Chapter I

of the _Ordinances_, or “Laws,” after the Self‐existent Lord, the Unmanifesting Logos of the Unknown “Darkness,” becomes manifested in the Golden Egg. It is from this Egg, from

11. “That which is the undiscrete [undifferentiated] Cause, eternal, which _is_ and _is not_, from It issued that Male who is called in the world Brahmâ.”

Here, as in all genuine philosophical systems, we find even the “Egg,” or the Circle, or Zero, Boundless Infinity, referred to as “It,”(487) and Brahmâ, the first Unit only, referred to as the “Male” God, _i.e._, the fructifying Principle. It is [circle split by vertical line], or 10 (ten), the Decad. On the plane of the Septenary, or _our_ World, only, it is called Brahmâ. On that of the Unified Decad, in the realm of Reality, this male Brahmâ is an Illusion.

14. “From Self (_Âtmanah_) he created Mind, _which is and is not_; and from Mind, Ego‐ism [Self‐Consciousness] (_a_), the ruler (_b_), the Lord.”

(_a_) The Mind is Manas. Medhâtithi, the commentator, justly observes here that it is the reverse of this, and shows already interpolation and rearranging; for it is Manas that springs from Ahamkâra or (Universal) Self‐Consciousness, as Manas in the microcosm springs from Mahat, or Mahâ‐Buddhi (Buddhi, in man). For Manas is dual. As shown and translated by Colebrooke, “Mind, _serving both for sense and action_, is an organ by affinity, being cognate with the rest”;(488) “the rest” here meaning that Manas, our Fifth Principle (the _fifth_, because the body was named the _first_, which is the reverse of the true philosophical order), is in affinity both with Âtmâ‐Buddhi and with the lower Four Principles. Hence, our teaching: namely, that Manas follows Âtmâ‐Buddhi to Devachan, and that the Lower Manas, that is to say, the dregs or residue of Manas, remains with Kâma Rûpa, in Limbus, or Kâma Loka, the abode of the “Shells.”

(_b_) Medhâtithi translates this as “the one conscious of the I,” or Ego, not “the ruler,” as do the Orientalists. Thus also they translate the following shloka:

16. “He also, having made the subtile parts of those six [the great Self and the five organs of sense], of unmeasured brightness, to enter into the elements of self (_âtmamâtrâsu_), created all beings.”

When, according to Medhâtithi, it ought to read _mâtrâbhih_ instead of _âtmamâtrâsu_, and thus would read:

“He having pervaded the subtile parts of those six, of unmeasured brightness, by elements of self, created all beings.”

The latter reading must be the correct one, since He, the Self, is what we call Âtmâ, and thus constitutes the seventh principle, the synthesis of the “six.” Such is also the opinion of the editor of the _Mânava Dharma Shâstra_, who seems to have intuitionally entered far deeper into the spirit of the philosophy than has the translator, the late Dr. Burnell; for he hesitates little between the text of Kullûka Bhatta and the commentary of Medhâtithi. Rejecting the _tanmâtra_, or subtile elements, and the _âtmamâtra_ of Kullûka Bhatta, he says, applying the principles to the Cosmic Self:

“The six appear rather to be the _manas_ plus the five principles of ether, air, fire, water, earth; ‘having united five portions of those six with the spiritual element [the _seventh_] he (thus) created all existing things;’ ... _âtmamâtra_ is therefore the spiritual atom as opposed to the elementary, not reflexive ‘elements of himself’.”

Thus he corrects the translation of verse 17:

“As the subtile elements of bodily forms of this One depend on these six, so the wise call his form Sharîra.”

And he adds that “elements” mean here portions, or parts (or principles), which reading is borne out by verse 19, which says:

“This non‐eternal (Universe) arises then from the Eternal, by means of the subtile elements of forms of _those seven_ very glorious Principles (_Purusha_).”

Commenting upon which emendation of Medhâtithi, the editor remarks: “the five elements _plus_ mind [_Manas_] and self‐consciousness [_Ahamkâra_](489) are probably meant; ‘subtile elements,’ as before [meaning] ‘fine portions of form’ [or principles].” Verse 20 shows this, when saying of these five elements, or “fine portions of form” (Rûpa _plus_ Manas and Self‐Consciousness) that they constitute the “Seven Purusha,” or Principles, called in the _Purânas_ the “Seven Prakritis.”

Moreover, these “five elements,” or “five portions,” are spoken of in verse 27 as “those which are called the atomic destructible portions,” and which are, therefore, “distinct from the atoms of the Nyâya.”

This creative Brahmâ, issuing from the Mundane or Golden Egg, unites in himself both the male and female principles. He is, in short, the same as all the creative Protologoi. Of Brahmâ, however, it could not be said, as of Dionysos, “πρωτόγονον διφυῆ τρίγονον βακχεῖον Ἅνακτα Ἄγριον ἀρρητὸν κρύφιον δικέρωτα δίμορφον”—a lunar Jehovah, Bacchus truly, with David dancing nude before his _symbol_ in the ark—because no licentious Dionysia were ever established in his name and honour. All such public worship was exoteric, and the great universal symbols were distorted universally, as those of Krishna are now by the Vallabâchâryas of Bombay, the followers of the “infant” God. But are these popular Gods the _true_ Deity? Are _they_ the apex and synthesis of the sevenfold creation, man included? Impossible! Each and all are one of the rungs of that septenary ladder of Divine Consciousness, Pagan as Christian. Ain Suph is said to manifest through the _Seven Letters_ of the Name of Jehovah who, having usurped the place of the Unknown Limitless, was given by his devotees his Seven Angels of the Presence—his Seven Principles. But, indeed, they are mentioned in almost every school. In the pure Sânkhya philosophy Mahat, Ahamkâra and the five Tanmâtras are called the Seven Prakritis, or Natures, and are counted from Mahâ‐Buddhi, or Mahat, down to Earth.(490)

Nevertheless, however disfigured by Ezra for Rabbinical purposes is the original Elohistic version, however repulsive at times is even the _esoteric_ meaning in the Hebrew scrolls, far more so indeed than its outward veil or cloaking may be—once the Jehovistic portions are eliminated, the Mosaic Books are found full of purely Occult and priceless knowledge, especially in the first six chapters.

Read by the aid of the _Kabalah_, one finds a matchless temple of Occult truths, a well of deeply concealed beauty, hidden under a structure, the _visible_ architecture of which, notwithstanding its apparent symmetry, is unable to stand the criticism of cold reason, or to reveal the age of its hidden truth, for it belongs to all the ages. There is more Wisdom concealed under the exoteric _fables_ of the _Purânas_ and _Bible_ than in all the exoteric _facts_ and science in the literature of the world, and more Occult true Science, than there is of exact knowledge in all the academies. Or, in plainer and stronger language, there is as much esoteric wisdom in some portions of the _exoteric Purânas_ and _Pentateuch_, as there is of nonsense and of designedly childish fancy, when read only in the dead‐letter and murderous interpretations of the great dogmatic religions, and especially of their sects.

Let anyone read the first verses of _Genesis_ and reflect upon them. There, “God” commands _another_ “God,” _who does his bidding_—even in the _cautious_ English Protestant authorized translation of King James I.

In the “beginning”—the Hebrew language having no word to express the idea of eternity(491)—“God” fashions the Heaven and the Earth; and the latter is “without form and void,” while the former is in fact not Heaven, but the “Deep,” Chaos, with darkness upon its face.(492)

“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters,” or the Great Deep of the Infinite Space. And this Spirit is Nârâyana, or Vishnu.

“And God said, Let there be a firmament....” And “God,” the second, obeyed and “_made_ the firmament.” “And God said let there be light.” And “there was light.” Now the latter does not mean light at all, but, as in the _Kabalah_, the androgyne Adam Kadmon, or Sephira (Spiritual Light), for they are one; or, according to the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_, the _secondary_ Angels, the first being the Elohim, who are the aggregate of that “fashioning” _God_. For to whom are those words of command addressed? And who is it who commands? That which commands is the Eternal Law, and he who obeys, the Elohim, the known quantity acting in and with _x_, or the coëfficient of the unknown quantity, the Forces of the One Force. All this is Occultism, and is found in the archaic Stanzas. It is perfectly immaterial whether we call these “Forces” the Dhyân Chohans, or the Auphanim as Ezekiel does.

“The one Universal Light, which to man is Darkness, is ever existent,” says the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_. From it proceeds periodically the Energy, which is reflected in the Deep, or Chaos, the store‐house of future Worlds, and, once awakened, stirs up and fructifies the latent Forces, which are the ever present eternal potentialities in it. Then awake anew the Brahmâs and Buddhas—the co‐eternal Forces—and a new Universe springs into being.

In the _Sepher Yetzirah_, the Kabalistic Book of Creation, the author has evidently repeated the words of Manu. In it, the Divine Substance is represented as having alone existed from the eternity, boundless and absolute; and as having emitted from itself the Spirit.(493) “One is the Spirit of the living God, blessed be Its name, which liveth for ever! Voice, Spirit, and Word, this is the Holy Spirit.”(494) And this is the Kabalistic abstract Trinity, so unceremoniously anthropomorphized by the Christian Fathers. From this triple One emanated the whole Kosmos. First from One emanated number Two, or Air (the Father), the creative Element; and then number Three, Water (the Mother), proceeded from Air; Ether or Fire completes the Mystic Four, the Arbo‐al.(495) When the Concealed of the Concealed wanted to reveal Himself, he first made a Point [the Primordial Point, or the first Sephira, Air, or Holy Ghost,] shaped into a sacred Form, [the Ten Sephiroth, or the Heavenly Man,] and covered it with a rich and splendid Garment, _that is the World_.(496)

“He maketh the Wind His messengers, flaming Fire His servants”;(497) says the _Yetzirah_, showing the cosmical character of the later euhemerized Elements, and that Spirit permeates every atom in Kosmos.

Paul calls the invisible Cosmic Beings the “Elements.” But now the Elements are degraded into, and limited to, atoms of which nothing is known so far, and which are only “children of necessity,” as is Ether also. As we said in _Isis Unveiled_:

The poor primordial Elements have long been exiled, and our ambitious Physicists run races, to determine who shall add one more to the fledgling brood of the sixty and odd elementary substances.

Meanwhile there rages a war in modern Chemistry about terms. We are denied the right to call these substances “chemical elements,” for these are not “primordial principles of self‐existing essences, out of which the universe was fashioned,” according to Plato. Such ideas associated with the word “element” were good enough for the old Greek Philosophy, but Modern Science rejects them; for, as Mr. William Crookes says: “they are unfortunate terms,” and experimental Science will have “nothing to do with any kind of essences except those which it can see, smell, or taste. It leaves others to the metaphysicians....” We must feel grateful even for so much!

This “Primordial Substance” is called by some Chaos. Plato and the Pythagoreans named it the Soul of the World, after it had been impregnated by the Spirit of that which broods over the Primeval Waters, or Chaos. It is by being reflected in it, say the Kabalists, that the brooding Principle “created” the phantasmagoria of a visible, manifested Universe. Chaos before, Ether after this “reflection,” it is still the Deity that pervades Space and all things. It is the invisible, imponderable Spirit of things, and the invisible, but only too tangible, fluid that radiates from the fingers of the healthy magnetizer, for it is Vital Electricity—Life itself. Called in derision, by the Marquis de Mirville, the “Nebulous Almighty,” it is to this day termed by the Theurgists and Occultists the “Living Fire”; and there is not a Hindû who practises at dawn a certain kind of meditation but knows its effects. It is the “Spirit of Light” and Magnes. As truly expressed by an opponent, Magus and Magnes are two branches growing from the same trunk and shooting forth the same resultants. And in this appellation of “Living Fire” we may also discover the meaning of the puzzling sentence in the _Zend Avesta_: there is “a Fire that gives knowledge of the future, science and amiable speech”; that is to say, which develops an extraordinary eloquence in the sibyl, the sensitive, and even some orators. Writing upon this subject, in _Isis Unveiled_, we said:

The Chaos of the ancients, the Zoroastrian Sacred Fire, or the Atash‐Behram of the Parsîs; the Hermes‐fire, the Elmes‐fire of the ancient Germans; the Lightning of Cybele; the Burning Torch of Apollo; the Flame on the altar of Pan; the Inextinguishable Fire in the temple on the Acropolis, and in that of Vesta; the Fire‐ flame of Pluto’s helm; the brilliant Sparks on the caps of the Dioscuri, on the Gorgon’s head, the helm of Pallas, and the staff of Mercury; the Egyptian Ptah‐Ra; the Grecian Zeus Cataibates (the Descending) of Pausanias; the Pentecostal Fire‐tongues; the Burning Bush of Moses; the Pillar of Fire of _Exodus_, and the Burning Lamp of Abram; the Eternal Fire of the “bottomless pit”; the Delphic oracular vapours; the Sidereal Light of the Rosicrucians; the Âkâsha of the Hindû Adepts; the Astral Light of Éliphas Lévi; the Nerve‐Aura and the Fluid of the Magnetists; the Od of Reichenbach; the Psychod and Ectenic Force of Thury; the “Psychic Force” of Sergeant Cox, and the atmospheric magnetism of some Naturalists; galvanism; and finally, electricity—all these are but various names for many different manifestations or effects of the same mysterious, all‐pervading Cause, the Greek Archæus.

We now add—it is all this and much more.

This “Fire” is spoken of in all the Hindû Sacred Books, as also in the Kabalistic works. The _Zohar_ explains it as the “White Hidden Fire, in the Risha Havurah,” the White Head, whose Will causes the fiery fluid to flow in 370 currents in every direction of the Universe. It is identical with the “Serpent that runs with 370 leaps” of the _Siphrah Dtzenioutha_, the Serpent, which, when the “Perfect Man,” the Metatron, _is raised_, that is to say, when the _Divine_ Man indwells in the _animal_ man, becomes _three_ Spirits, or Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas, in our Theosophical phraseology.

Spirit, then, or Cosmic Ideation, and Cosmic Substance—one of whose “principles” is Ether—are _one_, and include the Elements, in the sense St. Paul attaches to them. These Elements are the veiled Synthesis standing for Dhyân Chohans, Devas, Sephiroth, Amshaspends, Archangels, etc. The Ether of Science—the Ilus of Berosus, or the Protyle of Chemistry—constitutes, so to speak, the _rude_ material, relatively, out of which the above‐named Builders, following the plan traced out for them eternally in the Divine Thought, fashion the Systems in the Kosmos. They are “myths,” we are told. No more so than Ether and the Atoms, we answer. The two latter are absolute necessities of Physical Science, and the Builders are as absolute a necessity of Metaphysics. We are twitted with the objection: You never saw them. And we ask the Materialists: Have you ever seen Ether, or your Atoms, or, again, your Force? Moreover, one of the greatest Western Evolutionists of our modern day, co‐“discoverer” with Darwin, Mr. A. R. Wallace, when discussing the inadequacy of Natural Selection alone accounting for the physical form of Man, admits the guiding action of “higher intelligences” as a “_necessary_ part of the great laws which govern the material Universe.”(498)

These “higher intelligences” are the Dhyân Chohans of the Occultists.

Indeed, there are few myths in any religious system worthy of the name, but have a historical as well as a scientific foundation. “Myths,” justly observes Pococke, “are now proved to be _fables_, just in proportion as _we misunderstand_ them; _truths_, in proportion as _they were once understood_.”

The most distinct and the one prevailing idea, found in all ancient teaching, with reference to Cosmic Evolution and the first “creation” of our Globe with all its products, organic and _inorganic_—strange word for an Occultist to use!—is that the whole Kosmos has sprung from the Divine Thought. This Thought impregnates Matter, which is co‐eternal with the One Reality; and all that lives and breathes evolves from the Emanations of the One Immutable, Parabrahman‐Mûlaprakriti, the Eternal One‐Root. The former of these, in its aspect of the Central Point turned inward, so to say, into regions quite inaccessible to human intellect, is Absolute Abstraction; whereas, in its aspect as Mûlaprakriti, the Eternal Root of all, it gives one at least some hazy comprehension of the Mystery of Being.

Therefore, it was taught in the _inner_ temples that this visible Universe of Spirit and Matter is but the concrete Image of the ideal Abstraction; it was built on the Model of the first Divine Idea. Thus our Universe existed from eternity in a latent state. The Soul animating this purely spiritual Universe is the Central Sun, the highest Deity Itself. It was not the One who built the concrete form of the idea, but the First‐Begotten; and, as it was constructed on the geometrical figure of the dodecahedron,(499) the First‐Begotten “was pleased to employ 12,000 years in its creation.” The latter number is expressed in the Tyrrhenian Cosmogony,(500) which shows man created in the sixth millennium. This agrees with the Egyptian theory of 6,000 “years,”(501) and with the Hebrew computation. But it is the exoteric form of it. The secret computation explains that the “12,000 and the 6,000 years” are Years of Brahmâ, one Day of Brahmâ being equal to 4,320,000,000 years. Sanchuniathon, in his _Cosmogony_,(502) declares that when the Wind (Spirit) became enamoured of its own principles (Chaos), an intimate union took place, which connection was called Pothos (ποθος), and from this sprang the seed of all. And the Chaos knew not its own production, for it was _senseless_; but from its embrace with the Wind was generated Môt, or the Ilus (Mud).(503) From this proceeded the spores of creation and the generation of the Universe.(504)

Zeus‐Zên (Æther), and Chthonia (Chaotic Earth) and Metis (Water), his wives; Osiris—also representing Æther, the first emanation of the Supreme Deity, Amun, the primeval source of Light—and Isis‐ Latona, the Goddess Earth and Water again; Mithras,(505) 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—Mithras who is the son of Bordj, the Persian mundane mountain,(506) from which he flashed out as a radiant ray of light; Brahmâ, the Fire‐God, and his prolific consort; and the Hindû Agni, the refulgent Deity from whose body issue a thousand streams of glory and _seven_ tongues of flame, and in whose honour certain Brâhmans to this day maintain a perpetual fire; Shiva, personated by Meru, the mundane mountain of the Hindûs, the terrific Fire‐God, who is said in the legend to have descended from heaven, like the Jewish Jehovah, “in a pillar of fire”; and a dozen other archaic double‐sexed Deities—all loudly proclaim their hidden meaning. And what could be the dual meaning of these myths but the psycho‐chemical principle of primordial creation; the First Evolution, in its triple manifestation of Spirit, Force and Matter; the divine _correlation_, at its starting point, allegorized as the marriage of Fire and Water, the products of electrifying Spirit—the union of the male active principle with the female passive element—which become the parents of their tellurian child, Cosmic Matter, the Prima Materia, whose Soul is Æther, and whose Shadow is the Astral Light!(507)

But the fragments of the cosmogonical systems that have reached us are now rejected as absurd fables. Nevertheless, Occult Science—which has survived even the Great Flood that submerged the Antediluvian Giants and with them their very memory, save the record preserved in the Secret Doctrine, the _Bible_ and other Scriptures—still holds the Key to all the world problems.

Let us, then, apply this Key to the rare fragments of long‐forgotten Cosmogonies, and by means of their scattered portions endeavour to reestablish the once Universal Cosmogony of the Secret Doctrine. The Key fits them all. No one can seriously study ancient philosophies without perceiving that the striking similitude of conception in all of them, in their exoteric form very frequently, and in their hidden spirit invariably, is the result of no mere coincidence, but of a concurrent design; and that, during the youth of mankind, there was but one language, one knowledge, one universal religion, when there were no churches, no creeds or sects, but when every man was a priest unto himself. And, if it is shown that already in those early ages which are shut out from our sight by the exuberant growth of tradition, human religious thought developed in uniform sympathy in every portion of the globe; then, it becomes evident that that thought, born under whatever latitude, in the cold North or the burning South, in the East or West, was inspired by the same revelations, and that man was nurtured under the protecting shadow of the same _Tree of Knowledge_.

Section IV. Chaos: Theos: Kosmos.

These three are the containment of Space; or, as a learned Kabalist has defined it: “Space, the all‐containing uncontained, is the primary embodiment of simple Unity ... boundless extension.”(508) But, he asks again: “boundless extension of what?”—and makes the correct reply: “The Unknown Container of All, the _Unknown First Cause_.” This is a most correct definition and answer; most esoteric and true, from every aspect of Occult Teaching.

_Space_, which, in their ignorance and with their iconoclastic tendency to destroy every philosophic idea of old, the modern wiseacres have proclaimed “an abstract idea” and a “void,” is, in reality, the Container and the Body of the Universe in its Seven Principles. It is a Body of limitless extent, whose Principles, in Occult phraseology—each being in its turn a septenary—manifest in our phenomenal World only the grossest fabric of their _sub‐divisions_. “No one has ever seen the Elements in their fulness,” the Doctrine teaches. We have to search for our Wisdom in the original expressions and synonyms of the primeval peoples. Even the Jews, the latest of these, show the same idea, in their Kabalistic teachings, when they speak of the seven‐headed Serpent of Space, called the “Great Sea.”

In the beginning, the Alhim created the Heavens and the Earth; the Six [Sephiroth].... They created Six, and on these all things are based. And these [Six] depend upon the _seven forms_ of the Cranium up to the Dignity of all Dignities.(509)

Now Wind, Air and Spirit have ever been synonymous in every nation. Pneuma (Spirit) and Anemos (Wind), with the Greeks, Spiritus and Ventus, with the Latins, were convertible terms, even if dissociated from the original idea of the Breath of Life. In the “Forces” of Science we see but the _material effect_ of the _spiritual effect_ of one or other of the four primordial Elements, transmitted to us by the Fourth Race just as we shall transmit Æther, or rather its gross sub‐division, in its fulness to the Sixth Root‐ Race.

Chaos was called _senseless_ by the Ancients, because—Chaos and Space being synonymous—it represented and contained in itself all the Elements in their rudimentary, undifferentiated State. They made Æther, the fifth Element, the synthesis of the other four; for the Æther of the Greek philosophers was not its Dregs, although indeed they knew more than Science does now of these Dregs (Ether), which are rightly enough supposed to act as an agent for many Forces that manifest on Earth. Their Æther was the Âkâsha of the Hindûs; the Ether accepted in Physics is but one of its sub‐divisions, on our plane, the Astral Light of the Kabalists with all its _evil_ as well as its good effects.

Seeing that the Essence of Æther, or the Unseen Space, was considered divine, as being the supposed Veil of Deity, it was regarded as the Medium between this life and the next. The Ancients considered that when the directing active Intelligences—the Gods—retired from any portion of Æther in _our_ Space, or the four realms which they superintend, then that

## particular region was left in the possession of _evil_, so called by

reason of the absence from it of _good_.

The existence of Spirit in the common Mediator, the Ether, is denied by Materialism; while Theology makes of it a Personal God. But the Kabalist holds that both are wrong, saying that in Ether, the elements represent only Matter, the blind Cosmic Forces of Nature; while Spirit represents the Intelligence which directs them. The Âryan, Hermetic, Orphic, and Pythagorean cosmogonical doctrines, as well as those of Sanchuniathon and Berosus, are all based upon one irrefutable formula, viz., that Æther and Chaos, or, in the Platonic language, Mind and Matter, were the two primeval and eternal principles of the Universe, utterly independent of anything else. The former was the all‐vivifying intellectual principle, while Chaos was a shapeless liquid principle, without “form or sense”; from the union of which two sprang into existence the Universe, or rather the Universal World, the first Androgynous Deity—Chaotic Matter becoming its Body, and Ether its Soul. According to the phraseology of a Fragment of Hermeias: “Chaos, from this union with Spirit, obtaining _sense_, shone with pleasure, and thus was produced Protogonos the (First‐ Born) Light.”(510) This is the universal Trinity, based on the metaphysical conceptions of the Ancients, who, reasoning by analogy, made of man, who is a compound of Intellect and Matter, the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, or Great Universe.(511)

“Nature abhors Vacuum” said the Peripatetics, who though Materialists in their way, comprehended perhaps why Democritus, with his instructor Leucippus, taught that the first principles of all things contained in the Universe were Atoms and a Vacuum. The latter means simply _latent_ Force or Deity, which, before its first manifestation—when it became Will, communicating the first impulse to these Atoms—was the great Nothingness, Ain Suph, or No‐Thing; and, therefore, to every sense, a Void, or Chaos.

This Chaos, however, became the “Soul of the World,” according to Plato and the Pythagoreans. According to Hindû teaching, Deity, in the shape of Æther or Âkâsha, pervades all things. It was called, therefore, by the Theurgists the “Living Fire,” the “Spirit of Light,” and sometimes “Magnes.” According to Plato, the highest Deity itself built the Universe in the geometrical form of the dodecahedron, and its “First‐Begotten” was born of Chaos and Primordial Light—the Central Sun. This First‐Born, however, was only the aggregate of the Host of the Builders, the first Constructive Forces, who are called in ancient Cosmogonies, the Ancients, born of the Deep or Chaos, and the First Point. He is the Tetragrammaton, so‐called, at the head of the Seven lower Sephiroth. This was also the belief of the Chaldeans. Philo, the Jew, speaking very flippantly of the first instructors of his ancestors, writes as follows:

These Chaldeans were of opinion that the Kosmos, _among the things that exist_ [?], is a single Point, either being itself God [Theos] or that in it is God, comprehending the Soul of all things.(512)

Chaos, Theos, Kosmos are but the three symbols of their synthesis—_Space_. One can never hope to solve the mystery of this Tetraktys, by holding to the dead‐letter even of the old philosophies as now extant. But even in these, Chaos, Theos, Kosmos and Space are identified in all Eternity, as the One Unknown Space, the last word on which will never, perhaps, be known, before our Seventh Round. Nevertheless, the allegories and metaphysical symbols about the primeval and _perfect_ Cube, are remarkable, even in the exoteric _Purânas_.

There, also, Brahmâ is Theos, evolving out of Chaos, or the Great Deep, the Waters, over which Spirit or Space—the Spirit moving over the face of the future boundless Kosmos—is silently hovering, in the first hour of reäwakening. It is also Vishnu, sleeping on Ananta‐Shesha, the great Serpent of Eternity, of which Western Theology, ignorant of the _Kabalah_, the only key that opens the secrets of the _Bible_, has made—the Devil. It is the first Triangle or the Pythagorean Triad, the “God of the _three_ Aspects,” before it is transformed, through the perfect quadrature of the Infinite Circle, into the “four‐faced” Brahmâ. “Of him who is and yet is not, from Non‐Being, the Eternal Cause, is born the Being, Purusha,” says Manu, the legislator.

In the Egyptian mythology, Kneph, the Eternal _Unrevealed_ God, is represented by a snake‐emblem of Eternity encircling a water urn, with its head hovering over the waters, which it incubates with its breath. In this case, the Serpent is the Agathodaimôn, the Good Spirit; in its opposite aspect, it is the Kakodaimôn, the Evil Spirit. In the Scandinavian _Eddas_, the honey‐dew, the fruit of the Gods, and of the creative busy Yggdrasil bees, falls during the hours of night, when the atmosphere is impregnated with humidity; and in the Northern mythologies, as the passive principle of creation, it typifies the creation of the Universe out of Water. This dew is the Astral Light in one of its combinations, and possesses creative as well as destructive properties. In the Chaldean legend of Berosus, Oannes or Dagon, the man‐fish, instructing the people, shows the infant World created out of Water, and all beings originating from this Prima Materia. Moses teaches that only Earth and Water can bring into existence a Living Soul: and we read in the Scriptures that herbs could not grow until the Eternal caused it to _rain_ upon Earth. In the Mexican _Popol Vuh_, man is created out of _mud_ or clay (_terre glaise_), taken from under the Water. Brahmâ creates the great Muni, or first man, seated on his Lotus, only after having called spirits into being, who thus enjoyed over mortals a priority of existence; and he creates him out of Water, Air and Earth. Alchemists claim that the primordial or pre‐adamic Earth, when reduced to its first substance, is in its _second_ stage of transformation like clear Water, the first being the Alkahest proper. This primordial substance is said to contain within itself the essence of all that goes to make up man; it contains not only all the elements of his physical being, but even the “breath of life” in a latent state, ready to be awakened. This it derives from the “incubation” of the “Spirit of God” upon the face of the Waters—Chaos. In fact, this substance is Chaos itself. From this it was that Paracelsus claimed to be able to make his Homunculi; and this is why Thales, the great natural philosopher, maintained that Water was the principle of all things in nature.(513)... Job says that dead _things_ are formed from under the Waters, and the inhabitants thereof.(514) In the original text, instead of “dead _things_,” it is written dead Rephaim, Giants or mighty Primitive Men, from whom Evolution may one day trace our present race.(515)

“In the primordial state of the creation,” says Polier’s _Mythologie des Indous_, “the rudimental Universe, submerged in Water, reposed in the bosom of Vishnu. Sprung from this Chaos and Darkness, Brahmâ, the Architect of the World, poised on a lotus‐leaf, floated [moved] upon the waters, unable to discern anything but water and darkness.” Perceiving such a dismal state of things, Brahmâ soliloquizes in consternation: “Who am I? Whence came I?” Then he hears a voice:(516) “Direct your thoughts to Bhagavat.” Brahmâ, rising from his natatory position, seats himself upon the lotus, in an attitude of contemplation, and reflects upon the Eternal, who, pleased with this evidence of piety, disperses the primeval darkness and opens his understanding. “After this Brahmâ issues from the Universal Egg [Infinite Chaos] as Light, for his understanding is now opened, and he sets himself to work. He moves on the eternal Waters, with the Spirit of God within himself; and in his capacity of Mover of the Waters he is Vishnu, or Nârâyana.”

This is, of course, exoteric; yet, in its main idea, it is as identical as possible with the Egyptian Cosmogony, which, in its opening sentences, shows Athtor,(517) or Mother Night, representing Illimitable Darkness, as the Primeval Element which covered the Infinite Abyss, animated by Water and the Universal Spirit of the Eternal, dwelling alone in Chaos. Similarly in the Jewish Scriptures, the history of the creation opens with the Spirit of God and his creative Emanation—another Deity.(518)

The _Zohar_ teaches that it is the Primordial Elements—the trinity of Fire, Air and Water—the Four Cardinal Points, and all the Forces of Nature, which form collectively the Voice of the Will, Memrab, or the Word, the Logos of the Absolute Silent ALL. “The indivisible Point, limitless and unknowable,” spreads itself over space, and thus forms a Veil, the Mûlaprakriti of Parabrahman, which conceals this Absolute Point.

In the Cosmogonies of all the nations it is the Architects, synthesized by the Demiurge, in the _Bible_ the Elohim, or Alhim, who fashion Kosmos out of Chaos, and who are the collective Theos, male‐female, Spirit and Matter. “By a series (_yom_) of foundations (_hasoth_), the Alhim caused earth and heaven to be.”(519) In _Genesis_, it is first Alhim, then Jahva‐ Alhim, and finally Jehovah—after the separation of the sexes in the fourth chapter. It is noticeable that nowhere, except in the later, or rather the _last_, Cosmogonies of our Fifth Race does the ineffable and unutterable NAME(520)—the symbol of the Unknown Deity, which was used only in the MYSTERIES—occur in connection with the “Creation” of the Universe. It is the Movers, the Runners, the Theoi (from θέειν to run), who do the work of formation, the Messengers of the Manvantaric Law, who have now become in Christianity simply the “Messengers” (Malachim). This seems to be also the case in Hindûism or early Brâhmanism. For in the _Rig Veda_, it is not Brahmâ who creates, but the Prajâpatis, the “Lords of Being,” who are also the Rishis; the term Rishi, according to Professor Mahadeo Kunte, being connected with the word to move, to lead on, applied to them in their terrestrial character, when, as Patriarchs, they lead their Hosts on the Seven Rivers.

Moreover, the very word “God,” in the singular, embracing all the Gods, or Theoi, came to the “superior” civilized nations from a strange source, one as entirely and preëminently phallic as the sincere outspokenness of the Indian Lingham. The attempt to derive _God_ from the Anglo‐Saxon synonym _Good_ is an abandoned idea, for in no other language, from the Persian _Khoda_ down to the Latin _Deus_, has an instance been found of the name for God being derived from the attribute of _Goodness_. To the Latin races it comes from the Âryan _Dyaus_ (the Day); to the Slavonian, from the Greek Bacchus (_Bagh‐bog_); and to the Saxon races directly from the Hebrew _Yod_, or _Jod_. The latter is י the number‐letter 10, male and female, and Yod is the phallic _hook_. Hence the Saxon _Godh_, the Germanic _Gott_, and the English _God_. This symbolic term may be said to represent the Creator of Physical Humanity, on the _terrestrial_ plane; but surely it had nothing to do with the Formation, or “Creation,” of either Spirit, Gods, or Kosmos?

Chaos‐Theos‐Kosmos, the Triple Deity, is _all in all_. Therefore, it is said to be male and female, good and evil, positive and negative; the whole series of contrasted qualities. When latent, in Pralaya, it is incognizable and becomes the Unknowable Deity. It can be known only in its

## active functions; hence as Matter‐Force and _living_ Spirit, the

correlations and outcome, or the expression, on the visible plane, of the ultimate and ever‐to‐be unknown Unity.

In its turn this Triple Unit is the producer of the Four Primary Elements,(521) which are known, in our visible terrestrial Nature, as the seven (so far the five) Elements, each divisible into forty‐nine—seven times seven—sub‐elements, with about seventy of which Chemistry is acquainted. Every Cosmical Element, such as Fire, Air, Water, Earth, partaking of the qualities and defects of its Primaries, is in its nature Good and Evil, Force or Spirit, and Matter, etc.; and each, therefore, is at one and the same time Life and Death, Health and Disease, Action and Reaction. They are ever forming Matter, under the never‐ceasing impulse of the One Element, the Incognizable, represented in the world of phenomena by Æther. They are “the immortal Gods who give birth and life to all.”

In _The Philosophical Writings of Solomon Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol_, in treating of the structure of the Universe, it is said:

R. Yehudah began, it is written: “Elohim said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.” Come, see! At the time that the Holy ... created the World, He created 7 heavens Above. He created 7 earths Below, 7 seas, 7 days, 7 rivers, 7 weeks, 7 years, 7 times, and 7,000 years that the World has been. The Holy _is in the seventh_ of all.(522)

This, besides showing a strange identity with the Cosmogony of the _Purânas_,(523) corroborates all our teachings with regard to number seven, as briefly given in _Esoteric Buddhism_.

The Hindûs have an endless series of allegories to express this idea. In the Primordial Chaos, before it became developed into the Sapta Samudra, or Seven Oceans—emblematical of the Seven Gunas, or conditioned Qualities, composed of Trigunas (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas)—lie latent both Amrita, or Immortality, and Visha, or Poison, Death, Evil. This is to be found in the allegorical Churning of the Ocean by the Gods. Amrita is beyond any Guna, for it is _unconditioned_, _per se_; but when once fallen into phenomenal creation, it became mixed with Evil, Chaos, with latent Theos in it, before Kosmos was evolved. Hence we find Vishnu, the personification of Eternal Law, periodically calling forth Kosmos into activity, or, in allegorical phraseology, churning out of the Primitive Ocean, or Boundless Chaos, the Amrita of Eternity, reserved only for the Gods and Devas; and in the task he has to employ Nâgas and Asuras, or Demons in exoteric Hindûism. The whole allegory is highly philosophical, and indeed we find it repeated in every ancient system of philosophy. Thus we find it in Plato, who having fully embraced the ideas which Pythagoras had brought from India, compiled and published them in a form more intelligible than the original mysterious numerals of the Samian Sage. Thus the Kosmos is the “Son” with Plato, having for his Father and Mother Divine Thought and Matter.(524)

“The Egyptians,” says Dunlap, “distinguish between an older and younger Horus; the former the _brother_ of Osiris, the latter the _son_ of Osiris and Isis.”(525) The first is the Idea of the World remaining in the Demiurgic Mind, “born in Darkness before the Creation of the World.” The second Horus is this Idea going forth from the Logos, becoming clothed with Matter, and assuming an actual existence.(526)

The _Chaldean Oracles_ speak of the “Mundane God, eternal, boundless, young and old, of winding form.”(527) This “winding form” is a figure to express the vibratory motion of the Astral Light, with which the ancient priests were perfectly well acquainted, though the name “Astral Light” was invented by the Martinists.

Cosmolatry has the finger of scorn pointed at its superstitions by Modern Science. Science, however, before laughing at it, ought, as advised by a French savant, “to entirely remodel its own system of cosmo‐ pneumatological education.” _Satis eloquentiæ, sapientiæ parum!_ Cosmolatry, like Pantheism, in its ultimate expression, may be made to express itself in the same words in which the _Purâna_ describes Vishnu:

He is only the _ideal cause_ of the _potencies_ to be created in the work of creation; and from him proceed the potencies to be created, after they have become the real cause. _Save that one ideal cause_, there is no other to which the world can be referred.... _Through the potency of that cause_, every created thing comes by its proper nature.(528)

Section V. On the Hidden Deity, Its Symbols and Glyphs.

The Logos, or Creative Deity, the “Word made Flesh,” of every religion, has to be traced to its ultimate source and essence. In India, it is a Proteus of 1,008 divine names and aspects in each of its _personal_ transformations, from Brahmâ‐Purusha, through the Seven _Divine_ Rishis and Ten _Semi‐divine_ Prajâpatis (also Rishis), down to the _Divine‐human_ Avatâras. The same puzzling problem of the “One in Many,” and the Multitude in One, is found in other Pantheons; in the Egyptian, the Greek and the Chaldeo‐Judaic, the latter having made confusion still more confused by presenting its Gods as euhemerizations, in the shapes of Patriarchs. And these Patriarchs are now accepted by those who reject Romulus as a myth, and are represented as living and _historical_ Entities. _Verbum satis sapienti!_

In the _Zohar_, Ain Suph is also the One, the Infinite Unity. This was known to the very few learned Fathers of the Church, who were aware that Jehovah was no “highest” God, but a _third‐rate_ Potency. But while complaining bitterly of the Gnostics, and saying: “our Heretics hold ... that Propatôr is known but to the Only‐begotten Son(529) [who is Brahmâ], that is to the Mind [Nous],” Irenæus failed to mention that the Jews did the same in their real _secret_ books. Valentinus, “the profoundest doctor of the Gnosis,” held that “there was a perfect Aiôn who existed before Bythos [the first Father of unfathomable nature, which is the Second Logos], called Propatôr.” It is this Aiôn who springs as a Ray from Ain Suph, which _does not create_, and Aiôn who creates, or _through_ whom, rather, everything is created, or evolves. For, as the Basilidians taught, “there was a Supreme God, Abrasax, by whom was created Mind [Mahat, in Sanskrit; Nous, in Greek]. From Mind proceeded the Word, Logos; from the Word, Providence [Divine Light, rather]; then from it Virtue and Wisdom in Principalities, Powers, Angels, etc.” By these Angels the 365 Æons were created. “Amongst the lowest, indeed, and those who made this world, he [Basilides] sets last of all the God of the Jews, whom he denies to be God [and very rightly], affirming he is one of the Angels.”

Here, then, we find the same system as in the _Purânas_, wherein the Incomprehensible drops a Seed, which becomes the Golden Egg, from which Brahmâ is produced. Brahmâ produces Mahat, etc. True Esoteric Philosophy, however, speaks neither of “creation,” nor of “evolution,” in the sense in which the exoteric religions do. All these personified Powers are not evolutions from one another, but so many aspects of the one and sole manifestation of the Absolute All.

The same system as that of the Gnostic Emanations prevails in the Sephirothic aspects of Ain Suph, and, as these aspects are in Space and Time, a certain order is maintained in their successive appearances. Therefore, it becomes impossible not to take notice of the great changes that the _Zohar_ has undergone under the handling of generations of Christian Mystics. For, even in the metaphysics of the _Talmud_, the Lower Face or Lesser Countenance, or Microprosopus, could never be placed on the same plane of abstract ideals as the Higher, or Greater Countenance, Macroprosopus. The latter is, in the Chaldean _Kabalah_, a pure abstraction, the Word or Logos, or Dabar in Hebrew; which Word, though it becomes in fact a plural number, or Words, D(a)B(a)R(i)M, when it reflects itself, or falls into the aspect of a Host of Angels, or Sephiroth—the “Number”—is still collectively One, and on the ideal plane a nought, [circle], “Nothing.” _It_ is without form or being, “with no likeness with anything else.”(530) And even Philo calls the Creator, the Logos who stands next God, the “Second God,” when he speaks of “the Second God, who is his [the Highest God’s] Wisdom.”(531) Deity is not God. It is No‐thing, and Darkness. It is nameless, and therefore called Ain Suph, the word “Ayin meaning nothing.”(532) The “Highest God,” the Unmanifested Logos, is Its Son.

Nor are most of the Gnostic systems which have come down to us, mutilated as they are by the Church Fathers, anything better than the distorted shells of the original speculations. Nor were they, moreover, ever _open_ to the public or general reader; for had their hidden meaning or esotericism been revealed, it would have been no more an esoteric teaching, and this could never have been. Marcus, the chief of the Marcosians, who flourished in the middle of the second century, and taught that Deity had to be viewed under the symbol of _four_ syllables, gave out more of the esoteric truths than any other Gnostic. But even he was never well understood. For it is only on the surface or dead‐letter of his _Revelation_ that it appears that God is a Quaternary, to wit, “the Ineffable, the Silence, the Father, and Truth,” since in reality it is quite erroneous, and divulges only one more esoteric riddle. This teaching of Marcus was that of the early Kabalists and is ours. For he makes of Deity the Number 30, in four syllables, which, translated esoterically, means a Triad or Triangle, and a Quaternary or a Square, in all seven, which, on the lower plane, made the seven divine or Secret Letters of which the God‐name is composed. This requires demonstration. In his _Revelation_, speaking of divine mysteries expressed by means of letters and numbers, Marcus narrates how the Supreme “Tetrad came down” unto him “from the region which cannot be seen nor named, _in a female form_, because _the world would have been unable to bear her appearing in a male figure_,” and revealed to him “the generation of the universe, _untold before to either_ Gods or men.”

The first sentence already contains a double meaning. Why should the apparition of a female figure be more easily borne, or listened to, by the world than a male figure? On the face of it, this appears nonsensical. But to one who is acquainted with the Mystery Language, it is quite clear and simple. Esoteric Philosophy, or the Secret Wisdom, was symbolized by a female form, while a male figure stood for the Unveiled Mystery. Hence, the world, not being ready to receive it, could not bear it, and the Revelation of Marcus had to be given allegorically. Thus he writes:

When first its Father [_sc._ of the Tetrad] ... the Inconceivable, the Beingless, Sexless [the Kabalistic Ain Suph], desired that Its Ineffable [the First Logos, or Æon] should be born, and Its Invisible should be clothed with form, Its mouth opened and uttered the Word like unto Itself. This Word [Logos] standing near showed It what It was, manifesting itself in the form of the Invisible One. Now the uttering of the [Ineffable] Name [through the Word] came to pass in this manner. It [the Supreme Logos] uttered the first Word of its Name, ... which, was a combination [syllable] of _four_ elements [letters]. Then the second combination was added, also of _four_ elements. Then the third, composed of _ten_ elements; and after this the fourth was uttered, which contained _twelve_ elements. The utterance of the whole Name consisted thus of _thirty_ elements and of _four_ combinations. Each element has its own letters and peculiar character, and pronunciation, and groupings and similitudes; but none of them perceives the form of that of which it is the element, nor understands the utterance of its neighbour, but, what each sounds forth itself, as sounding forth all [it can], that it thinks good to call the whole.... And these sounds are they which manifest in form the Beingless and Ingenerable Æon, and these are the forms which are called Angels, perpetually beholding the Face of the Father,(533) the Logos, the “Second God,” who stands next God the “Inconceivable,” according to Philo.(534)

This is as plain as ancient esoteric secresy could make it. It is as Kabalistic though less veiled than the _Zohar_, in which the mystic names, or attributes, are also four syllabled, twelve, forty‐two, and even seventy‐two syllabled words! The Tetrad shows to Marcus the Truth in the shape of a naked woman, and letters every limb of that figure, calling her head Α Ω, her neck Β Ψ, shoulders and hands Γ Χ, etc. In this, Sephira is easily recognized; the head, or Crown, Kether, being numbered 1; the brain, or Chokmah, 2; the Heart, or Intelligence, Binah, 3; and the other seven Sephiroth representing the limbs of the body. The Sephirothic Tree is the Universe, and Adam Kadmon personifies it in the West, as Brahmâ represents it in India.

Throughout, the Ten Sephiroth are represented as divided into the Three higher, or the spiritual Triad, and the lower Septenary. The true esoteric meaning of the sacred number Seven though cleverly veiled, in the _Zohar_, is betrayed by the double way of writing the term, “in the Beginning,” or _Be‐rasheeth_, and _Be‐raishath_, the latter the “Higher, or Upper Wisdom.” As shown by S. L. MacGregor Mathers(535) and Isaac Myer,(536) both of these Kabalists being supported by the best ancient authorities, these words have a dual and secret meaning. _Braisheeth barah Elohim_ means, that the _six_, over which stands the _seventh_ Sephira, belong to the lower material class, or, as the author says: “Seven ... are applied to the Lower Creation, and Three to the Spiritual Man, the Heavenly Prototypic or First Adam.”

When the Theosophists and Occultists say that God is no Being, for It is Nothing, No‐Thing, they are more reverential and religiously respectful to the Deity than those who call God _He_, and thus make of Him a gigantic Male.

He who studies the _Kabalah_ will soon find the same idea in the ultimate thought of its authors, the earlier and great Hebrew Initiates, who got this Secret Wisdom in Babylonia from the Chaldean Hierophants, just as Moses got his in Egypt. The Zoharic system cannot very well be judged by its translations into Latin and other tongues, when all its ideas were softened and made to fit in with the views and policy of its Christian arrangers; for its original ideas are identical with those of all other religious systems. The various Cosmogonies show that the Universal Soul was considered by every archaic nation as the Mind of the Demiurgic Creator; and that it was called the Mother, Sophia, or the female Wisdom, with the Gnostics; the Sephira, with the Jews; Sarasvatî or Vâch, with the Hindûs; the Holy Ghost also being a female Principle.

Hence, the Kurios, or Logos, born from it, was, with the Greeks, the God, Mind (Nous). “Now Koros [Kurios] ... signifies the pure and unmixed nature of Intellect—Wisdom,” says Plato, in _Cratylus_;(537) and Kurios is Mercury (Mercurius, Mar‐kurios), the Divine Wisdom, and “Mercury is Sol [the Sun],”(538) from whom Thot‐Hermes received this Divine Wisdom. While, then, the Logoi of all countries and religions are correlative, in their sexual aspects, with the female Soul of the World or the Great Deep, the Deity, from which these Two in One have their being, is ever concealed and called the Hidden One, and is connected only indirectly with “Creation,”(539) as it can act only through the Dual Force emanating from the Eternal Essence. Even Æsculapius, called the “Saviour of all,” is identical, according to ancient classical writers, with the Egyptian Ptah, the Creative Intellect, or Divine Wisdom, and with Apollo, Baal, Adonis and Hercules:(540) and Ptah, in one of its aspects, is the Anima Mundi; the Universal Soul of Plato; the Divine Spirit of the Egyptians; the Holy Ghost of the early Christians and Gnostics; and the Âkâsha of the Hindûs, and even, in its lower aspect, the Astral Light. For Ptah was originally the God of the Dead, he into whose bosom they were received, hence the Limbus of the Greek Christians, or the Astral Light. It was far later that Ptah was classed with the Sun‐Gods, his name signifying “he who opens,” as he is shown to be the first to unveil the face of the dead mummy, to call the Soul to _life in his bosom_. Kneph, the Eternal Unrevealed, is represented by the snake‐emblem of eternity encircling a water‐urn, with its head hovering over the “Waters,” which it incubates with its breath—another form of the one original idea of “Darkness,” with its Ray moving on the Waters, etc. As the Logos‐Soul, this _permutation_ is called Ptah; as the Logos‐Creator, he becomes Imhotep, his Son, the “God of the handsome face.” In their primitive characters, these two were the first Cosmic Duad, Noot, Space or “Sky,” and Noon, the “Primordial Waters,” the Androgyne Unity, above whom was the Concealed Breath of Kneph. And all of them had the aquatic animals and plants sacred to them, the ibis, the swan, the goose, the crocodile, and the lotus.

Returning to the Kabalistic Deity, this Concealed Unity is then Ain Suph (אין סוף, τὸ πάν, τό ἄπειρον), Endless, Boundless, Non‐Existent (אין), so long as the Absolute is within Oulom,(541) the Boundless and Termless Time; as such, Ain Suph cannot be the Creator or even the Modeller of the Universe, nor can It be Aur (Light). Therefore Ain Suph is also Darkness. The _immutably_ Infinite, and the _absolutely_ Boundless, can neither will, think, nor act. To do this, it has to become Finite, and _it_ does so by its Ray penetrating into the Mundane Egg, or Infinite Space, and emanating from it as a Finite God. All this is left to the Ray latent in the One. When the period arrives, the Absolute Will expands naturally the Force within it, according to the Law of which it is the inner and ultimate Essence. The Hebrews did not adopt the Egg as a symbol, but they substituted for it the “Duplex Heavens,” for, translated correctly, the sentence “God made the heavens and the earth” would read: “In and out of his own Essence, as a Womb [the Mundane Egg], God created the Two Heavens.” The Christians, however, have chosen the Dove, the bird and not the egg, as the symbol of their Holy Ghost.

“Whoever acquaints himself with Hud, the Mercabah and the Lahgash [secret speech or incantation], will learn the secret of secrets.” Lahgash is nearly identical in meaning with Vâch, the hidden power of the Mantras.

When the active period has arrived, from within the Eternal Essence of Ain Suph, comes forth Sephira, the Active Power, called the Primordial Point and the Crown, Kether. It is only through her that the “Un‐bounded Wisdom” could give a Concrete Form to the Abstract Thought. Two sides of the Upper Triangle, by which the Ineffable Essence and its Manifested Body, the Universe, are symbolized, the right side and the base, are composed of unbroken lines; the third, the left side, is dotted. It is through the latter that emerges Sephira. Spreading in every direction, she finally encompasses the whole Triangle. In this emanation the triple Triad is formed. From the invisible Dew falling from the higher Uni‐triad, the “Head,”—thus leaving 7 Sephiroth only—Sephira _creates_ Primeval Waters, or in other words, Chaos takes shape. It is the first stage towards the solidification of Spirit which, through various modifications, will produce Earth. “It requires Earth and Water to make a Living Soul,” says Moses. It requires the image of an aquatic bird to connect it with Water, the female element of procreation, with the egg and the bird that fecundates it.

When Sephira emerges as an Active Power from within the Latent Deity, she is female; when she assumes the office of a Creator, she becomes a male; hence, she is androgyne. She is the “Father and Mother, Aditi,” of the Hindû Cosmogony and of the Secret Doctrine. If the oldest Hebrew scrolls had been preserved, the modern Jehovah‐worshipper would have found that many and uncomely were the symbols of the “Creative God.” The frog in the moon, typical of his generative character, was the most frequent. All the birds and animals now called “unclean” in the _Bible_ have been the symbols of this Deity, in days of old. A mask of uncleanness was placed over them, in order to preserve them from destruction, because they were so sacred. The brazen serpent is not a bit more poetical than the goose or swan, if symbols are to be accepted _à la lettre_.

In the words of the _Zohar_:

The Indivisible Point, which has no limit and cannot be comprehended because of Its purity and brightness, expanded _from without_, forming a brightness that served the Indivisible Point as a Veil; [yet the latter also] _could not be viewed in_ consequence of its immeasurable Light. It too _expanded from without_, and this expansion was its Garment. Thus through a constant _upheaving_ [motion] finally the world originated.(542)

The Spiritual Substance sent forth by the Infinite Light is the First Sephira or Shekinah. Sephira, _exoterically_, contains all the other nine Sephiroth in her: _esoterically_, she contains but two, Chokmah or Wisdom, “a masculine, _active_ potency whose divine name is Jah (יה),” and Binah, or Intelligence, a feminine passive potency, represented by the divine name Jehovah (יהוה); which two potencies form, with Sephira the third, the Jewish Trinity or the Crown, Kether. These two Sephiroth, called Abba, Father, and Amona, Mother, are the Duad, or the double‐sexed Logos, from which issued the other seven Sephiroth. Thus, the first Jewish Triad, Sephira, Chokmah and Binah, is the Hindû Trimûrti.(543) However veiled even in the _Zohar_, and still more in the exoteric Pantheon of India, every particular connected with one is reproduced in the other. The Prajâpatis are the Sephiroth. Ten with Brahmâ, they dwindle to seven when the Trimûrti, or the Kabalistic Triad, are separated from the rest. The seven Builders, or “Creators,” become the seven Prajâpati, or the seven Rishis, in the same order as the Sephiroth become the Creators, then the Patriarchs, etc. In both Secret Systems, the One Universal Essence is incomprehensible and inactive, in its Absoluteness, and can be connected with the Building of the Universe only in an indirect way. In both, the primeval Male‐female, or Androgynous, Principle and its ten and seven Emanations—Brahmâ‐Virâj and Aditi‐Vâch, on the one hand; and the Elohim‐ Jehovah, or Adam‐Adami (Adam Kadmon) and Sephira‐Eve, on the other; with their Prajâpatis and Sephiroth—in their totality, represent primarily the Archetypal Man, the Protologos; and it is only in their secondary aspect that they become cosmic powers, and astronomical or sidereal bodies. If Aditi is the Mother of the Gods, Deva‐Mâtri, Eve is the Mother of All Living; both are the Shakti, or Generative Power, in their female aspect, of the Heavenly Man, and they are both compound Creators. Says a Guptâ Vidyâ Sûtra:

_In the beginning, a Ray, issuing from Paramârthika [the one and only True Existence], became manifested in Vyâvahârika [Conventional Existence], which was used as a Vâhana to descend with into the Universal Mother, and to cause her to expand [swell, brih]._

And in the _Zohar_ it is stated:

The Infinite Unity, formless and without similitude, after the Form of the Heavenly Man was created, used it. The Unknown Light(544) [Darkness] used the Heavenly Form (אדם עילאה—Adam Oilah) as a Chariot (מרכבה—Mercabah), through which to descend, and wished to be called by this Form, which is the sacred name Jehovah.

As the _Zohar_ again says:

In the beginning was the Will of the King, prior to any other existence.... It [the Will] sketched the forms of all things that had been concealed but now came into view. And there went forth as a sealed secret, from the head of Ain Suph, a nebulous spark of matter, without shape or form.... Life is drawn from below, and from above the source renews itself, the sea is always full and spreads its waters everywhere.

Thus the Deity is compared to a shoreless sea, to Water which is “the fountain of life.”(545) “The seventh palace, the fountain of life, is the first in the order from above.”(546) Hence the Kabalistic tenet on the lips of the very Kabalistic Solomon, who says in _Proverbs_: “Wisdom hath builded her house; it hath hewn out its _seven_ pillars.”(547)

Whence, then, all this identity of ideas, if there were no primeval Universal Revelation? The few points so far brought out are like a few straws in a stack, in comparison to that which will be disclosed as the work proceeds. If we turn to the Chinese Cosmogony, the most hazy of all, even there the same idea is found. Tsi‐tsai, the Self‐Existent, is the Unknown Darkness, the Root of the Wu‐liang‐sheu, Boundless Age; Amitâbha, and Tien, Heaven, come later on. The “Great Extreme” of Confucius gives the same idea, his “straws” notwithstanding. The latter are a source of great amusement to the missionaries, who laugh at every “heathen” religion, despise and hate that of their brother Christians of other denominations, and yet one and all accept their own _Genesis_, _literally_.

If we turn to the Chaldean we find in it Anu, the Concealed Deity, the One, whose name, moreover, shows it to be of Sanskrit origin; for Anu in Sanskrit means Atom, Anîyâmsam‐anîyasâm, smallest of the small, being a name of Parabrahman, in the Vedântic philosophy, in which Parabrahman is described as smaller than the smallest atom, and greater than the greatest sphere or universe, Anagrânîyas and Mahatoruvat. In the first verses of the Akkadian _Genesis_, as found in the cuneiform texts on the Babylonian tiles or Lateres Coctiles, and as translated by George Smith, we find Anu, the Passive Deity, or Ain Suph; Bel, the Creator, the Spirit of God, or Sephira, moving on the Face of the Waters, hence Water itself; and Hea, the Universal Soul, or Wisdom of the Three combined.

The first eight verses read as follows:

1. When above, were not raised the heavens: 2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up; 3. the abyss had not broken open their boundaries. 4. The Chaos (or Water) Tiamat (the Sea) was the producing‐mother of the whole of them. [This is the Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.] 5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained; but 6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded. 7. When the Gods had not sprung up, any one of them; 8. a plant had not grown, and order did not exist.(548)

This was the Chaotic or Ante‐genetic Period; the double Swan, and the Dark Swan which becomes white, when Light is created.(549)

The symbol chosen for the majestic ideal of the Universal Principle may perhaps seem little calculated to answer its sacred character. A goose, or even a swan, will, no doubt, be thought an unfit symbol to represent the grandeur of the Spirit. Nevertheless, it must have had some deep Occult meaning, since it figures not only in every Cosmogony and World‐religion, but was also chosen by the Crusaders, among the mediæval Christians, as the Vehicle of the Holy Ghost, which was supposed to be leading the army to Palestine, to wrench the tomb of the Saviour from the hands of the Saracen. If we are to credit Professor Draper’s statement, in his _Intellectual Development of Europe_, the Crusaders, under Peter the Hermit, were preceded, at the head of the army, by the Holy Ghost, under the shape of a white gander in the company of a goat. Seb, the Egyptian God of Time, carries a goose on his head; Jupiter assumes the form of a swan, and so also does Brahmâ; and the root of all this is that mystery of mysteries—the Mundane Egg. One should learn the reason of a symbol before depreciating it. The dual element of Air and Water is that of the ibis, swan, goose and pelican, of crocodiles and frogs, lotus flowers and water lilies, etc.; and the result is the choice of the most unseemly symbols by the modern as much as by the ancient Mystics. Pan, the great God of Nature, was generally figured in company with aquatic birds, geese especially, and so were other Gods. If later on, with the gradual degeneration of religion, the Gods to whom geese were sacred, became priapic deities, it does not, therefore, follow that water‐fowls were made sacred to Pan and other phallic deities, as some scoffers even of antiquity would have it,(550) but that the abstract and divine power of Procreative Nature had become grossly anthropomorphized. Nor does the swan of Leda show “priapic doings and her enjoyment thereof,” as Mr. Hargrave Jennings chastely expresses it; for the myth is but another version of the same philosophical idea of Cosmogony. Swans are frequently found associated with Apollo, as they are the emblems of Water and Fire, and also of the Sun‐light, before the separation of the Elements.

Our modern symbologists might profit by some remarks made by a well‐known writer, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, who says:

From time immemorial an emblem has been worshipped in Hindûstan as the type of creation, or the origin of life.... Shiva, or the Mahâdeva, being not only the reproducer of human forms, but also the fructifying principle, the generative power that pervades the Universe. The maternal emblem is likewise a religious type. This reverence for the production of life introduced into the worship of Osiris the sexual emblems. Is it strange that they regarded with reverence the great mystery of human birth? Were they impure thus to regard it? Or are _we_ impure that we do not so regard it? But _no clean and thoughtful mind_ could so regard them.... We have travelled far, and unclean have been the paths, since those old anchorites first spoke of God and the soul in the solemn depths of their first sanctuaries. Let us not smile at their mode of tracing the infinite and the incomprehensible Cause throughout all the mysteries of nature, lest by so doing we cast the shadow of our own grossness on their patriarchal simplicity.(551)

Section VI. The Mundane Egg.

Whence this universal symbol? The Egg was incorporated as a sacred sign in the Cosmogony of every people on the earth, and was revered both on account of its form and of its inner mystery. From the earliest mental conceptions of man, it has been known as that which represented most successfully the origin and secret of Being. The gradual development of the imperceptible germ within the closed shell; the inward working, without any apparent outward interference of force, which from a latent _nothing_ produced an active _something_, needing naught save heat; and which, having gradually evolved into a concrete, living creature, broke its shell, appearing to the outward senses of all as a self‐generated and self‐created being; all this must have been a standing miracle from the beginning.

The Secret Teaching explains the reason for this reverence by the symbolism of the prehistoric races. In the beginnings, the “First Cause” had no name. Later it was pictured in the fancy of the thinkers as an ever invisible, mysterious Bird that dropped an Egg into Chaos, which Egg became the Universe. Hence Brahmâ was called Kâlahansa, the “Swan in [Space and] Time.” Becoming the Swan of Eternity, Brahmâ, at the beginning of each Mahâmanvantara, lays a Golden Egg, which typifies the great Circle, or [circle] itself a symbol for the Universe and its spherical bodies.

A second reason for the Egg having been chosen as the symbolical representation of the Universe, and of our Earth, was its form. It was a Circle and a Sphere; and the ovi‐form shape of our Globe must have been known from the beginning of symbology, since it was so universally adopted. The first manifestation of the Kosmos in the form of an Egg was the most widely diffused belief of Antiquity. As Bryant shows,(552) it was a symbol adopted among the Greeks, the Syrians, Persians, and Egyptians. In the Egyptian _Ritual_, Seb, the God of Time and of the Earth, is spoken of as having laid an Egg, or the Universe, an “Egg conceived at the hour of the Great One of the Dual Force.”(553)

Ra is shown like Brahmâ gestating in the Egg of the Universe. The Deceased is “resplendent in the Egg of the Land of Mysteries.”(554) For, this is “the Egg to which is given Life among the Gods.”(555) “It is the Egg of the great clucking Hen, the Egg of Seb, who issues from it like a hawk.”(556)

Among the Greeks the Orphic Egg is described by Aristophanes, and was part of the Dionysiac and other Mysteries, during which the Mundane Egg was consecrated and its significance explained; Porphyry also shows it to be a representation of the world: “Ἑρμηνεύει δὲ τὸ ὠὸν τὸν κόσμον.” Faber and Bryant have tried to show that the Egg typified the Ark of Noah—a wild belief, unless the latter is accepted as purely allegorical and symbolical. It can only have typified the Ark as a synonym of the Moon, the Argha which carries the universal seed of life; but had surely nothing to do with the Ark of the _Bible_. Anyhow, the belief that the Universe existed in the beginning in the shape of an Egg was general. And as Wilson says:

A similar account of the first aggregation of the elements in the form of an Egg is given in all the _Purânas_, with the usual epithet Haima or Hiranya, “golden,” as it occurs in _Manu_, I. 9.(557)

Hiranya, however, means “resplendent,” “shining,” rather than “golden,” as is proven by the great Indian scholar, the late Svâmi Dayanand Sarasvatî, in his unpublished polemics with Professor Max Müller. As said in the _Vishnu Purâna_:

Intellect [Mahat] ... the [unmanifested] gross elements inclusive, formed an Egg ... and the Lord of the Universe himself abided in it, in the character of Brahmâ. In that Egg, O Brâhmana, were the continents, and seas and mountains, the planets and divisions of the planets, the gods, the demons and mankind.(558)

Both in Greece and in India the first visible male Being, who united in himself the nature of either sex, abode in the Egg and issued from it. This “First‐born of the World” was Dionysus, with some Greeks; the God who sprang from the Mundane Egg, and from whom the Mortals and Immortals were derived. The God Ra is shown, in the _Book of the Dead_, beaming in his Egg [the Sun], and the stars off as soon as the God Shoo [the Solar Energy] awakens and gives him the impulse.(559) “He is in the Solar Egg, the Egg to which is given Life among the Gods.”(560) The Solar God exclaims: “I am the Creative Soul of the Celestial Abyss. None sees my Nest, none can break my Egg, I am the Lord!”(561)

In view of this circular form, the “[vertical bar]” issuing from the “[circle],” or the Egg, or the male from the female in the androgyne, it is strange to find a scholar saying, on the ground that the most ancient Indian MSS. show no trace of it, that the ancient Âryans were ignorant of the decimal notation. The 10, being the sacred number of the Universe, was secret and esoteric, both as regards the unit and cipher, or zero, the circle. Moreover, Professor Max Müller tells that “the two words _cipher_ and _zero_, which are but one, are sufficient to prove that our figures are borrowed from the Arabs.”(562) Cipher is the Arabic _cifron_, and means “empty,” a translation of the Sanskrit _sunyan_, or “nought,” says the Professor.(563) The Arabs had their figures from Hindûstan, and never claimed the discovery for themselves. As to the Pythagoreans, we need but turn to the ancient manuscripts of Boethius’ treatise, _De Arithmetica_, composed in the sixth century, to find among the Pythagorean numerals the “1” and the “0,” as the first and final figures.(564) And Porphyry, who quotes from the Pythagorean Moderatus,(565) says that the numerals of Pythagoras were “hieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature of things,” or the origin of the Universe.

Now, if, on the one hand, the most ancient Indian MSS. show as yet no trace of decimal notation in them, and Max Müller states very clearly that until now he has found but nine letters, the initials of the Sanskrit numerals; on the other hand, we have records as ancient, to supply the wanted proof. We speak of the sculptures and the sacred imagery in the most ancient temples of the far East. Pythagoras derived his knowledge from India; and we find Professor Max Müller corroborating this statement, at least so far as to allow that the Neo‐Pythagoreans were the first teachers of “ciphering,” among the Greeks and Romans; that they “at Alexandria, or in Syria, became acquainted with the Indian figures, and adapted them to the Pythagorean Abacus.” This cautious admission implies that Pythagoras himself was acquainted with only _nine_ figures. Thus we might reasonably answer that, although we possess no certain proof, exoterically, that the decimal notation was known to Pythagoras, who lived at the very close of the archaic ages,(566) yet we have sufficient evidence to show that the full numbers, as given by Boethius, were known to the Pythagoreans, even before Alexandria was built.(567) This evidence we find in Aristotle, who says that “some philosophers hold that ideas and numbers are of the same nature, and amount to _ten_ in all.”(568) This, we believe, will be sufficient to show that the decimal notation was known among them at least as early as four centuries B.C., for Aristotle does not seem to treat the question as an innovation of the Neo‐Pythagoreans.

But we know more than this; _we know_ that the decimal system must have been used by the mankind of the earliest archaic ages, since the whole astronomical and geometrical portion of the secret sacerdotal language was built upon the number 10, or the combination of the male and female principles, and since the “Pyramid of Cheops,” so‐called, is built upon measures of this decimal notation, or rather upon the digits and their combinations with the _nought_. Of this, however, sufficient has been said in _Isis Unveiled_, and it is useless to repeat it.

The symbolism of the Lunar and Solar Deities is so inextricably mixed up, that it is next to impossible to separate from each other such glyphs as the Egg, the Lotus, and the “Sacred” Animals. The Ibis, for instance, was held in the greatest veneration in Egypt. It was sacred to Isis, who is often represented with the head of that bird, and also sacred to Mercury or Thoth, who is said to have assumed its form while escaping from Typhon. There were two kinds of Ibises in Egypt, Herodotus(569) tells us; one _quite black_, the other black and white. The former is credited with fighting and exterminating the winged serpents which came every spring from Arabia, and infested the country. The other was sacred to the Moon, because the latter planet is white and brilliant on her external side, dark and black on that side which she never turns to the Earth. Moreover, the Ibis kills land serpents, and makes the most terrible havoc amongst the eggs of the crocodile, and thus saves Egypt from having the Nile over‐ infested by those horrible saurians. The bird is credited with doing this in the moonlight, and thus being helped by Isis, whose sidereal symbol is the Moon. But the more correct esoteric truth underlying these popular myths is, that Hermes, as shown by Abenephius,(570) watched over the Egyptians under the form of that bird, and taught them the Occult arts and sciences. This simply means that the _ibis religiosa_ had, and has, “magical” properties in common with many other birds, the albatross preëminently, and the mythical white swan, the Swan of Eternity or Time, the Kâlahansa.

Were it otherwise, indeed, why should all the ancient peoples, who were no more fools than we are, have had such a superstitious dread of killing certain birds? In Egypt, he who killed an Ibis, or the Golden Hawk, the symbol of the Sun and Osiris, risked death, and could hardly escape it. The veneration of some nations for birds was such that Zoroaster, in his precepts, forbids their slaughter as a heinous crime. In our age, we laugh at every kind of divination. Yet why should so many generations have believed in divination by birds, and even in Oömancy, which is said by Suidas to have been imparted by Orpheus, who taught how, under certain conditions, to perceive in the yolk and white of an egg, that which the bird born from it would have seen around it during its short life. This Occult art, which, 3,000 years ago, demanded the greatest learning and the most abstruse mathematical calculations, has now fallen into the depths of degradation; and to‐day it is the old cooks and fortune‐tellers who read the future for servant‐girls in search of husbands, from the white of an egg in a glass.

Nevertheless, even Christians have to this day their sacred birds; for instance, the Dove, the symbol of the Holy Ghost. Nor have they neglected the sacred animals; and the evangelical zoölatry, with its Bull, Eagle, Dion, and Angel—in reality the Cherub, or Seraph, the fiery‐winged Serpent—is as much Pagan as that of the Egyptians or the Chaldeans. These four animals are, in reality, the symbols of the four Elements, and of the four _lower_ Principles in man. Nevertheless, they correspond physically and materially to the four constellations that form, so to speak, the _suite_ or _cortège_ of the Solar God, and which, during the winter solstice, occupy the four cardinal points of the zodiacal circle. These four “animals” may be seen in many of the Roman Catholic _New Testaments_ in which the “portraits” of the Evangelists are given. They are the animals of Ezekiel’s Mercabah.

As truly stated by Ragon:

The ancient Hierophants have combined so cleverly the dogmas and symbols of their religious philosophies, that these symbols can be fully explained only by the combination and knowledge of _all_ the keys.

They can be only _approximately_ interpreted, even if one discovers three out of these seven systems, viz., the anthropological, the psychic and the astronomical. The two chief interpretations, the highest and the lowest, the spiritual and the physiological, were preserved in the greatest secrecy, until the latter fell into the dominion of the profane. Thus far, with regard only to the pre‐historic Hierophants, with whom that which has now become purely—or impurely—phallic, was a science as profound and as mysterious as Biology and Physiology are now. This was their exclusive property, the fruit of their studies and discoveries. The other two were those which dealt with the Creative Gods, or Theogony, and with creative man; that is to say, with the ideal and the practical Mysteries. These interpretations were so cleverly veiled and combined, that many were those who, while arriving at the discovery of one meaning, were baffled in understanding the significance of the others, and could never unriddle them sufficiently to commit dangerous indiscretions. The highest, the first and the fourth—Theogony in relation to Anthropogony—were almost impossible to fathom. We find the proofs of this in the Jewish “Holy Writ.”

It is owing to the serpent being oviparous, that it became a symbol of Wisdom and an emblem of the Logoi, or the Self‐Born. In the temple of Philæ, in Upper Egypt, an egg was artificially prepared of clay mixed with various incenses. This was hatched by a peculiar process, and a cerastes or horned viper was produced. The same was done in the Indian temples, in antiquity, in the case of the cobra. The Creative God emerges from the Egg that issues from the mouth of Kneph, as a winged Serpent, for the Serpent is the symbol of the All‐Wisdom. With the Hebrews the same Deity is glyphed by the Flying or “Fiery Serpents” of Moses in the Wilderness; and with the Alexandrian Mystic she becomes the Orphio‐Christos, the Logos of the Gnostics. The Protestants try to show that the allegory of the Brazen Serpent and of the Fiery Serpents has a direct reference to the mystery of the Christ and the Crucifixion, whereas, in truth, it has a far nearer relation to the _mystery of generation_, when dissociated from the Egg with the Central Germ, or the _Circle with its Central Point_. Protestant Theologians would have us believe their interpretation _only_ because the Brazen Serpent was lifted on a pole! Whereas it had rather a reference to the Egyptian Egg standing upright supported by the sacred Tau; since the Egg and the Serpent are in‐separable in the old worship and symbology of Egypt, and since both the Brazen and Fiery Serpents were Seraphs, the burning “Fiery” Messengers, or the Serpent Gods, the Nâgas of India. Without the Egg it was a purely phallic symbol, but when associated therewith, it related to cosmic creation. The Brazen Serpent had no such holy meaning as the Protestants would ascribe to it; nor was it, in fact, glorified above the Fiery Serpents, _for the bite of which it was only a natural remedy_; the symbological meaning of the word “Brazen” being the feminine principle, and that of “Fiery,” or “Gold,” the masculine principle.

Brass was a metal symbolizing the _nether world_ ... that of the womb where life should be given.... The word for serpent in Hebrew was _Nachash_, but this is also the term for _brass_.

It is said in _Numbers_ that the Jews complained of the Wilderness _where there was no water_,(571) after which “the Lord sent fiery serpents” to bite them, and then, to oblige Moses, he gave him as a remedy the Brazen Serpent on a pole for them to look at; after which “any man when he beheld the serpent of brass ... _lived_” (?). After that the “Lord,” gathering the people together at the well of Beer, gave them water, and grateful Israel sang this song, “Spring up, O well.” When, after studying symbology, the Christian reader comes to understand the innermost meaning of these three symbols, Water, Brazen, and Serpent, and a few more, _in the sense given to them in the Holy Bible_, he will hardly like to connect the sacred name of his Saviour with the Brazen Serpent incident. The Seraphim (שרפים) or Fiery Winged Serpents, are no doubt connected with, and inseparable from, the idea of the “Serpent of Eternity—God,” as explained in Kenealy’s _Apocalypse_; but the word Cherub also meant Serpent, in one sense, though its direct meaning is different, for the Cherubim and the Persian Winged Griffins (Γρύπες), the guardians of the Golden Mountain, are the same, and the compound name of the former shows their character, as it is formed of _kr_ (כר), a circle, and _aub_ or _ob_ (אוב), a serpent, and therefore means a “serpent in a circle.” And this settles the phallic character of the Brazen Serpent, and justifies Hezekiah for breaking it.(572) _Verbum satis sapienti!_

In the _Book of the Dead_, as just shown,(573) reference is often made to the Egg. Ra, the Mighty One, remains in his Egg, during the struggle between the “Children of the Rebellion” and Shoo, the Solar Energy and the Dragon of Darkness. The Deceased is resplendent in his Egg when he crosses to the Land of Mystery. He is the Egg of Seb. The Egg was the symbol of Life in Immortality and Eternity; and also the glyph of the generative matrix; whereas the Tau, which was associated with it, was only the symbol of life and birth in _generation_. The Mundane Egg was placed in Khoom, the Water of Space, or the feminine _abstract_ Principle; Khoom becoming, with the “fall” of mankind into generation and phallicism, Ammon the Creative God. When Ptah, the “Fiery God,” carries the Mundane Egg in his hand, then the symbolism becomes quite terrestrial and concrete in its significance. In conjunction with the Hawk, the symbol of Osiris‐Sun, the symbol is dual, and relates to both Lives—the mortal and the immortal. The engraving of a papyrus in Kircher’s _Œdipus Egyptiacus_,(574) shows an egg floating above the mummy. This is the symbol of hope and the promise of a Second Birth for the Osirified Dead; his Soul, after due purification in the Amenti, will gestate in this Egg of Immortality, to be reborn therefrom into a new life on earth. For this Egg, in the Esoteric Doctrine, is Devachan, the Abode of Bliss; the Winged Scarabæus also being another symbol of it. The Winged Globe is but another form of the Egg, and has the same significance as the Scarabæus, the Khopiroo—from the Root _khoproo_, to become, to be reborn—which relates to the rebirth of man, as well as to his spiritual regeneration.

In the _Theogony_ of Mochus, we find Æther first, and then Air, the two principles from which Ulom, the Intelligible (Νοητὸς) Deity, the visible Universe of Matter, is born, out of the Mundane Egg.(575)

In the _Orphic Hymns_, Eros‐Phanes evolves from the Divine Egg, which the Æthereal Winds impregnate, Wind being the “Spirit of God,” or rather the “Spirit of the Unknown Darkness”—the Divine Idea of Plato—which is said to move in Æther.(576) In the Hindû _Kathopanishad_, Purusha, the Divine Spirit, already stands before the Original Matter, “from whose union springs the Great Soul of the World,” Mahâ‐Âtmâ, Brahmâ, the Spirit of Life,(577) etc.; the latter appellations being all identical with Anima Mundi, or the “Universal Soul,” the Astral Light of the Kabalist and the Occultist, or the “Egg of Darkness.” Besides this there are many charming allegories on this subject, scattered through the Sacred Books of the Brâhmans. In one place, it is the female creator who is first a germ, then a drop of heavenly dew, a pearl, and then an Egg. In such cases, of which there are too many to enumerate separately, the Egg gives birth to the four Elements within the fifth, Æther, and is covered with seven coverings, which become later on the seven upper and the seven lower worlds. Breaking in two, the shell becomes the Heaven, and the contents the Earth, the white forming the Terrestrial Waters. Then, again, it is Vishnu who emerges from within the Egg, with a Lotus in his hand. Vinatâ, a daughter of Daksha and wife of Kashyapa, “the Self‐born, sprung from Time,” one of the seven “Creators” of our World, brought forth an Egg from which was born Garuda, the Vehicle of Vishnu; the latter allegory having a relation to our Earth, as Garuda is the Great Cycle.

The Egg was sacred to Isis; and therefore the priests of Egypt never ate eggs.

Isis is almost always represented holding a Lotus in one hand, and in the other a Circle and a Cross (_crux ansata_).

Diodorus Siculus states that Osiris was born from an Egg, like Brahmâ. From Leda’s Egg, Apollo and Latona were born, and also Castor and Pollux, the bright Gemini. And though the Buddhists do not attribute the same origin to their Founder, yet, no more than the ancient Egyptians or the modern Brâhmans, do they eat eggs, lest they should destroy the germ of life latent in them, and thereby commit sin. The Chinese believe that their First Man was born from an Egg, which Tien dropped down from Heaven to Earth into the Waters.(578) This egg‐symbol is still regarded by some as representing the idea of the origin of life, which is a scientific truth, though the human _ovum_ is invisible to the naked eye. Therefore we see respect shown to it from the remotest antiquity, by the Greeks, Phœnicians, Romans, the Japanese, and the Siamese, the North and South American tribes, and even the savages of the remotest islands.

With the Egyptians, the Concealed God was Ammon or Mon, the “Hidden”, the Supreme Spirit. All their Gods were dual—the scientific _Reality_ for the sanctuary; its double, the fabulous and mythical Entity, for the masses. For instance, as observed in the Section “Chaos, Theos, Kosmos,” the Elder Horus was the Idea of the World remaining in the Demiurgic Mind, “born in Darkness before the Creation of the World”; the Second Horus was the same Idea going forth from the Logos, becoming clothed with matter and assuming an actual existence.(579) Horus, the “Elder,” or Haroiri, is an ancient aspect of the Solar God, contemporary with Ra and Shoo; Haroiri is often mistaken for Hor (Horsusi), Son of Osiris and Isis. The Egyptians very often represented the rising Sun under the form of Hor, the Elder, rising from a full‐blown Lotus, the Universe, when the solar disk is always found on the hawk‐head of that God. Haroiri is Khnoom. The same with Khnoom and Ammon, both are represented as ram‐headed, and both are often confused, though their functions are different. Khnoom is the “modeller of men,” fashioning men and things out of the Mundane Egg, on a potter’s wheel; Ammon‐Ra, the Generator, is the secondary aspect of the Concealed Deity. Khnoom was adored at Elephanta and Philæ,(580) Ammon at Thebes. But it is Emepht, the One, Supreme Planetary Principle, who blows the Egg out of his mouth, and who is, therefore, Brahmâ. The Shadow of the Deity, Kosmic and Universal, of that which broods over and permeates the Egg with its vivifying Spirit, until the Germ contained in it is ripe, was the Mystery God whose name was unpronounceable. It is Ptah, however, “he who opens,” the opener of Life and Death,(581) who proceeds from the Egg of the World to begin his dual work.(582)

According to the Greeks, the phantom form of the Chemis (Chemi, ancient Egypt) which floats on the Ethereal Waves of the Empyrean Sphere, was called into being by Horus‐Apollo, the Sun‐God, who caused it to evolve out of the Mundane Egg.

The _Brahmânda Purâna_ contains fully the mystery about Brahmâ’s Golden Egg; and this is why, perhaps, it is inaccessible to the Orientalists, who say that this _Purâna_, like the _Skanda_, is “no longer procurable in a collective body,” but “is represented by a variety of Khandas and Mâhâtmyas professing to be derived from it.” The _Brahmânda Purâna_ is described as “that which has declared in 12,200 verses, the magnificence of the Egg of Brahmâ, and in which an account of the future Kalpas is contained, as revealed by Brahmâ.”(583) Quite so, and much more, perchance.

In the Scandinavian Cosmogony, placed by Professor Max Müller, in point of time, as “far anterior to the _Vedas_,” in the poem of Wöluspa, the Song of the Prophetess, the Mundane Egg is again discovered in the Phantom‐Germ of the Universe, which is represented as lying in the Ginnungagap, the Cup of Illusion, Mâyâ, the Boundless and Void Abyss. In this World’s Matrix, formerly a region of night and desolation, Nefelheim, the Mist‐Place, the _nebular_, as it is called now, in the Astral Light, dropped a _Ray of Cold Light_ which overflowed this cup and froze in it. Then the Invisible blew a scorching Wind which dissolved the frozen Waters and cleared the Mist. These Waters (Chaos), called the Streams of Eliwagar, distilling in vivifying drops, fell down and created the Earth and the Giant Ymir, who had only the “semblance of man” (the Heavenly Man), and the Cow, Audumla (the “Mother,” Astral Light or Cosmic Soul), from whose udder flowed _four_ streams of milk—the four cardinal points; the four heads of the four rivers of Eden, etc.—which “four” are symbolized by the Cube in all its various and mystical meanings.

The Christians—especially the Greek and Latin Churches—have fully adopted the symbol, and see in it a commemoration of life eternal, of salvation and of resurrection. This is found in, and corroborated by, the time‐ honoured custom of exchanging “Easter Eggs.” From the Anguinum, the “Egg” of the Pagan Druid, whose name alone made Rome tremble with fear, to the red Easter Egg of the Slavonian peasant, a cycle has passed. And yet, whether in civilized Europe, or among the abject savages of Central America, we find the same archaic, primitive thought, if we will only search for it, and do not—in the haughtiness of our fancied mental and physical superiority—disfigure the original idea of the symbol.

Section VII. The Days and Nights of Brahmâ.

This is the name given to the Periods called Manvantara (Manuantara, or between the Manus) and Pralaya, or Dissolution; one referring to the

## Active Periods of the Universe; the other to its times of relative and

complete Rest, whether they occur at the end of a Day or an Age, or Life, of Brahmâ. These Periods, which follow each other in regular succession, are also called Small and Great Kalpas, the Minor and the Mahâ Kalpas; though, properly speaking, the Mahâ Kalpa is never a Day, but a whole Life or Age of Brahmâ, for it is said in the _Brahma Vaivarta_: “Chronologers compute a Kalpa by the Life of Brahmâ. Minor Kalpas, as Samvarta and the rest, are numerous.” In sober truth they are infinite; for they have never had a commencement; or, in other words, there never was a _first_ Kalpa, nor will there ever be a _last_, in Eternity.

One Parârdha, or half of the existence of Brahmâ, in the ordinary acceptation of this measure of time, has already expired in the present Mahâ Kalpa; the last Kalpa was the Padma, or that of the Golden Lotus; the present one is the Varâha,(584) the “Boar” Incarnation, or Avatâra.

One thing is to be especially noted by the scholar who studies the Hindû religion from the _Puranâs_. He must never take the statements found therein literally, and in one sense only; and those especially, which concern the Manvantaras, or Kalpas, have to be understood in their several references. Thus these Ages relate, in the same language, to both the great and the small periods, to Mahâ Kalpas and to Minor Cycles. The Matsya, or Fish Avatâra, happened before the Varâha or Boar Avatâra; the allegories, therefore, must relate to both the Padma and the present Manvantara, and also to the Minor Cycles which have occurred since the reäppearance of our Chain of Worlds and the Earth. And as the Matsya Avatâra of Vishnu and Vaivasvata’s Deluge are correctly connected with an event that happened on our Earth during this Round, it is evident that, while it may relate to pre‐cosmic events, pre‐cosmic in the sense of _our_ Cosmos, or Solar System, it has reference, in our case, to a distant geological period. Not even Esoteric Philosophy can claim to know, except by analogical inference, that which took place before the reäppearance of our Solar System, and previous to the last Mahâ Pralaya. But it teaches distinctly, that after the first geological disturbance of the Earth’s axis, which ended in the sweeping down to the bottom of the seas of the whole Second Continent, with its primeval races—of which successive Continents, or “Earths,” Atlantis was the fourth—there came another disturbance owing to the axis again resuming its previous degree of inclination as rapidly as it had changed it: when the Earth was indeed once more _raised_ out of the waters—as above, so below, and _vice versâ_. There were “Gods” on Earth in those days; Gods, and not men, as we know them now, says the tradition. As will be shown in Volume II, the computation of periods, in exoteric Hindûism, refers to both the great cosmic and the small terrestrial events and cataclysms, and the same may be demonstrated in respect to names. For instance, the name Yudishthira—the first king of the Sacae or Shakas, who opens the Kali Yuga Era, which has to last 432,000 years, “an actual king who lived 3,102 years B.C.”—applies also to the Great Deluge, at the time of the first sinking of Atlantis. He is the “Yudishthira,(585) born on the mountain of the hundred peaks, at the extremity of the world, _beyond which nobody can __ go_” and “immediately after the flood.”(586) We know of no “Flood” 3,102 years B.C., not even that of Noah, for, agreeably with Judæo‐ Christian chronology, it took place 2,349 years B.C.

This relates to an esoteric division of time and a mystery explained elsewhere, and may therefore be left aside for the present. Suffice it to remark, at this juncture, that all the efforts of imagination of the Wilfords, Bentleys, and other would‐be Œdipuses of esoteric Hindû Chronology, have sadly failed. No computation of either the Four Ages, or the Manvantaras, has ever yet been unriddled by our very learned Orientalists, who have therefore cut the Gordian Knot by proclaiming the whole “a figment of the Brâhmanical brain.” So be it, and may the great scholars rest in peace! This “figment” is given at the end of the Commentaries on Stanza II of the Anthropogenesis, in Volume II, with Esoteric additions.

Let us see, however, what were the three kinds of Pralayas, and what is the _popular_ belief about them. For once it agrees with Esotericism.

Of the Pralaya, before which fourteen Manvantaras elapse, having over them as many presiding Manus, and at whose close occurs the Incidental, or Brahmâ’s Dissolution, it is said in _Vishnu Purâna_, in condensed paraphrase:

At the end of a thousand Periods of Four Ages, which complete a day of Brahmâ, the earth is almost exhausted. The Eternal (Avyaya) Vishnu then assumes the character of Rudra, the Destroyer (Shiva), and reünites all his creatures to himself. He enters the Seven Rays of the Sun and drinks up all the Waters of the Globe; he causes the moisture to evaporate, thus drying up the whole Earth. Oceans and rivers, torrents and small streams, are all exhaled. Thus fed with abundant moisture the Seven Solar Rays become Seven Suns, by dilation, and they finally set the World on fire. Hari, the destroyer of all things, who is the Flame of Time, Kâlâgni, finally consumes the Earth. Then Rudra, becoming Janârdana, breathes clouds and rain.(587)

There are many kinds of Pralaya, but three chief periods are specially mentioned in old Hindû books. The first of these, as Wilson shows, is called Naimittika,(588) “Occasional” or “Incidental,” caused by the intervals of Brahmâ’s Days; it is the destruction of creatures, of all that lives and has a form, but not of the substance, which remains in _statu quo_ till the new Dawn after that Night. The second is called Prâkritika, and occurs at the end of the Age or Life of Brahmâ, when everything that exists is resolved into the Primal Element, to be remodelled at the end of that longer Night. The third, Âtyantika, does not concern the Worlds, or the Universe, but only the Individualities of some people. It is thus the Individual Pralaya, or Nirvâna, after having reached which, there is no more future existence possible, no rebirth till after the Mahâ Pralaya. The latter Night—lasting as it does 311,040,000,000,000 years, with the possibility also of being almost doubled in the case of the lucky Jîvanmukta who reaches Nirvâna at an early period of a Manvantara—is long enough to be regarded as _eternal_, if not endless. The _Bhâgavata Purâna_(589) speaks of a fourth kind of Pralaya, the Nitya, or Constant Dissolution, and explains it as the change which takes place imperceptibly in everything in this Universe from the globe down to the atom, without cessation. It is growth and decay—life and death.

When the Mahâ Pralaya arrives, the inhabitants of Svar‐loka, the Upper Sphere, disturbed by the conflagration, seek refuge “with the Pitris, their Progenitors, the Manus, the Seven Rishis, the various orders of Celestial Spirits and the Gods, in Mahar‐loka.” When the latter is reached also, the whole of the above enumerated beings migrate in their turn from Mahar‐loka, and repair to Jana‐loka, “_in their subtile forms, destined to become reëmbodied, in similar capacities as their former, when the world is renewed at the beginning of the succeeding Kalpa_.”(590)

Clouds, mighty in size, and loud in thunder, fill up all Space [Nabhas‐tala]. Showering down torrents of water, these clouds quench the dreadful fires, ... and then they rain uninterruptedly for a hundred [divine] Years, and deluge the whole World [Solar System]. Pouring down, in drops as large as dice, these rains overspread the Earth, and fill the Middle Region (Bhuvo‐loka) and inundate Heaven. The World is now enveloped in darkness; and all things, animate or inanimate, having perished, the clouds continue to pour down their Waters, ... and the Night of Brahmâ reigns supreme over the scene of desolation.(591)

This is what we call in the Esoteric Doctrine a Solar Pralaya. When the Waters have reached the region of the Seven Rishis, and the World, our Solar System, is one Ocean, they stop. The Breath of Vishnu becomes a strong Wind, which blows for another hundred Divine Years until all clouds are dispersed. The wind is then reäbsorbed: and That—

Of which all things are made, the Lord by whom all things exist, He who is inconceivable, without beginning, the beginning of the Universe, reposes, sleeping upon Shesha [the Serpent of Infinity] in the midst of the Deep. The Creator [(?) Âdikrit] Hari, sleeps upon the Ocean [of Space] in the form of Brahmâ—glorified by Sanaka(592) and the Saints (Siddhas) of Jana‐loka, and contemplated by the holy denizens of Brahma‐loka, anxious for final liberation—involved in mystic slumber, the celestial personification of his own illusions.... This is the Dissolution [(?) Pratisanchara] termed Incidental because Hari is its Incidental [Ideal] Cause.(593) When the Universal Spirit wakes, the World revives; when he closes his eyes, all things fall upon the bed of mystic slumber. In like manner, as a thousand Great Ages constitute a Day of Brahmâ [in the original it is Padmayoni, the same as Abjayoni, “Lotus‐born,” not Brahmâ], so his Night consists of the same period.... Awaking at the end of his Night, the Unborn ... creates the Universe anew.(594)

This is “Incidental” Pralaya; what is the Elemental (Prâkritika) Dissolution? Parâshara describes it to Maitreya as follows:

When, by dearth and fire all the Worlds and Pâtâlas [Hells] are withered up(595) ... the progress of Elemental Dissolution is begun. Then, first, the Waters swallow up the property of Earth (which is the rudiment of Smell), and Earth deprived of this property proceeds to destruction ... and becomes one with Water.... When the Universe is, thus, pervaded by the waves of the watery Element, its rudimentary flavour is licked up by the Element of Fire ... and the Waters themselves are destroyed ... and become one with Fire; and the Universe is, therefore, entirely filled with [ethereal] Flame, which ... gradually overspreads the whole World. While Space is [one] Flame, ... the Element of Wind seizes upon the rudimental property, or form, which is the Cause of Light, and that being withdrawn (pralîna), all becomes of the nature of Air. The rudiment of form being destroyed, and Fire [(?) Vibhâvasu] deprived of its rudiment, Air extinguishes Fire and spreads ... over Space, which is deprived of Light, when Fire merges into Air. Air, then, accompanied by Sound, which is the source of Ether, extends everywhere throughout the ten regions ... until Ether seizes upon Contact [(?) Sparsha, Cohesion—Touch?], its rudimental property, by the loss of which, Air is destroyed, and Ether [(?) Kha] remains unmodified; devoid of Form, Flavour, Touch (Sparsha), and Smell, it exists [un]embodied [mûrttimat] and vast, and pervades the whole of Space. Ether [Âkâsha], whose characteristic property and rudiment is Sound [the “Word”] exists alone, occupying all the vacuity of Space [or rather, occupying the whole containment of Space]. Then the Origin [Noumenon?] of the Elements (Bhûtâdi) devours Sound [the collective Demiurgos]; [and the hosts of Dhyân Chohans] and all the [existing] Elements(596) are, at once, merged into their original. This Primary Element is Consciousness, combined with the Property of Darkness [Tâmasa—Spiritual Darkness rather], and is, itself, swallowed up [disintegrated] by Mahat [the Universal Intellect], whose characteristic property is Intelligence [Buddhi], and Earth and Mahat are the inner and outer boundaries of the Universe. In this manner, as [in the Beginning] were the seven forms of Nature [Prakriti] reckoned from Mahat to Earth, so ... _these seven_ successively reënter into each other.(597)

The Egg of Brahmâ (Sarva‐mandala) is dissolved in the Waters that surround it, with its seven zones (dvîpas), seven oceans, seven regions, and their mountains. The investure of Water is drunk by Fire; the (stratum of) Fire is absorbed by (that of) Air; Air blends itself with Ether [Âkâsha]; the Primary Element [Bhûtâdi, the origin, or rather the _cause_, of the Primary Element] devours the Ether, and is (itself) destroyed by Intellect [Mahat, the Great, the Universal Mind], which, along with all these, is seized upon by Nature [Prakriti] and disappears. This Prakriti is, essentially, the same, whether discrete or indiscrete; only that which is discrete is, finally, lost or absorbed in the indiscrete. Spirit [Pums] also, which is one, pure, imperishable, eternal, all‐pervading, is a portion of that Supreme Spirit which is all things. That Spirit [Sarvesha] which is other than (embodied) Spirit, and in which there are no attributes of name, species [nâman and jâti, or rûpa, hence body rather than species], or the like ... [remains] as the (sole) Existence [Sattâ]. Nature [Prakriti] and Spirit [Purusha] both resolve [finally] into Supreme Spirit.(598)

This is the final Pralaya(599)—the Death of Kosmos; after which its Spirit rests in Nirvâna, or in _That_ for which there is neither Day nor Night. All the other Pralayas are periodical, and follow the Manvantaras in regular succession, as the night follows the day of every human creature, animal, and plant. The Cycle of Creation of the Lives of Kosmos is run down; the energy of the Manifested “Word” having its growth, culmination, and decrease, as have all things temporary, however long their duration. The Creative Force is Eternal as noumenal; as a phenomenal manifestation, in its aspects, it has a beginning and must, therefore, have an end. During that interval, it has its Periods of Activity and its Periods of Rest. And these are the Days and Nights of Brahmâ. But Brahman, the Noumenon, never rests, as _It_ never changes, but ever _is_, though It cannot be said to be anywhere.

The Jewish Kabalists felt the necessity of this _immutability_ in an eternal, infinite Deity, and therefore applied the same thought to the anthropomorphic God. The idea is poetical, and very appropriate in its application. In the _Zohar_ we read as follows:

As Moses was keeping a vigil on Mount Sinai, in company with the Deity, who was concealed from his sight by a cloud, he felt a great fear overcome him, and suddenly asked: “Lord, where art thou ... sleepest thou, O Lord? ...” And the Spirit answered him; “I never sleep: were I to fall asleep for a moment _before my time_, all the creation would crumble into dissolution in one instant.”

“Before my time” is very suggestive. It shows the God of Moses to be only a temporary substitute, like Brahmâ, the male, a substitute and an aspect of THAT which is immutable, and which, therefore, can take no part in the Days, or Nights, nor have any concern whatever with reäction or dissolution.

While the Eastern Occultists have seven modes of interpretation, the Jews have only four; namely, the real‐mystical, the allegorical, the moral, and the literal or Pashut. The latter is the key of the exoteric Churches and not worth discussion. Here are several sentences, which, read in the first, or mystical key, show the identity of the foundations of construction in every Scripture. They are given in Isaac Myer’s excellent book on the Kabalistic works, which he seems to have well studied. I quote _verbatim_.

“_B’raisheeth barah elohim ath hashama’ yem v’ath haa’retz_, _i.e._, ‘In the beginning the God(s) created the heavens and the earth’; (the meaning of which is;) the six (Sephiroth of Construction),(600) over which _B’raisheeth_ stands, _all belong Below_. It created six, (and) on these stand (exist) all Things. And those depend upon the _seven forms of the Cranium_ up to the Dignity of all Dignities. And the second ’Earth’ does not come into calculation, therefore it has been said: ‘And from it (that Earth) which underwent the curse; came it forth.’ ... ‘It (the Earth) was without form and void; and darkness was over the face of the Abyss, and the Spirit of Elohim ... was breathing (_me’racha’pheth_, _i.e._, hovering, brooding over, moving, ...) over the waters.’ Thirteen depend on thirteen (forms) of the most worthy Dignity. Six thousand years hang (are referred to) in the first six words. The seventh (thousand, the millennium) above it (the cursed Earth) is that which is strong by Itself. And it was rendered entirely desolate during twelve hours (one ... day ...). In the thirteenth, It (the Deity) shall restore them ... and everything shall be renewed as before; and all those six shall continue.”(601)

The “Sephiroth of Construction” are the six Dhyân Chohans, or Manus, or Prajâpatis, synthesized by the seventh “B’raisheeth,” the First Emanation, or Logos, and who are called, therefore, the Builders of the Lower or Physical Universe, all belonging Below. These Six [6‐pointed star with middle dot], whose essence is of the _Seventh_, are the Upâdhi, the Base or Fundamental Stone, on which the Objective Universe is built, the Noumenoi of all things. Hence they are, at the same time, the Forces of Nature; the Seven Angels of the Presence; the Sixth and Seventh Principles in Man; the spirito‐psycho‐physical Spheres of the Septenary Chain, the Root Races, etc. They all “depend upon the Seven Forms of the Cranium” up to the Highest. The “_Second_ ‘Earth’ does not come into calculation,” because it is _no Earth_, but the Chaos, or Abyss of Space, in which rested the Paradigmatic, or Model Universe, in the Ideation of the Over‐ Soul, brooding over it. The term “Curse” is here very misleading, for it means simply Doom or Destiny, or _that fatality which sent it forth_ into the objective state. This is shown by that “Earth,” under the “Curse,” being described as “without form and void,” in whose abysmal depths the “Breath” of the Elohim, or collective Logoi, produced, or so to say photographed, the first Divine Ideation of the _things to be_. This process is repeated after every Pralaya before the beginnings of a new Manvantara, or Period of sentient individual Being. “Thirteen depend on thirteen Forms,” refers to the thirteen Periods, personified by the thirteen Manus, with Svâyambhuva, the fourteenth—13, instead of 14, being an additional veil—those fourteen Manus who reign within the term of a Mahâ Yuga, a Day of Brahmâ. These thirteen‐fourteen of the objective Universe depend on the thirteen‐fourteen paradigmatic, ideal Forms. The meaning of the “six thousand Years” which “hang in the first six Words,” has again to be sought in the Indian Wisdom. They refer to the primordial six (seven) “Kings of Edom,” who typify the Worlds, or Spheres, of our Chain, during the First Round, as well as the primordial men of this Round. They are the septenary pre‐Adamic First Root‐Race, or they who existed before the Third, _Separated_ Race. As they were Shadows, and senseless, for they had not yet eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they could not see the Parzuphim, or “Face could not see Face”; that is to say, primeval men were “unconscious.” “Therefore, the primordial (seven) Kings died,” _i.e._, were destroyed.(602) Now, who are these Kings? They are the Kings who are the “Seven Rishis, certain (secondary) divinities, Indra [Shakra], Manu, and the Kings his Sons [who] _are created and perish at one period_” as _Vishnu Purâna_ tells us.(603) For the seventh “thousand,” which is not the millennium of exoteric Christianity, but that of Anthropogenesis, represents both the “Seventh Period of Creation,” that of physical man, according to _Vishnu Purâna_, and the Seventh Principle, both macrocosmic and microcosmic, and also the Pralaya after the Seventh Period, the Night, which has the same duration as the Day, of Brahmâ. “It was rendered entirely desolate during twelve hours.” It is in the Thirteenth (twice six and the synthesis) that everything shall be restored, and the “_six_ shall continue.”

Thus, the author of the _Qabbalah_ remarks quite truly that:

Long before his [Ibn Gebirol’s] time ... many centuries before the Christian era, there was in Central Asia a “Wisdom Religion”, fragments of which subsequently existed among the learned men of the archaic Egyptians, the ancient Chinese, Hindûs, etc.... [And that] the _Qabbalah_ most likely originally came from Âryan sources, through Central Asia, Persia, India and Mesopotamia, for from Ur and Haran came Abraham and many others, into Palestine.(604)

Such was also the firm conviction of C. W. King, the author of _The Gnostics and Their Remains_.

Vâmadeva Modelyar describes the coming Night most poetically. Though it is given in _Isis Unveiled_, it is worthy of repetition.

Strange noises are heard, proceeding from every point.... These are the precursors of the Night of Brahmâ; _dusk rises at the horizon_, and the Sun passes away behind the thirteenth degree of Makara [the tenth sign of the Zodiac], and will reach no more the sign of the Mîna [the Zodiacal sign Pisces, or the Fish]. The Gurus of the Pagodas, appointed to watch the Râshichakram [Zodiac], may now break their circle and instruments, for they are henceforth useless.

Gradually light pales, heat diminishes, uninhabited spots multiply on the earth, the air becomes more and more rarefied; the springs of waters dry up, the great rivers see their waves exhausted, the ocean shows its sandy bottom and plants die. Men and animals decrease in size daily. Life and motion lose their force, planets can hardly gravitate in space; they are extinguished one by one, like a lamp which the hand of the Chokra [servant] neglects to replenish. Sûrya [the Sun] flickers and goes out, matter falls into Dissolution [Pralaya], and Brahmâ merges back into Dyaus, the Unrevealed God, and, his task being accomplished, he falls asleep. Another Day is passed, Night sets in, and continues until the future Dawn.

And now again reënter into the Golden Egg of his Thought the germs of all that exist, as the divine Manu tells us. During His peaceful rest, the animated beings, endowed with the principles of

## action, cease their functions, and all feeling [Manas] becomes

dormant. When they are all absorbed in the Supreme Soul, this Soul of all the beings sleeps in complete repose, till the Day when it resumes its form, and awakes again from its primitive darkness.(605)

As the Satya Yuga is always the first in the series of the Four Ages or Yugas, so the Kali ever comes the last. The Kali Yuga now reigns supreme in India, and it seems to coincide with that of the Western Age. Anyhow, it is curious to see how prophetic in almost all things was the writer of _Vishnu Purâna_, when foretelling to Maitreya some of the dark influences and sins of this Kali Yuga. For after saying that the “barbarians” will be masters of the banks of the Indus, of Chandrabhâgâ and Kâshmîra, he adds:

There will be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth, kings of churlish spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness. They will inflict death on women, children, and cows; they will seize upon the property of their subjects [or, according to another reading, _be intent upon the wives of others_]; they will be of limited power ... their lives will be short, their desires insatiable.... People of various countries intermingling with them will follow their example; and, the barbarians being powerful [in India] in the patronage of the princes, whilst pure tribes are neglected, the people will perish [or, as the Commentator has it: “the Mlechchhas will be in the centre, and the Âryas in the end”].(606) Wealth and piety will decrease day by day, until the world will be wholly depraved.... Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification.... _External types will be the only distinction of the several orders of life_; dishonesty [anyâya] will be the (universal) means of subsistence; weakness the cause of dependence; menace and presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be devotion; a man if rich will be reputed pure; mutual assent will be marriage; fine clothes will be dignity.... He who is the strongest will reign ... the people, unable to bear the heavy burthens [khara‐bhâra, load of taxes], will take refuge among the valleys.... Thus, in the Kali Age, will decay constantly proceed, until the human race approaches its annihilation [pralaya]. When ... the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine Being which exists, of its own spiritual nature [Kalkî Avatâra] ... shall descend upon Earth, ... endowed with the eight superhuman faculties.... He will reëstablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of Kali Yuga shall be awakened, and shall be as pellucid as crystal. The men who are, thus, changed ... shall be as _the seeds of human beings_, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita Age (or Age of Purity). As it is said: “When the Sun and Moon and (the Lunar Asterism) Tishya, and the planet Jupiter are in one mansion, the Krita [or Satya] Age shall return....”(607)

Two persons, Devâpi, of the race of Kuru, and Maru [Moru], of the family of Ikshvâku, ... continue alive throughout the Four Ages, residing at ... Kalâpa.(608) They will return hither, in the beginning of the Krita Age(609) ... Maru [Moru](610) the son of Shîghra, through the power of devotion (Yoga) is still living ... and will be the restorer of the Kshattriya race of the Solar Dynasty.(611)

Whether right or wrong with regard to the latter prophecy, the “blessings” of Kali Yuga are well described, and fit in admirably even with that which one sees and hears in Europe and other civilized and Christian lands in the full XIXth, and at the dawn of the XXth century of our great “Era of Enlightenment.”

Section VIII. The Lotus, as a Universal Symbol.

There are no ancient symbols without a deep and philosophical meaning attached to them, their importance and significance increasing with their antiquity. Such is the Lotus. It is the flower sacred to Nature and her Gods, and represents the Abstract and the Concrete Universes, standing as the emblem of the productive powers of both Spiritual and Physical Nature. It was held as sacred from the remotest antiquity by the Âryan Hindûs, the Egyptians, and by the Buddhists after them. It was revered in China and Japan, and adopted as a Christian emblem by the Greek and Latin Churches, who made of it a messenger, as do now the Christians, who have replaced it with the water‐lily.

In the Christian religion, in every picture of the Annunciation, Gabriel, the Archangel, appears to the Virgin Mary, holding in his hand a spray of water‐lilies. This spray, typifying Fire and Water, or the idea of creation and generation, symbolizes _precisely the same idea_ as the Lotus, in the hand of the Bodhisattva who announces to Mahâ‐Mâyâ, Gautama’s mother, the birth of Buddha, the world’s Saviour. Thus also, were Osiris and Horus constantly represented by the Egyptians in association with the Lotus‐flower, both being Sun‐Gods or Gods of Fire; just as the Holy Ghost is still typified by “tongues of fire,” in the _Acts_.

It had, and still has, its mystic meaning, which is identical in every nation on earth. We refer the reader to Sir William Jones.(612) With the Hindûs, the Lotus is the emblem of the productive power of Nature, through the agency of Fire and Water, or Spirit and Matter. “O Thou Eternal! I see Brahm, the Creator, enthroned in thee above the Lotus!” says a verse in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_. And Sir W. Jones shows, as already noted in the Stanzas, that the seeds of the Lotus, even before they germinate, contain perfectly‐formed leaves, the miniature shapes of what they will become one day, as perfected plants. The Lotus, in India, is the symbol of prolific Earth and, what is more, of Mount Meru. The four Angels or Genii of the four quarters of Heaven, the Mahârâjahs of the Stanzas, stand each on a Lotus. The Lotus is the two‐fold type of the Divine and Human Hermaphrodite, being so to say, of dual sex.

With the Hindûs, the Spirit of Fire or Heat—which stirs up, fructifies, and develops into concrete form, from its ideal prototype, everything which is born of Water, or Primordial Earth—evolved Brahmâ. The Lotus‐ flower, represented as growing out of Vishnu’s navel, the God who rests in the Waters of Space on the Serpent of Infinity, is the most graphic symbol ever yet made. It is the Universe evolving from the Central Sun, the Point, the ever‐concealed Germ. Lakshmî, who is the female aspect of Vishnu, and who is also called Padma, the Lotus, in the _Râmâyana_, is likewise shown floating on a Lotus‐flower, at the “Creation,” and during the “Churning of the Ocean” of Space, as also springing from the “Sea of Milk,” like Venus‐Aphrodite from the Foam of the Ocean.

... Then, seated on a lotus, Beauty’s bright Goddess, peerless Shrî, arose Out of the waves ...

sings an English Orientalist and poet, Sir Monier Williams.

The underlying idea, in this symbol, is very beautiful, and, furthermore, shows an identical parentage in all the religious systems. Whether as the Lotus or water‐lily, it signifies one and the same philosophical idea; namely, the Emanation of the Objective from the Subjective, Divine Ideation passing from the abstract into the concrete, or visible form. For, as soon as Darkness, or rather that which is “Darkness” for ignorance, has disappeared in its own realm of Eternal Light, leaving behind itself only its Divine Manifested Ideation, the Creative Logoi have their understanding opened, and they see in the Ideal World, hitherto concealed in the Divine Thought, the archetypal forms of all, and proceed to copy and build, or fashion, upon these models, forms evanescent and transcendent.

At this stage of Action, the Demiurge is not yet the Architect. Born in the Twilight of Action, he has yet to first perceive the Plan, to realize the Ideal Forms, which lie buried in the Bosom of Eternal Ideation, just as the future lotus‐leaves, the immaculate petals, are concealed within the seed of that plant.

In Esoteric Philosophy the Demiurge, or Logos, regarded as the Creator, is simply an abstract term, an idea, like the word “army.” As the latter is the all‐embracing term for a body of active forces, or working units—soldiers, so is the Demiurge the qualitative compound of a multitude of Creators or Builders. Burnouf, the great Orientalist, seized the idea perfectly, when he said that Brahmâ does _not_ create the Earth, any more than the rest of the Universe.

Having evolved himself from the Soul of the World, once separated from the First Cause, he evaporates with, and emanates, all Nature out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with it; Brahmâ and the Universe form one Being, each particle of which is in its essence Brahmâ himself, who proceeded out of himself.

In a chapter of the _Book of the Dead_, called “Transformation into the Lotus,” the God, figured as a head emerging from this flower, exclaims:

I am the pure Lotus, emerging from the Luminous Ones.... I carry the messages of Horus. I am the pure Lotus which comes from the Solar Fields.(613)

The lotus‐idea may be traced even in the Elohistic first chapter of _Genesis_, as stated in _Isis Unveiled_. It is to this idea that we must look for the origin and explanation of the verse in the Jewish Cosmogony which reads: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth ... the fruit‐tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself.”(614) In all the primitive religions, the Creative God is the “Son of the Father,” that is to say, his Thought made visible; and before the Christian era, from the Trimûrti of the Hindûs down to the three Kabalistic Heads of the scriptures, as explained by the Jews, the Triune Godhead of each nation was fully defined and substantiated, in its allegories.

Such is the cosmic and ideal significance of this great symbol with the Eastern peoples. But when applied to practical and exoteric worship, which had also its esoteric symbology, the Lotus, in time, became the carrier and container of a more terrestrial idea. No dogmatic religion has ever escaped having the sexual element in it; and to this day it soils the moral beauty of the root idea of symbology. The following is quoted from the same Kabalistic MS. which we have already cited on several occasions:

Pointing to like signification was the Lotus growing in the waters of the Nile. Its mode of growth peculiarly fitted it as a symbol of the generative activities. The flower of the Lotus, which is the bearer of the seed for reproduction, as the result of its maturing, is connected by its placenta‐like attachment to mother‐ earth, or the womb of Isis, through the water of the womb, that is, the river Nile, by the long cord‐like stalk, the umbilicus. Nothing can be plainer than the symbol, and to make it perfect in its intended signification, a child is sometimes represented as seated in or issuing from the flower.(615) Thus Osiris and Isis, the children of Cronus, or time without end, in the development of their nature‐forces, in this picture become the parents of man under the name Horus.

We cannot lay too great stress upon the use of this generative function as a basis for a symbolical language, and a scientific art‐speech. Thought upon the idea leads at once to reflection upon the subject of creative cause. In its workings Nature is observed to have fashioned a wonderful piece of living mechanism, governed by an added living soul; the life development and history of which soul, as to its whence, its present, and its whither, surpass all efforts of the human intellect.(616) The new‐born is an ever‐ recurring miracle, an evidence that within the workshop of the womb an intelligent creative power has intervened to fasten a living soul to a physical machine. The amazing wonderfulness of the fact attaches a holy sacredness to all connected with the organs of reproduction, as the dwelling and place of evident constructive intervention of deity.

This is a correct rendering of the underlying ideas of old, of the purely pantheistic conceptions, _impersonal_ and reverential, of the archaic philosophers of the prehistoric ages. It is not so, however, when applied to sinful humanity, to the gross ideas attached to _personality_. Therefore, no pantheistic philosopher would fail to find the remarks that follow the above, and which represent the anthropomorphism of Judean symbology, other than dangerous for the sacredness of true religion, and fitting only for our materialistic age, which is the direct outcome and result of that anthropomorphic character. For this is the key‐note to the entire spirit and essence of the _Old __ Testament_, as the MS. states, treating of the symbolism of the art‐speech of the _Bible_:

Therefore the locality of the womb is to be taken as the Most Holy Place, the Sanctum Sanctorum, and the veritable Temple of the Living God.(617) With man, the possession of the woman has always been considered as an essential part of himself, to make one out of two, and jealously guarded as sacred. Even the part of the ordinary house or home consecrated to the dwelling of the wife was called the _penetralia_, the secret or sacred, and hence the metaphor of the Holy of Holies, of sacred constructions taken from the idea of the sacredness of the organs of generation. Carried to the extreme of description(618) by metaphor, this part of the house is described in the Sacred Books as the “between the thighs of the house,” and sometimes the idea is carried out constructively in the great door‐opening of Churches placed inward between flanking buttresses.

No such thought, “carried to the extreme,” ever existed among the old primitive Âryans. This is proven by the fact that, in the Vedic period, their women were not placed apart from men in _penetralia_, or Zenanas. This seclusion began when the Mahommedans—the next heirs to Hebrew symbolism, after Christian ecclesiasticism—had conquered the land and gradually enforced their ways and customs upon the Hindûs. The pre‐ and post‐Vedic woman was as free as man; and no impure terrestrial thought was ever mixed with the religious symbology of the early Âryans. The idea and application are purely Semitic. This is corroborated by the writer of the said intensely learned and Kabalistic revelation, when he closes the above‐quoted passages by adding:

If to these organs as symbols of creative cosmic agencies the idea of the origin of measures as well as of time‐periods can be attached, then indeed, in the constructions of the Temples as Dwellings of Deity, or of Jehovah, that part designated as the Holy of Holies, or the Most Holy Place, should borrow its title from the recognized sacredness of the generative organs, considered as symbols of measures as well as of creative cause. With the ancient _wise, there was no name, and no idea, and no symbol_ of a First Cause.

Most decidedly not. Rather never give a thought to it and leave it for ever nameless, as the early Pantheists did, than degrade the sacredness of that Ideal of Ideals, by dragging down its symbols into such anthropomorphic forms! Here again one perceives the immense chasm between Âryan and Semitic religious thought, the two opposite poles, Sincerity and Concealment. With the Brâhmans, who have never invested the natural procreative functions of mankind with an “original sin” element, it is a _religious duty_ to have a son. A Brâhman, in days of old, having accomplished his mission of human creator, retired to the jungle, and passed the rest of his days in religious meditation. He had accomplished his duty to nature, as mortal man and its co‐worker, and henceforth gave all his thoughts to the spiritual and immortal portion of himself, regarding the terrestrial as a mere illusion, an evanescent dream—which, indeed it is. With the Semite, it was different. He invented a temptation of flesh in a garden of Eden, and showed his God—esoterically, the Tempter and the Ruler of Nature—_cursing for ever_ an act, which was in the logical programme of that Nature.(619) All this exoterically, as in the _cloak_ and dead‐letter of _Genesis_ and the rest. At the same time, _esoterically_, he regarded the supposed _sin_ and _fall_ as an act so sacred, as to choose the organ, the perpetrator of the _original sin_, as the fittest and most sacred symbol to represent that God, who is shown as branding its entering into function as disobedience and everlasting _sin!_

Who can ever fathom the paradoxical depths of the Semitic mind! And this paradoxical element, _minus_ its innermost significance, has now passed entirely into Christian theology and dogma!

Whether the early Fathers of the Church knew the esoteric meaning of the Hebrew _Testament_, or whether only a few of them were aware of it, while the others remained ignorant of the secret, is for posterity to decide. One thing, at any rate, is certain. As the Esotericism of the _New Testament_ agrees perfectly with that of the Hebrew Mosaic Books; and since, at the same time, a number of purely Egyptian symbols and Pagan dogmas in general—the Trinity, for example—have been copied by, and incorporated into, the Synoptics and St. John, it becomes evident that the identity of those symbols was known to the writers of the _New Testament_, whoever they may have been. They must have been also aware of the priority of the Egyptian Esotericism, since they have adopted several symbols which typify purely Egyptian conceptions and beliefs, in their outward and inward meaning, and which are not to be found in the Jewish Canon. One of these is the water‐lily in the hands of the Archangel, in the early representations of his appearance to the Virgin Mary; and these symbolical images are preserved to this day in the iconography of the Greek and Roman Churches. Thus Water, Fire and the Cross, as well as the Dove, the Lamb and other Sacred Animals, with all their combinations, esoterically yield an identical meaning, and must have been accepted as an improvement upon Judaism pure and simple.

For the Lotus and Water are among the oldest symbols, and in their origin are purely Âryan, though they became common property during the branching off of the Fifth Race. To give an example; letters, as well as numbers, were all mystic, whether in combination, or taken separately. The most sacred of all is the letter M. It is both feminine and masculine, or androgyne, and is made to symbolize Water in its origin, the Great Deep. It is a mystic letter in all languages, Eastern and Western, and stands as a glyph for the waves, thus [three triangles]. In the Âryan Esotericism, as in the Semitic, this letter has always stood for the Waters. In Sanskrit, for instance, Makara, the tenth sign of the Zodiac, means a Crocodile, or rather an aquatic monster associated always with Water. The letter Ma is equivalent to, and corresponds with, the number 5, which is composed of a Binary, the symbol of the two sexes separated, and of the Ternary, the symbol of the Third Life, the progeny of the Binary. This, again, is often symbolized by a Pentagon, the latter being a sacred sign, a divine Monogram. Maitreya is the secret name of the Fifth Buddha, and the Kalkî Avatâra of the Brâhmans, the last Messiah who will come at the culmination of the Great Cycle. It is also the initial letter of the Greek Metis, or Divine Wisdom; of Mimra, the Word, or Logos; and of Mithras, the Mihr, the Monad Mystery. All these are born in, and from, the Great Deep, and are the Sons of Mâyâ, the “Mother”; in Egypt, Moot; in Greece, Minerva, Divine Wisdom; of Mary, or Miriam, Myrrha, etc., the Mother of the Christian Logos; and of Mâyâ, the Mother of Buddha. Mâdhava and Mâdhavî are the titles of the most important Gods and Goddesses of the Hindû Pantheon. Finally, Mandala is, in Sanskrit, a “Circle,” or an Orb, also the ten divisions of the _Rig Veda_. The most sacred names in India generally begin with this letter, from Mahat, the first manifested Intellect, and Mandara, the great mountain used by the Gods to churn the Ocean, down to Mandâkinî, the heavenly Gangâ, or Ganges, Manu, etc., etc.

Will this be called a coincidence? A strange one is it then, indeed, when we see even Moses, found in the Water of the Nile, with the symbolical consonant in his name. And Pharaoh’s daughter “called his name Moses; and she said, Because I drew him out of the Water.”(620) Besides which, the Hebrew sacred name of God, applied to this letter M, is Meborach, the “Holy” or the “Blessed,” and the name for the Water of the Flood is Mbul. A reminder of the “Three Maries” at the Crucifixion, and their connection with Mare, the Sea, or Water, may close these examples. This is why, in Judaism and Christianity, the Messiah is always connected with Water, Baptism; and also with the Fishes, the sign of the Zodiac called Mînam in Sanskrit, and even with the Matsya (Fish) Avatâra, and the Lotus, the symbol of the womb, or with the water‐lily, which has the same signification.

In the relics of ancient Egypt, the greater the antiquity of the votive symbols and emblems of the objects exhumed, the oftener are Lotus‐flowers and Water found in connection with the Solar Gods. The God Khnoom, the Moist Power, or Water, as Thales taught, being the principle of all things, sits on a throne enshrined in a Lotus. The God Bes stands on a Lotus, ready to devour his progeny. Thot, the God of Mystery and Wisdom, the sacred Scribe of Amenti, wearing the solar disk as head gear, sits with a bull’s head—the sacred bull of Mendes being a form of Thot—and a human body, on a full blown Lotus. Finally, it is the Goddess Hiqit, under her shape of a frog, who rests on the Lotus, thus showing her connection with water. And it is from the unpoetical shape of this frog‐symbol, undeniably the glyph of the most ancient of the Egyptian Deities, that the Egyptologists have been vainly trying to unravel the mystery and functions of the Goddess. Its adoption in the Church, by the early Christians, shows that they knew it better than our modern Orientalists. The “frog or toad Goddess” was one of the chief Cosmic Deities connected with Creation, on account of this animal’s amphibious nature, and chiefly because of its apparent resurrection, after long ages of solitary life, enshrined in old walls, in rocks, etc. She not only participated in the organization of the World, together with Khnoom, but was also connected with _the dogma of resurrection_.(621) There must have been some very profound and sacred meaning attached to this symbol, since, notwithstanding the risk of being charged with a disgusting form of zoölatry, the early Egyptian Christians adopted it in their Churches. A frog or toad, enshrined in a Lotus‐flower, or simply without the latter emblem, was the form chosen for the _Church‐ lamps_, on which were engraved the words, “Ἐγώ εἰμι ἀναστάσις”—I am the resurrection.(622) These frog‐Goddesses are also found on all the mummies.

Section IX. The Moon; Deus Lunus, Phœbe.

This archaic symbol is the most poetical of all symbols, as also the most philosophical. The ancient Greeks brought it into prominence, and the modern poets have worn it threadbare. The Queen of Night, riding in the majesty of her peerless light in Heaven, throwing all, even Hesperus, into darkness, and spreading her silver mantle over the whole Sidereal World, has ever been a favourite theme with all the poets of Christendom, from Milton and Shakespeare down to the latest versifier. But the refulgent lamp of night, with her suite of stars unnumbered, spoke only to the imagination of the profane. Until lately, Religion and Science had nought to do with the beautiful mythos. Yet, the cold chaste Moon, she, who, in the words of Shelley:

... makes all beautiful on which she smiles, That wandering shrine of soft, yet icy flame Which ever is transformed, yet still the same, And warms not, but illumes....

stands in closer relations to Earth than any other sidereal orb. The Sun is the Giver of Life to the whole Planetary System; the Moon is the Giver of Life to our Globe; and the early races understood and knew it, even in their infancy. She is the Queen, and she is the King. She was King Soma before she became transformed into Phœbe and the chaste Diana. She is preëminently the Deity of the Christians, through the Mosaic and Kabalistic Jews, though the civilized world may have remained ignorant of the fact for long ages; in fact, ever since the last initiated Father of the Church died, carrying with him into his grave the secrets of the Pagan Temples. For such Fathers as Origen or Clemens Alexandrinus, the Moon was Jehovah’s living symbol; the Giver of Life and the Giver of Death, the Disposer of Being—in _our_ World. For, if Artemis was Luna in Heaven, and, with the Greeks, Diana on Earth, who presided over child‐birth and life; with the Egyptians, she was Hekat (Hecate) in Hell, the Goddess of Death, who ruled over magic and enchantments. More than this; as the personified Moon, whose phenomena are triadic, Diana‐Hecate‐Luna is the _three in one_. For she is _Diva triformis_, _tergemina_, _triceps_, three heads on one neck,(623) like Brahmâ‐Vishnu‐Shiva. Hence she is the prototype of our Trinity, which has not always been entirely male. The number seven, so prominent in the _Bible_, so sacred in the seventh day, or Sabbath, came to the Jews from antiquity, deriving its origin from the four‐fold number 7 contained in the 28 days of the lunar month, each septenary portion thereof being typified by one quarter of the Moon.

It is worth the trouble of presenting, in this work, a bird’s‐eye view of the origin and development of the lunar myth and worship, in historical antiquity, on our side of the globe. Its earlier origin is untraceable by _exact_ Science, which rejects all tradition; while for Theology, which, under the guidance of the crafty Popes, has put a brand on every fragment of literature that does not bear the _imprimatur_ of the Church of Rome, its archaic history is a sealed book. Whether the Egyptian or the Âryan Hindû religious philosophy is the more ancient—the Secret Doctrine says it is the latter—does not much matter, in this instance, as the Lunar and Solar “worship” are the most ancient in the world. Both have survived, and prevail to this day throughout the whole world; with some openly, with others—as, for instance, in Christian symbology—secretly. The cat, a lunar symbol, was sacred to Isis, who was the Moon in one sense, just as Osiris was the Sun, and is often seen on the top of the Sistrum in the hand of the Goddess. This animal was held in great veneration in the city of Bubastis, which went into deep mourning on the death of the sacred cats, because Isis, as the Moon, was particularly worshipped in that city of mysteries. The astronomical symbolism connected with it has already been given in Section I, and no one has better described it than Mr. Gerald Massey, in his _Lectures_ and in _The Natural Genesis_. The eye of the cat, it is said, seems to follow the lunar phases in their growth and decline, and its orbs shine like two stars in the darkness of night. Hence the mythological allegory which shows Diana hiding in the Moon, under the shape of a cat, when she was seeking, in company with other Deities, to escape the pursuit of Typhon, as related in the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid. The Moon, in Egypt, was both the “Eye of Horns” and the “Eye of Osiris,” the Sun.

The same with the Cynocephalus. The dog‐headed ape was a glyph to symbolize the Sun and Moon, in turn, though the Cynocephalus is really _more a Hermetic than a religious symbol_. For it is the hieroglyph of Mercury, the planet, and of the Mercury of the Alchemical philosophers, who say that:

Mercury has to be ever _near_ Isis, as her _minister_, for without Mercury neither Isis nor Osiris can accomplish anything in the Great Work.

The Cynocephalus, whenever represented with the caduceus, the crescent, or the lotus, is a glyph of the “philosophical” Mercury; but when seen with a reed, or a roll of parchment, he stands for Hermes, the secretary and adviser of Isis, as Hanumâna filled the same office with Râma.

Though the regular Sun‐Worshippers, the Parsîs, are few, yet not only is the bulk of the Hindû mythology and history based upon, and interblended with, these two worships, but so is even the Christian religion itself. From their origin down to our modern day, it has coloured the theologies of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches. Indeed, the difference between the Aryan Hindû and the Âryan European faiths is very small, if only the fundamental ideas of both are taken into consideration. Hindûs are proud of calling themselves Sûryavanshas and Chandravanshas, of the _Solar_ and _Lunar_ Dynasties. The Christians pretend to regard this as idolatry, and yet they adhere to a religion entirely based upon Solar and Lunar worship. It is vain and useless for the Protestants to exclaim against the Roman Catholics for their “Mariolatry,” based on the ancient cult of lunar Goddesses, when they themselves worship Jehovah, preëminently a _lunar_ God; and when both Churches have accepted in their theologies the _Sun_‐Christ and the _Lunar_ Trinity.

What is known of Chaldean Moon‐Worship, of the Babylonian God, Sin, called by the Greeks Deus Lunus, is very little; and that little is apt to mislead the profane student, who fails to grasp the esoteric significance of the symbols. As popularly known to the ancient profane philosophers and writers—for those who were initiated were pledged to silence—the Chaldeans were the worshippers of the Moon under _her_, and _his_, various names, just as were the Jews, who came after them.

In the unpublished MS. on the Art‐Speech, already mentioned, giving a key to the formation of the ancient symbolical language, a logical _raison d’être_ is brought forward for this double worship. It is written by a wonderfully well‐informed and acute scholar and Mystic, who gives it in the comprehensive form of a hypothesis. The latter, however, forcibly becomes a proven fact in the history of religious evolution in human thought, to anyone who has ever had a glimpse into the secret of ancient symbology. Thus, he says:

One of the first occupations among men, connected with those of actual necessity, would be the perception of time periods,(624) marked on the vaulted arch of the heavens, sprung and rising over the level floor of the horizon, or the plain of still water. These would come to be marked as those of day and night, of the phases of the moon, of its stellar or synodic revolutions, and of the period of the solar year with recurrence of the seasons, and with the application to such periods of the natural measure of day or night, or of the day divided into the light and the dark. It would also be discovered that there was a longest and shortest solar day, and two solar days of equal day and night, within the period of the solar year; and the points in the year of these could be marked with the greatest precision in the starry groups of the heavens or the constellations, subject to that retrograde movement thereof, which in time would require a correction by intercalation, as was the case in the description of the Flood, where correction of 150 days was made for a period of 600 years, during which confusion of landmarks had increased.... This would naturally come to pass with all races in all time; and such knowledge must be taken to have been inherent in the human race, prior to what we call the historic period as during the same.

On this basis, the author seeks for some natural physical function, possessed in common by the human race, and connected with the periodical manifestations, such that “the connection between the two kinds of phenomena ... became fixed in common or popular usage.” He finds it in:

(_a_) The feminine physiological phenomena every lunar month of 28 days, or 4 weeks of 7 days each, so that 13 occurrences of the period should happen in 364 days, which is the solar week‐year of 52 weeks of 7 days each. (_b_) The quickening of the fœtus is marked by a period of 126 days, or 18 weeks of 7 days each. (_c_) That period which is called “the period of viability” is one of 210 days, or 30 weeks of 7 days each. (_d_) The period of parturition is accomplished in 280 days, or a period of 40 weeks of 7 days each, or 10 lunar months of 28 days each, or of 9 calendar months of 31 days each, counting on the royal arch of heavens for the measure of the period of traverse from the darkness of the womb to the light and glory of conscious existence, that continuing inscrutable mystery and miracle.... Thus the observed periods of time marking the workings of the birth function would naturally become a basis of astronomical calculation.... We may almost affirm ... that this was the mode of reckoning among all nations, either independently, or intermediately and indirectly by tuition. It was the mode with the Hebrews, for even to‐day they calculate the calendar by means of the 354 and 355 of the lunar year, and we possess a special evidence that it was the mode with the ancient Egyptians, as to which this is the proof:

The basic idea underlying the religious philosophy of the Hebrews was that God contained all things within himself,(625) and that man was his image, man including woman.... The place of the man and woman with the Hebrews was among the Egyptians occupied by the bull and the cow, sacred to Osiris and Isis,(626) who were represented, respectively, by a man having a bull’s head, and a woman having the head of a cow; which symbols were worshipped. Notoriously Osiris was the Sun and the river Nile, the tropical year of 365 days, which number is the value of the word Neilos, and the bull, as he was also the principle of fire and of life‐ giving force; while Isis was the moon, the bed of the river Nile, or the Mother Earth, for the parturient energies of which water was a necessity, the lunar year of 354‐364 days, the time‐maker of the periods of gestation, and the cow marked by, or with, the crescent new moon....

But the use of the cow of the Egyptians for the woman of the Hebrews was not intended as of any radical difference of signification, but a concurrence in the teaching, intended, and merely as the substitution of a symbol of common import, which was this, viz., the period of parturition with the cow and the woman was held to be the same, or 280 days, or ten lunar months of 4 weeks each. And in this period consisted the essential value of this animal symbol, whose mark was that of the crescent moon.(627)... These parturient and natural periods are found to have been subjects of symbolism all over the world. They were thus used by the Hindûs, and are found to be most plainly set forth by the ancient Americans, in the Richardson and Gest tablets, in the Palenque Cross and elsewhere, and manifestly lay at the base of the formation of the calendar forms of the Mayas of Yucatan, the Hindûs, the Assyrians, and the ancient Babylonians, as well as the Egyptians and old Hebrews. The natural symbols ... would be either the phallus or the phallus and yoni, ... _male_ and _female_. Indeed, the words translated by the generalizing terms male and female, in the 27th verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis are ... _sacr_ and _n’cabvah_ or, literally, phallus and yoni.(628) While the representation of the phallic emblems would barely indicate the genital members of the human body, when their functions and the development of the seed‐vesicles emanating from them were considered, there would come into indication a mode of measures of lunar time, and through lunar, of solar time.

This is the physiological or anthropological key to the Moon symbol. The key that opens the mystery of Theogony, or the evolution of the manvantaric Gods, is more complicated, and has nothing phallic in it. There, all is mystical and divine. But the Jews, beyond connecting Jehovah directly with the Moon as a generative God, preferred to ignore the higher Hierarchies, and have made their Patriarchs of some of these zodiacal constellations and planetary Gods, thus euhemerizing the purely theosophical idea and dragging it down to the level of sinful humanity. The MS., from which the above is extracted, explains very clearly to what Hierarchy of Gods Jehovah belonged, and who this Jewish God was; for it shows, in clear language, that which the writer has always insisted upon, namely, that the God with which the Christians have burdened themselves, was no better than the lunar symbol of the reproductive or generative faculty in Nature. They have ever ignored even the Hebrew secret God of the Kabalists, Ain Suph, a conception as grand as Parabrahman in the earliest Kabalistic and mystical ideas. But it is not the _Kabalah_ of Rosenroth that can ever give the true original teachings of Shimeon Ben Yochaï, which were as metaphysical and philosophical as any could be. And how many are there among the students of the _Kabalah_ who know anything of them except in their distorted Latin translations? Let us glance at the idea which led the ancient Jews to adopt a substitute for the Ever‐ Unknowable, and which has misled the Christians into mistaking the substitute for the reality.

If to these organs [phallus and yoni] as symbols of creative cosmic agencies the idea of ... time periods can be attached, then, indeed, in the construction of Temples as Dwellings of Deity, or of Jehovah, that part designated as the Holy of Holies, or The Most Holy Place, should borrow its title from the recognized sacredness of the generative organs, considered as symbols of measures as well as of creative cause.

With the ancient Wise, there was no name, and no idea, and no symbol, of a First Cause.(629) With the Hebrews, the indirect conception of such was couched in a term of negation of comprehension, viz., Ain Suph, or the Without Bounds. But the symbol of _its first comprehensible manifestation_ was the conception of a circle with its diameter line, to at once carry a geometric, phallic, and astronomic idea; ... for the one takes its birth from the 0, or the circle, without which it could not be, and from the 1, or primal one, spring the 9 digits, and, geometrically, all plane shapes. So in Kabalah this circle, with its diameter line, is the picture of the 10 Sephiroth, or Emanations, composing the Adam Kadmon, or the Archetypal Man, the creative origin of all things.... This idea of connecting the picture of the circle and its diameter line, that is, the number 10, with the signification of the reproductive organs, and the Most Holy Place ... was carried out constructively in the King’s Chamber, or Holy of Holies, of the great Pyramid, in the Tabernacle of Moses, and in the Holy of Holies of the Temple of Solomon.... It is _the picture of a double womb_, for in Hebrew the letter _Hé_ (ה) is at the same time the number 5, and the symbol of the womb, and twice 5 is 10, or the phallic number.

This “double womb” also shows the duality of the idea carried from the highest or spiritual down to the lowest or terrestrial plane; and limited by the Jews to the latter. With them, therefore, the number seven has acquired the most prominent place in their exoteric religion, a cult of external forms and empty rituals; take, for instance, their Sabbath, the seventh day sacred to their Deity, the Moon, symbolical of the generative Jehovah. But, with other nations, the number seven was typical of theogonic evolution, of Cycles, Cosmic Planes, and the Seven Forces and Occult Powers in Kosmos, as a Boundless Whole, whose first upper Triangle was unreachable to the finite intellect of man. While other nations, therefore, busied themselves, in their forcible limitation of Kosmos in Space and Time, only with its septenary manifested plane, the Jews centred this number solely in the Moon, and based all their sacred calculations thereupon. Hence we find the thoughtful author of the MS. just quoted, remarking, in reference to the metrology of the Jews, that:

If 20,612 be multiplied by 4/3, _the product will afford a base for the ascertainment of the mean revolution of the moon_; and if this product be again multiplied by 4/3, this continued product will afford a base for finding the exact period of the mean solar year, ... this form ... becoming, for the finding of astronomical periods of time, of very great service.

This double number—male and female—is symbolized also in some well‐known idols; for instance:

Ardhanârî‐Îshvara, the Isis of the Hindûs, Eridanus, or Ardan, or the Hebrew Jordan, or _source of descent_. She is standing on a lotus‐leaf floating on the water. But the signification is, that it is androgyne or hermaphrodite, that is phallus and yoni combined, the number 10, the Hebrew letter _Yod_ (י), the _containment of Jehovah_. She, or rather she‐he, gives the minutes of the same circle of 360 degrees.

“Jehovah,” in its best aspect is Binah, the “Upper mediating Mother, the Great Sea or Holy Spirit,” and therefore rather a synonym of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, than of his Father; that “Mother, being the Latin Mare,” the Sea, is here, also, Venus, the Stella del Mare, or “Star of the Sea.”

The ancestors of the mysterious Akkadians—the Chandravanshas or Indovanshas, the Lunar Kings, whom tradition shows reigning at Prayâga (Allahabad), ages before our era—had come from India, and brought with them the worship of their forefathers, of Soma, and his son Budha, which afterwards became that of the Chaldeans. Yet such adoration, apart from popular Astrolatry and Heliolatry, was in no sense _idolatry_. No more, at any rate, than the modern Roman Catholic symbolism which connects the Virgin Mary, the Magna Mater of the Syrians and Greeks, with the Moon.

Of this worship, the most pious Roman Catholics feel quite proud, and loudly confess to it. In a _Mémoire_ to the French Academy, the Marquis De Mirville says:

It is only natural that, as an unconscious prophecy, Ammon‐Râ should be his mother’s husband, since the Magna Mater of the Christians _is precisely the spouse of that son she conceives_.... We [Christians] can understand now _why Neïth throws radiance on the Sun, while remaining the Moon_, since the Virgin, who is the Queen of Heaven, _as was Neïth_, clothes the Christ‐Sun, as does Neïth, and is clothed by him; “_Tu vestis solem et te sol vestit_” [as is sung by the Roman Catholics during their service].

We [Christians] understand also how it is that the famous inscription at Saïs should have stated that “none has ever lifted my veil [peplum],” considering that this sentence, literally translated, _is the summary of what is sung in the Church on the Day of the Immaculate Conception_.(630)

Surely nothing could be more sincere than this! It justifies entirely what Mr. Gerald Massey has said in his Lecture on “Luniolatry, Ancient and Modern”:

The man in the moon [Osiris‐Sut, Jehovah‐Satan, Christ‐Judas, and other Lunar Twins] is often charged with bad conduct.... In the lunar phenomena the moon was one, as _the_ moon, which was two‐ fold in sex, and three‐fold in character, as mother, child, and adult male. Thus the child of the moon became the consort of his own mother! It could not be _helped_ if there was to be any reproduction. He was compelled to be his own father! These relationships were repudiated by later sociology, and the primitive man in the moon got tabooed. Yet in its latest, most inexplicable phase, this has become the central doctrine of the grossest superstition the world has seen, for these lunar phenomena and their humanly represented relationships, the incestuous included, are the very foundations of the Christian Trinity in Unity. Through ignorance of the symbolism, the simple representation of early time has become the most profound religious mystery in modern Luniolatry. The Roman Church, without being in any wise ashamed of the proof, portrays the Virgin Mary arrayed with the sun, and the horned moon at her feet, holding the lunar infant in her arms—as child and consort of the mother moon! The mother, child, and adult male, are fundamental....

In this way it can be proved that our Christology is mummified mythology, and legendary lore, which have been palmed off upon us in the _Old Testament_ and the _New_, as divine revelation uttered by the very voice of God.(631)

A charming allegory is found in the _Zohar_, one which unveils better than anything else ever did the true character of Jehovah, or YHVH, in the primitive conception of the Hebrew Kabalists. It is now found in the philosophy of Ibn Gebirol’s _Kabalah_, translated by Isaac Myer.

In the introduction written by R. ’Hiz’qee‐yah, which is very old, and forms part of our Brody edition of the _Zohar_ (1. 5b. _sq._) is an account of a journey taken by R. El’azar, son of R. Shim‐on b. Yo’haï, and R. Abbah.... They met a man bearing a heavy burden.... They conversed together ... and the explanations of the Thorah, by the man with the burden, were so wonderful, that they asked him for his name; he replied: “Do not ask me who I am; but we will all proceed with the explanation of the Thorah [Law].” They asked: “Who caused thee thus to walk and carry such a heavy load?” He answered: “The letter י (Yod, which = 10, and is the symbolical letter of Kether and the essence and germ of the Holy Name יהוה, YHVH) made war, etc.”.... They said to him: “If thou wilt tell us the name of thy father, we will kiss the dust of thy feet.” He replied: “... As to my father, _he had his dwelling in the Great Sea, and was a fish therein_ [like Vishnu and Dagon or Oannes]; which [first] destroyed the Great Sea ... and he was great and mighty and ‘Ancient of Days,’ until he swallowed all the other fishes in the (Great) Sea.” ... R. El’azar listened to his words and said to him: “Thou art the Son of the Holy Flame, thou art the Son of Rab Ham‐’_nun_‐ah Sabah (the old) [the _fish_ in Aramaic or Chaldee is _nun_ (_noon_)], thou art the Son of the Light of the Thorah [Dharma], etc.”(632)

Then the author explains that the feminine Sephira, Binah, is termed by the Kabalists the Great Sea: therefore Binah, whose divine names are Jehovah, Yah, and Elohim, is simply the Chaldean Tiamat, the Female Power, the Thalatth of Berosus, who presides over the Chaos, and was made out later by Christian Theology to be the Serpent and the Devil. She‐He (Yah‐ hovah) is the supernal Hé, and Eve. This Yah‐hovah then, or Jehovah, is identical with our Chaos—Father, Mother, Son—on the material plane, and in the purely physical World; Deus and Demon, at one and the same time; the Sun and Moon, Good and Evil, God and Demon.

Lunar magnetism generates life, preserves and destroys it, psychically as well as physically. And if, astronomically, the Moon is one of the seven planets of the Ancient World, in Theogony she is one of the Regents thereof—with Christians now as much as with Pagans, the former referring to her under the name of one of their Archangels, and the latter under that of one of their Gods.

Therefore the meaning of the “fairy tale,” translated by Chwolsohn from the Arabic translation of an old Chaldean MS., of Qû‐tâmy being instructed by the _idol_ of the Moon, is easily understood. Seldenus tells us the secret, as well as Maimonides in his _Guide to the Perplexed_.(633) The worshippers of the Teraphim, or the Jewish Oracles, “carved images, and claimed that the light of the principal stars [planets] permeating these through and through, the Angelic Virtues [or the Regents of the stars and planets] conversed with them, teaching them many most useful things and arts.” And Seldenus explains that the Teraphim were built and composed after the position of certain planets, those which the Greeks called στοιχεῖα, and according to figures that were located in the sky, and called ἀλεξητήριοι, or the Tutelary Gods. Those who traced out the στοιχεῖα were called στοιχειωματικοί, or diviners by the στοιχεῖα.(634)

It is such sentences, however, in the _Nabathean Agriculture_, which have frightened the men of Science, and made them proclaim the work “either an apocryphon, or a fairy tale, unworthy of the notice of an Academician.” At the same time, as shown, zealous Roman Catholics and Protestants metaphorically tore it to pieces; the former because “it described the worship of demons,” the latter because it was “ungodly.” Once more, all are wrong. It is _not_ a fairy tale; and, as far as the pious Churchmen are concerned, the same worship may be shown in their Scriptures, however disfigured by translation. Solar and Lunar worship and also the worship of the Stars and Elements can be traced, and figure in Christian Theology. These are defended by Papists, and can be stoutly denied by the Protestants only at their own risk and peril. Two instances may be given.

Ammianus Marcellinus teaches that ancient divinations were always accomplished with the help of the Spirits of the Elements (_Spiritus Elementorum_, and in Greek πνεύματα τῶν στοιχείων).(635)

But it is found now that the Planets, the Elements, and the Zodiac, were figured not only at Heliopolis by the twelve stones called “Mysteries of the Elements” (_Elementorum Arcana_), but also in Solomon’s Temple, and, as pointed out by various writers, in several old Italian churches and even at _Notre Dame de Paris_, where they can be seen to this day.

No symbol, even including the Sun, was more complex in its manifold meanings than the lunar symbol. The sex was, of course, dual. With some it was male; as, for instance, the Hindû “King Soma,” and the Chaldean Sin; with other nations it was female, the beauteous Goddesses Diana‐Luna, Ilithyia, Lucina. With the Tauri, human victims were sacrificed to Artemis, a form of the lunar Goddess; the Cretans called her Dictynna, and the Medes and Persians Anaïtis, as shown by an inscription of Colœ: Ἀρτέμιδι Ἀνάειτι. But, we are now concerned chiefly with the most chaste and pure of the virgin Goddesses, Luna‐Artemis, to whom Pamphôs was the first to give the surname of Καλλίστη, and of whom Hippolytus wrote: Καλλίστα πολὺ παρθένων.(636) This Artemis‐Lochia, the Goddess that presided at conception and childbirth, is, in her functions and as the triple Hecate, the Orphic Deity, the predecessor of the God of the Rabbins and pre‐Christian Kabalists, and his lunar type. The Goddess Τρίμορφος was the personified symbol of the various and successive aspects represented by the Moon in each of her three phases; and this interpretation was already that of the Stoics,(637) while the Orpheans explained the epithet Τρίμορφος by the three kingdoms of Nature over which she reigned. Jealous, bloodthirsty, revengeful and exacting, Hecate‐Luna is a worthy counterpart of the “jealous God” of the Hebrew prophets.

The whole riddle of the Solar and Lunar worship, as now traced in the churches, hangs indeed on this world‐old mystery of lunar phenomena. The correlative forces in the “Queen of Night,” that lie latent for Modern Science, but are fully active to the knowledge of Eastern Adepts, explain well the thousand and one images under which the Moon was represented by the Ancients. It also shows how much more profoundly learned in the Selenic Mysteries were the Ancients than are now our modern Astronomers. The whole Pantheon of the lunar Gods and Goddesses, Nephtys or Neïth, Proserpina, Melitta, Cybele, Isis, Astarte, Venus, and Hecate, on the one hand, and Apollo, Dionysus, Adonis, Bacchus, Osiris, Atys, Thammuz, etc., on the other, all show on the face of their names and titles—those of “Sons” and “Husbands” of their “Mothers”—their identity with the Christian Trinity. In every religious system, the Gods were made to merge their functions, as Father, Son, and Husband, into one, and the Goddesses were identified as Wife, Mother, and Sister of the male God; the former synthesizing the human attributes as the “Sun, the Giver of Life,” the latter merging all the other titles in the grand synthesis known as Maia, Maya, Maria, etc., a generic name. Maia, in its forced derivation, has come to mean with the Greeks, “mother,” from the root _ma_ (nurse), and even gave its name to the month of May, which was sacred to all these Goddesses before it became consecrated to Mary.(638) Its primitive meaning, however, was Mâyâ, Durgâ, translated by the Orientalists as “inaccessible,” but meaning in truth the “unreachable,” in the sense of illusion and unreality, as being the source and cause of spells, the personification of illusion.

In religious rites, the Moon served a dual purpose. Personified as a female Goddess for exoteric purposes, or as a male God in allegory and symbol, in Occult Philosophy our satellite was regarded as a sexless Potency to be well studied, because it was to be dreaded. With the initiated Âryans, Chaldeans, Greeks and Romans, Soma, Sin, Artemis Soteira (the hermaphrodite Apollo, whose attribute is the lyre, and the bearded Diana of the bow and arrow), Deus Lunus, and especially Osiris‐Lunus and Thot‐Lunus,(639) were the Occult potencies of the Moon. But whether male or female, whether Thot or Minerva, Soma or Astoreth, the Moon is the Occult Mystery of Mysteries, and more a symbol of evil than of good. Her seven phases, in the original Esoteric division, are divided into three astronomical phenomena and four purely psychic phases. That the Moon was not always reverenced is shown in the Mysteries, in which the death of the Moon‐God—the three phases of gradual waning and final disappearance—was allegorized by the Moon standing for the Genius of Evil that, for the time, triumphs over the Light and Life‐giving God, the Sun; and all the skill and learning of the ancient Hierophants in Magic were required to turn this triumph into a defeat.

It was the most ancient worship of all, that of the Third Race of our Round, the Hermaphrodites, in which the _male_ Moon became sacred, when, after the so‐called Fall, the sexes had become separated. Deus Lunus then became an androgyne, male and female in turn; to finally serve, _for purposes of sorcery_, as a dual power for the Fourth Root Race, the Atlanteans. With the Fifth, our own Race, the Lunar‐solar worship divided the nations into two distinct, antagonistic camps. It led to events described æons later in the Mahâbhâratan War, which to the Europeans is the fabulous, to the Hindûs and Occultists the historical, strife between the Sûryavanshas and the Indovanshas. Originating in the dual aspect of the Moon, the worship of the female and the male principles respectively, it ended in distinct Solar and Lunar cults. Among the Semitic races, the Sun was for a very long time feminine and the Moon masculine; the latter notion being adopted by them from the Atlantean traditions. The Moon was called the “Lord of the Sun,” Bel‐Shemesh, before the Shemesh worship. The ignorance of the incipient reasons for such a distinction, and of Occult principles, led the nations into anthropomorphic idol‐worship. During that period which is absent from the Mosaic books, viz., from the exile from Eden to the allegorical Flood, the Jews, with the rest of the Semites, worshipped Dayanisi, דינאישי, the “Ruler of Men,” the “Judge,” or the Sun. Though the Jewish canon and Christianism have made the Sun to become the “Lord God” and “Jehovah” in the _Bible_, yet the same _Bible_ is full of indiscreet traces of the androgyne Deity, which was Jehovah, the Sun, and Astoreth, the Moon in its female aspect, and quite free from the present metaphorical element given to it. God is a “consuming fire,” appears _in_, and “is encompassed _by_ fire.” It was not only in vision that Ezekiel saw the Jews “worshipping the Sun.”(640) The Baal of the Israelites—the Shemesh of the Moabites and the Moloch of the Ammonites—was the identical “Sun‐Jehovah,” and he is till now the “King of the Host of Heaven,” the Sun, as much as Astoreth was the “Queen of Heaven,” or the Moon. The “Sun of Righteousness” has _only now_ become a _metaphorical_ expression. But the religion of every ancient nation had been primarily based upon the Occult manifestations of a purely abstract Force or Principle now called “God.” The very establishment of such worship shows, in its details and rites, that the philosophers who evolved such systems of Nature, subjective and objective, possessed profound knowledge, and were acquainted with many facts of a scientific nature. For besides being purely Occult, the rites of Lunar worship were based, as just shown, upon a knowledge of Physiology—quite a modern science with us—Psychology, sacred Mathematics, Geometry and Metrology, in their right applications to symbols and figures, which are but glyphs recording observed natural and scientific _facts_; in short upon a most minute and profound knowledge of Nature. As we have just said, lunar magnetism generates life, preserves and destroys it; and Soma embodies the triple power of the Trimûrti, though it remains unrecognized by the profane to this day. The allegory that makes Soma, the Moon, produced by the Churning of the Ocean of Life (Space) by the Gods in another Manvantara, that is, in the pre‐genetic day of our Planetary System, and the myth, which represents “the Rishis milking the Earth, whose calf was Soma, the Moon,” have a deep cosmographical meaning; for it is neither _our_ Earth which is milked, nor was the Moon which we know the calf.(641) Had our wise men of Science known as much of the mysteries of Nature as the ancient Âryans did, they would surely never have imagined that the Moon was projected from the Earth. Once more, the oldest of permutations in Theogony, the Son becoming his own Father and the Mother generated by the Son, has to be remembered and taken into consideration if the symbolical language of the Ancients is to be understood by us. Otherwise mythology will be ever haunting the Orientalists as simply “the disease which springs up at a peculiar stage of human culture!”—as Renouf gravely observes.

The Ancients taught the auto‐generation, so to speak, of the Gods: the One Divine Essence, _unmanifested_, perpetually begetting a Second‐Self, _manifested_, which Second‐Self, androgynous in its nature, _gives birth, in an immaculate way_, to everything macrocosmical and microcosmical in this Universe. This was shown in the Circle and the Diameter, or the Sacred Ten (10), a few pages back.

But our Orientalists, notwithstanding their extreme desire to discover one homogeneous Element in Nature, _will not_ see it. Cramped in their researches by such ignorance, the Âryanists and Egyptologists are constantly led astray from truth in their speculations. Thus, de Rougé is unable to understand, in the text which he translates, the meaning of Ammon‐Ra saying to King Amenophes, who is supposed to be Memnon: “Thou art my Son, I have begotten thee.” And, finding the same idea in many a text and under various forms, this very Christian Orientalist is finally compelled to exclaim:

For this idea to have entered the mind of a hierogrammatist, there must have been in their religion a more or less defined doctrine, _indicating as a possible fact that might come to pass, a divine and immaculate incarnation under a human form._

Precisely. But why throw the explanation on to an impossible prophecy, when the whole secret is explained by the later religion copying the earlier?

This doctrine was universal, nor was it the mind of any one hierogrammatist that evolved it; for the Indian Avatâras are a proof to the contrary. After which, having come “to realize more clearly”(642) what the “Divine Father and Son” were with the Egyptians, de Rougé still fails to account for, and to perceive what were the functions attributed to, the _feminine_ Principle in that primordial generation. He does not find it in the Goddess Neïth, of Saïs. Yet he quotes the sentence of the Commander to Cambyses, when introducing that king into the Saïtic temple: “I made known to his Majesty the dignity of Saïs, which is the abode of Neïth, the great [female] producer, _genitrix of the Sun_, who is the _first‐born, and who is not begotten, but only brought forth_”—and hence is the fruit of an Immaculate Mother.

How much more grandiose, philosophical and poetical—for whoever is able to understand and appreciate it—is the real distinction made between the Immaculate Virgin of the ancient Pagans and the modern Papal conception. With the former, the ever‐youthful Mother Nature, the antitype of her prototypes, the Sun and Moon, _generates_ and _brings forth_ her “mind‐ born” Son, the Universe. The Sun and Moon, as male‐female deities, fructify the Earth, the microcosmical Mother, and the latter conceives and brings forth, in her turn. With the Christians, the “First‐born” (_primogenitus_) is indeed generated, _i.e._, begotten (_genitus, non factus_), and positively _conceived and brought forth_: “_Virgo pariet_,” explains the Latin Church. Thus does that Church drag down the noble spiritual ideal of the Virgin Mary to the earth, and, making her “of the earth earthy,” degrades the ideal she portrays to the lowest of the anthropomorphic Goddesses of the rabble.

Truly, Neïth, Isis, Diana, etc., by whatever name she was called, was “a demiurgical Goddess, at once visible and invisible, having her place in Heaven, and _helping on the generation of species_”—the Moon, in short. Her occult aspects and powers are numberless, and, in one of them, the Moon becomes with the Egyptians Hathor, another aspect of Isis,(643) and both of these Goddesses are shown suckling Horus. Behold in the Egyptian Hall of the British Museum, Hathor worshipped by Pharaoh Thotmes, who stands between her and the Lord of Heavens. The monolith was taken from Karnac. The same Goddess has the following legend inscribed on her throne: “_The Divine Mother and Lady, or Queen of Heaven_”; also the “_Morning Star_,” and the “_Light of the Sea_”—_Stella Matutina_ and _Lux Maris_. All the Lunar Goddesses had a dual aspect; one _divine_, the other _infernal_. All were the Virgin Mothers of an _immaculately_ born Son—the Sun. Raoul Rochette shows the Moon‐Goddess of the Athenians, Pallas, or Cybele, Minerva, or again Diana, holding her child‐son on her lap, invoked in her festivals as Μονογενὴς θεοῦ, the “One Mother of God,” sitting on a lion, and surrounded by twelve personages; in whom the Occultist recognizes the twelve great Gods, and the pious Christian Orientalist the Apostles, or rather the Grecian Pagan prophecy thereof.

They are both right, for the Immaculate Goddess of the Latin Church is a faithful copy of the older Pagan Goddesses; the number of the Apostles is that of the twelve Tribes, and the latter are a personification of the twelve great Gods, and of the twelve Signs of the Zodiac. Almost every detail in the Christian dogma is borrowed from the Heathens. Semele, the Wife of Jupiter and Mother of Bacchus, the Sun, is, according to Nonnus, also “carried,” or made to ascend to Heaven after her death, where she presides between Mars and Venus, under the name of the “Queen of the World,” or the Universe, πανβασίλεια; “at the name of which,” as at the names of Hathor, Hecate, and other infernal Goddesses, “all the demons tremble.”(644)

“Σεμέλην τρέμουσι δαίμονες.” This Greek inscription on a small temple, reproduced on a stone that was found by Beger, and copied by Montfaucon, as De Mirville tells us, informs us of the stupendous fact, that the Magna Mater of the old world was an impudent “plagiarism” of the Immaculate Virgin Mother of his Church, perpetrated by the Demon. Whether so, or _vice versâ_, is of no importance. That which is interesting to note is the perfect identity between the _archaic copy_ and the _modern original_.

Did space permit we might show the inconceivable coolness and unconcern exhibited by certain followers of the Roman Catholic Church, when they are made to face the revelations of the Past. To Maury’s remark that “the Virgin took possession of all the Sanctuaries of Ceres and Venus, and that the Pagan rites, proclaimed and practised in honour of those Goddesses, were in a great measure transferred to the Mother of Christ,”(645) the advocate of Rome answers, that such _is_ the fact, and that it is just as it should be, and quite natural.

As the dogma, the liturgy, and the rites professed by the Roman Apostolical Church in 1862 are found engraved on monuments, inscribed on papyri, and cylinders _hardly posterior to the Deluge_, it does seem impossible to deny the existence of a _first ante‐historical_ [Roman] _Catholicism of which our own is but the faithful continuation_.... [But while the former was the culmination, the “_summum_ of the impudence of demons and goëtic necromancy” ... the latter is _divine_.] If in _our_ [Christian] _Revelation_ [_l’Apocalypse_], Mary, clothed with the Sun and having the Moon under her feet, has no longer anything in common _with the humble servant_ [servante] _of Nazareth_ [_sic_], it is because she has now become the greatest of theological and cosmological powers in _our_ universe.(646)

Verily so, since Pindar thus sings of her “assumption”: “She sits _at the right hand_ of her Father [Jupiter], ... and is more powerful than all the other (Angels or) Gods”(647)—a hymn likewise applied to the Virgin. St. Bernard also, quoted by Cornelius à Lapide, is made to address the Virgin Mary in this wise: “The Sun‐Christ lives in thee and thou livest in him.”(648)

Again the Virgin is admitted to be the Moon by the same unsophisticated holy man. Being the Lucina of the Church, in childbirth the verse of Virgil, “_Casta fove Lucina, tuus jam regnat Apollo_,” is applied to her. “Like the Moon, the Virgin is the Queen of Heaven,” adds the innocent saint.(649)

This settles the question. According to such writers as De Mirville, the more similarity there exists between the Pagan conceptions and the Christian dogmas, the more divine appears the Christian religion, and the more is it seen to be the only truly inspired one, especially in its Roman Catholic form. The unbelieving Scientists and Academicians who think they see in the Latin Church quite the opposite of divine inspiration, and who will not believe in the Satanic tricks of plagiarism by anticipation, are severely taken to task. But then “they believe in nothing and reject even the _Nabathean Agriculture_ as a romance and a pack of superstitious nonsense,” complains the memorialist. “In their perverted opinion Qû‐tâmy’s ‘idol of the Moon’ and the statue of the Madonna are one!” A noble Marquis, twenty‐five years ago, wrote six huge volumes, or, as he calls them “Mémoires to the French Academy,” with the sole object of proving Roman Catholicism to be an inspired and revealed faith. As a proof thereof, he furnishes numberless facts, all tending to show that the entire Ancient World, ever since the Deluge, had, with the help of the Devil, been systematically plagiarizing the rites, ceremonies, and dogmas of the future Holy Church, which was to be born ages later. What would that faithful son of Rome have said had he heard his co‐religionist, M. Renouf, the distinguished Egyptologist of the British Museum, declaring in one of his learned lectures, that neither “Hebrews nor Greeks borrowed any of their ideas from Egypt”?

But perhaps M. Renouf intended to say that it was the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Âryans, who borrowed their ideas from the Latin Church? And if so, why, in the name of logic, do the Papists reject the additional information which the Occultists may give them on Moon‐worship, since it all tends to show that the worship of the Roman Catholic Church is as old as the world—_of Sabæanism and Astrolatry_?

The reason of early Christian and later Roman Catholic Astrolatry, or the symbolical worship of Sun and Moon, a worship identical with that of the Gnostics, though less philosophical and pure than the “Sun‐worship” of the Zoroastrians, is a natural consequence of its birth and origin. The adoption by the Latin Church of such symbols as Water, Fire, Sun, Moon and Stars, and many others, is simply a continuation by the early Christians of the old worship of Pagan nations. Thus, Odin got his wisdom, power, and knowledge, by sitting at the feet of Mimir, the thrice‐wise Jotun, who passed his life by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, the crystalline Waters of which increased his knowledge daily. “Mimir drew the highest knowledge from the fountain, because the World was born of Water; hence primeval Wisdom was to be found in that mysterious element.” The eye which Odin had to pledge to acquire that knowledge may be “the Sun, which enlightens and penetrates all things; his other eye being the Moon, whose reflection gazes out of the deep, and which at last, when setting, sinks into the Ocean.”(650) But it is something more than this. Loki, the Fire‐God, is said to have hidden in the Water, as well as in the Moon, the light‐giver, whose reflection he found therein. This belief that the Fire finds refuge in the Water was not limited to the old Scandinavians. It was shared by all nations and was finally adopted by the early Christians, who symbolized the Holy Ghost under the shape of Fire, “cloven tongues like as of fire”—the breath of the Father‐Sun. This Fire descends also into the Water, or the Sea—Mare, Mary. The Dove was the symbol of the Soul with several nations; it was sacred to Venus, the Goddess born from the sea‐ foam, and it became later the symbol of the Christian Anima Mundi, or Holy Spirit.

One of the most occult chapters in the _Book of the Dead_ is that entitled, “The transformation into the God giving Light to the Path of Darkness,” wherein “Woman‐Light of the Shadow” serves Thot in his retreat in the Moon. Thot‐Hermes is said to hide therein, because he is the representative of the Secret Wisdom. He is the manifested Logos of its light side; the concealed Deity or “Dark Wisdom” when he is supposed to retire to the opposite hemisphere. Speaking of her power, the Moon calls herself repeatedly: “The Light which shineth in Darkness,” the “Woman‐ Light.” Hence it became the accepted symbol of all the Virgin‐Mother Goddesses. As the wicked “evil” Spirits warred against the Moon in days of yore, so they are supposed to war now, without, however, being able to prevail against the actual Queen of Heaven, Mary, the Moon. Hence, also, the Moon was intimately connected in all the Pagan Theogonies with the Dragon, her eternal enemy. The Virgin, or Madonna, stands on the mythical Satan thus symbolized, who lies crushed and powerless, under her feet. This, because the head and tail of the Dragon, which, to this day in Eastern Astronomy, represent the ascending and descending nodes of the Moon, were also symbolized in ancient Greece by the two serpents. Hercules kills them on the day of his birth, and so does the Babe in his Virgin‐ Mother’s arms. As Mr. Gerald Massey aptly observes in this connection:

All such symbols figured their own facts from the first, and did not pre‐figure others of a totally different order. The iconography [and dogmas, too] had survived in Rome from a period remotely pre‐Christian. _There was neither forgery nor interpolation of types; nothing but a continuity of imagery with a perversion of its meaning._

Section X. Tree, Serpent, and Crocodile Worship.

Object of horror or of adoration, men have for the serpent an implacable hatred, or prostrate themselves before its genius. Lie calls it, Prudence claims it, Envy carries it in its heart, and Eloquence on its caduceus. In Hell it arms the whip of the Furies; in Heaven Eternity makes of it its symbol.

DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND.

The Ophites asserted that there were several kinds of Genii, from God to man; that the relative superiority of these was decided by the degree of Light that was accorded to each; and they maintained that the Serpent had to be constantly called upon and to be thanked for the signal service it had rendered humanity. For it taught Adam that if he ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, he would raise his Being immensely by the learning and wisdom he would thus acquire. Such was the exoteric reason given.

It is easy to see whence is the primal idea of the dual, Janus‐like character of the Serpent—the good and the bad. This symbol is one of the most ancient, because the reptile preceded the bird, and the bird the mammal. Hence the belief, or rather the superstition, of the savage tribes who think that the souls of their ancestors live under this form, and the general association of the Serpent with the Tree. The legends about the various meanings it represents are numberless; but, as most of them are allegorical, they have now passed into the class of fables based on ignorance and dark superstition. For instance, when Philostratus narrates that the natives of India and Arabia fed on the heart and liver of Serpents in order to learn the language of all the animals, the Serpent being credited with that faculty, he certainly never meant his words to be accepted literally.(651) As will be found more than once as we proceed, Serpent and Dragon were names given to the Wise Ones, the Initiated Adepts of olden times. It was their wisdom and their learning that were devoured or assimilated by their followers, whence the allegory. When the Scandinavian Sigurd is fabled to have roasted the heart of Fafnir, the Dragon, whom he had slain, and thence to have become the wisest of men, the meaning is the same. Sigurd had become learned in the runes and magical charms; he had received the “Word” from an Initiate of the name of Fafnir, or from a sorcerer, after which the latter died, as do many, after “passing the word.” Epiphanius lets out a secret of the Gnostics in trying to expose their “heresies.” The Gnostic Ophites, he says, had a reason for honouring the Serpent: _it was because he taught the primeval men the Mysteries_.(652) Verily so; but they did not have Adam and Eve in the Garden in their minds when teaching this dogma, but simply that which is stated above. The Nâgas of the Hindû and Tibetan Adepts were human Nâgas (Serpents), not reptiles. Moreover, the Serpent has ever been the type of consecutive or serial rejuvenation, of Immortality and Time.

The numerous and extremely interesting readings, the interpretations and facts about Serpent worship, given in Mr. Gerald Massey’s _Natural Genesis_, are very ingenious and scientifically correct. But they are far from covering the _whole_ of the meanings implied. They divulge only the astronomical and physiological mysteries, with the addition of some cosmic phenomena. On the lowest plane of materiality, the Serpent was, no doubt, the “great emblem of Mystery in the Mysteries,” and was, very likely, “adopted as a type of feminine pubescence, on account of its sloughing and self‐renewal.” It was so, however, only with regard to mysteries concerning terrestrial _animal_ life, for as the symbol of “_re‐clothing_ and re‐birth in the [universal] mysteries,” its “final phase,”(653) or shall we rather say its incipient and culminating phases, was not of this plane. These phases were generated in the pure realm of Ideal Light, and having accomplished the round of the whole cycle of adaptations and symbolism, the Mysteries returned from whence they had come, into the essence of _immaterial_ causality. They belonged to the highest Gnôsis. And surely this could have never obtained its name and fame solely on account of its penetration into physiological and especially feminine functions!

As a symbol, the Serpent had as many aspects and occult meanings as the Tree itself; the “Tree of Life,” with which it was emblematically and almost indissolubly connected. Whether viewed as a metaphysical or a physical symbol, the Tree and Serpent, jointly, or separately, have never been so degraded by antiquity as they are now, in this our age of the breaking of idols, not for truth’s sake, but to glorify the most gross matter. The revelations and interpretations in General Forlong’s _Rivers of Life_ would have astounded the worshippers of the Tree and Serpent in the days of archaic Chaldean and Egyptian wisdom; and even the early Shaivas would have recoiled in horror at the theories and suggestions of the author of the said work. “The notion of Payne Knight and Inman that the Cross or Tau is simply a copy of the male organs in a triadic form is radically false,” writes Mr. G. Massey, who proves what he says. But this is a statement that could be as justly applied to almost all the modern interpretations of ancient symbols. _The Natural Genesis_, a monumental work of research and thought, the most complete on that subject that has ever been published, covering as it does a wider field, and explaining much more than all the Symbologists who have hitherto written, does not yet go beyond the “psycho‐theistic” stage of ancient thought. Nor were Payne Knight and Inman altogether wrong; except in entirely failing to see that their interpretations of the Tree of Life, as the Cross and Phallus, fitted the symbol only in the lowest and latest stage of the evolutionary development of the idea of the Giver of Life. It was the last and the grossest physical transformation of Nature, in animal, insect, bird and even plant; for bi‐une, creative magnetism, in the form of the attraction of contraries, or sexual polarization, acts in the constitution of reptile and bird as it does in that of man. Moreover, the modern Symbologists and Orientalists, from first to last, being ignorant of the real Mysteries revealed by Occultism, can necessarily see but this last stage. If told that this mode of procreation, which the whole world of being has now in common on this Earth, is but a passing phase, a physical means of furnishing the conditions to and producing the phenomena of life, and that it will alter with this and disappear with the next Root‐Race, they would laugh at such a superstitious and unscientific idea. But the most learned Occultists assert this because _they know it_. The universe of living beings, of all those which procreate their species, is the living witness to the various modes of procreation in the evolution of animal and human species and races; and the Naturalist ought to sense this truth intuitionally, even though he is yet unable to demonstrate it. How could he, indeed, with the present modes of thought! The landmarks of the archaic history of the Past are few and scarce, and those that men of Science come across are mistaken for finger‐posts of our little era. Even so‐called “universal (?) history” embraces but a tiny field in the almost boundless space of the unexplored regions of our latest, Fifth Root‐Race. Hence, every fresh sign‐post, every new glyph of the hoary Past that is discovered, is added to the old stock of information, to be interpreted on the same lines of preëxisting conceptions, and without any reference to the special cycle of thought which that particular glyph may belong to. How can Truth ever come to light if this method is never changed!

Thus, in the beginning of their joint existence as a glyph of Immortal Being, the Tree and Serpent were divine imagery, truly. The Tree was _reversed_, and its roots were generated in Heaven and grew out of the Rootless Root of All‐Being. Its trunk grew and developed; crossing the planes of the Plerôma, it shot out crossways its luxuriant branches, first on the plane of hardly differentiated matter, and then downward till they touched the terrestrial plane. Thus, the Ashvattha Tree of Life and Being, whose destruction alone leads to immortality, is said in the _Bhagavadgîtâ_ to grow with its roots above and its branches below.(654) The roots represent the Supreme Being, or First Cause, the Logos; but one has to go beyond those roots to _unite oneself with Krishna_, who, says Arjuna, is “greater than Brahman, and First Cause ... the indestructible, that which is, that which is not, and what is beyond them.”(655) Its boughs are Hiranyagarbha (Brahmâ or Brahman in its highest manifestations, say Shrîdhara Svâmin and Madhusûdana), the highest Dhyân Chohans or Devas. The _Vedas_ are its leaves. He only who goes _beyond_ the roots shall never return; that is to say, shall reïncarnate no more during this Age of Brahmâ.

It is only when its pure boughs had touched the terrestrial mud of the Garden of Eden, of our Adamic Race, that this Tree became soiled by the contact and lost its pristine purity; and that the Serpent of Eternity, the Heaven‐Born Logos, was finally degraded. In days of old, of the Divine Dynasties on Earth, the now dreaded reptile was regarded as the first beam of light that radiated from the abyss of Divine Mystery. Various were the forms which it was made to assume, and numerous the natural symbols adapted to it, as it crossed the æons of Time; as from Infinite Time (Kâla) itself it fell into the space and time evolved out of human speculation. These forms were cosmic and astronomical, theistic and pantheistic, abstract and concrete. They became in turn the Polar Dragon and the Southern Cross, the Alpha Draconis of the Pyramid, and the Hindû‐Buddhist Dragon, which ever threatens, yet never swallows the Sun during its eclipses. Till then, the Tree remained ever green, for it was sprinkled by the Waters of Life; the Great Dragon remained ever divine, so long as it was kept within the precincts of the sidereal fields. But the Tree grew and its lower boughs at last touched the Infernal Regions—our Earth. Then the Great Serpent Nidhögg—he who devours the corpses of the evil‐doers in the “Hall of Misery” (human life), so soon as they are plunged into Hwergelmir, the roaring cauldron (of human passions)—gnawed the reversed World‐Tree. The worms of materiality covered the once healthy and mighty roots, and are now ascending higher and higher along the trunk; while the Midgard Snake coiled at the bottom of the Seas, encircles the Earth, and, through its venomous breath, makes her powerless to defend herself.

The Dragons and Serpents of Antiquity are all seven‐headed—one head for each Race, and “every head with seven hairs on it,” as the allegory has it. Aye, from Ananta, the Serpent of Eternity, which carries Vishnu through the Manvantara; from the original primordial Shesha, whose seven heads become “one thousand heads” in the Purânic fancy, down to the seven‐ headed Akkadian Serpent. This typifies the Seven Principles throughout Nature and in man; the highest or middle head being the seventh. It is not of the Mosaic, Jewish Sabbath that Philo speaks, in his _Creation of the World_, when saying that the world was completed “according to the perfect nature of number 6.” For:

_When that Reason_ [_Nous_] _which is holy in accordance with the number 7, has entered the soul_ [the living body rather], the number 6 is thus arrested and all the mortal things which that number makes.

And again:

Number 7 is the festival day of all the earth, the _birthday of the world_. I know not whether any one would be able to celebrate the number 7 in adequate terms.(656)

The author of _The Natural Genesis_ thinks that:

The septenary of stars seen in the Great Bear [the Saptarshis] and seven‐headed Dragon furnished a visible origin for the symbolic seven of time above. The goddess of the seven stars was the mother of time, as Kep; whence Kepti and Sebti for the two times and number 7. So this is the star of the Seven by name. Sevekh (Kronus), the son of the goddess, has the name of the seven or seventh. So has Sefekh Abu who builds the house on high, as Wisdom (Sophia) built hers with seven pillars.... The primary kronotypes were seven, and thus the beginning of time in heaven is based on the number and the name of seven, on account of the starry demonstrators. The seven stars as they turned round annually kept pointing, as it were, with the forefinger of the right hand, and describing a circle in the upper and lower heaven.(657) The number 7 naturally suggested a measure by seven, that led to what may be termed _Sevening_, and to the marking and mapping out of the circle in seven corresponding divisions which were assigned to the seven great constellations; and thus was formed the celestial heptanomis of Egypt in the heavens.

When the stellar heptanomis was broken up and divided into four quarters, it was multiplied by four, and the twenty‐eight signs took the place of the primary seven constellations; the lunar zodiac of twenty‐eight signs being the registered result of reckoning twenty‐eight days to the moon, or a lunar month.(658) In the Chinese arrangement, the four sevens are given to four Genii that preside over the four cardinal points,(659) or rather the seven northern constellations make up the Black Warrior; the seven eastern (Chinese autumn) constitute the White Tiger; the seven southern are the Vermilion Bird; and the seven western (called vernal) are the Azure Dragon. Each of these four spirits presides over its heptanomis during one lunar week. The genitrix of the first heptanomis (Typhon of the seven stars) now took a lunar character.... In this phase we find the goddess Sefekh, whose name signifies number 7, is the feminine word, or logos in place of the mother of time, who was the earlier _Word_, as goddess of the Seven Stars.(660)

The author shows that it was the Goddess of the Great Bear and Mother of Time who was in Egypt from the earliest times the “Living Word,” and that Sevekh‐Kronus, whose type was the Crocodile‐Dragon, the pre‐planetary form of Saturn, was called her son and consort; he was her Word‐Logos.(661)

The above is quite plain, but it was not the knowledge of astronomy only that led the Ancients to the process of _Sevening_. The primal cause goes far deeper and will be explained in its place.

The above quotations are no digressions. They are brought forward as showing (_a_) the reason why a full Initiate was called a Dragon, a Snake, a Nâga; and (_b_) that our septenary division was used by the priests of the earliest dynasties in Egypt, for the same reason, and on the same basis, as by us. This needs further elucidation, however. As already stated, what Mr. Gerald Massey calls the Four Genii of the four cardinal points; and the Chinese, the Black Warrior, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Azure Dragon, are called in the Secret Books, the “Four Hidden Dragons of Wisdom” and the “Celestial Nâgas.” Now, the seven‐headed or septenary Dragon‐Logos is shown to have, in course of time, been split up, so to speak, into _four_ heptanomic parts or twenty‐eight portions. Each week has a distinct Occult character in the lunar month; each day of the twenty‐eight has its special characteristics; for each of the twelve constellations, whether separately or in combination with other signs, has an Occult influence either for good or for evil. This represents the sum of knowledge that men can acquire on this earth; yet few are those who acquire it, and still fewer are the wise men who get to the root of knowledge symbolized by the great Root‐Dragon, the Spiritual Logos of these visible signs. But those who do, receive the name of Dragons, and they are the “Arhats of the Four Truths of the Twenty‐eight Faculties,” or attributes, and have always been so called.

The Alexandrian Neo‐Platonists asserted that to become real Chaldees or Magi, one had to master the science or knowledge of the periods of the Seven Rectors of the World, in whom is all wisdom. And Jamblichus is credited with another version, which does not, however, alter the meaning, for he says:

The Assyrians have not only preserved the records of seven and twenty myriads of years, as Hipparchus says they have, but likewise of the whole apocatastases and periods of the Seven Rulers of the World.(662)

The legends of every nation and tribe, whether civilized or savage, point to the once universal belief in the great wisdom and cunning of the Serpents. They are “charmers.” They hypnotize the bird with their eye, and man himself very often does not overcome their fascinating influence; therefore the symbol is a most fitting one.

The Crocodile is the Egyptian Dragon. It was the dual symbol of Heaven and Earth, of Sun and Moon, and was made sacred, in consequence of its amphibious nature, to Osiris and Isis. According to Eusebius, the Egyptians represented the Sun in a Ship as its pilot, this ship being carried along by a Crocodile, “to show the motion of the Sun in the Moist (Space).”(663) The Crocodile was, moreover, the symbol of Lower Egypt herself, the Lower being the more swampy of the two countries. The Alchemists claim another interpretation. They say that the symbol of the Sun in the Ship on the Ether of Space meant that the Hermetic Matter is the principle, or basis, of Gold, or again the _philosophical_ Sun; the Water, within which the Crocodile is swimming, is that Water, or Matter, made liquid; the Ship herself, finally, representing the Vessel of Nature, in which the Sun, or the sulphuric, igneous principle, acts as a pilot, because it is the Sun which conducts the work by his action upon the Moist or Mercury. The above is only for the Alchemists.

The Serpent became the type and symbol of evil, and of the Devil, only during the Middle Ages. The early Christians as well as the Ophite Gnostics, had their dual Logos: the Good and the Bad Serpent, the Agathodæmon and the Kakodæmon. This is demonstrated by the writings of Marcus, Valentinus, and many others, and especially in _Pistis‐ Sophia_—certainly a document of the earliest centuries of Christianity. On the marble sarcophagus of a tomb, discovered in 1852 near the Porta Pia, one sees the scene of the adoration of the Magi, “or else,” remarks the late C. W. King, in _The Gnostics and their Remains_, “the prototype of that scene, the ‘Birth of the New Sun’.” The mosaic floor exhibited a curious design which might have represented either Isis suckling the babe Harpocrates, or the Madonna nursing the infant Jesus. In the smaller sarcophagi that surrounded the larger one, many leaden plates rolled like scrolls were found, eleven of which can still be deciphered. The contents of these ought to be regarded as final proof of a much‐vexed question, for they show that either the early Christians, up to the VIth Century, were _bonâ fide_ Pagans, or that dogmatic Christianity was borrowed wholesale, and passed in full into the Christian Church—Sun, Tree, Serpent, Crocodile and all.

On the first is seen Anubis ... holding out a scroll; at his feet are two female busts: below all are two serpents entwined about ... a corpse swathed up like a mummy. In the second scroll ... is Anubis, holding out a cross, the “Sign of Life.” Under his feet lies the corpse encircled in the numerous folds of a huge serpent, the Agathodæmon, guardian of the deceased.... In the third scroll ... the same Anubis bears on his arm an oblong object, ... held so as to convert the outline of the figure into a complete Latin cross. ... At the god’s foot is a rhomboid, the Egyptian “Egg of the World,” towards which crawls a serpent coiled into a circle.... Under the ... busts ... is the letter ω, repeated _seven_ times in a line, reminding one of the “Names.” ... Very remarkable also is the line of characters, apparently Palmyrene, upon the legs of the first Anubis. As for the figure of the _serpent_, supposing these talismans to emanate not from the Isiac but the newer Ophite creed, it may well stand for that “True and perfect Serpent,” who “leads forth the souls of all that put their trust in him out of the Egypt of the body, and through the Red Sea of Death into the Land of Promise, saving them on their way from the Serpents of the Wilderness, that is, from the Rulers of the Stars.”(664)

And this “true and perfect Serpent” is the seven‐lettered God who is now credited with being Jehovah, and Jesus _one with him_. To this seven‐ vowelled God the candidate for Initiation is sent by the “First Mystery,” in the _Pistis‐Sophia_, a work earlier than St. John’s _Revelation_, and evidently of the same school. “The (Serpent of the) Seven Thunders uttered these seven vowels,” but “seal up those things which the Seven Thunders uttered, and write them not,” says _Revelation_. “Do ye seek after these mysteries?”—inquires Jesus in _Pistis‐Sophia_. “No mystery is more excellent than they [the seven vowels]; for they shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights”—_i.e._, true Wisdom. “Nothing, therefore, is more excellent than the mysteries which ye seek after, saving only the mystery of the _Seven Vowels_ and their _forty and nine_ Powers, and the numbers thereof.”

In India, it was the mystery of the _Seven Fires_ and their Forty‐nine Fires or aspects, or “the numbers thereof.”

These Seven Vowels are represented by the Svastika signs on the crowns of the seven heads of the Serpent of Eternity, in India, among Esoteric “Buddhists,” in Egypt, in Chaldæa, etc., and among the Initiates of every other country. They are the Seven Zones of _post mortem_ ascent, in the Hermetic writings, in each of which the “Mortal” leaves one of his Souls, or Principles; until arrived on the plane above all Zones, he remains as the great Formless Serpent of Absolute Wisdom, or the Deity Itself. The seven‐headed Serpent has more than one signification in the arcane teachings. It is the seven‐headed Draco, each of whose heads is a star of the Lesser Bear; but it was also, and preëminently, the Serpent of Darkness, inconceivable and incomprehensible, whose seven heads were the seven Logoi, the reflections of the one and first‐manifested Light—the Universal Logos.

Section XI. Demon est Deus Inversus.

This symbolical sentence, in its many‐sided forms, is certainly most dangerous and iconoclastic in the face of all the dualistic later religions, or rather theologies, and especially so in the light of Christianity. Yet it is neither just nor correct to say that it is Christianity which has conceived and brought forth Satan. As an “Adversary,” the opposing Power required by the equilibrium and harmony of things in Nature, as Shadow is required to make still brighter the Eight, as Night to bring into greater relief the Day, and as Cold to make one appreciate the more the comfort of Heat, so has Satan ever existed. Homogeneity is one and indivisible. But if the homogeneous One and Absolute is no mere figure of speech, and if Heterogeneity, in its dualistic aspect, is its offspring, its bifurcous shadow or reflection, then even that divine Homogeneity must contain in itself the essence of both good and evil. If “God” is Absolute, Infinite, and the Universal Root of all and everything in Nature and its Universe, whence comes Evil or D’Evil if not from the same Golden Womb of the Absolute? Thus we are forced either to accept the emanation of good and evil, of Agathodæmon and Kakodæmon, as offshoots from the same trunk of the Tree of Being, or to resign ourselves to the absurdity of believing in two eternal Absolutes!

Having to trace the origin of the idea to the very beginnings of the human mind, it is but just, meanwhile, to give his due even to the proverbial Devil. Antiquity knew of no isolated, thoroughly and absolutely bad “God of evil.” Pagan thought represented good and evil as twin brothers, born from the same mother—Nature; so soon as that thought ceased to be archaic, Wisdom passed into Philosophy. In the beginning the symbols of good and evil were mere abstractions, Light and Darkness; later their types were chosen among the most natural and ever‐recurrent periodical cosmic phenomena—the Day and Night, or the Sun and Moon. Then the Hosts of the Solar and Lunar Deities were made to represent them, and the Dragon of Darkness was contrasted with the Dragon of Light. The Host of Satan is a Son of God, no less than the Host of the B’ne Alhim, the Children of God who came to “present themselves before the Lord,” their Father.(665) “The Sons of God” become the “Fallen Angels” only after perceiving that the daughters of men _were fair_.(666) In the Indian philosophy, the Suras are among the earliest and the brightest Gods, and become Asuras only when dethroned by Brâhmanical fancy, Satan never assumed an anthropomorphic, individualized shape, until the creation by man, of a “one _living_ personal God,” had been accomplished; and then merely as a matter of prime necessity. A screen was needed; a scape‐goat to explain the cruelty, blunders, and but too‐evident injustice, perpetrated by him for whom absolute perfection, mercy and goodness were claimed. This was the first Karmic effect of abandoning a philosophical and logical Pantheism, to build, as a prop for lazy man, “a merciful Father in Heaven,” whose daily and hourly actions, as Natura Naturans, the “comely Mother but stone cold,” belie the assumption. This led to the primal twins, Osiris‐Typhon, Ormazd‐Ahriman, and finally Cain‐Abel and the _tutti quanti_ of contraries.

Having commenced by being synonymous with Nature, “God,” the Creator, ended by being made its author. Pascal settles the difficulty very cunningly by saying:

Nature has perfections, in order to show that she is the image of God; and defects, in order to show that she is _only_ his image.

The further back one recedes into the darkness of the prehistoric ages, the more philosophical does the prototypic figure of the later Satan appear. The first “Adversary,” in individual human form, that one meets with in old Purânic literature, is one of her greatest Rishis and Yogis—Nârada, surnamed the “Strife‐maker.”

And he is a Brahmaputra, a son of Brahmâ, the male. But of him later on. Who the great “Deceiver” really is, one can ascertain by searching for him, _with open eyes_ and an unprejudiced mind, in every old Cosmogony and Scripture.

It is the anthropomorphized Demiurge, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, when separated from the collective Hosts of his Fellow‐Creators, whom, so to speak, he represents and synthesizes. It is _now_ the God of Theologies. “The wish is father to the thought.” Once upon a time, a philosophical symbol left to perverse human fancy; afterwards, fashioned into a fiendish, deceiving, cunning, and jealous God.

As the Dragons and other Fallen Angels are described in other parts of this work, a few words upon the much‐slandered Satan will be sufficient. The student will do well to remember that, with every people, except the Christian nations, the Devil is to this day no worse an entity than the opposite aspect, in the dual nature of the so‐called Creator. This is only natural. One cannot claim God as the synthesis of the whole Universe, as Omnipresent and Omniscient and Infinite, and then divorce him from Evil. As there is far more Evil than Good in the world, it follows on logical grounds that either God must include Evil, or stand as the direct cause of it, or else surrender his claims to Absoluteness. The Ancients understood this so well that their philosophers, now followed by the Kabalists, defined Evil as the “lining” of God or Good; _Demon est Deus inversus_, being a very old adage. Indeed, Evil is but an antagonizing blind force in Nature; it is reäction, opposition, and contrast—evil for some, good for others. There is no _malum in se_; only the Shadow of Light, without which Light could have no existence, even in our perceptions. If Evil disappeared, Good would disappear along with it from Earth. The “Old Dragon” was pure Spirit before he became Matter, _passive_ before he became _active_. In the Syro‐Chaldean Magic both Ophis and Ophiomorphos are joined in the Zodiac in the sign of the Androgyne Virgo‐Scorpio. Before its fall on earth the Serpent was Ophis‐Christos, and after its fall it became Ophiomorphos‐Chrestos. Everywhere the speculations of the Kabalists treat of Evil as a _Force_, which is antagonistic, but at the same time essential, to Good, as giving it vitality and existence, which it could never have otherwise. There would be no _Life_ possible (in the mâyâvic sense) without _Death_; no regeneration and reconstruction without destruction. Plants would perish in eternal sunlight, and so would man, who would become an automaton without the exercise of his free will, and his aspiring towards that sunlight, which would lose its being and value for him had he nothing but light. Good is infinite and eternal only in the eternally concealed from us, and this is why we imagine it eternal. On the manifested planes, one equilibrates the other. Few are those Theists, believers in a Personal God, who do not make of Satan the shadow of God; or who, confounding both, do not believe they have a right to pray to their idol, asking its help and protection for the exercise of and immunity for their evil and cruel deeds. “Lead us not into temptation” is addressed daily to “our Father, in Heaven,” and not to the Devil, by millions of Christian hearts. This they do, repeating the very words put into the mouth of their Saviour, and yet do not give one thought to the fact that their meaning is contradicted point blank by James, “the brother of the Lord”:

Let do man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.(667)

Why, then, say that it is the Devil who tempts us, when the Church teaches us, _on the authority of Christ_, that it is God who does so? Open any pious volume in which the word “temptation” is defined in its theological sense, and forthwith you find two definitions:

(1) Those afflictions and troubles _whereby God tries his people_; (2) Those means and enticements which the Devil makes use of to _ensnare_ and allure mankind.(668)

Accepted literally, the teachings of Christ and James contradict each other, and what dogma can reconcile the two if the Occult meaning is rejected?

Between the alternative allurements, wise will be that philosopher who will be able to decide where God disappears to make room for the Devil! Therefore, when we read that “the Devil is a liar and the father of it,” that is an _incarnate lie_, and are also told in the same breath that Satan, the Devil, was a Son of God and the most beautiful of his Archangels, rather than believe that Father and Son are a gigantic, personified and eternal Lie, we prefer to turn to Pantheism and to Pagan philosophy for information.

Once that the key to _Genesis_ is in our hands, the scientific and symbolical Kabalah unveils the secret. The Great Serpent of the Garden of Eden and the “Lord God” are identical, and so are Jehovah and Cain—that Cain who is referred to in Theology as the “murderer” and the Liar to God! Jehovah tempts the King of Israel to number the people, and Satan tempts him to do the same in another place. Jehovah turns into the Fiery Serpents to bite those he is displeased with; and Jehovah informs the Brazen Serpent that heals them.

These short, and seemingly contradictory, statements in the _Old Testament_—contradictory because the two Powers are separated instead of being regarded as the two faces of one and the same thing—are the echoes, distorted out of recognition by exotericism and theology, of the universal and philosophical dogmas in Nature, so well understood by the primitive Sages. We find the same groundwork in several personifications in the _Purânas_, only far more ample and philosophically suggestive.

Thus Pulastya, a “Son of God,” one of the first progeny, is made the progenitor of Demons, the Râkshasas, the tempters and the devourers of men. Pishâchâ, a female Demon, is a daughter of Daksha, a “Son of God” too, and a God, and the mother of all the Pishâchas.(669) The Demons, so‐ called in the _Purânas_, are very extraordinary Devils when judged from the standpoint of European and orthodox views, since all of them, Dânavas, Daityas, Pishâchas, and Râkshasas, are represented as extremely pious, following the precepts of the _Vedas_, some of them even being great Yogins. But they oppose the clergy and ritualism, sacrifices and forms, just as the head Yogins do to this day in India, and are no less respected for it, though they are permitted to follow neither caste nor ritual; hence all those Purânic Giants and Titans are called Devils. The missionaries, ever on the watch to show, if they can, that the Hindû traditions are nothing better than a reflection of the Jewish _Bible_, have evolved a whole romance on the alleged identity of Pulastya with Cain, and of the Râkshasas with the Cainites, the “Accursed,” the cause of the “Noachian” Deluge. (See the work of Abbé Gorresio, who “etymologizes” Pulastya’s name as meaning the “rejected,” hence Cain, if you please). Pulastya dwells in Kedara, he says, which means a “dug‐up place,” a “mine,” and Cain is shown, in tradition and the _Bible_, as the first worker in metals and a miner thereof!

While it is very probable that the Gibborim, or Giants, of the _Bible_ are the Râkshasas of the Hindûs, it is still more certain that both are Atlanteans, and belong to the submerged races. However it may be, no Satan could be more persistent in slandering his enemy, or more spiteful in his hatred, than the Christian Theologians are in cursing him as the father of every evil. Compare their vituperation and their opinions about the Devil with the philosophical views of the Purânic Sages and their Christ‐like mansuetude. When Parâshara, whose father was devoured by a Râkshasa, was preparing himself to destroy, by magic arts, the whole race, his grandsire, Vasishtha, after showing the irate Sage, on his own confession, that there is Evil and Karma, but no “evil Spirits” speaks the following suggestive words:

Let thy wrath be appeased: the Râkshasas are not culpable; thy father’s death _was the work of Destiny_ [_Karma_]. Anger is the passion of fools; it becometh not a wise man. _By whom, it may be asked, is any one killed?_ Every man _reaps the consequences of his own acts_. Anger, my son, is the destruction of all that man obtains ... and prevents the attainment ... of emancipation. The ... sages shun wrath: be not thou, my child, subject to its influence. Let no more of those _unoffending_ spirits of darkness be consumed; let this thy sacrifice cease. Mercy is the might of the righteous.(670)

Thus, every such “sacrifice” or prayer to God for help is no better than _an act of Black Magic_. That which Parâshara prayed for, was the destruction of the Spirits of Darkness, for his personal revenge. He is called a Pagan, and the Christians have doomed him, as such, to Eternal Hell. Yet, in what respect is the prayer of sovereigns and generals, who pray before every battle for the destruction of their enemy, any better? Such a prayer is in every case Black Magic of the worst kind, concealed like a demon “Mr. Hyde” under a sanctimonious “Dr. Jekyll.”

In human nature, evil denotes only the polarity of Matter and Spirit, a “struggle for life” between the two manifested Principles in Space and Time, which Principles are one _per se_, inasmuch as they are rooted in the Absolute. In Cosmos, the equilibrium must be preserved. The operations of the two contraries produce harmony, like the centripetal and centrifugal forces, which, being mutually inter‐dependent, are necessary to each other, “in order that both should live.” If one should be arrested, the action of the other would become immediately self‐ destructive.

Since the personification called Satan has been amply analyzed from its triple aspect, in the _Old Testament_, Christian Theology and the ancient Gentile attitude of thought, those who would learn more of the subject are referred to _Isis Unveiled_(671) and the Second Part of Volume II of the present work. The subject is here touched upon, and fresh explanations are attempted, for a very good reason. Before we can approach the evolution of Physical and Divine Man, we have first to master the idea of Cyclic Evolution, to acquaint ourselves with the philosophies and beliefs of the four Races which preceded our present Race, and to learn what were the ideas of those Titans and Giants—Giants, verily, mentally, as well as physically. The whole of antiquity was imbued with that philosophy which teaches the involution of Spirit into Matter, the progressive, downward cyclic descent, or active, self‐conscious evolution. The Alexandrian Gnostics have sufficiently divulged the secrets of Initiations, and their records are full of the “falling down of the Æons,” in their double qualification of Angelic Beings and Periods; the one the natural evolution of the other. On the other hand, Oriental traditions on both sides of the “Black Water,” the Oceans that separate the two “Easts,” are equally full of allegories about the downfall of the Plerôma, or that of the Gods and Devas. One and all, they allegorized and explained the Fall as _the desire to learn and acquire knowledge—the desire to know_. This is the natural sequence of mental evolution, the Spiritual becoming transmuted into the Material or Physical. The same law of descent into Materiality and of reäscent into Spirituality asserted itself during the Christian era, the reäction having only stopped just now, in our own special Sub‐race.

That which was allegorized in _Pymander_, perhaps ten millenniums ago, for a triune mode of interpretation, and intended for a record of an astronomical, anthropological, and even alchemical fact, namely, the allegory of the Seven Rectors breaking through the Seven Circles of Fire, was dwarfed into one material and anthropomorphic interpretation—the Rebellion and Fall of the Angels. The multivocal, profoundly philosophical narrative, under its poetical form of the “Marriage of Heaven with Earth,” the love of Nature for Divine Form, and the Heavenly Man enraptured with his own beauty mirrored in Nature, that is to say, Spirit attracted into Matter, has now become, under theological handling, the Seven Rectors disobeying Jehovah, self‐admiration generating Satanic pride, followed by their Fall, Jehovah permitting no worship to be lost save upon himself. In short, the beautiful Planet‐Angels, the glorious Cyclic Æons of the Ancients, have become synthesized in their most orthodox shape in Samael, the Chief of the Demons in the _Talmud_, “that Great Serpent with Twelve Wings that draws down after himself, in his Fall, the Solar System, or the Titans.” But Schemal—the _alter ego_ and the Sabean type of Samael—in his philosophical and esoteric aspect, meant the “Year,” in its astrological evil aspect, with its twelve months or “Wings” of unavoidable evils, in Nature. In Esoteric Theogony both Schemal and Samael represented a

## particular divinity.(672) With the Kabalists they are the “Spirit of the

Earth,” the Personal God that governs it, and therefore _de facto_ identical with Jehovah. For the Talmudists themselves admit that Samael is a god‐name of one of the seven Elohim. The Kabalists, moreover, show the two, Schemal and Samael, as a symbolical form of Saturn, Cronus; the “Twelve Wings” standing for the twelve months, and the symbol in its collectivity representing _a racial cycle_. Jehovah and Saturn are also glyphically identical.

This leads, in its turn, to a very curious deduction from a Roman Catholic dogma. Many renowned writers belonging to the Latin Church admit that a difference exists, and should be made, between the Uranian Titans, the antediluvian Giants, who were also Titans, and those post‐diluvian Giants, in whom the Roman Catholics persist in seeing the descendants of the mythical Ham. In clearer words, there is a difference to be made between the cosmic, _primordial_ opposing Forces, guided by Cyclic Law, the Atlantean human Giants, and the post‐diluvian great Adepts, whether of the Right or the Left‐hand. At the same time they show that Michael, “the _generalissimo_ of the fighting Celestial Host, the _bodyguard of Jehovah_,” as it would seem, according to de Mirville, is also a Titan, only with the adjective of “divine” before the cognomen. Thus those “Uranides” who are called everywhere “Divine Titans”—and who, having rebelled against Cronus, or Saturn, are therefore also shown to be the enemies of Samael, also one of the Elohim, and synonymous with Jehovah in his collectivity—are identical with Michael and his Host. In short, the _rôles_ are reversed, all the combatants are confused, and no student is able to distinguish clearly which is which. Esoteric explanation may, however, bring some order into this confusion, in which Jehovah becomes Saturn, and Michael and his Army, Satan and the Rebellious Angels, owing to the indiscreet endeavours of the too faithful zealots to see a Devil in every Pagan God. The true meaning is far more philosophical, and the legend of the first “Fall” of the Angels assumes a scientific colouring when correctly understood.

Cronus stands for endless, and hence immovable Duration, without beginning, without end, beyond divided Time and beyond Space. Those Angels, Genii, or Devas, who were born _to act in space and time_, that is, to break through the _Seven Circles_ of the super‐spiritual planes into the phenomenal, or circumscribed, super‐terrestrial regions, are said allegorically to have _rebelled_ against Cronus, and fought the Lion who was then the one living and highest God. When Cronus, in his turn, is represented as mutilating Uranus, his father, the meaning of the allegory is very simple. Absolute Time is made to become the finite and conditioned; a portion is robbed from the whole, thus showing that Saturn, the Father of the Gods, has been transformed from Eternal Duration into a limited period. Cronus with his scythe cuts down even the longest and, to us, seemingly endless cycles, which, for all that, are limited in Eternity, and with the same scythe destroys the mightiest rebels. Aye, not one will escape the scythe of Time! Praise the God or Gods, or flout one or both, that scythe will not tremble one millionth of a second in its ascending or descending course.

The Titans of Hesiod’s _Theogony_ were copied in Greece from the Suras and Asuras of India. These Hesiodic Titans, the Uranides, which were once upon a time numbered as only six, have been recently discovered, in an old fragment relating to the Greek myth, to be _seven_, the seventh being called Phoreg. Thus their identity with the Seven Rectors is fully demonstrated. The origin of the War in Heaven and the Fall has, in our mind, to be traced unavoidably to India, and perhaps far earlier than the Purânic accounts thereof. For the Târakâmaya was in a later age, and there are accounts of three distinct Wars to be traced in almost every Cosmogony.

The first War happened in the night of time, between the Gods and (A)‐suras, and lasted for the period of one Divine Year.(673) On this occasion the Deities were defeated by the Daityas, under the leadership of Hrâda. But afterwards, owing to a device of Vishnu, to whom the conquered Gods applied for help, the latter defeated the Asuras. In the _Vishnu Purâna_ no interval is found between the two Wars. In the Esoteric Doctrine, however, one War takes place before the building of the Solar System; another, on Earth, at the “creation” of man; and a third War is mentioned as taking place at the close of the Fourth Race, between its Adepts and those of the Fifth Race; that is, between the Initiates of the “Sacred Island” and the Sorcerers of Atlantis. We shall notice the first contest, as recounted by Parâshara, and endeavour to separate the two accounts, which are purposely blended together.

It is there stated that as the Daityas and Asuras were engaged in the duties of their respective Orders (Varnas) and followed the paths prescribed by holy writ, practising also religious penance—a queer employment for _Demons_ if they are identical with our _Devils_, as it is claimed—it was impossible for the Gods to destroy them. The prayers addressed by the Gods to Vishnu are curious, as showing the ideas involved in an anthropomorphic Deity. Having, after their defeat, “fled to the northern shore of the Milky Ocean [Atlantic Ocean],”(674) the discomfited Gods address many supplications “to the first of Beings, the divine Vishnu,” and among others the following:

Glory to thee, who art one with the Saints, whose perfect nature is ever blessed, and traverses, unobstructed, all permeable elements. Glory to thee, _who art one with the Serpent‐Race, double‐tongued, impetuous, cruel, insatiate of enjoyment_ and abounding with wealth.... Glory to thee, ... O Lord, _who hast neither colour nor extension_, nor bulk (_ghana_), _nor any predicable qualities_, and whose essence (_rûpa_), purest of the pure, is appreciable only by holy Paramarshis [the greatest of Sages or Rishis]. We bow to thee, in the nature of Brahma, uncreated, undecaying (_avyaya_); who _art in our bodies_, and _in all other bodies, and in all living creatures_; and beside whom nothing exists. We glorify that Vâsudeva, the lord (of all), who is without soil, the seed of all things, exempt from dissolution, unborn, eternal; being, in essence, Paramapadâtmavat [beyond the condition of Spirit], and, in substance (_rûpa_), the whole of this (Universe).(675)

The above is quoted as an illustration of the vast field offered by the _Purânas_ to adverse and erroneous criticism, by every European bigot who forms an estimate of an alien religion on mere external evidence. Any man accustomed to subject what he reads to thoughtful analysis, will see at a glance the incongruity of addressing the accepted “Unknowable,” the formless, and attributeless Absolute, such as the Vedântins define Brahman, as being “one with the Serpent‐Race, double‐tongued, cruel and insatiable,” thus associating the abstract with the concrete, and bestowing adjectives on that which is free from any limitations, and conditionless. Even Professor Wilson, who, after living surrounded by Brâhmans and Pandits in India for so many years, ought to have known better—even that scholar lost no opportunity of criticizing the Hindû Scriptures on this account. Thus, he exclaims:

The _Purânas_ constantly teach incompatible doctrines! According to this passage,(676) the Supreme Being is not the inert cause of creation only, but exercises the functions of an active providence. The Commentator quotes a text of the _Veda_ in support of this view: “Universal Soul entering into men, governs their conduct.” Incongruities, however, are as frequent in the _Vedas_ as in the _Purânas_.

Less frequent, in sober truth, than in the Mosaic _Bible_. But prejudice is great in the hearts of our Orientalists, especially in those of “reverend” scholars. Universal Soul is _not_ the inert Cause of Creation or (Para) Brahman, but simply that which we call the Sixth Principle of _Intellectual_ Kosmos, on the manifested plane of being. It is Mahat, or Mahâbuddhi, the Great Soul, the Vehicle of Spirit, the first primeval reflection of the formless CAUSE, and that which is even _beyond_ Spirit. So much for Professor Wilson’s uncalled‐for fling at the _Purânas_. As for the apparently incongruous appeal to Vishnu by the defeated Gods, the explanation is there, in the text of _Vishnu Purâna_, if Orientalists would only notice it. There is Vishnu as Brahmâ, and Vishnu _in his two aspects_, philosophy teaches. There is but one Brahman, “essentially Prakriti and Spirit.”

This ignorance is truly and beautifully expressed in the praise of the Yogins to Brahmâ, “the upholder of the earth,” when they say:

Those who have not practised devotion conceive erroneously of the nature of the world. The ignorant, who do not perceive that this Universe is of the nature of Wisdom, and judge of it as an object of perception only, are lost in the ocean of spiritual ignorance. But they who know true Wisdom, and whose minds are pure, behold this whole world _as one with Divine Knowledge_, as one with thee, O God! Be favourable, O universal Spirit!(677)

Therefore, it is not Vishnu, “the inert cause of creation,” which exercised the functions of an _Active_ Providence, but the Universal Soul, that which, in its material aspect, Éliphas Lévi calls Astral Light. And this Soul is, in its dual aspect of Spirit and Matter, the true anthropomorphic God of the Theists; for this God is a _personification_ of that Universal Creative Agent, both pure and impure, owing to its manifested condition and differentiation in this Mâyâvic World—_God_ and _Devil_, truly. But Professor Wilson failed to see how Vishnu, in this character, closely resembles the Lord God of Israel, “especially in his policy of deception, temptation, and cunning.”

In the _Vishnu Purâna_ this is made as plain as can be. For it is said there, that:

At the conclusion of their prayers (_stotra_) the Gods beheld the Sovereign Deity Hari (Vishnu) armed with the shell, the discus, and the mace, _riding on Garuda._

Now Garuda is the Manvantaric Cycle, as will be shown in its place. Vishnu, therefore, is the Deity _in Space and Time_, the peculiar God of the Vaishnavas. Such Gods are called in Esoteric Philosophy _tribal_ or _racial_; that is to say, one of the many Dhyânis or Gods, or Elohim, one of whom was generally chosen for some special reason by a nation or a tribe, and thus became gradually a “God _above all_ Gods,”(678) the “highest God,” as Jehovah, Osiris, Bel, or any other of the Seven Regents.

“The tree is known by its fruit”; the nature of a God by his actions. We must either judge these actions by the dead‐letter narratives, or must accept them allegorically. If we compare the two—Vishnu, as the defender and champion of the defeated Gods; and Jehovah, the defender and champion of the “chosen” people, so called by antiphrasis, no doubt, as it is the Jews who had chosen that “jealous” God—we shall find that both use deceit and cunning. They do so on the principle of “the end justifying the means,” in order to have the best of their respective opponents and foes—the Demons. Thus while, according to the Kabalists, Jehovah assumes the shape of the tempting Serpent in the Garden of Eden, sends Satan with a special mission to tempt Job, harasses and wearies Pharaoh with Saraï, Abraham’s wife, and “hardens” another Pharaoh’s heart against Moses, lest there should be no opportunity for plaguing his victims “with great plagues,” Vishnu is made in his _Purâna_ to resort to a trick no less unworthy of any respectable God.

The defeated Gods addressed Vishnu as follows:

Have compassion upon us, O Lord, and protect us, who have come to thee for succour from the Daityas (Demons)! They have seized upon the three worlds, and appropriated the offerings which are our portion, _taking care not to transgress the precepts of the Veda_. Although _we, as well as they, are parts of thee_(679) ... engaged [as they are] ... in the paths prescribed by the holy writ ... it is impossible for us to destroy them. Do thou, whose wisdom is immeasurable (Ameyâtman) instruct us _in some device_ by which we may be able to exterminate the enemies of the Gods!

When the mighty Vishnu heard their request, he emitted from his body an _illusory_ form (Mâyâmoha, the “deluder by illusion”) which he gave to the Gods and thus spake: “This Mâyâmoha shall _wholly beguile_ the Daityas, so that, being led astray from the path of the _Vedas_, they may be put to death.... Go then and fear not. Let this delusive vision precede you. It shall this day be of great service unto you, O Gods!”

After this, the great Delusion (Mâyâmoha) having proceeded (to earth), beheld the Daityas, engaged in ascetic penances, and approaching them, in the semblance of a Digambara (naked mendicant) with his head shaven ... he thus addressed them, in gentle accents: “Ho, lords of the Daitya race, wherefore is it that you practise these acts of penances?” etc.(680)

Finally the Daityas were seduced by the wily talk of Mâyâmoha, as Eve was seduced by the advice of the Serpent. They became apostates to the _Vedas_. As Dr. Muir translates the passage:

The great Deceiver, practising illusion, next beguiled other Daityas, by means of many other sorts of heresy. In a very short time, these Asuras (Daityas), deluded by the Deceiver [_who was Vishnu_] abandoned the entire system founded on the ordinances of the triple _Veda_. Some reviled the _Vedas_; others, the ceremonial of sacrifice; and others, the Brâhmans. This (they exclaimed), is a doctrine which will not bear discussion: the slaughter (of animals, in sacrifice), is not conducive to religious merit. (To say, that) oblations of butter consumed in the fire produce any future reward, is the assertion of a child.... If it be a fact that a beast slain in sacrifice is exalted to heaven, why does not the worshipper slaughter his own father?... Infallible utterances do not, great Asuras, fall from the skies; it is only assertions founded on reasoning that are accepted by me and by other [intelligent] persons like yourselves! Thus by numerous methods the Daityas were unsettled by the great Deceiver [_Reason_].... When the Daityas had entered on the path of error, the Deities mustered all their energies and approached to battle. Then followed a combat between the Gods and the Asuras; and the latter, who had abandoned the right road, were smitten by the former. In previous times they had been defended by the armour of righteousness which they bore; but, when that had been destroyed, they, also, perished.(681)

Whatever may be thought of the Hindûs, no enemy of theirs can regard them as fools. A people, whose holy men and sages have left to the world the greatest and most sublime philosophies that ever emanated from the minds of men, must have known the difference between right and wrong. Even a savage can discern white from black, good from bad, and deceit from sincerity and truthfulness. Those who had narrated this event in the biography of their God, must have seen that in this case it was that God who was the Arch‐Deceiver, and the Daityas, who “never transgressed the precepts of the _Vedas_,” who had the sunny side in the transaction, and who were the true “Gods.” Thence there must have been, and _there is_ a secret meaning hidden under this allegory. In no class of society, in no nation, are deceit and craft considered as _divine_ virtues—except perhaps in the clerical classes of Theologians and modern Jesuitism.

The _Vishnu Purâna_,(682) like all other works of this kind, passed at a later period into the hands of the Temple‐Brâhmans, and the old MSS. have, no doubt, been further tampered with by sectarians. But there was a time when the _Purânas_ were esoteric works, and so they are still for the Initiates who can read them with the key that is in their possession.

Whether the Brâhman Initiates will ever give out the full meaning of these allegories, is a question with which the writer is not concerned. The present object is to show that, while honouring the _Creative Powers_ in their multiple forms, no philosopher could have, or ever has, accepted the allegory for its true spirit, except, perhaps, some philosophers belonging to the present “superior and civilized” Christian races. For, as shown, Jehovah is not one whit the superior of Vishnu on the plane of ethics. This is why the Occultists, and even some Kabalists, whether or not they regard those creative Forces _as living and conscious Entities_—and one does not see why they should not be so accepted—will never confuse the Cause with the Effect, and accept the Spirit of the Earth for Parabrahman, or Ain Suph. At all events they know well the true nature of what was called by the Greeks Father‐Æther, Jupiter‐Titan, etc. They know that the Soul of the Astral Light is divine, and its Body—the Light‐waves on the lower planes—infernal. This Light is symbolized by the “Magic Head” in the _Zohar_, the Double Face on the Double Pyramid; the black Pyramid rising against a pure white ground, with _a white Head and Face within its black Triangle_; the White Pyramid, inverted—the reflection of the first in the dark Waters—showing the _black reflection of the white Face_.

This is the Astral Light, or _Demon est Deus Inversus_.

Section XII. The Theogony of the Creative Gods.

To thoroughly comprehend the idea underlying every ancient Cosmology necessitates the study and comparative analysis of all the great religions of antiquity; for it is only by this method that the root‐idea can be made plain. Exact Science, could it soar so high, in tracing the operations of Nature to their ultimate and original sources, would call this idea the Hierarchy of Forces. The original, transcendental and philosophical conception was one. But as systems began to reflect more and more with every age the idiosyncrasies of nations, and as the latter, after separating, settled into distinct groups, each evolving along its own national or tribal groove, the main idea gradually became veiled by the overgrowth of human fancy. While in some countries the Forces, or rather the intelligent Powers of Nature, received divine honours to which they were hardly entitled, in others—as now in Europe and the other _civilized_ lands—the very thought of such Forces being endowed with intelligence seems absurd, and is proclaimed _unscientific_. Therefore one finds relief in such statements as are found in the Introduction to _Asgard and the Gods_; “Tales and Traditions of our Northern Ancestors,” edited by W. S. W. Anson, who says:

Although in Central Asia, or on the banks of the Indus, in the Land of the Pyramids, and in the Greek and Italian peninsulas, and even in the North, whither Kelts, Teutons and Slavs wandered, the religious conceptions of the people have taken different forms, _yet their common origin_ is still perceptible. We point out this connection between the stories of the Gods, and the deep thought contained in them, and their importance, in order that the reader may see that _it is not a magic world of erratic fancy_ which opens out before him, but that ... _Life and Nature_ formed the basis of the existence and action of these divinities.(683)

And though it is impossible for any Occultist or student of Eastern Esotericism to concur in the strange idea that, “the religious conceptions of the most famous nations of antiquity are connected with the beginnings of civilization amongst the Germanic races,”(684) he is yet glad to find such truths expressed as that: “These fairy tales are not senseless stories written for the amusement of the idle; they embody the profound religion of our forefathers.”(685)

Precisely so. Not only their Religion, but likewise their History. For a myth, in Greek μῦθος, means oral tradition, passed from mouth to mouth from one generation to the other; and even in the modern etymology the term stands for a _fabulous_ statement conveying some important truth; a tale of some extraordinary personage whose biography has become overgrown, owing to the veneration of successive generations, with rich popular fancy, but which is no _wholesale_ fable. Like our ancestors, the primitive Âryans, we believe firmly in the personality and intelligence of more than one phenomenon‐producing Force in Nature.

As time rolled on, the archaic teaching grew dimmer; and the nations more or less lost sight of the Highest and One Principle of all things, and began to transfer the abstract attributes of the Causeless Cause to the caused effects, which became in their turn causative, the Creative Powers of the Universe; the great nations thus acted from fear of profaning the Idea; the smaller, because they either failed to grasp it, or lacked the power of philosophic conception needed to preserve it in all its immaculate purity. But one and all, with the exception of the latest Âryans, now become Europeans and Christians, show this veneration in their Cosmogonies. As Thomas Taylor,(686) the most intuitional of all the translators of the Greek Fragments, shows, no nation has ever conceived the One Principle as the immediate creator of the visible Universe, for no sane man would credit a planner and architect with having built with his own hands the edifice he admires. On the testimony of Damascius in his work, _On First Principles_ (Περὶ Πρώτων Ἀρχῶν), they referred to it as the “Unknown Darkness.” The Babylonians passed over this principle in silence. “To that God,” says Porphyry, in his _On Abstinence_ (Περί ἀποχῆς τῶν ἐμψύχων), “who is above all things, neither external speech ought to be addressed, nor yet that which is inward.” Hesiod begins his _Theogony_ with the words, “Chaos of all things was the first produced,”(687) thus allowing the inference that its Cause or Producer must be passed over in reverential silence. Homer in his poems ascends no higher than Night, which he represents Zeus as reverencing. According to all the ancient theologists, and the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato, Zeus, or the immediate Artificer of the Universe, _is not the highest God_; any more than Sir Christopher Wren in his physical, human aspect is the Mind in him which produced his great works of art. Homer, therefore, is not only silent with respect to the First Principle, but likewise with respect to those two Principles immediately posterior to the First, the Æther and Chaos of Orpheus and Hesiod, and the Bound and Infinity of Pythagoras and Plato.(688) Proclus says of this Highest Principle that it is “the Unity of Unities, and beyond the first Adyta ... more ineffable than all Silence, and more occult than all Essence ... concealed amidst the intelligible Gods.”(689)

To what was written by Thomas Taylor in 1797—namely, that the “Jews appear to have ascended no higher ... than the _immediate_ Artificer of the Universe,” as “Moses introduces a darkness on the face of the deep, without even insinuating that there was any cause of its existence,”(690) one might add something more. Never have the Jews in their _Bible_—a purely esoteric, symbolical work—so profoundly degraded their metaphorical deity as have the Christians, by accepting Jehovah as their one living yet _personal_ God.

This First, or rather One, Principle was called the “Circle of Heaven,” symbolized by the hierogram of a Point within a Circle or Equilateral Triangle, the Point being the Logos. Thus, in the _Rig Veda_, wherein Brahmâ is not even named. Cosmogony is preluded with the Hiranyagarbha, the “Golden Egg,” and Prajâpati (later on Brahmâ), from whom emanate all the Hierarchies of “Creators.” The Monad, or Point, is the original and is the Unit from which follows the entire numeral system. This Point is the First Cause, but THAT from which it emanates, or of which, rather, it is the expression, the Logos, is passed over in silence. In its turn, the universal symbol, the _Point __ within the Circle_, was not yet the Architect, but the Cause of that Architect; and the latter stood to it in precisely the same relation as the Point itself stood to the Circumference of the Circle, which cannot be defined, according to Hermes Trismegistus. Porphyry shows that the Monad and the Duad of Pythagoras are identical with Plato’s Infinite and Finite, in _Philebus_, or what Plato calls the ἄπειρον and πέρας. It is the latter only, the Mother, which is substantial, the former being the “Cause of all Unity and measure of all things”;(691) the Duad, Mûlaprakriti, the Veil of Parabrahman, being thus shown to be the Mother of the Logos and, at the same time, his Daughter—that is to say, the object of his perception—the produced producer and the secondary cause of it. With Pythagoras, the Monad returns into Silence and Darkness, as soon as it has evolved the Triad, from which emanate the remaining 7 numbers of the 10 numbers which are at the base of the Manifested Universe.

In the Norse Cosmogony it is again the same.

In the beginning was a great Abyss (Chaos), neither Day nor Night existed; the Abyss was Ginnungagap, the yawning gulf, without beginning, without end. All‐Father, the Uncreated, the Unseen, dwelt in the Depth of the Abyss (Space) and _willed_, and what was willed came into being.(692)

As in the Hindû Cosmogony, the evolution of the Universe is divided into two acts, which are called in India the Prâkrita and Pâdma Creations. Before the warm rays pouring from the Home of Brightness awaken life in the Great Waters of Space, the Elements of the First Creation come into view, and from them is formed the Giant Ymir, or Örgelmir (literally, Seething Clay), Primordial Matter differentiated from Chaos. Then comes the Cow Audumla, the Nourisher,(693) from whom is born Buri, the Producer, whose son Bör (Born), by Bestla, the daughter of the Frost‐Giants, the sons of Ymir, had three sons, Odin, Willi and We, or Spirit, Will, and Holiness. This was when Darkness still reigned throughout Space, when the Ases, the Creative Powers, or Dhyân Chohans, were not yet evolved, and the Yggdrasil, the Tree of the Universe of Time and of Life, had not yet grown, and there was, as yet, no Walhalla, or Hall of Heroes. The Scandinavian legends of Creation, of our Earth and World, begin with Time and human Life. All that precedes it is for them Darkness, wherein All‐ Father, the Cause of all, dwells. As observed by the editor of _Asgard and the Gods_, though these legends have in them the idea of that All‐Father, the original cause of all, “he is scarcely more than mentioned in the poems,” not, as he thinks, because before the preaching of the Gospel, the idea “could not rise to distinct conceptions of the Eternal,” but on account of its deep esoteric character. Therefore, all the Creative Gods, or _Personal_ Deities, begin at the secondary stage of Cosmic Evolution. Zeus is born _in_, and _out_ of Cronus—Time. So is Brahmâ the production and emanation of Kâla, “Eternity and Time,” Kâla being one of the names of Vishnu. Hence we find Odin, the Father of _the Gods and of the Ases_, as Brahmâ is the Father of _the Gods and of the Asuras_; and hence also the androgyne character of all the chief Creative Gods, from the second Monad of the Greeks down to the Sephira Adam Kadmon, the Brahmâ or Prajâpati‐ Vâch of the _Vedas_, and the androgyne of Plato, which is but another version of the Indian symbol.

The best metaphysical definition of primeval Theogony, in the spirit of the Vedântins, may be found in the “Notes on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_”, by T. Subba Row. Parabrahman, the Unknown and the Incognizable, as the lecturer tells his audience:

Is not Ego, it is not Non‐Ego, nor is it consciousness ... it is not even Âtmâ ... but though not itself an object of knowledge, it is yet capable of supporting and giving rise to every kind of object and every kind of existence which becomes an object of knowledge.... [It is] the one essence from which starts into existence a centre of energy ... [which he calls the Logos].(694)

This Logos is the Shabda Brahman of the Hindûs, which he will not even call Îshvara (the “Lord” God), lest the term should create confusion in the people’s minds. It is the Avalokiteshvara of the Buddhists, the Verbum of the Christians in its real _esoteric_ meaning, not in its theological disfigurement.

It is, the first Jñâta, or the Ego in the Kosmos, and every other Ego ... is but its reflection and manifestation.... It exists in a latent condition in the bosom of Parabrahman, at the time of Pralaya.... [During Manvantara] it has a consciousness and an individuality of its own.... [It is a centre of energy, but] such centres of energy are almost innumerable in the bosom of Parabrahman. It must not be supposed, that [even] this Logos is [_the_ Creator, or that it is] but a single centre of energy.... Their number is almost infinite.... [This] is the first Ego that appears in Kosmos, and is the end of all evolution. [It is the abstract Ego].... This is the _first_ manifestation [or aspect] of Parabrahman.... When once it starts into existence as a conscious being, ... from its objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as Mûlaprakriti. Please bear this in mind ... for here is the root of the whole difficulty about Purusha and Prakriti felt by the various writers on Vedântic philosophy.... This Mûlaprakriti is material to it [the Logos], as any material object is material to us. This Mûlaprakriti is no more Parabrahman than the bundle of attributes of a pillar is the pillar itself; Parabrahman is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mûlaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it. Parabrahman by itself cannot be seen as it is. It is seen by the Logos with a veil thrown over it, and that veil is the mighty expanse of Cosmic Matter.... Parabrahman, after having appeared on the one hand as the Ego, and on the other as Mûlaprakriti, acts as the one energy through the Logos.(695)

And the lecturer explains what he means by this acting of Something which is _Nothing_, though it is the ALL, by a fine simile. He compares the Logos to the Sun through which light and heat radiate, but whose energy, light and heat, exist in some unknown condition in Space and are diffused in Space only as _visible_ light and heat, the Sun being only the agent thereof. This is the first triadic hypostasis. The quaternary is made up by the _energizing light_ shed by the Logos.

The Hebrew Kabalists stated it in a manner which is esoterically identical with the Vedântic. Ain Suph, they taught, could not be comprehended, could not be located, nor named, though the Causeless Cause of all. Hence its name, Ain Suph, is a term of negation, “the Inscrutable, the Incognizable, and the Unnameable.” They made of it, therefore, a Boundless Circle, a Sphere, of which human intellect, with the utmost stretch, could only perceive the vault. In the words of one who has unriddled much in the Kabalistical system most thoroughly, in one of its meanings, in its numerical and geometrical esotericism:

Close your eyes, and from your own consciousness of perception try and think outward to the extremest limits in every direction. You will find that equal lines or rays of perception extend out evenly in all directions, so that the utmost effort of perception will terminate in the _vault of a sphere_. The limitation of this sphere will, of necessity, be a great Circle, and the direct rays of thought in any and every direction must be right line radii of the circle. This, then, _must_ be, humanly speaking, the extremest all‐embracing conception of the Ain Suph _manifest_, which formulates itself as a geometrical figure, viz., of a circle, with its elements of curved circumference and right line diameter divided into radii. Hence, a geometrical shape is the first recognizable means of connection between the Ain Suph and the intelligence of man.(696)

This Great Circle, which Eastern Esotericism reduces to the Point within the Boundless Circle, is the Avalokiteshvara, the Logos, or Verbum, of which T. Subba Row speaks. But this Circle or manifested God is as unknown to us, except through its _manifested_ Universe, as is the ONE, though easier, or rather more possible to our highest conceptions. This Logos which sleeps in the bosom of Parabrahman, during Pralaya, as our “Ego is latent [in us] at the time of Sushupti,” or sleep, which cannot cognize Parabrahman otherwise than as Mûlaprakriti—the latter being a Cosmic Veil which is “the mighty expanse of Cosmic Matter”—is thus only an organ in Cosmic Creation, through which radiate the Energy and Wisdom of Parabrahman, _unknown to the Logos, as it is to ourselves_. Moreover, as the Logos is as unknown to us as Parabrahman is unknown in reality to the Logos, both Eastern Esotericism and the Kabalah, in order to bring the Logos within the range of our conceptions, have resolved the abstract synthesis into concrete images; viz., into the reflections or multiplied aspects of that Logos, or Avalokiteshvara, Brahmâ Ormazd, Osiris, Adam Kadmon, call it by any of such names you will; which aspects, or manvantaric emanations, are the Dhyân Chohans, the Elohim, the Devas, the Amshaspends, etc. Metaphysicians explain the root and germ of the latter, according to T. Subba Row, as the first manifestation of Parabrahman, “the highest trinity that we are capable of understanding,” which is Mûlaprakriti, the Veil, the Logos, and the Conscious Energy of the latter, or its Power and Light, called in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, Daiviprakriti; or “Matter, Force and the Ego, or the one root of Self, of which every other kind of self is but a manifestation or a reflection.” It is then only in this Light of consciousness, of mental and physical perception, that _practical_ Occultism can throw the Logos into visibility by geometrical figures, which, when closely studied, will yield not only a scientific explanation of the real, objective, existence(697) of the “Seven Sons of the Divine Sophia,” which is this Light of the Logos, but will show, by means of other yet undiscovered keys, that, with regard to Humanity, these “Seven Sons” and their numberless emanations, centres of energy personified, are an absolute necessity. Make away with them, and the Mystery of Being and Mankind _will never be unriddled, nor even closely approached_.

It is through this Light that everything is created. This Root of mental SELF is also the root of physical _Self_, for this Light is the permutation, in our manifested world, of Mûlaprakriti, called Aditi in the _Vedas_. In its third aspect it becomes Vâch,(698) the Daughter and the Mother of the Logos, as Isis is the Daughter and the Mother of Osiris, who is Horns, and Moot, the Daughter, Wife, and Mother, of Ammon, in the Egyptian Moon‐glyph. In the _Kabalah_, Sephira is the same as Shekinah, and is, in another synthesis, the Wife, Daughter, and Mother of the Heavenly Man, Adam Kadmon, and is even identical with him, just as Vâch is identical with Brahmâ, and is called the female Logos. In the _Rig Veda_, Vâch is “Mystic Speech,” by whom Occult Knowledge and Wisdom are communicated to man, and thus Vâch is said to have “entered the Rishis.” She is “generated by the Gods”; she is the Divine Vâch, the “Queen of Gods”; and she is associated, like Sephira with the Sephiroth, with the Prajâpatis in their work of creation. Moreover, she is called the “Mother of the _Vedas_,” “since it is through her powers, [as Mystic _Speech_] that Brahmâ revealed them, and also owing to her power that he produced the Universe”; that is to say, through Speech, and words, synthesized by the “Word” and numbers.(699)

But when Vâch is also spoken of as the daughter of Daksha, “the God who lives in all the Kalpas,” her mâyâvic character is shown; during the Pralaya she disappears, absorbed in the One, all‐devouring Ray.

But there are two distinct aspects in universal Esotericism, Eastern and Western, in all these personations of the female Power in Nature, or Nature the _noumenal_ and the _phenomenal_. One is its purely metaphysical aspect, as described by the learned lecturer in his “Notes on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_”; the other terrestrial and physical, and at the same time _divine_ from the stand‐point of practical human conception and Occultism. They are all the symbols and personifications of Chaos, the Great Deep, or the Primordial Waters of Space, the impenetrable Veil between the INCOGNIZABLE and the Logos of Creation. “Connecting himself through his mind with Vâch, Brahmâ [the Logos] created the Primordial Waters.” In the _Katha Upanishad_ it is stated still more clearly:

Prajâpati was this Universe. _Vâch was a second to him._ He associated with her ... she produced these creatures and again reëntered Prajâpati.

This connects Vâch and Sephira with the Goddess Kwan‐Yin, the “Merciful Mother,” the Divine Voice of the Soul, even in exoteric Buddhism, and with the female aspect of Kwan‐Shai‐Yin, the Logos, the Verbum of Creation, and at the same time with the Voice that speaks audibly to the Initiate, according to Esoteric Budhism. Bath Kol, the Filia Vocis, the Daughter of the Divine Voice of the Hebrews, responding from the Mercy Seat within the Veil of the Temple is—a result.

And here we may incidentally point out one of the many unjust slurs thrown by the “good and pious” missionaries in India on the religion of the land. The allegory, in the _Shatapatha Brâhmana_, that Brahmâ, as the Father of men, performed the work of procreation by incestuous intercourse with his own daughter Vâch, also called Sandhyâ, Twilight, and Shatarûpâ, of a hundred forms, is incessantly thrown in the teeth of the Brâhmans, as condemning their “detestable, false religion.” Besides the fact, conveniently forgotten by the Europeans, that the Patriarch Lot is shown guilty of the same crime under the _human form_, whereas it was under the form of a buck that Brahmâ, or rather Prajâpati, accomplished the incest with his daughter, who had that of a hind (_rohit_), the esoteric reading of the third chapter of _Genesis_ shows the same. Moreover, there is certainly a _cosmic_, and not a physiological, meaning attached to the Indian allegory, since Vâch is a permutation of Aditi and Mûlaprakriti, or Chaos, and Brahmâ a permutation of Nârâyana, the Spirit of God entering into, and fructifying Nature; and, therefore, there is nothing phallic in the conception at all.

As already stated, Aditi‐Vâch is the female Logos, or Verbum, the Word; and Sephira in the _Kabalah_ is the same. These feminine Logoi are all correlations, in their _noumenal_ aspect, of Light, and Sound, and Æther, showing how well‐informed were the Ancients both in Physical Science, as now known to the moderns, and also as to the birth of that Science in the Spiritual and Astral spheres.

Our old writers said that Vâch is of four kinds. These are called Parâ, Pashyantî, Madhyamâ, Vaikharî. This statement you will find in the _Rig Veda_ itself and in several of the _Upanishads_. Vaikharî Vâch is what we utter.

It is Sound, _Speech_, that again which becomes comprehensive and objective to one of our physical senses and may be brought under the laws of perception. Hence:

Every kind of Vaikharî Vâch exists in its Madhyamâ ... Pashyantî and ultimately in its Parâ form.... The reason why this Pranava(700) is called Vâch is this, that these four principles of the great Kosmos correspond to these four forms of Vâch.... The whole Kosmos in its objective form is Vaikharî Vâch; the Light of the Logos is the Madhyamâ form; and the Logos itself the Pasyantî form; while Parabrahman is the Parâ [beyond the Noumenon of all Noumena] aspect of that Vâch.(701)

Thus Vâch, Shekinah, or the “Music of the Spheres” of Pythagoras, are one, if we take for our example instances in the three most (apparently) dissimilar religious philosophies in the world, the Hindû, the Greek and the Chaldean Hebrew. These personations and allegories may be viewed under _four_ chief and _three_ lesser aspects, or _seven_ in all, as in Esotericism. The Parâ form is the ever subjective and latent Light and Sound, which exist eternally in the bosom of the INCOGNIZABLE; when transferred into the ideation of the Logos, or its latent Light, it is called Pasyantî, and when it becomes that Light _expressed_, it is Madhyamâ.

Now the _Kabalah_ gives the definition thus:

There are three kinds of Light, and that [the fourth] which interpenetrates the others; (1) the clear and the penetrating, the _objective_ Light, (2) the _reflected_ Light, and (3) the _abstract_ Light.

The ten Sephiroth, the Three and the Seven, are called in the _Kabalah_ the Ten Words, DBRIM (Dabarim), the Numbers and the Emanations of the Heavenly Light, which is both Adam Kadmon and Sephira, Prajâpati‐Vâch, or Brahmâ. Light, Sound, Number, are the three factors of creation in the _Kabalah_. Parabrahman cannot be known except through the luminous Point, the Logos, which knows not Parabrahman but only Mûlaprakriti. Similarly Adam Kadmon knew only Shekinah, though he was the Vehicle of Ain Suph. And, as Adam Kadmon, he is, in the Esoteric interpretation, the total of the Number Ten, the Sephiroth, himself being a Trinity, or the three attributes of the Incognizable Deity in One.(702) “When the Heavenly Man (or Logos) first assumed the form of the Crown(703) [Kether] and identified himself with Sephira, he caused Seven splendid Lights to emanate from it [the Crown],” which made in their totality Ten; so Brahmâ‐Prajâpati, once he became separated from, yet identical with Vâch, caused the seven Rishis, the seven Manus or Prajâpatis, to issue from that Crown. In _exotericism_ one will always find 10 and 7, of either Sephira or Prajâpati; in _esoteric_ rendering always 3 and 7, which yield also 10. Only when divided, in the manifested sphere, into 3 and 7, they form [circle with vertical line], the androgyne, and [circle containing an X], or the figure X manifested and differentiated.

This will help the student to understand why Pythagoras esteemed the Deity, the Logos, to be the Centre of Unity and Source of Harmony. We say this Deity was the Logos, not the Monad that dwelleth in Solitude and Silence, because Pythagoras taught that Unity being indivisible is _no number_. And this is also why it was required of the candidate, who applied for admittance into his school, that he should have already studied as a preliminary step, the sciences of Arithmetic, Astronomy, Geometry and _Music_, which were held to be the four divisions of Mathematics.(704) Again, this explains why the Pythagoreans asserted that the doctrine of Numbers, the chief of all in Esotericism, had been revealed to man by the Celestial Deities; that the World had been called forth out of Chaos by Sound, or Harmony, and constructed according to the principles of musical proportion; that the seven planets which rule the destiny of mortals have a harmonious motion and, as Censorinus says:

Intervals corresponding to musical diastemes, rendering various sounds, so perfectly consonant, that they produce the sweetest melody, which is inaudible to us, only by reason of the greatness of the sound, which our ears are incapable of receiving.

In the Pythagorean Theogony, the Hierarchies of the Heavenly Host and Gods were numbered, and also expressed numerically. Pythagoras had studied Esoteric Science in India; therefore we find his pupils saying:

The Monad [the manifested One] is the principle of all things. From the Monad and the indeterminate Duad (Chaos), Numbers; from Numbers, Points; from Points, Lines; from Lines, Superficies; from Superficies, Solids; from these, Solid Bodies, whose elements are four, Fire, Water, Air, Earth; of all which transmuted [correlated], and totally changed, the World consists.(705)

And this, if it does not unriddle the mystery altogether, may at any rate lift a corner of the veil off those wondrous allegories that have been thrown over Vâch, the most mysterious of all the Brâhmanical Goddesses; she who is termed “the _melodious_ Cow who milked forth sustenance and Water”—the Earth with all her mystic powers; and again she “who yields us nourishment and sustenance”—the physical Earth. Isis is also mystic Nature and also Earth; and her cow’s horns identify her with Vâch, who, after being recognized in her highest form as Parâ, becomes, at the lower or material end of creation, Vaikharî. Hence she is mystic, though physical, Nature, with all her magic ways and properties.

Again, as Goddess of Speech and of Sound, and a permutation of Aditi, she is Chaos, in one sense. At any rate, she is the “Mother of the Gods,” and it is from Brahmâ, Îshvara or the Logos, and Vâch, as from Adam Kadmon and Sephira, that the real _manifested_ Theogony has to start. Beyond, all is Darkness and abstract speculation. With the Dhyân Chohans or the Gods, the Seers, the Prophets and the Adepts in general are on firm ground. Whether as Aditi, or the Divine Sophia of the Greek Gnostics, she is the mother of the Seven Sons, the Angels of the Face, of the Deep, or the Great Green One of the _Book of the Dead_. Says the _Book of Dzyan_, or Real Knowledge, obtained through meditation:

_The Great Mother lay with the [triangle], and the |, and the [square], the second | and the [five‐pointed star],_(_706_)_ in her Bosom, ready to bring them forth, the valiant Sons of the [square] [triangle] || [or 4,320,000, the Cycle], whose two Elders are the [circle] [Circle] and the · [Point]._

At the beginning of every Cycle of 4,320,000, the Seven, or as some nations had it Eight, Great Gods, descend to establish the new order of things and to give the impetus to the new cycle. That _eighth_ God was the unifying Circle, or Logos, separated and made distinct from its Host, in exoteric dogma, just as the three divine _hypostases_ of the ancient Greeks are now considered in the Churches as three distinct _personæ_. As a Commentary says:

_The Mighty Ones perform their great works, and leave behind them __ everlasting monuments to commemorate their visit, every time they penetrate within our mâyâvic veil [atmosphere]._(707)

Thus we are taught that the great Pyramids were built under their direct supervision, “when Dhruva [the then Pole‐star], was at his lowest culmination, and the Krittikâs [Pleiades] looked over his head [were on the same meridian but above] to watch the work of the Giants.” Thus, as the first Pyramids were built at the beginning of a Sidereal Year, under Dhruva (Alpha Polaris), it must have been over 31,000 years (31,105) ago. Bunsen was right in admitting for Egypt an antiquity of over 21,000 years, but this concession hardly exhausts truth and fact in this question. As Mr. Gerald Massey says:

The stories told by Egyptian priests and others of time‐keeping in Egypt are now beginning to look less like lies in the sight of all who have escaped from biblical bondage. Inscriptions have lately been found at Sakkarah, making mention of two Sothiac cycles ... registered at that time, now some 6,000 years ago. Thus when Herodotus was in Egypt, the Egyptians had—as now known—observed at least five different Sothiac cycles of 1,461 years....

The priests informed the Greek enquirer that time had been reckoned by them for so long that the sun had twice risen where it then set, and twice set where it then arose. This ... can only be realized as a fact in nature by means of two cycles of Precession, or a period of 51,736 years.(708)

Mor Isaac(709) shows the ancient Syrians defining their World of the “Rulers” and “Active Gods” in the same way as the Chaldeans. The lowest World was the Sublunary—our own—watched by the _Angels_ of the first or lower order; the one that came next in rank, was Mercury, ruled by the _Archangels_: then came Venus, whose Gods were the _Principalities_; the fourth was that of the Sun, the domain and region of the highest and mightiest Gods of our system, the solar Gods of all nations; the fifth was Mars, ruled by the _Virtues_; the sixth, that of Bel or Jupiter, was governed by the _Dominions_; the seventh, the World of Saturn, by the _Thrones_. These are the Worlds of Form. Above come the Four higher ones, making Seven again, since the Three _highest_ are “unmentionable and unpronounceable.” The eighth, composed of 1,122 stars, is the domain of the _Cherubs_; the ninth, belonging to the _walking_ and numberless stars on account of their distance, has the _Seraphs_; as to the tenth, Kircher, quoting Mor Isaac, says that it is composed “of invisible stars that could be taken, they said, for clouds, so massed are they in the zone that we call Via Straminis, the Milky Way”; and he hastens to explain that “these are the stars of Lucifer, engulfed with him in his terrible shipwreck.” That which comes after and beyond the ten Worlds (our Quaternary), or the Arûpa World, the Syrians could not tell. “All they knew was that it is there that begins the vast and incomprehensible Ocean of the Infinite, the abode of the True Divinity, without boundary or end.”

Champollion shows the same belief among the Egyptians. Hermes having spoken of the Father‐Mother and Son, whose Spirit—collectively the Divine Fiat—shapes the Universe, says: “Seven Agents [Media] were also formed, to contain the Material [or manifested] Worlds within their respective Circles, and the action of these Agents was named Destiny.” He further enumerates seven and ten and twelve orders, but it would take too long to detail them here.

As the _Rig Vidhâna_ together with the _Brahmânda Purâna_ and all such works, whether describing the magic efficacy of the Rig Vedic _Mantras_, or the future Kalpas, are declared by Dr. Weber and others to be modern compilations “belonging probably only to the time of the _Purânas_,” it is useless to refer the reader to their mystic explanations; and one may as well simply quote from the archaic books utterly unknown to the Orientalists. These works explain that which so puzzles the scholars, namely that the Saptarshis, the “Mind‐born Sons” of Brahmâ, are referred to in the _Shatapatha Brâhmana_ under one set of names; in the _Mahâbhârata_ under another set; and that the _Vâyu Purâna_ makes even _nine_ instead of _seven_ Rishis, by adding the names of Bhrigu and Daksha to the list. But the same occurs in every exoteric Scripture. The Secret Doctrine gives a long genealogy of Rishis, but separates them into many classes. Like the Gods of the Egyptians, who were divided into seven, and even twelve, Classes, so are the Indian Rishis in their Hierarchies. The first three Groups are the Divine, the Cosmical and the Sublunary. Then come the Solar Gods of our System, the Planetary, the Submundane, and the purely Human—the Heroes and the Mânushi.

At present, however, we are only concerned with the Pre‐cosmic, Divine Gods, the Prajâpatis, or the Seven Builders. This Group is found unmistakably in every Cosmogony. Owing to the loss of Egyptian archaic documents, since, according to M. Maspero, “the materials and historical data on hand to study the history of the religious evolution in Egypt are neither complete nor very often intelligible,” the ancient Hymns and inscriptions on the tombs must be appealed to, in order to have the statements brought forward from the Secret Doctrine partially and indirectly corroborated. One such shows that Osiris, like Brahmâ‐Prajâpati, Adam Kadmon, Ormazd, and so many other Logoi, was the chief and synthesis of the Group of “Creators” or Builders. Before Osiris became the “One” and the _Highest_ God of Egypt, he was worshipped at Abydos as the Head, or Leader, of the Heavenly Host of the Builders belonging to the higher of the three Orders. The Hymn engraved on the votive stele of a tomb from Abydos (3rd register) addresses Osiris thus:

Salutations to thee, O Osiris, elder son of Seb; thou the greatest over the six Gods issued from the Goddess Noo [Primordial Water], thou the great favourite of thy father Ra; Father of Fathers, King of Duration, Master in the Eternity ... who, as soon as these issued from thy Mother’s Bosom, gathered all the Crowns and attached the Uræus [serpent or _naja_](710) on thy head; multiform God, _whose name is unknown_ and who has many names in towns and provinces.

Coming out from the Primordial Water crowned with the Uræus, which is the serpent‐emblem of Cosmic Fire, and himself the _seventh_ over the six Primary Gods, issued from Father‐Mother, Noo and Noot, the Sky, who can Osiris be, but the chief Prajâpati, the chief Sephira, the chief Amshaspend, Ormazd! That this latter Solar and Cosmic God stood, in the beginning of religious evolution, in the same position as the Archangel, “whose name was secret,” is certain. This Archangel was Michael, the representative on earth of the _Hidden_ Jewish God; in short, it is his “Face” that is said to have gone before the Jews like a “Pillar of Fire.” Burnouf says: “The seven Amshaspends, who are most assuredly our Archangels, designate also the personifications of the Divine Virtues.”(711) And these Archangels, therefore, are as certainly the Saptarshis of the Hindus, though it is next to impossible to class each with its Pagan prototype and parallel, since, as in the case of Osiris, they have all so “many names in towns and provinces.” Some of the most important, however, will be shown in their order.

One thing is thus undeniably proven. The more we study their Hierarchies and find out their identity, the more proofs we acquire that there is not one of the past or present _personal_ Gods, known to us from the earliest days of history, that does not belong to the third stage of cosmic manifestation. In every religion we find the Concealed Deity forming the ground work; then the Ray therefrom, that falls into primordial Cosmic Matter, the _first_ manifestation; then the Androgyne result, the dual Male and Female abstract Force personified, the _second_ stage; this finally separates itself, in the _third_, into Seven Forces, called the Creative Powers by all the ancient religions, and the Virtues of God by the Christians. The later explanations and abstract metaphysical qualifications have not prevented the Roman and Greek Churches from worshipping these “Virtues” under the personifications and distinct names of the Seven Archangels. In the _Book of Druschim_,(712) in the _Talmud_, a distinction between these groups is given which is the correct Kabalistical explanation. It says:

There are three Groups (or Orders) of Sephiroth. 1st. The Sephiroth called the “Divine Attributes” [abstract]. 2nd. The Physical or Sidereal Sephiroth [personal]—one group of _seven_, the other of _ten_. 3rd. The metaphysical Sephiroth, or periphrasis of Jehovah, who are the first three Sephiroth [Kether, Chokmah and Binah], the rest of the seven being the (personal) seven Spirits of the Presence [also of the planets].

The same division has to be applied to the primary, secondary and tertiary evolution of Gods in every Theogony, if one wishes to translate the meaning esoterically. We must not confuse the purely metaphysical personifications of the _abstract_ attributes of Deity, with their reflection—the Sidereal Gods. This reflection, however, is in reality the objective expression of the abstraction; _living_ Entities and the models formed on that divine Prototype. Moreover, the three metaphysical Sephiroth, or the “periphrasis of Jehovah,” are _not_ Jehovah. It is the latter himself, with the additional titles of Adonai, Elohim, Sabbaoth, and the numerous names lavished on him, who is the periphrasis of the Shaddai (שדי), the Omnipotent. The name is a circumlocution, indeed, a too abundant figure of Jewish rhetoric, and has always been denounced by the Occultists. To the Jewish Kabalists, and even the Christian Alchemists and Rosicrucians, Jehovah was a convenient _screen_, unified by the folding of its many panels, and adopted as a substitute; one name of an individual Sephira being as good as another name, for those who had the secret. The Tetragrammaton, the Ineffable, the Sidereal “Sum Total,” was invented for no other purpose than to mislead the profane and to symbolize life and generation.(713) The real secret and _unpronounceable_ Name, the “Word that is no word,” has to be sought in the seven names of the first Seven Emanations, or the “Sons of the Fire,” in the secret Scriptures of all the great nations, and even in the _Zohar_, the Kabalistic lore of the smallest of all of them, viz., the Jewish. This word, composed of seven letters in every tongue, is found embodied in the architectural remains of every great sacred building in the world; from the Cyclopean remains on Easter Island—part of a Continent buried under the seas nearer 4,000,000 years ago(714) than 20,000—down to the earliest Egyptian pyramids.

We shall have to enter more fully into this subject later on, and to bring practical illustrations to prove the statements made in the text.

For the present it is sufficient to show, by a few instances, the truth of what has been asserted at the beginning of this work, namely, that no Cosmogony, the world over, with the sole exception of the Christian, has ever attributed to the One Highest Cause, the Universal Deific Principle, the immediate creation of our earth, or man, or anything connected with these. This statement holds as well for the Hebrew or Chaldean _Kabalah_ as it does for _Genesis_, had the latter been ever thoroughly understood and, what is still more important, correctly translated.(715) Everywhere there is either a Logos—a “Light shining in Darkness,” truly—or the Architect of the Worlds is esoterically in the plural number. The Latin Church, paradoxical as ever, while applying the epithet of Creator to Jehovah alone, adopts a whole Kyriel of names for the _working_ Forces of the latter, names which betray the secret. For if the said Forces had nought to do with “Creation” so‐called, why call them Elohim (Alhim), a plural word; Divine Workmen and Energies (Ἐνέργειαι), incandescent celestial stones (_lapides igniti cœlorum_); and especially Supporters of the World (Κοσμοκράτορες), Governors or Rulers of the World (Rectores Mundi), Wheels of the World (Rotæ), Auphanim, Flames and Powers, Sons of God (B’ne Alhim), Vigilant Counsellors, etc.?

It is often asserted, and unjustly, as usual, that China, nearly as old a country as India, had no Cosmogony. It was unknown to Confucius, and the Buddhists extended their Cosmogony without introducing a Personal God,(716) it is complained. The _Yi‐King_, “the very essence of ancient thought and the combined work of the most venerated sages,” fails to show a distinct Cosmogony. Nevertheless, one existed, and a very distinct one. Only as Confucius did not admit of a future life(717) and the Chinese Buddhists reject the idea of _One_ Creator, accepting one Cause and its numberless effects, they are misunderstood by the believers in a Personal God. The “Great Extreme,” as the commencement of “changes” (transmigrations), is the shortest and, perhaps, the most suggestive of all Cosmogonies for those who, like the Confucianists, love virtue for its own sake and try to do good unselfishly without perpetually looking to reward and profit. The “Great Extreme” of Confucius produces “Two Figures.” These Two produce in their turn the “Four Images”; these again the “Eight Symbols.” It is complained that though the Confucianists see in them “heaven, earth and man in miniature,” we can see in them anything we like. No doubt, and so it is with regard to many symbols, especially those of the latest religions. But they who know something of Occult numerals, see in these “Figures” the symbol, however rude, of a harmonious progressive Evolution of Kosmos and its Beings, both Heavenly and Terrestrial. And any one who has studied the numerical evolution in the primeval Cosmogony of Pythagoras—a contemporary of Confucius—can never fail to find in his Triad, Tetraktys and Decad, emerging from the One and solitary Monad, the same idea. Confucius is laughed at by his Christian biographer for “talking of divination,” before and after this passage, and is represented as saying:

The eight symbols determine good and ill fortune, and these lead to great deeds. There are no imitable images greater than heaven and earth. There are no changes greater than the four seasons [meaning North, South, East and West, etc.]. There are no suspended images brighter than the sun and moon. In preparing things for use, there is none greater than the sage. In determining good and ill‐luck there is nothing greater than the _divining straws_ and the _tortoise_.(718)

Therefore, the “divining straws” and the “tortoise,” the “symbolic sets of lines,” and the great sage who looks at them as they become one and two, and two become four, and four become eight, and the other sets “three and six,” are laughed to scorn, only because his wise symbols are misunderstood.

So the author of the volume cited and his colleagues will no doubt scoff at the Stanzas given in our text, for they represent _precisely the same idea_. The old archaic map of Cosmogony is full of lines in the Confucian style, of concentric circles and dots. Yet all these represent the most abstract and philosophical conceptions of the Cosmogony of our Universe. At all events it may, perhaps, answer better to the requirements and the scientific purposes of our age, than the cosmogonical essays of St. Augustine and the Venerable Bede, though these were published over a millennium later than the Confucian.

Confucius, one of the greatest sages of the ancient world, believed in ancient magic, and practised it himself, “if we take for granted the statements of _Kià‐yü_” and “he praised it to the skies in the _Yi‐king_,” we are told by his reverend critic. Nevertheless, even in his age, 600 B.C., Confucius and his school taught the sphericity of the earth and even the heliocentric system; while, at about thrice 600 years after the Chinese philosopher, the Popes of Rome threatened and even burnt “heretics” for asserting the same. He is laughed at for speaking of the “Sacred Tortoise.” No unprejudiced person can see any great difference between a Tortoise and a Lamb as candidates for sacredness, as both are symbols and no more. The Ox, the Eagle,(719) and the Lion, and occasionally the Dove are the “sacred animals” of the Western _Bible_; the first three are found grouped round the Evangelists; the fourth, associated with these, a human face, is a Seraph, _i.e._, a “fiery serpent,” the Gnostic Agathodæmon probably.

The choice is curious, and shows how paradoxical were the first Christians in their selections. For why should they have chosen these symbols of Egyptian Paganism, when the Eagle is never mentioned in the _New Testament_ save once, when Jesus refers to it as a _carrion_ eater,(720) and in the _Old Testament_ it is called _unclean_; when the Lion is made a point of comparison with Satan, both roaring for men to devour; and the Oxen are driven out of the Temple? On the other hand the Serpent, brought in as an exemplar of wisdom, is now regarded as the symbol of the Devil. The esoteric pearl of Christ’s religion, degraded into Christian theology, may indeed be said to have chosen a strange and unfitting _shell_ to be born in and evolved from.

As explained, the Sacred Animals and the Flames or Sparks, within the Holy Four, refer to the Prototypes of all that is found in the Universe in the Divine Thought, in the Root, which is the Perfect Cube, or the Foundation of the Kosmos, collectively and individually. They have all an occult reference to primordial Cosmic Forms, and the first concretions, work, and evolution of Kosmos.

In the earliest Hindû exoteric Cosmogonies, it is not even the Demiurge who creates. For it is said in one of the _Purânas_:

The great Architect of the World gives the first impulse to the rotatory motion of our planetary system by stepping in turn over each planet and body.

It is this action “that causes each sphere to turn around itself, and all around the Sun.” After which action, “it is the Brahmândika,” the Solar and Lunar Pitris, the Dhyân Chohans, “who take charge of their respective spheres [earths and planets], to the end of the Kalpa.” The Creators are the Rishis, most of whom are credited with the authorship of the Mantras, or Hymns, of the _Rig Veda_. They are sometimes _seven_, sometimes _ten_, when they become Prajâpati, the Lord of Beings; then they rebecome the _seven_ and the _fourteen_ Manus, as the representatives of the seven and fourteen Cycles of Existence, or Days of Brahmâ, thus answering to the seven Æons, when, at the end of the first stage of Evolution, they are transformed into the seven stellar Rishis, the Saptarshis; while their _human_ Doubles appear as Heroes, Kings and Sages on this earth.

The Esoteric Doctrine of the East having thus furnished and struck the key‐note, which, under its allegorical garb, is, as may be seen, as scientific as it is philosophical and poetical, every nation has followed its lead. It is from the exoteric religions that we have to dig out the root‐idea before we turn to esoteric truths, lest the latter should be rejected. Furthermore, every symbol, in _every_ national religion, may be read esoterically; and the proof of its being correctly read when transliterated into its corresponding numerals and geometrical forms, may be obtained from the extraordinary agreement of all glyphs and symbols, however much they may externally vary among themselves. For in the origin those symbols were all identical. Take, for instance, the opening sentences in various Cosmogonies; in every case it is a Circle, an Egg, or a Head. Darkness is always associated with this first symbol and surrounds it, as is shown in the Hindû, the Egyptian, the Chaldeo‐Hebrew and even the Scandinavian systems. Hence black ravens, black doves, black waters and even black flames; the seventh tongue of Agni, the Fire‐God being called Kâlî, the “Black,” since it was a black flickering flame. Two “black” doves flew from Egypt and, settling on the oaks of Dodona, gave their names to the Grecian Gods. Noah sends out a “black” raven after the Deluge, which is a symbol for the Cosmic Pralaya, after which began the real creation or evolution of our Earth and Humanity. Odin’s “black” ravens fluttered round the Goddess Saga and “whispered to her of the past and of the future.” Now what is the inner meaning of all those black birds? It is that they are all connected with the primeval Wisdom, which flows out of the pre‐cosmic Source of All, symbolized by the Head, the Circle or the Egg; and they all have an identical meaning and relate to the primordial Archetypal Man, Adam Kadmon, the Creative Origin of all things, which is composed of the Host of Cosmic Powers—the Creative Dhyân Chohans, beyond which all is Darkness.

Let us enquire of the wisdom of the Kabalah, even veiled and distorted as it now is, to explain in its numerical language an approximate meaning, at least of the word “raven.” This is its number value as given in the _Source of Measures_:

The term Raven is used but once, and taken as Eth‐h’ orebv את־הערב=678, or 113 × 6; while the Dove is mentioned five times. Its value is 71, and 71 × 5=355. Six diameters, or the Raven, crossing, would divide the circumference of a circle of 355 into 12 parts or compartments; and 355 subdivided for each unit by 6, would equal 213‐0, or the Head [“beginning”] in the first verse of _Genesis_. This divided, or subdivided, after the same fashion, by 2, or the 355 by 12, would give 213‐2, or the word B’râsh, ב־ראש, or the first word of _Genesis_, with its prepositional prefix, signifying the same concreted general form, astronomically, with the one here intended.

Now the secret reading of the first verse in _Genesis_ being: “In Râsh (B’râsh) or Head, developed Gods, the Heavens and the Earth”—it is easy to comprehend the esoteric meaning of the Raven, once that the like meaning of the Flood, or Noah’s Deluge, is ascertained. Whatever the many other meanings of this emblematical allegory may be, its _chief_ meaning is that of a new Cycle and a new Round—our Fourth Round.(721) The Raven, or the Eth‐h’ orebv, yields the same numerical value as the Head, and returned not to the Ark, while the Dove returned, carrying the olive‐branch; when Noah, the new man of the new Race—whose prototype is Vaivasvata Manu, prepared to leave the Ark, the Womb, or Argha, of terrestrial Nature, he is the symbol of the purely spiritual, sexless and androgyne man of the first three Races, who vanished from Earth for ever. Numerically, in the _Kabalah_, Jehovah, Adam, Noah, are one. At best, then, it is Deity descending on Ararat and later, on Sinai, to incarnate henceforth in man, his _image_, through the natural process, the mother’s womb, whose symbols are the Ark, the Mount (Sinai), etc., in _Genesis_. The Jewish allegory is astronomical and physiological, rather than anthropomorphic.

And here lies the abyss between the Âryan and Semitic systems, though both are built on the same foundation. As shown by an expounder of the _Kabalah_:

The basic idea underlying the philosophy of the Hebrews was that God contained all things within himself and that man was _his image_; man, including woman [as androgynes; and that] geometry (and numbers and measures applicable to astronomy) are contained in the terms _man_ and _woman_; and the apparent incongruity of such a mode was eliminated by showing the connection of man and woman with a particular system of numbers and measures and geometry, by the parturient time‐periods, which furnished the connecting link between the terms used and the facts shown, and perfected the mode used.(722)

It is argued that, the primal cause being absolutely incognizable, “the symbol of its first _comprehensible manifestation_ was the conception of a circle with its diameter line, so as at once to carry the idea of geometry, phallicism, and astronomy”; and this was finally applied to the “signification of simply human generative organs.” Hence the whole cycle of events from Adam and the Patriarchs down to Noah is made to apply to phallic and astronomical uses, the one regulating the other, as the lunar periods, for instance. Hence, too, the _Genesis_ of the Hebrews begins after their coming out of the Ark, and the end of the Flood, _i.e._, at the Fourth Race. With the Aryan people it is different.

Eastern Esotericism has never degraded the One Infinite Deity, the Container of all things, to such uses; and this is shown by the absence of Brahmâ from the _Rig Veda_ and the modest positions occupied therein by Rudra and Vishnu, who became the powerful and great Gods, the “Infinites” of the exoteric creeds, ages later. But even they, “Creators” as they all three maybe, are not the direct “Creators” and “forefathers of men.” The latter are shown occupying a still lower scale, and are called the Prajâpatis, the Pitris, our Lunar Ancestors, etc., but never the One Infinite God. Esoteric Philosophy shows only _physical_ man as created in the _image_ of the Deity; which Deity, however, is only the “_minor Gods_.” It is the HIGHER‐SELF, the real EGO, who alone is divine and GOD.

Section XIII. The Seven Creations.

There was neither day nor night, nor sky nor earth, nor darkness nor light, nor any other thing save only One, unapprehensive by intellect, or That which is Brahma and Pums (Spirit) and Pradhâna ([crude] Matter).(723)

VISHNU PURÂNA (I. ii.)

In _Vishnu Purâna_, Parâshara says to Maitreya, his pupil:

I have thus explained to you, excellent Muni, six creations ... the creation of the Arvâksrotas beings was the seventh, and was that of man.(724)

Then he proceeds to speak of two additional and very mysterious creations, variously interpreted by the commentators.

Origen, commenting upon the books written by Celsus, his Gnostic opponent—books which were all destroyed by the prudent Church Fathers—evidently answers the objections of his contradictor and reveals his system at the same time. This was clearly _septenary_. But the theogony of Celsus, the genesis of the stars or planets, and of sound and colour, found as an answer satire, and no more. Celsus, you see, “desiring to exhibit his learning,” speaks of a ladder of creation with _seven gates_, and on the top of it the eighth, ever closed. The mysteries of the Persian Mithras are explained and “musical reasons, moreover, are added.” And to these again he strives “to add a second explanation connected also with musical considerations,”(725) that is to say with the seven notes of the scale, the seven Spirits of the Stars, etc.

Valentinus expatiates upon the power of the great Seven, who were summoned to bring forth this universe after Ar(r)hetos, or the Ineffable, whose name is composed of seven letters, had represented the first Hebdomad. The name Ar(r)hetos indicates the sevenfold nature of the One, the Logos. “The Goddess Rhea,” says Proclus, “is a Monad, Duad, and Heptad,” comprehending in herself all the Titanidæ, “who are seven.”(726)

The Seven Creations are found in almost every _Purâna_. They are all preceded by what Wilson translates as the “Indiscrete Principle,” Absolute Spirit, independent of any relation with objects of sense.

They are: (1) Mahattattva, the Universal Soul, Infinite Intellect, or Divine Mind; (2) Tanmâtras, Bhûta or Bhûtasarga, Elemental Creation the first differentiation of Universal Indiscrete Substance; (3) Indriya or Aindriyaka, Organic Evolution. “These three were the Prâkrita Creations, the _developments of indiscrete nature_, preceded by the Indiscrete Principle”; (4) Mukhya, “the Fundamental Creation (of perceptible things) was that of inanimate bodies”;(727) (5) Tairyagyonya or Tiryaksrotas, was that of animals; (6) Ûrdhvasrotas, or that of divinities(?);(728) (7) Arvâksrotas, was that of man.(729)

This is the order given in the _exoteric_ texts. According to esoteric teaching there are seven Primary, and seven Secondary “Creations”; the former being the Forces _self‐evolving_ from the one _causeless_ FORCE; the latter showing the manifested Universe emanating from the already differentiated _divine_ Elements.

Esoterically, as well as exoterically, all the above enumerated Creations stand for the seven periods of Evolution, whether after an Age or a Day of Brahmâ. This is the teaching _par excellence_ of Occult Philosophy, which, however, never uses the term “creation,” nor even that of evolution, with regard to _Primary_ “Creation”; but calls all such Forces the “_aspects_ of the Causeless Force.” In the _Bible_, the seven periods are dwarfed into the six Days of Creation and the seventh Day of Rest, and the Westerns adhere to the letter. In the Hindû Philosophy, when the active Creator has produced the World of Gods, the _Germs_ of all the undifferentiated Elements, and the Rudiments of future Senses—the World of Noumena, in short—the Universe remains unaltered for a Day of Brahmâ, a period of 4,320,000,000 years. This is the _seventh_ passive Period, or the “Sabbath” of Eastern Philosophy, following six periods of active evolution. In the _Shatapatha Brâhmana_, Brahma (neuter), the Absolute Cause of all Causes, _radiates_ the Gods. Having radiated the Gods, through its inherent nature, the work is interrupted. In the First Book of _Manu_ it is said:

At the expiration of each Night (Pralaya), Brahma, having been asleep, awakes, and, _through the sole energy of the motion_, causes to emanate from _itself_ the Spirit [or mind], which in its essence is, and yet is not.

In the _Sepher Yetzirah_, the Kabalistic “Book of Creation,” the author has evidently reëchoed the words of Manu. In it the Divine Substance is represented as having alone existed from the eternity, boundless and absolute; and as having emitted from itself the Spirit.

One is the Spirit of the living God, blessed be his Name, who liveth for ever! Voice, Spirit, and Word, this is the Holy Spirit.(730)

And this is the Kabalistic abstract Trinity, so unceremoniously anthropomorphized by the Fathers. From this triple One emanated the whole Kosmos. First from One emanated number Two, or Air, the creative element; and then number Three, Water, proceeded from the Air; Ether or Fire completes the mystic Four, the Arba‐il. In the Eastern doctrine, Fire is the first Element—Ether, synthesizing the whole, since it contains all of them.

In the _Vishnu Purâna_, the whole seven periods are given; and the progressive Evolution of the “Spirit‐Soul,” and of the seven Forms of Matter, or Principles, is shown. It is impossible to enumerate them in this work. The reader is asked to peruse one of the _Purânas_.

R. Yehudah began, it is written: “Elohim said: Let there be a firmament, in the midst of waters.” Come, see! At the time that the Holy ... created the world, He [they] created 7 heavens Above. He created 7 earths Below, 7 seas, 7 days, 7 rivers, 7 weeks, 7 years, 7 times, and 7,000 years that the world has been, ... the seventh of all (the millennium).... So here are 7 earths Below, they are all inhabited except those which are above, and those which are below. And ... between each earth, a heaven (firmament) is spread out between each other.... And there are in them [these earths] creatures who look different one from the other; ... but if you object and say that all the children of the world came out from Adam, it is not so.... And the lower earths, where do they come from? They are from _the chain of the earth_, and from the Heaven above.(731)

Irenæus also is our witness—and a very unwilling one—that the Gnostics taught the same system, veiling very carefully the true esoteric meaning. This “veiling,” however, is identical with that of the _Vishnu Purâna_ and others. Thus Irenæus writes of the Marcosians:

They maintain that first of all the four elements, fire, water, earth and air, were produced after the image of the primary Tetrad above, and that then if we add their operations, namely, heat, cold, moisture and dryness, an exact likeness of the Ogdoad is presented.(732)

Only this “likeness” and the Ogdoad itself is a blind, just as in the seven creations of the _Vishnu Purâna_, to which two more are added, of which the eighth, termed Anugraha, “possesses both the qualities of goodness and darkness,” a Sânkhyan more than a Purânic idea. For Irenæus says again, that:

They [the Gnostics] had a like eighth creation which was good and bad, divine and human. They affirm that man was formed on the _eighth day_. Sometimes they affirm that he was made on the _sixth_ day, and at others on the eighth; unless, perchance, they mean that his earthly part was formed on the sixth day and his fleshly part [?] on the eighth day; these two being distinguished by them.(733)

They were so “distinguished,” but not as Irenæus gives it. The Gnostics had a superior, and an inferior Hebdomad in Heaven; and a third terrestrial Hebdomad, on the plane of matter. Iaô, the Mystery God and the Regent of the Moon, as given in Origen’s Chart, was the chief of these superior “Seven Heavens,”(734) hence identical with the chief of the Lunar Pitris, that name being given by them to the Lunar Dhyân Chohans. “They affirm that these seven heavens are intelligent, and _speak of them as being angels_,” writes the same Irenæus; and adds that on this account they termed Iaô Hebdomas, while his mother was called Ogdoas, because, as he explains, “she preserved the number of _the first begotten and primary Ogdoad of the Plerôma_.”(735)

This “first begotten Ogdoad” was in Theogony the Second Logos, the Manifested, because it was born of the Seven‐fold First Logos, hence it is the eighth on this manifested plane; and in Astrolatry, it was the Sun, Mârttânda, the eighth Son of Aditi, whom she rejects while preserving her Seven Sons, _the planets_. For the Ancients have never regarded the Sun as a planet, but as _a central and fixed Star_. This, then, is the second Hebdomad born of the Seven‐rayed One, Agni, the Sun and what not, only not the seven planets, which are Sûrya’s _Brothers_, not his _Sons_. With the Gnostics, these Astral Gods were the Sons of Ialdabaoth(736) (from _ilda_, child, and _baoth_ egg), the Son of Sophia Achamôth, the daughter of Sophia or Wisdom, whose region is the Plerôma. Ialdabaoth produces from himself these six stellar Spirits: Iaô (Jehovah), Sabaôth, Adoneus, Eloæus, Oreus, Astaphæus,(737) and it is they who are the second, or inferior Hebdomad. As to the third, it is composed of the seven primeval men, the shadows of the Lunar Gods, projected by the first Hebdomad. In this the Gnostics did not, as seen, differ much from the Esoteric Doctrine, except that they veiled it. As to the charge made by Irenæus, who was evidently ignorant of the true tenets of the “Heretics,” with regard to man being created on the _sixth_ day, and man being created on the _eighth_, this relates to the mysteries of the _inner_ man. It will become comprehensible to the reader only after he has read Volume II, and understood well the Anthropogenesis of the Esoteric Doctrine.

Ialdabaoth is a copy of Manu, who boasts:

O best of twice‐born men! Know that I (Manu) am he, the creator of all this world, whom that male Virâj ... spontaneously produced.(738)

He first creates the ten Lords of Being, the Prajâpatis, who, as verse 36 tells us, “produce seven other Manus.” Ialdabaoth boasts likewise: “I am Father and God, and there is no one above me,” he exclaims. For which his Mother coolly puts him down by saying: “Do not lie, Ialdabaoth, for the Father of all, the _First_ Man (Anthrôpos) is above thee, and so is Anthrôpos, the Son of Anthrôpos.”(739) This is a good proof that there were three Logoi—besides the Seven born of the First—one of these being the Solar Logos. And, again, who was that Anthrôpos himself, so much higher than Ialdabaoth? The Gnostic records alone can solve this riddle. In _Pistis‐Sophia_ the four‐vowelled name Ieou is generally accompanied by the epithet of “the Primal, or First Man.” This shows again that the Gnôsis was but an echo of our Archaic Doctrine. The names answering to Parabrahman, to Brahmâ, and Manu, the first _thinking_ Man, are composed of one‐vowelled, three‐vowelled and seven‐vowelled sounds. Marcus, whose philosophy was certainly more Pythagorean than anything else, speaks of a revelation to him of the seven Heavens sounding each one vowel, as they pronounced the seven names of the seven Angelic Hierarchies.

When Spirit has permeated every minutest atom of the Seven Principles of Kosmos, then the _Secondary_ Creation, after the above‐mentioned period of rest, begins.

“The Creators [Elohim] outline in the _second_ ‘Hour’ the shape of man,” says Rabbi Simeon in _The Nuchthemeron of the Hebrews_. “There are twelve hours in the day,” says the _Mishna_, “and it is during these that creation is accomplished.” The “twelve hours of the day” are again the dwarfed copy, the faint, yet faithful, echo of primitive Wisdom. They are like the 12,000 Divine Years of the Gods, a cyclic blind. Every Day of Brahmâ has 14 Manus, which the Hebrew Kabalists, following, however, in this the Chaldeans, have disguised into 12 “Hours.”(740) The _Nuchthemeron_ of Apollonius of Tyana is the same thing. “The Dodecahedron lies concealed in the perfect Cube,” say the Kabalists. The mystic meaning of this is, that the twelve great transformations of Spirit into Matter—the 12,000 Divine Years—take place during the four great Ages, or the first Mahâyuga. Beginning with the metaphysical and the supra‐human, it ends in the physical and purely human natures of Kosmos and Man. Eastern Philosophy can give the number of mortal years that run along the line of spiritual and physical evolutions of the seen and the unseen, if Western Science fails to do so.

Primary Creation is called the Creation of Light (Spirit); and the Secondary, that of Darkness (Matter).(741) Both are found in _Genesis_.(742) The first is the emanation of self‐born Gods (Elohim); the second of physical Nature.

This is why it is said in the _Zohar_:

Oh, companions, companions, man as emanation was both man and woman; as well on the side of the Father as on the side of the Mother. And this is the sense of the words: And Elohim spake: “Let there be Light and it was Light!” ... And this is the “two‐fold Man”!

Light, however, on our plane, is Darkness in the higher spheres.

“Man and woman ... on the side of the FATHER” (Spirit) refers to Primary Creation; and on the side of the Mother (Matter), to the Secondary. The two‐fold Man is Adam Kadmon, the male and female abstract prototype and the differentiated Elohim. Man proceeds from the Dhyân Chohan, and is a “Fallen Angel,” a God in exile, as will be shown.

In India these creations were described as follows:(743)

(I) _The First Creation_: Mahattattva Creation, so‐called because it was the primordial self‐evolution of that which had to become Mahat, the “Divine Mind, conscious and intelligent”; esoterically, the “Spirit of the Universal Soul.”

Worthiest of ascetics, through its potency (_the potency of that cause_), every _produced_ cause comes by its proper nature.

And again:

Seeing that the potencies of all beings are understood _only_ through the knowledge of That (Brahma), which is beyond reasoning, creation, and the like, such potencies are referable to Brahma.

THAT, then precedes the manifestation. “The first was Mahat,” says _Linga Purâna_; for the One (the That) is neither _first_ nor _last_, but _all_. Exoterically, however, this manifestation is the _work_ of the “Supreme One”—a natural _effect_, rather, of an Eternal Cause; or, as the Commentator says, it might have been understood to mean that Brahmâ was then _created_ (?), being identified with Mahat, active intelligence, or the operating will of the Supreme. Esoteric Philosophy renders it the “operating _Law_.”

It is on the right comprehension of this tenet in the _Brâhmanas_ and _Purânas_ that hangs, we believe, the apple of discord between the three Vedântin Sects: the Advaita, Dvaita, and the Vishishthâdvaita. The first argues rightly that Parabrahman, having no relation, as the absolute ALL, to the manifested World, the Infinite having no connection with the Finite, can neither _will_ nor _create_; that, therefore, Brahmâ, Mahat, Îshvara, or whatever name the Creative Power may be known by, Creative Gods and all, are simply an illusive aspect of Parabrahman in the conception of the conceivers; while the other sects identify the Impersonal Cause with the Creator, or Îshvara.

Mahat, or Mahâ‐Buddhi, is, with the Vaishnavas, however, Divine Mind, _in

## active operation_, or, as Anaxagoras has it, “an ordering and disposing

Mind, which was the cause of all things”—Νοῦς ὁ διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων ἀίτιος.

Wilson saw at a glance the suggestive connection between Mahat and the Phœnician Môt, or Mut, who was female with the Egyptians, the Goddess Moot, the Mother, “which, like Mahat,” he says, “was the first product of the mixture(?) of Spirit and Matter, and the first rudiment of Creation.” “Ex connexione autem ejus Spiritus prodidit Môt.... Hinc ... seminium omnis creaturæ et omnium rerum creatio,” says Brucker,(744) giving it a still more materialistic and anthropomorphic colouring.

Nevertheless, the esoteric sense of the doctrine is seen, through every exoteric sentence, on the very face of the old Sanskrit texts that treat of primordial Creation.

The Supreme Soul, the _All‐permeant_ (Sarvaga) Substance of the World, having entered [been drawn] into Matter [Prakriti] and Spirit [Purusha], _agitated_ the _mutable and the immutable principles_, the season of Creation [Manvantara] being arrived.

The Nous of the Greeks, which is (spiritual or divine) Mind, or Mens, Mahat, operates upon Matter in the same way; it “enters into” and “_agitates_” it:

Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus, Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.

In the Phœnician Cosmogony also, “Spirit mixing with its own principles gives rise to creation”;(745) the Orphic Triad shows an identical doctrine; for there Phanes, or Erôs, Chaos, containing crude _undifferentiated_ Cosmic Matter, and Chronos, Time, are the three co‐ operating principles, emanating from the Concealed and Unknowable Point, which produce the work of “Creation.” And they are the Hindû Purusha (Phanes), Pradhâna (Chaos) and Kâla (Chronos). The good Professor Wilson does not like the idea, as no Christian clergyman, however liberal, would. He remarks that: “the _mixture_ [of the Supreme Spirit or Soul with its own principles] _is not mechanical_; it is _an influence or effect exerted upon intermediate agents_ which produce effects.” The sentence in _Vishnu Purâna_, “as fragrance affects the mind from its proximity merely, _and not from any immediate operation upon mind itself_, so the Supreme influenced the elements of creation,” the reverend and erudite Sanskritist correctly explains by: “as perfumes do not delight the mind by actual contact, but by the impression they make upon the sense of smelling, which communicates it to the mind”; adding, “the entrance of the Supreme ... into Spirit, as well as Matter, _is less intelligible_ than the view elsewhere taken of it, as the _infusion_ of Spirit, identified with the Supreme, into Prakriti or Matter alone.” He prefers the verse in _Pâdma Purâna_: “He who is called the _male_ (spirit) of Prakriti ... that same divine Vishnu entered into Prakriti.” This view is certainly more akin to the plastic character of certain verses in the _Bible_ concerning the Patriarchs, such as Lot and even Adam,(746) and others of a still more anthropomorphic nature. But it is just that which led Humanity to _Phallicism_; the Christian religion being honeycombed with it, from the first chapter of _Genesis_ down to the _Revelation_.

The Esoteric Doctrine teaches that the Dhyân Chohans are the collective aggregate of Divine Intelligence or Primordial Mind, and that the first Manus, the seven “mind‐born” Spiritual Intelligences, are identical with the former. Hence the Kwan‐Shi‐Yin, the “_Golden Dragon in whom are the Seven_,” of Stanza III, is the Primordial Logos, or Brahmâ, the first manifested Creative Power; and the Dhyânic Energies are the Manus, or Manu Svâyambhuva _collectively_. The direct connection, moreover, between the Manus and Mahat is easy to see. Manu is from the root _man_, to think; and thinking proceeds from the mind. It is, in Cosmogony, the Pre‐nebular Period.

(II) _The Second Creation_, Bhûta, was of the Rudimental Principles or Tanmâtras; thence termed the Elemental Creation or Bhûtasarga. It is the period of the first breath of the differentiation of the Pre‐cosmic Elements, or Matter. Bhûtâdi means the “origin of the Elements,” and precedes Bhûtasarga, the “creation,” or differentiation, of those Elements in Primordial Âkâsha, Chaos or Vacuity.(747) In the _Vishnu Purâna_ it is said to proceed along, and belong to, the triple aspect of Ahankâra, translated Egotism, but meaning rather that untranslatable term “I‐am‐ ness,” that which first issues from Mahat, or Divine Mind; the first shadowy outline of Self‐hood, for “pure” Ahankâra becomes “passionate” and finally “rudimental” or initial: it is “the origin of conscious as of all _unconscious_ being,” though the Esoteric school rejects the idea of anything being “unconscious,” save on our plane of illusion and ignorance. At this stage of the Second Creation, the Second Hierarchy of the Manus appear, the Dhyân Chohans or Devas, who are the origin of Form (Rûpa), the Chitrashikhandinas, “Bright‐crested,” or Rikshas; those Rishis who have become the informing Souls of the Seven Stars (of the Great Bear).(748) In astronomical and cosmogonical language, this Creation relates to the Fire‐ Mist Period, the first stage of Cosmic Life, after its Chaotic state,(749) when Atoms issue from Laya.

(III) _The Third Creation_: the Third or Indriya Creation was the modified form of Ahankâra, the conception of “I” (from Aham, “I”), termed the Organic Creation, or Creation of the Senses, Aindriyaka. “These three were the Prâkrita Creation, the [discrete] developments of indiscrete nature preceded by the indiscrete principle.” “Preceded by,” ought to be replaced here with “beginning with Buddhi”; for the latter is neither a discrete nor an indiscrete quantity, but partakes of the nature of both, in man as in Kosmos. A unit or human Monad on the plane of illusion, when once freed from the three forms of Ahankâra and liberated from its terrestrial Manas, Buddhi indeed becomes a continued quantity, both in duration and extension, for it is eternal and immortal. Earlier it is stated, that the Third Creation “abounding with the quality of goodness,” is termed Ûrdhvasrotas; and a page or two further the Ûrdhvasrotas Creation is referred to as “the sixth creation ... or that of the divinities.” This shows plainly that earlier as well as later Manvantaras have been purposely confused, to prevent the profane from perceiving the truth. This is called “incongruity” and “contradictions” by the Orientalists. “The three creations beginning with Intelligence are elemental, but the six creations which proceed from the series of which Intellect is the first, are the work of Brahmâ.”(750) Here “creations” mean everywhere _stages of evolution_. Mahat, “Intellect” or Mind, which corresponds with Manas, the former being on the cosmic, and the latter on the human plane, stands here, too, lower than Buddhi or supra‐divine Intelligence. Therefore, when we read in _Linga Purâna_ that “the first Creation was that of Mahat, Intellect being the first in manifestation,” we must refer that (specified) creation to the first evolution of our System or even our Earth, none of the preceding ones being discussed in the _Purânas_, but only occasionally hinted at.

This Creation of the first Immortals, or Devasarga, is the last of the series, and has a universal meaning; it refers, namely, to Evolution in general, and not specifically to our Manvantara, which begins with the same over and over again, thus showing that it refers to several distinct Kalpas. For it is said “at the close of the past [Pâdma] Kalpa the divine Brahmâ awoke from his night of sleep and beheld the Universe void.” Then Brahmâ is shown going once more over the “Seven Creations,” in the secondary stage of evolution, repeating the first three on the objective plane.

(IV) _The Fourth Creation_: the Mukhya or Primary, as it begins the series of four. Neither the term “inanimate” bodies nor “immovable things,” as translated by Wilson, gives a correct idea of the Sanskrit words used. Esoteric Philosophy is not alone in rejecting the idea of any atom being “inorganic,” for it is found also in orthodox Hindûism. Moreover, Wilson himself says: “All the Hindû systems consider vegetable bodies as endowed with life.”(751) Charâchara, or the synonymous sthâvara and jangama, is, therefore, inaccurately rendered by “animate and inanimate,” “sentient beings” and “unconscious,” or “conscious and unconscious beings,” etc. “Locomotive and fixed” would be better, “since trees are considered to possess souls.” The Mukhya is the “creation,” or rather organic evolution, of the vegetable kingdom. In this Secondary Period, the three degrees of the elemental or rudimental kingdoms are evolved in this World, corresponding, _inversely_ in order, to the three Prâkritic Creations, during the Primary Period of Brahmâ’s activity. As in that Period, in the words of _Vishnu Purâna_, “the first creation was that of Mahat or Intellect.... The second was that of the Rudimental Principles (Tanmâtras).... The third was ... the creation of the senses (Aindriyaka)”; so in this one, the order of the Elemental Forces stands thus: (1) the _nascent_ Centres of Force, intellectual and physical; (2) the Rudimentary Principles, _nerve force_, so to say; and (3) nascent Apperception, which is the Mahat of the lower kingdoms, and is especially developed in the third order of Elementals; these are succeeded by the objective kingdom of minerals, in which this “apperception” is entirely latent, to re‐develop only in the plants. The Mukhya Creation, then, is the middle point between the three lower and the three higher kingdoms, which represent the seven esoteric kingdoms of Kosmos, and of Earth.

(V) _The Fifth Creation_: the Tiryaksrotas or Tairyagyonya Creation,(752) that of the “(sacred) animals,” corresponding on Earth only to the dumb animal creation. That which is meant by “animals,” in the Primary Creation, is the germ of awakening consciousness, or of “apperception,” that which is faintly traceable in some sensitive plants on Earth and more distinctly in the protistic Monera.(753) On our Globe, during the First Round, animal “creation” precedes that of man, while the mammalian animals evolve from man in our Fourth Round, on the physical plane. In the First Round, the animal atoms are drawn into a cohesion of human physical form; while in the Fourth, the reverse occurs according to magnetic conditions developed during life. And this is “metempsychosis.”(754) This fifth Stage of Evolution, called exoterically “Creation,” may be viewed in both the Primary and Secondary Periods, one as the spiritual and cosmic, the other as the material and terrestrial. It is archebiosis, or life‐origination; “origination,” so far, of course, as the _manifestation_ of life on all the seven planes is concerned. It is at this period of evolution that the absolutely eternal universal motion, or vibration, that which is called in Esoteric language the “Great Breath,” differentiates into the primordial, first manifested Atom. More and more, as chemical and physical sciences progress, does this Occult axiom find its corroboration in the world of knowledge; the scientific hypothesis, that even the simplest elements of matter are identical in their nature, and differ from each other only in consequence of the various distributions of atoms in the molecule or speck of substance, or of the modes of its atomic vibration, gains more ground every day.

Thus, as the differentiation of the primordial germ of life has to precede the evolution of the Dhyân Chohan of the _Third_ Group or Hierarchy of Being in Primary Creation, before those Gods can become embodied in their first ethereal form (rûpa), so animal creation has for the same reason to _precede_ “divine man” on Earth. And this is why we find in the _Purânas_, “the fifth, the Tairyagyonya Creation, was that of animals.”

(VI) _The Sixth Creation_: the Ûrdhvasrotas Creation, or that of Divinities. But these Divinities are simply the Prototypes of the First Race, the Fathers of their “mind‐born” progeny with the “soft bones.” It is these who became the Evolvers of the “Sweat‐born”—an expression explained in Volume II.

“Created beings,” explains the _Vishnu Purâna_, “although they are destroyed [in their individual forms] at the periods of dissolution, yet being affected by the good or evil acts of _former existences_, are never exempted from their consequences. And when Brahmâ produces the world anew, they are the progeny of his will.”

“_Collecting his mind into itself_ [yoga‐willing], Brahmâ creates the four Orders of Beings, termed Gods, Demons, Progenitors, and Men”; Progenitors here meaning the Prototypes and Evolvers of the first Root‐Race of men. The Progenitors are the Pitris, and are of Seven Classes. They are said, in _exoteric_ mythology, to be born of “Brahmâ’s side,” like Eve from the rib of Adam.

Finally, the Sixth Creation is followed, and “Creation” in general closed by:

(VII) _The Seventh Creation_: the evolution of the Arvâksrotas Beings, “which was ... that of man.”

The “Eighth Creation” mentioned is no Creation at all: it is a “blind,” for it refers to a purely mental process, the cognition of the “Ninth Creation,” which, in its turn, is an effect, manifesting in the Secondary, of that which was a “Creation” in the Primary (Prâkrita) Creation.(755) The Eighth, then, called Anugraha, the Pratyayasarga or Intellectual Creation of the Sânkhyas,(756) is “the creation of which _we have a notion_ [in its esoteric aspect], or to which we give intellectual assent (Anugraha), in contradistinction to _organic creation_.” It is the correct perception of our relations to the whole range of “Gods,” and especially of those we bear to the Kumâras, the so‐called “Ninth Creation,” which is in reality an aspect, or reflection, of the Sixth in our Manvantara (the Vaivasvata). “There is a _ninth_, the Kaumâra Creation, which is both primary and secondary,” says the _Vishnu Purâna_, the oldest of such texts.(757) As an Esoteric text explains:

_The Kumâras, are the Dhyânis, derived immediately from the Supreme Principle, who reäppear in the Vaivasvata Manu period, for the progress of mankind._(758)

The translator of the _Vishnu Purâna_ corroborates it, by remarking that “these sages ... live as long as Brahmâ; and they are only created by him in the _First_ Kalpa, although their generation is very commonly, but inconsistently, introduced in the [_Secondary_] Vârâha, or Pâdma Kalpa.” Thus, the Kumâras are, exoterically, “the creation of Rudra or Nîlalohita, a form of Shiva, by Brahmâ ... and of certain other mind‐born sons of Brahmâ.” But, in the Esoteric teaching, they are the Progenitors of the true spiritual Self in the physical man, the higher Prajâpatis, while the Pitris, or lower Prajâpatis, are no more than the Fathers of the model, or type of his physical form, made “in _their_ image.” Four (and occasionally _five_) are mentioned freely in the exoteric texts, three of the Kumâras being secret.

“The four Kumâras [are] the mind‐born Sons of Brahmâ. Some specify _seven_.”(759) All these seven Vaidhâtra, the patronymic of the Kumâras, the “Maker’s Sons,” are mentioned and described in Îshvara Krishna’s _Sânkhya Kârikâ_ with the Commentary of Gaudapâdâchârya (Shankarâchvrya’s Paraguru) attached to it. It discusses the nature of the Kumâras, though it refrains from mentioning _by name_ all the seven Kumâras, but calls them instead the “seven sons of Brahmâ,” which they are, as they are created by Brahmâ in Rudra. The list of names it gives us is: Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanâtana, Kapila, Ribhu, and Panchashikha. But these again are all _aliases_.

The exoteric four are Sanatkumâra, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanâtana; and the esoteric three Sana, Kapila, and Sanatsujâta. Special attention is once more drawn to this class of Dhyân Chohans, for herein lies the mystery of generation and heredity hinted at in the Commentary on Stanza VII, in treating of the Four Orders of Angelic Beings. Volume II explains their position in the Divine Hierarchy. Meanwhile, let us see what the exoteric texts say about them.

They say little; and to him who fails to read between the lines—nothing. “We must have recourse, here, to other _Purânas_ for the elucidation of this term,” remarks Wilson, who does not suspect for one moment that he is in the presence of the “Angels of Darkness,” the mythical “great enemy” of his Church. Therefore, he contrives to “elucidate” no more than that “these [Divinities] _declining to create progeny_, [and thus rebelling against Brahmâ], remained, as the name of the first [Sanatkumâra] implies, ever boys, Kumâras; that is, ever pure and innocent, whence their creation is called the Kaumâra.” The _Purânas_, however, may afford a little more light. “Being ever as he was born, he is here called a youth; and hence his name is well known as Sanatkumâra.”(760) In the _Shaiva Purânas_, the Kumâras are always described as Yogins. The _Kurma Purâna_, after enumerating them, says: “These five, O Brâhmans, were Yogins, who acquired entire exemption from passion.” They are _five_, because two of the Kumâras _fell_.

So untrustworthy are some translations of the Orientalists that in the French translation of the _Hari Vamsha_, it is said: “The seven Prajâpati, Rudra, Skanda (his son) and Sanatkumâra proceeded to create beings.” Whereas, as Wilson shows, the original is: “These seven ... created progeny; and so did Rudra, but Skanda and Sanatkumâra, _restraining their power, abstained_ (from creation).” The “four orders of beings” are referred to sometimes as Ambhâmsi, which Wilson renders as “literally Waters” and believes it “a mystic term.” It is one, no doubt; but he evidently failed to catch the _real_ Esoteric meaning. “Waters” and “Water” stand as the symbol for Âkâsha, the “Primordial Ocean of Space,” on which Nârâyana, the self‐born Spirit, moves, reclining on that _which is its progeny_.(761) “Water is the body of Nara; thus we have heard the name of Water explained. Since Brahmâ rests on the Water, therefore he is termed Nârâyana.”(762) “Pure, Purusha created the Waters pure.” At the same time Water is the _Third_ Principle in material Kosmos, and the third in the realm of the Spiritual: _Spirit_ of Fire, Flame, Âkâsha, Ether, Water, Air, Earth, are the cosmic, sidereal, psychic, spiritual and mystic principles, _preëminently occult_, on every _plane_ of being. “Gods, Demons, Pitris and Men,” are the four orders of beings to whom the term Ambhâmsi is applied, because they are all the product of _Waters_ (mystically), of the Âkâshic Ocean, and of the _Third_ principle in Nature. In the _Vedas_ it is a synonym of Gods. Pitris and Men on Earth are the transformations or rebirths of Gods and Demons (Spirits) on a higher plane. Water is, in another sense, the feminine principle. Venus Aphrodite is the personified Sea, and the Mother of the God of Love, the Generatrix of all the Gods, as much as the Christian Virgin Mary is Mare, the Sea, the Mother of the Western God of Love, Mercy and Charity. If the student of Esoteric Philosophy thinks deeply over the subject, he is sure to find out all the suggestiveness of the term Ambhâmsi, in its manifold relations to the Virgin in Heaven, to the Celestial Virgin of the Alchemists, and even to the “Waters of Grace” of the modern Baptist.

Of all the seven great divisions of Dhyân Chohans, or Devas, there is none with which humanity is more concerned than with the Kumâras. Imprudent are the Christian Theologians who have degraded them into _Fallen_ Angels, and now call them Satan and Demons; as among these heavenly denizens who “refuse to create,” the Archangel Michael, the greatest patron Saint of the Western and Eastern Churches, under his double name of St. Michael and his supposed copy on earth, St. George conquering the Dragon, has to be given one of the most prominent places.

The Kumâras, the Mind‐born Sons of Brahmâ‐Rudra, or Shiva, mystically the howling and terrific _destroyer of human passions and physical senses_, which are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the growth of the _inner_ eternal man, are the progeny of Shiva, the Mahâyogî, the great patron of all the Yogîs and Mystics of India.

Shiva‐Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the Preserver; and both are the Regenerators of spiritual as well as of physical Nature. To live as a plant, the _seed_ must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity, the passions and senses of man must die before his body does. “That to live is to die and to die is to live,” has been too little understood in the West. Shiva, the Destroyer, is the Creator and the Saviour of Spiritual Man, as he is the good gardener of Nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to call to life the perceptions of the spiritual, man.

The Kumâras, themselves then, being the “virgin ascetics,” refuse to create the _material_ being Man. Well may they be suspected of a direct connection with the Christian Archangel Michael, the “virgin combatant” of the Dragon Apophis, whose victim is every Soul united too loosely to its immortal Spirit, the Angel who, as shown by the Gnostics, _refused to create_ just as the Kumâras did. Does not that patron Angel of the Jews _preside_ over Saturn (Shiva or Rudra), and the Sabbath, the day of Saturn? Is he not shown of the same essence with his Father (Saturn), and called the Son of Time, Cronus, or Kâla, a form of Brahmâ (Vishnu and Shiva)? And is not Old Time of the Greeks, with its scythe and sand‐glass, identical with the Ancient of Days of the Kabalists; the latter “Ancient” being one with the Hindû Ancient of Days, Brahmâ, in his _triune_ form, whose name is also Sanat, the Ancient? Every Kumâra bears the prefix of Sanat and Sana. And Shanaishchara is Saturn, the planet Shani, the King Saturn, whose Secretary in Egypt was Thot‐Hermes the first. They are thus identified both with the planet and the God (Shiva), who are, in their turn, shown to be the prototypes of Saturn, who is the same as Bel, Baal, Shiva, and Jehovah Sabbaoth, the Angel of the Face of whom is Mikael—מיכאל, “who [is] as God.” He is the patron, and guardian Angel of the Jews, as Daniel tells us; and, before the Kumâras were degraded, by those who were ignorant of their very name, into Demons and Fallen Angels, the Greek Ophites, the occultly inclined predecessors and precursors of the Roman Catholic Church after its secession and separation from the primitive Greek Church, had identified Michael with their Ophiomorphos, the rebellious and opposing spirit. This means nothing more than the reverse aspect, symbolically, of Ophis, the Divine Wisdom or Christos. In the _Talmud_, Mikael is “Prince of Water” and the chief of the Seven Spirits, for the same reason that one of his many prototypes, Sanatsujâta, the chief of the Kumâras, is called Ambhâmsi, “Waters,” according to the commentary on _Vishnu Purâna_. Why? Because the Waters is another name of the Great Deep, the Primordial Waters of Space, or Chaos, and also means Mother, Ambâ, meaning Aditi and Akâsha, the Celestial Virgin‐Mother of the visible Universe. Furthermore, the “Waters of the Flood” are also called the “Great Dragon,” or Ophis, Ophiomorphos.

The Rudras will be noticed in their septenary character of “Fire‐Spirits” in the “Symbolism” attached to the Stanzas in Volume II. There we shall also consider the Cross (3 + 4) under its primeval and later forms, and shall use for purposes of comparison the Pythagorean numbers side by side with Hebrew metrology. The immense importance of the number _seven_ will thus become evident, as the root number of Nature. We shall examine it from the standpoint of the _Vedas_ and the Chaldean Scriptures; as it existed in Egypt thousands of years B.C., and as treated in the Gnostic records; we shall show how its importance as a basic number has gained recognition in Physical Science; and we shall endeavour to prove that the importance attached to the number _seven_ throughout all antiquity was due to no fanciful imaginings of uneducated priests, but to a profound knowledge of Natural Law.

Section XIV. The Four Elements.

Metaphysically and esoterically, there is but _One Element_ in Nature, and at the root of it is the Deity; and the so‐called _seven_ Elements, of which _five_ have already manifested and asserted their existence, are the garment, the veil, of that Deity, direct from the essence whereof comes Man, whether considered physically, psychically, mentally or spiritually. Four Elements only are generally spoken of in later antiquity, while five only are admitted in philosophy. For the body of Ether is not fully manifested yet, and its noumenon is still the “Omnipotent Father Æther,” the synthesis of the rest. But what are these Elements, whose compound bodies have now been discovered by Chemistry and Physics to contain numberless sub‐elements, even the sixty or seventy of which no longer embrace the whole number suspected? Let us follow their evolution from the _historical_ beginnings, at any rate.

The Four Elements were fully characterized by Plato when he said that they were _that_ “which _composes_ and _decomposes_ the _compound bodies_.” Hence Cosmolatry was never, even in its worst aspect, the fetichism which adores or worships the passive external form and matter of any object, but looked ever to the Noumenon therein. Fire, Air, Water, Earth, were but the visible garb, the symbols of the informing, invisible Souls or Spirits, the Cosmic Gods, to whom worship was offered by the ignorant, and simple, but respectful, recognition by the wiser. In their turn, the phenomenal subdivisions of the noumenal Elements were informed by the Elementals, so‐ called, the “Nature Spirits” of lower grades.

In the Theogony of Môchus, we find Ether first, and then the Air; the two principles from which Ulom, the Intelligible (νοητὸς) God, the visible Universe of Matter, is born.(763)

In the Orphic hymns, the Erôs‐Phanes evolves from the Spiritual Egg, which the Æthereal Winds impregnate, Wind being the “Spirit of God,” which is said to move in Æther, “brooding over the Chaos,” the Divine Idea. In the Hindû _Kathopanishad_, Purusha, the Divine Spirit, already stands before the Original Matter, and from their union springs the great Soul of the World, “Mahâ‐Âtmâ, Brahman, the Spirit of Life”;(764) these latter appellations being again identical with the Universal Soul, or Anima Mundi; the Astral Light of the Theurgists and Kabalists being its last and lowest division.

The Elements (στοιχεῖα) of Plato and Aristotle were thus the _incorporeal principles_ attached to the four great divisions of our Cosmic World, and it is with justice that Creuzer defines these primitive beliefs as “a _species of magism_, a _psychic paganism_, and a _deification of potencies_; a _spiritualization_ which placed the believers in a close community with these potencies.”(765) So close, indeed, that the Hierarchies of these Potencies, or Forces, have been classified on a graduated scale of seven from the ponderable to the imponderable. They are septenary, not as an artificial aid to facilitate their comprehension, but in their real _cosmic_ gradation, from their chemical, or physical, to their purely spiritual composition. Gods with the ignorant masses; Gods independent and supreme; Demons with the fanatics, who, intellectual as they often may be, are unable to understand the _spirit_ of the philosophical sentence, _in pluribus unum_. With the Hermetic philosopher they are Forces _relatively_ “blind” or “intelligent,” according to which of the principles in them he deals with. It required long millenniums before they found themselves finally, in our cultured age, degraded into simple chemical elements.

At any rate, good Christians, and especially the Biblical Protestants, ought to show more reverence for the Four Elements, if they would maintain any for Moses. For the _Bible_ manifests the consideration and mystic significance in which they were held by the Hebrew Lawgiver, on every page of the _Pentateuch_. The tent which contained the Holy of Holies was a Cosmic Symbol, sacred, in one of its meanings, to the Elements, the four cardinal points, and Ether. Josephus shows it built in white, the colour of Ether. And this explains also why, in the Egyptian and the Hebrew temples, according to Clemens Alexandrinus,(766) a gigantic curtain, supported by five pillars, separated the _sanctum sanctorum_—now represented by the altar in Christian churches—wherein the priests alone were permitted to enter, from the part accessible to the profane. By its _four_ colours this curtain symbolized the four principal Elements, and with the five pillars signified the knowledge of the divine that the _five_ senses can enable man to acquire with the help of the _four_ Elements.

In Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, one of the “Chaldean Oracles” expresses ideas about the elements and Ether in language singularly like that of _The Unseen Universe_, written by two eminent Scientists of our day.

It states that from Ether have come all things, and to it all will return; that the images of all things are indelibly impressed upon it; and that it is the store‐house of the germs, or of the remains of all visible forms, and even ideas. It appears as if this case strangely corroborates our assertion that whatever discoveries may be made in our days will be found to have been anticipated by many thousand years by our “simple‐minded ancestors.”

Whence came the Four Elements and the Malachim of the Hebrews? They have been made to merge, by a theological sleight of hand on the part of the Rabbins and the later Fathers of the Church, into Jehovah, but their origin is identical with that of the Cosmic Gods of all other nations. Their symbols, whether born on the shores of the Oxus, on the burning sands of Upper Egypt, or in the wild forests, weird and glacial, which cover the slopes and peaks of the sacred snowy mountains of Thessaly, or again, in the pampas of America—their symbols, we repeat, when traced to their source, are ever one and the same. Whether Egyptian or Pelasgian, Âryan or Semitic, the Genius Loci, the Local God, embraced in its unity all Nature; but not especially the four elements any more than one of their creations, such as trees, rivers, mounts or stars. The Genius Loci, a very late afterthought of the last sub‐races of the Fifth Root‐Race, when the primitive and grandiose meaning had become nearly lost, was ever the representative, in his accumulated titles, of all his colleagues. It was the God of Fire, symbolized by thunder, as Jove or Agni; the God of Water, symbolized by the fluvial bull, or some sacred river or fountain, as Varuna, Neptune, etc.; the God of Air, manifesting in the hurricane and tempest, as Vâyu and Indra; and the God or Spirit of the Earth, who appeared in earthquakes, like Pluto, Yama, and so many others.

These were the Cosmic Gods, ever synthesizing all in one, as found in every cosmogony or mythology. Thus, the Greeks had their Dodonean Jupiter, who included in himself the four Elements and the four cardinal points, and who was recognized, therefore, in old Rome under the pantheistic title of Jupiter Mundus; and who now, in modern Rome, has become the Deus Mundus, the one Mundane God, who is made to swallow all others, in the latest theology, by the arbitrary decision of his special ministers.

As Gods of Fire, Air, and Water, they were _Celestial_ Gods; as Gods of the Lower Region, they were _Infernal_ Deities; the latter adjective applying simply to the _Earth_. They were “Spirits of the Earth” under their respective names of Yama, Pluto, Osiris, the “Lord of the Lower Kingdom,” etc., and their tellurial character sufficiently proves it. The Ancients knew of no worse abode after death than the Kâma Loka, the Limbus on this Earth.(767) If it is argued that the Dodonean Jupiter was identified with Dis, or the Roman Pluto with the Dionysus Chthonius, the Subterranean, and with Aïdoneus, the King of the Subterranean World, wherein, according to Creuzer,(768) oracles were rendered, then it will become the pleasure of the Occultists to prove that both Aïdoneus and Dionysus are the bases of Adonaï, or Iurbo‐Adonaï, as Jehovah is called in the _Codex Nazaræus_. “Thou shalt not worship the Sun, who is named Adonaï, whose name is also Kadush and El‐El,”(769) and also “Lord Bacchus.” Baal‐Adonis of the Sôds, or Mysteries, of the pre‐Babylonian Jews became the Adonaï by the Massorah, the later vowelled Jehovah. Hence the Roman Catholics are right. All these Jupiters are of the same family; but Jehovah has to be included therein to make it complete. The Jupiter Aërius or Pan, the Jupiter‐Ammon, and the Jupiter‐Bel‐Moloch, are all correlations and one with Iurbo‐Adonaï, because they are all one Cosmic Nature. It is that Nature and Power which creates the specific terrestrial symbol, and the physical and material fabric of the latter, which proves the Energy manifesting through it as _extrinsic_.

For primitive religion was something better than simple preöccupation about physical phenomena, as remarked by Schelling; and principles, more elevated than we modern Sadducees know of, “were hidden under the transparent veil of such merely natural divinities as thunder, the winds, and rain.” The Ancients knew and could distinguish the _corporeal_ from the _spiritual_ Elements in the Forces of Nature.

The four‐fold Jupiter, as the four‐faced Brahmâ, the aërial, the fulgurant, the terrestrial, and the marine God, the lord and master of the four Elements, may stand as a representative for the great Cosmic Gods of every nation. Although deputing power over the fire to Hephæstus‐Vulcan, over the sea to Poseidon‐Neptune, and over the Earth to Pluto‐Aïdoneus, the Aërial Jove was still all these; for Æther, from the first, had preëminence over, and was the synthesis of, all the Elements.

Tradition tells of a grotto, a vast cave in the deserts of Central Asia, whereinto light pours, through four seemingly natural apertures, or clefts placed crossways at the four cardinal points. From noon till an hour before sunset the light streams in, of four different colours, as averred, red, blue, orange‐gold, and white, owing to some either natural or artificially prepared conditions of vegetation and soil. The light converges in the centre round a pillar of white marble with a globe upon it, which represents our earth. It is named the “Grotto of Zarathustra.”

Included under the arts and sciences of the Fourth Race, the Atlanteans, the phenomenal manifestation of the Four Elements, which were justly attributed by these believers to the intelligent interference of the Cosmic Gods, assumed a scientific character. The Magic of the ancient priests consisted, in those days, in addressing _their Gods in their own language_.

_The speech of the men of the Earth cannot reach the Lords. Each must be addressed in the language of his respective Element._

So says _The Book of Rules_, in a sentence which will be shown pregnant with meaning, adding as an explanation of the nature of that _element_‐language:

_It is composed of_ SOUNDS, _not words; of sounds, numbers and figures. He who knows how to blend the three, will call forth the response of the superintending Power_ [_the Regent‐God of the specific Element needed_].

Thus this “language” is that of _incantations_ or of _mantras_, as they are called in India; sound being _the most potent and effectual magic agent, and the first of the keys which opens the door of communication between Mortals and Immortals_. He who believes in the words and teachings of St. Paul, has no right to pick out from the latter those sentences only which he chooses to accept, to the rejection of others; and St. Paul teaches most undeniably the existence of Cosmic Gods and their presence among us. Paganism preached a dual and simultaneous evolution, a “creation” _spiritualem ac mundanum_, as the Roman Church has it, ages before the advent of that Roman Church. Exoteric phraseology has changed little with respect to Divine Hierarchies since the most palmy days of Paganism, or “Idolatry.” Names alone have changed, together with claims which have now become false pretences. For when, for instance, Plato put in the mouth of the Highest Principle (Father Æther or Jupiter) the words, “the Gods of the Gods of whom I am the _maker_, as I am the father of all their works,” he knew the spirit of this sentence as fully, we suspect, as St. Paul did, when saying: “For though there be that are called Gods, whether in Heaven or in Earth, as there be Gods many and Lords many....”(770) Both knew the sense and the meaning of what they put forward in such guarded terms.

We cannot be taken to task by the Protestants for interpreting the verse from the _Corinthians_ as we do; for, if the translation in the English _Bible_ is made ambiguous, it is not so in the original texts, and the Roman Catholic Church accepts the words of the Apostle in their true sense. For a proof see St. Dionysius, the Areopagite, who was “_directly inspired_ by the Apostle,” and “who wrote under his dictation,” as we are assured by the Marquis de Mirville, whose works are approved by Rome, and who says, commenting on that special verse: “And, though there are (in fact) they who are called Gods, for it seems there are really _several Gods_, withal and for all that, the _God‐Principle_ and the Superior God ceases not to remain essentially _one_ and indivisible.”(771) Thus spoke the old Initiates also, knowing that the worship of minor Gods could never affect the “_God Principle_.” (772)

Says Sir W. Grove, F.R.S., speaking of the correlation of forces:

The ancients when they witnessed a natural phenomenon, removed from ordinary analogies, and unexplained by any mechanical action known to them, referred it to a soul, a spiritual or preternatural power.... Air and gases were also at first deemed spiritual, but subsequently they became invested with a more material character; and the same words πνεῦμα, spirit, etc., were used to signify the soul or a gas; the very word gas, from _geist_, a ghost or spirit, affords us an instance of the gradual transmutation of a spiritual into a physical conception.(773)

This, the great man of Science, in his preface to the sixth edition of his work, considers to be the _only_ concern of exact Science, which has no business to meddle with the _causes_.

Cause and effect are, therefore, in their abstract relation to these forces, words solely of convenience. We are totally unacquainted _with the ultimate generating power_ of each and all of them, and probably shall ever remain so; we can only ascertain the normal of their actions; we must humbly refer their causation to one omnipresent influence, and content ourselves with studying their effects and developing, by experiment, their mutual relations.(774)

This policy once accepted, and the system virtually admitted in the above‐ quoted words, namely, the _spirituality_ of the “ultimate generating power,” it would be more than illogical to refuse to recognize this quality which is inherent in the _material elements_, or rather, in their compounds, as present in the fire, air, water or earth. The Ancients knew these powers so well, that, while concealing their true nature under various allegories, for the benefit, or to the detriment, of the uneducated rabble, they never departed from the multiple object in view, while inverting them. They contrived to throw a thick veil over the nucleus of truth concealed by the symbol, but they ever tried to preserve the latter as a _record_ for future generations, sufficiently transparent to allow their wise men to discern the truth behind the fabulous form of the glyph or allegory. These ancient sages are accused of _superstition_ and _credulity_; and this too by the very nations, which, though learned in all the modern arts and sciences, and cultured and wise in their generation, accept to this day as their one living and infinite God, the anthropomorphic “Jehovah” of the Jews!

What were some of these alleged “superstitions”? Hesiod believed, for instance, that “the winds were the sons of the Giant Typhôeus,” who were chained and unchained at will by Æolus, and the polytheistic Greeks accepted it along with Hesiod. Why should they not, since the monotheistic Jews had the same beliefs, with other names for their _dramatis personæ_, and since Christians believe in the same to this day? The Hesiodic Æolus, Boreas, etc., were named Kedem, Tzephum, Derum, and Ruach Hayum by the “chosen people” of Israel. What is, then, the fundamental difference? While the Hellenes were taught that Æolus tied and untied the winds, the Jews believed as fervently that their Lord God, _with __“__smoke__”__ coming __“__out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth, ... rode upon a cherub and did fly; and he was seen upon the wings of the wind__”_.(775) The expressions of the two nations are either both figures of speech, or both _superstitions_. We think they are neither; but only arise from a keen sense of oneness with Nature, and a perception of the mysterious and the intelligent behind every natural phenomenon, which the moderns no longer possess. Nor was it “superstitious” in the Greek Pagans to listen to the oracle of Delphi, when, at the approach of the fleet of Xerxes, that oracle advised them to “sacrifice to the winds,” if the same has to be regarded as _divine_ worship in the Israelites, who sacrificed as often to the wind and also especially to the fire. Do they not say that their “God is a consuming fire,”(776) who appeared generally as fire and “encompassed by fire”? and did not Elijah seek for the “Lord” in the “great strong wind, and in the earthquake”? Do not the Christians repeat the same after them? Do not they, moreover, sacrifice to this day, to the same “God of Wind and Water”? They do; because special prayers for rain, dry weather, trade‐winds and the calming of storms on the seas, exist to this hour in the prayer‐books of the three Christian Churches; and the several hundred sects of the Protestant religion offer them to their God upon every threat of calamity. The fact that they are no more answered by Jehovah, than they were, probably, by Jupiter Pluvius, does not alter the fact of these prayers being addressed to the Power, or Powers, supposed to rule over the Elements, or of these Powers being identical in Paganism and Christianity; or have we to believe that such prayers are crass idolatry and absurd “superstition” _only_ when addressed by a Pagan to his “idol,” and that the same superstition is suddenly transformed into “praiseworthy piety” and “religion” whenever the name of the celestial addressee is changed? But the tree _is_ known by its fruit. And the fruit of the Christian tree being no better than that of the tree of Paganism, why should the former command more reverence than the latter?

Thus, when we are told by the Chevalier Drach, a converted Jew, and by the Marquis de Mirville, a Roman Catholic fanatic of the French aristocracy, that in Hebrew “lightning” is a synonym of “fury,” and is always handled by the “evil” Spirit; that Jupiter Fulgur or Fulgurans is also called by the Christians Elicius, and denounced as the “soul of lightning,” its Dæmon;(777) we have either to apply the same explanation and definitions to the “Lord God of Israel,” under the same circumstances, or renounce our right of abusing the Gods and creeds of other nations.

The foregoing statements, emanating as they do from two ardent and learned Roman Catholics, are, to say the least, _dangerous_, in the presence of the _Bible_ and its prophets. Indeed, if Jupiter, the “chief Dæmon of the Pagan Greeks,” hurled his deadly thunder‐bolts and lightnings at those who excited his wrath, so did the Lord God of Abraham and Jacob. For we read that:

The Lord thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered his voice. And he sent out arrows [thunder‐bolts] and scattered them [Saul’s armies]; lightning, and discomfited them.(778)

The Athenians are accused of having sacrificed to Boreas; and this “Dæmon” is charged with having submerged and wrecked 400 ships of the Persian fleet on the rocks of Mount Pelion, and of having become so furious that all the Magi of Xerxes could hardly counteract him by offering contra‐ sacrifices to Thetis.(779) Very fortunately, no authenticated instance is on the records of Christian wars, showing a like catastrophe on the same scale happening to one Christian fleet, owing to the “prayers” of its enemy—another Christian nation. But this is from no fault of theirs, for each prays as ardently to Jehovah for the destruction of the other, as the Athenians prayed to Boreas. Both resorted to a neat little piece of black magic _con amore_. Such abstinence from divine interference being hardly due to lack of prayers, sent to a _common_ Almighty God for mutual destruction, where, then, shall we draw the line between Pagan and Christian? And who can doubt that all Protestant England would rejoice and offer thanks to the Lord, if during some future war, 400 ships of the hostile fleet were to be wrecked owing to such holy prayers? What is, then, the difference, we ask again, between a Jupiter, a Boreas, and a Jehovah? No more than this: The crime of one’s own next‐of‐kin, say of one’s father, is always excused and often exalted, whereas the crime of our neighbour’s parent is ever gladly punished by hanging. Yet the crime is the same.

So far the “blessings of Christianity” do not seem to have made any appreciable advance on the morals of the converted Pagans.

The above is not a defence of Pagan Gods, nor is it an attack on the Christian Deity, nor does it mean belief in either. The writer is quite impartial, and rejects the testimony in favour of both, neither praying to, believing in, nor dreading any such “personal” and anthropomorphic God. The parallels are brought forward simply as one more curious exhibition of the illogical and blind fanaticism of the civilized theologian. For, so far, there is not a very great difference between the two beliefs, and there is none in their respective effects upon _morality_, or spiritual nature. The “light of Christ” shines upon as hideous features of the animal man now, as the “light of Lucifer” did in days of old. Says the missionary Lavoisier, in the _Journal des Colonies_:

These unfortunate heathens in their superstition regard even the Elements as something that has comprehension!... They still have faith in their idol Vâyu—the God or, rather, Demon of the Wind and Air ... they firmly believe in the efficacy of their prayers, and in the powers of their Brâhmans over the winds and storms.

In reply to this, we may quote from _Luke_: “And he [Jesus] arose and _rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased and there was a calm_.”(780) And here is another quotation from a Prayer Book: “O Virgin of the Sea, blessed Mother and Lady of the Waters, stay thy waves.” This prayer of the Neapolitan and Provençal sailors, is copied textually from that of the Phœnician mariners to their Virgin‐Goddess Astarte. The logical and irrepressible conclusion arising from the parallels brought forward, and the denunciation of the missionary, is that the _commands_ of the Brâhmans to their Element‐Gods _not remaining_ “ineffectual,” the power of the Brâhmans is thus placed on a par with that of Jesus. Moreover, Astarte is shown not a whit weaker in potency than the “Virgin of the Sea” of Christian sailors. It is not enough to give a dog a bad name, and then hang him; the dog has to be proven guilty. Boreas and Astarte may be “Devils” in theological fancy, but, as just remarked, the tree has to be judged by its fruit. And once the Christians are shown to be as immoral and as wicked as the Pagans ever were, what benefit has Humanity derived from its change of Gods and Idols?

That which God and the Christian Saints are justified in doing, becomes in simple mortals a crime, if successful. Sorcery and incantations are now regarded as fables; yet from the Institutes of Justinian down to the laws of England and America against witchcraft—obsolete but not repealed to this day—such incantations, even when only suspected, were punished as criminal. Why punish a chimera? And still we read of Constantine, the Emperor, sentencing to death the philosopher Sopatrus for “unchaining the winds,” and thus preventing ships laden with grain from arriving in time to put an end to famine. Pausanias is derided when he affirms that he saw with his own eyes “men who by simple prayers and incantations” stopped a strong hail‐storm. This does not prevent modern Christian writers from advising prayer during storm and danger, and believing in its efficacy. Hoppo and Stadlein, two magicians and sorcerers, were sentenced to death for “throwing charms on fruit” and transferring a harvest by magic arts from one field to another, hardly a century ago, if we can believe Sprenger, the famous writer, who vouches for it: “_Qui fruges excantassent segetem pellicentes incantando_.”

Let us close by reminding the reader that, without the smallest shadow of superstition, one may believe in the dual nature of every object on Earth, in spiritual and material, in visible and invisible Nature, and that Science virtually proves this, while denying its own demonstration. For if, as Sir William Grove says, the electricity we handle is but the _result_ of ordinary matter affected by something invisible, the “_ultimate_ generating power” of every Force, the “one omnipresent influence,” then it only becomes natural that one should believe as the Ancients did; namely, that every Element is _dual_ in its nature. “Ethereal Fire is the emanation of the Kabir proper; the Aërial is but the union [correlation] of the former with Terrestrial Fire, and its guidance and application on our earthly plane belongs to a Kabir of a lesser dignity”—an Elemental, perhaps, as an Occultist would call it; and the same may be said of every Cosmic Element.

No one will deny that the human being is possessed of various forces, magnetic, sympathetic, antipathetic, nervous, dynamical, occult, mechanical, mental, in fact of every kind of force; and that the physical forces are all biological in their essence, seeing that they intermingle with, and often merge into, those forces that we have named intellectual and moral, the first being the vehicles, so to say, the upâdhis, of the second. No one, who does not deny soul in man, would hesitate in saying that their presence and commingling are the very essence of our being; that they constitute the Ego in man, in fact. These potencies have their physiological, physical, mechanical, as well as their nervous, ecstatic, clairaudient, and clairvoyant phenomena, which are now regarded and recognized as perfectly natural, even by Science. Why should man be the only exception in Nature, and why cannot even the Elements have their Vehicles, their Vâhanas, in what we call the Physical Forces? And why, above all, should such beliefs be called “superstition” along with the religions of old?

Section XV. On Kwan‐Shi‐Yin and Kwan‐Yin.

Like Avalokiteshvara, Kwan‐Shi‐Yin has passed through several transformations, but it is an error to say of him that he is a modern invention of the Northern Buddhists, for under another appellation he has been known from the earliest times. The Secret Doctrine teaches that: “_He who is the first to appear at Renovation will be the last to come before Reäbsorption_ [_Pralaya_]”. Thus the Logoi of all nations, from the Vedic Vishvakarman of the Mysteries down to the Saviour of the present civilized nations, are the “Word” who was in the “Beginning,” or the reäwakening of the energizing Powers of Nature, with the One ABSOLUTE. Born of Fire and Water, before these became distinct Elements, It was the “Maker,” the fashioner or modeller, of all things. “Without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men,” who finally may be called as he ever has been, the Alpha and the Omega of Manifested Nature. “The great Dragon of Wisdom is born of Fire and Water, and into Fire and Water will all be reäbsorbed with him.”(781) As this Bodhisattva is said “to assume any form he pleases,” from the beginning of a Manvantara to its end, though his special birthday, or memorial day, is celebrated according to the _Kin‐kwang‐ming‐King_, or “Luminous Sûtra of Golden Light,” in the second month on the nineteenth day, and that of Maitreya Buddha, in the first month on the first day, yet the two are one. He will appear as Maitreya Buddha, the last of the Avatâras and Buddhas, in the Seventh Race. This belief and expectation are universal throughout the East. Only it is not in the Kali Yuga, our present terrifically materialistic age of Darkness, the “Black Age,” that a new Saviour of Humanity can ever appear. The Kali Yuga is “l’Age d’Or” (!) only in the _mystic_ writings of some French pseudo‐Occultists.(782)

Hence the ritual in the exoteric worship of this Deity was founded on magic. The Mantras are all taken from special books kept secret by the priests, and each is said to work a magical effect; as the reciter or reader, by simply chanting them, produces a secret causation which results in immediate effects. Kwan‐Shi‐Yin is Avalokiteshvara, and both are forms of the Seventh Universal Principle; while in its highest metaphysical character this Deity is the synthetic aggregation of all the Planetary Spirits, Dhyân Chohans. He is the “Self‐Manifested”; in short, the “Son of the Father.” Crowned with seven dragons, above his statue there appears the inscription Pu‐tsi‐k’iun‐ling, “the universal Saviour of all living beings.”

Of course the name given in the archaic volume of the Stanzas is quite different, but Kwan‐Yin is a perfect equivalent. In a temple of P’u‐to, the sacred island of the Buddhists in China, Kwan‐Shi‐Yin is represented floating on a black aquatic bird (Kâlahamsa), and pouring on the heads of mortals the elixir of life, which, as it flows, is transformed into one of the chief Dhyâni‐Buddhas, the Regent of a star called the “Star of Salvation.” In his third transformation Kwan‐Yin is the informing Spirit or Genius of Water. In China the Dalaï‐Lama is believed to be an incarnation of Kwan‐Shi‐Yin, who in his third terrestrial appearance was a Bodhisattva, while the Teshu Lama is an incarnation of Amitâbha Buddha, or Gautama.

It may be remarked _en passant_ that a writer must indeed have a diseased imagination to discover phallic worship everywhere, as do McClatchey and Hargrave Jennings. The first discovers “the old phallic gods, represented under two evident symbols, the Kheen or Yang, which is the _membrum virile_, and the Khw‐an or Yin, the _pudendum muliebre_.”(783) Such a rendering seems the more strange as Kwan‐Shi‐Yin (Avalokiteshvara) and Kwan‐Yin, besides being now the patron Deities of the Buddhist ascetics, the Yogîs of Tibet, are the Gods of chastity, and are, in their esoteric meaning, not even that which is implied in the rendering of Mr. Rhys Davids’ _Buddhism_: “The name Avalokiteshvara ... means ‘the Lord who looks down from on high’.”(784) Nor is Kwan‐Shi‐Yin the “Spirit of the Buddhas present in the Church,” but, literally interpreted, it means “the Lord that is seen.” and in one sense, “the Divine Self perceived by Self”—the human Self—that is, the Âtman or Seventh Principle, merged in the Universal, perceived by, or the object of perception to, Buddhi, the Sixth Principle, or Divine Soul in man. In a still higher sense, Avalokiteshvara‐Kwan‐Shi‐Yin, referred to as the seventh Universal Principle, is the Logos perceived by the Universal Buddhi, or Soul, as the synthetic aggregate of the Dhyâni‐Buddhas; and is not the “Spirit of Buddha present in the Church,” but the Omnipresent Universal Spirit manifested in the temple of Kosmos or Nature. This Orientalistic etymology of Kwan and Yin is on a par with that of Yoginî, which, we are told by Mr. Hargrave Jennings, is a Sanskrit word, “in the dialects pronounced Jogi or Zogee (!), and is ... equivalent with Sena, and exactly the same as Duti or Dutica,” _i.e._, a sacred prostitute of the temple, worshipped as Yoni or Shakti.(785) “The books of morality [in India] direct a faithful wife to shun the society of Yogini or females who have been adored as Sacti.”(786) Nothing should surprise us after this. And it is, therefore, with hardly a smile that we find another preposterous absurdity quoted about “Budh,” as being a name “which signifies not only the sun as the source of generation but also the male organ.”(787) Max Müller, in treating of “False Analogies,” says that “the most celebrated Chinese scholar of his time, Abel Rémusat ... maintains that the three syllables I Hi Wei [in the fourteenth chapter of the _Tao‐te‐King_] were meant for Je‐ ho‐vah”;(788) and again, Father Amyot “felt certain that the three persons of the Trinity could be recognized” in the same work. And if Abel Rémusat, why not Hargrave Jennings? Every scholar will recognize the absurdity of ever seeing in Budh, the “enlightened” and the “awakened,” a “phallic symbol.”

Kwan‐Shi‐Yin, then, is “the Son identical with his Father,” mystically, or the Logos, the Word. He is called the “Dragon of Wisdom,” in Stanza III, for all the Logoi of all the ancient religious systems are connected with, and symbolized by, serpents. In old Egypt, the God Nahbkoon, “he who unites the doubles,” was represented as a serpent on human legs, either with or without arms. This was the Astral Light reüniting by its dual physiological and spiritual potency the Divine‐Human to its purely Divine Monad, the Prototype in “Heaven” or Nature. It was the emblem of the resurrection of Nature; of Christ with the Ophites; and of Jehovah as the brazen serpent healing those who looked at him. The serpent was also an emblem of Christ with the Templars, as is shown by the Templar degree in Masonry. The symbol of Knooph (Khnoom also), or the Soul of the World, says Champollion, “is represented among other forms under that of a huge serpent on human legs; this reptile, being the emblem of the Good Genius and the veritable Agathodæmon, is sometimes bearded.”(789) This sacred animal is thus identical with the serpent of the Ophites, and is figured on a great number of engraved stones, called Gnostic or Basilidean gems. It appears with various heads, human and animal, but its gems are always found inscribed with the name ΧΝΟΥΒΙΣ (ChNOUBIS). This symbol is identical with one which; according to Jamblichus and Champollion, was called the “First of the Celestial Gods,” the God Hermes, or Mercury, with the Greeks, to which God Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention of, and the first initiation of men into, Magic; and Mercury is Budh, Wisdom, Enlightenment, or “Reäwakening” into the divine Science.

To close, Kwan‐Shi‐Yin and Kwan‐Yin are the two aspects, male and female, of the same principle in Kosmos, Nature and Man, of Divine Wisdom and Intelligence. They are the Christos‐Sophia of the mystic Gnostics, the Logos and its Shakti. In their longing for the expression of some mysteries never to be wholly comprehended by the profane, the Ancients, knowing that nothing could be preserved in human memory without some outward symbol, have chosen the, to us, often ridiculous images of the Kwan‐Yins to remind man of his origin and inner nature. To the impartial, however, the Madonnas in crinolines and the Christs in white kid gloves must appear far more absurd than the Kwan‐Shi‐Yin and Kwan‐Yin in their dragon‐garb. The subjective can hardly be expressed by the objective. Therefore, since the symbolic formula attempts to characterize that which is above scientific reasoning, and is as often far beyond our intellects, it must needs go beyond that intellect in some shape or other, or else it will fade out from human remembrance.

## PART III. ADDENDA. ON OCCULT AND MODERN SCIENCE.

The knowledge of this nether world— Say, friend, what is it, false or true? The false, what mortal cares to know? The true, what mortal ever knew?

Section I. Reasons for These Addenda.

Many of the doctrines contained in the foregoing seven Stanzas and Commentaries having been studied and critically examined by some Western Theosophists, certain of the Occult Teachings have been found wanting from the ordinary stand‐point of modern scientific knowledge. They seemed to encounter insuperable difficulties in the way of their acceptance, and to require reconsideration in view of scientific criticism. Some friends have already been tempted to regret the necessity of so often calling in question the assertions of Modern Science. It appeared to them—and I here repeat only their arguments—that “to run counter to the teachings of its most eminent exponents, was to court a premature discomfiture in the eyes of the Western World.”

It is, therefore, desirable to define, once and for all, the position which the writer, who does not in this agree with her friends, intends to maintain. So far as Science remains what in the words of Prof. Huxley it is, viz., “organized common sense”; so far as its inferences are drawn from accurate premisses, its generalizations resting on a purely inductive basis, every Theosophist and Occultist welcomes respectfully and with due admiration its contributions to the domain of cosmological law. There can be no possible conflict between the teachings of Occult and so‐called exact Science, wherever the conclusions of the latter are grounded on a substratum of unassailable fact. It is only when its more ardent exponents, over‐stepping the limits of observed phenomena in order to penetrate into the arcana of Being, attempt to wrench the formation of Kosmos and its _living_ Forces from Spirit, and to attribute all to blind Matter, that the Occultists claim the right of disputing and calling in question their theories. Science cannot, owing to the very nature of things, unveil the mystery of the Universe around us. Science can, it is true, collect, classify, and generalize upon phenomena; but the Occultist, arguing from admitted metaphysical data, declares that the daring explorer, who would probe the inmost secrets of Nature, must transcend the narrow limitations of sense, and transfer his consciousness into the region of Noumena and the sphere of Primal Causes. To effect this, he must develop faculties which, save in a few rare and exceptional cases, are absolutely dormant, in the constitution of the off‐shoots of our present Fifth Root‐Race in Europe and America. He can in no other conceivable manner collect the facts on which to base his speculations. Is this not apparent on the principles of Inductive Logic and Metaphysics alike?

On the other hand, whatever the writer may do, she will never be able to satisfy both Truth and Science. To offer the reader a systematic and uninterrupted version of the Archaic Stanzas is impossible. A gap of 43 verses or shlokas has to be left between the 7th, already given, and the 51st, which is the subject of Book II, though the latter are made to run as from 1 onwards, for easier reading and reference. The mere appearance of man on Earth occupies an equal number of Stanzas, which minutely describe his primal evolution from the human Dhyân Chohans, the state of the Globe at that time, etc., etc. A great number of names referring to chemical substances and other compounds, which have now ceased to combine together, and are therefore unknown to the later offshoots of our Fifth Race, occupy a considerable space. As they are simply untranslatable, and would remain in every case inexplicable, they are omitted, along with those which cannot be made public. Nevertheless, even the little that is given will irritate every follower and defender of dogmatic materialistic Science who happens to read it.

In view of the criticism offered, it is proposed, before proceeding to the remaining Stanzas, to defend those already given. That they are not in perfect accord or harmony with Modern Science, we all know. But had they been as much in agreement with the views of modern knowledge as is a lecture by Sir William Thomson, they would have been rejected all the same. For they teach belief in conscious Powers and Spiritual Entities; in terrestrial, semi‐intelligent, and highly intellectual Forces on other planes;(790) and in Beings that dwell around us in spheres imperceptible, whether through telescope or microscope. Hence the necessity of examining the beliefs of materialistic Science, of comparing its views about the “Elements” with the opinions of the Ancients, and of analysing the physical Forces as they exist in modern conceptions, before the Occultists admit themselves to be in the wrong. We shall touch upon the constitution of the Sun and planets, and the Occult characteristics of what are called Devas and Genii, and are now termed by Science, Forces, or “modes of motion,” and see whether Esoteric belief is defensible or not. Notwithstanding the efforts made to the contrary, an unprejudiced mind will discover that under Newton’s “agent, material or immaterial,”(791) the agent which _causes gravity_, and in his personal _working_ God, there is just as much of the metaphysical Devas and Genii, as there is in Kepler’s Angelus Rector conducting each planet, and in the _species immateriata_ by which the celestial bodies were carried along in their courses, according to that Astronomer.

In Volume II, we shall have to openly approach dangerous subjects. We must bravely face Science and declare, in the teeth of materialistic learning, of Idealism, Hylo‐Idealism, Positivism and all‐denying modern Psychology, that the true Occultist believes in “Lords of Light”; that he believes in a Sun, which—far from being simply a “lamp of day” moving in accordance with physical law, and far from being merely one of those Suns, which, according to Richter, “are sun‐flowers of a higher light”—is, like milliards of other Suns, the dwelling or the vehicle of a God, and of a host of Gods.

In this dispute, of course, it is the Occultists who will be worsted. They will be considered, on the _primâ facie_ aspect of the question, to be ignoramuses, and will be labelled with more than one of the usual epithets given to those whom the superficially judging public, itself ignorant of the great underlying truths in Nature, accuses of believing in mediæval superstitions. Let it be so. Submitting beforehand to every criticism in order to go on with their task, they only claim the privilege of showing that the Physicists are as much at loggerheads among themselves in their speculations, as these speculations are with the teachings of Occultism.

The Sun is Matter, and the Sun is Spirit. Our ancestors, the “Heathen,” like their modern successors, the Parsîs, were, and are, wise enough in their generation to see in it the symbol of Divinity, and at the same time to sense within, concealed by the physical symbol, the bright God of Spiritual and Terrestrial Light. Such belief can be regarded as a superstition only by rank Materialism, which denies Deity, Spirit, Soul, and admits no intelligence outside the mind of man. But if too much wrong superstition bred by “Churchianity,” as Laurence Oliphant calls it, “renders a man a fool,” too much scepticism makes him mad. We prefer the charge of folly in believing too much, to that of a madness which denies everything, as do Materialism and Hylo‐Idealism. Hence, the Occultists are fully prepared to receive their dues from Materialism, and to meet the adverse criticism which will be poured on the author of this work, not for writing it, but for believing in that which it contains.

Therefore the discoveries, hypotheses, and unavoidable objections which will be brought forward by the scientific critics must be anticipated and disposed of. It has also to be shown how far the Occult Teachings depart from Modern Science, and whether the ancient or the modern theories are the more logically and philosophically correct. The unity and mutual relations of all parts of Kosmos were known to the Ancients, before they became evident to modern Astronomers and Philosophers. And even if the external and visible portions of the Universe, and their mutual relations, cannot be explained in Physical Science, in any other terms than those used by the adherents of the mechanical theory of the Universe, it does not follow that the Materialist, who denies that the Soul of Kosmos (which appertains to Metaphysical Philosophy) exists, has the right to trespass upon that metaphysical domain. That Physical Science is trying to, and actually does, encroach upon it, is only one more proof that “might is right”; it does not justify the intrusion.

Another good reason for these Addenda is this. Since only a certain portion of the Secret Teachings can be given out in the present age, the doctrines would never be understood even by Theosophists, if they were published without any explanations or commentary. Therefore they must be contrasted with the speculations of Modern Science. Archaic Axioms must be placed side by side with Modern Hypotheses, and the comparison of their value must be left to the sagacious reader.

On the question of the “Seven Governors”—as Hermes calls the “Seven Builders,” the Spirits which guide the operations of Nature, the animated atoms of which are the shadows, in their own world, of their Primaries in the Astral Realms—this work will, of course, have every Materialist against it, as well as the men of Science. But this opposition can, at most, be only temporary. People have laughed at everything unusual, and have scouted every unpopular idea at first, and have then ended by accepting it. Materialism and Scepticism are evils that must remain in the world so long as man has not quitted his present gross form to don the one he had during the First and Second Races of this Round. Unless Scepticism and our present natural ignorance are equilibrated by Intuition and a natural Spirituality, every being afflicted with such feelings will see in himself nothing better than a bundle of flesh, bones, and muscles, with an empty garret inside, which serves the purpose of storing his sensations and feelings. Sir Humphrey Davy was a great Scientist, as deeply versed in Physics as any theorist of our day, yet he loathed Materialism. He says:

I heard with disgust, in the dissecting‐rooms, the plan of the Physiologist, of the gradual secretion of matter, and its becoming endued with irritability, ripening into sensibility, and acquiring such organs as were necessary, by its own inherent forces, and at last rising into intellectual existence.

Nevertheless, Physiologists are not those who should be most blamed for speaking of that only which they can see by, and estimate on the evidence of, their physical senses. Astronomers and Physicists are, we consider, far more illogical in their materialistic views than are even Physiologists, and this has to be proved. Milton’s

... Light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,

has become with the Materialists only

... Prime cheerer, light, Of all material beings, first and best.

For the Occultists it is both Spirit and Matter. Behind the “mode of motion,” now regarded as the “property of matter” and nothing more, they perceive the radiant Noumenon. It is the “Spirit of Light,” the first‐born of the Eternal pure Element, whose energy, or emanation, is stored in the Sun, the great Life‐Giver of the Physical World, as the hidden concealed Spiritual Sun is the Light‐ and Life‐Giver of the Spiritual and Psychic Realms. Bacon was one of the first to strike the key‐note of Materialism, not only by his inductive method—renovated from ill‐digested Aristotle—but by the general tenor of his writings. He inverts the order of mental Evolution when saying:

The first creation of God was the light of the sense; the last was the light of the reason; and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of the Spirit.

It is just the reverse. The light of Spirit is the eternal Sabbath of the Mystic or Occultist, and he pays little attention to that of mere sense. That which is meant by the allegorical sentence, “_Fiat Lux_,” is, when esoterically rendered, “Let there be the ‘Sons of Light’,” or the Noumena of all phenomena. Thus the Roman Catholics rightly interpret the passage as referring to Angels, but wrongly as meaning Powers created by an anthropomorphic God, whom they personify in the ever thundering and punishing Jehovah.

These beings are the “Sons of Light,” because they emanate from, and are self‐generated in, that infinite Ocean of Light, whose one pole is pure _Spirit_ lost in the absoluteness of Non‐Being, and the other pole, the _Matter_ in which it condenses, “crystallizing” into a more and more gross type as it descends into manifestation. Therefore Matter, though it is, in one sense, but the illusive dregs of that Light whose Rays are the Creative Forces, yet has in it the full presence of the Soul thereof, of that Principle, which none—not even the “Sons of Light,” evolved from its ABSOLUTE DARKNESS—will ever know. The idea is as beautifully, as it is truthfully, expressed by Milton, who hails the holy Light, which is the

... Offspring of Heaven, first‐born, Or of th’ Eternal coëternal beam; ... Since God is Light, And never but in unapproached Light Dwelt from Eternity, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate.

Section II. Modern Physicists are Playing at Blind Man’s Buff.

And now Occultism puts to Science the question: Is light a body, or is it not? Whatever the answer of the latter, the former is prepared to show that, to this day, the most eminent Physicists have no real knowledge on the subject. To know what light is, and whether it is an actual substance or a mere undulation of the “ethereal medium,” Science has first to learn what Matter, Atom, Ether, Force, are in reality. Now, the truth is, that it knows nothing of any of these, and admits its ignorance. It has not even agreed what to believe in, as dozens of hypotheses on the same subject, emanating from various and very eminent Scientists, are antagonistic to each other and often self‐contradictory. Thus their learned speculations may, with a stretch of good‐will, be accepted as “working hypotheses” in a secondary sense, as Stallo puts it. But being radically inconsistent with each other, they must finally end by mutually destroying themselves. As declared by the author of _Concepts of Modem Physics_:

It must not be forgotten that the several departments of science are simply arbitrary divisions of science at large. In these several departments the same physical object may be considered under different aspects. The physicist may study its molecular relations, while the chemist determines its atomic constitution. But when they both deal with the same element or agent, it cannot have one set of properties in physics, and another set contradictory of them, in chemistry. If the physicist and chemist alike assume the existence of ultimate atoms absolutely invariable in bulk and weight, the atom cannot be a cube or oblate spheroid for physical, and a sphere for chemical purposes. A group of constant atoms cannot be an aggregate of extended and absolutely inert and impenetrable masses in a crucible or retort, and a system of mere centres of force as part of a magnet or of a Clamond battery. The universal æther cannot be soft and mobile to please the chemist, and rigid‐elastic to satisfy the physicist; it cannot be continuous at the command of Sir William Thomson and discontinuous on the suggestion of Cauchy or Fresnel.(792)

The eminent Physicist, G. A. Hirn, may likewise be quoted as saying the same thing in the 43rd Volume of the _Mémoires de l’Académie Royale de Belgique_, which we translate from the French, as cited:

When one sees the assurance with which to‐day are affirmed doctrines which attribute the collectivity, the universality of the phenomena to the motions alone of the atom, one has a right to expect to find likewise unanimity in the qualities assigned to this unique being, the foundation of all that exists. Now, from the first examination of the particular systems proposed, one finds the strangest deception; one perceives that the atom of the chemist, the atom of the physicist, that of the metaphysician, and that of the mathematician ... have absolutely nothing in common but the name! The inevitable result is the existing subdivision of our sciences, each of which, in its own little pigeon‐hole, constructs an atom which satisfies the requirements of the phenomena it studies, without troubling itself in the least about the requirements proper to the phenomena of the neighbouring pigeon‐hole. The metaphysician banishes the principles of attraction and repulsion as dreams; the mathematician, who analyses the laws of elasticity and those of the propagation of light, admits them implicitly, without even naming them.... The chemist cannot explain the grouping of the atoms, in his often complicated molecules, without attributing to his atoms specific distinguishing qualities; _for the physicist and the metaphysician, partisans of the modern doctrines, the atom is, on the contrary, always and everywhere the same_. What am I saying? There is no agreement even in one and the same science as to the properties of the atom. Each constructs an atom to suit his own fancy, in order to explain some special phenomenon with which he is particularly concerned.(793)

The above is the photographically correct image of Modern Science and Physics. The “pre‐requisite of that incessant play of the ’scientific imagination’,” which is so often found in Professor Tyndall’s eloquent discourses, is vivid indeed, as is shown by Stallo, and for contradictory variety it leaves far behind it any “phantasies” of Occultism. However that may be, if physical theories are confessedly “mere formal, explanatory, didactic devices,” and if, to use the words of a critic of Stallo, “atomism is only a symbolical graphic system,”(794) then the Occultist can hardly be regarded as assuming too much, when he places alongside of these “devices” and “symbolical systems” of Modern Science, the symbols and devices of Archaic Teachings.

“An Lumen Sit Corpus, Nec Non?”

Most decidedly light is not a body, we are told. Physical Sciences say light is a force, a vibration, the undulation of Ether. It is the property or quality of Matter, or even an affection thereof—never _a body_!

Just so. For this discovery, the knowledge, whatever it may be worth, that light or caloric is not a motion of _material particles_, Science is chiefly, if not solely indebted, to Sir William Grove. It was he who in a lecture at the London Institution, in 1842, was the first to show that “heat, light,(795) may be considered as affections of matter itself, and not of a distinct ethereal, ‘imponderable,’ fluid [a state of matter _now_] permeating it.”(796) Yet, perhaps, for some Physicists—as for Œrsted, a very eminent Scientist—Force and Forces were tacitly “Spirit [and hence Spirits] in Nature.” What several rather mystical Scientists taught was that light, heat, magnetism, electricity and gravity, etc., were not the final Causes of the visible phenomena, including planetary motion, but were themselves the secondary _effects of other Causes_, for which Science in our day cares very little, but in which Occultism believes; for the Occultists have exhibited proofs of the validity of their claims in every age. And in what age were there no Occultists and no Adepts?

Sir Isaac Newton held to the Pythagorean corpuscular theory, and was also inclined to admit its consequences; which made the Comte de Maistre hope, at one time, that Newton would ultimately lead Science back to the recognition of the fact that Forces and the Celestial Bodies _were propelled and guided by Intelligences_.(797) But de Maistre counted without his host. The innermost thoughts and ideas of Newton were perverted, and of his great mathematical learning only the mere physical husk was turned to account.

According to one atheistic Idealist, Dr. Lewins:

When Sir Isaac, in 1687 ... showed mass and atom acted upon ... by innate activity ... he effectually disposed of Spirit, Anima, or Divinity, as supererogatory.

Had poor Sir Isaac foreseen to what use his successors and followers would apply his “gravity,” that pious and religious man would surely have quietly eaten his apple, and never have breathed a word about any mechanical ideas connected with its fall.

Great contempt is shown by Scientists for Metaphysics generally and for Ontological Metaphysics especially. But whenever the Occultists are bold enough to raise their diminished heads, we see that Materialistic, Physical Science is honey‐combed with Metaphysics;(798) that its most fundamental principles, while inseparably wedded to transcendentalism, are nevertheless, in order to show Modern Science divorced from such “dreams,” tortured and often ignored in the maze of contradictory theories and hypotheses. A very good corroboration of this charge lies in the fact that Science finds itself absolutely compelled to accept the “hypothetical” Ether, and to try to explain it on the materialistic grounds of atomo‐ mechanical laws. This attempt has led directly to the most fatal discrepancies and radical inconsistencies between the assumed nature of Ether and its physical behaviour. A second proof is found in the many contradictory statements made about the Atom—the most metaphysical object in creation.

Now, what does the modern science of Physics know of Ether, the first concept of which belongs undeniably to ancient Philosophers, the Greeks having borrowed it from the Âryans, and the origin of modern Ether being found in, and disfigured from, Âkâsha? This disfigurement is claimed as a modification and refinement of the idea of Lucretius. Let us then examine the modern concept, from several scientific volumes containing the admissions of the Physicists themselves.

As Stallo shows, the existence of Ether is accepted in Physical Astronomy, in ordinary Physics, and in Chemistry.

By the astronomers, this æther was originally regarded as a fluid of extreme tenuity and mobility, offering no sensible resistance to the motions of celestial bodies, and the question of its continuity or discontinuity was not seriously mooted. Its main function in modern astronomy has been to serve as a basis for hydro‐dynamical theories of gravitation. In physics this fluid appeared for some time in several _rôles_ in connection with the “imponderables” [so cruelly put to death by Sir William Grove], some physicists going so far as to identify it with one or more of them.(799)

Stallo then points out the change caused by the kinetic theories; that from the date of the dynamical theory of heat, Ether was chosen in Optics as a substratum for luminous undulations. Next, in order to explain the dispersion and polarization of light, Physicists had to resort once more to their “scientific imagination,” and forthwith endowed the Ether with (_a_) atomic or molecular structure, and (_b_) with an enormous elasticity, “so that its resistance to deformation far exceeded that of the most rigid elastic bodies.” This necessitated the _theory of the essential discontinuity of Matter_, hence of Ether. After having accepted this discontinuity, in order to account for dispersion and polarization, theoretical impossibilities were discovered with regard to such dispersion. Cauchy’s “scientific imagination” saw in Atoms “material points without extension,” and he proposed, in order to obviate the most formidable obstacles to the undulatory theory (namely, some well‐known mechanical theorems which stood in the way), to assume that the ethereal medium of propagation, instead of being continuous, should consist of

## particles separated by sensible distances. Fresnel rendered the same

service to the phenomena of polarization. E. B. Hunt upset the theories of both.(800) There are now men of Science who proclaim them “materially fallacious,” while others—the “atomo‐mechanicalists”—cling to them with desperate tenacity. The supposition of an _atomic_ or _molecular constitution_ of Ether is upset, moreover, by thermo‐dynamics, for Clerk Maxwell showed that such a medium would be simply _gas_.(801) The hypothesis of “finite intervals” is thus proven of no avail as a supplement to the undulatory theory. Besides, eclipses fail to reveal any such variation of colour as is supposed by Cauchy, on the assumption that the chromatic rays are propagated with different velocities. Astronomy has pointed out more than one phenomenon absolutely at variance with this doctrine.

Thus, while in one department of Physics the atomo‐molecular constitution of the Ether is accepted in order to account for one special set of phenomena, in another department such a constitution is found to be quite subversive of a number of well‐ascertained facts; and Hirn’s charges are thus justified. Chemistry deemed it

Impossible to concede the enormous elasticity of the æther without depriving it of those properties, upon which its serviceableness in the construction of chemical theories mainly depended.

This ended in a final transformation of Ether.

The exigencies of the atomo‐mechanical theory have led distinguished mathematicians and physicists to attempt a substitution for the traditional atoms of matter, of peculiar forms of vortical motion in a universal, homogeneous, incompressible, and _continuous_ material medium [Ether].(802)

The present writer—claiming no great scientific education, but only a tolerable acquaintance with modern theories, and a better one with Occult Sciences—picks up weapons against the detractors of the Esoteric Teaching in the very arsenal of Modern Science. The glaring contradictions, the mutually‐destructive hypotheses of world‐renowned Scientists, their disputes, their accusations and denunciations of each other, show plainly that, whether accepted or not, the Occult Theories have as much right to a hearing as any of the so‐called learned and academical hypotheses. Thus, whether the followers of the Royal Society choose to accept Ether as a _continuous_ or as a _discontinuous_ fluid matters little, and is indifferent for the present purpose. It simply points to one certainty: Official Science _knows nothing to this day of the constitution of Ether_. Let Science call it Matter, if it likes; only neither as Âkâsha, nor as the one sacred Æther of the Greeks, is it to be found in any of the states of Matter known to modern Physics. It is Matter on quite another plane of perception and being, and it can neither be analyzed by scientific apparatus, nor appreciated or even conceived by the “scientific imagination,” unless the possessors thereof study the Occult Sciences. That which follows proves this statement.

It is clearly demonstrated by Stallo as regards the crucial problems of modern Physics, as was done by De Quatrefages and several others in those of Anthropology, Biology, etc., that, in their efforts to support their individual hypotheses and systems, most of the eminent and learned Materialists very often utter the greatest fallacies. Let us take the following case. Most of them reject _actio in distans_—one of the fundamental principles in the question of Æther or Âkâsha in Occultism—while, as Stallo justly observes, there is no physical action “which, on close examination, does not resolve itself into _actio in distans_”; and he proves it.

Now, metaphysical arguments, according to Professor Lodge,(803) are “unconscious appeals to experience.” And he adds that if such an experience _is not conceivable_, then it does not exist. In his own words:

If a highly‐developed mind or set of minds, find a doctrine about some comparatively simple and fundamental matter absolutely unthinkable, it is an evidence ... that the unthinkable state of things has no existence.

And thereupon, toward the end of his lecture, the Professor indicates that the explanation of cohesion, as well as of gravity, “is to be looked for in the vortex‐atom theory of Sir William Thomson.”

It is needless to stop to inquire whether it is to this vortex‐atom theory, also, that we have to look for the dropping down on earth of the first life‐germ by a passing meteor or comet—Sir William Thomson’s hypothesis. But Prof. Lodge might be reminded of the wise criticism on his lecture in Stallo’s _Concepts of Modem Physics_. Noticing the above‐quoted declaration by the Professor, the author asks

Whether ... the elements of the vortex‐atom theory are familiar, or even possible, facts of experience? For, if they are not, clearly that theory is obnoxious to the same criticism which is said to invalidate the assumption of _actio in distans_.(804)

And then the able critic shows clearly what the Ether is not, nor can ever be, notwithstanding all scientific claims to the contrary. And thus he opens widely, if unconsciously, the entrance door to our Occult Teachings. For, as he says:

The medium in which the vortex‐movements arise is, according to Professor Lodge’s own express statement (_Nature_, vol. xxvii. p. 305), “a perfectly homogeneous, incompressible, continuous body, incapable of being resolved into simple elements or atoms; it is, in fact, continuous, not molecular.” And after making this statement Professor Lodge adds: “_There is no other body of which we can say this, and hence the properties of the æther must be somewhat different from those of ordinary matter_.” It appears, then, that the whole vortex‐atom theory, which is offered to us as a substitute for the “metaphysical theory” of _actio in distans_, rests upon the hypothesis of the existence of a material medium which is utterly unknown to experience, and which has properties _somewhat_ different(805) from those of ordinary matter. Hence this theory, instead of being, as is claimed, a reduction of an unfamiliar fact of experience to a familiar fact, is, on the contrary, a reduction of a fact which is perfectly familiar, to a fact which is not only unfamiliar, but wholly unknown, unobserved and unobservable. Furthermore, the alleged vortical motion of, or rather in, the assumed ethereal medium is ... _impossible_, because “motion in a perfectly homogeneous, incompressible, and therefore continuous fluid, is not sensible motion.”... It is manifest, therefore ... that, wherever the vortex‐atom theory may land us, it certainly does not land us anywhere in the region of physics, or in the domain of _veræ causæ_.(806) And I may add that, inasmuch as the hypothetical undifferentiated(807) and undifferentiable medium is clearly an involuntary reïfication of the old ontological concept _pure being_, the theory under discussion has all the attributes of an inapprehensible metaphysical phantom.(808)

A “phantom,” indeed, which can be made apprehensible only by Occultism. From such scientific Metaphysics to Occultism there is hardly one step. Those Physicists who hold the view that the atomic constitution of Matter is consistent with its penetrability, need not go far out of their way to be able to account for the greatest phenomena of Occultism, now so derided by Physical Scientists and Materialists. Cauchy’s “material points without extension” are Leibnitz’s Monads, and at the same time are the materials out of which the “Gods” and other invisible Powers clothe themselves in bodies. The disintegration and reïntegration of “material” particles without extension, as a chief factor in phenomenal manifestations, ought to suggest themselves very easily as a clear possibility, at any rate to those few scientific minds which accept M. Cauchy’s views. For, disposing of that property of Matter which they call impenetrability, by simply regarding the Atoms as “material points exerting on each other attractions and repulsions which vary with the distances that separate them,” the French theorist explains that:

From this it follows that, if it pleased the author of nature simply to modify the laws according to which the atoms attract or repel each other, we might instantly see the hardest bodies penetrating each other, the smallest particles of matter occupying immense spaces, or the largest masses reducing themselves to the smallest volumes, the entire universe concentrating itself, as it were, in a single point.(809)

And that “point,” _invisible on our plane of perception and matter_, is quite visible to the eye of the Adept who can follow and see it present on other planes. For the Occultists, who say that the author of Nature _is Nature itself_, something indistinct and inseparable from the Deity, it follows that those who are conversant with the Occult laws of Nature, and know how to change and provoke new conditions in Ether, may—_not_ modify the laws, but work and do the same in accordance with these immutable laws.

Section III. Is Gravitation a Law?

The corpuscular theory has been unceremoniously put aside; but gravitation—the principle that all bodies attract each other with a force proportional directly to their masses, and inversely to the squares of the distances between them—survives to this day and reigns, supreme as ever, in the alleged ethereal waves of Space. As a hypothesis, it had been threatened with death for its inadequacy to embrace all the facts presented to it; as a physical law, it is the King of the late and once all‐potent “Imponderables.” “It is little short of blasphemy ... an insult to Newton’s grand memory to doubt it!”—is the exclamation of an American reviewer of _Isis Unveiled_. Well; what is finally that invisible and intangible God in whom we should believe on blind faith? Astronomers who see in gravitation an easy‐going solution for many things, and a universal force which allows them to calculate planetary motions, care little about the Cause of Attraction. They call Gravity a law, a cause in itself. We call the forces acting under that name effects, and very secondary effects, too. One day it will be found that the scientific hypothesis does not answer after all; and then it will follow the corpuscular theory of light, and be consigned to rest for many scientific æons in the archives of all exploded speculations. Has not Newton himself expressed grave doubts about the nature of Force and the corporeality of the “Agents,” as they were then called? So has Cuvier, another scientific light shining in the night of research. He warns his readers, in the _Révolution du Globe_, about the doubtful nature of the so‐called Forces, saying that “it is not so sure whether those agents were not after all Spiritual Powers [_des agents spirituels_].” At the outset of his _Principia_, Sir Isaac Newton took the greatest care to impress upon his school that he did not use the word “attraction,” with regard to the mutual action of bodies in a physical sense. To him it was, he said, a purely mathematical conception, involving no consideration of real and primary physical causes. In a passage of his _Principia_,(810) he tells us plainly that, physically considered, attractions are rather impulses. In Section xi (Introduction), he expresses the opinion that “there is some subtle spirit by the force and action of which all movements of matter are determined”;(811) and in his _Third Letter_ to Bentley he says:

It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else _which is not material_, operate upon and affect other matter, without mutual contact, as it must do if gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it.... That gravity should be innate, inherent and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else by and through which their action may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but _whether this agent be material or immaterial_ I have left to the consideration of my readers.

At this, even Newton’s contemporaries got frightened—at the apparent return of Occult Causes into the domain of Physics. Leibnitz called his principle of attraction “an incorporeal and inexplicable power.” The supposition of an attractive faculty and a perfect void was characterized by Bernoulli as “revolting,” the principle of _actio in distans_ finding then no more favour than it does now. Euler, on the other hand, thought the action of gravity was due to either a _Spirit_ or some subtle medium. And yet Newton knew of, if he did not accept, the Ether of the Ancients. He regarded the intermediate space between the sidereal bodies as vacuum. Therefore he believed in “subtle Spirit” and Spirits as we do, guiding the so‐called attraction. The above‐quoted words of the great man have produced poor results. The “absurdity” has now become a dogma in the case of pure Materialism, which repeats: “No Matter without Force, no Force without Matter; Matter and Force are inseparable, eternal and indestructible [_true_]; there can be no independent Force, since all Force is an inherent and necessary property of Matter [_false_]; consequently, there is no immaterial Creative Power.” Oh, poor Sir Isaac!

If, leaving aside all the other eminent men of Science who agreed in opinion with Euler and Leibnitz, the Occultists claim as their authorities and supporters Sir Isaac Newton and Cuvier only, as above cited, they need fear little from Modern Science, and may loudly and proudly proclaim their beliefs. But the hesitation and doubts of the above cited authorities, and of many others, too, whom we could name, did not in the least prevent scientific speculation from wool‐gathering in the fields of brute matter just as before. First it was matter and an imponderable fluid distinct from it; then came the imponderable fluid so much criticized by Grove; then Ether, which was at first discontinuous and then became continuous; after which came the “mechanical” Forces. These have now settled in life as “modes of motion,” and the Ether has become more mysterious and problematical than ever. More than one man of Science objects to such crude materialistic views. But then, from the days of Plato, who repeatedly asks his readers not to confuse _incorporeal_ Elements with their Principles—the transcendental or spiritual Elements; from those of the great Alchemists, who, like Paracelsus, made a great difference between a phenomenon and its cause, or the Noumenon; to Grove, who, though he sees “no reason to divest universally diffused matter of the functions common to all matter,” yet uses the term Forces where his critics, “who do not attach to the word any idea of a specific action,” say Force; from those days to this, nothing has proved competent to stem the tide of brutal Materialism. Gravitation is the sole cause, the acting God, and Matter is its prophet, said the men of Science only a few years ago.

They have changed their views several times since then. But do the men of Science understand the innermost thought of Newton, one of the most spiritual‐minded and religious men of his day, any better now than they did then? It is certainly to be doubted. Newton is credited with having given the death‐blow to the Elemental Vortices of Descartes—the idea of Anaxagoras, resurrected, by the bye—though the last modern “vortical atoms” of Sir William Thomson do not, in truth, differ much from the former. Nevertheless, when his disciple Forbes wrote in the Preface to the chief work of his master a sentence declaring that “attraction was the cause of the system,” Newton was the first to solemnly protest. That which in the mind of the great mathematician assumed the shadowy, but firmly rooted image of God, as the Noumenon of all,(812) was called more philosophically by ancient and modern Philosophers and Occultists—“Gods,” or the creative fashioning Powers. The modes of expression may have been different, and the ideas more or less philosophically enunciated by all sacred and profane Antiquity; but the fundamental thought was the same.(813) For Pythagoras the Forces were Spiritual Entities, Gods, independent of planets and Matter as we see and know them on Earth, who are the rulers of the Sidereal Heaven. Plato represented the planets as moved by an intrinsic Rector, one with his dwelling, like “a boatman in his boat.” As for Aristotle, he called those rulers “_immaterial_ substances”;(814) though as one who had never been initiated, he rejected the Gods as Entities.(815) But this did not prevent him from recognizing the fact that the stars and planets “were not inanimate masses but acting and living bodies indeed.” As if sidereal spirits were the “diviner portions of their phenomena (τὰ θειότερα τῶν φανερῶν).”(816)

If we look for corroboration in more modern and scientific times, we find Tycho Brahe recognizing in the stars a triple force, divine, spiritual and vital. Kepler, putting together the Pythagorean sentence, “the Sun, guardian of Jupiter,” and the verses of David, “He placed his throne in the Sun,” and “the Lord is the Sun,” etc., said that he understood perfectly how the Pythagoreans could believe that all the Globes disseminated through Space were rational Intelligences (_facultates ratiocinativæ_), circulating round the Sun, “in which resides a pure spirit of fire; the source of the general harmony.”(817)

When an Occultist speaks of Fohat, the energizing and guiding Intelligence in the Universal Electric or Vital Fluid, he is laughed at. Withal, as now shown, the nature neither of electricity, nor of life, nor even of light, is to this day understood. The Occultist sees in the manifestation of every force in Nature, the action of the quality, or the special characteristic of its Noumenon; which Noumenon is a distinct and intelligent Individuality _on the other side of the manifested mechanical Universe_. Now the Occultist does not deny—on the contrary he will support the view—that light, heat, electricity and so on are affections, not properties or qualities, of Matter. To put it more clearly: Matter is the condition, the necessary basis or vehicle, a _sine quâ non_, for the manifestation of these Forces, or Agents, on this plane.

But in order to gain the point, the Occultists have to examine the credentials of the law of gravity, first of all, of “Gravitation, the King and Ruler of Matter,” under every form. To do so effectually, the hypothesis, in its earliest appearance, has to be recalled to mind. To begin with, is it Newton who was the first to discover it? The _Athenæum_ of Jan. 26, 1867, has some curious information upon this subject. It says:

Positive evidence can be adduced that Newton derived all his knowledge of Gravitation and its laws from Bœhme, with whom Gravitation or Attraction is the first property of Nature.... For with him, his [Bœhme’s] system shows us the inside of things, while modern physical science is content with looking at the outside.

Then again:

The science of electricity, which was not yet in existence when he [Bœhme] wrote, is there anticipated [in his writings]; and not only does Bœhme describe all the now known phenomena of that force, but he even gives us the origin, generation, and birth of electricity, itself.

Thus Newton, whose profound mind easily read between the lines, and fathomed the spiritual thought of the great Seer, in its mystic rendering, owes his great discovery to Jacob Bœhme, the nursling of the Genii, Nirmânakâyas who watched over and guided him, of whom the author of the article in question so truly remarks:

Every new scientific discovery goes to prove his profound and intuitive insight into the most secret workings of Nature.

And having _discovered_ gravity, Newton, in order to render possible the

## action of attraction in space, had, so to speak, to annihilate every

physical obstacle capable of impeding its free action; Ether among others, though he had more than a presentiment of its existence. Advocating the corpuscular theory, he made an _absolute vacuum_ between the heavenly bodies. Whatever may have been his suspicions and inner convictions about Ether; however many friends he may have unbosomed himself to—as in the case of his correspondence with Bentley—his teachings never showed that he had any such belief. If he was “persuaded that the power of attraction could not be exerted by matter across a vacuum,”(818) how is it that so late as 1860, French astronomers, Le Couturier, for instance, combated “the _disastrous_ results of the theory of vacuum established by the great man”? Le Couturier says:

Il n’est plus possible aujourd’hui, de soutenir comme Newton, que les corps célestes se mouvent au milieu du vide immense des espaces.... Parmi les conséquences de la théorie du vide établie par Newton, il ne reste plus debout que le mot “attraction.”... Nous voyous venir le jour ou le mot attraction disparaîtra du vocabulaire scientifique.(819)

Professor Winchell writes:

These passages [Letter to Bentley] show what were his views respecting the nature of the interplanetary medium of communication. Though declaring that the heavens “are void of sensible matter,” he elsewhere excepted “perhaps some very thin vapours, steams, and effluvia, arising from the atmospheres of the earth, planets, and comets, and from such an exceedingly rare ethereal medium as we have elsewhere described.”(820)

This only shows that even such great men as Newton have not always the courage of their opinions. Dr. T. S. Hunt

Called attention to some long‐neglected passages in Newton’s works, from which it appears that a belief in such universal, intercosmical medium gradually took root in his mind.(821)

But such attention was never called to the said passages before Nov. 28, 1881, when Dr. Hunt read his “Celestial Chemistry, from the time of Newton.” As Le Couturier says:

Till then the idea was universal, even among the men of Science, that Newton had, while advocating the corpuscular theory, preached a _void_.

The passages had been “long neglected,” no doubt because they contradicted and clashed with the preconceived pet theories of the day, till finally the undulatory theory imperiously required the presence of an “ethereal medium” to explain it. This is the whole secret.

Anyhow, it is from this theory of Newton of a universal void, taught, if not believed in by himself, that dates the immense scorn now shown by modern Physics for ancient. The old sages had maintained that “Nature abhorred a vacuum,” and the greatest mathematicians of the world—read of the Western races—had discovered the antiquated “fallacy” and exposed it. And now Modern Science, however ungracefully, vindicates Archaic Knowledge, and has, moreover, to vindicate Newton’s character and powers of observation at this late hour, after having neglected, for one century and a half, to pay any attention to such very important passages—perchance, because it was wiser not to attract any notice to them. Better late than never!

And now Father Æther is _re‐welcomed_ with open arms and wedded to gravitation, linked to it for weal or woe, until the day when it, or both, shall be replaced by something else. Three hundred years ago it was _plenum_ everywhere, then it became one dismal _vacuity_; later still the sidereal ocean‐beds, dried up by Science, rolled onward once more their ethereal waves. _Recede ut procedas_ must become the motto of exact Science—“exact,” chiefly, in finding itself inexact every leap‐year.

But we will not quarrel with the great men. They had to go back to the earliest “Gods of Pythagoras and old Kanâda” for the very backbone and marrow of their correlations and “newest” discoveries, and this may well afford good hope to the Occultists for their minor Gods. For we believe in Le Couturier’s prophecy about gravitation. We know the day is approaching when an absolute reform will be demanded in the present modes of Science by the Scientists themselves, as was done by Sir William Grove, F.R.S. Till that day there is nothing to be done. For if gravitation were dethroned to‐morrow, the Scientists would discover some other new mode of mechanical motion the day after.(822) Rough and up‐hill is the path of true Science, and its days are full of vexation of spirit. But in the face of its “thousand” contradictory hypotheses offered as explanations of physical phenomena, there has been no better hypothesis than “motion”—however paradoxically interpreted by Materialism. As may be found in the first pages of this Volume, Occultists have nothing to say against Motion,(823) the Great Breath of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s “Unknowable.” But, believing that everything on Earth is the shadow of something in Space, they believe in smaller “Breaths,” which, living, intelligent and independent of all but Law, blow in every direction during manvantaric periods. These Science will reject. But whatever may be made to replace attraction, _alias_ gravitation, the result will be the same. Science will be as far then from the solution of its difficulties as it is now, unless it comes to some compromise with Occultism, and even with Alchemy—a supposition which will be regarded as an impertinence, but remains, nevertheless, a fact. As Faye says:

Il manque quelque chose aux géologues pour faire la géologie de la Lune; c’est d’être astronomes. À la vérité, il manque aussi quelque chose aux astronomes pour aborder avec fruit cette étude, c’est d’être géologues.(824)

But he might have added, with still more pointedness:

Ce qui manque à tous les deux, c’est l’intuition du mystique.

Let us remember Sir William Grove’s wise “concluding remarks,” on the ultimate structure of Matter, or the minutiæ of molecular actions, which, he thought, man will never know.

Much harm has already been done by attempting hypothetically to dissect matter and to discuss the shapes, sizes, and numbers of atoms, and their atmospheres of heat, ether, or electricity. Whether the regarding electricity, light, magnetism, etc., as simply motions of ordinary matter, be or be not admissible, certain it is that all past theories have resolved, and all existing theories do resolve, the action of these forces into motion. Whether it be that, on account of our familiarity with motion, we refer other affections to it, as to a language which is most easily construed, and most capable of explaining them, or whether it be that it is in reality the only mode in which our minds, as contra‐distinguished from our senses, are able to conceive material agencies, certain it is that since the period at which the mystic notions of spiritual or preternatural powers were applied to account for physical phenomena, all hypotheses framed to explain them have resolved them into motion.

And then the learned gentleman states a purely Occult tenet:

The term perpetual motion, which I have not infrequently used in these pages, is itself equivocal. If the doctrines here advanced be well founded, all motion is, in one sense, perpetual. In masses, whose motion is stopped by mutual concussion, heat or motion of the particles is generated; and thus the motion continues, so that if we could venture to extend such thoughts to the universe, we should assume the same amount of motion affecting the same amount of matter for ever.(825)

This is precisely what Occultism maintains, and on the same principle, that:

Where force is made to oppose force, and produce static equilibrium, the balance of preëxisting equilibrium is affected, and fresh motion is started equivalent to that which is withdrawn into a state of abeyance.

This process finds intervals in the Pralaya, but is eternal and ceaseless as the “Breath,” even when the manifested Kosmos rests.

Thus, supposing attraction or gravitation should be given up in favour of the Sun being a huge magnet—a theory already accepted by some Physicists—a magnet that acts on the planets as attraction is now supposed to do, whereto, or how much farther, would it lead the Astronomers from where they are now? Not an inch farther. Kepler came to this “curious hypothesis” nearly 300 years ago. He had not discovered the theory of attraction and repulsion in Kosmos, for it was known from the days of Empedocles, by whom the two opposite forces were called “love” and “hate”—words implying the same idea. But Kepler gave a pretty fair description of cosmic magnetism. That such magnetism exists in Nature, is as certain as that gravitation does not; not at any rate, in the way in which it is taught by Science, which has never taken into consideration the different modes in which the dual Force, that Occultism calls attraction and repulsion, may act within our Solar System, the Earth’s atmosphere and beyond in the Kosmos.

As the great Humboldt writes:

Trans‐solar space has not hitherto shown any phenomenon analogous to our solar system. It is a peculiarity of _our_ system, that matter should have condensed within it in nebulous rings, the nuclei of which condense into earths and moons. I say again, heretofore, _nothing of the kind has ever been observed beyond our planetary system_.(826)

True, that since 1860 the Nebular Theory has sprung up, and being better known, a few identical phenomena were supposed to be observed beyond the Solar System. Yet the great man is quite right; and no _earths_ or _moons_ can be found, _except in appearance_, beyond, or of the same order of Matter as found in, our System. Such is the Occult Teaching.

This was proven by Newton himself; for there are many phenomena in our Solar System, which he confessed his inability to explain by the law of gravitation; “such were the uniformity in the directions of planetary movements, the nearly circular forms of the orbits, and their remarkable conformity to one plane.”(827) And if there is one single exception, then the law of gravitation has no right to be referred to as a universal law. “These adjustments,” we are told, “Newton, in his general Scholium, pronounces to be ‘the work of an intelligent and all‐powerful Being’.” Intelligent that “Being” may be; as to “all‐powerful,” there would be every reason to doubt the claim. A poor “God” he, who would work upon minor details and leave the most important to secondary forces! The poverty of this argument and logic is surpassed only by that of Laplace, who, seeking very correctly to substitute Motion for Newton’s “all‐ powerful Being,” and ignorant of the true nature of that Eternal Motion, saw in it a blind physical law. “Might not those arrangements be an effect of the laws of motion?” he asks, forgetting, as do all our modern Scientists, that this law and this motion are a vicious circle, so long as the _nature of both_ remains unexplained. His famous answer to Napoleon: “_Dieu est devenu une hypothèse inutile_,” could be correctly made only by one who adhered to the philosophy of the Vedântins. It becomes a pure fallacy, if we exclude the interference of operating, intelligent, powerful (never “all‐powerful”) Beings, who are called “Gods.”

But we would ask the critics of the mediæval Astronomers, why should Kepler be denounced as most unscientific, for offering just the same solution as did Newton, only showing himself more sincere, more consistent and even more logical? Where may be the difference between Newton’s “all‐ powerful Being” and Kepler’s Rectores, his Sidereal and Cosmic Forces, or Angels? Kepler again is criticized for his “curious hypothesis which made use of a vortical movement within the solar system,” for his theories in general, and for favouring Empedocles’ idea of attraction and repulsion, and “solar magnetism” in particular. Yet several modern men of Science, as will be shown—Hunt, if Metcalfe is to be excluded, Dr. Richardson, etc.—very strongly favour the same idea. He is half excused, however, on the plea that:

To the time of Kepler no interaction between masses of matter had been distinctly recognized which was generically different from magnetism.(828)

Is it _distinctly_ recognized now? Does Professor Winchell claim for Science any serious knowledge whatever of the nature of either electricity or magnetism—except that both seem to be the effects of some result arising from an undetermined cause.

The ideas of Kepler, when their theological tendencies are weeded out, are purely Occult. He saw that:

(I) The Sun is a great Magnet.(829) This is what some eminent modern Scientists and also the Occultists believe in.

(II) The Solar substance is immaterial.(830) In the sense, of course, of Matter existing in states unknown to Science.

(III) For the constant motion and restoration of the Sun’s energy and planetary motion, he provided the perpetual care of a Spirit, or Spirits. The whole of Antiquity believed in this idea. The Occultists do not use the word Spirit, but say Creative Forces, which they endow with intelligence. But we may call them Spirits also. We shall be taken to task for contradiction. It will be said that while we deny God, we admit Souls and operative Spirits, and quote from bigoted Roman Catholic writers in support of our argument. To this we reply: We deny the anthropomorphic God of the Monotheists, but never the Divine Principle in Nature. We combat Protestants and Roman Catholics on a number of dogmatic theological beliefs of human and sectarian origin. We agree with them in their belief in Spirits and intelligent operative Powers, though we do not worship “Angels” as the Roman Latinists do.

This theory is tabooed a great deal more on account of the “Spirit” that is given room in it, than of anything else. Herschell, the elder, believed in it likewise, and so do several modern Scientists. Nevertheless Professor Winchell declares that “a hypothesis more fanciful, and less in accord with the requirements of physical principles, has not been offered in ancient or modern times.”(831)

The same was said, once upon a time, of the universal Ether, and now it is not only accepted perforce, but is advocated as the only possible theory to explain certain mysteries.

Grove’s ideas, when he first enunciated them in London about 1840, were denounced as unscientific; nevertheless, his views on the Correlation of Forces are now universally accepted. It would, very likely, require one more conversant with Science than is the writer, to combat with any success some of the now prevailing ideas about gravitation and other similar “solutions” of cosmic mysteries. But, let us recall a few objections that came from recognized men of Science; from Astronomers and Physicists of eminence, who rejected the theory of rotation, as well as that of gravitation. Thus one reads in the _French Encyclopædia_ that “Science agrees, in the face of all its representatives, that it is _impossible_ to explain the _physical_ origin of the rotatory motion of the solar system.”

If the question is asked: “What causes rotation?” We are answered: “It is the centrifugal force.” “And this force, what is it that produces it?” “The force of rotation,” is the grave answer.(832) It will be well, perhaps, to examine both these theories as being directly or indirectly connected.

Section IV. The Theories of Rotation in Science.

Considering that “final cause is pronounced a chimera, and the First Great Cause is remanded to the sphere of the Unknown,” as a reverend gentleman justly complains, the number of hypotheses put forward, a nebula of them, is most remarkable. The profane student is perplexed, and does not know in which of the theories of _exact_ Science he has to believe. We give below hypotheses enough for every taste and power of brain. They are all extracted from a number of scientific volumes.

Current Hypotheses explaining the Origin of Rotation.

Rotation has originated:

(_a_) By the collision of nebular masses wandering aimlessly in Space; or by attraction, “in cases where no actual impact takes place.”

(_b_) By the tangential action of currents of nebulous matter (in the case of an amorphous nebula) descending from higher to lower levels,(833) or simply by the action of the central gravity of the mass.(834)

“It is a fundamental principle in physics that _no rotation could be generated in such a mass by the action of its own parts_. As well attempt to change the course of a steamer by pulling at the deck railing,” remarks on this Prof. Winchell in _World‐Life_.(835)

Hypotheses of the Origin of Planets and Comets.

(_a_) We owe the birth of the planets (1) to an explosion of the Sun—a parturition of its central mass;(836) or (2) to some kind of disruption of the nebular rings.

(_b_) “The comets are strangers to the planetary system.”(837) “The comets are undeniably generated in our solar system.”(838)

(_c_) The “_fixed_ stars are motionless,” says one authority. “All the stars are actually in motion,” answers another authority. “Undoubtedly every star is in motion.”(839)

(_d_) “For over 350,000,000 years, the slow and majestic movement of the sun around its axis has never for a moment ceased.”(840)

(_e_) “Maedler believes that ... our sun has Alcyone in the Pleiades for the centre of its orbit, and consumes 180,000,000 of years in completing a single revolution.”(841)

(_f_) “The sun has existed no more than 15,000,000 of years, and will emit heat for no longer than 10,000,000 years more.”(842)

A few years ago this eminent Scientist was telling the world that the time required for the Earth to cool from incipient incrustation to its present state, could not exceed 80,000,000 years.(843) the encrusted age of the world is only 40,000,000, or half the duration once allowed, and the Sun’s age is only 15,000,000, have we to understand that the Earth was at one time independent of the Sun?

Since the ages of the Sun, of the planets, and of the Earth, as they are stated in the various scientific hypotheses of the Astronomers and Physicists, are given elsewhere below, we have said enough to show the disagreement between the ministers of Modern Science. Whether we accept the _fifteen_ million years of Sir William Thomson or the _thousand_ millions of Mr. Huxley, for the rotational evolution of our Solar System, it will always come to this; that by accepting self‐generated rotation for the heavenly bodies composed of inert Matter and yet moved by their own internal motion, for millions of years, this teaching of Science amounts to:

(_a_) An evident denial of that fundamental physical law, which states that “a body in motion tends constantly to inertia, _i.e._, to continue in the same state of motion or rest, unless it is stimulated into further

## action by a superior active force.”

(_b_) An original impulse, which culminates in an unalterable motion, within a resisting Ether that Newton had declared incompatible with that motion.

(_c_) Universal gravity, which, we are taught, always tends to a centre in rectilinear descent—alone the cause of the revolution of the whole Solar System, which is performing an eternal double gyration, each body around its axis and orbit. Another occasional version is:

(_d_) A magnet in the Sun; or, that the said revolution is due to a magnetic force, which acts, just as gravitation does, in a straight line, and varies inversely as the square of the distance.(844)

(_e_) The whole acting under invariable and changeless laws, which are, nevertheless, often shown variable, as during some well‐known freaks of planets and other bodies, as also when the comets approach or recede from the Sun.

(_f_) A Motor Force always proportionate to the mass it is acting upon; but independent of the specific nature of that mass, to which it is proportionate; which amounts to saying, as Le Couturier does, that:

Without that force independent from, and of quite another nature than, the said mass, the latter, were it as huge as Saturn, or as tiny as Ceres, would always fall with the same rapidity.(845)

A mass, furthermore, which derives its weight from the body on which it weighs.

Thus neither Laplace’s perceptions of a solar atmospheric fluid, which would extend beyond the orbits of the planets, nor Le Couturier’s electricity, nor Foucault’s heat,(846) nor this, nor the other, can ever help any of the numerous hypotheses about the origin and permanency of rotation to escape from this squirrel’s wheel, any more than can the theory of gravity itself. This mystery is the Procrustean bed of Physical Science. If Matter is passive, as we are now taught, the simplest movement cannot be said to be an essential property of Matter—the latter being considered simply as an inert mass. How, then, can such a complicated movement, compound and multiple, harmonious and equilibrated, lasting in the eternities for millions and millions of years, be attributed simply to its own inherent force, unless the latter is an Intelligence? A physical will is something new—a conception that the Ancients would never have entertained, indeed! For over a century all distinction between body and force has been made away with. “Force is but the property of a body in motion,” say the Physicists; “life—the property of our animal organs—is but the result of their molecular arrangement,” answer the Physiologists. As Littré teaches:

In the bosom of that aggregate which is named planet, are developed all the forces immanent in matter ... _i.e._, that matter possesses _in itself_ and _through itself_ the forces that are proper to it ... and which are _primary_, not _secondary_. Such forces are the property of weight, the property of electricity, of terrestrial magnetism, the property of life.... Every planet can develop life ... as earth, for instance, which had not always mankind on it, and now bears (_produit_) men.(847)

An Astronomer says:

We talk of the weight of the heavenly bodies, but since it is recognized that weight decreases in proportion to the distance from the centre, it becomes evident that, at a certain distance, that weight must be forcibly reduced to zero. Were there any _attraction_ there would be equilibrium.... And since the modern school recognizes neither a _beneath_ nor an _above_ in universal space, it is not clear what should cause the earth to fall, were there even no gravitation, nor attraction.(848)

Methinks the Count de Maistre was right in solving the question in his own theological way. He cuts the Gordian knot by saying:—“The planets rotate because they are made to rotate ... and the modern physical system of the universe is a physical impossibility.”(849) For did not Herschell say the same thing when he remarked that there is a Will needed to impart a circular motion, and another Will to restrain it?(850) This shows and explains how a retarded planet is cunning enough to calculate its time so well as to hit off its arrival at the fixed minute. For, if Science sometimes succeeds, with great ingenuity, in explaining some of such stoppages, retrograde motions, angles outside the orbits, etc., by appearances resulting from the inequality of their progress and ours in the course of our mutual and respective orbits, we still know that there are others, and “very real and considerable deviations,” according to Herschell, “which cannot be explained except by the mutual and irregular

## action of those planets and by the perturbing influence of the sun.”

We understand, however, that there are, besides those little and accidental perturbations, continuous perturbations called “secular”—because of the extreme slowness with which the irregularity increases and affects the relations of the elliptic movement—and that these perturbations can be corrected. From Newton, who found that this world needed repairing very often, down to Reynaud, all say the same. In his _Ciel et Terre_, the latter says:

The orbits described by the planets are far from immutable, and are, on the contrary, subject to a perpetual mutation in their position and form.(851)

Proving gravitation and the peripatetic laws to be as negligent as they are quick to repair their mistakes. The charge as it stands seems to be that:

These orbits are alternately widening and narrowing, their great axis lengthens and diminishes, or oscillates at the same time from right to left around the sun, the plane itself, in which they are situated, raising and lowering itself periodically while pivoting around itself with a kind of tremor.

To this, De Mirville, who believes in intelligent “workmen” invisibly ruling the Solar System—as we do—observes very wittily:

_Voilà, certes_, a voyage which has little in it of mechanical precision; at the utmost, one could compare it to a steamer, pulled to and fro and tossed on the waves, retarded or accelerated, all and each of which impediments might put off its arrival indefinitely, were there not the intelligence of a pilot and engineers to catch up the time lost, and to repair the damages.(852)

The law of gravity, however, seems to be becoming an obsolete law in starry heaven. At any rate those long‐haired sidereal Radicals, called comets, appear to be very poor respecters of the majesty of that law, and to beard it quite impudently. Nevertheless, and though presenting in nearly every respect “phenomena not yet fully understood,” comets and meteors are credited by the believers in Modern Science with obeying the same laws and consisting of the same Matter, “as the suns, stars and nebulæ,” and even “the earth and its inhabitants.”(853)

This is what one might call taking things on trust, aye, even to blind faith. But exact Science is not to be questioned, and he who rejects the hypotheses imagined by her students—gravitation, for instance—would be regarded as an ignorant fool for his pains; yet we are told by the just cited author a queer legend from the scientific annals.

The comet of 1811 had a tail 120 millions of miles in length and 25 millions of miles in diameter at the widest part, while the diameter of the nucleus was about 127,000 miles, more than ten times that of the earth.

He tells us that:

In order that bodies of this magnitude, passing near the earth, should not affect its motion or change the length of the year by even a single second, their actual substance must be inconceivably rare.

It must be so indeed, yet:

The extreme tenuity of a comet’s mass is also proved by the phenomenon of the tail, which, as the comet approaches the sun, is thrown out sometimes to a length of 90 millions of miles in a few hours. And what is remarkable, this tail is thrown out against the force of gravity by some repulsive force, probably electrical, so that it always points away from the sun [!!!].... And yet, thin as the matter of comets must be, it obeys the common Law of Gravity [!?], and whether the comet revolves in an orbit within that of the outer planets, or shoots off into the abysses of space, and returns only after hundreds of years, its path is, at each instant, regulated by the same force as that which causes an apple to fall to the ground.(854)

Science is like Cæsar’s wife, and must not be suspected—this is evident. But it can be respectfully criticized, nevertheless, and at all events, it may be reminded that the “apple” is a dangerous fruit. For the second time in the history of mankind, it may become the cause of the Fall—this time, of “exact” Science. A comet whose tail defies the law of gravity right in the Sun’s face can hardly be credited with obeying that law.

In a series of scientific works on Astronomy and the Nebular Theory, written between 1865 and 1866, the present writer, a poor tyro in Science, has counted in a few hours, no less than thirty‐nine contradictory hypotheses offered as explanations for the self‐generated, primitive rotatory motion of the heavenly bodies. The writer is no Astronomer, no Mathematician, no Scientist; but she was obliged to examine these errors in defence of Occultism, in general, and what is still more important, in order to support the Occult Teachings concerning Astronomy and Cosmology. Occultists were threatened with terrible penalties for questioning scientific truths. But now they feel braver; Science is less secure in its “impregnable” position than they were led to expect, and many of its strongholds are built on very shifting sands.

Thus, even this poor and unscientific examination of it has been useful, and it has certainly been very instructive. We have learned a good many things, in fact, having especially studied with particular care those astronomical data, that would be the most likely to clash with our heterodox and “superstitious” beliefs.

Thus, for instance, we have found there, concerning gravitation, the axial and orbital motions, that synchronous movement having been once overcome, in the early stage, this was enough to originate a rotatory motion till the end of Manvantara. We have also come to know, in all the aforesaid combinations of possibilities with regard to incipient rotation, most complicated in every case, some of the causes to which it may have been due, as well as some others to which it ought and should have been due, but, in some way or other, was not. Among other things, we are informed that incipient rotation may be provoked with equal ease in a mass in igneous fusion, and in one that is characterized by glacial opacity.(855) That gravitation is a law which nothing can overcome, but which is, nevertheless, overcome, in and out of season, by the most ordinary celestial or terrestrial bodies—the tails of impudent comets, for instance. That we owe the universe to the holy Creative Trinity, called Inert Matter, Senseless Force and Blind Chance. Of the real essence and nature of any of these three, Science knows nothing, but this is a trifling detail. Ergo, we are told that, when a mass of cosmic or nebular Matter—whose nature is entirely unknown, and which may be in a state of fusion (Laplace), or dark and cold (Thomson), for “this intervention of heat is itself a pure hypothesis” (Faye)—decides to exhibit its mechanical energy under the form of rotation, it acts in this wise. It (the mass) either bursts into spontaneous conflagration, or it remains inert, tenebrous, and frigid, both states being equally capable of sending it, without any adequate cause, spinning through Space for millions of years. Its movements may be retrograde, or they may be direct, about a hundred various reasons being offered for both motions, in about as many hypotheses; anyhow, it joins the maze of stars, whose origin belongs to the same miraculous and spontaneous order—for:

_The nebular theory does not profess to discover the_ ORIGIN _of things, but only a stadium in material history._(856)

Those millions of suns, planets, and satellites, composed of inert matter, will whirl on in most impressive and majestic symmetry round the firmament, moved and guided only, notwithstanding their inertia, “by their own internal motion.”

Shall we wonder, after this, if learned Mystics, pious Roman Catholics, and even such learned Astronomers as were Chaubard and Godefroy,(857) have preferred the _Kabalah_ and the ancient systems to the modern dreary and contradictory exposition of the Universe? The _Zohar_ makes a distinction, at any rate, between “the Hajaschar [the ‘Light Forces’], the Hachoser [‘Reflected Lights’], and the simple _phenomenal exteriority_ of their spiritual types.”(858)

The question of “gravity” may now be dismissed, and other hypotheses examined. That Physical Science knows nothing of “Forces” is clear. We may close the argument, however, by calling to our help one more man of Science—Professor Jaumes, Member of the Academy of Medicine at Montpellier. Says this learned man, speaking of Forces:

A cause is that which is essentially acting in the genealogy of phenomena, in every production as in every modification. I said that activity (or force) was invisible.... To suppose it corporeal and _residing in the properties of matter_ would be a gratuitous hypothesis.... To reduce all the causes to God, ... would amount to embarrassing oneself with a hypothesis hostile to many verities. But to speak of _a plurality of forces_ proceeding from the Deity and possessing inherent powers of their own, is not unreasonable, ... and I am disposed to admit phenomena produced by intermediate agents called Forces or Secondary Agents. The _distinction_ of Forces is the principle of the division of Sciences; so many real and separate Forces, so many mother‐ Sciences.... No; Forces are not suppositions and abstractions, but realities, and the only acting realities whose attributes can be determined with the help of direct observation and induction.(859)

Section V. The Masks of Science. Physics Or Metaphysics?

If there is anything like progress on earth, Science will some day have to give up, _nolens volens_, such monstrous ideas as her physical, self‐ guiding laws, void of Soul and Spirit, and will then have to turn to the Occult Teachings. It has already done so, however altered may be the title‐pages and revised editions of the Scientific Catechism. It is now over half a century since, in comparing modern with ancient thought, it was found that, however different our Philosophy may appear from that of our ancestors, it is, nevertheless, composed only of additions and subtractions taken from the old Philosophy and transmitted drop by drop through the filter of antecedents.

This fact was well known to Faraday, and to other eminent men of Science. Atoms, Ether, Evolution itself—all come to Modern Science from ancient notions, all are based on the conceptions of the archaic nations. “Conceptions” for the profane, under the shape of allegories; plain truths taught during the Initiations to the Elect, which truths have been

## partially divulged through Greek writers and have descended to us. This

does not mean that Occultism has ever had the same views on Matter, Atoms and Ether as may be found in the exotericism of the classical Greek writers. Yet, if we may believe Mr. Tyndall, even Faraday was an Aristotelean, and was more an Agnostic than a Materialist. In his _Faraday, as a Discoverer_,(860) the author shows the great Physicist using “old reflections of Aristotle” which are “concisely found in some of his works.” Faraday, Boscovitch, and all others, however, who see, in the Atoms and molecules, “centres of force,” and in the corresponding element, Force, an Entity by itself, are far nearer the truth, perchance, than those, who, denouncing them, denounce at the same time the “old corpuscular Pythagorean theory”—one, by the way, which never passed to posterity as the great Philosopher really taught it—on the ground of its “delusion that the conceptual elements of matter can be grasped as separate and real entities.”

The chief and most fatal mistake and fallacy made by Science, in the view of the Occultists, lies in the idea of the possibility of such a thing existing in Nature as inorganic, or dead Matter. Is anything dead or inorganic which is capable of transformation or change?—Occultism asks. And is there anything under the sun which remains immutable or changeless?

For a thing to be _dead_ implies that it had been at some time _living_. When, at what period of cosmogony? Occultism says that in all cases Matter is the most active, when it appears inert. A wooden or a stone block is motionless and impenetrable to all intents and purposes. Nevertheless, and _de facto_, its particles are in ceaseless eternal vibration which is so rapid that to the physical eye the body seems absolutely devoid of motion; and the spacial distance between those particles in their vibratory motion is—considered from another plane of being and perception—as great as that which separates snow flakes or drops of rain. But to Physical Science this will be an absurdity.

This fallacy is nowhere better illustrated than in the scientific work of a German _savant_, Professor Philip Spiller. In this cosmological treatise, the author attempts to prove that:

No material constituent of a body, no atom, is in itself originally endowed with force, but that every such atom is absolutely dead, and without any inherent power to act at a distance.(861)

This statement, however, does not prevent Spiller from enunciating an Occult doctrine and principle. He asserts _the independent substantiality of Force_, and shows it as an “incorporeal stuff” (_unkörperlicher Stoff_) or Substance. Now _Substance_ is not _Matter_ in Metaphysics, and for argument’s sake it may be granted that it is a wrong expression to use. But this is due to the poverty of European languages, and especially to the paucity of scientific terms. Then this “stuff” is identified and connected by Spiller with the Æther. Expressed in Occult language it might be said with more correctness that this “Force‐Substance” is the ever‐

## active phenomenal positive Ether—Prakriti; while the omnipresent all‐

pervading Æther is the Noumenon of the former, the substratum of all, or Âkâsha. Nevertheless, Stallo falls foul of Spiller, as he does of the Materialists. He is accused of “utter disregard of the fundamental correlation of Force and Matter,” of neither of which Science knows anything certain. For this “hypostasized half‐concept” is, in the view of all other Physicists, not only _imponderable_, but destitute of cohesive, chemical, thermal, electric, and magnetic forces, of all of which forces—according to Occultism—Æther is the Source and Cause.

Therefore Spiller, with all his mistakes, exhibits more intuition than does any other modern Scientist, with the exception, perhaps, of Dr. Richardson, the theorist on “Nerve‐Force,” or Nervous Ether, also on “Sun‐ Force and Earth‐Force.”(862) For Æther, in Esotericism, is the very quintessence of all possible energy, and it is certainly to this Universal Agent (composed of many agents) that are due all the manifestations of energy in the material, psychic and spiritual worlds.

What, in fact, are electricity and light? How can Science know that one is a fluid and the other a “mode of motion”? Why is no reason given why a difference should be made between them, since both are considered as force‐correlations? Electricity is a fluid, we are told, immaterial and lion‐molecular—though Helmholtz thinks otherwise—and the proof of it is that we can bottle it up, accumulate it and store it away. Then, it must be simply Matter, and no peculiar “fluid.” Nor is it only “a mode of motion,” for motion could hardly be stored in a Leyden jar. As for light, it is a still more extraordinary “mode of motion”; since, “marvellous as it may appear, light [also] can _actually be stored up for use_,” as was demonstrated by Grove nearly half a century ago.

Take an engraving which has been kept for some days in the dark, expose it to full sunshine—that is, insulate it for 15 minutes; lay it on sensitive paper in a dark place, and at the end of 24 hours it will have left an impression of itself on the sensitive paper, the whites coming out as blacks.... There seems to be no limit for the reproduction of engravings.(863)

What is it that remains fixed, nailed, so to say, on the paper? It is a Force certainly that fixed the thing, but what is _that thing_, the residue of which remains on the paper?

Our learned men will get out of this by some scientific technicality; but what is it that is intercepted, so as to imprison a certain quantity of it on glass, paper, or wood? Is it “Motion” or is it “Force”? Or shall we be told that what remains behind is only the effect of the Force or Motion? Then what is this Force? Force or Energy is a quality; but every quality must belong to a something, or a somebody. In Physics, Force is defined as “that which changes or tends to change any physical relation between bodies, whether mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, magnetic, etc.” But it is not that Force or that Motion which remains behind on the paper, when the Force or Motion has ceased to act; and yet something, which our physical senses cannot perceive, has been left there, to become a cause in its turn and to produce effects. What is it? It is not Matter, as defined by Science—_i.e._, Matter in any of its known states. An Alchemist would say it was a spiritual secretion—and he would be laughed at. But yet, when the Physicist said that electricity, stored up, is a fluid, or that light fixed on paper is still sunlight—that was _Science_. The newest authorities have, indeed, rejected these explanations as “exploded theories,” and have now deified “Motion” as their sole idol. But, surely, they and their idol will one day share the fate of their predecessors! An experienced Occultist, one who has verified the whole series of Nidânas, of causes and effects, that finally project their last effect on to this our plane of manifestations, one who has traced Matter back to its Noumenon, holds the opinion that the explanation of the Physicist is like calling anger, or its effects—the exclamation provoked by it—a secretion or a fluid, and man, the cause of it, its _material_ conductor. But, as Grove prophetically remarked, the day is fast approaching when it will be confessed that the Forces we know are but the phenomenal manifestations of Realities we know nothing about—but which were known to the Ancients, and by them worshipped.

He made one still more suggestive remark which ought to have become the motto of Science, but has not. Sir William Grove said that: “_Science should have neither desires nor prejudices. Truth should be her sole aim_.”

Meanwhile, in our days, Scientists are more self‐opinionated and bigoted than even the Clergy. For they minister to, if they do not actually worship, “Force‐Matter,” which is their _Unknown God_. And how unknown it is, may be inferred from the many confessions of the most eminent Physicists and Biologists, with Faraday at their head. Not only, he said, could he never presume to pronounce whether Force was a property or function of Matter, but he actually did not know what was meant by the word Matter.

There was a time, he added, when he believed he knew something of Matter. But the more he lived, and the more carefully he studied it, the more he became convinced of his utter ignorance of the nature of Matter.(864)

This ominous confession was made, we believe, at a Scientific Congress at Swansea. Faraday held a similar opinion, however, as stated by Tyndall:

What do we know of the atom apart from its force? You imagine a nucleus which maybe called _a_ and surround it by forces which may be called _m_; to my mind the _a_ or nucleus vanishes and the substance consists of the powers _m_. And, indeed, what notion can we form of the nucleus independent of its powers? What thought remains on which to hang the imagination of an _a_ independent of the acknowledged forces?

The Occultists are often misunderstood because, for lack of better terms, they apply to the Essence of Force, _under certain aspects_, the descriptive epithet of _Substance_. Now the names for the varieties of Substance on different planes of perception and being are legion. Eastern Occultism has a special appellation for each kind; but Science—like England, in the recollection of a witty Frenchman, blessed with thirty‐six religions and only one fish‐sauce—has but one name for all, namely “Substance.” Moreover, neither the orthodox Physicists nor their critics seem to be very certain of their premisses, and are as apt to confuse the effects as they are the causes. It is incorrect, for instance, to say, as Stallo does, that “Matter can no more be realized or conceived as mere positive spatial presence than as a concretion of forces,” or that “Force is nothing without mass, and mass is nothing without force”—for one is the Noumenon and the other the phenomenon. Again; Schelling, when saying that

It is a mere delusion of the phantasy that something, we know not what, remains after we have denuded an object of all the predicates belonging to it,(865)

could never have applied the remark to the realm of transcendental Metaphysics. It is true that pure Force is _nothing_ in the world of Physics; it is All in the domain of Spirit. Says Stallo:

If we reduce the mass upon which a given force, however small, acts to its limit zero—or, mathematically expressed, until it becomes infinitely small—the consequence is that the velocity of the resulting motion is infinitely great, and that the “thing” ... is at any given moment neither here nor there, but everywhere—that there is no real presence; it is impossible, therefore, to construct matter by a synthesis of forces.(866)

This may be true in the phenomenal world, inasmuch as the illusive reflection of the One Reality of the supersensual world may appear true to the dwarfed conceptions of a Materialist. It is absolutely incorrect when the argument is applied to things in what the Kabalists call the supermundane spheres. Inertia, so‐called, is Force, according to Newton,(867) and for the student of Esoteric Sciences the greatest of the Occult Forces. A body can only conceptually, only on this plane of illusion, be considered divorced from its relations with other bodies—which, according to the physical and mechanical sciences, give rise to its attributes. In fact, it can never be so detached; death itself being unable to detach it from its relation with the Universal Forces, of which the One Force, or Life, is the synthesis: the inter‐relation simply continues on another plane. But what, if Stallo is right, can Dr. James Croll mean when, in speaking “On the Transformation of Gravity,” he brings forward the views advocated by Faraday, Waterston, and others? For he says very plainly that gravity

Is a force pervading Space external to bodies, and that, on the mutual approach of the bodies, the force is not increased, as is generally supposed, but the bodies merely pass into a place where the force exists with greater intensity.(868)

No one will deny that a Force, whether gravity, electricity, or any other Force, which exists _outside_ bodies and in open Space—be it Ether or a vacuum—must be _something_, and not a pure _nothing_, when conceived apart from a mass. Otherwise it could hardly exist in one place with a greater and in another with reduced “intensity.” G. A. Hirn declares the same in his _Théorie Mécanique de l’Univers_. He tries to demonstrate:

That the atom of the chemists is not an entity of pure convention, or simply an explicative device, but that it exists really, that its volume is unalterable, and that consequently it is _not_ elastic [!!]. Force, therefore, is not in the atom; it is _in the space_ which separates the atoms from each other.

The above‐cited views, expressed by two men of Science of great eminence in their respective countries, show that it is not in the least _unscientific_ to speak of the substantiality of the so‐called Forces. Subject to some future specific name, this Force is Substance of some kind, and can be nothing else; and perhaps one day Science will be the first to reädopt the derided name of phlogiston. Whatever may be the future name given to it, to maintain that Force does not reside in the Atoms, but only in the “space between them,” may be scientific enough; nevertheless it is not true. To the mind of an Occultist it is like saying that water does not reside in the drops of which the ocean is composed, but only in the space between those drops!

The objection that there are two distinct schools of Physicists, by one of which

This force is assumed to be an independent substantial entity, which is not a property of matter nor essentially related to matter,(869)

is hardly likely to help the profane to any clearer understanding. It is, on the contrary, more calculated to throw the question into still greater confusion than ever. For Force is, then, neither this nor the other. By viewing it as “an independent substantial entity,” the theory extends the right hand of fellowship to Occultism, while the strange contradictory idea that it is not “related to Matter otherwise than by its power to act upon it,”(870) leads Physical Science to the most absurd contradictory hypotheses. Whether “Force” or “Motion” (Occultism, seeing no difference between the two, never attempts to separate them), it cannot act for the adherents of the atomo‐mechanical theory in one way, and for those of the rival school in another. Nor can the Atoms be, in one case, absolutely uniform in size and weight, and in another, vary in their weight (Avogadro’s law). For, in the words of the same able critic:

While the absolute equality of the primordial units of mass is thus an essential part of the very foundations of the mechanical theory, the whole modern science of chemistry is based upon a principle directly subversive of it—a principle of which it has recently been said that “it holds the same place in chemistry that the law of gravitation does in astronomy.”(871) This principle is known as the law of Avogadro or Ampère.(872)

This shows that either modern Chemistry, or modern Physics, is entirely wrong in the respective fundamental principles. For if the assumption of Atoms of different specific gravities is deemed absurd, on the basis of the atomic theory in Physics; and if Chemistry, nevertheless, on this very assumption, meets with “unfailing experimental verification,” in the formation and transformation of chemical compounds; then it becomes apparent that it is the atomo‐mechanical theory which is untenable. The explanation of the latter, that “the differences of weight are only differences of density, and differences of density are differences of distance between the particles contained in a given space,” is not really valid, because, before a Physicist can argue in his defence that “as in the atom there is no multiplicity of particles and no void space, hence differences of density or weight are impossible in the case of atoms,” he must first know what an Atom is, in reality, and that is just what he cannot know. He must bring it under the observation of at least one of his physical senses—and that he cannot do: for the simple reason that no one has ever seen, smelt, heard, touched or tasted an Atom. The Atom belongs wholly to the domain of Metaphysics. It is an entified abstraction—at any rate for Physical Science—and has nought to do with Physics, strictly speaking, as it can never be brought to the test of retort or balance. The mechanical conception, therefore, becomes a jumble of the most conflicting theories and dilemmas, in the minds of the many Scientists who disagree on this, as on other subjects; and its evolution is beheld with the greatest bewilderment by the Eastern Occultist, who follows this scientific strife.

To conclude, on the question of gravity. How can Science presume to know anything certain of it? How can it maintain its position and its hypotheses against those of the Occultists, who see in gravity only sympathy and antipathy, or attraction and repulsion, caused by physical polarity on our terrestrial plane, and by spiritual causes outside its influence? How can they disagree with the Occultists before they agree among themselves? Indeed one hears of the Conservation of Energy, and in the same breath of the perfect hardness and inelasticity of the Atoms; of the kinetic theory of gases being identical with “potential energy,” so called, and, at the same time, of the elementary units of mass being absolutely hard and inelastic! An Occultist opens a scientific work and reads as follows:

Physical atomism derives all the qualitative properties of matter from the forms of atomic motion. The _atoms themselves remain as elements utterly devoid of quality_.(873)

And further:

Chemistry in its ultimate form must be atomic mechanics.(874)

And a moment after he is told that:

Gases consist of atoms which behave like solid, _perfectly elastic_ spheres.(875)

Finally, to crown all, Sir W. Thomson is found declaring that:

We are forbidden by the modern theory of the conservation of energy to assume inelasticity, or anything short of perfect elasticity of the ultimate molecules whether of ultra‐mundane or mundane matter.(876)

But what do the men of true Science say to all this? By the “men of true Science” we mean those who care too much for truth and too little for personal vanity to dogmatize on anything, as do the majority. There are several among them—perhaps more than dare openly publish their secret conclusions, for fear of the cry “Stone him to death!”—men, whose intuitions have made them span the abyss that lies between the terrestrial aspect of Matter, and the, to us, on our plane of illusion, subjective, _i.e._, transcendentally objective Substance, and have led them to proclaim the existence of the latter. Matter, to the Occultist, it must be remembered, is that totality of existences in the Kosmos, which falls within any of the planes of possible perception. We are but too well aware that the orthodox theories of sound, heat and light, are against the Occult Doctrines. But, it is not enough for the men of Science, or their defenders, to say that they do not deny dynamic power to light and heat, and to urge, as a proof, the fact that Mr. Crookes’ radiometer has unsettled no views. If they would fathom the ultimate nature of these Forces, they have first to admit their _substantial_ nature, however _supersensuous_ that nature may be. Neither do the Occultists deny the correctness of the vibratory theory.(877) Only they limit its functions to our Earth—declaring its inadequacy on other planes than ours, since Masters in the Occult Sciences perceive the Causes that produce ethereal vibrations. Were all these only the fictions of the Alchemists, or dreams of the Mystics, such men as Paracelsus, Philalethes, Van Helmont, and so many others, would have to be regarded as worse than visionaries; they would become impostors and deliberate mystificators.

The Occultists are taken to task for calling the Cause of light, heat, sound, cohesion, magnetism, etc., etc., a Substance.(878) Mr. Clerk Maxwell has stated that the pressure of strong sunlight on a square mile is about 3‐¼ lbs. It is, they are told, “the energy of the myriad ether waves”; and when they call it a Substance impinging on that area, their explanation is proclaimed unscientific.

There is no justification for such an accusation. In no way—as already more than once stated—do the Occultists dispute the explanations of Science, as affording a solution of the immediate objective agencies at work. Science only errs in believing that, because it has detected in vibratory waves the _proximate_ cause of these phenomena, it has, therefore, revealed _all_ that lies beyond the threshold of Sense. It merely traces the sequence of phenomena on a plane of effects, illusory projections from the region that Occultism has long since penetrated. And the latter maintains that those etheric tremors are not set up, as asserted by Science, by the vibrations of the molecules of known bodies, the Matter of our terrestrial objective consciousness, but that we must seek for the ultimate Causes of light, heat, etc., in Matter existing in supersensuous states—states, however, as fully objective to the spiritual eye of man, as a horse or a tree is to the ordinary mortal. Light and heat are the ghost or shadow of Matter in motion. Such states can be perceived by the Seer or the Adept during the hours of trance, under the Sushumnâ Ray—the first of the Seven Mystic Rays of the Sun.(879)

Thus, we put forward the Occult teaching which maintains the reality of a supersubstantial and supersensible essence of that Âkâsha—not Ether, which is only an aspect of the latter—the nature of which cannot be inferred from its remoter manifestations, its merely phenomenal phalanx of effects, on this terrene plane. Science, on the contrary, informs us that heat can never be regarded as Matter in any conceivable state. To cite a most impartial critic, one whose authority no one can call in question, as a reminder to Western dogmatists, that the question cannot be in any way considered as settled:

There is no fundamental difference between light and heat ... each is merely a metamorphosis of the other.... Heat is light in complete repose. Light is heat in rapid motion. Directly light is combined with a body, it becomes heat; but when it is thrown off from that body it again becomes light.(880)

Whether this is true or false we cannot tell, and many years, perhaps many generations, will have to elapse before we shall be able to tell.(881) We are also told that the two great obstacles to the fluid (?) theory of heat undoubtedly are:

(1) The production of heat by friction—excitation of molecular motion.

(2) The conversion of heat into mechanical motion.

The answer given is: There are fluids of various kinds. Electricity is called a fluid, and so was heat quite recently, but it was on the supposition that heat was some imponderable substance. This was during the supreme and autocratic reign of Matter. When Matter was dethroned, and Motion was proclaimed the sole sovereign ruler of the Universe, heat became a “mode of motion.” We need not despair; it may become something else to‐morrow. Like the Universe itself, Science is ever becoming, and can never say, “I am that I am.” On the other hand, Occult Science has its changeless traditions from prehistoric times. It may err in particulars; it can never become guilty of a mistake in questions of Universal Law, simply because that Science, justly referred to by Philosophy as the Divine, was born on higher planes, and was brought to Earth by Beings who were wiser than man will be, even in the Seventh Race of his Seventh Round. And _that_ Science maintains that Forces are not what modern learning would have them; _e.g._, magnetism is not a “mode of motion”; and, in this particular case, at least, exact Modern Science is sure to come to grief some day. Nothing, at the first blush, can appear more ridiculous, more outrageously absurd than to say, for instance: The Hindû initiated Yogî knows really ten times more than the greatest European Physicist of the ultimate nature and constitution of light, both solar and lunar. Yet why is the Sushumnâ Ray believed to be that Ray which furnishes the Moon with its borrowed light? Why is it “the Ray cherished by the initiated Yogî”? Why is the Moon considered as the Deity of the Mind, by those Yogîs? We say, because light, or rather all its Occult properties, every combination and correlation of it with other forces, mental, psychic, and spiritual, was perfectly known to the old Adepts.

Therefore, although Occult Science may be less well‐informed than modern Chemistry as to the behaviour of compound elements in various cases of physical correlation, yet it is immeasurably higher in its knowledge of the ultimate Occult states of Matter, and of the true nature of Matter, than all the Physicists and Chemists of our modern day put together.

Now, if we state the truth openly and in full sincerity, namely, that the ancient Initiates had a far wider knowledge of Physics, as a Science of Nature, than is possessed by our Academies of Science, all taken together, the statement will be characterized as an impertinence and an absurdity; for Physical Sciences are considered to have been carried in our age to the apex of perfection. Hence, the twitting query: Can the Occultists meet successfully the two points, namely (_a_) the production of heat by friction—excitation of molecular motion; and (_b_) the conversion of heat into mechanical force, if they hold to the old exploded theory of heat being a substance or a fluid?

To answer the question, it must first be observed that the Occult Sciences do not regard either electricity, or any of the Forces supposed to be generated by it, as Matter in any of the states known to Physical Science; to put it more clearly, none of these Forces, so‐called, is a solid, gas, or fluid. If it did not look pedantic, an Occultist would even object to electricity being called a fluid—as it is an effect and not a cause. But its Noumenon, he would say, is a Conscious Cause. The same in the cases of “Force” and the “Atom.” Let us see what an eminent Academician, Butlerof, the Chemist, had to say about these two abstractions. This great man of Science argues:

What is Force? What is it from a strictly scientific stand‐point, and as warranted by the law of conservation of energy? Conceptions of Force are resumed by our conceptions of this, that, or another mode of motion. Force is thus simply the passage of one state of motion into another state of the same; of electricity into heat and light, of heat into sound or some mechanical function, and so on.(882) The first time electric fluid was produced by man on earth it must have been by friction; hence, as well known, it is heat that produces it by disturbing its zero state,(883) and electricity exists no more on earth _per se_ than heat or light, or any other force. They are all correlations, as Science says. When a given quantity of heat, assisted by a steam engine, is transformed into mechanical work, we speak of steam power (or force). When a falling body strikes an obstacle in its way, thereby generating heat and sound—we call it the power of collision. When electricity decomposes water or heats a platinum wire, we speak of the force of the electric fluid. When the rays of the sun are intercepted by the thermometer bulb and its quicksilver expands, we speak of the calorific energy of the sun. In short, when one state of a determined quantity of motion ceases, another state of motion equivalent to the preceding takes its place, and the result of such a transformation or correlation is—Force. In all cases where such a transformation, or the passage of one state of motion into another, is entirely absent, there no force is possible. Let us admit for a moment an absolutely homogeneous state of the Universe, and our conception of Force falls down to nought.

Therefore it becomes evident that the Force, which Materialism considers as the cause of the diversity that surrounds us, is in sober reality only an effect, a result of that diversity. From such point of view Force is not the cause of motion, but a result, while the cause of that Force, or forces, is not the Substance or Matter, but Motion itself. Matter thus must be laid aside, and with it the basic principle of Materialism, which has become unnecessary, as Force brought down to a state of motion can give no idea of the Substance. If Force is the result of motion, then it becomes incomprehensible why that motion should become witness to Matter and not to Spirit or a Spiritual essence. True, our reason cannot conceive of a motion minus something moving (and our reason is right); but the nature or _esse_ of that something moving remains to Science entirely unknown; and the Spiritualist, in such case, has as much right to attribute it to a “Spirit,” as a Materialist to creative and all‐potential Matter. A Materialist has no special privileges in this instance, nor can he claim any. The law of the conservation of energy, as thus seen, is shown to be illegitimate in its pretensions and claims in this case. The “great dogma”—_no force without matter and no matter without force_—falls to the ground, and loses entirely the solemn significance with which Materialism has tried to invest it. The conception of Force still gives no idea of Matter, and compels us in no way to see in it “the origin of all origins.”(884)

We are assured that Modern Science is not Materialistic; and our own conviction tells us that it cannot be so, when its learning is real. There is good reason for this, well defined by some Physicists and Chemists themselves. Natural Sciences cannot go hand in hand with Materialism. To be at the height of their calling, men of Science have to reject the very possibility of Materialistic doctrines having aught to do with the Atomic Theory; and we find that Lange, Butlerof, Du Bois Reymond—the last probably unconsciously—and several others, have proved it. And this is, furthermore, demonstrated by the fact, that Kanâda in India, and Leucippus and Democritus in Greece, and after them Epicurus—the earliest Atomists in Europe—while propagating their doctrine of definite proportions, believed in Gods or supersensuous Entities, at the same time. Their ideas upon Matter thus differed from those now prevalent. We must be allowed to make our statement clearer by a short synopsis of the ancient and modern views of Philosophy upon Atoms, and thus prove that the Atomic Theory kills Materialism.

From the standpoint of Materialism, which reduces the beginnings of all to Matter, the Universe consists, in its fulness, of Atoms and vacuity. Even leaving aside the axiom taught by the Ancients, and now absolutely demonstrated by telescope and microscope, that Nature abhors a vacuum, what is an Atom? Professor Butlerof writes:

It is, we are answered by Science, the limited division of Substance, the indivisible particle of Matter. To admit the divisibility of the atom, amounts to an admission of an infinite divisibility of Substance, which is equivalent to reducing Substance to _nihil_, or nothingness. Owing to a feeling of self‐ preservation alone, Materialism cannot admit infinite divisibility; otherwise, it would have to bid farewell for ever to its basic principle and thus sign its own death‐warrant.(885)

Büchner, for instance, like a true dogmatist in Materialism declares that:

To accept infinite divisibility is absurd, and amounts to doubting the very existence of Matter.

The Atom is indivisible then, saith Materialism? Very well. Butlerof answers:

See now what a curious contradiction this fundamental principle of the Materialists is leading them into. The atom is _indivisible_, and at the same time we know it to be _elastic_. An attempt to deprive it of elasticity is unthinkable; it would amount to an absurdity. Absolutely non‐elastic atoms could never exhibit a single one of those numerous phenomena that are attributed to their correlations. Without any elasticity, the atoms could not manifest their energy, and the Substance of the Materialists would remain weeded of every force. Therefore, if the Universe is composed of atoms, then those atoms must be elastic. It is here that we meet with an insuperable obstacle. For, what are the conditions requisite for the manifestation of elasticity? An elastic ball, when striking against an obstacle, is flattened and contracts, which it would be impossible for it to do, were not that ball to consist of particles, the relative position of which experiences at the time of the blow a temporary change. This may be said of elasticity in general; no elasticity is possible without change with respect to the position of the compound

## particles of an elastic body. This means that the elastic body is

changeful and consists of particles, or, in other words, that elasticity can pertain only to those bodies that are divisible. And the atom _is_ elastic.(886)

This is sufficient to show how absurd are the simultaneous admissions of the non‐divisibility and of the elasticity of the Atom. The Atom is elastic, _ergo_, the Atom is divisible, and must consist of particles, or of sub‐atoms. And these sub‐atoms? They are either non‐elastic, and in such case they represent no dynamic importance, or, they are elastic also; and in that case, they, too, are subject to divisibility. And thus _ad infinitum_. But infinite divisibility of Atoms resolves Matter into simple centres of Force, _i.e._, precludes the possibility of conceiving Matter as an objective substance.

This vicious circle is fatal to Materialism. It finds itself caught in its own nets, and no issue out of the dilemma is possible for it. If it says that the Atom is indivisible, then it will have Mechanics asking it the awkward question:

How does the Universe move in this case, and how do its forces correlate? A world built on absolutely non‐elastic atoms, is like an engine without steam, it is doomed to eternal inertia.(887)

Accept the explanations and teachings of Occultism, and—the blind inertia of Physical Science being replaced by the intelligent active Powers behind the veil of Matter—motion and inertia become subservient to those Powers. It is on the doctrine of the illusive nature of Matter, and the infinite divisibility of the Atom, that the whole Science of Occultism is built. It opens limitless horizons to Substance, informed by the divine breath of its Soul in every possible state of tenuity, states still undreamed of by the most spiritually disposed Chemists and Physicists.

The above views were enunciated by an Academician, the greatest Chemist in Russia, and a recognized authority even in Europe, the late Professor Butlerof. True, he was defending the phenomena of the Spiritualists, the materializations, so‐called, in which he believed, as Professors Zöllner and Hare did, as Mr. A. Russel Wallace, Mr. W. Crookes, and many another Fellow of the Royal Society, do still, whether openly or secretly. But his argument with regard to the nature of the Essence that acts behind the physical phenomena of light, heat, electricity, etc., is no less scientific and authoritative for all that, and applies admirably to the case in hand. Science has no right to deny to the Occultists their claim to a more profound knowledge of the so‐called Forces, which, they say, are only the effects of causes generated by Powers, substantial, yet supersensuous, and beyond any kind of Matter with which Scientists have hitherto become acquainted. The most Science can do is to assume and to maintain the attitude of Agnosticism. Then it can say: Your case is no more proven than is ours; but we confess to knowing nothing in reality either about Force or Matter, or about that which lies at the bottom of the so‐called correlation of Forces. Therefore, time alone can prove who is right and who is wrong. Let us wait patiently, and meanwhile show mutual courtesy, instead of scoffing at each other.

But to do this requires a boundless love of truth and the surrender of that prestige—however false—of infallibility, which the men of Science have acquired among the ignorant and flippant, though cultured, masses of the profane. The blending of the two Sciences, the Archaic and the Modern, requires first of all the abandonment of the actual Materialistic lines. It necessitates a kind of religious Mysticism and even the study of old Magic, which our Academicians will never take up. The necessity is easily explained. Just as in old Alchemical works the real meaning of the Substances and Elements mentioned is concealed under the most ridiculous metaphors, so are the physical, psychic, and spiritual natures of the Elements (say of Fire) concealed in the _Vedas_;, and especially in the _Purânas_, under allegories comprehensible only to the Initiates. Had they no meaning, then indeed all these long legends and allegories about the sacredness of the three types of Fire, and the _Forty‐Nine original Fires_—personified by the Sons of Daksha’s Daughters and the Rishis, their Husbands, “who with the first Son of Brahmâ and his three descendants constitute the Forty‐nine Fires”—would be idiotic verbiage and no more. But it is not so. Every Fire has a distinct function and meaning in the worlds of the physical and the spiritual. It has, moreover, in its essential nature a corresponding relation to one of the human psychic faculties, besides its well determined chemical and physical potencies when coming in contact with terrestrially differentiated Matter. Science has no speculations to offer upon Fire _per se_; Occultism and ancient religious Science have. This is shown even in the meagre and purposely veiled phraseology of the _Purânas_, where, as in the _Vâyu Purâna_, many of the qualities of the personified Fires are explained. Thus, Pâvaka is Electric Fire, or Vaidyuta; Pavamâna, the Fire produced by Friction, or Nirmathya: and Shuchi is Solar Fire, or Saura(888)—all these three being the sons of Abhimânin, the Agni (Fire), eldest son of Brahmâ and of Svâhâ. Pâvaka, moreover, is made parent to Kavyavâhana, the Fire of the Pitris: Shuchi to Havyaváhana, the Fire of the Gods; and Pavamâna to Saharaksha, the Fire of the Asuras. Now all this shows that the writers of the _Purânas_ were perfectly conversant with the Forces of Science and their correlations, as well as with the various qualities of the latter in their bearing upon those psychic and physical phenomena which receive no credit and are now unknown to Physical Science. Very naturally, when an Orientalist, especially one with materialistic tendencies, reads that these are only appellations of Fire employed in the invocations and rituals, he calls this “Tântrika superstition and mystification”; and he becomes more careful to avoid errors in spelling than to give attention to the secret meaning attached to the personifications, or to seek their explanation in the physical correlations of Forces, so far as these are known. So little credit, indeed, is given to the ancient Âryans for knowledge, that even such glaring passages as that in _Vishnu Purâna_, are left without any notice. Nevertheless, what can this sentence mean?

Then ether, air, light, water, and earth, severally united with the properties of sound and the rest, existed as distinguishable according to their qualities, ... but, possessing many and various energies and being unconnected, they could not, without combination, create living beings, not having blended with each other. Having combined therefore with one another, they assumed through their mutual association, the character of one mass of entire unity; and, from the direction of Spirit, etc.(889)

This means, of course, that the writers were perfectly acquainted with correlation, and were well posted about the origin of Kosmos from the “Indiscrete Principle,” Avyaktânugrahena, as applied to Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti conjointly, and not to “Avyakta, either First Cause, or Matter,” as Wilson gives it. The old Initiates knew of no “miraculous creation,” but taught the evolution of Atoms, on our physical plane, and their first differentiation from Laya into Protyle, as Mr. Crookes has suggestively named Matter, or primordial substance, _beyond_ the zero‐ line—there where we place Mûlaprakriti, the Root‐Principle of the World‐ Stuff and of all in the World.

This can be easily demonstrated. Take, for instance, the newly‐published catechism of the Vishishthâdvaita Vedântins, an orthodox and exoteric system, yet fully enunciated and taught in the XIth century(890) at a time when European “Science” still believed in the squareness and flatness of the Earth of Cosmas Indicopleustes of the VIth century. It teaches that before Evolution began, Prakriti, Nature, was in a condition of Laya, or of absolute homogeneity, as “Matter exists in two conditions, the Sûkshma, or latent and undifferentiated, and the Sthûla, or differentiated, condition.” Then it became Anu, atomic. It teaches of Suddasattva—“a substance not subject to the qualities of Matter, from which it is quite different,” and adds that out of that Substance the bodies of the Gods, the inhabitants of Vaikunthaloka, the Heaven of Vishnu, are formed. That every particle or atom of Prakriti contains Jîva (divine life), and is the Sharîra (body) of that Jîva which it contains, while every Jîva is in its turn the Sharîra of the Supreme Spirit, as “Parabrahman pervades every Jîva, as well as every particle of Matter.” Dualistic and anthropomorphic as may be the philosophy of the Vishishthâdvaita, when compared with that of the Advaita—the non‐dualists—it is yet supremely higher in logic and philosophy than the Cosmogony accepted either by Christianity or by its great opponent, Modern Science. The followers of one of the greatest minds that ever appeared on Earth, the Advaita Vedântins are called Atheists, because they regard all save Parabrahman, the Secondless, or the Absolute Reality as an illusion. Yet the wisest Initiates came from their ranks, as also the greatest Yogîs. The _Upanishads_ show that they most assuredly knew not only what is the causal substance in the effects of friction, and that their forefathers were acquainted with the conversion of heat into mechanical force, but that they were also acquainted with the Noumenon of every spiritual as well as of every cosmic phenomenon.

Truly the young Brâhman who graduates in the Universities and Colleges of India with the highest honours; who starts in life as an M.A. and an LL.B., with a tail initialed from Alpha to Omega after his name, and a contempt for his national Gods proportioned to the honours received in his education in Physical Science; truly he has but to read in the light of the latter, and with an eye to the correlation of physical Forces, certain passages in his _Purânas_, if he would learn how much more his ancestors knew than he will ever know—unless he becomes an Occultist. Let him turn to the allegory of Purûravas and the celestial Gandharva,(891) who furnished the former with a vessel full of heavenly fire. The primeval mode of obtaining fire by friction has its scientific explanation in the _Vedas_, and is pregnant with meaning for him who reads between the lines. The Tretâgni (sacred triad of fires) obtained by the attrition of sticks made of the wood of the Ashvattha tree, the Bo‐tree of Wisdom and Knowledge, sticks “as many finger‐breadths long as there are syllables in the Gâyatrî,” must have a secret meaning, or else the writers of the _Vedas_ and _Purânas_ were no sacred writers but mystificators. That it has such a meaning, the Hindu Occultists are a proof, and they alone are able to enlighten Science, as to why and how the Fire, that was primevally One, was made three‐fold (tretâ) in our present Manvantara, by the Son of Ilâ (Vâch), the Primeval Woman after the Deluge, the wife and daughter of Vaivasvata Manu. The allegory is suggestive, in whatever _Purâna_ it may be read and studied.

Section VI. An Attack on the Scientific Theory of Force by a Man of Science.

The wise words of several English men of Science have now to be quoted in our favour. Ostracized for “principle’s sake” by the few, they are tacitly approved of by the many. That one of them preaches almost Occult doctrines—in some things identical with, and often amounting to a public recognition of, our “Fohat and his seven Sons,” the Occult Gandharva of the _Vedas_—will be recognized by every Occultist, and even by some profane readers.

If such readers will open Volume V of the _Popular Science Review_,(892) they will find in it an article on “Sun‐Force and Earth‐Force,” by Dr. E. W. Richardson, F.R.S., which reads as follows:

At this moment, when the theory of mere motion as the origin of all varieties of force is again becoming the prevailing thought, it were almost heresy to reöpen a debate, which for a period appears, by general consent, to be virtually closed; but I accept the risk, and shall state, therefore, what were the precise views of the immortal heretic, whose name I have whispered to the readers, (Samuel Metcalfe,) respecting Sun‐Force. Starting with the argument on which nearly all physicists are agreed, that there exist in nature two agencies—matter which is ponderable, visible, and tangible, and a something which is imponderable, invisible, and appreciable only by its influence on matter—Metcalfe maintains that the imponderable and active agency which he calls “caloric” is _not a mere form of motion_, not a vibration amongst the

## particles of ponderable matter, but _itself a material substance

flowing from the sun_ through space,(893) filling the voids between the particles of solid bodies, and conveying by sensation the property called heat. The nature of caloric, or Sun‐Force, is contended for by him on the following grounds:

(i) That it may be added to, and abstracted from other bodies and measured with mathematical precision.

(ii) That it augments the volume of bodies, which are again reduced in size by its abstraction.

(iii) That it modifies the forms, properties, and conditions of all other bodies.

(iv) That _it passes by radiation through the most perfect vacuum_(894) that can be formed, in which it produces the same effects on the thermometer as in the atmosphere.

(v) That it exerts mechanical and chemical forces which nothing can restrain, as in volcanoes, the explosion of gunpowder, and other fulminating compounds.

(vi) That it operates in a sensible manner on the nervous system, producing intense pain; and when in excess, disorganization of the tissues.

As against the vibratory theory, Metcalfe further argues that if caloric were a _mere property or quality_, it could not augment the volume of other bodies; for this purpose it must itself have volume, it must occupy space, and it must, therefore, be a material agent. If caloric were _only the effect of vibratory motion_ amongst the particles of ponderable matter, _it could not radiate from hot bodies_ without the simultaneous transition of the vibrating particles; but the fact stands out that heat can radiate from material ponderable substance without loss of weight of such substance.... With this view as to the material nature of caloric or sun‐force; with the impression firmly fixed on his mind that “everything in Nature is composed of two descriptions of matter, the one essentially active and ethereal, the other passive and motionless,”(895) Metcalfe based the hypothesis that the sun‐ force, or caloric, is a self‐active principle. For its own

## particles, he holds, it has repulsion; for the particles of all

ponderable matter it has affinity; it attracts the particles of ponderable matter with forces which vary inversely as the squares of the distance. It thus acts _through_ ponderable matter. If universal space were filled with caloric, sun‐force, alone (without ponderable matter), caloric would also be inactive and would constitute a boundless ocean of powerless or quiescent ether, because it would then have nothing on which to act, while ponderable matter, however inactive of itself, has “certain properties by which it modifies and controls the actions of caloric, both of which are governed by immutable laws that have their origin in the mutual relations and specific properties of each.”

And he lays down a law which he believes is absolute, and which is thus expressed:

“By the attraction of caloric for ponderable matter, it unites and holds together all things; by its self‐repulsive energy it separates and expands all things.”

This, of course, is almost the Occult explanation of cohesion. Dr. Richardson continues:

As I have already said, _the tendency of modern teaching is to rest upon the hypothesis __ ... that heat is motion_, or, as it would, perhaps, be better stated, a specific force or form of motion.(896)

But this hypothesis, popular as it is, is not one that ought to be accepted to the exclusion of the simpler views of the material nature of sun‐force, and of its influence in modifying the conditions of matter. _We do not yet know sufficient to be dogmatic._(897)

The hypothesis of Metcalfe respecting sun‐force and earth‐force is not only very simple, but most fascinating.... Here are two elements in the universe, the one is ponderable matter.... The second element is the all‐pervading ether, solar fire. It is _without weight, substance, form, or colour; it is matter infinitely divisible_, and its particles repel each other; its rarity is such that we have no word, except ether,(898) by which to express it. It pervades and fills space, but alone it too is quiescent—dead.(899) We bring together the two elements, the inert matter, the self‐repulsive ether [?] and thereupon dead [?] ponderable matter is vivified; [_Ponderable matter may be inert but never dead—this is Occult Law._] ... through the particles of the ponderable substance the ether [_Ether’s second principle_] penetrates, and, so penetrating, it combines with the ponderable

## particles and holds them in mass, holds them together in bond of

union; they are dissolved in the ether.

This distribution of solid ponderable matter through ether extends, according to the theory before us, to everything that exists at this moment. The ether is all‐pervading. The human body itself is charged with the ether [_Astral Light rather_]; its minute particles are held together by it; the plant is in the same condition; the most solid earth, rock, adamant, crystal, metal, all are the same. But there are differences in the capacities of different kinds of ponderable matter to receive sun‐force, and upon this depends the various changing conditions of matter; the solid, the liquid, the gaseous condition. Solid bodies have attracted caloric in excess over fluid bodies, and hence their firm _cohesion_; when a portion of molten zinc is poured upon a plate of solid zinc, the molten zinc becomes as solid because there is a rush of caloric from the liquid to the solid, and in the equalization the particles, previously loose or liquid, are more closely brought together.... Metcalfe himself, dwelling on the above‐named phenomena, and accounting for them by the unity of principle of action, which has already been explained, sums up his argument in very clear terms, in a comment on the densities of various bodies. “Hardness and softness,” he says, “solidity and liquidity, are not essential conditions of bodies, but depend on the relative proportions of ethereal and ponderable matter of which they are composed. The most elastic gas may be reduced to the liquid form by the abstraction of caloric, and again converted into a firm solid, the particles of which would cling together with a force proportional to their augmented affinity for caloric. On the other hand, by adding a sufficient quantity of the same principle to the densest metals, their attraction for it is diminished when they are expanded into the gaseous state, and their cohesion is destroyed.”

Having thus quoted at length the heterodox views of the great “heretic”—views that to be correct, need only a little alteration of terms here and there—Dr. Richardson, undeniably an original and liberal thinker, proceeds to sum up these views, and continues:

I shall not dwell at great length on this unity of sun‐force and earth‐force, which this theory implies. But I may add that out of it, or out of the hypothesis of mere motion as force, and of virtue without substance, we may gather, as the nearest possible approach to the truth on this, the most complex and profound of all subjects, the following inferences:

(_a_) Space, inter‐stellary, inter‐planetary, inter‐material, inter‐organic, is not a vacuum, but is filled with a subtle fluid or gas, which for want of a better term(900) we may still call, as the ancients did, _Aith‐ur_—Solar Fire—Æther. This fluid, unchangeable in composition, indestructible, invisible,(901) pervades everything and all [_ponderable_] matter,(902) the pebble in the running brook, the tree overhanging, the man looking on, is charged with the ether in various degrees; the pebble less than the tree, the tree less than man. All in the planet is in like manner so charged! A world is built up in ethereal fluid, and moving through a sea of it.

(_b_) The ether, whatever its nature is, is from the sun and from the suns:(903) the suns are the generators of it, the store‐houses of it, the diffusers of it.(904)

(_c_) Without the ether there could be no motion; without it

## particles of ponderable matter could not glide over each other;

without it there could be no impulse to excite those particles into action.

(_d_) Ether determines the constitution of bodies. Were there no ether there could be no change of constitution in substance; water, for instance, could only exist as a substance, compact and insoluble beyond any conception we could form of it. It could never even be ice, never fluid, never vapour, except for ether.

(_e_) Ether connects sun with planet, planet with planet, man with planet, man with man. Without ether there could be no communication in the Universe; no light, no heat, no phenomenon of motion.

Thus we find that Ether and elastic Atoms are, in the alleged mechanical conception of the Universe, the Spirit and Soul of Kosmos, and that the theory—put it in any way and under any disguise—always leaves a more widely opened issue for men of Science to speculate upon beyond the line of modern Materialism(905) than the majority avails itself of. Atoms, Ether, or both, modern speculation cannot get out of the circle of ancient thought; and the latter was soaked through with archaic Occultism. Undulatory or corpuscular theory—it is all one. It is speculation from the aspects of phenomena, not from the knowledge of the essential nature of the cause and causes. When Modern Science has explained to its audience the late achievements of Bunsen and Kirchoff; when it has shown the seven colours, the primary of a ray which is decomposed in a fixed order on a screen; and has described the respective lengths of luminous waves, what has it proved? It has justified its reputation for exactness in mathematical achievement by measuring even the length of a luminous wave—“varying from about seven hundred and sixty millionths of a millimètre at the red end of the spectrum to about three hundred and ninety‐three millionths of a millimètre at the violet end.” But when the exactness of the calculation with regard to the effect on the light‐wave is thus vindicated, Science is forced to admit that the Force, which is the supposed cause, is _believed_ to produce “inconceivably minute undulations” in some medium—“generally regarded as identical with the ethereal medium”(906)—and that medium itself is still only—a “hypothetical agent”!

Auguste Comte’s pessimism with respect to the possibility of knowing some day the chemical composition of the Sun, has not, as has been averred, been belied thirty years later by Kirchoff. The spectroscope has helped us to see that the elements, with which the modern Chemist is familiar, must in all probability be present in the Sun’s outward “robes”—_not in the Sun itself_; and, taking these “robes,” the solar cosmic veil, for the Sun itself, the Physicists have declared its luminosity to be due to combustion and flame, and mistaking the vital principle of that luminary for a purely material thing, have called it “chromosphere.”(907) We have only hypotheses and theories so far, not law—by any means.

Section VII. Life, Force, or Gravity.

The imponderable fluids have had their day; mechanical Forces are less talked about; Science has put on a new face for this last quarter of a century; but gravitation has remained, owing its life to new combinations after the old ones had nearly killed it. It may answer scientific hypotheses very well, but the question is whether it answers as well to truth, and represents a fact in nature. Attraction by itself is not sufficient to explain even planetary motion; how can it then presume to explain the rotatory motion in the infinitudes of Space? Attraction alone will never fill all the gaps, unless a special impulse is admitted for every sidereal body, and the rotation of every planet with its satellites is shown to be due to some one cause combined with attraction. And even then, says an Astronomer,(908) Science would have to name that cause.

Occultism has named it for ages, and so have all the ancient Philosophers; but then all such beliefs are now proclaimed exploded superstitions. The extra‐cosmic God has killed every possibility of belief in intra‐cosmic intelligent Forces; yet who, or what, is the original “pusher” in that motion? Says Francœur:(909)

When we have learned the cause, _unique et speciale_, that pushes, we will be ready to combine it with the one which attracts.

And again:

Attraction between the celestial bodies is only repulsion: it is the sun that drives them incessantly onward; for otherwise, their motion would stop.

If ever this theory of the Sun‐Force being the primal cause of all life on earth, and of all motion in heaven, is accepted, and if that other far bolder theory of Herschell, about certain organisms in the Sun, is accepted even as a provisional hypothesis, then will our teachings be vindicated, and Esoteric allegory will be shown to have anticipated Modern Science by millions of years, probably, for such are the Archaic Teachings. Mârttânda, the Sun, watches and threatens his seven brothers, the planets, without abandoning the central position to which his Mother, Aditi, relegated him. The Commentary(910) says:

_He pursues them, turning slowly around himself, ... following from afar the direction in which his brothers move, on the path that encircles their houses_—or the orbit.

It is the sun‐fluids or emanations that impart all motion, and awaken all into life, in the Solar System. It is attraction and repulsion, but not as understood by modern Physics or according to the law of gravity, but in harmony with the laws of _manvantaric motion_ designed from the early Sandhyâ, the Dawn of the rebuilding and higher reformation of the System. These laws are immutable; but the motion of all the bodies—which motion is diverse and alters with every minor Kalpa—is regulated by the Movers, the Intelligences within the Cosmic Soul. Are we so very wrong in believing all this? Well, here is a great and modern man of Science who, speaking of vital electricity, uses language far more akin to Occultism than to modern Materialistic thought. We refer the sceptical reader to an article on “The Source of Heat in the Sun,” by Robert Hunt, F.R.S.,(911) who, speaking of the luminous envelope of the Sun and its “peculiar curdy appearance,” says:

Arago proposed that this envelope should be called the Photosphere, a name now generally adopted. By the elder Herschell, the surface of this photosphere was compared to mother‐of‐ pearl.... It resembles the ocean on a tranquil summer‐day, when its surface is slightly crisped by a gentle breeze.... Mr. Nasmyth has discovered a more remarkable condition than any that had previously been suspected, ... objects which are peculiarly lens‐ shaped ... like “willow leaves,” ... different in size ... not arranged in any order, ... crossing each other in all directions ... with an irregular motion among themselves.... They are seen approaching to and receding from each other, and sometimes assuming new angular positions, so that the appearance ... has been compared to a dense shoal of fish, which, indeed, they resemble in shape.... The size of these objects gives a grand idea of the gigantic scale upon which physical (?) operations are carried out in the sun. They cannot be less than 1,000 miles in length, and from two to three hundred miles in breadth. The most probable conjecture which has been offered respecting those leaf or lens‐like objects, is that the photosphere(912) is an immense ocean of gaseous matter [what kind of “matter”?] ... in a state of intense [apparent] incandescence, and that they are perspective projections of the sheets of flame.

Solar “flames” seen through telescopes are reflections, says Occultism. But the reader has already seen what Occultists have to say to this.

Whatever they [those sheets of flame] may be, it is evident they are the immediate sources of solar heat and light. Here we have a surrounding envelope of photogenic matter,(913) which pendulates with mighty energies, and by communicating its motion to the ethereal medium in stellar space, produces heat and light in far distant worlds. We have said that those forms have been compared to certain organisms, and Herschell says, “Though it would be too daring to speak of such organizations as _partaking of life_ [why not?],(914) yet we do not know that vital action is competent to develop heat, light, and electricity.”... Can it be that there is truth in this fine thought? May the pulsing of vital matter in the central sun of our system be the source of all that life which crowds the earth, and without doubt overspreads the other planets, to which the sun is the mighty minister?

Occultism answers these queries in the affirmative; and Science will find this to be the case, one day.

Again, Mr. Hunt writes:

But regarding Life—Vital Force—as a power far more exalted than either light, heat, or electricity, and indeed capable of exerting a controlling power over them all [this is absolutely Occult] ... we are certainly disposed to view with satisfaction that speculation which supposes the photosphere to be the primary seat of vital power, and to regard with a poetic pleasure that hypothesis which refers the solar energies to Life.(915)

Thus, we have an important scientific corroboration for one of our fundamental dogmas—namely, that (_a_) the Sun is the store‐house of Vital Force, which is the Noumenon of Electricity; and (_b_) that it is from its mysterious, never‐to‐be‐fathomed depths, that issue those life‐currents which thrill through Space, as through the organisms of every living thing on Earth. For see what another eminent Physician says, who calls this, our life‐fluid, “Nervous Ether.” Change a few sentences in the article, extracts from which now follow, and you have another quasi‐Occult treatise on Life‐Force. It is again Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., who gives his views as follows on “Nervous Ether,” as he has on “Sun‐Force” and “Earth‐ Force”:

The idea attempted to be conveyed by the theory is, that between the molecules of the matter, solid or fluid, of which the nervous organisms, and, indeed, of which all the organic parts of a body are composed, there exists a refined subtle medium, vaporous or gaseous, which holds the molecules in a condition for motion upon each other, and for arrangement and reärrangement of form; a medium by and through which all motion is conveyed; by and through which the one organ or part of the body is held in communion with the other parts, by which and through which the outer living world communicates with the living man; a medium, which, being present, enables the phenomena of life to be demonstrated, and which, being universally absent, leaves the body actually dead.

And the whole Solar System falls into Pralaya—the author might have added. But let us read further:

I use the word ether in its general sense as meaning a very light, vaporous or gaseous matter; I use it, in short, as the astronomer uses it when he speaks of the ether of Space, by which he means a subtle but material medium.... When I speak of a _nervous_ ether, I do not convey that the ether is existent in nervous structure only: I believe truly that it is a special part of the nervous organization; but, as nerves pass into all structures that have capacities for movement and sensibilities, so the nervous ether passes into all such parts; and as the nervous ether is, according to my view, a direct product from blood, so we may look upon it as a part of the atmosphere of the blood.... The evidence in favour of the existence of an elastic medium pervading the nervous matter and capable of being influenced by simple pressure is all‐ convincing.... In nervous structure there is, unquestionably, a true nervous fluid, as our predecessors taught.(916) The precise chemical (?)(917) composition of this fluid is not yet well known; the physical characters of it have been little studied. Whether it moves in currents, we do not know; whether it circulates, we do not know; whether it is formed in the centres and passes from them to the nerves, or whether it is formed everywhere where blood enters nerve, we do not know. The exact uses of the fluid we do not consequently know. It occurs to my mind, however, that the veritable fluid of nervous matter is not of itself sufficient to act as the subtle medium that connects the outer with the inner universe of man and animal. I think—and this is the modification I suggest to the older theory—there must be another form of matter present during life; a matter which exists in the condition of vapour or gas, which pervades the whole nervous organism, surrounds as an enveloping atmosphere(918) each molecule of nervous structure, and is the medium of all motion, communicated to and from the nervous centres.... When it is once fairly presented to the mind that during life _there is in the animal body a finely diffused form of matter_, a vapour filling every part—and even stored in some parts; a matter constantly renewed by the vital chemistry; a matter as easily disposed of as the breath, after it has served its purpose—a new flood of light breaks on the intelligence.(919)

A new flood of light is certainly thrown on the wisdom of ancient and mediæval Occultism and its votaries. For Paracelsus wrote the same thing more than three hundred years ago, in the sixteenth century, as follows:

The whole of the Microcosm is potentially contained in the Liquor Vitæ, a nerve fluid ... in which is contained the nature, quality, character, and essence of beings.(920)

The Archæus is an essence that is equally distributed in all parts of the human body.... The Spiritus Vitæ takes its origin from the Spiritus Mundi. Being an emanation of the latter, it contains the elements of all cosmic influences, and is therefore the cause by which the action of the stars [cosmic forces] upon the invisible body of man [his vital _Linga Sharîra_] may be explained.(921)

Had Dr. Richardson studied all the secret works of Paracelsus, he would not have been obliged to confess so often, “we do not know,” “it is not known to us,” etc. Nor would he ever have written the following sentence, recanting the best portions of his independent rediscovery.

It may be urged that in this line of thought is included no more than the theory of the existence of the ether ... supposed to pervade space.... It may be said that this universal ether pervades all the organism of the animal body as from without, and as part of every organization. This view would be Pantheism physically discovered, _if it were true_ [!!]. It fails to be true because it would destroy the individuality of every individual sense.(922)

We fail to see this, and we _know_ it is not so. Pantheism _may_ be “physically rediscovered.” It was known, seen, and felt by the whole of antiquity. Pantheism manifests itself in the vast expanse of the starry heavens, in the breathing of the seas and oceans, and in the quiver of life of the smallest blade of grass. Philosophy rejects one _finite_ and _imperfect_ God in the universe, the anthropomorphic deity of the Monotheist as represented by his followers. It repudiates, in its name of _Philo‐theo‐sophia_, the grotesque idea that Infinite, Absolute Deity should, or rather could, have any direct or indirect relation to finite illusive evolutions of Matter, and therefore it cannot imagine a universe _outside_ that Deity, or the absence of that Deity from the smallest speck of animate or inanimate Substance. This does not mean that every bush, tree or stone is God or _a_ God; but only that every speck of the manifested material of Kosmos belongs to, and is the Substance of, God, however low it may have fallen in its cyclic gyration through the Eternities of the Ever‐Becoming; and also that every such speck individually, and Kosmos collectively, is an aspect and a reminder of that universal One Soul—which Philosophy refuses to call God, thus limiting the eternal and ever‐present Root and Essence.

Why either the Ether of Space or “Nervous Ether” should “destroy the individuality of every sense,” seems incomprehensible to one acquainted with the real nature of that “Nervous Ether” under its Sanskrit, or rather Esoteric and Kabalistic name. Dr. Richardson agrees that:

If we did not individually produce the medium of communication between ourselves and the outer world, if it were produced from without and adapted to one kind of vibration alone, there were fewer senses required than we possess: for, taking two illustrations only—ether of light is not adapted for sound, and yet we hear as well and see; while air, the medium of motion of sound, is not the medium of light, and yet we see and hear.

This is not so. The opinion that Pantheism “fails to be true because it would destroy the individuality of every individual sense” shows that all the conclusions of the learned doctor are based on the modern physical theories, though he would fain reform them. But he will find it impossible to do this unless he allows the existence of spiritual senses to replace the gradual atrophy of the physical. “We see and hear,” in accordance (of course, in Dr. Richardson’s mind) with the explanations of the phenomena of sight and hearing, afforded by that same Materialistic Science which postulates that we cannot see and hear otherwise. The Occultists and Mystics know better. The Vedic Âryans were as familiar with the mysteries of sound and colour on the physical plane as are our Physiologists, but they had also mastered the secrets of both on planes inaccessible to the Materialist. They knew of a double set of senses; spiritual and material. In a man who is deprived of one or more senses, the remaining senses become the more developed; for instance, the blind man will recover his sight through the senses of touch, of hearing, etc., and he who is deaf will be able to hear through sight, by seeing _audibly_ the words uttered by the lips and mouth of the speaker. But these are cases that belong to the world of Matter still. The spiritual senses, those that act on a higher plane of consciousness, are rejected _à priori_ by Physiology, because the latter is ignorant of the Sacred Science. It limits the action of Ether to vibrations, and, dividing it from air—though air is simply differentiated and compound Ether—makes it assume functions to fit in with the special theories of the Physiologist. But there is more real Science in the teachings of the _Upanishads_, when these are correctly understood, than the Orientalists, who do not understand them at all, are ready to admit. Mental as well as physical correlations of the seven senses—seven on the physical and seven on the mental planes—are clearly explained and defined in the _Vedas_, and especially in the _Upanishad_ called _Anugîtâ_:

The indestructible and the destructible, such is the double manifestation of the Self. Of these the indestructible is the existent [the true essence or nature of Self, the underlying principles], the manifestation as an individual (entity) is called the destructible.(923)

Thus speaks the Ascetic in the _Anugîtâ_, and also:

Every one who is twice‐born [initiated] knows such is the teaching of the ancients.... Space is the first entity.... Now Space [Âkâsha, or the Noumenon of Ether] has one quality ... and that is stated to be sound only ... [and the] qualities of sound [are] Shadja, Rishabha, together with Gândhâra, Madhyama, Panchama, and beyond these [should be understood to be] Nishâda and Dhaivata [the Hindû gamut].(924)

These seven notes of the scale are the principles of sound. The qualities of every Element, as of every sense, are septenary, and to judge and dogmatize on them from their manifestation on the material or objective plane—likewise sevenfold in itself—is quite arbitrary. For it is only by the SELF emancipating itself from these seven causes of illusion, that we can acquire the knowledge (Secret Wisdom) of the qualities of objects of sense on their dual plane of manifestation, the visible and the invisible. Thus it is said:

Hear me ... state this wonderful mystery.... Hear also the assignment of causes exhaustively. The nose, and the tongue, and the eye, and the skin, and the ear as the fifth [organ of sense] mind and understanding,(925) these seven [senses] should be understood to be the causes of (the knowledge of) qualities. Smell, and taste, and colour, sound, and touch as the fifth, the object of the mental operation, and the object of the understanding [the highest spiritual sense or perception], these seven are causes of action. He who smells, he who eats, he who sees, he who speaks, and he who hears as the fifth, he who thinks, and he who understands, these seven should be understood to be the causes of the agents. These [the agents] being possessed of qualities (sattva, rajas, tamas), enjoy their own qualities, agreeable and disagreeable.(926)

The modern commentators, failing to comprehend the subtle meaning of the ancient Scholiasts, take the sentence, “causes of the agents,” to mean “that the powers of smelling, etc., when attributed to the Self, make him appear as an agent, as an active principle” (!), which is entirely fanciful. These “seven” are understood to be the causes of the agents, because “the objects are causes, as their enjoyment causes an impression.” It means esoterically that they, these seven senses, are caused by the agents, which are the “deities,” for otherwise what does, or can, the following sentence mean? “Thus,” it is said, “these seven [senses] are the causes of emancipation”—_i.e._, when these causes are made ineffectual. And, again, the sentence, “among the learned [the wise Initiates] who understand everything, the qualities _which are in the position_ [in the nature, rather] _of the deities_, each in its place,” etc., means simply that the “learned” understand the nature of the Noumena of the various phenomena; and that “qualities,” in this instance, mean the qualities of the high Planetary or Elementary Gods or Intelligences, which rule the elements and their products, and not at all the “senses,” as the modern commentator thinks. For the learned do not suppose their senses to have aught to do with them, any more than with their SELF.

Then we read in the _Bhagavadgîtâ_ of _Krishna_, the Deity, saying:

Only some know me truly. Earth, water, fire, air, space [or Âkâsha, Æther], mind, understanding and egoism [or the perception of all the former on the illusive plane], ... this is a lower form of my nature. Know (that there is) another (form of my) nature, and higher than this, which is animate, O you of mighty arms! and by which this universe is upheld.... All this is woven upon me, like numbers of pearls upon a thread.(927) I am the taste in the water, O son of Kuntî! I am the light of the sun and moon. I am ... sound (“_i.e._, the occult essence which underlies all these and the other qualities of the various things mentioned”—Transl.), in space ... the fragrant smell in the earth, refulgence in the fire ... etc.(928)

Truly, then, one should study Occult Philosophy before one begins to seek for and verify the mysteries of Nature on its surface alone, as he alone “who knows the truth about the qualities of Nature, who understands the creation of all entities ... is emancipated” from error. Says the Preceptor:

Accurately understanding the great (tree) of which the unperceived [Occult Nature, the root of all] is the sprout from the seed [Parabrahman], which consists of the understanding [Mahat, or the Universal Intelligent Soul] as its trunk, the branches of which are the great egoism,(929) in the holes of which are the sprouts, namely, the senses, of which the great [occult, or invisible] elements are the flower‐bunches,(930) the gross elements [the gross objective matter], the smaller boughs, which are always possessed of leaves, always possessed of flowers ... which is eternal and the seed of which is the Brahman [the Deity]; and cutting it with that excellent sword—knowledge [Secret Wisdom]—one attains immortality and casts off birth and death.(931)

This is the Tree of Life, the Ashvattha tree, after the cutting of which only, Man, the slave of life and death, can be emancipated.

But the men of Science know nought, nor will they hear of the “Sword of Knowledge” used by the Adepts and Ascetics. Hence the one‐sided remarks of even the most liberal among them, based on and flowing from undue importance given to the arbitrary divisions and classification of Physical Science. Occultism heeds them very little, and Nature heeds them still less. The whole range of physical phenomena proceeds from the Primary of Æther—Âkâsha, as dual‐natured Âkâsha proceeds from undifferentiated Chaos, so‐called, the latter being the primary aspect of Mûlaprakriti, the Root‐ Matter and the first abstract Idea one can form of Parabrahman. Modern Science may divide its hypothetically conceived Ether in as many ways as it likes; the real Æther of Space will remain as it is throughout. It has its seven “principles,” as all the rest of Nature has, and where there was no Æther there would be _no_ “sound,” as it is the vibrating sounding‐ board in Nature in all its seven differentiations. This is the first mystery the Initiates of old have learned. Our present normal physical senses were, from our present point of view, abnormal in those days of slow and progressive downward evolution and fall into Matter. And there was a day when all that in our modern times is regarded as exceptional, so puzzling to the Physiologists now compelled to believe in them—such as thought‐transference, clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc.; in short, all that is now called “wonderful and abnormal”—when all that and much more belonged to the senses and faculties common to all humanity. We are, however, cycling back and cycling forward; that is to say, that having lost in spirituality what we acquired in physical development until almost the end of the Fourth Race, we are now as gradually and imperceptibly losing in the physical all that we regain once more in the spiritual reëvolution. This process must go on, until the period which will bring the Sixth Root‐Race on a line parallel with the spirituality of the Second Race, a long extinct mankind.

But this will hardly be understood at present. We must return to Dr. Richardson’s hopeful, though somewhat incorrect hypothesis about “Nervous Ether.” Under the misleading translation of the word as “Space,” Âkâsha has just been shown in the ancient Hindû system as the “first born” of the One, having but one quality, “Sound,” which is septenary. In Esoteric language this One is the Father‐Deity, and Sound is synonymous with the Logos, Verbum, or Son. Whether consciously or otherwise, it must be the latter; and Dr. Richardson, while preaching an Occult doctrine, chooses the lowest form of the septenary nature of that Sound, and speculates upon it, adding:

The theory, I offer, is that the nervous ether is an _animal product_. In different classes of animals it may differ in physical quality so as to be adapted to the special wants of the animal, but essentially it plays one part in all animals, and is produced, in all, in the same way.

Herein lies the nucleus of error leading to all the resultant mistaken views. This “Nervous Ether” is the lowest principle of the Primordial Essence which is Life. It is Animal Vitality diffused in all Nature, and

## acting according to the conditions it finds for its activity. It is not an

“animal product,” but the living animal, the living flower and plant, are its products. The animal tissues only absorb it according to their more or less morbid or healthy state—as do physical materials and structures (in their primogenial state, _nota bene_)—and, from the moment of the birth of the Entity, are regulated, strengthened, and fed by it. It descends in a larger supply to vegetation in the Sushumnâ Sun‐Ray which lights and feeds the Moon, and it is through her beams that it pours its light upon, and penetrates man and animal, more during their sleep and rest, than when they are in full activity. Therefore Dr. Richardson errs again in stating that:

The nervous ether is not, according to my idea of it, _in itself

## active, nor an excitant of animal motion in the sense of a force_;

but it is essential as supplying the conditions by which the motion is rendered possible. [It is _just the reverse_.].... It is the conductor of all vibrations of heat, of light, of sound, of electrical action, of mechanical friction.(932) It holds the nervous system throughout in perfect tension, during states of life [true]. By exercise it is disposed of [_rather generated_] ... and when demand for it is greater than the supply, its deficiency is indicated by nervous collapse or exhaustion.(933) It accumulates in the nervous centres during sleep, bringing them, if I may so speak, to their due tone, and therewith raising the muscles to awakening and renewed life.

Just so; this is quite correct and comprehensible. Therefore:

The body fully renewed by it, presents capacity for motion, fulness of form, _life_. The body bereft of it presents inertia, the configuration of shrunken death, _the evidence of having lost something physical that was in it when it lived_.

Modern Science denies the existence of a “vital principle.” This extract is a clear proof of its grand mistake. But this “physical something,” that we call life‐fluid—the Liquor Vitæ of Paracelsus—has not deserted the body, as Dr. Richardson thinks. It has only changed its state from

## activity to passivity, and has become latent, owing to the too morbid

state of the tissues, on which it has hold no longer. Once the _rigor mortis_ is absolute, the Liquor Vitæ will reäwaken into action, and will begin its work on the atoms _chemically_. Brahmâ‐Vishnu, the Creator and the Preserver of Life, will have transformed himself into Shiva the Destroyer.

Lastly Dr. Richardson writes:

The nervous ether may be poisoned; it may, I mean, have diffused through it, by simple gaseous diffusion, other gases or vapours derived from without; it may derive from within products of substances swallowed and ingested, or gases of decomposition produced during disease in the body itself.(934)

And the learned gentleman might have added on the same Occult principle: That the “Nervous Ether” of one person can be poisoned by the “Nervous Ether” of another person or by his “auric emanations.” But see what Paracelsus said of this “Nervous Ether”:

The Archæus is of a magnetic nature, and attracts or repulses other sympathetic or antipathetic forces belonging to the same plane. The less power of resistance for astral influences a person possesses, the more will he be subject to such influences. The vital force is not enclosed in man, but radiates [within and] around him like a luminous sphere [aura] and it may be made to act at a distance.... It may poison the essence of life [_blood_] and cause diseases, or it may purify it after it has been made impure, and restore the health.(935)

That the two, “Archæus” and “Nervous Ether,” are identical, is shown by the English Scientist, who says that _generally_ the tension of it may be too high or too low; that it may be so:

Owing to local changes in the nervous matter it invests.... Under sharp excitation it may vibrate as if in a storm and plunge every muscle under cerebral or spinal control into uncontrolled motion—unconscious convulsions.

This is called nervous excitation, but no one, except the Occultist, knows the reason of such nervous perturbation, or explains the primary causes of it. The principle of Life may kill when too exuberant, as much as when there is too little of it. But this “principle” on the manifested plane, that is to say, our plane, is but the effect and the result of the intelligent action of the “Host,” or collective Principle, the manifesting Life and Light. It is itself subordinate to, and emanates from, the ever‐ invisible, eternal and Absolute One Life, in a descending and reäscending scale of hierarchic degrees, a true septenary ladder, with Sound, the Logos, at the upper end, and the Vidyâdharas(936), the inferior Pitris, at the lower.

Of course, the Occultists are fully aware of the fact that the vitalist “fallacy,” so derided by Vogt and Huxley, is, nevertheless, still countenanced in very high scientific quarters, and, therefore, they are happy to feel that they do not stand alone. Thus, Professor de Quatrefages writes:

It is very true that we do not know _what_ life _is_; but no more do we know _what_ the force _is_ that set the stars in motion.... Living beings are heavy, and therefore subject to gravitation; they are the seat of numerous and various physico‐chemical phenomena which are indispensable to their existence, and which must be referred to the action of etherodynamy [electricity, heat, etc.]. But these phenomena are here manifested under the influence of another force.... Life is not antagonistic to the inanimate forces, but it governs and rules their action by its laws.(937)

Section VIII. The Solar Theory.

A SHORT ANALYSIS OF THE COMPOUND AND SINGLE ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE AS AGAINST THE OCCULT TEACHINGS. HOW FAR THIS THEORY, AS GENERALLY ACCEPTED, IS SCIENTIFIC.

In his reply to Dr. Gull’s attack on the theory of Vitality, which is inseparably connected with the Elements of the Ancients in the Occult Philosophy, Professor Beale, the great Physiologist, has a few words as suggestive as they are beautiful:

There is a mystery in life—a mystery which has never been fathomed, and which appears greater, the more deeply the phenomena of life are studied and contemplated. In living centres—far more central than the centres seen by the highest magnifying powers, in centres of living matter, where the eye cannot penetrate, but towards which the understanding may tend—proceed changes of the nature of which the most advanced physicists and chemists fail to afford us the conception: nor is there the slightest reason to think that the nature of these changes will ever be ascertained by physical investigation, inasmuch as they are certainly of an order or nature totally distinct from that to which any other phenomenon known to us can be relegated.

This “mystery,” or the origin of the Life Essence, Occultism locates in the same Centre as the nucleus of _prima materia_ of our Solar System, for they are one.

As says the Commentary:

_The Sun is the heart of the Solar World [System] and its brain is hidden behind the [visible] Sun. Thence, sensation is radiated into every nerve‐ centre of the great body, and the waves of the life‐essence flow into each artery and vein.... The planets are its limbs and pulses._

It has been stated elsewhere(938) that Occult philosophy denies that the Sun is a globe in combustion, but defines it simply as a world, a glowing sphere, the real Sun being hidden behind, and the visible Sun being only its reflection, its shell. The Nasmyth willow leaves, mistaken by Sir John Herschell for “solar inhabitants,” are the reservoirs of solar vital energy; “the vital electricity that feeds the whole system; the sun _in abscondito_ being thus the storehouse of our little Cosmos, self‐ generating its vital fluid, and ever receiving as much as it gives out,” and the visible Sun only a window cut into the real solar palace and presence, which, however, shews without distortion the interior work.

Thus, during the manvantaric solar period, or life, there is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our System, of which the Sun is the heart—like the circulation of the blood in the human body; the Sun contracting as rhythmically as the human heart does at every return of it. Only, instead of performing the round in a second or so, it takes the solar blood ten of its years to circulate, and a whole year to pass through its auricle and ventricle before it washes the lungs, and passes thence back to the great arteries and veins of the System.

This, Science will not deny, since Astronomy knows of the fixed cycle of eleven years when the number of solar spots increases,(939) the increase being due to the contraction of the Solar Heart. The Universe, our World in this case, breathes, just as man and every living creature, plant, and even mineral does upon the Earth; and as our Globe itself breathes every twenty‐four hours. The dark region is not due to the “absorption exerted by the vapours issuing from the bosom of the sun, and interposed between the observer and the photosphere,” as Father Secchi would have it,(940) nor are the spots formed “by the matter [heated gaseous matter] itself which the irruption projects upon the solar disk.” The phenomenon is similar to the regular and healthy pulsation of the heart, as the life fluid passes through its hollow muscles. Could the human heart be made luminous, and the living and throbbing organ made visible, so as to have it reflected upon a screen, such as is used by lecturers on Astronomy to show the moon, for instance, then every one would see the sun‐spot phenomena repeated every second, and that they were due to contraction and the rushing of the blood.

We read in a work on Geology that it is the dream of Science that:

All the recognized chemical elements will one day be found but modifications of a single material element.(941)

Occult Philosophy has taught this since the existence of human speech and language, adding, however, on the principle of the immutable law of analogy, “as it is above, so it is below,” another of its axioms, that there is neither Spirit nor Matter, in reality, but only numberless aspects of the One ever‐hidden Is, or Sat. The homogeneous primordial Element is simple and single, _only on the terrestrial plane_ of consciousness and sensation, since Matter, after all, is nothing more than the sequence of our own states of consciousness, and Spirit an idea of psychic intuition. Even on the next higher plane, that single element which is defined on our Earth by current Science, as the ultimate undecomposable constituent of some kind of Matter, would be pronounced in the world of a higher spiritual perception to be something very complex indeed. Our purest water would be found to yield, instead of its two declared simple elements of oxygen and hydrogen, many other constituents, undreamed of by our modern terrestrial Chemistry. As in the realm of Matter, so in the realm of Spirit, the shadow of that which is cognized on the plane of objectivity exists on that of pure subjectivity. The speck of the perfectly homogeneous Substance, the sarcode of the Hæckelian Moneron, is now viewed as the archebiosis of terrestrial existence (Mr. Huxley’s protoplasm)(942); and Bathybius Hæckelii has to be traced to its pre‐ terrestrial archebiosis. This is first perceived by the Astronomers at its third stage of evolution, and in the “secondary creation,” so‐called. But the students of Esoteric Philosophy understand well the secret meaning of the Stanza:

Brahmâ ... has essentially the _aspect of_ Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved.... Spirit, O Twice‐born [Initiate], is the leading _aspect_ of Brahmâ. The next is a two‐fold aspect [of Prakriti and Purusha] ... both evolved and unevolved; and Time is the last!(943)

Anu is one of the names of Brahmâ, as distinct from Brahman, and it means “atom”; anîyâmsam anîyasâm, “the most atomic of the atomic,” the “immutable and imperishable (achyuta) Purushottama.”

Surely, then, the elements now known to us—be their number whatever it may—as they are understood and defined at present, are not, nor can they be, the _primordial_ Elements. Those were formed from “the _curds of the cold radiant Mother_” and “_the fire‐seed of the hot Father_,” who “are one,” or, to express it in the plainer language of Modern Science, those Elements had their genesis in the depths of the primordial Fire‐mist, the masses of incandescent vapour of the irresolvable nebulæ; for, as Professor Newcomb shows,(944) resolvable nebulæ do not constitute a class of proper nebulæ. More than half of those, he thinks, which were at first mistaken for nebulæ, are what he calls “starry clusters.”

The elements now known have arrived at their state of permanency in this Fourth Round and Fifth Race. They have a short period of rest before they are propelled once more on their upward spiritual evolution, when the “living fire of Orcus” will dissociate the most irresolvable, and scatter them again into the primordial One.

Meanwhile the Occultist goes further, as has been shown in the Commentaries on the Seven Stanzas. Hence he can hardly hope for any help or recognition from Science, which will reject both his “anîyâmsam anîyasâm,” the absolutely spiritual Atom, and his Mânasaputras or Mind‐ born Men. In resolving the “single material element” into one absolute irresolvable Element, Spirit, or Root‐Matter, thus placing it at once outside the reach and province of Physical Philosophy—he has, of course but little in common with the orthodox men of Science. He maintains that Spirit and Matter are two Facets of the unknowable Unity, their apparently contrasted aspects depending, (_a_) on the various degrees of differentiation of Matter, and (_b_) on the grades of consciousness attained by man himself. This is, however, Metaphysics, and has little to do with Physics—however great in its own terrestrial limitation that physical Philosophy may now be.

Nevertheless, once that Science admits, if not the actual existence, at any rate, the possibility of the existence, of a Universe with its numberless forms, conditions, and aspects built out of a “single Substance,”(945) it has to go further. Unless it also admits the possibility of One Element, or the One Life of the Occultists, it will have to hang up that “single Substance,” especially if limited to only the solar nebulæ, in mid air, like the coffin of Mahomet, though minus the attractive magnet that sustained that coffin. Fortunately for the speculative Physicists, if we are unable to state with any degree of precision what the nebular theory does imply, we have, thanks to Professor Winchell, and several dissident Astronomers, been able to learn what it does not imply.

Unfortunately, this is far from clearing even the most simple of the problems that have vexed, and do still vex, the men of learning in their search after truth. We have to proceed with our enquiries, starting with the earliest hypotheses of Modern Science, if we would discover _where_ and _why_ it sins. Perchance it may be found that Stallo is right, after all, and that the blunders, contradictions and fallacies made by the most eminent men of learning are simply due to their abnormal attitude. They are, and want to remain Materialistic _quand même_, and yet “the general principles of the atomo‐mechanical theory—the basis of modern Physics—are substantially identical with the cardinal doctrines of ontological Metaphysics.” Thus, “the fundamental errors of ontology become apparent in proportion to the advance of physical science.”(946) Science is honeycombed with metaphysical conceptions, but the Scientists will not admit the charge, and fight desperately to put atomo‐mechanical masks on purely incorporeal and spiritual laws in Nature, on our plane—refusing to admit their substantiality even on other planes, the bare existence of which they reject _à priori_.

It is easy to show, however, how Scientists, wedded to their materialistic views, have, ever since the days of Newton, endeavoured to put false masks on fact and truth. But their task is becoming every year more difficult; and every year also, Chemistry, beyond all the other sciences, approaches nearer and nearer the realm of the Occult in Nature. It is assimilating the very truths taught by the Occult Sciences for ages, but hitherto bitterly derided. “Matter is eternal,” says the Esoteric Doctrine. But the Matter the Occultists conceive of in its _laya_, or _zero_ state, is not the matter of Modern Science, not even in its most rarefied gaseous state. Mr. Crookes’ “radiant matter” would appear Matter of the grossest kind in the realm of the beginnings, as it becomes pure Spirit before it returns back even to its first point of differentiation. Therefore, when the Adept or Alchemist adds that, though Matter is eternal, for it is Pradhâna, yet Atoms are born at every new Manvantara, or reconstruction of the universe, it is no such contradiction as a Materialist, who believes in nothing beyond the Atom, might think. There is a difference between _manifested_ and _unmanifested_ Matter, between Pradhâna, the beginningless and endless cause, and Prakriti, or the manifested effect. Says the Shloka:

That which is the unevolved cause is emphatically called by the most eminent sages, Pradhâna, original base, which is subtile Prakriti, _viz._, that which is eternal and which at once is, and is not, a mere process.(947)

That which in modern phraseology is referred to as Spirit and Matter, is ONE in eternity as the Perpetual Cause, and it is neither Spirit nor Matter, but IT—rendered in Sanskrit by TAD, “that”—all that is, was, or will be, all that the imagination of man is capable of conceiving. Even the exoteric Pantheism of Hindûism renders it as no monotheistic Philosophy ever did, for in superb phraseology its Cosmogony begins with the well‐known words:

There was neither day nor night, neither heaven nor earth, neither darkness nor light. And there was not aught else apprehensible by the senses or by the mental faculties. There was then, however, one Brahma, essentially Prakriti [Nature] and Spirit. For the two aspects of Vishnu which are other than his supreme essential aspect are Prakriti and Spirit, O Brâhman. _When_ these two other _aspects_ of his no longer subsist, but are dissolved, _then_ that _aspect_ whence form and the rest, _i.e._, _creation_, proceed _anew_, is denominated time, O twice‐born.

It is that which is dissolved, or the illusionary _dual_ aspect of That, the essence of which is eternally One, that we call Eternal Matter, or Substance, formless, sexless, inconceivable, even to our sixth sense or mind,(948) in which, therefore, we refuse to see that which Monotheists call a personal, anthropomorphic God.

How are these two propositions—that “Matter is eternal,” and that “the Atom is periodical, and not eternal”—viewed by exact Modern Science? The materialistic Physicist will criticize and laugh them to scorn. The liberal and progressive man of Science, however, the true and earnest scientific searcher after truth, such as the eminent Chemist, Mr. Crookes, will corroborate the probability of the two statements. For hardly had the echo of his lecture on the “Genesis of the Elements” died away—the lecture which, delivered by him before the Chemical Section of the British Association, at the Birmingham meeting in 1887, so startled every evolutionist who heard or read it—than there came another in March, 1888. Once more the President of the Chemical Society brought before the world of Science and the public the fruits of some new discoveries in the realm of Atoms, and these discoveries justified the Occult Teachings in every way. They are more startling even than the statements made by him in the first lecture, and well deserve the attention of every Occultist, Theosophist, and Metaphysician. This is what he says in his “Elements and _Meta_‐Elements,” thus justifying Stallo’s charges and prevision, with the fearlessness of a scientific mind which loves Science for truth’s sake, regardless of any consequences to his own glory and reputation. We quote his own words:

Permit me, gentlemen, now to draw your attention for a short time to a subject which concerns the fundamental principles of chemistry, a subject which may lead us to admit the possible existence of bodies which, though neither compounds nor mixtures, are not elements in the strictest sense of the word—bodies which I venture to call “meta‐elements.” To explain my meaning it is necessary for me to revert to our conception of an element. What is the criterion of an element? Where are we to draw the line between distinct existence and identity? No one doubts that oxygen, sodium, chlorine, sulphur are separate elements; and when we come to such groups as chlorine, bromine, iodine, etc., we still feel no doubt, although were degrees of “elementicity” admissible—and to that we may ultimately have to come—it might be allowed that chlorine approximates much more closely to bromine than to oxygen, sodium, or sulphur. Again, nickel and cobalt are near to each other, very near, though no one questions their claim to rank as distinct elements. Still I cannot help asking what would have been the prevalent opinion among chemists had the respective solutions of these bodies and their compounds presented identical colours, instead of colours which, approximately speaking, are mutually complementary. Would their distinct nature have even now been recognized? When we pass further and come to the so‐called rare earths the ground is less secure under our feet. Perhaps we may admit scandium, ytterbium, and others of the like sort to elemental rank; but what are we to say in the case of praseo‐ and neo‐dymium, between which there may be said to exist no well‐marked chemical difference, their chief claim to separate individuality being slight differences in basicity and crystallizing powers, though their physical distinctions, as shown by spectrum observations, are very strongly marked? Even here we may imagine the disposition of the majority of chemists would incline toward the side of leniency, so that they would admit these two bodies within the charmed circle. Whether in so doing they would be able to appeal to any broad principle is an open question. If we admit these candidates how in justice are we to exclude the series of elemental bodies or meta‐elements made known to us by Krüss and Nilson? Here the spectral differences are well marked, while my own researches on didymium show also a slight difference in basicity between some at least of these doubtful bodies. In the same category must be included the numerous separate “elements”—commonly so‐called—have been and are being split up. Where then are we to draw the line? The different groupings shade off so imperceptibly the one into the other that it is impossible to erect a definite boundary between any two adjacent bodies and to say that the body on this side of the line is an element, while the one on the other side is non‐elementary, or merely something which simulates or approximates to an element. Wherever an apparently reasonable line might be drawn it would no doubt be easy at once to assign most bodies to their proper side, as in all cases of classification the real difficulty comes in when the border‐line is approached. Slight chemical differences, of course, are admitted, and, up to a certain point, so are well‐ marked physical differences. What are we to say, however, when the only chemical difference is an almost imperceptible tendency for the one body—of a couple or of a group—to precipitate before the other? Again, there are cases where the chemical differences reach the vanishing point, although well‐marked physical differences still remain. Here we stumble on a new difficulty: in such obscurities what is chemical and what is physical? Are we not entitled to call a slight tendency of a nascent amorphous precipitate to fall down in advance of another a “physical difference”? And may we not call coloured reactions depending on the amount of some particular acid present and varying, according to the concentration of the solution and to the solvent employed, “chemical differences”? I do not see how we can deny elementary character to a body which differs from another by well‐marked colour, or spectrum‐reactions, while we accord it to another body whose only claim is a very minute difference in basic powers. Having once opened the door wide enough to admit some spectrum differences, we have to inquire how minute a difference qualifies the candidate to pass? I will give instances from my own experience of some of these doubtful candidates.

Here the great Chemist gives several cases of the very extraordinary behaviour of molecules and earths, apparently the same, but which yet, when examined very closely, were found to exhibit differences which, however minute, still show that none of them are simple bodies, and that the 60 or 70 elements accepted in chemistry can no longer cover the ground. Their name, apparently, is legion, but as the so‐called “periodic theory” stands in the way of an unlimited multiplication of elements, Mr. Crookes is obliged to find some means of reconciling the new discovery with the old theory. “That theory,” he says:

Has received such abundant verification that we cannot lightly accept any interpretation of phenomena which fails to be in accordance with it. But if we suppose the elements reïnforced by a vast number of bodies slightly differing from each other in their properties, and forming, if I may use the expression, aggregations of nebulæ where we formerly saw, or believed we saw, separate stars, the periodic arrangement can no longer be definitely grasped. No longer, that is, if we retain our usual conception of an element. Let us, then, modify this conception. For “element” read “elementary group”—such elementary groups taking the place of the old elements in the periodic scheme—and the difficulty falls away. In defining an element, let us take not an external boundary, but an internal type. Let us say, _e.g._, the smallest ponderable quantity of yttrium is an assemblage of ultimate atoms almost infinitely more like each other than they are to the atoms of any other approximating element. It does not necessarily follow that the atoms shall all be absolutely alike among themselves. The atomic weight which we ascribed to yttrium, therefore, merely represents a mean value around which the actual weights of the individual atoms of the “element” range within certain limits. But if my conjecture is tenable, could we separate atom from atom, we should find them varying within narrow limits on each side of the mean. The very process of fractionation implies the existence of such differences in certain bodies.

Thus fact and truth have once more forced the hand of “exact” Science, and compelled it to enlarge its views and change its terms, which, masking the multitude, reduced them to one body—like the Septenary Elohim and their hosts transformed by the materialistic religionists into one Jehovah. Replace the chemical terms “molecule,” “atom,” “particle,” etc., by the words “Hosts,” “Monads,” “Devas,” etc., and one might think the genesis of Gods, the primeval evolution of manvantaric _intelligent_ Forces, was being described. But the learned lecturer adds to his descriptive remarks something still more suggestive; whether consciously or unconsciously, who knoweth? For he says:

Until lately such bodies passed muster as elements. They had definite properties, chemical and physical; they had recognized atomic weights. If we take a pure dilute solution of such a body, yttrium for instance, and if we add to it an excess of strong ammonia, we obtain a precipitate which appears perfectly homogeneous. But if instead we add very dilute ammonia in quantity sufficient only to precipitate one‐half of the base present, we obtain no immediate precipitate. If we stir up the whole thoroughly so as to insure a uniform mixture of the solution and the ammonia, and set the vessel aside for an hour, carefully excluding dust, we may still find the liquid clear and bright, without any vestige of turbidity. After three or four hours, however, an opalescence will declare itself, and the next morning a precipitate will have appeared. Now let us ask ourselves, What can be the meaning of this phenomenon? The quantity of precipitant added was insufficient to throw down more than half the yttria present, therefore a process akin to selection has been going on for several hours. The precipitation has _evidently not been effected at random_, those molecules of the base being decomposed which happened to come in contact with a corresponding molecule of ammonia, for we have taken care that the liquids should be uniformly mixed, so that one molecule of the original salt would not be more exposed to decomposition than any other. If, further, we consider the time which elapses before the appearance of a precipitate, we _cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that the

## action which has been going on for the first few hours is of a

selective character_. The problem is not why a precipitate is produced, but what determines or directs some atoms to fall down and others to remain in solution. Out of the multitude of atoms present, _what power is it that directs each atom to choose the proper path? We may picture to ourselves some directive force passing the atoms one by one in review, selecting one for precipitation and another for solution till all have been adjusted._

The italics in the above passage are ours. Well may a man of Science ask himself: What power is it that directs each Atom? and what is the meaning of its character being _selective_? Theists would solve the question by answering “God”; and would thereby solve nothing philosophically. Occultism answers on its own Pantheistic grounds, and teaches the student about Gods, Monads, and Atoms. The learned lecturer sees in it that which is his chief concern: the finger‐posts and the traces of a path which may lead to the discovery, and the full and complete demonstration, of an homogeneous element in Nature. He remarks:

In order that such a selection can be effected there evidently must be some slight differences between which it is possible to select, and this difference almost certainly must be one of basicity, so slight as to be imperceptible by any test at present known, but susceptible of being nursed and encouraged to a point when the difference can be appreciated by ordinary tests.

Occultism, which knows of the existence and presence in Nature of the One Eternal Element, at the first differentiation of which the roots of the Tree of Life are periodically struck, needs no scientific proofs. It says: Ancient Wisdom has solved the problem ages ago. Aye; earnest, as well as mocking reader, Science is slowly but surely approaching our domains of the Occult. It is forced by its own discoveries to adopt _nolens volens_ our phraseology and symbols. Chemical Science is now compelled, by the very force of things, to accept even our illustration of the evolution of the Gods and Atoms, so suggestively and undeniably figured in the Caduceus of Mercury, the God of Wisdom, and in the allegorical language of the Archaic Sages. Says a Commentary in the Esoteric Doctrine:

_The trunk of the_ ASVATTHA (the tree of Life and Being, the ROD of the Caduceus) _grows from and descends at every Beginning_ (every new Manvantara) _from the two dark wings of the Swan_ (HANSA) _of Life. The two Serpents, the ever‐living and its illusion_ (Spirit and matter) _whose two heads grow from the one head between the wings, descend along the trunks interlaced in close embrace. The two tails join on earth_ (the manifested Universe) _into one, and this is the great illusion, O Lanoo!_

Every one knows what the Caduceus is, modified considerably by the Greeks. The original symbol—with the triple head of the serpent—became altered into a rod with a knob, and the two lower heads were separated, thus disfiguring somewhat the original meaning. Yet it is as good an illustration as can be for our purpose, this laya rod, entwined by two serpents. Verily the wonderful powers of the magic Caduceus were sung by all the ancient poets, with a very good reason for those who understood the secret meaning.

Now what says the learned President of the Chemical Society of Great Britain, in that same lecture, which has any reference to, or bearing upon, our above‐mentioned doctrine? Very little; only this—and nothing more:

In the Birmingham address already referred to I asked my audience to picture the action of two forces on the original protyle—one being time, accompanied by a lowering of temperature; the other, swinging to and fro like a mighty pendulum, having periodic cycles of ebb and swell, rest and activity, being intimately connected with the imponderable matter, essence, or source of energy we call electricity. Now, a simile like this effects its object if it fixes in the mind the particular fact it is intended to emphasize, but it must not be expected necessarily to run parallel with all the facts. Besides the lowering of temperature with the periodic ebb and flow of electricity, positive or negative, requisite to confer on the newly‐born elements their particular atomicity, it is evident that a third factor must be taken into account. Nature does not act on a flat plane; she demands space for her cosmogenic operations, and if we introduce space as the third factor, all appears clear. Instead of a pendulum, which, though to a certain extent a good illustration, is impossible as a fact, let us seek some more satisfactory way of representing what I conceive may have taken place. Let us suppose the zigzag diagram not drawn upon a plane, but projected in space of three dimensions. What figure can we best select to meet all the conditions involved? Many of the facts can be well explained by supposing the projection in space of Professor Emerson Reynolds’ zigzag curve to be a spiral. This figure is, however, inadmissible, inasmuch as the curve has to pass through a point neutral as to electricity and chemical energy twice in each cycle. We must, therefore, adopt some other figure. A figure of eight (8), or lemniscate, will foreshorten into a zigzag just as well as a spiral, and it fulfils every condition of the problem.

A lemniscate for the evolution downward, from Spirit into Matter; another form of a spiral, perhaps, in its reinvolutionary path onward, from Matter into Spirit; and the necessary gradual and final reabsorption into the _laya_ state, that which Science calls, in her own way, “the point neutral as to electricity,” or the _zero_ point. Such are the Occult facts and statement. They may be left with the greatest security and confidence to Science, to be justified some day. Let us hear some more, however, about this primordial genetic type of the symbolical Caduceus.

Such a figure will result from three very simple simultaneous motions. First, a simple oscillation backwards and forwards (suppose east and west); secondly, a simple oscillation at right angles to the former (suppose north and south) of half the periodic time—_i.e._, twice as fast; and thirdly, a motion at right angles to these two (suppose downwards), which, in its simplest form, would be with unvarying velocity. If we project this figure in space we find on examination that the points of the curves, where chlorine, bromine, and iodine are formed, come close under each other; so also will sulphur, selenium, and tellurium; again, phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony; and in like manner other series of analogous bodies. It may be asked whether this scheme explains how and why the elements appear in this order? Let us imagine a cyclical translation in space, each evolution witnessing the genesis of the group of elements which I previously represented as produced during one complete vibration of the pendulum. Let us suppose that one cycle has thus been completed, the centre of the unknown creative force in its mighty journey through space having scattered along its track the primitive atoms—the seeds, if I may use the expression—which presently are to coalesce and develop into the groupings now known as lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus, sulphur, and chlorine. What is most probably the form of track now pursued? Were it strictly confined to the same plane of temperature and time, the next elementary groupings to appear would again have been those of lithium, and the original cycle would have been eternally repeated, producing again and again the same 14 elements. The conditions, however, are not quite the same. Space and electricity are as at first, but temperature has altered, and thus, instead of the atoms of lithium being supplemented with atoms in all respects analogous with themselves, the atomic groupings which come into being when the second cycle commences form, not lithium, but its lineal descendant, potassium. Suppose, therefore, the _vis generatrix_ travelling to and fro in cycles along a lemniscate path, as above suggested, while simultaneously temperature is declining and time is flowing on—variations which I have endeavoured to represent by the downward sink—each coil of the lemniscate track crosses the same vertical line at lower and lower points. Projected in space, the curve shows a central line neutral as far as electricity is concerned, and neutral in chemical properties—positive electricity on the north, negative on the south. Dominant atomicities are governed by the distance east and west from the neutral centre line, monatomic elements being one remove from it, diatomic two removes, and so on. In every successive coil the same law holds good.

And, as if to prove the postulate of Occult Science and Hindû philosophy, that, at the hour of the Pralaya, the two aspects of the Unknowable Deity, “the Swan in darkness,” Prakriti and Purusha, Nature or Matter in all its forms and Spirit, no longer subsist but are absolutely dissolved, we learn the conclusive scientific opinion of the great English Chemist, who caps his proofs by saying:

We have now traced the formation of the chemical elements from knots and voids in a primitive, formless fluid. We have shown the possibility, nay, the probability that the atoms are not eternal in existence, but share with all other created beings the attributes of decay and death.

Occultism says _amen_ to this, as the scientific “possibility” and “probability” are for it facts, demonstrated beyond the necessity for further proof, or for any extraneous physical evidence. Nevertheless, it repeats with as much assurance as ever: “MATTER IS ETERNAL, becoming atomic (its aspect) only periodically.” This is as sure as that the other proposition, which is almost unanimously accepted by Astronomers and Physicists—namely, that the wear and tear of the body of the Universe is steadily going on, and that it will finally lead to the extinction of the Solar Fires and the destruction of the Universe—is quite erroneous on the lines traced by men of Science. There will be, as there ever were in time and eternity, periodical dissolutions of the manifested Universe, such as a partial Pralaya after every Day of Brahmâ; and a Universal Pralaya—the Mahâ‐Pralaya—only after the lapse of every Age of Brahmâ. But the scientific causes for such dissolution, as brought forward by exact Science, have nothing to do with the true causes. However that may be, Occultism is once more justified by Science, for Mr. Crookes said:

We have shown, from arguments drawn from the chemical laboratory, that in matter which has responded to every test of an element, there are minute shades of difference which may admit of selection. We have seen that the time‐honoured distinction between elements and compounds no longer keeps pace with the developments of chemical science, but must be modified to include a vast array of intermediate bodies—“meta‐elements.” We have shown how the objections of Clerk‐Maxwell, weighty as they are, may be met; and finally, we have adduced reasons for believing that primitive matter was formed by the act of a generative force, throwing off at intervals of time atoms endowed with varying quantities of primitive forms of energy. If we may hazard any conjectures as to the source of energy embodied in a chemical atom, we may, I think, premise that the heat radiations propagated outwards through the ether from the ponderable matter of the universe, by some process of nature not yet known to us, are transformed at the confines of the universe into the primary—the essential—motions of chemical atoms, which, the instant they are formed, gravitate inwards, and thus restore to the universe the energy which otherwise would be lost to it through radiant heat. If this conjecture be well founded, Sir William Thomson’s startling prediction of the final decrepitude of the universe through the dissipation of its energy falls to the ground. In this fashion, gentlemen, it seems to me that the question of the elements may be provisionally treated. Our slender knowledge of these first mysteries is extending steadily, surely, though slowly.

By a strange and curious coincidence even our Septenary doctrine seems to force the hand of Science. If we understand rightly, Chemistry speaks of fourteen groupings of primitive atoms—lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus, sulphur and chlorine; and Mr. Crookes, speaking of the “dominant atomicities,” enumerates seven groups of these, for he says:

As the mighty focus of creative energy goes round, we see it in successive cycles sowing in one tract of space seeds of lithium, potassium, rubidium, and cæsium; in another tract, chlorine, bromine, and iodine; in a third, sodium, copper, silver, and gold; in a fourth, sulphur, selenium, and tellurium; in a fifth, beryllium, calcium, strontium, and barium; in a sixth, magnesium, zinc, cadmium, and mercury; in a seventh, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth [which makes seven groupings on the one hand. And after showing] ... in other tracts the other elements—namely, aluminium, gallium, indium, and thallium; silicon, germanium, and tin; carbon, titanium, and zirconium ... [he adds] while a natural position near the neutral axis is found for the three groups of elements relegated by Professor Mendeleeff to a sort of Hospital for Incurables—his eighth family.

It might be interesting to compare these seven, and the eighth family of “incurables,” with the allegories concerning the seven primitive sons of “Mother, Infinite Space,” or Aditi, and the eighth son rejected by her. Many a strange coincidence may thus be found between “those intermediate links ... named meta‐elements” or elementoids, and those whom Occult Science names their Noumenoi, the intelligent Minds and Rulers of those groupings of Monads and Atoms. But this would lead us too far. Let us be content with finding the confession of the fact that:

This deviation from absolute homogeneity should mark the constitution of these molecules or aggregations of matter which we designate elements and will perhaps be clearer if we return in imagination to the earliest dawn of our material universe, and, face to face with the Great Secret, try to consider the processes of elemental evolution.

Thus finally Science, in the person of its highest representatives, in order to make itself clearer to the profane, adopts the phraseology of such old Adepts as Roger Bacon, and returns to the “protyle.” All this is hopeful and suggestive of the “signs of the times.”

Indeed these “signs” are many and multiply daily; but none are more important than those just quoted. For now the chasm between the Occult “superstitious and unscientific” teachings and those of “exact” Science is completely bridged, and one, at least, of the few eminent Chemists of the day is in the realm of the infinite possibilities of Occultism. Every new step he will take will bring him nearer and nearer to that mysterious Centre, from which radiate the innumerable paths that lead down Spirit into Matter, and which transform the Gods and the living Monads into man and sentient Nature.

But we have something more to say on this subject in the following Section.

Section IX. The Coming Force. Its Possibilities And Impossibilities.

Shall we say that Force is “moving Matter,” or “Matter in motion,” and a manifestation of Energy; or that Matter and Force are the phenomenal differentiated aspects of the one primary, undifferentiated Cosmic Substance?

This query is made with regard to that Stanza which treats of FOHAT and his “Seven brothers or Sons,” in other words, of the _cause_ and the _effects_ of Cosmic Electricity, the Brothers or Sons of Occult parlance being the seven primary forces of Electricity, whose purely phenomenal, and hence grossest, effects are alone cognizable by Physicists on the cosmic and especially on the terrestrial plane. These include, among other things, Sound, Light, Colour, etc. Now what does Physical Science tell us of these “Forces”? SOUND, it says, is a sensation produced by the impact of atmospheric molecules on the tympanum, which, by setting up delicate tremors in the auditory apparatus, thus communicate their vibrations to the brain. LIGHT is the sensation caused by the impact of inconceivably minute vibrations of ether on the retina of the eye.

So, too, say we. But these are simply the effects produced in our atmosphere and its immediate surroundings, all, in fact, which falls within the range of our terrestrial consciousness. Jupiter Pluvius sent his symbol in drops of rain, of water composed, as is believed, of two “elements,” which Chemistry dissociates and recombines. The compound molecules are in its power, but their atoms still elude its grasp. Occultism sees in all these Forces and manifestations a ladder, the lower rungs of which belong to exoteric Physics, and the higher are traced to a living, intelligent, invisible Power, which is, as a rule, the unconcerned, but, exceptionally, the conscious, Cause of the sense‐born phenomena designated as this or that natural law.

We say and maintain that SOUND, for one thing, is a tremendous Occult power; that it is a stupendous force, of which the electricity generated by a million of Niagaras could never counteract the smallest potentiality when directed with Occult Knowledge. Sound may be produced of such a nature that the pyramid of Cheops would be raised in the air, or that a dying man, nay, one at his last breath, would be revived and filled with new energy and vigour.

For Sound generates, or rather attracts together, the elements that produce an _ozone_ the fabrication of which is beyond Chemistry, but is within the limits of Alchemy. It may even _resurrect_ a man or an animal whose astral “vital body” has not been irreparably separated from the physical body by the severance of the magnetic or odic chord. _As one saved thrice from death_ by that power, the writer ought to be credited with personally knowing something about it.

And if all this appears too _unscientific_ to be even noticed, let Science explain to what mechanical and physical laws, known to it, are due the recently produced phenomena of the so‐called Keely motor. What is it that acts as the formidable generator of invisible but tremendous force, of that power which is not only capable of driving an engine of 25 horse‐ power, but has even been employed to bodily lift the machinery? Yet this is done simply by drawing a fiddle‐bow across a tuning fork, as has been repeatedly proven. For the Etheric Force, discovered by John Worrell Keely, of Philadelphia, well‐known in America and Europe, is no hallucination. Notwithstanding his failure to utilize it—a failure prognosticated and maintained by some Occultists from the first—the phenomena exhibited by the discoverer during the last few years have been wonderful, almost miraculous, not in the sense of the _supernatural_(949) but of the _superhuman_. Had Keely been permitted to succeed, he might have reduced a whole army to atoms in the space of a few seconds, as easily as he reduced a dead ox to that condition.

The reader is now asked to give serious attention to that newly‐discovered potency, which the discoverer has named Inter‐Etheric Force, and Forces.

In the humble opinion of the Occultists, as of his immediate friends, Mr. Keely was, and still is, at the threshold of some of the greatest secrets of the Universe; of that chiefly on which is built the whole mystery of physical Forces, and the Esoteric significance of the “Mundane Egg” symbolism. Occult Philosophy, viewing the manifested and the unmanifested Kosmos as a UNITY, symbolizes the ideal conception of the former by that “Golden Egg” with two poles in it. It is the positive pole that acts in the manifested World of Matter, while the negative loses itself in the unknowable Absoluteness of SAT—_Be‐ness_.(950) Whether this agrees with the philosophy of Mr. Keely, we cannot tell, nor does it really much matter. Nevertheless, his ideas about the ethero‐material construction of the Universe look strangely like our own, being _in this respect_ nearly identical. This is what we find him saying in an able pamphlet compiled by Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore, an American lady of wealth and position, whose incessant efforts in the pursuit of truth can never be too highly appreciated:

Mr. Keely, in explanation of the working of his engine, says: “In the conception of any machine heretofore constructed, the medium for inducing a neutral centre has never been found. If it had, the difficulties of perpetual‐motion seekers would have ended, and this problem would have become an established and operating fact. It would only require an introductory impulse of a few pounds, on such a device, to cause it to run for centuries. In the conception of my vibratory engine, I did not seek to attain perpetual motion; but a circuit is formed that actually has _a neutral centre_, which is in a condition to be vivified by my vibratory ether, and, while under operation by said substance, is really a machine that is virtually independent of the mass (or globe),(951) and it is the wonderful velocity of the vibratory circuit which makes it so. Still, with all its perfection, it requires to be fed with the vibratory ether to make it an independent motor.... All structures require a foundation in strength according to the weight of the mass they have to carry, but the foundations of the universe rest on a vacuous point far more minute than a molecule; in fact, to express this truth properly, on an _inter‐etheric point_, which requires an infinite mind to understand it. To look down into the depths of an etheric centre is precisely the same as it would be to search into the broad space of heaven’s ether to find the end, with this difference: that one is the positive field, while the other is the negative field.”

This is, as may easily be seen, precisely the Eastern Doctrine. Mr. Keely’s inter‐etheric point is the laya‐point of the Occultists; this, however, does not require “an infinite mind to understand it,” but only a specific intuition and ability to trace its hiding‐place in this World of Matter. Of course, the _laya centre_ cannot be produced, but an _inter‐ etheric vacuum_ can be—as is proved by the production of bell‐sounds in space. Mr. Keely speaks as an unconscious Occultist, nevertheless, when he remarks, in his theory of planetary suspension:

As regards planetary volume, we would ask in a scientific point of view, How can the immense difference of volume in the planets exist without disorganizing the harmonious action that has always characterized them? I can only answer this question properly by entering into a progressive analysis, starting on the rotating etheric centres that were fixed by the Creator(952) with their attractive or accumulative power. If you ask what power it is that gives to each etheric atom its inconceivable velocity of rotation (or introductory impulse), I must answer that no finite mind will ever be able to conceive what it is. The philosophy of accumulation is the only proof that such a power has been given. The area, if we can so speak, of such an atom presents to the attractive or magnetic, the elective or propulsive, all the receptive force and all the antagonistic force that characterize a planet of the largest magnitude; consequently, as the accumulation goes on, the perfect equation remains the same. When this minute centre has once been fixed, the power to rend it from its position would necessarily have to be so great as to displace the most immense planet that exists. When this atomic neutral centre is displaced, the planet must go with it. The neutral centre carries the full load of any accumulation from the start, and remains the same, for ever balanced in the eternal space.

Mr. Keely illustrates his idea of “a neutral centre” in this way:

We will imagine that, after an accumulation of a planet of any diameter, say, 20,000 miles, more or less, for the size has nothing to do with the problem, there should be a displacement of all the material, with the exception of a crust 5,000 miles thick, leaving an intervening void between this crust and a centre of the size of an ordinary billiard ball, it would then require a force as great to move this small central mass as it would to move the shell of 5,000 miles thickness. Moreover, this small central mass would carry the load of this crust for ever, keeping it equidistant; and there could be no opposing power, however great, that could bring them together. The imagination staggers in contemplating the immense load which bears upon this point of centre, where weight ceases.... This is what we understand by a neutral centre.

And this is what Occultists understand by a laya centre.

The above is pronounced to be “unscientific” by many. But so is everything that is not sanctioned and kept on the strictly orthodox lines of Physical Science. Unless the explanation given by the inventor himself is accepted—and his explanations, being quite _orthodox_ from the Spiritual and the Occult standpoints, if not from that of materialistic speculative Science, called _exact_, are therefore ours in this particular—what can Science answer to facts already seen, which it is no longer possible for anyone to deny? Occult Philosophy divulges few of its most important vital mysteries. It drops them like precious pearls, one by one, far and wide apart, and even this only when forced to do so by the evolutionary tidal wave that carries on Humanity slowly, silently, but steadily, toward the dawn of the Sixth Race mankind. For once out of the safe custody of their legitimate heirs and keepers, those mysteries cease to be Occult: they fall into the public domain, and have to run the risk of becoming curses more often than blessings in the hands of the selfish—of the Cains of the human race. Nevertheless, whenever such individuals as the discoverer of Etheric Force are born, men with peculiar psychic and mental capacities,(953) they are generally and more frequently helped, than allowed to go unassisted, groping on their way; if left to their own resources, they very soon fall victims to martyrdom or become the prey of unscrupulous speculators. But they are helped only on the condition that they should not become, whether consciously or unconsciously, an additional peril to their age: _a danger to the poor_, now offered in daily holocaust by the less wealthy to the very wealthy.(954) This necessitates a short digression and an explanation.

Some twelve years back, during the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the writer, in answering the earnest queries of a Theosophist, one of the earliest admirers of Mr. Keely, repeated to him what she had heard in quarters, information from which she could never doubt.

It had been stated that the inventor of the “Self‐Motor” was what is called, in the jargon of the Kabalists, a “_natural‐born_ magician.” That he was and would remain unconscious of the full range of his powers, and would work out merely those which he had found out and ascertained in his own nature—_firstly_, because, attributing them to a wrong source, he could never give them full sway; and _secondly_, because it was beyond his power to pass to others that which was _a capacity inherent in his own special nature_. Hence, the whole secret could not be made over permanently to anyone, for practical purposes or use.(955)

Individuals born with such a capacity are not very rare. That they are not heard of more frequently is due to the fact that they live and die, in almost every case, in utter ignorance that they are possessed of abnormal powers. Mr. Keely possesses powers which are called abnormal, just because they happen to be as little known, in our day, as was the circulation of the blood before Harvey’s time. Blood existed, and it behaved as it does at present in the first man born from woman; and so exists and has existed in man that _principle_ which can control and guide etheric vibratory Force. At any rate, it exists in all those mortals whose _Inner Selves_ are _primordially connected, by reason of their direct descent, with that group of Dhyân‐Chohans_ who are called “the first‐born of Æther.” Mankind, psychically considered, is divided into various groups, each group being connected with one of the Dhyânic Groups that first formed _psychic_ man (see paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the Commentary to Stanza VII.). Mr. Keely—being greatly favoured in this respect, and besides his psychic temperament, being, moreover, intellectually a genius in mechanics—may achieve most wonderful results. He has achieved some already—more than any mortal man, _not initiated into the final Mysteries_, has achieved in this age up to the present day. What he has done is—as his friends justly say of him—certainly quite sufficient “to demolish with the hammer of Science the idols of Science”—the idols of matter with the feet of clay. Nor would the writer for a moment think of contradicting Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore, when, in her paper on “Psychic Force and Etheric Force,” she states that Mr. Keely, as a Philosopher:

Is great enough in soul, wise enough in mind, and sublime enough in courage to overcome all difficulties, and to stand at last before the world as the greatest discoverer and inventor in the world.

And again she writes:

Should Keely do no more than lead scientists from the dreary realms where they are groping into the open field of elemental force, where gravity and cohesion are disturbed in their haunts and diverted to use; where, from unity of origin, emanates infinite energy in diversified forms, he will achieve immortal fame. Should he demonstrate, to the destruction of materialism, that the universe is animated by a mysterious principle to which matter, however perfectly organized, is absolutely subservient, he will be a greater spiritual benefactor to our race than the modern world has yet found in any man. Should he be able to substitute, in the treatment of disease, the finer forces of nature for the grossly material agencies which have sent more human beings to their graves than war, pestilence and famine combined, he will merit and receive the gratitude of mankind. All this and more will he do, if he and those who have watched his progress, day by day for years, are not too sanguine in their expectations.

The same lady, in her pamphlet, _Keely’s Secrets_,(956) brings forward the following passage from an article, written in the _Theosophist_ a few years ago, by the writer of the present volume:

The author of No. 5 of the pamphlets issued by the Theosophical Publication Society, _What is Matter and What is Force_, says therein: “The men of science have just found out ‘a fourth state of matter,’ whereas the Occultists have penetrated years ago beyond the sixth, and therefore do not infer, but know of, the existence of the seventh, the last.” This knowledge comprises one of the secrets of Keely’s so‐called “compound secret.” It is already known to many that his secret includes “the augmentation of energy,” the insulation of the ether, and the adaptation of dynaspheric force to machinery.

It is just because Keely’s discovery would lead to a knowledge of one of the most Occult secrets, a secret which can never be allowed to fall into the hands of the masses, that his failure to push his discoveries to their logical end seems certain to Occultists. But of this more presently. Even in its limitations this discovery may prove of the greatest benefit. For:

Step by step, with a patient perseverance which some day the world will honour, this man of genius has made his researches, overcoming the colossal difficulties which again and again raised up in his path what seemed to be (to all but himself) insurmountable barriers to further progress: but never has the world’s index finger so pointed to an hour when all is making ready for the advent of the new form of force that mankind is waiting for. Nature, always reluctant to yield her secrets, is listening to the demands made upon her by her master, necessity. The coal mines of the world cannot long afford the increasing drain made upon them. Steam has reached its utmost limits of power, and does not fulfil the requirements of the age. It knows that its days are numbered. Electricity holds back, with bated breath, dependent upon the approach of her sister colleague. Air ships are riding at anchor, as it were, waiting for the force which is to make aërial navigation something more than a dream. As easily as men communicate with their offices from their homes by means of the telephone, so will the inhabitants of separate continents talk across the ocean. Imagination is palsied when seeking to foresee the grand results of this marvellous discovery, when once it is applied to art and mechanics. In taking the throne which it will force steam to abdicate, dynaspheric force will rule the world with a power so mighty in the interests of civilization, that no finite mind can conjecture the results. Laurence Oliphant, in his preface to _Scientific Religion_, says: “A new moral future is dawning upon the human race—one, certainly, of which it stands much in need.” In no way could this new moral future be so widely, so universally, commenced as by the utilizing of dynaspheric force to beneficial purposes in life.

The Occultists are ready to admit all this with the eloquent writer. Molecular vibration is, undeniably, “Keely’s legitimate field of research,” and the discoveries made by him will prove wonderful—yet _only in his hands_ and _through himself_. The world so far will get but that with which it can be safely entrusted. The truth of this assertion has, perhaps, not yet quite dawned upon the discoverer himself, since he writes that he is absolutely certain that he will accomplish all that he has promised, and that he will then give it out to the world; but it must dawn upon him, and at no very far distant date. And what he says in reference to his work is a good proof of it:

In considering the operation of my engine, the visitor, in order to have even an approximate conception of its _modus operandi_, must discard _all thought of engines that are operated upon the principle of pressure and exhaustion, by the expansion of steam or other analogous gas which impinges upon an abutment, such as the piston of a steam‐engine_. My engine has neither piston nor eccentrics, nor is there one grain of pressure exerted in the engine, whatever may be the size or capacity of it. My system, in every part and detail, both in the developing of my power and in every branch of its utilization, _is based and founded on sympathetic vibration_. In no other way would it be possible to awaken or develop my force, and equally impossible would it be to operate my engine upon any other principle.... This, however, is the true system; and henceforth all my operations will be conducted in this manner—that is to say, my power will be generated, my engines run, my cannon operated, _through a wire_. It has been only after years of incessant labour, and the making of almost innumerable experiments, involving not only the construction of a great many most peculiar mechanical structures, and the closest investigation and study of the phenomenal properties of the substance “ether,” _per se_, produced, that I have been able to dispense with complicated mechanism, and to obtain, as I claim, _mastery over the subtle and strange force with which I am dealing_.

The passages underlined by us, are those which bear directly on the Occult side of the application of the vibratory Force, that which Mr. Keely calls “sympathetic vibration.” The “wire” is already a step below, or downward from the pure Etheric plane into the Terrestrial. The discoverer has produced marvels—the word “miracle” is not too strong—when acting through the inter‐etheric Force alone, the fifth and sixth principles of Âkâsha. From a generator six feet long, he has come down to one “no larger than an old‐fashioned silver watch”; and this by itself is a miracle of _mechanical_, but not of spiritual, genius. As was well said by his great patroness and defender, Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore:

The two forms of force which he has been experimenting with, and the phenomena attending them, are the very antithesis of each other.

One was generated and acted upon by and through himself. No one, who should have repeated the thing done by himself, _could have produced the same results_. It was truly Keely’s Ether that acted, while Smith’s or Brown’s Ether would have remained for ever barren of results. For Keely’s difficulty has hitherto been to produce a machine which would develop and regulate the Force without the intervention of any “will power” or personal influence of the operator, whether conscious or unconscious. In this he has failed, so far as others were concerned, for _no one but himself_ could operate on his “machines.” Occultly this was a far more advanced achievement than the “success” which he anticipates from his wire, but the results obtained from the fifth and sixth planes of the Etheric, or Astral, Force, _will never be permitted to serve for purposes of commerce and traffic_. That Keely’s organism is directly connected with the production of his marvellous results is proven by the following statement, emanating from one who knows the great discoverer intimately.

At one time the shareholders of the “Keely Motor Co.” put a man in his workshop for the express purpose of discovering his secret. After six months of close watching, he said to J. W. Keely one day: “I know how it is done, now.” They had been setting up a machine together, and Keely was manipulating the stop‐cock which turned the force on and off. “Try it, then,” was the answer. The man turned the cock, and nothing came. “Let me see you do it again,” the man said to Keely. The latter complied, and the machinery operated at once. Again the other tried, but without success. Then Keely put his hand on his shoulder and told him to try once more. He did so, with the result of an instantaneous production of the current.

This fact, if true, settles the question.

We are told that Mr. Keely defines electricity “as a certain form of atomic vibration.” In this he is quite right; but this is Electricity on the terrestrial plane, and through terrestrial correlations. He estimates—

Molecular vibrations at 100,000,000 per second. Inter‐molecular vibrations at 300,000,000 per second. Atomic vibrations at 900,000,000 per second. Inter‐atomic vibrations at 2,700,000,000 per second. Ætheric vibrations at 8,100,000,000 per second. Inter‐Ætheric vibrations at 24,300,000,000 per second.

This proves our point. There are no vibrations that could be counted or even estimated at an _approximate_ rate beyond “the realm of the fourth Son of Fohat,” to use an Occult phrase, or that motion which corresponds to the formation of Mr. Crookes’ radiant matter, lightly called some years ago the “fourth state of matter”—_on this our plane_.

If the question is asked why Mr. Keely was not allowed to pass a certain limit, the answer is easy; it was because that, which he has unconsciously discovered, is the terrible sidereal Force, known to, and named by the Atlanteans Mash‐mak, and by the Âryan Rishis in their Astra Vidyâ by a name that we do not like to give. It is the Vril of Bulwer Lytton’s _Coming Race_, and of the coming Races of our mankind. The name Vril may be a fiction; the Force itself is a fact, as little doubted in India as is the existence of the Rishis, since it is mentioned in all the secret books.

It is this vibratory Force, which, when aimed at an army from an Agni‐ ratha, fixed on a flying vessel, a balloon, according to the instructions found in Astra Vidyâ, would reduce to ashes 100,000 men and elephants, as easily as it would a dead rat. It is allegorized in the _Vishnu Purâna_, in the _Râmâyana_ and other works, in the fable about the sage Kapila whose “glance made a mountain of ashes of King Sagara’s 60,000 sons,” and which is explained in the Esoteric Works, and referred to as the Kapilâksha—Kapila’s Eye.

And is it this Satanic Force that our generations are to be allowed to add to their stock of Anarchist’s baby‐toys, known as melenite, dynamite clock‐work, explosive oranges, “flower baskets,” and such other innocent names? Is it this destructive agency, which, once in the hands of some modern Attila, a bloodthirsty Anarchist, for instance, would in a few days reduce Europe to its primitive chaotic state, with no man left alive to tell the tale—is it this Force which is to become the common property of all men alike?

What Mr. Keely has already done is grand and wonderful in the extreme; there is enough work before him in the demonstration of his new system to “humble the pride of those scientists who are materialistic, by revealing those mysteries which lie behind the world of matter,” without, _nolens volens_, revealing it to all. For surely Psychics and Spiritualists, of whom there are a good number in European armies, would be the first to personally experience the fruits of the revelation of such mysteries. Thousands of them would speedily find themselves in blue Ether, perhaps with the populations of whole countries to keep them company, were such a Force to be even entirely discovered, let alone made publicly known. The discovery in its completeness is by several thousand—or shall we say hundred thousand—years too premature. It will be in its appointed place and time only when the great roaring flood of starvation, misery, and underpaid labour ebbs back again—as it will when the just demands of the many are at last happily attended to; when the proletariat exists but in name, and the pitiful cry for bread, that rings unheeded throughout the world, has died away. This may be hastened by the spread of learning, and by new openings for work and emigration, with better prospects than now exist, _and on some new continent that may appear_. Then only will Keely’s Motor and Force, as originally contemplated by himself and his friends, be in demand, because it will then be more needed by the poor than by the wealthy.

Meanwhile the Force he has discovered will work through wires, and, if he succeeds, this will be quite sufficient to make of him the greatest discoverer of the age in the present generation.

What Mr. Keely says of _Sound_ and _Colour_ is also correct from the Occult standpoint. Hear him talk as though he were the nursling of the “Gods‐Revealers,” and as if he had gazed all his life into the depths of Father‐Mother Æther.

In comparing the tenuity of the atmosphere with that of the etheric flows, obtained by his invention for breaking up the molecules of air by vibration, Keely says:

It is as platinum to hydrogen gas. Molecular separation of air brings us to the first sub‐division only; inter‐molecular, to the second; atomic, to the third; inter‐atomic, to the fourth; etheric, to the fifth; and inter‐etheric, to the sixth sub‐ division, or positive association with luminiferous ether.(957) In my introductory argument I have contended that this is the vibratory envelope of all atoms. In my definition of atom I do not confine myself to the sixth sub‐division where this luminiferous ether is developed in its crude form, as far as my researches prove.(958) I think this idea will be pronounced by the physicists of the present day, a wild freak of the imagination. Possibly, in time, a light may fall upon this theory that will bring its simplicity forward for scientific research. At present I can only compare it to some planet in a dark space, where the light of the sun of science has not yet reached it.... I assume that sound, like odour, is a real substance of unknown and wonderful tenuity, emanating from a body where it has been induced by percussion and throwing out absolute corpuscles of matter, inter‐atomic

## particles, with velocity of 1,120 feet per second; _in vacuo_

20,000. The substance which is thus disseminated is a part and parcel of the mass agitated, and, if kept under this agitation continuously, would, in the course of a certain cycle of time, become thoroughly absorbed by the atmosphere; or, more truly, would pass through the atmosphere to an elevated point of tenuity corresponding to the condition of sub‐division that governs its liberation from its parent body.... The sounds from vibratory forks, set so as to produce etheric chords, while disseminating their tones (compound), permeate most thoroughly all substances that come under the range of their atomic bombardment. The clapping of a bell _in vacuo_ liberates these atoms with the same velocity and volume as one in the open air; and were the agitation of the bell kept up continuously for a few millions of centuries it would thoroughly return to its primitive element; and, if the chamber were hermetically sealed, and strong enough, the vacuous volume surrounding the bell would be brought to a pressure of many thousands of pounds to the square inch, by the tenuous substance evolved. In my estimation, sound truly defined is the disturbance of atomic equilibrium, rupturing actual atomic corpuscles; and the substance thus liberated must certainly be a certain order of etheric flow. Under these conditions, is it unreasonable to suppose that, if this flow were kept up, and the body thus robbed of its element, it would in time disappear entirely? All bodies are formed primitively from this highly tenuous ether, animal, vegetable, and mineral, and they are only returned to their high gaseous condition when brought under a state of differential equilibrium.... As regards odour, we can only get some definite idea of its extreme and wondrous tenuity by taking into consideration that a large area of atmosphere can be impregnated for a long series of years from a single grain of musk; which, if weighed after that long interval, will be found to be not appreciably diminished. The great paradox attending the flow of odorous particles is that they can be held under confinement in a glass vessel! Here is a substance of much higher tenuity than the glass that holds it, and yet it cannot escape. It is as a sieve with its meshes large enough to pass marbles, and yet holding fine sand which cannot pass through; in fact, a molecular vessel holding an atomic substance. This is a problem that would confound those who stop to recognize it. But infinitely tenuous as odour is, it holds a very crude relation to the substance of sub‐ division that governs a magnetic flow (a flow of sympathy, if you please to call it so). This sub‐division comes next to sound, but is above sound. The action of the flow of a magnet coincides somewhat to the receiving and distributing portion of the human brain, giving off at all times a depreciating ratio of the amount received. It is a grand illustration of the control of mind over matter, which gradually depreciates the physical till dissolution takes place. The magnet on the same ratio gradually loses its power and becomes inert. If the relations that exist between mind and matter could be equated and so held, we would live on in our physical state eternally, as there would be no physical depreciation. But this physical depreciation leads, at its terminus, to the source of a much higher development—viz., the liberation of the pure ether from the crude molecular; which, in my estimation, is to be much desired.(959)

It may be remarked that, save for a few small divergencies, no Adept nor Alchemist could have better explained these theories, in the light of Modern Science, however much the latter may protest against these novel views. In all its fundamental principles, if not in its details, this is Occultism pure and simple; and moreover, it is modern Natural Philosophy as well.

This new Force, or whatever Science may call it, the effects of which are undeniable—as is admitted by more than one Naturalist and Physicist who has visited Mr. Keely’s laboratory and personally witnessed its tremendous effects—what is it? Is it a “mode of motion,” also, _in vacuo_, since there is no Matter to generate it except Sound—another “mode of motion,” no doubt, a _sensation_ caused, like Colour, by vibrations? Fully as we believe in these vibrations as the proximate, the immediate, cause of such sensations, we as absolutely reject the one‐sided scientific theory that there is _no factor_ to be considered as external to us, other than etheric or atmospheric vibrations.

In this case the American Substantialists are not wrong, though they are too anthropomorphic and material in their views for these to be accepted by Occultists, when they argue through Mrs. M. S. Organ, M.D., that:

There must be positive entitative properties in objects which have a constitutional relation to the nerves of animal sensations, or there can be no perception. No impression of any kind can be made upon brain, nerve, or mind—no stimulus to action—unless there is an actual and direct communication of a substantial force. [“Substantial” as far as it appears, in the usual sense of the word, in this universe of Illusion and Mâyâ, of course; not in reality.] That force may be the most refined and sublimated immaterial Entity [?]. Yet it must exist; for no sense, element, or faculty of the human being can have a perception, or be stimulated into action, without some substantial force coming in contact with it. This is the fundamental law pervading the whole organic and mental world. In the true philosophical sense there is no such thing as independent action: for every force or substance is correlated to some other force or substance. We can with just as much truth and reason assert that no substance possesses any inherent gustatory property or any olfactory property—that taste and odour are simply sensations caused by vibrations; and hence mere illusions of animal perceptions.

There _is_ a transcendental set of causes put in motion, so to speak, in the occurrence of these phenomena, which, _not being in relation to our narrow range of cognition_, can only be understood and traced to their source and their nature, by the spiritual faculties of the Adept. They are, as Asclepios puts it to the King, “incorporeal corporealities,” such as “appear in the mirror,” and “abstract forms” that we see, hear, and smell, in our dreams and visions. What have the “modes of motion,” light, and ether to do with these? Yet we see, hear, smell and touch them, _ergo_ they are as much _realities_ to us in our dreams, as any other thing on this plane of Mâyâ.

Section X. On the Elements and Atoms.

When the Occultist speaks of Elements, and of human Beings who lived during those geological ages, the duration of which it is found as impossible to determine—according to the opinion of one of the best English Geologists(960)—as the nature of Matter, it is because he knows what he is talking about. When he says Man and Elements, he means neither man in his present physiological and anthropological form, nor the elemental Atoms, those hypothetical conceptions, existing at present in scientific minds, the entitative abstractions of Matter in its highly attenuated state; nor, again, does he mean the compound Elements of Antiquity. In Occultism the word Element in every case means _Rudiment_. When we say “Elementary Man,” we mean either the proëmial, incipient sketch of man, in its unfinished and undeveloped condition, hence in that form which now lies latent in physical man during his life‐time, and takes shape only occasionally and under certain conditions; or, that form which for a time survives the material body, and which is better known as an Elementary.(961) With regard to Element, when the term is used metaphysically, it means, in distinction to the mortal, the incipient Divine Man; and, in its physical usage, it means inchoate Matter in its first undifferentiated condition, or in the Laya state, the eternal and normal condition of Substance, which differentiates only periodically; during that differentiation, Substance is really in an abnormal state—in other words, it is but a transitory illusion of the senses.

As to the Elemental Atoms, so‐called, the Occultists refer to them by that name with a meaning analogous to that which is given by the Hindû to Brahmâ, when he calls him Anu, the Atom. Every Elemental Atom, in search of which more than one Chemist has followed the path indicated by the Alchemists, is, in their firm belief, when not _knowledge_, a Soul; not necessarily a disembodied Soul, but a Jîva, as the Hindûs call it, a centre of Potential Vitality, with latent intelligence in it, and, in the case of compound Souls, an intelligent active Existence, from the highest to the lowest order, a form composed of more or less differentiations. It requires a Metaphysician—and an Eastern Metaphysician—to understand our meaning. All those Atom‐Souls are differentiations from the One, and are in the same relation to it as is the Divine Soul, Buddhi, to its informing and inseparable Spirit, Âtmâ.

Modern Physics, in borrowing from the Ancients their Atomic Theory, forgot one point, the most important point of the doctrine; hence they have got only the husks and will never be able to get the kernel. In adopting physical Atoms, they omitted the suggestive fact that, from Anaxagoras to Epicurus, to the Roman Lucretius, and finally even to Galileo, all these Philosophers believed more or less in _animated_ Atoms, not in invisible specks of so‐called “brute” matter. According to them, rotatory motion was generated by larger (read, more divine and pure) Atoms forcing other Atoms downwards; the lighter ones being simultaneously thrust upward. The Esoteric meaning of this is the ever cyclic curve of differentiated Elements downward and upward through intercyclic phases of existence, until each again reaches its starting‐point or birthplace. The idea was metaphysical as well as physical; the hidden interpretation embracing Gods or Souls, in the shape of Atoms, as the _causes_ of all the _effects_ produced on Earth by the _secretions_ from the divine bodies.(962) No Ancient Philosopher, not even the Jewish Kabalists, ever dissociated Spirit from Matter, or Matter from Spirit. Everything originated in the One, and, proceeding from the One, must finally return to the One.

Light becomes heat, and consolidates into fiery particles; which, from being ignited, become cold, hard particles, round and smooth. And this is called Soul, imprisoned in its robe of matter.(963)

Atoms and Souls were synonymous in the language of the Initiates. The doctrine of “whirling Souls,” Gilgoolem, in which so many learned Jews have believed,(964) had no other meaning esoterically. The learned Jewish Initiates never meant Palestine alone by the Promised Land, but they meant the same Nirvâna as do the learned Buddhist and Brahman—the bosom of the Eternal ONE, symbolized by that of Abraham, and by Palestine as its substitute on Earth.

Surely no educated Jew ever believed this allegory in its literal sense, that the bodies of Jews contain within them a principle of Soul which cannot rest, if the bodies are deposited in a foreign land, until, by a process called the “whirling of the Soul” the immortal particle reaches once more the sacred soil of the “Promised Land.”(965) The meaning of this is evident to an Occultist. The process was supposed to be accomplished by a kind of metempsychosis, the psychic spark being conveyed through bird, beast, fish, and the most minute insect.(966) The allegory relates to the _Atoms of the body_, each of which has to pass through every form, before all reach the final state, which is the first starting‐point of the departure of every Atom—its primitive Laya state. But the primitive meaning of Gilgoolem, or the “Revolution of Souls,” was the idea of the reïncarnating Souls or Egos. “All the Souls go into the Gilgoolah,” into a cyclic or revolving process; _i.e._, they all proceed on the cyclic path of re‐births. Some Kabalists interpret this doctrine to mean only a kind of purgatory for the souls of the wicked. But this is not so.

The passage of the Soul‐Atom “through the seven Planetary Chambers” had the same metaphysical and physical meaning. It had the latter when it was said to dissolve into Ether. Even Epicurus, the model Atheist and Materialist, knew so much and believed so much in the ancient Wisdom, that he taught that the Soul—entirely distinct from immortal Spirit, when the former is enshrined _latent_ in it, as it is in every atomic speck—was composed of a fine, tender essence, formed from the _smoothest, roundest, and finest atoms_.(967)

And this shows that the ancient Initiates, who were followed more or less closely by all profane Antiquity, meant by the term Atom, a Soul, a Genius or Angel, the first‐born of the ever‐concealed Cause of all causes; and in this sense their teachings become comprehensible. They asserted, as do their successors, the existence of Gods and Genii, Angels or Demons, not outside, nor independent of, the Universal Plenum, but within it. Only this Plenum, during the life‐cycles, is infinite. They admitted and taught a good deal of that which modern Science now teaches—namely, the existence of a primordial World‐Stuff or Cosmic Substance, eternally homogeneous, except during its periodic existence; then, universally diffused throughout infinite Space, it differentiates, and gradually forms sidereal bodies from itself. They taught the revolution of the Heavens, the Earth’s rotation, the Heliocentric System, and the Atomic Vortices—Atoms being in reality Souls and Intelligences. These “Atomists” were spiritual, most transcendental, and philosophical Pantheists. It is not they who would have ever conceived or dreamed that monstrous contrasted progeny, the nightmare of our modern civilized race: inanimate material and self‐ guiding Atoms, on the one hand, and an extra‐cosmic God on the other.

It may be useful to show what the Monad was, and what its origin, in the teachings of the old Initiates.

Modern exact Science, as soon as it began to grow out of its teens, perceived the great, and to it hitherto esoteric, axiom, that nothing, whether in the spiritual, psychic, or physical realm of Being, could come into existence out of nothing. There is no cause in the manifested Universe without its adequate effects, whether in Space or Time; nor can there be an effect without its primal cause, which itself owes its existence to a still higher one—the final and absolute Cause having to remain to man for ever an incomprehensible Causeless Cause. But even this is no solution, and must be viewed, if at all, from the highest philosophical and metaphysical standpoints, otherwise the problem had better be left unapproached. It is an abstraction, on the verge of which human reason—however trained in metaphysical subtleties—trembles, threatening to collapse. This may be demonstrated to any European, who would undertake to solve the problem of existence, by the articles of faith of the true Vedântin for instance. Let him read and study the sublime teachings of Shankarâchârya, on the subject of Soul and Spirit, and the reader will realize what is now said.(968)

While the Christian is taught that the human Soul is a breath of God, being created by him for sempiternal existence, having a beginning, but no end—and therefore never to be called eternal—the Occult Teaching says: Nothing is created, it is only transformed. Nothing can manifest itself in this Universe—from a globe down to a vague, rapid thought—that was not in the Universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an eternal _is_; as everything on the objective plane is an _ever‐becoming_—because all is transitory.

The Monad—a truly “indivisible thing,” as defined by Good, who did not give it the sense we now do—is here rendered as the Âtmâ, in conjunction with Buddhi and the higher Manas. This trinity is one and eternal, the latter being absorbed in the former at the termination of all conditioned and illusive life. The Monad, then, can be traced through the course of its pilgrimage and in its changes of transitory vehicles, only from the incipient stage of the manifested Universe. In Pralaya, the intermediate period between two Manvantaras, it loses its name, as it loses it when the real One Self of man merges into Brahman, in cases of high Samâdhi (the Turîya state), or final Nirvâna; in the words of Shankara:

When the disciple having attained that primeval consciousness, absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed by the _Âtmâ_ just as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on).

For Buddhi, the Anandamaya Sheath, is but a mirror which reflects absolute bliss; and, moreover, that reflection itself is yet not free from ignorance, and is _not_ the Supreme Spirit, since it is subject to conditions, is a spiritual modification of Prakriti, and is an effect; Âtmâ alone is the one real and eternal substratum of all, the Essence and Absolute Knowledge, the Kshetrajña. Now that the Revised Version of the Gospels has been published and the most glaring mistranslations of the old versions are corrected, one can understand better the words in 1 _John_ v. 6: “It is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth.” The words that follow in the mistranslated version about the “three witnesses,” hitherto supposed to stand for “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,” show the real meaning of the writer very clearly, thus still more forcibly identifying his teaching in this respect with that of Shankarâchârya. For what can the sentence mean, “there are three that bear witness ... the Spirit and the Water and the Blood”—if it bears no relation to, nor connection with, the more philosophical statement of the great Vedântin teacher, who, speaking of the Sheaths—the principles in man—Jîva, Vijñânamaya, etc., which _are_, in their physical manifestation, “Water and Blood” or Life, adds that Âtmâ, Spirit, alone is what remains after the subtraction of the Sheaths and that it is the Only Witness, or synthesized unity. The less spiritual and philosophical school, solely with an eye to a Trinity, made three witnesses out of “one,” thus connecting it more with Earth than with Heaven. It is called in Esoteric Philosophy the “One Witness,” and, while it rests in Devachan, is referred to as the “Three Witnesses to Karma.”

Âtmâ, our seventh principle, being identical with the Universal Spirit, and man being one with it in his essence, what is then the Monad proper? It is that homogeneous spark which radiates in millions of rays from the primeval Seven;—of which Seven something will be said further on. It is the EMANATING SPARK FROM THE UNCREATED RAY—a mystery. In the esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of the North, Âdi‐Buddha (Chogi Dangpoi Sangye), the One Unknown, without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahman and Ain Suph, emits a bright Ray from its Darkness.

This is the Logos, the First, or Vajradhara, the Supreme Buddha, also called Dorjechang. As the Lord of all Mysteries he cannot manifest, but sends into the world of manifestation his Heart—the “Diamond Heart,” Vajrasattva or Dorjesempa. This is the Second Logos of Creation, from whom emanate the seven—in the exoteric blind the five—Dhyâni‐Buddhas, called the Anupâdaka, the “Parentless.” These Buddhas are the primeval Monads from the World of Incorporeal Being, the Arûpa World, wherein the Intelligences (on that plane only) have neither shape nor name, in the exoteric system, but have their distinct seven names in the Esoteric Philosophy. These Dhyâni‐Buddhas emanate, or create from themselves, by virtue of Dhyâna, celestial Selves—the super‐human Bodhisattvas. These, incarnating at the beginning of every human cycle on Earth as mortal men, become occasionally, owing to their personal merit, Bodhisattvas among the Sons of Humanity, after which they may reäppear as Mânushi, or Human, Buddhas. The Anupâdaka, or Dhyâni‐Buddhas, are thus identical with the Brâhmanical Mânasaputra, Mind‐born Sons—whether of Brahmâ, or of either of the other two Trimûrtian Hypostases; they are identical also with the Rishis and Prajâpatis. Thus, a passage is found in _Anugîtâ_, which, read esoterically, shows plainly, though under another imagery, the same idea and system. It says:

Whatever entities there are in this world, moveable or immoveable, they are the very first to be dissolved [at Pralaya]; and next the developments produced from the elements [from which the visible universe is fashioned]; and (after) these developments [evolved entities], all the elements. Such is the upward gradation among entities. Gods, Men, Gandharvas, Pishâchas, Asuras, Râkshasas, all have been created by Nature [Svabhâva, or Prakriti, plastic Nature], not by actions, nor by a cause [not by any physical cause]. These Brâhmanas [the Rishi Prajâpati?], the creators of the world, are born here (on earth) again and again. And whatever is produced from them is dissolved in due time in those very five great elements [the five, or rather seven, Dhyâni‐Buddhas, also called “Elements” of Mankind], like billows in the ocean. These great elements are in every way (beyond) the elements that make up the world [the gross elements]. And he who is released, even from these five elements [the Tanmâtras],(969) goes to the highest goal. The Lord Prajâpati [Brahmâ] created all this by the mind only [by Dhyâna, or abstract meditation and mystic powers, like the Dhyâni‐Buddhas].(970)

Evidently then, these Brâhmanas are identical with the terrestrial Bodhisattvas of the heavenly Dhyâni‐Buddhas. Both, as primordial, intelligent “Elements,” become the Creators or the Emanators of the Monads destined to become human in that cycle; after which they evolve themselves, or, so to say, expand into their own Selves as Bodhisattvas or Brâhmanas, in heaven and earth, to become at last simple men. “The creators of the world are born here, on earth again and again”—truly. In the Northern Buddhist system, or the popular exoteric religion, it is taught that every Buddha, while preaching the Good Law on Earth, manifests himself simultaneously in three Worlds: in the Formless World as a Dhyâni‐ Buddha, in the World of Forms as a Bodhisattva, and in the World of Desire, the lowest or our World, as a man. Esoterically the teaching differs. The divine, purely Âdi‐Buddhic Monad manifests as the universal Buddhi, the Mahâ‐Buddhi or Mahat, in Hindû philosophies, the spiritual, omniscient and omnipotent Root of divine Intelligence, the highest Anima Mundi or the Logos. This descends “like a flame spreading from the eternal Fire, immoveable, without increase or decrease, ever the same to the end” of the cycle of existence, and becomes Universal Life on the Mundane Plane. From this Plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fiery tongues, the Sons of Light, the Logoi of Life; then the Dhyâni‐Buddhas of contemplation, the concrete forms of their formless Fathers, the Seven Sons of Light, _still themselves_, to whom maybe applied the Brâhmanical mystic phrase: “Thou art THAT”—Brahman. It is from these Dhyâni‐Buddhas that emanate their Chhâyâs or Shadows, the Bodhisattvas of the celestial realms, the prototypes of the super‐terrestrial Bodhisattvas, and of the terrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The Seven Sons of Light are also called Stars.

The star under which a human Entity is born, says the Occult Teaching, will remain for ever its star, throughout the whole cycle of its incarnations in one Manvantara. _But this is not his astrological star._ The latter is concerned and connected with the _Personality_; the former with the _Individuality_. The Angel of that Star, or the Dhyâni‐Buddha connected with it, will be either the guiding, or simply the presiding, Angel, so to say, in every new rebirth of the Monad, _which is part of his own essence_, though his vehicle, man, may remain for ever ignorant of this fact. The Adepts have each their Dhyâni‐Buddha, their elder “Twin‐ Soul,” and they know it, calling it “Father‐Soul,” and “Father‐Fire.” It is only at the last and supreme Initiation, however, when placed face to face with the bright “Image” that they learn to recognize it. How much did Bulwer Lytton know of this mystic fact, when describing, in one of his highest inspirational moods, Zanoni face to face with his Augoeides?

The Logos, or both the unmanifested and the manifested Word, is called by the Hindûs, Îshvara, the Lord, though the Occultists give it another name. Îshvara, say the Vedântins, is the highest consciousness in Nature. “This highest consciousness,” answer the Occultists, “is only a synthetic unit in the World of the manifested Logos—or on the plane of illusion; for it is the sum total of Dhyân Chohanic consciousness.” “O wise man, remove the conception that _Not‐Spirit is Spirit_”—says Shankarâchârya. Âtmâ is Not‐ Spirit in its final Parabrahmic state; Îshvara, or Logos, is Spirit; or, as Occultism explains, it is a compound unity of manifested living Spirits, the parent‐source and nursery of all the mundane and terrestrial Monads, _plus_ their divine Reflection, which emanate from, and return into, the Logos, each in the culmination of its time. There are seven chief Groups of such Dhyân Chohans, which groups will be found and recognized in every religion, for they are the primeval Seven Rays. Humanity, Occultism teaches us, is divided into seven distinct Groups, with their sub‐divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical. Hence there are seven chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling seven Spirits, under each of which is born one of the human Groups which is guided and influenced thereby. There are only seven planets _specially_ connected with Earth, and twelve houses, but the possible combinations of their aspects are countless. As each planet can stand to each of the others in twelve different aspects, their combinations must be almost infinite; as infinite, in fact, as the spiritual, psychic, mental, and physical capacities in the numberless varieties of the _genus homo_, each of which varieties is born under one of the seven planets and one of the said countless planetary combinations.(971)

The Monad, then, viewed as One, is above the seventh principle in Kosmos and man; and as a Triad, it is the direct radiant progeny of the said compound Unit, not the Breath of “God,” as that Unit is called, nor creating out of _nihil_; for such an idea is quite unphilosophical, and degrades Deity, dragging It down to a finite, attributive condition. As well expressed by the translator of the _Crest‐Jewel of Wisdom_—though Îshvara is “God.”

Unchanged in the profoundest depths of Pralayas and in the intensest activity of Manvantaras, [still] beyond [him] is ÂTMÂ, round whose pavilion is the darkness of eternal MÂYÂ.(972)

The “Triads” born under the same Parent‐Planet, or rather the Radiations of one and the same Planetary Spirit or Dhyâni‐Buddha are, in all their after lives and rebirths, sister, or “twin” souls, on this Earth. The idea is the same as that of the Christian Trinity, the “Three in One,” only it is still more metaphysical: the Universal “Over‐Spirit,” manifesting on the two higher planes, those of Buddhi and Mahat. These are the three Hypostases, metaphysical, but never personal.

This was known to every high Initiate in every age and in every country: “I and my Father are one,” said Jesus.(973) When he is made to say, elsewhere: “I ascend to _my_ Father and _your_ Father,”(974) it meant that which has just been stated. The identity, and at the same time the illusive differentiation of the _Angel_‐Monad and the _Human_‐Monad is shown in the sentences: “My Father is _greater_ than I”;(975) “Glorify _your_ Father _which is in Heaven_”;(976) “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of _their_ Father” (not _our_ Father).(977) So again Paul asks: “Know ye not ye are the _temple_ of God, and that the _Spirit of God dwelleth_ in you?”(978) All this was simply meant to show that the group of disciples and followers attracted to him belonged to the same Dhyâni‐Buddha, Star, or Father, and that this again belonged to the same planetary realm and division as he did. It is the _knowledge_ of this Occult Doctrine that found expression in the review of _The Idyll of the White Lotus_, when T. Subba Row wrote:

Every Buddha meets at his last Initiation all the great Adepts who reached Buddhahood during the preceding ages ... every class of Adepts has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them together.... The only possible and effectual way of entering into such brotherhood ... is by bringing oneself within the influence of the Spiritual light which radiates from one’s own Logos. I may further point out here ... that such communion is only possible between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from the same divine Ray, and that, as seven distinct Rays radiate from the “Central Spiritual Sun,” all Adepts and Dhyân Chohans are divisible into seven classes, each of which is guided, controlled, and overshadowed by one of the seven forms or manifestations of the divine Wisdom.(979)

It is then the Seven Sons of Light,—called after their planets and often identified with them by the rabble, namely, Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus, and _presumably_ the Sun and Moon, for the modern critic, who goes no deeper than the surface of old religions(980)—which are, according to the Occult Teachings, our heavenly Parents, or synthetically our “Father.” Hence, as already remarked, Polytheism is really more philosophical and correct, as to fact and Nature, than is anthropomorphic Monotheism. Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus, the four exoteric planets, and the three others, which must remain unnamed, were the heavenly bodies in direct astral and psychic communication, morally and physically, with the Earth, its Guides, and Watchers; the visible orbs furnishing our Humanity with its outward and inward characteristics, and their Regents or Rectors with our Monads and spiritual faculties. In order to avoid creating new misconceptions, let it be stated that among the three Secret Orbs, or Star‐Angels, neither Uranus nor Neptune were included; not only because they were unknown under these names to the ancient Sages, but because they, like all other planets, however many there may be, are the Gods and Guardians of other septenary Chains of Globes within our System.

Nor do the two great planets last discovered depend entirely on the Sun, as do the rest of the planets. Otherwise, how can we explain the fact that Uranus receives 1/390th part of the light received by our Earth, while Neptune receives only 1/900th part; and that their satellites show a peculiarity of inverse rotation found in no other planets of the Solar System? At any rate, what we say applies to Uranus, though the fact has again been disputed recently.

This subject will, of course, be considered as a mere vagary, by all those who confuse the universal order of Being with their own systems of classification. Here, however, simple facts from Occult Teachings are stated, to be either accepted or rejected, as the case may be. There are details which, on account of their great metaphysical abstraction, _cannot_ be entered upon. Hence, we merely state that only seven of our planets are as intimately related to our Globe, as the Sun is to all the bodies subject to him in his System. Of these bodies the poor little number of _primary_ and _secondary_ planets known to Astronomy, looks wretched enough, in truth.(981) Therefore, it stands to reason that there are a great number of planets, small and large, that have not been discovered yet, but of the existence of which ancient Astronomers—all of them initiated Adepts—must certainly have been aware. But, as the relation of these to the Gods was sacred, it had to remain arcane, as did also the names of various other planets and stars.

Besides this, even the Roman Catholic Theology speaks of “_seventy_ planets that preside over the destinies of the nations of this globe;” and, save the erroneous application, there is more truth in this tradition than in exact modern Astronomy. The seventy planets are connected with the seventy elders of the people of Israel,(982) and the Regents of these planets are meant, not the orbs themselves; the word seventy is a play and a blind upon the 7 × 7 of the subdivisions. Each people and nation, as we have already said, has its _direct_ Watcher, Guardian and Father in Heaven—a Planetary Spirit. We are willing to leave their own national God, Jehovah, to the descendants of Israel, the worshippers of Sabaoth or Saturn; for, indeed, the Monads of the people chosen by him are his own, and the _Bible_ has never made any secret of it. Only the text of the Protestant English _Bible_ is, as usual, in disagreement with those of the Septuagint and the Vulgate. Thus, while in the former we read:

When the Most High [not Jehovah] divided to the nations their inheritance ... he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.(983)

In the _Septuagint_ the text reads “according to the number of the Angels,” Planet‐Angels, a version more concordant with truth and fact. Moreover, all the texts agree that “the Lord’s [Jehovah’s] portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance”;(984) and this settles the question. The “Lord” Jehovah took Israel _for his portion_; what have other nations to do with that particular national Deity? Let then, the “Angel Gabriel” watch over Iran and “Mikael‐Jehovah” over the Hebrews. These are not the Gods of other nations, and it is difficult to see why Christians should have selected a God against whose commandments Jesus was the first to rise in rebellion.

The planetary origin of the Monad, or Soul, and of its faculties was taught by the Gnostics. On its way to the Earth, as on its way back from the Earth, each soul born in, and from, the “Boundless Light,”(985) had to pass through the seven planetary regions either way. The pure Dhyâni and Devas of the oldest religions had become, in course of time, with the Zoroastrians, the Seven Devs, the ministers of Ahriman, “each chained to his planet”;(986) with the Brâhmans, the Asuras and some of the Rishis—good, bad and indifferent; among the Egyptian Gnostics it was Thoth, or Hermes, who was the chief of the Seven whose names are given by Origen as Adonai, genius of the Sun; Tao, of the Moon; Eloi, of Jupiter; Sabaoth, of Mars; Orai, of Venus; Astaphai, of Mercury; and Ildabaoth (Jehovah), of Saturn. Finally, the _Pistis‐Sophia_, which the greatest modern authority on exoteric Gnostic beliefs, the late Mr. C. W. King, refers to as “that precious monument of Gnosticism”—this old document echoes the archaic belief of the ages, while distorting it to suit sectarian purposes. The Astral Rulers of the Spheres, the planets, create the Monads, or Souls, from their own substance out of “the tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their torments,” endowing the Monads with a spark of their substance which is the Divine Light. It will be shown in Volume II why these “Lords of the Zodiac and Spheres” have been transformed by sectarian Theology into the Rebellious Angels of the Christians, who took them from the Seven Devs of the Magi, without understanding the significance of the allegory.(987)

As usual, that which _is_, and _was_ from its beginning, divine, pure, and spiritual in its earliest unity, became—by reason of its differentiation through the distorted prism of man’s conceptions—human and impure, as reflecting man’s own sinful nature. Thus, in time, the planet Saturn became reviled by the worshippers of other Gods. The nations born under Saturn—the Jewish, for instance, with whom he became Jehovah, after being considered as a son of Saturn, or Ilda‐Baoth, by the Ophites, and in the Book of Jasher—were eternally fighting with those born under Jupiter, Mercury, or any other planet, except Saturn‐Jehovah; genealogies and prophecies notwithstanding, Jesus _the Initiate_ (or Jehoshua)—the type from whom the “historical” Jesus was copied—was not of pure Jewish blood, and thus recognized no Jehovah; nor did he worship any planetary God beside his own “Father,” whom he knew, and with whom he communed, as every high Initiate does, “Spirit to Spirit and Soul to Soul.” This can hardly be taken exception to, unless the critic explains to every one’s satisfaction the strange sentences put into the mouth of Jesus during his disputes with the Pharisees by the author of the Fourth Gospel:

I know that ye are Abraham’s seed(988).... I speak that which I have seen with my Father; and ye do that which ye have seen with your Father.... Ye do the deeds of your Father.... Ye are of your Father, the Devil.... He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.(989)

This “Father” of the Pharisees was Jehovah, for he was identical with Cain, Saturn, Vulcan, etc.—the planet under which they were born, and the God whom they worshipped. Evidently there must be an Occult meaning sought in these words and admonitions, however mistranslated, since they are pronounced by one who threatened with hell‐fire anyone who says to his brother simply Raca, fool.(990) And evidently, again, the planets are not merely spheres, twinkling in Space, and made to shine for no purpose, but they are the domains of various Beings with whom the uninitiated are so far unacquainted, but who have, nevertheless, a mysterious, unbroken, and powerful connection with men and globes. Every heavenly body is the temple of a God, and these Gods themselves are the temples of God, the Unknown “_Not_ Spirit.” There is nothing profane in the Universe. All Nature is a consecrated place, as Young says:

Each of these Stars is a religious house.

Thus can all exoteric religions be shown to be the falsified copies of the Esoteric Teaching. It is the priesthood which has to be held responsible for the reaction of our day in favour of Materialism. It is by worshipping and enforcing on the masses the worship of the shells of pagan ideals—personified for purposes of allegory—that the latest exoteric religion has made of Western lands a Pandemonium, in which the higher classes worship the golden calf, and the lower and ignorant masses are made to worship an idol with feet of clay.

Section XI. Ancient Thought in Modern Dress.

Modern _Science is Ancient Thought distorted_, and no more. We have seen, however, what intuitional Scientists think, and are busy about; and now the reader shall be given a few more proofs of the fact that more than one F.R.S. is unconsciously approaching the derided Secret Sciences.

With regard to Cosmogony and primeval matter, modern speculations are undeniably ancient thought, “improved” by contradictory theories of recent origin. The whole foundation belongs to Grecian and Indian Archaic Astronomy and Physics, in those days called always Philosophy. In all the Âryan and Greek speculations, we meet with the conception of an all‐ pervading, unorganized, and homogeneous Matter, or Chaos, re‐named by modern Scientists “nebular condition of the world‐stuff.” What Anaxagoras called Chaos in his _Homoiomeria_ is now called “primitive fluid” by Sir William Thomson. The Hindû and Greek Atomists—Kanâda, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, etc.—are now reflected, as in a clear mirror, in the supporters of the Atomic Theory of our modern days, beginning with Leibnitz’s Monads, and ending with the Vortical Atoms of Sir William Thomson.(991) True, the corpuscular theory of old is rejected, and the undulatory theory has taken its place. But the question is, whether the latter is so firmly established as not to be liable to be dethroned like its predecessor? Light, from its metaphysical aspect, has been fully treated in _Isis Unveiled_:

Light is the first begotten, and the first emanation of the Supreme, and Light is Life, says the Evangelist [and the Kabalist]. Both are electricity—the life principle, the Anima Mundi—pervading the Universe, the electric vivifier of all things. Light is the great Protean magician, and under the divine Will of the Architect(992) [or rather the _Architects_, the “Builders,” called _One_ collectively], its multifarious, omnipotent waves gave birth to every form as well as to every living being. From its swelling electric bosom, spring _Matter_ and _Spirit_. Within its beams lie the beginnings of all physical and chemical action, and of all cosmic and spiritual phenomena; it vitalizes and disorganizes; it gives life and produces death, and from its Primordial Point gradually emerged into existence the myriads of worlds, visible and invisible celestial bodies. It was at the ray of this First Mother, one in three, that “God,” according to Plato, “lighted a Fire which we now call the Sun,”(993) and which is _not_ the cause of either light or heat, but merely the focus, or, as we might say, the lens, by which the Rays of the Primordial Light become materialized, are concentrated upon our Solar System, and produce all the correlations of forces.(994)

This is the Ether, as just explained in the views of Metcalfe, repeated by Dr. Richardson, save for the submission of the former to some details of the modern undulatory theory. We do not say that we deny the theory; we assert only that it needs completion and reärrangement. But the Occultists are by no means the only heretics in this respect; for Mr. Robert Hunt, F.R.S. finds that:

The undulatory theory does not account for the results of his experiments.(995) Sir David Brewster, in his _Treatise on Optics_, showing “that the colours of vegetable life arise ... from a specific attraction which the particles of these bodies exercise over the differently‐coloured rays of light,” and that “it is by the light of the sun that the coloured juices of plants are elaborated, that the colours of bodies are changed, etc.,” remarks that it is not easy to allow “that such effects can be produced by the mere vibration of an ethereal medium.” And he is _forced_, he says, “by this class of facts, to reason as if light was _material_” [?]. Professor Josiah P. Cooke, of Harvard University, says that he “cannot agree ... with those who regard the wave‐ theory of light as an established principle of science.”(996) Herschell’s doctrine, that the intensity of light, in effect of each undulation, “is inversely as the square of the distance from the luminous body,” if correct, damages a good deal, if it does not kill, the undulatory theory. That he is right, was proved repeatedly by experiments with photometers; and though it begins to be much doubted, the undulatory theory is still alive.(997)

To this remark of Sir David Brewster—“forced to reason as if light was material”—there is a good deal to reply. Light, in one sense, is certainly as material as is electricity itself. And if electricity is not material, if it is only a “mode of motion,” how is it that it can be _stored up_ in Faure’s accumulators? Helmholtz says that electricity must be as atomic as matter; and Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., supported the view in his address at Birmingham, in 1886, to the Chemical Section of the British Association, of which he was President. This is what Helmholtz says:

If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are composed of atoms, we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also, positive as well as negative, is divided into definite elementary portions, which behave like atoms of electricity.(998)

Here we have to repeat that which was already said in Section VIII, that there is but one science that can henceforth direct modern research into the one path which will lead to the discovery of the whole, hitherto Occult, truth, and it is the youngest of all—Chemistry, as it now stands reformed. There is no other, not excluding Astronomy, that can so unerringly guide scientific intuition, as can Chemistry. Two proofs of this are to be found in the world of Science—two great Chemists, each among the greatest in his own country, namely, Mr. Crookes and the late Professor Butlerof: the one is a thorough believer in abnormal phenomena; the other was as fervid a Spiritualist, as he was great in the natural sciences. It becomes evident that, while pondering over the ultimate divisibility of Matter, and in the hitherto fruitless chase after the element of negative atomic weight, the scientifically trained mind of the Chemist must feel irresistibly drawn towards those ever‐shrouded worlds, to that mysterious Beyond, whose measureless depths seem to close against the approach of the too materialistic hand that would fain draw aside its veil. “It is the unknown and the ever‐unknowable,” warns the Monist‐ Agnostic. “Not so,” answers the persevering Chemist. “We are on the track and we are not daunted, and fain would we enter the mysterious region which ignorance tickets unknown.”

In his Presidential Address at Birmingham Mr. Crookes said:

There is but one unknown—the ultimate substratum of Spirit [Space]. That which is not the Absolute and the One is, in virtue of that very differentiation, however far removed from the physical senses, always accessible to the spiritual human mind, which is a coruscation of the undifferentiable Integral.

Two or three sentences, at the very close of his lecture on the _Genesis of the Elements_, showed the eminent Scientist to be on the royal road to the greatest discoveries. He has been for some time overshadowing “the original protyle,” and he has come to the conclusion that “he who grasps the Key will be permitted to unlock some of the deepest mysteries of creation.” Protyle, as the great Chemist explains:

... is a word analogous to protoplasm, to express the idea of the original primal matter existing before the evolution of the chemical elements. The word I have ventured to use for this purpose is compounded of πρὸ (earlier than) and ὕλη (the stuff of which things are made). The word is scarcely a new coinage, for 600 years ago Roger Bacon wrote in his _Arte Chymiae_, “The elements are made out of ὕλη and every element is converted into the nature of another element.”

The _knowledge_ of Roger Bacon did not come to this wonderful old magician(999) by inspiration, but because he studied ancient works on Magic and Alchemy, and had a key to the real meaning of their language. But see what Mr. Crookes says of Protyle, next neighbour to the unconscious Mûlaprakriti of the Occultists:

Let us start at the moment when the first element came into existence. Before this time, matter, as we know it, was not. It is equally impossible to conceive of matter without energy, as of energy without matter; from one point of view both are convertible terms. Before the birth of atoms, all those forms of energy, which become evident when matter acts upon matter, could not have existed(1000)—they were locked up in the protyle as latent potentialities only. Coincident with the creation of atoms, all those attributes and properties, which form the means of discriminating one chemical element from another, start into existence fully endowed with energy.(1001)

With every respect due to the great knowledge of the lecturer, the Occultist would put it otherwise. He would say that no Atom is ever “created,” for the Atoms are eternal within the bosom of the One Atom—“the Atom of Atoms”—viewed during Manvantara as the Jagad‐Yoni, the material causative womb of the World. Pradhâna, unmodified Matter—that which is the first form of Prakriti, or material, visible, as well as invisible Nature—and Purusha, Spirit, are eternally one; and they are Nirupâdhi, without adventitious qualities or attributes, only during Pralaya, and when beyond any of the planes of consciousness of existence. The Atom, as known to modern science, is inseparable from Purusha, which is Spirit, but is now called “energy” in Science. The Protyle Atom has not been comminuted or subtilized: it has simply passed into that plane, which is no plane, but the eternal state of everything beyond the planes of illusion. Both Purusha and Pradhâna are immutable and unconsumable, or Aparinâmin and Avyaya, in eternity; and both may be referred to during the Mâyâvic periods as Vyaya and Parinâmin, or that which can expand, pass away and disappear, and which is “modifiable.” In this sense Purusha, must, of course, be held distinct in our conceptions from Parabrahman. Nevertheless that, which is called “energy” or “force” in Science, and which has been explained as a dual force by Metcalfe, is never, in fact, and cannot be, energy alone; for it is the Substance of the World, its Soul, the All‐permeant, Sarvaga, in conjunction with Kâla, Time. The three are the trinity in one, during Manvantara, the all‐potential Unity, which acts as three distinct things on Mâyâ, the plane of illusion. In the Orphic philosophy of ancient Greece they were called Phanes, Chaos, and Chronos—the triad of the Occult Philosophers of that period.

But see how closely Mr. Crookes brushes the “Unknowable,” and what potentialities there are for the acceptance of Occult truths in his discoveries. He continues, speaking of the evolution of Atoms:

Let us pause at the end of the first complete vibration and examine the result. We have already found the elements of water, ammonia, carbonic acid, the atmosphere, plant and animal life, phosphorus for the brain, salt for the seas, clay for the solid earth ... phosphates and silicates sufficient for a world and inhabitants not so very different from what we enjoy at the present day. True the human inhabitants would have to live in a state of more than Arcadian simplicity, and the absence of calcic phosphate would be awkward as far as the bone is concerned.(1002)... At the lower end of our curve ... we see a great hiatus.... This oasis, and the blanks which precede and follow it, may be referred with much probability to the particular way in which our earth developed into a member of our solar system. If this be so, it may be that on our earth only these blanks occur, and not generally throughout the universe.

This justifies several assertions in the Occult works.

Firstly, that neither the stars nor the Sun can be said to be constituted of those terrestrial elements with which the Chemist is familiar, though they are all present in the Sun’s outward robes—as well as a host more of elements so far unknown to Science.

Secondly, that our globe has its own special laboratory on the far‐away outskirts of its atmosphere, crossing which, every Atom and molecule changes and differentiates from its primordial nature.

And thirdly, that though no element present on our Earth could ever possibly be found wanting in the Sun, there are many others there which have either not reached, or not as yet been discovered on our globe.

Some may be missing in certain stars and heavenly bodies in the process of formation; or, though present in them, these elements, on account of their present state, may not respond as yet to the usual scientific tests.(1003)

Mr. Crookes speaks of helium, an element of still lower atomic weight than hydrogen, an _element purely hypothetical_ as far as our earth is concerned, though existing in abundance in the chromosphere of the Sun. Occult Science adds that not one of the elements regarded as such by Chemistry really deserves the name.

Again we find Mr. Crookes speaking with approbation of

Dr. Carnelly’s weighty argument in favour of the compound nature of the so‐called elements, from their analogy to the compound radicles.

Hitherto, Alchemy alone, within the historical period, and in the so‐ called civilized countries, has succeeded in obtaining a real _element_, or a particle of homogeneous Matter, the _Mysterium Magnum_ of Paracelsus. But then that was before Lord Bacon’s day.(1004)

... Let us now turn to the upper portion of the scheme. With hydrogen of atomic weight = 1, there is little room for other elements, save, perhaps, for hypothetical _Helium_. But what if we get “through the looking‐glass,” and cross the zero line in search of new principles—what shall we find on the other side of zero? Dr. Carnelly asks for an element of negative atomic weight; here is ample room and verge enough for a shadow series of such unsubstantialities. Helmholtz says that electricity is probably as atomic as matter; is electricity one of the negative elements, and the luminiferous ether another? Matter, as we now know it, does not here exist; the forms of energy which are apparent in the motions of matter are as yet only latent possibilities. _A substance of negative weight is not inconceivable._(1005) But can we form a clear conception of a body which combines with other bodies in proportions expressible by negative qualities?(1006)

A genesis of the elements such as is here sketched out would not be confined to our little solar system, but would probably follow the same general sequence of events in every centre of energy now visible as a star.

Before the birth of atoms to gravitate towards one another, no pressure could be exercised; but at the outskirts of the fire‐mist sphere, within which all is protyle—at the shell on which the tremendous forces involved in the birth of a chemical element exert full sway—the fierce heat would be accompanied by gravitation sufficient to keep the newly‐born elements from flying off into space. As temperature increases, expansion and molecular motion increase, molecules tend to fly asunder, and their chemical affinities become deadened; but the enormous: pressure of the gravitation of the mass of atomic matter, outside what I may for brevity call the birth‐shell, would counteract the action of heat.

Beyond the birth‐shell would be a space in which no chemical

## action could take place, owing to the temperature there being

above what is called the dissociation‐point for compounds. In this space the lion and the lamb would lie down together: phosphorus and oxygen would mix without union; hydrogen and chlorine would show no tendency to closer bonds; and even fluorine, that energetic gas which chemists have only isolated within the last month or two, would float about free and uncombined.

Outside this space of free atomic matter would be another shell, in which the formed chemical elements would have cooled down to the combination point, and the sequence of events so graphically described by Mr. Mattieu Williams in _The Fuel of the Sun_ would now take place, culminating in the solid earth and the commencement of geological time (p. 19).

This is, in strictly scientific, but beautiful language, the description of the evolution of the differentiated Universe in the Secret Teachings. The learned gentleman closes his address in words, every sentence of which is like a flash of light from beyond the dark veil of materiality, hitherto thrown upon the exact sciences, and is a step forward towards the _Sanctum Sanctorum_ of the Occult. Thus he says:

We have glanced at the difficulty of defining an element; we have noticed, too, the revolt of many leading physicists and chemists against the ordinary acceptation of the term element; we have weighed the improbability of their eternal existence,(1007) or _their origination by chance_. As a remaining alternative, we have suggested their origin by a process of evolution like that of the heavenly bodies according to Laplace, and the plants and animals of our globe according to Lamarck, Darwin, and Wallace.(1008) In the general array of the elements, as known to us, we have seen a striking approximation to that of the organic world.(1009) In lack of direct evidence of the decomposition of any element, we have sought and found indirect evidence.... We have next glanced at the view of the genesis of the elements; and lastly we have reviewed a scheme of their origin suggested by Professor Reynolds’ method of illustrating the periodic classification(1010).... Summing up all the above considerations we cannot, indeed, venture to assert positively _that our so‐called elements have been evolved from one primordial matter; but we may contend that the balance of evidence, I think, fairly weighs in favour of this speculation_.

Thus inductive Science, in its branches of Astronomy, Physics, and Chemistry, while advancing timidly towards the conquest of Nature’s secrets in her final effects on our terrestrial plane, recedes to the days of Anaxagoras and the Chaldees in its discoveries of (_a_) the origin of our phenomenal world, and (_b_) the modes of formation of the bodies that compose the Universe. And having, for their cosmogonical hypotheses to turn back to the beliefs of the earliest philosophers, and the systems of the latter—systems that were all based on the teachings of a universal Secret Doctrine with regard to primeval Matter, with its properties, functions, and laws—have we not the right to hope that the day is not far off when Science will show a better appreciation of the Wisdom of the Ancients than it has hitherto done?

No doubt Occult Philosophy could learn a good deal from exact Modern Science; but the latter, on the other hand, might profit by ancient learning in more than one way, and chiefly in Cosmogony. It might learn, for instance, the mystical signification, alchemical and transcendental, of the many _imponderable_ substances that fill interplanetary space, and which, interpenetrating each, are the direct cause, at the lower end, of the production of natural phenomena manifesting through so‐called vibration. The knowledge of the _real_, not the hypothetical, nature of Ether, or rather of the Âkâsha, and other mysteries, in short, can alone lead to the knowledge of Forces. It is that Substance against which the Materialistic school of the Physicists rebels with such fury, especially in France,(1011) and which exact Science has to advocate notwithstanding. They cannot make away with it without incurring the risk of pulling down the pillars of the Temple of Science, like a modern Samson, and of getting buried under its roof.

The theories built upon the rejection of Force, outside and independent of Matter pure and simple, have all been shown to be fallacious. They do not, and cannot, cover the ground, and many of the scientific data are thus proved to be unscientific. “Ether produced Sound” is said in the _Purânas_, and the statement is laughed at. Sound is the result of the vibrations of the _air_, we are corrected. And what is air? Could it exist if there were no etheric medium in Space to buoy up its molecules? The case stands simply thus. Materialism cannot admit the existence of anything outside Matter, because with the acceptance of an imponderable Force—the source and head of all the physical Forces—other _intelligent_ Forces would have to be virtually admitted, and that would lead Science very far. For it would have to accept as a sequel the presence in Man of a still more spiritual power—entirely independent, for once, of any kind of Matter about which Physicists know anything. Hence, apart from a hypothetical Ether of Space and gross physical bodies, the whole sidereal and unseen Space is, in the sight of Materialists, one boundless _void_ in Nature—blind, unintelligent, useless.

And now the next question is: What is that Cosmic Substance, and how far can one go in suspecting its nature or in wrenching from it its secrets, thus feeling justified in giving it a name? How far, especially, has Modern Science gone in the direction of those secrets, and what is it doing to solve them? The latest hobby of Science, the Nebular Theory, may afford us some answer to this question. Let us then examine the credentials of this Nebular Theory.

Section XII. Scientific and Esoteric Evidence for, and Objections to, the Modern Nebular Theory.

Of late, Esoteric Cosmogony has been frequently opposed by the phantom of this theory and its ensuing hypotheses. “Can this most scientific teaching be denied by your Adepts?” it is asked. “Not entirely,” is the reply, “but the admissions of the men of Science themselves _kill_ it; and there remains nothing for the Adepts to deny.”

To make of Science an integral _whole_ necessitates, indeed, the study of spiritual and psychic, as well as of physical, Nature. Otherwise it will ever be like the anatomy of man, discussed of old by the profane from the point of view of his shell‐side, and in ignorance of the interior work. Even Plato, the greatest Philosopher of his country, was guilty, before his Initiation, of such statements as that liquids pass into the stomach through the lungs. Without metaphysics, as Mr. H. J. Slack says, _real_ Science is inadmissible.

The nebulæ exist; yet the Nebular Theory is wrong. A nebula exists in a state of entire elemental dissociation. It is gaseous and—something else besides, which can hardly be connected with gases as these are known to Physical Science; and it is self‐luminous. But that is all. The sixty‐two “coincidences” enumerated by Professor Stephen Alexander,(1012) confirming the Nebular Theory, may all be explained by Esoteric Science; though, as this is not an astronomical work, the refutations are not attempted at present. Laplace and Faye come nearer to the correct theory than any; but of the speculations of Laplace there remains little in the present theory beyond its general features.

Nevertheless, says John Stuart Mill:

There is in Laplace’s theory nothing hypothetical; it is an example of legitimate reasoning from present effect to its past cause; it assumes nothing more than that objects which really exist obey the laws which are known to be obeyed by all terrestrial objects resembling them.(1013)

From such an eminent logician as was Mill, this would be valuable, if it could only be proved that “terrestrial objects resembling” celestial objects at such a distance as are the nebulæ, _resemble those objects in reality, and not only in appearance_.

Another of the fallacies, from the Occult standpoint, embodied in the modern theory as it now stands, is the hypothesis that the Planets were all detached from the Sun; that they are bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh; whereas the Sun and the Planets are only co‐uterine brothers, having the same nebular origin, but in a different mode from that postulated by modern Astronomy.

The many objections raised by some opponents of the modern Nebular Theory against the homogeneity of original diffuse Matter, on the ground of the uniformity in the composition of the fixed Stars, do not affect the question of that homogeneity at all, but only the theory itself. Our solar nebula may not be completely homogeneous, or, rather, it may fail to reveal itself as such to the Astronomers, and yet be _de facto_ homogeneous. The Stars do differ in their constituent materials, and even exhibit elements quite unknown on Earth; nevertheless, this does not affect the point that Primeval Matter—Matter as it appeared even in its first differentiation from its laya‐condition(1014)—is yet to this day homogeneous, at immense distances, in the depths of infinitude, and likewise at points not far removed from the outskirts of our Solar System.

Finally, there does not exist one single fact brought forward by the learned objectors against the Nebular Theory (false as it is, and hence, illogically enough, fatal to the hypothesis of the homogeneity of Matter), that can withstand criticism. One error leads to another. A false premiss will naturally lead to a false conclusion, although an inadmissible inference does not necessarily affect the validity of the major proposition of the syllogism. Thus, one may leave every side‐issue and inference from the evidence of spectra and lines, as simply provisional for the present, and abandon all matters of detail to Physical Science. The duty of the Occultist lies with the _Soul_ and _Spirit_ of Cosmic Space, not merely with its illusive appearance and behaviour. That of official Physical Science is to analyze and study its _shell_—the Ultima Thule of the Universe and Man, in the opinion of Materialism.

With the latter, Occultism has nought to do. It is only with the theories of such men of learning as Kepler, Kant, Oersted, and Sir William Herschell, who believed in a Spiritual World, that Occult Cosmogony might treat, and attempt a satisfactory compromise. But the views of those Physicists differed vastly from the latest modern speculations. Kant and Herschell had in their mind’s eye speculations upon the origin and the final destiny, as well as upon the present aspect, of the Universe, from a far more philosophical and psychic standpoint; whereas modern Cosmology and Astronomy now repudiate anything like research into the mysteries of Being. The result is what might be expected: complete failure and inextricable contradictions in the thousand and one varieties of so‐called Scientific Theories, and in this Theory as in all others.

The nebular hypothesis, involving the theory of the existence of a Primeval Matter, diffused in a nebulous condition, is of no modern date in Astronomy, as everyone knows. Anaximenes, of the Ionian school, had already taught that the sidereal bodies were formed through the progressive condensation of a primordial _pregenetic_ Matter, which had almost a negative weight, and was spread out through Space in an extremely sublimated condition.

Tycho Brahé, who viewed the Milky Way as an ethereal substance, thought the new star that appeared in Cassiopeia, in 1572, had been formed out of that Matter.(1015) Kepler believed that the star of 1606 had likewise been formed out of the ethereal substance that fills the universe.(1016) He attributed to that same Ether the apparition of a luminous ring round the Moon, during the total eclipse of the Sun observed at Naples in 1605.(1017) Still later, in 1714 the existence of a self‐luminous Matter was recognized by Halley in the _Philosophical Transactions_. Finally, the journal of this name published in 1811 the famous hypothesis of the eminent Astronomer, Sir William Herschell, on the transformation of the nebulæ into Stars,(1018) and after this the Nebular Theory was accepted by the Royal Academies.

In _Five Years of Theosophy_, on p. 245, may be read an article headed, “Do the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory?” The answer there given is:

_No; they do not deny its general propositions, nor the approximative truth of the scientific hypotheses. They only deny the completeness of the present, as well as the entire error of the many so‐called __“__exploded__”__ old theories, which, during the last century, have followed each other in such rapid succession._

This was asserted at the time to be “an evasive answer.” Such disrespect to official Science, it was argued, must be justified by the replacement of the _orthodox_ speculation by another theory more complete, and having a firmer ground to stand upon. To this there is but one reply: It is useless to give out isolated theories with regard to things embodied in a complete and consecutive system, for, when separated from the main body of the teaching, they would necessarily lose their vital coherence and would thus do no good when studied independently. To be able to appreciate and accept the Occult views on the Nebular Theory, we must study the whole Esoteric cosmogonical system. And the time has hardly arrived for the Astronomers to be asked to accept Fohat and the Divine Builders. Even the undeniably correct surmises of Sir William Herschell, which had nothing “supernatural” in them, as to the Sun’s being called a “globe of fire,” perhaps metaphorically, and his early speculations about the nature of that which is now called the Nasmyth Willow‐leaf Theory, only caused that most eminent of all Astronomers to be smiled at by other, far less eminent, colleagues, who saw and now see in his ideas purely “imaginative and fanciful theories.” Before the whole Esoteric System could be given out and appreciated by the Astronomers, the latter would have to return to some of those “antiquated ideas,” not only to those of Herschell, but also to the dreams of the oldest Hindû Astronomers, and thus abandon their own theories, which are none the less “fanciful” because they have appeared nearly eighty years later than the one, and many thousands of years later than the others. Foremost of all they would have to repudiate their ideas of the Sun’s solidity and incandescence; the Sun “glowing” most undeniably, but not “burning.” Then the Occultists state, with regard to the “willow‐leaves,” that those “objects,” as Sir William Herschell called them, are the immediate sources of the solar light and heat. And though the Esoteric Teaching does not regard these as he did—namely, as “organisms” partaking of the nature of life, for the Solar “Beings” will hardly place themselves within telescopic focus—yet it asserts that the whole Universe is full of such “organisms,” conscious and active according to the proximity or distance of their planes to, or from, our plane of consciousness; and finally that the great Astronomer was right while speculating on those supposed “organisms,” in saying that “we do not know that vital action is incompetent to develop at once heat, light, and electricity.” For, at the risk of being laughed at by the whole world of Physicists, the Occultists maintain that all the “Forces” of the Scientists have their origin in the Vital Principle, the One Life collectively of our Solar System—that “Life” being a portion, or rather one of the _aspects_, of the One Universal LIFE.

We may, therefore—as in the article under consideration, wherein, on the authority of the Adepts, it was maintained that it is “sufficient to make a _résumé_ of what the solar Physicists do not know”—we may, we maintain, define our position with regard to the modern Nebular Theory and its evident incorrectness, by simply pointing out facts diametrically opposed to it in its present form. And to begin with, what does it teach?

Summarizing the aforesaid hypotheses, it becomes plain that Laplace’s theory—now made quite unrecognizable, moreover—was an unfortunate one. He postulates in the first place Cosmic Matter, existing in a state of diffuse nebulosity “so fine that its presence could hardly have been suspected.” No attempt is made by him to penetrate into the Arcana of Being, except as regards the immediate evolution of our small Solar System.

Consequently, whether one accepts or rejects his theory in its bearing upon the immediate cosmological problems presented for solution, he can only be said to have thrown back the mystery a little further. To the eternal query: “Whence Matter itself; whence the evolutionary impetus determining its cyclic aggregations and dissolutions; whence the exquisite symmetry and order into which the primeval Atoms arrange and group themselves?” no answer is attempted by Laplace. All we are confronted with, is a sketch of the _probable_ broad principles on which the actual process is assumed to be based. Well, and what is this now celebrated note on the said process? What has he given so wonderfully new and original, that its ground‐work, at any rate, should have served as a basis for the modern Nebular Theory? The following is what one gathers from various astronomical works.

Laplace thought that, in consequence of the condensation of the atoms of the primeval nebula, according to the “law” of gravity, the now gaseous, or perhaps, partially liquid mass, acquired a rotatory motion. As the velocity of this rotation increased, it assumed the form of a thin disc; finally, the centrifugal force overpowering that of cohesion, huge rings were detached from the edge of the whirling incandescent masses, and these rings contracted necessarily by gravitation (as accepted) into spheroidal bodies, which would necessarily still continue to preserve the orbit previously occupied by the outer zone from which they were separated.(1019) The velocity of the outer edge of each nascent planet, he said, exceeding that of the inner, there results a rotation on its axis. The more dense bodies would be thrown off last; and finally, during the preliminary state of their formation, the newly‐segregated orbs in their turn throw off one or more satellites. In formulating the history of the rupture and planetation of rings Laplace says:

Almost always each ring of vapours must have broken up into numerous masses, which, moving with a nearly uniform velocity, must have continued to circulate at the same distance around the sun. These masses must have taken a spheroidal form with a motion of rotation in the same direction as their revolution, since the inner molecules (those nearest the sun) would have less actual velocity than the exterior ones. They must then have formed as many planets in a state of vapour. But, if one of them was sufficiently powerful to unite successively, by its attraction, all the others around its centre, the ring of vapours must have been thus transformed into a single spheroidal mass of vapours circulating around the sun with a rotation in the same direction as its revolution. The latter case has been the more common, but the solar system presents us the first case, in the four small planets which move between Jupiter and Mars.

While few will be found to deny the “magnificent audacity of this hypothesis,” it is impossible not to recognize the insurmountable difficulties with which it is attended. Why, for instance, do we find that the satellites of Neptune and Uranus display a retrograde motion? Why, in spite of its closer proximity to the Sun, is Venus less dense than the Earth? Why, again, is the more distant Uranus denser than Saturn? How is it that there are so many variations in the inclination of their axes and orbits in the supposed progeny of the central orb; that such startling variations in the size of the Planets are noticeable; that the satellites of Jupiter are more dense by ·288 than their primary; that the phenomena of meteoric and cometary systems still remain unaccounted for? To quote the words of a Master:

_They_ [the Adepts] _find that the centrifugal theory of Western birth is unable to cover all the ground. That, unaided, it can neither account for every oblate spheroid, nor explain away such evident difficulties as are presented by the relative density of some planets. How, indeed, can any calculation of centrifugal force explain to us, for instance, why Mercury, whose rotation is, we are told, only __“__about one‐third that of the Earth, and its density only about one‐fourth greater than the Earth,__”__ should have a polar compression more than ten times greater than the latter? And again, why Jupiter, whose equatorial rotation is said to be __“__twenty‐seven times greater, and its density only about one‐fifth that of the Earth__”__ should have its polar compression seventeen times greater than that of the Earth? Or why Saturn, with an equatorial velocity fifty‐five times greater than Mercury for centripetal force to contend with, should have its polar compression only three times greater than Mercury’s? To crown the above contradictions, we are asked to believe in the Central Forces, as taught by Modern Science, even when told that the equatorial matter of the Sun, with more than four times the centrifugal velocity of the Earth’s equatorial surface, and only about one‐fourth part of the gravitation of the equatorial matter, has not manifested any tendency to bulge at the solar equator, nor shown the least flattening at the poles of the solar axis. In other and clearer words, the Sun, with only one‐fourth of our Earth’s density for the centrifugal force to work upon, has no polar compression at all! We find this objection made by more than one astronomer, yet never explained away satisfactorily, so far as the __“__Adepts__”__ are aware._

_Therefore, do they_ [the Adepts] _say, that the great men of Science of the West, knowing ... next to nothing either about cometary matter, centrifugal and centripetal forces, the nature of the nebulæ, or the physical constitution of the Sun, the Stars, or even the Moon, are imprudent to speak so confidently as they do about the __“__central mass of the Sun,__”__ whirling out into space planets, comets, and what not.... We maintain that it_ [the Sun] _evolves out only the life‐principle, the Soul of these __ bodies, giving and receiving it back, in our little Solar System, as the __“__Universal Life‐Giver__”__ ... in the Infinitude and Eternity; that the Solar System is as much the Microcosm of the One Macrocosm as man is the former when compared with his own little Solar Cosmos._(1020)

The essential power of all the cosmic and terrestrial Elements to generate within themselves a regular and harmonious series of results, a concatenation of causes and effects, is an irrefutable proof that they are either animated by an _Intelligence_, _ab extrâ_ or _ab intrâ_, or conceal such within or behind the “manifested veil.” Occultism does not deny the certainty of the mechanical origin of the Universe; it only claims the absolute necessity of mechanicians of some sort behind or within those Elements—a dogma with us. It is not the fortuitous assistance of the Atoms of Lucretius, as he himself knew well, that built the Kosmos and all in it. Nature herself contradicts such a theory. Celestial Space, containing Matter so attenuated as Ether, cannot be called on, with or without attraction, to explain the common motion of the sidereal hosts. Although the perfect accord of their inter‐revolution indicates clearly the presence of a mechanical cause in Nature, Newton, who of all men had most right to trust to his deductions, was nevertheless forced to abandon the idea of ever explaining the original impulse given to the millions of orbs, by merely the laws of _known_ Nature and its material Forces. He recognized fully the limits that separate the action of natural Forces from that of the _Intelligences_ that set the immutable laws in order and

## action. And if a Newton had to renounce such hope, which of the modern

materialistic pigmies has the right of saying: “I know better?”

A cosmogonical theory, to become complete and comprehensible, has to start with a Primordial Substance diffused throughout boundless Space, _of an intellectual and divine nature_. That Substance must be the Soul and Spirit, the Synthesis and Seventh Principle of the manifested Kosmos, and, to serve as a spiritual Upâdhi to this, there must be the sixth, its vehicle—Primordial Physical Matter, so to speak, though its nature must escape for ever our limited _normal_ senses. It is easy for an Astronomer, if endowed with an imaginative faculty, to build a theory of the emergence of the Universe out of Chaos, by simply applying to it the principles of mechanics. But such a Universe will always prove a Frankenstein’s monster with respect to its scientific human creator; it will lead him into endless perplexities. The application of mechanical laws only can never carry the speculator beyond the objective world; nor will it unveil to men the origin and final destiny of Kosmos. This is whither the Nebular Theory has led Science. In sober fact and truth this Theory is twin sister to that of Ether, and both are the offspring of necessity; one is as indispensable to account for the transmission of light, as is the other to explain the problem of the origin of the Solar Systems. The question with Science is, how the same homogeneous Matter(1021) could, obeying the laws of Newton, give birth to bodies—Sun, Planets, and their satellites—subject to conditions of identity of motion, and formed of such heterogeneous elements.

Has the Nebular Theory helped to solve the problem, even if applied solely to bodies considered as inanimate and material? We say: most decidedly not. What progress has it made since 1811, when first Sir William Herschell’s paper, with its facts based on observation and showing the existence of nebular matter, made the sons of the Royal Society “shout for joy”? Since then a still greater discovery, through spectrum analysis, has permitted the verification and corroboration of Sir William Herschell’s conjecture. Laplace demanded some kind of primitive “world‐stuff” to prove the idea of progressive world‐evolution and growth. Here it is, as offered two millenniums ago.

The “world‐stuff,” now called nebulæ, was known from the highest antiquity. Anaxagoras taught that, upon differentiation, the resulting commixture of heterogeneous substances remained motionless and unorganized, until finally the “Mind”—the collective body of Dhyân Chohans, we say—began to work upon, and communicated to, them motion and order.(1022) This theory is now taken up, so far as concerns its first portion; the last, that of any “Mind” interfering, being rejected. Spectrum analysis reveals the existence of nebulæ formed entirely of gases and luminous vapours. Is this the primitive nebular Matter? The spectra reveal, it is said, the physical conditions of the Matter which emits cosmic light. The spectra of the resolvable and the irresolvable nebulæ are shown to be entirely different, the spectra of the latter showing their physical state to be that of glowing gas or vapour. The bright lines of one nebula reveal the existence of hydrogen, and of other material substances known and unknown. The same as to the atmospheres of the Sun and Stars. This leads to the direct inference that a Star is formed by the condensation of a nebula; hence that even the metals themselves are formed on earth by the condensation of hydrogen or of some other primitive matter, some ancestral cousin to helium, perhaps, or some yet unknown stuff. _This does not clash with the Occult Teachings._ And this is the problem that Chemistry is trying to solve; and it must succeed sooner or later in the task, accepting _nolens volens_, when it does, the Esoteric Teaching. But when this does happen, it will kill the Nebular Theory as it now stands.

Meanwhile Astronomy cannot accept in any way, if it is to be regarded as an _exact_ Science, the present theory of the filiation of Stars—even if Occultism does so in its own way, seeing that it explains this filiation differently—because Astronomy has _not one single physical datum_ to show for it. Astronomy could anticipate Chemistry in proving the existence of the fact, if it could show a planetary nebula exhibiting a spectrum of three or four bright lines, gradually condensing and transforming into a Star, with a spectrum all covered with a number of dark lines. But

The question of the variability of the nebulæ, even as to their form, is yet one of the mysteries of Astronomy. The data of observation possessed so far are of too recent an origin, too uncertain, to permit us to affirm anything.(1023)

Since its discovery, the magic power of the spectroscope has revealed to its adepts only one single transformation of a Star of this kind; and even that showed directly the reverse of what is needed as proof in favour of the Nebular Theory; for it revealed _a Star transforming itself into a planetary nebula_. As related in _The Observatory_,(1024) the temporary Star, discovered by J. F. J. Schmidt in the constellation Cygnus, in November, 1876, exhibited a spectrum broken by very brilliant lines. Gradually, the continuous spectrum and most of the lines disappeared, leaving finally one single brilliant line, which appeared to coincide with the green line of the nebula.

Though this metamorphosis is not irreconcileable with the hypothesis of the nebular origin of the Stars, nevertheless this single solitary case rests on no observation whatever, least of all on direct observation. The occurrence may have been due to several other causes. Since Astronomers are inclined to think our Planets are tending toward precipitation into the Sun, why should not that Star have blazed up owing to a collision of such precipitated Planets, or, as many suggest, the appulse of a Comet? Be that as it may, the only known instance of star‐transformation since 1811 is not favourable to the Nebular Theory. Moreover, on the question of this Theory, as on all others, Astronomers disagree.

In our own age, and before Laplace ever thought of it, Buffon, being very much struck by the identity of motion in the Planets, was the first to propose the hypothesis that the Planets and their satellites originated in the bosom of the Sun. Forthwith and for this purpose, he invented a special Comet, supposed to have torn out, by a powerful oblique blow, the quantity of matter necessary for their formation. Laplace gave its dues to the “Comet” in his _Exposition du Système du Monde_.(1025) But the idea was seized and even improved upon by a conception of the alternate evolution, from the Sun’s central mass, of Planets _apparently_ without weight or influence on the motion of the visible Planets—and as evidently without any more existence than the likeness of Moses in the Moon.

But the modern theory is also a variation on the systems elaborated by Kant and Laplace. The idea of both was that, at the origin of things, all that Matter which now enters into the composition of the planetary bodies was spread over all the space comprized in the Solar System—and even beyond. It was a nebula of extremely small density, and its condensation gradually gave birth, by a mechanism that has hitherto never been explained, to the various bodies of our System. This is the original Nebular Theory, an _incomplete_ yet faithful repetition—a short chapter out of the large volume of universal Esoteric Cosmogony—of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine. And both systems, Kant’s and Laplace’s, differ greatly from the modern Theory, redundant with conflicting _sub_‐theories and fanciful hypotheses. Say the Teachers:

_The essence of cometary matter_ [and of that which composes the Stars] ... _is totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which the greatest Chemists and Physicists of the earth are familiar.... While the spectroscope has shown the probable similarity_ [owing to the chemical action of terrestrial light upon the intercepted rays] _of terrestrial and sidereal substance, the chemical actions peculiar to the variously progressed orbs of space, have not been detected, nor proven to be identical with those observed on our own planet._(1026)

Mr. Crookes says almost the same in the fragment quoted from his lecture, _Elements and Meta‐Elements_. C. Wolf, Member of the Institute, Astronomer of the Observatory, Paris, observes:

At the utmost the nebular hypothesis can only show in its favour, with W. Herschell, the existence of planetary nebulæ in various degrees of condensation, and of spiral nebulæ, with nuclei of condensation on the branches and centre.(1027) But, in fact, the knowledge of the bond that unites the nebulæ to the stars is yet denied to us; and lacking as we do direct observation, we are even debarred from establishing it on the analogy of chemical composition.(1028)

Even if the men of Science—leaving aside the difficulty arising out of such undeniable variety and heterogeneity of matter in the constitution of nebulæ—did admit, with the Ancients, that the origin of all the visible and invisible heavenly bodies must be sought for in one primordial homogeneous world‐stuff, in a kind of _Pre_‐Protyle,(1029) it is evident that this would not put an end to their perplexities. Unless they admit also that our actual visible Universe is merely the Sthûla Sharîra, the gross body, of the sevenfold Kosmos, they will have to face another problem; especially if they venture to maintain that its now visible bodies are the result of the condensation of that one and single Primordial Matter. For mere observation shows them that the operations which produced the actual Universe are far more complex than could ever be embraced in that theory.

First of all, there are two distinct classes of “irresolvable” nebulæ, as Science itself teaches.

The telescope is unable to distinguish between these two classes, but the spectroscope can do so, and notices an essential difference between their physical constitutions.

The question of the resolvability of the nebulæ has been often presented in too affirmative a manner and quite contrary to the ideas expressed by the illustrious experimenter with the spectra of these constellations—Mr. Huggins. Every nebula whose spectrum contains only bright lines is gaseous, it is said, and hence is irresolvable; every nebula with a continuous spectrum must end by resolving into stars with an instrument of sufficient power. This assumption is contrary at once to the results obtained, and to spectroscopic theory. The “Lyra” nebula, the “Dumb‐bell” nebula, the central region of the nebula of Orion, appear resolvable, and show a spectrum of bright lines; the nebula of Canes Venatici is not resolvable, and gives a continuous spectrum. Because, indeed, the spectroscope informs us of the physical state of the constituent matter of the stars, but affords us no notions of their modes of aggregation. A nebula formed of gaseous globes (or even of nuclei, faintly luminous, surrounded by a powerful atmosphere) would give a spectrum of lines and be still resolvable; such seems to be the state of Huggins’ region in the Orion nebula. A nebula formed of solid or fluidic particles in a state of incandescence, a true cloud, will give a continuous spectrum and will be irresolvable.

Some of these nebulæ, Wolf tells us,

Have a spectrum of three or four bright lines, others a continuous spectrum. The first are gaseous, the others formed of a pulverulent matter. The former must constitute a veritable atmosphere: it is among these that the solar nebula of Laplace has to be placed. The latter form an _ensemble_ of particles that may be considered as independent, and the rotation of which obeys the laws of internal weight: such are the nebulæ adopted by Kant and Faye. Observation allows us to place the one as the other at the very origin of the planetary world. But when we try to go beyond and ascend to the primitive chaos which has produced the totality of the heavenly bodies, we have first to account for the actual existence of these two classes of nebulæ. If the primitive chaos were a cold luminous gas,(1030) one could understand how the contraction resulting from attraction could have heated it and made it luminous. We have to explain the condensation of this gas to the state of incandescent particles, the presence of which is revealed to us in certain nebulæ by the spectroscope. If the original chaos was composed of such particles, how did certain of their portions pass into the gaseous state, while others have preserved their primitive condition?

Such is the synopsis of the objections and difficulties in the way of the acceptance of the Nebular Theory, brought forward by the French _savant_, who concludes this interesting argument by declaring that:

The first part of the cosmogonical problem—what is the primitive matter of chaos; and how did that matter give birth to the sun and stars?—thus remains to this day in the domain of romance and of mere imagination.(1031)

If this is the last word of Science upon the subject, whither then should we turn in order to learn what the Nebular Theory is supposed to teach? What, in fact, is this theory? What it _is_, no one seems to know for certain. What it is not—we learn from the erudite author of _World‐Life_. He tells us that it:

i. Is not a theory of the evolution of the Universe. It is primarily a genetic explanation of the phenomena of the solar system, and accessorily a co‐ordination in a common conception of the principal phenomena in the stellar and nebular firmament, as far as human vision has been able to penetrate.

ii. It does not regard the comets as involved in that particular evolution which has produced the Solar System. [The Esoteric Doctrine does, because it, too, “recognizes the comets as forms of cosmic existence co‐ordinated with earlier stages of nebular evolution”; and it actually assigns _to them chiefly_ the formation of all worlds.]

iii. _It does not deny an antecedent history of the luminous fire mist_—[the _secondary_ stage of evolution in the Secret Doctrine] [and] ... makes no claim to having reached an absolute beginning. [And even it allows that this] fire mist may have previously existed in a cold, non‐luminous and invisible condition.

iv. [And that finally] _it does not profess to discover the_ ORIGIN _of things, but only a stadium in material history_.... [leaving] the philosopher and the theologian as free as they ever were to seek the origin of the modes of being.(1032)

But this is not all. Even the greatest philosopher of England—Mr. Herbert Spencer—arrayed himself against this fantastic theory by saying that (_a_) “The problem of existence is not resolved” by it; (_b_) the nebular hypothesis “throws no light upon the origin of diffused matter”; and (_c_) that “the nebular hypothesis (as it now stands) implies a First Cause.”(1033)

The latter, we are afraid, is more than our modern Physicists have bargained for. Thus, it seems that the poor “hypothesis” can hardly expect to find help or corroboration even in the world of the Metaphysicians.

Considering all this, the Occultists believe they have a right to present _their_ Philosophy, however misunderstood and ostracized it may be at present. And they maintain that this failure of the Scientists to discover the truth is entirely due to their Materialism and their contempt for transcendental Sciences. Yet although the scientific minds in our century are as far from the true and correct doctrine of Evolution as ever, there may be still some hope left for the future, for even now we find another Scientist giving us a faint glimmer of it.

In an article in the _Popular Science Review_ on “Recent Researches in Minute Life,” we find Mr. H. J. Slack, F.C.S., Sec. R.M.S., saying:

There is an evident convergence of all sciences, from physics to chemistry and physiology, toward some doctrine of evolution and development, of which the facts of Darwinism will form part, but what ultimate aspect this doctrine will take, there is little, if any, evidence to show, and perhaps it will not be shaped by the human mind until metaphysical as well as physical inquiries are much more advanced.(1034)

This is a happy forecast indeed. The day _may_ come, then, when “Natural Selection,” as taught by Mr. Darwin and Mr. Herbert Spencer, will, in its ultimate modification, form only _a part_ of our Eastern doctrine of Evolution, which will be Manu and Kapila _Esoterically explained_.

Section XIII. Forces—Modes of Motion or Intelligences?

This is, then, the last word of Physical Science up to the present year, 1888. Mechanical laws will never be able to prove the homogeneity of Primeval Matter, except inferentially and as a desperate necessity, when there will remain no other issue—as in the case of Ether. Modern Science is secure only in its own domain and region; within the physical boundaries of our Solar System, beyond which everything, every particle of Matter, is different from the Matter it knows, and where Matter exists in states of which Science can form no idea. _This_ Matter, which is truly homogeneous, is beyond human perception, if perception is tied down merely to the five senses. We feel its effects through those INTELLIGENCES which are the results of its primeval differentiation, whom we name Dhyân Chohans, called in the Hermetic works the “Seven Governors”; those to whom Pymander, the “Thought Divine,” refers as the “Building Powers,” and whom Asklepios calls the “Supernal Gods.” This Matter—the real Primordial Substance, the Noumenon of all the “matter” we know of—some of our Astronomers even have been led to believe in, for they despair of the possibility of ever accounting for rotation, gravitation, and the origin of any mechanical physical laws, unless these INTELLIGENCES be admitted by Science. In the above‐quoted work upon Astronomy by Wolf,(1035) the author endorses fully the theory of Kant, and the latter theory, if not in its general aspect, at any rate in some of its features, reminds one strongly of certain Esoteric Teachings. Here we have the world’s system “reborn from its ashes,” through a nebula—the emanation from the bodies, dead and dissolved in Space, resultant of the _incandescence_ of the Solar Centre—reänimated by the combustible matter of the Planets. In this theory, generated and developed in the brain of a young man hardly twenty‐ five years of age, who had never left his native place, Königsberg, a small town of Northern Prussia, one can hardly fail to recognize either the presence of an inspiring external power, or an evidence of the _reïncarnation_ which the Occultists see in it. It fills a gap which Newton, with all his genius, failed to bridge. And surely it is our Primeval Matter, Âkâsha, that Kant had in view, when he postulated a universally pervading primordial Substance, in order to solve Newton’s difficulty, and his failure to explain, by natural forces alone, the primitive impulse imparted to the Planets. For, as he remarks in