of the East.

708 _Parerga_, II. iii. 112; quoted in _Isis Unveiled_, i. 58.

709 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 338, _et seq._

710 Prof. Max Müller, in a letter to _The Times_ (April, 1857), maintained most vehemently that Nirvâna meant _annihilation_ in the fullest sense of the word. (_Chips from a German Workshop_, i. 287.) But in 1869, in a lecture before the General Meeting of the Association of German Philologists at Kiel, “he distinctly declares his belief that the Nihilism attributed to Buddha’s teaching forms no part of his doctrine, and that it is wholly wrong to suppose that Nirvâna means annihilation.” (Trubner’s _Amer. and Oriental Lit. Rec._, Oct. 16th, 1869.)

711 See the _Kalama Sutta_ of the _Anguttaranikayo_, as quoted in _A Buddhist Catechism_, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society, pp. 55, 56.

712 _Œdipus Ægypt._, II. i. 291.

713 Sephir, or Aditi (mystic Space). The Sephiroth, be it understood, are identical with the Hindu Prajâpatis, the Dhyân Chohans of Esoteric Buddhism, the Zoroastrian Amshaspends, and finally with the Elohim—the “Seven Angels of the Presence” of the Roman Catholic Church.

714 According to the Eastern idea, the All comes out from the One, and returns to it again. Absolute annihilation is simply unthinkable. Nor can eternal Matter be annihilated. Form may be annihilated: co‐ relations may change. That is all. There can be no such thing as annihilation—in the European sense—in the Universe.

715 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 289.

716 The Secret Law, the “Doctrine of the Heart,” so called in contrast to the “Doctrine of the Eye,” or exoteric Buddhism.

717 “Illusive matter in its triple manifestation in the earthly, and the astral or fontal Soul (the body), and the Platonian dual Soul—the rational and the irrational one.”

718 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 289.

719 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 290.

720 It is from the texts of all these works that the Secret Doctrine has been given. The original matter would not make a small pamphlet, but the explanations and notes from the Commentaries and Glossaries might be worked into ten volumes as large as _Isis Unveiled_.

721 The monk Della Penna makes considerable fun in his _Memoirs_ (see Markham’s _Tibet_) of certain statements in the Books of Kiu‐te. He brings to the notice of the Christian public “the great mountain 160,000 leagues high” (a Tibetan league consisting of five miles) in the Himâlayan Range. “According to their law,” he says, “in the west of this world is an eternal world ... a paradise, and in it a Saint called Hopahma, which means ‘Saint of Splendour and Infinite Light.’ This Saint has many disciples who are all Chang‐chub,” which means, he adds in a footnote, “the Spirits of those who, on account of their perfection, do not care to become saints, and train and instruct the bodies of the reborn Lamas ... so that they may help the living.” Which means that the presumably “dead” Yang‐Chhub (not “Chang‐chub”) are simply living Bodhisattvas, some of those known as Bhante (“the Brothers”). As to the “mountain 160,000 leagues high,” the _Commentary_ which gives the key to such statements explains that according to the code used by the writers, “to the west of the ‘Snowy Mountain’ 160 leagues [the cyphers being a blind] from a certain spot and by a direct road, is the Bhante Yul [the country or ‘Seat of the Brothers’], the residence of Mahâ‐Chohan ...” etc. This is the real meaning. The “Hopahma” of Della Penna is—the Mahâ‐Chohan, the Chief.

722 In some MSS. notes before us, written by Gelung (priest) Thango‐pa Chhe‐go‐mo, it is said: “The few Roman Catholic missionaries who have visited our land (under protest) in the last century and have repaid our hospitality by turning our sacred literature into ridicule, have shown little discretion and still less knowledge. It is true that the Sacred Canon of the Tibetans, the _Kahgyur_ and _Bstanhgyur_, comprises 1707 distinct works—1083 public and 624 secret volumes, the former being composed of 350 and the latter of 77 volumes folio. May we humbly invite the good missionaries, however, to tell us when they ever succeeded in getting a glimpse of the last‐named secret folios? Had they even by chance seen them I can assure the Western Pandits that these manuscripts and folios could never be understood even by a born Tibetan without a key (_a_) to their peculiar characters, and (_b_) to their hidden meaning. In our system every description of locality is figurative, every name and word purposely veiled; and one has first to study the mode of deciphering and then to learn the equivalent secret terms and symbols for nearly every word of the religious language. The Egyptian enchorial or hieratic system is child’s play to our sacerdotal puzzles.”

723 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 171.

724 “Buddhi” is a Sanskrit term for “discrimination” or intellect (the sixth principle), and “Buddha” is “wise,” “wisdom,” and also the planet Mercury.

725 This curious contradiction may be found in _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 171, 273. The reverend author assures his readers that “to the philosophic Buddhists ... Amitâbha Yoshi Fo, and the others are nothing but the signs of ideas” (p. 236). Very true. But so should be all other deific names, such as Jehovah, Allah, etc., and if they are not simply “signs of ideas” this would only show that minds that receive them otherwise are not “philosophic”; it would not at all afford serious proof that there are personal, living Gods of these names in reality.

726 The Chinese Amitâbha (Wu‐liang‐sheu) and the Tibetan Amitâbha (Odpag‐med) have now become personal Gods, ruling over and living in the celestial region of Sukhâvatî, or Tushita (Tibetan: Devachan); while Âdi‐Buddhi, of the philosophic Hindu, and Amita Buddha of the philosophic Chinaman and Tibetan, are names for universal, primeval ideas.

727 See _Theosophist_ for March, 1882.

728 The intimate relation of the twenty‐five Buddhas (Bodhisattvas) with the twenty‐five Tattvas (the Conditioned or Limited) of the Hindus is interesting.

729 It is curious to note the great importance given by European Orientalists to the Dalaï Lamas of Lhassa, and their utter ignorance as to the Tda‐shu (or Teshu) Lamas, while it is the latter who began the hierarchical series of Buddha‐incarnations, and are _de facto_ the “popes” in Tibet; the Dalaï Lamas are the creations of Nabang‐ lob‐Sang, the Tda‐shu Lama, who was Himself the sixth incarnation of Amita, through Tsong Kha‐pa, though very few seem to be aware of that fact.

730 The chanting of a Mantra is not a prayer, but rather a magical sentence in which the law of Occult causation connects itself with, and depends on, the will and acts of its singer. It is a succession of Sanskrit sounds, and when its string of words and sentences is pronounced according to the magical formulæ in the _Atharva Veda_, but understood by the few, some Mantras produce an instantaneous and very wonderful effect. In its esoteric sense it contains the Vâch (the “mystic speech”), which resides in the Mantra, or rather in its sounds, since it is according to the vibrations, one way or the other, of ether that the effect is produced. The “sweet singers” were called by that name because they were experts in Mantras. Hence the legend in China that the singing and melody of the Lohans are heard at dawn by the priests from their cells in the monastery of Fang‐Kwang. (See _Biography of Chi‐Kai_ in Tien‐tai‐nan‐tchi.)

731 The celebrated Lohan, Mâdhyantika, who converted the king and whole country of Kashmir to Buddhism, sent a body of Lohans to preach the Good Law. He was the sculptor who raised to Buddha the famous statue one hundred feet high, which Hiuen‐Tsaung saw at Dardu, to the north of the Punjab. As the same Chinese traveller mentions a temple ten Li from Peshawur—350 feet round and 850 feet high—which was at his time (A.D. 550) already 850 years old, Koeppen thinks that so far back as 292 B.C. Buddhism was the prevalent religion in the Punjab.

732 A title of the Tda‐shu‐Hlum‐po Lama.

733 The twelve Nidâwas, called in Tibetan Tin‐brel Chug‐nyi, which are based upon the “Four Truths.”

734 The Srotâpatti is one who has attained the _first_ Path of comprehension in the real and the unreal; the Sakridâgâmin is the candidate for one of the higher Initiations: “one who is to receive birth once more;” the Anâgâmin is he who has attained the “third Path,” or literally, “he who will not be reborn again” _unless he so wishes it_, having the option of being reborn in any of the “worlds of the Gods,” or of remaining in Devachan, or of choosing an earthly body with a philanthropic object. An Arhat is one who has reached the highest Path; he may merge into Nirvâna at will, while here on earth.

735 [The Pratyeka Buddha stands on the level of the Buddha, but His work for the world has nothing to do with its teaching, and His office has always been surrounded with mystery. The preposterous view that He, at such superhuman height of power, wisdom and love could be selfish, is found in the exoteric books, though it is hard to see how it can have arisen. H. P. B. charged me to correct the mistake, as she had, in a careless moment, copied such a statement elsewhere.—A. B.]

736 It is an erroneous idea which makes the Orientalists take literally the teaching of the Mahâyâna School about the three different kinds of bodies, namely, the Prulpa‐ku, the Longehod‐drocpaig‐ku, and the Chos‐ku, as all pertaining to the Nirvânic condition. There are two kinds of Nirvâna: the earthly, and that of the purely disembodied Spirits. These three “bodies” are the three envelopes—all more or less physical—which are at the disposal of the Adept who has entered and crossed the six Pâramitâs, or “Paths” of Buddha. Once He enters upon the seventh, He can return no more to earth. See Cosma, _Jour. As. Soc. Beng._, vii. 142; and Schott, _Buddhismus_, p. 9, who give it otherwise.

737 _Vedânta Sâra_, translated by Major Jacob, p. 119.

738 _Ibid._, p. 122.

739 _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 327, 357, _et seq._, quoted by Schlagintweit.

740 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 41.

741 _Jour. of As. Soc. Bengal_, vii. 144, quoted as above.

742 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 44.

743 They maintain also the existence of One Absolute pure Nature, Parabrahman; the illusion of everything outside of it; the leading of the individual Soul—a Ray of the “Universal”—into the true nature of existence and things by Yoga alone.

744 Nirmânakâya (also Nirvânakâya, vulg.) is the body or Self “with remains,” or the influence of terrestrial attributes, however spiritualized, clinging yet to that Self. An Initiate in Dharmakâya, or in Nirvâna “without remains,” is the Jivanmukta, the Perfect Initiate, who separates his Higher Self entirely from his body during Samâdhi. [It will be noticed that these two words are here used in a sense other than that previously given.—A. B.]

745 The “Sacred” Books of Dus‐Kyi Khorlo (“Time Circle”). See _Jour. As. Soc._, ii. 57. These works were abandoned to the Sikkhim Dugpas, from the time of Tsong‐Kha‐pa’s reform.

746 _Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms_, art. “Yoga,” quoted in _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 47.

747 _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 47, 48.

748 _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 63, 64. The objects found in the casket, as enumerated in the exoteric legend, are of course symbolical. They may be found mentioned in the _Kanjur_. They were said to be: (1) two hands joined; (2) a miniature Choten (Stûpa, or reliquary); (3) a talisman with “Om mani padme hum” inscribed on it; (4) a religious book, _Zamatog_ (“a constructed vehicle”).

749 _Alterthumskunde_, ii. 1072.

750 _Op. cit._, ii. 470.

751 Unless one obtains exact information and the right method, one’s visions, however correct and true in Soul‐life, will ever fail to get photographed in our human memory, and certain cells of the brain are sure to play havoc with our remembrances.

752 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 158. The Rev. Joseph Edkins either ignores, or—which is more probable—is utterly ignorant of the real existence of such Schools, and judges by the Chinese travesties of these, calling such Esotericism “heterodox Buddhism.” And so it is, in one sense.

753 That country—India—has lost the records of such Schools and their teachings only so far as the general public, and especially the inappreciative Western Orientalists, are concerned. It has preserved them in full in some Mathams (refuges for mystic contemplation). But it may perhaps be better to seek them with, and from, their rightful owners, the so‐called “mythical” Adepts, or Mahâtmâs.

754 _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 155‐159.

755 They certainly reject most emphatically the popular theory of the transmigration of human entities or Souls _into_ animals, but not the evolution of men _from_ animals—so far, at least, as their lower principles are concerned.

756 It is quite consistent, on the contrary, when explained in the light of the Esoteric Doctrine. The “Western paradise,” or Western heaven, is no fiction located in transcendental space. It is a _bonâ‐fide_ locality in the mountains, or, to be more correct, one encircled in a desert within mountains. Hence it is assigned for the residence of those students of Esoteric Wisdom—disciples of Buddha—who have attained the rank of Lohans and Anâgâmins (Adepts). It is called “Western” simply from geographical considerations; and “the great iron mountain girdle” that surrounds the Avitchi, and the seven Lokas that encircle the “Western paradise” are a very exact representation of well‐known localities and things to the Eastern student of Occultism.

757 The word is translated by the Orientalists as “true man without a position,” (?) which is very misleading. It simply means the true inner man, or Ego, “Buddha _within_ Buddha” meaning that there was a Gautama _inwardly_ as well as _outwardly_.

758 One of the titles of Gautama Buddha in Tibet.

759 The “Esoteric” Schools, or sects, of which there are many in China.

760 A school of contemplation founded by Hiuen‐Tsang, the traveller, nearly extinct. Fa‐siong‐Tsung means “the School that unveils the inner nature of things.”

761 Esoteric, or hidden, teaching of Yoga (Chinese: Yogi‐mi‐kean).

762 The “tonsure knife” is made of _meteoric_ iron, and is used for the purpose of cutting off the “vow‐lock,” or hair from the novice’s head during his first ordination. It has a double‐edged blade, is sharp as a razor, and lies concealed within a hollow handle of horn. By touching a spring the blade jerks out like a flash of lightning, and recedes back with the same rapidity. A great dexterity is required in using it without wounding the head of the young Gelung and Gelung‐ma (candidates to become priests and nuns) during the preliminary rites, which are public.

763 Chagpa‐Thog‐mad is the Tibetan name of Âryâsanga, the founder of the Yogâchârya or Naljorchodpa School. This Sage and Initiate is said to have been taught “Wisdom” by Maitreya Buddha Himself, the Buddha of the Sixth Race, at Tushita (a celestial region presided over by Him), and as having received from Him the five books of _Champaitehos‐nga_. The Secret Doctrine teaches, however, that he came from Dejung, or Shambhalla, called the “source of happiness” (“wisdom‐acquired”) and declared by some Orientalists to be a “fabulous” place.

764 It may not be, perhaps, amiss to remind the reader of the fact that the “mirror” was a part of the symbolism of the Thesmophoria, a portion of the Eleusinian Mysteries; and that it was used in the search for Atmu, the “Hidden One,” or “Self.” In his excellent paper on the above‐named mysteries, Dr. Alexander Wilder of New York says: “Despite the assertion of Herodotus and others that the Bacchic Mysteries were Egyptian, there exists strong probability that they came originally from India, and were Shaivitic or Buddhistical. Kore‐Persep‐honeia was but the goddess Parasu‐pani, or Bhavani, and Zagreus is from Chakra, a country extending from ocean to ocean. If this is a Turanian story we can easily recognise the ‘horns’ as the crescent worn by Lama‐priests, and assume the whole legend [the fable of Dionysus‐Zagreus] to be based on Lama‐succession and transmigration.... The whole story of Orpheus ... has a Hindu ring all through.” The tale of “Lama‐succession and transmigration” did not originate with the Lamas, who date themselves only so far back as the seventh century, but with the Chaldæans and the Brâhmans, still earlier.

765 The state of absolute freedom from any sin or desire.

766 The state during which an Adept sees the long series of his past births, and lives through all his previous incarnations in this and the other worlds. (See the admirable description in the _Light of Asia_, p. 166, 1884 ed.)

767 See _supra_, ii. 188, 189.

768 Wilson’s translation, as amended by Fitzedward Hall, i. 40.

769 Prâna is in reality the universal Life Principle.

770 All the uterine contents, having a direct spiritual connection with their cosmic antetypes, are, on the physical plane, potent objects in Black Magic, and are therefore considered unclean.

771 See _supra_, ii. Part I.

772 The Solar System or the Earth, as the case may be.

773 So are the animals, the plants, and even the minerals. Reichenbach never understood what he learned through his sensitives and clairvoyants. It _is_ the odic, or rather the auric or magnetic fluid which emanates from man, but it is also something more.

774 See _supra_, i. 181, for the Vedântic exoteric enumeration.

775 See _Lucifer_, January, 1889, “Dialogue upon the Mysteries of After‐ Life.”

776 See _supra_, i, 626‐629.

777 See _supra_, i, 228, _et seq._, and ii. _passim_.

778 _Op. cit._, ii, 456, 461, 465 _et seq._

779 _Jod‐Hevah_, or male‐female on the terrestrial plane, as invented by the Jews, and now made out to mean Jehovah; but signifying in reality and literally, “giving being” and “receiving life.”

780 See _Notice sur le Calendrier_, J. H. Ragon.

781 See _supra_, ii. 373; and 152, _et seq._

782 See _supra_, ii. 302, _et seq._

783 _Op. cit._, ii. 81, 6.

784 See Frank’s _Die Kabbala_, p. 314, _et seq._

785 _Genesis_, ii. 7.

786 _Supra_, i. 147.

787 We may refer for confirmation to Origen’s works, who says that “the seven ruling daimons” (genii or planetary rulers) are Michael, the Sun (the lion‐like); the second in order, the Bull, Jupiter or Suriel, etc.; and all these, the “Seven of the Presence,” are the Sephiroth. The Sephirothal Tree is the Tree of the Divine Planets as given by Porphyry, or Porphyry’s Tree, as it is usually called.

788 _Supra_, i, 147.

789 Esoterically, green, there being no black in the prismatic ray.

790 Esoterically, light blue. As a pigment, purple is a compound of red and blue, and in Eastern Occultism blue is the spiritual essence of the colour purple, while red is its material basis. In reality, Occultism makes Jupiter blue because he is the son of Saturn, which is green, and light blue as a prismatic colour contains a great deal of green. Again, the Auric Body will contain much of the colour of the Lower Manas if the man is a material sensualist, just as it will contain much of the darker hue if the Higher Manas has preponderance over the Lower.

791 Esoterically, the Sun cannot correspond with the eye, nose, or any other organ, since, as explained, it is no planet, but a central star. It was adopted as a planet by the post‐Christian Astrologers, who had never been initiated. Moreover, the true colour of the Sun is blue, and it appears yellow only owing to the effect of the absorption of vapours (chiefly metallic) by its atmosphere. All is Mâyâ on our Earth.

792 Esoterically, indigo, or dark blue, which is the complement of yellow in the prism. Yellow is a simple or primitive colour. Manas being dual in its nature—as is its sidereal symbol, the planet Venus, which is both the morning and evening star—the difference between the higher and the lower principles of Manas, whose essence is derived from the Hierarchy ruling Venus, is denoted by the dark blue and green. Green, the Lower Manas, resembles the colour of the solar spectrum which appears between the yellow and the dark blue, the Higher Spiritual Manas. Indigo is the intensified colour of the heaven or sky, to denote the upward tendency of Manas toward Buddhi, or the heavenly Spiritual Soul. This colour is obtained from the _indigofera tinctoria_, a plant of the highest occult properties in India, much used in White Magic, and occultly connected with copper. This is shown by the indigo assuming a copper lustre, especially when rubbed on any hard substance. Another property of the dye is that it is insoluble in water and even in ether, being lighter in weight than any known liquid. No symbol has ever been adopted in the East without being based upon a logical and demonstrable reason. Therefore Eastern Symbologists, from the earliest ages, have connected the spiritual and the animal minds of man, the one with dark blue (Newton’s indigo), or true blue, free from green; and the other with pure green.

793 Esoterically, yellow, because the colour of the Sun is orange, and Mercury now stands next to the Sun in distance, as it does in colour. The planet for which the Sun is a substitute was still nearer the Sun than Mercury now is, and was one of the most secret and highest planets. It is said to have become invisible at the close of the Third Race.

794 Esoterically, violet, because, perhaps, violet is the colour assumed by a ray of sunlight when transmitted through a very thin plate of silver, and also because the Moon shines upon the Earth with light borrowed from the Sun, as the human body shines with qualifications borrowed from its double—the aërial man. As the astral shadow starts the series of principles in man, on the terrestrial plane, up to the lower, animal Manas, so the violet ray starts the series of prismatic colours from its end up to green, both being, the one as a principle and the other as a colour, the most refrangible of all the principles and colours. Besides which, there is the same great Occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, both celestial and terrestrial bodies, colours and sounds. In clearer words, there exists the same law of relation between the Moon and the Earth, the astral and the living body of man, as between the violet end of the prismatic spectrum and the indigo and the blue. But of this more anon.

795 Magic, _Magia_, means, in its spiritual, secret sense, the “Great Life,” or divine life _in spirit_. The root is _magh_, as seen in the Sanskrit _mahat_, Zend _maz_, Greek _megas_, and Latin _magnus_, all signifying “great.”

796 _Philosophumena_, vi. 9.

797 _Nous_, _Epinoia_; _Phône_, _Onoma_; _Logismos_, _Enthumêsis_.

798 _Philosophumena_, vi. 12.

799 See _supra_, _sub voce_.

800 _The Great Revelation_ (_Hê Megalê Apophasis_), of which Simon himself is supposed to have been the author.

801 Literally, standing opposite each other in rows or pairs.

802 _Philosophumena_, vi. 18.

803 _Op. cit._, vi. 18.

804 _Op. cit._, i. 13.

805 _Op. cit._, vi. 17.

806 _Op. cit._, i. 5.

807 _Philosophumena_, vi. 14.

808 At first there are the omphalo‐mesenteric vessels, two arteries and two veins, but these afterwards totally disappear, as does the “vascular area” on the Umbilical Vesicle, from which they proceed. As regards the “Umbilical Vessels” proper, the Umbilical Cord ultimately has entwined around it from right to left the one Umbilical Vein which takes the oxygenated blood from the mother to the Fœtus, and two Hypogastric or Umbilical Arteries which take the used‐up blood from the Fœtus to the Placenta, the contents of the vessels being the reverse of that which prevails after birth. Thus Science corroborates the wisdom and knowledge of ancient Occultism, for in the days of Simon Magus no man, unless an Initiate, knew anything about the circulation of the blood or about Physiology. While this Paper was being printed, I received two small pamphlets from Dr. Jerome A. Anderson, which were printed in 1884 and 1888, and in which is to be found the scientific demonstration of the fœtal nutrition as advanced in Paper I. Briefly, the Fœtus is nourished by osmosis from the Amniotic Fluid and respires by means of the Placenta. Science knows little or nothing about the Amniotic Fluid and its uses. If any one cares to follow up this question, I would recommend Dr. Anderson’s _Remarks on the Nutrition of the Fœtus_. (Wood & Co., New York.)

809 _Supra_, vol. ii.

810 See Eusebius, _Hist. Eccles._, lib. iii. cap. 26.

811 _De Mysteriis_, p. 100, lines 10 to 19; p. 109, fol. 1.

812 _De Mysteriis_, p. 290, lines 15 to 18, _et seq._, caps. v. and vii.

813 _Ibid._, p. 100, sec. iii, cap. iii.

814 See _supra_, i. 34; i. 4, _et seq._; ii. 39, _et seq._, and 625, _et seq._

815 The following table lists the wave‐lengths in Millimetres, and the number of vibrations in Trillions, of the various colours.

Violet extreme: 406, 759 Violet: 423, 709 Violet‐Indigo: 439, 683 Indigo: 449, 668 Indigo‐Blue: 459, 654 Blue: 479, 631 Blue‐Green: 492, 610 Green: 512, 586 Green‐Yellow: 532, 564 Yellow: 551, 544 Yellow‐Orange: 571, 525 Orange: 583, 514 Orange‐Red: 596, 503 Red: 620, 484 Red‐extreme: 645, 465

816 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 273 to 278.

817 _Apud Grêbaut Papyrus Orbiney_, p. 101.

818 See “Genius,” _Lucifer_, Nov., 1889, p. 227.

819 See _Voice of the Silence_, pp. 68 and 94, art. 28, Glossary.

820 The references to “Nature’s Finer Forces” which follow, have respect to the eight articles which appeared in the pages of the _Theosophist_ and not to the fifteen essays and the translation of a chapter of the Shivâgama which are contained in the book called _Nature’s Finer Forces_. The _Shivâgama_ in its details is purely Tântric, and nothing but harm can result from any practical following of its precepts. I would most strongly dissuade any student from attempting any of these Hatha Yoga practices, for he will either ruin himself entirely, or throw himself so far back that it will be almost impossible to regain the lost ground in this incarnation. The translation referred to has been considerably expurgated, and even now is hardly fit for publication. It recommends Black Magic of the worst kind, and is the very antipodes of spiritual Râja Yoga. Beware, I say.

821 Prâna, on earth at any rate, is thus but a mode of life, a constant cyclic motion from within outwardly and back again, an out‐breathing and in‐breathing of the ONE LIFE, or Jîva, the synonym of the Absolute and Unknowable Deity. Prâna is not absolute life, or Jîva, but its aspect in a world of delusion. In the _Theosophist_, May, 1888, p. 478, Prâna is said to be “one stage finer than the gross matter of the earth.”

822 Remember that our re‐incarnating Egos are called the Mânasaputras, “Sons of Manas” (or Mahat), Intelligence, Wisdom.

823 It is erroneous to call the fourth human principle “Kâma Rûpa.” It is no Rûpa or form at all until after death, but stands for the Kâmic elements in man, his animal desires and passions, such as anger, lust, envy, revenge, etc., the progeny of selfishness and matter.

824 Here the world of effects is the Devachanic state, and the world of causes, earth life.

825 It is this Kâma Rûpa alone that can _materialize_ in mediumistic séances, which occasionally happens when it is not the Astral Double or Linga Sharîra, of the medium himself which appears. How, then, can this vile bundle of passions and terrestrial lusts, resurrected by, and gaining consciousness only through the organism of the medium, be accepted as a “departed angel” or the Spirit of a once human body? As well say of the microbic pest which fastens on a person, that it is a sweet departed angel.

826 This is accomplished in more or less time, according to the degree in which the personality (whose dregs it now is) was spiritual or material. If spirituality prevailed, then the Larva, or Spook, will fade out very soon; but if the personality was very materialistic, the Kâma Rûpa may last for centuries and—in some, though very exceptional cases—even survive with the help of some of its scattered Skandhas, which are all transformed in time into Elementals. See the _Key to Theosophy_, pp. 141 _et seq._, in which work it was impossible to go into details, but where the Skandhas are spoken of as the germs of Karmic effect.

827 _Key to Theosophy_, p. 141

828 Following _Shivâgama_, the said author enumerates the correspondences in this wise; Âkâsha, Ether, is followed by Vâyu, Gas; Tejas, Heat; Âpas, Liquid; and Prithivî, Solid.

829 See Fitz‐Edward Hall’s notes on the _Vishnu Purâna_.

830 The pair which we refer to as the One Life, the Root of All, and Âkâsha in its pre‐differentiating period answers to the Brahma (neuter) and Aditi of some Hindus, and stands in the same relation as the Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti of the Vedântins.

831 See above, i. diagram, p. 221.

832 Anupâdaka, Opapatika in Pâli, means the “parentless,” born without father or mother, from _itself_, as a transformation, _e.g._, the God Brahmâ sprung from the Lotus (the symbol of the Universe) that grows from Vishnu’s navel, Vishnu typifiying eternal and limitless Space, and Brahmâ the Universe and LOGOS; the mythical Buddha is also born from a Lotus.

833 See _Theosophist_, February, 1888, p. 276.

834 Sœmmerring, _De Acervulo Cerebri_, vol. ii. p. 322.

835 In the Greek Eastern Church no child is allowed to go to confession before the age of seven, after which he is considered to have reached the age of reason.

836 _De Caus. Ep._, vol xii.

837 _Advers. Med._, ii. 322.

838 _De Lapillis Glandulæ Pinealis in Quinque Ment Alien_, 1753.

839 See “Stray Thoughts on Death and Satan” in the _Theosophist_, vol. iii. No. 1; also “Fragments of Occult Truth,” vols. iii. and iv.

840 _Op. cit._, ii. 368, _et seq._

841 The essence of the Divine Ego is “pure flame,” an entity to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken; it cannot, therefore, be diminished even by countless numbers of lower minds, detached from it like flames from a flame. This is in answer to an objection by an Esotericist who asked whence was that inexhaustible essence of one and the same Individuality which was called upon to furnish a human intellect for every new personality in which it is incarnated.

842 The brain, or thinking machinery, is not only in the head, but, as every physiologist who is not quite a materialist will tell you, every organ in man, heart, liver, lungs, etc., down to every nerve and muscle, has, so to speak, its own distinct brain or thinking apparatus. As our brain has naught to do in the guidance of the collective and individual work of every organ in us, what is that which guides each so unerringly in its incessant functions; that make these struggle, and that too with disease, throws it off and acts, each of them, even to the smallest, not in a clock‐work manner, as alleged by some materialists (for, at the slightest disturbance or breakage the clock stops), but as an entity endowed with instinct? To say it is Nature is to say nothing, if it is not the enunciation of a fallacy; for Nature after all is but a name for these very same functions, the sum of the qualities and attributes, physical, mental, etc., in the universe and man, the total of agencies and forces guided by intelligent laws.

843 See _Key to Theosophy_, pp. 147, 148, _et seq._

844 Kâma Rûpa, the vehicle of the Lower Manas, is said to dwell in the physical brain, in the five physical senses and in all the sense‐ organs of the physical body.

845 Tanmâtra means subtle and rudimentary form, the gross type of the finer elements. The five Tanmâtras are really the characteristic properties or qualities of matter and of all the elements; the real spirit of the word is “something” or “merely transcendental,” in the sense of properties or qualities.

846 See _Theosophist_, August, 1883, “The Real and the Unreal.”

847 As the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_ and the _Occult World_ called Manas the Human Soul, and Buddhi the Spiritual Soul, I have left these terms unchanged in the _Voice_, seeing that it was a book intended for the public.

848 In the exoteric teachings of Râja Yoga, Antahkarana is called the inner organ of perception and is divided into four parts: the (lower) Manas, Buddhi (reason), Ahankâra (personality), and Chitta (thinking faculty). It also, together with several other organs, forms a part of Jîva, Soul called also Lingadeh. Esotericists, however, must not be misled by this popular version.

849 The Earth, or earth‐life rather, is the only Avîtchi (Hell) that exists for the men of our humanity on this globe. Avîtchi is a state, not a locality, a counterpart of Devachan. Such a state follows the Soul wherever it goes, whether into Kâma Loka, as a semi‐conscious Spook, or into a human body, when reborn to suffer Avîtchi. Our Philosophy recognizes no other Hell.

850 See _Voice of the Silence_, p. 97.

851 _Loc. cit._

852 Read the last footnote on p. 368, vol. ii. of _Isis Unveiled_, and you will see that even profane Egyptologists and men who, like Bunsen, were ignorant of Initiation, were struck by their own discoveries when they found the “Word” mentioned in old papyri.

853 See _Theosophist_, vol. iii., October, 1882, p. 13.

854 Read pp. 40 and 63 in the _Voice of the Silence_.

855 See _Voice of the Silence_, p. viii.

856 The following notes were contributed by students and approved by H. P. B.

857 See page 444.

858 All these “spaces” denote the special magnetic currents, the planes of substance, and the degrees of approach that the consciousness of the Yogî, or Chelâ, performs towards assimilation with the inhabitants of the Lokas.

859 [If the Nidânas are read the reverse way, _i.e._, from 12 to 1, they give the evolutionary order.—ED.]

860 [_I.e._, an Initiate, the word Adept being used by H. P. B. to cover all grades of Initiation. As above seen, she used the words Mâyâvi Rûpa in more than one sense.—ED.]